“Welcome home, Meade,” Case greeted him as they shook hands.
“The same to you,” he replied. “We’ve been very anxious about you.”
Case nodded. “I just came from Fort Apache where General Crook told me that you had brought Rayna Templeton here. I need to speak with her. Where is she?”
“She’s been working the roundup, and she’s not back yet,” Meade told him, a frown of worry furrowing his brow. “I’m starting to become concerned.”
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Case was surprised to learn that their guest had been put to work, but he didn’t question it. At that moment Jedidiah appeared and greeted his surro-gate son warmly.
“Has Libby told you yet?” Jed asked, beaming from ear to ear. “Rayna told us some things about Skylar that—”
“That prove she is my sister,” Case said, finishing Jedidiah’s sentence for him. “Yes, I know.” He reached into his pouch and withdrew Skylar’s Thunder Eagle necklace. “She made this herself from her memory of our mother’s necklace. The Mescaleros gave it to me along with the other belongings she left behind. Once I saw it and touched it, I knew she was Morning Star.”
“Have you found her?” Meade asked. “Do you have any idea where she might be?”
Case’s face took on the inscrutable look of stone that had driven Meade insane in the old days. “No. I went south into Mexico, but I found no trace of them.”
“Did you encounter Geronimo?” Jedidiah asked, as they moved into the parlor.
“It would be more accurate to say that he encountered me, as I knew he would. Once I reached the Sierra Madre, two of his scouts intercepted me and finally agreed to arrange a face-to-face meeting,” he explained. “Geronimo swore that he knew nothing of Sun Hawk or Skylar, and I believed him. He had no reason to lie to me.”
Meade sat on the arm of the sofa. “Did you take advantage of the opportunity to invite him to return to the reservation?”
“After a fashion,” Case answered. “I told him that the Gray Fox would be coming for him soon and he should come in now.”
“To which he replied . . . ?”
Case shook his head. “He is determined to fight to the death this time. He is raiding in Mexico and across the border, and he seems to think he can elude the Mexican authorities forever. He won’t be easy to root out of the mountains—if Crook ever gets permission to go after him,” he added.
“So you’re no closer to finding Skylar than you were three weeks ago,”
Libby noted sadly.
“No. Although Crook did tell me that there have been several raids on ranches to the east of the San Carlos and White Mountain reservations. The locals in those areas are blaming reservation Apaches, and they could well be right—or it could be Sun Hawk trying to avoid having to join Geronimo.” He went on to relate the things he had learned about Sun Hawk from the brave’s father, and he explained the events surrounding the death of the soldier, Talbot.
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“One very good thing has happened,” he told them. “General Crook sent John Bourke, his adjutant general, to investigate Talbot’s death. After questioning Gatana and the other Verde Mescaleros, he interrogated Private Norris, the one who had sworn Skylar acted without provocation.”
“Did Norris recant?” Meade asked expectantly.
Case nodded. “Armed with the facts Gatana had given him, Bourke was able to break down Norris’s story in a matter of minutes. He confessed that Talbot had been obsessed with Skylar from the very beginning of the march.
He didn’t see the actual confrontation between them because Talbot dragged Skylar behind an outcropping of rocks, but he admitted that she had not ambushed Talbot without provocation.”
“Then there are no charges against Skylar?” Libby asked.
“None.”
“Rayna will be very relieved to know that,” Meade said. “But what about Sun Hawk?”
“Since the soldier he attacked didn’t die, Crook is inclined to be lenient,”
he answered, his eyes taking on a shuttered facade that masked his anger.
“Bourke and I both gave the general the accounts of several Mescaleros who swore that my sister was beaten and abused. Crook knows that Sun Hawk was right to fear for Skylar’s life. If he turns himself in, I doubt that he’ll spend more than a few days in the guardhouse.”
It was fully dark, and Libby had lit the lamps by the time Case finished, but Rayna still hadn’t returned. Meade was growing more anxious by the minute, and finally he couldn’t sit still any longer.
“Excuse me, Case,” he said as he stood. “I think I’ll check with the hands and see if anyone knows what’s keeping Rayna.”
As he left, Case looked curiously at Libby. “What’s wrong with your brother?”
“We’ve had a strange time of it here while you’ve been gone, beloved,” she told him. “Rayna Templeton is not a usual woman, and my brother has finally fallen in love.”
Case’s surprise showed plainly on his handsome face. “This is the same brother who so often told you he didn’t believe that love existed?”
“The very same.”
A slow smile spread over his features. “I think I will enjoy meeting Miss Rayna Templeton even more than I had expected.”
Meade made it only as far as the back porch when Rayna and her trail partner, Luis Santiago, came riding in toward the stable. By that time he was so worried about her that all his judicious notions of taking just the right kid-glove tone with her had been quashed.
“Where the devil have you been?” he asked as he charged toward the stable.
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Rayna slid down from Triton and began dusting off her Levi’s with her hat.
“We were rounding up the last of the strays around Windwalk Mesa and delivering them to the holding pen. Where do you think we’ve been?”
“Come into the house,” he commanded.
“I have to take care of Triton first.”
Meade took the reins out of her hands and tossed them to Luis. “Would you mind taking care of Miss Rayna’s horse, Luis?” he asked the man.
“I can take care of my own horse, thank you very much.”
He looked down at her and said bluntly, “Case is back.”
All the fight left Rayna, and she hardly dared to breathe. “Is Skylar with him?”
All of her emotions were shining in her eyes, and Meade hated having to crush the hope that blossomed there. “No.”
Rayna closed her eyes tightly and covered her face with her hands.
“Damn! Damn . . . damn . . . When is it going to end!” she screamed, her voice strangled by all the pain that came bubbling to the surface.
Unable to bear seeing her anguished, he placed his hands on her shoulders gently, and she looked up at him with tears streaming down her face. “When, Meade? When is it going to end?” she asked softly.
He gathered her into his arms. “I don’t know.”
She clung to him for a while, gathering the strength and control that had momentarily abandoned her, then pulled brusquely away and marched off to the house to meet her sister’s Apache brother.
Case Longstreet was everything Rayna had expected and more. He was a large man, very tall and imposing, with broad shoulders; but more than that, he had a commanding presence and an aura of peace surrounding him that was mesmerizing. His dark eyes were often unreadable unless he was looking at his wife, and then he held nothing back. Libby was a lucky woman indeed.