Hondo. Part 11

Chapter Thirteen.

For an hour of lonely biding there had been no life upon the desert. The sun was high, and sweat trickled down Hondo's neck, and the body of the lineback became dark with stain. And before them stretched the vast and rolling plain of sand, rock, and cactus that is the desert of the Southwest.

Here there was no moment of security. Somewhere out there the escaped Apache had joined his friends, and somewhere those hard and tireless desert fighters were moving out, beginning their search for him.

Desert ... but a desert strangely alive. Not a dead land, but a land where all life is born with a fire, a thorn, a sting. Yet a strong land, a rich land for the man who knows it. One cannot fight the desert and live. One lives with it, or one dies. One learns its way and its life, and moves with care, and never ceases to be wary, for the desert has traps and tricks for the careless.

The lineback walked with dainty feet, knowing this land, knowing its fears and its dangers. And on his back Hondo Lane never ceased to watch, taking in each small shadow, each dark rock, each possible place of cover before moving on. Once, riding along a rocky hillside, he followed the fresh trail of a deer. Suddenly the animal's tracks broke sharply to the left and into the bottom.

Hondo swung the lineback and followed, his hand ready for his rifle. Whatever the deer had seen or heard might now be gone, but he was not gambling. Later he came upon the fresh trail of a mountain lion. Probably not Apaches, then.

He followed down the arroyo until it widened into a small valley where a stream flowed, cottonwood and willow lining its banks. Riding into the brush, he dismounted. Then, slipping off his boots, he walked back, brus.h.i.+ng out his trail and leaving the tracks pointed toward the water as if to ride in or cross the stream.

Then he retreated carefully, avoiding branches. Wild game will not step on fallen branches. Neither would an Indian. Only a horse, a cow, or a white man would be so foolish. The weight of the horse or cow or man would break the branch into finer pieces and press it into the ground. Hondo retreated with care, and when he was in the shelter of the trees he loosened the girth on the saddle and sat down with his back against a tree.

It was not yet noon, at least an hour short of it, but the heat was great despite the time of year, and he must conserve both his horse's strength and his own. He chewed on some jerky and hardtack while the horse cropped gra.s.s, then went down to the stream through the thick brush and drank. Then he emptied his canteen and refilled it with cold, fresh water.

After an hour's rest he pulled on his boots and tightened the girth. At the edge of the small grove where he had waited, he studied the terrain with care before moving out. Knowing the Apaches, he had no idea they would lose his trail. All he could do would be to delay their pursuit as much as possible. Yet now, when he left the grove, he rode swiftly forward, following down the stream bed, using the concealment of its trees. He left the creek on a shelf of rock and rode straight up the side of the valley. The last few feet was a hard scramble, but they topped the crest and were immediately off the ridge.

A wide, long valley opened before him, dotted with the tall sentinel fingers of saguaro and the serrated ridge of an upthrust ledge that cut down the opposite wall. It was of dark, sun-blackened roek. The lineback was rested and he moved out eagerly.

Suddenly a startled bird flew up some distance off, and instantly Hondo swung the lineback. The Apaches broke into sight scarcely seconds later, but the lineback was already running. With wild, shrill yells the Indians booted their ponies and the chase was on.

The lineback was a fast, powerful animal with fire and a love of running. He took to it now, mane flying, nose into the wind. Glancing back, Hondo saw he was gaining ground, and suddenly he heard a whining yelp from Sam, and turning back he saw four more Indians coming down off the ridge ahead of him. To turn to avoid them was to lose distance, but there was no help for it. He swung the racing horse into a branching canyon and went up the side on a long angle.

There were at least eight Apaches behind him now, and they had gained ground. He went up the ridge and then suddenly before him there was a long gray slide of shale. There was no stopping. The lineback plunged into it, lost footing and went down. Sam was racing close and he was lost in the swirl of dust. The horse scrambled madly, fighting for a foothold, got it, and Hondo went back into the saddle and then he saw Sam come out of the dust on three legs.

With a quick glance back at the Indians, Hondo bent and scooped the injured dog into his arms, and then they were racing away again.

The time lost was too much. The Apaches had gained, and even as he cleared the ridge they converged around him. There was no chance to grab a gun with the dog in his arms, and they sprang from their horses and knocked him from the saddle. He struck out viciously, the dog leaped away, snapping at Silva, who was one of the attackers, but then the Indians were all over him.

Hondo Lane was thrown on his face and his hands were jerked behind him and lashed hard with rawhide.

A few yards away Sam stood, growling, waiting the expected command to attack. It was not given. Hondo glanced around. Nine Indians.

Silva's eyes went to Sam, and he turned and barked a request at the nearest warrior for his bow and an arrow.

Hondo jerked his head around. "Sam! Vete, Sam! Vete!"

Instantly the big dog wheeled and darted into the brush, making fast time even with his bad lee. Once back in the brush he crouched and crawled back, lying in the brush, growling low in his chest, but securely out of sight.

Silva walked to Hondo and struck him across the face. There was cold triumph in his eyes. There would be a big time in the village this night. This man was strong. If he had courage, he might live a long time. ... But why delay? Why wait until night? He could sing of his deeds when they returned, and the man was here, now.

"The white man speaks our language," he said. "It is good. He will know his treatment in advance."

"Your coup stick shows many scalps."

"Truly."

Hondo spoke slowly, clearly, and with contempt thick upon the words. He knew the Apache, knew the words would lash his fury. "You took them from squaws and papooses and dogs. Your lodge should be proud of you."

Hondo spoke in Spanish, then in the tongue of the Apache. One of the Indians gave a grunt of laughter, but Silva's eyes flared hot and ugly. The insult had not been expected.

"Truly," the Apache said, "you will feel much."

"It is nothing, Hondo sneered, "to torture a captured man. You are a woman of the village, a runner after rabbits. Without the bravery of these others you would be food for coyotes now!"

Hondo Lane spoke with cold calculation. He was a man who knew his land, and knew the people who held him now. There was always, one thought, a chance of escape. Rarely with the Apache. He bound his captives too brutally, he stayed with them too closely. A prisoner had only to die ... to die slowly, over a fire, head down, or staked out on an ant hill, or bound in a green hide and laid out in the hot sun. Or one might die quickly. If Silva could be angered enough...

But Silva was a patient as well as a vindictive man. There was no desire in him to give the white man quick death instead of the hours of torture he planned. And this one had courage. He was a strong man, with wiry, powerful muscles. He would die slowly, and when at the end he broke, it would be a triumph to be remembered.

Silva's anger at the insults was a white-hot thing that wound through his body like blazing wire. But the man was here, tied, a prisoner. A delayed revenge could be the sweeter for all of that. And when they tied Hondo Lane upon a horse, his hands were bound so tightly that they swelled. And then they moved on, winding' across the long hills, a tiny cavalcade of Apaches, barebacked on their ponies, their flat faces emotionless and still.

And with the afternoon the heat became a living thing. The sun hung in a wide sky and seemed to spread until all the sky was a great reflector pouring its heat upon the desert, which reflected it back. And the vast distance was a s.p.a.ce across which moved the tiny figures of the Apaches and their captive, and sitting bis horse, Hondo Lane lost himself in a world of pain and heat and movement where there was only feeling and where all was lost in s.p.a.ce and there was no time.

The moments became hours and the hours weeks and the days seemed years. His hands had swollen greatly, his s.h.i.+rt was soaked with sweat, and the salt sweat got into his eyes and they smarted, red-rimmed and narrowed against the sun and the glare.

Yet behind the monotony of their travel, behind the blank vacancy of his face where lay a world sodden with pain, behind it all there still prowled the restless desperation of a strong man wanting to live. There was no way now ... but there might be a way.

Bitter within him was the desire to fight, to die in battle if no more, but to escape, to get away, to live. The bitterness of his capture was through him like a poison. He stared through heat-rimmed eyes at the evil face of Silva, knowing instinctively that here was his enemy. This one was the one he must kill.

The distance s.h.i.+mmered with heat. Sweat trickled down his body under his s.h.i.+rt. He felt the pain in his hands and the wicked bite of the taut rawhide, cutting into the raw flesh.

And he lifted his head and stared at Silva. He spat "Squaw!" he sneered. His hatred made his speech ugly. "Old woman!" Silva's head turned, his eyes liquid with ugliness. Then the Indian looked ahead once more.

Hondo Lane was tempted to touch a spur to the line-back, to lunge into the Indian, to make a break for it, hands tied or not. But his good sense told him the futility of that. There would be a time. He must wait. He flexed his stiff, swollen fingers. But he made no sound. He did not groan, he did not curse.

At every step of the horse his hands hurt him, at every move there was new pain. He hung his head forward and let his body move with the steps of the lineback, and his mind lost itself in remembering. The ranch beside the stream, the clear, cold water, the woman with the clear, expressive eyes, her quiet movements about the house, and the sound of a child's voice ... A yearning mounted within him and the pain was forgotten. He remembered the dry rustle of the cottonwood leaves, the good taste of coffee, the smell of wood smoke from her fireplace.

Then he smelled smoke, and another, older, more familiar smell. An Apache rancheria.

He looked up and saw them. It was familiar, old in his memory, the sights, the smells. He almost looked for the quick movement of Destarte. But she was gone, dead. He saw the flat, hard faces of the men, the wide cheekbones, the square jaws, the headbands.

How many times had he come here from hunting to such a place? How many months had he lived among such people as these? There might be some here who knew him. There might be those with whom he had hunted, and with whom he had ridden to Mexico to steal horses for their people.

He sat straight in the saddle, holding his head up, looking neither to right nor to left. If he must die, he would show them how a man should go, he would show them with contempt and insults that there burned within him a fire that could not die. He knew the Apache heart, knew the Apache mind.

When they stopped he looked around him at the brown faces, saw the one man who stood apart and knew it.

Hondo Lane said loudly, "It is my shame that I am taken by warriors with whom rides an old woman."

Hondo was taken roughly from the saddle and the rawhide was cut from his hands. He was shoved into position beside the fire. There was a pot of water standing there, and without asking questions he dipped his swollen hands into it, feeling the coolness of the water soothing the pain.

Vittoro, who had stood aside, came to the circle around the fire and looked down at him. "The white man speaks our language," Silva said. "He has spoken many insults."

Chapter Fourteen.

Hondo gently chafed his hands. n.o.body had made any move to stop him from administering to his hands. He glanced up to see Vittoro studying him. The old chief acknowledged Silva's remark.

"It is a brave man who insults at such a moment." To Hondo he said suddenly. "Where are the pony soldiers, white man? And how many are they?"

"This I do not know, Vittoro."

"You know how I am called?"

"I saw you at the treaty council at Fort Meade."

"The treaty! The rustle of wind to the white man." His voice grew sharper. "Where are the pony soldiers?"

"This I do not know."

Vittoro gestured toward the saddle on the lineback. "Your saddle bears the mark of the pony soldier."

"Once I was a pony soldier. Now I am not."

Vittoro seated himself and looked across the corner of the fire at Hondo's swollen hands. They looked bad, but already they felt better. The swelling had been caused by the tight binding, and once they were released, much of the swelling had gone down.

"If you are not a spy, what do you seek in our land?"

Holdo Lane hesitated, and then he said more slowly, careful to make his voice sound its respect, "This is for me to know, Chief. What I do does no harm to the people of Vittoro, or to any Apache."

Vittoro got to his feet and walked away across the camp. And then for a time Hondo was left alone. His feet were tied but his hands were free. He flexed their muscles, feeling the swelling going away. His wrists were lacerated by the tight-drawn rawhide, but the blood was flowing normally once more.

He looked around him at the rancheria in the shallow valley. It was a scene anciently familiar to him ... the low wickiups of brush or hides gathered about pyramided sticks, the horses grazing, the children playing about.

Only then he had not been a prisoner. He had been one of them. An alien, yes, but a friend and a hunting companion and the man of Destarte. And he smelled the desert air, the smell of roasting venison and mule meat, the nopal drying and watched the people moving about their tasks.

He sat alone. Knowing the ways of these people, he knew the death that awaited him now, knew what they would do, and knew that he must be strong, to show no fear, to show no pain. He must at all costs die well.

And it was not so easy to die well. He had seen other men die, and he had seen the remains of men who had died well. It had never seemed possible that what they had endured could be endured by any man. Could he do as well?

A squaw brought him food, and he thanked her in her own tongue, and she glanced at him from the corners of her eyes, astonished. Then she went away, but later she returned with a gourd and cool water from the spring.

Was it kindness or because they wanted him strong for dying?

In the woman he decided it was kindness, yet the others did not object, and they missed nothing. The woman was the squaw of one called Emiliano.

It was good to live. How could a man prepare himself for death with the smell of the desert in his nostrils? What he wanted was not to die, but to live, to return again to Angie ... and to Johnny.

He had always wanted a son. But what man does not want a son? What man wishes to die and leave no man to carry on, to continue the strain, the bloodline? Who wishes to waste what he has learned? Who wishes to see it die with him?

Old as life is the desire for sons. Old as all life upon the planet. It is this that carries on the species, and it is necessary for each man and woman to breed. That was the will of nature. All else came after. The species must continue, it must go on.

So there is deeply seated this desire, this wish. And he, Hondo Lane, what did he have to pa.s.s on? His skill with a gun? His ability to kill? To destroy?

No ... but there were the desert and the mountains and the love of strong things, man things. The creak of saddle leather in the sun, the taste of cold, clear water, the ways of wild game and of horses, the little tricks of working ... all these were ancient instincts, basic in the blood of man, built upon the ancient drive to carry on the race, the blood, the species.

And he sat here ready to die ... for what? He left behind him nothing. A few people who would remember for a day or an hour. A man needed something on which to build. A man without a woman, without a home, and without a child was no man at all.

Johnny. If there had been no son of his own, he could at least have given Johnny what he had learned, the way of the desert and mountains, the thousand tiny things he had learned for himself, in bitterness and struggle, and the philosophy, too.

The things he had learned that were right and good, the things that living taught him--must these die?

He stared across the rancheria at the lonely squalor of the Apache camp, and knew that he must live. He must go on. He was not ready to die. He had done nothing, nothing at all.

And these people--how could he blame them? They were the People. That was what their name meant. They had believed they were meant to be the People. Yet when the first Americans came they had greeted them with friends.h.i.+p, and had been met with war. Then fiercely they had fought back. Not one but knew he fought in vain. They saw the white men endlessly coming, their many soldiers, their many ponies, their food supply that was endless, and their many cartridges of bra.s.s.

The Apache knew his hour was past. He knew the white men would take even his last land, but it was not in him to knuckle under. He would fight, sing his death song, and die. And he, Hondo Lane, was only a small part of the much vaster picture, and it mattered not at all to that picture that he was not through living, that he left things undone, that he wanted a son, that a woman waited for him. Or did she?

Yet there was no doubt even as his mind framed the question.

He had kissed her because a woman should not die unkissed, unloved. Yet after the kiss it had not been the same. He had gone away, yet even as he rode he knew he would return. And here he was, a prisoner beside the fire, awaiting the death by torture of the most fiendishly skillful of all savage torturers.

Vittoro got to his feet, and as upon a signal the others arose also, and then they moved toward him, and he sat quietly upon the ground and watched them come.

Here it was.

They grabbed him then and threw him back upon the sand and staked his arms out. Then with a piece of bark Silva scooped glowing coals from the fire and poured them into Hondo's open palm.

He felt the pain shoot through him, smelled the burning of his own flesh, but he stared at Silva and said bitterly, "Silva is a scalper of children, a runner after rabbits!"

"This only begins. We Apaches are patient." Silva looked his hatred and his triumph.

Beyond Vittoro a couple of braves had found Hondo's saddlebags and were going through them. Suddenly one straightened, grunting. He had found the tintype of Johnny, and he walked swiftly to Vittoro and thrust the picture before him.

Hondo saw the action, his teeth shut tight against the awful pain of his burning flesh.

Vittoro came suddenly to his feet and kicked the embers from Hondo's palm. "Loose him!"

A couple of Indians moved to obey, and Silva sprang between them and the prisoner, his face dark with angry blood. "It shall not be so!"

Vittoro's voice was even, cold. "I have need of this man."

"It shall not be!"

Vittoro glared at him, then snapped at the others, "Obey!"