Chapter Forty-Four
Three days later Jack rode into Cochise’s stronghold in the Dragoon Mountains late at night.
Nadi had wept and tried to convince him not to go.
He felt no small amount of guilt. Although he had stayed in Tucson for a few more days, because he needed the time to pull himself together, he hadn’t touched her again. She had offered herself hopefully. But Jack had nothing left to give, and he could not take from her again.
Earlier he had sent a smoke signal up that had been answered, or he would have never gotten past the two sentries that guarded the mouth of the stronghold.
The stronghold was actually a canyon with a very narrow gorge as the sole entrance to, and exit from, Sulphur Springs Valley.
The stronghold was completely defensible, because even if troops could find the entrance, which hadn’t happened yet, they would be annihilated by just a few warriors as they tried to enter through the gorge.
Inside the stronghold, the entire Chiricahua tribe was nestled among mesquite and juniper and scrub oak, cholla and prickly pear and agave.
A stream wandered the whole length of the canyon.
Nahilzay, Cochise’s lieutenant and finest warrior, greeted him. “Welcome, my friend,” he said, smiling. He was tall and lean, about ten years Jack’s senior.
Jack returned the greeting as he dismounted.
“Cochise wishes you to share his fire,” Nahilzay said, taking the reins of the black. “It is my honor to tend to your horse.”
Jack didn’t say thank you, it was not the Apache way, although he was very pleased that Nahilzay thought enough of him to see to the black.
They had ridden together only once, many years before, on a war party against Mexicans.
Jack made his way through the camp and found Cochise’s gohwah without difficulty.
The tall chief was sitting in the moonlight outside, and he stood as Jack approached. He embraced him.
“Come in, my cousin,” he said, his eyes traveling over his face carefully, intently.
Jack followed him into the gohwah and sat beside Cochise. He accepted a cup of tiswin from Cochise’s first wife, a woman Cochise’s own age, some forty-five years—but who looked closer to sixty. Tesalbestinay smiled and left.
“White Painted Woman has kept you in her embrace,” Cochise said.
“And Usen rides with you,” Jack returned.
They both smiled and dropped the formalities.
“Many winters have passed since last we rode together,” Cochise said. “It is good to see you again. I know when we ride together I can turn my back and have no fear. That is no small thing.”
Jack remained serious and did not smile at the high compliment, for that would be undignified.
“We have a mutual friend.”
“Who?”
“A woman more beautiful than many mountain sunrises. Her hair is the color of the midday sun.”
Jack choked on the tiswin. “Candice?”
“I do not know her name,” Cochise said, watching him with amusement. “She is very brave. I almost wanted to take her as my third wife—but I have enough problems with the two I have.” He was laughing.
Jack started. She had worked her wiles on Cochise too. “She already has two husbands,” he said. “And I’m one of them.”
Cochise chuckled. “Is this a new white custom? A man may have many wives, yes, but a woman many husbands?”
“No.” He didn’t see any honor in the situation. “No. I married her only to take her away from my cousin Hayilkah. He captured her. She thought her first husband was dead.” He grew grim as he thought about Kincaid.
“If you still want her, why do you not go and take her, as is the Apache way? You were married to her last—she is yours.”
He frowned. “I gave her a choice. Where did you see her? At the pass?”
Cochise nodded. “You gave her a white man’s choice. An Apache husband would cut off her nose. Or at least beat her for her infidelity.”
Jack didn’t answer.
“You also look like a White Eyes,” Cochise said disapprovingly.
“How so?” Jack smiled grimly. “Am I not dressed in the Apache way?” He gestured at his buckskin-clad body, at his warrior’s necklace.
“Buckskins do not make an Apache.”
Jack grew somber.
“Riding free with the wind makes an Apache.” Cochise drank the beerlike tiswin. “Your actions speak the white man’s language, not Apache.”
“Yes and no,” Jack said.
Cochise smiled. “So you try to sit on top of the thorns? Foolish man! You must stand on the ground, on either one side or the other.”
“That’s easier said than done.”
“One cannot ride in Dos Cabezas and the Chiricahua Mountains at the same time.”
“I understand your point. I ride neither place.”
Cochise smiled sadly. “Look around you, my brother. Look with care and tell me what you see.”
“I see many brave Apaches.”
“Brave once. You did not look carefully enough. Once we were hunters, now we are herders. Have you not noticed the white man’s cattle we nursemaid?”
Jack wisely refrained from commenting. The government had given Cochise’s tribe some cattle, and although it was beneath all Apaches’ dignity to tend animals, it was done because Cochise willed it so.
The settlers, troops, and travelers had disturbed the big game, driving them away—making a gift of the cattle necessary, and acceptance even more so.
To tell Cochise he herded cattle would be a grave insult.
“I read your thoughts. The cattle are a gift from the United States.” He shrugged.
“My heart is heavy. My people are unhappy. We are no longer free. The white man comes in numbers so great, I know in my heart that if we do not learn the white ways my people will vanish off the face of the canyons and mountains for all times. I seek to learn. To learn I give my word I will protect the white man, and even fight my brothers to do so. I am hungry for knowledge. Hungry to know the white man.”
Jack nodded. “What you do is good. The white man is very powerful. His power comes not just from guns and cannon, but numbers and wisdom. I think it is a good path you chose.”
Cochise sighed, as if even the discussion of the topic that ruled his entire being was a great burden. “Why, Nino Salvaje? Why did you choose to ride with the white man?”
Jack tensed. We could not refuse to answer, for Cochise had used his name in framing the question.
“It was the time of the Earth Is Reddish Brown,” he said slowly, drinking.
He told Cochise about the cattle raid so many years ago and the subsequent encounter with the armed white riders—how he had killed his first pindah.
“Then, soon after, two of my cousins were betrayed by whites who invited them to share their fire. They were given much firewater and then murdered. I rode with the war party to avenge their wandering souls.”
Cochise studied hum in the firelight. “But you were a seasoned warrior. You rode the warpath many, many times before.”
“Against Mexicans. Against the Papago, the Pima, the Pawnee.” Jack looked up. Never against the white man.”
A heavy silence stretched across the gohwah, broken only by the crackling of the tinder.
“We burned the entire wagon train. Only the women and children were spared, and we did not take them captive. I killed many men that day. I took many scalps—as they had taken my cousins’ scalps.
But I was no warrior.” Jack met Cochise’s dark gaze across the fire.
“The bloodshed sickened not just my heart, not just my soul, but my body. I was weak as a woman from the battle and gore. No one knew—but I knew. The sign was so clear, it was sent from Usen. I could not ride against the people of my blood.” Jack stared. “Yet I cannot ride with them either.”
“You walk alone.” It was not a question. Cochise’s dark gaze was unwavering.
“Yes.”
“A difficult path, perhaps impossible. The day will come soon when you must choose your path again.”
Jack tensed. “No.”
“All around, the white troops chase and hunt down the Apache, sending them to reservations. Your people are still free—but for how long?”
“Shozkay has not been bothered,” Jack said.
“Have you become so white that you no longer read the smoke? To the north, many Apaches have been enclosed upon the earth with a fence upon it. Many Apache.”
Jack had heard that a few bands from the White Mountains had been sent to a reservation, but he had not given it much thought. The different Apache tribes were not close.
“Where did you go when you left your people?”
“East,” Jack replied. “I kept drifting east, through Texas. I finally reached a big city called New Orleans.” Jack grimaced. “Never have you seen so many pindah in one spot.”
“Tell me,” Cochise urged, leaning forward. “Tell me everything.”
They sat up drinking tiswin and talking all through the night.