“What am I supposed to do? How can we live? We need the money, damn you, Jack—damn your pride! I can’t live on eggs and squirrels! We need flour, sugar, coffee, ham, soap, cloth, thread—the list is endless!”
“You return that laundry, Candice. You return every bit of it today. You’re not taking it in again, and that’s that.”
“I am yourwife,”Candice said, so furious her voice cracked. “Not some squaw! You can’t order me around!”
“You return that goddamned laundry today, Candice,” Jack warned. His hands closed on her shoulders.
Candice tried to twist free but he wouldn’t let her. “I’m only doing what has to be done. We have nothing!”
His eyes widened, while a muscle tightened in his jaw. “Jack!” she gasped. “I didn’t—”
He released her and slammed out of the house. The frame around the door trembled long after he was gone.
Candice sank onto the bed, trembling, fighting tears. She hadn’t meant to say that, she knew how proud he was.
And that night, when Jack came back, he didn’t even reach for her in the dark.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
February 1861
Candice heard the door opening and looked up, smiling. “You’re just in time.” Seeing Jack’s grim expression, her smile faded. “What’s wrong, Jack?”
“I just heard some news,” he said grimly. “There are troops up at Apache Pass way station under siege, along with two stages full of passengers. Two men have been killed, and more are wounded. The rumor is Cochise has taken three Americans prisoner.”
Candice paused, carving knife in hand, the succulent roast chicken forgotten.
“Apparently,” Jack said, “Cochise has gone on the warpath.”
She searched her husband’s smoky gaze. “Are you all right?”
“I’ve heard that Oury’s going to rendezvous with troops from Fort Breckenridge at Ewell Springs. They’re rounding up volunteers in Tucson. They also sent soldiers to Fort Buchanan for medical aid and supplies.” Oury was the agent for the Butterfield Overland Mail.
“How did this happen?”
“Remember the kidnapping of John Warden’s boy this fall? The troops were sent to find him.” Jack sat down and stared at the fire.
“I heard you say a long time ago that Cochise didn’t take the boy,” Candice said, sitting also.
“Warden says he did.” He briefly met his wife’s gaze and was struck by the compassion he saw there. She couldn’t know what he was going through.
“Jack?” Her voice was high and uneasy. “Is this war?”
“Yes.”
Jack’s face was expressionless. He knew, without having to be told, that if white men had been killed and taken prisoner, it was war. And the only thing that would make Cochise break his word was betrayal. Cochise betrayed would be a warrior who would wreak devastation the extent of which no one could imagine except for himself. He was grim and pensive. And afraid.
“Do you want to eat?” Candice asked gently, thinking fearfully about her brothers and father. They had never been at war with the Apaches, not since they had moved to the Territory almost eleven years ago. Raids and skirmishes were one thing. But war? God, no.
“You eat,” Jack said. “I’m not hungry.”
He walked outside, alone—but not to do chores. He mounted up and rode out of town, giving the black his head, thinking. His thoughts were dark.
He respected and admired Cochise above all other men. He was proud that Cochise had given him his childhood name, and had been proud, too, to ride with him and be held in respect by the Chiricahua chief. He understood what was happening better than most men, white or Apache. Cochise had sought to make peace with the white man to insure the survival of his people. The Apaches were few, the white many, their ways superior, more powerful—ways built on wisdom and technology. The whites had guns, cannon, glasses, maps, supplies, and, most important, endless numbers. Only in peace could the Apache hope to survive, by living side by side with the Americans.
The war would be one of survival … freedom … life and death.
Jack knew in his heart that the war was lost before it had begun. Cochise knew it too. It was why he had wanted peace with the white man, why he had hung on to it so tenaciously in the face of contempt from the Mescalero, the other Apache chiefs—Mangas Coloradas, Geronimo—and dissent even from his own warriors, who ached to fight for their way of life, their land, and their freedom.
