Harvest of Fury (34 page)

Marc, who'd been in Tucson when the committee returned, ran a hand through his graying hair as he told the family about it. “There's talk of forming a volunteer force to go on a three-month campaign,” he said. “I've promised to go if it's organized.”

Both Cat and Talitha stared at him. “Marc,” whispered Talitha. “What if James—”

He put a protective arm around her. “James isn't raiding. He'll be doing his best to bring peace. But we won't have it, Tally, till the Apaches learn they won't go unpunished after one of their sprees of looting and killing.”

Shea ran off for the bow and quiver and arrows James had made for him before he left for the mine. He said importantly to Sewa, who was rubbing little Vi's gums to ease her teething, “Don't be afraid, Sewa! I'll shoot any Apaches who try to get you!”

“Your uncle James is part Apache,” Talitha rebuked him sharply. With the unborn child pressed between them, she buried her face on her husband's shoulder and wept.

Cat had no one to lean on. Feeling cold and sick, she prayed for James and the tiny beginning life he didn't know about. Let there be peace. Let there be no more killing.…

She started as something warm and soft covered her shoulders.

“You look chilled, Katie,” said Jordan. His hazel eyes watched her in concerned puzzlement as he stepped back from draping the shawl around her. “Are you feeling all right? You haven't been yourself lately.”

I'll never be myself again; I'll always have a child, someone I must look after
. How joyful that would be if James were with her. If he weren't—

She shut that thought away. It was too terrible. He'd promised. He'd be back. She forced a smile at Jordan.

“I'm fine. I just wish there weren't all these troubles.”

He said quietly so that only she could hear, “You must worry about James. I'm sorry, Katie.” And she was sorry for Jordan, who was so kind, whom she almost loved. She was glad when Sewa brought the baby to her so that she could look down at her and hide the tears that blurred her eyes.

There was a short lull in the raiding. Then, early in April, seven men working on a road between Phoenix and Bradshaw were attacked; four were killed and horribly mutilated. Wagon trains were ambushed near Date Creek and Agua Fria, leaving two men dead and three wounded. In mid-April Cinco and Rodolfo, who'd ridden in to Tucson for supplies returned with news that Apaches had driven off cattle and horses from San Xavier, about eight miles south of Tucson, making for Cebedilla Pass in the mountains to the north. When a Papago brought the word to town, some fourteen men saddled and rode in pursuit, joining a party of Papagos who were hot after the raiders.

“Rodolfo and I rode, too.” Cinco's tone was a mixture of boastfulness and chagrin. “We chased them fifty miles, crisscrossing through the Santa Catalinas, before we caught up with the man they'd left to guard the stock and bring it in if we gave up the chase. We killed him and brought back the animals, except for four the Apaches had killed.” Cinco paused, looked around, and added triumphantly, “Those raiders were headed for Camp Grant!”

“Just because they cut through Cebedilla Pass?” scoffed Marc. “From there they could have headed for the White Mountains or the Verde, almost anywhere. Probably a gang of roving Tontos.”

“These weren't Tontos!” flamed Cinco. “Some of my cousins were among the Papagos. They recognized the Apache we killed from a missing tooth he had in front. They had seen him at Camp Grant; he was for sure a Camp Grant Indian!”

Talitha was pale. “Be careful what you say, Cinco. We've heard there are close to five hundred Apaches at Camp Grant now, mostly women and children. They came in because they were almost starving; in fact, that must be a large part of the reason the Apaches are taking such risks now in their raiding—they need those horses and mules and cattle to eat. At Camp Grant they're working for farmers and cutting hay for the army, planting their crops in safety, drawing rations. Would they endanger that to steal a few mules?”

“That dead Apache was from Camp Grant,” retorted Cinco.

“Out of hundreds of Indians, one or two young bloods might join a raiding party,” reasoned Marc. “Lieutenant Whitman claims that his Aravaipa stay near their camp, and they're counted every third day when he issues rations.”

“The Apaches have moved five miles upcañon from the soldiers,” Cinco parried. “Don Marcos, you know well that three days is long enough for them to take part in a raid and be back to draw their rations and fool the lieutenant into thinking they've been there all the time, nice and tame.” Cinco swallowed hard. “I know that Mangus was the friend of those who started this ranch and that Doña Talitha's brother is half Apache, but such things shouldn't blind you to the truth.”

“Nor should hatred blind you,” Marc said gently.

Clenching his hands, Cinco looked from one of them to the other. For a few seconds his dark eyes probed Cat's. “Cinco—” she began, starting to plead.

He left them.

Three days later Apaches struck a settlement on the San Pedro, killed four men, and ran off a yoke of oxen and several horses. The
Arizona Citizen
for April 15 said there could be little doubt that the raiders were the same ones chased toward Camp Grant a few days earlier; they must have rested there and then swooped down on the San Pedro.

The same issue published General Stoneman's report on the military posts. He wanted to abandon seven posts, including Camp Lowell at Tucson and Crittenden, claiming they served little purpose but to provide a market for the hay and grain of people living nearby. He went on to accuse merchants of fleecing the army by charging high prices for shoddy goods, such as warped glass, condemned paper, paper water buckets that were supposed to be made of rubbery gutta percha, and “wool” blankets of buffalo hair. That did nothing to improve feelings between the military and civilians.

Marc rode to Tucson to attend one of the citizens' meetings and returned full of disgust. “They persist in blaming the troubles on the Indians at Camp Grant—as if the territory weren't full of Indians starved enough to take almost any chance for food! But nothing's going to happen. They bicker and argue about who'll be officers, but only fifty dollars has been raised for an expedition, and until they get Camp Grant out of their heads I won't contribute a cent.”

Cat paced nervously to the door and gazed at the mountains that separated her from her love. “Does the commander at Camp Grant know his Apaches are being accused?”

“Of course he knows. He flatly denies the charges.”

“Do you think we ought to warn James?”

“He'll be in Lieutenant Whitman's confidence. He'll know what's been said.”

That was bound to be true, but Cat felt on edge and could tell that Talitha did, too. The very air seemed dense and heavy, as it might be before a thunderstorm, packed with force that must explode though it was quiet for the time. The vaqueros started their spring cow work heavily armed, and though Cat was soon busy feeding orphans, this season wasn't like any other she remembered.

It wasn't the threat of Apaches or bandits. She'd grown up thinking of them as just part of life, like drought, death, and the occasional severe winter snow. Some of it must be anxiety for the new little life growing inside her, but mostly there was a sense of brooding, a strained waiting.

This was one of the year's busiest times, so Marc frowned when Cinco asked a few days off to attend a fiesta his Papago relations were holding at San Xavier. It was, however, the only favor Cinco had ever asked, so, after a moment, Marc nodded.

“Have a good time, lad, and get back as fast as you can. You're one of our best with the branding iron.”

Cinco turned to look at Cat. He unclasped the slender gold chain from his muscular brown neck. “Keep this for me, Caterina. The fiesta may be rowdy, and I don't want to lose it.”

She smiled and took it, still warm from his flesh, and put it around her own throat. Some merrymaking was what he needed to get his mind off the Indians at Camp Grant. “Go with God, Cinco.
Buen fiesta!
”

He stared at her for a long moment. Her brother, son of Shea and the desert woman, Tjúni. Why was it she could never feel with him as she did with the twins? She loved him, but it was constantly brought home to her that they could never understand each other. He was as Papago as if his stepfather had been his true one.

Her smile died under the intensity of his eyes. “Caterina—”

He broke off and was quickly gone. Half an hour later she saw him riding west, armed with rifle, bow and arrows, and, she was sure, at least one six-shooter.

Sighing, she turned from the door. Would there ever be a time in Arizona when a man could ride weaponless to a fiesta?

April ended and the first days of May passed, and Cinco hadn't returned. “It's a long fiesta,” Cat worried.

Late in the afternoon of May 3 Cat, on watch, saw a rider, but he was mounted on a dark horse, not Cinco's dun. She rang the signal for one visitor and hurried down to get her rifle and watch out the window. Tally, Anita, Juri, Mársat, and Paulita put the children under Sewa's charge in the
sala
while they took their agreedupon positions. The men were all out branding.

As the horseman neared, Mársat, Natividad's Papa-go wife, cried out in surprise. “It's my brother, Francisco!”

The women put down their weapons and welcomed the young man, who almost fell out of the saddle. Mársat led the horse to the corral to be watered and rested while Francisco was brought inside and given coffee and food.

“Cinco's all right,” he assured them in Spanish as they questioned him. “He's at the foot of the Black Mountain southwest of San Xavier with the other enemy killers. Sixteen days he must stay there to be purified and undergo the rituals that make him a ‘ripe' man. I've come to tell you he'll be home after the victory celebration.”

Enemy killers? Victory?

Cat tried to speak, but her voice rustled weakly, trapped in her throat. It was Talitha who said sharply, “What are you talking about? What has Cinco done?”

Proudly, Francisco told them. He himself had been one of ninety-two Papagos who had joined with forty-eight Mexicans and six Anglos to show the Camp Grant Apaches that they couldn't kill and raid and then run back to the army for protection and rations. Meeting at the head of the Rillito eight miles northeast of Tucson on April 28, they started out that evening and traveled by moonlight till they were far from Tucson, rested, traveled on next day, camped again, and then traveled all the next night.

Jesus Maria Elias had been elected leader, somewhat to the chagrin of white-bearded Bill Oury who had to stand some joking about how few of the eighty-two Anglos who'd promised to undertake a volunteer expedition had actually come. Elias knew the country better. Besides, back in 1863, he'd been with Captain Tidball and some California troops and Papagos who'd raided an Apache camp on the Aravaipa. Since the Papagos were Christians, they dipped the babies in water to baptize them before they knocked out their brains.

This time there'd been no baptizing.

Mexicans and Anglos, armed with carbines, waited along the bluff above the camp to kill any Apaches who tried to escape that way. The Papagos, led by Oury and their chief, surrounded the wickiups on the other three sides. Dawn was nearing.

Few Papagos had firearms, but they had bows, arrows, sharp knives, and mesquite clubs. Stealing into the huts, the Papagos cut throats and crushed skulls, shot arrows into bodies. There were few men in camp, but children grow up to be Apaches and women produce more of them, so it was useful killing. All over in half an hour.

“Since he'd never killed before, Cinco had to drop out of the attack as soon as he got his trophy,” Francisco explained. “He smeared his face with charcoal and waited with the other enemy killers. Lots of Apaches fled across the Aravaipa and hid in the hills, but we killed enough to teach them a lesson. We burned the
ranchería
and took about twenty-eight children captive.”

Numb with disbelief and horror, Cat stared at the triumphant warrior. “James!” she cried. “Was James there?”

Francisco looked puzzled. “James? Who is James?”

“My brother.” Talitha steadied her unwieldy body by leaning on the table. “He's young and strong, about twenty-four. He has blue eyes.…”

“Most heads were so smashed that no one could guess about eye color,” the Papago said. “But there were no young men in camp. They were probably off thieving and murdering.”

Talitha looked suddenly old. “And when the warriors return and see what's happened to their families, what do you think they'll do?”

“No more than they already have,” muttered the Papago. This was clearly not the welcome he'd expected. Defensively, he peered at Talitha. “With permission,
señora
, what was your brother doing there?”

“He's half Apache,” Talitha said. “He hoped to get more of his father's people to come in for peace.”

Francisco's face twisted. “Peace? For whom? The Apaches are glad to be coddled by the soldiers, and perhaps they don't raid close to the camp, but the lion will eat grass before Apaches stop their plundering!” He got to his feet. “I've brought Cinco's message. Now I will go to San Xavier for the dancing.”

As he passed her Cat noticed dark brown-red splotches on his white cotton garments. Did blood splatter when a head was crushed?

James. Where was James?

Cat saddled Sangre and went hunting for Marc. Talitha wanted him to go to Tucson or even Camp Grant to look for James and also to buy any Apache children that could be located.

“Any that have no family left can live with us,” Talitha had said, her voice controlled, though she was white to the lips. “Oh, my God, how can such things happen?”