Flynn watched him, surprised. He had not admitted it, but now he realized that he had supposed Bowers dead.
The cavalryman staggered out from the building suddenly, off balance, and Flynn saw the two Apaches then. One of them pushed Bowers again, staying close behind him, urging him on until they reached the middle of the square and stopped next to the statue. The other Apache followed and now the three of them looked up at the livery stable first, then to the buildings on either side. The Apache behind Bowers jabbed him with his carbine barrel.
Moving his head slowly along the building fronts, Bowers yelled out, "They want me to say something!"
You don't have to say it, Flynn thought. He watched one of the Apaches point the carbine at Bowers' head and pull back the hammer. Give up, or they'll kill him. That doesn't need words. But how do they know I'm still here? And that I'm alone? He thought of their horses then, picketed on the hill. They found the horses. They move fast and they're very thorough, and they know a man wouldn't run off without his horse. Not in this country.
"Flynn…don't come out!"
He moved from the opening back to the ladder and climbed down it wearily. He walked out the wide front door of the stable toward the three figures at the statue. Beyond them, now, he saw two other Apaches standing in the shadow of a wooden awning. The square was dead-still.
The second Apache stepped forward to meet him and he handed the carbine to him, then reached into his coat and drew the pistol and handed this to him.
He said to Bowers, "Well, we tried. What happened?" He saw the bruised cheekbone and the swelling above his right eye.
"I walked into the house where they were butchering a steer," Bowers said. "They were on me before I knew it."
"Red, don't back away from them. Stay calm and we'll get out of this."
Bowers looked at him quickly. It was the first time he had been called that since before the Point. And it had come unexpectedly from Flynn.
The guide looked at the Apache next to him. He said roughly, in Spanish, "What are you called?"
The Apache eyed him narrowly. "Matagente." Then he said in hesitant, word-spaced Spanish, "I do not know you."
"Nor I, you," Flynn said. "But I know you are Mimbreno-and at this time very far from the land of the Warm Springs. But you will come to know us very well. At San Carlos you will see us often."
Matagente's expression did not change as he listened. Now he said, "San Carlos is not for the Warm Springs Apache."
"This is something which ones above us have ordered," Flynn said. "There is no profit in talking about it with you. Where is Soldado? Our words are for him."
"You will see him," Matagente said. He motioned with the carbine, saying no more, directing them toward the house where the others stood. They had carried the dead Apache from the street and now he was under the ramada near the doorway. Matagente looked at him as he prodded the two men into the house, but still he said nothing.
They sat on the packed-dirt floor with their legs crossed and their backs to the wall and waited. For what, they did not know, wondering why they were not taken to the Apaches' rancheria.
Matagente brought them meat, then sat near the doorway with one of the Springfields across his lap. His hand moved over the smooth stock idly. Before this he had used a Burnside.54 which needed percussion caps and powder, and often it misfired.
When they had eaten the meat, Flynn said, "Take us to Soldado now."
"You will see him," Matagente said, and again lapsed into silence. This new gun was in his mind-this pesh-e-gar-and he was thinking how good it would be to fire it.
Through the doorway Flynn could see the other Apaches standing in front of the house, talking to each other in low tones he could not hear. Then he saw them look up. One of them moved off and the others watched after him. In a moment he was back and he called in to Matagente, in the Mimbreno dialect. "They are here."
Matagente rose and moved to the doorway as mounted Apaches suddenly appeared in front of the house. These dismounted as others continued to enter the square from the side street, walking their ponies. The sound of this came to Flynn, but he could see nothing until Matagente stepped back from the doorway. He saw the Apaches now, at least twenty, probably more, milling in front of the house, then his view was blocked again as a figure moved into the doorway.
Matagente said, "Now you see Soldado. Tell him your story, American."
Bowers looked at him with open surprise, and now wondered why he had expected this Apache to look different than any other, though he was old for an Apache still active. Wrinkled face and eyes half closed beneath the bright red headband. And skinny-filthy clothes, ill-fitting to make him seem smaller. A buttonless cavalry jacket, a bandoleer crossing his chest holding the jacket only partly closed, and cotton trousers stuffed into curl-toed moccasins that reached to his knees where they folded and tied. He rested one hand on the butt of a cap-and-ball dragoon pistol in his waistband. But the hand only rested there; it was not a threat.
Flynn watched his face as he sat down in front of them crossing his legs. The cavalry guide had expected nothing. A man is some things and he is not others. A Mimbre Apache is not a fashion plate. He is ragged and dirty and has the odor of an unwashed dog and at night in his rancheria drinks tizwin until it puts him to sleep or sends him after a woman. He has many faults-by white standards. But he is a guerrilla fighter, and in his own element he is unbeatable. That's the thing to remember, Flynn thought. Don't underestimate him because he smells. He isn't chief because his dad was. And a broncho chief doesn't get to be as old as he is on his good looks.
He said now, in Spanish, "Do you speak English?"
The Apache shook his head.
"Lieutenant, you can take that for what it's worth. He might speak it better than we do." Then to Soldado he said, "We did not come here to fight your men. The fight could not be avoided."
"But one of them is dead," Soldado said.
"I did not wish him to die the way he did, but it could not be helped. It is not the way a Mimbreno should die."
The old chief looked at him intently. "Who of us have you known?"
"I have known Victorio and Chee and Old Nana."
"What are you called?"
"David Flin." He pronounced the name slowly.
"I have not heard of you."
"This country is wide."
The Apache said quietly, "Yet you would force us to live in one small corner of it."
"What I do," Flynn said, "is not entirely of my mind."
"Then perhaps you are a fool."
"It is only foolish when you fight against what is bound to happen," Flynn said. "I see the days of the Mimbreno numbered…as well as the Chiricahua, Coyotero, Jicarilla and the Mescalero. The Tonto and Mojave have already been given their own land."
"And who is this that gives land which he does not own?" the Apache asked.
Damn him, Flynn thought. He said, "The chief of the Americans, who owns it because of his power. Let me tell you something, old man, for your wisdom to absorb: your days remaining are few. If you give yourself up now, you will be given good land which still abounds in those things to keep you alive. And you will be under the protection of our government."
Soldado said seriously, "And if I were to find my woman lying with someone else and I cut off her nose, what would happen to me?"
"You would be taken before the agent," Flynn said, feeling foolish saying the words.
"For what reason?"
"For your offense."
"And when our women see that they can lie with any man they wish and only the husband is punished if he objects, what will your government do then?"
"Your women are your own problem," Flynn said.
"Man, we have many problems which we would keep our own."
Flynn shook his head wearily. What a sly old bastard, he thought. He makes you sound like a damn fool. Maybe you can't be a big brother. Maybe the only kind of respect they know is a kick in the face. He intimated so just now with that about the women. Only you're not in a very good spot to do any kicking. All you can do now is bluff-and if it doesn't work, which it probably won't, you haven't lost anything.