“Do we all stink, then, except this creature? Does your own father stink?” The bass voice sounded closer, and through blurred eyes I made out two massive legs beneath a hide kilt, and huge booted feet. “He is big, even for an Americano. Big as a Striped Arrowa.”
“Not as big as you, father,” says she, sweet and tactful. “Nor as strong. But he is bigger and stronger and fiercer and faster and prettier than Vasco. But then – a Digger’s arse is prettier than that!”
I must have fainted, for that’s all I remember until a strange period of half-consciousness in which I was aware of women’s voices muttering, and hands working on my body with what I suppose was grease or ointment, and being given a drink, and the pain ebbing from my head. At one time I was in a wickiup, and a dirty old crone was spooning some mush of meat and corn into me; again, I was being carried on a stretcher, with open sky and branches passing overhead. But it was all confused with evil dreams of hanging upside down among flames, and then I was plunged head-foremost into the icy depths under Jotunberg with Rudi Starnberg’s wild laugh ringing in my ears. Women’s faces swam up through the water towards me – Elspeth blonde and lovely and smiling, Lola sleepy-eyed with lips pursed in mockery, Cleonie pale and beautiful and very close as she hummed softly: “Oh-ho-ho, avec mes sabots!”, and as her mouth closed on mine it was Susie who teased and fondled and smothered me in flesh, which would have been capital if we had not been upside-down with fellows arguing in Spanish, among them Arnold who said that all scalp-hunters at Rugby knew perfectly well that a gerundive was a passive adjective, and Charity Spring shouted that here was one who didn’t, this graceless son-of-a-bitch hung by the heels with his fat whore, and he must die, at which Arnold shook his head and his voice echoed far away: “I fear, captain, that we have failed …”, and Susie’s plump, jolly face receded, her skin darkened, the bright green eyes dissolved into new eyes that were black in shadow and cinnamon as the light caught them, set between slanting lids that were almost Oriental. Lovely eyes, like dark liquid jewels that moved slowly and intently, absorbing what they saw; whoever you are, I thought, you don’t need to talk …
… the chubby-faced Indian girl stood above me, looking solemnly down; I was lying in a wickiup, under a blanket, and the horror of memory rushed back and hit me in the ribs with a boot belonging to one of the ugliest devils I’ve ever seen, who snarled as he kicked: a young Apache in hide kilt and leggings, with a dirty jacket about his shoulders and a band round the lank hair that framed a face from the Chamber of Horrors. Even for an Apache it was wicked – coal-black vicious eyes, hook nose, a mouth that was just a cruel slit and wasn’t improved when he laughed with a great gape that showed all his ugly teeth.
“Get up, perro! Dog! Gringo! Pinda-lickoyee!”
If you’d told me then that this monster would one day be the most dreaded hostile Indian who ever was, terror of half a continent – I’d have believed you; if you’d told me he would be my closest Indian friend – I wouldn’t. Yet both were true, and still are; he’s an old, done man nowadays, and when we met last year I had to help him about, but mothers still frighten their children with his name along the Del Norte, and as for friendship, I suppose one scoundrel takes to another, and we’re the only ones left over from that time, anyway. But at first meeting he scared the innards out of me, and I was deuced glad when the girl cried out before he could kick me again.
“Stop, Yawner! Don’t touch him!”
“Why not? It feels good,” snarls my beauty, with another great gape, but he left off and stepped back, which was a double relief, for he stank like a goat in an organ-loft. I thought I’d best obey nevertheless, and struggled up, weak and dizzy as I was, for I realised that any hope I might have in my fearful plight depended on this girl I’d rescued … it must have been she who had spoken up for me when I was hanging helpless … now she was interceding again, and with authority. Decidedly she deserved all the fawning courtesy I could show her. So I struggled painfully upright, gasping with my aches and holding unsteadily to the blanket for modesty’s sake while I muttered obsequiously, muchas, muchas gracias, señorita. The Yawner growled like an angry dog, but she nodded and continued to inspect me in silence for several minutes, those splendid eyes curious and speculating, as though I were something in a shop and she was trying to make up her mind. I stood unsteady and sweating, trying to look amiable, and took stock of her in turn.
Seen in daylight, she wasn’t unattractive. The chubby face, now that it was washed and polished, was round and firm as a ripe apple, with sulky, provocative lips. In figure she was sturdy rather than slim, a muscular little half-pint under her puppy-fat, for she couldn’t have been over sixteen. She was royally dressed by Apache standards, in a fine beaded doeskin tunic, fringed below the knee, which must have taken a dozen squaws a week to chew; her moccasins had bright geometric patterns, a lace scarf was bound about her brows, and there was enough silver and beadwork round her neck to start a bazaar. She was utter Indian, but there was a cool, almost damn-you air that didn’t sort with the busty little figure and savage finery, an impersonal poise in the way she looked me up and down that would have suited a hacienda better than a wickiup – if I’d known that her mother was pure Spanish hidalga with a name three feet long, I might have understood.
Suddenly she frowned. “You have much ugly hair on your face. Will you cut it off?”
Startled, I said I would, certainly, ma’am, and the Yawner spat and muttered that given his way he’d cut off more than that; he was giving blood-chilling particulars, but she snapped him into silence, took a last long look at me from those slanted pools, and then asked with perfect composure:
“Do you like me, pinda-lickoyee?”
Now, I hadn’t more than a half-notion of what this queer inspection was about, but it was a stone certainty that this young lady’s good opinion was all that stood between me and a frightful death. Ignoring the Yawner’s snort at her question, I fairly babbled my admiration, leering eagerly no doubt, and she clapped her hands.
“Bueno!” cries she, and laughed, with a triumphant toss of her head at the Yawner, accompanied by a gesture and an Apache word which I doubt was ladylike. She gave me one last hot appraising stare before sweeping out, and the Yawner let go a great fart by way of comment, and jerked his thumb at my clothes, which had been thrown in a corner. He watched malevolently as I pulled on shirt and pants and struggled with my boots; I ached with stiffness, but my dizziness was passing, and I ventured to ask him who the señorita might be. He grunted as though he grudged the words.
“Sonsee-array. Child of the Red Sleeves.”
“Who’s he?”
His black eyes stared with disbelief and mistrust. “What kind of pinda-lickoyee are you? You don’t know of Mangas Colorado? Bah! You’re a liar!”
“Never heard of him. What does his daughter want with me?”
“That is for her to say.” He gave another of his gapes of laughter. “Huh! You should have dropped your blanket, white-eye! Vaya!” And he shoved me out of the wickiup.
There was a motley crowd of women and children outside in the brilliant sunlight, and they set up a great yell of execration at sight of me, waving sticks and spitting, but the Yawner drew a sling from his belt and lashed at them with the thongs to make way. I followed him through the cluster of wickiups and across a level space towards a few ruined buildings and a great crumbling triangular fort before which another crowd was assembled. How far we were from the valley of the massacre I couldn’t tell; this was quite different country, with low scrubby hills round the sandy flat, and one great hill looming over the scene; it looked like a permanent camp.34
There must have been a couple of hundred Apaches grouped in a great half-circle before the fort, and if you think you’ve seen ugly customers in Africa or Asia, believe me, there are worse. I’ve seen Fly River head-hunters who ain’t exactly Oscar Wilde, and not many understudies for Irving among the Uzbeks and Udloko Zulus – but they’re merely awful to
look at. For an ugliness that comes from the soul, and envelops the stranger in a wave of menace and evil cruelty, commend me to a gathering of Gila Apaches. Or rather, don’t. To have those vicious eyes turned on you from those flat, spiteful brute faces, is to know what hate truly means; you’ll never wonder again why other Indians call them simply “the enemy”.
They watched me come in silence, until the Yawner stopped me before a group seated under the fort wall. There were six of them, presumably elders, since in contrast to the crowd they all wore shirts and kilts and leather caps or scarves. But there was only one of them to look at.
He might have been fifty, and was undoubtedly the biggest man I’ve ever seen. I’m two inches over six feet, and he topped me by half a head, but it was his sheer bulk that took your breath away. From shoulder to shoulder he was three and a half feet wide – and I know that because I once saw him hold a cavalry sabre horizontal across his chest, and it didn’t protrude either side. His arms were as thick as my legs, and bulged under his deerskin shirt; the knees beneath his kilt were like milestones. His head was to scale, and hideous, with black snake eyes that bored out from beneath the brim of his flat hat with its eagle feather. I’ve felt my bowels dissolve in the presence of a few ogres in my time, but none more awe-inspiring than this celebrated Mangas Colorado; he was truly terrific. He surveyed me for a moment, and glanced aside, and I saw that my girl and two other young females were there, kneeling on a spread blanket before the crowd. She was looking bothered but determined.
Now, what I didn’t know was that a heated debate had been in progress, the subject being: what shall we do with old Flashy? The overwhelming opinion had been that I should be slung up by the heels forthwith and given the skin treatment I’d have had days ago but for the unseemly intervention of young Sonsee-array; the only dissenting voices had been those of the lady herself, her girl-friends (who being common women counted for nothing), and her doting father (who being Mangas Colorado counted for everything). But it was widely recognised that he was only humouring her because he was a fond old widower with three married daughters, and she was all he had left, presumably, to fetch his slippers, preside at tea, and torture visitors; his indulgence had limits, however, and he had told her pretty sharp that it was high time she stated her intentions where this pinda-lickoyee was concerned. Was it true that she wanted to marry the brute, foreign white-eye and scalp-hunter that he was? (Cries of “No, no!” and “Shame!”) Let him remind her that she had turned down half the eligible bachelors in the tribe … however, if this gringo was what she wanted, let her say so, and Mangas would either give his blessing or signal the band to strike up the cottonwood polka. (Hear, hear, and sustained applause.)
At this point Sonsee-array, accompanied by the Yawner in case the prisoner proved violent, had flounced off for a final look at me, which I have described. She had then gone back to Papa and announced that she wanted to marry the boy. (Sensation.) Friends and relatives had now urged the unsuitability of the match; Sonsee-array had retorted that there were precedents for marrying pinda-lickoyee, including her own father, and it was untrue, as certain disappointed suitors (cries of “Oh!” and “Name them!”) had urged, that her intended was a scalp-hunting enemy; her good friend Alopay, daughter of Nopposo and wife to the celebrated Yawner, had been a captive with her and could testify that the adored object had taken no scalps. (Uproar, stilled by the arrival of the body in the case, with the Yawner at his elbow.)
If I’d known all this, and the interesting facts that Indians have no colour bar and that Apache girls are given a pretty free choice of husbands, I might have breathed easier, but I doubt it; no one was ever easy in the presence of Red Sleeves. He glared at me like a constipated basilisk, and the organ bass croaked in Spanish.
“What’s your name, Americano?”
“Flashman. I’m not Americano. Inglese.”
“Flaz’man? Inglese?” The black eyes flickered. “Then why are you not in the Snow Woman’s country? Why here?”
It took me a moment to figure that the Snow Woman must be our gracious Queen, so called doubtless in allusion to Canada. I’ve heard Indians call her some odd names: Great Woman, Great White Mother, Grandmother latterly, and even the Old Woman of General Grant, by certain Sioux who held that she and Grant were man and wife, but she’d shown him the door, which I rather liked.
I said I was here as a trader, and there was an angry roar. Mangas Colorado leaned forward. “You trade in Mimbreno scalps to the Mexicanos!” he croaked.
“That’s not true!” I said, as bold as I dared. “I was a prisoner of the villains who attacked your people. I took no scalps.”
Although this, unknown to me, had been vouched for by Sonsee-array and her girl-friends, the mob still hooted disbelief; Mangas stilled them with a raised hand and rasped:
“Scalp-hunter or not, you were with the enemy. Why should you live?”
A damned nasty question coming from a face like that, but before I could think of several good answers, my little Pocahontas was on her feet, fists clenched and eyes blazing, like a puppy snapping at a mastiff.
“Because he is my chosen man! Because he fought for me, and saved me, and was kind to me!” She looked from her father to me, and there were absolute tears on her cheeks. “Because he is a man after my father’s heart, and I will have him or no one!”
Well, this was news to me, of course, although her conduct in the wickiup had suggested that she had some such arrangement in mind. And if it seemed short notice for so much enthusiasm on her part, well, I had protected her, in a way – and there seemed to be a movement for marrying Flashy among North American women that year, anyway. Hope surged up in me – to be checked as dear old Dad climbed to his enormous feet and lumbered forward for a closer look at me. It was like being approached by one of those Easter Island stone faces; he loomed over me, and his breath was like old boots burning. Fine bloodshot eyes he had, too.
“What do you say, pinda-lickoyee?” says he, and there was baleful suspicion in every line of that horrible face. “You have known her but a few hours; what can she be to you?”
If he’d been a civilised prospective father-in-law, I dare say I’d have hemmed and hawed, lyrical-like, and referred him to my banker; as it was, a wrong word – or too fulsome a protestation of devotion – and it would be under the greenwood tree who loves to swing with me. So I forced myself to look manly and simple, with a steady glance at Sonsee-array, and answered by adapting into Spanish a phrase that Dick Wootton had used to the Cheyenne.
“My heart is in the sky when I look at her,” says I, and she fairly shrieked with delight and beat her little fists on her knees, while the crowd rumbled and Mangas never blinked an eyelid.
“So you say.” It was like gravel under a door. “But what do we know of you, save that you are pinda-lickoyee? How do we know you are a fit man for her?”
There didn’t seem much point in telling him I’d been to Rugby under Arnold, or that I’d taken five wickets for 12 against the England XI, so I pitched on what I hoped would be a popular line by telling him I’d served with the Snow Woman’s soldiers in lands far away, and had counted coup against Utes and Kiowas (which was true, even if I hadn’t wanted to). He listened, and Sonsee-array preened at the silent crowd, and then one young buck, naked except for boots and breech-clout, but with silver ornaments slung round his neck, swaggered forward and began a harangue in Apache. I was to learn that this was Vasco, the jilted admirer on whose appearance and aroma Sonsee-array had commented; by tribal standards he was wealthy (six horses, a dozen slaves, that sort of thing), and quite the leading light. I suppose he was sick as mud that a despised white-eye looked like succeeding where he had failed, and while I understood no word, it was obvious he wasn’t appearing as prisoner’s friend; when he’d done bawling the odds he hurled his hatchet into the ground at my feet. There was no doubt what that meant, in any language; the crowd fell silent as death, and every eye was on me.
Now, yo
u know what I think of mortal combat. I’ve run from more than I can count, and lived never to regret it, and this lean ten stone of quivering, fighting fury, obviously nimble as a weasel and built like a champion middleweight, was the last man I wanted to try conclusions with – well, I’d been ill. But with Mangas’s blood-flecked eyes on me, I could guess what refusal would mean – no, this was a case for judicious bluff with my heart pounding under a bold front. So I glanced at the axe, at the furious Vasco, at Mangas, and shrugged.
“Must I?” says I. “I’ve killed a better man than this for her already. And afterwards – how many others do I have to kill?”
There was a creaking snort from behind me: the Yawner was laughing – I wasn’t to know that her disappointed beaux had been legion. There were a few grins even among the crowd, but not from my lady; she was forward in a trice, demanding to know who was Vasco to put in his oar, and why should I, who had counted coup and killed for her, be at the trouble of chastising an upstart who had barely made his fourth war-party?35 She fairly shrieked and spat at him, and the mob buzzed – by no means unsympathetically, I noted; the Yawner grunted that any fool could fight, and a few heads nodded in agreement. The Apaches, you see, being matchless warriors, tend to take courage for granted, especially in big, burly fellows who look as much like a Tartar as I do (more fool they), and weren’t impressed by Vasco’s challenge; rather bad form in a jealous lover, they thought it. But Mangas’s snake eyes never left my face, and I realised in chill horror that I must go on bluffing, and quickly – and run the risk that my bluff would be called, if the plan that was forming in my mind went adrift. So before anyone else could speak I picked up the hatchet, looked at it, and says to Mangas, very offhand:
“Do I have choice of weapons?”
This brought more hubbub, with Sonsee-array protesting, Vasco yelling savage agreement, and the mob roaring eagerly. Mangas nodded, so I asked for a lance and my pony.
The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection Page 190