by Lou Cameron
Eskinya rubbed some more sand on the pony’s hind leg and said, “I don’t like the looks of this brush cut. I think the flies have been at it and I can’t get it to dry up.”
“I think somebody ought to kill that yellow-haired woman and her sick child,” Kaya-Tenay insisted. “You can have the young virgin and the pretty black White Eyes if you want.”
Eskinya rubbed more sand on the pony’s sore and straightened up, not looking at the older man as he said, “If my father wishes to fight the little boy, I will have to speak against it as a bad thing.”
Kaya-Tenay struggled to keep from losing his temper as he insisted, “I don’t want to do it! But how far can we carry them, unless they stop crying and start to act like people?”
“The black White-Eyed girl speaks Spanish, my father. I will tell them to behave. Perhaps Cho-Ko-Ley can cure the boy’s fever and we won’t have to kill any of them.”
“Do you intend to pay court to one of those women? The black one has a nice body, but the yellow-haired mother and daughter are repulsive, even for White Eyes!”
“I think I did a foolish thing back at the wagon, my father. When the black White-Eyed girl spoke to me in Spanish, I told her none of them would be hurt if they did as I said.”
Kaya-Tenay frowned thoughtfully at the younger man. “You offered terms? I think that was foolish of you, Eskinya.”
“I agree I was a fool, my father. Just the same, in the heat of the moment, I gave my word, and up until now, the captives have obeyed every order I have given them.”
Kaya-Tenay sighed and nodded, turning away. It was too bad, he thought, for the black one had a very nice body indeed and, as chief, she should have been his for the asking. But that young fool had offered terms, and in accepting them, the White Eyes had placed themselves under Eskinya’s protection. No woman, with any kind of body, was worth a fight to the death with a man as deadly as Eskinya. So thin-skinned as his son was about his honor as a man, he’d probably even fight to save that ugly woman’s ugly children!
The prairie schooner lay on its side, two wheels off the ground like the legs of a dead cow. The canvas top had been torn from the hoops and draped over a clump of cholla. The contents of the wagon bed were scattered across the surrounding desert as if some very large and very boisterous children had tipped over a toy box and rummaged through it thoughtlessly, before running off to another place to play.
The team had been run off and there were no bodies near the wagon, so Matt Caldwell was able to sit his camel as he circled the overturned wagon, staring soberly down at the desert pavement. He spotted hoof marks and called out, “Here! I’ve got tracks running off to the south!”
Greenberg, on the other side of the wagon, called back, “I got some headed north. Tracks don’t mean shit this close to where they’ve hit.” As Caldwell circled to join Greenberg and Trooper Dorfler on the north side of the wagon, Trooper Mulvany to the east called out, “Two ponies headed off due east, Lieutenant!”
Greenberg nodded and told Caldwell, “That’s how Apaches leave the field, Lieutenant. They wiped this party out and took off in ever’ direction, like the spokes of a wagon wheel. They likely drug the other bodies to the four corners as they went, jest to puzzle us a mite.”
The scout spit downwind and added, “Later on, they’ll have jined up, someplace they picked out ahead of time. We’uns is supposed to waste half a day trackin’ in ever’ direction whilst them rascals put some miles betwixt themselves and ussen.”
Caldwell saw that Rabbit-Boss, poking through the debris on foot, had found something. He called out to the Digger, and Rabbit-Boss held up a small buckskin bag the size of a goose egg. Greenberg spit again and explained, “That’s a four-pollen pouch. Supposed to be heap big medicine. These folks run into Apache right enough.”
“That thing’s an Apache fetish?”
“Don’t know what a fetish might be, but that’s a four-pollen pouch right enough. Don’t have to look inside to savvy it’s filled with corn pollen, squash pollen, bean pollen, and tobacco pollen. It’s a fool idear they picked up offen the Pueblos. Apache set a heap of store in crosses, too. They say Mangas Coloradas wears a big gold crucifix he took offen a dead Mexican priest after the Battle of Santa Rita. Apaches kilt priests in that one. Rode off all gussied up in crosses and them silver religious medals the Mexicans wear.”
Rabbit-Boss had dropped the pollen bag and picked up a girl’s petticoat. He held it at arm’s length, dropped it, and opined, “Small squaw. Not old enough yet.”
“My God!” gasped Caldwell. “They’ve taken a white girl!”
Greenberg shrugged and said, “That’s usually what you’ll find in an immigrant wagon. Be a bigger surprise iffen he’d found an Injun gal’s shimmy shirt, wouldn’t it?”
Caldwell swung around in his saddle and called out, “Corporal Muller! Dismount the men and have them police the entire area. I want everyone to be on the lookout for any scrap of paper they may find. I want to know who these people in this wagon might have been.”
He saw his orders were being carried out and knelt his own camel to dismount. He walked over to where Rabbit-Boss was rummaging through a broken box and asked, “Do you think this was a family party, Rabbit-Boss?”
The Indian said, “I think they were big fools. Two men, two women, two children, crossing here alone in daylight. I think this was a bad fight for them. I think Apache must have laughed very much.”
“You can read all that in this mess? How-do you know they were hit by daylight?”
“They were following old wagon trace. No moon last night, and they did not know this country. Wheel tracks show wagon was rolling until Apache stopped them. If it had been night, the White Eyes would have been camped. Cooking pots taken, but no sign of campfire. My word, I think you must be very blind, even for a Blue Sleeves!”
“I’m trying to learn. How do you know it was two couples and a pair of kids?”
From where he lounged on his own camel, Goldberg called down, “The Injun’s right, you’re blind as a bat full of Maryland rye! Cain’t you read them shoe prints all around the wagon, Lieutenant? It’s like the fool Injun says, two men, two women, two kids. The kids is a boy of six or eight. Gal’s nigh growned, but built light. She’s light on her feet as a kid, but she’s startin’ to walk like a woman. You kin see, over there, where some buck walked her over to a pony and swooped her up and away. The Injun rode southeast with her, but of course, that don’t mean a thing.”
Caldwell stared at what to him were meaningless scuff marks in the hard-packed gravel. “What about the other women and the younger child? Were they carried in the same direction?”
Greenberg shook his head. “One gal and the kid went off to the north betwixt two Injuns. Other gal was put on a burro and carried west, the way the men-folks’ footprints lead.”
A trooper searching for sign in that direction called out, “Hey, Lieutenant? I think there’s some dry blood on the brush over here!”
Caldwell made a note that Trooper Corrie was a better-than-average observer as Greenberg opined, “That’d be where at least one of ’em bought it, then. I reckon the men was out front with the team and never knowed what hit ’em. Had they drawed blood as the Apache come in agin’ ’em, they’d have kilt the whole lot. I suspicion it was a clean ambush and Diablito was in a good mood, for an Apache, I mean.”
“You think the women and children may still be alive?”
“Fer now mebbe. They wouldn’t have wasted time puttin’ ’em aboard broncs if all they aimed at was to kill ’em.”
“Jesum Crow! I’ll bet they’ve all been raped or worse by now!”
Greenberg spit again. “Well, that’s hard to say. Them Mexicans never named Diablito Little Devil ’cause they admired his manners all that much. But Injuns ain’t as hell-bent on rape as some folks reckon. I’d say a lot depends on how good-lookin’ them white gals is, and how willin’ they is to let themselves be raped.”
“You mean
, they’re liable to have a choice?”
“Well, that depends on what sort of hombres has them. I mean, you take an Injun gal, captured by white men … What would you say the chances of her gettin’ raped was?”
“Well, I don’t know. It would depend a lot on what sort of white men were holding her and … Hmmm, I see what you mean. But I thought all Apache were pretty savage.”
“Oh, they’re savage right enough. Not too many hombres kin hold a candle to an Apache fer bein’ savage. But I’d say most men, red or white, would ruther have a gal come willin’ to his bedroll. These two white gals might be too skeered to see that. Lots of times when a gal says Injuns raped her, she really means she was skeered to say no, or too lazy to gather firewood when she could be the pet of some big hoorah. As fer the kids, most Injuns is good to kids. Apaches has adopted so dern many Mexican kids, the tribe’s half spic by now!”
Rabbit-Boss, having completed his examination of the surroundings, had squatted in the shade of the Overturned wagon and closed his eyes.
Caldwell went over to him and asked, “Which trail do you think we should travel, Rabbit-Boss?”
The Indian didn’t bother to open his eyes as he answered, “Every sign false trail. Greenberg right, my word. The Snakes have ridden off all over, to meet over that way and ride through night.”
Caldwell saw the Digger had pointed to the north with his chin, and asked, “You think they’ve ridden to the north with their captives?”
Rabbit-Boss looked about to fall asleep as he grunted, “Wee-Tshitz does not think they rode north. Wee-Tshitz knows they rode north. Wee-Tshitz has spoken. You ride any way you like.”
“Listen, I’m not questioning your ability, uh, Wheat-Shit ...”
“Call me Rabbit-Boss.”
“All right, Rabbit-Boss, I just wanted to know how you could tell which way they’d gone.”
Rabbit-Boss opened his eyes and stared thoughtfully up at the younger man. “Hear me, Blue Sleeves, this land you do not understand was made in the days of Hohokam by … Lord Grizzly.”
Rabbit-Boss leaned forward and began to claw the gravel with his fingers in a north-to-south direction as he explained, “When Lord Grizzly made this land, he clawed it so. He left it as it is today, with many many mountain ranges running like this, do you see?”
“Yes, long fault-block ridges running north and south with wide, flat desert basins between them. We have much of this on our ordnance map, Rabbit-Boss.”
“I have seen the map the man called Fremont made. Your Fremont was a great fool. The ranges and flats are all in the wrong places. But hear me, there are different ways of living in this country. My people live one way. Apache and other Snakes must live another. Do you know how one finds water for a pony in this country?”
“We have most of the wells and seasonal streams mapped out and … ”
“You do not know how to find water. You do not know how to live in my country!”
“All right, “suppose I don’t. We were talking about Diablito and where you think he might be going.”
“He must take the middle way, between the path of my people and the path of the Snakes. If he follows the ridges, where there is grass and water, he will run into other Snakes. The ones you call Bannock or Shoshoni. If he gets too far out on the flats, there will be no fodder, and such water as there may be, after a rain, is bad water.”
“In other words, they have to skirt along the edges of the north-south ridgeways, riding by night and skulking in a draw during daylight.”
“Now you have started to listen instead of buzzing in my ear like a fly. The fastest travel in this country is always north and south, and Diablito will want to travel fast after hitting this wagon so close to fort. If he follows the river valley, he will be seen from the fort, and attacked by the dung-grubbing Mojave near the river. So he has one ridge between his people and the river and hopes to slip north to the great emptiness your Fremont named the Devil’s Playground. There is another river up that way, a river you do not have on your map. If the Apache can keep their ponies alive that far, they will be safe from you Blue Sleeves, and very few Real People go there.”
“I see, but what’s the matter with his going south to his own … ” Then he saw the disgusted look on Rabbit-Boss’s face and quickly decided, “He can’t go back to his own country. The other Apache are after him. I guess his best bet would be a desert hideout no white man knows about. I’m beginning to see how you do it, Rabbit-Boss. You don’t track your prey by spotting every footprint it might have left. You use your knowledge of the desert to think ahead to where the man or animal you’re following has to go!”
“Of course,” said the Indian. “Did you think, my word, I was some kind of dog?”
“I think,” said Caldwell soberly, “there’s more to you and your people than meets the eye, Wheat … uh, how did you say your name before?”
“Just call me Rabbit-Boss, Blue Sleeves. I savvy what is in your heart. I think you are a good man, but, my word, dumb!”
Since the Nadene did not want to be tracked, and since the camel patrol needed light to track by, the second sunset reversed activity for the two sides. Matt Caldwell ordered a halt for the night, after following Rabbit-Boss a little over twelve miles to the north without spotting the true trail of Kaya-Tenay’s band. It had been his idea to camp in a clear and sandy wash where their campfires would not be seen, but Rabbit-Boss insisted they form their circle on the rim of the wash and, when pressed, retreated into a sullen silence.
Meanwhile, to the north, the Nadene were breaking camp for another night march. Eskinya placed his captives, riding double, on the mounts of trusted followers. Ernestine Unger was ordered to ride with young Digoon, their weights balanced on Eskinya’s injured pony, Hummingbird-Dancer. The lighter Alfrieda rode with Eskinya’s friend, Naiche, a stolid, middle-aged Husband who liked children. The black White-Eyed girl, Jezebel, was told to ride behind Eskinya on his favorite mount, Feet-with-Wings. When Jezebel explained the strange weeping and wailing of the other woman as concern for her son’s whereabouts, Eskinya explained, “He is riding with my mother, Cho-Ko-Ley. He must be kept warm inside those deerskins, and this night promises to be cold. My mother says she must hold him tightly and listen to his heart with her own until his fever breaks. He will die if his own foolish mother holds him. Cho-Ko-Ley says the three of you were making the wrong medicine. Are there no fevers among your people?”
Jezebel called out to the boy’s mother and sister in the waterfowl gabble of the northern White Eyes, and after some argument, the ugly old woman with yellow hair stopped screaming. Eskinya nodded and told Jezebel, “She is bigger than young Digoon and she may think foolish thoughts about overpowering him and getting away. Warn her I have put her on a lame pony with this in mind.”
Jezebel replied, “She would never try to escape unless she could take her children with her. She might leave me, but not her own flesh and blood.”
Eskinya saw the others were moving out and heeled his pony up the bank of the wash, as Jezebel, frightened by the sudden lunges of Feet-with-Wings, clung tightly to the Indian youth’s naked waist. They reached the even level to the north, and as the pony’s gait became more reassuring, the captive Jezebel flushed warmly and released her death grip, keeping only one hand lightly on Eskinya’s breechclout band. It was hard to touch the fool Injun without touching bare flesh, and Jezebel felt embarrassed enough riding astride like a he-nigger. She’d tried to sit sidesaddle, like a well-brought-up serving girl from a quality house, but the man she rode with had laughed and insisted she ride “sensibly,” and do Jesus, her skirts were above her naked knees!
It was too dark to see the legs of Mizz Ernestine and Mizz Frieda, but Jezebel just knew these Injuns had made them ride the same improper way. Once, when she spotted Mizz Frieda riding nigh, she was tempted to warn her to keep her skirts as close to her ankles as she could, but she knew there were things a darky had to watch out about bringing up to white f
olks.
The Nadene rode in an alternating series of jolting trots and briefer walks to rest their mounts. From the frightened memories of the night before, Jezebel knew they seldom stopped to stretch their legs or relieve themselves, and she sincerely hoped, as she bounced along on the thin blanket between her exposed groin and this awful pony’s sharp spine, that her kidneys wouldn’t betray her. She’d never in this world be able to up and ask this Injun she was riding with to stop along the way. The less they talked about her female parts the better. She’d been raped once by a white man back in Georgia. It had been her one and only sexual experience, and she had no intention of repeating it any sooner than she had to.
After a time, the column slowed to a walk and Eskinya, in Spanish, asked the captive behind him, “What did you mean about the yellow-haired woman leaving you behind? What relation of hers are you?”
Jezebel blinked in surprise. “Relation? How could we be related? Can’t you see I’m black?”
Eskinya said, “Of course. You are a black White Eyes, what the Mexicans call a gringa negra, but you were traveling together. Are you not of the same band?”
“I belong to Senora Unger, if that is what you mean. I am her slave.”
The Spanish word for “slave” was unfamiliar to Eskinya, and Jezebel tried other words she knew until they’d settled on “captive.”
The Indian nodded. “Now I understand. These White Eyes took you in a fight with your people. Have they adopted you, or are you still free to get away if you can?”
Jezebel shook her head. “You don’t understand at all. Senora Unger didn’t capture me. My grandparents were captured long ago in another country. These people bought me from ... Oh my, it is hard to explain, speaking Spanish to an Apache!”
“Why do you call me your enemy? Are you still angry because we had to kill those men back at the wagon? You told me this afternoon the men we killed were not kinsmen of yours or the yellow-haired people.”
Jezebel tried to understand, but the mixture of bad Spanish and strange Indian terms didn’t make much sense. She said, UI don’t want you to be our enemy. I don’t want to be anybody’s enemy. I only want to be allowed to go on living!”