Fifteen Western Tales, March 1954 — page 55: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

t oS ae Nr te ail Se rr ta hee Pe a $y 2 ae realy nah moe : = % . a * = -_ y * = - : 7 . RACE THE FIERCE WINDI See ee Se ne “sage : _— : a5 It was plain he’d been buried alive in a sitting position in the hill of harvester ants after the cruel custom of the Apaches. The savages had left only the man’s head from the ears up, exposed to the broiling Arizona sun. The stinging red ants, armed with flesh-nipping pinchers, had picked the skull clean. : Involuntarily his pace slowed. His mind had been so occupied that his father had swung down from the ridge to join him. “What's the matter with you?” his father demanded. “You're walking blind, like a loco’d mule. camp if you ain’t careful.” Chip shook his head, swallowed hard, “Thinking about Apaches.” “The next question from his. father whisked into Chip’s mind like an arrow, Did you remember the prospector 2” Chip nodded, his face paling, and the feeling of sickness. sweeping over him again. : “ “Stull want your horses?” “Ves!” said Chip determinedly. The youth felt the older man’s strong ~ hand on his shoulder. _ “That's it, son, we can't run from them— not if we want to live-here.” His father slapped him on the back for the first time ‘in his life, just as he were another man. “Just remember—I know Apaches, keep your head up!” Two hours later, at a little stream, Chip knelt and drank his fill while his father watched. Then his father, and they hit the _ trail, his father scouting the high points. The trail was freshening fast, Chip : noticed. Once he’d found horse droppings, , still. warm and steaming in the cool fall air, Chip’s father cautioned slower travel __as they were close behind the tiring horses. Chip’s heart pounded faster, not from the tremendous exertion of the long run, - but from the excitement of the impending . encounter with the Apaches. The late afternoon sun had already left the bottom of the washes and it warmed * ‘ You'll walk right into their Chip’s back as he climbed out and up to- ward his father who was travelling parallel and. just under the crest of a ridge. The | older man waved a halt. : ) “Big Sycamore’s out in front a mile,” said his father. ““They’re camped at Blue Hole, sure as hell. We’ll sneak down the rim a piece then slip over the rim. They’ll have a couple of bucks watching their back trail where they went into the canyon.” Chip followed silently. He was tired now. Thev had traveled.a long, long way, alter- nately trotting and walking. His father led him up an arroyo, keeping low and out of sight. Then they crept into the cedar thickets, finally bellying down in the tall grasses. Chip followed his father’s every movement. Never once, he noticed, slipping into a crevice that broke the rim rocks of Sycamore, did his father sky-line himself. Under the’ rim, ina thicket of mountain mahogany, Chip stopped behind his father to listen. Faintly he caught the sound of moving’ horses, the click of hoofs on rocks, the murmur of human voices in the deep and gloom-shrouded canyon bottom.. The sudden, piercing scream of an in- jured horse rose eerily and echoed in the canyon. Chip looked questioningly at his father and saw the silent man grinning in the swiftly gathering dusk. ' “Killing a horse—big feast tonight— celebrating the return of the bucks with a lot of horses!” | iN IT was dark in the canyon and pinpoints of light flickered up through the leafy cottonwoods lining the stream below. Chip felt a hand on.his arm, and his father pulled himself to his feet from where he’d been. sitting. Slowly, carefully, Chip followed his stealthy parent into the can- yon. Chip had never felt this high exhilarating feeling before—he was stalking Indians! They circled below the celebrating Apaches and went across the canyon. Up on.the EOMMICLOOCKS5EO