Dorothy Garlock (27 page)

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Sha-we-ne had been little more than fourteen summers when she first came to the notice of the white man who lived in the valley. All her life the Apache had used this place on their way south to the mountains and again when they came north in the spring. Here they would rest, slaughter cattle to fill their bellies, and prepare for the journey whatever meat they had not eaten. She was wading in the stream with a group of girls when she saw him sitting on his horse looking at her. She had thrust out her small breasts and lifted her skirts higher, as she had seen the older girls do when they knew they were being watched by the young bucks.

This was a man. Bigger than any warrior in their encampment. His hair was like a cloud. The other girls giggled and ran away when the man held a shining object up for them to see. He motioned for her to come to him, and he held out the bit of blue glass so that she could see the sun shine through it. Slowly and cautiously she approached, and she could see that his eyes were of the same color. He silently held the glass out to her and let it drop in her hand. She ran then, hiding the object in her dress so her mother wouldn’t see it and ask where it had come from. When she was alone she took out the piece of sky and looked at it. It was beautiful, and it was a thing no one had but she.

Each day she went back to the stream, and each day the man came. If the other girls were there he would ride away, so she would try to slip unnoticed from the camp and go to the stream to fish. When he found her there alone he would give her another shining object. They would not always be blue like the sky, sometimes green like a leaf, or red like the sunset. She didn’t run away now, and one day he got off his horse and she gasped as he towered over her. He reached out a hand and rubbed it over her breast. She felt an excitement. The next day he rubbed her breast again, and she smiled. He lifted her buckskin dress to her waist and pressed his hand between her legs, his fingers working into the soft, moist folds. She was startled at the pleasant feeling that coursed through her. She spread her legs and stood quite still, enjoying this thing the man was doing.

She went early the next day to the stream in eager anticipation of meeting the white man and having him do with his fingers what he had done before. This time he took her hand and led her away from the water and into a place surrounded by thick brush. He took off her dress, then motioned for her to lie down, and she complied, opening her legs. When he removed the big belt from around his waist and opened his clothing, Sha-we-ne saw his extended man-thing rising out of thick hair. She wanted to laugh. She’d seen this many times when the young bucks didn’t know she was about. Their breechcloths would stand straight out and they would try to push them down with their hands. This man didn’t try to push his down. Instead he knelt down in front of her and put the tip of it to the place his hand had been the day before. It felt good to her, and she smiled. Suddenly he thrust forward and the thing went up inside her. She opened her mouth to scream, but he covered it with one of his big hands. The pain was like none she had ever felt, and she thought the thing was going up into her belly. She looked at him with fear-filled eyes, but he wasn’t looking at her. His eyes were closed and his mouth was open and he was breathing heavily as he moved back and forth. He would let the thing come almost out, then would push it back. Sometimes it touched a place in her that felt good and she forgot the pain and tried to tilt her hips so that she could feel it again. Soon he shuddered and she felt a flood of something warm inside her. The man got up at once, fastened his clothing, and got on his horse and rode away.

Sha-we-ne went back to the place beside the stream each day while they were in the valley. Sometimes the man came and sometimes he didn’t. He didn’t bring any more pretty things, but she didn’t care; she had come to like what he did to her.

She never told anyone about her meetings with the pale-skinned man until they were deep into the mountains of Mexico. Her mother was furiously angry with her when she discovered that her flow of blood had stopped, and she beat Sha-we-ne until she told her about the white man she had let go inside her, and showed the pretty things he had given her. She was never welcome in any of the other lodges after her mother chased her through the village and beat her with a stick. Her sisters too were ashamed of her, and only the intervention of their mother kept them from stoning her.

When the white man failed to come for her to make her his woman, Sha-we-ne knew her fate. She would never be first or second wife to a husband, and only if she was lucky enough to be taken for a third wife would she have meat to eat. She clung to the hope that her child would be a big, strong warrior who one day would walk through the village forcing everyone to stand aside so that his mother could pass. This hope died when she gave birth. To add to her disgrace, her son was small and weak and one of his feet was twisted. The gods were angry, her mother said, because she had coupled with the paleskin, and this was her punishment. She hated the child. “Let him die!” she had shouted, but her mother would not and forced her to nurse and tend him.

After Sha-we-ne’s mother died, her sisters no longer brought meat to the lodge; and when Black Buffalo offered to make her his third wife to be slave for his other two wives, she moved, with the lame one, to the lodge of Black Buffalo, where her position was lower than that of a cringing dog, despised and reviled. She learned to endure the sly pinches, the kicks, the spit clinging to her face, and her hair jerked so hard that her scalp bled. It was as if her mind and body belonged to someone else and the only thing about her that was alive was her hate. It was coiled deep inside, and she nourished it and it festered.

It became a matter of pride to keep the fruit of her hate alive. She fed the child, but that was all. She never held him, talked to him, or taught him. In fact, she never looked at him unless it was unavoidable, and never since the day he was born did she look into his sky-blue eyes. Sha-we-ne spent as much time away from her lame son as she could. When he was very small she hung his basket on the branch of a tree and did not go near him all day. Later he crawled in the dirt and snatched food from the dogs. She didn’t know when the white man came and stared at the blue-eyed child. She was relieved when she returned from picking berries one day and found that the child had been traded for five fine ponies. Thinking the paleskin a fool, she looked anxiously at Black Buffalo, hoping he would notice her for the wealth she had brought him, but he scowled and shoved her aside. That night he came to her and used her while she was lying on her face, and without the bear grease the pain was almost more than she could bear without screaming.

*  *  *

The seasons passed: winter, summer, winter summer. Sha-we-ne lost count of how many. Wearily she tended the great fire in the middle of the circle of wickiups as well as the one in the lodge of Black Buffalo. She had more and more to do as Black Buffalo’s family increased. There was firewood to gather, the contents of the cookpots to stir, children to tend, and the never-ending softening of pieces of hide, which she did with her spit and the grinding of her teeth. More and more moccasins had to be made and more and more garments pounded clean on the stones beside the streams.

The Apache warriors were masters. They sat cross-legged before their wigwams, boasting of their deeds and their power with the bow and arrow, each man seeking to make himself appear braver and stronger than the others. There was talk in the encampment of an uprising, of raids against the paleface settlers of their land. Knives were sharpened, short powerful bows were tested, and new flint-head arrows were made by the older men. The braves lucky enough to possess rifles flaunted them before their poorer brothers.

The chieftains and their chosen warriors sat around the big fire in the circle of wickiups. The discussions were about whether the white man called Sky Eyes would bring the wagon with supplies to the camp. He had come for five seasons, but this encampment was the largest ever to stay over in the valley, and some said the white man would be afraid to come among them. But it did not matter, they said; they would take what they wanted and kill all the paleskins. They would kill and eat what cattle they wanted and drive off the rest.

Geronimo sat quietly and listened to the talk. Not yet powerful enough to stand up and command, he nevertheless knew that his opinion was respected. His narrow black eyes rested often on the face of Gray Cloud. When the warrior spoke of the white man his eyes glittered with ferocious hatred. Geronimo began to wonder about that hate and about how many of the warriors would follow Gray Cloud into battle.

“We sit like women and talk,” Gray Cloud said angrily. “Why do we not go and take what we want? Kill the white man and take his horses and his guns. We are many, they are few, and there are no bluecoats to come help them.”

“We will drive them from our land,” one brave said, his voice rising with excitement.

A murmur of approval came from the braves surrounding Gray Cloud; then a war drum was produced and a dozen warriors sprang to their feet to begin the dance.

Geronimo thought it time to speak. He stood and held up his hand. The group fell silent. “Hear me well,” he said. “It is not yet time to make war on the white man. For many seasons we have come here and had cattle to feed on and to kill and take with us on our journey. We are not using the land as Sky Eyes is using it, and he brings us blankets and tobacco. If we run off his cattle, we will have none when we pass this way again. It would not be wise to kill Sky Eyes at this time. The bluecoats would come before we are ready.” When he finished, he sat down.

Gray Cloud was furious. The voice of Geronimo was becoming too powerful; too many heads turned to listen when he spoke. Gray Cloud didn’t dare show his hatred for the chief’s favorite chieftain, so he directed it toward the whites in the valley, and to Sky Eyes in particular, who had watched and enjoyed his humiliation when he was beaten, having been caught stealing his brother’s horse.

“Sky Eyes comes in friendship because he is afraid. Can it be he is not the only one afraid?” Gray Cloud had not meant for his words to be a challenge. But now that they had been spoken, he waited to see how Geronimo would receive them.

Geronimo got to his feet again. The faces of the other Indians were impassive as they watched the two men, but each knew the importance of this encounter. One of the two men would emerge a leader, the other merely a follower.

“Before I retire to my lodge there is a thing I will say to you, Gray Cloud.” He pointed a finger at him. “Words flow from your lips like the water in the stream and some are as useless as the leaves that fall and are carried away. It is not words that make a great warrior, but deeds. If you wish Sky Eyes dead, kill him, if you can.” He paused. “But do not take our braves to their death when it will serve no purpose but to weaken us for the war ahead.”

The chieftains nodded in agreement and Gray Cloud felt a rising tide of fury that they would listen to the words of this man who was not Chiricahua. It made him uneasy . . . it was almost as if they were conspiring against him, trying to belittle him. A great hot anger toward the white man rose in him. He had not grown weak and soft. He was a man and to prove it he would meet the white man from the house of stone and kill him.

*  *  *

Sha-we-ne was sick. There was fever in her body, her head was throbbing, and her tongue was thick. Her brain registered the news that Gray Cloud wished to kill the white man. Her thoughts whirled in hot confusion. At first she didn’t know why she was disturbed by what Gray Cloud had said; then, with a cry of despair, she realized that the white man would die quickly and honorably in battle. This must not happen. He must not die before he knew of her hate, before he suffered long, agonizing moments of pain. Perhaps she could appeal to Gray Cloud to capture him and let her torture him with burning sticks. She closed her eyes and gave herself up to the pleasure of devising ways of bringing pain to the white man.

She was going to die soon. She was in much pain and her body refused to do her will. She could accept death, even accept what torture Moon Rising and Bright Morning chose to inflict upon her, if only she could see the white man once again before she died. Looking up at the sky, she saw his face. He was bending over her. It was strange that he was there. She put up a weak hand, but encountered only air. Her swollen lips stretched into a smile. The message was clear.

S
ixteen

B
urr sat hunched over the table in the cook shack, his stomach empty and grumbling, his hands circling the mug of hot coffee while he waited for Codger to cook the refried beans and eggs. He nodded to Red and Mooney when they came through the door, then turned back to Luis, who leaned back in one chair with his booted feet resting on another.

Both men were tired. After the
remuda
was safely inside the corrals, Burr had spent the remainder of the night supervising the fortification of the ranch buildings. Luis had scouted the Indian camp.

“How many men would you say were in the camp, Luis?”

“Three, four hundred, I’d guess.”

“That’s twice the usual number. Do you think it means anything?”

“
Sí.
I think they plan war. Perhaps not now, but later.”

“Holy hell!”

“There is excitement among them. The old men make bows, the warriors strut and talk. It could be that a leader has emerged that can draw all the tribes together.”

“Holy hell!” Burr said again.

Luis grinned. “Not to worry, brother. We will not be caught unaware.”

“I know. We got forty men we can put behind rifles.” Burr tilted his chair back against the wall. “The trick will be to get all the people up here—”

“We will have time.”

Burr rubbed his hand across his face. “I’ll take the supply wagon down tomorrow. Don’t think we ought to rush it. They might get the idea we’re running scared.”