Woman of Three Worlds (37 page)

Authors: Jeanne Williams

“The reward?” Jaw hardening, he glared at her. “Just add it to the rest of what your
fiancÃ©
left you.”

She blinked. “
FiancÃ©?
”

“Well, wasn't he?” Zach demanded. At the look on her face, something altered in those deep blue eyes. “Maybe,” he said slowly, “maybe we need to have a talk. Excuse us, Colonel, ladies.”

Catching her wrist, he almost dragged her into the kitchen, and firmly shut the door. Confronting her, he said carefully, “Now then, let's get this straight! Erskine said you were engaged to him.”

“I wasn't! He never even suggested such a thing.”

“Then he certainly had it strongly in mind.” Frowning at her, Zach said accusingly, “How come, then, he offered such a reward?”

“I don't know.” She remembered, though, how he had talked to her some evenings as if she'd been a wife, and her eyes filled with tears for the proud, lonely man.

She turned to hide them. Zach's voice drilled into her. “Did you love him?”

“I don't think that's any of your business.” Did he have to strip away the tatters of dignity she was trying to hold around her? “You went through a lot for that reward. Take it and leave me alone!”

He said something very rude about the reward. Seizing her shoulders, he swung her about to face him. “Did you really think I went down in Apache country for that?” he demanded, blazing eyes turning her weak. “That I trailed you to Alamos and back this way?”

“Then â¦ then why?”

He brought up her face and kissed her. Wild sweet rapture surged between them, joining them till she wondered how she could ever have doubted. When at last they drew apart, she said wonderingly, tracing his throat with her fingers, “You hunted for me when you thought you'd be bringing me back to marry Erskine!”

He laughed huskily, shaking his head. “You meant it when you told Kah-Tay I was your man!” He frowned at her in sudden worry. “But if that's true, why did you almost marry Don Roque?”

When she'd explained that, he had to take her in his arms again. While they were still embraced, there was a knock on the door. “If there's to be a wedding, I get to give the bride away,” Colonel Shaw called.

“And I get to be bridesmaid!” Laurie shouted.

Zach smiled down at Brittany, holding her against his heart. “They can be whatever they want,” he whispered. “Just so I'm your man.”

She sighed and took great pleasure in showing him he was.

Author's Note

I want to thank my neighbor Edna Hastings for fanning my interest in Fort Bowie and giving me some material about it. Very special thanks to Wilton “Bill” Hoy, of Fort Bowie National Historic Site, who has very generously supplied answers to many questions, discussed the life of the fort, and shared with me his knowledge about this place he loves and has done so much to preserve. I have visited many old posts, but Fort Bowie, cradled in the mountains and reached only by a foot trail, is unique, flag still flying above the silent parade ground in the middle of crumbling adobes. It's called Camp Bowie in my book because it was so known in 1876. In 1879 it resumed the name of Fort.

For fictional purposes, I have children attending school at the post, though actually the school only accommodated enlisted men. Apart from this, I have tried to be as accurate as possible in showing life at this frontier post in 1876. Kah-Tay and his band are fictional, but the other Apache leaders mentioned are not, and the historical background is as faithful to fact as I could make it.

The following sources helped, and would interest anyone who wishes to learn more about Apaches, the frontier army, or the charming Mexican city of Alamos.
A Clash of Cultures: Fort Bowie and the Chiricahua Apaches
, by Robert M. Utley, National Park Service, Washington, D.C., 1977;
Glittering Misery: Dependents of the Indian Fighting Army
, by Patricia Y. Stallard, co-published by The Presidio Press, San Rafael, CA and The Old Army Press, Ft. Collins, CO, 1978;
Southwestern Town
, by Vernon B. Schultz, University of Arizona Press, Tucson, AZ, 1964;
Forty Miles a Day on Beans and Hay
, by Don Rickey, Jr., University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, OK, 1963; “The History of Fort Bowie,” by Richard Murray, master's thesis, University of Arizona, 1951;
Fort Bowie: Its Physical Evolution, 1862â1894
, by Jerome A. Greene, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, Denver, CO, 1980;
Fort Bowie Material Culture
, by Robert Herskovitz, Anthropological Papers #31, University of Arizona Press, Tucson, AZ, 1978;
Dateline Fort Bowie
, by Charles Lummis, edited by Dan L. Thrapp, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, OK, 1979;
Arizona Territory 1863â1912
, by Jay J. Wagoner, University of Arizona Press, Tucson, AZ, 1970;
The Horse Soldier
, vol. II, by Randy Steffen, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, 1978; “Apache Pass and Old Fort Bowie” by R. A. Mulligan,
The Smoke Signal
, published by the Tucson Corral of the Westerners, Spring 1965.

Eve Ball's
Indeh
, Brigham Young University Press, Provo, UT, 1980, and
In the Days of Victorio
, University of Arizona Press, Tucson, AZ, 1970, are the result of the many years in which Eve knew Apaches. Gaining their friendship and confidence, she has written these wonderful accounts from their standpoints.
The People Called Apache
, by Thomas E. Mails, Prentice-Hall, New York, 1974, is beautifully illustrated by the author and is a veritable encyclopedia of Apache customs, clothing, and way of living. An overview of Apache history is given in the excellent
The Apaches
, by Donald Worcester, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, OK, 1979. Don, who cowboyed with Apaches in his young days, was called by them “The Blond Apache.” Other fine studies about the Apaches are
Western Apache Raiding and Warfare
, from the notes of Grenville Goodwin, edited by Keith H. Basso, University of Arizona Press, Tucson, AZ, 1973;
Apaches: A History and Culture Portrait
, by James L. Haley, Doubleday, New York, 1981;
The Apache Indians
, by Gordon Baldwin, Four Winds Press, New York, 1978.

I appreciate the suggestions and advice of Dr. C. L. Sonnichsen and wish to thank the staff of the Arizona Heritage Center, Tucson, for assistance in tracking down some obscure facts.

For the Alamos section, I thank Ida Luisa Franklin for inviting me to her restored mansion,
Las Delicias
. Writer, painter, and gracious lady, she makes the colonial city glow in her tales of ghosts and old houses.
The Almadas and Alamos
, by Albert Stagg, University of Arizona Press, Tucson, AZ, 1978, tells the story of the city through the fortunes of one aristocratic family and makes fascinating reading.

For anyone who wants to try eating some of the plants used by the Apaches, Carolyn Niethammer's
American Indian Food and Lore
, Macmillan, New York, 1974, is an indispensable resource.

Appreciation is also due Gloria Maender, who wrought fair copy out of my marked-over pages; to my husband, Bob Morse, who watched for details of birds and natural history; and to my thorough and talented editor, Michaela Hamilton.

Jeanne Foster

Cave Creek Canyon, Arizona

August 1982

About the Author

Born on the High Plains near the tracks of the Santa Fe Trail, Jeanne Williams's first memories are of dust storms, tumbleweeds, and cowboy songs. Her debut novel,
Tame the Wild Stallion
, was published in 1957. Since then, Williams has published sixty-eight more books, most with the theme of losing one's home and identity and beginning again with nothing but courage and hope, as in the Spur Awardâwinning
The Valiant Women
(1980). She was recently inducted into the Western Writers Hall of Fame, and has won four Western Writers of America Spur Awards and the Levi Strauss Saddleman Award. For over thirty years, Williams has lived in the Chiricahua Mountains of southeastern Arizona.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover design by Connie Gabbert

ISBN: 978-1-5040-3635-1

This edition published in 2016 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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