“Well,” said Red-head, winking with his one shrewd blue eye, “wait and maybe I’ll help you. But don’t tell anybody about my talk with you.”
III
THE RED-HEAD TURNS UP
Jimmie had been with the Cochise Chiricahuas about a year, as he reckoned, because winter (and not a cold winter) had passed, and the yuccas, or Spanish-bayonet cactuses, and the mescal, or century plant cactuses, were again in bloom with their tall, stately plumes of white, which indicated May.
All this time nobody had come looking for him, and he did not know what was going on outside—at Pete Kitchen’s or at Tucson or at Camp Grant or at Joe Felmer’s, or anywhere.
All the news was Apache news; gossip about hunting and raids, and cowardly Mexicans and stupid Americans.
Camps had been changed frequently, for the Chiricahuas did not remain long in any one spot. He had not seen Red-head in several months. According to Nah-che the soldiers were getting more numerous, and were fighting all the Apaches—the Chiricahuas and the Tontos and the Yavapais or Apache-Mohaves and the Mogollons: all who would not settle down at peace like the White Mountains and the Warm Springs.
Part of the winter had been spent in Mexico, but just now the camp had been located again amidst the Chiricahua Mountains. Most of the warriors were out on a big raid, under Cochise and Geronimo. They had not taken any of the older boys. By this it looked as though they were going into American country, where they might meet the soldiers.
Nah-che admitted as much. He said that report had come of a killing of friendly Apaches at Camp Grant, so it was useless to trust the White-eyes (as the Americans were called); they were the enemies of the Apaches, and Cochise had gone to kill all the Mexicans and Americans that he could find, down there.