by Lou Cameron
Caldwell eyed the bobbing Turkish saddle on the other side of the rail dubiously. The top of the camel’s hump came almost to the height of the rail, but the gap between it and the solid oak varied alarmingly as the animal these obvious lunatics expected him to mount tried to break free. The lithe young man called High Jolly kept a tight hold on the leather thong attached to a brass ring through the camel’s pierced nose. The oddly named man was dressed in a rag-tag costume consisting of a cast-off army jacket, white cotton Mexican pants, and a flat-topped Spanish sombrero worn over the red kerchief wrapped around his head. He seemed, at first glance, to be Mexican. At second glance, it wasn’t too clear just what he was. High Jolly was a funny name for a Mexican, or anyone else, for that matter. When he said, “I have the thrice-accursed beast secure, if you would only mount her!” Caldwell wondered what sort of an accent that was. Could the civilian be some sort of … gypsy?
Caldwell realized he was stalling and, making the supreme effort, leaned out over the rail to grapple with the high pommel of the odd saddle, a thing that looked like a cross between a sawhorse and a cut-down rocking chair. Regulation U.S. Army stirrups had been fastened to the skimpy leather thongs and Caldwell had noticed, as High Jolly rode up, that the civilian cameleer rode barefoot with one big toe hooked through a brass ring on either side of his own rig. Caldwell had no idea the camels had come with Turkish saddles, of course, but he sensed that the little brass toe rings went more properly with the rest of the odd saddle.
Another soldier had led a second camel alongside for Digger Greenberg, and the scout, who’d done this sort of thing before, was climbing on the proffered mount as Caldwell was still trying to get up the nerve to try.
Despite High Jolly’s reassuring smile, it seemed a hell of a way down between the steamboat rail and the bobbing saddle atop the skittish camel’s ugly hump. Caldwell was not afraid of the six- or seven-foot fall because he thought it would kill him, rather he was thinking about what the men of his new command would whisper about a brand-new shavetail who took a full-dress pratfall into the muddy river.
He took a deep breath, put a toe into the planks of the railing, and swung his right leg desperately over and out, clinging for dear life to the high pommel.
It was well he did so. As his weight landed in the hard saddle, the camel belched, burbled, and tried to dance backward out from under him. High Jolly swore in an odd language, whacked the camel across the eyes with the free end of the leather lead, and gasped, “Hang on! I have the evil-tempered daughter of Shaitan, Effendi!”
Then, before Caldwell could answer, High Jolly screamed, “Arragh! Hike! Hike! Burrrro, Hike!” as he allowed Caldwell’s mount to lurch away from the steamboat rail. Caldwell gulped and hung on as the saddle under him pitched like a schooner in a full gale. Caldwell decided he wasn’t going to fall off, after all, and risked a look back.
Behind him, Greenberg’s camel followed, led by a blond soldier on another mount. The Indian, Rabbit-Boss, had simply leaped over the rail and was wading ashore under his own power. The water wasn’t deep, and Caldwell could only envy the Digger’s more sensible way of tagging along.
Corporal Muller and the others were climbing aboard the steamboat to get Caldwell’s luggage and, if Caldwell knew his dragoons, a round of drinks at the steamboat’s salon bar. He turned to High Jolly and asked, “Don’t you think we should wait for the others?”
High Jolly answered, “But no, Effendi, my orders were to deliver yourself to the captain now, and, though Allah be more merciful, the captain is a man of temper!”
Caldwell shot the man at the other end of the camel lead a closer look. His accent was a curious mixture, between that of a Frenchman and … something else. His dark hatchet face and hawk-like nose made him seem more like Caldwell’s idea of what a Jew should look like than did the broad features of Digger Greenberg, and—what was that he’d said about Allah?
Caldwell suddenly smiled and said, “You must be one of those Turkish drovers the army hired to take care of these camels, right?”
High Jolly said, “That was true in the beginning, Effendi, but, through the grace of Allah The Most High And Compassionate, Haji Ali is now an American, almost.”
The trooper leading Greenberg’s camel had drawn abreast of High Jolly, by this time, and the scout had caught the last part of their conversation. He called across to Caldwell, “High Jolly’s carried on the payroll with civilian status, like me and the other white scouts. I don’t savvy how in tarnation they figured him to be a white man, but he sure as hell ain’t no Injun, so I reckon it’s all right.”
He spit to the polite side of his camel and added, “Me and him has rode together afore. Don’t let his funny ways spook you, Lieutenant. High Jolly looks like a prissified Mex and talks like he was raised in a whorehouse, but he’s got enough sand in his craw to see him through in a pinch.”
By this time they’d reached the bank, and Matt Caldwell couldn’t talk, or even breathe, until the beast he rode lurched up the steep slope in a series of groaning, burbling staggers. The camel was much taller than a horse, and its hump seemed to flop from side to side in a sickening motion. Camels didn’t walk like horses, cows, or any other sensible four-legged animal. A camel paced. The front and rear legs on either side moved forward together, making the camel’s motion a series of lunges. He glanced down at the brush-covered ground, now that they were out of the riverbed, and saw that despite the side-to-side motion they were moving forward at a respectable clip. A camel moved at what would be a slow trot for a horse or mule. Caldwell saw that Rabbit-Boss was jogging along on foot out to one side, and asked Greenberg, “Doesn’t the Indian rate a ride?”
The scout laughed and said, “Shoot, you can’t git a Digger to ride iffen he can help it. That’s what makes him a Digger.”
“Don’t any of the desert tribes ride?”
“Well, sure they does. That’s how you know a Digger from a Snake!”
Caldwell ran that through a few times before he shook his head and said, “Greenberg, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about!”
The scout explained, “Diggers is Injuns that live out here on foot. Snakes is Injuns as have ponies. Didn’t they tell you nothin’ about the desert afore they sent you out here to replace that other jasper?”
“Not as much as they should have, I guess. I take it Snakes and Diggers are different tribes, eh?”
“You take it wrong, then. You put a Ute on a pony and he’s calt a Bannock. Leave him on his own two feet and he’s a calt a Paiute. Only that’s jest white folks talkin’. The Injuns out this way don’t know they’s Utes, Paiutes, Bannocks, and sech. They mostly talk the same Shoshoni lingo hereabouts, and they got all sorts of names fer each band. The big difference betwixt the desert folks is the way they live. The Snakes live horseback. The Diggers don’t.”
“You mean Rabbit-Boss’s people are superstitious about riding horses?”
“Not exactly. Horses jest don’t go with the way Diggers live out here. You see, a man on foot kin go in parts of the desert a pony cain’t. The Snakes have to keep close to hills and water. The Diggers go jest about anywhere they please, and Rabbit-Boss is one wanderin’ son of a bitch. I never have got it straight jest where he was birthed out here in the basins and ranges. One time he tolt me he’d been to the Humboldt in the north and the Yaqui in the south by the time he was old enough to bed a squaw. I reckon that’s why I keep him. Old Rabbit-Boss knows parts of this here country as ain’t on no map yet.”
Caldwell asked, “You say you keep him? I thought he was a scout hired like yourself by the army.”
Greenberg laughed. “Shoot, nobody hires a Digger. They don’t savvy what money is. You see that stick and medicine bundle he’s totin’ along there? That’s all that muley old Injun owns in this world, and all he sets any value by.”
“What about that antelope-horn headdress?”
“Oh, that’s jest a fool notion he’s been wearin’ lately. He took it offen a Mojave who sa
ssed him a few weeks back. It’s a Mojave medicine man’s headdress, and Rabbit-Boss wears it to piss them off. His folks don’t cotton to Mojaves much.”
“Why? They told me the Mojave were peaceful farmers along the Lower Colorado. What does Rabbit-Boss have against them?”
“Beats the shit outa me, Lieutenant. Injuns take funny notions on each other, which is jest as well fer ussen. I mean, you take the Crow and the Sioux, now. The Crow talk Sioux, dress Sioux, hunt buffalo like Sioux, and even pray to the same god, Wakan-Tonka. Yet ever’ chance they git, them Crow and Sioux fight like cats and dogs. Do the Sioux rise agin’ the whites, them Crows jump right in with both feet and help the army and settlers whup ’em! Nobody’s ever figured why, but it purely makes it easier to settle west of the Big Muddy, and that’s the truth!”
Caldwell nodded, watching the effortless lope of Rabbit-Boss as he tried to keep his stomach under control. The odd gait of his mount was making him seasick. He took out another cigar and started to chew it unlit as he asked, to pass the time of day, “Are all the Diggers opposed to the Apache, too?”
“Can’t rightly say. Each band sort of moseys about with the bit betwixt its own teeth. Pimas and Papagos hate Apache. Come to think of it, jest about ever’body hates Apache hereabouts.”
“I guess they have good reasons. From what I hear, the Apache nation has done little to endear itself to its neighbors.”
Greenberg said, “Well, they do like to raid more’n a good neighbor oughta. But it ain’t jest that. You see, the Apaches is strangers in these parts. A Pueblo I talked to one time tolt me the Apaches only come down here to the Southwest about the time the Mexicans was comin’ up from the south. Apaches, they calls themselves Nadenes, used to live up in Alaska Territory, where them Russians have the fur trade now. The lingo they talk is the same as Athapascan and them other Totem-pole tribes up north. The Pueblos say the Apache got run outten Alaska fer bein’ too pi’zen mean fer the other Athapascans to stomach. They come down thisaway about the time Cortez was whuppin’ the Aztecs, and the feudin’ and fussin’ ain’t stopped since.”
“Well, things will be different now that we’ve taken this country over from the Mexicans. I’m sure this Diablito is just a renegade. The other chiefs have made peace with Washington and .. .”
“Sonny, I mean, Matt, you got a heap of study ahead of you on Injuns, if you aim to keep your scalp long enough to retire with it!”
Before Caldwell could answer, High Jolly suddenly yelled, “Adda! Adda!” and the camel Caldwell was riding made a drunken stagger to one side. He saw the Turk had steered them around a clump of cactus. Caldwell asked, “Is that how you tell this thing to turn, High Jolly?”
The drover answered, “El Jamal is commanded by voice, Effendi, but whether one can tell the thrice-accursed creature anything is open to question. The ring in its nose reminds it to listen, for in truth, El Jamal considers kindness on a rider’s part a sign of weakness and, though Allah be more merciful, El Jamal has no respect for anyone or anything it can take advantage of.”
“How long do you think it will take me before I can control this camel on my own?”
“Inshallah, a few weeks, Effendi. You are a big man, and you do not look like a soft man. If you let me teach you, we shall know by the end. of this month whether Allah fated you to ride El Jamal.”
Caldwell looked back. They’d come a surprising distance from the steamboat, and he could see Corporal Muller and the others riding to catch up. He asked High Jolly, “Did you have much trouble teaching those other men how to ride these things?”
“Ah, those men, Effendi, were born with the kismet Allah bestows on one out of five. Of the men who joined the program in the beginning, only a handful were able to learn the art of the Mehari. You see, some were not strong enough. Others, too many others, were stronger than they needed to be. They were—how do you say it—muleskinners?”
“Most army men know something about whipping a mule into shape.”
“Ah, but Effendi, El Jamal is not a mule. He is as stubborn as a mule, and at times more vicious. But he cannot be treated like a mule, compris?”
“If you mean, do I understand, I don’t. You treat a horse gently. You treat a mule more firmly. I’m completely in the dark about camels!”
“Ah, that is the beginning of wisdom, Effendi. Most of the troopers back at the remount station thought they knew about them! Some tried to ride them like horses, and of course, the camels laughed at them and scraped them off on the first gate they came to.”
“And the others, the muleskinners?”
“They beat their mounts and yanked on the nose reins until the blood flowed red. I and the others from Izmir tried to stop them, but some men do not listen. It was very sad, and in the end we only had a few animals and riders worth keeping.”
“What happened?”
“What my fellow drovers and myself said would happen, Effendi. Some of the abused camels killed their tormentors, first. But most of them merely died, as El Jamal is in the habit of doing when he feels unappreciated.”
“You mean, most of the camels the War Department purchased for use in the western deserts never made it past the eastern remount stations?”
“Just so, Effendi. My poor Osmanli comrades fared little better and were sent home by the angry Americans. Myself and three or four others at other posts are all that remains of the original band.”
Matt Caldwell knew the rough hazing the regulars dished out to any new recruit. Despite the officers’ attempts to stop it, a good number of rookies in every new draft were driven to desertion, suicide, or murder by the brutality of basic training. The question wasn’t what the roughneck troopers had done to haze High Jolly’s Muslim comrades into quitting, but rather how the delicately built little Turk had stuck it out this far. High Jolly, Matt decided, had more sand in his crew than his appearance indicated.
Something fluttered in the heat haze ahead, and Caldwell realized it was the Stars and Stripes. Squinting against the deceptive glare, he could make out a long, low wall of adobe brick with a slightly higher watchtower near the open gate. The Muslim leading him in like a sack of supplies on a pack mule warned, “Hold onto the saddle cross, Effendi. There are Mojave children about, and by the breasts of Fatima, they are most miserable brats!”
Something whizzed by Caldwell’s face and arched over into the blue-gray brush to his left. He gaped after it a moment before he blurted, “God damn it, that was an arrow!”
Digger Greenberg called softly, “Don’t show as you notice, Matt,” and Caldwell answered, “What are you talking about? Didn’t you see that God damn thing just miss my nose?”
“They always miss when they’s funnin’, Matt. I got the little bastards spotted over yonder ahint that clump of pear. Couple of shitty Mojave kids teasin’ us with quail arrows. Ain’t no points on quail arrows, so …”
Another arrow snicked out from the clump of prickly pear and passed between Caldwell’s chest and the head of his camel. The scout said, “What did I tell you? They ain’t aimin’ to hit you. But they got you singled out on account you paid attention to the first one.”
Caldwell glanced over at the dogtrotting figure of Rabbit-Boss to see how the Indian was taking this new development. The Digger seemed oblivious as he jogged on, eyes on the fort ahead. A Mojave arrow hit Rabbit-Boss in the right thigh and bounced off and the naked Indian never broke stride. Caldwell said, “I thought you said they were aiming to miss!” and Greenberg explained. “They been tolt to miss ussen. Rabbit-Boss don’t count. But, like I said, they’s shoot-in’ blunt ended quail arrows, so what the hell, it’s all in fun.”
“They make the animals uneasy,” observed High Jolly. “If the captain would let me, I would teach these savages to behave!”
Greenberg shook his head. “They’re behavin’ neighborly enough, considerin’. I ain’t sayin’ Mojaves is friendly Injuns, you understand. They’s sort of sulky about us movin’ in and buildin’ forts and sech a
long their river. But aside from lettin’ their young’uns hoorah folks a mite, they ain’t so bad.”
High Jolly clicked his tongue and called out, “Burrro, arrrah, hike, hike!” and all four camels broke into a stiff-legged trot. The invisible Mojave youths were left behind out of arrow range as Rabbit-Boss picked up the pace with neither comment nor visible effort.
The new motion, coupled with the hot sun, made it impossible for Caldwell to do more than swallow the green taste in his mouth and hang on for dear life. The only ray of hope he saw in this ghastly ride from the river was that at this rate it would soon be over. The fort was much nearer now, and he had to admit a camel crossed a lot of country in a hurry. The animal he rode stood at least six feet at the shoulder. Higher yet, up here on the hump. Those long legs gave it nearly twice the stride of any horse, and if what they said about them going nine days between waterings was true, he could see certain advantages to Secretary Davis’s wild-sounding scheme. If, as Greenberg said, the Horse Indians were confined to the greener, more watered parts of the desert, a fighting Camel Corps seemed just the thing to police the Great American Desert.
If only, he added with a groan, somebody could teach the goddamn things to move in a straight line like reasonable animals!
Cho-Ko-Ley had never been beautiful, even in her youth, but she was a strong woman and, in the darkness of a wickiup, a warm-thighed woman who knew how to pleasure a man better than many a younger, slimmer wife.
But Cho-Ko-Ley was not lying naked between her deerskin robes now, and the afternoon sun etched cruel lines across her broad brown face as she scooped a hole in the dry wash sand with her work-hardened fingers. Cho-Ko-Ley’s face was passive, but her heart beat wildly inside her breast as she dug, for she knew the thing she planned was a terrible sin. No woman of her clan had ever disobeyed a Husband as far aTs Cho-Ko-Ley knew, and at her puberty rites many seasons ago the horrors that awaited a disobedient wife in the Long Sleep had been drummed into her together with the two hundred and fifty names of the two hundred and fifty Nadene gods!
