Harvest of Fury (35 page)

The same question burned through Cat as she glanced up at her parents' crosses on the hill. The only bit of hope she had was that, according to the Papago, James hadn't been in the village. But even if he lived, what would this do to him?

Cat crouched low against Sangre's mane and wept. For women and children who had waked to die, and for James, and even for Cinco, though she hated him now.

She found Marc branding while Belen roped calves and Natividad and Rodolfo flipped and held them. His smile died as he watched her.

“What is it, Cat?”

‘Talitha's all right.” That fear quieted, Cat couldn't go on for a moment. Then, shutting her eyes against the sun, she choked out the story.

Belen crossed himself, grimly sad as he bowed his head, but the other vaqueros nodded approval and fierce gratification.

“My brothers-in-law went on that raid,” said Natividad proudly. “It was the first time of one of them to kill an enemy, so he'll be undergoing the purification, too, like Cinco. Ay, Don Patricio would be proud of his son!”

“He wouldn't!” Cat shut her eyes and gripped the saddle horn to keep from falling. “My father would never kill women and children!”

No one answered, but pleased satisfaction showed so plainly on Rodolfo's and Tivi's faces that Cat felt she'd go mad with the horror of it—that these kindly men, who'd sung for her birthday ever since she could remember, thought such a slaughter necessary and good.

“Take charge, Belen,” ordered Marc. “I don't know when I'll be back.” Limping heavily, he went to saddle his hobbled horse. Within minutes he and Cat were riding toward home.

“I want to go with you,” she said. “I have to go with you.”

He sighed and shook his head, but after a long look at her he didn't argue.

They left before dawn the next morning, heavily armed. They found Tubac exulting at the news, glad that Leslie Wooster and Doña Trinidad had been avenged as well as the many others slaughtered by Apaches up and down the Santa Cruz.

“Let's not stop here,” Cat said in a strangling voice.

Marc nodded. They rode swiftly through the little town with its crumbling presidio and rested and watered their horses a few miles north.

Cat refused to stop at any ranches for the night. “They'll all be happy, talking about what a brave attack it was and how it'll teach the Apaches,” she said bitterly. “I can't bear it, Marc.”

They spent the night in an abandoned adobe, which, as Marc pointed out with quiet force, had at least three times been raided by Apaches and the settlers living there wiped out.

“What happened at Camp Grant is terrible,” he said, “but where were all the men? Cat, I have to tell you I think it's quite likely some of them have been on raids. Eskiminzin, who seems to lead the Aravaipa though he himself is a Pinal Apache, is blamed for dozens of murders and raids from the San Pedro to the Santa Cruz, burying men to the neck in anthills, roasting their brains over small fires. You've heard some of this.”

“Yes. But when there's a name, many things are tacked to it.”

They hadn't made a fire for fear of attracting Indians or bandits, but there was enough light left for Cat to see Marc's frown. “You've heard Tally speak of Larcena Page and how she's lost her father, brothers, and husband to the Apaches. Well, you'll also remember that Larcena herself was taken captive, lanced sixteen times, tossed over a cliff into a snowdrift, and left to die. Eskiminzin was one of the five Apaches who did that.”

Cat shrank. Brokenly, she said, “But it's not Eskiminzin who was killed! Or the warriors who go on raids! It was women—babies—”

Marc took her in his arms and held her while she sobbed. “We'll try to get James home,” he said. “And we'll do what we can for the captive children.”

Next day they passed in sight of Black Mountain, where Cinco was being instructed in the rituals of war, bathing in cold water, blackening his face, cleansing his weapons of enemy blood. San Xavier was quiet now, but there'd be dancing and singing tonight, as every night throught the sixteenth when the enemy killers would return for their final rites of cleansing and the great victory fiesta.

Painfully, as if tearing flesh, Cat wrenched her thoughts from Cinco. Never again would she think of him as her brother. When she got home, she'd throw his blue bird into the fire.

Whom had he killed? An old woman? A girl her age? A boy the age of Shea? A baby like Vi?

Images tormented her; she saw him bringing down his club, ripping with his knife. Justice whispered to her that James had surely killed, too, but she was certain he wouldn't have hurt women or children.

Cat had never been to Tucson, and except for the company store at the San Patricio, the only store she'd been in was the one at Camp Crittenden. Ordinarily she'd have longed to go into Zeckendorf's or Lord & Williams or one of the other merchandise dealers who freighted in their goods. It would have been fun to eat in the Shoo Fly, which Marc had so often mentioned, though she couldn't go in the saloons. The Territorial Capitol looked like the old warehouse it was, and the urgings of the bullwhackers in the quartermaster's corral behind it made vaqueros' language pale. Camp Lowell on Military Plaza had two adobe mess halls, but the men lived in two long lines of tents. As well as an arsenal, corral and hay yard, there was a post pigpen.

Wagons drawn by oxen or by four or even five teams of mules creaked past the Pima County Courthouse, and next to San Augustin Church was St. Joseph's Academy for Young Ladies.

The noise and confusion—the barking dogs, the playing children, the bustle of freighters—would ordinarily have enthralled her. Marc said there were over three thousand people in town, an unbelievable number. There were also great heaps of smelly rubbish and manure, and a burro rotting where it had apparently died. The town of dusty, narrow streets and mud houses seemed pestilential to her, a place that bred murder as its garbage hatched flies. She looked at every man they passed and wondered if he had been at the butchering.

“I must ask some questions,” Marc told her. “Would you like to look in the stores, or shall I get a room for you at Neugass' Hotel?”

It was late afternoon and Cat was weary, but she didn't want to spend the night in that town. “I'll wait in the church,” she said, and that was what she did, praying for those killed and their families, praying for James,” till Marc touched her shoulder.

They camped north of town on the Rillito that night, sharing tamales Marc had bought, while he told her what he'd learned. Sam Hughes, adjutant general of the territory, had supplied the wagon of Sharps, Spencers, ammunition, and food that had outfitted the expedition. The commander of Camp Lowell had heard rumors and sent messengers to warn Lieutenant Whitman at Camp Grant, but the news had come too late.

Over a hundred Aravaipa were dead, all but eight of them women and children. Others were missing. Whitman was doing what he could to convince the survivors that his government and the army had had nothing to do with the outrage and was trying to recover the stolen children.

“Most of the fighting men are alive, and jumping the two of us would be a tempting vengeance,” Marc said. “Let me go to Camp Grant, Cat, and you wait for me in Tucson.”

She shook her head, tears coursing down her cheeks. Marc sighed but didn't argue. Perhaps he knew she was so full of shame and pity that she felt revulsion at living in a world where such things could happen. If it was so for her, what would it be for James?

They didn't take the Apache trail through Cebedilla Pass but traveled the easier, longer wagon road skirting the Catalinas, going through Cañada del Oro. After spending the night under a giant mesquite growing beside a wash, they reached Camp Grant that afternoon.

Some of its adobe buildings must have been left from old Fort Breckinridge, abandoned at the start of the Civil War. The dilapidated tents looked almost as old, and the mud-chinked log buildings looked as if their branch-and-mud roofs would leak in any rain. Facing the parade ground were the bakery, guardhouse, commissary, hospital, officers' quarters, and sutler's store. The forge, stables, and butcher's corral were beyond the quartermaster's storehouses.

A guard asked their business and called another soldier to escort them across the parade ground. The door of the adjutant's office stood open. A worn-looking officer in rumpled blue rose from a table to greet them and told the soldier to take care of their horses.

Marc introduced himself and Cat. The officer said he was Royal Whitman, in charge while Captain Stanwood was away on a scout. When Marc explained their business, the lieutenant shook his head.

“I knew James. Even if his face had been unrecognizable, there were no strong young men among the slaughtered. I took about thirty soldiers to the
ranchería
May first to bury the dead. Survivors came while we were doing that, men who'd lost their whole families, women with missing children.” He paused, running a trembling hand through his hair as his bloodshot eyes seemed to stare blindly at a horror he would never escape. “I fed them and talked with them, promised to do what I can about the captive children. Eskiminzin was there with his little daughter, the only one of his family he was able to save. He believed me when I said the army had had no part in the killing, nor the farmers living nearby. He knew that men from Tucson had stirred up the Papagos.”

“The talk in Tucson is that animals stolen from San Xavier were found at the
ranchería,
” said Marc. “Worse, so were a brooch of Doña Trinidad's and one of her dresses.”

Whitman shrugged. “They'll say anything to justify what they did.” He sent for coffee and patiently answered their questions about James.

Yes, the young man had talked to the officer about trying to persuade more Apaches to come in; in fact, Whitman thought he'd been away on such a mission when the massacre occurred. No, James hadn't been seen. Some of the Aravaipa were settling near Camp Grant again, trusting in the army for protection. If Marc and Cat wanted to ask the survivors about James, the interpreter Merejildo Grijalva would go with them.

It was a useless expedition. In the makeshift village that had sprung up near the camp, even the children were hushed. Men and women, some wounded, gazed into space or moved numbly about. All Grijalva could learn was that James, who'd been well liked though he was Mimbres, had gone out a few days before the attack to persuade more Apaches to settle at the post.

One young woman came up to Cat and pleaded with her, tears glistening in her eyes. “She asks if you can get her child back,” Grijalva explained. “A little girl, about four years old. Very afraid of the dark.”

“Tell her we'll do what we can,” Cat said and pressed the woman's hand.

After spending the night in the absent commander's quarters, Marc and Cat left early next morning. “At least it seems likely that James is alive,” Marc comforted.

Cat nodded, but her heart ached, both for the misery she'd seen and for James. She was terribly afraid. What would he do now? It didn't bear thinking of, yet she could think of nothing else.

Riding south, Cat and Marc were in sight of Black Mountain when a Papago crawled toward them, calling feebly. Getting down, they ran to him. An arrow protruded from his shoulders, and he was coughing bubbles of frothy blood.

“Blue-eyed devil,” he gasped in Spanish. “Apaches! Cut throats of enemy killers!”

Blue-eyed? Cat's heart beat faster.

Marc cut off the arrowhead thrusting from the man's chest. When he tried to pull out the shaft, the man gave a great cry. Blood poured from his mouth. He died while they held him.

Lowering the body, Cat and Marc looked at each other. Without a word, they sprang on their horses and made for Black Mountain.

All the enemy killers were young men. All of them were dead, crumpled near the bodies of their guardians who'd been instructing them. Cat recognized one of Mársat's brothers. Cinco's eyes stared up at the sky, unseeing, from his blackened face. His head was almost severed.

Kneeling, dazed, Cat whispered his name.
Blue-eyed devil
… Had James done this, killed her brother? Who had, in his turn, killed a child, an old man, a woman?

She closed Cinco's eyes and put the crucifix from her neck in his lifeless hand. Then she began to scream.

Cat couldn't remember the ride to the ranch, though she dimly heard the shots Marc fired to signal the Papagos, dimly remembered the wailing of the women as their rejoicing turned to furious grief. When she really knew what was going on again, Marc had gone to collect the ransomed children and restore them to the Aravaipas, along with any he could buy in Tucson.

Rousing to find Talitha trying to feed her gruel, Cat sat up in bed. Her throat was sore and an echo of mad cries lingered in her ears, but her mind was clear. Too clear.

She caught Talitha's hands. “Tally! James—it must be James who killed Cinco!”

Talitha's fair head drooped for a moment before she straightened her shoulders. “It seems likely. There aren't many blue-eyed Apaches. And James is all Apache now, Cat. We have to face that.”

And my baby?

Refusing the food Talitha offered, Cat said, “I don't want any. Please Tally! I—I'll be all right. Just leave me alone.”

But when Talitha was gone, Cat got up and dressed shakily. She took the little blue bird Cinco had given her, got her knife, and started up the hill to her mother's grave and her father's cross.

She put the bird by Shea's marker, above the turquoise carving, protecting it with rocks. “I hope you and Cinco are friends now,” she said.

She made a prayer for Santiago, and poor Lonnie, too, then sat beside her mother's grave.
I've always wondered what you were like. I've always missed you. Please, my mother, be with me now
.