The Mexican shrugged. “As for the girls, I want them for myself.” He tapped himself on the chest. “They will amuse Carlos Hernandez the great bandit chief for a while and they will consider it a great honor. Then, when I am finished with them, I will give the señoritas to my men. Because”—Hernandez opened his arms wide, threw back his head, and yelled—“I am a flowing river to my people!”
This last drew cheers from the bandits and one of them fired his rifle into the air in celebration.
After the commotion died down, Hernandez said, “Flintlock, my friend, an eye for an eye, so what do I take for a hand that has withered to a twisted hook?”
Flintlock answered that question with one of his own. “Why did you kill the miners, you damned savage?”
“Gold,” Hernandez said. “But they had none and that was unlucky for them.”
Flintlock tried again. “Let the girls go and we’ll talk.”
Suddenly Hernandez was angry. “I don’t wish to talk about the women. They are nothing. We will talk about what you will give me for my good right hand.”
The Mexican stood, grim-faced, waiting for Flintlock’s answer.
Rain ticked on the shoulders of his oilskin army cloak as thunder roared and lightning clashed. To the north, above the distant mountains, a streak of light gray showed among the black clouds, a promise that the storm had reached its climax and would not last much longer.
“When I get back to Texas, I’ll send you a couple of bucks,” Flintlock said. “How does that set with you?”
Hernandez made no reply, but his unspoken answer was obviously “not well,” because he used his left hand, heavy with rings, to deliver a smashing backhand to Flintlock’s face.
The blow came out of nowhere, caught Flintlock flatfooted and he staggered and fell. His gun jerked out of his waistband and the Mexican kicked it away.
Hernandez didn’t give him a chance to rise. His boots thudded again and again into Flintlock’s ribs, vicious kicks that hurt and robbed him of breath.
Finally the bandit stepped back and said, “Get him to his feet.”
A couple of men dragged Flintlock erect. Hernandez smiled at him and said, “A hand for a hand, my friend. How does that set with you?”
The taste of blood in his mouth, Flintlock said, “You go to hell.”
“Ah, then you agree with my judgment,” Hernandez said. “But you will be the one in hell, my friend.”
He turned to his men and said, “Juan, bring your ax. And a block.”
The man called Juan had the eyes of a lizard. He pulled a tomahawk from his belt and stepped in front of Flintlock who swayed on his feet, weak from the kicking he’d taken.
Juan pointed out an upright, blade-scarred log near the cabin. “Bring me that,” he said. When a couple of men laid the cutting block at his feet, he looked to Hernandez for guidance.
“I will cut off his hand, his gun hand,” the bandit chief said. “Prepare him for my justice, Juan.”
Several grinning Mexicans manhandled Flintlock onto his back. After a rope was looped around his right wrist, a man sat on the wet mud and pulled, forcing the hand onto the block.
Hernandez took the tomahawk from Juan and said, “Flintlock, my very good friend, this may take more than one . . . how do you say? . . . chop. But I will do my best.”
“Hernandez, you’re a damned, filthy animal,” Flintlock said, between gritted teeth.
“Perhaps.” The Mexican grinned. “But I am the one with the ax, I think.”
Hernandez stooped a little, stared at Flintlock’s hand for a few moments . . . and then raised the tomahawk.
The blow never fell.
A .45-70 bullet drilled through the crown of Carlos Hernandez’s sombrero, smashed into the top of his bowed head and exited at the base of his skull in a gory eruption of blood, bone and brain.
The Apaches struck with incredible swiftness and violence.
Smarting from their defeat at Fort Defiance, they fell on the Mexicans like ravening wolves.
Within a couple of minutes, the ground was littered with dead bandits. Those were the lucky ones.
The man called Juan was taken alive . . . and so was Sam Flintlock.
The ten Apache women who emerged from Shiprock Wash in the wake of the warriors were wild with grief for the sons, husbands and lovers killed at Fort Defiance.
Knives drawn, they sprang on the bodies of the dead Mexicans and soon their hands and arms to the elbows were scarlet with blood, as they cut, stabbed and mutilated.
The bandits were not soldiers, but they were still the hated enemy of a people without friends.
Juan, shrieking in pain and terror, was hacked to death and his decapitated head was kicked along the rain-soaked ground like a football.
Throughout this terrifying, crimson-splashed nightmare, Flintlock was left alone. No one came near him, even when he brushed past a warrior and stepped beside the Chinese girls who were still mounted and like him, unharmed.
Numbed by the horror around him, the human intestines curled on the ground like pink snakes, Flintlock tried to say something to the girls, but the words stuck in his throat as though he’d swallowed a dry chicken bone.
Why was he being ignored?
Flintlock felt a twinge of fear. As the only white man among the bandits, was he being singled out for special treatment by the Apache women?
Their anger finally slaked, the women stood in a bloodstained group, consoling each other amid tears and wails.
Flintlock counted only eight warriors, all of them young bucks, who now stood in silence, rifles in their arms, and stared at him, their black eyes revealing nothing.
Then he saw Geronimo.
Mounted on a small mustang pony, the Apache seemed heedless of the rain as he rode toward Flintlock. He looked old and tired and the lines on his face had deepened. Geronimo was a man who’d ridden one trail too many and knew it.
His shoulders stooped, he stopped a few yards from Flintlock and said, “There is a mountain to the east of here the white men call Shiprock. The peak was once the nesting place of a giant bird of prey, like the one you bear on your throat. It is a sacred place.”
Flintlock nodded as though he understood the Apache’s drift. He didn’t.
Geronimo said, “I had a vision at the mountain. I saw the great bird of prey swoop down and gather up all the Apaches, men, women and children, in its talons. Then it flew away with my people into the setting sun. This caused me great sadness.”
“What does it mean, Geronimo?” Flintlock said. He figured his life was hanging by a thread and he was determined to be affable.
“It means that soon the Apache will be no more. Their day is done.”
“Sorry to hear that,” Flintlock said. “The Apache are a brave people.”
Geronimo nodded. “It is good to be brave, but the white men are more in number than the stars in the night sky, and they have guns and cannon.”
He shook his head, his face drawn. “I will lay down the heavy load I have carried since boyhood. I will follow the white man’s trail and make him my friend, but I will not bend my back to his burdens.”
“You will surrender, Geronimo?”
“When the great bird took my people, I saw a few fall from its claws. Those that are left I will save. Yes, I will surrender.”
The Apache said something to his warriors and they gathered the Mexican horses and their guns and ammunition.
“Sam Flintlock, you are under my protection,” Geronimo said. “I give you your life.” He looked at the Chinese girls. “Yours?”
Flintlock said, “Yes, they are mine.”
“Then you may have them.”
“You saved me, Geronimo,” Flintlock said. “I would have no hands if you hadn’t showed up when you did. I would’ve bled to death.”
“Let me see the tomahawk,” Geronimo said. “I may keep it to remind me of this day.”
Flintlock picked up the weapon and handed it to the Apache.
Geronimo stared at the tomahawk for a while, then threw it away. “Faugh, it is Pima and a filthy thing.”
He swung his horse away and his warriors and the women followed.1
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
“You little gals have caused me nothing but grief,” Sam Flintlock said. “I swear, if you run away again I’ll leave you to get eaten by bears.”
“We were afraid of the mountain and the cave,” the older sister said.
“Yeah, well, we’re pulling out as soon as I get back to camp,” Flintlock said. “We’ll take you somewhere safe.”
“Where will that be?” the girl said.
“I don’t know. But we’ll find a place.”
Then the girl surprised him. “We will go where Charlie goes,” she said.
Flintlock smiled. “I’m not sure about that.”
“We are,” the girl said.
“You ran away from Charlie,” Flintlock said.
“Yes, we did, but he would have found us.”
There was some female logic in there somewhere, but Flintlock couldn’t find it, nor did he try.
“Let’s ride,” he said, kneeing his horse forward.
Behind him the naked, bloody bodies of Carlos Hernandez and his men stared at the sky with eyes that could no longer see.
His choice of profession had made Abe Roper a cautious man and Flintlock made a point of hailing the camp before he and the Chinese girls rode into sight.
It was a wise precaution because Roper and Charlie Fong stood away from the firelight in darkness, rifles in their hands.
“Halt. Who goes there?” Roper yelled.
“Hell, Abe, it’s me. Don’t you recognize my voice?” Flintlock called out. “And who in blazes taught you to say, ‘Halt. Who goes there?’”
“The army teached me that at Fort Defiance, Sammy,” Roper said. “I took a liking to it, on account of how it sounds official an’ that.” The outlaw deepened his voice. “Halt. Who goes there? That’ll stop a man in his tracks all right.”
“Stopped me in mine, that’s fer sure,” Flintlock said. “We’re coming in.”
When he rode into camp, Charlie Fong said, “The wanderers return.”
“You seem to be doing better, Charlie,” Flintlock said.
“I wasn’t in the gas for too long, I guess,” Fong said. “The old man dragged me out of there.”
Flintlock nodded. “I know.”
He swung out of the saddle and Charlie helped the girls dismount. Then he took them aside and with much finger jabbing chided them. They didn’t look too penitent, Flintlock decided.
“Where did you find them, Sam’l?” Roper said.
“Out by Shiprock Mountain,” Flintlock said. Then, anticipating Roper’s question, “It’s about twenty miles due east.”
“Them little gals rode a fer piece,” Roper said.
“They’re afraid of the cave,” Flintlock said. “And so am I. Come morning, I’m pulling my freight, Abe.”
“Sets fine by me,” Roper said. “Though it sure hurts to leave the golden bell behind.”
“I don’t see that we have any choice,” Flintlock said. “Maybe wait twenty, thirty years and try it again.”
Ayasha ran to Flintlock and threw her arms around his neck. “I was so worried about you, Sam,” she said.
Flintlock smiled. “And with good reason.” He said to Roper, “I got a story to tell, Abe, after I unsaddle the horses. Put the coffee back on to bile, huh?”
After he returned to the fire and poured himself coffee, Flintlock built a cigarette, ignored Roper’s growing impatience, and said to Ayasha, “You look much better. The smile is coming back to your eyes.”
The girl nodded. “Maybe it’s thinking so much about the house with the white picket fence.”
“Keep thinking that way, Ayasha. It will happen one day,” Flintlock said.
“Damnit all, Sammy, what’s your story?” Roper said. “You know I love stories, so tell it.”
So Flintlock did.
“Ol’ Carlos Hernandez is dead, huh?” Roper said when Flintlock had finished.
“You sound almost sorry, Abe,” Flintlock said.
“I guess I am,” Abe said. “He was a good bandit, an uncivilized man in a country that’s closing in on us, Sam’l, slowly makin’ us all civilized.” He shook his head. “Even the train-robbing profession has gone to hell and Jesse ain’t around anymore to bring it back.”
“Good ol’ Carlos was about to cut off my gun hand,” Flintlock said.
Roper nodded. “Yeah, I know, I know. But he was always gettin’ up to pranks like that. He didn’t mean nothin’ by them.”
Flintlock was about to jump down Roper’s throat for the “pranks” remark, but he let it go and allowed Abe’s eulogy for a brother outlaw stand.
It was Geronimo, not civilization, that had killed Carlos Hernandez, but Roper was so down in the mouth, Flintlock decided not to mention it.
During the night the rock shelf above the cave entrance groaned and slid a foot lower, stone grinding on stone.
The old man, who’d been asleep in the Spanish chair, woke when he heard the rock grumble.
He stepped outside. The rain had stopped, the sky had cleared and the moon was bright.
His eyesight was not good, but his ears were keen and he listened. The rock shelf was now still, but a few pieces of stone the size of river pebbles had been shaken loose and they fell and hit the rain-soaked ground with soft thuds.
The shelf seemed more threatening and loomed above the cave entrance like a massive, clenched fist.
The old man was very afraid. The shelf was ready to come down and bury the cave entrance behind tons of rock. It was only a matter of time, he thought. Today, tomorrow, a year from now?
He had no way of knowing.
But right then he made the decision that he would no longer leave the cave. If the mountain buried him forever then let it be his tomb.
The old man stepped back inside and sat in the Spanish chair.
He sensed that his death was very close, coming from the south, riding through rain.
The prayer he whispered was not an appeal for his life, rather it was an expression of his gratitude for the great honor of guarding the bell that fell from heaven.
He heard the rock shelf shift again, just a few inches, but enough to grate and grind a warning.
The old man smiled, and then slept without dreams.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
“Does it rain all summer long in this part of the territory?” Asa Pagg said.
“Seems like,” Logan Dean said.
Irritated, Pagg said, “Where the hell is Joe? He should be back by now.”
“Maybe he met up with Abe Roper an’ them,” Dean said.
“A meeting of idiots,” Pagg said. “It’s what that would be.”
Ahead of him rose the peaks and mesas of the high country. The tall mountains, green trees growing here and there on their slopes, looked like mildewed bronze in the morning light.
“You really reckon they found the bell, Asa?” Dean said.
“They’re idiots. How the hell should I know?” Pagg said.
“Abe Roper is a gun,” Dean said. “And so is Flintlock.”
“So?”
“I’m just sayin’.”
“You sceered, Logan?” Pagg said.
“Nope.”
“You leave Roper and Flintlock to me,” Pagg said.
Dean smiled. “You can shade ’em, Asa. I got no doubt about that.”
“Damn right I can,” Pagg said. “There ain’t a man born of woman that I can’t shade.”
Joe Harte showed up fifteen minutes later.
“Well?” Pagg said before the man could talk.
“I found them, Asa. About two miles ahead. They got three women with them,” Harte said.
“All the comforts of home, huh?” Pagg said.
“Two little Chinese gals and a white women, and she’s a looker,” Harte said.
> “Good. After we have the bell, if Roper’s found it, we’ll take their women. They’ll be a comfort to us when we’re riding down to Old Mexico.”
“Take ’em even if we don’t get the bell,” Harte said.
“That goes without sayin’,” Pagg said. As Harte kneed his horse beside his, Pagg said, “Did you go into their camp? Tell them we’re on our way?”
Harte shook his head. “No, sir, I scouted them at a distance.” He looked at Pagg. “Roper’s all right. He can be affable by times, but not Flintlock. He’s good with a gun and he’s a killer. I reckoned it was time enough to ride into their camp when I had you backing me, Asa.”
Pagg nodded. “Probably a wise decision. If Flintlock drew down on you, he’d kill you.”
“Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn’t,” Harte said. “But I don’t want to put it to the test. It’s way too close. Know what I mean?”
“I know what you mean, but he ain’t close to me or even near,” Pagg said.
“An’ that’s a natural fact, Asa,” Dean said.
“Hello, the camp,” Asa Pagg hollered from the pines.
“Who goes there?” Roper said, drawing a hard look from Flintlock.
“Asa Pagg, Logan Dean an’ Joe Harte,” Pagg yelled. “All respectable, friendly folks.”
“Come on in, Asa,” Roper said. “Coffee’s on the bile.”
His slicker glistening, Pagg rode close to the fire that was reasonably well protected under trees.
“Is this all it does in this here country? Rain?” he said.
“Summer storms is all, Asa,” Roper said. “You boys light an’ set.”
Pagg and the others swung out of the saddle and the outlaw’s eyes ranged over the women who were huddled near the fire.
He turned his attention to Flintlock, who had opened his slicker.
“Howdy, Sam,” he said. “Good to see you again.”
“What brings you to this neck of the woods, Asa?” Flintlock said.
Pagg made no answer. He squatted by the fire, lifted the lid of the coffeepot and glanced inside. After finding a tin cup, Pagg poured himself coffee and told Dean and Harte to do the same.
Flintlock Page 25
