The Romantics

by Peter Brandvold

  From what he could tell, there were about twelve warriors, a handful of children, and about five or six old women. An old man with long, stringy gray hair sat before the canyon wall, bare legs folded beneath him. He was singing some chant and looking at the treetops, toward his Apache god, no doubt giving thanks for the safe return of the young warriors with the mules and the skinny young white-eyes.

  Cameron did not see Jimmy. He was sure the boy was here, because he’d seen his tracks until the Apaches had half dragged him into the pines. Jimmy had to be here—maybe behind the brush wickiups that sat in a haphazard row before the canyon wall. Setting his jaw and taking a deep, calming breath, Cameron moved out from the tree and made his way carefully around the encampment, stopping behind each tree to scout his position and make sure no Apache was near.

  Halfway around the perimeter of the camp, Cameron stopped dead in his tracks as the sound of feet padding through the pine needles and leaves came to his ears—from behind him! He turned quickly and saw a figure moving his way, silhouetted by the light which had nearly faded to total darkness under the pines. Cameron couldn’t believe the man hadn’t seen him, but apparently he hadn’t, for he did not react, but just continued walking, bent a little by the weight of whatever it was that he was carrying over his shoulder.

  Slowly Cameron eased his rifle into his left hand and unsheathed his bowie with his right. Suddenly the Apache, who had been on a course that would have taken him only a few feet to Cameron’s left, stopped. Obviously he’d seen the white man.

  Before the Indian could react, Cameron threw the bowie with an adroit flick of his wrist, a move practiced endlessly when scouting for the Army. He heard the sharp point of the knife crunch through the Apache’s breastbone.

  The Indian stiffened and made a sound like a single gulp. A raspy exhale followed. Cameron prayed the man would die before he could yell. The load on the man’s shoulder fell as he slumped, his legs buckling. The man staggered forward two steps, then collapsed.

  He fell to his knees and swayed there for several long seconds, gasping almost inaudibly. Then he fell forward and gave a final sigh.

  Cameron sagged with relief, his entire body covered with nervous sweat. He wiped his hands on his tunic, looked around, and walked to the Indian. Crouching, he turned the man over. His bowie was buried to the hilt in the Apache’s chest, its wide blade no doubt slicing the man’s heart in two.

  Cameron had to place one foot on the Indian’s chest and pull with both hands to remove the blade. When he’d wiped it clean on the Indian’s body, he inspected what the man had been carrying—mule. Cameron wondered how many more men were carving up the meat, and warned himself to watch his backside.

  Any more incidents like this one were liable to get him a heart attack, if not get him shot.

  CHAPTER 26

  CAMERON STOLE ALONG behind the trees, beyond the circle of light cast by the cooking fires. The raw-featured faces of the Apache men and women shone like rough cameos as they milled about, stuffing themselves with food and liquor, no doubt priming themselves for the celebration to come, the celebration for which Jimmy Bronco would be the grand finale.

  Behind the wickiups, between the conical brush lodges and the canyon wall, Cameron saw a tree around which the earth was scuffed and flattened. Probably the tree had been used for tying dogs the Apache women were fattening up to butcher. Something—or someone—was tied up there now, too big to be a dog. Cameron hoped, with the blood rushing in his head, that it was Jimmy Bronco.

  He was about to leave the shelter of the woods when someone appeared from the velvet darkness behind the wickiups. Cameron squelched a curse and came to ground behind a stump, about twenty yards away. When he glanced around the stump, he realized that the newcomer was a girl. She moved toward the tree, carrying what appeared to be a waterskin. Kneeling, she held out the skin. The man tethered to the tree—Cameron’s heart leapt at the sight—accepted the skin awkwardly, fumbled with it, then drank. The girl snatched it away while he was still drinking.

  She got to her feet and stood before the prisoner. Suddenly she raised her deerskin blouse, revealing the two brown globes of her young breasts. She said nothing, just stood there for a moment as though awaiting a reaction. Then she dropped the blouse, said something angrily in Apache, and kicked the prisoner savagely with her left leg, knocking him backwards. The man yelped.

  The girl laughed, turned, and skipped back to the wickiups and the fires beyond.

  Cameron ran, crouching, to the figure before the tree. It was Jimmy, all right. Stripped naked, he was dirty, sweaty, and badly bruised. He lay on his side, wrists crossed over his privates, both knees drawn up in the fetal position. He was shivering in the chill mountain air, teeth clacking together like a pocketful of marbles. Blood streaks plowed through the dirt and grime on his face.

  “Jimmy,” Cameron rasped, “it’s Jack. Are you all right, boy? Can you travel?”

  The kid lifted his head a few inches from the ground and squinted painfully. “J-Jack?” His voice, frail as it was, gained a hint of buoyancy.

  “It’s me, Jimmy. I’m going to get you out of here.” Cameron was cutting through the rope tied around the kid’s wrists and ankles.

  “’P-’Paches, Jack.” The kid’s voice broke.

  “I know, Jimmy. You just stay quiet. I’m going to get you out of here.” Cutting through the final knot, he glanced at the kid’s feet. They were a bloody mess. There was no way Jimmy could walk, much less run, which they might have to do if the Apaches got savvy to Cameron’s presence.

  “Here, you hold my rifle,” he said, handing the kid the weapon. “Hold on to it tight, now.”

  He maneuvered his right arm under the boy’s neck, the left under his knees, and pushed himself to his feet. Jimmy weighed only about a hundred and thirty-five pounds, and Cameron thought he could carry him a good ways before he’d have to rest. Adrenaline was coursing through Cameron’s, veins like broiling river rapids, and that made the kid even lighter.

  Cameron turned and moved back through the trees, tracing the course by which he had come. Jimmy mumbled, “They come … They come down out of the buttes …”

  “Sh, Jimmy. Be still,” Cameron whispered in the kid’s ear.

  “They shot old Hotch …”

  “Be quiet, Jimmy. I’m gonna get you of here.”

  He moved awkwardly with his burden, but he was making good time. To his right, voices grew louder as the revelry increased. Cameron prayed no one would go to the tree where Jimmy had been tied until he was well away from here. He prayed he wouldn’t run into anyone out here in the trees. If he did, he knew it would all be over; he’d never have time to drop Jimmy and go for his rifle. The whole band would be on top of him in seconds, and it would be both him and the boy tied to that tree the Apaches used for fattening up their dogs.

  When he came to the base of the ridge, the top of which was now capped by a handful of weak stars glittering through the silhouetted pinetops, he set Jimmy down.

  “J-Jack.”

  “It’s all right, Jimmy. I’m just resting.”

  “They come down out of those buttes, slingin’ arrows ever’ which way.” The kid’s voice broke.

  “It’s okay, Jimmy.”

  The boy was whimpering. His oily skin was clammy to the touch and rough with goose bumps. Cameron was afraid Jimmy was going into shock. No doubt he’d had quite a few good blows to the head. On top of that, he’d covered a long stretch of terrain on his feet, half dragged over about fifteen miles of Sierra Madre.

  “You hang on, Jimmy,” Cameron cajoled. “I’m gonna get you out of here.”

  He knew he had to get the kid shelter and warmth—but first he had to gain a good distance from the savages behind them.

  With that in mind, Cameron lifted Jimmy once more and started toward the ridgetop. The going was hard and he fell several times, Jimmy rolling forward out of his grasp and falling gently to the grade rising before them. If the Apaches c
ame now, he didn’t know what he’d do.

  He made the ridge, breathing hard, and set Jimmy down on the lip as if gentling him into bed. Cameron dropped to his knees just before the ridgetop, placed his hands on his thighs, and sucked air into his smarting lungs. His heart pounded and his side ached from the strain of the climb. His thighs and knees throbbed, and he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stand again.

  But stand he did, and carried Jimmy through the pines. The buckskin was waiting where Cameron had tied him. The horse whinnied with alarm as Cameron pushed through the branches, and skittered sideways. Cameron cooed to the animal, then dropped Jimmy’s legs and held the boy against the horse’s side.

  “Can you stand here, boy?”

  The boy gave a grunt and stiffened as Cameron climbed into the saddle. Cameron grabbed the reins in his right hand, slid his rifle into its boot, then reached down and dragged Jimmy onto the saddle before him.

  When he’d gotten the boy situated in front of him, Cameron listened for any sign that the Apaches had discovered Jimmy missing. There was no sound but the wind rushing in the pinetops and Jimmy’s clattering teeth. Cameron reined the horse around and started down the trail.

  Looking east, he saw a thin sickle of moon hanging about halfway up in the sky. Cameron was grateful. A fuller moon would have made the trail easier to follow, but it also would have made him and Jimmy easier to follow. That thin crescent of pearl light was just enough to illuminate the trail before him but not make him or his tracks too conspicuous. If the Apaches discovered Jimmy gone, Cameron hoped they wouldn’t search too long in the dark.

  They’d come eventually, though. You didn’t sneak into an Apache encampment and expropriate one of their captives without ruffling more than a few feathers. They’d let their guard down probably because they hadn’t been harassed this deep in the mountains for a long time. Tracking down Cameron and killing him and Jimmy would be a matter of pride.

  When they were well off the ridge and had entered the low desert country again, Cameron turned off the trail and headed west through a narrow canyon. If he went back the same way he had come, he would only be leading the Apaches to Clark, Marina, and Tokente. Instead, he’d detour into the western foothills, find a well-used wagon road, and follow it to a village where he would not only find safety from the Apaches, but help for Jimmy, as well.

  WHEN HE’D RIDDEN what he thought were at least five or six miles by trail, and there was no sign they were being followed, he started to relax. The aches and pains of the long day—the rough ride after Jimmy, carrying the boy up the ridge—became more apparent. Every muscle in his body felt pinched and sore and a sleepy stupor came over him.

  Cameron tried to stay alert by taking in deep draughts of cool air. Riding half-asleep, letting his horse pick its own trails in Indian country was dangerous, but the exhaustion of the day simply overcame him. He roused when the trail bottomed out in a valley, magically opalescent in the moonlight, with the toothy silhouettes of mountains jutting against the distant sky.

  In the center of the valley was a deep-rutted wagon road. Even in this remote country, wagon roads usually led to villages. Cameron chose to head south, and hoped he would reach the closest village in that direction before the Indians caught up to them or he fell comatose from his saddle.

  An hour later, he’d pulled into a cove of rocks to rest his horse when he heard the clatter of a wagon approaching from the northwest. Jimmy was asleep, wrapped in a blanket. Cameron shucked his Winchester from his saddle boot. Stepping onto the road, he lacked a shell into the rifle’s chamber and cleared his throat as the wagon approached. You never knew who might be on the road this late, and Cameron was in no mood to take unnecessary chances.

  The wagon stopped, the nag blowing in its traces and shaking its head, startled at the smell of a stranger. The driver called out in Spanish. Cameron’s Spanish was rusty but he could make out enough of the words to put the sentences together: “Please do not rob me! I am a simple man with not a centavo to my name, and my horse, as you can see, is worthless!”

  “Do you speak English?” Cameron said.

  “Si, señor. You’re Americano?”

  “That’s right. Who’re you?”

  “Porfirio Garza, señor. And you?”

  “Jack Cameron. Can you help me, Mr. Garza? I have a sick boy here.”

  Garza’s voice gained a conspiratorial gravity. “Are you a bandit, señor?”

  “No, I’m not.” Cameron hesitated. What could he tell this man he was doing down here … searching for gold, searching for a man he wished to kill? He decided not to say anything unless the man pressed it. Then he’d make up something.

  “Can you tell us where the closest village is?” he asked.

  “Step nearer so I can see your face, por favor.”

  Cameron moved toward the wagon, touching the horse’s neck to calm him. The wagon was little more than a cart with ocotillo branches woven together to form a cage for shipping chickens and other livestock. The man in the driver’s seat was small and round. He wore a colorful serape, dirty white peasant slacks, and sandals. The floppy sombrero on his head was crowned with moonlight. Cameron couldn’t see his eyes beneath the brim. However, something about the man—an innocence of manner and voice—told Cameron he could trust him in spite of the alcohol smell on Garza’s breath.

  “Si,” Garza said after he’d given Cameron a study. “San Cristóbal is just up the road, another three kilometers. I am going there; it is my home.”

  “Can you give my boy a ride?”

  Garza shrugged warily. “What is wrong with him? Does he have the fever?”

  “No fever. He was taken by Apaches, forced to run crosscountry. He’s exhausted mostly, and his feet are swollen.”

  “Load him up, señor. I will take him to the prefect’s wife in San Cristóbal. She is a midwife and cures the sick. Come, come. If the Apaches are not far, we must hasten.”

  “I appreciate this,” Cameron said, turning to retrieve Jimmy. He laid the boy gently in the box. He was happy to see hay there, even if it was littered with chicken dung. He brushed it up around the lad to help keep him warm.

  “Can I ride with you?” he asked Garza. “My horse has had it.”

  “Si, si, but hurry. Please. The Apaches …”

  Cameron quickly tied his mount to the back of the wagon and climbed onto the seat beside Garza. The man rasped a few Spanish words of encouragement to the nag, and they rolled off through the ruts.

  “The Apaches—how far are they behind you, señor?”

  “At least seven or eight miles. We should be okay. I don’t think they’ll try to track me at night.”

  “You took the boy away from the Apaches?”

  “Yep,” Cameron said with a sigh, not really believing it himself.

  “¡Dios mio! You must be a very brave man, señor—and the boy must matter to you very much. Your son?”

  “Adopted, I guess you could say. He’s a good boy.”

  “Si. I wish I had a son, but my Ernestine gave me only daughters—three fat girls too lazy to set the table for their papa. I got rid of two of them today—took them to Bachiniva, to two boys I arranged for them to marry. Their father gave me gold and the promise of four goats in the spring.” Garza chuckled. “A very good deal, considering the fatness and laziness of my daughters. But then, the boys”—he shrugged and shook his head—“they are no great reward, either.”

  “You’re on the road mighty late.”

  Garza turned to him, grinning coyote-like, and leaned toward him as if to share a secret. The stench of tequila was heavy in Cameron’s nose.

  “I stopped on the way back to celebrate with a friend. I did not wish to stay so long, but you know how quickly time travels when one is reveling. I could have stayed there rather than risk the bandidos, but then my wife would know I stopped, and she would not be happy. This way I can sneak into the house while she sleeps and she will be none the wiser.” He grinned and touched his fi
ngers to his lips.

  They’d traveled maybe fifteen minutes when a sound very much like a distant scream lifted over the chaparral. Garza halted the nag as another scream rose from the jagged peaks of the mountains in the northeast. It was a man’s scream, filled with monstrous, ghastly pain. Cameron’s scalp crawled.

  Garza reached up and removed his hat. He placed it over his breast and turned to Cameron soberly, fearfully. “Someone is dying, señor.”

  “That’s what it sounds like,” Cameron agreed.

  Another scream sounded, even higher in pitch than the others. Cameron guessed the screams originated about three or four miles back. Irrationally he glanced at the wagon box to make sure Jimmy was still there.

  “Did you leave other friends in the mountains?” Garza asked.

  “Yes, but not there.”

  Cameron’s heart drummed as he tried to think who the Apaches could have run into. Clark? Tokente? Might one of them have come after Cameron, only to be found by the Apaches?

  If that were true, then Marina might have been caught, as well.

  They sat there for several minutes, listening. No more screams carried down from the mountains, and at last Garza slapped the reins against the nag’s back and continued along the trail.

  But Cameron’s thoughts remained in the mountains, where someone—possibly someone he knew—had just died …

  CHAPTER 26

  GARZA’S WAGON SQUEAKED and clattered into the village of San Cristóbal. The moon was angling away, casting more shadows than light, but Cameron could still see it was a typical Mexican village, scraggly and dirty, with low adobe huts for houses and business establishments. Corrals were overgrown with chaparral. The smell of burning mesquite hung in the air, and dogs barked from doorways as the wagon rolled up the main street.

  They passed a fountain, with its solitary stone obelisk, and turned the corner around a blocklike, sand-colored building whose belfry, too large for the structure, told Cameron it was a church. Garza pulled up at a pitted adobe house. The smell of goat dung was heavy on the night breeze.