Buzzard Bait

by Brett Cogburn

  A dozen or so women and at least that many children stood up from where they had been gathered around a fire cooking and eating horsemeat. The animal’s partially butchered carcass lay nearby.

  The children that he had rescued from the Hatchet leaped from their horses and ran among those around the fire. There was at first much keening and crying with joy, and then there was laughter. Even the warriors joined in. Gok’s niece ran to one of the women, and the two threw their arms around each other. By their actions, and the presence of Gok nearby them, Newt surmised that the woman was the girl’s mother. None of the Apache warriors said anything to Horn or Newt, and they seemed to have been almost forgotten.

  Newt looked up to the smoke from the campfire floating up above the low trees. “If those Mexican soldiers had attacked me only a day ago and might still be looking for me, I wouldn’t be building fires for them to see.”

  Gok started their way with a smile on his face. It took him longer than it should to get to them, for the Apache men kept stopping him to discuss things or to pat him on the back. Horn pointed to the smoke when Gok finally reached them, and Gok gave him a brief answer.

  “He says that they have scouts out, and that Colonel Herrera’s soldiers are camped many miles to the east,” Horn said.

  Gok motioned them to get down from their horses, and they did so. The Apache women and children were shy around the white men, but the men gestured to them to come to the fire and share in the horsemeat. They were cooking big chunks of the meat on the ends of long sticks held over the flames. When the meat was done, the men ate it directly from the end of the stick, tearing off bits of it with their teeth. The cooking meat juice dripping and splattering into the fire hissed and sizzled, and that sound mixed with the smacking and the belching, and the licking and sucking of hot, greasy fingers.

  “Ain’t you coming?” Horn had started forward, but noticed that Newt remained standing by his horse.

  “I’m not eating horse.”

  “They’re going to think you a weak man, or one that thinks he is better than them. And besides, this has turned into a celebration feast. If it was a real camp there would be dancing and drinking, and we would have to tell the story of how we got their children back.”

  “If us bringing those kids back isn’t enough for them, then they can go jump on a cactus,” Newt said. “I’ve already said it once. I’m not eating horsemeat.”

  Gok was watching them closely, and he said something to Horn.

  Newt didn’t have a clue what he had said, but he didn’t wait for Horn to translate. “You tell him what I said.”

  Horn did as he was asked, but from his tone it was obvious to Newt that he gave Gok an answer that was softer and more political than the way Newt had actually said it. Gok broke into his native tongue again, and when he finished Horn was laughing.

  “He says that there is a story among his people of a Yuma scout working for the army and helping to chase Apaches. He did not like to eat horses, either,” Horn said. “The trail was rough, and the army had a horse go down with a broken leg. The Apache scouts with the army immediately butchered it and ate their bellies full. When the Yuma scout saw this he was upset and said, ‘Poor horse, work for you all day. He fall down, then you kill him and eat. Damn! No good!’”

  Even Newt laughed at that.

  “Gok says that he only wanted to feed you if you were hungry, and that none of these people will think badly of Shush Bijii if he does not eat. You aren’t Apache, and they are all used to the strange ways of white men,” Horn said.

  “What did he call me?”

  “He called you what all of them are calling you, Shush Bijii. Bear Heart,” Horn said. “Well, not all of them. I heard some of them calling you Nantan Shush. Big Chief Bear.”

  “That’s what Gok called me the day we saw the bear, isn’t it? And he said all that mumbo jumbo about bear sickness and magic.”

  “Yeah, Gok’s told all of them about that, and what matters is that they believe him.”

  “I don’t need another name.”

  “Well you’ve got one. Just go with it. That’s a powerful name among them. It gives you some clout, and you don’t have to eat horsemeat.” Horn turned and started to head to the fire.

  “What about you?” Newt asked. “You aren’t going to eat that, are you?”

  Horn looked back at him and grinned. “Like I been telling you, you need to work on your social skills. A man should never turn down a feast or a party.”

  Regardless of what Horn said, Newt noticed that he did not eat any horsemeat when he got to the fire. While he seemed a little edgy and less than his normal exuberant self, it was still a strange sight to see him visiting with the renegade Apaches, considering what he had suffered at their hands so recently. It was also strange to see them being so friendly to a white scout who had helped pursue them often and fought with them on many occasions. The more he watched, the more he began to think that Horn knew a few of them from the reservation.

  Newt turned to help Billy and Charlie down from his horse, but found that Charlie was gone. He looked around for the boy and soon saw him standing with the same Apache man he had recognized earlier. The warrior had his hand on Charlie’s head and was telling him something.

  “Get down, Billy,” Newt said. “I need to loosen the cinch on this horse and take him to water.”

  Billy shook his head. “I don’t want to.”

  “Get down.” Newt held out his arms to the boy but kept his attention on Charlie and the Apache while he waited.

  “I don’t want them to kill me,” Billy said.

  “They won’t kill you. They won’t hurt you at all. They’re happy to have their children back, just like your daddy and grandma are going to be when I take you back to them in a few days.”

  Billy clammed up again, and Newt had to physically pull him from the saddle. Billy didn’t fight him, but his eyes were watered up when Newt sat him down.

  “They killed my momma,” Billy said.

  Newt looked at the fire and the group around it. “You mean you see one of them that did it?”

  Billy rubbed at his eyes and studied the Apaches intensely. “No, but they look like them, and they eat horses like they did after they chased our wagon down.”

  “You don’t have to eat horse, Billy. I’m not.”

  “They made me eat some. They hit Momma in the head with rocks, then made me eat horse right there where I could see her.”

  “That’s all over now. I won’t let any of them hurt you or make you do things that you don’t want to.”

  Newt watered the Circle Dot horse at the spring, then led Billy under a shade tree where they sat down together while the horse grazed close at hand. Billy said nothing else, but every time an Apache adult walked nearby he leaned close to Newt and wouldn’t take his eyes off of them.

  Charlie walked over to the fire with the Apache he had been talking to. Newt tried to wave the boy over to him, but Charlie only smiled and went to stand beside Horn. He took up a stick with a chunk of raw meat and held it over the fire, and several of the Apaches pointed at him or called playful greetings to him. Horn was keeping watch on the boy, and that gave Newt some comfort.

  Around the camp, the Apache children ran and played and squealed with delight, and some of the kidnapped children were among them. Newt was amazed at the resiliency of those kids, and could only hope that Billy had that same metal within him. The boy showed signs of getting better every day, but he was a long way from being what he likely was before he was taken.

  Newt must have dozed off for a while, for the next thing he knew Horn was flopping down beside him. Charlie was with him. He put his hands on his little swollen belly and lay flat on his back. Billy had fallen asleep leaning against Newt’s shoulder.

  “I couldn’t eat another bite,” he said.

  “You could thump this little horse eater’s belly and it would sound like a ripe watermelon,” Horn said.

  “How come y
ou didn’t eat?” Charlie asked Newt.

  “Charlie, I want you to stay with me from here on out,” Newt said.

  Horn noticed something in Newt’s look. “Instead of napping over here you should have come over and talked with them.”

  “I’ve got nothing much to say to them. They got their kids back, and I’ll ride on and that will be that.”

  “I get the feeling that you don’t have any use for Apaches,” Horn said.

  “I don’t have much use for these Apaches, no.” Newt stretched his aching leg out straight in front of him.

  “Gok was in on torturing us, and you still talk to him.”

  “Matter of necessity, but I won’t be inviting him to sit down to supper when we get done with this trip, and he better not let me see him again after we part.”

  “Still . . .” Horn started to say.

  “Say what you want to, but I’m sure there are those among this bunch that probably killed these boys’ parents or would have if they had the chance. There’s Gok and another one over there I see that burned the skin off of you, and they likely have done the same to others. They’ve killed women and children and raided ranches, and stolen anything they can lay hand to. I can bear being with them for now, but I won’t be a hypocrite and act like I like them.”

  Horn cleared his throat, stalling and trying to get the words right for what he wanted to say. “Might be hard for you coming down here and seeing how it is, and you’re right that some of the Apache have done horrible things, especially the Chiricahua. Crook’s got that part right, and I don’t see any way but to whip the troublemakers and kill them until there ain’t none of them left that have any fight in them.

  “But so have the Mexicans done bad things, too, and the same with our own people. You already know that. The Mexicans have kidnapped Apache children and killed women and burned villages, and our own army has done the same. We’ve strong-armed the Apaches’ land away from them because we want it or need it; we’ve put them on reservations under a system so crooked and messed up that they starve and die of sicknesses that they’ve never known.”

  “If those were bad white men over there, or Mexican either one, I wouldn’t have any use for them, either, no more than I do these Apache,” Newt said.

  Horn took a stem of dried grass and put it between his lips and let it bob around while he talked. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that there has been plenty of wrongs done on all sides. I’ve hunted bad Apaches and put a few of them under. Was glad to do it, but I’ve also known some good folks among them. I don’t mean to sound like some Quaker Indian lover, but you can’t ever forget that they don’t think like we do. They’ve got their ways, and if you’ll look close enough you’ll probably find things that you like.”

  “They can have their ways, but that doesn’t mean those ways are mine,” Newt said. “They picked me for an enemy, and not the other way around. I don’t know how to fight a man I like, and I don’t know how to like a man that hurt me or my own.”

  Horn pitched his grass stem away and got to his feet. “Damn, Jones, do you know how much you sound like an Apache right now? That’s what I’m talking about.”

  “Go on,” Newt said. “No sense picking at this anymore.”

  “Well, you’re the one that keeps saying the only important thing is to get these boys back home. Two of those men over there were sent down here by General Crook to tell these people that the army has a troop of cavalry waiting for them at the border. If you can bear not to start a fight with these Apaches a little bit longer, it would be safer for us and for the women and children if we travel with them in force.”

  “Then that’s what we’ll do,” Newt answered.

  When Horn was gone, Charlie rolled over on his side so he could look at Newt. “Mr. Jones, do you have any family?”

  “Some. Haven’t seen them in a long, long time. Not since I left home and came out West,” Newt said.

  “What about your mother and father?”

  “My pa’s heart stopped on him while he was plowing a field when I was fourteen, and my ma’s been gone for a few years now.”

  “You miss ’em?”

  “Sure I do, time to time. I used to get letters from my brother and sister.”

  “Do you ever think about going to see them?”

  “Oh, I’ve thought about it, but I don’t know what I’d say to them after all these years. I’m different from them, and they’ve got their own lives to live and families to take care of.”

  Charlie rolled onto his back again and stared up at the sky. “My sisters are bossy. They don’t like me ’cause I’m the baby of the family.”

  “You’ve got sisters?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I bet they like you just fine. The youngest one always gets picked on a little or spoiled.”

  “They never did like it out here after we left Kansas. Mother didn’t like it, either.”

  “You like it though, don’t you?”

  Charlie only nodded and continued looking at the sky. After a while he asked, “Do you like it out here?”

  “Reckon I do, the good parts, anyway.”

  “Me too,” Charlie said. “Does it bother you, being by yourself?”

  “Been so long at it that I guess I’ve gotten used to it.”

  “But does it bother you?”

  “Mostly no.”

  Charlie sighed and then said, “Me neither.”

  “Charlie, I want you to stay away from that Apache man you were talking to. You stick close to me from here on out. You hear me?”

  “He’s not so bad. He treated me nice and taught me things.”

  “Charlie, those Apaches are who killed your parents. I know all this is hard for a boy your age to get a handle on, but don’t you forget that.”

  “He didn’t kill them, and he was the one that made the rest of them be nice to me,” Charlie said. “He had his own little boy, but he died.”

  “He stole you.”

  “I remember them that killed Father and Mother,” Charlie said. “I’ll get them one of these days when I’m bigger if I get the chance. I don’t know how I’ll do it, but I will.”

  “You need to go back to be with your family. I hear your uncle and them are very upset and have been looking for you for a long time,” Newt said. “You go back home and play with your friends and pester your sisters, and be a boy for a while. Maybe one day you’ll be a judge like your daddy was.”

  “No, I don’t want to be a judge. Father was always sitting in his office reading his books. I like being outside.”

  “You read plenty of those books and go to school if you don’t want to end up like me.”

  “I want to learn to shoot a gun like you,” Charlie said. “Father didn’t use his much, and he didn’t shoot good when Chatto came after us. I won’t be like that.”

  “You’ll think different when you’ve had time to grow. Guns and fighting aren’t the measure of a man.”

  “Mr. Horn says—”

  “Oh, so you’re listening to Mr. Horn now?”

  “He says . . . what did he call you? He says you’re a thoroughly dangerous man. He calls you the Widowmaker sometimes when you’re not around.”

  “He does, does he?”

  “You got that name fighting.”

  “Any man can fight. What you want to do is be a man that does things or builds things.”

  “If I could fight like you I could get other little kids back that were stolen.”

  “Arguing with you is like arguing with Mr. Horn,” Newt said. “What matters is that we’re going to take you back home, and everything will be better and seem different in time.”

  Newt had been watching Gok while he talked to the boy. The old warrior had left his tribesmen and gone to sit under a tree alone. At first Newt thought he had eaten too much horsemeat and needed to take a nap, but he saw Gok watching the children play instead of sleeping. He seemed content and as relaxed as Newt had ever seen him.


  Newt got up when he saw Horn nearby. He limped over to him and pointed at Gok. “You would never look at him right now and know what an old devil he is. Looks like nothing but somebody’s grandpa.”

  “He’s happy,” Horn said. “The only warriors left in Mexico are loyal to him, but there is much bad blood between him and those back at San Carlos. Bringing those children back might help his name.”

  “What did he do to lose face?”

  “Many things. He raids when many want peace, and he has lost many of their sons on the war path,” Horn said. “Many don’t trust his word anymore and think he puts himself above the people.”

  “That isn’t all, is it?”

  “No. Do you remember that fight I told you about when Colonel Herrera ambushed those Apaches and sold the women as slaves?”

  Newt nodded that he did.

  Horn continued. “Well so happens that Gok was there. And when the Mexicans set fire to the grass and brush to try and smoke the Apaches out, Gok suggested that the Apache infants should be strangled so that they did not cry when they tried to slip away under the cover of the smoke. And then he said that the women should be shot if they did not agree with him.

  “Maybe he was frustrated and said that in anger. The heat of battle, you know. But the people heard him. His own cousin threatened to shoot him if he suggested anything like that again. The people remember those things.”

  “No wonder he wanted to get those children back,” Newt said.

  “I’d say that was the case, plus the fact that Gok has lost many of his own women and children over the years.”

  “Wily old devil, that’s what he is.”

  “True, but you’ve seen how he dotes on that niece of his,” Horn said.

  Newt quit watching Gok and looked to the sun low on the western horizon. “When will we ride? Might be best if we travel by night.”

  “I agree, but these Apaches want to wait until morning.”

  “Why?”

  “They won’t say.”

  “Then we go on without them.”