by Jonas Ward
“Hobbled like an animal,” he breathed, and glanced at Reo.
If Reo was offended, he gave no sign of it. All he said was, “She’s lucky if that’s all they’ve done to her.”
Buchanan said, “I’ve got to get close enough to talk to her.”
“I wish you a lot of luck,” said Reo very dryly. He grinned brashly at the three Apache riflemen who stood across his path. One of them grinned back—and drew back the hammer of his Springfield to full cock.
Buchanan said, “You heard what the old man said. Come sundown they’ll be running her through their coming-of-age ceremony, and tomorrow noon she’ll be married off. We’ve got to get her out of here before that.”
“Why?”
Buchanan didn’t bother to answer that. He turned his back on the three Apaches and said under his breath, “Drift on over here with me a piece.”
Reo rammed his hands in his pockets, acting unconcerned, and ambled along. They walked back toward the center of the village; after a few paces the three Indian riflemen fell behind, stopped, and started to talk among themselves, laughing softly. Buchanan glanced back and said, “Seems clear enough old Sentos told those three to keep us from getting close to the white girl. We’ve got to figure out some way to distract the three of them long enough to get a chance to talk to her.”
“I’m all ears,” Reo suggested.
“You might pick a fight with one of them. That’d keep them busy long enough for me to slip down to the creek.”
“I’m still listening,” Reo said coldly. “I ain’t heard anything yet.”
“Scared?”
“What do you take me for?”
Buchanan said, “I’m still trying to get that figured out, too. But right now we’ve got other questions to answer, and the first one is how in the hell to get a word in with the girl.”
Reo squinted his eyes up into a faraway, thoughtful expression; he pinched his lips with forefinger and thumb, and said, “As I recollect, they’ll put her inside an empty wickiup before the ceremony starts. A woman’s supposed to have an hour or so to meditate and put childhood behind her before she goes out under the open tipi and lets the medicine man go to work on her.”
“Then she’ll be by herself in a wickiup?”
“If they do it the usual way. No guarantee of that, of course. Sometimes they break their own rules. This whole puberty ritual’s supposed to take four days, but I reckon being as how she’s white, they prob’ly decided to get it over and done with—she ain’t got no mother here to stand around being proud of her.” Buchanan nodded. “Then, we’ll just have to wait and keep our eyes open and find out what hut she goes into.”
“And in the meantime,” Reo added, “we can see about staying alive.”
Steve Quick sat brooding on the corral gate. He watched the cowhands file into the bunkhouse to lay by their hats and guns before supper, but he didn’t follow them inside. Things, Steve Quick was discovering anew, had a way of going wrong just when it looked as if everything were falling neatly into place.
It had started off with Antonia. No sooner had the preacher pronounced them man and wife than Antonia had decided to tell the whole world about it. That didn’t fit into Steve Quick’s plans, and he’d had a tough time convincing her to keep the marriage secret. He knew she wouldn’t keep her mouth shut for long.
He’d been counting on Ben Scarlett, but he could see Scarlett coming out of the cook shack now, and there was Mike Warrenrode, big as life in his wheelchair on the front stoop of the ranch house. Scarlett looked that way, grimaced, and hurried toward the corral.
Quick waited for him to come up. Quick’s expression was caustic and impatient. The low-slanting sun reached in under his hat brim and made a frizzy wisp of his mustache.
Scarlett reached the gate and looked up. It was always hard to read his face; he had a limited range of expressions. He was big and slow and hardhearted; he had been born with size but no talent, and his clumsy fighting ability was all he had to be proud of.
Scarlett said, “I went in there and told him to quit hiring people to pick on me.”
“Did you.”
“Warrenrode don’t listen good,” Scarlett complained.
“Maybe you didn’t talk loud enough.”
“How loud do I have to talk?”
“Loud enough so Mike Warrenrode gets dead,” Steve Quick said. “It’s the only way you’ll stop him.”
Scarlett scraped his face with his fingernails and frowned. “Race Koenig was in there.”
“Race puts his pants on the same way you do. You going to let him scare you?”
“I ain’t scared of nobody,” Scarlett said, heating up.
Quick said coolly, “I don’t believe you.”
“I didn’t think you would,” Scarlett answered. “But you just climb down off there and mix it up with me if you think I’m so yellow.”
“Pick on somebody your own size,” Quick said absently. He was grinding one fist into the other palm. Scarlett, obviously, was useless as long as he didn’t see a foolproof road ahead of him. It meant Quick had to make his road foolproof. He nodded, in confirmation of his own decision, and got down off the gate.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll go inside and tell Race to go out back, tell him I need to talk to him private-like. When you see him and me leave the house, you can go in.”
“What about Antonia? What if she sees me?”
“Antonia won’t give you no trouble, Ben. I can promise you that much.”
“How?”
Quick sized him up. “Ben, a lot of people don’t understand me. All they see is the gracious, warm surface. Let me tell you something. Underneath, I’m a first-class son of a bitch. Antonia steps out of line, I’ll shove her back onto it. Don’t fret none about that.”
“Well,” Scarlett said uncertainly.
“You got your gun loaded?”
“Yeah, sure. But I...”
Steve Quick didn’t let him finish. He set off toward the house, figuring that if he kept things moving fast enough, Scarlett wouldn’t have time to stop and work it all out with the slow machinery of his brain.
Quick saw Warrenrode back his wheelchair into the house. That was fine. That was all according to schedule; Warrenrode always went inside about this time to wash up for dinner. Scarlett might catch him alone by the commode.
When Quick entered the house, the parlor was empty. Warrenrode had already gone into the back corridor. Quick turned to his right, into the front hall, and had gone half a dozen paces when the door at the far end came open, and Race Koenig’s tall shape moved into the corridor.
That was Antonia’s room. Quick’s eyes narrowed down, and his mouth pinched together. Antonia appeared in the doorway behind Koenig and began to say something. Quick tramped forward and snapped at her, “I told you to stay away from him.”
Koenig said, “She ain’t your property, Steve.”
Antonia said, “I told him to leave, Steve.”
“For a fact,” Keonig said. “Anyhow, I only wanted to get her out to the kitchen. The old man’s hungry.”
“Just so that’s all you wanted,” Quick said. Koenig walked past him, toward the front of the house, and Quick stayed behind long enough to speak to the girl in a taut whisper. “Stay inside your room and don’t come out, no matter what you hear.”
“What? Steve—”
“Just stay inside,” he told her. He went back down the corridor to the parlor and said to Koenig, “Walk out back with me, Race. Got something I want to talk to you about.”
Koenig gave him a suspicious look. Through the half-open door Quick could see Ben Scarlett slowly approaching in the yard. His heartbeat became more rapid and he said, “Come on,” and walked with long strides toward the back door.
“What the hell,” Koenig said, but he came. Quick waited just outside the house, and made sure the door was shut behind Koenig. Then he led the way toward the windmill trough by the back barn.
Koen
ig said suspiciously, “What’s this about, Steve? Something on your mind?”
“It’s the old man,” Quick said, desperately hunting around in the recesses of his mind. He covered his confusion by building a cigarette. He was thinking of Scarlett, and the half-open front door of the ranch house, and what Scarlett—if his wits didn’t desert him—was about to do. Quick’s hands trembled slightly, enough to make him spill tobacco, and he made a mess of the cigarette.
“I ain’t got all night,” Koenig prodded. “Look,” Quick said abruptly, “what I really wanted to talk about is ’Tonia. You and me got to come to an understanding, Race. We can’t all the time be sniffin’ around each other like a pair of strange dogs. Now, I ain’t never cut in on Marinda with you. I’d kind of like to have you pay me and ’Tonia the same courtesy. I don’t reckon—”
“This is a hell of a time to mention Marinda,” Koenig said. His jaw clamped tight, and he spoke through his teeth. “I’ve been meaning to say this to you. If you’d had any spine, you’d have ducked inside the house when those two Indians showed up. You’d have grabbed yourself a gun and cut down on the two of them. Hadn’t been for you freezing up, Marinda’d never be up in that Apache camp now. So just don’t you start getting on my back about ’Tonia. I’ve never laid a hand on her and never intend to. For all she’s worth, you’re welcome to her.”
“Now, hold on just a minute!” Quick began, but he was cut off by the hollow boom of a gun going off inside the house.
Gunshot echoes rolled across the yard. Koenig wheeled. “What the hell?”
“How in hell should I know?” Quick said, making his eyes round with innocence.
Koenig didn’t even glance at him; Koenig’s legs started churning, and before Quick could move, Koenig was halfway to the house, running hard. Quick broke out of his tracks and ran after him. What ran through his mind was, Thanks, Race, you’ve given me an airtight alibi. The back door was still swinging from Koenig’s wrenching when Quick charged through into the house. He practically ran full-tilt into Koenig’s broad back. Koenig was standing flat-footed in the parlor, his bespectacled face swinging back and forth, trying to determine which direction the shot had come from.
A voice bellowed down the back corridor: “Goddamnit, somebody get in here!” Quick’s heart leapt into his throat. That was Mike Warrenrode’s voice.
Scarlett had slipped up, sure enough. When Quick sidled into the old man’s room, half expecting to be shot at, he found Warrenrode unscratched, sitting in his wheelchair with a smoking Colt .44 in his fist. On the floor was a limp hulk that had been Ben Scarlett not long before.
Warrenrode was breathing hard; a rime of sweat glistened on his face, and his eyes were big and wide. “Jesus,” he growled. “Jesus.”
Race Koenig knelt down by Scarlett and felt for a pulse. Warrenrode said, “Don’t bother. He was dead when he fell. I’m still a pretty damn good shot.”
“Drilled dead center,” Koenig said. “I’ll say you are. What happened?”
Steve Quick held his breath and got ready to run. Warrenrode said, “He’d been in here earlier today—you were here. Some garbled song and dance about how he wanted his old segundo’s job back and how he thought I’d hired Buchanan to beat him up and scare him out of the country.”
Steve Quick said carefully, “How’d he get that idea in his head?”
“Search me,” Warrenrode said. His breathing was settling down. He made a face and put his gun away in the holster under the blanket that covered his legs. “He came in here like a ten-wheel locomotive just now. Yelled something about me trying to get him killed, and went for his gun.”
Warrenrode added, “Ben never was worth a hoot with a gun.”
Quick allowed himself to start breathing regularly again. At least Scarlett hadn’t revealed the truth. Quick’s plan was still secret. Now all he had to do was persuade Antonia to keep her stupid mouth shut until he’d had time to work up a new scheme to do away with Warrenrode.
Rushing in from the yard, the Pitchfork hands began to crowd into the hall. Steve Quick melted back into the crowd, pushed his way through, and went across the parlor to the front hall. Nobody paid any attention to him. A chorus of excited talk ran back and forth through the milling cowhands. Quick went back down the front hall and knocked on Antonia’s door and when she opened it, he slipped inside and closed it behind him.
He said, “Ben Scarlett made a play for the old man and fouled it up. The old man killed him.”
“Ben Scarlett?” she said. “I don’t understand.”
“You don’t need to,” he said. “The point is—”
“You hired Scarlett,” she broke in. “Now I see. You put Scarlett up to it. You didn’t have the nerve to do it yourself, did you?”
“Why should I take a chance like that?” he demanded. “No sense in putting my own neck in a noose if anything went wrong.” Her mouth pouted at him. She went across the room to the bed and sat down. She said irrelevantly, “You didn’t even sneak in to see me last night—and here we are married!”
“For Christ’s sake,” he said, exasperated. “I’m going to tell him,” she said. “I’m going to tell all of them we’re married. Then we can sleep together like respectable married people.”
“Soon,” he said, trying to placate her. “Soon, querida, but not just yet. Hell, it’ll have to be soon—it won’t be long before that preacher in town spreads the words all over the valley.”
“Then, why can’t we tell them now?” she demanded.
“Because,” he said, with all the patience he could muster, “once the old man finds out about us, he’ll start putting two and two together and he’ll start asking himself a question or two. He might even go down to see that lawyer in town and have a look at his last will and testament. And we can’t afford to let him do that.”
“You’ll just have to kill him first,” Antonia said. “It won’t work to pawn the job off on somebody else, Steve. You tried that with Scarlett. You’ll have to do it yourself.”
“Ain’t much love lost in this family, is there?”
“Not enough to get lost,” she answered. “Don’t pretend you’re shocked, Steve. We both know that the only time Mike Warrenrode can do either one of us any good is when he’s dead. Why beat around the bush?”
He said, “Remind me never to turn my back on you.”
Her smile was thin and cool. “I’ll do that, husband. Now, what about it?”
He nodded. “I’ll do it.”
“Right away,” she said.
“No. I got to think it out, how to do it. But it’ll be soon. Tonight, maybe. We can’t let it hang fire any longer. But by Christ I feel a lot better if I’d had some word from Trask.”
“Don’t wait,” she said. “Get it done.” Quick brought up his eyes to meet hers. He studied her across a broken interval of time, at the end of which he said, “I reckon you’re right.”
Twelve
Half a dozen half-naked brown youths played stickball in the gathering twilight. Buchanan stood with his shoulder tipped against the trunk of a lone pine, watching with his eyes half shuttered. A clean-gnawed leg bone of a wren hung in his fist.
Johnny Reo sauntered forward from the center of camp, elaborately nonchalant. “Had enough to eat?”
“Until next time,” Buchanan said.
Reo gazed out at the Apache youths, who had paused in their game to stare at him balefully. He muttered, “Sticks and stones can break my bones, so I wish they’d put them down.”
Within a few moments the boys tired of staring. They resumed their game—hurling a deer-hide ball from paired sticks toward the wooden silhouette of a fish at the top of a lodgepole. When a thrower missed, a boy on the far side of the pole was supposed to catch the ball between his two long sticks. Reo said, “They’re faster’n hell and they’ve got good eyes. Don’t think I’d like to meet them when they’ve growed up.”
“Uh-huh,” Buchanan said. “What’d you find out?”
&nb
sp; Reo had to throw his head back to look at Buchanan; Reo was tall enough, but Buchanan was oversized. Reo said, “I made a right guess. They took the girl into that wickiup behind Sentos’ lodge.”
“Alone?”
“Looks like.”
Buchanan said, “Tell me something, Johnny. You ever seen the Apache puberty ceremony?”
“Yep.”
Buchanan nodded. “So have I. I’d just as soon she didn’t have to go through it.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning I’d like to get her out of here before they start on her with that pointed stick.”
Reo’s eyes rolled around. “You’re joshin’ me, ain’t you?”
“No.”
“Then, you’re plumb loco. Hell, at least we ought to wait till after midnight. They’ll be half drunk and all tired out from dancing by then.”
“No,” Buchanan said again. “Let’s take her out of here now, Johnny.”
“Now?” Reo asked, incredulous.
“Right now. You see if you can get our horses ready, and a spare for the girl. I’ll drift on down to that wickiup and see if I can slip inside. Most of the tribe’s starting to gather down by the ceremonial fire. They’ve got their horses pegged out behind the knoll back there, and I only spotted two guards. They’ll probably mosey on down to the fire once the drums get started. You post yourself in the trees back there until the horse guards leave. I’ll bring the girl with me and meet you back there. Have the horses ready. We’ll run off the rest of the horses and get the hell out of here.”
Reo gave him a look of downright disgust. He said, “Rammin’ around in the thick of the Apache stronghold at night. That your idea of usin’ your head?”
“If we play it right, we’ll have horses. They won’t. It ought to give us enough of a jump to stay ahead of them.”
“In a pig’s eye,” Reo said, and spat out the side of his mouth.
Buchanan, his eyes fiercely blue against the dark skin, laid his stare against Reo and said in a very gentle way, “I’m getting a little tired of you fighting me every step of the way, Johnny. It’s about time you fish or cut bait.”
