“We got trouble, Raymond,” Ben Martinez said.
“Oh?” He looked from one man to the other.
Samuel Aloysius Hadley nodded a confirmation. “Big trouble, Mr. Templeton.”
“Well, spit it out,” Raymond demanded.
Hadley looked at the two ladies uncomfortably, then made his decision.
“Geronimo’s on the warpath again.”
“And he’s headed this way,” Ben added.
Raymond sighed heavily. “Hellfire and damnation. Come on in, boys. We got some plannin’ to do.”
The men adjourned to Raymond’s study, and though Collie tried to discourage Rayna from participating in the conversation, a team of wild horses couldn’t have kept her away. Their guests settled into the twin armchairs opposite Raymond’s desk, and Rayna took a seat on the small sofa behind them.
With a minimum of embellishment, Hadley related what he’d learned of the Chiricahua renegade’s bloody escape from the reservation at San Carlos in Arizona. Telegraphed reports gave several different versions of the outbreak, 13
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some stating that as many as thirty and as few as ten civilians and soldiers had been slaughtered.
Though Rayna had no direct knowledge of the attack, she would have been willing to guess that all the reports were exaggerated. As a general rule, anything that had to do with Apache depredations was blown out of all proportion by the press. Still, having Geronimo on the warpath was a dead serious matter.
There wasn’t a man, woman, or child in New Mexico who had forgotten the massacres of the previous spring when Chief Nana, one of Geronimo’s most trusted allies, had terrorized the Rio Grande valley. His raids had lasted only six weeks, but before he disappeared into Mexico he had killed nearly fifty New Mexicans, taken several women captive, and stolen more than two hundred horses and mules. All that . . . accomplished by a seventy-year-old chieftain and forty Apaches who had a thousand soldiers hot on their trail.
If Geronimo was headed for New Mexico, Nana would undoubtedly come out of hiding to join him, and blood was going to flow like water.
Rayna was impressed by the way Hadley told the story of the recent outbreak. Obviously he had received several telegraph dispatches, sorted through them, and come up with the best conclusions he could draw, considering the limitations under which he worked. And unlike Ben, who was punctuating Hadley’s tale by interjecting an occasional wild speculation, Samuel was remarkably calm. But then, he’d been in the territory for only a few months. He hadn’t experienced the terror caused by Nana’s raids or those of the Mescalero chief, Victorio, before that. Rayna had seen firsthand what destruction the Apaches could wreak.
“Tell ‘im about the head,” Ben encouraged, getting carried away with the story.
Hadley looked uncomfortable. “Well, it seems that . . . This is just an unconfirmed rumor, you understand . . . But it seems that one of the men at San Carlos was decapitated, and the savages . . . played football with the dis-membered head.”
“Dear God,” Rayna murmured, then instantly regretted having spoken. She was behind them, and the men had forgotten there was a lady present or they never would have spoken so freely.
Hadley was instantly apologetic. “I’m sorry, Miss Templeton. I shouldn’t have mentioned that.”
“It’s all right, Mr. Hadley,” she reassured him. “I’ve heard worse.”
“That may be, ma’am, but such matters aren’t—”
All her life men had been giving her the condescending speech about matters that were unfit for ladylike sensibilities, and she didn’t want to hear it again. “How reliable are the reports that he’s headed this way?” she asked, cutting him off.
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Hadley cleared his throat. He was never quite sure what to make of Rayna Templeton because she was so different from any woman he’d ever met. She hadn’t fainted dead away at the mention of the head, and since her father showed no sign of being uncomfortable at having her in the room, he decided to continue.
“As reliable as they can be at this point. Apparently word was slow coming out of San Carlos because the telegraph lines had been cut, but the renegades also killed five teamsters near Clifton. That means they headed due east from the reservation.” He wiped a hand over his pasty white face, and Rayna wondered if he’d gotten more than he bargained for when he decided to pursue his journalistic trade in this rugged, dangerous part of the country.
“This is a big territory, Raymond,” Ben commented, “but we can’t afford to take the chance that those savages won’t come up this way. We’d better start preparing now. I’ve got some of my men out already, warnin’ the ranches to the south. We were hopin’ you’d be able to spare a few to ride north and west.”
“I’ll have Gil get some men out first thing tomorrow,” he replied. Ben started to protest the delay, but his host overrode his objections. “Ben, you know as well as I do that it would take nearly a week for Geronimo to get this far.”
“That may be, but what about the Mescalero?” he asked defiantly. “If they hear that Geronimo is on the warpath, they might decide to join him the way some of them did with Nana last year.”
“The Mescalero reservation is well south of here, Ben. I don’t think we’re in any immediate danger.”
“Yeah, but those ain’t the only Mescaleros in the territory, Raymond,” he said significantly.
“Now, just a minute—” Rayna was on her feet instantly, but her father silenced her with a wave of his hand.
“I’ll handle this, honey. I think Ben knows he’s gone too far.”
“No, Raymond. You’re the one who’s gone too far,” Martinez countered.
“You got nearly twenty Apaches workin’ for you, and it ain’t right.”
Raymond exchanged an exasperated glance with his daughter. He had lost count of the number of times he’d had this argument with his neighbors.
When he purchased Rancho Verde he had inherited a small group of Mescaleros and had quickly seen the advantages of befriending them just as his predecessor had. Their leader was Consayka, who as a boy had broken away from his own people after being converted to Christianity by Spanish monks. When the land that was now Rancho Verde had been given to Don Diego Sebastian in a vast Spanish land grant, the don had allowed Consayka and his people to stay and had put them to work on the ranch.
Consayka was old now, and he had strong feelings about continuing the traditions of his Mescalero ancestors, but Raymond had no doubts about his 15
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commitment to peace. There was no way the ancient Apache would give a second thought to joining Geronimo on the warpath.
Unfortunately, getting his Johnny-come-lately neighbors to understand that was another matter entirely. “Ben, Consayka’s people haven’t made any trouble for sixty years. Most of them were born on Rancho Verde and have never even lived among their own people.”
“Can you deny that they still hold their heathen ceremonies?”
“No,” Raymond answered reluctantly. “But that doesn’t mean they have any interest in joining their brethren on the warpath even if the reservation Mescalero do revolt.”
Rayna could be silent no longer. “Ben, our Apaches are farmers, cowhands, and house servants. I seriously doubt whether they could even survive among their own people now.”
“All the same, you’re taking a terrible chance,” Martinez warned them.