Romeo Blaze

By George M. Goodwin

When an orphaned half breed Apache boy named Romeo is accused of killing the daughter of a rich ranch owner in Texas, he is forced to run for his life. After making some great friends in a small town just coming to life, he makes a long journey to the mountain home of his mother's people seeking for family with the Apache's. There he learns he is not an orphan at all. With newfound strength he returns back to his new friends and then back to prove he is not guilty of the murder. Only then does he find true love in the town he helped to build.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pale Horse Publications
• Release date: May 31, 2024
• ISBN: 9798227542342

George M. Goodwin

George was born in 1960 in Jefferson County Alabama. The fifth of nine children, eight boys and one girl. The family was raised poor, but not poorly raised. At home, George was taught morals, ethics and respect. Reading, writing and arithmetic at school. Love, honor and obedience to God at church. He grew up on John Wayne movies, country music and the writings of Louis L' Amour, Robert Louis Stevenson, H.G. Wells and Jules Verne.  

Book preview

Romeo Blaze

As if being a half breed Apache Indian in Fort Worth, Texas in the year 1855 wasn’t enough of a problem by itself, Romeo Blaze now found himself accused of murder. Not just any murder either, but the daughter of one of the biggest ranch owners in all of Fort Worth and most of Texas. Romeo knew that Richard Nickels had plenty of manpower and more than enough money to hunt him down wherever he went. The truly sad part in all of this was that he and Jamie Nickels had been in love. They both knew that they would never be accepted as a couple or that if he found out her father would ever let him see Jamie again, but none of that mattered to them. It would have been an insult in the eyes of Richard Nickels for his daughter to be with a half breed Apache. There was also the fact that his first wife and son were killed by a band of raiding Apaches ten years earlier. 

Romeo now cowered in a small cave he had found years ago when he had lived near here with his mother and tried to think what he should do. If he could get to Mexico, he might be able to lose himself there. Although, most Mexicans feared and hated the Apache as much as the white man so he could expect no help from anyone. He was completely alone in the world. Well, that wasn’t exactly true, there was his mother’s people.

They were somewhere in the mountains of western Texas. If he could get to his grandfather, he may find help. That was if he could get to him without running into other Apaches because he knew they would kill him without being given a chance to explain who he was and what he wanted there. They would kill him as quickly as Nickels would, he thought, and probably in a lot more painful way. 

There had to be some way to clear himself he thought. Maybe no one else thought so, but he knew he was innocent. He knew he did not and could not have ever killed Jamie. Knowing it and proving it were two different things though. Romeo Blaze’s father had been a man named Christopher Meyers, a schoolteacher from New York. He had been offered a teaching job in California and was on his way there when he was captured by the Apaches. That had been twenty-four years ago. Why they didn’t kill him right off nobody knows, but he was taken prisoner and taken back to their camp in the Guadalupe mountains. At first, he was treated no better than a dog. Not even considered a man, he was made to do the work of an animal or to work with the Apache women, gathering firewood or nuts and berries and scraping hides. Gradually, he was allowed to be a part of the tribe, but still he was treated as a woman and not allowed to ride a horse, go hunting or even touch a weapon. When he had been with them just shy of three years the chief, old Little Horse, became very ill. 

The medicine man tried all that he knew, but nothing he did helped. It was expected that the old man would die very soon. Christopher had a little knowledge of roots and herbs that could be made into medicines. While out picking berries and gathering wood, he picked and dug up some of them. He cooked them down into a medicine and had the chief’s daughter convince him that Christopher had magic bigger than the medicine man. She told him this was why they had known not to kill this man when he was caught years ago. It took her several days, but eventually he saw that he would die if he did nothing, so he would try the medicine this white man had made. He raised the cup of foul smelling liquid and drank it, knowing if it did not work his people would blame the white man for his death and kill him. Within days, the old chief was back to normal and wanted to reward Christopher for saving his life. In front of the whole tribe, he offered Christopher his freedom or, if he wished to stay with them, he would be given a man’s position in the tribe and be allowed to choose a wife from any girl of marrying age. When the chief said that, Christopher knew that he would stay and quickly named the chief’s daughter as his choice of a wife. This caused quite a stir and had taken the chief by surprise. He didn’t want his only daughter mated to this white man, but in front of everyone he had said the man could choose any girl he wanted to. 

He told them he would decide in three days’ time if it would be a good union. The chief had no way of knowing it, but in his years of working along the women, Christopher and Red Leaf had fallen in love. They had been very careful not to be seen alone together for fear that he would be killed off hand. For that three days the chief talked to his council and to the medicine man about what they thought he should do. The council told him that, because he had said the white man could have any woman, if he went back on that now he would lose face with the people. They would say yes, he meant my daughter or your daughter, but not his own. Also, it was the chief’s life he had saved after all. Who owed him more than the chief himself? 

The medicine man warned him that just as the white man’s magic was given to him it could be taken away as well. If he took it back, Little Horse would die. On the third day, having come up with no good way out of it, the chief agreed to the marriage in front of everyone but he told them that he had a vision. A vision that when he was an old man a boy had come to his lodge to kill him. This boy was white but also carried the blood of the chief, so there could never be any children born of the union. The Apache were big believers in visions and, in fact, believed them to be glimpses into the future so no one thought bad of his decision. 

Christopher, however, believed that the chief had no such vision; that it was just his way of trying to make him choose another for a wife. One who could give him sons. They both agreed to the Little Horse’s reason’ but still insisted to be married. They were married the following day in a normal Apache ceremony. Being that they were young and in love, Red Leaf soon found herself with child. At first, she told Christopher but hid it from everyone else. Finally, when she could hide it no longer, they went to her father hoping to change his mind. Instead, he became very angry with them for breaking the deal they’d made and said the child would be put to death when it was born and that their marriage would no longer be recognized by the tribe. 

That same night after everyone slept, they crept out of camp and ran as fast as they could out of the mountains. A month and a half later, some miles out of Fort Worth with Red Leaf’s time drawing near, they stopped at an abandoned shack in a stand of trees. They rested there for the night and the next day they went into town and to the doctor’s office. 

The doctor, still half asleep, opened his door and they entered, but once inside, he saw that she was an Indian. Christopher, having lived so long with them, looked like one too except for his blonde hair and his still speaking English very well. The doctor told her that she was not due for a while yet. He asked where they were living and told them to go home and that when it was time. Christopher could come for him. 

As they left his office, they were treated very badly by everyone they met on the street. Some women even crossed the street to avoid passing them on the boardwalk. They went to the general store to buy food, but the man told them he did not want their business. 

I have gold to pay for it, Christopher told him. 

I don’t care what you have, he said, get out. 

It took him several tries, but by the time they reached the shack, Christopher had killed a sage hen with a thrown rock. 

Now, at this time some of the old mountain men still had their squaw wives, but they didn’t bring them to town and they didn’t call them their wives when referring to them. It would be a long time before most people would come to accept a marriage between an Indian and a white. Some would never accept it. 

Christopher managed to keep them fed, and two days later early in the morning, he went to town to get the doctor to come out. He knocked on the door until his knuckles hurt, but the doctor never came to the door. Christopher was sure he had heard noises coming from inside, but he never came to the door. He ran most of the way back to the shack and got there to find Red Leaf in full labor. As she lay there in pain giving birth to their child, he knew nothing else, so he told her a story of Romeo and Juliette to take her mind from the pain. He told her they were a young couple in love, but neither family would allow them to be together. Because of this, they had killed themselves.

It took her mind off the pain and helped her relax, listening to his voice, as he hoped. Their son came into the world late that night and the story had made such an impression on Red Leaf that she asked to name him Romeo. She told Christopher he would never be accepted by either his white or Apache family either like the boy from the story. 

For the next two years, Christopher took any work he could find to keep them alive. He had finally talked the store owner into selling to him as long as he was by himself and came in through the back. Red Leaf and the baby never went into town. Between odd jobs, he patched up the shack and made it decent to live in. Then he took a job breaking some horses for a rancher and was thrown from one and killed when he came down and his neck hit a fence rail. 

Romeo was a year old at the time of his father’s death. After that, Red Leaf took in the washing for the rancher that Christopher had been working for to make ends meet. Romeo, although young, became quite good at trapping small game enough to keep them in meat. The rancher paid her for the laundry with what other things they needed. For a while then things were okay for them. Romeo kept them in meat and Red Leaf planted a