A Lone Cowboy Finds Blonde Woman Hanging from the Ceiling: “Apache Lover” Burned Letters
The lone mountain man found a blonde woman hanging from the ceiling with a sign burned into the door that read “Apache Lover.” High in the rugged mountains of the West, late one summer morning in 1878, Roberto Beun, a Civil War veteran, lived in solitary exile, shunning the world he had once served.
His wife and son had perished long ago in crossfire, and he carried their memory like a ghost that shaped every silent breath he took. He had sought refuge in this abandoned military outpost turned cabin, tucked away among pines and granite, to escape both people and remorse.
On a cold dawn, Roberto awoke to a strange silhouette outlined against the cabin’s roofline, stiff in the pale morning light. He stepped outside, pine needles crunching beneath his numb boots, and saw a blonde woman hanging motionless from the trestle beam, her feet dangling, her hair brushing the charred letters above the door directly below.
Apache lover, his stomach clenched. He approached, his heart pounding, the sky still half-dark behind him. The smell of charred wood stung his nose, raw and accusatory. He reached for his coat to draw his pistol, only to realize instinctively that he had no will to fire.
Killing was no longer the last thing on his mind. Not here, not now. As he leaned closer to the woman, he saw her chest rise and fall slowly and unevenly. She wasn’t dead, but she was close. Her skin was pale, her cheeks smeared with dirt and dried blood, her eyes tightly closed. Her breathing was shallow, but unmistakably alive.
Roberto blinked, disbelief churning within him. She nestled under his arms and he lifted her, feeling her weight yield to his strength, fragile as a bird. He hoisted her onto his shoulder with deliberate care, ignoring the ache in muscles unaccustomed to tenderness. As he descended the slope behind the cabin, the world seemed to shift.
The forest held its breath, but then the silence was shattered by the sharp crack of gunfire, echoing in bursts that shook the pines. Distant, urgent, menacing. Someone knew she wasn’t dead. Someone had seen her, perhaps had been hunting her. Roberto tightened his grip on the unconscious woman, feeling her pulse throb faintly against his back. He didn’t stop.
He ran, his boots slipping on loose stones, branches snaking his coat, toward the makeshift shelter beside a hidden stream. Safety was a few slow minutes away, but in that time, every step felt like salvation or blood lurking. When he reached the edge of the clearing, with the shaggy pines behind them and their rustic shelter in front, he dared to hope that no one else had followed. He laid her down carefully, placing her on a bed of furs and blankets he kept for emergencies.
Her tangled, golden hair spilled over the furs like sunlight trapped in fabric. He knelt and lifted her chin. Her eyelashes fluttered. She took a deeper breath, a single, trembling sigh. Roberto exhaled without realizing he was holding his breath. In the stillness, the only sounds were her ragged breathing and the distant echo of fear beyond the trees.
He knelt in the morning light, listening to her breathing as if it were a secret only he was allowed to hear. He couldn’t yet think about what would come next, or who had done this, or why. He only knew that she was alive and that he wouldn’t let her die there. Not for wood, nor for fire, nor for revenge. Outside, the forest seemed to throb with new life.
The pines whispered above, and the distant gunshots had fallen silent. For now, Roberto listened to her heart pounding as he waited for her to open her eyes. She burned with fever for the first day and the next. Roberto did what he could: he cleaned her wounds, washed her head with fresh water drawn from the spring behind the cabin, and bandaged her limbs with strips of cloth torn from old shirts.
She only moved once, whispering a name like a broken string repeating itself in the wind. Buru Hambur. That name haunted the silence. That night, as the fire crackled low, she awoke in a panic. Her arms thrashed. Her breathing became sharp. She screamed and clutched at her neck, trying to push away something invisible. “Go away, let me go.”
“I’ll die before you take me back.” Roberto moved quickly, gripping her wrists, not roughly, but firmly. She struggled fiercely, her teeth clenched, her legs kicking wildly. “Are you safe now? Are you not there anymore?” the man said calmly. She wasn’t.
Leave a Reply