Tonio-Son of the Sierras

by King, Charles

  Then suddenly Lilian stopped and lifted her head. "I hear now," said she. "It's coming!" Across the hall stealthily they sped, and together were presently peering from the southward window in Mrs. Archer's room. Two dim figures could be seen crossing the flat from the direction of the ford, coming straight for the low point of the mesa whereon stood the quarters of the commanding officer. Then they began breasting the slope, but exchanging no word. As they reached the top Mrs. Archer caught Lilian's hand. "It's an Indian—a runner, I believe. See, that's the corporal of the guard with him! It's a despatch of some kind!"

  And so it proved. Five minutes later, Briggs, officer of the day, was heard coming down the line; his sword clicked at the steps; his foot was on the veranda, but before he could knock, Mrs. Archer met him at the door.

  "We saw them coming," said she. "Is it a despatch—for the general?"

  "From Captain Turner," said he gravely. "I read it, hoping not to have to disturb the general, but—there's been a fight and some are wounded. Turner needs instructions."

  The army-bred woman needed no further word. She knew at once what had to be done. "Wake father, Lilian, dear," she gently called from the foot of the stairs. "Will you come in, Mr. Briggs? I can light up in a moment."

  "There's light in abundance out here, thank you, Mrs. Archer. Besides, I have our runner." And, turning back, he pointed to the steps where, still watched by Corporal Hicks, the dusky messenger squatted wearily. All Apaches looked alike to Hicks. His attitude was plainly indicative of a conviction that treachery of some kind was afoot, and this particular envoy had designs on his commander or that commander's wife. They could hear the veteran bustling about upstairs, hurriedly donning his uniform. Then came Strong, with his quick, bounding step, for Briggs had called him before disturbing the "Old Man." A moment later, by the clear light of the unclouded moon, Archer was hurriedly reading Turner's brief despatch.

  Bivouac on Toronto Creek, November 24th, 187—.

  Post Adjutant,

  Camp Almy.

  We have had two more brushes with Tonto Apaches, resulting in the breaking up of two rancheri­as and the scattering of the band, leaving several dead in each affair, also a few wounded bucks and squaws that I had to leave, as we had no means of sending them to the post or caring for them in any way. Sergeant Payne, Corporal Smith, G, and Troopers Schreiter and Wenzel, wounded, are doing as well as can be expected, but must remain at this point under a small guard while we follow the renegades. The scouts report many signs toward the Black Mesa, and we shall strike wherever we find the hostiles, but I shall have but twenty-five men with me now, and barely forty rounds per man. Instructions sent by bearer may reach me among the foothills toward Diamond Butte. Otherwise, we shall return by the way we came. Trooper Hanson, died of wounds in the affair previously reported, was buried here.

  Respectfully,

  Turner, Commanding.

  "Then the other runner failed to get in," said Archer gravely. "There was a fight before this. Turner's found a raft of Indians. This despatch is two days old now. Have we nobody who can talk with this Indian?"

  "Nobody, I fear, sir," answered Strong, bending over the scout and examining the brass identification tag worn by each of those regularly employed and mustered. "He's a Hualpai. No. 21. Even Harris doesn't know that tongue, sir."

  "If anybody here does, it's one of those two that got in from Verde last evening," said Archer reflectively. "Turner evidently had no idea the hostiles were all about us, and he thinks the previous despatch must have reached us. Corporal, go find the couriers and fetch them here. Be seated, gentlemen," he continued, in his courtly way, then turning from everybody, stepped out on the sandy level between his quarters and the office building, and began pacing slowly up and down.

  What was to be done? No word had come from Stannard. Stirring, yet disquieting news they now had from Turner, whose wounded lay in need of medical attention a long day's march through stony wilds, with jealous and savage eyes watching every trail. Here at Almy he had two companies of sturdy foot, capable of covering ground almost as fast as the cavalry, but wearing out shoe leather much faster. Twenty of these fellows could fight their way through to the Tonto, but might have just as many more wounded to care for, and be unable to transport them. Moreover, with so many hostiles on every side, was he justified in stripping the post of its defenders? It was no pleasant situation. It was more than perplexing. Presently he turned and, using such signs as he thought might be comprehensible, asked the impassive runner if he knew where the first fight took place, and the Hualpai, as would almost any Indian partially gathering the drift of a question, began a rambling reply, pointing as he spoke, with shifting finger, all over the range to the south-east.

  "Bella, dear, have we anything that this incomprehensible creature could eat?" asked Archer. "It may help matters." And presently the lady of the house appeared at the hall door again, with a tray in her hands. Briggs ceremoniously took it, and set huge slices of bread and jam before the gaunt mountaineer, who found his feet in an instant; received a slice on the palm of his outspread hand; lifted it cautiously, his yellow teeth showing hungrily; smelled it suspiciously, thrust forth his tongue, and slowly tasted the strange mixture on the surface; then, with confidence established, finished it in four gulps, and, like a greyhound, looked eagerly for more. Briggs laughed and pointed to the tray on the steps, but the Hualpai shook his head and drew back shyly.

  "You'll have to give it piece by piece, Briggs," said Strong. "His squaw would scoop the whole trayload into her skirt or blanket, but not a Hualpai brave."

  Approached in accordance with Hualpai views of table etiquette, the Indian ate greedily, and was still eating when the corporal came and, with him, the sleepy and dishevelled courier, the American. And now in the radiant moonlight the strange war council was resumed.

  "Ask him, if you can, where the first fight came off, and who was sent with the despatch," demanded the general of the new-comer, upon whom the Hualpai looked in recognition, but with neither light nor welcome in his piercing eyes. Question and answer in halting, uncanny speech progressed fitfully a moment. Then came the report:

  "He says there was a fight the first day out; another when they struck Tonto Creek, and two soldiers were killed."

  "And as to the first runner?"

  "He says 'Patchie Mohave brought it all way safe. This buck met him going back. He said he gave it to 'scout capitan' out by Picacho."

  "'Out by Picacho!''Scout capitan!' Who on earth does he mean?" asked Archer, with a sudden fear at heart.

  Once again, stumbling question, much gesticulation, many words in strange gutturals—and a name. Then the final report:

  "He means Apache-Mohave—'Tonio!"

  CHAPTER XIV.

  Three anxious, watchful days went by, with anxious, watchful nights intervening, with no further tidings of 'Tonio or Stannard or Turner, of friend or foe from the outside world, and with only one attempt on part of the invisibly, yet perceptibly, surrounded garrison to communicate with the field columns. "Hualpai 21," the only designation he would own to (the real name, in the absence of some tribesman to speak for him, one could rarely learn from an Indian), was given his fill of food and rest, then, with a despatch to Turner, was sent forth Monday night south-eastward, the way he came, and bidden if he reached the rugged height known as El Caporal, some twelve miles to the south-east, and deemed it safe to do so, to send at sunrise three quick mirror flashes toward the flagstaff, repeating twice or thrice to be sure of its attracting attention. Hualpai 21 took with him one of those cheap little disks of looking-glass, cased in pewter, at that time found at every frontier store. He took also the injunction to give his despatch to Captain Turner or one of his men, but to no Indian whomsoever—'Tonio in particular. It was the last attempt of the week.

  For, from dawn until the sun was an hour high, the watchers watched in vain. Three signal glasses, telescope and binocular, were trained upon the heights and no one of the
m caught the faintest spark of reflected light. The nearest approach to a signal was seen by a corporal of the guard and sentry Number Six an hour after midnight, when, in quick succession, two faint, firefly flashes, unrepeated, were visible afar out due east of the Picacho, and they could have been caused in only two ways—somebody experimenting with a mirror and the moonbeams, the moon being then about three hours high and three-quarters full, or else, as they were ruddier than moonshine, somebody taking two quick shots, probably at somebody else. The corporal counted seconds up to twenty and more, and even in that breathless silence, heard not a sound to warrant the belief.

  Yet a few hours later that sun-blistered morning, the bookkeeper Case "blew in for a bottle," as he expressed it; remarked with engaging frankness that he believed he had still a day or so in which to taper, and would be home and on deck if the Apaches didn't get him meantime; and, being delicately invited to state where he had spent the night, replied as frankly as before, "Down at José Sanchez's," meaning thereby the down-stream resort two miles distant, where prospectors, packers and occasionally men from the post, in peace times, at least, went for unlimited mescal and monte. Since the death of Comes Flying, the disappearance of 'Patchie Sanchez (the runner, half-brother to Sanchez, the gambler), and the general outbreak among the Indians, it had been shunned as utterly unsafe, and reported abandoned. When cautioned by Watts against returning thither, Mr. Case replied that now that the Indians spurned it, for not even 'Tonio would set foot anywhere about the ranch, the ghost of the brother was seen there every night. He had seen it and it was an honest ghost, and a convivial spirit, which was why last night's bottle had lasted no longer. Moreover, Case said that when he was drinking he was only at home in half-bred society and couldn't live up to the high tone of the post. When told of Mr. Willett's further mishap, Case sobered for a moment in manner, and said Mr. Willett was unwise taking so many chances, and Mr. Willett would be in big luck if he got away from Almy without further puncture. Somebody else had been shot at last night. He and the ghost had heard it.

  This at the moment was regarded as semi-maudlin talk, but at morning office hour Watts was sent for, was told what the guard had seen, and asked what Case had really said, rumor being, as a rule, inaccurate. Then Archer rebuked Watts for letting Case go in his intoxicated condition, and it was decided to send a little party in search, in hopes of fetching him in and finding out more about the alleged shooting. The party found Case without any trouble. He sat singing to himself and swinging his legs from the table in the abandoned rookery, the half-emptied bottle on one side and a "monkey" of spring water on the other, scornful alike of danger or demands, but indomitably courteous. The party took a drink with him as promptly invited, but found him implacably bent on holding the position. Not until argument and whiskey both were exhausted would he listen to reason and the suggestion to return to the post. That being the only means to more whiskey, he started affably enough, but before going half a mile declared he had left or lent his revolver. "There's only one revolver at Camp Almy just like it," said he, with drunken dignity, and then, with sudden gravity, "an' that one—isn't at Camp Almy."

  The infantry sergeant in command of the little party tried to wheedle Case out of his whim, but it was useless. Back he would go, and they, half supporting, had to go with him. From the drawer of the battered old table he drew the missing weapon to light, and it stood revealed—one of the famous Colt's 44, made soon after the Civil War to replace the percussion-capped "Navy" carried by most officers of the army until late in the '60's. In the hands of the cavalry at the moment, and for experimental purposes, were nickel-plated Smith and Wesson's of the same calibre, and nearly the same length of barrel, also one or two other patterns of the remodelled Colt. But, as Case said, this was a special make and model, differing slightly from any that Sergeant Joyce had ever yet seen; but not until later did the sergeant or his comrades attach any significance to Case's statement, "there's only one at Almy just like it."

  His weapon recovered, his mental balance slightly restored, and with the further inspiration of replenished flask ahead, Case made the difficult essay to tramp the two sandy miles back to the store and the still more difficult task of there accounting for himself and explaining his enigmatical sayings. Strong, as directed, strove to keep him to the point, but the one more drink Case declared indispensable on his final arrival at dusk sent flitting the last filaments of reason, and the poor fellow maundered off to sleep on his little cot in the darkened room, where he was bolted in and left for the night.

  "Only one pistol like it at the post, and that—isn't at the post," Strong found himself repeating again and again that night, as, after Mrs. Archer and Mrs. Stannard had read their patient into a doze and taken their departure, the adjutant stood for a moment by Willet's bedside. "And now Willett has lost his, and presumably the Tontos, or perhaps the Apache-Mohaves, have got it!"

  They had wandered away in the darkness together, those two brave and tender-hearted army women, each with a keen anxiety of her own, each striving to be helpful to the other. Three invalids were there now at Almy to whom they were giving many hours of care and nursing. Poor Mrs. Bennett gained little in mental or bodily health. The fearful scenes of that long night of horror and rapine still seemed vividly before her in her few hours of fitful slumber, and were this state of things to continue long, said the doctor, insanity would be a merciful refuge. An hour or so each day these ministering angels gave to the young officers. Harris, severely shot, was mending fast, his perfect physical condition lending itself admirably to his restoration. Willett, but slightly injured, should be sitting up, with his shoulder in a frame and his arm in a sling, but he was mending only slowly, and had not a little fever. Harris, accustomed to self-denial, seemed to require no physical comforts. Willett, something of a Sybarite, craved iced drinks and cooling applications that gave more trouble, said Strong, than twenty Harrises. Willett had even gone so far as to suggest that the ladies must be tired of reading aloud, possibly Miss Lilian might relieve one or other, and possibly, hope whispered, both. Harris, who would have welcomed that presence and possibility as he would no other, had ventured nothing beyond the expression of a hope that Miss Archer was quite well.

  As for Miss Archer herself, what man can say just what thoughts, emotions, hopes and fears were rioting in that gentle and innocent, yet troubled heart. A very unheroic little heroine is this of ours. It was a time when she might well be thinking of the perils by which they and their defenders were encompassed round about, of the bereaved and broken-hearted woman crying to heaven for her murdered husband and her stolen children, of the scouts and couriers shot down from ambush in their efforts to reach them in their isolation or to creep through with messages to the columns afield, of the wounded lying with but scant attention and puny guard, weary marches away, of the comrades killed or died of wounds in fierce grapple with the warriors of the desert and the mountains—even of this young soldier within their gates, sore stricken in daring rescue of a helpless woman, he to whose coolness and command of self—and others—had saved her from the rattler's fang. Very possibly she did think of it—and often—and tried to think of them still oftener, but all the time, it must be owned, in her heart of hearts she was hearing again the soft, caressing tone of that deep, rich voice—"the words of love then spoken;" she saw again the lustrous eyes that shone and burned into hers despite their drooping lids, the graceful, gallant form of that picture of the knight and gentleman whose swift wooing had made such wondrous way. Lilian Archer was but a child in spite of years and schooling. She spent her earliest years within the shadow of the flag and the sound of the drum. She had seen nothing of garrison life from that morning in '61, when she had just passed her sixth birthday, when they were bundled aboard a wheezing river stern wheeler and floated for many a day and many and many a long mile down a muddy, twisting stream—her father so grave and anxious, and some of the officers with him so urgent and appealing. She could not understand
why her mother should so often sit with tear-brimming eyes and clasp her to her bosom with the boy brother she so loved—and teased. Father's home was in a proud old border state, and they went there for a week or two, after that sorrowful day in St. Louis when three of father's old friends and comrades came for one last conference and then—a last good-by—two of them refusing his hand. They had resigned and followed their state. They had striven to take him with them to swell the ranks of the proud young army of the South. They had loved him well and he them, but there was something floating overhead, from the white staff at the stern, he held still dearer. One officer, who was most urgent in his pleadings, was her bonny "Uncle Barney," mother's own brother, and when he left, without kiss for her or handclasp for the sad-faced soldier in the worn uniform of blue, mother's heart seemed almost breaking. Father took them to his father's old home, and left them there while he went to drilling militiamen north of the Ohio, and was presently made a colonel of volunteers. But the people who lived about them were all for the South, and they could not forgive mother for his taking sides against them; so, throughout the long bitter struggle, while he was at the front or suffering in Southern prison, as happened once, and from Northern suspicion, as happened much more than once, they lived in lodgings in a quiet little country town, where brother and she went hand in hand to school and saw little of the outer world and nothing of the war. Then at last came peace, and in '66 the reorganization of the army, and father—in a general's uniform on a major's pay. Then in '69 General Grant appointed brother a cadet, and all were so proud and hopeful when he left them for the Point. He was the image of Uncle Barney, who was killed leading his splendid brigade in one of the earliest battles in Virginia, and, like Uncle Barney, brother was high-spirited and impatient. Mathematics and demerit set him back in '70 and dropped him out entirely in '71, when father was weeks away across the deserts of Arizona, and they were in lodgings at San Francisco, and poor mother was nearly distraught with grief and anxiety. Brother never came back to them. He went straight, it seems, to the Brooklyn Navy-Yard; enlisted in the Marines, and, within five months thereafter, jumped from the deck of the "Yantic" in a swift tideway at Amoy, striving to aid a drowning shipmate, and was never seen again. That was the saddest Christmas they ever knew. Father had to return to his post, and all that year of '72 they wore deep mourning and went nowhere. During the spring of '73 mother was rallying a little, and loving army friends from the Presidio and Angel Islands, who used to come to see them so often, now sought to have Lilian visit them; but wisely Mrs. Archer kept her at her studies and her music and away from possible fascination of the garrison, and except, therefore, for two dances given by the artillery, and one charming, rose-bowered afternoon reception at Angel Island, Lilian had seen nothing of army life and next to nothing of army beaux, until in all the ardor and innocence of sweet, winsome, wholesome girlhood—buoyant, beautiful and in exuberant health and spirits, she was suddenly landed here at this out of the way station in uttermost Arizona, and brought face to face with love and destiny.