The Blackbird

by Kristy McCaffrey

  “Mariah and Henry have a few boards loose,” he added, softening his tone. “You'll never reason with them, and you'll never cure their superstition, and that makes them highly dangerous. But I’ll protect you, Tess. I promise.”

  “Gracias. I really thought our biggest concern from them was that they’d try to eat Moses.”

  Cale smiled at her inadvertent humor.

  “Maybe we should leave right now,” she added.

  “Let's wait a few hours. I'll keep watch. You go back to sleep.”

  Tess tugged at the end of her braid. “The only man I've ever respected is Tom Simms. But you're a close second.”

  She lay down, and he shifted to have a better position for viewing the direction Mariah had departed. But he didn't trust the old bat, so he made sure he could see in all directions surrounding Tess.

  She respects me.

  He’d tried, in the last four years, after his time with Hank, to do what was right, what was just. But those gestures were often mired in the perspective of the beholder. He’d learned that too well when he’d been with the Apache. Tess thought she could change a viewpoint simply with a story. He admired her innocence, and that she still believed in good even after her body had been broken.

  But Cale was less optimistic.

  Given the right circumstances, he wasn't always respectable.

  On this night, he was prepared to shoot an old lady.

  Chapter Seven

  Weary from lack of sleep, Cale decided to head to Camp Bowie in the Chiricahua Mountains. He and Tess broke camp before daybreak and departed before another scuffle could ensue with Henry and Mariah.

  They rode hard to put distance between them and the crazy Worthington's, but now he slowed Bo's pace. Tess brought her mount beside him.

  “I suppose I have a good story to tell about an old lady who tried to kill me.” Tess gave him a brief smile.

  He liked her open countenance this morning, but still couldn't shake the last tendrils of dread in his belly over what could have happened had he not awakened.

  “Would you tell me about the time when you left Hank and lived with the Apache?” she asked.

  Cale considered the request. He didn’t speak of it often, if at all.

  “Why didn’t you come back to bounty hunting with Hank?” Tess continued. “He spoke of you sometimes. I think he missed you, although he’d never come out and say it.”

  “I was hurt pretty bad.”

  “From the mountain lion attack. I know the tale. I've told it to Robbie and Molly Rose many times.”

  “How did you come to hear it?”

  “The easiest thing to share is a story,” Tess replied. “But I didn't hear it from Hank, if that's what you're wondering. In fact, I told it to him. I learned of it from a woman who lived at the foot of the Dragoons. She must've heard it from an Apache.”

  “What did Hank say when you told him?”

  Tess leaned forward to pet Gideon’s neck. “He said you were buile. That’s gaelic for loco. He thought you were filled with madness. And he called you a...yellow-belly.”

  Cale nodded, unsurprised. Hank was well-known for his bluntness.

  “What do you think, Tess?”

  “I don't think you're a coward.” Her green eyes flashed with compassion beneath the shade of her hat, her long black hair tied at the nape of her neck. Her exotic look reflected her Mexican heritage, but she carried the strong build of the Irish along with the sweet curves of a woman. She was a treasure, whether she realized it or not. Men would one day fall at her feet.

  “So, tell me about this Esteban.”

  Surprise crossed her face, then her expression shifted to a grimace. “There's nothing to tell.”

  “Is he your beau?”

  “No.” The frown deepened. “He simply doesn't accept my indifference.”

  “You do have a knack for keeping people at arm's length.”

  “Is that a crime?”

  “No.” He laughed. “But life shouldn't be so hard for a young woman. What do you plan to do once we’re done here?”

  “I'm not certain. Hank has never stayed in one place for long. Truthfully, I have nowhere to go. I've considered entering the novitiate run by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet in Tucson.”

  Stunned, Cale didn’t know what to say as he thought of her in a habit, hidden away from the world. But curiosity and compassion won out. “Are you truly called to a religious vocation?”

  Perplexed, she looked ahead. “Why not? Mi abuela taught me the ancient ways of storytelling, as handed down by her own madre, and so on. It is a way to impart wisdom, to heal the pain of others, a balm for the soul. But I can hardly put food on the table and a roof over my head with it. The children the sisters care for would provide a purpose to my life. After the fire, it was they who took me in before Hank came. And, I could still tend and grow my stories.”

  “You can't let the actions of one man, no matter how despicable they were, turn you from a life lived open to all the joy, and pain, this earth has to offer.”

  Her eyes snapped to his, and he knew he'd crossed the line by mentioning the attack, but dammit, he didn't want her giving up on life because of it.

  “You don't know what you're talking about,” she muttered.

  “Tess, there are times when we all need a chance to recover, and I suppose I did that during my time with the Apache, but you can't stay in that place indefinitely. Surely your stories have shown you that.”

  “Just because you have an opinion about my life doesn't make it relevant.”

  “Fine. You're right. I've no right to tell you what to do.”

  How did they end up arguing?

  He felt the wall she erected between them, as real as mud and wood.

  So be it. He'd keep silent. But inside he fumed at how easily she retreated from life. He'd sensed the fire in her, the passion. He'd witnessed it, if only briefly, when she interacted with Robbie or Molly Rose, or told one of her stories.

  She was giving up on herself, and he knew he needed to find a way to rectify that.

  He wondered if he kissed her senseless what she would say.

  She assumed what could be between a man and a woman based on the brutality of one individual. If she hid herself away, then that person had beaten her not just once, but twice. Cale would be damned if he let that happen.

  * * * *

  That night Tess continued to stoke her anger over Cale’s comments. He had no idea what he was talking about. And as long as she fumed, she could justify interacting with him as little as possible. They had traveled northeast, past the newly-formed Camp Huachuca and through a ramshackle-of-a-town at the foot of the Dragoon Mountains called Turquoise, where they watered and fed the horses and la mula, and obtained a meal of stewed jackrabbit and corn.

  Fatigued from the long day of travel, Tess looked forward to her bedroll and sleep. They’d had no campfire, both for lack of wood and for safety. Cale muttered under his breath about not giving a reason to draw any Apache to them. Tess thought to ask what he’d heard while they were in Turquoise, but couldn’t muster the energy.

  “You asked me earlier about why I left Hank,” Cale said, reclining on his bedroll not far from hers.

  She knew staying near him was safer, despite her irritation with him.

  “When I was eighteen, I joined the army,” he continued. “I was stationed at Camp Bowie.”

  She rolled to her side to give him her attention, curiosity overcoming her indifference.

  “I was a private, Thirty-second Infantry, Company D. One of the first detachments I participated in was the retrieval of an eastbound mail coach that had been ambushed by Apache about ten miles from the camp. There’d been a driver, a teamster and two privates along for protection. When we found the coach, the teamster had been shot and scalped, but the other three men were missing.

  “Two days later, another detachment was sent to find them. About eight miles from camp, we found an Apache rancher
ia, with evidence of recent occupation. And we located the three men, all dead. They’d been tortured. The Post Surgeon was with us, and I’ll never forget the lecture he gave, making each of us view the dead bodies and telling us to never surrender because this is what would happen to us. He told us to fight to the end, and if we couldn’t escape, to make damn sure the Apache killed us.

  “So, I gained no love of them. During the next three years, I faced their handiwork many times, often on men that I knew.”

  Within the moon glow of the night, the outline of juniper trees and agave plants surrounded them. In the distance, the edges of the Chiricahua Mountains ran along the horizon. Tess shifted her gaze to Cale, deciding that his boundaries blended well with those of this wild and desolate place. “Why did you leave the army?”

  “Our commander—a Captain Bernard—was relentless in his pursuit of Cochise and his warriors. We’d engaged them many times, but in ’71, Bernard just wouldn’t give up. We chased Cochise north during the winter and finally caught him and his warriors in the Pinal Mountains. We killed nine of ’em and wounded a bunch more—not Cochise of course—but it still wasn’t a definitive victory. After that, we trekked over 450 miles, and by then, I’d had enough. They encouraged attrition since the government was always trying to save money, so I left.”

  He stared into the sky, twinkling with endless dots of light.

  “Why did you take up bounty hunting if you were tired of the chase?”

  “It’s different if you’re your own boss, although Hank was as tough a taskmaster as any commander I’d ever had. But something about Hank drew me in. I’d always struggled to find common ground with my own pa. Maybe I saw in Hank a man I could admire.”

  Tess propped her head up with her hand. “Did you?” she asked quietly.

  “For a time, yes. Then, that started to falter. Hank’s tactics were tenacious. I learned much from him, more than I thought considering everything I’d seen while stationed in the Chiricahuas, but he had a side to him that I could never quite embrace. And while we did jobs here and there, just the two of us, we frequently joined up with Saul Miller and Walt Lange, and others.”

  A surge of panic flashed through Tess at the mention of Miller’s name. Sitting upright, she focused on regular breaths until she actually had regular breaths, while Cale continued to speak.

  “Hank decided we should go into Mexico. Despite the recent placement of thousands of Indians onto reservations in the area, there were renegades south of the border. The Mexicanos hated the Indians worse than the Americans, and placed a bounty of a hundred pesos on every Apache scalp. I didn’t think it was a good idea. I’d seen firsthand how strong and smart Apache were, and if they got you...well, you did want to make sure you were dead. And I was pretty certain that, while we might get a few of ’em, they’d likely get us first.”

  Still recovering from the aftermath of the panic in her body, Tess felt both vulnerable and peevish. “Was this before the fire?”

  Cale didn’t answer right away, instead shifting to sit across from her. Tess knew her answer. It shouldn’t have surprised her, but the wound throbbed nonetheless.

  “Hank had learned of the fire a few days earlier,” Cale said, a gentleness in his voice. “But we’d already set our course, and he was committed to see it through. I’m sorry, Tess.”

  “You don’t have to be.” While the date of that life-altering blaze—October first—would always be etched in her mind, the aftermath was a blur. The grief of losing her whole world had blindsided her, and it was only in the kind embrace of the nuns who took her in that she found any semblance of peace. Then, days later, Hank came to retrieve her. “What happened with the Apache?” she asked, barely above a whisper.

  “It was bad.” His voice hitched, and he rubbed the back of his neck. “There are things I’ve done that I’m not proud of, but this ranks right at the top. We managed to surprise a rancheria. Apache warriors, women and children...” His voice trailed off.

  “You don’t have to describe it to me.” Tess had heard enough stories to guess at the scene.

  “The plan was to only kill the men, but it was chaos. And Hank and Miller and Lange—they made no distinction. I stopped and withdrew. I argued with Hank, but some men can’t handle the bloodlust...”

  Tears burned Tess’s eyes. She blinked them back as she watched the silhouette of Cale Walker, a man who walked a narrow line between two worlds. She sensed the weight of it, how he’d hidden it so well. A strong impulse to reach out and touch him overcame her, but her defenses—stubborn and strong and unwilling to compromise—kept her firmly in her own space.

  “When it was done,” he continued, “Lange and Miller were supposed to collect the scalps. But they did more than that. They tore the bodies apart and brutalized them. Payback, they said, for all the terrible things the Indians had done to the Anglos and Mexicans over the years.

  “I know what they felt. I’d seen what the Apache did to men...so many times.” He cleared the thickness in his throat. “But I couldn’t be a part of it. I told Hank, but he wouldn’t stop them.

  “So, I left, right then and there. Told him I was done with him. I rode in the dark for what seemed like hours. I never heard the cougar. He came out of nowhere, probably attracted by the stench of death on me. It was a nasty fight—my horse didn’t make it—and I figured that was it. The next I knew, I awoke in an Apache encampment.”

  “Why didn’t they kill you? Especially after what Hank and you all did?”

  Cale gave a slight shake of his head. “I couldn’t figure that out either. I thought they’d kill me slow, torture me then dismember me. I had every reason to think they knew I’d been with Hank during the hunt.”

  “Did they know?”

  “I’m not certain. But one of the old ladies stuck up for me. Her name was Cocheta. For some reason, she looked after me. Later, after I’d recovered and we’d developed a thread of trust, she told me I’d been marked by the mountain lion. She said that I almost died. She knew that I’d practiced evilness in my life, against her own people, but when one is taken to the brink of death and returns, it’s an auspicious sign.

  “It’s hard to explain,” he continued, “but it felt like a second chance, an opportunity to redeem my soul. I’d followed Hank like a puppy, drinking in his praise, eager for more, but in the process, I became something I wasn’t proud of.”

  More tears filled Tess’s eyes. She’d hungered for Hank’s regard as much as Cale had.

  “The Apache adopted me. I’ll never understand why they forgave what I’d been, but during my time with them I changed, and as such, they called me Change of Heart. Cocheta was a medicine woman, and she began instructing me. I never really had a mother. I suppose she became that to me.”

  Tess bent her right leg to alleviate the discomfort in the injured one. “What was the instruction like?”

  “The Apache believe in power. That power can be acquired in any number of ways, and it’s very individual. While I did learn prayers and ceremonies, my own personal rituals I had to discover on my own. They believe in sweat baths, fasting, and time spent alone.”

  “Does it work?” Tess couldn’t help but wonder if he could help her, and not just the deformity of her leg. Could he somehow banish the fear from her bones?

  “I couldn’t help being skeptical, raised differently and all that. But then again, I witnessed healings that had no rational explanation. And it was the Apache who helped me mend the schism that had severed my mind from my heart.”

  Cale’s words, delivered in his deep timber, tugged at a place buried inside Tess. Coyotes yipped in the night beyond, and a shiver ran down her spine.

  “Why did you leave them?” she asked.

  “I wasn’t one of them, and I never could be fully. I wanted my life back. Cochise had recently died, and with him, a certain sense of unity among the Apache. The men still raided frequently. The Mexican and U.S. military were always chasing them. I helped where I could�
��not with raiding, but I hunted for food and traded with locals for them. But I finally left the Arizona Territory altogether and went to Colorado.”

  “Why there?”

  “A change of scenery. I collected a bounty now and again, but never killed anyone. For the most part I hunkered down and did ranch work, around the Trinidad area. Then I decided to return to Texas and make amends with my own pa. And that’s a whole other story.”

  “Is that when you learned that Mary’s sister is your sister too?”

  Cale smiled, and Tess realized that he wasn’t sorry for this change in his family situation.

  “Yeah,” he replied. “I have to say that Molly’s presence seems to have softened my pa up. He could be a mean son-of-a-gun. I’m beginning to understand why my ma left us so long ago. Maybe she can rest in peace now.”

  “Because you forgive her.” Her own desire to forgive her padre burned bright in her heart, alongside a need for the truth.

  “Yeah.”

  “But you came back here. Why?”

  Cale flexed his arm and rotated his shoulder. “Curiosity, I s’pose. I’d like to see Hank again. He did save my hide a time or two. If he’s in trouble, I owe him. And that debt extends to his daughter.”

  “I’m glad you came when Mary relayed my request. I think you had every reason to stay away.”

  “Something tugged at me. No matter what we discover, Tess, I’ll help you find a place to call home.”

  Later, as sleep crept upon her, the idea of home filled her mind.

  Mi casa.

  * * * *

  The bright disk of the sun blazed in the west, headed toward its slumber, when Cale and Tess entered Camp Bowie. He stopped briefly to speak with the private stationed at the guardhouse and learned that an old comrade—Reed Fitzgerald—was now commander of the camp. As Cale led Tess across the large sloping parade square, men milled about, along with Hispanic women and even a handful of Apache men, women and children. Not much had changed since Cale had been stationed here.

  He’d helped build many of the structures, including a long building which served as barracks for the infantry. Stables housed cavalry horses and quartermaster mules, several mess halls and kitchens were available for the enlisted men, and a baker and butcher were in residence. Such niceties as fresh bread and meat helped keep the morale of the troops high. Beyond, away from the plateau where the present camp sat, were the buildings of old Fort Bowie. The private told him the adobe structures now housed married officers and the Sutler’s Store.