“Some say the Apache are primitive savages,” Horn said. “That may be. They’re a hard people, for sure, but I guarantee you there are worse kinds of savage. And it never has anything to do with the color of a man’s skin or what tribe he belongs to.”
Once the horses had rested the three moved on, mere specks crawling across the windswept plain and working ever slowly to the southeast. Often, they checked their back trail for signs of Colonel Herrera’s soldiers or some posse from Janos in pursuit. Pretty Buck scouted far ahead.
They reached the San Miguel River late in the day and rode past the earthen ruins of a massive pueblo. What remained of the clay mud walls were so ancient and desiccated as to be the color of pale buckskin, and with the setting sun behind them they shined on the flat desert like a beacon. Newt had seen other such ruins in his travels but never one that struck him as this one did. Without knowing why he did so, he veered from his course and rode closer to the ruined city.
Once upon a time there had been a great central plaza, ancient ball courts, pens for breeding exotic parrots from the jungles of Central America whose feathers could be sent along the trade roads to the north, shops for artisans and craftsmen, and a labyrinth of multi-storied homes and apartments rising up like a monument to power. Now there were not many walls left standing higher than a man’s head on horseback, and pack rats scurried in the rubble.
He rode silently through the skeleton heart of the fossil that the old city had become. Chunks of adobe and fragile bits of bone crushed beneath his horse’s hooves in clouds of red dust, carried away by the wind that blew through the ruin walls and howled like a banshee.
He knew nothing of the kind of people who might have built and ruled over such a place, but he understood the last stroke delivered at its end. The mark of war was there to see. The soot-blackened, charred timbers amid the collapsed rubble told a story of fire and conquest, of life given over to a bitter end. For an instant, that banshee wind might have been the wailing of the defenders as raiders and their torches finally breeched the pueblo’s walls.
When he heard another crunch of his horse’s hooves he stopped and leaned from the saddle and stared at the broken bits of an ornately painted piece of kiln-fired pottery. Parrot feathers that had been contained within that pot, so old that they were bleached of color, fell apart like ashes and drifted away on the wind.
Horn rode up while he leaned from the saddle. Ignoring him, Newt stared hard and long into the years and seasons beneath him, feeling a truth overwhelm him that he lacked the words for. Layers of earth upon layers of earth; city upon city; time stacked upon older times; bones and pottery shards lying upon more bones and pottery shards; all the living and dying, and living and dying in the entirety of the world returned to dust from whence it came.
“What are you looking at?” Horn asked.
Newt straightened in the saddle, blinked at Horn as if he were surprised at his presence, then turned his horse away and shook his head. “The future.”
Horn followed him toward the river. “What future? I don’t see anything but an old dead town.”
“Mine. Yours. We’ve all got it coming in the end. Some leave a mark, some don’t.”
“My, but ain’t you a ray of sunshine,” Horn said.
“It is what it is.”
“Well, begging your pardon if I don’t give up the ghost and fall over right this instant,” Horn said. “I’d like to stick around a little longer, if you don’t mind.”
“Dying ain’t hard. It’s living that takes a man’s measure.”
“Is that your edge, Widowmaker? That you ain’t scared of dying?” Horn asked.
“Edge? Kid, I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”
A slight frown formed on Horn’s mouth, but he shook it off. “Every man like you with a gun reputation has got him some kind of edge. They say Clay Allison is crazy in the head, Wild Bill never missed a shot, and Doc Holliday has enough nerve to sit down to breakfast with the Devil himself and tell the bastard to shut up and pass the biscuits.”
“Kid, Hickok got himself shot in the back of the head, and mark my words, those other two aren’t headed for anything but an early grave. That’s all your so-called edge will get you.”
Horn’s usual cocky, boyish expression disappeared, and all the playfulness drained out of him in an instant, until there was nothing but a strange stillness on his face and a cold look in his eyes. “Don’t call me kid anymore. I don’t like it.”
Newt noticed the quaver of barely controlled anger in Horn’s voice, and he realized other things then about Horn that he had misjudged. “All right, I won’t call you kid.”
Horn tried to bring back his usual lightheartedness, but there was still that intensity in his stare, as if he couldn’t let it go, and is if something else and something older were eating at him. “My daddy beat me every chance he could because I was his kid and he could, so I run off from him and headed west. Ever’ place I stopped along the way somebody was calling me kid, no matter that I’ve been living by my own wits and doing a grown man’s work since I was fourteen. And they called me a shavetail when I first went to freighting and packing for the army. Every time I turned around there was somebody hacking on me, but I’ve come a far piece since then. And nobody is going to call me anything but my name.”
“Take it easy. You’re working yourself up over nothing.”
“Maybe nothing to you. I guess you think me being willing to fight over something like that is silly,” Horn said, the passion creeping back into his voice. “But I’ll fight you for it, Jones. They say you’re as tough as they come and maybe you look down on me, but I’ll fight you just the same ’cause I think it’s worth fighting over.”
“Horn, you figure out what’s worth fighting over and you’ve done more than most men. Might be that you’ll leave a mark before you go.”
Whatever else Horn might have said was interrupted by Pretty Buck running across the plain toward them. He was whipping his horse with a braided rawhide quirt and asking for all the speed it had.
“He’s riding like his tail’s on fire,” Newt observed while he gathered his reins to hold his suddenly excited horse in place.
“Whatever it is ain’t good.” Horn stuck the spurs to his horse and slapped it across the top of its hips with his hat.
The Circle Dot horse squatted for a second on its hindquarters and then bolted after Horn’s horse so hard that Newt was rocked backward in the saddle. At that same time a gun boomed.
It was less than two hundred yards to the river, and Pretty Buck swung in with them as they neared the flood bank. His long hair flew straight behind him and he was leaned low over his horse’s neck. Another gunshot sounded as they spurred their horses off the high embankment and hit the river at a dead run. The water was chest deep to their mounts at midstream, and the horses crossed in high, slow lunges. Twice little dimpled burps of water appeared beside Newt, and it wasn’t until the second one that he realized it was bullets striking the water beside him. He looked back behind him, but the ride was too wild and the confusion too great to make out who was doing the shooting.
Pretty Buck was the first to reach the far side, and he bailed from his horse and led it into a thicket behind a pile of driftwood. By the time Newt and Horn had dismounted, Pretty Buck was already kneeling behind a rotten cottonwood log with his Springfield carbine resting across it.
Newt threw a hasty wrap of rein around a mesquite limb, jerked his Winchester out of its boot, and ducked through the brush until he found a spot to belly down off the right end of the log Pretty Buck had taken a stand behind. Horn knelt on the opposite end. Another bullet smacked into the cottonwood log in front of them, showering them with bark and debris.
Newt raised his head up and searched the opposite side of the river. He could make out nothing in the failing light other than dust and the occasional flash of something moving behind it. He glanced to his side and saw Horn pushing the brim of his hat out
of the way and up against the crown before he brought his rifle to his shoulder.
“Congratulations!” Horn said as he thumbed back his rifle hammer and pressed his cheek against the stock.
“For what?” Newt asked.
No sooner than he asked, an Indian appeared on foot out of the dust on the far side of the river. He was there and then he wasn’t, running and then fading into the ground like he had never been there at all. And then another Indian appeared at a different point, making a quick dash and then dissolving into the sand like magic. Another bullet whined over their heads.
“For what?” Newt shouted again at Horn.
Horn’s Winchester cracked and slammed against his shoulder, and he levered another round home before he took the time to look Newt’s way. “You found your Apaches, Widowmaker. Real friendly, ain’t they?”
Chapter Seven
Newt swung his rifle to the next Apache he saw moving across the river. It was two of them this time, moving in perfect tandem, as if they synchronized their assault some way for purposes of confusion. He chose the one on his right and tried to take aim.
As before, the warrior disappeared behind cover before he could fire, but he kept his rifle sights aimed at the place, waiting for his target to show himself again. To his dismay, when the warrior did move again he did not rise up from the same position where he went to ground, but rather from a point several yards away. Newt swung the muzzle of the Winchester and snapped a shot as the warrior was going to ground again, but he knew he was too hurried and had missed the instant he pulled the trigger. While he had been wasting a shot, another Apache took the opportunity to make a short rush forward.
Newt cursed his own foolishness and waited for the Apache he had fired at to move again, trusting Horn and Pretty Buck to handle any others encroaching upon them. He thought he was beginning to understand the Apache tactics of closing with an enemy, and instead of holding on the spot where the Apache had disappeared, he moved his aim about three yards to the left. Some kind of long-stemmed agave plant or yucca bush offered a bit of cover there among a stretch of bare ground, and he guessed that the Apache might crawl toward it and use it to screen the beginnings of his next rush.
The Apache was patient, and he waited long before he moved again. Newt was beginning to doubt that he would appear at all, so it surprised him when the warrior finally lurched to his feet from behind the very bush he was watching. He pulled the trigger the instant he saw a flash of movement pass before his front sight, and was rewarded to hear a grunt of pain and to see the Apache fall awkwardly to the ground. Newt levered another round into the Winchester and fired a second bullet into the yucca. That follow-up shot must have come close, for it flushed the warrior from his hiding spot and he raced along the riverbank in a wild, weaving run and dove behind a hump of ground. Newt was disappointed that in three shots he had been unable to shoot truer, but he was pleased to note that the Apache appeared to have been limping.
Horn hadn’t fired another shot since his first one, and he had dug the ground out a little with his sheath knife so that less of him was exposed above the log. The Apaches continued to fire an occasional shot their way, but none of them came close to hitting one of them, and that gunfire, too, soon slowed down.
A loud, shrill war cry sounded from across the river, and it was answered with another whoop by one of the Apaches.
Horn lowered his rifle from his shoulder and scratched at the back of his neck. “Something’s wrong. Apaches usually fight quiet. They don’t get loud until it’s over or they’re right on top of you and finishing you off.”
As if to prove him wrong, another round of war cries went up on the far side of the river. This time it came from several of the Apaches over there. A couple of them were even laughing.
Horn said something to Pretty Buck, and the Apache scout seemed to agree with whatever it was. The Apaches across the river started laughing again and called out ribald challenges to them.
“I think they’re drunk,” Horn said. “That’s what I think.”
Newt reflected on how poorly the Apaches had shot, when any of the trio should have been easy pickings while crossing the river. And the laughter sounded odd. Nothing about a fight ought to be that funny.
One of the Apaches called out to them. Pretty Buck said something back, and there followed a long exchange in their native tongue. The firing from the Apache side ceased.
Newt listened and kept a close eye out for their attackers trying to crawl closer while Horn and Pretty Buck were distracted by all the talk.
“That’s Juh’s boys over there,” Horn said. “They say they aren’t drunk, but they’ve come from Casas Grandes. I guarantee you they stole them some mezcal or traded for some. They’re so soused they can hardly talk.”
The gray light of dusk had about given way to darkness. Newt squinted across the river. “What else are they saying?”
“I think old Juh himself is doing most of the talking. He wants us to come out and talk,” Horn said. “Claims they thought we were Mexicans and this was all a mistake.”
“You aim to talk to him, or do we wait it out and give them the slip when it’s full dark?” Newt asked.
“He can talk all he wants from over there,” Horn said with a scoff. “He’s drunker than I think he is if he believes I’m going out in the open for a little powwow.”
“Ask them about the boy.”
“Done did. He ain’t talking unless we come out face to face and show we’ve got good hearts.”
“You told me it was him or some of his bunch that likely took the boy.”
“If the boy made it to Mexico, Juh will know of him.”
“You tell him I’m coming out.”
Horn did a double take. “Do you hear what you’re saying? Apaches are mean enough when they’re sober. You give them too much tiswin or Mexican firewater and they’ll fight a buzz saw for the fun of it.”
“Go ahead and tell him that we want to trade for the boy.”
Horn called out across the river again. He paused often as if straining for the right words. Twice he stopped to speak with Pretty Buck in Spanish, and it was the Apache scout who relayed the last of their message. The Apaches across the river seemed to think on it some, for the brief answer they gave was a long time coming.
“He wants to know what you offer as ransom,” Horn said.
“Tell him to name his price.”
Horn started to say something else to the Apaches but pointed across the river instead. “You tell him yourself.”
A gray horse was visible across the river, even in the poor light. All Newt could tell about it was that there was an Apache on its back. The Apache rider rode slowly down the riverbank and onto the gravel bar that made up the shallow shoals. Newt started to get to his feet.
“I’m telling you, don’t go out there,” Horn said.
Newt rose slowly behind the log, half expecting to be shot at. He passed behind Horn and Pretty Buck, then headed to meet the warrior on the gray horse.
“I’m telling you, this ain’t a good idea,” Horn said.
“Put that on my tombstone.” Newt did not stop. He carried his Winchester in the fold of his left elbow.
Pretty Buck surprised him and fell in behind him when he passed. The scout said nothing, and Newt couldn’t ask why he was willing to come along. Horn remained behind the log, shaking his head in dismay and cursing under his breath.
It was only fifty yards to reach a point at the water’s edge opposite of the Apache on horseback waiting for them, but the walk there seemed to Newt to take forever. Sounds that he had not noticed before suddenly became loud, like the sound of his own footsteps and the grind of gravel under the Apache’s restless and stamping horse. A locust buzzed its wings and croaked and hummed somewhere in the night.
Only fifty yards separated Newt and Pretty Buck from the mounted Apache when they finally stopped—nothing but wide open space and a narrow strand of water between them. A three-quart
er moon was already glowing overhead, and Newt knew that there was enough light reflected off the water for any of the Chiricahuas still hidden along the riverbank to see him good enough to try a shot.
The Apache on the horse said nothing, and Newt responded in the same manner. There seemed to be some waiting game that Newt did not understand beyond a faint intuition that he should not speak first. Pretty Buck stood beside him, and he, too, kept his silence.
The nearness and the wait gave Newt time to study his adversary. He was unable to make out much detail, other than the warrior wore some kind of Mexican army coat, and the brass buttons on it gleamed faintly in the moonlight. The nervous movements of the Apache’s horse also seemed to give him trouble, for he rocked and reeled on the horse’s back.
The mounted Apache finally spoke, and Pretty Buck translated what he said into Spanish. “That is Juh. He asks who are you, and why you look for a white boy.”
“Tell him that I am the boy’s uncle.”
Pretty Buck acted as if he knew that was a lie but went with it anyway. More words passed between the scout and the warrior across the river. Newt watched as the warrior rode his horse knee-deep into the river, moving that much closer to them. His words seemed to become more belligerent and agitated, and Newt noticed for the first time that his speech sounded somewhat slurred.
“He says that his people do not have such a boy, and he thinks you only come to make trouble for them,” Pretty Buck translated again into Spanish.
Newt’s Spanish was far from perfect, and he wasn’t sure he was catching everything that Pretty Buck meant to tell him.
At that moment the warrior let his horse come a few steps closer. He shouted something and lifted an object in his right hand. Newt almost brought up his Winchester, ready for the Apache to charge at them brandishing a war club or a pistol. But he quickly saw that the object the warrior held was only a small clay jug. The warrior turned the jug up to his lips and shouted again once he lowered it again.
“He wants to fight you,” Pretty Buck said.
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