Apache Vendetta (5 page)

The first hour, Cuchillo Colorado didn't say a word. He rode with the robe hiked halfway up, revealing his knee-high moccasins.

The afternoon sun was blistering, the air was an oven. Fargo should be used to it but he sweated profusely and his throat became so dry, he resisted an urge to use the waterskin the colonel had provided.

He was grateful when twilight fell.

An arroyo offered a spot to camp for the night. They were out of the wind and their fire wouldn't be seen by unfriendly eyes.

Fargo gathered brush and kindled fledgling flames while Cuchillo Colorado sat and watched. He filled the coffeepot and put coffee on a flat rock to brew. In a bundle of rabbit fur he had enough pemmican for two and offered a piece to his companion.

Cuchillo Colorado accepted it with a grunt. He bit and chewed and said out of the blue, “You not hate me because I am Shis-Inday.”

It was a statement, not a question. “I'd be a hypocrite if I did,” Fargo replied. “I once lived with a Mescalero girl for a spell.”

“Why you not still with her?”

“She wanted a man in her lodge. Someone to cook for. Someone to sew for. Someone to give her kids.” Fargo grinned. “I just wanted to squeeze her tits.”

For the first time since they met, Cuchillo Colorado smiled. “I like you, He Who Walks Many Trails. You much like Shis-Inday. Maybe we change your name. Call you White Apache.”

Since they were getting along so well, Fargo decided to come out with, “Straight tongue, Cuchillo Colorado. What do you really aim to do about these prospectors?”

The warrior's smile faded and it was a full minute before he asked, “You have children?”

“If I don't it's a miracle.”

“What does that mean?”

“I've squeezed a lot of tits.”

This time Cuchillo Colorado didn't smile. “I wanted sons but my wife give me a daughter. The only child we had.” He added with pride, “Na-tanh fine girl.”

“Her name was Corn Flower?”

Cuchillo Colorado grunted. “She try hard to please me. She learn to ride. She learn to shoot. She learn to steal horses as good as man.”

Among the Apaches, Fargo knew, a skillful horse thief was rated as high if not higher than a warrior who had made a lot of kills. He said, “It was just bad luck the prospectors caught her.”

“Bad luck for them.”

Fargo had his answer. Not that he ever believed Cuchillo Colorado would settle for putting the rapists on trial before a white judge.

“I held her when she little, in one hand.” And Cuchillo Colorado held out his, palm up. “I swing her in arms when she cry.” He mimicked holding a baby and moved his arms from side to side. “She touch me, here.” And he touched his own breast above his heart. “You savvy, white-eye?”

“I savvy.”

It was said that Apaches were heartless. That they didn't feel emotion. That they lived for slaughter and nothing else. That they were the most violent tribe west of the Mississippi—or anywhere else, for that matter. That they delighted in torture for torture's sake, and the world would be better off if they were exterminated.

None of it was true.

Cuchillo Colorado had just proven that they cared for their families and their children as much as whites did. They felt emotion. They just didn't show it as much. To them, it was a weakness an enemy could exploit.

Yes, Apaches killed. But no more often than, say, the Comanches or the Sioux. And unlike the latter, they didn't kill for the sake of killing. They didn't kill to count coup. They were raiders. They lived by stealing. And they would kill to steal what they wanted, or to defend themselves if caught.

As for the torture, it was a way of testing an enemy's courage.

That was the common threat that explained much of what they did. Their enemies. Apaches had more than most. It could be claimed, without much exaggeration, that
everyone
was their enemy.

In that regard they were unique. Where some tribes might strike alliances with others, the Apaches kept to themselves. They trusted no one. In the past, the few times they had, it cost them bitterly, and they never made that mistake again.

Cuchillo Colorado looked at Fargo and indulged in another rare smile. “Yes, I like you, white-eye. I like you and I not kill you. And I not let them kill you, too.”

“Them?” Fargo said.

Cuchillo Colorado pointed.

Fargo shifted, and his gut balled into a knot.

Culebra Negro and the two warriors from the other day weren't six feet away, and Culebra Negro was pointing that Spencer at him.

Fargo hadn't heard a sound. Any of them could have crept up behind him and slit his throat before he could get off a shot. He didn't betray his unease. All he said was, “You again.”

“Me,” Culebra Negro said.

“It was no accident the first time,” Fargo had deduced.

Cuchillo Colorado answered. “I asked Culebra Negro to be sure you make it to fort.”

“He doesn't need to keep pointing that damn rifle at me,” Fargo said.

“He does not like whites. Any whites.”

Culebra Negro and the others came around the fire and hunkered on either side of Cuchillo Colorado.

“Why are they here?” Fargo asked. As if he couldn't guess.

“They my friends. They stay close.”

“We protect him,” Culebra Negro declared.

“That's my job,” Fargo said.

“I say I like you,” Cuchillo Colorado said. “I not say I trust you.”

“And I don't like being shadowed.”

“They not bother you. They stay close but you never see. Never know they there.”

“This can only end badly,” Fargo said. “You know that as well as I do.”

“Corn Flower's blood cry out to me. I hear her. I do what I must.”

“Goddamned politicians,” Fargo said.

“Sorry?”

“I've been put in the cross hairs and I don't like it,” Fargo said.

“We not kill you,” Cuchillo Colorado reiterated.

“I can die just the same,” Fargo said. But that wasn't what was bothering him. The ever-present prospect of becoming worm food was part and parcel of living in the West. If he wanted a safe life, he should head east of the Mississippi and take up clerking or farming.

What bothered him was that the politicians had told the army what they should do, and the army, against its better judgment, was doing it. They'd picked him because he spoke a little of the Apache tongue and knew Apache ways.

And here he was, nursemaiding a seasoned killer who was the last person on earth to need nursemaiding. With three others to deal with, besides.

Just then Cuchillo Colorado rose and the four of them went off out of earshot and squatted facing one another with their arms across their knees. They were having a palaver, Apache fashion.

Fargo sat propped against his saddle and chewed pemmican and drank coffee and thought about what lay ahead. The warmth of the fire and the low murmur of the Apaches lulled him into starting to doze off but he shook himself to stay awake.

He wasn't worried about being killed. Cuchillo Colorado needed him, and so long as he did, he was safe.

Presently the palaver broke up. Culebra Negro and the other two melted into the night and Cuchillo Colorado returned to the fire.

“Where you take us?”

Fargo was surprised he hadn't asked sooner. “The closest place to Warm Springs Canyon is San Lupe. If they went anywhere after the rape, it was there. Should take us four or five days. You know of it?”

“Small village,” Cuchillo Colorado said. “Mostly Mexicans.”

“It's likely they headed there for a drink and supplies, if nothing else. I'll ask around. With any luck, I'll find out where they went from there.”

Cuchillo Colorado grunted. “Good plan.”

“I'll do what the army wants. But I won't let you carry out your own plan.”

“What do you think I do?”

“You've hoodwinked the army into finding the prospectors for you so you can hang them upside down from wagon wheels and boil their brains.”

Cuchillo Colorado might as well have been sculpted from stone. Finally he said, “I not always use wagon wheels.”

“Don't make it come to that.”

“To what?”

“You know what the hell I mean. I'll stop you any way I can.”

Cuchillo Colorado tilted his head back and gazed at the stars. “You do what you must, white-eye. I do what I must.”

“Damn you,” Fargo said.

San Lupe had been around since Spanish times. Spain had scoured the mountains for gold and silver, and San Lupe was a supply point for the miners. When Mexico declared its independence, San Lupe limped along until the Americans took over and now sold grub and picks and whatnot to a new breed of ore hounds.

Fargo had been there a couple of times. It never changed. There was a single dusty street. The buildings were mostly adobe.

Dogs and cats lounged in the heat. Hogs rooted in the dirt.

People lounged, too. Men in sombreros and serapes and women in colorful dresses.

Nearly all the signs were in Spanish, including the one above the saloon that read
C
ANTINA
.

Fargo and Cuchillo Colorado received the same treatment every newcomer would. They were stared at and studied.

The Apache had his hood well down over his face and the hem down around his feet where it should be. He kept his head low as they drew rein at the hitch rail.

It was only as Fargo was wrapping his reins that he realized it might not do to take Cuchillo Colorado in with him. The locals might wonder about a priest or monk going into a cantina. Liquor was supposed to be a vice.

Fargo decided to take the chance. He couldn't leave the warrior outside. Someone might become too nosy for their own good. “Stick close,” he said, “and let me do all the talking.”

It was the middle of the afternoon, early yet, and there was only the bartender and two men in sombreros playing cards and an old man half-asleep in a chair.

“Tell me you have whiskey as well as tequila and make me a happy man,” Fargo said.

Portly to the point of being fat, the barkeep had slicked hair and a friendly smile. “
Sí,
senor
.
” He glanced at Cuchillo Colorado. “Two glasses or a bottle?”

“A bottle, and it's just for me,” Fargo thought it prudent to say. “My friend, here, only came in to keep me company.”

In Spanish the bartender said to Cuchillo Colorado, “How do you do, padre? It is a pleasure to meet you.” When Cuchillo Colorado didn't answer, he frowned and asked, “Is something the matter?”

That was when Fargo had an inspiration of his own. “He's taken a vow of silence.”

“Senor?”

“He can't talk for a month or two. Something to do with”—Fargo had to think to remember the word—“penance, I think it is.”

“Ah.
Sí.
”

“I do all the talking and he just listens. If you ask me, his vow is a damned silly thing to do. But then he's the priest, not me.”

“Show more respect for your friend, senor,” the bartender said. “It is a great thing he does, giving his life to the church.”

Fargo paid for the bottle and claimed a corner table. He sat where he could see the door. So did Cuchillo Colorado, his hands folded in his lap.

“That was smart to say,” he said.

“Hush up,” Fargo responded. “You're supposed to have taken a vow.” The bottle was already open and he raised it to his mouth, and froze.

Two men had entered the cantina. Both were gringos, and might as well have “trouble” stamped on their foreheads. Their clothes were as seedy as their looks but there was nothing seedy about the pistols they wore high on their hips. They looked around and stared at the corner table.

Fargo set down the bottle and placed his right hand on the edge close to his holster.

Their spurs jingling, the pair came over. One was tall and lanky, the other short and spare of frame. It was the short one who planted himself and asked with a hint of malice, “Who might you be?”

“What's it to you, runt?” Fargo said.

The short one looked at the tall one. “Not very friendly, is he, Jenks?”

“Sure ain't, Half-Pint.”

“Half-Pint?” Fargo said, and snorted.

“You think my handle is funny, mister?” Half-Pint said.

“Funny as hell.”

Jenks hooked his thumb in his gun belt close to a Smith & Wesson. “You might not ought to insult my pard. I don't take kindly to him bein' insulted.”

“Then he shouldn't stick his big nose where it doesn't belong,” Fargo said.

“How do you know it doesn't?” Half-Pint said. “I'll ask you again. Who are you and what are you doin' in San Lupe?”

“My name is my own business,” Fargo said, “and I'm being pestered by a couple of jackasses.”

“You don't want to rile us,” Half-Pint said.

“Everywhere I go,” Fargo said, “I run into idiots.”

“We're bein' paid to ask strangers what they're up to,” Half-Pint said. “We do it with everybody.”

“No one has shot you yet?”

“Mister, you have two choices. You can tell us and if we like what you say, we'll leave you and the friar or whatever he is be. Or you can mount up and ride out and never come back.”

“There's a third choice,” Fargo said.

“Not that I know of.”

“What is it?” Jenks asked.

“I shoot the two of you and get on with my drinking,” Fargo said, and was sure he heard a snort from Cuchillo Colorado.

“You must think you're a curly wolf,” Half-Pint said in scorn.

“I think I'm a daisy,” Fargo said. He was ready for one or the other to go for their hardware but Jenks surprised him.

“Hold on, Half-Pint. I have a feelin' about this one. He won't back down.”

“We took the man's fifty dollars,” Half-Pint said. “We have it to do.”

“Since when did you get so dedicated?”

“When I give someone my word, I keep it,” Half-Pint said.

“Hell. It's not like we know him. He's nothin' but an ore hound.”

“Ore hound?” Fargo said.

“That interests you, does it?” Half-Pint said.

“Tell me about him,” Fargo said.

“All I'll tell you is that he's been expectin' someone to come after him and it must be you.”

“Why is there only one?” Fargo asked. “What happened to the other four?”

“Then you do know,” Half-Pint said, and squared his shoulders. “You're goin' to get up and ride out right this minute, and no sass.”

“And if I don't?” Fargo said.

“Suit yourself,” Half-Pint said, and went for his six-shooter.