Tworivers
Copyright© 2025 by Harry Carton
Chapter 11: Apache Hillbillies
Back at the Apache camp, Wind Rider had delayed getting the many things from the helicopter crash site that could be useful. He gathered six warriors and a string of pack horses and headed out toward the helicopter site. The tall prairie grass gave way to the group easily. If he branched off to the west, he’d get to the coal site in two days, but he headed off east, at an easy lope.
Two days later, the Apache spotted the wreckage. The main rotor had broken off and lay nearby, sticking up at a twisted angle. The cockpit was bent sideways. The canopy glass was smashed. The tail was broken off about three feet from the fuselage. The tail rotor was intact. The two crew members had been in the cockpit were dead long enough that buzzards and other scavengers had cleaned the skeletons pretty well.
He said a belated thanks to the men who’d landed the chopper well enough for him and Dawson to walk away.
Wind Rider signaled a halt, his warriors melting into the tall grass like shadows. The stench of decay clung to the wreckage—old blood and corroded metal. Buzzards had picked the pilots clean; only sun-bleached bones remained in the cockpit’s embrace. Sorry guys. You won’t need these anymore. With care, he lifted first one then another skeletal arm and removed the watches, then took their dogtags.
He approached cautiously, the prairie wind whispering through the shattered fuselage. One warrior touched a skeleton’s shreaded flight suit, fingers tracing faded insignia. “Men from the sky,” he murmured. Wind Rider nodded grimly. “Men who brought Two Rivers and Yellow Hair to us,” said the warrior.
Inside the mangled tail section, Wind Rider’s hand brushed against hardened polymer. Storage compartments—sealed tight. Using his knife, he pried open a dented panel. Vacuum-sealed bags spilled out: ammunition crates, spare rifle parts, and a dented aluminum case marked “MEDICAL IV.” He cracked it open. Vials of antibiotics and painkillers glittered like liquid silver.
He took a screwdriver from the toolkit near the cockpit and pried loose a mechanic’s kit under the dash. He looked around and found a pair of shears heavy enough to cut through the aluminum skin of the Huey. He recovered two survival kits with flare guns, two loaded Colt .45s.
He carefully showed the warriors how to cut through the aluminum that held the helicopter together, and how to use the screwdrivers from the kit to dismember the craft. He carefully mimed using the shears to cut off a finger. “Dangerous! It can kill if you use it wrong. We can take all this back to the camp. Not today, but you can come back and take everything. Piece by piece we will take the spirit-canoe back to our home.”
They cut loose the tail rotor assembly and packed it onto the travois. They took the pilots’ dogtags and wrapped them separately. They took the watches. The medical kit was packed separately. Once they were heavily loaded, they slowly made their way back to the Apache village. It looked like the introduction of the Beverly Hillbillies, but with helicopter parts rattling instead of pots and pans.
In the hills to the northwest, Dawson led his wagon and crate of Toledo steel springs into the Chiricahua camp. Scouts greeted him as he approached and nodded in greeting to the scouts of the Apache that traveled with him.
Yellow Hair asked for the head of the Chiricahua village, surprisingly an elderly woman named Luzon, but she was dressed like a man. She eyed the wagon, the blonde-haired man carrying a huge rifle and wearing Spanish armor, and then at Sky Eagle with his band of Apache scouts. She spoke to Sky Eagle.
“Greetings, Sky Eagle. Be welcome in the land of the Chiricahua. You travel in ... unusual company.”
Sky Eagle dismounted swiftly, touching his forehead respectfully. “Daughter of Grey Wolf. This is Yellow Hair. A friend to all Apaches. He walks with Thomas Wind Rider.” He gestured toward Dawson, whose blue eyes scanned the camp perimeter – a sniper’s ingrained habit.
Luzon approached the wagon, her gaze lingering on the Toledo springs gleaming beneath a tarp. “You bring Spanish metal?” Her fingers brushed a coil, testing its tensile strength with a warrior’s appraisal. “Stronger than our arrowheads.”
Dawson dismounted. “For guns that don’t need gunpowder. Silent killers.” He pulled back the canvas, revealing the crate. “The Wind Rider needs these.”
Helmut nudged forward, holding out the salvaged arquebus lockplate. “And better steel. Tempered wrong – brittle.”
“What means this: ‘tempered’?” asked Luzon.
“It is a way of heating metal in a very hot fire,” said Dawson/Yellow Hair.
Sky Eagle said, “We bring a warning of danger. We passed sign of thirty horses, most likely Crow, heading for the silver mines.”
Luzon nodded. “Yes, our scouts reported this two days ago. The mines are silent now. The miners there died of pox a week ago. The Crow will find no Spanish silver there. They will find only pox. We do not go there for fear we will get disease.”
Dawson frowned. The corpses would be rotten and infested. Worse, the pox lived for weeks. Carl and Bernd were immune because they had survived the disease. Dawson had been vaccinated. But Crow warriors? They’d bring plague back to their villages. “We need to stop them,” Dawson said. “They can’t go in.”
“Why?” asked Luzon. “Let the Crow bring the disease to their kin. Crow have been trouble for many moons.”