Buck Cannon was not having a good day. He squinted into the early morning light as
each hoof-beat sounded a booming kettledrum in his skull, and tried his best to
stay on the horse.
It had all started well before dawn. Actually, it had started the day before, when
he had finished his day’s work and taken an afternoon ride into
Buck had only wanted a little fun. Just a little bit of teasing for the ladies,
just a few shots of redeye, that was what he had
intended. Each shot of the cheap whiskey
had made the evening a little more fun; had made him feel just a little more free from care. Before Buck had known it, the night was
half past and he remembered he had to be back at the ranch. Bone-tired, he had started the ride back from
Tucson well before dawn—with a half bottle of rot-gut sweltering in his
belly—but he had ended up still on the road well after the dawn had grayed into light.
It was a tired and hurting Buck Cannon that plodded through the tall gate of the
High Chaparral ranch and stopped in front of the main hacienda, doing
everything in his power to keep from falling out of the saddle.
In truth, it was probably a beautiful desert
morning, but staring through red-rimmed eyes and with a hammering headache,
Buck was in no mood to enjoy it. The
sour ball of fire in his belly kept threatening to heave itself up and onto the
hard-packed earth, and Buck was just managing to keep it down, fervently hoping
all the pain would just go away.
"Well, well, well,” he heard a voice say
gleefully. “Look what the cat dragged
in.”
"Rode hard and put up wet, I’d say,” a
deeper voice added, sounding amused.
Buck pushed himself up off the horse’s neck
with both hands, holding on tightly to the saddle horn to keep from falling to
the ground. The world seemed to spin as
he steadied himself, and he tried to focus his eyes on the speakers, but all he
could see was black. Realizing that his
hat had fallen over the front of his eyes, Buck pushed the black Stetson back
with one hand and stared hard at Joe and Sam Butler as they came out of the
bunkhouse to his right.
“That be exactly
what I feel like, Sam,” Buck said to the Chaparral’s rugged foreman. “Rode hard, that is.”
“You really ought to take it easy, Buck,” Sam
Butler said dryly, hefting a saddle in his right hand as he moved toward the
corral fence and tried not to grin openly. “Riding back and forth to
“Aw, Sam, everybody knows the A-patch don’t
fight at night,” Buck said easily, moving a gloved hand up to touch his
pounding forehead.
"And you darn well know the Apache fight
whenever they want to, Buck,” Sam shot back.
“Night or not.
Who’re you trying to kid?”
“Well, now,” Buck replied slowly, sitting
straighter to cast a baleful eye upon the foreman. “I ain’t saying you’re
wrong now, Sam. I just don’t agree that
you always be right.”
Sam laughed heartily and picked up a saddle
blanket with his freehand.
“Well, I can’t argue with you on that,
Buck. We’re headed to the west range to
drive those mossyhorns out of the brush today. You goin’
with us?”
“’Course I’m goin’ with you,”
Buck sighed, trying to open his eyes again.
“I ain’t gonna leave
you boys short-handed. I’ll be ready to
go as soon as I can saddle me a fresh hoss.”
“Looks to me like you ought to just sleep
this one off, Buck,” Joe said, his eyes full of concern.
“Now, when I need sass from a young ‘un like
you, I’ll ask fo’ it,” Buck
replied, but his tone was teasing. “I
was forkin’ broncs afore
you was weaned, Joe.”
“Really, you look beat, Buck. I know what a hangover feels like. I can’t imagine riding out to try to work
cattle with a head hammer like you got.”
“You don’t know fat cow from po' bull,” Buck muttered.
“I be ready to ride as soon as…well…as soon as
I can get off’n this saddle without fallin’ down.”
Sam laughed again.
“Suit yourself, Buck, but I wouldn’t let Big
John know you were out alley-catting all night. You know how he is about showing up on time
for work, ready to go.”
“Ah’m ready,” Buck
muttered. “Don’t you
worry none about Big John, Sam. I
kin take care o’Big John.”
As Buck rubbed his forehead, Sam and Joe snickered and
walked off toward the corral. With great
care and ceremony, Buck held the saddle horn with both hands and slid his right
boot out of the stirrup, dragging it over the horse’s back, and slid it down
the horse’s left flank and into the dirt.
The knee buckled only slightly, but held firm, and satisfied at last,
Buck removed his left boot from the stirrup and stood there against the horse’s
flank while the world spun crazily about him.
It was going to be one long day, he
thought. A scorcher to
be sure. All he really wanted to
do was to crawl up into the house, drink a gallon of water, and fall
asleep. Yet, he had a reputation to
uphold, not only as the boss’s brother, but as Buck Cannon himself. There was no way he was going to let
something like a little all-night drunk keep him from saddling up and pulling
his weight with the rest of the Chaparral hands.
Buck pushed himself away from the horse’s
flank and looped the horse's reins around the hitching post, staggering a
little. He removed his flat-crowned
black hat and stepped toward the porch.
He had taken only two steps when the sight of a tall square form brought
him up short. He stared up into the
volcanic blue eyes of Big John Cannon, who was standing on the porch, his hands
balled into ham-like fists that rested on his hips above his gun belt. It was obvious that John had just stepped out
onto the porch after finishing his breakfast—a breakfast at which Buck was
noticeably absent—but how long John had been standing there watching him Buck
had no idea.
“And just where in the blue blazes have you
been?” John demanded in his deep, no-nonsense voice. To Buck, the sound was about as comforting as
gravel caught under the metal rim of a stagecoach wheel.
“Well, now, John…I, uh, well, I been—“
“You’ve been out drinking.”
John said it sharply, biting off each word,
and Buck felt the cold wash of accusation flow over him. He had no idea why, but that particular tone
always made him feel guilty, even when he hadn’t done anything wrong.
“Well, yeah,” Buck answered. “That’s right. I went into
“Oh, you did, did you?”
“Yeah, I did.”
“No, I don’t think so, Buck.”
Buck felt his eyes focus on John’s face as
the resentment began to build. John’s
baby-blues were ice-hard as he looked Buck up and down with an air of disgust.
“W-what do you mean you don’t think so?” Buck
stammered. “I done told you where I was.”
“That’s not what I mean, Buck,” John growled,
stepping off of the porch to confront his besotted brother face-to-face. “I mean I don't think you'll be going with
Sam and the boys to the west range."
“No? Why not?”
“Because I don’t think you’re in any
condition to be chasing wild cattle through the cholla. You’re hung over,
you’re exhausted, probably bad in need of water, and pretty much useless. I can’t see you even being able to tie a
steer, much less catch hundreds of them.”
“Why, thankee, Big
John, but I kin take can pull my own weight.”
“I doubt that very much, Buck.”
Buck steadied himself as he saw Blue Cannon
step out onto the porch and put his hat on top of his head. The tow-headed young man stopped abruptly as
he realized his father and his uncle were having a confrontation. A moment later, John’s wife,
Something in John’s manner and tone began to
rub Buck the wrong way, like a cockle burr caught under a saddle blanket. Buck stood up straight as the world steadied,
and placed his fists on his own hips, mirroring his older brother's pose.
“Now, what do you mean by that?” he demanded.
“I mean that I don’t think you can pull your
own weight,” John replied. “Not in your
condition.”
“I kin, too.”
“No, you can’t. I
doubt if you can even pull your own weight long enough to get up the steps and
into your bed. You’re drunk, Buck. Dead drunk, and hung over. You’re in no shape to work.”
“I said I kin work.”
“I know what you said, and believe me, you
are going to work, but not in the west range,” John said sternly. “I can’t afford to have you out there, not
riding at full-speed, trying to rope and brand.
You’d be a liability there. No,
you’re going to go out to the east range and do something that’s a lot slower.”
“Slower?
What’re you talkin’ about, John?”
“You’re going out to the east range, Buck,
and you’re going to gather up only the young bulls.”
“Bulls? What fo', John?”
“Because you’re going to
castrate them. Most of them are not too wild, and even you
might be able to catch them without falling out of the saddle and breaking your
fool neck.”
Buck began to see red.
“Now, just a minute, big brother—“
“No, Buck. You
know the rules I have for the hands. You
ride for the Chaparral, you pull your own load. That means taking the personal responsibility
to stay home on a work night and get adequate rest. It does not mean running around at night on a
drunken spree until the wee hours of the morning, and then loping in here hung
over like a wet-behind-the-ears kid.”
“What I do with my own time is my own
business, big brother,” Buck said, feeling his anger well up even bigger than
that sour ball of rot-gut in his belly.
“Not when it affects this ranch,” John
replied. “I’m running a business here,
Buck, and that business is cattle. I
can’t afford to have a slacker on the payroll.
You’re my brother, but you are also a High Chaparral hand, and as a
hand, I expect you to ride for the brand just like everyone else. That means up at dawn, rested and ready to
work. We’ve got enough problems right
now with the Army, the Apache, and the Comancheros. We’re setting on a powder keg here, and I
need every man rested, alert, and sober. I don’t need a drunk working my ranch. Not even if he’s my brother. No, especially not if he’s my brother. The other hands look up to you, Buck, and
when they see the kind of example you set, what can I expect of them? If you’re going to act like a young colt,
Buck, then I’m going to treat you like one. When you start acting like a responsible
member of this ranch, like a grown man, then I’ll treat you that way. Until then, you’re just another undisciplined
ranch hand who’s acting like a greenhorn kid.”
The words rankled, and Buck felt the hurt,
even through his stupor, but his face turned red as he let the hurt mold itself into anger.
He looked at Blue and
“A greenhorn kid?” Buck said, as if he had not heard right. “Just one more hand on yo’ big ranch, huh?”
“That’s absolutely right. You’re just another hand around here. You get no special favors.”
“I ain’t never
asked fo’ no favuhs,” Buck
stammered, his Virginian accent growing ever stronger as he became overwhelmed
with anger.
“Good,” John said, “because you’ll get none from me. Now, saddle up a fresh horse and get your
mangy rear end out on the east range.
You’ve wasted enough time this morning as it is. I want those east herd bulls cut by the end
of the week.”
Buck pulled himself up into the best parade
ground position of attention he could muster, and rendered a sloppy Confederate
salute.
“Yes, suh, big
brother John, suh!” he said loudly, his dark eyes
flashing coals. “If that’s the way yo’ stick floats, then that’s the way it be, suh! I be off an’ runnin’ with yo’ majesty’s
permission. Come on, Blue-boy, let’s leave Mr. Mighty High Britches heah to lord over his lowly ranch hands.”
Blue blinked twice, then
tightened the cord that held his hat atop the thatch of his blonde hair, and
stepped forward.
“No,” John growled, “Blue’s not going with
you, Buck. Blue will be working with Sam
and Joe. It’ll do him good to see how
real ranch hands work. I’d rather him be
influenced by some sober people for a change.
At least, by some men that I don’t have to worry will sneak off to town
and get drunk every night.”
Behind John, Manolito Montoya stepped out of
the house holding his black sombrero.
Seeing Buck and John facing off, he halted between Blue and
“You want me to castrate them
bulls all by my lonesome?” Buck asked angrily.
“It would serve you right,” John said
firmly. “You can take Mano with you. At
least, then I’ll know someone responsible is keeping an eye on you.”
Behind John, Mano
blinked in surprise and his smile faded.
“Did he say castrating bulls?” Mano asked, and was immediately silenced as
“Yes, suh, Big
John!” Buck yelled. “With yo’ permission, I be on my way!”
Big John gave him a rattlesnake’s stare.
“Don’t let me down, Buck. I mean it.”
“No, suh,” Buck yelled back,
turning as he angrily loosened the cinch on his horse. “I’ll try my best not to disappoint the high'n mighty Big John Cannon! You don’t have to worry yo’
head none ‘bout little ol’ me, boss. After all, I’m just
another ranch hand!”
Buck yanked his saddle loose and grabbed the
blanket off the horse, then stormed off toward the corral. John Cannon stood in the dust of his front
yard and watched him go. He stared down
at the sand between his boots for a moment, then sighed deeply and turned to
walk up on the porch, halting when he saw
“What are all of you looking at?” he demanded.
“Nothing at all,” Mano
said abruptly, presenting John with a half-hearted smile. He quickly placed his
sombrero upon his head. “I am off to
assist Buck with his wonderful--if cutting--task.”
As Mano quickly
evacuated the porch, John turned his eyes toward his son.
“Well?”
“Pa, Uncle Buck looks pretty done in,” Blue
said haltingly. “Don’t you think we
ought to—“
“You look after your own responsibilities,
boy,” John growled. “Let Buck look after
his.”
Bluestarted to reply, but his father’s expression told him
he would brook no arguments on this subject.
Sighing, Blue stepped off the porch and walked away.
John turned back to face
“What?”
“John Cannon!” she said. “That is no way to
treat your own brother!”
She said it softly, but John heard the steel
in her voice.
“Now,
“He is your only living brother,” she shot
back immediately, not waiting for his response.
Her words began to increase in speed rapidly, as they always did when
she became angry about something. “And
yet you tell him he is no good, that he is not responsible, that he is no
better than a common laborer in his own home.”
“Wait, I never said he was no good,” John
said, attempting a defense, but it was no use. She was already wound up.
“There is absolutely no reason to speak to
Buck in that manner! You, of all people,
should know how precious your family is.
Are you are the one who is always saying how precious family ties
are? Are you not the one who always says
that ‘blood is thicker than water’? The
one who talks about all of the hands pulling together? The one who preaches teamwork? And yet, what
do you do? Your brother makes a mistake,
a error in judgment,
and so you send him out into Apache country, drunk, and with only
my brother to guard him! Even worse, you
berate him in front of the other hands, the men who are his friends! You insult him in front of his own family!”
“I had no idea you were all standing there,”
John said defensively.
“That is not what I mean, and you know it!”
she snapped back. “John, your brother,
he is a good man. He is kind-hearted, he
is brave, and whether you know it or not, he loves you, for you are his
brother. Yet, you humiliate him in front
of everyone, and take away his dignity, talking only of work and
responsibility, without ever even once acknowledging his worth to this family
and to yourself.”
“He humiliated himself,” John replied
sternly. “When he rode in here and
showed up drunk on my porch this morning.
He brought this on himself, Victoria.
If I’m easy with him, he’ll only get worse.”
“How can you say this?” she asked, her black
eyes glistening. “He is your brother!”
John hesitated a moment, looking out into the
corral where his hands were mounting up, and paused to consider his words
before looking back at her. He placed
his hands about her arms and held her a moment.
“Let me tell you a story,” he said softly,
wanting deeply for her to understand. “Once,
back in
“Did he defeat this bully?”
“No,” John replied. “Seth beat the tar out of him again. But the next day, as Seth walked home from
school, Buck met him again.”
“Did he win the fight that time?”
“Well, no.
Seth beat him black and blue, that time.
Broke his nose, knocked him out, and left him lying in the middle of the
road. A traveling preacher found him lying there, and
brought him home. So, do you know what
Buck did the very next day?”
“He went out to fight this person again?”
“Yes, he did,” John replied, smiling as he
remembered back across all the years, to those warm sunny days in wooded
“Did he ever beat this bully?” she asked.
“No,” John said, “And yes. One day, after Seth had beat Buck up for the
thirteenth time or so, Seth just up and quit.
He backed down, telling Buck he was tired of fighting Buck, and wouldn't do it
anymore.”
“Why?”
John smiled.
“He said there was no advantage in beating
Buck up. Every time he did, Buck just
came back for more. He said Buck was too
ornery to know when he was beat, and too stupid to know when to quit. He made peace because, while he was beating
up on Buck every day, Buck was also getting his own blows in on Seth. So, even though he was winning each fight,
Buck was making him pay for it. Every day. Seth was
getting sore, too. In the end, it was
just too painful to keep beating Buck up, because Buck wouldn’t quit. Seth said Buck just had no give up in him, so
he decided to leave him alone.
“I’m telling you this because you have to
understand Buck. The only way Buck has
every learned anything has been the hard way.
No matter how many times he gets thrown, he always gets back in the
saddle. Buck won’t quit, even when it’s
in his own best interest. By sending him
out to the east range, I know he’ll be furious at me. More importantly, I know he’ll try to prove
me wrong. He’ll try to show me what an
excellent cow hand he really is. So,
while he’s out there steaming like a locomotive, he’ll work himself to the bone
to get all of those bulls castrated . Then he’ll be able to come back so he can
strut and prove to me just how wrong I was.”
“Oh, John,” she said at last, “How can you
manipulate your brother in this way?”
“Because that’s how you deal with Buck,” he
said impatiently. “The
hard way! If you go all soft and
kind on him, he resents it. If you
ignore him, he goofs off. But, if you
challenge him, well, he just has to rise to the occasion. Besides, a few days of hard work in the hot
sun is just what he needs to remind him of his
responsibilities.”
With that John kissed her lightly on the lips
and turned to move toward the corral.
She watched him a moment, then entered the house, but he could hear her muttering under her
breath in rapid Spanish as she entered the doorway.
Sometimes a man couldn’t win, he thought sadly. Not with
Sam rode up as he crossed the yard, holding
the reins of John’s horse. Sam nodded a
greeting and watched silently as John accepted the reins, hooked a boot in a
stirrup, and threw himself into the saddle.
“Going to be a hot one today, boss,” Sam said
happily.
“Tell me about it,” John muttered, and spurred
his horse into a gallop as he led Sam out under the tall gate of the High
Chaparral and into the desert.
II
Consciousness returned slowly, first a few subtle whisking sounds on the
soft sand, then an occasional crunch.
Only then did actual thoughts form, and with consciousness came pain,
and the recognition of the sounds. The
pain was from a thousand cuts and bruises. Then there was even more pain as
something yanked him over onto his back in the darkness.
Lucas managed to open one eye with some effort. It was difficult to do, and his other eye
seemed to be welded shut. Still, he
fought to get the eye to open, and he knew he was successful when he saw
stars. Not stars of pain, but actual
stars in the brilliant night sky.
It was a dark night, without a moon.
He was very thirsty. He tried to
remember his last thoughts. Where was
he? How had he come here? Why did he hurt so much?
Those questions were still echoing in his mind when a terrible pain lashed
the nerves of his head, searing red-hot all the way down to his bruised ribs,
as a rough hand grabbed his hair and pulled his head back. Through his pain, he dimly saw the figure
standing over him, blotting out the stars, and he instantly recognized the
shape of the long, square-cut hair as it shifted in the soft night breeze.
The pain made Lucas angry, and he wanted it to stop. His throat was far too parched to form a
sound, and for a fleeting instant, Lucas wished his assailant would just go
away. That hope was dashed a moment
later, when he felt the edge of the knife press against his scalp at the
hairline.
Fear born from a life living in
Lucas rose to his knees and twisted to one side, using his back muscles to
pull his assailant, and the Apache lost
balance and flipped over onto the sand.
Aroused in fear and anger, Lucas hung on, desperate to control the
knife. The fingers of his buckskin
gloves tightened on the Apache’s knife-hand, making a hard fist. The Apache's knee suddenly slammed into his
side, smashing at his ribs, and hard fingers gouged at his face, but Lucas hung
on for life.
He twisted hard to the left, trying to wrench the hand. Suddenly, Lucas released the Indian's wrist
with his right hand and punched, connecting with a cheekbone in the
darkness. He was in turn rewarded with a
staggering blow to the right side of his own jaw as the Apache fought
back. A second blow, even harder, knocked
Lucas onto his back, and the Apache rolled atop him, legs clawing to lock onto
his waist, as the warrior pulled the knife between them and pointed it at
Lucas’ chest.
Lucas’ ribs screamed in pain. The
Apache had both of his hands on the knife now, and his body weight on top of
them. Lucas held both of the Apache’s
wrists, pushing up to keep the knife away from his heart, but he knew he did
not have the arm strength to hold the
warrior's weight indefinitely.
The Apache leaned his weight heavily onto his hands, and Lucas felt the tip
of the knife puncture his shirt, its razor-sharp edge drawing blood, and a new
surge of fear shook him. Adrenaline
began to kick in, giving him a new burst of strength. Looping his thumbs over the man’s wrists,
Lucas used his big shoulders to twist the Apache’s hands, turning them down and
under, until the knife was pointing up at the Apache’s torso. The warrior growled in pain as Lucas twisted
his wrists, but the warrior was strong and uninjured. Lucas, on the other hand, was very dizzy, and
knew he could pass out at any instant. To pass out now meant certain death.
A picture of Mark suddenly flashed across his mind. In the picture, Mark was held in the hands
Indians who were dressed just like Apache.
He was screaming in silence, struggling to get away, and the Apache were
holding him back and drawing knives.
Strange, a part of his mind thought, why were the Apache holding Mark?
Mark!
The thought suddenly became crystal-clear as his memory returned.
They had Mark!
Unable to overpower his attacker, Lucas did the only thing he could think
of. The Chiricahua was struggling to get the knife turned away
from his chest, to get it pointed down again toward Lucas’ belly, and Lucas he
would be successful shortly. His own
strength was fading rapidly. He had to
end the fight quickly or die.
Lucas released the warrior’s wrists with his right hand and pushed hard with
the flat of his hand against the Apache’s face.
The Apache reacted, biting his gloved fingers as he snarled, but he did
exactly what Lucas wanted him to do. He
pushed back with his face against Lucas’ right hand. At that instant, holding the Apache’s wrist
firmly with his left hand, Lucas cupped his right hand around the Apache's neck
and pulled forward violently. The abrupt
disappearance of resistance caught the Apache by surprise, pulling him down
onto his own blade with brutal suddenness.
The Apache grunted as he was impaled upon his knife, and Lucas felt warm,
syrupy blood spill down over his chest and arms. The Apache continued to struggle, but he was
much weaker now, his strength unfocused.
He had one or two spasms, kicking his legs, and then sighed deeply. After a moment or so, he moved no more.
Lucas’ breath came in ragged gasps in the quiet darkness. He lay there for several moments, then pushed the dead Apache off of him and lay still,
gathering his strength. The Apache had died without uttering a single
word.
It was a long time before Lucas could sit up. Sweat beaded his face and ran in rivulets under
his collar. He was starting to cool off
in the night air, but now he felt nauseated.
He lay back down, wanting to vomit, knowing instinctively that he needed
to conserve as many fluids as he could and that vomiting might prove fatal. His
tongue felt like sandpaper in his mouth, and his breath came in shuddering
gasps. After several minutes, the nausea seemed to fade, and his
breathing returned to something resembling normal. He was cooling off as the
dry night air evaporated the sweat.
After a while he was able to sit up.
Lucas rolled to his side and got his hands under him, then pushed up into a
sitting position. His head swam a
little, but mostly it just hurt. There
was a thick burning sensation over his right eyebrow. He put a hand to that spot, and felt the
biting sting of split skin, then moved his hand away. The skin on his forehead was split and tender
to the touch. He could not remember the
Apache cutting him there, so he sat still for several more minutes, trying to
remember what had happened. How had he had ended up being thirsty and tired,
fighting an unknown Apache in the darkness of the
He was in
They still had Mark!
Lucas rolled to his knees desperately, sudden fear welling up for his
son. It had been sundown when Chambers
had shot at him. What time was it now? How long had they had Mark? How long had he been out?
Lucas didn’t want to consider the evils the gun runners or the Apache might
have inflicted on his son. His mind
recoiled from going through all the possible outcomes. It was a fear constant
in the lives of anyone who had grown up on the frontier. From the banks of the
He quickly checked the dead warrior for useful items. He found an old leather sack with a cupful of
water in it. It was probably a mule
intestine. Apache loved to eat Army
mules, and they often used the intestines of mules and horses as a kind of
canteen. It didn’t matter much to Lucas
at the moment; he needed water. He
quickly drank the handful of water from the bag, then
tossed it away. The warrior had a few
other odds and ends, mostly smoked buckskin pouches containing things important
to an Indian. He found a medicine bag,
with snake’s teeth, parched corn, and beads.
The only useful item seemed to be the knife. Lucas suspected the warrior had a rifle lying
somewhere nearby, but there was no way he could find it in the dark, and he
dared not wait until first light to search for it. He needed to be moving now; he needed to find
out where Mark was.
Two thoughts compelled him to take the knife and start walking. One thought was that where there was one
Apache, there were usually more. The
Apache were masters at tracking, and when they found the dead body of their
warrior, they would hunt him relentlessly.
With only a knife for defense, he stood little
chance of survival if they caught him.
The other, even more compelling reason, was the
need for vengeance. It was not an
especially Christian thought, he knew, but Sod Chambers had tried to kill him,
and had stolen his horses and rifle. He
needed paying back. More importantly,
that killer or his Apache cohorts had taken his son.
As Lucas McCain stumbled through the long hours of darkness in the Sonoran desert, plodding as he put one boot ahead of the
other, a single all-consuming thought burned most brightly in his brain.
If anyone had hurt his son, neither heaven nor hell would be able to save them. He would follow them to the ends of the
earth, if necessary, and their deaths would not be pleasant.
III
Victoria Valesquez DeSoto
Montoya-Cannon descended the stairs beside her husband's office and turned to
her left, stepping down the remaining three steps to the terra cotta tiles of
the floor as she moved to stand before the hearth. A fire was burning brightly, and it had a
calming affect, until her black eyes drifted up above the mantle to stare at
the pair of Apache war lances that hung, points down, above the
fireplace. Once again a shiver of
fear trembled through her, but she fought it down and controlled it as she
always did, never letting it become apparent in her
face or her actions. Victoria was always
a little scared when her husband was out in the desert, and the sight of the
Apache lances only brought home fresh worry for her husband and all of the
working men of the High Chaparral.
The High Chaparral hacienda did not have windows in its living room, so she
contented herself with staring into the fire and listening to its soft crackle
and hiss. She did not like it when John
was away, and to have John, Blue, Manolito, and Buck all away at the same time
left her feeling lonely. She had worked very hard to win John Cannon's
love after the death of his first wife.
Despite the fact that hers was, in effect, an arranged marriage between
her father and John for their mutual benefit, she knew she had been incredibly
lucky when her father had picked John Cannon for her husband. It had not been the first such time her
father had tried marrying her off, for he had constantly complained that
It is strange how things happen, she thought, remembering how her father had
hated John Cannon as a nemesis. Her
father had, at first, considered John merely a Yankee gringo who had taken lands that he rightfully considered his, even
if they were technically across the border in
John Cannon had needed help against raiding bandits from
It had not worked out that way, of course, for Victoria had fallen in love
with John very quickly, seeing his qualities and humanity far clearer than her
father had. His blue eyes were kind, if
haunted, and though he was stubborn, she knew he needed her. She had felt it
was quite natural to become his wife.
They had married at her father's house.
At first, John had been distant. She
had not been sure if the reason were bitterness over the loss of his first
wife, or his suspicion that her father had married her off as a way to control
him. She had been hurt at first by his
distance, but she had finally determined that John would have to see her own
qualities before he learned to trust her.
She had worked very hard at gaining that trust, and her efforts had been
rewarding, but they had not been easy.
She had found herself at the High Chaparral fighting a battle with her
husband, his son, and the Apaches, all at once.
John had not approved of the way she spoke her own mind, for that was
apparently not an acceptable thing among
Blue had been another obstacle she had had to confront. Grieving as badly over the loss of his mother
as John was, he had been completely surprised by his father's sudden marriage
to a Mexican lady. He had wanted nothing
to do with it, and he had been very angry at his father over it.
In the end, it had been John's brother who had first extended his hand to
become her friend. Buck, who had struggled all his life to gain love and acceptance from
John, had empathized with her situation immediately. He had approached her as his sister-in-law,
and she had been pleasantly surprised to find that his affection had been
honest and real.
Persistence and patience had finally won Blue over, along with a lot of
motherly love, but
Since arriving at the High Chaparral, there had been a constant amount of
work to do, but as time had passed and the ranch began to become operational,
she had found more free time than she had expected. Much of the time she spent being the proper
lady her father expected her to be, and she was an excellent cook. Her meals, spicy and delicious, were very
much adored by the working hands, who were used to
only beef and beans. And, like most
western men, despite their rugged lives, they were at heart simply adoring
gentlemen around any lady.
John had come around last, and when she had finally told him she loved him,
he had seem genuinely surprised. It was quite like a man not to know when a
woman truly loved him, and John had been shocked, but he seemed pleased. Things had gotten better between them after
that, and he had finally opened his heart enough to trust her with his
feelings; things sentimental and private. The things he kept only to himself,
and never let the others see, even Buck, who seemed to sense such things
instinctively.
John's work often took him out into the hills and saguaro-studded mountains
of the desert, where Apache were a constant threat. Her greatest fear was that the Apaches would
attack him while he was out there, and kill him and all his men.
She had terrible memories of Apache raids in
Even so, she knew the realities of the desert. The Apache were fierce warriors, and they
would kill people at any opportunity when on the warpath. The greatest of all Apache leaders, Cochise,
had finally made peace with the Americans and gone to live on the reservation,
but that had not stopped other bands from continuing to terrorize
Normally, she could have fought this fear with reason. John and his brother were experienced
frontiersmen who could take care of themselves.
So were the ranch hands, all tough men who knew the land and its
ways. But toughness and knowledge were
not always sufficient protection against ambush, especially when the strength
of the group had been broken up into smaller pockets of men. Anyone could be overwhelmed with enough
warriors, and the renegade Apache were violent, harsh, and relentless. She knew that John and Blue were out in the
north range with most of the hands, probably in the Rincon valley, north of the
Agua Verde.
Buck and Manolito, however, were off on the eastern range, in the
direction of
She admitted she was scared. She
could do that, here, to herself, alone in front of the fire. The few hands John had left behind to guard
the ranch were probably in the bunkhouse, and now she sat alone in the
house. It was hard for her to sleep when
no one was in the hacienda, and she often tried to read. A lot of the time,
however, she simply paced, worrying.
She was afraid of what she might lose if the Apache killed her family. In January, several Apache had left the
She had a valid reason to be afraid.
Perhaps a cup of tea would help, she decided, and she turned to go to the
kitchen. There were times when she
almost wished she could drink like a man, for men seemed so able to put off
their worries by drinking. That was not
the way a lady acted, however, even a free-minded one, and it was certainly not
Her eyes slowly moved up to stare at the Apache lances again, and she felt a
terrible foreboding come over her.
It was going to be a long night.
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