he was doing. They trusted no prisoner, even if he seemed to accept their ways.
Only thing was, they didn’t figure anybody could get away from the Sierra Madres
… or that anybody would dare come in after them.
The first thing I did was hunt a piece of black lava rock to use when the time
came. I placed it handy under a bush, and we went back, mounted up, and followed
a trail out of there, skirting a cliff that fell away so sharply you felt as if
you rode on a piece of molding along a wall.
That boy back there … could he keep them from knowing? That troubled me some.
There was small chance he could get to the other youngsters, but there was some
visiting back and forth … it could be.
But where was Orry Sackett? Where was my brother’s son?
Chapter 7
Through the chill dawn we climbed toward the high peaks, weaving our way among
trees that dripped with moisture from the low-hanging clouds. Then we descended
several hundred feet into a secluded park ringed with splendid pines. On the far
side a cold, clear stream fell over a limestone ledge into a deep pool.
In every sheltered spot there were ruins … ancient ruins, half buried in earth
or an overgrowth of brush or moss. In one place a gnarled and twisted cedar grew
inside a wall, a cedar that itself must have been hundreds of years old.
I questioned Rocca, and he shrugged. “Who knows? They were the People Who Came
Before, and they were gone before the Apaches came.”
He was only mildly curious. “Many peoples have come and gone. It is the way of
the world. The People of the Stone Houses … the people who built the cliff
dwellings in Arizona and Colorado. They were driven out by the Navajo, who
killed many of them.
“The white man has driven out the Indian, but the Indian drove out others
before, and those others had driven peoples before them. It is always the same.
I think the Indian was defeated by the traders, not by the soldiers.”
“How so?” Battles asked.
“The traders made the Indian want things he could not make himself. He came to
need the white man, to depend upon him. The Indian had to trade or steal to get
the rifles and other things he wanted that the white man had.”
It was what I had thought myself. Rocca shrugged again. “The first white trader
who came to the Indians brought their doom in his pack. I think it is so.”
We were silent then. We came to a fearful slide and went down it, our horses
sliding on their haunches for a good part of the distance to the bottom of a
gloomy canyon, through which ran the headwaters of the Bavispe. It was an eerie,
haunted spot, and I swung down, standing for a moment with both hands on the
saddle, listening. But there was no sound except that of falling water, and the
sighing of wind among the pines.
“I don’t like it,” John J. said. “It looks like the dark edge of hell.”
Me, I was thinking of those youngsters among the Apaches, so strange to them, so
frightening. They must be scared stiff. Yet I could think of worse things than
living out a life in these mountains. The Sierra Madres were beautiful.
We were coming close now, and we could see plenty of Apache sign. In gloomy
places like this a body always had the feeling of being watched.
We drank, one at a time, with the others watching and in the saddle. We crossed
the river then and went up a switchback trail for a thousand feet toward a
tremendous promontory.
Storm clouds hung over the nearby peaks, and there was electricity in the air.
Kahtenny’s rancheria was somewhere below us, hidden in the low clouds. We
started down through the trees, but had gone only a short distance when the rain
began to fall in sheets, swept by a violent wind.
The forest offered slight cover, and there was nothing to do but hole up and
wait it out. We found a place where a great pine had fallen almost to the
ground, part of it resting among the rocks. We cut away the branches on the
under side and took shelter there, leading our horses under cover with us. There
was barely room for us, and the pommel of my saddle brushed the bark of the
pine.
We took a chance, with the rain to keep down the smoke and keep the Apaches
under shelter, and built a small fire where we made soup and coffee.
After a break, with the rain still falling, I took up my rifle and went out on a
scout. Keeping to the trees, I worked my way along the cliff. The rocks
glistened with wet, and the raindrops pelted my slicker like thrown stones, but
the trees offered some shelter.
Suddenly I was looking down into Kahtenny’s rancheria. There were a few smokes
from wickiups, but nobody was visible.
I felt a movement behind me, and I turned sharply. It was Tampico Rocca.
He indicated the rancheria below us. “I could not fool them now,” he said. “They
would smell the difference in me. I have been eating the white man’s food.”
“How many would you guess there are?” I asked. “Twenty, maybe?”
“Twenty, or twenty-five.”
Two dozen human wolves … and I mean nothing against them. My enemies for the
time, yes … but I respected them. At trailing or fighting they were fierce and
relentless as wolves, and we had done the impossible and followed them into
their almost impregnable Sierra Madre.
“I’m going down,” I said. “I shall get close and listen.”
Rocca stared at me. “You crazy. They will hear you. Their dogs will smell you.”
“Maybe, but the rain will help.”
“All right,” he said, “we both go.” It would be a daring thing, but there was
enough of the Apache in him to be cautious. And it would be a chance to count
coups against the Apaches.
We crawled and slid down the mountain. From time to time we paused to listen,
then moved on. We were fools, I told myself. What we did was insanity, no less.
But I had to find Orry, and every hour in these mountains was an hour of danger
for us … and for him.
Together we crept to the edge of the encampment in the driving rain. Rocca
darted to the wall of one of the wickiups, and I went to another. Crouching in
the rain, I listened, but heard nothing except the low mutter of Indian voices
and the crackle of a fire. As I was moving to another, I was stopped for a
moment by Rocca’s uplifted finger. Hesitating, I watched him, holding my rifle,
muzzle down under my slicker. He shook his head, and moved on. We had listened
at five wickiups and were about ready to give up … Suppose the children were
not talking? Suppose they were not there at all?
Rocca gestured suddenly, and I went to him. We heard a mutter of talk within,
and then, sure enough, a boy speaking plainly in English.
I caught Rocca’s arm. “Cover me,” I said, and lifting the flap, I stepped in.
For a moment I could see nothing, although I had taken the precaution of closing
my eyes for a moment before stepping inside. Then in the red glow of the coals I
saw a startled buck staring at me, and beginning to rise. On a pile of skins
near one wall were three white children … I could just make them out.
A squaw was there, holding a child at her breast. She stared at me, no anger or
hatred in her eyes, just a calm acceptance. “Do not cry out,” I said in Apache.
Then in the event she did not understand my poor use of the Apache tongue, I
repeated it in Spanish.
The buck was past his astonishment, and he came at me with a lunge. I met him
halfway with the butt of my rifle, and he went down in a heap, out cold.
“All right,” I said to the children, “we’re all going home. Wrap those skins
around you and come on.”
Turning to the young Indian woman, who had not stirred, I spoke quietly in
Spanish. “I do not wish to hurt anybody. I want only to take these children
home.”
She merely looked at me as the three children ran toward me. I saw that one of
them was a girl. I waved them past, toward the wickiup entrance, and they went
out quickly into the rain. With another glance at the squaw, I followed.
Tampico Rocca was already hurrying the youngsters toward the brush-clad hill
where we had come down, and he was backing away, covering the wickiups with his