CHAPTER<br >1<br > March 1876，<br >Apacheria Country<br >Near Fort Bayard，<br > New Mexico<br > Territory<br >"OUT HERE， A LADY HAS TO SURVIVE THE BEST WAY SHE CAN，"<br >Hannah Wade offered in droll sympathy to the young woman<br >showing her dismay as she looked about the huddle of adobe<br >buildings， stacked with pottery and wares inside and out. "Some-<br >times that means enduring unladylike conditions."<br > Suddenly the hot stillness was broken by the clatter of unshod<br >hooves pounding across the hard desert floor. One minute the only<br >dust that stirred in the nameless， half-Mexican settlement of<br >straw-and-mud-brick adobe buildings was raised by the trailing<br >hems of the fashionably bustled dresses worn by the three army<br >officers wives--and in the next dust swirled in a low-hanging haze<br >around the scrawny piebald ponies and their Apache riders.<br > Hannah Wade stiffened at the sight of the Indians charging<br >toward them. No shouts or war cries shattered the air; that was not<br >the Apache way， which was a practice of stealth， silence， and<br >surprise. Two long years of watching her husband ride out at the<br >head of cavalry companies had taught her that much.<br > In the seconds they had before the Apaches were on them，<br >Hannah glanced at their escorting officer， whose rough features<br > 1<br ><br >