"Gracias," Salazar said with dignity. "Here, I will tell you the precise truth, so you will know the lies of the Indios when you hear them." Jeb Stuart coughed. The alcalde sent him a look almost as venomous as the one he was aiming at the Apaches, but then went on, "These… Indios" -he visibly swallowed something harsher-"invaded my village drunk on mescal, stole away three of its finest and loveliest virgins, and ravaged them over and over, like the-" He checked himself again. "One is now dead of what they did to her, and the other two have both tried to hang themselves since. Is it any wonder we are outraged?"
"If that's what happened, no." Stuart turned to Chappo and Geronimo. "That is a hard charge against you. What have you got to say about it?"
Chappo had been translating the alcalde'?, remarks for his father. Now, when Geronimo spoke, he did the same for Stuart: "My father says Cananea has never had three virgins in it, not here, not here, and not here, either." He pointed in turn to his crotch, his mouth, and his backside.
Senor Salazar gobbled in fury, and looked about ready to explode. "No insults," Stuart said sternly. If he felt like guffawing, his face never found out about it. "Go on."
Geronimo spoke again. Again, Chappo translated: "My father says three putas came to our tents. I do not know how to say putas in English: women who give you their bodies if you give them something."
"Whores," Major Sellers said succinctly.
"Whores-thank you," Chappo said. He collected English words the way his cousin Batsinas collected artisans' tricks. Batsinas had made himself a pretty fair blacksmith in a few months' time, and was always trying to trade for new tools. Stuart took that as a good sign, a sign that the Apaches could, with patience, be civilized. Perhaps with the patience of Job, he thought.
Before Chappo could apply his new vocabulary, Salazar erupted again, shouting, "Lies! Lies! All lies!"
"He let you speak," Stuart told him. "You will let him speak, or I will decide this case for him on the spot. Do you understand?" Ever so reluctantly, the alcalde composed himself. Stuart nodded to Chappo and Geronimo again.
Through his son, Geronimo said, "Like I say, these three whores"-Chappo pronounced the word with care it did not usually get-"came to our tents. They had mescal with them. Some of my warriors enjoyed them, yes, and gave them silver, it could be even gold, for their bodies and for the mescal." After a bit, the old medicine man added, "Our women do not make free of themselves like this, and, if they do, we cut off the tip of their nose."
"Ought to do that in New York City," Major Sellers said with a coarse laugh. "Sure would be a lot of ugly women there, in that case." The biggest city in the USA had in the Confederate States the name of being the world's chiefest center of depravity.
However much Stuart agreed with his aide-de-camp, he waved him to silence. Then he asked Geronimo, "How did the woman of Cananea come to die during all this?"
"She is not dead," the Apache leader answered. "She fell in love with one of my men, and they ran off together."
"Bring them back," Stuart said. "Send men after them. If you can prove this, you had better do it."
Chappo translated for Geronimo but then, sounding worried, spoke for himself: "The woman will say the man took her away by force, whether it is true or not. She will try to take the blame off herself."
"It could be," Stuart said in neutral tones. In fact, he thought it likely. No one-Confederate, Yankee, Mexican, Indian-was fond of accepting blame. He turned to Senor Salazar. "Who are the two women who did come back to Cananea, and where do they live?"
"One is Guadalupe Lopez; her family's house is by the plaza," the alcalde answered. "The other poor victim of the Indios desires is Carmelita Fuentes. She lives on the edge of the town, by the road toward Janos."
"Thank you, sir." Stuart tugged at his beard as he thought. After a few seconds, he said to Major Sellers, "Send men to both these houses. See if there are any unusual amounts of U.S. gold and silver coins in them. The Apaches have been doing a lot of looting up in New Mexico Territory. If they have silver and gold to spend on women, that's the money they'll be spending."
"Yes, sir." His aide-de-camp beamed. "That's very clever, sir."
Now Salazar was the one who spoke in tones of alarm: "I must remind you, General, Cananea has since a long time traded with los Estados Unidos. Much money of that country is in this town. You must not be surprised to find it in many homes."
"It could be," Stuart said, as neutrally as he had toward Chappo. "We'll find out any which way, the same as we'll find out whether the Apaches bring in this other girl of yours and what she says when they do."
The alcalde bowed. "I will go with your soldiers to the houses of these two poor women and aid them in any way I have the power to do."
"You will do nothing of the sort. You will stay here with me." Stuart put the snap of command in his voice. The last thing he wanted was Salazar telling the women and their families what to do and what to say. He let the alcalde save face by adding, "I have men who speak Spanish. Doing this will be good practice for them."
Under the circumstances, Salazar could only acquiesce. He looked very unhappy doing it. Geronimo and Chappo looked unhappy, too. Seeing that, Stuart realized nobody knew exactly what had passed between the women of Cananea and the Apaches, and Indians and Mexicans both feared finding out exactly what had passed would show them in a bad light.
Horatio Sellers had been thinking along the same lines. When he came back from sending soldiers into Cananea, he spoke to Stuart in a low voice: "What do you want to bet we find out the greasers were whores and the redskins did ravage 'em?"
"Wouldn't surprise me one bit," Stuart answered, also almost whispering. "They aren't sure who did what, but they were sure they were ready to kill each other on account of it. We're going to need more Regulars in the Army than we used to, just because of these two provinces. We'll need to patrol the border with the Yankees, we'll need to patrol the new border with the Empire of Mexico, and we'll need to patrol every foot of ground in between unless we want fights like this one almost was to break out three times a week."
"God help the secretary of war when he tries to explain that to Congress," Sellers said.
"God help Congress if they don't listen," Stuart returned. Whether the congressmen in distant Richmond would listen was anyone's guess. If they didn't, the noise would get louder soon. Stuart was sure of that.
After a couple of hours, the soldiers who had searched the Lopez and Fuentes houses reported to Stuart. "We found five U.S. silver dollars at one place, sir, and two U.S. quarter-eagles at the other, sir," said the lieutenant who'd led them. "Five dollars at each place-"
"More than those Mexican sluts are worth," Major Sellers muttered.
As if by accident, Stuart trod on his toe. "Doesn't prove anything, not really," the commander of the Trans-Mississippi said. "We are close to the U.S. border. The women still insist they were violated?" At the lieutenant's nod, Stuart sighed. "All right. Let's see if the other one turns up. If she doesn't, then I reckon we have to believe the alcalde.'"
But she-Maria Guerrero was her name-did indeed turn up, four days later. Once back in Cananea, she loudly proclaimed the outrages the Apache in whose company she was found had inflicted on her. The warrior in question, a stalwart brave named Yahnozha, as loudly insisted on her willingness. She wasn't bruised and battered and beaten, but she declared she'd been too terrified to resist. Yahnozha said she hadn't wanted to resist.