Apache Fire

by Raine Cantrell

  “It won’t hold any more,” she said at last, feeling the sweat that had drenched her. The air was too close. Fear of what he would do to her still held sway so that she couldn’t breathe normally.

  “The iszáń did good,” Niko said. He stepped up behind her, and from his cloth belt took two of the strips of rawhide that he carried. “Stand against the wall.” The brush of her skirt against his leggings made his manhood swell painfully. Too, too long since he had lain with a woman.

  “Wh-what—” Angie had to stop and swallow repeatedly to get moisture back in her mouth. She couldn’t even ask a coherent question. “Me? Will you… please, j-just g-go.”

  The rustling of the sack was all she heard, and then he stood close to her again.

  “It is good iszáń fears. This time Niko takes meat for his people.” In a flash, he slid the edge of his knife under the button at her throat. He caught the small, pearl-like button before it fell. “Now you breathe.”

  Breathe? Was the man crazy, as well as dangerous? He was too close. She could feel the heat of his body. And what did he call her in his language?

  A warble came from somewhere outside, and she sensed his attention turned from her.

  “Angie!”

  “Oh, God, it’s Grant! He’ll kill you!”

  Niko did not need her to tell him this. He knew the danger of lingering. Matizo had warned him twice now from where he stood guard over their horses. It had been his choice to leave his Henry rifle with his siquisn. But Matizo was a novice warrior, and the lone survivor of his family. He could not risk his being hurt or caught.

  “Lift the sack.”

  His snapped order caught Angie by surprise. If her life depended upon it, she couldn’t lift the heavy sack. But your life does depend upon it.

  The will to live lent her strength. The fact that he had tied the sack closed gave her a way to grip one end, but at best, Angie could only drag it a few feet.

  “Weak. Soft. White iszáń.” Niko spat the words like a white man’s curses. But the anger was for himself. He reached out, and with his long, strong fingers gripped her hair. With a yank that cut off her whimper of fear, he had her against his body. “You wish his death?”

  She had no need to ask who. Grant’s shouts, calling her name, were growing louder. The slight shake of her head turned into a violent movement that she couldn’t seem to stop as terror took hold. His voice was hard, cold, so that now he sounded the savage

  “You no cry out.”

  “N-no.”

  Niko had to leave. It wouldn’t be long before the man came to the smokehouse in search of this woman. He did not understand why he did not strike her to silence, or bind her mouth. He could not make sense of his reluctance to let her go.

  Angie was frightened. Curiosity had gotten her into tight corners before, but never with her life at risk. Why didn’t he let her go? She didn’t have enough spit left to call out to Grant. Even if she did, she wouldn’t pit Grant against this man. Savage, Angie, he’s a savage.

  “Usen has gifted the iszáń with wisdom.” Niko touched her cheek, his fingers brushing the tears that fell. And he knew he could not hurt her, could not take her. He would not be named by the white man’s curse. Savage. He would not do to this woman what had been done to the women of his people.

  Never would he see the broken, bleeding body of a woman hurt by his hand. It was enough that he carried those images of his mother, his sister, and others he would not name.

  He moved quickly then, slinging the sack over his shoulder and slipping outside. He kept to the shadows as much as he could. Matizo would be waiting, ready to ride.

  Darting past the corral fence, he whispered noises to the horses. He did not want to think thoughts of the woman.

  The blast of a shotgun roared and split the night into the frightened screams of women, the milling, panicked sounds of the horses, and the man’s yelled warnings.

  Niko did not stop his flight. He did not look back. Once he found the path through a small strip of woods, he knew he was safe. The white man had no dogs to set upon his trail. It was the reason he had chosen this outlying ranch to raid.

  Matizo was already mounted when Niko reached him. He caught the braided horsehair reins that his brother tossed to him. With care and patience, he secured the sack, talking all the while to his black, who stamped restlessly and turned his head repeatedly to investigate the strange bundle on his back. There was no need for Niko to hurry now. He knew the whites’ ways well. They would not be hunted this night. The fears of the white men were many when they came into the lands of his father. They were afraid of the dark of the night, and the night belonged to the Apache.

  Niko smoothed a hand over the black’s powerful neck, offering thanks to Usen that he, his brother and their most precious horses were safe. These men who came to claim land none could own would kill the people, calling them dogs, but they all coveted the Apache’s horses.

  “Why were you so long, siquisn? The moon sits heavy in the sky.”

  Niko grabbed the black’s mane and swung himself up behind the tied sack. Had he been long with the woman? He thought it moments, moments he bad not wanted to end. With a rough shake of his head, he forced himself not to think of her.

  “Ride, little brother. We fill hungry bellies this night. The time does not count.”

  Matizo echoed his brother’s wild cry, kicking his bay into a gallop. Only once, as they topped the rise where they had hidden to wait and watch the ranch below, did he turn to see the blaze of lights filling the Anglos’ buildings. Like stick figures, three stood in the clearing, but the night breeze carried no sound to him.

  He counted ten turns of the seasons, and never had he felt this chilling dread come upon him.

  “Niko,” he called out, his voice soft, as he drew his horse closer to his brother’s. “Never return to this place. It holds ditko for you.”

  “Are you still in your cradleboard, Matizo? How would bloodfire hurt me? Is not my name of fire? Coupled with that of Mother Earth? Do you question that the very spirit of my name will protect me?”

  “Never do I question the wisdom of the spirits that chose to name you Earthfire. And may the spirit of White Painted Woman and the Thunder People protect you always, my brother.” Matizo spurred his horse ahead.

  Niko let him go. What touched his brother in this place? Was this the sign that Matizo was ready to choose his own path? With a heavy heart, he rode on. Warrior or shaman. So it had been said of his brother. For himself, there had never been a choice. The deaths of his family had set the trail he was to follow.

  From the tucks in his cloth belt, he took the button he had cut from the woman’s clothes. Controlling the black with the press of his knees, Niko opened his shirt and lifted out his medicine bag. He opened a small space in the deerhide bag and slipped the small, white button inside with all the signs of protection and luck he had gathered over the years.

  The fire in his loins had but eased. He could not promise himself that he would not go back to the woman who made him burn.

  Chapter 3

  Sleep eluded Angie. From the moment the Apache had left her alone, she was bewildered by the strange feelings that had beset her.

  Drawn to the single window in her small room, in hopes that a breeze would cool heated skin, she looked out at the paling sky. Kathleen was already moving about the kitchen, and she should be dressing to help her, but in the two weeks since she had arrived from Warren, their small hometown in Michigan, she had never tired of watching the sun rise.

  She thought of the watercolors packed away, for this sight reminded her of painting with them. The slow spill of lilac shades gave way to hues of gold and orange. In minutes the sky seemed filled with a fiery sun, and with it, the heat of the new day.

  Nee-ko. She repeated the word he had used, wondering if it was his name. What was wrong with her? Her thoughts were filled with the man, not the terror he had made her fe
el. It shamed her that she had lied to her brother and his wife, after all their kindness to her.

  Angie turned from the window. The single bed had belonged to her nephew, but Ross was now a soldier stationed at Fort Bowie. There had been another son, lost to fever a few years ago. It was one reason why Kathleen had understood the grief she felt with the loss of her own child. Death had taken all she had within two years. First Tim had fallen from the barn roof and broken his neck. Three months later, she had awoken to find Amy dead in her cradle. She brushed away the instant tears.

  And she had left husband and child buried side by side, to find a way to heal herself.

  Her thoughts should be solely on ways to accomplish it, not on the thief who had stolen meats Grant intended for sale to the sutler’s store at the fort.

  The image of the hollow-eyed children on the reservation came to mind. Was it so terrible that he stole to feed their hunger? She was a charitable woman, brought up to help those in need. Who was needier than the Indians who were forced to live on lands that had been stripped clean of game by settlers and soldiers alike?

  By not condemning him, she felt guilty of betraying her brother. But guilt was a well-worn cloak that burdened her shoulders. Perhaps it was time to strip it away.

  Her mind made up about what she intended to do, Angie hurried to dress.

  Niko sat with his Netdahee brethren, high above the Apache encampment. Each of the ten warriors had told of their successful raid, bragging of the food they had brought to their people. Hidden below, in the wickiups, was the sustenance to keep them alive.

  There had been no celebration to welcome home the warriors. There would be none of the dancing, the recounting of bravery, that there had been in the past. None dared whisper or show the food gathered by the thieves they had been forced to become.

  For twelve years they had been fighting, squeezed between the Mexican army on one side of the border and the never-ending swarm of whites on the other. Of the four bands of Chiricahua—the “true” band led by Cochise; the Warm Springs or “red” people named for the band of red clay worn by their warriors; the Nednhi, led by Juh, whose stronghold lay in the Sierra Madre of Mexico; and the Bedonkohes, who claimed the territory of the headwaters of the Gila River and whose wily minor leader, Geronimo, was feared by the whites—none had escaped the wrath loosed upon them.

  Cochise, with his belief in Indian agent Tom Jeffords, called Red Beard by all, had led them to the reservation. But Cochise was sick and old, and the hate grew to see the Chiricahua wiped from memory. Just as he should escape the memory of the woman’s scent that he still held, and the feel of her skin and hair upon his palm.

  “Niko? Has Usen taken your thoughts, skeetzee? You do not hear me call.”

  Rousing himself from where he sat beneath the cool shade of the piñon tree, Niko looked across the small fire at the warrior who spoke.

  “My thoughts are ever my own, Dezyo.” The long tooth for which he was named gave him a lopsided smile. Niko quickly remembered then what day this was for his friend. “You have decided, then, who you will court for a wife?”

  “Will you come with me to speak?”

  “You have asked. It is done, Dezyo.”

  “I have chosen One Who Laughs to be my wife.”

  “Ah, Dezyo, a poor choice this,” Four Toes called out. “You do not want a woman to bring laughter to your blankets.”

  “Aiee, Four Toes has the right way of it. You want a woman who will bring heat to your robes each night.”

  “What would you know of a woman’s heat, Tóí? None will share their blankets with you.”

  “It is I who will not have a woman. I have made promises to Child of the Water that, like the fish I am named for, I will ever swim against the white tide that overruns our lands.”

  “As have we all,” Niko added, rising to put an end to the talk. “Come, Dezyo, we will look over the horses to choose the best ones.”

  They walked together, comfortable with the silence, to the herd of horses that belonged to the Netdahee. When their band formed, they had agreed that all the horses would belong to them, so none would stop Dezyo from choosing any. But Dezyo knew which was a warrior’s favorite mount, and these were not the ones he looked over as his marriage gifts.

  Dezyo seemed to want his approval, so Niko examined the two sturdy bay mares, whose bloodlines were a mix of the wild mustangs and the fine horses the Spanish had left behind.

  “Her grandmother will be pleased with the horses.”

  “I have a fine blanket for you, Niko. It is only right that you accept my gift to talk for me.”

  Sliding halters on the mares, they each led one down to the encampment.

  Niko listened as Dezyo made note of his value as a husband, knowing what was wanted for One Who Laughs. He interrupted him once to ask, “Will she meet your offer with favor?”

  “I have spoken to her several times. She does not run from me. Many times, I think, she has sought me out. But I have not touched her. I would not dishonor her so.”

  “Then I will do my best to sing your praise to the old one.” Niko watched his friend leave him at the edge of the encampment, for it would not do to have him seen now. Leading the horses between the wickiups, Niko called out greetings, and answered those directed at him. He smiled, but would not answer when asked where he went with the horses. They would all know soon enough.

  One Who Laughs lived with her grandmother at the far end of the encampment. Niko spied a buckboard, his gaze quickly looking over the mules in the traces. From the missing spoke on one wheel he identified the wagon as one belonging to Mary Ten Horse. She was the old woman’s sister, married many years past to a trader who had paid ten horses to take her to wife. His steps quickened, for Mary laundered at the fort, and she often brought news of the soldiers’ plans.

  Leaving the horses tied to the wickiup, Niko called out, “Greetings, old one. I have come to talk of a grave matter with you.”

  “My dwelling is yours, Niko. Come sit by my fire.”

  Niko bent low to slip inside the tightly woven brush opening. He nearly tripped over his own feet when his gaze locked on the woman. He stilled once he stood tall, but his eyes never left hers. What did she here, among his people? But he could not ask, for this was not his wickiup, not his family, for him to question the visit by a white woman. He had seen no sign of the soldiers who often came to lay blame, real or false, upon the men.

  The old one, eyes rheumy in a face creased with age, motioned him to sit.

  Niko was torn. He had the urge to flee her presence, this white woman who leveled such a steady gaze upon him, but he thought of his friend, waiting to know if his suit was accepted.

  “Does the presence of my sister’s guest anger you?”

  “My words are for your ears, Grandmother. Not those of an Anglo iszáń.”

  “She is a woman, Niko, whose tongue speaks straight, and she has found a place by my fire.”

  “Then I will leave until I lose the anger that one such as she finds welcome here.”

  Angie did not understand the words they exchanged, but she heard the anger in his voice. She was sure that Nee-ko was his name. Mary Ten Horses thought her idea of sketching the hunger on the faces of the women and children of the Apache a good one. Mary had lived among the whites long enough to know that all were not evil, all were not good.

  She had to bite her lip to keep from calling out to him, to ask him to stay, for her fingers longed to capture the proud cast of his features. She watched him leave, then listened to the rapid-fire exchange between the sisters.

  But she couldn’t understand a word, so her thoughts turned to Niko again. She discovered there wasn’t any difference between the way an Apache expressed his anger and her brother’s clipped, harsh voice. Thinking of her brother reminded her that time was fleeing. He had agreed to take her with him to the fort this morning, but he didn’t know that she had talked Mary into coming
out to the reservation again. Grant had not been pleased to know he had to wait to see Major Sumner, but other ranchers had been raided and had come to file their complaints.

  It was rude to interrupt, but Angie had no choice. She touched Mary’s arm to draw her attention. “Please, forgive me, Mary, but I will have to get back before my brother misses me. Ask her if she will speak to Cochise for me.”

  “Already I have asked. My sister wishes to know what you will do with these—”

  “Sketches, Mary. I will draw the faces to show the hunger of the people. Many of the newspapers back East will pay for these. It will show many whites how the Apache suffer.”

  Mary repeated her words to her sister, listened to the old one’s question, and relayed it to Angie.

  “My sister asks if you have no hunger among your people, that you concern yourself with ours?”

  “There is much hunger. Children beg in the streets. But I am here, not in the cities, where men care more for the money that lines their pockets than for the cry of a hungry child.”

  The old one raised her hand to still Mary’s tongue. She heard the truth in the voice of the young white woman, saw the caring that sharpened her features. “Tell her I will speak to Cochise. He is gone with Red Beard to have the agency moved to Fort Bowie, to stop the treachery of Anglos. They will not listen. Never they listen. I promise nothing.”

  The old woman’s direct dark gaze and slow nodding head gave Angie her answer before Mary spoke. It was hope, and now she had to convince her brother to allow it.

  “You will wait outside for me.”

  It was not a request, but an order, from Mary. Angie thanked them both before she stepped outside.

  She hadn’t realized until that moment that she harbored the hope that Niko would wait. It didn’t take the brains of a peahen to understand the meaning of the two fine horses tied to the brush. Why should she care that he had come courting? He was young, and handsome—She stopped herself.

  He was dressed as he had been last night, but now the sun shone on the ebony sheen of his shoulder-length hair, and revealed his dark gaze, which sent strange curls of warmth through her. He stood silent for so long, Angie thought he would not speak to her at all.