Desert Sunrise

by Raine Cantrell

  No pity asked for, none given. Delaney had to respect her. But he was annoyed with his reaction to her honey-rich voice. It made him feel … restless.

  A razor edge of anger tainted his words. “Holliday ain’t a doctor. He’s a dentist. When he’s sober, which ain’t often, duchess. An’ he’s snake mean.”

  Faith shook her head in denial. The pale-skinned young man that she had met had been gracious and kind to her and her father, despite his sorrowful air. She remembered his soft, southern accent and the piercing blue of his eyes when he refused her offer to barter for his services.

  Delaney wasn’t going to waste his time arguing with her. He found himself wondering again at the foolishness of men who dragged their families into this barren land under the newly passed Desert Land Act to file their twenty-five-cent-an-acre claims on six hundred and forty acres of hell.

  But then, hell was where he called home.

  To check his forward move, Faith grabbed hold of his arm. “You can’t just walk away. Give me a reason why you refuse to work for us.”

  Both their gazes lit on her hand. Faith could feel the sinewy strength of his arm beneath her fingertips. And the sudden warmth. She fought off the dark response that shivered through her.

  “Give me a reason. Or name your price,” Faith demanded. “But don’t, don’t keep me begging.”

  “Woman shouldn’t ever beg a man. For anything.”

  “I never had to until now.”

  “Stubborn little—”

  “All we have to call home is the land my father filed his claim on.” Faith made a desperate attempt to regain her self-control. Suddenly she realized that she still gripped his arm, and she snatched her hand away as if burned. “I’m wasting your time and my own. But we’ll get there with your help or without it.”

  “Prescott’s got a sheriff. Might see the day when it’ll get civilized.”

  “Our land is south of a new mining camp called Tombstone. You know that territory. Why won’t you scout for us?”

  “If your pa told you that’s what he wanted to hire me for, he lied. He wants a gun.”

  The underlying bitterness in his voice surprised her. Before Faith thought what to answer him, she was distracted by two women who stepped out from the doorway of the mercantile. They started toward them, but the older woman spotted Delaney and with an abrupt about-face dragged the younger woman after her. For some unknown reason Faith was annoyed when the younger woman looked back several times and smiled at Delaney.

  “Best be on your way, duchess.”

  She felt a stab of hurt for him. His slight move brought her attention to the weapon he wore as if it were a part of his body. All this time and she had most deliberately avoided looking at his gun. The gunbelt was worn, the buckle tarnished. The unadorned wood grip gleamed from a recent oiling where it rested in the plain leather holster. A restless shift of his body made the weapon cant out from his narrow flanked hip. Faith was struck by the thought that he was a man alone, with no one to care for him.

  There was a threadbare look to his denim pants, and his blue shirt showed its wear and clumsy mending. His boots were scuffed and worn at the heels. She made note of each detail as her gaze tracked its way up the long length of his legs.

  Faith knew she was staring, lingering overlong on the breadth of his shoulders, the sun-browned skin of his throat, and the intriguing set of his mouth. He was clean shaven, but she had a feeling that before dusk his slightly squarish chin would carry the dark stubble that matched his near-black hair.

  “Finished?” he asked in a deep, almost predatory tone. “Woman looks over a man like she’s buying a stud, an’ he can’t be blamed for taking it as an invite.”

  “No. I never meant that.” Faith despaired to feel the heated flush that stole into her cheeks. Sweat trickled down her temples, and she had to wipe it away. “Is what Tolly said about you true? Do you know every seep and water hole from here to the border?”

  “I know enough to survive.”

  “A man should have some other purpose in life besides surviving.”

  “Now, there’s men who’ll take exception to that. Surviving out here takes some purpose, and most folks make do by minding their own business.”

  “And by being very good with their guns, Mr.—”

  “No mister. Delaney’ll do. Folks hereabouts don’t stand on ceremony, duchess.”

  “Thank you for those kind words of advice,” she snapped, irritated with his continued drawled duchess.

  “Warringer’s got a barrel of clean water inside the doorway of the mercantile, if you want a drink before you leave.”

  “I know.” His dismissal rankled. Faith almost turned on her heel and left him. She had to remind herself what was at stake. It was enough to stop her from doing exactly as he suggested.

  Delaney hid a grin as he lifted his makings from his shirt pocket. She was stubborn, all right. A woman like this might make a go of it in the territory. If some Indian didn’t lift her scalp. If some woman-hungry miners didn’t get hold of her first. If the cattle kings let her live. If the trek across the mountains and desert didn’t kill her.

  “Mind?” he asked, already sprinkling his tobacco on the curved thin paper he held.

  She shook her head, watching each of his deft moves. A quick lick of his tongue sealed the cigarette. Faith was caught staring at his mouth. For just a moment their gazes locked, and lightning scored her nerve ends. She looked down at his hands. His fingers were long and scarred, and surprisingly, his nails were pared and clean. The seven-hundred-and-fifty-mile journey west from Kansas had proved to her how little some men thought of cleanliness. Would those hands be gentle when touching a woman? she asked herself, and then dismissed her curiosity in the next moment. The heat and rawness of the territory were helping her to forget that a woman would not think such a thought about any man.

  He struck the match against the wall, watched it flare, and raised it. Delaney inhaled and released the smoke, staring at its upward curl. “If you’d like,” he said, tilting his hat brim forward, “I’ll get a wagon from Tolly and ride you back to where you’re camped.” It was a reluctant offer at best. But it was the only one he was going to make her.

  “That’s kind of you.” Faith prayed the flare of hope she felt was not revealed in the look she gave him. “And then will you talk to my father?”

  They both glanced at the high-sided wagon rolling past them, its wheels screeching for want of grease.

  “Can’t rightly figure your pa sending you after me. Not after Tolly got done talking to him.”

  “Tolly wasn’t the only one. Opie Burgess said some, and there were others who talked.” She scored her lip with the edge of her teeth and hesitated. “Is it true that you not only track as well as an Apache, but that you—”

  “…lived with them?” he finished for her, disgust evident in his voice. “Like I said, I know enough to get by.”

  She hadn’t meant to ask or pry, but gossip had raised her curiosity, and now, having met him, she wanted to know more. Tolly Abbott had found a willing ear when he spoke to her father, and unashamedly, she had listened. There was the story of a man he had killed near Kingman who had called him a liar when Delaney claimed the horse the man rode was stolen from an Apache. A tinhorn had died for the poor judgment of calling him a cheat. But Tolly had a tale of Delaney taking a wounded miner out of the Galiuro Mountains and bringing him to Fort Thomas. “Good man to have on your side,” had been Tolly’s sage pronouncement, tacked on after each relished telling of Delaney’s reputation.

  “Guess hearing all that talk frightened you.”

  His uncanny perception of Faith’s thoughts startled her. She hesitated once again. “Some,” she answered honestly. “If you are as good as they say, why won’t you work for us? Opie Burgess said you quit working for the railroad last month.”

  “Opie’s an old gossip.”

  “Be that as it may. It’
s the truth. You’re out of a job. I’m told that I am a fair cook. The children, if you are worried, will all mind.” She couldn’t resist touching the mended tear on his shirtsleeve with her fingertip. “I darn neatly, too.”

  “Those are mighty fine inducements. But how many days can you go without water? How many miles can you walk, duchess? You’re heading down into country that men shed blood to tame and ain’t finished with yet. They wrangled cows out of brush that’d tear your delicate white skin to shreds. They’ve fought and killed their share of men—white, Mex, and Indian alike—to keep what they claimed. Sodbusters moving in on miners and cattlemen are just gonna cause bloodshed.”

  “Stop it. I won’t be frightened off by your talk.”

  “You should be. The desert’s a mighty thirsty land, and it’s got one law. Learn it and never, ever forget it, duchess. First come, first served. Be it water, land, or a woman.”

  Faith heard more than his warnings. She listened again to his refusal. She thought of her father’s demand that she come here to convince this man to lead them through hostile territory. There were no clear-cut trails like the Oregon that would guide them. She knew how little money they had left. Faith knew the need that had driven them to this barren, godforsaken land. Bitterly she totaled the cost. Her mother’s death along the way. The death of her own dreams.

  For a long minute Faith stared at Delaney. Hard, unpredictable, and dangerous. He was all that and more.

  “Nothing I say will change your mind?”

  “My gun’s not for hire.” Delaney crushed his half-smoked cigarette under his boot.

  “There are men in this town who hate you. They had plenty to say about you, too. They said you would kill a man for less than the price of a decent meal. I guess that’s the real reason you’re refusing. There’s no killing to be done.”

  Faith stepped back and away from the chilling look he shot her. She angled her head high. “I have one last question for you. Do you know where I can find a man called Chelli?”

  “Stay the hell away from him.”

  “You’re not available. I don’t have much time or choice.” She pleated the calico skirt to hide her trembling hands. She had used up most of her courage to brave talking to him; now she would be forced to begin again. But she had told him the truth. There was no choice. They had to get away from Prescott and soon.

  “Woman, what was wrong with the men where you came from? You don’t belong—”

  “There was nothing wrong with them,” she stated, her body rigid with tension.

  “Why the hell didn’t you marry one of them and stay put?”

  Delaney would never know the cost she paid to look up at him, or the price in pain for her to answer him.

  “I did. The day we were wed, men rode out to our new home. Cattlemen, Mr. Carmichael. They didn’t come to pay a social call. They didn’t want us to farm the land my husband bought. He foolishly took exception to their methods of persuasion. I buried him on my wedding night.”

  There was more. He knew that, just as he knew he’d get his boots tangled with this piece of range calico if he gave in to the rush of compassion that sizzled inside him. No, he wasn’t about to do it. But there was a welter of pain blazing in her eyes that a sweep of her short, burnished lashes hid quickly from him.

  “If you can’t or won’t tell me where I can find this man Chelli,” she announced in a brisk tone, fighting off her own demons, “I’ll find someone who can.”

  “He’ll rob you folks of whatever you’ve got and leave you somewhere to die. Well,” he amended, his gaze sweeping her from head to toe, “maybe not you, duchess. You, he might sell south.”

  Her chin rose a notch. “Then consider us warned. And I’m not a helpless woman, Mr. Carmichael.”

  The regal tilt of her head, the strength of the conviction in her honey-rich voice that she was going south regardless of his advice, forced him to answer.

  “Try down at the Prairie Dog on Whiskey Row.”

  Her curt nod seemed to dismiss him more than thank him as she turned with military precision and walked away from him.

  He stared for a moment at the gentle sway of her hips, noted the soft drape of her skirt, and muttered, “At least the duchess had the sense to leave off stays and six petticoats.” But she was heading in the wrong direction. Delaney almost called out to her, then shrugged. He’d let her wander about a bit, he needed some time. Damned if he knew why!

  He stepped to the edge of the wooden walk and motioned to the man who had waited patiently hidden in the shadow of the alley.

  Chapter 2

  “Guess I’ll trail after her. Damn fool woman ain’t got the good sense God gave a mule thinking she’s gonna hire Chelli.”

  “One mule would go far to ease the hunger of many, skeetzee.”

  A few strands of gray threaded the dark hair of the Apache that had spoken. Delaney saw that the fine webbing of lines had deepened with age on a face that brought him a rush of boyhood memories. The frame of the once proud warrior was now gaunt. The Apache’s statement and the visible signs of constant hunger were the result of life on a white man’s reservation.

  Delaney’s gaze hardened as his eyes met those of Seanilzay by his side. “Is there trouble again? Since Clum left—”

  “Always there is that, Del-a-ney. Anglos came to us with more pinole. Many were sick.”

  “Oh, Christ!” Delaney closed his eyes and felt his stomach roil. “Didn’t anyone listen to the warnings after the last time?” He didn’t expect an answer, nor did he get one. “What was it this time, broken glass or strychnine mixed with the ground corn and sugar?”

  “The two. Does this matter?”

  “Damn them! And yes, it matters.” His hands fisted at his sides with the helplessness he felt. How could children be protected from this sort of viciousness? Pinole was a favorite treat of the Apache, and too many knew how they hungered for the sweet. By keeping the Indians on short rations, they were made vulnerable to attacks like this one, when white men came to the reservations under the guise of friendship. “What happened with the new inspector? I thought he would have enough evidence to get rid of Hart for fraud.”

  “Hammond took more of the western land. He claims it did not belong to us. There is a mine site that he sold to the son of Hayt.”

  “The son of the commissioner of Indian Affairs?”

  “The same. He will not give up Hart to Anglo justice. Once more the cattle are too small or sick to eat. They no longer carry Hammond’s special brand.”

  “Cursed gold! I hope to hell they find nothing.”

  “They knew there was gold before they took the land.”

  Delaney glanced skyward. “A few months ago Archie McIntosh’s letter was published in the Phoenix Herald. I heard that General Fisk was going down to San Carlos to see for himself what was going on. He could get word to the secretary of the Interior. Schurz seems fair. When Jeffords urged Geronimo and Ponce to return from Mexico with Juh and Nolgee, he had to see for himself what was happening. Why didn’t he do something?”

  “He wants San Carlos back, but they do not listen.”

  “And Geronimo? He would not keep silent.”

  “They came to the reservation weary from fighting with the soldiers.”

  “Clum tried to show you how to work. Find a way to prove that the beef contractors tampered with the scales for weighing the cattle. Maybe someone from the Dutch Reformed Church can get the bureau to listen. Or get McIntosh to go to the Board of Indian Commissioners. He saw for himself the graft and greed. Men like Hart and Hammond can’t run the agency.”

  “Will you do as your father before you?”

  Delaney looked away. “I don’t know. But that isn’t why you left the reservation and risked much to come here.”

  “The husband to Victorio’s daughter was killed near Alma. Many think to leave San Carlos.”

  “Victorio knows no other path but revenge
.”

  “He fights to give back what is stolen from all his people.”

  “Fighting isn’t always the best answer,” Delaney snapped, his gut curling at the thought of another outbreak.

  “And the man Brodie, he searches still. He comes too close—”

  “Then kill him,” Delaney stated without emotion.

  “That is for you to do. He took your iszáń for his own. He stole your land.”

  “No. She was never my woman. Elise used me for him. And the land was never really mine for him to steal.”

  “Naiche will not raise his hand. He is weak, and there is a son.”

  Delaney’s emotional detachment fled. “He’s not mine.” The words were grated from between his clenched teeth. But with these words the past burst from the darkest corner of his mind. Only for a moment and then, with a ruthless thrust, he shoved it back, deep into his memory’s graveyard.

  “There’s more for you to tell me?” Delaney finally asked.

  “It comes like the flow of sand upon the desert. The winter’s cold without blankets or clothes. The food that comes too late to feed the belly of a hungry child. The Anglos that come in the dark to destroy the poor crops before our people can harvest them. And the hate like that of Elías who brought our enemies the Papago to kill us sweeps the land. Your iron rails grow in number, and soon more will come. They all want us dead.”

  “No one will forget Elías and the Camp Grant massacre. There was outrage on the part of whites. And it is good to remember that Eskiminzin still trusted Whitman even as he carried his daughter’s body and returned to Camp Grant. And it saddens me as it does my brothers not to know the fate of the children that were taken by the Papago. But this was years past, and sometimes it is best to forget.”

  “My memory is long and as sad as my brother’s. Crook and his hate of Whitman is not a memory to cast aside. There are many who remember that he sided with Elías as doing right to kill women and children when they were helpless without the protection of their braves.”