Apache Fire
Diversion Books
A Division of Diversion Publishing Corp.
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New York, NY 10016
www.DiversionBooks.com
Copyright © 1995 by Theresa DiBenedetto
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
For more information, email
[email protected]
First Diversion Books edition July 2014
ISBN:
978-1-62681-348-9
Soft as a lamb's breath, the summer night's whisper barely stirred the sultry air, but it brought the scent of a woman to Niko.
The Apache stilled, his breathing instantly the same slow cadence of his heart. Honed by hunger and a warrior's skills, his lithe, taut body easily melded with the deeper shadows near the ranch's smokehouse.
He drew his knife from its rawhide sheath with the silence of smoke rising. With inborn patience, he waited for the cry of “Thief!” to break like the scream of the hawk sighting prey.
His senses alerted him to the essence of a white womanâharsh soap, stiffened layers of cloth that adorned the pale body, and sweat.
But fragrant with a woman's musky smell, just the same.
The white woman had labored this day. Her sigh was deep, and thankful for its end.
And Niko had been many moons without a woman.
From the corral came the restless shift and stir of a newly fenced group of young mares and their offspring. He had hidden and watched the white men who lived in the tightly closed small houses capture the band from the large wild herd. It was not enough that these men took the very food from a warrior's people, they stole the freedom of all wild things, as well. Was there nothing that the white men did not seek to take and lock away? He knew of none, for they did this even to their women.
She drew nearer. The moon cast its long shadow and light upon her. Niko felt the quickening of his blood. He knew what would happen to him if he was caught stealing. The soldiers would come to lock him away in their tiny dark place in one of their forts. They would curse and spit at him, naming him
savage
.
They would beat him for setting his eyes upon their women.
They would kill him if he dared to touch one.
And that was how close she had come to him. Within an arm's reach.
He was aware that she sensed something. Her hesitant step, the slow searching movement of her head, turning this way, and now back. She stared at where he stood, but did not see him.
Her hair was not the dark of the heart of the night, like an Apache maid's. As with many things that the whites had stolen, this woman had captured both the sun's long rays and those of the moon within her hair.
His fingers gripped the bone handle of his knife a little harder. He was curious to touch it, this hair that lay thick and coiled upon the back of her head.
Suddenly Niko grew even more quiet, holding air within his lungs. She had half turned toward him again, and he could look upon her face.
To the women of the Chiricahua, he had spoken many words of praiseâof their skills, fine dancing, good cooking, and the ease of laughter slipping free. But as a man, he held a more honored position than a woman, and the maidens were well guarded, so his words to them were not those of a man to a woman.
Within him rose the powerful need to hear an invitation to this woman's blankets. And for him to speak lies like those of the soldiers who coaxed the young women of his people to spread blanket and legs when the lust was upon them.
Where he was dark, she was fair. Where he was strong, she appeared a new shoot, easily bent, easily broken. Soft looking, like the downy breast feathers of a newly hatched bird, whereas he was hard, like the mountains he called home.
Poised like a doe to flee, she still waited. Her head tilted to one side, listening, he was sure, for some sign that he was there. Her strength could not be measured against his. She was woman, and he, he was of the
Netdahee
, the killer warriors, chosen because of his fierce fighting skills to be of the elite of all the Chiricahua.
“I know you're here. I can't see you, but I know I'm right.”
The softest whisper. The greatest danger.
She took a step forward. Niko took a step back, hugging the wood of the smokehouse. He did not want to kill her. But he would not have her call out, and see himself hunted before he had taken what he had come for.
“Please, you're frightening me. If you've come to steal again, my brother is just waiting for an excuse to go to the army. I know the people are hungry. I visited the reservation today for the first time.”
He heard few of the words that poured forth from lips red as berry juice.
Steal
and
brother
. And the hated
army
. Even to himself he would not use the word for the holding of his people like cattle in pens. But he knew hunger. It prowled the bellies of the warriors, the women, and the smaller ones of hungry children. And she called themâ¦
the people
. Not savages, not animals.
The urge to touch the soft cloth that covered her from wrist to shoulder, from neck to shoes, saw the involuntary rise of his hand. She would see him then, if he reached out, for the slash of the moonlight crossed the earth at that point.
Would she cry out and rouse those in the house? Or would she fall as one who had drunk too much
tiswin?
This close, her scent coiled around him. No matter how shallow the breath he drew, he took a part of the woman into him.
He smelled her fear, heard her harsh breathing, and envisioned her heart pounding like the furious beating of the eagle's wings soaring skyward. A noise made him instantly alert. He looked toward the house. The door was open.
“An-gie! Angie, where have you taken yourself? Answer me, girl.”
“I'm not a child, Grant,” Angie Wallace mumbled under her breath. Someone was there, but her fear came from the unknown, it was not for herself. With a shrug for the strange thought, she moved out toward the spill of light from the house.
Her brother called again. If she didn't answer him, he would come looking for her. “I'm here, Grant. Right where you can see me,” she added, once more moving forward.
“C'mon in, girl. Ain't no cause for you to go prowling around at night. I warned you, it ain't all that safe this close to the reservation. Never know when them savages'll take it into their heads t' raid us.”
“Please, a moment more, Grant. It's cooler out here. I won't go far. I promise.” Her brother's tall, gaunt figure was outlined in the doorway, and from inside the house she heard his wife, Kathleen.
“Leave your sister be. She hasn't yet grown to hate this land.”
“Cease your prattling,” Grant ordered. “See you don't wander off, Angie.”
She didn't answer. She had already turned back, trying to pierce the shadows to see who stood there.
Niko smiled. There was spirit in the white woman. The man called her a girl, but he heard the calm of a woman's voice.
“Are you one of the boys come to steal from us again? My sister-in-law, Kathleen, told me there had been meats missing. Please, don't be afraid of me. I know what it means to be hungry. Come out, boy. Let me see you.”
Boy!
She named him
child
, when he had been a warrior grown for ten turns of the seasons! Niko, his pride slighted, threw caution to the dust and stepped out from the shadows.
Her choked cry pleased him.
Boy?
Never would she name him such.
“Oh, my L-Lord, you're notâ¦not a b-boy at all.” Angie swallowed, but her mouth was still dry. She hated the stutter, but it always happened when she was nervous. Wiping her suddenly damp palms on her skirt, she was surprised she could speak. The Indian before her wasn't nearly as tall as her brother, but she had to angle her head back to look up at him. Straight black hair brushed past his shoulders. A torn cloth was wrapped around his forehead to hold it back from his face. Spying the wicked-looking knife he held in one hand as if he would lunge and rip her apart in a second, she felt a chill in her bone marrow.
Hard
. It was the only word she could use to describe the strong, masculine cast of his features. Angie had a great deal of courage, and it took most of it to fight off the terror that held her. His eyes were black, piercing her with an intense look that bespoke mockery.
She took a small backward jump, but he only crossed his arms over his chest. She stopped looking at the knife. If he was going to hurt herâkill herâhe would have acted quickly.
On her visit to the reservation earlier, she had seen the women and the hollow-eyed children. She had not seen one man. What her eyes beheld now was not the savage that Grant described, of painted face and breechcloth. He was dressed in the colors of the earth. The lean, rawhide-tough appearance came from a double-breasted nut brown linsey shirt such as her brother wore. Buckskin pants clung to his narrow hips and flat stomach. She glanced at the knee-high moccasins that helped him move so silently, then up at his face.
Goose bumps fled in the heat of a rising anger. The mockery in his eyes had spread to the smile of full lips. It annoyed her that she thought his smile pleasing, but it did soften his straight, hawklike nose and the broad slant of his cheekbones.
He was a handsome man. The moment the thought formed, Angie felt uncomfortable.
Not a man. A savage. A heathen Apache who would slit her throat in the turn of a moment for no more reason than she was white
.
Kathleen's words. Kathleen's fear.
It suddenly became her own. Had she lost her mind, to stand here like a helpless victim? But men, all men, thrived on making fear their weapon. Nodding to herself, she made up her mind.
Niko had no thought to kill her. She was not a girl, as the man had called her. She looked at him with the eyes of a woman. Eyes that revealed the curiosity of a woman for a man. He thought she had spirit. She had not given sign that he was there. A strange white woman, this one. Fear had been in those eyes, too. She had snatched it away and swiftly hidden it.
“You have come to steal from us, haven't you?”
He did not like the word upon her tongue. Before she could know his intent, Niko grabbed hold of her shoulder with his free hand, spun her around and locked her against his chest with the gentle pressure of his knife against her throat.
She did not cry out. She did not fall against him as one drunk on
tiswin
. Like a woman of his people, she waited, taut as a bowstring, quivering like an arrow newly struck to its target.
What was he to do with her? His belly growled with hunger, and he slid his free arm over the slight rise of her breasts to hold her slender waist. It shamed him that she heard the weakness in his body.
But that shame was small compared to the fire in his loins as the heat of her body seeped into his. He groaned, closing his eyes for a second, breathing deeply of the woman's scent that had enticed him from the first.
Angie's rippling quivers turned to violent trembling. She could
feel
him. Even through the layers of clothing that protected her body, she could feel the swift change in his.
His fingers had tightened against her side. The cool metal of his knife barely touched her throat, but she couldn't swallow. He angled his head lower, and the fine, silky-soft black hair brushed her cheek.
His breathing was labored.
Hers was lost somewhere in lungs that couldn't drag enough air inside to keep the black lights from dancing in front of her eyes.
The threat of thievery didn't matter.
He was dragging her backward, toward the smokehouse.
She had to do
something
.
In her mind, she screamed. A mewling cry escaped her lips.
She saw herself fighting him off. The feel of the knife against her throat kept her still.
His lips touched the bare skin of her neck. Panic sent a surge of blood pumping through her body. She could not think of what he would do to her.
It was all that filled her mind. A suffocating helplessness warred with her refusal to allow fear to win.
She forgot about the knife and tried to kick him.
Impeded by skirt and petticoats, fooled as she was into thinking she could make quaking limbs obey, it was a futile attempt.
He would use the knife now. She would die before she accomplished all she had dreamed about.
His hips canted forward, and with the aid of the arm around her waist, he lifted her. Her feet dangled between his spread legs.
Angie had never fainted in her life. But a black void beckoned to her now. The need to fight seeped from her body, and she sagged limply against him. She didn't pray. Prayers had proved useless. All her prayers and pleading, begging and promises, hadn't saved her child. She had come west to her brother with the hope of healing the raw wound that death had left behind.
For her curiosity, her defiance of Grant's warnings, there would be no healing. No chance to pick up scattered pieces and rebuild them so that she could go on living. She was going to be raped and killed.
His sudden turn pressed her flat against the rough wood of the smokehouse. The growl of his belly made her wonder if he intended to eat first. The sheer stupidity of the thought made her struggle against his hold.
She did not want to die.
“Open.”
Open?
What? It took several times of repeating the word before she realized that he had spoken in English. She couldn't ask what he meant. Harsh and grating, his voice was an insidious whisper against her ear, repeating the order.
Niko took one step back to allow her room to pull out the peg that latched the door. Like a flower denied life-giving rain, she wilted in his arms. He had meant to frighten her so that she wouldn't cry out. It was not his intent to leach the spirit of her as the sun leached moisture from the earth.
With his knife hand, he made a quick shift, and pressed the bone handle against her lips. His thumb found a soft niche between the seam of her mouth. His arm slipped. The weight of her breasts rested on his forearm. Sweat beaded on his flesh. He did not want this woman with the smell of rain in her hair.
“Open the door,
iszáÅ
.”
Raising an arm numb with fear, Angie fumbled with the latch. How much time had passed? Would Grant come looking for her? No, he wouldn't. Kathleen would tell him to leave her be.
She only knew she had accomplished opening the door because of the overpowering smell of smoked meats. It was as black in here as the shadows outside. But he couldn't hold on to her and get what food he wanted. He would have to let her go. Courage was what she needed to wait and then make her move to run.
“So much,” Niko muttered, judging the wealth of meats by dizzying smell. He had wasted enough time with the white woman. He was as aware as she had to be that the man would come to look for her soon.
He needed his hands free to gather enough food to make this raid worth his time. He was a warrior and a hunter, not a gatherer. That was left to the women. And his thoughts came back to what he should do with the one he held in his arms.
Hunger prowled his belly. A wilder hunger prowled his body. He should think of the injustice that had brought him to this pass. Anger over his people's treatment at the hands of whites was the thing to fan into flame, not the fire this woman stirred in his blood.
“To move is to die,” he whispered against the small shell of her ear.
With the flat blade of his knife pressed against her nose, his hand still covering her mouth, Niko slowly slid his arm from her waist. His breaths were harsh, as if he had run a long way, and he heard the sound of them melding with her own panting breaths. He waited for her to move. He took a step back, needing to distance his body from hers.
His acute hearing picked up the restless stir of the horses in the corral. There was no more time. “Fill the sack.”
Angie clutched the rough cloth shoved into her hand. She couldn't see a blasted thing, but she felt him remove the knife and hand from her face. The tip did not touch her skin, but a mere movement of air as he trailed it down her chin, following the centerline of her throat, and down, farther still, between her breasts, was a potent threat. The moment she knew he had removed the knife and himself, she forced shaking limbs to move. Hanging from the rafters were hams, sides of bacon too heavy for her, and joints of venison and beef. A well-stocked larder, she recalled telling her brother. He would kill her if he knew that she was helping an Apache steal from him.
The Apache would kill her if she didn't.
He
was strong. He was dangerous. And he was here. Grant, thank the merciful heavens, was still safe inside the house.
Angie struggled to fill the sack. She no more thought of asking for his help than she had of refusing. The rough burlap must have held grain, for it was large, and she filled it mostly with hams, since those were the easiest for her to handle.
“It won't hold any more,” she said at last, feeling the sweat that had drenched her. The air was too close. Fear of what he would do to her still held sway so that she couldn't breathe normally.
“The
iszáÅ
did good,” Niko said. He stepped up behind her, and from his cloth belt took two of the strips of rawhide that he carried. “Stand against the wall.” The brush of her skirt against his leggings made his manhood swell painfully. Too, too long since he had lain with a woman.
“Wh-whatâ” Angie had to stop and swallow repeatedly to get moisture back in her mouth. She couldn't even ask a coherent question. “Me? Will you⦠please, j-just g-go.”
The rustling of the sack was all she heard, and then he stood close to her again.
“It is good
iszáÅ
fears.
This time
Niko takes meat for his people.” In a flash, he slid the edge of his knife under the button at her throat. He caught the small, pearl-like button before it fell. “Now you breathe.”
Breathe? Was the man crazy, as well as dangerous? He was too close. She could feel the heat of his body. And what did he call her in his language?
A warble came from somewhere outside, and she sensed his attention turned from her.
“Angie!”
“Oh, God, it's Grant! He'll kill you!”
Niko did not need her to tell him this. He knew the danger of lingering. Matizo had warned him twice now from where he stood guard over their horses. It had been his choice to leave his Henry rifle with his
siquisn
. But Matizo was a novice warrior, and the lone survivor of his family. He could not risk his being hurt or caught.
“Lift the sack.”
His snapped order caught Angie by surprise. If her life depended upon it, she couldn't lift the heavy sack.
But your life does depend upon it
.
The will to live lent her strength. The fact that he had tied the sack closed gave her a way to grip one end, but at best, Angie could only drag it a few feet.
“Weak. Soft. White
iszáÅ
.” Niko spat the words like a white man's curses. But the anger was for himself. He reached out, and with his long, strong fingers gripped her hair. With a yank that cut off her whimper of fear, he had her against his body. “You wish his death?”
She had no need to ask who. Grant's shouts, calling her name, were growing louder. The slight shake of her head turned into a violent movement that she couldn't seem to stop as terror took hold. His voice was hard, cold, so that now he sounded the savage
“You no cry out.”
“N-no.”
Niko had to leave. It wouldn't be long before the man came to the smokehouse in search of this woman. He did not understand why he did not strike her to silence, or bind her mouth. He could not make sense of his reluctance to let her go.
Angie was frightened. Curiosity had gotten her into tight corners before, but never with her life at risk. Why didn't he let her go? She didn't have enough spit left to call out to Grant. Even if she did, she wouldn't pit Grant against this man.
Savage, Angie, he's a savage
.
“Usen has gifted the
iszáÅ
with wisdom.” Niko touched her cheek, his fingers brushing the tears that fell. And he knew he could not hurt her, could not take her. He would not be named by the white man's curse.
Savage
. He would not do to this woman what had been done to the women of his people.
Never would he see the broken, bleeding body of a woman hurt by his hand. It was enough that he carried those images of his mother, his sister, and others he would not name.
He moved quickly then, slinging the sack over his shoulder and slipping outside. He kept to the shadows as much as he could. Matizo would be waiting, ready to ride.
Darting past the corral fence, he whispered noises to the horses. He did not want to think thoughts of the woman.
The blast of a shotgun roared and split the night into the frightened screams of women, the milling, panicked sounds of the horses, and the man's yelled warnings.
Niko did not stop his flight. He did not look back. Once he found the path through a small strip of woods, he knew he was safe. The white man had no dogs to set upon his trail. It was the reason he had chosen this outlying ranch to raid.
Matizo was already mounted when Niko reached him. He caught the braided horsehair reins that his brother tossed to him. With care and patience, he secured the sack, talking all the while to his black, who stamped restlessly and turned his head repeatedly to investigate the strange bundle on his back. There was no need for Niko to hurry now. He knew the whites' ways well. They would not be hunted this night. The fears of the white men were many when they came into the lands of his father. They were afraid of the dark of the night, and the night belonged to the Apache.
Niko smoothed a hand over the black's powerful neck, offering thanks to Usen that he, his brother and their most precious horses were safe. These men who came to claim land none could own would kill the people, calling them dogs, but they all coveted the Apache's horses.
“Why were you so long,
siquisn?
The moon sits heavy in the sky.”
Niko grabbed the black's mane and swung himself up behind the tied sack. Had he been long with the woman? He thought it moments, moments he bad not wanted to end. With a rough shake of his head, he forced himself not to think of her.
“Ride, little brother. We fill hungry bellies this night. The time does not count.”
Matizo echoed his brother's wild cry, kicking his bay into a gallop. Only once, as they topped the rise where they had hidden to wait and watch the ranch below, did he turn to see the blaze of lights filling the Anglos' buildings. Like stick figures, three stood in the clearing, but the night breeze carried no sound to him.
He counted ten turns of the seasons, and never had he felt this chilling dread come upon him.
“Niko,” he called out, his voice soft, as he drew his horse closer to his brother's. “Never return to this place. It holds
ditko
for you.”
“Are you still in your cradleboard, Matizo? How would bloodfire hurt me? Is not my name of fire? Coupled with that of Mother Earth? Do you question that the very spirit of my name will protect me?”
“Never do I question the wisdom of the spirits that chose to name you Earthfire. And may the spirit of White Painted Woman and the Thunder People protect you always, my brother.” Matizo spurred his horse ahead.
Niko let him go.
What touched his brother in this place?
Was this the sign that Matizo was ready to choose his own path? With a heavy heart, he rode on. Warrior or shaman. So it had been said of his brother. For himself, there had never been a choice. The deaths of his family had set the trail he was to follow.
From the tucks in his cloth belt, he took the button he had cut from the woman's clothes. Controlling the black with the press of his knees, Niko opened his shirt and lifted out his medicine bag. He opened a small space in the deerhide bag and slipped the small, white button inside with all the signs of protection and luck he had gathered over the years.
The fire in his loins had but eased. He could not promise himself that he would not go back to the woman who made him burn.