“How could I know that?” demanded Wichita.
“I dunno,” admitted Luke, scratching his head; “but it did seem dern funny to me.”
“It’s funny the man with you didn’t take a shot at him,” commented Wichita. “Most all of the boys believe in shooting an Apache first and inquiring about his past later.”
“There wasn’t no one with me,” explained Luke. “There wasn’t no one around but me when I left, and I didn’t want to waste time waiting fer someone to show up. Anyways, I kin see alone jest as fer as I kin with help.”
“Well, I reckon he’ll be coming along pretty soon, Luke,” said Wichita. “Good night.”
“Good night, Miss,” replied Jensen.
13. BACK TO SONORA
Dawn broke and Wichita Billings still sat fully dressed waiting for her father. It was the first time that she had ever worried greatly over his absence, and she could not explain why she worried now. She had always thought of her father as absolutely able to take care of himself in any emergency. He was a masterful man, utterly fearless, and yet not prone to take unnecessary chances.
A dozen times she had been upon the point of going to the bunk house and sending the entire outfit out to search for him, but each time she had shrunk from the ridicule that she well knew would be slyly heaped upon both her father and herself if she did so without good warrant; but now with a new day come and no word from him, she determined to swallow her pride and carry out her plan, however foolish it might appear.
Persistent knocking on the bunk house door finally elicited a profane request for information as to what was “eating” her.
“Dad’s not back yet,” she shouted.
“Oh, hell, is that you Miss? I didn’t know it was you.”
“Never mind. Roll out and get busy. We’re goin’ to find him if we have to ride to Boston,” she cried.
Luke Jensen, being the youngest man in the outfit, both in years and point of service; was first from the bunk house, it being his duty to bring the saddle horses in from pasture. At the barn, he found that Wichita had already bridled the horse that was kept up for the purpose of bringing the others in and was on the point of swinging the heavy saddle to its back.
He greeted her cheerily, took the saddle from her, and completed its adjustment.
“You worried about your Paw, Miss?” he asked as he drew the latigo through the cinch ring.
“Something might have happened to him,” she replied. “It wont hurt to look for him.”
“No, it wont do no hurt, though I reckon he kin take keer o’ hisself about as good as the next man. I wouldn’t worry none, Miss,” he concluded, reassuringly, as he stepped into the stirrup and swung his leg over the horse’s rump.
Wichita stood by the corral gate watching Luke riding down into the east pasture at an easy lope. She saw him disappear among the willows that grow along the draw a mile from the corrals and two thirds of the way across the pasture; and then “Smooth” Kreff, her father’s foreman. joined her.
“Mornin’, Miss,” he greeted her. He looked at her sharply. “You-all been up all night, aint you?”
“Yes,” she admitted.
“Pshaw! Why didn’t you rout us out? We’d a-gone lookin’ fer him any time.”
“There wouldn’t have been much use looking for him at night.”
“No, and there aint much use lookin’ fer him now; but it would a-made you-all feel easier,” replied the man.
“Why isn’t there any now?” she demanded.
“Because the Boss kin take keer of himself. He aint a-goin’ to thank us none, I’m figgerin’.”
“No, if he’s all right, he wont; but if he isn’t all right we’ll be glad we did.”
“Them hosses must a-gone plumb to the fer end of the pasture,” remarked Kreff.
“They always do, if we’re in a particular hurry to get them up,” said Wichita.
The other men had come from the bunk house by now and were standing around waiting.
“Thet dog-gone ‘cavvy’ must a-knowed we wanted ’em bad,” said one.
“Like as not they seed Luke comin’ an’ hid out in the willows,” suggested another.
“They shore are an ornery bunch,” admitted a third.
“I could of ridden down there backwards on a bicycle an’ rounded ’em up before this,” boasted a fourth.
“Here they come now,” exclaimed Wichita, as several horses broke from the willows and trotted toward the corrals.
In twos and threes they emerged from the dense foliage until some forty or fifty horses were strung out on the trail to the corrals, and then Luke Jensen rode into sight from out the willows.
“What’s thet critter he’s leadin’?” demanded one of the men.
“It’s saddled,” volunteered another.
“It’s Scar Foot,” said Kreff.
After that there was silence. Some of the men glanced at Wichita; but most of them stood looking away, embarrassed. Scar Foot was Billings’ favorite horse — the animal he had ridden out on the previous day.
The men walked out of the corral into the pasture to head the horses through the bars that had been let down to receive them. No one said anything. Kreff walked forward toward Luke; and the latter reined in and, leaning down, spoke to the foreman in a low voice. Wichita approached them.
“Where did you find Scar Foot?” she asked. “Where is Dad?”
“Scar Foot was jest outside the east gate, Miss,” explained Jensen. “The other hosses was all up there by him, jest inside the fence.”
“Did you see anything of Dad?” she demanded again.
“We-all’s goin’ to ride right out an’ look fer him, Miss,” said Kreff.
Inside the corral two men were roping, and the others were busy saddling their horses as they were caught.
Wichita climbed to the top of the corral. “I’ll ride Two Spot,” she called to one of the ropers.
Finally all the horses they needed had been caught and the others turned back into the pasture. One of the men who had been among the first to saddle was saddling Two Spot for Wichita. Luke Jensen, who had transferred his outfit to one of his own string, kept as far from Wichita as he could; but as she was about to mount, Kreff approached her, leading his own horse. “I wouldn’t come along, Miss, ef I was you,” he advised. “We may have some hard ridin’.”
“When did I get so I couldn’t ride with any of you?” she asked, quietly.
“There may be some fightin’,” he insisted, “an’ I wouldn’t want you-all to get hurted.”
The girl smiled, ever so slightly. “It’s good of you, ‘Smooth,’” she said; “but I understand, I think.” She swung into the saddle, and Kreff said no more.
Luke Jensen leading, they rode at a run down through the pasture, scattering the “cavvy,” and into the dense willows, emerging upon the opposite side, climbing the steep bank of the draw, and away again at top speed toward the east gate. In, silence they rode, with grim faces.
There, just beyond the fence; they found Billings — where Luke Jensen had found him. Wichita knelt beside her father and felt of his hands and face. She did not cry. Dry eyed she arose and for the first time saw that one of the men who had brought up the rear had led Scar Foot back with them; but even had she known when they started she would not have been surprised, for almost from the moment that she had seen Luke Jensen leading the horse back toward the corrals and had seen him whisper to Kreff she had expected to find just what she had found.
Tenderly the rough men lifted all that was mortal of Jefferson Billings across the saddle in which he had ridden to his death, and many were the muttered curses that would have been vented vehemently and aloud had it not been for the presence of the girl, for Billings had been shot in the back and — scalped.On walking horses the cortege filed slowly toward the ranch house, the men deferentially falling behind the led horse that bore the body of the “Boss” directly in rear of the girl who could not cry.
“He
never had a chanct,” growled one of the men. “Plugged right in the back between the shoulders!”
“God damned dirty Siwashes!” muttered another.
“I seen an Injun here yestiddy evenin’,” said Luke.
“Why the Hell didn’t you say so before?” demanded Kreff .
“I told Miss Chita,” replied the young man; “but, Lor’, it warnt him did it.”
“Wot makes you-all think it warnt?” asked Kreff.
“He’s a friend of hern. He wouldn’t have hurted her old man.”
“What Injun was it?”
“Thet Shoz-Dijiji fellow what saved me thet time I was hurted an’ lost. I know he wouldn’t hev done it. They must hev been some others around, too.”
Kreff snorted. “Fer a bloke wot’s supposed to hail from Texas you-all shore are simple about Injuns. Thet Siwash is a Cheeracow Apache an’ a Cheeracow Apache’d kill his grandmother fer a lead nickel.”
“I don’t believe thet Injun would. Why didn’t he plug me when he had the chancet?” demanded Jensen.
“Say!” exclaimed Kreff. “Thet there pinto stallion thet thet there greaser brung up from Chihuahua fer King warnt with the ‘cavvy’ this mornin’. By gum! There’s the answer. Thet there pony belonged to Shoz-Dijiji. He was a-gettin’ it when the Boss rid up.”
“They had words last time the Siwash was around here,” volunteered another.
“Sure! The Boss said he’d plug him if he ever seen him hangin’ around here again,” recalled one of the men.
At the ranch house they laid Jefferson Billings on his bed and covered him with a sheet, and then “Smooth” Kreff went to Wichita and told her of his deductions and the premises upon which they were based.
“I don’t believe it,” said the girl. “Shoz-Dijiji has always been friendly to us. I ran across him by accident in the hills yesterday, and he rode home with me because, he said, there were other renegades around and it might not be safe for me to ride alone. It must have been some other Indian who did it.”
“But his cayuse is gone,” insisted Kreff.
“He may have taken his pony;” admitted the girl. “I don’t say that he didn’t do that. It was his; and he had a right to take it, but I don’t believe that he killed Dad.”
“Your Paw didn’t have no use fer Injuns,” Kreff reminded her. “He might have taken a shot at this Siwash,”
“No; his guns were both in their holsters, and his rifle was in its boot. He never saw the man that shot him.”
Kreff scratched his head. “I reckon thet’s right,” he admitted. “It shore was a dirty trick. Thet’s what makes me know it was a Siwash.”
The girl turned away sadly.
“Don’t you worry none, Miss,” said Kreff; “I’ll look after things fer you, jes’ like your Paw was here.”
“Thanks, ‘Smooth,’ “‘replied Wichita. “You boys have been wonderful.”
After the man had left the room the girl sat staring fixedly at the opposite wall. A calendar hung there and a colored print in a cheap frame, but these she did not see. What she saw was the tall, straight figure of a bronzed man, an almost naked savage. He sat upon his war pony and looked into her eyes. “Shoz-Dijiji does not kill anyone that you love,” he said to her.
The girl dropped her face into her hands, stifling a dry sob. “Oh, Shoz-Dijiji, How could you ?” she cried.
Suddenly she sprang to her feet. Her lips were set in a straight, hard line; her eyes flashed in anger.
“Oh, God!” she cried. “You gave me love; and I threw it away upon an Indian, upon an enemy of my people; and now in your anger, you have punished me. I was blind, but you have made me to see again. Forgive me, God, and you will see that I have learned my lesson well.”
Stepping through the doorway onto the porch, Wichita seized a short piece of iron pipe and struck a triangle of iron that hung suspended from a roof joist. Three times she struck it, and in answer to the signal the men came from bunk house and corrals until all that had been within hearing of the summons were gathered before her.
Dry eyed, she faced them; and upon her countenance was an expression that none ever had seen there before. It awed them into silence as they waited for her to speak. They were rough, uncouth men, little able to put their inmost thoughts into words, and none of them ever had looked upon an avenging angel; otherwise they would have found a fitting description for the daughter of their dead Boss as she faced them now.
“I have something to say to you,” she commenced in a level voice. “My father lies in here, murdered He was shot in the back. He never had a chance. As far as we know no one saw him killed, but I guess we all know who did it. There doesn’t seem to be any chance for a doubt — it was the Be-don-ko-he war chief, Shoz-Dijiji, Black Bear.
“If it takes all the rest of my life and every acre and every critter that I own, I’m going to get the man that killed my father; and I’m starting now by offering a thousand dollars to the man who brings in Shoz-Dijiji - dead!”
When she had ceased speaking she turned and walked back into the house, closing the door after her.
The men, moving slowly toward the bunk house, talked together in low tones, discussing the girl’s offer.
Inside the house, Wichita Billings threw herself face down upon a sofa and burst into tears.
Shoz-Dijiji slid from the back of the pinto war pony, Nejeunee, in the camp of Geronimo and stood before the great war-chief of the Apaches.
“Seven times, my son,” said the old chief, “have I cast hoddentin to the four winds at evening since you rode away; seven times have I cast hoddentin to the four winds at dawn; twice seven times have I prayed to the spirits whose especial duty it is to watch over you to bring you back in safety. My prayers have been answered. What word do you bring?”
“Shoz-Dijiji went to the reservation at San Carlos,” replied the young man. “None of our friends or relatives who went out upon the war trail with us is there. I heard many stories, but I do not speak of anything that I did not see with my own eyes or hear with my own ears.
“There are many soldiers scouting everywhere. There are so many that I think all the soldiers that were sent to Mexico after us must have been called back to hunt for us here.
“The reservation Indians say that now that Miles is after us we shall all be killed. They advise us to lay down our arms and surrender. I think that very soon the soldiers will find our camp here.”
“You are a war chief, my son,” said Geronimo. “ Already you are very wise. At the councils even the old men listen to you with respect. What would you advise?”
“We are very few,” replied Shoz-Dijiji, thoughtfully. “We cannot take the war trail successfully against the pindah-lickoyee in this country where we are. Sooner or later they will kill us or capture us. This is no longer a good country for the Apache. It is our country that Usen made for us, but we cannot be happy in it any longer because of the pindah-lickoyee. Shoz-Dijiji does not wish to live here any more. Let us go to Mexico. perhaps the soldiers of the pindah-lickoyee will not again follow us into Mexico. There we may live as we would wish to live and not as the pindah-lickoyee want us to live.”
“And we can punish the Mexicans for inviting the soldiers of the pindah-lickoyee to come down to their country and kill us,” added Geronimo. “I think you have spoken true words. I think we should go to Mexico. Perhaps there we shall find all of our friends and relatives from whom we became separated when the soldiers were hunting us in Sonora and Chihuahua. Perhaps we can even be happy again. Who knows?”
And so it was that when the troopers of “B” Troop rode into the camp of Geronimo a week later they found nothing but cold ashes where the cooking fires had been and the debris of a deserted Indian village that the Apaches had not taken their usual precautions to hide, since they expected never again to return to their beloved mountains.
Far to the south, below the line, frightened peons burned many candles and said many prayers, for they had heard stories. A man
had found the bodies of three vaqueros, and he had seen the print of an Apache moccasin in the camp where they had been killed. They had not been tortured nor mutilated.
“The Apache Devil again!” whispered the peons.
A terrified freighter, a bullet through his shoulder, galloped an exhausted mule into a little hamlet. The wagon train that he had been with had been attacked by Apaches and all had been slain save he, and with his own eyes he had recognized Geronimo.
“Holy Mother, preserve us! the Apache Devil, both!”
Leaving a trail of blood and ashes behind them the renegades headed for the mountains near Casa Grande. Having committed no depredations north of the line they felt confident that the United States soldiers would not follow them into Sonora. Why should they? There was nothing for the soldiers of the pindah-lickoyee to avenge.
Thus the Apaches reasoned, since, in common with white men, they possessed the very human trait of easily forgetting the wrongs that they committed against others, even though they might always harbor those that were committed against them. So now they either forgot or ignored what the whites still considered just causes for righteous anger — burnt ranches, stolen stock, tortured men, women, and children, mutilated corpses that had emblazoned their trail through Arizona from San Carlos to the border over a year before, but the whites had no intention of permitting these occurrences to go brown in their memories.
From one end of the country to the other Geronimo and his bloody deeds occupied more front page newspaper space than any other topic, and to the readers of the newspapers of all the civilized world his name was a household word. For over a year the armies of two nations had been futilely engaged in an attempt to capture or kill a handful of men, women, and children. Geronimo and his renegades had outwitted, outgeneraled, and outfought them, and now, after again outwitting the army of the United States, they had come back to Mexico and were meting out punishment to those, whom they mistakenly believed were responsible for bringing United States troops below the border to fight them, and in carrying out this policy, they attacked every Mexican they saw after they crossed the border, all the way to Casa Grande. Nor did they desist then.
Delphi Collected Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs (Illustrated) (Series Four Book 26) Page 608