Arizona Gold Read Free Page A

considered changing her plans. She would go to Arizona, all right, and find out exactly what had happened.
    Maybe she would even find that ring, she thought, lips set in a tight, angry line. Probably she would find it right on Opal Grimes’s finger.
    She shook away the suspicion and scolded herself for allowing it to creep in. If Opal was that sort, she would never have sent the money. In fact, if not for her having written the letter, Kitty would not have found out Daddy Wade was dead until she got there.
    Kitty still grieved terribly for her mother. Yet she knew she would try and concentrate on finding the person responsible for killing Daddy Wade. She wanted, by God, to see that he paid for what he had done.
    Although the Indian camp was well hidden among the rocks and boulders of the dense and perilous Dragoon Mountains, Ryder McCloud knew the way.
    He was aware he was being watched, but the Indian scouts would allow him to pass unharmed, even though he wore the garb of the white man. They knew him well. After all, half of the blood flowing in his body was as theirs—Apache… Chiricahua .
    Ordinarily, he would have been glad for the trip to visit his people. Proudly he would have donned the knee-high moccasins and breechclout. Also he would have preferred to tie his dark brown hair back from his tanned face with a bandanna or beaded scarf and truly look like one of his own.
    He would also have liked to live with the Chiricahua all the time. He loved his people but felt, however, that he could do more for them by passing for white. By so doing, he could warn them of any potential problems with the army. After all, they were renegades. They had escaped from the reservation in the White Mountains where the Arizona Apache had been forcibly moved six years earlier.
    He was almost through the pass when the warrior dropped from overhead to land on his feet directly in front of him.
    Holding a rifle, his cinnamon-colored face crinkled in a big grin, Coyotay said in greeting, “I could have killed you for a white man, my brother. We are not used to seeing you dressed like our enemy.”
    Ryder had known Coyotay all his life, and they were, truly, like brothers. “Trousers and a denim shirt don’t make a man your enemy.”
    “True. But it can bring quick death in the Dragoon Mountains. Now, why have you been away so long? Three moons have passed, and your mother has started to worry.”
    “She knows I went to Mexico.”
    Coyotay’s black eyes took on an excited sheen. “And you saw the land where we can live in peace from the white man? The land the great chief, Victorio, told us about?”
    Ryder felt sadness at the mention of the great chief’s name. He had fled the reservation a year earlier, taking three hundred warriors with him. He had been killed a few months later.
    Ryder reminded Coyotay, “The white man cannot cross the border to hunt for us. It’s the Mexicans we have to worry about, and, yes, I saw the land. We will be safe there. Chief Victorio would have been, too, had he not been killed.”
    “And when can we go there?”
    “When we have gold, so that we will never have to raid again.”
    Coyotay grinned. “Yes, and your mother has told us about the gold your father has promised.”
    Ryder glanced away, unable to look at his face, shining with hope. The situation had changed drastically, but he did not want to divulge anything until he spoke with his mother. She had to be told first. “Is everyone in camp?”
    “Only the women. The men are out hunting.”
    He held up his hand, which Coyotay pressed in a gesture of camaraderie, then rode on through the final pass to follow the narrow path upward.
    Soon he could smell the roasting pits. Stems of the green and tender yucca were being cooked before drying in the sun for storing. He also caught the aroma of white rootstocks boiling with rabbit meat for soup.
    As he rounded one last boulder, the camp came into view. Since it was a sunny day, the women were