Tom Horn And The Apache Kid (7 page)

Horn lay on the cot in the quarters he shared with Sieber and the Kid. Sieber stretched out in the cot across the room. The
third bunk was empty. Years ago Sieber had appropriated an adobe structure for himself and his sons. The adobe was composed
of two rooms, each sixteen feet square. Each had an earth floor and three windows with four small glass panes each. The first
room served as a combination parlor-kitchen. The three scouts slept in the other room whenever they were at Fort Bowie. More
often, they slept in the desert or the mountains under the naked sky.

Horn had picked up the Apache Kid’s knife on the way out of Doctor Barnes’s waiting room. A glint of moonlight through the
window reflected on the blade as Horn turned it by the hilt in his hand. He rose from the cot and walked toward the west window.

“Al, you ever see an Apache get his day in court?”

“What’re you saying?” Sieber did not stir from his bunk. Horn knew that the old scout’s rheumatism had bunched up on him.

“I’m saying maybe we ought to bust the Kid out of there.”

“You off your feed?” Sieber croaked.

“Maybe we’ll hear from Crook, and maybe we won’t. He doesn’t have any authority around here anyhow. All he can do is recommend.
Miles’ll just use that recommendation to light one of his cigars.”

“Not if the recommendation comes from Sherman or Sheridan.”

“Army channels take time, too much time— probably more than the Kid’s got before they haul him out of here. And I know the
governor’s your friend, but I’m not sure this is a civilian matter, and neither are you. It’s all right to try to boost the
Kid’s spirits, but between you and me, I don’t think he’s got any more chance than a wax cat in hell.”

“You could be right about that.”

“I been in jail a couple times myself. I know what it’ll be like for him.”

“So?”

“So, maybe we ought to bust him out.”

“Tom, you’re a bright young fella, but sometimes I think your brains are on vacation. Even if we wanted to, how in the hell
could we do it? He’s not inside some goddamn plum pudding. That jail’s made out of stone and iron, with locks, and guarded
by friends of ours. You think they’ll just look the other way? Or you figure on shootin ’em down?”

“There’s got to be a way.”

“Even if he did get out, you know what it’d be like for him to be a wanted man the rest of his life?”

“Better than that swamp—and Geronimo.”

“Besides, we couldn’t get him out of there without being recognized ourselves. Hell, Miles’d be after
our
asses too. No. We got to do it legal, and you know it.”

“Yeah, I know it. But I just had to say it anyhow.”

“Well, now that you said it, forget it.”

Horn walked back toward his bunk. He stuck the knife into the table in the center of the room. There was a whiskey bottle
on the table—an empty whiskey bottle.

“I’m going out,” said Horn. “Want to come along?”

“Where?”

“Do some drinking—and thinking. You coming?”

“Nope.”

A nighthawk sounded through the darkness as Tom Horn walked past the bare flagpole in the center of Fort Bowie’s compound.
Like all the forts in the territory, Fort Bowie had been built since the Civil War. When fighting broke out between the states
the United States Army troopers were ordered to withdraw from Arizona and participate in the internecine slaughter. Some of
those troopers traded in their blue uniforms for gray before going about the business of bloodletting.

But when the troops withdrew, they were ordered to dismantle or burn all the forts in the territory so they could not be used
by the Apaches against the white miners, settlers, cowboys and ranchers.

Most of the white population left the meadows, deserts, and ranches and fled to the larger towns, which afforded them protection
from the rampant natives.

After the “secession” question was settled by bloodbath, the army reentered the Arizona Territory and built new forts at Bowie,
Whipple, Defiance, Apache, Lowell, and other bastions of defense and offense to settle the “redskin” question. Most of those
redskins were Apaches.

There were seven thousand Apaches when the Cochise War broke out. In ten years the American government spent more than thirty-eight
million dollars to exterminate the Apache population. During that campaign seven thousand
one hundred
survived. The Indians succeeded in reproducing faster than the United States Army could reduce them.

Of those original seven thousand Apaches, only two thousand were fighting men. The other five thousand were women and children
or old men too feeble to fight.

But the government policy helped defeat itself, because in reality there were two policies working at cross purposes. The
Department of Interior’s intention was to protect the Apaches, but the War Department, through its army, vowed to exterminate
those same Apaches.

No one succeeded in explaining all this to the Indians who had lived here hundreds of years under the curious notion that
this was their land. When the United States acquired almost fifty thousand square miles from Mexico for ten million dollars,
under the Gadsden Purchase of 1853, no one sat down and talked about the deal to the seven thousand Apaches who populated
the territory.

The Apaches had never acknowledged the soverignty of either Mexico or Spain, and now they had to bargain with the Americans
over their own
property rights. So the United States government, feeling a mite guilty about these troublesome natives, fed and penned them
with one hand while trying to shoot them dead with the other.

Meanwhile, a lot of people—not Apaches—got rich, and the railroad came through.

Tom Horn reflected on all this as he headed toward Van Zeider’s
cantina
. He noted that the lamps in Ryan’s store were all out. He imagined that Shana Ryan was probably asleep in the small apartment
behind the store, in the room where he and Tim had sometimes sat through most of the night and talked about the future of
the West. And now Shana Ryan slept in that room. Tom thought of her long, flowing flaxen hair. Then he made his mind drift in
a different direction, toward Van Zeider’s
cantina,
where the lamps were still lit.

But Shana Ryan was not in bed. She stood in the darkness of the store and watched Tom Horn’s strong silhouette moving away
from her through the placid spring night.

It was almost midnight when Horn entered the open door of the
cantina
. Some of the damage still showed. The window had been repaired, but the broken mirror had not been replaced. Most of the
soldiers had turned in a long time ago, but five were still there playing poker at a far table. There was another game going
on with four civilian participants.

The same bald-headed, bow-legged old coot who had acted as messenger was leaning on the bar talking to Peg until Horn stepped
in. They stopped talking. Everyone stopped talking.

Horn took two more steps, wiped his mouth,
and looked directly at Peg, who didn’t know what to do or say.

“Evening, Peg,” said Horn. “You can leave that scattergun just where it rests.”

“Yes, sir,” said Peg. “Look, Mr. Horn, I’m just a poor, one-legged bartender trying to make a living.”

“Who said otherwise?” Horn replied.

“Just remember that,” Peg said, then hollered out toward the back room, “Mr. Van Zeider!”

Tom Horn stood waiting.

The door opened, and Karl Van Zeider walked through, then stopped at the sight of Horn. But Van Zeider collected himself quickly.
He smoothly fingered the fob at his vest. “Look here, Mr. Horn,” Van Zeider said firmly, “I don’t want any more trouble around
here.”

Horn took a step forward and said nothing.

“I don’t want to have to send for the army,” Van Zeider warned.

“Don’t worry, Van Zeider,” Horn said. “You won’t have to send for the army…or the marines.” He took another step closer.
“I just want you to take a good look at me. Go ahead and look.”

“What for?” Van Zeider asked uncertainly.

“To make sure.”

“Of what?”

Horn let the moment hang.

“That I’m not an Indian,” he answered at last.

“What?” Van Zeider laughed.

“Look! Look and make sure. Am I an Indian?”

Karl Van Zeider looked at Horn for a moment; then his eyes swept to the card players, then across to Peg and back to Horn.

“No. You’re not an Indian,” Van Zeider affirmed.

“Good,” Horn nodded. “Can a non-Indian buy a drink in this place?”

“Why, yes. Sure.” Van Zeider relaxed and smiled. “Sure! Peg, give Mr. Horn a drink. Give him all the drinks he wants to buy.
His money’s just as good as any other white man’s. Make yourself comfortable, Mr. Horn, but you’ll have to excuse me.” Van
Zeider nodded toward the back room. “I’ve got some bookkeeping to take care of. Good night, gentlemen.”

Van Zeider turned briskly, walked through the backroom door, then closed and locked it.

Horn moved to the bar. The old coot took a step to the side, giving Horn some more room, even though he had more than he needed.
Horn reached in his pocket and put money on the bar. Peg produced a bottle and placed a whiskey glass beside it.

Horn took the bottle, bit off the cork, and spat it away.

“We won’t need that,” he said. “And Peg, bring up a bigger glass.”

“Sure thing, Mr. Horn,” Peg said, and brought up a tumbler. “How’s this?”

“Just about right.” Horn picked up the bottle and the glass and walked away from the bar. “I’ll sit at my usual table.”

Horn went to the window table at which Sieber, Crane, and the Apache Kid had sat, settled in a chair, and poured whiskey into
the tumbler until it was half full.

Horn drank.

Half an hour later the soldiers broke up their poker game and left.

Horn drank.

In another half hour the four civilians cashed in their game and filed out.

Horn drank.

Outside under a star-spilled sky, the Fort lay quiet like a becalmed solitary ship at sea.

Horn drank.

In the back room, Karl Van Zeider whispered to one of his teamsters, Pete Curtain. Curtain had participated along with Emile
in the fracas that led to Emile’s hospitalization.

“Everything set?” Van Zeider inquired.

“Yep. Dynamite, wagon, rifles, and two of Geronimo’s bucks fresh off San Carlos. But I don’t think they got a Chinaman’s chance.”

“Another thinker,” Van Zeider said almost to himself.

“You said what?” Pete Curtain inquired.

“I said there’s the door.” Van Zeider pointed to the door leading to the back alleyway.

When Curtain left, Van Zeider removed the gold watch from his vest pocket and thumbed open the hunting case. It was exactly
1:00 a.m.

Tom Horn stared at the empty whiskey bottle on the table. He had consumed its contents, all but the couple of ounces of fiery
fluid still in the tumbler he held in his right hand. The whiskey burning in his belly and brain did nothing to sort out and
settle the problems he, Sieber, and the Apache Kid had—especially the Kid.

He thought to himself, All the whiskey in the world won’t justify God’s ways to man—or man’s ways to man.

“Beg pardon, Mr. Horn.” Peg limped a couple of steps down the bar closer to Horn. “But it’s time.”

“What?”

“It’s time to go.”

“Where?”

“I mean, we’re closing up.” Peg wiped the top of the battered bar with a towel.

Horn looked around the room and saw that it was empty. Even the old coot had taken leave. Horn thought, I must have been somewhere
else, all right. Didn’t even notice Baldy when he left.

“All right, Peg, ol’ partner.” Horn rose, finished off the tumbler, walked to the bar, and put money there. “That’s good whiskey.
It’d turn the dev il against sin. Better give me one for the road, friend Peg—one bottle.”

“Yes, sir.” The amputee produced another bottle and placed it near the money.

“Well,” said Horn, taking the bottle and walking toward the door, “I think I’ll go out and talk to a hooty owl. They’re wise
old birds, those hooty owls. Maybe I can find me one and talk to him. Wise old owl might know the answers, ’cause I sure as
hell don’t, and neither do you—do you, old friend Peg?”

“No, sir, Mr. Horn. I sure as hell don’t.”

Bottle in hand, Horn walked out of the
cantina
and breathed deep of the warm, thin air. Fort Bowie was quiet, at peace. Miles hadn’t even posted sentries.

The war was over.

“God’s in his heaven,” Horn half whispered to himself. “All the Apaches penned up—and all’s right with the world. But I got
to find me a hooty owl.” He walked along the building until he came to Ryan’s store. Horn pulled the cork from the bottle
and looked into the stem. He brought the bottle up close to his right eye. “Hello, hooty owl. I know you’re in there. Come
on out and talk to me. I got to ask you some questions. Playing it cagey, huh? Well, I know how to get you out.”

Horn put the bottle to his mouth and drank. Then he placed one hand against a post and leaned over to vomit. He tried. Nothing
came up, but the attempt made him dizzy and weak. He raised the bottle toward his face again.

“Hooty owl, I’m coming in after you....”

“Tom, are you all right?” Shana Ryan opened the door and stood with a robe around her night-clothes. “Tom?”

“First-rate.” Horn’s words slurred just a little. “I am first-rate, Miz Shana.”

“Who are you talking to?” Shana smiled.

“I’m talking to the wise old hooty owl,” Horn said, holding up the bottle, “but he won’t come out and talk to me.”

“Oh, yes, of course.” Shana nodded. “I see. I also think you better come inside. I’ll heat the coffeepot.” She reached a hand
to Horn’s arm and guided him through the door.

They made their way through the dark store and into the apartment.

“You think that old hooty owl might be in the coffeepot?” asked Tom.

“He might be.” Shana directed Horn to a couch, and he sat.

In a few minutes he had a hot mug of coffee in his hand. “I set out to find a hooty owl,” said Horn, still showing the effects
of the whiskey he had gone up
against, “and instead I found a bird of paradise. Miz Shana, you are purely a bird of paradise.”