Before the lad was sent to bed he sat at the knee of the grim chieftain and the man stroked the boy's head. "You will be a brave in no time, Shoz-Dijiji," he said. "You will be a warrior and a great one. Then you can go forth and spread terror among the pindah lickoyee, slaying them where you find them."
"You hate the white-eyes," said Shoz-Dijiji. "They are men like we; they have arms and legs, as do we, and they walk and talk. Why do they fight us? Why do we hate them?"
"Many years ago they came into our country and we treated them well," replied Go-yat-thlay. "There were bad men among them, but also there are bad men among the Apaches. Not all men are good. If we killed their bad men then they killed us. If some of our bad men killed some of them they tried to punish all of us, not seeking out just the bad men among us who had made the trouble; they killed us all, men, women and children, where they found us. They hunted us as they would wild beasts.
"They took away our lands that Usen gave us. We were told that we could not hunt where our fathers had hunted since the beginning of the world; where we had always hunted. But they hunted there, where they would. They made treaties with us and broke them. The white-eyed men do not keep their promises and they are very treacherous. I will tell you now of just a single instance that you may not forget the perfidy of the white man and that you may hate him the more. This happened many years ago, while Mangas Colorado was still living.
"Some of the chiefs of the white soldiers invited us to a council at Apache Pass. Mangas Colorado, with many others, went, believing in the good intentions of the white chiefs. Just before noon they were all invited into a tent where they were told that they would be given food, but instead they were set upon by the white soldiers. Mangas Colorado drew his knife and cut his way through the side of the tent, as did several other warriors, but many were killed and captured.
"Among the Be-don-ko-hes killed then were San-za, Kia-de-ta-he, Ni-yo-ka-he and Go-pi. Remember these names and when you see a white man think of them and revenge them."
It was another day. The squaws brewed tizwin. In a group sat the warriors and the chiefs. Go-yat-thlay was still boasting about the exploit of his little Shoz-Dijiji.
"He will make a great warrior," said he to Cochise, hereditary chief of the Cho-kon-en and war chief of all the Apaches. "I knew it from the first, for when he was taken from the wagon of his people he did not cry, although Juh dragged him out by one leg and held him with his head down. He did not cry then; he has never cried since."
"He is the child of the white man," growled Juh. "He should have been killed."
"He looked like one of us, like a Shis-Inday," replied Go-yat-thlay. "Long time after I learned at the agency, when we had come back from Sonora, that his mother was a white woman."
"You know it now," said Juh.
A terrible expression crossed the cruel face of Go-yat-thlay. He leaped to his feet, whipping out his knife as he arose. "You talk much, Juh, of killing Shoz-Dijiji," he said in a low voice. "Ten times have the rains come since first you would have killed him and you are still talking about it. Now you may kill him; but first you must kill Go-yat-thlay!"
Juh stepped back, scowling. "I do not wish to kill Shoz-Dijiji," he said.
"Then keep still. You talk too much--like an old woman. You are not Naliza; when Naliza talks he says something." Go-yat-thlay slipped his knife into his belt and squatted again upon his heels. With silver tweezers he plucked the hairs from about his mouth. Cochise and Naliza laughed, but Juh sat there frowning. Juh that terrible man who was already coming to be known as "the butcher."
Shoz-Dijiji, from the interior of his father's hut, heard this talk among his elders and when Go-yat-thlay sprang to his feet and Shoz-Dijiji thought that blood would be spilled he stepped from the doorway, in his hands a mesquite bow and a quartz-tipped arrow. His straight, black hair hung to his shoulders, his brown hide was sun-tanned to a shade even deeper than many of his full-blood Apache fellows. The trained muscles of his boyish face gave no hint of what emotions surged within him as he looked straight into Juh's eyes.
"You lie, Juh," he said; "I am not a white-eyes. I am the son of Go-yat-thlay. Say that I am not a white, Juh!" and he raised his arrow to a level with the warrior's breast.
"Say that he is not white or Shoz-Dijiji will kill you!"
Cochise and Naliza and Go-yat-thlay, grinning, looked at Juh and then back at Shoz-Dijiji. They saw the boy bend the bow and then Cochise interfered.
"Enough!" he said. "Go back to the women and the children, where you belong."
The boy lowered his weapon. "Cochise is chief," he said. "Shoz-Dijiji obeys his chief. But Shoz-Dijiji has spoken; some day he will be a warrior and then he will kill Juh." He turned and walked away.
"Do not again tell him that he is white," said Cochise to Juh. "Some day soon he will be a warrior and if he thinks that he is white it will make his heart like water against the enemies of our people."
Shoz-Dijiji did not return to the women and children. His heart was in no mood for play nor for any of the softer things of life. Instead he walked alone out of the camp and up a gaunt, parched canyon. He moved as noiselessly as his own shadow. His eyes, his ears, his nostrils were keenly alert, as they ever were, for Shoz-Dijiji was playing a game that he always played even when he seemed to be intent upon other things--he was hunting the white soldiers. Sometimes, with the other boys, he played that they were raiding a Mexican rancheria, but this sport afforded him no such thrill as did the stalking of the armed men who were always hunting his people.
He had seen the frightened peons huddled in their huts, or futilely running to escape the savage, painted warriors who set upon them with the fury of demons; he had seen the women and children shot, or stabbed, or led to death with the men; he had seen all--without any answering qualm of pity; but it had not thrilled him as had the skirmishes the soldiers of Mexico and the United--ah, there was something worthy the mettle of a great warrior!
From infancy he had listened to the stories of the deeds of the warriors of his people. He had hung breathless upon the exploits of Victorio, of Mangas Colorado, of Cochise. For over three hundred years his people had been at war with the whites; their lands had been stolen, their warriors, their women and their children had been ruthlessly murdered; they had been treated with treachery; they had been betrayed by false promises.
Shoz-Dijiji had been taught to look upon the white man not only as a deadly enemy, but as a coward and a liar; even as a traitor to his fellow whites, for it was not unknown to this little Apache boy that there were many white men who made a living selling rifles and ammunition to the Indians while their own troops were in the field against them. It was no wonder Shoz-Dijiji held the whites in contempt, or that to be called white was the bitterest insult that could be placed upon him.
Today, as he moved silently up the sun-scorched canyon he was thinking of these things and listening, listening, always listening. Perhaps he would hear the distant thud of iron-shod hoofs, the clank of a saber, and be the first to warn his people of the approaching enemy. He knew that there were scouts far afield--eagled-eyed men, past whom not even klij-litzogue, the yellow snake, could glide unseen; yet he loved to dream, for he was a boy.
The dreaming that Shoz-Dijiji practiced did not dull his senses; on the contrary it was thus that he made them more alert, for he lived his dreams, rehearsing always the part of the great warrior that he hoped some day to play upon the stage of life, winning the plaudits of his fellows.
And so it was that now he saw something behind a little bush a hundred feet away, although the thing had not moved or otherwise betrayed its presence. For an instant Shoz-Dijiji became a bronze statue, then very slowly he raised his mesquite bow as he strung his quartz-tipped arrow. With the twang of the string the arrow leaped to its mark and after it came Shoz-Dijiji. He had not waited to see if he had made a hit; he knew that he had, also he knew what had been hiding behind the bush and so he was not surprised nor particuliarly elated when he picked up ka-chu, the jack rabbit, with an arrow through its heart; but it was not ka-chu that he saw--it was the big chief of the white soldiers. Thus played Shoz-Dijiji, the Apache boy.