Chapter 4

The Navajos were a dangerous lot, so we wanted to avoid them as much as possible, but sometimes it just was not possible. I’m still not quite sure how it happened that I agreed, but Ann wanted to wander off the main road along what amounted to a back trail to get a better look at some spectacular scenery. Anyway, we had gone about two miles when we saw a column of smoke that in no way resembled the conventional campfire.

We turned off the trail to investigate, partially out of concern for the welfare of whoever was involved in the fire and partly out of pure curiosity. Eddy was acting a little antsy, as if there might be Indians involved in this, so we took our time and were careful as we moved up toward the source of the smoke.

As we feared, the smoke was coming from a burning house. By now, the house was pretty well destroyed, but there was an associated barn which was still standing. We had been shielded from the noise by some hills, but we could hear gunfire now that we could see the barn. It appeared that several people were inside the barn, and they were under attack by Indians. I could not be sure at that time, but it looked to me like there were six or eight Indians doing the attacking.

When we got a little closer, I could see that these were Chiricahua Apaches, not Navajos. Not that it made any difference—either one was too dangerous to mess around with. I had no idea why the Apaches were this far into what was normally Navajo territory, but my guess was that it was a gang of young bucks out to have fun by killing enemies and gaining coup. Well, that really made no difference, their bullets could kill just as easily as anyone else’s.

Eddy had now chosen his activity, so he disappeared. If for no other reason, I felt that we had to support Eddy, so Ann and I pulled our Winchesters, ammunition, and water as we dismounted and tied our horses to a convenient bush. We still had not been spotted by either side, so we had time to look for an advantageous shooting position.

Unfortunately, the best we could find was a small hillock we could shelter behind. We would have been in trouble if we had been fighting Comanches, because they could have ridden their horses over our position, and we would have had trouble defending against that. The Apaches, on the other hand, did not normally fight from horseback, so we did not have that danger to contend with.

We got set and I nodded to Ann that she had the honor of the first shot. She smiled at me and lined up on the ass and legs she could see sticking out from behind a bush. Her bullet plowed into his butt cheeks and must have shattered his pelvis, because he jerked from the bullet’s impact, but made no obvious effort to move to a new position. It was a fatal wound from the effects of the gangrene that was sure to take him, but the shattered pelvis was a death warrant in his culture, no matter what else might be happening.

I saw another Apache a few yards from Ann’s victim react when his friend was shot. He twisted about to see why his friend had screamed in pain. This action gave me a clear shot at his back in the area of his shoulder blades. It would have been nice to be able to shoot directly at his backbone, but I had to settle for the right shoulder. From the spurt of blood, I could see that the bullet entered that narrow space between the edge of the shoulder blade and the backbone, missing both, but making one hell of a mess of his lung and heart. I judged that to be what happened, since the man died without even screaming.

Well, the Indians now knew that they had enemies behind them, so it was time to leave before more disaster struck. However, there was a scream of pain, followed by a loud gurgle, that told me that Eddy had been busy satisfying his hatred for Indians. At this point, the Indians must have seen the dog, because they exploded from the bushes between us and the barn and ran north toward a stand of trees. That must of been where their horses were hitched.

A bullet from the barn hit one of the running men in the leg and he went down. However, he was helped up by a companion, and the two resumed the run for the trees. Assuming that the hit was more than a scratch, that was one more dead Indian, since the Apaches did not do much but chant over injuries, so he was not going to get much in the way of medical attention. Gangrene was a good bet for him, too.

I called to the barn, “DON’T SHOOT! WE ARE FRIENDS! CAN WE COME IN?” An answering voice called us to the barn. We picked up our stuff and gathered our horses before approaching the barn. Eddy also showed up about this time, so we three arrived at the barn at the same time.

We were met at the barn door by a youth carrying an ancient Spencer carbine that had to be several years older than he was. He was so relieved to see us that he started talking in a half-hysterical way, and I didn’t know how to shut him off. “Thank y’all fer he’pin’ us out the way ya did. Grandpa wuz bad hurt, soz I’m the only man left to fight. Them Injuns wuz bad news. They started shootin’ afore we knew they wuz anywhere around. They killed Pa right off, but Ma and Grandpa wuz in the house with my sister. I wuz workin’ in the barn when the shootin’ started. Alls I had in here wuz an old muzzle loader from the Mexican War, soz I wuzn’t able to do much. Grandpa had a Colt Dragoon pistol and Ma had this here Spencer.

“The stove got knocked over an’ that’s what started the fire. Soon as the fire started, they all ran fer the barn. Grandpa wus just comin’ in the door when he wuz shot. My sister reloaded the Colt fer me, but I had to do all of the shootin’.

“Oh, please excuse me, I done forgot my manners. I’m Yancy Carmichael.”

I introduced us, and we went into the barn where we met the rest of the family. Ann went to see if she could be of any help with the old man, but she could see that he had a bullet in his lung, and there was nothing to do but try to help him feel better while everybody waited for him to die. Luckily, we had some laudanum in our medical kit, so we were able to help him a little bit.

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We wound up spending five days with the Carmichaels as we helped them clean up after the attack and get the house into a livable condition. Not much had burned in the adobe building. The roof had fallen in from the fire, but Yancy and I were able to get a new roof up far enough for him to finish the work by himself.

Grandpa Carmichael died on the second day, so we attended the funeral of him and his son. The Indian raid had been devastating in that it had removed two-thirds of the farm workers from service. Yancy’s sister was going to have to do the work of a man if they were going to make a success of their homestead. I had my doubts, but they were going to try to keep it going.

You know, we never did see that scenery that Ann was looking for? We had forgotten all about it when we first saw the smoke, and it didn’t occur to either one of us until long after we had left the Carmichael homestead. We had three uneventful days as we resumed our journey toward El Paso, but that was bound to change.

We were spending the evening in a small town. Ann and I had eaten supper at the hotel restaurant, the usual beef and beans, and were resting our minds on the hotel veranda. Kind of out of the night, Ann said, “You know, I’ve never really seen the inside of a saloon? My curiosity is killing me to know what it is that makes them so attractive to men. So many people have said that I look like a man dressed the way I am, can we go satisfy my curiosity? I promise to stay out of trouble, please take me?”

Well, this was a small town, so I figured what the hell. The worst that could happen was that she would be spotted for a woman, and we would have to leave. I could get away with a lot of things by being a Federal Marshal, so I agreed to let her see what there was to a saloon.