Sudden Apache Fighter Read online

  “Is it in your thoughts that I will let you live?” Manolito asked harshly.

  “Manolito is an Apache,” Green said gravely. “This is Manolito’s country. I remind him only of his promise.”

  “You still wish to see the girl? Even if perhaps you will die anyway?”

  Green nodded. “That’s what I come for.”

  Manolito shook his head, then again he reached out and touched the Texan’s shoulder.

  “You are a brave man. Let there be a truce between us and we will see what will be.” He turned to his warriors, and uttered a sharp command in guttural Apache. The blanket and the trade goods were quickly rolled up and lashed to the back of the pack mule. Manolito gestured for Green to mount his horse; the Apache thrust the Winchester into a loop on his own saddle. Green watched as the Apaches mounted their wiry little mustangs, milling into a compact group, awaiting the word from their leader.

  “You come with,” Manolito said, pointing at Green. Then to his warriors, he yelled “Vamonos!” and they thundered in a tight-knit cavalcade up along the arroyo and deeper into the silent heart of Apacheria.

  Chapter Four

  They rode up a straight narrow gully bare of vegetation, and then the gully turned sharply right and upwards, and they were in the camp of the Apaches and the Indians were all around them. There was no noise, no shouting, only the yapping of half a dozen mangy dogs which frolicked around the hoofs of the horses. The black obsidian Apache eyes watched as Manolito led the party into the camp, which lay scattered across the top of a mesa, looking down over the edge of the cliff upon the country below.

  “Mighty well chosen spot,” was Green’s unspoken thought. “Take a small army to get anywhere near this place.” He looked unflinchingly into the eyes of the warriors surrounding him as he dismounted, tense and ready for any overt move. Nobody laid a hand upon him, however. Their faces were sullen and impassive; their glances flicked towards Manolito for their cue. Green realized now that his captor was a leader among these people; Manolito’s prisoner would not be harmed without his authority. A boy stepped forward to take the reins of Green’s horse. Green stopped him with a gesture and spoke to the Apache.

  “Tell the boy not to try to ride my horse,” he said. “Or the horse will kill him.”

  Manolito looked up and for a moment there was a flash of humor in the dark eyes. He nodded, and said something in rapid Apache to the boy.

  “I tell him horse be like good squaw,” Manolito said. “Let only one man handle.” A grin touched the dark visage, and then vanished as the Apache gestured Green to follow him. Manolito led the way to a wickiup on the far side of the cleared space in the center of the camp. Outside it he motioned the Texan to stop, and gave a command to a squaw standing nearby. She went into the wickiup and came out after a moment with a young girl, dragging the reluctant captive none too gently. The girl made no resistance but simply stood there, eyes downcast, blinking in the sunlight. Then her eyes rose, and seeing Green, filled with bright hope which fled as she saw the absence of weapons and realized that he, too, was a prisoner.

  “Take it easy, ma’am,” Green told her. “Don’t say nothin’,”

  She looked at him, stifling her surprise at the confident tone, her eyes moving from him to Manolito and back again. The Apache asked a question: “Is this the woman you seek?”

  “I don’t know,” Green said honestly. “Let me speak with her.”

  Manolito nodded his permission and Green stepped forward, taking a closer look at the girl. She was dressed in Apache clothes: white buckskin skirt and blouse loosely fitting her slight frame, and tattered old moccasins. Her hair was matted and dirty, but it was blonde; and the eyes were a clear pale blue in the sunburned face.

  “Is yore name Barbara Davis?” Green asked her. She nodded.

  “Have – have you come to take me – home?” she whispered.

  “That’s the general idea,” he said with a grin which he hoped would encourage her. “But we ain’t out o’ the woods by a long stick. Have these war whoops – hurt yu?”

  She shook her head. “A warrior named Juano owns me,” she said in a low voice. “I am being saved for…marriage.”

  “Easy, now,” he told her. “Let’s see what we can do.” Again the girl nodded. She looked cowed and frightened and very tired; none of this surprised the puncher, who well knew that Apache prisoners were cruelly worked, and the women treated them sometimes dreadfully. But they had not broken the girl’s spirit; perhaps there was yet a chance that he could get her out of here. He faced Manolito again.

  “This is the one,” he said.

  Manolito nodded.

  “So.” He put no emphasis on the word. “She does not belong to me. You will speak with another.”

  He turned and gave an order to one of the nearby braves who pushed his way through the throng. After a moment or two, there was a small commotion at the rear of the crowd of watching Apaches and a scowling warrior pushed his way forward. He was young, less than thirty, and moved with an arrogant grace and upright bearing which made him seem taller than his medium height. On his right arm he wore a copper band, and across his muscular chest streaked a jagged white paint line signifying lightning. This design was worked in beads upon the insteps of the high Apache boots and on the buckskin breechclout which was the man’s only clothing. His high cheekbones and lizard-like eyes gave his face a cruel intensity. He stepped haughtily in front of Green, not deigning to even glance at the girl, who shrank away as he approached.

  “My brother has brought you here,” he ground out. “You will not leave this place!”

  Green shrugged. “Like I been sayin’ all along: that’d be a pity. I reckoned we might do some tradin’.”

  The Apache sneered. “Juano does not trade with white-eyes.”

  “Even for ‘the guns that fire forever’?” asked Green.

  Again Juano sneered. “I see no guns,” he said, looking around in an exaggerated pantomime of searching which drew delighted chatters from the watching Indians. Green held up a hand. “I do not play games like Juano,” he said flatly. “Manolito has such a gun. I brought it for you to see.”

  “It is so,” Manolito confirmed stepping forward. He thrust the carbine into Green’s hands, and Green turned to face Juano.

  “Take the rifle, Juano. Examine it. With ten more such rifles a man could be a great leader of his people.”

  Juano grabbed the Winchester, his hands running over the smooth stock and the metal receiver. For a moment his wicked eyes touched Manolito’s as if in challenge. Then, without a word, he levered the action, aimed the rifle point blank at Green, and pulled the trigger.

  The click sounded loud in the sudden stillness. It was followed by a long exhalation of breath from the watchers.

  “It ain’t loaded, o’ course,” Green said with a faint smile. Juano smiled, too, but there was lurking evil in his eyes.

  “You think Juano trade girl for one empty rifle? You think Juano a fool. Juano kill you and keep gun. So!”

  Again Green shrugged. “If yu do that, then yu are a fool,” he said coldly. “Yu’d never find out where the rest o’ the rifles are.”

  Dark cunning flooded Juano’s eyes, and he turned to Manolito and rattled off a speech in Apache. Manolito listened and then shook his head. More vehemently, Juano spoke again, and once more Manolito refused.

  “I’m guessin’ he’s askin’ Manolito to let him torture me to find out where the guns are, an’ Manolito’s sayin’ no,” Green told himself.

  “Yu set the girl an’ me free, an’ I’ll take yu where the rifles are,” he told Juano. The Apache paused in his harangue, thought for a moment, and then nodded. It made no difference if Manolito refused him permission to kill the white-eye now. When he led them to the guns, Juano would kill him then; the girl too. She was too thin and not strong enough to make a good wife. He would get the guns and then kill them both.

  “It is agreed,” he announced haughtily. “You w
ill tell where guns are.”

  “Yu musta misheard me,” Green told him. “I said I’d take yu to ’em.”

  Anger touched Juano’s face. “I think maybe we kill you now,” he said offhandedly.

  “Then yu’d never get yore guns,” Green said flatly.

  He watched pride fight with cupidity in the Apache’s eyes, sure of the outcome. His instinct told him that the renegade Juano was ambitious, perhaps wished to topple Manolito as leader of the tribe. With Winchesters he would be a big man; this was the basis of Green’s gamble. That it was a far-fetched and desperate one he knew; but the only one that might trigger the peculiar Apache mentality.

  “Speak,” Juano commanded. “I listen.”

  “I’ll take yu to where the rifles are buried. When we get there, yu turn me an’ the girl loose, let us ride away free. That’s the deal.”

  “How many guns?” Juano snapped.

  “Ten,” Green replied.

  “Not enough for girl,” Juano sneered.

  Green shrugged. “All I got. If it ain’t enough, yu better just kill me an’ be done with it.”

  It took cold nerve to call Juano’s bluff, but Green had a hunch that the Apache was simply testing him. A nod from Juano confirmed his guess.

  “We will ride at first light,” Juano said. “Take him away!”

  Juano pushed the girl back into his wickiup and strong hands grabbed Green’s arms, half-dragging and half-carrying him across the clearing to another wickiup. His hands were lashed behind him with rawhide thongs, and then his feet were bound. Thus trussed, he was pushed sprawling into the wickiup, where he fell headlong upon a buffalo hide rug. It was gloomy and stuffy inside the wickiup and the ever-present Indian smell was thick, almost tangible. Outside, the Texan could hear the barking of dogs, the chattering of the squaws as they cooked the evening meal, the peaceful sounds of the village going about its normal business. Presently the odors of cooking drifted into the wickiup and Green licked his lips. He realized that he had not eaten since the morning, and that he was as hungry as a wolf.

  “I reckon I’d about manage mule-meat right now,” he mused aloud. “An’ I’m bettin’ if I get anythin’ at all, that’s what it’s likely to be.”

  No food was brought to him, however, and he lay in the darkness for some hours. Then the flap of the wickiup was lifted and he looked up to see Manolito standing there. The Apache regarded him without expression.

  “Juano has made trade,” he said. “The woman is Juano’s. I have protected you here. I can do no more.”

  “I’m grateful for Manolito’s protection,” Green said gravely. “I hope one day we may meet in peace.”

  Manolito scowled. “Your people kill my people,” he said. “They take the hair of our women and our young children. Their spirits cannot sleep. We want only peace but it cannot be while these things happen.”

  “Mebbe they can be stopped,” Green said earnestly. “Mebbe there’s a chance—”

  “Tell it to Juano!” snapped Manolito. “My people no longer heed my words when I speak peace. Soon Juano will lead Apache.” He stopped, his face limned with harsh and sorrowful lines. “You are brave,” he said, eventually. “Are there many like you among your people?”

  Green nodded. “We ain’t all scalphunters, Manolito.”

  Without answering, Manolito wheeled around and stalked out of the wickiup, leaving the Texan to frown at his retreating back. Manolito had lived up to his word; he would not allow it to be broken. But he had made it clear that once they were away from the camp, Juano would conclude his trade any way he saw fit. Green shrugged; again he prayed that his plan would not misfire. Alone, he would have faced the morrow without misgivings; but with the girl to protect, he had to play his longest hunch.

  “Well, I reckon worryin’ ain’t goin’ to change it none,” he said, wryly, and as the night slipped its shadowy mantle across the mountains he tried to sleep, well aware that tomorrow’s ordeal would require every ounce of nerve he could summon.

  Chapter Five

  Green was awakened roughly in the chill of dawn by an armed warrior. A squaw carrying a plate of cooked deer meat and tortillas came into the wickiup. She was herself an example of the savage ruthlessness of her race. Still comparatively young, she might once have been almost a beauty, but the absence of a nose transformed her into a hideous hag. This was the Apache punishment for infidelity, the wicked disfiguration which marked a woman for the rest of her life as worthless and discarded. Day by day her punishment would go on until death released her. An object of scorn – for her mutilation was the badge of her offence – life could offer her nothing but bitterness, and yet she clung to it. She cackled derisively as she placed the food before the prisoner, who, despite himself, shrank back from the scarred face. A sharp word from the Apache at the door flap and the squaw slunk submissively away. But this reminder of the ways of the Apache was not lost upon the Texan.

  “I better not give that Juano feller an inch,” was his meaningful comment to himself. With his bound hands now released, he fell upon the food with gusto, ignoring the guard. Green knew that the provision of food did not indicate any remission in the savage hatred his hosts felt for him. “They just don’t want me to keel over afore I hand them the Winchesters,” he reflected. “Don’t taste none the wuss for that though.” The meal quickly demolished, he rolled a quirly from the making’s in his pocket. As he lit the cigarette the Apache grunted a command, and gestured with the rifle barrel towards the entrance of the wickiup.

  “Time to go, huh?” Green asked, whimsically. “Don’t I get no cawfee?”

  The Indian grunted again and made a menacing gesture with the rifle, whereupon the Texan shrugged and got to his feet. Outside, the camp was a hive of activity. The Apaches were already mounted and awaiting the appearance of their leaders. Juano came out of his wickiup; Green saw Manolito step into the daylight at the same moment that he himself emerged into the lightening dawn. Green saw the girl being helped on to a sorry-looking pony, and a grim expression settled on his face.

  “They ain’t takin’ no chances,” he muttered to himself. “If we try to run for it, that bag o’ bones ain’t goin’ to get far.”

  He allowed no hint of these thoughts to appear on his face, however, but mounted impassively and rode to the center of the encampment. Juano wheeled his horse around; Green saw that there was fresh war paint on the Apache’s face.

  “You will lead,” Juano told him. “If there is treachery, the girl will die first.”

  A glance over his shoulder showed Green that Barbara Davis was being held back in the center of the band. Her chin lifted bravely as she caught his eye, and he smiled. He counted fifteen warriors mounted.

  “Too many to fight, an’ no chance o’ runnin’,” he observed. “Mebbe I’d better try thinkin’ up a few good prayers.”

  He touched Midnight’s flanks with his unspurred heels – the stallion had never needed such goads to give of his best -and led the cavalcade forward at an easy pace down the ravine towards the open plain. Immediately before him the ground fell away in a series of wide, flat steps, dotted with the ever-present cactus and sagebrush, leading down to the deceptively flat-looking country below. Green knew well enough that the plain was crisscrossed with dry washes, gullies, arroyos, even deep gorges, twisting and mounting to the encircling rim rock. In the near distance clumps of mesquite, tiny green circles of bunchgrass near waterholes, small deserts with sun-whitened sand presented a breathtaking panorama stretching to the burning hills beyond.

  Juano saw the prisoner fill his lungs with the sweet morning air, watched the grey-blue eyes sweep across the beauty of the land. Juano scowled.

  “Look well upon this day, white man,” he whispered. “You will not live to see another.”

  “This is the place,” Green said.

  They pulled their horses to a stop in a milling circle, the chalky dust sifting high. It was an open place, out in the middle of a wide sand flat, marked o
nly by a huge boulder that had been swept down from the mountains to this site by the glacial torrents of pre-history.

  Juano signaled the Texan to dismount, and stood watching him as he paced over to the rock and squinted up at the sun to get a bearing. Green aligned the mountain peaks on his right to his own satisfaction; then he paced out ten strides and halted, looking up.

  “The guns are buried here,” he said.

  At a rapped command from Juano, three warriors scuttled over to where Green stood and began to dig in the soft sand with their hands, chattering with excitement as they tossed the sifting grains aside like gophers. After a few minutes, one of them exclaimed gutturally, and Juano slid down from his horse’s back and stalked quickly to where they crouched. A wooden crate lay with its top exposed; on the wood was stenciled in bold black capitals the words Winchester Repeating Arms Company. One of the warriors prised at the lid with a vicious looking throwing-ax. The lid lifted and fell back, revealing the shining rows of rifles glittering dully in the bright morning sun. Juano snatched one up and turned triumphantly to face Green.

  “Guns here,” he said, his eyes glittering with greedy hate. “Trade finished. Now—”

  “Not quite!”

  Something in the Texan’s peremptory tone and confident stance told the Apache that there was yet more to hear. Puzzlement creased his cruel face.

  “I ain’t as stupid as yu seem to think, Juano,” Green told him. “Them rifles is just so much scrap metal!”

  An angry growl escaped Juano’s lips; seeing the ire on their leader’s face the other warriors came closer, ready for trouble.