“I’m sorry to say so,” I said disdainfully, “but I cannot help feeling sorry for her!”
“You do not like my brother?” Was it my imagination, or did I fancy I heard a slight note of satisfaction in Julio’s voice? The next moment he shrugged, as if the matter was unimportant. “Perhaps it is better so for your sake, nidee.”
I did not ask him why he had said such a thing to me, not wanting the conversation to continue; and after a moment he stretched, yawning, and left me.
I stood with the others in the thin layer of snow that still lay on the ground here, and told myself vehemently that I could not possibly walk another step. What were we supposed to do now? Scale that unscalable cliff like mountain goats, and then think of a way to get around that jutting overhang that loomed menacingly over us?
Lucas Cord was looking upward also, and I thought I saw some strange blend of emotion in his face for the first time. There was the urgency I had sensed in him earlier, and something else. Despair? Frustration? It was hard to tell. Perhaps something had gone wrong; perhaps he couldn’t find the way into the hidden valley, with the snow still lying on the ground.
I saw Lucas take a coiled length of rawhide from the saddle of one of the horses and put it around his neck. Then, without another word, he flattened himself against the sheer, rocky cliff face, and seemed to walk right off one edge. I think I must have gasped, for I saw Julio look towards me.
“There is a path, nidee. Not much, but the mountain goats made it long ago. That was how Lucas found the way into the valley. Wait, and you will see how we will all find our way there soon.”
I thought we waited for an endless time, but it was probably no longer than fifteen minutes at the most. Julio and the three Apache braves talked together in casual tones. The women busied themselves with unpacking the horses, and in the end, feeling ashamed of my inactivity, I started to help them. The packs containing the silver were heavy. They reminded me of the way in which this same silver had been obtained. Stolen, and stained with the blood of those poor soldiers who had died trying to defend it.
I heard one of the women cry out and turned at almost the same time she did, to see the rope come snaking down.
There must have been some kind of cleft up there, between the huge, overhanging mountain edge and the rocky cliff I had dismissed as being unscalable.
I stared at it in dismay. Were we expected to crawl up that steep, rocky cliff face with nothing but a thin rope to support us?
I turned to Julio, intending to make some protest, but he had already seized the dangling end of the rope, and now, using his feet for leverage against the sheer wall of rock, he began to clamber up it with surprising agility.
No sooner had he disappeared into what, from here, seemed no more than a tiny, dark-shadowed cleft, than Lucas Cord came down, the rope sliding between his gloved hands.
Without a word to me he and the other men began immediately to loop the end of the rope around one of the saddlebags, which Julio then hauled up. I stood to one side with the two other women, trying to hide the fact that I was getting angrier and angrier by the minute.
I won’t go up that ridiculous rope! If my hands were to slip… I shuddered inwardly, trying not to think of it. Already my palms had begun to feel damp with sweat, and although I despised myself for cowardice, I had never cared for great heights.
The silver was hauled up first, the heavy saddlebags bumping against the face of the mountain. Then our food and supplies, including the hides and meat of the deer and bear that the men had shot.
The men went up next, just as easily as Julio had done. The women motioned to me politely, indicating that I might go first, but I shook my head just as politely. I thought that Lucas Cord raised a sarcastic eyebrow, but he said nothing except to give the women what was obviously some advice, in Apache. I watched them both clamber up with amazing ease, giggling as if it was some kind of amusing game to them.
Why did I have to be left here with him? I thought he sensed my fear and gloated at it; even his next words seemed to carry an undertone of irony.
“It is your turn, little sister. You ain’t afraid, are you?”
“Of course I’m not afraid!” I said sharply. “But what are you going to do about the horses? How do you intend to get them up there?”
I think he knew I was procrastinating. The cleft in his cheek deepened, and he narrowed his eyes at me thoughtfully.
“You worried about those two sorry-lookin’ nags? Didn’t think you’d be so softhearted.”
Why did he always succeed in making me angry? I had the feeling he was taunting me.
“You’re surely not going to…”
“Thought about butchering them for the meat.” Catching my horrified look, he shrugged. “But if it upsets you, we could leave them right here. These are wild ponies. They’ll find food for themselves until the others get ready to leave.”
“How casual you are about life, whether it’s animal or human! Those poor beasts…”
“Can look after themselves fine, like I just told you. An’ if you don’t get started I’m goin’ to have to tie one end of that rope around your waist an’ haul you up like one of them sacks!”
The threatening step he took towards me made me back away. Looking back, I think it was only my anger that gave me the courage to scale that cliff face, not daring to look down. Lucas offered me his gloves, but I would not accept them. My palms carried rope burns for a few days afterwards, and I collected bruises on my knees and hips from bumping against sharp rocks as I pulled myself upward, trying to remember how the others had done it. I was never more relieved than when I felt Julio’s strong hands close around my wrists as he lifted me up onto a rocky shelf that widened into a cave.
“Come, nidee. We go this way.”
With my knees still shaking I followed Julio around a sharp bend, and saw light at the other end of what was not actually a cave, but a tunnellike fault in the mountain.
No wonder they called this the hidden valley! I could understand why it would be almost impossible to find, and how even one man, with enough ammunition, could hold off a whole army of attackers.
“My brother found this place when he came into the mountains alone to seek his medicine dream,” Julio told me. “He saw a mountain goat seem to disappear and followed it, and that was how he came upon the valley. See, nidee? All around are the sides of the mountain, like walls. It is as if the mountains were split in the middle, to make this place.”
I looked around wonderingly after we had emerged again into the daylight, and began to scramble down a rocky slope into a meadow with grama grass growing waist-high.
I thought I could see for miles ahead; the valley appeared narrow at this end, but I could see where it began to widen further on. The part I could see to my right was more rocky and mountainous, with enormous boulders scattered about as if they had rolled down the cliff many centuries ago, when perhaps a gigantic earthquake or some other upheaval of nature had created this natural valley. “It’s beautiful!” I said to Julio, and he grunted with pride.
“But you have seen so little, yet. Wait until we travel farther, and then you will see! There is plenty of water here, and there are cattle and horses too. They do well here, and the herds grow, but I tell you it was a very difficult task to get them in here at the beginning!”
I thought of Lucas, who would not be troubled to bring those poor horses who had carried the silver all the way up here into the valley, and my lips tightened with indignation. And almost at the same time, he caught up with us.
The Apache warriors who had accompanied us here had disappeared, along with their women, and I was suddenly all too conscious of the fact that I was alone with my two adopted “brothers.” I told myself angrily that I could almost see Julio in the role, perhaps, but certainly not Lucas.
“I suppose we have to walk again?” I said in a voice that had hardened instinctively, now that he had appeared.
I looked at Julio wh
en I spoke, but it was Lucas who answered my question. “There are horses a few miles up ahead, in a small corral. Ramon always sees that they are kept here in case they should be needed.”
“How thoughtful,” I murmured coldly, and saw Julio’s eyes go from one to the other of us, although he made no comment. He knew I had no fondness for his brother; why should I pretend?
We walked forward again, with Lucas in the lead this time, and Julio following closely behind me. He seemed considerate of me and it was his hand that closed around my arm when I stumbled. Lucas did not even turn his head to see if we followed or not.
I cannot remember how far we walked. The valley widened and seemed to stretch before us, like a miniature kingdom. The country to the left was flat and grassy for the most part, to the right, where the mountain peaks seemed to tower higher than they did anywhere else, the terrain seemed rougher, and split by deep, narrow gullies or arroyos, which, Julio explained, could become roaring watercourses in the summer, when the snow began to melt on the mountaintops.
The corral Lucas had spoken of was a rough, wooden enclosure nestled in grass taller than any I’d ever seen before. There were four or five horses in it: restless, high-stepping animals of Arab stock.
Apaches did not use saddles—only blankets thrown across a horse’s back and bridles made of plaited horsehair or buckskin. Even these were provided in a small lean-to by the side of the corral.
“Would you like to choose which one you’d like to ride?” Surprising me, Lucas came to lean his elbows on the rough fence beside me.
I have always loved horses, and I couldn’t pretend indifference.
“That one—the spotted stallion. The breed is unfamiliar, I think, although I believe I can detect Arab blood in him.”
“You’re a pretty good judge of horseflesh, nidee.” Even the slightly sarcastic inflection of his voice when he called me sister could not detract from the fact that he had actually paid me a compliment. “He’s half Appaloosa. Sired by the first horse I ever owned, off an Arabian mare. You sure you can handle him?”
Was he challenging me again? I gave him a level look, but I could detect no mockery in his face this time.
“May I ride him?”
He shrugged. “Mount him from the right side. An’ remember he’s used to bein’ guided mostly by the pressure of your knees. Got a soft mouth, so don’t saw back too hard on the reins. Best horse in the corral. You’ve chosen well.”
In spite of my earlier forebodings I could not help feeling a thrill of anticipation at being able to ride again. Lucas, for a change, was being almost affable, and Julio, away from his responsibilities as a family man, seemed lighthearted.
After the horses had been “saddled” Apache fashion, we set out, and it was Julio who complimented me this time.
“I see that our little sister rides well,” he commented to Lucas, who merely nodded, his eyes flickering over me without expression. He seemed to have relapsed into his usual mood of somber introspection, and as we rode forward I found myself studying him covertly. He looked like a man with something eating at him inside, but why? He was free; he had a girl waiting for him. I didn’t think he was the kind of man who’d have a conscience that would bother him.
We skirted another deep, steep-sided canyon that seemed to climb to the mountain’s edge, and Julio, riding close to me, said in a low voice, “My brother has a small cabin up there, a place he goes to when he wants to be alone. Even I have not been there. But then—” and he shrugged, “I do not come here often. I prefer the freedom of my people.”
Every now and then I found myself forgetting that Julio was an Apache subchief, and the father of two young children. Like his brother, he was something of an enigma. But it was Lucas, in spite of everything I knew about him, who intrigued me most. A man like him—why would he want to be alone? I could better imagine him acting on sheer animal impulse. What had intrigued poor Flo so much that she would leave the security she had had to follow him? Above all, and the thought came to me like a blow, what was I doing here, in the midst of all this intrigue, playing the part of a helpless pawn?
We were descending, almost imperceptibly, into a part of the valley that was like a bowl, a green and brown depression within a depression. Even the climate seemed to have changed in some subtle way. There was no snow here, and the air seemed slightly warmer. The mountains that ringed us seemed to tower loftily and even more impenetrably. Craggy peaks brushed with snow, cloud-touched in some places.
Again I thought, what am I doing here? How did I come to be here? But strangely, the thought did not frighten me as it had done before. I could not help feeling exhilarated by the challenge that lay ahead of me, and the beauty of the land that lay around me. A tiny Eden. How long had this valley lain here, like a woman untouched, waiting to be taken? Even the thoughts that came into my mind were strange, not my usual, practical thoughts. I was here. The old shaman had talked of things that were meant to be; and I recalled now that I had heard so-called wise men in India speak of something they called karma, one’s inescapable fate, shaped by all the events in the past. Strange, but ever since I had received that first communication from my father, I had been caught up in the past, moved and influenced by things that had taken place long before I was born. My being here too had something to do with the past, but I felt, quite suddenly, that for the first time since I had come to America I was completely on my own, with no one else to guide me, advise me. But I had my wits, my intelligence…
Julio, who had ridden ahead with Lucas for the last few minutes, now dropped back, bringing his mount beside mine. “You like what you have seen so far?”
“How can I help it?” My response was honest. “It’s beautiful. But—” and I spoke aloud the question that had been puzzling me for some time, “Where are all the people? I’ve seen cattle, and horses; who looks after them?”
He made a sound that might have passed for laughter in another man.
“You have sharp eyes, nidee. Yes, we have people who tend to the animals here—not many, but a few trusted men my mother brought with her from Mexico. But no doubt they are at the house now, having their evening meal. It is getting late, and the sun drops from view early here. There’s no need to watch for intruders in this place, for who could find it?”
“But surely your people know of this place?”
“A few do. But we respect the dwelling places of our friends and families. Sometimes if a winter has been very hard, we come here. There is always food and game to be found if we want it. My brothers who came with us will stay here for a while, until the hides we took have been cured, and the meat smoked and packed away. And then they will return.”
“Why don’t they come with us?”
“The Apache does not like to live in a house. They will find their own place and the women will build a wickiup to shelter them.”
“You left the silver too,” I said a trifle sarcastically, but Julio was impervious to sarcasm.
“Who will touch it? Later, one of my mother’s vaqueros will go and bring it back to the house.”
“The house,” I repeated slowly. “Won’t you feel stifled within the walls and roof of a house?”
“I think that already you have come to understand my people, nidee. Yes, I do not like houses either. I will sleep outside, even though my mother will not like it.”
I wanted to ask him why he had come. His voice held no inflection of affection when he spoke of his mother, although perhaps that was because he was an Apache, and not accustomed to any outward show of emotion. I said impulsively, “I wish Little Bird had come with us!” and he gave me a guarded look that might have held some pleasure.
“Little Bird does not like my mother. My mother does not like her. My wife is happier with her people. But I am glad you are fond of her, as she is of you. In the short time you lived with us you learned our ways very quickly, little sister.”
I had the feeling that he might have said more if Lucas had not swung
his horse around and ridden back to us.
As usual, I felt a surge of resentment at his flickering look that seemed to tell me how untidy and unkempt I must look, with strands of hair escaping from my braids.
“It ain’t but a short distance now, but we’ll stop for a while to rest the horses. You want to take a bath, change clothes, there’s a small stream back there, behind those trees.”
Unconsciously, my hand went up to brush tendrils of hair from my face, and his mouth tilted at the corner.
“Give you ten minutes on your own, sister. And then I’m comin’ in too. Need to wash off some of the trail dirt.”
Under his sardonic gaze I took the small pack containing my new clothes from the back of the horse I had chosen and walked, without a backward glance, in the direction at which he’d pointed. So I had to make myself more presentable before I met his mother, did I? I could almost have wished I had those ugly clothes I’d worn on my journey from Boston. Ramon would certainly not want to marry me if he had seen me then!
But in spite of the anger that Lucas could always arouse in me, the stream was cool and refreshing, and I did feel better for being clean again. Remembering my promise to the shaman, I put on the traditional Apache dress he had given me, and combed my wet hair so that it hung loosely down my back. Vanity, I chided myself, but I could not help staring at my reflection in the water and wondering what Elena Kordes would think when she saw me.
Part IV:
The Valley of Hidden Desires
Twenty-One
My first impression, as I saw Elena Kordes walk down the steps of the rambling Spanish-style adobe and wood house, was that she could not possibly be as young as she looked.
There was still light in the sky, but the lamps had been lit, and formed a background for the jewels that sparkled in the elaborate Spanish-style comb she wore in her high-piled black hair. They were rubies, like the stones she wore around her neck.
The Wildest Heart Page 28