Reluctant Enemies

by Vivian Vaughan

  But Jessie, for one, wasn’t about to start passing judgment. No, she had her own sins to answer for. She had no place condemning others.

  “We got old man Monroe,” Newt was saying, “but Oscar took a bullet from one of his bastard sons.” Holding her by her long black hair, he slapped her hard across the face, then back the other way. She slumped and he turned loose, dropping her to the floor like an armload of firewood.

  “Hear that, Jess? My brother took a bullet because of your sneakin’ ways. An’ I ain’t even heard you say you’re sorry.” He kicked her in the side.

  “I’m sorry…” she whimpered.

  “Say it again.”

  “I’m sorry…”

  “For what, Jess? What’re you sorry for?” He kicked her again.

  Curling herself for what meager protection that could afford, she whimpered and hated herself for being so weak.

  “For what?” Newt demanded. “Say you’re sorry for helpin’ Charlie McCain and I might let up.”

  She remained silent; the room became a darkened blur behind her closed eyelids.

  “Say it, Jess. Say you’re sorry you helped Charlie. That you got my brother shot up helping Charlie. That you helped a prisoner escape.” He kicked her again.

  “We could hang you for that, Jess. You aided a prisoner—”

  “Joaquín isn’t guilty of anything, Newt.”

  “Maybe, maybe not, but you surely are. Guilty as sin. Leadin’ me on, lettin’ me believe you cared. I should’ve suspected, but you know what, Jess? I believed you.” His voice took on an incredulous tone. “I believed you, goddamnit.” He kicked her.

  She scooted away, trying to hide herself beneath the table where his boots wouldn’t carry as much thrust. The fringe from her table scarf whispered against her bruised face. “I cared,” she whispered.

  “About Charlie, damn his soul. Not about me.”

  “About you.”

  “You made me look dumb, Jess. Know that? Dumb. Real dumb. An’ that’s real funny, you know, ’cause you’re the dumb one. Goin’ aroun’ town like a big businesswoman with your cantina and your haulin’ company. An’ you got it all by rattin’ on your husband. I should’ve known better’n to get mixed up with a woman who’d ratted on her husband. Got him killed, that’s what you done.”

  “He—”

  “Well, you ain’t gonna do the same to me. I found you out. An’ in time, too. Wanna know what I’m doin’ about it?” He kicked at her, the toe of his boot landing with a vicious thud against the small of her back.

  “We’ve got ’em on the run, Jess. Yessiree. On the run. Slim an’ the boys are headed out to Charlie’s right now, but that ain’t all, Jess. Oscar thought it up, after he got hit. That little gal o’ Charlie’s is in on it. I figured that out real quick. She and that Yankee lawyer are real thick. Well, we’re onto ’em.”

  Priscilla? Jessie stirred. She knew she needed to get up. To fight Newt. To plan. To help Priscilla. But the room was spinning, and she wasn’t sure how many more blows she could take from Newt’s boot without passing out.

  “That’ll get Charlie, don’t’cha think? Quicker’n lynchin’ that half-breed son o’ his. Charlie sets store by that little gal, even though no man in the territory can figure out why.”

  His voice lowered, became conversational, his tone inquisitive. “What man’d want a gal like that for a daughter? Why, she looks more like a man, and if you can’t tell the diff’ernce…I reckon she’d be a plumb embarrassment to most men. Oh, well, that’s Charlie’s business.” He laughed. “And works to our favor. The trail might be cold, but we’ll catch them two. They’ll head for Spanish Creek one o’ these days, an’ when they do, we’ll be awaitin’. That little gal won’t stay away from home too long. We’ve got all the time in the world, Jess. Time an’ patience, that’s all it’ll take to catch ’em. An’ to break Charlie McCain.”

  He kicked Jessie again, so hard she tasted blood when she bit her lip to keep from crying out. Blackness swirled around her. She heard him mumble something about one for good measure.

  Pain streaked through her, burning trails along her skin and piercing into her body like the blades of a hundred jagged knives, erupting from her mouth in a gush of sour venom.

  After that she didn’t hear anything for the longest time. Finally the plinking of Lupe’s piano drifted up the stairs from the cantina, washed over her like gentle waves, soothing, cooling the burning in her stomach.

  She had to get up. She had to warn Charlie. She had to help Priscilla. But she was cold. So cold.

  With feeble fingers she caught the fringe on her satin table scarf and, after a series of weak jerks, pulled it down on top of her. China and glass clattered to the floor and shattered all around. Then the world turned black and warm and still.

  Ten

  Heat shimmered from the rocky canyon walls and glinted off Priscilla’s saddlehorn. She followed Joaquín, who followed a nameless Apache through the narrow, winding corridor of red and gray stone. Turning in the saddle, she looked behind her through the dust and undulating heat waves to Will, and behind him to the two Apaches, also nameless, who brought up the rear.

  Will had been astonished to learn that the Apaches did not call one another by name. One of the few times he had intentionally spoken to Priscilla since her fruitless attempt to mend their relationship had come after the three Apache braves arrived at their camp that morning.

  With their arrival Joaquín became a different man, assuming command in a quiet, yet authoritative manner.

  “The vedette have watched us a day and a half,” he translated for Priscilla and Will. “We are not followed. My brother, José Colorado, remains in the foothills, keeping watch.”

  More talk in the Apache language. Again Joaquín translated. “They will take us in, now.”

  “In where?” Will questioned.

  Joaquín’s expression was stolid, yet Priscilla heard pride in his voice. “Victorio’s ranchería. They await us.”

  Once they were mounted, Joaquín dictated the order in which they would ride. The brave who’d done the talking, the vedette, or guard, Joaquín explained, would go first. Followed by himself, Priscilla, then Will, with the other braves bringing up the rear.

  “We’re prisoners?” Will questioned.

  “No. Keep your weapons. But do not touch them.”

  They mounted while the braves sat their ponies. “What are their names?” Will had asked then.

  “Their names will not be spoken,” Joaquín replied.

  “Not spoken?” Will turned to Priscilla, eyebrows raised in question.

  “Apaches never call each other by name. Superstition. They believe it brings bad luck.”

  He had smiled at that, a wry sort of smile that gave her the impression he was thinking about something else. But a smile of any sort was rare these days, coming from Will Radnor.

  An hour later they still rode single file through the innards of the overlapping mountains. Priscilla had never been to Victorio’s ranchería, and anticipation muted some of her distress over Will’s behavior—or, more precisely, over how to deal with the fact that she was beginning to care deeply for a man who had no interest in her. Not even as a friend, judging by the brusque way he’d halted her overtures the evening before.

  He was a strange one, Will Radnor. Strange and bothersome, to use a word her mother favored.

  I’m trying real hard to forget you’re a woman. She’d learned one thing about Will Radnor—once he set his mind to something, he worked at it day and night. Turning in the saddle, she caught him looking at her, but no sooner had their eyes made contact, than he turned away, staring instead toward the red and gray striated cliffs that rose to either side of them like a festive layer cake, part strawberry, part vanilla. There was nothing festive, however, in Will’s somber mood. He hadn’t been looking at her, she realized, but through her. Something weighed on his mind.

  And it must be heavy, to preoccupy him on a journey such as
this. Even though visiting Victorio’s ranchería had been a childhood dream of hers, Priscilla still felt her heart quicken as they traveled deeper and deeper into the mountains, further and further from civilization, as she knew it.

  After an hour of winding their way through the mountain, they arrived without warning. Coming down out of a pass, they skirted a boulder the size of a large building, and there it was—Victorio’s ranchería, sitting in the lee of a high mountain valley. A swiftly flowing stream ran in front of the village. Half-clothed brown-skinned children played along its bank, squealing and splashing. At sight of the riders, they hushed, as though on command, and rushed to hide behind their mothers’ skirts, as children have done the world over. The women rose from their washing and stepped back, creating a wide aisle through which the procession passed. Vedettes, with red headbands waving in the breeze, scrambled down from their rocky posts.

  Priscilla took it all in. Several dozen brush and hide wickiups were scattered along the length of the valley, most of them beneath stands of oak and sycamore. Thin tendrils of gray smoke rose from cooking fires in front of each hut. Up in the hills, smoke sifted through pines and cottonwoods.

  The silence was eerie—the only sounds, the plodding of their horses’ hooves and the thrashing of her heart. She didn’t recognize a single person. Not one.

  Work and play stopped as the column advanced. Men and women alike stood in their tracks, watching as solemnly as if the flag were passing in review. She wondered what Will thought of it all. She wanted to turn in her saddle and look at him, but she didn’t.

  A dog raced out and nipped at her horse’s legs. A woman kicked it, eliciting a yelp. Tail between its legs, the creature slunk off toward a wickiup.

  Priscilla had begun to wonder whether anyone would speak to them, when a woman stepped out of the crowd. She was very brown and very wrinkled and when she smiled it was to reveal toothless gums. Her hair hung loose in long silver-streaked strands from a center part to her shoulders. She wore a long black cotton skirt topped by a worn deerskin shirt.

  Not until she reached them, did Priscilla recognize her—Nalin. It must be, although Priscilla knew Joaquín’s mother to be no older than her own, this woman looked haggard and ancient. But when she saw Priscilla, her black eyes glowed with welcome.

  Then a man stepped out of the crowd. No taller than Joaquín, he wore the dress of the other men, white man’s britches tucked into knee-high, cuffed moccasins. His heavy cotton shirt was belted with a wide leather belt; the familiar strip of red flannel was tied around his forehead, holding back his shoulder-length black hair. When he stopped, the procession halted, too. The man’s eyes focused first on Joaquín, then took them all in, each in turn.

  Joaquín turned to Priscilla. “It’s him.”

  Victorio. She relayed the information to Will. He nodded. Instinctively she knew she would have known the war chief without being told who he was. Broad of cheek with fine aquiline features, he carried himself like a leader, aloof but in charge.

  Following Joaquín’s lead, Priscilla and Will dismounted. The reticent Apaches inched forward. Then suddenly everyone began talking at once. Several of the younger men greeted Joaquín; the brave who led them in spoke with Victorio.

  Nalin came through the crowd. She took Priscilla’s hands in her own, which felt like rough-side-out leather. “It has been a long time, daughter of my friend.”

  “Too long, mother,” Priscilla replied respectfully.

  Victorio was issuing orders in Apache. Beside her, Joaquín translated. “You are to go with my mother.”

  “What about Will?”

  “He follows the men.”

  “What—”

  “They won’t harm your white eyes, Jake. They know he helped free me.”

  My white eyes? She hoped Will hadn’t heard that. She relayed the rest of the message, adding, “They speak Spanish. They may not want you to know it, but they do. If you need anything tell them in Spanish.”

  Will listened, as stolid in manner as Victorio, himself. “Thanks,” he mumbled.

  Before she could say more, the crowd began to disperse. Two braves led Will toward the river. Victorio threw an arm around Joaquín’s shoulders and drew him up one side of the hill. Nalin took Priscilla’s hand and led her away.

  They skirted a clearing, barren except for a huge pile of brush in the center. The sight brought to mind the tales of horror that circulated in Santa Fé about the Apaches’ brutal treatment of their captives. Will had heard at least some of those tales. He must be terrified.

  She knew she would be, if she hadn’t known Nalin all her life. Even so, she was a little nervous and chided herself for it. She’d met several of Victorio’s braves on the trail or when they came to the ranch for meat. But she’d always been in the company of Pa or Uncle Crockett or Uncle Sog, or all three. She’d never felt quite so alone as at this moment. Will would surely be more anxious than she.

  Nalin led her midway up the rocky hillside to the last wickiup in the encampment. Below them children resumed their play, laughing and squealing, while birds sang from high in the trees. Women returned to their cook fires; men sat cross-legged in front of their wickiups, repairing harnesses, cleaning rifles.

  Before entering the wickiup, Nalin dipped water from a hide-lined hollow in the earth and offered it to Priscilla. Drinking, Priscilla noticed several other hide-lined hollows filled with various foodstuffs—piñon nuts, mesquite beans, and similar dried objects, many of which Priscilla couldn’t identify. Hide sacks, and others made of canvas and stamped with the insignia of the United States Army had been filled and were propped against the wickiup.

  “We prepare to break camp.” Nalin glanced back down the hillside. Following her gaze Priscilla noticed filled sacks beside other wickiups. “We must go before the soldiers begin their fall campaign.”

  Priscilla’s breath caught at the suggestion. She knew what Nalin meant—before the soldiers attacked the ranchería. “When will you go?”

  “When our chief has no more hope for peace, we will go.” Speaking, Nalin lighted a clay vessel containing oil. The flame sent fingers of light flickering around the tidy room, highlighting furs spread in one corner for sleeping. Several sizes of clay vessels sat around the walls, which were unexpectedly covered with a hide liner that had aged to a soft brown. Figures were painted on the liner in earth tones, varying from red to gold to black. The drawings encircled the room, like scenes painted on an ancient vessel.

  “My husband’s work,” Nalin explained. “He was historian of the cihéne. He painted scenes of importance to The People.”

  Priscilla perused the drawings—braves on horseback galloped around the walls, both man and beast painted for war; herds of horses raced from a canyon gorge; a woman…Intrigued, Priscilla moved closer to examine the figure of a woman with white skin and a thick blond braid hanging down her back.

  “Your mother,” Nalin said.

  Mama? How could that be? Moving on, Priscilla studied each scene in turn, all depicting the blond-headed woman-alone, standing or working, scraping a hide, digging a—

  “The grave of your mother’s mother.”

  My grandmother? Except for the fact they were no longer alive, Priscilla knew nothing about either of her grandmothers. In the next scene, the same blond-haired woman was joined by a man; in another they were embracing.

  “Your father.”

  Pa? She walked on, coming to the depiction of a second white-skinned man.

  “Your mother’s kin, I believe, although he was a man much feared and was not spoken of by your parents.”

  In the final painting the blond-haired woman, the woman Nalin claimed to be Mama, wore a sensual doeskin shift embroidered with beads and hung with tiny bells.

  A hazy sense of recognition dispelled some of Priscilla’s disbelief. She had seen that garment—or one very nearly like it—in her mother’s wardrobe. This one was painted the light brown of doeskin. The dress Priscilla had seen was
aged to a rich copper hue.

  Until now she’d scrutinized the paintings without fully accepting Nalin’s claim that they depicted her parents. Mama had no connection with this village. Not that Priscilla knew of.

  For years, though, she had known that both her parents were held in high esteem by Victorio and the cihéne. Hadn’t Pa told her only recently that he’d known Nalin’s husband?

  “These things really happened?”

  “They are the history of The People. My husband was historian.”

  As though obsessed, Priscilla studied each scene a second time, and a third. At her questions Nalin revealed a strange tale that bore more resemblance to fable than to fact, a tale about a stranded covered wagon and Mama having been lost in a snowstorm and the cihéne rescuing both Mama and Pa.

  Nalin stroked a hand down the length of Priscilla’s heavy blond braid.

  “I wear it like Mama does.”

  “Hair the color of gold comes from the Great Spirit,” Nalin claimed. “Your mother’s hair brought good fortune to my wickiup.” The old woman led Priscilla to the last drawing, which depicted an Apache woman large with child.

  “My firstborn,” Nalin said. “He will succeed our warrior chief one day.”

  Not Joaquín, Priscilla knew, but a man she had known also as a child. José Colorado he was called, the child of Nalin’s husband, who had died before the babe was born.

  “I was unable to bear children,” Nalin explained, “until I touched the hair of your mother. Before the next full moon I conceived.”

  The reverence in Nalin’s voice left no doubt that the woman believed her own tales, even if Priscilla found them a bit too strange to digest. But they filled her with questions to take home.

  “Your mother was a brave woman.” Again Nalin stroked Priscilla’s hair. “You are like her, bringing my son to safety at great risk to yourself.”