His son stopped running and frowned. “Do we have to, Pa?”
“Yep. Let’s go.”
“But Juanita and I are having so much fun! She’s been teaching me her language and we’ve been playing games.”
“You can learn more and play more tomorrow.”
“Awwww. I never get to do what I want.”
Nate held the door for them, and gave Winona a peck on the cheek as she followed the youngsters inside. He was about to enter himself when from out of the night to the south came the faint cry of a bird, a warbling call he had never heard before. Pausing, he heard the cry answered from off to the southeast. New Mexico, he reasoned, must have night birds unknown in the northern Rockies. He made a mental note to ask Francisco about them sometime, then closed the door and caught up with his family.
Chapter Eight
Nate’s eyes snapped wide open, and he lay in the inky darkness on his back listening to Winona’s soft breathing at his side. What had awakened him? he asked himself. By his estimation it must be the middle of the night and everyone in the hacienda should be sound asleep. He listened intently but heard nothing. Slowly he started to drift off again, until a low growl sounded in the next room, the room containing Zach and Samson.
Easing quietly upward so as not to disturb Winona, Nate glanced at the closed door separating the two rooms. The mongrel never growled without a reason. Perhaps, he speculated, someone had risen to heed nature’s call and Samson had heard them moving about.
The growl was repeated, louder this time.
Annoyed, Nate slipped off the soft bed and padded to the door. He opened it, and was able to distinguish Zach sound asleep on the bed and Samson standing over by the closed door to the corridor. Of half a mind to tie the mongrel outside, Nate walked toward him, then halted in surprise on hearing the same birdcall he’d heard earlier. Only now the call was much louder, seemingly coming from right outside the house. And as before, the cry was answered by another, this time on the opposite side of the house.
A cold chill of premonition swept through Nate and he tensed, scarcely inhaling as he strained to hear more. What a dunderhead he was! Why hadn’t he recognized the birdcalls for what they truly were before? Spinning, he hurried back and shook Winona to wake her, first placing his hand over her mouth to prevent an inadvertent outcry.
She woke up instantly, holding herself perfectly still.
“Apaches,” Nate whispered. “Get your rifle and stay with Zach. I have to rouse the others.”
Winona nodded and stood.
He already had on his leggings. Leaving his shirt and moccasins draped over a chair, he grabbed the Hawken, tucked both flintlocks under his belt, and tiptoed to the hall door. The latch gave without a sound. He peered into the murky corridor but saw no one. Unnerving total quiet reigned in the huge hacienda.
Moving in a crouch, he hugged the wall until he reached Shakespeare’s room. Soundlessly he worked the latch and glided inside, stopping short on seeing McNair already up and holding a pistol. “I think we have some unwanted visitors,” Nate said softly.
“I know. I was coming to fetch you.”
“Watch over our wives and Zach. I’ll warn Francisco.”
“Be careful, son. Apaches are like ghosts when they’re on the prowl.”
Gaona’s bedroom was at the west end of the hallway. Nate stayed low, his back to the wall, his thumb on the rifle’s hammer, until he came to the door. Should he knock, he wondered, and risk being heard by the Apaches, or should he go right in? Recalling how handy Francisco was with those fancy polished pistols, Nate decided to lightly rap his knuckles on the smooth wood. He hoped Francisco would come to investigate and not give a shout demanding to know who was there.
There was no response.
Nate glanced at the spacious room fronting the corridor. He made out the outlines of several chairs and over in the corner stood a large bookcase, but nothing else. For a moment doubt assailed him. What if Shakespeare and he were wrong? What if there truly were night birds in the trees outside? He’d feel like an idiot if he was making all this fuss for no reason.
At that very moment one of the chairs abruptly moved.
Nate blinked, thinking his eyes were playing tricks on him, but the chair moved again, creeping a bit nearer to the hallway. His eyes threatened to bulge from their sockets as he probed the gloom to discern details. With a start he saw that the chair wasn’t a chair after all but instead was a man hunched low to the floor. And not just any man. It was a stocky Indian naked except for a breechcloth. Even as the realization dawned on him, the figure surged erect and charged, venting a bloodcurdling shriek.
In pure reflex Nate leveled the Hawken, cocked the hammer, and fired from the hip, the gun recoiling in his hands. The onrushing warrior twisted as the ball ripped through him, but kept on coming, raising a knife on high. Nate hurled himself to the right, drawing a flintlock as he did, and got off his shot at the very instant the Apache loomed above him. This time the warrior staggered backwards, clutched at his belly, then collapsed.
The shriek had served as a signal for all hell to break loose. War whoops echoed from all directions. Gunfire erupted outside. Men yelled and cursed in Spanish. Somewhere horses neighed in fright. From the rear of the house, where the servants were quartered, arose terrified screams.
Gaona’s door was flung open and there stood Francisco, shirtless and barefoot, with a flintlock in each hand. He took a step, bumped into the slain Apache, then caught sight of Nate on the floor. “Are you all right, señor?”
“Yes,” Nate answered, and started to rise.
“Good. I must direct my vaqueros. Stay here and don’t let the savages get to our families.”
Before Nate could say a word, Francisco dashed off. He saw Maria appear in the doorway holding a wrap tight around her body, her face unnaturally pale. “You’re better off inside, ma’am,” Nate advised, and then recalled she spoke little English. Motioning for her to go back into the room, he closed the door once she complied and turned, scanning the full length of the hall. How could he protect anyone when he only had one loaded gun left? He had to get his ammo pouch and powder horn.
The gunshots, shouts, and whoops outside had reached a crescendo; it sounded as if a war was being waged. But as yet no other Apaches had appeared at either end of the corridor.
Sticking the spent pistol under his belt, Nate drew the other one and ran toward his room. Shakespeare suddenly stepped out in front of him and they nearly collided. “Stand guard,” Nate cried. “I’ll be right back.”
In four bounds he was at Zach’s door. Winona, Zach, and Samson were clustered in a corner, Samson with his hair bristling and Winona with her rifle pressed to her shoulder, ready to fire. “Stay close to me,” he ordered, not even slowing as he darted into the next bedroom and grabbed his powder horn and bullet pouch. He also scooped up his butcher knife and jammed it, sheath and all, under his belt. Then, running to the hall, he moved swiftly toward Maria Gaona’s bedroom.
Blue Water Woman had joined Shakespeare and they were standing back to back, covering both ends of the corridor.
“We should get our families all together in one place,” Nate said to McNair. “It’ll be easier for them to defend themselves.” He indicated Gaona’s room. “We’ll put them in there.”
“Sounds good,” Shakespeare replied.
From the rear of the house came a terrifying series of wails and shrieks mixed in with the rapid booming of guns, the din louder and nearer than anything Nate had heard thus far. He feared a large number of Apaches had gained entry and were wreaking havoc among the servants. Constantly glancing at the east end of the hall, he came to Gaona’s room just as Maria, holding Juanita close, opened the door. She immediately addressed Shakespeare in Spanish and he answered.
“She wants to go to her husband,” he translated, “but I told her we should wait right here.”
Nate stood back so everyone could file in. He began reloading the Hawken, hi
s gaze happening to fall on Samson. The mongrel was a yard off, staring intently down the corridor. Nate did the same, and felt his scalp prickle on beholding a bounding bunch of indistinct figures swarming toward them. “Here they come!” he shouted, his fingers flying, desperately striving to finish loading before the warriors reached them.
Shakespeare gave Zach a shove, propelling the boy into the bedroom. Then he faced their wives, both of whom were standing with their feet firmly planted and their features as hard as iron. “Blue Water Woman,” Shakespeare bellowed, “you and Winona get in there and lock the door! We’ll hold them off.”
“No, husband,” Blue Water Woman said. “Our place is with you.”
There was no time to argue. Shakespeare slammed the door shut and turned to confront the onrushing Apaches.
As silent as a pack of marauding wolves, the warriors swept down the hall two abreast, the leaders with uplifted knives.
Nate rammed the patch and ball home, then yanked out the ramrod and let go of it rather than try to reinsert it. He whipped the Hawken up and cocked the hammer. Suddenly Winona and Blue Water Woman fired, dropping the first pair of Apaches. Nate sighted on one of the second pair and squeezed off his shot at the same instant Shakespeare did. The second pair toppled.
Then the rest were on them.
In a flash Nate leaped in front of the women and drew his loaded flintlock. A muscular warrior lunged at him. He sent a ball tearing into the man’s chest, then tossed the useless flintlock down and reversed his grip on the Hawken to use it as a club.
To his right Shakespeare was grappling with a robust adversary while others tried to get past at the women.
Samson sprang at an attacker, his huge jaws closing on the warrior’s throat.
A knife nicked Nate’s left arm, and he slammed the rifle stock into the face of the warrior responsible. A younger warrior darted in close and tried to rip open Nate’s abdomen. He just managed to deflect the blow, then smashed the stock into the Apache’s mouth. But there was no respite. A pair of warriors sprang on him at once. Nate went down under their combined weight, jerking his head aside as a blade streaked past. A knee gouged into his stomach. Something else rammed into his groin. His vision blurred. All around was confusion as his wife and friends fought frantically for their lives. Someone—a small girl?—screamed in mortal terror. Samson was snarling fiercely.
“No!” Nate cried as a knife cut him in the side. He heaved, throwing one of the warriors off, but the other had snatched up his rifle and he saw the bloody stock sweeping down. Again he jerked his head to the right, but this time he failed to avoid the blow. Stars exploded before his eyes. A numbing jolt jarred his chin. He struggled to recover his senses, to stand, yet he did no more than touch an elbow to the floor when a great black wall crashed on top of him. The last thing he heard was a flurry of shots.
~*~
Someone was speaking in Spanish. The words were fuzzy, as if his ears were plugged with cotton. He heard the last one clearly, though. The word “patron.”
A hand touched his shoulder. “Can you hear me, señor?”
Nate opened his eyes, and blinked in the sudden brightness of a nearby lantern. He was lying on the floor, but in the living room, not the hall, and next to him squatted Francisco Gaona, a very different Gaona from the self-possessed and confident host he had come to know and respect. Francisco’s face was almost colorless, his eyes haunted by inner anguish.
“Thank God you have survived!”
“The others?” Nate asked, attempting to rise. Waves of pain pounded his head and he sagged, momentarily weak.
“Shakespeare is in a bedroom being tended to by one of my servants. He was stabbed in the shoulder and the neck. A vaquero is already on the way to Santa Fe for the doctor.”
“Our wives? The children?”
“Gone.”
Pain or no pain, Nate pushed to his feet. He swayed, and Francisco held his arm until he steadied himself. “The Apaches took them?”
“Si. And two other women who have served my family faithfully for many years.”
Nate closed his eyes to ward off the tidal wave of despair that threatened to engulf him. Winona and Zach in the hands of Apaches! He might never see them again!
“Are you sure you should stand?” Francisco asked.
“I’m fine,” Nate lied, straightening and staring at his devastated friend. He touched his own forehead and felt a large bump. On his chin was a nasty welt. His left side, where the knife had cut him, had stopped bleeding. The cut itself was no more than an inch or two long and not worth being bothered about. “How long was I out?” he asked.
“Perhaps fifteen minutes, no more.”
The room was filled with bustling vaqueros, most disheveled, many grimy and sweaty, at least half sporting minor wounds. Those with more serious injuries were being treated by their friends. Others were loading guns. Some were preparing packs for travel.
“Tell me everything,” Nate said.
Francisco stepped wearily to a chair and sat down. The picture of dejection, he touched a bruise on his cheek while watching the swirl of activity. “From what I can gather, there were twenty to twenty-five savages in the band. A few went after the horses in the corral, but I suspect this was a trick on their part to keep my vaqueros busy while the rest broke into the hacienda. They were after captives, not horses.”
“They like to take prisoners?” Nate asked, thinking that his loved ones would be gruesomely tortured and left to rot somewhere in the vast wilderness.
“Not prisoners as such, señor. They like to steal women to be their wives and children they raise as their own.”
The mental image of Winona being molested by a leering Apache made Nate’s blood boil.
“I was out near the corral, helping my men, when I heard a great commotion inside and guessed what the devils were up to. Right away I came back in, but I was too late. You and Shakespeare were both down. My bedroom had been broken into and Apaches were dragging off our wives and the children. We shot some of the bastardos. The others used our wives as shields until they got out the back door. Then they vanished as Apaches always do.”
“Samson?” Nate asked, expecting to learn that the dog had sacrificed itself in their defense.
“Your great perro! I did not see him anywhere, my friend. Not even his body.”
“Would the Apaches have taken him?”
“I don’t see why. They would have no use for him except perhaps as food, and they can find plenty of that whenever they want. Apaches are masters at living off the land.”
Nate glanced at a vaquero who was stuffing a pack with jerked beef and bread. “You’re getting set to go after them?”
“At first light we will give chase. Tracking them is next to impossible but we must try. We must track them down before they reach the mountains or our loved ones will be lost forever.”
“Count me in.”
“I was hoping you would say that. It is most unfortunate that Shakespeare is not fit to travel. We could use another skilled tracker.”
“How many men are you taking?”
“Twenty,” Francisco answered. He stared at a groaning, bloody vaquero lying on the floor and scowled. “I can’t afford to take any more. Six of my men were killed. Four have been so gravely wounded that they will probably not live through another day. In addition, three of the servants were slain.”
“At least we made the Apaches pay dearly.”
“Did we? All we found was one dead savage.”
“With all the firing your men did? And I know that we accounted for five or six of them in the hallway, maybe more.”
“That is good to hear. But there is no way of knowing for sure how many were killed because Apaches don’t like to leave their dead behind,” Francisco said. He slowly stood and licked his dry lips. “This is all my fault. I should have posted more guards. But I wasn’t expecting much trouble after dark. Apaches rarely raid at night. They’ll steal horses and property,
but they don’t like to fight once the sun goes down. It has something to do with a belief that the spirits of those killed after dark will wander the earth instead of going on to the spirit land. Or so I was told.”
Nate was touched by Gaona’s feeling of guilt for what had happened. “You should get some rest before we head out,” he recommended.
“Could you sleep at a time like this?”
“No,” Nate admitted.
Their discussion was interrupted by the skilled vaquero named Ignacio, who entered the room, saw Nate, and came over bearing the Hawken and the flintlock Nate had tossed to the floor during the heat of the battle. He said something in Spanish and held the guns out.
“Ignacio believes these are yours,” Francisco related.
“Thank him for me,” Nate said, taking the weapons. He still had his other flintlock and his butcher knife, each wedged tight under his belt, leading him to comment, “I’m surprised the Apaches didn’t take all the guns they could lay their hands on.”
“They have little use for guns since powder and ammunition are so hard for them to obtain,” Francisco said. “And too, they can shoot arrows far faster than we can shoot our rifles and pistols, in many instances with much greater accuracy.”
Nate was thankful the Apaches had seen fit to use knives instead of bows in the house, no doubt so their hands would be free for in-close fighting or for taking captives. That made him think of his wife and son. “I’d like to see Shakespeare. Which room is he in?”
“Ignacio will show you,” Francisco replied, and gave instructions to that effect in Spanish.
The bedroom was at the middle of the hall. An elderly woman admitted him, then politely stepped outside so he could be alone with the grizzled mountain man. McNair, flat on his back with his upper chest and neck heavily bandaged, looked up and mustered a lopsided grin.
“The next time I get a notion to go gallivanting around the country, shoot me.”
Nate stared for a moment at the bright red stains on the bandages, then sat down on the edge of the bed. “Maybe you shouldn’t do much talking. It looks like you’ve lost a lot of blood.”
Wilderness: Northwest Passage/Apache Blood (A Wilderness Double Western #6) Page 24
