Sergeant's Lady

ONE The American Indian commands respect for his rights only as long as he inspires terror with his rifle. Brigadier General George Crook Lookout on Square Mountain, Winchester Range, Southern Arizona Territory He was big for an Indian, especially an Apache. Six feet, one inch; loose-jointed; with long fingers and narrow, almost feminine features, except for his muscles, which ran like steel cords through his arms and legs. His deep chest was another giveaway, a legacy from generations of mountain-dwelling ancestors. His bare chest was covered by a buckskin shirt consisting of only sleeves and a shoulder yoke held down by a blue canvas and leather belt of cartridge loops draped over his shoulder. Beneath his navy blue wool headband, small black pupils in eyes sunk into his handsome face didn't move. They were transfixed, watching a small flatbed wagon rattle slowly toward him from the dusty distance. He was Naiche, grandson of Mangas Colorado and the second son of Cochise, the legendary leaders of the Chiricahuas and the greatest Apaches of this nineteenth century, now winding toward its hard end. He was nearly thirty years old. Trail to the Winchester Mountains Shadows cast by giant saguaro cacti lengthened this afternoon across a rough two-track heading toward Square Mountain. This quartet of rocky peaks comprising the Winchesters rose sixty miles east of Old Tucson and seventy miles north of the border, where it formed the northwest side of the hundred-mile-long Sulphur Springs Valley, the main southern Arizona corridor for Indians traveling down into Mexico. Jacob Cox was well aware of this ever-present danger as he slapped his horses' rumps with his long reins, urging them to pick up their tired gait now that they were almost home. A gaunt midwesterner on the shady side of forty, Jacob turned to his sister riding the plank wagon seat beside him. "Another beautiful Arizona spring, sis." Jacob's free hand swept the air, encompassing the palo verde bushes blooming yellow within their view, a patch of lupines, and Mexican gold poppies alongside the trail. New plant life in spite of the usual wind, which sucked the winter's moisture right out of the ground and contributed to the annual spring drought in this southeastern corner of the territory. "Gosh, I love seeing the country this time of year. So clean, fresh. The Apaches, you know, call spring the season of 'many leaves.'" "Ahh. To the point, just like Apaches." His younger sibling tipped back the narrower brim of her dark brown cowboy hat to take in the whole grand vista of the big valley, thirty miles across at its widest, its five- to ten-thousand-foot peaks of small mountain ranges providing borders along both of the valley's sides. Tanned and on the sunny side of forty herself, Martha Cox was no woman to wear a sunbonnet. "What was that poem?" She thought for a moment. * * * And not by eastern windows only, When daylight comes, comes in the light, In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly, But westward, look, the land is bright! Say Not the Struggle Naught Availeth, Arthur Hugh Clough, 1862. * * * Jacob nodded. Her sharp eyes took in all the bright land. Good cattle country were it not for its hereditary caretakers, the Apaches. "I cherish our trips away, Jacob, especially to Tucson for the shopping and someone else's cooking, but the sight of home again after a hard journey always pleases me most." Her older brother nodded again and smiled. "You think these latest raids were as bad as we heard at the trader's?" That wSwarthout, Miles Hood is the author of 'Sergeant's Lady', published 0010 under ISBN 9780765344243 and ISBN 0765344246.