“Yes,” replied the youth.
Shoz-Dijiji pointed eastward and a little north to where a dim, blue butte was barely visible behind its veil of haze.
“Billings ranch there,” he said. “Mebbyso one march.” He took the other’s empty canteen and poured the remaining water from his own into it. He emptied the cartridges from the chambers of, the white’s revolver and rifle into his palm and handed the empty weapons back to their owner; then he wheeled his pony and cantered away. Shoz-Dijiji was taking no chances on the honor of a white man — he knew them too well.
For a long time the young man sat looking after his benefactor, his face reflecting the bewilderment that filled his thoughts.
“Well, ding bust my ornery hide!” he remarked, presently, and turned his horse toward the dim, blue butte beyond the horizon.
So, did Shoz-Dijiji the Be-don-ko-he fulfill his promise to the white girl who had befriended him.
Late that afternoon he lay up for a few hours at a place where there was water and shortly after dark, when he had resumed his way, he came upon the first signs of the southward-bound renegades — a broad, well-marked trail, and over it the spoor of cavalry, pressing close behind. In a few miles, by a rocky hill, he found evidences of an engagement and in the moonlight he read the story writ clear upon the ground, in the dust, among the boulders, of the Apache rear guard that had waited here and stopped the advancing soldiers until the main body of the Indians had moved to safety among the rough hills. He guessed that his people had passed through those hills the previous afternoon and that now, under cover of darkness, they were crossing the valley upon the opposite side with the soldiers of the white-eyes in close pursuit.
Farther on again he came upon a place where the Apaches had commenced to break up into small parties and scatter, but there was the older trail of the herd that moved steadily on toward the border. Shoz-Dijiji judged that it was two days ahead of the main body, doubtless being pushed on toward safety by hard-riding youths and that it would win the border long before the troops.
During the night he heard shots far, far ahead; the soldiers had caught up with one of the scattering bands, or perhaps the Apaches had prepared an ambush for them. The firing lasted for a long time, grew dimmer and then ceased — a running fight, mused Shoz-Dijiji, restless that he was not there. Night fighting was rare; the soldiers must be pressing his people closely.
It was a hard night for Shoz-Dijiji, urging on his tired mount, constantly on the alert for the enemy, chafing under the consequent delay; but at last the day dawned as he emerged upon the southern slope of the mountain range and overlooked the broad valley across which his people should have passed during the night. Far away, near the base of the opposite mountains he saw several columns of dust, but whether they were caused by Apaches or soldiers he could not be sure, though it was doubtless the latter, since the Indians had broken up into small bands that would make little dust.
A few minutes later he came upon the scene of last night’s battle. It was marked by the bodies of three cavalry horses, empty cartridge shells, some military accouterment, an Apache head-bandanna. As he rode across the spot where the engagement had been fiercest his eye took in every detail of the field and he was sure that there had been no ambush here, but that his people had been overtaken or surprised. It was not such a place as an Apache war chief would choose to make a stand against an enemy. He was moving on again when something arrested his attention. Always suspicious, instantly on the defensive, he wheeled about to face the direction from which there had come to his ears the faintest of sounds. What was it that had broken the silence of this deserted field of death?
Revolver ready, he waited, listening, for a repetition of the sound, his eyes fixed upon a little clump of bushes two hundred yards away. Again, very faintly, it came to his ears, the sound that had at first attracted his attention, a low moan, vibrant with suffering.
Shoz-Dijiji wheeled his pony and rode diagonally up the side of the hill toward a point where he might overlook the whole field and obtain a view of the ground behind those bushes. If danger lurked there he would know it before he came too close. Fools rush in, but not an Apache.
From his point of vantage he saw a figure huddled upon the ground and recognized it instantly as an Indian. Nowhere else was there a sign of life. Still cautiously, he rode slowly down toward the figure and as he approached; he saw that it was a woman, lying with her face buried in the hollow of an arm. Already, even before he had come close enough to dismount, he recognized something familiar in the contours of that slender body.
Leaping from his mount he ran forward and kneeled beside the woman. Very gently he put an arm beneath her and turned her over. Hot blood gushed against his naked arm. His heart stood still as he looked down into the face of Ish-kay-nay. Her eyes were half closed; she scarcely breathed; only her feeble moans betokened that her poor clay still clung tenaciously to the last, fast ravelling strand of life.
“Ish-kay-nay! My little Ish-kay-nay!” Shoz-Dijiji raised his canteen and poured a few drops of water between her lips. The act recalled the girl who had given him the canteen, and, too, that recalled something else — words that Geronimo had once spoken to him. “Wait,” the old war chief had said, “until they have killed your women; then you will have the right to speak.”
The savage soul of Shoz-Dijiji rose in protest against the cruelty, the wantonness of this act. What if it had been perpetrated during the darkness of night? What if it might have been but a chance shot? Did not Shoz-Dijiji well know that the revealing light of day, or her sex, would not have protected Ish-kay-nay? Had he not seen the soldiers fire into the tepees where the women and children were?
Revived by the water, Ish-kay-nay slowly opened her eyes and looked into his face. Her lips moved in a low whisper: “Shoz-Dijiji, I am coming!” she said.
“Shoz-Dijiji is here with Ish-kay-nay. Do not fear. You are safe.”
The great, dark eyes of Ish-kay-nay opened wider with the return of full consciousness as she gazed wonderingly into the face of her lover.
“You are not dead! Oh, Shoz-Dijiji, he told me that you were dead.”
“Who said that Shoz-Dijiji was dead?” he demanded. “Juh.”
“Juh lied. Why did he tell you that?”
“So that Ish-kay-nay would go with him.”
“You went?”
“ I thought that Shoz-Dijiji was dead and I did not care then what happened to me. It made my father happy.” The effort to speak sent the blood gushing again from the wound in her breast and Shoz-Dijiji tried to check the flow, to stay the hand of death. She tried to speak again. Slowly, haltingly the words came. “Tell Ish-kay-nay — that you — are not angry, Shoz-Dijiji -that you — still love — Ish-kay-nay.”
“Ish-kay-nay did right,” he said. “Only Juh did wrong. Shoz-Dijiji loves Ish-kay-nay. Shoz-Dijiji will kill Juh!” For a long time the girl lay silently in his arms, her breathing so faint that at times he thought that it had ceased. Terrible was the anguish of Shoz-Dijiji — silent anguish, all the more terrible because there was no outward manifestation of it — as he looked down into the half-closed, dimming eyes of little Ish-kay-nay.
Once she rallied and looked up at him. “My Shoz-Dijiji,” she whispered, and then: “Hold me close!” There was fear in those three words. Never before had Shoz-Dijiji heard a note of fear in the voice of Ish-kay-nay. Very gently the savage warrior pressed the slender body closer. There was a long sigh and Ish-kay-nay went limp in his embrace.
Shoz-Dijiji, war chief among the Be-don-ko-he, buried his face in the soft neck and a single, choking sob convulsed his great frame.
17. THE TRAIL AND ITS END
Deep in the mountains in a lone cave Shoz-Dijiji buried Ish-kay-nay, covered the soft contours of the girlish body with hard, cold rocks, piled more rocks before the entrance to the cave until it was choked; buried light and love and happiness in the grave with his sweetheart.
There, beside her grave he
spent two days and two nights — days of mourning, nights of prayer. There he killed the pony he had ridden, that Ish-kay-nay might find a mount ready to carry her to the spirit world. This he did, though she was no warrior, nor a great chief, because to Shoz-Dijiji she was more than either. All the hoddentin he possessed he had sprinkled upon her before he covered her dear form, and with her he had buried his most sacred things: his tzi-daltai and his phylactery of buckskin with its precious contents, even the izze-kloth that Nan-ta-do-tash had blessed for him.
Upon the third day, alone, on foot, with no medicine to protect him from evil spirits or from the weapons or machinations of his enemies, he emerged from the hills, cruel, relentless, stark savage, and turned his face toward the south upon the trail of Juh. For two days he had been without food and for one without water, yet he did not suffer. Forgotten were the sufferings of the flesh in the greater anguish of the soul. Terrible were the days that followed. Scant was food, scant was water; long and hideous were the marches, with only hate and vengeance to buoy his spirits, to goad on his flagging muscles. He lashed his legs with switches of mesquite until they bled; he ate lizards and snakes and prairie mice; he drank stinking water when he drank at all, for there were soldiers everywhere, at every spring and water hole, upon every trail, and he must go on, for beyond the soldiers was Juh, somewhere to the south, somewhere in that vast labyrinth of mountain and desert. No turned stone, no bent twig, no downpressed bit of grass escaped his eye, and each told its story of the passing of the Apaches, of the pursuit of the soldiers. He passed through the line of troops at last, not a difficult thing for an Apache in such rough country as this, and the spoor of the Ned-ni became plainer. He pushed on and discovered soldiers once more ahead of him. Their trail came in from the northeast and he could see that they had been moving rapidly, without pack animals. That night he passed them, a single troop of lean, gaunt fighting men, and he saw them cross the international boundary and enter Mexico.
By dawn he was a good ten miles in advance of them when he became aware of something moving just ahead of him. He saw it dimly from the bottom of a swale as it topped the rise above him. He moved even more cautiously than before, but the figure ahead made no noise either. It was a man on foot and Shoz-Dijiji knew that it must be an Indian; but there were enemies among the Indians as well as among the white men. This might be a Navajo scout and if it were — a terrible expression of cruel anticipation crossed the features of the Black Bear, the nearest he had come to smiling for many a bitter day.
When dawn came suddenly upon them Shoz-Dijiji was looking down from another hilltop upon the figure of an Indian. It was an Apache, but the red head band proclaimed him a scout in the service of the pindah lickoyee; also the quick eyes of Shoz-Dijiji discovered that the man was an old acquaintance from the White Mountain tribe. The Black Bear hailed him. The scout turned with ready carbine, but Shoz-Dijiji was behind a boulder. “Do not shoot,” he said. “It is Shoz-Dijiji, the Be-don-ko-he. “The other lowered the muzzle of his carbine and Shoz-Dijiji stepped from behind the boulder. “Where is Juh?” demanded Shoz-Dijiji. The other pointed toward the south. “There are Ned-ni a few miles ahead,” he said, “but Juh is not with them. I talked with them two days ago. I am going to talk with them again. The soldiers will not stop this time at the border. They have orders to follow Juh and Geronimo until they catch them, no matter where they go. This I was going to tell the Ned-ni.”
“You are going to join the warriors against the white-eyes?” asked Shoz-Dijiji.
The man shook his head. “No. I return to tell the fool white chief that the Ned-ni have gone in another direction.”
“Good!” said Shoz-Dijiji. “But you need not go on. I will tell the Ned-ni where the soldiers are and what orders they have been given. Perhaps they will wait and meet the soldiers. There is a place where the trail runs between the steep walls of a canyon. There the soldiers will be cautious against an attack, but just beyond, where it looks safe again they will be off their guard and there the Ned-ni might wait for them — if you will lead them there. Eh?”
“I will lead them there,” he said. Shoz-Dijiji trotted on and the White Mountain Apache turned back to lead the hated white men, that he served, into an ambush. Shocking! Dishonorable! Disgraceful! Yes, of course; but many a civilized man wears a decoration today for betraying the confidence of the enemy. It makes a difference who does it — that is all.
Before noon Shoz-Dijiji overtook the Ned-ni and delivered his message after first discovering that Juh was not with them. They were surprised to see him, for there were many of them who really believed that he was dead. There were only eight warriors and about twice as many women and children. The latter the sub-chief sent ahead while the warriors he disposed in strategic positions at the point where the ambush was to occur, and along their trail came “B” Troop of the -th Cavalry, protected by the Apache scouts ahead and upon the flanks. With his troop rode Lieutenant Samuel Adams King, eager for his first brush with the hostiles, his stay at the Billings ranch having been abruptly terminated the very night that Wichita had led the ewe-necked roan out to Shoz-Dijiji. An hour later a courier had come with orders for Lieutenant King to rejoin the troop with his detachment, and there had followed days of hard riding in an effort to intercept the hostiles before they crossed the boundary into Mexico.
Lieutenant King had preferred the company of Wichita Billings to futile scouting after Indians that one never saw, but this was different. For two days they had been hot on the trail of the renegades, with an engagement constantly imminent, and the young blood of the subaltern coursed hot in anticipation of a brush with the enemy. For four years he had slaved and sweat at the Point in preparation for this, and he prayed now that he would not be cheated out of it at the last minute by the dirty, sneaking Siwashes. Gad! If the cowards would only stand and fight once!
Nasty place for an ambush, thought Lieutenant King, as the troops entered a narrow, steep-walled canyon. Good thing the “old man” had sent flankers along the crest on either side.
Beastly dusty! Rotten idea, to make the second lieutenant ride in rear of the outfit. Some day; he would revise Regulations — lots of things wrong with them. He could see that already and he had only joined up a few weeks before. Now, this was better. They were through that canyon and the dust had a chance to blow somewhere else than down his throat, up his nose and into his eyes.
Crack! Pin-n-ng! Crack! Crack! Pin-n-ng! “Left front into line! Gallop! MARCH! CHARGE!” The high voice of the “old man “rose shrilly above the crack of the hostile rifles, the wild Apache war whoops, the cursing of men, the screams of hit horses.
A ragged, yelling line of blue galloped among the great boulders from behind which the nine warriors poured their deadly fire, and as the hostiles fell back to other cover the captain dismounted his troop and sent one platoon in on foot while the horses were withdrawn to better cover. It was no place for cavalry action — that is why the sub-chief had chosen it.
Lieutenant King found himself crawling along on his belly from rock to rock. Bullets spit at him. He raised himself occasionally and fired, though he seldom saw anything to fire at — a puff of smoke — a bronze shoulder — once a painted face. He was at the left of the line and he thought that by moving farther to the left he could pass the hostiles’ right and reach a position where he could enfilade them. Obsessed by this idea, overwhelmed by the sheer joy of battle, he forgot everything else. The men of his own command no longer existed. He was fighting alone. It was his first fight and he was having the time of his young life. He worked his way rapidly ahead and to the left.
From the right of the line his captain caught a fleeting glimpse of him and shouted after him. “Mister King!” he screamed. “Where in hell are you going? Come back here, you blankety, blank, blank fool!” But in his heart the old man thrilled with pride as Mister King crawled on toward the hostile line, the commands of his superior lost in the din of the engagement and the excitement of the moment.
Just ahead of him King saw two large rocks, each capable of sheltering a couple of men. They stood about two feet apart and if he could reach them they would offer him almost perfect protection from the enemy’s fire while at the same time they commanded his right flank.
What Lieutenant King did not see was the painted savage crouching behind the one farthest to the left, nor did he know that this same warrior had been patiently watching and awaiting his advance.
Reaching the opening between the two King crawled cautiously on, his eyes, his whole attention turning to the right toward the position of the enemy. He had reached a position where he could look around behind the right-hand rock and see several of the warriors lying behind other sheltering boulders to his right; and at that instant a heavy body fell upon him, while simultaneously the captain gave the command to charge.
The troopers leaped to their feet and, yelling like the Apaches themselves, stumbled forward among the thick strewn boulders. King’s carbine was torn from his grasp. He struggled to free himself from the clutching fingers and the great weight upon him, and managed to turn over onto his back. Glaring down upon him were two savage eyes set in a hideously painted face. A great butcher knife hovered above his breast. He could hear the shouts of his fellows drawing nearer.
The knife halted, poised in mid-air. He saw the Apache stare intently into his face for an instant and then look up in the direction from which the soldiers were charging. The lieutenant struggled, but the man who held him was a giant in strength. King recalled that some fool had told him that one white man was a match for ten Indians. He wished that he might relinquish his present position to his informant.
Suddenly the brave yanked him to his feet as easily as though King had been a little child, and the officer saw two of the men of his own platoon running toward them. Backing slowly up the hillside the warrior kept King directly in front of him. The other hostiles had fallen back rapidly, leaving two of their number dead. There was only one other Apache retreating up the hillside with King’s captor and he was above them now and moving swiftly.
Delphi Collected Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs (Illustrated) (Series Four Book 26) Page 590
