Chapter 8. Cactus Carmena

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_ CHAPTER VIII. CACTUS CARMENA

Immediately after the armistice Carmena and Elsie went down to attend the goats and chickens that were penned in small enclosures a short distance up-valley from the cliff house. The girls also gathered a supply of fresh vegetables from a nearby kitchen garden. At dusk the rope ladder was hauled up.

In the morning Carmena took Lennon to see the valley. She had roped a pair of ponies near the garden enclosure. Though the rifles were carried, no occasion arose that called for use of the weapons. The Apaches in charge of the stock merely grunted in response to Carmena's friendly greeting and stared stolidly as she and Lennon rode by.

All the other Indians seemed to have left the valley. But Carmena said that guards were always posted in the two main exits. Escape up Devil's Chute with a horse was impossible.

Beyond the narrow mouth of the Chute cañon the two skirted along the edge of the flourishing cornfields and the hay pastures of the lower valley. All the way they followed an irrigation canal of the ancient cliff dwellers that had been restored to use. It curved and twisted along the higher ground under the towering cliff walls.

At the foot of the Hole the valley narrowed, funnel-like, into a rather wide box cañon. The cañon bed offered a broad level runway down which a horse could have sprinted at top speed.

Carmena caught the glance of pleased surprise that Lennon fixed upon a heavy farm wagon that stood inside the mouth of the cañon.

"It's not so easy as you think," she said. "There's a thirty-foot cliff about a mile down. Nothing has ever come in or gone out that way except by rope, and the windlass is always guarded. Hell Cañon is no easier. It forks, and the forks both fork twice, and there's only one branch you can get out through. We might be able to make it, either route. But there's Dad and Elsie."

"You spoke of bringing about a difference between Cochise and Slade," said Lennon. "What is your plan?"

"It all depends. I have several ideas. One is to offer Slade a share in your copper-mine deal. But we'll hold that back. He knows that matters must soon come to a show-down with the bunch. Cochise has been getting harder to hold for the past three years. You know, he claims that Elsie belongs to him."

Lennon stared in amazement.

"What! your sister--that little pink and white blossom?"

"But she's not really my sister. That's the pinch. Cochise brought her with him when he first came to the Hole, two years before Slade. He claimed he had found her over beyond Triple Butte. She was crazed from thirst--never has been able to remember what had happened or anything about her life before she came here."

"My word! Has no inquiry ever been made for her? Did you not advertise? What were her clothes like?"

"Rags and tatters. No one came. Nobody outside knows there is such a place as Dead Hole, except by vague report. Dad and I just happened to stumble into it. About advertising Elsie, we tried that some. There was no answer. We think she belonged to a stray family, out prospecting. The others must have died of thirst."

"Or were murdered by Cochise," put in Lennon.

Carmena's eyes narrowed.

"Maybe--maybe not. It was just after he jumped the Reservation. But he was only a sulky schoolboy then, playing hookey. Besides, he had not harmed the child. He worked for Dad and was right decent, till he got in with Slade and the--business started."

Lennon was not to be diverted to another subject. The mystery of Elsie's parentage intrigued him. With the realization that the two girls were not of blood kin, Lennon found himself dwelling upon the differences between them. Elsie, cleared of any kinship to Farley, at once became in his thoughts a being of finer nature than her foster-sister.

In contrast, Carmena now seemed to show distinctly the taint of Farley's blood. Her frank manner took on the tinge of boldness. Her vigour and strength now seemed mannish, if not coarse.

Might not what he had taken for high spirit and courage be no more than callous hardihood? Was there not a certain garishness about her rich colouring? And was all the brown of her skin on the outside? Both her hair and eyes were dark, and there was her Spanish name--Carmena. Was she not, in part, of Mexican blood?

Some hint of Lennon's thoughts may have shown in his expression. Otherwise the girl's next remark was pure coincidence:

"Ever since Slade added tizwin to the business, I've had to be pretty much the man of the family. He persuaded us that Dad would die without a lot of stimulant. That's how he got hold of Dad. Once the habit was fixed, I couldn't break Dad of it. With you here, I'm hoping he may remember his old grit and pride, and brace up."

"But about your--foster-sister," said Lennon.

"Isn't she just too sweet for anything!" broke in Carmena. "I've tried to be the cactus fence to guard her against the trampling beasts."

"Such as this Cochise. You say he claims her?"

"For the last three years. Indian girls marry young. He'd have kicked a way through the cactus fence before this, if it hadn't been for Slade. You know, Slade has his own bunch of Navaho punchers. So, you see, Cochise has to----"

Carmena stopped to point across the upper end of the valley.

"Talk of the devil----" she exclaimed.

Over below the cliff house Lennon saw a small group of mounted men waiting for the basket that was being lowered to them on the hoist rope.

"If it's only Elsie's pies; if only they haven't bluffed Dad into sending down a jug of tizwin!" murmured Carmena.

"We've been outplayed. We can't get back," said Lennon. "Shall I drive them off again with my rifle?"

"No. Cochise agreed to wait for Slade. I'm going to make him stick to it. We'll ride on around. Maybe they'll not wait."

The two had loped along under the precipices on the northwest side of the valley and were already near Hell Cañon, at the upper end. The mouth of the cañon belied its name. The bed, though rocky, was neither steep nor broken. Along the ledges of the cliff foot a canal had been chiseled in the solid rock by the cliff-dwellers. A small stream was flowing through it, down around the left corner of the cañon mouth.

Carmena noticed the look of professional interest that Lennon fixed upon the ancient water way.

"You're an engineer," she said. "Pretty good piece of irrigation work for those old mummies, isn't it? All we had to do was rebuild the intake dam and clean out the ditch. Here's the tank."

The ponies slowed to a walk up the side of an enormous natural pothole, which the ancient builders had converted into a storage reservoir by means of an earthen dam.

Carmena jumped her pony across the intake canal and loped ahead toward the cliff house. Lennon was too intent upon overtaking her to more than glance at the stand of rough-made beehives, the kitchen garden, and the goat and chicken sheds, past which his pony galloped.

Carmena reined in to jerk her thumb at a tumbledown brush hut.

"Our home, till Slade got up the cliff."

"How?"

"Piecing ladders together, one a-top the other. There are our callers; and it's pie, thank goodness. Keep your gun down. Shake hands, if they offer; but let me do the talking."

"If you wish."

"I do. The one all in white man's clothes is Cochise. Next him, with the Mex sombrero, is Pete. He's one of Slade's Navahos. He stands in with Cochise, and I stand in with him. Sabe?"

"You mean he's your man--tips you off--all that?"

"Yes. I think we'll be able to count on him later, when it comes to the show-down. Don't forget now: That run 'cross the Basin never happened. We're all heap good friends and pards."

Lennon nodded. He did not fancy the situation, but he was willing for the time being to trust to his companion's lead. Side by side they rode up and stopped before the seven Indians. Lennon looked them over with the cool direct gaze of the dominant white man.

Five of them were replicas of the herdsmen down the valley. Pete the Navaho--he of the Mexican sombrero--also wore Mexican leg-buttoned breeches and a red cotton shirt, the tails of which hung outside. He looked to be the youngest of the group. He and Cochise were the only ones who did not avoid Lennon's eye.

Cochise the Apache leader proved a surprise to Lennon. He was as young as the white man and far from ugly. Though his head, under his old cowboy hat, was as square and massive as the cloth-bound heads of the other Apaches, and his shoulders were still broader, his face might have belonged to a Sicilian or Andalusian aristocrat--swarthy, bold-featured, and handsome.

Carmena raised her voice in cheerful greeting: "How, boys!--Bueno amigo, Pete. Howdy, Cochise. Fine day. Hope the pie was good. Shake with Jack, our new partner."

The Apache leader wiped the pie juice from his short, small hands upon his leather chaps, and replied with a show of geniality:

"Howdy. Fine day. Glad to meet new pard. Shake."

Lennon offered his left hand. His bridle reins and rifle were loosely held in his bandaged right. Carmena was thrusting her rifle into its saddle-sheath. Instead of clasping hands, palm to palm, Cochise clutched Lennon's wrist in a grip that almost crushed the bones. His other hand closed on the hilt of a knife.

"Sit still, Jack," murmured Carmena.

The warning was needless. Lennon had not stirred in his saddle or made the slightest attempt to struggle.

"Who's the liar now, Cochise?" reproached Carmena. "You said you'd wait till Slade came."

"I catch your pard. I keep him till Slade come. Then I have my fun. You swap my woman for him, I let him go now."

The girl smiled.

"Maybe you'll let him go anyway, amigo. I've got you covered, and I figure the first bullet will go through that pie you just ate."

The glittering black eyes of the Apache shot a sidelong glance down toward the girl's right hand. It had slipped into a pocket in the fold of her divided skirt. Her smile widened.

"Think it over," she advised. "What happens to us won't be any fun to you after you've got yours."

The steel-sinewed fingers that were clutched about Lennon's wrist opened.

"All dam' good joke--arm handshake," the Apache sought to explain away his treacherous attempt. "Make sure you got nerve. Sabe? Guess I got to go. Good-bye."

"Oh, do stay and visit a bit longer," Carmena smilingly urged him. "We can talk a while with you and Pete. But the others may as well be starting, don't you think?"

Something in her pocket thrust up the fold of her skirt. Cochise muttered a word or two that sent the other Apaches loping off down the valley. When they were some distance away, Carmena nodded almost gaily:

"Well, boys, I suppose the pie is all gone. So, if you feel you have to go, too.... Good-bye, Pete. Maybe you know, Cochise, it's sometimes a sign of bad luck to look back or drop off your horse."

The two Indians wheeled their ponies and loped after the others.

Cochise did not look back. _

Read next: Chapter 9. The Man Who Was

Read previous: Chapter 7. Craft And Cruelty

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