The Native (A Legacy Series Novella) (The Legacy Series Book 6) Read online

  “You don’t have any idea where they might have gone?” he asked the captain.

  “One of my officers said they fled to the north. How far, I don’t know. We weren’t in much of a position to give chase.”

  Geoffrey gave him an apologetic look. “I saw there were some new soldiers in the camp. They sent you more men, but wouldn’t send you more food.”

  Hernando held up his hands in a helpless gesture. “That’s the military. They don’t make sense. I just hope they will improve over time.”

  In the peripheral of his senses, he could hear some of the guards speaking to Adam and Hugo just outside the gate. He thought leaving them there would be far better than bringing them inside, especially after how they were received in town. But it appeared that the reception wasn’t so warm and inviting outside the presidio either.

  Geoffrey stood up from the chair and turned it around so it was facing the desk in proper fashion. “Then, I must take my leave and go find the medicine. The people won’t last long without it.”

  Hernando’s pudgy face wrinkled with confusion. “What I don’t understand is how you found a Navajo woman attractive enough to marry. Don’t their savage manners bother you?”

  The Spanish didn’t understand anything about the Navajo, or the Comanche. All they saw were the raids, the crazed, painted faces, and their people slaughtered in wars fought over land that didn’t belong to the Spanish in the first place. Hernando, the soldiers, and the settlers of Santa Fe would never see the families and children who were just like their own, scrounging to feed themselves and live peacefully. Both were doing what they saw to be right, but all Geoffrey could see were ignorant minds unwilling to open up.

  “I hope you find a woman someday who will knock you on that fat culo of yours as much as my Rebecca did. Then, maybe you’ll understand.”

  Instead of being offended, Hernando laughed and walked his guest out into the courtyard. “I hope so too. If I could ever get out of this presidio, maybe I will.”

  Adam didn’t have an idea what the Spanish soldiers were saying to them, but judging by their tones and the way Hugo tried to calmly return their comments, he knew it couldn’t have been friendly. He refused to meet their gazes, just as he wouldn’t look at the settlers they passed by in the town. These people had tried to swindle the Diné into giving up their land for years and he’d never forget the stories the elders told of the many raids to steal back what was rightfully theirs.

  Whatever they were saying, whatever their insults or remarks, Adam shouldn’t have cared. He didn’t even beg Hugo for a translation. It wasn’t worth the trouble. He simply sat upon his horse and waited for his father to come out and say it was time to leave. Through the many voices inside the garrison, he could barely make out the conversation between the captain and Geoffrey.

  One of the soldiers came forward to grab the halter of Geoffrey’s horse that Adam had been entrusted with. The animal jerked backward and he steered her away from the man’s reach. For the first time, Adam dropped his glare upon the offending man. Another soldier raised his rifle and pointed it at his chest, but he didn’t even flinch at the unspoken threat.

  Hugo held out his hands to the two parties and hurriedly spoke something in the Spanish tongue. Then, he turned to Adam. “Close your damn eyes,” he hissed.

  It was then that he realized a bit of the wolf had shown itself in response to the heat that flashed through his body. He did as Hugo told him, though he wanted nothing more than to frighten these men into leaving him alone. Looking away would only give them the victory.

  The soldiers became frantic, talking so fast that it all blurred together like an annoying warble of gibberish that meant nothing to him at all. Hugo shouted and all Adam could feel was the horse’s muscles tensing between his knees.

  Adam was suddenly yanked from his horse and he fell to the ground. Now, he wouldn’t stay docile. He opened his golden eyes and as soon as he did, he saw the fist come barreling toward his face. Adam ducked, grabbed the soldier’s arm and twisted him around until he had the right leverage to snap the man’s elbow if he dared.

  “Adam, leave him be!” Hugo shouted.

  Another man came behind Adam and wrapped his arm around his neck, the rough fiber of his jacket sleeve rubbing against the skin around his throat. He kicked the soldier he had been holding, then grabbed his captor and tossed him over his shoulder.

  More men descended upon him and Hugo joined the fray, more or less to try and resolve the conflict with words rather than action. Didn’t he know that the Spanish knew nothing else?

  Adam let the wolf empower him. In the brawl, all he could hear was the popping of bones, ripping of uniforms, and girlish whimpers of the men who dared to assault him.

  Geoffrey and the captain of the garrison appeared just moments after the fight began. His father dragged him away from a soldier he was about to pound into the dusty earth.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Geoffrey growled, a flicker of gold sparkling in his eyes, but he didn’t allow it to fully mature as Adam did with his.

  “In the boy’s defense,” Hugo said. “The soldiers started it.”

  The captain went straight into scolding his men and ordered them back into the garrison. Several had to limp toward the gates, while others held their broken limbs and aching heads.

  “I don’t care if they started it,” Geoffrey countered. “You shouldn’t have retaliated.”

  Adam wiped at a tiny dribble of blood that had seeped from a cut on his lip, now perfectly healed. “What else was I to do?”

  Geoffrey glanced back to the captain, yelled something in Spanish, and then went to his horse. “There’s always a better alternative to fighting,” was all he said on the matter. “Calm yourself down. We have a long ride and I need your head clear.”

  Adam mounted his horse, but the golden eyes didn’t go away so quickly. Rage still pulsated in his blood. He should have known that the Spanish would attack him. All he did was breathe in their presence and they hated him for it, just like they hated the Diné for living on land they had the audacity to think was theirs.

  “Where are we going?” Hugo asked as they turned their horses to the north and swiftly rode away from Santa Fe and the presidio.

  “We have to find the Comanches who raided this place a week ago. They have the medicine.”

  Adam kicked his horse to keep up with his father. “The Comanche?” he questioned. “They’re just as bad as the Spanish.”

  Geoffrey slid a derisive look to his son for his ill-spoken words. “Let me make one thing clear to you,” he said. “And I hope you’ll actually listen to me for once. The Comanche are not bad. The Spanish are not bad. Neither are the Apache, the English, or anyone else. We might have done bad things, but that does not make us bad. We have all made choices, decisions we can’t take back after we realize they weren’t the right ones. And those people who constantly make bad decisions are put into positions of leadership, like that captain I met. Do you know how we stop these bad things from happening?”

  Adam shook his head, feeling like a child again under the reproachful stare of his father.

  “We change the world, one good decision at a time.”

  It might have been imprudent, but Adam replied, “How can one good decision change the world?”

  “It can change the mind of one person,” Geoffrey said, holding up his finger. “Then, that one person changes the mind of another, and then another.” He held up more fingers. “Eventually, a whole settlement, a whole tribe, a whole nation, can change its course. You need to be that man who makes those good decisions by not fighting back, by proving them wrong.”

  What he said made sense. A tiny leaf could send out ripples in a pond when it falls from a branch, and change the entire face of the water. But Adam was just one man and he couldn’t fathom how he could change the face of the water, or change the mind of an entire society. How was he to bring peace and how could his father expect him to be the on
e to instigate it? Why not Geoffrey or Hugo? Why not his mother or one of the elders from his tribe? He was just beginning to learn how to have peace within himself. Perhaps one day, he could be that figure that people looked up to for guidance, but not today. Not when he still had so much to learn.

  Chapter Five

  They had spent most of their afternoon and all of their evening trying to find the trail of the Comanche that led away from Santa Fe. According to Geoffrey, it had been several days since their raid on the presidio and the horse tracks were either stale or mixed with those of other traders in the area, making it nearly impossible to tell them apart. He and his brother knew the Comanche well, but not well enough to follow them across the plains to the north.

  If Hugo remembered correctly, they hadn’t spoken with a Comanche in years, and it was nearly certain that the one tribe they had visited was no longer in the same place as it was before. The Comanche moved more often than the Navajo and had learned to clean up after themselves. That meant they had even fewer markers to look for.

  When night settled and it was time to set up camp, Geoffrey couldn’t rest. Hugo, more than glad to ease off his horse and stretch his legs, let his brother go into the fading twilight to continue his search. Adam, still dejected and silent after his father had given him that scolding outside Santa Fe, resigned to stay and help build the fire with what little wood and kindling they could find. One thing Hugo did admire about the natives was that they knew how to build an efficient fire that gave off little smoke and burned throughout the night with hardly any maintenance.

  “Are you going to keep sulking like you have been?” Hugo asked once he was finished laying out their thin bedrolls upon the spread of grass around the fire. He was glad to be out of the dusty wastelands and into some greener country for once. Why couldn’t Geoffrey have married a woman from the Sioux or Lakota tribes along the plains? At least it wouldn’t have been so damn hot there.

  Adam frowned to his uncle. “I’m not sulking,” he replied.

  Hugo was also glad that his nephew had gotten out of his habit of speaking Navajo, so he wouldn’t have to constantly translate his own speech in his head. English was so much easier.

  “Yes, you are. Your mother didn’t give you speeches like that?”

  “She never had to,” Adam replied. “Everything I did was right.”

  Hugo laughed. “Perfect child? You’re your father’s son. I doubt it. I remember a few times where you got into some trouble.”

  As if suddenly remembering an instance where he was rebuked, Adam cracked a smile and simply shrugged. “Well, maybe not so perfect. But it’s been a long time.”

  He picked up a stick and stoked the wimpy fire, hoping to make it just a little bigger to suit his liking. Hugo liked to sit a fair distance away and still feel the heat from the flames. “He means well, you know.”

  Adam didn’t reply, but sat cross-legged like he had the night before and closed his eyes. Listening, he called it. Hugo was well aware of how remarkable the boy was, and he agreed with Geoffrey that they shouldn’t tell him how much of a prodigy he was proving himself to be.

  They hadn’t had much of a chance to talk about it, but Hugo wondered if Geoffrey remembered that night in Russia and the prophecy that was spoken over them and their descendants. Maybe the spirit was talking about Adam. Would he be the vessel used to bring peace? After the thrashing he gave to the poor soldiers at the presidio, Hugo wasn’t so sure any more. Adam was still coming into himself and his abilities, but there was still so much anger boiling just beneath the surface. If there was a way to harness that and use it for something worthwhile, they had to figure it out.

  Or perhaps the best way was to douse that rage completely.

  “Listen,” Hugo began, “I know we were all on bad terms for the better part of the last ten years, but you have to know that your father hated every moment he spent away from the village.”

  Adam didn’t open his eyes. He didn’t even portray a hint of acknowledgement when Hugo spoke, but he continued anyway.

  “We didn’t want you to find out about us that way. Thinking about it later, we realized it was too much all at once. We meant well by trying to tell you, but we should have done it in a gentler fashion. We can’t take back all those years, but we can start fresh. Some of what we’re trying to teach you is for your own good and these things are going to help you live the best life possible. You need to forget everything you thought you knew about us.”

  Adam’s chest rose and fell as he took a deep breath and exhaled it. “I know,” he said.

  Hugo waited for more, but when his nephew didn’t elaborate, he said, “So, you know, but are you willing to put the last ten years aside to learn properly?”

  “Isn’t that what I’ve been doing?” he asked, his tone carefully neutral.

  “For the most part, but -”

  Adam opened his eyes, cutting his uncle off. “Have you ever realized how far away you can hear on a calm night?”

  The question blindsided him, but Hugo shook his head. “I never cared to try.”

  “Then maybe there are some things you could learn from me too.”

  Hugo pointed a finger at him. “And one thing I can teach you is humility.”

  Adam watched him, those green eyes reflecting the light of the fire between them. “Even our elders can watch the younger boys and learn something new every day. Why do you mistake my confidence for arrogance?”

  To his chagrin, he had no answer. It just didn’t seem right that Adam, a werewolf for only two days, could know something about his abilities that Hugo or Geoffrey didn’t know. He tried not to question or test his gifts. He was only concerned with suppressing them so his life could resemble something normal again.

  They had been werewolves for a couple of centuries and things were just now becoming easier for him. He didn’t have to forcefully dull his senses or consciously ignore the wolf inside him when it was screaming out some wild impulse. Hugo remembered his first few days as a werewolf, and he wasn’t the picture of calm and control as Adam was. It just wasn’t fair.

  “Fine, oh great sage. What wisdom can you impart that will make such a difference in my life?” Hugo leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, feigning eagerness as if Adam held all the secrets of the world.

  He smiled again and paused as if in thought. “I had always supposed my people were in touch with nature, but ever since yesterday morning, I’ve come to see that we’re not as in touch as we thought we were. I wanted to become a Medicine Man, because I believed they were the closest to the Holy People, the ones who gave life to this earth. Being this, a werewolf, made me realize that we are closer to nature than any other living thing. Perhaps we’re even closer to nature than the animals and plants, because we are a mix of both sides. The coyote and horse can’t comprehend their place in the world. They are just animals. As people, we can comprehend our place, but not fully appreciate it, or sympathize with the creatures we share this land with. As werewolves, we can do both. We are one with nature and we can fully appreciate it. We’re all connected, just like a wolf pack. I feel it when I think of you and father. I feel it in the stillness when there’s nothing else to feel. It’s like a web that a spider spins. All of us are connected… Do you understand?”

  Hugo stared blankly at his nephew. He wanted to say that he wasn’t making a bit of sense. He wanted to tease him for being just as philosophical and enigmatic as his father. But he held his tongue. It didn’t matter if it was gibberish to Hugo. If Adam understood these ideas, and it was what brought peace between him and his inner wolf, so be it.

  Saving him from having to come up with an excuse for his ignorance, Geoffrey’s voice split through the night. “I found something,” he called out across the stretch of land that separated them.

  Adam was the first to stand and Hugo soon followed. They came upon Geoffrey squatting in front of what appeared to be broken shards of glass trampled into the dirt. As soon as he came close
r, Hugo smelled the distinct astringent scent of medicine. It was old, but the liquid had seeped into the soil and thankfully, there had been no rain in this part of the country for the last two weeks.

  “So, we’re on the right track,” he said.

  Geoffrey nodded. “It must have dropped on their way back to the village.”

  “The village is a few hours that way,” Adam said, pointing slightly to the northeast.

  Both brothers looked in that direction, but neither could see a campfire light, nor hear voices. Not even a drumbeat for miles around, and Adam somehow knew the Comanche were there?

  “Are you sure?” Geoffrey questioned, glancing up to his son.

  Hugo lightly smacked the back of his hand on his elder brother’s shoulder. “The boy knows some things.” He gave Adam a clever wink.

  Geoffrey rose to his feet with a sigh. “Well, as long as we know where the Comanche are right now, then we can count on them being in the same place tomorrow morning. Let’s get some rest and we’ll pay them a visit before noon.”

  He turned to walk back toward their camp, but Hugo and Adam exchanged wary looks. Neither of them were too keen on meeting with the Comanche tribal council for obvious reasons.

  Even if they rode into the village under a flag of truce, they weren’t known for their hospitality toward white men. The few dealings they’d had with the natives in the past had been lucky ones and they made out with their scalps intact, but that was only because Geoffrey and Hugo had something to offer. Now, they had nothing. Just a sob story about a few sick Navajo families, which might not be enough to convince them.

  The welcome into the Comanche village was just as Geoffrey expected. Adam was the first to notice the lookout scout perched upon a faraway ridge before they neared the camp. The laughter of children was displaced by the frightened, frantic voices of the women who corralled them back into their tipis. Likewise, Geoffrey could hear the men run to their horses to meet the party before they could venture too close.