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

by Wayne D. Dundee

"Maybe not careful enough. Maybe they came across nothing more than a fleck of dried blood on a rock. For an Apache, that would be enough. But say they did somehow find the bodies, every one of them—that still don't tell them who or how many we are, or which way we went. If they have to guess, seems to me logic ought to suggest to them that whoever they’re after would've headed back toward the river valley and the protection of other whites first chance they had."

  "So while they're puzzling it over," Ludek said, "we should hightail it the hell out of here. Let's saddle up and ride!"

  Kendrick shook his head. "That's the worst thing we could do. If we rode hard—even if the horses could take it—we'd kick up a dust cloud that could be seen for miles. If we took it slow, we'd have to face the desert again in the most hellish part of the day and we might still get spotted. We'd leave tracks as clear as fresh paint. No, the thing to do is to stay right here. Hole up. We got access to water and we got a fair amount of food. We wait it out until we're sure they're gone away from here."

  "I don't like it," Ludek said.

  Kendrick gave a curt nod. "Good. I'd be worried if you did. Since you don't, gives me one more reason to think it might not be a bad plan."

  * * * * *

  They waited out the afternoon. The smothering heat that shoved its way into the lava pocket was a concern of less significance than at any point since they'd discussed venturing onto the Jornada. Other matters weighed more heavily on their minds.

  Twice, Kendrick scaled the high rocks for a look-see, taking extreme care not to show himself in the event there were any eyes peeled in the reverse direction. Both trips netted the same result: no further sign of smoke, no dust clouds, no visible riders, no indication of any other living thing out there on the rolling white dunes or down the crooked length of the ridge in either direction.

  As the hours wore on, Kendrick grew more worried about the horses. The poor beasts were hungry, and only apt to get hungrier. They'd foraged the lava pocket clean of every bit of edible foliage. Each time he returned, the bounty hunter carried armloads of mesquite but when distributed among the four animals that amounted to barely a snack. It wasn't that he feared starvation for them or even discernable weakening from lack of nourishment; as long as they got water regularly, they were far from either of those conditions. They were, after all, toughened to the hard ways and the often-meager pickings of the arid southwest. But that didn't mean they had to like it. Being hungry would make them irritable and fidgety. That was the part that worried Kendrick. If an Apache scouting party happened to pass close by, it sure as hell wouldn't do to have their position given away by a string of pawing, restlessly hungry horses.

  If there's wind again tonight, Kendrick told himself, we'll ride out of here.

  Dusk came.

  Then full dark.

  The Jornada stayed as calm as the inside of a locked box.

  In that kind of stillness, their tracks would show undisturbed in the bleached gypsum sand for days. With the Apaches potentially close, Kendrick wasn't ready to risk it.

  As midnight approached, he went for more water. Before leaving, he cut strips of bedroll blanket and wrapped the horses' feet to muffle the clomping of their hooves on the hard floor of the lava pocket. "Do whatever you can to keep them soothed and quiet,” he instructed Veronica. "If there are Apaches on the prowl tonight, you won't hear them but they'll be able to hear a heartbeat in this calm."

  Once again he emptied the water bag into the canteen, nearly filling it. As he swung the bag over his shoulder and got ready to go, Veronica stepped up, abruptly wrapping her arms around his middle and pulling herself tight against him. "I don't care if Ludek sees," she said. "What I do care about is you, Kendrick. You make damn sure you make it back, you hear?"

  He smiled down at her. "Two things are certain, girl. One, is that the sun will come up tomorrow. The other, is that I'll be here to see it with you."

  He left, then, before it became more important to stay.

  He naturally made better time in the crisp night air than he had in the hammering heat of the day. Plus, having traveled the path twice now, to and fro, he better knew the way. In the spill of sharply shadowed silver light pouring out of the cloudless sky, the big man moved silently and surely across the high rocks.

  He almost got too sure of himself.

  As he approached the collector basin, too many of his thoughts were still on Veronica, on how good her arms had felt about him, the soft closeness of the rest of her. His body was moving with automatic skills, but his mental alertness was off. He nearly didn't see the Indians until it was too late.

  The moon reflecting off droplets of water running down the outside of an upraised gourd—several feet above where the pool was tucked under its weathered overhang—is what caught his attention and saved him.

  Kendrick edged into a bank of tall shadows and froze. From there, only his eyes moved.

  He was about thirty feet from the collector basin, above it and south on a thirty-degree angle. Moonlight bathed the lava slope that fed the depression with its run-off when the winter rains came. At the top of the slope, also slightly to the south, as still as one of the rock formations marking the ridge's ragged peak, an Apache brave was standing lookout. Three more were clustered down around the basin pool, in the shadow of the overhang. One of them, balanced precariously on a thin ledge, was tipping up a freshly dipped gourd, drinking deeply from it. It was this innocent movement that had warned Kendrick.

  Slowly, the bounty hunter eased the empty water bag from his shoulder and set it down. With the same smooth slowness, he drew his Colt and held it ready. The last thing he wanted was to have to use the weapon, but gripping the solid heft of it, sensing its power at his fingertip, made him feel better.

  While Kendrick watched, the three braves at the basin took turns drawing long drinks for themselves and then, seeming to be in no particular hurry, proceeded to fill the various water skins and capped gourds they carried with them. He hoped they would leave some water. Most of all, though, he hoped they would just plain leave.

  Once they had their containers filled and hanging from their bare, sinewy torsos on leather straps, the three Apaches agilely scaled the lava slope and made their way on over the rim of the ridge. They passed wide of their lookout by a dozen feet, in no way acknowledging his presence. If anyone had been watching and hadn't already spotted the motionless fourth brave, nothing in his tribesmen's actions would have given him away. For five full minutes after the others had disappeared, the lookout remained. Kendrick could feel the ceaseless sweep of his gaze each time it passed over his patch of blackness. Then, as noiselessly as a puff of smoke, the lookout moved, turning and fading also over the rim of the ridge.

  Kendrick stayed put, counting clock ticks in his head. Nothing more moved on the ridge, least of all him.

  He traded his stand of shadow for another about six yards up, melting quickly from one to the next. The action drew no adverse response. Satisfied, Kendrick then wormed his way to the top of the ridge and peered anxiously over to the other side.

  Counting the lookout who was still making his way off the side of the ridge, there were five Apaches down there. One had stayed with the horses. Five Apache braves ... six horses. The extra mount had a wild-eyed, scruffy look to it, Kendrick saw, and carried a saddle on its back. It was Ludek's gray gelding, the terrified animal that had fled into the storm after the wild chase into the sand dune. Amazingly, it had survived. And the Apaches, looking for their missing warriors, had found it.

  Kendrick had a better idea now of why the signal smoke had been sent.

  * * * * *

  Jory Ludek's rear end crashed to the hard floor of the lava pocket, pulling the rest of his body with it and then tumbling him into a kind of lopsided backward somersault. When he sprawled out flat and was still, Kendrick came to stand over him with fists still balled, anxious to throw another punch.

  "You sonofabitch," Kendrick said through clenched teeth, "yo
u're the reason they're on our track so close. It wasn't the graves of those ambushed warriors they found—it was that damn horse of yours that got away in the storm when you tried to escape. Now they know for sure we’re out here—that somebody's out here. And since they got good reason to think that same somebody is short a riding horse, they're only going to be more stubborn about giving up the hunt."

  "Don't try to lay it all on me," Ludek sneered from where he lay. "You're the big shot who was so bent on tricking everybody and making it to Socorro your way. Traveling the Jornada del Muerto was strictly your idea. I told you then, our bones would end up staying in the desert."

  Kendrick's hand quivered above his Colt. "Maybe yours will get there quicker than mine."

  Ludek's sneer stayed in place. "Go ahead, do it if you're going to. What are my other options—a hangman's noose or an Apache torture knife? A good, swift bullet might be welcome. But before you pull that trigger, maybe you ought to ask yourself how close the next Apache scouting party is?"

  Kendrick clamped his fist defiantly around the handle of the Colt.

  "Don't!" Veronica said. "He could be right, Kendrick. What if the Apaches hear the shot? Besides, don’t we have enough problems without killing each other?"

  Kendrick eyed her from beneath a brow still furled in anger. "You seem to be making a habit of stopping me from killing people."

  "Is that so bad?"

  "Depends," he said stubbornly.

  But then his hand relaxed on the gun and he turned away—from Veronica and from Ludek as well. He walked over to the water bag he'd recently returned with, tipped it high and took a long draw. When he lowered it, Veronica had moved close to him again.

  "So what are we going to do?" she said. "Part of the night is still left. You said the Indians are on the other side of the ridge and moving south. Wouldn't this be a good time for us to start out again?"

  "No, it wouldn't," Kendrick said. "If there's a scout party on that side of the ridge, then there's at least one on this side. From what I saw, they're looking more for ground sign, not searching the rocks all that careful. If we move, we'll leave tracks. We got good a good hidey-hole here, this is where we should stay. At least until we can be sure the Apaches have made a pass by. After that, we can use their tracks to start out in, help hide our own."

  "What if they're passing by and spot us here?" Ludek said. "We'll be trapped like birds in a box."

  "If it comes to that, they'll have us trapped no matter where they find us. We got our backs covered solid here, we got ammunition and a fair supply of food and water. This is as good a place to make a stand as any."

  * * * * *

  When Kendrick insisted she try and get some sleep, Veronica reluctantly went to her bedroll, thinking it was a waste of time. How could she possibly sleep with everything that was going on—or might be going on if and when the Apaches showed up? She had complete faith in Kendrick but at the same time she, too, had reservations about staying any longer in this tomblike rock hollow that was alternately baking and then freezing. Much as she wanted to stay vigilant, to be alert in case anything happened, it was the chill of the night that caused her to snuggle deeper into the bedroll. For warmth. But then weariness caught up to her, slipped under the blanket with her, and in a matter of minutes she was sleeping soundly.

  It was full light when she came awake—came awake at the prodding of Kendrick's heavy hand and the urgent sound of his voice. "Come on, girl, up and at 'em. It's time to ride."

  Veronica sat up, bewildered. "Ride? But I thought—"

  "No time for thinking or explaining. Trust me. We got our chance to put distance between us and those Apaches and I aim to take advantage of it. So pull on your boots and gather up the rest of your things, we're getting out of here."

  Veronica pushed her blanket away and reached for her boots. As she began pulling them on, she saw that Kendrick already had the horses saddled and was pushing Ludek—in only handcuffs now, the leg irons removed—toward one of the Indian ponies that wore Kendrick's saddle. She understood; with his wrists chained behind him, there was no way Ludek could stay astride the pony bareback. So it fell to Kendrick to mount his own chestnut in that fashion.

  As she came to her feet, Veronica sensed an electricity in the air. Kendrick, who had stood watch all night and should have been exhausted to the bone, was clearly charged with it. His every move was quick and strong and sure.

  Glancing her way, eyes flashing, he said, "We got the break we've been needing. Now it's up to us to make it pay off!"

  Chapter 14: Settling Scores

  They rode hard, straight into the blistering hell of a new Jornada day. At first, after being cooped up in the lava pocket, after the growing sense of being trapped there, the feeling of riding free with a hot wind blowing in their faces was enough to make them forget briefly the merciless potential of the climbing sun. But by the time an hour had passed, then another, and they were well into a third, with each breath they took sucking nothing but dust and scalding air into their throats and their eyes burning like hot coals from their own stingy sweat and the glare of the blazing sand, their recollections were vivid and the pulverizing might of the desert had struck them again like a shattering blow.

  The sun was pushing toward the center of the sky. The horses were blowing hard and frothed with sweat.

  Kendrick signaled a dismount and they got down to walk for a ways.

  As the great huffing breaths of the animals began to ease somewhat, Veronica fell in step beside the bounty hunter. "Now," she said, "you mind explaining what got into you back there? What brought about the sudden change from all those 'just sit tight' speeches you'd been making?"

  Kendrick backhanded sweat from his eyes. "Along about daybreak," he said, "two or three things sorta happened all at once. It started with the sound of riders coming hard out of north, and the next thing I knew a half dozen Apache bucks were scooting right past our little hidey-hole at full gallop. As I watched them fade away I saw it then, a wisp of smoke hanging in the sky, down to the south again. I must have missed it earlier, in the gloom before full light. But those bucks clearly didn't, it was a gathering signal like before. I was standing there, debating whether or not it might be a chance for us to light out, when I heard gunfire away in the distance."

  "Where?"

  "Still to the south, and maybe some west. Sounded like a sizable skirmish for awhile."

  "Somebody fighting the Apaches?"

  "Must have been."

  "But who?"

  "No idea. Didn't really matter. The thing was, with that skirmish taking place, I knew the Apaches—win, lose, or draw—wouldn’t be coming back to hunt our track for a spell. Seemed pretty clear, then, the smart thing to do was to take advantage of that and put ourselves on the move."

  Veronica chewed her lip thoughtfully. "If you know the Apaches are engaged behind us, to the south, why don't we find a cut through this ridge and ride out of the desert, make our way on to Socorro through easier country?"

  "I know some of the Apaches are engaged in a skirmish to the south. Don't know that Fire Shirt's whole band is there."

  "But wouldn't the smoke have brought them all together?"

  "Not necessarily. That smoke wouldn't have been visible all that far. Besides, Chiricahua Apaches, more than any other Indian tribe, like to stay in small groups, especially when they're on the prod. That's one of the things that makes them so hard to overcome. According to Lieutenant Rorsch, Fire Shirt is leading about forty braves. He likely keeps even that many split into two or three different bunches. Hit and run, raid and ride—that's the Chiricahua way. Very few grand, full-scale battles like the Sioux or other, bigger tribes to the north and on the plains used to wage. If the tide of a fight turns, Apaches scatter and take to the rocks or desert and come back to raise hell another time. Old-time Mexican and American soldiers alike will tell of riding out and fighting Apaches in the border hills for days on end without ever seeing a one of them—just ghos
t shapes moving in the rocks, usually after an arrow or a bullet had come out of nowhere to do its damage."

  "So you're saying that Fire Shirt's whole force wouldn't have come looking for the missing seven in the first place."

  "Not likely. It's a better chance that the main bunch—twenty-five or more, depending how close Rorsch's numbers were—is still to the west, in the valley or the low hills beyond. We've come this far, it'd be foolish for us to take the risk of running smack into them now, just because we wanted an easier ride out."

  " I agree with the woman," Ludek said, walking behind them. "If those Injuns are scattered the way you say, then it sounds to me like the three of us got good odds of riding out of here right now and not seeing hide nor hair of another redskin. Much as I ain't in no hurry to get to Socorro, I'd vote that over spending an extra minute in this hellhole of sand and baked rock."

  "That's the logic of a man who tried to ride straight into the desert, handcuffed and weaponless, in the middle of a dust storm."

  "Leastways would have got me shed of you," Ludek muttered.

  "You'll be shed of me as soon as we make Socorro," Kendrick told him. "Which we'll do the way I say, not anybody else. My way got us this far, it'll take us the rest."

  They walked on in silence for some minutes.

  "The thing to do," Kendrick said at length, "is to let the horses cool out a bit more, then we'll stop and all of us take on some water. After that, we'll lay up in the rocks for a while, wait out the worst heat of the afternoon. Come night, we'll ride hard again, straight through. If we can cover enough ground, we'll start angling out of the desert tomorrow morning. If the horses hold up and we don't run into any trouble, we should be able to make Socorro before another sundown."

  *** ***

  They laid up in the welcome shade of a nest of massive boulders. It was as good a spot as any to endure the draining crush of the hottest hours, and around the base of the great, partially sunken slabs there was even some halfway decent grazing for the horses.