Hunt tossed him a matchbox they’d acquired along with the dynamite they’d stolen from the Vulture Mine.
Bronc looked at the box: Lucifer Safety Matches. Made in England. Strike on box only to light. Those damned miners were too careful for their own good, Bronc thought. Like they’d expected they were gonna live forever. . . . He struck the match on the box, and re-lit his cigar again.
“Quit stalling—how much gold we got?” Bull said impatiently.
Annoyed, Bronc figured Bull’s cojones were still hurting plenty, after that kick Jake had given him yesterday. He hoped so. “Okay—calmate . . . como cincuenta pesados—” he broke off, calculating, translating currencies. “A thousand dollars, maybe more.”
Hunt pushed to his feet, restless and on edge, unable to achieve Bronc’s level of patience even on his best day, which this definitely was not. “Just need to know how much of that is mine, and I’ll be on my way.”
“On your way?” Bull said, his voice turning ugly. “Dolan’s dead, so I run this gang now.” He looked at Hunt, trying to stare him down. “Gold goes where I go.”
Hunt’s gun was out, and pointed at Bull, faster than Bull could blink. “You might be in charge, but some of that gold is mine, fair. And after what we saw yesterday, I need it to get as far from here as I can go.”
Bronc listened to the sounds of other pistols being drawn and cocked, as the men all around him heard the exchange, and saw Hunt pull his revolver. The men began to separate, taking one side or the other. Bronc glanced up, noticing the even split between them, aware that he was caught right in the middle of it.
“You’re not going anywhere,” Bull said to Hunt. In another moment, Bronc figured, that was going to be true: they’d all be dead.
Bronc got up, his own pistol drawn, siding with Hunt, breaking the tie as he pointed his pistol at Bull. “Perdoname. What’s fair is fair.”
Whether he was too stubborn or too stupid, Bull showed no signs of backing down. The rest of the men looked at one another, all of them already stressed to the breaking point—undecided, wavering. No safety matches in this bunch, Bronc thought, a little regretful.
The sound of a rider approaching the camp’s entrance made him look away, out of habit. So did the others, then, turning their heads and their guns toward the opening in the rocks, suddenly united against an outside threat.
A lone rider came through the gap toward them, silhouetted by the sun, riding over the hill like he belonged there. He reined in his horse at the edge of camp and dismounted, walking toward them as if twenty men hadn’t just aimed their guns at him all at once.
It was Jake. The last time Bronc had seen him, he was being pursued by one of the flying monsters. And yet somehow he’d escaped from them. Had he really killed one of the flying things with the strange weapon on his wrist, the one that had blown a hole you could crawl through in Dolan?
Jake’s expression was unreadable, his face was still a mess from the beating he’d gotten yesterday. Bronc could see that he was still wearing the weapon, too. Shit, Bronc thought. Did he come back to save us—or to kill us all . . . ?
JAKE WALK INTO the camp where what was left of his gang stood with their guns pointed at him. But from the expressions on their faces this time, he got the feeling it wasn’t personal. More likely, they’d been about to kill each other, after everything that’d happened yesterday.
A dog’s soft bark made him glance to the side. It was the black dog he’d last seen the night they were attacked by the alien, in the stranded riverboat. It came up to him, wagging its tail in welcome.
Had that crazy dog trailed them all the way here? He laughed, not able to help himself, as he said, “Where you been—?” The dog only sat down, tail wagging, beside him.
“Jake? That really you?”
He glanced up at the sound of Hunt’s voice and nodded, still smiling. The members of the gang began to holster their pistols, whatever they’d been arguing about forgotten.
Jake took a seat on a rock, as casually as if he’d just stopped by for a shot of whiskey. He glanced around, observing the disarray, the gold coins laid out on a tarp in neat stacks. “You boys thinking of taking a trip?”
“Patrón,” Bronc said, “we’re thinking of riding south. Remember the playa in Puerto Vallarta?”
“Yeah,” Hunt nodded, his face relaxing. “Tequila, good fishing.”
Jake shook his head. “Not far enough.”
Hunt’s smile of relief fell away, and his gaze grew hollow. “Jake, what the hell were those things?”
Jake shrugged. “Don’t matter. They’re gonna find us and they are going to wipe us out.”
Hunt stared at him. “. . . the hell you saying?”
Jake looked from face to face among the men still left in the camp. “I’m saying you got a choice. You can drink your last few hours away on a beach—which is not a bad idea, by the way. . . .” He grinned fleetingly. “Or you can follow me, one last time.”
The men glanced at each other, their faces turning uneasy again. He could practically hear their thoughts: Follow him, after yesterday—?
“Why the hell would we do that?” Bull said. He still stood like a man whose balls hurt, Jake noticed, with some satisfaction.
“Same reason you always have, Bull. . . .” Jake let the wry grin spread across his face again. “I’ll make you rich.”
Rich. That was a word they all understood. He saw the same strangely familiar look come over all their faces then—the look that said they’d follow him anywhere. His grin widened even more, because it felt so good.
DOC STOOD IN front of his makeshift shooting gallery, and took aim at the lined-up rocks and empty bottles his shots been hitting more and more frequently. It no longer struck him as an obscenity that the skills he had developed when he studied surgery were just as useful when aiming a gun, and keeping it on target.
Like it or not, in this world—in this universe—a human being sometimes needed both those things just to survive. If he had learned anything on this journey, it was the truth the preacher had known: that life was never simple; that his choices would never be easy. Sometimes even a gun could save lives, faster and more surely than any surgery he’d ever done.
He fired the last of his bullets, and heard the last of the bottles shatter. He smiled, satisfied with his progress, as he lowered the gun.
Emotions were what made a man want to become a healer, a saver of lives; but emotions had no place in the precise movements required when he performed surgery . . . or in the precision needed to fire a gun. Even if his feelings about using a gun would never be anything better than mixed, that didn’t mean he couldn’t hit a target if he really had to.
“Listen to me—!”
Emotions turning sour made him start back into the Apache camp, as he heard Dolarhyde’s voice rising again. Dolarhyde’s attempts to engage Black Knife in a discussion of military strategy weren’t going very well. Dolarhyde was somebody who could definitely do with less emotion—the negative kind—in a situation like this. Even with Ella translating, and Black Knife’s respect for her, the tone of Dolarhyde’s words was all too obvious, no matter how tactful she was about translating them.
Every time Doc thought Dolarhyde was actually showing signs of progress as a human being, something would set him off again, like a bundle of explosives. It seemed like he’d been an Apache hater for too long to change now.
Jake’s abrupt departure hadn’t helped anyone’s mood. But Dolarhyde’s animosity toward the Apaches was plain bigotry, fear turned inside out, and that was something Doc had gotten a bellyful of, back East . . . for all his life, in fact. It had only made him more determined not to become the thing he hated, no matter what anyone said to him. But if he hadn’t had Maria and her family . . . would he ever have understood?
Black Knife stopped speaking, as the Apaches who had gathered around them, listening and observing, turned to stare at Dolarhyde, at the tone of his voice.
“We c
an’t just run around hooting and throwing spears at that damn thing!” Dolarhyde said, practically shouting into Ella’s ear. “Tell him we gotta find a way to draw ‘em out onto open ground, then surround ‘em from all sides, flank them!”
Black Knife’s answer to that sounded angry and final. The nantan got to his feet and put his hands on his hips, his stance delivering the same message to Dolarhyde as Ella’s words, as she said, “He says yours is not the voice of wisdom; he won’t let you lead his people.”
As Doc finally sat down, joining the others, he glanced at Nat, who sat, with his usual stoic patience, at Dolarhyde’s side. His face seemed much more readable to Doc now, since they’d spoken to each other—making meaningful human contact—yesterday.
Doc could tell from Nat’s eyes that he was relieved Ella had taken over the job of translating, but his expression was now as unhappy as Ella’s. Nat looked deeply conflicted, even if he was suffering in silence, as he listened to this exercise in misunderstanding. The two men he held in the highest regard seemed to be from worlds as different as the aliens in the metal fortress were different from human beings . . . except in this case Nat belonged, or had belonged, to both those worlds. If anyone here knew that it was possible for them to understand each other—if they really wanted to—it was him.
Doc wondered what had been going on in Nat’s mind since they’d arrived here. He’d known Nat as long as he’d known Dolarhyde; knew that he was half Apache, and knew now that he spoke the language like he’d grown up with it. His boss hated Apaches . . . and yet Dolarhyde trusted Nat with his life, and Nat had always seemed more loyal to him than his own son was . . . and a hell of a lot more respectful.
But now Nat was sitting on the edge between two worlds; and fence-sitting was always a painful proposition.
Doc noticed Nat’s mouth pressed into a thin line, the muscles in his face drawn taut, as if for once he was having real trouble ignoring his boss’s temper . . . or the Apache chief’s disdain.
Black Knife was done with speaking. He turned away, speaking to his sub-chiefs, until Doc wondered if everyone left in the group was going to wind up with a knife at their throats again.
As he thought it, Nat Colorado suddenly got up, turned to Black Knife, and shouted, “Enough!”
Doc froze. Everyone’s eyes went to Nat, even the Apaches’, every face there was as astonished as Doc’s was.
Nat began speaking Apache, but this time the words were his own, and anybody there would have had to be deaf not to hear his frustration, or the insistence in his voice.
“What’s he saying . . . ?” Dolarhyde murmured to Ella, his own anger forgotten as he watched his silent guardian finally stand up and speak his own mind.
Ella leaned closer, keeping her own voice low, “He says they have to open their eyes, to see in you what he’s seen . . . that his parents were killed in the Mexican War, and you took him in when he was only a boy. . . .”
Ella’s own expression began to change as the words she was speaking began to affect her—the revelation that two more human beings who had come from profoundly different pasts—different worlds—could share a bond of such deep loyalty and friendship that it made everything else they were, or had been, meaningless . . . a bond that she had never thought a man like Dolarhyde could even form. “. . . You gave his life a purpose, taught him how to take care of himself. Even though you didn’t share the same blood.”
Dolarhyde sat listening, blinking and blinking as the words reached him—his expression changing as his bitter mask began to fade, revealing the human being behind it; the face of a man who, for all his stubborn refusal of his own humanity, couldn’t help being moved.
“. . . and that you despise battle, but never run from it.” Ella paused, looking at Dolarhyde with an expression she had never shown to him before, either. “That you are a great warrior, worthy of any fight.”
Nat looked back at Dolarhyde, his own face filled with more real emotion than Doc had ever seen on it. Dolarhyde met his gaze; the space between them seemed to disappear into the silence. As they looked at each other, there was a connection so powerful it was almost tangible, needing no words to explain how much Nat’s words meant to both of them.
At last Black Knife broke the silence, his words still challenging, although it was obvious that what Nat had just said had made an impression on him.
“He says, if you’re such a great warrior, how come you don’t have men to fight by your side?” Ella glanced down, as Dolarhyde’s and Black Knife’s eyes met . . . and this time Dolarhyde had no answer for the accusation.
A commotion on the other side of the camp saved the situation from deteriorating further. The group sitting in the council circle rose to their feet, looking in the same direction as the people in the camp.
With mixed emotions, they all saw Jake in the distance, topping the ridge that led down to the camp . . . inexplicably returning to them, apparently alone. But before any conclusions could take hold in anyone’s mind, they saw that he wasn’t really alone—following him was a band of almost two dozen men . . . Jake’s gang, or what was left of them. And this time they followed their former leader willingly, not out for his blood.
If he had planned it himself, Dolarhyde couldn’t have asked for better timing. The expressions on all the faces around him were changing, only for the better.
Dolarhyde had won his first victory.
Emmett ran forward to meet Jake and the riders, seeing only the black dog keeping pace with them—the friend he’d thought he’d lost forever, like so much else in his life.
The dog ran ahead down the slope to greet him, nearly knocking him over as he kneeled down to hug it, covering him with wet doggy kisses. “Hi, boy!” Emmett said, laughing for the first time that he or anyone else could remember.
AS JAKE DISMOUNTED, Emmett let go of the dog for long enough to reach out and hug him.
Jake felt as awkward as the boy looked happy—not used to hugs of affection, particularly not from a child, especially in front of his gang. But he couldn’t seem to stop the smile that got out onto his face, even as he carefully pried the boy loose, murmuring, “Okay, kid. . . .” He sent the boy back to the dog, thinking they were a lot better suited to each other than either one of them was to him . . . but still feeling somehow lighter for seeing them reunited.
Jake moved on to Dolarhyde, the faint smile on his face turning into a confident grin, but not showing the least defiance, this time. The two men stood eye to eye, meeting for the first time as equals; each man seeing in the other’s face the changes he had been through . . . the acceptance of more than a truce. For the first time they were meeting as true partners, not as enemies.
“I got an idea how to take out those flyers, and draw ‘em out—” Jake said. He felt his smile widen, as he saw the look on Dolarhyde’s face. “You ready to get your son back?”
“Hell, yes,” Dolarhyde said, matching Jake’s grin, and the look in his eyes.
Black Knife stood watching them, observing the others Jake had brought back with him—probably seeing the kind of pindah-lickoyee he hated most, short of the army: A gang of outlaws—reckless, short-fused saddle tramps and gunslingers, tough, hardened survivors, all too savvy in the ways of both the Apache, and their own people. . . .
Exactly the kind of men they needed with them right now, to face the coming battle.
Dolarhyde looked back at Black Knife in expectation, waiting, until at last Black Knife nodded, and their bargain was sealed.
16
The sound of drumming from the Apache camp, the voices of women chanting songs and calling out as their men danced, carried on the night air to the separate camp where Jake’s men and the group from town had settled in for the night.
Hunt sat by one of the several small campfires, cleaning his gun as he discussed with Red and Bull the prospect of fighting the alien demons Jake had told them they’d be facing tomorrow, if they wanted their gold back . . . and a lot more of it besid
es. If he hadn’t seen what he’d seen yesterday, with his own eyes—if nearly a third of the gang hadn’t been kidnapped by flying monsters—he would have been sure Bull had knocked Jake’s brains clean out of his head.
But he had seen what he’d seen . . . and so had everybody else. Even the Apaches. The demons not only wanted gold, they wanted people, to torture to death—and it didn’t matter who. Jake had told them that even Ella, the woman the gang had nearly shot dead yesterday, was just one more survivor, who’d come looking for revenge. The woman Jake had left the gang for was dead: The demons had killed her. . . .
Bull passed him the bottle of whiskey they’d all been nursing with unusual restraint; he took another drink from it, just to steady his nerves. Nobody was drinking too much, tonight. Going up against the spawn of Hell half-drunk, or with a godawful hangover, didn’t seem like a smart idea even to Bull.
At least Bull was more like the man Hunt remembered again, to his relief—and probably everyone else’s—now that Bull was done trying to play follow-the-leader, and content to let Jake do the thinking for all of them.
Hunt glanced away at Bronc, who was giving the man Jake called “Doc” a fine-tuned lesson in how to aim a rifle. Bronc had ridden with Benito Juárez in Mexico—he was an educated man, probably even a respectable one, once. And although he’d never told Hunt how he’d ended up in a place like this, he was the only one in the gang who was smart and still honest enough to count their take from a robbery, and then divide it fairly, without a few guns pointed at his head.
It seemed to Hunt like now was a little late for Bronc to be trying to show some spectacles-wearing tenderfoot how to handle a gun. But Bronc never wasted his time trying to teach pigs to sing; he must figure the man had some kind of potential.
Woodrow Dolarhyde walked by, like a general inspecting his troops the night before a battle. Dolarhyde. It was an unusual name, but Hunt had heard it before, back during the War. He looked up as the man passed.
“—Dolarhyde,” he said.
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