Chapter One

Arizona, 1880

Moon When Cherries Turn Black—August

The sky was a turquoise blue overhead, with only a few puffy white clouds breaking its vastness. The air was hot and dry; an occasional breeze stirred the dust on the ground into small swirls.

Weak from fasting, Chief Thunder Horse rode across a high hillside on the way home to his village. He had been praying for the strength he needed to protect what remained of his Fox band of Sioux.

Because of one wasichu, one white man, Thunder Horse’s small band was out of tune with their universe. He had fasted to regain harmony with all things encompassed by the Great Powers.

As it had been from the beginning of time, it was incumbent upon the leader of his people to purify himself of the demands of the flesh by fasting on a high place. And so Thunder Horse had done, hoping for guidance through dreams, for sometimes dreams were wiser than waking thoughts.

It had been three days and nights since Thunder Horse’s fasting had begun. As always, he had prepared himself spiritually through song. It was well known that songs shut off twisted thoughts and emotions.

The fasting was now behind him, for he had received the answers he had sought in his dreams. He felt assured now that the course of action he planned was right.

Suddenly his thoughts were interrupted by activity down below him. He heard the thunder of horses’ hooves, and the screams of a mitawin, a woman.

He drew rein, stopped his steed, then wheeled his sorrel around.

His eyes widened when he saw a stagecoach down below, pulled by a team of six horses running totally out of control.

But what surprised him the most was that there was no stagecoach driver. The reins were flopping here and there while the horses raced onward as though they were crazed.

Hearing frantic screams for help, Thunder Horse spotted a woman leaning out one of the stagecoach windows. Not one to interfere in white people’s troubles, he he

sitated to help the woman in distress.

But when he saw the horses suddenly veering to the right, now galloping hard toward a cliff, he knew that he could not just sit there and watch the horses and the woman plunge to their deaths.

Although weak from lack of food these past three days and nights, Thunder Horse sank his moccasined heels into the flanks of his steed. He scrambled down the hillside, then urged his horse into a hard gallop toward the stagecoach.

When he drew alongside the team of horses, their hoofbeats sounding like thunder in his ears, he steadied himself, then leaped onto one of the lead horses.

He reached out and finally was able to grab the reins. Pulling hard on them, he finally managed to get the horses under control.

Once the animals had come to a halt, he spoke soothingly to them until they had quieted. Thunder Horse then leaped from them to the ground and ran to the stagecoach door.

The woman’s eyes watched him fearfully through the window as Thunder Horse opened the door.

As she came fully into view, Thunder Horse found himself gazing onto a face of pale pink perfection. It was complemented by hair the color of a setting sun, which flowed across her tiny shoulders and down her back.

She was young, surely no more than nineteen winters of age, and petite in every way. Her tear-swollen green eyes were filled with fear as she looked upon him.

Needing to make her understand that he was a man of peace, a man of honor, who had never harmed any white woman in his lifetime, who especially would not harm someone as tiny and helpless as this woman, Thunder Horse released his hold on the door and stepped back. He spoke to her in good English, which he had learned long ago in order to be able to parlay with whites.

“I am a friend,” he said slowly. “I saw your trouble. I came to save you from harm. The horses were running straight toward a steep cliff.”

When she still didn’t say anything, but only sat there trembling and staring at him, he again spoke to her.

“You have nothing to fear from me,” he said softly, marveling at her loveliness. She was like no other woman he’d ever seen, with her hair the color of fire hanging long past her shoulders from beneath a fancy bonnet.

He looked back in the direction from which the stagecoach had come, then gazed at the woman again. “Where is the driver?” he asked, imploring her trust with his midnight dark eyes.

He could not help her any further if she would not communicate with him. Yet he did not want to leave her alone out here in the desert.

“How is it that the horses got so spooked, they came close to carrying you to your death?” Thunder Horse asked, frustrated that the woman still did not trust him enough to answer his questions.

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