“Then you do not blame me, lord,” the woman said.
“No. I do not blame you.”
“But you will come for me.”
“Three nights ago when the moon rose, did I not come for you then, child?”
“Is that why I walk in mist?”
“Yes, since I visited you.”
“Then what do I do, lord?”
“You must go now.”
The old woman did not argue. The great lord’s icy heart would not be moved. She walked down the slope from the cave and disappeared into the haze of the morning.
The boy was puzzled. “Grandfather, are you really the lord of death?”
“I am what people believe I am.”
“I believe you are just an old man who guards the golden bell,” the boy said. “The last of your kind.”
“Then that’s what I am, and that’s all that I am,” the old man said. “Come, I will show you something. You will be the guardian one day soon, and it is time you saw the bell that never rang and the bird that never sang.”
The boy bowed. “Grandfather, you do me great honor.”
“It will only be a fleeting glimpse and at a distance,” the old man said. “To approach the bell too closely is to die.”
“I will remember,” the boy said.
“Good, my days are numbered short,” the old man said. “Soon you will be the guardian.”
“Will I be a great lord like you?”
“If you wish it.”
“I do not wish it, Grandfather.”
“Then be the guardian, little one, and nothing more.”
Jack Coffin watched the old woman walk down the hill and vanish like smoke into the pines.
The day was growing hot and sweat beaded his forehead. The knot in his belly tightened, a tension that was close kin to fear.
Coffin felt the time of his death approaching, but now or later, he had no way of telling.
It was best that he prepared.
Hidden from the cave mouth by trees, Coffin tethered his horse then kneeled and took a round mirror from around his neck and with it a small buckskin bag, beaded in the blue and white Apache style.
Coffin drew his knife and cut deep into his forearm. He mixed his blood into the powder he’d taken from the bag then smeared two lines of yellow war paint across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose.
He checked himself in the mirror and nodded. It was good.
Yellow was the color of death. But it also meant that the wearer was a heroic warrior who had led a good life and was therefore eligible to follow the buffalo in the next world.
Coffin sang his death song then mounted his horse.
It was time to find the golden bell . . . and fulfill his destiny.
CHAPTER FORTY
“Did you enjoy seeing justice done, my dear?” Colonel Andrew Grove said.
“Perhaps, Andrew,” Winnifred Grove said. “But I keep having the most singular thought that a hundred lashes would have been more appropriate.”
“A hundred might have killed him, especially laid on by Sergeant Fuller.”
“He’s a brute, a savage beast, and I am sure he could have survived a hundred of the best.”
Grove shrugged. “Fuller would have torn him to ribbons. But it’s a thought.” The colonel rose to his feet. “Now, my dear, if you will excuse me. Duty calls.”
“Of course, Andrew. I’m sure Mrs. Ashton will take excellent care of me.”
After the colonel left, Maude Ashton, plump and motherly, stepped to the decanters on the parlor table. “A sherry, Winnifred?”
“Please. I must confess, I’m a bit used up after the excitement of the morning.”
“Is that the word you choose to use, Winnifred—excitement?”
“Is there another?” Winnifred Grove’s thin eyebrows arched.
“To see a man whipped to an inch of his life and then publically humiliated is hardly exciting.”
“It was droll then.” She flashed her huge teeth. “Positively droll, I should’ve said.”
Maude handed Winnifred her glass and sat opposite her by the cold fireplace.
“Tragic,” she said.
“I beg your pardon?” Winnifred said.
The sherry was a leftover from Colonel Ashton’s stock and after Winnifred sipped, she made sure Maude saw her make a face.
“It was tragic, not exciting. It was a tragic thing to see, a strong man broken that way. It reminded me of how the Roman soldiers whipped our blessed Savior.”
“Asa Pagg is hardly Jesus,” Winnifred said. “He did try to rape me, you know.”
“Is that what he did?”
“Do you doubt my word?”
“I watched you on the parade ground as the naked man was being lashed, Winnifred,” Maude said. “I have always believed that such paroxysms you displayed were confined to the male of the species.”
“I don’t understand,” Winnifred said. “And I certainly didn’t understand the word you used.”
“Paroxysm? Why, it means convulsion, spasm, throe . . . I’m sure now you understand.”
Winnifred’s cheekbones reddened. She searched for something to say, but the words eluded her.
Maude Ashton filled in the blanks.
“Mrs. Grove, you’re a cheap slut,” she said. “And this morning you took pleasure in seeing the man you seduced cut to ribbons with a whip.”
Winnifred rose to her feet. “So what if I did? What are you going to do about it?”
Maude laid down her glass, got to her feet and said, “Get out of my house, madam.”
Then, reciting the words of what would be her death warrant, “I’ll talk to your husband later. But first I’ll read my Bible and pray for your immortal soul, for surely you are damned, like the whore Salome who demanded the head of John the Baptist.”
The open window in Maude Ashton’s tiny parlor pleased Winnifred Grove greatly. She smiled to herself. It was made for murder.
Unfortunately, the only weapon to hand was her husband’s .41 caliber Colt Cloverleaf revolver, a gift from some general or other, and it held only four rounds.
Winnifred frowned. Well, it would just have to do. And after all, she was a good markswoman, as the colonel had often told her.
She removed four extra rounds from the box in the drawer and slipped those and the little revolver into the pocket of her gray day dress. Winnifred stepped to the rear of her quarters, opened the back door just wide enough for her head, and she looked around.
Jolly good. There was no one in sight.
A sandy, cactus-studded area lay beyond the headquarters building and stretched all the way to officers’ row where Maude Ashton’s quarters were located. Here and there a few spruce and piñon cast dark circles of thin shade and Winnifred watched a jackrabbit run into a jumble of rocks and vanish from sight.
The woman scowled. The sand was not good since it would hold her footprints, but there was no other choice. She could hardly march right up to Maude’s front door and demand entry. She’d attract too much attention that way.
No matter, the old bitch had to be silenced. She was a troublemaker.
Winnifred stepped outside, the heat hitting her like a fist. The sun burned white hot in a colorless sky and there was no breeze.
She walked past the rear of the headquarters building at a fast pace and was glad to see that in most of the windows shades had been pulled down against the glaring sunlight. Winnifred was sure she’d passed unnoticed.
Her breath coming in little gasps, she hurried to the officers’ quarters. There she felt safe from prying eyes, since all the officers and noncoms were attending one of the colonel’s interminable meetings.
The Apache prisoners were due soon and Andrew was beside himself with worry, fretting about supplying the savages with food and water before escorting them to Fort Grant.
As though anyone cared!
But her husband’s worries worked in Winnifred Grove’s favor. There had been no one around to see her and now
she walked on cat feet to the open window, crouched low and raised her head just high enough to see inside.
Relief flooded through Winnifred. It looked as though she’d made it just in time.
Maude Ashton had laid her Bible on the dresser and now, her broad back turned to the window, she settled her shawl around her shoulders.
Winnifred grimaced. She was going to speak to Andrew, the vicious old biddy.
Slowly, carefully, Winnifred brought up the Colt, laid the short barrel on the windowsill, aimed and fired.
The impact of the bullet staggered Maude Ashton for a moment and then she tried to turn. But Winnifred was already shooting again. Two more bullets slammed into the woman’s back and left side and she slowly sank to the floor, dragging the Bible with her.
The Good Book fell on top of the woman and fluttered open. As to what chapter and verse was revealed, Winnifred did not know or care. She had other things on her mind.
Hurry! Hurry! Reload!
Her hands trembling, Winnifred fumbled out the empty shells, shoved them into her pocket and grabbed the fresh rounds.
From somewhere she heard shouts and running feet, and tears sprang into her eyes.
Oh my God, she was going to be too late!
A groan rattled in Maude Ashton’s throat as Winnifred finally loaded the three empty chambers of the Cloverleaf and thumbed the cylinder shut. Praying that she was still in time she bolted for her own rooms in the administration building, and immediately cut loose with her revolver, shooting wildly into the air. As she ran, firing her remaining three shots, she methodically retraced her own footsteps.
Finally Winnifred reached the rear door of her quarters . . . and swooned expertly in a faint.
“Oh, my dearest, my darling, what more horror can befall you?” Colonel Andrew Grove said as he patted the back of his wife’s hand.
Winnifred’s eyelids fluttered open. The first person she saw was Captain Owen Shaw standing across the room, a cynical smile on his lips, his brown eyes slightly amused.
So you know, Winnifred thought. Damn you, you know!
It was time to pile it on. The only man that mattered here was her husband.
“Oh, Andrew, it was terrible. I saw poor Maude die before my eyes.”
“You’ve had an awful experience, my love, but there is good news. Maude Ashton is still clinging to life.”
“She’s what?” Winnifred said. It was more exclamation than question.
Grove smiled. “Yes, my dear, it’s true. She was a soldier’s wife and she’s a tough lady.” His smile widened. “There, does that make you feel better?”
Winnifred avoided looking at Shaw’s grin and she said, “That is the most singular good news, Andrew, and of the greatest moment. I feel my womanly spirit soar.”
She closed her eyes. The bitch was still alive! What rotten luck!
Her husband was talking again. “Now, if you feel up to it, can you”—he waved a hand toward his officers—“tell us what happened?”
“Andrew, it’s most painful to relate.”
“I know, my brave love. But please try.”
The story Winnifred told was that Maude Ashton was reading to her from the Bible when she was so terribly wounded.
“I recall that she just finished reading that blessed passage from Mark 5:34 where Jesus says, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your suffering.’”
Winnifred looked as though she was about to swoon again, but Colonel Grove said, “Bear up, my love. Tell us . . . tell us all . . .”
“I will, my dear. I will do my very best.” Winnifred took a deep, shuddering breath and said, “Maude got up from her chair to pour me a glass of sherry, ere I fainted from the sheer emotion I felt in my breast.”
“My poor love!” the colonel exclaimed, apparently in the deepest despair.
“And it was then that a rifle rang out, again and again. Oh sweet Jesus! Poor Maude fell, shot through and through, weltering in her blood.”
Winnifred was careful not to let her eyes linger on Captain Shaw.
Why did he keep smiling like that?
After her husband urged her to tell more, Winnifred told him that after her “narrow escape from a fate worse than death,” she’d taken to carrying the small revolver she’d found in her husband’s desk to protect her “greatest treasure.”
“And I’m glad you did, my poor darling,” the colonel said.
“Thus armed, I sprang to my feet and ascertained that the shots had come through the open window,” she said. “I rushed outside, only to see the shadowy figure of a murderous savage among the trees.”
“An Apache, my dear?” her husband said. “Was it an Apache?”
“One would suppose,” Winnifred said. “Oh, I was so afraid, but I shot at the animal in human form. And then, still firing, I ran to seek you, Andrew, but fainted ere I found you.”
“My brave, stalwart love!” the colonel said, tears welling in his eyes.
He’d gotten down on one knee beside his wife, but he sprang to his feet.
“Captain Shaw, organize a search of the country around the fort. Bring me that damned Apache,” he said.
“I doubt if we’ll find him, sir,” Shaw said. He looked directly at Winnifred. “Such Apaches are phantoms.”
Shaw continued to stare directly at Winnifred, but her eyes slid from his like lizards off a hot rock.
“I don’t want your doubts, Captain,” Grove said. “I want results. Bring me the Apache’s head.”
“Sir,” Shaw said, saluting sharply.
He cast a last, lingering look at Winnifred and stepped outside, calling for Sergeant Fuller.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
The black bear was interested but wary, the sight and smell of a naked human beyond anything in his experience.
But he was hungry and hunger can make a bear bold.
Asa Pagg, his back against an arrowhead of sandstone rock that jutted from the bed of the dry wash, knew he was in a heap of trouble.
Weak from the whipping he’d taken and unarmed, he was in no shape to tackle an aggressive bear one-on-one.
Pagg’s wrists and the palms of his swollen hands were scraped raw and he felt blood trickle down his fingertips. He’d worked his bonds against the sandstone for an hour, but felt no loosening or even a suggestion that the rope was fraying.
The bear shambled toward Pagg, its soulless eyes, like black beads, never leaving his face.
Pagg filled his chest with air and yelled at the top of his lungs, “Get the hell away from here, Ephraim!”
Momentarily puzzled, the bear stopped, then reared onto its hind legs as though to get a better look at the human.
Then it came on again. Its coat was muddy and stuck all over with dead leaves and one ear was notched, a V-shaped chunk bitten off in some old mating tussle.
If a man says his prayers at night and is real lucky, he can sometimes holler a loud yell that will frighten off a brown bear or even a grizzly.
But not the black bear.
If he has his heart set on killing a man, he’ll keep on coming and with fang and claw he’ll always finish the job he started. It’s harsh and cruel, but it’s his way.
And nobody knew that better than Asa Pagg.
“Damn you, Ephraim, get it over with,” he yelled, his face stiff with fear.
The bear trotted forward and now only a dozen yards separated Pagg from a horrific and lingering death.
Then six . . .
Then three . . .
Then . . .
Pagg saw the animal drop a split second before he heard the shot.
He looked around him and saw a drift of smoke in the pines that topped a rock ridge to the north of the draw.
The outlaw kept his eyes on the smoke that finally faded away, to be replaced by a man riding a mustang and leading another.
As the man rode off the ridge, Asa Pagg recognized Deputy Marshal Pleasant Tyrell by his top hat and lanky frame.
He sighed. Out of the frying pan into the fire, damnit.
Tyrell drew rein about ten feet from Pagg and let his eyes roam over the dead bear.
“Lucky I happened along, Asa,” he said.
“Not for the bear,” Pagg said. “His luck ran out.”
“You seem to be prospering, Asa,” Tyrell said.
“Yeah, I took to walking around the high country nekkid.”
He squinted at the lawman, who had his back to the glare of the sun. Pleasant was always a careful man.
“What brings you to these parts?” Pagg said.
“You.”
“So I figgered. You got a warrant?”
“Sure do. Dead or alive, the choice is yours.”
“Where are you taking me, Pleasant?”
“Fort Defiance, I reckon, Asa. I’ll lock you up there until I can arrange for your transportation to Santa Fe.”
“Hell, they just kicked me out of Fort Defiance and I’ve got the scars on my back to prove it,” Pagg said.
“When I tell them what a nice, wholesome feller you are, Asa, they’ll welcome you with open arms,” Tyrell said.
“You’ll see I get hung in Santa Fe, huh?”
“Sure I will, Asa, but only after you get a fair trial.”
“You’re gold dust, Marshal.”
“Hell, I know that,” Tyrell said.
He stepped out of the saddle.
“Get to your feet, Asa,” he said.
Pagg smiled. “I can’t do that without help, Marshal. I’m as weak as a baby and you’ll have to lift me.”
The expression on Tyrell’s face didn’t change. “Asa, get to your feet or I’ll kill you,” he said.
“Be damn to ye fer a hard-hearted old rogue,” Pagg said.
But he scrambled to his feet.
“Turn around, Asa,” Tyrell said. He stared at Pagg’s back, then said, “That’s a hell of a thing to do to a man, even a lowlife like you.”
“Thirty of the best, Tyrell,” Pagg said. “Laid on by a sergeant I mean to kill one day.”
“That day will never come, Asa,” Tyrell said. He was silent for a while, then said, “Your hands are swelled up to twice their size.” Then, after another pause, as though he’d been studying on the ramifications, “I’m going to have to cut that rope off’n you, Asa, and let you work your fingers awhile.”
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