Ghost Warrior
Page 42
Stands Alone’s six-year-old son, Darts Around, and María’s boy, He Throws It, fired at each other from behind lodges and tanning frames, rocks, bushes, drying racks, and the women. The women ignored them. Smearing the woven jugs with pinon pitch was a tedious process, so Lozen and her friends made a social occasion of it.
Stands Alone poured the warm resin into her jug. She added a hot rock and tilted the jug to spread the pitch evenly. Other women were smearing it on the outside, using a stick wrapped with buckskin. Some worked in red ochre for decoration.
They were still waiting for word from Washington that this land was theirs permanently. In the meantime, they were happy to be able to sleep through the night, and to see their children run and shout again. The agent at the fort provided food and blankets. The men occasionally raided into Mexico, but they spent most of their time playing hoop-and-pole. Some of the women weren’t happy about having them around so much, but they all felt safer.
Stands Alone called to her son, Darts Around, to bring more wood, but he pretended not to hear her. Maybe he had become rebellious because his father refused to go on the war trail and the boys made fun of him. Whatever the reason, he stole meat from the drying rack. He took a family pony without permission, rode it into a gopher hole, and broke its leg. Something must be done about him. Stands Alone glanced toward the hoop-and-pole ground and smiled.
Loco was on his way. He had painted white circles around his disfigured eye and mouth. He wore a straw wig, and he carried a feed sack. Growling like a bear, he chased Darts Around, who dived into his parents’ lodge and burrowed under the blankets. Loco dragged him out feetfirst while the women laughed until their sides ached.
Loco lifted Darts Around up by an ankle and tried to lower him headfirst into the sack, but Darts Around grabbed the edges. Her Eyes Open pried his fingers loose so Loco could slide the sack up over him. He slung it over his shoulder with Darts Around screaming and thrashing, and then sneezing.
“Listen!” Loco growled. “Listen, boy, if you do not behave as you should, I will carry you to the Mountain Spirits.”
The wriggling stopped, but the sneezing continued.
“The Mountain Spirits will tie you up and eat you, piece by piece.” Loco pinched the closest bulge in the sack. “Will you behave as a Red Paint should?”
The reply was muffled, “I will.”
“Enjuh. Good.”
Loco dumped the sack onto the ground, and Darts Around crawled out, shaken, mortified, and covered with dust. Loco turned to the other boys peeking from behind the lodges.
“This will happen to all of you who disobey your parents. If you don’t listen to them, you could be killed by enemies. Or you could cause the death of others.”
Loco stamped his feet and lumbered off. He passed Long Neck without a greeting. Loco counseled peace with the Pale Eyes, which meant that he and Long Neck did not agree. But because of Loco’s Bear power, even Long Neck did not try to bully him.
Long Neck and Geronimo had come to Warm Springs to recruit men to go after the Bluecoat lieutenant known as Weasel. The Warm Springs men gathered at Victorio’s fire to talk about it.
“I will wait here for a message from the Great Father in Wah-sin-ton,” said Victorio. “I have given my word that I will keep the peace.”
Long Neck’s leg started jiggling, a sign that he was angry. He started telling a story, in his halting way. “Long ago, they say, at the Place called Three Peaks Together, the People Without Minds were camped near some soldiers. They thought the soldiers were their friends, but one day the soldiers started killing them. Instead of fighting or running away, the People Without Minds held a council. They asked each other, ‘Why are the soldiers shooting us?’
“By the time they decided to run away, most of them were dead. It happened just so, at the place called Three Peaks Together.”
Everyone knew what he was saying. Eskiminzin was a fool to trust the Pale Eyes, and he had grown careless besides. The old man’s sentries were asleep when the Papagos, Mexicans, and Americanas. attacked before dawn. Eskiminzin did not keep watch. He did not walk around his camp at all hours. He did not tell the young ones to sleep with one eye open and with their weapons in their hands.
“I have a plan,” said Long Neck. “My men and I attacked the Bluecoats’ wagon and caried away the box of metal disks they value so much. Taking their money will stir them up like hornets. My woman will lead them into the canyon called Where They Trap Horses. We will wait for them there.”
Lozen remembered whose plan that had been originally, but she said nothing. There was no point in losing her temper at Long Neck. He was as Life Giver made him. To get angry with him would be like railing at a mountain gale or a roaring flood.
Long Neck scowled and studied the ground, reluctant to bring up his men’s request. “The warriors ask that the sister of the Warm Springs nantan go with them to fight Weasel.”
Lozen answered for herself. “I have prayed long and often about this. My spirits have told me to keep peace with the Pale Eyes. I will not put my people’s lives in danger to go with you.”
Long Neck acted as though he hadn’t heard her. “We see now where a man gets his womanly ways.”
The skin paled along Victorio’s jaw as he clenched his teeth. Long Neck was his guest here, and one treated guests with courtesy. “The soldiers attack those who attack them,” he said.”We do not attack them, so they cause us no harm.”
Everyone knew he was implying that the raids of those like Long Neck and Geronimo brought retaliation against any Apache not directly under the army’s protection.
“Than you and Eskiminzin are brothers.” Long Neck dismissed him as though he, too, were a careless old man who would allow his people to be slaughtered by those he was fool enough to trust. “Cheis will go with us. He is a warrior who’s not afraid to fight.”
Lozen spoke up. “They say, long ago, that Coyote was very hungry, and he came upon a tip beetle. That beetle was standing right up on his head, the way tip beetles do.
“‘I’m someone who eats only fat,’ said Coyote. ‘And I’m going to eat you.’
“The beetle, still standing on his head, said, ‘Be quiet, old man. I’m listening to what they’re saying under the ground.’
“‘Tell me what they’re saying then, because when you finish, I’m going to eat you.’
“‘They’re talking down there. They’re saying that they’re going to come up here. They’re going to catch a certain person who shit on that rock, and they’re going to kill him.’
“That scared Coyote because he was the one who had dirtied the rock. He said, ‘I forgot something. I’ll be back.’ But he didn’t return.”
The men laughed. Lozen had eased the tension, but everyone got the point. Whether tip beetle heard someone talking underground or whether he made up the story to scare Coyote didn’t matter. Only fools ignored the voices of their spirits and disobeyed their commands.
The other, subtler implication was that shitting where one shouldn’t, or raiding where one shouldn’t, could get one in trouble.
SMOKE FROM THE GRASS FIRE SMUDGED THE BLUE SKY OF early May, but it did not obscure the footprints in the moist sand in the arroyo. The footprints weren’t a mystery. For miles, the soldiers had been following the woman who made them.
“She’s heading up the canyon.” Lt. Howard Bass Cushing beckoned to thirteen of the sixteen privates in the company. “These men and I will trail her. Sergeant Mott, you and Collins, Green, Pierce, and Fichter cover the rear.”
“The tracks are too clear, sir,” said John Mott.
“What do you mean?”
“The squaw set her feet down heavy. She avoided places where the prints won’t show. Looks like she wants us to follow her.”
“More likely she doesn’t know we’re here. She’s being careless.”
“Apaches aren’t careless.” Rafe knew that disagreeing with Cushing wouldn’t change his mind, but he had to try.
Cushing waved his hand, the signal to move out, and the men followed him on horseback up the arroyo. While Mott and the three privates waited, Rafe made sure the pack mules were well tethered and their loads secure. The situation might get busy before long.
“You brought the old warhorse.” Mott nodded at Red.
“Yep.” Rafe knew he shouldn’t have, but his young chestnut gelding had thrown a shoe. The real reason was that Red would not allow Rafe to go a scout without him.
“And your hound?”
“She’s getting deaf as a dog iron. I left her with the sutler.”
When Patch saw Rafe filling his two cartridge belts, she had started her dance, rocking from one front paw to the other. When he rolled spare paper cartridges, and packets of coffee, bread, and bacon into his blanket, she had started leaping in place and barking. Rafe had taken her to the sutler’s store and tossed scraps of jerked beef and biscuit crumbs onto the floor. When he sneaked out, she was inhaling every last bit, and the loungers in the store were making much of her.
Rafe and John Mott studied the high rock walls toward which Lieutenant Cushing and the other thirteen men were riding, spread out across the narrow canyon.
“This might be a hunting party, John. War parties don’t usually take women with them.” Still, something made the hair stir at the back of Rafe’s neck. They’d seen no other Apache sign. No sign meant a person should be more careful than usual.
Rafe, Mott, and the three privates spurred their horses forward at a walk and spread out. They scanned the steep sides of the canyon for signs of life and of death.
“Too bad we ain’t got the sons of bitches who stole the payroll,” Mott said in a low voice. “That was a low-down, dirty trick. The troops would have kicked the traces by now if anyone but Cushing were in charge.” He spit. “I never did see such a devil-take-the-hindmost scrapper as the lieutenant.”
Rafe kept his peace on the subject of Cushing and stared at the thorny landscape until his eyes watered.
“If I were an Apache, I’d set up an ambuscade in that canyon,” said Mott. “That dry gulch is a sack waiting to close around us.”
As though on cue, rifle fire reverberated across the canyon. Where no Apache had been, dozens appeared. Cushing and his troops retreated and joined Mott and Rafe to form a line, firing as they fell back.
The Apaches advanced down the slope, keeping a formation rather than scattering, and Rafe noticed the big man on a small brown pony at the ridgeline. With his lance, he was directing the movements of his men. Even at that distance Rafe recognized Whoa.
The soldiers’ fire drove the Apaches back, and Cushing shouted the command to advance. Rafe started to protest, but Mott beat him to it.
“Sir, we will be crossing open ground when the hostiles have the cover and outnumber us. Do you think it’s prudent to go farther?”
Cushing squinted up at the hills and the retreating Apaches. “We’ve routed them.”
“Maybe they want us to think that,” said Rafe.
Cushing eyed him coldly. “I’m in command here, Collins, and may I remind you that you are merely a civilian.”
Rafe wanted to say that being merely a civilian, he would go back to his mules, who, on their most obdurate days, had more sense than Cushing. But he could see that if anyone was going to escape this canyon alive, they would need every man. He and the others left the horses with two of the privates and went forward on foot.
They had advanced about twenty yards when the slopes erupted Apaches. Far more of them were hiding there than had originally shown themselves, and every rock and bush sprouted one. They swarmed down, firing as they came. During the fight they shouted, “Come get us, you white sons of bitches,” in passably good English.
Rafe and John Mott retreated together, reloading and firing as they went. They had almost reached the mouth of the canyon when they heard Cushing cry out, “Sergeant, I am killed. Take me out.”
Rafe and Mott ran back to him. They each grabbed an arm and, holding their rifles in their other hands, they dragged him toward the horses. A bullet grazed Rafe’s sleeve and hit Cushing in the head, but Mott and Rafe continued to haul his lifeless body along with them.
Each of them knew that if they were him, they would not want to be abandoned to this enemy. They couldn’t bear to think of other soldiers finding them and looking at them in horror and disgust, the way they had reacted to the sight of Apache victims. It wasn’t a reasonable dread, this anxiety about their corpses. Their souls would have decamped, just as the lieutenant’s had, leaving their bodies behind like so much discarded bivouac litter, but they both had thought about it.
Mott glanced back. The first of the warriors had closed to less than two hundred feet behind them. “Time to save our hides.”
They dropped Cushing, and Mott took his pistols and Sharps. They slung their carbines across their backs and sprinted for the horses. Bullets whined around them, and the nearest Apaches ran across the broken ground as though it were a level cinder track.
Rafe had seen them run footraces. He had no illusions that he could outpace them. He only hoped he could reach Red before they caught him. He vowed that if Red could save his arse one more time, he would find him a pasture of sweet grass with a pretty filly to dote on him.
He heard the rhythmic sigh of moccasins coming up behind him, but he dared not look back. If he stumbled, he was caught, and if he were only killed outright, that would be the good news.
He whistled. Red broke the tether and started for Rafe at a gallop. Rafe could feel the warrior’s presence behind him now, like a wind pushing against his back. He could smell the rank odor of the man’s sweat mingling with his own, which didn’t smell so good, either. He could hear the rasp of breathing which made him think he at least was giving him a run for his money. It wasn’t any kind of consolation.
He felt his hat jerked off his head. The slight tug pulled him off balance. He stumbled, then sprawled full-length, and the Apache, unable to stop, leaped over him. Rafe lifted his stubbled cheek off the ground in time to see his pursuer skid to a halt.
Rafe had never seen anything with such preternatural clarity. The Apache stood as though frozen in time and bathed in light, knife in one hand, Rafe’s hat in the other. He wore only moccasins and a breechclout of unbleached muslin draped over a rawhide thong. Rafe could count the stitches in his moccasins and see the individual threads in the muslin.
Red reared and caught the man on the head with a hoof. He fell, a long gash opened across his forehead, eye, and cheek. Red came down on him with his front legs; then he reared up and did it again. Rafe got his feet under him and grabbed the Apache’s rifle. When he settled into the saddle, Red was already in motion.
Rafe heard two shots. Red faltered, gathered himself, and plunged on. Rafe saw the next bullet cut across Red’s neck, severing his spine. Red lurched, then collapsed, and Rafe jumped clear. Rafe stretched out alongside Red, using his body as a shield. He no longer heard the gunfire and the shouting.
He always carried small lumps of coarse brown sugar in his pocket, and he pulled out the last one and held it in front of Red’s muzzle. Red took it between his teeth, but his throat muscles would no longer work below the wound in his neck. Red licked Rafe’s hand instead.
With his free hand Rafe stroked the velvet of Red’s muzzle. He scratched his nose, then rubbed and pulled his ears, the way Red liked. He murmured to Red as he reached along his leg and pulled his knife from the sheath tied above
his boot.
With his bandana he wiped the tears from his eyes. He did not want to bungle this because he couldn’t see. At least the blacksmith, Felmer, had given his knife a fine edge.
Still talking, Rafe placed the blade at one side of Red’s neck. Red sighed, as though in thanks or acceptance. Rafe drove the big knife in as far as the hilt and pulled it toward him. It was hard work cutting through hide, muscle, and sinew, but he managed to sever the windpipe. As blood poured out and the breath rattled in Red’s throat, Rafe put an arm around his neck and his face against his chest. He was listening so intently to the burble of blood from the gash, the rale of wind through the severed windpipe, and the last desperate heave of Red’s gallant heart that he didn’t hear the hoofbeats.
“Rafe, move out” John Mott pulled Cushing’s big stallion to a halt, showering Rafe with dirt. “The damned ammunition mule won’t budge. You’re the only one he’ll heed.” Mott led a piebald with a chunk taken out of his ear. “Are you hit?” He handed the piebald’s reins to Rafe.
Rafe looked down at his blood-soaked shirt. “No. No. I reckon not.” In a daze, he took the reins and mounted.
“The hostiles have pulled back,” he said. “Maybe we can flank them and recover the bodies. Kilmartin, Fichter, and I will cover the pack train’s retreat. We need you to handle those damned mules.”
“The Apaches haven’t pulled back. They’re planning to cut us off where the trail passes through the foothills.”
“If we retreat across the river, we’ll put the swamp at the headwaters between us. It’s longer, but it should throw them off.” Mott put a finger to his hat brim. “Sorry about your horse.” Then he galloped away.
When he was gone, Rafe saluted Red. He could hardly speak around the stone of grief in his throat. “So long, old friend.”
Chapter 47
PROMISES, PROMISES
The day was mild for November. Rafe whistled “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” as he rode. His chestnut gelding was in a good mood, too. Rafe had found him this morning with a length of tether rope. The chestnut had made large circles with his neck and head, flinging the rope round and round. Rafe could see no purpose to it except high spirits. If the critter developed a sense of humor, Rafe figured he would have to give him a name sooner or later.