She Who Flies With Doves
by Sharon Kull

EXCERPT

Chapter One

Mary was fearful. She had never been with the white-eyes in their settlements, and surely not in towns. Their ways, especially in those places, were said to be cha-ut-lip-un, very bad, by all of her Apache kin and tribesmen. Chief Little Squirrel particularly despised them, he had spent a good deal of time telling tales evil enough to chill the blood. Although Mary's mother would confide truth to replace untruths, there still lingered enough suspicion to cause near panic. Mary would have preferred to live in the desert, alone with her mother and babe, than to be around people she was unsure of.

Part of her reasons rested on her brutal rape. Those renegades had been men like she supposed would now be around her all the time. Never could she permit such beasts to touch her again. She loved Louise with all her heart, but hated the giver of the father seed with the rage of a snared lynx.

CORTARO TURNED OUT to be the perfect place for two women to find a new way of life. The small town was just settling down after a match race instigated by local ranchers against all comers. There was talk about cheating because the ranchers' racers were captured camels that had been set free by the Cavalry. It was fortunate that outlaw, Lucky Lanar, had ridden his golden horse to victory, and so prevented a battle of revenge.

Nearly trampled by a big, black, saddled but riderless horse as it charged into town from out in the desert, Mary held her babe closer to her breast. Gaining comfort from her own mother's arm circling her waist, she stepped up onto the boardwalk.

"I do not like it here, Mother," she murmured quietly, glancing around at their surroundings. There were too many people, most of them excited enough to be hooting and shouting. Mary was glad to be on the fringes of the gathering, rather than in the middle of it.

"Fear not, daughter," Nancy told her. "All of these people are too busy to notice us. This is good. We will need to watch and learn how to be. Things I have been remembering and taught you seem to have changed since I was taken away from my white family, in a place called Las Cruces, by your father."

"I am frightened," Mary admitted. "I am remembering back and have visions of faces I do not wish to see."

"The men who violated you might never be seen by us, there are too many whites and Mexicans. They will be lost among them. A town is no place for such bastards."

"Can we be sure of that?"

"The territory is big and can swallow those who wish not to be found," Nancy told soothingly, nodding her head.

"I hope you are right. I love my little one but do not wish to be reminded of how I came to get her."

"Then let us think about finding a way of providing for ourselves. Many of those who came to see the race will leave, but others will stay. We will be like them, looking for work."

"What kind of work, Mother?"

"Anything we can do, daughter. Talk little at first, and do not call these people white-eyes so they can hear. That is something an Indian would call them."

"That is wise to say. We must find shelter, and these buildings belong to...white people. It is them we will have to ask for a place to stay," Mary said as she continued her study of the town and people.

"Yes," admitted reluctantly, gazing around at the stores and finding them only remotely familiar. "I have been in Indian villages for so long that buildings made from wood seem somehow wrong. Shelters made of hides or brush now seem right. I have not stood on a plank floor since Little Squirrel's tribe happened on a stagecoach Way-Station that had been previously raided by other Indians fifteen winters ago." Nancy sighed wistfully, tracing a finger along her granddaughter's nose, gently, so as not to wake the dozing babe up. It was pure luck that they had survived their ordeal, the desert should have killed them all, if not just month old Louise.

"This, what we do now, will not be easy, Mother." Mary wished to go back into the desert.

"We will have to take things one step at a time."

"Is it not strange, how some whites speak so quietly?"

"Apaches are a harsh people. None of them know how to talk quietly. You will learn to like talking quietly to people."

"I talk quiet to you and Louise."

"Yes, that is true, Mary. To the whites, they are not talking quiet. It just sounds quiet to us because it is not as loud as Apache talk. Let us walk and see what is in this town."

"First I must know what to call you when people might hear. You have called me, Mary, instead of, daughter. Do I say, Nancy, to you?"

Scowling in thought, Nancy remembered. "You are right to call me, Mother. I did not call my own mother by her given name."

"This will not have to be thought about. You have always been 'Mother' to me."

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