The Jackals

by William W. Johnstone

  The lance that had been thrown inside the station now drove the warrior through his gut. The knife slipped out of his fingers, and the point of the spear slammed into the coach. The warrior gagged on his own blood and died. Breen saw the woman, still in her handcuffs, gripping the shaft of the lance. She must have picked up the weapon, and charged out like a knight right out of Ivahoe. She was saying something, but Breen couldn’t hear. Holstering the .38, he reached over and grabbed the blonde’s left shoulder. The man in the buckskin pants and Army duds took hold of her right shoulder. They stumbled, cartwheeled, and practically fell through the empty doorway, with the actor, Sir Theodore Cannon, right behind him.

  As another warrior stepped into the opening, the soldier raised his Remington, and the pistol barked. The brave slapped his bloody ear and stumbled before the soldier could finish him with another .45 slug.

  By that time, Breen and the stranger were standing. The door slammed, peppered with arrows. In the maelstrom from Hell, Sir Theodore Cannon lifted one end of the cottonwood bar. The blonde grunted and tried to raise the other side. Breen helped her, and the bar fell into place. Everyone dropped to the floor.

  Eventually, a silence, eerie and foreboding, and a tenuous peace settled over Culpepper’s Station.

  Breen stared at the soldier. The sleeves of the Army boy’s blouse showed that he had once held the rank of sergeant, but the chevrons had been stripped off. Breen then looked at the canteen.

  The soldier was studying him and smiled. He pulled off one of the canteens and tossed it to Breen.

  “You’d make my day if you told me it was brandy,” Breen said, hardly recognizing his voice.

  “If it were brandy,” said the soldier, “I wouldn’t have passed it to you.”

  Breen grinned, almost chuckled, and handed the canteen to the woman.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Then he fished out the keys to the handcuffs. But before he unlocked them, his head jerked around. He saw the unconscious Apache brave on the floor, and the coward with the carpetbags and that ass of a newspaper owner far across the station. Breen sighed, rose, and cursed. “The driver. Or shotgun. Or whoever he was! He’s outside.”

  “Oh, my God,” said the woman.

  “I thought he was dead,” Sir Theodore Cannon cried out.

  Breen and the soldier were already at the door. There was no time to reload the Lightning. With luck, the Apaches had run off. The bar came out, and the actor took it and held it. The girl picked up the 1875 Remington that the soldier had placed on the floor.

  She cocked the pistol, brought it up, and aimed at the door.

  Breen nodded at the soldier, who returned the nod, and Breen jerked open the door. The soldier started, stopped, and leaped back in.

  Breen did the same. “Damn!” He and Cannon returned the bar.

  “Is he dead?” the woman asked.

  “Worse,” the soldier said. “He’s gone.”

  “Maybe . . .” Theodore Cannon tried. “Perhaps he escaped.”

  “They’re all gone,” Breen said. “Dead and wounded carried off. And . . .”

  “Rourke,” said the woman. “His name was Rourke. He was a brave, brave man.”

  Sir Theodore Cannon cleared his throat. He was still dressed in his Macbeth garb. “‘A coward dies a thousand times before his death, but the valiant taste of death but once.’”

  “Julius Caesar,” Breen said. “But Shakespeare didn’t know about the Apaches. Because the Apaches will have the valiant tasting death a thousand times, and that valiant man will be a coward long before his life is mercifully ended.”

  The actor did not seem to hear. “‘It seems to me most strange that men should fear, seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come.’”

  “It’s coming.” The woman chuckled without any humor. “Nobody lives forever.” She knelt by the Apache that Breen had brained with his revolver’s barrel. “This one’s still alive.”

  “Kill him!” shouted the newspaperman in the corner.

  The man in the black suit nodded in agreement. “Kill him. Before he’s awake and he kills us all.”

  Breen started reloading his pistol, but the soldier had moved to the Apache. He looked at the bloody gash on the brave’s head, checked his pulse, and ripped the headband off his head. “We’ll keep him alive, for the time being.” He rolled the buck onto his stomach, pulled his hands behind the warrior’s back, and used the cord that was serving as a headband to tie the warrior’s wrists. Next he opened one of the canteens and poured water over the Indian’s wrists.

  “By Godfrey, sir!” shouted Alvin Griffin. “How dare you waste water like that. We don’t have much water. What on earth do you think you are doing, sir.”

  The man looked up but did not answer, did not even consider the Purgatory City journalist. He merely corked the canteen, picked up his Springfield, took the Remington from the woman, and moved to the door to keep an eye on things.

  Breen knew exactly what the soldier was doing. Wet rawhide would shrink as it dried. Those bindings would be so tight in an hour or so that the Indian would never be able to free himself.

  Breen went to the woman and showed her the keys to the handcuffs. “You did well.”

  “You, too,” she said.

  Breen’s head shook. “If I’d done better, Rourke—isn’t that what you said he went by?—well, he’d still be with us.”

  “Nobody lives forever,” she said again.

  “Not in West Texas,” Breen said, and fitted the key into the slot.

  Moments later, the handcuffs were on the table, the woman was massaging her wrists, and Breen was collecting the brass cartridges from the floor.

  “A place this remote is bound to have gunpowder, lead, and bullet molds,” he said, thinking more to himself.

  “This is no armory, sir,” Griffin countered.

  “I beg to differ,” said the soldier.

  “Where do you think?” Breen asked.

  “Outside,” the girl said. “So it wouldn’t blow up the entire station.”

  Breen’s head and the soldier’s head shook in disagreement.

  “They’d want it here,” the soldier said. “Because we’re here. And we need it. Here.”

  “Right,” Breen said.

  “But protected,” the soldier said. “Because of what the girl said.”

  “It’s Gwen,” she said. “Gwen Stanhope.”

  The soldier tipped his hat. Breen did the same.

  “A safe?” She looked around.

  “Ceiling,” said the soldier as he lifted his head. “Attic?”

  Finally, all of them started staring at the floor.

  “Cellar,” Breen said.

  “Uh-huh,” said the soldier.

  The thespian cleared his throat, and pointed at two tables pushed against each other. “Under the rug, but you’ll need every hand in here to move those tables to get to the rug. Damn things weigh a ton.”

  Breen grinned. He thanked Sir Cannon and looked at Griffin and the coward. “You two. Lend a hand.”

  Griffin came up instantly. The coward hesitated, but finally pushed himself to his feet.

  “Leave the grips,” the soldier told him. “You’ll need both hands.”

  The man stopped, looked at the ugly luggage, and slowly placed them where he had been cowering.

  Once the tables and rug were moved, Breen opened the trapdoor. Another idea came to his mind. “Maybe there’s a tunnel. For escape.”

  “There’s not,” said Sir Theodore. “I asked.”

  “All right.”

  A half hour later, a keg of gunpowder was out, and the stove was fired. A heavy pot lay on the lid, and lead bars were beginning to melt. At the table sat the current residents of Culpepper’s Station—except the Indian, who was awake on the floor, his legs also bound, and his back against the wall. He stared at the others with malevolent eyes, but did not speak, did not complain, just sat and stared.

  “Thi
s,” Breen said, “is a bullet mold. It’s .45 caliber, but that’ll work for a lot of our weapons. I’ll trim the lead down with my knife for the forty-fours and my thirty-eight. And I’ll show you how to load the cartridges with powder and primer.”

  “Maybe all this is unnecessary,” said the newspaper editor. “Perhaps the Army has a patrol, an entire troop, galloping to us right now.”

  “No,” said the soldier.

  “But you’re no longer in the Army,” the editor said. “I can see where your stripes have been ripped off. Or perhaps you are just a deserter. How do you know the Army’s not riding here?”

  “Because I haven’t been out of the Army that long, Mister Alvin Griffin the Fourth of Purgatory City’s leading newspaper. The Army’s down south toward Dead Man’s Canyon trying to track down some other Apaches on the prod.”

  The editor leaned forward.

  The soldier removed his hat. “Don’t you remember me, Mister Newspaper Editor? I mean, you’ve wrote about me enough, sir. Keegan. Sean Keegan.”

  Breen laughed and held out his hand. “Well, Keegan. This is a pleasure. From one jackal to another. I’m Jed Breen.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  He needed one extra hand.

  Hiding in the rocks, Matt McCulloch put his hands over the muzzles of two of the Mexican bandit’s horses, a roan and a black, to keep them from whinnying. He figured he could trust his buckskin not to call out to the approaching riders. It was the fourth horse, a pinto, that worried him. If that horse whickered or made any kind of noise, McCulloch knew one thing.

  He was a dead man.

  Holding his breath, feeling the sweat trickle down his cheeks, he listened as the ponies thundered past. The rocks blocked most of the dust, but he still had to lower his head to keep from being blinded. He tried to count the number of riders. More than ten, he figured, but no more than twenty. For Apaches, that was an entire cavalry regiment. He waited till the dust had settled and the sound of the horses faded.

  Finally, he released his hold on the roan and the black, rubbed them gently on their necks, and grinned at the pinto, the last of the horses on the lead rope. “You’re a good girl,” he told the mare, and went to her to rub her neck, too.

  His gelding grunted.

  “I know, you’re good, too,” he said, and removed his hat and wiped the sweat off his face with his shirtsleeve.

  Now, he pulled the Winchester from the scabbard and moved to the conglomeration of boulders. “Stay,” he told the horses, and smiled at a memory.

  “Stay,” he said to the ponies.

  His wife grinned and said in that wonderful Spanish accent, “My love, those are caballos, not perros.”

  He ducked underneath the waving stems of ocotillo cactus, stepped onto the square boulder, and pulled himself onto the giant goose egg of a rock. Keeping the Winchester in front of him, McCulloch crawled to the edge and watched the fading dust of the Apaches. At such times he wished he owned a pair of binoculars, but those spyglasses could get a man into trouble. If the sun reflected off the lenses and the Apaches saw it—and everybody knew that Apaches had eyes in the backs of their heads—well, that could lead to trouble.

  Apaches, however, weren’t the only ones with that extra sense, those proverbial eyes in the backs of their heads. Slowly, McCulloch rolled over and saw more dust down the trail.

  “Hell,” he whispered, and shot a quick look at the four horses.

  The rider was coming along at a good lope, probably aiming to catch up with the war party after scouting along the back trail. With luck, McCulloch reasoned, the brave would keep riding to join his fellow marauders. With even more luck, none of the horses would whinny a greeting to the solitary rider. McCulloch couldn’t risk trying to climb back down and keep those animals silent. For one reason, he didn’t have time. For another, the Apache might see him. Hell, he might have already spotted McCulloch.

  Flattening himself on the warm rock’s surface, McCulloch listened to the approaching Apache. Gradually, he slid his right foot up and stretched his right hand until he found the walnut handle of the knife he kept sheathed inside the boot. This he drew and brought up, but kept the blade close to his body. The sun was shining brightly, and though the chances were slim that the riding Indian could spot a reflection, McCulloch wasn’t one to take those kinds of chances.

  Keep riding, McCulloch thought. Keep riding. It could be a white man, though. Or a Mexican.

  He grinned. That was nothing but wishful thinking. No sane man would go chasing after dust made by Apaches. The rider had to be an Indian. And when the horse slowed down, McCulloch knew from the sound of the hooves that this rider was Indian. The horse he rode was unshod.

  The hiding place McCulloch had picked was the best he could find nearby, and it was a great spot. The ground was hard rock. No white man could see any sign that four horses had turned off the trail and into the forest of boulders. No white man . . . but the man below was an Apache.

  McCulloch drew his left hand from the Winchester. A gunshot would carry far in that country, and the Apaches would send enough of their party back to investigate the shot. Likely, they would send some men back anyway, eventually, to check on the man guarding their back trail.

  The horse stopped, snorted. The Indian below whispered something. McCulloch tensed, waiting for one of the four horses to whicker or snort or even begin to urinate. One noise, no matter how slight, would give him away.

  The metallic click caused McCulloch to raise his head just a fraction. Few men in West Texas would fail to recognize that sound, and certainly every Texas Ranger understood what it meant. That was the triple-click of a single-action revolver being cocked.

  So these Apaches weren’t the same ones who had been riding with Holy Shirt. They had to be part of another bunch. It also made his situation a little bit more ticklish. The Apache had a cocked revolver, and if he squeezed off that shot, McCulloch would have to start dealing with more than one Indian. Maybe the string of horses he had could pull away from the fleetest of the warriors’ mounts. Maybe not. He’d rather not have to run a few good horses to death.

  Wetting his lips, controlling his breathing, but sweating like a leaking water bag, he listened. The hooves of the Apache’s pony clopped. The warrior had found the entrance to McCulloch’s hiding place and his makeshift corral for the four horses. You had to admire a man with that kind of talent, but it was like the Texas Rangers always said, We can find a man if you give us enough time, but an Apache can find that man in no time.

  McCulloch waited, listening and trying to guess where the Apache rider was. To his amazement, the horses remained quiet, although he heard them moving, nervous, unsure of what the new horse would be bringing with it. McCulloch came up on his hands and knees, before he finally lifted himself just a fraction, rocking on his haunches in silence, waiting . . . listening. . . waiting . . . waiting . . . listening . . . waiting . . . until . . .

  He leaped off the rock.

  The Apache sensed the movement and was turning quickly in his Indian saddle, bringing the pistol—an old Navy Colt—up. McCulloch saw everything and knew exactly what he had to do.

  His left hand slammed onto the old .36 in the Indian’s right hand, the pinky finger just managing to slip between the brass frame and the casehardened hammer as the Indian squeezed the trigger.

  The hammer bit and broke the finger, right between the middle knuckles, but McCulloch felt no pain at that moment. Even better, he heard no shot. His finger had stopped the hammer from striking the percussion cap and detonating a round. All the while, his body was driving the Indian off the saddle. The Apache’s head cracked against the limestone wall just a few feet from the horse, which whinnied, reared, and bolted toward the other animals. McCulloch slashed with his knife but everything was moving too fast, and he felt the blade sing off the hard rock wall.

  He grimaced at the impact as he and the Apache bounced off the wall and into the dirt. Grabbing his knife, McCulloch rolled awa
y, rose, and started for the brave, then stopped suddenly and leaped back to avoid the Apache’s dun horse. It had turned around and was bolting down the small, narrow canyon and out to the main trail.

  The other horses, except for McCulloch’s buckskin, started to follow, but McCulloch and the Apache had come at each other in the middle of the canyon. The horses stopped, turned, danced, whinnied, snorted, and then hurried back to the far wall of their pen.

  The Apache’s knife slashed, but McCulloch leaped back, avoiding the blade, and saw the Indian spin halfway around. Dazed from his head slamming against the wall, he had swung too hard. He tried to dive to his left to correct his mistake, but McCulloch was driving his knife into the brave’s back, slamming him against the wall. As McCulloch twisted the blade and drove it deeper, he used his right hand to grab the brave’s long, shiny black hair and jerk the head back. Then he slammed the head against the rock wall again. That cut off the man’s scream.

  He groaned as McCulloch jerked the knife free. He slammed the Indian’s face into the wall once more, then turned him around, and let go for just an instant. His right arm came up quickly and smashed the Indian’s throat, crushing the larynx, preventing any sound. His left hand drove the blade into the center of the man’s heart. Again, McCulloch twisted, just to make sure, before he jerked the knife free, lifted his arm from the man’s throat, and watched him drop hard onto the ground.

  McCulloch had little time. The bleeding, broken pinky would have to wait. He looked above the rocks and saw the rising dust. The dead brave’s pony was bolting toward the rest of the war party, and that meant, once the other warriors saw the riderless horse, too many Apaches would be back. McCulloch picked the Navy Colt off the ground, shoved it into his waistband, and moved to the horses.

  He could leave them, just take the buckskin, but he saw no need in abandoning the animals and giving them to hostile Indians. Besides, the Apaches would likely just eat the roan, but McCulloch saw some potential in that horse. He wiped his blade on the Indian’s calico shirt, returned it to the sheath in his boot, and checked the lead rope. Whispering soothing praise to the dead bandits’ horses, he swung into the saddle and rode to the dead Indian. The buckskin remained calm, but the other animals became skittish at the smell of blood and death.