“Yes, Sergeant Major,” Gibson replied, contritely.
The sergeant major, who actually did have some authority to exercise had he chosen to do so, did not try to impress Falcon and the sheriff with his position. Instead, he stepped up to the door of the colonel’s office, knocked once lightly, then at a muffled voice from within, stepped inside. No more than a few seconds later, he was back outside.
“If you gentlemen will go on in, the colonel will see you,” he said.
“Thanks, Sergeant Major,” the sheriff said as he and Falcon entered the colonel’s office.
Colonel Dixon, who had stood to meet them, was the perfect portrait of an Army officer, trim and fastidious about his dress and person.
“Gentlemen, welcome to Fort Lowell. I’m Colonel Dixon,” he said, extending his hand.
“Colonel Dixon, I’m Sheriff Corbin from Oro Blanco,” the sheriff said. “This is my deputy.” He did not say Falcon’s name.
“Well, Sheriff, what can I do for you?” Dixon asked.
“We have had an incident with the Indians,” Sheriff Corbin said.
“Which group?” the colonel asked.
“The Cababi Mountain band.”
“Ah, yes, the Cababi Mountain band,” the colonel repeated. “I believe they are the ones under Keytano, are they not?”
“They are.”
“The Cababi band would be mostly what ... Chiricahua?”
“I wouldn’t say that. As you know, most of the Chiricahua have been moved to Oklahoma,” Sheriff Corbin answered. “There are some Chiricahua left, of course, and many of them are with the Cababi band. But Keytano’s village is actually a mixture of Western Apache, Jicarilla, and, of course, those few remaining Chiricahua I mentioned.”
Colonel Dixon picked his pipe up from the desk and began tapping tobacco into the bowl.
“You said there was an incident. Are you talking about the three prospectors who were killed? Because I already know about them. It’s a bad thing, but the truth is, those men were on Indian land, so there’s not a whole lot we can do about it,” the colonel said.
Sheriff Corbin shook his head. “No, I wish that was what we was here about, but that ain’t it. This here incident might wind up startin’ a war with the Cababi, and if it does, I don’t mind tellin’ you, it’ll be our fault.”
“What do you mean, our fault?” Colonel Dixon asked as he lit his pipe.
“By our fault, I mean white men,” Corbin said. “Or, to be more specific, Fargo Ford and his gang.”
The colonel took several puffs; then, through a cloud of aromatic tobacco, he answered.
“Fargo Ford. Yes, I’ve heard of him. But he’s an outlaw, isn’t he? What does he have to do with an Indian problem?”
“Ford held up a stagecoach and took one of the passengers off the stage. That passenger was Cloud Dancer.”
“Cloud Dancer? Wait a minute, isn’t that Keytano’s daughter? I thought she was back East,” Colonel Dixon said.
“She was. She was going to school, but she finished and was coming back home. It turns out that the coach was carrying a money shipment, so Ford waited at the top of Cerro Pass, held up the stage, and took her off the coach.”
“Is he holding her somewhere?”
Corbin shook his head. “He killed her,” Corbin said.
That information startled Colonel Dixon enough that he took the pipe from his mouth. “You say he killed her. Do you know that for a fact?”
“Yes, we found her body,” Corbin answered. He nodded toward Falcon. “And my deputy took her back to her father.”
Colonel Dixon looked at Falcon with an expression of shocked surprise. “Wait a minute, a white man killed Keytano’s daughter, and you took her body back?”
“Yes,” said Falcon.
Dixon preened his mustache with his finger. “I’ll be damned. I don’t know whether to praise you for your courage, or damn you for your foolhardiness. Maybe both. It’s a wonder Keytano let you out alive.”
“Not really,” Falcon said. “Keytano is a man of honor, after all.”
“How can you call an Indian a man of honor?” the colonel asked, punctuating his question by sticking his pipe back in his mouth.
“Colonel, do you doubt that Indians can have honor?” Falcon asked.
“That certainly hasn’t been my experience.”
“How long have you been dealing with Indians?”
“Well, I confess that I’ve only been out here for about six months,” Colonel Dixon replied. “I ... uh, haven’t really had to deal with them at all yet.”
“I see. So, where did you get the idea that Indians had no honor?”
“Just things that I’ve heard,” Colonel Dixon replied, clearly uncomfortable now with the direction the conversation was going.
“Indians are like anyone else, Colonel. There are Indians of honor, and there are those who are dishonorable.”
“I’ll, uh, take your word for it,” Dixon said. “So, Sheriff, if your deputy took the girl’s body back and got out alive, why are you here to see me?”
“The other day a drummer left Oro Blanco, driving a buckboard up to Arivica. He was driving a rented team, and the next day the team brought the buckboard back to the livery stable. The drummer, a man named Arnold Johnson, was in the back, mutilated and scalped.”
“And you think it was retaliation for the chief’s daughter?” Colonel Dixon asked.
“I think it was in direct retaliation, yes,” Sheriff Corbin replied.
Colonel Dixon sighed. “After that business with the prospectors, I was afraid it might come to this. All right, I’ll ask General Miles for orders to put the Fifth Cavalry into the field.”
Falcon held up his hand. “No, don’t do that, Colonel,” he said. “At least not yet. I don’t think there’s any need for you to call out anyone. I don’t believe this is a war with the Cababi Band. I think this is nothing more than one ambitious Indian who has been able to talk three or four others into following him.”
“Are you talking about Keytano?”
“No, I don’t think it is Keytano. So far, Keytano is on our side, or at least he’s keeping most of the warriors back on the reservation. The one who is causing all the trouble is Naiche’s nephew, Chetopa.”
Colonel Dixon stroked his chin. “Chetopa? I’m not sure I’ve ever even heard of him.”
“Yes, and that’s Chetopa’s problem. Nobody has heard of him, and he’s not real happy about that. He wants his name to be spoken in the same tone as Naiche, Geronimo, and Cochise. If you turn out the Army, you’ll be giving him exactly what he wants. It will not only give him the notoriety he’s looking for; it will give him the opportunity to recruit a lot more warriors.”
“Then, if you don’t mind my asking, how would you propose that we take care of him without turning out the Army?” Colonel Dixon asked.
“You don’t need the Army to take care of him. I’ll take care of him myself,” Falcon said.
Colonel Dixon laughed. “You’ll take care of him? All by yourself?”
“Yes.”
“Aren’t you afraid you might be biting off more than you can chew?”
“Colonel Dixon,” Sheriff Corbin said. “Maybe it is time I introduced this fella to you.”
“You already introduced him, didn’t you?” Colonel Dixon replied. “You said he was your deputy.”
“Yes, but I didn’t give you his name. It’s MacCallister,” Sheriff Corbin said. “Falcon MacCallister.”
“Falcon MacCallister?” the colonel said, clearly searching for where he had heard the name before. Then it came to him. “The hell you say. The Falcon MacCallister? The gunfighter? The one who killed Naiche?”
“Yes,” Sheriff Corbin said. “The Falcon MacCallister.”
“Well, I’ll be damn,” Colonel Dixon said. He stuck his hand out again as a big smile spread across his face. “I am pleased to meet you, Mr. MacCallister. General Miles says you are a one-man army. So I reckon if any one man could take care of this Chetopa person, you’d be that one. Is there anything you would like for the Army to do?”