Through the fog of pain in his brain he heard a deafening roar. When his vision cleared, Tahnito’s black head was disappearing around the bend to freedom. From above and behind Little Bear came a low snort and growl, accompanied by the shuffling of large feet on loose rock.
Little Bear was trapped. He couldn’t get up. He couldn’t even turn over to see what was behind him. With his foot still firmly caught beneath a rock that outweighed him two or three times over, he had to twist around at the waist to see what was happening.
Squinting against the glare of the afternoon sun, he didn’t see anything at first. Then a shaggy, massive, brown head came around the rock that had him trapped. The huge brown bear snapped its jaws, showing long sharp teeth, and growled deep in its throat. Little Bear reached for the knife at his waist, praying it was still there, even though he knew the knife wouldn’t help. With his foot trapped, he was as good as dead, and he knew it.
Frustration, anger, and fear combined to form a bitter taste in his mouth.
He was only fifteen. He thought of his family, his home, and knew he didn’t want to die. He wasn’t one to give up, but neither could he fool himself about the danger he was in. The bear probably weighed at least six hundred pounds, and it was mad about something—it was in the eyes, that anger.
Little Bear gripped the hilt of the hunting knife his father had given him and snarled at the bear. “Come on, shash,” he taunted. “Let’s see how much of you I can carve up before I die.”
Chapter One
April 2, 1872
Memphis, Tennessee
“Get to bed now, dear. Tomorrow’s the day. We have to get up before the sun.”
“I know. I will.” Angela Susanna Barnes kissed her mother on the cheek and smiled. “Good night, Mama.”
When Sarah Barnes left for her own room, Angela changed into her nightgown and took down her hair. She brushed the hip-length blond curls and thought how strange it seemed to be leaving Memphis. She’d been born and raised here, never traveling anywhere. She had slept in this room over her father’s store for as long as she could remember. Yet tomorrow they would be off on what her father called “a grand adventure.” Joseph Barnes had been wanting to go West since the day he’d limped home from the war, when Angela was ten, and found the hated Yankee blue all over his beloved Southern city.
He’d resigned himself to the sight of blue uniforms over the years. He realized they would be present now no matter where he went. But he still wanted to go. Three months ago he’d made the final arrangements to sell his store. He would start another one in Tucson, out in Arizona Territory.
Angela’s mother had not been thrilled in the least to realize they were headed for Apache country, but Joseph just kept telling her everything would be all right, trust him, and hadn’t her doctor said she should be living in a drier climate anyway?
So they were going. Tomorrow. Tomorrow it was their turn to ferry their wagon across the Mississippi and head for the unknown West.
Angela sighed and began rebraiding her hair to keep it out of her face while she slept. She didn’t know yet how she felt about this move to Arizona, except that she would miss her friends terribly. But Mary Lou was engaged now, and Jennilee had married last winter, so Angela figured they probably wouldn’t miss her nearly as much as she would miss them. That thought hurt more than she cared to admit.
Then she smiled and chuckled. Jennilee’s marriage had been a surprise to everyone, including Jennilee herself. The girl had pined over Ralph Comstock for months, never dreaming he returned her affections—until that evening at the Harrison’s party last fall.
Jennilee had been flirting with her dinner partner just to see if Ralph, seated at the far end of the table, would react. She got more of a reaction than she’d bargained for. Ralph shoved back his chair, threw his linen napkin down on his half-eaten dinner, and called her name down the length of the table.
Angela giggled, remembering Ralph’s embarrassed blush and Jennilee’s shocked expression when Ralph, right there in front of over twenty dinner guests, demanded Jennilee stop fooling around and marry him.
It was positively the most romantic thing Angela had ever heard of. Of course, she’d die if anything like that ever happened to her. Imagine baring one’s deepest emotions so publicly! Yet, oh, to have a man love her that much!
With a sigh, she turned out the lantern and stood before the window. Just to feel the soft Memphis air one more time, she raised the window and gazed out over the rooftops. The fog had already seeped up from the river, but it wasn’t heavy tonight, just a light mist. Would there be fog in Tucson? Surely not. It was in the desert, wasn’t it? She’d heard the town was smaller than Memphis, and wondered what kinds of people lived there…what her new life would be like.
Try as she might, she couldn’t draw a mental picture of herself in Arizona. With a troubled sigh, she reached up to lower the window. From the alley below came a crashing and scuffling. She leaned out, expecting to see a dog or cat scampering away. Instead, she saw a man, clearly illuminated in the lantern glow from a downstairs window. He lay sprawled on his back in the dirt next to the woodpile. Another man loomed over him.
“I thought I told you I was gonna scout for Hargrave’s wagon train,” the standing man growled.
The man on the ground rolled to his side, then stood. “Yeah, Miller, ya told me. ‘Cept Hargrave hired me, not you.”
Angela caught her breath. They were talking about Mr. Hargrave, the man who would be leading the seventeen wagons, including hers, Westward tomorrow.
“That was supposed to be my job, Johnson, and I plan to take it,” said the man called Miller.
“Too late, buster, ‘cause I already got it. We head out tomorrow, as soon as the last wagon crosses the river.”
“We’ll see about that.” Miller swung his fist and knocked Johnson to the ground, then grabbed a stout length of firewood from the woodpile. Swinging it like a club, he brought it down with all his considerable strength on Johnson’s shin.
Angela jerked, wide-eyed. She heard the simultaneous sounds of a man’s scream and a bone snapping.
“Now it’s my job, Johnson. Nobody gets in my way. Remember that.”
Angela gasped.
The man called Miller straightened and glanced around. He scanned the doors and windows lining the alley. Angela ducked back into her room. Had he seen her?
“If ya know what’s good for ya, you’ll keep quiet,” the man said in a low, menacing tone. “What happened to him can happen to you.”
Angela was so scared she shook all over. She’d always feared violence of any kind. Sheer terror held her immobile until long after the man named Miller left. When she finally worked up the courage to peek out the window again, the injured man, Johnson, was also gone. The alley was empty.
Had the man named Miller seen her? Had he been speaking directly to her? She slammed the window shut and threw herself on the bed and buried her head under the covers.
Her breath came in fast little gasps as she huddled there in the dark, terrified. How could people do that sort of thing to each other? It was beastly! But what should she do? What could she do?
Nothing, that’s what.
Her father was the brave one of the family. She and her mother were both cowards, and they knew it. Many were the times during the war when they had crouched in the cellar beneath their store and hidden from the enemy. They’d been lucky not to have the store burned down around their heads. But their entire section of town had been spared, probably because it was a merchant district and the Yankees had need of their goods.
“Let them take what they want,” her mother had said to her. “We’ll just stay here and keep out of their way. If we do that, maybe they won’t hurt us.”
It had kept them alive, but had ruined the business. The Yankees took what they wanted, and when Joseph had come home after the war, the store was nearly bankrupt. Angela had found that out much later, when she started doing some of the b
ookkeeping.
Suddenly it all came together in her mind, the reason for this move West. They were broke! Selling the large store in Memphis to start a small one in Tucson had got them out of debt. That’s why her mother wasn’t resisting this move!
What difference does it make now? she scolded herself. None of that helped her decide what to do about what had just happened in the alley. She should tell someone. Her father. He would undoubtedly go to the sheriff, and Miller would be arrested.
But what if Miller got loose? Criminals got loose all the time, didn’t they? Just last week three bank robbers broke out of the town jail. If Miller got loose, he would come after Papa! Maybe even her, too!
“Coward,” she hissed to herself in the darkness. She admitted it then. She wasn’t going to tell anybody anything.
But this was absolutely the last time, she promised herself. This was the last time she would allow herself to be a coward. Everybody needed one last time at something, didn’t they? Well, this was hers. She’d be safe and cowardly this one last time, then, the next time something happened, she’d be brave. She was seventeen, wasn’t she? She’d be eighteen soon. She could make her own decisions.
So she decided.
Coward now—heroine later.
Abraham Miller Scott—no, he was Abe Miller now, he reminded himself, and he’d best not forget it—gave a final glimpse at the open second story window up the alley, then shrugged. If somebody had seen him, the sucker was obviously too chicken-livered to do anything about it.
Dismissing the possible witness with a sneer, he whacked Johnson over the head to shut up that godawful groaning, then hoisted the man up and over his shoulder. Damn heavy bugger, Johnson was.
With a grunt, Miller staggered down the street, hat low over his face should anyone bother to look his way. He headed for the edge of town, a nice dark alley he knew of, where he could make sure Johnson never bothered him again.
In the darkness, Abe Miller smiled with grim satisfaction.
Chapter Two
August 27, 1872
Camp Bowie
Apache Pass, Arizona Territory
A string of tension threaded its way from wagon to wagon as the westbound travelers neared the most dangerous point of the trip—Apache Pass. They’d already sweated through Doubtful Canyon, so named because it was said once you entered it, it was doubtful the Apaches would let you leave. There had been no trouble, no sign of Apaches. But now it was time to worry again. According to rumor, Apache Pass was more dangerous, even with the U. S. Army stationed there.
Abe Miller, the scout for Ward Hargrave’s wagon train, had disappeared up the trail over an hour ago. The anxious eyes of the passengers scanned the dusty, broken terrain. A colorful collared lizard raised up on its hind legs and ran for cover as the first wagon neared. Beside the trail, a jack rabbit waited until the last possible minute, hypnotized by the approach of man, then bounded off for cover. From beneath the stingy shade of a scraggly shrub, an old black crow scolded, his voice drowned out by the clink and rattle of dozens of chains and harnesses, the creak and groan of wheels and axles.
But as far as the eye could see up the almost indiscernible gap between the Dos Cabezas and Chiricahua mountain ranges, there was no sign, no small cloud of dust, nothing to tell the worried travelers their scout was on his way back. If the pass was safe, wouldn’t he return and tell them so? If it wasn’t safe—
Perched on the high seat of the seventh wagon in line, Angela gnawed on her lower lip. She and her mother usually walked beside the wagon, but the threat of danger persuaded them to ride for now. Angela glanced repeatedly at her father as he handled the reins beside her. Tension snapped and crackled all around him, as thick as the everpresent dust in the air. He was worried. They were all worried. Not that Angela cared a flip about what happened to Miller. If he’d met with some unfortunate end, it was no more than he deserved. But did that mean they were riding into a trap? Were there Apaches lurking just around the next hill?
Angela shuddered. For once she was glad they weren’t in first position today. She’d rather eat the dust of the six outfits in front of them than be the first to meet up with Apaches. At least this way they might have some warning. For whatever that was worth.
At a shout from up ahead, Angela gripped the edge of the seat till her knuckles turned white. The cry echoed back from one wagon to the next.
“All clear! All clear!”
Angela wilted with relief. Her father visibly relaxed. Her mother, riding inside the wagon, poked her head out the back flap over the raised tailgate and passed along the message. “All clear!” There was a smile in her voice. They were safe.
The seventeen wagons, led by wagon master Ward Hargrave, passed the small clearing amid the yuccas and granite boulders where the old Butterfield stage station stood, out of use these past ten years, and pulled up at Camp Bowie just before noon. So far, their luck had held. Gossip had it that Ward Hargrave was the luckiest man ever to lead a wagon train, and the sixty-plus people he led now thought his reputation well-earned. They had made it clear through Indian Territory, Texas, and New Mexico along the old Butterfield Mail route, all the way here to Apache Pass. By the end of the week they’d be in Tucson, and not one bit of Indian trouble yet. Some of the men took to calling him Lucky Hargrave, and Hargrave, he didn’t mind a bit. The next group of wagons he led West, he’d probably charge more.
All the wagons looked pretty much alike, with a blue bed, red wheels, and white canvass curved up over the top. But by now the red and blue paint was faded, cracked, and peeling, and the only place the canvass was white was somewhere in the dim memories of the travelers.
Angela climbed down from the high wagon seat and shook what dust she could from her limp, blue gingham dress. She helped her father unhitch the mules, then went to the back of the wagon. Her mother had already opened the tailgate and set out a pan of water and a sliver of soap. Angela tossed her bonnet onto the tailgate and rolled up her sleeves. It felt good to wash away the dust and grime of the morning, even if the water was warmer than she wished.
But then, everything was warmer than she wished. It was down right hot!
“Hey Angela, you comin’?” Sudie Mae called out from the next wagon. “Me an’ Ma’s goin’ to the trading post for a look-see. I ain’t been in a store in a coon’s age. Pa wouldn’t let me go that time you and your Ma went back at The Pass in Texas, but this time he says it’s okay. Bet they’ve got peppermint sticks in there. Pa give me a penny so’s I could get me one.”
As Sudie Mae rattled on, Angela bit back a sigh and finished drying her face. She looked up to see her mother in the back of the wagon. Sarah winked at her, aware that Sudie Mae could get on anyone’s nerves without even trying. Sarah grinned and handed Angela a few coins to spend at the store. “Have fun,” she whispered.
Angela groaned and rolled her eyes, then took the coins. She knew they didn’t need any supplies. The money was for whatever she wanted to buy, and peppermint sticks did sound good. They would have sounded a lot better if it weren’t for Sudie Mae. The girl could out-chatter a jaybird.
Sudie Mae had been talking nonstop the whole time. “Ma! I think Angela’s ready. Miz Whaley was gonna go with us, but she done went and changed her mind. Don’t know why she’d pass up a trip to a store. Must be feelin’ poorly. Not me! Don’t care how poorly I might feel! Remember that place in Fort Smith we went in, Ma?”
And so it went. As Angela walked with Sudie Mae Latimer and Mrs. Latimer, Sudie Mae recalled every trading post and store she’d either seen or missed all along the trail.
When the women reached the corrals, halfway between the wagon grounds and the store, Mrs. Latimer wrinkled her nose as if shocked to smell manure, even though they’d all been smelling tons of it for months.
“Shooowee!” Sudie Mae hollered, interrupting her own monologue. “Shore do stink, don’t it?”
“Lands-o-goshen!” her mother said in agreement. “Look! Over there past
the hospital. That’s the post there.”
Between the corrals and the post, walking toward them as if he didn’t have a care in the world, was Abe Miller. As he passed them, he pushed the brim of his hat up with the open mouth of the brown bottle he carried.
Angela ground her teeth and averted her gaze. He’d left them all to wonder and worry over what to expect in Apache Pass, not bothering to let them know it was safe, so he could drink a beer! She couldn’t think of a bad enough name to call him.
The three women angled off toward the store, thereby avoiding the parade ground and most of the fort. The entire area was dry, dusty, and desolate, the gravelly ground broken only occasionally by a struggling clump of bear grass or thriving cactus. The only portion that looked like it got any care at all was the officers’ quarters, where someone had planted a few trees and flowers that all seemed to be wilting in the mid-day sun.
Angela, too, felt a little like wilting. Even the mountains beyond looked hot. Why hadn’t she worn her bonnet? She stepped under the thatched overhang in front of the store and breathed a sigh of relief.
“Shade, at last!” Sudie Mae carried on. “I declare, I don’t know when was the last time I saw shade. Oh, my,” she said as they entered the store. “I’m sure it’s nice in here, but after all that sun, my poor little ole’ eyes just can’t see a thing.”
Angela rolled her own “poor little ole’ eyes” and wished for some cotton to stuff in her ears. It was dim in the store, but her eyes adjusted after a few seconds. She let Mrs. Latimer and Sudie Mae browse through the merchandise, while she stayed near the door.
She’d already spotted what she wanted, and it was right there on the counter, the same place it was in most stores—a great big jar full of peppermint sticks. She was going to get a stick for each of her parents, too, for she knew they loved them nearly as much as she did.
Apache-Colton Series Page 42