The animals were standing quietly, and the idea that an enemy might come into the creek bed seemed unlikely. Presently Geronimo went to sleep.
Some time later he awakened. At first he thought he had been disturbed by the deepening clouds and a feeling that rain would soon fall. Then he peered down the wash.
Two nearly naked Indians carrying war clubs were stalking the horses and were only about forty yards from the nearest animal. Their clubs, the way they wore their straight black hair, and their tattooed faces stamped them as Papagoes. It was plain to see that they intended to steal the horses.
When he was certain that neither Papago was looking in his direction, Geronimo slung his quiver of arrows over his back. Taking his bow in hand, he crawled swiftly to and under the nearest horse.
The horses were not in an even line, but all stood perfectly still because they were interested in the Papagoes, and their legs formed a rough tunnel. Geronimo crawled down it. Reaching the last horse, he stopped and licked dry lips.
The Papagoes saw him, raised their clubs and rushed forward
He wished Delgadito or any of the others were there. It was one thing to dream of becoming a warrior and quite another to face the enemy. What should he do now? Then the Papagoes saw him, raised their clubs and rushed forward, and there was only one thing he could do.
Geronimo plucked an arrow from his quiver, nocked it, drew his bow, took careful aim at the nearest Papago, and shot. The Papago was hit squarely in the heart. The only sound as the man fell was a jarring thud when he struck the ground. His companion turned to run.
Forgetting to nock another arrow, Geronimo crawled weakly from beneath the horse and for a few minutes sat shivering. Then he remembered that, though he was still a boy, he would soon be not just a warrior but an Apache warrior. Forcing himself to rise, he walked over to look at the dead Papago, and told himself that he was glad he had put an end to another enemy of the Apache. But he was just as happy that he had not killed the second Papago too.
Before long a black horse, flanked by a gray and four bays, jumped down into the wash, ran across it, and stopped. They stared back in the direction from which they had come, and the tethered horses raised their heads to stare too. Geronimo thought that the black was a wonderful stallion and was surely stolen from some Mexican rancheria because no Papagoes bred horses so fine.
Now more horses came galloping over the desert until there was a herd of about eighty milling around in the wash. For the most part they were scrawny Papago ponies. But Geronimo saw one more fine stallion, a dark gray with black spots.
Riding stolen ponies, which they guided without help of saddle or bridle, Delgadito and his raiders were on the heels of the last horses. As their mounts jumped into the wash they slid off. Delgadito made his way to Geronimo and looked down at the dead Papago.
"How is this?" the chief asked.
"He would have stolen our horses," Geronimo replied.
"Was he alone?"
"There was another," the boy admitted. "I did not kill him."
"You should have," Delgadito scolded. "But come now and mount."
Geronimo ran with him to the picket line and mounted his mother's old stallion, then he was astounded to see Delgadito take time to strip saddle and bridle from his own horse and put them on the apaloosa. Geronimo marveled. This was enemy country and, when the Papagoes discovered that some of their horses had been stolen, they were sure to launch a hot pursuit. But Delgadito seemed as calm as he had ever been at home in his own wickiup.
Mounting the apaloosa and whooping at the top of his voice, Delgadito charged the herd. The other riders took off, one after another, and drove the horses full speed straight north. This puzzled Geronimo. Finally he rode over to talk with Nadeze.
"Why do we go north?" he asked. "Our home is almost due east."
"Worry not and question not," Nadeze said coolly. "Look and learn."
Always at full gallop, Delgadito was racing from one end of the line to the other. The apaloosa already had run at least six times the distance any other horse had traveled.
About an hour and a half later Delgadito caught his own horse and transferred saddle and bridle from the apaloosa to him. The exhausted apaloosa staggered ten feet to stand with head drooping. Geronimo finally understood.
Beyond any doubt, Papago trackers were already on the trail of Delgadito's Mimbreno raiders. They could not fail to find the weary apaloosa and they would know its owner was the shaman of the White Mountain Apaches. They would also see that the stolen horses had been started northward, toward the home of these Apaches. Thus the Papagoes would think that they had been raided by men from the White Mountain tribe and they would seek revenge on them, rather than on the Mimbreno Apaches.
"We have a wise chief," thought Geronimo, as Delgadito's plan became clear to him.
Just then Delgadito said, "Chie, continue northward with thirty of the more worthless horses. Leave a plain trail, as though we were stricken with panic. But drive the horses back and forth so it will appear as though there were many more than thirty. Run as soon as you see pursuers."
Chie nodded, and the rest of the men started dividing the remaining horses into smaller groups.
"Why do we do this?" Geronimo asked, riding along beside Nadeze.
"It is easier to hide the trail of a small group of horses," said Nadeze. "And the Papagoes will find it much more difficult to track us since we will take each herd in a different direction before swinging back to our village."
"Do I drive some?"
"You are too anxious, stripling." Nadeze was far more respectful since Geronimo had slain the Papago. "You will ride with one of us."
Suddenly the rain clouds which Geronimo had noticed earlier loosed an earth-battering torrent. The raiders smiled. Usan, god of their tribe, had indeed blessed them. Though the Papago trackers would certainly find the apaloosa, they would never discover where the rest of the horses had gone after a storm such as this one.
Driving all the horses ahead of them through the pouring rain, the raiders turned homeward.
In bright sunlight next day, the stolen Papago horses cropped grass on the slope opposite Delgadito's wickiup. Geronimo listened anxiously while Delgadito, as was the right of a chief who led a raiding party, divided the plunder.
The leader reserved twenty horses for himself, and the twenty he chose included the two fine stallions. Then he gave smaller numbers of horses to the four men who had gone with him. The number each received depended on how hard he had worked to make the raid successful. Next came a just share for all families who had no one to steal horses for them.
Geronimo's heart sank as the horses were given away. He had hoped to get something for himself, but now the only horses remaining were a dozen or so fit only for the cooking pot. Delgadito declared them as such. Then he announced, so that all could hear:
"I give part of my portion, the black stallion and the gray stallion with black spots," he swung to Geronimo, "to an Apache youth who deserves them because during this raid he behaved like a warrior."
For a moment Geronimo was too surprised and delighted to move. Then he tilted his head, squared his shoulders, and went proudly forth to claim his prizes.
CHAPTER THREE