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He noticed that she gazed slowly around her, absorbed in the beauty he had grown to love when he first escaped to this place where no white man had yet come.
He gazed at it, too, as awed by its beauty as the first time he had seen it. From this high place the valley was visible spread out below, surrounded by a scallop of weathered crests. Peregrine falcons soared overhead, and lynx could be seen romping here and there, as well as otters as they came and went from the river.
Wolf howls pierced the air, reminding him of the pups that he and Shoshana had set free. He wondered if the sounds he heard today were made by those animals as they tasted freedom now instead of captivity?
He smiled when he thought of the wolf pup that he had saved. The young brave he had given it to loved animals more than anyone he had ever known. Storm had entrusted the pup to this child, who understood that in time the wolf would have to be released to the wild.
They rode onward down one mountain pass, then another, until they reached the valley where Storm had once made his home with his family.
“It is such a beautiful, serene place,” Shoshana said as she, too, gazed at the valley where trees of all kinds grew tall and beautiful, and where the Piñaleno River meandered across the land, fed by melting snows from the mountain high above.
“Lovely, yes, in a way,” Storm said tightly. “But ugly in another. Many deaths occurred here.”
Shoshana heard the somberness of his voice and saw pain in his eyes. It had been a long journey down the mountain. She knew they had arrived where his village had once been, for he stopped and dismounted and now led his horse slowly across the land, his eyes studying the ground on which he walked.
Shoshana dismounted and walked beside him.
“This is where it happened,” he said stiffly. “This is where my people died.”
He stopped and knelt on the ground, running his hands through the grass. His stomach tightened when he felt rocks beneath the turf and recalled the day he and the others had placed the stones over the graves of their loved ones.
The stones were still there, the grass having made its way up between them.
“Here, beneath the ground and rocks, is where many are buried,” he said, his voice catching. “There was no time to take them to our true burial grounds. Each was buried where he or she had fallen. The lodges of my people have been gone for some time now. All traces of what once was a thriving village are gone.”
He stood and turned to Shoshana. “Those who are buried here today had no chance to flee the pony soldiers,” he said. “My ina and ahte are buried somewhere on this land, one next to the other. Mother died first, Father a short time later. I made certain they were together before I fled to the mountain heights.”
He took Shoshana’s hands in his. “It is my plan to soon take my people far, far away from all of this,” he said. “I will take them to a land where they will be safe forever.”
“Where will you go?” Shoshana asked, her eyes widening in wonder. “Your stronghold seems safe enough, and everyone seems to be so happy.”
“No one is safe on land claimed by the United States Government,” Storm said angrily. “Although the pony soldiers have not touched my people’s home in the mountain, they will some day, because they own the mountain as they own all this land that once belonged solely to the red man.”
He paused, looked around himself, then gazed at her again. “Where will I lead my people?” he said softly. “To Canada. We must leave before the arrival of the next cold winter.”
“Canada . . .” Shoshana said, surprised that they were fleeing the United States altogether. Yet why not? America had not been good to the Apache. She had heard that Canada welcomed the red man with open arms.
“Come with me to Canada,” Storm blurted out, his eyes searching hers. “Remember that the man who claims you as his daughter is not your father. Remember that he was a leader of those who massacred your people.”
“My feelings for George are a mixture of many emotions—gratitude for sparing my life, hatred for having had a role in the massacres, and pity that he has no understanding of the horrors he perpetrated in his past,” Shoshana said, her voice breaking.
They walked onward slowly, hand in hand.
“After I realized that I was Apache, it was hard to live in the white world,” she murmured. “Even before that, the white children saw my skin color. They knew I was an Indian. Many treated me as though I carried the plague!”
She stopped and gazed up into his eyes. “But I came through it all right, and I am even a better person for it,” she said softly. “As for now? I must return to the fort one last time, and then I will never be a part of the white world again. I want to be with you. I want to be with Mother. I want to live as an Apache. We are already far from your stronghold and not all that far from the fort. It would be a good time for me to go there and do what must be done.”
Storm took both of her hands in his. He frowned at her. “I cannot allow that,” he said, his voice drawn. “Shoshana, I cannot allow you to return to the fort, especially to George Whaley.”
“What?” Shoshana gasped, searching his eyes and finding cold determination in them instead of the kindness she’d come to expect.
She yanked her hands free. “Did you say what I thought you said?” she asked. She took a slow step away from him. “Did you say you won’t allow me to go to the fort?”
“I cannot allow it,” he repeated, stepping toward her. “There are two reasons for my decision. The first is because I love you and I do not want to chance losing you by allowing you to return to George Whaley. The second reason is because I do not want George Whaley to know what has become of you. I want him to struggle, sweat, and hurt as he searches for his beloved daughter but never finds her. Just as our Apache people have been hurt through the years by inhumane treatment from the white-eyes, George Whaley in particular.”
“You are serious about this, aren’t you?” Shoshana asked, stunned to realize that he was. “You won’t allow me to go there, will you?”
“If you stop and think about this, you will understand my reasoning,” Storm said thickly. “I want George Whaley to feel empty inside when he realizes that he will never see you again. I have wanted vengeance for so long against that man for what he did to my people and so many other Apache. But dying is too easy for him. Living the rest of his life filled with regret and loneliness is what he deserves.”
