The Colonel's Lady (14 page)

Walking Fox and Black Buffalo and Red Hand had found places over to our right somewhere, and we couldn't see them now. But we could see the Apache, and we could see the mad scene down below us. We were looking into Kohi's stronghold.

We were seeing something that no white man had seen before—or if some had seen it, they hadn't lived to tell about it. As far as I could see in the darkness, sheer walls of rock rose up to form an unassailable fortress. There must be an opening somewhere, but I couldn't see it now.

Almost directly below us a large fire cast a bloody circle of light on the valley floor. The dance of the warriors had reached a frenzied pitch now, as they circled around and around the fire, casting long, distorted shadows over the crowded circles of onlookers. The drums beat relentlessly at the night and the throbbing became a part of the darkness. Musicians sawed monotonously on their high-pitched fiddles, and the music clashed with the shrill shrieking of the women. Old men sat woodenly in a large circle around the warriors, somehow violent in their stonelike silence, and hooded holy men urged the dancers on.

At first the violence of the scene was numbing. But gradually we became accustomed to that, and then it was the sheer number of them that overwhelmed us. I began counting quickly a part of the circle in order to estimate the whole. There were a thousand at least, not counting the women and children. That meant there would be eight hundred, and maybe more, able-bodied warriors who would be able to take the warpath.

Where Kohi had recruited them from, I couldn't guess. But there were Mimbrenos and Chiricahuas and Arivaipas; Apaches gathered from every point of the territory. Renegades maybe, and outlaws in their own tribes, but good fighting men and probably the best light cavalry soldiers in the world. How had Kohi brought them together? What had he promised them?

War, for one thing, I knew. And soon. War medicine had already started, and Apaches wouldn't be held back long after that. But not the harassing war on patrols that Kohi had been occupied with for so long; he wouldn't need this large a force for that. With eight hundred young braves ready for the warpath, he could even storm Larrymoor itself....

The thought hit me and left me cold. I thought of Caroline there. Of the other women, and the children. Of course, there was a good chance that Kohi would never succeed in storming a fighting fort like Larrymoor, even with this great force at hand, but it was only a chance. It wouldn't be an impossibility.

It was something to think about as the night wore on. As the dancers exhausted themselves and the great fire began to dwindle. The thing died, finally, of its own violence. The circle of red light began to creep toward the center and the women began to leave. And the old men. Only the younger women remained finally—young widows who had no men of their own—and the young warriors. By twos and fours they walked into the darkness toward the wickiups.

It was very quiet now, after the hours of violence.

Juan said, after a long silence, “We go now?”

“Not yet. We'll have to wait till dawn.”

Now that I was here, I wasn't leaving until I had mapped the stronghold. That was the job Weyland had given me and I wasn't going back to Larrymoor without doing it.

“Black Buffalo is afraid of Apache,” Juan said flatly. “I think he will cause trouble.”

“We can't go now. We've got to stay until I get a look at this stronghold.”

Juan dropped it. In many ways he reminded me of Skiborsky, or Steuber. Having been in the Army for so long, he accepted what came and asked no questions. Still, he was worried, for one man's fear could mean the end of all of us.

We waited. Weyland would get his map, and I would give it to him. I wondered what the Colonel's face would look like when he saw me riding back into Larrymoor again, alive. The thought gave me comfort as the long night wore on.

At the first show of morning light I got out paper and pencil and began to sketch the country we had crossed. As the stronghold began to rise out of the darkness, I worked on that. I could see now that it was a long canyon, closed on one end with a towering formation of boulders. The other end threaded down to a needle-point opening barely large enough for a man and a horse to enter. It was easy enough to see why Kohi had never been defeated in a place like this.

When I had finished I put the rough map in my pocket and looked at Juan.

“Do you think we can get out of here now? Can we travel far enough to be safe before it gets light?”

He frowned, gazing at the paling eastern sky. “If we travel fast, it is possible. And if Apache does not see us.”

“Get the other scouts, then, and we'll move.”

Juan began worming his way from under the ledge of rock. But suddenly I saw something and held him. What I saw was a rider—probably one of the Apache lookouts—making his way across the canyon floor toward the large cluster of wickiups at the far end. It wasn't the rider, but where he had come from, that bothered me. He hadn't come through the small opening at the near end of the canyon, so that meant there had to be another opening somewhere. I motioned to a cluster of boulders about fifty yards to our left.

“Do you think we can get over there without being seen, Juan?”

He looked dubious. “We stay here?”

“I've got to see where that rider came from. Then we'll go-”

His eyes said it would be too late then, but he only shrugged. We moved out from our hiding place on our bellies. The Apache lookouts were not to be seen now. Maybe they were asleep. Maybe they'd had too much tiswin. Or maybe they were behind the next boulder with rifles aimed at our heads. There was no way of knowing, so we crawled.

There was another entrance, all right. I could see it now, after we had moved over far enough. It was a narrow pass between two rocky hills, leading in from the east. There was only one entrance into the stronghold, or so the story had always gone. I grinned to think what Weyland would have to say when I showed him another one.

I felt good then. Apache was sleeping. We were safe and still had a good chance of getting out before the sun was too high. But, most important, I had done the job without getting killed, and that was going to hurt Weyland. It was a good feeling, but it didn't last long. I looked up suddenly and saw six Apaches coming toward us.

It was a long wait. We could hear them coming, talking, laughing crazily, rifles cradled in the crooks of their arms.

So Weyland had been right all along. The thought was bitter. The Colonel had planned that I would be killed and that was the way it was going to be. It was a strange thing, but I wasn't afraid at that moment. Anger was the thing I felt. Rage swept over me like a hot, smothering blanket. I would never see Caroline again. I would never know why Halan had turned against me.

Those were the things that went through my mind as the Apaches drew closer. Juan knelt beside me, his long keen “trader's” knife in one hand, his face impassive and wooden. I wondered what Juan was thinking.

Then I went cold. A yell went up in the cold gray morning. I thought they had seen us and started to jump out from behind the boulder. But Juan caught me. He held me with an arm as hard as stone, his hand over my mouth. The yell, mad with fear, went up again, and this time I recognized it. It was Black Buffalo.

The yelling brought instant activity along the ridge and on the canyon floor of the stronghold. Apaches came swarming up the sheer walls, through the openings. We heard the quick soft pad of running feet, and then the sharp, authoritative crack of a rifle. We knew Black Buffalo was dead.

Apaches seemed to be everywhere now and the quiet of the morning was shattered with cries of rage. Juan kept his hold on me. We stood as still as the hills.

How long that went on, I didn't know. We stood there, waiting for them to find us. But they didn't come. They were occupied with Walking Fox and Red Hand now. We could hear the blows landing and the cries of anger. And finally they went away, taking the two scouts with them. It was as if Death had walked up to touch us, and then had walked away.

Juan relaxed his hold on me. I said, “We've got to get them back! We can't just—” He clapped his hand over my mouth again and kept it there until the angry, hate-maddened procession made its way down from the ridge and onto the valley floor. Then he said flatly, as if it were no concern of his, “Nothing we can do. Too many Apache.”

And he was right. There was nothing we could do but wait and watch, and the thought was sickening. Even now we could see them down below. The angry mob, the hundreds of them.

The two scouts were not tied. They were pushed and kicked along in the van of the mob. Two ponies were brought into the open, and two young warriors mounted them and rode yelping up and down the canyon while the crowd cheered. Then men from the crowd handed the riders rawhide reatas, and I knew what they were going to do.

The reatas were looped and made fast around the bodies of the two scouts. They made no sound. They did not beg for mercy. If the tables had been turned they would have done the same to the Apaches. The riders took the ends of the hide ropes and began pulling Walking Fox and Red Hand toward the end of the canyon. The riders nudged their ponies and the two scouts had to run to keep up with them.

But the ponies were urged to greater speed. Up and down the canyon the riders went as the crowd roared its approval, the two scouts running behind as long as they could stand. They could not keep the pace for long. First Red Hand stumbled, lost his balance, went crashing to the ground. Then Walking Fox was pulled down, and the two of them were dragged up and down in front of the mob. The rocks tore them to pieces. The paths of the ponies became soaked and slippery with blood. The two scouts made no sound.

That was the horrible part about it, the silence. Even the Apaches became silent now, watching the bloody parade in morbid fascination. The riders continued to gallop up and down until there was nothing recognizable as human at the end of their ropes, and only then was the spell broken and the crowd began to cheer again.

I felt sick. I went down on my knees behind the boulder and gagged emptily. For many long nights, I knew, I would hear the sound of those ponies running up and down the canyon. And the silence. I would remember that.

We waited where we were that day, not daring to move until darkness. Our tongues became thick and our bellies cramped for want of water, but there was nothing we could do about that. The lookouts were still in position along the ridge, but they were exhausted with the excitement of the early morning, and they sat like stone, with rifles across their knees.

Sundown came at last, and we drank the coolness in like water. As soon as darkness fell the drums began again. It was time to move. If we were ever going to move this was the time.

We started inching down from the ridge, Juan going first, guiding me on with his hands. We hadn't gone more than a few feet when Juan pointed out a figure on a rock to our right, an Apache.

We lay there for a while, wondering if we could make it all the way down without his seeing us or hearing us. I decided that we could—but an idea had been growing in my mind, and now it had grown until I could not ignore it.

I motioned to Juan to stay where he was. I started crawling forward, toward the Apache. It was a job for Juan, probably, but I had to learn sometime, if I meant to stay alive. That was what Gorgan had said, and Gorgan had been right so far.

It seemed to take half the night, covering those few yards on my hands and knees. But I had learned some things from the scouts, and one of them was that speed was not as important as living. No coyote ever moved more slowly getting into position for the kill. I could feel Juan watching me. He was probably sweating worse than he had ever sweated before, for I was still the pupil and he was the teacher. But I made it to the rock. And the seated Apache didn't move. I took Gorgan's knife in my right hand. My left arm went out to choke off a scream before it could begin. I found myself thinking like an Indian, moving like an Indian.

There was a brief struggle, and then I had the Apache on the ground. Juan was beside me in an instant, with his own knife raised for the kill. I stopped him.

“I want you to talk to him, Juan.”

“Talk to Apache?”

“I want you to ask him what tribe he's from.”

“Chiricahua,” Juan said impatiently. “I tell you this. Better dead. He call others.”

The Apache was growing limp in my arms, his breath cut off from the pressure of my forearm against his windpipe. I loosened the hold a little. I put the edge of my knife against his throat and held it there. “Ask him anyway,” I said.

Juan didn't like it, but I was sure that the Apache couldn't make much of a sound before I could draw the knife across his throat.

Juan asked him. He spat the words out, the guttural Apache dialect of the Chiricahuas.

The Apache didn't move. He looked at us and his eyes were filled with enormous hate.

“Tell him,” I said, “that Kohi's days are numbered. Apaches are not soldiers. They are women. They fight like women. Tell him that.”

Juan told him, and it had the effect I had hoped for. The Apache attempted to spit at us. His eyes swam in anger. I lifted the knife very slightly from his throat, just enough to permit him to speak. He spoke harshly to Juan while looking at me.

“He cursed you,” Juan said. “That was about all.”

“He must have said something else.”

“He said the white man's days were numbered.” Juan shrugged. “Not Apache's. He bragged that all white men in the White Mountains would be dead before the moon showed itself seven times. He said there would be no more white-dog soldiers in the White Mountains.”

It was what I had wanted to know. What I had been afraid to hear. I looked at the Apache and knew that he was telling the truth. Then Juan said something to him in Apache and his eyes blazed. He attempted to lurch forward.

It was all he had to do. The blade of my knife bit into his throat and hot blood gushed over my hand.