I, Tom Horn Read online

  He stumbled off to our camping spot, the one staked out for us by Sister Sawn, and I saw him no more that night. There was good reason for that. When I myself sought my bedroll in a few minutes, Sieber was nowhere in view of our rocky campsite. I bedded down weary to the bone, lulled into instant deep slumber by the monotony of the Apache chanting, stomping, gourd thumping, and sing-singing down at the village fires. I had no idea what hour of the night it might subsequently have been when something awakened me, and I came bolt upright, rifle to hand and at the ready.

  There, not three feet in front of my dirty-socked feet, sitting on my saddle and studying me by the flare of a match, was the most outlandish figure I had encountered upon the frontier. There was a bit of a late-rising moon, and that, aided by the brief flicker of the match, let me etch the details on my memory.

  I can see that picture yet.

  He was about five feet and three or four inches tall, if that. Squat in structure with arms dangling like those of an ape, he had the high shoulders and no-neck look of the Apache, yet he was not an Apache. Or not entirely one. His hair, sheared off below his shoulder line, stuck out from under his round-crowned, floppy dishpan of a hat like the wild furze of some corn-patch scarecrow, and it was as flaming red in color as a blood-bay horse's coat in brightest sun.

  "Are you the talking boy?" he said to me.

  It was Apache that he spoke, and he spoke it with all the Apache thick and slurring sounds, the way that no white man could, Yet he did look like a white man. Or mostly like one. He wore white man's high field boots of military cut coming to the knee. His jacket was a cavalry sergeant's blouse, and his baggy pants were of some ancient infantry issue gone out of Arizona Territory before my time.

  "Well," I managed to answer him, belatedly, "they call me Seebie s Boy."

  The apparition shook its wild head of carrot hair.

  "I think your name is Talking Boy," the creature said. "All the people say you speak the tongue better than they ever heard a white man do it. Talking Boy. That's your name. Anh, yes. Do you know me?"

  He had dropped the burned-out match, but the moon let me see his homely grin spread across the impossible ugliness of that frog's face, and somehow I felt drawn to him most powerful and strange.

  "Here," he chuckled, "I'll light another match."

  He did so and I could see that his single eye was an intense blue, the missing mate of it being disfigured by some angrily healed old wound. "A hurt spikehorn deer hooked it out when I was twelve years old," he said. "Now do you know who I am?"

  "I am new to the country," I said in Mexican. "Dispénseme, hombre. I will learn."

  "Sure," he said. "Enjuh." He sat there a moment, grinning still, then sobered. "I've come to ask you something, Talking Boy. You have a new wife."

  "No, no. She but keeps my house and cooks for me."

  "Good. I knew her as a girl. We feel strong for one another. I just saw her and she says she needs a man. She wants it bad. Says you have no bone in your penis and you sleep all the while with Seebie."

  "It's true," I said.

  "I'm sorry for you. A man with a soft ramrod is—"

  "No, no!" I cried. "I am only saying that I camp with Sieber, yes. Not with Sister Sawn."

  "Oh, I am glad. About your penis, I mean. Enjuh!"

  "Enjuh," I said.

  "You give me permission then, Talking Boy?"

  "What?"

  "Permission. I want to fornicate with her."

  "Oh, of course. Yes, yes. Permission. Enjuh!"

  He got up from sitting on my saddle, and naturally I found my own feet. He put out his hand and I took hold of it and we shook hard and quick. "Schicho," he said.

  "Anh, schicho," I answered, and we were friends from that time and forever. And so it was that I met the sinister and storied Mickey Free, barring only Al Sieber, the greatest of all Indian scouts during the Apache wars of Arizona. So, too, was it that I acquired my Apache name, Talking Boy. Mickey Free gave it to me.

  Later, Sieber was to say of him that he was half Mexican, half Apache, half Irish, and all son of a bitch.

  Well, I suppose he was.

  But he took the worry of Sister Sawn away from my blankets, and a friendship like that can never be repaid.

  Our camp, from that night, was the happiest in all the rancheria of Old Pedro.

  Wagh! and enjuh! Sister Sawn.

  I love you still as I loved you then.

  In Mickey's arms.

  Into Apacheria

  About five a.m., just with first light, Sieber came to my blanketplace. He moved noiseless as light wind. His hand was over my mouth as he awakened me. I got up and went with him. We did not disturb any of the children or dogs, and Sister Sawn wasn't there. Snarler, the wolf cub, saw us but only followed us out of our camp with his yellow eyes. I was glad to see that animal alert; it showed he didn't have the hydrophobia and would get better. I followed Sieber, feeling good.

  When we were far enough up the hill, out of the rancheria, he whistled soft like the whitewing dove of that country. Mickey Free drifted in out of the morning mists. "Let's go," Sieber said. We went.

  Down at the forks of the river, (the White River and the Black River), we found Lieutenant Wheeler and twenty troops of cavalry, from San Carlos. Mickey had guided them up the night before. There had been a story on the reservation that Sieber and me were in danger, held prisoners at the rancheria.

  Mickey had left the soldiers at the forks to avoid exciting the Apache camp. He figured, too, that we would not be captives in Old Pedro's friendly hands. But the redhaired Free had other and disturbing news for Wheeler. There were in fact a lot of bad Indians up in the rancheria and over in the Cibicu country beyond it. Mickey Free did not know why they were there, but the army would be well advised to keep Pedro's big encampment under discreet watch. Question: How best to do this without the Cibicus getting wind of it?

  "I reckon I've got the answer to that," Al Sieber told Wheeler. "But I've had a hard night and ain't et yet. You bring any rations up with you, lieutenant?"

  Wheeler had, and he at once ordered breakfast prepared. As the troops roused up and set to fixing the eats— thick bacon and frying-pan bread—Sieber and Wheeler gathered to the fire with cups of last night's coffee smoking in hand and got square to it

  Mickey Free and me were included but not consulted.

  This didn't bother me at first, as I was more interested in the smell of the bacon sizzling and the "Injun bread" frying. But when Sieber commenced to unload his answer for keeping tabs on the thousand Apache roaming Old Pedro's domain (the San Carlos Indians), plus the visiting Cibicus, Tom Horn's jug-handle ears stuck out straight. I could feel them lifting my scalp piece, almost, they was tuning so hard.

  Mickey Free was harking close, too, and frowning.

  Wheeler and Sieber were talking in English, knowing the one-eyed Irish half-breed did not understand ten words of that language. Naturally, this agitated him. Why he had never learned English is one of those mysteries of which there isn't decent explanation. My own opinion always was that he was simply too wild from his bronco upbringing (by the Chiricahua and Warm Springs bands, the very worst) and plain did not want to know the hated White Eye tongue.

  However, this did not blunt his "Injun" curiosity.

  He kept asking me what they were saying and I had to make up some potent stretchers for him, which I enjoyed. Lying was something I liked to do, and did it right well. Done proper, it could spare harm and bestow kindnesses, ease away pain and restore good feeling. I was to rue the art near unto the death on down the later trail of my life. But for that young morning at the forks of the White and Black it worked fine. Mickey Free didn't miss a word of what I whispered to him. Also, he didn't learn a solitary truthful thing from it, yet was happy as a small boy with the deception.

  Fact was, Mickey kept me so busy translating this trash for him, that I missed the drift of Sieber's report to Wheeler myself. The old German remedied this lapse
the minute the confab ended.

  "Now, Horn," he said, limping with me out of earshot of the fire, "I want you to do what I am going to tell you; it is the whole reason you got the job.

  "Come full sunup, take your horses (I had purchased three head of good ones at Fort Apache) and go back up and live with Pedro. Pedro is a good man and has taken a fancy to you. You are picking up the Apache language swift as a snake seeks shade. In a short spell you will talk it like a Cherry Cow (Chiricahua). Your own mother told you you was an Indian, and she was correct. You was naturally born for a life of this kind and are just the right age to begin it. After a few years of it, you will become a good and valuable man in the Apache troubles, which will go on for years here.

  "Now, Pedro has told Mickey to ask Seebie if Talking Boy could stay on as the government man in his camp. So you tell Pedro that Seebie says anh and enjuh."

  He paused, studying me with those intent black eyes.

  "Once I leave you here, you will be Pedro's Boy, Horn. You will live as they do and do what Pedro says to do, no matter the risk. But you must never forget you are there to take care of the government business."

  Again the pause, the glitter of small black eye.

  "Lieutenant Wheeler says your pay will be upped to $100 per month. In addition, you will draw your issue of beef and goods at San Carlos, same as the Apache."

  The last pause, the final eye-glint.

  "You can see that a spy gets more money than a interpreter of Mexican, likewise shot and cut up more: What is your answer?"

  I stood there mute as a blasted stump.

  Sieber had set this box trap for his boy all the way back along the trail. Every single thing he had done was aimed at getting me into the Apache camp as a paid sneak. Tom Horn the squaw man. Tom Horn the informer. Tom Horn the Indian traitor. "It is the whole reason you got the job, Horn." Of course it was! I saw that now plain as a cat cruller in a cougar track, Damn!

  But it was away too late for weakling cusswords.

  "Good man," Al Sieber said. "I knowed that you would do the right thing, Horn."

  Wheelers troop, under its sergeant, now mounted up and set off down the White for San Carlos. Saying not a word more to me, Wheeler then got to his horse, Al Sieber to his gray mule. Even Mickey Free, who I had supposed would return to the Apache camp with me, got on his shaggy mustang. The three of them rode off, just like that, leaving me there.

  Sieber and Wheeler didn't even look back. The redhaired breed at least did that.

  "Cuidado!" he called to me, with a parting wave and ear-split grin of his homely, half-Irish mug.

  Which naturally meant that I had better be sleeping mighty light up there where I was going.

  Look out, Mickey Free had warned.

  So let it be.

  I watched until the three riders were fly-speck dots against the rock shimmer of White River's falling course, then turned my horse and spare mounts upstream.

  Behind me lay sixteen years, and boyhood.

  Ahead waited ten years of my second life, as a young man in love with the wild country and fierce red horsemen of that unknown kingdom called Apacheria.

  Chikisin, Brother

  When I got off my horse up in front of Pedro's wickiup, he came out grinning and nodding his head.

  He said, "Well, my son, you are an Apache now. But you need a brother to show you our ways."

  Here, he called up Ramon, the boy who had tried to stop Sieber and me from coming up to the rancheria, just out of San Carlos. "Ramon will be chi-ki-sin to you, your brother. Ramon, Talking Boy here will be also your brother. Do you two agree on it?"

  Ramon and I knew it wasn't a question but an order, and we both nodded, "Anh, yes."

  "Enjuh," the old Apache said. "My camp is now your home and my lodge will be your lodge. I understand you have come to an arrangement with Mickey Free about my daughter Sawn and will no longer live with her as man of the house. So you stay with me until you find another girl. There are a lot of them, so Ramon says, that want to throw a stick for you to catch. Anh!"

  Ramon gave me the eye in that moment, hitching his head to indicate we should ease away. We did so, me thanking the ancient chief—Apache people insist Pedro was a hundred years old and had forty-one children—and saying he honored me and I would not dishonor him.

  He liked that, saying, "Nice, nice, very pretty," and Ramon and me got out of there.

  "Listen," Ramon said, "word has come that a big bunch of Mexican horses, good ones, now, are over in Cibicu Canyon. Some broncos stole them. I hear they killed eight Mexicans who were with those horses. If you want some of those horses, we will have to hurry. When the soldiers hear about those eight Mexicans, ih!"

  "Por Dios!" I cried. "You mean go over there into the country of the Cibicus and steal Mexican horses from those broncos más feroz?"

  "I am not crazy" Ramon said. "We will mean to buy some horses from them. You have money, don't you?"

  "Yes, a little."

  "Well, I thought you would like to start being an Apache right away, like going to visit the bad ones."

  "Chikisin, I don't know."

  ‘Well, I can take you there."

  "Hell!" I said. "Vamos—!" And away we went.

  We got over to Cibicu Canyon all right and found our Indians who had the Mexican horses. They weren't in too good a mood, having just learned that old Chug was out of business and so no tizwin to be had. Had they dreamed that the tall, jug-eared white Apache riding with Ramon was party to that shortage, I would still be in Cibicu Canyon. Or rather at the mouth of it, for we didn't get into the cañon proper. The broncos said the Cibicu was closed. A palaver was going forward in the wild camps. Big one. Great-name Indians up there. Chiefs with American prices on their heads. "Who?" Ramon inquired.

  "Gokliya," said one of the Indians.

  Ramon whispered to me, "Geronimo," and I got edgy. "Is that all?" Ramon said, not wavering.

  "It's enough; he's looking for men to go back with him. You want to go, Young Pedro?"

  "No. My brother here and I, we are looking to buy some of your good horses," Ramon answered him. "We have soldier money."

  "Ahhh!"

  "Yes, but say, who else is up there with Gokliya?"

  "Josannie, Loco, Delzhinne, Juan Perico, young Chato, Kaytennae, Yanosha, Naiche, Eyelash. You want more?"

  "No," Ramon said quickly. "I thank you, brother."

  Since I later learned the list contained two brothers of Geronimo, a son of Cochise, a son of fabled Juh, and the others all hesh-kes ("ritual killers") except Kaytennae, the haste of my "tame" Apache companion was well directed. At the time, I merely felt that the mouth of the black, gaping chasm of the grand cañon of the Cibicu Fork was a premier place to be away from.

  It developed that the Mexican horses were actually not for sale. They had been stolen and were being held to mount the men Geronimo hoped to enlist to flee from San Carlos to join him in Mexico, readying there for the big war that would drive the Pinda Lickoyi from Arizona for all time.

  However, the increasingly restless Indian herdsmen believed that a few head would not be missed. Especially if the prices were tempting, with nothing later said of the matter in either camp. So the bargain was struck. I took eight fine animals, paying from $12 to $20 a head. I also gave $80 for the exquisite saddles and bridles of two of the murdered Mexican drovers. This took time, as the Indian is a passionate trader, and my companion began to get nervous.

  "Basta," Ramon muttered to me. "Will you never quit your talking? These bárbaros cannot be bandied with. Come on, now. Quickly, but not too quickly. Ease away."

  I nodded my understanding. In truth, I had commenced to get a little of the stink of danger into my own nose. Talking Boy had overdone it. Tom Horn had better return.

  Carefully, we gathered our small band of horses and started away. We had gone perhaps a hundred pasos when it happened—and we froze where we were, looking back.

  I can yet hear that keening cry. T
he eye of the mind retains the stark instant of its utterance. The taste of panic fear is a gall that is never forgotten. We choked upon it as we now looked back and saw what had sent up that pitiable wail.

  It was a girl.

  She was near naked under filthy ragments of a settlement dress, and she was running and crying for Chikisin and me to wait for her, to save her from los bárbaros.

  Even as she ran, bursting up out of an arroyo beyond the Mexican horse herd, the Apaches opened fire on her.

  "Vamos!" Ramon yelled. "God's name, we can't help her."

  But I was watching the desperate girl and saw her stumble and go down, and I said to Ramon, "You run," and I heeled my horse around and sent him back toward the fallen captive. In the same breath of time, three of the Apache herdsmen got to their shaggy ponies and came on the digging gallop for the girl.

  Sweet Nopal

  Speeding in on the fallen girl, I yelled for her to "get up, get up!" Near as the three mounted Apaches were, there seemed to me time and distance enough between us that I might sweep up the girl and keep the tall horse running. But the girl did not get up, and I realized then she had either been hit by the rifle fire or knocked senseless by striking a rock in her fall. Now hell was to pay.

  I slid the bay on his hocks to a stop over the motionless captive of the renegades. The last thing in my racing mind was to shoot any Indians. But Sieber had picked well when he picked me. He had "smelled," as he later put it, that young Tom Horn "was one that would do what he had to do, when he had to do it."

  I do not remember pulling my Winchester '73 carbine from its saddle scabbard. I know it wasn't in my hands when I was coming in on the bay. It still wasn't when I hauled him into the hock-skid stop. But when my feet hit the sand of the Big Cibicu Wash, the Winchester was in my hands and blasting.

  I shot the foremost of the three Indian riders at forty feet. I hit him square in the face, with his mouth open, yelling. His pony seemed to run right out from under him. His body dropped like that of a hung man going down a scaffold trap.