Falcon used a fork to turn the bacon in the skillet, paying close attention to the pearls of knowledge Hawk was sharing with him. He knew it might well mean the difference between life or death in the coming days.
“Now, to find the underground water, you look fer a place that has some shade to it, like near some rocks or in the bottom of an arroyo or dry wash. If’n you see some green to the weeds there, or a small tree or brush, chances are there’s water not too far ’neath the surface.”
“I’ve heard, though to tell the truth I’ve never had to try it, that some of the cactuses have a lot of liquid in them that’s drinkable.”
Hawk nodded as he plucked a still sizzling chunk of meat from the skillet and bounced it back and forth between his hands until it cooled enough to pop it into his mouth. He spoke around the mouthful of food as he chewed. “That’s correct, partner. The one you want to try is the barrel cactus. They’s short and squatty and round on top. Best way to get the water out of ’em is to cut ’em off at the base and hold ’em up over your head and let it run right on down your gullet. Got to be careful, though. Them thorns is murder on your hands.”
Finally the meal was ready, and Falcon piled heaping helpings of beans and fried bacon onto plates while Hawk poured them both coffee into tin mugs.
They sat on the ground, leaning back against their saddles, and enjoyed the first hot meal they’d had in several days. Neither talked until their plates were picked clean.
Hawk scrubbed his plate with a handful of sand and wiped it dry with a dirty bandanna. He leaned back and took out a cloth sack of tobacco and built himself a cigarette, then offered his fixin’s to Falcon.
As they smoked, Falcon asked, “What do you plan to do after we finish with the Indians, Hawk?”
Hawk shrugged, as if he hadn’t given it much thought. “I dunno. Go back to minin’, I guess.” He looked up from his cigarette to stare at Falcon. “To tell you the honest truth, I really don’t ’spect to come out of this fracas without attracting some lead.”
“Oh?”
“I just don’t think it’s in the cards for us to go up against this many redskins an’ come out of it with our skins intact.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Injuns ain’t like white men. They don’t think like us, an’ they sure as hell don’t act like us.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, if’n a white man is up against long odds, ’specially if his fight is with someone armed a lot better’n he is, he’ll most likely run away and live to fight another day.”
As he smoked, the cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, Hawk absentmindedly picked up a stick from the ground and began to whittle on it while he talked. “A redskin, on the other hand, thinks it’s a mark of bravery to go up against a superior force. Hell, I’ve seen a lone brave armed only with a tomahawk charge a squadron of men with repeating rifles, an’ never flinch ’til he was blown outta the saddle.”
He shook his head. “Won’t see no white man doin’ nothin’ like that.”
Falcon laughed, “No, and I don’t blame him, either.”
“My point is, Falcon, that once these Injuns find out we’re on their backtrail, they ain’t gonna just go on about they business and pay us no nevermind. They is gonna come lookin’ for us with a vengeance, an’ they won’t stop ’til either we’re dead, or they is. There just ain’t no backup to Injuns. It ain’t in they character.”
“I know what you mean,” Falcon said. “My father, who was out here before most other white men, told me a story once about an old mountain man friend of his, man named Preacher. Seems this Preacher was once taken prisoner by some Indians—Pawnee, I think. These Indians took turns torturing him with what they called games. Making him run across hot coals barefoot, passing him between a line of braves who all took little swipes at him with their knives until he was bleeding from a hundred cuts, and then burying him up to his head and rode by at full speed, throwing spears at him.”
Hawk stared at Falcon, interested in his story. “What ever happened to the old man?”
“The story goes, they couldn’t make him scream or cry out for help, and that so impressed them with his courage they let him go.” Falcon flipped his butt into the fire. “Of course, they couldn’t make it too easy for him, so they set him free naked as the day he was born, without boots or shoes, and he had to walk across twenty miles of mountain peaks that were covered with snow, without any weapons or food.”
Hawk looked dubious. “And you mean to tell me the old codger made it?”
Falcon nodded. “Yeah. My father said he saw the scars from the knife wounds and the stubs where some of his toes froze off, but he made it. The old man must have been tough as an armadillo’s hide to survive that trek through the mountains.”
“Heck, they’s lots of stories ‘bout Injuns, an’ truth be told most of ’em won’t stand the light of day, but there is no doubt they be strange creatures, all right.”
He pitched his stick in the fire and rolled over on his side, pulling his hat down over his eyes. “I think I’m gonna take me a little after noonin’ nap.”
Falcon stood up, pulled his rifle from its boot, and started to walk away toward a clump of boulders nearby. “I’ll just mosey on over there and keep an eye out for uninvited guests. I wouldn’t want you to wake up without your hair.”
“Much obliged,” Hawk mumbled, and started snoring almost immediately thereafter.
Chapter 10
Major Wilson Tarver felt an odd mixture of anger and fear. More than fifty Winchester rifles in the hands of Apache savages would be enough to turn all of southern Arizona Territory into a river of blood, and they’d been stolen right under his nose from the Fort Thomas arsenal. This was not going to look good in his personnel record. He sleeved fear-sweat off his forehead, thinking he might have seen his last promotion.
He spoke to Sergeant Boyd while staring down at the corpses of four soldiers arranged in a row behind the armory.
“Jesus. The redskinned bastards cut Watkins and Peters to pieces. I’ve told Washington all along I agree with General Crook’s policy of utter extermination of every Indian on this continent. We ought to line them up and shoot every goddamn one of ’em.”
“Things were too quiet, Major. I had a feelin’ somethin’ was about to happen. I should have doubled the guard on the armory. Without them repeatin’ rifles they’d be a helluva lot easier to capture.” Boyd gave the parade ground and fort walls a lingering stare.
Corporal Collins, a new recruit from Ohio, turned away from the blood-smeared bodies, his complexion gone pale. “These damn Apaches ain’t human, Major. Only an animal would do something like this to another human being. See how they cut them up like they was hogs at butchering time?”
Sergeant Boyd grunted. “I been fightin’ the red bastards out here in the west for nearly twenty years, but these Apaches are the worst. It’s on account of that crazy one, Geronimo, that they stay stirred up like this. Then there’s Naiche, probably the worst of the Chiricahuas. He escaped last month with eight or nine young bucks. He’s every damn bit as bloodthirsty as ole’ Geronimo ... maybe worse.”
Major Tarver turned his attention to the Indian roll call being conducted inside the reservation. Braves dressed in ragged buckskins and dirty cotton trousers were lined up in front of the barracks showing soldiers their identity tags. “Any idea yet how many broke away last night?” he asked, his voice hard as nails.
“Best we can tell, wasn’t but about a dozen, only Private Newman ain’t done with the countin’ yet. Worst is, they got enough rifles for fifty more. Won’t be long ’til more of ‘em start slippin’ off at night to join Naiche an’ Geronimo. Then we’ll have us a real Indian war on our hands.” Boyd said this as though certain of it.
“Against savages armed with repeaters,” Tarver added in a dull tone, fully understanding the potential consequences. “There will be a considerable amount of bloodshed, if I’m any judge o
f the matter.”
“They stole seventeen horses,” Collins added. “They’ll be hard to ride down. Took some of our best Remount Thoroughbreds, too. Catching up to them won’t be easy. Instead of riding them half-starved Indian ponies, they’re mounted on some of our best saddle stock.”
Tarver turned to Sergeant Boyd. “Assemble two mounted troops. Make sure they’re heavily armed and well-provisioned. Get three of our best Pawnee scouts ... if they’re sober enough to sit a horse this morning.”
“Yes, sir,” Boyd said, turning on his heel.
Corporal Collins spoke. “I don’t trust our Pawnees, Major, if you’ll pardon me for saying so. That old Shoshone, the one they call Tomo, is the best tracker we’ve got, and he don’t drink nearly so much.”
“Find him, then,” Tarver snapped. “If all four scouts are dead drunk, tie them across their horses until they sober up. We must get those rifles back and corral this batch of renegades, or every goddamn Apache on this reservation will take off into the mountains to join up with them when Naiche and Geronimo hear about this.”
* * *
Tomo, a slope-shouldered man of fifty in buckskins with long gray hair in a single plait hanging between his shoulder blades, gave the desert floor a lengthy study. Major Tarver waited impatiently for the Indian to say something.
“Go this way,” Tomo finally said, pointing to the south. “Ride many circles to hide direction they go. Maybe so they go to Dragoon Mountains. Rock there be plenty hard to track horse. Easy to hide in Dragoons.”
“That’s the way I had it figured,” Sergeant Boyd said with a mouthful of chewing tobacco filling his right cheek. “May as well give up followin’ their tracks an’ head straight for them there mountains.”
“Isa is leading them to some place he knows,” Tarver said. “I figure he aims to join up with Geronimo and Naiche somewhere up yonder.”
“Let’s hope we find these runaways before that happens,” Major Tarver said.
* * *
Entering a narrow ravine winding through solid rock, Tarver had an uneasy sensation. “Where the hell is that Shoshone?” he demanded of Sergeant Boyd.
“Can’t say fer sure,” Boyd replied, giving the rock walls on both sides a closer examination. “I seen him ride around that bend yonder. Can’t say as I’ve seen the ole’ bastard since then, not to my best recollection.”
A gunshot thundered from a rocky bluff above the mounted troopers and a soldier screamed, clutching his chest as he toppled off his horse. Major Tarver and Sergeant Boyd were reaching for their rifles before the noise from the gunshot died to silence.
Mounted soldiers were moving all at once, and in every direction.
“Take cover!” Tarver shouted.
Sergeant Boyd was down off his horse in an instant, knowing he’d make a smaller target.
A rifle shot from above lifted Corporal Collins out of his saddle, spinning him like a child’s top with blood squirting from a hole in his back.
Major Tarver watched Collins fall. Then, he too, jumped out of his saddle to seek shelter behind a pile of rocks.
Suddenly, the ravine was filled with the roar of gunfire from high on the rim on both sides. Soldiers began falling to the ground, bleeding, crying for help, as their horses bolted away from the noises.
“Son of a bitch!” Tarver bellowed, when he saw puffs of smoke billowing off the top of the ravine. “They’ve got us surrounded!”
“Tomo led us into a trap!” he heard Sergeant Boyd shout from a pile of fallen boulders. “We shoulda killed that rotten ole’ son of a bitch an’ taken the Pawnee!”
“The Pawnees were drunk!” Tarver replied at the top of his voice, to be heard above the roar of guns and the whine of spent bullets bouncing off stones.
Seven cavalrymen fell to the floor of the ravine with mortal wounds. Then three more went down, and finally another was shot from his saddle.
“They’ll kill every damn one of us!” Sergeant Boyd yelled from his hiding place behind a pile of rock. “They got us caught in a cross fire!”
This wasn’t news Major Tarver wanted to hear right then. It was evident a slaughter was about to take place in the ravine, and the dead would be U.S. Cavalrymen ... unless he could figure a way to get out of this trap.
“Sound the retreat!” he cried. “Pull back! We’ll get around behind them somehow—”
As the words left his mouth, four more soldiers were cut down in a volley of repeating rifle fire. Tarver knew his own men were being killed by weapons stolen from the Fort Thomas armory.
“Pull back!” he shrieked again. “Have the bugler sound the retreat!”
Only then did he notice a young private with the company bugle tied around his neck lying face-down on the floor of the arroyo. Only a fool would have run out in plain sight to grab the horn in order to follow his command.
“Withdraw!” he shouted as loudly as he could, hunkering down to move cautiously away from the fusillade of gunfire from the top of the canyon.
A bullet struck Private Newman between his shoulders and sent him tumbling to the dirt, blood pumping from the hole just above his coat collar.
“Damn!” Tarver hissed. “That goddamn Shoshone led us right to ’em. I’ll have him shot by a firing squad the minute we get back to the fort.”
Loose horses galloped down the ravine, and Major Tarver knew they would quickly fall into the hands of the renegade Apaches unless something was done.
“Send some men after our mounts!” he said, when he saw Sergeant Boyd slipping carefully along one wall of the ravine while leading his nervous horse.
“It’ll only get the men killed,” Boyd shouted above the din of more rifle fire. “Better to lose a few horses than to get your ass shot off.”
“Are you disobeying a direct order, Sergeant?” Major Tarver demanded.
“Damn right I am, Major, if it means gettin’ killed to save a few lousy horses!”
“I can have you court-martialed!”
“Maybe,” Boyd replied, “only you gotta be alive to file the charges against me. We ain’t got out of this with our scalps just yet.”
A singsong bullet slammed into a rocky ledge above the major’s head and he ducked down quickly. Perhaps Sergeant Boyd was right about letting the horses go.
* * *
Major Tarver bit the end off a long black cigar and stuffed it into his mouth as he listened to the casualty report.
“We got sixteen men dead, Major, an’ three more missin’. We got twelve wounded, an’ four of those’ll probably die ’fore mornin’.”
“How many horses do we have left, Sergeant?”
“Only got nine that can carry a rider. Some’s wounded so bad we’ll have to put ’em down with a gun.”
“And where is the scout, Tomo?”
“Ain’t seen him since the shootin’ started. I figure he rode off when the first gun banged.”
“I want him tracked down and arrested.”
Sergeant Boyd shrugged. “How the hell are we gonna track him down, Major?” He leaned to the side and let loose a brown stream of spit from his tobacco. “Far as I can tell, he didn’t leave no tracks when he lit out of here.”
“I intend to have him shot.”
“First thing you gotta do is find him, Major, an’ that ain’t gonna be easy in these here Dragoons.”
“A man can’t simply disappear. Send out a detail to look for him.”
“Them Apaches are liable to be expectin’ us, an’ they’ll kill the men we send out.”
Tarver’s impatience was almost at a breaking point. “I gave you an order, Sergeant.”
“I’ll follow it, sir, only I damn sure ain’t gonna go out there myself. You can have me court-martialed soon as we get back to the fort, but I won’t go ridin’ up this here canyon to look for Tomo.”
“And why not?”
“Be the same as committin’ suicide. Them Apaches have left a rear guard to see if we follow ’em. They’ll shoot me deader’n
pig slop”
“I intend to put your refusal in my report to General Crook, Sergeant Boyd.”
“Put anythin’ in it you want, Major, only be sure to write down that, so far, I’m still alive ... which is more than you’ll be able to say ’bout any other poor bastards you send into that canyon.”
Chapter 11
Isa followed the stars unerringly toward the hidden spring in the Dragoons. Using rawhide thongs he was able to bind the rifles together in less cumbersome bundles, making travel easier. By dawn the soldiers would find their tracks using Indian scouts, and only the rocks at higher elevations in the mountains would throw off pursuit, hiding the tracks made by the cavalry’s shod horses.
“They will be coming soon,” an older warrior named Nana said as he looked behind them.
“They fear what will happen when we arm ourselves and many more with these rifles,” Isa agreed. “They must follow us and try to get them back.”
The clatter of iron-shod horses was annoying to Isa, and he wished for the metal tools white men used to remove them, for the sound was like the beating of a drum at the Sun Dance ceremony. It echoed across the desert like a beacon, pointing to their progress.
“Many more young fighters will come when they hear we have the many-shoot guns.” Nana sounded sure of it, and he had seen many more years of war than Isa, more than a dozen, when Cochise was alive.
“Naiche is a wise leader, Nana. He will show us where to strike and where to hide.”
Nana appeared to frown. “He is wise in the ways of war, but he is foolish and reckless in battle when he seeks enemy scalps. Geronimo is far wiser, always the cautious one, being careful to strike when he is certain of victory.”
“But Geronimo is in Mexico with only a few warriors. One of us must ride into the Sierra Madres to tell him of our good fortune, that we have many-shoot rifles and bullets, enough to kill all the white-eyes.”
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