Desert Sunrise

by Raine Cantrell

  Seanilzay was rapidly regaining his strength. Her father, while tense and jumpy, had held his tongue about Seanilzay traveling with them. Faith only wished she could find a way to repay Delaney for the time and patience he offered Joey. She had to forcibly remind herself that her brother was blind, for Delaney had him working right along with him most days.

  She was doing a bit of blooming herself and didn’t think she was being vain to notice. The dark shadows from beneath her eyes were almost gone. Although it was hard work to break camp, drive the wagon, then stop to make camp each night, she was putting on weight and filling out her clothes again.

  The only thing that preyed on her mind was Delaney’s careful, deliberate avoidance of being alone with her. She did not believe anyone else had noticed how he would move away from the fire if she came near, or his calling to Joey to come help him with something when she stood close by.

  It was not an action to take a man like Delaney to task over, and she knew that, too.

  But knowing did not stop the wanting that filled her sleep with restless yearnings and dreams that made her wake, flushed and breathless.

  Like tonight. She was drawn from the wagon by the low murmur of voices near the fire. Peering around the side, she saw it was Delaney and Seanilzay. A shaft of guilt speared her for standing there, straining to overhear what they said. She did not dare try to get closer, for she knew that Delaney would sense her presence.

  “Our tongue has not the words to make you listen and to hear what I say. We will speak in your pindah tongue.”

  “I don’t want to talk about my father. He’s dead. You do not speak of the dead.”

  “I have done much against my people and my beliefs. This is one step I must take, and you must walk with me.”

  Delaney glanced at the fierce eyes that snared his gaze. He knew that Seanilzay was aware that he had not forgotten or forgiven what he had done. The deaths of his parents were a raw wound that had never healed. Now Seanilzay asked him to open that wound.

  “Come, sit beside me. There is much to tell and little time for me.”

  Respect drove Delaney to sit beside him; friendship, time, and teachings forced him to listen.

  “When Jeffords first brought your father to us, he called him an honest man. Your father desired to learn our ways and our speech. Many were willing to teach him and your mother. She was a good woman. Both of them had pure hearts and open thoughts. Your father sold us the beef he raised and did not cheat us. Your mother taught our children the pindah speech. They fought to get us blankets when we were cold. All this you must remember.”

  “I remember, Seanilzay. I remember the goodness in their hearts.” Delaney rested his hands, palms down on his spread knees, his legs crossed at the ankles. He would not look at the Apache now. His thoughts carried him back in time, and he knew Seanilzay would remain silent until he was ready to listen again.

  “You walk the path of the past, Del-a-ney. The time when the soldiers paid your father to speak for them. He earned little and would not tell their lies. When Jeffords left us, Brodie came to sell us his beef. He lied to all. His count was wrong. The beef poor. The live cattle sick. Your father knew this. He went to Brodie.”

  “Wait,” Delaney cut in. “My father never told me.”

  “You were not here. You worked for the iron rail. Brodie was angry with your father. He made friends with many agents and the soldiers with his whiskey and money. They all knew that Brodie cheated us. They were the men who said your father lied. They did not stop the other soldiers who came to take your father to the white man’s court. They did not tell what Brodie did. They helped him make the numbers that showed your father cheated us.”

  Delaney slowly turned to look at him. “You have proof that Brodie helped to falsify the records that the army used to convict my father and send him to prison?”

  “I have nothing but my words to give.”

  Looking out into the dark, Delaney thought of the weeks his mother had faced alone because everyone claimed they could not find him. By the time he returned, it was too late. His father had died in prison, and his mother … no, he could not remember her fate.

  “Brodie feared your father’s truth. Some whisper that he had your father killed in prison.”

  “None spoke of this to me. Not one.”

  Seanilzay heard the deep, chilling tone. His fingers began to pluck at the blanket. “There were good reasons.”

  “Who among you knew of this? Who hid this truth from me?” His gaze targeted Seanilzay’s, and he had his answer. The Apache closed his eyes. “Are you a man who can walk taller than Brodie? Shall I proclaim to all that your name is He Who Lies?” he grated from between clenched teeth. “Look at me! I gave all that you asked when you called my name.”

  “It is our way not to refuse such.”

  “I know that! I did it in friendship. I will call myself no friend of this Apache. May coyote take you to the underworld.”

  Stricken by his vile curse, Seanilzay followed his move to stand and tower above him. He had no strength to rise and meet the anger burning in Delaney’s eyes.

  “You must call me what pleases you,” he responded with a simple dignity. “I will finish so that the anger that burns within you will force you to seek justice. Too long have you run. Brodie is your enemy. He will kill you as he killed your father. He will take the breath from you as he stole it from your mother when he searched your home for the journal your father kept.”

  “My…” Delaney swallowed painfully. He could not repeat the last words. Pain exploded inside him. Pain that was instantly swamped by a rage consuming him. “Ahagahe!” he cried, visibly shaking. Unable to trust himself not to lash out, he began to run until the night shadows claimed him.

  “You no longer need to hide, Woman with Eyes of Sky,” Seanilzay whispered in a weakened voice, gesturing with one hand for Faith to come forward.

  “What did Delaney cry out?” she demanded.

  “I have no word in your tongue. It is our word for a rage so great that no man will speak it until he has stood all that he can.”

  Despite her own anger with the old man, she felt sorry when she saw the tremor in his hands. “How long have you known that I was listening?”

  “I made him speak in your tongue so you could hear.”

  Since she was searching the dark for a sign of where Delaney had disappeared to, it took a few moments for her to understand what he told her. “Then you lied to him to make sure that I heard.” Her eyes seemed to glow from an inner fury. “Was everything you told him true?” Seanilzay nodded. She stopped herself from asking him more questions and walked to the edge of light cast by the fire.

  “He will not come back soon.”

  “Then I’ll go find him.” Faith pulled her shawl tight, telling herself she was not afraid. Delaney needed someone, she was sure of that much.

  “He will not speak to you,” Seanilzay warned her. “Feed the fire, for my bones are chilled. Come sit, and together we wait. I will tell you of the man you hold within your heart.”

  Chapter 10

  Run. The desert was his. He had hunted and walked and drank from its water. The land offered him shelter and freedom. The wind should have cooled his body, but such was his rage that he burned. Without breaking stride he stripped off his shirt and tossed it aside. Run. Like the prey. Like the hunter. It was the only thought, the only action he could allow himself.

  He could race the wind. He could be a boy again, learning to run beneath the blazing sun, carrying a stone, whose weight needed both his hands to hold it. He could feel the taut stretch of his muscles, and hear for himself the beat of his feet against the earth. He demanded more speed from his body. His skin was sheened with sweat. He challenged the land to stop him, reckless in his flight, down dry washes, up their scree slopes, dodging the black shapes of rocks and cactus.

  His lungs begged for air. He could remember the time before. He co
uld not stop. He had to run his race and prove himself equal to the boys of Apache blood.

  But there was no village in sight this night. There was no shaman waiting for him to come and take his turn to set his stone before him, lungs straining, throat burning, and waiting, waiting for the nod that would allow him to spit out the mouthful of water he had carried and dared not to swallow. There was no celebration.

  Once again his chest heaved and his lungs cried out for air. His legs clenched with the agony of cramps. And still he ran. Pain lanced his side. Delaney ignored it.

  There was a pain inside him that nothing physical happening to his body could touch. Grief welled. He tried to bury it. But this was a grief that had never been allowed its time of mourning. It welled up and spilled from his heart and mind until its need surpassed all others.

  He staggered to a stop. Hunched over, dragging lungfuls of air into himself, a screaming began and poured forth into the night, a scream that rang in his own ears until the screaming and ringing melded, going on and on.

  His belly contracted, driving him to his knees. Bile rose and he retched until there was nothing left. Sprawled in the dirt, he lay there.

  … charred remains of a cabin. Not a leaf stirred, not one bird sang to welcome him home. From the clearing below he gazed at the hill where they buried his mother beneath the shade of the peach tree. No one could tell him why she had not escaped the fire.

  He had been alone then, but now a new loneliness came to him. It overtook him suddenly before he was aware, and the tears fell. Once Cochise had told him there was no shame to cry when sadness came. His tears fell to the earth, and his hands gently raked the moisture in so that he could take comfort from knowing that Mother Earth shared his sorrow. A sorrow that went deep into the center of his soul.

  “He took her breath.” Seanilzay’s words. They burned in his mind.

  Delaney tried to raise himself; time and again he fell back against the warm earth. “Mother, lend me your strength,” he whispered through parched lips. He managed to get to his knees, but when he attempted to stand, his legs gave out from under him.

  His head fell forward, his hands rubbed his thighs, and slowly his hips sank to rest on his heels. Delaney raised one hand to touch his skystone. Of late there had been no soothing, no comfort from its touch; there was less now. It was cold.

  Words from the past came to him, words that would begin the lightning ceremony, when White Painted Woman lay down and lightning flashed four times to act as a man to beget Child of the Water.

  He gazed skyward, one hand clutching the stone, the other drawing free his knife. “White Painted Woman, I gave you to drink the salt of my tears.” Lifting the skystone high, until he felt the rawhide dig into the back of his neck, he called out to the many spirits that guided the Apache, each with their special power to aid him. “Yusen, life-giver, White Painted Woman and Child of the Water, I call to you. Killer of Enemies and Mountain People, hear my song. I have protected the secret that has been entrusted to me.”

  Delaney held the stone with one hand and turned his knife so that the tip faced him. He took a deep breath and held it, bringing the blade nearer, until its point rested against his chest above the slowing beat of his heart. Drops of sweat fell from his brow onto the blade just as the tip bit his skin. He cut himself just deep enough for tiny drops of blood to well up.

  “White Painted Woman,” he whispered, watching as the first drops fell, “I give you my lifeblood.” Again the knife bit his skin, forming an angled line to the center of his chest. “With every drop of my blood that falls, so will my enemy’s.” Gritting his teeth, he cut himself again, bringing the line down to his right side. “Lend me your great strength, Yusen. Give to me yours, White Painted Woman. Child of the Water and Killer of Enemies, hear my need for the strength to vanquish my enemy that dared to spill the lifeblood of my father and my mother.”

  He set the knife aside, released the skystone to fall against his chest, and stretched his arms wide. “Thunder People, I call to you. Long ago you hunted for the Inde’. I ask you to give to me your great skills. Send to me your voice. Lightning, hear my cry. Send to me your power. You have tested me in my vision and not found me wanting. Intchi-dijin, the blackest of winds, raise your cry and call out for me to the Controller of Water. I beg to hear your voices.”

  With his arms outstretched he lowered himself until he lay prone on the earth, letting the blood seep into the soil of the land he loved.

  The night became still.

  Smoke spiraled from the fire. Faith was uneasy. “What can he be doing out there so long and alone, Seanilzay?” She gazed at the Apache, but his eyes were closed and his breathing uneven. “What’s wrong?” she demanded, moving closer.

  “Listen. Watch the sky.”

  Faith angled her head to one side. The flames of the fire began to dance, leaping higher, although she had not added any fresh wood. A breeze freshened, then grew stronger. “There is nothing but a wind coming up. I—” Her words were lost in the next moment. A howling rent the night.

  Seanilzay took hold of her hand. “Do not be afraid.”

  She shivered when the sound came again. Her blood began to chill, for far off she heard the coyote’s song. Her grip on the Indian’s hand tightened. “Delaney! Please, let me go to him.”

  “Stay. He mourns his mother’s passing. It is good to know he calls the spirits for help. He has not forgotten.” He held Faith’s hand tight, refusing to let her go. “No. You must let One Like Lightning be as he must. Alone.”

  “One Like Lightning? Is that his Apache name?” Faith felt herself drawn to look skyward. Far to the west she saw flashes of forked light.

  “You must never call him by this. It is a name we use to talk of him among our people. Never do we say this name to his face.”

  “I won’t say it. I promise.”

  Seanilzay opened his eyes and looked at her. “Go to your wagon. The rain will come.”

  “No. The lightning is far off.” But just then a rumble of thunder pealed. Faith started. Wild forked lightning lit the sky close to them. Seconds later thunder cried out in hammer blows.

  “Lift up your face, Woman with Eyes of Sky. Taste the wind. Taste the tears he cried.”

  Faith couldn’t stop herself from doing as he said. Within minutes drops of soft, warm rain fell on her face. The wind brought with it the dust, and she closed her eyes against its sting, but nothing would make her move to shelter. Delaney was out there, somewhere. Alone.

  She did not know she had whispered the last aloud, until Seanilzay answered her.

  “Now, he is not alone. He has called for our spirits. The wind has answered him. The thunder has come. The lightning shows him the way. The rain of life will turn. It will not fall as the soft rain of the woman. It will come as the hard and dark rain of the man. There is much strength and power in this man who you hide in your heart. He will be yours.”

  “Mine, Seanilzay?” she murmured through bloodless lips, trying to understand and believe all that the Apache had told her, yet frightened for Delaney, frightened, too, of what she was seeing for herself. “I wish it could be so.”

  Thunder growled like a beast; its deep voice shook the earth. Lightning spiked the black sky like snakes that writhed in agony. And the wind carried roiling clouds to pile them deep above them. Faith didn’t understand why she felt so alive. Her tongue tasted the sweet rain, and she sipped it, feeling a soothing peace fill her.

  Seanilzay watched and smiled. “Now you see.”

  Reluctantly Faith dragged her gaze from the eerie light that filled the sky while thunder belled over the land. “No, I do not see as you mean, but I do believe that some force is here, Seanilzay. Let me make your bed beneath the wagon before the rains come.”

  Once she helped Seanilzay, she hurried to the back of the wagon intending to seek her own bed. She was certain that Delaney would not return tonight. But the fierce, breathtaking power of t
he unfolding storm held her where she stood.

  The clouds, dark, violent billows, coiled and rolled into massive thunderheads. Early summer thunderstorms had never frightened her, but she had never seen one with such potency.

  Dust blew high and another warning rumble sounded close by. Flashes of lightning seemed to glow from the inside of the clouds. Thunder roared, as if to proclaim its might, and the wind rose with a rush to answer the challenge.

  Birds flew, seeking shelter. Cottontails and other small animals ran in erratic directions. Swirls of dust appeared in the distance across the flats. The wildness filled her, and she did not want to think of Delaney and what the Apache told her. She could not believe any man had the power to call what she witnessed.

  Again the lightning danced wickedly across the sky, again the thunder crashed until the ground on which she stood shook. She glanced back and then over to the other wagon, expecting to see her father or brother awake and watching as she was. She stood alone as the wind bent and twisted the mighty cactus. Crackling lightning revealed the greenish cast of the underside of clouds as the rain hit the earth in huge drops. But the storm played out its attack and retreat on the land before her, and she lifted her hand to touch the rain. The clouds surged away from her. Faster and faster the rain fell, disappearing into the thirsty land, and still she stood, watching as the storm unleashed its fury, until the black curtain of rain would let her see no more.

  Faith awoke, stiff and sore, from where she spent the night sitting within the cramped space at the back of the wagon.

  The light from the east brightened, and long shafts of color began to appear in the sky, lifting the land from shadows. The morning air was chill, but it would soon be gone in the heat of the coming day. She rubbed her eyes, seeing the grotesque shapes of the cacti silhouetted as a pale yellow glow was cast over the broken land. Yellow became lilac in the blink of her eye, then changed to rose, fanning out, even as she watched, to a pale orange, and then abruptly it was sunrise. The desert spread out before her in a broad, endless expanse of harsh browns and grays, warming as the sun began its climb.