“As for the boy—if an Apache did it, he was a renegade. As a rule, we don’t harm women and children. Take a good look around you. There are a couple of women in this camp who are not Apache—who are married to Apache warriors and have their children. There’s also a little Mexican boy who was adopted by one family seven years ago. Just take a good look around you, Candice.” He paused, giving her a scathing look. “All Indians aren’t the same.”
“If you’re trying to tell me that Apaches aren’t bloodthirsty killers, then I don’t believe you. And not just from the stories. When they captured me there was another prisoner, a vaquero. They tortured him. I heard his screams. She shuddered.
“He tortured the young warrior we found, who died. He was captured and brought back here to be tortured and killed in return. Even your God says ‘an eye for an eye.’We dokill, we do torture—we do rape, and we do scalp. Butonlyin retaliation.” He looked at her, and she felt something race down her spine. “If Luz was captured by one of the ranchers and raped and killed, Shozkay would take that man’s wife, or his daughter, or his sister, and he’d rape her, then kill her.”
She stared. Her heart was beating way too fast. She knew she shouldn’t provoke him. She found her voice. “And you? If someone raped and killed your woman—what would you do? Would you find his woman and rape and kill her?”
He met her gaze calmly, but with steel. “Yes.”
When Jack left her with Luz, who was on her knees surrounded by woven mats and rectangular cakes, Candice was still in a state of both shock and anger. Candice felt sick. He was a warrior—he had killed. How many innocent white people had fallen beneath his rifle and his knife? Had he really raped, scalped, and tortured in retribution, in vengeance? And she knew the answer.
It’s impossible, one part of her mind cried.
Free yourself from him, he’s Apache, she answered back.
It was a relief to turn her attention away from the man who was her new captor, and from his chilling words. “What are you doing?” she asked Luz.
The Apache woman flashed her a warm smile. “Come, look,” she invited. She was carefully packing the rectangular cakes in the woven mats.
“What are they?”
Luz smiled and handed her a cake. Candice bit into it, prepared for the worst, but found it pleasant, almost sweet. “This is pretty good.”
“It is made from mescal. From a part—I do not know the name in your words.” She held her hands into a rounded shape.
“The tuber?” Candice said.
Luz nodded. “We grind it, bake it. We eat them later, maybe in the winter, if it is bad.” She smiled.
“Can I help?” Candice said the words before she had even thought them. Luz was pleased, and Candice watched her carefully, imitating the squaw’s actions precisely.
A few minutes later Luz smiled. “You are a good squaw.”
Candice actually smiled back. But she couldn’t stop thinking about Jack. She needed answers, lots of answers.
“Luz,” she said cautiously, after she had regained control, “is Datiye Niño Salvaje’smistress?’
Luz stopped what she was doing to look at her. “I do not know that word.”
“His woman.”
“Ah, I see.” The woman was silent, and Candice felt sick with dread, for she could see her thinking about what to say.
“She is!” Candice cried, horrified.
“No, Sun Woman, not anymore. Once they did share a bed of hides, but that was long ago.”
“She was his mis—his woman?”
“Many summers ago.”
Candice clenched her fists. She had suspected, but now it was confirmed. She shouldn’t care, but she did.What is happening to me?
The men appeared a few hours later, as if by magic, just when the thick stew was simmering perfectly. They went inside Luz and Shozkay’sgohwahto eat. Candice couldn’t look at Jack. But she was very much aware of his presence. She sat very still, watching Shozkay smile warmly at Luz while Luz served him. Then he sat down next to her, speaking in Apache. Luz laughed, flashed him a brilliant smile, and handed him a bowl. Candice still didn’t move. Jack was standing behind her, so close she could feel his body heat. He murmured his thanks to Luz, then squatted down beside Candice, one warm, callused hand going to the nape of her neck beneath her braid. That was all, one touch, no words, but it conveyed too much—everything.
Later, the instant they were out of thegohwah, Candice turned to him as casually as she could. “Luz told me.”
“What?”
