Chapter Seventy-Two
When she returned to the gohwah, Candice saw that Jack was there. He had brought fresh game, an opossum and two cottontail rabbits, which Datiye was cleaning. He did not look pleased. In fact, he looked at her intently. “Where have you been?”
“With Cochise,” she answered smartly.
Jack’s eyes grew narrow. “Don’t push me,” he warned.
She wondered if he was jealous, and the possibility delighted her. But she hid her smile. “I’m not pushing you. Cochise and I are friends. He is a pleasure to be with. And—he’s honest.”
He strode over to her. “Wives do not keep company with men that are not kin, without their husbands present.”
“Apache wives,” she retorted. “But I’m not Apache.”
“Don’t even think of trying to make me jealous,” he said darkly.
She managed to hide her smile, because he reeked of jealousy, and it served him right. She couldn’t resist. “Cochise wanted to make me his third wife when we met at Apache Pass.” Her eyes were wide and innocent.
His nostrils flared. “That will happen only over my dead body—or would you like to be a third wife? I thought you were having enough trouble being a first one!”
“I share my husband with no other woman,” Candice said. “And you’d better keep that in mind, Jack, if you expect to save this marriage.” The moment she’d said it she wanted to bite her tongue, but he pounced.
“Ah, so you admit it, that we’re married,” he said, smiling.
“I think you’d better focus on the rest of what I said.”
“I heard you, and I’ve already told you, it was one time with Datiye, before we met. I’m not going to bother repeating myself again.” He gave her a long look. “Most women would look the other way and be happy their husband had stayed with them.”
“I am not most women.”
“I fully realize that. Look, Candice, no more games, and don’t even think of flirting with Cochise.”
“I don’t consider this a game,” she flared. “Being abducted, carrying your child, living with the enemy—with another woman pregnant by you? It’s no damn game, Jack!”
He strove for control and found it. “I don’t know how we got on this topic,” he said tightly.
“I can’t stop this damn war, but I would if I could.
You know the rest of my plans—it’s just a matter of time.
Maybe if you try to trust me you’ll see things aren’t so bad—and they could actually get better. ”
Candice kept her mouth shut. He would have to work to win her trust, and that was that. He didn’t deserve even that much from her.
“I expect … no, I’m asking you if you would mind helping out around here. There’s plenty to do. Food needs to be prepared, dried for extra rations, buckskins need to be mended, hides tanned. It’s not right that Datiye work to feed four.”
Candice was about to protest, but decided against it. She needed to occupy herself. “I’ll help, but I won’t do anything with her. Just point me in the right direction.”
“I suppose that’s fair,” Jack muttered.
She spent the next week doing various chores—including a full day boiling white flowers from the yucca that Datiye had collected on a communal gathering expedition.
The flowers were boiled with meat and bones.
Some was for immediate consumption, and the rest were dried and stored, as were almost all surplus foodstuffs.
Other yucca buds were opened and dried to be used as sweeteners for the herbs Apaches used as tea.
Another gathering expedition went out at the end of the week.
The women were on foot; a few braves—including Jack—on horseback, to provide protection if necessary.
Extra pack animals accompanied them. Both Datiye and Candice went.
The stalks and crown of the mescal plant were gathered on this trip.
Candice stayed away from Datiye, and while the other women could not speak her language, they were neither friendly nor rude, making signs when necessary to communicate when she had missed a plant.
She actually enjoyed herself. The sun was warm and felt glorious.
She relished the feel of using her strong body again, for she had never been one to be idle.
And she was aware of Jack’s eyes almost always on her.
Protectively. She actually looked forward to the next gathering expedition, which Jack told her would be for sumac berries, locust tree blossoms, and wild onions in the summer.
The mescal were roasted or pit-baked, Datiye preferring the latter, before being sun-dried and preserved with mescal juice.
This reminded Candice of the afternoon she had helped Luz wrap cakes made of ground mescal at Shozkay’s camp, and it saddened her.
There was no change in Luz. As for Datiye and Candice, their duties threw them together gradually, and while they never spoke to each other, they found themselves working side by side on more than one occasion.
Candice slept with Savage every night in his bedroll.
They seemed to be in another delicate truce.
She longed for his touch. She was a woman meant to be loved, in all senses of the word, and at night her need for him kept her up long past their bedtime.
But he didn’t make love to her. In fact, he would not even hold her until after she had fallen asleep, and Candice knew that he sometimes did so only because if she ever awoke in the middle of the night they were firmly ensconced in each other’s embrace.
Yet, when she awoke in the morning, he was always up and. gone.
She hadn’t exactly forgiven him for forcing her to live with his people, or for Datiye, but she had come to accept what could not be changed, for the time being. Then, about ten days after her arrival in the Apache camp, Luz died.