Lord Apache

by Robert J. Steelman

  Eggleston turned Miss Larkin over while Mrs. Glore vainly patted Phoebe's face, trying to rouse her. Drumm pointed. "Get that keg over there!"

  Mrs. Glore did not understand, but Eggleston had lived in Brighton and knew how to handle drowning victims. Quickly the valet snatched up a small barrel that had held preserved herrings. Drumm picked up the recumbent figure like a rag doll and flopped it over the barrel. With Eggleston taking Phoebe's bare feet and himself the limp arms, they began to roll her back and forth.

  "What are you doing?" Mrs. Glore cried.

  "Reviving her," Drumm explained.

  "I never seen anything like that!" Mrs. Glore sobbed. "Is that a proper way to handle a female?"

  Drumm glanced at the camisole, the lacy petticoats, the exposed thighs.

  "At this moment," he said, "I do not give a tinker's damn if she is male or female or something in between! What matters only is to save her life!"

  Phoebe Larkin made a hiccuping sound; a gout of water drained from her bluish lips. The rescuers paused in their frantic seesawing.

  "She's alive!" Mrs. Glore cried. "She's alive!" Sinking to her knees, she raised her hands in a prayer of thanks.

  The limp body stiffened, seemed now to oppose their flailing. Miss Larkin hiccuped again; her body twisted under their hands. A small object fell from her bodice onto the muddy ground. It was a derringer pistol, a two-barrel weapon with a pearl handle glinting in the growing sunlight.

  Afterward, what with the emotion of the moment and the quickness with which Mrs. Beulah Glore snatched up the tiny gun and dropped it into the pocket of her wrapper, Drumm was not even certain he had seen it. A derringer was certainly a peculiar item for a lady to carry in her bosom. He was trying to assess this development when their subject curled herself into a ball, like an eel. Eggleston lost his grasp on her ankles. Jack Drumm slipped on the muddy ground; he and Miss Larkin fell heavily together, her wet body plastered against his.

  It was an awkward position. She lay across him, pinioning him to the ground. Exhausted from his own near-drowning and his efforts to rescue her, he could only lie there, panting and helpless, her face against his. He saw with great clarity the sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose, the delicately shaped eyebrows—plucked, surely—the glorious red hair now hanging dankly about her face.

  "Let me help her to her feet," Eggleston suggested. "I think she is coming round."

  Drumm waved him off.

  "She had better not be disturbed," he explained. "It is dangerous to awaken unconscious people too quickly. It can lead to disorders of the brain."

  Phoebe opened her eyes, stared into his. Bemused by their cerulean depths, he could only stare back. She hiccuped. "Where am I? What-what—"

  "You come back from the dead, dear!" Mrs. Glore told her. "Mr. Drumm here threw himself into the water to pull you out!"

  Phoebe continued to look into Drumm's eyes. He was uncomfortably aware of his maimed mustache and the blood-caked scar. But she seemed bemused.

  "You saved my life!" Her lip trembled.

  They lay together in the bright sunlight, the valet and Phoebe's traveling companion hovering over them. Jack Drumm cleared his throat in embarrassment. "I—I suppose so." He turned to Mrs. Glore. "If you will help her up now, ma'am—"

  Eggleston and Mrs. Glore hauled her to her feet and supported her between them. She continued to stare at Drumm with admiration.

  "At the risk of your own life!"

  In the dry air his drawers were clammy. Embarrassed at her show of emotion, he shivered and looked about for his blanket.

  "Nothing," he muttered. "It was nothing! I am a good swimmer. And Eggie here helped me."

  Phoebe pulled away from them and rushed to Drumm. Throwing her arms about his neck, she kissed him hard on the lips. Astounded, he could only stand mute, hands dangling at his sides, feeling the soft body pressed against him, the full red lips wetly on his. He tried to speak but found it difficult. Finally he managed to disengage her.

  "Thank you!" she gasped, looking into his eyes.

  Embarrassment spoke for him, put words into his mouth he did not intend.

  "I—I—well, I guess I would have done the same thing for anyone that was drowning."

  Her face changed; the blue eyes became wide and hurt. She drew back.

  "But—but I'm not just anyone! I'm Phoebe Larkin! You risked your life for me, and I'm bound to be grateful!" When she seemed to step toward him again, he stepped awkwardly, warily, back.

  "Well," he muttered, "I'm—I'm glad you're all right, anyway."

  A flush came into her pale cheeks. One hand attempted to arrange the wet strands of hair. When she spoke her voice trembled slightly.

  "I—I'm sorry! I didn't mean to—to bother you!"

  Frustrated, trying to find the proper words, he shook his head. "You didn't bother me! You didn't bother me at all! That wasn't what I meant!"

  "I know what you mean," Phoebe said icily. "It's my fault, Mr. Drumm. You see—I have a very loving nature. Sometimes it betrays me. I am grateful you saved me, but sorry you misunderstood my gratitude!"

  Almost desperately he looked around at the camp, devastated once by an Indian raid and now by a perverse flood. Everything was coming out wrong. He had planned the Grand Tour well, but the Arizona Territory had a way of upsetting things.

  "Eggie," he muttered, "we must get some order back into things."

  For the first time Phoebe Larkin seemed conscious of her scanty attire. Mrs. Glore found a blanket that was not too wet and drew it about Phoebe's shoulders. Even in the warm sun the girl shivered.

  "There, there!" Mrs. Glore soothed. "It's only the after-effects of your dreadful experience! Come sit with me on that box under the tree."

  Phoebe accepted the blanket, and an opportunity for the last word.

  "Mr. Drumm," she said bitterly, "whatever you think of me, I must say—you're a damned cold fish! I heard Englishmen were like that, but so far I never had the bad luck to meet up with one!" Tossing her head, she turned her back on him and went to sit with Mrs. Glore.

  Discouragement only brought out the stubbornness in Jack Drumm's character. While Phoebe sullenly watched, and Mrs. Glore searched downstream for enough unspoiled food to nourish them, he and the valet worked to bring order out of chaos. Noontide came and went, and they were sweating and exhausted. In the late afternoon Mrs. Glore squinted into the distance and pointed.

  "There! Do you see that? Something is coming—a stage, maybe —or wagons!"

  In the distance they could see a plume of dust in the mouth of Centinela Canyon. Drumm snatched up his spyglass. Shaking water from it, he focused on the distant disturbance: wagons, several wagons, escorted by a patrol of cavalry.

  "Thank God!" Mrs. Glore said. "Now maybe we can leave this Godforsaken place and travel to Prescott, like we planned!" She glanced at Jack Drumm. "No offense meant—you've been kind and helpful, Mr. Drumm. But there is Phoebe's Uncle Buell in Prescott! He'll be worried."

  "That's right," Phoebe Larkin agreed, tossing her head. "I'm anxious to mingle with some kind and understanding people for a change!"

  Safely out of the canyon, the train crawled forward while the cavalry escort galloped toward Drumm's camp. Moments later Lieutenant George Dunaway reined up his mount and dismounted, hat in hand as he spied Miss Phoebe Larkin.

  "Well, Drumm!" He looked at the wreckage of the camp. "What in hell—pardon, ladies—what happened here?"

  "Apaches!" Drumm said sourly. "After we left you, Agustín and his bullies attacked us and ran off all our animals, except that one mule over there. Then, early this morning, a flood came down the mountain and overran the camp." He stared at Dunaway. "What's so damned funny?"

  The lieutenant preened his mustache. "Didn't you see the storm over the mountain last night? No one but a greenhorn would camp in the middle of the Agua Fria this time of year!" He bowed to the ladies. "Introduce me, will you?"

  Jack Drumm was annoye
d with Dunaway's flippancy but muttered an introduction. "The ladies," he explained, "were going to Prescott on the stage. But when it was forced to turn back because of Apaches, they chose to stay here and wait for other transportation."

  "I know," Dunaway said. At his gesture the men dismounted and lay wearily on the ground, munching hardtack and cold bacon. "Passed old Coogan and the California and Arizona Stage Line coach yesterday, hightailing it back to Phoenix. Sam Valentine said to take care of the ladies." Hat in hand, he approached Miss Phoebe Larkin. "Ma'am, the accommodations are kind of rough, but there's room for you and your friend in one of the freight wagons yonder if you want to travel to Prescott."

  Phoebe Larkin seemed to bat her blue eyes at Dunaway, which annoyed Jack Drumm further.

  "What about us?" he demanded. "And our equipment?"

  Dunaway fondled his mustache and grinned. "If there's room. Ladies first, you know!"

  "Have you got the Apaches put down, Lieutenant?" Phoebe Larkin asked. "I shouldn't like to be scalped before I see Uncle Buell in Prescott!" She laughed, looking charmingly at Dunaway.

  "Not exactly, ma'am. Eighth Infantry sent a company out from Camp McDowell, and other forces will be here in a few days. But my B Company has hazed Agustín pretty well into the mountains already. Things have eased enough for wagons and stages to come through the valley. Oh, the Apaches may swoop down in a few raids like at Weaver's Ranch, but we've got Agustín pretty well trapped up on the mountain." He gestured toward the Mazatzals and grinned. "See that smoke? Probably old Agustín barbecuing one of your mules, Drumm! Nothing an Apache likes better than a mule steak!"

  "I should think," Drumm muttered, "that with their need of transportation they would be very foolish indeed to eat their animals!"

  The brigandish-looking corporal whom Drumm remembered from the encounter with Dunaway in the canyon hooted with laughter. A trooper slapped his thigh and grinned a gap-tooth grin. Dunaway was also amused. He swigged water from a canteen and put the cap back on, savoring the moment. "An Englishman couldn't be expected to know, I guess, but Apaches don't ride horses—they eat them!"

  "Eat them?"

  "That's right."

  Drumm was bewildered. He gestured at the infinite space of the playa. "But how do they get around, then?"

  "They walk!" Seeing Drumm's astonished stare, Dunaway chuckled. "You know Port Isabel, down on the Gulf?"

  "Of course. We landed there, on the Sierra Nevada, from San Francisco."

  "Then you know it's a hundred miles from Port Isabel up to Yuma?"

  "About that. Yes, I should guess a hundred miles."

  "Colorado Steam Navigation Company had some tame Apaches hired a while back to run mail from Port Isabel to Yuma. The red sons of—" He coughed, delicately. "An Apache runner delivered the mail on regular schedule; a hundred miles in twenty-four hours." He glanced toward the train of freight wagons, now drawing up at the river to water their teams of oxen. "Well—"

  "If the rascals are walking," Jack Drumm said in a tight voice, "then it seems to me your mounted command should have captured them by now, and have them safely back on the Verde River reservation, where they cannot plague innocent travelers!"

  Dunaway scowled. "We've been in the saddle for six days running! An Apache on foot is harder to catch than a flea in a sandstorm! I've seen 'em travel all day and all night with no food but a handful of mesquite beans, and gain on us! A man on a horse shows up a long way off, but an Indian on foot looks like another damned bush till he raises up and shoots your ass off!"

  Drumm had found a sensitive spot, and probed deeper.

  "Nevertheless, I should think a few men from our Middlesex Regiment could handle this situation rather better. They have fought Indians—real Indians, from India—for a long time. They probably know better how to handle the aborigines than you people from the Colonies!"

  George Dunaway turned red. The scorching afternoon was suddenly quiet. The teamsters, scenting trouble, gathered around. Someone laughed, a jeering laugh probably intended for Jack Drumm.

  "Miss Larkin," Drumm said coolly, "perhaps you and Mrs. Glore had better get your things together now. Lieutenant Dunaway will see you safely to Prescott and your uncle—that is, if Indians on foot do not overwhelm him on the way!"

  He was being deliberately insufferable; he knew it, and he enjoyed it. Dunaway's insolence and contempt, added to the other indignities he had experienced since coming to the Territory, drove him to it. Besides, Miss Larkin was watching the exchange with interest. Jack Drumm was not used to being put down at all, even less before an attractive female. Satisfied, he turned on his heel in curt dismissal of the U. S. Army and its fumbling attempts to deal with the rebellious Agustín. But Dunaway cleared his throat and said, "Just a minute!"

  Surprised, Drumm turned.

  "Corporal Bagley," Dunaway said to the brigand, "I ask you to witness that George Dunaway, Sixth Cavalry, U. S. Army, Fort Whipple, near Prescott, is now going off duty. Whatever happens next has got nothing to do with the Army." Carefully he unpinned the silver bars from his shoulders and removed the collar insignia from his sweat-stained shirt. "I've got plenty of leave coming. There's nothing in Army regulations says I can't take some right here and now, is there?"

  "No, sir!" Bagley said joyously, accepting the insignia in a horny palm. "Being company clerk, I can swear to that, if there's any fuss about it later!"

  The grinning men ringed Drumm and Dunaway. From the corner of his eye Drumm saw Miss Phoebe Larkin put a slender hand over her mouth; the blue eyes widened.

  "Leave?" Drumm asked, puzzled. "Whatever for?"

  Dunaway rolled up his sleeves. "I guess," he said, "old Agustín tried to rearrange that fancy waxed mustache of yours, Drumm, but he didn't do a proper job. Maybe I can finish it for him." One booted foot planted solidly forward, he raised clenched fists. "Put up your hands! I'm going to give you the thrashing you've been spoiling for!"

  Drumm was startled. The lieutenant was a roughneck, an uncouth and uncurried frontier character; no credit at all to the finer traditions of the Army. But though he did not believe in brawling, Drumm would have to give the braggart a boxing lesson. He himself had once gone five rounds in Birmingham with the great Jem Mace, the fighter who had won the middleweight title in '61. Mace was old then, and slow, but had praised Jack Drumm's agility and quick hands.

  "You don't mean it!" he said incredulously.

  "Put up your hands," Dunaway insisted, "or I'll wear you out with a willow switch!"

  Drumm struck the classic pose Jem Mace had taught him.

  "All right, then—come at me!"

  Cautiously they circled each other. Dunaway feinted with his left hand and Drumm stepped easily inside the wide-swinging right cross that followed. At the same time he jolted Dunaway's chin with a short uppercut. He could have hit harder, but did not want to hurt the lieutenant.

  Stunned, Dunaway crouched and came forward like a turtle, chin tucked below his shoulder; he stabbed outward with a jab. Drumm waited till the jab was committed, then swung a quick left to the pit of the lieutenant's stomach. Again he moderated the punch, but it was enough to make Dunaway grunt and stagger back.

  "Come again!" Drumm taunted. "Have another go at it, why don't you?" Jem Mace, he felt, would have been proud of him.

  Abandoning caution, the lieutenant rushed forward, both fists swinging. Expertly Drumm stepped aside, elbows pulled close to his body and clenched fists protecting his face, coolly waiting out the blind rush. But this time something went wrong, dreadfully wrong. As Drumm trod on a gopher tunnel (Geomyidae Thomomys, he remembered dismally) the earth gave way under him and he toppled backward.

  According to the Queensberry rules, he was entitled to a count of ten to recover his footing. But Dunaway rushed forward and threw himself on Drumm, knees crushing the wind from his chest, hands groping for the throat. Locked together in what Drumm assumed was frontier style, the two rolled muddily on the ground while spectators cheered a
nd made bets.

  "Middlesex Regiment, is it?" Dunaway snarled. "Know how to handle Indians better, do they?" Fingers twined around Drumm's neck, he lifted Drumm's head high and banged it repeatedly on the damp earth, uttering cavalry obscenities all the while. "There, take that! And that! You Englishmen are so damned good at handling things—handle that now!"

  He banged Drumm's head down so hard that planets, constellations, a complete zodiac, reeled through his skull. Eggleston, seeing his master abused, ran to help him. Corporal Bagley reached out a languid paw and caught him by the collar.

  "Had enough?" Dunaway jeered.

  With his wind cut off he could not respond. The world dimmed, turned black. "Guess that'll teach you!" Dunaway panted, relaxing his hold.

  Drumm lay winded like a beached salmon while Dunaway casually retrieved his insignia to the cheers of the B Company rowdies. Eggleston tried to help his master rise but Drumm waved him away and staggered to his feet, aware that Miss Phoebe Larkin was regarding him pityingly. That hurt more than his defeat at the hands of George Dunaway.

  "It wasn't fair!" he gasped, spitting out a foreign object that proved to be a tooth. "The rules say—"

  "No rules out here, no rules at all!" Dunaway casually tucked in a shirttail. "As to what's fair, Drumm—depends on where you come from. Nothing out here is fair—the Apaches aren't fair, the weather isn't fair, the whole damned Arizona Territory is the unfairest thing you ever saw, and it's no place for a weakling that comes along whimpering about fair! Arizona is for men—men that scratch and claw their way and stick it out no matter what the weather, or the Indians, or the Lord God Himself!" Dunaway turned toward Miss Phoebe Larkin and her companion. "Is that your baggage, ladies? Corporal, take the valises and put them in the lead wagon, will you?"

  Drumm watched the corporal pick up the bags. He was afraid he would add to his humiliation by vomiting. "Now that we've settled our little score," Dunaway said conversationally, getting again into the saddle, "there was a Pinkerton man named Meech, Alonzo Meech, left Phoenix about the same time you did, Drumm. Hasn't been heard from, and the home office has been making inquiries. Seen him around?"