by Jory Sherman
He didn’t know how far ahead of him Trask was, but he had a hunch that the man would be holed up in one of the old stage stops, out of the rain and the wind.
He could not tell, in the darkness, whether the land was rising, but during the next splash of lightning, he saw a low hill off to his right. Was it high enough and wide enough to keep them all safe from any flooding? He did not know, but headed for the hill, and when Nox balked, he kept the horse on course. The horse’s hooves dug for purchase, dislodging small stones, sliding some on the wet ground. Zak was conscious of the others behind him, although he could not see or hear them above the roar of thunder.
Nox reached the top of the hill, and as he stepped forward, the ground beneath them leveled. The hill was larger than it had looked. The next lightning strike lit up the whole top for an instant, and Zak saw that it was high enough that they might escape all but the largest flash flood. The mound of rock and dirt was at least two hundred yards long and half as wide. Nothing grew there, and the ground was soaked and muddy. But it would do, he thought.
He reined in Nox and turned the horse, waited for the others to surround him.
“Can you all hear me?” he asked.
They all nodded, their head movements aggressive enough so he could see that they had all assented.
“We’re going to wait out the storm up here,” he said. “We won’t bunch up like you did back there. Instead, each person will have a station that covers most of the terrain up here. Kind of like a circle. It’s going to be wet and windy. Probably all night. I’ll check on each of you. You can hunker down under your horses, but look for anything that moves whenever there’s light enough to see. And don’t shoot me when I come riding or walking up on you. Any threat will probably come from down below.”
Zak paused for several seconds.
“Any questions?”
“None, Colonel,” O’Hara said.
“Call me Zak, or Cody, Ted. Drop the colonel from now on. I’m not in uniform.”
“Right, sir,” O’Hara said. “And I’d like to talk to you privately, Zak, when you’re finished assigning us all posts.”
“Yes.”
Zak spoke to Rivers first, told him he would guard the rear of the hill. Both men dismounted.
“I shot two men when I culled Lieutenant O’Hara from that outlaw bunch,” he told the soldier. “One was still alive when I went back for that horse. Never saw the other one.”
“What happened to the one you did see?” Rivers asked.
“He won’t mind the rain and the flood won’t drown him,” Zak said.
Rivers cleared his throat and saluted.
“None of that, either. Just forget I carry rank for now.”
“Yes, sir,” Rivers said. He held onto his reins and hunkered down underneath his horse’s belly. He faced the back end of the hill.
“You’ll face the wind, so get as close to the edge of this hill as you can,” Zak said.
“Yes…um, yeah, Cody.”
Zak smiled, but Rivers couldn’t see it. He left the soldier there and walked back to the others. O’Hara was stripping the saddle and rifle scabbard from Cavins’s horse. He handed the blanket to Colleen.
“Give you a dry place to sit for a while, sis,” he said.
“Thanks, Ted. Where do you want me, Zak?”
“You can stay with your brother or walk ten paces along this side and take up that position.”
“All right,” she said. Zak thought she sounded disappointed. He brushed it off. He would talk to her later.
“Scofield, you take the point,” Zak said. He pointed to the opposite end of the hill. “Keep a sharp eye.”
“Yes, sir,” Scofield said, and started walking his mount to the far end of the hill.
“I want you on this side, nearest the road, Ted,” Zak said. “Close to Rivers, in case he runs into anything.”
“You expect an attack from our rear?” O’Hara said.
“You never know.”
“What about you, Zak?” Colleen asked. “Where will you be?”
“I’ll be right across from you on that side, close to Scofield. You holler if you see anything that doesn’t seem right. A stray horse, a cow, a man walking up the hill.”
“I think I can handle it,” she said.
“Ted, let’s talk when you’re finished and then you can go to your post.”
“Won’t take a minute.” Ted finished attaching the scabbard to his horse and slid the rifle in its sheath.
“Colleen,” Zak said, “you might go through those saddlebags your brother took off that horse and see if there’s any grub there. Give the rifle cartridges to your brother.”
“Glad to,” she said cheerily, and Zak thought she needed a good slap, or a spanking.
He walked off toward the center of the hill and waited for O’Hara. Ted led his horse over a few minutes later.
“Go ahead, Ted,” Zak said. “What have you got to say?”
“I just wanted to say that I don’t think you need to press too much on following Trask and Ferguson. I know where they’re going.”
“How do you know that?”
“Trask forced me to mark on my map where Cochise’s camp was located. I marked them incorrectly. But I know where and how I marked them. I can find the spots easily, even without a map.”
“That’s good, Ted. Do you also know where Cochise is?”
“I know where he was, and I know the places he likes. For some reason, he trusted me.”
“Cochise is a good judge of character.”
“You know him, Zak?”
“We’ve met. Anything else?”
“Thanks for getting me away from that bunch. I have no doubt they would have killed me once they found what they were looking for.”
“Or didn’t find what they were looking for.”
“Yes.”
“All right. Take your post. I’ll see you by and by.”
O’Hara started to salute and caught himself in time. He grinned and walked off toward Rivers.
Zak saw Colleen sitting on the folded horse blanket under her horse’s belly. He knew she was wet and cold. They all were. It could not be helped.
The wind was much stronger when he took up his position almost directly opposite where she sat like a drenched bird. He crabbed under Nox and patted the horse’s chest, positioning him so his rear faced the wind from the northwest. It was all he could do on such a miserable night.
He worried about the lightning. They were all in the open and on high ground. A bolt could strike any one of them and fry their insides, boil their blood like pot coffee. And the snakes would join them. Might even see a deer or two, or a jackrabbit. It was a hellish place to be, and they would all be worn to a frazzle by morning.
He settled his rump on the cold, rocky ground and tested the looseness of his pistol in its holster. He might have to draw it fast, but wasn’t expecting anyone to ride up on them during the storm. Deets might still be alive. That was the name Cavins had mentioned. Or someone else. But if he had any sense at all, he’d be on his own hill or somewhere out of the rain and wind, if there was such a place.
Trask was probably warm and dry in the nearest stage stop, the bastard.
Zak didn’t want to think of him any more that night, and he didn’t.
Instead, he found himself thinking about Colleen, wishing he could hold her close and keep her warm. Lightning ripped through black clouds off to the south and west. The tremendous crash of thunder wiped out even those thoughts as he and Nox both shivered in the cold, relentless rain.
Chapter 10
The men in the adobe hut could all hear the water. They braced themselves in the darkness, pressing against mud-brick walls that might be washed away under tons of water at any moment. They forgot, in that moment, the stench that permeated the dwelling, the terrible odor of rotting human flesh, fecal matter, dried blood, the pungent scent of death that clung to the walls, ceiling, and floors like cave mold.
/> “Can we light a lamp, Ben?” Rawlins asked. “I can’t see a damned thing.”
“No,” Trask barked. “Hell no. You just hang on, Rawlins.”
The roar of water could be heard above the thunder. It sounded like something out of hell, a terrible liquid moan gushing out of the earth’s bowels, louder than a locomotive’s steam engine.
Trask stood near a window, looking out. Lightning splashed a brilliant glow over the land, and he saw a wall of mud and water speeding down the road. Behind the churning mass, he saw the flood tower higher still, as if some volcanic explosion were pushing it up until it swallowed everything on land in its massive voracious maw. Instinctively, he drew back from the window and threw his arms up in a defensive gesture.
Ferguson, a few feet away, saw Trask duck his head, and his eyes widened in horror and his gut knotted up in fear as a forked lightning bolt split open the darkness. A second later the adobe seemed to shudder from the thunder booming overhead. It sounded as if something had exploded inside the hut.
“What is it, Ben?” Ferguson said, his eardrums still reverberating from the sound of the thunderclap.
“Brace yourselves, boys,” Trask said. “There’s a damned river out there on the road.”
Ferguson heard the water. Fear clutched his throat with cold bony fingers. It sounded so close and so loud now.
The wall of water rushed past and a torrent struck the side of the adobe. Dirty water splashed through the windows. There was a loud screech as something scraped the side of the building, a board or a tree, something wooden, Trask thought.
Rawlins grunted. The Mexicans cried out the names of Jesus and Mary, in Spanish. Ferguson cursed. One of the Mexicans crossed himself. Those standing next to windows moved away from the wall and milled with the others in the center of the room.
A huge rock struck just below one window and knocked out three or four bricks. Water gushed through the hole and spread across the dirt floor. Trask jumped back and went to the opposite wall.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Rawlins shouted.
“We’re all going to be drowned like rats,” Ferguson yelled as more bricks fell away and more water rushed through the opening.
“You go outside, you’re a dead man, Hiram,” Trask yelled. “Everybody stay put.”
“We are going to die,” Hector Gonzalez whimpered.
“Shut up, Hector,” his brother Fidel said.
The sound grew horrendous as the water crashed into the adobe, hurling rocks and debris against the outer walls. The flood ravished the side of the adobe, widening the hole, pouring more water inside in pumping gushers. Soon the entire floor was underwater. Rawlins saw a chair fall over and make a splash as still more water rushed in through the widening aperture.
“Ben, we got to get the hell out of here,” Rawlins said.
“Damn you, Rawlins. Don’t go loco on me. You go outside, that water will wash you away like a damned straw.
“What if that wall goes?” Ferguson asked.
“We’ll get wet,” Trask said. “We’ll have three walls left and that’s what will keep us from drowning, you dumb sonofabitch.”
“Watch what you call me, Trask,” Ferguson said.
“Then shut your damned mouth, Hiram.”
Jaime Elizondo started muttering a prayer in Spanish. His voice quavered with fear.
All of the Mexicans moved to the opposite wall and braced themselves against it. Trask looked at them in disgust. Rawlins splashed over and stood with them. Ferguson hesitated a moment, then joined Rawlins. Trask stood alone in the center of the adobe, water up to his ankles and more pouring in through the hole. The bricks around the hole were crumbling, falling into the water, making plopping sounds. Outside, the flood raged on, growing wider and stronger, as if a dam had burst and released a deadly river.
“That wall’s a-goin’,” Ferguson shouted above the tumult.
Trask could see it. The old adobe bricks were crumbling under the force and pressure of the water. The hole widened just above the base of the wall, allowing more water to eat at the bricks.
“Nothing we can do about it,” Trask said.
“We have to get out of here,” Fidel said.
“You go outside, you’ll drown,” Trask said. “That flood will pass. Don’t nobody go off halfcocked here.”
But he was worried that the flood waters would engulf them as more and more of the south wall began to erode and turn to mud. Some water was sloshing onto the east wall, too, but so far there had been no breech. The wall was holding.
He had seen flash floods before, but none as dangerous as this one. He had seen horses and men swept away in an instant when sudden water came out of nowhere and washed over a dry streambed. The impression was a lasting one, and he thought of one such flood now. This one was far worse, and all he could think of was that something must have held the water back long enough to build up to such proportions.
Part of the south wall was holding, but as the water ate its way to the door, the hole widened and they could all see the rushing water in the sporadic flashes of lightning. It was a truly terrifying sight, Trask thought, as water rose above his ankles and began filling his boots.
Some of the others were lifting one foot up out of the water, taking off their boots, shaking them out, then doing the same with the other foot. It was a losing proposition, and Trask just wriggled his toes inside his boots to keep his blood circulating through his cold feet.
“What about the horses?” Rawlins said. “They ain’t hobbled. They’re liable to run off and maybe get drownded.”
“Better worry about yourself, Rawlins. Horses got more sense than you do.”
Trask knew that panic was the immediate danger. He didn’t have to look at the men to know that they were all scared, ready to bolt out into the storm rather than face death by drowning in an old adobe hut, trapped like rats in a rain barrel.
The best way to ride it out was to stay calm, he reasoned, and he knew that if he showed any sign of panic, some of the men would start crumbling just like those adobe bricks. He thought the horses would be all right. They were on higher ground. The flooding didn’t seem to be hitting the entire east wall, but only sloshing against less than half of it on the south side. As long as that wall held, they should be all right.
There was a sudden tug at the building and a large chunk of the south wall shuddered. More bricks disintegrated, disappearing in a tidal wash of water. More water gushed in, and the level rose to Trask’s knees. The thunder and lightning was still close and loud. The men jumped at every thunderclap, every stab of lightning. They had stopped emptying their boots, and through the murky darkness Trask saw them now looking upward, as if for a way to climb out of the adobe.
They weren’t floating yet, but he knew they might have to start treading water if the flood rose up to their necks.
Ferguson swore under his breath, but Trask heard it. He turned toward the man and shot him a hard look. He could not see his face in the dark, but he hoped Ferguson would just shut up. It took only one voice to yell fire in a crowded room to stampede the whole bunch.
Elizondo began whining.
“Callate, Jaime,” Hector Gonzalez said.
Then a broken timber slammed into the receding wall with great force, startling everyone. The log, or post, ripped a long gash into the bricks, crumbling them into granules that turned to mud as soon as they swirled into the water. More water gushed into the adobe, and the rest of the wall nearest the east wall began to break up, letting in gallons of water. It quickly rose above the knees of the men standing there.
Elizondo began to wail. It turned into a terrified scream, and he broke from the pack of men.
“Ya me voy,” he yelled and started toward the door.
“Parate,” Hector said. He stretched out a hand to try and stop Elizondo, but missed.
“Come back here,” Trask said. “Jaime, don’t open that door.”
Elizondo, in a panic, contin
ued to splash toward the door. When he reached down to open it, Trask drew his pistol.
Even in the dark, Trask could see Elizondo’s hulk as he raised his arm, cocking his pistol. He took aim and squeezed the trigger. The loud explosion made the men jump. The flash exposed Elizondo’s back for a brief moment as the bullet smacked into his spine, shattering the cord into bits.
Elizondo stiffened as his back arched in one final spasm. He let out a gasp and tumbled head first into the muddy water, paralyzed. There was a sucking sound as his mouth took in water. The smell of burnt powder and smoke hung in the air of the adobe.
The Gonzalez brothers gasped aloud. Another Mexican sobbed.
“Damn,” muttered Ferguson under his breath.
“Bastard,” Trask said. He did not holster his pistol, but turned to the men huddled against the wall.
“I’ll put out the lamp of any man who tries what Jaime did. You all stay put, or I’ll shoot every damned one of you before you take one step toward that door.”
No one spoke.
Trask slid his pistol back in its holster. “Just try me,” he said, glaring at the men.
“Nobody’s goin’ to try that, Ben,” Ferguson said.
“They better not.”
“Did you have to kill him?” Rawlins said.
“He would have drowned anyway,” Trask said.
The water kept rising. It was up to their crotches now, and the men squirmed. They were wet and miserable. They could see the water with each flash of lightning, and most of them trembled in fear as water kept hurtling past the adobe. The thunder came from farther away now, but the rain and wind were relentless.
The water rose slightly, but now it was from the rain more than the flood.
Trask knew that if they could hold on for another hour or so, the water would go down and they could think about drying out, getting some grub in their bellies, checking on the horses.
His right hand never strayed far from the butt of his pistol.
The Mexicans would be angry, he knew, now that he had killed one of their number. They were Ferguson’s men, but they were working for him. They wanted the Apache gold as much as he did, and that would serve to hold their tempers down, perhaps, keep them in check.
