Apache Shadow

by Jason Manning

  A growing sense of urgency compelled Barlow to take a big chance. Valerio had sent up a smoke signal, and sooner rather than later his bronchos would show up. The issue was just how close behind them the soldiers would be.

  So far, everything had gone more or less according to plan, and Barlow had come prepared for this moment. He brandished a strip of white cloth, tied it quickly to the barrel of his rifle. Mendez, hunkered down a stone's throw to his right, looked at him like he was crazy—Barlow ignored the vaquero and kept working. As soon as he was done, he shouted at Mendez to cover him, and rose to proceed down off the ledge in the direction of the Coyotero village, holding the rifle, transformed into a flag of truce, high overhead.

  It was the most dangerous moment of all—he'd known it would be all along, and had tried to prepare for it, but his heart thundered like a triphammer in his chest, and he expected at any instant to feel that brief explosion of indescribable pain as the bullet slammed into his body, and he wondered if he would live long enough to hear the report of the gun from which that bullet was fired. He recognized just how optimistic—or perhaps naive—he was being, thinking that the Coyoteros, under this set of circumstances, would have the presence of mind to hold their fire. Mendez would call him crazy. The vaquero, if given the chance, would ask why he thought the Apaches, who had always been deceived by the whites, would trust the white flag that he was flying. And Barlow would have had to answer that he didn't expect them to, not really. All he had was a slender hope that he could prevent a bloodbath. That was a cause worth risking his life for.

  So he headed down the steep, rocky slope, braced for the bullet's impact, but hoping for the best, and with each step his hope soared higher, because he was still alive, because the handful of Coyotero men who had been fighting back were holding their fire now. Thankfully, so were the vaqueros up on the ledge. Knowing that, if he fell, Mendez and the others would kill every man, woman, and child in the che-wa-ki was small comfort.

  As he drew near the village, Valerio, flanked by two bronchos, came into view around a jacal. Barlow pulled up twenty paces away.

  "You," said Valerio bitterly. "They told me you were coming. I would not believe them."

  "This has to stop," replied Barlow, speaking in the Apache tongue. "I figured I might be able to stop it."

  "Some said you were a friend of the Apache. But no friend of the Apache would be here today, killing women and children."

  "I see no women and children lying dead. But I will see that, if you don't give up. The soldiers are coming. And you know you can't stop them, Valerio. You have too few men. Now it's your choice how this will end. Either your people live, or they die. You can try to blame it on me, or on the yellow-legs, or on the sun and the wind, for that matter—but whatever happens is on your hands."

  "I will surrender," said Valerio grimly, "on one condition. That my people are allowed to live in these mountains in peace."

  Barlow shook his head. "That isn't up to me, jefe. General Crook is the one you'll have to deal with. I think he's a fair man."

  "All we wanted," lamented the Coyotero chief, "was to be left alone."

  "Yeah," said Barlow curtly. "Me too. Where is the Netdahe?"

  "Gone, for many days now. Ever since the fight with the soldiers' scouts."

  Barlow nodded. He realized that Valerio could be lying to him, but he could see no reason why he would. If the Avowed Killer happened to be among the bronchos who had ventured forth to take on the soldiers, he would be found out soon enough.

  He told Valerio to send up a smoke signal that would instruct the returning bronchos to enter the village prepared to put down their weapons. Until such time as the soldiers arrived on the scene, his men would remain on the ledge that commanded the che-wa-ki, prepared to fire if the Coyoteros did not comply. He prayed that Captain Cronin would hurry. He was holding the lid down on a pot that threatened at any moment to boil over—Valerio knew that he was confronted by only a handful of men; the only thing that deterred him from continuing the struggle was concern for the welfare of the Coyotero women and children. But even if Valerio stuck to his guns and surrendered, that didn't mean one or more of the returning bronchos wasn't going to size up the situation, realize the disadvantage Barlow was working under, and start shooting. He expected there to be some who would refuse to come in, but he was hoping that these diehards would simply melt away into the mountains rather than continue resisting.

  Valerio complied with his request. The first few bronchos who appeared went along with their jefe's decision and put down their guns. Still, Barlow was vastly relieved when Captain Cronin and his detachment showed up. Lieutenant Embrey and his column arrived just a few minutes later. Barlow could tell that both contingents had been in a fight. It wasn't just the empty saddles on some of the horses, or the blood on the wounded, but also the expressions in the eyes of the survivors.

  Barlow told Cronin that Valerio had agreed to surrender, and that with any luck the fighting was over, and the balance of the Coyotero bronchos would give themselves up.

  "Well," said Cronin, "I concede that your plan seems to have worked after all, Mr. Barlow."

  "The credit's all yours, Captain," said Barlow wearily. "This was your command, after all. But now comes the hard part."

  Cronin nodded. "I want to talk to Valerio. You will translate for me."

  "Sure." Barlow was worried. Cronin seemed to be quickly assuming the imperious air of a victorious Caesar—and that would not go over well with Valerio. He also wondered what would happen to Cronin if he mentioned to Valerio that the captain was responsible for the release of the scalphunters who had then proceeded to massacre the Aravaipa. He figured Valerio would take back the surrender—if only just long enough to kill the captain. Of course that would lead to further bloodshed, and while Barlow thought that if anyone deserved to perish in this war it was Cronin, the others who would also perish if the fighting resumed didn't deserve that.

  Cronin informed the Coyotero leader that he and his people would be taken to Fort Union, where he would meet with General Crook. Valerio had heard of Crook, and called him "Red Beard," though why the blond-haired general had acquired such a nickname among the Apaches was a mystery to Barlow. Valerio again asked that his people be allowed to live in peace in the Mogollon.

  "If I'm not mistaken," said Cronin frostily, "you were living here in peace—until you decided to commit the folly of making war against the United States of America." He glanced at Barlow. "Make sure you change nothing in the translation."

  Barlow clamped down on a quick surge of anger; it irked him that the captain would feel it necessary to make such a comment.

  Valerio then asked that his men be given until the morrow's sunrise to come in. But Cronin shook his head adamantly. He wanted to be out of the mountains by nightfall. They would wait only a few hours before leaving, and, he added, those bronchos who had not given up by then would be considered outlaws, and hunted down.

  Finished with Valerio, and seeing that Lieutenant Walker and his men were riding in, Cronin turned to the task of securing the area. He formed a cordon of men around the Coyotero village. In what Barlow thought was an unorthodox but effective arrangement, Cronin had half of the men in the cordon facing inward, to keep those Coyoteros already in the village from leaving, and the other half facing out, to keep an eye out for the bronchos still extant. Squads of troopers thoroughly searched the jacales; they collected any and all weapons and tossed them into two large piles.

  Barlow returned to the ledge, and his men. He sent Summerhayes down into the village with Mendez, who was instructed to clean and cauterize the lieutenant's flesh wound. The vaquero would heat the blade of his knife in the flame of an Apache fire, then lay the white-hot steel against the wound. Meanwhile, Barlow and Rodrigo went back into the trees to retrieve the body of the vaquero who had been slain. Barlow felt an emptiness deep inside as he and Rodrigo gently draped the body over a saddle horse and lashed it down for transport
back to the ranch. He thought of the dead man—and all the other vaqueros—as more like family than employees. Outsiders were wont to comment on the fierce loyalty the vaqueros showed him; Barlow's loyalty to them was just as strong. He asked Rodrigo if he would volunteer to take the body home. Rodrigo readily agreed to do so.

  "With any luck," said Barlow, "the rest of us will be along in a few days. Wait as long as you can—then, if we're still not back, bury him with the others."

  "Sí, padrone."

  In the time allotted by Cronin, more than two score Coyotero bronchos returned to the che-wa-ki and laid down their weapons. They were greatly relieved to find their families unharmed, and were greeted by loved ones with much joy. But other families grieved; as the afternoon progressed, more and more women began to wail in sorrow, as news of the death of a husband or brother or son reached them. It seemed more than twenty of the Coyoteros had perished earlier that day in the attacks on the army columns. Cronin counted his own losses as twenty-eight killed and half that many wounded.

  When the captain's deadline arrived, the soldiers began to move the Coyoteros out. They had been allowed to gather a few belongings, which they either carried on their backs or on a travois pulled by dog or human—Cronin would not allow them to use their horses, which were moved out separately by a detail under the command of Lieutenant Embrey. Lieutenant Walker was charged with the responsibility of burning the jacales as soon as the column was under way; he and his men performed this duty with a good deal of enthusiasm, thought Barlow. This day the Coyoteros had lost loved ones; the troopers had lost friends. And they were not in a forgiving mood where Apaches were concerned. Barlow decided that there was a fair to middling chance that violence would break out between the Mogollons and Fort Union; it was just as likely that the cavalrymen would start something as the Coyoteros.

  Cronin called upon Barlow and his scouts—now reduced to three vaqueros and the Mescalero Apache, to ride as flankers for the column. He had a hunch that there were at least a dozen bronchos who had not turned themselves in. Barlow thought that was a pretty good guess. He could only hope that the Coyotero warriors who'd eschewed surrender would at least refrain from shooting at a "yellow-leg"; hopefully they would keep in mind that their people were at the mercy of the soldiers.

  The captain was of the opinion that yet another campaign into the Mogollons would be required to clean out the last of the renegades. Barlow disagreed. Most of the holdouts, he told Cronin, would give up. The few that remained would more than likely head south, to join the Netdahe in the Cima Silkq. Cronin didn't argue. He didn't particularly like Barlow, but he had to admit that the rancher knew the country and the Apaches as well as anyone he'd met during his time in the Arizona Territory.

  As they proceeded out of the Mogollons, Barlow's spirits began to rise. It had been a bloody day. He had lost another friend. But at least now he could take heart. The Apache war was over. There would be another, eventually—of that he was sure. But maybe the next war would be fought far from his home. Maybe he could stay out of the next one. The most important thing at the moment was that he'd survived, and would soon be reunited with Oulay.

  He didn't hear the shot. He was struck a terrible blow that numbed his entire body, and he was vaguely aware of falling. His last sensation was of lying on his back on the ground, staring up at a sky that quickly turned black.

  Chapter 29

  When Cronin crossed the encampment, making for the hospital tent, he noticed that Barlow's three vaqueros, along with the Mescalero scout, were gathered out front. They sat on the ground, or on their heels, waiting for the same thing the captain had come for. As Cronin drew near, the vaquero named Mendez looked up at him. The Mexican's coal black eyes were impassive; his attitude was neither friendly nor hostile. He didn't say anything to Cronin, and the captain didn't speak to him, either. These men, he knew, were waiting to take Joshua Barlow home, and Cronin was ready for them to go. He wouldn't deny that they had performed a valuable service for the United States Army, and performed it valiantly. But they were Barlow's men, not his. He had no control over them.

  As he was about to enter the hospital tent, Cronin was met by Fort Union's surgeon, Abraham Lee, a tall, cadaverous man wearing a blood-smeared apron over his uniform. His cheeks were gaunt and grizzled. Cronin knew Lee as a capable doctor. He'd known plenty, during the war, who hadn't been capable at all. In fact, they'd been little better than butchers or novices, which was sometimes even worse. Lee had been practicing medicine for about thirty years, or so Cronin had been told, and he'd spent much of it in the employ of the army. So he had seen all manner of injuries, and Cronin counted on him for an accurate prognosis. Not just on Barlow, but on the other wounded men he'd brought back from the Mogollons.

  Lee spared Cronin the merest glance, then stepped aside, to allow two orderlies to carry a blanket-covered body out of the tent on a stretcher. The vaqueros stood up, but Lee looked at them and shook his head.

  "Easy there," he said, his voice hoarse and full of weariness. "Not your man." He turned to Cronin. "It's Jepsen. I couldn't save him. He'd lost too much blood."

  Cronin nodded. He noticed that Lee was wiping his hands with his apron—in fact, he kept wiping them long after he'd gotten all the blood off of them, as though he were trying to wipe away the failure too. As an army surgeon, he had failed many times to save an ill or injured man. Nonetheless, he was still bothered when a patient died.

  "What about the rest?" asked the captain.

  "I'm pretty sure most will pull through. But I've got a half dozen men in there who can't be moved for a while."

  "I understand. But I have to transport the Apaches to Fort Union. I'm leaving Lieutenant Embrey and a company of men here with you. The rest of us are pulling out in an hour."

  "Send wagons back."

  The vaquero named Rodrigo stepped forward. He alone among those who waited for word of Barlow spoke some English. "You said most?" he asked the surgeon.

  Lee nodded. "Where your boss is concerned, I can't say with any certainty. Not right now. I got the bullet out. But the wound is deep, and a lot of damage was done. He also lost a lot of blood."

  "He is a tough hombre," said Rodrigo. "He will live."

  Lee grunted. "Sorry, but I don't indulge in wishful thinking. It's in God's hands now. I've done all I can."

  Rodrigo turned to the others, and spoke to them in a muted voice, relaying to them what the surgeon had said. Cronin caught Lee's eye, nodded to one side, and they stepped out of earshot of the others.

  "Tell me straight, Doc. Will Barlow live or die?"

  Lee carefully considered his answer. "Let me put it this way," he said, at last. "I haven't seen very many men survive that kind of gunshot wound."

  Cronin headed back for his tent. He was intercepted en route by Summerhayes. The lieutenant's arm was in a sling. The captain knew what he was after even before he spoke.

  "The news isn't good," said Cronin, without breaking stride. "He might live and he might not."

  "I want to return to Union with you, sir."

  "All wounded men remain here."

  "I'm fine, sir. I can ride."

  Cronin turned on him. "You're forgetting something, Lieutenant. I didn't want you along in the first place. But General Crook overruled me. He assigned you to Barlow. Well, Barlow's here, and you'll stay here with him. I have nearly two hundred Apaches to transport to Fort Union, and I need men I can trust to do their duty. You have already proven that you cannot be counted on for that, Lieutenant."

  Summerhayes bit down on his anger. "Maybe you're forgetting something, sir. Joshua Barlow's wife is at Fort Union. She'll have to be told. And it would be easier on her if the news came from a friend. From me."

  "That Apache woman's feelings are of no concern to me."

  "You don't care about the Apaches at all, do you, Captain? Not even the innocent ones. The women and children at the Aravaipa village, for instance."

  Cronin's eyes narrowe
d. "I'm a soldier. I don't kill innocent women and children."

  "Maybe they didn't die at your hand. But you were responsible."

  "Watch your step, Lieutenant."

  "If you hadn't let those scalphunters go," said Summerhayes bitterly, "all of this might have been avoided."

  "You're staying here," rasped Cronin. "That's an order." He jabbed a finger in Summerhayes' face. "One you'd better obey."

  "Miss? The general will see you now."

  Oulay looked up numbly at the sergeant, who was leaning over her so that he could speak softly—he hadn't wanted to startle her, as she'd seemed lost in thought, sitting there on the narrow wooden bench in the broad central hall that split the headquarters building at Fort Union into halves. The sergeant had just emerged from the general's office, but she hadn't appeared to notice. Her eyes stared off into space. The sergeant thought he knew why. This was the Apache woman taken by Joshua Barlow as his wife. And Barlow hadn't returned from the campaign against the Coyoteros. The sergeant didn't know any more than that, but he could figure out the rest.