Hard Trail to Socorro (Bodie Kendrick - Bounty Hunter Book 1)

by Wayne D. Dundee

  Few men knew the American southwest as Bodie Kendrick did, and while he might grudgingly admit to having been confused a time or two in one or another of its remote barrens, he had never known the sensation of being lost. Standing there in the rush of blinding wind with no visible star or landmark to guide him, he now experienced something akin to that empty feeling. He knew the ridge couldn't be more than a couple hundred yards away—but in what direction? If he picked the wrong one, he and Ludek could wander aimlessly into the middle of the Jornada where, when day came, they would be trapped without water or provisions by its vastness and savage heat. If he stayed put, they would be peeled raw and smothered by the storm-driven sand.

  Never one to passively bemoan the odds—and not wanting Ludek to be re-vitalized in any way by sensing their predicament—Ludek picked a direction and shoved his prisoner ahead of him. He knew they had broken to the west, and he knew the storm had started out of the north. Although it was definitely doing some swirling, best bet had to be that it still was blowing primarily from that way. If they moved crossways of it, then, keeping its directional force to their right, they should generally be headed east. Back toward the ridge...

  They had plodded on this course for minutes that seemed like hours, staggered by the furious wind, scratched and slashed by the hurtling sand, when Kendrick heard the first sharp report. A flat, explosive crack of sound, piercing the natural din only momentarily; but that was long enough for the bounty hunter to recognize it for what it was. A rifle shot. Veronica? It must be. A tingle of concern for her went through him. But what the hell would she be shooting at in this storm? The sound of the next shot, after about thirty seconds had elapsed, gave him a hint. When the third report came following an equal pause, he knew.

  It was a signal.

  Recognizing how easy it would be to get totally disoriented out in the heart of the storm, Veronica was signaling with evenly spaced rifle shots, giving him something to key on. Like a foghorn guiding a seafarer through ocean soup.

  Kendrick smiled a wolf's smile under his dust-caked bandana. What a woman! Once again she was hauling his fat out of the fire.

  He gave Ludek a yank, altering the way they were headed in accordance to the sounds. Every thirty seconds, the rifle coaxed them closer.

  The lava ridge loomed as a starker, purer solid black contrasting through the streaking pepper gray of the dust cloud. Kendrick felt the ground turn pebbly under his feet, then harder and rockier and all at once the wall of the ridge jutted up before them.

  Ludek stumbled. Kendrick prodded him with the Colt. "Keep on your feet, damn you. Walk to your right along those rocks."

  Twenty paces later they were moving among the horses and then they could make out Veronica standing there in the gusting gloom, rifle held at the ready, aimed skyward, loose tendrils of pale hair whipping from under her hat and from around the knot of her bandana. When Kendrick called her name, she turned and came immediately into his embrace. He wrapped his left arm about her, pulling her hard against him, kept his right hand free to hold the Colt leveled on Ludek.

  "I was afraid you wouldn't be able to find your way back," she said, her breath hot against the side of his neck.

  "Without you," he told her, "I may not have."

  She leaned away, holding him at arms' length. "You're bleeding. You've been battered to hell. I will hear absolutely no more about trying to continue on until this storm is over, you hear me?"

  Kendrick let his shoulders sag. Wearily, he said, "You'll get no argument out of me."

  Chapter 13: Holed Up

  They'd found a break in the wall of the ridge, a place where a flattened spire of the lava flow had split partially away to form at its base a shallow, cavern like pocket broad enough to accommodate people and horses alike. This pocket afforded protection from the sharpest bite of the storm. Snugged out of the wind and piercing knifepoints of sand, it was there they spent the remainder of the night.

  The storm lifted as suddenly as it had struck, and with its abatement came the blaze of a new day.

  Kendrick sat up, pushing away the bedroll blanket that covered him and the layer of fine sand that had managed to sift through and accumulate on everything in spite of their shielded position. He climbed the rest of the way to his feet, wincing with the movement, the pain reminding him of the punishment his body had absorbed recently. He paced for a minute in a tight circle, rolling his broad shoulders, flexing his arms and legs, working to loosen some of the soreness that stiffened them. Although the sun was less than an hour old, the night chill was already completely gone out of the air even in this deeply shaded spot and the small amount of exertion was enough to cause him to feel the building heat of a day that promised to be a scorcher.

  Kendrick walked to the front edge of the lava pocket and squinted out across the open desert. In the wake of the storm, the rolling mounds of sand—nearly as blindingly white to gaze upon as the sun itself—were completely smooth, unmarred by the track or furrow of any living thing, broken only by the occasional stand of cactus or clump of mesquite. The whipping wind had even closed the mouth of the pocket after a fashion, laying a three-foot high drift of gypsum across the breadth of it.

  Turning back, passing one hand absently across his dry, rough lips, Kendrick paused to take stock of his party. It didn't require a lot of study to determine they weren't in as good a shape either physically or provision-wise as he had so carefully planned to keep them. Most significantly, they were short two of their big canteens; one they had given to the troopers Callahan and Pearlman, the other had been lost last night along with Ludek's horse. That left them with one canteen and the spare water bag Kendrick had purchased in Las Cruces, both of which were at the moment partly emptied. They had enough jerky and canned fruit to see them through, and one of the Indian ponies they'd confiscated could serve as Ludek's mount, so they'd manage okay as long as Kendrick could find more traps of water. He figured another two night's ride, if they covered decent distances, should take them close enough to Socorro to be able to veer out of the Jornada and finish the trip by day through more forgiving country. No way they could make that on the water they had. And with limited containers to refill now, he'd have to count on finding not one, but two more sources to keep from cutting it too damn close.

  Veronica stirred and sat up in her own sand-covered blanket. Kendrick watched her. Even tousle-haired and rumpled, her face smudged with dirt, she still looked beautiful to him.

  As if reading his thoughts, she said, "Lord, I must look a sight!"

  "You do." Kendrick smiled gently. "A mighty fine one, from where I'm standing."

  "I'd look better—we all would—if you hadn't pushed us so damnedly hard yesterday."

  "Maybe I got a little carried away," the bounty hunter allowed. But to himself he was thinking: If he hadn't driven them through the hellish portion of the day like he did, the storm would have trapped them practically on top of the site where they'd killed the Apaches. That spot still gave him a bad feeling, maybe part of it a kind of guilt or remorse over the way they'd had to wipe out those braves so cold-bloodedly. Not that there'd been any other choice. Nevertheless, he was glad he'd forced the distance he did between them and that place and he only wished it was greater.

  "We aren't going to try and travel today, are we?" Veronica asked.

  Kendrick shook his head. "No, we'll wait for night."

  She got to her feet. "Do you want me to make coffee?"

  His first inclination was to decline, aiming to conserve on the water. But he didn't want to alarm her unduly about their situation. Besides, he'd had luck finding water traps along the ridge so far, no reason to get panicky and think they would all suddenly disappear.

  "Sure," he said, "I could use a good cup of coffee."

  With his knife, Kendrick hacked dry, twisty twigs of bristle brush for a fire. They ate canned peaches and drank the hot, black brew Veronica fixed. Ludek woke to breakfast with them. He remained brooding and unchara
cteristically quiet throughout, pouting perhaps over Kendrick having double-chained him for the night. He remained so now, his wrists handcuffed in front, leg irons shackling him at the ankles, an additional length of light but sturdy chain looped between the two sets of restraints, fastening them together. The arrangement left him an adequate amount of mobility as long as he moved slow and took care to coordinate the movement of his limbs. Rigged in this manner, he wasn't likely to be making any more sudden escape attempts.

  After he'd eaten his share of peaches and downed a second cup of coffee, Kendrick saw to the horses as best he could, watering each of them from his hat. There were a few tufts of stubborn galleta grass poking here and there through cracks in the lava pocket, but grazing for the animals was pitifully sparse.

  Kendrick finished emptying the big water bag, pouring what was left in it into the single remaining canteen, bringing the latter to just over three quarters full. As he did this, he cursed himself under his breath for not buying another spare container of some kind when he'd had the chance back in Las

  Cruces. Not altogether under his breath, he also cursed Ludek for pulling the stunt that had cost them one of the canteens they did have.

  He tossed the replenished canteen to Veronica, slung the limp, empty bag over his shoulder. "I'm going up on the ridge," he told her, "follow it to the north a ways, see if I can't find a spot to refill this. We're going to need water to get us comfortably through the day and at the same time I’ll be able to mark where we can fill again tonight, save us hunting once we're underway."

  "You're going out in this heat?"

  "Better now than later. It's only going to get worse." He paused. "Keep your rifle handy. If Ludek even looks at you funny, shoot him."

  * * * * *

  Kendrick worked his way along the high rocks just under the ridge's peak, careful not to skyline himself. It was hotter up there than he’d expected for the early hour, brutally hot; but he knew it would be at least a dozen degrees hotter down on the desert floor with the climbing sun reflecting off the brilliant sand. The sweat pouring off him splashed onto bare rock and evaporated in a matter of seconds. Kendrick thought about the water traps he was counting on to help them finish their journey. In a few weeks, as the desert season moved into full summer and the average day's heat increased, those scattered traps would disappear just like his splashes of sweat. There was a chance, especially if the spring had been hotter or the winter drier, that some of the smaller ones had already suffered such a fate. That possibility, from the perspective of being in the middle of the Jornada's hellish heat, seemed like more of a risk than it had back in Las Cruces.

  He covered the better part of a half mile before coming to a spot that looked promising. It yielded nothing. Nor did the next depression he crawled down to check out.

  Kendrick tipped the water bag high and shook the last drops of residual moisture from it, enough to at least wet his lips and tongue. The sun was climbing closer to the center of the sky and the air crackled like the breath of a furnace. He trudged stubbornly on, the ledges and slopes of lava flow seeming to pound back with harder and harder counterblows to his booted footfalls.

  After roughly a mile and a half, he found something. A broad, shallow collector basin under a rounded overhang about halfway down a sloping slab of wind-polished lava. It was a bitch to get to, but the six inches of cool, sweet water that lay in wait was worth whatever effort it took.

  Even once he was balanced in a position to reach the water, the proximity of the overhang and easily disturbed bottom sediment of fresh sand from last night's blow made the task of filling the bag a tricky one. But for the sake of the wet treasure, Kendrick had all the patience in the world.

  When he had the bag partway full, he capped it and withdrew to a shaded crevice where he sated his thirst and rested a bit from the exertions of the ridge. This also allowed the sediment in the basin to settle back down.

  The merciless sun was nearly at its high noon position in a cloudless sky by the time Kendrick had the bag completely full and was ready to start back to his camp. The bulk of the filled bag was cumbersome, but felt good all the same.

  He'd returned to the high rocks and was facing south for his return trek when he saw it. Several miles away, at a point that looked to be in line with the twisting, tumbling course of the lava ridge ... a wispy column of smoke.

  Signal smoke.

  Apache sign.

  Kendrick's guts slammed into a knot. His breathing quickened. He did some visual calculating. The origin of the smoke looked to be very near the spot where they'd laid their ambush of the seven Apache braves. His bad feeling place.

  The water bag weighed nothing now. The rugged path his feet were suddenly re-tracing over the high, hard lava rocks seemed to give helpful spring to his strides...

  * * * * *

  There was no way he could keep it from Veronica and Ludek.

  Kendrick thought about it all the way back, but there was no way. They had a right to know.

  Despite its steady shade, the lava pocket was like an oven. Veronica and Ludek both wore sweat-shiny faces and when their gazes lifted at the sound of Kendrick's return their eyes automatically made a shift to check the status of the water bag he carried. Even the horses nickered responsively at the scent of the fresh water.

  "Found a good supply," he announced, swinging the bag from his shoulder. "Quite a spell from here, though."

  "You were gone a long time," Veronica said.

  Kendrick indicated the canteen he'd left them. "How's that holding out?"

  "Still about half," Veronica answered. "We took it easy ... just in case."

  "Well, go ahead and drink your fill. I can top off both containers again tonight. We should be in pretty good shape, as far as water goes."

  He'd been trying to keep his voice neutral, but something came out in those final words regardless. Something in his tone tainted by the concern he was carrying low in his gut. Veronica caught it immediately, the alerted flash of her eyes told him that much. Ludek was still pouting, head hung like a scalded dog, so it was hard to tell about him.

  Veronica passed the canteen to Ludek and came over as Kendrick was starting to water the horses from his hat. "What happened out there?" she said.

  Kendrick concentrated on his task, not looking at her. "Who said anything happened?"

  "Not you, that's for sure. But something is wrong, I can tell. What is it?"

  Kendrick finished tending the animals in stubborn silence, his jaw clamped tight. Veronica remained close, impatiently waiting for an answer. When he was done, Kendrick clapped his hat back on, appreciating the cool trickle collecting around the inner band, then turned with a sigh to face her.

  Ludek, who'd been watching their pantomime with growing interest while taking sips from the canteen, now shifted his posture even more attentively.

  "Ain't no good way to break this to you, I guess," Kendrick said, frowning. "But when I was headed back on the ridge awhile ago, I saw Apache sign."

  Ludek came to his feet with an excited clanking of chains. He drew closer to Veronica and Kendrick, stumbling slightly in his eagerness. "What kind of sign?" he wanted to know. "Where?"

  "Smoke. Back to the south, the way we came. Some miles. Hard to say exactly."

  "Damn!" Ludek swore.

  "What does it mean?" Veronica said.

  Kendrick rubbed his jaw. "Well, it could mean a few different things."

  "I'll tell you what it means!" Ludek said. "It means Fire Shirt and his whole band of bloodthirsty heathens are right here on the Jornada with us—not back in the damn valley, like Mr.Know-It-All Bounty Man was so certain of. It means they're tracking us like dogs and it's only a matter of—"

  "Shut up," Kendrick told him, his voice a sandpapery whisper that carried the action-stopping impact of a gunshot. "For once you shut your whining, bellyaching goddamn mouth and don't you open it again unless you got something useful to say, you hear me?"

  "Or what
?" Ludek said, his voice trying to be braver than his eyes showed. "You going to wrap a chain around my mouth, too?"

  "I'll do better than that, I'll put my fist down it. Or a slug, maybe ... Maybe that's what I should have let those Circle G wranglers do three days ago and none of us would be in this fix at all right now."

  Ludek withered under the bounty hunter's fiery stare and the implication of his words.

  A heavy silence hung in the lava pocket for some time.

  Until, softly, Veronica said, "What about me, Kendrick? Do you wish you would have let those men in the arroyo have their way with me, too? Or the man in my hotel room in Las Cruces? Then you surely wouldn't be burdened by—"

  "You know I didn't mean that."

  She put her hand on his arm. "Yes. Of course I know that. I just needed to remind you. Now, do what you do best. Don't lament about what we might have or could have or should have done—Tell us what we need to do to get out of this."

  Kendrick looked down at her hand touching him. Then his gaze lifted to meet her eyes. Imploring. Trusting.

  When he spoke again, he said, "The best thing we got going for us is that storm last night. The way that wind blew everything smooth, not even an Apache will be able to find anything to track. My guess is that however many's out there—it may not be the whole rest of Fire Shirt's pack—they're prowling, circling, looking for some sign of their missing braves, the ones we killed. Something must have been said, some bragging remark by one of the seven, to bring the others out this way after none of them returned. The smoke I saw was a gathering sign, calling in the scattered searchers. By my judgment, it came from close to the spot we laid our ambush. Reckon they must have found something there."

  "But we were so careful about burying those men,” Veronica said.