by Clay Fisher
It is said that in one particular season Kifer earned a $100,000 selling human hair.
Quita! As the Mexicans said, God forbid it.
Could another man ever equal this accounting of horrors? Did another man live, in fact, who might even approach it?
The answer was yes.
Such another man did live.
Santiago Kifer was the offspring of Dutch John in fornication with the mentally deficient Yaqui squaw, Simialita—Monkey Woman, or Little Monkey—herself a murderess and pariah of the outlands. It was she indeed who, outliving the elder Kifer, ran in pack with her notorious son Santiago—who carried none of the half-breed look and seemed a white man to all who saw him—and she served her son as Judas goat to entice her Indian kinsmen within the various inhuman traps laid by Santiago Kifer and his Texas scalpers.
It is said that the evil men do lives after them, while the good is too oft interred with the bones.
No man knows where rest the bones of Dutch John Kifer. Or what single sand’s grain of good might lay in the crypt with those bones. But all men living in his time and after him knew the evil that Dutch John left to murder for him beyond his grave.
Its name was Santiago Kifer.
Santiago, the One Eared. Santiago, the Mad. Santiago the Cruel. Santiago, the Shame of God. He had a dozen names, each more fearful than the last, and more monstrous. This was the man we had blinded at Sandbar Island and, God be praised, left there all safely behind us. This was the son of Simialita, the Yaqui Monkey Woman, whose name had only this moment past caused even the ebony face of Robert Flicker to go gray.
Indeed, the brave Flicker was just then recovering.
“Excuse it, Ratoncito,” he apologized for the long pause to Packrat. “Now, then, aside from being saved from the Yaquis, what did you learn from Al Sieber that you did not from Glen Mackenna?”
“All about silver,” explained Packrat. “How to guess it apart from gold in its ways of hiding in the earth. I worked like a white man for Seebie, like a dog. Apaches don’t work like that with shovels and wheeling barrows and long iron drills and jackhammers. We called the drills bull penises.”
“That’s close,” Flicker grinned. “Try bull prods.”
They continued, and shortly Flicker turned to me and said that Packrat actually did know a great deal more than he, Flicker, about locating precious mineral. “You’ve got your mining expert, padre. And native-grown, at that.”
He paused, shaking black, fierce head.
“An Apache prospector,” he said, entirely unto himself. “For Christ’s sake, what next?”
Packrat had a reply for that, too.
He brightened visibly.
“Chongo is next,” he informed the black deserter. “See, there he comes. Hola, Chongo. Qué pasa?”
Chongo did not answer his Indian brother but came straightaway around the fire, to Flicker.
“Send the others away, jefe,” he scowled. “We must talk alone. Hay mucho trabajo. Comprende?”
Flicker and I exchanged glances, and the black leader motioned me with his head to go on, to move away. Packrat was already leaving. I went with him, looking back uneasily. Chongo had said that there was trouble, much trouble, and the manner in which he had made the statement left no room for interpretation or nuances of meaning.
When a wild bronco Apache from the Mexican Sierra Madre del Norte informs you there is trouble, de ahí!
Do not linger in its presence.
When I came over to the blanket-place of the women, I imagined they were all asleep. The horses nickered me a soft greeting, and the old dog Loafer stirred his tail to thump the dirt where he lay curled up by Charra Baca.
“Father,” the girl whispered, unexpectedly, “what is Chongo saying? What has he found?”
“Found?” I whispered back. “I did not even know he had been looking for something. What do you mean, chica?”
“I mean,” Charra told me, “that Chongo has been gone since sundown. He just now returned. Didn’t you miss him?”
“No, I’m no Apache like you.”
“Father, you better learn to be. There is trouble. I could smell it. It rode back into this camp with Chongo.”
“Ussen’s name!” a familiar graveled voice complained. “When can a person expect to sleep in this damnable company of braying jacks and half-breed jennies? What time of the night is it, anyway?” Young Grass sat up, digging at her rheumy eyes. “Josana,” she said to Charra, “you will never make a good Apache. You talk all the time.”
“Jesus protect us,” objected the third female voice. “This camp is busier than Tombstone. I might as well get up and go and look for a customer.”
Zorra made as to go over and stir the fire, preparing to reheat the supper’s coffee. But an instant reprimand came from Flicker. “Go back and gather up the others; get the horses and your mule ready. And send the priest to me,” he ordered the Mexican harlot. “Más aprisa!”
“He wants you over there,” Zorra grumbled to me, returning. “Damn it, I don’t like to be commanded about by a negro. But, then, ah! Such a negro. I will sell him something before this journey is out.”
“Baggage!” I cried. “Away with you!”
“Nevertheless, we shall do business,” Zorra insisted.
“Pah!” I snorted. “Do you imagine that such noble fellows as Flicker will pay for what is offered free?”
“Aha!” the shameless one gloated. “Just like a priest, eh? Why, you scoundrel, Jorobado. I ought to tell—”
“Hush,” I said. “Do not alarm the others. Do as Flicker has told you; ready the riding stock. Charra, you and young Grass do as Zorra directs.”
“Since when has a settlement Mexican told a Mecalero Apache how to get ready for trouble?” Young Grass demanded querulously. “I won’t obey a thing she suggests.” “Don’t then,” I snapped. “Stay here by yourself and wait for whatever trouble it is that Chongo has found.”
I scuttled over to join Flicker at the fire, noting by a covert glance behind me that Young Grass was working harder than either Charra or Zorra to get ready. Like her half-Apache neophyte, Josana, the old woman could “smell” that trabajo moving ever nearer through the night.
As I came up to Flicker, the nature of our difficulty was swiftly sketched for me.
Chongo had scouted both backtrail and foretrail on direction from Flicker. Neither jaunting had been wasted. Behind us came Kifer and Crench and Belcher. They had stolen some horses from a ranch along the way. Kifer had his eyes bandaged, and his horse followed on a lead rope after those of his deputies. It made their going somewhat slow but did not promise us, with our weary stock, any safe lead. The one thing that was certain about the scalpers was that they were following our trackline. They hadn’t stolen horses merely to put miles between themselves and the angry men and wives of Tombstone, Arizona.
“But do not imagine,” Flicker warned me in ominous tone, “that these are the worst of our followers.”
Ahead of us, Chongo had found the hoofmarks of Lupe and the two Bedonkohes. Those marks were bending in a wide circle to come back toward us. Lupe had discovered our band and was “getting nervous.” He and his henchmen would likely be camped now, but first light would see them moving to do something about Kaytennae, Chongo, and Packrat, whose story of their treachery to Apache comrades in a war situation could mean a tribal vote of death. Not even Geronimo would dare flout the war rules of the Apache to pardon Lupe, Tule Moon, and Go-ta-chai. So it was, Flicker concluded, that we were in the middle of bad trouble.
“Will we then leave camp now?” I asked anxiously.
“It would be less a gamble to stay,” Flicker answered, “but I am trusting you to have the camp ready when we return.”
“We? Return? What is this, Flicker?”
“What it is,” Flicker explained, “is that Chongo an
d I are going to take the fight to these two sets of beauties who are trailing us.”
“But, God’s name, Flicker, I can’t run a war camp.”
“You will have Packrat to help you.”
“He’s unreliable,” I complained. “You can’t believe a word he says.”
“That ought to be a familiar thing for you,” Flicker grinned. “A priest and a pack rat trading lies.”
“Be gone!” I said. Then, courage vanished. “But where to, Flicker? Santa, you may never come back.” I peered to the north, toward our rear. “Those devils, that Kifer and his twain of foolish deputies, beware of them, Flicker!”
“Advise Chongo of that,” the big Negro told me. “He is taking them. I am going after Lupe.”
“You! You trailing the Bedonkohes? Why is that when we have Chongo, their Apache cousin, to do it?”
“Because, good priest,” Flicker told me, “I am the superior horse thief to Chongo.”
“What?”
“They have six good horses, and it is good horses we must have to make it away from any enemy. That applies to Kifer, or Lupe, or those Arizona ranchers stirred up by the scalpers stealing their horses, or anyone else who may come after us. We will not get far, padre, with our poor and few mounts.”
“But the risk, Flicker. The gamble!”
“Only life or death, Nunez. Come along. I want you to tell that tall bay horse of ours that it is all right for me to ride him. He seems to have attached himself to you. Just like that scrofulous dog.”
“Merely a matter of life and death, Flicker,” I returned his hard saying. “I owe the dog my life and the horse owes his life to me.”
“Spoken like a true slave of the faith,” Flicker grunted. “An answer for everything but never a solution. Talk to the horse for me; I’m in a hurry.”
Five minutes later, Flicker was gone, riding the tall bay más aprisa, very swiftly, and as if he knew precisely where to guide the animal. Chongo was already departed, taking Zorra’s ratty mule, “surer of foot for short night-riding.” There was nothing the others of us might do then, but wait. Wait and be ready.
But there are some things we are never ready for.
27
SANTIAGO’S MESSENGER
It was about 8:00 p.m. when Flicker and Chongo left camp for their night scoutings. My instructions were to take a daylight departure should they fail to return. Accordingly, when the sun came pink and gold through the dawning mists and neither Flicker nor Chongo had returned, I consigned our souls to God and ordered the march resumed. Some bickering at leaving their warm blankets arose among my female marchers. But none of them wished to be “walked in on” by Lupe and his hesh-kes or by Kifer and his scabrous deputies. And of course failure of our scouts to come back could mean but one thing, Flicker and Chongo had been killed. The way was clear for both the Apaches and the white scalpers to strike our camp.
“Más aprisa!” called old Young Grass to Charra Baca and Zorra the whore. “Santiago Kifer has already promised to sell my hair for half price in Ciudad Chihuahua. Imagine what he will get for yours. That is, after he has taken what else he wants of both of you. Aha! Now you scuttle to your horses, eh? Vamos, vamos, you cow-breasted cowards!”
From this point, Packrat took command of the decampment. Kaytennae, able now to ride alone, was sent out to scout the trail for us. We all pushed our horses hard after him, anxious to be clear of Contrabandista Spring. Nevertheless, we had gone but a quarter mile when we heard behind us an outrageous braying.
“My God,” Zorra said, “that is my mule. Chongo must be all right, after all.”
“Thank God for that,” I added.
But Packrat was peering into the sun back toward the spring, and he said, in guttural Apache, “Don’t thank your god too much. The mule is alone. There is no rider on him, only a sack tied to the horn of his saddle. Get into this brush here, all of you. Be still. I don’t care for the smell of this business.”
We pushed into the nearby growth of paloverde and desert mesquite. But a mule’s eyesight is nigh unto as keen as an antelope’s. The long-eared devil had seen us. Braying to us to wait for him, he broke into a jarring lope straight toward our hiding place.
I took the minute of his advance to do some hard praying. It was not enough.
In the bag that jounced and banged soddenly from the horn of the animal’s saddle was a gruesome burden. When Packrat went out to the mule to look at the sack, all of us could see the blood soaking through it from its interior. Without a word or look to any of us, Packrat untied the sack from the saddle’s horn and upended its contents on the ground.
The object that fell out to bounce one time and then lie still between two rocks of the trail, its sightless eyes staring squarely into our horrified faces, was a human head. A naked human head. There was no hair on it but for the eyebrows, and the scalping had been to the skullbones from forehead to base of brainpan.
Packrat looked at the head, then at our huddled company.
I made the sign of the crucifix against Lucifer.
Charra Baca, only one-half Apache, uttered a rending sob and began to weep brokenly.
I could hear the whore of Fronteras shakenly praying.
In the terrible pause, the old dog Loafer went over and sniffed the head where it lay. He backed away from it, every individual hair of his roach erected.
Gathering every force of will, I walked out to Packrat. We began to talk in his tongue. It was soon evident that Packrat knew well the codes of this grim business. The head and its loathsome sack must be left in the trail as a danger sign to Flicker, he said. This was in case the black rider might still be alive and coming on. There was no choice so long as there was any chance that Flicker lived; to not leave the terrible article would be to deprive a fellow raider of his due warnings of peril all around.
It was agreed swiftly. We went back to our comrades and gave them the orders to mount up and move out. The fear and dread of the place lent Apache wings to our flight. Not one of us looked back, but I breathed a prayer as we fled.
Requiescat in pace, Chongo, our brave friend.
28
SHUT UP AND RIDE FAST
With our underrested horses and Kaytennae’s exceeding caution as guide, we made poor progress. At noonhalt we were but fifteen miles south of our start, out upon the open monte north and east of Cananea. A few miles on to the south lay Fronteras. Off to our left sprawled the Sierra de la Madera, a subrange of Mexico’s great Sierra Madre del Norte, the mother mountains of the Apache people.
The presence of these wild ones could be felt.
The country about us held silent as some rocky sunlit tomb. Nothing in it seemed to move. I could not hear even the song of a bird. No lizard’s tail rustled the drifted sand. The Sonoran desert was waiting for something.
Soon enough we saw what it was.
A cloud of the yellow dust of the country rose into the windless skies behind us. Horses. Horses on the full-out run. Coming, as we had come, from Contrabandista Spring. We were being followed, and at furious pace.
“Kifer!” I cried out instinctively. “My God, he is after us!”
But Packrat and Kaytennae shook Apache heads.
No. This was light dust. It was not made by heavy pounding of burdened animals. These horses were running free. Or perhaps being driven en caballada, bunched.
Again, we saw soon enough which it was.
Even as Packrat was disposing our meager forces for defense within the straggle of saguaro cacti that shaded our rest, Kaytennae, watching the dustboil come, let out a thin Apache wolf yelp. The cry was answered in kind from within the rolling dust of the running horses. Next moment the animals slowed, the dust of their galloping thinned off and fell away. They gladly came in to share our saguaro grove, wet and panting with their run. From behind their lathered number, a tall bay horse emerged
bearing a rider with the muscles of Adonis and a complete armor of yellow white Sonoran dust cake to camouflage his ebon underskin.
“Buenas tardes,” said Robert E. Lee Flicker, stepping down from the tall bay horse. “Is there coffee for a hardworking horse thief?”
We gave him the last cup in our tin of noonhalt brewing. He gulped it down, then ordered the company at once back on the march. To this point he had said no word of his adventures since leaving us. But he came to ride with me after the start, telling the story for my ears alone.
He had come in the blackness of night to the fireless camp of the hesh-ke Apaches. He had found it with his nose, smelling the Indian horses. Leaving his own mount tied downwind, he went forward. Luck befell him. The Indian horses were all on hobble grazing, none tethered near its owner. It was but the work of moments for Flicker to slip among them, cut the hobbles, free the horses, and glide on into the bedding spot of the Apache “cold” camp, all unknown to its blanketed sleepers. Now there was a decision, a choosing:
Ought he to kill all three in their slumbers, either by knife or skulling rock? Or should he awaken and permit to flee on foot the two dupes of Lupe, slaying only the guilty subchief? Or ought he to slay none of them but merely take the horses and so set them afoot in dangerous land where Mexican cavalry roamed? Well, Flicker knew the best thing.
He found his killing rock in the darkness and crept with it upraised to the side of Tule Moon. But he could not do it. He could never be what the United States Army had said he was. What they had banished him for with a death-price on his head—murderer. No, Flicker would take the greatest risk of all: He would awaken all three Apaches and claim the Vengeance Rule against Lupe.
This was the Chiricahua code that held that a man cannot go against his chosen leader in the field on a raiding expedition except that he might do so to save his own life—if the leader and all the others were inescapably trapped. This had certainly not been the case when Lupe stole the horses of his brother Apaches and tried to get away thereby. Flicker, as raiding party head, had explicitly forbidden any splitting up of his men under duress of pursuit. In this, he flew directly in the face of Apache tradition. But he was Soldado Negro, the Black Soldier, and his fighting methods were a mixture of the Indian and Anglo warfare tactics. He was also, by the use of these same hybrid tactical strategies, the most successful of all Mexican Apache raiders.