The Black Trail

by James W. Marvin

  Had it been left to him, Crow would have dumped all but one of the wagons and made a dash for it. Mavulamanzi’s warriors could make almost as good time running as most men on horseback. That was their best chance. But he might as well have tried to change the blowing of the wind as shift the chief from his purpose. He had come to that part of the Territory of Arizona to get himself the pelt of a cougar and that was what he intended to do.

  So it was, a little after dawn, that they again split up. The wagons and the warriors, with Mikalawayo and Lavinia Woodstock, were to press along at their best pace to the east. Crow and the chief would cut back west to where they had seen the spoor of the big mountain lion, and they would meet up again at the place where they had camped two days earlier.

  The tall, skinny figure of the man in black, the morning sun in his face showing his thirty years, watched impassively as the Negroes whipped the teams on. The rest of the slaves jogged on, some to the front and some at the rear. Despite Crow’s urging, Mavulamanzi had still only allowed them to carry their short stabbing spears and the hide shields, the rifles greased and crated in the back of the last of the rigs.

  Lavinia sat on the box of the chiefs own wagon, the veil again tugged down over her face. There was the sparkle of her eyes as the light caught them, but no sign of any emotion. No cautious wave of the hand to the man she had loved, naked in the heat of the day, barely twelve hours before.

  Crow was aware of the eyes of the giant Zulu fixed on him and realized that the woman must also have seen Mavulamanzi and guarded herself. It was a lesson to Crow to take care.

  The Negro straddled his massive white stallion. He was wearing a brocaded suit of dark green silk, over another of his seemingly inexhaustible supply of white lace shirts. There was a gold watch and chain dangling from his rain-bowed waistcoat and he carried his usual array of specially tailored arms. Crow wore what he usually wore. Black hat and vest and pants. Yellow bandana. He too carried a gold hunter watch, with Roman numerals, safe in one of the pockets of his jacket.

  As the last of the rigs disappeared from sight they both saw a small yellow hat waving furiously from its rear. Crow grinned, having become quite fond of the nervous little Mikalawayo.

  ‘We go now,’ said the chief. Crow was conscious that it wasn’t in any way a question.

  ‘Want me to go first?’

  ‘It is of no jolly concern to me, old friend,’ replied Mavulamanzi, flicking a languid hand at a fly that dared to hover around his mouth.

  ‘I wouldn’t want you to lose face, that’s all.’

  ‘You’re frightfully impudent for a simple retainer, aren’t you, Crow?’

  ‘Now there’s just you and me and I stand to get a thousand dollars from you, I couldn’t give a flying shit about what you think.’

  ‘You might get nothing.’

  ‘Hogs might fly. I don’t like much about you but I figure you for a man who keeps his word.’

  Mavulamanzi beamed at him, showing a great row of perfect white teeth. ‘Yes. I say you will have gold and you will. I promise a dreadful passing to the courts of Jesus Christ, your Blessed Savior, then that also will come to be.’

  ‘So we go?’

  ‘Indeed. We will perambulate.’

  They perambulated for most of the day and they got no closer to the big cougar than a heap of droppings that Crow figured at being eight hours old. By a little after four Crow told the Zulu that it was time they were moving.

  ‘We have been moving all of the time, Crow.’

  ‘Yeah. But we haven’t been gettin’ anywhere. Ifn we’re goin’ to catch up with the train then we best be setting spurs in right now. If we don’t then it’ll be full dark and we won’t find them?’

  Mavulamanzi was clearly ready to argue, but Crow’s words made such evident sense that he shook his head, like a monstrously overgrown pettish child.

  ‘Very well It shall be as you say. But I am not pleased, Crow. Not well pleased at all.’

  ‘Shut up.’

  What do you…’

  ‘Shut your damned mouth! Now!!’ The last word cracked out with such venom that it quieted the chief immediately. Sitting his stallion and looking at Crow in bewilderment.

  The white man sat, eyes squinting, head on one side as if he was straining to catch some far-off sound.

  Which, as it happened, was precisely what he was doing.

  ‘There. Hear it?’

  Mavulamanzi looked puzzled. ‘I hear nothing but the wind. And the buzzing of insects. And a long way distant I seem to…’

  ‘Damned right!’ snapped Crow. ‘Guns. Maybe eight or ten miles off. Funneled this way by the line of the trail and the wind. That’s why we can just hear it.’

  ‘Indians?’

  ‘If I was a betting man I’d lay you a thousand dollars to a plugged nickel that your boys are right now gettin’ themselves killed, with those lovely guns of theirs still safe and greased in their boxes. Come on!’

  ‘We will be too late.’

  ‘You got ‘em killed, Chief. Least you can do is get there to bury them.’

  Crow set spurs to his black stallion, kicking it on at a full gallop, heading eastwards, towards the sound of the shooting. The speed brought the wind tangling through his shoulder-length hair, streaming it out behind him like a dark banner.

  Mavulamanzi on his thoroughbred wasn’t able to keep up with the shootist, cursing his horse as he fell further and further behind. As Crow stretched out his lead he kept trying to visualize the place where the Mescalero must have attacked. Deciding from the noise it must be somewhere near a widening of the trail. Close to the jagged spur of Webb Peak.

  By the time he’d ridden four miles the shooting had stopped. His guess put the place of the ambush as being around four more miles. He reined in and the Zulu finally caught him up, panting and swearing in his own language, wiping sweat from his face with a spotted kerchief.

  ‘Why stop?’ he panted.

  ‘Why go on?’ replied Crow.

  ‘The guns are ended.’

  They both listened, but there was only the high, thin sound of the wind. It was still hot, the rocks at Crow’s elbow too warm to touch with comfort. He reached for his canteen and took a single swig of the heated, brackish water. Rinsing it around his mouth and then spitting it out in the dirt. It formed a clogging ball of mud for a moment, and then evaporated into dust, leaving no trace that it had ever been there.

  ‘What will we do now?’ asked the Negro, following Crow’s example and taking a drink from the canteen that dangled from his saddle.

  ‘Not a lot, Chief.’

  ‘Is it over?’

  Crow nodded. ‘Guess so. Your boys can’t have beaten off a surprise attack that went on for that long. So the ‘Paches must have licked them. Right now they’ll be taking what they want’

  ‘The disgrace is bad, Crow,’ said the huge black, his voice quieter than the gunman had ever heard.

  ‘Nothing to do now.’

  ‘We can go and kill them.’

  ‘Must be around thirty of them. Allow for one or two your men might have killed.’

  ‘We do not know how to fight in such a way. With wagons.’

  ‘No. I guess you don’t at that You mainly hunt when you fight?’

  ‘Yes. And we attack and do not be defending. Our plan is always as horns of the buffalo. Like this. I show you, Crow.’

  He swung easily down and took his Winchester from his saddle. Using the tip of the barrel to sketch in the red-grey sand what he meant

  ‘See, the horns of the animal. In the middle, where is the head, is the strongest and oldest part of our men. The two sides…’

  ‘Like wings…’

  ‘Yes. They circle about our enemy and draw him in towards the middle.’

  The gun showed Crow the simplicity of the movement. Tracing the horns as they went out and then closed in to completely trap any opponents. Pulling them in where the great strength of the head of the buffalo would crush
them to annihilating defeat.

  ‘There.’

  ‘Mighty pretty, Chief. But it’s about as much use to you when fighting off Mescalero as a lace bonnet in a blizzard. All you need are guns. You got them. And you haven’t used them.’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes. I know of that. How long must we wait before we can begin to hunt down these savages?’

  ‘Hunt them down!’ It took a lot to surprise Crow, but Mavulamanzi had managed it.

  ‘Yes. I could not live with such shame if we do not kill many of them.’

  ‘Son of a bitch,’ said Crow, quietly. ‘Son of a damned bitch!’

  The sun was setting away over Webb Peak before Crow and the Zulu had ridden close enough to the scene of the attack to see what had happened. A full mile away Crow insisted that they should both dismount and leave the animals, fearing that the Apaches might still be there. Their scouting was so good that they must realize by now that their ambush had failed to trap the two main targets. Mavulamanzi and Crow.

  But once they had sneaked in closer to the place where the trail widened Crow knew that there was nothing more to fear. A cluster of raw-necked buzzards rose slowly into the evening sky as the two men reached the shelter of a group of massive boulders. If there had still been anyone living in the immediate area the voracious birds would not have come flapping in to feed.

  It had been a fine banquet for the scavenging buzzards.

  There were eleven corpses. All scalped and all mutilated in the manner of the Indians of the high country of the South-west.

  ‘Eleven,’ said the Zulu leader, standing among the silent desolation of the slaughter.

  ‘No sign of the woman. Nor little Mick. And two of your boys.’

  ‘The savages have taken them.’

  ‘Could be.’

  ‘Could they have escaped?’

  Crow shook his head. ‘Doubt it. The Mescalero must have kept them. Alive.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Funnin’, of course.’

  ‘Torture?’

  ‘Yeah. The woman should last a whiles longer.’

  ‘They would shame her by using her.’

  Crow didn’t know quite what he meant,

  ‘Using?’

  Mavulamanzi showed a spark of the old anger. ‘Yes. Will they have fucked her, Crow?’

  ‘Probably. That all that bothers you, Chief? What about the lives of your boys here?’

  ‘They died for me.’ Dismissively. ‘There can be no greater happiness for any member of my personal impi. But their dying shames me. I was not here, Crow. My position was here.’ He turned away, shaking his great head, mumbling to himself in the Zulu tongue.

  Crow glanced around the site. Seeing clearly what had happened. The drivers of the wagons almost certainly killed first with rifle shots. The horses cut loose and taken. Then the rest of the party butchered like helpless steers as they ran around. It must have been great hunting for the Apaches. Heeling their agile little ponies in and out, picking off the blacks as they tried to use their short spears against the guns of the Mescalero.

  There was no sign of whether the Apaches might have taken any losses. They would have removed their dead and wounded as they left, having stripped the wagons of whatever they wanted. Driving their prisoners along with them.

  It looked like the end of the mission for Crow. He’d read about pulp stories of heroes of dime westerns who would leap in the saddle to rescue the damsel in distress. All Crow was concerned about was getting his money from Mavulamanzi and then moving on. Lavinia Woodstock meant nothing to him. They’d got her and they were welcome to her. What they’d find if they went after her with maybe a Cavalry patrol wasn’t going to be worth rescuing.

  It was at that moment that Crow heard a faint voice, calling out for help,

  Chapter Nine

  Mikalawayo was still wearing his yellow Easterner’s hat, but the crown was dented and it looked like a last wilting flower in a fall garden.

  He was limping and there was a bloody scratch on his face, just below the right eye. As he stumbled towards Crow and Mavulamanzi, the little Negro caught his feet on a loose rock and nearly fell. He was shaking like a man with an ague.

  The Chief called out to him, in a liquid, throaty stream of what were obviously questions, but the young black didn’t reply.

  ‘He’s out on his feet. Give him time!’ called Crow, stepping in and holding the little man as he toppled forwards in his arms. With effortless strength Crow lifted him and laid him in a patch of shade at the side of one of the ravaged wagons. The bronze heat of the day was well past and Crow dabbed water from his canteen on Mikalawayo’s face and neck.

  ‘Too bloody awful,’ gasped the Zulu. ‘Dear, dear. Regrets and condolences on sad loss and recent bereavements old friend.’

  ‘What does he mean?’ demanded Mavulamanzi, angrily, adding a snapping sentence in his own tongue.

  Mick opened his eyes and looked up. Seeing his feared chief and making a great effort to win control over himself. Drawing in shuddering breaths of air and blinking furiously. His fingers moved at the ends of his hands as though they were beyond his rule, writhing in the sand and rolling pebbles about

  ‘How come you’re alive and these other poor bastards are dead?’ asked Crow. Voice gentle as a young girl’s kiss.

  ‘I was not here, Crow,’ whispered Mikalawayo.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Going to do private business.’

  ‘What?’

  Tummy disordered frightfully. Left wagons and went over behind rocks to do it. While there…they came and killed all the warriors.’

  ‘Not all.’

  Mikalawayo shook his head. ‘Jolly truthful. Not all. Two prisoners. I did not see which. And…’

  ‘The Woodstock woman?’ interrupted Mavulamanzi, angrily. ‘What of her?’

  ‘She was unwounded, and I think they took her with care.’

  Crow stood up and stretched, looking uneasily around at the dimming light ‘You mean they were after her?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Figures. They think the same as you do, Chief, about losing face and being ashamed. You were responsible for three of their young bucks being killed. They blame you for it. Not me. So the price to be paid comes out of you and your honor.’

  Mavulamanzi didn’t speak, walking away, and then disappearing from their sight behind one of the rigs, where they could hear him muttering to himself in the dusk, rooting through the scattered possessions, once kicking the corpse of one of his servants out of the way.

  ‘He will fight,’ said Mick.

  ‘Him and who else?’

  ‘Me.’

  ‘You?’

  ‘Yes. The shame would make our lives without any toleration, Crow. I was very frightened and I flattened myself among the rocks and prayed I would be spared. Then, after the shooting stopped and they had done their cutting and breaking of bones and gone…then I came and looked from over there and saw I must go after the Apaches for my honor.’

  ‘Even if it means death?’

  ‘Yes. Of course. A life with such shame is not a life at all.’

  ‘Bullshit! You and your boss there are damned lucky. Those poor bastards out there don’t have a chance of even a shameful life. And the woman and the other two…You think they wouldn’t trade?’

  ‘I know nothing of the ways of the woman’s mind, nor do I care. But the slaves of Mavulamanzi would wish to live only so that they might die for him.’

  ‘You don’t have the brains of a damned water-butt,’ said Crow, disgustedly, turning away, conscious of the unbridgeable gap between his view of life and that of the Zulus.

  The Apaches had gone. Heading away southwards. Crow tracked them only as far as the splitting of the trail, seeing that they had forked off towards the west again.

  ‘White Canyon,’ he muttered, pensively. The Mescalero had a war-camp in a winding arroyo about eight miles to the south-west of the scene of the ambush. A steep-sloped ravine wit
h walls dotted with unusual outcrops of glittering white mica.

  That was where they’d be, though they would probably rest up and camp for the night on the way there. From what Crow remembered of the region, the trail was difficult and dangerous, cutting up the face of a cliff. The sort of place the Apaches would not wish to hazard in poor light. No, they would rest up on the way to White Canyon and reach the main fortress in the early light of the next morning in safety.

  And the giant Mavulamanzi and tiny Mikalawayo were going to go after them. Go after what Crow estimated at being between twenty and twenty-five Apaches.

  When he returned to the scene of death nothing had changed. The bodies were still there, now oblong scattered blocks of shadow in the evening darkness. Mick still rested against the wagon and his chief had disappeared.

  ‘Where’s he gone?’

  Mikalawayo looked up and there was the ghost of a smile on his face. ‘Perhaps after the Apaches, No, I do not think yet. Tomorrow at dawn is our way.’

  ‘I’ll be on my way then as well.’

  ‘Oh, with us!’ A smile splitting the dark skin, teeth white. Then immediate dejection as he realized what the shootist meant. ‘Oh, you will depart from hence?’

  ‘Yeah. Not my fight.’

  ‘Will five thousand dollars make it your fight, Mister Crow?’

  The gunman turned slowly, eyes widening slightly despite his efforts at self-control. The voice was that of the educated and fashionably smart chief of the Zulus, called Mavulamanzi. But the figure standing there looking at him was not the man he knew.

  It wasn’t easy to impress Crow, but right at that moment he was very impressed.

  From among the clothes and weapons that the Mescalero Apaches had left behind them, the Negro had found enough to convert himself back from the puppet white to the savage he truly was.

  The veneer of culture had been so swiftly sloughed and the essential barbarian had burst through.

  His height was amplified by a feathered head-dress. Not the kind of thing the Sioux wore, with a bonnet of eagle feathers. But a fine item of nodding plumes and a sprinkling of red and green jewels. The suit was gone and in its place the chief wore only a plain loin-cloth of leather. His muscular chest was streaked with white and ochre, and there was a pattern of red and white daubed on his high cheekbones.