“The white man wants all the land,” Cochise said. “Land that the Great Spirit gave to the Chiricahua.”
“No, we do not want all your land.”
“It is not our land. It belongs to the Great Spirit. He lets us hunt it and live on it and wants us to defend it. The white man drives wooden stakes in the ground and writes words on paper that tell us the land belongs to him.”
Ted looked at Jeffords for help.
“That is the white man’s way,” Jeffords said. “The army wants to protect the Chiricahua and let Cochise have his land. He will keep the white man away from Chiricahua land. That is the white chief’s promise to the Chiricahua.”
“Is this true?” Cochise asked O’Hara.
“Yes,” Ted said.
Before he left the camp, Ted saw a strange sight and it startled him. A white man, dressed in black and riding a black horse, appeared from behind a low hill with two Chiricahua braves. He waved to Cochise, turned his horse and rode off into the hills and canyons that formed a maze around the Apache camp.
Cochise waved back to the man.
“Who was that?” Ted asked without thinking. Jeffords shot him a look of warning.
Cochise caught the look and waved a hand in the air as if to dismiss Jeffords’s attempt to silence Ted.
“He is called the Shadow Rider,” Cochise said. “He comes to us from the north and he brings the words of the white chief Crook with him. He speaks our tongue.”
“But he’s a white man,” Ted blurted out, still puzzled by the man he had seen.
Cochise shrugged and some shadow of a smile flickered from his leathery face.
“Who is to know what blood runs in the Shadow Rider’s veins?” Cochise said. “My people trust him. I trust him.”
“Will you also trust this man?” Jeffords asked, nodding toward Ted.
“I think this man speaks with a straight tongue. We will talk about him when you have gone. We will seek wisdom from our elders and from the Great Spirit.”
“That is good enough,” Jeffords said.
Ted’s memory of that strange meeting was still vivid in his mind. He had a great deal of respect for Cochise, and after he reported his visit to Captain Bernard, he felt that peace with the Apaches was possible. He just hoped his superiors felt the same.
He had not told Bernard about the Shadow Rider, but he had asked Jeffords if he knew the man.
“Yes.”
“What’s his name?”
“Zak Cody,” Jeffords told him. “And he is under orders from General Crook.”
“Army?”
“I don’t know. Once, I think. You better just forget you ever saw him in Cochise’s camp. I think he’s under secret orders from Crook and from President Grant.”
Ted had let out a low whistle of surprise. Though he wanted to know more about Zak Cody and his mission, he’d asked no more questions of Jeffords.
Now, Ted opened one eye and stared at Cavins, then shifted his gaze to the shaft of moonlight streaming through the window. The light seemed placid and steady, but it was swirling with dust motes and air, and when he shifted focus, he could see only the light itself. But when he refocused, the motes twirled like tiny dervishes gone mad, with no apparent pattern to their movements. In that moment before he closed his eyes, he compared the vision to Trask’s incomprehensible mind. Somewhere in that brain of his, Trask was scheming and planning.
Ted vowed that he would be patient and learn that secret. He just hoped that he would live that long and beyond that discovery. Trask was a dangerous man, and cunning, as a wolf or a fox is cunning, and he knew he must be careful. Very careful.
Finally, he fell into a restless sleep, dreamless except for shadowy shapes that flitted through the darkness of his mind, indefinable, featureless as dark smoke in a darkened room.
He was awakened by the sound of boots stalking across the floor, and when he opened his eyes, he saw a man shaking one of the stage drivers.
“Time to get up, Cooper,” a voice said, and the bearded man on the bunk rose up and rubbed his eyes.
“Shit,” the driver said, “it’s dark as a well-digger’s ass.”
“And you got a run to Yuma, Dave.”
Cavins had fallen asleep in his tilted chair and he blinked in the low light from the lamp over his head. His paper book had fallen to the floor and lay there like a collapsed tent, open to the page he’d been reading.
Outside, Ted heard the creak and jingle of harness, the snorting of horses, and the low, gravelly voices of men speaking both Spanish and English. The moon had set, or had drifted beyond the window over his bunk. His back was soaked with sweat and his flesh itched under the leather straps.
Trask entered the bunkhouse.
“Cavins, go get some grub,” he said.
The other driver woke up, adjusted his suspenders and walked outside to visit the privy. Trask and Ted were
