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Many of his people did not agree with their chief’s decision, and that night a war council was held. Consayka and the other Verde braves were invited to attend, and Skylar learned later that many braves favored joining Geronimo.
Fortunately, Sun Hawk had not been one of them. Though the order to move was a terrible blow and an outrageous injustice, he had counseled peace.
Consayka believed that some of the braves would steal away in the night, taking their families with them, not caring if they were branded renegades.
The younger ones whose blood ran hot were sick of being treated like dogs.
To them, dying as warriors seemed preferable to dying as slaves.
Skylar knew that if the braves left, their people would suffer for it, and that saddened her. This move was all so unnecessary. It was also a great blow to her, but she tried not to dwell on the complications the move was obviously going to cause. This morning she had rejoiced because she finally had the means to communicate with her family, but already that fragile thread had been broken. Rescuing her from the Mescalero reservation was proving hard enough; how much more difficult would it be to get her off the Rio Alto, hundreds of miles away in the Arizona Territory?
Skylar waited until her friends had all retired for the night before she began the task of relating the events of the day to Rayna in a letter she dreaded writing. Newsome had promised to post it for her, but she had no assurance that the soldiers or the Rio Alto agent would do her a similar courtesy in the future. Knowing this letter might be the last her family would receive from her, she wanted to tell them everything that had happened to her and assure them she was surviving.
Sitting by the fire in front of her lodge, she wrote page after page. She would have a full day tomorrow striking camp, but she couldn’t bring herself to conclude the letter. She wrote long descriptions of the people she had met and the conditions on the reservation. She confessed the difficulties she was having and poked fun at the many mistakes she had made.
“I think you would have been proud of me today, Rayna,” she wrote.
“When Agent Newsome made his announcement of our impending departure, I stepped to the forefront with the assembled Mescalero leaders and began asking questions. Naturally, my boldness was motivated by self-interest, for I was thinking only of how this move would take me farther away from you, Mother, and Papa.
“Presently, though, I found myself acting as interpreter when Newsome’s assistant created a panic among us by inaccurately relaying one of his employer’s messages. A tragedy was narrowly averted, and as I think on it now, I am amazed at myself. It is not like me to leap into the fray. That has always been your forte, and I have always been content to stand back and let you fight the battles, even the ones that involved me.
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Constance Bennett—Moonsong
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“Could it be that some of your fortitude has transferred itself to me? Truly, I often find myself thinking, What would Rayna do in this instance? My actions can be only a poor imitation of yours, at best, but I cannot deny that I am changing.”
She wrote on, losing all track of time, but finally a sense that she was being watched drew her out of the word painting she was creating. Frowning into the darkness, she looked up and saw a dark shape just beyond the rim of firelight. Her pulse quickened, but not out of fear, when she recognized the visitor. Sun Hawk was standing there watching her. With a smile of welcome she beckoned to him, and he came to the fire.
“My Apache father and the other braves are asleep,” she told him, keeping her voice low so that she wouldn’t disturb anyone in the nearby lodges.
Sun Hawk crouched beside her, careful to keep a respectable distance between them. “I know this. It was you I came to see, but I did not want to startle you as I have in the past.”
“I was not startled.”
“I know this, too. You are learning.”
Skylar found it difficult to hold his gaze and glanced at the fire. “Not quickly enough, I fear.”
In the small silence that fell between them, Sun Hawk studied her profile in the dancing firelight and wondered if coming here had been a mistake. It had been a long time since he had spoken to her at the stream and she had solved the mystery of why she seemed so different from the other Verdes.
With his curiosity satisfied, Sun Hawk had expected that his fascination with her would end. It had not. If anything, she called to him even more strongly than before.
He had made a pointed effort to stay away from the Verde camp, but that had not erased her from his thoughts. Her beauty haunted him, and the quiet dignity with which she carried herself in her daily struggle to survive touched his heart. Seeing her courageously stand up to Newsome and the others today had increased his respect for her, and he had found it impossible to stay away any longer.
Now, though, seeing her by the fire so composed and so lovely made his heart race and his loins tighten. He had been a fool to come, but he could not bring himself to leave.
Skylar knew he was watching her, and her face grew warm. “Why are you here?” she asked when she could no longer bear the silence or his intense scrutiny.
Sun Hawk roused himself from his foolish reverie. “To tell you what a good thing you did today. Had you not spoken, some of my people might have been killed,” he said, wondering if one of the deities would punish him for the half-truth he told.
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Constance Bennett—Moonsong
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“I was happy to do it,” she assured him, pulling her gaze away from the fire to his face.
Sun Hawk nodded. He had said what he came to say, and now he should go. But he couldn’t. Instead, he gestured toward the letter Skylar had placed on the ground beside her. “What is this?”
She handed him several of the pages. “It is a—” She struggled for an Apache word comparable to “letter,” but since the Apache had no written language, there was none that she had ever heard. “A letter,” she said finally in English.
“Let-ter,” he repeated, looking at the strange marks on the parchment. He had seen paper, of course, and the white man’s scratching, since he was required to make a mark in a book when he received his rations. He had never seen so many scribblings all together, though.
He handed the papers back to her. “Why do you do this?”
“I am talking to my sister, telling her of my life here and that I will soon be at Rio Alto,” she explained. “Newsome has promised to send my words to my family so that they will know I am well.”
“I saw the agent give you a package today.”
Skylar nodded. “This was in it, along with letters from my parents and sister.”
Sun Hawk looked at her closely. “I saw it made you cry,” he told her, watching for her reaction. “Were the words they sent you sad ones?”
“No,” she said, smiling. “My tears were ones of happiness. When I was taken from Rancho Verde, the pain in my father’s heart was too much for him and he became ill. When I learned that he had not died, I cried with joy.”
Sun Hawk could see the happiness on her face, but strangely, it did not please him. This woman had ties to the white man’s world that would never be broken. “Then your white father will come for you soon?”
Skylar’s smile faded. “No. General Whitlock, the chief of soldiers, would not release me. Only General Crook can do that now, and my sister is waiting for his answer.”
Sun Hawk recognized both names and was surprised by the second one.
“Gray Fox has returned?”
“Yes. Do you know him?”
“I have not met him, but I have heard many good things about him. It is said he does not lie, and if he makes a promise he will keep it—even if the promise is made to an Apache.”