by John Legg
Victorio Valencia, moving with more alacrity than he had shown in the past several weeks, was right behind Guthrie as they raced out of their camp. Valencia had paid no heed whatsoever to Guthrie’s shouted, “Stay there, Victorio!” Guthrie was not about to worry about it now. If Valencia wanted to come—and could move as quickly as he just had— Guthrie would welcome the help.
The two raced through the slop left behind after the storm’s passage. It had been a typical storm for out here—lasting several hours and flinging itself at the pitiful humans with ferocity, sending down sheets of rain pushed along by a piercing wind. And then it had stopped, almost abruptly. But the hard earth of these mountains could not contain the deluge, and the washes were full of raging, churning, dirt-brown water; and the land was slick or sticky with oozing mud.
After the first thirty-second burst of gunfire, there had been silence. Then several more individual shots, a short volley, and then one more shot. It was all Guthrie had to go on in trying to find Espinoza. The low-hanging, seemingly thick clouds seemed to deaden or deflect sound, too, making it all the more difficult to get a fix on the site of the attack. But since it had been only five minutes, Guthrie knew it could not be far.
Suddenly Guthrie yanked on the reins so hard that the buckskin almost sat on his haunches in trying to stop short. The horse fought for footing in the slippery muck, and finally managed to right himself. He stood, snorting, and pawing angrily at the ground.
Valencia, some yards behind Guthrie, was able to stop his horse in a more reasonable manner. He halted next to Guthrie. “What is it?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Guthrie said tensely. “I can’t get a fix on it. I don’t see anything, but I know there’s something out there. And I ain’t aimin’ to charge into an Apache ambush.”
They were still in a thick forest of pines and aspens, but spread out before them was a small meadow. It was only twenty yards wide and maybe thirty across, in a roughly oval shape.
“Damn,” Guthrie suddenly muttered. He pointed. Espinoza’s horse ambled out of the trees on the other side of the meadow, stopping to crop grass every few feet.
Valencia said nothing, but his face reflected his gloom and sadness. He had known since he heard the gunfire that Espinoza was dead, but would not let himself think about it. But this made it certain to him.
“Will you be all right on your own a bit, Victorio?” Guthrie asked tightly.
“Por qué?”
“I ain’t committin’ suicide by ridin’ out in the open across that meadow. I aim to circle around this way.” He pointed to his left. “I want you to go the other way.”
“Sí,” Valencia said with determination.
“Bueno.” There was nothing more to say, except, “Adiós. And buena suerte—good luck.”
Valencia grunted and rode off without another word.
Guthrie headed the other way, trying to keep his mind closed to the worry that lurked within him. He was certain Espinoza was dead, and was more than half certain he and Valencia would be in the same condition before much longer. His own death was something he had come to grips with a long time ago. He had reconciled himself to it—not that he was looking forward to it, or wanted to speed it. But he knew it was inevitable, and he accepted that. What he did not want to think about now was being responsible not only for Espinoza’s death but also for Valencia’s, which was a distinct possibility. So he forced himself not to think about it.
He moved slowly, trying to avoid branches ripping at his face and attempting to be as quiet as he could. In some ways, he was thankful now that it had rained last night—it had made the fallen leaves wet enough to keep them from making too much noise. He stopped every several feet and looked around from his perch on the horse, and he also listened intently, hoping the cool breeze would bring him some sight or sound he could identify.
Almost half an hour after he and Valencia had left their small camp, he spotted something on the ground ten yards ahead. In the dimness of the cover of the trees, he could not tell what it was, but he highly suspected it was Espinoza’s body. With a sense of dread—he would not call it fear—Guthrie dismounted and tied the buckskin to a tree.
“Goddamn Apaches,” he muttered. They were so spooky that it gave him pause. He had no fear of a fight with anyone, but these Apaches were so mysterious, popping up out of nowhere and disappearing seemingly into thin air, that it created a great feeling of uneasiness in Guthrie. That made him angry.
The anxiety almost overcame him. Then he spat in anger. He grinned, relieved, and shouted, “If you Apaches are out there, I dare you to show your faces.” He waited for a response, but got none. “I always heard you were some tough hombres,” he shouted again. “Guess all those folks who said such a thing were just fools and liars, though. You ain’t nothin’ but a bunch of goddamn chickenshits is all. Afraid to show your faces to anybody. Always hidin’ behind something. Damn.”
He waited again, but still there was nothing. He shrugged. There could be a hundred Apaches within a fifty-yard circle. Or maybe they had skedaddled long ago. He’d never know, and he could not just stand here all day. He stepped out from behind the tree. In two steps he had crossed the tiny stretch of bare land and knelt beside a figure behind a log.
Espinoza had a bullet hole in the back of his head, and his dark hair was singed from powder. Guthrie rolled the body over. There were several bloody holes in the front. Espinoza still had his pistol in his hand, and his rifle lay nearby. Guthrie checked that. It was empty. Espinoza had not just given up; he had fought and fought hard. Whether the deputy had had any success, Guthrie could not be sure. At least not without checking.
Guthrie was surprised to see that the body had not been mutilated in any way. The Apaches had to come right up on him for the coup de grace. That’s how Espinoza’s hair got singed, Guthrie knew. Guthrie finally decided that the Apaches had heard him and Valencia coming and had chosen not to take the time to mutilate the corpse. Instead, Guthrie thought, they must have decided to hide and wait in ambush for whoever else was coming, figuring to do their dirty work to all the corpses later. That made him sweat, but then he decided the Apaches must have left. If they were still in the vicinity, he thought they would have attacked him by now.
With a sick feeling deep in his gut, Guthrie pulled Espinoza’s badge from his own shirt pocket and pinned it on Espinoza’s bloody shirt. “It’s the best I can do for you now, amigo,” he whispered. “You deserve it.” He was saddened more than a little. Despite their differences, Guthrie still liked Espinoza.
Guthrie stood and began looking around. He saw nothing, but he could faintly hear Valencia still making his way through the trees. He frowned. Not that it was taking Valencia so long but that he was making some noise. If there -were an Apache in the vicinity, Valencia could be signing his own death warrant with his noise.
Guthrie shrugged. There was nothing he could do about it. And he was beginning to suspect the Apaches had, like usual, hit and run. Guthrie wanted to chase them, hunt them down, and kill them. The Apaches had caused too much trouble lately. Marshal Claver, Esai Ruberio, now Deputy Espinoza, so many others. But Guthrie had enough sense to know that chasing Apaches now would be plumb foolish, not to say probably fatal.
There was much to do, he decided. He had to get Espinoza’s body back to Bonito, first. Then some much needed sleep. After that he would try to get word to the Army. He knew damned well he wouldn’t be able to gather up any kind of sizable posse, so it would have to be the Army—if they were willing. He would volunteer his services as scout and guide. Or just tag along to get in on the action when the time came. He thought that was the least he could do for Claver and Espinoza.
Suddenly Guthrie flung himself toward the trees. Gunfire erupted behind him, and bullets cracked into trees and knocked leaves off trees. It was not far to the trees, but he misjudged the distance badly. He smashed into the big knot of a tree root where it joined the trunk. Guthrie grunted with the impact,
and then gasped as he tried to breathe and fire leapt through his side. But he still managed to scuttle behind the trunk as more bullets cut through the trees around him.
“Aw, hell,” he breathed, both at the close call and at the pain in his side. He did not know what had made him jump when he did. It was all instinct. He had neither seen nor heard anything out of the ordinary. He just had suddenly moved. And he was glad he did.
He yanked out the Remington. He peered around the tree cautiously, and then fired several times when he saw muzzle flashes in the gray day or puffs of powder smoke. He was certain he had hit at least a couple of Apaches, but he was not sure how many or how badly they were hit.
The firing from the Indians stopped. While still trying to keep an eye out there, Guthrie hastily reloaded the Remington. Usually, Guthrie carried only five shells in the six-shooter. But now, in the midst of a battle, he loaded all six chambers. Then he quickly checked himself over. The pain in his side was intense, and he was concerned that it might be masking pain from a bullet wound. He found no blood, and was reassured.
He continued lying behind the tree, waiting impatiently. He tired of that after a short while, and began to worry that perhaps Apaches were sneaking around to get behind him. So he picked out two spots where he remembered gunfire having come from. He fired rapidly, emptying the revolver. He put three shots into each spot. He smiled with no little amount of gratification as he heard a muttered grunt of pain.
He swiftly reloaded his revolver and then fired again at two spots where he figured warriors were hiding. Just as he ejected the six empty shells, three Apaches charged out from cover, racing toward him.
“Damn,” he mumbled. In a well-oiled move, he dropped the big Remington, snatched out the smaller, five-shot backup Remington from behind him, and stood, sliding his left shoulder against the rough bark of the aspen. He came to a stop with his left hand bracing his right wrist. He fired three times, saving one bullet. As with the Remington Frontier, he normally left one chamber of the Police Remington empty.
All three Apaches went down. Two stayed down, but the third jumped up and ran for the brush. With a glance that told him the two on the ground would not be moving soon, Guthrie snapped off his final shot at the fleeing Apache. But the forest had swallowed the warrior, and Guthrie did not know if he had hit the man.
With swift, certain moves, Guthrie loaded all five chambers of the Police Remington and dropped it into the angled holster at the small of his back.
He knelt and retrieved the big Remington. Without taking his eyes off the battlefield, he reloaded that, too. One of the Apaches he had shot was moving, but it was with the feebleness of near-death.
Guthrie decided it was time to go. He still suspected other Apaches were trying to sneak around behind him. He thought he might use the same tactic against them. He took a step backward, and almost fell. “What the hell…?” he mumbled. He braced himself against the tree and lifted his left boot so he could look at the bottom. Most of the heel was gone. In its place was the streak mark of a bullet. “Damn,” he said, not quite aloud, “that was a close one.”
It would not change his plan, though. He shuffled off. To compensate, he walked with an odd, rolling sort of gait, like a sailor just back from a long voyage. It took a few minutes for him to get used to it, but he managed after a while. He moved slowly, trying to keep silent.
As he made his way around the site, Guthrie was tense, wary. Suddenly an Apache jumped up in front of him, not two feet away. Guthrie had never known he was there. But he did not hesitate, either. He simply snapped the Remington up and fired from the waist. The bullet caught the Apache in the stomach. The blast from this close, knocked him off his feet. He stumbled back, hit a tree and slid down.
Guthrie was enraged—mostly at himself. He had gotten within an arm’s reach of an Apache without ever having an inkling that the warrior was there. He’d never be able to find out if the enemy was gone, if he was to be so blind to things. He moved on, senses even more attuned.
He realized after a few moments that he could hear things he hadn’t before. Smells, too, drifted to him, borne on the heavy, rain-scented air. He could pick out different things. At one point he thought he could actually smell one of the Apaches. He didn’t think that likely, but just to be sure, he crept up, inching along, thankful that the wind was blowing toward his face.
It was with some surprise that he looked out through some brush and saw an Apache kneeling behind a rock six feet in front of him. Guthrie eased the Remington up, hoping to make no sound. He thumbed the hammer back, and the soft snicking sound alerted the Indian. But before the Apache could react, Guthrie pulled the trigger, shooting the warrior in the back of the head. He felt no remorse.
Guthrie pressed onward, still moving stealthily, slowly. He sweated, despite the coolness of the day. And he wondered about Victorio Valencia. He had heard nothing of the old man in some time. He hoped Valencia was just holed up behind some brush somewhere, hiding and praying that the Apaches would not find him.
Guthrie found five Apache bodies as he moved. In only one case was he fairly certain he had killed the warrior. The others could have been killed by him, or by Espinoza earlier. Not that it mattered now, he thought grimly.
He suddenly froze as he heard a shuffling sound ahead of him. He realized it was a horse. He crept forward ever so slowly. Through a screen of foliage, he saw Espinoza’s sorrel. He moved forward some more. His foot landed on something soft and yielding, and his ankle turned. He fell. Fighting off panic, he tried to break his fall as best he could with his left hand. He still landed heavily, hitting the painful spot on his side. He gasped, but scrambled up, turned and half-stood, Remington out in front of him. Agony leapt through his ribs, but he ignored the shooting pains.
“Oh, no!” he swore in disgust and rage as he saw Valencia’s body.
Chapter Twenty-Two
It took some doing for Guthrie to get the bodies of his two deputies up on their horses. By the time he was finished, his side hurt like all hellfire, and he stood, leaning against a tree, sucking in breath as if that would quench the flames.
After finding Valencia’s body, Guthrie decided that he didn’t much give a damn any longer if there were any Apaches left in the area or not. Either there were or there weren’t. If there were any, they would either attack or not. If they attacked, he would live or die. He had already accounted for several of the warriors. He could do no more. But he sure as hell was sick and tired of slinking about the woods like a snake, afraid to be seen or heard.
He took the reins to Valencia’s horse and pulled himself into the saddle, trying not to strain his left side any. He was not entirely successful. “To hell with all of you goddamn Apaches,” he muttered, as he stepped boldly across a tiny clearing, heading toward his own horse.
He encountered no gunfire. When he got to the buckskin, he moved onto it, favoring his left side as he dismounted Valencia’s horse, tied it to a tree, and mounted his buckskin. He rode off and within a few minutes had corralled Espinoza’s horse, which had been grazing peacefully in the meadow nearby.
Guthrie rode back to Espinoza with the deputy’s horse in tow. He did not look forward to this, but it had to be done. Guthrie was a big man, with long ropes of muscle in his arms, back, and shoulders, but with his injury, lifting Espinoza was a difficult and painful task. By the time he had Espinoza’s corpse tied down across the horse, Guthrie was breathing heavily. He suspected he had broken a rib, maybe two. He thought that ironic. He would have thought it humorous had it not hurt so much. He had fought Apaches, killing several; had fought other Apaches back in Bonito, coming through it all unscathed, and here he had stove in a rib by jumping into a tree.
He decided he would walk to Valencia’s body rather than having to mount and dismount the horse again. So he walked, still using that odd step to compensate for the missing boot heel. The horses followed docilely under his gentle tugging on the reins.
Valencia was a lot
smaller and lighter than Espinoza, but having done so much already, Guthrie had set the rib to paining something awful. That meant getting Valencia’s frail corpse up on the horse was in some ways even more of a strain than doing so with Espinoza. But he finally managed, and tied the body down. Then he leaned against the tree, hoping the pain would ease enough for him to be able to pull himself into the saddle.
He considered walking back to the campsite he and his deputies had shared the night before. It was close enough. But he decided to ride, since he’d have to get up on the buckskin sooner or later. Besides, he figured he had done more than enough walking on the broken boot. Trying to take most of the strain on his left side, he mounted the horse, grimacing. Breathing was hard, and he hoped he had not dislodged a broken rib and done some real damage to his innards.
It took less than ten minutes to get to the campsite. Scavengers had been through it, but there had been little the animals and birds could get. Guthrie hunkered down miserably in the mud and built up the fire. He warmed the coffee and cooked up a mess of beans in some water with a tiny bit of fat- back Valencia had been hoarding. He drank a mug of coffee, smoking a cigarette while he did. Then he ate the half-done beans, had another mug of coffee and a cigarette.
Jack poured the rest of the rank coffee and the beans on the fire. He stood, noticing that the buzzards and vultures were still circling overhead, but they had dropped down some. “Go on, get out of here, you bastards,” he snarled. He yanked out the Remington and fired, hitting one big scavenger. The bird plunged to earth.
Guthrie reset the cylinder on his revolver so the hammer was sitting over the spent cartridge. Almost as an afterthought, he pulled one shell from the Police Remington and set the hammer down on the empty cylinder.
