His name was Chawn-clizzay and he was an Apache. In the language of his people the name meant “goat,” and it certainly fit him this day as he scaled the high wall of a rocky gorge with the graceful ease and marvelous agility of a mountain goat. Overhead, the scorching summer sun blistered the arid Arizona landscape. The air was as still as death; not so much as a single leaf stirred anywhere.
Corded muscles rippling, Chawn-clizzay came to a wide shelf and stopped to check his back trail. He knew someone was back there, knew someone had been trailing him for half a day, yet he had not been able to catch more than one brief glimpse of the one shadowing him. And while Chawn-clizzay would never admit as much to another warrior, he had grown very worried.
Apaches were masters at moving stealthily and avoiding detection, able to rove the countryside without leaving a trace of their passing. It was said they were virtual ghosts, unseen and unheard until they cared to be. Like all men in his tribe, Chawn-clizzay had been schooled at a very early age in the art of being a living specter.
Yet now Chawn-clizzay’s skill was doing him little good, and he could not understand why. When he first became aware of the man in the red headband, he had tried every trick he knew to shake the mysterious stalker. He had stuck to the rockiest, hardest ground, avoided skylines and open slopes, doubled back on himself several times, and more. To no avail. His pursuer had never lost the scent, never once been fooled. Of that he was certain.
What kind of man was he up against? Chawn-clizzay wondered as he scoured the jagged mouth of the gorge far below. He had no doubt the man had come to kill him for the bounty being offered by the white-eyes. Although he could not say exactly how he knew, he did.
Chawn-clizzay recalled his one glimpse, earlier that day, when he had stopped to quench his thirst. He had risen, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and idly scanned the nearby rimrock. And there the man had been, brazenly standing in the open, his rifle glinting in the bright sunlight. Chawn-clizzay had been so surprised that he had gaped in disbelief until the lean figure in buckskins had melted into the shadows.
Many times over in the next several hours Chawn-clizzay had wondered why the man had done what he did, particularly when it would have been so easy for the stranger to pick him off from a distance. It was almost as if a challenge had been issued, as if the man wanted Chawn-clizzay to know he was being hunted so that he would have a fighting chance. But that was a ridiculous idea. No known enemy fought his people on their own terms because the Apaches won every time. They were the best at what they did, and justifiably proud of their prowess.
Chawn-clizzay’s pondering was interrupted by a hint of motion several hundred yards away. Riveted to the cluster of boulders in question, he tucked his rifle to his shoulder and waited with a patience born of long practice for the hunter to show himself. Time dragged by, but the man in buckskins didn’t appear.
Chawn-clizzay snorted like an angry buffalo, pivoted on his heel, and resumed scaling the wall. Presently he gained the top, and from this new vantage point he surveyed the gorge from end to end. No flash of red or brown gave the presence of the stalker away. He began to wonder if perhaps he wasn’t behaving like a small child and letting his imagination play tricks on him. Or maybe he was simply mistaken. Most likely the stranger had gone elsewhere.
A barren switchback brought Chawn-clizzay to a tableland dominated by yucca. He broke into a tireless dogtrot so he could reach the Chiricahua Mountains that much sooner. As with most full-grown warriors, he was capable of covering seventy miles in a single day. Since he only had twenty miles to go to reach his destination, by nightfall he would be with his family. The thought brought a rare smile to his lips.
For over twenty minutes Chawn-clizzay ran eastward, until he detected movement out of the corner of his left eye. He looked around, expecting to see wrens or sparrows off in the brush. To his utter consternation, he saw the man in the red headband.
The stranger was over a hundred yards off, jogging on a parallel course. And he was staring right at Chawn-clizzay and grinning!
Chawn-clizzay broke stride and slowed, but only for an instant. Darting to the right, he plunged deeper into the yucca, weaving this way and that as openings presented themselves. When he had gone fifty feet he slanted to the left and crouched. Cocking his Winchester, he strained his ears to hear the telltale rustle of vegetation sure to give the stalker away. But all he heard was the faint whisper of the northwesterly breeze that had cropped up.
When half-an-hour had gone by and nothing happened, Chawn-clizzay bore to the south in a wide loop that would bring him out on the east side of the tableland. He was more troubled now than ever. The man in buckskins seemed to be playing some sort of strange game with him. Even worse, the man seemed to be his equal at woodcraft, for somehow the stranger had been able to scale the gorge and keep up with him without being detected.
Chawn-clizzay wondered if his pursuer were an Apache. He hadn’t gotten a close enough look to see the man’s features, but he had noticed the man’s hair, which was cut short instead of being allowed to grow to the shoulders, or longer, as was Apache custom.
A clearing appeared. Chawn-clizzay mistakenly went straight across it rather than going around. He was halfway to the other side when he belatedly registered a hawkish form poised among the yucca to the north. Spinning, he brought his rifle to bear, but he did not yet have the gun level when thunder peeled and an invisible hammer slammed into his chest. Dimly, he felt himself hit the ground. There was a ticklish sensation as blood gushed from the wound, splattering on his neck. He tried to rise but his body refused to obey his mental commands.
Suddenly the man wearing the red cloth headband loomed above him. Chawn-clizzay saw a stern, almost cruel face, half-white, half-Indian. The dark eyes fixed on his were as cold as ice.
“You were careless, Chawn-clizzay,” the man spoke in flawless Apache. “You should have known they would send me sooner or later.”
Chawn-clizzay licked his unexpectedly dry lips and forced his mouth to move. “Who—?”
“Tats-ah-das-ay-go.”
At last all was clear. Chawn-clizzay thought of his devoted wife and young son and prayed Yusn would grant him the strength to draw his knife and thrust. Just once was all it would take. He attempted to move his hand and had to choke back intense frustration when his arm wouldn’t budge. Moments later his suffering was cut short by an inky veil that enveloped his mind. The last sight he beheld was the killer’s countenance creasing in the same grin as before, only now he realized it wasn’t a grin, after all. It was a smug, triumphant smirk.
Then everything went black.