Voices of the Very Old
by Kenneth Newton

Ike Miller came out to my place two days after I posted my handbills around town. It was right around noon, and I was standing in my doorway drinking coffee when he drove his team into my yard, set the brake, and stepped down from the buckboard.

"Ike Miller," he said, holding out his right hand. "Are you . . . " He looked at the handbill in his other hand, then back at me. "Warren Russell?"

"Yes, I am," I replied. I switched hands with the coffee mug and shook his hand.

"Well, Warren, it says here you're in need of a tracker, 'cause you're havin' some Injun trouble up here."

I nodded. "That's right. He stole my saddle horse the other day. Lucky for me he left the wagon team."

He took off his hat and scratched his bald head. Ike Miller was a big man, not heavy, but over six feet and wiry, and pretty well-muscled for his age, which I figured to be sixty or more. His voice was a deep, clear baritone. "Trouble is, Warren, they tell me there ain't no more wild Injuns around here."

"They tell me that, too. The Army says they got the last one in '06, and the county sheriff says a posse led by him did the trick a couple of years later. They're both wrong. I stood right here at first light and watched him ride my mare across that meadow, with a rifle in one hand, and a handful of mane in the other. He had long, straight hair, a bandana tied around his forehead, a breechclout, and deerskin boots. He's an Indian, all right."

"Sounds like one, for sure. Maybe an Apache. So he had long, black hair?"

"No," I said, "gray. He's no spring chicken." I gestured toward the meadow and the mountain range in the distance. "Can you find him up there?"

He put his hat back on, then hesitated a while, as if he was thinking about what he should say, or do. "Warren, I could track him to hell and back, if I had to, but I know right where to go."

"How could you know that?"

"Because this wagon load of provisions is for him. You've got him pegged. He's Injun to the bone. I've known him more than thirty years. He's a friend of mine. He's the Apache Kid, and I ain't lyin'."

I felt like I wanted to continue our conversation while seated. "Is it too early for a drink, Ike?"

"Hell," he laughed, "it don't git that early."

"Well then, make yourself comfortable." I pointed him toward a little table and two chairs in the shade of a big cottonwood. I went inside and got a bottle of Jack Daniels and two glasses, then joined him. After we'd both had a couple of sips, I put down my glass and shook my head. "Trouble is, Ike, they tell me some cowboys killed the Apache Kid over by Socorro, back in '94."

Ike grinned. "Yeah, and if you don't like that one, there's the one about the company of Mexican Rurales that shot him to pieces in 18 and 90, down south of Nogales." He put his glass on the table. "If you've got more whiskey and the time to hear it, I got time to tell you the truth."

I poured us another drink. "I've got both."

We clicked our glasses, Ike Miller took another sip, and started talking. "Seein' as how you've heard of him, you likely already know the Kid was a scout for the Army, and a damn good one. He was a orphan, and Al Seiber took him in, finished raisin' him. That's how he got the name Apache Kid, 'cause that's what he was when Al found him. He mostly worked for Al, but he worked with me some. I liked him, and he took a likin' to me."

I interrupted him. "I've heard of the Apache Kid, and I've heard of Al Seiber, Chief of Scouts. I've never heard of Ike Miller."

He laughed at that. "Let's just say Al wasn't a modest man. For most men, just knowin' they done their job, and done it well, is enough. No need to talk about it. Al, on the other hand, loved to talk about it, and he made damn sure everybody knew what all he done. He got his name in the paper, and I didn't."

"Fair enough," I said.

"Anyway, we worked out of the post at the San Carlos agency. In the Spring of 18 and 87, I believe it was, the scouts was left to their own devices for a few days, and they brewed up a batch of tizwin and got sloshed. Three Injuns wound up gittin' shot. Al found out a few days later, and he was in the process of readin' them all the riot act when somebody started shootin'. Al got hit in the foot. Nobody knows who did the shootin', but it weren't the scouts, because Al had their guns." He took another drink and continued. "I can't blame Al for bein' plenty mad. That bullet to the ankle crippled him up, permanent, but for some reason he blamed the Kid for the whole mess, startin' with the tizwin. They was in and out of court for two years, but long story short, the Kid and three others was sentenced to seven years at Yuma Territorial Prison. On the way to Yuma, they escaped, and the Kid's been on the run ever since. There's been as much as $5,000.00 on his head, and too many pesos to count."

"You left out the part where your choirboy friend and the others killed two men during their escape, and tried to kill a third."

Ike pushed his hat back up on his forehead, leaned back in his chair, and stared at me. It occurred to me that we were sitting there getting drunk, talking about men getting drunk and shooting one another. "He was no choirboy, Warren, but he was a good man, who did good work for the army, and he was goin' to a hell-hole for seven years for somethin' he didn't do, just because Al Seiber pointed his finger at him. I might've made a break for it in them straits. Maybe you would have, too. As far as the killin's go, he was chained to the floor of that stagecoach. The others unlocked his shackles after the killin' was already done—or so said the driver that they shot and left for dead."

"I guess he could have killed me in my sleep if he wanted to. With all the raiding he did before he disappeared, I wouldn't have been his first."

"Well, he didn't kill ya, did he?" Ike was still eyeing me a little harder than I liked. "As for the raidin', Jesse James once got blamed for robbin' banks in Illinois, Missouri, and Iowa, all on the same day. Once you git a name, you get blamed for everything, and everybody's lookin' to kill ya."

"You must have killed your share of Indians. But the Apache Kid can do no wrong. I don't get it, Ike."

"They're just men like us. The ones I killed was tryin' to kill me, too, and I didn't blame 'em for it. Between us and the Mexicans, we took about everything they had. In their place, I would've fought, too. The Kid knew there was no use fightin', and the best thing for the Apaches was to come in. He tried to help bring 'em in."

Al looked like he was tired of defending the Apache Kid, so I called it off. "How long has he been my neighbor?"

Ike laughed and poured us another round. "Three or four years, I guess. He's moved around a lot over the years, but he seems to like your neighborhood. I take him supplies two or three times a year. I usually veer off your road about two miles down the hill."

I nodded. "I've seen your tracks. I've been meaning to follow them and see where they went."

"It's probably just as well that you didn't."

I nodded. "I expect you came out here to ask me to leave him alone."

"Yeah, I did," he admitted. "But I'll bring your horse back. He don't need it, and he should have known that takin' it would only draw attention to him. It's a bit of a puzzlement to me that he did that." He took off his hat and scratched his head again, then put it back on and reached into his hip pocket. "Here's the rest of your bills," he said. "I took 'em all down. I figured if you was bound and determined to go after him, it would be better if I took you, instead of a bunch of half-assed 19 and 12 Model Injun fighters."

"You're inviting me along?"

"Yes, if you want to go, and if you can keep it under your lid."

Ike said the trip from my place would be six hours in the wagon, and another two hours on horseback. We decided to finish the bottle, have some supper, and get an early start in the morning so we'd get there during daylight. The next day I made us some breakfast while he hitched up his team. It was July, but it was still plenty cool at sunup when I climbed up into the seat next to him and stood my rifle between my legs.

"What manner of shoulder cannon is that?" he asked.

"It's a Winchester," I replied, "Model of 18 and 95, in .30 U.S."

He chuckled as he shook the reins and clicked his tongue at the horses. "You know, Warren, you could line up about six skinny little Apaches front to back, and kill 'em all with one shot from that thing."

"I'm not planning to kill any Apaches, just get my horse."

Ike looked over at me. "Well, now, that's good to know." I wondered if he was relieved he wouldn't have to kill me. He grinned a big grin, but I didn't.

A couple of hours into the bumpy buckboard ride, Ike got bored enough to make small talk. "How long you been in that cabin, Warren?"

"Six years."

"And you're batchin' it? I didn't see no recent sign of a woman bein' on the place."

"Had one for a while. One day she said she'd rather live in a whorehouse in Las Cruces with a saloon swamper than in the middle of nowhere with me. For all I know, that's where she is. You got a wife, Ike?"

"Hell, Warren, I've had four of 'em. Lost 'em all, one way or another. Wasn't cut out to be a husband, I guess. I left one, and two left me—I think one's in a whorehouse in Prescott." He looked at me and smiled, then turned serious. "The other one I think would have stayed with me, but she got the consumption and died."

That pretty much ended talk of spouses, but a little further along he said, "You've got no cattle, and no ground under the plow, just a little vegetable garden. What do you do, out in the middle of nowhere?"

"I'm a writer."

"Well," he said, "that's fine. We've been needin' another Billy the Kid book."

I shook my head and laughed. "Not Billy the Kid."

"That's good. I met him once, when he was just a cowboy they called Kid Antrim. Didn't like him."

"I want to write a novel, but I can't get anything started. Luckily there's an editor at a magazine back east that likes my stories about life out here, and he buys enough of them to keep me from starving."

"You gotta be doin' better than just not starvin'. That Winchester Model of 18 and 95 must have cost a pretty penny."

"Nope, I won that from Billy the Kid in a poker game. He's still alive, you know. He said if I ever ran into an old reprobate named Ike Miller, I should tell him Kid Antrim says, Kiss my Ass."

We got to the end of the wagon ride at mid-day, and none too soon for me. We unhitched the horses next to a small stream, rubbed them down, gave them some grain, and let them drink. Ike retrieved a couple of travois that he had stashed under a rock outcropping and covered with foliage. He pronounced the canvas and tree branches fit for re-use, which meant we wouldn't have to rebuild them.

Along with the provisions, there were saddles, bridles, and blankets under the tarp in the buckboard. We secured the provisions on the travois, saddled the horses, and ate some canned peaches. A half hour later we were back on the trail, our rifles in the saddle scabbards and each horse dragging a travois. The going was rough, over rocky ground and a steep grade. The horses put their heads down and pulled with a will. They had done this job before.

I was thinking we must have been in the saddle for at least two hours when my suspicions were verified by a gunshot. Ike was a little ahead of me and just to the right. The bullet missed him and tore at my left sleeve. Both of us jerked our rifles from the scabbard, jumped off our horses, and took cover, me behind a big fir and Ike behind a boulder a few feet to my right.

He turned around and sat with his back against the boulder. "Damn it," he said. "I forgot that part."

"What part?" I yelled. "The part about me getting shot?"

He offered me a sheepish grin. "Actually, yeah. A long time ago I told him if there was ever anybody with me, it would be either the law, or the army, forcin' me to show 'em where he was hidin'." He paused for a moment. "And, uh, that he should shoot 'em."

"Damn you, Ike!"

"Aw, stop whinin'. It was a long time ago."

"He remembered."

"Well, he missed, didn't he?" Ike had fished a bandana out of his pocket, and was working on attaching it to the muzzle of his Marlin.

I didn't see any blood, but my arm was stinging. The bullet had actually grazed my bicep, just like in the dime novels. "Not by very damn much, he didn't."

"You know," Ike mused, "now that I think on it, you couldn't hardly pay the Kid to run a cleanin' patch down a barrel. That's a old single shot cavalry carbine he's shootin' at you with. The bore probably looks like the dark side of the moon. I expect he'd play hell hittin' anything with it." He looked over at me. "Even so, I might move my foot."

I was now sitting with my back to the tree, and my left boot was exposed in the clear area between my tree and Ike's boulder. I moved it over just as the dirt between the tree and the boulder exploded from the Kid's next shot.

"Son-of-a-bitch!" I said.

"Look on the sunny side, Warren," Ike said. "You are now an official half-assed 19 and 12 Model Injun fighter."

"I haven't done any fighting yet, but I'm about to." I levered a cartridge into the chamber and peered around the edge of the tree.

"Hold on now, Warren." Ike now had the bandana secured, raised it above the boulder, and waved it around. "Haskay-bay-nay-ntayl!" he shouted. He looked at me. "That's his Injun name," he explained, then he shouted again. "¡No dispare! ¡Este hombre es mi amigo!" He turned to me again. "He don't like talkin' American, but he speaks Mexican like a Mexican. Can you comprende Mexican?"

"A little. I got that part."

An old man's warbly voice responded, from not very far away. "¡Dijo que lo debo disparar!"

Ike started to explain. "He's remindin' me that I said —"

"I've got the gist of it, Ike."

He nodded and called out again. "Sé que hice, pero es un buen hombre. No dispare. Subimos." He stood up and leaned his rifle against the boulder. "OK, Warren, you just lower the hammer on that .30-40, lean it up against that tree, and follow me."

Why, I don't know, but I did as he said, and about two minutes later we were face to face with the Apache Kid. He hadn't put down his Springfield; he had the beat up, rusty old carbine cradled across his chest with the hammer back. When he saw I was unarmed he lowered the hammer, propped the gun against a tree, and walked up to Ike. They put their hands on each other's shoulders. "Hombre pelón viejo," said the Kid in his shaky voice.

Ike looked over his shoulder. "That's Mexican for old bald guy."

The horses hadn't gone far, and in an hour or two we had the provisions brought up and put away. The Apache Kid lived in a cave adjacent to a small clearing. The opening in the side of the mountain didn't directly face the clearing, but was angled off to one side, which made it hard to see until you got pretty close. The cave was roughly ten feet wide and about that deep, and over six feet high, just tall enough to keep Sugar out of sight. I was happy to see her. She looked no worse for the wear, and seemed glad to see me, too, as she searched my pockets for a treat. I gave her some sugar. Ike laughed out loud when he first saw her. "A brown and white paint!" he said. "To an Apache, that says steal me."

I'd seen pictures of the Apache Kid, and this old boy was him, for sure. He'd worn his hair short when he was a scout, and now it was down past his shoulders, but there was no mistaking those eyes. He was likely around Ike's age, maybe even a little younger, but the years on the run had been hard on him. Ike was vigorous and spry, but the Kid walked stooped over, and when he sat down, he had a hard time getting up. I don't know what surprised me more—that he had walked all the way to my place, or that he had ridden Sugar all the way back without a saddle or bridle.

Ike and the Kid chatted the afternoon away. The Kid wasn't interested in making new friends, at least, not with me. I spent my time on the other side of the clearing, whittling, and he only looked my way a couple of times—I figured when the subject of Sugar came up. Before I knew it, it was dark. We ate a cold supper, and I laid out my bedroll in my corner of the clearing and turned in.

I woke up to a cold dawn, but my bedroll was snug, so I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. I had just about made it when I was startled wide-awake by a gunshot. I jumped up and grabbed my rifle, looking around like a wild man, trying to figure out where the shooter was, and then I saw white smoke drifting out of the cave. I walked over and looked in, and saw Ike standing over the Apache Kid holding the Kid's carbine. He opened the trapdoor, pulled out the smoking brass, and tossed it aside. "Good God, Ike," I said.

Ike turned around as he wiped at the tears running down his cheeks. "He asked me to, Warren. Said his life wasn't worth livin' no more." He reloaded the carbine and snapped the trapdoor shut, then turned and left the cave. I didn't take my eyes off the Apache Kid's dead body until Ike returned, leading Sugar.

"Oh, no you don't, Ike," I warned.

"By what he believes," Ike said softly, "he's gonna need a good horse where he's goin'."

"I know that. Give him one of yours."

"He wanted to cross over with this one. He must have seen you out ridin' her sometime, and fancied her." He looked sadly down at the Kid, then back at me. "It's why he took her, Warren. He knew his string was about played out. He told me last night he felt like this was a good time to get it over with, if I was willin'."

I scratched Sugar behind the ear and patted her cheek. "She doesn't deserve it, Ike."

"No," he sighed, "she damn sure don't. She's a sweet girl." He patted her rump. "But he does."

I went back to my corner, dropped my rifle on my bed, sat down on a rock, and went back to whittling. On the third pass of the knife the Springfield bellowed again. Sugar didn't make a sound.

It took two days of back-breaking work to gather enough rocks to seal the opening, but when we were finished it looked enough like a natural rock slide that nobody was likely to ever give it a second look. After we took out the fire ring and drug some brush into the clearing, all traces of the Apache Kid, and also Sugar, were gone for good.

When we got down off the mountain, Ike spent the night at my place, and left for town at first light. He turned around in my doorway and shook my hand. "That was a mighty kind thing you done, Warren, givin' up that little mare."

"I'm finished talking about it, Ike."

He pursed his lips and nodded. "OK. I'll see you around, then, Warren." With that, he climbed up and drove away.

I watched him go for a few seconds, then called out, "Take care, Ike." He raised his left hand, but didn't turn around.

Three weeks after that I went into town, and I thought I'd look up Ike and buy him a drink. I asked around with no luck until the clerk in the dry goods store recognized his name and put me onto his landlady, who said he had packed his things and moved on. "About three weeks ago, I think it was," she said.

I told Ike I'd keep the truth about the Apache Kid under my lid, and I have, all these years. I managed to finally write that novel, finishing it about a year later. It was about an old renegade Indian on the run, and his friend, an old white tracker who used to scout with him back in the day. There was also a subordinate character, a handsome, kind-hearted hermit who lived in the middle of nowhere. The foreword to the book said it was based on a true story, but I disguised the locale sufficiently that nobody would ever be able to discern the real location of the hermit's cabin, or even the closest town, let alone the renegade's grave.

None of that subterfuge was necessary, since the book didn't get published until 19 and 36, as Ike would have put it, and it barely earned back my $250.00 advance against royalties, so nobody read it. It is long since remaindered, and just as well.

I wound up teaching high school English in Santa Fe until I retired. I even found a woman who would stay with me, though I'm sure the locale and steady paycheck had at least as much to do with it as my charms. I never again laid eyes on Ike Miller, but I often think about him and the Kid. I'm around the same age now as they were then.

I think about Sugar, too. I can see her galloping across the desert in Apache heaven, her mane flying, pricking her ears, able to run all day without getting tired, and on her back, wielding a spanking new Springfield Model of 18 and 73 trapdoor cavalry carbine, The Apache Kid, forever young, and forever free.