It was almost pitch black inside the passage. The few stars visible in the thin line of open sky far above them didn’t cast down much light. They had to feel their way along, and every few minutes Boone bumped face-first into a stone wall as the passage bent sharply one way or the other.
They came to the area that had been blocked by the avalanche. Tenoch’s slaves had opened only a narrow path. The fugitives had to go through it single file. In places, the rocks closed in so much that they scraped Boone’s shoulders.
His heart pounded hard and his nerves were stretched so tight it felt like they might snap at any second. It was the thought of being closed in by all those tons of rock that made him react like that. He had never liked narrow places.
At last they reached the end of the avalanche area and the passage widened out again. It still wasn’t very spacious but Boone felt a lot better when Zyanya could walk beside him again.
When it seemed like they had to be getting close to the trail’s eastern end, he stopped the others and whispered, “I’ll go take a look ahead and see if I can find out if there are any guards.”
He wished Audie and Nighthawk were there to take charge and handle the scouting chore. He really wished Preacher had been able to come with them . . . but it was up to him. He was going to live up to that responsibility.
Besides, in one way he was the best man for the job. A couple weeks of captivity in harsh conditions had weakened him, no doubt about that, but the other men had been prisoners for longer and were in worse shape.
For better or worse, he was the one who had to get them out safely.
Zyanya put her arms around him in the darkness. Hugging him, she pressed her head against his chest. “Do not be killed.”
“I’ll try my best not to,” Boone promised her as he returned the embrace.
It felt mighty good holding Zyanya. She was solidly built but had plenty of intriguing curves, and she was really warm as she pressed up against him. Maybe Preacher promising old Nazar that he, Boone, would marry her wasn’t going to turn out to be such a bad deal after all.
Before he could think much about that, they had to get out of there. Reluctantly, he let go of Zyanya, slipped out of her arms, and stepped away from her. “I’ll be back,” he whispered.
He left them and started forward with the spear in his right hand and his left held out so that his fingers brushed the wall. That kept him going in the right direction when he couldn’t see anything at all. It would have been mighty easy to get turned around in the all-encompassing darkness.
He tried to count how many bends were in the trail after he’d left the others, so he would know how to find them when he came back, but he quickly lost track of the number. It didn’t matter, he told himself. If he retraced his route, he couldn’t help but run into them.
He came to an abrupt halt when he heard quiet voices somewhere ahead of him.
Although Boone wouldn’t have thought it was possible, his heart began pounding even harder in his chest. He stood frozen for a long moment, then forced himself to draw in a deep breath through his nose so it wouldn’t make any noise. He felt his pulse slow down slightly. After a moment more, he was able to move again.
He tried to move in utter silence, but he was sure he made a few small noises. It helped that the men ahead of him were talking. That might cover up any sound he made. Also, they wouldn’t be expecting trouble from his direction. They didn’t have any way of knowing the prisoners had escaped.
Boone listened. They didn’t sound worried about anything. He was close enough to make out individual words in the Aztec tongue. He could tell from the tone that the men were making the same sort of bored conversation sentries did after a long shift.
It grew lighter in the passage as he approached the eastern end. He realized he was looking out through the mouth of the great cleft, surprised to see a tinge of gray in the sky. Dawn probably wasn’t more than an hour away.
The faint light allowed him to see two guards posted at the end of the trail. They were a few yards inside the passage, standing near the left-hand wall, leaning on their spears. They had their backs to Boone and were watching the slope that led down into Shadow Valley.
He turned to make his way back to the others. Now that he knew where the guards were, he and the other men could jump them.
Before he took a step, he paused. It would take some time to return to where he had left Zyanya and the rest of the former prisoners and then more time to get back to the entrance. The sky would just get lighter, making it more likely they would be spotted as they approached.
It would be better, he decided, if he could dispose of the guards by himself and then fetch the others.
That is insane, a small voice in the back of his mind warned. Weak, inexperienced, and outnumbered two to one? Really, what chance would he have of overpowering the guards?
He watched the guards. As lax as they were in their vigilance, he gained confidence that he could get close enough to drive his spear into the back of one man before they even knew he was there. That would make the odds even.
He heard one of the men yawn, and that helped him make up his mind. They were already sleepy. It would be a good time to jump them.
Preacher would do it if he were there. Preacher would seize the opportunity.
But Boone Halliday was no Preacher, and he knew it.
He drew in another deep breath. He could do this.
He crept forward.
The two sentries fell silent One of the men leaned against the stone wall. His head drooped forward.
He was dozing off, thought Boone. He needed to strike at the other man first since the sleepier one might be groggy when the attack roused him from his half-slumber.
It was a plan—of sorts—but it was the only semblance of one Boone had.
He closed to within ten feet of the guards. The one leaning against the wall was actually snoring a little. Boone’s hopes rose. He poised the spear in front of him with both hands, then before doubt could creep in, he bounded forward and rammed the weapon at the nearest guard’s back.
The sharp point went deep into the man’s body and grated on bone. He arched his back and cried out in agony. Boone had put so much force behind the blow, the spear went all the way through and burst out the man’s chest. The bloody point protruded a good six inches from the front of his buckskin tunic.
Boone tried to pull the spear free, but the wounded man reached up and grabbed the part sticking out of his chest. His fingers closed around it with spasmodic strength, even though he was dying, and when Boone tried to wrench it out, it wouldn’t come.
He hadn’t counted on that. Nobody could have.
The wounded man twisted away, tearing the spear out of Boone’s hands.
Jolted out of his sleep as the scream filled the passage, the second guard whirled toward Boone with surprising speed. Being sleepy didn’t seem to be slowing him down as much as Boone had hoped it would. The man brought up his spear and lunged, driving the weapon straight at Boone’s chest.
CHAPTER 36
Boone leaped back frantically. Tripping over the man who had just collapsed was all that saved his life. As he fell backwards, the spear passed within inches just above him. Boone reached up and grabbed the shaft, then hung on for dear life as the guard tried to jerk it back and strike again.
Boone kicked out, aiming toward the man’s legs although it was hard to see anything in the bad light. His foot crashed against something, and the Aztec grunted and went down. Both men lost their grip on the spear, which clattered away on the rocky floor of the passage.
They grappled hand-to-hand, rolling and gouging and kicking. Boone was taller than the guard, but the man outweighed him, which was much more of an advantage in a fight.
The warrior was a more experienced brawler, too. It was no surprise that after a minute or so of desperate combat, Boone found himself flat on his back with the guard trying to get his hands around his neck.
Boone couldn’t fend him o
ff. The man slammed a punch to Boone’s face that stunned him long enough for the guard to clamp his right hand on Boone’s throat. A second later, he added the left hand to the grip and bore down hard in an attempt to crush the young trapper’s windpipe.
Boone flailed punches at the man’s head, but they missed or glanced off. Red explosions began to burst behind his eyes, and the blood pumping through his veins seemed to roar in his ears. He knew it would be only seconds before he passed out—and not long after that before he died.
Vaguely, he heard a loud thud. The guard’s hands suddenly loosened and fell away as he slumped toward him. Boone had no time to get out of the way before the guard sprawled on him, covering the young trapper’s face and threatening once again to suffocate him.
He got his hands on the man’s shoulders, strained to push him up, and rolled him to the side. Something hot and wet dripped on Boone’s face. Reflexively, he wiped it away and shuddered as he gasped for air. He figured what had fallen on him was blood.
“Boone Halliday!” a voice said. “Boone Halliday!”
That was Zyanya. The first time he had told her his name, he had used both first and last names, and she had persisted in calling him that ever since. As he struggled to a sitting position and looked around, he spotted her standing beside him with a war club clutched in both hands. He glanced over at the second guard, who was motionless.
From behind Zyanya, one of the trappers said, “Are you all right, boy?”
Boone looked up. The rest of the group stood behind her.
“Yeah, I-I reckon I am.” His throat was a little sore from being choked, which made him hoarse, but other than that he was uninjured.
The man chuckled. “Dang, as hard as that little Injun gal walloped that fella, I expected his head to come flyin’ plumb off his shoulders. Never saw a gal hit somebody like that, with a club or anything else.”
Boone realized that Zyanya had saved his life. She and the rest of the former captives had followed him along the trail.
Well, now that he thought about it, he hadn’t exactly told them to stay there. He’d assumed that they would. What he had told them was to let him go ahead and scout for the guards, and they had done that.
He certainly couldn’t complain about them showing up when they had.
One of the men gave him a hand getting to his feet. When he was upright again, Zyanya dropped the club and threw her arms around him. Boone patted her on the back and murmured assurances that everything would be all right. Even though he knew she might not understand everything he was saying, she would get the gist of it.
“Any more guards on this end of the trail?” a man asked.
Boone looked at the others over Zyanya’s shoulder as he continued to embrace her and shook his head. “Not that I saw. Surely if there were, all that commotion would have drawn them by now.”
The same trapper said, “Yeah, the girl took off runnin’ lickety-split when she heard that caterwaulin’. Reckon she knowed you was in trouble.”
“It’s a good thing for me she did,” Boone said.
The man turned to his weary companions. “This means we’re free, boys. We made it through!”
“Unless Tenoch sends men after us,” Boone cautioned. He felt Zyanya tremble a little in his arms as he mentioned the high priest’s name. “They may not have discovered yet that we’ve escaped, so we need to keep moving and put as much distance between us and these cliffs as we can.”
“Maybe a couple of us could climb up to the top, shove some more rocks off, and block the trail again,” a man suggested.
Boone put his hands on Zyanya’s shoulders and moved back a step from her. He shook his head. “We can’t do that,” he said emphatically. “Preacher, Audie, and Nighthawk are still behind us somewhere. I won’t close off the only escape route they have.”
“You don’t know they’re even still alive,” the man protested.
“I don’t know that they’re not, and as long as there’s a chance of them getting out, they’re going to be able to take it.”
The trapper shrugged. “Fine. It was just an idea. Never said it was a good ’un.”
Boone smiled as he glanced at the eastern sky, which had paled during the life-or-death struggle with the guards. “Let’s go.” He left his spear lodged in the body of the man he had killed and picked up the weapon that had belonged to the other guard. With Zyanya beside him, he started down the slope, deeper into Shadow Valley. The rest of the men strung out behind them.
Boone knew all the men were exhausted and wanted to rest. He felt the same way and knew Zyanya did, too, but he’d meant what he said about the need to keep moving. They couldn’t afford to waste any time when Tenoch and other Aztecs could be behind them, eager to cut out their hearts.
A while later, the sky had begun to turn rosy with the sun’s approach when Boone suddenly stopped. Beside him, Zyanya was breathing hard. She needed to rest for a few minutes, but that wasn’t why he had called a halt.
He lifted his head, sniffed the air, and then asked, “Do any of you smell that?”
The other men tested the air, too, then one of them exclaimed, “That’s wood smoke! Somebody’s got a campfire goin’.”
Boone thought the same thing. His mind went back to the time he had spent with Miles O’Grady and the other trappers, before they’d encountered Preacher. He knew that O’Grady and the rest of the men planned to stick together in a group for safety and come into Shadow Valley to take as many pelts as they could. Boone couldn’t think of anybody else who would likely to have a campfire going in the area.
The idea of a large group of savvy, well-armed frontiersmen being that close by filled him with a pang of relief. All he had to do was lead his fellow fugitives to the camp, and they would be safe. The responsibility would be off his back.
He explained his reasoning to the others, some of whom knew Miles O’Grady and agreed with Boone’s assessment of the situation. His hand tightened on the spear he carried. Zyanya hadn’t gotten to rest for very long—none of them had—but maybe their flight wouldn’t last much longer. Maybe in another few minutes, they wouldn’t have to worry anymore.
“Let’s go.”
CHAPTER 37
The smell of wood smoke grew stronger as Boone led the group through the woods. With so many trees around them, he couldn’t see the smoke rising against the early morning sky. The scent of it was the only trail he had to follow.
That was enough. He was confident they were going in the right direction.
The aroma of cooking meat began to blend with the pungent tang of the campfire. The men up ahead were cooking their breakfast.
The smell made one of the former prisoners moan softly. “I don’t know what kind of critter that is they’re roastin’, but I want some of it!”
Several men muttered in agreement. They all had been on short rations for so long that they were half-starved.
Boone sniffed the air again in hopes that he might catch a whiff of coffee. He wanted that as much as he wanted a chunk of hot, grease-dripping meat. He didn’t smell any coffee, though. He supposed they didn’t have it on to boil yet.
The woods began to thin out ahead of them. Seeing a clearing, Boone figured that was where the camp was located. He wanted to rush forward, but his newfound feeling of leadership suddenly stopped him. Charging blindly into any situation was a bad idea, he realized. He could almost hear Preacher cautioning him about that. He held up a hand and signaled for the others to halt.
“What’s the matter?” a man asked. “Don’t you smell what’s cookin’?”
“I smell it,” Boone said, “but we can’t be sure exactly who is doing the cooking.”
“It’s O’Grady’s bunch, like you told us. Ain’t nobody else it could be, is there?”
“Not that I can think of,” Boone admitted. “I still believe we should be careful. I’m going to take a look. This time, I want all of you to stay here until I get back.”
He thought a
couple men looked like they wanted to challenge his decision, but then one of them shrugged and said, “All right. Just don’t take too long about it. The smell o’ that meat cookin’ is about to drive me plumb loco.”
Once again, several of them muttered agreement.
Stealthily, Boone headed off in the direction the smoke was coming from, then was surprised to glance over and see Zyanya beside him. “You’re supposed to wait back there with the others,” he told her.
She shook her head and held up the war club she was still carrying. “Go with Boone Halliday.”
“I know that’s what you want to do, but you’ll be safer if you stay here.”
“Go with Boone Halliday.” Her round face wore a stubborn frown.
Well, she had saved his life a short time earlier, he thought. There was no denying that. And arguing with her would just waste time—an argument that he would more than likely lose in the end, anyway. “All right,” he said with some reluctance. “Come on.”
He moved forward through the trees, crouching slightly as he held the spear with both hands in front of him. Zyanya was a step to his right and just behind him, clutching the war club with which she had crushed the skull of the man about to kill Boone a while earlier.
They made a formidable pair, he thought with a wry smile. Formidable enough, he hoped, to deal with any trouble they might run into.
He paused as he heard voices up ahead. Something about them was wrong, he realized. He’d expected to hear the rough, jovial voices of Miles O’Grady and the other trappers, but the words weren’t English . . . and they didn’t sound like any other European language Boone had ever heard of, either.
The tongue-twisting, guttural nature of the speech was familiar, however. Boone’s heart plummeted when he figured out where he had heard it before. The men in the camp just ahead were speaking the same tongue as his Aztec captors.
The shock was almost enough to make him gasp out loud. He had believed that they’d left all the bloodthirsty Aztecs back in the hidden valley on the other side of the Sawtooth Cliffs. The idea that some of their enemies were right in front of them—between them and safety—was almost too much to bear.
Preacher's Bloodbath Page 16
