Delgadito, the Apache, did not expect to live much longer. His body burned with fever yet his skin felt icy cold. He had lost so much blood he was too weak to lift a finger. And overriding all was the worst pain he had ever experienced, agony so extreme it tore at the fabric of his innermost self. He expected to die and wanted to die so he would be spared further torment. And humiliation.
During his lucid moments, Delgadito felt an awful shame over having failed so many people. There had been his wife and relatives, massacred by scalp hunters because he hadn’t exercised enough caution. There had been his loyal followers, warriors who had looked to him for guidance and shared his family’s fate. As if that was not enough, he’d managed to turn the few survivors into outcasts shunned by their own people. And finally, he had failed himself by being unable to regain the leadership that should rightfully be his but which he had foolishly bestowed upon Lickoyee-shis-inday and apparently lost for good.
It was as if someone or something with powerful bad medicine was out to get him and had succeeded only too well, Delgadito mused.
In the Apache scheme of things, the supreme giver of life was known as Yusn. It was believed Yusn had created a number of lesser spirit beings who worked for the good of the tribe. But there were also evil spirits who took perverse delight in causing no end of misery. Apache medicine men and women were devoted to protecting their people from these harmful supernatural forces, but they weren’t always successful.
Delgadito was convinced an evil Gans, or Mountain Spirit, intended to destroy him. Had it been possible, he would have gone to a medicine man for help. But it was too late now. He doubted he would live to see the new day dawn.
Suddenly Delgadito became aware of pressure on his brow. A hand touched lightly. Through a pale haze he saw the White Apache bending over him. Lickoyee-shis-inday spoke. In Delgadito’s befuddled state the words sounded slurred, as if his ears were plugged tight with wax. He concentrated, trying to understand, a task made harder because Lickoyee-shis-inday was using English.
“—did my best, pard, but I’ve let you down. Don’t worry none, though. Cuchillo Negro says we’re bound to find some roots that will help, sooner or later.”
Delgadito wanted to tell them not to bother but he couldn’t move his lips. In his frustration, he groaned.
Clay thought he read confusion on the warrior’s face so he switched to the Chiricahua tongue. “We are doing all we can for you, my brother. I would like to stay at this spot overnight but the Americano soldados are only five miles behind us and growing closer the longer we delay. Fiero is keeping watch on them in case they get too near.”
Somehow Delgadito found the strength to say, “Leave me, White Apache. Take the others and go. I would like to die alone.”
“A man should never give up while he can still take a breath,” Clay responded, hiding his shock at the request. He’d long admired Delgadito’s courage and toughness, and would never have pegged the Apache as being a quitter. “I will not desert you. I doubt the others will, either.”
“Then you will waste your lives for my sake. And I am not worth it.”
“You’re talking nonsense,” Clay said reverting to English. “Besides, it’s our decision to make, not yours.”
Delgadito would have liked to argue the point but a bout of paralyzing weakness silenced him. He couldn’t understand why the white-eye was going to so much trouble on his behalf. But then, it had been next to impossible to understand anything Taggart did. No self-respecting Apache would allow himself to be used as Delgadito had used Lickoyee-shis-inday. Chiricahuas were intelligent enough to look beyond a person’s actions at the underlying motives, and only then act accordingly. Not Clay Taggart. The white-eye accepted everything at face value, as a child would do, and from what Delgadito had seen on the reservation, Taggart was typical of his kind. Sometimes Delgadito wondered if all white-eye infants were deliberately bashed over the head shortly after birth to addle their brains.
Clay Taggart saw the deep lines of pain etching the warrior’s features and gave Delgadito a friendly pat on the arm. He glanced at Cuchillo Negro, who watched their back trail, and said, “Help me with him.” Then, climbing onto the chestnut, he allowed Cuchillo Negro to place Delgadito behind him and lent a hand lashing Delgadito’s body to his so the warrior wouldn’t fall off.
“What of Fiero?” Cuchillo Negro asked.
“He will catch up later.”
“That is not what I meant. You know how he is.”
“I know he can take care of himself. Right now I am more worried about Delgadito.” Clay galloped eastward, reaching behind him to keep the wounded warrior from flopping about. He put Fiero from his mind entirely, confident the firebrand wouldn’t do anything rash under the current circumstances.
But had Clay only known, at that very moment Fiero was pressing his rifle to his shoulder and aiming at the white-eye in buckskins who served as tracker for the cavalry patrol. His reason was simple. He figured if he killed the tracker, the troopers would be unable to find White Apache and the others.
Fiero lay under mesquite on a knoll seventy yards from the soldiers. He had already picked out not only the scout but the Americano in charge and the bearded bellower who always relayed the officer’s orders to the men.
During Fiero’s short stay on the reservation, he had made it his business to study the various Army patrols he’d seen and to learn all he could about how they were organized. He’d learned that men who wore large patches on their shoulders were called officers and were the ones in charge, while those who wore colorful stripes on their sleeves were known as sergeants and although these sergeants served under the officers they had as much, if not more, influence with the troopers.
So Fiero easily identified the officer leading the patrol, and he knew the bellower was the sergeant. He observed them conferring with the tracker, who then forked a saddle and rode slowly forward. The man was skilled, but not as skilled as an Apache. Were the situation reversed, Fiero would practically fly along the trail.
The firebrand settled the front sight on the scout’s sternum and aligned the rear sight with the front. Fiero allowed the scout to ride another twenty yards before he squeezed the trigger. The officer gaped in surprise when the scout hit the ground but recovered to shout commands and set the whole patrol into motion, bearing down on the knoll.
Scrambling backwards, Fiero dashed to his bay and leaped on its back. Legs flapping, he galloped southward, not eastward as his friends had gone. He intended to lead the patrol on a merry chase and slake his thirst for battle in the bargain.
Holding formation, four abreast, the soldiers swept over the rise and spotted Fiero. He looked back and grinned, mocking them. To fool the troopers into thinking they were gaining he held the bay in, and when they began to narrow the gap he let the bay have its head and pulled ahead.
Fiero had been pursued by soldiers before. Each time there had been a pattern to the chase. Invariably, the Americanos rode fast and hard initially, but when they saw they couldn’t prevail, they gave up. Always it was the same, a fact Fiero could exploit to his advantage.
For over a mile the soldiers doggedly ate Fiero’s dust, until at a barked order from the officer they slowed to a walk. Fiero kept on riding at full gallop until he was out of their sight, then he swung to the west in a wide loop that brought him up on the patrol without them knowing. Tying the bay, he stalked through the brush and shortly located the troopers taking their leisure while their winded mounts rested.
Fiero wormed his way within rifle range. He studied the uniforms and located both the young officer and the sergeant. Propping both elbows, he aimed at the bellower, going for a head shot. The sergeant was yelling at a pair of soldiers, who took the outburst without complaint. Yet another white trait Fiero sneered at. For any man to tolerate such abuse was unthinkable.
Once more the sergeant consulted the officer. Then the bearded man removed his hat to wipe his brow and gaze at the sun as if gauging the amount of daylight left.
Fiero was ready. He fired, and instantly back-pedaled, annoyed that at the very moment he’d shot, the sergeant had stooped to tug at a boot. Every last soldier scurried for cover, including the lucky sergeant and the officer.
Speeding to the bay, Fiero rode northward, his expert eye choosing the thickest growth, the most difficult terrain. He had little doubt the soldiers would be hopelessly inept in tracking him without the scout, and an hour later when he had circled again he saw them strung out in a ragged line seeking sign.
Fiero laid on his belly in high weeds and pinpointed the officer, but not the sergeant. He counted the patrol, learned there were four men missing, and guessed the sergeant was out looking for him.
Fiero settled for the officer, who squatted beside a flat rock on which a big piece of paper had been spread out. The officer and another man were running their fingers over the paper, then pointing in different directions. Maps, such papers were called. Fiero couldn’t understand why the white-eyes relied on them. Apaches were taught to memorize the countryside through which they passed and to make note of prominent landmarks for future reference. If someone were to blindfold him and take him anywhere within a hundred and fifty mile radius, he would find his way back again with unerring accuracy.
The officer stood and stretched. Fiero sighted on the man’s face and fired. Sent reeling by the impact, the officer fell among his men. Panic seized the troopers as they scooped up their carbines, went prone, and started firing at anything and everything.
Fiero stayed put to see if they would charge him. Amazingly, none had any idea where he was. They wasted scores of bullets before a skinny man with two stripes on his sleeves restored order. It wasn’t long afterward that the sergeant and the other missing men arrived.
Slaying a few more would have been child’s play, but Fiero did not. He studied them, learning how they reacted, learning their weaknesses for future encounters. Knowing an enemy was essential. Had the Chiricahuas known more about the white-eyes, they might have held out much longer than they did.
The soldiers were mounting. Fiero saw them form into four groups, one facing east, another west, the others north and south. He wondered what they were up to, and the answer came when the sergeant bellowed and they exploded across the plain, spreading out as they did, forming into a giant ring that kept expanding the farther they rode.
Startled by the brilliant strategy, Fiero ran to the bay. He had wasted so much time that several of the white-eyes were almost on him. They shouted excitedly as he bore to the northeast. Sporadic carbine fire sped him along. He wasn’t worried in the least because he counted on the soldiers giving up after a while, as they always did. But these troopers proved to be the exception to the rule.
Those with poor horses fell out of the chase first. Others lasted a few miles more. Approximately eight or nine were on superior animals, and they stuck to Fiero like sap to a tree. He plunged into thorny brush but they were undeterred. He wound along a narrow gully for over two miles, thinking their poor horsemanship would be their undoing, but they showed they were as good as he was and actually gained ground.
The bay was slick with sweat when Fiero broke into open country and flew due north. The horse would last another ten miles, he judged, but by then he hoped to be in chaparral where he could elude the Americanos on foot.
A grim smile lit Fiero’s countenance. He lived for warfare, as had his father, and his father’s father. That his life was in danger added zest to his existence, not detracted from it. Killing without being killed was the Apache creed, and it was a way of life in which Fiero passionately believed. He would never accept boring reservation life as had the tame Chiricahuas; he would rather be flayed alive.
Although not given to introspection, Fiero had often pondered on the fate of his people. He had been hurt beyond measure when so many succumbed to the white invaders after offering token resistance. Fiero had argued with the leaders who advocated surrender until he was hoarse, without result. They had wanted peace at any cost, even at the price of their freedom, their integrity.
Fiero had seen the terrible toll the war took on his people, but he had been adamant. No one had the right to steal their ancestral land. No one had the right to tell them how they should live, how they should dress and act. The whites had gone so far as to require warriors to cut their long hair short as a symbol of their peaceful intentions, a symbol Fiero regarded as a mark of cowardice, as the final degrading act in a long line of requirements that had stripped the Chiricahua warriors of their manhood and reduced them to little better than well-dressed dogs fit only to grovel at the feet of their white masters.
To Fiero it was unimportant that many of the white soldiers held no personal enmity toward his people. It was unimportant that many serving in Arizona would rather be elsewhere. They had taken his land, enslaved his people, and they would pay dearly for their audacity.
Presently Fiero reached the chaparral. He slanted to the right, then to the left. When the soldiers were temporarily blocked from view, he prodded the bay to go faster, then coiled his legs up under him, looked for a break in the brush, and leaped. He hit the ground running and was on his stomach before the dust of the bay’s passage had settled.
His animal continued on at breakneck speed. The troopers poured around a bush, saw it, and never slowed, streaking past Fiero in a thundering string. Rising, he stared at their backs until they were gone. Tricking white-eyes was no challenge, he reflected.
“Tu no vale nada,” Fiero said aloud to himself, and turned to head southward.
Twenty yards away stood a trooper with a leveled carbine, the reins of his horse held loosely in one hand. The animal was fidgeting and limped badly.
Fiero had his own Winchester in the crook of his left arm. He made no move to use it since to do so invited certain death. The soldier addressed him but Fiero had no idea what the white-eye said. When the trooper motioned, he gathered that he was to put down his rifle, and slowly. The Americano seemed to relax a bit after he did.
Fiero had to do something. Soon the others would catch the bay and promptly swing around to search for him. He had a knife on the back of his right hip but drawing it would be too obvious.
The trooper motioned again, signaling for Fiero to step closer. Fiero did, and was made to understand he should kneel. Evidently pleased, the soldier tipped his carbine skyward and banged off two rapid shots.
Fiero’s fingers were inches from his knife. He pretended to be cowed and bowed his head while secretly easing his hand to the hilt. The Americano let go of his mount’s reins and edged to the left, the carbine trained on Fiero’s head.
Fiero froze to deceive the white-eye into thinking he was going to submit without a fight, but he watched closely out of the corner of his eye. When the trooper twisted to scan the brush for his companions, Fiero whipped out the hunting knife and threw it in an underhand toss he had perfected through long practice.
The cavalryman had sensed something was amiss and turned as the warrior sprang into action, with the result that the long steel blade bit into the base of his throat before he could snap off a shot. Horrified, he clutched at the knife but couldn’t get a grip on the slippery weapon.
Fiero grabbed the man’s fallen carbine by the barrel and swung it in a vicious arc that caught the trooper flush on the face and felled him where he stood. Tossing the carbine aside, Fiero reclaimed his Winchester and his knife, then climbed on the soldier’s mount. He didn’t care if it had gone lame or not. He had to get out of there before more white-eyes arrived.
Wheeling eastward, Fiero goaded the reluctant horse into the chaparral, pausing once to break off a limb. The animal limped badly and grew worse as time went on. Whenever it slowed, Fiero lashed it with the limb so fiercely the blows drew blood and left nasty welts. The horse would then pick up the pace.
While Fiero’s actions would have appalled a typical Easterner, he was unfazed. To Apaches, horses were just so much brute flesh, to be used as the Apaches saw fit. And since most animals wound up in cooking pots, seldom did a warrior allow himself to become attached to one.
In this instance, Fiero fully intended to ride the cavalry mount into the ground in order to put as much distance behind him as he could. He lashed and kicked and slapped, going well over five miles before the horse reached the end of its rope. On the slope of a small hill it finally faltered and would not go on no matter what he did. Leaping down, Fiero slit its throat and left it thrashing in a spreading pool of blood to die a slow but relatively painless death.
Legs pumping, Fiero scaled the hill, stopping at the top to check on the Americanos. They were still after him, all right, about two miles back. He jogged on, his pantherish muscles rippling, his stocky form flowing over the ground with exceptional, surprising grace.
Fiero ran for several miles, showing no signs of fatigue when he eventually halted at the edge of a narrow gully. It was so narrow that he could leap to the other side, yet it was thirty feet deep. On seeing it, he grinned, and when Fiero grinned, someone was bound to suffer.
Chopping off enough vegetation to cover the top took a quarter of an hour. Next Fiero pulled out entire bushes by their roots and arranged them so that they formed a seemingly natural aisle leading to the brink of the gully. Retracing his steps to a point fifty yards away, he snapped off a branch in so obvious a spot that even the white-eyes couldn’t miss it. Then he crossed to the other side and hid.
The soldados were not long in coming. Seven of them, riding warily, the sergeant in the lead. He was the one who spotted the broken branch and called out to his fellows. In a compact group they thundered along the fake aisle, and because of Fiero’s cleverly arranged bushes they were ignorant of the gully’s existence until the sergeant’s horse pitched into it with a panicked whinny. Two others suffered the same fate before the rest collected their wits and reined up.
Fiero thought their antics laughable. The three mounts that had fallen into the gully were neighing in an anguished chorus. The soldiers themselves were cursing and shouting to one another. He saw a grizzled one take a rope and lower it down. In turn, each of those who had taken a spill were hoisted out. None appeared the worse for wear except the sergeant, who held his left arm much like a bird would hold a crippled wing.
The troopers talked in low tones while staring down into the gully. Four of them formed a line, aimed their carbines, and blasted away until the last strangled whinny died to a gurgling wheeze. Riding double, the crestfallen Americanos headed back.
Fiero stood when they were gone. He walked to the gully, surveyed the carnage he had wrought, and quickly clambered over the edge. He picked a fine black and cut off a sizeable piece of its haunch.
Climbing out was simple. The warrior gathered enough kindling and wood and soon had a small fire crackling in a concealed nook. He trimmed the hide from his steak, impaled the dripping meat on a stick, and hunkered down to await his meal.
It gave Fiero pleasure to review his clash with the white-eyes and to think of the wailing women who would lament the loss of their loved ones. Countless Apache women had done the same in recent times, as one by one the proud Apache men were wiped out by the locusts from the north.
Fiero remembered how, many winters ago, he had heard white trappers boast that there were more of their kind than there were blades of grass on the prairie. Naturally, Fiero had believed the trappers to be rank braggarts who couldn’t hold their whiskey. But the men had been right, after all, and the Chiricahuas had paid dearly for resisting the white invasion.
Numbers and firepower. Those were the keys to the white victory. Fiero was convinced that the war would have ended differently if the two sides had been evenly matched. Pueblos, Spaniards, Mexicans—the Apaches had beaten them all. It had taken a well-armed, limitless horde to do that which no one else had been able to do—subjugate the Apaches.
A soft rustling drew Fiero’s gaze to a slithering rattler. He had the horse meat, but he darted over anyway and sank his blade into the snake’s head as it curled to strike. A single, powerful stroke severed the tail, which he stuck in his breechcloth as he returned to the fire. He would save it, and later, when he had occasion to steal horses, the rattles would come in handy.
Fiero stared at the eastern horizon. By now, he mused, the others were halfway to their sanctuary. Being afoot, he’d take days to catch up. Not that it upset him. He preferred to raid alone, to kill alone, to exalt in the prowess that made him what he was; namely, one of the last true Apaches. Like Delgadito, Cuchillo Negro, and Ponce. And, yes, to a lesser degree, much like the White Apache.