Shalako (1962) (14 page)

I take it he and his crowd helped fight off the Indians, then looted the wagons and pulled out for Mexico."

Lieutenant Hall considered the situation, then mounted his troop and rode off on the trail of the wagon.

By midafternoon they had come up to the wagon. It had been looted and burned, and all about lay the mutilated bodies of the slain men. The lieutenant or the trackers knew most of them by name, and the last one to be found was Hockett.

"Good riddance," Lieutenant Hall said briefly, "the man was a thief and a troublemaker."

"He made a fight of it," the scout said, indicating the brass shells lying about.

"Now here's an odd thing... his gun belt is gone. Taken by somebody who came up behind the rocks." The scout pointed to the heelprint of a boot. "I'd say that was Fulton.

Didn't see his body down there, and if anybody would get out of a mess-up like this here, it would be Bosky."

"He got away?" Lieutenant Hall was incredulous. "Sure as shootin'. Man had small feet, and so had Fulton. Seen his track many a time. Him an' Hockett run together, an' bad as Hockett was, he was tame stuff to Fulton."

"He will have to get on as best he can," the lieutenant said briefly. "We must find the hunting party."

Turning north, they skirted the Hatchets. With luck they would cut the trail of the party with the wounded man and the women. Such a group had small chance of survival, and the mystery remained. Why had they turned south?

"They've got a man with them who didn't start with them," the scout said. "Counting the bodies back there and what we found at the ranch, I figure Harding and Harris stayed with the Eastern party, but there's another "Wells, what about Wells?"

"Could be. Don't act like him though."

Miles away, beyond two valleys and the Animas Range, another situation was developing.

Lieutenant McDonald halted his command. It was very hot. Dust arose from every step the horses took and when the troop halted the dust cloud drifted over them and settled upon their clothing, their faces, and in their nostrils. Aside from himself, all were Yuma or Mohave Indians except for the corporal, a stocky man with a beet-red face, and a veteran soldier.

The lieutenant's mission: to find Indian trails recently made, to locate raiding Apaches and report to the main body under Colonel Forsyth. No man was better qualified for the job, nor was any man more conscientious in performance of his duty.

At this moment, Lieutenant McDonald was worried. So far he had found no tracks, but three days had transpired since the San Carlos attack, and the air smelled of trouble.

The fact that he had seen no Apaches was no consolation, for he lived by the old rule: When you see Apaches, be afraid; and when you see no Apaches, be twice as afraid.

Fear was not a thing of which to be ashamed unless a man let fear conquer him. Fear could be a spur to action and a safeguard against carelessness. McDonald had helped to bury a good many soldiers who were reckless or took unnecessary risks.

Yuma Bill, who rode beside him, pointed toward the Pelonchillo Mountains, his face as dark and craggy as the mountains he indicated. "I think," he suggested, as he pointed.

"We'll have a look, Bill."

McDonald lighted his pipe. Why he wanted it at all he did not know, for the smoke was dry and hot, and his uniform smelled of stale tobacco, stale sweat, stale dust, and stale horse. He wished longingly for a cold drink, a drink with ice in it, and he grinned at the thought. How long had it been since he had such a drink? Two years?

Nearly three.

Yet this was a brand of warfare at which he felt at home. He had never been a spit-and-polish soldier, and never cared for the brass-bound posts back East. When he arrived on the southwest frontier he knew he had found a home ... this was for him.

Lieutenant McDonald knew his Indians and they knew him, and every day he learned from them. He was a fighting man with no taste for formal drill, dress uniforms, or parade formations. Most drill was a waste of time, based on the demands of an outmoded idea of warfare, and their practical utility had ceased long since.

The only sensible training for troops was to teach them to fight and survive fighting, and every moment such training was not being given was a moment wasted.

It was battle that paid off, battle was the beginning and the end of a soldier's life. The Apache, the greatest guerrilla fighter the world ever knew, had never heard of close-order drill or any kind of training except in fighting and surviving.

Now, with four scouts ranging out ahead of them to cut any possible trail, they started on.

Yuma Bill rode ahead to join them, and before they had gone fifty yards, he turned in the saddle and waved. The trail was there. A small party of Apaches, their trail not twelve hours old, moving toward the Gila. At once he sent a scout to inform Colonel Forsyth, then proceeded at a more cautious pace.

Within the mile another party of Indians had joined the first, making a band considerably larger than Mc Donald's detachment.

McDonald rode warily. He could sense the worry among the members of his command, and he did not blame them. He paused frequently to study the terrain, and changed his direction of travel several times to make am bush difficult.

He could feel Indians. Even Yuma Bill, ordinarily a tough, unresponsive sort, seemed nervous. Nobody but a fool would want to ride into an ambush of twice their number of Apaches, and it was their very wariness that saved them.

At this time McDonald was sixteen miles from the main body under Forsyth.

Somewhere in this vast sweep of desert and mountains was a small party of men and women with no experience at Indian fighting, and that party, if not already destroyed, was undoubtedly being stalked by the Apaches.

Heat waves lifted with the stifling dust. McDonald mopped sweat and dust from his gaunt features and swore. His uniform felt stiff and heavy in the burning heat and his suspenders chafed his shoulders. The heat that rose from the sand and rocks was like that from the top of a stove.

Nothing moved ... before them Horseshoe Canyon opened a way into the mountains. McDonald looked with misgiving at the towering cliffs, at the opening before them.

Yuma Bill, now riding point, was well out in front. He walked his horse into the rocky maw of the canyon. A moment later, McDonald saw him lift a hand.

When they came up to where he had stopped he was standing over the remains of a hastily smothered fire from which a thin tendril of smoke still lifted.

McDonald mopped the sweat from his face, squinting his eyes against the glare to survey the cliffs and the rocks. Deep within him he knew he was in serious trouble, for this fire could have been smothered only moments be fore ... perhaps even as they approached.

Had the Apaches fled? Or did they lurk back in the rocks? And how many were there?

"How many would you guess?"

Yuma Bill shrugged. "Maybe five, maybe six here" he gestured toward the rocks-"but who knows how many there?"

Should he now await Forsyth's arrival? Or should he advance into the canyon?

It was the problem of command, and no one could share his decision or his responsibility.

If he sent another man for Forsyth and there were only a few Indians who had fled at his approach, Forsyth and the 4th Cavalry would have ridden sixteen miles in the hot sun to no purpose. On the other hand, if he went ahead on his own, if he explored the situation a little further... ?

"We will move along," he said, but as he turned in his saddle to give the command there was a shadow of movement among the rocks. His shout was lost in a smashing volley, and two of his men tumbled from their saddles. One of them started up, lifting his rifle, only to fall again.

McDonald fired his pistol at a fleeting brown body and saw the Apache catch in mid-stride, then half lunge, half-fall into the rocks and out of sight.

The roar of guns and the wild, shrill yells of the Indians were all about him. Coolly, he directed the movement of his small detachment to the crest of a low hill. Even as he shouted his orders he was aiming and firing, trying to make every shot count.

This was the virtue of training, of conditioning, that in an emergency one always knew what to do. Panic only entered the empty mind.

Grabbing the shoulder of a scout, he swung the man toward his own horse. "Get Forsyth" he yelled hoarsely, amid the bark of guns.

The Indian leaped to the back of the horse and was gone in a long leap. That was the battalion race horse and, if he had speed, now was the time to use it.

McDonald returned to directing the fight. He had but six unwounded men. Another had just fallen, and Yuma Bill, that invaluable man, had gone down after apparently getting off scot-free.

The Apaches were coming down among the rocks, closing in. The red-faced corporal, one of the best shots in the battalion, had dropped to one knee and was firing methodically as if on a rifle range.

Quickly as the attack began, it broke off. Four of his men gone, he awaited the next attack. They were in a nest of boulders atop the hill, and without any word from him the men went about making their position more secure.

Piling loose stones into gaps among the rocks, digging out the sand here, making a better firing position else where. They had a little water, ammunition enough for a good fight, and a fair field of fire.

"Take your time," the lieutenant said. "Let's make them buy it."

An arm showed and a scout fired. Lieutenant Mc Donald believed it was a hit.

Two of the fleeing scouts had caught up ammunition pouches from the fallen men, and another had recovered a rifle. They had two extra weapons, which increased their immediate fire power.

Sixteen miles to go and sixteen to return, a brutal ride in horse-killing heat. Squatted on his heels behind a boulder, Lieutenant McDonald was glad it was Colonel Forsyth out there, for the colonel's memory of the Beecher Island fight would be fresh in his mind and he would understand the situation as only one can who has lived through it.

Riding with him would be four hundred veteran Indian fighters who would understand it, too.

The hilltop was an oven. McDonald shifted his grip on the gun long enough to dry his palm on his pants. "They'll be coming soon," he said. "Let's leave a couple of them on the sand."

Somewhere out upon the hot, dusty desert to the north and east a rider was killing a good horse getting to Colonel Forsyth and the 4th Cavalry.

The Apaches came again, and again the Cavalry detachment broke the attack, with no casualties on either side.

The Yuma scout beside Lieutenant McDonald was gasping from the heat as he fumbled cartridges into his pistol.

It was going to be a long afternoon.

The sound of distant firing came to the ears of Shalako Carlin. He drew up, listening.

That would be the Army and Chato. He sat his horse near the crest of the divide where Wolf Canyon started down the mountain to meet the Double Adobe Trail, considering the situation and weighing it against their own chances.

Chato had gone north with roughly forty Indians, some of whom had turned off for the attack on the hunting party. The rest had continued on to meet with the restless young warriors at San Carlos, but by now all the bodies should have joined forces, which would add up to nearly eighty Indians. It must be that force or a part of it now in battle off somewhere toward Stein's Peak.

The Apaches would make a fight of it, but if the Army was out in force they would pull out of the fight and run for the border. Whenever possible they would travel the high routes, and that meant they might easily take the Double Adobe Trail down which he now rode. They would be striking at anything they could hit and they would want horses.

The Army would be behind them. Hence, what remained for the hunting party was a fierce and desperate fight until the Army caught up with the Indians.

How much chance would the hunting party have against eighty Indians?

Seated astride his horse in the shade of a boulder, the roan close behind him, Shalako tried to view the situation as it would appear to one of the high circling buzzards.

That buzzard would see a wide skein of trails that were slowly being drawn tighter and tighter, and the center of the skein was held by the hunting party.

Four women, seven men active, and an eighth wounded.

Well-armed, however, with ammunition enough for a reasonably long fight. Water, and a fairly good position to defend, but short of food.

There was a chance the Apaches might retreat down the valley, bypassing the mountains and the hunting party. However, two of the men, Dagget and Mako the cook, knew nothing of fighting, and the two who were good fighting men had never fought Indians. If they lasted thirty minutes against an all-out Apache attack they would be playing in luck.

"We don't have a chance," Shalako said aloud, "not a Chinaman's chance."

A bee buzzed idly in the brush alongside the trail, and the stallion stamped impatiently, wondering at the delay, but Shalako waited, building a smoke while he studied the terrain.

Off on his right lay Animas Valley, and a considerable plume of dust that indicated a fast-traveling party of horse men, riding southwest by west and away from him.