Читать книгу General Crook and the Fighting Apaches - Edwin L. Sabin - Страница 13

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Jimmie had been with the Cochise Chiricahuas about a year, as he reckoned, because winter (and not a cold winter) had passed, and the yuccas, or Spanish-bayonet cactuses, and the mescal, or century plant cactuses, were again in bloom with their tall, stately plumes of white, which indicated May.

All this time nobody had come looking for him, and he did not know what was going on outside—at Pete Kitchen’s or at Tucson or at Camp Grant or at Joe Felmer’s, or anywhere.

All the news was Apache news; gossip about hunting and raids, and cowardly Mexicans and stupid Americans.

Camps had been changed frequently, for the Chiricahuas did not remain long in any one spot. He had not seen Red-head in several months. According to Nah-che the soldiers were getting more numerous, and were fighting all the Apaches—the Chiricahuas and the Tontos and the Yavapais or Apache-Mohaves and the Mogollons: all who would not settle down at peace like the White Mountains and the Warm Springs.

Part of the winter had been spent in Mexico, but just now the camp had been located again amidst the Chiricahua Mountains. Most of the warriors were out on a big raid, under Cochise and Geronimo. They had not taken any of the older boys. By this it looked as though they were going into American country, where they might meet the soldiers.

Nah-che admitted as much. He said that report had come of a killing of friendly Apaches at Camp Grant, so it was useless to trust the White-eyes (as the Americans were called); they were the enemies of the Apaches, and Cochise had gone to kill all the Mexicans and Americans that he could find, down there.

Jimmie felt anxious. He well knew how cunning and bold the Cochise Chiricahuas were. They had plenty of arms, including guns that they had captured. They were particularly eager to kill a young American war-captain who had been leading soldiers upon their trail.

“Was he a new young war-captain?”

“No, he was an old young war-captain—a horse chief. He had killed Apaches out of Tucson and Camp Grant both.”

As Nah-che would not talk any more about him, Jimmie might only guess. But all the young officers in the First and the Third Cavalry at Camp Grant had been brave.

The Cochise and Geronimo party were gone more than half a moon before word arrived from them. Then, one morning, two runners or messengers, Porico (“White Horse”), who was Geronimo’s brother, and Hal-zay, who was a half-brother to Nah-che, appeared. They had traveled hard and were tired, but they brought exciting news.

The Chiricahuas had ambushed twenty American soldiers and scouts at the Bear Springs in the Mestinez (Mustang) Mountains only a day’s march east from Tucson; had killed six of them, maybe more, and had driven the rest back clear into Camp Crittenden, southeast of Tucson; would have surrounded and killed them, too, had they not fought so skillfully.

A few Chiricahuas had been killed, but among the first to fall, of the Americans, was the young horse chief who had given the Chiricahuas so much trouble. They had taken his clothes and other trophies, and had easily escaped to the Sierra Madre Mountains of Mexico.

Cochise was going to stay there for a time, until the soldiers quit trying to trail him. Then he would come north.

The old squaws in the rancheria immediately lay flat upon their stomachs and screeched and wailed, mourning the warriors who had fallen. This was Apache custom. But the camp on the whole was happy and Jimmie was the only truly sad member. He was not an Apache; he was an American, even though he did not look much like a white boy, now, save for his eyes and hair.

The camp was moved, to guard against a surprise from the soldiers of the American forts. After another half a moon the war party came in and were given a great welcome. They had eaten most of the captured cavalry horses, but they brought some of the other plunder. Taza was wearing the flannel shirt of the young officer.

He was very proud of it. It was a blue shirt, with the straps of a first lieutenant sewed upon the shoulders. Jimmie recognized these, because he knew army uniforms. The shirt was passed about. Inside the neck had been stitched a little tag, bearing the letters “H. B. C.” printed on it.

Oh! This was Lieutenant Cushing’s shirt, then! His initials were H. B. C., for Howard B. Cushing; and he was a first lieutenant, and he had commanded lots of detachments out of Camp Grant, against the Apaches. He was a terrific fighter, too, and one of the very best officers on a trail. Jimmie remembered him well. All southern Arizona knew of Lieutenant Howard B. Cushing of the Third Cavalry. He had served through the Civil War; one of his brothers had been killed at Gettysburg and another, as a lieutenant in the navy, had blown up the Confederate iron-clad Albemarle by poking it with a bomb attached to a long pole.

This Lieutenant Cushing of the Third Cavalry was just as brave. The Apaches had had good reason to fear him. No wonder they rejoiced, now that they had ambushed him and wiped him out.

Nah-che saw Jimmie gulp in his throat. Nah-che had keen eyes.

“You know him?” asked Nah-che.

“Friend,” answered Jimmie, turning away.

“He was a brave captain,” volunteered Nah-che. “He fought hard. But in war brave men die.”

Jimmie longed for the Red-head to take him away; or for soldiers or scouts to attack the camp and rescue him.

The killing of Lieutenant Cushing encouraged the Chiricahuas. Cochise had talks with Chiefs Loco and Chihuahua, and with Chief Nana who was with a Warm Spring band and helping the Chiricahuas. Parties were being sent out constantly; some of the captains took their families, Maria was traded to Chief Nana, and soon the main Chiricahua camp was much smaller.

One day Nah-che, who had been away with Geronimo, came hurrying in with orders for the camp to be moved again.

“There are soldiers marching this way,” he reported, breathless, and big with his news. “They struck us when we were eating, in the medicine springs valley near the Sierra Bonita. We were bringing meat up from Mexico, but we left it. We have seen signal fires telling us of other soldiers. Geronimo says to go at once to the next place-we-know-of.”

Instantly the camp was all confusion. The old men shouted, the women ran around screeching and gathering their household things, children scampered and screamed, dogs yelped. The frameworks of the huts were set afire, and leaving in the smoke the Chiricahuas hustled out for other quarters.

They made a queer procession. The old men stoutly hobbled by aid of long staffs or “walking-sticks”; the women were laden with huge bundles slung to their backs by means of straps about their foreheads, and with babies tucked into their shawls or bound in wicker cradles; ponies had been packed with baskets; the smaller children rode atop, but the strong boys and girls walked. Jimmie and the boys of his age were not obliged to carry anything.

Through canyon and across valley, into brush and timber, up slope and down, they toiled, led by old Cha-dah, who was the camp tatah or chief. Every so often the tatah and the other old men in advance halted, and stuck their staffs into the ground, and waited. Here everybody rested, for a brief space. By this system many miles were covered before camp was established, at evening, and all might eat and sleep.

Jimmie, lying wrapped in a piece of blanket near Nah-che, under a pine tree, was awakened in the night by a hand firmly pressed upon his forehead. The pressure warned him not to stir, so he only stared up—and in the star-lighted dimness he saw the one bright eye of Red-head beaming down from close above him.

Red-head was squatting, waiting. Now he removed his hand slowly, and beckoned with his finger, and silently backed away.

This was enough for Jimmie. What Red-head was doing here, on a sudden, after a long absence, he did not delay to reason out, but began cautiously to slip from his blanketing.

First he drew away, crouched; then on hands and knees; then, stooping, and carefully setting foot before foot, testing the ground lest a twig snap. From tree to tree he stole, until he was beyond the camp—and on a sudden, again, Red-head arose right in front of him.

That was good! Now he followed behind the Red-head’s soundless course, swiftly, straight away, until Red-head stopped.

“Do you want to escape?” asked Red-head. He carried a bow and quiver, and wore only a cloth about his middle, and moccasins.

“Yes.”

“If you’ll travel fast, I’ll take you,” said Red-head. “Soldiers are coming. If we don’t find them you can go to Chief Pedro of the White Mountains. The Chiricahua never visit there, because of the fort.”

“Bueno (Good),” approved Jimmie.

Red-head set out at a trot and rapid walk, but Jimmie kept right in his wake. Jimmie’s legs were as strong as those of Red-head; his training in the Apache games stood by him. On and on and on they hastened, without a word, through the night, amidst timber, and across open flats, and down cactus hills and up again.

Red-head seemed to know what he was about, but Jimmie of course was completely lost. Not until the dusk had thinned and the eastern sky was pink did Red-head halt, at a spring which had made the ground mushy in a little hollow among rocks and cedars.

“Drink, eat, rest,” he said. He grinned with his freckled face, his long red hair was damp with sweat. “You did well, Boy-who-sleeps. One more travel and they cannot catch us. Wait.”

He fitted an arrow to his bow-string and stepped aside, hunting. Jimmie flung himself down, drank, and lay flat, resting. The sky was pink as far as over-head, he might glimpse Red-head moving silently among the cedars; saw him shoot an arrow; and presently Red-head returned with two rabbits.

They started a fire by twirling a pointed stick set upon a flat piece of wood until the dust smoked; then they blew upon the dust and some bark tinder until there was a glow. Then they cooked the rabbits over dry cedar that made no smoke.

First by the stars and later by the pink east Jimmie knew that they had been traveling toward the north. Now Red-head explained. Some of his talk was Apache and some was Spanish-Mexican. He used whichever language came the easier.

“We will not go straight to Camp Apache in the country where the White Mountains are,” he said. “It is better that we go round-about. If the Chiricahua see that we are going to Camp Apache that might make trouble. They would say that the White Mountains stole you, and some time they might capture me. Now if they try to follow us, we will fool them.

“I will tell you about the soldiers. There is a new American comandante. He has come to Tucson, to fight the bad Indians. He is leading out a great lot of horse soldiers and white scouts and tame-Indian scouts—Navahos and Papagos and Yaquis and Apaches, too—and wagons and pack-mules. He has been at Camp Bowie, and he is marching north to Camp Apache, but he may not stay. The White Mountains have heard this from runners. The runners say that he is a wonderful comandante, who knows everything but asks many questions. Shall we try to find him, Boy-who-sleeps? I think that now is a good chance, while the Chiricahua are hiding.”

“I don’t want to live with the Chiricahuas,” asserted Jimmie. “I hate them. They kill my friends. I’m not an Indian. I’m white.”

“I don’t know whether I’m American or Mexican or Indian,” grinned Red-head. “I can be anything. What is your American name, Boy-who-sleeps? I will call you by it. We will quit being Apache.”

“James MacGregor Dunn, but everybody called me Jimmie.”

“Inju (good),” grunted Red-head, in Apache. “I am called Micky Free by the soldiers at Camp Apache. You shall call me Micky, and I shall call you Cheemie.”

“How did you lose your eye, Micky?”

“By a deer. Three or four years ago I shot a deer with an arrow, and knocked him down. I thought I had killed him, but when I ran and grabbed his head he fought me and struck me with his horn in the eye. Old Miguel has only one eye, too. He lost that in battle.”

“Who is old Miguel?”

“He is a White Mountain chief. There are Miguel and Pedro and old Es-ki-tis-tsla and Pi-to-ne. They are for peace.”

“Inju,” grunted Jimmie.

While they rested and ate and drank, Micky kept a sharp look-out. Every now and again he mounted upon a rocky ledge and lay there, peering.

“I see smokes,” he said, coming down the last time. “I do not think they are meant for us. The Chiricahua are signaling to each other. But we had better go on, Cheemie, to a cave I know of. We will sleep.”

Yes, there were smokes, far back on their trail: smokes that signaled “enemies.” This was well, because with enemies around, the Chiricahuas would not risk following the trail of a boy. So that noon Jimmie and Micky slept in Micky’s cave, which was concealed high up in the side of a canyon. They entered it from above. From the mouth they might see a long distance.

“In two days we shall cross the Tonto country,” remarked Micky. “That is where we turn east for Camp Apache and the White Mountains. We will have to be very careful again. The Tonto are bad people. They are outlaws. When an Apache gets bad, he joins the Tonto.”