Harvest of Fury (28 page)

Seeking out Cat to tell her good-bye, Cinco banded her a little packet. Opening it, she gasped at the painstakingly carved turquoise bird, its spread wings detailed with feathers, its eyes flecks of obsidian. “I found the stone in a cañon near the mine,” Cinco told her, scuffing his boot in the dust. “I carved it for you winter nights.”

“It's beautiful!” she praised. “Why, Cinco, you're an artist!”

He shook his head, the ruddy glints and thickness of his black hair a heritage from Shea like his straight nose and lean features. “I'm not an artist, Caterina. I only wish to make pretty things for you. Blue things, like your eyes.”

“I still have the bird you gave me long ago when we were children. The whistle, too.”

He pulled a small crucifix out of his shirt. “And I still have this you gave me. I think it protected us against the Apaches.”

“James did that.”

Cinco's face hardened. “It's not good for him to be here. One cannot trust Apaches.”

“You can say that when he saved you!”

“It wasn't the miners or me he cared about. Only Patrick.”

“You still owe him your life.”

“Yes, and I hope I may pay him back. A Papago shouldn't owe an Apache anything but an arrow or a smashed skull.”

“If you ever hurt James, I'd hate you! We all would.”

“First, I must save his life.” Cinco climbed on his horse.

Cat sucked in her breath, tried to push the turquoise bird into his hand. “If—if you feel that way about James, I don't want this!”

“It's yours anyway,” he said. “If you throw it in the marsh or down a mine, it will still be yours.” As she stared up at him, he said slowly, in the courteous phrase picked up from the vaqueros, “I am your servant in all things, Caterina, but I cannot trust an Apache.”

She watched him go. Clenching her hand on the bird till its wings hurt her, she started to throw it away. But Cinco was her brother. So she trudged up the hill and put the blue amulet on the stones that covered Shea's grave.

“From your son,” she said.

On April 15 of that year, 1870, Arizona had been separated from the Department of California and made a separate military district. Gen. George Stoneman took command in May. A former lieutenant with the Mormon Battalion when it passed through Tucson in 1846, Stoneman was under orders to implement President Grant's peace policy and feed Indians who seemed inclined to leave off warring and settle on reservations.

For this he was roundly abused by the territorial papers and citizens, especially when it was learned that he intended to inspect Arizona's posts and close down those he judged unnecessary. Supplying the posts was a huge business, and though the argument raged again over whether it was cheaper to import government stores through Guaymas or get them from San Diego via Yuma, neither way was cheap.

“Soldiers are here to protect the civilians,” said Marc, “and civilians come to supply the soldiers. No wonder Sherman thought the best thing to do was pull out the settlers and let the Indians have the place.”

They all knew that wouldn't be done. Even though Indian raids were as bad as ever, since the war miners, ranchers, settlers, and merchants had come in increasing numbers. In addition to Arizona City near Fort Yuma and the settlements north along the Colorado like La Paz and Ehrenberg, Prescott thrived as a mining and military center in spite of losing the capital.

The first U.S. Land Office had been opened in Prescott in 1868, but many early settlers were “pre-emptioneers,” claiming their lands before the federal surveyors came. The Homestead Act of 1862 had entitled any citizen or intending one twenty-one years of age or older and the head of a family to own 160 acres of public land by settling on it for five years and paying $1.25 an acre. Its rugged mountains, desert stretches, and raiding Indians had kept Arizona from filling up like more hospitable regions, but it still had almost doubled its population, not counting the military, since it had become a territory.

Contrasting with Apache raids were the Tucson Glee Club and the bathhouse and barbering establishment opened by a Negro, Samuel Bostick. Seven nuns arrived late in May, greeted with fireworks and ringing bells. A few weeks later, Sisters Emerentia, Euphrasia, Monica, Martha, Maxine, and Hyacinth had opened a school where girls could study twenty-nine subjects, including sacred and modern history, chemistry, bookkeeping, French, and the making of artificial fruits and flowers. Board and tuition for a five-month session was $125. Governor Safford commended the academy, but he was still determined to establish free public schools throughout the state and had urged Marc to help by running for the legislature again that fall.

“I guess I will,” said Marc without enthusiasm when the subject came up one night at supper. “At least, located as we are in an old freight warehouse with the quartermaster's yard behind us, the honest braying of real mules often blots out that of imitations.”

Miguel groaned. “I'm glad we'll be busy with branding when the electioneering gets frenzied along about October. Two years ago there were soldiers at Camp Crittenden who voted there and then went to other precincts to vote again. The
Arizona Miner
claimed that hundreds of Mexicans voted for McCormick two or three times in Tubac and Tucson.”

That Prescott paper had said quite a few other things about the federally appointed Easterners who were, of course, Republican, though they called themselves Union or Independent. From Goodwin on, they had tried to make peace with the Democrats, holding that the territory was so beleaguered that all white men should make common cause. Goodwin had even appointed fiery secessionist William Oury first mayor of territorial Tucson.

“I'm not going to buy any votes,” Marc said mildly. “It'd suit me fine to stay right here. But I'd like to help Safford get his schools, even if most people think it's crazy to worry about that when bandits or Apaches may finish them off any time.”

Cat glanced nervously at James. There was no way for him to avoid hearing his people spoken of often in tones of hate or fear. How did he feel about it? His face was a mask.

In the weeks since his return she'd managed to come no closer to him. There seemed no connection with the boy she'd adored, who'd saved her from the outcast Apache and taught her to shoot a bow. This tall, dark man with the broad shoulders and lean flanks made her aware of herself in a strange, prickly, uncomfortable way, so that she began to suspect that perhaps the awkwardness came from changes in herself.

She wasn't the eight-year-old who'd flung her arms around Talitha's lost brother to welcome him home, nor was she the ten-year-old who'd mourned when he went back to his father's people. She was almost seventeen; she had been proposed to, if Jordan's aggravating declaration counted, and she had been courted by a handsome if not very satisfactory lieutenant.

Surely she should have known how to act with this savage stranger. But his eyes, the only thing familiar about him at all, seemed to draw her strength right out of her. When he looked quickly away, as he invariably did, she felt plunged in shadow; lonely and deserted, no matter how many people were around.

Sometimes she wished he had never come back. But if he left now, it would be like losing the sun.

About mid-June Lieutenant Claybourne Frazier rode up with a dozen troopers. While the men were watering their horses and being fed on the porch by Anita, Frazier ate with the family and poured out an angry story.

Tom Gardner's ranch had been raided on the eighth. Apaches killed one man and carried off a Mexican boy as well as driving off a herd of cattle.

“By the time Gardner got word to us, we couldn't catch up with them,” smoldered the young officer. His gray eyes seemed drawn to Cat, but his face tightened and he looked swiftly away. “We found where they'd camped and made moccasins for the boy. At least it seems they don't intend to kill him. That ought to be some comfort to his mother, though she seems absolutely out of her mind with grief.”

“Poor woman,” said Talitha, instinctively putting an arm around Shea. “I'll go to see her, make her understand that the Apaches are good to the boys they decide to adopt.”

Frazier's mouth curled. He stared at James. “Yes. They want to turn them into traitors, don't they?”

Talitha stiffened. Marc said firmly, “You forget yourself, Lieutenant.”

“Do I?” Frazier gave an unpleasant laugh. “If Mrs. Revier's half brother deserves your trust, surely he'll help us track hostiles when they've committed an outrage like this. He knows their hideouts and habits. When all we see is barren rock, he could find a trail.”

It was fatally true. James was being forced to choose again, as when his Apache kinsmen and companions had repudiated him for protecting Patrick and Cinco.

“It's not fair!” Cat protested fiercely. “Whatever James does, either whites or Apaches will blame him.”

“He's got to decide,” said Frazier. “He's living with whites. He owes them something.” He looked at Talitha. “What if you were the mother of that boy they carried off? Or the wife of the man they killed?”

White to the lips, Talitha said in a clear, taut voice, “I still wouldn't ask my brother to betray his other people.”

The lieutenant smothered an execration. Marc started to rise but was checked by Talitha, who caught his arm.

James got to his feet. “You are right,
nantan,
” he said to Frazier. “I should not be among the whites.” He strode out.

“James!” Talitha sprang up to follow him, but Marc held her back. “Let me talk to him, dear.”

Cat scarcely heard. The only reality was James's resolute back turned on them. “
I should not be among the whites
.” He'd go away again, and this time, she knew, he'd never come back. Running after him, she burst into the room he shared with Patrick.

“James! Don't! Please don't!”

He seemed not to hear as he opened a chest and began to stuff his belongings into a rawhide bag. She caught his arm, planting herself between him and the chest. “Don't pay any mind to that stupid soldier! This is your home, James!”

He shook his head. “No, Caterina.”

“You—you won't go back to
them
?”

He smiled slightly at her tone. “They don't want me, either. But the mines need men and don't worry about bloodlines. I can work and live like that, maybe, without betraying anyone.”

It was better than his returning to the Indians, but she felt she couldn't stand losing him before they'd made friends again.

“Let me go with you,” she said, tears stinging her eyes, salty on her lips.

His body went rigid. She heard his breath catch before he slowly released it in a sigh that was like a moan. “Caterina, small one, you don't know what you say.”

She did. She suddenly understood why she hadn't been able to treat him like a brother.

He was her man, though she still loved the boy in him, ached for the youngster trying to find a place between two worlds. Bowing her head against him so that she heard the speeding pound of his heart, she said, “Let me come.”

His arms closed around her. Only for a moment. He put her from him. “What sort of life could you have with me?”

“That it is with you is what matters.”

“It's easy for you to say that now—you, whom everybody has loved, standing in your home. But would you think it among strangers where you'd be just another miner's woman?”

“Yes, if you wanted me.”

Violently, he turned from her and gathered the rest of his possessions into the bag. “Marry Jordan, Caterina. He's a good man who will take care of you.”

“James—”

She broke off at the sound of approaching steps. Patrick and Miguel crowded into the room, while Marc stood in the door with an arm around Talitha.

“You're not leaving because of what that weakling lieutenant said?” burst out Patrick.

Talitha was very pale. She watched her brother beseechingly as Marc spoke firmly. “We let Frazier know he was way out of line. You can't pay attention to every coyote that yips, James. We don't expect you to turn on your Apache kin.”

“I thank you for that. But the soldiers and your neighbors will expect it.” James gave a somber smile. “When I do not, in a while they may decide I am organizing or helping the raiders. Then all of you might be in danger. I am going.”

Patrick scowled. “Where?”

James grinned. “I think I will become Santiago Montaña and look for a job in the mines. Maybe there I won't be expected to track Apaches or slaughter white-eyes.”

Color came back to Talitha's face. Slowly, Marc nodded. “Not a bad idea, till the Indian troubles quiet down, at least. If you worked at the San Patricio, you could visit us when you had a mind to. I expect they're hiring, but let me write a note to the manager, Don Buenaventura, just to be sure.”

Stiffly, James said, “If they don't need me, I'll find work at another place.”

“Don't be a mule!” said Patrick forthrightly. “The way the turnover is, if they don't need you this week, they will next. Anyhow, this way Miguel and I can ride over and we can all go hunting.”

Hesitating, James looked at Talitha, who watched him with her heart in her eyes. “All right,” he assented.

He rode away within the hour, but at least he wasn't going back to the Apaches. He'd be little more than a day's ride away. Now that she knew the truth of her feeling for him, Cat was determined to make him acknowledge it, too. When he was making his farewells and would have shaken her hand, she defiantly raised on tiptoe to kiss him. On the mouth. Feeling a wave of triumph as a tremor went through him, she smiled and said, “Come back for St. John's Day.”

That was only ten days. She could wait that long. Maybe by then he'd see how stupid it was for them to be apart. He hadn't said he loved her in words, but his arms had, and his startled mouth.