“Which is?”
“That when a man has nothing to lose, he’ll try anything. That it’s every hombre for himself, and the devil take the hindmost.”
“You can’t really believe that?”
“I believe this,” Clay said and patted his rifle. “I believe in the law of the gun. I believe in the old saying about an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. I believe that making those who have wronged you pay is better than turning the other cheek like a Bible thumper.”
“If that is true, then I pity you.”
“Save your pity for yourself.”
Maria faced around. “You have lost your soul to the devil, Clay Taggart. I would not want to be in your shoes when you are called to account.”
The wind picked up, knifing down off the Sierra Madres to rustle the mesquite and stir Clay’s long hair. He shut her words from his mind, refusing to give them any consideration. Maybe she was right, maybe she wasn’t. But he had picked the trail he aimed to follow and he intended to play his hand out, come what may. No matter what else was said about the White Apache, no one would ever be able to accuse him of being a coward.
Clay reined the horse to the north, guided by the North Star. He would reach Caliente Springs by noon if he didn’t run into more patrols. From there it would be a clear shot to the border and safety. He rose in the stirrups once more to make a final survey of the country behind him. Satisfied he had outstripped any pursuit, he goaded the horse to a gallop, never knowing that he was wrong.
Mere seconds after the sound of the White Apache’s mount faded on the breeze, a bulky silhouette detached itself from the mesquite. It was Pedro the tracker, who had gone off by his own to find the Apaches who killed the brother of his boss. He had wanted to hunt alone rather than be burdened with noisy soldiers who didn’t know the first thing about stalking at night. And it had paid off.
Pedro stared after the renegade a few moments, then wheeled his horse and rode hell for leather toward the camp. He knew where the White Apache was going, and he smiled to himself as he rode.
“We have you now, butcher.”
Chapter Twelve
The desert was an inferno. A golden cauldron dominated the sky, scorching all life below. Plants drooped, withered by the heat. Animals were sheltered in their burrows or wherever they could find tiny patches of shade.
Across the parched landscape plodded the White Apache’s stolen mount. In the saddle sagged Maria Gonzalez, her face baked red, her chin touching her chest. She would have fallen off long ago had the White Apache not lashed her wrists to the saddle horn and her ankles to the stirrups.
Clay himself walked, leading the animal by the reins. The blistering oven, which once would have melted him as a flame melted a candle, hardly fazed him at all. Where once he would have been caked with sweat from head to toe, the only concession his body made to the scalding temperature were a few beads of perspiration on his brow below his headband.
Caliente Springs lay less than half an hour away. Clay had pushed the horse to get there because he didn’t care to be left behind by the rest of the band. Whether the animal lived or died was of no consequence to him; he’d butcher the carcass, eat what he could, and dry some of the flesh for later use, just as any Chiricahua warrior would.
For over an hour Clay had tramped on, looking neither right nor left, his mind in a turmoil that his face didn’t show. As would any full-blooded warrior, he was becoming more and more adept at hiding his feelings, at keeping his features as impassive as stone so that his true emotions were known only to himself.
He was in conflict with himself. His white upbringing raged fiery war with the Apache ways he had adopted, and neither was able to gain the upper hand. The internal war boiled down to one burning issue. What was he to do with Maria Gonzalez? The white part of him wanted to let her go so she could be reunited with her family. The Apache part of him wanted to keep her as his wife, maybe the first of several he would take, provided he let her live along enough.
For two bits he would have been tempted to throttle her senseless. Her words of the night before had started the conflict, and no matter how he tried, he couldn’t put it from his mind. Was he as she claimed, white? Or was he, as he believed, more like an Apache? Or did the truth lie somewhere in between?
Clay had wrestled with the problem for so long that he was tired of thinking. He absently stretched and swept the horizon on all sides, a precaution every Chiricahua learned to make as much of a habit as breathing.
A spiraling cloud of dust highlighted the southern horizon.
Clay’s jaw muscles twitched. He had been careless. He had been deep in thought when he should have been keeping his eyes peeled.
The size of the cloud indicated a large party on horseback. It had be soldiers, either the same bunch he had tangled with at the river or a different one. They were riding hard, from the look of things, unusual for troopers in broad daylight—unless they were after someone.
Breaking into a trot, Clay yanked on the reins to get the horse to keep pace. Maria snapped awake and looked sluggishly around, then sagged again, too fatigued to care about anything other than the rest she craved.
For fifteen minutes Clay rode northward. At last a ragged ridge appeared. Caliente Springs was located in a narrow gap near the summit. The springs were so remote that few Mexican or white travelers ever visited them although they were used regularly by Indians.
Clay had visited the site several times. On the other side of the ridge stretched miles of chaparral laced by thorny thickets. Once there, the band would elude the soldier with ease.
The brown ridge grew in size. A threadbare path meandered up toward the gap, curving among a field littered with boulders of every size, shape, and description. The gap was shrouded in shadow.
At the edge of the boulder field, Clay stopped.
Swiftly, he cut Maria free and lowered her to the ground. She came back to life and glared at him.
“What are you up to now, Señor Taggart?
He knew why she called him by his given name rather than the one bestowed on him by Delgadito, but he refused to be taken in by her tricks, refused to see himself as more white than otherwise. He also refused to answer. Gripping her wrist, he walked her between a pair of towering boulders spaced barely wide enough apart for a rider to pass through. “Don’t move,” he said.
Clay coaxed the horse into the space. One arm draped around the animal’s neck to reassure it, he suddenly lanced the Bowie into the animal’s throat and wrenched mightily. Flesh sheared, blood spurted. The horse tried to buck but was too exhausted.
Gradually the mount weakened. The ground was soaked a bright red when Clay let go and rejoined Maria.
Snorting and swaying, the horse tried to back into the open but its front legs buckled. It sank down right there, blocking the trail. Blood caked its chest and forelegs.
“How could you?” Maria asked. “That was a sadistic thing to do. There was no reason to hurt the poor creature.”
“Oh?” Clay pointed at the dust cloud, now much closer and much larger.
Marie was all too aware what the cloud meant and became deliriously excited by the idea she might soon be rescued. She figured out that Taggart had killed the horse to block the trail and give them more time to reach the top. The devil didn’t miss a trick, she mused.
Clay was about to leave when he remembered the Henry. Stepping around the spreading pool of blood, he plucked it from the saddle boot. Then, with a rifle in either hand, he nudged the woman and they started to ascend.
~*~
High above them four pair of dark eagle eyes watched with interest.
“He will not make it in time,” Delgadito said.
“He will if he lets go of the woman,” Fiero said. “I would, were I in his moccasins.”
Out on the flatland, six dust-choked riders galloped toward the ridge in advance of the main body of troopers and vaqueros. Among them rode Major Vicente Filisola, who should have ridd
en with the main column as would any other commanding officer. But he was too upset about Maria, too worried the Apaches would spirit her away. So with Pedro, Sergeant Amat, and three of his best riders, he had gone on ahead of the column to see if he could slow Maria’s abductor down.
The tracker was the first to spy a patch of light blue on the ridge. “Captain! That is the color of the dress the señorita wore.”
Filisola looked and his blood raced like lightning. “Faster, men!” he said. “We must not let that devil get over the ridge or we will never see her again!”
Clay saw the six riders sweeping toward him. In the distance was a growing knot of soldiers. He was hopelessly outnumbered, but not about to give up without a fight.
Apaches were more than a match for their longstanding rivals. Normally soldiers fled rather than fought. But this time the honor and life of a young woman was at stake. And it has been forever true that in the breast of the most callous of men often beats a soft heart for a fair maiden in distress.
So the soldiers arrived on the scene bent on vengeance for the beloved commanding officer they had lost and determined to save his precious niece at all costs.
Clay climbed as rapidly as his captive’s condition allowed. She stumbled so often that he suspected she was trying to slow him down and hauled on her arm so hard it nearly popped out of the socket. “No tricks,” he growled.
Major Filisola came to the beginning of the trail and fumed when he saw the dead horse blocking the way. Vaulting to the ground, he waved his saber. “Upward, men! Before she is lost to us!”
Getting a running start, Filisola flew toward the dead horse and sailed over it in a single leap. He went on without looking back. Let the others come as they may, he reflected. He was going to rescue Maria.
The major saw a flash of blue above him. Tilting his head back, he spotted Maria and her captor. An icy chill rippled down his spine at the mental picture of the violation that would occur if he failed her. “I’m coming, Señorita! Have hope!”
Maria Gonzalez heard and remembered the dashing young officer. She dug in her heels. “Let me go! Please!”
Clay turned a deaf ear to her plea. Jerking her arm violently, he climbed higher. A rifle cracked below them and a slug ricocheted off a boulder to their left.
Below, Major Filisola spun and frowned at the smoking rifle in Pedro’s hands. “Are you loco? You might hit her by mistake.”
“We must slow him down until the rest get here,” the tracker replied. “You know as well as I do that, if he gets over the ridge, all is lost.”
Clay came to an open grade. On either hand were jumbled boulders, a treacherous maze the woman was incapable of negotiating. He had no choice but to go straight up. “Move quickly if you value your life,” he said, giving her a shove. They went only a few feet, however, when the air rang with gunfire. Bullets smacked into the earth all around them. He felt a stinging sensation in his calf, another on his shoulder.
Throwing Maria behind a boulder, Clay brought his Winchester to bear. His first shot toppled a soldier and drove the rest to cover. They replied with a barrage of lead that kept him pinned down.
And all the while, the main body of soldiers galloped nearer and nearer.
Clay was fit to be tied. He was close to the summit, but it might as well be on the moon. He could readily escape, but not dragging a woman along. Still, he refused to leave her.
Filisola and his small group of avengers slowly worked upward. Glancing back, he saw Martin Gonzalez and Major Mora. In another few moments the ridge would be swarming with dozens of soldiers. The White Apache’s days of pillaging and plundering were almost over.
The object of the major’s bloodlust realized the same fact. Clay looked down at the woman at his feet, and she met his gaze defiantly. She was no longer the timid girl he had snatched at Adobe Wells. The crucible of hardship had forged a miraculous change.
“Leave me,” Maria said. Her flagging spirit had been revitalized by the appearance of the soldiers. Instinctively she knew they were her last, best hope of escaping. Her moment of truth had arrived, and she was ready.
“Never,” Clay said and leaned against the boulder to feed cartridges into his rifle. He didn’t hear her move, but he abruptly sensed that she had, and pivoting, he was just in time to ward off a brutal blow that would have caved in his skull had it landed.
Maria stepped back, the big rock she clutched poised to strike again. “I’ll die before I’ll let you take me!”
“That’s what you think,” Clay said. Feinting a step to the right, he suckered her into swinging, and as the rock cleaved the air, he delivered a solid hit to her stomach with the butt of his rifle. She collapsed, breathing heavily. The rock fell from her limp fingers.
“Damn you! Damn you all to hell, White Apache!”
Another volley blasted below. This one was twice as loud and lasted twice as long. Leaden hornets buzzed overhead and spanged off the boulders.
The rest of the soldiers had arrived and were fanning out, firing as they ran. Clay saw the same bearded man in a sombrero whom he had seen at Abobe Wells. It was her father, he figured, and fixed a bead on the man’s sternum. He had the man dead to rights. All he had to do was squeeze the trigger.
“If I had your knife, I would kill you!” Maria spat.
Clay smiled and fired.
Down the slope, Martin Gonzalez’s sombrero went flying and he dived for cover.
“I would peel your skin from you like Apaches do to our people,” Maria said spitefully. “I would rip out your tongue and feed it to the buzzards.”
“I believe you would,” Clay said. A pair of troopers drew his fire and both went down, sporting new nostrils. “You are my kind of woman, sweet thing.”
“How dare you!” Maria cried, punching his leg. “It is true what they say. You are a monster!”
“I try.”
So many soldiers dotted the ridge that crossing the open grade invited certain death. Clay grabbed her wrist and tried anyway, dragging her after him. Farther down someone shouted and the shots tapered off.
Then someone else yelled, “Don’t let him take my baby!”
Smoke and slugs filled the air. To Clay, it was as if he stood in the middle of a rain of bullets that chipped the rocks at his feet and crisscrossed the air around him. How they all missed, he would never know.
Lunging to the sanctuary of the boulder, Clay pushed Maria down and crouched to take stock of the situation. The shooting tapered off, but didn’t stop. He could see the summit and the gap forty yards above him, but reaching it was impossible unless he could turn invisible to cross the grade—or if he had a shield.
Inspiration prompted Clay to pounce on Maria and seize her from behind. Hooking his left arm around her waist, he said in her ear, “Now we’ll see how much your father really loves you.”
“What are you—” Maria began, bewildered. Terror gnawed at her vitals but she suppressed it. She knew that now was not the time to give in to her fear or she wouldn’t live long enough to see the next dawn.
Clay sidled into the open, holding Maria in front of him, facing his enemies. He contrived to contort himself so that the only target the soldiers and vaqueros had was his captive. Backing slowly, he began to climb the grade again.
Major Filisola tingled with horror at the sight of the lovely woman he had come to adore being used so callously. He heard carbines being worked and men rising to shoot. “Hold your fire!” he roared. “Anyone who pulls a trigger faces a firing squad! So help me!”
Nearby, Martin Gonzalez paused with his rifle leveled. “She is my daughter, Major,” he called out. “I have the final say, and I say that we must not let him get away with her. Under no circumstances. Do you understand?”
“No one fire!” Filisola repeated.
“Didn’t you hear me?” Martin said. “Even if it means her life, we can’t let her fall into Apache hands.”
“Your brother felt the same,” Filisola said. “I d
id not agree with him, and I do not agree with you.”
For moments that seemed like an eternity, there was a stalemate. Clay continued to back upward, Maria frozen in his grasp, while the soldiers and vaqueros watched, uncertain what to do. Many had risen in their eagerness to shoot. Filisola held his breath, willing Maria and the renegade to reach safety swiftly, aware a nervous twitch would result in a bloodbath.
It was at this instant that another element entered the fray. Delgadito, Cuchillo Negro, Fiero, and Ponce had descended to the top of the grade without being seen. Cuchillo Negro had started down first and the rest had followed. Now, as one, they showed themselves, fired several shots apiece, and ducked down again.
Caught completely off guard, the soldiers and vaqueros lost six of their number and half again as many were wounded before the others got over their shock and cut loose with reckless ferocity. Carbines, rifles, and pistols blended in a lethal litany that rivaled the crash of thunder.
“No!” Major Filisola said. “For God’s sake, stop!”
But no one listened, not even the few who heard him over the din. Their mortal enemies were above them. There wasn’t a man present who hadn’t lost a relative or a friend to Apaches. They fired and fired and fired, then reloaded when their guns went empty. Many charged.
Caught in the middle were Clay and Maria Gonzalez. Slugs peppered the area around them, zinged off rocks, nicked their bodies. He went faster but the lead followed them as if drawn by a magnet.
Maria was panic-stricken. She didn’t want to be. She wanted to be brave and to hold her chin high. But the knowledge that she was a heartbeat from death shattered her newfound courage and left her cringing in fear. She made a tremendous effort to marshal her courage. Then she was struck.
Clay heard her cry, felt her buckle, and saw the red splotch on her left thigh. They were almost to the top of the grade. A few more steps, and her father would never set eyes on her again. The Apaches were shooting steadily, trying to stop the onrushing Mexicans, but there were too many.
White Apache 5 Page 13
