Chapter 27
Past lunch time the next day, Chet was back at the Quarter Circle Z. Hoot came out on the porch and smiled at him. “No problems?”
He dismounted and shook his head. “Not even a whisper of one.”
“None here, either.” The older man looked at the passing clouds. “Sure ain’t rained either. Getting dry.”
Half-turning to check the sky, Chet packed his saddle to the porch. “None today.”
“Right. What else did you learn?”
“I saw a sign in town that they’re planing a big picnic on the 4th. They’re having roping and bronc-riding competition.”
“The boys will want to attend. Some may even enter. It’s a big show. Folks come from everywhere to attend. Bigger than the county fair. The ranchers all bring in the saltiest broncs they’ve got for the cowboys to try to ride them.”
“Who runs it?”
“Ah, some town folks do part of it, and the rest just happens. The sheriff puts on two dozen extra deputies. You know them boys. They get drunk and then they fight. But they’re all pretty friendly.”
“They do something like that down at Mason, Texas. Fire an old cannon off to celebrate the nation’s birthday and boy, do the horses break reins if you ain’t there to quiet ’em down.”
Hoot laughed. “The planners usually come around and ask for a fat yearling to barbeque. I bet they hit you up at the dance for one. Why, there’s more cooks at that deal than you can shake a stick at.”
Chet agreed with a bob of his head. “As many as want to can go. Ryan in jail, it should be pretty quiet up this valley.”
“Sure. Boss, would you ride up to the Indian camp and tell them there is a crippled yearling up on Beautreau Creek that they can have to eat? He’s got a star in his face. Boys said he must have got his hoof caught in a crevass and he tore half of it off. They asked me to do that this morning, but I’m busy baking a cake for Wiley’s birthday.”
“I can do that.”
“Ride due west along the Verde. You can’t miss the camp.”
“They know where that creek is at.”
“Yeah. They know this country like the back of their hand.”
“Alright, I’ll get a fresh horse and go do that right now.”
“I better see how it’s baking. I’ve still got to put frosting on it.”
In a short while Chet was headed west, and in a few miles he could smell the wood smoke of a campfire on the wind. Next he dropped down on the flat and rode closer to the river.
Some females screamed and before he knew it, bare brown butts were gathering up their clothes and running to the willows for cover. Most of them looked like teenage girls. Chet reined the big dun horse back up the bank to the next level to avoid any more scares. The camp wasn’t like the Comanche ones with their tall, colorful tepees. They had small brush huts with pieces of canvas over them to shed rain and sun.
A tall Indian woman appeared. She stood much taller than the rest. Dressed in a white woman’s blue dress, she acted in charge. Her dark hair was in thick braids that looked like they pulled on the corners of her large eyes.
Chet nodded to her and tipped his hat. “Good day. My name’s Chet Byrnes.”
“Yes, you own this ranch. We are very grateful that you let us stay here. There is a sweet spring comes out upstream. The water is cool and healthy. Do you need a drink?”
He stepped down off his horse. “You did not tell me your name.”
“My name in English is Mary Green, but my people call me Tall Pine. The Indian Service gave us those names when they put them down on the rolls.”
This woman was educated. “Are your people Apaches?”
“We are Yavapai.”
“Are you part of the Apache family?”
“We have been.” She used the side of her hand to shield the strong sun from her eyes.
“May we go in the shade and talk?” Chet wanted her more at ease to visit with him.
“Yes.” She spoke the word so correctly he could hardly believe it.
At a safe distance, small children dressed in rags watched this white-eye with his cold, suspicious ways. The disturbed bathers or swimmers giggled from behind lodges. And a few old women with shrunken faces like dried apples and no expression watched their show.
“Are the men gone?”
“They went looking for game today, and took the boys along to show them how.”
“I see. There is a crippled yearling on Beautreau Creek that you may eat. I could go up there and rope him for you since your men are gone. Do you have a horse to ride up there?”
Tall Pine shook her head, standing under the leaf-rattling cottonwoods. “We have no horses. But I can run with you up there.”
“Run?” Chet frowned at her.
“Mr. Byrnes, if you don’t have horses, then you learn to run.”
“I guess you do. Please call me Chet.”
“I will get the girls you obviously chased out of the river coming to see us.”
“I didn’t know—”
“I am, how you say, teasing you.”
He laughed. But in a few minutes she had over a half-dozen girls, each carrying everything from old gray canvas to wrap the meat in to baskets to transport the entrails. Tall Pine pointed to the west and set to trotting with her army behind. Chet had to spur the dun horse to keep up on their heels.
Tall Pine pointed out the tree-lined creek coming out of the north. Chet nodded and then shook loose a lariat, setting the dun on a lope headed up the bottom. He had gone some distance when a dark brown yearling jumped to his feet. He might have been three-legged, but he could move. The dun soon closed in on him and Chet threw the rope over his knobby horns, then pressed the horse to pass him, and whipped the lariat over the calf’s hip. The rope wrapped hard on the saddlehorn, Chet went straight left, and the steer did a somersault in the air to land on his back. To his shock, the woman and her assistants rushed in to keep the steer down. In the process, she cut his throat before he could even hardly bawl. As the last of his life ran out of him, her helpers avoided his thrashing legs.
Chet rode back and asked her, “Want to hang him in a tree to skin him?”
Tall Pine shook her head. They were already starting to skin him on the ground. Chet coiled up his rope and tied it on the saddle. These people were dead serious about supper.
His dun busy grazing, he went over and squatted down to watch them. “You have a good crew.”
“Your crippled horses and the big bulls have been very important for us to eat. Has the agent complained yet?”
Chet shook his head as her workers stood the steer on his back. With a sharp knife to cut the flesh away in his flank, another girl with a hatchet stepped in and cut off his hip bone. The skinned hind leg was soon wrapped in canvas. Two other girls were putting his entrails into a great basket. Another skinned leg was detached and wrapped up. Then the calf’s head was detached with an axe, skinned, and also wrapped.
“We can tie some of that meat on my horse.”
Mary looked at first like she would decline his offer, then she spoke, “That would be very nice of you to loan him to us. To carry it would take us many trips to get it back to camp.”
Mary rose, and he saw the blood had dried on her hands and forearms. She went to the shallow creek and knelt down to wash them. Soon others, with their work complete, came to do the same thing.
Flinging the water off, Mary smiled. “See, not bad for lazy Indians, was it?”
“I never called you that.”
“Others have. Has Mr. Swartz been to see you?’
“No. Who’s he?”
“The agent who is over the Camp Verde reservation.”
“No. Should I have met him?”
“He sent an Indian Police man named Gill to tell us if we did not move back to the reservation, he would put us in chains and drive us back there with whips.”
“When was that?”
“A week ago.”
“I will ride up there tomorrow and ask to see the food he has to feed your people.”
“There is none. His so-called month’s supplies only lasted us for a few days. They were moldy and rotten. We were given two old toothless cows for a month’s supply. They were piles of bones.”
“I will go tomorrow and see him.”
“I hope he does not harm you.”
“Mary, trust me, he won’t.”
She nodded her head as if considering him. “Your cowboys say that you are a tough hombre. I can see that you are one. But don’t let him hurt you because of us. I can tell you if he is at the fort by Preskit, go see Nan Tan Lupan, who is a friend of the Yavapai.”
“Who’s he?”
“General Crook.”
“If I have to, I’ll go see him. Let’s load my horse.”
“Yes.” She clapped her hands and the girls fell in, almost without words. One of them took the reins from him and then pointed at her chest, then the horse. She intended to lead him back to camp.
Chet hoped they all did not run back, and he felt certain that they could outrun him.
At last, everything and everyone was back in camp. Mary very eloquently invited him to stay for supper, and he thanked her but said he needed to get back to the house. Besides, he wasn’t too interested in eating raw liver and heart, an Indian delicacy.
“You must come again to our camp, Chet.”
He agreed and noted that all the blood from the meat had been scrubbed from his saddle leather. No doubt at her insistence.
How old was she? Twenty, maybe more. She wasn’t bad to look at either. A very much in-charge, well-educated woman.
Chet short-loped the dun. They must be getting closer to the longest day in the year. In the morning he’d go see this Swartz. Drive them home with a whip, his ass. He’d see about that, too.