Trail of the Apache and Other Stories Read online

  to lead an expedition to the border. They say that

  he will probably ask for you. So I am being assigned here to replace you when the time comes.

  This is, of course, only gossip that is circulating

  about.”

  “Do you believe it?”

  “Sir, I don’t even think about it.”

  Travisin said, “You mean you don’t want to

  think about it. Sitting by yourself at a Godforsaken

  Indian agency with almost two hundred and fifty

  White Mountains living across the street. Not to

  mention the scouts.” He paused and smiled at de

  Both. “I don’t know, Lieutenant, you might even

  like it after a while.”

  “I accept my orders, Captain. My desires have

  nothing to do with my orders.”

  But Travisin was not listening. Long strides took

  Trail of the Apache

  13

  him to the doorway and he leaned out with a hand

  against the door frame on each side.

  “Fryyyyyyyyyyy! Hey, Fryyyy!”

  ✯ ✯ ✯

  The men of H troop looked over to the office as

  they prepared to mount. Barney Fry left the sergeant and strode toward the agency office. “Come

  in here, Barney.”

  The clatter of trotting horses beat across the

  quadrangle as Fry stepped up on the porch and entered the office. His short strides were slightly

  pigeon-toed and he held his head tilted down as if

  he were self-conscious of his appearance. He

  looked to be in his early twenties, but, like Travisin, his face was a hard, bronzed mask, matured

  beyond his age. When he took off his gray widebrimmed hat, thick, black hair clung close to his

  scalp, smeared with oily perspiration.

  “What do you think, Barney?”

  Fry leaned against the edge of the desk. “I think

  probably the same thing you do. Those ’Paches

  aren’t goin’ to stay long at Gila even if we’d give

  them all the beef critters in Arizona. You notice

  there wasn’t any women in the band?”

  “Yes, I noticed,” Travisin answered. “They’ll

  never learn, will they?” He looked at de Both. “You

  see, Lieutenant, the Bureau thinks that if they sepa- 14

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  rate them from their families for a while, the hostiles will become good little Indians and make

  plows out of their Spencers and grow corn to eat instead of drink. What would you do if some benevolent race snatched your women and children from

  you and sent you to a barren rock pile over a hundred miles away? And do you know why? For

  something you’d been doing for the past three hundred years. For that simple but enigmatic something that makes you an Apache and not a Navajo.

  For that quirk of fate that makes you a tiger instead

  of a Persian cat. Mister, I’ve got over two hundred

  White Mountains here raising crops and eating

  government beef. I can assure you that they’re not

  doing it by nature! And now they sent sixteen Chiricahuas! Sixteen men with the smell of gunpowder

  still strong in their nostrils and blood lust in their

  eyes.” Travisin shook his head wearily. “And they

  send them here without their women.”

  De Both cleared his throat before speaking.

  “Well, frankly, Captain, I don’t see what the problem is. Obviously, these hostiles have done wrong.

  The natural consequence would be a punishment of

  some sort. Why pamper them? They’re not little

  children.”

  “No, they’re not little children. They’re

  Apaches,” Travisin reflected. “You know, I used to

  know an Indian up near Fort Apache by the name

  of Skimitozin. He was an Arivaipa. One day he was

  Trail of the Apache

  15

  sitting in the hut of a white friend of his, a miner,

  and they were eating supper together. Then, for no

  reason at all, Skimitozin drew his handgun and

  shot his friend through the head. Before they hung

  him he said he did it to show his Arivaipa people

  that they should never get too friendly with the

  blancos. The Apache has never gotten a real break

  from the whites. So Skimitozin wanted to make

  sure that his people never got to the point of expecting one, and relaxing. Mister, I’m here to kill

  Indians and keep Indians alive. It’s a paradox—no

  question about that—but I gave up rationalizing a

  long time ago. Most Apaches have always lived a

  life of violence. I’m not here primarily to convert

  them; but by the same token I have to be fair—

  when they are fair to me.”

  De Both raised an objection. “I see nothing

  wrong with our treatment of the Indians. As a matter of fact, I think we’ve gone out of our way to

  treat them decently.” He recited the words as if he

  were reading from an official text.

  Fry broke in. “Go up to San Carlos and spend a

  week or two,” he said. “Especially when the government beef contractors come around with their

  adjusted scales and each cow with a couple of barrels of Gila water in her. Watch how the ’Pache

  women try to cut each other up for a bloated cow

  belly.” Fry spoke slowly, without excitement.

  Travisin said to the lieutenant, “Fry’s not talking

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  about one or two incidents. He’s talking about history. You were with Pillo all the way up from

  Thomas. Did you see his eyes? If you did, you saw

  the whole story.”

  ✯

  Chapter Three

  The early afternoon sun blazed heavily against

  the adobe houses and vacant quadrangle. The air

  was still, still and oppressive, and seemed to be

  thickened by the fierce, withering rays of the Arizona sun. To the east, the purplish blur of the

  Pinals showed hazily through the glare.

  Travisin leaned loosely against a support post

  under the brush ramada. His gray cotton shirt was

  black with sweat in places, but he seemed unmindful of the heat. His sun-darkened face was impassive, as if asleep, but his eyes were only half closed

  in the shadow of his hat brim, squinting against the

  glare in the direction from which Fry would return.

  Earlier that morning, the scout and six of his

  Coyoteros had traveled upriver to inspect the tracts

  selected by Pillo and his band. The hostiles had

  erected their wickiups without a murmur of complaint and seemed to have fallen into the alien routines of reservation life without any trouble; but it

  was their silence, their impassive acceptance of this

  Trail of the Apache

  17

  new life that bothered Travisin. For the two weeks

  the hostiles had been at Camp Gila, Travisin’s

  scouts had been on the alert every minute of the

  day. But nothing had happened. When Fry returned, he would know more.

  De Both appeared in the office door behind him.

  “Not back yet?”

  “No. He might have stopped to chin with some

  of the White Mountain people. He’s got a few

  friends there,” Travisin said. “Barney’s got a little

  Apache blood in him, you know.”

  De Both was openly surprised. “He has? I didn’t

  know that!” He thou
ght of the countless times he

  had voiced his contempt for the Apaches in front of

  Fry. He felt uncomfortable and a little embarrassed

  now, though Fry had never once seemed to take it

  as a personal affront. Travisin read the discomfort

  on his face. There was no sense in making it more

  difficult.

  ✯ ✯ ✯

  “His mother was a half-breed,” Travisin explained. “She married a miner and followed him all

  over the Territory while he dug holes in the ground.

  Barney was born somewhere up in the Tonto country on one of his dad’s claims. When he was about

  eight or nine his ma and dad were killed by some

  Tontos and he was carried off and brought up in

  the tribe. That’s where he got his nose for scouting.

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  It’s not just in his blood like some people think; he

  learned it, and he learned it from the best in the

  business. Then, when he was about fifteen, he came

  back to the world of the whites. About that time

  there was a campaign operating out of Fort Apache

  against the Tontos. One day a patrol came across

  the rancheria where Barney lived and took him

  back to Fort Apache. All the warriors were out and

  only the women and children were around. He remembered enough about the white man’s life to

  want to go back to the Indians, but he knew too

  much about the Apache’s life for the Army to let

  him go; so he’s been a guide since that day. He was

  at Fort Thomas when I arrived there seven years

  ago, and he’s been with me ever since I’ve been here

  at Gila.”

  De Both was deep in thought. “But can you trust

  him?” he asked. “After living with the Apaches for

  so long.”

  “Can you trust the rest of the scouts? Can you

  trust those rocks and mesquite clumps out yonder?” Travisin looked hard into the lieutenant’s

  eyes. “Mister, you watch the rocks, the trees, the

  men around you. You watch until your eyes ache,

  and then you keep on watching. Because you’ll always have that feeling that the minute you let

  down, you’re done for. And if you don’t have that

  feeling, you’re in the wrong business.”

  A little past four, Fry and his scouts rode in. He

  Trail of the Apache

  19

  threw off and ran toward the agency office. Travisin met him in the doorway. “They scoot, Barney?”

  ✯ ✯ ✯

  Fry paused to catch his breath and wiped the

  sweat from his face with a grimy, brown hand.

  “It might be worse than that. When we got there

  this morning only a few of Pillo’s band were

  around. I questioned them, but they kept trying to

  change the subject and get us out of there. I thought

  they were actin’ strange, talkin’ more than usual,

  and then it dawned on me. Gatito had spotted it

  right away. They’d been drinkin’ tizwin. You know

  you got to drink a whoppin’ lot of that stuff to really get drunk. I figure these boys ain’t had much

  yet, cuz they were still too quiet. But the others

  were probably off at the source of supply so we

  rode out and tried to cut their sign. We tried every

  likely spot in the neighborhood until after noon,

  and we still couldn’t find a trace of them.”

  Travisin considered the situation silently for a

  moment. “They’ve probably been at it since they got

  here. Taking their time to pick a spot we wouldn’t

  find right away. No wonder they’ve been so quiet.”

  Travisin had much to think about, for a drunken

  Apache will do strange things. Bloody things. He

  asked the scout, “What does Gatito think?”

  Fry hesitated, and then said, “I don’t like the way

  he was lickin’ his lips while we were on the hunt.”

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  Fry did not have to say more. Travisin knew him

  well enough to know that the scout felt Gatito

  could bear some extra attention. To de Both,

  watching the scene, it was a new experience. The

  captain and the quarter-breed scout talking like

  brothers. Saying more with eyes and gestures than

  with words. He looked from one to the other intently, then for the first time noticed the young

  Apache standing next to Travisin. A moment ago

  he had not been there. But there had not been a

  sound or a footstep!

  The young brave spoke swiftly in the Apache

  tongue for almost a minute and then disappeared

  around the corner of the office. De Both could still

  see vividly the red calico cloth around thick, black

  hair, and his almost feminine features.

  Fry and Travisin began to talk again, but de Both

  interrupted.

  “What in the name of heaven was that?”

  Travisin grinned at the young officer’s astonishment. “I thought you knew Peaches. Forgot he

  hadn’t been around for a while.”

  “Peaches!”

  Travisin said, “Let’s go inside.”

  They gathered around his table, lighted cigarettes, and Travisin went on. “I’d just as soon you

  didn’t speak his name aloud around here. You see,

  that young, gentle-looking Apache has one of the

  toughest jobs on the reservation. He’s an agency

  Trail of the Apache

  21

  spy. Only Fry and I, and now you, know what he is.

  Not even any of the scouts know. The Indians suspect that someone on their side is reporting to me,

  but they have no idea who it is. He’s got a dangerous job, but it’s necessary. If trouble ever breaks out,

  we have to be able to nip it in the bud. Peaches is the

  only way for us to determine where the bud is.”

  “May I ask what he told you just now?”

  Travisin drew hard on his cigarette before replying. “He said that he knew much, but he would be

  back sometime before sunup tomorrow to tell what

  he knew. He made one last point very emphatic. He

  said, ‘Watch Gatito!’ ”

  ✯ ✯ ✯

  A rear room of the agency office adobe served as

  sleeping quarters for both of the officers. Their cots

  were against opposite walls, lockers at the feet, and

  two large pine-board wardrobes, holding uniforms

  and personal gear, were flush with the wall running

  along the heads of their bunks.

  A full moon pointed its light through the window frame over de Both’s bed, carpeted the plank

  flooring with a delicate sheen, and reached as far as

  the gleaming upper portion of Travisin’s body, motionless on the cot. One arm was beneath the gray

  blanket that reached just above his waist, the other

  was folded across his bare chest.

  A floorboard creaked somewhere near. His eyes

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  opened at once and closed just as suddenly. Beneath

  the blanket his hand groped near his thigh and quietly covered the grip of his pistol. He opened his

  eyes slightly and glanced across the room. De Both

  was dead asleep. The latch on the door leading to

  the front office rattled faintly, and then hinges

  creaked as the door
began to open. Travisin quietly

  drew his arm from beneath the blanket and leveled

  the pistol at the doorway. His thumb closed on the

  hammer and drew it back, and the click of the

  cocking action was a sharp, metallic sound. The

  opening-door motion stopped.

  “Nantan, do not shoot.” The words were just

  above a whisper.

  Travisin threw the blanket from his legs, swung

  them to the floor and moved to the doorway without a sound. Peaches backed into the office as he

  approached.

  “Chiricahua leave.”

  “How long?”

  “They go maybe five mile now. Gatito go with

  them.”

  Travisin stepped back to the doorway and

  slammed the butt of his pistol against the wooden

  door. “Hey, mister, roll out!” De Both sat bolt upright. “Be ready to ride in a few minutes,” Travisin

  said, and ran out of the office toward Barney Fry’s

  adobe across the quadrangle.

  In less than twenty minutes, thirteen riders

  Trail of the Apache

  23

  streaked out of the quadrangle westward. Behind

  them, orange light was just beginning to show

  above the irregular outline of the Pinals. The morning was cool, but still, and the stillness held the

  promise of the blistering heat of the day to come.

  The sun was only a little higher when Travisin

  and his scouts rode up to four wickiups along the

  bank of the Gila. Travisin halted the detail, but did

  not dismount. He sat motionless in the saddle, his

  senses alert to the quiet. He said something in

  Apache and one of the scouts threw off and cautiously entered the first wickiup. He reappeared in

  an instant, shaking his head from side to side. In

  the third hut, the scout remained longer than usual.

  When he reappeared he was dragging an unconscious Indian by the legs.

  Travisin said, “That one of them, Barney?”

  Fry swung down from his pony and leaned over

  the prostrate Indian, saying a few words in Apache

  to the scout still holding the Indian’s legs. “He’s a

  Chiricahua, Captain. Dead drunk. Must have been

  drinking for at least two days.” He nodded his

  head toward the Apache scout. “Ningun says

  there’s a jug inside with a little tizwin in it.”

  Travisin pointed to two of the scouts and then