Harvest of Fury (39 page)

Maybe, when she was very old and Michael himself had children and grandchildren, when the names of Fierro, Mangus, and Cochise might have the ring of legend, then she might tell Michael.

Michael stirred and muttered, as if her distress pierced his sleep. Leaving him, she lay in the bed where she and Jordan had been last night and wept till exhaustion sent her restless dreams.

Late the next afternoon the corn stripping was finished. The boys went swimming, and though Cat couldn't join them, she resolved that after chores were done she was having a swim herself, in a deep pool sheltered by high rocks that lay below the orchards. She would also wash her hair and luxuriate in being clean all over.

Telling Ruth and Michael that she'd be back before it was really dark but to go ahead with supper without her, she collected clean clothes, soap, and a towel and started across the orchards for the river and her private place.

The sun was just sinking below the mountains and the air was immediately cooler, though these early September days were still hot when the sun beat down. Clambering over boulders along the bank, she climbed down to the little semi-dam, hung her fresh clothes and her towel on a sycamore stump, and hurried out of her sweaty, soiled garments.

Sure enough, the water was warm and the heat of the rocks, punishing in the day but pleasant now, kept the chill off. She lathered her hair and body, rinsed in a higher level, and lay there in a shallow pool, tired muscles relaxed and grateful.

A pebble skittered. Jerking erect, heart in her mouth, she looked for a rock or natural club in the same instant that, with relief and shocked embarrassment, she saw Frazier on the outcropping above, outlined against the blue twilight, much closer to her clothes than she was.

He showed not the slightest inclination of apologizing or turning away. Smiling down at her, he said genially, “Though you fled me, Caterina, I had hopes of seeing you this evening. Though not in my fondest dreams dared I hope to see so much!”

She had instinctively crossed her arms across her breasts, but there was nothing more she could do to shield herself from his raking gray eyes.

“This does no credit to your uniform, Captain.”

He strode lightly down to her, pausing a few yards away. “I don't intend to make love to you in my uniform, my elusive, long-desired one!”

He began to unbutton his coat. Unbelieving, Cat choked, “You—you can't mean to—”

With a grim laugh, tossing down his coat and unbuckling his belt, he began to swear at her, soft obscenities, words she'd never heard before. “You want me as much as I do you, I saw it in the way you looked at me last night. That husband of yours is strong as an ox, but I doubt he knows how to pleasure a woman.”

Springing up, she retreated, desperately watching for some weapon, some means of defense. “Is—is this why you sent Jordan away?”

He chuckled. “The renegades are real enough. While taking care of that threat, I saw no reason not to follow King David's example. Unfortunately, I doubt that your husband, like Uriah of old, will fall in any battle.”

“I—I wouldn't marry
you!
”

“I don't especially wish to
marry
you.” He shrugged. “I'm going to rise higher than my father, the brigadier, and your predispositions would hamper that. But no woman has calmed the fever you gave me. It's raged intermittently, like malaria. Now I intend to be cured.”

Catching her arms, he brought her against him, laughing as she struggled, claiming her mouth.

“Jordan will kill you!”

“Will he?” Forcing her down in the grass, he roughly caressed her, tasting her breasts, savoring her throat. “You won't tell him. Because, my proud, lovely Caterina, you're going to like this so much you'll meet me every chance we have.”

“You—you coward!”

“No, love. Arms are my profession. Should you make the mistake of telling your husband, I can kill him very easily in a way that'll look like self-defense. I'd like to take off these boots, but, damn you, if you won't hold still—”

She arched upward with frantic strength, sending him off balance, though one leg and arm still clamped her. Her fingers closed on a rock. She crashed it with all her might against his head and was astonished when, convulsing with a guttural cry, he suddenly collapsed. She hadn't hoped the blow could be that disabling. Then she saw the figure above them, breechclout over trousers, high Apache moccasins rolled at the knee.

One hand held the war club that had crushed Frazier's skull. Brains and blood oozed over her breast. Paralyzed, she waited for the blow that would kill her. But the tall Apache dropped his club, kicked Frazier off her, and knelt down.

“
Gídí!
”

James's eyes, the thunderstorm blue of their son's, watched her from the face of a savage with a red stripe painted beneath the eyes and across the nose. Flesh taut over cheekbones honed to sharpness, he had the arrogant, harsh beauty of a hawk.

She scarcely knew him; and yet she did.

Heedless of the dead man beside her, his blood streaking her body, she reached up and was in James's arms, weeping with joy, alive again after all these years, a quietly shriveling tree revived by blessed rain. For an unreckonable time they held each other. She felt complete, as if a severed part of her had magically returned, healing a subtle wound that must eventually prove fatal.

“
Gídí,
” he said at last. “How did you come here?”

She told him.

“We have a son?” he asked, amazed, the English words slow. He tilted her face back as if to read it, though now the light was dim. It would be some hours till the moon rose. “A son,
gídí?
And you never told me?”

“I was going to, before you went to Camp Grant.” She laughed shakily. “Remember, when I asked to go with you, you said the people wouldn't trust you if you came with a white woman? After that …”

They were both silent. After that he'd killed Cinco—and since, so many more. What his thoughts were she'd never know. The night wind pierced her and she began to shiver uncontrollably.

“We must make you clean,” he said.

Carrying her to the pool, he washed away the blood, then dried her carefully, as if she might break. She clung to him, wordlessly pleading, feeling the violent response of his manhood. But he pushed her away and thrust her dress into her hands.

“Jordan has raised my son. I will not betray him.”

Shamed but still consumed with longing, she whispered, “Just this once, James! Once to remember—”

“No!”

Turning his back while she dressed, he seemed to be thinking aloud. “I have eight warriors. They're waiting for me to decide if we should attack that camp of soldiers at the head of your valley. We could hit them by night, when they're not expecting Apaches, then sweep the settlement. But I cannot do that to Jordan's people, those who have sheltered you and my son. I will tell my warriors that. I can't compel them, but I believe they'll listen to me.”

Cat shuddered. “If they don't?”

“They'll have to kill me.” James laughed. “I don't think any of them will want to try that. We can push on toward the reservation and find plenty of soldiers to fight there.”

Cat shut her jaws against an outcry. What could she expect? His sparing the camp and valley was more than she could have dared hope from Fierro.

What
had
she hoped? That their reunion, so deep, so absolute, should end abruptly seemed too cruel, unbearable. But what could there be for Jordan's wife and Fierro?

They must separate again, like a river sundered by a volcanic upsurge of primeval rock. But it would be as if he took with him her blood and breath and left only a flesh-covered skeleton.

All the passion of her being rebelled. Wildly, she thought of begging to go with him; but even if he allowed it, and she knew he wouldn't, Jordan would try to track them and might be killed.

There was nothing for them. But even in her agony she was grateful to have seen him and been in his arms again. And at least he knew they had a child. Michael, born of their loving, would live and act, be some part of them in the world long after they were dead.

That must have been in James's mind. Near Cat but not touching her as she dressed, he said, “Our son. What is he like?”

“Oh, James!” That they would never see each other, never share pride and joy, never have even the simple, everyday father-son things … Swallowing, Cat brought herself under control and tried to give her love at least a picture of his boy.

“His eyes and the bones of his face are just like yours. His skin is in between yours and mine, though the sun keeps it more like yours. He has curly red-gold hair like my father's and Patrick's, and I think he'll be tall.”

“But what is he like?”

“He's good at all the things boys do and already can work hard. He loves to read. I've taught him to shoot a bow and arrow, and he knows about White Painted Woman and Born of the Waters.” Cat struggled, trying to make some coherent linkage of all the things that were a normally intent, inquisitive ten-year-old who was yet altogether different from his friends. “He's always taken care of hurt animals and birds. He's cured quite a few of them, and he's better at treating bad cuts and burns than even Jared, who's taught him all he knows. It seems to hurt him when someone else is hurt. Maybe he'll be a doctor.”

James lightly smoothed her face. “That would be good. I have killed men. He may heal them.”

“Is it true that you were at Nocadelklinny's dancing?”

“Yes. I came because all the clans were gathering, dropping their selfish feuds, drawing together. It was a hope. There is none now.”

“You could go to Mexico.” Cat caught her breath in sudden hope. “James, you could drop all this warring! Go home to the Socorro, live far up some cañon as we used to think we'd do!”

He shook his head. “I cannot abandon my people. I hope our son will help them someday. You must go to your house now. I'll blot the sign of what happened and dump the officer closer to his camp so they'll find him in the morning.”

She longed to throw herself into his arms, but his manner forbade it. She raised her fingers to his face and touched the beloved features, trying to brand them on her senses.

“Good-bye, James. I love you. I always have. I always will.”

“Good-bye,
gídí
. Take care of our son.”

Her legs seemed to have no strength, yet somehow, commanded, they carried her away.

Frazier's body was found next morning, only a short distance from the sentry. The scouts identified the moccasin tracks as Mimbreño. It appeared that the captain had gone for a walk and been killed by a single renegade who, inexplicably, hadn't ambushed the sentry or tried to run off any animals.

The other patrols came in that day and next. The captain leading one of them assumed command of the joined forces. They buried Frazier on a gentle slope, blowing Taps, at the time that Jordan and his men rode in, and early next morning the troops set out for the embattled reservation.

Keeping their weapons handy, the Scott Valley men went back to their woodcutting, but they worked where they could watch their homes and come at once if needed. They had found plenty of signs on their expedition and exchanged shots with two Apaches who got away, but their presence seemed to have discouraged any gathering at Turret Mountain.

“The tracks of one group seemed headed for the Mogollon Rim,” said Jordan. “Others went off in the direction of San Carlos. The army's in for hot times there, and we'd all better keep an eye peeled.”

“Especially after the way they murdered Captain. Frazier right at the camp,” said young Dick excitedly. “It's funny they killed him instead of making off with the mules and horses or stealing our women and children.”

Ruth's lips quivered as she looked at Benjamin. “Poor Captain Frazier! He'd had supper with us the night before and seemed such a pleasant, entertaining gentleman.”

Cat said nothing. She didn't want anyone dead, but she couldn't pretend sadness at Frazier's killing. In fact, she was so numbed at meeting and losing James that she did her work mechanically, unable to take her thoughts from him. Terrible to realize that unless his head was brought in for a price, she'd probably never know what had happened to him. There would be word of a raid here, an attack there, and finally no more rumors.

The day after the troops moved out, a young lieutenant came riding hard, accompanied by a single scout. To the men who came down from their felling and riving and the women who came from their work he gasped out his story.

The patrols had fanned out on the way to San Carlos, hoping to meet any hostiles in their way. His group had been ambushed by eight or nine warriors, who killed a dozen troopers before another patrol swarmed after the fire and joined the remnants of the first, driving the Apaches into the rocks above the river and killing most of them. But the leader was still alive, refuged in a cave. The scouts had recognized him. He was Fierro!

Cat smothered a cry. Jordan put his arm around her. “What do you want us to do?” he asked the lieutenant.

“We don't want Fierro to get away,” the young man said, thankfully draining the buttermilk one of the women had gone to bring him and the scout. “But we need to be on the march for Fort Apache. If we storm him, he can kill maybe half a dozen before we get him, and we don't have time to starve him out. But if a few of your militia would take over—”

“We could take Fierro!” Dick shouted, eyes shining. “Dad! Jordan! We could catch or kill the biggest of them all!”

“Will you do it?” the lieutenant asked. “I don't have to remind you that you're protecting your own lives and your families.”

“You don't have to remind us,” Jared agreed dryly. As he glanced around at his kinsmen and neighbors there was a chorus of assent.