"Do what--go to bed?"
"No, not that. Listen to me, Chita. I may offend you--I certainly don't want to, but I can't sit here and look at you and then listen to you and not speak."
"You got me chokin' leather," she admitted, "and I'm two jumps behind at that."
"I suppose you know that you are a very beautiful girl," he said. "Beside your beauty you have character, intelligence, a wonderful heart. But--" he hesitated. It was going to be hard to say and he was already regretting that he had started it.
"Well," she said, "but what? I ain't committed no murders." "I haven't any right to say what I started to say to you, Chita; except that I--well, Chita, I think you're the most wonderful girl I ever met and I want you to be right in every way."
"I reckon I know what you mean," she said. "We don't talk alike. I know it. You ain't a-goin' to hurt my feelings, because I know you ain't makin' fun of me--and I wouldn't even care if you did, if you'd help me. I was born on a farm in Kansas and what school they was was too fer off to go to only a few weeks in the fall and spring. I didn't learn much of nothin' there. Maw died when I was little. Dad learned me all he knew--how to read and write a little and figger. If I only had somethin' decent to read, or educated folks to talk to me. I know I got it in me to be--to be different. If there was only some way.
"There is a way," said King, who had been thinking very hard for the past several minutes. "There is a way." "What?"
"There are some very wonderful women at the post--refined, cultured, educated women, the wife of my troop commander, for instance. One of them would be glad to have you come there. Anyone of them would help you. Would you come, Chita?"
"As what?"
"As the guest of one of these ladies?"
"I don't know none of 'em. I don't think they'd want me."
"Yes they would. The Captain's wife is an old friend of my mother's. She's been wonderful to me since I joined and I know she'd love to have you. These women get terribly lonesome way out here, especially when their husbands are in the field. You would be a Godsend to Mrs. Cullis."
And that is how it happened that Wichita Billings came to Fort Thomas as the guest and ward of Margaret Cullis. Her beauty, her eagerness to learn disarmed all criticism, forestalled all ridicule--the one thing that Wichita Billings could not have survived, the thing that she had feared most. Yet she made so much fun of her own crude diction that those who might have otherwise found in her a target for witty thrusts were the first to defend her. Up out of Sonora came Shoz-Dijiji searching for his people. With him he brought a dozen ponies and some mules, toll that he had collected from the enemy in northern Sonora and southern Arizona. Behind him he left a few smoking piles of embers where homes had been or wagons, a few new corpses, killed without torture, left without mutilation.
The Be-don-ko-he welcomed him without enthusiasm. He took his place among them as though he had not been away. The mules he gave for a great feast and he had presents for Geronimo, Gian-nah-tah and Sons-ee-ah-ray. Ish-kay-nay they did not mention, nor did he. Sorrow, parting, death are but a part of the pathetic tragedy that marks the passing of the Indian; they had taken no greater toll of Shoz-Dijiji than of many another of his tribe. Why then should he flaunt his sorrow in the faces of those whose burdens were as great as his?
Of his warlike deeds, he spoke sparingly, though he was too much the Apache brave to ignore them entirely; but there had come word of his doings out of Mexico and his rating became second to none among all the six tribes. Geronimo was very proud of him.
Restless, Shoz-Dijiji wandered much, and often Gian-nah-tah accompanied him. They hunted together, they visited other tribes. Where there was a great dance or a feast there was Shoz-Dijiji. One night he came to the camp of the Cho-kon-en as the warriors were gathering around the council fire, and Na-chi-ta welcomed him and made a place for him at his side.
"The son of Geronimo has come at a good time," said the chief of the Cho-kon-en. "The young men are restless. They want to go out upon the war trail against the pindah lickoyee. Some of them have been punished by the soldiers for things which were done by no Apache. Always the Apaches are blamed for whatever wrong is done in our land. If there were no white-eyes here we could live in peace. The young men want to fight."
A warrior arose and spoke when the chief had signified that he had finished. For a long time he narrated the wrongs to which the Indians had been subjected, telling the same old story that they all knew so well but which never failed to find an eager and sympathetic audience. He urged the warriors to prepare for battle.
A very old man spoke next. He spoke of the great numbers of the white-eyes, of their power and wealth. He advised against taking the war trail against them.
Thus were several hours consumed and when a vote was taken the majority spoke for war.
"Take this word to Geronimo and the warriors of the Be-don-ko-he," said Na-chi-ta to Shoz-Dijiji, "and ask them if they will join the Cho-kon-en upon the war trail. We will send runners to the other tribes and when the war drum sounds we will gather here again for a great dance that the izze-nantans may make strong medicine and the warriors of the six tribes go forth to battle protected against the weapons of the enemy."
When Shoz-Dijiji returned again to the camp of the Be-don-ko-he he laid Na-chi-ta's proposition before Geronimo, but the old chief shook his head.
"My son," he said, "I am an old man. Many times have I been upon the war trail. Many times have I fought the pindah lickoyee, and always, as the years go by, the pindah lickoyee increase in numbers and grow stronger and the Shis-Inday became fewer in numbers and grow weaker." It has been long time since we defeated the pindah lickoyee in battle; and when we did it made no difference, they came again with more soldiers. If we could not drive them out of our country when we were many and they were few, how could we hope to drive them out now that they are many and we are few?
"Geronimo is war chief of all the Apaches. Geronimo loves his people. He loves his land. He hates the pindah lickoyee. But Gerohimo is old and he has the wisdom of the old, he knows when there is no longer hope. My son, for the Apaches there is no hope. Geronimo will never again fight against the pindah lickoyee. Geronimo has spoken."
"Geronimo is right," replied Shoz-Dijiji. "There is no hope. They have taken our land from us; they have taken the game we hunted that we might live; but one thing they cannot take from us--the right to die and to choose the manner of our dying. I, Shoz-Dijiji, choose to die fighting the pindah lickoyee. I shall go cut upon the war trail with Na-chi-ta and the Cho-kon-en. I have spoken."
"You have spoken well, my son. You are a young man. Young men should fight. Geronimo is old and tired and very sad. He would rather lay down his weapons and rest."
Great was the activity in the camp of the Cho-kon-en when Shoz-Dijiji returned accompanied by Gian-nah-tah and several of the other younger braves of the Be-don-ko-he. Chief Co-si-to was there with a band of his Chi-e-a-hen warriors; but there was disappointment in the voice of Na-chi-ta when he told that the other tribes had refused to join them.
Nan-ta-do-tash headed the izze-nantans who were preparing big medicine for use against the enemy, and with his own hands he prepared a phylactery for Shoz-Dijiji, calling down many blessings upon it.
The feast and the war dance aroused the braves to the highest pitch of excitement, to which the women added by their savage denunciation of the enemy and their demands upon their braves to go forth like men and slay the hated white-eyes; and when the dance was over the squaws accompanied the war party for several miles out of camp toward the point the chiefs had chosen for attack upon the morrow.