by Mark Henry
The three other trackers sat quietly in their saddles and studied the ground, looking up every few seconds and scanning their surroundings, but always returning to the ground with their eyes so as to give Marshal Roman plenty of time to make a decision regarding their plan of action.
“Denihii,” Ky said at length, using O’Shannon’s Apache moniker. He drew a slow steady breath through his hawkish nose—a sure sign he’d come to a conclusion. “Can you tell me how long ago the riders passed this way?”
Trap nodded. “Half a day—if that. We’re close.”
“Let me tell you how I see it then, boys,” Roman said. “And remember, this isn’t the Army so feel free to question me. With all these fires, we’re apt to be cut off from either trail at any time. I’m not familiar enough with this country to know what kind of a game these people are up to, but I’m not prepared to leave here without the Kenworth girl. I am loath to split our forces, but I propose taking Blake with me for a reconnoiter of the mine area by Old Man Creek while you two slip up this old wagon track toward the fires as quick as you safely can and see what sign you can cut. If you find anything that leads you to believe they’ve taken the girl in that direction, or you find the group has reunited somehow by means of a side trail, one of you watch while the other scoots back to get us. We’ll follow the same counsel if we see anything of the girl our direction.”
“If we have the chance, we’ll just take her back when we come on ’em.” Clay wasn’t much for a lot of waiting when his quarry was in sight and everyone knew it.
“If you can do it safely.” Roman narrowed an eye and stared hard enough at his old subordinate to make most men look away. “I trust your judgment.”
Clay grinned. “No, you don’t, Captain. You can’t help but like me, but you never did learn to trust me to be anything but a hothead. Trap’ll be along to lord it over me and you trust his judgment, so I guess that’ll have to do.” He took off his hat and made a wide, sweeping gesture toward the High and Lonesome. “After you, partner. Let’s go give the captain something to fret over.”
CHAPTER 19
The side trip to the ghost town was not part of the plan and never had been. Lucius Feak had thought that up all by himself. The more he pondered on his decision to deviate from the original arrangements, the more frightened he got—and Feak was not an easy man to scare. Even now, it wasn’t the kind of skin-crawling, trembling, piss-your-pants kind of fear he saw in other people’s eyes.
This was deeper. Much deeper. It was as if he knew he was finished, like the final seconds of realization a condemned man must feel in the moment before the rope tightens around his throat and snaps his neck—a kind of broken-bone ache that seeped through his entire body like the smoke in the air round him.
Maybe the boss would agree with him about the place. Anything was possible, although from what he’d seen of the boss, he wasn’t a man who liked anyone changing his plans.
The abandoned house where Feak chose to hole up was still in decent shape considering it hadn’t been lived in for over five years. Dust and cobwebs covered the inside of the small single room. There was porcupine damage to some of the wood, and the lone window on the west wall had been pried out, presumably by the place’s frugal former inhabitants who thought they could put the glass panes to good use elsewhere. Apart from the window, the previous owners had not taken much. There was still a small wood stove in the corner, complete with a dust-covered pile of split kindling. A rusted coffeepot sat on top of the old stove, and two sets of matching plates lay abandoned on the table. The more Lucius chewed on it, the more he thought the cabin probably never had a window in the first place and the oilpaper covering had likely just rotted away. It didn’t matter, and Lucius Feak wasn’t the type of man to spend too much time pondering over one subject.
The sight of the plates and stove reminded him he was hungry.
He struck a match on the sole of his worn leather boot and held the fire to the half-burned stub of a cigar. He puffed for a minute to get it going, reasoning that with all the smoke in the air, he might as well not put off any more of his guilty pleasures than he needed to. Though the cigar tasted good, it didn’t do much for his parched throat and grumbling stomach.
“What I really want is a hot beefsteak, a bottle of whiskey, and a soft woman.”
Juan Caesar looked up from where he squatted with his partner, playing cards on a piece of red cloth. “We got a woman and Javi’s deer haunch.”
They’d seen numerous animals fleeing the fires throughout the day, and the younger Apache had shot a fleeing doe with his bow. Leaving most of the animal to rot, he’d cut out the tender back-straps and one of the hams and slung them over his saddle.
“Well, we ain’t got no whiskey, and that’s what I really need.” Feak rubbed his cracked lips and puffed on the cigar. “There’s so much smoke, I don’t reckon it would hurt to get a little fire goin’ in that stove and rustle us up some of that deer meat.”
Javier looked up from his cards long enough to sneer. “I’m not cooking when there’s a woman here to do it. You won’t let us use her for anything else—she should have to cook.”
The young Apache chuckled and threw his hand down on the red cloth next to a small pile of money. Juan Caesar swore an unintelligible oath and threw down his own cards. Rising, he glared at Feak and then down at the girl, who lay feverish and pale in the back corner away from the window hole on a pallet of filthy saddle blankets. His already scarred face was twisted in anger at losing to his younger companion, and he looked ready to take it out on someone. Feak was his paymaster, so Angela was the obvious choice.
Prodding her in the thigh with his toe, he glowered over her. “You cook us some grub.” His voice was sharp and cruel as a bloody knife.
Angela drew her knees to her chest and turned away from him, moaning quietly.
The one-eyed Apache let fly a vehement string of Spanish oaths since his own language was scarce on such terms. Squatting next to the pitiful girl, he grabbed her knee and rolled her roughly back to face him. She cowered there, sobbing around the leather gag that was still in her mouth, her injured hand drawn up to her chest to protect it.
The Apache’s good eye flashed like black obsidian and he licked his lips. His hand still rested on the girl’s knee.
Feak could see where this was going, and it only added to the sickening fear that piled up inside him. He was a mean hombre and he knew it, but in a fight against these two Apache, it would be touch and go who would emerge the victor. It put him in a real quandary.
The boss had given strict orders about what not to do with the girl. But the Apache were friends of the boss, and the only way to stop them if they got their blood up was to kill them—something the boss wouldn’t take too kindly to either.
Lucius was in a pure fix. He leaned the rickety wooden chair back against the wall and blew a smoke ring into the already close air. When backed against a wall with an impossible decision, it was customary for him to do the thing that required the least effort—and that usually meant making no decision at all.
* * *
Angela decided early into her abduction she would fight, no matter the odds, the moment any of the men tried to rape her. It was not part of her internal makeup to lay back and take such things, even if it might keep her alive for a few more hours. Her face hurt from the harsh rawhide gag and her hand had swollen up to the elbow. Even through her fever, she had enough of a grasp on reality to know she would likely lose her hand, if not her whole arm—if she made it out of this at all.
The one-eyed Apache pushed at her knees, and she pulled them up as if to shield her chest, grateful, at least for the moment, that she had defied her mother and worn britches. From the corner of her eye, she could see Javier towering above her, waiting his turn. She understood the futility of fighting, had even played it over and over in her mind while she rode the night before. But fight she would, hopefully angering the men enough they would strike out in haste a
nd kill her quickly.
Perhaps Feak would end it with a bullet or one of the Apache would finish her with a knife. She didn’t care. As long as she could make them do it quickly, death would be a welcome respite from her constant pain.
Thinking her half-unconscious, Juan Caesar leaned in closer, ripping at the brass buttons in front of her britches. She knew she should wait, but the way she was curled put his forearm next to her face and almost out of instinctive reaction, Angela sank her teeth into the sinewy bronze flesh.
The Indian jerked away and covered the gushing wound with his other hand. Instead of killing her instantly as she had hoped, he only glared at her harder. After a moment, he turned to his grinning young partner and said something in quick Apache. Angela couldn’t understand the words, but she caught the meaning.
You go first.
Javier nodded smugly and slowly drew his knife. Feak, who’d been Angela’s protector of sorts, did nothing but sit and watch.
“I’m going to cut off your clothes,” the young Apache said. “The more you fight, the better—and the more of your skin comes off with your drawers. It will make a fine snack.”
Angela started to scream, but the rickety slat door flew open and slammed against the wall. The scream caught in her throat.
Feak and both Apaches looked toward the noise, and Angela pulled herself up so her back was to the wall and hugged her knees.
Though the outside light was sparse, it was still brighter than the dismal interior of the cabin and the figure at the door stood backlit in the doorway, filling the space with his enormous dark silhouette. The stranger wore a flat-brimmed hat tipped low over a shadowed face and carried some kind of sack in his left hand. A long-barreled dragoon pistol occupied the right.
His voice carried in on the smoke like a hoarse whisper, though it was easy enough to hear. All three men jumped when they heard it.
“What in Hell’s blazes is happening here?”
“Be careful!” Angela screamed, fearing the newcomer would be killed like the firefighters as soon as the Apaches regained their senses. “These men are killers—scoundrels holding me prisoner.” It felt good to say it out loud.
The figure turned to study her for a moment, then looked back at Feak, ignoring her altogether. The gun still hung, poised like the head of a rattler, in his right hand.
“I asked you a question.” The voice was cold and rasped enough to take off skin. Angela realized a man with such a voice was not likely to be any salvation.
Feak squirmed and dropped his cigar on the ground. He stomped it out nervously. “The bitch took a hunk outta Juan’s arm. Javi was just about to teach her some manners and tie her up so she couldn’t hurt no one.”
The dark figure stood there motionless for a full minute, his shoulders moving up and down slowly as he breathed. When he spoke again, Feak yelped softly as if he’d been shot.
“If anyone needs a lesson in manners, I’ll be the one to do the teaching.” The man heaved the cloth sack he’d carried into the center of the room. It hit the packed earth with a dull thud, and the severed head of Billy Scudder rolled out to face Angela.
Three days before, such a horrific sight might have caused Angela to faint, but now she could hardly work up a shudder. Though she’d wished him dead for the cruelty he’d meted out to Betty, she bowed her head to her knees to escape the hollow dead eyes and hideous gash of a mouth that seemed not to have changed much between life and death.
“Young William and I already had our lesson for the day,” the man said matter-of-factly as he stepped through the doorway. He holstered the pistol, but the tensions of the other men remained taut enough that anyone could snap. “Seems he went back and tried to kill that boy along with O’Shannon’s wife.”
“He mighta been able to identify us,” Feak said weakly, unable to tear his eyes away from Billy Scudder’s head.
“So?” The newcomer took off his hat and ran a freckled hand through thinning, sandy-colored hair. Every move he made evoked a twitch or jerk from Feak. “We want them to catch us or the plan doesn’t work. If O’Shannon learns of a plan to kill Maggie, he’ll quit the trail immediately. I know him, you imbecile. That’s why I make the plans. The man loves his wife above all else.” The man drew a deep breath and let it out again through a bulbous nose, webbed with tiny red veins from too much hard liquor. “If Trap O’Shannon turns back now and misses our rendezvous, Mr. Feak, I’m holding you personally accountable. Young William there is just a lesson.” He smiled. “I told you I’d be the teacher.”
Lucius nodded weakly.
“All right then. Get the girl ready to move. As I said before—nothing should happen to her yet.” He glared at the Apaches with narrow, slate-gray eyes. “I want her untouched for the time being. Do you understand?”
Both men grunted, and Javier finally put away his knife.
The newcomer offered a friendly smile and opened his hands in peace. “I don’t care about the reward money. You men can keep all of it. My business is with O’Shannon and his friends. Bring the girl where we planned.” He pulled his hat on again and turned before stepping out the door.
“And don’t cross me again.”
CHAPTER 20
There were five men in all. Running like a wronged woman was after them with a meat cleaver.
Zelinski stopped at the crest of a bald knob, blew off some steam, and took off his hat while the gaggle of men scrambled up the loose scree on hands and knees. Mopping the sweat from his forehead, he let his gaze shift to the blossoming cloud of gray and white smoke coming from the low mountains behind them. When the men got closer, he recognized the leader as Joe Voss, a forest supervisor from Missoula.
The fire boss took a swig from his canteen and handed it to Voss as the men took the ridgetop beside him.
“Horace,” Voss said, taking a long pull of water. “You’re going the wrong way.” He was a tall man with watery, noncommitting eyes, befitting the vaporous politics that had helped him rise to his lofty position within the Forest Service. Certain Voss wouldn’t know which end of the ax to hit the tree with, Zelinski was surprised to find him leading a group through the Clearwater.
“Fancy that.” Zelinski nodded. “Looks like I’m goin’ the right direction if you boys are running from a fire. That’s what you pay me for, isn’t it?”
“Not this fire, Horace. Get your men and get out of here. I understand there are evacuation trains headed for Avery. The colored boys from the Army have been called in from the field to help with the move.”
“What?” Zelinski felt the dry, superheated wind whip across his face. The news hit him hard.
A stub of a man with round spectacles that kept sliding off the end of his chopped-off little nose reached out for the canteen from Voss. “Milton Brandice, Bureau of Entomology.” He pushed up his glasses again and raised the canteen toward Zelinski. “Do you mind?”
“Go ahead. Bureau of... what did you say?”
When Brandice had drunk his fill, he pushed the canteen toward Zelinski, who motioned to the other men. “If you go easy, you might each get enough to wash the ash out of your gullets.”
“Bureau of Entomology,” Brandice replied, using his forefinger to push the glasses back into his squint. Zelinski couldn’t help but think if the man would just relax his face, they might stay put. “I’m a beetle specialist. Three of us are. The Secretary sent us out here to study beetle-killed trees and their causal relationship to forest fires.”
Brandice was what the field folks in the Service called a patent-leather man. Someone who stayed at his desk back East, read books, and wore fancy shoes. Zelinski shook his head. “I can’t believe it, Voss. I beg for more men to fight fires and you folks send people with bug specialties.”
“Shut up, Horace. Look back there.” The forest superintendent took off his hat and used it to gesture toward a greasy yellow haze that all but blotted out the sun. A huge black and gray cloud boiled up five miles distant. Zelinski knew the m
ountains in front of the smoke rose at least 2500 feet from the valleys behind them. The smoke towered over three times as high as the mountains—more than a mile—before being sheered off at the top by a high-altitude wind. “It won’t matter how many men you have once that rolls over you.”
“We used to have horses,” a forlorn-looking bug specialist Zelinski hadn’t noticed before said, shaking his ruddy face sadly. “Fire took them all, so now we run, walk, and crawl. It doesn’t matter, it’ll catch us no matter what we do. I’m sure of it.”
Brandice handed the man the canteen. “Calm down, Prescott. It’s not as bad as all that. Avery’s mostly downhill from here.” He looked at Zelinski. “Right?”
“Sort of. Down, then up again a time or two, but you’re not far off the mark. What’s this you say about your horses, Voss?”
The superintendent continued to stare at the smoke. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. It’s an inferno back there. We’d tied our pack stock and riding horses up next to a small stream that runs through Ruby Canyon. Brandice wanted to climb up and check on a bunch of beetle kill along the ridgeline above us. The going was rocky and I’m not much of a horseman, so I thought we’d give the animals a rest. If we’d been down in that canyon . . .” Voss trailed off and shook his head. His moist eyes narrow and rimmed in red, he turned to look Zelinski full in the face. “There was a wind, H. A wind like I’ve never seen in the mountains. When we got to the top of the ridgeline, I could see a small fire smoldering about half a mile from the horses on the other side of the creek. One instant it was a small fire, barely putting off a piddle of smoke; the next there was a horrible belch of wind and fire and the whole valley was a wall of flames, rushing below us. It all happened so fast the horses just disappeared in a river of fire. I don’t think they even looked up from their grazing.
“The fire raced down the valley. I thought it would stop when it got to Boulder Canyon, but it just jumped half a mile of rock and kept going. The only thing that saved us was we were beside it and not in its path.”
