Savage Courage (16 page)

“I don’t think anyone is there,” a soldier said as he sidled his steed close to George’s. “I see no horse, and there isn’t any smoke coming from the chimney.”

George gazed at the chimney and saw that the soldier was right. There was no smoke.

He looked cautiously around the cabin and saw no horse. What he did see was a pen that had been built near the cabin; it was empty.

He was close enough to it to get the scent of animals and guessed that whoever lived in the cabin usually had some sort of animals locked in there. The gate, however, was open now.

“Let’s go inside the cabin,” George said, dismounting. “I think it’s safe enough.”

Well armed, George and the others crept to the door. George took it upon himself to open it, anxious to see if there might be any sign of Shoshana inside.

Squinting his eyes as he stepped into the dark room from the bright sunshine out doors, George could not make out anything at first. But as his eyes adjusted, what he saw made his stomach turn. There was blood in more than one place, and hanging from the rafters were several fresh scalps.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Colonel Hawkins asked as he stepped to George’s side. “That we’ve found Mountain Jack’s cabin?”

“Yes, I believe so, but we haven’t found him, or my daughter,” George said, sighing heavily. He began walking slowly around the room, limping as he leaned on his cane, his eyes not missing anything.

His heart seemed to stop dead inside his chest when he stepped on something that was very familiar to him.

“Lord . . .” he gasped, paling.

He knelt and grabbed up the red bandanna, the very one that he had given to Shoshana right before she left with Major Klein.

“What is it, George?” Colonel Hawkins asked as he came to his side. “What have you got there?”

George held it out for the colonel to see. “This is mine,” he said thickly. “I gave it to Shoshana right before she left the fort.”

He gulped hard as he brought the bandanna up to his nose; his daughter’s scent was on it. He would recognize the smell of her soap anywhere. She and her mother had used it to wash their hair for years.

“There is no doubt whatsoever that Shoshana was here,” he said, his eyes flashing angrily. “But . . . where . . . is she now?”

“Come and look at this,” a soldier said, lifting a chain as George turned toward him. “This was used to imprison someone. I wonder if—”

“If it might have been Shoshana?” George said, completing the soldier’s words.

He thrust the bandanna in his rear pants pocket and gazed at the chain as the soldier held it up for his inspection.

A cold stab of fear mixed with repulsion filled George’s being. He looked quickly away from the chain. Seeing it and the bandanna gave him thoughts he did not want to think.

His Shoshana had been chained by this madman scalp hunter?

If so, where was she now?

He lowered his head so that the others wouldn’t see the tears that came to his eyes at the thought of possibly losing her forever.

He suddenly remembered the very first day he had seen her, how sweet and tiny she was, how alone and frightened, after so many around her had died.

He thought of how she had clung to her mother,
crying over her. He had felt an instant love for the child that day, and even a strange sort of pity for those she had lost.

He had raised her with all the love he would have given his own daughter.

He had always regretted that he had been forced to leave on another attack against the Apache the very next day.

He had already decided to head back for Missouri, where no Indians could take Shoshana away from him. But he had had second thoughts about leaving for Missouri right away when he was told that he risked losing his status as colonel and being court-martialed if he did not ride that one last time with the military. Afterward, he was promised, he could be transferred to a quieter, more peaceful place.

“George?” The colonel’s voice broke through George’s thoughts.

“What do you want to do?” Colonel Hawkins asked. “I can see the dread in your eyes . . . the fear. I know what you’re thinking.”

“No, I don’t believe you do,” George said tightly.

“George, I think we should get back to the fort and send troops out immediately in all directions to try to find Mountain Jack before he goes into hiding again,” Colonel Hawkins said. “I believe he’s on his way to where he sells scalps.”

“And what about Shoshana?” George asked, his voice drawn.

“Hopefully, the scalp hunter has spared her life,” Colonel Hawkins mumbled.

George went pale and felt sick to his stomach at the various possible fates that might have befallen Shoshana. If Mountain Jack hadn’t already taken her scalp, he might be planning to sell her as a slave.

“Damn him to hell,” George gulped out, then rushed outside as fast as his wooden leg would take him. There he vomited, the thought of what his daughter might be enduring devastating him.

“George, we’ll find her,” Colonel Hawkins said as he handed George a cloth to wipe his mouth with. “Be brave, George. Come on. We’ve wasted enough time here.”

George wiped his mouth clean, tossed the cloth into the brush, and then, with a tight jaw and angry fire in his eyes, mounted his steed.

When he found that damn scalp hunter, there would be no mercy showed him, especially if he had harmed Shoshana in any way.

George had not saved that small, helpless child so long ago only to lose her to such vermin as Mountain Jack and those who aligned themselves with him.

“You’ll regret the day you left the military to take up scalp hunting,” George growled between his clenched teeth.

And this maiden, she lived
With no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

—Edgar Allan Poe

Shoshana was glad she felt up to riding again, her lump having faded to a slight yellowish discoloration on her brow.

She was especially happy to be riding with Storm, on their way to see something he had said he wanted to show her.

Just as they were ready to ride from his village, she noticed something that intrigued her. It was a huge pen of turkeys.

She glanced over at Storm. “I see that you raise turkeys to eat,” she said, recalling the turkey dinners
she had eaten every Christmas, no matter where George had been stationed.

She could even now smell the delicious aromas wafting from the kitchen as the cook prepared the special meal while Shoshana sat beside the tree, unwrapping gifts.

That seemed another lifetime now, but she was content to be who she had become. She had no wish to return to that other life.

“We do not eat turkeys,” Storm said. “We use their feathers for many things. Did you know that
Chiricahua
was taken from the word
Chiquicaqui
, which means mountain of the wild turkeys?”

“No. There are so many things I do not know about my people,” Shoshana said somberly. She gazed intently into his eyes as they rode onward. “I so want to know what I have missed learning. I’ve read as much as I could about our people, but that is not the same as living it.”

“You are still young,” Storm said gently. “You have time to learn all that you wish to learn.”

“For a while, after Mountain Jack captured me, I doubted that I had even another day to live,” she murmured. “It is a miracle that you came when you did and set me free.” She smiled radiantly at him. “I know that I have thanked you already, but I want to do it again,” she said softly. “Thank you, Storm. Thank you so much.”

“I feel grateful, too. If I had not found you, I
would not know the wonder of these precious moments with you,” Storm said.

He noticed that she gazed slowly around her, absorbed in the beauty he had grown to love when he first escaped to this place where no white man had yet come.

He gazed at it, too, as awed by its beauty as the first time he had seen it. From this high place the valley was visible spread out below, surrounded by a scallop of weathered crests. Peregrine falcons soared overhead, and lynx could be seen romping here and there, as well as otters as they came and went from the river.

Wolf howls pierced the air, reminding him of the pups that he and Shoshana had set free. He wondered if the sounds he heard today were made by those animals as they tasted freedom now instead of captivity?

He smiled when he thought of the wolf pup that he had saved. The young brave he had given it to loved animals more than anyone he had ever known. Storm had entrusted the pup to this child, who understood that in time the wolf would have to be released to the wild.

They rode onward down one mountain pass, then another, until they reached the valley where Storm had once made his home with his family.

“It is such a beautiful, serene place,” Shoshana said as she, too, gazed at the valley where trees of all
kinds grew tall and beautiful, and where the Piñaleno River meandered across the land, fed by melting snows from the mountain high above.

“Lovely, yes, in a way,” Storm said tightly. “But ugly in another. Many deaths occurred here.”

Shoshana heard the somberness of his voice and saw pain in his eyes. It had been a long journey down the mountain. She knew they had arrived where his village had once been, for he stopped and dismounted and now led his horse slowly across the land, his eyes studying the ground on which he walked.

Shoshana dismounted and walked beside him.

“This is where it happened,” he said stiffly. “This is where my people died.”

He stopped and knelt on the ground, running his hands through the grass. His stomach tightened when he felt rocks beneath the turf and recalled the day he and the others had placed the stones over the graves of their loved ones.

The stones were still there, the grass having made its way up between them.

“Here, beneath the ground and rocks, is where many are buried,” he said, his voice catching. “There was no time to take them to our true burial grounds. Each was buried where he or she had fallen. The lodges of my people have been gone for some time now. All traces of what once was a thriving village are gone.”

He stood and turned to Shoshana. “Those who
are buried here today had no chance to flee the pony soldiers,” he said. “My
ina
and
ahte
are buried somewhere on this land, one next to the other. Mother died first, Father a short time later. I made certain they were together before I fled to the mountain heights.”

He took Shoshana’s hands in his. “It is my plan to soon take my people far, far away from all of this,” he said. “I will take them to a land where they will be safe forever.”

“Where will you go?” Shoshana asked, her eyes widening in wonder. “Your stronghold seems safe enough, and everyone seems to be so happy.”

“No one is safe on land claimed by the United States Government,” Storm said angrily. “Although the pony soldiers have not touched my people’s home in the mountain, they will some day, because they own the mountain as they own all this land that once belonged solely to the red man.”

He paused, looked around himself, then gazed at her again. “Where will I lead my people?” he said softly. “To Canada. We must leave before the arrival of the next cold winter.”

“Canada . . .” Shoshana said, surprised that they were fleeing the United States altogether. Yet why not? America had not been good to the Apache. She had heard that Canada welcomed the red man with open arms.

“Come with me to Canada,” Storm blurted out,
his eyes searching hers. “Remember that the man who claims you as his daughter is not your father. Remember that he was a leader of those who massacred your people.”

“My feelings for George are a mixture of many emotions—gratitude for sparing my life, hatred for having had a role in the massacres, and pity that he has no understanding of the horrors he perpetrated in his past,” Shoshana said, her voice breaking.

They walked onward slowly, hand in hand.

“After I realized that I was Apache, it was hard to live in the white world,” she murmured. “Even before that, the white children saw my skin color. They knew I was an Indian. Many treated me as though I carried the plague!”

She stopped and gazed up into his eyes. “But I came through it all right, and I am even a better person for it,” she said softly. “As for now? I must return to the fort one last time, and then I will never be a part of the white world again. I want to be with you. I want to be with Mother. I want to live as an Apache. We are already far from your stronghold and not all that far from the fort. It would be a good time for me to go there and do what must be done.”

Storm took both of her hands in his. He frowned at her. “I cannot allow that,” he said, his voice drawn. “Shoshana, I cannot allow you to return to the fort, especially to George Whaley.”

“What?” Shoshana gasped, searching his eyes and
finding cold determination in them instead of the kindness she’d come to expect.

She yanked her hands free. “Did you say what I thought you said?” she asked. She took a slow step away from him. “Did you say you won’t allow me to go to the fort?”

“I cannot allow it,” he repeated, stepping toward her. “There are two reasons for my decision. The first is because I love you and I do not want to chance losing you by allowing you to return to George Whaley. The second reason is because I do not want George Whaley to know what has become of you. I want him to struggle, sweat, and hurt as he searches for his beloved daughter but never finds her. Just as our Apache people have been hurt through the years by inhumane treatment from the white-eyes, George Whaley in particular.”

“You are serious about this, aren’t you?” Shoshana asked, stunned to realize that he was. “You won’t allow me to go there, will you?”

“If you stop and think about this, you will understand my reasoning,” Storm said thickly. “I want George Whaley to feel empty inside when he realizes that he will never see you again. I have wanted vengeance for so long against that man for what he did to my people and so many other Apache. But dying is too easy for him. Living the rest of his life filled with regret and loneliness is what he deserves.”