“Right. What has the morning star got to do with them?”
Skylar shook her head helplessly as tears shimmered in her eyes. “I don’t know. I can’t remember. There’s a memory in my head that tantalizes me like a 21
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mirage in the desert, but when I reach out to touch it, it vanishes. All I know is that sons-ee-a-ray should mean something to me.”
Rayna had no idea how to ease her sister’s distress, and there was nothing she hated worse than feeling powerless. “Perhaps the memory will come to you in time,” she suggested lamely, and earned a small smile for her effort.
“I was taken from my people nineteen years ago, Rayna. It’s not likely that I’ll suddenly wake up one morning with all those memories intact. My old life will never come out of the shadows. I have learned to live with that.”
“Until something like this reminds you.”
Skylar nodded. “The feelings will pass. Come. Mother will be wondering what’s keeping us.” She started again toward the hacienda, and Rayna fell into step beside her. “All right, now, sister. You may tell me the real reason you came to fetch me.”
Rayna laughed. “I never could fool you, could I?”
“Not for very long,” Skylar replied, sharing her sister’s amusement. “Your eyes betray your emotions. Others can’t always see it, but I can. Something has troubled you deeply, and you don’t want to tell me about it.”
Rayna took a deep breath. “Geronimo has fled the San Carlos reservation and is rumored to be heading this way.”
“I see.” Though Skylar continued to walk, her body became very still, as though she had somehow drawn into herself, and a curtain fell over her features, making them unreadable. Rayna had seen it happen before. Her sister had inherited the stoicism of her ancestors, and when she chose to shut out the world, no one—not even Rayna—could penetrate the barriers she erected.
In an evenly modulated voice, Skylar asked questions, eliciting all the information her sister knew. Most of it was speculation, but even that was enough to cause concern. Where the Apache were concerned, everyone always assumed the worst.
“Did Mr. Martinez try to persuade Father to send the Mescalero away again?” she asked quietly.
Rayna knew Skylar wouldn’t believe a lie. “He did mention it, yes. But Father stood his ground. Nothing is going to happen to Consayka’s people.”
It was a long moment before Skylar replied. “I pray you are right, sister.”
They completed the long walk to the hacienda in silence.
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2
Arizona Territory, April 1882
Every window on the first floor of the modest two-story ranch house blazed with light, and the strains of a vigorous fiddle tune wafted out over the valley floor. There was no other sound for miles in any direction save for the occasional lowing of cattle in the distance and the haunting bay of a coyote somewhere up on Windwalk Mesa.
Keenly aware of the isolation of the Longstreet ranch, Major Meade Ashford relaxed against a post that supported the porch roof and extracted a slender cheroot from his pocket. His match flared briefly in the darkness, then arched through the air as he flicked it into the front yard. It landed in one of his sister’s flower beds, and Meade winced. If Libby found it tomorrow, there would be hell to pay. She’d been trying her hand at horticulture since the day he’d brought her to Arizona eight years ago, and she protected her garden almost as fiercely as she protected her two young children.
As far as the flowers were concerned, Meade had to admit that her results had improved tremendously over that first dismal year at Fort Apache when 23
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her garden had consisted of a heavy wooden container that looked more like a watering trough than a window box. She had placed it on the porch that connected their quarters with the post hospital, and though people had told her that flowers wouldn’t grow in the baking Arizona sun, she had been determined to prove them wrong.
Undaunted by her failure in ‘74, she had tried again the next year here at the ranch . . . and the year after that. After years of diligence, irrigation, and far more trouble than they were worth in Meade’s opinion, she had finally coaxed her roses into blooming.
Meade smiled down at the pitiful little bed of roses and realized that he was going to miss watching them bloom this year, despite all the teasing he had subjected his sister to over the years. He was going to miss the quiet solitude of this ranch, too . . . and his niece and nephew. He would miss them very much. Of course, it went without saying that he would miss Libby, and if pressed to admit it, he might even have confessed that he was going to miss his brother-in-law, Case Longstreet.
The one thing he felt certain he wouldn’t miss, though, was Fort Apache.
Eight years as post surgeon at that misbegotten hellhole had taken their toll on Meade. He had come to the position one year out of medical school at Harvard eager for adventure and challenge. Instead, he had been forced to witness more kinds of suffering than he had ever dreamed possible. Had it not been for Libby, he would have transferred long ago to some more hospitable climate and to a place where constant battles with the Apache wouldn’t have left so much blood on his hands.
But all that would be over soon. In four days he was being involuntarily transferred to Fort Marcy in New Mexico, and six months after that, he was leaving the army forever. Though he wasn’t looking forward to the transfer, he readily acknowledged that it would be nice to enjoy the relative quiet of Santa Fe for a while. It was a beautiful old city, situated far enough north to be somewhat removed—geographically, at least—from the army’s perpetual con-flict with the Apache.
After that, he would return here, to the ranch he had helped his brother-in-law purchase shortly before Case and Libby’s wedding. Though he was only thirty-six, Meade felt like an old man who had earned a quiet retirement, and he was looking forward to becoming a gentleman rancher. In the back of his mind was the idea that he might someday set up a small medical practice somewhere, but that wouldn’t be for a while yet. At the moment, his chosen profession was anathema.
“Meade? What are you doing out here?”
Libby’s quietly spoken question startled Meade. “Good Lord, Lib, don’t sneak up on a man like that.”
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“Sorry. I suppose some of my husband’s skills at stalking have rubbed off on me.”
“Among other things,” he grumbled.
“Don’t be contrary, Meade,” she said gently. “I know you’ll never admit it to me, but you and Case have become good friends. You can stop glowering every time something reminds you that he’s an Apache.”
Meade squared his shoulders with a hint of indignation and straightened his dress-blue uniform coat. “My dear Liberty, I do not glower. I do, on occasion, bristle, and I have been known to fume from time to time, but I most emphatically do not glower.” He turned his profile to her. “It wouldn’t be seemly.”
Her gentle laugh drifted out over the rose garden, and she tucked her arm through his. “Oh, Meade, I’m going to miss you. No one has ever been able to make me laugh the way you do.”
Meade dropped a kiss on her forehead, a gesture that was an old and comforting habit for both of them. “I’m going to miss you, too, Libby.”