AT NINE-THIRTY, well after dark but before the moon rose, Champion led a three-man expedition down the slope toward the water hole. They made three-quarters of the distance without incident, but when they approached the pool, Apache rifles in the rocks beyond opened up and beat the water into foam. Any man who left these rocks to fill a canteen would surely die in the open. Champion’s group returned to the rim unhit, just before the moon came up, and Champion said wearily, “It’s no good.”
Midnight came, with sporadic sniping going on, and thus ended the second day of siege. Champion threw a blanket on the ground and lay back, thankful that the day’s heat was gone, stretching his long body out and closing his eyes. Several desperate plans occurred to him but he found impossibilities in all of them, and so had to discard them. After an hour he was no closer to an answer and no closer to sleep.
Bird and animal calls sounded across the hills as Apaches talked to one another; he listened for a while but heard nothing that gave him any information. During the course of the day he estimated without exaggeration that they had killed and wounded almost a hundred Indians. It was a staggering toll, perhaps the greatest loss of men ever suffered by the Apache nation; and were his position less threatened he would have felt a certain grim pride. He had fought the Apache a great many years; he knew them, under most circumstances, to be the best fighting men of them all. Their strength and their weakness was in their determination: unlike others, who might cut and run, the Apache clung stubbornly until he had won.
Champion remembered the friends he had made among them and thought of those men and women with a small regret. Aveline had called them animals this afternoon, but Champion couldn’t wholly subscribe to that notion; they were barbarian and savage but they had their own strict codes and lived according to those codes much better than the white man did according to his.
In one way, though, Champion had to regard them as animals—that was when he fought them. He held his post without rage, but simply with the impersonal need to kill that a hunter had when he fired on game. A man had to form that kind of attitude; if he hesitated about pulling his trigger against them because of their humanity, he would pay for his hesitation—and on this hilltop no one could afford to pay. He thought of Ernie Mills—a lifetime of experience and a soul full of hope and plans, lying dead under a dusty tarpaulin.
Two sleeping figures lay nearby—Roacher and Aveline—and it was purely by accident that Champion’s glance happened to fall on them just when the shadowy hand of the fat man was sneaking back with Aveline’s canteen. Champion froze in his position and decided to watch for a moment before acting. He saw Roacher sling the canteen over his burly shoulder without drinking from it; then, with an idle air, Roacher got to his feet with his rifle and walked away toward the rim.
Champion’s head turned to follow the man—was Roacher just going to offer water to Johnny, on guard? Had he only taken the canteen silently to avoid awakening Aveline, who needed the strength that came from sleep? Or did the fat man have something else in mind? Never having trusted Roacher, Champion followed him now with a steady gaze, seeing Roacher approach Johnny’s position, speak a few quiet words to the boy and then drift away along the rock perimeter. Champion’s frown deepened. Then, with a hurried backward glance, Roacher stepped over the rock parapet and dropped out of sight.
Champion was on his feet instantly; but Aveline was ahead of him. “I’ll take care of it,” Aveline said tightly, and wheeled away, his two revolvers lifting smoothly out of the holsters; the bantam figure ran across the camp and stopped at the parapet, uttering one abrupt word: “Joe!”
By then Champion was trotting forward; but the scene was out of his hands. The revolvers leveled in Aveline’s fists began to buck and rock and roar, spitting out tongues of yellow flame—and not until both guns were empty did Aveline drop behind the parapet with Indian bullets whining over his head. Champion sank to a crawling position and, when the firing died down, looked over the rim. All he could see in the dimness was a shape darkly mounted twenty feet below, not moving.
Robbie Aveline’s lips were curled back and he spoke tautly: “He had it coming. I always expected him to cross us—he was on his way down to tell them our water’s run out and we’re down to five men. He probably expected them to give him shelter.”
“And the shame of it is,” Champion murmured, “that they wouldn’t have kept him alive ten minutes.”
“Yeah,” Aveline said. “I think we’d best get a little sleep.”
Champion nodded. He cast one last dreary glance over the breastworks and returned to his blankets slowly.
The canteen by Roacher’s body was shot full of holes; and that had been the last of their water. The third day dawned hot and promised to get hotter; Johnny Wilson, on guard at sunup, called out in a high, strained cry that brought Champion rushing forward with his armload of rifles. He flopped down at the rim and saw immediately what had alarmed Johnny: the first daylight revealed a mass of dark figures not more than a hundred feet away, climbing stealthily. Champion cursed mechanically and started his rifle talking in harsh signals, watching shapes fall with his bullets; and when it was over, less than two minutes later, the slope was once again littered with gunshot Apaches. God, he thought. My God!
“Nobody’s hurt up here,” Jack Portell said in a tone devoid of emotion. “Jesus, Nat, I keep feeling that we’re all dead and this is Hell. I’ve shot so many men all I can see is Indians dropping in front of my sights. It’s all crazy—it’s all a dream. It just don’t happen this way—it can’t—”
“Get hold of yourself,” Champion muttered, gripping the old man’s arm. After a moment he tinned away, moving like a rusty machine. He stopped by the pile of supplies and said, “Maybe we can chew some juice out of this leather.”
Fred Thomas said numbly, “We knocked down a hundred and fifty of ’em—and there’s just as many still out there.”
“I can’t fight much longer,” Johnny said. His voice was hollow.
“Simmer down, all of you,” Champion said. “Look to the west—it may rain by morning. We can stick it out.”
“Them clouds will only rain on our corpses,” Jack Portell droned, and walked away.
Robbie Aveline stood beside Champion, the cruel sun smashing down against them. Aveline took a new rifle from the pile and moved along beside Champion, taking a post along the rim and saying, “Those clouds aren’t moving this way, Nat. They’re headed south.”
“I know,” Champion said, lying belly-flat and feeling the heat press through his shirt. “But I had to tell them something.”
“None of them are stupid,” Aveline said. “What you and I can see, they can see.”
“I know,” Champion said again, and fired a shot, knowing he had missed his target, but satisfied just to let the Apache know the men on this hill were still fighting. He heard Aveline say, “If we live through today, what happens tomorrow? If we live through tomorrow, what happens then? We’re all through, Nat.” There was only flatness, not panic, in the small man’s voice.
“We’re not through until we’re dead,” Champion said. “Maybe we’ll get help. Maybe God will help, maybe something else will happen—they could change their minds. Somebody could stumble across this.”
“Thin chance,” Aveline said. “Why pump up your hopes?”
“Well,” Champion said tightly, “what do you suggest? Surrendering?”
Aveline chuckled. “I guess not,” he said. “I guess not. But it seems so Goddamned useless to keep killing off men when we know we’re going to end up dead ourselves no matter how many Indians we shoot.”
“We were all born to die,” Champion said. “But I never met a man who wanted it to come any sooner than it had to.”
“Why prolong the pain? You know, if we live through this day it will be on guts and ammunition, nothing else. By nightfall our tongues will be hanging out and our lips will crack.” Aveline gave him one more sober glance and moved away with his rifle to another spot.
Champion watched him go. I guess I ought to pray some more, he thought, looking at the other four men scattered around the edge of the hill.