McCrory's Lady (32 page)

      
Maggie Worthington McCrory was a fallen woman with a tawdry past, but did he love her in spite of it? Perhaps, a woman like Maggie was more suitable for him than Elizabeth had been. He and Elizabeth had never shared the fire that leapt between him and Maggie every time they came together. At first, that fact had made him feel guilty and angry. But gradually, as he had watched the way Maggie earned her niche at Crown Verde, providing stability in Eden's life and making friends with his people, Colin had felt the old wounds at last healing, the pain and guilt of Elizabeth's death fading.

      
His reverie was broken by the commotion as he approached the stables. He could hear Ansel Jetter sputtering, “Why, Mr. Potkin, this here's the gentlest horse I got, 'cept fer the one out back, 'n I'm fixin ta send him ta the glue factory this afternoon.”

      
Potkin, red-faced and perspiring in spite of the cool morning air, turned to Colin. “I had hoped to take a coach or at least a wagon onto the reservation. I'm afraid I'm not much of a horseman, Mr. McCrory.”

      
“Well, Ansel here could scare us up a wagon, I imagine; but considering how far out of the way the wagon road is, I'm not sure that'd be wise. How long do you plan to spend at the reservation?”

      
Potkin stroked his chin. “Why, I had thought we could ride out for the day.”

      
Colin resisted the temptation to laugh in Potkin's face. “White Mountain Reservation contains seventy-two hundred square miles. It'll take us almost the day to ride there. If we take the wagon supply route, it'll take an overnight camp before we reach the post.”

      
“Out in the open, on reservation land?” Potkin asked with a tremor in his voice.

      
“We could stay with some friends of mine—Nanchi and his wives. They're Tonto Apaches and very hospitable. I'm sure Sumi, his chief wife, would make us her famous stew out of deer's stomach filled with blood, chilies and wild onions.”

      
Potkin quickly averted his horror-filled eyes and reconsidered the docile gray gelding that Ansel was holding. “Very well, I suppose I can manage—in the interest of saving time.”

      
They rode for the better part of the morning, leaving the cooler high plateau area of Prescott and dropping into lower elevations. After crossing the Verde River with its rich grasslands, they headed southeast into what became an increasingly barren landscape with flat stretches of arid, sandy earth so dry the parched soil seemed to cry up to the heavens for rain. Scraggly greasewood and chollo grew in clumps beneath the merciless sun.

      
“On my trip from Santa Fe I thought the country desolate, but this is far worse,” Potkin said, wiping the rivulets of sweat pouring from his brow.

      
“This is real desert wasteland. As my foreman calls it, land so dry the trees would follow the dogs around for water...if there were any trees,” Colin replied.

      
“It's ghastly.”

      
Colin's expression was bleak. “That's precisely why the government let the Apaches have it. How long have you been with the bureau, Mr. Potkin?”

      
The older man cast a suspicious glance at his guide. “Six years.”

      
“Then you should remember the Apache relocations of 1875.” Obviously, Potkin did not. Colin decided to break the monotony of the ride by enlightening the investigator. “General Crook wasn't just a good Apache fighter. He'd had some real success with helping them to adapt to white ways—even got them to grow corn and hay for their livestock. Taught them to irrigate. Of course, the Tontos and Yavapais were living on the upper reaches of the Verde River then, above where my spread is located. They had plenty of water and good land there. But the Bureau of Indian Affairs seemed to have a more sympathetic ear for the Tucson merchants than for the Apaches—who had no one lobbying for them in Washington.

      
“It seems the merchants and stockmen around Tucson didn't want to lose their lucrative contracts supplying beef, cornmeal and all other sorts of food and goods to the Indian Agency at Camp Verde. If the Indians could feed themselves...” Colin shrugged and looked at Potkin levelly. “Well, that not only meant the merchants lost money cheating Indians, but they'd also lose their even more lucrative contracts supplying the Army. You don't need a large standing army if you have pacified Indians with full bellies. So, fourteen hundred Apaches were taken off good land at Camp Verde and sent into this scrub country—to wait for government handouts.

      
“The man who was your agent then was an idealistic young fool named Clum. He got the bright idea he could be the Apaches' savior if he could just herd them all together from around the territory. Washington was only too happy to oblige and issued orders to send all the diverse Apache bands to White Mountain—Coyoteros, Tontos with their allies the Yavapais, White Mountains, Cibeque, Chiricahua, Warm Springs, Mimbre, Pinal, Mogollon and Chilecon.” He paused. “Just to name some of them.”

      
“But they're all Apaches. They speak the same language. I see no harm in the government's attempt to monitor them in one area,” Potkin said impatiently as he sopped a water-soaked cloth over his burning neck.

      
Colin scowled as several of their armed escort grinned at Potkin's ignorance. “Let me make an analogy—just imagine taking the Irish, the Scots, the Welsh and the Cornish and placing them all on a barren patch of English soil. They can all speak the same language, but I haven't noticed in the past few hundred years that they like one another any the better for it.”

      
Potkin harrumphed. “I suppose you have a point.”

      
“Right now, there are over a dozen of these subgroups of Apaches all crowded onto this big brush pile—over five thousand men, women and children. At least they're here until another gold, silver or copper strike on reservation land makes it worth something to the white settlers. Then, the government will find some way to force the Apaches into an even worse place.”

      
Potkin shivered as if trying to imagine a worse place. The farther south they rode, the more barren the landscape became.

      
“The Apaches are mountain Indians,” Colin went on. “They can survive in the flat basins if there's enough water for crops and game, but white stockmen and farmers want that land. This is what's left. Even here, the Apache could survive if they were free to roam into the mountains and hunt. But they're tagged like dogs and confined to small enclosures with Lamp's reservation police checking on them to see they stay put. Some places on White Mountain Reservation can sustain livestock. Cattle, that is—the Apaches won't herd sheep like their hated enemies the Navaho. But even the cattle are too choice pickings to be left alone. I found some stolen reservation beef a couple of months ago. Looked like the US brand had been run over with WB.” He let the information about Barker's brand sink in.

      
Potkin sputtered. “Do you have proof that Mr. Barker was involved in such thievery?”

      
“I will,” Colin replied grimly. “In the meanwhile, I can show you how the Apaches really live—and die. Try to reconcile that with the supply requisitions and receipts that Caleb Lamp and Win Barker will show you.”

      
Potkin looked highly skeptical. “Lamp may be in need of dismissal, but I find it very difficult to credit that a leading businessman of the territory such as Winslow Barker is involved in such chicanery.”

      
Colin McCrory had never been a patient man, but he ground his teeth and reined in his temper. Perhaps the shock of seeing the living conditions around the supply posts would register with this vain, foolish man.

      
Shortly after noon, they came upon the first small encampment of White Mountain Apaches. Their small brush wickiups sat sweltering under the blistering sun. A couple of scrawny horses, their ribs clearly outlined, stood listlessly staked to the barren yellow earth. A small cluster of scrub pines provided the only natural shade on the flat open terrain. Beneath the shaggy limbs several men sat, one laboriously sharpening a knife on a crude whetstone. They wore only breechclouts and leather moccasins. Their shaggy long hair was held back by thick rolled bands of what had once been brightly colored cloth, now faded and grimy. Some had blue tattoos on their chins and foreheads, adding to the savage mien created by watchful black eyes that studied the mounted and heavily armed whites.

      
As the riders neared, women engaged in various camp chores paused and stared stoically at the intruders, their faces unreadable, their bodies covered from neck to feet with shapeless tunic blouses and full skirts of dingy cotton. Some of them also sported tattoos similar to those of the men, but their hair was either worn loosely or tied in back of their heads with heavy leather ornaments. A few carried papooses strapped to their backs on cradle boards. Others watched as naked children sat in the meager shade afforded by the brush wickiups. The younger ones played with crude toys. Many merely stared listlessly at the heat and dust around them. There was no laughter.

      
Here and there a crude iron cook pot bubbled over an open fire. The aroma was not enticing. Several women labored carrying huge woven baskets supported on their backs by head straps. These were filled with water from a sluggish stream at the far end of the village.

      
The Apaches' nominal leader, recognizing Colin, rose slowly on sinewy arthritic legs and walked toward the riders as McCrory dismounted. They conducted an extended conversation in the Athapaskan dialect, which sounded like guttural gibberish to Potkin, who remained mounted. Then, Colin turned and signaled for the investigator to join them, which the latter unwillingly did.

      
“This is Bonito. He's the leader of this village.” Colin introduced Potkin, who stared at the metal tag suspended on a thin rawhide thong around the chief's scrawny neck.

      
Bonito held out the tag. “VC,” he said in a raspy voice. “Agent Lamp give me when I bring my people to him. All have.” He gestured around the encampment. “Lamp promise cows, corn, blankets.”

      
“Let him show you what the allotment was last month,” Colin said to Potkin, who followed the chief to one of the cook pots, filled with some noisome, grayish substance. “The cornmeal is so full of weevils and other bugs it's rotten. All they can do is boil it and eat it that way. They've seen no beef since one steer was given them to slaughter last spring. One steer for fifty people.”

      
Bonito then ducked into the wickiup behind him and Colin held the door flap open for Potkin, who hesitated until Colin prodded, “You're an investigator, aren't you?”

      
The older man stepped inside the small, hot shelter and nearly gagged on the smell of stale, sour sweat mixed with the potent aroma of
tiswin
, the native beer fermented from mescal. The remains of the last batch coated the bottom of a tin bucket sitting against the wall. A few rusty implements for digging, two woven baskets and some leather pouches sat beside the bucket. Across from them lay a pile of filthy blankets. The old man picked one up and thrust it at Potkin, who recoiled—until he encountered the solid wall of McCrory's body.

      
“Feel the blanket.” There was steel in Colin's voice.

      
“I’ll get lice,” Potkin hissed beneath his breath, but reluctantly complied, wanting nothing so much as to get out of the stultifying atmosphere before he suffocated. “It is thin,” he conceded, rubbing the threadbare cloth between his fingers gingerly.

      
“You think it got that way from too much washing?” Colin asked wryly.

      
They returned to the blinding sunlight and Potkin sucked a lungful of air gratefully.

      
“You saw the condition of that wickiup—the food bags are empty, the tools they used to dig locust pods and mescal roots and to prepare acorns are rusted with disuse. There are no locusts or oaks close enough for them to harvest. They've dug out all the century plants in the vicinity. They're tagged and checked by Lamp's reservation police to see they don't leave their assigned area. There's no way to gather foods, cultivate crops or hunt game for meat and skins in this area. They've been made dependent on government rations. Rations that aren't being given out.”

      
Colin spoke a few more words with Bonito, then they made their farewells. The whites rode away in a cloud of dust, which the Apaches ignored stoically, staring after them with fathomless black eyes.

      
“Egad, I never saw such filth!” Potkin said, taking another cleansing breath of air.

      
“You saw their water supply. It's barely enough for cooking and drinking. Apaches in the wild were clean Indians. All their religious ceremonies, even their daily rituals, called for cleansing the body to please the spirits. But small groups like this have become so demoralized with starvation and disease that they've given up. They're losing their culture and religion, not just their physical cleanliness.”

      
“Have you spent time among the savage ones?”

      
Potkin's question caught Colin off guard for an instant. His face was set grimly as he replied, “You could say that.”

* * * *

      
It was late evening when they rode into the San Carlos village and post. All were filthy and exhausted, none more so than Leonard Potkin, who regarded the scorched flatland dotted with sparse mesquite. The wickiups lay scattered around the large adobe building that housed the agency. Now that the sun had sunk below the horizon, the thin desert air was decidedly chill and a wind had come up. Even the dubious hospitality of Caleb Lamp looked inviting as the agent, flanked by his reservation police, came out to greet them.