The man who said his name was Bly came into Yuyutsu’s camp. As it was not Apache custom to turn away another Indeh, Yuyutsu indicated a place on the far side of the fire. “Sit, if you will,” he said.
Bly sat, laying his rifle close to hand. Yuyutsu could not help but notice that the rifle was new, a repeater that could fire fifteen times before needing to be reloaded.
“I am Bly,” the man said. “My thanks for allowing me to enter the camp of Yuyutsu.”
“We of the Indeh are all brothers, sons and daughters of the White Painted Woman and the Child of the Waters.”
“This is true.”
“Are you alone?”
“For the moment, yes.”
Yuyutsu raised an eyebrow at Bly’s evasive answer. As it was not permissible for an Indeh warrior to lie, Bly must have companions not far away.
“How many mouths need we feed, then?”
“I am not here to feast, Yuyutsu, but to warn.”
“Why would you warn me, the most successful of all Indeh raiders of Nakaye lands?”
“I heard.”
Yuyutsu’s chest puffed up just a little. “Then you would join us? How many warriors did you bring?”
“No warriors that follow me would fight with Yuyutsu.”
The raider’s face went hard as a stone. “What Indeh warrior would rather be in the prisons they call ‘reservations’ than to taste freedom with Yuyutsu?”
Bly nodded, his face grave and thoughtful. “What you say is true, Yuyutsu. Mostly true. But I know something you should know.”
Yuyutsu made no reply. He waited for Bly to continue, as a proper host should.
“There is a new kind of soldier at Fort Bliss,” Bly said. “Soldiers that don’t wear blue. Soldiers that don’t ride horses. Soldiers who can run fifty miles in one day, then run fifty miles the next day as well. Their nantan is young. No more than twenty summers.”
Yuyutsu shrugged. “What do I care of foot soldiers? We have plenty of horses and we can always get more.”
Bly kept his eyes on Yuyutsu’s face, as the small fire illuminated the raider’s face and gave it a ghostly mien.
“Take care,” Bly said. “I have given you important information. What you do with it, I cannot govern. I thank you for sharing your fire with me, a White Mountain man.”
He stood.
Yuyutsu waved for him to sit back down. “Meat will soon be on the fire,” he said. “You should eat before you leave.”
“My thanks, but I have rations and water.”
Yuyutsu nodded, and Bly left. He had warned Yuyutsu of Stryker’s new kind of soldier. His obligation as Indeh was done. He had no doubt that Yuyutsu would send someone after him, so Bly left a trail that even a twelve-year-old could follow. An overturned pebble here, a bruised clump of grama grass there. Just enough to make a young tracker proud to be able to follow an adult warrior like Bly.
The trail led to the lip of Grandito Canyon, then disappeared. Leaving nothing for the boy, or any other tracker, to follow, Bly struck out for the lightning blaze cliff where Stryker’s Misfits were to rendezvous.
~*~
Stryker shook his head, trying to clear his mind. He had no friends. No one would come looking for him. He should expect no help. But where was the shooter that tried to kill him? Or did the shooter even know what or who he was shooting? Did the answers to the questions bombarding Stryker’s mind even matter?
The wound in his shoulder no longer bled, but it wouldn’t take much to start the blood flowing again. What was it Dahtegte used on cuts? Nopal, she called it. A cactus. Lying on the sandy bottom of a dry stream did not let Stryker see much of his surrounds. Creosote bush. Bunch grass. Plants that he could not identify. Nopal, ah, yes, the cactus called prickly pear because the pear-shaped fruits were edible. But that cactus did not seek streambeds, rather it usually grew on land a little higher than its surrounds. Places forbidding to most plant life were more attractive to prickly pear plants, perhaps.
Stryker may have shaken his head again. The sun beat down on the sandy streambed as if bent on turning it into a river from Hell. The back of his throat felt dry and sticky, and he had no saliva to swallow. Maybe the blood he’d lost took moisture from his body, too. He tried to concentrate. How long since the rifle shot? It came at dawn. The sun stood overhead. Four hours? Five? No shooter had come looking for scalp hair or booty. No Apache had come looking for guns and bullets. So who shot? And why? Would a shooter sit still for four or five hours after a target went down? Probably not. Stryker decided to assume not. Now. Time to get up. Stand up. Move on. Get to the rendezvous in the foothills of Little Hatchet.
With his rifle as a crutch, Stryker struggled to his feet.
Nothing.
Blood dyed Stryker’s muslin shirt black from shoulder to wrist. Flies gathered, looking for a meal and a place to lay eggs. He brushed them away, but they merely circled and came back. Nopal. If he could find some, he could put a pad on the shoulder wound and not have to worry about blowflies.
He surveyed his surroundings through narrowed eyes. The sheer brilliance of the noonday sun made it difficult to see. He blinked, then rubbed his eyes. The ridge was still there, but no metallic flash signaled the presence of gun or knife.
Walk. Move. Step out.
Stryker bent over and reached down for his rifle’s buckskin sheath and nearly fell over. Had he lost that much blood? Or was it the heat? Or the lack of water? Clutching the sheath, he straightened up. The dizziness subsided somewhat. He tucked the sheath into his waistband.
He took a deep breath and reached down for his Remington revolver. Not so dizzy this time. He shoved the big six-gun into its hard leather holster.
Dahtegte carried the water jug, so Stryker was without. He wondered if the shooter got her. He’d not heard any shots other than the one that plowed a groove in his deltoid. He took a step.
He could see the blue outlines of both Big and Little Hatchet ranges, and in between, some thirty miles of dead flat country. At least it looked flat. In reality, the valley had its share of ups and downs. He took another step. And another. Where was that Apache woman?
The sun completed another half of its journey across the sky before Stryker saw any prickly pear cactus. The dry streambed led toward the Hatchet ranges, so he kept to the sandy bottom, which made walking easier. Now he left the bed, heading for the light green patch on higher ground. The light green could only be a large stand of nopal cactus. Apaches used split nopal pads to dress any bleeding wound. And it was Stryker’s experience that what an Apache said or did having to do with using surrounding plant life for sustenance and medicine was most likely right.
At the cactus patch, Stryker lopped off a pad and used his Bowie to scrape the thorns away. He then split the pad in half. By tying the bandana strips together, he could use them to bind the split cactus pad on the bullet wound, raw side down.
The wound bled somewhat when he removed the bandana strips, but the bleeding gradually stopped as the cactus juice dried.
Stryker scrapped the raw side of the other half of the cactus pad and ate the resulting pulp. It didn’t provide much moisture, but was far better than none at all. He split and scraped three more cactus pads. Still not enough moisture. Still much better than nothing. Still in the heat of the afternoon on the dry underbelly of southwestern New Mexico with nearly thirty miles to go to rendezvous.
At VMI, Professor Smith was forever quoting an ancient Chinese philosopher named Confucius. One of those quotes came to mind as Stryker chewed and swallowed sticky raw cactus pulp. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
Stryker nearly smiled, and he took the first step. When he did—and took the one after that, and the one after that—another of Professor Smith’s sayings echoed in his ears. It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop. Stryker kept walking.
~*~
Dahtegte watched Stryker from the top of the ridge. He walked down the dry streambed as if he were connected to Ussen’s hands by strings that the Giver of Life handled without thinking. The scalp hunter sprawled among the ridge rocks, where a quick thrust from Dahtegte’s knife sent him into the afterworld. She’d not taken the time to mutilate him properly and make his wanderings through the spirit world ever hampered by wounds. Enough that he would take no more scalps. Dahtegte fingered those the scalp hunter had carried. When they reached rendezvous, she would bury the scalps properly, with prayers to Ussen. Then, perhaps, the ones who had gone on would be able to walk the afterlife as whole Indeh. Perhaps.
Stryker dressed his wound with the pads from nopal.
Enyuh! Dahtegte approved.
He walked.
She followed, but did not interfere with Stryker’s journey toward rendezvous.
He kept moving, even though the sun of late afternoon was hot and dry.
In the dusk, Stryker stumbled and went down. He stayed on hands and knees as if he were not going to rise again.
Dahtegte watched. Part of her wanted to help him. But the sterner part of her said, “Hold off. This is a good lesson for Gopan to learn.”
The sky in the west darkened, leaving only a line of orange and gold across the ragged skyline of the Hatchets.
Stryker struggled to his feet. He peered in Dahtegte’s direction, but no white man could see an Apache unless the Indeh wished to be seen.
He took a step. Then another. Soon he trudged on in a westerly direction, still following the dry streambed. But Dahtegte knew the stream would peter out in a short while, and Matt Stryker would be faced with moving cross country, following no path, if he wished to find the cliff with a lightning flash on its face.
She carried the scalp hunter’s Sharps .50 now, a bag of bullets, and the dead man’s canteen, in addition to her own Yellow Boy Winchester and the ammunition for it. Although she had both her own water jug and the shootist’s canteen, she made no move to offer one of them to Stryker. He would learn much by surviving.
Stryker trudged on.
Dahtegte followed, now closer.
Once in a while, Stryker would suddenly stop and cock his head to listen. Of course Dahtegte halted as well.
The moon rose, large and red at first, then smaller and white as it climbed higher in the sky. Stryker picked up his pace. Dahtegte followed.
~*~
As the Misfits arrived, Samson Kearns assigned each a place to keep out of sight. Lion Wattie and Winston Many Ponies scaled the cliff, a flat-topped mesa that towered above the terrain. They found lookouts that let them each see a hundred eighty degrees in opposite directions. Lion’s lookout faced south, so he spotted Stryker and Dahtegte when they were still at least five miles away, maybe six.
He watched. After a few minutes, he picked up a pebble and tossed it at Samson’s position. When the top soldier peered from behind a big chunk of rock that has split off the cliff in eons past, Lion put his hand to his forehead in a salute that meant “officer” and circled his finger at eye level. Then he pointed toward Stryker and Dahtegte. Lion could not help but notice Stryker’s ragged pace, although he was too far away for even his sharp eyes to see the lieutenant’s bloodstained sleeve. Still, Stryker led and Dahtegte followed.
Lion squinted. Stryker carried his rifle, sheathed in buckskin. But Dahtegte lugged a big gun; a Sharps, it looked like. Now he could see the makeshift bandage—nopal pad tied in place with ... rags? And the sleeve of his muslin shirt was black as only dried blood could be black. How could the Misfits fight seasoned Apache warriors without a leader ... or, almost without one?
Should he help? No. Stryker would refuse. The rule was each man for himself. Besides, Dahtegte followed close behind. He stayed in place, keeping watch as assigned. Damn.
Samson Kearns peered over the top of his rock, waiting for Stryker to come into sight. Something about Lion’s signal struck him wrong, as if Stryker were in trouble. But Stryker was adamant about each man taking care of himself, so Samson stayed concealed, his headband full of the kind of weeds that took root in the rocks, and his dark skin dusted with native soil to bring its color closer to that of his surroundings.
Nothing appeared from the direction Lion had indicated. Samson wanted to lever himself atop the rock to gain more perspective, but held back. In daylight, he’d better not show himself. He looked around. None of the Misfits showed. Some were probably sleeping.
A footfall? Samson focused his senses in the direction of the sound, but it didn’t come again. He sneaked up high enough to see over the rock.
“Top?”
Samson froze. No one by Stryker called him “Top.” But the one who spoke was not a man.
“Top?”
“Yes. Is that Dahtegte?”
“I am.”
“What?”
“A little help, please. There are no other Apaches near here.”
Samson stepped from his hiding place.
“Your place is hidden good, Top.,” Dahtegte said. She stood no more than a dozen feet away from Samson’s rock. “Come help Gopan Nantan.”
“Gopan Nantan?”
“You say Cap.”
“Lead on.”
She did.
Stryker lay face down, his head resting on his left arm. His left hand clutched his Winchester Yellow Boy with what some would think was a death grip. But movement of his chest said he still breathed.
“Cap?”
Stryker remained silent.
Samson went to one knee and put a hand on Stryker’s back, something that would have gotten him whipped in an earlier time. He gave Stryker a tiny shake.
“Cap?”
Stryker came to his feet in one fluid motion, his eyes wide and his right hand holding a Remington Army revolver at full cock. Samuel Kearns, who had risen at the same time, wrapped his big arms around Stryker in a bear hug.
“Easy, Cap. It’s me. Reginald Kearns. You’re at the rendezvous, Cap. So you just relax. We’ll get that shoulder fixed good as new in a minute or two, then, come dark, we can talk about hitting them Apaches we’re hunting. Sound good, Cap?”
Stryker relaxed, and let the hammer of his pistol down. “Sounds good,” he said.