"Crazier things have happened in this old world," Kendrick said, trying to be sympathetic but getting impatient to move on.
Ludek emitted a hollow laugh. "You want to hear another crazy one? The bad business in Socorro all those months ago, the stuff behind that wanted poster you're packing—when I tried to tell you back in El Paso I was innocent of them charges, I was telling the truth then, too." He quickly held up a hand to check Kendrick's sputtered response. "No, I ain't expecting you to swallow that one whole. Like I said, all I'm trying to do is get some things off my chest for the record. And like you been telling me, a Socorro judge will have the final say on that matter. I don't expect to fare too well in front of him, though.
"It's true I was riding with the bunch did those robberies, even though I split with them as soon as I saw what they was capable of. So I guess that don't leave me purely innocent—but it wasn't me done any of the killing, that's the thing I want to get across. Don't matter the names of them that did, they're both cashed in now so in no position to say for or against me. That's why I don't figure I stand much chance with a judge." Again the empty laugh. "Ain't my luck the shits, though? Two things in my life where I tried to do halfway right, and it looks like they're going to add up to be what brings me down—either by Injuns or Brade or Grodine or a hang noose. What are my odds on riding clear of all those?"
"Some luck you make yourself, kid," Kendrick said. "Other times it's a roll of the big dice Upstairs, and there ain't a damn thing you can do about the turn-up."
Ludek slapped the Colts that rode low on each hip. "Long as I got these babies, I reckon I stand a chance. Man ain't got no right to ask for more than that, does he?"
Kendrick said, "Best we move along. Get ourselves to a spot where you can use them against the Apaches."
"Something else, Kendrick."
"What's that?"
Ludek cleared his throat. "Twice now—first with Tully and then again with Brade—you could have thrown me to the wolves and made things a whole lot easier on yourself. I guess I'm obliged you didn't."
"Why I did what I did had nothing to do with you."
"No matter. And that ain't to say I still won't do my damnedest to bust away again if I get the chance ... but I'm obliged to you all the same. I heard what you told the woman back there in the barricades, about knowing you could count on Brade to come at you straight ahead and figuring you owed him the same. For what it's worth, if I do decide to go tangleways of you again, you can count on me coming from straight ahead, too."
Kendrick gave a measured nod. "All right. That's the way I'll be looking out, then."
*** ***
In the deep shadows of a fissure on the rugged eastern slope of the ridge, Kendrick and Ludek waited and watched. By the position of the stars and the sinking moon, Kendrick judged it was now near four o'clock.
Fifty yards below them, a line of gaunt Indian ponies stood resignedly at their picket rope, ears flattened, heads lowered by varying degrees. Everything was still except for a cold wind moaning out of the north, effectively carrying the scent of the strangers away from the animals. Fine grains of blown sand whispered grittily over glazed rock surfaces and against the rough clothing of the two stalkers.
They had settled into the fissure some thirty minutes earlier, making themselves invisible while they'd patiently, carefully attuned their eyes and ears to every shape, movement, and sound within reach of those senses. In this manner they had located the pair of Apache lookouts stationed to guard the horses. One was flattened on a rocky outcropping of the slope a short distance ahead of them; the other was down on the desert floor, crouched in a mesquite thicket a half dozen yards to the west of the ponies. On the near side of the animals, close to the base of the ridge, three more braves lay motionless on open blankets. They appeared to be asleep. Kendrick's hunch was that this special treatment marked them as wound victims of one of the earlier skirmishes. Fire Shirt and the rest of his band would be somewhere to the north and west, beyond where the ridge fell raggedly away, concentrated from scattered concealment on the sandstone barricades so tenuously defended by Brade and the others.
Kendrick could sense Ludek's growing impatience beside him. They hadn't risked speaking since beginning the ascent up the opposite side of the ridge; that, compounded by the tension of having to maintain the intense vigilance their present situation required, could wear any man's nerves. The bounty hunter was getting increasingly anxious himself. Satisfied they had gauged the lay of things as thoroughly as possible, he decided it was time to go into action.
His signal of same to Ludek was to draw his Bowie knife and hold it out to him. Ludek took the weapon tentatively. Kendrick pointed from the knife to the Apache down in the mesquite. Next he pointed from himself to the Apache in the rocks. Then he held up his hand, thumb and four fingers fully extended: In five minutes—the approximate time it would take them to maneuver into position—they would simultaneously remove the two lookouts. Ludek nodded that he understood.
They separated, each moving away silently, cautiously through the gray night.
Kendrick worked his way once again to the peak of the ridge, and then edged forward until he was directly above the Apache lying belly down on the rock outcropping. In his head, he kept a running countdown of elapsed time. Tightly gripping his sawed-off Greener in both fists, he eased down closer to the unsuspecting brave. He had to be careful, too, that he didn't skyline himself in case the lookout in the mesquite happened to glance this way. That buck, however, appeared equally unsuspecting.
Five minutes was nearly up.
Kendrick balanced himself on a narrow lava ledge; eight feet below, his man backhanded a bored yawn.
Checking the mesquite again, he saw the momentary glint of his Bowie in the broken shadows scarcely a yard behind the buck crouching there.
Kendrick stepped off the ledge and dropped full onto the back of the brave below him. His driving knees crushed bone and vertebrae and pounded a huge gush of air out of the man. Planting one knee squarely between his victim's shoulder blades, Kendrick swept the fore stock of the Greener down over his face and chin, yanked it hard back against the man's Adam's apple and then, clutching the scattergun at each end for maximum leverage, pulled with all his might. The buck struggled weakly for a few seconds, then gave a series of diminishing shudders and was dead.
Not even the Indian ponies noticed the silent trembling of the nearby mesquite thicket. There was no longer any sign of the Apache who had crouched there.
Kendrick scrambled to the desert floor and went quickly to where Ludek waited behind the mesquite, wiping fresh blood from the Bowie blade on his pant leg. Some of the horses on the near end of the picket rope now raised their heads, ears pricked high, and began to paw the ground nervously. But their awareness was of little concern at that point.
Kendrick took his knife back. Digging four extra shotgun shells from his vest pocket, he clamped their brass heads between his teeth. Ludek double-checked the action and the loads in his pistols, returning them loosely to their holsters. The two men locked eyes for a long second, then turned and broke out of the mesquite at a trot, moving toward the horses.
Kendrick ran with the Greener in his right hand, the Bowie in his left; Ludek left his Colts undrawn. As they ran, they scanned in all directions. The three wounded Indians remained asleep on their blankets. More and more of the horses in the picket line were starting to fuss, catching scent of the freshly spilled blood and now the approaching strangers. To the north there was no sign of alarm.
Ludek grabbed the tie reins of the first two ponies in line. When he was sure Ludek had a secure grip on that pair, Kendrick proceeded along the picket rope and began swinging the Bowie forehand and backhand, severing knotted leathers as cleanly and effortlessly as bits of string. Freed horses jerked away and wheeled about, those still tied started to rear and whinny loudly, their fright increasing. When he'd cut a half dozen tie reins, Kendrick pointed the Greener skyward and fired
off one of the barrels. The explosion split the night wide open. Horses screamed and bolted from the flash and the thunderous noise; those who could, broke into flight. Kendrick slashed harder and faster with the Bowie, amidst kicking hooves and roiling dust.
The wounded Indians over on the blankets struggled to rise. With his free hand, Ludek drew one of his Colts and cut all three of them down in a lightning burst of flame and lead.
Kendrick fired his second barrel. The picket rope had been snapped asunder and nearly all of the three dozen ponies were loose now, running helter skelter with manes and tails flowing. Kendrick sheathed the Bowie. With a practiced blur of hands, he broke open the Greener, ejected the smoldering spent shells, pried a fresh set from his teeth, reloaded and clapped shut the weapon.
Ludek had swung onto the back of one of the ponies he'd been holding. He rode up to Kendrick, holding out the reins of the second animal. The big man hoisted himself astride in a fluid motion.
"Company coming from the north," Ludek pointed out.
Past the billowing dust cloud kicked up by the stampeding horses, the dim shapes of men were running toward them on foot. Shouting, brandishing long objects that were a mix of rifles and bows.
Further north and somewhat east, beyond the broken end of the ridge, the popping of rapid gunfire had started in. That would be Brade and the others, making their break out of the sandstone barricades.
Reining his mount in a tight turn, Kendrick emptied both reloaded Greener barrels in the general direction of the fleeing ponies, tossing the sting of buckshot to add impetus to their flight. Pulling the last of the fresh shells from between his teeth, he hollered after them, "Eeeyah! Get the hell out of here you mangy cayouses!"
Some of the shapes running out of the north had halted and dropped to one knee, raising their carbines to take aim on the noisy figures they by now had ascertained were hated White Eyes. The distance was too great and the night still too murky, however, to make their shots of much consequence.
Kendrick finished another speedy reload of his sawed-off and flashed a rake hell grin as he snapped the piece back shut. "You ready to see the Rio Grande again, Jory-boy?" he asked.
"I was born ready. Let's ride!"
They swung their commandeered ponies west and heeled them hard in that direction. Considering the strangers on their backs and the general chaos all around, the two ponies had been surprisingly manageable up to that point. All the same, it required little effort to urge them into full flight the way so many of their stampeding comrades had gone.
Their route took them almost immediately through a wide, ancient dry wash with a steep embankment of sand and gravel to one side. Layers of dust still hung in the air from the horses who had gone before. Kendrick's pony, straining under greater weight, took longer to build momentum. But the big bounty hunter didn't mind bringing up the rear; it gave him a better chance to keep an eye on Ludek. As he rode he also glanced frequently in the direction of the sandstone barricades, looking for some sign of how the others might be faring out.
Despite this alertness, however, he was caught completely off guard by the Apache who launched himself on a dead run from the rim of the gravel embankment. This last-ditch desperation move by the warrior, who had continued on relentlessly while many of his brothers had foolishly stopped to try and use their guns, paid off as his hurtling body crashed down on the hind quarters of the running pony and his clutching hands dragged the big White Eyes off and to the ground.
Kendrick landed heavily, the wind driven out of him, his Greener sailing out of reach. When his mouth automatically opened to suck air, he instead choked on sand and dust. The adrenaline-fueled Apache was all over him, kicking, gouging, biting, trying to break free in order to more effectively bring his tomahawk into play. Partially stunned, Kendrick hung on out of sheer will, keeping the brave's arms pinned until his head began to clear and his arms and legs no longer felt so numb and disconnected.
When the brave finally kicked free of his grasp, Kendrick rolled and came to one knee with the Bowie instinctively drawn and held at the ready. He parried the first tomahawk chop, and the second, but his reflexes were frighteningly sluggish. The warrior was tall and rangy and strong, his copious splashes of war paint heralding his skill in battle. He feinted a stomach kick with his left foot, then brought the tomahawk in his right fist around and down in a blindingly fast swing.
The move caught Kendrick a glancing blow high on the forehead, but with enough force to knock him back down. He pitched onto his shoulder and rolled. Oddly, the blow seemed to bring everything into crystal focus and working order for a startling second. Even as hot blood poured down, blinding one eye, he rolled back and lunged to meet what would have been the finishing stroke of his opponent. The warrior leaped onto him with a fierce cry that faded into a gurgling groan of pain and surprise as the ten-inch Bowie blade sank to its hilt just below the tip of his sternum. Kendrick was driven down and pressed to the ground by the weight of the man. Their eyes were only inches apart, the hate in the Apache's burning like hot coals. With a sudden jerk of his hands, he laid the rough handle of his tomahawk across the bounty hunter's throat and began to bear down with all his dying strength. Knowing he was killing and dying in the face of a strong-hearted enemy, the warrior's mouth, blood seeping between the teeth, curved into a savage smile beneath his burning eyes.
Kendrick's senses swam in a mist of pain and panic. Once again his arms and legs seemed to have become disconnected. His reflexes had abandoned him. His mind screamed to push away the relentless warrior but no other part of him could respond. When he tried to blink the blood out of his eye, the squirming lid made wet, sticky noises that stood out with strange clarity. As the Apache continued trying to strangle him, he remembered another unpleasant noise: the crunching Adam's apple of the lookout he had killed in much the same manner up on the ridge. Was this the way the Great Spirits would hold him to account for that?
Kendrick figured he was close to the end. He could feel the grip of unconsciousness closing around him. Only vaguely was he aware of other things also taking place about him ... sounds ... The mocassined footfalls of more Indians running ... A horse's hooves pounding nearer from somewhere.... Shouts, and the crack of a gun ... Faintly, from a distance, the melodious roll of a bugle …
Chapter 17: Aftermath
Kendrick woke to the brilliance and warmth of sunshine. He still lay on his back on the ground, but the Apache brave so intent on killing him was no longer on top of him. A layer of softness, a blanket, had been spread between him and the gravelly, sand-swept earth. Before opening his eyes, he lay for a minute listening to the flurry of voices—English-speaking voices—exchanging words and orders at varying distances on all sides of him.
At the touch of a moist, cool cloth to his lips, he opened his eyes. Veronica Fairburn was kneeling close to him, leaning so that she shaded him from the sun as she applied the wetted hand-kerchief. Her own face had been washed, and her hair brushed since the last time he'd seen her. He was relieved she was okay; the nearness of her brought only that conscious thought. Whatever romantic sparks they had struck together back in Las Cruces were now, as far as Kendrick was concerned, dead embers. They had been doused by her lies to him; and he still remembered her tears for Huernadez following his gundown.
She smiled. "Welcome back to the living."
"Is that where I am?" His words scratched inside his punished throat.
"Just barely."
He raised himself on his elbows. When he blinked, adjusting to the light, he could feel a pulling sensation above his eyebrows. Reaching up, his fingertips gingerly touched a thick bandage covering the tomahawk gash to his head.
"Army medic patched you up while you were out," Veronica explained. "Just as well you were. Took him twenty stitches to get that closed."
Kendrick was just beginning to comprehend all the blue-uniformed men moving around them—the source of the various voices he'd heard as he was coming to.
&nb
sp; "Where the hell did they come from?" he wanted to know.
"I brought them, sir."
Kendrick twisted his head around to look where the faintly familiar voice originated. At first, he still didn't recognize the clean-shaven young soldier standing there.
And then: "Trooper Callahan!"
"At your service, sir."
"So you made it out after all." He pictured the battered and blistered victim he'd cut from the Apache torture stakes.
"Thanks to you." Callahan's expression turned anxious. "I know you asked me not to mention to anyone that we'd seen you back there in the Jornada, sir, but after we ran into the rest of our platoon and found out there were more Apaches so close by ... well, me and Pearlman couldn't bring ourselves to just leave you out there, even if you wanted it that way."
Veronica said, "The fighting you heard south of the lava pocket that morning, that was Callahan's platoon engaging one of Fire Shirt's bands."
Kendrick rubbed his jaw. "Well, seeing's how that skirmish got us out of a pretty tight fix, I can't hardly hold it against nobody. Where is Pearlman, by the way?"
"Pearly came away from the Apache capture in worse shape than me,” Callahan said. "They sent him back to the fort to finish recuperating." His eyes made a brief, uneasy shift in the direction of Veronica. "Sad to say, poor old Thurmond didn’t make it at all."
Further discussion of that unfortunate business was interrupted by the arrival of a group of officers walking in loose formation behind a flamboyantly-side burned man wearing captain's bars. "So," the captain announced, "I see our fellow has come around."
"Captain Lowry, Mr. Bodie Kendrick," Callahan introduced.
Kendrick started to rise.
"Not at all, not at all," Lowry said. "Stay put. That was a nasty whack you took to the head."
Hard Trail to Socorro (Bodie Kendrick - Bounty Hunter Book 1) Page 16
