Renegade

by Onkwehonwe Kashatstenhshera

From East To West: 5 seek their destiny. A lonely old warrior trying to save the western tribes from the same fate his suffered, an ex slave turned soldier seeking revenge , a bandida who sells guns to enemies of the state,a disgruntled gold miner & an ex confederate turned outlaw unwilling to accept the Union's victory. Will they find peace after the endless bloodshed?

14. New Mexican Standoff

Enrique sat around the camfire with other Comancheros. Atonwa and Elena was there. She was still healing. There was a small camp of Numunuu warriors from Red Wolf's band. Broken Arrow had been tending to her wounds

"Did you know out of the fourteen thousand dead in the war, only about 750 were sent home, viejo. And none of the cuerpos were identified. Luckily, the men i served with were some of the 750..."

"That's like the Seminole Wars. My brothers to the very far south..." Atonwa chimed in. "Most soldiers were buried on battlefields and left there. Some officers were buried back at home with their families but only if the families would pay for the costs personally. It was in that war the Americans just had..over three hundred thousand dead. It made the war we fought look like nothing. They would bury northern soldiers near the battlefields they fell in. After the war they would dig up these bodies and put them in national graves."

Elena nodded. "I was learning more about Rome at the convent. We mostly study things that are scripture related but we also have time where we can read. In Rome, the legions would pay for funeral cost. They would pay a small fee to cover it. For this reason, they tried to always carry the bodies of their soldados off the battlefield."

A Comanchero who had served with Enrique in the war and who had three daughters of his own, replied, "The Spartans buried their soldiers on the battlefield too."

The comanchero, Álvaro, a Mexican man of mixed tribal descent as he was of Mexican descent specifically of Huichol ancestry and through his father's blood he was Pueblo specifically Laguna Pueblo. He stood five foot eight and though he had some distant Spanish ancestry on both sides of his family, from the 1500's on his mother's side and from the 1600's from his father's side. Elena had learned about the Pueblo Rebellion and Alvaro's ancestors had in fact fought in that and had temporarily driven pi he Spanish from New Mexico. He was still roughly 80% indigenous and 20% European.

He had married a Mexican woman from Sonora. She was now pregnant with a fourth. He considered the Huichol indigenous even if some tribes, due to bad treatment from Mexican soldiers when New Mexico was part of Old Mexico, did not see it that way and viewed them the same as Spaniards but he did not think that way and he honored his mother's tribe but he had wanted to marry a woman of his own tribe but despite being a tribe that was relatively non resistant against the United States military and settlers, they had still fought gallantly against the Spanish Empire but the Americans had been too advanced and they had weapons. Not enough Pueblos had guns to make any stands against the United States.

They had used a mixture of the two in Popes rebellion but the Spaniards had reinvaded the territory so by the 1800's, the fight was mostly out of them and they were a peaceful tribe now. But the disease and the occasional attack on Pueblos by white settlers who didn't care to differentiate, there were not that many of his specific band of Pueblo. He had married a woman of a different Pueblo band once but she had died of smallpox after contact with the Penetaka band of Comanches when trading. Where as the Quahadi had avoided European diseases by trading primarily with Mexicans, other Comanche bands had not been as careful.

She had perished in 1851 after giving birth to his first daughter. He had remarried a woman from Elena and Enrique's tribe named Lupe Velasquez. She was a full blooded Yaqui and proud. The Yaqui, like the Pueblo had lost many people to inter tribal warfare, war with settlers, and disease but they still had more numbers than his specific band and though they were different tribes, they belonged to the same tribal language family though he hadn't learned about that in school until the church had taught it to him. They had translated the bible from Spanish to Yaqui with Yaqui help.

Next was a man of Opata descent, mixed with Romani-Spaniard descent but with more Opata blood, roughly 70% and he was five foot eight inches had curly hair and he wore a brown sombrero and a green jacket and white jean pants. He had also fought in the war with the United States. Julio Duarte. He was in his forties but looked to be in his thirties. He had four sons. He was also an old friend of Seamus and had fought alongside him and his St Patrick's Battalion.

They were successful New Mexican restaurant owners and said restaurants had bars in them as well. "Bueno amigos, con un poco de suerte y si Dios quiere, no estaremos entre los muertos."

In addition to Julio being connected to the St Patrick's Battalion, having actually served in it since despite it being mostly Irish defectees of the United States Army, it had also had Mexicans since it was their country and ther side and Julio had been one of them. He had a scar on the side of his right cheek that went up into and above his eye, a wound he had received from an officers sabre during the war.

Much like the Irish immigrants who had defected to their side simply because of the fact that they heard church bells for mass and they refused to fight fellow Catholics for a mostly protestant army that hated them, prior to joining that specific battalion, he had almost been drummed out for aggressiveness towards superior officers and had narrowly avoided being shot but a battle had started with the gringos and so he had avoided a firing squad especially since he showed valor.'

He had enough of a hatred for the Criollos, the ruling class elites descended from the Spanish but who had become accustomed to living in Mexico and had localized over centuries. Much like the gringos with their revolution in the United States, in the Mexican Revolution, even though there were brown bodies dropping on both sides as some tribes distrusted the Mexican rebels as the Criollos had often discriminated against the Indians and the Indians were the lowest in the caste system.

Many had been loyal to the crown of Spain despite maltreatment in the past because they had entered into treaties with them much like Indian tribes up north had allied with the English against the Yankees.

Others had sided with the rebels in the hopes that fighting for the Criollo elites, they would win some respect since Spain had ruled Mexico for three hundred years. In the end, many hadn't.

So the hatred festered but there had been some improvement. These soldiers who would have otherwise faced poverty had money in their pocket food in their belly, clothes on their back and a place to sleep even if it was often a camp outside rather than indoors, at least with other soldados nearby, there wasn't the danger that being a loner would have living in the deserts of Sonora.

When they found that they had lost some of their country to the gringos even in the days when it had just been Texas, they had resented them even when some were too young to fight. These men had fought when the US invaded Mexico and they were old enough to fight but they saw many of their friends killed.

For this reason he hated gringos more than even the elites in his own country who he also disliked having had to deal with Criollo commanding officers but they were the devils he knew. The gringos were the devils he didn't know. That included the Irish and for a long time he didn't trust many of them, having fought many in battle alongside Anglo Texans and gringos from other parts of Estados Unidos but he had been reassigned to that battalion as punishment. Elena had never asked what for. She suspected her father knew but they didn't speak.

He had hated the Irish at first but after fighting alongside them and seeing other fellow Mexican soldiers along with a few freedmen who had escaped the united states to escape slavery. He had known seven of them and seen three of them die. Along with scores of Irish and Mexican soldiers. In the end, many hung and he was lucky he hadn't been one of them especially as a Mexican when Irishmen and some of his own fellow companeros from his home state of Sonora as well as neighboring states like Sinaloa were hung.

He had hated Americans aside from the Irish defectees who had become like brothers and when they lost the southwestern states to the US, he was furious as was Enrique. He remained in Sonora for years trying to rebuild, work and have a family along with fellow veterans. But when war came to Mexico because of the French, he hadn't wanted to fight a war for a country that he felt, should have kept fighting and not given up so much territory.

Even though he wasn't from a tribe north of the border that had resided in those states that the US that hugged the old border and new, he still remembered how far south into Mexico the gringos had invaded so he had seen his share of American atrocities on civilians. He had only moved to what he considered a former Mexican territory where he knew there would be some gringos and perhaps many of them American soldiers under Zachary Tyler. But he didn't want to fight for a country that hadn't done enough for the Opata after the war even when many Opata soldados had served against the gringos.

He now knew that many Opatas had actually sided with the French Empire and their Mexican puppet state. there was some justification. For the most part, as many would learn, at least much later when some who were illiterate, would attend school to learn to read and write, that the French had in fact been much fairer to the indians in El Norte than the English or the Spanish. The Spanish Empire as well as the modern Mexican state had done nothing for the Opata.

He had complained that he had fought in this war and his father had fought in the war of independence but his father had pointed out despite it being the Mexican army, most of the leaders were Criollos except for Vincente Gurerro and José María Morelos were the only generals with any Indian blood but they were both mixed with Spanish and African. No pure blooded Opatas or any other Indian group in Mexico had a full blooded Indio tradition and all serving as generals. Neither side would have ever allowed that.

He had learned a phrase from the days of the wars between Britain and France and the Indian tribes allied with either. A gringo historian had said, "Spanish civilization crushed the Indian; English civilization scorned and neglected him; French civilization embraced and cherished him."

This, he had learned from Atonwa through their fireside talks, was not always the case as the French had wronged his people in many ways and continued to in Canada where the French speaking provinces were. He taught them history of his people since many were also veterans and wanted to trade war stories but he always emphasized with the ex soldiers that he was a warrior and not a soldier but he told them recent and ancient history of his tribe when he visited them in Santa Fe rather than having them meet him on the border of New Mexico and Oklahoma when he needed to trade.

Atonwa had been a procurer of many guns in the year since he had come to the region. He had bought guns off these Comancheros and he had met a few of these men in passing but had not caught their names until today since every time he had seen them he was doing business but today the Kanienkehaka Elder had decided to indulge in some good old fashioned Mexican food and company.

Lastly of the Comancheros at the camp fire were two men born of Mexican women and each had been sired by foreign soldiers from the St Patrick's Battalion. Their names were Fernando Ortiz since their mother had children's with an Irish soldier but had not married him since the man had been among those to hang at the gallows. The other of the mixed blooded Comancheros, was Eladio Nixon and his father had married his mother but he had been killed in battle.

The third was Umberto Guillen, and his mother had also married his father who had been a St Patricks Battalion soldier but they were alive and well living in Juarez. Umberto had almond brown hair and amber eyes and stood five foot five since both his parents were short. His father had assimilated to the local culture and despite not being fluent in Spanish when he first arrived in country, he would become fluent over the next twenty years living in Juarez and though it had been an adjustment, there was no persecution for being Catholic like in the United States and while there weren't many Irishmen in Mexico where he was, some came across the border to escape the law so while they were never a majority, they were never too few.

He had soon become more fluent in Spanish than English but regretfully had started to forget some of the Gaelic he had also spoken back home in ireland but he hadn't been back since the famine. Though Umberto loved his parents, he had still become an outlaw. He shared his mother and fathers anger at the united states when they had lost Texas and New Mexico and so they had moved to Juarez.

Though there were outlaws and there was now a war going on, his father had stayed out of it. He was a middle aged man now with leg which he had lost in battle against the Americans courtesy of not only a round from a Texas cavalryman but also from cannon shot which had sent debris at him and his men. He had been a sgt.

His parents had gone back and forth into Texas and New Mexico a bit for their own business as they became farmers but they mostly stayed on the Mexican side but growing up around hateful Americanos, Umberto embraced both cultures and had been a good Catholic as a child and early teenager but over time he had started to get in trouble at school. He had run away after refusing to be beaten by nuns and he had caught a nun's ruler and smacked her back with it.

He had also hit a priest in the testiscles with it when he tried to take the weapon and restrain him. He had taken a horse and lit off for New Mexico at the age of sixteen and wouldn't see his parents for another four years. He had returned to them and though they knew he had assaulted the clergy and then left to avoid the social shame, and punishment from the church and his parents, he had left to become a man on his own. He had joined a gang in New Mexico until Enrique had found him one day and encouraged him to work with him.

Angry and confused, the three young mixed bloods had become Comancheros but Umberto still considered himself an outlaw. He had robbed nuns and priests alike as well as people in stagecoaches. He had killed men in cold blood and robbed. He had tried robbing Enrique which had resulted in him getting disarmed, pistol whipped and knocked unconscious and then later recruited by Enrique.

Despite his father, he only had about four years worth of English due to how much or rather how little his father ever spoke English to him. He only seemed to ever do so when he was drunk. He would sometimes tell him war stories that his mother wouldn't have wanted him to hear as a child so he would tell him in English. He knew his son was an outlaw but with one leg plug getting older, could do little about it. Luckily for them, Umberto wasn't the only child. There were four girls and three boys and three who had not survived to adulthood due to disease.

He was one of those three but he was the black sheep of the family while the rest of his brothers and sisters had families of their own in Juarez and worked there. He was the one running around with guns raising hell in El Norte. He had somewhat reconcilled with his parents when he stopped being in a gang and he had been welcome back but even with his outlaw days behind him, even if it had only been a few years, the hate in Umberto's heart didn't leave and so even though he could not fight a war by himself and his mother was unwilling and his father unable to fight like before, he kept it at selling guns to people he knew would kill the gringos for sure.

He had even taught some Comanches how to shoot more accuratley and had kept them appraised on the latest guns. He had also tried to teach the Quahadi how to maintain their own guns and even make their own rounds and while some did know now, it wasn;'t like he was able to meet with every Quahadi. Many of them were out hunting or on the warpath or traveling. Or at home with their wives and children.

"Jefe, ¿cree que México algún día luchará contra los gringos como lo está haciendo contra Francia ahora? Debería ayudarlos. Benito Juárez es un buen hombre," The Comanchero vaquero insisted.

(Jefe, do you think Mexico will ever fight the gringos the way she is fighting France right now? I should be helping them. Benito Juarez is a good man.)

"Lo intentamos, carnalito. Dos veces. Tenían mejor entrenamiento y armas más nuevas que nosotros. Matamos nuestra parte las dos veces, pero esos gavachos están locos. Tienen una sed de sangre enloquecida y celosa cuando están en guerra. Entonces, cuando intentaron separarse en Texas, fue muy interesante. Incluso hubo algunas peleas aquí. En Nuevo México. No creo que podamos, Berto. Incluso con todos los gavachos que disparamos en la guerra, los comanches han matado a más texanos que nosotros. Si hay alguna esperanza, ahora depende de ellos. Pero no creo que lo haya. Sé lo grande que es Estados Unidos ahora que se ha apoderado de una quinta parte de nuestro territorio."

( We tried, carnalito. Twice. They had better training and newer weapons than us. We killed our share of them both times but those gavachos are crazy. They get a zealous crazed bloodthirst when they're at war. So when they tried to seceed in Texas it was very interesting. There were even some fights here. In New Mexico. I don't think we can, Berto. Even with all the gavachos we shot in the war, the Comanches have been killing more Texans than we did. If there is any hope it's up to them now. But I don't think there is. I know how big the United States is now with them taking a fifth of our territory. )

"No empire is invicible, hermano..." Reminded Alvaro. "Not even El Norte."

"Maybe carnal but the Mexican military is stronger now. If we can stand against the French Empire then maybe one day we have a chance against the gringos. But the gringos are backing the Republican government. One of my sons is fighting for the army. But I wish he didn't. Anybody fighting for Benito Juarez is fighting for Los Americanos."

"Si..." Umberto nodded. "Benito is a malinche. I don't support him. He gets funding from them."

"is that any worse than the remnants of the pupet government supporting the French? All because he is descended from a man who was big in the church when the church sent the Spanish to steal from us? The Confederates from the civil war, the British and the Austrians support the French Empire. As much as I don't like what has happened to my home country, it is still better than to be allied with such people."

"I have a son who is on Napoleon the third's side..." Stated Alvaro.

Elena knew that his wife was Yaqui and they were mostly on the French side since the Mexican government had treated them so terribly. Worse than the Apache or Navajo. Even though Enrique had expressed that it was cowardly for Mexican soldiers to kill women and children the way they had his old enemy Geronimo, the Mexican goverment had been far worse to the Yaqui and the US had also targeted them but not as much as Mexico.

Still, as a people stuck between two lands, Enrique was in favor of Benito Juarez's government. "It's only funding from the gringos...they get funding from all these different countries. It's only right."

"That might be true..." Alvaro replied as he took a swig of Tequila. "But i don't want my son dying in this war. He has been fighting for five years. He doesn't hate his neighbors who fought for the other side. He wrote to me. But the fighting is getting bad down there. He is doing what he thinks is right to support his mother's tribe. I get it. He even has some of his papas gente in that battalion. Many Huiochol are ready to fight since most are Catholic anyway and the government is just the Kingdom of Espania with a different uniform and titles but it is the same casta system."

"Someday, these things will come to an end, hermano..." Enrique sighed. "But I am not sure we will see it. Maybe someday Mexico will have another revolution. A people's stand against tyrants. And maybe they will not be funded by the gringos. But right now, Estados Unidos is recovering from a war and we could take them but our country is still fighting France. While we're here, we have to support the one group we know can still scare a Texan. They rolled la frontera back by

Enrique was saddened by a friend and general he had served under had died in the war.

Tomás Mejía Camacho but he had been on the french side but he had known him from the war with the gringos.

Many of the supporters of the Second Mexican Empire and the French pointed out that they had Indio generals on their side while the Republicans only had Benito Juarez himself who was the president, and Porfirio Díaz, a man enrique had once met just before the Mexican American war and had seen him after but once the man went into politics, that was when Enrique started to hate him. He admired Juarez but despised Diaz.

The sonora campaign right now was also happening. He had also fought under Valencia at one point and had participated in the Battle Of Contreras. He had also participated in the Battle of Mexico City. He had been frustrated with the Mexican army's outdated tactics back then, knowing of the way Comanches and even Apaches as well as his own people in their own war parties preferred to fight. He wished, however, that there could be a happy medium with Indian raids between the kind where they did hit and run tactics with minimal to no casualties of their own ideally and that of the pitched warfare of the gueros.

He didn't believe in fighting to the last man. No Indian really did that he knew of. But that same unwillingness to sacrifice numbers was often why tribes did not often conquer forts but he had heard Atonwa say that the Creeks, many of who now lived in Oklahoma, had in fact done that in the Red Stick War. Many veterans from that war had been amomg those that Enrique had fought not only at the Alamo but also in later years when he fought them in the 1840's again. From that entire war between the major battles and skirmishes, Enrique had 140 confirmed kills of the enemy. He had also killed ten at the Alamo and who could say how many he had wounded? And how many of those wounded had later died from their wounds?

"I saw too many of my friends killed. And I was a Captain by the second year of that war. I wanted to keep fighting but after the losses we took the second year, even as many Yanquis as we killed, we couldn't shoot enough of them. Our weapons were outdated. I was captured eventually. I thought i would hang or face the firing squad. Men from New Mexico also fought the United States Army with some Taos Pueblos helping. They instead made us swear not to fight the United States again. I wasn't released until the war was over. It was hard on my family...including Elena..." He put a hand on his daughter's right shoulder and gave her a look as if to say he was sorry.

"I didn'r fight hard enough, mija, But there was no real way to. They had us."

"It is the same with us. We defeated the United States in Canada. We beat them many times defending my people's home territory and we even stopped Canada from becoming part of the 17 fires. But my brother Tecumseh fell in battle as I told you before. And with it, the chance of Indian unity. At that time. At that place. I was pulled in two different directions when that fight happened. I had one wife that went north. And one that went south from where we were. Back to North Carolina. I went with my second wife. We were divorced back then me and my first wife. Our marriage didn't survive the war and she left me. We had brief happiness during the war when we thought there was hope. But when the war ended it went away."

"Why did you and your first wife divorce?" Asked the bandida.

"Elena!" Growled her father but Atonwa held up a hand. "No offense is taken. She was Seneca through her father but he was both Seneca and a colored man. His own father perished during the Revolutionary War against the blue coats. He himself took up the hatchet during the Northwest War but he was killed as well. My wife...she has relations through her father to the Buffalo Creek reservation. After the war, many of us had to remind ourselves of the great law of peace again. But there was still bad blood between us and the Senecas. We weren't supposed to fight each other as brothers of the league but we did. Many of the Buffalo Creek Senecas who were our Nations side during the Revolution had switched sides. Cornplanter had been a Seneca chief who had been on our side only to side with the Americans in the next war."

"Were all of the Senecas on the side of the gringos?" Asked Elena.

"No..." He sighed. "Not the ones from Osweken in Canada. They descend from Loyalist Seneca. But the ones who missed their old lands in New York were willing to do anything to home. Even if it meant supporting their old enemies in their new war against the British./"

"But I have studied history, my friend..." Seamus interjected. "And I know of Chief Joseph Brant. Or Captain Brant. Whichever you prefer. And William johnson and his wife Joseph's sister. I even know about their Great Peacemaker figure. Believe it or not, William Johnson and my family knew each other. But I don't understand. Why did the Senecas switch sides? Is it because they didn't protect Six Nations rights during the peace in Paris?"

"The Onondowaga, the Seneca, were never that friendly with the English to begin with. In the end, they were right but we realized that much too late and their own belief with that also undid us when they sided with the Americans. They were further west and they were closer to where the French were. They participated in Pontiac's Rebellion and the rest of the six nations did not. They thought we were always the tribe too influenced by the English but we didn't have a choice. We were next to the ocean. The keepers of the east and their frontier was at our border. The Seneca did not have to rely on them for trade as much in those days, either and their religion was not either. At least not in New York. But in Pennsylvania where they were the neighbors of many quakers it was another matter."

"I can sympathize with the Seneca, then..." Seamus nodded. "Not a damn bit of good the English did anybody!"

"You have to understand...the English in my father and my grandfather's day had the better trade items. Most Indians liked the French. But only traded with the British. The French were different towards us. They attacked our nation over one and fifty winters ago. Their guns, though slow, we had never seen them before and they killed two of our chiefs with one shot. This would make us hate the French for a long time."

He then showed them a was a map showing the territories of Upper Canada and the New York reservations. He explained to them the history of Samuel De Champlain invading their territort in Canada and supporting their Algonquin tribal enemies. "The first O'serroni we saw...they were friendlier. That was more than three hundred years ago. The wampum we exchanged with the French back then...this is why my brothers from Kahnawake and Kanesetake and Akwesasne sided with the French. They made a wampum with them but the rest of the six nations and most Kanienkehaka saw the French as treacherous for what they did to us two hundred years ago. This is why we fought them in the Beaver Wars too. The English were willing to trade and pay for beaver pelts. And the French. They paid our enemies. In the end...my ancestors defeated the O'serroni and their Algonquin warriors but it exausted the beaver population. We blamed the French and our tribal enemies for this..." Atonwa sipped the coffee slowly. "But we didn't think yet to blame the English."

"Tis a shame you Mohawk lot have such a bad history with the French. They're helping my people in the war against the British. Shite. I'm missing it. Jacobite Rebellion.

"I remember the Jacobites..." Atonwa stated thinking back. "There were many of them in Canada. They tried to fight to Royal Army and Navy there. They did the same kind of raids we used to. They burned many manors of the royalty but in the end they lost."

"Aye. I know those uprisings well. I've forefathers who were in the Cumann na nÉireannach Aontaithe..."

Atonwa set the cup down. "I am no stranger to words outside the English language but...what was that?"

"Gaelic. The language me own ancestors spoke before the English invaded us. Society of United Irishmen. Me da told me we was also the stock of rebels from the Fenian Brotherhood. Both was allied with the French. On account of their own revolution and their animosity with England. See...the French told me something too. They didn't always lose to the English. They usually do and they lost at Waterloo and many times before that but during the war Joan of Arc was in well...that war went on for 116 fecki years. And only in the end did the French come out on top. They got a lot of their old territory back. So I know it can be done."

Atonwa got a wicked grin on his aged face. "You know, Seamus...there are raids going on by the Fenians right now in Canada. I read the newspapers. Maybe they're not getting news on a war in Canada this far out but your brothers are up there right now. In Manitoba striking against the crown. You could help them now if you got on a stagecoach. And a train."

"I can't just abandon my obligations here. Enrique needs my help. In many ways so do you. I think some og your family could still be out there. Maybe even here in Oklahoma."

"I doubt that."

"It's not like you've searched all over the territory have ya? The territory is a large place. Even Cherokee land is a large place."

"You didn't answer my question, senor Atonwa..." Elena reminded him.

"What was the question again? Remind me. I am not as young as I once was. When you get to be my age you have more life lived and more memories but because the brain is only so big it forgets some things."

"Why did that war make your wife divorce you?"

"Some friends of hers were killed that were Seneca. She considered it a great insult to her.

"Why did you not go back to her? Do you not still love her, amigo?" Asked Enrique.

"She died as far as I know. There's no reason she would be in Oklahoma. I don't see any reason she would have left the Grand River."

"But you didn't confirm her death?" Enrique shook his head. "Seems like a mistake, viejo..."

"Of course I do. But it is a lot more complicated than that. I married a third woman, it's true. There was Kawitha and there was a woman before her. We married when we were fourteen. We were together three years and we had two children but she divorced me. . And I remarried my first wife later but that was not until after my newer wife was put on the trail of tears. Along with our children. I tried to stop the army. I couldn't...I was only one man. And I didn't know where they took them. i spent the next. Thirty odd years killing every soldier I could. Even if it was just one in a season at times that would be enough. I wanted to find our children. I searched for years. I looked in Oklahoma. I looked for four years. After that, I was caught by the US Army. I was scheduled to hang but a British man who now served in the United States army that had once been my ally intervened. But the terms were I had to leave the United States. I moved up to be with my older family. I did not expect my wife to take me back. But they did. I remarried them. But then the crown conspired to take most of our land at Osweken."

"What did you do?" Asked one of the Comancheros, Alvaro. "I tried to talk some of the warriors who had survived and had fought in battle with me to rally up more younger warriors. but the war with the United States, even though we were victorious, we remember how many of our Onkwehonwe allies from other Nations outside the Rotinosionni fell. How my brother Tecumseh fell. That...killed a lot of morale. But I thought of the victories we had at Six Nations, at Kahnawake and Beaver Dams just our own confederacy and I knew we had to defend ourselves against the crown."

"But fifty chiefs signed away 5,223 acres. In 1841.I had the antlers taken frome me many years ago but people still were willing to follow me. But when I saw the chief had signed away all that land without understanding WHAT they were signing...I was furious and I did not want to live there anymore." He then added, "I went west to look for the rest of our children. My first wife...it's true I did not fall in love with her the way i did Kawitha and Astila but I loved her in my own way. Our marriages were arranged. We came to love each other over time. But then our love faded like the dying fire in the middle of the longhouse. Or we were just too young. We would remarry later in life but she had also had a husband and he died in the war. He was killed at Beaver Dams. She told me she would get me the warriors i needed from her and her brothers clan and that if I got the Cherokee who had been removed, and even some of the Creeks and the Choctaw to come to Osweken if we combined our numbers wit the Cherokee in the Smokey Mountains plus what remained of our Confederacy up here and what little help I could get at Buffalo Creek, she promised me I would have the war party I wanted, an army even like Tecumseh's to defeat the United States Army."

He continued, "But I never made it back. I wrote her of my progress as I went to look. When I finally told her that i was on my way back, i couldn't get there from where I was. The war between the United States and your land was going. I saw how many soldiers there were and even though I would ambush some patrols when I could, I never could get the numbers Tecumseh did. I would try again later on and I got to the south and there was a war between the Seminoles and the United States. I ended up having to go to Canada but I ended up on the wrong coast. The pacific coast. And I had to work my way back to Osweken. It took me years before I got across Canada and I was on the border. I was almost home. But...then the civil war started."

"You don't feel bad for not being there fot your sons with your other wife?"

"Of course I do and I was there for as much of their life as I could but remember our clanhood lineage goes through the mother so they were taught things by their uncle first. And in a divorce the children go with the mother. I wanted to be there more and I tried to be. I ended up getting back to Osweken by taking horses, trains, and doing bounties. Canada...has not been good to Indians but...at least up there I can collect bounties from wanted men. In New York...or any of the territory they took, the bounty would be on me. I...regret my time bounty hunting in Canada. When I came to be with my family, I was with them for two years again. But a dream came to me and it came to my wife telling me I must go towards the battlefield again but as a ghost. An avenging spirit. A ghost warrior. I must kill men from both sides and seek out any Senecas or Cherokees who served. There were also some of our Oneida brothers that fought for the north and some of our tribe and theirs lived together at Akwesasne. My sons were drafted to fight for the north."

"Your story is a ballad, amigo..." Alvaro toasted lifting his mezcal bottle and he took a swig. "Si dicen que la historia la escriben los vencedores entonces un corrido es lo que escriben los que han perdido. Cada uno de nosotros es como un corrido. Es una cosa triste y bonita, carnales."

Atonwa shook his head. "I don't understand Spanish that much, my friend."

Elena interceded to translate. "If they say history is written by the victors then a corrido is what is written by those who have lost. Each one of us is like a corrido. It is a sad and beautiful thing, carnales. He meant a ballad. That's what a corrido is.A tale that is both a poem and a story."

Her father nodded, smiling with pride at his daughter's explanation. "The corrido served in Mexico as the leading informational and educational outlet, even with subversive purposes, viejo. Since the independence from Spain all the way through the war with los gringos. Even...now. With the war mi hijo is fighting."

"If he is fighting for the Mexican army why is he not here? Where is the fighting going on? Maybe we can help him..." Atonwa suggested as he smoked his pipe. "I already killed a small force of their army here."

"That is a story for another time, Viejo..." Sighed Enrique. "But I will accept your help in the war down here. The United States would not like it if me, as a former combatant who swore not to fight again was helping the Republic of Mexico even in an unofficial capacity well I don't think the gringos would very much like that."

He added, "There is always fighting to be done here in Sonora, Atonwa. We can fight them right here."

"What about Diego? Can't we get Los Culebras to help in the fight?" She asked.

"I am not using matones to fight for Mexico. Your brother is a serpiente just like his pandillero compadres. They rob people on the highway whether Mexican or Americano. And even though there are bands of Comanches I would not sell weapons to I don't like to fight them as a policy. They are the lords of the southern plains. I am not suicidal. But your brother he has had gunfights with them and the Apaches."

"Papa, I think some of those times were in self defense..." The Yaqui chuckled at his daughter's words.

"Maybe with the Apache but Comanches?"

"Papa, just because we get along with most bands of Numunuu doesn't mean we get along with all of them or you wouldn't have refused to arm the Nokoni and Penetakas..." She reminded him.

"Still, this is your hermano we're talking about..." He put the fire out. "There is a batallion of soldados headed south through Sonora. Cutting through Yoeme land. They want to get more soldados to fight for the French and the Mexican Empire."

"There is one thing I am confused about..." Atonwa began rubbing his rifle down with gun oil. "I thought the Mexica were a great Indian empire in Mexico? The one this land is named for?"

"It is but these are a different Mexican Empire, amigo. Even though mi padre's generation fought against Spain, these pendejos are usurpers that are serving Napoleon's grandson. They serve him because of relations to a pope who was Pope when Spain invaded Mexico. There are many Indios on their side but they are mostly the Criollos. The Spanish."

"This is news to me..." Atonwa stated. "When my Cherokee and Creek brothers in arms firsr met the Spanish they met as enemies too. My wife's family remembered that. But when we were at war with the United States, fighting alongside Tecumseh, just like the English wanted the tribes of the north to help them in the fight against the Yankees, the Spanish did the same thing with the tribes in the south. Sometimes they would give our brothers ammunition and powder to do more raids. Many of the Red Sticks were armed with Spanish powder. But in the end it was just different white empires playing Indians against each other. We all had our own reasons for fighting but in the end we shouldn't have fought one nation of theirs for another. We should have killed them all."

"Ride with me amigo. We're headed to an army camp eight miles ride from oasis del rey. That's what the Criollos call it..."

"You keep saying that word. What does that mean?" Asked Atonwa.

"It is the word for Spaniards born in what they call New Spain..." Elena explained. "But unlike the foreign born Spanish, they think they are a part of this country because many of them fought in the revolution. Estillo mi abuelo."

"I see..." Atonwa blew smoke. "Like the Yankees where I come from..."

"Si. Claro..." She nodded.

He finally put aside his pipe and mounted his own horse and they began to head south. Atonwa contemplated if he was ever to find a wagon full of weapons, what he would do with them. With whatever guns he could take off the dead, it might be enough to arm a small army or at least a war party. If any of his children with Kawitha were back in Oklahoma or any of his grandchildren or children with Astila were in Mexico or Oklahoma he wanted to find them but either way he knew he would have to spill blood.

Maybe then, if they took a different way back, they would take longer to get home but the US army wouldn't launch an expedition into Canada over some rogue Indians. They would rely on bounty hunters and whatever other mercenaries looking to collect their scalps plus the army in the area but no army was going to chase them from Oklahoma to Osweken.

If he had done what he would do on the border with Canada it would be a cause for concern then. But ultimatley, he just wanted to live out his remaining days with his family in peace, after a lifetime of fighting.

He could scarcely believe that when he was a young man, he had actually chided himself when he was still married to his first wife before Kawitha. His wife Karònya . It had in many ways, taken the attention away from what should have been.

Karònya was a woman of turtle clan and she still as far as he knew, was still alive. There was also his children with her that he disowned for siding with her in the 1840's for peace. When before that, even during the war of 1812, she had been on his side and other warriors from her clan were on his side and they had fought in battle against the US. He had remarried her and had tried to care for all of the families he had made but it meant doing a lot of traveling. In any case, he had also lived with the few Cherokee that had come with and he had sent for Astilla to live with him.

He had hated the French Canadian citizens that littered Montreal when he had been in didn't see much difference between those men up there and the ones down here. They were frogs with a Spanish twist but frogs just the same. What's more, the rifles he had fought with in the days Tecumseh was alive was nowhere near as advanced as even a rifle in the Mexican army or the Mexican Imperial and French army. With these they could use guns to kill whoever got in the way of him getting his children or his grandchildren.

He didn't know what it would be like if he saw them after all these years and even then, there was a chance none were alive. All he had was the rumors.

"Come on,brother."

Just then, several horsemen rode up. Elena recognized them as members of Los Culebras. Enrique growled, "Hijo de la chingada! I told you to never come back here, Diegito! Cabron!"

"Well, I don't listen to you, papa. I had to listen when I was little but I'm not so little no more. I'm here cause hermanita sent for me. And I want to see the French get the fuck out of our country."

"What would you know about out country, landeron? You never served."

"You..." Diego beckoned to the Kanienkehaka Elder. "Que eso, papa?"

"This is Tomas, un Indio de Estados Unidos. He's helped me before. He has helped Ela, tambien..."

"If you're a friend of Enrique, then I say welcome to Mexico...viejo..."

"I raised you better than that, cabroncito. Only I call him viejo. You call him Senor Tomas."

"Why don't you have to call him Senor? He's still old enough to be your papa..." Growled the gang leader.

"Because he is only older than me by twenty eight years. I was already born and probably lived many years before his hairs turned gray."

"We found a detachment of French soldados headed south towards ojo del rio..." Informed Cedro. "We saw them and some of the colonels who are loyalists to Napoleon who have also betrayed their own countrymen."

"Si..." Agreed Diego as he steered his horse by the reins to move to the south and he said, "And not just the peninsulares..."

Elena had an angry look about her expression just then as he observed her older brother and knew he was talking about her other brother who she had not seen in a few years since the war had broken out. "He isn't a traitor..."

"You really believe that, mijita? We're supposed to roll over for France?"

"It doesn't make much of a difference, Diego! The men at the top of the country do not represent me. They don't let women have a say in this country. Among Yaquis y Pueblos tambien, women have a voice but the way this country is it does not. It is only the men in this country who will see a difference."

"Women will get there someday. Are you saying it's any better in America?"

She gave a single shake of her head. "It isn't but America is different. This is Mexico."

"It's the same Sistema de castas."

"Our gente are suppposed to help. I want to believe Benito Juarez will do good for the people of Mexico..." She had a more optimistic nature than her father despite he having been the one who had served in the Army in two different time periods and two different campaigns against the same enemy. "For the first time in Mexico a president who is a real man of the people. Maybe one day a woman can also be presidente. But he opened the door for Mexico's Indios..." She thought of the short president who was leading against the French invaders.

"We always have to think, mija..." Agreed Cedro. "He opened the door for a better president than him but he has too many friends in the governent we can't trust."

"That is because the United States controls him. They are on the same side. The federales here and the federales there. Ya hay muchos estadounidenses en ambos lados..." Explained Enrique.

(There are a lot of Americans already on both sides. )

"We don't need all this American interference!" Growled another gang member, "We can handle our own wars."

"It doesnt matter..." Diego replied and asked elena, "You coming with?"

She turned to her father. "I have to, papa..."

"No por favor...if something were to happen to you or any of you..."

"

"That's not going to matter, papa..." Grinned Diego. "Ahora...we're going after that French platoon."

"We're not risking our lives for such a low reward and a high risk...": Enrique shook his head before saying this.

les there. Ya hay muchos estadounidenses en ambos lados..." Explained Enrique.

(There are a lot of Americans already on both sides. )

"We don't need all this American interference!" Growled another gang member, "We can handle our own wars."

"It doesnt matter..." Diego replied and asked elena, "You coming with?"

She turned to her father. "I have to, papa..."

"No por favor...if something were to happen to you or any of you..."

"

"That's not going to matter, papa..." Grinned Diego. "Ahora...we're going after that French platoon."

"We're not risking our lives for such a low reward and a high risk...": Enrique shook his head before saying this.

"It's not a small reward for me, papa. It's enough to raise a lot of hell against the gringos and the Mexican state."

"Mi hijo...you can't beat the gringos. Not with your numbers. I tried twice."

"Nobody tells me what I can't do..."

"He's right, Diego! You're acting like a child!" Elena agreed with her father. "Even if you could beat Estados Unidos you can't fight and beat both."

"If you believe that, why do you trade and sell guns to the Comanches then?" Diego's eyes narrowed at their father. "You giving guns to a tribe you know can't win? Just because they're taking revenge on the gringos when you lost your edge, viejo?"

Enrique stepped forward and grabbed his son by the hair knocking his hat off his head. There were several guns cocked and Atonwa readied both of his as did Elena. She didn't want to shoot her brother and would go to any and all lengths not to. She was glad Red Wolf and Broken Arrow were not here at the moment or they migh have attacked him but on the other hand, she couldn't allow his friends to drawn down on her papa either.

"Put your gun down! Mi papa has given you fools work when you needed a job and this is how you repay him?!" She glared at Cedro in particilar. "You got bored with being Comanchero so that gives you the right to murder and rob your own gente? And other poor people on both sides of the border?!'

Diego raised his kleft hand and told his men, "Calma..calmate, muchachos. None of them will shoot. Put the cuetes down, tontos. Put it down."

They did as he asked but he took his father's hands and pushed him back. "Lost my edge?" Enrique growled despite not moving forward to attack again. "Just because I dont indulge every childish desire to steal?"

"You arm the Comanches which means you also armed the Kiowas. What's the difference between the raiding they do and the raiding I do? They raid and kill to survive,, I raid and kill to survive. If they have the right so do I. You want me to end up on the end of a Rinches noose?"

"Chale!" Barked Enrique. "How can you think or say such a thing? Your mama would be ashamed to see what you became."

"But she'd be proud of oyr other hemana for sticking with the church, claro?" Chuckled Diego. "They're the biggest thieves around, papa and it's great you stopped believing in it and you let Elena stop believing in it too but I still have the scars from the nuns hitting me. And from you and your pinche switches. You did to me what the church and what Mexico did to Yaquis. Keep telling yourself you're better than the Apaches, papa. Just like Abuelo. Fought against Espania thinking you were fighting for Mexico but you fought for New Spaniards, que no? Rich fucking cerdos that look down on us. The same people who would still deny Yaqui our rights. Weren't you friends with Juan Banderas? Why didn't you help him? You had enough skills to make a difference."

"We would have both been dead then, pendejo! I was thirteen."

"Plenty of men fought their first fights at thirteen but you wanted to be on your knees praying to a God that wanted us to give up our ways. And we did, papa! You're a genizaro through and through!" A tear rolled down Elena's eyes upon seeing how much her brother seemed to hate their father. He had not been perfect and he had whipped her when she had been younger but she could count on one hand how often that happened. "Instead you fought for Santa Anna. Another rich boy. Another elite. And when him and his shitty tactics failed, he sold Texas to them. And then the second time, you lost us a fifth of our country. So gracias papa for your service."

"You're disrespecting me, you're disrespecting your mother, Elena your brother and sisters and you're disrespecting yourself..." Enrique began. "At least I tried to stop being a cabron years ago and tried to fix what was broken."

"Well, Elena is the golden child, papa. I'm the black sheep. We don't have to ride together but we're going the same direction. We're going after those guns. The less guns the Francos have the better Mexicans are protected. These are the same people you learned your way of fighting from, man!" Diego was sweating but from riding rather than the heat and as a matter of fact it was now cold since it was night.

He chuckled as he lit a cigar and mounted his horse and began to ride south. "Chingada...this idiot..." Enrique exhaled and mounted his own horse to follow. Atonwa and Elena went ahead with him. "Tomas..." Elena began, opting to call Atonwa by his chosen "Christian" name that he had hid in plain sight as his way of telling the Anglican church at Osweken that he didn't believe their myths. It was white people's ways. For Elena, it seemed a good idea to get in the habbit of calling him that rather than by his Indian name for a while. "Will you stay behind and ride with papa? i am going to ride ahead with Diego. I have to talk to him."

"I don't know if that is a good idea, Elena. These are criminals. i hate the O'serroni too but I wouldn't resort to being a thief that would rob my own tribe especially when we are already poor. i have heard of this gang the Culebras. They rob stagecoaches and trains in the north sometimes as far as Oklahoma and Kansas when they're feeling brave enough and down south it's the ranchers that suffer because of them. In the old days there was no law no police to stop a man such as your brother but the warriors would drive them out if we had to. There were some laws that were loosely practiced but the best of us enforced it. And private revenge was an option..."

He could see she had been crying silently so he let up. "I will do ask you ask. I will stay behind. But are you sure you will be safe? I have never met your brother but he has a lot of anger."

"Didn't you when you were younger?"

"That's what I am afraid of...mija..." He replied earning an involuntary smile that nonetheless spread across her face as she giggled a bit at him catching her off-guard by using Spanish.

"You are funny, Tomas. Gracias. But I thought you are still on the warpath? Why do you speak like you are done?"

"I don't deny I take my pleasure in splitting the heads of people in wagon trains open. I have seen what disaster they always bring to us and to other tribes. The west will be no different than the east but after a while it stopped being something I enjoyed and became something I knew i had to do. I still have to but i know that if I m going to find my family and see to their safety...there may come a day I will have to give up my guns and my tomahawk. When i know my family is safe, I can finally rest myself."

"Well, we still have some time together, St. Tomas..." Elena smiled her best smile but her voice dripped with sarcasm as she squinted her eyes comically a bit. "But I know what you mean about keeping the peace for the sake of your loved ones not being hurt. I know you want to drive the gringos back to the sea. It's what mi padre wanted once. Mi abuelo was just happy to beat Spain but he died before he saw our war with Estados unidos. My hermano wants that too but there's so many of them. Now por favor...stay with mi papa. I want to make sure Diego at least has a plan for these soldados..."

Atonwa slowed up and rode at the same pace as Enrique. "Your son...he's got a lot of spirit. A lot of anger too. But he's not wrong about doing what he has to to keep his men fed. Those are nine men with him."

"Not really the same as feeding an entire tribe though is it, Atonwa?" Enrique's own smile was bitter and his voice filled with scorn. "At least the Comanches have wives and children to look after. Grandmothers and grandfathers, que no? Babies. Those bastardos don't deal with any women except the putas on the other side of the border."

"There are a lot of Americans down here, i noticed..." Atonwa observed. "You think some of them may be lawmen? There are many that are bandits no doubt but I think some could have badges too."

"Diego and his compadres, when they go to a cat house, they go deeper into Mexico than just Juarez or Nogales. But they try to go where they think will be too far in for the law to go. Plus they said there were prettier women farther into the country. I keep trying to tell him pretty women do not raise children a woman's looks do not. It is her morals and teachings. And mine. I might not have been the best father. I don't think either of us were, viejo but I kept them clothed and fed and with a roof over their heads,. I did not have us living like the Gypsies. I used my dinero from the army. I didn't blow it all on mezcal and tequila. I know I had to leave them for a few years during the war. I didn't want to. I had to. Mexico was under attack and when I was born Nuevo Mexico was part of Mexico. Not perfect, no far from it but it is home."

"What about the tribes in that area? I get the feeling they didn't want to Mexican or American..." Atonwa responded.

"That is true and Yaquis are no exception, viejo. As a matter of fact I'm teh one witg Pueblo sangre, Atonwa. From Taos New Mexico. Mi ancestors fought the Spanish in the Pueblo Revolt. They were tired of being slaves. For that matter, the Yaquis. Mi hijo is fighting for the army against France. He was at the Battle of Puebla he fought the French Foreign Legion. He was there. I haven't seen him since the start of that war. We have written but we haven't seen each other."

"What about the Yaqui who fight on France's side? Will the Mexican soldiers not try to get them on their side?"

Enrique sighed knowing he was going to have to break the history down.

Meanwhile, Elena rode up ahead. "What do you need this small army for, Diego? It's one thing to rob and kill the people you think have too much but murder means to kill when you don't have to. Tu eras un matador."

"What does that make you? You help papa arm the Comanches and even though you know there's always the chance that some if those guns could end up in the wrong Comanche bands hands and the next thing you know they're taking Yaquis and Tohono O'odham and Pueblos as slaves, carnala. I don't make up the rules but i know how they're played. Do you really want to be the reason some band that isn't the Yap Eaters decided to raid and kill some Yaqui farmers in Sonora and rape their daughters?!"

"Jesus christo. It's like you and papa are the same person! Except he hates Apaches and you hate Comanches. Those guns are so they can protect their people from Texans. They are trying to take their land."

"You really believe that don't you, Elena? What defense is it when the Penetaka and Nokonis go after innocents in other tribes? I gotta spell out for you what those hijo de putas do to Yaquis?!"

"Yoeme..." Corrected Elena. "That's the name idiota. You can't even get our gentes name right!"

"I hate them both cause they hate me, mija...I got nothing against teh Apaches that are genizaros like us. They got a real ax to grind against th Spanish and the church after what they took from them but the true Apaches are no better than the conquistadores. They allied with them and they sold slaves to them from other tribes. Papa warned me about it when I was little. You don't remember all of the days papa fought the gringos. The Apaches were attacking us and they weren't attacking them."

"They're fighting them now..." Elena pointed out. "They're enemigas, los gringos y los Apaches."

"They're fighting us too..." Diego insisted as he took a swig of tequila and offered it to her but she declined. "And just because I decide to visit some muchachas down south or if I visit an old friend, or if I help in the war effort against France, if they attack me and mi carnales when we cross the border into OUR COUNTRY..I will shoot them. Even if we forgot the old ways...Sonora is still home. The Apaches came down there. They don't want me in New Mexico or Arizona? Firme, Ela. But they have to get out of Sonora. It doesn't work both ways. We don't need them bothering Yaquis and hunting game that our hunters would have killed to feed their families."

"We don't have time to fight Apaches or Comanches down here, cabron!" She growled. "It's already enough you have us raiding the French army and the Empire's soldados. You're going to get us put in front of a firing squad."

"You want to turn around any time, Elena, feel free."

"No. That's not what I do, Diego that'ds what you do. You abandon all of us so you can go play robber. You don't like that we give guns to the Comanhes? It's not just guns. They trade in meat and we give them dishes and pots and pans. The women ask for them and the men get it for their wives."

"We all gotta follow our own path, Elena. If you want to keep following in papa's footsteps, you can. You'll always be papi's little girl but when it comes to me, I'll always be the matone. I tried doing what he did. Working in farming, working in ranching, breaking horses, milking cows, and the pay was shit. It didn't matter even when el jefe would be respectful since they can't pay much."

"So because you don't like to work you decided to stick a gun in the face of working people and take what they sweated for. You're pathetic, Diego."

"And you're a hypocrite! You think cause mi carnales and I are only sixteen men that we are any less of a familia? I never rejected you or papa. He rejected me and who I am. This is who I am. If he wanted to be a soldado and march, that's his choice. He doesn't know the Americanos won the war because of the Tejanos, partly. And because many of those men fought Indios in the Red Stick war. They learned to fight more like Indios while us Mexicans, despite descending from warrior tribes and empires with their own estilo, papa and the rest of them fought like Frenchmen. In lines like Napoleon's men. Wel Napoleon lost but his grandson won't if these idiotas fight the way the people invading them taught them."

"He can learn if you talk to him. And he knew that's true otherwise he would not be arming the first and best horse tribe if he didn't think that."

"Well we're about to see those cabrones now...pull off here..." They guided their horses to an overlook atop a cliff and they could see the French line moving through the dirt. There was about a platoon of them. Atonwa examined his own rifle and then both of his pistols checking and double checking to make sure his weapons were ready for use. He had oiled down the weapons before the ride but he hadn't expected to use them again so soon.

He had forgotten to sharpen his own pipe tomahawk's blade but he promised himself he would first chance he got but the blade wasn't dull, it was just a force of habit. Enrique and Alvaro looked at the column with their binoculars as did Diego after Cedro handed him his having already taken a look. "

Sure, ity would probably bruise the Kanienkehaka Elder and warrior's ego but it would keep him alive. There were too many Texas Rangers looking for any scalp they could pass off as Comanche or Apache. The sick thing was that the Texas Rangers and the Army would and did leave the Lipan Apache band alone and used them as a scout often against "Hostile" Apache tribes as well as Comanches. They were hated by virtually every other Apache band. So even while the Rangers would leave the Lipan alone when they knew they were Lipan, they would go into New Mexico and Arizona and commit atrocities against the Indians there.

On top of that, though her brother fought for the Mexican army, she didn't know what rank he was, wherever he was and since they were in league with the Unite States, under Benito Juarez finally befriending the old enemy in red white and blue, they were teamed up to go after Comanches, Apaches and Yaquis and any other southwestern tribes they wanted out of there.

The Americans didn't think of your average Mexican as a Indian and that was because the truly assimilated mestizo type of Mexican or in New Mexico, people like papa who had been genizaros, they were not exactly protestant like the average Anglo American but they were at least believers in Jesus and that was a start. They were the start of what Kill The Indian Save The Man could be in the future. Elena saw this and she feared this.

She didn't think Atonwa could or would be any priority of the federales compared to the Yankees who wanted him dead his whole life and had tried on many occasion but if they wanted to score points with the United States and get more aid in the war, they could capture him and leave him to the Americans to take custody of. And what's more, even if his search for his Cherokee family took him back north, despite Oklahoma being designated Indian territory, there were plenty of settlers there and on top of that, many of them were Indian killers themselves and the Oklahoma bounty hunters were no less bloodthirsty and no less hateful. The occasional Comanche raid would go as far north as Oklahoma and they would raid sometimes white people and sometimes Indian tribes that had gone to their designated territory and who had fully Christianized.

These free Comanches didn't care for that one bit so they often did kill and take captives as well as horses and whatever livestock they could take. She didn't want to see the grandfather killed before he had a chance to ever meet his descendants and to find any if there were any, of his children.

She had learned the things she had to about their faith while they were in it and she paid attention in school and even when she was still in school took a job helping out with papa's Comanchero duties but though he wasn't illiterate and wasn't against all books, he hated reading from the bible and he hated learning about saints. He had been more of a devout Catholic as a child but when he reached his teen years he grew to resent the church. It was one too many beatings or it would be one too many questions nobody he talked to in the church from nuns to the monsignor ever knew how to answer.

Still, Catholicism was a hard habit to break. They spotted the platoon of French soldiers and Imperial Mexican soldiers.

He knew that the French had granted French citizenship to those who had been from any of the Indian nations of former New France. Many of Atonwa's relatives were in Kahnawake,and Akwesasne but he was not friendly with all of them even in the days of the war, when it came to the warriors of those nations that he had fought alongside of, he only got along with maybe 20% of the warriors he knew from those was enough for him back then.

""¡Soy ciudadano francés!Je suis citoyen français !"Atonwa called out to the army.

(I'm a French citizen!)

The Mexican imperial soldiers had their rifles at the ready but did not shoot as they saw only an old man. "¿Cómo te llamas, viejo? No es seguro en la carretera. Hay muchos ladrones aquí y hay traidores aquí. Traidores asesinos."

He wasn't the best in Spanish but he had lived long enough and spent enough time in the western territories to pick up enough Spanish to do okay conversationally in most instances. "Yo vengo del norte de aquí.Y en cuanto a ser traidor, no. ¿Pero un asesino? Ése es un tema de debate entre los yanquis de mi tierra."

(And as for being a traitor, no. But a murderer? That's a subject of debate among the yankees in my land.)

He let his hat fall of his head and before the man could say anything in French or Spanish, several rifle shots rang out in the desert air. The shots made their marks and seven soldiers were hit in the initial volley. Courtesy of Elena and Enrique, and several other Comancheros, the rounds came raining in on them and the soldiers took up defensive stances and returned fire in the direction the rounds came. Atonwa had thrown himself to the ground when the shooting started.

Atonwa lit the fuse on a stick of dynamite and he threw the lit red object into the center of the marching French cavalry's line as they made their way through the desert after the Comancheros. The blast caught four soldiers in the immediate blast and it sent bone fragments at the soldiers near the four who had been hit and some who were farther away. He was already lighting another one taking advantage of the smoke.

He threw another stick of dynamite. It landed at the ankles of several Mexican imperial soldiers. The blast yielded more of the same results but better. The mixture of debris from the soil as well as from the weapons of soldiers who had been in close proximity to the explosions sent debris in the form of their destroyed rifles. The smell of burnt flesh lingered in the air, a smell he knew well.

A smell he had sadly smelled during the Anglo American war and many of the burned had been Haudenosaunee and other Indian tribes from other confederations. The Shawnee had suffered greatly in that war. Even beyond just losing Tecumseh. They had lost many fine warriors to disease, others to battle and the epidemics ravaged tribal villages. If he had to smell that smell again, he was glad it was Frenchmen. And he had been glad of the same in the civil war even though he had participated in attacks on both.

The smell of Yankee and Rebel flesh roasting alive was la wonderful fragrance to his nose. He pulled back away from the French column who had still not realized what he had done. He had done it in such a way as to more drop it at their ankles than to really throw it. By the second stick of dynamite however, he knew he needed to move. Masked by the smoke from the fire of the men in front of him, he backed away with his Evans Repeater and unleashed two rounds. He saw he hit a Sgt from the Frogs and grinned. The first round found his right breast plate while the second hit him directly in the heart.

He fell back to the incoming clouds of dust as the Comancheros rode in hard firing. There were a few Yaqui warriors among the Comancheros and they fired off a barrage of rifle shots. These Yaqui preferred to use arrows over guns but Enrique had stressed that this was not the right move as any arrows would only lead back to their own people.

A round grazed Elena in the right side of the face and her cheek bled. She was fine but her father and Diego opened up a volley of rounds back at the imperial soldiers. Red Wolf and Broken Arrow howled with war cries and did the same riding towards the column. Rounds zigged by them.

The mixture of Imperial soldiers of French, Spanish and Mexican descent opened back up on them. Atonwa took cover behind a dead horse that had been shot along with one of the Culebras who rode with Diego. The bandido lay dead with two rounds in his back that had exited and one in the throat. "¡Fuego! ¡No dejemos que estos paganos yaquis nos invadan!" Screamed a soldier of Basque descent.

(Fire! Do not let these Yaqui heathens overrun us!)

He saw the man's uniform and figured out he was a Captain. He fired back. "Niawen..." Whispered Atonwa to the deceased horse as well as Diego's man.

The Comanche warriors that Red Wolf and Broken Arrow had in the background watching their flank were engaging the soldiers.

Elena could see the senior gunman was in danger. "Atonwa!" She cried out as she rushed forward. She took cover behind a dying horse that had been shot out by one of the cavalry on accident.

She wanted to put the horse out of its misery but a volley of more shots did that and she saw the red bursts of blood emerging from the horse's wounds.

"Elena! Cuidate!" Screamed Enrique as he fired a shot to draw fire towards him rather than his daughter. He took a round in the right shoulder however and the right hip and ended up falling on the dirt.

Tabemohats was refusing to stick to strictly European battle tactics. with a howl he leapt from his mouth with his knife ready and began to take scalps from the dead Mexican Imperial soldiers.

Red River and his son had joined the fight and with them the last of the Puukuu warriors. They rode directly at the Imperial lines and began to unleash a volley of rounds as well as arrows. They guoded their horses in the shape of a wheel with spokes going inward like a wheel within a wheel. It was a mixture of the Quahadi, Yaparika and the Pukuu band. Lotsee, painted fully in war paint, had red and black face painting. She loosed ten arrows in quick succession and managed to hit four men between the ten arrows with one soldier, a man from Apaxco de Ocampo.

He had skin like that of a chestnut and jet black hair, clearly a mestizo possibly descended from one of the Nahua tribes. Lotsee let out a ululating war cry as the man fell even as he managed to dispatch two Comanche warriors from Quanah Parker's band but he fell with the arrows in him. The infantry was at a huge disadvantage against the mounted warriors.

Atonwa aimed his Evans towards the French-Mexican citizens and he saw three rounds line the bastard up from the sternum to the solar plexus and finally a round in the gut. He was on foot as was Enrique and even Diego but he could tell that whenever Elena was riding with the Numumuu especially Red Wolf and Broken Arrow, that she had almost a competative nature about fighting on horseback just as they did even though Yaquis tended not to, she felt that if she could master fighting on horseback, which her brother already did as a bandito for different reasons than her, she could give an edge to the Yaqui nation and teach the warriors what she knew but it would be hard.

Some Yaquis and Comanches still hated each other but none of the ones here were all the way that way so they had a chance.

"Les Comanches sont de mèche avec les bandits ! Je savais que cette rébellion avait été déclenchée par des traîtres criminels !" Yelled a Captain just before he wad dispatched by Enrique with a shotgun blast to the side, moving between the many boulders for cover.

(The Comanches are in league with the bandits! I knew this rebellion was started by criminal traitors!)

Another man on his side, under Maximillion's forces, shouted, "¡Todos seréis masacrados y el resto enfrentaréis la horca!"

(You will all be slaughtered and the rest of you will face the gallows!)

"Hijo de la chingada!" Screamed one of the imperial soldiers as Broken arrow sent an arrow shaft to the back of his shoulder and followed up with another arrow to the gut. He switched back to his Rifle and let a quick volley of five rounds off at the enemy. He hit two of them the first, a man of the Peninsular stock. The man was five feet five inches and weiged perhaps 150 lbs. He was struck first three inches below the navel and the round tore through his bladder like a bighorn charging into a person.

The next round struck him in the heart and he was collapsed next to his men. This man was a Lieutenant but his rank didn't save him. The next round struck a man of Criollo descent with olive colored skin, amber eyes, a five 'oclock shadow and a handle bar mustache. The man looked to be in his mid twenties. The round hit him in the right pec and as he collapsed clutching his bloody wound and dropped to one knee, begining to pray in Latin, Quanah Parker stared at the man who was coughing up blood due to the internal damage the round had done.

He dispatched him with a shot to the lower part of the face and broke his jaw and the round exited the left side of his face through the cheek knocking through several teeth which erupted from the explosion of lead as well as lacerated flesh.

He let out a whoop and dismounted to collect his "Souvanier" from the man who was on the bring of death gurgling and blood bubbled from his destroyed face. He was unable to even scream as Quanah took is scalp from him. He was already going into shock.

Red River let a storm of rounds off from his own repeater, a similar model to Atonwa and he and his son having finally broken the skirmish line with a wheel style assault, began riding elsewhere in the battle.

His son threw a lance through the back of a soldier of Yaqui descent. Though Elena didn't like the idea of fighting her own people she knew that Yaquis had terrible treatment on both sides of the border but she had decided that any Indio who picked up a gun and went to war with them or the Comanches and the Comancheros by extention, was an enemy.

The soldier was pinned to the ground. The lance had gone through his spinal cord. The Comanche lept from the horse only long enough to dispatch him with his dagger and then collected his scalp.

They saw a hacienda nearby with hundred of horses and cattle. The Puukuu band wanted to break off from the main war party force so that they could take not only horses but also cattle back to their starving band.

"¡Retiro! ¡Tenemos que reagruparnos!"

(Retreat! We have to regroup!)

"Goddamn it, cabron i told you NOT to fight that way!" Growled Enrique.

"Nobody tells us how to fight..." The warrior insisted. "You said not to use arrows. You never said no scalping."

Broken Arrow was hit as well and had been shot in the left leg snd the right arm. The mexican soldiers tied him up and put him on horseback.

"NO!" Elena roared as she reloaded and she fired a shot at the captain and struck him with two rounds in the right side of the chest. The man fell from horseback. Elena stomped on his wound running over his collapsed body and not stopping.

Red Wolf saw his brother had been taken. "Elena...you are wounded please stay here. I am going after him. "

"I don't want you to go without me!"

"He's my brother I can';t leave him. The Mexican army is running. We have to go after him."

He and his warriors including Lotsee and even the men from the Pukuu band pursued the remaining 100 soldiers that were now reenforced.

Elena stood up. "I'm not letting him go alone!" She cried. Diego held her back and took her guns from her handing them to Cedro.

She struck him in the face and he caught her arm. "Let go of me!"

"Then calm the fuck down! These are Comanches they know these lands. I know you love the vato but he can take care of himself."

"They got Broken Arrow!"

"We're going to pursue them too..." Atonwa insisted. "Your father is right. We will go find where they are. We do not need the same numbers as them. The right battle plan can make numbers meaningless."

"I have bad news, Rique..." Alvaro stated. "Most of the Yaquis are on the Frenchman's side. There are a lot of Opatas on their side too."..Joaquin sighed with regret. "Some of them are good people. People I've served with. But then there's men that side with the French and Maximillion. And they sided with the pope."

"Por que? What has the French promised them that our country can't? I know it isn't easy to make it in Mexico but things don't get better if people don't do the work. These pendejos are looking to unravel three hundred years of progress. They want to make us citizens of the French. "

""Lo más probable es que estén enojados por el trato deplorable que este país le ha dado a nuestra gente. Y el Emperador y Maximillian, en lugar de apelar a los Yoeme y los Opata por el país, los apelan a ellos por su fe"..." Elena hazarded a guess.

(They're most likely angry from the deplorable treatment this country has given our people. And the Emperor and Maximillian, rather than appeal to the Yoeme and the Opata over country, they appeal to them by their faith)

Atonwa shook his head. "I don't know what the O'serroni have promise you but it's a lie. My relations back east at Cahnawaga were loyal to the French during the war the white man calls French Indian war. They had their community established as a Catholic mission. They are Roman Catholic. In our ways in the longhouse...even though the great law has been broken twice...once during the Revolution and once during the war I was in I could not bring myself to strike down even a Catholic Kahnawake. Which is saying something because I have killed other Iroquois who were on the American side. My point is, you can't trust a word they say. Some of them wanted to revolt against the crown and tried but it didn';t work."

"Si, Tomas. You have a lot of history, my friend. A lot. And there are Spanish on Maximillian's side. It isn't just la raza who have been convinced by his insidious lies. Many of the New Spain colonists have considered themselves Mexican since the war of independence but they still keep the caste system. They still have the encomniendas. But when he said he was descended from the Holy Roman Emperor many pendejos fell in behind him from the rich too. He appealed to the rich Criollo pendejos faith as well. But the disturbing thing is that they think they serve Mexico when they do this. They think the same thing."

"There are Criollos on Benito's side of the war, papa..." Elena reminded him. "And they haven't given Yaquis rights. The only originarios these cabrones show any respect to were the Tlaxcala for defeating the Aztecs and that was three hundred years ago."

Atonwa thought about her words. "There were Spanish helping our side in the war against the United States. They gave a lot of the tribes in the south guns to use against the Americans. They did the same thing the British did. But the Cherokees do have some bad stories about what they did to them three hundred summers ago. They warned me to never trust them. Even my wife did."

"So we have no real good choice here..." Elena lamented. "Remember when I said i have a brother in the army? He could die."

"You know...my brother used to fight on the side of the French. He fought on their side for a whole year killing other Mexicans in the service of what he thought was the right path forward for Mexico. This is the problem. Nobody ever sees themselves as a traitor they see themselves as doing what they have to. But even though many Yaqui sided with the French instead of the Mexican army, people should not forget. The French here are also backed by Ingles, the Austrian Empire, Ottoman Egypt. Plus Spain themselves backed the French Intervention. They supported sent over 20,000 men to fight. So even though I hear our gente cry about the Mexican government and what it has done they forget all these countries have plan for Mexico. And Spain wanted it to happen so they could undo the revolution."

Diego leaned in. "That's part of it hermanita but not all of it. What they didn't tell you is that a lot of Mexican tribes that were allied with the Spanish Crown after the fall of the Aztecas and the rule of them for three hundred years but the government of Mexico considered these rights and agreements to not matter anymore because Mexico is a new country."

Elena knew her father was right but she knew there was more to it all than that. Enrique set his coffee down and lit a cigar. "Tu sabes...when I was growing up...after the days my own padre fought for independence, I admired Juan Banderas. When I got old enough I wanted to join him. Because I knew even back then that the way our government was...wasn't good. Santa Anna was not a good man. Not worth dying for. But neither was Sam Houston. Mi padre fought against Spain and they did nada to recognie Yoeme rights and see them restored. But when Juan Banderas was caught and executed I thought Mexico as it is now was too powerful. I knew that I would have to deal with some of the Criollos and compromise with them. Like that hijo de puta Diaz...and it was supposed to get better than how it was in my father's days. And before that. But it didn't. But seeing this new war gives me some home. Hope for an imperfect future and Mexico but...maybe better someday."

"That's all we can hope for, papa. We do good work. Even with the work I do as a Sister...even if it is just part of the disguise, some of that dinero goes to the poor. For that, I am glad I can do my part. A small good today could lead to more good tomorrow."

The ex soldier and Comanchero chuckled softly. "That sounds like something your mama would say."

"I miss her..."

"I do too, carina..."

Diego said nothing. He seemed angered at the mention of her but he stewed in silence, no longer seeming to care to participate. Cedro asked him if he was interested in a card game and the relieved gang leader got to his feet with a nod and joined his compadre at the adjacent table. He was in no mood to reminisce.

He turned to Atonwa surprisingly. "You did good in that fight against Napoleon's soldados. Not many old timers are willing to stick their neck out like that. I aint saying I never saw veteranos your age, I have but it's rare and usually they're done with it all."

"I would love nothing more than to be done with it and spend my last years in peace and find what's rest of my family. I have some in Oklahoma I have heard. A brother in law. But I don't know if he is still alive."

"Viejo, have you ever heard of the Ciboleros?" Asked Enrique.

"No."

"Ciboleros hunted the American bison or buffalo on the Great Plains of what is now eastern New Mexico and Texas, mostly in the areas of the Llano Estacado and Comancheria. Their domain ranged as far east and north as Nebraska. The Ciboleros typically hunted buffalo in late fall once the summer crops had been harvested. Many Ciboleros from New Mexico lived along or near the Pecos River from the villages of San José, San Miguel del Vado, and Tecolote and south toward La Cuesta. The Ciboleros were primarily hunters while me and mi familia Los Comancheros were mostly traders with the Comanche and other Plains Indians."

Seamus added,, "Although the two activities overlapped..." Reminded Seamus. "Man's gotta eat."

"Si but we weren't doing it to make the cibolo's all gone to starve them out. We hunt enough and trade enough but we didn't come anywhere close to wiping them out. Los Gringos do it now. i once dreamed of another war with the United States. I swore that if we ever got another chance, I would join my sons in the army once again. But this new presidency is on the same side as Los Yanquis."

"Come on, fellas...ad lass..." The Irish outlaw reminded. "I fought the Yankees meself in the war alongside the likes of your padre. Alongside your padre. So did me brother and he died. He might not have been a Mexican by birth or blood but he was a patriot just the same. He had more in common with these blokes down here than a bunch of protestant fuckers. He proved he was a patriot by laying his life down. He never got to live in Mexico during peacetimes but his bones rest within her soil and it saw some peace but now wars alarms are back. But still even when I was on the Yankee side, we met some Americans that wasn't bad fellas. A few of em was Catholics. Some visitors from the Prussian Empire. They was good fellas"

". They may not have understood us completely, or us them but they looked out for fellow Catholics just the same. In a battalion of mostly proddy's they were a God send but they were killed at the Battle of Monteray. That was the battle we got our first taste of combat in. Well..at least on this side of the pond that is..."

"How many of you were there? Who defected to papa's side?" Inquired Elena. The Irishman took a swig of water from the canteen and then answered, "Well over thirty of us went missing that much I know for sure but those of us who was picked up by the Mexican army there were six of us from that battle. There were others from different battles."

"He's being modest..." chuckled Enrique. "He thought Los Estados Unidos could be beaten too. He hoped for it. He came to America thinking it was going to be the kind of place he would have liked. The first country in modern times to beat the to find this country was settled first by puritanical protestant shites that had no more love for us than King Henry's 'Church' did."

"So this is like a walk through old memories for you? ..." Observed Atonwa.

"Maybe. Only this time it's a wee bit different. I'm here to help Senor Vargas and his family. I've no use for the politics of this country now. I support the Federalists but the French are old allies of the Irish. I guess it was a choice between two Catholic nations. Plus the Black Irish came from Spain. But there are Spanish Mexicans on both sides of this war. Some with loyalties to the president here and the country that won her independence and those you might say, wanted to reverse the Indepence while also being loyal to Napoleon III and Maximilien. They saw those men as a way to do this."

He then chuckled and said, "You Mexicans fight just as much as we Irish! And same with you tribes of the woodlands. But you still have a common enemy

"Did I mention I'm a feckin hero in these parts?"

"Maybe in your own head, Irish."

"Me name is Seamus, old man. I survived the war and I survived the hangings that came after for 'treason' I done what i could back then but now, doing whatever the Vargas family needs. I consider myself in their employ. Better them than a protestant. even if they are lapsed Catholics. Shite, so am i."

The irony was not lost on Atonwa that they both were despite Catholicism playing no small part for the reason the St Patrick's Battalion had defected to the Mexican side. The years came and went and all though there had been some Mexican citizens killed by the Comanches, they were seeing more common ground with the tribes. They couldn't all condone it of course, as many Comancheros were raised Catholic while the free Comanches were not.

This wasn't a problem for Elena and it hadn't been for her father either but there was still a distance. He was a genizaro robbed from his true traditions for the first part of his life. In truth, he had been learning his Yaqui traditions from his uncles and aunts back then when they were alive too when he'd been drafted into Santa anna's army and had marched for the Alamo.

"Straight out of one war...into another.." Atonwa sighed with a heaviness to his soul.

"You fought for el norte or del sur?" Asked Cedro.

Atonwa kept it intentionally vague. "I fought both as needed. There were some Oneidas and Senecas fighting for the north. Aniyuwiya fighting for the south. I did my share of ambushes. But I did not wear either uniform in the white man's war. I knew in the west there were tribes that were using their war with each other to take back old territory. I wish my people had not so long ago lost the taste for war with the blue jackets. Even if some will still fight for them."

"I will need to learn more about this war you fought in, Senot..." Elena insisted. "And we can tell you the history of the wars of Mexico."

"Especially the ones I know intamatley. I would have rather known you twenty years ago. Stopping the gringos was a possibility back then. But I don't know, viejo. Europa emptied their borders and sent their men here. So many Germans on the Texas plains alone. They're stubborn."

Cedro nodded. "The pinche Texans are worse than the gueros in Nuevo Mexico. Or even these gachupine dogs Diego has us fighting in the desert. We're not doing what we do in war, viejo. It's for plunder. But maybe it's all the same, eh?'

"If people are dying and there is money involved, yes."

Atonwa decided that he would get some sleep. He only slept around four hours a night as it was. He rested on the ground. As he slept, Elena's eyes looked at the scars from both bullet wounds over the years as well as a few scars from a bayonet years back. She didn;'t know how he could keep walking around having taken as much damage as he had over the years. She didn't doubt he was a warrior but Elena was concerned that if he got into too many more battles, the next round he took could be fatal. Or his body would be a crippled broken mess.

Something other worldy had to be on his side to have fought that much in life and to still not be done. She wondered if she too,, had that kind of power. Her papa had once told her amd Diego about the brujos as well as brujas but in first and foremost mama had told them stories of the healers in her culture as well and since the Zuni were relatives of the Hopi she had heard some of the stoiries of their kachina doll.

"Is it really true that your people are run by the women?" Asked Elena.

"Yes. They choose the chiefs, clan mothers do. They arrange the marriages too. We cannot divorce our wives at least not in the traditional days but they could put aman's belongings outsiude"

"That is very different from Yaqui. From most of Mexico too...but I like the idea. Mujeres., Leaders."

"Most women like the idea of a society where women are the head of the household. The men in our commiunity are the ones who are not on the recieving end of things. This is part of why me and my first wife before Kawitha and me divorced. She kept our two children since they are turtle clan through her."

"Maybe a matriarchy isn't the answer, que no?" Elena sugested. "Or patriarchy. It should be men and women working together. With different but important , you must admit, senor not many tribes in the world do things the way your tribe does."

"There are a few scattered here and there that follow such ways. I was frustrated with some of the ways our culture held us back. When a Kanienkehaka man dies everything dies with him. I loved my people and my wife. Not many were as agreeable as Kawitha and Atstila. This is why things did not end well with me and my first wife before i was married to Kawitha."

"Do you love your children? Miss them?"

"I don't know if they're even alive...it wasn't all bad, our first marriage but it only lasted three years. There was a confrontation with some of them. Years ago. I once wore the antlers of a pine tree chief when I was not in war. But I wanted to keep going. Keep fighting. To avenge Tecumseh even though he hated me in his last days, I still respect and love the man. Oia:ner warned me to change my course. Once the war was over the people were sick of fighting but I knew the Indians south of the line were being mistreated and removed by Harrison. He felt as though if he had been alongside Tecumseh in his last days he could have taken down Harrison with him."

He sighed. "I knew what it would mean if I didn't submit to the clan mothers law. They would warn me again this time with warriors come to remove them."

He loathed his own Oia:ner back then for reigning in the remaining six nations warriors to come home. When Atonwa knew what would happen if he did not heed the words, he took his own antlers from his head. "Nobody gives me power..." He growled at the clan mother. "Nobody GIVES me the right to be a leader. I do not own you. But you do not own me."

"This is the way of our ancestors!" The clan mother insisted. "men have their place and they have their time for power."'

"Then I am kanienkehaka no longer..." Atonwa insisted. He removed his bear clan necklace and put it in her hands. "You would leave without talking to your children?!" Cried the clan mother.

"They're not my children, remember great Mother? They belong only to her. Because THAT is what our culture says."

"You have done your upmost best to honor all of our traditions nd you know from the creation story that as pregnant Sky Woman fell to Earth she gave birth and the first being born in this new world on the turtle's back would be a woman. This and Jigonsahseh. You are angry. You are young and angry. Don't fall for the same trap again. Put down your guns and your hatchet."

"NEVER..." He vowed. "Even if I am an Indian with no people, I will never stop destroying these O'serroni. I will move south away from my people. "

"To live with the Cherokee? They are our relatives. They go through the woman's line too."

"I just fought a war and lost one of my best friends and mentors. Besides, Cherokees may do that but they are not my tribe so i can overlook it. But in our culture the women have the power even when they're wrong. And you are wrong..." With that, he began to leave. "This is not what the Great Peacemaker wanted. You're playing right into Tiorhensaka's plans."

He walked off in the rain. He and Astila had their belongings in a wagon. It was a strange sight to see Indians, known to white people as wagon burners, which had some truth to it, just for two of them to be using one to get to their knee home. If he'd been traveling by himself or with other men, the trip to and from Cherokee territory was 700 miles and took two months between there and New York but with a woman and children, he wasn't going to chance it.

Dilategi was willing to ride on horseback to escort them at least safely south out of New York since there were a lot of white men on the frontier who would want Atonwa dead for his actions with not only Tecumseh and the prophet but also Black Hawk as well as John Norton, the adopted nephew of Joseph Brant who was Cherokee and Scottish even having been born over there., he was also fighting alongside John Brant, Joseph Brant's son, a man Atonwa had great respect for. The amount of other wagons he had burned would be more than enough reason for them to target him.

Artonwa rode after Red Wolf. Red River also went forward with his son looking rowdy as ever, his face painted both white and black. His son now wore the bighorn cap. They both had fifty men behind them from the Puuku band. The chief of the Yaparika acknowledged the chief of the Puuku band and in truth, though the Puuku claimed to be the band of Comanches who most remember their old home in Wind River country, they were actually just a subgroup of the Yap eaters who had forgotten that fact about a hundred years before.

They had separated from their main band and their numbers were dwindling even more than some of the Comanches who had surrendered and relocated to Oklahoma territory. There were 200 people left in the band. Of that 200, there were fifty men. There was also a few women with them here but the majority had run to safety as Red River instructed. Along with the children.

"This is such a waste..." Lotsee lamented as the afternoon sun was on her shoulders.

"Ʉ pihiku tekwa..." Red River told his daughter.

(Speak from the heart)

Lotsee's distressed eyes met her father's seasoned ones. ""Padre, no creo que ésta sea una guerra en la que debamos involucrarnos. Queremos atacar a los Taibo pero perdemos más guerreros cada momento que desperdiciamos en este país."

("Padre, I do not think this is a war we should be involved in. We want to strike at the Taibo but we lose more warriors every moment we waste in this country.)

Red River nodded. "I know. And we are fighting alongside the man who killed your husband to be..."

"You don't need to remind me..."

"So will you challenge him to single combat?" Inquired the Comanche chief. "You could try. Maybe you would win. But Atonwa is not afraid to die."

"No. As much as I would like to kill him there is not much honor in taking an Elder warrior's life. I hate him because he revealed the flaw in his heart. That I was to be married to such a man. Then again...I have done far more that he would find distasteful. To both the men and women of our enemies."

He began to ride the reins south to Cherokee territory. "do you think your other sons will be okay?" Asked Atstila. "From your first marriage."

He had been married from 1806 to 1809. "They're getting older. But it's their uncle who will teach them. He might as well be the father."

"We are the same way in the Cherokee nation."

"Yes I know it goes through the mother among them too. but we are a modern people and it takes two to make a child. This basic fact should offend no one."

"You'll get no arguments from me, Thomas..." Smiled Astila. "Why did it not last? Did you not love her?"

"I did but not enough. Not in the way a woman must be loved. She knew my heart yearned for fighting and she saw my desire to banish the O'serroni from our land as violating the Great Peace. She accused me of knowing better. But men do not divorce the women. She divorced me as is the way. I did love her but maybe it was not enough. Maybe I was too young."

"You are speaking now with the wisdom of someone who follows the Great Peacemaker. I wonder what your wife from Turtle Clan would say of you now? Now that you are on the road to war alongside Tecumseh?"

Remembering his family so far north as Osweken that he couldn't visit until it was time, he had to see this war through first. He noticed Astila was more of a warrior than Kawitha had been. He let out a painful exhale. "She would say it was meant to be. And I am glad her brother watches over. But I wish it would have worked so that I could have been an active father. Even though we are different clans and even though even a child's father's clan family is more distant than ones mother, it was still up to the man."

She traced her fingers through his hair. "Where is Kawitha now?"

"Safe.." He replied. "Back at the Grand River. Far from this war. My friend John Norton is in command of at least 100 warriors right now."

"You will follow him into battle? The Christian?"

"Many of us are Christians now, Astila. Most of us are.

"Yes but you are not. Even though you and your father learned it and read the bible...you did not believe."

Atonwa nodded. "There are a lot of great battles and some good stories in that book. But in the end...I believe in them about as much as they believe in our stories. But the story of the Illiad is also a great story with many great battles."

"You're a reader?" Asked the Cherokee woman.

"I have read the bible front to back and have a copy of it..." Atonwa explained. "And the Illiad. I know there are many books I have not read but I have only known how to read for several winters. My mother and father insisted on it. They were sure the Age of the white man was on us and I had to be educated to survive. To know how to read."

"That is a good thing. There are many in our nation who cannot read but more and more are learning. But just like people can lie they can lie in these words on bookds."

Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. 18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19 Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay,"[a] says the Lord. 20 On the contrary:

"If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head."[b]

21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Romans 12:17-21

New International Version

1867

Dalton had been rounded up by Maximillion's army and he found he was in the company of other men who had fought for the south. In this new conflict, though it had been a month since he had killed Taft, he wondered what his former friend, mentor and leader would think of this war, a war that was happening at the same time as the war in the states but now it was yet another front for Johnny Rebel and Billy Yank to fight each other.

He didn' know what the outco,me of the war would be. He had wanted to check in on the old gang back in Arizona but had not known if it was safe to reach out but he'd read a newspaper that had talked of their shootout with the law in Tubac. Patterson was at least still at large. He knew that much. He wanted to get back to them but for the time being he was stuck and this was where he could go without ending up on a hangman's gallow from the law but he was just as likely to die in battle here.

He had been picking up a bit more French having known bits and pieces of it from when he'd lived in Loiusiana and he was picking up Spanish among the soldiers. He wasn't familar with Mexico but in addition to finding out that there were at least 2000 veterans fighting for Napoleon III while the Yankees backed Benito Juarez, that quite a few Mexican nationals had themselves fought in the civil war. As many as 20,000 had.

"Yankee! Agua!" A fellow imperial soldier, corporal Hernando Villa, a man born and raised in the Senora desert with almond hued skin, dark angry brown eyes and a shaved head standing at five foot six. He had somewhat been friendly to Dalton. He passed him the canteen and Dalton took a swig. "Gracias..." Dalton thanked him. "This heat is getting to me, amigo..."

"Don't they have heat like this in El Norte?" Inquired his friend of two weeks. "I know that it can be hot in the south que no?"

"We do got hot humid sweaty summers i aint denying that..." The Cajun-Irish American agreed. "But it aint like the desert, partner. You must be used to to it but hell maybe you wouldn't like all the humidity we got. Nawlins, Atlanta, you'll be misrerable if you aint near water on a hot day like this. Perfect for swimming. But I know any big bodies of water I see out here aint real."

"Bueno. Don't go thinking that can't happen where you're die of heat exhaustion, of dehydration all the time."

Elena looked at Atonwa and asked, "Tomas, do you know how to breathe through your nose?"

"Yes. But the nose and the mouth are good for breathing. Why do you waste my time with a question you know the answer to?"

"But you are nor frim the desert and I know you can handle heat but it's about more than that. Dehydration kills people out there. The Apaches, same witm my own gente knew that to breathe that way and would carrt water in our mouths. To breathe through the mouth in the desert will make you dehydrate faster."

He was silent a moment. Enrique added, "It's true senor I learned that the hard way. Other Yaquis living the old way knew this too. But I was raised when Mexico first got her had to be good Catholics. But in the end those rich cabroned had people in mi familia as slaves under the encomienda. That's part of why mi papa rebelled too. Mi abuela, his mama, was such a slave. He got her out of bondage and she knew her son was off at war.

They stopped finally making a camp in a cave. "We need to defeat the French..." Elena insisted. "It's getting in the way of our business and trade across the border and the Numunuu could be in danger from this."

Enrique nodded. "I've seen them. They have ridden through Nuevo Leon. They have gone to Juarez, to Sonora. The Comanches don't care. They will raid from herds in all the border states."

"You are in love with my sons. This, I can understand. But Red Wolf must marry another. He is to marry a woman of the Quahadi band."

"You know..." The chief slowly began. "There are some nations where a man has many wives if he is rich. In game or horseflesh. But there are also some nations which allow women to have more than one husband."

"i know our relationship is not..traditional but many things can be said of the Numunuu being able to do things the other tribes can't. But you knew my father during the war. You helped him twenty years ago."

"That was a long time ago..." The chief stated softly. "But I rememer Enrique Vargas we still trade weapons with him and his caravan. In those nations where a woman may have more than one husband she can never really be certain of who the father is. With one man, many wives, though some of the women get jealous over such things even with each other, we know who the father is."

"You make a good point, senor. I never thought of it this way. But I do love your sons."

"Love has nothing to do with it. Red Wolf must marry a Quahadi woman. Through this union, we can strengthen the bond between Numunuu bands. The love and harmony of a nation is more important than selfish matters of the heart."

"But why?" Elena was frustrated and she didn't understand. "I have seen Comanche men with Mexican wives they adopted. Why is this good for one band, one village but not the other?"

"We still have freedom on the plains..." He exhaled tobacco smoke. "The taibo want to stop that with their railroads, their cannons and their gatling guns. I did not fight and none of my village participated in the Taibo's war with himself. We are outmanned and we are outgunned. But our medicine can turn defeat into victory for us."

"You're both Numunuu. I don't understand. Why would you need to strengthen your bond with them?"

"I have a friend named Buffalo Hump who spoke as you do. And Chief Ten Bears, he tried to plead with the taibo as though we are the invaders and they are home. He wanted some Numunuu to still have the freedom of the open sky. To sleep under the stars. But the taibo does not listen. Thoos is why we kill him."

He sighed. "I would never ask for peace with these blue coat soldiers. I would fight to my last breath if I must. Maybe I do have too great a task by fighting for our way of life to survive. But I will always give my best effort."

"There will be a time. For all of it..." Elena insisted. "We will overthrow the United States of America."

"I'm not so sure we can use that. You have a chance at a future, Elena. I have seen warrior women like you before. The best ones didn't have husbands or childens but many of them and they used it as their reason to fight. I don't know if the O'serroni can ever be defeated for good. Maybe...I am too late to find even my own family in this place. This desert. But I

Rafferty shook his head at Patterson. "Bob...I'm not a feckin Yankee. I'm an Irishman. You saw what happened to us in the Draft Riots once they sent in the boys fresh from Gettysburg to stop the riots. They showed no mercy I think they meant to kill me. I was covered in ash when they was done shelling the city with their guns. Them and the Navy. I would have foght for the south if I had a choice. But I was in the north and they captured me. And then it was the noose or the army."

"You might not see yourself as a Yankee, Rafferty..." Patterson spat. "But you were a Yankee when you was fighting us. You saying you come over from Ireland cause of the potato famine don't mean nothin to me. Especially when the Yankees already had a ton Iof immigrants as it was."

"You forgetting what happened in the Petersburg Campaign?" The Irishman demanded. "I fought and I killed and I saw my friends killed. Yeah, that's right I actuallu made friends in the less than a year when they drafted my sorry arse to go fight in the south. That sweaty humid shit hole you call a home state. Roanoke... the fuckin english colony must have been insane to land in such an inhospitable land."

"The only reason you ended up on our side..." Sneered Hawthorne. "Is your sorry bog trotting ass ended up in Andersonville. You sold out a lot of your own soldiers. Especially an escape plot."

"Goddamn it I was drafted. Even though we rioted to not be drafted I was. None of you lot could have pulled off the shite we did in the Five Points. You lot couldn't even handle the folks in Pennlyvania! You know what's in Pennsylvania besides farmers, friend? Quakers. You lot were bested by quakers."

The man stood up ready to fight but Patterson got in the way. "That's quite enough! It's bad enough we are stuck here in this desert hell hole."

"Tuscon aint so bad..." Chuckled Gwynne. "I like it here. I like it here."

"Nonsense..." Shook Patterson injected blowing smoke from his cigar. "This is a town of goddamn republicans...Yankees."

"Not everybody..." Insisted Gwyne. "Some of them, a lot of the ranchers especially is democrats loyal to the Confederacy and the southern cause.

Patterson didn't like them being out in the open like this. "After that shootout in Tubac we shouldn't be so close."

"You think this is close, son?" Chuckled Sandford. "We're damn near fifty miles north and we need to be more west."

"We would be if it weren't for the posse those fools and their job brought down on us..." Growled Greenleaf. "We were supposed to be west as you said."

"You also said there were Confederate sympathizers out here..." Yvnadisi reminded the two senior guns in the gang.

"There is..." Sandford stated, asserting himself as the leader since coming back and having taken the reins from Patterson. "There just aint as many as Tubac. But that's this idjiots doing, not mine. Ya'll made some moves that could have been smarter. Taft too. And that's why Taft is dead. The goddamn law shot him down. they may have even shot down Dalton along with the rest of them boys."

"They found everybody's body and buried em except his..." Hinton reminded them.

"That don't mean a thing. They found horses with all them boys across the back of it. Someone out in New Mexico made out like bandits and it wasn't us and I don't know if it was even the law. Just some lucky fool who stumbled across a buncha outlaw corpses."

"They aint found Crawfish's sorry carcass either..." Reminded Sanford. "Or Dalton. Or Taft. They aint found either one of em yet they're both gone. Maybe they went to Mexico."

"We can't go and look for em. Not now..." Patterson sighed. "The law is sure to be looking out there. Especially around the Rio Grande,. And the border tween Texas and New Mexico. We've come a long way east. It's as you said. But we can't go no further east than that."

"Why don't we go into Nevada?" Requested Rafferty. "It's a state with a lot of silver. And it's got desert and it's sure to have good ole bandits loyal to the cause."

"So you still want to seceed from the Union do ya boy?" Chuckled Sandford with a twisted grin. In many ways his charisma matched that of Taft even though Taft had been more of a somewhat silent leader after the war and he and Sandford had taken them on many scores across the south and they had engaged some of the Yankee soldiers patrolling the streets of the cities of the south in pitched warfare battling in the streets. They had done this in Arkansas.

But in many ways Sandford was more theatrical than Taft and this was saying something considering they'd heard he'd tied some bank patrons to the window and had blown a hole in the wall and the survivors had told f what happened. Sandford was more of a force of terror in war than he was a bank robber or even a gang leader.

"I reckon we need to find out what happened to them two. If Dalton or Taft is alive they can tell us what the hell happened out there. I know they killed Beuford, Crocks, Hastings, and Winthrop. I doubt that fat hot Crawfish survived when all them boys didn't but if he did he musta gone to Mexico with em."

"So what you want to do?" Asked Rafferty.

"We're gonna send Hinton and Gwyne down there. Along with Greenleaf, Papago Sam and Johnny Waters. We need folks who can blend in down there and we aint got no greasers in our gang. I aint opposed to it there was some of served the confederacy and a hell of a lot of em in Texas. But you and Hinton can go down there and find him."

Papago Sam was close enough and since some of their people's ancestral territory lay in northern Mexico, it wasn't too much of a stretch. He was surprised that Hinton and Gwyne had been able to live in camp with them without coming to blows with the Indian members. There were a few of their gang who were still out there pursuing other leads. Who had been asked to.

There were a few more men, most of them ex Confederates but Sandford had

"Won't the five of us riding into Mexico look suspicious right now?"

"Oh I agree. We'll need to divide the family for now. We'll need to send at least one or two of the women with you. I trust you'll keep them safe won't ya? Mexico is a land of bandits and outlaws. And even if it weren't they're having their own fight down there."

"Who will go down to mexico with us? I can't promise it won't be dangerous..." Rafferty stated. "But there will be adventure. And I'm sure between here and there plenty of folks to rob."

"Mexico's a newer country than here..." Advised Sandford. "And a lot of is dirt poor especially at the border. There might not be much in the way of anything ya'll can rob and besides you aint there to raise hell in another country."

"But it's like you said, Sandford..." Yonadisi began. "They're at war with themselves. Didn't you just say that? The soldiers will have their hands full with each other on both sides."

Robert nodded. "Soldiers are who kept the law aside from the federal police down there. Only...I doubt them fellas have much clout these days what with all the soldiers taking shots at each other. I didn't even know about any damn war in Mexico fore ya told me."

"How could you not know?" Sandford's eyebrows raiseed at the second gun. "The Army of Northern Virginia did a good deal of trade with not only the English but the Frenchie influenced Mexicans. I don't know what the odds are of two countries next to each other having a war that divides the country at the same time are but buddy we beat them odds."

"I wonder if they got a war up in Canada going too..." Pondered Gwynne with a chin scratch. "You was up pretty far north, rafferty wasn't you?"

"That I was. But last I heard there's no wars going on up there. Beuford was one state over if there was a war he'd have heard it."

"There are fenian raids going on up there, sir..." Replied Rafferty. "What are the odds. If I hadn't been caught and drafted by the army after the riots I would have likely made my way up to Canada and helped out up there."

"Told ya we can't trust a papist..." Heckled Patterson. "First chance he gets to go kill some Canuck protestants he wants to run north and help out his Irish banditti..."

"They got Fenian Brotherhood up in Minnesota..." Reminded Patterson. "Papist paradise. Have fun. They're in Canada too."

"You're gonna run away then and take the fight to Washington DC then, Bobby?" Rafferty taunted back. "John Wilkes Booth had the bollocks to shoot an American president. Now

Cahoila Mexico'

"Your name is Dalton..." The ex Confederate he had met shot a look at him. They were both in a cantina drinking but the man had just arrived. He looked to see a white male standing five eight with a scar under his right eye and part of his nose and left cheek. Dalton shook his head as he down the whiskey. "You got me confused with somebody else, partner. I'm just here to drink myself to death in peace."

"You don't know me do ya? I know your friend Sandford. Say. What happened to Taft? i read in the papers there were posses that found a lot of your boys dead. They aint found Taft yet."

"I don't know what you'te talking about, mister. Let me drink in peace. I escaped America to avoid American problems."

"I got the rank of Major down here. Name's Vernon Trudell. I served with Sandford. And Nathan Bedford Forrest. All them boys."

"You talk a lot for a veteran. Get the fuck outta my face or we're gonna take this outside. I'm getting drunk but I aint that drunk."

The 40 something year old smirked. 'i

Tourant ., You aint no Irishman, friend. O'Hara? Please..."

"I am too Irish..." He insisted.

"Well, if you got Irish blood it's from over 100 years ago. See, I knew your family. The last Irish in your family were Jacobites in the 1700's. But the men in your family is Frenchies. Frenchies that fought with the Irish against the English but Frenchies all the same. Why you think ya'll was living in Louisiana before Georgia?"

"I never gave it much thought. There's all kinds of people from Louisiana, friend. From all over. I just thought we was a product of where we lived."

"You're both Cajuns with French soldiers in your family. I knew your pa."

"How is it you know me but not my pa?" Dalton sighed then growled, "Outside. You and me."

"Me taking on Dalton Trudell? It'd be an honor. You're supposed to be dead or at least captured after that bank heist. That was always Taft's problem. He became more of an outlaw than a soldier. He was noble in the war but he lost his way..."

They headed outside around the bank alley of the cantina and Dalton hit him with a hard left to the man's jaw. The man swung back with a left jab to the gut followed by a right blow to Dalton's right eye. Dalton tackled the man. "You son of a bitch!" He head butted the ex Confederate and caused his lips to bleed but the man threw a bombardment of blows to Daltons face and chest and slammed him against the wall of the cantina.

The locals who saw it jeered, both pistoleros and working girls alike. "Orale guero! Matalo!" Called out one of the hecklers but Dalton ignored it as another fist hit him this time directly in the mouth and he was already winded. Dalton was thrown to the ground and hit the dirt. "That's enough of that..." The renegade turned soldier offered Dalton a hand up. Dalton accepted it and as he got up he came with a left upper cut that whalloped the man.

The older Confederate gave him a head butt and followed with a combination of blows to his face and before five seconds had gone by, he had taken six punches to the face. Dalton collapsed on the ground. "I can teach you how to fight better, boy. But you're drunk and you're angry. You've been in charge of other men in wars but the drink has taken its toll on you."

"What would you know about loss?!" Barked Dalton.

The gang member,introduced himself, "I'm Winston T Eldridge. I lost my family but not in Sherman's campaign.." The gray eyed Confederado coldly gazed back at the gang leader. "General Sherman didn't burn my family to the ground. But I lost my brother. They made us clear out land mines because Ole Uncle Billy the same man who burned Atlanta to the ground, thought mines were war crimes."

"Hell, I never even saw any of them landmines..." Admitted Dalton as he got to his feet.

"I'll buy you a drink..." Insisted Winston. "What are you drinking, boy?"

"This is Mexico. Tequila."

"do ya one better, partner. Emilio. Dos Mescals por favor."

"You're wandering around aimlessly in Mexico. I don't lnow what happened on the other side of the border with them posse men and the bank and your crew but this aint the kind of place to act reckless even if people do. Life is cheap around here, friend. Especially with a war going on. But...for people like me...this is a second chance to fuck the Yankees."

Dalton took his shot letting it burn and as he tasted the alcohol he shot a look to the Confederado. "Were you...at Fort Pilla? You said you knew Taft and Patterson and you rode with General Forrest. Did you fight at fort Pilla?"

"Fort Pillow..." A haunted look showed just for a moment in his eyes. "I was there and I remember."

"We all was we just wasn't in the same place. I was part of the fighting. It was nothing to gettysburg. But...what we did..."

"Orders was orders..." Shrugged Eldridge. "You think..them colored boys in the 54th Masachuesetts give a damn about them poor farmers back home that can't afford slaves and had to work those places themselves? The farm I grew up on...there was colored servans but they was indentured. Irish too. If they was for life well it'd have been much more expensive in the long run."

He then admitted, "Course, our overseer was harsh enough on both...Injun workers too. They made it a point to work folkj to death. But...I get it. Folk want to be free. But they lost that battle. And we did what we was supposed to.I fought at Padaca too. I admit it. I killed colored boys. Forrest told us to. You did too. But...we didn't harm womenfolk or children in that fight. That's more than I can say for Uncle Billy Sherman. Besides...it was Tennesee folk..."

"He had you running all over Kentucky and Tennesee didn't he..." Dalton questioned. Having himself done most of his fighting in Virgini a and Georgia other than Gettysberg. He had even fought in the Chicakamagua campaign after having joined the cavalry rather than the infantry.

"Yes sir he did. How did you come to be at the Battle of the Crater?"

"We were needed there..." Dalton explained with a sniff. "And believe you me, we had a corespondance enough with Mr. Forrest that we had his permission to lend a hand."

Winston nodded. "Soldiers do get switched all the time. Sometimes entire units are wiped out. The 54th lost half their men in one fight. The ones that survived had enough of war but some switched to other companies. But I can't help but think, Trudell...if you and Taft and the rest of your band had been with us. There was 7000 of us going through Kentucky and Tenesee. Maybe it would have been a victiry if we had a few more seasoned fighters."

"But we lost, amigo..." Dalton replied with a shaking head. "And now we're both outlaws in a country that for all its outlaws and renegades one law they have on the books is they was done with slavery before the states was."

"I know. I had to find that fact out myself down here. It's still alive and well in Brazil. We still go some boys down there.

2France was a symbol of liberty for Irish republicans in the 19th century, harking back to the United Irishmen who had brought a French army to Ireland in 1798.2 As in the century before, France's capital offered Irish nationalists a chance to continue their revolutionary project in safety. The Fenians who found themselves in Paris, whether direct exiles or not, were safe from the reach of the British Empire in the city's "pensions" and boarding houses. There they could collude, plan and organize in close contact with the movement at home in Ireland and abroad in the United States. Furthermore, France at this time was alive with revolutionary energy, and Paris was the city to which revolutionary exiles from almost every European revolutionary society fled. Among others, it housed revolutionaries from various Italian and Polish nationalist groups who lived alongside local French activists.3

17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. 18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19 Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord. 20 On the contrary:

"If your enemy is hungry, feed him;

if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.

In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head."

21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

1 JOHN 4: 20 - 20 If someone says, "I love God," but hates a fellow believer, that person is a liar; for if we don't love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see?

General Armistead another fearless leader of the Civil War. A perfect example how this horrible war separated brothers at arms. He was shot & wounded at Gettysburg & later died of his wounds inflicted by troops led by one of his closest friends, General Winfield Hancock. This war inflicted such damage on our nation.

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"The white man horses his shoes. The Indians don't..." Dalton stated. "It don't make a lick of sense."

"If the chief's as brutal as you say why did they let you live?" Demanded Dalton. "A Comanche band no less?"

"The Indians fired rounds and arrows at us."

"So you expect me to corral every redskin under lock and key? Being under federal law they're under federal jurisdiction and as long as they aint broken any laws here, they aint our jurisdiction.."

"Hold it right there, Injun. Hands where I can see em..." Warned one of the deputized Marshals.

"I came to water my horse. I am from a tribe friendly with the people of Phoenix. I am not an Apache."

"I aint taking a savages word."

A shot rang out and hit Rafferty in his right leg. "Keep em covered, friend. if they move again like they just done ya plug em both."

"You're asking me to kill for you?"

"We helped your grandpa get a proper burial, didn't we? You know how folk are. Now we're gonna be making lots of enemies just even being seen with ya. But back where we come from lots of our families fought alongside the Indians. Back east."

"The war between the whites..." Samulel nodded.

"I killed a lot of people who coulda become new Americans. The "

"Who else besides the Pukuu Comanches would have a problem with the settlers around here? Around Quiteteque?"

"It leads to the homesteaders colony. They're getting ready to mount up a posse and ride after a tribe that's helped."

"You have seen the horses. They do not wear shoes. We are not lying to you, Papago Sam. Have you lived among the white eye so long you forgot to trust people in tribes?"

"There'ds gonna be a bonafide Injun corpse at the battle/. When that happens, we'll get justificatioon to clear out them Puukuu. Bastards raid into Oklahoma, even Kansas!"

The tied up Indian swung a left jab into the white man's gut.

"They're gonna go after the ranch. They're gonna get those folks ranching rights revoked and then they'll sell to their families rather than the ones they been near."

The Puuku fired his rifle into the fray of Mexican soldiers. The warrior on foot and Lotsee lept from horseback pouncing on a settler each and cut them down. Tabemosats had a rifle wound to his right hip and buttock after an exchange of fire with the soldiers of Benito Juarez, they retreated despite his own wounds. "The Mexican Army think they can stifle the Pukuu people!" Barked Red River before a round slammed into his left ribcage. He fell from horseback as two Apache scouts and two white soldiers including an officer, fired into the older man. The warriors opted not to scalp the man and convinced the soldiers not to as well.

"I can't believe the Mexican Army would even have Apache scouts!" Enrique's distaste for this was beyond hiding. Bothered more was he, by the fact that they had captured his daughter and instead he had with him the son that Elena had once accused him of hating. He had the same adversarial relationship with Apaches as papa did but he also didn't get along with Comanches that were loyal to themselves. He saw his gang of Northern Mexican bandits as beyond tribe or empire alliances. He and his men would eat and live off whatever and whoever they came across.

He fired a total of six rounds at Juarez's soldados. He fired a barrage of rounds and sent them crashing into the first, a Lipan scout striking him in the chest and stomach. They began to take off on horseback almost as soon as they had done this. "What's the plan, senor?" Cried out Alvaro as he turned to Enrique letting off his own storm of rounds from his Evans.

"We ride ahead of them against the hacienda de Castellano!" Called out the Comanchero. "We might not have the kind of numbers they have but we've shown them what we;re willing to do! If they see Benito Juarez's men they will not notice a ragtag band of gun and horse traders, carnalito! We can get in and out easier if the soldados de Maximillion see them."

Atonwa called to the rest of them, "Can any of you speak French?" Asked Atonwa.

Enrique and Elena shook their heads and the same was also the case for the Culebras and the Comanches from the Quahadi, Yaparika and the Pukuu band. "I can speak enough..." Atonwa told them with an exhalation through the nostrils. "Enough to get through their lines as a 'Friendly' Indian. I can find out where in the fort Elena is."

He turned to one of Diego's gang members. "That crucifix. I will need it to get near the French."

"This keeps mi culo valla free, viejo. Chale."

(This keeps my ass bullet free, old man. Hell no.)

"I can get behind the French lines and find out where your sister is."

"And you said this one killed your husband to be right?" Diego asked of Lotsee while keeping both eyes trained on the Knienkehaka Elder.

"It was meant to be by the creator..." She insisted. "You should do as El Viejo asks."

"Give him the neklace, Victorio."

He was given the necklace and he began to aproach the French lines with hands raised and his pistols holstered and his rifle on his back. "Je viens en paix! Je suis de ton côté!" Atonwa spoke as the French Mexican soldiers drew a bead on the aging former pine tree chief.

(I come in peace! I am on your side!)

"How does one take sides in a war, a rightful war for the man appojnted by God to be Emporor or some federalist swine, sir?"

"I meant that I mean you no harm. And no offense. I have some road ahead of me but listen...I am here about the girl."

"What girl, Aigniers ?" Demanded the sgt.

"She's nobody you would know..." Francis raised his eyebrows at the strange man. "I know they mean to hang her. She and her family are faithful Indians but they have sacridiced for her and sent her to school even when she dkidn't want to go."

"She needs her last rites before she can be executed to face judgenent,,/" Atonwa hid his hatred, and his anger. He was a having a harder time ridding himself of the negativiry that had got him in the years prior."

"It is a matter of a man's soul.

"We are soldiers for Christ we are not priests. Move aside."

"Pardonnez-moi, messieurs, mais j'ai peur pour l'âme des hommes blancs. Lorsque vous êtes venu pour la première fois auprès de mon peuple, vous nous avez empêché d'adorer les mauvais esprits comme s'ils étaient des dieux. Mais maintenant, après cent lunes au cours desquelles vous avez converti et sauvé de nombreux fidèles, maintenant beaucoup d'entre vous se sont détournés de Dieu. Oui, vous voyez les peintures de la France et de sa vie citadine. Vous vous êtes détourné de Dieu vers le profit."

Atonwa spoke to them slowly and the French were impatient but were at least appreciative that he a lowly savage could communicate, though slowly in their mother tongue.

(Pardon me, sirs but I fear for the soul of white men. When you first came to my people you saved us from worshipping evil spirits as though they were gods. But now after a hundred moons where you have converted and saved many of the faithful, now many of you have turned away from God. Yes, you see the paintings of France and its big city life. You have turned away from God towards profit.)

"¿Qué te acaba de decir el viejo?" Demanded a Mexican Imperial soldier from San Alto in Guadalajara.

(What did the old man just say to you?)

Answering in French, the officer replied, "Le sauvage ose nous appeler fidèles serviteurs de Dieu. Il nous compare à ceux qui adoraient le veau lors de l'Exode."

(The savage dares to call us faithful servants of God. He is comparing us to those who worshipped the calf in the Exodus.)

He could see the anger in the face of the superior officer and added in Spanish again, "No es más que un viejo loco. Probablemente bebí demasiado vino sacramental. Probablemente se olvidó de comerse las galletas para absorber un poco."

(He is just some crazy old man. Probably had a little too much of the sacramental wine. He just probably forgot to eat the wafers to soak up some of it.)

"No estoy loco. Pero soy viejo. Y así es como puedo ver. Forjaste a tu propio Dios para abandonar a tu verdadero creador."

(I am not crazy. But I am old. And that is how I can see. You forged your own God to forsake your true creator.)

The officer of Spanish Mexican descent delivered a left jab to his abdomen winding the man. He doubled over groaning. The old man's spittle hit him in the face. Atonwa withdrew his knife and jammed it into his left foot and listened to the howl of agony as the man went for his Navy Revolver and fired but Atonwa had already slashed him across the stomach

"Can it not wait, padre?~" Insisted the bank robber wanted to keep it quiet. in an

Red River let off a volley of arrows he nocked with surgical speed and presciscion and he hit three of the Imperial soldier's. Quanah called to the Puuku chief, "We're going to head south then split off to the east! It'll be morning soon. We will help these Comancheros find our Yaparaka brothers. And then we launch another war party after them."

"Uku̠se nʉnʉ mʉipunitui!" called back to the younger son of the great chief Peta Noconah.

(We will see you there!)

Red River's son nodded as he reloaded his repeater having already dispatched seven soldiers in one go and much to Elena's dismay, he had killed two Yaqui Indian soldados and he had shot the two of them and taken their skins. "Sihka tsaa tabeeni..."

(Today is a good day.)

"You understand Numunuu?" Quanah noted eyeing Elena. " Even though you're from a different nation? Red Wolf has told me of your exploits as a warrior woman. Is this because your family are Comancheros?"

"I'd be lying if I said that wasn't part of it,senor. But even if we were not I am aware of our old ways and I would try and learn eve if I did not help m father in his work. I still like to learn."

Quanah nodded a moment seeming to think over what she said before finally saying, "Suapʉ̠ tsa puhakatʉ..."

( Knowledge is power.)

Elena admitted. "Nʉ nami nʉ tsahpisoʔai..."

(My younger sister made me angry.)

"Because of being a nun?" The Comanche warrior woman's eyes narrowed to little slits.

Elena nodded. "She says she is playing as a spy for la gente but she is talking about going on missionaries. It was bad enough the church had my father most of his life. He still believed even after Santa Anna's forces lost at San Jacinto but when the next war came when I was born, he lost his faith in the church. He stopped going to mass."

"And this is what you are thinking about while a warrior that you claim you love is injured and taken? Yuhu taibo stole him and they will likely either have him hung as a criminal or shot as a soldier. Mexico and Los Estados Unidos have mutual interest in pacifying the tribes out here. Maybe my nation has overstayed our welcome in Mexico."

"Lotsee, there is no need for that. Sun Woman is our guest..." Quanah stated. "And she and her father have traded with our band. Those of our people who agreed to live on land alloted by Taibos."

"Gracias, senor Quanah.." Elena gave a courteous smile. "I did not start the family business but mi papa y mi hermano have always been deepy involved.

"ʉnʉ hakai nahniaka?"

(What is your name)

Inquired a Comanche woman as she talked to Tabemosots. They had both been married before and in fact, he was married two years ago until a cholera outbreak took his wife and daughter. He still had a surviving daughter from that union but she was with his sister at he mometnt. It seemed, however that the Comanche warrior wanted to open his heart to marriage again.

Eetii WʉhtʉkwaHits With A Bow (name - Atetewuthtakewa)He turned to Red River. "Father, ride with me! We need to plan to get our brother away from these cowards.""Esi Tanapʉ̠, Gray Knees, was a skilled warrior with a lance.Hʉwʉni Dawn Isananika Howling Wolf

Kebakuwe, of the Quahadi band was a war chief of his own right of the Quahadi band. He was twenty seven years old and stood five nine and barrel chested with dark brown skin of the hue of mahogony and he had his hair tied in two braids.

With him, was Isananika of the Puuku band. This man had cut his own hair after his father and mother had been killed in a shootout with the Texas Rangers seven years ago. He was Kebakuwe's best friend from outside his own band. He was not a chief but he was a warrior who had demonstrated great horseback warfare talent and had always ridden loyally with Red River. He'd cut his own hair in mourning. He'd grown his hair back out but a good friend of his named Jimmy No Horse had been killed in a raid on a settlement near the Pecos River.

This was why he had cut his hair this time. With him was his wife of the Quahadi band,. She had light brownish yellow skin and big brown eyes with luscious pink lips she had just turned twenty herself and she had been to battle a few times herself as well as having hunted dangerous wild predators with her brother was killed by a group of French buffalo hunters.

Red River had his men and women hanging back a good distance from the monarchal soldiers. They could see that the French soldiers and the French vassal state soldiers had set up camp and there were enough of them awake that it wouldn't be advisable to attack."

"You want to attack them now, Elena?" Asked Red Wolf.

"No..." She sighed atching her father's gaze and remembered some of what he told her in the past regarding survival. "They'll be expecting us to attack."

"If they make a move to kill him, we're going in."

"They will kill himb before we reach him..." Quanah insisted. "We need to let them move. Maybe a few of us can go in without the horses. We can strike them tommorow night."

Enrique liked the idea but he had some objection to it. "They're going to send out soldados to probe our movement."

"We can get to them without being spotted too..." Cedro suggested. Diego was in agreement as he lit a cigar. "We can get close enough to them on foot too without them knowingwhat's going on..." Her big brother added. "Tu sabes...I heard some of our primos even were in this war. Out in Sonora but they're loyal to Mexico City not Veracruz like the republicanos. But they don't see what's coming. Pinche pendejos. They'll learn. Just like they'll learn when they see who wins and any Yaqui that sided with France is going to regret it after the war."

"We're going to regret it either way..." Elena lamented. "The government hates us and there is just enough of us that both El Norte y aqui, they want to wipe us out but not enough of us to fight back against two governments."

Atonwa was cleaning the repeater with gun oil but then chimed in himself. "It is like the Nations back where I come from who fought in the big war between the north and south. I did not trust either side but I know each Indian warrior that fought had their reasons."

"This is a good reason not to fight for the people exploiting us. A lot of my countrymen came here and became bluebacks right away. Abe Lincoln's paddies but even though it weren't as bad as the British treat us, it still wasn't nowhere near equality. In the end all some of us got for it was legs blown off."

"To my memory, you were on the American side before you defected to Mexico..." Atonwa pointed out.

"No feckin shite old man!" He grumbled. "I'm the one who told you that."

"So this means that if the army finds out who you are I wonder if they will spare you?" Atonwa speculted with a cruel twisted grin. "You might have defected to the side you thought was right but that's te side that lost."

"We stood proud with our Mexican brothers and a lot of us got killed doing it. Others got the gallows. I put up with a lot of gobshite from you old timer but I won't have the good name of my brothers in arms besmirched! They executed as many of us by gallows as they could. Only a few of us are left and if they ever find us..."

"Calm yourself, woman..." Atonwa chided. "I thought the Irish had a sense of humor? But you are not wrong. Even after all these years there are still veterans of the Mexican war and they did learn through fighting. These same men also fought for the north in the war between the states. But just because the Confederacy wasn't going to be persecuted after the war doesn't mean St. Patrick's Batallion is going to get 're considered traitors."

"I don't care what I'm considered, senor..." Insisted the Potato Famine immigrant. "And if we're traitors what does that make them Dixie boys? They can say what they will about us defecting to the Mexican side but some of me mates were already killed in fighting others in executions but we didn't shoot the president. The graybacks did."

"I cannot argue with that..." Atonwa shrugged. "I have seen many presidents come and go. None of them have been good men and as much as many were different...from George Washington..." he remembered that when he was five years old was when George Washington had become the first president rather than a king but Atonwa's father had made sure he knew that this came from Gayenerekowa the Great law of peace and rather than a king the president was like a chief.

Now he had seen sixteen presidents come and go in the span of his sixty five years. And now there was yet another president. Enough presidents he'd seen, he was certain that by now no president would ever do right by the Indian and if there was ever to be a president of Turtle Island stock, he would be a traitor to his people in preference for the thirty seven fires. The republic that had been the golden snake to which his father had told him of the story, was growing ever fatter and fatter off Indian land as well as flesh. Just as the prophecy said they would.

He didn't know the full extent of Turtle Island personally but he knew it was shaped like a giant Turtle. He had seen it from above when dreaming he was Akweks. The eagle. The bird in Haudenosaunee territory closest to Karonhia:ke or Sky World.

Atonwa turned to Elena. "You are a strong woman. If I still have any grandaughters left in this world...I would imagine they were strong like you..." he began. "But do not go rushing into that fight to go find Broken Arrow. We will handle it. Me, your father and your brother and his gang plus whatever warriors the Yaparika Quahadi and Puuku can spare. If that young warrior with the gray eyes is there we may have a very succesful rescue but we will need to attack in silence not on horseback even though the summer moon is here."

She smiled at him. "Gracias. You're like a tio to me, tambien. I never knew mi abuelo. On either side."

Enrique nodded. "The disease is killing a lot of people."

She brushed aside tears however. "I don't want to lose Broken Arrow. But they have him."

"It doesn't mean we won't get him back..." Red Wolf promised. "I'm not letting them kill him, Esitoyanʉʉ..."

Elena remembered she'd heard him call her that a number of times and though she usually was inquisitive as to what Numunuu phrases meant what, she still had not asked that. She wanted to figure out what it meant but she wanted to figure it out on her own but then she'd also seen their father use that term about her. She knew then it couldn't have been an intimate thing specific to her and Red Wolf if the man she wasn't sure liked her or her father all though she was sure he at least approved them more than the average Mexicans.

She decided she would ask Broken Arrow when she saw him. He was the quieter of the two but she knew he would answer. If she couldn't, she would ask Red Wolf.

"They have to go after the Imperial soldados but we're going t try something a little bit...different..." Enrique stated. "We're going to have the Comanches with us attack their way but following the lead of our Mohawk Viejo. And the Yaquis we have with...both from the Santa Fe trade and for those on this side fighting in the conflict that is loyal to Benito Juarez will attacl Yaqui style."

Diego nodded and cleaned his pistols as he added, "The Yori...the Spanish and the Mexican government both hate Yoeme, Viejo. We will have to hit them three different ways. And they will not know which tribe is attacking them. There are many Opatas too. Both who work for me and there are some among Los Culebras."

Atonwa turned to Elena. "You are wounded and you do need to listen to your father. I kniow you want to come along to help us get Broken Arrow back but with your shoulder the way it is, you are not much good in a fight at long range. You can shoot revolvers but you cannot handle a bow and arrow or a long rifle."

"You've been through worse injuries than that. No parece detenerte..." She protested.

(It doesn't seem to stop you. )

"I am a lot more used to pain. I come from a harsher time though maybe this is the harsher time. In my generation feelings were not spared. It was not to be rude but among warriors, we understood that feelings rarely were how things were. This is why Rotiyaner have to be men with skin as thick as tree trunks. I only wore the antlers of leadership for a short while in my life. It isn't that I don't feel pain but my pain serves a higher purpose. If you come after them it could also jeapordize your standing in the church. Your father says you and him are both trying to get your sister out that way. So sit this one out. I am asking you as an old warrior to a young warrior. You are going to what you want and maybe your own father can't even get you to turn from this path but believe me, Elena. As someone who has been shot in the shoulder before both as a young and an old man,you need it in battle. Right now, you would be a liability."

"Do you say this because I am a woman?" He was silent but she then added, "I don't mean in a bad way. I meant that you said the women in your tribe usually didn't fight."

"They didn't have to but they could. There is wisdom in both men and women knowing when a fight is unwinnable and when it isn't. But right now, Broken Arrow is your weakness and to a point so is Red Wolf. And you are theirs. They don't need that distraction while they are rescuing Broken Arrow. Plus this is a good way to show Stands In The River you are not as against his ways as it may seem. he wanted this done that way as well."

"But why would he risk his other son to go get his younger son when both could die?"

"Me and your father are not in a rush to send a young woman off to die needlessly either. I have trusted you and your father in the less than ay ear i have known you and spent time among you and the Comanche. I ask that you trust me next. There will be other days."

Stands In The River nodded. "This man Atonwa is a wise kaheeka."

"Kaheeka?" The Kanienkehaka warrior and ex war chief and pine tree chief turned to eye the middle aged chief.

"A boss. A warrior. A leader..." The Yap Eater chief explained. The two did the warriors shake with their palms shaking the forearm rather than the hand. "I do not know if I wil see my son again. And I am not much of a leader anymore. The most warriors I ever commanded at one time consistently was perhaps a hundred warriors. Like my old friend John Norton. Sometimes it's hard to motivate such a free thinking people to fight when we'd already suffered losses from my father's war. I do not know if any of my grandchildren are alive and I am almost certain my children are no more. But if I can help you get your son back, I will."

"You say you are not a leader and maybe your tribe is not here with you now but in the Indian territory there are some of your relatives in the northeast of the state. You must go to Norman Oklahoma. I do not like to go that far north but there are Senecas and Cayugas there. And Cherokees,. You have relations in these nations.."

"Yes. I will search that area after this..." Atonwa agreed. "When we get your son back and get across the border again, I will head north and see for myself. There are even Cherokees down here. I thought that in the days of the trail of tears they would soon be no more but in the end ,many survived and many have escaped. i do not know what the creator has in store but I am willing to trust him on this. We will attack the column of soldiers after they break their fast."

Atonwa smiled a tired smile. "I still have plenty of dynamite left.,"

---

This was more of a filler chapter and I know it was just Atonwa and Elena i meant for there to be more with Lemuel, Bo and Dalton but I have had a hectic couple of weeks and i plan on updating again soon anyway. Plus with just showing what Elena and Atonwa are up to that is almost 30,000 words. So for now Broken Arrow is caught by the Imperial Forces and they are going to have to start a rescue.

Due to her own injuries Elena will most likely sit this next fight out but that doesn;'t mean she will always when injured like this. It's just that for now Atonwa and Enrique gave her enough reason to sit this one out plus it's what Red Wolf and Stands In The River would prefer. There will be other times where she will risk her life for him and others but this was just her moment of insecurity as a warrior in her own right just because she isn't coming along and in a way the fact hat Lotsee is still going after himm, she feels like a lazy or at least weak fighter if Lotsee is still going into the fight.

Enrique is also happy that Elena has embraced Comanche culture but he sometimes worries that she will grow to love their culture more than her own Yoeme and Tohono O'odham roots. When Enrique told Elena of Pope's Rebellion and how those were pueblo tribes that had been enslaved by Spaniards there were also plenty of those Indian peasants that fought that would have been considered northern Mexican genizaros. But it's obvious between Elena and her father and her sister and two brothers that when it comes to their heritage and living places they go between New Mexico and Arizona just as often as they cross the border into Sonora.

Plus the point that drove home that Elena should sit this one out is her work with the nuns and how she's using it to get closer to Isabella and get her out of the clutches of the church. For now, he's saying that the potential of getting killed trying to rescue Broken Arrow would mean they have no inside woman at the nunery. With Elena pretending she is a nun she has a higher chance of rescuing Isabella with no casualties but if Elena died (Don't worry she's strong) they would have no insider in the church and any attempt to get her out would involve either using Comancheros, the Numunuu warriors they arm, or Diego's gang to attack the church and the way it was now it wold be harder to get Isabella to leave them willingly.

With Elena, this is why she is the best double agent as far as being an NDN but also a Catholic ive seen Christian natives say they were like a double agent between the church and us but their pirituality is stll Christian so even though they'll try and make it seem like they're more loyal to us culturally and socially they still worship the God of the invaders. Protestant or Catholic it doesn't really matter. Elena's the one who if anybody could, would get her back willingly so that's part of what the issue is here.

And even though that church is a good ways away from where they are in Mexico, word still travels and even in the event that Elena was able to get Isabella out willingly, they would have still considered that kidnapping. It's not going to be easy but it's one of the reasons Elena agreed to sit this one out but she's going to feel some guilt towards Broken Arrow when he is rescued. Besides, while I'm not saying the Texas Rangers and other law enforcement knows about Elena's relationship with the Comanche men, if they foundfd out they would try and weaponize it but Broken Arrow will...I'm not gonna say how but he won't be a passive participant in his own rescue and so some of the riducule he had over his name plus feeling like he lives in Red Wolf's shadow, he will be given a different honor that will be shown next chapter.

But Stands In The River will be personally coming along to rescue him. In doing this chapter I've had to learn a lot about the second French intervention in Mexico. Atonwa will also have more flashbacks from his younger days and we will show what Bo, Dalton and Lemuel are up to.

Anyway that's it for this chapter but i will have the next one up soon enough.