Free The Pride of Hannah Wade by Janet Dailey

a knife wound that had blinded his left eye. The Apaches called him “One-Eye.” He wore the army’s yellow bandanna around his neck, but it was his only concession to uniform. He was hired to translate and to scout, and that’s all he did—no camp cooking or water carrying for him, He wasn’t no step-and-fetch-it boy, he always said.
    Instead of receiving the report from One-Eye Amos Hill, Captain Cutter was questioning one of the Apache scouts using a combination of stilted English and border Spanish. Nah-tay was squat in stature and powerfully built, with deep-set eyes that burned like living coals.
    “Ask him if he knows who they were.” Stephen abruptly broke into the talk. “Mimbres? Chiricahuas?”
    The question did not require translation. Nah-tay understood it. “Chiricahua.”
    “How many? Where did they take the woman?” he demanded, conscious of Cutter tilting his head down, an act of withdrawal from the conversation.
    “Seven. Eight. Maybe some wait out there.” A sweep of Nah-tay’s brown hand indicated the limitless canyons and rims of the desert. He added something in Spanish, which Stephen was obliged to ask Cutter to translate.
    “He says the Apache goes where it will be hard for the army to follow.” Cutter studied the end of his cigar.
    “What will they do with her?”
    “Major—“ Cutter straightened in his saddle, his shoulder muscles flexing slightly in protest to this subject, while his gaze made a short sweep skyward.
    “Tell him to answer me,” Stephen ordered harshly.
    Cutter nodded to the scout. Nah-tay hesitated, then gave a long, staccato response in Spanish. Cutter did not look at Stephen as he offered an unemotional translation. “Nah-tay doesn’t know. He says it depends on many things. They may kill her slowly, or take her to Mexico and sell her to the slave markets. They may keep her for a captive ... or they may use her for their pleasure.. In that case, we will find . . . what’s left of
    As Stephen started to rise in his stirrups, anger billowing in him at the ruthless savages, Nah-tay included, a hard hand gripped his forearm. Cutter gave him a narrow-eyed glance.
    “You asked for it, Major,” he said softly.
    With an effort, Stephen controlled his rage, lifting the reins. “As soon as the bodies are loaded in the wagon, send them back to the fort for burial.”
    As the big, high-bred horse was wheeled away from the circle, its glistening rump swung against Cutter’s mount. Indifferently the second horse shifted out of the way. Cutter rolled his cigar to a far corner of his mouth, holding it between his teeth while he let his gaze follow Wade for a short span of seconds. Then he looked back to the flat-nosed scout.
    “It is his woman the Apaches have taken,” he said in Spanish.
    Nah-tay grunted and turned his deep-burning gaze after the officer. “Some ‘pache no be with woman on raids. Think they take his power.” He seemed to offer the possibility as a remote hope.
    “How do these Apaches think?” Cutter asked.
    “Quién saber
The Apache shrugged.
    “Who knows?” Cutter repeated under his breath, and laid the reins alongside of the horse’s neck, turning it away from the scouts as he half-saluted them.
    He urged the heavy-headed horse into a lope and headed for the wagon that was hauling the dead back tothe fort. His quick eyes scanned the ambush site, now a rest stop for his company of colored troopers. The Apaches had been after the officers’ horses and guns—• and some thumbing of their noses at the fort—but they’d taken the woman as an added prize. Gall burned his throat, the muscles tightening. He remembered her beauty, the shining of her hair, and the dance of her smile . . , and he remembered that hint of pride and strong will in her mouth. That spirit of hers would be hard to break. And it angered him that the Apaches would enjoy the time it would take.
    He looked into the vast expanse that tumbled roughly around them, its dry