Tom Horn And The Apache Kid Page 8

  But when the troops withdrew, they were ordered to dismantle or burn all the forts in the territory so they could not be used by the Apaches against the white miners, settlers, cowboys and ranchers.

  Most of the white population left the meadows, deserts, and ranches and fled to the larger towns, which afforded them protection from the rampant natives.

  After the “secession” question was settled by bloodbath, the army reentered the Arizona Territory and built new forts at Bowie, Whipple, Defiance, Apache, Lowell, and other bastions of defense and offense to settle the “redskin” question. Most of those redskins were Apaches.

  There were seven thousand Apaches when the Cochise War broke out. In ten years the American government spent more than thirty-eight million dollars to exterminate the Apache population. During that campaign seven thousand one hundred survived. The Indians succeeded in reproducing faster than the United States Army could reduce them.

  Of those original seven thousand Apaches, only two thousand were fighting men. The other five thousand were women and children or old men too feeble to fight.

  But the government policy helped defeat itself, because in reality there were two policies working at cross purposes. The Department of Interior’s intention was to protect the Apaches, but the War Department, through its army, vowed to exterminate those same Apaches.

  No one succeeded in explaining all this to the Indians who had lived here hundreds of years under the curious notion that this was their land. When the United States acquired almost fifty thousand square miles from Mexico for ten million dollars, under the Gadsden Purchase of 1853, no one sat down and talked about the deal to the seven thousand Apaches who populated the territory.

  The Apaches had never acknowledged the soverignty of either Mexico or Spain, and now they had to bargain with the Americans over their own property rights. So the United States government, feeling a mite guilty about these troublesome natives, fed and penned them with one hand while trying to shoot them dead with the other.

  Meanwhile, a lot of people—not Apaches—got rich, and the railroad came through.

  Tom Horn reflected on all this as he headed toward Van Zeider’s cantina. He noted that the lamps in Ryan’s store were all out. He imagined that Shana Ryan was probably asleep in the small apartment behind the store, in the room where he and Tim had sometimes sat through most of the night and talked about the future of the West. And now Shana Ryan slept in that room. Tom thought of her long, flowing flaxen hair. Then he made his mind drift in a different direction, toward Van Zeider’s cantina, where the lamps were still lit.

  But Shana Ryan was not in bed. She stood in the darkness of the store and watched Tom Horn’s strong silhouette moving away from her through the placid spring night.

  It was almost midnight when Horn entered the open door of the cantina. Some of the damage still showed. The window had been repaired, but the broken mirror had not been replaced. Most of the soldiers had turned in a long time ago, but five were still there playing poker at a far table. There was another game going on with four civilian participants.

  The same bald-headed, bow-legged old coot who had acted as messenger was leaning on the bar talking to Peg until Horn stepped in. They stopped talking. Everyone stopped talking.

  Horn took two more steps, wiped his mouth, and looked directly at Peg, who didn’t know what to do or say.

  “Evening, Peg,” said Horn. “You can leave that scattergun just where it rests.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Peg. “Look, Mr. Horn, I’m just a poor, one-legged bartender trying to make a living.”

  “Who said otherwise?” Horn replied.

  “Just remember that,” Peg said, then hollered out toward the back room, “Mr. Van Zeider!”

  Tom Horn stood waiting.

  The door opened, and Karl Van Zeider walked through, then stopped at the sight of Horn. But Van Zeider collected himself quickly. He smoothly fingered the fob at his vest. “Look here, Mr. Horn,” Van Zeider said firmly, “I don’t want any more trouble around here.”

  Horn took a step forward and said nothing.

  “I don’t want to have to send for the army,” Van Zeider warned.

  “Don’t worry, Van Zeider,” Horn said. “You won’t have to send for the army…or the marines.” He took another step closer. “I just want you to take a good look at me. Go ahead and look.”

  “What for?” Van Zeider asked uncertainly.

  “To make sure.”

  “Of what?”

  Horn let the moment hang.

  “That I’m not an Indian,” he answered at last.

  “What?” Van Zeider laughed.

  “Look! Look and make sure. Am I an Indian?”

  Karl Van Zeider looked at Horn for a moment; then his eyes swept to the card players, then across to Peg and back to Horn.

  “No. You’re not an Indian,” Van Zeider affirmed.

  “Good,” Horn nodded. “Can a non-Indian buy a drink in this place?”

  “Why, yes. Sure.” Van Zeider relaxed and smiled. “Sure! Peg, give Mr. Horn a drink. Give him all the drinks he wants to buy. His money’s just as good as any other white man’s. Make yourself comfortable, Mr. Horn, but you’ll have to excuse me.” Van Zeider nodded toward the back room. “I’ve got some bookkeeping to take care of. Good night, gentlemen.”

  Van Zeider turned briskly, walked through the backroom door, then closed and locked it.

  Horn moved to the bar. The old coot took a step to the side, giving Horn some more room, even though he had more than he needed. Horn reached in his pocket and put money on the bar. Peg produced a bottle and placed a whiskey glass beside it.

  Horn took the bottle, bit off the cork, and spat it away.

  “We won’t need that,” he said. “And Peg, bring up a bigger glass.”

  “Sure thing, Mr. Horn,” Peg said, and brought up a tumbler. “How’s this?”

  “Just about right.” Horn picked up the bottle and the glass and walked away from the bar. “I’ll sit at my usual table.”

  Horn went to the window table at which Sieber, Crane, and the Apache Kid had sat, settled in a chair, and poured whiskey into the tumbler until it was half full.

  Horn drank.

  Half an hour later the soldiers broke up their poker game and left.

  Horn drank.

  In another half hour the four civilians cashed in their game and filed out.

  Horn drank.

  Outside under a star-spilled sky, the Fort lay quiet like a becalmed solitary ship at sea.

  Horn drank.

  In the back room, Karl Van Zeider whispered to one of his teamsters, Pete Curtain. Curtain had participated along with Emile in the fracas that led to Emile’s hospitalization.

  “Everything set?” Van Zeider inquired.

  “Yep. Dynamite, wagon, rifles, and two of Geronimo’s bucks fresh off San Carlos. But I don’t think they got a Chinaman’s chance.”

  “Another thinker,” Van Zeider said almost to himself.

  “You said what?” Pete Curtain inquired.

  “I said there’s the door.” Van Zeider pointed to the door leading to the back alleyway.

  When Curtain left, Van Zeider removed the gold watch from his vest pocket and thumbed open the hunting case. It was exactly 1:00 a.m.

  Tom Horn stared at the empty whiskey bottle on the table. He had consumed its contents, all but the couple of ounces of fiery fluid still in the tumbler he held in his right hand. The whiskey burning in his belly and brain did nothing to sort out and settle the problems he, Sieber, and the Apache Kid had—especially the Kid.

  He thought to himself, All the whiskey in the world won’t justify God’s ways to man—or man’s ways to man.

  “Beg pardon, Mr. Horn.” Peg limped a couple of steps down the bar closer to Horn. “But it’s time.”

  “What?”

  “It’s time to go.”

  “Where?”

  “I mean, we’re closing up.” Peg wiped the to
p of the battered bar with a towel.

  Horn looked around the room and saw that it was empty. Even the old coot had taken leave. Horn thought, I must have been somewhere else, all right. Didn’t even notice Baldy when he left.

  “All right, Peg, ol’ partner.” Horn rose, finished off the tumbler, walked to the bar, and put money there. “That’s good whiskey. It’d turn the dev il against sin. Better give me one for the road, friend Peg—one bottle.”

  “Yes, sir.” The amputee produced another bottle and placed it near the money.

  “Well,” said Horn, taking the bottle and walking toward the door, “I think I’ll go out and talk to a hooty owl. They’re wise old birds, those hooty owls. Maybe I can find me one and talk to him. Wise old owl might know the answers, ’cause I sure as hell don’t, and neither do you—do you, old friend Peg?”

  “No, sir, Mr. Horn. I sure as hell don’t.”

  Bottle in hand, Horn walked out of the cantina and breathed deep of the warm, thin air. Fort Bowie was quiet, at peace. Miles hadn’t even posted sentries.

  The war was over.

  “God’s in his heaven,” Horn half whispered to himself. “All the Apaches penned up—and all’s right with the world. But I got to find me a hooty owl.” He walked along the building until he came to Ryan’s store. Horn pulled the cork from the bottle and looked into the stem. He brought the bottle up close to his right eye. “Hello, hooty owl. I know you’re in there. Come on out and talk to me. I got to ask you some questions. Playing it cagey, huh? Well, I know how to get you out.”

  Horn put the bottle to his mouth and drank. Then he placed one hand against a post and leaned over to vomit. He tried. Nothing came up, but the attempt made him dizzy and weak. He raised the bottle toward his face again.

  “Hooty owl, I’m coming in after you....”

  “Tom, are you all right?” Shana Ryan opened the door and stood with a robe around her night-clothes. “Tom?”

  “First-rate.” Horn’s words slurred just a little. “I am first-rate, Miz Shana.”

  “Who are you talking to?” Shana smiled.

  “I’m talking to the wise old hooty owl,” Horn said, holding up the bottle, “but he won’t come out and talk to me.”

  “Oh, yes, of course.” Shana nodded. “I see. I also think you better come inside. I’ll heat the coffeepot.” She reached a hand to Horn’s arm and guided him through the door.

  They made their way through the dark store and into the apartment.

  “You think that old hooty owl might be in the coffeepot?” asked Tom.

  “He might be.” Shana directed Horn to a couch, and he sat.

  In a few minutes he had a hot mug of coffee in his hand. “I set out to find a hooty owl,” said Horn, still showing the effects of the whiskey he had gone up against, “and instead I found a bird of paradise. Miz Shana, you are purely a bird of paradise.”

  “And you, Mr. Horn, better have another cup of coffee.” Shana poured from the pot into the mug in Horn’s hand. When she walked to replace the pot on top of the stove, Horn laced the brew with a double shot of whiskey from his bottle. Shana observed him and smiled. “It’s customary to add a little sugar or cream.”

  “Different tribes, different customs.” Horn drank the hot fluid from the mug with an amazingly steady hand and looked at Shana Ryan.

  She wore no makeup. And though she was just as covered as if she were wearing a dress, there was something about the sight of this beautiful woman in her nightclothes that betrayed a heretofore unacknowledged intimacy between them. Part of it was the way her silken hair fell in unstudied waves over her shoulders and rested softly on her breasts. Part of it was her surprisingly small slippered feet. And part of it was that unmistakably sensual nocturnal look in her wide-set eyes. Tom Horn remembered how he had thought of her that night just before the attack on the Apache village, wondering if he would ever see her again. And now here they were alone at night in a warm and private place.

  “Would you like me to fix you a couple of eggs to go with that coffee?” Shana asked. “It’ll only take a few minutes.”

  “No, thanks,” Horn said, then added, “You’re a good woman.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And your brother was a good man.” Horn was by no means sober yet. “So’s Al Sieber, a good man…and Captain Melvyn Crane, and General Nelson Appleton Miles is a good man…and everybody…but the Apache Kid. He ain’t no good. You see, he’s an Indian…so”—Horn took a deep gulp from the mug—“we’re gonna send the Apache Kid away…with all the other bad Indians to some place where we won’t have to worry about ’em no more....”

  Unconsciously, Horn’s thumb and forefinger were rubbing the talon at his throat.

  Shana pointed. “May I ask what that is you wear around your neck?”

  “Oh, it’s just…just an eagle claw.”

  “I noticed Mr. Sieber and the Apache Kid also—” “Yeah,” Horn interrupted. “Al gave ’em to us when he said we were…well, he gave ’em to us some time back.”

  “One of the men here told me that Mr. Sieber raised the Apache Kid.”

  “From a pup.”

  “And you, too?”

  “I was some older when I got to know Al…but he taught us both, like his own sons.”

  “In a way that makes you and the Apache Kid sort of brothers, doesn’t it?”

  “No. It don’t.” Horn paused. “But we are.” He set the mug down. His head had become heavy, his eyes weary. He leaned his head back on the couch. “Funny—my brother’s an Indian…and I’m not.”

  Tom Horn closed his eyes.

  Geronimo’s eyes were open.

  In a few minutes it would be 2:00 a.m. Geronimo had no watch, but he knew what time it was.

  He stood near the bars and looked across the darkness at the unmoving figure of the Apache Kid, lying in the opposite cell. Each of the other cells held two and some even three Indian prisoners. Only Geronimo and the Kid had private accommodations, such as they were.

  The long, narrow chamber had been sectioned off into a dozen small cells on each side. The cells were now dark and quiet except for the intermittent snoring of some restive brave. At the end of the north side were the guards’ quarters. Two soldiers, Sergeant Edward Krantz and Private Slim Dawson, were on duty that night. They weren’t expected to remain awake, and they didn’t. Sergeant Krantz, the ranking trooper, slept on a cot, while Dawson made do in a chair.

  Outside, the night sank into its deepest darkness, and in that darkness a figure skulked toward the west wall of the guard house. He was a young Apache brave named Mandan, dressed in a dirty, ill-fitting United States Cavalry uniform consisting of kepi, tunic, and trousers—but Mandan still wore the soft, silent moccasins of the Apache. Mandan had a pistol in his holster, another gun was tucked in his belt, and he carried three sticks of dynamite lashed together and with a six-inch wick.

  Fifty yards farther out in the darkness, another Apache buck named Chukra sat on a wagon hitched to a pair of strong, fast horses. Chukra was also dressed in what passed for a United States Cavalry uniform in the dark. Near his knees were two Winchesters, loaded.

  Mandan reached a spot below one of the windows of the guard house. A bird call came from between his thin lips.

  From inside the cell, a bird named Geronimo answered the call.

  Mandan placed the dynamite at the base of Geronimo’s cell, lit the fuse, ran as fast as he could along the wall for about thirty feet, then flattened himself against it.

  Inside, Geronimo was braced in a corner farthest from the exposed outer wall.

  The explosion went off, and the wall blew away as if it had been hit by a cannonball.

  Every Indian in the guard house, including the Apache Kid, bolted to his feet.

  All but the Kid and Geronimo began yelping, screaming, and chanting. In the guardroom, Sergeant Krantz leaped up and Dawson fell from the tilted chair onto the earthen floor.

  At the sound of the discharge, Chuk
ra lashed the horses, and the wagon rattled toward the blown-out wall.

  Mandan appeared at the newly made opening and tossed Geronimo a pistol. Encumbered by the heavy leg irons, Geronimo turned and fired the pistol at the Apache Kid’s cell.

  The Kid dived into a corner behind the bunk. Geronimo fired again and again. Two of the shots hit the iron bars in the Kid’s cell; the rest ripped and ricocheted around his hunched-up body.

  The wagon clattered to a stop at the opening, and Mandan yelled for Geronimo to hurry. Geronimo threw the empty pistol at the Kid’s cell and clanked through the hole in the wall. Mandan helped the chief onto the wagon just as Krantz and Dawson appeared at Geronimo’s cell and fired their pistols toward the fleeing Apaches.

  “Geronimo!” Krantz yelled to everyone and no one. “It’s Geronimo! He got loose! He’s escaping!”

  Dawson ran down the long, ghostly corridor toward the outside to rouse the fort.

  But the fort was already roused. The dynamite and gunshots had done that well enough. Soldiers and civilians alike thought Fort Bowie was under siege. Soldiers and civilians, blasted out of tranquil slumber, were grabbing rifles and guns and, still in night clothes, some nearly naked, were running about to defend their lives and fortunes. Somewhere a bugle sounded assembly.

  But Tom Horn had a head start.

  Except for his hat, he was already dressed and armed on the porch of Ryan’s store. At the sound of the explosion, he had sprung awake. Shana had been in her room asleep. Horn ran through the apartment and the store and tore open the front door.

  Now Horn stood on the porch, pistol in hand, and watched the wagon roaring flat out in his direction and toward the vast black night below the fort. It looked as if a trooper were at the reins and another next to him, but even in the darkness, Horn recognized the unmistakable figure of Geronimo standing in the bed of the wagon, firing a Winchester at some scurrying soldiers.

  Wherever that wagon was heading, Horn would make sure it wouldn’t get there.

  Horn shot the horse nearest him. The animal screamed, tumbled in its traces, and fell dead, taking the other horse down with him and tipping over the wagon. The wagon rolled twice, throwing off the three Indians, then thumped to a dusty stop with all four wheels spinning in the air.