Delphi Collected Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs (Illustrated) (Series Four Book 26)

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

  “I go with you,” said Shoz-Dijiji.

  “Oh, no! The soldiers might see you.”

  “I go a little way — where I can watch you. Mebbyso bad men around; mebbyso hostiles. Shoz-Dijiji go little way and watch.”

  Through the hills he went with her, walking ahead as a brave should, until they came within sight of the ranch house. Some cavalry mounts were tied to a corral fence; troopers were lolling in the shade of the bunk house swapping lies with the cowhands. An officer leaned in a back-tilted chair beside the doorway of the ranch house talking with Billings. Only Shoz-Dijiji’s eyes and forehead showed above the top of the last hill above the wagon road where it entered the little flat in which stood the main ranch buildings, and they were screened from view by a small bush.

  “Go,” he said to the girl. “You will be safe now.”

  “Where will you wait?” she “Here?”

  “Yes.” She hesitated, her brow puckered in thought. “If I bring you a horse you will return at once to your tribe?” she demanded.

  “Yes.”

  “If you meet any lone whites on the way will you promise me that you will not kill them?”

  “Why?”

  “I cannot bring you a horse to use in murdering my own people,” she said.

  He nodded. “Me savvy. Shoz-Dijiji no kill until he find his people. If they on war trail Shoz-Dijiji fight with them. Shoz-Dijiji a war chief. White warriors kill. Apache warriors kill. That is right.”

  “But you must not kill white people at all.”

  “All right-you go tell white warriors they must not kill Apaches. They stop, Shoz-Dijiji stop. Now you go get pony for Shoz-Dijiji. Big talk no good now — no can eat — no can ride. Go.”

  The girl could not but smile as she turned away and rounding the summit of the hill dropped down toward the ranch house in full view of those gathered there. At sight of her they all arose and several started in her direction, her father among them.

  “Where in all tarnation you been, Chita?” he demanded when they were close enough for speech. “I thought I told you to stay in town until this fracas blowed over.”

  “Well, it has blowed over, hasn’t it?” she asked. “We heard yesterday that the hostiles was all headed for the border, so I thought I’d come home. I’m sure sick o’ them tin-horns in town.”

  “Where’s Buckskin? Why in all tarnation you hoofin’ it?”

  “Pitched me off a mile or so back yonder!” she explained. “I was takin’ a short cut through the hills.”

  “You saw no sign of hostiles, I take it, Miss Billings?” suggested the officer, a young cavalry lieutenant.

  “Nary hostile,” she replied. The young West Pointer thought what a shame it was that such a pretty girl should pronounce the “i” long; doubtless she said “masakree” too. But how pretty she was! He could not recall having seen such a beauty in a month of Sundays. He hoped the C. 0. would keep his detachment at the Billings ranch for a long time.

  He had heard Billings and some of the cowhands mention Chita and he had expected to see, if he saw her at all, a raw-boned slattern with large, red hands, and so he was not prepared for the dainty beauty that burst upon his astonished vision. God, what a mother she must have had, thought the lieutenant, appraising Billings; but he felt that he could have enjoyed her more had he been deaf, for he had not yet been of the West a sufficient length of time to accustom his ears to the naive pronunciation of the frontier, so different from his native Bostonese.

  The young lieutenant to the contrary, not withstanding, it may not be truthfully said that Wichita Billings was dainty; she was beautiful, yes, but with a certain strength and robustness, a definite self-reliance, that does not perfectly harmonize with the truest conception of daintiness. She was entirely feminine and her hands and feet were small, but they were strong looking hands and she stood squarely upon her two feet in her little high- heeled boots. Her well-moulded jaw was a strong jaw and her laughing eyes were brave without boldness.

  No, dainty was not the word; but then, perhaps, Lieutenant Samuel Adams King was influenced not by the Back Bay background of yesterday so much as he was by that nearer background composed of rough cavalrymen and pipe-smoking, tobacco-chewing women of the old frontier. By comparison with these the girl was as dainty as a violet in a cabbage patch, especially when she was pensive, as she often was, or when she was smiling, and she was smiling quite as often as she was pensive, in fact, at almost any time when she was not talking. Then the illusion was shattered.

  However, strange as it may seem, Lieutenant King found himself drawing the girl into conversation even though every word, or at least every other word, jangled discordantly upon his cultured nerves. It seemed beyond the pale of remotest possibility that any human being could mispronounce so many words, at least so it seemed to Lieutenant King, and at the same time possess such tonal qualities of voice that it became a pleasure to listen to per murder the English language; and so, when they had reached the ranch house he managed to monopolize her.

  Her father had wanted to send a couple of men out after her horse, but she had objected, saying that “the ol’ fool” would come in at feeding time, and if he didn’t it would be good riddance anyway; but while they were discussing the matter the horse suddenly appeared galloping down the very hill from which Wichita had come a few moments before.

  “What in tarnation’s the matter with thet cayuse anyways?” demanded Billings.” Acts most like he’d seed a silver tip, or a ghost.”

  The horse was running rapidly toward the ranch, occasionally casting a backward look toward the hilltop. Wichita Billings knew perfectly what Buckskin had seen.

  “Reckon as how you fellers better ride up there,” said Billings to the two hands, “an’ see what all might be there.”

  “They ain’t nothin’ there,” said Wichita. “Didn’t I jest come from there? The ol’ son-of-a-gun’s been actin’ thet away all day — he’s jest plumb loco.”

  So that was the end of that, much to the girl’s relief, and Wichita resumed her talk with the officer; an experience which she enjoyed, for she was avid to learn, and she knew that the average man or woman of the frontier could teach her little along the lines toward which her ambition lay. On several occasions she had met cultured men — men who had stopped at her father’s Kansas farm, or at the ranch since they came to Arizona — and she had been vividly conscious of a difference between them and the sort of people to whose society she was accustomed.

  From them she had derived her first appreciation of the existence of a thing called conversation and a knowledge of its beauty and its value and its rarity. She had been quick to realize her own lack of conversational ability and ambitious enough to dream of improvement; but dreaming was about as far as she could go. What few books and magazines and newspapers filtered to her remote home she devoured eagerly and they taught her many things, though usually overdrawn. She learned new words, the meanings of which she usually guessed shrewdly enough, for she possessed no dictionary, but there was nothing or no one to teach her how to pronounce either the new words or the old, so that she was never actively aware that she mispronounced them and only vaguely disturbed when she listened to the conversation of a person like Lieutenant King. In truth, when she gave the matter any thought, she was more inclined to regret his weird pronunciation of such common words as “Injun” and “hoss” than to question her own. It was the things he spoke of and the pleasant intonation of his cultured voice that delighted her. Lieutenant King was asking her about herself, which didn’t interest her at all, and how long she had lived in Arizona. “Goin’ on five year,” she replied, “an’ I reckon you jes’ come out with that last bunch o’ shave-tails at the post, didn’t you?”

  He flushed, for he had not realized how apparent were his youth and the newness of his uniform. “Yes,” he said, “I graduated in June and I only joined my regiment a few weeks ago.”

  “From the States o’ course?” she asked.

&nbs
p; “Yes, and you?”

  “I’m from back East, too,” she told him.

  “Good! From what part?”

  “Kansas.”

  “Oh.”

  “What part are you from?”

  “Massachusetts.”

  “Oh.”

  That seemed a very remote country to Wichita Billings. In her mind it raised a picture of a pink area on a map, bounded on three sides by dotted lines and on the fourth by wavy lines. It had never connected itself in her consciousness with a place that people came from; it was a pink area on a map and nothing more. Now it commenced to take on the semblance of reality.

  “Tell me about it,” she said.

  “About what?” he asked.

  “Why Massachusetts, of course. I’ve never been there,” and until supper time she kept him to his pleasurable task of talking about home, of his people, of their ways, of the great things that the men of Massachusetts had accomplished in the history of these United States of America.

  Never, thought Lieutenant King, had he had so altogether a wonderful audience, so perfect an afternoon; and Chita, drinking in every word, asking many questions, was thrilled and entertained as she had never been before, so much so that she almost forgot the savage Apache waiting there alone upon the sun-scorched hill. But she did not quite forget him. She knew that she could do nothing until after dark, for there was not a reasonable excuse she could offer for leaving the ranch, and had there been she was quite confident that Lieutenant King would have insisted upon going along. The idea made her smile as she tried to picture the surprise of the young officer should she conduct him to the hilltop into the presence of the painted savage waiting there.

  16. TO SPIRIT LAND

  It was quite dark when Wichita Billings led an unsaddled pony out of the pasture and toward the hill where she had left Shoz-Dijiji. She had difficulty in escaping the notice of the sentry that had been posted near the corral, but she succeeded, though she was still fearful that some keen-eared Indian veteran might yet hear the soft footfalls of the unshod animal. A short distance from the corral she mounted the pony and continued on her way, over her shoulder a canteen of water and in one hand a bag of food. In her heart she knew that she was doing a dangerous and a foolish thing, but gratitude urged her as well as the knowledge that she had given her word. By day it had seemed less difficult to trust that big, handsome brave; but by night it was easy to recall that he was, after all, a cruel, crafty “Cheeracow.” She loosened the Colt in its holster, holding the halter rope and bag of food in one hand, determined to be prepared should the worst eventuate; and then, quite suddenly, out of the darkness ahead, a hundred yards from the base of the hill toward which she was riding, loomed the figure of a man.

  “Who’s that?” she demanded in a hoarse whisper.

  “Shoz-Dijiji,” came the soft reply.

  “What are you doing here? I thought you were going to wait on top of the hill.”

  “No good you ride far alone at night. Shoz-Dijiji come down to meet you.”

  So, after all, her fears had been groundless! “You frightened me,” she said.

  The Apache laughed. She handed him the canteen and the food and the end of the halter rope.

  “Who that chief you talk to so long?” he asked suddenly.

  “Oh, that was the officer in command of the detachment.”

  “Yes, I know — what his name?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “He friend Wichita, isn’t he?” demanded Shoz-Dijiji.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Mebbyso sometime he need Apache friend, eh? Wichita friend. Shoz-Dijiji friend. Shoz-Dijiji like you very much. You kind. Shoz-Dijiji no forget, never.”

  “His name is King,” said the girl, “Lieutenant King, ‘B’ Troop, -th Cavalry.”

  Without another word the Apache leaped to the back of the pony and rode away into the night and the darkness. Wichita Billings crept back to her father’s home. That night she dreamed that Lieutenant King and Shoz-Dijiji were fighting to the death and that she stood there watching them, unable to interfere, equally unable to determine which one she wished to see victorious.

  Riding northwest in the direction of Cibicu Creek shortly after dawn the following morning Shoz-Dijiji, his eyes always on the alert, saw a slender column of smoke arising from a far mountaintop in the southwest. Stopping, he watched it for several minutes and during that time it remained a steady column of smoke. It carried its message across the desolate waste to Shoz- Dijiji as it did to other scattered warriors of the six tribes, and Shoz-Dijiji reined his pony toward the southwest.

  The Apache kept to the hills and to the trailless places as much as possible, for he knew that the whole world was full of enemies searching for him and his kind, searching with field glasses and with rifles; and he knew, too, that those who were not searching for him would shoot him on sight even more quickly.

  As he rode his thoughts often returned to the white girl who had befriended him, but more often did they reach ahead across the broken country to embrace the lithe young figure of Ish-kay-nay with the laughing eyes and the black hair. He knew that she would be disappointed but that she would wait. She would not have to wait long, he promised himself, for what he had accomplished once he could accomplish again. Perhaps this time he would take Gian-nah-tah and some of the other young braves with him. Together they could round up many horses in northern Chihuahua or Sonora.

  Toward noon, ascending a slight acclivity, Shoz-Dijiji was suddenly confronted by the head and shoulders of a white man as they topped the ridge from the opposite side. Just for an instant the two faced one another. The Apache saw the surprise and fear that swept into the eyes of the pindah lickoyee, saw him turn and vanish.

  Dismounting, the Indian led his pony cautiously forward toward the crest of the ridge; ready in his right hand was his six-shooter, alert his ears, his eyes, his every sense. Beyond that summit he knew there was a precipitous hillside, dropping to the bottom of a canyon. A man on foot might scale it, but it was no place to remain and fight, for there was little footing and no cover. These things his knowledge of the spot told him, assuring him that it would be safe to approach the edge of the declivity and reconnoiter, as the white-eyed one must by this time be at the bottom of the canyon.

  Cautiously Shoz-Dijiji peered over the edge, several yards from the spot at which the man had disappeared, knowing as he did that if the latter was waiting to fire at him that his attention would be directed upon the spot from which he had discovered the Indian and not even a few yards to the right or to the left; but there was no one waiting to fire at Shoz-Dijiji. At the foot of the canyon wall lay a young white man — quite motionless he lay in a crumpled heap. A few yards away, tied to a stunted bush, was a saddled pony. Shoz-Dijiji remounted and riding a hundred yards up the rim of the canyon zigzagged down its steep side. The man still lay where he had fallen as Shoz-Dijiji approached him and reined in his pony. The Apache dismounted and stooped to examine the white, first removing the other’s revolver from its holster. The man was young, twenty perhaps. He was not dead, as the Indian had at first thought likely, for the canyon wall was high and steep and there were rocks at its base, and it appeared evident that the man had fallen the full distance.

  Shoz-Dijiji stood looking at his helpless enemy. His eyes appraised his find in terms of loot; there was a good Colt and many rounds of ammunition, and he had seen a rifle resting in its boot along the side of the tethered pony. Many were the other possessions of the white-eyed one that aroused the cupidity of the swart savage. Shoz-Dijiji fingered the hilt of his hunting knife, a keen butcher knife made in Connecticut for no more sanguinary service than slicing roasts in some quiet New England kitchen. How easy it would be to slit the throat of the hated pindah lickoyee and appropriate his belongings.

  It was while Shoz-Dijiji was thinking these thoughts that the young man opened his eyes and looked up into the stern, painted face of the red man. Instinctively the
youth reached for his Colt, realized that it was gone, recognized it then in the hands of the Indian, and closed his eyes in despair. He felt sick and he knew that he was badly injured by the fall, how badly he could only guess. He had been without water for two days, he was hopelessly lost, and now that the end had come he was not sure but that after all it was something of a relief. That which caused him the greatest apprehension was his knowledge of the possible manner of his death at the hands of one of these human fiends. His very soul shuddered and shrank from the torture that he knew might be in store for him. Shoz-Dijiji looking down at him recalled his promise to the white girl. He turned to continue his journey, knowing that death must surely overtake the white, and then he stopped. The young man, hearing him move away, had opened his eyes again. He saw the Apache rein in his pony, hesitate, and then wheel back toward him. Again he dismounted at his side, stooped down and felt of his legs lifting them, examining them. He put an arm beneath the youth’s shoulders and lifted him to his feet. To the great surprise of the white man he found that he could stand, that his body was not broken in any place. The Indian helped him to walk to his pony and lifted him into the saddle. Then he offered him his canteen, for he had seen that the youth’s was empty and, too, he had seen in his drawn face, in his swollen lips, the signs of thirst. The boy seized the canteen greedily and placed it to his lips. Shoz-Dijiji permitted him a brief swallow and then took the water from him. Now all fear had left the white man.

  “You friendly Indian, eh John?” he asked.

  “Me Chihuicahui!” said Shoz-Dijiji fiercely, proudly, tapping his great chest, knowing that the whites knew the fighting, warlike tribes by that name.

  “Holy Moses!” breathed the youth. “You a Cheeracow?”

  “You lost?” demanded the Black Bear.

  “I shore am,” replied the other.

  “Come!” commanded the Apache. He urged his pony up the canyon and the steep zigzag trail to the summit. When the white had reached his side the Indian asked, “You savvy Billings ranch?”