Read Online Trail Of the Apache and Other Stories (1951) by Elmore Leonard - Free Book Online Page A

The trail had disappeared into a hazy gloom of tangled brush and tree trunks with the cliff on one side and the piney hill on the other to keep out the light.
    Angsman rode past them and they stopped and turned in the saddle. Hyde looked a little sheepish because he didn't know where the trail was, but Billy Guay stared back defiantly and tried to look hard.
    Ed, you saw some bones out there on the n1/4eats a while back, Angsman said. Likely they were men who had gold fever. That was all he said. He turned the head of the mare and continued on.
    Angsman moved slowly, more cautiously now than before, and every so often he would rein in gently and sit in the saddle without moving, and listen. And there was something about the deep si-You Never See Apaches . . . l ence that made even Billy Guay strain his eyes into the dimness and not say anything. It was a loud quietness that rang in their ears and seemed unnatural. Moving at this pace, it was almost dusk when they reached the edge of the timber.
    The pine hill was still on their left, but higher and steeper. To the right, two spurs reached out from the cliff wall that had gradually dropped until now it was just a hump, but with a confusion of rocky angles in the near distance beyond. And ahead was a canyon mouth, narrow at first, but then appearing to open into a wider area.
    As they rode on, Angsman could see it in Ed Hyde's eyes. The map was in his hand and he kept glancing at it and then looking around. When they passed through the canyon mouth into the open, Hyde called, Angsman, look! Just like it says!
    But Angsman wasn't looking at Ed Hyde. A hundred feet ahead, where a narrow side canyon cut into the arena, the two Indian women sat their ponies and watched the white men approach.
    Angsman reined in and waited, looking at them the way you look at deer that you have come across unexpectedly in a forest, waiting for them to bolt.
    But the women made no move to run. Hyde and Billy Guay drew up next to Angsman, then continued on as Angsman nudged the mare into a walk.
    They stopped within a few feet of the women, who had still neither moved nor uttered a sound.
    Angsman dismounted. Hyde stirred restlessly in his saddle before putting his hands on the horn to swing down, but stopped when Billy Guay's hand tightened on his arm.
    Damn, Ed, look at that young one! His voice was loud and excited, but as impersonal as if he were making a comment at a girlie show. She'd even look good in town, he added, and threw off to stand in front of her pony.
    Angsman looked at Billy Guay and back to the girl, who was sliding easily from the bare back of her pony. He greeted her in English, pleasantly, and tipped his hat to the older woman, still mounted, who giggled in a high, thin voice. The girl said nothing, but looked at Angsman.
    He said, -+C+|mo se llama? and spoke a few more words in Spanish.
    The girl's face relaxed slightly and she said, Sonkadeya, pronouncing each syllable distinctly.
    What the hell's that mean? Billy Guay said, walking up to her.
    That's her name, Angsman told him, then spoke to the girl again in Spanish.
    She replied with a few Spanish phrases, but most of her words were in a dialect of the Apache tongue. She was having trouble combining the two languages so that the white men could understand You Never See Apaches . . . h er. Her face would frown and she would wipe her hands nervously over the hips of her greasy deerskin dress as she groped for the right words. She was plump and her hair and dress had long gone unwashed, but her face was softly attractive, contrasting oddly with her primitive dress and speech.
    Her features might have belonged to a white woman the coloring, too, for that matter but the greased hair and smoke smell that clung to her were decidedly Apache.
    When she finished speaking, Angsman looked back at Hyde. She's a Warm Springs Apache. A
    Mimbre+|o, he said. She says they're on their way home.
    Hyde said, Ask her if she knows about any gold