There was a crisp quality to the light, throwing sharp-edged shadows, as a tall figure emerged from a stand of lodge-pole pine and entered a clearing. He breathed deeply in search of new smells that would give him extra information on the locale. His regal bearing as he made progress across the scene matched the bleak splendor of the sun and his surroundings. His deep-tanned skin seemed impervious to winds and low temperature. His wide-brimmed hat, fringed buckskin jacket and leggins had long faded to the color of the earth, making him part of it.
The deep lines cutting the terrain of his face, the white hair, the gnarled leather of his hands, testified to his age. Yet nature, which had cast his limbs in a mould of uncommon strength, had endowed him with a constitution as strong as his
limbs. In the past it had bid defiance to the machinations of climate, fatigue, privation. Now it was the turn of his constitution to challenge the machinations of old age. A task at which it was not always successful, as testified by the occasional creaking of joints and universal stiffness. But sweeping generalizations are the makings of legend. And this was a living legend. This was Shatterhand.
Seconds later he was joined by another figure to emerge into the clearing from another angle. This particular legend bore the name of Winnetou and sported the clothes of an Apache. Son of the famed chief Intschu-tschuna, he had made his own reputation long before his association with the fabled white trapper, huntsman and scout.
Shatterhand felt the wind, looked through the green canopy at the sun, then signaled direction by silently chopping the air with this right hand. The couple could lead quite a complicated conversation by mere, unobtrusive hand signals
General Montborough was in need of guidance through the northern waterways. Having lost his regular scouts, he had requested help. There was not a blade of grass across the vast American continent that was not known to Shatterhand and his faithful companion and thus it was they had been commissioned for the task. They were at present making the journey across the swathe of forest to make the rendezvous.
They nooned in the next clearing they came upon, finishing off the rabbit they had killed that morning for breakfast. Resuming their passage they eventually broke the confines of the forest.
They would have passed right through the clearing and beyond had not there been a rifle crack and splinters of wood gouted out of the trunk close to Winnetou’s head.
‘Gott in Himmel!’ Shatterhand mouthed as he and his companion instinctively dropped to the forest floor. Anyone else might have simply ran away. But the two curmudgeons didn’t cotton to someone trying to plant them in forest mulch.
The two worked their way on their elbows nearer through some tangled growths. There was s log cabin. Looked like a rifle barrel at a window.
‘Why they shoot?’
‘Maybe just cautious,’ Shatterhand said.
‘Maybe hunting.’
‘From a cabin window? More likely they’ve seen us and getting in their retaliation first, as they say.’
‘We proceed?’
‘Shatterhand glanced again at the sun. ‘We are making good time. It intrigues me that someone should want to kill us.’
‘Or maybe frighten us.’
‘Well they haven’t done that. But they’ve made me mighty curious. We have time to pause in our journey and investigate. I’ll keep them occupied from here. You circle round and see what you can access from the rear.’
Once Winnetou had set off, the white man made occasional showings, just enough to elicit gunfire. He spent some ten minutes playing this game before the redman appeared at the door and waved. Rising and walking towards the cabin Shatterhand noticed a freshly heaped grave bearing a crude wooden cross.
Inside the cabin was a rather bloated woman seated in a rough-hewn wooden chair.
‘The is the Widow McCool,’ Winnetou said. ‘May I introduce Der Jäger, otherwise known as Old Shatterhand.’
The huntsman clicked his heels. ‘At your service, gnädige Frau.’
She said nothing and the eyes with which she monitored the white trapper on his entrance had a blankness, almost as though she saw nothing through them.
‘What’s the matter with the good lady?’ Shatterhand asked.
‘She has not yet come to terms with the fact an Indian can be close without wanting to rape, kill or steal from her.’
‘She must have had some bad experience. I hear tell there are some redskins like that.’
‘So have I heard too,’ said Winnetou, rolling his eyes at the stupidity of the conversation being played out.
‘So you’ve had Indian trouble, ma’am?’
Suddenly she broke down. Shatterhand creaked his ancient bones down beside her and gave her what comfort he could. ‘You’re with friends now, ma’am.’
Eventually they got it out of her. She had lived here with her husband and they were expecting a child.
Shatterhand nodded. He had been searching for a reason to explain her rotundity; he hadn’t thought of that
‘Your time not far away, ma’am?’ Winnetou prompted.
‘Two weeks.’
She went on to describe how Indians had attacked a week ago, killed her husband. Killed all the livestock, hogs, chickens everything. The only thing that was spared was their flea-bitten donkey. And that was only because it managed to escape. But it eventually came back of its own accord.
Shatterhand nodded. Her husband being killed explained the newly-dug grave outside.
‘And you want to leave but you can’t because of the blossoming of the kinder…er child within you?’ he said by way of trying to nudge answers from her. ‘Is that it?’
‘That’s right.’
Shatterhand looked around. ‘When did you last eat?’
She raised two fingers. ‘Two days,’ she said weakly. ‘Spend all day at the window in vigilance.’
Shatterhand nodded again––that explained the unfounded firing to which they’d been subjected when they had first hove into view.
He saw a bed at the back. ‘You lie down, ma’am. My friend and I will look after you. But first you must eat. It is in order that we make a meal?’
She pointed vaguely at the cooking area,. ‘Be my guest.’
When they’d had their fill, a mixture of what Winnetou could find in the cabin along with some of their trapped food, Shatterhand clarified his intention. ‘With us here you should sleep well tonight. You are in need of that. Both for yourself and the babe to be. Then, first thing in the morning we set out to deliver you to the nearest civilization where you can be tended properly.’
‘No, no, I can’t travel.’
‘What is the nearest place where you’d feel comfortable?’
‘Fort Kenton. I have friends and some family there.’
‘How far.’
‘Ten miles, but I can’t travel that distance,’ she said patting her unborn child. ‘I am well due.’
‘Trust us, ma’am. We shall see to it that your travel is as with as little stress as possible. But I figure you haven’t slept for some time, so the first thing now is for you is to lie down in that bed, while Winnetou and I guard you and look after the place.’
White man and red took it in turns to watch during the night. There were no menacing developments and Shatterhand took the opportunity on his watches to store some firearms on the veranda. Under a mixture of dull lamplight and moonlight he fixed a Martini- Henry up the back of one of the vertical stanchions. He repeated the exercise with another stanchion. Vertical behind the wood they couldn’t be seen from the front and were fixed so that they could easily be pulled clear at will. When he was sure they were secure he primed them so that they were ready to fire instantaneously. He found some longer screws and in like manner fixed his beloved Barontoter, a monster weapon that could fetch down a bison at half a mile, horizontally within the roof of the veranda, effectively spanning the doorway arch. He checked he could reach it by simply raising his arms. Priming that one too, he retired to the interior to keep watch from a window.
Come morning the trio were preparing to leave. ‘I can’t travel’ the lady repeated as she waddled back to her seat after eating.
‘Yes, you can.’ Shatterhand said. ‘You’re travelling by travois.’
‘We haven’t got one.’
Shatterhand smiled and indicated his friend. ‘Best travois maker amongst the Apache is our Winnetou. In fact amongst the whole of the Peoples, he’s renowned for his travois-making skills.’
Shatterhand went to the door and pointed across the clearing. ‘Enough timber out there, my dear noble savage. Should find some usable boughs.’
‘I’ve never made a travois in my life.’ Winnetou whispered. ‘You keep forgetting. I’m what they call a civilized Indian. Even my family call me a White Apache. Means I know all about how to handle a Sheffield-made knife and fork and dab my lips with a napkin; but fall short of all the Indian skills you stereotype me with.’
‘Listen, you buffalo-fat muncher,’ Shatterhand in a mock growl. ‘We’ve got to keep up the good lady’s spirits. See the exercise as one of morale-boosting. As to the travois, you must have seen pictures of them in encyclopedias in that missionary school of yours. Just remember what you’ve seen and copy it.’
‘Sometimes I think I only wear my Indian get-up to please you. To make you look the part. One day I will expose to the world my role in fabricating the notion of The Legend Called Shaterhand!’
Shatterhand laughed. ‘Get on with it. And make sure the conveyance is comfortable enough for a child-bearing woman.’
Winnetou took out his knife and loped across the clearing to the edge of the forest.
Back inside Shatterhand said, ‘While he’s occupied in that, gather your things together for travelling so that’ll we’ll be ready when he’s finished.’
It was some three quarters of an hour later when they heard an Apache whoop.
‘Reckon he’s finished,’ Shatterhand said and went to the door. He could make out Winnetou surrounded by half a dozen Indians.
‘He’s got some buddies.’ He waved back.
‘They’re not his buddies’’ Mrs. McCool bleated as she scanned the figures through the window ‘It’s them! The same ones who killed my dear John.’
‘No reason to panic, my dear. Firstly, are you sure?’
‘I’ll never forget their faces. They’re going to kill us all. That’s why they came back. They’re going to kill us.’
‘No they’re not.’
She dropped back in the chair her head in her hands. ‘With John dead and with all this trouble––the baby will be stillborn I know. I may as well die; then I can join the two of them in heaven where we can be happy again.’
Shatterhand looked back at the group. ‘How are things, Winnetou?’ he shouted in Apache.
‘All right, my friend,’ Winnetou returned in the same Apache dialect. ‘They mean us no harm.’ He hugged one by the shoulder. ‘See, no problem. They merely want to trade.’
‘OK,’ Shatterhand shouted and beckoned with his arm. ‘Let them come as they’re friendly.’
He stepped back. ‘You can use a gun?’ he said out of the corner of his mouth without looking away from the approaching redmen.
‘What did he say?’ she asked
‘He has been asked by the bunch to explain to us–– principally me––that they mean us no harm.’
‘You speak their tongue.’
‘And several others. One could not survive in the wild forests of this vast land without being able to communicate with whomever one haps upon. Just as, although they are not Apache, they understand Winnetou’s speech. They know what he is saying.’
‘You believe what he says? He may be being coerced.’
‘No, I believe him. Now get your gun and take cover beside the window yonder. I shall set the window slightly ajar, thus.’ Keeping low he moved his hand slowly up the wall, then very slowly unlatched the lock and very slowly pushed the window out a little. ‘There you are they didn’t see that. You stand beside the window without being seen. When the shooting starts, as it will, you go for any targets to the right. I’ll handle the middle and left. It can overcome anxiety if you concentrate your action on a limited objective.’
‘But you said they told Winnetou they were friendly.’
‘Despite what he says they are not friendly. No time to explain. When this business is over, as it will be, I shall tell.’ When he returned to the veranda the party were half way across the clearing. Despite the fact that they were apparently being welcomed and none of them had any obvious malicious intent, they still approached with care.
When within comfortable hailing distance they stopped. ‘Raise your arms,’ the leading Indian ordered the trapper. ‘We come in peace but we do not trust you, white eyes. We mean you know harm.’
‘That’s right, Shatterhand,’ Winnetou said in a slow Apache so that even his captors could hear his words clearly. ‘They mean no harm. They come in peace. They are merely showing caution.’
‘I know.’
Shatterhand’s right hand, lying against his trouser leg, made barely discernible signals slightly right, slightly left, then momentarily he kept three fingers apart. The movements were so insignificant that he was sure they hadn’t been noticed; but he knew Winnetou’s eyes would be highly focused on the fingers and the redman’s brain would be fast interpreting the signals.
‘Well, famed Shoh-tah-hey,’ the chief bellowed, using one of the labels the Indians used for the man, ‘raise your arms and trust us.’
‘Of course,’ Shatterhand said as his arms rose. ‘See, they’re way out of trouble.’ Being tall his hands disappeared into the roof.
To the surprise of the advancing party, Shatterhand shouted.
In English: One, two, three. On the count of three his hands snatched the barentoter in the roof bringing it down and blasting with it. The massive missile from the gigantic firearm which had more in common with a cannon than a rifle, split the leader in half.
From the window the Widow McCool downed a second man.
Shatterhand dropped, rolled across the floor taking the upright Martini-Henry from the stanchion. In the same flowing movement he continued rolling, came to his knees and fired to the right.
In the meantime Winnetou’s hidden knife had dispatched the Indian at his side. Shatterhand rolled straight back across the veranda to clasp the remaining Martini-Henry, came up and methodically killed the remaining Indians.
For seconds it was quiet save for the dying echoes of the explosions.
‘Is it over?’ the woman whispered.
‘It’s over,’ Shatterhand said.
Mrs. McCool dropped to her knees whimpering.
Winnetou checked all the men around him were well on the way to the happy hunting grounds, then joined Shatterhand at the cabin.
‘It worked again.’
‘Doesn’t it always?’ Shatterhand said,’
‘I don’t understand,’ the woman said. ‘Everything your friend said pointed to them being friendly. How did you know they had evil intent?
Winnetou smiled.
‘Because,’ Shatterhand said, ‘he did tell me.’
‘But how?’
‘We have this arrangement. If we are in a tight spot we use placating words but we deliver them in Winnetou’s tongue, namely Apache. The use of that language itself is the signal that it is a pack of lies! If in English––and he can speak English better than me––only then are the words to be taken literally.’
The woman shook her head in wonderment.
Then: ‘Should we not bury the dead before we go?’ she asked.
‘Like hell we shall,’ Winnetou said. ‘Excuse my language, ma’am.’
‘Your use of the vernacular is getting better,’ the old trapper said. ‘Especially in the presence of the gentle sex. Before I meet my maker I might have you speaking the King’s English like a native.’
‘Like that’s something I want––just as I also want a hole in my head!’
‘This is a veritable one-hoss shay,’ Mrs. McCool said, patting the travois, as they set out for Fort Kenton. ‘It’s the most comfortable thing I’ve ever travelled in. It is so highly sprung and smooth so as to seem we are not moving at all’
‘Well it has one-hoss,’ Shatterhand said, ‘if that’s what you mean.’
They were utilizing the McColl’s single piece of remaining livestock, the donkey; and the travois on cross boughs with carpeting and blankets suspended between them made for a smooth glide.
‘I think you misunderstand me.’
‘I understand all right, Mrs. McCool, but I don’t see the relevance to things.’
‘The great American philosopher, Oliver Wendell Holmes, wrote about how manufactured things fall apart and cease to be functional very quickly. The man who could invent the wonderful one-shay which lasted all in one piece as long as you needed it––he would make a fortune. I think your Indian friend might be that fellow making such a one-hoss shay.’
‘Thank you ma’am,’ Winnetou said. Then to his companion: ‘You didn’t know about Oliver Wendell Holmes, did you, my dear erudite gentleman.’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘Well, we learned about him at Missionary school. See the white eyes doesn’t know everything. He can learn from a simple country lady and a humble redskin!’
Shatterhand mock-punched his arm with a grin and they continued along the trail to Fort Kenton.
‘By the way,’ Shatterhand suddenly said. ‘Just before we left the cabin you both started laughing. What was that about?’
‘Sho-tah-hay does not want to know.’
‘Yes, he does.’
‘It was when she kissed us both. You know, spontaneously with relief.’
‘I remember, yes. And?’
‘Well, she looked very coy. And knowing how she felt about Indians I asked was she taken aback by kissing an Indian. She said no.’
‘What then?’
‘She said: trouble was she’d never kissed an old man before!’
Shatterhand grunted.
For a moment it went quiet until Winnetou said, ‘I’m glad I’m not riding a horse.’
‘Oh, Mr. Smart-Ass, why’s that, pray?’ Shatterhand growled.
‘Because I’m laughing so much I’d fall off.’
Shatterhand (along with his alter egos Firehand and Surehand) and his Apache comrade Winnetou were created by classical German writer Karl May. German westerns featuring the May characters with Hollywood stars such as Lex Barker and Stewart Granger in the lead, were unexpectedly successful in the 1950s to 1960s prompting the Italians to make their own versions – which have now gone down in cinema history as “spaghetti” westerns. The present author made his contributions to the European genre with A Legend Called Shatterhand (1990) and Shatterhand and the People (1992), both available in ebook from Piccadilly Publishing.