Cochise was grim as he sat with Nahilzay, Jack, and two of his other best warriors. Now the Americans held eight prisoners, including Cochise’s second wife and small son. Because the small cavalcade had been driving about thirty ponies and as many or more cattle, it was obvious to everyone that the Coyoteros had been returning from a raid when they had run into the troops and been engaged. The night was grim, and Cochise asked each man in turn his thoughts on the matter.
The three Chiricahua warriors wanted blood. They wanted to torture and kill the American prisoners to show the troops what betrayal of their chief’s word and honor meant. Jack again said he would offer one last time to trade prisoners. Nahilzay snorted in disgust. Then Cochise spoke.
“Eight Apaches, when our numbers are so few, and less every year. Five of whom are irreplaceable warriors. My brother, Naretana, is irreplaceable for his wisdom, the keenest of any man’s. Tomorrow we send Wallace down. It will be my last offer.”
The next day the sun was bright, the snow crisp and white underfoot, the sky blue and cloudless. It was bitterly cold Wallace was untied from the stake; Nahilzay held a lariat around his torso beneath his arms. A hundred warriors in full war dress rode to the top of the hill, with Nahilzay and Cochise in front, Wallace walking alongside. Jack rode a bit behind and to Cochise’s left, two of the top warriors between him and the Chiricahua chief. Like everyone else, his face was painted red, black, and yellow.
Nahilzay was on Cochise’s right. He played out his rope, and Wallace, already instructed by Cochise, walked partway down the hill until he was gazing over the dry wash running between him and the station and corral.
“Lieutenant Bascom,” he called.
The door to the station house opened immediately. Obviously someone had seen the Apache on the hill. Several men stepped out, three in uniform. Jack picked up his field glasses.
Lieutenant Bascom was about twenty-two or -three, deeply red from the sun, small, slender, and tense. A sergeant stood next to him, clearly a grizzled veteran, and a man wearing a uniform with a surgeon’s markings on it also stood with them. So did John Warden, the big, red-haired Irish rancher, and a man Jack recognized from Tucson, William Buckley, superintendent of this section of the Butterfield line. Jack passed the glasses to Cochise, who refused them.
In the incredible quiet of the snow-laden mountain morning, sound traveled easily up the hill as Wallace and Bascom shouted back and forth at each other.
Wallace began. “Bascom! We’re all in bad shape. We’re starving, we ain’t had anything to eat in days. We’re freezing. They won’t give us blankets or nothing. Cochise will let us all go if you release the Indians. He says this is his last offer!”
Bascom spoke. “Bring the Warden boy down with the two other Americans, and we’ll release the Indians.”
Wallace and everyone else turned to look at Cochise for his response. His lips were set in a grim line.
At that moment, Wallace started running for the station. Nahilzay smiled and caused his horse to rear up, making Wallace go down on his back. He was almost at the bottom of the hill, and Nahilzay urged his mount forward, fast. The rope went tight. Wallace went onto his stomach, grabbing foolishly onto a rock. Tension strained the rope, then Wallace was being dragged over the ground, face downward. At a gallop, Nahilzay raced back and forth across the hill, dragging the man behind him, and then the Apaches turned away, disappearing back over the hill—Nahilzay following, still dragging his inert burden.
The screams started shortly afterward.
Jack stood in the ring around the three prisoners, who were still tied upright to stakes. He was motionless and without expression. It took all his Apache training to control himself. Cochise and Nahilzay were beside him. A hundred warriors had gathered around, one-fifth of the warriors Cochise had. With spears in hand, several warriors ran forward at once, lances raised at the ashen, stricken prisoners. Screams of agony rang out, again and again. Soon the snow was no longer white but crimson. Cochise walked away.
Jack gazed at the bloody victims, heard their screams for mercy, and controlled his expression, did not even blink.I have become too white, he thought impassively, using an iron will to remain detached. He had never had the Apache capacity for torture. And although the Apaches never tortured except in vengeance, in that they were cruel beyond description. The torture sickened him.
He wondered, now, as he heard the men’s screams and saw them with a part of himself completely separated from feeling, if it was because of his white blood. The white man did not torture except in isolated instances; it was not a part of American culture.
He walked away, and as he did so, he saw Nahilzay looking at him through narrowed, knowing eyes. Jack did not care.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
She was angry.
Her back hurt. She had a fierce headache. It was cold out, too cold to be outside doing laundry. She’d taken on more wash. Jack had left her with a brood of chickens, true, and a milk cow, and plenty of smoked game, but she had the baby to think of. The baby and their future.
And right now she wasn’t sure that Jack Savage was a part of it.
And forty dollars wasn’t going to take her as far as she intended to go.
This was not the future she wanted for her child. As soon as the baby was old enough to travel, they would leave. She couldn’t go to her family. She would make sure she had saved enough to rent a place for herself and the child while she looked for work. If she had to, she’d clean floors—but one day her baby was going to have everything he needed.
She stirred the laundry angrily. Her breath made vapors in the air. Her nose was red, and she sneezed. Her hands were frozen and redder than her nose. She needed to bring in wood before nightfall if Louis Santana failed to show up again today. She needed to feed the stock. She needed to bring a side of venison in from the smokehouse Jack had built. And she wanted to bake a loaf of bread.
His declaration of love for her had come a little bit late, she thought angrily, tucking wisps of hair back into her kerchief. What man loved a woman then left her pregnant and alone? Damn him. She had the insane urge to weep—something that was quite common these days. If he really loved her he wouldn’t have left her to go to war. To go to war on the wrong side. Even now, as she was thinking, was he scalping whites, torturing them? Dear God, what kind of man had she married? How could he talk of honor and loyalty in the same breath with the Apache? What about her? What about her and her baby?
“Howdy, Candice.”
Candice straightened and turned eagerly, to face Corporal Lewis. “Henry—is there any news? From Apache Pass?”
His eyes moved over her. They were laced with a combination of admiration—she knew he found her attractive despite how she was looking—and pity. It had only been two weeks, but everyone in town knew her husband had disappeared. Candice had not confided in anyone. It was all she needed—to be lynched by the Apache-hating townsfolk now that emotions were running so high. Henry pitied her, she thought, because she was working so hard, living in poverty, deserted by her husband. He admired her because he was hoping she would let him in her bed—just like all the other soldiers. It was why she always carried the derringer Jack had given her—even when she locked the door at night and went to bed.
Thank God her pregnancy wasn’t showing yet, and that Doc Harris was a decent man and not a gossip.
