Naiche turned his attention to the wickiups, where dozens of scalps were hanging from stakes driven into the ground. The whites had paid heavily for occupying Apache land since Naiche first escaped from the fort. And now, with their numbers growing, more scalps would adorn the stakes in the days to come.
Chokole left the women to sit across from Naiche. “Toza has not returned. The soldiers may have captured him or killed him. He has been gone for two suns.”
“I sent Isa and three more to look for him. Toza knows the ways of the mountains and desert. He may be watching the fort to see how many soldiers are sent to look for us.”
“The soldier horses with iron shoes leave tracks that are easy to follow,” Chokole said. “We have no tool that will cut off the iron without crippling the horses.”
It was one of Naiche’s darkest fears, when iron-shod horses left sign that was too easy to follow. “We cross the rocks wherever we can,” he told her. “Only a man who knows how to read sign like an Indian will notice the tiny scars on the rocks.”
“I fear the soldiers will find us here,” she said, gazing around the valley.
“We will move south soon, deeper into the mountains, to the steep canyon the old ones called Deer Springs. There is grass for the horses, goats, and cattle, and the trail is very long and narrow, easy to defend if the bluecoats follow us.”
“I remember the deep canyon,” Chokole said. “It seems so long ago when we made camp there.”
“A brave one among us must be sent back to the reservation to tell others where we are, so they will join us. They must be told about our many-shoot rifles, and horses. Word has to be taken to San Carlos, so the Mimbres and other Apaches will know we are preparing for a great war, and where to find us.”
“I will go,” Chokole said. “The bluecoats will be less suspicious of a woman. I will wear an old deerskin dress, and no one will notice me.”
A gust of wind rustled the drying scalps in front of the wickiups while Naiche thought about Chokole’s plan. She was as brave as any Apache warrior, and a fearless fighter. “Then you will go with tomorrow’s sun. Ride one of the starving ponies, and carry only a knife hidden under your dress. It will be dangerous, but word must reach the others that we have guns and food and horses.”
The women carried the body of Yapo out of a wickiup, his corpse covered with charcoal. They started up a steep trail to the burial cave, singing a chant for the dead.
Watching this, Naiche vowed to make the old white man with silver hair pay for killing Yapo if he ever saw the wagon scout again.
* * *
As the women were returning from the burial ceremony, Naiche heard the night cry of a hunting owl, signaling someone was approaching the camp. He turned and watched the trail leading to their camp.
Isa, along with the three braves who had been sent with him, were leading ponies with bodies folded across their backs.
Naiche walked rapidly down to meet the procession.
“Is it Tozo you have found?” he asked.
Isa shook his head. “We found no trace of Tozo. These are our brothers who were left behind after the attack on the white-eyes village to drive the cattle and mules to our camp.”
“What happened to them?” Naiche asked.
Isa didn’t answer, but pulled the blankets off the corpses.
Naiche sucked in his breath, feeling as if someone had punched him in the stomach. It wasn’t fear, for he didn’t know the meaning of that, but his heart hammered and his mouth became dry nevertheless.
He stared at the mutilated bodies, their skulls glistening in the moonlight where the scalps had been ripped off. Their empty eye sockets seemed to look right at him, and their throats gaped in gruesome semblances of smiles where they had been cut from ear to ear.
“The white-eyes could not do this!” Naiche gasped.
“Who, then?” Isa asked.
Naiche stroked his mouth as he thought, staring at the stars to take his mind off the bodies of his followers.
“It must be the Kiowa,” he finally muttered, “brother to the Comanche, our ancestral enemies from the dawn of time.”
“But the Kiowa are all on reservations,” said Chokole, who had come to stand next to Naiche.
He glanced at her, scorn on his lips. “So were we less than a moon ago, Chokole, and this has all the earmarks of a Kiowa killing.”
She nodded, her eyes thoughtful. “It is true that they do mark their victims as we do, but why would they suddenly make war on us after all the moons of peace between us?”
Naiche shrugged. “If they have escaped the reservations as we have, then it may be no more than hunger for our cattle and mules that caused this attack.”
He turned back toward the camp. “Warn the others to be watchful for any sign of our enemy, the Kiowa, when they are away from camp.
* * *
Toza entered the valley in darkness an hour later. A lookout had given the owl’s call to alert Naiche that one of the People was coming back to camp.
Naiche waited for Toza in front of his wickiup, his face illuminated by the glowing coals of a dying fire.
Toza dropped off his horse. “Many bluecoats came to the arroyo where Isa killed the soldiers. They had two Pawnee scouts with them.”
“Did they find Isa’s tracks?”
“No. The Pawnees were drinking boisa pah, the white man’s crazy water, and they only rode a short distance and then went to sleep under a tree.”
“Where are the soldiers now?” Naiche asked.
“The soldiers waited until big wagons came. Then they loaded the bodies of their dead and drove away toward the fort. But a rider had come, and some of the soldiers rode off to the white settlement where we killed so many. I watched them from the top of a mountain, and they sent another soldier away in the direction of the fort. Some of the soldiers carried the bodies to a single place and began to dig holes. More soldiers rode out to look for our tracks, but they behaved strangely, riding in big circles, climbing off their horses to talk and point to the ground.”
“They did not find the tracks of all the animals we drove away with us?”
“Yes, they followed our trail until they came to the place where we crossed the flat rocks. They stopped, and went back to the village to bury the dead.”
Naiche was pleased. “They know nothing about following the tracks of an animal.”
Toza nodded, although he appeared troubled. “More will come to look for us. I saw their dust to the north just before the sun went down.”
Naiche glanced up at the stars. “Then it is time to move our camp deeper into the mountains. You have done well, Toza. Sleep, for tomorrow we must leave this place.”
Toza led his horse into the darkness. Naiche thought about the dust cloud the boy had seen, wondering how many soldiers had been sent to look for them, and if they had a scout who knew how to read sign. He also wondered if the cloud of dust could be from Kiowas coming to make further war on the People.
He shook his head. It would be most difficult to fight both the white-eyes soldiers and the Kiowa at the same time.
More than anything else, Naiche thought, he needed more warriors to use the repeating rifles Isa took from the fort and from the soldiers he and his warriors killed in the ravine. It was useless to have so many many-shoot guns and bullets when there was no one to fire them at the enemy. Especially if there were to be two different enemies to fight.
* * *
Chokole, dressed in a torn, badly stained deerskin dress, rode a slope-shouldered gray Indian pony into the rows of army barracks where Apaches were forced to live. A pair of guards hardly noticed her as she rode in. She carried a bundle of old clothing. Apache women on the reservation were allowed to go down to the river to wash clothes and bathe themselves. Some soldiers watched the younger Apache girls when they were naked in the river, laughing among themselves and pointing at the prettiest women.
Chokole tied the pony behind one of the buildings and began go
ing from room to room, speaking in a whisper, telling all who would listen about Naiche’s plan, the rifles and horses and food, and of their victories at the canyon, the white settlement, and the wagon train.
Some of the younger Apache men listened eagerly, while others waved Chokole away, for they were broken in mind and spirit. As she went from barracks to barracks, more and more warriors paid close attention to what she told them.
“Leave at night, only a few at a time,” she said over and over again. “Do not steal horses or guns. Run as fast as you can to the foothills of the Dragoons. We will be waiting for you with horses and rifles and food.”
“They will come after us,” one boy said to her.
“Leave no tracks for them to follow. Run across the rocky ground, and stay far from the village they call Tombstone. If they cannot find your tracks they will be too late to ride in the right direction. The foothills are not far, and we will be waiting for you there with horses.”
For several hours Chokole spoke with Chiricahuas, Mimbres, Mescaleros, and Warm Springs Apaches being held at Fort Thomas. In the wee hours before dawn, she mounted her gray pony and rode quietly past two sleeping guards at the fort gates, carrying her bundle of garments.
Almost thirty Apaches had promised to slip away from the reservation over the next two days, to join Naiche in the Dragoons. Chokole had hoped for more, but many of the People were afraid.
When she was far from the fort gates she kicked the pony to a lope. Naiche had to be told about her promise, to have horses, food, and guns waiting for the warriors who would try to escape and run through the night to the northern edge of the mountains. An Apache warrior was trained from boyhood not to depend on a horse, learning to run for miles without food or water as a test of their endurance.
* * *
Isa and Nana watched the desert as sunrise brightened the flats. In a ravine to the south, more than twenty horses were tethered to scrub mesquite trees. Already, during the night, five Mimbres had come, four young boys and one older warrior named Ulole who had once been one of the most skilled fighters among the Mimbres.
The five had been given food and water, and horses to ride to the camp where Naiche waited for them.
“More are coming,” Nana said. “Even with these old eyes I can see them running. There are three.”
“Yes, I see them,” Isa agreed. “And farther to the north, four more are running single file, staying out of sight in a shallow wash.”
Nana grinned. “You have the youthful eyes of an eagle, Isa.”
Isa swept the horizon for any sign that soldiers were following the escaping Apaches. “It is good that no soldiers are following them. The bluecoats are lazy and stupid. They do not notice things. The warriors Chokole has brought to us may not be missed until the roll call is taken.”
“When the sun is high,” Nana remembered. “By then all who are coming will be here.”
Isa stepped away from the rock where he and Nana were hiding so the running Apaches would see him. The first three saw him at once and turned in his direction.
Moments later the four warriors running down the dry wash saw Isa and they changed direction, trotting toward him as they looked behind them.
Nana spoke softly. “Chokole said as many as thirty agreed to join us.”
“We will be much stronger now, Nana. Thirty more warriors armed with repeating rifles, mounted on good horses, will give us the strength to attack the bigger bluecoat patrols. Naiche has sworn we will paint this land red with their blood.”
Nana frowned slightly. “Naiche is a brave war chief, but he can be reckless. His hunger to kill the white-eyes can make him take chances.”
“How can there be war without chances that some of our people will die, Nana?”
“You speak true words. Only Geronimo seems to know how to escape the bluecoats without harm. It is said his wisdom comes from our spirit fathers ... that they speak to him in a voice only he can hear, because the whites killed his wife and his son and daughter.”
Isa motioned the running Apaches closer before he answered Nana. “Geronimo will not join us. He has only a few warriors, and this is his way of fighting the enemy.”
Nana stood up, watching three slender young men race to the rocks at the entrance into the ravine. “Naiche will lead us to many victories. Let Geronimo fight the white-eyes as he wishes, for we will win many battles now. Our many-shoot rifles will hang scalps on every lodge pole.”
Isa greeted the three panting Apaches with sign language and pointed to the ravine where the horses and food were being kept by Toza.
“More are coming,” Nana said, squinting in the sun’s early glare. “I count five more running among the cactus and brush.”
Isa saw them. Before the sun was fully above the eastern hills, twenty-two Apaches would arrive to join them.
Chapter 22
Captain Buford Jones pushed the batwings open and swaggered into Campbell and Hatch’s Saloon. Though it was the middle of the day, the popular eating place was already full of cowboys and businessmen of Tombstone. Some had come to drink, some to eat, and some to just get out of the frigid north wind blowing through the dusty streets.
Jones had two privates with him, both as escorts and bodyguards, since the army wasn’t all that popular with the miners and cattlemen around the area.
Jones bellied up to the bar and ordered whiskey for himself and beer for the two privates with him. After the bartender placed the drinks in front of him, Jones turned to lean back against the bar, facing the room.
“Attention, people of Tombstone!” he shouted, causing the muted noise of conversation to die down as the diners turned to stare at him with suspicious eyes.
Damn, but he hated civilians. Here he was, living out on that godforsaken desert, protecting their way of life, and still they treated him and the other soldiers like dirt.
He cleared his throat “I’m looking for a man named MacCallister, Falcon MacCallister. He was here in Tombstone last week, and the army is willing to pay for any information that’ll help me find him.”
For a moment, no one moved. Then everyone turned back to their drinks and food and talk—all except two men. They continued to stare at Jones as they whispered among themselves. Finally, they got up from their seats and approached him.
“This Falcon yore lookin’ fer, he a big man, ridin’ a big black stud hoss?” the older of the pair asked.
The two men were dressed in old, dirty shirts and canvas Levi pants, indicating they were miners, in town to hole up until the worst of the winter weather passed.
“Yeah. Do you know anything about his whereabouts?” Jones asked.
The younger of the pair, a man in his fifties, licked his lips and held out his hand, rubbing thumb and forefinger together. “First, what ’bout the money you promised fer information.”
Jones pulled out his wallet and held it up. “Twenty dollars, if what you tell me leads me to Falcon.”
The two miners looked at each other for a moment, then nodded and the older man spoke. “Jake an’ me was bringin’ in some wagons with the bodies of a family kilt by Injuns in it, an’ this here Falcon feller stopped us on the edge of town.”
“Bodies?” Jones asked. He hadn’t heard of any other killings by Naiche and his band.
“Yep. They was five or six men an’ women lived in a cabin up in the Dragoons kilt couple’a weeks ago. All cut up and butchered, they was.”
“So, what business was that of Falcon’s?”
The old man shrugged. “Can’t rightly say. But he got real upset when he stopped us an’ took a gander at the bodies. Asked where the cabin was, an’ then said somethin’ under his breath ’bout not letting the Injuns get away with any more killings.”
“What did he do then?”
“He hightailed it toward the road leadin’ to the cabin, up into the Dragoons.”
The old man shook his head. “He must be crazy to go up into those mountains with the Injuns on the warpa
th again.” He shook his head. “Not a fit place to be now, that’s fer sure.”
The younger miner held out his hand. “Now, mister, where’s our money?”
Jones inclined his head toward the private standing next to him. “Private Guttman will take down your names and addresses. If we find Falcon based on your information, the money will be sent to you.”
The two men stared at Jones with narrowed eyes, then shrugged and gave Guttman their names. “We don’t exactly have an address. We mine up in the Dragoons most of the year, but you can leave the money with the bartender here, an’ we’ll check back ever now an’ then.”
Jones turned back to the bar, intending to finish his whiskey, when a man stepped up next to him. The man was short, and his skin was as pale as a woman’s, and covered with a fine sheen of sweat even though the room was fairly cool.
“Hello, Captain,” the man said, raising his finger to order a whiskey.
“Good afternoon, sir,” Jones replied, wondering just what the man wanted.
When whiskey was placed before him, the man upended his glass and drank it down in one swallow. Then he turned sideways, leaned on the bar, and addressed Jones.
“Just what is it you want with Falcon MacCallister?”
Jones glanced at the man, then turned back to his whiskey. “That’s the army’s business, not yours, mister.”
Quick as a flash the man’s hand moved, and a pistol barrel was stuck in the left side of Jones’s abdomen.
“Captain, do you happen to know anything of anatomy?”
Jones tried to swallow around the lump that suddenly appeared in his throat, then croaked, “Uh, no. Why?”
“I just wanted you to know that my Colt is nudged up against your liver and gall bladder. If I let the hammer down, the bullet will pass right through those organs. If you’re lucky, a major artery will be hit, and you will die within minutes. However, if Lady Luck happens to be looking somewhere else at the time, you will live for days to weeks, sweating, puking, and generally being in the most excruciating pain. Do I make myself perfectly clear, Captain?”
“Who ... who are you?” Jones managed to say.
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