Feud On The Mesa

by Lauran Paine

  “Yes, I was guiding them to Dentón. When they fell back, I slipped away in the darkness, and rode to Dentón.”

  No Salt listened to the interpretation with an in-tense look, gave a throaty, deep grunt of admiration. He had heard of Silent Outcast, the white warrior who had been disowned by the other whites—for what reason the Indians neither knew nor cared— and he felt the honor of riding with such a renowned warrior.

  “¿No habla español?” It was a sincere and earnest question. No Salt felt humiliation at having to talk to such a great fighting man through the mouth of a second person, and especially one so inexperienced and unproven as his nephew. Doom shrugged indifferently and looked at the younger man. Free Man shrugged and remained silent, aware of the purpose behind his uncle’s question.

  The Apache encampment was a sprawling, primitive splash of vivid color in a secluded meadow. Doom was amazed at the size of it. There were teepees, mud-daubed branch hogans like the Navajos make, crude brush shelters with skins tossed indifferently over them, and plain, open camp areas where weapons and personal belongings were strewn around on the trampled buffalo grass, or hanging listlessly from thick growths of chokecherry bushes. The horse herd, visible on another clearing through a thin screen of stately firs and pines, was huge. Indifferent herdsmen lounged beside horses with their heads down while watching the remuda graze in the tall, succulent meadow grass.

  There was a quiet buzzing, intermingled with shrill oaths as squaws chased mangy, half-wild and sly dogs away from the cooking fires and stew pots. Now and then loud laughter would peal over the humming sound of the big camp, and the screams of children at play rode the afternoon air like a nostalgic benediction. No Salt motioned to Free Man, who swung away with a disappointed look and rode listlessly toward the camp of his people. The older warrior then motioned Doom to follow him, and they threaded their way through the maze of Indian camps until they dismounted before a brush lodge set a little apart from the others. No Salt importantly waved up a couple of young boys and growled succinctly at them. Each sprang forward and took the horses’ reins, big-eyed and staring at the white man.

  Inside the cool, shady brush hut, Red Sleeves and three older men sat in stony-faced silence, looking at Caleb, as No Salt recited his meeting with the frontiersman. Red Sleeves motioned to the ground and Caleb sat, as did No Salt. Red Sleeves had been educated by a missionary and spoke good English, al-though he was not known to have any sympathies with the whites. “We know of you, Silent Outcast.”

  It was neither a welcome nor a condemnation. The chief was waiting to hear Doom’s purpose in coming into his camp before he passed judgment.

  “I am honored, although I am sad, too,” Doom said.

  “We all are sad.” Red Sleeves spoke in a distrustful voice.

  “The Apaches fought the soldiers a few days back and beat them,” Doom reminded.

  The chieftain was a shrewd man. “Is that why you are sad? Because the Apaches whipped the ojos claros?”

  “Yes, but my sadness comes from more than a victory or a defeat. It comes from my knowledge that the Apaches are fighting against something they can never conquer.”

  “This,” said Red Sleeves, his eyes alive and hot, “is not the kind of a war you know, Silent Outcast. This is a great and righteous war, this is the kind of a war David fought with the enemies of the Mighty Host.”

  Doom recognized the missionary’s teachings and wondered how they could be so twisted. He nodded as though in agreement, and Red Sleeves’s face lost some of its impassiveness. “You believe, then?”

  “In part, yes. In part, no.”

  “You speak a riddle.”

  “No, Red Sleeves. I speak the mystic teachings of the Great Ones.” From the looks on their faces, two of the older men, sitting motionless and vacant-faced, as well as No Salt, didn’t understand the exchange of words at all. But the other man, about Red Sleeves’s own age, very dark with a hairline that left almost no forehead at all, unpainted like the others, was following the conversation with keen interest. Doom knew he understood.

  “But the Great Ones say we have been wronged.”

  “True, Red Sleeves. True. But the Apaches would have to number in the millions, not the hundreds and thousands, to avenge that wrong.”

  Red Sleeves was plainly perplexed. “You agree that the Indian has been wronged, so you think like we do, but you don’t think he can avenge himself. What do you think the Indian should do, then?”

  “Learn to live in this world that has always been his but which is changing now, by learning the ways of the new life. Learn to farm, to labor, to sew and build. Do all this in peace with the whites. Study their way and profit from it,” Doom said.

  Red Sleeves’s eyes were hard and cold now. “No! The Indian is a free man. He does not imprison the ground in little fields by putting fences around them. He does not kill off the humpback and the antelope, so that he must bring in his own cattle and nurse them. He does not tear up the earth and smooth it out again, and plant grass where the Great Ones had already planted grass. The Indian is no slave. He is a free man. He does not want to live as the ojos claws live. It is better that he should die than to be a slave.”

  Doom sat for a long moment in perfect, grave-faced silence. Red Sleeves’s outburst left him fieryeyed and breathing hard. He faced his councilors and launched forth into a violent harangue, in Apache, spitting and snarling words from his chest in a gurgling staccato of anger.

  No Salt and two elders, who apparently didn’t un-derstand English, grunted and cast baleful glances at Doom. The unpainted man with the low forehead was smiling in a triumphant, lazy way. When Red Sleeves had stopped his tirade, this man’s voice, soft and clear, came into the conversation in perfect English. Caleb was startled. “Your memory is poor, Caleb Doom. You don’t recall El Lobo, the Taos Comanchero.”

  The swarthy face was smiling expectantly. Doom recognized him then. Sam Ginn, one of that reckless, unscrupulous brotherhood of white and mixed-blood traders who were called Comancheros, or roaming traders. Some were honest, fearless men, but most were men who took the big gamble for a quick and rich profit. Of these latter, Sam Ginn was known as a half-breed Comanche, from the Mexican terri-tory that became Texas a little later. Here was a shrewd trader, waxing rich and safe where other, more decent men were leaving their bones to bleach under the savage, hot sun of the untamed land. Caleb had met Ginn before; he had ordered him off the base at Santa Fé several times. There was no re-spect or friendship here.

  He inclined his head softly, a pensive, accusing light in his deep-set, gray eyes. “Sam, I thought it must be something like this. I figured someone must have stirred them up…someone who had an ability to organize and profiteer.”

  Ginn shrugged indifferently, the cool smile still on his heavy face. “I don’t profiteer. Sell them a little powder, a few cases of contraband whiskey and bullets, trade for horses and jewelry of the whites they kill.” His shoulders rose and fell agreeably, leisurely. “Better I get it than it rot on the desert. Good business, Doom, that’s all. Good business.”

  Doom motioned toward the Apache n’deh b’keh moccasins, the breechclout, and the scalping knife. “Playin’ Indian, Sam, so’s you won’t be caught by the soldiers and shot for a renegade?”

  “Seguro. That’s good business, too, ain’t it?” Ginn asked.

  Doom turned to Red Sleeves, who was listening to the conversation. “You are making a mistake by letting this man talk up a war. He is a renegade. The Apaches do not like traitors any more than the whites do. This man.…”

  Red Sleeves slashed the air with an impatient arm. “He is advisor to the Apaches. He brings us the things we need.” He shrugged indifferently. “He is well paid, but, as he has said, the trinkets we pay him with are of little value to us. It is a good trade.”

  “Red Sleeves, you are bringing down fire and the sword on your own people. This man has talked you into a great wrong.”

  “I don’t want to hear
any more, Silent Outcast.”

  Sam Ginn turned languidly to the chief. “Let’s take him on the raid with us tonight. It would be well if his corpse was found among the dead whites at Clearwater Springs.” The smile was full of hate now and the small, bird-like black eyes were cruel pools of resentment. “We would have the last laugh. The white soldiers would find him left behind by the Apaches and would think he was, indeed, a renegade…like they said he was when they drummed him out of their army at Santa Fé.”

  For a long, brooding moment Red Sleeves thought over Ginn’s plan. He respected the fighting ojo claro before him, but this was a war to extinction and the great white fighters were no better than the lesser ones. In fact, it would be well to kill the great ones first, then the Indians would have nothing but pale-faced human sheep to slaughter.

  Red Sleeves nodded slowly, looking straight into Caleb’s eyes. “Yes, we will take him with us and leave his body among the dead. But the Apaches shall kill him, for he is a brave warrior and no stain must linger after the death of great fighting men.” He turned to No Salt: “Guard him well, No Salt, until we are ready to ride.”

  III

  No Salt was a good guardian. The day was al-most spent and he took his prisoner over to his own camp to eat. The meal was a dolorous, silent affair with Free Man eating desultorily, No Salt chewing in carefully averted grimness, and No Salt’s squaw impassive and dour. Caleb Doom ate hungrily. The food wasn’t tasty, and Doom knew better than to ask what it was. It was the first meal since he had left Leclerc at Dentón. His mind was busy, too. The Apaches had not disarmed him and he resolved, once in the neighborhood, to fire his gun and let the settlers at Clearwater Springs know that trouble was coming. That he’d die, he under-stood, but he was to die anyway.

  No Salt wiped his hands painstakingly on the uppers of his moccasins. “You are to leave your gun and knife with me.”

  Doom felt his hopes tumble. He considered immediate resistance but decided against it. Free Man had interpreted again and was watching the frontiersman owlishly Doom spoke as he unbuckled the wide, mahogany-colored belt and let his .44 and scalping knife drop gently against the warm earth. “One more gun and knife to hasten the fall of my brothers.”

  Free Man bristled. “It is not so.”

  “Yes, the result of warfare is warfare. The Apaches have been my brothers, and I hate to see them used,” Doom said angrily.

  “No one uses the Apaches.”

  “Not even Sam Ginn?”

  “No. Sam Ginn is a’breed Comanche. He is like one of us, his race fights the ojos claws, too,” Free Man answered.

  Caleb nodded thoughtfully as he watched the shadows lengthen. “Yes, one half of him fights the ojos claws, while the other half profits from the fighting. It is a good combination, for a trader.”

  No Salt requested an interpretation, listened with downcast eyes and furrowed brow as Free Man told him what Caleb had said, looked oddly at the frontiersman, and arose, growling an order that was quickly made plain to Doom. The time had come to ride.

  A raucous turmoil boiled through the large Indian encampment as the warriors, uniformly short, bandy-legged, and heavy-shouldered, painted and decorated in lurid symbols of death and ruin, assembled on their horses. They were awaiting the arrival of their war leaders, Red Sleeves and a dry-eyed, fanatically featured younger man called Antonio—a kidnapped Navajo who had grown up as an Apache.

  Caleb looked over the fighting bucks. He estimated their number at 400—more Apaches than he had ever seen in a fighting party before.

  Red Sleeves rode up beside him and inclined his head respectfully, broodingly “There are fool Apaches just as there are fools among the ojos claws. The Apache fools would have you die in disgrace.” He shook his head firmly. “This will not happen, Silent Outcast. The older warriors know you are a great fighting man. They will see that you die as one. There shall be no shame to follow your spirit.”

  Caleb nodded gravely, his face a blank painting. The Indian turned his horse, cast a careful eye over the gathered multitude of fighters, delayed the departure for a dramatic moment while all eyes were upon him, looked briefly heavenward, then nodded. The quiet of a moment before was broken by shrill shrieks from the children and women, the deep-chested, savage screams of the eager marauders, and the spiteful cries of the older men who had to remain behind. The grass was churned under 1,600 unshod hoofs, and a strong smell of animal and human sweat followed the disturbed atmosphere as the hostile bucks rode gracefully away from their ranchería without a backward glance. They talked and gesticu-lated among themselves, already forgetting home and families, to brag about the things they would do when they came to Clearwater Springs.

  The darkness came down swiftly and with it a thick sickle of a moon that cast an eerie, ghostly light over the great sweep of the broad landscape. Sage, pungent with the yellow flowers blooming profusely in the late spring, and thorny chaparral, gray-green in the watery light, were a fitting, weird backdrop for the wild throng of horsemen who rode briskly toward their objective.

  Caleb let his mind wander back to previous visits to Clearwater Springs. He fixed the location of the log and mud general store, squatty and forbidding. The clutch of shacks hastily thrown athwart the dusty trail that wound past the clear, cold spring that bubbled out of the hard ground. He recalled the scattering of emigrant soddies out on the prairie. The sober, big-eyed children and the worn, patient women with their lean, stubborn, husbands in homespun. Clearwater Springs was a struggling settlement, where hardship and suffering were in the warp of everyone’s life. Drought, howling winters, illness without remedies, and accidents with-out help were the accepted lots of existence. Even so, Clearwater Springs was coming up out of the sordidness of its creation by stubborn insistence on the part of the settlers. Now it was to be shattered, fired, and devastated, which was tragic—but all this was to be laid waste for no better reason than because Sam Ginn, the Comanchero, wanted to hawk the pathetic treasures of forlorn people and make a profit.

  Red Sleeves rode back to where Doom was riding erectly between No Salt, and Free Man. He reined up beside the white man, and Caleb noticed that another Indian was with him. He nodded and the warrior nodded back. He jutted his chin toward the other man. “Antonio.”

  Caleb nodded to the younger man, who ignored the greeting and looked at the frontiersman with bitter hatred in his harsh, twisted features. Caleb swung his eyes back to Red Sleeves. “Clearwater Springs isn’t far ahead.” The Apache nodded again but said nothing. “Sam Ginn should make a good profit from your work tonight.”

  At this, Antonio looked quickly at Doom. He spoke in a deep, husky voice. “We are not without friends.”

  Doom shrugged indifferently. “No. You’ll have Sam Ginn for a friend so long as you do the fighting and bring the loot to him.”

  Antonio’s black eyes sparkled in their muddy settings, and he showed his white, even teeth in a snarl. “You lie!”

  Doom’s comeback was swift and biting. “In your teeth!” he said.

  Antonio was surprised and infuriated. He swore a blasting oath in Spanish and yanked his horse toward Caleb, drawing his knife as he went. Red Sleeves jumped his horse in between them and roared at Antonio who, ignoring his companion in his demonic fury, pushed closer. Doom was watching like a hawk but he made no move to get away from the wild Apache. Other warriors, hearing the violent oath, came wraith-like out of the shadows and watched the drama of anger that seethed in their midst.

  Red Sleeves forced his horse in harder and frowned savagely at Antonio. He spoke in English, which was not generally understood by the other Apaches. “Silent Outcast must not die yet. The council has agreed that he is to be left at Clearwater Springs.”

  Antonio, beside himself, swore obscenely at Red Sleeves, whose blunt jaw jutted dangerously and made a brief, thunderous tirade in Apache to which Red Sleeves nodded grimly. “Yes. He will die. It has been decided on. But you will not kill him here.”

  A
ntonio was subsiding a little. The first crazy red mist before his eyes had paled a little as he looked balefully at the captive and holstered his knife with an exasperated movement. Doom taunted him again and this time Red Sleeves, afraid the fight might erupt into a sectional battle then and there, told him to be silent. Caleb looked thoughtfully at Red Sleeves as an outrider came back and told them that the lights of the springs were up ahead.

  “Red Sleeves, you are a smart man, if your friend is not. You are letting the Apaches be made into tools to enrich that renegade, Sam Ginn. I warn you. Whether I live or die, the ojos claws will pursue you to the end of your world, and wipe you out if you at-tack this settlement.” He raised his hands, palms upwards in an earnest plea. “You are not of los viejos, the old veterans of the yesterdays. You can learn the new way. Don’t lead the Apaches to their doom.”

  Red Sleeves had long had a suspicion, although he had never voiced it. Now, with the crossroads of his race in his hands, he looked hard at Doom with a puzzled frown. “We are a persecuted race. We have been robbed. Our lands…. ”

  Doom interrupted impatiently as he saw the bucks fanning out before the foremost of the out-lying sod houses up ahead. “You need not explain Tome. I know all the wrongs the ojos claws have brought to you and your people. I know of more wrongs than you. But you do not help them by raiding. Besides, the Apaches have not the strength….”

  Antonio screamed wildly, savagely, deeply from his broad, bronze chest and the hellish scourge of the plains was unleashed. It was too late. Caleb locked his jaws in fierce grimness. Then this was to be a pyre of hate, and he was to lie in it, food for coyotes and red-eyed buzzards. He nodded his head in acceptance of his fate. This must have eventually happened, he thought. His life was forfeit on the frontier and his destiny was bound up inextricably with the wild, sullen land. All right, then he would die fighting.

  Red Sleeves was hunching his muscles for the for-ward leap of his horse, going to join the others in their attack. Rifles and wild, despairing screams were pitting the watery light that bathed the eerie land when Caleb acted. His big black horse leaped like an animated battering ram under the viciousness of his heels and struck Red Sleeves’s mount sideways. The Apache went down in a mêlée of thrashing arms and legs and flailing hoofs. Stunned by the fall, confused and bewildered, Doom’s fist found a ready target and the Apache relaxed from the blow.