Читать книгу General Crook and the Fighting Apaches - Edwin L. Sabin - Страница 14

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The country was steadily growing wilder, with much large timber. For two days Micky had been leading on and on. The Chiricahuas did not seem to be pursuing, and Jimmie was certain that he had escaped from them. He wished that he might have said good-by to good Nah-da-ste, who had taken care of him; and to his friends Nah-che and Chato, and some others; but of course that had not been possible. They might have known that he could not stay being an Apache.

Now on this the third day from the cave Micky suddenly stopped short and examined an object beside him. They had been following just below a gravelly ridge, so as to be out of sight. Yuccas and bunchy grass grew here, and a few cedars, and the sun was warm.

“Tonto sign,” spoke Micky, pointing.

It was a band of dried grass knotted around a yucca leaf. Only eyes like those of Micky would have seen it; but Micky saw everything.

“How do you know, Micky?”

“Because I know,” answered Micky. “That is the way the Tonto tie their grass. A White Mountain would have tied different, and so would a Chiricahua or a Pinal. And the same with piling stones or writing signs on rocks or bark. It means a Tonto war party has passed here, and tells other Tonto to follow. See—there is the trail.”

“Shall we hide, Micky?”

“No. The trail was made early this morning. It is an old trail. See, Cheemie? You have lived with the Chiricahua and you ought to know. There is a broken twig, where it was stepped on, and the leaves are wilted. The sap is done flowing. I think we’d better follow and see where those Tonto are going, so we won’t run into them.”

The trail proceeded up the gravelly ridge, where moccasin prints were plain, and over, and through among cedars of a flat mesa; and suddenly Jimmie fairly gasped for breath. They had come out upon the edge of a great, broad, deep valley lying like a green basin; it was so deep that the trees in it looked like shrubs, and the farther edge was veiled in purple mist.

“Tonto home,” said Micky. “Down in there the Tonto live, where they can hide. Up here is Mogollon country. It is all a flat mountain top, on the Sierra Mogollon. We shall see many big pine trees soon. When we find where this Tonto trail goes we had better turn back.”

The trail skirted the dizzy edge; then it veered inland, and was joined by another trail, and presently the joined trails made straight into a tremendous forest. The trees were all pines; they stood up tall and stately, and under them the ground was clean, except for the needles and the low grass and flowers. Throughout the long aisles flecked by the sun not a thing moved. It was a silent forest.

Micky and Jimmie trotted fast, their eyes upon the trail, or searching ahead. Now it was past noon. Once in a while the view opened into the great Tonto Basin; and again there was only the timber, with the serried trunks extending on every side. In such a forest, and when gazing into such a basin, a boy felt small.

About an hour or an hour and a half after noon Micky, who was just before, stopped short once more—stopped so quickly that he stood with one foot uplifted. He signed “Come,” and Jimmie came on.

“Horse tracks now, Cheemie. American horses. Mules, too. American soldiers.”

This was a larger trail; the pine needles were imprinted with many hoof marks. The horses had been ridden four abreast—yes, five and six abreast, so that the trail lay broadly. They were shod horses, which meant cavalry horses, because the Apache horses were not shod, save with buckskin boots in cactus country. No Apaches rode four or five abreast, anyway. The mule prints were smaller and rounder; and the prints cut deeper, showing that the mules had been laden: pack-mules.

Hah! Micky studied the new trail. The Tontos, too, had paused and studied it.

“These are some of the soldiers I spoke of, I think,” finally declared Micky. “They have been at Camp Apache, maybe. Anyhow, they are going away from it. Maybe the Tonto will attack them. What do you say to do, Cheemie? My heart tells me we have gone far enough. Shall we turn back, for Camp Apache?”

“I’d rather try to find the soldiers, Micky.”

“I will take you to Camp Apache. There are soldiers at Camp Apache; and the White Mountains will be good to you if the soldiers don’t want you. We will all be chi-kis-n to you.”

“Are you afraid of these soldiers, Micky?”

“No; but I am afraid of the Tonto. Besides, I live with Chief Pedro’s people on the reservation near Camp Apache. I have no business off in this other direction.”

“I have, though,” answered Jimmie. “I live at Camp Grant. Maybe these soldiers are marching back to Camp Grant, or Tucson, and they’ll take me there.”

“Well,” replied Micky, “I will follow with you, Cheemie.” His one blue eye danced. “If there is a fight, I would like to see it. I would like to see those Tonto whipped. But don’t expect me to stay with the soldiers, Cheemie. That might make me trouble. Come on, but we must be very careful, or the Tonto will kill us, too.”

After having surveyed the soldiers’ trail the Tontos had continued on beside it, and between it and the edge of the basin. But Micky crossed the soldiers’ trail and hurried away from it. He seemed much excited by the prospect of a fight, for he set such a pace that Jimmie half ran. Evidently he was going to circuit out and back again, to cut the trail farther ahead.

Jimmie kept his ears sharp pricked for soldier sounds—voices, or the creak of saddle-leathers, or the tinkle of pack-mule bells; and also for the shooting of guns: but all was silence. Twice Micky and he struck the trail again. It wended right along, among the trees, and it was getting fresher. Indeed, the soldiers could not be far ahead, now. No Tonto trail had been cut; therefore the Tontos were still on the other side of the soldiers’ trail.

The sun had sunk toward some high purplish ridges away yonder, bounding the basin in the west, and evening was near. The third time that Micky led in, to cut the trail, he and Jimmie got clear to the edge of the great basin without coming to any trail at all. For the last hundred yards they had crawled, with bunches of weeds tied to their heads, lest the Tontos should be in waiting, but nothing had happened.

The big pines extended to the edge of the basin, and along the edge were large boulders, scattered among the trees here. Some of them were the size of a hut. They lay in twos and threes, as if dropped by a blast.

Micky, with Jimmie close behind, wormed from the trees for two boulders that touched. They touched at an angle, so that they left a space, within which two boys might crouch, on the ground, and see out by peeping through the cracks, or by standing up.

“We have come far enough, Cheemie,” whispered Micky. “It is a good place to stay, till the Tonto and the soldiers pass. And if they do not fight I am going back to my White Mountains. But I want to see the fight. Are you thirsty, Cheemie? You’ll have to drink a stone.”

He picked up a round pebble and put it into his mouth. Jimmie did the same. A pebble in the mouth made the mouth wet.

“Listen!” bade Jimmie. “I hear tinkle!”

“Yes; pack-mules. The soldiers are coming. You can go with them, Cheemie, but you must not say one word about me. Promise.”

“All right, Micky.”

The bells of the pack-mules were yet a long way off. Micky, with the weeds still bound on his head, cautiously rose, to peer over the two boulders—and down he dropped.

“S-s-s! Tonto!” he whispered.

He began to poke out his head, gradually, around a corner of the rock on his side. Jimmie gently wriggled, crawling flat, until he was under an over-hang on his side, and might see straight before, with his head just raised from the ground. Right up over the edge of the mighty basin figures were popping, and scuttling for the timber: a file of them, Apaches!

They crossed not more than thirty yards away. They were naked of body and limbs, their hair was black and long and straggly, they were daubed with deer blood and mescal juice, they carried strung bows and quivers, they were the fiercest, most hideous Apaches that Jimmie had ever seen.

The low sun shone full against them, showing them plainly. They scarcely glanced aside as they hurried; and if they did chance to note Micky’s head or Jimmie’s head, they thought them to be two motionless tufts of weed, like other tufts growing here and there.

Tontos! Jimmie counted seventeen, all springing out of the depths of the earth as suddenly as jacks-in-the-box, darting across, and in among the pines. Then there were two more, who dropped among the rocks under the trees.

After the last had passed and vanished, Micky kicked Jimmie’s leg, and Jimmie drew back to face him behind the boulders. Micky’s blue eye fairly sparkled; even his freckles glowed, he was so excited. He certainly loved danger. He was not American enough to say “Hurrah!” but he looked it!

“The Tonto are ready,” he whispered. “We’ll see the fight. Good! Quick! The soldiers are coming.”

He crawled around the boulders, craned and peered, crept swiftly, with Jimmie in his tracks, to a better place, and wormed his way until they both might lie in a warm niche half filled with washed-in soil and screened with brush. From here they could see much better into the timber beyond the cross trail of the Tontos.

Jimmie felt a wild desire to warn the soldiers of the ambush by the Tontos; but the Tontos were cutting him off and he had no time for making a circuit. No, none at all. The soldiers were in sight—the head of their column had appeared, riding on, up an aisle through the towering pines, a short way back from the edge of the basin.

The first, by themselves, were five, riding leisurely almost knee to knee, and apparently enjoying the scenery. Their voices might be heard, as they chatted. One, a small, sun-dried man, wore an old slouch hat and grayish flannel shirt and dark trousers and cowhide boots. He was Tom Moore, a government packer. Jimmie knew him—had seen him at Camp Grant and in Tucson. Hah! And three were officers, in cavalry fatigue—there was Lieutenant John Bourke, of Camp Grant! Yes, sir! And Lieutenant William Ross! And another. But the man in the middle, on a mule, Jimmie did not know at all.

If he was riding there he ought to be an officer, but he seemed to be wearing a brown canvas suit, a sort of brown canvas round-brimmed hat, and carried a shot-gun across the pommel of his saddle, the muzzle of course pointing ahead. Perhaps he was some sportsman from the East, on a hunting trip, with the cavalry.

Micky lay perfectly still, intent to see with his one eye what would happen, but Jimmie trembled. His soldier friends were riding into an ambush and evidently had no suspicion of danger. Neither did their horses. The timber, with the sunshine streaming through the long aisles, stretched fragrant and peaceful. The air was so quiet that the riders’ voices, the occasional blowing of the horses, the scuff of hoofs and the creak of saddles, could be heard plainly.

The cavalry column itself was to be seen, behind, a short distance, winding on among the trees, and the tinkle of the pack bells sounded, again. Jimmie caught his breath. Micky was tense, beside him. The advance squad apparently had reached the Tontos—were within short bow-shot, anyway. Why didn’t——? Ah, look out!

“Twang! Whiz!” “Twang-twang! Whiz-whiz!” “Twang-twang-twang!” And “Whiz! Thud! Thud-thud!” The Tontos were whooping and screeching and shooting; their daubed faces and flying hair and naked bodies could be glimpsed gyrating among the trees; their arrows whizzed and glanced and hummed and thudded, to the twanging of the bows. They were mainly behind the advance squad, trying to stampede the cavalry column. Up half-rose Jimmie, up half-rose Micky, the better to see. Had the first volley killed anybody? Didn’t look so, for not one of the squad was in sight; the animals were rearing and snorting, but every rider had instantly plunged from the saddle and dived for a tree, gun in one hand and reins in the other.

HAD THE FIRST VOLLEY KILLED ANYBODY? DIDN’T LOOK SO

That had been quick and smart work. Lieutenant Bourke and Lieutenant Ross and Tom Moore were no fools; and that sinewy man in the canvas suit was no fool, either.

“Inju! Bueno! (Good! Good!)” chattered Micky, in Apache and Spanish both. “Huh! Tonto run already! Cowards!”

“Hurrah! There come the other soldiers!” babbled Jimmie.

The carbines were banging, as the first troop began to fight—officers shouted, the man in the canvas suit jumped out, yelled orders and pointed, and leveled his shot-gun—“Bang!” The first troop, dismounted to the notes of a bugle, deployed on, firing, another troop was spurring in at a gallop—and the Tontos were scampering off through the timber.

Jimmie was just about to spring upright, glad, when Micky nudged him hard, in warning. Not all the Tontos had gone. The two who had dropped into ambush among the rocks at the timber edge had been cut off by the cavalry, and were now running back, and dancing and dodging, their heads turned.

“Don’t shoot them!” shouted the canvas suit man, in a loud voice. “We have them!”

He was running, too—and his officers—and the foremost of the men—from tree to tree, after them, to surround them at the edge of the basin. The two Tontos had crouched, again, behind a large boulder. Jimmie might have tossed a stone and struck them; they were close in front of him and Micky, and fully exposed, against the boulder. But the soldiers had formed a half circle, hemming them in against the basin’s edge. Up straightened the two Tontos, behind their rock, drew their bows to the arrows’ heads, and stood, at bay, aiming now here, now there, threatening their enemies.

“Don’t shoot them!” the canvas suit man kept shouting. “Take them alive.” And he called to the Tontos: “Friends! Friends!”

However, the two Tontos would have none of that. They stood braced, with bended bows, glaring from tangled hair, as defiant and menacing as a coiled rattle-snake. On a sudden—“Twang!”—they had loosed their arrows, and with a single backward spring and another bound had disappeared over the edge! Evidently they preferred death to capture—they certainly had killed themselves, for the basin looked to be a sheer drop of over a thousand feet.

Out bolted Jimmie and ran, the better to see. Forward ran the canvas suit man and his officers and the soldiers. And there were the two Tontos, alive and running, themselves. They were leaping and bounding like rabbits, from rock to rock and landing-place to landing-place of the merest trail zigzagging them almost straight up and down! that must have been the trail which all the Tontos had climbed.

For a moment everybody was too astonished to shoot. Then—“Bang!” The canvas suit man had thrown his gun to his shoulder, lightning-quick, and aimed and pulled trigger.

The second of the two Tontos leaped aside, one arm fell limp, and was dyed red. But he did not slacken. Now “Bang! Bang! Bang-bang!” The soldiers and the officers also shot as fast as they could, so that even the basin echoed. They were excited, and shooting down-hill, the Tontos were leaping and dodging and looked very small, not much larger than coyotes; and as far as anybody might see, not a bullet touched them.

Pretty soon they had plunged into the brush and scrub-oak chaparral almost at the bottom of the precipice; they had got away.

Jimmie drew a long breath. In the excitement he had forgotten all about himself. Now he came to, and discovered that he was standing out here, alone, on a curve of the basin rim; and that the soldiers, the nearest only a few paces away, holding their smoking carbines were surveying him keenly. Some had begun to steal around, to head him off.

Naturally they took him for an Apache.

The canvas suit man had seen as quickly as any of the soldiers.

“No cuidado, muchacho! Ven’ aqui! (Don’t be afraid, boy! Come here!),” he called, in Spanish, to Jimmie. And added, in English, to the soldiers: “Bring that boy in.”

Jimmie did not wait to be brought in. He raised his hand in the “peace sign,” and ran forward, crying:

“I’m not Apache. I’m American. I’m Jimmie Dunn, Lieutenant Bourke! Hello, Tom Moore! Don’t you know me?”