Apache Flame (13 page)

“Oh.” Alisha contemplated that for a few minutes. If Mr.
Clements had an Indian wife, then she had probably spent the last night
worrying over nothing. The Indians weren’t likely to attack them, not when
Clements was married to one of their women. “Do you have children?”

“Three,” he said with obvious pride. “Two boys and a girl.”

“You don’t live with them?”

“Not all the time. Got me a wife and a couple kids in St.
Louis, too, ya see.”

Alisha stared at Clements. “You have
two
wives?”

He shrugged. “It ain’t uncommon. Lots of mountain men and
traders have Injun wives.”

She was too stunned to speak.

“It ain’t as bad as it sounds. I take good care of ‘em
both.”

“Do they…?” Her voice came out in a high-pitched squeak and
she cleared her throat and tried again. “Do your wives know?”

“Mountain Sage knows. I ain’t never told Dorothy, though.”
He grimaced. “Ain’t no way she’d ever understand, ya know, being brought up the
way she was and all.”

“And your Indian wife doesn’t mind?”

“Nah. It’s common for warriors to have more than one wife.”

“But that’s sinful.”

“Injuns don’t think so. ‘Pache life is hard. A woman needs a
man to protect her, and since there’s usually more women than men…” Clements
shrugged. “It’s just practical, ya know?”

“Who looks after Mountain Sage when you’re in St. Louis
with…what was her name? Dorothy?”

“Her kin. ‘Pache men go live with the woman’s family when
they get married. From then on, his obligation is to support and protect ‘em.
When I go huntin’, Sage always give a part of my kill to her ma.”

“I see,” Alisha said, though she didn’t see at all.

“The ‘Paches are good people. They’re honest. They don’t
steal from their own. They pay their debts. They got a good sense of humor,
they’re loyal. Cheerful most of the time. Women are hard workers. The men are
fierce fighters.”

“Are they good to their children?” she asked, thinking of
her son.

“Yeah. ‘Paches love kids. Young’uns are rarely punished, or
even scolded. Little girls play house, ya know, with dolls and such. The boys
play, too, ‘ceptin’ they play at being men. ‘Pache boys grow up fast. I seen
four- and five-year-olds already well on their way to being warriors.”

“Warriors!” Alisha exclaimed. “At four?” Her son was four.
Was he already learning how to hunt and fight?

“Injuns start ‘em out young. ‘Pache boys are considered men
by the time they’re twelve or thirteen.”

Alisha fell silent as she contemplated this last bit of
news. She had boys in her class who were twelve and thirteen. A couple of them
were tall and mature for their ages, but they weren’t men yet. “That’s
incredible,” she murmured.

“Yep. Ain’t easy, becoming a ‘Pache warrior. The elders make
the novices take long runs carrying heavy loads on their backs. They have to
learn how to live off the land. They test ‘em by having them take a mouthful of
water, then run for a couple of miles without swallowing it. The elders test
their willpower and endurance by making them go without sleep for long periods
of time.” Clements shook his head, but his voice was filled with admiration
when he spoke again. “It ain’t easy, being a ‘Pache warrior, but there ain’t no
fighters that can equal ‘em, that’s fer damn sure.”

Alisha stared at Clements, more convinced than ever that she
had to find her son. She didn’t want her baby to be subjected to such barbaric
trials and rituals. She didn’t want him learning to kill, praying to strange
gods.

For the first time, she thought past the moment when she
would see her son for the first time. She would be a stranger to him. How would
she explain who she was? Her son had been living with his adoptive parents
since the day he was born. What if he didn’t want to leave them? What if they
wouldn’t let him go? What would she do, in their situation? Would she be able
to part with a child she had raised from infancy just because a woman showed up
claiming to be the child’s mother?

Clements cocked his head in Alisha’s direction. “Somethin’
eatin’ at ya, missy?”

“I just realized I’m probably on a fool’s errand.”

“How so?”

Alisha shook her head. She couldn’t explain her past to this
uncouth man, couldn’t humiliate herself by telling him that she had given birth
to an illegitimate child.

“Well, I don’t know as how it will be any comfort to ya, but
most everyone I ever met has been a fool at one time or ‘nother,” he drawled.

“Yes,” Alisha said, smiling. “I guess that’s true.”

“Iffen ya ever want to talk about it, I’m a pretty good
listener.” Clements grinned at her. “Man with two wives don’t have much
choice.”

“How soon will we get there?”

Clements stared ahead a few moments. “‘Nother two, three
days, I’d say.”

Chapter Sixteen

Mitch sighted down the shaft of the arrow, took a deep
breath, let out half of it, and released the bowstring. He felt himself
grinning ear to ear as the arrow hit the target scant inches from the arrow of
Rides the Buffalo.

“Enjuh!
” Rides the Buffalo exclaimed. Good.

Elk Chaser nodded. “You have learned quickly.”

Mitch nodded. The crude bow and arrows he had fashioned as a
child were nothing compared to Elk Chaser’s weapons. He had been surprised at
how much strength it took to draw the bowstring. While hunting with a handful
of warriors the day before, he had been mightily impressed by their skill. Elk
Chaser had brought down a deer five hundred feet away.

It had taken hours to stalk the deer. Once found, the Apache
had crawled on the ground, careful to keep weeds and brush between them and the
deer so they would not be seen. Always careful to stay downwind.

Of course, Mitch was nowhere near the marksman Elk Chaser
was. Hell, he wasn’t even as good as Rides the Buffalo. But he was getting
better every day.

Besides deer, there were herds of antelope and elk on the
prairie that spread below the mountains. Wild turkeys lived in the forests and
along the streams. Eagles were hunted for their feathers, which were used to
fletch arrows, for ceremonial fans and decoration.

“We will have to fashion you a bow of your own,” Elk Chaser
remarked.

“I’d like that,” Mitch replied. He winked at Rides the
Buffalo. “Maybe my little brother will help me.”

Rides the Buffalo nodded solemnly. “I will.”

Mitch returned the bow he had been using to Elk Chaser. It
was a powerful weapon, strengthened with layers of sinew on the back which had
been applied so carefully they were scarcely visible. Elk Chaser’s arrows were
more than three feet long.

When he’d been a child, Mitch’s mother had often told him
stories of her people, of how the men could camouflage themselves with dirt and
plants so that they were virtually invisible. An Apache warrior could travel
from fifty to seventy-five miles a day over the roughest terrain. As a boy,
Mitch had been awed by the tales she told him. As he grew older, he decided she
must have been exaggerating. But after seeing Elk Chaser and the other men on
the hunt the day before, he knew his mother hadn’t been exaggerating. The
Apache had learned to live in perfect harmony with the world around him.
Yesterday morning, while tracking a small herd of deer, he had watched the men,
noting the way they paid heed to the smallest things—the position of a stone
that had been overturned, horse droppings on the trail, the way a twig or
branch had been broken. He remembered, too, the stories his mother had told him
of brave fighters, both men and women.

Mitch felt a stirring of old anger as he thought of all he
had missed. Had his father let him go with his mother, he might have grown up
to be a warrior. It was too late now. He might learn the ways of the Apache, he
might embrace their beliefs and immerse himself in their lifestyle, but he
would never be a true warrior.

Mitch grinned as Rides the Buffalo fired four arrows in
quick succession, each one striking the heart of the target. He might never be
the warrior his little brother would, but he was determined to learn all he
could while he had the chance.

* * * * *

Alisha blew out a sigh. It had been a long five days. She
was hot and tired and sticky and wanted to take a hot bath and wash her hair
more than she wanted anything else in the world, except for seeing her son.

She looked down at her clothes. Her shirtwaist, once white
and crisp, was now limp and covered with a fine coat of dun-colored dust. The
hem of her skirt was dirty and ripped on one side where it had caught on a
cactus. The hem of her petticoat was also dirty and torn.

Clements had said they would reach the entrance to Apache
Pass late that afternoon. She was thinking of that now, excitement fluttering
in her belly like a hummingbird’s wings as she tried to imagine those first few
moments when she would meet her son face to face for the first time.

Alisha nodded as Clements remarked that they would be
stopping to rest the horses soon, almost tumbled over her horse’s rump when,
suddenly and without warning, Clements lashed her horse on the rear with the
end of his reins, hollering for her to ride like hell.

She heard that hideous shriek again and knew it had to be a
war cry of some kind, knew that she would never see her son, that she was going
to be killed.

Tears stung her eyes as she slammed her heels into Sophie’s
sides. “Faster!” she cried. “Faster, Sophie!”

The high-pitched shrieks of the Indians were punctuated with
the roar of gunfire and then, only moments after the attack began, there was an
ominous silence.

Alisha glanced over her shoulder again. Four Indians were
chasing her. There was no sign of Red Clements.

Fear such as she had never known curdled in her belly,
making her feel suddenly faint. She clung to the saddle horn, praying that
Sophie wouldn’t fall, that she could find a place to hide.

Time lost all meaning, and there was only the sting of the
wind in her face, the bitter taste of fear in her mouth. And the sure knowledge
that she was going to be killed.

Sophie’s hide was covered with frothy yellow lather, her sides
heaving like an overworked bellows when the Indians caught up with them. In a
move Alisha wouldn’t have believed if she hadn’t seen it, one of the warriors
rode up beside her and jumped from the back of his horse onto the back of hers.
Reaching around in front of her, he jerked the reins from her hand and brought
Sophie to a halt. Tossing the reins over the mare’s head, he slid off the
mare’s rump, then reached up and dragged Alisha from the saddle.

Alisha could scarcely breathe, she was so frightened. Heart
pounding, she tried to offer a last prayer to God, but she couldn’t think,
couldn’t speak, could only stare into the dark eyes of the man who stood in
front of her.

I wish I could have seen my son before I die
, she
thought sadly.
I wish I had told Mitch I still love him…

* * * * *

Mitch checked the cinch on his saddle, made sure his canteen
was full, checked the supplies in his saddlebags. Yesterday’s hunt had been for
warriors only. Today, Elk Chaser and three other men were taking their sons and
grandsons hunting. They would be gone for several days. Elk Chaser had asked
Mitch if he would like to go along, and Mitch had quickly agreed, eager to
learn everything he could about the People and their ways. He had expected it
to take two or three months for him to feel at ease among the Apache, but such
was not the case. These were his mother’s people, his people. Everything he had
learned, everything he had seen, seemed vaguely familiar, as if the spirits of
his ancestors were whispering in his ear, telling him that the ancient legends
he was hearing were true, recalling to his mind the old stories his mother had
told him as far back as he could remember and beyond.

They rode out just after dawn, five men and eight boys
between the ages of four and ten. Men and youth alike were clad in breechclouts
and moccasins. Elk Chaser had given Mitch a pair of moccasins. They were a
remarkable pierce of footwear, fitted to protect the wearer’s feet and legs
from thorny plants and poisonous reptiles. They reached halfway up Mitch’s
calf, and had tough soles that turned up at the toe. Like the others, he also
wore a breechclout. His mother made it for him soon after he arrived so that he
would blend in with the others. A strip of red cloth tied around his forehead
kept his hair out of his eyes. No one, looking at him now, would guess he was
not pure Apache.

Mitch grinned at Elk Chaser as they forded a dry stream bed.
Even as a boy chasing rabbits, he had loved the anticipation of the hunt, the
excitement of the chase, the kill. It was humbling, knowing that Rides the
Buffalo, who was the youngest of the group, was far more adept at hunting with
a bow than he was. He took a small measure of comfort in the fact that, with a
rifle or a pistol, he was any man’s equal.

They rode for several hours. In addition to hunting, the
boys were learning to track, to recognize landmarks, to determine the time of
day by the position of the sun.

Mitch urged his horse up the side of the ravine. It was a
beautiful day, warm and clear. The cactus was in bloom, and there was nothing
to see for miles in any direction but cactus and desert and gray-green clumps
of sage. In the distance, an eagle drifted on the air currents.

Mitch saw the bright red splash of color the same time as
the others. Without being told, the boys fell back a little while the men rode
forward, their weapons at the ready.

The body was sprawled face down on the low side of a small
rise. It had been stripped naked, save for the bottom half of a pair of red
long johns. A patch of dark brown blood had dried around the shaft of the arrow
in his back. A second arrow protruded from the meaty part of his left arm.