Savage Courage

As I long for your love,

My heart stands still inside me.

—Love Songs of the New Kingdom

Shoshana arrived at the fort just before dusk. As she passed by the sentries, she saw that they hesitated to greet her even though they knew very well who she was. There was something odd in their eyes . . . in their behavior toward her.

Riding on past them, she got the same cold treatment from the soldiers coming and going from one adobe hut to another. She was puzzled by this reception. Surely George Whaley had told them that she was missing, and had probably even been searching for her.

In the sunset’s orange glow, she rode onward, stiffening when she wasn’t greeted in any way by anyone.

Then it came to her in a flash why she was being shunned. She glanced down at what she wore. Yes, it was the way she was dressed. She was dressed in doeskin. She was dressed as an Apache, not a white woman.

Proud that she was Indian, and was now finally dressed as one, she lifted her chin and rode on past the soldiers.

She stopped at her father’s quarters. She dismounted and hurried inside, then paused and gazed slowly around. The room was strangely quiet. There were no lamps lit, even though darkness was quickly falling. There was no fire in the fireplace to ward off the chill that came with night.

“He’s not here,” Shoshana whispered to herself.

Then it came to her that surely he was with soldiers, out searching for her.

Perhaps it would be just as well to avoid seeing him again. With George gone, she would write the note that would conclude her relationship with the man she’d once called father. Tonight, after everyone at the fort was asleep, she would leave once and for all.

But first, she would go to the trunk in the storage room and take from it some mementos of her adoptive mother, for she had loved her with all her heart and still missed her so much.

If anyone was responsible for how Shoshana was today . . . a happy, well-centered person . . . it was Dorothea Whaley, not her husband.

Until George had retired from the military, Shoshana had rarely seen him. It was his wife who had given Shoshana her undivided attention, building within her the confidence that had been taken from her by the attack on her village.

It had been her adoptive mother whose arms had given comfort to Shoshana when nothing or no one else could.

“Yes, I want to take something of Mother’s to keep with me always,” she whispered.

She lit a kerosene lamp and started down the corridor that would take her to the room where the trunks and travel cases were stored.

As she started to walk past Geor

ge Whaley’s bedroom, the lamplight shone in, and she realized he wasn’t gone after all. He was there on his bed, his back to her as he lay on his left side.

She tiptoed to the door and held the lamp out before her so as to get a better look at George. Her pulse raced at the thought of what she was going to do. She was going to awaken him and pretend she was happy to be reunited with him.

She would get his hopes up, only to dash them in the morning when he found her gone and discovered the note explaining why she was no longer there . . . and that he was nothing to her. Nothing!

She could even now envision his reaction. His eyes would grow wide with disbelief. He would clutch at his heart, a habit that he had started a year or so ago.

She wondered if knowing how much she detested him would cause George Whaley to have a heart attack.

That made her frown. She didn’t want to be responsible for anyone’s demise, not even a man who had the blood of so many Indians on his hands.

She held the lamp up higher and gazed more closely at George. An eerie feeling came over her when she noticed how still he lay. He was much, much too still. She didn’t see his body moving at all, not even the rise and fall of his chest.

She leaned over so that she could see his eyes.

She gasped and took a quick step away from him when she realized that he was dead!

His eyes were open and directed straight ahead, locked in a death stare. The fingers of his right hand were clutched to his shirt above his heart. He had apparently died of a heart attack.

“It can’t be,” she whispered. “He’s dead!”