“Brave once. You did not look carefully enough. Once we were hunters, now we are herders. Have you not noticed the white man’s cattle we nursemaid?”
Jack wisely refrained from commenting. The government had given Cochise’s tribe some cattle, and although it was beneath all Apaches’ dignity to tend animals, it was done because Cochise willed it so. The settlers, troops, and travelers had disturbed the big game, driving them away—making a gift of the cattle necessary, and acceptance even more so. To tell Cochise he herded cattle would be a grave insult.
“I read your thoughts. The cattle are a gift from the United States.” He shrugged. “My heart is heavy. My people are unhappy. We are no longer free. The white man comes in numbers so great, I know in my heart that if we do not learn the white ways my people will vanish off the face of the canyons and mountains for all times. I seek to learn. To learn I give my word I will protect the white man, and even fight my brothers to do so. I am hungry for knowledge. Hungry to know the white man.”
Jack nodded. “What you do is good. The white man is very powerful. His power comes not just from guns and cannon, but numbers and wisdom. I think it is a good path you chose.”
Cochise sighed, as if even the discussion of the topic that ruled his entire being was a great burden. “Why, Niño Salvaje? Why did you choose to ride with the white man?”
Jack tensed. We could not refuse to answer, for Cochise had used his name in framing the question. “It was the time of the Earth Is Reddish Brown,” he said slowly, drinking. He told Cochise about the cattle raid so many years ago and the subsequent encounter with the armed white riders—how he had killed his firstpindah. “Then, soon after, two of my cousins were betrayed by whites who invited them to share their fire. They were given much firewater and then murdered. I rode with the war party to avenge their wandering souls.”
Cochise studied hum in the firelight. “But you were a seasoned warrior. You rode the warpath many, many times before.”
“Against Mexicans. Against the Papago, the Pima, the Pawnee.” Jack looked up. Never against the white man.”
A heavy silence stretched across thegohwah, broken only by the crackling of the tinder.
“We burned the entire wagon train. Only the women and children were spared, and we did not take them captive. I killed many men that day. I took many scalps—as they had taken my cousins’ scalps. But I was no warrior.” Jack met Cochise’s dark gaze across the fire. “The bloodshed sickened not just my heart, not just my soul, but my body. I was weak as a woman from the battle and gore. No one knew—but I knew. The sign was so clear, it was sent from Usen. I could not ride against the people of my blood.” Jack stared. “Yet I cannot ride with them either.”
“You walk alone.” It was not a question. Cochise’s dark gaze was unwavering.
“Yes.”
“A difficult path, perhaps impossible. The day will come soon when you must choose your path again.”
Jack tensed. “No.”
“All around, the white troops chase and hunt down the Apache, sending them to reservations. Your people are still free—but for how long?”
“Shozkay has not been bothered,” Jack said.
“Have you become so white that you no longer read the smoke? To the north, many Apaches have been enclosed upon the earth with a fence upon it. Many Apache.”
Jack had heard that a few bands from the White Mountains had been sent to a reservation, but he had not given it much thought. The different Apache tribes were not close.
“Where did you go when you left your people?”
“East,” Jack replied. “I kept drifting east, through Texas. I finally reached a big city called New Orleans.” Jack grimaced. “Never have you seen so manypindahin one spot.”
“Tell me,” Cochise urged, leaning forward. “Tell me everything.”
They sat up drinkingtiswinand talking all through the night.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
She had been imprisoned in the whorehouse for almost two full weeks. She spent her days in a restless, angry state, planning an escape or a murder—whichever opportunity arose first. When she wasn’t plotting, she found herself daydreaming of Jack. Sometimes Lorna came to visit. The second time she had come—after that first visit with Kincaid—Candice had smacked her when she had tried to touch her, and now Lorna kept a wary, hungry distance. Once she offered to help Candice escape if Candice would let her come to her bed. Candice had managed to laugh in her face at the absurd and disgusting proposition, but she was shaken.
Lorna hated her as much as she lusted after her, and it was another thing for Candice to have to worry about. She was afraid that her rejection of Lorna would make the other woman do something to hurt her in some scheming way. About the only bright side to her life was that Kincaid hadn’t passed her around—yet. It was his latest threat, to tie her up and let Lorna at her. It worked—and it didn’t work. It would temporarily make Candice submissive. But submission wasn’t in her nature. Soon she would be fighting him again, tooth and nail.
Once she had bitten him. He had beaten her soundly for that, leaving her body black and blue. It had been four days before Kincaid had forced himself on her after that, so in a way, the beating was worth it.
Kincaid enjoyed seeing her submissive. Sometimes the threat of Lorna—combined with a few hard slaps—brought Candice temporarily to her knees, obeying his whims. He forced her to do the things she hadn’t even done to Jack, taking him in her mouth until she choked on his seed. Even if she escaped first, one day she would return to kill him.
It was the dream that sustained her and kept her spirit alive.
And she still hadn’t gotten her monthly flow.
She could feel the life growing in her, and it strengthened her resolve, made her determined not just to survive, but somehow to extricate herself from the situation she was in. She had the baby to think of. It nourished her.
