"Wouldn't want to," Brade replied. "Not if it was to make me act as damn foolish as he did." He turned his head sharply and eyed Kendrick. "What about you, bounty man? You got honor and dignity?"
"I got something better," Kendrick said. "I got this here cocked and loaded Winchester already in my hands."
"That you do. But how far you figure it's going to get you against eight of us?"
"Far enough to kill you with my first shot. I'm no pistolero, either, but as fast as you are I guarantee I can get off at least one round before you can bring those fancy six-shooters into play."
"Say you are good enough to make that kill shot—"
"I am."
"But then my men will blast you to pieces."
"You won't be around to see it."
"So what'll be gained? I'll be dead, you'll be dead. The woman will still get what's coming to her and so will Ludek."
"What'll be gained is that I'll go down knowing I did everything I could to hold onto my prisoner and make it hard on you and the rest of Grodine's hired thugs. I may even take one or two more besides you with me."
"But, man, what's the point? You already did all those things. You cut down two of my best men, you made the chase through this desert pure hell on all of us—including yourself. Nobody could expect you to do more. But the final tally is always going to add up that you lost. Wouldn't it be better to be a live loser than a dead one?"
"You offering me a deal?"
"Same as Tully did. Let us have Ludek, you take back what's left for the reward when old man Grodine is done with him. Hell, Grodine might even throw in a bonus for cooperating."
"And the woman?"
"Somebody's got to pay for killing Tully and Mort. It's only right."
Kendrick's head moved once to each side. "No deal. No part of it."
Brade sighed heavily. "That's your final say?"
"Reckon this Winchester will have my final say."
The only sound for several tense seconds was the crackle of the heat building in the dunes.
"I think he's all talk," one of the wranglers suggested.
"Me, too," another agreed. "If he was so anxious to use that Winchester he would have tried it while we was riding up."
"Say the word, Brade," a third said. "Throw yourself out of the way and we'll cut him to ribbons."
"Shut up," Brade told them all.
His eyes were measuring Kendrick, much the same way they had Huernadez and countless men past ... before he gunned each of them into their graves. The difference here was that Kendrick's eyes were measuring back with a coolness that matched Brade's own. He had seldom run into that before.
How fast can he bring that Winchester around? he was asking himself. And then: How fast am I really? Is this the test I've been waiting for all these years?
Like all gunslingers, Brade had a huge ego; and he kept it inflated with illusions—if not delusions—of grandeur. If he could outdraw a competent man with a Winchester already in hand, he told himself, his name would surely ride in legend right alongside Wild Bill Hickock and Bat Masterson and—
The Apache war arrow that screamed out of nowhere had little regard for legends, either past, present, or future. It was a feathered lightning bolt sent to kill or maim any living White Eyes in its path, great or common. It thudded deeply and painfully into the left thigh of Darrel Brade and in an agonizing split second all visions of gunfighter glory were dashed from his thoughts. He spasmed so violently that he pitched out of his saddle and fell to the ground to writhe there with the shaft jutting obscenely amidst the pumping blood.
More arrows came, a clattering, whizzing rainfall of them. And simultaneously a volley of bullets. The Circle G riders—frozen momentarily in open-mouthed awe at the wounding of their leader—were riddled and nicked, their horses slashed bloody and sent reeling. Three of the riders crashed to the ground, two of them never to get up again. Veronica raced on foot back to the protection of the tumbled sandstone.
"Take to the rocks!" Kendrick shouted at the top of his voice. "Take the cover of the rocks!"
Another volley of arrows and bullets came.
As the Circle G men who were able began scurrying to join him behind the sandstone barricade, Kendrick returned fire on the Apache ghost shapes he glimpsed darting behind dunes and around the boulder-strewn ends of the broken ridge.
Darrel Brade was suddenly beside him, crawling to hug the cover of the baked reddish brown rock. The arrow was still imbedded in his leg, in his fists he gripped his drawn Colts. "If it's all the same to you," he said to Kendrick, rising to snap off a flurry of shots then dropping back down, "I figure we ought to hold off killing each other till another time."
Kendrick ducked his head and winced as an Indian bullet crumbled rock six inches away. "Sounds reasonable," he took time to tell Brade, before straightening to fire back.
Chapter 15: Apache Attack
The Apaches withdrew as suddenly as they had struck, their fleeting shapes swallowed by dunes and boulders, seeming to disappear into the very air that shimmered distortingly with the heat.
But Kendrick and the rest who hunkered behind the broken sandstone knew the hostiles had not gone far, knew the fight was certainly not over.
From where he lay, Kendrick used the lull to take stock of their situation. They were nine in total number now. Huernadez and two of the Circle G wranglers lay dead out in the sand. Brade and two more of his men were wounded. Brade, despite the arrow in his leg, seemed to be able to function okay so far; but the other two were in worse shape. One was riddled with bullets and losing a lot of blood, the second had an arrow in the small of his back that held him painfully paralyzed. Four of their horses had made the barricades with them. Counting the four already there from Kendrick's party, that made eight mounts in case they got desperate enough to try a run for it. The remaining animals had bolted or been killed.
"How are you fixed for water?" Kendrick asked Brade.
"Not bad. We each had a saddle canteen with a fair amount left. That greaser had a pure knack for sniffing out holding tanks up in pockets on the ridge, places I would've never spotted in a month of Sundays." Brade's gaze went to the bloody heap that had been Huernadez. "Kinda sorry now I was so quick to kill that son. He'd've been handy for us to have in this here fight."
Kendrick's mouth twisted wryly. "Reckon he's a mite sorry himself not to be around for it."
Brade squinted over the rim of the barricade. "So what do you figure we're up against? How many of those red bastards are out there?"
"Judging by the way those arrows and bullets came pouring in," Kendrick said, rubbing his jaw, "I'd say we got ourselves in the middle of about twenty or thirty of them. That means it must be Fire Shirt himself, and his main force."
"The greaser didn't figure it was anywhere near that many we was dodging to the south."
"No, I didn't either. I think this is a separate bunch. Chiricahuas are known to split into smaller groups, keeps them more mobile."
"Well, now that they've had some fun, I wouldn't mind if this bunch mobiled themselves the hell and gone away from here."
"Nice wish, but it ain't likely to happen. They've got us pinned down, they'll be looking to have plenty more fun with us. They might work up a couple more charges, but mostly they'll start trying to pick us off one at a time. They can live in that desert for days on a swallow of water, and they got all the patience in the world."
Brade looked angry, and maybe a little worried. "Well, I ain't. If you got a fight to fight, I say go ahead and get it done—and do it face on."
"That's your way, maybe. But I'm telling you it ain't the Apache way, and they're the ones dealing the cards to this little shindig." Kendrick looked around. "The other thing they'll try to do is kill off our horses, make sure we can't use them to get away. You'd better have your men get theirs back behind those higher rocks where ours are, where they got more protection. That'll be one of the places we need to guard the tightest."
Brade trai
ned his anger on the bounty hunter. "You figure you're giving the orders here?"
Once again Kendrick steadily met the man's hard gaze. "What I'm doing is making suggestions. I got experience in this kind of thing. You could do worse than to listen to me. You got better ideas, I'm open to hearing them."
Brade licked his lips. When he went to move, the pain in his leg made him go rigid and fall back. "Kermit!" he called to one of his men, turning only his head and shouting over his shoulder. "Get those damn horses back in the higher rocks where these people got theirs. Don't you know one of the first things the Apaches will try to do is pick them off? Take one of the boys with you, post a solid guard back there—protect them damn nags, you hear?"
The wrangler addressed as Kermit, a bear of a man with a bushy untrimmed beard, reached to gather the reins of two of the horses. A shot instantly rang out from one of the broken points on the ridge and a bullet passed under Kermit’s outstretched arm, kicking sand two feet beyond him. Kermit threw himself to the ground and rolled clumsily behind a thicker section of the barricade.
"Keep that lard ass of yours down while you're moving around!" Brade hollered at him. "You ain't going to do me no good getting yourself shot instead of the horses."
When Brade twisted hurriedly to holler, Kendrick saw him wince sharply and once again jerk in reaction to the pain.
"That arrow is going to have to come out pretty quick," the bounty hunter said. "Even if you get to liking the pain, it'll turn poison if we leave it."
"Yeah, yeah, I know," Brade said irritably. "Damn thing ain't bleeding so much now, I hate to go fooling with it. Can you beat that? Close to fifty gunfights I been in, never took one piece of lead. And here some heathen Indian hauls off and plants a chunk of wood in me without having the decency to even give me a shot at him."
"Remember that that same Indian—or any one of his pals—will be just as happy to lift your hair without giving you any more say in the matter."
"Now there's a cheery thought."
Behind them, Kermit and another of the Circle G men, both being very careful to keep to cover, were maneuvering their horses back toward the higher rocks of the toppled columns. As he listened to them move away, Kendrick kept a close watch on the point of the ridge where he'd spotted a puff of smoke identifying the origin of the shot that had almost taken Kermit's arm off. When he saw sudden movement there again, he was ready with his Winchester. He snapped off a single round that hurtled with terrible accuracy and shattered the skull of the Apache getting ready for another try at Kermit; the brave and his unfired rifle toppled outward and down and crashed to the rubble below.
Darrel Brade gave a low whistle. "Hey, hey—that was some shot, bounty man." He grinned. "By God, when we get back around to it again, you might prove a real handful for me to kill."
"Right now," Kendrick said, "we all got our hands plenty full of Apaches. I say we'd better worry about one thing at a time."
Brade kept grinning. "Who's worried?"
* * * * *
For the next hour, the Apaches remained silent and unseen, doing nothing but letting the White Eyes sweat it out. And sweat they did, both psychologically and physically, under a hammering sun that climbed steadily higher and blazed increasingly hotter with each passing minute.
"You think they're still out there?" Brade finally said at one point.
"They're out there alright," Kendrick replied.
"How can you be so sure?"
"Poke your head up. Sashay out into the open if you like ... See if I'm wrong."
Brade stayed put, his expression growing more sour. "Well, if they're going to do something I wish to hell they'd hurry up and get to it."
"They'll be doing something soon enough," Kendrick said, backhanding sweat from his face. "When they do, you'll be glad for this quiet time." He shifted his weight and turned to move inward along the barricade.
As quick as the sunlight that winked off its nickel-plated barrel, one of Brade's pistols appeared in his streaking right fist. "Where the hell do you think you're going?" he wanted to know.
Kendrick paused, his eyes drifting lazily from the gun muzzle now trained on him up to Brade's scowling face. "Getting a mite jumpy, ain't you, mister?""
"I don't like people making sudden moves beside me. What are you up to?"
"I figured to reconnoiter our setup here a little closer while I had the chance, make sure everybody’s got themselves tucked in a good spot and fixed okay for ammunition. Like I said, those Apaches will be making a move sooner or later. When they do, we need to be as best ready for them as we can."
Brade licked his lips, looking uncertain and perhaps just a touch embarrassed at having drawn his gun the way he did.
"Take it easy," Kendrick said. "There ain't no back door. I ain't going nowhere."
"Go ahead, then," Brade muttered. "I'll cover you. But keep your head down all the same ... I don't want some raggedy damn redskin doing you in and robbing me of the job."
"Mighty obliged for your concern," Kendrick said dryly.
Crouched low, Winchester balanced in one hand, he skirted around Brade and made his way in along the natural barricade until he reached the high, broken rubble that had once been the base of the standing spire. Veronica was in position there, her own Winchester gripped tightly in her hands. She watched his approach with troubled eyes set in a sweat-shiny, dirt-smudged face that somehow managed to still look fetching.
"How you making it?" Kendrick said, hunkering in close to her.
She gave him a look. "That's a fool question, don't you think? How are any of us making it?"
"We're still alive."
"But for how long? If the Apaches don't get us then Brade or his cutthroats will. And you ... fighting beside him, talking to him—like he was a long lost pal or something."
"For right now, we need Brade and his men. We need their guns and they need ours."
"For right now, maybe. But if we manage to turn the Indians away, how long will it take them to aim those guns right back at us?"
Kendrick shrugged. "If you feel so strongly about it" —he jerked a thumb in Brade's direction— "there he is. Put your sights on him and pull the trigger. That should settle any concerns you got."
"I'm not a back-shooter."
"Neither is Brade."
"What he did to Ricardo—that Mexican Army captain—was the same difference. Just as cold-blooded. He helped Brade, and look where it got him."
"The captain did what he did because of you."
"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"
Kendrick studied her. "I don't know. How does it make you feel? You went to him after he'd fallen ... "
"If Brade had gunned down a dog and left it lying in the dirt like that, I would have gone to it."
"And you stopped me from knifing Huernadez in that hotel room in Las Cruces."
"I told you my reasons for that."
"Just like you told me," Kendrick said mildly, "your reasons for needing to get to Socorro so bad."
Veronica looked away from his gaze. "Sometimes the truth doesn't seem like the smartest tale to hand out ... I could hardly be proud of tricking Ricardo the way I did. And this close to the border, there are those who side as strongly with the Federales as with the revolutionaries. I had to be careful."
"So you handed me a nice, safe story full of the kind of heartbreak and remorse and shabby treatment you figured it would take to sway even a hardcase like me."
"By the time I got to know you better ... the lie was already too solidly in place. Besides, none of it changed my genuine need to get to Socorro with all haste. The information I can hand over to the revolutionary-backers there will save innocent lives."
"Not to mention lining your purse with money paid out in gratitude by those backers ... just incidentally, of course."
"That's a vulgar and cynical thing to say. Like you've got any room to talk about what a person does for money."
"Now you’re starting to sou
nd like Ludek." Kendrick sighed. "Look, I don't care that you're in it for the money. Hell, I don't even care so much that you lied to me—I get used to that in my line of work. I guess what I'm saying is, watch out for the lies you tell yourself."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Like I said, I saw the way you went to Huerandez after Brade put him on the ground."
Again, Veronica couldn't meet his eyes.
"Brade!" one of the Circle G men called from the middle barricade. "Brade, I think Hopson just died."
Hopson was the wrangler who'd barely made it this far, the one shot up so bad when the Apaches hit them in the open.
"Is he breathing?" Brade asked from where he lay.
"No. No, he ain't. And he ain't hardly bleeding. I don't think his heart's pumping no more."
"Then it sure enough sounds like dead is what he is," Brade said.
There was a pause and then the concerned rider, softer, his voice breaking slightly now that Brade had confirmed what he'd already suspected, said, "Doggone it all."
Kendrick touched Veronica's arm. "This ain't over, not by a wagon load," he said intently. "Those Apaches will hit us some more, maybe full on, maybe just pecking now and then to work on our nerves, thin out our number and try for our horses. Any way they come, you're in a good position here. Stick tight to it. If you have to do any shooting, do it and get back down quick. I won't be far off." His grip tightened sharply. "If worse comes to worst, if things don't fall our way at all ... you don't want to let them take you alive, you understand?"
Veronica made no response, still gazing absently in the direction of the man who'd described Hopson's death.
Kendrick jerked her arm. "Do you understand what I'm telling you?"
Her eyes finally met his. Very evenly, she said, "Yes, I do. I understand."
Kendrick moved away then, skimming over and behind the rough barricades with amazing speed and agility for such a big man. During the next several minutes, he spent time with each of the other men at the various positions they'd taken up, encouraging them, offering advice where needed, trying to prepare them for the different things the Apaches might try. They all seemed to welcome the attention. The differences that had set the bounty hunter and these same Circle G riders on a collision course up until only minutes ago—and possibly would again, perhaps in the very near future—were stowed effectively out of the way by an unspoken truce ... For the time being.
Hard Trail to Socorro (Bodie Kendrick - Bounty Hunter Book 1) Page 13
