by Abe Dancer
He stopped his horse and sat silently.
Even the seasoned army scout had never seen quite as much pointless carnage as this in such a small area. The dying rays of the sun had turned the sky red but it was no match for the red he saw upon the once white sand.
Willows tapped his boots against the sides of his mount and started to move forward. He rode between the bodies of the outlaws and the Apache warriors. Then he steered his horse around the dead and wounded ponies and horses. Of all the animals within this small desert hollow only two black-and-white ponies remained unscathed.
The moans of some of the horses chilled Willows to the bone.
His first insctinct was to draw his gun and finish the wounded animals off but he had counted only about ten Apache bodies lying in the sand. Willows knew that there were meant to be as many again in the war party he had trailed from the reservation near Fort Myers.
If they were not here, where were they?
Would they return?
If they did he knew it would be the finish of him.
Navajo Nate hauled rein.
He turned the horse beneath him around and stared in disbelief at the sight and sounds. A million flies had already reached this place and were feasting. He saw a shadow trace across the sand and looked up. Now vultures were circling as they too inhaled the acrid stench of death as it rose on the highest of warm thermals.
Willows had heard the echoes of the brutal battle from more than ten miles back as he had doggedly tracked the twenty runaway Apaches. He had meant to turn and ride back to the column of cavalry but the sound of battle had lured him on.
Willows was like the flies which now buzzed over the corpses of men and beasts. He had been brought here by a power he did not understand. His hand vainly brushed the flies from his whiskered features.
The scout glanced around him.
Then he saw the twisted body of Will Henry. He turned his horse and allowed it to trot across the stained sand. He dropped from his saddle and closed the distance between himself and the broken corpse. Willows gritted his teeth and rubbed his neck.
He had seen death more times than he could recall but he still could not get used to it. It frightened him how something that was alive one moment could turn into this the next.
Even though the death had come only hours earlier the desert heat had caused the body to start stiffening and to stink worse than a dozen outhouses. He turned away and then saw what was left of Ken Davis. Willows walked to it with the reins of his horse gripped firmly in his left hand as his right wrist rested on the grip of his holstered gun. Flies were feasting on this body as well.
The veteran scout looked at the boot still in the stirrup and the saddle with its broken cinch strap a few yards away. His eyes glanced at the trail of gore left in the sand where the body had been dragged from the top of the high dune to his left. The horse had made it a few dozen yards further than its master but it had also fallen victim to the bullets of the young Apaches. Willows rubbed his face as if trying to rid his nostrils of the sickening smell, then he noticed something curious.
He looked around him and counted the dead saddle-horses which lay on the sand. There were four of them and yet only two bodies of white men. The scout bit his lip. He glanced all around the site of death and satisfied himself that there were no other bodies to be seen or found.
But where were the two other riders?
Then he remembered the ten or so other Apaches he knew had been with the dead ones who littered the sand. They might return, he told himself. He did not want to be here when they did.
Navajo Nate shook his head and turned to his horse.
He had seen enough.
The scout reached up and held on to his saddle horn before putting his left boot into his stirrup and mounting. The horse was skittish. The smell of death was everywhere and the animal wanted to put distance between them and the rotting bodies.
Willows flicked his reins across the back of his horse. It started to trot through the butchery. The scout knew that there should have been more Apaches than the ones which surrounded him.
His keen eyes searched the area and then he saw the tracks which led up into the place where the mesas started.
He was torn.
Every sinew in his aching body wanted to follow the trail and see where it led. That was what he was being paid to do. But he also knew that far behind him Captain Forbes and his men would be waiting. He sighed heavily and wondered why the white men lying here had fought with the Indians. Or maybe the Apaches had started it. Either way none of these dead folks had won the deadly encounter.
The army scout stood in his stirrups and whipped his long leathers across the shoulders of his mount.
The horse did not require much encouragement to get it galloping away from this place of death.
Navajo Nate rode hard.
He knew that he would return here. But the next time he would not be alone. The next time he would have eighteen cavalrymen with him.
The scout balanced in his stirrups and let his mount find its own pace. It did.
THIRTEEN
The sun had already fallen behind the golden-coloured mountains and darkness was spreading like a cancer throughout the strange uncharted land. With the darkness came a precarious descent into a place none of the young horsemen knew. To their right side rose a rugged jagged wall of untamed boulders whilst to their left was a drop of several hundred feet and certain death.
Yet they were unafraid. For fear was the one thing no Apache brave would ever acknowledge. It was an unknown emotion which served no purpose. There were only eight of the Apaches remaining now. They had heard the guns blazing behind them but by then they had already started down into the deep canyon which fringed the place where their dead were buried. A place which they knew the halfdozen braves from the unknown tribe and the young white man had defiled by entering. Although they could not enter the place where they cast the bodies of their dead they could try and find the point at which the intruders would make their getaway.
The steep rocky trail was narrow and only just capable of allowing the unshod ponies to negotiate it in single file. It was impossible for any of the war party to turn their mounts without falling into the perilous depths.
Against their better judgement the eight Apaches had to continue on down the steep trail carved by nature over countless generations, even though they wanted to return to the rest of their braves and discover what had happened back on the desert sand. But they would have to reach the bottom of the deep canyon before they could even think of returning.
Yet each of them silently knew that once they found the floor of the canyon they would probably have a new battle to win. For they had to punish those who had broken their taboos.
It was their law.
Shadows crept across the rocks, becoming blacker with every passing second. The riders gripped their ponies with powerful legs and leaned back. Even the ponies were anxious as they carefully put one hoof before another. This was a dangerous journey in daylight. At night it would verge on suicidal. Yet they continued.
Only mules could have navigated this trail easily. But mustangs were not mules. As darkness grew all around them the Indians continued fearlessly to urge their mounts on.
The lead rider was known as Nazimo. Some said he was the son of Geronimo but that was a distinction that all young defiant Apache bucks claimed. He had the spirit and courage of the great Apache leader even if he were not his son.
Nazimo had only one ambition. To die like a man and not simply exist like a woman. Barely nineteen but with the eagle feathers to prove his manhood he had been the one to persuade his fellow young Apaches to leave the reservation and return to the place where he knew their tribe had once ruled.
So far half his followers had perished in the unforgiving desert. Nazimo greeted the stars with a mere glance and continued to lead the eight braves down into the darkness. If he knew that his fate was already written in those sparkling s
tars, he did not show it.
Hal Harper led his horse behind the five Indians who in turn guided their heavily laden ponies. They had travelled for nearly two miles away from the high-walled Apache graveyard into a labyrinth of cave tunnels. The open sky had disappeared from view shortly after they had begun their long trek and was now replaced by unyielding rock, which hung ominously above their heads.
The sand was still soft underfoot and slowed their progress as they all trailed Talka, who had travelled this way many times over the years. The Indian seemed to know every twist and turn of the maze of natural tunnels.
Harper remained at the back of the group and kept his eyes fixed on the pony just ahead of him, which was carrying the body of Talka’s brother across its back.
The air was damp inside the caves. Yet, to Harper’s surprise, there was light here. Strange growths upon the surfaces of the rocky walls all around them somehow glowed. A green eerie light filled the long tunnels just enough to allow those who walked through them the ability to see where they were.
Harper had never imagined anything like this before. It just seemed impossible that simple mosslike growths could give off any form of illumination at all.
As they reached the end of yet another tunnel it appeared that they had walked into an enormous room. But this was no mere room. It was a cavernous void created over millions of years. Harper gasped and looked all around, then his eyes gazed upward. A high ceiling of jagged rock stretched across the entire area. They all paused. A few holes more than a hundred feet from the rocky floor allowed brief beams of moonlight to trace down into the huge cave. Then Harper saw something else high above. It appeared to be smoke trailing and using the holes to escape. Harper rubbed his eyes and then looked at the men who surrounded him. His mind raced and tried to work out the puzzle. It could not be smoke, he told himself. Smoke would require fire and this was just a damp cave. A damn big damp cave but just a damp cave all the same.
Harper stopped and pushed his battered hat off his head. He felt its drawstring touch his throat as the hat fell on to the back of his shirt. He looked harder at the braves It was clear that they had all seen this place before.
‘What wrong, Hal?’ Talka asked, moving closer to the awestruck White Eyes drifter.
Harper had no words. He just gestured at the cave. It was far bigger than anything they had walked through since leaving the graveyard far behind them. Shafts of lights danced down stalactites of salty stone which hung from the highest point of the cave roof as water constantly dripped. Similar formations rose up from the very floor of the cave as if trying to reach their lofty brothers. It was a sight which astounded Harper.
‘This cave is good!’ Talka told the young drifter. ‘This safe place for my people to rest and eat!’
Harper sighed. ‘I ain’t never seen the like before!’
Talka nodded and curled his finger. ‘Come! Talka show you magic!’
‘Magic?’ Harper repeated the word and then followed the Indian. They walked among the eerie forest of stone until they reached something even more amazing to the eyes of the younger man. Now he knew that he had not imagined the smoke he had seen curling up around the top of the cave.
‘I don’t believe it!’ Harper said.
Near the furthest wall of the cave, hidden by the many tall stone formations, a fire burned in a natural pit. Its flames licked up in an ever-changing pattern. It was warm and the youngster drew closer to it, felt its heat warm his aching bones.
‘Fire never go away!’ Talka tld him.
Harper breathed in. It had the smell of a coal-oil lantern. He leaned closer and stared into the flames.
‘Must be oil,’ he said. ‘Oil coming up from the bowels of Hell itself, I reckon!’
Talka nodded. ‘Come from mother earth to warm us and let us cook our food, Hal. We come this way many times. It safe down here away from sun. Good place.’
Harper heard the rest of the small band of Indians as they reached their leader with their horses in tow. Talka said something to the men and again they all silently obeyed his commands. Each went about his business with almost military precision.
One of the Indians pulled a deer from the back of his pony and placed it close to where the flames danced. He drew a long, wide-bladed knife from his beaded belt and began expertly to cut off one of the animal’s already skinned legs. No city butcher could have done the job so neatly, Harper reckoned.
The Indian rested the meat in the flames and then returned the remains of the carcass to the back of his pony. Within seconds the savoury aroma of roasting meat filled Harper’s nostrils.
‘We eat when meat cooked, Hal,’ Talka said.
‘I sure could use me some meat to fill up my guts,’ said Harper with a smile. ‘My stomach’s bin talking to me a whole heap for the last couple of hours, Talka.’
‘I hear angry noises,’ Talka nodded wryly.
‘We gonna carry on after we eat?’
‘No, we make camp here,’ Talka said and clapped his hands. The sound echoed all around them. The rest of his small band started to prepare for their stay.
‘I sure hope there ain’t no man-eating critters in these caves,’ Harper said, looking around nervously. ‘I’d sure hate to end up as supper for a mountain lion.’
‘Fire keep them away,’ the Indian assured him. ‘Lion no like fire. We will eat and drink and sleep. New day come many hours from now. Ponies need rest.’
Harper reached beneath the belly of his horse and started to undo his cinch straps. He pulled the saddle from the horse back and laid it down on the ground. He then removed the bridle from the horse’s head and patted the animal.
‘We will water all horses soon,’ Talka said with a sigh as he sat down on the warm ground.
A high-pitched sound came from the other side of the cave. Harper stopped and stared. He knelt and drew his gun.
‘What was that, Talka? Did ya hear it?’
‘Bats, brave Hal. Just little bats.’ Talka smiled. ‘They no eat you.’
Darkness had brought a cold chill to the high rocks overlooking the arid desert and canyons. Yet Tate Talbot knew that he dare not light a fire. He had already survived one battle with Apaches and knew that he did not have the stomach for another. A stiff breeze cut through the gaps in the jagged rocks where he had secreted himself and the pony. He found half a cigar, placed it between his teeth and started to chew on it. Even the thought of striking a match made him uneasy. A naked flame against the backdrop of a black sky might bring a bullet.
Talbot was restless as well as cold. He wondered what his next move ought to be but found no answers in his weary mind. It had all gone wrong. His greed had brought him to within a whisker of death and he knew it. His plan of claiming the bounty on his own head now seemed to be ridiculous. If only he had been able to shoot the young stranger in the Senora cantina as he had wanted to do things would have been so very different.
The chase had been costly. Too damn costly.
Reluctantly Talbot knew that the young drifter was by now long gone. Now there was no way that he could execute his devious plan. Whoever that stranger had been, he was now safe. Unlike Talbot himself.
Again Talbot glanced up at the stars and moon above him. Everything around him was bathed in a mixture of black shadow and a grey illumination. He kept close to a rock and held on to the crude rope rein of the pony. Yet the wind seemed to find him however much he attempted to elude its bone-cutting fury.
He stared at the pony and wished it had been his own horse. His own horse had had plenty of grub in its saddlebags and water in its canteens.
His eyes narrowed. Down there a few miles away lay provisions and water, he told himself. Why had he left it there? Had the brutal encounter with the Apaches robbed him of his sanity as well as his gang?
Was it all down to fear? Had he been so scared that he had simply run away without giving any thought to what he might do when hunger and thirst overwhelmed him?
His throat
felt as though a bowie knife had slit it from ear to ear. He was dry and hungry. His guts churned in protest at not being supplied with grub for more than half a day.
A mixture of anger and nervousness made Talbot pull his guns from their holsters and check them.
Then he remembered that he had already checked them at least twenty times since he had ridden up into this high remote sanctuary.
They were fully loaded and he had a few shells left on his gunbelt. He shook his head, slid both weapons back into their leather homes on his hips and rubbed his hands together. Even his gloves could not stop the cold which seemed constantly to be eating into his flesh and bones.
How could a place that could bake a man dry in the hours of daylight change so much? He was freezing to death up on the side of this rockface. Talbot got on to one knee and surveyed the land below him. The moonlight lit up enough of it for him to see if there were any other Apaches wandering around looking for a prime scalp to add to their war lances.
For more than ten minutes he vainly kept up his vigil. He watched a few deer running across the dunes and then to his surprise he saw dust drifting up from beyond the boulders at the foot of the towering rock beneath which he was perched.
Dust could mean that death was seeking him out once more.
Talbot moved to a flat overhang. He lay across it and carefully crawled close to its edge. It was a sheer drop of a couple of hundred feet but Talbot was too tired to be scared. He leaned over and squinted hard.
More dust filtered up and drifted out from far below his high vantage point.
He was certain that something or someone was moving far below: moving close to where he had started his own ascent to the place where he now lay.