The Grey Pilgrim

by J. M. Hayes

  As soon as J.D. reassured Burns, he instructed him to call Larry and tell him the story the Indians had told, to tell it straight, as if he believed it and fully expected a second pack of letters from Mary in a couple of weeks, then get ready to do some hunting—manhunting. Burns agreed, and he must have kept the anxiety out of his voice because Larry called J.D. a few minutes later to pass along the happy news. J.D. tossed in his own casual acceptance of the missing letters. When he hung up he walked over to the map of the Papago Reservation he’d tacked up on his wall. It hadn’t suddenly sprouted a big X conveniently marked “Mary is here.”

  J.D. had put in a call to the Pima County Sheriff’s office right after hearing from Burns. He needed help, preferably Jesus. They promised to locate the deputy and have him return the call. J.D. wasn’t happy about the delay. He wanted out of his office and into the desert. Waiting for the phone to ring made him feel about as comfortable as a cat in a sack. He buckled on his .38 in its shoulder holster and chewed his way through most of a pencil while he studied the map, paced, and waited for the phone to ring.

  When it did, of course, Jesus turned out to be halfway across the county and unable to just walk away from what he was doing. J.D. thought about getting himself a Papago tribal policeman instead, then decided to wait. The tribe might take even longer. Jujul had been there for a couple of months. He wasn’t likely to go hide somewhere else in the next few hours. Jesus had been in it from the beginning. He deserved a shot at the finish as well.

  Jesus came in a little before dawn. They loaded up and got J.D.’s Ford on the road in minutes, J.D. hastily refusing Jesus’ offer to drive. The deputy was tired and tried to catch a nap along the way, but J.D. was keyed up, talking almost nonstop, trying to convince himself Mary was all right and arguing over Jujul’s possible motives for wanting her.

  “Hey,” Jesus finally interrupted. “What’s Mary doing out there in the first place?”

  J.D. thought the question was an implied criticism, a “what business has a woman got working with primitives in the wilderness anyway?” sort of comment. He was feeling especially protective about then.

  “What do you think,” he snapped. “She’s an anthropologist. She’s out there studying them, learning how they live, and what makes them tick.”

  “Well,” Jesus said, “maybe she’s not the only one being an anthropologist out there.”

  It shut J.D. up for a minute. It made more sense than his hostage theory. At least half the problem they had with Jujul was because of Larson’s indifference to Papago attitudes and Jujul’s lack of understanding of how Anglo culture worked. The old man had shown himself to be a clever, competent leader. What any leader needed in circumstances such as his was intelligence. Not the smarts kind, he already had that, but the knowledge of your enemy kind. What better way to get it than to swap information with an ethnographer, especially if he could keep her from realizing what he was doing? All of a sudden J.D. was sure that was exactly what was happening. Otherwise he wouldn’t have made the mistake about the Sharps. If he’d been torturing Mary for information he would have had plenty of time to get everything she knew, and she knew about the Sharps. Larry’s favorite part of the story had been what the Sharps did to terrorize Larson and his merry men. J.D. felt his panic drain away a little, though he was still damned worried. Just because Jujul hadn’t taken her for a hostage didn’t mean he wouldn’t be prepared to use her as one.

  He started in on that subject until Jesus told him, in a very nice way, to shut up and let him try to sleep. From then on J.D. kept quiet, but he also made sure he hit every bump in the road with enough force to keep the deputy awake. Jesus glared at him a time or two, but they had legitimate reason to hurry, and he was being treated to the sort of chauffeuring he normally dished out. He pulled the brim of his hat down low over his eyes, held on tight, and bore his punishment in silence.

  This Way to Jujul’s

  The Papagos had come to Burns’ to trade on Sunday morning and left the same afternoon. As soon as they were gone, Burns rushed to a phone and called J.D. The marshal and the deputy sheriff arrived about an hour after dawn the next day. That gave the Indians a big head start, but the weather was perfect, nothing more than a light dew overnight to interfere with the trackers. J.D. just wished he knew what he and Jesus would do when they caught up with the trading party.

  J.D. thought it would be nice to arrive in Jujul’s village with an army to insure Mary’s safety, but an army moving across the desert was sure to catch Jujul’s attention and would probably put her in more danger. That was why he’d only brought Jesus. With Burns and a couple of his most trusted Papago hands they might be able to find the village and remain unnoticed until he worked out how they could grab Mary and make a getaway. If they were spotted, they wouldn’t be too threatening, and they still might have a chance of talking her, and themselves, out. Jujul might be willing to trade—Mary for the time he would need to make another run for it. Hell, J.D. didn’t know. This was play-it-by-ear time.

  Burns was ready for them. He had two Papagos—men he swore could track an ant from Sells to Tucson, even if it never left the road—and horses harnessed and waiting. He found them a couple of saddle holsters for Jesus’ twelve gauge and J.D.’s thirty-ought-six, and they strapped them on, tying their packs behind the saddles.

  J.D. was hot to hit the trail, but Jesus made him wait while he talked with the scouts and a few of the other hands. J.D. began to think he should have let the deputy get some sleep on the way out. His own eyes were starting to feel a little gravelly, but Mary was out there somewhere. He wondered if the delay was just a way to get even, then realized he knew better.

  In a few minutes Jesus was back. He swung up easily into the saddle and they rode out of the valley, up into the desert beyond. After a quarter mile, one of the Papago trackers dropped off his horse and left the reins to his fellow as he trotted along the trail on foot. J.D. watched with interest, despite his impatience at their slow pace. A sabers-drawn, pennants-fluttering cavalry charge was more what he had in mind.

  Jesus sidled his mount over beside J.D.’s and kind of swung them off to the side, a little behind the rest of the makeshift posse and out of their hearing.

  “I don’t know how far we’re going to get with this,” he said. It wasn’t the sort of optimism J.D. wanted to hear. “I’m pretty sure these guys knew, or suspected, Mary’s wild Papagos were Jujul’s bunch all along. If they’d wanted to play it straight, they would have said something before Mary went off with them.”

  “Shit! Then they aren’t going to follow the trail are they? Not unless this is some kind of trap.”

  “Damned if I know what they’re going to do,” Jesus admitted. “We’ll just have to go along and see. I don’t think they’ll put us in danger. They seem genuinely fond of their boss. If they decide to lose the trail, well, I’ve done some hunting out here, big game and men, and they just may find it harder to lose than they think.”

  Jesus was right. They rode along for about five miles, weaving through scrub and cactus, before the scouts came to their first problem. They stopped, conferred with Burns for a minute, and he called the lawmen over.

  “Trail splits here,” he explained. “Goes off in three directions. Whatcha wanna do? Split up and take a couple, or all of us stick with just one?”

  “Let’s take the middle,” Jesus said.

  About three miles further the scouts lost it altogether. Burns was embarrassed but his trackers were stoic at their failure.

  “She just up and ends right here,” Burns announced. “Must’ve doubled back somewheres, but neither of the boys seen any indication of it.”

  “Take a break,” Jesus suggested. “Let me look.”

  He rode back down the trail, then called from about a hundred yards away. The others joined him and he gestured off to the south as if he were pointing out a paved highway complete with road signs saying this way to Jujul’s. All J.D. could see was desert that looked
exactly like what they’d been riding through. Jesus showed them and explained what the man they were following had done. He’d broken off a piece of desert broom and wiped out his tracks behind him, then walked backwards to this spot where he could take advantage of a stony patch to head south without leaving an obvious fork in his trail. J.D. couldn’t see any of it except where the branch had been broken. It made him feel pretty useless.

  While J.D. was feeling sorry for himself, deciding the average Boy Scout would have been a more valuable member of their party, Jesus and the Papago scouts had a few words. They had them in Papago, and Jesus made the language ring. He sounded like a fire-and-brimstone preacher given the opportunity to address the Society for Creative Deviation of the City of Sodom. The scouts looked embarrassed and their answers were short and sullen, but they answered. Burns looked confused and angry, and more than a little hurt.

  “They knew,” Jesus said. “They knew from the beginning these were Jujul’s people. Not because they recognized them or because the strangers admitted it. Just that their story didn’t hold up. They didn’t know anybody from the part of the reservation they claimed to come from, and they seemed too curious about what happened at Stohta U’uhig. It was kind of a big joke for both groups, I guess, knowing but not saying anything.

  “They say they were surprised about the White Woman, but they never worried about her. This one says his cousin promised she would be safe, and he believes it, even though he never met that particular cousin before. Hell, everybody’s related to everybody out here. You just got to figure out through which clan.

  “They say they’ll follow the trail now, if we still want them to, and they won’t do anything to warn anyone we’re coming. But they also say we’d be better off just leaving things alone and going home. Jujul won’t hurt anybody, not Mary or anyone else, if we’ll only leave him be. They say the government has counted enough Papago warriors. Let these go.”

  J.D. couldn’t, of course. They went on. The scouts led the way with Jesus keeping a close eye on them and Bill Burns riding alongside J.D., trying to apologize. J.D. ignored him until the rancher gave it up and went away.

  Burns’ trackers turned out to be good after all. Within a couple of hours they found and solved three more tricks that Jesus had to point out to J.D. After that, the three trails merged again, and, from that spot on, they stopped trying to hide where they’d gone. Occasionally, even J.D. spotted evidence that someone had recently passed that way.

  The Papagos had circled around and doubled back along their previous line of march. Their path led up a low volcanic outcrop to a clear, flat space near the top where they’d spent the night. It offered a marvelous view of the route both parties had followed from Burns’ ranch, including the spots where the trail had been split and disguised.

  “They waited around and watched us this morning, didn’t they?” J.D. asked Jesus.

  “Grandstand seats. Maybe they caught on that Mr. Burns was suspicious. Maybe they’re just naturally cautious. But they sure as hell had a fine view from up here while we followed their trail.”

  “How long do you think?” J.D. asked.

  “About three hours head start,” Jesus estimated. “They’d know we were pretty sure to keep on coming after we worked things out back where they split and made their first try to lose anybody following them. Not much point sticking around to watch us after that.”

  “Then we can catch them,” J.D. said, excited. “We’re mounted and they’re on foot. We’ll catch them easy.”

  “You’d think so, wouldn’t you,” Jesus agreed. “But don’t make book on it.”

  The trail was easy to follow from then on. They’d just trotted along, not making any effort to throw anyone off. There were places where the little posse actually galloped the horses, making up time. Once, J.D. rode ahead to a high spot and unsheathed his rifle. He used the scope to scan the horizon and a lot of desert in between. The path they were following was so straight he’d felt sure he would spot them, but there was nothing out there except scrub and cactus, and nothing moved in it but heat shimmer. There was plenty of that, even if it was the end of December.

  Then they found what the Papagos had been hurrying toward. Their trail joined a wide path regularly used by lots of feet. They were near a village.

  They rode on more carefully, Jesus and the scouts watching in case the ones they were following might have pulled some trick and split off again. J.D. searched for any indication they were riding into an ambush. He hoped this would be the village Mary was in, but he wasn’t all that happy with what they might run into if it was.

  It wasn’t. They came around a rocky outcrop and there it stood, a little cluster of adobe and brush buildings, corrals, and lots of sun darkened people tending their daily chores. Burns recognized the place at once. He’d been there before to hire hands and trade cattle. It was a place called Shongam after the spring-fed pool that provided it with an excuse to exist. Bill Burns took one look and declared flat out that Jujul and his people hadn’t moved in.

  “Place would’ve had to double in size and it ain’t. Fact, looks some smaller, like maybe they had some hard times.”

  Still, it was where the three they’d been trailing had gone. The posse followed them in.

  “I wondered how they planned to lose us,” Jesus commented. “My guess is they traded sandals with some of their cousins here or picked up some horses and then set out for home. Maybe they split up again. Hell, maybe they’re even still here, but that’ll only be if they’re sure Burns can’t recognize them or they figure to stay out of sight while we’re here. Whichever, looks like they win this one.”

  J.D. felt like the stuff in the corrals that was drawing flies. All of a sudden the hours without sleep caught up with him. It was all he could do not to just climb down off his horse and give up for a while. Instead, he rode in with the others while Burns’ Papagos circled the village, looking for some sign of the threesome. They didn’t find any.

  Burns introduced them to the local head man. He was called Fat Wolf, the cause for part of his name being obvious. He preferred to talk about what presents they might have brought him and how many cattle Burns wanted to buy, instead of whether three Papagos had been through his village an hour or two ahead of them. Jesus finally got him onto the subject, but you’d have thought he’d never seen another Papago in his entire life. What did he know about Jujul? Why, he’d never heard of him, and what was a Jujul anyway? Were they sure it was a Papago name? He couldn’t recall having heard it. Hadn’t they brought any presents, and, as long as they were there, wouldn’t Bill Burns like to come look at some cattle and pick out a few head to take home?

  J.D. gave them the spiel anyway, Jesus translating. He told them he only wanted to talk to Jujul and wouldn’t arrest him or any of his people without trying to work out a peaceful settlement first. He told them about Mary and how concerned her family and government were about her, and how Jujul should send her out to prove she wasn’t being held against her will. That keeping her only made things worse. He suggested, in case anyone should happen to remember what or who a Jujul was, they pass along his messages. He left Fat Wolf one of his business cards and a pack of cigarettes which he again appropriated from Jesus. Bill Burns promised to come back for a look at their cattle real soon, and they left.

  They got back to Burns’ place a little before midnight. J.D. was in favor of getting right back in the Ford and heading for town. He wanted to check with the Army Air Corps and see if they had any aerial reconnaissance photographs of the area and make arrangements to fly over a good deal of it himself. Tuesday, the next day, was the last of 1940. Wednesday, he would play hell finding any help. On the ride back to the ranch he’d started getting keyed and worried again. He didn’t want to lose those two days.

  Jesus objected. He’d missed the same forty or more hours of sleep and he wasn’t convinced they’d created any new threat to Mary’s safety. He couldn’t see the danger to her of their gett
ing a night’s sleep every other day or so. He also threatened to shoot out the tires on the Ford if J.D. tried to go back before morning. J.D. thought he might be serious.

  Edith Burns stuffed them full of something warm and wholesome and herded them into a guest bedroom with twin beds and fresh sheets under hand-made quilts to keep them snug and warm. J.D. was dead tired too, but he couldn’t help wanting to get back. He started trying to frame a calm, logical explanation that would persuade Jesus to forfeit another night’s sleep. Before he got the words properly organized, Jesus was shaking him and telling him it was time for breakfast.

  Complete With a Rumble Seat

  Three strangers rode into Fat Wolf’s village near the end of December. They kept mostly to themselves and that was not like the People. After one night, they left their horses, loaded their belongings on their backs, and set out to go trade with a nearby rancher. That was really peculiar. A horse could carry more trade goods than a man.

  “Who are these strangers that they act so secretively?” the kid with the rodent-like face asked. He got the answer he wanted. Jujul’s people.

  In the middle of the first night they were gone he sneaked into the corral and marked a hoof on each of their horses. Someone would have to look very closely to notice it, but Talker, who had shaped the marks, would be able to pick out their tracks at a glance.

  The three came back at a trot shortly after noon two days later. He watched as they sought out Fat Wolf for a hurried council. The three saddled and loaded their horses, then took separate trails out of Shongam. That scared him. Someone was chasing them. Whoever was after them might be after him as well.

  Talker had started at his home village. After watching it for a day to be sure no one was there looking for him, he had taken the chance. It proved safe, but it was hard going back without anything to show for the time he’d been away. He endured the humiliation of being Mirage Talker again so he could speak to his grandfather. One of the old man’s daughters, his aunt, had married a man from Jujul’s village.