20 Western Novels You Should Read

Chapter 6

Chapter 3

"NO SABE!"AS Shoz-Dijiji followed Geronimo and the two braves from General

Crook's office, a white girl chanced to be passing in front of

head-quarters. Her eyes and the eyes of Shoz- Dijiji met, and into

the eyes of the girl leaped the light of recognition and

pleasure.

"Shoz-Dijiji!" she exclaimed. "I am so glad to see you again."

The brave stopped and looked gravely into her face, listening to

her words. "I am visiting with Mrs. Cullis. Won't you come and see

me?"

"No sabe," said Shoz-Dijiji and brushed past her to rejoin his

fellows.

A flush of mortification colored the face of Wichita Billings;

and the fire of anger and resentment lighted her eyes, but the

flush quickly faded and, as quickly, an expression of sorrow

supplanted that of displeasure. For a moment she stood looking

after the tall, straight form of the Apache as he walked toward his

pony; and then, with a sigh, she resumed her way.

A white man, coming from the canteen, had witnessed the meeting

between Shoz-Dijiji and Wichita Billings. He had recognized the

girl immediately and the Indian as the same that had, a short time

before, spoiled a sale for him and smashed a bottle of whiskey upon

the floor of his back room.

He was surprised to see Wichita Billings at the post, and as she

turned again in his direction he stepped quickly behind the corner

of a building and waited there until she had passed.

The natural expression that mirrored in the face of "Dirty"

Cheetim, whatever atrophied thing may have done questionable duty

as his soul, was evil; but peculiarly unclean was the look in his

eyes as he watched the girl walking briskly along the path that led

to the officers' quarters.

Presently his eyes wandered to the figure of the Apache brave

riding across the parade on the pinto stallion, and his brows

contracted in thought. Where had he seen that buck before? —a long

time before. There was something mighty familiar about

him—something that Cheetim had not noticed until he saw the Indian

talking with Wichita Billings; but even so he failed to connect the

associated ideas that had subconsciously aroused the suggestion of

previous familiarity, and so, dismissing the matter from his mind,

he went on about his affairs.

Geronimo rode back to the camp of the Be-don-ko-he in silence.

It was as impossible for him to get the viewpoint of the white man

as it was for the white man to get the viewpoint of theApache. He

felt that he had been treated with rank injustice and treachery.

Geronimo was furious', yet his stern, inscrutable face gave no

evidence of what was passing in his savage brain. He did not rant

nor rave, raising his voice in loud oaths, as might a white man

under stress of similar circumstance.

Geronimo dismounted before his hogan and turned to Shoz- Dijiji

and the others who had accompanied him. "Tell the braves of the

Be-don-ko-he that Geronimo is going away from San Carlos," he said.

"Perhaps they would like to come and talk with Geronimo before he

goes."

As the three braves rode away through the village Geronimo sat

down before the entrance to his hogan. "Geronimo cannot live in

peace with thieves and liars, Morning Star," he said to his wife.

"Therefore we shall go away and live as Usen intended that we

should live. He never meant that we should live with the white-eyed

men."

"We are going on the war trail again?" asked Sons-ee-ah-

ray.

Geronimo shook his head. "No," he replied. "If they will leave

Geronimo alone he will not fight the pindah-lickoyee again.

Geronimo wishes only to lead his own life in his own way far from

any pindah-lickoyee. In that way only lies peace."

"Sons-ee-ah-ray will be glad to leave San Carlos," said the

squaw. "She will be glad to go anywhere to get away from the

white-eyed men. They are bad. Their women are bad, and ,they think

because their women are bad that the Apache women are bad. The

white-eyed men make bad talk to Sons-ee- ah-ray when she passes

them on her way to the Agency. She will be glad not to hear this

talk any more.

"Geronimo knows that Sons-ee-ah-ray, the mother of his children,

is a good woman. Why, then, do the white-eyed men talk thus to

her?"

The War Chief shook his head. "I do not know," he said. "I do

not understand the white-eyed men."

When the warriors of the Be-don-ko-he gathered, many of the

older men appeared apprehensive. They looked sad and worried but

the young men were excited and gay. Many of the latter were already

painting their faces, but when Geronimo saw this he frowned and

shook his head.

"Geronimo is going away," he said, "because he can no longer

live under the conditions that the white-eyed men impose and still

maintain his self respect; but he does not mean, as some of the

young men seem to think, that he is going to take the war trail

against the pindah-lickoyee.

"With his family he is going up somewhere around Fort Apache and

live in the mountains where he will not have to see any

white-eyes."

"We will go with you!" said many of the Be-don-ko-he.

"No," remonstrated Geronimo. "If you go with me the Agent will

say that Geronimo has gone out again with his warriors, but if only

Geronimo and his own family go the Agent cannot say that Geronimo

has gone upon the war trail. "If you come with me they will send

soldiers after us; and then there will be war, and already there

have been enough of us killed. Therefore Geronimo goes alone.

"Shoz-Dijiji, my son, will remain here for a while and learn if

the white-eyed men are going to make trouble because Geronimo has

left San Carlos. If they do, he will bring the word to me; and then

I shall know what next to do; but I shall not return to San Carlos

to be treated like a fool and a child—no, not I, Geronimo, War

Chief of all the Apaches!"

And so that night Geronimo, with all his family except

Shoz-Dijiji, rode silently northward toward Fort Apache; and at San

Carlos the Indians, the Agent and the soldiers slept in peaceful

ignorance of this event that was so soon to lead to the writing of

one of history's bloodiest pages. After Geronimo had left,

Shoz-Dijiji sought out Gian-nah- tah with whom he had had no

opportunity to speak since the moment of their altercation in the

Hog Ranch. In the heart of the Black Bear was only love for this

friend of his childhood; and while he knew that Gian-nah-tah had

been very angry with him at the time, he attributed this mostly to

the effect of the whiskey he had drunk, believing that when this

had worn off, and Gian-nah-tah had had time to reflect, he would

harbor no ill will.

Shoz-Dijiji found his friend sitting alone over a tiny fire and

came and squatted down beside him. Neither spoke, but that was

nothing unusual. Near by, before her hogan, a squaw was praying to

the moon. "g*n-ju-le, klego-m-ay," she chanted.

At a little distance a warrior cast hoddentin into the air and

prayed: "g*n-ju-le, chil-jilt, Si-chi-zi, g*n-ju-le, inzayu,

ijanale," Be good, O Night; Twilight, be good; do not let me

die."Peace and quiet lay upon the camp of the Be-don-ko-he.

"Today," said Shoz-Dijiji, "I recognized the white-eyed man who

sells fire-water to the Apaches. He is the man who tried to steal

the white-eyed girl that day that Gian-nah- tah and Shoz-Dijiji

were scouting near the hogan of her father.

"I thought that I killed him that day; but. today I saw him

again, selling fire-water to GIan-nah-tah. He is a very bad man.

Some day I shall kill him; but I shall do it when no one is around

to see, for the white-eyed fools would put me in prison as quickly

for killing a bad man as a good."

Gian-nah-tah made no reply. Shoz-Dijiji turned and looked into

the face of his friend. "Is Gian-nah-tah still angry?" he

asked.

Gian-nah-tah arose, turned around, and squatted down again with

his back toward Shoz-Dijiji. The Black Bear shook his head sadly;

then he stood up. For a moment he hesitated as though about to

speak; but instead he turned, drew his blanket more closely about

him, and walked away. His heart was heavy. During his short life he

had seen many of his friends killed in battle; he had seen little

Ish-kay-nay, his first love, die in his arms, slain by the bullet

of a white man; he had seen the look of horror in the eyes of the

white girl he had grown to love, when he had avowed that love; he

had just seen his father and his mother driven by the injustices of

the white conqueror from the society of their own kind; and now he

had lost his best friend. The heart of Shoz-Dijiji, the Black Bear,

was heavy indeed.

Wichita Billings was visiting in the home of Margaret Cullis at

the post. The two were sitting in the modest parlor, the older

woman sewing, the younger reading. Presently Wichita closed her

book and laid it on the table.

"I can't seem to get interested," she said. "I don't feel very

'literary' tonight."

"You haven't been yourself all day," said Mrs. Cullis." Aren't

you feeling well?"

"I feel all right, physically," replied the girl, "but I'm

blue."

"About what?"

"0, nothing—I just feel blue. Didn't you ever feel that way when

there wasn't any reason for it?"

"There usually is a reason."

"I suppose so. Perhaps it's in the air." There was a silence

that lasted a minute or two. Lieutenant King's calling this

evening."

"I'm sure that shouldn't make you blue, my dear girl," exclaimed

Margaret Cullis, laughing.

"Well, it doesn't cheer me up much, because I know what he's

going to say; and I know what I'm going to answer. It's always the

same thing." "I can't see why you don't love him, Wichita. It would

be a wonderful match for you."

"Yes, for me; but not for him. His people would be ashamed of

me,"

"Don't be silly! There isn't any man or any family too good for

you—I doubt if there is any good enough for you."

"You're a dear, but the fact remains that they are stiff- backed

Bostonians with more culture than there is in the whole state that

I came from and a family tree that started as a seedling in the

Garden of Eden, while I got most of my education out of a mail

order catalog; and if I ever had a family tree it must have been

blown away by a Kansas cyclone while my folks were fighting

Indians.

"And speaking of Indians, whom do you think I saw today?"

"Who?"

"Shoz-Dijiji!"

Margaret Cullis looked up quickly. Was it the intonation of the

girl's voice as she spoke the name! The older woman frowned and

looked down at her work again. "What did he have to say?" she

asked.

"Nothing."

"Oh, you didn't see him to talk with?"

"Yes, but he wouldn't talk to me. He just fell back on that

maddening 'No sabe' that they use with strangers."

"Why do you suppose he did that?" asked Mrs. Cullis.

"I hurt him the last time I saw him," replied Wichita.

"Hurt one of Geronimo's renegades! Child, it can't be done."

"They're human!" replied the girl. "I learned that in the days

that I spent in Geronimo's camp while Chief Loco was out with his

hostiles. Among themselves they are entirely different people from

those we are accustomed to see on the reservation. No one who has

watched them with their children, seen them at their games, heard

them praying to Dawn and Twilight, to the Sun, the Moon, and the

Stars as they cast their sacred hoddentin to the winds would ever

again question their possession of the finer instincts of sentiment

and imagination.

"Because they do not wear their hearts upon their sleeves,

because they are not blatant in the declaration of their finer

emotions, does not mean that they feel no affection or that they

are incapable of experiencing spiritual suffering."

"Perhaps," said Margaret Cullis j "but you, who have lived in

Indian country all your life, who have seen the heartless cruelties

they inflict upon their helpless victims, who know their treachery

and their dishonesty, cannot but admit that whatever qualities of

goodness they possess are far outweighed by those others which have

made them hated and feared the length and breadth of the

Southwest."

"For every wrong that they have committed," argued Wichita,

"they can point out a similar crime perpetrated upon them by the

whites. 0, Margaret, it is the old case again of the pot calling

the kettle black. We have tortured them and wronged them even more

than they have tortured and wronged us.

"We esteem personal comfort and life as our two most sacred

possessions. When the Apaches t*****e and kill us we believe that

they have committed against us the most hideous of conceivable

crimes.

"On the other hand the Apaches do not esteem personal comfort

and life as highly as do we and consequently, by their

standards—and we may judge a people justly only by their own

standards—we have not suffered as much as they, who esteem more

highly than life or personal comfort the sanctity of their ancient

rites and customs and the chastity of their women. From the time of

the white man's first contact with the Apaches he has ridiculed the

one and defiled the other.

"I have talked with Shoz-Dijiji, and Geronimo, with Sons-

ee-ah-ray, and many another Be-don-ko-he man and woman; they have

laid bare their hearts to me, and never again can anyone convince

me that we have not tortured the Apaches with as malignant cruelty

as they have tortured us."

"Why you are a regular little Apache yourself, Wichita," cried

Margaret Cullis. "I wonder what your father would say if he could

hear you."

"He has heard me. Don't think for a minute that I am afraid to

express my views to anyone."

"Did he enjoy them and agree with you?"

"He did not. He did everything but tear his hair and take me out

to the woodshed. You know Mason was killed about two months ago,

and it had all the ear-marks of an Apache killing. Mason was one of

Dad's best friends. Now, every time he thinks or hears Apache he

sees red."

"I don't blame him," said Margaret Cullis.

"It's silly," snapped Wichita, "and I tell him so. It would be

just as logical to hate all French-Canadians because Guiteau

assassinated President Garfield."

"Well, how in the world, feeling toward the Apaches as you do,

could you have found it in your heart to so wound Shoz-Dijiji that

he will not speak to you?"

"I did not mean to," explained the girl. "It—just happened. We

had been together for many days after the Chi-e-a-hen attacked the

Pringe ranch and Shoz-Dijiji got me away from them. The country was

full of hostiles, and so he took me to the safest place he could

think of—the Be- don-ko-he camp. They kept me there until they were

sure that all the hostiles had crossed the border into Mexico. He

was lovely to me—a white man could have been no more

considerate—but when he got me home again and was about to leave me

he told me that he loved me.

"I don't know what it was, Margaret—inherited instinct,

perhaps—but the thought of it revolted me, and he must have seen it

in my face. He went away, and I never saw him again—until

today—three years."

The older woman looked up quickly from her work. There had been

a note in the girl's voice as she spoke those last two words that

aroused sudden apprehension in the breast of Margaret Cullis.

"Wichita," she demanded, "do you love this—this Apache?"

"Margaret," replied the girl, "you have been like a sister to

me, or a mother. No one else could ask me that question. I have not

even dared ask myself." She paused. "No, I cannot love him!"

"It would be unthinkable that you would love an Indian,

Wichita," said the older woman. "It would cut you off forever from

your own kind and would win you only the contempt of the Indians. A

white girl had better be dead than married to an Indian."

Wichita nodded. "Yes, I know," she whispered, "and yet he is as

fine as any man, white or red, that I have ever known."

"Perhaps, but the fact remains that he is an Apache."

"I wish to God that he were white!" exclaimed the girl.

A knock on the door put an end to their conversation, and

Wichita arose from her chair and crossed the room to admit the

caller. A tall, good looking subaltern stood smiling on the

threshold as the door swung in.

"You're prompt," said Wichita.

"A good. soldier always is," said Mrs. Cullis. "That is

equivalent to a medal of honor, coming from the wife of my troop

commander," laughed King as he stepped into the room.

"Give me your cap," said Wichita, "and bring that nice easy

chair up here beside the table."

"I was going to suggest that we take a walk," said King, "that

is if you ladies would care to. It's a gorgeous night."

"Suits me," agreed Wichita. "How about you, Margaret?"

"I want to finish my sewing. You young folks run along and have

your walk, and perhaps Captain Cullis will be here when you get

back. If he is we'll have a game of euchre."

"I wish you'd come," said Wichita.

"Yes, do!" begged King, but Mrs. Cullis only smiled and shook

her head.

"Run along, now," she cried gaily, "and don't forget the

game."

"We'll not be gone long," King assured her. "I wish you'd come

with us."

"Sweet boy," thought Margaret Cullis as the door closed behind

them leaving her alone. "Sweet boy, but not very truthful."

As Wichita and King stepped out into the crisp, cool air of an

Arizona night the voice of the sentry at the guard house rang out

clearly against the silence: "Number One, eight o'clock!" They

paused to listen as the next sentry passed the call on: "Number

Two, eight o'clock. All's well!" Around the chain of sentries it

went, fainter in the distance, growing again in volume to the

final, "All's well!" of Number One.

"I thought you said it was a gorgeous night," remarked Wichita

Billings. "There is no moon, it's cloudy and dark as a pocket."

"But I still insist that it is gorgeous," said King, smiling.

"All Arizona nights are."

"I don't like these black ones," said Wichita; "I've lived in

Indian country too long. Give me the moon every time."

"They scarcely ever attack at night," King reminded her.

"I know, but there may always be an exception to prove the

rule."

"Not much chance that they will attack the post," said King.

"I know that, but the fact remains that a black night always

suggests the possibility to me."

"I'll admit that the sentries do suggest a larger assurance of

safety on a night like this," said King. "We at least know that we

shall have. a little advance information before any Apache is among

us."

Numbers Three and Four were mounted posts, and at the very

instant that King was speaking a shadowy form crept between the two

sentries as they rode slowly in opposite directions along their

posts. It was Shoz-Dijiji.

Though the Apache had demonstrated conclusively that Wichita

Billings' intuitive aversion to dark nights might be fully

warranted, yet in this particular instance no danger threatened the

white inhabitants of the army post, as Shoz-Dijiji's mission was

hostile only in the sense that it was dedicated to espionage.

Geronimo had charged him with the duty of ascertaining the

attitude of the white officers toward the departure of the War

Chief from the reservation, and with this purpose in view the Black

Bear had hit upon the bold scheme of entering the post and

reporting Geronimo's' departure in person that he might have first

hand knowledge of Nan-tan- des-la-par-en's reaction.

He might have come in openly in the light of day without

interference, but it pleased him to come as he did as a

demonstration of the superiority of Apache cunning and of his

contempt for the white man's laws.

He moved silently in the shadows of buildings, making his way

toward the adobe shack that was dignified by the title of

Headquarters. Once he was compelled to stop for several minutes in

the dense shadow at the end of a building as he saw two figures

approaching slowly. Nearer and nearer they came. Shoz-Dijiji saw

that one was an officer, a war chief of the pindah-lickoyee, and

the other was a woman. They were talking earnestly. When they were

quite close to Shoz- Dijiji. the white officer stopped and laid a

hand upon the arm of his companion.

"Wait, Wichita," he said. "Before we go in can't you give me

some hope for the future? I'm willing to wait. Don't you think that

some day you might care for me a little?"

The girl walked on, followed by the man. "I care for you a great

deal, Ad," Shoz-Dijiji heard her say in a low voice just before the

two passed out of his hearing; "but I can never care for you in the

way you wish." That, Shoz-Dijiji did not hear.

"You love someone else?" he asked. In the darkness he did not

see the hot flush that overspread her face as she replied. "I am

afraid so," she said.

"Afraid so! What do you mean?"

"It is something that I cannot tell you, Ad. It hurts me to talk

about it."

"Does he know that you love him?"

"No."

"Is it anyone I know?"

"Please, Ad, I don't like to talk about it."

Lieutenant Samuel Adams King walked on in silence at the girl's

side until they reached Mrs. Cullis' door. "I'm going to wait—and

hope, Chita," he said just before they entered the house.

Captain Cullis had not returned, and the three sat and chatted

for a few minutes; but it was evident to Margaret Cullis that

something had occurred to dash the spirits of her young guests, nor

was she at a loss to guess the truth. Being very fond of them both;

believing that they were eminently suited to one another, and,

above all, being a natural born match maker, Margaret Cullis was

determined to leave no stone unturned that might tend toward a

happy consummation of her hopes.

"You know that Chita is leaving us in the morning?" she asked

King, by way of inaugurating her campaign.

"Why, no," he exclaimed, "she did not tell me."

"I should have told you before you left," said the girl. "I

wouldn't go without saying good-bye, you know."

"I should hope not," said King.

"She really should not take that long ride alone," volunteered

Mrs. Cullis.

"It is nothing," exclaimed Wichita. "I've been riding alone ever

since I can recall."

"Of course she shouldn't," said King. "It's not safe. I'll get

leave to ride home with you. May I?"

"I'd love to have you, but really it's not necessary."

"L think it is," said King. "I'll go over to headquarters now

and arrange it. I think there'll be no objections raised."

"I'm leaving pretty early," warned Wichita. "What time?"

"Five o'clock."

"I'll be here!"