Chapter Fifteen
GERONIMO had surrendered! For the first time in three hundred years the white invaders of Apacheland slept in peace. All of the renegades were prisoners of war in Florida. Right, at last, had prevailed. Once more a Christian nation had exterminated a primitive people who had dared defend their homeland against a greedy and ruthless invader.
Imprisoned with the renegades, and equally prisoners of war, were Apaches who had long been loyal and faithful servants to the government; but what of that! Who was there to defend a friendless people?—friendless and voteless.
Transported from the hot, dry uplands of their native country to the low, damp, malarial surroundings of their prison, the Apaches sickened and died; others, unable to endure confinement, suffering the pangs of homesickness, took their own lives.
And down in Sonora, in the inaccessible depths of the Mother of Mountains, Shoz-Dijiji and Nejeunee shared the hunting and the pasture with the cougar and the mountain sheep. They trod in the footsteps of God, where man and horse had never walked before. No man saw them and, for months on end, they saw no man.
Long since had Shoz-Dijiji washed the war paint from his face. He was a hunter now, and upon the rare occasions that he saw other human beings he experienced no urge to kill them.
He had thought it all out during the long, lonely days and nights. Geronimo had made treaties with the Mexicans and with the pindah-lickoyee. He had promised that the Apaches would fight no more against them. That treaty, Shoz-Dijiji felt, bound him, for there were no other Apaches than he. He could not, as yet, think of himself as a pindah-lickoyee. He was an Apache—the last of the Apaches.
He promised himself that he would not kill again except in self-defense. He would show them that it was not the Apaches who broke treaties, but experience warned him that the only way to keep peace was to keep hidden from the eyes of man. He knew that the first one who saw him would shoot at him, if he dared, and that thereafter he would be hunted like the coyote and the cougar.
“Only we shall know that we are keeping the treaty, Nejeunee,” he said, and the pinto stallion nuzzled his shoulder in complete accord with this or any other view that his beloved master might hold.
Accustomed to being much alone though he was, yet the man often longed for the companionship of his kind. He conjured pictures of camps beneath the pines and cedars of his beloved Arizona hills, of little fires before rude hogans of boughs and skins. He saw Geronimo and Sons-ee-ah-ray squatting there; and with them was Shoz-Dijiji, son of the war chief. These three were always laughing and happy.
Gian-nah-tah came to the fire, and Ish-kay-nay. Sometimes these were little children and again they were grown to young man- and womanhood. He saw many others. Squat, grim warriors, slender youths, lovely maidens whose great, dark eyes looked coquettishly at Shoz-Dijiji.
Most of these were dead. The others, bitter, sullen, had marched away into captivity.
Another figure came, but not to the camp fires of the Shis-Inday. This one came, always, riding a pony over sun scorched hills. Shoz-Dijiji took her in his arms; but she drew away, striking at him. He saw in her eyes, then, a look that he called the snake-look. It made him sad and yet this picture came most often to his mind.
He wondered if the snake look would come if she knew that he was a pindah-lickoyee like herself. Perhaps she would not believe it. It was difficult for him to believe it himself. Had any other than Geronimo told him he would not have believed it, but he knew that Geronimo would not lie to him.
Well, she would never know it. It was a shame and a disgrace that he would hide from the knowledge of all men as long as he lived. A white-eyes! Usen! What had Shoz-Dijiji done to deserve this?
But, after all, hewaswhite, he mused. From that fact he could never escape, and it was very lonely living in the mountains forever with only Nejeunee. Perhaps the white girl would believe him; and if she did would it not be better to go and live among the white-eyes as one of them?
He recalled how he used to pity any who had been born white. It would not have been quite so bad had he been born a Mexican, for he knew that there was Indian blood in many of the Mexicans he had known. It would have comforted him had he known that the grandfather of his mother had been a full blooded Cherokee, but he did not know that. He was never to know it, for he was never to know even the names of his father and mother.
He tried to argue with himself that it was no disgrace to be white. Wichita Billings was white, and he thought none the less of her; Lieutenant King was white, and he knew that he was a fine, brave warrior; and there had been Captain Crawford, and there was Lieutenant Gatewood. These men he admired and respected.
Yes, it was all right for them to be white; but still the thought that Shoz-Dijiji, war chief of the Be-don-ko-he, was white seemed all wrong. He could not forget the pride that had always filled his heart because of the fact that he was an Apache. He had been a great Apache warrior. As a white man he would be nothing. If he went to live among them he would have to wear their hideous clothing and live in their stuffy houses; and he would have to live like the poorest of them, for he would have no money. No, he could not do it.
He thought about the matter a great deal. The lonelier he became the more he thought about it. Wichita Billings was constantly the center of his thoughts. His mind also dwelled upon memories of happy camping places of the past, and it seemed that the sweetest memories hung about the home camps of Arizona.
His lonely heart yearned not only for human companionship but for the grim country that was home to him. Something was happening to Shoz-Dijiji. He thought that he was sick and that he was going to die. He was homesick.
“I could go back and die in my own mountains,” he thought. The idea made him almost happy. He stroked Nejeunee’s soft muzzle and his sleek, arched neck. “How would you like to go home, Nejeunee?” asked Shoz-Dijiji. Nejeunee, after the manner of stallions, nipped the bronze shoulder of his master; but whether it was to signify approbation of the suggestion or was merely in the nature of a caress, only Nejeunee knew.
Lieutenant Samuel Adams King sat beneath one of the cottonwood trees that stands in front of the ranch house of the Crazy B Ranch, his chair tilted back against the bole of the tree. Near him sat Wichita Billings, her fingers busily engaged in the work that was commanding their attention. She might have been embroidering her initials upon a pillow slip or fashioning some dainty bit of lingerie, but she was not. She was cleaning a six-shooter.
“It sure seems tame around these parts now,” she remarked. “Do you know I almost miss being scared out of seven years’ growth every once in a while since the ‘bronchos’ were rounded up and shipped to Florida.”
“I suppose you are cleaning that pistol, then, just as a sentimental reminder of the happy days that are gone,” laughed King.
“Not entirely,” she replied. “There are still plenty of bad hombres left—all the bad ones weren’t Indians, not by a jug full.”
“I suppose not,” agreed King. “As a matter of fact I doubt if the Apaches were responsible for half the killings that have been laid at their door; and, do you know, Chita, I can’t bring myself to believe even yet that it was an Apache that killed your father. We got it pretty straight from some of the renegades themselves that at the time they were all with Geronimo in the mountains near Hot Springs, except those that were still in Sonora, and Shoz-Dijiji.”
“Well, that narrows it down pretty close to one man, doesn’t it?” demanded the girl, bitterly.
“Yes, Chita,” replied King, “but I can’t believe that he did it. He spared my life twice merely because I was your friend. If he could do that, how could he have killed your father?”
“I know, Ad. I’ve argued it out a hundred times,” said the girl, wearily; “but—that thousand dollars reward still stands.”
“The chances are that it will stand forever, then,” said King. “Shoz-Dijiji didn’t come in with the other renegades; and, of course, you can’t get anything out of them; but it is better than an even bet that he was killed in Sonora during one of the last engagements. I know several bucks were killed; but they usually got them away and buried them, and they never like to talk about their dead.”
“I hope to God that he is dead,” said the girl.
King shook his head. He knew how bitterly she must feel—more bitterly, perhaps, because the man she suspected was one to whom she had given her friendship and her aid when he was bearing arms against her country.
He had not told her of his conviction that Shoz-Dijiji and the dread Apache Devil were one and the same; and he did not tell her, for he knew that it would but tend to further assure her of the guilt of the Apache. There were two reasons why he did not tell her. One was his loyalty to the savage enemy who had befriended him and who might still be living. The other was his belief that Wichita Billings had harbored a warmer feeling than friendship for the war chief of the Be-don-ko-he, and King was not the type of man who takes an unfair advantage of a rival.
Perhaps it galled this scion of an aristocratic Boston family to admit, even to himself, that an untutored savage might have been his rival in seeking the hand of a girl; but he did not permit the suspicion to lessen his sense of gratitude to Shoz-Dijiji or dim the genuine respect he felt for the courage and honor of that savage warrior.
For a time the two sat in silence, Wichita busy with her revolver, King feasting his eyes upon her regular profile.
“Everything on the ranch running smoothly?” he asked, presently.
Wichita shook her head. “Not like they did when Dad was here,” she admitted. “The boys are good to me, but it’s not like having a man at the head of things. Some of them don’t like ‘Smooth’ and I’ve lost several of my best men on that account. A couple of them quit, and ‘Smooth’ fired some. I can’t interfere. As long as he’s foreman he’s got to be foreman. The minute the boys think I’ve lost confidence in him he won’t have any more authority over them than a jack rabbit.”
“Are you satisfied with him?” asked King.
“Well—he sure knows his business,” she replied; “you’d have to hunt a month of Sundays before you found a better cow man; but he can’t get the work out of his men. They don’t feel any loyalty for him. They used to cuss Dad; and I’ve seen more than one of them pull a gun on him, but they’d work their fool heads off for him. They’d get sore as pups and quit; but they always came back—if he’d take them—and when he died, Ad, I saw men crying that I bet hadn’t cried before since they were babies.”
“That is like the old man,” said King, thinking of his troop commander. “Gosh! How I have hated that fellow—and while I’m hating him I can’t help but love him. There are men like that, you know.”
“They are the real men, I guess,” mused Wichita; “they don’t grow on every sage brush, not by a long shot.”
“Why don’t you sell out, Chita?” King asked her. “This is no job for a girl—it’s a man’s job, and you haven’t the man for it.”
“Lord, I wouldn’t know what to do, Ad,” she cried. “I’d be plumb lost. Why, this is my life—I don’t know anything else. I belong here on a cow ranch in Arizona, and here I’m going to stay.”
“But you don’t belong here, Chita,” he insisted. “You belong on a throne, with a retinue of slaves and retainers waiting on you.”
She leaned back and laughed merrily. “And the first thing I’d know the king would catch me eating peas with my knife and pull the throne out from under me.”
“I’m serious, Chita,” urged King. “Come with me; let me take you away from this. The only throne I can offer you is in my heart, but it will be all yours—forever.”
“I’d like to, Ad,” she replied. “You don’t know how great the temptation is, but——”
“Then why not?” he exclaimed, rising and coming toward her. “We could be married at the post; and I could get a short leave, I’m sure, even though I haven’t been in the service two years. All your worries about the ranch would be over. You wouldn’t have anything to do, Chita, but be happy.”
“It wouldn’t be fair, Ad,” she said.
“Fair? What do you mean?” he demanded.
“It wouldn’t be fair to you.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know whether I love you enough or not.”
“I’ll take the chance,” he told her. “I’ll make you love me.”
She shook her head. “If I was going to marry a man and face a life that I was sure was going to be worse than the one I was leaving, I’d know that I loved him; and I wouldn’t hesitate a minute; but if I marry you it might just be because what you have to offer me looks like heaven compared to the life I’ve been leading since Dad died. I think too much of you and my self-respect to take the chance of waking up to the fact some day that I don’t love you. That would be Hell for us both, Ad; and you don’t deserve it—you’re too white.”
“I tell you that I’m perfectly willing to take the chance, Chita.”
“Yes, but I won’t let you. Wait a while. If I really love you I’ll find it out somehow, and you’ll know it—if you don’t I’ll tell you—but I’m not sure now.”
“Is there someone else, Chita?”
“No!” she cried, and her vehemence startled him.
“I’ll wait, then, because I have to wait,” he said, “and in the meantime if there is any way in which I can help you, let me do it.”
“Well,” she said, laughing, “you might teach the cows how to drill. I can’t think of anything else around a cow outfit, right off-hand, that you could do. Sometimes it seems to me like they didn’t have any cows back where you came from.”
King laughed. “They used to. All the streets in Boston were laid out by cows, they say.”
“Out here,” said Chita, “we drive our cows—we don’t follow them.”
“Perhaps that’s the difference between the East and the West,” said King. “Out here you blaze your own trails. I guess that’s where you get your self-confidence and initiative.”
“And it may account for some of our shortcomings, too,” she replied. “When you’re just following cows you have lots of time to think of other things and improve yourself, but when you’re driving them you haven’t time to think of anything except just cows. That’s the fix I’m in now.”
“When you have discovered that you might learn to love me you will have time for other things,” he reminded her.
“Time to improve myself?” she teased.
“Nothing could improve you in my eyes, Chita,” he said, honestly. “To me you are perfect.”
“If Margaret Cullis hadn’t taught me that it was vulgar I should say ‘Rats’ to that.”
“Please don’t.”
“I won’t,” she promised. “And now you must run along. You know your orders never said anything about spending two hours at the Billings ranch this afternoon. What will your detachment think?”
“They’ll think I’m a fool if I don’t stay all afternoon and ride back to the post in the cool of the night.”
“And get court martialed when you get there. Boots and saddles for you, Lieutenant Samuel Adams King!”
“Yes, sir!” he cried, clicking his heels together and saluting. Then he seized her hand and kissed it.
“Don’t!” she whispered, snatching it away. “Here comes Luke.”
“I don’t care if the World’s coming.”
“That’s because you don’t know what it is to be joshed by a bunch of cow-punchers,” she told him. “Say, why when it comes to torture, Victorio and Geronimo and old Whoa could have gone to school to some of these red necks from the Pan Handle.”
“All right, I won’t embarrass you. Good-bye and good luck, and don’t forget the message I brought from Mrs. Cullis. She wants you to come and spend a week or so with her.”
“Tell her I thank her heaps and that I’ll come the first chance I get. Good-bye!”
She watched him walk away, tall, erect, soldierly; trim in his blue blouse, his yellow striped breeches, his cavalry boots, and campaign hat—a soldier, every inch of him and, though still a boy, a veteran already.
And she sighed—sighed because she did not love him, sighed because she was afraid that she would never love him. Lines of bitterness touched the corners of her mouth and her eyes as she thought of the beautiful and priceless thing that she had thrown away—wasted upon a murdering savage—and a flush of shame tinged her cheeks.
Her painful reveries were interrupted by the voice of Luke Jensen.
“I jest been ridin’ the east range, Miss,” he said.
“Yes? Everything all right?”
“I wouldn’t say thet it was an’ I wouldn’t say thet it wasn’t,” he replied.
“What’s wrong?”
“You recollect thet bunch thet always hung out near the head o’ the coulee where them cedars grows out o’ the rocks?”
“Yes, what about them?”
“They’s about half of ’em gone. If they was all gone I’d think they might have drifted to some other part o’ the range; but they was calves, yearlin’s, and some two an’ three year olds still follerin’ their mothers in thet bunch; an’ a bunch like thet don’t scatter fer no good reason.”
“No. What do you make of it, Luke?”
“If the renegades warnt all c’ralled I’d say Apaches.”
“ ‘Kansas’ reported another bunch broken up that ranges around the Little Mesa,” said Wichita, thoughtfully. “Do you reckon it’s rustlers, Luke?”
“I wouldn’t say it was an’ I wouldn’t say it wasn’t.”
“What does ‘Smooth’ say?”
“He allows they just natch’rally drifted.”
“Are you riding the east range every day, Luke?”
“Most days. Course it takes me nigh onto a week to cover it, an’ oncet in a while ‘Smooth’ sends me som’ers else. Yistiddy, he sent me plumb down to the south ranch—me an’ ‘Kansas.’ ”
“Well, keep your eyes open for that bunch, Luke—they might have drifted.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say they would of and I wouldn’t say they wouldn’t of.”
“How would you like to go home, Nejeunee?”
“How would you like to go home, Nejeunee?”
Chapter Sixteen
LUIS MARIEL, profiting by the example of the Americanos, stood up to “Dirty” Cheetim’s bar and drank cheap whiskey.
“Wot you doin’, Kid?” asked Cheetim.
“Nothing,” replied Luis.
“Want a job, or hev you still got some dinero left?”
“I want a job,” replied Luis. “I am broke.”
“You got a hoss, ain’t you?”
“Si, Senor.”
“Come ’ere,” he motioned Luis to follow him into the back room.
There Luis saw a tall man with sandy hair sitting at a table, drinking.
“Here’s a good kid fer us,” said Cheetim to the sandy haired man. “He ain’t been up here long; an’ nobody don’t know him, an’ he don’t know nobody.”
“Does he savvy U. S.?” demanded the man.
“Si, Senor,” spoke up Luis. “I understand pretty good. I speak it pretty good, too.”
“Can you keep your mouth shut?”
“Si, Senor.”
“If you don’t, somebody’ll shut it for you,” said the man, drawing his forefinger across his throat meaningly. “You savvy?”
“What is this job?” demanded Luis.
“You ain’t got nothin’ to do but herd a little bunch o’ cattle an’ keep your trap closed. If anyone asks you any questions in United States you don’t savvy; and if they talk Greaser to you, why you don’t know nothin’ about the cattle except that a kind old gentleman hired you to ride herd on ’em.”
“Si, Senor.”
“You get thirty five a month an’ your grub—twenty five fer ridin’ herd an’ the rest fer not knowin’ nothin’. How about it?”
“Sure, Senor, I do it.”
“All right, you come along with me. We’ll ride out, an’ I’ll show you where the bunch is,” and the sandy haired man gulped down another drink and arose.
He led Luis north into the reservation, and at last they came to a bunch of about fifty head grazing contentedly on rather good pasture.
“They ain’t so hard to hold,” said the sandy haired man, “but they got a hell of a itch to drift east sometimes. They’s a c’ral up thet draw a ways. You puts ’em in there nights and lets ’em graze durin’ the day. You won’t hev to hold ’em long.” He took a playing card from his pocket—the jack of spades—and tore it in two. One half he handed to Luis. “When a feller comes with tother half o’ this card, Kid, you kin let him hev the cattle. Savvy?”
“Si, Senor.”
“Oncet in a while they may a couple fellers come up with some more critters fer you. You jest let ’em drive ’em in with your bunch. You don’t hev to say nothin’ nor ask no questions. Savvy?”
“Si, Senor.”
“All right. Let ’em graze til sundown; then c’ral ’em and come down to the Hog Ranch fer the night. You kin make down your bed back o’ the barn. The Chink’ll feed you. So long, Kid.”
“Adios, Senor.”
Luis Mariel, watching the tall, sandy haired man ride away, tucked his half of the jack of spades into the breast pocket of his shirt, rolled a cigarette, and then rode leisurely among the grazing cattle, inspecting his charges.
He noted the marks and brands, and discovering that several were represented concluded that Cheetim and the sandy haired man were collecting a bunch for sale or shipment. Impressed by the injunction to silence laid upon him, and being no fool, Luis opined that the cattle had come into their possession through no lawful processes.
But that they had been stolen was no affair of his. He had not stolen them. He was merely employed to herd them. It interested him to note that fully ninety per centum of the animals bore the Crazy B brand on the left hip, a slit in the right ear, and a half crop off the left, the remainder being marked by various other brands, some of which he recognized and some of which he did not.
The Crazy B brand he knew quite well as it was one of the foremost brands in that section of Arizona. He had tried to get work with that outfit when he had brought the pinto stallion up from the border for El Teniente King.
At that time he had talked with Senor Billings, who had since been killed by Apaches; but he had been unable to secure employment with him. Later he had learned that the Billings ranch never employed Mexicans, and while knowledge of this fact aroused no animosity within him neither did it impose upon him any sentiment of obligation to apprise the owners of the brand of his suspicion that someone was stealing their cattle.
Luis Mariel was far from being either a criminal or vicious young man. He would not have stolen cattle himself, but it was none of his business how his employers obtained the cattle that he was hired to herd for them. Since he had come up from Mexico he had found means of livelihood through many and various odd employments, sometimes as laborer, sometimes as chore boy, occasionally in riding for some small cow outfit, which was the thing of all others that he liked best to do. It was the thing that Luis Mariel loved best and did best.
More recently he had been reduced to the expedience of performing the duties of porter around the bar of “Dirty” Cheetim’s Hog Ranch in order that he might eat to live and live to eat. Here, his estimate of the Gringoes had not been materially raised.
Pedro Mariel, the woodchopper of Casa Grande, was a poor man in worldly goods; but in qualities of heart and conscience he had been rich, and he had raised his children to fear God and do right.
Luis often thought of his father as he watched the Gringoes around “Dirty” Cheetim’s place, and at night he would kneel down and thank God that he was a Mexican.
Many of the Gringoes that he saw were not bad, only fools; but there were many others who were very bad indeed. El Teniente King was the best Americano he had ever seen. Luis was sorry that El Teniente had no riding job for him. These were some of the thoughts that passed through the mind of the Mexican youth as he rode herd on the stolen cattle.
Up from the south rode Shoz-Dijiji. From the moment that he crossed the border into Arizona his spirits rose. The sight of familiar and beloved scenes, the scent of the cedars and the pines, the sunlight and the moonlight were like wine in his veins. The Black Bear was almost happy again.
Where there were no trails he went unseen. No longer were the old water holes guarded by the soldiers of the pindah-lickoyee. Peace lay upon the battle ground of three hundred years. He saw prospectors and cowboys occasionally, but they did not see Shoz-Dijiji. The war chief of the Be-don-ko-he knew that the safety of peace was for the white-eyed men only—he was still a renegade, an outlaw, a hunted beast, fair target for the rifle of the first white man who saw him.
He moved slowly, and often by night, drinking to the full the joys of homeland; but he moved toward a definite goal and with a well defined purpose. It had taken days and weeks and months of meditation and introspection to lay the foundation for the decision he had finally reached; it had necessitated trampling under foot a lifetime of race consciousness and pride in caste; it had required the sacrifice of every cherished ideal, but the incentive was more powerful than any of these things, perhaps the greatest single moral force for good or evil that exists to govern and shape the destinies of man—love.
Love was driving this Apache war chief to the object of his devotion and to the public avowal that he was no Apache but, in reality, a member of the race that he had always looked upon with the arrogant contempt of a savage chieftain.
In his return through Arizona he found his loved friend, Nejeunee, an obstacle to safe or rapid progress. A pinto pony, while perhaps camouflaged by Nature, is not, at best, an easy thing to conceal, nor can it follow the trackless steeps of rugged mountains as can a lone Apache warrior; but, none the less, Shoz-Dijiji would not abandon this, his last remaining friend, the sole and final tie that bound him to the beloved past; and so the two came at last to an upland country, hallowed by sacred memories—memories that were sweet and memories that were bitter.
Luke Jensen was riding the east range. What does a lone cowboy think about? There is usually an old bull that younger bulls have run out of the herd. He is always wandering off, and if he be of any value it is necessary to hunt him up and explain to him the error of his ways in profane and uncomplimentary language while endeavoring to persuade him to return. He occupies the thoughts of the lone cowboy to some extent.
Then there is the question of the expenditure of accumulated wages, if any have accumulated. There are roulette and faro and stud at the Hog Ranch, but if one has recently emerged from any of these one is virtuous and has renounced them all for life, along with wine and women.
A hand made, silver mounted bit would look well and arouse envy, as would sheep skin chaps and a heavy, silver hat band. A new and more brilliant bandana is also in order.
Then there are the perennial plans for breaking into the cattle business on one’s own hook, based on starting modestly with a few feeders to which second thought may add a maverick or two that nobody would miss and from these all the way up to rustling an entire herd.
Thoughts of Apaches had formerly impinged persistently upon the minds of lone cowboys. Luke Jensen was mighty glad, as he rode the east range, that he didn’t have to bother his head any more about renegades.
He was riding up a coulee flanked by low hills. Below the brow of one that lay ahead of him an Apache war chief watched his approach. Below and behind the warrior a pinto stallion lay stretched upon its side, obedient to the command of its master.
Shoz-Dijiji, endowed by Nature with keen eyes and a retentive memory, both of which had been elevated by constant lifelong exercise to approximate perfection, recognized Luke long before the cowboy came opposite his position—knew him even before he could discern his features.
“Hey, you!” called Shoz-Dijiji without exposing himself to the view of the youth.
Luke reined in and looked about. Mechanically his hand went to the butt of his six-shooter.
“No shoot!” said Shoz-Dijiji. “I am friend.”
“How the hell do I know that?” demanded Jensen. “I can’t see you, an’ I ain’t takin’ no chances.”
“I got you covered with rifle,” announced Shoz-Dijiji. “You better be friend and put away gun. I no shoot. I am Shoz-Dijiji.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Jensen. The one thousand dollars reward instantly dominated his thoughts.
“You no shoot?” demanded the Indian.
Luke returned his revolver to its holster. “Come on down,” he said. “I remember you.”
Shoz-Dijiji spoke to Nejeunee, who scrambled to his feet; and a moment later the pinto stallion and its rider were coming down the hillside.
“We thought you was dead,” said Luke.
“No. Shoz-Dijiji been long time in Sonora.”
“Still on the war path?” asked the cowboy.
“Geronimo make treaty with the Mexicans and with your General Miles,” explained the Apache. “He promise we never fight again against the Mexicans or the Americans. Shoz-Dijiji keep the treaty Geronimo made. Shoz-Dijiji will not fight unless they make him. Even the coyote will fight for his life.”
“What you come back here fer, Shoz-Dijiji?” asked Luke.
“I come to see Wichita Billings. Mebby so I get job here. What you think?”
Many thoughts crowded themselves rapidly through the mind of Luke Jensen in the instant before he replied and foremost among them was the conviction that this man could not be the murderer of Jefferson Billings. Had he been he would have known that suspicion would instantly attach to him from the fact that Wichita had seen him near the ranch the day her father was killed and that on that same day the pony he now rode had been stolen from the east pasture.
“Well, what do you think about it, Shoz-Dijiji?” parried Luke.
“I think mebby so she give me job, but Shoz-Dijiji not so damn sure about her father. He no like Shoz-Dijiji.”
“Don’t you know that her ol’ man’s dead?” demanded Luke.
“Dead? No, Shoz-Dijiji not know that. Shoz-Dijiji been down in Sonora long time. How he die?”
“He was murdered jest outside the east pasture and—scalped,” said Luke.
“You mean by Apaches?”
“No one knows, but it looks damn suspicious.”
“When this happen?” demanded Shoz-Dijiji.
“We found him the mornin’ after you took thet there pony out of the east pasture.”
Shoz-Dijiji sat in silence for a moment, his inscrutable face masking whatever emotions were stirring within his breast.
“You mean they think Shoz-Dijiji kill Billings? Does Chita think that, too?”
“Look here, Shoz-Dijiji,” said Jensen, kindly, “you done me a good turn oncet thet I ain’t a-never goin’ to forgit. I don’t mind tellin’ you I ain’t never thought you killed the ol’ man, but everyone else thinks so.”
“Even Chita?” asked Shoz-Dijiji.
“I wouldn’t say she does and I wouldn’t say she doesn’t, but she ain’t never took off the thousand dollar reward she offered to any hombre what would bring you in dead.”
Not by the quiver of an eyelid did Shoz-Dijiji reveal the anguish of his tortured heart as he listened to the words that blasted forever the sole hope of happiness that had buoyed him through the long days and nights of his journey up through hostile Sonora and even more hostile Arizona.
“You get one thousand dollars, you kill me?” he asked.
“Yep.”
“Why you no kill me, then?”
Jensen shrugged. “I reckon it must be for the same reason you didn’t kill me when you had the chancet, Shoz-Dijiji,” he replied. “There must be a streak of white in both of us.”
“Good-bye,” said Shoz-Dijiji, abruptly. “I go now.”
“Say, before you go would you mind tellin’ me fer sure thet it wasn’t you killed the ol’ man?” asked Luke.
Shoz-Dijiji looked the other squarely in the eyes. “If Wichita Billings offer one thousand dollar reward to have Shoz-Dijiji killed she must know Shoz-Dijiji kill her father. Good-bye. Shoz-Dijiji ride straight up coulee, slowly. Mebby so you want one thousand dollars, now you get it. Sabe?” He wheeled Nejeunee and walked the pony slowly away while Luke Jensen, slouching in his saddle, watched him until he had disappeared beyond a low ridge.
Not once did Jensen experience any urge to reach for the six-shooter at his hip or the rifle in its boot beneath his right leg.
“I could shore use a thousand dollars,” he mused as he turned his pony’s head back toward the Crazy B Ranch, “but I don’t want it thet bad.”
As he rode into the ranch yard later in the afternoon he saw Wichita Billings standing near the bunk house talking with “Kansas.” Luke was of a mind to avoid her, feeling, as he did, that he should report his meeting with Shoz-Dijiji and dreading to do so because of the fear that a posse would be organized to go out and hunt the Apache down the moment that it was learned that he was in the vicinity.
But when Wichita saw him she called to him, and there was nothing less that he could do than go to her. She had finished her conversation with “Kansas,” and the latter had gone into the bunk house when Luke reached her side.
“Walk up to the office with me, Luke,” said the girl. “I want to talk with you,” and he fell in beside her as she walked along. “I have just been talking with ‘Kansas,’ ” she continued, “and he tells me that a few head are missing off the north range. Did you miss any today or see anything unusual?”
Had he seen anything unusual! There was a poser. Luke scratched his head.
“I wouldn’t say that they was any more critters missin’,” he replied, “an’ I wouldn’t say as they wasn’t.” He looked down at the ground in evident embarrassment.
Wichita Billings, who knew these boys better than they knew themselves, eyed him suspiciously. They walked on in silence for a few moments.
“Look here, Luke,” said the girl, presently. “Someone is stealing my cattle. I don’t know who to trust. I’ve always looked to ‘Smooth’ and you and ‘Kansas’ and Matt as being the ones I sure could tie to. If you boys don’t shoot straight with me no one will.”
“Who said I warnt shootin’ straight with you, Miss?” demanded Luke.
“I say so,” replied Wichita. “You’re holding something out on me. Say, I can read you just like a mail order catalogue. If you don’t come clean you’re through—your pay check’s waiting for you right now.”
“I kin always git another job,” parried Luke, lamely.
“Sure you can; but that isn’t the question, Luke,” replied the girl, sadly.
“I know it ain’t, Miss,” and Luke dug a toe into the loose earth beneath the cottonwood tree. “I did see somethin’ onusual today,” he blurted suddenly.
“I thought so. What was it?”
“An Apache—Shoz-Dijiji.”
Wichita Billings’ eyes went wide. Involuntarily her hand went to her breast, and she caught her breath in a little gasp before she spoke.
“You shot him?” The words were a barely audible whisper. “You shot him for the reward?”
“I shore did not,” snapped Luke. “Look here, Miss, you kin have my job any time you want it, but you nor no one else kin make me double cross a hombre what saved my life—I don’t give a damn who he killed—I beg yore pardon, Miss—and anyway I hain’t never believed he did kill your paw.”
In his righteous indignation Luke Jensen had failed to note what appeared to be the relaxation of vast relief that claimed Wichita Billings the instant that he announced that he had not shot Shoz-Dijiji. Could it be that Wichita, too, had her doubts?
“Did you ask him about the killing?” demanded the girl.
“Yep.”
“What did he say? Did he deny it?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say he did and I wouldn’t say he didn’t.”
“Just what did he say?”
“He said that ef you was offerin’ a thousand dollars fer him dead you must be plumb shore he done it.”
“How did he know about the reward?”
“I told him.”
“You told him?”
“Shore I did. I don’t think he done it. Ef I hadn’t told him he was a comin’ here an’ some of the fellers would have plugged him shore. You ain’t mad, are you?”
“You are very sure he didn’t kill Dad, aren’t you, Luke?”
“Yep, plumb certain.”
“But he didn’t deny it, did he?”
“No, an’ he didn’t admit it, neither.”
“There may be some doubt, Luke. I’m going to draw down that offer, because I can’t take the chance of being mistaken; but as long as I live I shall believe in my heart that Shoz-Dijiji killed my father. If you ever see him again, tell him that the reward has been called off; and tell him, too, that if ever I see him I’ll kill him, just like I think he killed my Dad; but I can’t ask anyone else to. Send ‘Smooth’ here when you go back to the bunk house.”
As Luke was walking away the girl called to him. “Wait a minute, Luke, there is something else,” she said. “I have just been thinking,” she continued, when the youth was near her again, “that the Indian you saw today might have had something to do with the cattle stealing. Had you thought of that?”
Luke scratched his head. “No, ma’am, I hedn’t thought of that; but now that you mention it I reckon as how it ain’t at all unlikely. I never seen one yet that wouldn’t steal.”
“I guess we’re on the right trail now, Luke,” said the girl. “Don’t say anything to anyone about seeing him. Just keep your eyes open, and let me know the minute you see anything out of the way.”
“All right, Miss, I’ll keep a right smart look out,” and Jensen turned and walked toward the bunk house.
As Wichita waited for her foreman her thoughts were overcast by clouds of sorrow and regret. The animosities that were directed upon Shoz-Dijiji were colored by the shame she felt for having permitted her heart to surrender itself to an Indian. That she had never openly admitted the love that she had once harbored for a savage did not reconcile her, nor did the fact that she had definitely and permanently uprooted the last vestige of this love and nurtured hatred in its stead completely clear her conscience.
It angered her that even while she vehemently voiced her belief that Shoz-Dijiji had killed her father she still had doubts that refused to die. She was bitter in the knowledge that though she had suggested that he was stealing her cattle, deep in her heart she could not bring herself to believe it of him.
Her somber reveries were interrupted by the approach of Kreff.
“There are a couple of things I wanted to speak to you about, ‘Smooth,’ ” said the girl.
“Fire away, Chita,” said the man, with easy familiarity.
“In the first place I want you to pass the word around that the reward for bringing in that Apache is off.”
“Why?” demanded the man.
“That’s my business,” replied the girl, shortly.
The words and her tone reminded Kreff of the dead Boss—she was her father all over—and he said no more.
“The other thing is this report about cattle stealing,” she continued.
“Who said there was any cattle stealin’ goin’ on?” he asked.
“Luke has missed a few head off the east range.”
“Oh, that kid’s loco,” said Kreff. “They’ve drifted, an’ he’s too plumb lazy to hunt ’em up.”
“ ‘Kansas’ has missed some, too, from up around the Little Mesa on the north range,” she insisted. “I don’t know so much about Luke, he hasn’t been with us so long; but ‘Kansas’ is an old hand—he’s not the kind to do much guessing.”
“I’ll look into it, Chita,” said Kreff, “an’ don’t you worry your little head no more about it.” There was something in his tone that made her glance up quickly, knitting her brows. His voice was low and soothing and protective. It didn’t sound like “Smooth” Kreff in spite of his nickname, which, she happened to know, was indicative of the frictionless technique with which he separated other men from their belongings in the application of the art of draw and stud.
“You hadn’t ought to hev nothin’ to worry you,” he continued. “This here business is a man’s job. It ain’t right an’ fittin’ thet a girl should hev to bother with sech things.”
“Well, that’s what I’ve got you and the other boys for, ‘Smooth.’ ”
“Yes, but hired hands ain’t the same. You ought to be married—to a good cow man,” he added.
“Meaning?” she inquired.
“Me.”
“Are you proposing to me, ‘Smooth’?”
“I shore am. What do you say? You an’ me could run this outfit together fine, an’ you wouldn’t never hev to worry no more about nothin’.”
“But I don’t love you, ‘Smooth.’ ”
“Oh, shucks, that ain’t nothin’. They’s a heap o’ women marry men they don’t love. They git to lovin’ ’em afterwards, though.”
“But you don’t love me.”
“I shore do, Chita. I’ve allus loved you.”
“Well, you’ve managed to hide it first rate,” she observed.
“They didn’t never seem no chance, ’til now,” he explained; “but you got a lot o’ horse sense, an’ I reckon you kin see as well as me thet it would be the sensible thing to do. You caint marry nothin’ but a cow man, an’ they ain’t no other cow man thet I knows of thet would be much of a improvement over me. You’ll larn to love me, all right. I ain’t so plumb ugly, an’ I won’t never beat you up.”
Wichita laughed. “You’re sure tootin’, ‘Smooth,’ ” she said. “There isn’t a man on earth that’s ever going to try to beat me up, more than once.”
Kreff grinned. “You don’t hev to tell me that, Chita,” he said. “I reckon that’s one o’ the reasons I’m so strong fer you—you shore would make one grand woman fer a man in this country.”
“Well, ‘Smooth,’ as a business proposition there is something in what you say that it won’t do any harm to think about, but as a proposal of marriage it hasn’t got any more bite to it than a white pine dog with a poplar tail.”
“But you’ll think it over, Chita?” he asked, drawing a sack of Durham and a package of brown papers from his shirt pocket.
“You dropped something, ‘Smooth,’ ” she said, gesturing toward the ground at his feet. “You pulled it out of your pocket with the makings.”
He looked down at a bit of paste board, at one half of a playing card that had been torn in two—one half of the jack of spades.