Savage Courage

Chapter One

You may stretch your hand out toward me,

Ah! You will—I know not when.

—Adelaide Anne Procter

Arizona, 1873

It was a beautiful, serene day at the Chiricahua Apache village. The mid-morning sun was flinging crimson banners across the sky. The Silent Stream band’s children were laughing and playing hide-and-seek in the bushes that stood near the cluster of buffalo-hide tepees.

Mothers were keeping watch on those children as some carried water from the nearby stream, while others scraped hides outside their lodges.

Dogs were frisky this day, romping in the sunshine after the children, barking, their tails wagging contentedly.

Horses neighed in the nearby corral.

As a golden eagle soared lazily overhead in the blue, cloudless sky, a new sound was added to the normal mid-morning noises—a sound that froze everyone in place, even the children.

Then the village became frantic and filled with a cold panic as warriors ran from the council house, where they had gathered to make plans for a buffalo hunt.

One of the warriors fell to his knees, then pressed an ear to the packed dirt of the ground. Soon he leapt to his feet, his dark eyes filled with worry.

In his Apache tongue he shouted a warning to everyone that horses were approaching. His ear had picked up the sound of their pounding hooves in the vibration of the ground . . . now echoing across the land like the sound of thunder that everyone could hear.

A scout rode hurriedly into the village, shouting, “Pindah-lickoyee, white eyes! Pindah-lickoyee! Many pony soldiers are near! Raise the American flag! Quickly! Wave it back and forth. The pony soldiers will surely retreat! They will see that they are arriving at a peaceful Apache camp!”

A warrior hurriedly raised the flag on a pole in the center of the village, having been told by the United States Government that doing so would always keep the Silent Stream Village safe from attack by the cavalry.

But never trusting the word of any pindah-lickoyee, mothers dropped their water jugs to the ground, ignoring the breaking sounds and the way the precious water ran across the ground, soaking into it like water into a sponge. Their concern was their children.

Their eyes wild, their breath catch

ing in their throats, they ran to where their children had only moments ago been playing. Other mothers grabbed their smaller babes up into their arms and ran toward the safety of their lodges.

Several warriors stood beneath the flying flag, shouting friend in the English tongue they had learned from friendly traders. The pony soldiers were now so close, the warriors could see the whites of their eyes, and . . . the shine of the barrels of the firearms they held in their hands.

Seeing the rifles poised now, ready to fire, the warriors knew that no American flag, or shouts of friendship, would help today.

The pindah-lickoyee had come to kill!

“They come as enemies today!” a warrior cried as he ran toward his lodge, his breechclout flapping, his long, black hair flying out behind him. “Prepare yourselves! Get your weapons ready to defend our people and . . . our . . . Apache honor!”

All the warriors ran in panic toward their own tepees, their eyes wildly seeking loved ones who might not yet have made it to the safety of their lodges.

In each warrior’s heart he knew that today was not a good day after all, despite the fact that only moments ago they had all been bragging about the wonder of the many buffalo they had seen grazing on thick, green grass near their village.

The warriors had spoken of how many they would take today.

They had talked of who might get off the first arrow of the hunt, laughingly teasing one of the younger warriors who had not yet had a first kill.

The council house had been a place of merriment only moments ago, with its fire still burning brightly in the center of the floor in its fire pit, the smoke spiraling lazily from the smoke hole even now and into the beautiful, cloudless sky.