CHAPTER 17
A FACE IN THE DARK
I drifted off to sleep after a while. I dreamed I’d been caught and was sleeping between Charlie and Jake when Charlie decided to go ahead and kill me. That woke me up for a bit, and then I drifted off again. I was shivering after a couple of hours and couldn’t stop. Then I started having a hard time distinguishing between what was real and what were dreams. One of the times when I was lucid, I knew Jake was right. I was dying. I thought I wouldn’t mind dying if I could just have a good drink of water. I was so thirsty. I hadn’t known a person could ever be that thirsty.
I thought I was going out of my mind or dreaming again when I saw the big mass of tumbleweeds rise up right off the mesquite bush and sail off toward the other bushes. There was no wind. Then I saw the shadowy, grim face of an Apache with dark, penetrating eyes. He wore a cavalry campaign hat folded up in front and a blue army coat. A big, long-barreled Colt and a long skinning knife hung from a cartridge belt around his waist. A shock of fear ran through me, and I thought I was dead for sure, but instead of killing me, he looked me over slowly, then glanced up and looked over toward the east, seeming to sniff the wind.
I couldn’t see much of his face, but it didn’t matter. He seemed friendly, and right then I needed a friend more than anything in the world. I started to speak, but he held up his hand, the edge of his fingers on his lips, and shook his head to signal me to be quiet. He looked around again, then reached down and grabbed the hand of my broken arm to help me out from under the bush. When I groaned and gritted my teeth in pain, he nodded, took the other hand and gently helped me up and brushed the dirt off my coat as I stood there swaying. The ground seemed to be spinning. I was so cold. I was shaking all over. He placed a rough hand around my neck to feel how cold I was before squatting, and gently bending me over his left shoulder, he picked me up. He walked about a hundred yards down a cow path to a black-and-white paint pony that snorted in recognition as we appeared out of the darkness.
He put me down and pulled a heavy Mexican blanket off the saddle, wrapped it around my shoulders, and eased me down to sit on it. Then, he pulled a canteen off the saddle horn and offered me water. The cold water sliding down my throat was a gift from heaven, but after a couple of swallows, I started shaking worse. He snatched it out of my hand and whispered, “Not much now. You mucho frio. Drink slow or you die.” I was surprised that he spoke such good English.
Gently he slid the coat sleeve off my right arm and felt it up and down. Up close, I could see he had a broad, flat nose and thin lips. His black eyes looked like those of a hunting hawk. His rough hands gently felt the knot in my forearm while I gritted my teeth and whimpered. He looked in my eyes and said, “Arm broke. I fix. Then we ride before the men come. Comprende?” I nodded.
He disappeared into the dark, so I pulled the blanket up close and just sat there, still shaking but not as bad as when he had found me. He reappeared so quietly I jumped when I saw his boots appear at my feet. He had four short sticks of mesquite the same length, sliced clean of thorns and bark, and some long strips of some kind of gourd vine. He squatted beside me, handed me a stick, and whispered, “Bite stick so you no scream.” I realized he was going to set my broken bone, and it was going to hurt a lot. He slid the sleeve up on my arm, took my elbow in a powerful grip, grasped my wrist, and looked in my eyes. I braced myself, bit down on the stick, and nodded. He pulled hard. I felt a huge surge of pain, and then I passed out, drifting in darkness.
I woke up sitting in the paint pony’s saddle with my face buried in the front of the sergeant’s jacket and the Apache’s arm clamping me tightly under my shoulder blades. I wasn’t shaking anymore, and between the Apache’s body heat and the heavy wool blanket he had around me, I felt warmer than I had a lifetime ago, that same morning when I had gotten out of bed in La Luz. All I remember about that ride is the feeling of the left and right sway in the saddle as the paint tacked back and forth along a trail through creosote bushes, seeing a boulder or two passing in the deep, shadowy darkness, and the moaning wind ripping at my torn face. Soon, I drifted into an exhausted sleep.
CHAPTER 18
THE SHACK
When I woke up, I was lying on a cot staring up through rafters supporting a tin roof that was creaking from the wind. Beams of sunlight burning through a dirty window in a wall opposite my bed made the dust floating in the air look like flakes of gold. I could hear the crackling of a fire and a spoon rattling against the side of a bubbling iron pot. As I looked around, I saw that there was only one room in the place. The walls were two-by-fours sheeted over with planks about a foot wide and nailed in place at about a forty-five-degree angle. The same type planks and two-by-fours made up a rough door that rattled and creaked in the same wall as the window. A rifle with the longest barrel I’d ever seen and a fine walnut stock hung upside down on pegs above the door. Nails stuck in every two-by-four had some piece of clothing, a towel, a pot, a tool of some kind, or a cartridge belt hung on it. There were a couple of stacks of books packed several feet high in the corner closest to my feet.
I turned my head and could see a couple of bedrolls laid out between an old, cast-iron cooking stove and some stools around a rough table. My right eye was swollen so badly that I could only see out of my left eye. Some kind of poultice that stank like wet cow manure had been applied to the cuts on my face and arms. The splint the Indian had put on my arm had been replaced with some nice, saw-cut, smoothed boards tied neatly in place with dingy, but clean, white cloth. I tried to sit up, but was too weak to make it and fell back.
The Indian who had found me was squatting next to the door, resting with his back against the wall, and he fit nicely between a set of two-by-four studs. His rifle butt was on the floor, its stock between his feet so that the barrel rested on his shoulder. His dark eyes followed me.
An old miner’s boot nudged the door open, and then a gust of wind flung it wide open as the dark silhouette of a man filled the doorway. I saw the outline of a water bucket and a washbasin, too. The man closed the door, looked over at me, turned to his right, and said, “Well, Yellow Boy, looks like our young friend’s finally awake.” Then turning back toward me, he said, “Howdy, Henry, glad ye decided to drop in today.”
I looked up and saw the silver, wire-framed glasses on the end of Rufus Pike’s nose. He looked at me and smiled. His beard had grown scraggly since his time at Miss Darcy’s. He had his shirtsleeves rolled up over his long john sleeves, and there was a big bulge of chewing tobacco in his left cheek. Then I looked back at the Indian and realized he was the one I’d heard so much about, the one who never missed with his rifle.
Rufus put the bucket down on a rough-cut table and dipped some water into the basin before he sat it on a stand beside my cot and said, “I didn’t expect to see ye again quite so soon. Ain’t been home but a few days myself.” He took a dipperful and brought it over to me. Sitting on the edge of the cot, he held my head up while I drank. I was dry, and I gulped that good, cold water down. The drink tasted almost as good as the one from the canteen Yellow Boy had given me after he pulled me out from under the mesquite bush. Rufus patted my shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze of affection as he said, “We’re mighty sorry about yore pa, son. He was a great man and shore didn’t deserve to die like that. Mostly though, we was worried about ye. Didn’t know if old Yellow Boy had found ye in time or not. Ye’ve been sleeping sound fer two days ’cept fer when ye’d yell yoreself awake. Bad dreams, I reckin.”
Rufus pulled up an ancient, dark-stained, three-legged stool and sat down. Reaching in his back pocket, he pulled out the cleanest dirty rag in the shack, dipped it in a pan of water he’d sat by the cot, and carefully dabbed at the poultice.
He said, “This stuff here was made from some weeds the Mescalero women use and recommend fer wounds of every kind. Stinks, don’t it?” He wrinkled his nose then grinned as reflected firelight from the open door in the stove danced across his glasses.
; There was the barest hint of a smile on the thin line that formed Yellow Boy’s mouth, and I smiled, too, in spite of all the hurt I was feeling inside and out.
Rufus tenderly took my good hand and rubbed it. “It’s a miracle ye’re alive, Henry. Another couple of hours under that mesquite bush, and ye’d have died.”
“But I didn’t feel like I was all that hurt, Rufus. The cold just gave me a little case of the shakes.”
“Well, when Yellow Boy got here with ye,” Rufus said, “he told me that when he found ye, ye were too cold to stay alive much longer. He had to keep ye wrapped in a blanket up next to his belly and chest while he brought ye here. Ye don’t remember ridin’ backwards over Baylor Pass, do ye?”
He looked over at Yellow Boy with the question wrinkled on his brow. Yellow Boy gave a slight nod of assent and cocked his head to listen outside.
Rufus said, “See there, I told ye.” He sniffed over toward a big, black Dutch oven sitting on the stove. The room had a pungent, dry wood smell that mixed with the mouthwatering smell of cooked meat, onions, and baked bread and made me glad I was alive. “Stew’s ’bout done. Are ye ready to eat yet, Henry?”
“I’m about to starve,” I said. “But I’m afraid I can’t get food in my mouth ’cause my face feels so swollen up. I can’t see out of one eye. Is it gone?”
Rufus chuckled and said, “Naw, it ain’t gone. Ye’ll see fine when the swelling goes down. Never ye mind about the swelling, boy. We’ll get ye fed.” He grunted with the weight of his years as he got up and shuffled over to the Dutch oven. Yellow Boy was still listening with his ear cocked toward the door, when he suddenly turned toward Rufus and said in a low, urgent voice, “Caballos!”
Without saying a word, Rufus motioned him with spread fingers, waving toward the floor to stay still while he stepped over and squinted into the sunlight pouring through the dirty window.
“It’s Buck Greer and some cowboys from over to Drippin’ Springs.” He looked back at me and said, “Henry, you keep real quiet. Yellow Boy ain’t supposed to be here, and I don’t know what might happen if those men were to find you all banged up after you’ve been missing, not what with an Apache here to blame.” I nodded that I understood. I could tell the horses were in the yard at that point. “Y’all both be still, and I’ll see what they’s a-wantin’,” Rufus said calmly in a low voice.
Then he flung the door open and closed it just as quickly behind him. I held my breath and listened to him speaking with the horsemen that had ridden up to the porch.
“Howdy, boys, Buck. Looks like ye’re goin’ on a long huntin’ trip with that there pack mule a-loaded up like that.”
Yellow Boy’s thin lips drew even tighter as he waited with his back to the wall and listened, ready to move if the men came inside. I saw he’d cocked his rifle and curled his finger around its trigger.
A man said, “Howdy, Rufus. Don’t reckon you heard the news. Barela, the mail wagon driver over to Luna’s Well, got back into Cruces night before last all upset. He said it looked like Colonel Fountain and his boy had come to harm somewhere around Chalk Hill over to the Sands.”
Rufus was silent for a moment, as if trying to take in what he’d just heard. Then he said, “Naw, Buck, I ain’t heard nothin’ about it. What you reckon happened?”
“Seems Fountain told Barela he was worried about some men doggin’ his trail. Barela said he saw the men and that they wouldn’t stay on the road so he could see who they was when he passed ’em. Next day on the way back, he found where a buggy had run off the road, and he got real worried. When he got to Fountain’s place that night and found out that Fountain and the kid hadn’t got home, all hell broke loose. Fountain’s oldest sons, Albert and Jack, jumped on their horses and took off for the pass without no supplies. Then another bunch in town supplied up and took off, too. A rider come over to the ranch where Fountain’s daughter Maggie was spendin’ some time with that beau of hers to tell her what happened, and she fainted. They’re a-sayin’ Fountain’s wife is in a bad way, too, almost crazy with grief. The whole damn town’s in an uproar.”
I heard Rufus step down off the porch, and then he said, “Well, that’s a shame in this world.”
I hated to hear about my family suffering that way and wanted to get up. I wanted to call out to them and show the men I was all right, but I didn’t want to put Yellow Boy in danger after he’d rescued me. Plus, I knew that would make it awful hard for Rufus to explain why he’d claimed he knew nothing about my disappearance.
Buck said, “Mr. Van Patten said José, Pete an’ me could ride over the pass and join the search parties. He said we should get back soon as Colonel Fountain and the kid were found, and for shore not to be gone more’n a couple a weeks. We thought we’d tell you the news and see if you wanted to come with us. We shore as hell got enough supplies on that mule so you ain’t a-gonna get hungry. You was a tracker back in the old days, wasn’t ya?”
Rufus said, “Yeah, I’s a tracker for Cap’n Ewell. That was back ’fore the war. We’s after Apaches on the El Paso to San Antonio road in them days.” He paused, and I heard him spit a stream of tobacco juice before he said, “Boys, I’m mighty sorry to hear about the colonel and little Henry. Why, I was a-talkin’ with them ’bout a week ago in Lincoln. I shore hate to hear this, but this here cold and wind has give me a major dose of the gout. I’n hardly walk much less ride, my toes hurt so bad, so I guess I’ll leave the trackin’ to you fellas. Shore sorry about the colonel and Henry though.”
Buck said, “Know what you mean. I get a touch of that gout myself onct in a while. It do hurt. We’d be glad to have you, but if you got the gout, you’d just slow us down. Mind if we water the horses ’fore we head on over to the pass?”
Rufus said, “Naw, boys. Ya’ll be my guests. Water trough’s over by the corral. Help yourself. I’m about to freeze out in this here wind. Done got too old. I’m going inside now. Good huntin’.” I heard the men start riding toward the corral.
It seemed forever, but it couldn’t have been more than ten minutes that we stayed nearly motionless in that shack, waiting for the Dripping Springs hands to water their animals and leave. Finally, they left, picking their way down the trail. Yellow Boy stood up and watched them out the window, finally easing the rifle hammer off full cock when the men were gone.
CHAPTER 19
GREEN CHILI STEW
When the Dripping Springs riders were out of sight, Rufus said, “Gentlemen, that there green chili trail stew smell is a makin’ my mouth water. Let’s eat.” He took three big, deep pans like our cook at home used for pies, and ladled out big portions of the stew from his big, bubbling pot into each one. He raised the top on the Dutch oven and got out a toasty, brown biscuit the size of a fist for each of us. Then he got a couple of spoons out of a box on a shelf over the stove and put one in two of the pans. He walked over and handed the one without a spoon to Yellow Boy, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor near the door.
Yellow Boy grunted as he pulled out his big knife with one hand and took the pan with the other. “Ummph, Gracias, Rufus. You cook muy bueno. I take you a mi casa someday. You can cook all the time there. I’ll look after you. I won’t need a woman then.” He grinned, showing his bright, white teeth, speared a chunk of meat, and bit off a mouthful, noisily smacking his lips and grinning as a little of the gravy ran down his chin.
Rufus said, “I don’t think ye’d do without a woman, Yellow Boy. Hell, ye just rode over two hundred miles to visit one, didn’t ye?” He walked over to the cot and sat a steaming pan down on his ancient stool. “Henry, I know it’s a-gonna be hard fer ye to sit up, but rest yore broke arm in that there sling I got around yore neck. Ye need to do fer yoreself as much as ye can as soon as ye can to get yore strength back. Sit up now and cross yore legs. I’m a-gonna put this here stool up on the cot so’s ye can eat off it and not have far to go to get the spoon from the pan to yore mouth.”
He helped me sit up, then stirred my portion and
blew across it to cool it down. I was a little dizzy and sore at first, but eating off that stool was actually pretty easy. The stew was still hot, but I didn’t care. It was the best-tasting food I could remember. Because of my swollen face, some of the stew dribbled down my chin as I got the spoon to my mouth, but the pan was close enough to catch the drippings. Handling the spoon with my left hand was awkward, but I learned fast.
Rufus took his pan of stew and sat down on an old, slat-bottomed chair, creating a triangle seating arrangement with Yellow Boy and me. We smacked, chewed, and slurped on that stew and those biscuits without saying a word.
I studied Yellow Boy while we ate. He looked about the age of my brother Albert, who was thirty. His shiny black hair stopped at his shoulders. His face reminded me of a pie pan. It was flat and round with a big, broad nose that appeared to have been broken at least once and was pushed a little to one side. He had two knife slits for eyes. He was short, and I was surprised at how thin he was. Somehow, I’d always imagined Apache scouts to be big and strong, but he looked half starved. We were all sweating a little from the chilies, and he unbuttoned his cavalry jacket to cool off a little, revealing a clean white shirt underneath the dusty jacket.
Before Rufus and I were even half finished, Yellow Boy finished sticking the last piece of stew in his mouth with his knife. Holding the pan up, he greedily drank all the remaining gravy. He said, “Good, Rufus. We hunt together sometime. You cook then, huh?”
Rufus had a mouthful and just grinned and nodded. Yellow Boy wiped the grease from around his mouth with his fingers and rubbed them on his well-oiled boots. He eased back against the wall under the window, once more bracing the heels of his boots on the floor so his knees were about a foot off the floor. He felt around inside his unbuttoned coat, found a black, ball-bat-shaped, Mexican cigar in an inside pocket, and lighted himself a smoke after flicking a sulfur match against his thumbnail. I’d seen cowboys light matches that way. When he smoked, he blew big, blue clouds up toward the rafters as he sat, relaxed and contented, reminding me of how Daddy had looked many times after a good dinner at home.
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