The Wildest Heart (25 page)

“That's enough!” Lucas Cord's bitter, angry voice slashed through my speech like a knife. “If you'd have tried guardin' your tongue in the first place…”

“And I say peace! You will both be silent.”

The shaman's voice was soft and papery, the rustling voice of an old man. But the stern note of authority underlying it brought the silence he had requested. His eyes studied us both, and when he spoke again his voice was gentler. “I was thinking, as you two spoke angry words to each other, that there must be a reason for the hate that is between you. It is a pity, for your father would not have wished it to be so.”

He had chosen to address me, and my lips tightened mutinously.

“Perhaps my father did not know him very well!”

“And you do?”

“I know, and have experienced all that I care to!”

“She's a stubborn, ill-natured female!”

I glared at Lucas. “And you are a cold-blooded murderer and a violator of women!”

The shaman raised his hand again, and I could almost imagine that he frowned.

“Is this true? You know our customs, and that I consider this woman as my daughter. You are also aware…”

“I'm aware of what Guy Dangerfield wanted, but
she
is not. And I swear to you that I did not touch her.”

How could he lie so flatly, and in my presence?

Sheer fury made me bold. “Ask him if he did not tear the clothes from my body on that very first night, after reminding me crudely that as he had bought me I was now his property, to do with as he pleased! He threatened to beat me.”

“And she deserved it. She was hungry and I brought her food. She threw it at me in a rage.”

“How cleverly you twist things about! The things you said to put me in a rage—have you forgotten?”

Our eyes clashed, and even in the firelight I could see those dangerous, greenish glints in his, like tiny flames.

“You are like children who throw angry words at each other in a fit of rage. My daughter, did he violate you?”

Trapped by his question, I bit my lip. “He—he lay beside me every night. No doubt so that his friends would think he hadn't wasted such a wonderful rifle for nothing! But no, he did not do more than that.”

The old man nodded. “You are honest. And I think you understand how the mind of a man will work.”

“
This
man's mind, perhaps! He is…”

“You're repeating yourself now, Lady Rowena. Can't you think of anythin' new to say?”

I gave him an icy look and turned my head away. If he wanted to act like an angry, thwarted child, then let him.

Again it seemed as if the old shaman had read my mind. “You are still confused, are you not? You wonder why you are here, and why I have spoken of your father's wishes. Will you hear me now, until I have finished speaking?”

He took my silence for consent, and his voice seemed to rustle in the stillness. “Your father and I spoke of peace. It surprises you? The Apache are few, and every day there are more of the white-eyes who come to settle on our old hunting grounds. In a rage against this our young men raid and kill, but for every white man we kill, two or three more come, and more soldiers with more guns. I am an old man and I see what must happen in the end. If we cannot make peace with the white man, the day of the Apache is ended. And so your father, my brother, and I would speak of such things. He made many writings in books, which he said he would leave for you. He knew that his days were not long, but when his daughter came she would turn all the old wrongs and the old hates into right. You did not read his books?”

I thought I could feel Lucas Cord's scornful gaze upon me as I shook my head. “I started to read them. But before I came here, I had a letter from him requesting that I read them in order, from the beginning. I started to read, but I became lazy in the hot sun. And then so many things happened that I did not have time.”

“You had time to spend with Shannon—and that nephew of his.”

I refused to look towards Lucas.

“Todd Shannon was my father's partner. I was going to marry him.”

The shaman's face was bland. “Shannon is an old man filled with hate. Your father saw this. Understand me, he did not hate his partner. He hoped that you would be allowed to live in peace. But he knew this man. For you he had other plans. A scheme to end old hatreds and end old injustice. It is a pity you did not read what he wrote.”

“Everyone keeps telling me that! But…”

“Be patient, daughter, as your father was. I am shaman of my tribe. But your father was wiser even than I. He saw ahead. And he was a man who placed truth and justice above all else.” His look was benign; I thought he was being patient with me, and it only made me impatient.

“Everyone talks to me in riddles! I am told of my father's wishes, but no one will tell me what they were.”

“You are a woman with the strong, quick mind of a man. But nevertheless you must learn to wait, to listen.” His head nodded again, and I noticed the swaying movement of his gaunt body.

“Your father once loved my own daughter. Perhaps he always did. My daughter turned from her people and sought the white man's ways. I let her go. She had the mind of a warrior—stubborn, independent, seeking. She too hates. And that is why your father knew that the only way to end the hate was the old way. It is our custom, and your custom. Your father's father was a chief. Your father married to please him. Was this not true? He expected you to think the same way. His wish was that you would marry one of my daughter's sons.”

“Not
him
!”
I could not help the exclamation that burst from my lips.

“Don't have to worry about
that
!
I like to do my own huntin' for my own kind of game.”

“Are you sure you do not mean
prey
?”

The old man's voice was calm.

“So you will not have each other. And Julio has a wife already. That leaves Ramon. He is not Apache in his thoughts. But he is educated, and a gentleman. He will fit well into the white man's world. And yet he is my grandson too. He has seen you and spoken to you. He understands his duty, just as you must understand yours.”

“No!” I sat upright. I could not let this farce continue a moment longer. “This is—it's not possible! You tell me I am supposed to marry a man I do not know? Because of some old feud that was started before I was born?”

“When you have had time to consider everything, and to know Ramon, you will not think such a marriage impossible. I have seen that you do not find it difficult to
adapt yourself to a way of life that is different from yours, and in this case I think you will begin to understand why it is necessary. Is it not the custom in the country where you were born, too, that such alliances are made between families? The marriage between your father and your mother—was it not made for such reasons?”

“That may be so, but look what happened! They did not love each other. My father…”

“Your father was a wise man, and you are his daughter. You are here because he sent for you.”

“To be married off to a stranger? To become a pawn?”

“You are a strong-willed woman. My daughter was such a one too. If she had married as I had wished her to—if I had not been weak with her because she had her mother's eyes… well, it is done, and past. But I will keep the word I gave to my brother.” His eyes looked into mine, stilling the angry protests that leaped to my tongue. “You look defiant, my daughter. You will not be forced into such a marriage, or any marriage, you understand? But you must be given the time and the opportunity to know the man your father chose for you—perhaps to know both sides of a story. Go now, and think of what I have said to you.”

I would have said more, cried out my angry protests, but I felt Lucas Cord's fingers close around my arm, bruising my flesh as he pulled me to my feet.

The old man looked at us through hooded, sleepy eyes. “She is your sister; you her brother. See that you respect and protect her. We will speak again before you leave for the valley.”

I found myself outside, scarcely able to believe what I had just been told. Impossible!

I must have said aloud, “I won't!” for Lucas shook my arm, and I looked up to find him glowering down at me.

“You start hollerin' and makin' a scene an' I swear I'm goin' to beat you, sister or not!”

I gasped with frustration, and his lips twisted. “Better go back to your meek and mild act—it suited you a lot better. If you were my woman I'd cut your tongue out!”

I gathered my wits together and stood still, forcing myself to smile into his angry face. “But I am not. Perhaps you had best start remembering that fact.”

He dropped my arm as if it burned his fingers, and it gave me pleasure to see the effort he made to control himself.

Without another word he turned on his heel and left me, leaving me to find my way back to the wickiup of Little Bird's relatives by myself.

I have been accused at various times of being cold, ruthless, unfeeling, calculating. And perhaps I've been all these things. I remember the time, too, when I prided myself on the control I had over my emotions.

It has always made me furious to find myself caught up in a chain of circumstances over which I have no control, or to feel myself at another's mercy. I was so angry that evening when Lucas Cord turned and walked away from me that I could almost feel my rage choke me.

And yet, before the night was over I had managed to calm myself sufficiently to become rather curious about the valley I was to be taken to, and the people who lived there.

The idea that I might marry Ramon Kordes was still preposterous, but it appeared as though I would have no choice but to meet him again. Very well, then, I told myself firmly. If he's the gentleman they say he is, he will surely understand the awkwardness of the situation in which we have both been placed. When he realizes that I have no intention of being forced into a marriage of convenience, perhaps he will pave the way for my leaving. But what of Elena Kordes, of whom I'd heard so much? And what of Lucas?

He took pains to avoid me when the men took their evening meal. As usual
they
ate first, and the women waited patiently until the men had eaten their fill before they could begin.

I was surprised when just after we had eaten, the fat woman who had been in the shaman's lodge came in and spoke in low tones to Little Bird's mother. It turned out that the old man had decided to make our relationship public. As the daughter of his blood brother he felt some sense of paternal obligation toward me, and I must therefore sleep in his lodge and consider it my home as long as I remained in the
ranchería.

Little Bird whispered to me that I was being shown great honor, and even her formidable-looking mother gave me a look of grudging respect

The old shaman, who was already lying wrapped in his blankets before the coals, raised himself on an elbow and gave me a nod of welcome.

“It is the custom for our young, unmarried women to sleep in the lodge of an older relative,” he said in his dry, papery voice. “Sleep well, my daughter.” I understood that there was to be no more talking tonight. The fat squaw, whose name, I was to discover later, was Falling Leaf, could speak no Spanish. She signaled to me with motions of her hands that I should prepare myself for sleeping, and showed me a place against the wall where a blanket had already been laid out for me.

I wondered, as I lay down obediently, whether the old man was protecting my reputation, or whether he was showing his grandson, in this subtle way, that I was no longer to be treated as a captive, but as an Apache virgin. What
was
my real position here? What would it be when we left to journey to the hidden valley?

My whole life had changed so much within the space of a few weeks that I could hardly believe all this was really happening to me. Tonight I could not fall asleep from sheer tiredness, as I had done on the nights past. My mind was full of questions to which I had no answers, and when I finally did fall asleep my dreams were frightening. I dreamed of pursuit across a desert where my feet kept sinking deeply into the sand and I could hear the thundering hoofbeats of my pursuers close behind me. I knew both fear and despair when I found myself at the edge of a very tall cliff, looking down into nothingness; and I felt a hand clamp down on my shoulder, ready to push me over…

I started up, sweat streaming down my face, but it was only the old woman, waking me. For a moment, reality appeared unreal. I felt stiff in every limp, as if I'd actually been running, the blood pounding in my ears.

The shaman slept. He was an old man, and liked to sleep late into the day, Little Bird told me later, at the stream. Sometimes his dreams foretold certain events; sometimes they held warnings. I wondered if
my
dreams had been meant to warn me of the dangers I was going into.

The feeling of foreboding I had awakened with seemed to grow stronger and stronger as the day passed slowly by. I was kept busy. I had already learned that the women in an Apache camp were always kept occupied with one task or another while the men, when they were not on raiding or hunting trips, sat in front of their brush dwellings and saw to their weapons or gossiped among each other like men everywhere.

Little Bird took me with her to gather roots and wild berries to prepare into a kind of paste for the journey. As we followed the course of the small stream she pointed out different kinds of edible plants, and some whose leaves had medicinal properties. This morning I noticed that her manner was much less reserved, and she chattered to me as if we were truly friends. Every now and then she would call me
nidee,
sister, and look at me shyly. And then I noticed, in spite of my preoccupation, that on the few occasions she mentioned the journey that lay ahead of us she would say: “When you go to the valley…” or “When you start out tomorrow…”

“But you are coming too, are you not?”

She gave me a startled, somewhat puzzled look. “I thought you had already been told. My father is old, and he asked my husband if I could remain in his lodge for a few days longer, so that he can continue to take delight in our children. My husband was kind enough to agree.”

It was my turn now to look startled. “But surely I'm not to be forced to travel alone with that man?”

“Oh, no!” Little Bird looked slightly reproachful. “My husband will be going too. It is a long time since he has seen his mother, and he says it is his duty. And three other warriors, for the hunting along the way. Two of them, who do not yet have children, will take their women along with them, to dress and cure the meat and pack the hides. You will not feel lonely, with two brothers to take care of you.”

“Brothers?” I stared at her uncomprehendingly, and she put her hand over her mouth, giggling shyly behind it.

“My mother told me, and my aunt, who is a widow and looks after the shaman, told her what he said. She says she heard your father and my husband's grandfather talk of this long before you came to this land. Truly,
nidee,
if I had known you were to marry the younger brother of my husband, I would have made your arrival to the camp of our people a happier one. I am ashamed.”

“But I…” I looked into her concerned face and could not say what I had almost burst out with. She would not have understood, and my defiance would only upset her. I would save the scathing speeches I had stored up all day for Lucas Cord, when I next confronted him.

But I did not see Lucas at all that day. The women found tasks to keep me busy, and with a semblance of meekness I followed their laughing directions, although I seethed with anger inside when I found that I was expected to prepare
his
food for the journey as well, and wash his trail-grimed clothes. I beat them against a flat rock by the stream, following the example of the other women; and I did it with a vicious fury, hoping they would shred into tatters.

“Not so hard!” Little Bird protested, half-laughing.

“But what about
me
?
He tore my other clothes off my back, and
these
garments are all I have. They're filthy!”

She looked concerned. “I did not know,
nidee.
But your father the shaman will give you more. He is rich.”

“It's not the same thing!” I protested.

That evening, however, the old man made a ceremonial presentation to me of the traditional Apache costume. “Our women now would rather wear garments of the white women than wear the buckskin garments that their mothers took such pride in wearing,” he said in his dry voice. “These belonged to Carmelita, who was the mother of my daughter Elena. She wore them when I took her as my wife, before the whole tribe. It would please an old man's heart if you would accept them, my daughter.”

The traditional Apache woman's costume consisted of a long skirt, reaching just above the ankles, richly embroidered with beads and quills. The high-necked overblouse was just as heavily embroidered and carefully fringed at the yoke and sleeves as the skirt had been.

“To please me, I would hope that you wear these garments when you reach the valley. Perhaps it will remind my daughter Elena that she is also an Apache.”

“I'm proud that you would give these to me,” I murmured. I could not help wondering if, perhaps, this old man with his seamed and wrinkled face had loved his young captive. And she—had she loved him in return? I was constantly being reminded, through old stories of other people's hates and sorrows and loves, of a past I'd had no share in. I was supposed to react, but how could I? Even my father was becoming more and more of a stranger to me. What had he really expected of me?

The shaman, my adopted father, seemed to take his duties seriously.

There were other gifts; moccasins, another full skirt of cotton with a yoked overblouse for traveling in.

It was the traveling itself, and my company, that I objected to most of all. I ventured to protest, and his face became closed.

“I had a dream last night. All this was meant. Your father, who should have been a shaman of his own people, saw it first.”

“But he didn't even know where I was,” I objected. “Or even if I would agree to come here.”

“He knew that his blood ran in your veins. I tell you, daughter, he knew. Be at peace now. Try and learn to accept. Go to the valley; meet with Ramon. He is of the same world you came from. You cannot know your true feelings until you have first had a chance to find what they are, seeing both sides.”

Again the shaman seemed to display an almost uncanny power of reading my thoughts. “You are still angry at Lucas, are you not?”

“How can I help it? He has treated me despicably. There was a time when I tried to defend him to others. But when I was presented with proof…”

“The kind of proof you speak of has many sides, daughter. You heard this—proof from those who hate him. Have you asked him for the truth?”

“What truth?” I was too perturbed to be cautious. “I know that my father believed in him, but what of the things he did later? Shooting men from ambush, running away with Todd Shannon's stepdaughter, and then abandoning her. Selling her to another man! And all for revenge. She was killed at a barroom brawl afterwards. Does he know that?”

“Why don't you ask him?” The old man's voice was as soft as the rustling of dry leaves.

“Ask him?” I realized that my voice had risen, I tried to control it. “He would only lie, as he has done before. Or he would not answer my questions. Or he would grow angry with me.”

“Is it justice that if a man has been accused by other men he should not be given a chance to answer these accusations?”

This old Indian might have been my own father—or my grandfather, who had first taught me of logic and justice.

My eyes dropped under his calm, steady gaze. “You think I should ask him?”

“It is what
you
think, my daughter. And what you must ask yourself. I can only tell you that Lucas is headstrong, and he is angry. But if you can put aside your hate and ask him what is in your mind, he will answer you. I have spoken to him, and he will show you the respect that he would show a sister. That is all.” He sighed. “Peace can be achieved only if people will sit down together and speak of those things that trouble their minds. It is easy to be angry. Difficult to say, ‘I would know what is troubling my brother—I will try to understand.'”

I sighed.

“You remind me of my grandfather. He was a stubborn, bull-headed old man with his own ideas. But he loved me, and he tried to teach me to use my mind. He told me that the fact that I was a woman didn't mean I could not think rationally. And I think you are trying to tell me the same thing.”

“Did I not say that you had the mind of a clever man? You are your father's daughter. Seeing both sides of a coin.”

I slept surprisingly well that night, perhaps because I had not yet seen Lucas. But all my feelings of resentment boiled up again the following morning, when we were supposed to set out.

I saw only two horses, already loaded down with supplies for our journey and stolen silver.

“But where are the
other
horses? You surely don't mean us to walk?”

“More horses would only slow us down, little sister.” His voice was exaggeratedly polite, but I knew better. “You are an Apache now—walking will come easily to you, I'm sure.”

I felt as if everyone else was watching us, as if I was being judged. The two women who were to accompany us were waiting, uncomplainingly, in spite of the heavy packs they carried on their backs. Julio stood beside his brother, his face, as usual, unreadable.

I shrugged lightly, hating myself for the gesture. At least
he
would understand sarcasm, if no one else did. “Of course. I should have guessed, shouldn't I?”

“When you see the kind of country we have to travel over, I think you'll understand better,” he said quietly. I felt the words were a concession to his grandfather, who had risen early to see us off, and I turned away.

And so we traveled on foot, leading the horses more slowly than we had gone before, for we climbed upward.

The slopes of the Black Range became more thickly forested, the scent of piñon and alder sweet in the clear, cool air. The mountains seemed pristine, untouched; here were none of the ugly scars left by miners greedy for precious metals. It seemed as if nothing had ever dwelled here but the wild creatures whose natural habitat this was. I did not have to be told this was Apache country.

The men went ahead, their steps springy, easily breathing the thinning air as we climbed. They carried rifles but when they shot game for our evening meal they used their ancient weapon, the bow and arrow.