by Janet Dailey
When he opened the door, the room reeked of smoke. He walked into the haze, found an empty chair at the game table, and sat down. He knew most of the players already.
Roughly an hour later, Cherry came through. The heavy powder on her face was beginning to cake from the heat, showing the hardness in the features that had once been pretty. Cherry was of the belief that a man liked to do his sinning in splendor, so she gave it to him—the Victorian house, the chandeliers, the brocades and silks. She gave Cutter a look that said the night had been a wild one—one old friend to another— and went on to the little office she had in back.
The poker game broke up about midnight and Cutter wandered into the parlor, finding some whiskey and a quiet corner, while the rest of Loans Cherry’s clientele finished their business and went home. The last one to leave had drunk a few too many, and Cherry hooked Ins arm around her shoulders, half-carrying him to the door. Cutter made a move to help her, but she waved him back to his chair.
With the door shut and locked, she leaned against it. All the vitality seemed to ebb from her. Even the vivid scarlet of her hair looked artificial.
“Hell of a way to make a living, isn’t it?” she murmured, and walked through the parlor, picking up glasses and depositing them on a tray. Then she flopped into a chair near Cutter, her arms hanging loosely over the sides and her head tilted back.
“Drink?” He offered the whiskey bottle.
She looked at it and made a face. “I can’t even stand the smell of it anymore. Nital!” she hollered. “Bring me a cup of coffee!!” An affirmative reply came from the back of the house. Cherry shifted, bracing an elbow on the chair’s curved armrest and supporting her forehead on her hand. “Why do you suppose all men are worms? Present company excluded, of course.”
“Of course.” He smiled wryly. “If you feel that way, maybe you oughta get out of the business.”
“And do what?”
His shoulder lifted. “Get married.” Cutter raised the shot glass of whiskey to his mouth.
Her interest aroused, she looked at him. “Are you proposing?” But she already knew the answer. “I thought not.” Her red mouth twisted, but Cherry did straighten a little in the chair and push at the cherry-red hair from which she got her nickname. “I must look a sight.”
“Scrape off some of that rice powder and rouge and that kohl around your eyes, and a man might find a pretty woman.” The idle observation came as the girl Nita entered the parlor with Cherry’s coffee, her face all swollen and bruised around one eye.
“The later it gets, the homier a man gets and the more desperate he gets, until finally the ugliest hag looks beautiful to him.” Cherry took the coffee cup, but ignored the girl. No acknowledgment appeared to be expected as the young Mexican crossed to the staircase and climbed the steps without a backward glance. “It isn’t kind to say such things to a woman like me, Cutter.” A trace of sadness was in her hardened expression, and a bit of resentful anger. “It gets her to wishing for things she can’t have.”
“Why?”
“Maybe there was a time when I could have walked outta that door—and outta this way of living,” the woman mused; then her expression turned cynical and amused. “And if you’re asking how I came to take up this profession . . . naturally there’s a man involved. He came along at the time when I was ripe for picking. Well, he picked me—and a few hundred miles later, he dropped me. What was I to do then? How does a woman make a living out here if she hasn’t got a man? Some do,” Cherry conceded. “But a gal makes a mistake, and she gets marked. So what fair town would want a soiled woman like me teaching school or sewing clothes or cooking in a restaurant? I didn’t have any money, nowhere to sleep . . . Hell, I did it!” Her tired laugh derided the justifications she was making. Almost immediately it faded away. “And, no doubt, I’d do it again.”
“An honest woman.” Cutter fitted his glass to her, sincere even as he smiled at the irony.
She sipped at her coffee, her red lips pursing around the cup’s rim, then lowered it to release a long sigh and eye Cutter with a speculative glance. “You almost make me believe that you mean the things you say to me.”
“I do.” He frowned slightly, studying her closer.
“Maybe so,” Cherry conceded, then laughed a husky laugh that had been roughened by years of whiskey and smoke and raw living. “But, honey, you still ain’t gonna get it for nothing.” She reached over to grab his hand, and led him up the stairs.
CHAPTER 10
DURING THE TIME OF EARTH REDDISH BROWN, LUTERO’S band packed up and moved again. Hannah looked at the low-running river they waited to ford, presently being checked for quicksand by Lutero and Angry Dog. Lutero rode Hannah’s bloodbay gelding, but the desert-toughened animal bore little resemblance to the sleek, flashy steed she’d once ridden for pleasure.
The dun horse Gatita was riding shifted sideways, its hindquarters jostling against Hannah, who as a slave was relegated to walking, Hannah stepped closer to the head of the silver-gray packhorse she led and gazed at the mud-colored water moving slowly between the wide banks.
“What river is this?” She had picked up some Apache, but, as now, she still mainly used Spanish.
“The one you call the Rio Grande. Mexico.” Gatita pointed to the other side.
Hannah had never seen the Rio Grande before. They had ranged farther east than she’d thought. The signal was given to cross, and the first of the band urged their mounts into the clay-colored water, the horses splashing as they waded in. The forward flow began around her, but Hannah hung back, her feet rooted on the American side. The dark, scrubby tail of the dun horse swished at her as it passed, Gatita astride and Go-yath-khla, Sleepy, on the cradleboard strapped to her back.
The river was the border. The U.S. Army could not cross it, If she crossed it, Stephen could not follow her. It was irrelevant that he didn’t know where she was; crossing that river was the abandonment of another chance, however remote, of being rescued.
“Ugashé go!” The rawhide-curled toe of an Apache boot struck her between the shoulder blades, roughly shoving her forward. Herded from behind, she was driven down the embankment into the water and swept into the train of horses and riders, unable to turn back. On the opposite bank, Hannah paused for one last look at the American side, her throat tight and her eyes hot.
Most of the dead wood around the rancheria had already been picked up. Each time, Hannah had to go farther afield to gather firewood. She stacked an armload onto the accumulating pile and started out for more. A sound, almost like the wail of a small baby, drifted into her hearing. Sleepy had been acting colicky lately, fussing and cranky, not at all his usual benignly contented self, so Hannah supposed it was him.
The distant crying continued. It was unusual for Sleepy to cry at all, and never that long and that hard. As Hannah stooped to pick up a dead branch, she listened .to the baby’s cries and realized that they weren’t coming from the direction of the jacal; instead, the source was somewhere in the chaparral. She dropped the branch and the other firewood in her arms and went to investigate.
Deep in the brush twenty yards from the wickiup, Hannah found the squalling baby tied in its cradleboard and strung from a bush. The angry, heartbroken cries were wrenching sounds, impossible to ignore. Not a soul was in sight as Hannah hurried to comfort the red-faced infant, crying so hard that he was shaking. The crosses and parallel tracks decorating the stretched rawhide hood of the cradleboard and the amulets of hummingbird claws, splinters from lightning-struck wood, and bags of ha-dintin, ferrous dust, that hung about the frame were protective charms.
“Sleepy,” she crooned in some surprise, and gathered up the cradleboard to untie it from the bush, looking around in some confusion for Gatita. “Sssh, we didn’t forget you, Sleepy.” Instinctively she spoke in Spanish. She rarely lapsed into English anymore even when she was alone.
When she had the cradleboard with its crying baby freed from the bush, Hannah started toward t
he jacal, all the time comforting him with her voice and the soothing touch of her hands. His crying became less strident and more tearful, self-pitying.
“What you do?” An angry Gatita suddenly confronted Hannah and grabbed the cradleboard and her son away from her.
“I found him out there. Someone tied his cradleboard to a—“ She broke off as Gatita swept past her to walk back into the brush, not interested in the answer.
Confused, Hannah followed. The baby began crying afresh, but Gatita appeared unmoved by his wails and made no attempt to comfort or silence him. When they were well away from the clearing of the rancheria, Gatita stopped and began to tie the cradleboard to the limb of another scrub tree.
“You aren’t going to leave him there?” Hannah protested when Gatita left the cradleboard suspended from the limb and turned her back on the angry, frightened wall of the boy-child.
“Sleepy must learn is bad to cry. We leave alone until he stops.” Gatita stated her position quite emphatically.
“But—“ The baby was so small, and the action seemed so heartless.
“He must learn he not get what he wants if he cries. If he silent, then will get,” Gatita explained. “Noisy baby is bad. Enemy might hear. Learn early to stay quiet. That is way of Apache.”
And Hannah noted that the lessons always seemed to be cruel ones. Compassion, tenderness, sympathy— they had no place in these environs. She tried to shut her ears to the baby’s bawling, but it didn’t come easily to her.
When she had the firewood gathered into a bundle, she dragged it into camp. A bright-eyed Sleepy was cooing happily in his cradleboard, this time hanging from an upright post of the ramada, and batting at the shiny baubles dangling from the hood.
Cactus Pear, the bi-zhahn, young divorcee, was at the fire with Gatita. Since she was without a husband, Cactus Pear supported herself by making clay pots, which she gave to the others in the rancheria in the expectation of receiving gifts of game or other goods and supplies. Small red circles were tattooed in a line across her forehead, a form of adornment affected by some Chiricahua women.
The scrawny camp dogs set up a barking, advising the rancheria of approaching riders. Hannah looked to the southwest and saw a faint haze of dust. Minutes later she heard the lowing of cattle and the first shout that indicated the return of the Apache raiders. This was the harvesting of another crop. The desert home of the Nde-nda-i Apache did not provide enough food and game for them to subsist on it alone. To survive, they had to raid the farmers and ranchers on both sides of the border, sometimes using stolen goods to trade for other things they needed. In truth, the Apache didn’t want to drive the white man or the Mexican from his lands since he would thus be depriving himself of a source of food, supplies, and goods for trade, such as these scrawny Mexican cattle. Whenever there was trading to be done, Hannah wasn’t allowed to remain in camp, where she could be seen by licit traders, white or Mexican. She-was always taken into the brush and tied there, guarded by Apaches.
The dust haze thinned and Hannah’s gaze picked out Lutero astride the blood bay gelding on the herd’s right flank. Always at the sight of those flat, high-boned features, Hannah stiffened with dislike. She could never completely block out the memory of his violations of her. At times she still felt unclean from the past rape, but he had never again approached her, although sometimes she caught him watching her. Apache custom insisted that a man abstain from sex with his wife while she nursed their child, Hannah wasn’t sure whether he didn’t want to risk the tribe’s censure or whether he stayed away because she was his wife’s property. Either way, he didn’t come near her.
And the only time he broke his celibacy was after a successful raid when there was celebration and dancing. As a skilled raider, Lutero was invariably chosen by one of the bi-zhahns or young widows as a partner in the Property Dance. Payment was expected for the privilege out of his share of the raid’s plunder. Only the unattached women were allowed to dance in such a lewd and lascivious manner, or to slip away with the warrior to her jacal. A bi-zhahn had no husband to satisfy her needs—her every need. At this special time, custom allowed her to seek out a man and obtain a share of the plunder while relieving the inner pressure of long abstinence, both hers and the warrior’s, who’d spent weeks away from his wickiup. So tonight, Hannah could be fairly certain that Cactus Pear or one of the other bi-zhahns would seek Lutero’s attentions . . . with the tribe’s blessing.
She turned away from the sight of the returning raiders and rubbed a hand down her sinewy thigh. The hard work was endless and little time was available for her to reflect on her plight beyond a moment now and then for the flashes of bitter resentment, the odd flickers of hope, and the poignant flares of memory. Even in her moments of greatest despair, Hannah could not imagine living this way forever, always on the edge of hunger, fatigue, thirst, and pain. Yet the Apaches’ bright moments had become hers—the laugh of a child, a full stomach, and the fresh scent of aloe-washed hair.
By now she looked Apache. The unrelenting sun had deepened the red hues in her mahogany-dark hair, but its fire was contained in the traditional double loops, held at the nape of her neck by a nah-leen, a bow-shaped piece of leather. The sun had also darkened her fair skin to a deep shade of bronze. The loose-fitting buckskin top and calf-length skirt were duplicates of the first Apache clothes she’d been given, only these Hannah had made herself, as well as the n’deh b’keh, the tall, curl-toed Apache boots that came up to her knees. Her vocabulary included more Apache words all the time. She knew many of the rituals and taboos. Slowly she was being absorbed into the Apache way of life.
But not completely.
Following the celebration of the highly successful raid, the Mexican traders came to the rancheria to barter for the horses and cattle with whiskey, ammunition, and guns. As always, at any time strangers, especially non-Apache, came to the camp, Hannah was taken a mile or more away, where she was left tied. She never came in contact with anyone outside Lutero’s band.
All day and all night, Hannah remained bound to a tree with a rawhide rope. Accustomed to privation, she thought little of water for her dry mouth or food for her empty stomach or the stiffness caused by restricted movement. She only hoped no one came for her until well after all the whiskey had been drunk, so that she could be spared the bursts of hot temper, fueled by the “fire water,” and the randy advances of drunken, pawing Apache braves.
By now, she knew they would eventually come for her and not leave her tied out there to die. As long as she was healthy and strong and did what she was told, she was useful to them. She was a good slave, if there was such a thing. But on the day that she became a burden, she would be sold or killed. That was the way.
The morning sun had been burning in the sky for more than, an hour when Gatita walked silently out of the brush. She offered no greeting as she approached Hannah. And Hannah said nothing either, not even when she noticed the large, purpling bruise below Gatita’s eye. The ropes were untied, freeing Hannah, and she rubbed at her limbs to speed the slow return of circulation while she eyed the small-built Apache woman, sensing something was wrong.
Gatita passed her a water tus, a small wicker jug woven out of sumac. Hannah lifted it to her lips and tipped it to let some liquid flow into her mouth, enough to wet its dryness. The warm water had the faint flavor of piñon from the pine gum used to caulk it. After a second swallow, she gave the tus back to Gatita, and they started in the direction of the rancheria.
“We get thlees, horses,” Gatita said. “Take back so we can pack.”
“Why?” Hannah looked around at their mountain stronghold in the Candelaria Mountains of Mexico. They had plenty of food, water, and graze.
“He-with-whom-I-go-about say ugashi, we must go,” She referred to her husband, Lutero; his order would normally have ended discussion, except that Gatita too seemed to resent the necessity of leaving this camp where they had plenty. “Last night, the pepper-eating one who came to trade for c
attle, he drink whiskey and tell of raid by Apache on the kinh, house of Mexican jefe, leader. Many slow-die. Much power taken. Mexican beshes, long-knives, very angry. Many, many search mountains.” Her hand made an arc to indicate the mountainous country all around them. “Pepper-eating one may tell of this place. He-with-whom-I-go-about saw crow this morning. Bad sign. Ugashé
“Who took the power?” Hannah wondered if Lutero had tortured the Mexican family at the hacienda that had been attacked by Apaches.
“It was Juh. He is hesh-ke.”
“No comprendo.” Hannah frowned, the Apache word completely unfamiliar to her.
“One of the crazies, the unreasonable haters,” Gatita replied. “Juh is hesh-ke.”
Unreasonable hater. The phrase triggered a vague memory of a conversation with Captain Jake Cutter. In her mind, Hannah saw him again: the hard, grave features, the keen blue eyes, and the shaggy black hair curling into his uniform collar. The clarity of his image was brief, and the thought was forgotten as they approached the horse herd.
After catching two of their packhorses, they led them to the jacal. Sleepy jabbered away at them from his cradleboard hanging on a ramada post. The packing of belongings and supplies began. The hut, which had taken half a day to construct, was quickly dismantled, the canvas kept and folded to be loaded on the horses, the rest discarded. Each time a rancheria site was abandoned, the procedure was the same. Nothing would be left as it was; even the fire pit would be smoothed over so that anything that happened in this place while they were gone would not affect the Apaches when they returned.
An impatient, glowering Lutero watched them begin the long task of loading the horses. Restive and irritable, he growled at their slowness, but made no move to help them. It was women’s work. Hannah could see the dullness and lethargy of a hangover about him, the flatness that dragged at him and soured his mood. She stayed well clear of him, so it was Gatita he sent to fetch his horse.