Chapter 1

 

 

Tonight would be my night to die. Red Eagle and his men had kept me alive to their own end, for the last several days. Now, they argued, and though I didn’t speak Apache, it wasn’t hard to tell what they meant. We had ridden across endless miles of desert, populated only by saguaro cactus and rattlesnakes for days. I wasn’t sure how many. The men talked amongst themselves, their faces smeared with war paint. Garish and frightening, they had seemed to me from the moment they took me. Now, they seemed hideous, almost laughable.

The sun was setting on another day among endless time—six days; seven? I wasn’t sure how long we’d ridden. On and on, it seemed as if we’d ride until we came to the end of the earth. But I knew that the ocean surrounded the continent on three sides, and we were far from the cooling spray of ocean water my father had often spoken of.

I was in Hell, and I knew it. But not the why. Why was I even still alive? By then, I didn’t think too long on that, either.

The sly looks Red Eagle’s men exchanged when they glanced my way had me thinking again. I was ten years old. Old enough to understand those telling glances, even if I didn’t know the language they spoke.

But after those endless worn-to-the-bone days of riding into the heat, it had got to where I didn’t care if tonight was my night to be killed or not.

Red Eagle drew up, and the others stopped below a rock outcropping. That red devil knew where to find water, no matter how dry the day’s riding had been. Sure enough, he dismounted and led his horse into a cavern that was nearly hidden, especially as the streaks in the sky turned purple, and twilight descended.

By then, I already considered myself dead. I wasn’t hungry, though I couldn’t remember the last time I had eaten. I was more thirsty than anything, and I guess I didn’t have any pride left in my bones. Once the horses smelled the water inside the cave, they hurried forward to drink, and I pitched from the saddle myself, crawling to the watering hole.

I managed to get my hands into the water, tied as they were, but getting the water to my mouth in that position was impossible. I pulled myself forward a few more inches and lowered my head, drinking like an animal.

Then, I began to come back to life. That water revived my nerve endings where the ropes they’d tied me with bit into my wrists. My face cooled quickly, bringing relief from the blistering sunburn. My stomach growled loud enough to set a couple of the murdering devils to grinning and laughing.

Red Eagle squatted beside me. “So, you are thirsty, young warrior.” He gave me a half smile, but his eyes were black as night, and hard as glass. “And you are still not talking.” He watched me, like he was trying to figure out some kind of secret. I stretched out on the ground and said a prayer when I closed my eyes. I didn’t pray much because I hadn’t seen it had ever done a whole lot of good. And it wasn’t helping any right now, either. But I was out of ideas and I needed help in a bad way.

“Please, just take me to be with Mama and Papa and Lisbeth. And You.” I thought I better add that last part, in case God really was interested in having my soul. I didn’t think that He was, or He wouldn’t’ve let things get so out of hand.

And I knew He hadn’t heard me. Again. The Apaches laughed and carried on, moving all around me. I never opened my eyes. I had prayed my hardest, and nothing had happened—as usual. I figured, the least God could do if He was gonna ’low my family to be murdered by Red Eagle and his men, was to take me, too. It made me plenty mad that He left me behind, alone. That was the end of me prayin’. But I was too tired to work up any enthusiasm just now to hate Him for what He’d failed to do, for any of us. Sleep was my only hope for escape, and I took it.