“Bull!” It was half a sob. The man took her in his arms.
“Diana!” The word carried all the reverence of a benediction.
Raising her face from his shoulder she pushed him away a little. “Bull,” she said, “once you told me that you loved me. Tell me so again.”
“‘Love’ don’t tell half of it, girl,” he said, his voice husky with emotion.
“Oh, Bull,” she cried, “I have been such a fool. I love you! I have always loved you, but I did not know it until that night — the night they came after you at the West Ranch.”
“But you couldn’t love me, Diana, thinkin’ I was The Black Coyote!”
“I don’t care, Bull, what you are. All I care or know is that you are my man. We will go away together and start over again — will you, Bull, for my sake?”
And then he told her that he didn’t have to go away — told her who The Black Coyote had been.
“Why, he even planted one o’ the bullion sacks under my bed- roll at The West Ranch to prove I was the right hombre,” said Bull. “Saw a sack o’ dust I brung from Idaho, an’ he tried to make ’em think it was yours. He used to send me off alone the days he was a-goin’ to hold up the stage, so’s when the time was ripe he could throw suspicion on me. He shore was a clever feller, Hal was.”
“But the day Mack was wounded?” she asked. “We saw you coming in from the north and there was blood on your shirt.”
“I got in a brush with Apaches up Cottonwood, me an’ Gregorio, an’ I got scratched. ’Twasn’t nothin’.”
“And to think that all the time he was professing friendship for you he was trying to make me believe that you were The Black Coyote.,” cried Diana. “He was worse than Mr. Corson and I thought him about the wickedest man I had ever known.”
“We gotta think about gittin’ back an’ havin’ a friendly pow-wow with thet there Corson gent,” said Bull. “By golly, the sun’s out! Everything’s happy, Diana, now thet you’re safe.”
They walked to the doorway. The rain had stopped as suddenly as it had begun, and now the fierce sun blazed down upon the steaming mud.
“Where’s your horses?” asked Bull.
“In a shed behind the house.”
“Good! We’ll start along. They’s a bridge twenty-five miles below here ef I ain’t mistaken. I think I know this here shack. I was down this way two year ago.”
“But what about him?” She nodded back toward the body of Colby.
“He kin rot here fer all I care,” said Bull, bitterly—” a-hurtin’ you! God, I wisht he had nine lives like a cat, so’s I could kill him a few more times.”
She closed the door behind them. “We’ll have to notify Gum Smith, so they can send down and bury him.”
“Gum Smith won’t never get the chanct,” he said.
They walked to the shed and he saddled the two horses, rested now and refreshed a little by the past hours of relief from the heat, and after they had mounted and ridden halfway to the wash they saw the figures of two men upon the opposite bank.
“Texas Pete and Shorty,” he told her. They recognized the girl and Bull and whooped and shouted in the exuberance of youth and joy.
It was a hard ride to the bridge through the heavy mud, but it was made at last and then the four joined upon the same side and set out toward home, picking up Idaho en route, still weak, but able to sit on a horse.
It was two days later before they rode into the Bar Y ranch yard, where they were met with wild acclaim by Willie, Wong .and the men’s cook.
“Where’s Corson?” demanded Bull.
“The whole bunch has gone to town to close the deal. They was some hitch the other day. Wong said he heard ’em talkin’. Corson wouldn’t take nothin’ but gold an’ Wainright had to send up to Aldea fer it. They say it’s comin’ in on today’s stage.”
“I’m goin’ to town,” announced Bull.
“So am I,” said Diana.
“We’ll all go,” said Shorty.
“Git us up some fresh horses, Willie,” said Texas Pete. Then he turned to Diana. “You ain’t said yit thet I ain’t foreman no more.” They both smiled.
“Not yet, Pete. I’ll have to talk it over with Bull,” said Diana.
Remounted, they galloped off toward Hendersville — all but Idaho. Him they left behind, much to his disgust, for he needed rest.
They reached town half an hour after the stage had pulled in and, entering The Donovan House, found Corson, Lillian Manill, the two Wainrights, together with the attorney from Aldea and Gum Smith.
At sight of Bull, Gum Smith leaped to his feet. “Yo-all’s undeh arrest!” he squealed.
“What fer?” asked Bull.
“Fer robbin’ the United States Mail, thet’s what fer.”
“Hold your horses, Gum,” admonished Bull, “I ain’t quite ready fer you yet. I craves conversation with these here dudes fust.” He turned to the elder Wainright. “‘You was honin’ to pay a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars to this here dude fer the Bar Y?’
“‘Tain’t none o’ yore business,” snapped Wainright.
Bull laid a hand upon the butt of one of his guns. “Does I hev to run you out o’ Hendersville to git a civil answer?” he demanded.
Wainright paled. “I’ve paid already, an’ the Bar Y’s mine,” he answered surlily.
“You’ve ben stung. Them two’s crooks. The girl ain’t no relation to Miss Henders’ uncle an’ we got the papers to prove it. We got the will, too, thet this skunk tried to git hold of an’ destroy. Leastwise Miss Henders had ‘em, but she sent ’em to Kansas City before Corson could git holt of ‘em. Texas Pete, here, took ’em to Aldea. That’s why you didn’t find ’em in the office, Corson, when you robbed the safe. Wong saw you and told us about it just before we left the ranch today. All you got was the copies she made. I don’t wonder you wanted gold from Wainright.”
“He’s lyin,” cried Corson to Wainright. “Do you believe what a fellow like he is says? Why, he’ll be in a federal penitentiary inside another month for robbing the mail. There isn’t a jury on earth would take his word for anything.”
“I ain’t there yit an’ no more I don’t expect to be,” said Bull.
“Yo-all’s undeh arrest, jes the same, right now,” cried Gum Smith, “an Ah warns yo to come along peacable-like with me.”
“Now I’m comin’ to you, Gum,” said Bull. “You better beat it, Gum. You ain’t wuth shootin’, with cartridges the price they be,” he continued. “Gregorio had told me the whole story. He’s goin’ straight now an’ wants to square himself. He’s writ out an’ signed a confession thet’s goin’ to make this climate bad fer your rheumatism.”
“Gregorio’s a dirty, lyin’ greaser,” screamed
Gum. “They won’t no one bulieve him neither. They ain’t no one got the goods on me.”
“No,” said Bull, “but you have. Nearly every ounce of thet gold — except what you an’ Colby spent an’ what little you give Gregorio’s buried underneath the floor of the back room o’ your saloon, an’ me an’ Pete an’ Shorty’s right here to see thet no hombre don’t git it what don’t belong to it.”
Gum Smith paled. “‘Tain’t so! It’s a damn lie”’
“Thet’s the second time I ben called a liar in five minutes,” said Bull. “I ain’t did nothin’ ‘cause they’s ladies present, but I’m goin’ to send ’em outen the room in a minute an’ then we’ll talk about thet — ef you’re still here. I’d advise you not to be, though. Wainright, I seen your buckboard tied out in front here. By crowdin’ it’ll hold five — meanin’ you, thet ornery lookin’ dude son o’ yourn, Corson, Miss Manill an’ Gum. You all be in it an’ hittin’ the trail north fer tother side o’ the hill inside o’ five minutes or me an’ the boys is goin’ to start shootin’, On the way, Wainright, you an’ Corson kin settle thet little matter o’ the hundred an’ twenty-five thousand. Ef you kin git it back from him ‘tain’t nothin’ to me, but ef you don’t you deserve to lose it, fer y
ou’re jest as big a thief as he is, only not quite so bright in the head. Now git, an’ git damn pronto!” His voice had suddenly changed from mocking irony to grim earnestness. It was a savage voice that uttered the final command. Gum Smith was the first out of the room. He was followed by the others. “See ’em to the edge of town, boys, an’ see that they don’t linger,” said Bull to Shorty an’ Texas Pete.
“Oh, mamma!” exclaimed Shorty. “Lead me to them funny pants!”
Bull turned to the attorney from Aldea. “I ain’t got no proof thet you were in on this deal,” he said; “so you kin wait an’ go in on the stage tomorrer.”
“Thanks,” said the attorney. “No, I thought it a perfectly legitimate transaction; but I am glad they called me down, for now perhaps I can transact some real business for some other clients of mine. I had not been aware that the Bar Y was for sale, or I had been over here before. I represent a large syndicate of eastern packers whom I know would be interested in this property, and if Miss Henders will make me a proposition I shall be glad to transmit it to them — you will find them very different people to deal with than these others seem to have been.”
“I thank you,” said Diana, “but the Bar Y is not for sale. We are going to run the ranch together, aren’t we, Bull?”
“You bet we are,” he replied.
Mary Donovan burst from an inner room at the moment. “Bliss me heart!” she exclaimed. “An’ I niver knew you was here ‘til this very minute, an’ I heard what yese jest said, Diana Henders, an’ I’m not after bein’ such a fool that I don’t know what yese means. It makes me happy, God bless ye! I must be after runnin’ in an’ tellin’ me ould man — he’ll be that glad, he will.”
“Your old man!” exclaimed Diana.
“Sure now,” said Mary Donovan, blushing, “didn’t yese know ‘at me and Bob was married the day before yesterday? Shure they had to shoot him before I c’d git him. He niver was much, an’ havin’ a bullet hole clean through him don’t make him no better, but thin he’s a man, an’ a poor one’s better than none at all.”
THE END
THE WAR CHIEF (1927)
CONTENTS
1. GO-YAT-THLAY
2. SHOZ-DIJIJI
3. YAH-IK-TEE
4. THE NEW WAR CHIEF
5. ON THE WAR TRAIL
6. THE OATH OF GERONIMO
7. RAIDED
8. VAQUEROS AND WARRIORS
9. LOVE
10. WICHITA BILLINGS
11. WAR CHIEF OF THE BE-DON-KO-HE
12. THE SCALP DANCE
13. “SHOZ-DIJIJI IS DEAD!”
14. “FIFTY APACHES”
15. HUNTED
16. TO SPIRIT LAND
17. THE TRAIL AND ITS END
18. THE WAR DANCE
19. WHITE AND RED
20. COME BACK!
1. GO-YAT-THLAY
Naked but for a G-string, rough sandals, a bit of hide and a buffalo headdress, a savage warrior leaped and danced to the beating of drums. Encircling fires, woman-tended, sent up curling tongues of flame, lighting, fitfully, sweat-glistening shoulders, naked arms and legs.
Distorted shadows, grotesque, mimicking, danced with the savage and his fellows. Above them, dark and mysterious and weirdly exaggerated by the night, loomed the Grampian Hills.
Rude bows and arrows, stone-shod spears, gaudy feathers, the waving tails of animals accentuated the barbaric atmosphere that was as yet uncontaminated by the fetid breath of civilization — pardon me! — that was as yet ignorant of the refining influences of imperial conquest, trained mercenaries and abhorrent disease.
Here was freedom. Agricola was as yet unborn, the Wall of Antoninus unbuilt, Albion not even a name; but Agricola was to come, Antoninus was to build his wall; and they were to go their ways, taking with them the name of Albion, taking with them freedom; leaving England, civilization, inhibitions.
But ever in the seed of the savage is the germ of savagery that no veneer of civilization, no stultifying inhibitions seem able ever entirely to eradicate. Appearing sporadically in individuals it comes down the ages — the germ of savagery, the seed of freedom.
As the Caledonian savages danced through that long-gone night, a thousand years, perhaps, before the prototypes of Joseph Smith, John Alexander Dowie and Aimee Semple McPherson envisaged the Star of Bethlehem, a new sun looked down upon the distant land of the Athapascans and another scene — American Indian savages.
Naked but for a G-string, rough sandals, a bit of hide and a buffalo headdress, a savage warrior moved silently among the boles of great trees. At his heels, in single file, came others, and behind these squaws with papooses on their backs and younger children tagging at their heels.
They had no pack animals, other than the squaws, but they had little to pack. It was, perhaps, the genesis of that great trek toward the south. How many centuries it required no-one knows, for there were no chroniclers to record or explain that long march of the Apaches from northwest Canada to Arizona and New Mexico, as there have been to trace the seed of the Caledonian savage from the Grampian Hills to the New World.
The ancestors of Jerry MacDuff had brought the savage germ with them to Georgia from Scotland in early colonial days, and it had manifested itself in Jerry in two ways — filled him with a distaste for civilization that urged him ever frontierward and mated him with the granddaughter of a Cherokee Indian, in whose veins pulsed analogous desires.
Jerry MacDuff and Annie Foley were, like nearly all other pioneers, ignorant, illiterate, unwashed. They had nothing of the majesty and grandeur and poise of their savage forebears; the repressive force of civilization had stifled everything but the bare, unlovely germ of savagery. They have little to do with this chronicle, other than to bring Andy MacDuff into the world in a dilapidated wagon somewhere in Missouri in the spring of 1863, and carry him a few months and a few hundred miles upon the sea of life.
Why Jerry MacDuff was not in one army or another, or in jail, in 1863, I do not know, for he was an able-bodied man of thirty and no coward; but the bare fact is that he was headed for California along the old Santa Fe trail. His pace was slow, since dire poverty, which had always been his lot, necessitated considerable stops at the infrequent settlements where he might earn the wherewith to continue his oft-interrupted journey.
Out of Santa Fe, New Mexico, the MacDuffs turned south along the Rio Grande toward the spot where the seeds of the ancient Caledonian and Athapascan warriors were destined to meet again for the first time, perhaps, since they had set out upon opposite trails from the birthplace of humanity in the days when ferns were trees, and unsailed seas lashed the shores of continents that are no more.
Changed are the seas, changed are the continents, changed the mortal envelope that houses the germ of humanity that alone remains unchanged and unchangeable. It abode in the breast of Go-yat-thlay, the Apache and, identical, in the breast of Andy MacDuff, the infant white.
Had Andy’s forebears remained in Scotland Andy would doubtless have developed into a perfectly respectable caddie before he became a God-fearing, law-abiding farmer. Back of him were all the generations of civilization that are supposed to have exerted a refining influence upon humanity to the end that we are now inherently more godlike than our savage ancestors, or the less-favored peoples who have yet to emerge from savagery.
Back of Go-yat-thlay there was no civilization. Down through all the unthinkable ages from the beginning the savage germ that animated him had come untouched by any suggestion of refinement — Go-yat-thlay, born a Ned-ni Apache in No-doyohn Canyon, Arizona, in 1829, was stark savage. Already, at thirty-four, he was war chief of the Be-don-ko-he, the tribe of his first wife, Alope, which he had joined after his marriage to her. The great Mangas Colorado, hereditary chief of the Be-don-ko-he, thought well of him, consulted him, deferred to him upon occasion; often sent him out upon the war trail in command of parties of raiders.
Today Go-yat-thlay was thus engaged. With four warriors he rod
e down the slopes of Stein’s Peak range, dropped into a hollow and clambered again almost to the top of an eminence beyond. Here they halted and Go-yat-thlay, dismounting, handed his reins to one of his fellows. Alone he clambered noiselessly to the summit, disturbing no smallest pebble, and lying there upon his belly looked down upon a winding, dusty road below. No emotion that he may have felt was reflected in those cruel, granitic features.
For an hour he had been moving directly toward this point expecting that when he arrived he would find about what he was looking down upon now — a single wagon drawn by two mules, a dilapidated wagon, with a soiled and much-patched cover.
Go-yat-thlay had never before seen this wagon, but he had seen its dust from a great distance; he noted its volume and its rate of progress, and he had known that it was a wagon drawn by two mules, for there was less dust than an ox-drawn vehicle would have raised, since oxen do not lift their feet as high as horses or mules, and, too, its rate of progress eliminated oxen as a possible means of locomotion. That the wagon was drawn by mules rather than horses was but a shrewd guess based upon observation. The Apache knew that few horses survived thus far the long trek from the white man’s country.
In the mind of Go-yat-thlay burned a recollection of the wrongs that had been heaped upon his people by the white man. In the legends of his fathers had come down the story of the conquests of the Spaniards, through Coronado and the priests, three-hundred years before. In those days the Apache had fought only to preserve the integrity of his domain from the domination of an alien race. In his heart there was not the bitter hatred that the cruelty and injustice and treachery of the more recent American invaders engendered.
These things passed through the mind of the Apache as he looked down upon the scene below; and too, there was the lure of loot. Mules have value as food, and among the meager personal belongings of the white emigrants there was always ammunition and often trinkets dear to the heart of the savage.
And so there were greed and vengeance in the heart of Go-yat-thlay as he watched the wagon and Jerry MacDuff and Annie, but there was no change in the expression upon the cruel and inscrutable face.
Delphi Collected Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs (Illustrated) (Series Four Book 26) Page 571