Tah-zay sprang forward, his wolf-tooth necklace rattling violently against his chest. He pointed his staff at Sarah, his face contorted in furious rage as he unleashed a torrent of spitting, impassioned words, gesturing toward the south, toward the mountains, and toward the graves of their ancestors.
Sarah did not understand the language, but the meaning was unmistakable: She is poison. She brings destruction. Kill her, or drive her out into the cold.
The old shaman’s voice rose like the screech of a cornered wildcat, echoing off the granite cliffs that surrounded the hidden mountain sanctuary.
Tah-zay strode toward Sarah’s pony, his eyes blazing with a fanatical fury that made the bay horse sidestep nervously, snorting and tossing its head. The medicine man struck his wooden staff against the earth, showering the dry grass with sparks from the nearby hearth.
"She is the daughter of the destroyers!" Tah-zay yelled in the Apache tongue, his words carrying with violent clarity across the silent gathering. "The blue-coat soldiers hunt our children in the canyons, and Chato brings their white-skinned mother to suck the water from our spring! Her blood is bitter! She carries a viper in her belly that will grow to strike us in our sleep!"
Murmurs of agreement rippled through the gathered crowd. Several young warriors, their faces painted with black soot and yellow ochre from an earlier scouting run, stepped forward, their hands resting on the grips of their hunting knives. The women pulled their children further back into the shadows of the wickiups, watching Sarah with hard, unyielding glares.
Sarah felt the bay pony shudder beneath her. Her heart raced, slamming against her ribs like a blacksmith’s hammer.
Every instinct told her to slide from the saddle and fall to her knees, to beg for mercy as she had done at the spring. But then she remembered Chato’s warning: An Apache respects courage; they despise those who bend like wet grass.
She took a slow, deep breath, tasting the cold mountain air and pine smoke. She forced her shoulders back, leveled her chin, and met Tah-zay’s blazing eyes without flinching. Her hands remained steady upon her swollen belly, neither hiding nor pleading, but standing as an open testament to the life she protected.
Chato stepped smoothly between Tah-zay and the horse, placing his broad shoulder directly in the shaman’s path.
"She is not a spy of the blue coats," Chato said, his voice dropping into a dangerous, icy calm that commanded immediate respect. "She was hunted by the white outlaws of the valley. They broke her lodge and sought her life. She fled into the dry stone with no bread and no water, carrying the child of Thomas Mitchell."
At the mention of the name, Goyahkla raised his heavy head.
The war leader’s eyes, hooded and ancient, fixed upon Chato. "Thomas Mitchell," Goyahkla rumbled, his voice like boulders grinding together at the bottom of a river. "The man who gave you iron for the bone?"
"The same," Chato said. He turned and gestured toward Sarah. "He is dead. The earth broke upon him in the deep dark. He left his woman with nothing but the debts of his labor and the child beneath her ribs. He gave me water when my mouth was full of sand; he bound my arm when the crows gathered above me. Does the Bedonkohe forget a debt of blood?"
Tah-zay sneered, his spittle flying into the dust. "The miner gave you a drop of water so he could dig our yellow stone from the ground! His woman is a curse! Cast her into the canyon, or let the knife settle the debt!"
The shaman lunged forward, reaching out a claw-like hand toward Sarah’s skirts, as if to drag her from the horse himself.
Crack.
Before Tah-zay’s fingers could touch the calico cloth, Chato’s hand struck like a striking rattlesnake. He caught the medicine man’s wrist in an iron grip, twisting it just enough to halt the movement without breaking the joint.
A collective gasp went up from the women at the perimeter of the council circle. To lay hands on a medicine man was a sacrilege that could tear a band apart.
"Touch her not," Chato whispered, his dark eyes burning with deadly intent. "She sits upon my horse. She is under my blanket. If any man in this camp seeks her blood, he takes it from my chest first."
Tah-zay tried to pull his wrist free, but Chato held him fast, their eyes locked in a contest of wills that seemed to freeze the very wind in the pines. The shaman’s breathing grew heavy, his face darkening with humiliated fury, but he saw no hesitation in the young warrior’s stance.
"Enough!"
The voice came from the fire.