On the one hand, Clay was elated by the news. Increasing the size of the band was crucial. In order for the Apaches to carry the fight to the whites who had usurped their land, they needed to be stronger.
But on the other hand, Clay was wary of a trap. Palacio was as crafty a devil as had ever lived, and Clay would not put it past him to cook up a scheme to lure Delgadito to his doom. He said as much, adding, “Did you know this messenger? Is he someone you can trust?”
“His name is Klo-sen. Hair Rope, in your tongue,” Delgadito said. “I have known him many winters, even before I broke away from Palacio and led my band into Mexico. Yes, I believe he can be trusted.”
“I hope you are right for your sake.”
Ponce picked that moment to cut in. “If Delgadito is going to the village, I will go with him.”
Although no one responded, Delgadito thought that it would be safer if he went alone. Yet he did not have the right to refuse permission. No warrior did. Any Shis-Inday, as the Apaches called themselves, was free to do as he pleased at all times.
Clay knew that the young warrior wanted to see the maiden he had been courting. He racked his brain for some way of persuading Ponce to stay, but to no avail.
Just then feet pattered toward them. Up rushed a tall, skinny Mexican woman in a buckskin dress she had made with her own hands. Her name was Delores, and she was one of those taken from the conduta.
Fiero, of all people, had claimed her as his own.
At the time, he had done so in the hope she would die before they reached their sanctuary He had not wanted a wife, no matter what White Apache said about taking one being important to the future of his people. He had figured that a woman so thin and frail would never last long. But she had proven him wrong.
Deep in his heart, Fiero was proud of her. He would never admit as much to her, much less the other warriors, but he had been pleased to find she was so tough, so adaptable. Of all the women, she had taken to Apache ways the quickest. Not once had she given Fiero the slightest trouble. Not once had he any reason to regret his decision.
Fixing her with a glare, Fiero said, “What are you doing here, woman? This is man talk. I have told you not to pester me when I am in council.”
Delores Garcia knew her man well. Bowing her head before him and dropping to one knee, she said contritely, “I am sorry to disturb you, but it is important.”
Pleased by her deference, Fiero motioned. “Say what you have to say.”
Holding up a handful of flowers, Delores said, “I was near the entrance to our valley, picking these so our lodge would look nice for you —”
“I do not care about such things “Fiero said gruffly, embarrassed that she would even hint that he did in front of his companions.
“I ask your forgiveness again,” Delores said. “But it is well that I was there because I heard horses at a distance. I climbed partway up the cliff and saw riders approaching. They wear blue uniforms.”
Fiero gripped his woman by the arm. “No mistake, neh? You are sure of this?”
“Have I ever lied to you?” Delores said.
Clay spun and hastened to his wickiup. Tethered behind it were the nine horses that belonged to him. Vaulting onto a black stallion he favored, he lashed the reins and galloped bareback to the south. Delgadito and Cuchillo Negro were ahead of him; Fiero and Ponce trailed.
It upset Clay immensely that the army might have located their refuge. Once before, that had happened, and they had been lucky to escape with their lives.
The valley was an ideal place to hide, but it had a serious drawback: There was only one way in or out. If the cavalry blocked the entrance, the band would be trapped.
High peaks rimmed the valley on all sides. To the south, a cliff towered. Only the Chiricahuas knew that there was a gap in the cliff, a winding path no wider than a horse through which the Apaches gained entrance to the verdant oasis.
Clay came to the base of the cliff and reined up. He was off the stallion and bounding up the slope next to the rock wall before the black stopped moving. Careful not to dislodge loose stones and dirt, he reached a narrow shelf near the top and crouched next to Delgadito and Cuchillo Negro. Warily, he peeked over the top.
Delores had told the truth. Over a hundred yards out were seven riders. Six of them were white men, soldiers in uniforms. The seventh was an Indian, but not an Apache, judging by his clothes and the way he wore his hair.
“A Maricopa,” Delgadito whispered in contempt.
Clay recollected that the Chiricahuas held the Maricopas in low esteem. Apparently the one below was more skilled than most, because he was leading the troopers straight for the gap in the cliff.
Three
Private James Calhoun, Detachment G, Fifth Cavalry, keenly wished he was anywhere other than where he happened to be. Gripping his carbine in both sweaty hands, he gulped as he stared at a towering rampart of stone that reared ahead. He had a bad feeling about what they were doing – a very bad feeling.
Staring hard at the top of the cliff, Calhoun could have sworn unseen eyes were looking back. How was it then, he wondered, that none of the others seemed to feel the same way, not even the Maricopa or the sergeant?
Calhoun wanted to call out, to warn them that they were making the biggest blunder of their lives, that they should ride back to fetch the captain and the rest of the patrol. But he held his tongue. He was fresh to the territory, only assigned to Fort Bowie two weeks earlier, and the older, seasoned soldiers regarded him as a rank greenhorn. If he started hollering, he’d never hear the end of it. And the sergeant would probably put him on report and punish him but good when the unit got back to the post.
No, Calhoun decided, it would be better to keep his mouth shut. Besides, for all he knew, his unease was spawned by a simple case of raw nerves. He had never been in combat, and the mere idea of tangling with a pack of savage Apaches was enough to make any sane man queasy.
It was just one of those days when everything went wrong. The morning had started off on a sour note and gotten worse as time went by. Shortly before daybreak, when the corporal had gone around rousing everyone out of the sack, Calhoun had sat up and shook himself, trying to stir life into his listless veins. Without thinking, he had picked up his right boot and started to slide his foot in. His toes had brushed something that wriggled, and there had been a sharp stinging sensation.
Yelping loud enough to raise the dead, Calhoun had shot erect. He had thrown the boot to the ground and jumped up and down on his left leg while clutching his right foot. A lot of the men had burst into laughter. Then a brawny hand had clamped on Calhoun’s shoulder, and he had found himself looking up at the ruddy complexion of Sergeant Paddy O’Shaughnessy.
“And what appears to be the trouble, boyo?” the burly soldier asked in a deceptively mild tone. “Bit by a rattler, were you?”
The suggestion terrified Calhoun. “I might have been, Sergeant!”
Showing his big, uneven teeth, O’Shaughnessy helped Calhoun sit. “Here then, take a seat, laddie, and we’ll see what all the fuss is about.” The sergeant picked up the boot and upended it.
Before Calhoun’s horrified eyes, out tumbled a large reddish-brown scorpion. He nearly fainted then and there. “Oh, Lord!” he wailed. “I was stung by one of those!”
O’Shaughnessy lifted a leg and smashed his boot heel down on the scorpion, squashing it to a pulp. Then he squatted to examine Calhoun’s foot. Under the big toe he found a thin red line. “The fates smiled on you, boyo.”
“They did?” Calhoun asked, gritting his teeth against the agony, certain his leg was going to swell up and turn several shades of black and blue. The surgeon at the post would likely have to amputate, he reasoned, and he would spend the rest of his days hobbling around on a crutch.
“You weren’t stung, lad,” the sergeant said.
“I wasn’t?” Calhoun asked doubtfully.
O’Shaughnessy touched the red line. “No, the critter pinched you with
one of those nasty pincers of his. That’s all.”
Calhoun gawked at his foot, relief washing over him in waves. “Thank God!” Only then did he realize the men around him were laughing at him.
Sergeant O’Shaughnessy leaned toward him and gripped him by the shirt. His next words were uttered in an icy calm that made them all the more chilling. “Now you listen to me, boyo, and you listen well. If you ever pull a jackass stunt like that again, I will personally see to it that you spend the next year peeling potatoes and cleaning the privy.”
“But—” Calhoun said, and O’Shaughnessy gave him a shake that rattled him to the bone.
“I’m not done,” the sergeant said. “Time and again I’ve told you new recruits to shake your boots and such out first thing in the morning when were in the field. Haven’t I, lad?”
Gulping, Calhoun meekly replied, “Yes, Sergeant.”
“Time and again I’ve also warned you not to make a lot of noise since we never know when the heathens might be about. Isn’t that true?”
“Yes, Sergeant.”
O’Shaughnessy patted Calhoun on the cheek. “Then be a good lad and get your kit together and be ready to move out with the rest of the patrol. If I hear another peep out of you, I will take you out behind the barracks when we get back and pound some sense into that silly wee head of yours just for the hell of it.”
Calhoun had counted himself lucky that he had gotten off with a tongue-lashing. Sergeant O’Shaughnessy was not notorious for having a sweet disposition. The sergeant’s favorite form of punishment was to have troopers bound and gagged and left out under the hot sun for eight to ten hours, or to make them jog around the parade ground for five or six hours toting a knapsack crammed with heavy rocks.
After his run in with O’Shaughnessy, Calhoun had dressed, made up his bedroll, and fallen in for roll call. Then, the men were required to water, groom and feed their mounts. Breakfast came last. As Calhoun was sitting in the shade of a boulder chewing on hardtack, O’Shaughnessy appeared at his side.
“Enjoying your meal, are you, boyo?” O’Shaughnessy said, and Calhoun was too shocked to answer. “Well, eat hearty, lad, because in fifteen minutes you are joining me for a little foray to the north.”
“I am?”
“The Injun claims he found some sign. Captain Eldritch doesn’t want the whole patrol to go traipsing off on a possible wild-goose chase. So he’s sending me to investigate. And I get to pick the five men who will go along. You came to mind right away, what with us being such good friends after our little heart-to-heart talk earlier.”
Calhoun had wanted to pound his forehead against the boulder. One of the first lessons any army recruit learned was to never draw attention to himself. There was no surer way to earn extra duty.
And there Calhoun was, an hour out from camp, his nerves stretched as tight as violin strings, bringing up the rear as the Indian led the soldiers ever deeper into a terrible maze of canyons and gorges the likes of which the inexperienced private had never imagined existed. In Calhoun’s estimation, they were wasting their time. Nothing could live in that godforsaken country. There was little water for miles around and scant vegetation, save for dry, withered brush. He couldn’t understand why O’Shaughnessy didn’t turn them around and head for the spot where they would rendezvous with the main patrol.
Calhoun raised an arm to mop his sweaty brow with his sleeve. As he began to lower it, he glimpsed a bright flash of light near the top of the cliff. A strange pinpoint glare for which he had no logical explanation.
Suddenly Sergeant O’Shaughnessy stiffened, his gazed fixed on the same spot. Seconds before a rifle boomed loud and clear, he bawled out, “Scatter, boyos! Scatter! The heathens have us in their sights!”
Moments earlier, high up on the shelf, young Ponce had leapt to his feet and taken a hasty bead on one of the bluecoats. In his eagerness to draw first blood, he failed to take into account that the sun might reflect off his rifle and give him away.
Clay Taggart realized it, though, and a fraction too late, he whispered, “Ponce! No!”
Taggart and the warriors would have been better off if they’d allowed the Maricopa and the soldiers to come on through the gap. Then they could have jumped their enemies one by one. Since the element of surprise had been lost, the only effective plan was to wipe out every last trooper quickly.
Rising, Clay saw that a lanky soldier was already down, bleeding profusely from a side wound but still alive. The rest were turning to flee. Several snapped their carbines up to return fire. Clay aimed at a large man wearing the yellow stripes of a sergeant. As Taggart stroked the trigger, the man’s horse plunged, spooked by the gunfire. The slug intended for the soldier’s chest cored his shoulder instead.
Down below, Private Calhoun, rigid with fear, saw Sergeant O’Shaughnessy sway as blood spurted from his broad back. Calhoun’s first impulse was to dash to the sergeant’s side. But everyone else was retreating, and the sergeant himself continued to roar that they should get the hell out of there.
Figuring that the experienced soldier knew best, Calhoun flailed his mount with his legs as he turned it to race off. He saw Sergeant O’Shaughnessy ride over to Private Webber, who was on his knees with a side wound. O’Shaughnessy leaned down to haul Webber up behind him.
“Hee-yah!” Calhoun cried, urging his sorrel into a gallop. He glanced back just in time to see O’Shaughnessy arch his back and shudder as if cold. Aghast, Calhoun watched the sergeant let go of Webber, slump forward, and go limp.
Private Webber, cursing a blue streak, had tottered backward. In a panic, he flung his carbine down and leapt, grabbing hold of the sergeant.
Calhoun was stupefied to see Webber yank O’Shaughnessy from the saddle. He slowed, thinking he would go to the sergeant’s aid, when it occurred to him that O’Shaughnessy was dead and that Webber was only trying to get out of there alive. He saw Webber grip the saddle horn with both hands. Then Webber began to pull himself up. Suddenly, the other private’s head jerked back as if to a heavy blow, and he toppled.
Calhoun fled for dear life. Everything had gone so wrong so fast. Two good men dead, and they hadn’t even seen their attackers!
Looking around, Calhoun discovered his fellow troopers were speeding rapidly southward. Prine and Baker had veered off to the left. Grissom was off to the right. Calhoun faced front and spied the Maricopa a dozen yards ahead. Since it made sense that the scout would be able to find his way back to the column without any problem, Calhoun stuck with the Indian.
The private counted himself fortunate to be alive. In less than an hour he would be back with Captain Eldritch and the others, and all would be well. Thrilled by his narrow escape, he glanced over a shoulder for one last look at Sergeant O’Shaughnessy.
Calhoun’s heart skipped a beat. From out of the cliff wall, as if by magic, three riders appeared. He didn’t know a lot about Indians, but he knew enough to recognize the trio for what they were: Apaches.
Clay Taggart and the Chiricahuas had gone down the slope on the fly the second they saw that some of the troopers were getting away. Springing onto the black stallion, Clay paused long enough to shout, “We cannot all go! Some of us should stay to protect the women in case other soldiers show up.
The Chiricahuas stopped. Ponce and Fiero commenced to argue over which one of them should remain.
Even though Clay was the acknowledged leader of the band, he had no right to tell he others what to do. All he could do was suggest and hope the others went along with his suggestion.
“Ponce, you and Cuchillo Negro should stay here!” Clay shouted, then took the lead, speeding through the gap as swiftly as the winding passage allowed. Once in the open, he gave the stallion its head.
Delgadito and Fiero were right behind him. Delgadito saw a trooper bearing to the southwest. Yipping like a coyote, he was off in pursuit. Fiero, spying a pair of white-eyes in flight to the southeast, whooped and peeled off to chase them down.
That l
eft Clay with a young trooper and the Maricopa. It was plain that he would not be able to overtake them within a short amount of time. So he held the stallion to a brisk trot, conserving its energy for when the mounts of the soldier and the warrior tired.
Swirls of dust kicked from under the hooves of the troopers sorrel and the Maricopa’s pinto. The former looked back, saw Clay, and went as white as a sheet.
Calhoun was petrified. He had only been at Fort Bowie a short while, but in that time he had heard scores of gory stories about Apaches and the atrocities they committed on whites they caught. A grizzled veteran had told him of finding a prospector whose heart had been carved out while the prospector was still alive. A lieutenant had mentioned finding a trader who had been tied to a wagon wheel and turned upside down over a roaring fire.
Calhoun’s mouth went dry. His imagination got the better of him. In his mind’s eye, he saw himself being hacked to bits. Then he envisioned being tied to an anthill and having red ants poured down his throat and over his eyes and nose.
“No!” Calhoun spurred the sorrel to go faster even though the animal was already running flat out. He realized he was still holding his carbine. Twisting, he tried to settle his sights on the Apache, but the bobbing motion of his mount threw his aim off. Behind him, the Apache grinned.
“Damn you to hell!” Calhoun returned to the business of getting away with his hide intact. He had hard riding to do. The scout had gained some ground, and Calhoun was not about to lose the man. That Maricopa was his sole hope of rejoining the patrol and returning to Fort Bowie safely. Sooner or later the Apache would grow tired of following them and give up. A long chase would not hold his interest.
According to the older troopers Calhoun had talked to, Apaches were masters of the lightning raid. They liked to attack like a bolt out of the blue, then melt into the wilderness before anyone was the wiser. Calhoun had only heard of one instance where Apaches had pursued a man for any length of time, and that had been a fellow riding a magnificent horse that the Apaches wanted to get their hands on.
White Apache 10 Page 3
