Savage Country

by William W. Johnstone

  Then, half-carrying and half-dragging Scheer, Frank staggered away from the cliff and into the darkness. He didn’t know what they would run into out there, but he was willing to take the chance.

  The battle continued behind them, the hardcases yelling curses and shooting their guns, while the Indians were content to fight in silence and send arrows flying into the camp. Frank kept moving until he and Scheer were at least fifty yards away from the base of the cliff. Manhandling the engineer’s deadweight like that was exhausting, but Frank had made the man a promise and couldn’t abandon him. He stopped and leaned against the trunk of a tree, letting Scheer slide to the ground.

  As Frank watched, he saw that the arrows weren’t having much effect now. The hired killers were all crouched behind rocks. Three of them had been killed, but that still left well over a dozen of them, and they were well armed. They could wait out the attack if they chose to.

  Several of them panicked, though, and made a break for their horses, which were kept in a rope corral on the other side of the camp. That started a stampede of men, and Royal must have been smart enough to see that he couldn’t stop it. He bellowed, “Let’s get out of here!” and headed for the horses with the others, firing as he ran.

  Giving up good cover was usually a foolish tactic, and a couple of the men paid the price for that rashness, going down as arrows skewered them. The rest of the gang reached the already saddled horses, though, and leaped onto the animals. With a swift rataplan of hoofbeats, they fled into the night, a couple of arrows winging after them to speed them on their way.

  That left Frank and Scheer on their own, in the dark, with a pack of hostile Apaches practically in their laps.

  Frank knew Stormy was somewhere close by, along with Dog. All he had to do was whistle and the Appaloosa and the big cur would make it to his side if they had to charge through hell to do so. But if he called the animals, that would draw attention to him and Scheer. He was sure the Apaches had seen the two of them fleeing, but the Indians might not know exactly where they were now.

  Scheer let out a groan at Frank’s feet. Frank dropped into a crouch and clapped a hand over Scheer’s mouth. The man tried to struggle, but he was only half-conscious. Frank put his lips close to Scheer’s ear and hissed, “Take it easy! It’s me—Morgan!”

  Scheer stopped fighting, and after a moment Frank took his hand away from the man’s mouth. “Wh-where are we?” Scheer whispered.

  “Stay quiet,” Frank whispered back as he used the bowie to cut the bonds on Scheer’s wrists. “There are Apaches close by.”

  They stayed where they were beside the tree as Frank listened intently. He didn’t hear anything moving in the darkness, but he knew that didn’t mean a thing. The Apaches were out there.

  The hoofbeats of the retreating horses had faded to nothing. Frank’s hope was that the Apaches would go after the members of the gang, but he didn’t really expect that to happen. Their habit was to strike quickly and then fade away themselves, disappearing so that they could come back and fight again some other day. Even if they didn’t pursue Royal and the others, they might leave, heading back to wherever they were holed up in the mountains. Then Frank and Scheer could get out of here too. The engineer wasn’t hurt all that bad, but he probably needed some medical attention anyway.

  They waited for at least half an hour before Frank deemed it safe for them to move. Then he helped Scheer to his feet and said, “We still need to be quiet and careful. We’ll stay away from that fire, just in case any of the Indians are still around. Once we’ve put some distance behind us, I’ll whistle up my horse. Maybe yours will come along with him.”

  “I hope so,” Scheer said. “I don’t know how far I can walk. I hurt like hell.”

  “That’s a good thing,” Frank told him. “At least you’re alive to hurt.”

  Scheer grunted. “Yeah. I guess you’re right.”

  They started off, moving cautiously through the shadows, but they hadn’t gone twenty feet when a handful of dark shapes suddenly loomed around them, appearing so unexpectedly that it was like they had shot up out of the ground. A guttural voice said in Spanish-accented English, “Do not move, gringos, or you die!”

  Chapter 27

  Frank had known that their chances of getting away were slim. He stood there calmly, not wanting to spook the Indians who surrounded them. Scheer didn’t take it so well. He let out a yelp of alarm and quailed back against Frank.

  “Steady,” Frank said. He put his left hand on Scheer’s shoulder and squeezed. “Don’t give them any excuse for killing us.”

  “They . . . they don’t need an excuse!” Scheer panted. “They’re savages!”

  An explosive grunt came from the Apache who stood right in front of them. It took Frank a second to realize that the man had just laughed.

  “You are the men who were tied,” the Apache said, in English again. Frank knew that many of the Apaches, especially the leaders, spoke three tongues—their own, Spanish, and English.

  “We were prisoners,” Frank agreed. “The men who held us captive were evil men.”

  “We saw them cut this one,” the spokesman said as he gestured at Scheer. “Why should we fight the white men? They kill each other.”

  One of the other warriors said, “We fight them because of what they did to our people. To our women and children.”

  “I know this,” the leader said, a note of tolerance in his voice as if he were explaining something to someone who didn’t understand. “And we will continue to fight until all who died are avenged many times over. But our loss will be no less for all that.”

  Frank found the conversation interesting—he sensed there was more going on underneath the surface than what he knew about—but at that moment Scheer groaned again and swayed a little as if he were about to pass out. Frank tightened his grip on the engineer and said to the leader of the Apaches, “We are not your enemies. Your enemies are our enemies, so you are our friends. This man is hurt and needs help.”

  For a long moment, the leader didn’t respond. Then he grunted again and said, “Bring him.”

  One of the other men said something in Apache, the words coming out hard and angry. The leader replied in a tone equally sharp. To Frank he commented, “I told my warriors we are not going to kill you . . . yet.”

  “Fair enough,” Frank said with a nod as he got an arm around Scheer’s waist. “Come on.”

  The leader of the war party turned and stalked off through the darkness. Frank followed, helping Scheer along. The rest of the Apaches continued to surround them. They hadn’t disarmed Frank, but clearly they didn’t consider him much of a threat. Outnumbered as he was, they could cut him down any time they wanted.

  He would take a few of them with him if it came to that, though.

  The group plunged into a thick stand of pines, and when they emerged from the other side of it they found a couple of young men holding the reins of a dozen horses. The young men spoke in rapid Apache. Frank had a feeling they were asking how the fight against the white men had gone. When they saw the two prisoners, they reached for the knives at their waists, obviously wanting to fall on Frank and Scheer and cut them to pieces. The leader spoke to them sharply, and they relaxed a little. Their gazes were still hostile as they stared at the two white men.

  Frank said to the leader, “I have a horse nearby. Will you let me call him?”

  The Apache nodded solemnly. “Go ahead.”

  Frank put a couple of fingers in his mouth and gave a shrill whistle. If Stormy and Dog were in earshot, that would bring them.

  A few minutes later, Frank heard hoofbeats in the darkness. The Appaloosa loomed up out of the shadows, his dappled coat making him hard to see in the shifting patterns of light and dark. Dog walked stiffly beside him. The hair on the big cur’s back bristled, and a growl sounded deep in his throat.

  “Easy, Dog,” Frank said. “Easy.” The Apaches liked dogs—especially boiled.

  One of the India
ns reached for Stormy’s reins. If he intended to claim the horse for his own, he was in for a disappointment. He had to jerk his hand back quickly to keep from losing a couple of fingers as Stormy bit at him. The Apache exclaimed angrily in his own tongue.

  “This is a horse that belongs to only one man,” the leader said.

  Frank nodded. “That’s right. But he’ll leave folks alone, as long as they don’t bother him.”

  “Mount up,” the Apache said. “Your friend can ride with you.”

  Frank had already noticed that Scheer’s horse hadn’t trailed along with Stormy. There was no telling where the animal was, and the Apaches didn’t seem disposed to look for him. As a people, they didn’t value horseflesh the same way many other tribes did. The Sioux and their allies always fought on horseback, and the Comanche at the height of their power probably had been the finest light cavalry in the history of the world, equaled perhaps only by the Russian Cossacks. The Apaches, though, usually regarded a horse as a potential meal as much as they did as transportation. They wouldn’t go out of their way just to capture another horse.

  “Come on,” Frank said to Scheer. “Can you climb up into the saddle?”

  “I . . . I’ll try,” the engineer replied. With Frank’s voice steadying Stormy, Scheer got a foot in the stirrup and pulled himself up while Frank boosted him at the same time. When Scheer was straddling the hull, Frank used the same stirrup and swung up behind the engineer. He reached around Scheer to get hold of the Appaloosa’s reins.

  The Apaches mounted up too, and the leader set off with his horse at a walk. He seemed to know where he was going, even though the night was fairly dark. The Apaches probably knew just about every foot of these mountains, Frank told himself.

  The route they followed was a twisting one that curved in and out of arroyos, along ridges, and around upthrusts of rock. Frank had no idea how far they were from the railroad construction camp, and he wasn’t sure he would be able to find his way back there, if he ever got the opportunity. He wondered if he could convince the Apaches to let them go. It seemed unlikely, but the fact that they were still alive gave him reason to hope.

  On the other hand, maybe the Indians were just taking him and Scheer back to their camp so that they could torture the two white men to death in familiar surroundings.

  It was far into the night before the leader called a halt in a small box canyon with a few trees and a tiny spring at its end. Even though horses could never make it up the rock wall that closed off the canyon, Frank figured the Apaches could climb it and would be out of there on foot in a hurry if they were ever trapped here. Any mounted pursuit wouldn’t be able to follow them, so the canyon wasn’t as much of a box as it appeared to be.

  Once they were inside, the warriors stacked brush across the narrow opening. With that side closed off and cliffs around the other three sides, they could light a fire here without having to worry about it being seen. As a hideout, it was primitive but effective.

  Frank slid down from Stormy’s back and then helped Scheer to the ground. A couple of the Indians got a fire started while some of the others tended to the horses. The leader and a couple of warriors came over to stand in front of Frank and Scheer. As the flames of the fire grew brighter, Frank got his first good look at their captors. All of them had the typical squatty build of the Apaches and wore leggings, breechcloths, and long-sleeved shirts, mostly blue. The leader was a little taller than the others. A band of red cloth held back his thick, graying hair. His face showed the lines of both age and hardship.

  “I am Mano Rojo,” he announced. “In your gringo tongue, Red Hand. My father rode with Mangas Coloradas and Delgadito. I rode with Loco and Geronimo. Now I lead this band. We are the last Apaches to fight against the white men. We fight because our hearts are heavy with grief and because our bellies burn with anger. The white men have taken everything from us except our lives. To take those, many of them must die first. What do you say to this?”

  Frank’s hopes rose even more. The fact that this Apache chief was talking to him was encouraging. He said, “I am Frank Morgan. I have heard many stories of the bravery of Mangas Coloradas and Delgadito, of Loco and Geronimo. The Apaches are not my enemies.”

  “Yet you have fought against them,” Mano Rojo said sharply.

  “When I was attacked, I have fought,” Frank replied, meeting the chief’s gaze squarely. “Never have I sought out the Apaches to do them harm.”

  Mano Rojo nodded slowly. “Your name is familiar. I have heard it in these mountains, and even below the border in Mexico. You have another name.”

  “Some call me The Drifter,” Frank acknowledged.

  Again a grunt of laughter came from the Apache. “You have the red hand too, Frank Morgan.”

  It was Frank’s turn to nod. “I would live in peace, but that is a hard thing to do.”

  “Hard for the Apaches too.”

  “Loco has gone in,” Frank pointed out. “So has Geronimo. They live now on reservations, at peace with the white man.”

  Mano Rojo’s face darkened. “This is what we would have done as well. When word came to us in Mexico that Loco had gone in, we rode north to do the same, bringing our families with us. But before we could travel to the place where the Army is and say to the leaders of the whites that we wished to live in peace, we were set upon. Our camp was attacked. Our women and children were killed, except for a few young men. Our warriors barely escaped with their lives. Some died. It was a mistake for those who attacked us to allow any of us to get away.”

  The words were flat, almost expressionless. Scheer, who was leaning against a rock, asked, “What’s he babbling about, Morgan?”

  “He’s explaining why they’re still at war with the whites,” Frank said. “Pay attention and you might learn something.” He turned back to Mano Rojo. “This is a bad thing. A tragedy. Do you know who was responsible for it?”

  “White men,” the Apache chief said. “Now all white men must pay.”

  The wheels of Frank’s brain turned over as quickly as those of a racing wagon. He understood a lot more now. These warriors had been on their way to surrender to the Army when a force of unknown white men had attacked their camp and slaughtered their families. No wonder they were raiding in the area. They were mad with grief and had a blood debt to settle.

  But they couldn’t settle it by attacking innocent people, no matter what they thought. Frank said, “The men who build the railroad through the mountains are my friends. They are not the ones who attacked your camp and killed your loved ones.”

  “How can you know this?” Mano Rojo demanded.

  “Because I know them and know they would not do such a thing. They are interested only in building the railroad. Besides, they are workers, laborers, not gunmen. They would not be able to fight the Apaches and win.” An idea was beginning to form in Frank’s head. He had no way of knowing if it was correct, but at least it was a possibility.

  Mano Rojo said, “My warriors want to kill the two of you. Mostly the young ones feel this way, but some of the older men want to kill you too. You are still alive only because you puzzle me. The other white men, the ones who held you prisoner, seem more evil than you. Why do they hate you?”

  “Because they want to stop the railroad, and we want to stop them.” That wasn’t true of Scheer, but Frank was willing to stretch a point. He just hoped that the engineer had sense enough to keep his mouth shut. He pressed on. “They planned to torture my friend and leave him for the men with the railroad to find, so that they would think the Apaches had done this thing. I believe they have done other evil things and made it look like you and your men were to blame, Mano Rojo.”

  The chief frowned. “This is true?”

  “You have my word on it. Their leader told me as much himself.”

  “Then they want the whites to hate us even more.”

  Frank nodded. “That’s right. They want you and the men from the railroad to kill each other.”

&nb
sp; Mano Rojo might not have any formal education other than what he had gotten from the priests at the missions when he was a boy—his Spanish was proof of that—but his brain was quick and cunning anyway. He said, “Such men would not turn away from killing women and children.”

  “That’s exactly what I was thinking,” Frank said. What better way to cause trouble for the railroad than to stir up the Apaches, and what better way to do that than by attacking them while they had their families with them, on their way to a peaceful surrender when they weren’t expecting trouble.

  It all fit, Frank told himself. But he had no proof of any of it.

  “I will make a bargain with you, Mano Rojo,” he went on. “If you allow my friend and me to leave here in peace, we will tell the leaders of the whites that you and your warriors were going to come in, as Loco and Geronimo did. We will tell them of the evil thing that was done to your people. And this I swear.... I will find the men who did this thing and see to it that they are punished for it. Then you and your men can live in peace.”

  Mano Rojo didn’t say anything. He just stared at Frank as the seconds dragged by and turned into minutes. At least he was thinking about it, Frank told himself. Finally, Mano Rojo turned to the two men with him and spoke to them in their native tongue. All Frank had to go by was the tone of the conversation. He thought that the other two Apaches were rejecting his proposal, and he hoped that Mano Rojo was arguing in favor of it.

  The talk went on for several minutes. At last, Mano Rojo turned back to Frank and said, “We will allow you to leave in peace.”

  Scheer started to heave a sigh of relief.

  “But not this one,” Mano Rojo went on, pointing at the engineer.

  “What!” Scheer exclaimed. He stood up from the rock where he had been resting.

  Frank held out a hand to stop the engineer from saying or doing anything else. His sudden move had made the other two Apaches finger their knives.