Feud On The Mesa (2 page)

It was an oblique reference to the belligerent freighter and Leclerc smiled. “He didn’t mean nothin’. Just a case o’ bein’ cooped up too long.” Leclerc tried to act casually when next he spoke. “Got a destination, this trip?”

“Yep. Goin’ to see old Red Sleeves an’ see what I can do about gettin’ your siege lifted.”

“Damn! Them hostiles’ll massacrée ya.” He wagged his head solemnly. “It ain’t that important. The soldiers’ll be along one o’ these days.”

Doom looked up for the first time, and shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. Y’see, that’s what brought me down here in the first place. I was scoutin’ fer a detachment of dragoons out o’ Lauder. They were whipped and driven back by a big confederacy of Apaches…Tontos, Chiricahuas, Mescaleros, Tres Piños, and the rest.” At Leclerc’s wide-eyed stare, Doom shrugged. “So, ya see, this is more than a few
irate bucks thirstin’ for hair and loot. It’s a carefully organized confederacy of Southwestern Apaches making their big holy war against the
ops claws
, the pale eyes.”

“Well, I’ll be damned. Never thought they had it in’em.”

“You know’em?”

Leclerc shrugged eloquently and resumed his eating. “Used to trap an’ trade with’em. Matter of fact, this here saloon used to be a tradin’ post until the freighters started comin’ by here regular, then I went in for rotgut instead of trade goods. More ready money an’ steadier customers. Less tension, too. Never could depend on them Injuns. Might come an’ trade today, then not show up again for a year.” He stuffed his mouth, and leaned back thoughtfully. “But I never thought they had the brains to join together in their fightin’.”

Doom pushed away his empty plate. “To tell the truth, I never did, either. In fact, the main reason I’m goin’ over to’em is to see if an idea I’ve got is right…about this here uprisin’.”

“What idea?”

“I figure it’s Mexicans or whites behind this thing. Maybe gunrunners or dishonest traders buyin’ their loot.” He arose and dug into a small pocket in the wide hem of his hunting shirt.

Leclerc guessed the frontiersman’s intentions and shook his head firmly. “Ferget it. We just had breakfast together.” Doom looked down at him and hesitated. “When you come back, if you do, stop in an’ let me know whether your idee is right or not, an’ we’ll call it square on the breakfast.”

T
he sun was coming lazily over the shrouded mountains, far to the east, by the time Caleb Doom’s big, sleek black horse was a small speck in the drowsing prairie that faced north and east from Dentón. He knew the Southwestern Indians as well as anyone on the frontier and was confident that he had not gone unnoticed by beady black eyes that kept a constant vigil on Dentón.

It was anyone’s guess where Red Sleeves’s camp was. It moved often and abruptly—partly through necessity, and partly through a restlessness that was typical of the short, powerful Apache chieftain. Caleb figured he’d meet his man soon enough, if he just kept riding into the known heartland of the Apache
ranchería.
The sun was directly overhead, a molten mass of purgatorial heat, when two slow-riding, vividly painted braves bisected his path. Doom stopped, relaxed, and waited. They slowed to a walk and came on, faces livid in red and black war colors and their short, husky bodies burned almost black by the blasting sun.

Doom saw many things as the Apaches came up, watching him with unblinking eyes, their hands curled handily around short, heavy Sharps carbines. Their horses were sweat-stained and a little gaunt,
but still fat. Stolen horses, settlers’ horses, more than likely. Both of the hostiles had a nap of scalps swinging gently at their belts, along with .44 pistols and the ever-present knives. The painted symbols indicated that the older of the two was a renowned warrior, while the younger was a novice.

They stopped about twenty feet from Doom, having studied him as they came on. They observed only the briefest silence, demanded by protocol, be-fore the elder—a man Doom’s own age—spoke. His eyes were broodingly venomous and his splendid form was corded with knotty hard muscles that had a liberal sprinkling of battle scars. He spoke Spanish, mother tongue of the old Southwest:
“¿ Qué dice
,
ojo claro? ¿Como se va?”

Doom looked directly into the other’s eyes and let a silent moment slip by before he answered in English. He affected not to understand Spanish, in accordance with a plan that he’d formulated as he rode. “I’m looking for a great Apache called Red Sleeves.”

The warrior frowned slightly and looked inquiringly at the younger man. This one couldn’t have been over nineteen or twenty years old; he had a smooth, round, pudgy face and a lean, tough body not yet filled out with the muscles and weight of maturity. The younger brave, still looking at Doom with curiosity, interpreted. The older man threw a quick, scornful smile at Doom and spoke to the younger man, who smiled triumphantly and nodded dryly. “We will take you to the
ranchería.
Come.”

Doom nodded pleasantly and rode with the Indians, who maintained a distance of about ten feet between the white man’s horse and their own. The ride was a silent one, although the attitude of the younger man was clearly one of curiosity.

Finally, as they neared a pine-scented pass that led into the dense growth of a low, rolling nest of verdant foothills, the young man spoke again. “What are you called?”

“Silent Outcast.”

The name had an instantaneous affect on the buck. He looked up, quick and startled, turned to his companion, and grunted in guttural Apache. The older man reined in closer and looked hard at Doom. He spoke in Spanish again and the novice interpreted in a voice tinged with respect.

“That is No Salt, my uncle. I am Free Man. No Salt asks if you were with the yellowlegs we fought at Bitter Springs and drove back to Fort Lauder?”

“Yes, I was guiding them to Dentón. When they fell back, I slipped away in the darkness, and rode to Dentón.”

No Salt listened to the interpretation with an in-tense look, gave a throaty, deep grunt of admiration. He had heard of Silent Outcast, the white warrior who had been disowned by the other whites—for what reason the Indians neither knew nor cared— and he felt the honor of riding with such a renowned warrior.

“¿No habla español?”
It was a sincere and earnest question. No Salt felt humiliation at having to talk to such a great fighting man through the mouth of a second person, and especially one so inexperienced and unproven as his nephew. Doom shrugged indifferently and looked at the younger man. Free Man shrugged and remained silent, aware of the purpose behind his uncle’s question.

The Apache encampment was a sprawling, primitive splash of vivid color in a secluded meadow. Doom was amazed at the size of it. There were
teepees, mud-daubed branch hogans like the Navajos make, crude brush shelters with skins tossed indifferently over them, and plain, open camp areas where weapons and personal belongings were strewn around on the trampled buffalo grass, or hanging listlessly from thick growths of chokecherry bushes. The horse herd, visible on another clearing through a thin screen of stately firs and pines, was huge. Indifferent herdsmen lounged beside horses with their heads down while watching the remuda graze in the tall, succulent meadow grass.

There was a quiet buzzing, intermingled with shrill oaths as squaws chased mangy, half-wild and sly dogs away from the cooking fires and stew pots. Now and then loud laughter would peal over the humming sound of the big camp, and the screams of children at play rode the afternoon air like a nostalgic benediction. No Salt motioned to Free Man, who swung away with a disappointed look and rode listlessly toward the camp of his people. The older warrior then motioned Doom to follow him, and they threaded their way through the maze of Indian camps until they dismounted before a brush lodge set a little apart from the others. No Salt importantly waved up a couple of young boys and growled succinctly at them. Each sprang forward and took the horses’ reins, big-eyed and staring at the white man.

Inside the cool, shady brush hut, Red Sleeves and three older men sat in stony-faced silence, looking at Caleb, as No Salt recited his meeting with the frontiersman. Red Sleeves motioned to the ground and Caleb sat, as did No Salt. Red Sleeves had been educated by a missionary and spoke good English, al-though he was not known to have any sympathies with the whites. “We know of you, Silent Outcast.”

It was neither a welcome nor a condemnation. The chief was waiting to hear Doom’s purpose in coming into his camp before he passed judgment.

“I am honored, although I am sad, too,” Doom said.

“We all are sad.” Red Sleeves spoke in a distrustful voice.

“The Apaches fought the soldiers a few days back and beat them,” Doom reminded.

The chieftain was a shrewd man. “Is that why you are sad? Because the Apaches whipped the
ojos
claros?”

“Yes, but my sadness comes from more than a victory or a defeat. It comes from my knowledge that the Apaches are fighting against something they can never conquer.”

“This,” said Red Sleeves, his eyes alive and hot, “is not the kind of a war you know, Silent Outcast. This is a great and righteous war, this is the kind of a war David fought with the enemies of the Mighty Host.”

Doom recognized the missionary’s teachings and wondered how they could be so twisted. He nodded as though in agreement, and Red Sleeves’s face lost some of its impassiveness. “You believe, then?”

“In part, yes. In part, no.”

“You speak a riddle.”

“No, Red Sleeves. I speak the mystic teachings of the Great Ones.” From the looks on their faces, two of the older men, sitting motionless and vacant-faced, as well as No Salt, didn’t understand the exchange of words at all. But the other man, about Red Sleeves’s own age, very dark with a hairline that left almost no forehead at all, unpainted like the others, was following the conversation with keen interest. Doom knew he understood.

“But the Great Ones say we have been wronged.”

“True, Red Sleeves. True. But the Apaches would have to number in the millions, not the hundreds and thousands, to avenge that wrong.”

Red Sleeves was plainly perplexed. “You agree that the Indian has been wronged, so you think like we do, but you don’t think he can avenge himself. What do you think the Indian should do, then?”

“Learn to live in this world that has always been his but which is changing now, by learning the ways of the new life. Learn to farm, to labor, to sew and build. Do all this in peace with the whites. Study their way and profit from it,” Doom said.

Red Sleeves’s eyes were hard and cold now. “No! The Indian is a free man. He does not imprison the ground in little fields by putting fences around them. He does not kill off the humpback and the antelope, so that he must bring in his own cattle and nurse them. He does not tear up the earth and smooth it out again, and plant grass where the Great Ones had already planted grass. The Indian is no slave. He is a free man. He does not want to live as the
ojos claws
live. It is better that he should die than to be a slave.”

Doom sat for a long moment in perfect, grave-faced silence. Red Sleeves’s outburst left him fieryeyed and breathing hard. He faced his councilors and launched forth into a violent harangue, in Apache, spitting and snarling words from his chest in a gurgling staccato of anger.

No Salt and two elders, who apparently didn’t un-derstand English, grunted and cast baleful glances at Doom. The unpainted man with the low forehead was smiling in a triumphant, lazy way. When Red Sleeves had stopped his tirade, this man’s voice, soft
and clear, came into the conversation in perfect English. Caleb was startled. “Your memory is poor, Caleb Doom. You don’t recall El Lobo, the Taos
Comanchero.”

The swarthy face was smiling expectantly. Doom recognized him then. Sam Ginn, one of that reckless, unscrupulous brotherhood of white and mixed-blood traders who were called
Comancheros
, or roaming traders. Some were honest, fearless men, but most were men who took the big gamble for a quick and rich profit. Of these latter, Sam Ginn was known as a half-breed Comanche, from the Mexican terri-tory that became Texas a little later. Here was a shrewd trader, waxing rich and safe where other, more decent men were leaving their bones to bleach under the savage, hot sun of the untamed land. Caleb had met Ginn before; he had ordered him off the base at Santa Fé several times. There was no re-spect or friendship here.

He inclined his head softly, a pensive, accusing light in his deep-set, gray eyes. “Sam, I thought it must be something like this. I figured someone must have stirred them up…someone who had an ability to organize and profiteer.”

Ginn shrugged indifferently, the cool smile still on his heavy face. “I don’t profiteer. Sell them a little powder, a few cases of contraband whiskey and bullets, trade for horses and jewelry of the whites they kill.” His shoulders rose and fell agreeably, leisurely. “Better I get it than it rot on the desert. Good business, Doom, that’s all. Good business.”

Doom motioned toward the Apache
n’deh b’keh
moccasins, the breechclout, and the scalping knife. “Playin’ Indian, Sam, so’s you won’t be caught by the soldiers and shot for a renegade?”

“Seguro.
That’s good business, too, ain’t it?” Ginn asked.

Doom turned to Red Sleeves, who was listening to the conversation. “You are making a mistake by letting this man talk up a war. He is a renegade. The Apaches do not like traitors any more than the whites do. This man.…”

Red Sleeves slashed the air with an impatient arm. “He is advisor to the Apaches. He brings us the things we need.” He shrugged indifferently. “He is well paid, but, as he has said, the trinkets we pay him with are of little value to us. It is a good trade.”

“Red Sleeves, you are bringing down fire and the sword on your own people. This man has talked you into a great wrong.”

“I don’t want to hear any more, Silent Outcast.”

Sam Ginn turned languidly to the chief. “Let’s take him on the raid with us tonight. It would be well if his corpse was found among the dead whites at Clearwater Springs.” The smile was full of hate now and the small, bird-like black eyes were cruel pools of resentment. “We would have the last laugh. The white soldiers would find him left behind by the Apaches and would think he was, indeed, a renegade…like they said he was when they drummed him out of their army at Santa Fé.”