Ralph Compton - Down on Gila River

She found nothing offensive in the man’s gaze. He’d looked at her without heat, as a man will look at any attractive woman.

Sam touched the brim of his battered black hat. “Howdy, ma’am,” he said. “I wonder if I can trouble you for a drink of water.”

Hannah nodded. “Yes, please help yourself.”

She watched as the man dropped the bucket into the well, heard the splash and then saw him raise it again.

“There’s a dipper on a nail beside you,” she said.

“Obliged, ma’am,” Sam said.

He drank deep, drank again, and when Hannah figured the worst of his thirst had been quenched, she said, “Have you come far?”

“Yes, ma’am, from the mountains back there. Apaches made off with my hoss and nearly my hair.”

He drank again, then said, “Afore that, I was working fer the Rafter-T, up in the Spur Lake Basin country.”

Anticipating the woman’s next question, he said, “Name’s Sam Sawyer, an’ I’m headed fer Silver City.” He smiled, showing his teeth. “I figured I might prosper there in the restaurant profession.”

“My name is Hannah Stewart,” the woman said. “This is my place.”

She was not yet sure she could trust this man and didn’t mention Lori. But she had dropped the shotgun barrels so the muzzles pointed at the ground.

Sam’s eyes swept over the cabin, the outbuildings, and then lingered on the barn. “Live here by yourself, ma’am?” Sam asked.

Hannah hesitated a moment. “Yes. My husband rode away three months ago and I haven’t seen him since. I expect he’ll be back at any time now.”

She saw Sam nod, but he didn’t comment.

As he had studied her, now the woman sized up her visitor.

He was a stocky man, about average height. His face was deeply lined and weathered, his eyebrows untrimmed and craggy, as was his great dragoon mustache. His teeth when he smiled were white, unusual for the high desert country where dentists were few and far between, and his blue eyes were bright and good-humored, as though he found everything in the world around him amusing.

He wore scuffed, work-worn jeans and wide canvas suspenders over a faded blue shirt. His cartridge belt and the holster that carried a walnut-handled Colt were much worn but of obvious good quality.

Hannah put the man’s age at sixty, but figured he could be older, or younger. She decided to take a chance on the man named Sam Sawyer.

“Are you hungry?” she said. “I was about to cook supper for my daughter and me.”

“Little blond gal with big brown eyes, huh?” Sam said.

“Yes. But how did you—”

“She’s been lookin’ at me out the window since I got here, ma’am,” Sam said, grinning.

Hannah thought the man had a good smile, friendly and open, as though he had nothing to hide.

“Her name is Lori,” she said. “She worries about her ma.”

“And why shouldn’t she, ma’am?” Sam said. “I mean, a right handsome woman like you all alone in this wilderness.”

Immediately Hannah became defensive again.

“Not so alone, Mr. Sawyer,” she said. “The local cowboys stop by often, especially if they smell doughnuts in the wind. And Sheriff Moseley visits when he’s in the area.”

“Sheriff?” Sam said. “You mean he rides all the way up here from Silver City?”

The woman shook her head. “No. South of here there’s a small cow town on Mogollon Creek called Lost Mine, and Vic Moseley is its sheriff.”

Sam peered to the south. “Dang, I don’t see it.”

“If you walk up the rise there, you’ll see it,” Hannah said. “It’s only a couple of miles away.” She hesitated, and then said, “It isn’t much of a town.”

Sam nodded. “Is the invitation to supper still open, ma’am?” he said. “I’m feelin’ famished, an’ no mistake.”

Hannah smiled. “Of course it is.”

Chapter 3

“He was a great warrior,” the old Apache said. “The bravest of the brave, skilled in war. He had many horses.”

“And now he is dead, Grandfather,” the boy said.

“Yes, Goso is dead. Killed by the Mexicans in a great battle.”

“Then why do we seek him?”

The old Apache was silent for a while, his deeply wrinkled face still, though he sat his pony and pondered the boy’s question. Finally he said, “His soul has lost its way and does not know how to reach the shadow lands. We will help him, you and I.”

“But how, Grandfather?” The boy was ten years old that year and had many questions. He rode a spotted pony as old as he was.

“I will pray to the Great Spirit and ask him to show us the way.”

“But why here, in this place?” the boy said. “Or any other place?”

“I had a dream and in my dream I saw this place, the mountains and the plain and amidst it all stood a great tree. Goso sat his pony under the tree and I said to him, ‘You must move on to the land of shadows.’ I said to him, ‘Follow the trail of all the dead buffalo, for it is wide and well marked.’ But Goso did not look at me or speak to me and a hawk flew over the tree and made a loud cry and I became very afraid. When I woke, one of my women said, ‘You cry out in your sleep, husband.’”

The old warrior was silent for a while. Then he said, “It was the spirit hawk that told me where I would find Goso, and that is why we seek him in this lonely place.”

“But, Grandfather, why—”

“Faugh, Nolgee, you wear me out with your questions,” the old man said. “Let us ride from the shadow of the mountains and onto the plain, where we will look for the great tree I saw in my dream.”

* * *

The old Apache and his grandson rode out of the Mule Mountains and headed east under a high sun. The day was hot and the sky was blue as far as the eye could see. Insects made their small sounds in the grass, and the air smelled of pine and mountain wildflowers.

The boy saw the Chiricahua first, three warriors leading a white man’s horse. When they drew closer, the one who wore the yellow headband of an army scout drew rein and put field glasses to his eyes. Unlike the other two, that man was painted for war.

Nolgee was much afraid and said, “Grandfather . . .”

“I see them,” the old man said. “They are Chiricahua and brothers to the Mescalero.”

“Then why do they look at us through the white man’s seeing glass?”

“Perhaps they fear us, grandson,” the old man said. But he smiled as he said it.

“If they fear us, they will run away,” the boy said.

“Then we will wait here and let them come,” the old man said. “Or run away as the notion takes them.”

But the three warriors came on and when they were yet at a distance they halted their ponies and stared at the old warrior and the boy, and their gaze lingered on the horses they rode.

It occurred to the old Apache then that he and his grandson had good spotted ponies, and he himself carried a fine Spencer carbine, had a Colt holstered at his waist, and wore a necklace of silver Mexican pesos. Such great treasures were worth fighting for.

The warrior with the yellow headband took time to look at all those things, then said, “Where do you go, Grandfather?” And to make his companions laugh, which they did, he said, “Do you take the war trail?”

“I seek a troubled spirit,” the old man said. He did not look directly at the warrior because that is not the Apache way. “My grandson rides with me to learn the way of such things.”

The warrior’s eyes flicked to Nolgee, dismissed him, then said to the old man again, “What is this spirit you speak of?”

“The spirit of a great man of our people, the warrior named Goso. He must be shown the trail to the shadow lands.”

“Faugh,” the man with the yellow headband said, “Goso was killed by Mexican lancers in a great battle in the foothills of the Sierra Madres. His spirit does not roam the land of the Chiricahua.”