There’s nothing like teaching a new bride old tricks, and by the time our forest idyll was over I flatter myself Sonsee-array was a happier and wiser woman. Ten days was enough of it, though, for she was an avid little beast who preferred quantity to quality – unlike Elspeth, for example, whose beguiling innocence masked the most lecherously inventive mind of the last century, and whose conduct on our honeymoon would have caused the good citizens of nearby Troon to burn her at the stake, if they’d known. No, young Sonsee-array was more like Duchess Irma, who on discovering a good thing couldn’t get enough of it, but where rogering had melted Irma’s imperious nature to the point where she was prepared to await her lord’s pleasure, my spirited Apache knew no such restraint. When she wanted her bells rung, she said so – she was tough, too, and discovered a great fondness for committing the capital act standing up under a waterfall in our stream; no wonder I’ve got rheumatism today, but it’s worth it for the memory of that wet brown body lying back in my supporting arms while the water cascaded down over her upturned face, with me grinding away up to my knees in the shallows.
For the rest, she was an affectionate, cheerful little soul, so long as she got her own way – for she was damnably spoiled, and immensely vain of her Spanish blood, regarding the true-bred Mimbrenos with great condescension, even her terrible father. I remember the contempt with which she spoke of his habit of calling her by the pet-name of Takes-Away-Clouds-Woman, which she said was just what you might expect of a sentimental old savage, instead of by her proper name, Morning Star, which she thought much more fitting for an Apache princess.
“But it suits you,” says I, stroking away at her leggings. “You take away my clouds, I can tell you. Besides, I like your fanciful Indian names – what’s mine, by the way, apart from white-eye?”
“Don’t you know? Why, ever since you rode with your lance at the pegs, everyone calls you by a fine name: White-Rider-Goes-So-Fast-He-Destroys-the-Wind-with-His-Speed.”
It sounded not bad, if a bit of a mouthful. “They can’t call me all that every time,” says I.
“Of course not, foolish one – they shorten it. He-Who-Breaks-the-Wind, or just Wind Breaker.” She was in dead earnest, too. “Why, don’t you like it?”
“Couldn’t be better,” says I. Just my luck to get one of their names that contracts to something frightful when translated. I knew an Oglala once whose full name was Brave-Pursues-Enemies-So-Fiercely-He-Has-No-Time-To-Change-His-Clothes – that came out as Stinking Drawers, and I can give you chapter and verse if you doubt it. I said I’d rather she chose me a pet name.
“Let me think,” says she, nestling. “A name … you should win it by some great and wonderful deed.” She giggled, and her hand strayed mischievously. “I know … it should be Man-Who-Rings-Her-Bells-Makes-Her-Heart-Melt.” Her mouth trembled and her lids narrowed. “Ah, yes …! Win your new name … please … now, Wind Breaker!” I reckon I did, too, so far as she was concerned – but the Yawner was still calling me Wind Breaker last year, damn him.
Sonsee-array and I returned to the Copper Mines just as the community was moving into winter quarters in the hills, and if you wonder why I hadn’t taken advantage of our solitary state on honeymoon to make a break for freedom – well, I still didn’t know where I was, even, and although we’d been undisturbed. I’d had a shrewd idea that the Yawner and Quick Killer were never far away. Now, to make matters worse, the tribe moved about thirty miles south-west, farther than ever from the Del Norte and safety, into a mountainous forest where if I’d been fool enough to run I’d have been lost and recaptured in no time.
So there was nothing for it but to settle down, with a heavy heart, and wait through those awful months, telling myself that the chance of escape must come in the spring. When I thought back to the snug billet I’d abandoned at Susie’s in Santa Fe, and the foul luck that had led me to Gallantin and this nightmare, I could have wept – but at least I was still whole, and no worse off than I’d been in Madagascar, and I’d got out of that, in the end. Now, as then, I forced myself to remember that there was a world outside this stinking collection of native huts and neolithic brutes, a world with Elspeth in it, and white faces, and beds and houses and clean linen and honest food and drink and civilised whores. I must just wait and watch, keep my Arab up to strength, learn everything I could, and when the time came, ride like the devil, leaving the latest Mrs Flashman and her charming relatives forever.
The more I saw of them that winter, the more I grew to detest them; in case you suppose from the recent tender passages that marriage and kinship had made me at all “soft” on Apaches, let me put you right. I became fairly well acquainted with Mangas Colorado, perforce, and quite friendly with the Yawner, while Sonsee-array was a charming and energetic bedmate – but they were monsters, all of them, and I include my dear little wife. Loving and even captivating she could be, with her pretty ways and fluent Spanish and a few civilised habits (like washing regularly) picked up from her unfortunate mother, but at heart she was as vicious and degraded an Apache as any of them. I shan’t forget the night when she snuggled up telling me Indian legends, like The Boy Who Could Not Go West, and some reference to a villain’s sticky end reminded her of the fate of those members of Gallantin’s band who’d been taken prisoner. There’d been fifteen of them, and the Mimbreno Ladies Sewing Circle had held a contest to see who could keep a victim alive longest under torture; the other women’s patients, Sonsee-array told me proudly, had all expired after a few hours, but she had kept that poor devil Ilario lingering in unspeakable agony for two solid days – she described it in gruesome detail, chuckling drowsily, while I lay listening with the sweat icy on my skin. Having known Narreeman and good Queen Ranavalona and Gezo’s Amazons, I had no illusions about the fair sex’s talent for tickling up the helpless male – but this was the sweet child of sixteen whom I’d married and sported with in sylvan glades like Phyllis and Corydon! I tupped her with no great ardour that night, I can tell you.
But it was of a piece with all that I knew, and was still to learn that winter, of the Apache: they truly enjoy cruelty, for its own sake – and incidentally they are a living contradiction of the old fable (although it happens to be true in my own case) that a bully who delights in inflicting pain is invariably a coward. For if they have a virtue – in most folk’s eyes, anyway – it is courage; you never saw a scared Apache yet. It’s been their downfall; unlike the other tribes, they never knew when to quit against the pony soldiers; my old pal Yawner fought on until there was only a tattered remnant of his band left to be herded on to the reservation (which, be it noted, was more mercy than ever he’d shown to a beaten foe; if Apache custom had been applied to the ’Pash, there wouldn’t be one left).
They knew how to fight, too, after their fashion, far better than the Plains Tribes; given numbers, they might be holding out in Arizona yet, for bar the Pathans they were the best guerrillas ever I saw. They train their boys from infancy in every art of woodcraft and ambush and decoy (and theft), which is the way they love to make war, rather than in open battle. That winter in the Gila hills I saw lads of six and seven made to run up and down mountains, lie doggo for hours, spend nights half-naked in the snow, track each other through the brush, run off horses, and exercise constantly with club and knife, axe and lance, sling and bow. Damned good they are, too, but best of all – they could vanish into thin air.
The Yawner himself showed me this, one day when I’d admired his skill in stalking a deer; he said it was nothing, and if I wanted to see how good he was, let me turn my back and count my fingers ten times. So I did, and when I looked round the little bastard had simply disappeared – this on a bare plain without a scrap of cover for half a mile. He absolutely wasn’t there – until he stood up at my elbow, with his huge gaping grin, and showed me the shallow trench he had scraped in silence and in less than two minutes, within a few yards of me; he’d pulled tufts of grass and earth over his body, and although I’d looked directly at the spot, I’d seen nothing. No one ever believes that story, but I’ve watched as many as twenty ’Pash at a time vanish in that way, and there are US Army scouts who’ll vouch for it.43 It’s one of the first lessons they teach their boys; it was after seeing it that I began to suspect that they might give the Yanks a run for their money – and they did, didn’t they?
Apart from these warlike activities, I learned many curious things about them that winter – their love of sports, such as running and swimming, horse-racing, and shooting or throwing lances at rolling hoops; the women have a game much like hockey, at which Sonsee-array excelled, but the great pastime is dice, for all Apaches are inveterate gamblers. They’re also highly superstitious – an Apache will never speak his name (I’m told the Chiricahua never speak to their mothers-in-law, either, sensible chaps), or hunt a bear, and they think rattlesnakes are inhabited by lost souls; they regard fish as unclean meat, never drink milk, can’t multiply or divide – although some of them can count higher than any other Indians I met – and speak a language which I never mastered. That was partly because most of them spoke Spanish, more or less, but also because it’s damned complicated, with five times as many vowel sounds as we have, and the ’Pash, unlike most Indians, are the worst mutterers you ever heard, and nineteen to the dozen at that.44 But the main reason I never learned Apache was that I disliked them and everything about them too much to want to.
From all this you’ll gather that it was a damned long winter, and made no easier by the fact that a male Apache does nothing in all that time except a little light hunting; for the rest he loafs, eats, sleeps, drinks, and thinks up devilment for the spring, so that in addition to being miserable and fearful, I was also bored – when you find yourself glad even of Mangas Colorado to talk to, by God you’re in a bad way. The only worthwhile amusement was teaching Sonsee-array new positions – for there was no question of so much as looking at another female, even if I’d dared or wanted to; they’re fearfully hot against adultery, you see, and punish it by clipping the errant female’s nose off – what they do to the man I was careful not to inquire.
But one thing that interminable season of waiting certainly did accomplish: they got used to me, and by the time the snow melted in the lower valleys I doubt if it occurred even to the shrewd, suspicious Mangas that I might be preparing to slip my cable. I’d been a model, if reserved, son-in-law, Sonsee-array was clearly infatuated, and what pinda-lickoyee, honoured by admission to the Mimbreno and marriage to the Morning Star, would be so half-witted as to want to return to his own people? At any rate, when the first big war-party was formed to open the season with a descent on the Del Norte, it was simply assumed that I would take my part; Mangas even returned to me the revolver I’d lost when I was captured, and Sonsee-array herself painted the white stripe across my nose from ear to ear and gloated at the thought of the booty I’d bring home: jewellery was what she wanted, but silk or lace would be acceptable, too, and a couple of Mexican boys as domestic slaves – I can’t think why she didn’t ask for girls.
“And some new bells, for my moccasins,” says she, with that slow pouting smile that was the only thing that had made life endurable through that awful winter. “To make her heart melt.” D’you know, it was ridiculous, but as I took my arm from round her waist, mounted the Arab, and looked down into those lovely cinnamon eyes for what I hoped to God would be the last time, I felt a pang? There were great tears in them, and I don’t care – it may be as hellish a place as that camp was, with those painted apemen jabbering as they swung aboard their ponies, the women clustered round the hovels, the place foul and stinking with the winter’s filth, the dogs yapping among the piles of refuse, the acrid smoke of the morning fires catching at your throat, and the horror of that captivity burned into your mind, but when your woman sees you away, and cries over your departure, and reaches up to catch your hand and press it to her cheek, and you look back and see the little white figure among the pines, waving you out of sight … well, I thought, I’ve ridden worse, waterfalls or not, and the next buck that gets you is going to be a lucky man, for you’re the best-trained red romp in North America.
There were perhaps a hundred of us setting out from the hill camp that day, including all the principal men of the tribe, Mangas himself, Delgadito, Black Knife, Iron Eyes, Ponce, the Yawner, and Quick Killer; every horse in the valley had been pressed into service, for the Apaches were by no means so flush of horse-flesh then as they became later, and about a quarter of our command were afoot. The medicine men inspected us to make sure we had our talismans and medicine cords, and that the younger fellows had their scratching-tubes; then they threw pollen at the sun, chanting, and off we went, in five groups as we left the hills, which is the Apache style on the warpath, the separate bands scouring the country and converging on the main objective.45 My heart leaped as I heard Mangas shouting in their dialect to the infantry groups as they branched off north-east across the plain, and I caught the name “Fra Cristobal”. For that lay north on the Del Norte, not far south of Socorro, and if I couldn’t win to safety between here and there – well, there would be something far wrong. Needless to say, there was.
From the hills our five groups fanned out across the mesa which stretched away endlessly towards the east; I was in the centre group, with Mangas and Delgadito; I wasn’t sorry that the Yawner and Quick Killer went with one of the south-east bands, for they were the last chaps I wanted on my tail when the time came to cut stick. We rode due east, with the sun like a pale luminous ball in the misty morning, and made good time at a brisk trot; we must have covered forty miles that first day, and I was pleased that my Arab showed no signs of fatigue. We saw not a living soul on the plain, but in mid-afternoon I had the shock of my life, for ahead of us on the horizon there came into view the outline of what could only be a city, and such a city as I couldn’t believe existed in this wilderness. Great buildings reared up out of the mesa in symmetrical array; brown adobe by the look of them, but far larger than anything even in Santa Fe. It was bewildering, but my companions paid no heed to it, riding on in their usual sullen silence on either side of me, and it was only when we got to within a mile or so that I realised these weren’t buildings at all, but enormous square and oblong rocks, for all the world as though some giant had set them down like a child’s building bricks in the middle of nowhere. We passed within half a mile of them, and they looked so neatly arranged, and reminded me so much of an enormous Stonehenge, that I supposed they must be the work of some savage sun-worshippers, though how they transported those massive stones I couldn’t imagine.46
We camped that night in a shallow river-bottom filled with cotton-woods, and rode on next day through broken country which began to incline slowly downwards; my excitement rose, for I guessed we must be approaching the Del Norte valley. Sure enough, in the late afternoon we came out of low hills, and there below us in the fading light of sunset lay the familiar fringe of cottonwoods, with here and there a gleam of water amongst them, and low scraggy bluffs beyond. Just over the river smoke was rising from a fair-sized village, all peaceful in the last rays of the afternoon sun. As we dismounted, my heart was thumping fit to burst as I realized that if this was our quarry, I’d never get a better chance to break.
We were in a little gully, and while we stripped off our shirts and oiled ourselves, and renewed our paint – it’s mad, isn’t it, a civilised white man decorating himself like a savage, but after six months among these beasts I never thought twice about it – Mangas told Delgadito what was to be done. We would ford the river with the last of the light, descend on the village, burn and pillage it, especially of any horses and mules it might contain, and withdraw to our present position for the night; we didn’t want prisoners, since tomorrow we would be riding north, wiping up any small settlements that lay in our path along the river, making for the rendezvous where we would meet the walking bands.
Mangas was not to lead us against the village in person. In many ways he was a man after my own heart, for he never ventured his skin unless he had to, but no one thought twice about it, his valour was so well-established – and how many civilised generals do you know who scrimmage alongside their soldiery? While Delgadito, a slim, evil-faced villain who looked more Spaniard than Apache, gave us our tactical directions, Mangas loafed among us inspecting; I can still see that huge, stooped untidy figure in the gloaming as he stopped before me, the black eyes glinting beneath his hat-brim, and feel his coarse thumb as he wiped a smear of paint from my cheek and patted my shoulder, and smell the rank odour that I associate forever with the word Apache.
“Softly across the ford, then scatter and ride straight in,” growls Delgadito. “First kill, then plunder, then burn – all except for Iron Eyes, Wind Breaker, and Cavallo, who ride round for the far side and secure the corral.” Very neat and professional, thinks I. “Right, Mimbreno? Let’s go!”
I’ve ridden in some odd company in my time – Light Brigade at Balaclava, Ilderim’s Pathan irregulars, Yakub Beg’s Khokand horde under Fort Raim, to say nothing of Custer and that maniac J. E. B. Stuart – but that descent of the Apaches across the Del Norte must have been the strangest of all. Picture if you will that score of primitives with their painted faces and head-bands and ragged kilts and boots, fairly bristling with lances and hatchets, and in their midst the tall figure of the English gentleman, flower of the 11th Hussars, with the white stripe across his face, his hair rank to his shoulders, his buckskins stinking to rival the Fleet Ditch, lance in fist and knife on hip – you’d never think he’d played at Lord’s or chatted with the Queen or been rebuked by Dr Arnold for dirty finger-nails (well, yes, you might) or been congratulated by my Lord Cardigan on his brilliant turnout. “Haw-Haw, Fwashman wides uncommon well, don’t he, Jones?” – and there was his pride and joy, as foul an aborigine as any of them, picking his way through the shallows and sand-flats, and breaking with a whoop and a scream as the first yell of alarm rose from the village, the shots rang out, and the savage band charged into the mass of huts with Delgadito at their head.
I swerved after Iron Eyes under the cottonwoods behind the village – and my eyes were already straining ahead towards the low bluffs beyond. If I could drop out of sight in the confusion, and make my way through the dusk, it might be hours before they realised I’d gone, and by that time I’d be flying north along the east bank of the Del Norte – by God, and I wouldn’t stop till I reached Socorro at least …
There was a shriek from my left; Cavallo had reined up and was letting fly with his bow at an elderly Mexican who had emerged from one of the huts and was standing flat-footed as the arrow took him in the chest; he toppled back, clawing at it, and a woman ran to him from the doorway, an infant clasped on her hip. She stopped with an unearthly scream at the sight of Cavallo, and the evil bastard whooped with glee and rode her down; he leaned from the saddle to seize her by the hair and slashed her across the throat with his knife, and as the infant rolled free from the dying woman’s grasp, he let her go and turned the bloody knife in his hand, managing his mount to get a clear throw at the helpless, squalling little bundle. Without thinking I jerked out my Colt and let blaze at him; the knife fell as he reeled in the saddle; he was staring at me in blank astonishment as he clutched his belly, and I thrust my pistol towards his ugly painted face and blew it to pieces.
It was all over in a second, and I was staring round in alarm for Iron Eyes, but he had vanished into the shadows ahead; my shots would be lost in the hideous uproar from beyond the huts, where those fiends were at their red work; shrieks of agony mingled with the whoops and reports, and a ruddy glare from a lighted thatch was already rising to light the shadows around me. I wheeled my Arab and urged her into the concealment of the bushes beyond the cotton-woods – in the nick of time, for here were two Mexicans appearing from between the huts, one of them crying out in horror as he saw the slain woman, the other letting fly with his ancient musket at Iron Eyes, who came at the gallop out of the dark. The shot missed him, and the Mexican went down before his lance thrust; as the second dago rose from the woman’s corpse and hurled himself at Iron Eyes, I thought, now’s your time, my boy, while they’re well occupied. In all that mêlée, no one was going to miss old Flashy for the moment; I slid from the saddle, took the Arab’s nose, and led her through the bushes to the far side, where I remounted and made haste towards a gully that opened in the bluff not a furlong away.
The bushes and trees screened me behind; over my shoulder I could see the glow of burning buildings, and envisage the horror that was taking place, but as I gained the gully the awful din of conflict was cut off, and I was coursing up the narrow ravine towards the dimly-seen mesa ahead. Five minutes and I was out on the flat, but there were bluffs ahead, and I veered off eastward, since to flank them on the river side might bring me too close for comfort to the eyes of my comrades.
I was free! After six months with those hellish brutes I was riding clear, and within a day – two days at most – of safety among my own kind. However fast Mangas and his mob of fiends moved up the west bank, I must be flying ahead of them; I could have yelled with delight as I pressed ahead at a steady hard gallop, feeling the game little Arab surge along beneath me. Dark was coming down, and stars were showing clear in the purple vault overhead, but I was determined to put a good twenty miles between me and possible pursuit before I halted. They must miss me by tomorrow, and knowing their skill in tracking, I didn’t doubt that they would pick up the Arab’s trail eventually, but by then I would have a day’s lead of them; I might even have found a large enough settlement to count myself safe.
I took a sight on the North Star as I rode; so long as I made straight for it I should do well enough, and be able to turn in towards the river when I felt it safe to do so. It was too dark to see much on either side, but the going was hard and level, and I trusted the Arab’s footwork. I was still trembling from the shock and elation of escape, and my mouth was dry, so I took a swig from the little canteen at my belt – I must make for water as soon as it was light, but I had some jerked beef in my pouch, and the Arab would be well enough with rough grazing.
For two hours I rode steadily on, and then slowed as the moon rose, to take my bearings. To my right was nothing; on the left a range of hills rose in the distance, which gave me a jar for a moment – the river ought to be that way, surely … but perhaps those hills lay beyond it; that must be the explanation … it was impossible to judge distance in that uncertain light. But as the moon came up I was able to see as clear as day, and what I saw puzzled me. Instead of the usual rough mesa, I was on a dead flat plain, with a few sparse bushes here and there; the ground, when I tested it, was more like sandy rock than the usual crumbly red earth of the Del Norte valley.
Off to my right a prairie wolf howled dismally; it had turned bitterly cold, and I unstrapped my blanket before riding on, my spirits unaccountably lower than they had been. I couldn’t figure where I was at all – but so long as I kept north I must be all right. It looked a fairly waterless desolation, though, and when I saw a point of rocks off to my left I made for it, in the hope of finding a stream, but no luck. The rocks were spooky in the moon shadows, and looked a likely lurking-place for snakes or poisonous lizards, so I turned away sharp, and to my relief found myself on a well-defined wagon road leading dead north. There were distinct ruts, and I pushed on in better heart, hoping to come on to less desolate country soon; but as I rode I realised that the scant bushes on either side had petered out, and there wasn’t a sign of growth or grass as far as I could see in the silvery radiance. Even the occasional yelp of the coyote was absent now. I halted and listened. Nothing but an immense, empty silence surrounded me, and an icy fear that was not of the freezing night took hold of me. This was not canny; it was as though I were in some dead world – and at that moment the Arab’s hoof struck something that rang sharp and hollow. It wasn’t a rock, so I climbed down and groped under her hooves; my hand fell on a light, hollow object, I picked it up – and screamed an oath as it fell from my shaking hand. Grinning up at me from the white floor of the desert was a human skull.
I squatted there trembling, and in sudden revulsion kicked the ghastly thing aside. It rattled off the road, and came to rest beside a pile of white sticks which I realised with a thrill of horror was the skeleton of some large beast – an ox or a horse which must have died beside the wagon-tracks. As I stared fearfully ahead I saw in the fading moonlight that there were other similar piles here and there … skeletons of men and animals beside a deserted road in the middle of a great waterless plain of rock and sand. It rushed in on me with frightening certainty; I knew where I was, all right. There was only one place in the whole of this cursed land of New Mexico that it could be – by some dreadful mischance I had strayed into the Jornada del Muerto – the terrible Journey of the Dead Man.
For a moment panic seized me, and then I took hold, and tried to remember what the soldier had said that morning south of Socorro: “A hundred and twenty-five miles of rock and sand … no water, unless you happen to find a rain pool … only one way across – fill your mount with water, take at least two canteens, start at three in the morning and go like hell, because if you don’t make it in twenty-four hours, you don’t make it.”
I was in the saddle before I had finished recollecting, for my one hope was to push on at my uttermost speed while the cool night lasted. How far had I come? Perhaps twenty miles – one hundred to go … but unless I found water I was a dead man. Could the Arab carry my weight for another five hours – say, thirty miles, which would see me almost halfway on my journey? If he could, and I found water at – where was it? Laguna? – we should get through, but if I pushed him too hard, and he foundered … But I daren’t dawdle now. I paused long enough to pour the last couple of inches of water from my canteen over his tongue, and then pressed ahead through the freezing night, while the moon sank and I was riding almost blind with no sound but the echoing hoofbeats over that trackless plain, and the Pole Star over the Arab’s ears.
By resting at intervals, I kept him going for close to six hours, and then gave him two hours with my blanket over him to keep out the chill – his health was a damned sight more important than mine just then. The cold was sharp enough to be truly painful, and we were beginning to suffer damnably from thirst; the poor brute nuzzled and snuffled at me, trying to bite the canteen; I led him ahead for a while, and suddenly he began to chafe and heave, neighing feverishly, and knowing the signs I mounted and let him have his head. He fairly flew along, for the best part of another hour; I felt that we were descending a slight incline, and as the first dawn came over the Jornada I saw ahead through the mist the undoubted glitter of water pools. My tongue was too dry to holla for joy; I fairly flung out of the saddle and threw myself face down at the first pool – and to my horror the Arab sped on, clattering through the mist, while I sank down between consternation and thirst – thirst won, I thrust my face into the pool – and started back with a croak of horror. It was pure brine.
If I have grey hairs, is it any wonder? If I have any hair at all, it’s a miracle, for I swear that in that dreadful moment I started tearing at the stuff, staggering to my feet, ploughing ahead, trying to rave to the bloody pony to stop, wherever he was, and unable to produce more than a rasping sob from my parched throat. I ran in blind panic, stumbling through the mist, knowing that I was a dying man already, without water, without a horse, and lost in that arid desert; twice I fell on the sandy rock, and twice I rose, blubbering, but at my third collapse I simply lay and pounded the ground with my fists until they were raw, and I could only writhe and whimper in despair.
Something touched the back of my neck – something wet and cold, and I rolled over with a gasp of fear to find the Arab nuzzling at me. By God, his muzzle was soaking! I stared ahead – there were other pools – one of them must be fresh, then! I lurched up and ran to the nearest, but the clever little brute trotted on to stand by a farther pool, so I followed, and a moment later I was face down in clear, delicious water, letting it pour until it almost choked me, rolling in the stuff while the little Arab came for another swig, dipping daintily like the gentleman he was. I fairly hugged him, and then saw to it that he drank until he was fit to burst.
We rested for a couple of hours, and I wished to God I had just one good waterskin instead of the pathetic little pottle at my belt. Such as it was, I filled it, and we rode up out of that long shallow depression in the warm dawn; ahead stretched that fearful desert, with never a scrub or vestige of grass on it. To the right lay grim barren mountains, with rocky spurs running down to the plain, and to my left front more hills in the far distance – surely they must be the Cristobal range by the Del Norte? I pointed the Arab’s head towards them; if we pushed on hard now, we might reach them even through the worst heat of the day. We set off at a gallop, I turned in the saddle for a last look-see behind – and reined up, staring back in consternation.
Far off on the south-western horizon a little column of dust was rising … ten miles? Fifteen? However far, it meant only one thing: horsemen. And the only horsemen who would be riding north in the Jornada del Muerto must be Apaches.
They had spotted my trail, then, within a few hours of my evasion, for I didn’t doubt for a moment that it was Mangas’s band, hell-bent to avenge the mortal insult dealt to their chief and his daughter, their raiding forgotten for the moment. Well, they could ride themselves blue in the face, for there wasn’t one of their cattle fit to live in a race with my little Arab … provided he didn’t go lame, or founder in the heat, or step on a loose stone …
I watched the cloud grow imperceptibly larger, and turned the Arab away from the Cristobal hills, heading just east of north to give them a direct stern chase in which they would have no chance to head me off. Time enough, when I’d distanced them, to make for the Del Norte.
For four hours we went at the run, while I watched the pursuing dust-cloud dwindle and finally vanish, but not on that account did I slacken our pace, for I knew they were still there, reading my trail, and it was only when the heat of the day began to scorch us unbearably, and I became aware that I was almost dead from sheer weariness and hunger and thirst, that I drew rein at the first grass that we had sighted since entering that hellish plain. It was poor fodder, but the little Arab fairly laid his lugs back, and didn’t I envy him?
I gave him the last of the water, telling myself that we must come on a stream in an hour or two, for the Jornada desert was petering out into mesa studded with sage and greasewood, and there were dimly-seen hills on the northern horizon; I trotted on, turning at every mile to stare through the shimmering heat haze southwards, but there was no movement in that burning emptiness. Then it began to blow from the west, a fierce, hot wind that grew to a furnace heat, sending the tumbleweed bouncing by and whirling up sand-spouts twenty feet high; we staggered on through that blinding, stinging hail for more than an hour in an agony of thirst and exhaustion, and just when I was beginning to despair of ever reaching water, we came on a wide riverbed with a little trickle coursing through its bottom. In the dust-storm I’d have passed it by, but the little Arab nosed it out, whinnying with excitement, and in a moment we were both gulping down that cool delicious nectar, wallowing in it to our hearts’ content.
You mayn’t think it’s possible to get drunk on water, but you’d be wrong, for I reckon that’s just what I did, gorging myself with it to the point where my brain became fuddled, so that in my lassitude common sense and caution took wing, and I crawled under the lee of the bank out of the wind, and lapsed into a sodden sleep.
The Arab saved me. I came to wondering where the devil I might be, and what the noise was; recollection returned as I gazed round the empty river bottom. The wind had dropped, but it must have been only a lull in the storm, for the sky was grey and lowering, and there was that uncanny stillness that you can almost feel. The Arab neighed again, stamping excitedly, and I was just scrambling to my feet when from far away down the water-course came a faint answering whinny. I threw myself at the Arab’s head, clamping his nostrils and hugging his muzzle; I strained my ears, and sure enough, from somewhere beyond the bend of the dry bed came the sound of hooves. With an oath I seized the bridle and stumbled up towards the lip of the bank, heedless of the clatter of stones; we gained the flat, but it was empty both sides – nothing but low scrub and rank grass, with rising ground a mile or two ahead, and tree-clad foothills beyond.
All this in a glimpse as I swung into the saddle, dug in my heels and went hell-for-leather – and only in the nick of time. Three strides we’d taken when something whizzed like a huge hornet overhead, there was a blood-chilling shriek from behind, and as I turned my head, there they were, surging over the lip of the bank a hundred yards to my left – a dozen of those dreaded figures with their scarved heads and flying hair, bows and lances flourished, whooping like fiends as they bore after me.
Another half-minute in the river-bottom and they’d have had me – even now, as I put my head down and the Arab went like a rat up a drainpipe, it was going to be a damned close thing. A sling-stone buzzed past me (someone less skilled than the Yawner, thank God), but we were flying now, and in a minute we were out of range, drumming across the mesa with that chorus of savage yells waking the echoes behind. I stole another glance; there were four of them bunched together, close enough for me to make out Iron Eyes at their head, and the rest strung out behind; they screamed and urged on their ponies, but they’d been riding continuously, I guessed, for hours, while the Arab was fresh as paint; barring a slip, we must draw steadily away from them – I forced myself to keep my eyes forrard, intent on the ground ten yards in front of the Arab’s ears; I picked my course through the low bushes, watching the forested gullies of the foothills coming closer, stealing another backward look – they were a furlong adrift now. That was the moment when the bridle snapped.
One moment it was whole, the next it was trailing loose in my hands. I believe I screamed aloud, and then I had my fists wrapped in the Arab’s mane, holding on for dear life, crouching down as a gunshot cracked out behind – there was precious little chance they’d hit me, but now as I raised my head, an infinitely worse peril loomed before me. Out on the flat I had little to fear, but once into those rocky ravines and forested slopes my Arab’s speed would count for nothing; I must keep to the open, for my life – but even as I prepared to swerve I saw to my horror that already I’d come too far; there were tongues of forest reaching down to the plain on both my flanks, I was heading into the mouth of a valley, it was too late to turn aside, and nothing for it but to race deeper into the trap, with the triumphant screams of the Apaches rising behind me.
Sobbing with panic, I thundered on, past rocky gullies on either side, past birch and pine thickets, the walls of the valley steadily closing in, and my Arab forced to slacken pace on the rough going. Shots cracked behind me, I heard the deadly swish of an arrow; my pony was stumbling among the loose stones, I jerked my revolver loose and glanced back – Jesus! the leader was a bare fifty yards away, quirting his mustang like fury, with another three strung out behind him. The Arab gathered himself and cleared a stream, slithering on that infernal shale as he landed; somehow he kept his balance, I urged him on—
A numbing pain shot through my right shoulder and something struck me a glancing blow on the face, I glimpsed a feathered shaft spinning away as we blundered through a screen of low bushes; I reeled in my saddle, dizzy with pain, as we raced between low red bluffs topped with thick forest, round a bend in the valley, out on to a broad expanse of loose stones bordering a shallow stream – and beyond reared a great tangle of rock and forest with no way through. The Arab slid and stumbled helplessly on the stones, I knew the Apache must be right on my heels, his war-screech rang in my ears, I was losing my hold, slipping sideways with one arm useless, and in that awful instant I had a glimpse of a man in buckskin standing on a rock not twenty yards ahead, in the act of whipping a musket to his shoulder. A puff of smoke, the crash of a shot, and I was pitching headlong into the stream.
I came out of it like a leaping salmon, floundering round to face the Apache – his riderless mustang was clattering away, and the Indian himself was writhing on the stones in his death agony; I saw him heave and shudder into stillness – but when I looked round the buckskin man was no longer there. The rock was empty, there wasn’t a sign of life among the trees and bushes fringing the gully – had I dreamed him? No, there was a wisp of smoke in the still air, there was the dead Apache – and round the bend, whooping in hellish triumph at sight of me, came Iron Eyes with two other screaming devils hard on his heels. He flung himself from his pony and raced towards the stream, lance in hand.
Instinctively I pawed at my holster – my revolver was gone! I scrambled wildly up the far bank, clawing my way towards the bushes, and fell headlong; Iron Eyes was yelling with glee as he reached the stream …
“Don’t stir a finger,” said a quiet voice from nowhere. “Just rest right there.”
There was no time to be amazed – for the painted red devil was bounding over the stream, brandishing his lance.
“Ah-hee, pinda-lickoyee dasaygo! Dee-da tatsan!”d he screeched, and paused for an instant to gloat as I sprawled helpless, his head thrown back in cruel glee – something flickered in the air between us, he gave a choking gasp and staggered back into the water, dropping the lance and plucking at the horn-handled knife protruding from beneath his chin. The two other braves, halfway to the stream, checked appalled as he flopped into the shallows, bleeding his life out – and to add to our amazement, shots were ringing out in a volley from beyond the bend in the valley, shouts of command were mingling with warwhoops, and on my disbelieving ears fell the undoubted clarion note of a bugle.
If I was stricken dumb, the Apaches weren’t; they yelled with rage or fear, and whirled about like victims in blind man’s buff in search of the unseen attacker – and it was uncanny, for one moment the trees to my left had been empty, and then there was a small, sturdy man in faded yellow buckskin standing out in the open, leisurely almost, with a hatchet in his hand and an expression of mild interest on his placid, clean-shaven face.
He glanced at me, and then said something quietly in Apache, and the two braves gaped and then screamed defiance. The small chap shook his head and pointed down the valley; there was another crashing volley, followed by screams and the neighing of horses and the crack of single shots; even in my pain and bewilderment I concluded that some stout lads were decreasing the Mimbreno population most handily – and the nearest Apache rolled his eyes, yelled bloody murder, and he and his mate came at me like tigers, hatchets foremost.
I never saw the buckskin man move, but suddenly he was in their path and the murderous axe-heads clanged as they struck and parried and struck again faster than the eye could follow. I looked to see him cut down in seconds by those agile fighting demons, but if they were fast as cats the little chap was like quicksilver, cutting, ducking, leaping aside, darting in again as though he were on springs – I’ve seen men of their hands, but never one to cap him for speed, and he wasn’t just holding his ground, but driving them back, his hatchet everywhere at once like polished lightning, and the two of them desperately trying to fend him off. Suddenly he sprang back, lowered his hatchet, and addressed them again in Apache – and now came pounding of feet, American voices hollering, and round the bend in the valley men in stained blue coats and dragoon hats were running towards us, led by a big black-whiskered cove in plaid trousers and feathered hat, brandishing a revolver.
One Apache made a bound for the forest and was cut down by a volley from the dragoons; the other hurled himself again at the buckskin man and was met by a cut that sent him reeling back with a gashed shoulder; the whiskered man’s revolver boomed, the savage dropped – and to my amazement the small buckskin man shook his head and frowned.
“There was no necessity to shoot him,” says he, in that same gentle voice that had spoken to me from thin air. “I had hoped to talk to him.”
“Did you now?” roars Whiskers; he was a great, red-faced jolly-looking file. “Listen here, Nestor – you were talking to him just fine, in the language he understood best.” He surveyed the four dead Indians in and around the stream. “Fact, you seem to have been having one hell of a conversation.” He caught sight of me. “Who in the name of God Almighty is that?”
“Fellow they were chasing,” says the buckskin man.
“I’ll be damned! Why, he’s got Injun paint on his face! And a damned Apache-looking haircut, too!”
“He’s white, though. Hair on his chin. Wounded, too.”
I was glad someone had mentioned that, for my arm was running like a tap, and if there’s one thing that makes me giddy it’s the sight of my own blood. What with that, the pain of my wound, the terror of the chase and of the bloody slaughter I had witnessed, I was about all in, but now they were all round me, grimed white faces staring curiosity and concern as they gave me Christian spirits – first down my throat, then on my wound, which made me yelp – and patched me up, asking no questions. A trooper gave me some beef and hard-tack, and I munched weakly, marvelling at the miracle that had brought them to my rescue – especially the supernatural appearance of the gently-spoken little fighting fury in buckskin; there he was now, squatted by the stream, carefully washing and drying the knife that had felled Iron Eyes.
It was the big jolly chap, whose name was Maxwell, who explained what had happened; they had been lying in wait for some Jicarilla horse-thieves who were believed to be making south for the Jornada, when they had seen me coming lickety-split with the Mimbrenos behind me. The little buckskin man, Nestor, knowing the ground, had guessed precisely where my flight must end, and while the soldiers had neatly ambushed the main body of my pursuers, that buckskin angel had just been in time to deal with the vanguard – one musket-shot, and then his knife and hatchet against three Bronco braves; God forbid, I remember thinking, that I should ever get on his wrong side.
But I was taking it in like a man in a dream, hardly able to believe that I was here, safe at last, among friends, and the vile ordeal of months, my escape and flight, the final horror of Iron Eyes rushing to finish me – they were all past, and I was safe, and absolutely crying with relief and shock – not sobbing, you understand, but just with tears rolling down my cheeks.
“Easy does it, now,” says Maxwell. “We’ll get those wet duds off you, and you can sleep a piece, and then we’ll hear your side of it – and, say, if you feel like trading in that pony of yours, maybe we can talk about that, too …”
He was smiling, but suddenly I couldn’t keep my eyes open; great waves of dizziness were engulfing me, my shoulder was throbbing like an engine, and I knew I was going to chalk out. The small buckskin man had come to stand beside Maxwell, looking down at me with the same mild concern he’d shown when he was facing the Apaches; I’d never seen such gentle eyes – almost like a woman’s. Perhaps I was wandering in my mind; I know as I looked at that placid, kindly face, I mumbled something, and Maxwell caught it, and his laughter was the last thing I heard before I slid under.
“Magician, you say?” The cheery red face winked and faded. “Mister, you ain’t the first that’s said that …”
d White-eyed man, you are about to die!