“It has been six months since we last shared a bed with a woman,” the two powerful Apache warriors told the lonely widow. In the arid lands of the Sonora frontier, in the year of our Lord 1887, the wind carried dust and memories of the dead. The hacienda dedicated to souls was now nothing but charred beams and sun-eaten walls.
However, in the cabin that still stood lived Doña Refugio Domínguez, widow of the late Captain Domínguez, shot dead by the rural police three years earlier. At 32, her skin was still smooth, her eyes as black as wet obsidian, and a sadness weighed more heavily than the mourning clothes she barely wore anymore. One afternoon in late September, as the heat began to subside and the coyotes began to howl in the distance, two riders appeared on the horizon.
They came from the north, from the mountains where the Chirica Apaches still defied Mexico and the United States. Their height rivaled that of the pine trees, broad shoulders, bare torsos glistening with sweat and bear grease. They carried Winchester rifles slung over their shoulders and leather knives at their waists, their long black hair braided with eagle feathers.
The younger man, about 28 years old, was named Nisoni, which means « handsome » in their language. The other, almost 40, was named Goklaya, cousin of the great Jerome, known and feared in three territories. Both were over six and a half feet tall without boots. Their arms were like mesquite trunks. Refugio saw them arrive from the threshold of the cabin.
She felt no fear. In those days, people were used to seeing death on horseback. She took out the double-barreled shotgun she kept behind the door, but didn’t fire it. The Apaches’ attitude toward the house, intact and unlooted, clearly indicated that they hadn’t come for war. The warriors dismounted. Nisoni had a scar that ran across her chest like a dried-up red river.
Goklaya had hawk-like eyes, scarred by too many visions of corpses. They stood before the widow, silent at first. The silence was heavy until Goklaya, his deep voice seeming to rise from the earth itself, spoke in the Spanish he had learned on his missions. « Woman, it has been six moons since we have known the warmth of a woman. »
« Six months without the comfort of a woman’s arms. Our women were left behind in the mountains. The soldiers killed them or took them away. We fled. Now we are alone. » Nisoni nodded, her eyes never leaving the mourning neckline of the dress she wore half-unbuttoned in the heat.
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