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Updated: June 22, 2025
You know, he claims that Elsie belongs to him." Lennon stared in amazement. "What! your sister that little pink and white blossom?" "But she's not really my sister. That's the pinch. Cochise brought her with him when he first came to the Hole, two years before Slade. He claimed he had found her over beyond Triple Butte.
As the two seized and started to bind Carmena, Slade grinned at her, derisively. "Guess you wish you hadn't," he jeered. "I'll learn you who's boss. How'll you like being let down to Cochise, huh?" The danger to Elsie had horrified and enraged Lennon no less than Carmena. He had been writhing in his rawhide bonds, in a furious struggle to break loose.
The meeting was by no means unpleasant. After a short pause Carmena led the visitors in from the big anteroom. Cochise cast a covert glance at Elsie, and with an air of stolid indifference to the others sat down at the table. Slade was neither silent nor stolid. He stared hard about the living room and bellowed over to Elsie, who was raking her pies out of the dutch oven: "Ho, howdy, Cookie Gal!
"That would make Cochise feel better." To the vast surprise of Lennon Carmena took this preposterous proposal seriously. "All right, Blossom. But not a drop of tizwin, mind. This way, Jack." The doorway opened into a large living-room, homelike with bright-hued Navaho rugs, a quantity of cliff-dweller pottery, and a sufficiency of heavy, comfortable furniture hewn out of cedar.
One afternoon Mangus Colorado and Cochise were in the neighborhood with six hundred Apache warriors, when a smoke signal from distant scouts told them that the overland stage was approaching without an armed escort. The two chieftains posted their naked followers behind the rocks and awaited the arrival of their victims.
Lennon's anger against the unpleasant pair was intense enough for him to consider the scheme justified, though its suggestion of treachery deepened his prejudice against Carmena. During the meal prepared by Elsie a solemn avowal by Slade that the cook must go home with him brought the knife of Cochise half out of its sheath.
As it was, he came out of the room extremely depressed. Depression was a mood which in Tom Johnson usually led to action. In this case his first move was to visit Cochise. It did not brighten his outlook upon life. Cochise was in no state to travel, that was evident. He was tired and stiff and his back showed signs of soreness. Rest was undoubtedly what his case demanded.
He was settling down to enjoy peace in his home, when a call for help made him forsake the security which had been so hard to earn. That security was unknown elsewhere in Cochise County. The strong men who had seized the reins in Tombstone, wielding their power for their own selfish ends, were gone; they had ridden away with warrants out against them.
But they used neither rifles nor knives. The trader was borne down by the weight of numbers and his left arm lashed fast to his backward twisted feet. Cochise had caught up the flickering candle. He sprang upon the back of another man and peered into the room above. When at last he jumped down his face was distorted with anger. He shook his knife in Slade's face.
"Well, son, you seen what happened to Dad, trying to murder his pard," he admonished. "Hope it'll be a warning to you. I'm a peaceful man. I got to have law and order. Cochise ripped loose with his bunch. You seen how I smashed his play. 'Fore night my Navahos'll clean up what's left of 'em all." Lennon choked down his rage and loathing. Not he alone was in the power of this brutal scoundrel.
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