Apache-Colton Series

by Janis Reams Hudson

  The next morning before starting up the narrow trail that ribboned along the edge of the mountain, Spence and LaRisa redistributed the packs of supplies. For this, the three extra horses came in handy.

  “Nothing that hangs out any farther than a stirrup,” Spence warned. “The trail’s too narrow for anything wider. An old Army scout named Tom Horn made it up this way once with Crook. Called it ‘a yard wide and a mile deep, with Apaches lurking on both sides.’ According to Serena, once you start up, you’re committed. There’s no way to turn around until you get to the top.”

  LaRisa was glad, later, that she hadn’t accused him of exaggerating, as had been her impulse. The trail was steep and narrow. More narrow than she’d thought. She knew, too, that he’d been right to insist they go on foot and lead their horses. While one stirrup rubbed against the side of the mountain, the other hung out over the edge, with nothing to break a fall for more than a thousand feet in some places. She learned quickly not to look down. One misstep, and it would all be over. Walking was definitely safer than riding.

  It was also safer for the animals that they not be tied together as they had been on the trail. This way, if the unthinkable happened and one slipped over the edge, the others would not be dragged with it.

  The mere thought chilled LaRisa’s blood.

  She tried to imagine the first person to climb this trail and discover the natural fortress at the top. What desperate straits had caused someone to follow this narrow ledge, not knowing what awaited, not knowing if the trail would lead to a haven, or a dead end.

  The horse in front of her slipped, and its rear outside hoof slid off the edge.

  LaRisa held her breath, but she needn’t have worried about halting her own mount, who followed. The mare stopped of her own accord.

  The horse in front of her screamed in terror and scrambled for solid footing.

  Spence felt his blood freeze. He whipped around, stark fear in his chest. “Risa!” Because of the bend around an outcropping of rock, he couldn’t see her or the last three animals. He couldn’t see her! “Risa!”

  “I’m fine,” LaRisa called, her voice echoing along the steep trail. “It’s the last packhorse, but he’s okay now. Keep going.”

  Spence nearly wilted with relief. God, for a minute he’d feared…He forced himself to breathe slowly to calm his racing heart and trembling hands. Christ, he wanted off this damn trail. It wasn’t fit for a goddamn mountain goat.

  The trail rounded one more outcropping of rock, then suddenly widened and led through the center of an oak grove. No more narrow ledge, no more wall to hug, no more thousand-foot drop mere inches away.

  Spence stood beside his horse and ran a hand along its neck, waiting for LaRisa, who had walked behind the animals. He caught a brief glimpse of her and saw her relieved smile seconds before the skin on the back of his neck crawled a warning.

  Instinctively he knew it was too late to do anything more than turn slowly toward whatever menace awaited. He dropped his reins and did so.

  They were surrounded. He counted five young warriors, bows drawn tight, arrows knocked and aimed, all at him. The young man before him, the tallest, who looked to be in his early twenties, slowly eased the tension on his bow. “Col-ton?”

  “Niño.” Spence let out his breath. The young man had grown tall and strong in the years since Spence had been here. He had the look of a leader about him, the way his sharp eyes took in the pack animals, the way he signaled the others to lower their weapons. He had the look of pure man when he eyed LaRisa.

  Get used to it, Spence told himself. She would need a man to protect and provide for her, even in this peaceful stronghold.

  “You are welcome,” Niño offered. “Come to camp. When you’ve eased your thirst you can tell us what news you bring.”

  Pa-Gotzin-Kay roughly translated to mean Stronghold Mountain of Paradise. The rancheria occupied a shelf of fertile red earth that stretched just over half a mile from east to west and around two and a half miles north and south along a slight curve. The western side ended in a sheer drop-off into Nacozari Canyon far below, while the east was flanked by an amber escarpment that stretched to the forested, snow-capped backbone of the Sierra Madres.

  Serene. That was the word that came to Spence’s mind as he rode beside Niño toward the single camp where everyone lived. The land here on this mountain shelf spoke of peace.

  As they neared camp, Spence noticed a huge garden surrounded by a thick fence of dead brush. A woman was supervising a half-dozen children as they knelt between rows of vegetables to pull weeds.

  Beyond, another brush barrier outlined a small pasture where a dozen or more fat cattle grazed on lush grass. At the opposite end of the garden a group of men and women worked over two deer hides and a bear skin stretched on frames.

  In the center of it all sat approximately two dozen grass and brush wickiups, their doors all facing east. Laughing children darted in and out of the adjacent woods. Mothers scolded lovingly. Fathers smiled in satisfaction.

  They had built something good here, these people. They’d built a community that took care of its own. The People lived peacefully in these mountains, troubling no one, minding their own business. All they asked was to be left alone by the world. For their sakes, Spence hoped their existence remained a secret to the rest of Sonora.

  Quietly, by twos and threes, people paused to watch the newcomers.

  LaRisa felt their curious stares and braced herself. The sting of censure she’d felt in Alabama was still fresh in her mind.

  Slowly she realized she felt none of that wariness and distrust from these people. Merely friendly curiosity. She allowed herself to relax.

  The one Spence called Niño led them to the center of the compound. They dismounted before a wickiup ringed by large, flat stones. A shaman’s wickiup. The shaman’s wickiup, she realized. Before the doorway stood a man wrinkled beyond age, with flowing white hair and sharp intelligent eyes that were ageless.

  Dee-O-Det.

  He had been an old, old man when she had been a child and her father had brought her here after Cibecue Creek. Her memories of the place may have faded, but not of the man. Perhaps that was because he’d been kept alive in her mind by the stories told around campfires at night until she’d been sent to Carlisle. He looked exactly the way she remembered.

  By the way he greeted Spence, the two had obviously met before. The two men spoke with open friendliness. It was a moment before LaRisa realized they were speaking Apache. Both of them. She had heard Spence speak a few words in her language when they’d been in Alabama, but she’d had no idea he was so fluent.

  “Who have you brought with you?” the shaman asked.

  “This is LaRisa,” Spence told him. “The daughter of Natzili-Chee.”

  “Ah, yes. Welcome, my child. Your father was a strong and wise warrior. We were saddened to hear of his death.”

  Stunned, she asked, “But how could you know?”

  The old man chuckled. “I see that look in your eyes. No, it was not by magic that I learned the sad news. We had a new arrival here a few weeks ago. One of The People walked away from that prison in Ala-bama and came to live with us.”

  Beside her, Spence shifted. “Who?”

  “You will meet him.” Dee-O-Det dismissed the subject and turned toward a woman who approached. “Ah, Nod-ah-Sti. You remember Spen-cer Col-ton.”

  “Au,” she said. “Yes. Welcome back, Spen-cer. Please, you must tell us of your family. How are they? What is the news?”

  Before Spence could answer, Dee-O-Det introduced LaRisa to the woman. She was Niño’s mother, and Serena Colton’s best friend. During the introductions, the old shaman led the way inside his wickiup.

  This was the first time since being taken away from Arizona that LaRisa had been inside of, or even seen, a wickiup. In her memory, a wickiup represented shelter and security, warmth in winter and shade in summer. Happiness. Freedom. Home.

  Eagerly, she looked
around. Across from the doorway rested a bed of sweet-smelling dried grass covered with a cougar skin. More skins—cougar and bear—covered the floor where Nod-ah-Sti, Niño, Dee-O-Det, Spence, and LaRisa sat. Along the curved wall of grass and willow poles sat baskets, jugs, and leather pouches of all sizes. All the worldly goods of this great shaman.

  Unlike in her memories, the word that now came to LaRisa’s mind was “sparse.” This was the existence of her childhood. What she had always thought of as strong and secure now revealed itself for what it was—a crude grass shelter that would let in the rain and snow, mice and snakes, and any intruder who cared to flip the door-hide aside and enter.

  Her thoughts shamed her. She had lived too long in the white world. And she had better get over it if Pa-Gotzin-Kay was to be her new home. She would spend the rest of her days in a wickiup such as this.

  Spence was explaining, without going into detail other than to tell about the law, that LaRisa might wish to stay in the stronghold. He did not mention their marriage.

  “But of course you must stay,” Nod-ah-Sti claimed. “You will stay with Niño and me, both of you. Don’t you agree, Niño?”

  Her son did, indeed, agree. The smile on his lips and in his eyes struck LaRisa as the warmest, most welcoming thing she’d seen. There was something else in his eyes, too. A frank interest he didn’t try to hide. LaRisa felt herself fidgeting under his ardent regard.

  Spence saw the look, too, and had to think twice before accepting Nod-ah-Sti’s invitation. But what right did he have to be angry over the way the young man looked at LaRisa? It wasn’t as though Niño were drooling. Yet.

  That was unfair, Spence told himself. Niño’s interest might be blatant, but it wasn’t rude or suggestive. The man was much too polite to act that way.

  Spence could have put an end to the hope in Niño’s eyes by telling them that he and LaRisa were married. Yet he had deliberately refrained from revealing that fact. A young maiden was treated with more respect than was sometimes afforded what to these people would be a divorced woman.

  As long as The People thought of LaRisa as a maiden, she would be treated well. She’d be in good hands at Pa-Gotzin-Kay.

  He did want her in good hands, didn’t he?

  Dee-O-Det had never gotten around to answering LaRisa’s question about who had come to Pa-Gotzin-Kay from Alabama. When the group stepped out of the shaman’s wickiup a short time later, the question of the identity of the newest resident was answered, and not to Spence’s or LaRisa’s liking. The newcomer was Broken Hand.

  He stood just outside the ring of sacred rocks encircling the shaman’s wickiup, arms folded over his thick chest, sturdy legs slightly spread. A stance of waiting. A stance of challenge.

  At the sight of him LaRisa stiffened. She couldn’t help but remember the way he had chastised her at her father’s burial. Instantly, her chin went out and her jaw squared.

  Spence’s reaction was much more primitive. He and Broken Hand had never gotten along. The last time they’d been within yards of each other had been at Chee’s funeral. Spence had stood back and let LaRisa deal with Broken Hand’s hostility. He’d be damned if he would do so again. It took considerable willpower to keep from stepping between the two now. He wanted to tell the man to keep away from her. That LaRisa wouldn’t appreciate Spence’s interference was the only thing that stopped him.

  How was he supposed to leave her here now?

  “Ah,” Dee-O-Det said. “I see the three of you know each other.”

  “We have met,” LaRisa stated flatly, her gaze squarely on Broken Hand. “I would not say we know each other.”

  A grin spread on Broken Hand’s face. “That can be remedied.”

  LaRisa arched a brow. “Can it?”

  “Come,” Nod-ah-Sti said, stepping in front of LaRisa and Spence. “There will be plenty of time to…renew old acquaintances later. Let us get you settled first. My son,” she said turning to Niño, “please bring their belongings to our wickiup.”

  As LaRisa and Spence followed Nod-ah-Sti to her wickiup a few yards away, LaRisa felt Broken Hand’s stare burning into her back.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “The gifts were lovely,” Nod-ah-Sti said as she toured LaRisa through the camp’s garden. “Imagine. Just by picking up a piece of silvered glass, I’ll be able to see myself. I won’t have to go all the way to the pool.”

  LaRisa smiled. Such a small, simple thing, a hand mirror, yet when Spence had presented it from Serena, Nod-ah-Sti had been thrilled. So, too, when she’d torn through the paper and string to find a long red cape of heavy wool lined with red satin. “Oh, I have never seen a thing so lovely,” she had cried. Her fingers had stroked the fabric reverently. She’d wrapped it around her shoulders and had worn it the rest of the evening.

  “The squash will be plentiful this year,” Nod-ah-Sti mentioned as they passed the hills of giant-leaved plants. “We are eager for the taste of them. We were snowed in all winter, and the game had fled. It seemed as though spring would never get here.”

  “You’ve had a hard time of it,” LaRisa offered.

  “Perhaps, but at least there are no bluecoats here to keep us prisoner.” She laughed. “Only the winter snow, the spring floods, and our enemies, the Mexicans.”

  LaRisa gave a small smile, but found nothing to laugh about. She had always thought freedom meant specific things, like being able to come and go as one pleased, being able to do whatever one wished, so long as it wasn’t harmful to others. It seemed that what these people had was something less than what she thought freedom should be.

  Still, this place was beautiful. It wasn’t the same as the wide open desert, but the people were warm and friendly—except for Broken Hand, and surely she could ignore him when she couldn’t avoid him. She could make a life for herself here.

  A hollow spot opened up in her chest, and a strong ache bloomed there. An ache named Spencer Colton.

  Nonsense. He is nothing to you; you are nothing to him.

  But if so, why did the thought of never seeing him again nearly buckle her knees?

  “The supplies you brought are most welcome. We’ll make good use of the cloth, the food, everything. And the candy,” she added with a grin. “The children love hard candy.”

  LaRisa smiled. “Only the children?”

  “Perhaps not,” Nod-ah-Sti confessed with a laugh. “Niño will treasure his new knife with the…what kind of handle did you say?”

  “Ivory.” At Nod-ah-Sti’s blank stare, LaRisa added, “It comes from the tusks of a huge animal from across the ocean.”

  “Ivory.” Nod-ah-Sti nodded her head as if she knew exactly where ivory came from. “It is beautiful, this ivory. So, too, the Navajo blanket for Dee-O-Det.”

  “I’m glad you all liked the gifts.”

  “I’m glad you brought them. Come. The pond is down this path. It is cool there. A good spot to sit and think.”

  The woman led the way, and LaRisa followed. Voices from the camp faded behind them and the woods pressed close to the path. A half-mile from the camp, the path opened into a clearing around a small, beautiful spring-fed pool. It was indeed a place to come and think, LaRisa decided.

  Nod-ah-Sti lowered herself to a flat rock at the edge of the pool. “Do you think you will stay with us, then?”

  “Yes,” LaRisa answered quietly. “I believe I will. That is, if no one minds.”

  “Of course no one minds. All are welcome here. Your father was our friend, but even had he not been, you seem like one we would like to have in our midst. I know my son thinks so,” she added slyly.

  LaRisa swallowed. “He’s…very nice.”

  “But he is not Spen-cer Col-ton?”

  LaRisa glanced quickly away from those too perceptive eyes. “Whatever do you mean?”

  Nod-ah-Sti chuckled softly. “My son may be blind, but I am not. I see the way you and the white medicine man look at each other.” When LaRisa did not respond, Nod-ah-Sti said, “Forgive me
. It is none of my concern.”

  “There is nothing to forgive. There is nothing between Spence and me. Believe me.”

  LaRisa so enjoyed the solitude of the little glade and the pool that when Nod-ah-Sti said she had to return to camp, LaRisa remained behind.

  “I understand,” Nod-ah-Sti said. “You have a difficult decision to make. Some time to yourself is what you need.”

  But LaRisa really had no decision to make. She watched Nod-ah-Sti disappear around a bend in the trail, then sat back down at the water’s edge. No decision at all, for she had no real choice but to stay here, unless she wanted to live off Spence’s family. At least here at Pa-Gotzin-Kay she could put her nursing skills to use when necessary. She could help in the garden. She could learn to tan hides and to cook over an open fire. She could contribute to life here.

  At the Triple C, she could only live off the generosity of others.

  No, she had no decision to make. Once again, she felt her fate taken out of her hands. Damn the white man’s law that wouldn’t let her live her own life in Arizona.

  By the time LaRisa decided to return to camp, the sun was sinking, setting the sky on fire with brilliant red streaks. She rose from the rock beside the water and turned toward the trail.

  A brief rustle of brush was her only warning before Broken Hand stepped from the shadows and blocked the path.

  LaRisa halted instantly. He was too close, only a couple of yards away. She had to force herself to hold her ground. If she wanted any kind of peace in this new life, she was going to have to deal with this man.

  “So,” he said with a smirk, “we meet again.”

  LaRisa said nothing, merely stared at him. The shadows around them began to lengthen.

  “Have you been with the white doctor all these moons? He is not very dependable, you know. He will let you die. Sitting Woman trusted him, and she died. Of course, she wasn’t worth much, but my son died with her. Your white man, he killed them.”