Lord Apache

by Robert J. Steelman

  "And what did you say your business was?" Drumm inquired politely.

  "I didn't say," Meech answered, and volunteered no more.

  While Eggleston set up the camp, Meech reclined on a boulder and watched. Finally, seeing the valet take the rubber bathtub from a mule and unfold the telescoping legs, he could not restrain himself.

  "Now what in Tophet is that thing?"

  "A necessary sanitary facility," Jack explained, pouring in the bucket of warm water Eggleston brought from the fire. "I never travel without it. Perkins' Patent India-Rubber Portable Bath—a marvelous invention."

  Removing travel-stained clothing, Drumm settled gratefully into the bath. The valet brought him a packet of correspondence, a two-week-old copy of the Yuma Sentinel, and a gin and water in a tumbler, setting them on a collapsible table nearby.

  "And what will you have, sir?" Eggleston asked Meech. "We have a wide variety. American bourbon? Scotch whiskey? Perhaps a brandy?"

  Meech shook his head. "I'm a temperance man, mostly. Never drink on the job, anyway." He fumbled in a pocket. "Do miss my stogies, though."

  Drumm spoke to Eggleston. "There's a fresh box of Havana puros on the gray mule."

  Alonzo Meech regarded the proffered cigar with a dazed look. He started slightly when the valet nipped the end with a silver cutter resembling a miniature guillotine.

  "I like a good cigar myself," Drumm admitted, soaping himself thoroughly. "When's dinner, Eggie?"

  "Eight, sir—as always."

  While Drumm scrubbed himself clean, the valet bustled about the camp, setting up the tent, shaking out sheets, plumping pillows, uncorking a bottle of Rhine wine and decanting it critically by the light of a camphene lamp. The banks of the Agua Fria took on the appearance of a small village, complete with the folding toilet commode behind a canvas screen for modesty's sake. The mules, now unladen, wandered away to munch the grasses bordering the greenish pools.

  Meech pulled hard on his cigar. "I never seen anything like it!" he muttered, staring in disbelief at the Union Jack the valet ran up a pole.

  "Cheers!" Drumm said, lifting his glass, and turned his attention to the Sentinel. The newspaper had only four pages; he had read it many times since stepping off the schooner Sierra Nevada, Captain Joseph Beckett, at Port Isabel, a hundred miles below Yuma. Finishing the newspaper, he turned to the packet of letters and chose the latest communication from his brother. Andrew's letter was three months old:

  It is all very well to be the elder brother and succeed to the title but it is certainly a damned nuisance. I do not understand how our father managed to do at eighty years of age what I am making a botch of at forty. We must face it, Jack: I simply do not have your knack for planning, your stubbornness in pressing on to accomplish what you have decided to do. As a consequence, my account books are in a muddle, the tenant farmers dissatisfied, and bills pile up in spite of my best resolve to take care of them promptly. Of course, I have my India fever to blame for it all—I do not really feel well—but at bottom I am afraid I am not cut out for a manager.

  Drumm closed his eyes, shutting out the twilight bleakness of the landscape, and thought of Clarendon Hall in summer. Roses would be in bloom, white and pink and red, the garden heavy with their scent. Ancient lawns would be green, girls would come to parties in wispy summer dresses, the billiard room would be gay with banter and the click of ivory balls.

  Cornelia Newton-Barrett was here yesterday with her mother, anxious for news of you. As you know, Cornelia is very fond of you, and joins me in wishing you Godspeed home.

  Cornelia, Drumm thought. He recalled a winter night at Clarendon Hall, the old house creaking under the weight of snow, a fire still smoldering in the great fireplace. All had gone to bed. He and Cornelia, by arrangement, tiptoed down in nightclothes and sat for a long time holding hands. With pleasure he remembered the illicit softness of Cornelia's thigh, the depths of tender brown eyes. Then one of the servants had blundered in—

  "Mr. Jack?" Eggleston coughed discreetly. "Dinner is ready."

  "Right!" Drumm sprang to his feet to towel himself dry. Though the summer dusk was cool, drawing the warmth from his bath water, he felt a warm flush of passion in his loins. Cornelia Newton-Barrett would wait for him; she had promised. The prospect made this desert nearly tolerable. He got into fresh linen almost cheerfully, waxed his mustache to fierce Guardsman points before a mirror, and sat down across from Alonzo Meech.

  "We are very low on food," he remarked, "but once we reach Prescott it will make no matter. Eggie and I plan to put up at a hotel for a few days rest, then I will inquire as to passage on the new Atlantic and Pacific Railroad line, which I understand we can catch on certain days of the month at Bear Spring, north of Prescott. From there we can ride the steamcars to New York City and sail home on a fast packet." Drumm turned to the valet. "Beef ragout, eh? Marvelous, simply marvelous, Eggie, what you manage to concoct with only canned meat and a few dried onions!" He poured the wine, chilled by wet cloths the valet had wrapped around the bottle, into a pair of long-stemmed glasses. "Try that, Meech! I find it a little woody, but with a nice bouquet."

  Meech started to decline, then checked himself. "I don't mind a little wine with supper," he said. "Good for the digestion, I hear. It's the strong stuff that's ruined many a good man. 'In vino demitasse.' That means 'even a half a glass can start you down the road to ruin.'"

  The guest had washed in the basin Eggleston furnished and combed a few strands of gray hair across his head. Attacking the ragout, he finished before Drumm had taken more than a few spoonfuls. In response to a nod from his master, the valet served Meech again.

  "Being out on a job always gives me a keen appetite," Meech admitted, wiping his plate clean with a biscuit the valet had baked in a tin reflector oven. Eggleston brought brandy and more cigars and the two sat finally in folding camp chairs, boots cocked on a convenient rock, watching the mantle of night suddenly prickle with stars. Swallows darted about, chasing insects, and along the river sounded a cacophony of yelps.

  "What's that?" Meech asked, starting.

  "Coyotes," Jack Drumm explained. "Canis latrans."

  "I heard 'em before," Meech said, "but wasn't certain what they was."

  Drumm poured him more brandy. "I say," he said, "you haven't been out here very long, have you? I mean—coyotes are all around this part of the country."

  "No," Meech admitted. "I'm a city man—Philadelphia—and unaccustomed to the wilds. To tell you the truth, I figure I cut a ridiculous figure on a horse, but a man's got to go wherever his job takes him."

  Drumm scratched his chin. In the morning he would require the attentions of Eggleston with basin and razor before they resumed their journey to Prescott—and home.

  "My man and I," he explained, "are in the final stages of a trip around the world. Italy, Turkey, ancient Egypt, the Arab kingdoms—India, Singapore, Japan, and across the Pacific to your San Francisco, with a small side trip into the Arizona Territory, which I now regret. But you, sir, spoke of a job that requires you to visit this inhospitable place. I don't mean to pry, but—"

  Meech spilled some brandy and cursed under his breath. Squinting, he attempted to focus on the lamplit countenance of his host. "Yes, I am indeed out on a job. No harm, I guess, in speaking in general terms to a pleasant gentleman like you, Mr. Drumm, though the exash—the exact nature of my mission is confidential." He winked heavily, a maneuver of such magnitude that his eye almost disappeared under the thatch of eyebrow. "I'm a Pinkerton."

  "Pinkerton?"

  Meech put a finger to his lips.

  "Not so loud!"

  Jack Drumm started to pour himself another brandy but the bottle was empty.

  "It's just that I didn't know what a Pinkerton was—or is," he apologized.

  Meech sprawled in his chair and lit a fresh puro. "I'm a private detective—trusted employee of the famous Pinkerton National Detective Agency. You've heard of them!"

  "Can't say a
s I have—no."

  "Catch faithless husbands 'in fragrant delicto,' nab embezzlers, put the cuffs on white slavers and dope fiends—anything that comes to hand."

  "But whatever are you doing out here?"

  Meech leered. "No, you don't!"

  "Don't what, pray?"

  "Don't get me to reveal no secrets! All I can tell you is that I'm on the track of a dangerous crin—crin—criminal. A miscreant that'd just as soon shoot you as look at you!"

  "But surely there are police of some sort out here! I mean—in England we have Scotland Yard and local constables and—"

  "No law out here—no law at all, except maybe the Army, and they don't concern themselves with civilian offenses! Thash—that's probably why the accused fled to the Territory. But they didn't take me into account! No, sir—Alonzo Meech don't never give up the trail!" The detective got to his feet and attempted a bow. "I got to thank you, Mr. Drumm, for your hosh—your hosh—" He abandoned the word, saying instead, "Good grub! Good company!"

  Teetering, Meech walked toward his bedroll and fell soggily into a reed-bordered pool. Eggleston helped him to his feet and wiped him off. A moment later the detective was snoring an obbligato to the melodies of frogs half buried in the mud of the river.

  "Thank you, Eggie." Drumm smiled. "Very good of you."

  The valet finished washing the last of the dishes and pans and dried his hands.

  "I've laid out your nightshirt and slippers, sir. Will there be anything else?"

  Drumm yawned. "Nothing, Eggie. Turn in yourself, get a good night's sleep. It's a long way to Prescott."

  Chapter Two

  In spite of his growing annoyance with the Arizona Territory, Jack Drumm drowsed easily off, sleeping the sleep of the righteous Englishman. Sometime near dawn, to judge from the pallor of the eastern sky, he awoke. For a time he lay on his cot, listening to night sounds; the canvas of the tent rustling in a breeze, far-off clamor of coyotes on the hunt, an occasional ker-chonk from a frog in the ooze of the almost-vanished Agua Fria. To judge from their snores, Eggleston and the detective slept well in their blanket rolls on open ground. The mules, however, seemed restless. They snuffled, broke wind, moved about against the restraint of the ropes holding them to the picket line.

  Yawning and scratching, Drumm padded to the door in slippers and nightshirt. A setting moon swam low in scattered clouds. The coolness of the air was laced with a faint perfume, probably from some desert plant. He was pondering this, trying to remember what the Traveler's Guide said about aromatic desert flora, when one of the mules, ghostly in the dawn, gave a strange whickering sound and pulled hard to the end of its rope. The rest quickly took up the odd behavior. Suddenly one burst into a chilling bray.

  At first he felt, rather than saw, the intruders. Then, as his gaze sharpened, he saw the Indians slipping about the camp. One cut the picket line with a knife that flashed like quicksilver in the waning moonlight. Another rummaged through the piled packs. A third crouched over Alonzo Meech's recumbent form. Meech rose on an elbow, reaching for the Colt's revolver that lay beside him, but the Indian stepped on his wrist and brandished a hatchet.

  "Stop!" Drumm called. "Halt! Eggie, where are you? Halloo the camp!"

  He snatched up the fowling piece, providentially just inside the tent door, and fired as the hatchet started to descend. Howling, the savage sprang into the air, clutching an arm. Meech quickly rolled from his blankets, catching his assailant about the ankles, and caromed with him into the embers of the fire.

  Though the light was not good, Drumm could see at least a dozen of the bowlegged little men dashing purposefully about the camp. Two had attacked Eggleston; one pinioned the valet from behind while the other raised a ribboned lance. Drumm fired a quick shot from the other barrel. The man with the lance dropped to his knees, holding his stomach. Just as Drumm squeezed off the shot, arms clasped him from behind; a blow on his wrist knocked the fowling piece to the ground.

  Wresting free from his remaining captor, Eggleston managed to draw a pistol and discharge it into the man's face, pulling the trigger so rapidly that the several shots sounded almost as one.

  "I'm coming, Mr. Jack!" he shouted. "Hold on!"

  Drumm had a few wrestling tricks, learned on his passage through Persia; the Persians were great wrestlers. Dropping to his knees, he reached back to catch his assailant's ankles, and pulled hard. The Indian went over backward, breath whooshing out of him in a gasp as he landed on his back. Alonzo Meech, clothes laced with sparks from the fire he had rolled into, struck Drumm's captor over the head with the butt of his revolver. The blow glanced off; the Indian ran away toward the mules.

  "They're after our animals!" Meech shouted, pulling the trigger on an empty chamber.

  Horses and the mules alike were in panic. Milling and rearing, they screamed in terror. A flying hoof became entangled in the tent, dragging it down in a welter of canvas. Drumm, Meech, and the valet knelt behind an overturned table among a rubble of pots, pans, and kitchen utensils, firing at targets of opportunity. The dawn was pierced with stabs of flame, report of weapons, hoarse shouts as the bandy-legged little men rushed the defenders while others attempted to round up the animals.

  Drumm clubbed his fowling piece and swung wildly as a man wearing an ornamented leather hat discharged a pistol almost in his face. Stunned by the explosion, he fell over, blinded by the flame. The Indian leaped over the table and landed astride him, searching for the throat with powerful hands. Meech, too, rolled on the ground under the weight of two wiry attackers, while Eggleston snatched up a broken table leg to rain blows on their backs.

  Remembering a Marseilles stratagem, Drumm drove a knee into the groin of the man in the leather hat. The grip on his throat loosened; the man grunted and rolled away. Quickly Drumm was on him with his fists. But the Indian drew a knife from a sheath at his belt. A savage slash caught Drumm across the cheek and mouth; he felt blood, tasted blood. Catching the wrist, he twisted it savagely, wanting to hear bones break. But the man heaved suddenly under him to roll free.

  Meech, freed from his attackers, found time to reload. He stood behind the overturned table, Colt's revolver in one hand and Winchester rifle in the other, firing into the melee like a Gatling gun and cursing with the same copiousness.

  "Oh, you bastards! You damned lousy bastards! You low-life stinking bastards!"

  Shouting, "They're taking our mules!" Eggleston ran toward the milling animals. As he clung to a man's leg, trying to drag him from a mule, the Indian hit him across the face with a war club. Staggering back, the valet clutched at his nose. The man in the leather hat, sounding a wild whoop, mounted Jack Drumm's own fine gelding and snatched up the Union Jack on its staff. With a bone whistle clamped between his teeth he blew a shrill summons. The other raiders broke off the combat, vaulting onto various mounts and following their chief. In a moment, yelling and whooping like banshees, they splashed through the shallows and were gone. The last Jack Drumm saw was the despairing flutter of his Union Jack, caught by the first rays of the sun. The man in the leather hat held it high and triumphant above the reeds as he galloped away.

  Alonzo Meech had run out of ammunition but not of obscenities. Cursing, he ran after the departing intruders, splashing muddily through the reeds and brandishing his useless weapons. Finally he gave up the chase and came back, wheezing a few weakened epithets.

  "Well, we gave 'em as good as we got, anyway!"

  "Is anyone hurt?" Drumm asked anxiously.

  Eggleston, awakened in his underclothes, was nearly naked. He limped toward them, one hand holding his battered nose, blood leaking between his fingers. Alonzo Meech's black coat, which he had slept in, was torn down the back, and one sleeve dangled by a thread.

  "I think one of my fingers is busted," the detective said. "And I burned my butt when I rolled into the fire with that ugly-face varmint that tried to bury his hatchet in my brains."

  During the melee Drumm himself had stepped on a cactus with
his bare feet; his ribs ached also where someone had hit him with a rifle butt or a war club.

  Eggleston sat shakily on a rock, trying to stanch the flow of blood from his nose with a handkerchief. "But you, Mr. Jack," he said to Drumm. "We must take care of that dreadful cut on your cheek!"

  Among the wreckage Drumm found a shattered mirror and inspected himself. The wound, already crusted with coagulating blood, stitched downward from his eyebrow, skirting the nose, to lose itself in the wreckage of his mustache.

  "Speaking of casualties," Meech said, "he ain't in too good of a condition!"

  In the slanting sunlight of early morning, they watched the Indian the valet had shot in the face try to prop himself on his elbows. Painfully he pushed his body up inch by inch, turning a bloody face toward them. Then he collapsed, life running from him as grain spills from a torn sack.

  "Those were not Pimas, Mr. Jack!" Eggleston murmured.

  They were indeed not peaceful Pimas, or Papagos; they were bloodthirsty Apaches, certainly one of Agustín's roving bands. Though the light had not been good, Drumm had seen stocky, quick-moving little men, thigh-length leggings held to waists by a leather thong. Muslin loincloths dangled to the calves behind. One wore around his neck a string of ivory-white beads—probably a rosary torn from some slaughtered Mexican. The rest had colored cloths tied around square-cut shoulder-length locks, and carried what looked like modern breech-loading rifles. The man in the leather hat, too—the one that had seemed the leader. Drumm felt gingerly at the wound on his cheek, seeing again the ferocity in the face, the conical hat ornamented with feathers and bits of glass, the animal-like glitter in black eyes. They were scarcely human, the Apaches.

  "I ain't been in a scuffle like that for a long time," Meech said. "Not since the Cooney gang of smugglers on the Fourteenth Street docks in Manhattan in '69!" He took down his pants and inspected his scorched backside. "My butt feels like it's been barbecued!"