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But the rain had not come soon enough. There had been much damage done to the vegetation.
That had been two winters ago. The cycle of rebirth had soon started afresh.
Through the burned stubs of broken conifers, toothlike and stubbed, came the spears of grass and the shoots of shrubs. From the charred logs came curled ferns. Under the warm earth, the hot seeds cracked open and life began anew.
Today he admired the gleam of willow branches bending in the breeze far beyond the area cleared by fire.
He looked even farther, where the river’s roar turned into tireless lapping, where dipping out of the sunlight it slipped into the ground, whispering quietly.
Even now as he watched, herons lifted off, big-winged, from the water.
Then he moved his spyglass so he could see the adobe houses at Fort Chance. When he had watched the fort being built so close to his mountain not long ago, he had feared an eventual confrontation with the white pony soldiers.
But his scouts, who were clever at watching and learning things, discovered that the main purpose for this fort had nothing to do with the Apache who made their homes in his stronghold.
The pony soldiers were there to protect the arriving settlers, and the white-eyes who were already there. One of the dangers they guarded against was scalp hunters who preyed on white-eye and red skins alike. Mountain Jack was the worst of these. Thus far, he had successfully eluded the soldiers, as well as Storm and his warriors, who also wanted to stop the evil man.
Despite their familiarity with all the haunts of this mountain, Storm’s men could not find him. Mountain Jack remained free to kill.
Just then his eyes widened and he held the spyglass steady as it picked up some movement down below, far beyond the fort. Off in the distance he spotted the tiny mounted figures of a man and a woman.
“The scalp hunter!” Storm gasped out, his heart thudding in his chest as he recognized the white horse.
He could not believe that the scalp hunter had come out into the open. Storm shifted his spyglass so he could see who was riding with the scalp hunter.
It was a woman, a woman of Storm’s own skin color!
Ho, she was Indian, but dressed as a white woman.
Had the scalp hunter taken a bride? Was he taking her to his hideout? It caused a bitter bile to rise in Storm’s throat to think that a red-skinned woman would lower herself to marry the evil man who had taken the scalps of so many Apache.
“She must pay in her own way for deceiving her race,” Storm whispered heatedly.
His jaw tight, he put his spyglass back in his bag and continued downward on the mountain pass, but this time as rapidly as possible. The narrow pass was dangerous; one slip of a hoof and both the horse and Storm could fall to their deaths.
But he could not waste time. He could not let the scalp hunter get away. Finally. Finally he had a chance to stop the man’s evil ways.
He rode on and on, then stopped long enough to take his spyglass from his bag again to take another look.
His heart sank when he saw no signs of Mountain Jack, or of the woman. But now at least he knew where to look for them.
The scalp hunter had become careless, and surely because of the woman.
And the woman had also been careless. Choosing a man such as Mountain Jack had sealed her doom.
Then his sister’s warning came to him. Was this possibly the woman she had seen in the stars?
If so, he understood why his sister had warned him. This woman was surely a traitor to her own people.
He rode onward. He would not stop until he found the sandy-whiskered man’s hideout.
He would stop the man’s evil ways. But what of the woman? What would he do with her once he had her in his possession?
“She, who is a traitor to her people, will be my captive,” he said, his jaw tight, his eyes narrowed with angry determination.
Chapter Eight
I will not let thee go!
