by Maggie James
So Kitty thanked Miss Mildred for the clothes but knew she would not be taking them.
With a promise to try and see her at the depot to say farewell, Mildred waved and continued on.
Kitty eagerly tore the envelope open. Money fell out, along with a piece of paper. Grabbing the bills, she was amazed to see there was nearly three hundred dollars, but she was puzzled by the paper, which looked to be part of a crudely drawn map.
Quickly, she began to read, then recoiled in horror as the words seemed to leap from the page to slap her full in the face.
Dear Kitty Parrish,
I am sorry to tell you that your uncle is dead. He and his partner were murdered. He told me before he died to send you this money and piece of map if anything happened to him. There was a ring he wanted you to have, too, but it wasn’t on him when his body was found.
Opal Grimes
Kitty stumbled across the yard and to the porch and sank down on the steps as the world spun dizzily around her.
Dear God, it could not be so—her beloved uncle dead, murdered. But how? And why? And had the murderer been caught? There were no details, only cold, blunt words that broke her heart in a thousand pieces and ripped her world apart.
She was still sitting there in a daze as darkness fell. Jabe, returning from his trip to sell the horses, saw her and knew at once something was wrong. “Miss Kitty, what’s happened? You sick? You want me to fetch Loweezy?”
She swallowed hard and straightened her spine. There was no need to worry Jabe or the rest of his family. Life had dealt another harsh blow, and she would face it as she had all the others in her past. “No. I’m not sick.”
He nodded to the crumpled letter she held in a tight fist beneath her chin. “You hear something to make you sad?”
“Yes, but I’ll be all right.” She stuffed the letter, along with the money and piece of map, in her pocket.
“I got paid for the horses. Here it is,” Jabe said proudly. “I wish it was more, Miss Kitty. I truly do. And I wish I could pay you for this place, too. Lord knows, your givin’ it to us is a miracle of God.”
“I’m glad for you to have it.”
As she watched him walk away, it dawned that she had not, after learning of Daddy Wade’s death, considered changing her plans. She would go to Arizona, all right, and find out exactly what had happened.
Maybe she would even find that ring, she thought, lips set in a tight, angry line. Probably she would find it right on Opal Grimes’s finger.
She shook away the suspicion and scolded herself for allowing it to creep in. If Opal was that sort, she would never have sent the money. In fact, if not for her having written the letter, Kitty would not have found out Daddy Wade was dead until she got there.
Kitty still grieved terribly for her mother. Yet she knew she would try and concentrate on finding the person responsible for killing Daddy Wade. She wanted, by God, to see that he paid for what he had done.
Although the Indian camp was well hidden among the rocks and boulders of the dense and perilous Dragoon Mountains, Ryder McCloud knew the way.
He was aware he was being watched, but the Indian scouts would allow him to pass unharmed, even though he wore the garb of the white man. They knew him well. After all, half of the blood flowing in his body was as theirs—Apache…Chiricahua.
Ordinarily, he would have been glad for the trip to visit his people. Proudly he would have donned the knee-high moccasins and breechclout. Also he would have preferred to tie his dark brown hair back from his tanned face with a bandanna or beaded scarf and truly look like one of his own.
He would also have liked to live with the Chiricahua all the time. He loved his people but felt, however, that he could do more for them by passing for white. By so doing, he could warn them of any potential problems with the army. After all, they were renegades. They had escaped from the reservation in the White Mountains where the Arizona Apache had been forcibly moved six years earlier.
He was almost through the pass when the warrior dropped from overhead to land on his feet directly in front of him.
Holding a rifle, his cinnamon-colored face crinkled in a big grin, Coyotay said in greeting, “I could have killed you for a white man, my brother. We are not used to seeing you dressed like our enemy.”
Ryder had known Coyotay all his life, and they were, truly, like brothers. “Trousers and a denim shirt don’t make a man your enemy.”
“True. But it can bring quick death in the Dragoon Mountains. Now, why have you been away so long? Three moons have passed, and your mother has started to worry.”
“She knows I went to Mexico.”
Coyotay’s black eyes took on an excited sheen. “And you saw the land where we can live in peace from the white man? The land the great chief, Victorio, told us about?”
Ryder felt sadness at the mention of the great chief’s name. He had fled the reservation a year earlier, taking three hundred warriors with him. He had been killed a few months later.
Ryder reminded Coyotay, “The white man cannot cross the border to hunt for us. It’s the Mexicans we have to worry about, and, yes, I saw the land. We will be safe there. Chief Victorio would have been, too, had he not been killed.”
“And when can we go there?”
“When we have gold, so that we will never have to raid again.”
Coyotay grinned. “Yes, and your mother has told us about the gold your father has promised.”
Ryder glanced away, unable to look at his face, shining with hope. The situation had changed drastically, but he did not want to divulge anything until he spoke with his mother. She had to be told first. “Is everyone in camp?”
“Only the women. The men are out hunting.”
He held up his hand, which Coyotay pressed in a gesture of camaraderie, then rode on through the final pass to follow the narrow path upward.
Soon he could smell the roasting pits. Stems of the green and tender yucca were being cooked before drying in the sun for storing. He also caught the aroma of white rootstocks boiling with rabbit meat for soup.
As he rounded one last boulder, the camp came into view. Since it was a sunny day, the women were cooking outside their wickiups. Children, most of them naked, were running about, squealing as they played. Skinny dogs lurked, anxious for any scraps tossed their way. Deer skins were stretched out in the sun to dry, and a few women were still beating dirty clothes with rocks beside the stream that flowed from higher up the mountain.
Word spread quickly as Ryder rode through the camp, and by the time he reached his mother’s wickiup, she was pushing aside the bearskin covering at the door to hold her arms wide, her face ignited in a wide grin.
“Oh, I have missed you so,” she cried, hugging him. “I always worry when you stay away so long.”
Releasing him and stepping back, she held up a string of colored beads. “See what I made so I will know how long you were away? They are counting beads. The six white ones are for the days of the week, and the colored are for Sundays, and…” Her voice trailed off. Brow furrowing, she looked at him with concern. “Something is wrong, my son. Tell me.”
The other women were watching, so Ryder took his mother’s hand and drew her back inside the wickiup.
He indicated they should sit, then bluntly said, for there was no easy way, “Father is dead.”
With a little gasp, her hands fluttered to her cheeks, and she began to sway to and fro. Then, with the stoicism of the Apache, she took a deep, shuddering breath, lowered her hands, and looked him straight in the eye. “Tell me what happened.”
“He was murdered. Him and his partner both.”
She was silent for a long while. Ryder held her hand. Finally, she said, “The last time you saw him, when he told you about the gold he had found, he said he wanted to share it with me and my people to help us make a new life in Mexico.”
“I remember.”
“And he said he might even join us.”
“I believe he
would have. He never stopped loving you.”
“And I always loved him. I just could not live in the white man’s world. But now he is dead, and we have to go on without him, and you must find his gold. That way, good will come from the grave. And he would want us to have it.”
“It will be hard. He never told me where he made the strike. All he ever said was that it was well hidden. He and Parrish had drawn a map and torn it in two and each kept half.”
“Do you think whoever killed them has it? If so, they may have already found the gold. How long ago did this happen?”
“Two months or so, according to the sheriff. I was in Mexico. But I don’t think the killer got them to tell him anything. The sheriff said Father was still alive when he was found, and the last thing he said was that he was taking the secret to the grave with him.”
“And the maps weren’t found on the bodies?”
“No. The sheriff said their pockets were empty.”
His mother, called Pale Sky, thought a moment, then hesitantly suggested, “Your father might have told someone else about the gold. Did he have a woman?”
“Not that I know of. But Parrish did. Father once told me her name and said she works in a saloon in Tombstone.”
“Men tell women things sometimes in the night, when they are close. Find her,” she said sharply. “Make her tell you what she knows. Our people need the gold to keep from starving in our new home.”
“I will try,” he promised.
Then, after a gentle embrace, he left her to mourn privately the only man she had ever loved.
Chapter Two
It was late afternoon when Ryder reached the outskirts of Tombstone, Arizona. A dust-beaten collection of tents and wooden shanties, it was perched on a high, treeless plateau between the Dragoon and Whetstone Mountains.
Already the noise from the saloons and gambling halls could be heard as the town began to come alive for the night.
It was a rowdy, rambunctious place. Big, too. Ryder had heard at last count there were around eighty houses, nearly four hundred tents, and the population was climbing above two thousand.
Making up the growing number were miners in from prospecting for silver in the mountains and cowboys off the range looking for an oasis of pleasure in women, liquor, and gambling. Added to the crowd were confidence men who loitered about waiting to tempt strangers with offers of land that had no title, or shares in gold and silver mines that had no ore.
Too many who drifted in were hell-raisers, ready to take umbrage at any affront, and hardly a night went by when someone wasn’t killed and hauled off to Boot Hill. A windswept, rocky cemetery, it was reserved for the common folk. Those considered respectable had their own burying ground. All in all, the town undertakers, Ritter and Ream, enjoyed a good business.
The town was young—born just two years earlier. There was talk, however, that things were already slowing down. Water flowing into mine shafts was making it unprofitable to dig below five hundred feet.
But, for the time being, Ryder had found it a good place to stay abreast of everything happening in the Arizona Territory. Fort Huachuca was nearby, opened when the Apache began threatening settlers and travelers in the San Pedro Valley. Passing for white, of course, Ryder hired on as a scout whenever he needed money. He never led the pony soldiers to the Apaches, however, instead trailing their enemy, the Comanche.
His father had also used the town as a base for his prospecting in the mountains rimming the San Pedro River. But Ryder had never visited him there. When they had met, it had always been at the farm out in the Madera Canyon.
Dan McCloud had always been a private person. Ryder suspected that had to do with him secretly pining for Ryder’s mother and the life he might have had with her—if he had been willing to live as an Apache.
Not that his father had ever told him much about those days. The two were not close, anyway, but Ryder had sensed a change in him the last time they met. He had been in the vicinity of the farm and stopped by to see if his father was there. He had been, and that was when he confided he had found a rich gold strike.
He had also explained about his partner and how the two got together. By coincidence, they had, unknowingly, been prospecting in the area, and, on the same day, made the find in the same location. Both being wise, sensible men, they decided that rather than argue about it, they would pool their resources and work the dig together.
His father knew about Ryder and his mother having run away from the reservation with other Chiricahua. He also knew that one day they hoped to go to Mexico to live in peace. When he told Ryder he wanted to share his gold to enable them to do so, indicating he might even go with them, Ryder knew for certain he still loved Ryder’s mother.
Their story was sad. When he was seventeen, his father had been captured and made a slave by the Chiricahua band of the Apache. But, iron willed and full of spirit, he had won the respect and admiration of his captors, and, as a result, they eventually made him a blood brother.
He had, along the way, fallen in love with Pale Sky, and the two married with the blessings of the tribal leaders. Ryder was born, and, for a time, it seemed Dan McCloud had settled down to his life as an Apache. But that was only on the surface. Inside, he longed to return to his own world.
When Ryder was seven, his father had taken him, and his mother, and left the band. But his mother had not been happy and longed to return to her people. His father would not hear of it, but his mother was determined. Finally, after three years of being homesick and desperate, Pale Sky took Ryder and ran away, only to have Dan catch them before she could reach the protection of her people. Enraged, he had told her he no longer wanted her, that she could go but could not take Ryder with her.
Ryder, however, loved his mother deeply. He also loved the ways of her people—his people. Finally, when he was around twelve years old, he ran away from the farm in Madera Canyon and found his way to her.
It was a long time before he saw his father again. When Ryder reached sixteen, he declared that he wished to be a novice and go through the four stages of the demanding rites to become a Chiricahua warrior. A year later, he was forced to the reservation along with all the Apaches in the Arizona Territory.
The desolate area in the White Mountains made the Indians anxious, restless, and angry. Prospectors and cattlemen moved in and unlawfully took possession of large parcels of land. Authorities in Washington condoned it. Soon the original Chiricahua were squeezed onto the poorest property in the area. That was when groups led by strong and experienced leaders began to escape. Once they did, they brutally killed and plundered anyone they encountered.
Ryder also escaped, and it was during a raid that he did not, at first, recognize the farm that had once been his home, nestled in a canyon. Then he saw his father charge onto the porch firing a deadly Henry .44.
Another warrior had been about, to fell him with an arrow, but Ryder screamed at him to stop, then pleaded with all his Apache brothers to cease fire and abandon the raid. They did as he asked, not understanding until he later told them they were about to kill his father.
That night, Ryder had returned to sneak inside the shack. There was a brief scuffle, as Dan McCloud did not at first recognize his son.
Gradually, as Ryder visited from time to time, they came to know each other again, overcoming any feelings of ill will or resentment. When Ryder told his mother, her eyes had sparkled like crystal waters in moonlight, and she had urged him to continue seeing his father whenever he could.
It was along about that time that Ryder searched the part of his heart that flowed with white man’s blood and made up his mind he could no longer go out with the war parties. He promised the leaders, however, that he would remain loyal to his chosen people by working for the white soldiers. Then he could pass along important information.
Like the Chiricahua, Dan McCloud accepted Ryder’s double life, and they shared some good times together through the years.
Eventually,
Ryder arranged the first meeting between his parents since their separation. They spent several days together but parted with nothing resolved. His father was not about to go back to the Apaches—who would not have welcomed him after his abandonment, anyway. And his mother still wanted no part of being a white settler’s wife.
It had been a gut-wrenching blow when Ryder heard of his father’s death. He had stopped in Tombstone after returning from Mexico and was having a drink when he overheard two men talking nearby about how Opal Grimes was having a hard time getting over the death of her lover, even though it had been several months.
Stunned, Ryder’s hand holding his glass had frozen in midair. His father had said Opal Grimes was the name of the woman Wade Parrish was involved with.
When the men went on talking about it, speculating that Parrish and his partner had been killed over their secret gold mine, Ryder bolted from the saloon and went straight to the sheriff’s office. Without divulging that Dan McCloud was his father, he learned that he and Parrish had been found murdered, and there were no clues as to who was responsible. With at least one violent death occurring every day in Tombstone, the sheriff had to think hard to even remember the incident Ryder was asking about.
He did manage to recall, however, that Dan McCloud was still alive when another prospector happened by the next day. He had lived long enough to proudly say he had never told where the gold was, and that he was taking the secret to the grave with him.
Ryder had not been surprised to hear it. His father would have held on to life tenaciously, along with his secret, for he had been a strong man, both in spirit and body.
Other than adding that the two had been buried in Boot Hill, there was nothing else the sheriff could tell him.
Pulling himself from reverie, Ryder rode on through the loud, lusty town. It was cluttered with saloons, some of which were nothing but tents with the bar made of a plank laid across two beer kegs.
