Tepaha stirred the fire in the potbellied stove. Old Ike poured drinks for them and lit a cigar, and held the match for his friend.
Though their brotherhood was by choice, rather than the accident of birth, a stranger might have thought otherwise despite their differences in coloring. For they had been together for so many years and in so many places, sharing the same thoughts and deeds, that, in their necessary adjustment to one another, each had borrowed of the other's mannerisms and expressions, and now they had come to look quite a little alike.
Much of the time, even their talk was strikingly similar, Ike's alleged English even becoming a trifle broken. He was almost as fluent in Apache as Tepaha; also in idiomatic Spanish. And they spoke in both languages frequently – often sounding so much alike that it was hard to tell when one finished and the other began.
Old Ike shaved his head regularly, while Tepaha's hair grew to the lobes of his ears; and he wore a beaded band around his forehead whereas Old Ike wore a sombrero. But both men were clothed in calf-hide jackets, and levis. And both were shod in blockheeled Spanish boots; and protruding from the right boot of each was the worn haft of a gleaming knife.
As Old Ike sighed, unconsciously, Tepaha demanded another reading of the letters from crazy Osage lawyer. Brightening, Old Ike hauled the letters from his pocket, and both chuckled over them as they were read yet another time.
'Damn' crazy Osage,' Ike concluded. 'Says right here that Critch is plenty fine fella, got plenty o' money. Then he tries to claim Critch stole a stinkin' fifty dollars from him! What kind of God damn' sense does that make?'
'All Osage crazy,' Tepaha nodded wisely. 'Critch do right to steal money.'
'Well, I don't know as I'd say that, but…'
He shook his head, lapsed back into silence, his mouth sagging. Tepaha requested another reading of the letters. Old Ike ignored him. Nor could he be baited into another quarrel.
And, then, at last, when Tepaha was at his wits' end to help his friend, inspiration came to him. From far back in the all-but-forgotten past it came, and it proved highly effective in rousing Old Ike from his reverie.
'Huh! What the hell did you say?' He glared beetle-browed at Tepaha. 'What d'ya mean, I et him?'
'I mean,' said Tepaha, with simulated spitefulness. 'I mean what I say. You eat Osage.'
'That's a God damn' lie! I never et no one, Indian or white! I don't hold with eatin' people!'
'Eat 'em, anyway. You eat – Wait!' He held up a hand, chopping off the incipient outburst from his friend. 'Take yourself back many, many years. So many years, until that good time when we were young. Remember it, Old Ike – the night we saw Geronimo for the first time? The night we were brought into his lodge at lance-point? We had come up from Tejas to _okla homa,_ the Land of the Red Man…' *c*
They had crossed Red River, the boundary between Oklahoma and Texas, that morning; losing their pack-horses and supplies to the river's quicksands, almost losing their lives as they fruitlessly tried to free the screaming animals. By luck and by God, as the saying was, they had somehow managed to get their mounts into deep water and swim them to the north shore. But their powder was a muddy mess, useless for their long Sharps rifles. And it was snowing; and the frozen short-grassed prairie was barren of game.
Tepaha dug into the dry center of an ancient buffalo turd, and got it lighted with his steel and flint. They fed the flame with more dung, and dried their clothes enough to keep them from freezing. Then, they headed north again, unarmed save for their knives, their heads ducked against the blowing snow.
By night the storm had become a blizzard. But there was the faint smell of smoke ahead of them, the scent of cooking food; and rocking in their high-pommeled saddles, they urged their trembling horses onward. An hour passed. The smell of food and smoke was still ahead of them. And around them, all-but-inaudible in the howling wind, were sounds. Sounds that were felt rather than heard. Shallow breaks in silence which Ike and Tepaha had trained themselves to become aware of and to interpret for what they were, as requisite to life.
Silently, they drew their knives. At virtually the same instant their horses reared upward, startled as their bridles were suddenly grabbed by unseen hands. Then – Well, nothing, then. Nothing more than a couple of butted lances, which connected solidly with the skulls of Tepaha and Ike King and knocked them senseless from their saddles.
They were prodded and kicked to their feet.
The lance-points pricking incessantly at their rumps, they were run into the village of the Apache leader, Geronimo, and on to the great lodge of Geronimo himself.
The Indian chief at that time was probably in his middle forties, or approximately twice the age of Ike and Tepaha. He was thus, by the standards of the time, an old man, just as Ike and Tepaha were regarded as standing on the verge of middle-age. Yet Geronimo carried the years of his hard life well, being lean and wiry of body, and his expression was not so much savage as sardonically amused. He chose to ignore Ike, addressing himself instead to Tepaha in a tone of musing wonderment.
'And what have we here?' he inquired. 'What is this strange creature who appears to be Indian, an Apache, no less, yet who is obviously a white man's dog, licking at his master's ass and balls lest he be struck with a small stick?'
'You smell your own breath, old man,' Tepaha told him haughtily. 'To one who feeds on dog shit, all others are dogs.'
A lance-point jabbed him reprovingly. Tepaha's darting hand caught it at the haft, snapping it off with one seemingly effortless movement of his wrist. It was a tremendous feat of strength. Geronimo rewarded it by shaking his head at the brave who was about to club Tepaha.
'So,' Geronimo said, 'perhaps you are not a dog. Perhaps. So you will explain your presence with this white man, and you will tell us who he is and what he is if not your master.'
Tepaha said proudly that Ike was his friend and brother. They had been so almost before manhood, since the time when they were both prisoners in a Mexican jail under sentence of death as bandidos. They had broken jail together, Tepaha becoming seriously wounded as they escaped. And Ike had gotten him to a ranchero across the Rio Grande. The owner of the ranch, a Spanish grandee, had offered them sanctuary, then treacherously sent one of his Aztec peons to summon the carbineros. The man had reported to Ike instead, so Ike had slain the Spaniard, and as soon as Tepaha was well enough to travel, they had burned the ranchero buildings, and driven off the livestock; and those peons who cared to do so were allowed to come with them.
'We settled well back from the Rio,' Tepaha continued, 'in a valley some two hundred miles distant. We built a lodge there, and outbuildings. But there were many Apache in the area, and the peons soon left us in fear, having been slaves so long they had lost the will to fight. I would have fought, of course, Old Ike being my friend and brother. But Ike said it was not necessary. Instead, he went unarmed amongst the Apaches, and he called them brother, and he told them that they were to come to his lodge as guests and take whatever they needed. And – '
'And – ' Geronimo's eyes gleamed with ironic appreciation. 'And so they came, eh? As guests. And being such, they did not rob him of his all and kill him as they otherwise would have.'
'Why should they?' Tepaha frowned. 'Do Apaches abuse friendship? Do they mistreat a brother? Or perhaps,' he added insinuatingly, 'such is the custom of the Oklahoma Apache.'
'You,' Geronimo advised him, 'are very close to death, O, Tepaha. You will be wise to offer no insults, and to answer questions, not ask them. Even now there is an Osage prisoner in this camp whose big mouth and small brain will cost him his life in the morning.'