The Darkest Heart (33 page)

Cochise stared into the fire.

Jack sat silent, his lips in a thin line. Cochise’s wife and son, brother and nephews were the prisoners—and there was no way to get them out of the station, which was a small stone fortress. For a moment he imagined what he would do if it were Candice and their child being held hostage. Bascom was a fool. And asking for trouble—lots of it. “And now?”

“Tell me. Niño Salvaie, what you would do.”

Jack knew Cochise wasn’t looking for advice, that he had already decided. “You have more patience than I,” he said angrily. “Bascom is a fool. He seduced you into his tent under the white flag. He has insulted your honor many times over. Now he holds your family. If I were you? It is a hard choice. All Apaches are your family. Still, they have your wife, your son.” Jack smiled coldly. One more try,” he said fiercely. “Then show them the wrath of the Apache.”

“You are very white,” Cochise said, “to suggest one more attempt at trade. My warriors long to spill white blood in vengeance already. But it is more important to think of not just the Apache prisoners, but what will follow if we kill more Americans.”

“Yes.”

“War.”

The next day Jack got a look at the three prisoners. He had accepted Cochise’s invitation to share his
gohwah
, not because it was cold—something he could have easily endured—but because it would still all doubts within the tribe as to whose side he was on. He rose early, shared a light breakfast of mule meat and beans, and walked through the camp to his stallion. He knew if he stayed he would have to build himself a
gohwah—
-women’s work, which brought to mind an image of Candice, whom he missed already. He imagined her at that precise moment weeping over his having left her. His gut constricted painfully. Even if she weren’t pregnant, how could he have brought her here when they were in a war? He forced her out of his mind. Then he saw them.

They were tied, standing, to stakes. Two wore leather coats, but Wallace—whom Jack recognized as one of the Apache Pass stationkeepers—wore nothing but a shirt and pants, and was blue from cold. The men were exhausted, too, from spending the night on their feet. Each time they would fall asleep they would sag until the ropes bit into them and forced them awake. A quick stab of pity went through Jack.

One of the men he didn’t know saw him approaching and stared, trying to determine if he was white or Apache. Except for his coloring, his short hair, and his eyes, he looked every bit the Apache, dressed and armed as one. “Help us,” he cried in a low voice. “Good God, help us.”

Instantly the other man and Wallace saw him, Wallace’s eyes growing huge with recognition. “Savage!” And then he took in every detail of his dress.

Jack’s face was carefully without expression. He reached them and kept walking past. For some ridiculous reason, he wanted to stop and at least give Wallace his buckskin jacket.

“Savage, stop!” Wallace called. “Help us! We’re freezing! We ain’t eaten in days! Savage! Please! Help us!”

His back very stiff, face set, Jack didn’t break stride until he found his horse. He began to saddle him, then saw Nahilzay and another warrior approach. “You’re leaving?” Nahilzay asked.

Jack met his gaze coolly. “No. I want to scout the area, see what the situation is for myself.”

“I will come with you,” Nahilzay said, clearly indicating he did not trust him.

Jack’s expression did not change. “Once you trusted me,” he said, refraining from breaking the other’s nose only because it was stupid to fight each other when they had to fight American troops. “Or is your memory short?”

“Then you were Apache.” Nahilzay answered. “Many winters ago you left the Apaches to join the
pindah
. Now you come to us in time of war. Perhaps to spy?”

Jack couldn’t let it go. It was a direct insult. He dropped the black’s reins and moved a few steps from the horse’s haunches. Nahilzay moved with him, and Jack threw off his jacket, tossing it away. This was not the way to regain acceptance with his people. But too much was at stake.

Jack lunged at him. They grabbed each other and began to wrestle Apache-style, straining against one another. Nahilzay was tall but lean, and Jack was by far the bigger of the two. However, Nahilzay was a formidable opponent. Every time Jack made a move to get him off-balance, Nahilzay anticipated and deftly avoided the snare. Soon they were sweating and panting, neither one able to get an unbreakable headlock on the other, neither able to flip the other, or gain advantage.

“Cease!”

Both men recognized Cochise’s voice, but it was a moment before they pulled apart to stand facing each other, panting, perspiration beading their faces, steam rising off their bodies in the sunlit morning. A small group of warriors had gathered.

“Do I have to chastise my best warriors as if they were little boys who knew no better than to waste their strength fighting each other? Fools! You want to fight, and soon you may fight—but not each other.” Cochise was angry and imposing, and had succeeded in shaming both men. “What is the reason for this ridiculous match?”

The two men stared and started to speak at once. Cochise looked at Jack. Jack said, “It was my fault. I lost my temper.”

Cochise looked at Nahilzay. “No, it was mine. I accused him of being a spy.”

Cochise did not hesitate. “Listen well. Niño Salvaje is my brother. He has proven himself time and again a warrior worthy of the name I chose for him many, many winters ago. He rides with me. Any who doubt my wisdom in this must come to me.” He had been looking around the crowd, but then he looked at Nahilzay, making the man cringe slightly. “Speak now or hold silence.”

“I do not trust him,” Nahilzay said. “He left the people many winters ago to walk with the White Eyes. Now when our trouble is greatest, he comes back. I have not the wisdom of you, great chief, but still, I am no fool.”

“In this I think you are a fool,” Cochise said harshly. “Has he not ridden with us before? Has he not acquitted himself as a brave warrior? Has he not had Apache wives? Has he not returned when our time is darkest, when our need of mighty warriors is greatest? Has he not found his heart now, after much turmoil? Do you, Nahilzay”—Cochise’s voice lowered—“after so many winters and even more harvests, decide to doubt my wisdom? Do you now choose to insult my ability as your chief?”

“No,” Nahilzay said, looking shamed.

Cochise walked away.

Jack looked at Nahilzay, and the warrior met his gaze enigmatically. “Time will show that the great chief speaks the truth,” Jack told him. “I am going to scout the situation. Join me and explain to me how we stand.” It was a peace offering.

Still inscrutable, Nahilzay nodded, and soon appeared astride his mount, a chestnut stallion of blue blood, obviously stolen from a white man’s ranch. The two men rode off in a strained but accepting silence.

The way station was in Siphon Canyon, surrounded almost completely on four sides by hills. Siphon Wash ran past the station going north and south. Cochise’s warriors had surrounded the station from three hills, which was all the situation warranted to keep the soldiers and passengers under siege. In so doing, they also guarded the springs.

Looking down, Jack saw not a single person outdoors. The soldiers were huddled in the stone corral with the stock,
behind the twelve-foot-high stone walls. He assumed the passengers probably numbered a total of twenty men, including drivers and conductors if the stages had been full. They were obviously barricaded inside the station house. Soon they would need water, even as they must need it now. They would be slaughtered if they made the attempt.

He was grim. The incident with Nahilzay had gotten his mind off the three prisoners, but now Wallace’s image came back to haunt him. He shoved the small seed of compassion deep within himself and buried it. He had been too long in the white man’s world. There could be no compassion in war.

That night, through luck and error, a small escort slipped up to the station.

Cochise was furious. As it turned out, his scouts had seen several companies of dragoons heading east about twelve miles north of the pass on Old Leach Road. Thinking the troops were being sent to attack the Apaches from the east, the scouts had abandoned their posts guarding the west entrance to the pass and gone to the east entrance, where just a few men could hold off the several companies. The small escort had thus slipped in through the west entrance, racing the last leg of the way to the station. Although taken by surprise, the warriors on the hills saw them and opened fire. However, when they saw that the soldiers had three Indian prisoners with them, they had stopped firing, amid much confusion. The Indians were clearly Coyotero Apaches.

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.

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.