He glanced over, expecting to see the sourpuss girl staring him down, but she was gone, as was her skirt and petticoats, which he’d noticed had been spread out on a rock the night before. “Guess she took my advice and struck out early. Think I’ll do the same.” He rose to his feet, stretched, and then kicked dirt into the fire ring where a few glowing embers remained.
Sauntering to his horse, he scratched the gelding’s neck and then craned his own neck around. There was no sign of Josie or her tall mule. “I guess she really was afraid of getting murdered,” he chuckled to Lightning.
He reached into the leather pouch he kept tied to the back of his saddle and pulled out a handful of grain. The white horse was antsy for breakfast, and sucked the grain out of Grey’s palm then nudged his nose against his shoulder, demanding more.
“I’m hungry, too, Lightning, but we’ve got to move out. I have a feeling the marshal and his gang is on their way. They’ll not hesitate to shoot me if they discover I have the map now. We’ll stop once we get down the trail a bit, and you can eat a bigger breakfast.”
He instinctively tapped the cold, hard pistol at his right hip with his fingers. His left hand brushed over the other hip, expecting to feel the derringer tucked in the waistband of his pants. His shoulders went stiff. Where was the derringer?
“What the…?” Hastily unbuttoning his coat, he thrust his hand into the inside pocket. The parchment was gone, too.
Grinding his teeth, he rhetorically asked Lightning, “How on God’s green earth did she pull that off?” Mounting the great white horse with a grunt, Grey reined the animal quickly onto the path and trotted out of the forest, seething with every bounce.
“I see Josie Hart really does have her pa’s blood running through her veins. When I catch up to her, she’ll be sorry. The little crocodile!
* * * *
Josie rode like the devil was on her heels until she’d cleared the trees and started the long stretch over the desert. After pushing Traveler hard for a few miles, she was still afraid to let up. He loped along with his big ears pinned back. Now, not only would Marshall Kendall and his gang be after her, Grey Paladin would be on her tail like a fly on honey.
She had to smile while recalling how simple it’d been to steal back her gun and the map. The man slept heavy, despite his snoring like a rooting hog. His loud snorting had kept her awake half the night, that and the cold, so waking early had been easy.
Paladin was probably cussing up a storm right about now, she thought with a chuckle. She patted the map, stuck in her pants pocket, with her hand. The derringer was back in the saddlebags, just a flick of the wrist away if she needed it. That man was a fool, just like the rest of the men she’d ever known, even if he did have dreamy eyes and long legs.
It had been dark when she’d left, too dark to read the map and figure out where to go. She knew she was to head north, but that was all she knew. It was time to stop and review the symbols on the parchment closer, before she went too far out of her way. There’d been no sign of the marshal so far, so she felt safe in stopping for a few minutes. Traveler needed to eat breakfast, anyway. He’d been tossing his head, a sure sign he was hungry.
Josie spied a shack ahead, which was at the foot of a rocky hill. She reined the mule toward it. After sliding out of the saddle, she tied Traveler to an old hitching post outside the building, which turned out to be an abandoned cabin, and then peeked into the broken window to make sure no one was hiding inside.
When she was sure she was alone, she opened her saddlebags and drew out some of the grain she’d taken from the outlaw’s pouch. She scratched Traveler’s nose and fed him some from her palm. It had been a long time since her faithful companion had eaten so well. She could tell he was grateful. As she tossed another handful of the stuff to the ground, she shook her head and said, “I’ve become a common thief, just like my pa.”
The sun was starting to rise orange against a pink and yellow striped sky. She peered back over the road she’d ridden. There were no dust swirls floating in the air. No thundering horse hooves. That meant the posse wasn’t closing in yet. She hoped she’d gotten a good start on them. But how long would that last, if the marshal had hired Reno King? From what she knew of King’s reputation, he could track over rock and through water. Desert and mountains would be no problem.
Josie reached into her bag and twisted the cap off her canteen and took a swig. Then she pulled the map out of her pocket and sat on a rock outside the cabin door to study it.
She guessed the first upside down V on the map to be Gallinas Peak, and the next set of mountain symbols to be the Pedernal Hills. Up a way was a wavy circle that she figured must be a body of water—probably a lake. Her pa had drawn a box next to it, with the words Gonzales Ranch scribbled inside. Farther northwest he’d written SANTA FE in big block letters. Nearby was an amateurish drawing of curved lines, for what she thought must be waterfalls. A big X marked that spot.
Goosebumps rose on her skin. She knew that area and those waterfalls. They were located above the Nambe Pueblo, where her ma had been born and raised. Josie tapped her fingernail on the X. “That’s it. That’s where the trail ends and where Pa hid the gold nuggets.” A long sigh escaped her lips. It sure would be a long trip, probably two hundred miles or so. She hoped she’d make it there. She had to. Her new life depended on it.
Standing up, she slipped a stick of jerky out of her saddlebags, which hung over the saddle horn, and chewed off a hunk. Her stomach growled. She was awfully hungry, but the jerky would have to do until she got further down the trail. There was no time to waste. They must ride like there was no tomorrow.
“About done, Traveler? We’ve got to get a move on.” Josie patted the mule on his scruffy neck. When he lifted his head and brayed, she shaded her eyes with a hand and followed his gaze to the road. A lone rider was making good time, though he was still a mile or so away. She slammed her boot heel into the dirt. “Darn, that Paladin.” Dropping the jerky into her shirt pocket, she stuck her foot in the stirrup and Traveler shot off like a bullet as soon as her bottom hit the saddle.
Her braid smacked against her back as she bounced against the leather. The mule flew like the wind. Josie punched her cowboy hat further down on her head to keep it from flying off. How had he caught up so fast? She wondered if he’d heard her leave, or maybe he’d woken up just after she took off and jumped in his saddle without breakfast. Either way, she’d hoped to put a few more miles between them. Glancing over her shoulder, her heart sank when she realized another rider had joined him.
Realization hit her like a stone wall. That wasn’t Paladin behind her at all! It had to be the marshal and his posse. She looked back again and the vision grew to a total of four riders—two leading out front, two in back—all stirring up dust. Fear and panic choked her throat. “Yah!” she yelled to Traveler. “Go boy!”
The next time Josie peeked over her shoulder, the riders looked to be bearing down fast. She could almost feel their hot breath on the back of her neck. One of the men wore a large, black sombrero. Her breath hitched, knowing the famous tracker, Reno King, led the pack. She’d heard he was part Mexican, and the sombrero was his signature. It was how you could distinguish the man from a distance. Her pulse quickened as she kicked Traveler harder in the ribs with her boot heels.
She trusted the steady, sure-footedness of her mule, but it seemed the posse’s horses had wings. They must have left Dry Gulch when the moon was still high, to have caught up with her this quickly. What should she do? She could try to outrun them, or she could head for the hills and take her chances with the derringer.
After studying the far-off peaks, she knew her only chance was to try to lose the gang by climbing the closest hill, which lay to the west. Hopefully, she could follow the canyon to the top without Kendall’s men seeing her and then ride the trail straight down the other side and keep heading north. It would be easier for her to maneuver the winding trail alone than it would be for four horseme
n jockeying for positions. She didn’t hold out much hope, but she had to try. Never a quitter, Josie’s one advantage had to be her hardy mule. He’d already proven to be superior to horses when facing a tricky situation. If he didn’t misstep, she’d get to the top and back down a lot faster than men traveling together.
The trail up the canyon was a steep, twisty one full of rocks, but Traveler did just fine, as Josie knew he would. As the two of them climbed into the clouds, she wished she had more than the small derringer for protection. How was she going to fight off four grown men? No doubt they had rifles or shotguns with them, as well as revolvers.
For a split second, she would have given anything to be riding with Paladin. She figured him for a no-account thief and liar—same as her pa—but at least two against four were better odds. He had the pistol and a rifle, and probably a knife, too. She’d seen the rifle tucked into its scabbard when she was borrowing the horse grain. Even though she didn’t trust the man, the two of them together would have a far better chance against the posse. If he’d wanted to kill her, he could have done it easily last night after taking her map. That said something for him.
Josie touched the saddlebags, where her derringer was stowed. Would she even be able to hit anyone from up here? She’d never killed a man before, and she didn’t want to start now. Her stomach knotted at the thought of committing murder. But she wasn’t about to let Marshal Kendall, Del, Slim Jim and Reno King take what belonged to her.
She’d had a dream last night that she was swimming in the San Francisco bay. She didn’t even know how to swim, but San Francisco was all she’d been thinking about since Pa had spoken his final words to her. She’d never imagined a life other than one on that hardscrabble New Mexican farm. Now was her chance at having something more. Her pa had given her a golden opportunity—golden, just like the nuggets that awaited her at the end of this trail. There was no way she was going to let that Kendall and his bandits take that from her.
Josie gritted her teeth and mentally prepared herself for what she might have to do. She unlatched the saddlebags and pulled out the derringer and stuck it in the waistband of her pants. Holding her breath, she bounced in the saddle as Traveler trotted the final fifty yards to the flat mesa on top.
She heard the horses before she saw them. Traveler’s ears drew back to warn her, but it was too late. The riders were driving their animals up from the backside. How could that be? How could the posse have changed course and got up here before her?
Raising the derringer, she held it in a death grip in her right hand while pulling back on the reins with her left to halt the mule. There wasn’t even time to take cover. Traveler opened his mouth and brayed when three ponies skidded to a stop in front of them. Josie’s jaw slackened. For a second, all thoughts of Wade Kendall and his men dissolved. She had much bigger worries now.
Three Indian braves bore dark holes into her. All had long black hair, wore bandanas tied around their foreheads, flowing shirts and deerskin breeches, and gazed at her with expressions of stone. Apaches! Loco and Geronimo’s groups had been on the warpath ever since General Crook forced thousands of them to return to the reservations. Three-fourths of them, she’d heard, had refused to settle, had escaped, and continued to raid and kill throughout New Mexico and Arizona. Running into these fighters was a bit of bad luck she hadn’t counted on.
Josie’s heart thundered inside her chest. They all held rifles. One of the men worked the lever of his gun, jacking a shell into the chamber. He aimed it at her. She knew she had to do something fast, or she’d be meat for the buzzards and Traveler would likely be roasted on a spit. She couldn’t bear to think of him strung up that way and breakfast for these renegade Apaches.
It came to her in a flash. If they saw she wasn’t a threat, that she didn’t intend on using her gun on them, maybe they wouldn’t use theirs on her. She tried desperately to keep her hand from shaking. Long ago, she remembered Ma telling her that Indians would respect the biggest of fools, as long as he acted brave in the face of danger.
Lowering the derringer, she asked, “Do any of you speak English?”
For a moment, none of them said anything. They looked back and forth, between each other, and then the one in the middle answered, “I talk American.”
A small sigh of relief escaped through her trembling lips. Wondering why the posse hadn’t reached the top of the hill yet, she said in a rush, “I mean you no harm. I’m running from bad men.” She craned her neck around, expecting to see them appear at any moment. “Four bad men are trying to kill me. Will you let me pass through here?”
She followed the Apaches’ gazes to the trail she’d just climbed. They stared at her with puzzled expressions and mumbled to each other in their language.
“You Indian?” the same brave asked her.
Being nearly as brown as them worked to her advantage for once, and had probably kept her from already being gutted. “My ma was Tewa,” she replied in a confident voice.
The brave’s eyebrow arched. “Nambe. North.”
Josie nodded, feeling Traveler twitch beneath her. “Yes. My mother was born north of Santa Fe in the Nambe Pueblo. That’s where I’m headed. But I cannot let these men catch me. Please.” She rotated her head once more. This time she did not imagine horse hooves approaching from the side of the canyon. They were close! The three Indians also looked that way. Her gaze must have revealed her fright, because the Apache brave raised his hand and said, “You may pass.”
She offered him a half-smile and said, “Thank you.” Then all hell broke loose.
She heard the gunshots in the same instant she kicked Traveler and he lurched forward, nearly toppling her off his back. Glancing backwards, she saw the four horsemen appear at the crest of the hill, one after the other, like ghosts rising up from hell. Josie clutched her gun tight and trotted the mule through a flurry of gunfire and blue smoke as bullets whizzed by her face. Later, she’d ponder at her and Traveler’s luck in getting through the skirmish without so much as a scratch on either of them.
Hiding behind the relative safety of a big prickly bush, she peered out with wide eyes. If she could have gotten to the other side, she would have. But to try at that point would have been suicide, so she waited and watched.
She could see why white men considered the Apaches to be bloodthirsty and dangerous. They had no fear whatsoever. The Indians cocked their weapons, kicked their ponies and barreled forward, firing in front of Kendall and his men’s mounts. The bullets struck the ground, spooking the horses, and causing them to circle in confusion and jostle their riders.
It was obvious the marshal and his men weren’t expecting an Indian welcoming committee. They returned fire, but their terrified horses had no intention of getting shot at. The animals turned and jockeyed for positions in order to get back on the narrow path they’d just climbed.
Amidst the chaos, one man was yanked off his saddle. Josie recognized him as Slim Jim Garrett. She wasn’t sure if he’d been shot or had been knocked off by one of the Indians. Either way, he fell and was stomped by thundering hooves. If he wasn’t already dead from a bullet, she knew he’d been trampled to death. She squeezed her eyes shut.
Next time she opened them, she saw the top of the big sombrero disappear over the ridge. Two more riders retreated down the side of the canyon behind Reno King, with the Indian ponies chasing them and the Apaches continuing to shoot their guns.
When the firing finally stopped, Josie eased Traveler out from behind the bush and walked him to where Jimmy Garrett lay. She glanced down at Jimmy’s bloodied body. “You were stupid to trust Wade Kendall,” she told her old school chum.
She wondered if Del, the marshal or King was injured. They’d all escaped down the hill, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t been shot. If they’d gotten lucky and escaped injury, she pondered whether this little battle would deter them. She could only pray they’d been spooked enough by the Apaches to forget about her and turn back for home—but she didn
’t count on it.
The Indians reined their ponies back off the ridge and approached. Josie was no longer afraid of them. They’d fought off the posse for her, so she didn’t expect them to kill her now. Her gaze moved from one to the other, staring into their dark eyes. The one who’d communicated with her moaned softly. His shirt was ripped, and he was bleeding from the shoulder. “You’re hurt,” she said.
“Mexican,” he replied, wincing from pain. It was the first expression of emotion she’d witnessed from any of them.
“Are either of you injured?” she asked the other two.
One shook his head. The other drilled a hole into her, which she ignored. Neither seemed winded, for having just fought a quick but violent gun battle.
“That bullet needs to come out,” Josie told the bleeding Indian.
Without a word, he swung off his pony and dropped the reins on the ground, and then stuck his hand under the hem of his breeches and drew out a large jackknife. She thought it must have been strapped around his calf. His black eyes narrowed at her as he held the knife in front of her face. For a split second, she thought he was going to cut out her gizzard after all. The other two jumped off their mounts and strode to his side.
“You dig out bullet,” the buck told her matter-of-factly.
Her mouth gaped. “What? I don’t think I can.”
She was surprised when the youngest Apache spoke as clear English as she’d ever heard. He said, “If you don’t, Taza will lose his arm.”
“Taza? That’s your name?” she asked, peering into the injured man’s face. His forehead was wide and his cheekbones high. His nose was crooked, like it had been broken.
Nodding, he sat cross-legged on the hard ground. He slashed open the rest of his shirt with the knife and then held the blade out to her. It glinted in the sun when he turned it over. “Do now.”
Trail of Golden Dreams Page 6
