Black Apache

by Clay Fisher

  There proved to be some food—tin of army hardtack, bundle of venison jerky, stale rind of rat cheese—in Kifer’s saddlebag. With coffee already simmering in the smoke-charred pot, we began a fine breakfast. As we ate, Flicker suggested to the other, younger Apache, Chongo, that this would be the opportunity to bring us the accounting of what had passed to bring Packrat and himself to this lagoon of the old channel of Rio San Pedro in just such an important time for our lives.

  The handsome Chongo gulped his steaming coffee, nodded his lip-smacking consent.

  “It came to pass in such a manner,” he said.

  21

  CHONGO’S STORY

  As Apaches will when a thing lies recent to their eyes, Chongo told his story as if he were reseeing it happen to some other Indians, viewing it from a hidden distance.

  The five Mexican Apaches lay in their covert on the scrub-grown higher sandbar of the San Pedro. Since yesterday they had been there, bare miles only from Fort Huachuca and the mean rifle fight. They had with them the American Apache, their guide for the local country, Kaytennae, adopted nephew of Chief Juh. The young warrior was sore wounded. A head wound. None of them knew how deep. But the American brother had not stirred, except to moan softly in his hurt. Or to go rough in his breathing. Or to shake in chill.

  Such grievous injuries of the head the Mexican Apaches understood to be exceeding dangerous.

  They thought of it mournfully.

  When a brother lay so long without his brain returning, dah-eh-sah, the Dark One, was hovering. Yet they had not left Kaytennae and would not leave him. Indeed, the burden that he was to them had led to this need for going to earth under the very noses of the pursuing soldiers. Ysun, the Father, had blessed the risk. The cavalry had probed all around the sandbar but not come out to it. The reason lay in the opinion of the white scout who was with the soldier patrol that not even one Indian could hide in the brush on the midriver spit. To imagine that the bunch they were after, or any part of them, had crossed to that driftwooded bar was, in the words of the scout, “imbeciled nonsense.”

  The patrol had ridden on.

  And the five Meixcan Apaches and their dying American brother had bellied deeper into the driftwood and debris of the spit, thanking Ysun for the lease of another day.

  But now that day was breaking to the east.

  They must go on. Kaytennae, in some miracle of great spirit, had come through the night. The blessing of that gift was arguable, although the obligation of it was undeniable. In the pure democracy of the Indian way, both views were freely heard.

  “Goddamn,” scowled Lupe, the second leader after black Flicker. “I say leave him here. He has water and shelter from both sun of midday and chill of midnight.”

  Lupe was a dangerous man. He was an Indian who had spent much time running back and forth across the border between Mexico and the United States, and he had served some time as a scout out of San Carlos. He had learned his profanity from the white troopers and, evidently, some little of their military morality, as well.

  Chongo, on the other hand, was a brooding young man of utter seriousness. He was a half brother of the notorious Chato, fastest rising of all the young Mexican Apache raiders. Like Chato, Chongo was bright of mind. But he was unlike his fierce kinsman in spirit. Chongo understood the desperation of the Apache condition on both sides of the border. Yet he was not a hesh-ke, not a killer of the caste of Lupe and Chato.

  “No,” this sober young fighter answered Lupe. “Saying to leave him here is easy. But you know the law as well as any of us. He cannot be left behind except that he demand nah-wehl-coht kah-el-keh. Do you deny it?”

  Nah-wehl-coht kah-el-keh was the Apache tribal law by which a mortally wounded person could request that he be left behind a retreating party to defend it from pursuit. In its applications, the term mortal had many interpretations. Warriors would claim the law who were scarcely scratched, or who could easily recover by running with the fleeing pack. It was thus always up to the leader of the raiders to say if nah-wehl-coht kah-el-keh were to be allowed in each case.

  Now, with Flicker gone, that leader was Lupe.

  Chongo knew that well. But Lupe had been much with White Eyes and was tainted in his thinking. He needed a hand on his hackamore, as the Apache said. But whoever offered that hand had better be prepared to have it bitten off. Lupe was a bad Indian.

  “Chongo,” Lupe demanded, “what do you think Kaytennae would ask for?”

  “He would ask to be left behind.”

  “Where is our problem then?”

  “He cannot speak.”

  “I am leader now; I speak for him. We leave him.”

  Lupe was tall for an Apache, shading six feet. He was strong of body and of will. He had killed more men than any of the raiders. Thirty-five Mexicans, alone.

  The two men stared at one another. Their companions became very nervous. One of them thought of something.

  “Say,” he interjected, “I just remembered a factor here. Lucky that I did, too. It may be what we seek.”

  This fellow was called Packrat. He was a famous politician and “arranger” among his fellows. A rotund, merry-eyed small man, he was nonetheless tough in mind and had always an eye out for the major opportunity.

  His two remaining comrades, Tule Moon and Go-ta-chai, were lean, fierce fellows who, like Lupe, had joined the expedition from the Bedonkohe band. These were the people of another young fighter who was then becoming a power among all the Chiricahua Four Families. His name was Go-lithay, sometimes called Gokliya. This was among the Apache. Among the Pinda Likoyi, the hated White Eyes, he had another name.

  It was Geronimo.

  So these last two of the raider band were rough men, and their votes could swing the matter either direction.

  Tule Moon leaned over and examined the still form of Kaytennae.

  “He is the color of a beached trout,” he said. “He cannot live.”

  “Anh, yes,” his friend Go-ta-chai agreed, “he should be dead already. He is hombre duro.”

  “Well, Packrat, get on with your idea.” It was Chongo speaking. “But only if it has to do with nah-wehl-coht kah-el-keh.”

  “Yes,” Lupe growled, “and it better have to do with it. You hear me, ratonito gordo?”

  Being addressed as “little fat rat” was nothing new to the peacemaker. Packrat merely waved a chubby hand and said, “I recall from my grandmother, who was the noted Holy Woman Lozarita, that, in a condition where the warrior was unconscious, his comrades could make a vote to say what the warrior would have said were he able to speak. I say let us get out the voting sticks.”

  The sober Chongo could barely suppress an Apache smile. There was never any such holy woman as this Lozarita, nor any such sublaw to the rule of nah-wehl-coht kah-el-keh. But Packrat had once more done his work. Now Chongo must do his. The morning light was growing. This second day could not be spent on the island. It must, rather, see them all traveling swiftly and far down Rio San Pedro. That sunset must find them safely home, in Mexico. Chongo well understood these imperatives of their position. He took a final look at the gray-faced Kaytennae.

  “All right,” he said. “Who is carrying the voting sticks?”

  Tule Moon had them, and he had brought them forth. They had voted then, the five hidden Mexican Apaches, and the vote to abandon Kaytennae had gone three to two—against Chongo and Packrat. But, even so, Packrat and Chongo said, they would still remain with their fallen American brother.

  At once, Lupe, Tule Moon, and Go-ta-chai had departed for the secret meadow where the party had hidden its horses before swimming the river to the island. It was not imagined that they would take more than their own three ponies; but Lupe was what he was: a Bedonkohe and a killer, a man who cared not for any rules, whether of the Apache or the Pinda Lickoyi.

  When Packrat had shortly followed
to the meadow to get the three ponies of himself, Chongo, and Kaytennae, the fat brave had found no ponies at all in the meadow. Lupe and his two comrades had stolen all six horses. Quita! What a foulness of luck. The damned traitors. Acting just like white men. Stealing the extra ponies to save their own red hides, to have thus a fresh mount for each of them to ride relay should the cavalry jump them again.

  Well, it might make good Indian sense, Packrat admitted in reporting it to Chongo on his return to the brushy island in Rio San Pedro, but it sure as hell was not good Apache law. Nor very damned friendly, either.

  Chongo had agreed.

  A time would come when Lupe would pay for this treachery. The stealing of a man’s horse in the country of the enemy was punishable by death. Tule Moon and Go-ta-chai might be found innocent. They would doubtless claim their fear of the wild-brained Lupe made them to do it. All right. Chongo would bring Lupe to account.

  For the present, he and Packrat and Kaytennae could not remain on the island. But Chongo still refused to abandon Kaytennae. Although their wounded brother appeared dah-eh-sah, there was yet a heart pulse in the pale chest. So long as there should be, Chongo would carry Kaytennae on his own back, if need be. “What say you?” he asked Packrat.

  “I will help you,” answered the fat brave. “We can fashion a sling from his horse blanket. It is insane, of course. Kaytennae is already dead, and you and I will both be shot by soldiers while carrying his cold body. But, ih! Yes, I will help you. I said it, didn’t I?”

  In this agreement, Chongo now concluded his story to Flicker, he and Packrat had departed their island bearing the body of Kaytennae between them. Down the river not far they had come in sight of the black robe being tied to a horse’s tail. It had not seemed unfair to them that a priest be so dragged behind a saddled pony. They were just about to pass on southward when they had noted the body of their black leader lying half in the shallows of the Rio San Pedro. It was him they sometimes called Trasfuga, the Deserter. Or Mirlo, Blackbird. Or Soldado Negro, Black Soldier. But who was called by the Apache most commonly, as by the White Eyes, merely Flicker.

  Of vastly more import, the Apache called him friend.

  “A priest is nothing, you see,” Packrat broke in to explain, “but a friend is beyond any other thing given to an Apache. Schicho, friend. Damn to hell, you can’t permit such a one to lie bobbing in the water and to drown.”

  “Certainly not,” murmured the soft-spoken Chongo.

  The handsome young Apache had been made uneasy by his closer looking at these others he and Packrat had saved. He had in particular fact just discovered Charra Baca, who was looking him back in her way. It was a way calculated to unsettle far bolder men than the youthful Mexican-bred Chiricahua. Chongo attempted to go around the issue.

  “Who are these?” he demanded scowlingly of Flicker.

  Charra Baca answered for herself, addressing Packrat and Chongo, a wise thing which Flicker and I both remarked.

  “My brothers,” she said to the Apache pair, “my own-mother was of the Chiricahua of Cochise. I will always remember that you came to save our lives when you might have stolen away.” She was silent a moment, the great wild eyes filling with tears. “The Cochise people are all running away now. None are left up there.” She pointed to the north. “If you will let me do it, brothers, I want to go home to Mexico with you.”

  Chongo and Packrat stared at her. Then Chongo turned to me. “What does she mean, priest? You behave to one another like father and daughter. Do you speak for her?”

  “Yes. Her mother was Apache. Juh thinks she was of the Cochise or Warm Springs people. Mexican soldiers killed her. I reared this girl at my church, in Casas Grandes.”

  “You will let her go with us?”

  “Yes.”

  “You bless it?”

  “Yes, if it is what she wants.”

  “What of the rest of you?” Chongo asked, looking about our little circle. “Where will you go?”

  Robert Flicker nodded, answering for me. “The black robe and I will also go home with you, Chongo,” he said. “At least until we are out of this country. The soldiers are after me, and the citizens of the big new silver camp are chasing the black robe. When men will not run together, they will each be caught in a different trap.”

  He looked directly at the young Apache. Chongo looked him back.

  “What of those two?” he asked, indicating the bound prisoners, Kifer and Crench. “I suggest a stone in their skulls. It’s the quietest, and neat also.”

  Packrat nodded and arose. “I see a good rock over there,” he said. “Let me hit the one-eared man; it would be a kindness, since he is now also blind.”

  As a priest, I could in no way countenance such a cold-blooded murdering, and I said so. It was decided that, Belcher being loose somewhere in the vicinity, we would simply leave the captives trussed on the island. That way they had a chance. It was all we could give them, and far more than they deserved.

  If Belcher came back for them, fine.

  If he did not, the high water of spring would bear two moldered skeletons down into the narrow gorge below Lagoon Island. Our Apaches accepted the solution, seeing its justice. They knew, or thought they did, the odds against the white man Belcher lingering near Mexican broncos who were wild from being shot at and run by soldiers.

  “I guess that is the end of it, then,” Flicker said.

  “No,” Chongo scowled. “You have forgotten one of us.”

  “What?” Flicker returned the scowl. “No comprende.”

  Chongo answered him softly, “You have forgotten the nephew of Juh. You have forgotten Kaytennae.”

  God forgive us, I thought, we all had done this grievous thing. It was the excitement, the confusion, the vast relief at living. But Flicker had it straighter.

  “Schicho,” he said in his deep voice, “are you saying he isn’t dead? You let us believe that he was.”

  “He is alive,” Chongo said. “Over there through the willow trees. Under a big cottonwood. We placed him there.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Flicker said. “Come on!”

  22

  DOUBTERS OF THE DREAM

  When we broke through the willows, a glad sight met our eyes. More than that, really. Kaytennae was sitting up. Another miracle, praise God.

  The lad was weak, but his mind was sound and aware.

  My hasty examination revealed no physical damage of importance. He should be ready to travel within the hour.

  “Nephew!” I wept, gathering him to my breast. “Your god has guarded you, while mine has guided us to this spot to help you home.”

  “Gods?” objected Packrat. “What of Chongo, here, and, for that matter, old Packrat? Had we nothing to do with saving this Warm Springs warrior?”

  “Everything, Ratoncito,” Flicker interjected. “But for you and Chongo, Kaytennae’s shade would be riding under the ground.” The reference was to the Apache belief that the dead live just below earth’s surface. “Moreover, I suspect Padre Jorobado of being less than forthright here.”

  “Eh?” I frowned. “What nonsense is this, Flicker?”

  The black rider extended and opened his hand. In it lay the crumpled treasure map of El Naranjal.

  “This nonsense, padre,” he told me.

  I made as if I did not understand him. “What ever are you talking about?” I smiled.

  “Talking about Kaytennae knowing the El Naranjal country,” Flicker answered me, dark face watchful. “You said you could restore the map itself. That’s all well and good. But I happen to have also lived with the Nednhi Apache and heard the full legend of this particular carta. It’s a map of the mine itself only. It isn’t worth a damn until somebody gets you into the El Naranjal country and up to the walls of the Ghost Canyon. For that,” he concluded, “you need an Apache guide; a particular Apache guide.”
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  “Pah!” I sputtered. “That is all common gossip. You know that.”

  “And you,” Flicker nodded, “know that the Nednhi Apache of Juh are the keepers of the secret of the lost canyon of the orange grove. And you know Kaytennae was raised in Juh’s own jacal. He ought to know the secret. He ought to make the perfect guide to lead you onward in your greediness to find the lost Franciscan gold, eh, Padre?”

  Through the ensuing stillness, Kaytennae looked at me.

  “Padre Jorobado, is this true?” he said at last.

  “Is what true, hijo?” I delayed.

  “That you would use me to betray the secrets of my people, and for your own greed of gold?”

  The time, most unavoidably, was come.

  “It is true,” I said. “But the greed is not for myself, even though I have called it Nunez’s dream. Will you hear me, all of you?”

  The Apache, I knew, respected dreams, but even they were reluctant here, surprising me.

  “I am not sure,” Kaytennae replied for the others. “Do you claim courtesy rules for your story?”

  “I must,” I said. “Do you deny them?”

  The young Warm Springs man studied the matter, consulting with Chongo, Packrat, and Young Grass. “No,” he finally said. “Go ahead.”

  At this juncture, we all heard the moanings of pain from the injured Santiago Kifer, and I perforce, as sole physician, asked the moment’s leave to attend the unfortunate. “Animal that he may be,” I explained, “he deserves something; the man who has lost his sight has surrendered the most precious thing of his life.” Even the Apaches agreeing, I departed.

  There was naught to be done for the scalper chieftain.

  Washing his face free of the blood upon it showed me no wound I might treat. Kifer would not, he said he could not, open his eyes to let me see their condition. “Blind,” he kept repeating. “Oh, dear Christ Jesus, the red devil has blinded me.” To this charge against young Chongo, I advised the suffering villain that he had blinded himself. Better than that, even. God had taken his eyes to punish him for all the lives of red men like Chongo whom his scalp hunters had killed for their hair.