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An Apache Princess, a novel by Charles King |
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Chapter 10. "Woman-Walk-In-The-Night" Again |
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_ CHAPTER X. "WOMAN-WALK-IN-THE-NIGHT" AGAIN So swift had been the succession of events since the first day of the week, few of the social set at Sandy could quite realize, much less fathom, all that had happened, and as they gathered on the verandas, in the cool of the evening after Daly's funeral, the trend of talk was all one way. A man who might have thrown light on certain matters at issue had been spirited away, and there were women quite ready to vow it was done simply to get him beyond range of their questioning. Sergeant Shannon had been sent to the agency on some mission prescribed by Colonel Byrne. It was almost the last order issued by Major Plume before turning over the command. Byrne himself still lingered at the post, "watching the situation," as it was understood, and in constant telegraphic correspondence with the general at Prescott and the commander of the little guard over the agency buildings at the reservation--Lieutenant Bridger, of the Infantry. With a sergeant and twenty men that young officer had been dispatched to that point immediately after the alarming and unlooked-for catastrophe of the reveille outbreak. Catastrophe was what Byrne called it, and he meant what he said, not so much because it had cost the life of Daly, the agent, whose mistaken zeal had precipitated the whole misunderstanding, but rather because of the death of two such prominent young warriors as "Shield" and his friend, who had fallen after dealing the fatal blow to him who had laid violent hands, so they regarded it, on two young girls, one a chieftain's daughter and both objects of reverent and savagely sentimental interest. "If war doesn't come at once," said Byrne, "it will be because the Apache has a new sense or a deep-laid scheme. Look out for him." No news as yet had come from the runners sent forth in search of the scattered fugitives, who would soon be flocking together again in the fastnesses of the Mogollon to the east or the Red Rock country northward--the latter probably, as being nearer their friends at the reservation and farther from the few renegade Tontos lurking in the mountains toward Fort Apache. Byrne's promise to the wanderers, sent by these runners, was to the effect that they would be safe from any prosecution if they would return at once to the agency and report themselves to the interpreter and the lieutenant commanding the guard. He would not, he said, be answerable for what might happen if they persisted in remaining at large. But when it was found that, so far from any coming in, there were many going out, and that Natzie's father and brother had already gone, Byrne's stout heart sank. The message came by wire from the agency not long after the return of the funeral party, and while the evening was yet young. He sent at once for Wren, and, seated on the major's front piazza, with an orderly hovering just out of earshot, and with many an eye anxiously watching them along the row, the two veterans were holding earnest conference. Major Plume was at the bedside of his wife, so said Graham when he came down about eight. Mrs. Plume, he continued, was at least no worse, but very nervous. Then he took himself back to the hospital. Another topic of talk along the line was Blakely's watch and its strange recovery, and many were the efforts to learn what Blakely himself had to say about it. The officers, nearly all of them, of course, had been at intervals to see Blakely and inquire if there were not something that they could do, this being the conventional and proper thing, and they who talked with him, with hardly an exception, led up to the matter of the watch and wished to know how he accounted for its being there on the post of No. 5. It was observed that, upon this topic and the stabbing of Private Mullins, Mr. Blakely was oddly reticent. He had nothing whatever to suggest as explanation of either matter. The watch was taken from the inner pocket of his thin white coat as he lay asleep at the pool, of this he felt confident, but by whom he would not pretend to say. Everybody knew by this time that Angela Wren had seen him sleeping, and had, in a spirit of playful mischief, fetched away his butterfly net, but who would accuse Angela of taking his watch and money? Of course such things had been, said one or two wise heads, but--not with girls like Angela. But who could say what, all this while, Angela herself was thinking? Once upon a time it had been the way of our young folk well over the North and West to claim forfeit in the game of "Catching the weasel asleep." There had been communities, indeed, and before co-education became a fad at certain of our great universities, wherein the maid caught napping could hold it no sin against watchful swain, or even against her, that he then and there imprinted on her lips a kiss. On the other hand, the swain found sleeping might not always expect a kiss, but must pay the penalty, a pair of dainty gloves. Many a forfeit, both lip and glove, had there been claimed and allowed in army days whereof we write, and Angela, stealing upon Blakely as he dozed beneath the willows, and liking him well and deploring her father's pronounced aversion to him--perhaps even resenting it an undutiful bit--had found it impossible to resist the temptation to softly disengage that butterfly net from the loosely clasping fingers, and swiftly, stealthily, delightedly to scamper away with it against his waking. It was of this very exploit, never dreaming of the fateful consequences, she and Kate Sanders were so blissfully bubbling over, fairly shaking with maiden merriment when the despoiled victim, homeward bound, caught sight of them upon the mesa. Ten minutes more, and in full force she had been made to feel the blow of her father's fierce displeasure. Twenty minutes more, and, under the blow of her father's furious wrath, Blakely had been felled like a log. When with elongated face and exaggerated gloom of manner Aunt Janet came to make her realize the awful consequences of her crime, Angela's first impulse had been to cry out against her father's unreasoning rage. When she learned that he was in close arrest,--to be tried, doubtless, for his mad assault,--in utter revulsion of feeling, in love and tenderness, in grief and contrition inexpressible, she had thrown herself at his feet and, clasping his knees, had sobbed her heart out in imploring his forgiveness for what she called her wicked, heedless, heartless conduct. No one saw that blessed meeting, that scene of mutual forgiveness, of sweet reconciliation; too sweet and serene, indeed, for Janet's stern and Calvinistic mold. Are we ever quite content, I wonder, that others' bairnies should be so speedily, so entirely, forgiven? All because of this had all Janet's manifestations of sympathy for Robert to be tempered with a fine reserve. As for Angela, it would never do to let the child so soon forget that this should be an awful lesson. Aunt Janet's manner, therefore, when, butterfly net in hand, she required of her niece full explanation of the presence in the room of this ravished trophy, was something fraught with far too much of future punishment, of wrath eternal. Even in her chastened mood Angela's spirit stood en garde. "I have told father everything, auntie," she declared. "I leave it all to him," and bore in silence the comments, without the utterance of which the elder vestal felt she could not conscientiously quit the field. "Bold," "immodest," "unmaidenly," "wanton," were a choice few of Aunt Janet's expletives, and these were unresented. But when she concluded with "I shall send this--thing to him at once, with my personal apologies for the act of an irresponsible child," up sprang Angela with rebellion flashing from her eyes. She had suffered punishment as a woman. She would not now be treated as a child. To Janet's undisguised amaze and disapprobation, Wren decided that Angela herself should send both apology and net. It was the first missive of the kind she had ever written, but, even so, she would not submit it for either advice or criticism--even though its composition cost her many hours and tears and sheets of paper. No one but the recipient had so much as a peep at it, but when Blakely read it a grave smile lighted his pallid and still bandaged face. He stowed the little note in his desk, and presently took it out and read it again, and still again, and then it went slowly into the inner pocket of his white sack coat and was held there, while he, the wearer, slowly paced up and down the veranda late in the starlit night. This was the evening of Daly's funeral, the evening of the day on which he and his captain had shaken hands and were to start afresh with better understanding. Young Duane was officer of the day and, after the tattoo inspection of his little guard, had gone for a few minutes to the hospital where Mullins lay muttering and tossing in his feverish sleep; then, meeting Wren and Graham on the way, had tramped over to call on Blakely, thinking, perhaps, to chat a while and learn something. Soon after "taps" was sounded, however, the youngster joined the little group gossiping in guarded tones on the porch at Captain Sanders', far down the row, and, in response to question, said that "Bugs"--that being Blakely's briefest nom de guerre--must be convalescing rapidly, he "had no use for his friends," and, as the lad seemed somewhat ruffled and resentful, what more natural than that he should be called upon for explanation? Sanders and his wife were present, and Mrs. Bridger, very much alive with inquiry and not a little malicious interest. Kate, too, was of the party, and Doty, the adjutant, and Mesdames Cutler and Westervelt--it was so gloomy and silent, said these latter, at their end of the row. Much of the talk had been about Mrs. Plume's illness and her "sleep-walking act," as it had been referred to, and many had thought, but few had spoken, of her possible presence on the post of No. 5 about the time that No. 5 was stabbed. They knew she couldn't have done it, of course, but then how strange that she should have been there at all! The story had gained balloon-like expanse by this time, and speculation was more than rife. But here was Duane with a new grievance which, when put into Duane's English, reduced itself to this: "Why, it was like as if Bugs wanted to get rid of me and expected somebody else," and this they well remembered later. Nobody else was observed going to Blakely's front door, at least, but at eleven o'clock he himself could still be dimly heard and seen pacing steadily up and down his piazza, apparently alone and deep in thought. His lights, too, were turned down, a new man from the troop having asked for and assumed the duties formerly devolving on the wretch Downs, now doing time within the garrison prison. Before eleven, however, this new martial domestic had gone upstairs to bed and Blakely was all alone, which was as he wished it, for he had things to plan and other things to think of that lifted him above the possibility of loneliness. Down the line of officers' quarters only in two or three houses could lights be seen. Darkness reigned at Plume's, where Byrne was still rooming. Darkness reigned at Wren's and Graham's, despite the fact that the lords of these manors were still abroad, both at the bedside of Trooper Mullins. A dozen people were gathered by this time at Sanders'. All the other verandas, except Blakely's with its solitary watcher, seemed deserted. To these idlers of the soft and starlit night, sitting bareheaded about the gallery and chatting in the friendly way of the frontier, there came presently a young soldier from the direction of the adjutant's office at the south end. "The night operator," he explained. "Two dispatches have just come for Colonel Byrne, and I thought maybe--" "No, Cassidy," said Doty. "The colonel is at his quarters. Dispatch, is it? Perhaps I'd better go with you," and, rising, the young officer led the way, entering on tiptoe the hall of the middle house where, far back on a table, a lamp was burning low. Tapping at an inner door, he was bidden to enter. Byrne was in bed, a single sheet over his burly form, but he lay wide awake. He took the first dispatch and tore it open eagerly. It was from Bridger at the agency: Runners just in say Natzie and Lola had turned back from trail to Montezuma Well, refusing to go further from their dead. Can probably be found if party go at dawn or sooner. Alchisay with them. More Indians surely going out from here. Byrne's brow contracted and his lips compressed, but he gave no other sign. "Is Captain Wren still up?" he briefly asked, as he reached for the other dispatch. "Over at the hospital, sir," said Doty, and watched this famous campaigner's face as he ripped open the second brown envelope. This time he was half out of bed before he could have half finished even that brief message. It was from the general: News of trouble must have reached Indians at San Carlos. Much excitement there and at Apache. Shall start for Camp McDowell to-morrow as soon as I have seen Plume. He should come early. The colonel was in his slippers and inexpressibles in less than no time, but Plume aloft had heard the muffled sounds from the lower floor, and was down in a moment. Without a word Byrne handed him the second message and waited until he had read, then asked: "Can you start at dawn?" "I can start now," was the instant reply. "Our best team can make it in ten hours. Order out the Concord, Mr. Doty." And Doty vanished. "But Mrs. Plume--" began the colonel tentatively. "Mrs. Plume simply needs quiet and to be let alone," was the joyless answer. "I think perhaps--I am rather in the way." "Well, I know the general will appreciate your promptness. I--did not know you had asked to see him," and Byrne looked up from under his shaggy brows. "I hadn't exactly, but my letter intimated as much. There is so very much I--I cannot write about--that of course he's bound to hear,--I don't mean you, Colonel Byrne,--and he ought to know the--facts. Now I'll get ready at once and--see you before starting." "Better take an escort, Plume." "One man on driver's seat. That's all, sir. I'll come in presently, in case you have anything to send," said Plume, and hurried again upstairs. It was barely midnight when Plume's big black wagon, the Concord, all spring and hickory, as said the post quartermaster, went whirling away behind its strapping team of four huge Missouri mules. It was 12.30 by the guard-house clock and the call of the sentries when Wren came home to find Angela, her long, luxuriant hair tumbling down over her soft, white wrapper, waiting for him at the front door. From her window she had seen him coming; had noted the earlier departure of the wagon; had heard the voice of Major Plume bidding good-by, and wondered what it meant--this midnight start of the senior officer of the post. She had been sitting there silent, studying the glittering stars, and wondering would there be an answer to her note? Would he be able to write just yet? Was there reason, really, why he should write, after all that had passed? Somehow she felt that write he certainly would, and soon, and the thought kept her from sleeping. It was because she was anxious about Mullins, so she told herself and told her father, that she had gone fluttering down to meet him at the door. But no sooner had he answered, "Still delirious and yet holding his own," than she asked where and why Major Plume had gone. "The general wired for him," answered Wren. "And what is my tall girlie doing, spiering from windows this time of night? Go to bed, child." She may be losing beauty sleep, but not her beauty, thought he fondly, as she as fondly kissed him and turned to obey. Then came a heavy footfall on the gallery without, and a dark form, erect and soldierly, stood between them and the dim lights of the guard-house. It was a corporal of the guard. "No. 4, sir, reports he heard shots--two--way up the valley." "Good God!" Wren began, then throttled the expletive half spoken. Could they have dared waylay the major--and so close to the post? A moment more and he was hurrying over to his troop quarters; five minutes, and a sergeant and ten men were running with him to the stables; ten, and a dozen horses, swiftly saddled, were being led into the open starlight; fifteen, and they were away at a lunging bronco lope, a twisting column of twos along the sandy road, leaving the garrison to wake and wonder. Three, four, five miles they sped, past Boulder Point, past Rattlesnake Hill, and still no sign of anything amiss, no symptom of night-raiding Apache, for indeed the Apache dreads the dark. Thrice the sergeant had sprung from his horse, lighted a match, and studied the trail. On and on had gone the mules and wagon without apparent break or interruption, until, far beyond the bluff that hid the road from sight of all at Sandy, they had begun the long, tortuous climb of the divide to Cherry Creek. No. 4 might have heard shots, but, if intended for the wagon, they had been harmless. It was long after one when Wren gave the word to put back to the post, and as they remounted and took the homeward trail, they rode for the first five minutes almost directly east, and, as they ascended a little slant of hillside, the sergeant in advance reined suddenly in. "Look there!" said he. Far over among the rocky heights beyond the valley, hidden from the south from Sandy by precipitous cliffs that served almost as a reflector toward the reservation, a bright blaze had shot suddenly heavenward--a signal fire of the Apache. Some of them, then, were in the heart of that most intractable region, not ten miles northeast of the post, and signaling to their fellows; but the major must have slipped safely through. Sending his horse to stable with the detachment, Wren had found No. 4 well over toward the east end of his post, almost to the angle with that of No. 5. "Watch well for signal fires or prowlers to-night," he ordered. "Have you seen any?" "No signal fires, sir," answered the sentry. "Welch, who was on before me, thought he heard shots--" "I know," answered Wren impatiently. "There was nothing in it. But we did see a signal fire over to the northeast, so they are around us, and some may be creeping close in to see what we're doing, though I doubt it. You've seen nothing?" "Well, no, sir; we can't see much of anything, it's so dark. But there's a good many of the post people up and moving about, excited, I suppose. There were lights there at the lieutenant's, Mr. Blakely's, a while ago, and--voices." No. 4 pointed to the dark gable end barely forty yards away. "That's simple enough," said Wren. "People would naturally come up to this end to see what had become of us, why we had gone, etc. They heard of it, I dare say, and some were probably startled." "Yes, sir, it sounded like--somebody cryin'." Wren was turning away. "What?" he suddenly asked. No. 4 repeated his statement. Wren pondered a moment, started to speak, to question further, but checked himself and trudged thoughtfully away through the yielding sand. The nearest path led past the first quarters, Blakely's, on the eastward side, and as the captain neared the house he stopped short. Somewhere in the shadows of the back porch low, murmuring voices were faintly audible. One, in excited tone, was not that of a man, and as Wren stood, uncertain and surprised, the rear door was quickly opened and against the faint light from within two dark forms were projected. One, the taller, he recognized beyond doubt as that of Neil Blakely; the other he did not recognize at all. But he had heard the tone of the voice. He knew the form to be, beyond doubt, that of a young and slender woman. Then together the shadows disappeared within and the door was closed behind them. _ |
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