“They think your horse is a spirit horse,” Horn said in a surprisingly calm voice. “It’s that brand on him. Medicine sign, they think.”
Truly, the discussion among the warriors gathered around the horse had shifted from questions and discussion, to an argument of hushed but rising tones.
“A couple of them are hungry and want to eat him, but the others are afraid to and think it better to eat the mule,” Horn added.
The old Apache in front of Newt paused in his examination of Newt’s personal items long enough to feed a couple of larger sticks into the fire. Newt was already sweating profusely, and a drop of that sweat or blood from his head wound fell into the fire with a sizzling hiss. He bent at the waist and tried to elevate his torso higher and farther away from the heat, but it gave him little relief and he couldn’t hold the pose long.
“Never thought I would go out like this,” Horn said as if talking to himself.
The old Apache had found something of interest within the saddlebags, and he bent over and held the item close to his face, as if to see it better. By then, Newt’s forehead was beginning to sting, and a gust of wind fanned the fire for a brief instant and he heard and felt the ends of his hair singe. In time, he knew they would build the fire higher or lower him closer to it.
The old Apache held up the thing for Newt to see. It was the cardboard-backed postcard with the Redding boy’s photo on it, the one Matilda had given Newt. The old warrior asked a question of Newt in his native tongue, and then in Spanish.
Newt couldn’t understand him, for the heat had grown to the point he could barely think. He gritted his teeth and slung his head to try to find some relief.
“He’s asking you if you know the boy,” Horn said.
Newt groaned and tried again to lift himself from the waist.
“Answer him,” Horn said louder. “The boy, Jones. Answer him.”
Newt managed only to nod.
The old warrior stuffed the photograph in Newt’s vest pocket and stood and went to the mule and untied the lariat rope from the packsaddle. Newt immediately fell into the fire, and he rolled over twice in a frantic attempt to escape the burn. One shoulder of his shirt was on fire, and he ground that shoulder into the earth to put out the flames. When he finished, the old warrior was standing over him. The other warriors seemed to have finished their argument over the Circle Dot horse and came over and joined him. Newt couldn’t understand what was said, but it was obvious they wanted to know why the old warrior had cut him down.
The talk turned to an argument worse than the one over the horse, but the old warrior must have had some clout or prestige among the group, for whatever he said caused them to drag Newt back to the tree he had been originally tied to. They secured him as they had the first time and left him there while they went to sit by the fire.
Sometime later, nearing midday, they killed the pack mule and cut away its loin and portions of one hindquarter. They cooked pieces of the mule meat over their fire on willow sticks or sotol stalks and talked among themselves while they wiped at the hot grease and blood juice on their chins and gestured often at the two white men.
The Circle Dot horse stood on the far side of the fire beyond them, tied by itself and away from the other horses belonging to the Chiricahua raiding party. The gelding stood resting with one hind leg cocked and its neck sagging. Once it turned its head, and Newt thought that it looked at him. The horse’s usual, calm, bored expression somehow gave him hope. He couldn’t say why or how, but it did.
Chapter Nine
“Apaches sure do like their mule meat,” Horn observed as he and Newt watched their captors’ impromptu banquet. “Lots of Indians will eat a horse or a mule in a pinch, even a dog, but an Apache likes it. You and me? We ride a horse or mule until it’s worn out, then we let it rest and wait until it can go again. An Apache, he’ll ride that critter until it can’t go anymore, coax it a little and beat on it some and go another ten miles, and then he’ll eat it and run on foot until he can steal him something else to ride. Doesn’t like to eat turkey and won’t eat a fish or a bear to save his life, but mule? Now that’s a delicacy.”
Horn’s observation was the first thing either of them had said in an hour. Their cramped muscles and swelling wrists made it too hard to think and talk, and as the temperature rose the flies came out and picked incessantly at their wounds.
The warriors said little that seemed to pertain to their captives, rarely looking at them other than to occasionally come over and check that they were still tied securely. Most of their conversation seemed to be storytelling while they gorged on mule meat. Newt had never seen men able to eat so much, especially for men of such short stature and light weight. One of the warriors had removed his shirt as the afternoon heated up, and when he finally finished eating and lay down on the ground for a nap his belly was bloated and distended to extraordinary proportions.
“Eat like wolves,” Horn said as if reading Newt’s mind.
Newt agreed but didn’t answer him. It was a long afternoon.
After sundown most of the warriors spread blankets and lay down beside the fire. Only the old warrior and one other remained awake. Of the two, the other left the fire to go down the canyon, probably to stand some kind of guard or to check on their horses tied in the willow thicket. The old warrior remained. He swiveled his head and those sly, twinkling, obsidian eyes watched Newt like they had when Newt was hanging upside down over that fire.
The Apache brought out the photograph of the Redding boy again, and he held it up in the firelight for Newt to see. “Lo conoces?”
“He’s asking if you know the boy,” Horn said.
Newt had understood the Apache plainly. The old warrior’s Spanish was good, and better than Newt’s own skill in that language.
“He is the son of a friend,” Newt replied in hesitant Spanish, unsure if he got the words right.
“The son of a friend, a revered woman,” Horn added in the same tongue, going into more detail than Newt had. He talked passionately and long, and emphasized the part about a revered woman. The words rolled off Horn’s tongue like music, despite his miserable state—mujer viejo, mujer sabio, abuela querides, and amada—as if those terms had great importance to an Apache.
The old warrior nodded and said something that Newt couldn’t follow. He tried to ask but jumbled it and grew frustrated and looked to Horn. “Ask him if he has seen the boy.”
Horn asked and the old warrior nodded again and spoke.
“He said the boy was in their camp, but he is no longer,” Horn translated when the old warrior was finished.
Horn and the old warrior talked more, sometimes in Chiricahua, and sometimes in Spanish. Regardless of what Horn had claimed about his prowess with Apache dialects, he was obviously far better with Spanish.
“Their camp was attacked a week ago, and several women and the boy and some other children were taken,” Horn finally said.
“Taken by who?” Newt asked.
“El Sacha Sangrienta.”
Newt only recognized something about blood.
Horn saw his look of confusion and added, “The Bloody Hatchet. Only man down here with a name meaner than yours, Jones. Surprised you haven’t heard of him. They say he’s hell on wheels with a pistol. Killed twenty men, if you listen to those Mexican guitar pickers singing their corridas in every cantina between Nogales and Chihuahua City.”
“Never heard of him.”
“Rufus Clagg’s his name, but most down here call him the Hatchet, or worse,” Horn continued. “He’s one part Shawnee Injun, one part Mexican, one part white, and the rest of him is pure unadulterated killer and treacherous son of a bitch.
“He and those that ride with him are leftovers of old James Kirker’s scalp-hunting gang, or Rufus was sired by one of them or something. The songs never tell it the same. Bunch of bad-egg Mexican banditos, half-breed renegades, and gringo dry-gulchers who got run out of the States with a price on their heads. Rufus a
nd them raid where they please, trade whiskey and guns with the Indians, and rustle stolen Mexican stock over to the American side of the border. I reckon now he’s taking to stealing children to round out his sins.”
“What would he want with a bunch of Apache kids?” Newt asked. “And why would he risk traveling with them and letting them slow him down with the Apaches bound to come after them?”
“Who knows? They say Rufus is a bold one, and I’ve never met a bandit with what you would call an overabundance of caution or one I could think like. Maybe he intends to sell them off to the copper mines west of here or haul them down the Yaqui River to Guaymas and sell them off as slaves to whatever boat captain wants them.”
“If all this is true, how come they’re here, instead of running down this Hatchet and getting their kids back?” Newt asked and gestured at the old warrior and the rest of the war party. That sly look in the old warrior’s eyes made Newt skeptical of the story. The Apache could be merely making it up to cover for the fact that the boy was dead.
What little Newt knew about the Apache was that they often kept captive women and children—Mexican, white, and those from other tribes—to make wives or adopt as their own. Many known men among the Apache had Mexican mothers or grandmothers, and one of the warriors then lying beside the fire appeared to be more Mexican than Apache from his mustache and chin whiskers and other things about his look. And Newt had even seen a redheaded Apache scout while at San Carlos, obviously not of pure Apache lineage. The various bands that made up the Apache peoples had never been as numerous as other tribes, for it was a harsh land that they called home. Adopting such child captives and taking stolen wives was a way of keeping up their numbers with the constant warfare and hard living that was their lifestyle.
But not all women and children who suffered an Apache raid lived to become Apache themselves. Not by far, for just as often the warriors killed them on the spot, by whim, or especially when a raiding party needed to cover ground quickly. When a captive was taken alive, it was no guarantee that they would stay that way. Their head might be bashed in with a rifle stock or a rock if they made too much noise or if they didn’t have the endurance to stand the physical trials of such a life. Or simply when in some way they displeased their captors somewhere down the trail. Not a pleasant thing, but the way it was. Never once, since Newt had set out after the boy, had he forgotten that William Redding Jr. could have been dead even before Newt had gotten word of the kidnapping and massacre and before he had made one step toward Mexico to retrieve him.
The old warrior was saying something else to Horn while Newt had been distracted with his own thoughts.
Horn translated. “Their little band has more troubles than the Hatchet. They’ve had both the Mexican and American armies after them for almost a year now. Colonel Herrera and his soldiers are looking all over for them, along with Rurale and militia companies from several villages. Near as I can tell, the Apache and Mexicans have been killing each other for almost two hundred years or better, and every Mexican in Sonora and Chihuahua would like nothing better than to wipe them out.
“The Apache are a dying breed, even if they’re too tough and stubborn to admit it. Oh, they’re hanging on to what they can down here and avoiding the reservation for a while. But they’re running and hiding to do it, and they can’t get time to feed themselves other than raiding. That’s half the reason why Chihuahua and Loco surrendered to Crook this summer, and old Gok here and these other bucks with him are feeling the pressure. Gok or none of the renegades he runs with will admit it, but they’re worn down. All they want is to gather up all the livestock and plunder they can steal from the Mexicans and get back across the border to the reservation and lick their wounds.”
Horn had pointed at the old warrior when he first said that name, but Newt didn’t quite catch it. He nodded his head at the old warrior. “What’d you say his name was?”
Horn repeated the old warrior’s name in Chiricahua.
“Gok,” was the closest to it that Newt could understand or pronounce.
“Seems like one of the little girls that Rufus stole was Gok’s niece,” Horn added.
Newt looked at the old warrior again, Gok, and couldn’t imagine a man like that sitting there doing nothing when his little niece was taken captive and being hauled across the mountain to God knows where. Something still seemed fishy, and the crafty look about Gok made Newt more suspicious.
There was a long silence. Newt was learning that an Apache spent as much of a conversation in silence as they did speaking, and took more time to listen and ponder on what was said. That was something he admired, no matter how annoying it was at the moment.
Gok finally spoke again. His question was to Horn, but he was looking at Newt when he asked it.
Horn replied to Gok and then turned to Newt. “He wants to know about you, and I told him you were a great warrior among my people.”
“Horn, your ability for tall tales is starting to worry me,” Newt said.
“Apaches set a big store by a man’s reputation. He says he sees that you are a warrior by your scars.”
“Scars don’t have to mean anything,” Newt said.
Horn looked at Gok. “Cicatrices,” was all he said.
“Cicatrices,” Gok repeated the Spanish word for scars as if he held reverence for it. He then touched the bullet dimple on his cheek, the one above his knee, another that looked like a saber cut below one knee, then his side and then one forearm, and several other locations on his body supposedly bearing the marks of war and battle.
“He also wants to know if you are a medicine man,” Horn said.
“What?” Newt asked.
“He’s known as man who has big medicine himself, and he wonders if you are, too,” Horn said.
“What makes him think that?”
“He saw how you caused that horse to rear and fall on his friend at the river,” Horn said. “The other Apaches first thought it was you who fired and spooked the horse, but he was closer to the crossing and saw that you did not even try to shoot because you didn’t need to.”
“Is Juh dead?” Newt asked.
Horn looked stricken, and he glanced quickly at Gok and then back to Newt. “Don’t say his name. Apaches don’t speak the names of the dead. It’s bad medicine, you know?”
Gok spoke more, pausing often. Newt caught some of the parts in Spanish, but he looked to Horn for clarification and to fill in any holes in what the old warrior had said.
Horn let out a low whistle while he eased his wounded foot to a more comfortable position. “Never would have thought that.”
“Thought what?” Newt said. “What did he say? All I caught was something about the children and going after them.”
“Listen, Jones, and listen close. You play this right.”
“Play what?”
“He’ll let us go if we’ll help him go after the Hatchet.”
Newt had never looked away from Gok while he was talking to Horn, still trying to plumb what was hidden behind that wily expression of Gok’s. “You tell him what you need to tell him to get us loose.”
Horn shook his head, and his voice went quieter. “Don’t bank on him not knowing any English.”
“He’s got six warriors with him, and he’s obviously some kind of bigshot with them,” Newt said. “He doesn’t need two white men to help him.”
“He used to be a big man,” Horn said. “But he says his people have turned away from him. They blame him for the loss of the women and children, and they blame him for other things lately.”
“So those young bucks won’t go with him?”
“They want to play with us some, and when we’re dead they’ll divide up our guns and horses and go back to gather their people and head for the border. They’ve been raiding into Chihuahua for two weeks. They aren’t sure if the Mexicans haven’t already attacked their stronghold while they were gone, and that worries them. I’m thinking Colonel Herrera has hit them hard recent
ly.”
“Just us and him to go after those kids?”
“That’s right.”
“We’d have him outnumbered.”
“He says that he thinks you are a man of honor, because only such a man would come so far after a boy that isn’t his own,” Horn said. “You give him your word that you will help him try to get the children back and he will let us go.”
“He says those others won’t go with him or listen to him anymore,” Newt said. “Are they going to let us go?”
“He says they will. He has argued much with them about it, and they have agreed, whether they like it or not. That horse of yours helped things. Gok agrees with them that it’s big medicine, and maybe a spirit horse. Says that brand is a Tarahumara mark. Says those Indians aren’t good fighters, only swift runners, but there was a time when they had powerful medicine men among them.”
Newt glanced again at the Circle Dot horse, still standing on three legs asleep. Trust that horse to rest any time he got the chance, and trust that horse not to know what kind of predicament his master was in. He thought on how he had come by the horse, and the stories a certain Mexican don had told him about the gelding’s history and the odd brand.
“Tell him he has my word,” Newt said.
Horn did.
Gok woke the other warriors, relayed the state of things to them, and one of them went behind Horn and untied him once they had time to get good and awake. They saved Newt for last. Gok stood in front of him while another went behind him. The other warriors took up their weapons and stood in a semi-circle facing him beyond the fire.
Newt felt the ropes slack and then the rawhide on his wrists being slashed with a knife. He almost fell over but righted himself. His hands were too numb to function properly or at all, and with the back of one forearm he dug clumsily at the dried blood almost matting one of his eyes shut. He wasn’t sure he could get up, and he wasn’t sure that those warriors weren’t going to kill him if he did.
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