When the smoke cleared every living animal had vanished as though they had never been there in the first place. The small buck lay on its side, half in the water that was slowly coloring to match its blood. It was a clean head shot. The deer had not known a thing about it.
With dusk drawing in, Pete did not bother to skin and clean his kill, but hoisted the still warm flesh over his shoulder. The animal’s head hung limply away from its body, blood dripping on to the ground as he walked back down to the camp.
Wild-Horse grinned and took the load from him, laying it next to the fire as he cleaned it and cut the meat into strips, then skewered them on sticks planted in the earth.
“I hear only one shot. Good hunter.”
Pete grinned in return and rolled himself a smoke as the Apache prepared the meat.
“We’ll take the rest up to the settlement. Spotted-Deer will find a use for it. Make one of her special stews.”
Wild-Horse looked up from his slicing at the mention of his wife. He too had been thinking of her. As much as he loved to sleep wild and free under the stars, he looked forward to sharing his bed with her in his wickiup. Soon he would have a strong son, her time was growing near. He smiled as he thought of the habit she had got into of smacking him playfully when he laughed at the way she waddled, the big full moon of her ripened womb sticking out in front as a warning of her coming.
They kept no watch in the high mountains for they were safe there. Once or twice in the night Pete stirred and caught sight of the Apache’s shadow as he checked on their injured companion. Pete smiled and rolled over to sleep.
***
They reached the settlement the next day. The sun stood two hours after noon in the blazing sky when the lookout came running down the trail to meet them. They had seen him a long way off, waving his Remington rifle over his head as he perched on a high ridge that afforded an unbroken view down the approach to the settlement.
The whole camp turned out to meet them. Red-Fox, the young chief, stood proud at the front of the gathering, his arms folded across his chest, as he welcomed the returning travelers. Everyone was pleased to see them, supplies were running low.
Pete enlisted aid to carry Quantro to his own wickiup, leaving Wild-Horse to show off the sacks of coffee and flour and the boxes of ammunition. The women fussed round as the Apache handed out the sticks of candy that were a special treat, and the bolts of cloth. The small band of Apache had little chance to eat sweets unless one of the more enterprising braves brought in the honeycomb of wild bees, and they fell on them avidly.
When the uproar died down, Red-Fox took Wild-Horse on one side and questioned him about the injured Americano. When he had listened to the tale, he agreed to let the wounded man stay until he regained his strength. He would surely die without their help.
His brother, Crawling-Snake, was not so eager to have a stranger in their midst. Especially a blanco. Wasn’t he one of the same people who had driven the Apache off the land to begin with? Crawling-Snake was a Netdahe Apache; he had taken an oath that meant Death to the white men and all intruders. For him, there were no other people on the face of the earth but the Apache. He would have none of it. Let him die, he said.
Red-Fox was wiser than his brother. He saw no point in wasting life, even if it did belong to an Americano. The big blonde-haired one may return the favor someday to an Apache in need of help. Much to Crawling-Snake’s disgust, Red-Fox’s oratory skills made short work of the few doubters and Quantro was granted sanctuary until he was fit enough to ride.
When it became obvious he was so overwhelmingly out-voted, Crawling-Snake spat on the ground and stalked away.
***
Wild-Horse’s wife, Spotted-Deer, sent her younger sister to help Pete care for Quantro. She was a young maiden, almost at the age when she would have to choose a husband. Her skin was smooth as cream and rich as coffee. Thick, shining black hair framed her pretty face and dark, watchful eyes observed the world about her with a twinkle, giving some clue to the humor she possessed. She was long-limbed, tall for an Apache, but she moved with the grace and dignity of a wild bird in flight.
It hadn’t been hard to choose her name. White-Wing. As clean and fresh as the mountain air itself. Wild-Horse looked on her with much affection. With her father dead, as her brother-in-law, he had taken on the responsibility of looking after her. With a smile, he thought of the day when one of the young braves would trade many ponies for the privilege of escorting her to his marriage bed.
White-Wing found Pete leaning over the wounded Americano in the dim light of the wickiup’s interior. She noticed he bore a thoughtful expression. He sensed her presence and looked up, then his mouth twisted into a crooked smile as he moved over so she could see her prospective patient.
Shyly at first, she began to tend to Quantro. She wiped the sweat from his fevered brow and wrapped him in warm blankets when he shivered, tenderness and compassion in her eyes when he trembled like a new born foal. She cooled him, washed him, and coaxingly fed him when he would take a little warm milk or broth. She gathered herbs and cleaned his inflamed wound, then gently bound it. She sat by him day and night, often dozing, her head nodding on her ample bosom, the thick black hair drawing a curtain over her face.
Each time he groaned or muttered, she would stir from sleep and stare at him, afraid that if she took her eyes from him his life would slip away from between her fingers. She spent many hours merely watching his craggy face, her doe-like eyes tracing each line the weather had etched into its surface. Her fingers too, wonderingly touched his fine, shoulder-length blonde hair, so different from the men of her tribe.
Pete often sat on the other side of the wickiup, taking pleasure in watching the graceful form of the girl at work on the unknown American. She had none of the city woman’s inbuilt defense mechanisms of hiding her feelings, and he was able to read her expressions easily. He knew Crawling-Snake had been boasting to his own little group of followers he would take White-Wing for his wife and she would bear him many fine sons who would be strong and drive the blancos off the land that belonged to the Apache. Pete smiled as he wondered if White-Wing knew about Crawling-Snake’s intentions and what she would say about them. He wondered too what Crawling-Snake would say if he was here to watch her work on the injured man.
Many of the Indians at the mountain hideaway disliked Crawling-Snake for his intense, overly aggressive personality. Every Apache could be hostile when it suited, but he seemed to carry his hostility around like a lance, waving it above his head. The Apache Nation had spent too many years running and hiding and fighting the ever increasing number of Americanos. Each time the fighting was over they had been shunted from reservation to reservation as treaties were broken time and time again. To the Indian who stood up and gave his word, then acted upon it, the little pieces of paper the white man signed had come to mean not a thing.
Now they were safe in the mountains, the majority of the band wanted nothing more than peace; a chance to live their lives the way they chose, as their fathers and their fathers before them had lived, wild and free under the starry sky the Great Spirit had provided for them. It would seem the white men were so greedy, if they could reach out and pluck the very stars from the sky, they would do so. After all, they had taken everything else. The hearts of the women had cried too often when they had seen new-born babies sucking pitifully on their mothers’ empty breasts, and the hungry eyes of the older children as they tramped the trails. When Chawn-chissy, the cruel winter, stalked the high mountains there had been no refuge, no respite from the driving winds and blinding flurries of snow.
But now they had land to grow crops, acres to fatten livestock, security from the hunger of the reservations where the Indian agents had cheated them time and time again of the Government supplies that the white treaty papers had promised. With the worry of filling the children’s bellies eased, they could turn their hands to repairing their clothes and making moccasins. The Apache had begun to smile aga
in.
None of them wanted to go back now to the low country, and they did not want to cause any trouble that would bring the Federales, the Mexican army, up into the mountains to hunt them down like animals. It was nearing the season to harvest and they could ill afford men to guard the mountain passes and fight skirmishes. As it was, every man, woman and child would have to work hard and long if they were to reap the full benefit of their crops.
So Crawling-Snake stood virtually alone in his beliefs. Two or three of the young bucks sided with him, anxious to prove themselves in the excitement of battle. His fighting talk had stirred the pride in their hearts and they were restless to use the skills they had developed during the war games of their childhood. Growing crops and herding cattle was not their idea of life. They resented Red-Fox’s conservative, cautious attitude, and the fact he had the support of the majority of the band gave them more reason to hate him.
But of the young bucks, none held the burning hatred that Crawling-Snake held for his brother. From the time they had been boys, their father, Big-Eagle, had always favored the younger son, and it had seemed to Crawling-Snake he had been left out in the cold. It had never occurred to him his father was quick to perceive his elder son’s foolhardy nature, and that his main duty to the Apache tribe was to select a suitable chief to follow in his footsteps. Big-Eagle had therefore turned to his younger son, Red-Fox, having the wisdom and foresight to realize the land he knew and loved was changing, and the only chance their people had was to be led by a man who possessed the character and resource to guide them carefully around the traps that could easily befall them in the years to come. In his wisdom, he knew that giving the majority of his attention to his younger son would feed the elder son’s resentment, but he hoped the void that had already opened between his two sons would not become an unbridgeable chasm that could not be healed, by them supporting each other and uniting to protect their people from the depredations that were surely to come at the hands of the blancos.
Crawling-Snake could do nothing but envy Red Fox’s accession to the position of chief, which in his mind should rightly be the place of the eldest son, namely himself. He begrudged the deference and respect Red-Fox had earned from his people by sound judgment or otherwise. To Crawling-Snake, his brother was not wise but cowardly; not cautious but merely slow to seize opportunities as they arose. He despised Red-Fox for everything he stood for. How could the Apache ever regain the rightful possession of their land, the land stolen from them with lies, unless by a show of strength? Only the blood of their enemies would exact revenge for their suffering.
Well, if Red-Fox would not make a move to right all the wrongs, then he, Crawling-Snake would. And he knew who he would begin with. The two Americanos.
From his seat on his favorite rock, Crawling-Snake glowered, surly, as White-Wing emerged from Pete Wiltshire’s wickiup. She was wearing a soft, fringed, doeskin dress that did little to hide the thrust of her breasts and her shining black hair that hung thick and beautiful to her shoulders. As she turned to go and see her sister he appraised her broad hips and firm buttocks that swung enticingly beneath the dress. Yes, she would bear him many fine sons.
But first he would kill the blancos.
He glowered as he thought of all the hours she had spent in that wickiup the last few days with the injured man. He snorted. Now she was even wearing her best dress. The blanco must have put her up to it. Another one trying to steal away what was rightfully his.
For that, he would die slowly. Crawling-Snake had been an avid pupil as a boy when he had been shown all the tortures an Apache could inflict on his enemies.
He smiled maliciously.
***
Quantro woke on the fifth day.
White-Wing had left his side to catch up on some well-earned sleep now she was convinced he would recover. Quantro struggled to sit up but found he was much too weak, and instead slumped back against the rough wad of cloth she had placed beneath his head.
Pete Wiltshire had just finished shaving and returned to the wickiup to go through the ritual of cleaning his guns. He found his unknown guest awake for the first time. As he broached the doorway, Quantro’s ice-blue eyes swiveled to inspect him, his right hand instinctively groping for the comfort of the Colt that wasn’t there. Pete’s face brought rushing images of buzzards and Apaches and blurred views of rocky mountain trails. A wave of nausea swept over him, reaching up from his stomach, and almost consumed him. He blinked and swallowed, fighting it back down.
“Well now, so you’ve finally come alive?”
Quantro looked up at the weather-beaten face. Pete smiled.
“The feeling’ll pass boy. Then we can talk, and you can tell me how you came to be on the Devil’s Plateau with a big hole in you.” He studied Quantro’s face. “You want water?” He splashed some liquid into a tin cup then held the patient’s head while he sipped.
The life-giving water eased his throat. “The boy?” Quantro managed to croak.
Pete sniffed and watched the blonde man’s face carefully, hoping to catch a hint as he answered.
“You hit him in the guts. He mounted up and rode out. Fell off his horse after he’d gone apiece. Dead on the trail when we found him.”
Quantro’s head jerked slightly and he looked away. “Didn’t have much choice,” he said, facing the wall, “I had nothing against him. He was only a boy.”
Pete said nothing about the fact Wild-Horse had figured out from the sign Quantro had been ambushed by the boy. After a few seconds of silence he realized he was not going to get any further explanation, so he changed the subject.
“Well, I’m Pete Wiltshire.”
Quantro introduced himself.
“Quantro you say?” Pete said frowning. He sat down and began to clean his pistol. Occasionally he would repeat the name Quantro and shake his head a little. When he had finished with the six-gun, he reloaded it and spun the cylinder. He holstered it and stretched the thong over the hammer then looked up, a faraway look in his eyes.
“Quantro? Knew some folks called Quantro once. Larry Quantro. Had him a pretty wife too. Name of Martha… maybe Maggie?…”
“Mary,” Quantro suggested, suddenly very interested in this man who called himself Pete Wiltshire.
“Yeah, that’s right. Mary. Mary Quantro. Larry and Mary Quantro.” He lifted his eyes and looked directly at the wounded man across the wickiup from him, squinting as the memories came back. “I musta bin all of ten years old. I came with them on a wagon train just about clear across the country. Kin of your’n?”
“My mother and father.”
Pete looked startled. “My God, boy. I knew all along there was something almighty familiar about your face. I shoulda guessed it when I saw that Bar-Q-Bar brand on your horse.”
“The buckskin? You saw him?”
“Yes. That’s how we found you. If we hadn’t found that stallion straying we wouldn’t have come anywhere near where you were. You’d be there still, a fat buzzard eating out your eyes.”
Quantro forced a weak grin. “And there I was, cursing that damn horse. I thought he’ d got the hell out of it.”
Pete laughed. “Yeah, well he’s outside, getting lazy on mountain grass. Needed a good feed anyways. One thing for sure. He carried you a long ways that you didn’t even know about.” His face fell straight. “How are your Ma and Pa? It’s been a long time since I saw them. Last I heard, they was going to build a ranch.”
“They’re both dead.” Quantro’s voice was completely devoid of emotion.
Pete sniffed and looked away. “I’m sorry, boy. They were real good people.” He looked away into the near distance. “That wagon train I told you about. My father died on it from the fever…” He looked back at Quantro. “Your Pa, he helped my ma and me out real good. He always made sure we was okay. And his time was pretty full up too. Your ma was way out to here.” He made a big circle around his stomach with both his arms. “’Spectin’ you I guess. Anyhow, I thought a l
ot of your ma and pa.”
Pete receded into his memories, recalling visions of vast rolling prairies and the heat and dust and the Indian attacks and the creaking of wagon wheels as they tumbled across the ruts. He began to put together a cigarette. “Want one? We was supposed to go to California.” He snorted. “The land of milk and honey. Anyhow, one thing led to another and I lost my ma, then I drifted a while, and pretty soon I ended up in Mexico. I always used to remember your pa talking round the fire at night, ’bout the ranch he was going to build, and all the cattle and horses he was going to run on the land, and when I heard the tales in the cantinas about gold, I decided I’d go and find me a strike and when I had the money together I’d get me a big ranch too. Like your pa. I s’pose he was a bit of a hero to me.”
Pete lapsed into silence for a moment and watched the smoke curling up. “They’re always telling stories in Mexico about hidden canyons where gold runs in a vein twice as thick as a man’s arm. I got me some prospectin’ gear together and started looking. Believe me boy, it just ain’t there, and that’s a fact. Leastways not where I looked.” Pete started to laugh, perhaps at his own foolishness. “I looked in every damned canyon in Sonora, and just when I was about to give up I got jumped by some thieving banditos who damn near killed me. Wild-Horse, the Apache who found you, found me and brought me up here. I’ve been here ever since.” He looked over at Quantro. “Well, that takes care of me. What about you?”
Quantro told him the story of the massacre at the ranch and of his two year hunt. “So you see,” he concluded, “I had nothing against the boy, only his father, and that had been settled. But he came after me.”
Pete nodded sagely. “Looks like you had no other trail to ride. Can’t let folks go off shooting at you without shootin’ back. Were the men on the wanted flyers the ones you went after ?”
The Quantro Story Page 11