Apache Fire

by Raine Cantrell

  And when he did, it was not to ask the question she expected, why she was here.

  “You have sewn another button on.”

  Her hand rose to her neckline. “I had to. In the midst of the confusion last night, no one noticed it missing, but either my brother or sister-in-law—that’s who I live with—would have remarked on it.”

  “You did not speak of seeing me?”

  “No. I…said nothing.” Last night she could have sworn that he didn’t understand much of what she said, and spoke very little English. But now… She was distracted by the small boy who wandered close and stood smiling and looking up at him.

  It wasn’t until Niko hunkered down close to the boy that Angie saw the silver-and-turquoise earring he wore. If anyone had told her that a man could appear so masculine and wear an earring, she would have scoffed at him. But she couldn’t imagine anyone poking fun at Niko.

  “This is Little One,” Niko said, drawing the boy nearer to the V of his thighs. “He will take a name befitting a man of the Chiricahua when he is older. But he will have no father to stand ceremony with him.”

  To the boy Niko smiled, but Angie heard the underlying bitterness in his voice. It prompted her to say, “He is one of the reasons I have come here. I want to draw the faces of the children and show people what is happening here.” She couldn’t help staring at the gentle movement of Niko’s hands as he cuddled the boy. Hunger for her own child sent pain through her, and she turned away.

  “Are you so poor in love, iszáń, that you see shame in a man giving it to a child? Do you see evil in the ways of my people, that a warrior holds a boy?” He rose and, with his smile still in place, sent the boy off. “Look at me. Is this what you have come to show? Will you twist what you see into more lies against us?”

  Chapter 4

  Angie steeled herself to face him. She couldn’t stop the tears from falling down her cheeks, nor did she try.

  “Tears? Have my words brought them to your eyes?”

  She searched his eyes for scorn and found only a deep concern. Honesty was the only answer she could give him.

  “No. Not your words. I was touched here,” she said, lifting her hand to her heart, “that you are proud and strong, yes, strong enough to show love and gentleness to a child. That is a strength all its own. Not many men would be so open before a woman.”

  Niko looked away from her. Once again she watched him with the eyes of a woman for a man, and he knew, in his heart of hearts he knew, he should walk away from her now. There had been sadness in her gaze upon the boy, and a longing, as if she, too, wished to hold him. He had to be wrong. She was white. Her pale hands would not touch the skin of an Apache. Not willingly. Or would she? Like the winding movement of a snake, the question wove itself into his mind, raising the heat of his blood, bringing to life the fire in his loins.

  “You will not come back here. There will be no drawings made. I will forbid it.”

  “Forbid it?” His harsh grating tone stated that he would snatch away the rope she needed to cling to before she drowned in a sea of guilt and grief.

  “No! You will not do this to me. I need—” She broke off and stared at the implacable set of his features. She couldn’t tell him about Amy. She couldn’t speak of it to anyone. Her shoulders sagged beneath the weight of her burden, and the fight left her.

  She held the hope that the old woman would talk to Cochise. But were the Apache men any different from the whites, who would always listen first to a man’s words? She didn’t think so.

  A far-off cry rang out. Niko spun around as whispers spread. He saw for himself the rising cloud of dust and the glint of the sun’s rays on brass buttons. Soldiers. He hated the bold way they rode into the camp. The woman was forgotten in the face of this new threat to his people.

  He was alone, for Dezyo had long since returned to the others. Old women and young children were all that remained in camp. The young women tended the hidden patches of corn. Twice now the fields had been discovered by Anglos bent on their destruction. The warriors who hunted, and the others that kept watch over the horses, would come at a signal from him, but he would not give it. Any sign of resistance would be seen as a threat against the soldiers.

  Niko would not flee. He even walked out to the clearing where they had to stop their horses.

  Angie was right behind him. When she saw that they were soldiers from the fort, she looked for her nephew. Dismay filled her when she recognized her brother riding with them. What was Grant doing here? While she silently asked herself, she noticed the leader of the small patrol. Corporal Eric Linley had been invited to supper twice since she arrived, despite her pleas to her brother that she wasn’t ready to think of marriage.

  “Stand away,” Niko ordered, but of necessity his voice was very low.

  “There she is!” Grant yelled, spurring his horse to the front. “And that’s the filthy buck that stole her!”

  “He didn’t steal me.” Angie ran forward, crying out, “No one stole me. I came on my own, Grant.” She tried to grab hold of his stirrup. Shocked, she felt his foot lash out at her. She stumbled back, vaguely aware that a few of the soldiers cursed him.

  With his gaunt features livid, fury alight in his eyes, Grant dismounted and holding his reins, grabbed hold of her arms. “What lies are you muttering?” He shook his sister as if she were a tree whose fruit he wanted to jar loose. “What happened to you? Tell us what he did. You ain’t got to fear—”

  “B-but I’m not a-afraid!”

  “I seen you. Stop lying for that heathen savage, Angie. You were close to him. My own eyes ain’t lying to me. You were talking to him.”

  She ignored the pain of his fingers biting into her arms, and his look of warning. Grant had never lost his temper with her. But she couldn’t keep quiet about this. Her brother was wrong.

  “Grant, just listen—”

  “Your sister speaks the truth,” Mary Ten Horses said, walking toward them as fast as her girth would allow. “She rode here with me, to visit my sister.”

  “Then what the hell was she doing with that damn buck!”

  It wasn’t a question. Angie tried to pull away from him, but he wouldn’t let her go. “Grant, stop this,” she pleaded. “Yes, I spoke to him. But that’s all. You’re acting as if—”

  His slap rocked her head back and immediately silenced her. Stunned that her brother had raised his hand to her, Angie didn’t see Niko lunge for him until it was too late.

  The sheer force of Niko’s tackle ripped Grant’s hands from her arms. Before Grant could recover, Niko took hold of one hand, bending and twisting his fingers until Grant released a howl of agony and went down on one knee.

  Niko never thought of pulling his knife. This was a dog that should be kicked to the earth. His foot lashed out, but the moment he was unbalanced, six soldiers jumped him.

  “Stop them!” Angie screamed. She rounded on the three men who stood holding the horses’ reins. “Do something,” she demanded. One by one they looked away. She ran toward Eric, only to stop. “Please. Order your men to leave him be.” Her appeal fell on deaf ears, for he, too, turned away.

  “How can you let this happen?” Everywhere she looked, she saw the stoic faces of the Apache. No one moved. Not even the children. But they didn’t look away from the horror of one man beaten by so many.

  Angie couldn’t stand it. She ran forward, trying to pull the soldiers off him. Her cries didn’t matter. She used her fists, she clawed skin and cloth, even landed a few kicks on several men’s legs.

  “Have you lost your mind?” Eric grabbed her arms, yanked them behind her back and dragged her clear. “For my sake and your reputation, Angie, remember who you are. There will be enough gossip attached to this as it is. I can’t imagine what got into you to behave no better than these animals.”

  “Animals? You call them animals? What of your men, Corporal? These are brave soldiers conquering the enemy?” She
tried to angle her head back to see him, but he moved to the side. “Damn you, Eric. Damn you and those men to hell for this day’s work.”

  She stopped struggling. The violence of the beating appalled her. Her throat was so raw she couldn’t even cry out anymore.

  Niko forced himself not to move. He knew he had no chance against so many. They wanted him to fight, these Anglo dogs, goaded him with vipers’ tongues that insulted his manhood, his people, even the spirits that he believed in. Only once did a groan escape his lips. A heavyset soldier’s boot landed a solid kick to his kidney. He tried to shove them off him, fought to rise, rage exploding inside him that she had to witness his shame at their hands.

  He was blinded by sweat and blood. His headband was gone, and hair hung in front of his eyes. One moment he was struggling to sit, and in the next, pain roared through his head. He fell back to the warm earth.

  “That’ll fix the bastard.” Replacing the pistol he’d used to knock the Apache out cold in his leather holster, the soldier kicked one limp leg. “Ain’t gonna give us no trouble now, Corporal.”

  Bile rose in Angie’s throat as they backed away and she viewed his broken, bleeding body. Nausea roiled in her belly. She wouldn’t, couldn’t, be sick in front of them.

  She turned her head and met her brother’s furious gaze. “Are you satisfied now, Grant?”

  He ignored her and addressed himself to Eric. “I want him arrested. I demand that.” He shot a glance at Niko’s body. “That savage attacked me. You all saw that.” He sent a searching look at the now-silent soldiers, standing in a half circle, more than one wiping blood from his mouth.

  “You can’t let him get away with this. If you don’t haul him back to the fort, I’ll go to your commanding officer.”

  “No.” Mary came forward then and stepped between Grant and the soldiers. “I will go to Major Sumner. I cook, clean and launder for him. He will hear the truth from me.”

  “And me.” Angie found herself released from Eric’s hold, and she walked on shaking legs to her brother. “Leave it be, Grant. You’re making a fool of yourself. They beat him for you.” She spat out the words, scorn underlying every one. “He didn’t do anything to me. You’re the one who hit me and he came to my defense. Something,” she stated, looking over her shoulder at the soldiers, “a white man didn’t have the courage to do.” Head held high, she challenged her brother with her gaze.

  “You dare! After all I done for you? Trouble’s what you are. I don’t know why I took you in when no one else would have you. Worthless, ungrateful—taking up on the side of a filthy buck against your own brother! You’d be beggin’ on the street if it wasn’t for me. No one wanted a nagging witch that caused her husband’s death. Giving yourself airs. You’re forgetting it was your own neglect that killed your child?”

  “Grant, no!”

  “And now you shame me, defending an Apache dog! Get out of my sight. I’ll deal with you later.”

  Angie fell back as if he had hit her again. Mary kept her from falling. Mary, whose arms offered her comfort when her brother turned his back on her. But Angie didn’t cry. She couldn’t let Grant see the wounds he had ripped open inside her. Shame? He dared to speak of shame, after he’d twisted her grief and laid bare her sorrow by blaming her?

  Niko came to in time to hear Grant. A child? She had a child? No. He drifted in and out of a sea of pain. It took all his strength to will his body not to struggle when they used rope to bind his hands behind his back, then tied his ankles together. As they lifted him like meat ready for the spit, he managed to open his eyes, and saw that she still watched him. He named her then, mouthing the words—Woman of Sorrow, for such were her eyes that her sorrow pained him more than his own. It was the last thought he had.

  No one stopped the soldiers from taking one of the bay mares that were to have been Dezyo’s gift to the old one. She stood near her wickiup, mumbling to herself, but gave no other sign that she saw or heard what had happened. Angie waited for someone else besides Mary to come forth, to raise a protesting voice when they flung Niko’s body over the mare’s back and tied his hands and feet together beneath the horse’s belly.

  Silence reigned as the soldiers mounted and rode out, leading him at the last, where the dust was sure to choke him.

  “Mary?” she whispered in a hoarse voice. “What will they do to him?”

  “If he lives?”

  Angie didn’t know where she found the strength to grab the older woman’s arm. “What did you say? If he lives? Why won’t he? Surely they don’t plan to kill him? My God, Mary, he didn’t do anything to deserve death.”

  “He attacked a white man. That is enough. Apache have died for less.”

  Her soft words, spoken without any hint of emotion, acted as a spur to Angie. “We can’t stand here, Mary. We’ll follow them to the fort. Between us, the truth will be told. It wasn’t his fault. He only protected me.”

  “No. This I will not do. You go to your small house.”

  “But you just said…you told them that you’d go to Major…”

  “Mary go. Mary talk. Mary alone.”

  “But I’m the one who was hit. The major will have to listen to me. Mary, please, don’t send me away. I need to do something to help him.”

  “You no listen to Big Ears. He tell you—”

  “Big Ears? Who?”

  “The bluecoat with hair like cow’s hide.”

  “Eric? Eric is Big Ears?” For a moment, the twinkle in Mary’s eyes distracted her as the woman nodded. Angie couldn’t argue. Eric did have big ears. She was beginning to understand how the Apache named things and people. But, more, she found that they had humor in their ways. “All right, Mary, tell me why anything that Big Ears said should matter.”

  “Here,” she said, touching Angie’s left breast for a moment, “your heart is good.” She lifted her hand and cupped it on the side of Angie’s head. “Here, you are as one who had all reason stolen by Owl.”

  Just from her hushed tone, Angie knew that was something bad. But she couldn’t let superstitions stop her.

  Mary shook her head. “You no listen. You are white woman. You no speak for Apache warrior. Anglos make ugly words. Hurt you. Hurt you bad.”

  “Gossip, Mary, can’t hurt me. I won’t stand by and do nothing. If you won’t take me with you back to the fort, I’ll find my own way there.”

  “Take her, my sister,” the old one said.

  Mary’s shrug told Angie she had won. But she could not spare a moment to be happy about it. She had to figure out what she would say that would free Niko. Niko. His name came easily to her lips. Too easily. She liked saying it to herself as she climbed up to the buckboard’s seat.

  Unaware that her lips were almost curved in a smile, Angie didn’t see Mary shake her head.

  Clucking to her mules, Mary set them on their way. No good will come of this day. The gode had been set among them. All knew what the Gray One caused. All but the woman. Mary glanced skyward. Thunder People, protect your son of earth and fire. Strange are the ways of a woman’s heart. Strong are the legs that carry her on her chosen path.

  Her memories turned back in time, to a summer when she had been young and strong and a bold trapper had courted her. He had fought bravely to make her his wife. To cross the land took courage. Mary glanced at Angie.

  Have you the courage to cross the lines that divide us?

  She would not ask.

  Chapter 5

  Angie’s gaze passed unseeingly over the piñon and stunted oak trees, the boulders that rose nearly as high, the grasses lush from the constant summer rains. Her body swayed with each bump the buckboard made over the rocky ground. Flies and mosquitoes swarmed, and she brushed them away without thought. The image of Niko with the little boy would not leave her.

  She even understood why. Her mind refused to conjure up the sight of him beaten.

  It wasn’t until Mary spoke of the coming
rain that Angie suddenly became aware of her surroundings. In the far distance were low-lying mountains. The land easily could look the same, but she was sure this was not the way they had twice taken to come to the reservation.

  She said as much, then added, “Mary, is this a shorter way to the fort?”

  “This is the way we go now.”

  “Then it is different. For a few minutes I thought my mind was playing tricks on me.”

  “No ask questions. Always the Anglo must question. This way safe for you.”

  Despite Angie’s prodding, Mary would say no more.

  And Angie began to worry about where Mary was taking her.

  Niko turned inward, finding strength and inner quiet. He judged by the length of time it took until the pain receded from his body how far they had taken him. His body was curved like a hoop over the back of the horse, but he did not open his eyes to the sky. He willed himself to work at the knots that tied his hands to his feet beneath the mare’s belly.

  Not easy was the need to shut out the voices of the soldiers who rode ahead. He knew what his fate would be at their hands. Breathing was a difficult task, not only because of the dust rising with the striking hooves of ten horses, but also because he had to contend with the piercing pain that lanced his side.

  He thought of the place they would have to ride through, a narrow defile that would force them to go one by one. Child of the Water, hear me. Send to the Thunder People for the Intchi-dijin, the blackest of winds, so that the Controller of Water will hear their cry and send the rains to aid me.

  Hear me. I am Netdahee. To leave me helpless is to leave your people helpless.

  He worked at fraying the end of the rope. His silent calls to the spirits of his people repeated over and over as blood swelled his fingers and made them clumsy. Never once did Niko show any sign that he was awake, and aware.