When the West Was Young

by Frederick R. Bechdolt

Schiefflin crooked his thumb over the hammer of his rifle and raised it slowly to the full cock, pressing the trigger with his finger to prevent the click.

The first Apache had dismounted and was climbing the hill. As he drew closer the clink of ponies’ hoofs sounded down in the dry wash. A number of dirty turbans came into sight above the bank. More followed and still more, until thirty-odd were bobbing up and down to the movement of the horses.

A moment passed, one of those mighty moments when a man’s life appears before him as a period which he has finished, when a man’s thoughts rove swiftly over what portions of that period they choose. And Schiefflin’s mind went to that talk with the man at the Bruncknow house.

“Yo’-all keep on and yo’ll sure find yo’r tombstone out there some day.”

He could hear the old-timer saying the words now. And, as he listened to the grim warning again, he felt––as perhaps those two prospectors felt in the moment of 74 their awakening down by the river––that fate had sadly swindled him. He was stiffening his trigger-finger for the pull, peering across the sights at the Indian who had climbed to within a few yards of the weapon’s muzzle, when––the warrior on the summit of the next knoll waved his hand. The Apache halted at the gesture and Schiefflin followed his gaze in time to see the lean brown arm of the sentinel sweep forward. Both of the savages turned and descended the knolls.

They caught up their ponies and rode on, following the course of the wash below them. The band down in the arroyo’s bed were receding. The rattle of hoofs grew fainter. Schiefflin lowered the hammer of his rifle and took his first full breath.

A low outcry down the wash stopped his breathing again. The band had stopped their ponies; some of them were dismounting. He could see these gathering about the place where he had led his mule up the bank.

Two of them were pointing along the course he had taken with the animal. Several others were creeping up the slope on their bellies following the fresh trail. The murmur of their voices reached the white man where he lay watching them.

Then, as he was giving up hope for the second time, a mounted warrior––evidently he was their chief––called to the trackers. They rose, looked about and scurried back to their ponies like frightened quail. The whole band were hammering their heels against the flanks of their little mounts. The coming of the night had frightened them away.

The shadows deepened; stillness returned upon the 75 land; the stars grew larger in the velvet sky. Schiefflin crouched among the boulders at the summit of the knoll and fought off sleep while the great constellations wheeled in their long courses. The dawn would come in its proper time, and it seemed as certain as that fact that they would return to hunt him out.