Shozkay.
No!
He stared, frozen.Not! It couldn’t be!
But it was. There was no mistake. Shozkay, his brother, twirled in the breeze—his head tilted completely to one side, so his chin touched his shoulder. His eyes were open, staring, unseeing, lifeless. The breeze lifted his shoulder-length hair, and strands of it touched his face, catching on his mouth.
Jack made a sound. It came from deep inside, tearing its way upward, a pain so unbearable, so vast, that for a moment he wondered if he might not die and join his brother. He fought to steady himself. He couldn’t move. He was not even aware that everyone else was slipping off their mounts. My brother, he screamed inwardly. My brother!Not my brother!
He dismounted. It was one of the hardest things he had ever done in his life. He went to Shozkay, his breathing labored, his vision skewed from blinding tears. He cut the rope, catching Shozkay in his arms, and went down to his knees, cradling him gently. He sobbed, huge animallike sounds that burst free of their own accord. He sat there and held him for a long, long time.
He didn’t know how long he sat before the tears finally stopped. He took a few deep breaths, still holding his brother on his lap, and regained a precarious degree of control.
He removed the noose from Shozkay’s neck and smoothed the raw red welts with his trembling fingers, as if to take away the blemish. His skin was already cold, lifeless.No! Thehuge pain welled from deep within again, choking him, exploding. He put his arms around Shozkay and held him, closing his eyes, pressing his cheeks against his hair, unable to move. So cold, so stiff … he had to move, had to bury him. He looked up, blinking, to see that he was alone. The morning was very white and very quiet, marked with the silence of death. He stood unsteadily and lifted his brother, very gently, despite his great size and weight. He carried him to his horse.
He rode to the springs where the burial preparations were already underway. No one looked at him, or in any way intruded upon his grief. Numbly but tenderly, for it would be the last time he would be with his brother until they met in the afterlife, Jack washed him. He could not believe it. He could not believe Shozkay was dead. Hanged. Not even a warrior’s death. Shozkay, whom he had grown up with. Whom he had wrestled with and run with and played with and loved better than a brother, as a best friend. Shozkay, whom he would have gladly exchanged his own life for. Shozkay, whom he loved more than anyone else in the world, except his wife and their mother. A different kind of love. A love that ran so deep it made them a part of each other.
Jack redressed him, then gave him, from his own person, everything he needed for his journey to the other world—for Shozkay was unarmed and possessed nothing except his clothes, his necklace and war amulet. Jack armed him with his own Colt and knife and gave him his jacket and a blanket. He buried him carefully, in a crevasse on a hilltop shaded by juniper, killing the horse that had been brought for just that purpose. The tears had come again, sometime as he was burying Shozkay. He wasn’t sure exactly when. He walked away, desperately seeking numbness.
Much later, bathed, steamed with herbed smoke, his hair cut, and his anger rising, he rode back to the stronghold with the rest of the party. He had one coherent thought emerging through the heavy mists of his grief:revenge.
Revenge.
It nourished his heart, body, and soul and kept him sane through a week of isolated mourning. Jack spoke to no one, stayed apart, could not eat, and grieved deeply. The camp was quiet except for the intermittent sobbing and wailing of women whose kin had been buried. Everyone waited for Cochise’s period of mourning to pass, wondering how long it would last. The chief saw no one, spoke to no one, and no one saw him.
Exactly one week after Shozkay’s burial, Jack came out of his shell or grief. He was still alive. There were other things he had to do. He ate for the first time in days, almost becoming ill from the shock to his system. Then he found Nahilzay and told him he was taking the bad news to Shozkay’s kin. He rode out of the stronghold at first light.
He reached the San Pedro River the next morning, after stopping to sleep and rest that night. He was sorely tempted to head east—he was only two and a half days from El Paso. From Candice. He needed her. He needed her so much it was like an ache. He wanted to lose himself and his grief in her. Just for a little while. But he turned north and rode up the San Pedro Valley. Using smoke signs, he located Shozkay’s band that afternoon, camped in a creek in a canyon west of the valley.
He knew Luz would be hoping for the best, but aware of the worst. The rest of the raiding party would have returned over a week ago. Had they seen Shozkay and the others captured? There was no way of knowing. There was also no way of breaking the news gently. He rode into camp with the sun hanging golden just over the hills, spreading the day’s last warming rays.
A cry went up that he had arrived. He dismounted, looking past the men who converged, shouting greetings and eager to hear the news of war. The Apaches communicated with each other over long distances through smoke sent up by scouting party after scouting party, like a chain letter. By now Apaches from the New Mexico Territory to west Texas, as far south as Mexico and north as the Jicarilla and Kiowa in Colorado, knew that Cochise had taken the warpath against the White Eyes. But Jack merely responded to the greeting by rote. He saw Datiye approaching, then saw Luz, behind her.
Luz froze and stared. Their gazes met. Jack reached inside himself for strength and courage, Luz paled. Her mouth opened. He couldn’t hear the words, but he knew it was a denial. He strode through the crowd to reach her and grab her shoulders.
“No! Do not tell me … do not!” Tears swam in her eyes. She shook in his hands.
“I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely, a fresh wave of his own grief rising in him. “He’s dead … I’ve buried him, Luz.”
She screamed and twisted, Jack let her go. She turned and ran, and, after briefly meeting Datiye’s worried gaze, he went after her. He found her on the ground beside hergohwah, beating it, clawing herself, her cheeks and arms, tearing out hunks of hair. He knelt beside her, placing his hand on her back. He did not stop her from inflicting pain upon herself, because it was the Apache way to grieve. When her beautiful face was gouged and bloody, she crumpled onto the dirt, weeping wildly. Jack knelt there beside her for a long time.
She cried for hours, then fell into an exhausted sleep. Jack carried her into thegohwahand laid her upon the bed of hides she had shared with her husband, his brother. He was once again choked with his own grief. He looked up as Datiye entered, carrying a woven pitcher of water. She knelt beside Luz and began to bathe her face and arms. Jack went outside.
He sat at the cooking fire and was left alone. Other women in the village were already wailing for the loss of their leader and their relatives. It had been too short a time since he had heard that anguished female wailing, and he hated it.
Luz would mourn the full year. Of that he was certain. A year was a long time away, but then it would be his duty to marry her and provide for her—unless, of course, she chose a different man, A lot could happen between now and a year, but whatifhe was still with Cochise, Candice still in El Paso? And he were to marry Luz? He knew Candice would not understand, just as she hadn’t understood his having to ride with Cochise. He wouldn’t even think of it until the time came.
Still, from now until then it was his responsibility to provide for Luz. Her people were Chiricahua, a happy coincidence. He thought her parents were dead, but that she had cousins and a married brother. When he left to return to the stronghold, he would take Luz with him. Depending on the situation, he would be glad to care for her it her family was too encumbered to do so. He looked up vaguely as Datiye came out of thegohwahand moved to sit down across the fire from him. Then he looked at her again, hard.
She was no longer so slender; in fact, her breasts were full and her belly protruding slightly. He found himself staring at that slight swelling, and then looked up at her smooth-skinned face, serious now, but flushed with good health. Her dark gaze was on him, “I am so sorry,” she said softly.
“Datiye, you are pregnant.” It was an accusation.
“Yes.” She smiled faintly.
Of course it wasn’t his. But he felt uneasy. His own wife had conceived some time in mid to late October—two weeks to a month after that one drunken time he had lain with Datiye.
Datiye looked at him. “Ask.”
