Norton, Andre - Novel 15 (20 page)

 
          
 
Ritchie pulled his kerchief up over his nose
as a shield against the puffs of dust the wind bore down the canyon.
"Isn't that what we're
try
to do now?"

 
          
 
"That's what we're try in' to do, son.
Thar's some what takes to this natural, 'n thar's some what can never learn.
Makes me think of that thar Britisher 'way back in the Injun wars—Braddock, I
think his name was.
I 'member my grandpappy tellin' of him.
His pappy was kilt in that thar foolishment. Wanted to march right up in nice
ordered rows to the Injuns 'n shoot it out man to man, that Brad-dock did. 'N
what happened? He ended up shot in the back by one of his own men who didn't
take kindly to bein' kilt without no chance of fightin' back. Yeah, thar's
always
those what
can't fight a war nasty-like—'n
Injun fightin's downright nasty. They want to make it all accordin' to rules,
only the Injun, he has his own rules, 'n he don't take no stock in the loco
ones the Pinda Lick-o-yi go shootin' off their mouths 'bout. So we fight his
way or we don't come back."

 
          
 
''What about Charlie Black and Diego? They
have their own method of meeting the Apache on his own ground."

 
          
 
"Wal, now—Charlie—his story is true. I
saw him right after he got away from the Apaches. Stripped down he was, 'n they
had started workin' on him a leetle. If yo' took off his moccasins, yo'd see
his feet are mighty queer lookin'. But Diego"—Tuttle was
frowning—"that's a right bright idea he told yo' about. 'N it seems to
work—leastwise he ain't come up missin' yet, 'n he does cross Injun country
alone."

 
          
 
"Could he be in with them, getting
information for them?"

 
          
 
Through all that tangle of beard it was hard
to read the scout's expression. "In this country, son, we don't say things
like that without we have our proof handy
. '
N that's
'bout the worst yo' could say of a man. Velasco, he's as white as yo' 'n me.
But when he ^vas five-six years old, the Apaches raided the mine where his
pappy was Cap'n of the guard. He was took off into the hills 'n raised Apache,
bein' tough enough to live through it. Only when he was growed, he came back to
his own people. He lives Apache, but he thinks white. The man who'd think
Apache and live white —wal, now, he wouldn't be spit on by rattlesnakes if they
saw the color of his hide furst. I've had friends among the Apache, but their
minds—they work different from our'n. Sometimes we ain't got us
no
common meetin' ground at all. Ha, Lucy, what yo' smellin'
now, gal?"

 
          
 
The mule he was riding by preference had
lifted her head and quickened her pace. And a moment later Ritchie's horse
showed equal signs of excitement. Tuttle nodded.

 
          
 
"Water," he said and gave his mount
her own head to follow the trail she wished.

 
          
 
They came out on the banks of a dark pool that
was fed by a trickle of spring water, the overflow of which apparently sank
into the dry gravel a few yards beyond. But scrubby vegetation clung to the
soil around it, and there were no signs of the poisonous salts here.

 
          
 
Never did water taste so good! Ritchie rolled
it over his tongue trying to cleanse his mouth of the feverish dryness which
had burnt there most of the morning. They allowed their mounts a brief drink
and then stripped off saddles and blankets to wipe down dust and sweat-matted
backs and legs with handsful of coarse grass pulled from the edge of the pool
and dipped into the water. Then Tuttle lit a small fire and boiled up a tin of
coffee, putting out on the flat rock which served them as a table some of the
piki, paper-thin corn bread, which he carried in preference to hardtack, and
some stringy jerky.

 
          
 
"We'll do a leetle huntin' on the way
back," he said.
" 'Long
as I have most of my
teeth left, I don't relish army beef.
Git me a deer or
somethin'.
'N that thar cook we got with us—wal, he ain't what I'd call
a cook. He ain't no pastry cook, nor a tasty cook—but a doggoned nasty cook!
'N fur that I'd back him agin' all of Santy Fe."

 
          
 
Ritchie slapped at the cloud of tiny brown
mosquitoea that infested the grass about the borders of the pool. "Sturgis
called him worse than that last night. Found a beetle in the coffee, and when
he complained, the cook said he wasn't responsible for things flying into the
food."

 
          
 
"Expect he thought yo' should be thankful
for the fresh meat." Tuttle licked some crumbs of piki from his fingers.
''Now, looky here! These leetle fellas are sure right on the job—gittin'
grub." Some ants were already busy about the dropped crumbs.
" 'N
thar's their lodge—right over thar."

 
          
 
An anthill, not
so
large as those he had seen near the fort, rose on the other side of their table
rock. Ritchie caught sight of a glint of blue-green halfway down the side of
that gravelly mound and leaned closer to investigate. A little scratching with
his fingers gave him half a dozen round beads, smooth and polished.

 
          
 
"Turquoise," the scout identified
them. "The Old Ones were mighty partial to 'em. Unhuh—look up thar!"

 
          
 
He pointed to a black shadow on the cliff wall
well above them. There was no possible way to reach it that Ritchie could see.

 
          
 
"Wouldn't be a bit
surprised if that thar ain't a burial cave.
If we could git up to it, we
might find a chief's bones 'n all his foo-fraw
laid
out. That's whar these probably fell from." He picked up one of the beads.
"The Injuns, they set a big store by turquoise—make regular jewels outta
it-it 'n shell."

 
          
 
"Shell?"
The desert around them hardly looked like the place in which to find those.

 
          
 
"Traded west for 'em,
maybe."
Tuttle shrugged. "What yo' plannin' to do with
those?"

 
          
 
"I'll see if that Chinese can have them
set in silver for me—the girls might like rings made that way." He
buttoned them into his shirt pocket before getting up to stretch.

 
          
 
It was quiet there by the pool. And as Ritchie
stood there, he had for a second or two a queer, spooky feeling, as if they
were not alone at all. He had felt almost the same back with the mulada that
day listening to Diego's talk of the unseen eyes ringing the hills. He didn't
like it.

 
          
 
"Better be gittin' back with the good
news." Tuttle saddled Lucy. ''Only this time, we'll strike down canyon 'n
see if our stream does peter out thar or whether she pops up agin later on.
They do, yo' know."

 
          
 
The canyon deepened and grew cooler as its
walls shut off some of the sun. Patches of vegetation suggested that water was
not so hard to find. And within half a mile Tuttle's prediction was proven
right—the stream reappeared and threaded along, sinking now and again into
strings of scummy pools. Having made sure of water, they turned off to cut back
to the main party. They were riding at an easy pace when Tuttle suddenly caught
at Ritchie's reins and pulled both mounts up.

 
          
 
Over the edge of a small rise shuffled a
brown-feathered horde, raw necks outstretched,
wings
hanging to the dust, beaks open and gasping.

 
          
 
"
Turkeys
!" Ritchie yelled.

 
          
 
The flock brushed by without a glance for
their mortal enemies—man—intent upon the water they could scent. Tuttle made no
move, and Ritchie, through sheer surprise, could not. Then the flow of trotting
bronze was gone into a side gully that would give upon one of the pools the
scouts had passed earlier.

 
          
 
"Leastwise we won't starve," Tuttle
announced with some satisfaction. "Once they git to water, they ain't
goin' to leave it in a hurry. Some of them looked right plump, too. We can
sorta relieve the Cap'n's mind about his commissariat 'long with the water.
This is a lucky day."

 
          
 
"But where did they all come from?"

           
 
Tuttle's answering gesture embraced most of
the horizon. "Anywhar's likely. It's whar they're goin' that matters to
us—"

 
          
 
As they pounded along the back trail, Tuttle
suddenly asked a question of his own.

 
          
 
"Had any more trouble with Birke,
son?"

 
          
 
“Birke?"
That
hulking barracks bully had not more than crossed the outer rim of his life
since their clumsy duel. Maybe Birke feared a return match too much to notice
Ritchie. But both had been included in this expedition, and sooner or later
they might be teamed on guard duty. "No, I haven't seen much of him.
Why?"

 
          
 
"Kinda figured him for
a 'snow-bird.'
But he's stuck with us right into warm weather."

 
          
 
"A spring
deserter?"
Ritchie translated the barracks slang. "But he
seems to like soldiering—"

 
          
 
"Maybe.
Only
when I catched him roughin' up your Apache boy, Del-she—"

 
          
 
Ritchie stiffened. Once he had visited the boy
at the mission school. To his eyes the Apache had lost none of his sullen
silence, and he had wondered at the Padre's interest in the boy. But the
thought of Birke knocking him about did not please him.

 
          
 
"He won't try that agin in a hurry, son.
But he don't love either of us none—thinks of yo' 'n me 'bout the same as he
thinks of rattlesnakes. Better keep yore eyes peeled when he's hangin'
round."

 
          
 
So he'd have to remember that along with other
things, Ritchie thought, as he herded thirsty mules along a few hours later. It
was too bad one simply could not sink into a nice quiet rut—what army life
should properly be. It was an existence in which everything was decided for
one, from the shirt to wear to the place one dared walk. But so far his tour of
duty hadn't been a placid one. And if a mere private had to have eyes in the
back of his head—why, what must go on between Scott Herndon's well-shaped ears
or under Lieutenant Gilmore's sleek cap of blond hair! And Captain Sharpe—who
was responsible for all of them—did he ever have a quiet moment to call his own?

 
          
 
A little hard work on the picket line added to
his own
dissatisfaction with life. The stone-hard
ground resisted the picket pin he was trying to pound into it, and he used some
of the more pungent words he had learned from Sergeant Herndon during the
cactus-bull episode to encourage the stubborn thing.

 
          
 
"This will add to your joy in life."
Sturgis grinned at him over a rock. "You're on guard duty—the last tour,
just before the stilly dawn. Hush, my
child, that
is
an exceedingly naughty word with which you have just sullied your boyish lips.
Should any of your stern mentors hear you now—" He shuddered with realistic
horror. "But come now to our own private bower and let me revive you with
a portion of Mormon tea. That's what the cook calls the stinking stuff. How
well you remember the rules!" He came around to admire Ritchie's work.
"We must never stick a picket in an anthill—no matter how inviting the
prospect, though I fear that some of our lazier brothers-in-arms have just
forgotten that sage advice. Let us hope that nothing untoward will occur before
morning to make them wish that they had been wiser men."