Apache Country

by Frederick H. Christian

  They waited. There was no sound other than the sibilant rise and fall of their own breathing. Easton checked his watch: they had been under the log stack for nearly two hours. He nudged Ironheel, who grunted agreement, and they wormed warily out of their hiding place. After the warmth of their closeness, the night air felt chill. A billion stars looked near enough to touch.

  “Gone,” Ironheel said.

  “For now,” Easton replied.

  Even if the hunters had given up this time, they would be back. They had to get as far away from this area as possible. But there was something else they needed to do first.

  “We need to check on John,” he said.

  “If he’s not dead, he’ll be long gone,” Ironheel said flatly. “If he’s dead, there’s no point going back there,”

  “I thought he was a friend of yours,” Easton said.

  Ironheel looked away, his expression speaking his thoughts. You know what you know and I know what I know, it said. It was like he was doing it to get under Easton’s skin, but Easton was equally determined not to let him.

  “He’s right,” Joanna Ironheel told her brother. He shrugged.

  If you insist.

  “It will be a hard climb,” she told Easton. “Can you do it?”

  Give her the benefit of the doubt and put it down to genuine concern, even if you don’t altogether believe it, he told himself. He looked up the hill at the steep slope. The wound in his side wasn’t hurting any more, just throbbing dully. He put his hand inside his shirt and checked the dressing. It was dry. Luck, be a lady.

  “I’m good,” he said, with a lot more confidence than he felt.

  “Helasá ahiidléh,” Ironheel grunted. “Let’s go.”

  He moved off up the hill on soundless feet. It was almost as if he was becoming progressively more Apache, Easton thought, as though the longer he was in the wilderness the more affinity he found with it.

  “How far is it to Mescalero from where we left the car?” he asked, pitching his voice just low enough for Ironheel to hear.

  “Fifteen miles, maybe,” he said.

  “First thing we do when get up the hill is put your sister in the pickup and send her down to the Agency. She’ll be safe there.”

  “Daiaá daabini’” Ironheel said. “Agreed.”

  Joanna Ironheel nodded her acquiescence. “What about you?”

  “There’s only one place I can be sure of getting help,” Easton said. “Riverside.”

  Ironheel made a sound somewhere between disbelief and disdain.

  “My inbuilt sixth sense tells me you have a question,” Easton said.

  “Damn right,” Ironheel said. “You crazy or what?”

  “What,” Easton said, holding on to his temper again. “As in, what’s your problem?”

  “You, thinking you can get to Riverside cross-country. Listen to yourself.”

  They stopped on the slope, glaring at each other. Easton could hear his own breathing. It sounded like the bellows in an old smithy. Touché, he thought. Ironheel was right, but he was damned if he was going to admit it.

  “Then you’ll have to teach me how to do it. How to survive.”

  Ironheel shook his head. “Doo bigonedzaa do!” he said. “Can’t be done.”

  “God dammit, Ironheel, the reason I’m in the middle of this mess is because you were in trouble and I stuck out my neck for you. Now it’s your turn. I call your name, Ironheel. Do this for me!”

  His outburst appeared to make no impression on Ironheel. His face remained like a rock, without emotion, implacable. Then, unexpectedly, his sister spoke.

  “Atéé dábik’eh,” she said quietly. “It is appropriate.”

  For a moment Ironheel’s own anger showed through, then he shrugged again. The guy had more damn shrugs than a Frenchman, Easton thought.

  “All right,” Ironheel said. “But it’s my way or no way. Comprende?”

  “Do I have a choice?” Easton said, and as he spoke he heard an echo of Ironheel asking the same question as they were leaving the jail in Riverside. Ironheel remembered it, too, and a dour grin touched his lips.

  “No,” he said, savoring the moment. “You don’t.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  By the time they got back to where they had first been attacked, Easton’s eyes had become so completely attuned to the darkness that as they came out of the trees he could see the dark bulk of Joanna Ironheel’s pickup beside the track, and beyond it John Gallerito’s beaten-up old Mercury, its doors still open. There was an uncanny stillness about the place, as if night was holding its breath.

  “John’s gone,” Ironheel announced in a told-you-so voice. He quartered across the ground between the vehicles and the trees, head down, moving slowly but purposefully. All at once he stopped and squatted, touched the grass with a finger then touched the finger to his tongue.

  “Bidil,” he called out softly.

  “His blood,” Joanna Ironheel translated for Easton.

  “Can he really see blood in the dark?” Easton wondered.

  “Yilchi,” she said impatiently, as if it were a stupid question. He smells it.

  Easton started over toward where Ironheel was squatting, but the Apache held up his right hand in a ‘stay back’ signal. He knelt down with the side of his head almost touching the ground. He made a sound of satisfaction.

  “Bech’igót’I’yu,” he said, and pointed.

  “The way he went,” his sister echoed.

  From where he was standing Easton could see no sign of footprints or tracks, but Ironheel was already moving in a diagonal line uphill toward the trees lining the trail. Apache can trail birds through the air, fish up a river. He’d said it sardonically that night in the jail. Maybe it was true.

  As Ironheel melted into the darkness, Easton checked the Mercury, stifling a curse when he looked inside and saw the guns and ammunition were gone. As he got out of the vehicle, Ironheel materialized soundlessly out of the darkness, making him jump. He thought he saw a faint smile on the Apache’s face but it was difficult to be sure. It was probably the kind of thing he’d find amusing.

  “Looks like John went home,” Ironheel said. “Tracks lead southwest through the woods. No more blood. So probably not hurt bad.”

  Easton went back across to the Mercury, noticing this time that the hood was unlocked. It gave a metallic squawk as he lifted it up and peered inside. The distributor leads had been ripped out.

  “Check the pickup,” he said.

  Ironheel crossed over to the other vehicle. He lifted the hood and Easton heard him growl an imprecation.

  “Leads gone?” he said.

  “Ha’ah.”

  “They took the guns, too,” Easton said. “And the ammunition.”

  “Baa nagóldi’,” Ironheel said sourly. Tell me about it.

  Easton looked at his watch. Three thirty a.m. It would be dawn in an hour or so, and with daylight the hunters might well return. Once again he wondered who they were. One thing was certain: they weren’t the law. Legitimate cops didn’t machine-gun fugitives. This was someone else, someone intent on finding them before the law did. That was why they had sabotaged the vehicles: so their quarry couldn’t get too far from where they had lost them. They sure as hell wouldn’t lose us in daylight, Easton thought.

  “Let’s get your sister down to the Agency where she’ll be safe,” he said to Ironheel. “Then you and I can get the hell out of here.”

  Ironheel vetoed that with a headshake. “We can’t walk that far, it would take too long.”

  “So we do what?”

  Ironheel thought about it for a moment. “There are a few families living over at Whitetail. Three, maybe four miles.”

  “Nothing nearer?”

  “No.”

  “What about Mose Kuruk?” Joanna Ironheel said. “He’s got a place up here somewhere, doesn’t he?”

  “Paul’s Canyon,” her brother confirmed. “About a mile from here.”

 
“You know him?” Easton asked.

  Again Ironheel took his time replying, as if he was reluctant to say anything.

  “Everyone knows Mose,” he said. “He hires out as a tracker. Good one, too. He used to be a cop. Tribal Police.”

  “Used to be?”

  “Ni’ádadiikani,” Ironheel said. “He’s mean.”

  “What kind of mean?”

  “You name it,” Ironheel said, looking at his sister. Easton sensed a tension between them, but there wasn’t time to go into that now.

  “I’m not interested in his manners,” he said. “The question is, will he help us?”

  Ironheel squared his shoulders. “We can give it a try. But let me do all the talking. Mose doesn’t like white men much. You get on his wrong side he’s liable to go apeshit.”

  “I’ll show him my badge,” Easton said. “Maybe that’ll calm him down.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The trail down was little more than a twin wheel track winding between dark stands of timber. Once in a while they would hear movement in the undergrowth and Ironheel would hold up a hand, stop. They would freeze, and listen warily. After a moment he would say biih, a deer, or ba’nteelé, a badger.

  As they trudged through the silent darkness Easton returned to the question repeating itself inside his head. Who would send a high-end helicopter out to kill them? He knew for sure no one in Baca County owned such a machine. RPD had a two-seater unaffectionately known as The Buzzer, but it was strictly for rapid transit. Most of the others operating in the valley were used for hospital transfers, inter-city commuting or crop-dusting. Neither Joe Apodaca or Olin McKittrick even had a flying license, let alone the kind of money it took to put a track-and-kill chopper into the sky.

  Then who? And more particularly, why?

  As far as the media and public were concerned Ironheel, now a mankiller and hostage taker, was guilty as hell. Even if anyone agreed to listen to his side of the story – and it would need to be backed up with a lot more evidence than they had right now – it would still be the word of a ‘known’ murderer against that of ‘clean’ law-enforcement. So on the face of it, there was no apparent need to kill him. Yet someone was trying to. Which meant there must be some other reason. But what was it?

  Plenty of questions. Not a single answer.

  Paul’s Canyon dropped off to the left of the trail, a long, narrowing cleft maybe a quarter mile across, bordered by low hills crowned with trees now visible in the deceptive predawn light. Easton trudged on, concentrating dumbly on matching Ironheel’s tireless pace and trying to show any sign of the persistent throb of pain from the wound in his side. Give Ironheel an excuse to head off into the hills alone and he’d be gone. No way was he going to let that happen.

  The steep rutted track led them down toward what looked like the sort of ramshackle shed a money-strapped rancher might keep work animals in. Nearer, Easton realized that what he had thought a makeshift barn was in fact a single story shack with a sagging roof from which at least half the shingles appeared to be missing. Several of the windows were smashed, covered with sacking or in one case, a square of peeled plywood.

  Below the cabin was a small mountain of trash – discarded mattresses, tires, broken wooden crates, a sizable mound of cans and beer bottles. Off to one side squatted the rusting hulk of an old Cadillac convertible, and a little further over, what was left of a red Mach 2 Ford Mustang. An insistent, fecal smell somewhere between backed-up drains and rotten eggs, hung over the place. Just another lovely corner of the Land of Enchantment.

  The first faint salmony tinges of dawn steadily lightened the sky, prompting the sleepy early twitter of awakening birds. Then suddenly, as they reached the open space in front of the cabin, a huge black Rottweiler exploded off the porch and bounded toward them flat out, baying ferally, maybe a hundred and twenty pounds of gristle and bone with eyes that shone red in the morning half-light. All at once it hit the end of the tether by which it was lashed to the wall and was yanked to its haunches, bellowing with rage, lunging again and again against the restraint as it tried to get at the intruders, who had frozen in their tracks. Easton found he had his automatic in his hand. He had absolutely no recollection of having drawn it.

  “Madre,” Ironheel muttered, as the dog lunged and bayed and lunged again. “That rope better hold.”

  From your lips to God’s ears, Easton thought, every muscle in his body tense and ready. If that monster got loose it would be shoot or shit. In that same moment he detected a movement, a glint of half-light on metal at a carefully opening window to the right of the door. A chill touched his spine as he realized he was looking straight into the twin muzzles of what looked like a pump action Browning. Get on his wrong side he’s liable to go apeshit.

  “Who’s out there?” The voice was harsh, deep and angry, a match for the dog’s. “Who the fuck is it?”

  The sound of the man’s voice seemed to drive the dog into further paroxysms of rage. Easton had visions of the rope snapping, and wondered whether a 9mm bullet would stop the beast before it got to them.

  “Nit’eke!” Ironheel shouted. “Friends, Mose! Call off the dog.”

  There was no reply. The dog continued to lunge at them, snarling and tearing up the ground. Then the door of the cabin opened and a man stepped out heavily on to the porch. He was about six feet two, maybe two hundred pounds, neck like a bear. He had on a red flannel undershirt and torn Levis, moccasins on his feet. His long black hair was tied back in a ponytail, and his face looked like it had been carved from a chunk of petrified wood. The clenched fists holding the Browning shotgun were as big as cauliflowers.

  “Prince!” he roared, in that same deep, hungover voice. “Prince, shut the fuck up!”

  The dog fell instantly silent. Its head went down and it slunk back to the foot of the porch steps from which it had first come leaping, sprawling loose-jointedly on the ground and panting noisily, its tongue hanging, its red eyes watching every move that was made. Ironheel stepped forward, and Mose Kuruk regarded him soberly, the way a man might examine a horse he was thinking of buying.

  “Ironheel?” he growled. “What the fuck you doing up here?”

  The question was general, but the burning eyes were fixed on Easton, who could feel the hostility coming at him like heat off a depot stove. Another Apache who didn’t like the pinda’ lick’ oye. Maybe they only came in the one variety.

  “Gúnla shíí,” Joanna Ironheel said, stepping boldly forward with her chin up. She looked composed and unafraid and Easton admired her. “You know me. I have been here before.”

  “Izee’ nant’án,” Kuruk said. “The doctor, right?”

  “Right,” she said. “I came when you were sick. Ten moons ago. Now I need your help.”

  “Say what?”

  “We went off the road up the hill a ways. We need a ride down to the Agency so we can send up a tow truck—”

  Kuruk glared at her. “You think I’m a fuckin’ moron, lady?” he sneered.

  “Mose—” Ironheel began, but the big man waved the protest aside.

  “Skip the bullshit, n’dee,” Kuruk said heavily. “It’s all over TV how you killed some old guy and a kid down Riverside. Said there’s cops all over the County out hunting you. There’s even a reward. A thousand bucks.” A thin smile touched his lips and malevolence lit his eyes.

  “Be a mistake to try and earn it now,” Easton said gently.

  It was the first time he had spoken. Kuruk looked at him like he was a new species of rodent he’d never encountered before.

  “You’re the cop, right?”

  “Right,” Easton said. “Easton. Chief deputy, Baca County Sheriff’s Office.”

  Kuruk nodded thoughtfully. “I hate cops,” he said, holding Easton’s gaze to be sure he knew the insult was aimed at him. “Especially white ones.”

  Even though he knew they couldn’t afford to antagonize the man, Easton felt his hackles rising. His tolerance for being pissed
on by every Apache he met was running pretty low. Perhaps sensing his anger, Ironheel stepped in front of him before Easton could reply.

  “We are here to ask your help, Mose,” he said, emphasizing each word. “And call your name.”

  Kuruk’s scowl deepened. “Don’t waste that tribal crap on me, Ironheel!” he rumbled angrily. “It don’t work. And even if it did, I still wouldn’t owe this fuckin’ indaa cop nothing.”

  “Nobody’s asking you to help me,” Easton said as placatingly as he knew how. “All we want you to do is give Dr. Ironheel a ride down to the Agency.”

  “I seen a chopper,” Kuruk said, as if Easton had not spoken. “Big mother.”

  “The men in it tried to kill us,” Ironheel told him. For all the surprise or interest Kuruk showed he might have been talking about the weather.

  “All the more reason not to get involved,” he rumbled. “Nothin’ in it for me, anyway.”

  “Sure there is, Mose,” Easton said sweetly. “Just think, for a few minutes you’d know what it feels like to be a human being.”

  All at once Mose Kuruk became very still, his dark eyes fixed on Easton like some huge bear that has just come out of the woods and seen prey. He carefully stood the shotgun on its butt against the door jamb and straightened up, flexing his massive hands. The air grew chill with threat.

  “How about I come down there and break your fucking back?” he rumbled.

  “You’re welcome to try,” Easton said, lifting the Glock so he could see it. “Given you can do it with six nine-millimeter slugs in your belly.”

  Kuruk nodded slowly, staring at him long and hard. Then he shook his head from side to side, reminding Easton yet again of a bear, this time one mildly amused by the standoff. He bet himself Kuruk had more to say. He won.

  “You got cojones, I’ll say that,” he said. “For a fuckin white-eye cop.”

  “Keep it in mind,” Easton told him.

  Kuruk spat on the ground. Toujours la politesse.

  “Mose, we could use something to eat,” Ironheel said. “Anything you can spare.”

  Kuruk shook his head. “I already told you no. I’m not getting into any of this. Your problems, you fix ’em.”