statement of fact. The words of a brand new lieutenant, willing to learn, but wishing he could have picked his own instructor.
Cline said, 'I don't see how they could be anythin' else. If they're all accounted for on the reservation, then they must be ones that come up from across the border. When we was roundin' up the bands to bring them to San Carlos and Fort Apache, a bunch of 'em slipped through the net and streaked south for the Sierra Madres, and nobody could dig 'em out of those hills. Now, every once in a while, bands of 'em come raidin' back into Arizona for horses and shells. They're carryin' on a little war with the Mexicans and have to keep their supplies up. Everybody'd just as soon they never come back. They got some good leaders . . . Chatto, Nachez, old Nana and Loco. And now I hear about an upstart medicine man who's gainin' influence. Name's Geronimo. I'd bet the bucks over in that canyon are part of that band.'
An hour after sundown, Lieutenant Towner was still sitting at the edge of the pines, repeatedly shifting from one position to another on the sandy ground. Pine tree shadows striped his soft face and made his eyes seem to shine. They were open wide.
It was a long way from Springfield, Mass. A few yards out in the desert there was a muffled scraping sound, and he jumped to his feet, tugging at his holstered revolving pistol. By the time he had gotten it out, Sinsonte was standing next to him. Matt Cline came up from somewhere behind him.
'Did you find 'em?'
Sinsonte stood in front of his pony holding the hackamore close under the animal's head, while the other hand still covered the nostrils. A man can be shot even when approaching a friendly camp.
'I find, nantan.' Sinsonte, a little man even for an Apache, stood with narrow, hunched shoulders.
He was perhaps fifty years and his eyes were beginning to be rivered with tiny red lines, but in them still was a fire, a fire that belonged to a younger man. Besides the calico red band holding his hair in place, he wore only high Apache moccasins with turned up toes and a white cotton breechclout. A uniform jacket was lashed in his bedroll for more peaceful days.
The two scouts crouched together at the edge of the desert for a long time, drawing obscure lines in the sand and conversing in a mixture of Apache and Spanish with only an occasional English word.
For a few minutes the lieutenant leaned over their map of sand, trying to recognize a mark or hear even a part of their conversation that was understandable. Finally he turned away in disgust.
'Sergeant Lonnigan!' The old sergeant rose from the circle of enlisted men. 'Issue half rations all around. No fire. Therefore no coffee.' It felt good to bark an order.
Dammit, he was still in command!
'Yes, sir!' Lonnigan snapped his reply. Thirty years in the army. Seven years longer than the shavetail had even existed. But Lonnigan was used to young second lieutenants. He had served under many. He remembered one who was now a general.
He remembered two during the march to the sea, and at Shiloh they were both colonels. And he remembered dozens of others who were dead. For some reason he liked this new Lieutenant Towner, even if he was too straight out of the manual and didn't know much about Apaches. He remembered a time not too long ago when he himself had never heard the name Apache. You learned. And there are little humps of ground out behind the commissary building at Thomas to testify for those who didn't.
In a little while Cline went over to the lieutenant.
'Sinsonte found them. Chiricahuas. He was only a few dozen yards from that lookout who tried to lure us in, and he followed him. When the lookout saw the lure wouldn't work, he headed straight for the camp to talk it over with the rest of 'em. About fourteen, fifteen. Sinsonte says from Nachez's band, but they're here with a subchief by the name of Lacayuelo . . . and mister, he's really a bad one.
He's even hard in the eyes of most of the Apaches, and that's sayin' somethin'. I'd guess the rest of 'em are bad actors just like he is.'
'Did he see Byerlein?'
'Yeah, but he was layin' on the ground in the middle of 'em, so Sinsonte don't know if'n he's alive or dead. I'd say he's half of either one.'
The lieutenant looked out through the dingy grayness of the moonbathed desert to the black slash that was Canyon Diablo, reflecting on what he had been told. It made it no easier for him, but he turned to the scout abruptly.
'Mr. Cline, if Sinsonte can sneak up on a band of hostiles without being detected, then he can lead this patrol in. Perhaps not to their camp, but at least to a favorable position from which we can make contact without being at a disadvantage. An ever present obligation to prevent the hostiles from committing further depredations in the Territory cannot be turned aside or put off. My duty is before me, Mr. Cline, and will be carried out whether you object or not.' He paused to give emphasis to his words. 'So we're going to get them.'
'I don't object, mister. You're the boss. I knew ever since this afternoon that you'd be wantin' to go in, so Sinsonte and I just did a little figurin' and I think we got an answer.'
'How to get in?'
'Yeah,' the scout replied. 'Sinsonte's leavin' now to snake acrost that open stretch. In about four hours the moon'll be down low enough for the rest of us to get acrost. We leave the horses here.
And I say take all the men along, no horse guard left behind, 'cause we'll need all the carbines we got. 'Course that's up to you. The idee is to angle from here so as to land us on the north side of the mountain, three miles up from the entrance we saw this afternoon. On the north it slopes up pretty gradual, and there's a trail that winds about halfway up and then cuts down into rocky country and on into the center of the canyon. The trail in's a fair hard one to find, but Sinsonte's goin' to meet us where it starts. He's out layin' the carpet now.'
Chapter Two
The White Flag
The moon claimed it was near three o'clock when Cline halted the seven cavalrymen on a broad ledge halfway up the mountain slope. It had been hours since anyone had spoken. Neither the tedious climb nor the circumstance allowed for talk. Only once a teeth clenched curse followed a misstep, and Towner turned long enough to glare at the trooper and curse him out with his eyes. Now could be heard the heavy breathing as each man stretched his neck to gulp the cool mountain air. Below them the desert rolled dimly for miles, and in the distance was a darker shadow. The clump of pines they had left hours before. From the ledge where they stood, a narrow defile slashed into the mountainside, its rock wall sides rising over a hundred feet. The trail twisted from view thirty odd yards ahead.
Cline said, 'You never see the end of this one until you're there. She bends around so much.'
Towner studied the approach. 'You followed it before?'
'A few years back, but I don't look forward to walkin' down that aisle not knowin' who I'm goin' to meet.' He looked around restlessly. 'It beats me where Sinsonte is. If he don't show in ten minutes, we'll have to go on. This ain't no place to be perched when the sun comes out.'
By five, the small band had threaded deep into the defile. Sinsonte had not come. The narrow passage had widened considerably, but it was a slow, exerting grind over the sharp rock and through the biting chaparral clumps that dotted the way.
Towner had ordered absolute silence, but the order could not mute the metallic scrape of issue boots on hard rock or the rattle of stones kicked along the pathway. They kept their lips sealed and bit off the urge to curse out the army, the Apache, the sunbleached country and Lieutenant Towner.
They were experienced men, combining one hundred and sixteen years of active service, and they knew what it was to walk up to an enemy.
Walking slowly. How to march without speaking, without thinking, the vigilance being inbred.
Many soldiers experienced it, but you had to fight Apaches to really know what it meant.
Walking down a narrow trail in the heart of a Chiricahua stronghold, a soldier will even smile at the thought of the arid, glaring, baked sand parade at Fort Thomas. There is a feeling of security there, though you wouldn't go so far as to call it home.
