Harvest of Fury (27 page)

“I can shoot as well as you can,” Cat thrust.

“But you never kill anything,” he retorted, coloring to the edges of his fair hair. “So where's the use of it?”

“So I can kill if I have to.”

Pacifically, Marc interposed. “I hear there's about to be an official inspection of the arms at Camp Crittenden, Clay. What's your opinion of them?”

“The fifty-caliber Spencer repeating carbines and rifles are fine, but there are still quite a few single-shot Springfield rifles. The switch from caplock guns to metallic cartridges is just about complete. And of course, we have forty-four cap-and-ball six-shooters, mostly Remington Model 1858, the better to shoot each other with in the brawls that form the greater part of pur recreation.”

“Life at the post is that dreary?” Marc asked.

Frazier shrugged. “There's baseball, and the athletically inclined can work out on the horizontal and parallel bars, but for officers and men alike the main pastime is drinking. Surgeon Semig claims all the liquor sold near the post is below proof, but it's enough to cause murders and suicides.”

Little Shea had climbed into Sewa's arms and fallen asleep, his pale blond head against the long black plaits that fell over her thin chest. Putting down a shirt she was mending, Talitha took her little son but paused on her way to the bedroom.

“Marc, why don't we send the men at the post a Christmas dinner? Beeves to barbecue, lots of good food, and our best guitar players?”

“Would your commander object?” Marc inquired.

“He'd bless you forever,” said Frazier.

So the men at the camp had a brighter holiday than they would have otherwise, but the ranch festivities were slightly shadowed by Patrick's continued absence. True enough, as they all reminded each other from the time of the Roof Feast through the Day of the Three Kings when the vaqueros' children expected gifts from the wise men, Patrick and Cinco had set no particular time to return, but they'd have been at the ranch for the feast days had it been manageable.

The lieutenant's official gift to Cat was an exciting new historical novel, Blackmore's
Lorna Doone
. When they took his suggested stroll along the creek, he took her hand and slipped a ring on it.

“Not a betrothal token,” he said hastily, anticipating her protest. “It's a signet ring some Frazier had cut down for his lady. When I wrote Mother about you, she sent it to me.”

“I can't wear it, Clay.” They had been on a first-name basis for some weeks; when everyone else in the family called him Clay, it sounded foolish for her to persist in Lieutenant Frazier. “It's a special ring.”

She took it off, but when she tried to press it into his hand, he captured hers. “You're a special girl, Caterina. It would please me if you wore the old Frazier signet.”

She laughed, trying to lighten the moment between them. “It's too much like a brand. I don't belong to anyone.”

A pulse throbbed in his temple. His gaze burned her. As she tried vainly to withdraw her hand, he forced the ring on her finger. “I've been too patient,” he said thickly. “Well, my dear, if you want frontier wooing, that's what you'll get!”

Crushed against him, his mouth avid on hers, she could scarcely breathe. He was strong, but she was furiously shocked at being handled that way by him and, impeded though she was by her skirts, she brought up her knee with enough force to send him doubling backward. She stripped off the ring and threw it down.

“I—I'm going to walk awhile alone, Lieutenant! You'd better use the time to say your farewells and get your horse.”

His face was clammy. He straightened with difficulty, staring at her with a tormented mixture of hatred and thwarted desire. “If you think a kiss is worth getting your brother or Revier shot, I'll tell them myself.”

“I don't want anyone shot. I—I'll just say we no longer agree.”

He looked past her at the winter-naked cottonwoods any sycamores. “I think we never did.” His mouth twisted. “I still want you, Caterina O'Shea. But you won't get another chance to refuse a Frazier ring.” He picked up the signet and started up the slope.

No one asked questions when she came home a little after she saw his horse take the way to Camp Crittenden. After supper and an evening of songs, stories, and munching piñon nuts by the fire, Cat started to follow Sewa to bed. Jordan overtook her in the courtyard.

“Did you just weary of the lieutenant, Katie, or did he offend you?”

Annoyed at his acting like a guardian, she said coldly, “If he had, I'd tell Marc or my brother.”

“He won't be calling anymore?”

“No.”

“Who's next? The captain from Wallen? That other lieutenant from Crittenden who keeps finding excuses to drop by?”

“Right now I don't want anyone dropping by.” She remembered, with indignation, that she wouldn't have let Frazier call if Jordan's attentions to every other female hadn't made her want to give him a lesson. “Men are tiresome creatures. I'd rather they all left me alone!”

“A butterfly can't creep back into its safe, cozy cocoon. And those who see its loveliness can't be blamed too much for reaching for it.” He placed his long, hard fingers on her cheek and let them lie quiet, warming her. “When strong winds buffet, Katie, you can always perch by me. I won't break your wings.”

Bewildered, almost sad, she tried to make out his expression in the dim light from the window. “Yet you push me into the winds.”

His voice, too, held a note of sadness. “You're as lovely as a butterfly, but your spirit is an eagle's. It must have freedom. The eagle who stops flying to peck in a barnyard is as silly as the hen who tries to fly toward the sun.”

She thought of James and K'aak'eh. And in the moment of that thought, Jordan left her.

It was a relief to be quit of Claybourne Frazier's attentions, with which she'd never really been comfortable. When officers from Crittenden and Wallen, apparently learning that Frazier no longer paid suit, found excuses to stop at the ranch and chat with her, Cat was so distant that none of them summoned the courage to ask if they might call formally.

“Poor man,” said Marc as the captain from Wallen rode off dejectedly one evening. “I believe he's decided you nourish an unrequited penchant for Clay Frazier.”

It was the first time anyone but Jordan had even indirectly asked what had happened between her and the lieutenant. Cat shrugged. “I suppose it's easier to think that than that I just don't care to spend time with him.”

“
La belle dame sans merci,
” teased Marc. He smiled at Talitha, still proudly, clearly, her lover. “But most women worth having can be like that.”

Wonderful to see them so richly happy, yet it made Cat feel woefully alone. Miguel and Juriana were absorbed in each other and their coming baby. Patrick was still gone. Sewa was a child.
I'm not anymore
, thought Cat. But she didn't feel grown up, either. All she was sure of was that the longing for James grew worse, not better, and that it was more than time to hear from Patrick and Cinco.

With that everyone agreed. Cat overheard Miguel telling Marc that if his twin hadn't come by the time Juriana's baby was born, he was going to look for him.

“Leave it till after the branding and I'll go with you,” Marc said. Seeing Cat, he warned her. “Don't mention this to Tally. Just pray we get news of your scampish brother soon.”

In March, Juriana and Miguel's baby was born, a delicate little girl with thick black hair, dark brows that slanted upward, and a soft cry, “H'lah!” that began like a sigh of wind and increased to a roar that was astonishing coming from such a tiny being. She was named Vicenta Socorro Elena María, for her grandmothers, but young Shea called her Vi, pronounced Vee, and her other names were forgotten.

New calves dropped. Cat got her usual orphans and was glad for Sewa's help in feeding the lustily tugging, leggy creatures. Watching the calves, it was hard to believe that in twelve years their teeth would be wearing down to stubs and long curved horns would be marked with growth rings, the first representing three years, the others a year each. Animals lived such short lives compared to people. Thank goodness, Sangre was only three. She'd have him for a long time yet.

Wild flowers spangled the hillsides amid freshening grass. Earth and air vibrated with new life. Mares went off a distance from their bands to foal, nuzzling the newborn, nickering. After a few minutes a colt would struggle to its thin legs and find the warm udder. Within an hour it could travel a bit.

For a few days, even gentle mares would be nervous at the approach of humans and move their colts away as quickly as possible. Most foals were born at night. Belen said that gave extra protection from predators.

That spring, one young mare fought a wildcat off her colt but was so mangled that she died, though Chuey heard the uproar in time to rescue the foal and add him to Cat's charges. She was feeding him one morning, facing eastward, when she saw three figures on the horizon.

Since the establishment of Camp Crittenden, the ranch no longer kept a lookout posted days and moonlit nights. Leaving Sewa to feed the colt, Cat ran to alert the men. By the corral, Belen was, peering into the sparkling distance. The horsemen acquired form. Belen's frowning squint broke into a joyous smile.

“Patrick! Cinco, to the left, I'm almost sure!”

Cat's heart pounded. “Can you make out the third?”

Belen shook his head. But it was possible now to make out the set of the horsemen's heads and shoulders. Suddenly, Cat
knew
.

“James!”

She caught the reins of Chuey's saddled horse. Miguel was already mounting. Together, they raced toward the three, who had topped the last hill and were riding down the broad valley.

When they met, she and Patrick flung themselves from their horses to embrace. Cinco glowed as she pressed his hands. But James waited, aloof, his face unreadable. As she turned joyfully to him the words of delighted welcome stuck in her throat.

This was a man. Not the boy of fifteen she remembered, but an Apache warrior, long black hair held out of his face with a red headcloth, high moccasins reaching to the knee, thighs iron-hard where the breechclout fell away. He wore a cartridge belt and his bowstring crossed his muscular brown chest.

Only his eyes, the color of a blue storm, were the same, but they watched her in such a different way, guarded, almost hostile, that after a hastily murmured greeting she turned away.

At the ranch all was happy confusion as Patrick examined his new niece and told what had happened. Yes, he and Cinco had found a rich vein of silver four days east of the San Patricio and had begun working it with a half dozen miners recruited from Mexico. They had amassed a considerable amount of ore and were planning to engage a pack train to take it to a smelter when James rode into camp.

He was one of a war party bound for Mexico. Fortunately, he'd recognized Patrick's hair and explained to his companions that this white-eyes was like a brother and he was sworn to defend him. After considerable argument, it was agreed that the miners wouldn't be harmed if James could persuade them to abandon what would surely become a settlement in Chiricahua country. James's half brothers, Juh's full-blood sons, had supported him, but they had also told James that a warrior with divided loyalties was no good. Let him stay with the white “brother” he valued.

“So the miners went back to Mexico, the Apaches took our mules and supplies, and the ore will sit there till calmer days,” Patrick finished, slipping a careless arm around Sewa, who had come close to gaze solemnly at him. “We fought off bandits, had a cave-in, and barely saved one man from being mauled to death by a grizzly. I'm ready to stay home awhile.”

“Good!” said Miguel. “We're just half through the branding.” He looked at James. “Can you still use a rope?”

The corner of James's mouth twitched. He spoke slowly, giving some words inflections that made them sound foreign, hesitating over others that he must have nearly forgotten. “In these years I have driven more cows and mules and horses, I think, than any vaquero.”

No one cared to pursue that. Talitha brought little Shea to him. “Here's your nephew, James.”

The fair-haired four-year-old stared up at the splendid barbarian. Awed, he whispered, “You—you're my uncle James?”

Regarding him quizzically, James nodded, as if pleased that the child was curious but not frightened. “I am your
shidá á
, your mother's brother.”

Shea gave a soft, delighted laugh, as if he'd just befriended some fabulous creature of his dreams. He threw his small arms as far as they'd go around his big uncle. “I'm glad you're home,” he said.

James didn't answer. His brown hand rested on Shea's blond curls, but his eyes were fixed on the mountains.

James's return in the midst of the branding season helped him slip back into the ways he'd known seven years ago. Everyone was too busy to watch him for Apache manifestations. He shared Patrick's quarters, and he'd put away his headcloth and breechclout, asked Talitha to trim his hair, and now looked like an especially tall vaquero with blue
norteño
eyes.

James was old enough now to accept Talitha's sisterly spoiling and was on good terms with the twins, who were inclined to treat him with the respect they'd had from babyhood for one eighteen months their elder—the seven-year-old who'd gone off with the giant Mangus, the fourteen-year-old who'd returned during the war and taught them to track and use bows and arrows. The men accepted him as Talitha's brother and a good hand with stock, however he'd acquired the skills. Only Cinco watched him with distrust. He went home as soon as the branding was done, instead of lingering through the summer as had been his custom.