Chapter 4

Otto couldn't help having a creepy-crawly feeling down the back of his neck. It was 2 days since he left his new Mescalero friends, and he was now expecting Indian trouble. He was in the disputed lands between the Mescaleros and the Chiricahuas, so he was open to attack at any time. Otto was pretty confident that the Mescalero talisman that he wore over his shirt would protect him from attack by them, but it would probably look like a taunt to any Chiricahua who saw it.

He was expecting trouble, but he was not expecting to have it announced by barking dogs. These dogs didn't have the sound of the usual dogs that ran with Indians, so he was not sure what to expect as he rode over a low ridge and saw the tail end of a battle going on only a few hundreds of yards away. Two Chiricahuas were fighting with two giant dogs; there were three dead Indians lying nearby, one with his throat ripped out and the other two with bite marks all about their bodies. A White man and woman were also lying on the ground, quite dead. The man had a lance in his back and the woman had obviously been killed by a war club, since the side of her head was smashed in.

Otto didn't hesitate, he stopped his horse and pulled out his Winchester. The Indian brandishing the war club was in the most favorable position for a shot, so Otto put a bullet through his back. The other Indian was startled by the shot and snapped his head around. That was all the opening the dog needed; he jumped at the Indian's neck and crushed it with his powerful jaws.

Otto was somewhat familiar with dogs, so that he knew that these two were Great Danes, though he had never seen them before. Both dogs turned to look at him, but they did not charge, so Otto put up his rifle. He could see that the larger dog, a male, must weigh close to 200 pounds, and the smaller dog, a female, must weigh close to 150 pounds. They were certainly formidable fighting machines!

Otto wanted to see what had transpired to provoke the fight, so he rode slowly toward the dogs in as non-threatening a manner as he could. When he got close, the dogs seemed to relax, so Otto assumed that he was not going to be attacked. He dismounted and walked toward the male, holding out his hand.

The dog sniffed a bit, then licked Otto's hand, apparently in acceptance. Otto did the same routine with the bitch and achieved the same result. He looked closely at the collars the dogs were wearing and saw a metal nameplate on each: the dog's name was King and the bitch's name was Queen—appropriate names for animals this large.

Otto spoke to each animal, using its name, and they seem to accept him as their new master. He checked the woman, but there was no doubt that she was dead; the whole side of her head was crushed in, enough so that one of her eyes was pushed out of its socket.

The man was also dead, and, surprisingly, he did not seemed to be armed. A minute later, Otto found out why: their wagon was loaded with Quaker tracts. These must have been missionaries who were caught by Indians who were not going to listen to sweet reason.

Close examination of the Indians revealed that they were armed only with the traditional weapons, and they were wearing numerous religious talismans. Apparently, the Indians were on some sort of religious quest and the Quakers had done something to arouse their anger. Being reasonable and speaking softly may have been enough to set the Indians into a killing rage if they were high on mescaline, or something similar.

Otto buried the Quakers in shallow graves, but he left the Indians to scavengers. The wagon was loaded with supplies, including food for the dogs, and there was a keg of water. Otto found pans and put down water for the dogs and gave water to the two mules pulling the wagon. He decided to lighten the wagon by unloading the three boxes of tracts, but he left the rest of the stuff where it lay in the wagon. He was sick and tired of that McClellan saddle that Striking Snake had given him, so he hitched his horse to the tailgate of the wagon and climbed into the driver's seat after pulling out his rifle and extra ammunition.

He flipped the reins to start the mules in motion and whistled to the dogs to follow. Thus, he resumed his trip to Yuma. He had to admit to himself that traveling by wagon was certainly more pleasant than riding on that damned saddle, but he had to be much more careful with his route. One thing he had to be watchful for were sinkholes. Exploration through southern New Mexico and Arizona had revealed the presence of sinkholes and dry beds of quick sand. Both could be very dangerous, and very few had been charted. It was not yet known if they were a wide spread problem, or just confined to a restricted area. For now, it was best to be very careful and very suspicious of any expanse of sand.

Otto knew that there was a trail farther south, so he headed in that direction, since an established trail could be relied upon to skirt sinkholes and quick sand. Also, he was much more likely to find settlements along an established trail than he was to find one out in the middle of nowhere. It was getting dark when he finally came to the trail, so Otto looked for a good place to camp. He found a place and pulled off the trail.

The dogs had been staying close to the wagon while he was driving it, but they took off as soon as he got down to care for the mules. Otto didn't know what to think, but he didn't worry about it, the mules and his horse had to come first. He had hobbled the equines and had headed back to the wagon to fix himself some supper when he spotted the dogs returning. Each one was carrying a rabbit which they dropped at his feet before retiring to a spot under the wagon.

This raised an interesting question: were the rabbits for him, or were the rabbits to be shared by all three? The rabbits were certainly large enough to be shared among the three, so Otto assumed that that was the idea. The dogs caught the rabbits, Otto cleaned and prepared them, and all three enjoyed them—what could be simpler?

There was still enough light, so Otto took the time to look through the items stored in the wagon. He found a few clothes and some food, including some for the mules and some for the dogs. There wasn't much else, so Otto moved all of his stuff into the wagon and arranged a bed for himself. He assumed that the dogs would sleep under the wagon.

He lay down when it got full dark and was soon asleep. He hadn't been this comfortable in some time, so he slept clear through the night. That was unusual, since he normally had to wake up to pull up another blanket once the temperature had dropped far enough, but not this night. He sleepily noted that he sure was comfortably warm, and he hated to get out of bed, but he never woke up enough to wonder why. Finally, it hit him, he just had to get up to water some plant, but he found that he couldn't move! He was wedged in so tight that it would have taken a miracle for him to break loose. What the hell was going on? Whatever it was had better move pretty quick, or it was going to get damned wet in the wagon!

Otto began to wiggle, trying to break loose from whatever was holding him. The motion, plus the pressure on his bladder finally woke him up enough to get a grasp of his situation. He was wedged tightly between the two dogs who had decided to share his bed! He started to laugh, and the harder he laughed, the more he needed to piss. At last, one of the dogs shifted enough for Otto to break loose, and he was able to scramble up and make it to the end of the wagon before the water began to flow. This was the first time it really registered with Otto how hard it was to control your piss when you were laughing as hard as he was. He was sure that he had wet down half the county before he ran dry, the way he was spraying from side to side!

He turned to look at the dogs and started laughing again; man, did they look comfortable and self satisfied! Oh, well, he really couldn't complain—this was the first night that he hadn't woken up cold in the middle of the night. He whistled the dogs up and jumped down to fix breakfast. This sure was easy living, he had found some good quality coffee among the supplies in the wagon. He looked after the mules and horse and fed the dogs some of the dog food from the wagon. It took only a few minutes to hitch up the team, and he was ready to go.