The youngsters around camp and some of the squaws would come around and throw sand in my face or beat me with sticks, sometimes for a half hour at a time. An they got out of me was a lot of cussin’, so they decided to try something really good.
Whilst they were setting around the fire talking it over, I did some business on my own account. One of the youngsters had dropped his stick when he got tired of beating me and it lay across my chest. By humping myself up I slid it down toward my mouth, got it into my teeth and tilted it up until the drops from that waterbag were coming down it toward my mouth.
At first most of the drops fell off onto the ground, but I hung onto that stick like a bulldog and sure enough after a while some drops began to get into my mouth. Not that it was much, but when a body has been so long without water the slightest drop feels mighty, mighty good.
My jaws began to ache and my neck got stiff but I daren’t move for fear I’d lose the stick or the water would start dribbling another way.
All of a sudden one of the Indians noticed what I was doing and called the others. Well, sir, you never heard such laughing and chuckling. They all gathered around, pointing and talking. It was a new thing, what I’d done, and they admired me for being game, but that didn’t change them none. After they had all seen it one of the braves reached over and jerked that stick from my jaws so hard he nigh taken some teeth with it. I cussed him for a no-account coyote and a dog-robber, and he kicked me.
All night I lay there, staked out on the sand with no water and less hope. Once a tarantula crawled across my belly, going about his own affairs, and the ants found some of the cuts left from the stick beatings. Come daylight they untied my feet and led me to an anthill where they had stakes driven into the ground, and I could see what they were planning.
Of a sudden there was a shot, then a yell, some moaning cries, and every Apache in the lot jumped his pony and rushed off after whatever it was.
And when they lit out, I did likewise.
We Sackett boys run to length, and I was always a fair to middlin’ foot racer, so I taken off like a scared jackrabbit, paying no mind to the broken rock and gravel underfoot. And those squaws came after me, a-yellin’ their lungs out.
Now the men were closing in on me, and with my feet in the shape they were in I surely wasn’t going far, nor could I hope to outrun them. The only thing in my favor was that we were heading right into Ute country. Not that I’d be any better off in the hands of Utes, but the Apaches didn’t find any welcome in Ute country, either. The further they got into Ute country the more worried those Apaches were going to be.
Walking on pine needles was a lot better than rock and the like, but what I needed was a hiding place. And after that I needed some kind of weapon.
Deliberately I chose the steeper, less likely ways. Climbing steps were no more painful than those on the level, yet they would take me to places the Indians could not follow on their ponies.
Pulling myself up through a narrow space between two boulders I edged along a rim of rock and then climbed a dry waterfall to the level above. My feet were bleeding again, but I found some red clay that I could mix with pinon gum and tallow from the elk fat to make a salve often used by the Navajo to promote healing. Yet when I looked back and down I could see eight Apaches, close enough to see the color of their horses.
The Apache fights on his feet, and climbing that mountain after me would be no trick. They hadn’t seen me yet but when they did, they’d come. Maybe I was a damned fool, my feet hurting the way they were. Maybe I should just quit and let them kill me. But there was no give-up in me. We boys in the backwoods weren’t raised thataway. By the time I was fourteen I knew how to shoot, trap and skin, how to rustle my grub in the woods, and if need be to get along on less than a jackrabbit.
Mostly the boys I ran the hills with were Cherokee, and I learned as much from their folks as my own. We had only two books in our family, so Ma taught us to read from the Bible and Pilgrim’s Progress.
One thing we learned. To make a start and keep plugging. When I had fights at school, the little while I went, I just bowed my neck and kept swinging until something hit the dirt. Sometimes it was me, but I always got up.
Right now I made a decision. Those Apaches weren’t going to take kindly to leaving their ponies behind them in Ute country, so if they killed me they were going to have to do it on top of the mountain. That was where I headed.
Turning crossways of the trail I started climbing, using my hands as much as my feet. Stopping near a clump of aspen I looked back down. Far below I could see them and they could see me, and they were drawn up, staring at me.
There was no sense to shooting. Up hill thataway a body ain’t going to hit much and I was a far piece off from them. I could almost hear them talking it over.
My hope was they’d decide I wasn’t worth the trouble. But it was a slim hope, so I continued on up the mountain. It was a heartbreaker, almost straight up in places, although there were plenty of hand and foot holds. Then I crawled up on the ledge where lay a dead coyote, and I knew that Apaches wouldn’t touch one. Taking it by the tail I gave it a good swing and let it fall toward the trail below, right across the path they would have to follow.
I doubted if it would more than make them uneasy, but it did give me an idea. To an Apache the hoot of an owl is a sign of death, and since boyhood I’d been able to hoot well enough to get answers from owls. Knowing sound would carry in those high canyons, I tried it.
They could no longer see me but I could see them, and at the first hoot they pulled up short, and when they reached the dead coyote they stopped again. So I started a couple of boulders rolling down the mountain. I wasn’t likely to hit one of them, but it might worry them a little.
Of a sudden I came into a kind of scooped-out hollow in the side of the mountain. Some of it was meadow, but at the back leading up into the notch that led toward the crest it was mostly filled with aspen. And I knew that was it.
I just wasn’t going any further. Crawling back into those aspens where they grew tight and close together I covered my way as well as possible and just lay down. My feet felt like fire, and my legs hurt all the way up. Below the knees, from favoring the soles, the muscles were giving me hell. I just stretched out under the leaves and lay there.
They could find me, all right, but they’d have to hunt.
My club clutched in my hand, I waited, listened for the slightest sound. The aspens whispered and somewhere a bird or small animal rustled in the leaves, but they did not come. Finally I just fell asleep. I had no idea how or when … I just did.
Hours later the cold awakened me. All was still. I lay there for awhile, then slowly sat up. It brought kind of a groan from me, which I swallowed before it got too loud. I couldn’t see anything or hear anything, so I just naturally lay back down, dug deeper into the leaves, and went to sleep again.
When next I awakened it was morning, and I was stiff with cold. Crawling out of the aspens I looked around, but saw nothing of the Apaches.
Gathering up my pack I limped out through the groves of aspen and began to work my way down into an interior canyon. After an hour, in a hollow under some trees and boulders I stopped, built a small fire of dry, smokeless wood and broiled an elk steak. Hearing a faint rustling among the trees I dropped a couple of bones near the remains of my fire, then went on down. Later in the day I again bathed my feet in a concoction of snakeweed. Whether it was actually helping I did not know, but it felt good and eased the hurt.