Ghost Warrior

by Jory Sherman

  Zak and Jeff dismounted.

  “Cody, you’re the last person I expected to see out here,” Loomis said. “You, too, Captain Vickers. Right now, you’re both in the way. Captain, you’re out of uniform, and Cody, I guess I broke my promise to you.”

  “I didn’t come here to quarrel with you, Colonel. Any casualties?”

  “Two men wounded slightly. The bastards jumped us just after dark. I let ’em have some cannon fire and drove them off.”

  “You didn’t drive them off, Colonel,” Zak said. “They’re watching us right now, just waiting for the light of day to swoop down on you and kill every man jack in uniform.”

  “Oh, Cody, damn it. What in hell do you know?”

  “Not much, maybe, Colonel, but a damned site more than you do right now.”

  Loomis glared at Cody but held his tongue. There were men around, listening to every word. They were worried men, some frightened, most of them bewildered, and Loomis knew that they looked to their commander for guidance. He let out a breath and stepped close to Cody.

  “Maybe you and I had better have a private talk, Colonel Cody.”

  “Fine with me, Colonel. Lead the way.”

  The two men walked behind a small hill, leaving Jeff and Nelson behind.

  “I’d put that saber back where it came from, Loomis,” Zak said. “In the starlight it shines like a silver lantern. You could lose an arm. That would make a fine trophy for Narbona to take back to his lodge.”

  Loomis looked down at the sword in his hand.

  At that moment it began to dawn on him that he was no longer in charge.

  He sheathed the saber. It made a hissing sound as it slid back into its leather scabbard. It sounded, in the darkness, like a metallic snake. But it took the starlight with it and now the two men stood in the relative safety of shadow and hunkered down to talk, men of war conferring on a silent battlefield, as soldiers have always done when the deadly firing dies down just after nightfall.

  High up on the hill, a great horned owl trumpeted its throaty call.

  Only Zak knew that it wasn’t an owl, but a Navajo warrior with perfect pitch.

  Chapter 24

  There was another owl call from a different hill. This one was in a lower key, more deep-throated than the other, even lower-pitched, and it carried the oddly seductive tonal quality of a mating call.

  But Zak was not fooled.

  A human throat had made that second call, and the first one as well.

  The Navajos were hiding on two hills, waiting. Watching.

  “Colonel,” Zak said, “you’re in a tight spot here.”

  “I know that, Cody.”

  “I can get you out, but you have to do exactly as I say. Do you have a problem with that?”

  “No. You’re the Indian fighter, Cody.”

  “You’re up against white men, too, Colonel.”

  “Look, call me Jeremiah, or Jerry, will you?”

  “If you call me Zak.”

  “All right, Zak. What do you want me to do?”

  “The first thing is to shuck that saber you’re packing on your belt. Bury it in blankets. You’ll rattle like a box full of washers once you start climbing that hill.”

  “What hill?”

  “Right now, Jerry, you’re backed up against a wall of rock. It’ll be like standing in front of a firing squad when the sun comes up tomorrow. But you can ease around that limestone face and there’ll be another hill just to the west of it. You and your men will be protected by that wall of stone while you do this.”

  “How do you know there’s a hill west of my position?”

  “Because I rode through this country the other day. Listen. Let your men slip away in small groups, meet you on the backside of this big bluff. Then, proceed west to this other hill. It’ll be the smallest one, but you can leave men there to protect your flanks and rear while you take those howitzers up the next hill, which is right next to it, connected by a wide saddleback.”

  “I’ll follow you, Zak.”

  “Once you have the high ground, you can defend yourself. Set your cannon to fire down along that defile and place your men all along the ridge so that you can lay down fire over a large area.”

  “You sound as if you’re not going to be on this expedition.”

  “I’m not,” Zak said.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to leave my horse and rifle with your men and go on foot into the trees on those two hills.”

  “Just by yourself?”

  “Jerry, this is the way I fight. I have a pair of Apache moccasins in the bottom of my saddlebag. I’ll pack my pistol and my knife. I want to lessen the odds against you.”

  “One man against so many?”

  Zak drew in a breath, let it out through his nostrils.

  “Sometimes one man can do more than a company in country like this.”

  “You’re taking a big risk.”

  “Let me worry about that. Now, get your men and cannon up on that second hill. There’s a Navajo camp just beyond it, but they can’t come up that way without great cost. So that flank is protected. To your rear are more canyons and ravines that will be difficult for the Navajos and white men to negotiate without suffering heavy losses. So you’ll have only one flank to protect and they’ll think twice before mounting an attack from that side.”

  “Sounds like a feasible plan,” Loomis said.

  “It’s going to be tough for you to get those howitzers up those hills. Better start now. Send maybe half your company ahead by twos and threes, then haul the first cannon, send more men and then the other cannon, and finally, the last of your men.”

  “Got it,” Loomis said.

  “Good. Let’s get going, then.”

  The two men walked back to the camp. While Loomis issued orders through his lieutenants, Vickers and Bullard came up to Zak, who told them of the plan.

  “You don’t want us to go with you?” Vickers said. “Sergeant Bullard here said he’d follow you to hell.”

  “No, I’m going alone. Randy, you take care of my horse and rifle.”

  “Yes, sir,” Randy said.

  “Keep the reins looped over the saddle horn. Make sure my rifle rides tight in its boot. Don’t hobble him. He’ll stay with you if I tell him to.”

  “He will?”

  “But I want to be able to whistle him to me if I need him. So keep him in sight, but let him roam free. Can you do that for me?”

  “Sure can, Zak.

  Zak spoke to the horse, patting him on his withers.

  “Stay, Nox, stay,” he said.

  Zak handed Randy the reins and dug into one of his saddlebags. He pulled out a pair of beadless moccasins and a red-and-yellow headband.

  “Where’d you get those?” Jeff asked, pointing to the moccasins.

  “A present from Cochise.”

  Zak sat on a rock and took off his boots and hat. He slipped into the moccasins and wrapped the headband on and tied it in the back so that both ends dangled down the back of his neck.

  “You look like a white Apache,” Jeff said. “Damned if you don’t.”

  “Yes, sir,” Bullard said, “you sure as hell do.”

  “Once I get where I’m going,” Zak said, “I hope I’m invisible.”

  Men began moving along the face of the sheer bluff and Zak melted into the night, slipping across the flat to the base of a hill. He did not climb there, but crept in a circle around it to the back side. He heard the wheels of the carts as they rolled over rocks. The howitzers rumbled on their wheels and then he was in the silence on the back side of the hill. He carried neither food nor canteen, but only his Colt and a full cartridge belt, his knife, and the clothes he wore on his back.

  Zak made no sound as he ascended the hill. He avoided dry branches and did not dislodge any stones. With each step he took, he felt the ground with the sole of his foot before putting his full weight on it. It was slow going, but he angled up the slop
e, using the scrub pines and juniper bushes for cover. He crept along, hunched over, stopping every few seconds to listen. When he got close to the summit, he heard the soldiers moving down on the flat. He also heard whispers from a clump of trees off to his left.

  He closed in on the whisperers, taking special care with each step. He made no sound with his moccasined feet and he did not brush against branches or scrape the bark of any tree.

  He squatted as he came close, closed his fingers around the staghorn grip of his knife. He eased it out of its scabbard, so slowly the sharp blade made no whisper against the smooth leather. When it was in his hand and out of its sheath, he crabbed forward until he could see two figures huddled together behind a jumble of rocks.

  It took some time for his eyes to define each man, but their heads moved and one or the other would rise up to peer over the rocks at the soldiers down below.

  The two men spoke in a language Zak did not understand.

  Navajo.

  But they interspersed their talk with Spanish words, like soldado and ejercito, and once he heard the name Narbona, and a few minutes later, Minerva. Minnie Biederman. Narbona’s sister. So, she was with her husband, and maybe with her brother. Where were the white men? He listened for a long time. The two Navajos did not talk much, but they kept rising to peer down at the progress of the soldiers. He wondered if they were the only lookouts on the hill, or if they were just the two at the highest point.

  He strained to hear anyone else who might be close.

  He heard no talk, no sound.

  He crept closer until he was only a few feet behind the two men. They did not look over their shoulders. They were intent on their spying.

  Finally, when the noises of the soldiers and the rolling stock grew faint and then vanished, one of the men spoke above a whisper. Zak could not understand him. The man used no Spanish, but the other one listened and then rose to his feet and stole away off to his left. Zak could hear his footfalls for several seconds and they faded into a soundless vacuum. The other man stood up and stretched his arms. He continued to look downward.

  That’s when Zak made his move.

  He rose to a crouch and lunged toward the standing man. He grabbed him across the mouth with his left hand and forced him to the ground. He put the tip of his blade against the man’s throat. The man dropped his rifle, but Zak caught it with his foot and eased it to the ground. The man wore no sidearm, only a knife on his belt. Zak left it where it was.

  “Habla la lengua?” Zak asked.

  He loosened his hold slightly on the man’s mouth, enough to allow him to speak.

  “A little,” the Navajo replied in Spanish.

  “Where is Narbona?”

  “He has gone. He is in the hills. You will not find him.”

  “No, but you will. Tell Narbona the Shadow Rider is here. Tell him the Shadow Rider is coming to kill him.”

  The man grunted and struggled. Zak pricked the soft skin of his neck with the tip of his blade.

  “I will cut your throat if you fight me,” Zak said. “You will live if you carry my words to Narbona.”

  “Narbona will kill me.”

  “You can die here or at Narbona’s hand. I give you that choice.”

  “I will carry your words to Narbona.”

  “If you look behind you, I will be the shadow you see. Do you understand?”

  “I understand.”

  “Go, then. Go to Narbona.”

  Zak jerked the man’s knife from its scabbard and gave him a kick. The man trotted off in the same direction as his companion had gone, his bandol-ero rattling against his bare chest as he ran, leather slapping against skin, cartridges clicking together like tiny castanets.

  Zak threw the knife down the slope, heard it strike a bush and then clank on a stone. He threw the rifle down over some bushes. It was an old Spencer carbine. The rifle clattered over pebbles, then skidded to a stop.

  He drew a breath, held it, stepped back into the trees and deep shadows. He listened. He waited, then angled left in the same direction the two Navajo braves had taken. Again, he moved, slow and wraithlike, through the scrub pines, staying well off the path the two Navajos had taken, but keeping it within eyesight. He checked every suspicious clump of shadow and every hollow, every large rock, every bush.

  He had gotten a good look at the man he’d held at knifepoint. He would remember his face and the crimson breechclout he wore, the beaded moccasins. He heard nothing as he began to descend the hill and, as he started climbing the next, he began to think he was all alone.

  The climb was steep and he stopped to catch his breath.

  That’s when he heard the soft crunch of a footfall on sandy ground.

  Zak froze and crouched low, his feet apart and flat on the ground, his legs beneath him like a pair of springs. He held the knife low, under the calf of his leg so that the blade would not shine in the faint spray of starlight.

  Silence for a few moments.

  Then another footfall, close by. Heavy breathing. Another crunch—and it was not made by a moccasin, but a boot.

  A figure loomed in front of him, advancing a careful step at a time. Step, wait, step, wait. The man was stalking him, Zak was sure of that. He crouched still lower, but was prepared to spring up if the man got within striking distance.

  “Largos, you there?” the man said. Zak did not recognize the voice, but he knew it was a white man.

  Zak made no sound.

  The man took two more steps and Zak saw him framed against the stars, a rifle in his hand, his pistol tied low on his leg. He did not recognize him, but knew he must be one of Biederman’s men.

  The man saw the crouched shadow and started to raise his rifle.

  Zak lunged at him, his blade pointed at the man’s gut.

  The rifle came to the man’s shoulder.

  An owl hooted nearby, sounding like a rooster with a sore throat, the same cadenced cry, pitched two octaves lower than a barnyard fowl. An owl that was not an owl, but a very good imitation. The stars behind the man streaked across the sky, spun wildly just above his head. Then Zak could see them no more.

  He only saw the blackness of the man’s midsection.

  He was close enough that he could smell the man’s fear.

  Chapter 25

  When time cracks its whip, a small square of universe can bend and twist until a man feels as if he walks through a quagmire of quicksand or is hurtling off a cliff into an interminable abyss at the speed of lightning. And sometimes, time becomes all jumbled up, going fast, then so slow it seems to crawl. Time, someone once said, is God’s way of keeping everything from happening all at once.

  But now, everything seemed to be happening in a single whip crack of light.

  Zak drove the blade of his knife deep into the gut of the man with the rifle. He struck him with the force of a pile driver cut loose from its moorings. The blade went in hard and Zak’s momentum added power to his thrust so that he was sure the tip of the knife struck hard bone, the supple bone of the spinal column.

  The man doubled over and Zak carried his weight on his back for a second or two, until they both went down in a heap. There was a terrible gush of blood all over Zak’s back, and the smell of the man’s bowels emptying. The heavy Henry rifle rang on stone like a blacksmith’s hammer on an iron anvil, and hands tore wildly at his gun belt, fingers clawing for purchase, until the two rolled like a pair of intertwined tumbleweeds kicked into motion by the sudden force of a prairie twister.

  Zak twisted the blade inside the mushy innards of the man and heard parts of him screech like pulled nails from an oak plank, while others snapped and flapped like springs made of melting rubber. The blade traveled in a short arc and parted flesh and skin, opening the man’s side up like a gutted watermelon.

  With the knife freed from its carnage, Zak reared up and rammed the blade square into the man’s neck, slicing through his Adam’s apple, releasing a freshet of blood that spewed a scarlet fountain ont
o the man’s chest and onto the ground. The man sagged into death, a lifeless corpse destined to return to dust.

  Zak wiped the blade of his knife on the dead man’s trouser leg, slid it back into its sheath. He retrieved cartridges from the man’s shirt pockets and picked up the Henry. It was heavy, a Yellow-boy, with its brass receiver. The magazine was full, the rifle cocked. Zak eased the hammer down to half cock and padded away, following the contour of the hill. He headed toward the place where he had heard that owl call, treading quietly with his moccasined feet.

  He heard the call again. Twenty, thirty yards away, on the opposite slope. He began to climb, grabbing the trunks of scrub pine, pulling himself up, zigzagging to take advantage both of the cover and the trees for his handholds. He listened, heard the sound of breathing a dozen yards from him. He crouched down and crabbed forward, a half foot at a time.

  The stalking was easy. He came upon a lone Navajo sitting on a flat rock in plain sight, his back to him. He was looking down at an empty flat. All of the soldiers, carts, and cannon were gone, and nobody was walking through the temporary camp to check for lost objects.

  The Navajos were biding their time, possibly waiting until morning before seeking out the soldiers, mounting an attack. Or they were moving around on other hills that Zak could not see. If so, they were noiseless, as was he. The brave below him cupped his hands to his mouth and gave the owl call again.

  Zak let him finish before he laid the Henry down and snuck down toward his prey, knife in hand. His arm moved like a spring, and he buried the knife in the center of the Navajo’s back, twisted it, then quickly pulled it free of bone and wet flesh and sliced the blade across the man’s throat. He held out his left arm and the brave fell into it. Zak eased him down on his side. The man was dead, his Spencer carbine by his side. Zak let it lie. He carried the Henry with him. It made a good walking stick for the steeper parts of the hills, and if he needed a long weapon, he’d have it with him.

  He climbed to cover atop the hill and sat there for a long time listening. He heard an answering owl call from far away, pondered its meaning. Was it an answering call to the one he’d just witnessed, or did it carry some new message to the Navajos roaming the hills or sitting like sentinels, awaiting the dawn?