Apache Canyon

"Good for you," Tucker applauded with a faintly perceptive hollowness.

"I could use a good wrangler to go partners in the place," Brady said tentatively. "One man can't run a horse outfit all by himself."

"I'm a soldier, Will," Tucker answered immediately. "Just the same, I'm obHged for the offer." He tilted his hat back and rumpled up his red hair, letting the cool high-country air slip through it. After a while he said in a more thoughtful voice, "Maybe I'll think about it some, at that."

A slow smile erased some of the rough edges from Brady's face. "Good enough," he said.

That was when Harris up ahead, lifted his rein5 and dropped back. "I just had a ghmpse of something moving, up on that ridge over there." He pointed forward and slightly to the right of their direction of travel. "I don't think it was an animal."

"They've been watching us for quite a while," Brady rephed. "I've seen them trailing us, off and on, for the last two hours."

"No call for worryin'. Captain," Tucker said softly. "Not so long as we can see them, anyway."

A cool current of air riffled across the slope, chilling them. Up ahead, the Indian guide's bandaged head bobbed steadily forward, a white dot against the brilliant colors of the land. Brady's face, wide at the cheekbones,was brittle from high winds and hot suns; his jowls were blue and his eyes lazy, not wholly open at any time. He flicked ashes from his smoke and watched Harris trot forward ahead of him, and surveyed the surrounding hilltops. In silence, then, they taveled foi-ward through the endless turns of the high land until presently twilight ran red over the hills and the wind hummed a steady monotone through the acoustic chambers of the tall rock slabs that dwarfed them. And all the time, Brady kept seeing, like ghosts in the distance, the flitting shapes of squat brown men with steady eyes and hair bound tight with strips of cloth. Northward, the marching mass of black clouds continued its invincible advance.

Two days before, the immigrants came into a valley at the top of the cooling day and rolled their wagons down into it. Hillsides dropped them by easy stages into the bottoms, where a creek ran thin and trees guarded the snake-turning banks, and at sundown the heavy wagons had let out their tailgates by the stream. A boy picketed the six horses and made a quick rope corral around the oxen. The men cut wood and built fires, and the boy drew water from the stream for the night's meal; afterward, under full dark with a quarter moon rising, the boy drew out his harmonica and played for a time. Presently he sought his blankets and slept.

At dawn the Apaches came down out of the hills. They killed the wagon people and ran back into the hills, driving their plunder ahead of them—six Ohio draft horses.

The soldiers nosed over the hill at nine in the morning and rode forward cantering, advancing to the scene of carnage.

Sutherland turned away from the mutilated bodies, five of them, and replaced his hat on his head, softly swearing; he called out in a harsh voice for Sergeant Brophy.

"Sir," called the sergeant, turning away from the burned wagons.

''Burial-detail—and be quick. I'm moving out now. Catch up within two hours."

"This soil makes hard digging, Captain," Brophy murmured.

"Do as you're told, damn it."

"Yes, sir." Brophy raised his arm in a half-salute and called out in his roughened voice; "You—Barnett, McQuade. Picket your horses and come with me."

Sutherland mounted and neckreined savagely aroimd and ran up beside Pete Rubio. Rubio was studying the evidence of prior horse travel in the ground. "They got a few horses, Captain. Butchered one ox—over there—and spent a while gorging themselves this morning, I reckon. I don't figure they took any prisoners. Headed north."

Sutherland turned to watch Brophy and his two men taking shovel to sod. "A few horses for three white men, a woman and a boy. Is that a fair bargain? And Harris thinks he can make deal with these savages."

Rubio said nothing. His enigmatic cheeks were smooth. Sutherland hipped farther around in his saddle and called out his crisp orders: "We're moving out. Prepare to mount. . . Mount!"

The cry rang defiantly through the hot and dusty morning. There were the scattered sounds of men's weary bodies hitting saddles, of horses coming into hne. Sutherland raised a hand. "Forward."

The patrol moved out at a trot. Sutherland spoke to Rubio: "How many of them?"

Rubio spat out a stream of brown juice. "Fifteen —maybe twenty. No tellin' how many was hid out in the trees and didn't come in to make tracks."

"All right," Sutherland said. "We'll stick to them."

The column moved wide of the curling stream then ran along northward, keeping the line of ti'ees a hundred yards on the left flank. Soon they bunched up into a tighter unit as they passed into the higher hills. Sutherland signaled Rubio back to him and said, "How far ahead now?"

Rubio rubbed a dust-grimed hand across his jaw and sm-mised, "Three hours, maybe less. Captain—"

"What is it, Rubio?"

"They might take a notion to swing back on us."

"Let them," Sutherland said harshly. He turned in the saddle and shaded his eyes, and saw nothing on the hills. "Get going, Rubio."

Rubio took a drink from his canteen and said, in brittle tones, "Yes, sir, Captain." He capped the canteen and replaced it on his saddle and swept away from the column, again taking the point far ahead.

Sutherland sat stiff in the uncomfortable saddle as the horse carried him over Rubio's tracks. In the cavalry blues he made a narrow shadow against the bright noon. His eyes looked out hollowly from the round moon face; and his hands constantly fingered the reins as he rode.

In two hours he allowed the men a five-minute rest, during which he paced restively, fitfully working his hands together; in the saddle again, they moved north, cutting into higher and more jagged country, with Pete Rubio keeping them to the track. Presently Sergeant Brophy rejoined the patrol with his two men and Rubio led them deeper into the mountains, with Sutherland making a forced march of it. They made the best of the dayhght hours and rode on more than an hour into the night before Sutherland reluctantly called the halt. He stepped stiffly from the saddle and handed his reins to Trooper Barnett.

His call was husky: "Three hours. We move on at midnight. Get some sleep." He turned to Brophy: "Post a double guard, Sergeant." And when Rubio came up to him, he said, "Have we gained on them?"

Rubio spat. "You'll never see the day when a pony soldier can catch up to an Apache, Captain—unless the Apache wants you to catch up."

"You didn't answer me, Rubio."

"No, sir. They've stayed steady ahead of us. Which means one thing—they know we're behind them. I expect they'll try to set a trap. You aim to ride into it. Captain?"

"I don't tolerate impertinence, Rubio."

"Sorry, Captain," the scout murmured with dry sarcasm. "Just remember, I ain't one of your boys in uniform. I'll tell you this much, for your own good— if those Apaches didn't have something up their sleeves, they'd have split up and faded into these rocks where nobody alive could ever find them. They're leadin' you on, Captain."

"Let them. I beheve I can show them which is the superior fighting force, Rubio."

"Sure you can, Captain," Rubio said, very softly. The reflected moon glinted off the surfaces of his dark eyes; he swung away.