The War Chief Annotated)

Chapter 2 - SHOZ-DIJIJI-2

"Then keep still. You talk too much—like an old woman. You are not Naliza; when Naliza talks he says something." Go-yat-thlay slipped his knife into his belt and squatted again upon his heels. With silver tweezers he plucked the hairs from about his mouth. Cochise and Naliza laughed, but Juh sat there frowning. Juh that terrible man who was already coming to be known as "the butcher."

Shoz-Dijiji, from the interior of his father's hut, heard this talk among his elders and when Go-yat-thlay sprang to his feet and Shoz-Dijiji thought that blood would be spilled he stepped from the doorway, in his hands a mesquite bow and a quartz-tipped arrow. His straight, black hair hung to his shoulders, his brown hide was sun-tanned to a shade even deeper than many of his full-blood Apache fellows. The trained muscles of his boyish face gave no hint of what emotions surged within him as he looked straight into Juh's eyes.

"You lie, Juh," he said; "I am not a white-eyes. I am the son of Go-yat-thlay. Say that I am not a white, Juh!" and he raised his arrow to a level with the warrior's breast.

"Say that he is not white or Shoz-Dijiji will kill you!"

Cochise and Naliza and Go-yat-thlay, grinning, looked at Juh and then back at Shoz-Dijiji. They saw the boy bend the bow and then Cochise interfered.

"Enough I" he said. "Go back to the women and the children, where you belong."

The boy lowered his weapon. "Cochise is chief," he said. "Shoz-Dijiji obeys his chief. But Shoz-Dijiji has spoken; some day he will be a warrior and then he will kill Juh." He turned and walked away.

"Do not again tell him that he is white," said Cochise to Juh. "Some day soon he will be a warrior and if he thinks that he is white it will make his heart like water against the enemies of our people."

Shoz-Dijiji did not return to the women and children. His heart was in no mood for play nor for any of the softer things of life. Instead he walked alone out of the camp and up a gaunt, parched canyon. He moved as noiselessly as his own shadow. His eyes, his ears, his nostrils were keenly alert, as they ever were, for Shoz-Dijiji was playing a game that he always played even when he seemed to be intent upon other things—he was hunting the white soldiers. Sometimes, with the other boys, he played that they were raiding a Mexican rancheria, but this sport afforded him no such thrill as did the stalking of the armed men who were always hunting his people.

He had seen the frightened peons huddled in their huts, or futilely running to escape the savage, painted warriors who set upon them with the fury of demons; he had seen the women and children shot, or stabbed, or led to death with the men; he had seen all—without any answering qualm of pity; but it had not thrilled him as had the skirmishes the soldiers of Mexico and the United—ah, there was something worthy the mettle of a great warrior!

From infancy he had listened to the stories of the deeds of the warriors of his people. He had hung breathless upon the exploits of Victorio, of Mangas Colorado, of Cochise. For over three hundred years his people had been at war with the whites; their lands had been stolen, their warriors, their women and their children had been ruthlessly murdered; they had been treated with treachery; they had been betrayed by false promises.

Shoz-Dijiji had been taught to look upon the white man not only as a deadly enemy, but as a coward and a liar; even as a traitor to his fellow whites, for it was not unknown to this little Apache boy that there were many white men who made a living selling rifles and ammunition to the Indians while their own troops were in the field against them. It was no wonder Shoz-Dijiji held the whites in contempt, or that to be called white was the bitterest insult that could be placed upon him.

Today, as he moved silently up the sun-scorched canyon he was thinking of these things and listening, listening, always listening. Perhaps he would hear the distant thud of iron-shod hoofs, the clank of a saber, and be the first to warn his people of the approaching enemy. He knew that there were scouts far afield—eagled-eyed men, past whom not even klij-litzogue, the yellow snake, could glide unseen; yet he loved to dream, for he was a boy.

The dreaming that Shoz-Dijiji practiced did not dull his senses; on the contrary it was thus that he made them more alert, for he lived his dreams, rehearsing always the part of the great warrior that he hoped some day to play upon the stage of life, winning the plaudits of his fellows.

And so it was that now he saw something behind a little bush a hundred feet away, although the thing had not moved or otherwise betrayed its presence. For an instant Shoz-Dijiji became a bronze statue, then very slowly he raised his mesquite bow as he strung his quartz-tipped arrow. With the twang of the string the arrow leaped to its mark and after it came Shoz-Dijiji. He had not waited to see if he had made a hit; he knew that he had, also he knew what had been hiding behind the bush and so he was not surprised nor particuliarly elated when he picked up ka-chu, the jack rabbit, with an arrow through its heart; but it was not ka-chu that he saw—it was the big chief of the white soldiers. Thus played Shoz-Dijiji, the Apache boy.

As he came into camp later in the afternoon be saw Cochise squatting in the shadow of his hut with several of the men of the village. There were women, too, and all were laughing and talking. It was not a council, so Shoz-Dijiji dared approach and speak to the great chief.

There was that upon the boy's mind that disturbed him—he wished it settled once and for all—yet he trembled a little as he approached this company of his elders. Like all the other boys he stood in awe of Cochise and he also dreaded the ridicule of the men and women. He came and stood silently for what seemed a long time, looking straight at Cochise until the old chieftain noticed him.

"Shoz-Dijiji is a little boy," said the lad, "and Cochise is a great chief; he is the father of his people; he is full of wisdom and true are the words that he speaks. Juh has said that Shoz-Dijiji is white. Shoz-Dijiji would rather be dead than white. The great chief can speak and say if Shoz-Dijiji be a true Apache that after this Juh may keep a still tongue in his head."

Cochise arose and placed his hand on the boy's head and looked down upon him. A fierce and terrible old man was this great war chief of the Apaches; yet with his own people and more often with children was his heart soft, and, too, he was a keen judge of men and of boys.

He saw that this boy possessed in a degree equal to his own a pride of blood that would make of him a stalwart defender of his own kind, an implacable enemy of the common foe. Year by year the fighting forces of the Apache were dwindling, to lose even one for the future was a calamity. He looked up from the boy and turned his eyes upon his warriors.

"If there be any doubt," he said, "let the words of Cochise dispel it forever—Shoz-Dijiji is as true an Apache as Cochise. Let there be no more talk," and he looked directly at Juh. "I have spoken."

The muscles of Juh's cruel face gave no hint of the rage and malice surging through his savage breast, but Shoz-Dijiji, the Black Bear, was not deceived. He well knew the relentless hatred that the war chief had conceived for him since the day that Go-yat-thlay had thwarted Juh's attempt to dash out his infant brains against the tire of his murdered father's wagon, even though the lad knew nothing of the details of that first encounter and had often wondered why Juh should hate him.

As a matter of fact Juh's hatred of the boy was more or less impersonal, in so far as Shoz-Dijiji was concerned, being rather a round-a-bout resentment against Go-yat-thlay, whom he feared and of whose fame and prestige he was jealous; for Go-yat-thlay, who was one day to become world famous by his Mexican-given name, Geronimo, had long been a power in the war councils of the Apaches; further, too, the youngest and prettiest of his squaws had also been the desired of Juh. It was she who had the care of Shoz-Dijiji; it was she, Morning Star, who lavished love upon the boy. To strike at the woman who had spurned him and the man who had inflamed his envy and jealousy, Juh bided his time until he might, with impunity, wreak his passion upon the lad.

Now no one had time for thoughts of anger or revenge, for tonight was to be a great night in the camp of Cochise the war chief. For two days the bucks had eaten little or nothing in preparation for the great event; the women had brewed the tizwin; the drums were ready. Night fell. Before the entrance to his hogan stood Go-yat-thlay with his women and his children. From a beaded buckskin bag he took a pinch of hoddentin and cast it toward the moon.

"Gun-ju-le, chil-jilt; si-chi-zi, gun-ju-le; inzayu, ijanale! Be good, 0 Night; Twilight, be good; do not let me die!" he cried, and the women prayed: "Gun-ju-le, klego-na- ay—be good, 0 Moon!"

Darkness deepened. Lured by the twinkling fires of the Chihuicahuis myriad stars crept from their hiding places. The purple hills turned to silver. A coyote voiced his eerie awil and was answered by the yapping pack within the camp. A drum boomed low. A naked warrior, paint-streaked—yellow, vermillion, white, blue—moved into a slow dance. Presently others joined him, moving more rapidly to the gradually increased tempo of the drums. Firelight glistened upon sweat-sreaked bodies. The squaws, watching, moved restlessly, the spell of the dance was taking its hold upon them.

That night the warriors drank deep of the tizwin the women had brewed, and as little Black Bear lay in his blankets he heard the shouting, the wild laughter, the fighting and dreamed of the day when he, too, should be a warrior and be able to sit up and drink tizwin and dance and fight; but most of all he wanted to fight the white man, not his own people.

Stealing the brains of the warriors was the tizwin until their actions were guided only by stark brutish germ of savagery. Thus it came that Juh, seeing Go-yat-thlay, bethought himself of Shoz-Dijiji and his hate. Leaving the firelight and the revellers, Juh moved quietly through the outer shadows toward the hogan of Go-yat-thlay.

Black Bear lay wide awake, listening to the alluring, savage sounds that came to him through the open doorway that similarly revealed to his childish eyes occasional glimpses of the orgy. Suddenly, in the opening, the figure of a man was silhouetted against the glimmering firelight beyond. Shoz-Dijiji recognized Juh instantly and, too, the knife grasped in the war chief's sinewy hand and knew why he had come.

Beside the child lay the toys of a primitive boy—toys today, the weapons of the coming warrior tomorrow. He reached forth and seized his bow and an arrow. Juh, coming from the lesser darkness without, was standing in the doorway accustoming his eyes to the gloom of the hogan's interior.

Keen-eared savage that he was he heard no sound, for Shoz-Dijiji, too, was a savage and he made no sound—not until his bow-string twanged; but that was too late for Juh to profit by it as already a quartz-tipped shaft had torn into his right hand and his knjfe had slipped from nerveless fingers to the ground.

With a savage Apache oath he leaped forward, but still he could not see well in the darkness, and so it was that Black Bear slipped past him and was out of the hut before Juh could seize him. A dozen paces away the boy halted and wheeled about.

"Come out, Juh," he cried, "and Shoz-Dijiji will kill you! Come out, gut of a coyote, and Shoz-Dijiji will feed your heart to the dogs." Shoz-Dijiji said other things, that are printable, but Juh did not come out, for he knew that the boy was voicing no vain boast.

An hour passed and Juh was thinking hard, for the effects of the tizwin had lessened under the stress of his predicament. Suppose the squaws should return and find him held prisoner here by a boy—he would be laughed out of camp. The thought sobered him completely.

"Juh had it not in his heart to harm Shoz-Dijiji," he said in a conciliatory tone. "He did but joke."

"Ugh!" grunted Black Bear. "Juh speaks lies."

"Let Juh come out and he will never harm Shoz-Dijiji again," dickered the chief.

"Juh has not yet harmed Shoz-Dijiji," mocked the lad in whose mind was slowly awakening a thought suggested by Juh's offer. Why not make capital of his enemy's predicament? "Shoz-Dijiji will let you go," he said, "if you will promise never to harm him again—and give him three ponies."

"Never!" cried the chief.

"The women and the children will laugh at you behind their hands when they hear of this," the boy reminded him.

For a moment Juh was silent. "It shall be as Shoz-Dijiji says," he growled presently, "so long as no one knows of this thing that has just happened, other than Juh and Shoz-Dijiji. Juh has spoken—that is all!"

"Come forth, then, Juh, and go your way," said the boy; "but remember they must be good ponies."

He stood aside as the warrior strode from the hogan, and he was careful to stand out of the man's reach and to keep his weapon in readiness, for after all he had no great confidence in the honor of Juh.