A layer of dark wood smoke, redolent with the smells of burning and cooking, moved gently in the manner of a quiet ocean in limbo some fifty feet above the pinnacles of the wickiups. In front of the wickiups, close to the fires which were now merely glowing embers and ashes, braves and squaws stood in silent family groups, faces turned to watch the progress of the column on the slope.
‘Guess you know Thundercloud is only a sub-chief,’ Cal Butler said softly, leaning close to Edge. ‘The big noise is Chief Acoti. He’ll have to okay you bein’ here, but he likes me.’
‘You’re a useful feller to know in this neck of the woods,’ the half-breed replied in the same low tones as his narrowed eyes raked over the camp.
‘Here I’m somebody,’ the youngster said, pulling erect in his saddle. ‘Any place else, nobody.’
There was no sign of the stolen army wagon, but the slitted blue eyes of the half-breed saw that every brave with warrior status had an Army Colt stuck in his weapons belt. And some held a Spencer repeater in the crooks of their arms. The braves were attired in leggings, some bare above the waist and others wearing decorated vests. There were no war bonnets in sight and there was an absence of paint on their faces and bodies. The squaws wore plain dresses.
Thus, the Apaches gathered below Black Bear Bluff did not at first impression on this bright and hot morning suggest that they were massed for a war council. And as the column of riders moved along the corridor towards the open area with the chief’s lodge on the far side the atmosphere of peace and happiness was emphasized by the friendly smiles and words exchanged between the freed prisoners and the groups beside the wickiups.
But there were no children in the camp - they would be in a place of safety, cared for by the old who were also noticeably missing. Probably across the conveniently close border in Mexico. Also, there was the recent memory of seeing the carefully posted sentries. And, in the wake of friendliness towards their own kind, the Indians looked at Edge with curiosity just a thin veneer over latent hatred.
Chief Acoti emerged from the open entrance of his wickiup as all the riders dismounted on the word of command from Thundercloud, Edge taking his cue from Butler.
At close to six feet, the chief was tall for his race. He was more than fifty and the lines of the hard-lived years showed in the flesh of his ruggedly hewn face. Like all the other Apaches camped under Black Bear Bluff, he looked well fed. But he looked less fit than his braves - even flabby under the leggings, shirt and breech-clout that he wore. He did not wear a feathered headband, nor a weapons belt. So that at first glance he appeared to be an Apache who had accepted and made the most of life on a well run rancheria. But a closer look revealed aggression in the unblinking stare of his eyes and the thrust of his jaw, the smoldering fires of anger long frustrated, waiting only for a spark to ignite his feelings into brutal belligerence.
He stood, arms akimbo, listening to Thundercloud’s report. Then congratulated the sub-chief, his braves and the trio who had been snatched from the army. All this in the guttural native language of the Apaches.
Edge sensed that Calvin Butler was eager to translate what was being said but recognized the youngster felt it politic to remain silent. Until the braves were dismissed and led the horses away to the corral, leaving just Thundercloud and the two whites before Chief Acoti. But even then, the sub-chief spoke before the youngster could utter a sound from his open mouth.
‘The white eyes stranger took a hand in stopping the murder of the prisoners by the people who stole El Cerro de Muerto. Also, Calvin claims friendship with him.’
‘How are you called?’ the chief asked in English that was less accented than that of Thundercloud. Not once had he blinked, his eyes like those of a predatory bird.
‘Edge,’ the half-breed supplied evenly as, on all sides, the normal morning business of the encampment got underway again,
‘Why were you in Hatchet Mountains?’
‘On my way to someplace else,’
‘Where else?’
He showed a ghost of a smile that did not touch his slitted eyes. ‘Wherever the living’s easy.’
‘It is easier in white eyes town of San Lucas than in the mountains. There is food, drink and shelter in the town.’
Edge nodded. ‘But word was you people planned to hit San Lucas. I happened to pick the wrong part of the mountains to bed down.’
Thundercloud spoke fast in his own tongue. The chief listened without expression until the sub-chief was through.
Then, ‘I will accept the confirmation of Thundercloud that it was an accident of chance which has brought you to this place, Edge. I discount the incident at San Lucas since it is likely your concern was for the safety of the horsesoldiers rather than their Apache prisoners. You will remain here, in the lodge of Calvin and Little Fawn. Until I lead my warriors against those who have stolen El Cerro de Muerto from our people. Then you may leave to continue your search for earthly paradise. If you attempt to escape from this place before permission is given, you will be given to the squaws to be put to the most painful death.’
Cal Butler made to turn away, less confident than he had been before the chief started to speak. ‘Wait!’
The youngster gasped his nervousness.
Acoti maintained his fixed stare upon the impassive, heavily bristled face of Edge. ‘Because friend of Apaches Calvin considers you friend, I allow you to remain here. But you are as a fly in the air to me, white eyes. You are either nothing or you are an irritation. When such a creature irritates me, I deal with it. Thus.’
He withdrew his right hand from his chest and directed a hard slap at his left upper arm.
‘You understand what I say, Edge?’
The half-breed raked his glinting slivers of eyes to left and right, over the arced lines of wickiups. Then returned his attention to the chief. ‘Figure my wings have been clipped,’ he drawled. ‘And I ain’t the crawling kind.’
Acoti beckoned to Thundercloud and both went into the chiefs wickiup. Butler sighed, tugged on Edge’s shirt sleeve and made a sideways gesture of his head to indicate that they should leave.
‘Wow, I was sweatin’ some for awhile there,’ the youngster rasped. ‘Chief Acoti just ain’t the same guy I knew over on the Hermanas Rancheria.’
‘That’s because he ain’t the same, feller,’ the half-breed responded, noting how the Indians - braves and squaws alike - pointedly avoided looking at the youngster and himself as they moved among the wickiups. ‘He’s an Apache so he’d consider himself a prisoner while he was living in a place the whites chose for him. Now he’s free and he’s relishing the taste. Like all these braves are doing. And he’s itching to make the whites pay for making him something that wasn’t an Apache.’
Butler looked hard at Edge, surprised and briefly nervous again. But there was nothing in the lean face of the half-breed to back up the suspicion of bitterness that sounded in his tone.
‘Well, we don’t have to worry about it, uh? None of this is any of your business and I’ve done what I had to pay back the people of San Lucas.’
Edge caught himself just before he started to speak his thoughts aloud and the two completed the walk to a wickiup in the outer ring, close to the corral, in silence.
A squaw was seated in the triangular opening and did not rise and step out into the sunlight until Butler called cheerfully:
‘Little Fawn! Meet Mr. Edge. He’s goin’ to be stayin’ with us for awhile.’
She looked to be no more than sixteen or seventeen with Apache features, and hair the color of wheat ready for harvest. It was a strikingly attractive combination and there was an indication that if she achieved womanhood without running to fat, she would be very beautiful. The broadness of her hips and the bulge of her belly beneath the plain and loose-fitting brown cotton dress were obviously due to the child forming in her womb. The mounds of her breasts were merely hinted at, had not yet begun to swell for suckling.
She had no smile for her husband and
her bow for each man was pathetically servile.
‘You need to eat? There is groundhog meat and hominy. Some mushrooms and cornmeal gravy. You wish me to cook this?’
Her English was even better than that of Chief Acoti and only the clipped sentences revealed it was not her native tongue.
‘Yeah, do that, please.’
‘Sounds fine, ma’am,’ Edge added to Butler’s response, as he spotted his mare in the corral, stripped of the saddle and accoutrements. The army mounts were there among the ponies, too. Saddleless.
‘We’ll wait inside, out of the sun,’ Butler suggested, and ushered the half-breed in ahead of him. As Little Fawn went to the fire, to stir the ashes and cause the embers to give up flames.
It was no cooler beneath the matting stretched between poles that formed the wickiup. But the shade was a relief. Blankets were spread on the ground to form bedding. To one side was a heap of cooking and eating utensils with a box of supplies beside it. Close to this was an earthenware pitcher three-quarters filled with water. Drowned insects floated on the surface.
‘Food won’t take long,’ Butler said as Edge stretched out on one side of the blankets and tipped his hat over his face.
‘Just resting, feller,’ Edge drawled into the inside of his Stetson, as he interlocked the fingers of his hands beneath his head - both thumbs touching that section of the straight razor which protruded from the neck pouch.
‘I’ll call you,’ Butler offered and sat down in the doorway vacated by his wife,
‘Obliged.’
Little Fawn re-entered the wickiup just once, to bring what was needed to prepare the meal and after that Edge was left virtually alone while the young couple spoke softly in the Apache tongue, Butler obviously replying to his wife’s questions about the newcomer.
The half-breed relaxing on the blankets, easing the aches of the long night ride from his body, had the razor which nobody knew about. The only other weapon close at hand was the ancient Colt Paterson in Calvin Butler’s holster. In nearby wickiups there would be braves armed with the stolen Army Colts and Spencer repeating rifles. There was a whole remuda of horses available.
So all I need, Edge thought with a wry smile twisting his lips, is for every Apache within three miles to go to sleep.
Then he abandoned facetious thoughts and attempted to accept his situation with equanimity - by forcing his mind to become a blank. But that proved too much of a strain - to the extent that he felt his muscles grow tense as the skin of his face was pulled into the form of a scowl.
For it was not within him to resign himself to the circumstance which had existed since he looked up out of the hollow in the dead of the mountain night and saw he was a prisoner. And had been denied freedom just as surely ever since, even though the guns had not been aimed at him after he acknowledged his capture.
So he was as Chief Acoti had been on the Hermanas Rancheria - a caged free spirit. But in such a position, he did not possess the same ability as the Apache leader to adopt a whole new personality. The most he could do was to fake resignation for short periods of time. Which was why he was grateful for the opportunity to withdraw into the wickiup and further hide his true feelings under the Stetson.
He was filled with an ice-cold anger that he had been able to confine in the pit of his stomach for a long time. The worst kind of anger, for it had no tangible target. Since leaving Silver City - even before that, since he rode away from the bloodied town of Freedom - he had done his best to stay clear of trouble.
At the Butler place he kept the drunken woman at bay and handed out the Remington’s equivalent of a mild slap to the youngster who was ready to kill him. Which was later to pay a big dividend when Cal Butler saved his life.
In San Lucas he drew his gun again, and again it was to prevent violence rather than start it.
And he had left town, having no desire to be mixed up in other people’s troubles. Only to be brought, against his will, among the enemy the citizens of San Lucas were preparing to fight.
At least, in town, he had been a free agent.
‘Chow up, Mr. Edge,’ Butler invited.
The half-breed took a few moments to spread the familiar impassive expression across his face before he sat up, put the hat back on top of his head and accepted the heaped plate of food and the spoon which Little Fawn thrust towards him.
He concentrated on eating the good-tasting meat and vegetables, not realizing how hungry he was until he swallowed the first mouthful. And he welcomed the fact that Butler was in a talkative mood again, for the act of listening to the words helped him to subdue the futile anger he felt for his ruling fate.
‘Them army guns that were stolen outside Santa Fe, Mr. Edge?’
‘Yeah?’
‘We only got the one wagonload. And that wasn’t bought’
‘Rancheria Indians never get rich,’ Edge allowed.
‘I set up the deal to buy them from the guys that stole the guns. But Thundercloud rode in with twenty braves. The guys that were sellin’ took account of a double-cross. Had all the wagons rigged to blow up if anythin’ went wrong. Lucky for us, one of the charges was a dud.’
‘Especially lucky for you, maybe?’ Edge suggested. ‘Though I’d say these Apaches still don’t trust you overmuch.’
Butler, who sat on the other side of the blanket bedding from Edge, swallowed a hunk of baked groundhog meat and grimaced. Little Fawn looked up momentarily from her chore of sewing a tear in a shirt sleeve, then quickly bent her head again. There was a look of deep melancholy on her childlike features.
‘You noticed that, uh?’ the sandy-haired youngster growled. ‘Yeah, I was damn sure the guys with the guns trusted me. And when it turned out they didn’t, these people have been treatin’ me like they think there’s a chance I set up Thundercloud and the others to be blown to bits. Chief Acoti give Thundercloud the job of watchin’ near every move I make. Reason I was with him and the braves when they hit the army men last night. And he was hid out in the hills when I went to see Ma yesterday.’
His rough-hewn face showed a sudden smile. ‘Lucky for you I was in on that ambush.’
‘I ain’t disputing that, feller,’ the half-breed answered flatly.
The smile went as abruptly as it had come, displaced by tense anxiety. ‘Ask you to keep that in mind, Mr. Edge. On account that if you don’t do like the chief told you, won’t only be you who’ll suffer. I’ve vouched for you. And the way these people are now, all I’ve done for them in the past won’t count for as much as a heap of chicken shit if—’
‘Don’t worry about it, feller,’ Edge cut in, and scraped the final pieces of food from the plate on to his spoon and shoveled them into his mouth.
Cal Butler vented a sigh of relief, nodded, and showed a broader smile than before. As his wife set aside her sewing, got to her feet and crossed to stoop and reach for the half-breed’s empty plate.
‘You have had enough, Edge?’
‘Right, ma’am,’ he replied through clenched teeth. And, as he hit her, rasped, ‘Guess you could say I’m real fed up.’
Chapter Eight
Calvin Butler choked on the curse he tried to vent. As the rim of the tin plate impacted with the flesh of Little Fawn’s throat, the force of the blow sufficient to shock the girl into unconsciousness and split the skin.
She collapsed like a loosely packed sack of corn dropped from a great height, blood gushing from the lips of the ugly wound.
Edge had been seated cross-legged. But before the girl became still he was on his knees, his right hand poised above the pregnant bulge of her belly - fisted around the handle of the razor, the pointed blade of which rested on the fabric of her dress. But the glittering blue slits of his eyes were directed with menacing intensity at Little Fawn’s awesomely shocked husband.
‘Be like worrying about if the sun is going to set tonight, feller,’ the half-breed rasped. ‘Some things just have to be.’
‘You bastard!’ Calvin squeezed ou
t from his constricted throat, his voice a mere scratch on the hum of activity which sounded from beyond the wickiup entrance.
‘You’ve already got the idea,’ Edge said. ‘Keep your voice down and your family safe.’
‘Safe ? She could be dyin’ right now. And the child already dead, way you knocked her down.’ His throat was clear now, but he continued to speak softly as his shock-dulled eyes shifted from the wound on Little Fawn’s neck to the razor above her belly and back again.
‘That could be,’ the half-breed allowed coldly. ‘And the longer she has to lay here like this the bigger the chance of her losing more than just blood, Calvin. So are you going to do what I tell you?’
‘You won’t get away from here!’ The shock was getting less and anger and hatred were building inside him - seen in his expression and heard in his voice.
‘Ease the gun out like you were handling an egg and toss it over here, Calvin,’ Edge instructed. ‘Down where I can reach it without moving. Then turn around and shuffle over here on your butt.’
The youngster licked sweat off his top lip. ‘What you gonna do?’
‘Break a rule instead of your skull, Calvin.’
‘You’re crazy.’
‘I’m pretty close to it,’ the half-breed answered. ‘I can either run amok or stay cool, calm and collected. Either way, there’s a good chance of me getting killed. But if the choice has to be between being dead or a prisoner of this war-hungry bunch of Apaches, I’ll take the bullet.’
Butler squeezed his eyes tight closed, lifted the old revolver from his holster - awkward since he had to use his right hand - and opened his eyes again. Just for a part of a second he debated the possibility of getting off a shot before the blade of the razor sank through the girl’s belly and into her womb. Then tossed the Colt lightly onto the blanket beside Edge’s right knee.
EDGE: Red Fury (Edge series Book 33) Page 7