Shalako (1962) (21 page)

Shalako tried to hold his eyes open. He was desperately, brutally tired. There had been too little sleep for him in too long a time. The short rest behind the ruined cabin, the other sleep he had after leaving the hunting party at the ranch amounted to very little, and in between there had been riding, fighting, dust, sun, and struggle.

And be fore that, a long stretch of living on ragged nerve in the mountains of Mexico.

Yet he was uneasy. He scanned the shattered shoulders of Elephant Butte and the edges of the canyon with careful attention. The Apaches had gone ... his every sense told him that, told him also that the Army was coming. The trouble was that Tats-ah-das-ay-go had been out there, and no rule applied to him. The others might go, but he would stay ... or he might seem to leave and then return.

He lived with the others, but always alone and near them. He sat in their councils, but rarely spoke, and when he fought, it was always alone. Even the Apaches feared him, feared his skill as a fighting man and his uncertain temper.

"Pile on some brush," he said to Dagget. "If we raise a big smoke the Army will find us sooner."

"Couldn't one of us ride to meet them?" Laura suggested. "They might pass us by."

"We'll chance it. We must stay together. There is danger yet."

Irina brought them each a cup of tea. She sat down beside Shalako. "Did I hear you telling Frederick you had been in Paris? What did you do there?"

"Whatever one does in Paris. When I came there it was a few months before the war broke out, and I had a little money. I used to go to a small cafe in the Avenue Clichy called the Guerbois."

He glanced at her. "I hadn't much education, you know. There were no schools where I grew up, at least none to speak of. But I'd learned to read, and could write a little, and I started reading stories."

"In French?"

"Yes. I read French better than English, and German almost as well. Spoke both of them a sight better than I could read, though."

"But... I do not understand. You said there were no schools?"

"No schools to speak of. Only I was raised in Texas, not in California, like some folks say. I was born in California, but went with my folks to Texas. Have you ever been to San Antonio? Well, outside of San Antonio there's a place called Castroville, and a town called D'Hanis, too.

"Castroville and D'Hanis ... they were founded by a group of colonists brought over from Alsace, only some of them were Swiss, German, Dutch, and just about every thing, by a man named Count Henri de Castro in 1844.

"Old buildings stand there yet, and some of the houses are just like in the old country.

Folks around there mostly spoke French and German, and about the time I was learning to talk, we moved into that area.

"D'Hanis was the last town ... nothing between there and the Rio Grande except wild country, wild cattle, and wilder Indians. Well, I started talking down there, and I could speak French and German before I could speak proper English. Comes of playing with youngsters talking those languages.

"Sometimes I sat alongside when their folks taught them from books. Like I said, there was no proper school, but I learned to read some French before I did English."

"You were telling me about Paris."

"Yes. I went to that cafe on the Avenue Clichy, and I met some fellows there ... they were painters. One of them they thought so much of they used to save him a couple of tables. His name was Manet."

"Oh, yes! I have heard of him. A friend of mine bought a painting of his in Paris.

This friend was an old friend of the family of Degas. Did you know him?"

"The aristocrat? I knew him. And that other fellow who came there sometimes. I read some of his books ... Zola, his name was, Emile Zola."

She glanced at von Hallstatt, who had gone to the fire. "Do not mention that name to Frederick. He detests him. Calls him a Socialist and a wild man ... but I like his books."

"He told me some books to read, gave me a few in fact, just after a party to celebrate my joining up. It was only a few weeks that I knew them. They were a wild lot, always arguing. I am no painter or writer and understood none of it."

Lethargy settled heavily upon him. Several times he nodded, blinking his eyes open quickly, afraid that she might see ... and she had.

"Why don't you sleep, Shalako? Frederick can keep watch ... and I want to brush my hair."

She left him and returned to the fire. Shalako hitched himself into a more comfortable position and slowly searched the rocks again. He could not remember ever being so tired ... there was a low murmur of voices from the group at the fire.

The Army would be coming soon.

Irina went to the saddlebags that held all that remained of her personal belongings, and found her comb and brush. These, at least, she had salvaged. Von Hallstatt was helping Dagget build up the fire. Laura was brushing her clothing, trying to make herself presentable. Von Hall statt paused from time to time to look at the rocks, and Julia merely sat and waited, her cup of tea untouched.

Tats-ah-das-ay-go lay upon a bare rocky slope within less than seventy yards of the fire. His entire body was in plain sight, its length broken only by an outcropping of sandstone that partly obscured his legs, and a small bit of prickly-pear near his shoulder.

He had been lying there for nearly an hour, absolutely immovable. Several times during that period both von Hallstatt and Shalako had looked directly at him without seeing him.

The bare slope was innocent of cover. It was not a place one examined, and the Apache knew that. Several times he could have fired ... he could have killed one, perhaps more. But he waited.

Now, at last ... he moved.

He made no sound, but when he stopped moving he was farther to the left and nearer the canyon. His eyes had found their target, for one of the girls was picking up a towel ... he had watched women and girls brush their hair and wash their faces around the forts too many times not to know what she planned.

The fire was but a short distance from the spring, which was concealed around a cluster of rock. He watched her walk around the rocks and disappear, and for several minutes he remained where he was watching the others.

And most of all he watched the man who sat asleep against the rocks.

Was he actually asleep? Or was he only seeming to be asleep? This was the man who brought the rain ... all the Indians had heard the story. He was also the man who had known the name of Tats-ah-das-ay-go, which was a kind of magic.

Finally, he moved from his position, went back into the rocks and circled around to watch the girl at the spring.

She was bathing her hands and face, then she began combing out her hair. It was very long hair, and very beautiful. The Apache moved closer, making no sound.

He would kill her now, and when someone came to find her, he would kill another with his bow.

Yet Tats-ah-das-ay-go was uneasy. He wished he could see the man sleeping near the rocks. He waited an instant and moved nearer.

He had killed the big man with the beard. He had killed the man on guard on the cliff edge, and he had killed the man with the guns, the one who had fallen into the rocks.

Following the man down he had found him trapped there, and he had spent hours with him, gagging him with a handful of rough grass torn from a tiny ledge among the rocks.

The man had died very hard, and very long. In the end all his courage was gone and he was whimpering as a child would whimper.

Now he would kill the girl, and then one other. After that he would go, for the pony soldiers were coming. He had been watching from the rocks when they sent a man up to get the one he had just killed.

It had been a temptation to kill the man climbing the rocks right before the eyes of the soldiers. Only they had rifles which shot very far, and the red-faced man was there, the one who rode with McDonald. That man was a very good shot, and the risk was too great. It was not worth it.

He crept nearer. The girl was close now, and she was brushing her hair over and over again and was engrossed in that. She looked like a girl who thought of a man.

Shalako opened his eyes suddenly and from long training he did not move until his eyes had searched the terrain about him, and then he turned his head to look toward the fire.

Von Hallstatt was drinking tea. Dagget was searching for brush and sticks to add to the signal fire. Julia sat very still, hunched over and face down on her arms, while Laura was still painstakingly brushing her clothes.

He could have been asleep only a few minutes.

Irina was nowhere in sight.

He got to his feet and walked to the fire, and he was frightened. He looked carefully around before he spoke, not wishing to alarm them needlessly. "Where's Irina?" he asked, after a minute.

"Combing her hair," Laura said, "at the spring."

He glanced toward the pile of rocks that concealed the spring from their eyes. Would these people never learn that for one to be out of sight of the others was dangerous, that danger was ever-present? Yet he had himself relaxed, so the fault was his as well. He started around the rock, then halted and circled in the other direction.

No one at the fire seemed to be paying any attention to him, or to notice anything odd about his actions.

He climbed among the rocks, then lay still, straining his ears to hear.

Water falling ... the click of something placed upon a rock ... perhaps a hair brush.

Ahead of him lay several large loose stones on top of the rock over which he was crawling. Using them as partial cover, he lifted his head slowly.

At first he saw only the spring, a trickle of water from among the rocks into a basin, after which it ran off down a shallow watercourse toward Park Canyon, some distance off.

Irina was seated on a flat rock near the spring, and she was brushing her hair. Her reflection could be seen in the small pool where the water fell ... a more peaceful scene could not be imagined.

He started to speak, but something held him back. And then he saw the Indian.

He was taller than most Apaches, yet broad in the shoulders and amazingly thick through the chest. His arms and legs were powerfully muscled, and he moved now like a cat, his eyes riveted on the unsuspecting girl.

He was directly opposite the girl, and there was no way to get a good shot at him.

Tats-ah-das-ay-go was intent only upon the girl by the spring. Knife in hand he moved down over the rocks and poised for an instant, and in that instant, two things happened.

Warned by some instinct, Irina turned suddenly, and a flicker of movement from Shalako caught the Indian's eye.

Tats-ah-das-ay-go's eyes switched to Shalako, and in that moment the latter dove from the top of his rock. The Indian tried to turn, but his feet were among the rocks and, in turning, he lost balance.

Shalako landed before him even as Irina sprang back. She did not scream. Her eyes went quickly around and she saw men, circling warily.

"Tats-ah-das-ay-go!" Shalako said softly. He held his knife low, cutting edge up.

"I shall kill you now!"

The Apache moved in suddenly, his blade darting with a stabbing thrust like the strike of a rattler, and the point ripped a gash in the buckskin of Shalako's breeches at the hip. A little low, a little wide.

They closed suddenly, and rolled over on the sand, stabbing and thrusting; then they came up, facing each other. There was a fleck of blood on Shalako's shirt front.

He sprang suddenly, and the Indian leaped back to escape his thrust, and they fell into the brush and cacti, then were out on the rocks.

Irina, her face white and strained, could not cry out, she could not scream, she could only stare as if hypnotized by the men before her.

Circling, thrusting ... another fleck of blood showed on Shalako, on his arm. The Apache was incredibly swift, incredibly agile. His flat, hard face, with its thick cheek bones and flat black eyes, was like a mask, showing no emotion.

Shalako moved, seemed to slip, and the Indian sprang in. Instantly Shalako turned and swung with his left fist, catching the Indian on the side of the neck and knocking him sprawling.

Yet the Apache came up swiftly, lunged low for the soft parts of the body, and Shalako slapped the blade aside and lunged. His blade went into the Indian's side, but Tats-ah-das-ay-go swung around, striking swiftly with his blade.

The blade went into Shalako, but Shalako struck again with his fist and they both fell. Shalako lost his grip on the knife when his fist slammed against a rock with brutal force. The Indian sprang at him and Shalako rolled over and came to his feet, empty-handed. The Indian lunged to get close and Shalako side-stepped, caught the Indian's wrist and threw him into a heap of brush.

From beyond the rocks there was a sudden shout of alarm, and Dagget cried out, "Irina!

What's the matter? What's happening!"

There was a flurry of feet, and, for an instant, the Apache hesitated, then wheeled and ran into the rocks, and vanished.

Shalako went after him.