The Pride of Hannah Wade (12 page)

The narrow trail led up to a high mesa, steep bluffs rising on three sides. Its long top rolled in smooth dips and swells, covered with grass and sage and a scattering of scrub trees. Hannah’s pony broke into an eager trot, its ears pricked toward some distant point, but its desire for haste was hampered by the flagging bay to whose black tail it was tied. At an angle, it trotted forward, pulling the bay’s tail around its haunches and hurrying its pace. The bay horse labored under its load, carrying not only Lutero but also the carcass of a deer, which had provided Hannah’s meal the previous evening.

“Hoh-shuh, hoh-shuh,”
Lutero murmured to the spotted horse, the low, firm tone quieting it.

It slowed to match the bay’s gait but didn’t drop behind, its head bobbing alongside the dust-streaked haunches. The wind cut into them again and threw a
haze over everything atop the plateau. Hannah made herself as small as possible astride the horse to lessen the sting of the wind-blown dust. With her mind and senses dulled by abuse, she rode on, indifferent to her surroundings or their route through them.

A dog barked—not the shrill yip of a prairie dog, but the fierce, throaty sound of a dog. It roused Hannah sufficiently for her to make a frowning attempt to focus her gaze in its direction. A rounded hump in a clearing amidst the scrub brush took on the dome shape of the Apache
jacal,
thatched with the grass that grew in abundance atop this mesa so that it blended into its surroundings.

More
jacks
were scattered in the general area, in no discernible pattern. Children came running to meet them, while mangy dogs darted out to trot alongside the horses, barking between grinning pants. Several women appeared and one old, bent-over, and white-haired man shuffled toward them. A handful of men sat beneath a
ramada.
Hannah vaguely recalled Stephen mentioning Apache villages,
rancherias
he had called them.

As Lutero rode past rounded brush huts to one situated near the center of the cluster, the
ranchcrias
residents came trailing behind him, crowding around on either side of Hannah. She looked at the women, small and shapeless in buckskin tops that hung past the hips and buckskin skirts that came to mid-calf, high moccasins modestly covering the rest of their legs. Most wore their black hair in twisted coils at the nape of the neck, but the older ones let it fall in a silvered black curtain down the middle of their backs. Their expressions held loathing and disgust for Hannah, no sympathy or pity. She wanted to cry, but she didn’t, simply looking straight ahead instead.

An Apache woman stood in front of a
jacal,
waiting for them to ride up. She was small-built, not more than
five feet tall, with a maiden’s slimness. Her hair was shining black, her eyes dark and luminous. She had the same strong-boned features as the other women, but there was a softer curve to the proud cheekbones and a straighter bridge to her nose, resulting in an uncommon beauty. A smile parted her lips as Lutero stopped the bay horse next to the
ramada
outside the wickiup.

He vaulted from the horse with a pantherish litheness and approached the woman with a proud, lordly bearing Some emotion gentled his fierce looks, and Hannah stared, amazed, at the warmth in his face. In low, murmured voices they exchanged private greetings; then Lutero turned to gently gude the woman to the horses so that he could show off his plunder. A chance movement briefly pulled the woman’s loose-fitting buckskin top tight and outlined her swollen stomach. She was with child, Hannah realized. This woman, was Lutero’s wife, obviously several months pregnant.

A babble of voices broke out, all speaking in that unintelligible—to her—Apache language, questions obviously being put to Lutero and answers given back that generated excitement. Although they seemed almost jubilant, about what he told them, was subjected to a variety of cruel pokes and jabs. After Lutero yanked her off the horse, she was kicked and hit, new bruises being added to those on her already battered body. Hannah shrank from the blows, but she could not elude them.

After the initial excitement of Lutero’s arrival in the
rancheria
cooled, the gathering, slowly dispersed. Lutero led Hannah to the
ramada
and tied her to an upright post.

He stood before Hannah with his wife at his side, and glowered at his captive. “This my woman, Gatita.” He gave her the Spanish name that meant “little Cat.” “You belong to her. You do what she say.”

Gatita’s luminous dark eyes were turned to her
husband in respectful adoration and pride. She hardly took any notice of Hannah. When the couple moved away, Hannah leaned against the post, gratefully using its support and ignoring the painful scrape of its rough bark against the scabbing blisters on her dull red skin. The children scampered around her conducting a mock war, throwing stones and striking at her with sticks, but they quickly lost interest in the game and rushed away to something else.

Much later in the afternoon, Gatita approached Hannah, holding a gourd hollowed into a saucer. An impassive expression claimed her features as she knelt on the ground beside Hannah. A clear, gel-like substance was in the gourd dish. Without ceremony, she dipped her fingers in it and began smearing it on Hannah’s back. The first contact drew a sharp gasp of pain from her, followed almost instantly by a moan of relief at the subsequently soothing sensation.

“Medicine?” Hannah ventured to question.

“Anh,
yes.” Once she had Hannah’s back thoroughly covered, Gatita untied her hands and pushed the saucer at her indicating for her to finish the task alone. Some effort was required for Gatita to push herself to her feet with the baby’s added weight changing her center of balance, but the Apache woman succeeded in doing so with a measure of grace.

As she disappeared behind the skin flap that served as a low door to the
jacal,
Hannah used her fingers to scoop up some of the wet, cool gel and gently rubbed it onto her sun-blistered and festering skin, massaging it over her breasts and stomach and between her chafed legs. Sandy grit clung to the gel coating, adding to the grime she’d accumulated over three days of travel, but Hannah used every bit of the natural salve.

Shortly after she finished, Gatita came out of the wickiup and crossed the
ramada,
a folded buckskin bundle in her small hands. She dropped it at Hannah’s
feet and walked away. When Hannah unfolded the buckskin, she discovered that it was a skirt and top. They were worn thin in places, the tanned leather rank and stiff from many wearings, but she had clothes again.

She stared after the primitively beautiful woman, whose glistening black hair was fashioned in two loops and decorated with beads. The lotion, the clothes, were the first kindnesses Hannah had received since her capture. Yet there was no reason for the Apache woman to want to be friends with her, so why? The answer was very likely a practical one; of what use is a captive if she is hurt and fevered? Hannah was of no value to them sick. She couldn’t be sold or traded; she couldn’t work.

With her weary mind whirling, Hannah put on the buckskin clothes, finding the confinement strange after days with nothing but the air of the canyonland touching her skin. She sank into the shade of the brush arbor. With a balm on her raw skin and the protection of garments covering her body, Hannah was able to shut her eyes so that her exhausted being could steal some much-needed rest.

Before the afternoon was over, three more Apache warriors rode into the
rancheria;
two of them Hannah remembered seeing in the raiding party that had captured her. With the arrival of the last, a celebration started, complete with singing and dancing. From the
ramada
where she was tied, Hannah watched the festivities, remembering all the tales she’d heard on the frontier about the savage and barbaric customs of the Apache.

The chants with their odd pitch and repetitious sounds were unnerving and the thumping drums seemed to vibrate through her body. One dance flowed into another with no perceptible break, and she watched the Apache women move around the ring,
choosing partners from among the men on the sidelines.

The beat changed, becoming more insistent, heavier. The air became charged with some undercurrent Hannah couldn’t identify, but she could feel the building tension.

First one woman, then a second, and a third began slowly stripping off their clothes until they were almost naked. All were lean-shaped, with muscled legs and blunt shoulders. The woman partnered with Lutero was heavy-breasted and tatter than the others. She danced close to Lutero, twisting and writhing in a lewd manner and rubbing her hands over her body.

Repulsed yet fascinated by the erotic exhibition, Hannah stared at the changing shimmer of light on the woman’s bucking hips as they thrust forward and back in sinuous motion. It was obvious that Lutero couldn’t take his eyes from the action of her hips nor from the beckoning pump of her hands, drawing him nearer still. The dancers’ bodies were sweating and the smell of lust filled the air when the dance ended.

Lutero did not leave the Apache woman with the full, firm bosom. Curious, Hannah scanned the circle, finally locating the small and proud Gatita. She seemed untroubled by Lutero’s pubic behavior with the woman as she talked and laughed with other women. When Hannah looked back, Lutero and the lewd Apache dancer were leaving the circle, walking to one of the
jacals.
Immoral heathens, she thought, bitterly recalling her own treatment at their hands—the cruelty, the savagery. The rhythmic beat of the drums and the chanting voices filed the night as Hannah slowly drifted into an exhausted sleep.

The next morning, Gatita put Hannah to work scraping the remaining flesh off the inside of the hide of the deer Lutero had brought back. Too weak to work at
long stretches, she had to pause frequently to rest. Flies buzzed around her, attracted by the smell of the fetid meat bits and interested in nibbling at the sores on Hannah’s body. She slapped at one nasty biter and caught a glimpse of green out of the corner of her eye—the hunter green of her riding skirt. Hannah stared at the Apache woman wearing her riding skirt. She was the one who had danced so obscenely with Lutero the evening before.

Gatita came out and berated Hannah for slacking. Firm and in command, but plainly hostile to Hannah, she ordered her back to work and derided her ineptness before curtly showing Hannah again how to use the tool.

The cavalry column rode into the fort with trail-weary horses and riders. The slope of the men’s shoulders and their long faces foretold the negative results of their expedition. While the troop continued toward the stable, Stephen swung his horse out of the column to ride to the post headquarters, accompanied by Captain Cutter. Colonel Bettendorf was waiting under the
ramada
to meet them when they dismounted and passed the reins to their horses to a waiting trooper.

“No luck, Wade?” Bettendorf guessed after both went through the motions of saluting, observing the dictates of military protocol.

“None, sir.” Stephen removed his gloves and slapped them into the palm of his left hand. Frustration dogged him—frustration and the aches and tortures of the mind. “The wind started blowing and wiped out all trace of their tracks. We lost them.”

“I was afraid of that,” the colonel said, and breathed in deeply, the sympathy he had trouble expressing contained within the subsequent troubled sigh.

“Sir, I request permission to lead a detachment of
men from the fort to make a search of the canyon country to the north,” Wade demanded.

“Denied,” the colonel refused flatly and impatiently. “We’re trying to make peace with the Apaches. You don’t do that by riding into their
rancherias
with armed soldiers. Sure as hell, they’d resist such action—and rightfully so! Some fool would start shooting, on their side or ours, it doesn’t make any difference. The Apaches that are on the agency now would head for the hills. Then we’d have all of them to round up.”

“Very well.” Stephen understood the military’s position, even though his concerns were more personal in nature. “Then have Amos Hill and his Apache scouts spread the word that I will pay a ransom for my wife’s safe return.”

“Are you certain she’s alive, Stephen?” the colonel inquired very gently.

The cords stood out in Stephen’s neck and his jaw was ridged by severely controlled emotion. “I don’t know that she’s dead—sir.” His tone bordered on insubordination.

It was hot. It was always hot in this desert basin. The colonel looked across the military complex toward where the small cemetery was not quite visible beyond. It was neatly sectioned into graves for the dead of the white ranks, the Negro troops, and the odd civilian.

“We buried Lieutenant Delvecchio and Lieutenant Sloane yesterday. You may wish to call on Mrs. Sloane to pay your respects before she leaves tomorrow to return east.” Bettendorf again faced Wade and folded his hands behind his back. “I am extremely saddened that your wife was captured by those Apache renegades, Major Wade. All of us are. We plan to hold a prayer service for your wife at the chapel this evening. It will be a great deal easier for you, Major, if you accept the fact that she’s dead. It’s unlikely her body will ever be found.”

Stephen’s fingers tightened around his leather gauntlets, crushing them together. What Bettendorf suggested was unthinkable. Rage railed through him, but that imbedded discipline allowed Stephen to keep his composure. “Will you instruct Hill to have the word spread among the Apaches about the ransom?”

“Yes.” The agreement was uttered resignedly, as if Bettendorf knew that this resistance should have been anticipated.

“Very good, sir.” Wade was stiff. “Cutter can fill you in on any other details you may wish to know. If there’s nothing else you need me for, sir—“

“Dismissed, Major.” Bettendorf inclined his head in a releasing nod and perfunctorily returned the Major’s precise salute. Wade walked briskly away in the direction of Officers’ Row. “I didn’t say that to offend him, dammit.” His brows bristled thickly above his eyes, increasing the disgruntled and irritable look about him when he turned to Cutter. “Tragic. Very tragic.”