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Tonio, Son of the Sierras: A Story of the Apache War, a novel by Charles King |
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Chapter 21 |
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_ CHAPTER XXI The early game at Craney's had languished that evening. It was too near pay-day--the wrong way--for money to be burning in soldier's pockets, and when the soldier has none the garrison hanger-on has no one to look to. The couriers from the field column, being comfortably filled and fairly well tired, meandered off with their martial chums at tattoo. The few ranchers and packers hovered about the monte table awhile, hopeful, perhaps, of a clash between Dago and Munoz, but even this hope was crushed when, just about taps, two belated Mexicans, innocent or reckless of the proximity of signalling Indians across the stream, came mule-bestriding into the glare of the common room sconces and "ola'd," for Sanchez, who hurried out to meet them, heard their excited tale, cashed in his few chips, and took himself and fellows off. "Barkeep" stuck his head through the port-hole to the adjoining sanctum where sat Craney, Watts, and that semi-military official known as the "contract doctor," expectant, possibly, of others coming, and told them of the "greasers'" doings, whereat Case, nervously, irritably pacing the floor, looked up in sudden interest and speedily plunged out into the darkness. Then Bentley had come, just at the time when the few packers and ranch folk were making a noise, and Case had reappeared, looking wilder, if anything, and declaring the greasers must have gone down to the old Sanchez place, Indian or no Indian. Then Bentley had felt his pulse and asked a lot of questions, and led him off into a corner for a little talk, and finally had prevailed on him to try to sleep in the vacant room at the "Shack," as Craney's own log-built cabin was called, and had led him away thither. He had never fairly gotten over the recent spree, said Craney. He would never explain what had induced him that Sunday afternoon to quit his old resort in the willows and go up to the officers' quarters, but go he had, for "Sudstown" had seen him, and had seen him later slinking back the longest way round to the store, keeping far from everybody, and looking badly shaken up. It was known, somehow, that he had been to the doctor's quarters, and, being half drunk, had got into Lieutenant Harris's room and there had made some noise and been ordered out. Rumor had it that there had been a scene between him and Lieutenant Willett, of which neither would speak, and the doctor had laid his commands on the attendant to know absolutely nothing about it--indeed, there was little he did know, save that there had been a disturbance. It was supposed at the store, and generally in the garrison, that Case had been drinking just enough to make him irresponsible, and in this condition he had ventured up to the post and made an ass of himself just when he was being trumpeted as a lion. Then, instead of having his spree out he had tried to taper, hence the highly nervous condition that had followed, which, instead of getting better, seemed getting worse. "I've fixed him," said Bentley, "provided he keeps his word," and then, bidding Craney good-night, had gone to garrison, and found the general perturbed over Turner's report and the story about Munoz. Together they had gone to the store again, the general and his medicine-man, to have some half-breed interpret the message of the feather, but by this time none was left. Together they had looked in on Case and found him drowsy and indifferent, but both the commander and his faithful ally distinctly heard his half-mumbled words as to 'Tonio's one object in life ere they came away, satisfied that Case would be of no further use for another night and day. Then Bentley had hurried to his other patient with the result we have already noted, and a little later the general went with him for still another visit, to soothe and reassure Harris, for the invalid officer was mad to be up and doing. There was something in the air. Later still a stupid three-handed cribbage game was going on when, after eleven o'clock, Willett came briskly in. Strong had about given him up and was going home in spite of an unsettled account in his favor, which Willett had proposed to play off. They were all tired and ready for bed, and were only up because Willett was to leave and should "square things" before leaving the post. The cribbage game stopped at sight of him. Craney went with him to the private desk in the inner office, whence in five minutes out he came, buoyant as before, declined to sit in again, laughingly said he'd take his revenge on the back trip later, called for a night-cap all round, bade everybody in the room a cordial good-night and good-by, and left with Strong at his heels. "By gad!" said Craney, "he may not play like a sport, but he pays like one, and a game one," and he locked a roll of treasury notes in his safe. Then he and Watts and the disappointed deputy doctor went off to bed, leaving "barkeep" to close up when the few loungers quit paying for drinks, and only in the common room was there further stir about the store. Arrived at the shack, as Craney declared in the morning, he had taken a candle and gone softly to the back room where he found Case in bed and either dozing or drowsy or drugged--at all events he cared not to speak. His hat, coat and trousers hung on a chair; his shoes were at the foot of the bed, his watch on the table by his side, his money was locked in the trader's safe. Some medicine and a spoon stood by the watch. There was no light in the room save that which Craney carried; the one window was blanketed; sufficient air came through the loopholes, and the window sash was down against the hound pups that would otherwise have had free entrance. Then Craney went to bed and almost immediately to sleep, and heard nothing until after one o'clock, when, with shocking news, men came banging at his double-locked and bolted door. Strong was one of the first to stir him, and Strong's face was white, as well it might be. As the sentries began calling midnight he had left Willett at the office, saying he must turn in for a few hours' rest. Willett, seemingly in excellent spirits, had been writing a few pages and addressing envelopes. "I'll follow in twenty minutes or so," said he, "for I, too, need a snooze. I'll be up as soon as I've finished a little business." Strong had gone almost immediately to his pillow and to sleep, and was roused by the corporal of the guard who had run in to call him with the news that Lieutenant Willett had been shot dead. At the moment of the shooting, so later said the guard, the waning moon, only a dull crescent, was up far enough above the eastward heights to throw a faint gleam over the valley. One of Turner's own men was on post at the south-east corner, and his yell for the corporal, instantly following the distant shot, was so excited and vehement that the infantry non-commissioned officer, who went at a run, was minded to rebuke him for raising such a row over a mere shooting scrape among the Mexican packers. "Packers, your granny!" said Number Six. "It's Lieutenant Willett that's shot, and I know it! He came down out of the office not twenty minutes ago and went straight out south for Craney's shack, and I'm betting he's done for." And so indeed it looked when they found him but few minutes later--the whole guard, save the relief on post, coming swift at the run to the corporal's cry, and the garrison turning out, thinking sure it was fire. Three hundred yards or so south and east of the shack they found him lying flat on his face, which seemed forced into the soil, senseless, and for the moment apparently dead. Even when they turned him over and dashed water into his face, and brushed away the sand, there was no sign of life, nor sign of shot wound. Not until the doctor came on the run, urged by breathless messenger, was the tiny bullet-hole found under the left armpit, and such blood as had escaped seemed absorbed by the underwear. Internal hemorrhage was feared as they unfastened his uniform and sought for further wound and found none. Craney bade them carry him to his own room, where there would be better light, and while some of them laid him on Craney's bed and others carefully scouted the surrounding willows for trace of the assassin, and others still went in and stirred up Case, sleeping heavily, stupidly, "like a hog," said an indignant few until told of the doctor's "dope." Then Bentley came and drove all but an attendant or two, and Strong and Craney, from the room, until the general arrived, his own face ashen, to ask what hope was left, got but a dubious headshake in reply, and then sat him down, buried his sorrowing white head in his hands, and began to upbraid himself: "It's all my fault--my doing," said he. "I see it all. I said the words that sent him!" And then to Bentley and Craney the veteran soldier told his story. He had had difficulty, as Bentley knew, in persuading Harris not to get up--not to attempt to find 'Tonio that night; to wait until day, when the Indian more easily might be reached. It was late when he left Harris, and was surprised to see lights at the office. There, all alone, was Willett, writing, and to Willett Archer told the message of the feather, and of Harris's eagerness to find 'Tonio at once. "Harris still holds that 'Tonio is utterly wronged, or at least utterly misunderstood," said he, "and that, Indian as he is, 'Tonio would not revenge himself on you as we supposed. 'Tonio knows he is suspected of the attempt to kill you, and yet wishes to come in and be tried. All he asks is fair play and trial before Crook himself. Then," continued Archer, "I asked Willett in so many words if it were true that he had struck 'Tonio with a gauntlet that night at Bennett's, and he said, reluctantly, it was--that 'Tonio had been insolent, insubordinate, that that was the way he had always dealt with such cases. Perhaps with men like 'Tonio it was all wrong, but he had never met Indians like 'Tonio before. I told him gravely that he had made a serious error, and that he should lose no time in getting word to 'Tonio that he realized this and desired to make amend. Willett said he would do it the very first time they met--that he knew how to bring 'Tonio in and would talk to him, man to man. I told him that it would be well to do this before quitting the valley, on his way out in the morning, perhaps. But, my God!" continued poor Archer, as he glanced at the senseless form over which physician and attendants were still working, "I never dreamed of his going out to-night. He said he should signal for a talk at the moment of starting with his escort, and so, probably, meet 'Tonio near the Peak." A solemn little gathering was this at the shack, while up at the quarters two sorrow-stricken women, Mrs. Archer and Mrs. Stannard, were striving to soothe and still poor Lilian, to whom the truth had had to be told. All the officers were up and astir, some of them conferring with their gray-faced commandant at the doorway, others heading the search over among the willows and down the stream. A strange fact had developed. Only one shot had been heard, only one shot hole had been discovered (and the probe indicated that the bullet, having struck a rib, had been deflected downward, where it was not yet located), but while this had produced shock and, possibly, temporary unconsciousness, it was another blow, one with a blunt instrument, probably more than one, upon the back of the head, that resulted in this prolonged stupor. Not once had Willett regained consciousness, nor, said Bentley, was it likely that he would. Bentley feared concussion of the brain. Turner, a capital trailer, with some of the best of his men, was working down stream, and all who knew Turner felt that no trace would be bunglingly trampled out. The few pathways along the west bank, through the willows, showed recent tracks on only one, where the Mexicans and half-breeds had scurried away toward the old Sanchez place. Already a strong party had been sent thither in search, but meantime Turner was looking, as he frankly said, "for 'Tonio's tracks about the ford," for within forty paces of the lower ford poor Willett was found, and in the minds of every man and woman who could hold a listener that night no other explanation was either sought or expected. The fact that both shores of the stream were stony above and below the spot--that it would be easy for an Indian to conceal them, would account for it if their footprints were lacking, but lacking they were not. In a dozen places about the ford and down the east bank, in a dozen places around the spot where lay the stricken officer, the earliest comers had seen and marked and protected against obliteration print after print of the moccasins of the Apache-Mohaves--'Tonio's own band. This in itself was wellnigh proof positive, but more was to come. Willett's trail was easily found and followed. Straight and swift he had gone across the flats from the post of Number Six, until within a hundred yards of the store, when, attracted possibly by the bleary lights still remaining in the barroom, he had veered that way until his footprints were merged with dozens of others in the path. Presently they were found again, passing between the store and the shack, around in rear of the low log building, where at that time, presumably, Craney, Watts and Case were asleep in their respective rooms. It seemed as though he had paused and moved about a little in rear of the shack as though in search of some one, and then had gone straight out beyond, heading for the nearest clump of willows south of the ford, and there it was found that the moccasin print overlaid that of the San Francisco boot and followed it up stream to where the torn and trampled sands, close to the brink, told of furious struggle. Moreover, this one moccasin print was wet and came over the stones and up the bank just about where Willett had reached it, and paused a moment or two before turning away. At this point the stream babbled over rocky shallows, and it was possible to cross by springing from rock to rock without wetting a sole, but whoever had crossed here had been hurried and incautious. One foot had missed, slipped or trailed, and its covering was soaking wet as it followed on up the bank. It was still wet enough to leave, as the lantern determined, a perceptible trace on the broad stepping-stones just below the placid pool at the ford, where the shores were low and sandy again--so wet, in fact, that the stain toward the opposite bank and on the farthermost stone became a splash so dark that the foremost sergeant, swinging his lantern aloft, sung out to his follower, "Watch out! It's blood!" and blood it proved to be--there and thereafter, down the opposite bank. Yet not a drop was seen on the sands where Willett fell. Then his assailants had not escaped unscathed. Unarmed as he was, the officer had made a desperate fight for life. "Now's the time to nab him!" said Turner, as he carried the report to Archer. "'Tonio has managed to elude Malloy's party, probably by leading them off on a false scent, but now we have blood to follow. Let me send out a platoon, mounted, and we may nail the gang before sunrise." It was then short of two o'clock, and while busy trailers followed on with their lanterns down the eastward bank, and were presently seen flitting like fireflies far south among the willows, Turner himself, with a score of his men, hastened back to quarters. There was saddling in hot haste, yet with the precision of long practice. By half past two all sight or sound of the trailers and the pursuing horsemen was lost in the distance, and a corporal, trotting back from the Sanchez place, reported that Munoz and some of his fellows had joined in the search, and already with important result. Captain Turner sent him back with his compliments to the commanding officer. In the presence of Bonner, Bucketts and Strong, the general took the package, something heavy, bundled in the red silk handkerchief Turner had torn from his own brawny throat. A scrap of paper went fluttering to the ground, which the adjutant quickly recovered and handed to his chief, who read aloud in the dim candle light the words: "It might be well to keep this from Harris, at least to-night." Looking a trifle dazed, Archer unrolled the silken folds, and laid on the office table the handsome, silver-mounted Colt revolver of the old calibre 44 model Willett had lost that Sunday night of his perilous adventure up the valley. There it was, inscription and all, every visible chamber still loaded, its murderous leaden bullet showing in the candle light. Archer slowly drew back the hammer. The cylinder slowly revolved. The barrel-chamber swung as slowly into view, black, powder-stained, and--empty. One shot, then, had been fired and very recently. Who could have had it all this time but 'Tonio? Who else could have fired it? _ |
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