Hondo. Part 15

"Look!" Johnny pointed. "There's some arrowweed!"

Chapter Eighteen.

The shock of seeing a man killed and being forced to count coup upon his body was a severe test for Johnny, yet Hondo noticed that he bounced back the next morning. He was a little more quiet, ready to remain at home for a day, but apparently no worse off for his experience. Hondo hesitated, then decided to tell Angie nothing about it for the time being. But she guessed something had happened, and finally he told her.

"Without the headband of Vittoro," Hondo told her, "we might have had a bad time of it."

"Or if you had not killed that man."

That silenced him. The killing of another man was very much in his thoughts. It seemed somehow wrong to have killed a woman's husband and to be here with her, not to have explained. Yet no matter how many times he tried to tell her, the words of explanation would not come. She sensed he was worried about something, and it bothered her.

He had returned to the house to replace his coffee cup and left her sitting beside the stream. Johnny was asleep. The tintype was on a shelf above his head. Hondo Lane stood and studied it, gnawing at his lip and thinking.

There was nothing else he could have done. It was a treacherous thing Lowe had attempted, and the man had been no good, not any way you looked at him. Still, he had to explain. He had to tell Angie, and he would tell her now.

It was late evening, not yet dark. The cottonwoods were at their endless whispering and the stream seemed unusually noisy tonight. Not loud, but with no other sound it was more obvious.

All day he had worked around the ranch, finding the little things to do that a handy man with tools can find on any such place. He had worked, always conscious of the woman up there at the house. This was as it should be ... a man and a woman working toward something, for something. Not apart, but a team.

Leaving the house now, he walked across the yard toward where she sat alone by the stream. She turned to look up at him. In repose her face had a quality of true beauty that disturbed him. He knew she liked him, probably more ... But why should she? To him she was a woman, but a rare and wonderful thing, too.

"Angie, I've got something to tell you, and it's not gonna be easy."

"Then don't tell me yet." She lifted her face to the moon. The cottonwood leaves were like tiny silver mirrors, catching the light. "Just look. How odd the moon looks in flu's quarter! When I was a child my mother used to tell me it was a teeter-totter. You know, the tilted plank a child plays on. Do the Apaches have a name for it?"

"Bermaga, the planting moon ... like they call the first rain the planting rain. Won't plant their corn until the moon's like that."

"You liked living with the Apaches, didn't you?"

He did not reply. The stream rustled against the banks, chuckled around the rocks as water does, and shimmered in the moonlight farther down. A horse stomped and blew in the corral.

"Don't have locks."

"I don't believe I understand."

"White man locks his cabin. No way to lock a wickiup. But you can be gone a whole season and your gear will still be there. n.o.body steals. The old women with no men to provide for them ... the chiefs drop half their kill at the old women's lodge before they take the rest home to feed their women and kids. Nothing selfish about an Apache. Yeah, I liked living with them."

She liked listening to his voice. It was slow, somehow restful, and underlying his words there was understanding, compa.s.sion. There was none of this you-get-along-on-your-own-or-die feeling. She had seen too much of that The more people had the more they felt that way. But this man had known loneliness and hardship. "I think I would like that part of it, too. The way you speak of it."

"I know you would."

She tried to see his face in the deepening shadows, but outlines were gone, and she could only see where he was, not details or expression.

"Why did you decide that?"

Hondo shifted his boots searching for the right words. "Because you're a warm woman. Because you can sit and watch a little boy doing something like drawing in the mud at the creek bank and the corners of your mouth wrinkle up and a man can see that what you're looking at makes you happy Your hands are nice and clean when you put cooked meat down in front of a man, and your face is happy while he eats it."

Angie was surprised. She had not realized he had noticed these things She felt a sudden desire to reach out in the darkness and touch him. Instead she said, "You notice everything. And thank you. Thank you very much."

A faint, far-off sound caught at his attention. He listened. There was nothing more.

She was close to him now. It was dark. He listened a moment longer.

"Angie, I've got to tell you somethin'. I'm not much for lyin'--or for livin' a lie. Last time I was here, before Vittoro brought me..."

"Yes?"

"Rode some dispatch after that. Then there was some trouble. Killed a man." The sound came again then, closer. He reached out swiftly and drew her off the rock. His gun was in his hand. "There's someone in the willows."

"Do not shoot, white man." It was Vittoro's voice. He stepped from the trees. "Small Warrior has a knife. He sleeps with it."

"You were in the house?" Angie asked.

"Yes."

"Tell your brave behind us," Hondo said, "not to walk in the water. I like to killed him a few minutes ago."

Vittoro chuckled, then he said loudly, "Koori, you are very clumsy. Go to the horses."

"I almost threw a shot at him."

"He is very young. He will learn."

"If he lives."

"You are Apache." Vittoro paused a minute after the compliment, men turned to speak to Angie.

"A wickiup is an empty place without sons. Mine is an empty wickiup. I treasure Small Warrior. Now hear me! The pony soldiers are near. Soon will be fought a remembered fight. They will come here first. You will not go with them, white man."

"I will not go with them."

"The leader of the pony soldiers will question you. You will say you have seen the Apaches trailing to the west."

"This I will not do."

"You will not?"

"I will not."

There was a long moment of silence while the leaves rustled. Somewhere a fish jumped.

"You have a good man," Vittoro said at last to Angie. "Treasure him."

"I do!"

Vittoro was gone in the darkness. They stared after him, eyes straining in the darkness, and then her arms were around him, her head against his chest An arm around her shoulders, he listened. "They're mounting up now."

"I don't hear a thing."

"Going off now. About eight, I'd say. Maybe nine."

She could hear nothing. The night was silent to her ... and then she did hear something.

"There's something in those trees."

"Squirrel. Talking woke him and he's put out. There are nine Indians."

She drew back from him, looking up. His face was vaguely visible now, for the stars were bright and the moon was low over the trees.

"I love you."

She said the words suddenly, surprising even herself. Her hand went to her mouth. "I didn't mean to say that ... but I did mean it. I did. I know it's an unseemly thing--my husband so shortly dead and ..."

"I don't guess people's hearts got anything to do with calendars."

He kissed her gently, holding her close, and for a moment they were silent.

"You were wonderful, refusing to lie for Vittoro."

"Figure he was testing me. Indians hate a lie. I got to feel the same way. But I guess there's sometimes when a man has got to lie, if it makes it easier for someone."

"I feel strange ... new. Well, like music. I am being silly, aren't I?"

"No. The Apache's have a word ... Like I said, I can't explain it. As close as I can come is 'happy breathing.'"

"Kiss me again."

Their lips met in the darkness, clung, and then she leaned against him and for a long time they did not talk. It was growing cooler. The moon was down now, below the line of hills. Somewhere a coyote sent his lonely cry at the wide sky. An owl called.

"Don't think I'm crazy, but tonight I just couldn't bear to sleep under a roof with the moon and all. I'll go get some blankets."

"I'll get them if you want."

"No, I want to. A squaw would. I want to feel like a squaw woman. Feels good. Real good."

She moved away into the darkness and he listened to the water over the stones. Behind him the squirrel chattered.

Hondo sat up and looked around. "Squirrel, if you bother me some more, I'll eat you in a stew tomorrow."

The squirrel chattered inquiringly, and then there was silence. The water rustled, and at the house a door closed and then there were footfalls. Hondo Lane got up, moving back nearer the trees. "Better here," he said when she was close. "Leaves under the trees. Anybody comes, we'll see them first."

She handed him the blankets and the ground sheet and he shook them out, then put them down under the trees. Angie got down on her knees and spread the ground sheets over the leaves, then the blankets.

"You never forget, do you? I mean about seeing things first."

"Hope I never."

He was oddly uncomfortable, hesitant. "Good way to lose your hair, not noticing things."

He sat down and pulled off his boots. The cottonwoods whispered more softly. The squirrel gave one short, inquiring chatter, then was silent.

The lone coyote spoke to the sky and the stream rustled busily about the stones. A bit of mud fell into the stream with a faint plop.

It was night, and there was no sound. Or anyway, not very much.

Chapter Nineteen.

Hondo Lane turned from tightening the wheels of Angie Lowe's wagon to watch the column of cavalry file into the basin and past the b.u.t.te. It was a sight to behold. Glittering, yes, but more than that, for these were part of the force that Lord Wolseley, then commander in chief of the British army, had declared was the finest fighting force in the world--and they looked it.

And, Hondo reflected as he stood beside Angie and Johnny, they had better be!

When the men were dismounted outside the ranch yard, the officer in command and the scout rode over to Hondo and Angie. The lieutenant dismounted, and behind him Buffalo swung down.

The lieutenant was impeccably garbed. His uniform was perfect in tailoring and perfect in military requirements. He walked to a position in front of Hondo and stopped, shifting his gloves. Heels together, he bowed, "Madam and sir, may I present myself? Lieutenant McKay, Squadron D, Sixth Cavalry."

Behind him, Buffalo grinned at Lane. "Hi, Hondo, you old cabin-robber! Lieutenant, this is Hondo Lane. He's scouted some and rode dispatch for the cavalry. I don't know this here lady."

"Mrs. Lowe ... Lieutenant." Hondo grinned at Baker. "Hi, Buff."

"You people are lucky," Lieutenant McKay a.s.sured them. "Obviously Vittoro and his renegades just happened not to find this hidden valley."

"Vittoro's been here," Hondo said. "Lots."

"And you live? One lone man stood off Vittoro?"

"No lone man stands off Vittoro. Not for long, anyway. He lets us live here."

"He's our friend," Angie said.

"Friend? Vittoro?" Lieutenant McKay was astonished. "Ma'am, I dislike saying such a gruesome thing in a lady's presence, but there are almost a thousand dead settlers on both sides of the border, scalped by this cowardly criminal."

Hondo lifted an eyebrow. "Vittoro may be a criminal by the book. I don't know. But if he's a coward it never showed up yet."

"Amen!" Buffalo said.

"My men will bivouac here for the night," McKay said, then he turned. "I must disagree with you, Mr. Lane. He has run before us for two hundred miles. My scouts and outriders report his band before us every day, yet each time we start to come to grips to fight an engagement, he runs."