by Ana Leigh
Carson stepped out from behind the barricade. “Carson’s eyes are pleased to see the great chief of the Chiricahua again.”
He had often spoken with this chief, whose mere name struck terror in the hearts of Arizona settlers, and for the next few minutes the two men spoke together in Apache. Then Carson stepped back to the townsfolk.
“I’ve agreed to a powwow in the center of town, with Cochise, Mangas Coloradas—the father of his squaw—and his war chief, Goyathlay, or Geronimo as we whites call him.”
“Sure you’re not walking into a trap, General?” Colt asked.
“Cochise said he does not come with the paint of war or a raised war club.”
“The children. What about the children?” Dan cried out.
“That is the purpose of the meeting, Mr. James. Colt, I want you”—his gaze swept the crowd—“and young Braden to accompany me.”
“Me?” Jeff said, astounded. “Why would you want me?”
“Because your father’s the sheriff. This town has no mayor now, so the sheriff and deputy represent the leading authority here. Since your father is still weak, it will honor the chief to have the sheriff’s son represent him. You two will have to shuck your gunbelts.”
“I bet it’s a trap,” Gus said, and several of the people around the driver nodded in agreement.
Colt glanced at Cassie. Her face was stretched tight with anxiety, her body taut with tension.
“Cochise is a man of honor,” Carson declared. “He wouldn’t disgrace his honor under a flag of truce.”
“We ought to shoot him and that murderous Geronimo while we have the chance,” Gus said.
“And that would result in everyone here being slaughtered and the town burned to the ground.”
“We’ve got enough firepower here to wipe out him and that scum with him,” Gus continued to argue.
“What makes you think we can do what the cavalry has failed to do? Cochise is too smart to take such a risk. He’s one of the greatest military strategists I’ve ever known. If you doubt me, ask the army officers who have attempted to capture him. Right now, there are probably a hundred more Apaches concealed around us and watching our every move.”
Carson turned to address Dan. “Mr. James, if you want to get your children back, I’d advise you to keep an eye on this hotheaded stagecoach driver.” Fear gleamed in the eyes of the Bradens as they looked at Jeff, then Cassie came over.
“Be careful, Colt, Gus could be right.”
Colt grasped her shoulders and gazed into her worried eyes. “Whatever happens, Cass, I wouldn’t want to have missed knowing you.”
“Ready, gentlemen?” Carson asked Colt and Jeff.
They removed their gunbelts and followed him down the street toward the three approaching Indians.
“Show Cochise respect, and let me do the talking,” Carson said.
The parties halted in the middle of the street in the center of the town. Cochise and Carson raised their hands in a sign of peace.
“It has been many years since I’ve had the pleasure of speaking to the mighty chief of the Chiricahua,” Carson said. “I welcome you, and my old friend Mangas Coloradas, and the fearless warrior Geronimo.”
“Cochise is glad to see Kit Carson, friend of the Chiricahua.”
“I thank you for the honor. I bring with me Deputy Colt Fraser and Jeffrey Braden, who is the son of the town’s sheriff.”
Colt nodded his head. “I am honored to meet you, Chief Cochise.” Jeff followed Colt’s lead and did the same.
Carson and Cochise began to converse again in Apache. As they did, Colt took the opportunity to study Geronimo.
The Indian had a fierce gleam in his eyes and seemed to hate the white man as bitterly as the stage driver hated the Indians. It was clear there was much to be resolved before there would ever be peace between such people.
The powwow ended, and Geronimo wheeled his horse and rode back to his tribesmen. Colt had no idea what was happening until the three children stepped out of the crowd of Apaches. Appearing unharmed, they started to walk toward the townsfolk. Sam paused when Cochise spoke to her as she passed him.
“So long, Chief. Thanks for everything,” she said when he finished, and walked on with a wave of good-bye.
The enigmatic expression the great chief had worn throughout the powwow changed to a near grin.
“Blazing Hair has much courage. She make good squaw someday,” Cochise said to General Carson.
Jeff leaned over and said sotto voce to Colt, “Did he say good squaw or good squawk?”
Then Cochise and his escort wheeled their horses and rode back to their tribesmen. Yelping, the thundering horde rode away and disappeared over a hill.
Only a cloud of dust remained to mark their passage.
Chapter 21
Still stunned by the scene that had unfolded before them, the residents moved slowly back to their houses and businesses. Shutters were removed, the bank replaced its cash drawer and reopened for business, the restaurants relit their ovens.
Many of the religious went into their respective churches for prayerful thanks.
Under the loving care of his three children, Sheriff Braden was transported back to his bed.
Gus Burk reharnessed the team to the stagecoach, hoping to make up the hour already lost. He had gained several passengers now determined to leave town, and much to his relief he had lost his former passenger, who’d been carried back to the hotel with a case of “vapors” by the reluctant deputy.
After depositing Rose Lee on the bed of her room, Colt joined the Jameses and Sarah Starr in the hotel lobby, where they listened as Sam related their harrowing experience.
“We stopped because Petey had to pee, and Bowie and I were taking a drink of water when four Indians suddenly jumped out at us from nowhere and took us to their chief. I told him he better let us go, or he’d be in worse trouble than us when our parents found out.”
Sarah drew a shuddering sigh. “Sam, Cochise is the most feared Indian chief in the country. He might have killed you right there on the spot.”
Sam’s eyes rounded in surprise. “That’s the same thing he said, Mama.”
“Go on. What happened then?” Dan asked.
“I said if he was so great, how come he had to pick on three little kids?”
“I bet he liked that,” Dan said. “What did he do when you said that?”
“He said my tongue was as blazing as my hair. Then that ugly guy Geronimo started to argue with him. I didn’t understand them ’cause they were talking Apache, but I could tell Ugly Face wanted to kill us and the chief said no. They took us away, and when it got dark they tied our hands and told us to go to sleep.”
“What brave darlings you were,” Nina said, hugging her sons tighter to her sides.
“I wasn’t as brave as Sam, Mom,” Bowie said. “It was kind of scary.”
“Yeah, scary,” Petey said. He slipped his hand into his brother’s.
Seeing that his wife was on the verge of tears, Dan James said, “I don’t know what we’re going to do with you boys. You’ve got punishment coming for running off the way you did, but we’ll decide that later. You go and clean yourselves up now.”
The boys scampered away, and Sarah left, hugging Sam to her side. As Dan put his arm around the trembling shoulders of his wife, Colt slapped him on the shoulder and left.
Outside, as he helped clear away the hastily constructed barricade in front of the church, Colt reflected again on the hazards of getting too involved with the townsfolk.
There was a lot more to being a deputy than just wearing a badge.
Cassie brushed out her hair and tied it back with a yellow ribbon. Tonight General Carson was joining them for dinner, and she had overhead her father tell Cathy to set an extra plate for Colt, as well.
With all the excitement over the Indians, she hadn’t gotten around to telling her sister about last night. Neither of them were much good at keeping a secret from each other, and as soon as Cath
y saw her in a dress, her sister would figure it out immediately.
She stepped back and viewed herself in the oval-shaped floor mirror in the corner. She’d worn this yellow gown on special occasions for the past five years—not that there’d been that many. The color was becoming, but maybe the time had come to make a new dress.
Cassie spun around several times, striking a different pose each time, and then slumped in dejection. She just didn’t look comfortable in a dress like other women did. Her legs were as long as a horse’s, and her breasts seemed too small for her height, which was too tall for most of the men in town. She always felt lanky and awkward.
And why couldn’t she have beautiful, honey-blond hair like Cathy? Instead, hers was neither brown nor red, but an in-between shade of both.
Doggone it! She loved her sister dearly, more than life itself, but how did Cathy always manage to look dainty and feminine? While she…
Yet last night when she’d been alone with Colt, she had felt attractive and desirable. She wasn’t just another girl he wanted to have sex with—he wanted to make love to her. It had thrilled her to hear him say that.
He had to be in love with her, even if he didn’t realize it. Her knight on a white horse had a tin badge on his chest instead of armor, and a Colt on his hip in lieu of a lance. And she was in love with him. And tonight she would tell him so.
Cassie heard the sound of male voices and knew the guests had arrived. Her heart started thumping at the prospect of seeing Colt again.
She hurried from her bedroom just as he threw back his head in laughter at something the general had said to him.
At the sight and sound, Cassie could barely keep from throwing herself at him.
“How lovely you look,” Cathy said when Cassie joined them.
“Yeah, what got you into a dress?” Jeff said. “You trying to impress the deputy?”
She would kill him. She would wring her brother’s neck the next time they were alone.
“We have a distinguished dinner guest, Jeffrey,” Cassie replied with a sugary smile that was more threatening than sweet.
“And dinner’s ready,” Cathy interjected quickly. “Jeff, will you help Dad to his seat? General Carson, please take the seat at the opposite end of the table. Colt, you and Cassie can sit on that side, and Jeff and I will sit on this side. If you’ll all be seated, I’ll serve dinner.”
“You’ve done the cooking, so you sit down, Cathy,” Cassie said. “I’ll serve dinner.”
Colt remained on his feet until Cassie was ready to sit down, then he pulled out her chair to seat her and sat down beside her.
“I’ve been anxious to hear what you and Cochise discussed, General Carson,” Colt said.
“I know the Chiricahuas very well,” the general said. “As I mentioned to you the other night, Cochise advocated living peacefully with the white man until those hangings in ’62 caused him to go on the warpath.
“Since then, my attempts to convince Cochise to bring his people to live on a reservation have been unsuccessful.”
“I’m not implying that he should take the government’s blunder lightly,” Cassie said. “But with all the slaughtering over the past four years, they’ve certainly had their revenge. If Cochise was such an advocate of peace, General, why wouldn’t he be willing to cease fighting and do what you suggest, if the government admits their mistake and makes some kind of restitution?”
“Because the government wants to move them to a reservation. Cochise refuses to do so. He says that Arizona is the home of the Chiricahua.”
“If it would end this slaughter, why won’t the government let them stay where they are?”
“They want the Indians where they can control them on their terms,” Carson said. “It doesn’t take much to set off an Indian war, and it would be impossible to restrain them if the Indians are on their familiar grounds. The government wants to make room for the influx of settlers.”
“By moving peaceful Indians out of their homes?” Cathy asked.
“Unfortunately, Miss Braden, that has been the case. Have you heard of The Trail of Tears? In ’38 and ’39, the government forced the Cherokee nation in Georgia and Florida to move their people to Oklahoma. More than four thousand of them perished from starvation and exposure on that move. They forced the Florida Seminoles to do the same thing in ’42.”
“I’ve read what they did to the Five Civilized Tribes,” Colt said.
“Five Civilized Tribes?” Jeff asked. “What’s that?”
“In the southeastern part of this country there were five tribes: the Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks, and Seminoles. They formed a confederacy, somewhat like the Iroquois Confederacy farther north, and lived together peacefully. The difference between these five nations and the Iroquois is that these Indians were civilized. They planted crops, built houses and even schools. They had newspapers and even a written constitution, like this country does, to govern them, Sadly, they had the misfortune of having land that their white neighbors wanted in order to expand. So like so many others, they were deemed a threat and were shipped to the west, to an environment so foreign to them that fifty percent of them perished,” Carson explained.
“Those members of the Five Civilized Tribes who remained in the South pledged their loyalty to the Confederacy during the war,” Colt added.
Carson nodded. “Because their bitterness wasn’t toward Southerners, but to Washington, who forced them to abandon their own constitution and live under the white man’s rules. As the government is now forcing the Western Indian to do.”
“Sounds like the Indians are fighting for the same cause as the Confederacy did,” Colt said. “Southerners settled our states, lived in them a couple hundred years, then fought a war to protect them when the Yankees in the North told them they had to live by their rules.”
“Colt, my friend,” Kit Carson said, “I don’t wish to refight that war with you. I have enough on my hands right here with the Indians.”
“And I’ve had enough of war to last me for a lifetime.” Colt winked at Carson. “Unless it’s the battle of the sexes.”
“Well, I enjoyed the history lesson,” Jethro said gruffly, “but I wanna know what the Indian chief has on his mind.”
“Cochise said he has no fight with the white man in New Mexico, because they have made their homes away from the land of the Chiricahua. They crossed into New Mexico because the cavalry was pursuing them, but they are returning to Arizona.”
“Did he tell you why they took the children prisoners?”
“He said the children were in danger. A bear had picked up the children’s scent and was following them. The flesh of a bear will feed many, so Cochise believed the children were a good sign to his people. He had no thought of killing or taking them with him. That would have brought dishonor to his tribe in the eyes of the god who sent them the good fortune.”
Colt said, “If those three sprouts are lucky charms, I’m the king of England. They’ve brought me nothing but bad luck since I met them, and I even had to get shot to do that.” He winked at Cassie to let her know he was joking.
After dinner, Cassie’s hopes of confessing her love to Colt were thwarted when he was called to duty over a fistfight in the Alhambra.
The Braden house was in darkness the next time Colt passed it.
Kit Carson and the Navajos left at dawn the next morning. True to his character, Carson departed the way he preferred to live, with no cheering crowd, no flags waving, and no brass band.
Four hours later, Colt walked to the stage office to say good-bye to the the departing Miss Rose Lee Beckenridge, whom Dr. Williams had fortified with a mild sedative in the event she felt another impending attack of the vapors.
“When you get back to Virginia, Rose Lee, say hello to my family and tell them I think of them often.”
“You should leave this unpleasant town, Coltran, and come back with me to Virginia.”
“I expect to leave for California next we
ek. By then the sheriff should be well enough to resume his duties.”
“Ah do declare, Coltran Fraser, ah don’t understand why you feel an obligation to these people. Why, they’re just a lot of overbearin’ Yankees. There’s not a gentleman among them, except for the doctor. And women! Why, the slaves on Pheasant Run dress finer than the women in this town. It must be plumb painful for you to tolerate it.”
“I manage, Rose Lee.”
“We’re pulling out, Colt,” the driver said.
“Have a pleasant trip back, Rose Lee.”
“What can be pleasant about being jostled about in this stagecoach like a sack of grain?”
He kissed her cheek and helped her into the coach.
“Goodbye, Coltran.” She dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. “Ah do declare, this is so painful, my heart is breakin’.”
The flutter of a lace-trimmed white handkerchief was his final glimpse of Miss Rose Lee Beckenridge.
Upon seeing Cassie hitching up the wagon outside the livery, Colt walked down to her. He groaned when the three sprouts ran up and climbed into the back of it.
“You aren’t actually driving out to the ranch again, are you?”
“It has crossed my mind,” Cassie said in amusement.
“Defying the gods again. Regardless of what you think, you all need supervision. That includes you, Miss Braden.”
“You know, Colt,” Cassie said, “I’ve been thinking about the subject of bad luck, which you mentioned at dinner last night, and I have a theory about all the accidents I’ve been having lately. Remember what General Carson said about Cochise believing the children brought his tribe good luck? Think about this: your bad luck started when you were shot—which was before you arrived here.”
“Debatable,” he countered.
“Well, so is this: the children have been to the Lazy B hundreds of times, but since your arrival, it’s been one disaster after another. I’m beginning to think you could be responsible for all this bad luck I’ve been having lately. The Hindus call it bad karma.”
“You’re having fun with this, aren’t you, Miss Braden? First Indian superstition, now Hindu philosophy. What’s next?”