Kiss Of The Night Wind

by Taylor, Janelle

  T.J. grinned and shook his head. “Duuda.”

  “Lltse ’i’nagu ’akahugal,” Naiche told him, inviting them to return to their camp to talk and eat before they left this area.

  Geronimo shouted, “Duuda!”

  The two leaders argued for a time, alarming Carrie Sue who couldn’t understand what the heated debate was about, except for the constant motioning to her and her lover. Finally, Geronimo relented, if they were blindfolded on both trips, to and from their hidden camp.

  T.J. nodded acceptance of the requirement. He told Carrie Sue, “They want us to go to their camp to eat and spend the night to prove we offer them no harm. They’ll release us in the morning. If we don’t agree, they’ll be insulted by our mistrust and scorn.”

  The redhead eyed the two chiefs. “Will we be safe?”

  The smokey-eyed man replied, “Yes, I know this leader. His word is his honor. We’ll have to be blindfolded first. Don’t be afraid.”

  Carrie Sue glanced at Naiche again. “I’m not. His eyes say he speaks the truth. Besides, they could have captured us or slain us here if they wanted to. I sense no danger from him. Who is he?”

  “The second son of Cochise and my blood brother. I lived with the Apaches from seven to thirteen. My Indian name is Nighthawk.”

  Carrie Sue stared at him. Was he telling the truth? She gazed into his blackish gray eyes and glanced at his midnight hair and dark tan. Had he been raised as an Indian captive? Was that why he had reacted so strongly to slavery and why he had sided with the Union? Or was he halfblooded and didn’t want to tell her? Could he be Cochise’s son with a white woman? Was the leader before them his half-brother? Was that why it would be safe for them to enter the Apache stronghold? “I see.”

  “Does that bother you, woman?” he asked after her intense study.

  “No, I have nothing against Indians. In fact, I can’t blame them for what they’re doing. If we’d treat them fairly, we could co-exist peacefully. You have good and bad Indians, just like you have good and bad whites. I won’t have a problem with them unless they declare themselves my enemy just because I’m white. I don’t even care if you’re half-Indian, which you could be with those eyes and hair. I’d still feel the same way about you.”

  Naiche wanted to grin, but that would tell the white girl he understood her words. For a while, it would be nice if she didn’t know.

  But T.J. knew and he was glad she answered as she had.

  Carrie Sue and T.J. were blindfolded and led away. The group rode across open land which soon became scattered with mesquites and scrubs. The land was relatively flat and grassy so the riding—despite the blindfold—was easy. They entered a protective rampart of granite domes and sheer cliffs. They headed for the natural fortress where Cochise had made his home and from which he had carried out his stunning raids. Years ago, Cochise’s lookouts had stood on towering pinnacles of rock to sight their enemies or targets in the valley below, a stronghold from which the Apaches could swoop down without warning to attack wagontrains and stages and other travelers.

  Carrie Sue missed seeing the awesome rock formations of the Dragoon Mountains and the concealed entryway to a narrow, six-mile long canyon which suddenly opened up into a forty-acre valley where water, grass, and security were seemingly provided for the Apaches by some Higher Being who desired their survival.

  The blindfolds were removed so the redhead and excaptive could dismount. There were numerous wickiups and rope corrals located in the valley. She was amazed by how many Indians had escaped the reservation. They were escorted to one of those dome-like abodes made from canvas which had been stolen from wagontrains and the Army.

  T.J. told her they had been ordered to remain there while the men had a meeting. “About us?” she probed.

  “Nope, survival strategy. Relax, woman, they won’t harm you.”

  Carrie Sue needed some answers. “I take it you were more than their prisoner long ago after your parents were killed. Why do they treat you so well? Why weren’t we disarmed?”

  “Because Cochise took a liking to me and adopted me. I earned their respect and was allowed to join them, until I left at thirteen.”

  “You weren’t rescued by soldiers?”

  “In a way.”

  “What does that mean?” she asked, confused.

  He revealed, “I was out with a small band when soldiers sighted us and attacked. I had one hand tied behind me to prove my skills at hunting, so the soldiers thought I was a captive who’d gotten one hand free trying to escape. I let them believe it so they’d send me back to Texas. That’s what the Army did with white boys they rescued so they wouldn’t be tempted to return to the Apaches and the only life they knew.”

  She removed her hat and fanned herself with it. “Did you want to come back to them? Did you ever try?”

  “Nope. I wanted to search for my older brother. He’d been taken by Mescaleros right after our captures. Since their territory was New Mexico and eastern Texas, I figured if my brother got free or was rescued, he’d be sent to one of those Texas missions.”

  She noted the haunted look which filled his eyes and darkened them, and she felt empathy toward him. She knew what it was to lose family, to lose an only brother. “Did you ever find him?”

  “I checked all the missions when I got older, but no one had heard of him. I got news of him last winter by accident, but he was killed by Mexican bandits before we could catch up with each other again.”

  Such bitterness filled his gaze and tone that she questioned him no further on that subject. “I’m sorry, T.J.; that must have been hard for you to accept.”

  “Yep, fate was determined to defeat me, but I wouldn’t let her.”

  “The Indians don’t seem mad at you for escaping and never returning. What did you tell them back there?”

  “Naiche and Cochise knew I would leave one day. The braves who escaped told them I was taken by the soldiers. They knew I would seek my own path and they accepted my hunger for the truth.”

  Still something didn’t add up right. She inquired, “How could you accept the tribe who’d killed your parents?”

  T.J. glanced at her, comprehending her confusion. “They were soldiers at war, and innocent people get in the way sometimes. They aren’t the only ones who kill women and children during battles.” He told her about the newspaper article and the events which had spurred this outbreak from the reservation.

  That wasn’t what baffled her. “But you’re a Texan. How did you get to Arizona to be captured? If you were thirteen when you left, how could they remember you after so many years. I’m confused.”

  “It’s been sixteen; I’m twenty-nine. Are you forgetting I’ve been in and out of this area lots of times? I’ve seen them plenty since my departure. I left as a friend, and I always return as one.”

  She noted that he said “departure” not escape. She waited for him to continue.

  “The Chiricahuas were helping the Mescaleros battle the whites. They knew if the whites got past their brothers’ territory, they would advance here next. We were heading for El Paso to sell cattle, and the stock was needed by the Indians. It was the first time papa had taken all of us along on a cattle drive. If he’d let the Apaches have the cattle without a fight, they’d be alive.”

  To get off the painful past, T.J. started another subject to distract her. He explained how boys were trained for cunning and toughness, the two most important traits for survival in a harsh landscape. He told her how they were taught trickery as a better strategy than raw courage. A leader and his band were more highly praised for stealing a few horses or goods with no losses of life rather than stealing an abundance of them and incurring many deaths and injuries.

  T.J. stood and looked toward the mountains to his left. He related how boys were forced to stay awake for long periods to learn how to thwart fatigue. They were compelled to run through miles of harsh terrain, carrying a mouthful of water all the way. If the boy spit it out or swallowed it
, he must do the four-mile run again and again until he succeeded. A grown warrior could run seventy miles a day over any landscape. “We trained with arrows and bows and slings and rocks. We acted out battles and raids. We were shown how to use the land to conceal ourselves. We had to learn to survive using only our shields, wits, strength, and prowess.”

  He took a deep breath and continued, “By the time a boy was twelve, either he was ready to become a warrior-intraining or he had to go through pre-training again from the start. To prove yourself, you were taken miles from camp and told to find your way back within a few hours, without being captured by braves in hiding.”

  “You made it, didn’t you?” she asked, but knew the answer.

  He nodded. “Yep, I had to. I was white so I had to prove myself more than worthy of being Cochise’s adopted son.”

  “They’re finding lasting peace hard to achieve, aren’t they?”

  “Yep. After the war, countless soldiers were assigned out here to string telegraph lines, build roads, protect settlers and miners, and control the so-called hostiles. The whites didn’t realize how tough it would be to battle the Apaches. They’re experts at striking from ambush; they can hide right before your eyes and you wouldn’t see them. They know this terrain; they know how to live off of it and how to fight on it. The whites were at a big disadvantage out here. Until they got more fighters and better weapons than the Apaches.”

  A beautiful Indian girl called T.J. out to speak with her. They laughed and talked for nearly an hour. Carrie Sue felt her temper rising as she watched how the dark-haired beauty looked at and touched her lover, and how T.J. was behaving in return. Surely thirteen year old warriors didn’t take girls to marry or to bed! Or did they?

  When T.J. rejoined her, she asked, “Who was that?”

  “Windsong, an old friend. She’s grown into an eyecatching filly.”

  “Is she married?” Carrie Sue inquired, trying to sound calm.

  “Not anymore. Her husband was killed a few months ago, from whiskey and a whiteman’s disease.”

  She watched the woman vanish inside a nearby wickiup. “What was she doing, trying to entice you to rejoin them and take his place?”

  T.J. eyed her with a mischievous grin. “Yep, but I told her I already had more woman than I could handle.”

  That jest did not soothe her ire. “I see.”

  He chuckled. “What do you see, my fiery vixen?”

  “A roguish man playing tricks with me,” she accused.

  “Can I help it if a woman flirts with me? Made me feel good. I don’t get much of that in the white world. Women are scared of me.”

  She frowned at him. “I could tell you were enjoying yourself.”

  T.J. sat on the blanket with her and tugged the red braid. “I’ll remind you of your behavior when I act the same over another man.”

  “If we live that long,” she murmured, feeling foolish.

  “I told you they won’t harm us,” he comforted her.

  “I’m not worried about the Apaches,” she replied pointedly.

  T.J. took her hand in his and vowed, “I won’t let the whites harm you either, Tsine.”

  “You shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep, Mr. Rogue. We both know my situation is impossible, just like the one with the Apaches.”

  “We’ll figure something out. Trust me,” he urged.

  Naiche returned from the meeting, and he and T.J. talked in Apache for a time. Then, another warrior approached them. He spoke with T.J., pointing at her and making unknown remarks. She caught two of the words, but couldn’t translate them: “Naaki.” “Tai.”

  Coyote held up four fingers and said, “Dii lii.” T.J. shook his head and smiled amiably. Coyote held up eight fingers and said, “Tsaabi lii,” and motioned eagerly at her.

  “Duuda, Naaldluushi,” T.J. responded genially.

  The warrior eyed Carrie Sue and frowned at T.J. before leaving.

  “What did he want?” she asked, knowing she was discussed.

  T.J. laughed. “He wanted to buy you for his wife.”

  “Buy me!” she shrieked. When T.J. chuckled merrily, she added, “I hope you told him you can’t sell what doesn’t belong to you!”

  “He went from two horses, to three, to four, then eight. That’s a big price; you really captured his eye. I told Coyote he wouldn’t want a sharp-tongued spitfire like you.”

  “And I wouldn’t want a sa—”

  T.J. hurriedly cut her off, “Calm down, Tsine. Women aren’t allowed to be nasty to men in public. You don’t want your hot temper and impulsiveness to cause trouble for us. If you behave like a rotten child, I’ll be forced to spank you to save face and protect us.”

  “You try anything, Rogue, and I’ll slit both your throats!”

  Naiche remarked in English, “Her temper flames as brightly as her hair of fire, my brother. Why do you travel with such a defiant woman? Do you wish to borrow my lash to punish her?”

  “Sometimes her mouth runs faster than her wits, Naiche, and she forgets how valuable she could be to someone who needs money for survival. She isn’t usually so rude and forward. She’s just tired and hungry. She’ll tame down or else I’ll punish her.”

  Carrie Sue caught the warning in his first sentence and fell silent. She must not offend these Indians, or enlighten them to her value. She hadn’t realized Naiche could speak her language, but she should have been more careful. “I’ll behave, partner.”

  Naiche and T.J. exchanged pleased smiles. They sat on blankets before his abode and consumed ch’ilae’bitsi, ’iigaa’i, ’itsa’ich’i’i, and lees’an: roasted antelope meat, Apache cabbage, dried cactus fruits, and bread cooked in the ashes. The men drank inaada—mescal—while she had tl’uk’axee’—wild tea.

  Afterwards, she thanked Naiche and smiled at him. The chief called Windsong over to take Carrie Sue to the river for privacy and a bath. She gathered her belongings and followed the Indian woman.

  “She is very brave, my brother,” Cochise’s son remarked. “It was wise to use the blindfold to fool her. No outsider can see the hidden passage into our secret valley, not even your woman. But you have not forgotten it as Geronimo believes. It has been a long time since your last visit. Why have you returned?”

  “I’m taking her back to her land. The dangers here are too many for her. Her brother is an evil man who causes the whites much trouble. People fear her and chase her to get at him.”

  “But you will protect her from them, as you tried to protect us from the evil whites. You lived amongst us when our father allowed the building of the Butterfield station near our mountains. He let the whites use our water and lands, but their greed increased. You were gone when the white man named Bascom destroyed the peace between us.”

  “I learned it was the Pinal tribe who caused the treaty to be broken, my brother. When they attacked white ranchers and stole a child, the soldiers had to ride against them. But they did not understand, all Apaches are not the same, of the same tribe. Bascom was eager for glory and he did not know the truth. I revealed it to them, but it was too late. No man can undo a past deed.”

  “Bascom insulted our father when he accused him of theft and lying. He shamed Cochise before the Indian and white man. He tried to hold my father and others captive for the black deeds of the Pinals.”

  “If Jeffords had been here in those days, the mistake would have been corrected before it led to war.”

  “Bascom hanged my uncle and his two sons. We were challenged.”

  “Was the new war worth the price, my brother? During the white man’s big war against himself, he sent soldiers here with powerful weapons called howitzers. Do you wish them to return with such guns?”

  “Have you forgotten what our father told you during one visit? He said, ‘We kill ten; a hundred come in their place.’ We destroy little weapons and they return with bigger ones with more power than our bows and lances. After you left, whites of all kinds poured into our lands like the s
ummer rains. They do not wish to share; they wish to take. It cannot be.”

  T.J. knew the white population had grown to thirty-seven thousand by 1870, ten times larger than the Indian population. He recalled that Cochise had told him that he was intrigued by the white man’s courage. That had been the great chiefs reason for meeting with Tom Jeffords, a courageous man who became his friend for life.

  “Four summers past, you talked the Great White Father into making peace with us again. Our father hunted and talked with General Howard for eleven days. Our father said, ‘The white man and the Indian are to drink of the same water, eat of the same bread and be at peace.’ He agreed to the treaty and reservation life until the Great Spirit called him two winters past. We tried to keep the peace, my brother; you know this. It cannot be. We will never go to the San Carlos prison.”

  As Naiche had said, there had been many times T.J. had tried to help make peace between the whites and the Apaches, especially after making contact with and going to work for President Grant in ’70. But he could not change history or control an inevitable future. At times, he experienced bitterness over what both peoples had done to his life. But he had come to understand the Apaches who had raised him. They had taught him many things which had saved his life when threatened by man or nature. He had grasped their desperation to survive, to challenge the people they viewed as invaders of their lands and destroyers of their people. The Indians had disciplined him, but never abused him; they had adopted him. They were simply different from the whites, a difference which prevented lasting peace.

  Thad Jamison had been forced to accept the truth long ago about his past. He remembered the day his parents had died, his father while shooting at the Apaches and his mother from a stray bullet. He knew he and Tim had been separated only because white brothers would adapt better to new lives if they didn’t have each other to whom to cling. Yet, he still sometimes felt resentment burning in his heart against the Apaches, and he knew that was only normal.

  “When you leave this time, my brother, we will never see each other again,” Naiche concluded.