Bandit's Embrace (The Durango Family)

by Georgina Gentry

  His grandson smiled with warmth and affection. He was exceptionally tall for an Apache and ruggedly handsome, except for his broken nose. Someday, Cougar thought with sudden fury, someday I will find that trio. . . .

  “Grandfather, we must talk! Something important has happened while you were gone.”

  Cougar put his arm around his fifteen-year-old grandson’s shoulders, and they walked toward the wickiup. Little Bear was all the family the old chief had left. One at a time, the white man himself or his diseases had killed the others. The painful memories returned though he did not want to think of them, of what had happened to the boy’s parents five years ago. “We will smoke and eat,” he said, “and you tell me what has happened here and I will tell you of the raid across the border.”

  The boy scowled, shaking his shoulder-length ebony hair back. He wore it in the Apache style, loose, with a scarlet headband on his dark forehead. His muscular chest was bare though he wore a breechcloth, leggings and knee-high moccasins to guard against poisonous snakes. “I am a man,” he said, fingering the beaded cougar tooth and claw necklace his grandfather had given him. “I should have been allowed to go along on this attack!”

  “No, my grandson.” Cougar led him through the door of the wickiup, sighed gratefully as he sank down on the robes before the fire. He was too old to do this much longer, but someone must lead his people. “I need you here to look after the camp, the women and children while I am gone.”

  Little Bear sat down cross-legged before the fire. “You say that, but other boys my age have already taken their first war trail.”

  “Maybe next time,” the old man murmured. They had had these words before. The boy was precious to him—too precious.

  “I hear talk,” the boy grumbled, staring into the fire. “Everyone says you fear to lose me, will always find reasons to keep me from going.”

  Old Cougar could not bring himself to lie so he did not answer, staring instead into the fire. Both his wives, his many sons and daughters, the grandchildren were dead. All that was left to him was this one, tall strong grandson.

  A girl with a mutilated nose brought pottery bowls of food, and bowed as she-offered them to the pair, her dark eyes lingering on the boy.

  “Let us eat now.” The old chief laughed, grateful for the interruption. Sooner or later, the boy would be a brave. But the old man could not bear it if this last one were taken from him. No, somewhere there might be a strong son from that white girl, maybe even a grandson.

  He took the food, dipped his hand into the mesquite beans, the roasted rabbit. Like his old enemies, the Comanche, he would not touch fish. Like the Kiowa, bear meat was taboo to him. The hot chili peppers tasted good, and he savored the crisp corn cakes although his teeth were worn and it was difficult to chew. He thought wistfully of tiswin, the strong, Apache beer that he would have had in his own country. Instead, he reached for a gourd of warm chich’il libaye, the coffee boiled from live oak leaves. Someday soon, he wanted to go back there and help Cochise defend their land.

  He said nothing until the girl left. “I see the maidens looking at you, my grandson. Soon you will be wanting to take a wife, bring strong sons into the world.”

  The boy looked up from the roasted meat he tore at. “That one lusts for any man; that’s why her husband has cut off her nose! But what respectable maiden would consider as husband a man who has won no war honors yet in going against our enemies?”

  “Someday,” the old man promised solemnly, “your name will be known far and wide as a great chief of the Ha’i’aha Mashgale’, the Mescalero Apache. You will win many battles against our foes.” But not yet, he thought grimly as he ate, my heart would be too filled with pain to lose him. “I grow weary of this foreign place and sometimes, even of our allies, the Lipan and the Kickapoo. I yearn to return to our old home in our hills that the invading whites call New Mexico and Arizona.”

  The boy paused, brushed his hand across his hawklike, broken nose. “I have news myself.” He leaned forward eagerly, the crispy rabbit still clutched in his hand. “While you were gone, our scouts reported three men crossed the wide river, came through our country and headed south.”

  Cougar wiped his wrinkled hand across his greasy mouth, smearing the war paint on his face. “Three men?” His ears pricked up like a coyote’s. “The trio we seek?”

  The boy nodded, continued eating. “Three, Grandfather. One who looked like a gunfighter, a big one in the soldiers’ blue and a short one in an old gray coat like those of the soldiers that fought the blue-coated ones.”

  “That could be anyone,” Cougar argued, reaching up to finger the cougar tooth and claw necklace he wore, one identical to that on his grandson’s strong neck. There had been one other necklace. . . . “I wish I had been here.”

  “It must be them,” the boy insisted. “The pistolero rode a gray horse. I should have chased them down myself.”

  “Alone against three after what they did to you five years ago?” The old man peered at him intensely. “You have more courage than sense.” He thought about torture, the most terrible torture he could devise. “We’ll get them.”

  “But they have gotten away,” the boy said with an annoyed gesture as he finished his meat. “They have ridden south.”

  Cougar was suddenly no longer hungry, remembering the scene when he had found his dead son and daughter-in-law. “For gringos to come here, there must be gold involved, otherwise they would not be so loco as to come into our hunting grounds.”

  “We should ride after them,” the boy jumped to his feet.

  Old Cougar reached for his pipe. “Do you know the big, wooly na’iltl’oole, the spider the gringos call the tarantula?”

  “So? I know it.” Little Bear nodded. “It does not chase after prey but lays a trap and waits.”

  The old man smiled knowingly, arched his hand and moved it across the blanket in spidery motions. “Sooner or later, those three will ride back north through our country. And when they do . . .” He grinned and made the motion of the big spider leaping out of its trap door. “We will get them by lying in wait.”

  The boy fingered his broken nose, his scarred face. “It will not be enough to pay for the deaths of my parents.”

  “We will make it enough.” The old man glared down at his clenched fist. “We will make their deaths last a long time as only Apaches know how, I promise that!”

  He needed to think. “Now go ride the fine palomino colt I have brought you. It is colored like the sun.” He patted his tall grandson’s muscular arm with deep affection.

  “You are right, shiwoye hastiin Ndolkah,” which was Apache for Grandfather Cougar. The boy smiled. “There is much yet I need to learn before I lead our people.”

  Cougar gestured him to leave, leaned back with a sigh to light his pipe from the embers of the fire. His last relative. He said the word in Apache: shichoye. Grandson.

  Idly he smoked, looking into the flickering fire. Although it was the beginning of the time of T’aa’acho that whites called May, he felt cold and his ancient bones ached. Somehow he did not think he would survive another year, but he had a duty to his people until Little Bear was old enough to lead.

  He stared into the campfire. The gringo’s wagons had burned with orange flames that day his band had first raided into Texas. The white girl’s face came to him with sudden clarity even though it had been forty or more years

  The isdzan. The woman. He smiled in spite of himself, remembering the female with hair the color of white man’s gold, eyes like the sky. Cougar had been a young brave then, virile as a mustang stallion. His war party had left their usual haunts, caught the settlers just moving into south Texas.

  The old man leaned back against the willow backrest with a sigh, remembering the softness of the woman, her full, white breasts. In his mind, he relived the triumph of that long-ago raid. But mostly he remembered the girl. He should have taken her away as a captive, kept her for his own. . . .

  She h
ad been brave for a woman, fighting him as he chased her down, ripped her clothes away. What foreign tongue she spoke, he did not know; it was not the language of the tejanos or even the words of the Spanish.

  But she shook her head and screamed in defiance, fighting him off. Even now he smiled, admiring her memory. He had pulled her to him, twisting her hands behind her so he could taste her naked breasts, had run his dark, hard hands over her pale skin.

  When he threw her down to mount her, he pinned her hands over her head so that her pink nipples stood up, firm and proud, on her rounded breasts for his seeking mouth. Her small hands were red and callused, and he felt anger that such a pretty thing should have been worked so hard.

  He considered stealing her away. As a younger, favored wife in his wickiup, she would have a privileged life and much bright clothing and jewels from his raids, for Ndolkah, the Cougar, was a noted warrior.

  But she had a man and children. Cougar had seen them flee from the wagon, the man grabbing up a son, but not stopping for the woman when she stumbled and fell behind.

  A coward. Her man was a coward, Cougar thought with contempt as he pulled the woman against him and covered her open mouth with his own. This custom of the whites was pleasurable to him, and he forced his tongue between her pink lips as a sign of his domination while he separated her thighs with his stroking hand.

  Around them, fire and fury: screaming, shooting, the smell of flames and smoke and blood.

  Cougar whispered to the girl that she was his, that he intended to steal her as a mustang stallion steals choice fillies from lesser stallions. If her man would not fight to keep her, he did not deserve her. He lay between her thighs, his manhood throbbing hard against her entry, and as he murmured to her, she stopped fighting and looked into his eyes as if no man had ever shown such desire for her.

  Very slowly, Cougar slipped his pulsating maleness deep into her velvet sheath and she was wet with the wanting of him.

  Hiding in the grass, her white man watched. But fear was strong on his pale face, and he did not come to challenge Cougar for possession of the woman.

  A man who will not gamble his life to keep such a beauty does not truly desire such a prize, the young brave thought contemptuously as he lay throbbing in her depths, stroking her light hair. She did not fight him now, and he knew the white man would be angry with her, seeing that she did not scream and struggle.

  While her man watched from a distance, Cougar rode her into ecstasy, making her moan and arch up against him while he sucked her firm nipples, drove into her quivering satin that held his maleness as if she would never let him go.

  And when her blue eyes flickered closed and her white body arched eagerly against his dark one, he would contain his desire no longer. He emptied his seed deep within her, thinking of the child she might give him. He lay on her satin belly and kissed her beautiful face, knowing he would take this one with him. What sons this one would give him!

  But even as he stood up, pulled her to her feet, the woman began to cry. Cougar gestured toward his war-painted pony, making it clear that she was a prize to be taken. She shook her head, pointed toward the children crouched with the man over the little rise in the creekbed.

  The cowardly white man did not deserve such a woman. But the children. . . . Cougar could see four little light-haired, blue-eyed ones staring back at him like cowering rabbits in the grass. He himself had been orphaned by white hunters, and he remembered suddenly how lonely that small brown boy had been.

  But what was that to him? Cougar caught the woman’s arm, dragged her toward his horse. Around him, wagons burned and dead white bodies sprawled, their limbs at odd angles. Arrows sticking out of them. Blood and smoke seemed to be everywhere. Shouting, painted warriors ran here and there, scalping, grabbing up guns and booty. They had taken the white camp by surprise, and the gringos were too soft for this hard land.

  The warriors were mounting up now. All of the enemy left alive were the woman he pulled across the earth, the man and children hiding in the grass. One of the braves gestured, smiled, indicating they would all like a chance to mate the woman.

  Annoyed, Cougar shook his head. He watched her attempt to pull her worn dress up to hide her full breasts. He did not want to share his woman. He would take her back to become his wife, produce many strong sons for him. Perhaps he had already planted a ripe seed in her belly.

  He tried to tell her she should be pleased and proud to be chosen by a warrior of many coups, many battle honors. Cougar knew the white man would not want the woman now that an Indian’s seed had filled her.

  She did not seem to understand when he told her that. She looked at him as if she would like to go, then wept and begged in her strange tongue, shaking her head. The children. It dawned on him that she was begging not to be taken from her children. He could not take the children, too. This was a lightning raid. Any who could not keep up would have to be killed along the way or abandoned.

  She fell on her knees, clasped his legs, begging; no longer proud. And because he had himself been orphaned, his heart softened and he did not take her.

  Instead, he slipped his necklace of cougar claws and teeth around her neck, explaining that no Apache would harm her upon seeing it. “Skii” ni nzhqq,” he whispered in Apache. I love you.

  She seemed to understand, smiled at him.

  He touched his scarred, brown chest with his finger, “Ndolkah, Cougar,” he said.

  “Ndolkah,” she repeated, fingering the necklace.

  When the war party rode out, he left her standing alone on the prairie amid the burning wagons, her family still unseen by the others, hiding in the tall grass.

  Forty years? Fifty years? Still Cougar could remember the way the blue-eyed woman had looked standing there in the carnage, still holding her torn dress over her fine breasts, her pale, long hair blowing about her naked shoulders.

  Memories. Cougar stared into the fire, remembering that scene, that woman. To his very last breath, he would never forget her. He had always regretted his softness of heart, his decision to free her so that cowardly gringo could reclaim her when the braves rode away. He should have stolen her and raised a big family by her.

  The old warrior stared into the flickering flames, smoked his pipe. Had he put a child in her belly that long-ago day? If so, that child would be long grown now, might have children of its own. He frowned, thinking his half-breed child would not have been welcome among the whites, would not have been wanted by that man who had watched with cowardice while Cougar mated his woman.

  And if there was a half-breed child, there might even be a grandchild, a grandson of some twenty or more winter counts, cousin to Little Bear.

  He smiled. Somewhere maybe a young Texan carried as his heritage, one quarter of old Cougar’s blood. Would the boy be blond like the immigrant woman? Would he look just a little like his grandsire? The thought cheered him some.

  Memories. All a man had left at the end of life were memories and the bloodline he passed on. All his kin was dead now but Little Bear . . . unless he had left that white girl with child.

  Memories. Old Cougar thought of the trio of gringos and of what they had done to the last remnants of his family. His fists clenched around the pipe as he remembered.

  Revenge. The Mescalero would set a trap like the big woolly spider. Sooner or later, the three outlaws would come back this way and the scouts would be watching for them. Cougar renewed his vow as he stared into the fire. For what they had done to his son’s family, the old man would extract payment a thousand times over. When the braves finished torturing them, those three white men would beg for the mercy of death!

  Chapter Six

  Just what had he gotten himself into? Bandit thought about it as he sat on a bench outside the door of the library of the big Falcon hacienda. This whole loco scheme of taking a dead man’s place had seemed like a great idea last night when he was getting that tattoo in Monterrey. But in the clear light of morning, Bandit wasn’t
so sure.

  What in blue blazes was Romeros saying to the old man that was taking so long? No, it isn’t that long, Bandit reminded himself, studying the mark of the falcon with wings spread in flight. It just seemed like he was waiting forever while his fellow conspirator announced to the old. don that the long-lost son was found.

  They were taking a chance in trying to fool this rich and powerful family, Bandit thought, staring down at the little tattoo on the back of his left hand. He felt deep guilt, remembering. He shrugged. The past couldn’t be changed, and that tragedy hadn’t been his fault. What he needed to concentrate on now was whether Romeros would be able to convince the old man.

  No. Bandit shook his head. Romeros’s part was small. When it got down to the crux of the matter, it was Bandit himself who had to fool Falcon. Could he?

  If the old man figured out their plot, he would probably throw both of them into a Mexican jail to rot away the rest of their days. Bandit shivered, thinking about the secret. If the old man knew that, with his money and power, he could probably have them both killed and no one would ever question his power to do so.

  Even Romeros didn’t know how it would come out. Uncertainly, Bandit stood up, looked toward the front door at the end of the hall. It led out onto the porch. He suddenly realized that it wasn’t just the gamble he was taking that made him uneasy.

  It was wrong, deeply wrong, to try to fool two sad old people who were so eager to believe Bandit was their long-missing son. Bandit had lived a hard, lonely life, sometimes doing things he wasn’t proud of, sometimes on the doubtful side of the law. But he’d never stooped this low before. Even an ornery hombre, such as he was, had a few principles.

  Bandit looked from the closed library door, down the long hallway to the front entry. He wouldn’t be part of this rotten scheme. To hell with the greedy Romeros!

  Bandit started down the hall.

  “Hombre, where are you going?”