Apache-Colton Series

by Janis Reams Hudson

  “Why do you want to know?”

  She shrugged. “Well, in case our train is attacked by Apaches, I can say I know you, and maybe they won’t kill me.” In spite of the possibility that just such an attack could occur, Angela felt herself smiling at the man.

  “I’m not sure it would work, but my name is Natzili-Chee.”

  Angela struggled to pronounce it and failed miserably.

  “Just call me Chee,” he suggested. “It’s easier, and that’s what my friends call me.”

  “Where did you learn to speak English so well?” she asked as she continued working on his leg. He winced once when she had to pick out a peace of leaf from the raw flesh. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay. You’re just full of questions, aren’t you?”

  “I guess so.” It must be his eyes, she thought. They were wary, yet friendly. Something in them told her she had nothing to fear from this Apache, so she simply forgot to be afraid. She shrugged and tore a longer strip from her petticoat to use as a bandage. She blushed again, realizing what a view of her legs she’d just given him.

  Chee chuckled softly. “When I was a boy, I worked on a ranch over near Tucson. They taught me English.”

  “They taught you well. There. I’m finished,” she said, tying off the bandage securely. “You’d better go now. I’ve been gone too long just to fetch water. Someone might come looking for me.”

  Chee stood and tested the strength of his leg. He gave a grunt when he put his full weight on it. Next to his foot lay a long, stout limb. Angela picked it up and handed it to him. “Try this,” she offered.

  Chee asked her name, and she gave it. Then he thanked her for her help, apologized for scaring her, and turned to head farther upstream.

  Before he even got three feet, a loud, metallic click brought him up short. With a gasp, Angela spun around and stared into the cold gray eyes of Miller. Behind her she heard Chee turn slowly to face the threat.

  “Step aside, Angela,” Miller ordered.

  She knew what he intended. He intended to shoot Chee, and she stood directly in his line of fire. From somewhere inside her the answer came. “No.” Her eyes grew as wide as Miller’s. Her own daring stunned her, but she meant it.

  “What?” Miller croaked.

  “I said no.”

  Behind her back she motioned for Chee to go, but he waited. “He doesn’t have a gun, Miller. It would be murder,” Angela said, still motioning frantically for Chee to leave.

  “Murder! For Christsake, girl, he’s just a stinkin’ Apache! But then after the way you took up for them little half-breed brats back at the fort, the whole damn train knows you’re nothing but an Injun lover. At least the nits were only half scum. This’n here’s all scum.”

  “He’s a man, Miller. I thought you only shot dogs,” she taunted.

  Miller took a step toward her. She backed up. If he got his hands on her he could shove her out of the way and shoot Chee. Behind her, she finally heard Chee limp away.

  “I thought your method with men was to knock them down in some dark alley and take a club to them,” she taunted. “That’s more your style, isn’t it?” She couldn’t believe what she was doing.

  Miller stopped in his tracks and narrowed his eyes to menacing slits. “What the hell are you talkin’ about?”

  “You know exactly what I’m talking about. I saw you that night. I know you broke that man’s leg so you could get his job.”

  He drew his shoulders back, chin up, and waved his pistol in the air. “You don’t know what you’re sayin’.”

  “You know I do. And if you don’t let this man go, I’ll tell Mr. Hargrave just what happened to his last scout. You’ll never work on another wagon train again, he’ll see to that.”

  “Why you little bitch. You been lordin’ it all over the place how you were too good for the likes o’ me, and you’re nothin’ but a schemin’ little Injun-lovin’ blackmailer.”

  “At least I’m not a thug and a bully who makes little children cry.” She had to hold his attention no matter how scared she felt. His eyes kept straying over her shoulder, and finally she heard a crashing in the brush and the sound of hoofbeats pounding away from them.

  “I could silence ya right here and now. What’s to stop me?”

  Angela swallowed hard. There was nothing to stop him. Nothing, and no one. He could shoot her here and now and claim the Apache did it.

  This was worse, much worse than watching from the safety of her upstairs window while he hurt some stranger. This time it was her life on the line! Why, Lord why, hadn’t she told someone what she’d seen that night? Miller would have been thrown in jail and none of this would be happening. Why had she been such a fool and kept quiet?

  Wait! Miller had no way of knowing she hadn’t told anyone! Could she bluff her way out of this? Maybe. Just maybe.

  She took a deep breath and forced a bravado she was far from feeling.

  “What’s to stop you? Not much, I guess. Except I told my father what you did to that man in the alley, and Papa knows where I am right now. He probably saw you come here too. I imagine if anything happens to me, he’ll know who did it.”

  The look in Miller’s eyes told Angela she’d won, but she’d made an enemy for life out of one Mr. Abe Miller, wagon train scout and shooter of dogs. She grabbed up her bucket, filled it with water, and ran back to the relative safety of the wagons, her breath coming in frantic little gasps.

  The enormity of what she’d just done began to sink in, and her knees nearly buckled. She’d helped an Apache! She’d tended his wound and talked with him like they were old friends. She’d even sided with him against a white man. This was entirely different from the incident at the fort.

  Good Heavens! She’d even threatened Miller, and she was ten times more afraid of him than of the Apache.

  An hour later, Lucky Ward Hargrave called an end to the nooning. Men hitched up their teams and made ready to leave. When the wagon train moved out, one wagon stayed behind. A short time later, it, too, moved out, but it headed back to the east, back toward Camp Bowie in Apache Pass.

  Neither Angela nor her father saw the lone horseman light out in their same direction shortly before they left. If they had known the man called Miller was riding to Camp Bowie to report the sighting of the Apache, they might have taken precautions. But for the time being, their biggest concern was Sarah. She was getting weaker.

  Chapter Four

  They camped that night among the rugged rocks of Texas Canyon, still two days away from the fort and the much-needed doctor. But the next morning when Angela awoke, stiff and sore as usual from sleeping in her cramped place near the front of the wagon, the doctor was no longer needed.

  There sat her brave father, hero of the Confederate Army, with tears streaming down his face, holding…

  “Papa?”

  He didn’t hear her.

  “Papa? Papa! No! Oh, noooo! Motherrrr!”

  They buried Sarah Jane Barnes in the rocky ground amid huge boulders beside the trail. Joseph made a wooden marker, burning her name and the date into it with a piece of hot iron. He and Angela knelt beside the grave and clung to each other in sorrow. Finally, Joseph stood, ran his sleeve across his damp face, and helped Angela to her feet.

  “You go on back to the wagon, honey.” He cleared his throat before going on. “I’d like to be alone with your mother for a bit, this one…last time.” His voice cracked over the words.

  Angela stumbled back to the wagon, her arms and legs like lead, her tears finally dry. The anguish was too great for mere tears. She climbed onto the front seat of the wagon and watched her father kneel beside her mother’s grave. She could see his shoulders shaking. His head was bowed.

  A slight stirring of air brought the faint rustle of grass and a low murmur to her ears. He was talking to her mother, saying good-bye, but Angela couldn’t make out the words. She was glad; she didn’t want to hear such private thoughts as this final good-bye.

 
Angela was numb. This was surely no more than a bad dream. In the morning she’d wake up and everything would be fine. Her mother would be there, smiling at her. Her sweet, loving, gentle mother.

  It was a nightmare. But it was devastatingly real. Her mother was dead. The quiet sob that came from her father told her how real it was. Angela couldn’t imagine anything else on earth that could make her father cry.

  Joseph’s shoulders stiffened, and he stared past the marker toward the rocks. His hands balled up into tight fists at his sides. He spoke again.

  But that wasn’t her father’s voice! Following his line of sight, at first Angela saw nothing. Then a gleam of light bounced off something shiny in the rocks. Someone was there! She couldn’t see who it was, but obviously her father could. She strained for a better view, then saw the other person. Or at least part of him, a very small part. What she saw was a man’s right hand, and it held a pistol pointed directly at her father! Brush and boulders hid the rest of the man.

  The numbness she’d been experiencing still held her in its grip. What should she do? What could she do? With a start, she remembered the pistol her father kept in a leather pouch beneath the seat. Her hands shook violently as the numbness receded and terror took its place. Straining her ears to hear past the thundering of her own heart, she heard voices, harsh and angry, but couldn’t make out the words or identify the stranger in the rocks.

  With fumbling fingers, she hurried to find the gun. She choked back a sob of panic. Where? Where! Oh God, where was it? She felt her father’s rain slicker; a splinter jabbed into her palm; she cursed; she prayed. There it was! She grasped the smooth leather and hauled it up into her lap, banging it beneath the seat once on the way.

  Hurry hurry hurry! her mind screamed at her fingers. The drawstring was knotted. A whimper escaped her throat as she struggled with the stiff knot and tore off two fingernails before it finally came loose. The pistol was heavy and cold, a deadly thing, made for a deadly purpose. Her father always said a rifle was for killing food; a handgun was for killing men.

  She’d never fired a rifle or a handgun in her life, but she’d seen it done. Shaking so badly she had to use both hands, she raised the pistol straight out in front of her and managed, by using both thumbs, to pull the hammer back. This was no time to be a coward. Her mother was dead, and someone was holding a gun on her father!

  She didn’t think about the promise she’d made to herself that last night in Memphis. She didn’t think about being brave or heroic. She only knew she had to do what was necessary. This time she had no right to cower in some dark corner and hide until danger was past. Her father was unarmed and grief stricken. He was in no shape to defend himself. It was up to her.

  Dear Lord, please let this thing be loaded!

  The next instant was one she would remember for the rest of her life. It was over in a second, yet took a lifetime to happen. The man in the rocks pulled his trigger. Angela stared in horror as her father dropped to the ground, sprawling across her mother’s grave. The shot echoed dully in her ears and seemed to reverberate right down into her very soul…a deafening thunder she would hear in her sleep for as long as she lived. Trying to deny what she’d seen, Angela squeezed her eyes shut and pulled the trigger. The gun barked and bucked in her hands.

  She heard a sharp cry. Her eyes flew open. It was either pure accident or the hand of God, but she’d somehow managed to hit the only part of the man she could see—his gun hand.

  Then he disappeared in a loud crashing of brush, followed a moment later by the sound of receding hoofbeats.

  The gun dropped from her numb fingers. Frantic, she scrambled down from the wagon, her eyes never leaving the inert form of her father. When she reached his side, she rolled him over, calling his name. He didn’t answer. Her mind knew he was dead, but her heart refused to accept it. Until she saw the small blue-black hole in the center of his forehead.

  Stunned, she removed her hand from behind his head and it came away covered in blood and something else. She didn’t want to know what else. She began to scream. And she screamed, and she screamed, and she screamed. She screamed until she had no breath left with which to scream. Then she buried her face against her father’s lifeless shoulder and sobbed for what seemed like forever.

  She must have passed out or cried herself to sleep, for it was late in the day when she next looked around the little clearing. The mules still stood there, hitched to the wagon. The sun was past the noontime halfway mark. And her father lay dead across the fresh mound of her mother’s grave.

  Sweat ran down her face and body unnoticed. Blisters formed, burst, then formed and burst again, unnoticed. Dirt clung, skin burned. Muscles screamed with the unaccustomed effort of digging a grave. Angela’s only thought was that she must dig this grave, and she must do it right. She must lay her father to rest beside her mother, so they could be together here in this small clearing beside the trail that lead nowhere but to death.

  She worked to some secret rhythm, bending, shoveling, tossing, bending, shoveling, tossing. She’d never used a shovel before in her life. Sweat rolled down her face. Words came to her lips. Long-forgotten words from some long-forgotten poet.

  “‘To these whom death again did wed, this grave’s the second marriage-bed. For though the hand of Fate…’“What? The hand of Fate…What did it do? The hand of Fate… “‘For though the hand of Fate…could force ‘twixt soul and body a divorce, it could not sever man and wife, because they both lived but one life.’“

  Somehow, eventually, it was done. Her parents were together now, in the ground, in their “second marriage-bed,” in heaven, or wherever people went when they left this earth. At least they had each other.

  Angela now had no one. She was alone. Totally alone in the middle of nowhere.

  Slowly, in a soft, quavering voice, she began to sing.

  “A-ma-zi-ing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.”

  The skin on the back of her neck prickled.

  “I once was lo-ost, but now am found…”

  Someone was watching her! She could feel it in every nerve, every pore of her body. Her muscles tensed. Her throat constricted, but she managed to choke out,

  “Was blind, bu-ut now I see.”

  The feeling of being watched grew stronger. She even imagined she heard breathing. The empty gun lay on the wagon seat yards away. The shovel, too, was out of reach. She’d left it leaning against a boulder beyond the graves. Not knowing what else to do, she kept on singing.

  “‘Twas grace tha-at taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears re-lieved;

  “How pre-cious did that grace a-ppear the hour I first be-lieved!”

  Was it him? The man who’d killed her father? The one she’d shot? Had he come back to kill her, too?

  “Thro’ ma-ny dan-gers, toils and snares, I have al-ready come;

  ‘Tis grace hath bro’t me safe thus far, and grace wi-ill lead me home.”

  Doggedly, as if her life depended on it, as if the very words could keep her safe, she kept on singing:

  “The Lord hath pro-mised good to me,

  “His word my-y hope se-cure,

  “He wi-ill my shield and por-tion be, as long as life en-dures.”

  Surely God wouldn’t allow her to be murdered while she sang her mother’s favorite hymn!

  “When we’ve been there ten thou-sand years, bright shi-ning as the sun…”

  Oh Lord, oh Lord. This was the last verse she knew! What then? What then?

  “We’ve no-o less days…”

  The song should comfort her, maker her strong. But it didn’t.

  “To si-ing God’s praise…”

  She ended on a sob,

  “Than when we-e first be-gun.”

  With trembling fingers, she dabbed at her moist eyes, then squared her shoulders. She would turn, and he would be there, her father’s murderer. And he would kill her.

  A strange calm settled over her. She noticed for the first
time what a beautiful day it was. The sky was a deep, clear blue; the air was fresh and clean. From a nearby bush, a blue jay scolded, sending two small sparrows fluttering away.

  Slowly, with the anxious twittering of the sparrows still in her ears, Angela turned to face her father’s murder.

  For less than an instant, relief surged through her veins. It wasn’t him!

  Then she gasped as her dazed mind leaped to life, warning her she was in even greater danger than she’d imagined.

  Indians!

  Directly before her unbelieving eyes, three savage looking Apaches swayed drunkenly on shaggy horses. Angela knew instinctively that these Apaches were nothing like the one she’d met yesterday. They were dressed the same, breechcloth and moccasins, and they had the same coloring, some of the same facial features. But Chee had only wanted help. These men wanted something more. Much, much more.

  For a long moment nobody moved. Angela stood frozen in shock, unable to even breathe. Then, as if on cue, all three Apaches kicked their horses forward and started circling her, yelling wild cries that sent shivers of dread down her spine. A nearly empty whiskey bottle sailed from one pair of hard brown hands to another as the riders circled closer. Every time she tried to dodge away, a horse was there to nudge her back into the center of flashing hooves and leering faces. She whirled repeatedly, gasping for breath, looking for a way out as the encircling savages drew closer and closer. Dizziness made her stumble.

  Suddenly a pair of hard, cruel hands grabbed her from behind and slung her face down over a horse, in front of the rider with the thin, smirking lips. The breath left her lungs upon impact. Someone tied her hands and feet tightly, cutting off her circulation. She parted her lips to scream, but a dark hand shoved a dirty rag into her mouth.

  The horse turned. Angela screamed behind the gag. Draped helplessly across the animal’s back, she swayed and bobbed with every flex of its muscles, fearing more than anything that she’d slip to the ground and be trampled by those fierce, sharp hooves.