The sun was past the halfway mark. When it rested on the edge of the world, Sait-jah would give the order to attack. The others could do as they wanted but he was going to kill Tata with his own two hands, eventually. And he would take great pleasure in doing so.
~*~
It was the middle of the afternoon when White Apache roused himself from beside Marista. He ran a hand through his tousled black mane, donned his brown hat, and went out.
Colletto was over by the trees, using a small bow. Arrows bristled in a target he had fashioned from an old blanket.
Lately the boy never stopped practicing with weapons. Clay suspected that the Pima youth secretly longed to be like the Apaches, to hold his own as a member of the band. And Marista, oddly enough, did not disapprove. From comments she had made, he gathered that she yearned to cut all her ties to the Pimas, to begin her life all over again. She had taken to being a renegade, heart and soul.
The only warrior outside happened to be Cuchillo Negro, seated cross-legged in front of his wickiup.
Clay ambled over. “Have you seen Ponce? I want to talk to him.”
“About his woman?”
Sometimes it seemed to Clay that the warrior could read the workings of his mind as if they were an open book. “Yes. It is best if we take her back to the country of the Nakai-yes. She will never be at home among us.”
“Ponce might want to keep her.”
“After how she has treated him?” White Apache said in amazement. “He would rather drag her behind his horse until all the skin was flayed from her body.”
Cuchillo Negro merely grunted. He had been a young warrior once, and he could remember how his affection for a lovely girl had driven him to do things he would never normally do. Foremost among them had been the afternoon he spent up on a high cliff, pining because he believed another warrior had won the woman’s heart. So twisted had been his thoughts that he had seriously considered challenging the warrior to ritual combat.
Women naturally had that effect on men. For the woman of his dreams, a man would make a complete fool of himself. Or tolerate behavior he would never stand for in others.
White Apache walked to Ponce’s wickiup. Standing to one side of the opening, he called out. There was no answer, so he tried again, only louder. No one replied, nor was there any hint of movement within.
Hunkering, White Apache scanned the murky interior. It took a few moments for his eyes to adjust. When they did, he spied a dark form lying in the center, covered by blankets. Apparently Maria Mendez still mourned the loss of Juanita. “Miss,” he addressed her, “I am looking for Ponce. Can you tell me where he is?”
Clay thought the blankets stirred but he could not be certain. After an interval of silence, he tried again. “Maria, answer me. Where is Ponce?” When she offered no response, he said, “It is to your benefit to answer. That is, if you would like to see Mexico again.”
By rights that should have elicited a remark, yet it didn’t. Clay shook his head in irritation and started to back away. It would serve her right, he reflected, if he changed his mind. As he rose, a low, wavering groan filled the wickiup.
Instantly Clay ducked low and darted inside. The moan had been too deep and raspy to have issued from the throat of a woman. Grabbing the edge of the blanket, he yanked.
Ponce was flat on his stomach, his arms at his side, a nasty gash on his left temple, a puddle of blood under his cheek. A large welt marked his chin and his left eye was partially swollen.
“Damn,” Clay said. Rolling the young warrior over, he proceeded to drag Ponce out into the sunlight.
Cuchillo Negro saw and came on the run. “Did she kill him?”
“No, but she gave him a beating he will not soon forget, and he has lost a lot of blood. Bring the others. Hurry.” While the warrior dashed to comply, Clay probed the wounds. The gash was the worst and would leave a scar when it healed. Fortunately the bleeding had dwindled to a trickle.
Soon the three Chiricahuas arrived, Cuchillo Negro carrying a water skin which he handed over.
Fiero, of course, was the first to comment. “I knew it would come to this. He does not know how to handle women. He does not have enough experience with them.”
No one brought up the fact that Fiero had even less. White Apache lightly splashed water on the young warrior’s face until Ponce stirred and opened his eyes.
“Lie still—” White Apache advised, and was promptly ignored.
“The ish-tia-nay!” Ponce exclaimed in alarm, rising much too rapidly. A wave of agony lanced his skull and before he could catch himself, he clutched at the gash and grimaced. Immediately he composed himself through sheer force of will, but he could not keep from gritting his teeth. His face turned the color of a beet.
“What did she hit you with?” Cuchillo Negro asked.
Ponce had to think a bit. “I do not know,” he admitted. “I had just dragged her back from the stream. As we went into the wickiup she clawed my arm and I pushed her down.” He rubbed the deep scratch. “I walked past her, and I remember bending to pick up the blankets she had lain under for so long. That is all.”
“Where was your rifle?” White Apache asked.
“My rifle? Leaning near the entrance. Why do you— “ Ponce said, and stopped angry at himself. “She hit me with it!”
White Apache pointed at the warrior’s waist. “That is not all. She also took your pistol and your knife.”
To say Ponce was furious would be an understatement. He was absolutely wild when it was discovered she had also taken one of the horses which belonged to him. Rising unsteadily, he was all for starting after her that very minute.
“You are in no shape for a hard ride,” White Apache observed. “One of us will stay here with you while the rest of us go after her.”
Fiero made a sound like a provoked bull. “Why should we help him do that which he should do alone? She is his captive. I am not going.” Pivoting, he walked off, allowing for no dispute.
Ponce was not offended. The woman was to blame. She had shamed him yet again, shamed him for what would be the final time. “I need no one to help me,” he announced, and headed around the wickiup to where their small herd of stolen horses grazed. Among them was a chestnut of which he was especially proud. It had formidable endurance and could hold to a trot far longer than most horses, which was why he had not eaten it.
White Apache faced the two remaining Chiricahuas. “We cannot let him do this by himself he has lost a great deal of blood. He will need our help.”
“Ponce slew his first enemy three winters ago. He is a grown warrior,” Delgadito said. “We would upset him if we interfered.”
“And how upset would you be if we lost another member of the band?” White Apache countered as he jogged toward his wickiup. He slowed just long enough to poke his head inside and say in English, “Maria Mendez has flown the coop. We aim to light out after her. It shouldn’t take long.” He glimpsed Marista’s encouraging smile, then he ran to the black stallion he favored and swung onto the animal, bare-back.
Cuchillo Negro appeared. As he mounted a tall roan, he said, “Delgadito and I agreed that one of us should stay with Fiero to watch the women.” He turned the roan to the south, the corners of his mouth tweaked. “He gets along much better with Fiero than I do.”
Ponce already had a lead of hundreds of yards and was urging the chestnut to go faster; His throbbing head, his aching jaw, his stinging arm, they all reminded him of his lapse. They were like red-hot blades slicing into his body and he could not shut them out no matter how hard he tried. He had let the woman get the better of him again! For that, she would pay most dearly.
White Apache settled into the rolling gait of the black stallion. He did not goad the animal to catch up. Time enough for that later, when the chestnut tired.
It had been hours since Maria Mendez made good her escape. By now, White Apache calculated, she was five to six miles away. Definitely not much more than that, given the harsh
terrain. A check of the sun revealed they would be hard pressed to catch her before nightfall.
Out of the canyon mouth swept Ponce. He passed close to a bush and snatched at the end of a thin limb which broke off in his hand. Flailing it as he would a quirt, he widened his lead.
The afternoon waxed, then waned. Perhaps an hour of daylight was left when White Apache and Cuchillo Negro came to the top of a talus slope and spotted Ponce at the bottom, next to the bay the woman had taken. It was down, its neck and a foreleg both bent at unnatural angles, the white gleam of bone visible on the leg.
Gingerly White Apache worked his way to the bottom, slowing whenever loose rocks and dirt slid out from under the stallion. Talus slopes were notoriously treacherous. To go down one too fast was to invite disaster, as Maria Mendez had learned.
“She is on foot now,” Ponce declared when the two men were at his side. “We will have her soon.”
Before White Apache or Cuchillo Negro could comment, the statement was punctuated by the crack of gunfire in the distance.
Eleven
It had been a day and a half since the horses last slaked their thirst. So when Iron Eyes wound into a wide canyon and spotted a glistening patch of water off to the right among high boulders, he went to investigate. Then he signaled the others.
Springs were few and far between deep in the Dragoons. Wes Cody thought he knew them all, and he had picked their route to Lost Canyon so that they never went more than two days without striking water. To find a spring he had not known existed was a pleasant surprise.
Cody stared at the sun, quibbling over it being a little too early to call a halt. There was a good hour of daylight left. But he reminded himself that before noon tomorrow they would reach Lost Canyon. The extra rest would insure they were that much more alert when they went up against the renegades. “We camp here,” he declared.
Timothy sighed in relief. He winced as he rode into the cleared space which fronted the spring and slowly slid from the stirrups. His backside bothered him thanks to several blisters. Even though he was a competent horseman, he’d never had to spend over twelve hours a day, every day for almost a week, in the saddle.
Ren Starky was the last to rein up. He wrapped the lead rope to the pack animals around his saddle horn and crooked a leg to dismount.
They all froze when Lobo unaccountably rose from lapping water, turned, and growled. The hairs at the nape of the wolf’s neck rose straight up and his thin black lips curled to reveal his tapered fangs.
“What’s got that critter so riled?” Tim asked nervously. An excitable wolf, in his opinion, was just as bad as a hostile. He seemed to recollect his pa telling him that wolves sometimes went berserk, killing everything in sight.
“We might be havin’ company comin’ to call,” Wes said casually while shucking his Spencer from his boot. He fed a round into the chamber and walked to a gap in the boulders.
The serpentine canyon boasted practically no vegetation, not even in the vicinity of die spring. The soil was simply too parched. Boulders littered the canyon floor, which angled upward at a gradual slant.
Nowhere did Cody spot movement, but he had learned the hard way to always rely on the wolf’s superior instincts. “Tim, bunch the horses under the overhang. Ren, you stay with him while Iron Eyes and me have us a look-see.”
“Keep your eyes skinned, old-timer,” the gambler said.
Nodding, Cody stalked toward their back trail. Lobo glued himself to his master’s legs, his dark nose twitching. Flanking them came the Navajo, his moccasins making no sound, his face as grim as death.
It was as if the decades had been peeled back, as if the three of them had sloughed off their many years of hard living and bitter experience and were once again young, once again in their prime, once again equal to any occasion. It thrilled Wes Cody, sending a tingle down his spine. Grinning, he glanced at the warrior and Iron Eyes grinned back.
Lobo growled again, lower than before, barely loud enough for them to hear. The wolf knew the distinctive earthy scent of Apaches, knew it well, and that scent was strong in his nostrils. Somewhere out there, somewhere close, were the enemies he had spent a lifetime tracking and slaying, and he longed to sink his teeth into them again.
Cody came close to the trail and crouched behind a boulder. After motioning for Iron Eyes to imitate him, he bent and placed his mouth close to Lobos ear. “Stay, boy. Stay.” Then, drawing back the hammer on his rifle, he bolted toward cover ten feet away.
It was a deliberate gamble. Cody needed to draw the Apaches out, needed to get some idea of how many there were and where they were, and the only way to do that was to draw their fire. They might not shoot. They might want to wait another day or so before they attacked. But he was counting on them being ready to make their move, and he was not disappointed.
Hardly had Cody taken three long strides than a young warrior popped up forty yards away and banged off two swift shots which spanged off the boulder behind him.
The very instant that the warrior appeared, Iron Eyes trained his Winchester and fired. He had feared that when the moment came, his alcohol-ravaged nerves would betray him. He had dreaded having his hands shake so badly he could not aim. But that was not the case. It was as if he had never tasted a drop of the white man’s firewater. His arms were as steady as a rock, his eyes as clear as a high mountain lake. The shot caught the young warrior in the shoulder and dropped him.
Wes Cody gained the next boulder. Where others might have quaked at their close call, he smiled. It was just like the old days, those glorious times he cherished, when he had been young and vital and could hold his own against anyone, anywhere. He hadn’t realized until that very moment exactly how much he missed that feeling.
Back at the spring, Timothy Cody drew his pistol, fumbling with it as if it were a hot potato. ‘What was that?” he blurted when he had the revolver steadied.
“Dying time is here,” Ren Starky said. He stood as calmly as if he were on the main street of Tucson, his hands loose at his sides.
“I wish you wouldn’t talk like that,” Tim complained. “And why don’t you pull your gun? The savages could be on us at any second.”
“Don’t you worry, kid. When the time comes, I’ll do my part.”
Off among the boulders on the far side of the trail, the iron warrior called Sait-jah inwardly burned with anger. He had given clear orders that no one was to fire until he gave the signal, which he had not intended to do until they were close enough to Tata’s party to drop them all with the first volley. But young Pindah had rashly failed to heed him and paid the price. He could only hope the fool was dead.
Holding his rifle close to his chest, Sait-jah worked closer to the whites. He had no choice now. He must press the attack. Counting himself, there were still seven warriors, more than enough to finish off the old white-eye and the others. He must rely on numbers instead of the element of surprise.
Sait-jah spotted the Navajo peeking out, seeking a target. Tucking the Winchester to his shoulder, he leaned to the right, snapped off a shot. The warrior disappeared, and he could not say whether he had scored a hit.
But he had. Iron Eyes was on his knees, biting his lower lip against the pain, a ragged furrow in his left side. The slug had glanced off a rib. He just knew it was broken, and he was bleeding badly, but he was still alive. He could still fight. He saw Cody staring in his direction in concern. Iron Eyes plastered a grin on his face and waved to show he was all right.
Just as he did, the Chiricahuas opened fire. Sait-jah’s shot was taken as the signal they had been waiting for, and those warriors with rifles poured round after round into the boulders protecting their foes. It was an old trick. Ricochets could be terribly deadly.
Wes Cody flattened as leaden hornets sought his life. Slugs zinged and whined above him, chewed into the ground around him. But he gave no thought to his own safety. His thoughts were on the horses. A high-pitched squeal confirmed his worst fears.
; Both Tim Cody and Ren Starky heard the sickening smack of a heavy slug when it tore into one of the pack horses. The animal squealed and reared, which threw v the second pack horse into a panic. They strained at the lead rope and it slipped free of the saddle horn.
“They’ll run off!” Tim cried, dismayed at the prospect of losing their supplies. He lunged for the lead rope, but as he did, Ren Starky leaped and bore them both to the ground.
“What the hell?” Tim bellowed, struggling to break loose. The pack horses had turned and were making off up the canyon. “Let me go! I have to stop them!”
“Keep your head down, damn it!” the gunman growled.
Only then did Tim hear the buzz of bullets overhead and the whine of ricocheting lead. Slugs were flying every which way as the Apaches poured round after round into the boulders.
Cody’s horse was hit in the neck and staggered. It caught its balance, cut to the right, and was on the verge of fleeing when another shot caught it high in the chest with a loud thud. Just like that the animal’s legs buckled and it crashed down, blood flecking its mouth and nostrils.
This was more than the other horses and the mule could take. In concert they fled northward.
“No!” Tim shouted. Losing their supplies was bad enough; losing their mounts would strand them afoot and greatly reduce the odds of any of them leaving the reservation alive. He pushed to his knees and grabbed at dangling reins but was hauled onto his back by the gambler before he could snatch hold.
“Damn it! We’re dead without those horses!”
Starky paid the kid no mind. He’d fought more than his share of Apaches. He knew their favorite tactics, and he braced himself for the charge certain to come. His hand fell on his Colt, then just as quickly he removed it. Not until the time came, he told himself. Not if the Apaches were to have half a chance to do what he lacked the courage to do himself.
The rifles fell silent. Wes Cody knew the warriors were reloading. In another minute or two they would close in. He bent low and backed up behind a different boulder. Over on his right, the Navajo had also changed position. They were as set as they would ever be.
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