Norton, Andre - Novel 15 Page 12

  "Now that's plum smart." Harkness regarded the small Mexican with open admiration. "But this time you can travel safe with us. You'll find the main drag on up ahead."

  Diego shook his head. "Ah, no, sefiores. Should I travel weeth you an' be seen by the Apache, then will I lose my eenocent appearance. Maybe I shall share food, si. An' Perro shall amuse those who care to watch heem. But I go on alone. There are eyes een all these hills, senores. Ever do they watch what passes. Eef eet ees small an' weak, then death comes down from the rocks. Eef eet ees strong, then are those eyes never seen. So—buenos dias, senores. Diego must march. Ha, Perro, make the manners!"

  Perro yapped twice, and the Mexican showman plodded along the well-marked trail of the advance guard, pausing to wave farewell once.

  "Y'know," Harkness commented, ''he's got a darn clever idea there. The Apaches won't touch a crazy man, 'n if he acts crazy—why, he's safe."

  "Like Charlie Black," Ritchie mused. "Only if that trick is so easy to work, why don't—"

  "More of us do it?" asked Sturgis. "Maybe there is an idea in that. And an army acting crazy would be nothing new in this country. We are crazy enough when just going about the usual day's business. Wouldn't take much play acting to be real loco. You might suggest it to the Colonel when we get back to Santa Fe. It would prove you're taking a proper interest in your work—"

  But Ritchie wasn't listening to that with more than half an ear. What had Herndon once said about Diego months ago—that the Mexican had a habit of appearing just before disaster? And here he was again. If Diego had some relation to the Apache raids, then that, rather than his game of insanity, would explain his immunity from attack, Herndon and Woldemar were up front. They knew Diego and would watch for him. Just the same he wished that they could hurry on, too, right behind that man with his well-trained dog and his sleek white mule. Fortunately the mules were condescending to drink at last, and soon they could start on.

  That night Diego and Perro performed their act for the amusement of the camp. But sometime before dawn the Mexican slipped away into the maze of canyons with the same skill as the Apaches might have shown. And after the long hours of a dry march Ritchie had half forgotten his suspicions.

  On the second day of that march Ritchie rode out with Tuttle. He tried to remember all he had learned of scouting on those hunting trips, and he followed the old Mountain Man with a dogged persistence which sometimes brought exasperated comment from the scout. It didn't help matters any when the first spring they found proved to be rimmed with a telltale band of chemical stains. Tuttle teetered on a rock above it and made a few heated remarks.

  Ritchie looked down with longing at the first water he had seen in two days. He touched a dry tongue to dryer lips and swallowed what felt like a nasty selection of dirty cotton wisps.

  " 'Course yo' can drink if yo' want to!" Tuttle, recovered, eyed his companion's obvious distress with a certain sly humor. "Then, what happens after is only yore own fault. Pure salts that stuff is. I went up to the mouth of the Virgin once—that's whar yo' git the other sorta salt. They got a kinda mine up thar whar they dig themselves out chunks of the stuff two-three feet thick 'n as clear as ice! This is the dangblastedest country! Stone trees, 'n then over California way thar're soda lakes all spread out. Hit one of them when my grub was runnin' low oncet, 'n got me a duck. Only, could I eat him after I toasted him up good 'n brown? I could not—bitter'n gall. Water tasted like dirty soap suds, 'n yo' couldn't choke it down. Yo' don't know what it means to be uncomfortable, son. Wait 'til yo' git some of that thar soda dust in yore nose 'n throat! Wal, seen enough of this disappointin spring? Then let's vamoose—"

  "All right. But what do the Apaches use for water when they live in here?"

  "Wal, in the furst place an Apache don't need to be a-guzzlin' down a drink maybe every five minutes or so. He's lived in this furnace so long he's kinda dried out like the rest of the country. Then he can stomach stuff like this —maybe not so bad—but stuff which would twist the guts right outta a white man. 'N he has his own leetle ways—he's a desert fox. When he runs him off a mule or horse 'n hacks out a few steaks when the pore critter gives up, he pulls out the big gut 'n cleans it—jus' a leetle bit. Then he fills that fulla water at the next spring 'n winds it 'round his middle for a belt. He can keep goin' a right smart time with a canteen like that stinkin' up his hide. 'N don't think that he doesn't know every spring that is anywhere in these hills. He's got him a better map right here"—Tuttle tapped his forehead—"than any the soldier boys can draw out all fancy. The Apache, he ain't never a soldier, he's a warrior, 'n he's fightin' right in his own backyard. Don't ever forgit, son, that's important. Yo'll live longer if yo' keep it in mind. Yo' can't fight the Apache soldier fashion—yo' gotta meet him his own way."

  Ritchie pulled his kerchief up over his nose as a shield against the puffs of dust the wind bore down the canyon. "Isn't that what we're try to do now?"

  "That's what we're try in' to do, son. Thar's some what takes to this natural, 'n thar's some what can never learn. Makes me think of that thar Britisher 'way back in the Injun wars—Braddock, I think his name was. I 'member my grandpappy tellin' of him. His pappy was kilt in that thar foolishment. Wanted to march right up in nice ordered rows to the Injuns 'n shoot it out man to man, that Brad-dock did. 'N what happened? He ended up shot in the back by one of his own men who didn't take kindly to bein' kilt without no chance of fightin' back. Yeah, thar's always those what can't fight a war nasty-like—'n Injun fightin's downright nasty. They want to make it all accordin' to rules, only the Injun, he has his own rules, 'n he don't take no stock in the loco ones the Pinda Lick-o-yi go shootin' off their mouths 'bout. So we fight his way or we don't come back."

  ''What about Charlie Black and Diego? They have their own method of meeting the Apache on his own ground."

  "Wal, now—Charlie—his story is true. I saw him right after he got away from the Apaches. Stripped down he was, 'n they had started workin' on him a leetle. If yo' took off his moccasins, yo'd see his feet are mighty queer lookin'. But Diego"—Tuttle was frowning—"that's a right bright idea he told yo' about. 'N it seems to work—leastwise he ain't come up missin' yet, 'n he does cross Injun country alone."

  "Could he be in with them, getting information for them?"

  Through all that tangle of beard it was hard to read the scout's expression. "In this country, son, we don't say things like that without we have our proof handy. 'N that's 'bout the worst yo' could say of a man. Velasco, he's as white as yo' 'n me. But when he ^vas five-six years old, the Apaches raided the mine where his pappy was Cap'n of the guard. He was took off into the hills 'n raised Apache, bein' tough enough to live through it. Only when he was growed, he came back to his own people. He lives Apache, but he thinks white. The man who'd think Apache and live white —wal, now, he wouldn't be spit on by rattlesnakes if they saw the color of his hide furst. I've had friends among the Apache, but their minds—they work different from our'n. Sometimes we ain't got us no common meetin' ground at all. Ha, Lucy, what yo' smellin' now, gal?"

  The mule he was riding by preference had lifted her head and quickened her pace. And a moment later Ritchie's horse showed equal signs of excitement. Tuttle nodded.

  "Water," he said and gave his mount her own head to follow the trail she wished.

  They came out on the banks of a dark pool that was fed by a trickle of spring water, the overflow of which apparently sank into the dry gravel a few yards beyond. But scrubby vegetation clung to the soil around it, and there were no signs of the poisonous salts here.

  Never did water taste so good! Ritchie rolled it over his tongue trying to cleanse his mouth of the feverish dryness which had burnt there most of the morning. They allowed their mounts a brief drink and then stripped off saddles and blankets to wipe down dust and sweat-matted backs and legs with handsful of coarse grass pulled from the edge of the pool and dipped into the water. Then Tuttle lit a small fire and boiled up a tin of coffee
, putting out on the flat rock which served them as a table some of the piki, paper-thin corn bread, which he carried in preference to hardtack, and some stringy jerky.

  "We'll do a leetle huntin' on the way back," he said. " 'Long as I have most of my teeth left, I don't relish army beef. Git me a deer or somethin'. 'N that thar cook we got with us—wal, he ain't what I'd call a cook. He ain't no pastry cook, nor a tasty cook—but a doggoned nasty cook! 'N fur that I'd back him agin' all of Santy Fe."

  Ritchie slapped at the cloud of tiny brown mosquitoea that infested the grass about the borders of the pool. "Sturgis called him worse than that last night. Found a beetle in the coffee, and when he complained, the cook said he wasn't responsible for things flying into the food."

  "Expect he thought yo' should be thankful for the fresh meat." Tuttle licked some crumbs of piki from his fingers. ''Now, looky here! These leetle fellas are sure right on the job—gittin' grub." Some ants were already busy about the dropped crumbs. " 'N thar's their lodge—right over thar."

  An anthill, not so large as those he had seen near the fort, rose on the other side of their table rock. Ritchie caught sight of a glint of blue-green halfway down the side of that gravelly mound and leaned closer to investigate. A little scratching with his fingers gave him half a dozen round beads, smooth and polished.

  "Turquoise," the scout identified them. "The Old Ones were mighty partial to 'em. Unhuh—look up thar!"

  He pointed to a black shadow on the cliff wall well above them. There was no possible way to reach it that Ritchie could see.

  "Wouldn't be a bit surprised if that thar ain't a burial cave. If we could git up to it, we might find a chief's bones 'n all his foo-fraw laid out. That's whar these probably fell from." He picked up one of the beads. "The Injuns, they set a big store by turquoise—make regular jewels outta it-it 'n shell."

  "Shell?" The desert around them hardly looked like the place in which to find those.

  "Traded west for 'em, maybe." Tuttle shrugged. "What yo' plannin' to do with those?"

  "I'll see if that Chinese can have them set in silver for me—the girls might like rings made that way." He buttoned them into his shirt pocket before getting up to stretch.

  It was quiet there by the pool. And as Ritchie stood there, he had for a second or two a queer, spooky feeling, as if they were not alone at all. He had felt almost the same back with the mulada that day listening to Diego's talk of the unseen eyes ringing the hills. He didn't like it.

  "Better be gittin' back with the good news." Tuttle saddled Lucy. ''Only this time, we'll strike down canyon 'n see if our stream does peter out thar or whether she pops up agin later on. They do, yo' know."

  The canyon deepened and grew cooler as its walls shut off some of the sun. Patches of vegetation suggested that water was not so hard to find. And within half a mile Tuttle's prediction was proven right—the stream reappeared and threaded along, sinking now and again into strings of scummy pools. Having made sure of water, they turned off to cut back to the main party. They were riding at an easy pace when Tuttle suddenly caught at Ritchie's reins and pulled both mounts up.

  Over the edge of a small rise shuffled a brown-feathered horde, raw necks outstretched, wings hanging to the dust, beaks open and gasping.

  "Turkeys!" Ritchie yelled.

  The flock brushed by without a glance for their mortal enemies—man—intent upon the water they could scent. Tuttle made no move, and Ritchie, through sheer surprise, could not. Then the flow of trotting bronze was gone into a side gully that would give upon one of the pools the scouts had passed earlier.

  "Leastwise we won't starve," Tuttle announced with some satisfaction. "Once they git to water, they ain't goin' to leave it in a hurry. Some of them looked right plump, too. We can sorta relieve the Cap'n's mind about his commissariat 'long with the water. This is a lucky day."

  "But where did they all come from?"

  Tuttle's answering gesture embraced most of the horizon. "Anywhar's likely. It's whar they're goin' that matters to us—"

  As they pounded along the back trail, Tuttle suddenly asked a question of his own.

  "Had any more trouble with Birke, son?"

  “Birke?" That hulking barracks bully had not more than crossed the outer rim of his life since their clumsy duel. Maybe Birke feared a return match too much to notice Ritchie. But both had been included in this expedition, and sooner or later they might be teamed on guard duty. "No, I haven't seen much of him. Why?"

  "Kinda figured him for a 'snow-bird.' But he's stuck with us right into warm weather."

  "A spring deserter?" Ritchie translated the barracks slang. "But he seems to like soldiering—"

  "Maybe. Only when I catched him roughin' up your Apache boy, Del-she—"

  Ritchie stiffened. Once he had visited the boy at the mission school. To his eyes the Apache had lost none of his sullen silence, and he had wondered at the Padre's interest in the boy. But the thought of Birke knocking him about did not please him.

  "He won't try that agin in a hurry, son. But he don't love either of us none—thinks of yo' 'n me 'bout the same as he thinks of rattlesnakes. Better keep yore eyes peeled when he's hangin' round."

  So he'd have to remember that along with other things, Ritchie thought, as he herded thirsty mules along a few hours later. It was too bad one simply could not sink into a nice quiet rut—what army life should properly be. It was an existence in which everything was decided for one, from the shirt to wear to the place one dared walk. But so far his tour of duty hadn't been a placid one. And if a mere private had to have eyes in the back of his head—why, what must go on between Scott Herndon's well-shaped ears or under Lieutenant Gilmore's sleek cap of blond hair! And Captain Sharpe—who was responsible for all of them—did he ever have a quiet moment to call his own?

  A little hard work on the picket line added to his own dissatisfaction with life. The stone-hard ground resisted the picket pin he was trying to pound into it, and he used some of the more pungent words he had learned from Sergeant Herndon during the cactus-bull episode to encourage the stubborn thing.

  "This will add to your joy in life." Sturgis grinned at him over a rock. "You're on guard duty—the last tour, just before the stilly dawn. Hush, my child, that is an exceedingly naughty word with which you have just sullied your boyish lips. Should any of your stern mentors hear you now—" He shuddered with realistic horror. "But come now to our own private bower and let me revive you with a portion of Mormon tea. That's what the cook calls the stinking stuff. How well you remember the rules!" He came around to admire Ritchie's work. "We must never stick a picket in an anthill—no matter how inviting the prospect, though I fear that some of our lazier brothers-in-arms have just forgotten that sage advice. Let us hope that nothing untoward will occur before morning to make them wish that they had been wiser men."

  But something did. It was close to dawn when Ritchie became sure of the menace of certain shadows—he was sure of them this time—sure and deadly. The crack of his carbine was swallowed up by the wild howl of a wolf. And then all hell itself broke loose in the canyon as the horses and mules stampeded and ran before an enemy they dreaded of old.

  A loose picket pin whizzed through the dark and caught Ritchie a sharp crack above the ear. The blow sent him sprawling back between two rocks and so saved his life, as a minute later the rush of maddened horses swept across the spot where he had stood.

  11

  “You Ride to Your Funerals, Soldados!”

  Ritchie clawed himself to his knees beside the rock over which he had fallen. Someone had built up the fire, and the wavering lights of improvised torches shuttled here and there. He raised one hand to his splitting head.

  "Here's the wolf! Got him right through the center. But he's still kickin'!"

  Ritchie hitched his way around the supporting rock. There was a knot of men gathered several yards away. He shook his head and then wished that he had not tried that method of clearing it.

&nb
sp; "Apache!" The same voice which had identified the wolf now shrilled out the warning. Ritchie's carbine went up automatically. But where, in that darkness pinpointed only by the fire, was the enemy?

  A bugle call broke across the camp, echoing from one canyon wall to the other. The crowd in the reaches of the firelight melted away. From behind his rock Ritchie looked out at a deserted camp site. Then, from out of the fringes of the half shadow a horse nickered. So all of their mounts had not been swept away in that wild stampede! Why, that sound had come from about where he had picketed Bess— slightly off from the regular line because the soil on the bank of the dried stream had seemed a little too loose to hold a picket pin secure.

  "Huh!" A dark shape loomed up, rounded the rock, and stumbled on Ritchie. "Who's thar?"

  "Peters. Who are you?"

  "Birke," the other growled and edged away.

  For a second or two Ritchie was almost sorry to see him go. He disliked Birke more than any other man he had ever known, but in the uncertainty of the night he would have welcomed any company of his own kind.

  That crouching in the dark, trying to forget his pounding headache and wondering what minute an Apache would materialize within knifing distance, seemed to have no end. After what appeared hours of such employment Ritchie fancied he could see a lighter band in the sky.

  And that band had turned a faint pink before they were given the signal to come in. He stumbled out of his cramped position, stamping circulation back into a foot which had gone numb. Now he was able to see what had been shot.

  From under the matted, grayish fur of a badly tanned wolf pelt protruded brown legs knotted with muscles which had tightened in the last agony of death. And within the hood of the hide was a contorted face, a wild mask of dried blood and powdered copper-ore paint.

  "That was a right smart shot, son." Tuttle had come up behind him. " 'N what happened to yo'—try to stop the stampede with yore head?"