Naiche looked down at Cuchillo. “A man we all believed was filled with courage. Cuchillo took his warriors into a trap set by the killer white-eyes. Their lives were his responsibility as leader of the war party.”
“No!” Cuchillo protested, his voice thin with pain and loss of blood. “We covered . . . our tracks . . . and hid ourselves among the rocks very . . . carefully.”
“All the others are dead,” Naiche growled, reaching for a cavalryman’s pistol taken during the attack at the ravine which was tucked into his belt, “except for you, Cuchillo. No Apache would allow this to happen to his brothers.”
“No!” Cuchillo cried again, his dark eyes fixed on the gun Naiche aimed down at him. “We covered our tracks. We hid among the rocks and brush as we were taught during our training as warriors.”
Juh backed away from the spot, but Chokole stood her ground with her gaze on Naiche.
“Do not kill him,” Chokole said, her voice soft, without inflection. “We need every warrior who can fight these white demons.”
“It is not enough,” Naiche told her. “The lives of our best fighting men must be spared from a poor leader who forgets what he has learned about the ways of the Apache.”
“Will you kill Cuchillo?” she asked.
“It is The Way. When a war leader costs the People the lives of his men, he must die.”
Chokole wisely backed away to stand beside Juh. She realized the futility of trying to change Naiche’s mind once it was made up. She was a warrior, but she was still a woman, and must mind her place when their chief spoke.
Naiche knew he had his audience convinced of Cuchillo’s incompetence.
“I send our brother, Cuchillo, to join his ancestors,” he said, cocking the hammer of the Colt. “May his spirit walk the dark places filled with sorrow for what he has done.”
Naiche pulled the trigger. The gunshot rang out, echoing off the walls of the canyon around Wild Pig Springs.
Cuchillo’s body jerked, his spine arching when a bullet went through his heart. He trembled, blood bubbling from his mouth. Then his muscles relaxed, and he fell back on the blanket with a quiet groan.
* * *
In his hiding place on a ledge overlooking Wild Pig Springs canyon, Falcon sucked in his breath at the sight of Cuchillo’s cold-blooded execution. In all of his travels, he had never once heard of an Apache killing a brother warrior. He realized Naiche must be extremely worried to take such a drastic step. Perhaps his campaign of terror was working even better than he had hoped.
* * *
In single file, the Apaches left Wild Pig Springs leading horses and mules laden with supplies for the arduous journey across the desert. At the front of the procession, Naiche rode one of the fresh cavalry horses stolen from the soldiers.
Juh rode beside him on one flank. Chokole kept her horse in check on the other flank, watching the mountains and passes for sign of the enemy.
Juh glanced over his shoulder. “The People are afraid now, Naiche,” he said.
Naiche understood their fear. For the first time in his life, he also feared an enemy. But as chief of the Chiricahua band, he could not allow his fear to show. “They are like the white man’s sheep,” he said.
“Chokole says it was wrong to kill Cuchillo,” Juh went on in his constant monotone. “He fought the white-eyes with all his courage.”
“He led his men toward death,” Naiche answered, with anger he did not truly feel. “He was foolish. He was trained as an Apache warrior.”
Juh looked up at the sky, a clear sky without a trace of clouds. “These men who come . . . I have a bad feeling about them,” he said.
Naiche was irritated, even though he shared Juh’s concern “You have become like an old woman. They are only men, mortal men.”
Juh’s eyes glassed over for a moment. “I had a dream, a vision. In my dream, these whites were from another place where men do not die in battle.”
“These are the dreams of children,” Naiche assured him, with his own private doubts clouding his judgement. “All men die when a bullet or an arrow finds its mark. Stop talking like a woman, Juh. You have seen many battles in your lifetime. When did you ever encounter an enemy who would not bleed when your arrow or your bullet was true?”
Juh said nothing more, guiding his horse down a steep trail toward the desert floor at the southern end of the Dragoons, where they would be forced to cross open land to reach Mexico.
He knew his dreams were not those of children, but warnings given from the Spirits that had always protected the People—when they were wise enough to obey the warnings.
After all, was that not why young men went to the sweat lodge—to make themselves ready for guidance from the spirit world?
Juh sighed but kept his mouth shut, hoping in his heart Naiche would not regret ignoring the Spirits’ advice.
Chapter 35
Naiche halted his weary band for a brief rest stop in rugged foothills at the southern edge of the Dragoons. Beyond the hills lay a brutally dry desert, dotted with agave and barrel cactus, ocotillo plants and cholla, yucca and prickly pear, with scattered stands of mesquite trees offering the only possible hiding places—from the soldiers behind them led by Mickey Free . . . and the four strange white men, two of them dressed in animal skin Indian garb, Apache manhunters no one could identify who continued to stalk their every move toward Mexico, killing Naiche’s warriors along the way.
Chokole shaded her eyes from the sun. “We will have no way to defend our people if they catch us out there, before we reach the shelter of the Pedregosas. Slowed by the animals and heavy packs they carry, it will take us two suns to enter the mountains, or perhaps three suns.”
Their departure from Wild Pig Springs had been a sad affair, with the hasty burials of Cuchillo and his warriors. Naiche still felt a touch of regret for killing Cuchillo in order to put the blame for so many warriors’ deaths on someone other than himself.
“We have no choice,” he told the Apache fighting woman in a dry voice. “We must cross this desolate place as quickly as we can. The women will need to run, leading the pack animals. Anyone who falls behind will be left to die. Only the strongest of our people will make it to the land called Mexico, where the bluecoats cannot follow us. Tell this to all who have hope of living as free Apaches.”
“We should wait for darkness,” Juh counselled. “If the bluecoats see our dust sign on the horizon, or the four white-eyes, they will know where we are. We have no defenses in this open place.”
Naiche was uneasy about any delay. “We are Apaches,” he said. “We are trained to hide from our enemies when there is no place to hide. The Apache scalphunter, Mickey Free, is guiding the bluecoats along our tracks, and we have no tools to remove the iron shoes from our horses. The white-eyes in buckskins are also behind us. There is no time to rest. If we stay here to wait for darkness, they will be closer to us. Free will bring the soldiers, and all of us will die if we wait here for the sun to sleep. There are too many of the white-eyes for us to win a battle with them.”
“We could lose a fight out in the open,” Chokole warned as she gave their backtrail a careful examination. “Our people are frightened by the four whites who killed Cuchillo’s warriors, and the soldiers coming from the north.”
Naiche could never admit he had his own worries about Free and the buckskin-clad men. His role as chief of the Chiricahuas and leader of this renegade band forbade any demonstration of fear. “We have many-shoot rifles and bullets. Let them come to fight with us.”
Nana, old enough to be wise in the ways of war, spoke. “We are too few, Naiche. The clever white-eyes have taken too many of our number to the spirit world. We know they understand our ways, our movements, and they can read our tracks too easily. Darkness will hide us when we cross this desert to the Pedregosas. It is two day’s journey, perhaps more, as Chokole said, and we have no places to stop and fight where Earth Mother will give us rocks or big trees or cover to halt their bullets
. We should cross this place at night, when they cannot see our dust sign in the sky. Out there on the empty desert, we will all be killed if they find our horses’ sign and the direction we travel.”
Nana’s experience fighting the whites gave Naiche a moment’s pause. But he was certain the white-skinned killers were very close now, and Mickey Free would not be far behind them with the columns of bluecoats. “The iron on these soldier horses gives us away,” he said finally. “This is the reason why they find us so easily. But we must have strong horses. Without them, we are helpless. The time has come for us to prove we are Apaches, in spite of the tracks we leave for them to follow. The white man’s iron horseshoes are our enemy.”
“Yes,” Chokole agreed. Darkness is not far away. I agree with Nana that we should wait for the sun to disappear, for with sundown the light is gone, and they will not see us or the hoofprints left by our animals.”
“Chokole offers you wise council,” Nana said, giving the hills behind them his own careful scrutiny. “Even if they find us here, we have rocks and arroyos where we can fight them off with repeating rifles.”
Naiche recalled the wisdom of Geronimo, and how many times he had told the People it was better to hide and fight an enemy at the place and time where the advantage belonged to the Apache, and not the enemy. “Geronimo avoids direct contact with our white enemies. He leads them into traps where even a few good warriors can win battles against many times their number. If we wait here for the sun to sleep, we lose precious time. If we keep moving, we have the advantage of being far out in front of them.”
“Our people . . . especially the women, are tired and afraid of these white men,” Nana said. “Under the cover of darkness they will have less fear.”
Naiche turned to Nana, his eyes slitted with sudden anger. “I am chief of the Chiricahuas, a son of Cochise. The spirits guide me. We will cross this desert now, and put more distance between us and the whites while the sun warms the air. If we wait for darkness, the freezing cold will hamper our horses, and the women will not be able to travel as fast.”
Nana lowered his head.
Chokole looked off at the horizon where the sun would fall below the desert in a few short hours, providing the darkness she and Nana wanted. “You are our leader, Naiche. I will do whatever you say we must do to reach safety. If you tell us to go now, we will go.”
Across the desert floor, shimmering heat waves created the illusion of water in the distance. A hawk circled far to the south above the ocotillo spines, hunting, seeking prey before the darkness ended its chances of a successful feeding on the snakes and lizards it might find in a dry land. Riding currents of hot air, it rose on wings spread far from its body, a sure sign no danger lurked beneath it.
Naiche pointed to the bird. “The hawk gives us our sign. It hunts without fear. The way is clear across this desert to the mountains. Tell the women to run as fast as they can with the pack animals. It is time to go.”
Chokole turned her horse and rode off at a trot back to the waiting women and horses. Naiche could hear her giving them his message. Farther back, a rear guard of armed warriors watched the foothills through which they had come since leaving Wild Pig Springs.
It was Juh who gave Naiche more cause for concern, when he pointed to a spot in front of them.
“Look beyond the cholla, Naiche,” Juh said, his tone grave, filled with foreboding. “A coiled rattlesnake lies in our path. It is a sign from the spirit world to go in another direction, for the snake is a messenger of death.”
Naiche heard the serpent’s deadly warning rattle, and he saw it coiled in the shade below a flat stone. His stomach twisted. The rattlesnake was, as Juh said, often a messenger from the next life sent by their ancestors to turn the People away from certain disaster.
More than anything else, even more than invoking the wrath of the spirits, Naiche feared being caught by the four unknown Apache hunters and the soldiers before more warriors joined them to use the many-shoot rifles lashed to the pack horses. What good were magic guns if he had no warriors to shoot them?
He slid off the back of his horse and drew his knife, for he meant to kill the rattlesnake silently as proof to Juh and the others that the serpent was not a bad omen foretelling some dark to come.
He strode quickly down to the rock where the huge rattler lay coiled. The snake watched him with cold, lidless eyes. He distracted the thick serpent with a sudden movement of his left foot, swinging it just close enough for a strike at the top of his knee-high deerskin boots decorated with porcupine quills and beadwork.
The rattler struck half the length of its body, deadly fangs bared. Naiche jerked his foot away just in the nick of time and sent his gleaming knife blade downward in a swift arc.
The tip of his knife caught the snake behind its broad head and tore through its layers of scales as Naiche pinned it to the ground. Coiling around his arm, rattling fiercely, it was helpless to inject its poisonous fangs into his flesh.
Naiche sliced the serpent’s head off while its body still writhed with a life of its own. He stuck the rattler’s head onto the tip of his knife and turned toward Juh and the line of Apaches waiting for him on the crest of a hill.
He shook the knife over his head. “See this, my brothers?” he cried. “We are Apaches! We will kill anyone who tries to stop us from joining Geronimo in Mexico!”
Nods of approval went down the row of warriors and women. By means of a simple demonstration, proving that the rattler was not a warning from the Spirits to turn away, Naiche had given his people new hope and courage.
“Follow me across the desert!” he shouted, mounting his bay with the snake’s head displayed on his knifetip.
Single file, Naiche started downslope toward the welcome heat of the desert floor that would take them to the Pedregosas, then across the Mexican border to safety.
Chapter 36
Falcon watched through his binoculars as Naiche got on his horse, holding a knife with a snake’s head on it, and led his people out onto the desert floor. He took particular note of the three warriors left behind as a rear guard.
Time to sow some more seeds of fear, he thought as he crawled backward from the edge of the ledge he was lying on. He pulled his Winchester from its saddle boot and eased over the hilltop, being careful to keep to heavy brush as he descended the side of the mountain toward the Indian guards. He took his time, making no noise, until he was a couple of hundred yards from the braves.
He stepped to a pinyon tree and braced his rifle barrel against a small branch stub sticking out. Slowly, he exhaled and increased pressure gradually on the trigger. The long gun exploded and kicked back against his shoulder. He worked the lever and switched aim before the echoes from the first shot had faded. Twice more, faster than it takes to tell it, he fired, knocking all three Indians off their ponies.
One was still alive by the time Falcon was able to scramble down the remaining hundred yards of hillside.
As Falcon stood over the Indian, a look of terror came over his face as the brave pulled his knife and slashed it across his own throat.
I guess I’ve got them thinking I’m some kind of monster, Falcon thought. That was good news, to see the Indians so afraid of him they’d rather cut their own throats than face him.
Falcon spent some time working on the dead bodies, then rounded up their ponies, tied the braves to the broncs’ backs, and sent them out onto the desert in the direction Naiche and his band had taken. It would be nice if he could be there to see their faces when their rear guard showed up butchered like the others.
When he had washed the blood off his arms, Falcon gathered up as much dry timber and dead branches as he could and built a large pile in the center of the trail. He took a cigar out of his pocket, struck a lucifer on his pants leg, lit the cigar, then threw the match in the dry leaves.
Within minutes he had a roaring bonfire going, sending dark columns of cloudy smoke into the sky.
He looked back up the m
ountain toward the odd-shaped rock in the distance called Indian Head Peak by white folks. He hoped the army had shown up, and that Hawk and Meeks would recognize his smoke as a signal to come.
Once the fire was going well, he climbed back up the mountainside to Diablo. He decided he had time for a short nap, since he figured to be busy later that night. He took Diablo’s saddle off, put his ground tarp on a bed of pine needles, and lay back for a siesta.
As he fell asleep he began to dream of another place where he’d tangled with Apache runaways from an Indian reservation. That time he’d found himself with some rather infamous company—none other than Billy Bonney, known in New Mexico Territory as Billy the Kid—a man virtually everyone thought was dead, shot down by Sheriff Pat Garrett. A bunch of Mescaleros hired by Thomas Catron up in Santa Fe rode to Lincoln County to raid the cattle ranch of John Chisum. Falcon had quickly put an end to Chisum’s Apache problem....
* * *
Falcon walked over to the Kid where he was standing above the man he’d shot.
“Got him right through the heart,” the Kid said, “only he’s still alive.”
“Won’t be for long,” Falcon observed, for even in the dark of the pinyon forest an inky pool of blood was spreading around the body, easy to see.
“He kinda whispered his name,” the Kid went on in a quiet voice. “Roy Cobb.”
“He called the other one Deke,” Falcon remembered.
“Cobb said they didn’t work for Jimmy Dolan or Murphy or any of the Lincoln County bunch. They came straight down from Santa Fe, bein’ paid by Thomas Catron, the leader of the beef ring that started all this trouble. That’s what this feller told me just before he blacked out.”
“Somebody needs to pay a call on this Thomas Catron. Tell him what happened to his boys and his Apaches here tonight. It ain’t over yet. There’s still nine or ten Apaches out there, and I intend to kill ’em all.”
“How come, Falcon?” the Kid wondered. “They don’t seem to want no more fight with us.”
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