Rafe saw Don Angel’s black stallion in the lead with a tall Apache on his back.  He grabbed his rifle and leveled it, but there were too many other horses in the way for a clear shot.  Then one of the thieves broke away and headed for him.

          Rafe swiveled the rifle toward him.  The mare veered suddenly, galloping parallel to the campsite, and so close Rafe could have tossed a stone underhand and hit her.  The rider pulled his feet up under him, crouched, then stood on the mare’s back, his long brown legs flexing in rhythm with her stride.  Rafe had seen Comanches and rambunctious Texans do the same, but it still impressed him.

          As the mare pulled alongside, Rafe realized that the rider wasn’t male.  Lozen held the lead rope lightly in her left hand, and with her right she gave Rafe a military salute as sharp as any second lieutenant.  He had never seen such a look of joy and mischief.

          “Capitán Pata Peluda,” she shouted.  “¿Cómo estas?”

          Captain Hairy Foot.  She remembered him.  She must have known all along that he was camped here.  She and those other red rogues had been watching him, just as they had watched Don Angel, his vaqueros, his horses, and his Apache-proof corral.

          When she had passed him, she dropped back into a sitting position; then she and the others splashed across the stream in the sandy arroyo.  Rafe stared at her until she and Don Angel’s remuda—every horse he owned, by the look of it—disappeared around the end of the canyon wall.  He wanted, suddenly and with an astonishing intensity, to ride away with her.  He wanted to feel at ease on every crag and in every cranny of this wild country.  To live in the cool, shady canyons and cedar-fragrant mountain slopes while the white men struggled across the deserts.  To take what he wanted with no fear of consequences.  To disdain money and commerce and social constraints.  To eat no one’s drag dust.

          The pungent odor of burning coffee beans sent Rafe back to the fire to rescue them.  As he crushed them with the blade of his knife, he thought about the Apache child.  What was her name?  Lozen?  Sprightly?  She did keep appearing in his life; but then, for all its vastness, this territory didn’t boast that many permanent residents, and only a few trails crossed it, not that the Apaches stuck to trails except to plunder them.

          Rafe had discovered that certain people had a way of crossing his path.  Like Absalom here.  They had some connection to him that reached beyond understanding.  He wondered if he would see her again, and if so, under what circumstances.

          “They got Don Angel’s prize stud,” Rafe said.  “The don will be miffed.”  He shook his head.  “The Apaches will not stop their thieving ways.  In spite of all the pow-wows, palavers, and promises, they seem hell-bent to keep Mexico and the United States, and every other tribe out for their scalps.”

          “This horse trader I knew,” drawled Absalom, “was trying to pass off a skin-poor, spavined, hidebound gummer of a jade, with at least one other serious problem besides.  The buyer watches the horse for a while, and then he turns to the trader and he says, ‘Mister, this horse is blind.  Look at how he keeps running into trees and fences.’  The horse trader shifts his chaw from one side of his jaw to the other, and he says, ‘Naw, he ain’t.  He just don’t give a damn.’”

          Absalom squatted near the pan and with a beatific smile inhaled the coffee beans’ aroma.  “I reckon the Apaches are like that horse.  They don’t give a damn.”

Lucia researching at Chiricahua National Monument.  Apaches lived in this region and some say that Cochise's profile has been captured in these rocks (above right), and that his presence is still felt here today.

For Ghost Warrior talking points for your book club, see the book club page.

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