Ghost Warrior Read online

  Don’t borrow trouble, he thought. He always grazed the mules at sunup out here anyway, if no one was chasing him.

  When the sky lightened enough to see the dark patch on Rosie’s rump, he halted the team. He carried buckets of water to them from the keg in the back of the wagon and picketed them where they could graze. Red joined them.

  Rafe took a stout piece of mesquite cut to the length he needed from inside the coffin in the wagon. He braced it under the axle and dug a shallow hole under the wheel. Next, he rifled through the spare spokes and wedges, the hammer, saw, adze, the coils of rope, and the box of nails, bolts, harping pins, cleats, and linchpins until he found the pry bar, pliers, and wooden mallet in the coffin.

  He had won the pine box from an undertaker in a game of euchre. Rafe said it was the only possession that would come in handy whether he was dead or alive. The other teamsters thought him mad to tweak fate by carrying it. They had also mentioned that he was crazy to squander cargo space on tools and parts when wrecked wagons littered the countryside like so many abandoned good intentions. Rafe preferred to leave as little to chance as possible.

  He had even paid a blacksmith in Santa Fe to fashion a metal rack and fasten it to the outside of the wagon bed at the rear. Rafe went back there now and lifted off the spare wheel that hung on it. The sight of it entertained the freighters so much that they had taken to calling him Fifth Wheel.

  He rolled the wheel to the front of the wagon. He unlatched the removable section of the wooden cap that fit over the hub and pulled it out to expose the end of the axle and the iron linchpin. The broad head of the pin had broken off. He would have to take the entire cover off the hub so he could hammer it out.

  He could lose his temper. He could curse luck, the world and the devil by sections and miles, then by yards, feet, and inches. Or he could be grateful that a spoke had broken and not the axletree. A less careful man would have tried to finish the trip with the broken spoke, but Rafe knew better.

  Of course, those same less careful men were now bedded down in the wagon yard in Santa Fe, or with their shores, they were disturbing the sleep of the comely señoritas at Dona Rosa’s. Not one of those careless men had agreed to come with him, even though the army offered six times the going rate. Given the fact that the Apaches had been making travel in the Jornada del Muerto a precarious propostition, it was cheap at the price.

  Rogers had not taught Red Sleeves a lesson by whipping him. On the contrary, Red Sleeves and his marauders were now teaching even Rogers a lesson in rascality. The Apaches had vengeance down pat.

  He hung the old wheel on the rack at the rear and was positioning the new one when Red whickered. Rafe saw the cloud of dust with more exasperation than fear. He had gotten out of the habit of fearing. He took his brass spyglass out of his saddlebag, but the dust obscured the riders’ identity.

  “I expect what we have here, Red, is not a fleet of deacons.”

  Rafe put his hand to his hat brim and studied the cloud. He tried to judge the number of men and horses that had raised it, and how soon he could expect them.

  I’m like some Mesopotamian humbug, he thought, pretending to read omens in a swirl of smoke or in the quivering liver of a goat.

  “I expect what we have here is a distilled extract of murder and inconvenience,” he added aloud for Red’s benefit.

  He was angry about losing the cargo. He had always gotten his loads through. Except for the fat and sassy mule named Iago, he was sorry that the team would most likely end up in Apache stew pots. He was angrier then he wanted to admit at the prospect of losing the wagon. It had become his only home.

  He unharnessed the mules and swatted his hat at them. “Git, you worthless sacks of sorry.”

  Iago took off immediately. Loyalty had never been one of his virtues. Rosie and Guildenstern, Lear and The Fool circled until Rafe threw rocks at them. They galloped off to turn, stand, and watch him from a distance. Othello stood his ground.

  “Suit yourself,” Rafe muttered.

  He saddled Red, trying not to stare at the cloud. Whoever was raising it would be richer by a few crates of guns. They were the same .69-caliber smoothbore flintlocks the infantry had carried, with few modifications, since 1795. Those in charge in Washington City were supplying the soldiers with a gun designed for close combat with massed armies. Never mind that their present enemies never fought massed or close.

  Rafe had suggested removing the firing mechanisms, but the colonel couldn’t be bothered. He had taken offense at Rafe for advising him at all. If the mechanisms had been in a sack, Rafe could have disposed of them so the muskets would be useless in Apache hands.

  He recapped his six-shooters and stuck two in his belt and two in his saddle holsters. He knotted the cords of his hat under his chin. He doubled a Mexican blanket, flung it over his shoulders, and tied it with a thong to deflect arrows. The Apaches didn’t have many guns, but as of today that would change for this mob.

  He could see that the dust cloud had shifted. The raiding party planned to head him off. If he could make it to the foothills, he knew a shortcut. The Apaches almost certainly knew about it, but they wouldn’t expect him to.

  He gathered the reins while Red danced from one foot to the other. Rafe vaulted into the saddle and grabbed the pommel. The seat of his trousers had hardly brushed saddle leather when Red gathered the almighty muscles of his shoulders and haunches into the fleshly equivalent of steel springs, tightly wound. Red’s front hooves dug in so hard they left furrows deep enough to plant potatoes. He launched himself with a power and exuberance that made Rafe throw his head back and howl with joy.

  As the wind blew the brim of his hat up and the desert floor flashed past, Rafe’s only worry was whether Red would survive the run. He decided that when he reached the fort he would rub him down with soft straw. He would administer a dose of whiskey for Red and some for himself. He would wrap him in blankets and give him hay with raw beefsteak, diced. A bed of clean hay to sleep in, and Red would be fine in the morning.

  If something unforeseen happened and he lost the race, Rafe would leave two bullets in his pistol for Red and for himself.

  As VICTORIO RODE, HE ADMIRED THE NEW MUSKET RIDING across his thighs. It was a beautiful thing, with vines etched into the face plate and tendrils twining out along the barrel. A mountain lion prowled the brass lid of the patch box set in the burnished walnut stock. He wondered who had first thought of such an amazing thing. What Pale Eyes shaman had carved these pictures into it, and what spirits did they represent?

  Loco rode a pony of the color brown that the Mexicans called tostado. Loco hummed to himself, a Bear song probably. The stranger behind him rode a big gray stallion. When the sun shone on the horse, the white hairs scattered through his coat made him glint like steel dust. The stranger had an old musket of his own with a winged metal snake engraved on the side.

  Victorio, Loco, He Steals Love, and the three herd boys had killed no deer on this hunting trip, but they didn’t care. They had taken twenty-four of these firesticks along with powder and bullets and five mules. They had found knives in Hairy Foot’s wagon, as well as blankets, cloth, shovels, hoes, axes, and shiny copper kettles.

  In a way, the miners at Pinos Altos had done them all a favor when they humiliated Red Sleeves. The old man had tried to keep the promises he made on the Pale Eyes’ paper talk. He had tried to persuade the Red Paint warriors to stop stealing the Americans’ horses and cattle and killing the owners when they objected.

  In return the Pale Eyes had driven away the game. They attacked the women at harvest time and destroyed the winter food supply. Bluecoat patrols intercepted the warriors on their way back from Mexico and seized the stock they had stolen there. Now the diggers had sent Red Sleeves back on the war trail where he had excelled in the past. They had restored the natural order of life.

  When Victorio reached the cleft in the wall of rock, he looked back. Talks A Lot, Flies In His Stew, and Ears So Big prodded the mule
s along at the rear of the procession. He Steals Love, wearing a coat of red dust, rode guard behind them.

  Victorio didn’t have to see He Steals Love’s handsome face to know he looked morose. He hadn’t wanted to come on this trip, and even the new musket had not cheered him. Jealousy prodded him like a pebble in his moccasin or a cactus spine in his breechclout.

  He Steals Love was wondering if one of his rivals had won Lozen’s affections while he was away. Since most of the eligible women in the village had flirted with him, being spurned was new to him. The experience had him confused and truculent.

  Victorio had asked him to come along so Lozen could have a respite from his attentions. Victorio was saving He Steals Love from her, too. He shadowed her constantly, and that caused her to become irritable. An irritated Lozen was likely to play some prank that would make him even more miserable and a laughingstock, as well.

  When Victorio asked him to join them on the hunt, He Steals Love had stared at him like a rabbit at a rattlesnake. He couldn’t turn down a chance to go with his beloved’s older brother. Maybe Victorio would come to regard him as a friend. Maybe he would persuade his sister to behave sensibly and marry him.

  On the other hand, one of those shameless coyotes who’d been courting Lozen might acquire love magic and bewitch her in his absence. He Steals Love would return with gifts, only to find that she’d moved in with Short Rope or Swimmer or that fool Poppy. The prospect had him in a seethe.

  The shimmering summer day cooled and dimmed as Victorio guided Coyote into the defile and the walls closed around him. Half a day’s ride from here the Bluecoats were mixing clay and water and straw like mud dauber wasps. They were perpetually repairing the cluster of adobe hovels they called a fort. Victorio laid his head back and looked up at the strip of sunlight far above him. It glittered like the shiny yellow trim decorating the Bluecoat soldiers’ jackets. He held an arm out so that the tips of his fingers brushed the cool stone. This was a fortaleza.

  When he thought about the valley on the other side, he could almost feel the cool air under the huge cottonwoods along the stream. He could almost hear the children’s laughter as they splashed in the water. His people would feast and dance tonight to celebrate the plunder he brought. The men would hold council with the rider who came with them, the mysterious one they called Gray Ghost. People had been talking about Gray Ghost since a hunting party first sighted him a month ago. They discussed the possibility that he really was a ghost, or an omen. Maybe the men in council could discover more about him than Victorio had been able to.

  Victorio wondered what Lozen had done in his absence to set the other women’s tongues to flapping like loose pack ropes. What arguments would be brewing between her and She Moves Like Water over her refusal to behave like a young woman ready for marriage? What jokes had she played on the young men who courted her?

  Lozen was waiting for him on the other side of the defile. She was sitting in the shade of a cedar and teaching Maria to play the rock game. She tossed a small stone into the air while she picked up four more, one at a time, and set them on the knuckles of her other hand.

  She stood and hiked her old deerskin skirt up under her belt. She lifted Maria onto the mare, took a short run, and leaped. Placing her hands on the mare’s rump she vaulted onto her bare back just behind Maria. She reined the pony over to walk beside Victorio and Coyote. Her face lit up when she saw the musket. She reached out to stroke the barrel.

  “We took twenty-four of these from Hairy Foot,” Victorio said.

  “Did you kill him?” The possibility bothered her.

  “No.”

  “Was he riding my colorado?”

  “Yes. He Steals Love chased him all day.”

  “That horse belongs to me, not to He Steals Love.”

  “He Steals Love lost that red horse at Dead Woman’s Pass,” said Loco. “Hairy Foot looked like a cactus with all those arrows sticking out of him. Maybe he has magic against bullets and arrows.”

  “He tied a blanket around his neck,” Victorio added. “Its flapping knocked the arrows away.”

  “We should have burned the wagon,” Loco grumbled.

  “If we burned his wagon, how would Hairy Foot carry more things for us to take from him later?” Victorio and Loco had argued about this ever since they left the wagon standing as forlorn as a three-legged bison after the herd had moved on. Victorio leaned closer and lowered his voice. “I left pollen for Hairy Foot in the pouch you made for me, the one with the long fringe and the hawk feathers.”

  Stands Alone owed her freedom to Hairy Foot and his friends. Victorio felt some regret about harrying him, but it wasn’t as though they had taken the goods from Hairy Foot himself. He was only carrying them for others. The pouch would give him something to think about. Victorio liked to give people something to think about, even Pale Eyes, who generally didn’t seem to think at all.

  Lozen handed Victorio a packet of corn husks tied with a twist of grass. Victorio unwrapped it and took one of the crisp piñon-meal cakes that were inside.

  “The boys offered to help us women hoe the corn yesterday,” Lozen said.

  Victorio knew she meant her suitors, although Poppy, Short Rope, and Big Hand were not boys anymore. After the battle at Arizpe, the council had voted them all the rank of warrior, but Lozen still dismissed them with a wave of her hand.

  “While Poppy was clearing the new cornfield he made a noise.” Lozen pursed her lips, puffed out her cheeks, and blew three loud explosions of air. Stands Alone laughed so hard she had to sit down.” Lozen grinned.”Poppy turned as red as naletsoh, his namesake. No one has seen him since, although his sister says he came prowling like a coatimundi around her fire looking for food after dark last night.”

  Victorio laughed, and he thought how boring life would be with a sister who was normal.

  “Aren’t you married yet?” Loco asked.

  “None of those boys is ugly enough. I’m waiting for you to ask me.” She raised her right hand in the sign that she was joking, with her palm forward, the first and second fingers up, and the thumb folded over the third and fourth.

  “We brought someone back with us,” said Victorio.

  Lozen turned around and saw the gray stallion and his rider emerge at a trot from the opening in the cliff face. As the rider came closer, she could see that he looked like a red man, but he was wearing brown canvas trousers. Broad bands of silver around his upper arms gathered in the full sleeves of his calico shirt. He had on the type of hat the Pale Eyes wore, but a white plume curved over the edge of the wide brim and lay in a cloud on his shoulder. Sunlight glinted off a silver crescent that hung above the crimson sash across his chest. Even from here she could see that he was handsome. She stared, her lips slightly parted.

  With a flick of his wrist Victorio caught a fly. It buzzed in his fist. when he held it out to Lozen. She looked up, startled.

  “It’s easier to catch them this way,” he said, “than to trap them in your mouth.”

  She leaned closer to him. “Is he Gray Ghost?” she murmured.

  “Yes. You don’t have to speak low. He can’t understand you.”

  “How did you meet him?”

  “Pale Eyes were chasing him along the canyon floor. We shouted to him and showed him the Tall Rock trail. We met him on the other side, and he consented to come with us.”

  “Who is he? Where does he come from? Who are his people?”

  She wanted to ask, Is he married? Does he have a sweetheart?

  “I don’t know. He doesn’t even speak Mexican, but he knows sign language. He says he comes from the east.

  “His people live so far to the east,” Loco added, “that the rising sun bakes their bread for them.”

  Victorio handed two of the cakes back to her. “Give him these.” Lozen wanted to refuse, but she took them and rode toward Gray Ghost.

  He had the high, strong cheekbones of her own people, but his face was thinner, his features more deli
cate, his skin a lighter brown. She guessed that he had seen about thirty harvests. His eyes were as gray as his horse. Each tendril of the white plume quivered and danced in the sunlight. The sun had faded the red cloth of his shirt to a pale pink. He wore moccasins of a type she had never seen before.

  A roll of blankets rode behind his saddle. Fringed saddlebags hung on either side of the gray. He carried a musket in a saddle holster. From another leather case protruded the working end of a curved war club, a heavy wooden ball with a bear’s tooth set in it.

  He gestured “Greetings,” in the silent language everyone knew.

  She returned the sign and held out the mescal cakes. He accepted them with a smile that made her feel as if her insides were melting and flowing into her moccasins. She reined the mare around and urged her at a trot to where Victorio rode.

  She felt as dizzy as if she had drunk a gourdful of tiswin. She felt as foolish as a child, but the longings that stirred in her weren’t a child’s. She wanted to laugh. She wanted to cry.

  Love. This was what the women talked about when they wove baskets in the morning. It’s what they joked and teased about as they gathered berries and tanned hides. It was terrible. She wondered if Grandmother or Broken Foot had a song that would cure it. And if they did, would she want to be cured?

  Chapter 18

  PLUNDERED

  Lozen should have been excited about the muskets, but when Victorio distributed the plunder from Hairy Foot’s wagon, she couldn’t take her eyes off Gray Ghost. She stood in the gloom beyond the fire’s light and pleaded silently with him to look her way. She asked the spirits to persuade him to come to her and stand by her here in the shadows.

  She longed to hear him speak to her, even if she couldn’t understand him, and even if she were too befuddled to answer him. She hadn’t talked to anyone about the uproar going on behind her calm eyes, but she wanted to complain to She Moves Like Water and to Grandmother. Why had no one told her that love would make a fool of her?