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shouting that the hostiles were withdrawing. Simultaneously Ryan and Jak
showed themselves on the crest of the butte, pouring in a burst of lead at the
sec men below.
The General threw himself to the ground, wincing as splinters of bullet and
rock screamed all around him. "How many fuckers gone?"
"Dozen or so, General. Two white women with 'em. One redhead, one yeller.
Can't be many left up there."
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All the sec men heard Ryan Cawdor's voice. "You're chicken shit, General. Hide
behind your double-stupe scum! You got no belly for a firefight!"
Strasser reached for his Russian-made rifle, easing it around the corner of
his cover. But there was no sign of anyone on the ridge.
"What do we do, General?" Sergeant McLaglen called, anxiously.
"We wait, until I say to move."
"Sure thing, General. Sure thing."
THERE WAS RYAN, JAK his ribs restrapped by the shaman J.B. and four of the
oldest of the Mescalero warriors, including Many Winters. Cuchillo had led the
others back to the canyon to put the most impor-tant part of Ryan's plan into
operation.
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The immensely tall wise man of the tribe, clutching a decorated Sharps rifle,
also insisted on remaining behind with Ryan's group.
"Will they attack?" he asked Ryan.
"Can't tell. We gotta hold 'em here another hour or so, then break for the
rancheria and lead 'em after us."
Man Whose Eyes See More shook his head slowly. "Yellowhair, General, Strasser,
Longhair. He is the night."
"And I'm the day," Ryan replied, squinting down the slope at the hiding sec
men.
"No."
"No?"
The shaman touched him gently on the arm. "You are the night as well, One Eye
Chills."
"Then what's the difference between me and Cort Strasser?"
The Apache pondered the question for several sec-onds. "One night a little
child might walk fearlessly through a darkling wood. On another night an armed
man will tremble with terror on an open plain, swept with confusion. That is
the difference between Stras-ser and yourself."
"They're moving, Ryan," J.B. called. "Guess Strasser thinks he's waited long
enough. Looks like he's& yeah, he's going to split them and come around both
sides."
"Fireblast! We need a half hour more. How the big fire can we slow the
bastards down?"
"I will do it," Many Winters said in his creaking English.
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The shaman turned to the old man and said some-thing in the Apache tongue,
something that sounded like a question. The warrior turned his lined face up
to
Man Whose Eyes See More, looking past him, into an infinite distance. He said
something and then moved away.
"Don't tell me," Ryan said. "He said that it was a good day for him to die."
"Yes. You are learning our language fast, One Eye Chills."
"No. I'm learning something about Indians."
Many Winters was helped onto his pony by Jak, who handed him the coup stick, a
pole, ten feet long, decorated with bands of color and with the feathers of
eagles.
Each mark, Ryan knew, indicated some past honor.
The old man took the battered Winchester rifle from its bucket by the saddle,
throwing it to the earth. He drew a broad-bladed knife from its deerskin
sheath and dropped it on top of the blaster.
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"What?" Jak said.
"The honor comes from riding against the blue coats without any weapon," the
shaman answered.
"Bastards'll chill him," the boy said in an an-guished voice.
"That seems to be the idea," Ryan replied. "Man knows when it's his moment to
join the spirits of his ancestors. For Many Winters, the moment's right now."
He paused. "And it should puzzle the bastards down there. Mebbe buy us the few
minutes we need. Get ready to pull out the moment the old man buys the farm."
"WOULD YOU LOOK at that, General?" McLaglen called.
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"What?"
"Yonder. Coming over "
Strasser interrupted the gaping noncom. "I see him, Sergeant."
His long hair braided, holding the feathered coup stick, Many Winters kicked
his heels into the flanks of his pony and began to move slowly down the
sloping face of the butte, toward the watching sec men.
As he advanced, without any weapon, the old man began to chant his death song.
Ryan and the other remaining men on the ridge readied themselves for the final
withdrawal toward the rancheria.
Many Winters was halfway toward the sec men, and still no shots had been
fired.
"What's he singing about?" J.B. asked Man Whose Eyes See More.
"About honor," the shaman replied. "He tells the pony soldiers that he is
pleased to meet with them. That they will bring him honor by allowing him to
end his days with them. He hopes to be able to touch many of them with his
coup stick.
That is all."
"It's enough," Ryan said quietly.
Down on the flat desert, Cort Strasser called for someone to pass him his
Samozaridnyia Vintovka Dragunova rifle, then steadied the long gun on a
con-venient boulder, centering the cross hairs of the sight on the chest of
the advancing Indian. His right index finger tightened on the trigger.
But he still didn't fire.
Many Winters was more than three-quarters down the hillside, still chanting in
a frail, quavering voice, his eyes turned blindly toward the sun.
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"Chill him, General," one of the soldiers shouted, beginning to lose his nerve
at the steady approach of the crazed Mescalero.
Strasser's concentration slipped for a moment. When he looked again, the
Apache had vanished for a moment into a dip in the trail, though he could
still hear the droning voice.
He lowered the rifle, cursing under his breath. The biting anger for the way
the whitehead kid and Ryan had fooled him was still close to fever heat. Just
as he'd been about to slam the buffalo horns of his pincering trap, this
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