The men by the creek and those on the hill had seen the Rangers come in carrying their dead, and most had suddenly lost their appetite for fighting Apaches.
In the end, only Jed McKay, Nathan Levy, Conrad Heber and his wife, Clyde Kaleen and Dave Channing agreed to stay. Surprising McBride, Mrs. Whitehead refused to leave her home, saying that she would not desert her dead husband.
Counting Bear Miller and himself, McBride had only seven men to defend Suicide. It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t near enough.
The Rangers pulled out at dusk, the other townsmen walking or riding whatever mount they could scrounge. Sullen from whiskey and shame, the dozen departing citizens spoke to no one as they left and kept their eyes on the trail ahead, looking straight in front of them.
Joan Whitehead, an unholy light in her eyes, picked up horse dung and threw it after the departing townsmen. “Cowards!” she screamed. She looked around, picked up more, but McBride took it from her.
“Let them go,” he said gently. “They’re not worth it.”
Mrs. Whitehead’s eyes met his, vague and uncertain, as though she was trying to remember who he was. The woman was flirting with insanity, teetering very close to the edge.
“Now she can kill the rest of us,” she shrieked. “Only the originals are left and the witch will destroy us one by one.” She ran from man to man, stabbing at them with her finger. “Levy…dead! Heber…dead! Kaleen…dead! Channing…”
The gambler grabbed the woman and held her close, patting her thin back as he would a child. “It will be all right, Mrs. Whitehead. Trust me, it will be all right.”
Joan Whitehead broke down completely. She sobbed uncontrollably, her face buried in Channing’s shoulder, her unbound hair, wet from the rain, curling around her neck.
Watching the woman, McBride was filled with an impotent rage. He felt a wild urge to cross the creek, walk into the night and yell at the top of his lungs, “End it, damn you! Attack us and get it over with!”
Bear had his eyes on McBride, studying his face. The scout had seen that trapped, frenzied expression before, always before men cracked under the strain of an impending Indian attack. He remembered a young lieutenant, fresh from the Point, who had fled the field during a battle with Comanches. Bear had found his body a week later. The nineteen-year-old had shot himself. And he had known others, hardened veterans with the highest medals for bravery, who had shown yellow and later could not explain the reason why.
Now he was worried about McBride.
He stepped beside the big man and put a hand on his shoulder. “Easy, John,” he whispered, not wanting the others to hear. “Take it easy, my friend.”
McBride turned to Bear, staring at him without blinking, his jaw muscles working. He was fighting his own fear, searching for a way out of a dark tunnel where only madness lurked. He wanted to run—run far and fast—all the way back to New York, to his apartment, where he’d pull down the blinds, curl up in his bed and be safe.
“Easy, John,” Bear said again. The thick-veined hand on McBride’s shoulder was trembling. He watched the man battle the coward, stumbling to find his way. It was only a matter of moments now before he made his decision and it would be a close-run thing. Very close.
McBride blinked, like a man waking from sleep. He scrutinized the old scout’s face and recognition dawned slowly in his eyes. “Bear, I’m all right,” he said. “I’m all right.” His voice cracked, but he had to say more. “I was running away from the Apaches. In my mind, I was running away.”
“But you’re still here,” Bear said. “It takes courage to stand.”
McBride glanced at the others: McKay, Kaleen, the rest, a dispirited bunch, soaked by the hammering rain, looking to him with hollow eyes for direction.
“You men,” he said, loud, confident, like a Tammany Hall politician giving an election-day speech, “we’ll fight the Apaches on this ground. We will not allow a bunch of savages to take what’s ours and destroy it.”
Dave Channing gently released Mrs. Whitehead, guiding her into the huge arms of Conrad Heber. “McBride, you may not have noticed, but there’s only seven of us,” he said. “How do you propose we fight them?”
“We’ll take up positions on the hill and if things go bad, retreat to the Elliot house,” McBride answered.
“Things will go bad, McBride,” Channing said. “Count on it.”
“Dave, do you have a better idea?” This, ominously soft, from Bear.
“No. No, I don’t.”
“Then you should have gone with the others while you had a chance,” Bear said.
Channing smiled. “Go where? I could only go back to places I’ve been and nobody would be glad at my coming or sad at my leaving.”
Nathan Levy, small and wound tight, stepped forward, the rain falling around him. “The marshal is right. We must make our fight here. I will not leave my beautiful hotel to be burned.”
McKay, more pragmatic than the rest, spoke directly to Bear Miller. “You’ve fought Apaches before. How do you rate our chances up there on the hill?”
The old man smiled. “Slim to none, an’ slim is already saddling up to leave town.”
McKay took that like a punch to the gut, then turned his gaze to the darkness where the plain began. “Maybe we should have left with the others.”
“It’s too late, McKay,” Bear said. “Too late for you and too late for them.”
McKay suddenly looked old, tired. “I don’t catch your drift.”
“It’s easy enough to understand. You got a bunch of shot-up Rangers carrying their dead and a dozen scared rabbits from here with them. I don’t think they’ll make ten miles before they’re ambushed and slaughtered to a man.”
Bear’s words sobered the group, and even Channing’s pale face wore a shocked expression.
“What do we do, Marshal McBride?” Kaleen asked, his voice plaintive, like a child seeking reassurance from an adult.
McBride knew what he said in the next few seconds was vital. Above all, these men needed hope, at the very least a small expectation that they’d come out of this alive.
McBride chose his words carefully. “I want you men to get a few hours’ sleep, then take up rifle positions on the hill before sunup. Channing, you’re a gambler and don’t need sleep. See that everybody is awake in three hours and on the hill.”
“The women as well?”
“Yes. Mrs. Whitehead and Mrs. Heber and the two ladies who work for me.”
Channing shook his head. “I sure hope you know what you’re doing, McBride.’”
McBride wanted to say, “So do I,” but he kept his mouth shut.
“Where will you be, Marshal?” Levy asked.
“Bear and me will scout around and see if we can locate where the Apaches are at. Then we’ll swing to the south and maybe find out if the Rangers and the others got clear.”
“We’ll need you on the hill come first light,” Channing said. “Just make sure you come back.”
“Are you implying something, Dave?” Bear asked, his blue eyes hard.
McBride wondered at the old man’s hostility toward Channing. Did he sense danger in the man like he had Roddy Rentzin?
Channing smoothed it over. “I’m implying nothing. Just be here, that’s all.”
“We’ll be here, count on it,” McBride said. “One of you men escort Mrs. Whitehead home. The rest of you get some shut-eye.”
After the others were gone, vanishing into the steely pall of rain, Bear turned to McBride, his eyes burning. “I don’t like that man, Dave Channing.”
“Why?”
“He’s a gunfighter and he’s killed a few in his day.”
“How do you know?”
“I know,” Bear said, looking into the darkness as though seeking the gambler. “Trust me, I know.”
Chapter 29
McBride and Bear approached the livery stable cautiously, guns drawn. There had been no sign of Jim Drago, but the little man was still a threat and one to be feared.
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But the dwarf was not there and McBride and the old man quickly saddled their horses. Remembering what had happened the last time he tried to mount the mustang, McBride led the animal outside and shook his fist at it. “Remember this?” he said. “Well, it’s still here.”
The little horse did not seem intimidated but it didn’t object either when McBride clumsily climbed into the saddle. McBride was vastly pleased. He figured he’d found the secret to horse training—the threat of a punch in the head.
Bear was not impressed. “I swear, John,” he said, his eyes amused, “you mount a horse like an old lady with the rheumatisms.” He watched McBride knee the mustang into motion. “Ride like one too.”
McBride was stung but said nothing. He knew that was one argument with Bear he could not win.
An hour later they were well into the wilderness, riding through a vast tunnel of darkness. Lightning flashed violet in the sky but there was no thunder, and the unseen land around them lay quiet but for the hushed whisper of the falling rain.
Despite his age, Bear had eyes like a cat and led the way, though now and then he rode among prickly pear and cholla that tore at McBride’s legs. They were riding through hill country, some of the slopes crowned with craggy mounds of rock and stunted juniper.
Bear drew rein on the shoulder of a grassy ridge, peering into the darkness. He raised his great beak of a nose, reading the wind. “We should have smelled them by this time,” he whispered. “Hell, a few times back there I expected to ride right into their camp.”
“Maybe they’ve pulled out,” McBride suggested hopefully.
“Maybe.” Bear sat his saddle, his head bowed, thinking. Finally he said, “The Apaches would have had scouts out, keeping their eyes skinned for the Army. Could be one of them seen the Rangers leave town and reported back here. The whole shebang might have up and gone after them.” The old man smiled without humor. “Like I told you before, Apaches are notional, and I reckon they just changed their mind about attacking Walker and his men. Any Apache worth his tizwin would consider that a better option than sitting around a smoky fire in the rain. And the Rangers have good horses, horses worth fighting for.”
McBride was relieved. “Then they won’t attack Suicide?”
“Oh yes, they will. Unless the Rangers and them others use them up real bad, which I doubt, they’ll swing north again and hit the town. An Apache will ride two hundred miles out of his way to get into a good fight and Suicide isn’t near that far.”
McBride looked around him, his eyes straining to reach beyond the black wall of the night. “I think we might have missed them in the dark,” he said. “Could be they’re still around.”
“Well, let’s go see,” Bear said.
“How are we going to find them? We’re riding blind.”
The old man touched his nose. “We’ll follow this.”
Ten minutes later they rode up on the abandoned Apache camp.
Bear swung out of the saddle. He stepped to the muddy ashes of a campfire and took a knee. But because of the rain it told him nothing. The old man scouted around, stopping every now and then to examine the ground. Finally he walked back to McBride.
“Hard to tell for sure, but I’d say they pulled out a couple of hours ago. Maybe thirty bucks, riding west.”
“Then they are going after the Rangers.”
“That would be my guess.”
“What should we do, Bear? Go help the Rangers or head back to town?”
“I’d say the Apaches have already hit the Rangers and them other hayseeds. There’s not a damn thing we can do to help them now, except sing their death songs—and ours.”
McBride’s teeth gleamed white as he smiled grimly in the gloom. “I don’t have a death song.”
“Me neither,” Bear said. “But I’ve got a feeling I should be working on one.”
The rain faded to a fine drizzle as McBride and Bear rode through the deepening night, a dank darkness crowding around them. They crossed a low saddleback; then the ground fell gradually away from them for a mile, ending in a tangle of brush and trees that began to climb another shallow hill.
When they reached the trees, Bear drew rein. “Smell that?” he asked.
McBride lifted his head and tested the wind. After a few moments he said, “Smoke. Apaches?”
Bear was looking to the south, as though he was thinking something over. “Could be Apaches, but I doubt it. There’s a heap of smoke in the air and only white men make a fire that big.”
“The Army maybe?”
The old scout said nothing, staring into the night. Lightning lit up the sky, flaring blue on the faces of the two men, deepening the shadows that pooled in their eyes under the hat brims. Restlessly, Bear’s big black tossed its head, the jangling bit loud in the silence.
As though he were waking from a trance, the old man said, “The Apaches couldn’t have failed to smell that fire, but they rode around whoever is out there. An Indian won’t attack unless he figures the odds are in his favor, and that means they saw more white men than they cared to handle.”
“It’s got to be the Army, Bear.”
Again the old man made no answer. He stepped out of the saddle and told McBride to do the same. “John, I’ve got a hunch about who’s sitting around that fire,” he said. “And if I’m right, we’re in a heap of trouble.”
Bear led the way into the darkness, moving south on cat feet. Only once did he speak, and then in a low whisper. “Step light. They’re close.”
Every twenty steps Bear dropped to one knee, listening, letting the night talk to him. McBride followed a few paces behind, hearing nothing but the silence singing in his ears. They avoided areas where the shadows were thin, keeping to the darkest reaches of the plain, seeking out the shallow valleys between the hills where lay waist-high lakes of blackness. The wet grass muffled their footsteps and they made no sound. Only the flashes of lightning that shimmered silver and lilac in the sky sought to betray them.
After ten endless minutes the rolling country gradually gave way to higher hills, crested with twisted rock formations and wild stands of cactus. Ahead of him, McBride saw a patch of darkness stained with pulsing red. Bear tapped him on the shoulder, then put a finger to his lips.
The old man made a gesture with the flat of his hand, telling McBride to stay where he was. Then he dropped onto his belly and glided like a snake, stealthy and silent, into the menacing night.
The darkness pressed on McBride. He could feel it wrap around him like a dusky cloak, smelling of damp earth and danger. He stared into nothingness, his ears straining for any sound. The rain began to fall heavier, a hushed rustling in the stillness, and far away the coyotes were talking.
Twenty minutes passed and McBride began to worry about Bear. Then he saw the old man, crouching low, only a few feet away. Once again Bear pressed a finger to his lips, then whispered into McBride’s ear. The big man nodded and followed him, creeping slowly into the gloom.
Bear didn’t talk until they reached the horses. Even then he kept his voice low. “I figure fifteen men, maybe a couple more or a couple less.”
“Who are they?”
“It’s the Rentzin boys. A few times I heard Reuben and Ransom called by name. They’ve got a wagon with a busted axle and right now they’re forted up tight in the rocks. If the Apaches passed close they would have taken a look-see and decided to ride on by. Even loco young bucks know they’d lose too many men trying to push fifteen hard cases out of a strong position. Every man jack of them is a named gunfighter and I got close enough to recognize a couple of them. Ed Foster is there, kills with a scattergun, and Fish Allen, a two-gun lunatic who rode with a wild outlaw crowd up in the Nations.”
McBride knew this day would come, but now the shock of it punched him in the gut. “How long before they ride into Suicide?”
“As long as it takes them to fix the busted axle. They won’t leave the wagon behind. It’s a big freight drawn by six mules, sturdy enou
gh to carry all the gold they hope to find at the Elliot house and other spoils besides.”
McBride spoke aloud, but he was talking to himself. “Say, later today or early tomorrow.” He felt like a man stepping onto a boat that was about to set sail and sink.
“That seems about right,” Bear said. “If I had to guess, I’d say them boys will be on our doorstep tomorrow—right after sunup.”
Chapter 30
McBride and Bear rode into Suicide as the night died around them. But no warmth attended the coming of the light. The rain was snarled with sleet and a cutting wind shredded the day into tatters, leaving the dawn naked to the cold.
The town was deserted, an unwelcoming, friendless place. The two men rode through a gray cavern of silence, the only sound the rusty iron creak of the sign hanging outside McKay’s store and the constant banging of a door somewhere behind the saloon.
McBride headed for the hill, Bear following behind, but drew rein when a man stepped from the door of the cantina, a shotgun in his hands. “Halt, who goes there?” he demanded in heavily accented English.
“Damn you, Heber, who does it look like?” Bear yelled, cold and a lack of sleep making him testy.
“Advance, kameraden, and be recognized.”
Now the old scout was really worked up. “Heber, I swear I’ll put a bullet in your fat belly if you don’t stand aside and let us pass.”
“I can’t help it, Bear,” the German whined. “Herr McKay said I’m part of a militia and that I should act like a soldier. He ordered me to take my post here and told me what to say.”
McBride heard Bear’s angry snort and headed off more harsh words. “Where are the others, Conrad?”
“On the hill, Marshal. Dave Channing woke us all in the middle of the night and marched us up there.” Heber let the shotgun drop to his side. “We heard shooting to the south about an hour ago. It did not last too long. Channing says it was Apaches attacking the Rangers and the men who left us. He said to be on our guard because we’d be next. “
“He was right about that,” McBride said, “unless the Apaches got licked by the Rangers.”
Shadow of the Gun Page 17
