The Vengeance of Ender Smith

by Tony Masero

  She was there at night when he had finished for the day, his meal ready on the table. The place was swept clean of dust and she often brought in bunches of wild ocotillo and placed them in a jar on the table. When he was finished eating she would put a glass and bottle of sipping whisky on the table and leave him, going out to the storage shed he had cleared and set up for her. That would be all Ender would see of her until the next morning.

  They went on this way for three weeks after Hunnicut left. Ender working all day with the cattle or out in the grain field, she cleaning house or tending the vegetable patch, preserving produce and cooking the meals.

  Then, one night she stood before him and remained there after she had placed his evening meal on the table. Ender looked at her curiously as he picked up his knife and fork. There was something different about her, he sensed it. They had not spoken much since Hunnicut’s departure, no more than necessary to get through a day and it was unusual for her to linger. What had been said had been fruitful and to the point and Ender appreciated her directness and it seemed the two had gradually warmed to each other.

  He still remembered their first meeting. That frozen moment outside the wickiup, when their eyes had met and something had shifted in Ender’s heart. No words had been necessary then either, it had been the kind of silent communication his ingrained Apache nature approved of, where demonstrative emotion was subdued but feelings still kept alive behind a taciturn front.

  She looked good, he thought. Her hair was fresh washed and tied up with a pretty nah-leen hair ornament, the blouse was one he had picked up for her from the trading post at the fort and she had never worn until now. She had sewn new trim on her skirts and with all her necklaces and bracelets she was certainly dressed to kill.

  “You want something, Catowitch?” he asked.

  “We should get married,” she said suddenly.

  Ender gaped. “Married?” he gasped.

  “It would be best.”

  Ender went to scratch his unshaven chin and then realized he was still holding the knife and fork in his hand, carefully he laid them down. He looked at her long and hard; this was a serious matter alright. She was a pretty enough woman; there was no denying that, he thought. Argumentative some times and prone to speak her mind but he could see no real hardship in it.

  It would work better with the People if he made their situation respectable, he knew that already the tongues would be wagging and gossip running wild as to their situation up at the reservation. Ender had never married; he had dallied some but never committed himself. Maybe it was about time. In the same manner in which he had risked the ranch on the turn of a card he made a similar spontaneous decision.

  “Alright,” he said decisively. “I shall talk to the council and if they allow me privileges I shall see your mother and settle a bride price.”

  “Good,” she said with a sharp nod of her head. “But you must see my brother. My mother died two weeks ago.”

  “She did!” said Ender in surprise. “You never said.”

  “What is there to say, she was not your mother?”

  Ender nodded, understanding the practical Indian logic of it. “Okay then, I’ll go see Common Dog, they’re still holding him up at the fort guardhouse.”

  When the Council of Warriors at the reservation had given permission, Ender went to the fort and asked permission to speak to the prisoner. He found a glum looking Common Dog sitting on his bed in a six by nine guardhouse cell with only the strap-iron bed and a bucket for his necessaries as company. The Indian had almost fully recovered from his wound but still wore a wide bandage wrapped around his middle. He wrinkled his nose distastefully as Ender entered the cell.

  “I smell weak white blood,” he said, his glum features unmoving. “Pale like your face, En-da.”

  Ender knew then it was not going to be an easy conversation but not to be put off he decided on a tactful approach.

  “I brung you some tobacco,” he said, offering the peace offering.

  “Keep your gifts, half-white. I want nothing from you.”

  “Look, Common Dog. It was not me who put the bullet in you. If you remember if was you nearly put one in me.”

  “You have put me in here though,” the Indian snarled. “I could not even get out to help my mother on her journey to the spirit world.”

  “Yeah,” sighed Ender. “I heard about that, my condolences on your loss.”

  “I miss the sky, white man,” Common Dog stole a look at the small barred window to the cell. “I need to breath free air again, this place is killing me.”

  “They’ll get to it soon enough.”

  “But when? Each day is like a year trapped in this box.”

  Ender then saw a chink in the Indian’s armor and he thought to soften Common Dog’s resistance towards him. “Why don’t you tell me what happened? Might be I can help.”

  “How can you help? You are the one who has locked me away.”

  “I just brought you in. That’s my job. I don’t make the judgment as to right and wrong, there’ll be a court to decide that. But your case can be pleaded, your words can be heard.”

  “No one here speaks the tongue of the Apache, how can they hear my words?”

  “Because I will say them for you.”

  Common Dog thought that one over in silence. He was a young man, only a few years older than Catowitch, although not as pretty as she. His hair was long and tangled and hung down over his shoulders. He was still naked to the waist with the bandage around his middle and an army horse blanket covering his shoulders, his pants were torn and his moccasins holed. He looked in a sorry state and Ender determined that Chatowitch should bring him some fresh clothes.

  “I will tell you,” he decided.

  Ender squatted Indian style and rolled a spill of the tobacco he had brought for Common Dog, he lit it, puffed a while and offered the cigarette to the Indian. Common Dog sniffed, thought about it, then took the butt and drew on it. He exhaled a cloud of smoke and nodded appreciatively. “It is good,” he allowed.

  “Tell me then,” said Ender.

  “It was this way,” he began, holding the cigarette upright between thumb and forefinger and jabbing it in the air to impress a point. “I had the allotment of cattle that the army gave me. It was three cows and I drove them from the fort to the reservation. On the road was this man, the one they call Jed Quinlan. He was a tall man, thin like a reed and he wore a big black hat with a wide brim. He came up to me and said – Those are fine cattle you have there, red man. Will you sell them to me? – And I said, no, the milk cow is for my family, my mother is sick and can only take milk to drink, the others are for the People, so I need these cows.

  He was not impressed, this Quinlan and he began to badger me saying – Come on redskin, don’t be like that. You can spare those cows; you can always get more from the army. I said, no, it cannot be. Then he got angry and he said – How about I bust your head and take those cows? I said, let me pass I want no trouble with you. Then he took out his gun and held it on me and threatened to kill me. So, I killed him instead.”

  “But then you took his hat, that was a foolish thing to do,” said Ender.

  “Sure I took his hat, it was a good hat and he had no further use for it.”

  “But then everybody knew it was you that had killed him.”

  “Why not? It was a fair fight and he tried to rob me.”

  Ender balanced his arms on his bent knees and chewed his bottom lip. “That will not help you in the white man’s eyes. Nobody else saw the fight, it is only your word that tells them it was so.”

  Common Dog shrugged and sipped on the cigarette. “I do not lie.”

  “What happened to the cows?” asked Ender, giving up on the cultural differences.

  “As I have said, two I gave to the People. The one I kept for my mother.”

  “Then you ran away.”

  Common Dog nodded agreement. “Yes, they sent soldiers to arrest me, what else could
I do?”

  Ender rose to his feet. “Very well, I will tell the white chief what you have told me. Maybe he will believe your story.”

  “I think it will take more than that.”

  “I guess so,” Ender agreed. “How about I go visit the man’s brother? Maybe he will see the truth of it and release you from the charge.”

  “You would do that?” Common Dog asked doubtfully.

  “I will do it.”

  Slowly Common Dog stubbed out the cigarette on the earth floor. “Give me more tobacco,” he said.

  It was a sign of his softening towards Ender and he knew it was the moment to present his case. “I have a thing I would ask of you.”

  The Indian looked up at him balefully and jerked his chin. “Speak,” he said, realizing with chagrin that one good turn was going to call for another in return.

  “Your sister, Chatowitch. I would take her as wife, what would you wish in bride price that I might do so?”

  Common Dog thought about it a long time and Ender waited patiently.

  “It will be this way,” the Indian said finally. “You will do as you promise and see the dead man’s brother, the one called Able Quinlan. You will tell him all I have said and see if he will accept the truth of it.”

  “I will do it,” said Ender solemnly.

  “Then you can take Chatowitch as your wife but only if you take her sister Delsay to wife as well. For if you fail and the white men kill me for the slaying there will be no one to care for them.”

  “Chatowitch has a sister!” Ender was stunned, he had no knowledge of another member of the family and Chatowitch had never mentioned her. But, two wives instead of one! He knew it was an acceptable state amongst the Apache as many warriors had more than one wife. He decided quickly, thinking the girl could be no more than a child. “Then it shall be so,” he promised. “I will do all that you ask.”

  “Huh!” grunted Common Dog, making a pass with his hand. “It is agreed.” Which was a firm seal of approval in the Apache way and could not be broken under pain of retribution.

  Chatowitch was well pleased with the result and agreed readily to carry new clothing to her brother and fetch her sister from the reservation. Ender prepared himself to visit the Quinlan ranch and on the next day taking a pack mule and his Winchester instead of the shotgun, he set off.

  Quinlan’s property was some days away and all that he had gleaned from men at the fort did not prepare him for the immensity of the place when he arrived.

  He took the Tucson road and followed the Butterfield Stage route west, turning off south towards the town of Sierra Vista and eventually he came to the one hundred and thirty thousand acre Quinlan Ranch that lay spread between the Santa Rita Mountains and the San Pedro river. A vast tract of land covered with cattle and horse, it was said that Quinlan kept over forty thousand cows on the property and had an army of vaqueros to maintain them.

  The long verdant valley occupied by the main ranch house was about a half mile wide and full of luxuriant growth. A twenty-foot wide stream, which was a tributary from the Coronado River ran through it midst and alongside the flowing water grew a profusion of willows and cottonwoods. The valley walls rose on each side and enclosed the stream, their slopes covered with scrub and wild oak. At the end of the spine that crested the valley on its eastern side the rocky wall ended in an abrupt cliff that dropped perpendicularly and overlooked the cleared ground surrounding the ranch.

  Ender followed a well-used track running beside the stream until the ranch house came into sight. It had been built on the old fortified hacienda style. Thick, fifteen-foot high adobe walls surrounded the house and Ender could see guards situated on the fighting platform that roofed the rooms below, all of which surrounded a large courtyard inside beyond the massive gates.

  At one end a high square tower rose above the property and a call went out from the lookout posted there at his approach. Ender made his way to the high gates situated facing him at the northern front of the walls and was met there by a trio of vaqueros.

  The small tubby man who held his hand up to halt Ender in an imperious manner, was a strutting Mexican unarmed except for a glinting saber at his side but he was backed by two armed companions who carried rifles and held them as if they meant business. The Mexican came forward with one hand on his hip and posed dramatically. He was over dressed in a broad silver trimmed sombrero and much fancier looking clothes than his companions.

  “What do you want here, gringo?” he asked as Ender drew up.

  “I’d like to see Mister Quinlan.”

  “And what is your business with the jefe?” the Mexican asked, eyeing Ender up and down disdainfully.

  “That’s between me and him and not you,” Ender answered, not perturbed in the slightest by the officious tones of the creature who obviously considered his position as gatekeeper of major importance.

  The Mexican bristled and brushed at the small mustache above his upper lip with one finger. “What is your name? You who comes with this business.”

  “My name is Ender Smith. Now run along and tell your boss ‘cos I’m hot and dry and not about to put up with your nonsense, so get to it, mi pequeño pavo real.”

  The guard huffed at the insult and with a mean glance at Ender, rattled instructions off to one of the others, who left at the trot to carry out the order.

  Whilst they waited, Ender sat hunched dourly over his pommel and the Mexican marched up and down in front of him his saber rattling in its metal scabbard, occasionally he stared daggers up at Ender from beneath the shadow of his sombrero.

  “You have a loose mouth, senor.” He muttered eventually.

  “And you have a big ass,” Ender came back sharply. “Be careful I don’t pull it up over your ears.”

  The Mexican huffed and continued his patrol, he paused and was about to say more when the messenger returned and with a sharp nod of his head the gatekeeper begrudgingly bade Ender enter.

  “I will be watching you, gringo,” the Mexican muttered as Ender passed.

  Sometimes it was hard for Ender to forget the many scalping atrocities for bounty the Mexicans had carried out against the Apache, whom he still thought of as his own people, but he bit back on a retort, passing by with only a hard stare from his gray eyes at the man and fixing his face in his memory.

  As he entered the large courtyard beyond the gateway, Ender took note of the adobe buildings that surrounded the yard and the profusion of colorful flowers that grew prettily in beds and in pots. Men loitered in the shade of a giant cottonwood growing in the center above a low-walled well. They looked a rough bunch, a mix of Anglos and Mexicans, all of them well armed.

  A house servant ran forward as he approached and stopped before him.

  “Senor Smith, Mister Quinlan will see you in the house. You can leave your horse here it will be taken care of. Please, will you follow me?”

  Ender dismounted and as a matter of habit, took his Winchester from its scabbard and carried it slung in the crook of his arm. He followed the servant to a long, low building with a wide veranda and as he stepped up onto the porch a guard stepped forward and shook his head.

  “There are no weapons permitted in the house. I am sorry, senor.”

  With a shrug, Ender handed over the Winchester and undid his gun belt. “You be sure I get them back when I leave, you hear?”

  The guard nodded and Ender followed the servant inside.

  Able Quinlan sat, with one leg thrown up over the arm of a throne-like chair. Everything in the long, low-ceilinged room encouraged regal splendor with the rancher appearing at the end of the ornately decorated room on a stepped dais above a highly polished dark-wood floor. Behind him an arched and pillared doorway allowed sight of an enclosed garden outside and a woman at work there. She was a tall, well-proportioned creature, a white woman with a wide straw hat against the sun that hid her face.

  Quinlan was in conversation with the man that Ender had met earlier on the road to the fort.
The man with the scarred face and Sharps rifle, Cyrus Land.

  Both turned as Ender made his entrance and trekked the long distance towards Quinlan on his throne.

  “So, it’s Ender Smith, the Deputy Marshal from Fort Bowie,” Quinlan said as Ender came into earshot.

  “Mister Quinlan,” Ender answered politely.

  Quinlan was elegantly dressed in a loose cotton shirt that he wore outside of wide-bottomed black Mexican pants decorated in silver thread and shining concho discs. He was a clean-shaven, slender, fine-featured man with long reddish tinted fair hair that he wore bound at the back with a leather thong. Around his neck was a loose fitting and brightly colored bandana that covered one shoulder flamboyantly.

  “Normally,” Quinlan said with a faint air of reprimand. “Men who come into my house remove their hats.”

  Ender obliged with an inclination of his head in apology as Quinlan lowered his leg from the chair arm and turned his full attention in Ender’s direction.

  “I believe you and Cyrus here have already met?”

  Ender met the gaze of the small-headed man who looked back at him with cool equanimity.

  “We have,” Ender agreed.

  “You’ve come a fair lick to see me, Mister Smith. What can I do for you?”

  “It’s about the Indian, Common Dog,” Ender began.

  “You mean the murdering assassin of my brother,” Quinlan cut in.

  “That has yet to be proven, sir.”

  “Well, Jed’s dead isn’t he?” Quinlan asked, cocking his head to one side.

  “He is,” Ender agreed.

  “So, he’s dead at an Indian’s hand. What’s more to say? Other than I would like to have that redskin here in my possession to exact righteous justice for a murder done to my family.”

  “He claims different,” said Ender. “It appears from his account that your brother fronted him on the trail and drew on him. Common Dog was unwilling to part with his reservation beeves and your brother was set to force his arm by shooting him on the spot and taking the cattle for himself. It was an act of self defense.”