Feud On The Mesa

Denton. He knew the Southwestern Indians as well as anyone on the frontier and was confident that he had not gone unnoticed by beady black eyes that kept a constant vigil on Denton.

It was anyone’s guess where Red Sleeves’s camp was. It moved often and abruptly—partly through necessity, and partly through a restlessness that was typical of the short, powerful Apache chieftain. Caleb figured he’d meet his man soon enough, if he just kept riding into the known heartland of the Apache rancheria. The sun was directly overhead, a molten mass of purgatorial heat, when two slow-riding, vividly painted braves bisected his path. Doom stopped, relaxed, and waited. They slowed to a walk and came on, faces livid in red and black war colors and their short, husky bodies burned almost black by the blasting sun.

Doom saw many things as the Apaches came up, watching him with unblinking eyes, their hands curled handily around short, heavy Sharps carbines. Their horses were sweat-stained and a little gaunt, but still fat. Stolen horses, settlers’ horses, more than likely. Both of the hostiles had a nap of scalps swinging gently at their belts, along with .44 pistols and the ever-present knives. The painted symbols indicated that the older of the two was a renowned warrior, while the younger was a novice.

They stopped about twenty feet from Doom, having studied him as they came on. They observed only the briefest silence, demanded by protocol, be-fore the elder—a man Doom’s own age—spoke. His eyes were broodingly venomous and his splendid form was corded with knotty hard muscles that had a liberal sprinkling of battle scars. He spoke Spanish, mother tongue of the old Southwest: “? Que dice, ojo claro? ?Como se va?”

Doom looked directly into the other’s eyes and let a silent moment slip by before he answered in English. He affected not to understand Spanish, in accordance with a plan that he’d formulated as he rode. “I’m looking for a great Apache called Red Sleeves.”

The warrior frowned slightly and looked inquiringly at the younger man. This one couldn’t have been over nineteen or twenty years old; he had a smooth, round, pudgy face and a lean, tough body not yet filled out with the muscles and weight of maturity. The younger brave, still looking at Doom with curiosity, interpreted. The older man threw a quick, scornful smile at Doom and spoke to the younger man, who smiled triumphantly and nodded dryly. “We will take you to the rancheria. Come.”

Doom nodded pleasantly and rode with the Indians, who maintained a distance of about ten feet between the white man’s horse and their own. The ride was a silent one, although the attitude of the younger man was clearly one of curiosity.

Finally, as they neared a pine-scented pass that led into the dense growth of a low, rolling nest of verdant foothills, the young man spoke again. “What are you called?”

“Silent Outcast.”

The name had an instantaneous affect on the buck. He looked up, quick and startled, turned to his companion, and grunted in guttural Apache. The older man reined in closer and looked hard at Doom. He spoke in Spanish again and the novice interpreted in a voice tinged with respect.

“That is No Salt, my uncle. I am Free Man. No Salt asks if you were with the yellowlegs we fought at Bitter Springs and drove back to Fort Lauder?”

“Yes, I was guiding them to Denton. When they fell back, I slipped away in the darkness, and rode to Denton.”

No Salt listened to the interpretation with an in-tense look, gave a throaty, deep grunt of admiration. He had heard of Silent Outcast, the white warrior who had been disowned by the other whites—for what reason the Indians neither knew nor cared— and he felt the honor of riding with such a renowned warrior.

“?No habla espanol?” It was a sincere and earnest question. No Salt felt humiliation at having to talk to such a great fighting man through the mouth of a second person, and especially one so inexperienced and unproven as his nephew. Doom shrugged indifferently and looked at the younger man. Free Man shrugged and remained silent, aware of the purpose behind his uncle’s question.

The Apache encampment was a sprawling, primitive splash of vivid color in a secluded meadow. Doom was amazed at the size of it. There were teepees, mud-daubed branch hogans like the Navajos make, crude brush shelters with skins tossed indifferently over them, and plain, open camp areas where weapons and personal belongings were strewn around on the trampled buffalo grass, or hanging listlessly from thick growths of chokecherry bushes. The horse herd, visible on another clearing through a thin screen of stately firs and pines, was huge. Indifferent herdsmen lounged beside horses with their heads down while watching the remuda graze in the tall, succulent meadow grass.

There was a quiet buzzing, intermingled with shrill oaths as squaws chased mangy, half-wild and sly dogs away from the cooking fires and stew pots. Now and then loud laughter would peal over the humming sound of the big camp, and the screams of children at play rode the afternoon air like a nostalgic benediction. No Salt motioned to Free Man, who swung away with a disappointed look and rode listlessly toward the camp of his people. The older warrior then motioned Doom to follow him, and they threaded their way through the maze of Indian camps until they dismounted before a brush lodge set a little apart from the others. No Salt importantly waved up a couple of young boys and growled succinctly at them. Each sprang forward and took the horses’ reins, big-eyed and staring at the white man.

Inside the cool, shady brush hut, Red Sleeves and three older men sat in stony-faced silence, looking at Caleb, as No Salt recited his meeting with the frontiersman. Red Sleeves motioned to the ground and Caleb sat, as did No Salt. Red Sleeves had been educated by a missionary and spoke good English, al-though he was not known to have any sympathies with the whites. “We know of you, Silent Outcast.”

It was neither a welcome nor a condemnation. The chief was waiting to hear Doom’s purpose in coming into his camp before he passed judgment.

“I am honored, although I am sad, too,” Doom said.

“We all are sad.” Red Sleeves spoke in a distrustful voice.

“The Apaches fought the soldiers a few days back and beat them,” Doom reminded.

The chieftain was a shrewd man. “Is that why you are sad? Because the Apaches whipped the ojos claros?”

“Yes, but my sadness comes from more than a victory or a defeat. It comes from my knowledge that the Apaches are fighting against something they can never conquer.”

“This,” said Red Sleeves, his eyes alive and hot, “is not the kind of a war you know, Silent Outcast. This is a great and righteous war, this is the kind of a war David fought with the enemies of the Mighty Host.”

Doom recognized the missionary’s teachings and wondered how they could be so twisted. He nodded as though in agreement, and Red Sleeves’s face lost some of its impassiveness. “You believe, then?”

“In part, yes. In part, no.”

“You speak a riddle.”

“No, Red Sleeves. I speak the mystic teachings of the Great Ones.” From the looks on their faces, two of the older men, sitting motionless and vacant-faced, as well as No Salt, didn’t understand the exchange of words at all. But the other man, about Red Sleeves’s own age, very dark with a hairline that left almost no forehead at all, unpainted like the others, was following the conversation with keen interest. Doom knew he understood.

“But the Great Ones say we have been wronged.”

“True, Red Sleeves. True. But the Apaches would have to number in the millions, not the hundreds and thousands, to avenge that wrong.”

Red Sleeves was plainly perplexed. “You agree that the Indian has been wronged, so you think like we do, but you don’t think he can avenge himself. What do you think the Indian should do, then?”

“Learn to live in this world that has always been his but which is changing now, by learning the ways of the new life. Learn to farm, to labor, to sew and build. Do all this in peace with the whites. Study their way and profit from it,” Doom said.

Red Sleeves’s eyes were hard and cold now. “No! The Indian is a free man. He does not imprison the ground in little fields by putting fences around them. He does not kill off the humpback and the antelope, so that he must bring in his own cattle and nurse them. He does not tear up the earth and smooth it out again, and plant grass where the Great Ones had already planted grass. The Indian is no slave. He is a free man. He does not want to live as the ojos claws live. It is better that he should die than to be a slave.”

Doom sat for a long moment in perfect, grave-faced silence. Red Sleeves’s outburst left him fieryeyed and