Chapter Sixty-Two
Luz came to him shortly after he arrived back at the Coyotero camp three days later.
He tried to keep the pain and sadness he felt from leaping into his eyes at the sight of her.
It was hard to believe that this was the same woman he had known.
Her face and forearms were scabbing where she had gouged them deeply with her nails.
Her hair had been cropped raggedly at ear length.
Her skirt and shirt were torn and dirty. Jack grieved with her, and for her.
“What happened?” she asked evenly. It was the first time she had questioned him about the way Shozkay had died. Her green eyes were glazed with anguish.
With a deep breath, Jack told her. Luz listened without expression, then turned away. “Wait,” Jack said, catching her. “Luz, I know you’re mourning, but can you be ready to leave today?”
She looked at him blankly.
They left a few hours later, Jack on the black, Luz and Datiye each mounted on Shozkay’s ponies, a mule packed with hides, supplies, and gear. They rode at a walk because of Datiye’s condition, and made camp that night in the San Pedro Valley, almost where the Butterfield Trail crossed the river.
“How are you feeling?” Jack asked Datiye.
“Just tired. I am all right.” Her gaze held his searchingly, making Jack feel grim.
She wanted mm, wanted to be his wife, wanted to bear more of his children. She was the noose, one he couldn’t remove. At least, not until the child was born. He looked over at Luz, who had ignored her food and was staring toward the east.
Datiye followed his glance. “She won’t eat. Except to ask you what happened, she doesn’t talk. There will never be another man for her.”
Jack frowned. How long should he let her go on starving herself?
The problem was, he knew it was true. Luz would never love again the way she had loved Shozkay.
Few were fortunate to experience mat kind of love in a lifetime.
He thought about his own wife. Before Candice, he had not understood Shozkay and Luz’s relationship.
Now he could understand what Luz was feeling—it was what he would have felt if Candice should die.
And thinking of her, as always, brought with it the pain of having had to leave her.
Once again he wondered if he shouldn’t have brought her with him, and then instantly knew she would never come—not of her own free will, not to live with her enemy.
“Eventually Luz will remarry,” he said, “It is the way of things.” His words sounded hollow even to his own ears.
“No,” Datiye said.
Jack was startled.
“Soon she will join Shozkay.”
“Don’t say that,” Jack snarled. He walked away and sat down to eat dried venison and dried beans.
There was no fire, for the last thing he needed was to have to defend two women, one deep in mourning, the other pregnant, against scouting soldiers.
But the moon was half full, shining, and the sky was lit with a million glinting stars.
Jack put his plate down and looked up into red eyes.
For a moment he froze, then reached for his gun as he realized he was staring into the eyes of a coyote, one that stood not fifteen feet from him, and an even shorter distance from Luz.
The starlight turned the animal’s coat a silvery white—or was it a white coyote?
“Don’t move,” Jack said, slowly drawing his Colt.
“Shozkay,” Luz breathed, and the coyote, hearing her voice, turned to look at her, his ears up.
Chills swept Jack’s body, and he hesitated.
A lone coyote did not wander into a human camp, ever.
Was she right? He held the gun, prepared to kill the small beast if it so much as moved toward any of them.
His heart was thumping. The coyote’s eyes were so damned unnatural, like red coals, burning with an almost human intelligence. He had never seen anything like it.
The animal stood there for a minute at the most, but it was a long minute.
Then it turned and raced off silently. Jack looked at Luz.
She was trembling, tears spilling down her face, clutching herself with her arms. He wanted to hold her, but it was totally improper.
He was relieved when Datiye did, comforting her as one would a child.
Disturbed, Jack sheathed his gun. Had it been Shozkay?
For a moment, he closed his eyes. Of course it had.
Between him and Luz, they were thinking about Shozkay continuously, and spirits always delayed their journey to linger under such circumstances.
More so in this case, for there would be no journey to the afterworld for his brother.
Shozkay would wander the face of this earth forever, crying with a need to be avenged.
How could his brother be avenged? Kill Bascom? Kill Warden? Kill the lieutenant in charge, Morris? Or all three?
Morris, he thought savagely, and knew his own war would never be over until Morris had died in retribution for ordering the hangings. Then his brother could leave this world and find peace for eternity in the next.
Three days later they rode into Cochise’s stronghold.
It was a sea of gohwahs, for the Chiricahuas numbered some twelve hundred men, women, and children.
On the outer edge of one side of the village, Jack stopped and dismounted, helping Datiye down carefully, then Luz.
“I’ll start cutting juniper immediately,” he told Datiye.
“You supervise the unloading and the animals.”
She nodded.
It was some time later, when he had brought the last of the tall juniper logs to the site where he would erect the gohwah, that he saw Nahilzay watching. Jack ignored him and began to dig holes, then to erect the frame. Datiye came over and protested.
That is my duty,” she said, placing her hand on his.
“No,” Jack returned. “You can weave in the bear grass.” She met his implacable gaze, then nodded.
Jack began to secure the juniper poles with pliable branches of desert willow.
He didn’t look up as Nahilzay came over, but stepped back to view his work.
It was certainly better than the last time, and a pang struck him as he thought of that day he had shared with Candice.
“The woman should do it,” Nahilzay said, referring to Datiye.
He knew Luz, of course, though he probably didn’t recognize her, for it had been years since she had left the Chiricahua to marry Shozkay and join the Coyoteros.
But anyone who saw her knew she was deep in mourning and would both shun her and respect her grief.
“I prefer to protect the babe,” he said, looking at him for the first time.
“Is she your wife?” Nahilzay asked. It was a natural conclusion.
“Yes,” Jack said. She was now. He was providing for her and she was pregnant with his child, and under Apache custom that was enough to make her his wife. “My second wife,” he added. “My first wife is white and I left her with her people.”
“You divorced her?”
“No,” Jack said shortly. “I do not want to endanger her child.”
“Two pregnant wives,” Nahilzay said, his lips turning into a smile of amusement. “May they both be sons.”
Jack nodded curtly, but did not thank him for the compliment, for that would have been considered ungrateful. He thought that Nahilzay was softening toward him with the addition of Datiye and Luz to his household.
“Tomorrow we ride the path of war,” Nahilzay told him.
Jack watched him walk away, then turned to the task at hand.