Apache Caress (11 page)

The big dog in the corner raised its head and studied him.

“Yes, Ke’jaa, you half-coyote, it’s time to get up.” Tom felt around on the floor for his boots, wondering why he bothered with the ugly cur that would not even wag its tail when he spoke. Because it was his friend’s dog; that was why he had rescued it from the slaughter that commenced after the train pulled out.

But Cholla was gone, perhaps forever in spite of everything Mooney, Lieutenant Gatewood, and General Crook could do to help the Apache scouts. The scouts had helped end the bloodshed by renegades like Geronimo, and they had been rewarded by being gathered up at the last minute and loaded on a Florida bound train, too. It was neither fair nor just and Tom Mooney was both.

“You ugly sonovagun,” he smiled at the dog and snapped his fingers at it, knowing the beast wouldn’t come to him, “if your master wasn’t my
compadre,
damned if I’d put up with your attitude. You’re just like your master; independent, never doing what you’re expected to do. Don’t you know a dog is supposed to lick a man’s hand when he feeds it and wag your tail once in awhile?”

The big yellow animal cocked its head to one side, listening, but it didn’t move or show any sign of friendliness. It snarled at everyone who came close to it. At least Ke’jaa tolerated him because he was Cholla’s friend. No, more than friend. Brother,
Sikis.
They had shared food and danger many times in the past several years. Once Cholla had saved Mooney’s life. And then Tom had saved his.

The sergeant thought about the incident a moment, then stood up with a shrug, scratching his muscular chest with stubby, freckled fingers as he reached for his pants in the first rays of gray dawn.

Holy Saint Patrick, you’re getting old, Tom, he said to himself as he looked in the small, cracked mirror on the wall. You’ll be forty-two next birthday, and what do you have to show for it? His parents were still alive, but feeble. They hoped he’d come home to take over the farm. Maybe it’s time I gave it some thought, he decided, looking at the weathered face in the mirror.

Tom Mooney had been in the Army longer than some of the new recruits had lived, having joined up during the Civil War to follow George Armstrong Custer, hero of the Michigan troops.

Funny how things turned out. Custer had been dead ten years now this past June. Maybe it had been only luck that Tom hadn’t been with him that fateful day at the Little Big Horn River. His deeply religious mother said he was being saved for some reason, something that God had scheduled for Tom in the future.

“You were right, Mother,” he said, remembering the incident of this past July. Of course she would never know what had happened out there. He and Cholla and the three other men who’d survived knew, but it would be their secret forever. Cholla had insisted they all swear an oath.

Tom Mooney dressed quickly, considering retirement. Maybe he wouldn’t mind returning to a Michigan farm if there was a woman to share his life there. Women had never paid him much attention. To begin with, he wasn’t tall or handsome, and he was too shy to flirt or make clever conversation. Besides, for the past several months, he had been in love with another man’s wife.

He reached for his hat, thinking about the woman, wondering if he could get up the nerve to go call on her if he retired. He imagined it in his head, even though he knew he would never do so. “Aw, Tom, don’t kid yourself; you’re no hand with the ladies or you’d have a wife by now.” He paused at the door, turned to the dog. “Ke’jaa, I’m going to the stable, come along?”

The beast got to its feet, studied him a long moment.

“I know, I miss him, too. Maybe Lieutenant Gatewood has some good news for us. You know General Crook is doing his best to help, don’t you? But there’s politics involved, you see, and General Miles is in charge now....” His voice trailed off as he realized he was carrying on a conversation with a dog. He cursed under his breath. Aye, he was a lonely man. He read poetry and took walks while other troopers went into town to drink and gamble and pleasure themselves.

Would she like poetry? Gently, he reached inside his jacket, took out the small photo. Such beautiful dark eyes she had, this black-haired woman he had never met. He felt a little guilty, knowing he had no right to keep this photo. Tom hadn’t returned it with the officer’s other personal effects. There was something about the woman’s face that called out to his lonely heart.

“I wonder if she might be interested in a quiet Michigan farm?” he said aloud as he tucked the photo away inside his uniform. “All she can do is say no. Now what do you think of that, Ke’jaa? Should I write or go see her?”

The dog’s red ribbon of tongue ran in and out over his great fangs.

“Sonovagun, are you laughing at me now? Maybe it is foolish, to think she might even consider a worn-out soldier, or even that I would ever get up the nerve to go see her. Still she looks like the kind of prim lady who might prefer the safe, secure life of a farmer’s wife. Why there’d even be a place for you, dog.”

The dog regarded him gravely. Mooney knew the half-coyote acknowledged only one master. The Apache scout had found the orphaned pup in a deserted den in the hills several years ago.

“At least I saved his dog,” Mooney said to himself as the pair walked toward the stables in the gray light of dawn. In another thirty minutes, the brilliance of sunlight would reflect off the Arizona landscape, bathing the scene in color like a fiery painting, all scarlet and turquoise and golden. Here in the southeastern part of the Territory were the Chiricahua Mountains and old Cochise’s stronghold in the hills. Beyond lay the desolate reaches and the wild Sierra Madre to the south of the border. A man could live there forever without getting caught. Hadn’t Geronimo proved that?

Lieutenant Gatewood had been a brave man to go into Geronimo’s camp, accompanied only by two Apaches scouts, and talk the old renegade into surrendering. Gatewood should get a medal and a promotion, Tom thought, but the officer was on the wrong side of the political maneuvering.

“Hey, hoss,” he called out.

The fine paint stallion had already stuck its head out the stall door and now nickered at the sound of Mooney’s approaching boots. Ke’jaa bounded ahead, sniffing the breeze eagerly, and stopped before the stall.

Mooney sighed and patted the black and white horse absently. “Sorry, you two, he’s not with me, and he’s not coming either. I know it’s hard for you both to understand, but maybe General Crook will manage to talk President Cleveland into doing what’s fair. Those Apaches, even Geronimo, trusted Crook to keep his word.”

It hadn’t been Crook’s fault of course, and the general had resigned in a fury when the government reneged on the promises he’d made. Now Miles was enforcing the new edicts. Politics–all politics. It was more than a simple soldier could understand.

Tom stroked the stallion’s mane, enjoying the scent of hay and horseflesh. The dog lay down patiently at his feet, but Mooney knew better than to pat it. The stallion had learned to accept Mooney because he was his master’s friend. The dog had never even accepted her.

Delzhinne. It was an Apache word that meant ‘dark-skinned.’ Cholla had doted on her. Probably not more than sixteen years old and very beautiful. At least she
had
been. The sergeant winced at the memory, wondering again what he should have done when he’d found her body out in the brush. There had been a brass button clutched in her hand–a cavalry uniform button. Holy Saint Patrick. Could any soldier have dared to–? Sure and they’d all be too afraid of Cholla ... unless the man was drunk.

What to do? He’d taken the button from her hand, put it in his pocket. A crumpled little paper sack lay on the ground nearby. He’d picked that up too, wondering if it had been dropped or had blown there from the fort? Then he had straightened her clothes to give her a little dignity, although it was all too apparent she had been violated. There wasn’t anything he could do about the bullet hole between her eyes. Powder burns. She’d been shot at close range after her attacker had satisfied himself. Tom had spread his jacket over her face before he’d gone to get Cholla.

On the way, he passed Lieutenant Gillen, who looked a little the worse for wear, but there weren’t any buttons missing from his uniform that Tom could see.

Tom told Cholla as gently as he could and led him out to the place. When Cholla pulled the jacket away, a fly lit on her open mouth. Cholla gagged and his shoulders shook. “Damn the renegade Apaches! They take revenge on a woman because I scout for the soldiers!”

In his pocket, Tom had a button and a crumpled sack that told a different story, but Tom Mooney made his decision in a heartbeat. His friend could only come to grief seeking revenge against a soldier. “Yes, that looks like what happened, doesn’t it? The renegade Apache got her.”

Later in the day, Tom spotted Forester, looking as if he’d just come off a long drunk, his uniform disheveled, with a button missing. Forester? Tom kept silent, uncertain what to do. His knowledge could only bring more trouble to his sorrowing friend.

If I had done things differently then, would it have changed what happened. out at the arroyo that hot summer day only weeks later?

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of boots, and Mooney turned toward the skinny corporal.

Schultz saluted. “Sir, Lieutenant Gatewood would like to see you.”

Mooney gave him a half-hearted salute. “Johnny, we know each other too well for all this formality.”

The man grinned, showing teeth stained by tobacco. “It’s all this new spit and polish around here since General Miles took over. You never know who might put you on report.”

“Well, sonovagun, you know it won’t be me!”

They laughed in easy camaraderie. Schultz was a career man like himself. He and Allen and Taylor. The four of them and Cholla had survived that Apache ambush Forester had gotten his patrol into. Like Mooney himself, the other three owed their lives to Cholla’s skillful scouting. They would have done anything for the scout–or their sergeant. Five men bound by friendship and a vow of silence about what had happened out there among the cactus and the chaparral of that sun-baked arroyo.

Schultz lit a cigar and shook his head. “I’m sorry we couldn’t raise enough money to buy the stallion at the auction. I hate like hell to see Gillen end up with Cholla’s horse.”

“It couldn’t be helped,” Tom said, leaning against the stall door. “Gillen had left money to bid it in, probably made from crooked card games. Anyway maybe Cholla won’t be coming back, so he won’t know.”

The corporal blew smoke. “It don’t seem right, the government selling the Apaches’ horses.”

“I reckon the President and the Army figure they won’t ever need them again. They’ll never get back from Florida.”

The German frowned. “That don’t sound like Cholla. He’s as wild and free as this country of his; I can’t imagine him living any other way.”

“He won’t bend, so they’ll try to break him. Civilization doesn’t like people who won’t conform, and Cholla won’t. They may kill him, but they won’t cage him; he’s proud, maybe too proud.” Mooney flinched, thinking about his Indian friend and of what Cholla might be enduring at that very minute.

“At least you saved his dog.”

Mooney turned to go. “Nobody wanted the Apache dogs;
everybody
wanted their horses.” He walked briskly down the path, the mongrel dog trotting behind him.

Tom strode toward the lieutenant’s office, the dog trotting at his heels. Mooney liked dogs, he did not like what had happened at the railroad station that day.

It had been sweltering hot, the alkali dust drifting on the stifling air as the Apaches’ ponies trudged along the hundred-mile trip north from Fort Apache to the railroad station at Holbrook. Lieutenant Colonel James Wade, and his black Tenth Cavalry escorted the almost five hundred Indians.

Colonel Wade had told the warriors they were all making a trip to Washington to see the Great White Father. Tom and Cholla knew that surely couldn’t be true, but they were sent along to assist because they both spoke the language. They didn’t dare to voice their suspicions except to each other. Cholla said the government would see its mistake, would change the order before it shipped peaceful Apaches away. Each night, the Indians camped, stoically accepting their fate.

Cholla shook his head as he looked out at the hundred of campfires, red beacons in the dark. “I don’t like it, Tom, this isn’t what was promised when I went in and helped talk Geronimo into surrendering. In fact, the bunch we’re herding toward the train station are peaceful people. There’s been some mistake. Surely the government will have a wire waiting at the station to cancel the order.”

Tom shook his head. “I feel for you, brother, having to help herd your own people to the train.”

“You know I wouldn’t be involved if I weren’t sure this mistake would be corrected. Besides, I want to watch and make sure the women and children aren’t mistreated.”

“Do you suppose they’ll have a band at the station?” It had seemed incredible to Tom that when they’d loaded Geronimo and his renegades into wagons for Captain Lawton to take to Bowie Station, the regimental band had played “Old Lang Syne.”

“I hope not. At least the peaceful ones won’t have to ride with the old renegade and his warriors. Geronimo’s bunch are on another train through Texas.”

“The white people of Arizona Territory have seen all they want of Apaches.” Mooney squatted down before the fire, poured himself another cup of coffee, felt for the comfort of the photo and the book of poetry in his jacket.

Cholla only grunted.

In its place next to Cholla, the big, ugly dog raised its head and regarded Tom quietly.

Tom said, “They’re raising hell in Washington, demanding we ship all of them out. I think they’re afraid the Apaches’ll go off the reservation again. You remember the torturings and killings Geronimo’s bunch did when they’d get drunk and go riding off to Mexico.”

Cholla patted the dog, and it licked his hand. “I have no love for the renegades. They killed my father, and have brought nothing but tragedy to my people. If it had not been for his death, I would not have been raised around the fort. Sometimes I begin to think like the whites, except they all conform like a bunch of ants. Even with that, I can still sympathize with the renegades. Apaches were meant to roam free, and that is all they ask, to live as they have always lived.”