Return of the Tall Man

by Clay Fisher

  Go-deen looked at the blackened stage station, then at Big Bat Pourier.

  “You afraid of ghosts, Baptiste?” he asked.

  “Non, mon chère, only of good women.”

  “How about you, Lame John?”

  The tall Nez Percé shook his head quickly.

  “Being close to her makes my heart wild,” he answered. “But I have given my word to follow Brother Ben, and I won’t break it. We’ll stay.”

  “Good,” said Ben. “Let’s get on up there and settle in before sundown. We’ll eat cold tonight, so we might as well sleep comfortable.”

  He turned to Short Dog, apprising him of the decision.

  “Bien,” grunted the latter, kneeing his pony forward. “You will be safe. You can sleep with both eyes shut. They won’t bother you up there.” He pointed toward the roofless station, and Ben asked nervously how he could be so certain of this safety.

  “You see the line of their pony tracks?” said Short Dog, indicating the low bank where the Apaches had climbed their mounts out of the riverbed. “They lead out there in a big circle around the station. Way around. But up above we will find them coming right back to the river again. Do you know why, señor?”

  “No, hombre,” said Ben. “Why?”

  “A simple thing,” shrugged the other. “Once they kill a place, they never come back to it. It’s bad luck.”

  Ben shivered and said nothing.

  Somehow he had the feeling that the Apaches were right.

  22

  Short Dog’s Reassurance

  The sun was swiftly down. A purple twilight lingered with the reluctance of a young lover to be gone. But at last, and then suddenly, it was blotted up by full darkness. They ate in the station, then went outside.

  It was a wonderful summer night, that July first in old New Mexico. Ben sat with the others in front of the station wall, listening to the sounds of the desert and counting the fat stars which burned so brilliantly that not even the garish light of the filling moon could discourage their cheery winking and blinking. The very stillness, apart and in itself, was superb. And the air—well, the air was equal parts of piñon nut, artemisia sage, espino mesquite, bear grass, hot sand, red rock, and juniper berries carbonated with the dry wine of the near mile-high altitude, and just to inhale it cautiously was enough to set a man’s ambition soaring out of bounds. It was the kind of night where one just sat and smelled and felt. Unless, of course, he were a heathen Comanche Indian. In which case he talked.

  “Seis años, six years ago,” said Short Dog, breaking the quiet with an unexpected nod to Ben, “the stage was running on this road.” He pointed at the windblown iron-tire marks of the long-gone Abbott & Downing coaches of the Overland Mail. “Back that way, one stop, is Mimbres Springs. Did you ever hear of Mimbres Springs, señor? There was a massacre there, this also six years ago—just after the stage quit running—you know, señor, when you whites began to fight among yourselves. There were seven people caught in the station at Mimbres Springs by these same Mimbreños we follow. These were the band of Red Sleeves himself; he was alive then, Mangas Coloradas, the greatest white-hater of them all. It was his subchief Lobo, however, who directed the attack. Mangas was pretty old then; I think nearly seventy. He had lost some of his interest in fighting but not in hating.

  “Well they got six of those seven people in that station back there. The seventh one was a woman. They took her alive. She was never heard of again. The story goes that she was a spy for the White Father in Washington. She and the six men with her, they were trying to get some important papers out of El Paso ahead of the army of the southern white men. They were taking these papers to Tucson. In one light spring buggy, imagine. Six men and one woman. With all the Apaches out. I never heard of such foolishness, or maybe it was big heart. I know this; no Indian would die for some pieces of paper. What is paper? You can’t eat it.”

  “To the white man,” said Ben soberly, “paper can mean many things. Our whole lives are wrapped up in paper.”

  “I have found but one use for it.” Short Dog shrugged. “To start fires.”

  “We use it to start wars,” said Ben and fell silent.

  “Well,” the Comanche began again, after a thoughtful pause, “now you take the first stop the other way.” He pointed west, toward Arizona. “That’s called Cow Springs up there. It got burned out, too, just like where we are here. Nobody got hurt but the stock tender. He lived two days with half his hair off and crawled seventeen miles on his hands and knees to bring the warning about the station burnings to Soldier’s Farewell—that’s the second stop going to Tucson—and when he got there, he had to talk with his finger writing in the sand, because the Mimbreños had pulled out his tongue with a pair of shoeing tongs from the blacksmith shop at Cow Springs. Some of you whites are pretty strong.”

  He lapsed into another spell of Indian thinking.

  “The other white man, the one who led the party at Mimbres Springs, he was tough, too. He was only a little man, but he lived a day and a night shot through both lungs with a buffalo gun, and he killed five Mimbreños after he got hit. The woman they took was his woman. He was only a stable hand at El Paso. She was a government lady. But they say they had a great love. Still, you know how it is in a lonely country like this, señor. A story gets improved constantly.”

  “What was this fellow’s name?” asked Ben. “He must have been a real Tejano.”

  “No, he was just a southern white man, they say. But he believed in the other flag, the first one with the red and white stripes. His name was Sparhawk, I think. The Apache called him Sparrow Hawk after that fight. That was for his small size and great spirit. They thought a lot of him; that’s why they took his woman and didn’t hurt her.”

  “I suppose,” said Ben, looking around, “that this station has some similar cheerful history.”

  “Ah sure, you can see that. Mira, look about yourself. However, the loss of life here was not so serious. They were all Mexicans here at this station. Eight, I think the story goes. The tender and his wife and six children. Wait, there was a baby, too. Seven children. All beat or stabbed or stoned except the baby, which they just hit against the wall like you do a sick or hurt or female puppy. They never waste bullets on Mexicans or children.”

  “Por Dios!” said Ben. “And you call that not so serious? Nine human beings murdered in cold blood?”

  “Well, certainly!” said Short Dog indignantly. “But did I not just explain to you that they were Mexicans?”

  Ben let it go. It was an opinion of the land clearly not subject to dispute. Moreover, racial injustices were not the issue here; not except as they applied to their own relationship to these Mimbreño Apaches who did not believe nine mejicanos the equal of one norteamericano.

  “Short Dog,” he said, “why do you remind me of these atrocious happenings at this time? Que pasa en la cabeza? Do you enjoy seeing the gringo squirm? Watching the ‘white eye’ grow pale beneath the ears?”

  “No, no,” objected the Comanche, “it is not such a poor thing as that at all. It is just that Apache history has a bad habit of happening again. So I give you a little history, no?”

  “But why?” persisted Ben, never sure that these simple people were as simple as they seemed—or preferred to be considered. “Why wait till now?”

  The thickset brave shrugged.

  “Now is the only time which counts, señor.”

  “Si, es verdad,” agreed Ben. “Please to go ahead.”

  “Sure, seguro, señor; I merely wanted you to understand the Mimbreños a little better before you get any closer to them. Comprende? I want you to be ready for tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” questioned Ben, small-voiced.

  “Most certainly no later than that,” answered Short Dog. “You see, those Mimbreños are loafing along now. I can tell by the way the tracks wander. Probab
ly they are only now thinking of a good story to tell Mangas about the woman. That’s Young Mangas now, the old man’s boy. He doesn’t believe it pays to take white prisoners. Like father, like son.”

  “You think they might kill her at the last minute?” asked Ben, horrified. “My God, and us so near again!”

  “It’s not what I meant, although they are easily capable of it. No, what I am saying is that Broken Hand is slowing up for some reason, and my guess is that he has just now thought of how he is going to keep Mangas from gutting his pretty blue-eyed doe when he brings her into the rancheria up in Pinos Altos.”

  “Jesus,” groaned Ben, “I never thought of that!”

  “What white man would?” asked Short Dog. Then, in a rare gesture of sentiment, he leaned over, patting Ben’s knee. “Mira, amigo, don’t worry. I have told you everything you need to know. So why fret? Go to your blankets. Close your eyes; get a good night’s sleep; Short Dog is here.”

  Ben looked at him, the wry grin breaking dubiously.

  “Thank you ever so much, dear Short Dog,” he said in English, “for absolutely nothing.”

  23

  The Switchback

  Short Dog brought them up with the Apaches at eleven a.m. It was a clear day, bright and hot. The Comanche, who had ordered them to leave the river trail an hour earlier, had since been leading them on a parallel route which threaded the rocks flanking the Mimbres off its east bank. Now he signaled Ben, next behind him, to get down off his mount and come forward. The latter did so, joining him where he crouched in a V of hard red sandstone looking over the river valley. Far below, on the stream-bank trail—the west bank now—he could see the crawling dots. Counting them, he came out with the correct number, thirteen, and Short Dog said sharply:

  “How many do you make it with the eye alone?”

  Ben told him, and he nodded but turned in the same motion to signal Frank Go-deen forward with the “glass eye,” the telescope. The breed brought up the instrument. Short Dog took it from him, studied the Apaches through it, handed it directly to Ben.

  “See if it is the same,” he said.

  Ben took the glass.

  “All right,” said Short Dog, “how does it go? You see twelve braves? You see the woman? You agree these are the band of Broken Hand and that I have done what Quanah ordered of me.”

  Ben put down the glass. It was the Mimbreño party with Amy Johnston all right.

  “Yes, that’s the band. I could even see the chief’s shriveled arm.”

  “Which one was it?”

  “The left one.”

  “That’s right. Now you have seen it, no?”

  “Yes, now I have seen it.”

  Short Dog nodded abruptly to this final agreement, got back up on his pony, and made the farewell sign to Ben.

  “Hasta luego, señor,” he said. Soberly, he touched his fingers to his brow. “You’re pretty brave for a white man. I hope all goes well with you.” He was turning his wiry Spanish mustang before it got through to Ben that he meant, actually, to leave them. He jumped then to his stirrup and put a restraining hand on his naked thigh.

  “Un momento, por favor!” he pleaded. “How can you do this to us?”

  “Very easy,” replied the Comanche, not smiling. “Watch me.” With the instruction, he kneed his pony between the mounts of Lame John and Big Bat. The latter gave trail to let him through. He never looked back. And Ben and the others dared not call after him to do so. When he was far enough down along the ridge trail, he put his mustang on the lope and within the time they watched him was gone from sight, south and east, homeward bound.

  “My God,” said Ben, breaking the long silence “now what do we do?”

  “Easy, like he said.” Big Bat Pourier grinned. “Now we pray.”

  “That’s fine for you,” complained Go-deen, “but how about me? I have no gods.”

  “Try Wakan Tanka,” said Big Bat. “He’s good enough for the Oglala, he should be good enough for you.”

  “Bah!” said Go-deen. “But then what else could one expect from this whole crazy idea? Actually, things have turned out excitingly well, though. Here we are in the middle of the Apaches’ land, knowing no trails, no water holes, no way in, no way out, except to go back the way we came on their own road to the Rio Grande. Isn’t that wonderful? Didn’t I say it was exciting?”

  “Even more than you think.” Ben nodded. “You forgot a little something. We’ve got to get the girl and take her with us. But that oughtn’t to be too difficult for four mealy brains from Montana.”

  “Three,” corrected Go-deen irritably. “The Nez Percé is from Oregon.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of Lame John,” said Ben. “I meant the mule.” Old Malachi had come up past the ponies of Big Bat and Lame John to stand near Ben, peering outward and downward through the V-notch in the sandstone at the distant Apaches. “What do you think, old-timer?” Ben now inquired of him, reaching to put a friendly hand on his bristly withers.

  Malachi nipped at his hand, shook his long ears, took another look at the Mimbreños, blew out softly but spookily through his crusted nostrils.

  “Just what I thought,” nodded Ben. Then to the others, “That was his Indian whoof. I know it, believe me. If we don’t want to trust our own sight or Frank’s spyglass, we can still bet on Malachi’s china-blue eyeballs. That’s our bunch yonder.”

  “Somehow, mon ami,” grinned Big Bat, “that was not just the question which disturbed my mind.”

  “No, nor mine either!” agreed Go-deen. “Come on, brothers, let’s get the hell out of this place!”

  Lame John, who without words had taken the telescope from Ben and focused it on the Mimbreños, now lowered it.

  “Brother Ben,” he said, “I took my vow to follow you to the end of the trail. Is this then the end of the trail? Am I free of my word?”

  “I told you in the beginning I didn’t want your word,” replied Ben. “You owed me nothing then; you owe me nothing now.”

  “You didn’t answer my question. Is this the end of the trail for you? Are you turning back with the others?”

  Ben looked at Go-deen and Big Bat. The one scowled; the other smiled. Ben nodded and felt very good.

  “What others?” he asked. “I don’t see nobody turning around.”

  Lame John studied them all, his dark face clouded.

  “You still mean to get the woman?”

  “Well, that’s the general idea.”

  Lame John looked at them again; two white men and a half-white Sioux mongrel hundreds of miles deep in Apache territory with very little ammunition, only the water in their canteens, no knowledge of the implacable desert closing them in upon all sides, and yet shrugging and scowling and smiling and telling him they were going on with him in the hopeless, foolish, impossible chance of seizing away from eleven Mimbreño murderers, in the very shadow of their mountain-fortress home, the brooding blond woman captive who didn’t even know she was of any blood save Indian and who had glared at them and called them all liars in the camp of Soledad Dominguin.

  “I can’t believe it,” he said at last and slowly. “It is not the way of white men to keep their words like this.”

  “That’s normal white men you’re talking about,” said Ben. “It ain’t nothing to do with us half-witted ones.”

  “No,” agreed Frank Go-deen glumly, “and not even with us half-breed, half-witted ones.”

  Lame John’s gaze went unconsciously to Big Bat who had said nothing. The latter at once raised his hands.

  “Don’t look at me!” he cried. “You know my motto; cherez la ‘squaw!’ What are we waiting for?”

  The Nez Percé’s fierce eyes softened with his reply.

  “I guess for Brother Ben to lead the way,” he said, low-voiced; “and for John Lame Elk to have the sense to follow with his true fr
iends.”

  Ben took a deep breath. He had put himself in the hero’s corner again. All he had to do now was sneak himself out of it. Well, God had halter-led him so far; maybe He would hold onto the rope for another seventeen hundred miles. Or at least for another twenty-seven—the distance remaining to the Pinos Altos rancheria according to Short Dog’s educated guess of last evening.

  Ay de mi! as the Mexicans put it. The fixes a fellow got himself into. Ben squared his long jaw, stared down through the sandstone notch, squinting to cut through the high-noon heat shimmer building up over the white sands of the riverbed. Suddenly, his eyes widened.

  “Frank,” he said, “reach me that spyglass.”

  With the telescope he scanned the west-bank trail, moving with extreme care past the place where the last look had pinpointed the Mimbreños. The others, watching him, saw the tension go out of his shoulders.

  “They’ve disappeared all right,” he said, “but it’s good rather than bad would be my guess. There’s a high saddle over there—sandstone, same as the stuff on this here side—where it looks to me as though the trail switches back to snake over the top and drop down again. I can’t see beyond the saddle, or the switchback, rather, but I can’t pick up the trail again on the far side of it either. I’d say we’re safe to make a run for that switchback, gambling to get to it before they top out again farther up. Frank, what do you think?”

  Go-deen took the glass. He studied the broken ridge where the west-bank trail appeared to vanish into blind rock. He lifted the lens beyond it, combing the backing scarps and timbered mesa lands which led upward to the Pinos Altos and Sierra Diablo ranges. Like Ben, he had to lower the glass and admit the odds seemed favorable.

  In turn, Big Bat and Lame John concurred.

  Again the decision came back to Ben.

  “You know,” he grinned, swinging up on his pony and giving Malachi a friendly swat on the rump, moving him aside so that he could lead the way down the steep trail beyond the V-notch, “some days it don’t pay to duck.”