Trail of the Apache and Other Stories Read online

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  “Pretty soon the country’ll be hugging us tight;

  and we won’t see anything,” Angsman said. “I

  don’t like it. Not with a hunting party in the

  neighborhood.”

  Billy Guay laughed out. “I’ll be go to hell! Ed,

  this old woman’s afraid of two squaws! Ed, you

  hear—”

  Ed Hyde wasn’t listening. He was staring off in

  the distance, past the treetops in the valley to a towering, sand-colored cliff with flying rock buttresses

  that walled the valley on the other side. He slid

  from his mount hurriedly, catching his coat on the

  saddle horn and ripping it where a button held fast.

  But now he was too excited to heed the ripped coat.

  “Look! Yonder to that cliff.” His voice broke

  with excitement. “See that gash near the top, like

  where there was a rock slide? And look past to the

  mountains behind!” Angsman and Billy Guay

  squinted at the distance, but remained silent.

  “Dammit!” Hyde screamed. “Don’t you see it!”

  He grabbed his horse’s reins and ran, stumbling,

  down the trail to where it leveled again at the

  bench. When the others reached him, the map was

  in his hand and he was laughing a high laugh that

  didn’t seem to belong to the grizzled face. His extended hand held the dirty piece of paper . . . and

  he kept jabbing at it with a finger of the other hand.

  “Right there, dammit! Right there!” His pointing

  finger swept from the map. “Now look at that

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  gold-lovin’ rock slide!” His laughter subsided to a

  self-confident chuckle.

  From where they stood on the bench, the towering cliff was now above them and perhaps a mile

  away over the tops of the trees. A chunk of sandrock

  as large as a two-story building was gouged from

  along the smooth surface of the cliff top, with a

  gravel slide trailing into the valley below; but massive boulders along the cliff top lodged over the depression, forming a four-sided opening. It was a

  gigantic frame through which they could see sky and

  the flat surface of a mesa in the distance. On both

  sides the mesa top fell away to shoulders cutting

  sharp right angles from the straight vertical lines,

  then to be cut off there, in their vision, by the rock

  border of the cliff frame. And before their eyes the

  mesa turned into a flat-topped Spanish sombrero.

  Billy Guay’s jaw dropped open. “Damn! It’s one

  of those hats like the Mex dancers wear! Ed, you

  see it?”

  Ed Hyde was busy studying the map. He pointed

  to it again. “Right on course, Angsman. The flats,

  the ridge, the valley, the hat.” His black-crusted fingernail followed wavy lines and circles over the

  stained paper. “Now we just drop to the valley and

  follow her up to the end.” He shoved the map into

  his coat pocket and reached up to the saddle horn

  to mount. “Come on, boys, we’re good as rich,” he

  called, and swung up into the saddle.

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  Angsman looked down the slant to the darkness

  of the trees. “Ed, we got to go slow down there,”

  he tried to caution, but Hyde was urging his mount

  down the grade and Billy Guay’s paint was kicking

  the loose rock after him. His face tightened as he

  turned quickly to his horse, and then he saw Ygenio

  Baca leaning against his lead mule vacantly smoking his cigarette. Angsman’s face relaxed.

  “Ygenio,” he said. “Tell your mules to be very

  quiet.”

  Ygenio Baca nodded and unhurriedly flicked the

  cigarette stub down the grade.

  They caught up with Hyde and Billy Guay a little

  way into the timber. The trail had disappeared into

  a hazy gloom of tangled brush and tree trunks with

  the cliff on one side and the piney hill on the other

  to keep out the light.

  Angsman rode past them and they stopped and

  turned in the saddle. Hyde looked a little sheepish

  because he didn’t know where the trail was, but Billy

  Guay stared back defiantly and tried to look hard.

  “Ed, you saw some bones out there on the flats a

  while back,” Angsman said. “Likely they were men

  who had gold fever.” That was all he said. He

  turned the head of the mare and continued on.

  Angsman moved slowly, more cautiously now

  than before, and every so often he would rein in

  gently and sit in the saddle without moving, and listen. And there was something about the deep si-You Never See Apaches . . .

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  lence that made even Billy Guay strain his eyes into

  the dimness and not say anything. It was a loud

  quietness that rang in their ears and seemed unnatural. Moving at this pace, it was almost dusk when

  they reached the edge of the timber.

  The pine hill was still on their left, but higher and

  steeper. To the right, two spurs reached out from

  the cliff wall that had gradually dropped until now

  it was just a hump, but with a confusion of rocky

  angles in the near distance beyond. And ahead was

  a canyon mouth, narrow at first, but then appearing to open into a wider area.

  As they rode on, Angsman could see it in Ed

  Hyde’s eyes. The map was in his hand and he kept

  glancing at it and then looking around. When they

  passed through the canyon mouth into the open,

  Hyde called, “Angsman, look! Just like it says!”

  But Angsman wasn’t looking at Ed Hyde. A hundred feet ahead, where a narrow side canyon cut

  into the arena, the two Indian women sat their

  ponies and watched the white men approach.

  ✯ ✯ ✯

  Angsman reined in and waited, looking at them

  the way you look at deer that you have come across

  unexpectedly in a forest, waiting for them to bolt.

  But the women made no move to run. Hyde and

  Billy Guay drew up next to Angsman, then continued on as Angsman nudged the mare into a walk.

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  They stopped within a few feet of the women, who

  had still neither moved nor uttered a sound.

  Angsman dismounted. Hyde stirred restlessly in

  his saddle before putting his hands on the horn to

  swing down, but stopped when Billy Guay’s hand

  tightened on his arm.

  “Damn, Ed, look at that young one!” His voice

  was loud and excited, but as impersonal as if he

  were making a comment at a girlie show. “She’d

  even look good in town,” he added, and threw off

  to stand in front of her pony.

  Angsman looked at Billy Guay and back to the

  girl, who was sliding easily from the bare back of

  her pony. He greeted her in English, pleasantly, and

  tipped his hat to the older woman, still mounted,

  who giggled in a high, thin voice. The girl said

  nothing, but looked at Angsman.

  He said, ¿Cómo se llama? and spoke a few more

  words in Spanish.

  The girl’s face relaxed slightly and she said,

  “
Sonkadeya,” pronouncing each syllable distinctly.

  “What the hell’s that mean?” Billy Guay said,

  walking up to her.

  “That’s her name,” Angsman told him, then

  spoke to the girl again in Spanish.

  She replied with a few Spanish phrases, but most

  of her words were in a dialect of the Apache

  tongue. She was having trouble combining the two

  languages so that the white men could understand

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  her. Her face would frown and she would wipe her

  hands nervously over the hips of her greasy deerskin dress as she groped for the right words. She

  was plump and her hair and dress had long gone

  unwashed, but her face was softly attractive, contrasting oddly with her primitive dress and speech.

  Her features might have belonged to a white

  woman—the coloring, too, for that matter—but the

  greased hair and smoke smell that clung to her

  were decidedly Apache.

  When she finished speaking, Angsman looked

  back at Hyde. “She’s a Warm Springs Apache. A

  Mimbreño,” he said. “She says they’re on their way

  home.”

  Hyde said, “Ask her if she knows about any gold

  hereabouts.”

  Angsman looked at him and his eyes opened a little wider. “Maybe you didn’t hear, Ed. I said she’s a

  Mimbre. She’s going home from a hunting trip led

  by her father. And her father’s Delgadito,” he

  added.

  “Hell, the ’Paches are at peace, ain’t they?” Hyde

  asked indifferently. “What you worried about?”

  “Cochise made peace,” Angsman answered.

  “These are Mimbres, not Chiricahuas, and their

  chief is Victorio. He’s never never made peace. I

  don’t want to scare you, Ed,” he said looking back

  to the girl, “but his war lieutenant’s Delgadito.”

  Billy Guay was standing in front of the girl, his

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  thumbs in his gun belts, looking at her closely. “I

  know how to stop a war,” he said, smiling.

  “Who’s talkin’ about war?” Hyde asked. “We’re

  not startin’ anything.”

  “You don’t have to stop it, Ed,” Angsman said.

  “You think about finishing it. And you think about

  your life.”

  “Don’t worry about me thinkin’ about my life. I

  think about it bein’ almost gone and not worth a

  Dixie single. Hell, yes, we’re takin’ a chance!”

  Hyde argued. “If gold was easy to come by, it

  wouldn’t be worth nothin’.”

  “I still know how to stop a war,” Billy Guay

  said idly.

  Hyde looked at him impatiently. “What’s that

  talk supposed to mean?” Then he saw how Billy

  Guay was looking at the girl, and the frown eased

  off the grizzled face as it dawned on him what Billy

  Guay was thinking about, and he rubbed his beard.

  “You see what I mean, Ed,” Billy Guay said, smiling. “We take Miss Indin along and ain’t no Delgadito or even U.S. Grant goin’ to stop us.” He

  looked up at the old woman on the pony. “Though

  I don’t see any reason for carryin’ excess baggage.”

  Angsman caught him by both arms and spun him

  around. “You gun-crazy kid, you out of your mind?

  You don’t wave threats at Apaches!” He pushed the

  boy away roughly. “Just stop a minute, Ed. You got

  better sense than what this boy’s proposing.”

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  “It’s worth a chance, Angsman. Any chance.

  We’re not stoppin’ after comin’ this far on account

  of some Indin or his little girl,” Hyde said. “I’d say

  Billy’s got the right idea. I told you he had nerve.

  Let him use a little of it.”

  Billy Guay looked toward Angsman’s mount and

  saw his handgun in a saddle holster, then both pistols came out and he pointed them at the scout.

  “Don’t talk again, Angsman, ’cause if I hear any

  more abuse I’ll shoot you as quick as this.” He

  raised a pistol and swung it to the side as if without

  aiming and pulled the trigger. The old Indian

  woman dropped from the pony without a cry.

  There was silence. Hyde looked at him, stunned.

  “God, Billy! You didn’t have to do that!”

  Billy Guay laughed, but the laugh trailed off too

  quickly, as if he just then realized what he had

  done. He forced the laugh now, and said, “Hell, Ed.

  She was only an Indin. What you fussin’ about?”

  Hyde said, “Well, it’s done now and can’t be undone.” But he looked about nervously as if expecting a simple solution to be standing near at hand. A

  solution or some kind of justification. He saw the

  mining equipment packed on one of the mules and

  the look of distress left his eyes. “Let’s quit talkin’

  about it,” he said. “We got things to do.”

  Billy Guay blew down the barrel of the pistol he

  had fired and watched Sonkadeya as she bent over

  the woman momentarily, then rose without the

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  trace of an emotion on her face. It puzzled Billy

  Guay and made him more nervous. He waved a pistol toward Ygenio Baca. “Hey, Mazo! Get a shovel

  and turn this old woman under. No sense in havin’

  the birds tellin’ on us.”

  ✯ ✯ ✯

  The scout rode in silence, knowing what would

  come, but not knowing when. His gaze crawled

  over the wildness of the slanting canyon walls,

  brush trees, and scattered boulders, where nothing

  moved. The left wall was dark, the shadowy rock

  outlines obscure and blending into each other; the

  opposite slope was hazy and cold in the dim light of

  the late sun. He felt the tenseness all over his body.

  The feeling of knowing that something is close,

  though you can’t see it or hear it. Only the quietness, the metallic clop of hooves, then Billy Guay’s

  loud, forced laughter that would cut the stillness

  and hang there in the narrowness until it faded out

  up-canyon. Angsman knew the feeling. It went

  with campaigning. But this time there was a difference. It was the first time he had ever led into a

  canyon with such a strong premonition that

  Apaches were present. Yet, with the feeling, he recognized an eager expectancy. Perhaps fatalism, he

  thought.

  He watched two chicken hawks dodging, gliding

  in and out, drop toward a brush tree halfway up

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  the slanting right wall, then, just as they were about

  to land in the bush, they rose quickly and soared

  out of sight. Now he was more than sure. They

  were riding into an ambush. And there was so little

  time to do anything about it.

  He glanced at Hyde riding next to him. Hyde

  couldn’t be kept back now. The final circle on his

  map was just a little figuring from the end of the

  canyon.

  “Slow her down, Ed,” Billy Guay yelled. “I can’t

  propose to Miss Indin and canter at the same time.”

&n
bsp; He laughed and reached over to put his hand on

  Sonkadeya’s hip, then let the hand fall to her knee.

  He called out, “Yes, sir, Ed, I think we made us a

  good move.”

  Sonkadeya did not resist. Her head nodded

  faintly with the sway of her pony, looking straight

  ahead. But her eyes moved from one canyon wall to

  the other and there was the slightest gleam of a

  smile.

  Angsman wondered if he really cared what was

  going to happen. He didn’t care about Hyde or

  Billy Guay; and he didn’t know Ygenio Baca well

  enough to have a feeling one way or the other.

  From the beginning Ygenio had been taking a

  chance like everyone else. He thought of his own

  life and the odd fact occurred to him that he didn’t

  even particularly care about himself. He tried to

  picture death in relation to himself, but he would

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  see himself lying on the ground and himself looking

  at the body and knew that couldn’t be so. He

  thought of how hard it was to take yourself out of

  the picture to see yourself dead, and ended up with:

  If you’re not going to be there to worry about yourself being dead, why worry at all? But you don’t

  stay alive not caring, and his eyes went back to the

  canyon sides.

  He watched Hyde engrossed in his map and

  looked back at Billy Guay riding close to

  Sonkadeya with his hand on her leg. They could be

  shot from their saddles and not even see where it

  came from. Or, they could be taken by surprise.

  His head swung front again and he saw the canyon

  up ahead narrow to less than fifty feet across. Or

  they could be taken by surprise!

  He flicked the rein against the mare’s mane, gently, to ease her toward the right canyon wall. He

  made the move slowly, leading the others at a very

  slight angle, so that Hyde and Billy Guay, in their

  preoccupation, did not even notice the edging. Either to be shot in the head or not at all, Angsman

  thought.

  Now they were riding much closer to the slanting

  canyon wall. He turned in the saddle to watch Billy

  Guay, still laughing and moving his hand over

  Sonkadeya. And when he turned back he saw the

  half-dozen Apaches standing in the trail not a dozen

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