Page 15 of Sweet Savage Love
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T he Apache attack came with the first streaks of light—seeming no more than a kind of vapor that turned the edges of dark blue night sky to a paler, more translucent blue. They were already under the wagon then—Ginny and Sonya and Tillie—still half-asleep, protesting at having been awakened so long before dawn. Heavy boxes and cases protected them, with only the merest slits between them for rifle barrels. It was safer under the wagon, Pop Wilkins had explained. And there would be men with them. They were prepared for the Indians—waiting for them.
And yet, when the attack came, its initial onslaught coming from all sides, it only seemed as if it was a herd of wild horses that galloped towards them. There was a slight, puzzled pause until someone, Steve? Paco? yelled:
“Start shooting, you damned fools! This is it!”
Peering through one of the slits, Ginny saw the brown, squat bodies of the Apache warriors who led the horses, running almost as fast as the animals until they swung their bodies onto horseback with derisive yells.
The fusillade of rifle fire that followed deafened her. She was aware of being pushed aside and told to stay out of the way, and after that, for a while there was fortunately no more time for thinking or being afraid, for she and Tillie were too busy reloading the hot, smoking guns and rifles that were tossed aside when their chambers were emptied.
It became automatic, after the first fumbling efforts. No time to feel hands blister and burn from touching hot metal, no time to wonder what might happen if somehow a bullet or an arrow found its way into the wagon.
Sonya, too, was using a rifle; and after the first time that Steve Morgan had snapped, “Take your time—make sure every shot counts!” she seemed quite cool and calm, although her shoulders must have been sore and bruised from the recoil of the rifle each time she fired.
Ginny had no time to feel jealous over Sonya and Steve being so close—their shoulders were almost touching. At least he was here, with them—she had never been more relieved than when she had seen him come sliding under their wagon in a kind of a running leap from outside.
Once or twice she was aware of the thud of bullets striking the boxes that protected them—the firing seemed continuous, intermingled with wild shouts and yells from Indians and defenders alike.
There was a short lull in the firing after the first two or three waves of attackers had been beaten back, with several brown bodies lying quite close to the wagons. Ginny did not even dare think how many of themselves might be dead as well—some of the same men who had exchanged smiles with her or touched their hats when she passed—it was still not quite believable that this was happening.
“They’ve gone already?” she heard Sonya ask excitedly, and it had been on the tip of her tongue to ask the same question, but now she was aware that Steve Morgan was shaking his head grimly as he reloaded his revolver.
“They’re not through yet. They’ll be back—so don’t take your eyes off that tall grass out there. No Indians will leave their dead behind if they can help it.”
The Apaches had obviously not been prepared for the strength nor the preparedness of the wagon train’s defenders, but caution did not in any way dim the fury of their next wave of attack. This time they used more guile. Some of the warriors dashed forward on horseback, but others, hidden by clumps of long grass, snaked forward half crouched on foot, or on their bellies under cover of the more obvious attackers.
This time, some of the brown-skinned warriors gained the inner circle, crawling between the chained wagons with screams of triumph. From somewhere Ginny heard a man scream—then a rattling burst of shots and a cry, “We got him!”
“Keep firing!” Steve Morgan said quite calmly to the suddenly shaking Sonya. His eyes swept over Ginny. Crouched almost frozen, her nerves still jangling from the shouts of pain and anger that seemed to come from everywhere.
“You too—you can shoot at anything you see—let Tillie reload.”
Without waiting for her reply he had already swung around to guard their soft underbelly—the “safe” side of their small, improvised shelter.
It seemed unbelievable that she, who had been in Paris, safe and happy, only a few months ago now sat crouched under a wagon in the middle of nowhere with blistered hands and powder smudges on her face—trying to fire a gun at enemies she could not even see.
“Keep firin’, keep ’em off!”
Was that really Pop Wilkins’ voice, now hoarse and almost unrecognizable in the heat of the battle?
There was a thud, like that made by a body, against their wagon and Sonya screamed. Ginny felt the empty gun drop from her hands, she had barely the strength to take the freshly loaded rifle that Tillie handed her.
In spite of her orders, in spite of her own fear she turned around, and Steve had disappeared. There was a strange, almost liquid, rattling scream just outside, and Ginny’s face blanched with fear.
“Oh, Gawd, someone jes had his throat cut,” Tillie moaned, and above the sound of firing, Sonya, no longer neither calm nor composed, screamed at her, “Will you shut up, you silly creature?” And then as Ginny, the loaded rifle gripped in her hand, started to crawl outside, Sonya called again, her voice high with fear, “Ginny—no!”
She kept crawling, driven by some instinct outside herself that was stronger than fear, to freeze, still on her knees just beyond the shelter of the wagon.
Not two yards from her lay the still, twisted body of an Apache, the streaks of war paint garish, his eyes staring sightlessly. He was an old man; there were streaks of gray in the hair held by a headband elaborately patterned with beads.
Just beyond, two men locked in a silent, gasping combat, rolled over and over on the dry, sandy ground. She saw the glint of knives—and noticed for the first time that one of the men was Steve Morgan, the other an Apache.
“Oh God!” Ginny whispered aloud. She lifted the gun in her hand, and it felt so heavy she wanted to let it drop. For she didn’t dare use it…and then something made her look up, and she saw Carl Hoskins standing watching, from just a short distance away.
“Carl—do something!” she screamed, but he didn’t move—there was a strange, almost gloating expression on his face.
“Morgan can take care of himself,” he muttered, and then in an almost dazed voice, “You all right, Ginny? I heard a scream.”
She ignored him, her eyes again fixed on the silent struggling combatants. Steve’s shirt was cut to ribbons—she could see the straining of his muscles as he and the other man grasped each other’s wrists, each denying the other the chance to use his knife. What had he done with his revolver? There was blood everywhere—on him, on his antagonist, and they fought, the two of them, like wild animals, engaged in their own private war while another one went on all around them.
An arrow missed Ginny by inches, and she did not even scream, merely looked at it stupidly until Carl, diving across the space that separated them, knocked her backwards.
“Ginny, for God’s sake, take cover!”
Pushing her ahead of him, he crawled into the small space where Sonya and Tillie lay huddled.
“Start firing! Here, give me that gun!”
Carl snatched a gun from Tillie and began to fire through the slitted opening, and Ginny stubbornly taking advantage of his preoccupation, peered outside again.
There was something primitive, elemental, about two men fighting with knives, although she could not have put it into words. Somehow, they had separated, were circling each other, bodies taut with the need to spring, fighting against caution that urged waiting. And somehow, she could sense these things, even if the guttural Apache tongue sounded strange to her ears. She knew that they taunted each other, promising each other death.
Again she lifted the gun, and the hammer made a clicking sound, and the warrior sprang for Steve, his knife reflecting the sunlight so that it blinded her for an instant and again, she could not bring herself to fire.
She heard a cry and a grunt, and the Apache fell backward, knife dropping from his hand. Half-dazed, Ginny saw Steve straddle his body, the knife flash upward and down even as she screamed to him, “Don’t! Oh, don’t!”
He turned to look at her at last, with the blood oozing and trickling from the cuts on his body, and his knife all bloody as well, and his eyes were cold.
“You wanted me to let him live with a knife wound in his belly? He was a warrior, and a warrior should die clean and quick.”
Without a word, Ginny went back beneath the shelter of the wagon, staying there until again there was a cessation of the firing. While she reloaded for Carl, trying not to notice the reproachful look he gave her, her thoughts tumbled over each other. This was the second time she had seen him kill—and it was worse, much worse with a knife than it had been with a gun. And yet, those same hands had touched her so gently last night, that same body had lain over hers and become part of her—dear God, what kind of man is he? Am I insane to feel this way? And what, exactly, do I feel for Steve Morgan?
She had time to think about it later—after the Apaches had gone, taking their dead. And this too, strangely enough, was because Steve, arguing firmly with Carl and Pop Wilkins, had insisted.
“They’ll keep coming unless we let them take back the bodies of their fallen warriors, even though they know by now we’re too strong for them to take. One of you put a white cloth on your rifle barrel—they understand that—and I’ll parley with them.”
“We’ve got them now—why should we be the ones to show the white flag?” Carl had been furious, but in the face of the sudden savage light in Steve Morgan’s blue eyes even he had given in sullenly in the end.
And so the Apaches had gone, as suddenly and as silently as they had first come in the early light of dawn. And a few hours later, after Paco and Steve had ridden out and returned to report that it was safe to continue their journey, the wagons had begun to roll ahead, just as if nothing had happened.
Two graves, piled with stones, had been left behind to mark their recent battle, and at least five other men who had been wounded rode in the wagons. As she rode in silence beside Sonya, Ginny remembered the short passages that Pop had read from the Bible, and tears stung her eyes again, as they had done earlier. Death and violence! They seemed so far from civilization, so far from all that was dear and familiar, and she realized now, more than ever, how wild and untamed this land still was, with its painted savages who belonged, surely, in another century; and its men who were equally as savage, killing casually and without conscience.
She thought about Steve Morgan, and reason told her that he had had to kill the Apache, that it was only the fact that she had seen it happen that had frightened and revolted her so. And yet, it only forced her to realize that he was a killer by profession and must have chosen his own way of life. Honesty forced her to admit that he had attracted her from the very first, and that in spite of all her efforts to hate him and stay away from him she had been helplessly drawn by some strange yearning in her own body and nerves that she had not understood before.
A grimace of distaste pulled at the corners of her mouth. Oh, God, she was no better than he, than any loose woman who had no control over her own baser emotions! How easily she had given herself to him—another conquest in a long line of them, no doubt. Well, he would not find her as easy again—not him, nor any other man.
Deliberately, pleading exhaustion and a splitting headache, Ginny stayed in her wagon that night, letting Tillie bring her a cup of light broth that was delicious.
“But—it almost tastes like chicken! How did you manage it, Tillie?”
The girl grinned at her.
“It’s rabbit—or somethin’ like that. Mist’ Morgan, he shot it and gave it to me. Said to tell you he was sorry you’re not feelin’ so good.”
How dare he pretend concern for her now? She had an impulse to fling the cup of steaming broth at Tillie, but instead she said in a voice that was carefully casual, “That was kind of him. Is Mr. Carl all right?” Let Tillie think her main concern was for Carl—the girl always acted as if she knew too much.
“Oh, Mr. Carl, he’s real worried about you! Real upset he was, until Miz Brandon calmed him down.” Tillie dropped her voice and leaned forward conspiratorially. “Heard him tell Miz Brandon how much he thought of you, miss! Ain’t that somethin’? You got the two best lookin’ gentlemen courtin’ you already—almost got in a fight a while ago, they did, when Mr. Carl said somethin’ about lettin’ those Injuns get off so lightly today…”
Ginny sat up with a jerk, almost spilling the broth over herself.
“They almost got in a fight? Oh, God, Carl won’t stand a chance against him if they do!”
“Thought you liked Mist’ Morgan best.”
The girl was sly—Ginny longed to give her a set down, but uncertainty as to whether Tillie had been awake last night and had seen her leave the wagon, made her bite back the angry words that sprang to her lips.
“Mr. Morgan is—an unusual man, but he is not a gentleman. I’ll be glad when we finally reach El Paso.”
But would she be?
In the days that followed, Ginny was often to ask herself that same question. There were no more Indian attacks, and everything went smoothly, even the crossing of the Pecos River. Carl Hoskins made constant excuses to ride beside their wagon, and in the evenings, when they made camp he courted Ginny in earnest, undaunted by her flimsy evasions as to why they should not wander off into the darkness alone, or talk of anything as serious as an engagement between them.
“But this is hardly a natural situation,” she would tell him, “and we do not really know each other yet. Besides, Papa would be furious with us both if he thought—”
“Yes, yes, of course I understand! Ginny, I know you are right, and so logical, my stubborn little darling. But I have fallen quite hopelessly in love with you, and nothing will change my mind.”
And she would think, if he only knew! How he would despise me—yes, he’d change his mind, all right. Perhaps he’d ask me to be his mistress then, but never his wife!
Back in Paris, how glibly she had declared to her closest, most intimate friends that of all things, she would like to become a famous courtesan.
“Marriage,” she had declared vehemently, “is only another form of slavery. Why should I have to put up with his mistresses and be saddled with a child every year, not daring to take a lover of my own? I would like to be able to choose my own way of life, my own destiny, like any man can, merely because he is a man.”
How facile it all sounded now, and how naive! She lived in a man’s world, a world that put women on pedestals and worshipped them only as long as they conformed to accepted standards of behavior for women. Her virginity, that despised tiny piece of membrane that had sealed her away from any man but the right one, had been given away too lightly and too easily to the wrong man. And it galled her to think that he, Steve Morgan, had not even attempted to court her. He had made no declarations of love, no promises.
“I want you—” he had declared flatly and uncompromisingly—not, as she might have wished to hear, “I love you.” No, and worse yet, he had not even shown her the respect due to her position or her inexperience. His kisses had been rough and demanding, he had treated her as if she were a cheap dance-hall girl, and she had let him, had been crazy enough to want more, to allow him, of all people, to be the one to satisfy her curiosity.
Ginny had been determined to ignore him and to avoid his presence as much as possible; but being feminine it irritated her unaccountably to find that far from seeking her out, or trying to coax her into a repetition of what she still thought of as “that night,” he seemed to keep out of her way quite purposefully.
She was becoming used to Carl’s kisses now, although they did not stir her in any way, and she would not let him take any further liberties beyond touching his lips to hers.
Still, there was a demon inside her that seemed to sit detached from the reasoning, logical part of her mind at times—nagging at her with the secret thought that she did not enjoy Carl’s kisses at all, and had certainly responded to Steve Morgan’s—that even now, on some nights, her body ached with the need for something, for the feel of lips and hands on her, for the sweet sense of dispossession she had felt when he had so craftily built her desires up until they were unbearable and then had slaked them with his body.
Like the others on the wagon train, Ginny counted the days until they would reach El Paso, but for a different reason. The wagon train would stop for two or three whole days at El Paso, to rest the cattle and replenish their supplies. And it was here, if everything went well, that they would hear from an emissary of the Emperor Maximilian. Her father would be arranging matters from Washington even now—and if all materialized as he’d hoped, she and Sonya might find themselves journeying to Mexico City as guests of the emperor and empress.
“You, Ginny, with your important connections at the French court,” and here her father’s eyes had twinkled at her, “you shall be my little Ambassadress. Remember to give your most special smiles to Marshal Bazaine, for he, as commander of the French armies, is the real power behind the throne.”
It had all seemed so exciting, listening to her father tell of all his plans and his ambitions. Like something from a novel by Monsieur Dumas. She had imagined herself as the cloaked heroine, hurrying into danger on a vital errand—but the Indian attack had taught her, at least, the unpleasant fact that danger was by no means pleasant; that the thought of dying, even for a cause, was even more terrifying.
Suppose they left the train at El Paso, using some trumped-up, last-minute excuse (but no, she thought annoyedly, there would be no need for that, there would be a message from her father waiting and he would have arranged everything, leaving nothing to chance, as was his way) what would happen?
What would happen to the rest of them? Would Steve Morgan miss her presence, or wonder why she had changed her mind about California so abruptly?
To Sonya, when they discussed it, it all seemed unimportant.
“We do not even need to give them any explanations, Ginny dear. After all, they were hired by your father to take a wagon train and some cattle to California, not to question us! We will simply announce that we intend to stay on in El Paso because your father has changed his plans and will join us there. Or—or—well, we will think of something, I’m sure!”
How wonderful to have Sonya’s sweet, unruffled nature—to be so very certain that nothing could possibly go wrong! But at least, she would tell herself firmly, she would not have to see Steve Morgan again; to be afraid of looking up and meeting his cold, sapphire blue eyes and feel herself jolted all the way down her spine by an unnameable, unthinkable yearning to feel his mouth against hers again, and hear his voice call her “love.”