Madeline Baker

by Prairie Heat

  “Anyway, they showed the People how to live the Life-way and gave the People powerful ceremonies to end disease and invoke blessings. But the Ganhs soon became disgusted with the Apache and returned to their homes in the sacred mountains. Nowadays, only a few men are given the right to perform the dances.”

  Mattie nodded, wondering at the peculiar beliefs of the Indians.

  As the night wore on, the singing grew louder and more intense and she followed Jess outside. Sitting beside him, she saw people carrying torches moving toward the center of the village.

  And then she saw the Ganhs. Their faces were covered by black masks, and white paint in a variety of designs decorated their chests and arms and legs. Mattie thought they were altogether frightening. One carried a trident, another a large wooden sword.

  “Scary, aren’t they?” Mattie remarked, moving closer to McCord.

  Jess nodded. “Pregnant women don’t attend ceremonies where the Ganhs are going to dance because they think the sight of the dancers might frighten the baby.”

  Mattie could understand that. It was frightening, the way the Clown dashed around, swinging a bull-roarer over his head.

  After a long time, the men portraying the Mountain Spirits touched the sick person with their swords and tridents. Jess explained that they were transferring the sickness out of the patient and into the swords to be shaken back into the air.

  Mattie thought it was a lot of superstitious nonsense until she saw the patient stand up and walk back to her lodge.

  “That’s impossible!” she exclaimed. “You can’t heal sickness by chanting and dancing and waving a stick in the air.”

  “Can’t you?”

  “Of course not. You don’t really believe those men healed that woman of anything serious, do you?”

  “It’s faith, Mattie. The woman who was sick believes in the healing power of the Ganhs, and her family believes.”

  “Faith healing?” Mattie remarked skeptically.

  “I guess you could call it that.”

  “I still think it’s impossible,” Mattie insisted stubbornly, but her words lacked their earlier conviction. The woman had been sick, and now she was well. Maybe faith healing was possible. She was a strong believer in the power of earnest prayer. And so, it seemed, were the Chiricahua.

  Jess and Mattie sat outside the lodge the following afternoon, enjoying the warmth of the sun as they watched the activity in the camp. Cochise was a vital presence, an honorable man who was loved and respected by his people. His wisdom and sense of humor endeared the chief to all who knew him.

  Cochise was walking through the village now, pausing to speak to the di-yin, Dee-o-det, stopping to help a young boy string his bow, smiling at the antics of a little girl who was trying to catch a long-legged spotted puppy.

  The Apache chief was a legend. He was a brilliant general, a fearless fighter. He had never been defeated in battle.

  As the afternoon wore on, Mattie went inside to take a nap. A few minutes later, Jess walked down to the stream where he undressed and stepped into the cool water. He sat in the shallow depths, enjoying the coldness washing over his wounded leg, content, for the moment, to do nothing.

  Gazing at the slow-moving water, he considered what his life would have been like if his father had stayed with the Indians. He would have married an Apache girl, had children, ridden the war trail with Vittorio. He would never have known any other life, nor wanted one, and for a time he thought of staying with the Apache, of forsaking his hunt for Kane. But even as he contemplated such a thing, he knew he wouldn’t do it. He would not rest until Elias Kane had paid the full price for what he’d done to Kathleen.

  And then there was Mattie. He grinned as he thought of her. Perhaps he should stay here. He could make her his woman and they could spend the rest of their lives here, in the Dragoons. He wondered what Mattie would say if he decided to stay, if she’d put up much of a fight.

  But he would never know. Heaving a sigh, he stood up and stepped onto the grassy bank, shaking the water from his arms and legs. He glanced over his shoulder at the sound of approaching footsteps and grinned wryly as he saw Mattie walking toward him. She came to an abrupt halt when she saw him standing beside the stream, buck-naked.

  “Oh!” she gasped, and whirled around, her hands pressed to her flaming cheeks as she tried to exorcise his image from her mind. She closed her eyes, but the picture of his long, lean body glistening with drops of water had been seared into her brain. He looked wild and untamed standing there, with the stream at his feet and the mountains looming in the background.

  “I thought you were going to take a nap,” Jess remarked as he reached for his clout.

  “I was, but I couldn’t sleep. Yellow Hawk told me you were here.”

  Jess grunted as he pulled on his leggings and slipped his shirt over his head. “You can turn around now.”

  She did so slowly, wondering how she could ever face him again. He was clothed now, but the image of his nakedness was fresh in her mind—the rippling muscles encased in smooth, copper-hued skin; the long legs, broad shoulders and muscular arms. She felt the heat climb in her cheeks again.

  “Did you want something, Mattie?”

  “No.” Just your company. She had felt lost without him, alone. For a moment she wished they could stay with the Apache forever, that she could forget about Josiah Thornton and give her heart to Jess, let him teach her all the nuances of love, let him fulfill the promises she’d seen in his eyes.

  They gazed at each other for a long while, unaware of the passage of time. She wished Jess would take her in his arms and bend her to his will, force her to surrender, even though she knew she would hate him for it, and herself as well.

  When had life become so complicated? She wondered if the Indians wrestled with matters of honor versus desire, of right against wrong.

  With an effort, Jess drew his gaze from Mattie’s face. There was no point wishing for something that could never be. Mattie was a married woman, and he had vowed to bring Elias Kane to justice. The sooner he remembered that, the better.

  “We’ll be leaving in the morning,” he said curtly.

  “So soon?”

  He heard the regret in her voice and looked up, his gaze probing hers. “Do you want to stay?”

  “Of course not,” she replied, flustered that he could read her so easily. “I just thought you might want to rest another few days.”

  “I’ve rested enough. And Kane’s got too much of a head start as it is.”

  Kane, she thought. She had forgotten all about him. But Jess hadn’t. He would never forget.

  She felt a sudden ache in her heart as she realized that Jess would never forget Kathleen either. He might make love to other women, but he would never be in love with them, or with her.

  “I’ll be ready,” Mattie said, and turned away before he could see her tears.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Mattie bade Yellow Hawk goodbye, smiled at his mother and his uncle, and spoke a quiet thank you to Dee-o-det, even though the medicine man didn’t speak English. Once, she would have thought of these people as the enemy, but they were her friends now. They had given her shelter, tended McCord’s wounds. She had walked among their lodges, heard the laughter of their children. She would never think of the Apache as savages again.

  Yellow Hawk’s mother, Corn Flower Woman, gave Mattie a hand-woven bracelet. It was about an inch wide, beaded in a flower design of blue and yellow.

  “My mother thanks you again for what you did for me,” Yellow Hawk said as Mattie slipped the bracelet on her wrist. “She wishes you a safe journey and hopes that one day you will return and share the hospitality of our lodge.”

  “Thank her for me. I only wish I had something to give her in return for the bracelet. Oh, here,” Mattie said, removing one of the ivory combs from her hair. “Give her this.”

  Yellow Hawk handed the comb to Corn Flower Woman, listened carefully to what his mother said, then smil
ed at Mattie. “My mother says that, in her heart, she will always think of you as her sister.”

  “And she will be my sister,” Mattie replied. She smiled at Corn Flower Woman, and then Jess was lifting her onto the back of a horse and they were riding out of the village.

  “That was nice, what you did back there,” Jess remarked as they made their way through the narrow defile that was the only way out of the rancheria.

  “It seemed right, to give her something in return for the bracelet.”

  Jess grunted softly. “It’s customary, but you didn’t know that.”

  They rode in silence for several minutes, and then Mattie’s curiosity started working. “Jess, why didn’t they call the Ganhs to cure your leg?”

  “There wasn’t any need. Dee-o-det knew what to do.”

  “Would you have asked for them if Dee-o-det’s medicine hadn’t helped?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Does it always work, all that singing and dancing?”

  “Not always.”

  She fell silent then, pondering what she had learned about the Apache people, and about Jess McCord. Neither were what they had first appeared to be.

  “How soon will we be in Lordsburg?” Mattie asked after a while.

  “We’re going to Bisbee. It’s closer, and you should be able to get a stage to Tucson from there.”

  She lost interest in conversation as they started down the mountain, concentrating on keeping her seat, on making sure her horse followed McCord’s. The heat became intense as the sun climbed in the sky.

  She glanced down at her skirt and shook her head. The hem was frayed and torn, the velvet stained. Her blouse was no longer white, but a dingy gray. Her jacket, stuffed in her saddlebag with her gloves, was also ruined.

  The buckskins Yellow Hawk’s uncle had given McCord were much better suited to life on the trail, and she wished she’d had the nerve to ask Corn Flower Woman for a change of clothes. But then, perhaps it was just as well she hadn’t. It would hardly be proper to ride into Tucson looking like an Apache squaw.

  She grinned as she imagined what Josiah Thornton would think if his bride showed up in a doeskin tunic and calf-high moccasins.

  They rode all that day, not talking much, though Jess occasionally pointed out landmarks or told her the name of a particularly interesting cactus or flower.

  Just when Mattie thought the day would never end, the sun dipped behind the horizon and the air grew cool, almost cold.

  They ate jerky and wild plums for dinner, washed down with water from a canteen. McCord was unusually quiet at dinner and Mattie guessed his leg was still bothering him. He was certainly a stubborn man, she thought, to insist on traveling when he should have been resting.

  They turned in early, but Mattie remained awake long after Jess was asleep, her rest marred by too many turbulent emotions.

  Jess had been asleep about an hour when he cried Kathleen’s name. He sat up abruptly, his eyes wild, his breathing rapid.

  “Are you all right?” Mattie asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Bad dreams?”

  He looked at her as if she were crazy. He was a grown man, not a snot-nosed kid. But then he nodded. “Yeah.”

  “You were dreaming about her again, weren’t you? About Kathleen?”

  Jess nodded. He let out a deep breath, then ran the back of his hand over his jaw. “Sorry if I woke you.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “Bad dreams?” he asked with a wry grin.

  Mattie shook her head. “No. Just not sleepy, I guess.”

  Jess grunted softly, wishing he had a cigar and a cup of strong black coffee.

  “Was she pretty?” The question was out and there was no way to call it back.

  Jess stared at her for a long time, and then he nodded.

  “Does it bother you to talk about her?”

  “No. She had long blonde hair, soft, like dandelion down, and eyes as blue as the Pacific.”

  “You loved her very much.” It wasn’t a question. She already knew the answer.

  “More than my life.” His thoughts turned inward, and when he spoke, Mattie knew he’d forgotten she was there. “I met her at a church social,” Jess said, his voice soft and low. “I wasn’t much for attending church, but it was Christmas and I was the town marshal, and the townspeople sort of expected me to put in an appearance.

  “Kathleen was there with her father. She was wearing a light blue dress with a big white sash, and she looked about twelve years old. She was the first thing I saw when I entered the room.”

  Jess paused, seeing it all again in his mind: the colorful streamers that decorated the hall, and the tables spread with bright red cloths, filled to overflowing with cakes, pies and Christmas cookies. Down the corridors of time, he heard the waltz they’d been playing when Kathleen walked toward him.

  “She asked me to dance,” he went on, a bemused expression on his face. “I don’t know why. None of the other women would have done such a thing. Oh, they talked to me on the street, all right, and the men respected me because of my gun, but I wasn’t one of them and they made sure I knew it. But Kathleen danced with me. I don’t know why,” he said again. “Maybe she felt sorry for me. I fell in love with her the minute I took her in my arms, and I never stopped.”

  He stared into the distance for a moment, and when he spoke again, his voice was hard and cold. “Her father disowned her for marrying me, and some of her friends wouldn’t associate with her because she’d married a half-breed, but she never complained, not once in three years. She said it didn’t matter what other people thought, what they said, but I knew it did. I wanted to quit my job, move to another town, but she wouldn’t hear of it. Lordsburg was her home. Her father was there, and she loved him in spite of the way he treated her.

  “And then Kane robbed the bank.” Jess sighed heavily. “Kathleen’s father came to see me that night, the first time he’d ever come to our house. He told me it was all my fault his little girl was dead.”

  “But it wasn’t!” Mattie exclaimed, shocked by the man’s cruelty.

  “But it was. She’d been coming to see me when it happened. If I hadn’t married her, she’d be alive today.”

  Mattie gazed at Jess, her heart aching for the pain she saw reflected in his eyes. She’d never seen such anguish in a man’s face before, never witnessed such pain. She searched her mind for something to say, some brilliant philosophical statement that would ease his heartache, but nothing came to mind.

  He was hurting deep inside, and she could not bear to see him suffer. Slipping from her blanket, Matilda went to McCord, wondering if she was making a mistake. He was a proud man, strong and self-sufficient. Perhaps he would be offended if she tried to console him.

  She hesitated for a moment, then continued toward him. She couldn’t just stand there and do nothing when he so obviously needed solace. Kneeling beside him, she put her arm around his shoulders, hoping that her nearness and the knowledge that she cared would help to ease his pain.

  Jess let out a long shuddering sigh as Mattie’s arm slid around his shoulders. He didn’t want her feeling sorry for him, and he wondered what had made him talk to her about it in the first place. He had never shared his innermost thoughts with anyone before. What had prompted him to do it now?

  He turned to face Mattie, thinking to tell her to go back to bed, to tell her he didn’t need her pity, but one look into her luminous blue eyes chased the words from his mind. It wasn’t pity he read in her gaze but compassion, the same compassion that had prompted her to intervene on Yellow Hawk’s behalf.

  He sat there for a long time, content to be held as he had not been held since Kathleen died. A faint breeze stirred across the face of the land, whispering to the cactus, teasing the sagebrush, and he became aware of Mattie’s scent, warm and womanly. Her arm was a welcome weight on his shoulders, he could feel the swell of her breast against his arm. A wisp of her hair blew across his cheek as soft as silk, an
d he longed to sweep her into his arms, to bury his face in the wealth of her hair.

  A sharp awareness went through him as his grief for Kathleen warred with his desire for Matilda Thornton. He had not had a woman since he lost Kathleen, had not wanted one. Kathleen. She would not have wanted him to grieve forever, not his Kathleen. She had been so full of love and life, so eager to laugh, to make him laugh. She would have wanted him to go on with the business of living, to love again.

  He thought of the day she died. Looking past his pain for the first time, he realized her death was not his fault, not really. There was no way he could have foreseen the consequences of that fateful day when he married Kathleen. Nor could he be held accountable for Elias Kane’s behavior on the day he robbed the bank. But Kane had killed Kathleen, and for that he would die.

  Mattie stroked his arm and Jess was acutely aware of her nearness once again. He had loved Kathleen, would always love her, but his feelings for Mattie were just as real, just as strong. And Mattie was there beside him, warm and alive, and he wanted her as he hadn’t wanted a woman in months. More than that, he needed her.

  Mattie’s arm fell away from his shoulders as he turned to face her. Her eyes were large and dark in the moonlight. A quick sigh escaped her lips and then she was in his arms, her eyelids fluttering down as his mouth closed over hers.

  It was wrong, so terribly wrong, but for this one moment in time she didn’t care. She had been yearning for him, dreaming of him, and for this night she would be his. Tomorrow she would think about Josiah Thornton. Tomorrow she would accept the guilt, but for tonight she would not think of right or wrong. She would think only of Jess, of the wonder of his touch, the magic of his lips. For this night, if never again, he needed her and she could not turn him away, not now, when she so desperately needed him.

  It was wrong, so terribly wrong, but he didn’t care. She would belong to Josiah Thornton for the rest of her life, but for this one night, she would be his. He gazed deep into her eyes, touched by the warmth that he saw there.

  His arms tightened around her as he bent his head to kiss her, and there was no room in his heart or his mind for anyone but Mattie, sweet, gentle Mattie with hair like a black velvet cloud and eyes as blue as cornflowers.