“Do you speak English?” Matt asked as put his pistol back in his holster.
“I speak English,” the Indian said.
“What happened to you?”
“Many white men came to attack my village. They killed many of my people. They killed my wife. They killed my daughters. They killed many others.”
“Who were these white men?” Matt asked.
“I do not know.”
“Who are you?”
“I am called Nopoloto.”
“The village that the white men attacked, was it the village of of Delshay?”
Nopoloto shook his head. “No.”
“Do you know Delshay?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know where Delshay is?”
“He is not on the reservation,” Nopoloto said.
“There is a white woman with Delshay. I am looking for her,” Matt said.
“I do not know of any white woman,” Nopoloto said. “My village is on the reservation,” he said. “Once I was with Cochise, but now I am reservation Indian.”
“You say you are a reservation Indian, but you are not on the reservation now,” Matt challenged.
“I left the reservation after the attack,” Nopoloto said.
“When was this attack?”
“Today. The white men attacked as the sun rose.”
“Do you have a horse?” Matt asked.
“Yes.”
“You need to have someone look at your wound. Come with me, I will ride with you to the reservation hospital.”
It was much later on the same day when Matt rode back into Phoenix, this time accompanied by Indian Agent Baker. They stopped at the office of Sheriff Robert Williams. Williams drank a cup of coffee as he listened to Matt relate to him the story of the attack he had heard from Nopoloto.
“Where is Nopoloto now?” Williams asked.
“He is in the hospital at the reservation, being treated for his wounds,” Matt said.
“And Nopoloto says the attack took place on the reservation?”
“Yes.”
“I’m pretty sure I know who did it,” Sheriff Williams said. “Pogue Willis, Billy Meechum, Karl Lathum, Angus Pugh, and nearly a dozen others are over at the Dry Gulch now, drinking it up. They claim they attacked Delshay’s camp.”
“I don’t think so,” Matt said. “I found Delshay’s camp. There was no sign of an attack.”
“Did you find the woman?” Williams asked.
“No,” Matt said. He purposely withheld the information about finding a letter from her.
“I don’t think you are going to find her. Not alive anyway.”
“As long as I don’t find her dead, I maintain the hope of finding her alive,” Matt said.
Williams sighed. “Well, if the attack happened off the reservation, it would come under my jurisdiction, seeing as how it was white men who did the attacking. But if it happened on reservation grounds—”
“It did,” Matt and Indian Agent Baker replied, speaking at the same time.
“Then you need to see U.S. Marshal Gilmore.”
“Do you want to come along with us?” Matt asked.
Sheriff Williams walked over to retrieve his hat, then put it on. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll go down to Gilmore’s office with you.”
“Did either of you see the attack?” Gilmore asked.
“No,” Matt answered.
“I was at the agency headquarters,” Baker said.
“Did you hear anything? Shooting, or yelling, or anything?”
Baker shook his head. “The agency headquarters are too far away from Nopoloto’s village. I didn’t hear anything.”
“We did ride out to the village,” Matt said.
“What did you find?”
“Nothing.”
“No survivors?”
“No.”
“No bodies?”
“The bodies had already been moved,” Baker said.
“Uh-huh,” Gilmore replied. “If they were ever there in the first place.”
“Marshal, are you saying the attack didn’t happen?” Matt asked. He pointed up the street toward the Dry Gulch. “There is a saloon full of people who are bragging about it.”
Gilmore shook his head. “No, they are bragging about attacking Delshay’s village. And if that is true, I have no quarrel with them. And without any eyewitnesses or even evidence to tell me otherwise, I have no reason not to believe them.”
“You have an eyewitness,” Matt said.
“Who?”
“Nopoloto.”
“Nopoloto,” Marshal Gilmore replied with a derisive snort. “You expect me to arrest more than a dozen white men on the word of one old Indian? And not just any Indian, but one who used to ride with Cochise, making war against us. Like I said, I have no eyewitnesses.”
Baker raised his finger at Gilmore. “It is this kind of thing that caused all our problems in the first place,” he said. “Geronimo had settled peacefully onto the reservation, until white men murdered his family. Delshay had settled peacefully onto the reservation until white men murdered his entire family. Now, Cochinay has gone to join either Geronimo or Delshay. And all because you aren’t doing your job.”
“Just a minute, Mr. Baker,” Gilmore replied angrily. “The entire U.S. Army has been chasing Indians throughout the West for the last forty years. When Custer and all his soldier boys got themselves killed, it had nothing to do with the marshal’s office. I don’t know what is going on with Delshay and I don’t care. Dealing with Delshay is the responsibility of the U.S. Army. Now, if you gentlemen would excuse me, I have some work to do.”
“Mr. Jensen, I’m sorry I suggested this,” Sheriff Williams said. “It is obvious to me that the marshal is going to do nothing to help us.”
“This is not my jurisdiction, Williams, and you know it,” Marshal Gilmore said.
“Right,” Williams said, his voice dripping with disgust. “Come along, gentlemen, we are wasting our time here.”
“I have to get back to the reservation,” Baker said. “And I want to do so before dark.”
As Baker started back to the Indian reservation, and Sheriff Williams returned to his office, Matt headed toward the Phoenix House to see Bixby.
“I believe he and Mr. Hendel are at the Dry Gulch,” the hotel clerk said.
Matt couldn’t help but chuckle. “Bixby at the Dry Gulch?”
The clerk chuckled as well. “Yes, it is hard to imagine, isn’t it? Someone like Bixby at a place like the Dry Gulch?”
When Matt stepped into the saloon a few minutes later, the celebration was in full swing. Nearly all the men of Willis’s posse were drunk and a few had even passed out. The others were talking loud, telling stories of the great battle that had taken place.
“There was no battle,” Matt said as he stepped up to the bar. “I’ll have one of Mr. Marcus’s beers,” he said.
“What do you mean there was no battle?” Meechum demanded. “Are you saying we didn’t kill a bunch of Delshay’s murderin’ Apaches?”
“You killed a bunch of Indians all right,” Matt said as he blew the head off the beer that was put before him. “But they weren’t murderers, and they weren’t with Delshay. You went onto the reservation and attacked a peaceful village.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I spoke to Nopoloto, one of the Indians who lived in the reservation village you attacked. And I found Delshay’s latest encampment. There were no signs of any battle there.”
“Did you say Nopoloto?” one of the saloon patrons asked.
“Yes.”
“Nopoloto used to ride with Cochise. He’s not an Indian you want to get mad at you. We’ll be lucky if the entire Apache Nation doesn’t go to war because of that.”
“Let ’em go to war,” Willis said bombastically. “If they do, we’ll be ready for them. Right, boys?”
“Right,” Meechum replied.
Matt noticed that the rest of the men, at least those who were not passed out drunk, were pointedly silent in response to Willis’s challenge.
“It looks like you may wind up fighting this war all alone, Willis,” Matt said. “And even you can’t draw fast enough, or shoot straight enough, to handle this all by yourself.”