The smoke of a half-dozen campfires lifted into the sky, perfuming the air with the aroma of cooking meat as Delshay walked out to the edge of the mesa. He stood there for a long moment, looking north. Goyathlay came up to stand beside him.
“You wish to go back to your woman,” he said. It wasn’t a question, it was a statement.
“Yes, Goyathlay,” Delshay admitted.
“I think you should return.”
“I cannot return.”
“Why not?”
“Because to return would be to abandon you and my brothers. That I will not do.”
“While you were with us, you fought well,
“That is not enough. My warrior spirit cannot shoot a rifle,” Delshay said. “My warrior spirit cannot shoot a bow. Only my body can kill our enemies.”
“And only your body can look after your woman and your children. Go now. Be with them. It is the thing you must do.”
“I have learned much from you, Goyathlay,” Delshay said.
“Do not let the lessons you have learned here die with you,” Geronimo said. “Our children, and our children’s children, as well as the children of their children, must forever keep alive the spirit of the Chiricahua. I have had dreams, Delshay, and I have read the signs. I know that the time will come when there will be no Chiricahua. Then, the memories we pass on to our children will be all that is left of our people.”
“This I will do,” Delshay said. “You have my promise.”
Geronimo reached out to put his hand on Delshay’s shoulder. “My brother, the dreams and the signs I have seen are also about you. They tell me that there will be much sadness in the life that awaits you,” he said. “But there will also be much honor, for you will become a leader whose name will be spoken with wonder for many seasons to come, even after you have died.”
“
“
Chapter Four
Ken Hendel, a rather small, fastidious man, cleaned his wire-rim glasses, then carefully put them back on before stepping up to the window. He was in the third story of a brownstone mansion, and as he stood at the window, he looked down on Union Square and the statue of a mounted George Washington.
A street orator was giving a speech just outside the iron picket fence that surrounded the statue, and several were gathered around to listen. At the moment, the speaker was railing against the use of bicycles by women.
“Mr. Hendel?”
Turning away from the window, Hendel saw Dr. Petrie standing just outside the door to Mr. Montgomery’s bedroom.
“Is he—is he still alive?” Hendel asked.
“Yes. For now,” Dr. Petrie said. “He has asked for you.”
Hendel nodded, then stepped into the room. Because the drapes were closed, the room was dark. And even though it was quite large, it seemed close. It was also redolent of the smell of scented candles, put into the room in an ineffective attempt to overcome the stench of putrefying flesh.
“Ken?” a weak voice called from the bed. “Ken, is that you?”
“Yes, Mr. Montgomery,” Hendel answered.
“Come closer, Ken. Sit by me for a while.”
Hendel moved a chair closer to the bed and looked at the man for whom he had worked for the last eight years after having assumed the same position his father had held for the previous thirty years.
Joel Montgomery, a shipping magnate, was a wealthy man. But now the seventy-six-year-old man was dying of cancer.
It was warm in the room, and there were beads of perspiration on the old man’s forehead. Hendel took a washcloth from a basin on the bedside table and bathed Montgomery’s forehead.
“You are a very good man, Ken,” Montgomery said, his voice made thin by his weakened state.
“You have been very good to me, Mr. Montgomery,” Hendel said. “And to my father before me.”
“It is no wonder that you are a good man,” Montgomery said. “For your father was as well. You come of good stock.”
