When he awoke Jack Drumm did not know where he was, even less where he had been. He seemed swimming in some nameless void, a fathomless pool where there was no up or down, no now or then—only the cloying blackness. From time to time he caught a glimpse of light, perhaps a lamp burning in a window a long way across the moors. At times there was a face lit by the lamp glow, but so faint and blurred that he could not recognize it. Too, at times he heard sounds: voices, small rustlings, footfalls. When he cried out, tried to reach these evidences of humanity, the dark enveloped him again and he sank again into the void.
Finally, with the tenacity of the Drumms, he decided that this business of the darkness was very silly. If he was alive, then a black void was no place to waste time. If he was dead, there must be something beyond the void; pearly gates, perhaps, and a waiting harp—or fiery furnaces. In either case it seemed best to find out immediately.
Opening his eyes, he stared dazedly about. It took a long time to identify the splash of color on the back of a folding canvas chair near the bed. Finally he identified it as a China silk kerchief—a woman's kerchief, such as females used to bind their hair or secure in place a bonnet. Exhausted by the concentration, he lay back; the familiar void once again engulfed him.
He did not know how long it was before he opened his eyes again. With a start he realized that he lay in Eggleston's reed hut. The movement lanced his shoulder with spasms of pain. He lay quietly again, feeling the awkward bulk of bandage. Recollection flooded back—the Apache attack, Agustin in his leather hat waving the Union Jack, the numbing impact of the bullet, the final sight of Phoebe Larkin standing on the parapet like an avenging angel, firing down into the trench with his Tatham pistols, one in each hand.
But he was here. He was alive. From outside the hut came reassuring sounds: the bray of a mule, a woman's voice, someone laughing, the rippling of wind in the reeds along the river. He was alive!
Gritting his teeth, he rolled to the edge of the crude bed and swung his naked legs over. The whole world reeled, tipped upside down. Desperately he grasped at the chair. Finally his equilibrium returned, though he seemed out of breath and very tired.
Dressed scantily in his shirt, he staggered upright, the earth floor cool and damp under his feet. Still holding on to the chair, he stared unbelievingly at the scarecrow regarding him from the fragment of mirror fastened to the wall. The apparition was surely a fugitive from Dartmoor prison, a gaunt hollow-eyed ruffian with scruffy red beard. Even the slatted light from the sun, filtering through the reeds, painted the sorry figure in stripes appropriate to a convict. His mouth opened in wonder; he saw a gap where a tooth should be. Remembering the fight with George Dunaway, he was now certain that the apparition was he, John Peter Christian Drumm, of the Clarendon Hall Drumms. In spite of himself, he came close to grinning. The bearded ragamuffin leered back at him. What changes the Arizona Territory had wrought!
Shuffling painfully across the floor, blanket wrapped around his bare legs and dragging the chair as a prop, he stood in the doorway, accustoming his eyes to the sunlight. Eggleston had Bonyparts, the mule, hitched to a bizarre assembly of slats from a broken keg laced together with wire to form a crude drag; he was scraping dirt to finish the dam across the Agua Fria that Drumm had planned. The little Papago man who had visited the camp the evening before the attack was making bricks with a wooden form and mud from the river. Under a brush shelter Mrs. Beulah Glore stirred something—probably more beans—in a pot over a mesquite fire.
Puzzled, Drumm stared at a fresh mound of earth. At the head of the raw new mound a stake was driven into the ground; a scarlet cloth headband fluttered from it. With elation he realized that their little party had indeed given the Apaches 'what for,' as Phoebe Larkin had promised.
He saw her, then, standing in the shade of a spread canvas, drinking from the water butt with a tin dipper. As he did, she appeared also to hear the faint sound of gunfire from the mountains, and turned to stare into the purple distance where George Dunaway was still harassing the Apaches.
'Phoebe!' he called. 'Miss—Miss Larkin!'
At first she did not see him, only tightened her grasp on the heavy Sharp's rifle and continued to look at the slopes of the Mazatzals, dipper poised halfway to her lips. He tried to speak louder, but all that emerged was a strangled croak. Phoebe heard him, however; she dropped the rifle, crying out. Eggleston let fall the makeshift rope reins, Mrs. Glore abandoned her beans, and Papago left off his brickmaking. They all ran to Jack Drumm.
'I only left for a minute!' Phoebe complained. 'Oh, whatever are you doing out of bed?'
Mrs. Glore and the valet took him by the arms and tried to steer him back into the hut but Drumm would have none of it.
'I am all right!' he protested. For the first time he noticed the copper-brown youth sitting under the brush ramada, tied firmly to a wooden bench.
'Who is that?'
Eggleston had a blood-stained bandage around his head, but he spoke with great pride. 'A prisoner of war, I guess you might say, Mr. Jack! We captured him day before last—'
'Day before last?'
'You've been out of your mind,' Phoebe explained, 'for well over forty-eight hours! It was probably due to all the blood you lost from where you were shot in the shoulder.'
'Lucky for you,' Mrs. Glore beamed, 'the ball passed right through and didn't bust anything! Mr. Eggleston here stood over you like a lion and fought them off! Oh, I tell you, he was a real ring-tailed roarer! How he did ramsquaddle them red brutes!'
Basking in her approval, the valet smiled modestly. 'And Miss Phoebe here, in addition to playing the perfect Amazon with your pistols, put you to bed and managed to stop the bleeding with cold compresses.'
Jack Drumm remembered a hand on his brow, a light and gossamer touch that was for a while his only link with this world of sunlight and triumph.
'I am—I am grateful,' he stammered. 'I mean—to you all, but especially to you, Miss Phoebe. And we fought them, the Apaches, to a standstill! We showed them we are here to stay, residents of the Territory!' He caught sight of the grinning leathery face of the Papago. Where had he been during the battle?
'He skedaddled,' Beulah Glore explained. 'Don't know as I blame him, either! He wouldn't go ninety pounds with sashweights in his pockets. But he's been real useful around here.'
'Now, Jack,' Phoebe urged, taking his arm, 'you must get back to bed! You are as white as a bedsheet, and have got to rest.'
She had never before called him Jack, and the familiarity made him uncomfortable. Too, how had she described him?
'First,' he said, 'we must decide what to do with this scoundrel here—this Apache youth you have captured.'
'Beulah here,' Eggleston said, 'hit him over the head with a shovel! When the rest finally broke and ran, they left him for dead. We tied him up, but let him walk about each day for a little while under guard. He eats a great deal, though, and will soon pauperize us.'
The little Papago sidled up to Jack Drumm and looked fearfully at the Apache youth in his bonds. He jabbered something, then retreated.
'I know,' Drumm said. 'They are very fierce.'
He looked into the black eyes of their captive. It was like staring into the eyes of a snake—a flat impassive opacity that showed nothing of humanity behind the glittering pupils.
'Look here,' he said. 'Do you speak any English? I mean—' Frustrated, he broke off. '
The youth only stared coolly, muscular bronze arms folded over a hairless chest.
'Flag!' Drumm made a waving motion. 'Do you understand?' He took a stick and drew a Union Jack in the dust, complete with staff and waving folds of cloth. '
