Chapter 55

A MULE NAMED MALARIA

Lozen, Victorio, and Broken Foot looked down at the five men in the canyon below. They had wrapped their braids with colored yarn and rabbit fur. They wore leather leggings and low moccasins, but the rest of their outfits was a mix of Mexican and Anglo shirts, vests, and jackets. One had on a black silk stovepipe hat, and another a bowler.

They sat their gaunt ponies with haughty grace. While they waited for the signal that they had been spotted, they tore pages from a book and rolled tobacco in them. One of them dismounted to start a small blaze with his fire drill and dried moss. The others leaned down from their ponies and lit their cigarillos. One opened a faded pink parasol and held it up to shade himself.

“They aren’t Ndee,” said Broken Foot.

“Comanche.” Victorio motioned for Wah-sin-ton and Sets Him Free to ride down and escort them to the camp.

Broken Foot chuckled. “They must have taken a wrong turn at the Rio Bravo.”

“Go to sleep with Lipans and you wake up with Comanches,” said Lozen.

Broken Foot laughed out loud, and Victorio chuckled. Some of the Ndee who called themselves Lipans had come to Victorio and asked to join his band. The Lipans lived in the country adjoining Comanche territory to the east, and they were rarely friendly with the Red Paints. They weren’t on good terms with the Comanches, either, but maybe they realized that they had an enemy more dangerous than each other.

Maybe the Lipans told the Comanches about Victorio’s war on the Pale Eyes. Maybe the Comanches heard about it from the soldiers at Fort Sill, where the army had resettled them. If these men were some of those who had refused to go to Oklahoma Territory, maybe the comancheros had told them of Victorio’s war. However they learned about him, they did what the army and its scouts couldn’t. They found him.

So did a lot of others. All spring and summer men had arrived and offered to fight. They came on foot and on horseback. Some brought their families. Sometimes they led a pony loaded with belongings. Sometimes they carried only weapons and survival gear.

The Mescaleros, the Tall Cliffs Chiricahuas, and Mangas’ Santa Rita Red Paints had always been Victorio’s allies, but the Warm Springs band now included White Mountain men, and warriors of the Cibicu, Aravaipa, Coyotero, Jicarilla, and Tonto bands. A few In Back At The Front People had joined him, and some of Long Neck’s Enemy People.

All of them agreed that the Ndee had not seen a leader of Victorio’s abilities since the death of Cheis. Some said he was a better tactician that Cheis and wilier than old Red Sleeves. They whispered that the powerful far-sight of Victorio’s shadow, the warrior Lozen, made it impossible for enemies to sneak up on him. Many believed that his success was due in some part to his sister’s wise counsel, too.

Victorio had the same words for all of them.

“I can offer you death,” he told them. “I can give you separation from your families. I can promise you hardship, grief, suffering, and war. All that you will receive in return is the honor of dying for your people, and the pride in being men who do not surrender.”

 

 

RAFE NAMED THE YOUNG MULE MALARIA BECAUSE THE lop-eared, evil-eyed beast kept coming back to plague him. He should have died of thirst, or a dose of lead, or the epizootic disease that had cut down the herd in the spring. He should have been bitten by a rattlesnake or eaten by Apaches, yet here he was, eager to irritate. Rafe had roached his mane and shaved his tail, leaving only a tassel of hair on the end, to warn soldiers and packers to watch out for him.

The other mules in the baggage train would find their place in line each morning and stand patiently next to their stack of goods. Malaria was a different kettle of fish. He would shoehorn himself into the line, setting off indignant complaints. Once led to his proper place, he sidestepped and bucked when the Mexican arrieros, the muleteers, tried to tie on his load. After the cargo was secured and covered with the straw mat, he often decided to lie down and roll.

Rafe and his men had finally gotten Malaria loaded. With cries of “Arre, arre, borricones,” they chivvied the mules into line behind the bell mare and the fifty men of the Ninth Cavalry. Even now, five months after Caesar had been drummed out of the army, Rafe still listened for his deep voice chiding his men to straighten up, to look like soldiers, to make him proud. His men missed him, too. They would drift to Rafe’s campfire at night to ask about him and to tell stories about him.

Somewhere toward the front of the column, Pvt. Benjamin Simpson began playing his banjo. The cascade of notes reminded Rafe of a mountain stream. It was a relief from the shrill of insects and the August heat shimmering in waves from the dusty rocks. Private Simpson had played his banjo on one hard scout after another as the man in charge, Maj. Albert Morrow, hounded Victorio and his band across the baddest lands New Mexico had to offer. He had played through cold weather and hot, through battles and boredom, through storms and drought, through too much water and none at all.

Soldiers from Arizona and New Mexico had cut off Victorio’s routes to San Carlos and Mexico, so he had holed up in the Black Mountains forty miles northeast of Central City. Colonel Hatch said the Black Mountains made the lava beds of northern California look like a lawn. Hatch understated the case. When God finished his six-day construction project, he dumped here everything that was too jagged, too poisonous, and too thorny for the rest of creation. Victorio, however, knew these mountains as well as the brightwork on his Model 1873 Winchester.

The rifle fire started as soon as the last of the mules entered the canyon.

He’s done it again, thought Rafe.

Victorio had suckered even the army’s Apache scouts. He had led Major Morrow and the Ninth into another trap. Rafe couldn’t see anyone among the rockfalls and ledges and the huge clumps of cactus. The gunshots seemed to come from the canyon walls themselves.

“God damn him to hell.” And that was just the beginning of Major Morrow’s oaths.

Morrow was a chubby-cheeked, mild-eyed, dapper man with a dash of thinning hair slicked across the promontory of his forehead. His swab of a mustache followed the curves of his round chin, almost meeting under the middle of it. He looked as though he would be more at home behind a dry goods counter, but if he had been a clerk, no customer could have left the store without buying something. Morrow was persistent.

After nine months of being shot at by Victorio, he was taking this affray personally. While his men dismounted and found cover, Morrow ran to where Rafe was kneeling behind a creosote bush. The rifle fire reverberated off the canyon walls until no one could tell from which direction the shots were coming.

“Collins, keep an eye on Gatewood,” he shouted.

“Yes, sir.”

Lt. Charles Gatewood usually rode at the head of the column so his Apache scouts could report to him first. Rafe set off to find him. When Rafe met Gatewood a few months ago, he wouldn’t have bet that the twenty-six-year-old would live long enough for the Apaches to kill him. Yet here he was.

Some persistent illness whittled away at Charles Gatewood. It left him narrower than the average fence rail and so fragile that he looked as though a strong gust would snap him in two. He had huge, luminous eyes set in deep hollows the color of bruises. His nose dominated his gaunt face like an ax blade jutting from a parsnip root. His Apache scouts called him Beak, and they had developed a fervent loyalty to him. That told Rafe more about him than any official report. Apaches could tell the cut of a man’s cloth almost at first sight.

As Rafe scuttled along looking for Gatewood, he scanned the walls of the canyon. He tried to estimate Victorio’s strength from the gunshots. As far as he could tell, the total number of warriors seemed to have doubled from the first encounter last spring. Victorio must be attracting every renegade in the territories and Mexico, too.

Rafe found Charles Gatewood crouched in front of a boulder, but facing it, as though he were using it for cover. Rafe ducked behind it and popped up to look over it. He startled Gatewood so badly he almost toppled over backwards. “Lieutenant.” Rafe cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted. “You are on the wrong side of that rock.”

Gatewood, his expression awash in chagrin, dodged around to sit next to Rafe. He leaned his back against the rock and balanced his Springfield across his knees.

“Good Lord, Collins, everyone’s firing every which way. I think you’re the only sane one in the bunch.”

Something caught Gatewood’s eye, and he came to attention. He took aim at an Apache running full-tilt along a low ridge with two more following him. Rafe put a hand on the barrel and pushed it down.

“That’s Dead Shot, Dreamer, and Felix Ward.” Rafe corrected himself, “I mean Mickey Free.”

“How can you tell from here?”

Rafe shrugged. He couldn’t have said how himself.

The sound of gunfire eased off as men reloaded. Rafe and Gatewood saw Sgt. Dead Shot beckon to the men behind him and heard his booming voice. “Goddamn,” he bellowed. “Muy bueno! Come on.”

The Apache Scouts were wilder and warier than the Pimas and Navajos, but they were more reliable, more courageous and daring. The only rotten apple in the bunch was Felix Ward.

The boy responsible for Cochise declaring war on Arizona Territory twenty years ago had returned like a copper-haired bad penny. He had been living with the White Mountain band all this time. He had changed his name to Mickey Free for reasons known only to him. He still wore his greasy hair draped over his bad eye, though, and he was still lazy and sullen. He still looked like he wanted to take the world in his teeth and give it a good shaking.

The need to conserve ammunition allowed a man a surprising amount of time to think while bullets whined around him. Rafe thought about Dead Shot’s young wife, the Warm Springs woman he had met on the first trek to San Carlos with Victorio and his people. She and Dead Shot had wasted no time. She carried one infant in a cradleboard, and in another six months or so she would need a second cradle. Rafe wondered how she felt about her husband drawing a salary to track her people and kill them if necessary.

Love, he thought, is like the mule, Malaria, indifferent to the rules of others.

The firing started up again when Victorio’s men saw the scouts. During the lulls, they howled down at them like coyotes and barked like dogs. The meaning was clear. “You are the Pale Eyes’ tame curs,” they said. “You are as deceitful as Old Man Coyote.”

The contest became personal for them. The scouts and Victorio’s men shouted taunts in Spanish, Apache, and passable English. Victorio’s crew favored, “Come get us, you sum-bitches.” The only time Rafe saw the enemy was when they leaped into the open, turned their backs, bent over, and flipped up their breechclouts. A spate of gunfire followed as the soldiers tried to hit the neat, round targets.

The fighting went on all day, and it was as confused and cacaphonous a melee as Rafe had ever seen. By late afternoon Rafe could tell by the spurts of flame that Victorio’s men were moving downslope and fanning out toward the Ninth’s rear.

Rafe found Major Morrow with his fingers on the neck of his fallen first sergeant, the man who had taken Caesar’s place. Morrow took the time to close the dead man’s eyes.

“Major,” Rafe shouted. “Victorio’s going to flank us.”

“Bring up an ammunition mule. We’ll distribute the cartridges and withdraw with the baggage train.”

Rafe ran to the side canyon where he had left the mules. He skidded to a stop about twenty yards short of them. Two of his men lay sprawled in the dirt. Lozen sat on the bell mare, and she leveled her army-issue Spencer at him. If he hadn’t known her, he would have mistaken her for a warrior, but even so, he almost didn’t recognize her behind the band of red paint that covered the upper part of her face.

He saw other details with preternatural clarity. She wore high moccasins; a long, doeskin breechclout, and a faded blue army shirt cinched at the waist with a wide leather strap. A coil of braided rawhide rope, a knife in its sheath, and various leather drawstring sacks hung from the belt. The strap of the food pouch at her left hip ran diagonally between her breasts and emphasized them, though that was certainly not her intent.

She wore a cap of hawk feathers. She had gathered her hair into a thick black braid that reached past her waist. Amulets of bones and feathers, turquoise pebbles, and slivers of lightning-struck wood were tied in her hair and dangled from the cord across her chest.

The sight of her took his breath away, and not from fear, either. He had never encountered a woman like this, and he knew he never would again. She radiated a power, a majesty that he had felt only once before, when he spent an afternoon with Cochise.

She also disoriented him. He had assumed she would be hiding with the other women. At most he imagined her loading the men’s guns for them. He never expected to see her in war paint.

She raised the gun barrel until it pointed straight up. She wheeled the mare, kicked her sides, and rode away with the mare’s bell clanging. The mules trotted after her, all except Malaria. He whirled and made a beeline for Rafe. Rafe grabbed his lead rope in case the mule should change his mind and go off gallivanting. All he carried were tents and trenching tools. Rafe suspected the Ninth would not defeat Victorio with trenching tools.

Rafe had always known Lozen was a thief, but now he realized she was much worse than that. She had almost certainly killed one or both of the Mexican muleteers, both of them good men, men with families. She could have killed him, too, but she hadn’t. Still, he couldn’t let her make off with the supplies and the ammunition.

Rafe raised his Sharps and fixed her in the sight. She did not try to dodge, and she did not look back. He knew what she was saying. You are my friend. I know you will not kill me.

He increased the pressure against the trigger, feeling the crook of his finger interlock with the smooth curve of the metal. He took a deep breath. He gave himself a stern but brief lecture on duty and the folly of holding with the hare while running with the hounds.

He lowered the carbine.