Lord Apache

by Robert J. Steelman

  "Hardly likely! And there's no one so unpredictable as an Apache. If we tried to get out of here, they'd cut our throats, quickly."

  "What must we do then?"

  In distress she clung to him. The red hair, loose and flowing, lay silkily against his cheek, the ripe swell of her thigh pressed against the hard muscles of his own. Voice trembling, but not from fear, he muttered, "Wait, I guess."

  "I suppose I should be scared. I was, till you came. Now I'm not anymore. Maybe they'll kill us, Jack, but—but somehow I'm happy! Happy you came, happy we're together, even in a scary situation like this!"

  His arm girdled her slender waist in the poet's narrow compass. All that's good and all that's fair. At the meeting in the clearing someone pounded a drum; the pulse in his ears thudded in time to the savage beat.

  "Phoebe," he said thickly. "Phoebe, I—" He touched her hair, feeling pleasure as the coppery strands sifted through his calloused fingers.

  "What is it, Jack?"

  He carried her to the pile of skins in a corner of the hut and they sank down clasped together in ecstasy that was strange and wondrous to John Peter Christian Drumm. He hoped it was wonderful to Phoebe Larkin also, and finally believed on good evidence that it was.

  Afterward they lay for a long time in each other's arms. Moonlight, light from a winter moon, shone fitfully through cracks in the brush hut. The air grew cold but they were warm in their nearness. The meeting of the Tinneh was still going on. The voices, the drum, came to them only faintly.

  "Do you love me, Jack?"

  Unbidden in his mind came a quick image of Cornelia Newton-Barrett. He ought, of course, to feel very guilty, but somehow he did not; that troubled him. To cover his confusion, he equivocated.

  "Do you love me?"

  As always, she was quick and forthright in her answer.

  "It seems like I always have, and I know I always will! How could it be any other way? When the Prescott stage came into your place along the river, arrows sticking out all over it, and I saw you standing there, something—something inside of me trembled. Oh, I couldn't give it much thought right then—Mr. Meech was hot on our trail—but a shiver went through me, and I said to myself, 'This is it, Phoebe Larkin! This is it—the real thing—and now you're on the run and won't probably ever see him again.'"

  Reminded, he told her, "You need not worry any longer about Mr. Meech; he has given up the pursuit. It seems old Buckner fell down the stairs and broke his neck. His relatives have balked at spending any more money to catch you—you and Beulah Glore."

  "He didn't!"

  "He did, indeed."

  She rose on an elbow to face him. "I can hardly believe it! I mean, to have been chased so long—" She sighed. "Still, I feel sorry for poor Mr. Buckner. He was lonely, I suppose, but he didn't know how to love anyone." For a long moment she was silent. Then she said, "It's—what do you call it? Ironic—yes, that's the word! It's ironic that I don't have to worry about Mr. Meech anymore, but now I've got to worry about—about—" She wept, burying her face against his shoulder. "About—about us! I don't mind dying so much, but I don't want to lose you!"

  In the face of her love he hated himself for his lack of equal frankness. The words of the song came to him: All that's good and all that's fair. He made the plunge.

  "Yes, God damn it! Yes, indeed—I do love you, Phoebe! I loved you from that first instant, only I was too damned cold—what was it you said? Cold as Mose's toe? I was too damned glacial and British to admit my own feelings! So I was very polite and reserved, though inside I felt something churning, but I made myself believe it was the damned wild corn I ate that day! I did love you, and I do love you, and I will never stop loving you!" He paused. "Ah—by the way, who was Mose?"

  "Mose who?"

  "The one who had the cold toe."

  In spite of the danger, she giggled. "I don't know! It was just something Uncle Buell used to say!" She was thoughtful for a moment, then asked hesitatingly, "Am I as pretty as Cornelia, Jack?"

  Somehow or other, he could not remember exactly how Cornelia Newton-Barrett looked. Blond, certainly—stately, with brown eyes. He did, however, remember exactly how Cornelia's ogress mother looked, and winced. But Cousin Lionel had always gotten along well with Cornelia's mother. In fact, Lionel had been one of Cornelia's unsuccessful suitors. Yes, that was right! He felt relieved. Probably when he heard the news, Lionel would take up where he had left off when Jack Drumm entered Cornelia's picture. Probably Lionel would even become Lord Fifield; the thought did not distress him.

  Phoebe gave his arm a hard pinch. "What were you dreaming about? I was talking to you!"

  "Yes," he said. "Yes, indeed. You are much prettier than Cornelia! She cannot hold a candle to you, Phoebe Larkin, and I am the luckiest man in the world to have discovered you, here in the Arizona Territory, and being captured by Apaches is a small price to pay for being here with you, in this brush hut, no matter what happens tomorrow—or ever!"

  Not caring about tomorrow, they lay again in each other's arms until it was tomorrow. Sometime during the night the firelit meeting came to a conclusion. The voices departed, the drums stilled, finally there was only moonlit silence. Jack went to the doorway and looked out. There were no guards, no restraints. In the lime-white rays of the moon the camp at Gu Nakya slumbered. The fire the Tinneh had built was now a bed of coals. A scrawny dog, bone in its mouth, hurried past him and was lost in the shadows. From far down the mountain came the frantic yips and yaps of coyotes on the hunt. Though Jack could not see the Tinneh sentinels, he knew that on the parapets of rock overlooking the valley they were scanning the night, watchful for attack. He went back into the hut and lay again beside her.

  "What is it, Jack?"

  "Nothing."

  "What time can it be?"

  "Near dawn, I think." He kissed her ear. "Now go to sleep. Whatever is to happen, you will need your rest."

  "I am not afraid," she said, and slept with her head in the crook of his arm. He lay silent, thinking of Eggleston and Beulah Glore, safe on the cars of the Atlantic and Pacific. By this time they were certainly in New York City, perhaps even on the high seas. He would not, however, exchange his situation for theirs. He was happy, almost irresponsibly happy, in a way he did not know Englishmen were supposed to be happy. It seemed very improper, yet there it was. The whole thing was so right, so utterly right; even, perhaps, preordained. After a while he slept, also, and did not wake till there sounded a scratching at the hide-covered doorway. Instantly roused, he sat up.

  "Who is it?"

  The deerskin flap was pulled aside. Early morning sun bathed the rude interior of the hut. He blinked, rubbing his eyes.

  "Who's there?"

  It was Nacho—the sobrino—Agustín's nephew. Blanket thrown over his lean shoulders against the morning chill, he squatted inside the doorway. Around his neck was the precious sack of hoddentin, the sacred meal, that his uncle had previously worn.

  He pointed to Phoebe Larkin. "You send her away."

  "But—"

  "Send her away! We talk. A man does not talk important things before his women!" Nacho gestured; one of the old women of the camp entered the hut and took Phoebe by the arm.

  "Where are you taking her?" Jack demanded.

  "The Red Hair Woman will not be hurt," Nacho promised. "They give her food—" He looked at Phoebe's scanty attire. "They give her food, and clothes to wear."

  "I think it's all right," he said. "Go with the woman, Phoebe."

  "I will," she said. "I'm not afraid, Jack."

  Though giving him a last uneasy look, she obeyed. Nacho watched her go.

  "We talk now."

  "As you wish."

  The young man took out the scratching stick the Tinneh men carried and poked at his head, apparently at a loss as to how to begin. After a while, not looking at Jack Drumm, he muttered, "Words! English words! I don't have many to say what I want. But I try."

  "I will understand," Jack pro
mised.

  "My uncle," Nacho began, "raise me from a little boy. He was a warrior. But when white men cheated him he took his men and went away from the Verde River place—the—the—"

  "The reservation," Jack prompted.

  "Yes. That is what they call it. But it was a thing to keep animals in, that reservation. So he lead the Tinneh away, and started to fight again, as we did in the old days. But things did not go right. My uncle had bad medicine. Too many soldiers came along the river. We fought them—we fought you too, Ostin—"

  Jack remembered Uncle Roscoe's words. Ostin is Apache talk for "Lord." Anything they respect or fear they call Ostin—the bear, snakes, lightning.

  "We fought you too. My uncle said you were a brave man, stay along the river when it was his sacred place, his medicine place, and he wanted you to go away. He thought you a good man, too, let me go back to Gu Nakya—no kill."

  Tentatively, respectfully, Nacho's slender fingers fumbled at the hoddentin sack around his neck.

  "We went down and stole a lot of horses. Always, the Tinneh walked before, but we thought maybe horses, riding horses, would make a difference. We ride horses, the way the soldiers do, and ride back to the mountain before the soldiers could catch us." He shrugged. "But now they have mirror-talk, same as us. Always there were soldiers ready when we came. So that did not work either."

  He got up to pace the dirt floor of the hut, strong brown legs knotting in muscles as he walked.

  "My uncle knew it was no good. He led the Tinneh up on the mountain just to die. It was no good to fight anymore. But he had the Red Hair Woman. He told me, he said that Englishman along the river, that white man I cut in the face with my knife, he come after the Red Hair Woman. My uncle said that. My uncle believed that. And he said, my uncle said—when he comes, I want to talk to him and see if he is brave and good like I think."

  "But—why? Why did he not just kill me when he had the chance?"

  Annoyed to be interrupted with a difficult task, Nacho made an impatient gesture.

  "You came! My uncle looked at you, talked to you. He fought you with knives, and you not afraid to die. So he was satisfied. He took his lucky hat, his chief's hat, and burned it. He walked away, to the big rock in the east, and—"

  Jack Drumm had never seen an Indian weep. Certainly Nacho did not weep. But there was a glint in his somber eye. For a moment, it seemed his voice caught, broke.

  "So he died. Because he had bad luck, he did not want to live anymore."

  Jack was moved. "But why—I mean—why am I—"

  "Ostin Drumm," Nacho said, "my uncle told me you are a brave man, a fair man, a smart man. He said you would lead us down the mountain, speak for us to that Gold Leaf Trimble. My uncle said that Trimble was a bad man, an evil man, a man who understood only blood, a man who killed Tinneh women and babies at Big Canyon to get those gold leaves on his shoulders. Now we know Trimble has these new guns, these shiny guns, that shoot faster than a hundred men. We are scared of those guns, scared that when we come down to the river to surrender Trimble will shoot even the old people and the sick people with those guns and—" Nacho wiped one palm across the other in an eloquent gesture. "Wipe us out—women and children, everybody!"

  He paused, his voice trembling with passion. "Ostin, the Tinneh do not beg! If Gold Leaf Trimble tries to shoot us with those shiny guns we will all die like Tinneh! But if you come with us down the mountain, go first to talk to Trimble, tell him we are giving up our guns and will go to that Verde River place and learn how to be farmers and herdsmen—"

  Afterward, Jack realized the young man could not have been so eloquent. Nacho's limited English was not equal to the task. Later he realized that much of what he remembered was supplied by Nacho's eloquent gestures. Much came also from Jack's own interpretation of an awkward phrase here, a misused word there.

  "It is not the men," Nacho added. "We know how to die. But the women and children should not die."

  Remembering how Indians weighed their words, deliberating a long time before speaking, Jack sat cross-legged in the hut, hands on knees, half naked, staring at the bright rectangle of sunlight in the open doorway. Nacho did not speak either. Ostin, Jack was thinking. I am Ostin Drumm. Somehow he was prouder of that title than he would ever have been of the title of Lord Fifield, Lord Fifield of Clarendon Hall, in Hampshire.

  Nacho, he knew, was thinking also; thinking of a free and wild way of life that was vanishing. The Tinneh had been beaten. They would go back to the Verde River reservation. Hoes would be thrust into their hands, and rakes and shovels. The government, that mysterious force far to the east, would make of them farmers, herdsmen, mechanics. Maybe it was all for the best; surely it was the best for the citizens of the Arizona Territory, and perhaps best for the Tinneh too, in the long run. But something would be lost, something wild and free and soaring, like the eagle—Ostin Eagle. Agustín knew that, and died rather than lose it. Now the sobrino—Nacho—knew it too, and was ready to take the Tinneh into exile. He wanted Jack Drumm to help.

  "I will do it," Jack promised. "It is an honor that you give me."

  At dawn the next morning the Tinneh went down the mountain on their journey of surrender. Most, particularly the old men and women and children, rode horses—the stolen horses, the unavailing horses. They rode awkwardly, as Apaches did.

  The journey was rough. Many would not have been able to make it on foot. There were wounded, too. Jack Drumm, with his small knowledge of medicine, did what he could, bandaging, lancing infected wounds, improvising a travoislike litter for a gangrenous man who suffered, but only lay silent and tight-lipped in the litter.

  Nacho, chosen head of the vanquished Tinneh, led the way. Jack Drumm trotted beside him on Tom, the borrowed Spencer carbine in his saddle scabbard. Folded in his pocket was the precious Union Jack, also returned to him. It was ragged and dirty, and displayed several bullet holes. Behind them rode Phoebe Larkin in an Apache dress sewn from deerhide. She rode easily, expertly. "Why, of course!" she said in response to Jack Drumm's inquiry. "Of course I can ride! My uncle Buell taught me when I was a little girl in Pocahontas County!"

  At the bend of the rocky trail Nacho reined up and stared toward the plume of white smoke above Gu Nakya. When they left, the Tinneh had set afire the brush huts. When someone dies, Jack remembered, they set the whole village afire and move away. They don't want to be reminded.

  Gold Leaf Trimble was certainly aware of their coming. Up and down the sierra winked the shafts of reflected sunlight from the new M-7 heliograph. At noon the band paused for water from a spring, ate a little dried meat from their scanty stores, and pinole, parched cornmeal soaked in water to make a thin gruel.

  Sometime in the afternoon the wounded man in the litter died, as uncomplainingly as he had borne his wounds. They placed the body in a cairn of rocks. The women gathered around and wailed in unison, comforted the wife of the dead man. Then the column moved on, faster, hoping to reach the Agua Fria by dusk.

  An orange ball glowing in a purplish haze, the sun was setting behind the ragged ridges as they approached the cavalry outposts.

  "Wait here," Jack instructed. "I will ride down and tell them we have women and children, and some wounded, that we are coming in under parole to surrender."

  Nacho gave him a long fathomless look. Finally he nodded. "Inju. All right."

  Jack rode into the twilight, the roan stepping daintily among the rocks, pretending to shy and be startled when a partridge boomed out of a thicket.

  "Easy, now," Jack muttered, patting the horse's arched neck. "Easy, Tom!"

  Where are they? he wondered. Where are the cavalry pickets? This is where Uncle Roscoe and I met them before.

  In the canyon with its steep sides he could see nothing but the trail directly ahead. Where were they? Surely Trimble knew they were coming. He reined in Tom, looking about. Could it be—an ambush?

  "Trimble!" he shouted. "Dunaway! George Dunaway! It's me— Jack Drumm!"


  Someone turned the crank of a Gatling gun and fire spat from the shadows of the canyon. Splinters of rock flew from the slablike walls, dust stung his nostrils, slugs screamed down the canyon, ricocheting from wall to wall.

  "God damn it!" he yelled. "Stop it! Stop the shooting! It's me— Jack Drumm!"

  Tom reared, pranced in a tight caracole, and threw him to the ground. He must have hit his head on a rocky ledge because brilliant yellow and red and green lights flashed behind his eyes, the world turned upside down, his ears rang. The Gatling gun cranked on, now joined by others; the canyon was filled with smoke and fire and deadly rolling thunder. He was showered with needlelike fragments of lead.

  "Stop it!" he screamed. "God, stop the shooting!"

  Gasping for breath, unsteady on his legs, half blinded from the stone dust and lead fragments, he groped along the canyon wall toward the guns.

  "Stop it, I tell you! It's Drumm, Jack Drumm! Stop the shooting!"

  The hungry chattering of the Gatlings paused, stuttered, paused again. For a moment the silence in the narrow canyon was oppressive. Then he heard George Dunaway's voice raised in anger.

  "God damn it, stay away from that gun!"

  "But Major Trimble said—"

  Dunaway's words, most of them, were unprintable. "I don't care what Major Trimble said! Stand clear of that gun or I'll put a bullet through your fat skull!"

  "George?" Jack called. "Dunaway?"

  Through the dust and smoke came George Dunaway, revolver in one hand, the other clutching for support as he clambered among the rocks.

  "Drumm! Is that you?" He shoved the revolver back in the holster and put an arm under Jack's elbow. "Here—let me help you! Are you hurt?"

  Jack shook his head, gasped, "I don't think so!" He waved his arm toward the mouth of the canyon, now almost shrouded in night. "The Tinneh are back there! They're waiting to come in, to surrender!"

  "The who?"

  "Agustín's people! I rode down with them! They—they want to surrender!"

  Dunaway was quickly professional. "How many of them? Are they armed?"