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.
During his absence the command fell to a short, broad-shouldered
warrior, who walked dreadfully intoed, and who seemed to stand very much
in awe of Wah-wah-o-be. She, on the other hand, was evidently well
satisfied with the course which affairs were taking. She had picked up
the weapons so heroically laid upon the ground by her husband, and she
had helped Tah-nu-nu and Ping to gather the ponies of the family. She
had said a great many things while doing so, for one point in her
superiority to other squaws was the capacity of her tongue for
expressing her ideas.
The whole band had an almost prosperous appearance, very different from
that which it had worn just before it began to swarm around Sam Herrick
and the drove of horses. Lodge-poles had been cut, now that there were
ponies to drag them. Hardly anybody was on foot, except a few braves
whose half-trained, spirited horses were likely to require leading over
narrow and pokerish mountain-passes.
Kah-go-mish rode on alone in one direction and the band went in the
other, and both were shortly buried in the deep, cool gloom of the
shadowy chasms.