Shuffling painfully across the floor, blanket wrapped around his bare legs and dragging the chair as a prop, he stood in the doorway, accustoming his eyes to the sunlight. Eggleston had Bonyparts, the mule, hitched to a bizarre assembly of slats from a broken keg laced together with wire to form a crude drag; he was scraping dirt to finish the dam across the Agua Fria that Drumm had planned. The little Papago man who had visited the camp the evening before the attack was making bricks with a wooden form and mud from the river. Under a brush shelter Mrs. Beulah Glore stirred something—probably more beans—in a pot over a mesquite fire.
Puzzled, Drumm stared at a fresh mound of earth. At the head of the raw new mound a stake was driven into the ground; a scarlet cloth headband fluttered from it. With elation he realized that their little party had indeed given the Apaches "what for," as Phoebe Larkin had promised.
He saw her, then, standing in the shade of a spread canvas, drinking from the water butt with a tin dipper. As he did, she appeared also to hear the faint sound of gunfire from the mountains, and turned to stare into the purple distance where George Dunaway was still harassing the Apaches.
"Phoebe!" he called. "Miss—Miss Larkin!"
At first she did not see him, only tightened her grasp on the heavy Sharp's rifle and continued to look at the slopes of the Mazatzals, dipper poised halfway to her lips. He tried to speak louder, but all that emerged was a strangled croak. Phoebe heard him, however; she dropped the rifle, crying out. Eggleston let fall the makeshift rope reins, Mrs. Glore abandoned her beans, and Papago left off his brickmaking. They all ran to Jack Drumm.
"I only left for a minute!" Phoebe complained. "Oh, whatever are you doing out of bed?"
Mrs. Glore and the valet took him by the arms and tried to steer him back into the hut but Drumm would have none of it.
"I am all right!" he protested. For the first time he noticed the copper-brown youth sitting under the brush ramada, tied firmly to a wooden bench.
"Who is that?"
Eggleston had a blood-stained bandage around his head, but he spoke with great pride. "A prisoner of war, I guess you might say, Mr. Jack! We captured him day before last—"
"Day before last?"
"You've been out of your mind," Phoebe explained, "for well over forty-eight hours! It was probably due to all the blood you lost from where you were shot in the shoulder."
"Lucky for you," Mrs. Glore beamed, "the ball passed right through and didn't bust anything! Mr. Eggleston here stood over you like a lion and fought them off! Oh, I tell you, he was a real ring-tailed roarer! How he did ramsquaddle them red brutes!"
Basking in her approval, the valet smiled modestly. "And Miss Phoebe here, in addition to playing the perfect Amazon with your pistols, put you to bed and managed to stop the bleeding with cold compresses."
Jack Drumm remembered a hand on his brow, a light and gossamer touch that was for a while his only link with this world of sunlight and triumph.
"I am—I am grateful," he stammered. "I mean—to you all, but especially to you, Miss Phoebe. And we fought them, the Apaches, to a standstill! We showed them we are here to stay, residents of the Territory!" He caught sight of the grinning leathery face of the Papago. Where had he been during the battle?
"He skedaddled," Beulah Glore explained. "Don't know as I blame him, either! He wouldn't go ninety pounds with sashweights in his pockets. But he's been real useful around here."
"Now, Jack," Phoebe urged, taking his arm, "you must get back to bed! You are as white as a bedsheet, and have got to rest."
She had never before called him Jack, and the familiarity made him uncomfortable. Too, how had she described him? A cold fish? That had been unfair, and inaccurate. Cornelia Newton-Barrett could have informed her differently. He wondered what Cornelia would have done during an Apache attack.
"First," he said, "we must decide what to do with this scoundrel here—this Apache youth you have captured."
"Beulah here," Eggleston said, "hit him over the head with a shovel! When the rest finally broke and ran, they left him for dead. We tied him up, but let him walk about each day for a little while under guard. He eats a great deal, though, and will soon pauperize us."
The little Papago sidled up to Jack Drumm and looked fearfully at the Apache youth in his bonds. He jabbered something, then retreated.
"I know," Drumm said. "They are very fierce."
He looked into the black eyes of their captive. It was like staring into the eyes of a snake—a flat impassive opacity that showed nothing of humanity behind the glittering pupils.
"Look here," he said. "Do you speak any English? I mean—" Frustrated, he broke off. "Englisch? Anglais? Ingles?"
The youth only stared coolly, muscular bronze arms folded over a hairless chest.
"Flag!" Drumm made a waving motion. "Do you understand?" He took a stick and drew a Union Jack in the dust, complete with staff and waving folds of cloth. "My flag!" He pointed to the flanks of the Mazatzals. "It belonged to my brother Andrew, damn it all, when he was in India, and I want it back! Flag—do you understand? I want my flag back, or Agustín will have to answer to me!"
At mention of Agustín the obsidian eyes seemed for a moment to clear, to show depth, to indicate interest. The youth was tall for an Apache, with a kind of indolent grace even in his bonds. He lifted his chin proudly, and the black eyes became large and luminous. Then, suddenly, it was if a curtain descended. Once more, Jack Drumm might have been addressing a stone.
"I don't think the creature understands a word you say," Mrs. Glore observed.
Jack Drumm felt his knees weakening; he swayed a little. Phoebe caught him under the arm, looking anxiously into his face.
"Hadn't you better—"
"I—want—my—flag," Jack said between clenched teeth. "Flag— bandera! You understand that?"
The Apache watched him, immobile, without emotion, but Jack felt somehow that the youth understood. He turned to the valet.
"Cut him loose, will you, Eggie?"
Eggleston was surprised. "Are you sure, sir, that—"
"Cut him loose," Drumm repeated, surprised to find his voice suddenly husky and reedlike, almost inaudible. "Let him go, and tell his master Agustín we are here to stay, along the Agua Fria! Let him tell Agustín he can not dislodge us! Let him tell Agustín I will have my flag back, and before I leave this miserable land I will see Agustín himself hanged on a gallows in Prescott!"
He toppled, then, and would have fallen. Eggleston and Mrs. Glore managed to catch him under the arms and drag him protesting into the reed hut. He had a fever and his mind wandered again. But Phoebe Larkin was always nearby; it gave him a grudging complacency.
By the middle of November the combined forces from Camp McDowell and Fort Whipple had confined Agustín and his raiders to the Mazatzals. Escorted by small detachments of troops, stages and wagons and even an occasional straggling train of hopeful settlers began to filter along the Prescott Road, although there was still danger of scattered raids. Sam Valentine and the newly elected Territorial representatives rode north to the capital in an armed band. Valentine was amazed at the growing activity along the river. Eating a slice of Mrs. Glore's peach pie, he strolled along the earthen dam, where the water now backed up to a depth of almost a foot.
"So you just decided to stay, eh?"
Drumm did not mention his fight with Lieutenant George Dunaway but he suspected that Valentine had heard of it. News traveled fast in this arid land.