Corbin nodded. “Yes,” he said. “Well, I rather thought you were like that. I was just going to give you the cover of a star, that’s all.”
“By the way, Sheriff, if I happen to run across Fargo Ford and his men, and in that encounter if I happen to kill them, would you arrest me?”
Sheriff Corbin laughed. “Only Falcon MacCallister would suggest that he could single-handedly run across Fargo Ford and his gang and kill them. Arrest you? Hell, no, Mr. MacCallister. If you kill those sons of bitches, I’ll give you the keys to the town,” the sheriff said.
“Thanks, but no thanks. I don’t need the star, or the keys to the city. I’ll do what needs to be done. And for that, I will need a couple of horses. Know where I can buy them?”
“You don’t worry about that, Mr. MacCallister. I’ll get you two of the best damn horses you’ve ever seen, and they won’t cost you a penny.”
Falcon recalled his horse Diablo, and he shook his head.
“I don’t think you can get me the best horse I’ve ever seen,” he said. “But do what you can.”
CHAPTER 10
Falcon rode one horse while leading another. The horse he was leading was dragging a travois, and on the travois was Cloud Dancer’s body, sewn into a canvas shroud. Falcon rode out in the open, making certain that he was in plain sight. He was doing that to send a clear message to the Indians: that his coming represented no danger to them.
He had gotten directions to the village from the sheriff, and was heading straight for it. He wondered how long it would be before someone spotted him, and he knew the moment it happened. He knew, not because he saw them, but because he felt them.
He rode on for another half hour, feeling the hair standing up on the back of his neck. The Indians trailing him were good, they knew how to use the lay of the land to keep themselves hidden, and if they had been trailing ninety-nine out of a hundred men, their presence would be unknown.
Finally, either because the Indians sensed that Falcon was aware of them, or because they no longer felt it necessary to keep their presence a secret, they grew bolder. Falcon saw them then, six or seven Indians on horseback, riding parallel but managing, always, to keep a ridge or an outcropping of rocks or a small hill between them, no longer to stay out of sight, but just to be able to control the situation.
The sheriff in Oro Blanco told Falcon that the village was on the banks of a small stream, a tributary from the Santa Cruz River, so when he reached the tributary, or what was left of it, he followed it until he saw the village itself. It was easy to see the source of some of the trouble between the Indians and the whites, because the stream banks showed that it was once a rather substantial flow of water several feet wide. Now it was a trickle, so narrow in places that a man could stand with a foot planted on either side of the water flow.
The village consisted of several wickiups, not scattered loosely alongside the bank of the stream, but carefully aligned with every structure in the same relative place it was at their last location, and would be at their next location. In this way, individual members of the village had an address, as certain as the address of residents in any town or city.
The wickiups were circular and dome-shaped, with conical tops. These dwellings, which Falcon knew were erected by the women, consisted of a framework of poles and limbs tied together, over which was placed a thatch of bear grass, brush, yucca leaves, and rushes. For those who had it, a canvas was stretched over the windward side, and the structure was open at the top to allow smoke to escape from a fire built in a pit near the center of the house. The doorway was a low opening on one side, over which a blanket was hung.
In addition to the houses, there were also several “coolers,” which consisted of posts in the ground that were covered by a roof of brush, thus providing shade from the hot sun. The squaws did their work under these covers. Falcon knew from his previous exposure to the Apache that they also suspended clay water pots from the edge of the coolers and, as the water evaporated, it had the effect of cooling the surrounding air.
As Falcon entered the village, the warriors who had been riding parallel suddenly galloped by him with whoops and shouts as they raced ahead of him.
Those who were in the village drifted forward to meet him, for a single white man, riding in as boldly as Falcon had just done, was a strange enough experience to create interest. The men and boys came from the outskirts of the village, where they had been tending to the animals; the women and girls came from the coolers; and the old men awoke from their naps and stepped out of their wickiups to see what was causing the excitement.
One of the old men recognized Falcon, for he had seen him in the days of the Geronimo and Naiche wars.
“Dlo Binanta,” he said, and the word spread so that, as Falcon rode deeper into the village, he heard his name spoken many times.
“Dlo Binanta.”
“Dlo Binanta.”
“Dlo Binanta.”
Men, women, and children repeated his name and drew close to him. When he reached the inner circle, he saw an impressive-looking Indian standing in front of him. The Indian, who was being deferred to by the others, held his arms folded across his chest. His dark eyes were questioning.
“Are you Dlo Binanta?” the Indian asked.
Falcon started to reply with his own name, but he recalled what Sheriff Corbin told him about Indians only giving names to those they respect.
“I am Dlo Binanta,” Falcon replied.
A ripple of exclamations passed through the gathering of Indians; some sounded angry, some sounded awestruck. Some were even frightened, and Falcon saw many of the children step behind their mothers in fear. He felt bad about that. He didn’t want his name used to frighten children.
“I am Keytano,” Keytano said.
