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the only military man who had ever engineered any kind of meaningful peace with the Apaches. The Indians trusted him because he had proven himself a man of his word during his campaigns against them in the mid-1870’s. Had he been left in charge, Meade had no doubt that the Apache menace would have ceased to exist long ago.
Unfortunately the army had transferred him to the Department of the Platte to fight the Sioux in 1875, and the corrupt “Indian Ring” of bamboo-zlers and outright thieves had systematically destroyed what little confidence the Apache had in the word of the white man.
“I sincerely hope you’re right about that, Case. With Geronimo on the warpath, bringing Crook back would be the smartest thing the army ever did.”
He grinned at his brother-in-law. “You think they’ve got that much good sense?”
Meade was treated to one of Case’s rare laughs. The deep, melodious sound started deep inside him and overflowed into the night. “Frankly, my brother, I don’t,” he said with a smile once his laughter had subsided. “But I believe in my vision. Crook will return.”
“If he does, you know he’ll come to you,” Meade commented, his tone serious.
Case’s smile faded. “I no longer wish to scout for the army.”
“But will you be able to refuse the Gray Fox? He’s a very persuasive man, and he trusts you implicitly. You know as well as I that the first thing he’ll do is recruit Apache scouts for the campaign against Geronimo, and he’ll want you to lead them.”
“I’m a rancher now, not a soldier.” Case’s voice was very quiet as he added,
“And sometimes I am not even sure I am an Apache any longer.”
Meade allowed the comment to hang in the air. One of the things he respected most about his brother-in-law was his ability to walk the fine line between his Apache heritage and the white world he had chosen to live in.
For Libby’s sake, Meade didn’t even want to consider the possibility that Case would ever doubt the choices he’d made.
The fiddle music in the house seemed very far away as a companionable silence stretched out between the two men. Meade lit another cheroot, then offered one to Case, who refused it with a simple shake of his head. On Windwalk Mesa the mournful coyote bayed again.
“We should return to your party now,” Case said when the cheroot went sailing into the yard.
Meade nodded. “Yes. Libby probably has Drucilla hogtied to a chair.”
“That’s unlikely,” Case replied as they turned toward the door. “Libby is terrible with a lasso.”
It was Meade’s turn to laugh. Case’s quiet humor always caught him off guard. But he was in for another surprise, too. Just as he opened the door, Case stopped him by placing one hand on his arm.
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“In case you are wondering, brother, you will be returning to us unharmed in October.”
Meade didn’t bother denying that he’d been curious. “Thank you . . .
brother.”
Case’s normally stoic face was suddenly softened by a devilish grin. “But you will not be alone.”
With that, he disappeared into the house, leaving Meade to wonder just what the devil he meant. Case’s knowing smile troubled him a lot more than the prediction itself.
The campfire crackled and shifted, sending a shower of tiny golden sparks into the air. None of the braves at the Mescalero war council noticed. Calm voices and reasonable words had deserted them hours ago; now they shouted at one another and hurled insults. They made threats. One stalked off in anger, then returned minutes later, ready to take up the fight again.
The old ones, who had seen too many of their people destroyed, counseled for peace. The young ones, who were outraged by confinement to the reservation, wanted to join Geronimo on the warpath. Fed by the fuel of their rage, the young voices were much louder than the old ones—with one exception. Sun Hawk sat in the midst of the fray watching the others expend their wrath. His face was an impassive mask, but his dark eyes were alert to every move and gesture his Apache brothers made. He had spoken once, earlier, before the talk had decayed into a contest to see who could shout the loudest.
Now he was waiting until the time was right to speak again.
“How long must our children go hungry because there is not enough food?” Dull Knife asked, his voice raised with the passion of his oratory. The guttural traits of the Apache language made him sound all the more fierce.
“When the White Eyes told us we must live in this valley and nowhere else, we believed their promises to give us blankets, horses, and beef! They robbed us of our right to feed and clothe ourselves, but do they keep their promises?
No! They give us one steer to feed a family of twenty for a month!”
“And how many beeves will Geronimo give us?” one of the elders asked.
“Enough to feed our families, Grandfather!” Dull Knife said, though the old man was not related to him. He used the term only as a token, since it was considered an insult to use an Apache’s name when addressing him.
Klo’sen shook his head. “I do not think so. Even now the horse soldiers are hunting him like an animal. They will chase him and his people into the mountains—”
“But they will never find him!” Dull Knife insisted.
“Perhaps, but Geronimo will not find cattle in the mountains, either. The deer he kills will be barely enough to feed those who follow him now. His 32
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women will not be able to gather juniper berries or harvest the mescal. His children will go hungry, too, and for what?”
“For freedom!” Dull Knife shouted.
“At what price?”
The hot-headed brave leapt to his feet and glared down at the old man.
“At least he is a warrior, not an old woman.”
Sun Hawk could be silent no longer. “Enough, cousin,” he said quietly as he rose and faced the would-be renegade. His height and the breadth of his shoulders gave him an advantage over the other brave, but Dull Knife did not back away. “You will not speak to our grandfather with disrespect. The battles he has led have brought glory to our people. He deserves better from you.”
“That was long ago,” Dull Knife replied, unintimidated by the reminder that the others regarded his distant cousin with great respect. “He has forgotten—”
“He has forgotten nothing,” Sun Hawk said forcefully, but still he did not raise his voice. When he turned and surveyed the faces around the fire, everyone including Dull Knife fell silent. “Listen to me, and mark the words well, my friends. To follow Geronimo would be madness. Once our people numbered in the thousands. We hunted buffalo and traded blankets for horses with our sometime friends, the Sioux. Our hunting grounds stretched farther than an old man could walk in a year.
“But now”—his voice took on a haunting sadness—”now we are only a few hundred, and I could run the length of our land between the rising and setting of the sun.”
Dull Knife smiled triumphantly. “What better reason do we need to join Geronimo?”
“It will change nothing for the good,” Sun Hawk replied calmly. “If we follow the way of the Chiricahua, we will no longer be Mescalero. Too many of our people will die, and what little land we have now will be taken from us.
For the sake of our children, we must not fight.”
Dull Knife spit on the ground at Sun Hawk’s feet. “What do you know of our children, Iya’itsa? You have none to awaken you in the night with their tears of hunger, and you allowed your own to die unavenged.”