That night a storm passed through, with plenty of thunder and lightning, and a hard downpour. Summerhayes wanted to try to coax Barlow inside or, at the very least, cover him with blankets or a tarpaulin. But once again Mendez restrained him. Solicitude would do more harm than good, he said. Draping a blanket over his head, Summerhayes stayed at the corner of the adobe, enduring the miserable night as best he could, but without a thought to his own comfort. To seek shelter would be akin to abandoning his friend, and this he would not do.
Somehow, he managed to doze off in the early-morning hours. The slanting sunlight of dawn brought him awake. He was surprised—pleasantly so—to see that Barlow was now sitting up. He remained beside the grave most of the day. Summerhayes considered this an improvement; at the very least he could see in a glance whether Barlow was still alive or not.
Then, abruptly, a couple of hours prior to sundown, Barlow got to his feet. A vaquero had just brought Summerhayes a cup of coffee, and was sitting on his heels beside the lieutenant to keep an eye on the padrone for a while. When Barlow stood the vaquero shot to his feet. Summerhayes tried to get up too but his legs were asleep, and the vaquero had to give him a hand. By this time Barlow was heading for them. Summerhayes was struck by how different Barlow's appearance was. His cheeks were gaunt, his eyes seemed sunk deep in their sockets. Worst of all, his eyes had lost their warmth. They were like chips of blue ice.
"I need a saddle horse. And load as many provisions as you can on a packhorse."
"Sí, Padrone." The vaquero was grinning. He was just happy to see Barlow back among the living. He took off at a run to comply with the padrone's commands.
"How about some coffee?" Summerhayes offered his cup.
"No."
"Food then. You haven't eaten in a while."
"No."
Barlow continued around the side of the adobe, stopping at the wooden table, where a basin of water was kept. He washed the mud of the grave from his face. Leaning heavily on the table, he watched the mud blacken the water in the basin.
"I should change that dressing," said Summerhayes, concerned by the condition of Barlow's bandages, which were not only dirty, but soaking wet as well.
"Forget it." Barlow noticed that Mendez and Rodrigo and a few other vaqueros were coming across from the bunkhouse. He gazed blankly at them for a moment, then turned as though to enter the adobe. But he stopped well shy of the threshold. He could not bring himself to go inside.
With a sigh, Summerhayes asked him what he needed from inside. The answer—boots, a shirt, a rifle, and a pistol. The lieutenant went into the adobe, collected the items requested, and brought them out to Barlow. By this time the saddle horse had been delivered—a moment later another horse arrived, this one wearing a packsaddle laden with bags of coffee and flour and beans, and a pair of leather mochillas bulging with ammunition. Barlow donned the boots and the shirt, strapped on a gun belt, placed the rifle in a saddle scabbard.
"Where are you going, Joshua?" asked Summerhayes.
Barlow didn't answer. He didn't seem to hear.
"If you're going after the man who killed Oulay," continued Summerhayes, "I told you—he's dead."
Barlow looked at him. "You see the body?"
"No, but . . ."
"It doesn't matter anyway," said Barlow curtly. "There are more like him."
"So you plan to wage war against all the Netdahe renegades? You'll never make it back."
"I don't plan on coming back." Barlow stepped into the saddle, wincing at the pain in his chest. Once astride the horse, he took a moment to catch his breath, then bleakly scanned the faces of the vaqueros. "Take as many of the cattle as you want." He sat there, looking at them for a moment longer, and Summerhayes expected him to say something that spoke to his long association with these loyal and hardworking men. Instead, he nodded curtly, and turned his horse to ride away.
Summerhayes quickly stepped forward, grabbed the bridle on Barlow's horse. "I'll go along with you," he said.
"No. Get back to Fort Union before Cronin decides to court-martial you. So long, Charles."
Summerhayes let go of the bridle. As he watched Barlow ride south, Mendez came up to stand alongside him.
"That's the last we'll see of him," said the lieutenant sadly. "He'll never come back here. He's going to make war against the Netdahe. And sooner or later they'll kill him." He glanced at the vaquero. "Maybe I should have tried to stop him."
Mendez shook his head. He was trying very hard to mask his own sadness. "You could not stop him, senor. No one could."
"It killed him," murmured Summerhayes, more to himself than to Mendez. "I knew it would."
"No, senor," said the vaquero. "He lived for her. But now that she is gone, he has something else to live for. When the Netdahe killed her, he created another just like himself. Now the padrone is like the Netdahe."
Chapter 33
After two weeks Kiannatah thought that he might perhaps live.
When he'd stepped into the arroyo's floodwaters, he had been certain of death. Had welcomed the prospect. Now that Oulay was dead—dead by his own hand—he had lost the will to live. Momentarily, at least—not even his lifelong thirst for revenge against the enemies of the Chi-hinne was able to sustain him at that moment.
But Death would not take him. He had lost consciousness as the flood carried him away—and awakened to find that his body had been snagged by an ironwood tree that had fallen into the arroyo, its roots firmly anchored in the embankment. His body was entangled in such a way that his head and shoulders remained above the floodwaters. He used the tree to extricate himself, and lay there for the remainder of the day, oblivious to the lightning and the thunder and the sheets of cold rain that pelted him as the storm passed over.
Many hours later he moved again. It was night, and the storm was gone, and by moonlight he saw an outcropping of rock not far away. He tried to stand, but didn't have the strength, so he crawled, and while the distance was but a few hundred yards, the journey took him the whole night. He reached the outcropping as the eastern sky began to turn gray with the dawn; he climbed up into the rocks as the sun rose higher in the sky. In his vulnerable state he found its heat unbearable, and looked for shelter from it. Eventually he found a space, no more than a foot high, beneath a slab of stone. Into the shade of this crevice he crawled—and passed out.
When he came to, he checked his wound. The yellow-leg's bullet had caught him right below the rib cage on the right side. He coughed into his hand and saw no blood; the slug had missed vital organs. But he could already feel a fever. The bullet was still within him. He felt his back for an exit wound, and found none. He did, however, find an extremely painful, swollen spot, about two inches in diameter. He knew what that meant—the bullet might be right below the skin.
Kiannatah did not have the strength or resolve to deal with the bullet at that time. Instead, he slept, waking every now and then just long enough to take stock of his surroundings before going back to sleep. Several days passed. He had nothing to eat except a snake that happened into his grasp; like him, it explored the shadows of the crevice as a possible sanctuary from the heat of the midday sun. Instead of sanctuary, it found death. He killed it with one stroke of his besh, or knife, slicing off the serpent's head. He slit the snake's belly open from stem to stern and ravenously ate the raw flesh.
That same day he felt strong enough to cut his own flesh, making an incision with the point of his knife into the swelling on his back. The pain was excruciating, and he almost blacked out. The cut made, he used both hands to squeeze the bullet out. There was a great deal of bleeding, which he stanched with handfuls of hot, sterile sand packed into the open wound. That done, he allowed himself to pass out.
Eight days after crawling into the crevice, Kiannatah emerged from the rock outcropping. He was able to walk out. But he was still weak—and very thirsty. He needed water desperately, and returned to the arroyo. The floodwaters had long receded, and days of hot s
un had dried up what remained. But he climbed down into the arroyo and found a low place where the sand was still damp. He dug for hours, until he had a small pool of brackish brown water from which to drink. He stayed nearby the rest of the day, drinking his fill. That night he left the arroyo and headed south. His destination was the Sierra Madre. He had lost all his weapons except a rifle and the knife. But for a Netdahe, that was enough.
Cochise awoke in his jacal, in the middle of the night, with the blade of a knife at his throat, to see the shadow of a man looming over him. The man had an arm wrapped around his wife's neck, a hand clasped tightly over her mouth. Her eyes were bright with fear in the darkness. Initially Cochise thought it had to be one of the Avowed Killers—perhaps even Geronimo himself. Who else could slip unseen into the Chiricahua village, and then into his jacal without waking him? Cochise thought at that moment that he was going to die; his one concern was that his woman's life be spared. But he reminded himself that the Netdahe spared no one.
Then the shadow moved, and Cochise could see the intruder's features by the faint light cast by the dying fire's embers. It was Barlow.
"You!" he exclaimed, surprised.
"Be quiet," rasped Barlow. "I bring bad news. Your daughter, Oulay, is dead."
Cochise was stunned. At first he could not—would not—believe that he had heard correctly. But his wife knew the truth; one look at Barlow's face told her that it was. She began to wail, but the sound was muffled by his hand.
"Shut up," growled Barlow.
"Silence, woman!" growled Cochise. He thought he knew Barlow well. Until tonight, he wouldn't have believed that, under any circumstances, Barlow would have posed a threat to his wife. But now, looking at the man's face, he wasn't so sure.
She obeyed as best she could—her grief, too great to stifle altogether, now manifested itself into soft whimpering and crying. Barlow took his hand from her mouth, and the knife from the throat of Cochise, moving back out of the Chiricahua leader's reach. Cochise sat up, buffeted by a bewildering array of emotions—grief and anger chief among them.
"She was killed by a Netdahe," said Barlow, his voice pitched so low that Cochise could scarcely hear him.
"Kiannatah," breathed Cochise. It had to be Kiannatah.
"I don't know," said Barlow flatly. "I wasn't there. The soldiers say whoever it was is dead now. I'm not sure. But it doesn't matter. I'm going to kill them all."
Cochise stared at Barlow. This was not at all the man he had come to know. The death of his beloved daughter cut him deeply, but Cochise could tell that this was as nothing compared to what Oulay's death had done to her husband.
"They will kill you instead," observed the Chiricahua.
Barlow didn't respond. He didn't need to tell Cochise that for him death was no longer a concern. "Where are they to be found?" he asked.
"To the south," replied Cochise. "Scattered throughout the mountains. Some live alone. A dozen or so remain with Geronimo, but I do not know where his camp is."
Barlow nodded. "Fine. I wanted you to know about Oulay. And to tell you to keep your men away from me."
"That might not be possible. Besides, if what you say is true, I will help you fight the Netdahe."
"Fight them if you want," replied Barlow coldly. "Just stay out of my war. And tell your warriors to steer clear of me. I'll kill them too if they get in my way."
The warning issued, he rose and silently slipped out of the jacal.
Cochise could have followed—could have roused the entire camp in seconds. But he didn't. Instead, he put his arms around his wife, and tried to console her.
In the weeks that followed, Barlow killed several lone Apache renegades. Utilizing all the skills he had learned from years in Apacheria, he found the first two, and killed them before they even knew he was there. The first was a long rifle shot, bringing down a lone rider he had happened upon quite by accident. He picked up the second Apache's trail and followed it until, an hour or two after sunset, he happened upon the broncho's camp. The broncho's guard was down. He believed himself safe high up in the Cima Silkq, where no Mexican or White Eyes dared venture. For this reason he had allowed himself to indulge in a jug of tiswin, and so he was well on his way to being drunk when Barlow stepped out of the night shadows. The broncho stared at the Pinda Lickoyi in disbelief, hesitating a fatal second before dropping the jug and lunging for his rifle. But his coordination and reflexes were fatally impaired by the strong spirits he'd imbibed; Barlow killed him with a single shot through the heart before the broncho could even bring the rifle to bear.
In both cases Barlow ran off the horses and left the corpses for the scavengers to feast on. He knew that sooner or later the tables would turn, and he, the hunter, would become the hunted. In fact, he took steps to hasten the day. He wanted the Netdahe to know that he was after them. Wanted them to come out in search of him. That was why he ran off the horses—in hopes they might return to a larger Netdahe encampment, a silent riderless warning to the other Avowed Killers that something was wrong. And it was why he left the dead exposed, instead of burying the evidence, as one intent on concealing his presence might have done. The circling swarm of buzzards, sure to gather over the death sites, might bring inquisitive Netdahe.
He got his wish. The next Apache he saw almost killed him.
The first warning that he had become the hunted came with a searing pain that took his breath away. He was riding through a steep-sided gulch when it happened, and he looked down to stare at the tip of an arrow jutting out of his shoulder. His right hand and arm were useless—to move them was too agonizing. He managed somehow to stay in the saddle and kicked his horse into a gallop, bending low over the animal's neck to present a smaller target.
He didn't go far. Where the gulch suddenly dog-legged, he checked the horse and slid out of the saddle. Clenching his teeth, he grabbed the shaft of the arrow just above the head with his left hand and snapped it off. Carving a notch into the shaft at the broken end, he pulled a .45 caliber shell apart and poured the gunpowder it contained into the notch. Setting this alight with a strike-anywhere match, he drove the broken end of the shaft back through his shoulder, using a large flat rock like a sledgehammer. The blazing gunpowder cauterized the exit wound. Barlow nearly passed out from the pain. When he was able, he pulled the shaft out of his back. Blood was pouring down his back, but there was nothing he could do about that. He assumed the Netdahe would be coming for him.
That he had been hit by an arrow rather than a bullet didn't surprise him. Apaches usually did their hunting with bow and arrow—with which they were quite proficient, as a rule—in order to save on hard-to-come-by ammunition. His assailant had probably been a hunter; still, he couldn't assume the broncho lacked a firearm. And whether he did or not, the Apache would be after him. Barlow figured it would be merely a matter of minutes before the broncho tracked him down.
He moved quickly, taking off his hat and tossing it out into the middle of the gulch. Then he shed both his boots and his trousers. Shoving the top of one boot into a trouser leg, he filled the leg with dirt and rocks up to the knee before laying the trousers behind a pile of rocks so that the trouser leg with the boot fitted into it jutted out in plain sight. His horse stood a few yards away, trailing rein leather, watching him. Barlow went to the animal, but instead of mounting up, drew the rifle from its scabbard and began to climb. Sharp rock edges and small cacti cut at his feet. Barlow's body was so racked with pain already from his two recent serious wounds that what would otherwise have been minor nuisance cuts and scrapes on the soles of his feet were magnified, and stabbed at his will to go on. He was tired of hurting. But he kept climbing, despite the fact that he was quickly winded. Finally he arrived near the rim and settled down in a space between two boulders, whence he could clearly see the gulch below. Now all he had to do was wait—and hope his spur-of-the-moment trap lured the Apache into the open. All he needed was one clear shot.
And that was exactly what he got.
First he saw an arrow suddenly seem to sprout from the exposed trouser leg. A few minutes later, the broncho came into view. He'd fired another arrow into what he'd thought was his Pinda Lickoyi victim and, detecting no movement, assumed his prey was dead. Barlow waited until the Apache had crept to within twenty paces of the rocks that partially concealed the trousers—he dared not wait until the broncho got closer, for fear his ruse would be discovered. He drew a bead, squeezed off a shot. The bullet hit the broncho squarely in the chest and dropped him. He lay on his back, thrashing for a moment, then died and was still.
Barlow didn't make the mistake of rushing down to check his victim—he had no way of being sure that the Apache had been hunting alone. So he waited for more than an hour. But even waiting was dangerous. He'd fired a shot, and a shot could be heard for many miles in the mountains, and might bring unwanted attention. Eventually he left his place of concealment, descended the slope, and checked the broncho to make certain he was dead. Once sure of this, he got dressed, caught up his horse, which by now had wandered nearly a hundred yards down the gulch, and rode away.
Chapter 34
When Kiannatah reached the isolated jacal that had once been his home high up in the Cima Silkq, he was surprised at his reaction to seeing the horses in the corral he'd made, long ago, of cedar posts. Someone had moved in during his absence, and while he'd never put much stock in the idea of "home," and had never been possessive of anything save his weapons—and, of course, Oulay—he found himself angered by what he saw as a trespass. This was the place where he had intended to bring the Chiricahua woman he'd kidnapped. Here he had intended to keep her, and live with her; he'd even planned to eschew, at least for the time being, his involvement in raids against the Nakai-Ye and the Pinda Lickoyi. He had thought much of the time he would spend here with Oulay. But he'd never thought of it as something that would last forever. Only death was forever. Yet Oulay had tried to run away, at a moment when he could not have gone after her without being killed by the yellow-leg soldiers. So he'd killed her. It was the one killing he'd committed that he truly regretted. His dreams of the time he would spend with Oulay had included this place—and he resented the fact that an interloper had moved in.
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