“Be silent, old woman,” hissed a voice from the back of the crowd. “Do not speak my brother’s name again lest his spirit become angry.”
“Your brother would not see Kladetahe punished unjustly,” the old squaw retorted.
“My brother’s blood cries out for vengeance,” the angry voice replied curtly.
“Kladetahe is no longer a brother to the Apache,” Niyokahe proclaimed in a loud voice. “He has betrayed the People to the white-eyes, and the penalty is death!”
The warriors shouted their approval. There was no place in their ranks for a traitor, red or white.
The old woman held her ground, patiently waiting for the outcry of the warriors to die down before asking in a reasonable tone, “Would you kill a brother without hearing his side? That is not the Apache way. Every man is allowed to defend his honor.”
“A traitor has no honor,” Delshay’s brother exclaimed vehemently. “I say kill him!”
Scattered shouts of approval and shouts of “Kill him, kill him, kill him!” rippled through the crowd.
The blood of the warriors, stirred by Fallon’s betrayal, ran hot with hatred for all white-eyes, especially for the blue-coats, but also for the Mexicans, who offered a bounty on Apache scalps.
“Cat-ra-ra ata uri Innas ‘u un’ Nakai-ye!” Niyokahe cried passionately, and the cry was picked up and repeated by every warrior present until the shout echoed and re-echoed off the high canyon walls like thunder. “Curses and destruction on all white men and Mexicans!”
The old woman paid no heed to the heated words and threats rising all around her. Instead, she focused her rheumy old eyes on the face of the man who was striding briskly toward her.
Kayitah was tall for an Apache, standing almost six feet. He was naked save for breech-clout and moccasins. The firelight glistened on his broad, copper-hued chest. A necklace of bear claws circled his throat. His hair, showing more gray than black, was held away from his face by a wide strip of red cloth. His torso was rife with scars, mute evidence of innumerable battles fought and won.
“Ugashe!” he commanded the old woman. “Go!”
The old woman held her ground a moment more, then, her rheumy old eyes still defiant, she returned to the sidelines.
Fallon stared at the Apache chief. There was an aura of strength and power about Kayitah that demanded respect. It was apparent the moment he arrived on the scene, and Fallon felt it now as the Indian regarded him through hostile, deep-set black eyes.
“Kladetahe was once welcomed by our people as a friend and a brother,” Kayitah remarked coldly. “He slept in our lodges and ate at our fires. He married one of our women. He fought our enemies. But that was long ago. Now his heart has turned against us. He no longer deserves to be considered as one of us. Let his fate be that of his companions.”
Fallon had not realized he was holding his breath until Kayitah’s words crushed the slender ray of hope spawned by the old woman’s interference on his behalf.
Now, glancing at the implacable hatred reflected in the chief’s ebony eyes, and facing the certainty of a long and horrible death, Fallon’s pent-up breath escaped in a deep, shuddering sigh. Fear’s icy hand clamped tightly around his insides, creating a cold lump in the pit of his belly, bringing a fresh sheen of sweat to his brow, a cold clamminess to his clenched fists.
“Wait!” A sturdy old man joined Kayitah, and a respectful hush fell over the Indians as they waited for the diyi to speak.
Jenny eyed the man intently. Perhaps there was still hope for the prisoner. Cochinay was the Apache medicine man. His was always the last word in any dispute, the deciding vote in any decision that affected the tribe. Villages were moved, hunts were started or postponed, all on the strength of the shaman’s say-so.
“It is a bad thing for one Apache to kill another,” Cochinay intoned sonorously. “It has been forbidden since the beginning of time. Therefore, we will let Usen decide Kladetahe’s fate.”
The medicine man paused dramatically, his bony arms raised skyward; then he pointed at an old deadfall on the outskirts of the camp near an abandoned sweat lodge.
“We will tie the prisoner there,” he commanded. “Let no one go near him. If he is yet alive in five days, we will know it is Usen’s will that Kladetahe become the slave of whoever cuts him free.” Cochinay stared at Fallon. “If he dies, that too will be Usen’s will.”
Jenny stared at the prisoner. He had been badly wounded, but he looked strong and fit. Would he be able to survive for five days without food and water and medical attention?
Kayitah nodded in agreement, and then his gaze swept the crowd in a long warning glance. “Let no one aid him but Usen!”
Two warriors stepped forward and cut Fallon free. Pulling him roughly to his feet, they shoved him toward the fallen log. But Fallon’s wounded leg refused to support his weight and he fell heavily.
“Fear has drained the strength from his limbs,” Niyokahe sneered contemptuously.
“It ain’t fear,” Jenny heard the prisoner mutter as the two warriors dragged him toward the deadfall. “It’s lead.”
Within minutes, Fallon was trussed up like a Christmas turkey, his ankles bound tightly together, his arms drawn up behind his back and secured to the deadfall in such a way that he would be forced to remain sitting up when he wanted nothing so much as to lie down and sink into blessed oblivion.
Jenny walked slowly toward Kayitah’s lodge, reluctant to leave the prisoner, though she could not say why.
Inside the wickiup, she slipped out of her dress, then drew on the loose-fitting garment she wore to sleep in. Sitting on the robes that made up her bed, she began to brush out her hair. For the first time since her capture by the Indians, she felt a glimmer of hope. If the white man survived, and if he would help her, she might yet win her way to freedom. She would promise him anything if he would only help her escape, anything at all.
With a sigh, Jenny slipped under the buffalo robes and closed her eyes. From outside came the sound of celebrating as whiskey bottles looted from wagon trains and cavalry patrols were opened and passed around. Long shadows danced on the sides of the wickiup as warriors strutted back and forth, bragging about their courage in battle, boasting of enemies slain and coup counted. Jenny felt her eyelids grow heavy as the laughter and the drumming slowly lulled her to sleep.
Ryder Fallon watched the dancing through heavy-lidded eyes, remembering warm summer nights when he had walked into the dusky shadows with a raven-haired maiden at his side.
He closed his eyes, seeking sleep, but he was not to be left alone. Kayitah and Cochinay had warned that the prisoner was not to be killed, but that did not mean the Indians couldn’t torment the traitor as they saw fit. Robbed of his death, the people vented their anger by hurling insults at him, and when they derived no satisfaction in that, they jabbed him with sharp sticks and pelted him with rocks and dirt clods until the novelty wore off and they drifted back to the fire and the whiskey and the dancing.
Only then did Ryder Fallon give voice to his misery. Lifting his eyes toward heaven, he let out a long low moan filled with pain and despair. Five days, the diyi had said.
“Five days,” Fallon muttered, and knew he’d never make it, not in his present condition, not unless he got help, fast. He was weak from hunger and loss of blood. His thigh ached dully, monotonously, and there was a steady pounding in his head. The burn across his belly throbbed anew with each labored breath. But, more than anything, he yearned for a drink of water. Oh Lord, for just one drink to ease the awful dryness in his throat.
A shadowy figure drew Fallon’s eye and he found himself staring up into the swarthy face of Delshay’s younger brother, Chandeisi. The warrior cradled Fallon’s Winchester in the crook of his right arm. The desire to use the rifle burned bright in Chandeisi’s glittering black eyes and in the cruel twist of his mouth.
I should have let Miller hang me, Fallon thought bleakly. It would have been better than seeing the contempt on the
face of this old friend.
Chandeisi stood there, not speaking, for several minutes. Then, slowly and deliberately, his dark eyes glinting with malicious intent, he jabbed the butt of the rifle into the half-breed’s wounded thigh.
Pain skyrocketed the length and breadth of Fallon’s right leg, but his pride, as deep and strong as his old friend’s hatred, stilled the anguished cry that rose in his throat.
Teeth clenched against the pain, he choked back the vomit that burned in his throat. Waves of nausea assailed him as he stared at the bright red blood welling from his thigh, and suddenly the whole world dissolved in a crimson sea and he felt himself sinking, drowning in a scarlet tide of pain…
The campfire was out, the celebration long over, when he regained consciousness. His arms and shoulders were numb from being forced into an unnatural position for so long. There was a searing ache in his thigh, and when the pain became more than he could bear, he retreated into the friendly darkness that hovered all around him.
There, in the last dreary hour before dawn, Death beckoned to Ryder Fallon. Her voice was soft as new grass, as entreating as the whisper of a young lover as she promised him peace and rest.
Come, Death whispered sweetly. Why linger here in pain and misery when I can end your suffering?
“Why, indeed?” Fallon thought ruefully, and leaned toward Death’s outstretched arms.
Immediately, the pain in his body receded and he smiled. “No more pain,” he mused, pleased. No more hunger. No more thirst.
He burrowed deeper into Death’s comforting embrace. No more fights. No more killing. No more snide remarks about his mixed blood.
No more rides across the vast sunlit prairies. No more shady ladies or busthead booze…
He began to frown.
No more peaceful nights under a blanket of stars. No more laughter. No more buffalo hunts with the Cheyenne. No more rivers to cross…
“No!” The word was a groan on his lips as he twisted out of Death’s dark snare.
Instantly, the pain returned, all the harder to bear for the brief respite.
“No,” he whispered hoarsely. “No, no, no!”
Desperate now, he held fast to the pain, clinging to it as a frightened child clutches his mother’s hand.
And now he relished every agonized moment, for pain meant life.
Chapter Five
Fallon woke, shivering, as the first faint rays of the sun streaked the eastern horizon. The air was bitterly cold, the ground beneath him harder than an old whore’s heart.
The first day, he mused grimly. Looking down, he contemplated his injuries. The burn across his belly, though painful, didn’t look particularly serious. The ache in his head was almost gone. But the wound in his thigh was red and swollen and sore as hell. At the moment, it didn’t look infected; at least there were no ominous red streaks. Yet. If he could manage to survive the five days decreed by the old medicine man, and if he could figure out a way to get that chunk of lead out of his thigh before it festered, and if he didn’t freeze to death lying naked in the cold, he might yet win his way to freedom.
They were mighty big ifs, he acknowledged bleakly, and yet men had lived through worse things. Dave Logan had been scalped alive by the Lakota and lived to tell the tale. Fred Winslow had been attacked by a grizzly, and though he had been badly mauled by the ferocious beast, he had managed to crawl away to safety. Later, he’d gone back and killed the bear. Big Jim Blake, blood brother to the Cheyenne, had been forced to run the gantlet when he was caught in the buff with another man’s wife. Banished from the tribe, naked and unarmed and bleeding from numerous cuts, he had managed to survive.
“Hell,” Fallon muttered through clenched teeth, “if they could do it, so can I.”
Slowly, the village came to life. Women poked the ashes of their cook fires, warriors emerged from their lodges and plunged into the icy river, seeking relief in the chill water from the aftereffects of too much whiskey and too little sleep. Small children gawked at the naked white man, always careful to stay close to the ready protection of their mothers’ skirts in case the white man grew another arm to grab them with and gobble them up like the Monster Elk who lived in the forest.
After breakfast, a group of young boys surrounded him, pointing at him, poking at him with sharp sticks as they counted coup on a living enemy, which was the greatest coup of all. One boy, older and braver than the others, drew blood with a sharp stone. His comrades crowed with delight.
Later, a handful of maidens walked by on their way to the river to draw water. One paused to stare openly at the half-breed’s nakedness, brazenly admiring his broad chest and shoulders, the thick muscles in his arms and legs. After much whispering and giggling, they hurried away.
Women went out of their way to pass by him, raking their nails across his bare flesh, reviling him in their native tongue as they bloodied his face and chest.
Only the warriors ignored him, scorning his presence with their silent contempt.
As the sun climbed higher in the clear azure sky, a sultry stillness settled over the rancheria. Children sought relief from the heat in the gurgling coolness of the river. Babies napped in their tsochs, shaded by the spreading leaves of the trees that protected them like umbrellas. Ancient ones nodded outside their wickiups, enjoying the soothing warmth that chased the ache from old bones. The warriors lounged in the shade, half-heartedly repairing their weapons, or gambling.
Fallon closed his eyes against the sun’s glaring brightness, quietly damning Major Darcy Miller and his blackmail tactics. Why hadn’t he let that hard-nosed blue-coat hang him? At least that would have been relatively quick. Better than dying of thirst, or baking to death beneath a relentless summer sun. Better than waiting for the bullet lodged in his thigh to fester and send its slow poison winding through his veins to rob him of his strength, then his senses, and finally his life.
Discouragement spread her mantle over him, and he lacked the strength to cast it aside.
Jenny sighed as she walked down the valley looking for firewood. She hated living with the Indians. She hated their way of life, where every day was a struggle for survival. She missed her cozy home back in Philadelphia, missed the creature comforts she had once taken for granted, missed her friends and neighbors, like old Mrs. Craddock who had brought her fresh eggs every morning, and spry Mr. Johnson, who had given her flowers from his garden whenever she passed by. She missed the joy of Christmas, the bounty of Thanksgiving, the promise of new life on Easter Sunday. She missed birthday parties and dances on New Year’s Eve, heart-shaped valentines, and pumpkins on Halloween.
Again and again she had begged Kayitah for her freedom, but he turned a deaf ear to her pleas. He would gladly give her anything she desired, anything but her freedom. He was happy with his white captive, fascinated by her long blonde hair and green eyes.
Jenny sighed again as she sank down beneath a shady pine. She hated her life. She hated the hard work. She hated the food. She hated the clothing. Tanning hides was disgusting. Jerky and pemmican were less than appetizing, and yet, in the dead of winter when there was little else available, she ate it gladly. Venison wasn’t too bad, but she often longed for a thick juicy steak that didn’t taste wild or gamey. Some nights she dreamed of pork chops smothered in gravy and fluffy mashed potatoes, of cold milk and hot apple pie. She longed to bathe in a real tub and wash with fragrant soap instead of washing in the river. She yearned to sleep on a feather mattress between clean linen sheets that smelled of sunshine instead of sleeping on the ground beneath blankets made of hides. She longed to shop, to wander through Hadley’s Dry Goods Store and Martha’s Millinery Shoppe, to buy a pretty dress of sprigged muslin, to don a perky straw bonnet bedecked with ribbons and flowers.
But what she missed most of all was a home of her own. It was crowded in Kayitah’s lodge, and living with Alope was a constant irritant. The woman was domineering and loud and as jealous as a shrew.
Kayitah had promised Jenny
a wickiup of her own, but somehow it never materialized, and she knew he didn’t trust her to live by herself, though how she would escape on her own remained a mystery.
Leaning back against the tree, Jenny closed her eyes and for perhaps the hundredth time that day found herself thinking of the prisoner. If only she could find a way to ease his pain, perhaps he would help her escape. But how to help him without jeopardizing her own safety? As much as Kayitah doted on her, she knew he would not be lenient if she were caught in a deliberate act of disobedience. And yet there had to be a way.
By day’s end, Fallon was exhausted. Never in his life could he remember being so dirty or so thirsty. Helpless anger raged through him as he bore the humiliation of the tribe’s abuse in stoic silence, and yet he could not fault them for their hatred. He had betrayed them to save his own skin. Whatever they did to him was no more than he deserved, but it did not make the pain of his wounds or the humiliation of captivity any easier to bear.
After a while, he slept.
Jenny sighed heavily as she saw the prisoner’s head loll forward. He had drawn her gaze again and again during the course of the day. She had spent much of the afternoon watching him, always from a distance, of course, lest someone remark on her interest in the white man and mention it to Kayitah. It would not do to arouse the chief’s suspicion or jealousy.
She knew the prisoner was in pain, yet he had made no outward sign of discomfort, either by word or expression. He bore the physical abuse of the women and children in tight-lipped silence, did not waste his breath begging for food or water. Or mercy.
Watching him, Jenny was convinced he was a brave man possessed of a strong stubborn streak coupled with a fierce desire to survive, and it occurred to her that, if he survived, he would not be content to remain a slave for very long.
If he survived. Jenny was not a doctor, but she knew he would die without help. And she did not intend for him to die. Not while there was a chance, however slight, that he might help her escape.
Apache Runaway Page 4