by Clay Fisher
For that moment Juh took back the shiny new rifle and lifted his thick shoulders almost in apology.
“We had to do it, you see, Blackrobe. We are out of ammunition, and we knew the Texas Diablos had these beautiful new guns and plenty of brass-cased ammunition for them. We killed three of them in an ambush when first they took our trail across the Rio Bravo, from Tejas.”
“Texas,” I said. “You struck in Texas?”
“Anh, along the stage road below the Cerro Alto but more toward El Paso del Norte, only a little ways out.”
“God’s name! That is approaching the city itself? I cannot accept it. What brought you there, Jefe?”
“The boy,” Juh grunted, moving his head to indicate the small white captive. “And these new guns. It is all a part of the plan, Blackrobe.”
“You mean Huera’s plan again?”
“No. Another’s.” The Nednhi chieftain paused, eyeing me. “Huera’s plan was only to get these other seven new guns and shiny brass bullets for them. Since we had no more ammunition, she was leading the diablos to where we knew the mejicanos rode, where her scouts had sighted them and were leading them in a line to cross our trail and so the front of the diablos.”
“Incredible.”
“Nothing really. Huera knew the diablos would run for a place to fight from. Your church here was the only place. Huera said, ‘We will get there first and when the diablos rush into the mission to fire on the mejicanos, we will kill them all and take their great new guns and kill all the mejicanos, also. That way there will be no one left alive to know that we have the guns, or where we go with them.’” Again Juh paused, again bent his craggy-browed gaze upon me. “That Huera is a devil herself. I am glad she is my virgin aunt and not some sister of the enemy. Enjuh!”
I objected feebly, protesting that here we were speaking of guns when the life of a white captive child was in direst peril. To this, Juh wrinkled the massive face once more in that red wolf’s smirk that was a smile in Apacheland’s view. “The boy and the guns go together, Blackrobe. Do I need to tell you that?”
He lost the grin instantly and I did not care for the look that replaced it. Fortunately, we were interrupted by the at-hand blaring of the Mexican cavalry bugler, and Juh was running for the walls with Huera and the others, levering the new Winchesters on the Apache lope.
Yet at the last possible moment, the warrior woman saw that the white child stood frightened and alone with the Apache horses. She veered from her race for the low ramparts, ran to the boy, seized his arm and, to my utter astonishment, dragged him to me. Thrusting him into my care, she said in Apache, “His life is your life, Blackrobe,” and she was gone.
But in that moment of the passing of the child, our eyes met.
I had not seen her so closely, nor with her riding headband thrown back. The eyes were not the snake’s glitter black of her people. They were a golden hazel color, as of sunlit water pooling over desert sand. And her hair, released from the band, tumbled thick as ripened wheat, of a brown and glowing gold, over its Indian-dark undercolor. I was stunned.
She was what her name was.
Huera, the Blonde.
Certainly a Nednhi, or other Chiricahua-bred Indian woman in every feature of face and splendid form, she was yet a golden chestnut, even palomino, blonde. And she was, in that arm’s-length exchange of the dirt-caked white boy, the most savagely exciting female of any race or complexion ever touched by this priest of the True Faith.
My guilty heart hammered, and not from fear of dying in the fight to come, or from cruel decision of Apache visitor, or even will of God. I was excited of that woman, racing yonder to kill my countrymen who thought to find but seven Texas Rangers within those mission walls. The smell of her, the look of her, the wildness radiating from her animal litheness, her cold Apache quickness to kill overcame all that lived beneath those Franciscan robes. I would never be the same priest again. Huera had looked at me.
It was in that numbed moment, before the crash of Apache rifles greeted the doomed Mexican cavalry and while the white boy clung to me in seeming mute fear, that I felt the grasp of another hand upon my habit’s lower hem. I caught up my breathing as the tug came again—and yet again. Nombre Dios, could it be—?
Sweet Mary! Yes, my downward glance disclosed it: the seventh ranger was not dead.
3
In the tremor of time during which the stricken Tejano looked up into my face, I knew near-panic. An instinctual glance toward the south wall, where the Apaches waited with cocked rifles, showed the warrior woman Huera to be watching me. In the name of the Son why was she not, as her fellows, watching the Mexicans? Had she seen the ranger move to grasp my hem? To then clutch and tug so poignantly upon my robe? Raise his bloodied head to form the soundless words with which he pleaded for me to help him?
I could not know.
In that moment the lances of the Mexican riders flashed beyond the wall. The Apaches fired the new Winchester rifles in a rolling fusillade into the very faces of the blinded troops. Huera wheeled to add her weapon to the carnage. Hell took flame. The crashing of the Indian guns, the screams of dying men and animals outside the wall increased to bedlam. The Apache ponies began to mill and squeal. I stood clutching the stolen boy, mind addled with confusion. Not so the boy’s quick intelligence.
“Say, Reverend,” he advised, “you had best set me loose. We have got to give a hand to this here feller you’re standing straddle of. He is surely bad hit and likewise is an old friend of mine. Let’s ramble.”
“Yes, yes,” I agreed, freeing him. “Miracle of Jesus, you know this man? But wait. What does ramble mean?”
For reply, he seized the unconscious ranger by one leg. “Don’t auger, pull!” he ordered me. “Más aprisa, damn it, Reverend. Grab aholdt that other leg!”
Restored by the boy’s innocent valor, I grasped the free limb of the big Anglo. “Through the little iron gate, there,” I panted, “into the mission burial plot—”
When we had the lanky body through the gate, I dropped my hold on it and told the boy to follow me. Together we reached the central headmarker. Below this stone lay an ancient dry cistern converted by an earlier pastor into an Apache-proof sanctuary. Its secret had saved more than one shepherd of the Casas Grandes flock, and it was by Savior’s Grace still intact in my time.
Prying up the large stone to reveal the dug-steps down into the gloom beneath, I ordered the boy to hold the heavy lid open, while I returned for the ranger. Like all small boys he was delighted at the prospect of an underground retreat, and he sprang to obey me with sprightly good will.
“I’ve got her, by cracky,” he said, voice calm but blue eyes alight. “Shag on over yonder and fetch him.”
Even as I seized the big Tejano’s boots to haul him along the ground to the cistern’s maw, I noted for memory the lad’s keen intelligence and unbelievable lack of confusion or proper fear. Small wonder the Apaches had let him live. Smaller wonder yet that they had elected to take him with them and make of him one of their own. But there was yet another wonder coming.
I nearly burst open my groin pulling on that accursed ranger. He seemed to be all of seven feet tall and to weigh like a carcass of beef. By some gift of supernatural strength, however, I did get him to the cistern. There, as I strained to catapult him on down the waiting dirt stair path below, he stirred. Coming to an elbow, he swept the gun-smoked courtyard in a single look, knew at once where fate had brought him.
“Padre,” he said in pain, “You aim to hide a man out, you got to cover where you drug him from. Likewise, smoke-screen the body count being one shy.”
Here the captive boy broke in to pipe, “Hey, there, mister, you’re late for the stage. But I knowed all along that you would easy catch up to it.”
The bleeding Texan eyed him. “Thanks, kid,” he groaned. “You are a grand help.”
Wit
h that, he fainted, and I heaved him on down the steps into the cistern. The boy lowered shut the counterbalanced stone shell of the false tomb, and we faced one another across it. Again, he was quicker than I to recover. “Sure enough the gunfighter has got her pegged, Reverend,” he advised me soberly. “We got to smooth out our tracks and rustle our butts into the bargain. The ’Paches just about got them Mexican soldiers of yourn nose-wiped. But don’t worry, hear?”
The lad was right; both rate and return of the Indian fire were slowing. Only moments remained to us.
“Very well, niño,” I conceded. “We shall pile the bodies of the rangers over the dragging marks, cover the pile with my holy robes and pray exceeding hard.”
“I ain’t much for hard praying, Reverend.”
“Pray anyway. The Nednhis must not think to lift the poor cover to count the bodies.”
“They’re powerful smart,” the urchin nodded. “But let’s give her a go-round, anyhows.”
And so we did.
With herculean labor abetted by the heavy drift of powder smoke from the wall and the squealing and running of the now-stampeded Apache ponies back and forth in wild melee, we two made shift to pull the Texas dead all into a gruesome heap. Stripping my robe and vestments to white pantalónes and guaraches of Chihuahua mule leather, I cast the black shroud over the mutilated ranger corpses. As a final inspiration, I placed my belted cross atop the mute pile of bodies.
This proved not alone inspiration but salvation.
When we straightened and with pale haste stepped away to stand clear of our grisly cache, there was sudden, ominous stillness from the wall. Clearly we heard Juh’s heavy voice.
“Enjuh. It is enough. Let them go; we cannot kill them all this time.”
Next moment he and Huera had come to where the small Tejano boy and myself waited in vast unease.
“You did well, Blackrobe,” Juh nodded. “No harm came to your charge.” He inclined his massive head toward my valiant companion. “That’s a valuable boy, hombre.”
Huera said nothing but bent quickly to lift my robes from the dead Texans.
In the same instant, Juh saw the cross and commanded her to cease. She argued the order vehemently but I, in a unique visitation of good sense, announced somberly that if they disturbed these brave dead, the Tejanos would follow them on ghost ponies. “Who truly knows,” I finished, making exaggerated sign of the cross, “what medicine powers such dead have? Seven is a particularly bad number anyway. You know that.”
I did not have the least hazard that they knew seven to be a bad power number. Yet, Indian-like, they nodded gravely.
“Yes, of course we knew that,” Juh said. “Come away, Huera. Leave the diablos. They died well.”
The warrior woman dropped the hem of the robe.
“It is done,” she told Juh. “Blackrobe,” she said, turning to me, “you and I have our work now. And we need no ghosts to follow us. Go your way. Enjuh.”
She departed then, taking the boy who seemed not to fear her. Juh swung at once upon me.
He asked if I had understood what the woman said. I was forced to answer that I had not gathered her true meaning, though I had heard the words plainly.
“I know that an Apache would never deceive,” I lied to him, “but with a woman it is different.”
Man-proud, Juh appreciated that. “She told you to go your way,” he said, “because this time your way is her way.”
I did not comprehend that either. I told Juh as much, speaking a ciencia cierta, most politely, of course. He responded in Apache kind.
“Doble,” he said. “Easy. Since you speak the tongue of the Tejanos, you are to be the messenger who takes the ransom paper to Texas. Huera will go with you.”
“God’s Name,” I said in a low voice. “What is this you say to me of ransom papers and Texas?”
Juh palmed dark hands. “He Who Has the Plan asked the Nednhi which man of Casas Grandes could talk with the Tejanos and might also be entrusted to make the long journey to the city of el gobernador. Huera, who advises us in such matters, named you.”
“El gobernador, Jefe?” I strove mightily to be of outward complacency. “What service can a humble priest render the Nednhi by going to see the governor of Texas?”
Juh lost his easy way. His face grew at once dark with his old hatred of Texas and the Tejanos.
“He can tell him where his little son is, Blackrobe. And what will be the price of the boy’s life, if he can pay it.” He paused, bear’s voice rumbling. “And he can tell el gobernador also what will be the length of his man-child’s life if he, who is the boy’s father, does not pay the price.”
I took the blow well for a priest.
There is this game with Indians. They play it to make others lose poise, show consternation, become as the mestizos say, muy chaveta, very rattled. I knew the game. I did not permit my face to change.
But my heart betrayed me.
It pounded so fiercely within my breast as to smother the lungs with its beating.
What might I do now, what lie possibly tell implacable, brutal Juh, that would ease the shadow of Apache death hovering so near the impudent, undaunted Anglo boy whose young life lay in my hands?
4
The famed Nednhi stood silently waiting.
My mind was overwhelmed. How could the Apaches have made this bizarre stroke? To steal the son of the governor of Texas to hold for international ransom? No, never. This was the work of an extraño, an alien. An Apache mind would never conceive it.
“Very well,” I said at last and carefully. “I am honored to serve the Nednhi. But I will need to see He Who Has the Plan. Let us go and speak with him.”
Juh scowled and shook his head. Reaching into his war bag, he brought forth a soiled envelope which he passed over to me. “That one has already spoken,” he said. “His words are on the paper. Take it to el gobernador, más aprisa. Entiende?”
“Yes. But what then? When I have delivered the paper, Jefe?”
“I do not know. It is all on the paper.”
“Is it permitted for me to examine the paper?”
“No.”
“Who would know it, should I do so?”
“Huera, of course. She will be watching you.”
“Ah, of course.”
I knew that he had finished. Before he might leave I asked if I could go beyond the wall and tend the dying among the Mexican soldiers. He agreed, but said I would find none alive. I did not. The Apaches had shot them all through the head as they crawled about the ground wounded. I prayed over them as one man, for there were too many to count. As I did so, some of the Nednhis came out to get ammunition, canteens, swords, whatever of Apache use the Mexicans had on them. No sound came from these robbers of the dead, save for where a maimed horse yet breathed, struggled to rise, or kicked convulsively. These the Apaches killed by slitting the jugular. Ammunition was far too precious to waste on horses. But they loved horses and, cruel as they were to them in life, they said prayer words aloud for each one they released from pain.
A strange people.
When I had administered the common sacrament, I returned within the walls. Here, the Nednhi were preparing to depart. The last of the horses were being watered at the garden tank that was fed by wooden flume from my well in courtyard’s center. Booty was being stowed, war bags tightened, saddles and bridles checked. Juh confronted me, as I hurried up.
“There has been a change,” he said. “Huera will not leave the child. She says if the boy dies, the plan is dead with him. She will go on with us and with the boy. You will go alone to Texas.”
I had been agonizing over the ranger hidden in the cistern and how I might treat him with the warrior woman by my side. Now the sun felt warmer on my face.
“Enjuh, Jefe.” I saluted the big Apache. “Huera is as you say, a woman
of rare wisdom.”
“Anh, yes, and also one of keen eye,” murmured a new, low voice behind me. “You do not fool me, Blackrobe.”
It was the warrior woman, come up silently as we talked. I did not even wish to look at her she disturbed me so. But I brought myself to do it.
“Huera,” I said to her, “we are both priests of our people. Will you not speak honestly with me? In what way do you think I seek to deceive you?”
“You know what way, Blackrobe,” she answered. “I don’t like your power. I don’t want to talk about it.”
Strangely, she seemed afraid. At the very least she was highly nervous. Something had happened to put Huera on Apache edge. It was why she had decided not to stay with me. The boy’s safety had been a false reason. The warrior woman simply wanted to be away and riding, to quit the mission and its undressed cura.
But Juh, too, had caught wind of her fear.
“What is this?” he accused her. “If the medicine to travel is bad, we will stay here for the night.”
“No, no, we must not do that,” objected Huera. “I wish to be far from here when dark falls. Come on.”
“No,” Juh growled. “What is the matter?”
Huera glanced around to be certain the other Apaches were out of hearing, not attending to our conference.
“Listen,” she said, “they must not know. It would be a bad thing for them. They might do anything out of their fear. Even kill the boy, blaming him for it.”
“For what?” demanded Juh angrily.
“Come,” Huera said, low voiced. “I will show you.”
We followed her, my heart bumping at the direction, straight to the grotesque heap of dead rangers. Halting, the warrior woman said to Juh, “Do you want to look under the blackrobe’s coat, or will you believe what I tell you?” Juh shivered, shook his head. He would not touch that black garment, nor its guarding cross. “Very well,” Huera nodded. “Believe it then, there are but six diablos under there. The big one, the last one that this blackrobe stood over to stop my knife, he is gone. How do you suppose he went?”