The Red Mustang

Chapter VIII.

GETTING READY TO CHASE KAH-GO-MISH

It was noon when Cal Evans opened his eyes, and even then the lids came apart reluctantly. He saw his mother sitting by him, and Vic was peering in at the door, but he did not quite understand matters.

"Mother," he said, "are you all safe?"

"Yes, we're all safe – " she began.

"He's awake! Mother, may I come in?" shouted Vic. "Cal! we had such a time. We all dressed up in those old uniforms and played soldier. I fired at the Apaches from the roof."

Cal struggled to sit up, and found out how sore and stiff he was, while he exclaimed:

"Vic, did you? There was an attack? You beat them off?"

"Scared them off," said his mother. "Why, how lame you are!"

"Awful!" he groaned, as he lay back again. "But about the fight – "

"There wasn't any," said Vic, and she added a rapid sketch of the garrison – Norah McLory at the gate, and Mrs. Evans with the drum, and the Mexican women parading as sentinels.

"Tell us about your ride," she said, as she paused for breath.

"Ride?" he said. "Well, yes, it was a great ride, but I don't know the whole of it, myself. How's Dick?"

"Sam says he's all right," said Vic, "and there isn't such another horse in all New Mexico."

"Guess there isn't," replied Cal, very emphatically. "The black is a good fellow, but it was his gait that made me so sore. I can't turn over."

He could tell all that he knew, however, and he could hear all that they had to say, and he found that he could sit up when Norah brought in his breakfast.

"Hungry? I guess I am. Never was so hungry in all my life. But I'm going with father after 'em."

He was as much in need of a thorough rubbing as Dick had been, but when Sam Herrick gave it to him, a little later, he had to shut his mouth hard, for Sam's gentleness was of a cowboy kind, and he did his whole duty. After that was over Cal could walk fairly well, and he went out at once for a look at the red mustang, and Vic and his mother went with him.

"There he is," he said, "that's a fact, but I can't tell how it came to be so. I left him picketed in the corral, at the cavalry camp. He must have untied himself and got away."

Cal knew nothing about the teeth of the persecuting mule.

"Did you mount him in your sleep?" asked Vic.

"I don't know," he said. "I was so tired I went to sleep more than once. Dreamed, too. It was all a good deal like a dream. Seems so yet, from the beginning. I've a kind of memory that Dick came alongside, crowding close and whinnying, and that he and the black stood still, so I could crawl on Dick's back and lie down, somehow, and sleep more comfortably. That's all I know about it, except what you've told me."

If the red mustang felt any stiffness as a consequence of his remarkable performances, he kept the matter to himself and accepted graciously all the petting given him. The black came in for his share of praise, but he was regarded as an enlisted private horse of the regular army, while Dick's last performance had been altogether as a volunteer.

It was just about noon when Captain Moore, riding at the head of his men, listened to a message from Colonel Evans, brought to him by Bill, the long, lank, yellow-haired cowboy.

"All right," said the captain. "Glad I needn't push any faster under this hot sun. Glad Cal got in safe. Gritty young fellow. You'll have to tell him, though, that his horse and one of our pack-mules got away in the night. Sorry, but there's no help for it."

"Well, yes, that's so," replied Bill, "but that there red mustang. Why, captain, do you know, Cal Evans rid into Saint Lucy on to him? The hoss was a-caring for him like a human, and Cal was sound asleep. He hadn't begun to wake up when I kem away."

The captain and his fellow-officers had questions enough to ask, then, and they learned all about Dick's volunteer work when they reached the ranch the next day. They knew nothing about the mule then, but at that very hour the long-eared rascal reported himself for garrison duty and rations at Fort Craig, having for the time delivered himself from the pack business and from the fatigues of a long chase after Apache horse-thieves.

There were delays in the preparations for following the band of Kah-go-mish. Captain Moore had to wait for further instructions from Fort Craig, and Colonel Evans also waited for Joaquin and the expected cowboy recruits from the upper ranches.

Sam and the rest had already gathered, with keen satisfaction, the drove of horses which had so nicely dodged Kah-go-mish, and they had scoured the plain to Slater's Branch and beyond. They reported all things safe and serene, and then Cal and Vic and their mother rode out and went over all the scene of his first adventure.

From the mound on the prairie Cal showed them how the cattle and horses were stampeded. Then they went to the timber and the fallen trees where he and Sam "stood off" the Apaches. Then they rode away down to where Sam had first been swarmed around by the Mescaleros, and there was Sam to tell about it.

"Colorado!" remarked he, "but didn't they butcher a lot of cattle! They got about a dozen mules, thirty good hosses, and sixty or seventy second-rates and ponies. Mounted their whole band, I reckon!"

"I don't care so much about that," said Mrs. Evans, but she was looking at Cal just then.

"Vic," said Cal, "you was three years at school, away off there in the settlements, and so was I."

"No Indians there," said Vic.

"Good thing you was," said Sam. "I never had any schooling. Hope you learned a heap."

"Hope I did," said Cal, "but I tell you what, it seems to me as if I'd learned more in one day's riding."

"Well, yes, like enough," replied Sam, "more of one kind. Glad you didn't learn how an arrer feels. I did, once. Bullet, too. Tell you what, though, if you go on the trail with your father and the captain, I reckon you'll learn some more."

"I've seen a great many Indians," began Vic, "but they were all friendly except – "

"Colorado!" suddenly exclaimed Sam. "Four of 'em! Heading right for us! Don't shoot, Cal. Keep a good ready, but don't throw lead if you can help it. It beats me!"

Mrs. Evans reined her horse close along side of Vic's pony, but said nothing. Her face was pale, but that of Vic's was flushed fiery red. So was Cal's as he touched Dick with his heel and sent him forward head-and-head with Sam's gray.

Four unmistakable red warriors, armed to the teeth, were rapidly riding nearer.

"Mother," exclaimed Vic, "I'm ready."

"So am I," said Mrs. Evans, sharply. "We can both help."

Each had a revolver in her hand, and Vic afterwards remembered how glad she felt, just then, of all her target practice. Her thought was, "I can hit one, I know I can."

The leading idea in Cal's mind was that his hero-time had come, and that he alone was quite enough for four Apaches. The expression upon his face, during about two minutes, was tremendously heroic. He glanced behind him and saw just such another look upon that of Vic, but the smile his mother gave him made him feel like a whole regiment of cavalry.

"Isn't he splendid!" said Vic.

Just then the four red men halted. They were only twenty yards away, and it might be that they were getting ready to shoot. They were conferring for a brief moment.

Cal drew rein, as Sam did, at the same time, and one of the Indians rode forward holding out his right hand, palm up.

"How?" he said. "Chiricahua chief want Sam? Ugh! Heap friend."

"Colorado!" exclaimed the cowboy. "That's it, Cal. They're the friendly Chiricahua-Apache scouts the captain sent for first time you met him. They want me to go 'long and show 'em the trail. Reg'lar bloodhounds."

He turned in his saddle and shouted, "Ladies, it's all right," and in a moment more he and Cal were shaking hands with their new acquaintances.

"What hideous-looking men they are!" exclaimed Vic, for at that moment they were smiling, and the one holding Cal's hand was saying, "Ugh! Boy, heap ride. Heap good pony. Ride big sleep. 'Pache 'calp him; he no wake up. Lose hair all same."

That was evidently meant for a good-humored joke. Mrs. Evans and Vic had to shake hands with them next, and then rode away with Cal towards Santa Lucia, while Sam and the wild-looking scouts set out for an examination of all the traces left behind by Kah-go-mish and his warriors.

"The two bands, Chiricahuas and Mescaleros, are almost like different tribes," was the explanation Vic received from her mother.

Chapter IX.

THE HACIENDA OF SANTA LUCIA

Early in the afternoon of the fourth day after the red mustang and the regular-army black brought Cal home to Santa Lucia, the ranch wore a very peaceful appearance. No cavalry were camped near it. There was not now any American flag floating from the staff on the roof of the hacienda, and there was not wind enough to have made one float if it had been there.

No cattle were grazing within sight of anybody standing at the stockade gate. That was closed and barred in an unusually inhospitable manner, and no wayfarer could ride in without first explaining himself. There was reason in it, for Santa Lucia now contained only one man to strengthen the brave female garrison which had held it against the intended surprise-party of Kah-go-mish. More men would be there at sunset, on the return of the herders, and no Indians were believed to be within a very long distance.

A wide awning had been stretched out from the veranda, and there were two or three chairs under the awning, but they were empty.

Norah McLory and a couple of the Mexican women were busy with some tubs in the courtyard. The windows looking into it were not narrow slits like those outside. They were wide enough, had swinging sashes in them, and they gave the old adobe less the appearance of being either a fort or a prison. Most of them were curtained, and the curtains of a pair opposite the open side of the square were very handsome. Just beyond one of these curtains stood Mrs. Evans, with her arms around her daughter. If anything were troubling Vic's mind, the face she was looking into must have had comfort in it. Mrs. Evans was one of those women who are remarkable, and have no need of proving it to make people believe it. She was of medium height and not at all robust in appearance, although in excellent health. There was hardly a tinge of gray in her auburn hair, her cheeks were smooth, her brown eyes were bright and pleasant, and her voice was full and musical. Those who had heard it once wished to hear it again, even if they wondered what there was in it that made them go and do just as she told them. It was a grand thing for a young cowboy, like Cal Evans, to have such a mother away out there upon the plains, and was equally good for Vic, especially at such a time as had now come.

The room itself was as nearly like a large parlor in an Eastern mansion as such a room in such a building could be made. Colonel Evans had refused to count up how many head of cattle the furniture had cost him, including the piano and the wagoning of it from Santa Fé.

Mrs. Evans had not stopped there, for her china and other elegances enabled her to set a well-furnished table, and her kitchen garden in one corner of the stockade, with her hen-coops, provided something better than the beef and bacon and corn-bread supplied to hungry people at most New Mexican ranches.

More than one Indian chief to whom Mrs. Evans had given a dinner had declared it "good medicine," not understanding that his own race was passing away because the chickens and the potato-patches were coming.

Army-men, officers and soldiers, had ridden away from Santa Lucia, remarking of Cal's mother: "Very uncommon woman. But how did she get those things to grow 'way down here?"

Mexican herders in the colonel's employ had also discussed the matter, and had decided that no melon or bean or hill of corn or other vegetable dared refuse to grow after getting orders from the "Señora."

Perhaps the most remarkable thing, after all, was the fact that such a lady, with all her refinement and cultivation, should say that she preferred a ranch life at Santa Lucia to any other kind of life anywhere.

She was saying so now to Victoria. Vic would have been a smaller pattern of her mother, but for a tinge of red in her hair and something saucy about her nose and mouth. That is, on ordinary occasions, but not just now, for she was looking blue enough.

"Mother," she said, "father never gets hurt, but Cal is so young. The Indians, mother, and there may be fighting. I almost hate this country. I'd rather be where no savages can come."

"They will never come, Vic."

"They did come, this time! I saw them from the roof. Some of them come along here every now and then."

"Peaceably, my dear. It's a wonder to me that they touched anything of ours. If everybody had dealt with them as your father has there would not be any fighting."

"He went away angry enough," said Vic.

"Not angry enough to hurt any Indian without necessity. If there should be any fighting – "

"Seems to me I can't think he could kill anybody, or be killed; but Cal is so young!"

"Victoria," said her mother, almost laughing, "Cal is a smaller mark than your father, and not half so likely to get hit. I hope they will bring the horses back with them."

"You are a wonderful woman, mother. Were you ever really afraid of anything?"

Mrs. Evans thought for a moment, and then replied, "Yes, Vic, the other day. I was afraid we'd not get our soldier scarecrows ready before the Apaches came. Then, too, they might have met your father. I thought of that, but I wasn't really afraid that they had. I think I was made to live here."

That was the truth of the matter, and she soon convinced Victoria that the time to be nervous had not yet arrived. It was true that Colonel Evans and Cal and a dozen cowboys had gone with Captain Moore and the cavalry to trail the thieving Mescaleros and bring back the horses, but the Indians had three days the start, and were not likely to be caught up with at once.

"There may not be any fighting, even then," said Mrs. Evans; but Victoria did not find any use for her piano that day.

Chapter X.

THE TARGET ON THE ROCK

It was the very hour when Mrs. Evans and Vic were talking, at Santa Lucia, about the cavalry and cowboy expedition which had gone in search of the Apaches. Many a long mile to the southward of the old hacienda the sun shone hotly down upon the rugged slope of a spur of a range of mountains. At the bottom of the slope ran a wide trail which had been used by wagons, and was almost like a road. Along its narrow pathway of sand and shale rode a straggling cavalcade of extraordinary-looking horsemen. About half of them carried lances and wore a showy green and yellow uniform. All had firearms in abundance, and most of them had long sabres rattling at their sides. There seemed to be a profusion of silver ornaments, even on men as well as upon bridles and saddles, but there were also a number of badly battered sombreros and ragged serapes. What is a sombrero? It is any sort of very wide-brimmed, low-crowned hat, and can be made to carry much tinsel and feathers. As for a serape, one can be made out of any blanket by cutting a hole in the middle of it, so that it will hang gracefully around the man or woman whose head has been pushed through the hole. It was not easy to say whether the gay officer commanding the gaudy lancers, or the remarkably tattered peon who led the last string of pack-mules, at the rear, was really the most picturesque Mexican of that cavalcade.

On the slope above them, less than three hundred yards from the trail, a great bowlder of gray granite stood out prominently from the bushes and the smaller lumps of rock around it.

On the bowlder, at its very edge, stood the figure of a man who was even more noteworthy than were the officer and the peon. His arms were folded, so that two red stocking-legs spanned his broad chest; his silk hat, with a green-veil streamer, was cocked on one side defiantly; his attitude was that of a man who did not fear all Mexico, and the loudly uttered words he sent down at the horsemen were: "Kah-go-mish is a great chief!"

Whether or not they believed him, and although he had given them no apparent cause for considering him an enemy, horseman after horseman lifted carbine or revolver and blazed away at the Mescalero leader. Bullet after bullet buzzed in among the bushes and rocks above and behind him, but not a muscle of his tall form flinched.

All practised riflemen know that a mark posted as he was is difficult to hit, even at short range and in shadow, and that the difficulty magnifies with distance and a sunny glare.

There stood Kah-go-mish, and while report after report rang out in the narrow valley, and called forth echoes from among the crags, he exhausted all he knew of Spanish and was compelled to help it with his native Apache dialect, and even then seemed unable to express his opinion of the marksmen. He had much to say concerning his own great and good qualities and those of his people, but declared that all the unpleasant reptiles and insects and quadrupeds he could name were serving as Mexicans that afternoon. He shouted to them that they did not even know how to shoot. If they had been Gringos (Yankees) of the lowest order, he said he might be in danger from their bullets, but, as it was, the man they aimed at was safer than any other man within range.

The Mexican caballeros may or may not have been able to understand any part of that hailstorm of hard words, but Kah-go-mish had an audience and was not wasting his eloquence. He and his bowlder seemed to be alone, jutting out from the slope, but that was an optical illusion. That knob of granite stood upon the outer rim of a wide, ragged, bushy ledge, and at no great distance there began a shadowy growth of forest. The broken level behind Kah-go-mish was peopled by scores of braves and squaws and younger people, proving that the two sections of his band had reunited. Dogs ran hither and thither, while ponies and horses could be seen among the trees. One dog in particular did his futile best to climb the bowlder, and then sat down under a furze bush and yelped with all his might at the cavalcade, as if in sympathy with the chief of his band of Apaches.

At the right of the granite bowlder, and several paces from the edge or the ledge, were some huge fragments of red basalt rock. In front of these crouched a group which gazed at Kah-go-mish with unmistakable pride. In the middle sat Wah-wah-o-be, bonnet and all. Against her, on the right, was curled the form of the young lady in the wonderful red dress, and she looked almost pretty as her black eyes flashed with admiration of her father's magnificent heroism and oratory. At the left of Wah-wah-o-be, the boy in the Reservation trousers stood sturdily erect, but nothing could make him handsome or take from his broad, dark face the look of half-anxious dulness which belonged there. His beady eyes glittered, and he showed his white teeth, now and then, but his very smile was dull. He leaned back against the rock, and just then a something came whizzing past his head, and there was a slightly stinging sensation in his left ear. He did not wince, but he lifted his hand quickly to his ear, and there sprang to his lips an involuntary imitation of the sound made by the ragged ounce ball of lead when it struck the crumbling basalt.

"Z-st-ping!" he said, and the sound was caught up by other voices.

"Ping – ping – ping," ran from lip to lip, and some laughed merrily, for all had heard the whiz and thud of the deadly missiles which were coming up from the valley, although they and Wah-wah-o-be had deemed themselves entirely sheltered.

Kah-go-mish had at that moment turned for a glance at his family, and he uttered a loud whoop, as if of pleasure. At the same breath he came down from his rock with a great, staglike bound, and stood among them.

"Wah-wah-o-be, look!" he said. "Ugh!"

He had no need to point, for she was already aware that the ragged edge of the bit of lead had made a deep scratch in her son's ear. She was both very proud and very angry.

"Ping!" she exclaimed, as if the sound had acquired a new meaning.

"Ugh!" said Kah-go-mish. "Ping!"

As for the boy himself, the dulness almost vanished from his face in his exultation at having been so nearly hit, actually grazed, by a rifle-ball. His sister came around to stare at the scratch, and then his own quick eyes caught something.

"Tah-nu-nu!" he said, and pointed at the wide fold of her red calico. It was torn. A Mexican bullet had found its way through the furze bushes, and Tah-nu-nu had been almost as much in peril, the moment she stood erect, as her brother had been.

Wah-wah-o-be's wrath boiled over. The Apaches pay more of respect to their squaws than do some other tribes, and the chief's wife was a woman who was likely to demand all that belonged to her.

Kah-go-mish had stood upon the rock to be fired at by the rancheros for the glory of it, and was almost too proud of so great an exploit to lose his temper at once. He was beginning to say something about Mexican marksmanship when he was interrupted by Wah-wah-o-be. She had feelings of her own, if he had not. She pointed at her son's ear, and again she said "Ping!"

The bullet might have wantonly murdered any member of her family, or any of her neighbors. She made rapid remarks about it, of such a nature that Kah-go-mish felt a change going on in his mind. Other ears had heard, and the voices of braves and squaws seemed to agree with that of Wah-wah-o-be. All had fallen back from the dangerous margin, and it would have looked a little like a council if a squaw had not been the speaker. There was very little red upon the ear of Ping, but it served her as a representative of all the wrongs ever done to the Apaches by the white men, including that of cooping them in upon the Reservation, where she had obtained her bonnet, and where they had all but starved for lack of game.

The blood of Kah-go-mish reached the right heat at last, and his hand arose to his mouth to help out the largest, longest, fiercest war-whoop he knew anything about.

"Kah-go-mish is a great chief!"

He said this as he strode away towards the trees, waving back all the rest with his hands. Warriors and squaws, boys and girls, they at once seemed to arrange themselves for a good look at whatever their great man might be about to do.

He was gone but a few minutes, and returned, leading a mean-looking, undersized, disreputable pony, upon whose head he had placed a miserable, worn-out bridle.

He did not utter a word to Wah-wah-o-be, but upon the ground before her he deposited a handsome rifle, a bow and arrows, and a lance. He took from his belt the revolver and laid it beside the other weapons, and upon them all he placed the green-veil-plumed silk hat and the red stocking-legs. He ostentatiously called attention to the fact that he retained nothing but his heavy bowie-knife. Armed with only that weapon, and mounted upon his worst pony, he, the great chief, the hero, was about to depart upon a war-path against the coyotes, the buzzards, the tarantulas, the red ants, the lost dogs – namely, the Mexicans of Chihuahua, or any other Mexicans. He would make them pay bitterly for having wasted so much ammunition that day.

The announcement of the chief's purpose was received with whoops and yells of approbation. Wah-wah-o-be seemed to overlook any possible peril of losing her husband altogether. She may have been hardened by a long habit of seeing him come home safe.

Kah-go-mish gave some rapid orders to one brave after another, mounted his pony while others were gathering their own, and then he rode straight into the side of the mountain, followed by his whole band – horses, dogs, and all. That is, it would have so appeared to any white man standing at the foot of the granite bowlder, but it was only a good illustration of the magical arts by which the Indian medicine-men make it so difficult for green white men in blue uniforms to catch red runaways. Uniformity of color in quartz and granite, or other ledges, provides for a part of the mystery. Shrubs and trees and distances help, and so, often, does their absence. A great break in the side of that spur of the Sierra was as invisible from the pass as if it had been hidden by snow or midnight. It was a chasm which led in two directions from that point. Kah-go-mish waved his hand authoritatively and wheeled his pony to the left, to the southward, towards Mexico. His warriors and his family, and all other members of the band, dogs included, turned northward, to the right, carrying with them positive assurances as to the place, and very nearly as to the time, when they might again hope to see and admire their leader.