The Wild Girl (38 page)

“I’ll get your camera back, Big Wade,” I said. “I will. And if for any reason I can’t, I’ll buy you a new one.”

“Ah, hell, kid,” Big Wade said grinning, “I’m just giving you a hard time. I’m not really worried about the camera. I’m damn glad to see you. Now start at the beginning and tell us everything.”

And so over dinner we told Wade and the others what had happened to us since we left them back in Bavispe, which seemed already like another lifetime ago. Afterward, we were summoned to Colonel Carrillo’s tent to give our report. Chief Gatlin, Billy Flowers, and the rancher Fernando Huerta were also present.

“Did you see my son?” Señor Huerta asked us straightaway.

“Yes, sir, we did,” I said.

“And he is well?”

“Yes, sir, he appears to be healthy.”

“Thank God.”

“We will move against them first thing tomorrow,” Carrillo said. “Mr. Flowers assures us that he can locate the
ranchería
. We’ve got them cornered now. In two days, señor, you will hold your beloved son safe again in your arms.”

“It’s not going to be that easy, Colonel,” Albert said. “Your troops will never be able to get through to the
ranchería
. Ask Mr. Flowers. Half a dozen of their warriors can hold off your entire army, just by raining rocks down on you from above.”

“Albert is right, Colonel,” said Tolley. “It would be a slaughter. All your fine horses will end up like mine, dead at the bottom of a canyon.”

“Mr. Flowers?” the colonel asked.

“I’m afraid they’re probably correct, Colonel,” Billy Flowers said. “It is not by accident that the Apaches have made their
ranchería
in this place. It is nearly impregnable. The route there is treacherous and easily defended by a handful of men.”

“And there is no other route?” Carrillo asked.

“None from this side,” Flowers said. “Possibly if we descended and circled the sierra and came up from the south. But that could take weeks.”

“With the monsoons beginning,” Carrillo said, “perhaps even longer. Assuming we could even cross the river.”

“We do not have that much time,” Señor Huerta said. “We are so close now.”

“I say we go through the pass at night,” Chief Gatlin said. “While there’s still enough moon to light our way. The Apaches are superstitious and they won’t attack in the dark.”

“That’s a crazy idea,” I said. “It’s hard enough negotiating the pass in broad daylight.”

The little muscle in Gatlin’s jaw twitched. “Mr. Giles, I think we can all agree that your plan has been a distinct failure,” he said. “You’ve lost the Apache girl, who was supposed to be our bargaining chip, you’ve failed to recover the Huerta boy, and now you’ve lost three members of the expedition, including a woman who you abandoned in the clutches of the savages in order to save your own yellow-bellied skin. Suffice it to say that we are not seeking your advice in this matter.”

“No, I don’t suppose you would be, Chief.”

“It wasn’t Giles’s fault,” Tolley said. “I was in charge and I take full responsibility.”

“There is one other thing you’re all overlooking,” said Albert.

“And what might that be,
scout
?” Gatlin asked.

“You should read your history of the Apache wars, Chief,” Albert said. “Because then you would know that traditionally, when an Apache village is attacked, the first thing they do is kill the captives, women and children included. In this way they deny their enemies the satisfaction of a true victory.”

Gatlin looked at Albert with contempt. “You don’t have to lecture me about Apache atrocities, scout,” he said. “I know as well as anyone what low-down scum they are. I know they have no sense of honor, no sense of a fair fight. If it were up to me, we’d have finished ’em off a long time ago.”

It was the wrong thing to say to Albert, and I could see the blood rising in his face. “You White Eyes come into
our
country with your armies, your guns and cannons,” he said. “You steal our land, you slaughter every native that stands in your way, you lock the survivors up on reservations. And you ask us to fight fair against you? How do you think a tribe of a few thousand souls has managed to survive three hundred years of persecution? How do you think we avoided being
finished off,
as you put it, Chief? By learning
not
to fight fair. The White Eyes and the Spaniards and the Mexicans taught us everything we know about atrocities.”

“
We,
is it now?” Gatlin said, nodding. “I thought you were on our side, scout? Hell, I thought you were about half civilized. But now I see that after only twenty-four hours among your own kind, you’re all set to put the loincloth back on and take to the warpath. Your old granddad went native again, did he?”

Albert regarded Gatlin with loathing and addressed Carrillo. “Colonel, assuming that you can even get through the pass,” he said, “if you invade the
ranchería,
you’re going to find Margaret and Mr. Browning dead. And Señor Huerta’s son, too. Their blood will be on your hands.”

“We must listen to them, Colonel,” said Fernando Huerta, standing. “We cannot risk my son’s life by acting rashly.”

“We have no other choice, señor,” Carrillo said. “Our attempts to negotiate with the savages have clearly failed. We must take military action.”

“No!” shouted Señor Huerta. “I will not allow it!”

“You are not in command of this operation, sir,” Carrillo snapped.

“There’s one other thing you should all know,” I said.

“What’s that, Mr. Giles?” said Gatlin.

“The leader of their band is a white man.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Have you ever heard the name Charley McComas?” I asked.

“Of course,” said Gatlin. “Everyone in the Southwest knows the story of little Charley McComas. Kidnapped by the Apaches in 1883.”

“He’s not so little anymore, Chief,” Tolley said. “He’s all grown up.”

“Oh, hell,” Gatlin scoffed. “We been hearing rumors for years in this country about Charley McComas. Old E. H. White, used to cowboy over on the Diamond A, always claimed that one time back in twenty-four when he was looking for strays up in the timber, he ran into a big redheaded white man leading a band of Apaches. He always claimed it was the McComas boy. ’Course, old E.H. was known to stretch the truth a bit in the interest of a good yarn.”

“It wasn’t a yarn,” I said. “We’ve seen him.”

Tolley, Albert, and I walked glumly back through the camp. The violent storm had passed earlier, but the faint rumblings of it still sounded in the distance, and lightning flashed on the far horizon.

“Well, that went well,” Tolley remarked.

“We’ve really made a mess of things, haven’t we?” I said.

“Not to worry, old sport,” Tolley said. “Things will look brighter after a good night’s sleep. I can hardly think straight I’m so tired.”

We split up, off to our assigned tents, Tolley with the paying guests, Albert to the staff quarters, and I back to the “press” tent. Big Wade was already asleep, snoring as usual, and the boy Jesus, exhausted from the trials of the past days, slept curled on a mat on the floor. It was strange being back with the expedition, as if we’d never left, as if our brief time among the bronco Apaches had been nothing more than a dream, a nightmare. How I wish that it had been. How I wish that I could wake up in the morning and have everything be as before, with Margaret and Mr. Browning and Joseph safe with us. I don’t know if I’ve ever been so completely bone-weary tired in my life. Or so discouraged. I hope Tolley is right and that things look brighter by the light of day and after a good night’s sleep. Because right now they look pretty damn hopeless. Good night, Margaret; good night, Mr. Browning; good night, Joseph; I hope you’re all safely sleeping. Good night, Chideh.

23 JUNE, 1932

Yet another disaster has befallen us . . . This morning at dawn Colonel Carrillo rode out of camp with a small detachment of Mexican soldiers and half a dozen volunteers, with Billy Flowers guiding them. Their purpose was to make a short scouting expedition so that the colonel could himself get the lay of the land.

Less than six hours after their departure, Carrillo, Flowers, and five other survivors, two of them wounded, straggled back into camp. Only Flowers still had his mule, bearing the most seriously wounded man. All else were afoot. All told, eight Mexican soldiers and four of the volunteers had been killed in the ambush, and all the other horses and mules were either dead or captured by the Apaches. Without any explanation for what had happened, Carrillo and Flowers went immediately into conference with Chief Gatlin. One of the American survivors of the ambush was the steel magnate’s son Winston Hughes, the Yale boy who so enjoys tormenting Tolley. With none of his customary fraternity-boy cockiness in evidence, Winty described to us the terrible events of the day.

They never even reached the pass but had been ambushed only an hour out of camp, at another spot where the trail narrows along an arroyo. Above the trail on the one side was a series of low bluffs, and it was here among the rocks that the Apaches lay in wait. The party was riding single file, with Colonel Carrillo in the lead, when a single shot was fired and the colonel’s horse went down beneath him. Two more shots followed in quick succession and the man bringing up the rear, a volunteer named Larkin from upper state New York, fell dead out of the saddle, his horse collapsing with the next shot. Now the trail was blocked at both ends by the floundering, dying horses, and the other animals began to panic, rearing and whinnying, wheeling in circles, slipping on the rocks, stumbling and falling to their knees. In the ensuing chaos some of the riders were unseated, others were picked cleanly off by the steady, methodical gunfire. Colonel Carrillo shouted orders for everyone to dismount and take cover. Some of the soldiers had managed to unsheathe their rifles and began to return fire, but they had no idea where the shots were coming from and all they could do was shoot wildly in the general direction of the bluffs. The steady, almost leisurely gunfire continued with deadly accuracy, one man after the next falling dead or wounded.

“We were like the tin ducks in a carnival shooting gallery,” Winston Hughes said in a low voice, close to tears. “We couldn’t get off the trail and we couldn’t even tell where the shots were coming from.”

Only Billy Flowers, on his big white mule, sure-footed as a mountain goat, managed to get off the trail and ride almost vertically down into the arroyo, where he left his mule out of the line of fire and worked his way around on foot to give himself a clear vantage point of the bluffs above. Flowers took his time, scanning the rocks with his eagle-eyed hunter’s eyes until he had identified the shooters and then he began to return fire himself, just as methodically. He picked off two of the Apaches before they realized that their position had been discovered, and as they were relocating, and trying to determine where the returning gunfire was coming from, Flowers hollered up to Carrillo and the others to leave their mounts and drop down into the arroyo on foot. In this way, Billy Flowers had saved the lives of the remaining men, though they lost all their horses.

Dinner tonight in the mess tent was subdued, to say the least. Now that some of the volunteers have actually died at the hands of the Apaches, the expedition has taken on a sober new tone. No longer is this simply a hunting and fishing excursion into interesting virgin country, with the vague, though highly unlikely possibility that the volunteers might add a wild Apache to their trophy bags. Suddenly the Apaches are not only shooting back, but actually hunting the sports. Some of those who have never seen real military service (i.e., the vast majority of volunteers) have announced their intention to resign from the expedition, and a contingent of them has already approached Colonel Carrillo to demand safe escort back to Douglas. “I’m out,” said Winston Hughes. “This is no fun anymore,” he added in gross understatement. Even a few of the veterans and retired military men among them seem to have lost heart. The notion of fighting an elusive guerrilla army in this impossibly rugged country in order to rescue a single Mexican boy suddenly seems less romantic and a great deal more dangerous.

“Well, hell,” said a fellow named Kent Sanders, a young banker from Greenwich, Connecticut, and one of the biggest blowhards of the bunch. “It’s just a Mexican kid. He’s hardly worth dying for.”

“Yeah, but what about the woman and Phillips’s butler?” said another man. “Are we just going to abandon them to the savages?”

“They’re staff members,” said a third. “It’s a personnel problem. Let Chief Gatlin deal with that.”

“That’s what the Mexican army is here for,” said another man. “It’s their country, let them solve their own Indian problem. We took care of ours fifty years ago.”

And so the sports debated the level of their responsibility and their dwindling commitment. The fact that they’re each paying thirty dollars a day to participate made it an easy decision for some. Clearly, the Great Apache Expedition has ceased to seem like such a good value for their money.

After dinner, Tolley came to see me in my tent. He seemed somehow sheepish and uncomfortable. “You know, old sport,” he said, unable to look me in the eye, “I’ve given it a great deal of thought and I really feel that I should be getting home. Fall semester is right around the corner, you know.”