Horizons of Deceit, Book 1 Read online

  “Easy, Annabelle, easy….” It was George’s voice that filtered into her ears, hazy and indistinct, but it gave her something solid to concentrate on—something to aim for in the fog that clouded her faculties. Gradually his face came into focus, as pale as a ghost and as fretful as she had ever seen him. He smiled in relief.

  “You gave me quite a shock, Mrs Bedford,” he said soothingly, rubbing her cheek softly with his palm. She tried to raise her torso but her head swam, so George curled his arm around her waist and helped her into a sitting position. “Here,” he said, offering her a clay cup. “Drink this, they said it’d help.” She curled both her hands around the proffered drink but it was really George who tipped the liquid gently into her mouth. It was mildly sweet, herbal, and as she swallowed it gave to her throat a pleasantly warm sensation. Already feeling rejuvenated, she drank a little more, and the restorative effects of the infusion coursed into her belly and her bloodstream.

  “Thank you,” she muttered, finding her voice but not her memory. “What happened?”

  “You passed out… Dropped off the horse like a brick off a bridge and gave yourself a pretty good thump when you landed. Probably this blasted heat getting to you.”

  Annabelle didn’t respond and looked around her. She was sitting on a mattress made of buffalo hide in a large tepee. A fire crackled gently in the centre, and dozens of totemic constructions of feathers, sticks and bone hung from the walls. The shaman’s hut, she was sure. She looked down, and with anger and embarrassment found that her prosthetic leg had been removed and was laying a couple of feet to her left. Stiff and ungainly as it was, she had grown used to wearing it, and the weightlessness and uselessness of her stump irked and shamed her. She quickly grabbed for the leg and, not caring for decorum, hoisted up her skirt and began to strap it back into place.

  “You shouldn’t have taken it off,” she hissed to George, not looking up.

  “I’m sorry, I know, but the fall dislodged it and we were much more concerned in getting you to safety… I’m sorry, Annabelle. Truly.”

  She had chided him unnecessarily, and felt guilty. Once more he had made her safety paramount, and she needed to remember that this came not from any doubt in Annabelle’s strength or ability, but from the love he felt for her so sharply in his heart.

  She locked the leg into place and tightened the buckles until they were comfortable, then replaced her skirts to a more modest position. It was only then that she properly looked around the tent, and noticed that she and George were not the only occupants. Sitting across from them, at the opposite side of the fire, was Geronimo. He was looking at her with intelligent eyes the colour of obsidian that reflected the fire’s dance. Dressed far more traditionally than Wapi or the other braves she had hitherto seen, he sat cross-legged on a raised bear pelt surrounded by carved poles of wood, like a throne. His face, framed by two braided lengths of black hair, was a roadmap of wisdom through age. It was wrinkled, pinched and sternly serious, the colour of a roasted nut with a strong jaw-line and forehead. Wapi stood at his right, and on his left the young girl, Kai, sidled up to him as a child would to her grandfather. She looked across to Annabelle with wide, apprehensive eyes.

  “You have travelled far, Yohana,” said Geronimo. His voice was low, but strong. “At times I have been with you on your journeys, watching, fearing for your life as you have feared for your own. I was with you when you traversed the red planet, when you dug into the belly of the white lady in the sky, and fed and helped her children. I have gazed through your eyes at the stars, and seen our mother Earth from heights that the eagle can only dream of. I have been with you, Yohana, and I have prayed for your deliverance.”

  Wapi stepped forward.

  “The great Geronimo is wise beyond the skill of many tribes,” he said. “But he cannot see the future. He simply knew you would come when you were needed most, as the rain comes when the earth is at its most thirsty.”

  “This need,” said Annabelle, hoisting herself up. “You mentioned that before. Spirits that must be left to slumber. What do you mean? What’s going on?”

  Geronimo nodded. “As I had hoped, your spirit is drawn in the wake of your passing, and follows you here. It is this, and the pure hearts of your companions, that will aid us in cleansing our land. Wapi is a brave and noble warrior, and yet what he sees as evil spirits, you and I know, Yohana, in truth come from a far more solid plane. Our lands have been a waypoint for visitors since the lands themselves were young, and as a warrior’s steed leaves its tracks in the sand, so too did these travellers from beyond leave their mark. It is these forgotten footprints that have brought evil men here, men who would exploit powers far beyond their understanding.

  “We have passed down secret knowledge over countless generations, acted as the guardians of these forbidden places. Once they were worshipped, but always they are feared. Metal and money are the ways of nations now, not the plants and beasts and land, as our people believe. The balance must be restored, the hunger of this progress must be tempered, not satisfied, a hunger that has no care for the life that blesses the world. If we fail, a great cataclysm of fire will engulf all of mankind.”

  “I thought you said you couldn’t see the future?” commented George, before realising his interruption may have come across more accusatory than he intended.

  Geronimo looked at him stoically.

  “To see the events of futures untold is not necessary, husband of Yohana. Merely to observe the actions of greedy and careless men is enough, for the consequences are always the same. Death. Misery. Slavery. Pain. You know this, or you would not take arms against them.”

  “Of course,” mumbled George. “I’m sorry.”

  Annabelle put an arm on his shoulder, and turned back to Geronimo.

  “What are we to do?” she asked.

  “First, we must rest. The days ahead will punish the spirits and bodies of us all. We must focus, become one with ourselves, each other, our purpose. And you, Yohana. You must reconcile with your past, with the crimes that were imposed upon you when you were but a child.”

  For the first time, Geronimo moved, he looked down sadly into his lap before looking back up and meeting Annabelle’s eyes. She could almost swear the fire reflected in them had become misty, dimmed by the tears that welled there…

  “You must reconcile,” he said quietly, gesturing to his right, “with your daughter.”

  6.

  TALLY AND NATHANIEL packed quickly. There was no point wasting any more time in Dublin, and Nathaniel was keen to return to the Admiralty so he could make his report and begin his investigation on the chunk of crystal he had rescued from the caverns under Phoenix Park. The city itself was in a state of panic. The news of the bombing was on the tongue of every Dubliner, discussed in loud voices in pubs, in hushed tones in market corners and yelled in newsprint in every paper from Howth to Tallaght. There was shock and consternation, fear and guilt, the city boiling over into a maelstrom of accusation and counter-accusation. Many believed it was a British plot to break the spirit of the Fenians, a show of fearful strength and a promise of retribution. Others believed the Fenians themselves were responsible, experimenting with new explosives and destroying a large chunk of the city in the process. There was political turmoil at the highest levels and a tightrope tension in the streets. Now, where a resting place for lovers and a playground for children had once stood, there only remained a vast sinkhole. Charred debris and twisted metal poked evilly out of the ruined land, mixed with the splinters of uprooted trees and mangled hunks of exotic animal flesh.

  The city was swollen with fear and mistrust, and it seemed that if you did not appraise every face in the street with a look of suspicion then you, too, were somehow suspect. Not that it was even that necessary—despite the weather, which was once more balmy and promised glorious sunshine later—the streets were pretty much deserted. This didn’t stop curtains from twitching when Tally and Nathaniel walked past them, and neither of the
pair dared to look back inside. Tally, demonstrating admirable sense and forward-thinking, lent Nathaniel a shirt, waistcoat and one of his old, grubbier overcoats to replace his battered and conspicuously British suit. Nathaniel was also conscious that his accent might not be particularly well-received, so as they walked, they walked in silence. This seemed to pair well with the sombre mood of the eerily desolate town.

  They boarded the tram at Westland Row and it trundled sluggishly past the famous Martello Towers on the coastline, on towards the port near Ringsend. As Nathaniel had suspected, there was a distinct increase in the number of security measures for those wishing to leave the Emerald Isle. Passports were scrutinised far more closely, eyes were met and held by the squinting, suspicious gaze of officials. Tally did his best not to look shifty; he was sure that the papers he had acquired with Nathaniel’s help were legitimate, but he had been betrayed so many times that any underground deal he’d successfully completed always came with that faint whiff of panic. Normally he’d have enjoyed it—but today was a very different day.

  The staunch and humourless official eventually waved them through with an irate flick of the hand, and only then were the two men able to breathe again. They boarded the ferry with a minimum of fuss, and as the great boat’s engine’s hummed into life Tally sauntered to the stern and leant on the aft railing, watching as he sailed away from the city he called his home.

  Nathaniel followed him, and leaned next to him in silence. The Irishman was gazing landward, smiling sadly. He took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket, pulled one out and, thanks to the wind, lit it with some difficulty. He looked sideways to Nathaniel, curled the corners of his lips, and looked back to the city with a nod.

  “Dear Old Dirty Dublin,” he said, raising an imaginary glass. “Be seein’ ya.”

  “This was,” said Nathaniel, somewhat unsure, “your home…”

  “What kind of feckin’ stupid question is that? You worry me sometimes, Nath. Yeah, sure it was my home. Born an’ bred. And this might be the last I see of it. Say,” said Tally, turning to Nathaniel with a smile, “sure I’ll be fine. The streets of London are paved with gold! All I needs do is pull up a cobblestone or two. Right?” He looked across to Nathaniel, who was staring back at the land with an eerie intensity.

  “Right…?”

  7.

  THEY BOTH MOVED slowly around the tepee, shuffling wolfskin rugs, making the place their own as a new wife would rearrange her living room. The weight of the day, and the news it had brought with it, was upon them. For Annabelle, years of denial had been replaced by acceptance and anger, emotions that tugged her in opposite directions. George was stunned, and moved around their home for the night as if in a daydream, barely able to comprehend the truths that had been told.

  Did he really now have a daughter?

  Both were thinking of the sorry tale Geronimo had told, the history that Annabelle had held, hard-pressed against the back of her mind, for eight long years. When the Apaches had murdered Annabelle’s parents and kidnapped her, it was not long before the young girl’s spirit had begun to show itself. She was feisty, adventurous, never content to be a victim and always keen to be a part of the wild world that had captured her. When told “no”, she would always respond with “why?” When forbidden to do something, she would always go out of her way to try it anyway when elder eyes weren’t watching. She’d practise with bows or rifles she’d stolen from the secret cache after dark, or followed the braves out to hunt while the elder women stayed around the fire to weave.

  Such fortitude was noted and respected, even if it was never talked about openly. Even the squaws who would harry and chide her for her precociousness would smile with pride when they thought she wasn’t looking.

  As she had grown, and grown beautiful, she was accepted as no other outsider had been—totally and with absolute trust. She was known to the women as feminine and wise, and the men knew her as a warrior with a heart of fire. Yet, in such a close-knit tribal group, there were always those who would take more than they had earned, who would want more than they were offered…

  Such a man was Deerpak. Even as a child he had a darkness about him, spending too much time on his own and rarely talking to his peers. Where Annabelle’s rebellious nature had endeared her to the rest of the tribe, both young and old, male and female, Deerpak’s natural status of outsider had been sly, quiet and suspicious. Annabelle would befriend young coyotes and tousle with them playfully; when he thought no-one was looking, Deerpak would kick the pups around the dust, or pierce scorpions into the ground with an arrowhead and pull off their legs, one-by-one. He was nearly three years older than Annabelle, and as manhood overtook him, so did jealousy and lust.

  Annabelle did not care to remember that night when he found her, alone, still a girl, scratching pictures in the dirt with a stick. How, far beyond the sight of those who would have stopped it, he forced himself upon her, the smell of his teenage sweat and the pain and the bleeding. How, after he had satisfied himself, he had got up and walked away as if nothing had occurred, leaving her to make the red dust of the desert black with the stain of her tears. How she feared to tell the elders or the women; how she cried at night when her lunar cycle ceased and her belly began to swell with a hated, invading seed.

  When the women of the tribe knew what was happening, they stood together as one. They took Annabelle, still too young to understand, and quizzed her ceaselessly. The truth was soon discovered.

  He tried to escape. Cunning came easily to him, and when his crime had been discovered he knew his time with the tribe was at an end. At night, he stole a horse and supplies, still young, still stupid, for the noble men knew he would attempt to flee. They were ready, and to spare the noises carrying back to the camp, they let him get far enough away before they caught him.

  It was Wapi, Annabelle’s childhood friend and confidant, who had insisted on exacting the whole tribe’s retribution. He was fourteen, and it was the first time he had killed a man. Fittingly, after Geronimo had told this sad and sorry tale, it was Wapi who held out to Annabelle a package wrapped in leather; a package containing the scalp of the man who had attacked her. She took it without speaking, and held it loosely in her hands.

  That same package sat beside the fire of their tent, unbidden, unwanted. A sore, sorry point. Annabelle breathed in deeply. She looked at George, still tending the fire. He sensed her unease, and looked back.

  “Annabelle,” he said.

  “George…,” she replied.

  It was as much as they could manage. She tried to smile.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said.

  She sighed, uncomfortable. What could she say? She loved him deeply, and knew that he loved her. Wasn’t that enough? She wanted it to be, wished that that was enough for him…but how would he see her now? She had told only one person of the incident before, and even then it had not been the complete truth. But George, he deserved the whole truth.

  “Annabelle,” he said. “I love you so much….”

  “And I you, George….”

  “No, stop.” He said. “Do you think you have to make excuses, to explain yourself?” His voice was terse with anger, directed, she knew, only towards himself. “You are the woman I love,” he continued. “The woman who I have loved absolutely from the moment I set eyes upon you. To know that that woman I fell for had been through so much, endured so much pain and hardship…. It only makes me love you all the more.”

  He breathed in, deeply.

  “I love you for your strength, your beauty, for everything that has made you who you are. I love you Annabelle, and am proud to be your husband. I am yours…” He faltered. Looked about, momentarily frustrated, then up to her.

  “And that’s all that I can say.”

  “Oh, George…”

  She skipped up, suddenly happy, and trotted across to him. Resolute as he was, he smiled as she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him on the mouth.

  “We’re still
on our honeymoon,” she teased, and as she arced herself back she found her waist slipping easily into his welcoming arms. “And you and I in a tepee? Bearskin rugs, an open fire…” She looked him in the eye and smiled, teasing and content. He kissed her.

  “Promises promises,” he said.

  She leaned back, happy as he held her in his arms and letting out a slow groan of pleasure.

  “I need to disrobe,” she said glibly, pulling away. “Just do one thing for me.”

  “Anything.”

  She looked towards the parcel at the base of the fire.

  “That,” she said, suddenly cold. “I want it gone. Promise me, George. Take it out and bury it. Leave it to rot in the desert. Will you do that for me, husband?”

  He smiled at her. “Of course, my love.”

  She smiled back, coquettishly.

  “And I promise that the sooner you get back, the sooner I’ll be here waiting for you. And fur does feel so good against bare skin…”

  She pecked him on the lips, and skipped back happily to their bed. She grinned at him; he grinned at her. He turned. Casually, he bent down in his stride and picked up the leather package is if it were nothing more than a piece of rubbish.

  “Back soon,” he said, as he flipped the tent’s entrance aside.

  “I’ll be waiting,” said Annabelle, beginning to undress.

  8.

  BEDFORD LOOKED UP. The Arizona night sky was like nothing he had ever seen before. No clouds, no light, and nothing but a thousand stars to dazzle his eyes. He was far from the light of London, and glad for it, too. He breathed in the air, clean and cold. Breathed out. Looked to the package that he held firmly in his left hand.

  Annabelle had not unwrapped it. But he wanted to. He wanted to see the dead skin of the man who had wronged her. He did so, slowly, surprised by how human it felt when his fingers touched human hair, and the thickness of the skin that once hugged so close to a living scalp… He held it, for a moment, and felt pleasure. The woman he loved had been avenged, and no amount of stars in the blackest of skies could bring light to the soul of the man who had hurt her. He would always be damned, that man. And he didn’t deserve a burial. Such was the way of their people, Bedford knew. He slipped the scalp into his pocket as a keepsake. Nobody would hurt his Annabelle like that again. He promised.