Free Tom Horn And The Apache Kid by Andrew J. Fenady Page B

to show it. It showed.
    “Thought it was better you heard it from us instead of strangers,” Tom added.
    Maybe it was. Still, for the Kid it didn’t do much to lessen the impact.
    “Yeah, thanks,” the Kid said, avoiding the eyes of both men.
    “Look, Kid,” Horn hastened, “it’ll be days, maybe weeks before Miles arranges for that train. A lot can happen. We’re gonna
     send a telegraph to Crook—”
    The Kid interrupted, “You think that the Cheyenne or the Sioux will deliver that telegraph to ol’ Gray Wolf?”
    “We’ll get word to him,” Horn went on, “and Al’s gonna go see the governor.”
    “They’ll set Miles straight.” Sieber nodded. “Him and his goddamn chicken-feathered hat, which he ain’t got much brains under.”
    “You know,” Horn said, “the governor’s a good friend of Al’s.”
    “Hell, yes,” said Sieber. “ ‘Zuly’ owes me a fistful of markers.”
    “Tom…Al…” The Kid’s voice seemed to come from another world. “You ever been locked up?” He was only inches away
     from the two scouts, but the distance couldn’t be measured.
    “We’ll get you out, Kid,” said Horn. “You’ve done a lot for the army.”
    “But I’m an Indian.” It wasn’t a statement from the Kid but an indictment.
    Horn nodded. “Yeah, you’re an Indian.”
    “Not to them I ain’t.” The Kid motioned toward Geronimo and the other locked-up Apaches. “So what
does
that make me?”
    There was a stifling moment of silence.
    “I don’t know, Kid,” Horn answered. “I don’t know. But we’ll do everything we can. Come on, Al.”
    Al Sieber reached through the bars and touched the Apache Kid’s shoulder.
    “You take care of yourself…Sibi’s Boy.”
    Horn and Sieber turned and walked toward daylight.
    The Apache Kid gripped the bars until the blood flushed out of his fingers.
    The sneer on Geronimo’s face was closer to a smile than it had ever been—a smile of triumph.
    “Sibi’s Boy!” The Apache Kid let loose of the bars and allowed the blood to flow back into his cold fingers. He walked to the
     wall and inhaled the upstart summer air that wandered loose and free outside the guard house.
    “Sibi’s Boy.” The Apache Kid touched the eagle claw at his throat. For years it had been a sign that he belonged to something,
     to someone—that he mattered.
    “Sibi’s Boy”—with the skill, strength, and advantages of his Apache heritage, he could look at the forest and the mountains
     and on the ground and read every sign there.
    “Sibi’s Boy”—who could also walk with pride and accomplishment in the white man’s world and work for a white man’s pay.
    “Sibi’s Boy”—who now hung suspended between two worlds, unclaimed by either, denied by both: reviled by the Apache, rejected
     by the white man.
    “Sibi’s Boy”—convicted and condemned. Was he really Sibi’s Boy? Had he ever been?

Chapter Fourteen
    Horn and Sieber paused in the cool afternoon shade thrown along the east side of one of the adobe structures. Each man rolled
     a cigarette. Horn fired up a match on the seat of his trousers and lit Sieber’s smoke, then his own.
    Neither man had spoken in the few minutes since they left the guard house. The image of the Apache Kid confined in such a scant
     space seemed as unnatural as that of a panther in a purse. But a panther could tear his way out of a purse; the Kid was penned
     by stone and iron in a cell not much broader than the smile that used to be on his face.
    “You know,” said Horn, “maybe we’re going about this from the wrong direction.”
    “Well, if you know another direction, point us toward it.”
    With thumb and forefinger Horn took the cigarette from between his lips and jabbed toward Dr. Jedadiah Barnes’s office-hospital.
    “What’s the matter?” Sieber inquired. “You sick?”
    “No, but an acquaintance of ours is. You remember our old friend Emile Van Zeider. Maybe we ought to pay him a visit.”
    “And