Tracking apache joe, p.9
Tracking Apache Joe, page 9
‘I did, yep.’
‘Did you own slaves?’
‘Never, I was like a slave to the Apache. I was born in poverty, and captured as a boy.’
‘Ah, there you have it.’ He sighed. ‘None of it matters to me now. I will blow to the wind as ash and maybe my spirit will reach hunting grounds. Your quest is done if you kill the disease man, Apache Joe or don’t. You also will be finished with that shot. If he kills you or gives you the disease, you will be like the Apache and me – back to dirt and dust. It is all the same.’
‘Mebbe what you say is true,’ Hawkstone said. ‘Don’t know why I told you what I did about me.’
‘Because you know choices of life are not always yours to make. And you know I am done with all this same foolishness. It is finished.’
The chief sat across the fire. He continued to stare at the flame. His gnarled hands folded across his filthy buckskin-covered crossed knees. The muscles in his wrinkled face relaxed. He said nothing more.
‘Are you gone, Chief?’ Hawkstone asked softly.
Chapter Eighteen
The chief was not as heavy as he looked. Hawkstone went around the fire. He gently laid the man on his side. He lifted an arm and pushed his shoulder under the left armpit – his knees under and the chief on his back. With a grunt, and some strain, he lifted the chief to his feet. The body draped over his right shoulder. He staggered more from the whiskey than weight. At the platform ladder he climbed up four steps that bent under the weight until the platform was even with his stomach. He laid the body down so the chief’s face looked up at stars. He straightened legs and moved the arms to the sides. He climbed down.
With the kerosene or whatever was in the whiskey bottle, Hawkstone climbed back up four steps and splashed it around and over the body. He sniffled from the cold and the whiskey and the effort of his task – his eyes and nose stung with campfire smoke bite. The bottle in his hand, he stepped back down to the ground. He splashed liquid all around the platform, careful not to let any go to the campfire.
When the bottle was empty he tossed it under the platform. He pulled three burning branches from the fire and lobbed them to the top of the platform. A whoosh of flames licked up to the dark sky. He pulled two more flaming branches and poked them at the platform legs until the platform became a square of fire.
Despite the campfire heat, Hawkstone sat on the opposite side of the square fire close to the burning mesquite campfire, wallowing in past regrets over the path of his life until warmth from the fires started to diminish.
Hawkstone stayed, pulling from his second bottle of whiskey until no trace of flame remained and the collapsed platform had become gray chunks and ashes – and another bottle was empty. The sky began to lighten along the eastern horizon. He stood with Buck’s reins in his hands. He took off his Stetson and looked down at smoldering ash.
‘Happy hunting, Chief,’ he said.
He pulled the Stetson back on, mounted Buck, and saw something to the west. A man sat his pony on the rise of a low bushy butte, still as a statue, watching him. Emerging sunlight shone off the wild mane of his yellow hair.
Apache Joe.
Hawkstone rode hard for the butte. The mule kept up, and the pack stayed together well and tight. Apache Joe had immediately disappeared. Hawkstone reached the butte and heeled Buck up, Buck climbing with effort, pulling the mule. At the top he searched along brush on the other side. Riding down into the flat, he searched the rocky ground for signs of unshod horses. He found them but they led to another creek and disappeared. Apache Joe had gone upstream or down.
At the edge of the creek Hawkstone sat deep in his saddle, squinting at the western horizon. Heavy spring rains had created many new creeks, but all would be gone by deep winter. The sun was halfway toward its zenith. Air remained chilly. It had to be late September, or even October. He swung down from the saddle and checked the cinch, and tie-downs for the pack. When satisfied, he mounted and rode directly west.
The Apache village south of Puerto Peñasco had to be warned.
Broken Hand’s invitation to step down welcomed Hawkstone with courtesy and tolerance, not warmth. Laura Jean Dawson, dressed in buckskin, might easily have been taken for an Apache woman. Her transformation was complete – only sun-brown color on her face, dark hair in braids down past her shoulders – her belly was puffed with child that she pushed ahead of her with an arched back when she walked.
Hawkstone had just stepped out of the saddle when Laura Jean said, ‘I’m not going back, Mr Hawkstone. Won’t do you no good to say I will.’
‘This ain’t about you, little girl,’ Hawkstone said.
Hawkstone nodded to Running Wolf, off along the sea bank, who cleaned fish with his woman while two boys under ten played around them. Next, he paid his respects to a chief so old and wrinkled he could barely walk. Members of the tribe treated their leader with reverence. Along the seashore were eight tepees and three wickiups. Poles stretched fishing nets between them. Four men sat cross-legged with Running Wolf repairing nets. Entwined juniper and cottonwood branches held dryin,g cleaned and opened fish. Three tepees had vegetable gardens. Five canoes at least fifteen feet long, built rugged and seaworthy, lined the shore. Children ran and played around the tepees. Two dogs snarled at each other. A pig snorted and rooted for food. Three goats munched vegetation that grew close to the village edge. A big Conestoga wagon sat just to the east of the village – longer than twenty-five feet with wheels to a man’s shoulder. On it were three water barrels for water fetched from the nearest creek, or from a two-week round trip to the Rio Concepcion River, when creeks and smaller rivers dried. The Conestoga – likely commandeered in a raid – was necessary with its four-foot width and depth to carry those filled barrels. The wagons weighed almost 3,000 pounds empty. In addition, each family had a method for boiling sea water and letting steam run into a bottle as fresh drinking water.
Broken Hand led Hawkstone to his tepee. While Laura Jean prepared a meal, the two men sat on the ground in front of the tepee opening. Broken Hand’s young smooth face looked passive, but a warmth filled his dark eyes when he looked at his white woman. Another feather had been added to his band – a seagull.
He said, ‘We were told Apache Joe still rides the territories.’
‘He is here and he comes to your village.’ Hawkstone tilted his hat back. ‘As if he is drawn here, like this area is his destination, and has been since New Mexico Territory.’ He pointed a finger at Broken Hand. ‘You don’t allow anyone to contact them. No trading, and keep the pair miles away. Shoot him on sight. You shoot both of them dead, and their animals, then burn and bury them. Don’t let nobody touch them. Let none of the young go to trade. If you do you will all come back with the smallpox.’ He nodded to Laura Jean. ‘Even your woman and child. Mebbe even the typhoid fever.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Like my woman did.’
‘We will have braves to watch.’
Hawkstone rubbed his knees. No invitation came about eating. He could not say the tribe was hostile, but he would not call them friendly. ‘Have you seen Black Feather?’
Broken Hand shook his head. ‘Three white men come, one very fat. They entered the village and their mean eyes swept across us. We think they look for value, something they might steal. We have no gold or treasure, or anything to interest them. We kept our rifles pointed at them. They had whiskey so our braves did not shoot them. The men looked with hunger at our girls, but they rode on. We have been watching, expecting a raid from them.’
‘Black Feather was not along?’
‘Why would he be?’
‘They are tracking Apache Joe, like me. He scouts for them.’
Laura Jean brought two wooden plates. She handed one to Hawkstone and another to Broken Hand. She did not meet the gaze from Hawkstone, but turned her eyes away. The wood plates were piled with corn and carrots and pieces of cooked fish. Chunks of corn-bread lined the edges of the plate to scoop the food. Silently, Laura Jean waddled with her big belly back to the fire. Two other women joined her as they scowled at Hawkstone. The three women squatted by the fire and talked to each other in low voices. Laura Jean was as much an Apache woman as the other two.
The men ate quickly and in silence. The food was good and Hawkstone set to with a flourish. It did not take long to clean his plate and he wanted more. He reckoned he’d better be satisfied with the one offer.
He said, ‘I want to leave my mule and pack here for a spell.’
‘Yes. Who do you seek besides Black Feather and Apache Joe?’
‘Them same three jaspers. They got five men to dry gulch me, and they got to answer for it.’
‘But they are not here. We saw them ride toward the town. When we told them about the stagecoach, they rode north.’
Hawkstone set his plate down. ‘Stagecoach? What stagecoach?’
Broken Hand looked to the north. ‘The coach that takes gringos and Mexicans from the border to town and back again, to the Gila River.’
‘Yuma,’ Hawkstone said. ‘Puerto Peñasco to Yuma. Them jaspers likely plan to rob it.’
‘If they have not already. It was many days ago they came through here.’
Hawkstone sucked his tongue against his teeth. He reached in his vest pocket for Bull Durham and corn husk paper. Broken Hand took his offer of the pouch, but had some bother rolling his own with his crooked hand. When they lit up and inhaled their first smoke, Hawkstone studied the three women by the campfire. They were young and looked the same, all three heavily swollen with child.
Hawkstone turned to Broken Hand. ‘Mebbe they headed back this way after. They wouldn’t go to Yuma after robbing the stage. Word would be out and around.’ He slapped his knee. ‘But where the Sam Hill is Black Feather? He stopped leaving me signs. I can’t believe he went off to rob a stagecoach with them fellas.’
‘A man changes,’ Broken Hand said. He matched Hawkstone’s stare. ‘Or, a man is forced to change.’
Chapter Nineteen
Away from the Apache village before dark, Anson Hawkstone rode Buck back to the creek where he had seen Apache Joe. Heavy spring rains had brought more water to the mighty Sanora than it had known in a decade or more. But already rivers had become creeks, and creeks small streams. Though winter nights might snap with cold, days would still be warm to hot. Sources for water already began to dry once again.
Hawkstone carried a clean change of clothes with him – shirt, canvas jeans, socks and long johns – one change on, one for washing, one clean. He set up camp and in twilight shaved his face clean and bathed in the creek while Buck watched. Since he reckoned Apache Joe would eventually visit the village, he felt no real rush pushing him. He kept the Colt within reach in case Apache Joe doubled back.
He tried to ponder a life without Rachel Cleary, but no matter how he twisted it, no living came right. All he had left he might call kin was Black Feather. Farther off might be Little Rain and the old warrior, Moving Rock.
With Hawkstone’s parents dead, Apache took him when he was ten. Except for eight years at sea and three in prison, and his short marriage in Santa Fe, he had always lived with the Apache. His seagoing shipmate, Ben Coral, was his closest friend. He had been alone those times he wandered off to track or trail, but the Apache had been his people, his home – Rachel, his woman – Black Feather, his brother. He still had Black Feather, if he could find him.
Bathed, shaved, in clean clothes, sober, clear-headed and healthy, Hawkstone, fit for civilization, rode Buck to Puerto Peñasco.
Vaqueros, impressive in tight black with most accessories silver – even the lining of their saddles – and big silver-trimmed sombreros to shadow their young faces, rode pure black or stark white stallions taught to prance in public. No ragged-clothed, unshaved – likely drunk – cow punchers were these. They looked and acted proud to be Mexican, and vaquero.
Not so, the town of Puerto Peñasco. A few gringo fishermen used it as a base for fishing the upper Sea of Cortez, and they called it Rocky Point. With single Gunther sail set, the fishermen sailed across Old Tampa Bay where a fish market had grown on the rocky shore. Or they sailed a little farther north into Cholla Bay and went ashore for fun and drink. The fish market established a base for a town, with a general store, stable, two cafés, two hotels, a stage stop station, and five cantinas. Stands had been erected close to the station to sell native wares when the stage came to town. Soiled doves worked the hotels and cantinas, but three small tents, no bigger than cavalry bivouac quarters were south of the town entrance where a vaquero might find paid-for affection.
Hawkstone learned all this by observation and by drinking tequila in the first cantina he came to, called Ponchos. He wanted information about the stage robbery north on the Sonora Baja Road to Yuma, and apparently, as he found out, all the way to Los Angeles, but his Spanish was limited. Few in the cantinas spoke English, and none, Chiricahua Apache.
At the stage station, Hawkstone met Fredrico Puerto, a distinguished-looking man in his fifties who wore a gray business suit and grew bushy pewter hair with a thick mustache. His eyes were dark and piercing, under equally bushy eyebrows, and looked on Hawkstone with suspicion. He spoke English fluently.
He shuffled papers on his desk looking for the poster on Hatchett Jack Swilling. ‘Ah, the vaqueros, si. Hard to believe but there are rancheros within the Sonora, three close by. It is Saturday, Mr Hawkstone, the men wear their finest clothes so they can come to town and drink and get drunk and fornicate and fight. They look much less magnificent riding home in the morning.’
Hawkstone noticed food stains on the lapel of Fredrico Puerto’s suit. ‘You mebbe got smallpox headed your way.’
The dark eyes looked up from the papers. ‘From where?’
‘Apache Joe and his squaw are trading blankets and hides. They’re close.’
‘I see. I will tell the federales. Ah, the poster.’
Hawkstone said, ‘I ain’t positive but I think that’s the jasper held up your stagecoach, him and his two pards, Jimmy July and Double Chin Bass Reeves.’
Fredrico Puerto concentrated on the paper in his hand. ‘The federale colonel is staying at the Puerto Hotel. I will show him this, and tell him of Apache Joe.’ He studied Hawkstone. ‘They killed the driver and his partner first. There were four passengers, two men and two señoritas. The bandits killed the two men and the oldest woman. They carried off the youngest, Señorita Calaveras. She was seventeen, being chaperoned by the other woman, Maria. We found the girl’s ravaged body three days’ ride east from the stage. We believe they move south after circling around the town, perhaps going deeper into Mexico.’ He paused to look out of the window. ‘I still do not understand how they knew about the shipment. They took it all.’
‘Shipment?’
‘From the three rancheros, gold to be deposited at the bank in Yuma. Five thousand dollars. They took the gold and the girl, and anything of value the passengers carried. They left the girl later, naked, by the side of the trail, to bake in the sun. A patrol is in pursuit.’ He shook the poster. ‘And her father has already led riders after them. Nobody could stop him.’
Hawkstone rubbed his hand across his mouth. ‘Likely, they found the shipment by dumb luck. You sure they headed south?’
‘Ah, you think they will try to cross the border. You think they ride west then north.’
‘Mebbe.’
Fredrico Puerto looked from the door to Hawkstone and back again. ‘I must get this poster to the colonel. Perhaps you should come with me. Even ride along to identify the bandits.’
Hawkstone shook the man’s soft hand. ‘Much obliged talking. I reckon I’ll be moving along.’ As he stepped to the door, he already knew where the bandits were riding to. He would have to hurry. With federale soldiers and an angry pa on their trail, it might get crowded. Hawkstone wanted them first – and last. He wanted to know what became of Black Feather. He also needed to reach them before they got back to the small Apache village by the sea. The village carried no hard treasure for them, they had stagecoach gold. No, they did not seek tangible precious or semi-precious stones, like garnet or topaz, or possibly diamonds. They sought living treasure, precious and innocent. Having whet their appetites on the young señorita, they headed to the village after the girls.
The bandits did not try to hide their trail. Were they stupid enough to think there would be no pursuit? Did they think Mexico was that backward? Apparently. By the track of them, once around and south of town, they rode directly toward the seaside village. When Hawkstone caught the trail, he followed at an easy gallop. After four hours tracking, something was not right. A set of unshod hoof prints joined the three bandits from open desert. The unshod horse took the lead. Recent blood dotted sand and dirt and rocks. The three shod horses continued toward the village with some blood coming from one of them. The unshod prints followed, slower, much slower, wandering off-trail, dripping blood, the pony staggering a crooked line. Hawkstone stayed with the unshod pony and its wounded rider.
Two hours later, ahead, he saw the rider – Black Feather. He heeled Buck hard to a full gallop.
Hawkstone caught up to his blood brother, and got an arm around him as he fell from the pinto. He pulled his canteen and helped Black Feather to sit next to a clump of junipers. A bullet had creased his temple. Another showed to be a back shot. The front and back of his shirt was soaked in blood. While Black Feather swallowed what little water he could, Hawkstone lifted the shirt. It did not look good. The wound was a gut shot, low, through the liver.
‘My brother,’ Black Feather whispered. His eyes were red.
‘Try to swallow.’
‘It will do no good.’
With a heritage from fierce warring ancestors, the warrior’s face gritted stoic, chiseled in stone, a combination mahogany-redwood in the harsh sunlight. His dark red eyes blinked.
