The Dragoons 3

by Patrick E. Andrews

  The Home of Great Western Fiction!

  Table of Contents

  About the Book

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Epilogue

  Copyright

  About Piccadilly Publishing

  About Patrick E. Andrews

  Roberto Weismann and his gang of renegade outlaws rode into Arizona to hunt scalps for the rich bounty the federales paid. When the chief of the peaceful Chiranato Apache tribe saw his people slaughtered, he swore revenge and traded death for death until the whole territory was on the brink of war. Riding straight into the jaws of hell, Captain Grant Drummond and his tough Dragoons had to put down the uprising and round up the greedy killers before the desert was soaked with innocent blood!

  THE DRAGOONS 3: THE SCALPHUNTERS

  By Patrick E. Andrews

  First Published by Zebra Books in 1993

  Copyright © 2017 by the Andrews Family Revocable Trust

  First Smashwords Edition: June 2017

  Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information or storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  Our cover features Show the Flag, painted by Don Stivers.

  You can check out more of Don’s work here.

  This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book

  Series Editor: Ben Bridges

  Text © Piccadilly Publishing

  Published by Arrangement with the Author’s Agent.

  This Book is Dedicated to Harold and Mary Moore

  Prologue

  Roberto Weismann could barely see in the predawn gloom and mist that blanketed the small mountain canyon. Now and then a movement in the shadows caught his attention and he silently cursed the man in the gang who had been so careless. Their business was dangerous and deadly on that chilly morning. Any slackness or lack of attention could lead to a bloody disaster.

  A slight noise in the surrounding chaparral now caught his attention, but it caused him no alarm. He knew who it was.

  Penrod Donaldson joined Weismann at the edge of the thorny plants. “Everybody is ready,” he announced.

  Weismann, the leader of the men gathered in the darkness, made no response. He was a large man, a bit over six feet of husky muscularity. Weismann sported several scars across his forehead and one down his left cheek. Swarthy, with dark brown hair and green eyes, the man was of undeterminable race or national origin. He exemplified the mixed human population of that part of northern Mexico. He looked down at the sleeping Apache camp less than twenty yards away.

  Donaldson followed his leader’s gaze. “We done a good job getting this close,” Donaldson said.

  “These Indians have no dogs to bark,” Weismann pointed out. “They must have ate them because of poor hunting.”

  “Just the same, they ain’t expecting nothing,” he said. Then he added, “Easy pickings.”

  “Seguro,” Weismann agreed in Spanish.

  As soon as it was light enough, Weismann and Donaldson planned on leading their band of men on a murderous raid into the Apache camp. Not only did they intend to kill every inhabitant of the primitive bivouac, but also to scalp them and take the trophies of hair away.

  What was to be done in that lonely Sonoran canyon was perfectly legal under the Mexican law called “Proyecto de Guerra.” Tired of Indian raids, the government in Mexico City enacted a statute that authorized a bounty on scalps taken from Apaches. The payment, in silver pesos, was one hundred for each man’s scalp and fifty for that of a woman. Even the children were not spared the lawmakers’ attention. Their hair was worth twenty-five pesos. Weismann and his men were properly contracted under General Antonio De La Nobleza, the military commander of Northern Sonora, to operate as scalphunters. Cruelly efficient, both Weismann and the general were becoming wealthy under the murderous system.

  Donaldson, the group’s second-in-command, took a look at the eastern rim of the mountains. “Dawn’s coming up,” he whispered.

  “Still too dark,” Weismann said. “Espera.”

  “Why?” Donaldson asked. “Porque?”

  “It is not quite light enough,” Weismann said. “You must stop mixing English with the Spanish language, eh?”

  “What’s wrong with that?” Donaldson asked. “There’s American fellers in our group here. That way they can pick up on what’s being said too.”

  “But there are also Mexicans,” Weismann said. “They don’t like to hear their language butchered, pendejo.”

  “I don’t like being called dumb in any language,” Donaldson said. “It ain’t polite.”

  Weismann turned his eyes on the man, saying nothing.

  Even in the half-light, Donaldson could read the unspoken threat in the stare. He grinned to show he wasn’t really angry, then turned his attention back to the camp.

  A quarter of an hour more slipped by before Weismann pulled his pistol from its holster. He took aim at the nearest wickiup and pulled the trigger of the weapon. The resulting report echoed down the canyon, and was immediately followed by more shots and shouts as the band of scalphunters charged into the unsuspecting camp.

  The Apaches made a slow, confused response. Those who first stumbled out of their lodges were also the first to go down in the hail of bullets splattering across the encampment. The Indians following them from the shelters into the open lurched across the bloody corpses. Within an instant they had also been shot down. A trio of warriors, better prepared than the others for trouble, appeared with weapons ready. Their brave but futile attempt at a counterattack resulted in their own quick deaths. In spite of the Apaches’ brief ferocity, they had not managed to inflict even one casualty on the attackers.

  Weismann took a deep breath. “Stop the firing!”

  The sound of gunfire immediately died off. His men knew the chief of the scalphunters expected instant obedience and would tolerate no exceptions.

  “Don’t waste ammunition,” Weismann commanded. “We are not here to practice target shooting. There are silver pesos waiting for us, so don’t waste any more time.”

  Donaldson pulled his scalping knife from his belt. “Let’s get to work, boys. Each head o’ hair here means silver pesos for us!”

  Whooping, the men rushed to the cadavers and began the grisly job of slicing around the top of the head, then grabbing the hair and pulling hard until the scalp popped from the skull. Donaldson, in his exalted position as chief lieutenant to Weismann, had the prestigious job of dispatching any wounded that were found. If a badly injured Indian struggled during the painful process of being mutilated, Donaldson did a skillful job of slitting the throat, making sure the jugular vein was sliced. The high-pitched screaming of a badly shot-up woman quickly ended with a deep cut from Donaldson’s blade.

  After the bloody, hairy trophies were stuffed into leather bags brought
for the purpose, Weismann gave another order.

  “Fuego!” he yelled.

  “Fire!” Donaldson echoed for the benefit of the non-Spanish speaking Americans.

  The scalphunters rushed around setting fire to the wickiups, making sure each and every one had been set ablaze. Then, with weapons ready, they stood back and waited.

  Sure enough, a young woman, her dress smoldering, suddenly burst forth from the flames, screaming. She danced like a puppet on a string as numerous bullets slammed into her torso, the impacts battering her in several directions at once.

  The next, and final victim, was an old man. But this one, knowing what they wanted, was bravely defiant. After letting his hair catch on fire and burn to the scalp, he walked slowly and with dignity out into the open. He laughed in spite of his agony, knowing he had cheated them out of one hundred pesos.

  Donaldson emitted a low whistle. “You gotta admire a tough ol’ geezer like that.”

  “I will show you the respect I have for him,” Weismann said. The scalphunter chief himself took care of the ancient Apache. He grabbed him and threw him back in the fire. The old man emerged again, badly burned and shouting in defiance. He had to be thrown back twice before he finally failed to reappear from the blaze.

  “Ornery old bastard, wasn’t he?” Donaldson remarked.

  “Apaches are as tenacious in their deaths as they are in their fighting,” Weismann said. “How many scalps?”

  “I tallied her up,” Donaldson said. He had increased his childhood education of ciphering through working at a trading post in the Rocky Mountains. “We got eighteen men, twenty-six women, and thirty-seven young ’uns.” He knelt down and scribbled some figures in the dirt. “Yeah! That comes to four thousand and twenty-five pesos.” He stood up. “Too bad that son of a bitch De La Nobleza gets half.”

  “Without him, we would earn nothing,” Weismann pointed out. “Now you tell me how much for us.” His knowledge of mathematics was almost nonexistent.

  Donaldson went back to his mathematics in the dirt. “Well now, that gets you a thousand and six pesos with twenty-five-centavos. I’m coming out with five hundred and three with a few centavos.”

  “Tell me what the men get,” Weismann said.

  “Well, there’s a dozen of ’em,” Donaldson said figuring some more. “And that comes to—let’s see—a little over forty pesos each.” He stood up again. “It ain’t much compared to us, but when you can buy a pretty decent hunk o’ property around here for a thousand silver pesos, they can make something of theirselves if they save up their money.”

  Weismann flashed a rare grin and pointed to the men who were already swigging hard liquor from bottles they carried in their saddlebags. “Do you think they will save their earnings?”

  Donaldson laughed. “Well, maybe the whores they visit will build up a nice grubstake.”

  “We’ll have nothing until we turn in these scalps,” Weismann said. “Vamanos! Let’s go!”

  Donaldson turned to the men. “Knock off the drinking, you stupid bastards. As soon as you’re paid off, you can get some decent liquor. Let’s mount up and ride the hell outta here!”

  There was still a lot of work to do.

  One

  A hawk, using instinctive skills bred for eons into its species, soared on the thermals lifted off the desert floor of Arizona’s Vano Basin. This flat, arid, sun-beaten land bordering Mexico, spread out for thousands of square miles before easing into the foothills of the Culebra Mountains whose higher altitudes boasted a cooler more agreeable climate that included plenty of water and a deep, thick carpet of forest.

  The bird of prey’s keen vision scoured the terrain a thousand feet below in an eager search for food. After a half hour of air-sailing, a slight wiggle in the sand far below caught the sky hunter’s alert eye. Folding in his wings and nosing over, the hawk began a rapid, steep dive toward the target. At exactly the right moment, he extended wings and tail feathers to brake the controlled fall. Sharp talons grasped the rattlesnake behind the head and in the middle of its thick body, then a powerful flapping of wings carried both the hunter and victim back into the empty heights of desert air.

  The serpent, deaf and dull-witted, darted its tongue about in a futile effort to figure out just what the hell was happening to it. When the bird released the reptile to fall to the rocks below, the prey still was unaware of its predicament. Then it smashed to earth, the shock and pain caused it to roll and slither in alarm and pain.

  The hawk struck again, taking the rattlesnake back up into the sun-bleached sky to drop it again. After the fourth time, the bird was satisfied that the poisonous reptile would do no harm to the fledglings in a nest not far away in the cooler region of the mountains. The rattlesnake, close to death and unaware of even its own existence anymore, was carried away to nourish the feathered family.

  “In the day, in the night, to all, to each,

  Sooner or later, delicate death.”

  The old man quoting poet Walt Whitman was the only spectator to this natural killing. He was a wiry, hairy codger dressed in a strange combination of a battered Mexican sombrero of straw, calico shirt, leather vest, and buckskin trousers stuffed into Apache moccasins. He squatted in the shade of a barrel cactus with his horse. He was also well-armed with a pair of pistols and a rifled musket.

  The ancient’s name was Eruditus Fletcher. He was a lifelong inhabitant of the Vano Basin and surrounding territory except for the years of his adolescence when he had been back east to obtain some very advanced education that included a couple of years at Yale University. This accounted for his very cultured New England accent.

  Eruditus could boast fluency in English, Spanish, Greek, Latin, French, and at least a half dozen Indian dialects. The old fellow’s rustic and near primitive appearance belied his deep intellect and classical education.

  He chuckled. “Of course being dropped from on high to crash onto the rocks below cannot exactly be described as a delicate death, what?” he inquired of his horse.

  The animal, fondly called Plutarch, always enjoyed the sound of the old man’s voice. He snorted affectionately and stomped one hoof.

  Eruditus glanced eastward out into the vastness of the desert. A small plume of dust that he noted earlier had grown considerably in the previous two hours. Now he estimated the riders coming toward him were a bit less than five miles away. He turned his attention to the book he had been reading before noting the hawk’s strike on the snake. It was entitled Memoires d’Outretombe by the French author, the Vicomte de Chateaubriand. Eruditus, of course, was reading it in the original French.

  Three-quarters of an hour passed before Eruditus once more stirred. This time he stood up and placed the book into his saddlebags. Then he took Plutarch’s reins, leading him out into the sun before swinging up into the saddle.

  “Now, good steed, yon approaches a stalwart legion of the American Republic to establish Pax Americanus in this desolate region. So we must turn to our duty and sally forth to greet our new friends,” he said. A quick nudge in the flanks was all that was needed to get the horse to move toward the men approaching the questionable comfort of the cactus’ shade.

  The arrivals numbered two dozen. Eruditus knew they were military men. But a casual observer, gazing at them from afar would not have known they were soldiers. Only a close observation could determine they wore various parts of uniforms with civilian attire while boasting of military accoutrements such as canteens, haversacks, and sabers. Their firearms were the same for every man, consisting of the U.S. Model 1841 percussion rifle and a brace of single-shot Model 1836 flintlock pistols. The one exception was the man who headed the column. He sported a pair of brand new Colt Hartford Dragoon revolvers, prominent in their holsters on each side of his waist. It was to this man that Eruditus rode up and introduced himself.

  “Sir, your humble servant Eruditus Fletcher,” he said extending his hand. “I believe you are expecting me, are you not?”

  “In
deed I am, and how do you do, Mr. Fletcher,” the man said. “I am Captain Grant Drummond, commander of this dragoon detachment.” He was obviously in his late twenties or early thirties. Tall, and slim, he sported a sandy-colored, well-trimmed moustache, and hair of medium length.

  “Then you are the tribune of this legion, are you, sir?” Eruditus remarked with a smile.

  “It is a very small legion, I am afraid,” Drummond replied in good humor. “But with a plethora of duties and responsibilities. That is how we rated a contract scout like yourself to be assigned to us by the departmental command in Santa Fe.”

  “Useful employment is a Godsend, Captain Drummond,” Eruditus said. Then he added in Latin, “Aliquid utilatatis pro communi laborans.”

  “Working at something useful for all in common,” Drummond translated.

  “Ah!” Eruditus said. “A Latin scholar.”

  “I was unwillingly immersed in it during my schooldays prior to attending West Point,” Drummond said. “By the way, is that not part of a quote by Thomas a Kempis?”

  “It is, sir!” Eruditus exclaimed. “Am I to have intellectual companionship out on this desert?”

  The captain chuckled. “I wouldn’t promise you that, Mr. Fletcher.” He stood in his stirrups and surveyed their surroundings. “So we are in the Vano Basin now, are we?”

  “Indeed,” Eruditus assured him.

  “This seems a most barren and unfriendly place, sir,” Drummond remarked sitting back down on the leather. “After long service in the outback of Texas and Mexico, I consider myself an authority on inhospitable places.”

  “This is a beautiful Eden, if you learn to survive here,” Eruditus said. “But it can be terribly cruel as well.” He took a quick glance at the men in the column, pleased with what he saw. “Your command seems well-suited for hard outdoor life, Captain.”

  “Indeed,” Grant Drummond agreed. “We have just finished a two-year war in Mexico. These men are professional soldiers and veterans—”