Since childhood, Vasquez had liked to read sign, an interest sparked by his grandfather who had learned the art when young from a friendly Indian. The old man had taken him out into the hills, almost as soon as he could walk, to teach him all about the various types of prints and how to tell whether a track was one day or ten days old. He’d learned how to determine gait, stride, height, weight, and sometimes the gender, by the size, depth, and angle of the impressions in the soil. Even in his early teens he had been widely recognized as the most skilled tracker in all northern Mexico.
Vasquez thought of his grandfather now and felt melancholy. The old man had been slain by Apaches, as had Vasquez’s brother and cousin. The three had been part of a small conducta caught in a mountain pass by a roving band and promised safe passage if they would lay down their arms to show their peaceful intentions. The fool of a wagon master had agreed. Hardly had the men disarmed themselves than the Apaches pulled out their knives and war clubs and went to work with sadistic glee. The women and children were taken captive: the men were tied upside down to wagon wheels, and fires were lit under their heads.
As a result, Vasquez hated Apaches even more than he did most Americanos. Any opportunity to hunt them down, he took. This new job held added appeal because Gillett had promised him a large bonus if he brought back Taggart’s head, swinging from a pole.
Vasquez needed the money. A frugal man, except where his personal appearance was involved, he had saved a hefty sum over the years. With the bonus thrown in he might have enough to bribe certain officials in Sonora into letting him return in safety. He would be able to see his aged parents again and to hold his dear sister in his arms.
At the bunkhouse door Vasquez paused to gaze at the corral. Santee was leading his mount into the stable. There went the fly in the ointment, as the Americans might say. Unpredictable as a grizzly, Santee might spoil the whole plan if his temper reared at the wrong time.
Vasquez wasn’t about to let that happen. He would do whatever he could to put an end to the so-called White Apache, and if circumstances dictated putting an end to Billy Santee, then that was precisely what he would do. He could always make it look like an accident.
Humming to himself, Surgio Vasquez went inside.
Chapter Four
There are those who would say that Clay Taggart lived a charmed life. Certainly, the events that led up to the bloodiest reign of terror in Arizona’s early history would lend support to their view. Lynched by vigilantes, he was spared from certain death by bloodthirsty Apaches. Trapped by scalp hunters in northern Mexico, he narrowly escaped to fight on. And on this day, as Delgadito the Chiricahua lunged at Clay Taggart’s broad back to push Taggart to his death, that same mysterious hand of fate was at work again. For a fraction of an instant before Delgadito surged forward, Clay spotted movement in the canyon leading to their sanctuary and shifted to get a better view. As he did, two things happened. His right foot slid too close to the edge of the ledge and the brittle earth gave way under his weight, while simultaneously, he felt something brush against his right arm.
Gravity carried Clay over the edge. For a frantic second he hung half-suspended in midair, his arms flailing. Then he did the only thing he could do under the circumstances; he twisted and grabbed for Delgadito to keep from plummeting to his death.
For one of the few times ever, Delgadito was taken completely unawares. Startled by the white-eye’s unexpected action, he reacted instinctively, holding on tightly to keep Taggart from falling, just so he wouldn’t be pulled to his own death, thereby doing the exact opposite of what he had planned. Instead of shoving White Apache to certain doom, he had saved White Apache’s life by yanking the white man back onto the ledge. So swiftly did it all take place that they were standing in safety side by side before either of them had time to think about what had happened.
Clay grinned self-consciously and said, “Much obliged, partner. That was a mite too close for my liking.”
Delgadito could only stare at his own hands in disbelief.
“I owe you again,” Clay went on. “And somehow I aim to find a way to repay you.” He clapped the warrior on the arm and laughed. “We make quite a pair, don’t we? You watch my back, I’ll watch yours, and we just might wind up seeing old age after all.”
The Apache glanced up, furious at the silly white-eye for daring to think he truly cared whether Taggart lived or not. In his anger he was all set to finish the job he had started when he, too, spied movement below and saw several of the figures gazing up at them.
“Palacio?” Clay asked in Apache.
“Palacio,” Delgadito growled, not only because he disliked the leader, but also because Palacio’s untimely arrival had spoiled his chance to destroy Taggart.
“You really do hate him, don’t you? Maybe you’d better let the others do the talking. You might say something that’ll get his dander up and ruin the whole deal.”
“A man who cannot control his tongue is no man at all,” Delgadito said gruffly, and turned to descend.
Clay did likewise, first checking that his twin Colts were securely wedged under the top of his breechcloth and that his Winchester hung securely by its leather sling across his back. In addition to the guns, he had a Bowie knife on his right hip, a dagger tucked inside the top of his right moccasin, and a throwing knife tucked inside his left moccasin. He was a walking arsenal, and glad to be one, since an Apache’s life often depended on his weapons.
Delgadito gave a yip to alert the others to Palacio’s arrival and hurried so he could rejoin them before the chief’s band came through the defile. He had already shut the incident on the ledge from his mind. Brooding over it would serve no purpose, and there would always be another day.
Clay had likewise forgotten about it in his nervousness over the impending get-together. He had never met Palacio, never met any of the warriors who were attending, and he was more than a little worried over how they would treat him. Even though these were Apaches who had accepted reservation life, at heart most Apaches despised their white conquerors. Would they try to kill him as Fiero had done that time?
Once on firm footing Clay hurried to a bare clearing at the base of a knoll, where Delgadito and the others had taken seats facing the entrance. All except Ponce, who was making a fire. Beside Delgadito rested a large pipe and a pouch of precious tobacco.
Clay glanced at the defile and saw the first of the warriors materialize. His stomach did flip-flops. Hastening to the clearing, he paused, debating where to sit.
Delgadito solved the problem by indicating a spot next to him.
“I’ve never been to one of these powwows before,” Clay mentioned, sinking cross-legged to the ground. “Are there any rules I should know?”
“Rules?” Delgadito repeated, trying to recall if he had heard that word before.
“Things to do. Things not to do.”
“Only not to speak unless you are called on,” Delgadito said. “Palacio or someone else will talk for his side. I talk for ours.”
A full dozen warriors were now in the hidden valley, advancing on foot in single file. At their head was the first, and only, fat Apache Clay had ever seen. The man fancied himself, judging from his strut as he walked and the colorful attire he wore—a yellow headband, a bright red shirt, and leggings adorned with rows of red and blue beads. This dandy halted a yard in front of Delgadito and declared in an uncommonly high-pitched voice, “I come as a friend.”
“We greet you as friends.”
“Smoke with us and we will hear your words.”
The fat Apache was surprisingly supple, as he demonstrated by his fluid motion as he sat. His rifle went across his ample thighs, and he gave each of the outcasts a steady look. Clay, he ignored.
A bad sign, Clay reflected, made worse because the fat one had to be Palacio. His right hand held so that his fingers brushed the butt of one of his pistols; he kept his features impassive in order not to betray his thoughts. The other Apaches, he observe
d, did not share their chief’s lack of interest. Each and every one scrutinized him.
Delgadito filled the pipe and lit it. He offered the stem to Palacio, who puffed solemnly, then smoked it himself and passed it to his right. One by one, the Apaches participated, and when all were done with the token symbol of their peaceful intentions, Delgadito set the pipe aside and said, “Now to the matter that has brought you here.”
“Your messenger did not have much to say on the subject,” Palacio said, “but I can guess. Tell me your desire, my brother.”
“We grow lonely up here. We want to be able to move among our people now and then.”
“I speak with the heart of feeling when I say that I would like to help you,” Palacio replied. “But you must understand that you have brought this upon your own heads.”
Clay saw Fiero frown and Cuchillo Negro bow his head.
Delgadito was a rock. “We are the first to admit, Palacio, that we should never have abandoned reservation life and gone to live in Mexico. I am to blame, and I alone, since I was the one who convinced the others to go with me. I was the one who promised them we would live as our ancestors did in the old days, free as the eagle with no one to tell us how we must dress or behave.”
“I am sad for my brother,” Palacio said, but his face did not show any sadness. “When I heard of Blue Cap’s raid on your camp and the loss of all your women and children, I became like a woman and wanted to shed tears for the many lost lives.” But neither Palacio’s tone nor his manner confirmed the torment he claimed to have endured. “I wanted to go to the reservation agent and urge him to let my brothers live in peace once again.”
“But you did not,” Delgadito said.
Palacio never missed a beat. “The time for words is long past, old friend. Too many Americans and Nakai-yes have fallen to your rifle and knife for them to smoke the pipe with you.” He leaned forward and said in reproach, “You chose your path, and you must live with the consequences.”
Clay felt sorry for Delgadito. His friend had held high hopes for the meeting, and it was not going well at all. He was inclined to speak in Delgadito’s defense, but doing so would be a breach of Apache etiquette, so he held his peace.
“It is true we all live according to the paths we have picked,” Delgadito said after some reflection. “Yet is it not also true that we may change our paths at any time?”
“I respect your wishes but sometimes we go too far on one path to turn back or to go another way.”
“We would simply like to walk among our own kind again,” Delgadito said wearily.
“I cannot give my approval. If you were caught, the army would throw you in the stone wickiup with iron bars. You would be left to rot or sent to the land of many swamps. And that would be your business. But our people would be made to suffer on account of you. The white-eyes would cut back on our rations as punishment for sheltering you.”
“We would come and go without being caught.”
“The white-eyes you can fool, yes, but not the Shis-Inday, who now scout for the army and the reservation police. They would hear of your visits and hunt you down.”
Silence fell. Clay knew there was nothing Delgadito could say that would change Palacio’s mind. They must go on living as outcasts for the rest of their lives, shunned by the very ones they sought to free. “It’s just not fair,” he muttered in English, and when he looked up, he was shocked to discover everyone staring at him.
“What is not fair, Clay Taggart?” Palacio asked in clipped English.
“You speak my tongue?” Clay said. “And you know who I am?”
“I was one of the smart ones who learned your tongue when the first white-eyes came to our land. I also speak the tongue of the Nakai-yes and the Maricopas,” Palacio boasted. “As for you, who among the Shis-Inday has not heard of Lickoyee-shis-inday?”
“I had no idea I was so well known.”
The fat Apache glanced at Delgadito and reverted to his own tongue. “It should not surprise you to hear that warriors laugh at you behind your back because you have taken this white fool into your band.”
Clay should have kept quiet, but he never had been able to abide insults, no matter who did the insulting. In crisp, precise Apache, he snapped, “Who are you to call me a fool? At least I stand by my friends when they are in trouble, which is more than can be said about you.”
The remark was directed at Palacio, yet it was another, younger warrior who sprang to his feet and whipped a rifle to his shoulder. “You will keep quiet, dog, when your betters are talking.”
“Show me one of you who is my better and I will,” Clay retorted.
“Die, white-eye, so that I may have many horses,” the young warrior barked. He sighted down the barrel as he slipped his forefinger through the trigger guard.
Clay didn’t wait to learn what would happen next. His right arm flashed up and out, and his Colt banged once. The bullet struck the Apache in the shoulder, knocking the man backward and causing him to drop the rifle. In a twinkling, all the warriors were on their feet, some in Palacio’s party with their weapons leveled at Clay. To his amazement he wasn’t the only one pointing a gun at the chief’s followers. Fiero and Cuchillo Negro both had their rifles trained and were ready to fire.
Bloodshed loomed a heartbeat away. At that junction, Palacio and Delgadito rose, their arms upraised, and together called for everyone to stay calm and to lower their guns. Reluctantly, the Apaches complied.
Loathe to leave himself defenseless, Clay dropped his hand to his side but held on to the six-shooter and cocked the hammer.
The wounded Apache had sunk to his knees and was doubled over in pain while another inspected his shoulder.
“What have you done, White Apache?” Delgadito whispered urgently to Clay. “We are in much trouble now.”
“Was I supposed to sit there and let him rub me out?”
“You should not have talked.”
“Would you let someone call you a fool?”
“No,” Delgadito admitted. And while he appeared as upset as the rest by the dispute, secretly he was greatly pleased. It had not been his idea to send a messenger to Palacio. He had not been one of those who wanted to venture down to the reservation on occasion and live among the tame Apaches, as the whites called them. No, it had been Amarillo and Ponce who had proposed the idea and Cuchillo Negro who had suggested giving it a try, although Cuchillo Negro was too wise not to have foreseen the predictable outcome.
Now Delgadito gazed on the tense scene and mused that he should thank Taggart for playing right into his hands. In more ways than one, as it turned out, when moments later a stocky warrior advanced and said something into Palacio’s ear. The chief then called for quiet and made an announcement.
“Chivari will see his family again. The white-eye’s bullet did not cause a wound unto death.” Palacio glared at Taggart. “But a terrible wrong has been done, a wrong that demands justice! And since Chivari is in no condition to satisfy his honor, his brother, Pedro Azul, has taken this thing on himself. The shame is on their house and, as such, he can issue a formal challenge.”
“No!” Fiero cried. “He does not know our ways. He would be at a disadvantage.”
“He calls himself White Apache now, does he not?” Palacio disputed him. “He lives in our mountains, dresses as we do. In every respect he has become Shis-Inday. If that is his wish, then he must live by Apache law. And our law says that one who is wronged may challenge the one who has wronged him in a fight to the death.”
“The law of the knife,” Cuchillo Negro said softly.
Clay had been listening attentively. As the full implications hit him, he wished he had listened to Delgadito and kept his big mouth shut. So what if he felt Palacio to be a stiff-necked ass. Apache doings were none of his business. Or—and here a new thought dazzled his brain—were they? “What do I do?” he asked.
Delgadito did not answer right away. He was happier than he had been in weeks since now he
would not need to bother with disposing of Taggart. Pedro Azul would do it for him. Acting highly concerned, he said, “You must accept the challenge or all Apaches will say Lickoyee-shis-inday is a coward.”
“We fight with knives, I take it?”
“Yes.”
“Until one of us is hurt?”
“Until one of you is dead.”
The disclosure gave Clay food for thought. “And if I win? What then?”
“You earn much respect.”
“That’s all?”
Delgadito looked at Clay and answered in his own tongue. “For a warrior, what else is there?”
Until that moment Clay hadn’t given the matter much thought. The truth would have been obvious if he had opened his eyes to it. The Apaches did, in fact, base their relations on mutual respect for one another, not on the silly values the whites did. His own kind rated others by the amount of money they had and how powerful they were. Comparing the two, he decided the Apaches had a more honest way of doing things. “All right, pard.” Out came his Bowie. “Let’s get it over with.”
“Not this very moment,” Delgadito said. “It must be done according to custom. You not fight until tomorrow.”
“What am I supposed to do until then?” Clay asked irritably, displeased at having to wait so long.
“Prepare.”
“How?”
“Any way you want.” Delgadito watched as Chivari, supported by Pedro Azul, made for the spring. Several others tagged along. “Talk to your white God. Paint your body. Do that which makes you strong, that which brings you good medicine.”
“White men don’t believe in that nonsense.”
“Maybe time you start.” Lips compressed, Delgadito walked off.
Clay knew he had offended the warrior and went to follow to offer his apology. Suddenly Fiero appeared, blocking his path.
“Are you skilled with a knife?” the firebrand inquired without ceremony.
Warrior Born (A White Apache Western Book 3) Page 4