Arizona Gold (8 page)

In a flash, she was grabbed by the nape of her neck and yanked to her feet, and, besides sudden fear for her life, she worried he would somehow discover her secret as he held her close and shook her so hard her teeth rattled.

“You try my patience, boy. You are a slave. You do not question my orders. I think maybe my mother has been too easy on you, and you forget your place.”

An icy dread swept through her as cold, dark eyes bore down on her.

He was holding her by one hand and she winced and prepared herself for the blow as she saw him raise his other, but just then Pale Sky screamed out to him in their language.

He lowered his arm and dropped her to her feet, releasing her. “She saves you again,” he said between clenched teeth, “but next time, nothing will save you, boy. You are long overdue for a sound thrashing.”

Kitty wanted to kick herself for losing control. Now he was mad—furious—and there was no telling what he might do.

She scrambled to her feet and scurried to get the buckets.

It seemed to take forever to fill the tub, and each time she carried water to the stove for heating, Pale Sky lashed out at her for her insolence.

“Next time he will beat you, Billy Mingo. You must watch your tongue or risk having it cut out of your head. My son is the leader of his people. He cannot tolerate a slave talking to him so impudently. The only reason I was able to save you is because no one else heard. If they had, he would have had to beat you to save face. Now I warn you—tread lightly…or I will beat you myself.”

Kitty had the idea she was not bluffing and cursed herself again.

Yet, despite the aches of her weariness making her feel as though she had already been whipped, apprehension crept in when she thought of seeing Whitebear naked once more. He was her captor, her master, and her life was in his hands, but still she felt helplessly drawn to him as a man.

When the tub was filled at last, she was relieved when he waved her away. “Go. I can bathe myself.”

He had emerged from the shadows of the tent and stood in the glow of a small fire. Kitty could not tear her eyes from the glorious sight of him, bathed in gold like some kind of god, every muscle taut and shining.

“Did you hear me?” he snapped. “I don’t enjoy being bathed by a man. I only made you do it that first night to humble you, but I see it didn’t work. Now get out of here and get to sleep. We leave at dawn.”

Cheeks flaming, Kitty fled from the tent and threw herself down on her bed.

She chided herself for her weakness, for her desire, but could no more dispel it than turn back the winds.

She was a woman.

And he was a man…a savage in some ways but she wanted him as she had never wanted another. Realizing that, accepting that, Kitty knew it was all the more important that she escape.

But, dear God, it seemed so hopeless.

“Get up.”

Kitty awoke to the sharp nudge of Whitebear’s foot in her side. It was still dark, but a pale hint of dawn began to appear on the horizon.

“Can you ride a horse?” he asked as she struggled to her feet.

Running her hands through her tangled hair, she jerked at her overalls to straighten them. Instinctively, she felt for the map and was startled not to feel it hidden in the pouch, then remembered she had removed it to slip beneath a marked rock. Often she got wet during the day and could not risk ruining it, so she had taken it out.

“I asked you a question, boy.”

Kitty was still groggy, “Yes. Yes, I can ride.”

“Then let’s go. I want to get this over with so I can leave.”

She followed him to the corral where the horses were kept. Selecting a mustang, he handed her a bridle. “We don’t use saddles.”

“I don’t need one. I know how to ride bareback,” she said, and he quirked a brow in surprise.

The sky was getting ever lighter, and she followed him down the trail. The way was precarious, but the mustang seemed to know it, so she gave him his head and let him set his own pace.

As they rode, she tried to get her bearings, as well as sight several places where she might hide once she did escape. She would not try to make it off the mountain all at once, as the Indians would expect her to do in her panic to reach safety. Instead, she planned to take it a bit at the time to throw them off. They would be looking all over, and she would be sequestered and nibbling the food she would hoard to take with her when she went.

“Do you know anything about hunting?” he asked.

“A little.”

“Well, what you did back East was nothing like the Indian way. We hunt rabbit and turkey on horseback as well as on foot. Our horses are trained to follow rabbits running full speed, so we can swing down and hit them with a club. At a distance, we’ll kill them with a throwing stick. Same as with turkeys. We don’t waste arrows or bullets. Today I’ll kill the elk with my lance.”

Kitty hardly heard him, for the sun was up, and her gaze was helplessly drawn to the way his body seemed to undulate in a sensuous rhythm as it yielded to the softly jarring movements of the horse. His back was bare, as were his legs, for he wore only a breechclout in the summer warmth.

She watched the taut muscles of his thighs, the way his hips rocked gently from side to side.

She began to perspire but told herself it was from the heavy overalls and shirt she wore.

They waded through a mountain stream, and she longed to throw herself into the cool, crisp water in an effort to douse the rising heat she could not hold back.

Seeing a fish, she seized the opportunity for conversation in an effort to quell her rising longing. “We could catch fish,” she suggested brightly. “I know how to cook them, and—”

“The Apache don’t eat fish. They believe they’re filled with bad spirits.”

“You don’t think that, do you?” she asked, astonished.

“No. But I’m different. I lived for a time with my father in his world and learned the white man’s ways. He also saw to it I was educated, along with my mother.”

“Then why don’t you teach your people that it’s all right to eat fish? With so many streams and rivers, they would never have to go hungry.”

“I try not to argue with their taboos. I explain what I have learned, what I believe, but they have to make up their own minds. I am their leader, but I don’t try to change their way of thinking. Not now, anyway. Maybe when we begin our new life elsewhere.”

Kitty, yielding to sudden impulse, said, “Then will you let me go? You aren’t going to keep me forever, are you?”

He was quiet, thoughtful for a moment, then said, “I have other things on my mind to worry about besides you, Billy Mingo. Besides, the only thing you need to worry about right now is doing as you’re told.”

She fell silent, sensing he was annoyed with her prattling.

They rode on in silence, and finally he spotted a small cluster of elk. “Stay here,” he commanded, then charged right into them to fell one with his lance.

Afterward, he showed Kitty how to gut and clean it, and it was all she could do to keep from being sick to her stomach. She worked fast, wanting to get it over with.

Finally, the meat cut the way he wanted it, they returned to camp.

“You did well,” he told her as he left her at his mother’s wickiup.

And then he was gone, disappearing down the mountain once more without a backward glance.

Pale Sky called to her, “Come inside. I have food for you. Then we will work with the meat.”

Kitty turned to go in but something made her turn around, and she was jolted to see that Coyotay stood nearby glaring at her.

He pointed to the scar on his shoulder, then at her, and raised his fist and shook it as he yelled something in Apache.

Pale Sky, coming out of the wickiup in time to hear, yelled back at him, and he turned and walked away.

“I’m scared of him,” Kitty said as she followed Pale Sky back inside. “I worry he wants revenge so bad he won’t obey Whitebear’s order to leave me alone now that he’s gone.”

Pale Sky assured her, “He is not a fool. He will obey. He may be angry, but as long as he does not drink the
tiswin
—the white water, as some call it—he will not have crazy thoughts.”

Then pray he doesn’t get into it
, Kitty thought with a shudder of foreboding,
because he looks like he has enough crazy thoughts without it
.

Chapter Eight

“I think it is time you had new clothing.”

Kitty stared at Pale Sky in horror. “I���I like my overalls,” she stammered. “I don’t want to change.”

“They are torn and tattered.” Pale Sky held up a pair of baggy white cotton trousers. “These will be better for you. I also have a breechclout and a calico shirt for you.” She looked at Kitty in scrutiny. “I think it is time you tied your hair back from your face like the men.”

Kitty’s heart dropped all the way to her ankles. Without the thick bib of the overalls, the swell of her breasts might show. And if she had to tie her hair back with a headband like the Apache, her delicate facial features would be obvious. If anyone became suspicious and began to look closer, it would just be a matter of time before she was exposed.

After Whitebear had left the camp two days earlier, Pale Sky had directed Kitty to move her bed outside her wickiup. When it rained the previous night, she had her take it right inside. Kitty was grateful, for she had spent a few wet, miserable nights in the past. Finding Pale Sky standing over her with Indian clothing, however, had been a rude awakening. “I really prefer to wear my own clothes,” Kitty continued to protest.

“You will do as I say,” Pale Sky said in the no-nonsense tone Kitty had learned to dread. “It is also too warm these days for such heavy clothing. Indeed, you might not even want to wear the shirt but go bare chested.”

Now, that would cause some eyes to bug out
, Kitty thought with an inward groan.

“Go now.” Pale Sky waved her toward the opening of the wickiup. “Take care of your morning needs and change. We will be leaving soon.”

Kitty felt excitement surge at the thought of another opportunity to learn the trail down the mountain. “Where are we going?”

“To gather berries, grapes for drying—raspberries, hackberries, and mesquite beans. Chokeberries, also, though it may be too early.”

“Is it a long way?” She hoped it was.

“Far enough that the men must go along to protect us. The scouts went yesterday to make sure there are no soldiers in the area. We will be going to the bottom, to a brushy pass where many berries were seen.

“Summer harvest is important to us.” Pale Sky dropped the clothing and went to her cooking fire. She was making a stew of deer meat and white root stocks that would simmer through the day. “We have to prepare for the winter by drying and storing as much food as we can.”

Kitty did not immediately get up. Instead she watched Pale Sky, thinking what a pretty woman she was. Always clean and tidy, she wore her long, shining black hair hanging loosely down her back, and rather than buckskin, she dressed as many of the other Apache women did, in a voluminous skirt that brushed the ground. The one she wore today was of a bright blue shiny fabric. Sateen, Kitty decided, with flounces and rows of ornamental braid for trim. Her over-blouse, which hung to her hips, had a high neck, full sleeves, and was also trimmed with braid.

Despite the stress of having to hide from soldiers that would force her and her people back to the reservation they hated, Pale Sky seemed content in her own way. She appeared to enjoy her life, and Kitty was well aware of her devotion to her son and how she worried when he was not around.

Kitty hated to admit it, but she worried about him, too—and not for his welfare. He was keenly intelligent and extremely strong and powerful and well able to take care of himself. What bothered her was how she could not deny being inexplicably drawn to him—and not just because seeing him naked had birthed strange, new feelings within her. It was more than that, and she wanted to attribute it to him having saved her life. No matter that he was her captor and a dreaded savage Indian. She was in his debt. Still, there was a part of her that would not accept that theory…the hungry woman part of her that he, as a man, had awakened and that now demanded be fed.

Rolling to her side, she was stricken by the futility of it all and the desperation of her plight. Her pretense of being a boy—a man—could not go on indefinitely, and she had to find a way to escape despite the risks involved.

Pale Sky chattered on about how they needed sycamore bark for making tea, and the leaves from the squawberry bush to make medicinal drinks as well as material for baskets. Wild potatoes, onions, and the fruit of the saguaro cactus were also in great demand.

“In the old days, when we roamed our land freely, we hid food in secret caves, usually near a water hole. We even left our clay cooking pots there, along with bolts of calico cloth. This was so that when we moved from one place to another to hunt game, or to flee our enemies, we would have important things that we needed.”

Suddenly Kitty found herself asking, “Why doesn’t Whitebear take a wife?”

Pale Sky, continuing to stir the stew, shrugged. “I suppose he has not fallen in love.”

Kitty pointed out, “But what about Adeeta? He favors her over the other girls who try to sneak into his tent at night. I know, because when I was sleeping outside, I would hear them, and he turned them away, except for the one named Meena. He let her come in once.”

“If he were to marry, he would choose Adeeta, I suppose, but he does not like her mother.”

“What difference does that make? I mean, he could just stay away from her after they were married, couldn’t he?”

“Oh, an Apache man does that, anyway. It is custom for him not to speak to his mother-in-law, because the Apache say that the mother of the wife is the cause of all trouble between a man and his wife and is to be shunned. He never enters her wickiup, and if she goes to his, he leaves and does not return while she is there.”

“Then why—”

Pale Sky chuckled. “Adeeta’s mother is so mean spirited that my son fears one day Adeeta will be just like her. Now she is young, pretty, and kind, because she wants him for her husband. He fears that will not last.”

“Then what about Meena?”

“Her father is old, and she has four sisters, and some of them are difficult to look at.”

Kitty figured that was a kind way of saying they were ugly. “But what does that matter?”

“It is custom that if a man’s wife has many unmarried sisters, he should marry them also. My son says he would have a hard enough time with one woman trying to tell him what to do. He would not want
five
.”

Kitty doubted any woman would ever be able to boss Whitebear, but she kept her thoughts to herself.

“Now, go and put on your new clothes.” Pale Sky waved her wooden spoon. “If you are not ready, they will leave without us.”

Actually, Kitty was looking forward to going, and not merely because it was another opportunity to prepare for when she would attempt escape. The reality was, she enjoyed being with Pale Sky and learning the Indian way. It was interesting to see the preparation of different foods, like dough bread baked in ashes, and a kind of coffee made from mashed walnut meats, shells, and hulls.

Still, it was necessary to keep up the facade of resentment, and irritably she said, “Let them. I don’t like doing women’s world.”

Pale Sky’s eyes snapped with sudden anger. “Pah. You are a stupid, ungrateful boy, Billy Mingo. How many times must you be reminded that if you were the slave of Coyotay you would be constantly beaten for your weakness? You should fall on your knees to my son for his kindness in giving you to me, for I have seen many slaves suffer through the years.”

“As your husband did,” Kitty interjected to stall for time as she tried to think of a way out of changing clothes.

“Ah, yes, as he did,” Pale Sky murmured sadly.

“You loved him a lot, didn’t you?”

“Yes. And I was glad that be was young when he was taken, otherwise he would have been killed as the older men were.

“For a time,” she went on, “we were happy. But he longed for his world, and I longed for mine. We could not stay together. The worst part was when he kept my son from me, but he finally ran away and found me. Maybe that is why I am better to you than I should be, because I feel cheated not to have had my son with me all that time, and I am trying to make up for the lost years with you.”

Kitty was moved. “Then I won’t complain about working for you any longer, and I will do my best to please you.”

Pale Sky smiled. “It will please me for you to wear the things I borrowed for you. They should fit. The son of my friend I got them from is about your size.”

Kitty knew she could not put it off any longer. Gathering the garments, she raised the bearskin that covered the opening and was about to go outside but hesitated as she saw one of the warriors walk by. He was wearing a buckskin vest. Turning about, she asked Pale Sky, “What about a vest? I need one. Even if it is summer, I am not used to the early mountain chill.”

“You wish to wear a vest?”

Kitty nodded.

“Very well. I will get one for you. Now go. Time grows short.”

Hidden from view by a thick clump of brush near the stream running down from above, Kitty dressed in the Indian garb. Thankfully, the shirt was big and baggy and revealed no curves. Still, she did not breathe easy till she returned to the wickiup to find that Pale Sky had found a vest for her.

After pulling back her hair and securing it with the cloth headband, Kitty had streaked her face with dirt. Pale Sky, used to such uncleanliness among her people, said nothing, if she even noticed. Kitty breathed a bit easier. For the time being, her secret was still safe.

When they joined the women, Kitty was dismayed to see Coyotay barking orders.

“Do not worry about him,” Pale Sky said, noticing how Kitty kept darting anxious glances in his direction as they began walking. “He will not harm you.”

“It still bothers me how he looks at me—like he wants to kill me.”

“He does want to kill you,” Pale Sky agreed with candor. “You tried to kill him. Therefore, you are his enemy.”

They walked on down and around high, jutting boulders. Kitty tagged obediently behind Pale Sky but kept pace. She did not want to call attention to herself by lagging back and was careful to keep her glances quick and furtive lest someone see and suspect she was memorizing the trail.

As they moved along, Kitty dared to think she might make it all the way to the bottom when she escaped, but only if she started early in the night. Still, there were the elements of the wild to be considered. Now and then they could hear the ominous sound of a rattlesnake somewhere in the brush at the side of the trail. There were also many wild animal tracks.

She thought of the bow Whitebear had left in his tent. Without being obvious, she had watched some of the young boys practicing with theirs. It did not look too difficult, and she had always been quick to learn. No one would notice if she took Whitebear’s bow and a few arrows, and she hoped to be far away by the time he returned, anyway. It was taking a chance, but far less risky than continuing to stay with the Apache, especially with Coyotay champing at the bit to take revenge against her. And once on the main trail, she planned to hide out, living off the land, and wait for a stagecoach to come by.

It took over two hours, she estimated, for them to get down off the mountain, then another to walk to the brushy pass where the berries had been located. The women began picking, while the men dismounted to lounge around and talk among themselves.

As the blazing sun rose higher in the sky, Kitty became increasingly uncomfortable in the heavy vest, but dared not take it off. The warriors, she noted, had stripped to their breechclouts.

She was soaking wet with perspiration and dying of thirst, but there was no stream nearby. She noticed that the men were drinking from bags of some sort and asked Pale Sky what it was.

Pale Sky was bent over a cluster of low-growing chokeberries she was delighted to have found. She straightened to whip her head about and look in their direction, then scowled. “It is not plain water they drink. Hear how loud they speak? See how they laugh and push at each other like silly fools and stumble when they do?”

“White water?” Kitty asked fearfully.

“Yes. Coyotay must have been hiding it until my son left. But there could not have been very much. All the corn has been used and there will be no more until autumn. So perhaps they will not become too crazy.”

“A
little
crazy is too much for me,” Kitty declared with brow furrowed. “Do you think we can start back earlier? Maybe the hard ride back up will sober them.”

“No. We must harvest now that we are here. And I sense that you are thirsty or you would not have asked about the men drinking. Come, I will show you how to find water. Do not look at them any longer.”

Leaving the others, Kitty followed Pale Sky out of the pass and to the flat area where barrel cactus grew.

Hoisting up her skirt, Pale Sky drew a long knife from where it was strapped to her thigh.

Kitty’s eyes went wide. Pale Sky did not seem the sort to carry a hidden weapon, but she reminded herself that despite her kind and genteel ways, Pale Sky was still an Apache.

With one blow, Pale Sky knocked off the top of a cactus. From her pocket, she took a long, thin reed and stuck it into the pulpy innards. “Drink,” she urged Kitty as she stood back. “It is good when there is nothing else.”

Kitty sucked out the liquid from the cactus. It was slightly bitter, but truly better than a parched throat.

Returning to the pass, the men had become louder. The other women seemed not to notice or, if they did, were unconcerned. They were used to the warriors drinking the white water whenever they could, especially when Whitebear was not around. In addition, none of them had anything to fear. The men would not mistreat them.

The day wore on, and when the women’s sacks filled, and the sun began to drop to the west, Coyotay shrilly screamed and motioned that they were leaving.

“Not soon enough for me,” Kitty muttered, dragging the bulky bag of chokeberries and seeds Pale Sky had shown her how to gather.

“I have told you—do not be afraid,” Pale Sky said as they fell in with the others. “You are safe with me.”

Kitty wondered whether her nervousness was getting the best of her or if Pale Sky sounded less sure of herself than before.