Apaches, Chiricahua Apaches with the smell of blood in their nostrils. It set a stage of silence and tortuous, eye strained waiting.
Towner and Cline squatted next to the two heaps of stones that covered the dead cavalrymen. Since burying Huber and Martz they had spoken less and less. It was getting late in the afternoon. The silence and back breaking vigilance clung all the heavier, daring conversation or a moment of relaxation. But Towner was getting tired.
'If we ever get out of here I'll send back for them to be buried at Thomas,' he said.
'I don't think they'd care one way the other now,' the scout replied. 'I know I wouldn't. What difference does it make if . . . Well, I'll be damned!
Look at that!'
Matt Cline jumped up and pointed with his carbine toward the other side of the canyon. A white flag waved a few times above the grayness of rock, then an Indian stepped cautiously into the open carrying the flag tied to the end of an antiquated Springfield.
As he advanced, five Apaches jumped down from low ledges along the wall, and as they walked slowly toward Towner's position, three more Apaches appeared as if out of nowhere to join them. They had been hiding in the open area since giving up the sneak attack hours before. As the soldiers watched them advance, they wondered how the devil they could have missed seeing the three hiding right out in the open. Towner wondered if it wasn't just an excuse to gather up the warriors who had been stranded. Matt Cline wondered if the Springfield that bore the white flag was loaded.
The nine Apaches were still a few dozen yards away. Matt Cline leaned toward the lieutenant.
'I figure they're out of bullets or they wouldn't be playin' games. I'd say they want to get close, catch us off guard and finish the job with knives. If they had shells they could sit back there for a week and wait for us to come out in the open or die of starvation. It's gotta be a trick. Whatever you do, for God's sake don't trust 'em!'
Towner held his revolving pistol at his side.
'Which one's Lacayuelo?'
'That little one with the cavalry jacket on, next to the one carryin' the flag.'
A few feet from the defense line the Apaches stopped and Lacayuelo came on alone. His brown chest and stomach showed through the opening of the filthy, buttonless jacket. An empty cartridge belt crossed his chest and left shoulder. And an inane grin showed protruding teeth, forming a parallel with a smear of yellow paint that extended from ear to ear across the bridge of his nose. Like the others of his band he wore Apache moccasins that reached to his knees; but unlike the others whose only covering were light breechclouts, he wore ragged, gray trousers that tucked into his moccasins. His headband, holding back shoulder length black hair, had once been a bright red, but now was a grease stained, colorless rag. Three of the others wore small bush clumps attached to their headbands. At two hundred yards you wouldn't see them.
Lacayuelo began gesturing and speaking rapidly in the choppy, sound picture Apache tongue. Matt Cline listened without interrupting, until he was finished, and then turned to the lieutenant.
'To make it short, he says there's no reason why we can't all be friends. He says just give him and his warriors some shells so they can hunt and keep from going hungry, and everybody'll be happy. He says he can't understand why we attacked him and his peaceful huntin' party.'
Towner stared at the Apache. He took his campaign hat off and shook his head. 'Does this animal understand English?'
'Enough to get by, but it would take him till Christmas to tell you anything.'
The lieutenant continued to stare at Lacayuelo and his eyes narrowed. 'Tell him he can go to hell with his hunting. He and his party are under arrest.
Tell him he's going back to San Carlos to stand trial for murder.'
Cline passed it on to the Chiricahua subchief who grinned and replied in only a few words.
'He says you can't arrest him, because he's here under the protection of a white flag. He says you have too much honor to disregard his sign of truce.
He's a sly old devil, throwin' it back in your lap.'
'Ask him what he's done with Byerlein.'
The scout turned from the Indian after a minute.
'He says he doesn't know what you're talkin' about. He says we're the first blancos he's seen in two months.'
'He does, does he.' Towner had not taken his eyes from the subchief since he stepped forward. Now, still looking full into his face, he raised his revolving pistol and pulled back the hammer. 'Tell Lacayuelo that white flag or no white flag, I'll shoot his damn eyes out if he doesn't start talking about Byerlein.'
Cline hesitated. 'Mister, he's got more men than we have.'
'He's got more men without bullets. Tell him!' Cline passed it on and the words made the Apache lurch forward a half a step, but he looked into the muzzle of Towner's gun and stopped dead.
He studied the young lieutenant, looking him up and down, taking his own good time; and finally must have decided that the blanco wasn't joking, for all at once a broad grin creased his evil, sunscarred face and he was as friendly as could be. He jabbered to Cline for almost two minutes and then turned abruptly and walked away. The other Apaches followed.
'Where the devil are they going?'
Cline said, 'He says he sees you're a friend of the Apache, so he's invitin' us to his rancheria for some refreshments. We're supposed to follow. He's thinkin' of somethin'. I say stay here.'
Towner only glanced at him. 'When you're in command, Mr. Cline, you can say that. Lonnigan! Spread out behind me. Mr. Cline, you'll walk at my side.'
Five cavalrymen and a civilian scout walked slowly across the canyon floor, following the Indians by fifty yards. The sun had begun to drop behind the western canyon wall so that half of the boxed area was in shadow. Towner and the rest strode from the dark into the light and followed the Indians to the other side, then through a narrow defile into a side canyon. They walked into this new clearing where four wickiups stood and a dozen or so ponies were tethered on the other side of the canyon meadow. And they approached the Apaches with almost a swagger, a show of indifference, for they were cavalrymen of the '5th' . . . though they had only nine bullets between them.
Chapter Three
Tizwin
For an Apache rancheria, this one was comparatively clean, but it only testified that the Indians had not been there very long. The four wickiups were in a semicircle, and two cook fires, close together, were in the center of the half moon area.
Lacayuelo and his warriors sat in an irregular circle between the wickiups and the dead cook fires. He rose to one knee as they approached and beckoned them to join the circle; but Towner stopped the group on the opposite side of the cook fires and watched the Indians pass from one to the next a bulging water bag made from horse intestines.
Towner turned his head slightly. 'What are they drinking?'
'Tizwin, most likely,' Cline said. 'Or mescal.'
He watched the Indians drink. 'I wouldn't put any pesos on it bein' water.'
'What the devil's tizwin?'
'Apache corn beer. Knock you back to the States if you drink enough. Makes a worse Indian out of a bad one. I don't know what it'll do to a hardcase like Lacayuelo. He wants us to join 'em.'
'Corn beer, eh,' the lieutenant muttered, almost to himself. And he had a most uncommon look in his eyes.
Sometimes it seems as if certain men are set aside to do great things while others have to play the role of the fool or the coward, predestined from all eternity. But if you look close into every case, and that means everybody in the world, you'll see a time, a circumstance where a judgment has to be made that either makes or breaks the man. Sometimes luck helps. But it happens often in the army especially on frontier station and it was
