CHAPTER XIITHE SCALP DANCE
DARKNESS had fallen, but the night was still young when a fire appeared upon the summit of a lonely hill above the village of Casas Grandes. It burned steadily hour after hour, tended by a single, silent figure. Into the hills about and out across the valley it signalled to the scattered braves, and through the silence and the darkness of the night shadowy forms, soft-footed, mysterious, converged toward the shining beacon.
As Shoz-Dijiji kept the signal fire he thought upon the events of the day and he was puzzled. He could not understand why the Mexican had interceded for him, taken him to his home, fed him, and, after dark, turned him loose without any slightest expectation of reward, not even a remote hope of reward. And for the first time in his life, perhaps, there was forced into his consciousness recognition of a quality of the soul of the very existence of which he had hitherto been ignorant—unselfish gratitude.
The Black Bear was a highly intelligent, reasoning human being and so, as he thought the matter out during the long hours of the night, he came to the conclusion that the only motive the woodchopper could have had was prompted by a desire to repay Shoz-Dijiji for his kindness with a like kindness.
Such an attitude of mind directed upon an enemy was at first quite beyond the experience of one Apache-bred and for this reason difficult to grasp fully; but when the facts finally convinced him they induced a certain warmth within his breast that was new and strange. He thought now of the Mexican woodchopper as a brother. He would repay him. If necessary he would lay down his life for him, for to such extremes does the pendulum of the savage heart swing, and none may guess the depth of feeling masked by the trained muscles of the savage Apache face.
Four times from the valley below a coyote yelped and the reveries of Shoz-Dijiji were broken. With four similar yelps he replied. An owl hooted down from the hills behind him; from the north came the scream of a bobcat. And each in turn was answered from the signal fire.
A shadowy form appeared but Shoz-Dijiji was hidden behind a bush. A whispered word was spoken—a sacred, secret word—and Shoz-Dijiji arose and came forward, greeting a squat, great-chested Be-don-ko-he. One by one, then, they came in about the signal fire—two, three, five, ten—until at last a dozen warriors were gathered.
Shoz-Dijiji picked up some loose stones and arranged them in a line pointing toward the village of Casas Grandes. He leaned them one against another with the sides that had been down, and were marked by contact with the earth, turned upward; that any who might arrive later could read plainly that he who had laid the signal needed assistance in the direction of Casas Grandes. He placed more fuel upon the fire and withdrew to a little distance, followed by the other warriors. There were older warriors and sub-chiefs among them, but they came and listened to Shoz-Dijiji; and when he had finished speaking they signified their willingness to follow him, for not only was he a war chief among them, but he had conceived the plan that he had just explained to them and was therefore entitled to lead whoever agreed to accompany him.
The village of Casas Grandes slept, perhaps a less troubled sleep than it had enjoyed for many a long month, for had not the feared Apaches of the north been routed, had not many of them been killed and many taken prisoner? No wonder the village of Casas Grandes slept in peace as the barefooted soldiers of the guard paced their posts about the prison corral of the Apaches, as a dozen silent forms crept down out of the hills, slinking into the shadows of the little buildings of Casas Grandes, asel generalrode swiftly from the south to witness the execution at the coming dawn.
From hidden places about the corral a dozen pairs of savage eyes watched the sleepy sentries pacing to and fro, watched the building that the soldiers were quartered in, waited for the signal from Shoz-Dijiji. At last it came—a figure rushing through the dark, a figure that threw itself upon the nearest sentry with the savage ferocity of a wounded jaguar, wrenching the rifle from astonished hands, striking down the poor peon with brutal savagery. At last Shoz-Dijiji was armed again!
This was the signal! From all sides other men, terrible men, leaped upon the sentinels; but not until the shouts of the Mexicans had alarmed the soldiers in their barracks did the attackers utter a sound, for such had been the orders of Shoz-Dijiji. As the first of the guard turned out they were met by the savage war whoops of the Apaches and a volley of rifle fire that sent them stumbling into momentary retreat. A few braves, detailed by the war chief, leaped into the corral and cut the bonds of the captives. There were a few scattering volleys directed toward the barracks and then silence, as, like the smoke from their own black powder, the Be-don-ko-he merged with the darkness of the night.
Scattering again, the better to throw pursuers off the track, the Apaches were far away from Casas Grandes by morning; and thoughel generalpursued them he lost their trail within two miles of the village, nor ever picked it up again.
It was a long time before the Be-don-ko-he gathered again in the depths of their beloved Arizona mountains and Shoz-Dijiji sat once more in the cool of the evening at the side of Ish-kay-nay. He was a great warrior now and as he recounted his exploits upon the war trail the girl thrilled with pride.
“Tomorrow,” he said, “Nejeunee will be tied before the tepee of Ish-kay-nay.”
“Not tomorrow,” she reminded him, “for tomorrow the izze-nantans purify the warriors who have been upon the war trail and Shoz-Dijiji must ride no other pony then than Nejeunee, his war pony; and Ish-kay-nay will feed no other pony than Nejeunee, the war pony of Shoz-Dijiji.”
The young man laughed. “The next day, then,” he said.
“The next day,” repeated the girl and rubbed her soft cheek against his shoulder caressingly.
The following morning the warriors, wearing their finest raiment, their faces painted with the utmost care, mounted upon their favorite war ponies, assembled below the camp at the edge of the river. Nakay-do-klunni was there with his medicine shirt gorgeous with symbolic paintings, his plumed medicine headdress, his sash and izze-kloth, ready to make big medicine.
Along the bank of the river, knee to knee, the braves sat their ponies, resplendent with beads and feathers, turquoise, silver and painted buckskin. A proud, fierce gathering it was—these savage warriors come to be cleansed of the blood of their foemen.
The izze-nantan waded into the river, cast hoddentin to the four winds, made symbolic passes with his hands, the while he intoned mystic, sacred phrases in a jargon of meaningless gibberish. Then he came forth from the water out upon the bank, impressive, majestic. Going to the warrior at the right of the line he took a weapon from him and returning to the river washed it, dried it, and blew upon it, blowing the ghost of the dead enemy from it.
One after another he repeated this rite for each warrior and then from a buckskin bag at his side he withdrew a few scalps, taken and preserved for this ceremony, which should by ancient custom have been held upon the site of the battle field. Plucking a few hairs from each grisly memento he handed some to each of the warriors all along the line, and while he stood with outstretched hands upraised, mumbling his sacred jargon, each warrior burned the hairs that had been given him, thus purifying forever the tainted air of the battle field which otherwise it would be unsafe to revisit, peopled as it would have been by the malign ghosts of the dead enemy.
Ish-kay-nay stood before the tepee of her father as klego-na-ay rose behind a stunted cedar, a swollen disc of orange flame floating upward out of the mysterious country that lay below the edge of Apacheland.
“Be good, O Moon!” murmured Ish-kay-nay.
“Gun-ju-le, klego-na-ay!” sighed the voices of the Be-don-ko-he women, evening zephyrs sighing through the fragrant cedars.
Little fires crackled merrily, dancing red and orange, shooting sudden tongues of blue, gold-tipped, lighting copper faces old and wrinkled, young and smooth, faces stern and terrible, faces light and laughing; glinting from proud eyes, haughty eyes, cruel eyes, cunning eyes, laughing eyes, beautiful eyes, the eyes of all Apachedom, the eyes of all the world. Laughter, gossip mingled with the crackling of the flames. Little children played pranks upon one another, upon the dogs, upon their elders, unrebuked, and the full moon mounted the clear Apache sky to gaze down, content, upon this living poem of peace and love.
Rising gradually above the confused murmur of the camp the measured voice of the es-a-da-ded arose, insistent. A young brave, gay in the panoply of war, stepped into the firelight dancing to the music of the drum. Naked he was, but for a G-string and moccasins, his godlike body green with copper ore, his face banded with yellow ocher, vermilion, blue; upon his head a war bonnet of eagle feathers; in his hand he bore a lance, a quartz-tipped lance to the point of which was tied something that fluttered as the tip moved—human hair. Shoz-Dijiji bore aloft a trophy in the scalp dance of his people.
Behind him came other braves, painted braves; singing, yelling braves, shouting the savage war whoop that has carried terror down the ages, out of the north, across a world. Grisly tassels waved from many a point. Rifles cracked. Admiring squaws looked on. Ish-kay-nay was among them, her great, dark eyes clinging ever to the mighty figure of her lover.
Weaving in and out among the fires the warriors danced, yelling, until they were upon the verge of exhaustion; but at last it was over—the last scalp had been discarded, a vile thing that no Apache would retain. The camp slept. In far places the scouts watched, guarding against attack. Shoz-Dijiji came among the banked fires, leading Nejeunee. To the tepee of Ish-kay-nay he led him and there he tied him and went away.
In the morning, when Ish-kay-nay arose she looked out and smiled; but she did not come forth until the camp was stirring and there were many about to see her. Others looked at the pinto pony tied there before the tepee, and smiled, too.
At last came Ish-kay-nay, with the carriage of a queen, the step of a panther. She did not hesitate, but taking the rope that held him she led Nejeunee, the war pony of Shoz-Dijiji, to water, and then she fed him. Everyone saw, but there was none that laughed behind his blanket at Ish-kay-nay, or thought her immodest; for there was but one Ish-kay-nay and she could do no wrong, she who all her life had done as she pleased, haughtily indifferent alike to censure or to praise.
There was one wrinkled old warrior who saw, but did not smile. He was the father of Ish-kay-nay. Much would he have preferred Juh, powerful chief of the Ned-ni, as son-in-law; nor as yet was hope dead within him. Later in the day Shoz-Dijiji sought him out, making formal request for the hand of Ish-kay-nay. The old man listened in silence and when Shoz-Dijiji had finished he spoke.
“Ish-kay-nay is a good daughter,” he said. “She is strong and can do a good day’s work in the fields; there is none who makes better shirts and moccasins; there is none whose bead work is more beautiful; nor any who can prepare food as can Ish-kay-nay. I am growing old. Her loss will be as the loss of my heart. Fifty ponies will not be enough to repay me.”
Fifty ponies! Many a daughter of the greatest chiefs there was who had commanded far less. Shoz-Dijiji knew why the price was thus high. The old man believed that it would be so long before Shoz-Dijiji could hope to accumulate that many ponies that he would relinquish his suit and content himself with some other girl whose price was much less; but he did not know the depth of the love that welled in the heart of the son of Geronimo.
“Fifty ponies?” repeated the young warrior.
“Fifty ponies,” replied the father of Ish-kay-nay.
Shoz-Dijiji grunted and turned upon his heel. He went at once to Ish-kay-nay.
“Your father demands fifty ponies,” he said.
Ish-kay-nay laughed. “Fifty ponies! Why not one hundred—two hundred? Now he will have none, Shoz-Dijiji, for I, Ish-kay-nay, will run away with you.”
“No,” said the young man. “Shoz-Dijiji has told you before that he does not have to run away with any woman. Shoz-Dijiji is a man; he is a great warrior, a war chief of the Be-don-ko-he; he has led the warriors of his people in battle. Does such a one run away?”
“Shoz-Dijiji does not love Ish-kay-nay,” said the girl. “He knows that it will be many, many rains before he can pay fifty ponies to her father. If he loved her he would not want to wait.”
“It is because he loves her that he will not make her ashamed before the eyes of our people,” replied Shoz-Dijiji. “Do not fear, Ish-kay-nay. Before the next full moon Shoz-Dijiji will have the ponies.”
“Where will you get them?”
“Shoz-Dijiji knows. This very day he goes after them. If he does not return before the moon is full again you will know that he is dead. Good-bye, Ish-kay-nay.” He drew the girl close to him.
An hour later Ish-kay-nay, standing forlorn upon a rocky promontory, her fringed robe of buckskin fluttering in the breeze, watched a solitary horseman riding toward the south. Her heart was full, but no tear wet her cheek.
Darkness was falling as Nejeunee picked his way across the rocky shoulder of a mountain, a round stone turned beneath his foot, he stumbled and went almost down. When he regained his footing he limped.
Shoz-Dijiji slid from his back and examined the foot and leg, then he remounted and rode on, but more and more did the brave little war pony favor the hurt member. Again Shoz-Dijiji dismounted and felt the tendons of the pastern; there was a swelling there and fever. The Apache arose and slipped the bridle and the blanket from his mount.
“Good-bye, Nejeunee,” he said, stroking the pinto’s neck. Then he continued on his way alone.
Nejeunee tried to follow, but the leg pained and he stopped. Once he nickered, but Shoz-Dijiji returned no answering whistle. Perplexed, the pinto, limping painfully, hobbled along the rough mountainside after his master. For a mile, perhaps, he followed through the darkness, but at last he stopped, for he could no longer either see or hear Shoz-Dijiji, and the night wind, blowing across the trail, carried the scent spoor away from him. The rising moon looked down upon a little pinto stallion gazing with up-pricked ears toward the south—wistful ears.
On through the night went the Black Bear, down the mountains and across a valley into other mountains. There was no trail where the Black Bear trod; but there were the stars and many familiar landmarks and an uncanny sense that held him to the true course. Hidden deep in these mountains, a parched and barren range, was a large, flat rock, its center hollowed into a basin by some long dead waterfall of antiquity. It lay near the head of a deep and narrow ravine, hidden by a dense thicket.
For a long time it held the rain waters, and for many fiery, dust-choked miles there was no other water. Toward this spot Shoz-Dijiji made his way, as unerringly as the homing pigeon returns to its cote. No other than Apache eyes ever had looked upon this place. A man might die of thirst within twenty feet of it, never guessing that life was just within his grasp.
It was daylight when Shoz-Dijiji came to the water hole. Here, hidden in the dense thicket, he rested, lying up like a savage, hunted beast. Nor is the analogy overdrawn. Further back than goes the memory of man the Apache has been fair prey for his enemies and there has been no closed season. As the wolf, the deer, or the bear he has moved ever in danger of the swift arrow of Navajo or Comanche, of the bullet of the white man. He did not complain. It was a life he understood and loved. It was as fair for him as it was for his enemies, and he prided in the fact that he played it better than they.
Shoz-Dijiji rested but a short time as he wished to push on toward the south, lying up at another place he knew during the heat of the day, timing his marches that he might pass habitations and cross open plains by night, keeping to the mountains in the daylight hours. He carried little food and only a small water bottle, for he could live for months on end upon a country that white men considered waterless and without game. He was armed with a bow and arrows, a knife and a six-shooter.
Upon an excursion of this nature, the success of which depended more upon the agility of his wits than the strength of his armament, he considered a heavy rifle a handicap, and so he had hidden his in a safe cache in the mountains above the Be-don-ko-he camp before he had set out upon his mission.
His water bottle refilled, his own thirst quenched, Shoz-Dijiji clambered up the side of the ravine out of the thicket. Perhaps he was careless; perhaps the wind blew in the wrong direction. However it may have been, the fact remains that the first intimation he had that he was not alone in these arid, deathlike hills was the crack of a rifle and the whistling whing of a rifle ball past his head just as he attained the summit of the rise.
Shoz-Dijiji dropped in his tracks, his body rolling down the steep declivity. Two white men threw themselves flat upon a parallel ridge.
“You got him,” said one of them to the other.
“Mebbe there’s more of them,” replied his companion. “We better wait an’ see.”
They waited for half an hour, watching, listening. From beyond the summit of the ridge they watched there was no sign of life. Behind and slightly above them, upon the main ridge of the mountain, a man lay hid behind a squat shrub, watching them. It was Shoz-Dijiji.
He wished that he had his rifle, for the two lay just out of arrow range and he was a poor shot with a Colt. There was something familiar about one of the men and Shoz-Dijiji wished that he would turn his face that he might have a good look at it, for Shoz-Dijiji never forgot a face, once seen. At last the man did turn. Then it was that the Black Bear recognized him as the survivor of the three who had attacked the white girl near the Billings ranch. Now, more than ever, Shoz-Dijiji wished that he had his rifle. He weighed the wisdom of a revolver shot and put the idea from him. Apachelike he could bide his time against a more favorable opportunity. To fire and miss would be but to disclose his position to the enemy, gaining him nothing, and perhaps causing him still further delay.
He had learned all that he needed to know of these two. They were alone, hunting the yellow iron, doubtless. They had not been following him, but had just chanced upon him. If he did not fire they might lie there a long time waiting and watching, not quite sure that they had killed him, not quite sure that he was not alone. In the meantime Shoz-Dijiji might be far on his way toward the south. Cautiously he slipped down upon the far side of the ridge, well out of their range of vision, rose, turned his face southward and moved silently away, leaving the two prospectors debating the wisdom of a reconnaissance.
A half hour later Shoz-Dijiji came upon their camp. A banked camp fire smoked slightly, some burros, hobbled, stood near by. Shoz-Dijiji paused and brushed the ashes from the fire, then he piled all their belongings quickly upon the coals; he burst the containers in which they had their precious water. This done, he took the hobbles from the burros and drove them ahead of him down the canyon toward the south. Only a short way did he drive them for he well knew that they would need no urging to leave this barren country and search for feed and water.
Continuing his interrupted journey Shoz-Dijiji permitted himself the indulgence of a smile as he considered the plight of the white-eyes. Strangely, perhaps, there was no rancor in his heart against them for having tried to take his life. That was only a part of the game he played, the lifelong, savage game of his savage world, the greatest game the world has ever known—man hunting. He would have done the same as they had an opportunity presented; but he was more patient than they—he could wait until there was no chance of his shot missing.
CHAPTER XIII“SHOZ-DIJIJI IS DEAD!”
SEVERAL days later Shoz-Dijiji found himself without food or water upon a rough and arid upland dotted with greasewood and sage and an occasional clump of mesquite along the rim of a dry wash. It was fifty miles to a little spring he knew of, and no water had passed his lips for many hours, nor any food; but Shoz-Dijiji was not dismayed. What to us would have meant almost certain death, gave the Apache no concern.
Following the bed of the wash he came near sundown to a place where the mesquite grew thick upon the bank. Here he stopped and dug a hole down through the sand, into moisture, then deeper, making a small basin, into which water filtered very slowly. While the basin filled he occupied himself. Finding a stout mesquite stick he hunted about until he had discovered a pile of twigs and leaves and earth, heaped in seeming disorder among the stems of a large bush. With his stick he beat and belabored the pile. Frightened, hurt, several pack rats emerged, bewildered. These he struck with his club, collecting four; then he returned to the hole he had dug in the sand. Now it contained a cupful of water. With his drinking reed he drew the liquid into his mouth.
Rubbing two sticks together he made a tiny fire beneath the edge of the bank and cooked the pack rats. When he had eaten them there was more water in the basin and again he drank. Carefully he filled the hole that he had made, put out his fire and buried the ashes with the hides and remnants of his repast until there was no sign that an Apache had stopped here to eat and drink. As dusk turned to dark he struck off across the plain toward the purple mountains.
An hour before dawn he was skirting the village of Casas Grandes when he heard voices ahead of him, where no voices should have been at this hour of the night. Stealthily he crept forward to investigate, wormed his way to the top of a little rise of ground and looked down upon a camp of Mexican soldiers. All but the guard were sleeping. A noncommissioned officer was changing sentries and as each was relieved a few words were spoken—these were the voices that he had heard.
Shoz-Dijiji was not looking for Mexican soldiers. They were the last people in the world he cared to meet; and so he gave the camp a wide berth and continued toward the mountains. At dawn he laid up beneath a bush at the top of a low, rocky foothill and slept. Just before noon he was awakened by the thud of horses’ feet. Cautiously he peered through the branches of the bush in the direction from which the sound came and saw a patrol of Mexican cavalry riding toward the mountains.
There were three men in the patrol and they were riding directly toward the hill upon the summit of which he lay observing them. He could see from their actions that they did not suspect his presence and that they were following no trail. It was merely a patrol and there were doubtless others out in various directions; it was only chance that had placed him directly upon their post. They would make their circuit and they would return to camp, well pleased if they discovered nothing to delay them, for there were señoritas and a cantina in Casas Grandes and soldiers are soldiers the world over.
Shoz-Dijiji watched them coming. They were handsome men, almost as dark as he, and they sat their horses with an easy grace that bespoke their descent from long lines of vaqueros. The Apache almost had it in him to envy them their gay uniforms and their trappings, but he was too proud to accord them even his envy. He knew that they were brave men and fierce men and that should they discover him, mounted as they were and armed withcarabinas, there was a chance that he might never drive fifty ponies before the tepee of the father of Ish-kay-nay; that never again might he sit in the cool of the evening beneath the pines that pray, soft-voiced, to Usen, with Ish-kay-nay at his side.
Yes, they were coming directly up the hill! They would ride close beside the bush that hid him now, but would no longer hide him then. Behind him, up toward the great mountains, were other bushes and many rocks. Before they saw him he might run quickly and gain other cover. Perhaps, in this way, he might elude them entirely, letting them pass on upon their business before he resumed his way. Shoz-Dijiji was not looking for Mexican soldiers.
Bent double, running swiftly, keeping the bush he had quit always between himself and the enemy, the Black Bear scurried for new cover, and reached it. They had not seen him—yet. But still they were coming toward him. Again he raced for a new place of concealment, but this time he scarce believed himself that the Mexicans would be so blind as not to discover him, nor were they.
Their sudden shouts shattered the quiet of the noonday; acarabinabarked and a bullet ricocheted from a great boulder just as Shoz-Dijiji leaped to shelter behind it.
Shoz-Dijiji whipped out his Colt and fired twice above the top of his rocky breastwork. A horse fell and the three Mexicans scattered for shelter—not because they were cowards, but because they were versed in the guerrilla warfare of their savage foe.
As they scattered, Shoz-Dijiji raced for new shelter, nearer the mountains that were his goal, and again he was fired upon. One of the soldiers was exposed as Shoz-Dijiji turned toward them. Ah, if he had his rifle! But he had no rifle and so he fired with his six-shooter, and though he missed he made all three withdraw behind rocks and bushes, and again he moved quickly to a new location.
For an hour this running fight continued until the Black Bear succeeded in attaining a hilltop so thickly strewn with boulders that he could lie in comparative safety and hold his fortress. If he could but hold it until darkness had come there would be no further need for apprehension; but when he saw one of the soldiers creeping warily back toward the two remaining horses that they had left where the fight commenced he guessed that new trouble lay in store for him, and so he concentrated his fire upon this man.
The other Mexicans, however, had no mind to see their fellow slain and their plan frustrated, so they, in turn, concentrated their fire upon Shoz-Dijiji. Bullets flew thick and fast, pattering upon boulders, plowing into soft earth, ricocheting, whistling, screaming, and the soldier won safely out of range of Shoz-Dijiji’s Colt, reached the horses, mounted one of them, and galloped off toward Casas Grandes.
The Apache glanced at the sun, quickly computed the distance to Casas Grandes and the remaining hours of daylight and reached the conclusion that reinforcements would arrive long before dark. His ammunition was running low. Three miles away the mountains offered him sanctuary. It was better to run for them now with only twocarabinasfiring at him than to wait until there were perhaps fifty. He emptied his six-shooter rapidly at the cover behind which the enemy lay; then he reloaded and fired twice again, after which he rose quickly and, bending low, ran for the mountains, zigzagging, dodging, twisting. Bullets whinged past him; bullets spattered him with dirt and gravel; there were bullets everywhere but where Shoz-Dijiji was.
His mind definitely determined upon a plan of action, the Apache did not deviate from it. He passed many places where he might have found shelter and stopped the pursuit, but he ran on, trusting to his speed and the excitement of the soldiers to preserve him from their bullets. He adopted the tactics of the hunted coyote, turning quickly at right angles to his line of retreat where brush grew that would hide him for a moment from his pursuers.
When he emerged again it was to the right or left of where he had disappeared and once again were the soldiers required to relocate their target. Occasionally he turned and fired at them as he ran, which further disconcerted them. When he reached the dense brush at the foot of the first mountain mass he knew that the Mexicans had lost him, and they knew it, too.
Reeking with sweat, caked with dust, hot, thirsty, cursing mellifluously, the soldiers squatted, their backs against great rocks, rollingcigarrilloswhile they waited for reinforcements.
From a high place upon the side of the mountain, Shoz-Dijiji saw them and grinned. He also saw many horsemen galloping toward the hills from Casas Grandes. Again he grinned.
That night he slept in safety deep within the Mother Mountains, far up the side of a mighty peak in a little crevice where a spring rose and sank again before it reached the precipice. Only God, the mountain goat and the Apache had knowledge of this place.
It was cold there and Shoz-Dijiji was almost naked. He was uncomfortable, of course, but the Apache is above discomfort when the call of the war trail sounds. Burning heat by day or freezing cold by night are to him but a part of the game. He does not complain, but prides himself upon his strength to withstand hardship that would destroy the morale of any other warrior in the world, beat him down, weaken him, kill him.
For two weeks Shoz-Dijiji sought his chance to approach the hacienda of the rich Mexican who owned the splendid horses that were known from one end of Mexico to the other; but always there were the soldiers. They seemed to know the purpose of his coming, for patrols appeared to hover constantly about the vicinity of the noble herd, so that the Black Bear had no opportunity for reconnaissance.
Of course they did not know, and it was only chance and the regal hospitality of the rich Mexican that kept them so often and so long where Shoz-Dijiji wished they were not. He fretted and chafed at the delay for the time was almost come when he should be back with the fifty ponies for the father of Ish-kay-nay. Soon the moon would be full again and if he had not come Ish-kay-nay might think him dead.
In Sonora a savage chieftain had been raiding with a handful of his fierce warriors. Now he was slinking northward bearing his loot on stolen mules. It was Juh, chief of the Ned-ni; cruel, relentless Juh; Juh the Butcher. He crossed the Sierra Madre and dropped down into Chihuahua just above Janos. Mexican herders saw him and word was sent to the officer in command of the troops camped by Casas Grandes. Thus did Juh, unguessing, befriend Shoz-Dijiji, for the soldiers broke their camp and rode away toward Janos, leaving the field clear for the Black Bear.
The soldiers did not catch Juh, for that wily old villain pushed on by night and by day until the boundary lay south of him. Then he turned west and entered Arizona and the domain of Na-chi-ta, son of Cochise—the domain of the Cho-kon-en. Here, he had heard, Geronimo was camped with his Be-don-ko-he. There was a very good reason that never left the determined mind of Juh why he wanted to visit the Be-don-ko-he, for he had not relinquished the hope that he might yet win Ish-kay-nay, nor did he care by what means, being as little concerned by questions of ethics as are most white men.
One day his party came upon a little pinto stallion feeding upon the sparse vegetation in the bottom of a coulee, a pinto stallion that looked up and nickered when he caught the familiar scent spoor of his master’s people, and then came limping toward them.
Juh recognized Nejeunee and wondered. When the animal followed along with them he made no effort to turn it back, and so he came to the camp of Geronimo with the war pony of Shoz-Dijiji limping in the rear.
The finding of Nejeunee lame and at a distance from the camp of the Be-don-ko-he had set Juh to thinking. It might mean any one of a number of things but particularly it suggested the likelihood of Shoz-Dijiji’s absence; for a good war pony is cherished by its owner, and it seemed improbable that if Shoz-Dijiji was with the tribe that he would have permitted his pony to remain thus at the mercy of the first band of raiders, white or red, that might chance upon it. Unquestionably, Shoz-Dijiji had ridden his pony from camp and something, equally unquestionable, had happened to the pony. Perhaps at the same time something had happened to Shoz-Dijiji.
Juh sought the father of Ish-kay-nay and renewed his importuning of the old warrior for the hand of his daughter, nor did he mention Shoz-Dijiji, but he learned all that he wished to know—that Ish-kay-nay had accepted the advances of his rival and that the latter had gone to find the fifty ponies that the old man had demanded.
“He promised Ish-kay-nay that he would return with the full moon,” said the old man, “but the time is almost gone and nothing has been heard of him. Perhaps he will not return.”
Cunning, unscrupulous, Juh seized upon his opportunity. “He will not return,” he said. “Shoz-Dijiji is dead.” The old man looked pleased. “In Sonora he was killed by the Mexicans. There we were told that a young warrior had been killed while attempting to drive off a bunch of horses. We did not know who he was until we found his pony. It was lame. We brought it with us. Talk with the girl. If she will feed and water my pony, come to me. Juh will give the father of Ish-kay-nay fifteen ponies.”
“The other was to have given me fifty,” said the old man.
Juh laughed. “That was talk,” he said. “How could he give you fifty ponies when he had but three? I have fifteen ponies; that is better than fifty that do not exist.”
“You have more than fifteen ponies,” the old man reminded him.
“Yes, I have many more, and I am a great chief. Juh can do many things for the father of Ish-kay-nay.”
“Twenty-five ponies,” suggested the other, preferring twenty-five ponies to the chance that Juh would forget the less concrete suggestion of future obligation.
“Fifteen ponies and five mules,” said Juh.
“Twenty-five ponies. The girl is a good daughter. My heart will be heavy with sorrow when she is gone.”
“Twenty ponies and five mules,” snapped Juh with finality, turning upon his heel.
“And a rifle,” added the father of Ish-kay-nay.
“And a rifle,” acquiesced the chief of the Ned-ni.
“And ammunition,” exclaimed the old man, hurriedly; but the deal was made on the basis of twenty ponies, five mules and a rifle.
Ish-kay-nay, sitting beneath the shade of a tree, was sewing pretty beads upon a bit of buckskin, using an awl and deer sinew. She hummed contentedly to herself as she planned for the future—the long, happy future with Shoz-Dijiji. She would make many pretty things for them both and for their tepee. Later she would make other pretty things, tiny things, for future war chiefs. Her father found her thus.
“Shoz-Dijiji will not return,” he said.
She looked up at him quickly, sensing a new note in a statement that she had already heard many times since her lover had departed. Heretofore the statement had implied only hope, now it was redolent of sweet relief.
“Why?” she asked.
“He is dead.”
The heart of Ish-kay-nay went cold and numb within her, but the expression upon her face underwent no change. “Who says so?” she demanded.
“Juh.”
“Either Juh lies, or he has himself slain Shoz-Dijiji,” said the girl.
“Juh does not lie, nor has he slain Shoz-Dijiji.” Then he told her all that Juh had told him. “I am an old man,” he continued. “I have not long to live. Before I die I would see my daughter, whom I love, safe with a great warrior. Juh is a great warrior. He will treat you well. He has many women and you will not have to work hard. If he ties his pony before our tepee Ish-kay-nay will lead it to water and feed it?”
“I do not believe that Shoz-Dijiji is dead,” she said.
“If you did, would you go to Juh?”
“I would not care what became of me if Shoz-Dijiji were dead.”
“He is dead,” said the old man.
“The moon is not yet full,” urged Ish-kay-nay.
“If Shoz-Dijiji has not returned when next klego-na-ay rides across the heavens will Ish-kay-nay listen with favor to the words of Juh?”
“If Shoz-Dijiji has not returned then,” she said wearily, “Juh may tie his pony before our tepee. Then Ish-kay-nay will know what to do. She does not give her answer before.”
This word the old man bore to Juh and the two had to be satisfied with it, though Juh, knowing Ish-kay-nay of old, would have preferred something more definite as he had no stomach for another public rebuff.
Day after day early morning found an Apache girl standing solitary and sad upon a commanding mountain looking ever with straining eyes out toward the south—looking for a mighty figure, a loved figure, a figure that never came. Sometimes she stood there all day long, watching, waiting.
She hated to go to the tepee of her father, for the old man talked always of Juh and of her duty, of the honor of being the squaw of a great chief; and so she crept there late at night and hid in her blankets, feigning sleep, sleep that would not come. Often she went to another tepee where an aging man and an aging woman sat silent and sorrowing, to the tepee of Geronimo went Ish-kay-nay, mingling her voiceless agony with theirs.
One day old Nakay-do-klunni, the izze-nantan, rode into camp of the Be-don-ko-he and Ish-kay-nay went to him, asking if he could learn from the spirits the truth about her lover; but Nakay-do-klunni was full of another matter and put her off, though not without a thought for business. Perhaps later, he told her, but it would require big medicine and that was expensive. She offered him her little treasures and he promised to see what he could do about it.
When she told her father what she had done he went to Juh and, later, Juh went to Nakay-do-klunni; but Nakay-do-klunni was full of another matter, though he did manage to lay it from his mind temporarily when Juh mentioned a pair of field glasses and a Colt with a mother-of-pearl grip.
“Send the girl to my tepee in the morning,” he said to Juh, for that night he was too full of this other matter, and when the evening meal had been eaten and the warriors had gathered to smoke and make talk Nakay-do-klunni told them strange things.
“I had a dream,” he said in a voice that all might hear. “The spirits of many izze-nantans came and spoke to me and with them were the spirits of all the war chiefs of the Apaches who are yah-ik-tee. And the izze-nantans gave me the power to raise the dead and make them live, and the war chiefs said that they would gather together the spirits of all the warriors who were dead and bring them to the Tonto Basin on a certain day, and that Geronimo, the war chief of all the Apaches, must come there and bring all the living warriors of the six tribes: the warriors of the Be-don-ko-he, of the Chi-hen-ne, of the Sierra Blanca, of the Chi-e-a-hen, of the Cho-kon-en, of the Ned-ni.
“When they are all gathered, the living and the dead, I, Nakay-do-klunni, izze-nantan of the Shis-Inday, will make the dead warriors to live again so that their numbers will be as the needles upon the pine trees; when they take the war trail the earth will shake and when they raise the war cry the heavens will be rent asunder.
“Upon that night there will be a great feast and a great dance and Nakay-do-klunni will make strong medicine that will turn the bullets of our enemies from the breasts of our warriors; and upon the next day we will take the warpath against the white-eyes and they will all be killed and the Shis-Inday will again hold undisputed sway over the country that Usen gave them.
“These are true words and to prove it Nakay-do-klunni will teach the Be-don-ko-he the dance that the spirits of the warriors and their women taught Nakay-do-klunni, the dance that all the peoples of the Shis-Inday will dance upon the great night before they take the war trail against the white-eyes.
“The day is near. Seven times will the sun rise and no more before the day comes when the Shis-Inday will be rid forever of the hated white-eyes and all their kind. Then will the buffalo and the deer and the antelope come back to the country of the Shis-Inday from which the white-eyed men have driven them, and we shall live again as we did in the days of our fathers. I have spoken. Come and I will show you the dance, the spirit dance of your dead.”
Arranging the warriors and the women in files radiating from a common center, at which he stood, and facing him, so that the formation resembled the spokes of a fellyless wheel of which the izze-nantan was the hub, he started the dancing while two old sub-chiefs beat upon es-a-da-deds. As they danced Nakay-do-klunni chanted weird gibberish and scattered the sacred hoddentin upon the dancers in prodigal profusion and the drummers beat with increasing rapidity.
Occasionally a wild cry would break from the lips of some dancer and be taken up by others until the forest and the mountains rang with the savage sounds. Until morning came and many had dropped with exhaustion the dance continued. The Be-don-ko-he had worked themselves into a frenzy of religious fanaticism, just as had the Cho-kon-en, the Chi-hen-ne and the other tribes that Nakay-do-klunni had visited, just as the old izze-nantan had known that they would.
CHAPTER XIV“FIFTY APACHES”
IT was nearly noon of the following day before Ish-kay-nay could arouse the exhausted izze-nantan, for the spirit dance had drawn heavily upon his physical resources and, too, it had left him cross and surly; for the cha-ja-la is a hard task master to its devotees, even of a single evening, and Nakay-do-klunni had been steadily at it for weeks in his effort to arouse the scattered tribes. It meant much to Nakay-do-klunni for he had long since sensed the antagonism of the whites toward the members of his precious profession and he saw his powers, and also his emoluments, not alone waning, but approaching total eclipse, if something radical was not compassed to thwart the activities of the pindah lickoyee. Power and emoluments were the life of Nakay-do-klunni.
He glared fiercely at Ish-kay-nay. “What do you want?” he snapped.
“To know if Shoz-Dijiji lives and will return,” she said.
Her words reminded the medicine man of something, of a pair of field glasses and a pearl-handled Colt, and he relaxed. “Sit down,” he mumbled. “Nakay-do-klunni make medicine, talk with spirits, you wait.”
Ish-kay-nay sat down. The medicine man opened a beaded buckskin bag and took forth some pieces of lightning-riven wood, a root, a stone, a piece of turquoise, a glass bead and a square bit of buckskin upon which colored designs had been painted. All the time he mumbled strange words that Ish-kay-nay only knew were sacred, all-powerful and terrible. Nakay-do-klunni did not know even this much about them.
He sprinkled hoddentin upon the potent paraphernalia of his wizardry, upon Ish-kay-nay, upon himself; he tossed it to the four winds. Then he pointed toward a bag that Ish-kay-nay clutched in her hand, and grunted. The girl understood, opened the bag and displayed a few bits of the blue-green dukliji, some colored beads—her treasures. Wide-eyed, tearless, she looked at Nakay-do-klunni, wondering, hoping that this would be enough to insure strong medicine from the great izze-nantan—if her all would be enough to bring her word of Shoz-Dijiji, of her lover.
Nakay-do-klunni scraped it all into his palm, examined it, dropped it into his own bag, then he closed his eyes and sat in silence, as though listening. For several minutes he sat thus and Ish-kay-nay was greatly impressed by this evidence of supernatural power, for was not Nakay-do-klunni even now in communication with the spirits? When he opened his eyes and looked at her little Ish-kay-nay came as near swooning as it is possible to conceive of an Apache. Her lips parted, panting, she awaited the verdict.
“Shoz-Dijiji not come back,” announced Nakay-do-klunni. He waited impressively for a moment. “Shoz-Dijiji dead!” He started to give her the harrowing details, as explained to him by Juh, but the girl had risen and was walking away. What did Ish-kay-nay care for the details? It was enough to know that Shoz-Dijiji was dead, that he would not come back, that she was never to see him again.
Her face betrayed nothing of the terrifying, withering emotion that scorched her brain. Erect, proud, almost majestic, the little Indian girl walked out of the camp of the Be-don-ko-he and took her sorrow with her. Far up into the mountains she took it, to a place that she and Shoz-Dijiji had known together. Until night she lay there where none might see her, her supple frame racked by sobs, giving herself wholly to her grief; nor all during the long night did she move, but lay there in the awful silence of the mountain, smothering her moans in its rocky bosom.
When she returned to camp in the morning her eyes were swollen, but dry. Her father was waiting for her, anxiously, for suicide, though rare, was not unknown among the Apaches. He told her that upon the second day the tribe was setting out for the Tonto Basin country; that there was going to be war and that all the pindah lickoyee would be killed. Everything would be different then with the Shis-Inday and Juh would be a very great chief indeed, for all the dead Ned-nis would come back and join the tribe. He urged upon her the necessity for immediately accepting the advances of the chief.
Ish-kay-nay was apathetic. She did not care what happened to her now. Without Shoz-Dijiji there could be no happiness. It might then as well be Juh as another. It would please her father. Listlessly she gave her assent. That night the war pony of the chief of the Ned-ni was tethered before her tepee, and when the tribe broke camp to go to Tonto Basin and upon the war trail Juh rode off alone with Ish-kay-nay, up into the hills.
In the foothills near Casas Grandes Shoz-Dijiji lay watching the herd of the rich Mexican for several days after the troops withdrew, for, being an Apache, he must reconnoiter carefully, painstakingly, before he struck. At night he crept down and watched and listened and planned very close to the corral where the horses were and the house where the vaqueros slept, until he knew the habits and the customs of the men and saw that they had not changed since last he had been there.
Then came the night that he had chosen for the venture. In the silence of the midnight he crept down to the corral, a high-walled enclosure built to protect its valued contents from such as he. Heavy gates, strongly barred and padlocked would have defied the best efforts of several men. This Shoz-Dijiji well knew and so he did not bother with them. When the time came they would open.
He moved directly to the far side of the corral, as far from the sleeping quarters of the vaqueros as possible, and waited there, listening. Satisfied, he leaped and seized the top of the wall, making no noise. In equal silence he drew himself up and very gently lowered his body to the ground inside. The horses nearer him became restless. One of them snorted. Shoz-Dijiji whispered soothingly soft Spanish words. All the time he stood very still and presently the animals quieted.
In half an hour they were accustomed to his presence, were becoming accustomed to his scent. A few approached, sniffing him. Gradually he commenced moving toward the nearest. It walked away, but did not appear to be terrified. For hours Shoz-Dijiji worked patiently. All depended upon his ability to get close to one horse quickly and without terrifying it; but it was almost dawn before he succeeded and quite dawn before he was able to loop a rope about its lower jaw.
It was only a short time thereafter that he heard the vaqueros moving about. Shoz-Dijiji grinned. With all their care there was this one vulnerable point in their daily routine; it consisted in the fact that they were accustomed to turn the herd from the corral before they saddled their own horses that were kept in a smaller enclosure nearby the main corral. The horses went at once to water, close to the hacienda and in plain view, and by the time they had drunk the vaqueros were saddled and ready to drive them out onto the range. All this Shoz-Dijiji knew.
Shoz-Dijiji smelled the breakfasts cooking and the aroma of tobacco. Then he heard someone at the gates. It would be one man, it always had been; there was no need of more than one to unlock and swing the portals. The gates swung aside. The horses, crowding, jostling one another, went through with heads well raised, effectually blocking from the view of the single vaquero anything that might have been transpiring in the corral behind them, if he had been seeking to discover; but he was seeking to discover nothing. He was only concerned with the business of inhaling hiscigarrilloand digesting his breakfast.
Many times had he done this same letting out of the horses of a morning. There was nothing about it and never had been anything about it to focus upon it any interested attention—at least not until this morning. Even at first he did not know what an interesting thing was going on there right in the corral almost under his nose, for the horses’ heads were held high and he could not have seen beyond them had he looked; furthermore he did not look. So he did not see that a war chief of the Be-don-ko-he, the son of the war chief of all the Apaches, had slipped a naked leg over the back of a bright bay gelding and was lying close along the animal’s side.
Most of the horses were out of the corral when the vaquero was startled to hear a war whoop almost in his ears—a war whoop that was immediately followed by the crack of a revolver. The horses were startled, too. Snorting and with heads even higher than before, the last of them rushed through the gateway, terrified. Behind them, whooping, firing a revolver, came a terrifying thing. They broke first into a gallop and then into a mad run, but still the shrieking, howling creature clung to their rear or flank, circling them, turning them, heading them toward the north.
As it passed the startled vaquero he caught a fleeting glimpse of a moccasined foot and a painted face and he drew his six-shooter, but he dared not fire; for did he not know the high value that his master placed upon these dearly beloved animals of his, and could he shoot without endangering some of them? Instead he turned and ran to notify his fellows, but he met them running toward him, attracted by the whoops and the shots. Already the herd was hidden by its own dust cloud.
“Apaches!” shouted the vaquero, but they did not need to be told that—they had heard that dread cry before. “Fifty of them,” shouted the man, running toward the small corral where their mounts were confined.
By the time they had saddled and bridled and ridden out the dust cloud was far away, and though they pursued it they were, as all experienced Indian fighters should be, keenly on the lookout for an ambuscade. Knowing that there had been fifty warriors in the party that had run off their stock, it was only natural that they should expect a part of that number to lie in wait for them along the way. Of necessity this slowed down the pursuit, but Shoz-Dijiji did not slow down, he kept the herd at top speed as long as he could do so; and even after it tired and was no longer terrified he pushed it hard along the trail that he had chosen.
The horses had been without water since the previous day and they had run for many miles under the ever-increasing heat of the sun. Now it poured down upon them. They were choked with dust and reeked sweat, and the terrible thing behind them would not let them turn back toward water; but presently, toward noon, the thing happened that Shoz-Dijiji knew would happen, so carefully does the Apache plan each smallest detail.
Far ahead, miles and miles away, lay water upon the trail that Shoz-Dijiji had thus purposely selected, and somehow the horses knew that it was there as horses seem always to know. No longer did the Apache have difficulty in keeping the great herd upon the right trail, in preventing it from turning back. On the contrary his own mount, having carried him half a day, found difficulty in keeping pace with its fellows.
How he took them, alone and unaided, across those weary, dusty, burning miles, through scorching deserts and rugged mountains equally scorching, along a trail beset by enemies, pursued by wrathful vaqueros, would well have been the subject of a deathless epic had Shoz-Dijiji lived in the days of Homer.
Rests found him always where there were water and grass, sometimes at the end of a long day, or again at the close of a long night; for Shoz-Dijiji, more tireless than the horses, could travel twenty hours on end, and more if necessary. He caught fleeting moments of sleep while the horses watered and fed, always lying on the trail behind them that they must disturb him if they turned back; and turn back they did on more than a single occasion, causing the Apache many an hour of hard and perilous riding; but he was determined to bring them through without the loss of a single horse if that was humanly possible of accomplishment. He would give the father of Ish-kay-nay fifty horses and he would still have fifty for himself, and fifty such horses as these would make Shoz-Dijiji a rich man.
He thought all of the time about Ish-kay-nay. How proud she would be! For Shoz-Dijiji appreciated well and fully the impressiveness of his exploit. If he had been acclaimed as a great warrior before, this would go far toward establishing him as one of the greatest. Forevermore mothers would tell their children of the bravery and prowess of Shoz-Dijiji, nor was he either mistaken or overvain. Shoz-Dijiji had indeed performed a feat worthy of the greatest heroes of his race.
Already he had crossed the boundary and was safe in the country of the Cho-kon-en, and all that last night he urged the tired horses on that he might reach camp in the morning. His arms and his heart ached for Ish-kay-nay—little Ish-kay-nay, the playfellow of his childhood, the sweetheart of today, the mate of the morrow.
Toward dawn he came to water and let the herd drink. He would rest it there for an hour and then push on, reaching camp before the excessive heat of this early September day had become oppressive. Quenching his own thirst and that of the horse he rode, Shoz-Dijiji lay down to sleep, his crude bridle rein tied to his wrist.
The horses, tired and footsore, were quiet. Some of them browsed a little upon the dried, yellow grasses; many lay down to rest. The sun rose and looked down upon the little mountain meadow, upon the drowsing horses and the sleeping man.
Another looked down, also—a tall, gaunt man with cheeks like parchment and a mustache that had once been red, but was now, from over exposure to the Arizona sun, a sickly straw color. He had a reddish beard that was not yet old enough to have bleached. Upon the blue sleeves of his jacket were yellow chevrons. Sergeant Olson of “D” Troop looked down and saw exactly what the sun saw—an Apache buck, habited for the war trail, asleep beside a bunch of stolen stock. Sergeant Olson needed but a glance to assure his experienced cavalry eye that these were no Indian cayuses.
He withdrew below the edge of the hill from which he had been reconnoitering and transmitted a gesture of silence toward other men dressed in blue who sat their horses below him, and beckoned to an officer who quickly rode upward and dismounted. Presently the officer shared the secret with Sergeant Olson and the sun. He issued whispered orders and forty men rode down a narrow ravine and crossed a ridge into the canyon below Shoz-Dijiji.
The sun, crossing the withers of Shoz-Dijiji’s horse, shone upon the warrior’s face and he awoke. He arose and mounted his horse. Sergeant Olson, looking down from above, watched him. If he went down the canyon, all right; if he went up, all wrong—there were no soldiers up the canyon. Shoz-Dijiji circled the herd and started it up the canyon. This did not suit Sergeant Olson; anyhow, the only good Indian is a dead Indian. The noncommissioned officer drew his army Colt from its holster, took accurate aim and fired. Who could blame him?
Two days before his bunkie had been shot down in cold blood at Cibicu Creek by an Apache scout who was in the service and the uniform of the United States. He had seen Captain Hentig murdered, shot in the back, by another scout named Mosby; he had seen Bird and Sondergros and Sullivan, and others killed; and, he smiled even then at the recollection, he had seen Ahrens, a “D” Troop bugler, put three bullets into the head of that old devil, Nakay-do-klunni. Sergeant Olson called him Bobbydoklinny. Tough old buzzard, he was! Those three forty-fives in his cabezas hadn’t killed him, and Smith, another “D” Troop sergeant, had found him crawling about on the ground after dark and had finished him with an axe—good old Smith!
Shooting down at a considerable angle from a considerable distance above one’s target is difficult. No, shooting down is not difficult, but hitting your target is. Sergeant Olson missed. With an oath he stood up and commenced firing rapidly and Shoz-Dijiji, seeing him immediately, returned the fire. Sergeant Olson emitted an explosive oath and dived forward upon the brow of the hill. There he lay, very quiet, while Shoz-Dijiji urged his horse up the steep canyon side opposite. It is the Apache’s first instinct when surprised to seek some rugged, inaccessible spot from which he can survey without being surveyed, and always a place difficult or impossible for horses.
From the top of the hogback Shoz-Dijiji looked over at Sergeant Olson, who had not moved. He saw no other soldiers there, but he knew where there was one soldier there were others, usually many of them. He cocked his ears. Ah, what was that? From down the canyon came unmistakable evidence of the clumsy approach of clumsy white-eyes. They made enough noise, thought Shoz-Dijiji, to have been a great army, but he knew that they were not. All the members of the six tribes including their women and children could have passed along this same trail with a tenth the commotion—only the soft swish of their moccasined feet.
Shoz-Dijiji hid his horse on the far side of the hogback and crept back to watch. He saw the soldiers come, and hate and disappointment surged through him in hot, savage waves as he watched them round up his hundred horses and drive them back down the canyon, while a detachment from the troop followed upward in search of Indians.
Others went up the opposite side of the canyon to look for Olson; and as they found him Shoz-Dijiji mounted his horse below the edge of the hogback and rode down toward the valley, paralleling the course taken by the soldiers and his horses, loath to give them up, hoping against hope that some circumstance might give him the opportunity to win them back, ready to risk his life, if need be, for the price of Ish-kay-nay and happiness.
Bitter were the thoughts of Shoz-Dijiji as he followed the troopers who had stolen his herd, for by the hoary standards of the Apache, ages old, itwastheft and the herd was his. Had he not taken it by virtue of courage and cunning, winning it fairly? Had the soldiers been taking his herd for themselves there would have been less anger in the heart of Shoz-Dijiji, for he could accord to others the same rights that he demanded for himself, but they were not.
Experience had taught him that the fool white-eyes took stock from the Indians and tried to return it to those from whom the Indians had taken it, profiting in no way. Therefore he believed that they did so purely for the purpose of persecuting the Indians, just as they had taken their water and their lands and ruined their hunting grounds, which was, in the sight of Usen and his children, but a part of the plan of the pindah lickoyee to exterminate the Shis-Inday.
Did not all men know that the thing the pindah lickoyee called government had hired many hunters to exterminate the buffalo and all other game, thus forcing the Indians to remain on the reservations and beg for rations or starve? Bitter were the thoughts of Shoz-Dijiji as he followed the troopers down toward the plain.
From behind a knoll near the mouth of the canyon the Black Bear saw the soldiers of “D” Troop drive the horses out upon the plain and toward the north. As he knew all the vast domain of his people Shoz-Dijiji knew this plain, knew it as he knew the wrinkles in the face of Sons-ee-ah-ray, knew the route the soldiers would take across it, knew the windings of the dry wash that cut deeply through it from the canyon’s mouth. He waited where he was until a rise of ground hid him from the troopers entering the plain below.
Cautiously the Apache rode down into the wash and along its dry, sandy bottom where the steep, high banks hid him from the sight of the soldiers. Where the wash took a broad sweep to the east he urged his mount to a run. The sand beneath its feet gave forth no dust nor any sound.
The soldiers, moving in a more direct line, were drawing away from him as Shoz-Dijiji raced, a silent shadow, toward the destination he had chosen. The wash turned toward the north and then again in a westerly direction, making a wide curve and coming again very close to the trail along which the soldiers were driving Shoz-Dijiji’s herd. Toward this point the Apache was racing, in his mind a bold plan, such a plan as only an Apache mind might conceive—of all warriors the most cautious, also, of all warriors, the most fearless when emergency demanded fearlessness.
Other warriors might pit themselves gallantly and gloriously against great odds in defense of the weak, in furtherance of some lofty ideal or for the honor of a flag; but it remained for an Apache, armed with a six-shooter, a knife, a bow and some arrows, to seriously conceive the idea that he might successfully attack ten fully armed cavalrymen for the sake of some captured loot! But perhaps we are unfair to Shoz-Dijiji, for was there not also Ish-kay-nay?
Where the trail came again close to the wash there was a way up its steep side to the plain above, a way that Shoz-Dijiji knew. It had been made by range stock crossing at this point. When the last of the soldiers had passed it they were startled by a loud Apache whoop and the bark of a six-shooter. Yelling, firing, Shoz-Dijiji charged straight toward the rear of the herd, straight toward the ten mounted troopers.
The horses broke into a gallop, frightened by the yells and the shots. The soldiers, sure that there must be other hostiles hiding in the wash, fired at Shoz-Dijiji and then turned their attention toward the point where they expected the main force of the enemy to develop, toward the wash. Shoz-Dijiji, still yelling, drew away behind the racing herd.
But only for a moment were the troopers disconcerted by the suddenness, by the sheer effrontery of the attack. A sergeant raised his carbine to his shoulder, his mount, well-trained, stood motionless as its rider slowly dropped the sights upon the bright bay gelding, already a long shot for a sharpshooter, even at a fixed target.
The sergeant pressed the trigger. There was a puff of smoke from the black powder and the bright bay gelding lurched heavily to the ground, turning a complete somersault, hurling its rider far ahead. Over and over rolled Shoz-Dijiji, still clinging to his precious six-shooter, and came to his feet unhurt. A quick glance showed him the herd well out of his reach. No chance there to gain a new mount. To the rear he saw ten angry cavalrymen spurring toward him, firing as they came.
Shoz-Dijiji was trained to think quickly, and as the bullets hurled up spurts of dust about him he vanished again into the wash that had given him up.