Savage Courage

After all were buried, a travois was made for Storm’s father and they set out, pulling him behind them.

Before long they had found the young girls and Dancing Willow and were telling them what had happened. Then together they started the long journey up the mountainside.

After going only a short distance, Storm’s father passed to the other side. Storm’s heart ached anew at this latest loss.

Remembering that his father had wanted to be with his mother, Storm risked returning to the place of death and buried his father alongside his beloved white wife.

Then Storm returned to the others.

They traveled onward.

Storm was filled with such grief, he found it hard to bear.

“I vow to find vengeance for my people, especially my father and mother,” he whispered to himself. “Some day I shall find the man who killed them . . . that Colonel Whaley!”

Yes, when he was older and strong and ready, he would search for and kill the man respons

ible for the tragedy today. If he could find the man who was responsible for removing his mother’s beautiful golden hair, he would bring it back and bury it with her!

His mother’s hair had been so lovely . . . like golden silk.

Ho, yes, Storm might be a half-breed, but inside his heart and in everything he did, he was one hundred-percent Apache!

He most certainly was not a pindah-lickoyee, and today he was no longer an ish-kay-nay, a boy.

He was a man with a man’s duties and responsibilities.

His eyes narrowed angrily, he spoke a solemn vow to himself, swearing eternal vengeance against this man called Colonel Whaley.

Should Storm ever get the opportunity, he would make Colonel Whaley pay for what he had taken from Storm today!

Chapter Three

I never saw so sweet a face,

as that I stood before.

—John Clare

Arizona, 1888

A bugle blared, sounding officer’s call, awakening Shoshana with a start. Her eyes were wild, her heart pounding.

Again she had dreamed of her mother, whose beloved face she now remembered so vividly, even though for many years it would not come to her.

For so long, everything about that dreadful day fifteen long years ago had been wiped from her mind.

But now, at age twenty, she did remember, and in this recurring dream Shoshana was once again in the arms of the cavalryman as he carried her on his horse away from the death scene of those she loved.

But the dream was different this time.

In it, as Shoshana turned once again to see the body of her mother one last time, her mother was being carried away by a large and beautiful golden eagle, its huge talons gently, lovingly, gripping her.

The eagle had turned its golden eyes to Shoshana and seemed to have been telling her that he was carrying her mother to safety, that she was alive, and that she would be waiting for Shoshana to find her so that they could be reunited.

“It seemed so real,” Shoshana said, scurrying from her bed. “The dream did . . . seem . . . so real!”

She pulled on a robe and slid her feet into soft slippers, then hurried from her room and went to George Whaley’s bedroom door, where she knocked softly.