The Darkest Heart (27 page)

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 ridee 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, Niño 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.

She had been imprisoned in the whorehouse for almost two full weeks. She spent her days in a restless, angry state, planning an escape or a murder—whichever opportunity arose first. When she wasn’t plotting, she found herself daydreaming of Jack. Sometimes Lorna came to visit. The second time she had come—after that first visit with Kincaid—Candice had smacked her when she had tried to touch her, and now Lorna kept a wary, hungry distance. Once she offered to help Candice escape if Candice would let her come to her bed. Candice had managed to laugh in her face at the absurd and disgusting proposition, but she was shaken.

Lorna hated her as much as she lusted after her, and it was another thing for Candice to have to worry about. She was afraid that her rejection of Lorna would make the other woman do something to hurt her in some scheming way. About the only bright side to her life was that Kincaid hadn’t passed her around—yet. It was his latest threat, to tie her up and let Lorna at her. It worked—and it didn’t work. It would temporarily make Candice submissive. But submission wasn’t in her nature. Soon she would be fighting him again, tooth and nail.

Once she had bitten him. He had beaten her soundly for that, leaving her body black and blue. It had been four days before Kincaid had forced himself on her after that, so in a way, the beating was worth it.

Kincaid enjoyed seeing her submissive. Sometimes the threat of Lorna—combined with a few hard slaps—brought Candice temporarily to her knees, obeying his whims. He forced her to do the things she hadn’t even done to Jack, taking him in her mouth until she choked on his seed. Even if she escaped first, one day she would return to kill him.

It was the dream that sustained her and kept her spirit alive.

And she still hadn’t gotten her monthly flow.

She could feel the life growing in her, and it strengthened her resolve, made her determined not just to survive,
but somehow to extricate herself from the situation she was in. She had the baby to think of. It nourished her.

It was midafternoon when Kincaid entered her room. Candice stiffened every muscle and looked at him, hating him. He was unperturbed. “I’ve ordered you a bath.” He walked to the wardrobe and flung it open, riffling through the costumes within. “Tonight I want you downstairs. You’re going to entertain a friend of mine.”

“What?”

He threw something crimson and black on the bed, facing her. “Tonight I want you downstairs, dressed like a whore, acting like a whore—charming my friend until he can’t see straight.”

“Charming him? And what about later—when he wants to take me to bed?” She was horrified, thinking that her worst fears were going to come to pass—Kincaid was letting Lorna use her as a whore for the customers.

Kincaid grabbed her chin cruelly. “Perhaps, darling, if you showed a little enthusiasm in bed, I would be more inclined to keep you as my private stock. To be totally honest, raping you is like fucking a board, and it bores me.” He turned away.

Candice couldn’t react for a flat second, and then she was lunging after him frantically. “Virgil! You don’t mean …”

He laughed. “I do mean it, Candice. You’re beautiful and clean—I can make a lot of money from you. Tonight we start with Dick Anderson.”

“I won’t do it.”

“No?” He raised a brow. “Do I have to beat you to make you behave?”

She thought of her baby. She stared at the floor, her eyes swimming with tears. He laughed again and shut the door.

Candice sank onto the bed in despair.

Her worst fears were coming true.

“Dick, this is Candice,” Kincaid said, smiling, his hand tightly clasping Candice’s elbow.

“You were right,” Dick Anderson said, staring at Candice unblinklingly. “She’s gorgeous.”

“And feisty.” Kincaid grinned, his hand moving to her hip.

Anderson grinned. Feeling horribly self-conscious in a scarlet satin corset and a black beaded skirt that came to mid-thigh, Candice could not smile until Virge stared at her—and then she had no choice. Kincaid led her into the salon, already full with patrons and prostitutes, and set her in a chair. He and Anderson each took one on either side of her. Anderson was in his late forties, husky but not fat, with a weathered face and gray hair. His hand settled on Candice’s knee, kneading her flesh. Feeling Kincaid’s warning look, Candice managed to smile again.

“Why don’t you sit here, honey,” Anderson said, patting his lap.

Kincaid was signaling for drinks. Candice got up and settled gingerly on Anderson’s lap. The man promptly placed one hand low on her abdomen, fingers spreading. They dug into her flesh.

“Have you talked to Arnold?” Kincaid asked.

“Sure have. He says he’d sell out for two thousand, not a penny less.”

“Hmm.” Kincaid sipped his whiskey.

“’Course, what with the rustling and Indians, he might feel obliged to change his mind soon,” Arnold said, his hand sliding up to lift Candice’s breast. She stiffened. He began fondling it, his fingers searching out her nipple and stroking it to hardness.

“Why don’t we make sure that he does?” Kincaid said.

“To partners,” Anderson agreed, raising his drink. Glasses clicked and they drank. “Honey, you are so quiet. How about a whiskey for the lady,” he called to Lorna. He nudged her neck with his cheek. “You like that idea, honey?”

“Just fine,” Candice managed.

The next half hour passed at a snail’s pace. Anderson kept stroking and pinching her breasts. The two men discussed business and the current news, especially the latest slaughter led by Geronimo and his renegades. Anderson shifted Candice off his lap and excused himself. “But I’ll be back.” He grinned at Candice and gave her a kiss on the lips. She kept her mouth shut.

Kincaid grabbed her wrist and twisted it. “You’re not living up to my expectations of you,” he warned menacingly.

“You’re hurting me,” she protested.

“Do I have to take you back upstairs again?”

“No.”

He pulled her closer, then glanced down her bodice reflexively. “I have some business to attend to. I’ll be back in two hours. Don’t think of doing anything foolish—Jim is going to keep an eye on you. You are going to let Anderson drill you tonight, Candice. I don’t expect you to show enthusiasm—just spread your legs.” He released her.

Candice forced down her hysteria.

Kincaid stood as Anderson sat, pulling Candice back on his lap. “Dick, I have something to attend to, but I’ll be back later.”

“Fine.” Dick beamed, wrapping his arms around Candice’s waist. “We don’t need him, do we, honey?”

Kincaid walked out.

“Mmm, you smell good,” Anderson said, nuzzling her neck. Candice sat stiff and willed herself not to cry. His hand plunged into her bodice and lifted out a full, ripe breast. He squeezed and nibbled her neck. Candice closed her eyes.