Tonio-Son of the Sierras

by King, Charles

  "Do they never bother you stealing or—some way?" asked the general, with an anxious glance at the two sturdy little ranchers, five and three-year-old Bennetts, rolling and wrestling in the sand, showing off for the benefit of the visitors.

  "'Patchie Mohaves?" asked Bennett, looking up in surprise. "Never have! You know I drove mule team to the agency two years ago, and sort of grew to them. Why, Minnie, now, thinks as much of them, or most, as she does of the boys at the post. They're a sort of police, sir. The Tontos don't dare come down so long as the Mohaves are about here."

  "I know," said the general reflectively. "Yet some few bucks drifted off to the Tontos, and the agent's been raising a row because so many of them roost down here instead of staying on the reservation, bringing in game. Did you know that two bands were out—women and all—without permits, and that was one thing that brought Lieutenant Harris and his scouts up here?"

  "Well, that accounts for our having seen none of them for over two weeks. They must have gone clean out to the Mesa. General," he continued anxiously, "they don't like their agent, or that agency. They're herded in there with Apache Yumas and sick Tontos and Sierra Blancas—fellows that get better treatment because they're bigger devils and raise merry hell. I know 'em and the agent don't. I'd move in to the post if they were out, but we're safe with the 'Patchie Mohaves."

  That was what poor Bennett was saying not twelve hours earlier, and now the homelike ranch had gone up in flames, and Bennett, wailed the dago, lay butchered among the ruins. So, too, the negro. The Maricopa boys had fled only, probably, to be run down and killed, but what had become of the poor, helpless little wife and mother, with her bonny, blue-eyed boys, God alone knew.

  By this time half the enlisted strength of the post was up and out and flocking to hear the tidings. Bentley, the surgeon, had shuffled over in his slippered feet and was giving Dago first aid to the demoralized in the shape of aguardiente Americano, that made him sputter and sneeze, but speedily braced him. The adjutant hurried over to call the commanding officer, passing Harris on the way, and Harris, already in campaign dress, was hastening to the camp of his scouts. Turner, silent and sombre, as was his wont, had elbowed his way through the throng and stood glowering at Dago and the beetled-browed Muñoz, as though weighing them in mental balance, and finding both wanting. Mrs. Stannard, through the blinds, had hailed the adjutant as he went bounding by to say the captain would be out in a moment. Already Wettstein had told them the fearful news. The adjutant stepped inside the open hallway at the general's and banged on the swinging door of the little front room, answered almost instantly by the subdued and gentle voice of Mrs. Archer from the head of the stairs. The general was sound asleep. Was it necessary to wake him?

  Strong expected as much. Not once a month did that genial veteran permit himself an over-indulgence, but, when he did, the quicker he slept it off the better. He had taken his night-cap and turned in betimes, so as to be up at reveille. But Strong knew what the "Old Man" would say to him later if he failed to rouse him now. "It's immediate, Mrs. Archer," said he. "We have bad news from Bennett's Ranch."

  A pale, frightened, white little face had come peering over the motherly shoulder at the moment, even whiter in the flickering light of Mrs. Archer's candle, and at sound of the name there went up a low cry of distress.

  "Oh, Mr. Strong, is it Mrs. Bennett—or the boys?"

  "We don't—know—yet, Miss Archer. The dago's here, scared to death; galloped all the way with a story of an Indian raid. I'm hoping it isn't as bad as he thinks. God forgive me the lie," he added under his breath.

  "But they haven't hurt her? They surely would not hurt her!" came the piteous wail, as the girl clung to the rude balustrade, while her mother hastened to rouse the sleeping warrior. "Heaven pity her," thought Strong, "unless they have killed her outright and not carried her away."

  Then came a step in the hall behind him, and Willett was there, alert and resourceful. "Pray don't be troubled yet, Miss Archer," he called reassuringly, and barely noticing Strong. "The messenger's been stampeded before this, the men tell me. He's too badly scared to know the truth. It may be there's been a fire. I think there has, for the light could be seen, and so he imagined Indians and never stopped to see. I'm going right up there and will send back word. Please don't worry yet!"

  How thoughtful he was for her, and for dear mamma! How kind! Strong knew full well that the light they had seen was the glare of no burning ranch, but a beacon far up in the hills—a signal fire, of course. The ranch lay in a deep valley ten miles to the north-east, with high ridges intervening. In the brilliant moonlight a glare that might otherwise have been seen on the sky would pass unnoted. Strong knew, deep down in his heart, that whatever the fate of the family, the ranch was a thing of the past, but Willett's words were soothing. It was better to let them go unquestioned.

  Then out came the general on the landing above, his towzled gray poll poking over the rail. "What is it, Strong? I'll be down quick as I can half dress." Indeed, he was losing no instant of time, though it cost him some items of toilet. With his feet in "flip-flaps," his legs in loose linen trousers, and buttoning a sack coat over his nightgown, the veteran was already shuffling downstairs. "Run back to your room, dear," he said, as he passed his little girl. "You shall know everything presently," and then in a moment was out in the free air of heaven, the two young officers with him.

  Briefly, cautiously, the adjutant murmured the dago's story, adding his fear as to its truth. Blankly Archer looked at them an instant, aghast, appalled, as well he might be, and for the moment unable or unwilling to trust himself to speak. There had been no time, he said, to souse his head in the big basin of cool water his wife would have given him. He was still heated, flushed, suddenly roused from heavy slumber, and by no means at his best. Strong knew just how to act in the premises and would have given him time to recover, but there was Willett, alert and insistent,—Willett who represented the commanding general, and whose words carried weight—Willett who was quick to seize the opportunity and to say:

  "This is just in line with what we thought at headquarters, sir, and the quicker I can get to the spot the better. With your consent, general, I'll push out at once with the scouts, and we'll get back word to you before daylight."

  And even Strong, loyal soul, had to admit later that the general's answer was practically "Yes, yes, by all means, Willett, and I'll send a troop in support," whereupon Willett darted away to the adjutant's quarters to doff his natty uniform and don something older and more suitable. Twenty minutes thereafter he had swung a leg over one of Stannard's troop horses and spurred away down to the north-eastward slope, toward the upper ford of the stream, where dimly in the distance another horseman could be seen, with a dozen shadowy, ghost-like forms gliding along in tireless jog trot in line with him—Harris and his mountain hounds, the Apache scouts, already en route for the scene of disaster. Bentley, Stannard and Turner, standing at the edge of the bluff, with fourscore soldiers clustered about them, while others had gone with Dago to hear again his tale, gazed thoughtfully after the disappearing shadows and then at each other.

  "Humph!" said Stannard, in words meant for his fellows, but in tones that went farther. "There'll be conflict of authority now or I'm a duffer!"

  Ten minutes they stood and watched; then came the orderly with the general's compliments, and he'd be glad to see Captain Stannard at once.

  "That means you're going, Stan," said the surgeon. "I suppose he'll send my assistant with you."

  They found the commanding officer on the porch of his quarters, very grave and quiet now, perfectly calm and self-possessed. The dago had squatted at the edge of the steps, his face bowed in his hands, shivering as though from cold. Muñoz slouched near by, eying him in aggressive contempt. Several sergeants, with many of the men, were grouped at respectful distance, eager and waiting the word. Strong was with the ladies, for Mrs. Stannard had dressed hurriedly and come over, and between them the two elder
s were gently striving to console or encourage Lilian, who had been quite overcome by the particulars as translated by Muñoz. The dago claimed that from his pallet, under the "linter" of the corral, he had been roused by the sudden yell at the ranch, followed by swift shooting, screams and cries of Mrs. Bennett and the children, the outburst of flame, and then he saw them, the Indians, coming for him, and he sprang on the best horse and lashed him all the way to the post.

  Stannard came at the moment, solid, stocky, and reliable—a man it was a comfort to look at in moments of peril or excitement, and such moments were frequent in the old days of the frontier. Silently he saluted, stood before the commander and received his brief orders—mount the troop, follow the scouts, and if it should appear that Mrs. Bennett and the children had been carried off by the Indians, to pursue and do his best to recapture. Rations would follow by mule train.

  Stannard had just one question to ask.

  "Shall I call on Mr. Harris or Mr. Willett for scouts, sir?" And even then it was noted that he named Harris first.

  "Why—on Mr. Harris. He is in command."

  "Very good, sir," said Stannard, and turned on his heel. Mrs. Stannard, hastily kissing Lilian's pale and tear-wet cheek, started to follow, but through the little knots of soldiery a strange figure came forcing a way, a lithe Apache on resentful mule—'Tonio, already back from the front, a little folded paper in his hand. Lashing the obstinate brute he bestrode, 'Tonio dove straight at the general, and all men waited to learn the tidings. Hastily Archer opened the paper, glanced it over in the moonlight, looked up, and nodded to Stannard.

  "Willett says from round the point they can see two more signal fires toward the north-east, just the way to the Apache Mohaves!"

  Then came a dramatic incident. Sitting his saddle mule like a chief of the Sioux, 'Tonio straightened to his full height, his strong face gleaming in the brilliant, silvery sheen, his bare right arm, with clinching fist uplifted, and in a voice that rang out like a clarion on the hushed and breathless night, shouted his response for his people:

  "Apache Mohave! No! No! No!"

  CHAPTER VI.

  Barely a mile away to the north-east of the site of old Camp Almy a ridge of rock and shale stretches down from the foothills of the Black Mesa and shuts off all view of the rugged, and ofttimes jagged, landscape beyond—all save the peaks and precipitous cliffs of the Mogollon, and some of the pine-crested heights that hem the East Fork. Time was, toward the fag end of the Civil War, when the volunteers from the "Coast" kept a lookout on the point, a practice that yielded more scalps to the Indians than security to the inmates. The system, therefore, fell into disuse, and the post became unpopular because of the mutilated condition in which the pickets were twice found by the relief, and the amount of reliable information received from the point never quite paid for the cost. With the disappearance of the Tontos, who were not such fools as their Spanish name implied, the practice of stationing outlying sentries was dropped. The Tontos seemed to have abandoned the valley to their distant cousins, the Apache-Mohaves, whose presence there, in small, itinerant parties, was objected to less by the few scattered settlers than by the one badgered agent at the distant reservation.

  This, at least, was the case at first. Bennett and Sowerby, from above Camp Almy, and two others from below, found them friendly and peaceable. But presently complaints were heard from settlers over at McDowell, in the Verde Valley to the west, and other settlers away up the Verde toward Camp Sandy. Then Sowerby swore his stock was run off, and Bennett presently remained the only ranchman to stand up for them. The agent declared them contumacious and tricky. Other whites—Arizona white was then a reddish-brown—added their evil word to the official's. It was the old adage over again: "Give a dog a bad name," etc., and the department commander had sent for scouts to coax them in, before despatching troops to enforce their coming, and Harris had found nobody—nothing but abandoned rancherias and unsavory relics.

  And then had come the tidings of a clash—the killing of Comes Flying, son of a chief, and brother to a tribal leader, and then in reprisal, probably, the burning of Bennett's home and the butchery of Bennett. Then Harris had stayed not a moment, but, acting on the understanding of the previous evening, had gone forth at once.

  It is well to be prompt, yet oftentimes wise to be prompted. Post commanders like to be able to say in their reports, "I ordered" this, or "By my direction" that, and Harris had gone at the word of alarm without other word with the general.

  That Harris was to choose his own time was the understanding between them when they parted, almost affectingly, at night, for between the snake episode and the successive toddies the good old gentleman was quite effusive. There would have been, probably, no change in the instructions had Harris started at reveille or even at dawn. But to "pull out" at midnight, with the situation changed and without another word with the commander, was something open to criticism. Moreover, Harris knew it.

  But he had two reasons, neither of which might count with a court of his peers, but were of mighty account to him. 'Tonio had come to him actually ablaze with indignation. 'Tonio had said his people were accused when his people were innocent. 'Tonio had begged that they start at once, and he would show it was not Apache-Mohaves at fault. He would show who were the real raiders, and might even rescue the prisoners. So Harris never hesitated. Leaving a brief note in the hands of Dr. Bentley, he had ridden away with 'Tonio and a dozen of his best, only to be overtaken a mile or so out by the man of all others he least desired to see. Hal Willett was the second reason Harris had for wishing to get well away. If ever there came opportunity for a man to step in, and upon, another man's plans and purposes, Harold Willett could be relied upon to take it. Harris knew him of old, knew instinctively that, if a possible thing, his classmate, ever selfish and self-seeking, would rob him of the fruits of his long service with the scouts, and would not scruple in such an emergency to take over the command.

  Harris was right. Just as the leaders rounded the huge shoulder of hillside jutting so boldly to the bank of the stream, and were eagerly pointing to the two distant flames far up in the foothills, Willett came galloping to his side. "Signal fires, of course!" said he. "It's just as I said, and this fellow of yours denied. They're making for the Mesa. I'll send back word at once." With that he set to scribbling a note on a page of his scouting book, then again galloped forward, catching Harris and 'Tonio riding side by side.

  "Tell 'Tonio to take this straight to General Archer," said he.

  Then Harris turned on him:

  "I don't recognize your right to order my scouts about, Willett. I need 'Tonio here."

  "You'll have him again in twenty minutes," was the conciliatory answer. "This is by Archer's own order, Harris. I've come straight from his side. Otherwise I'll interfere with you as little as possible."

  And Harris, with one look of distrust in his comrade's flushing face, turned quietly to 'Tonio, said barely ten words to his second, not one to his senior, then bitterly spurred ahead.

  He was not the first man in the profession of arms to realize what it is to faithfully and persistently labor to develop, instruct and discipline a body of men until he and they are working in absolute accord, all the intricate parts of the human machine nicely adjusted and moving without the faintest friction, and then to find himself at the eleventh hour set to one side, a stranger to his men and a rival to himself set in his stead, and be bidden to move on as a sort of martial second fiddle, while the credit and reward go to the new first violin. Nor was Harris the last by any manner of means. As General Archer had himself been heard to say, "One essential of military preferment is a knowledge of the game of euchre—your neighbor." Couple this with utter indifference to the rights of fellow-soldiers, and a catlike capacity to work by stealth in the dark, and there is no starry altitude to which one may not aspire. Harris made the same mistake older soldiers had sometimes made in higher commands, that of sticking to their own men, and duties, without ke
eping an eye on, and a friend at, headquarters. Anomalous as it may sound, the absent are ever wrong, even when "present for duty," where they should be. If Harris that night had only gone to headquarters instead of his camp; had stopped to see the general instead of starting promptly to the rescue, there would have been less to tell by way of a story.

  Possibly a realization of this had already come over him, as angering yet unswerving, he once again overtook the eager leaders among his scouts,—lean, wiry fellows, ever gliding swiftly on in that tireless Apache running walk. Once there again, he kept his broncho at the trot to hold his own, and a broncho trot, after a mile or two of warming up, becomes something besides monotonous. Away to the far front, the north-east, flickered the tiny blazes; guiding lights, as Willett would have it; bale fires, as Harris began to believe—fires set by confederates to blind the eye of the pursuit, or lure pursuers to a trap. Away to the far front, seven miles now, and deep in a nook of the foothills, lay the site of Bennett's ruined ranch, and thither, at top speed of his scouts, was the young leader pressing. Not even a dull glow in the heavens above, or a spark on the earth beneath, could the sharp-eyed scouts discover to tell of its lonely fate. Only the dago's horrified words, only the confirmative symptoms of these farther fires, had these fly-by-night rescuers to warrant their mission. The story had its probable side. Peaceable as had been the Apache-Mohaves, the fact that a clash had occurred between them and some of the agent's forces,—a clash in which Comes Flying had been killed,—might readily turn the scale and send them on the war-path. If so, the first and nearest whites were apt to be the victims. If so, Bennett and his beloved wife and boys might well have been murdered in their beds—or spared for a harsher fate. In any event, the first duty—the obvious one—for Harris and his scouts was to reach the spot with all speed; ascertain, if possible, the fate of the ranch folk, then act as their discoveries might direct. All this Harris was turning over in mind as he hurried ahead. The road, though little worn, was distinct, and now that they were out of the bottom and skirting the stony bed of a little mountain stream, quite firm and dry. Six miles an hour, easily, his swarthy, half-naked fellows were making without ever "turning a hair." His own lean broncho, long trained to such work, scrambled along in that odd, short-legged trot, and Harris himself, trained to perfection, hard and dry, all sinewy strength, rode easily along—he could have done almost as well afoot—at the head of his men, keeping them to their pace, yet never overdriving.