Apache Indians -- Fiction; Historical fiction; Western stories
Revolver ready, he waited, listening, for a repetition of the sound, his
eyes fixed upon a little clump of bushes two hundred yards away. Again,
very faintly, it came to his ears, the sound that had at first attracted
his attention, a low moan, vibrant with suffering.
Shoz-Dijiji wheeled his pony and rode diagonally up the side of the hill
toward a point where he might overlook the whole field and obtain a view
of the ground behind those bushes. If danger lurked there he would know
it before he came too close. Fools rush in, but not an Apache.
From his point of vantage he saw a figure huddled upon the ground and
recognized it instantly as an Indian. Nowhere else was there a sign of
life. Still cautiously, he rode slowly down toward the figure and as he
approached he saw that it was a woman, lying with her face buried in the
hollow of an arm. Already, even before he had come close enough to
dismount, he recognized something familiar in the contours of that
slender body.
Leaping from his mount he ran forward and kneeled beside the woman. Very
gently he put an arm beneath her and turned her over. Hot blood gushed
against his naked arm. His heart stood still as he looked down into the
face of Ish-kay-nay. Her eyes were half-closed; she scarcely breathed;
only her feeble moans betokened that her poor clay still clung
tenaciously to the last, fast ravelling strand of life.
“Ish-kay-nay! My little Ish-kay-nay!” Shoz-Dijiji raised his canteen and
poured a few drops of water between her lips. The act recalled the girl
who had given him the canteen, and, too, that recalled something
else—words that Geronimo had once spoken to him. “Wait,” the old war
chief had said, “until they have killed your women; then you will have
the right to speak.”
The savage soul of Shoz-Dijiji rose in protest against the cruelty, the
wantonness of this act. What if it had been perpetrated during the
darkness of night? What if it might have been but a chance shot? Did not
Shoz-Dijiji well know that the revealing light of day, or her sex, would
not have protected Ish-kay-nay? Had he not seen the soldiers fire into
the tepees where the women and children were?
Revived by the water, Ish-kay-nay slowly opened her eyes and looked into
his face. Her lips moved in a low whisper: “Shoz-Dijiji, I am coming!”
she said.
“Shoz-Dijiji is here with Ish-kay-nay. Do not fear. You are safe.”
The great, dark eyes of Ish-kay-nay opened wider with the return of full
consciousness as she gazed wonderingly into the face of her lover.
“You are not dead! Oh, Shoz-Dijiji, he told me that you were dead.”
“Who said that Shoz-Dijiji was dead?” he demanded.
“Juh.”
“Juh lied. Why did he tell you that?”
“So that Ish-kay-nay would go with him.”
“You went?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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