An Arizona Christmas

by William W. Johnstone

  “The Apaches are liable to have guards around the stagecoach,” Scratchy said.

  “If they do, they’ll need to be tooken care of,” Preacher said. “Quietlike.”

  Smoke knew what he meant. In his younger days, Preacher had had the reputation of being able to slip into a Blackfoot camp, slit the throats of several of his enemies, and then get back out again without anyone even knowing he’d been there until the bodies of his victims were discovered the next morning. That grim talent had led the Blackfeet to dub the mountain man “Ghost Killer.”

  That was a story George Bates would probably enjoy, Smoke thought . . . but the boy’s grandmother might not appreciate anyone telling it to him.

  “Preacher can handle the guards,” Smoke said, never doubting that the old mountain man still had the skills necessary to do the job. “Nick, Tom, and I can move the Gatling and get it set up. By the time we do, it won’t be long until dawn. That’s when we’ll bust out of this trap.” He looked over at Scratchy. “You can’t handle the team with one arm.”

  “Mike can take the reins,” the jehu said. “He’s got two good arms, and he’s drove a coach a few times.”

  “I’d rather be fighting,” Mike said, “but I reckon that makes sense.”

  “I can handle my pistol with one hand,” Scratchy said. “I’ll try to plug one o’ the varmints for you.”

  “Let’s just all get out of here safely,” Mike said with a glance toward Catherine on the other side of the cave. “That’s all that matters.”

  * * *

  The day dragged by. Now that the wind had died down, it was hot in the cave. The food was gone and everyone’s belly was empty, but at least they had water and the deadly, energy-sapping thirst had been relieved.

  Everyone knew the plan. Everyone had a job to do once they went into action, even George. He would carry boxes of ammunition from Kendall’s wagon to the stagecoach. All would be at risk, but at least they would be fighting to get away, rather than just waiting for death to claim them.

  It would take a couple men to carry the Gatling gun and lift it onto the stagecoach’s roof. Smoke and Kendall would handle that. Ballard would carry a crate filled with the long belts of ammunition that fed the weapon. Preacher, once he had disposed of the Apache sentries—if there were any—would stand guard while the other men worked.

  Everything would have to go right for the plan to work, but taking a chance was better than doing nothing.

  A fighting chance was all Smoke Jensen had ever asked out of life.

  He had never liked waiting around, so he was glad when the sun set and night crashed down with its usual abruptness in the desert. It was still hours until they would put the plan into action, but darkness meant the showdown was that much closer.

  “Everybody get some rest if you can,” Smoke told the others. “I’ll wake you when it’s time to get ready.”

  He didn’t mention that it might be the last night’s sleep some of them would ever get.

  CHAPTER 38

  The horses were restless during the night and so were some of the people inside the cave, but everyone managed to get at least a little rest. At some point, Preacher relieved Smoke and stood guard so Smoke was able to stretch out beside Sally and get an hour or so of sleep. Like any good fighting frontiersman, he had the knack of being able to doze off quickly whenever he had the chance.

  He woke up on his own, without Preacher having to rouse him. The fire had burned out—all the fuel had been consumed—but that was in accordance with Smoke’s plan. The cave was pitch dark, and the night outside was almost as impenetrable. The cave mouth was just a slightly lighter shade of black.

  Smoke stood up and moved toward it. Preacher’s whispered greeting reached his ears.

  “Everything quiet out there?” Smoke asked.

  “Quiet as the grave,” Preacher replied. “Although maybe that ain’t really such a good thing to say right now.”

  “How long until sunup?”

  “Couple hours, I’d say.”

  Smoke nodded. “Time for you to go see if anybody’s lurking around that stagecoach. I’ll wake up the others.”

  The idea that Preacher might not be able to handle the Apache guards never occurred to Smoke. The old-timer might be a hair slower and less deadly than he once was—but that meant he was still more than a match for just about any enemy he would ever encounter.

  Preacher left his rifle with Smoke and disappeared into the shadows outside the cave. Smoke woke everyone else and told them get ready.

  “I’ve handled a Gatling gun in the past,” Smoke told Nick Kendall, “but I reckon you’ve got more experience with one than I do. You’ll be on top of the coach with it. That’ll make you more of a target.”

  “I’m not worried about that,” Kendall said. Even in the darkness, Smoke could see the big, bearded man’s teeth as he grinned. “Put me behind one of those devil guns and I’ll match my chances against anybody else’s.”

  “That’s what we’re counting on.” Smoke moved on over to Sally. “You’ll be in charge here in the cave. Everybody stays put until the gun is mounted on the coach. Then you and Catherine get Mike out there as quickly as you can. Scratchy will come, too, and Mrs. Bates and George will bring guns and ammunition from Nick’s wagon. Once Scratchy and Mike are on the driver’s box, you and Catherine come back in here and get the water barrel. We’re liable to need it before we get to Tucson. Oh, the water barrel. I have a piece of rope you can use to tie the door shut. Keep it from banging open when we ride away.” Smoke pulled it from his pocket, handed it to her, and put his hand on his wife’s shoulder. “That barrel will be heavy, but I think the two of you can manage it.”

  “We have to, so we will,” she said without hesitation. “Don’t worry, Smoke. We won’t let you down.”

  He smiled. “You’ve never let me down for a second in all the time I’ve known you.” He bent forward and kissed her, a sweet kiss that lasted only a moment but still packed considerable punch for both of them. It was a passion that would never go away.

  He went back to the cave mouth where Tom Ballard and Nick Kendall waited.

  Ballard said, “We’re ready, Smoke.”

  “Yep. Just waiting for—” Smoke stopped short as he heard what sounded like the faint cry of a night bird from somewhere up on the bluff above them. That was Preacher’s signal. “That’s it,” he said softly. “Let’s go.”

  Crouching, the three men ran out of the cave. As quietly as possible, they hurried to Kendall’s wagon. The sand crunched a little under their boot soles, but that couldn’t be avoided.

  Kendall didn’t take the time to untie the ropes that fastened the canvas over his cargo. He used his knife to cut the ropes and threw the canvas back. He lowered the tailgate, climbed into the wagon, and picked up one of the wooden crates. Leaning over the side, he thrust it into Tom Ballard’s waiting arms.

  The newspaperman staggered a little under the weight, but managed to keep his feet and steady himself. He turned and started toward the stagecoach while Kendall picked up one end of a larger crate and swung it around to set it on the wagon’s sideboards.

  Smoke grasped that end of the crate. Kendall vaulted out of the wagon and took hold of the crate as well. Wood rasped on wood as they pulled it out until Kendall could position himself at the other end. Smoke figured some of the Apaches waiting out there in the darkness might have heard the sound.

  If time hadn’t already started running out on them, it would now.

  Carrying the long, heavy crate between them, Smoke and Kendall headed for the stagecoach as fast as they could. When they got there, they set the crate on the ground on the side between the coach and the bluff.

  From out in the shadows, a shrill yip sounded—one of the Apaches signaling to the guards stationed around the stagecoach. There was no response.

  Of course there wasn’t. Preacher had seen to that.

  Kendall rammed his knife blade under the crate’s lid and le
vered it up. Nails squealed as they came free. About a hundred yards out on the desert, orange muzzle flame winked in a couple places. Instantly, shots blasted from the front of the coach as Preacher returned the fire. The sharp cracks told Smoke that the old mountain man was using a Winchester he must have taken from one of the dead sentries.

  Kendall threw the crate’s lid aside and reached in to wrap his long, powerful arms around the Gatling gun. He heaved it upward. Smoke helped him, then Ballard stepped in to take some of the weight while Smoke scrambled up onto the driver’s box. He reached back down to help the other two men raise the weapon toward the roof.

  Then it was up to Smoke’s incredibly powerful muscles to hoist the Gatling gun into position. Kendall was already clambering up the rear of the coach with a couple belts of ammunition slung over his shoulder. He helped Smoke open the legs of the tripod that supported the gun and maneuvered it into place where he could swing the barrel back and forth and cover most of the landscape in front of the cave.

  More shots came from the Apaches out on the desert, but Preacher’s steady fire and deadly accurate bullets had them spooked and none of their slugs came close.

  Suddenly, just as Kendall was loading one of the belts into the gun, a shot rang out from somewhere above and behind them and a bullet whined off the brass rail only inches from Smoke. His Colt flashed from its holster to his hand as he whirled around, instinct telling him that at least one of the Apaches had climbed to the top of the bluff. A second shot blasted that gave him a target. He fired, then heard a cry of pain followed by a heavy thud as a body plummeted from the top of the bluff and landed at its base. No more shots came from up there, so he figured the Apache had been alone.

  “Ready!” Kendall sang out. “I’ve been watchin’ where those shots are comin’ from. Time to chew ’em up!” He turned the Gatling’s crank. Fire flickered from the weapon’s muzzle as .44 caliber slugs exploded from it in a torrent of lead.

  Smoke jumped from the top of the stagecoach to the ground, landed lightly, and called, “Sally! Now!”

  Sally and Catherine emerged from the cave with Mike between them, leaning on them as they all half-ran, half-stumbled toward the stagecoach. Mrs. Bates and George were right behind them, heading for Kendall’s wagon. The older woman was terrified, Smoke knew, but she was willing to fight to save her grandson’s life.

  Scratchy hurried out toward the stagecoach.

  Smoke and Ballard ran past them going the other way, and into the cave to get the horses. Behind them, the stuttering roar of the Gatling continued from the top of the coach. Smoke didn’t know if Kendall was actually hitting anything other than the ground, but with that death storm raging around them, the Apaches would be staying as low as possible and wouldn’t have a chance to do much shooting of their own.

  Smoke and Ballard led the horses out. Ballard held the other animals while Smoke backed them two at a time into their places and hooked up the harness. He wasn’t as quick about it as an experienced hostler would have been, but he didn’t waste any time, either.

  The Gatling abruptly fell silent. Kendall had emptied the first belt and had to reload. Preacher and Mike—who had climbed onto the box with help from Sally and Catherine—tried to take up the slack with their Winchesters. It wasn’t as terrific an assault as the Gatling gun, but it was quite a barrage.

  The devil gun began chattering again.

  “Sally!” Smoke called. “Get some more ammo belts from that crate and toss them up on the roof!”

  Mrs. Bates toddled toward the stagecoach with her arms full of rifles and several pistols. George was right behind her, staggering a little under the weight of the two ammunition boxes he carried. They reached the coach and dumped their loads inside through the broken door.

  “That’s good!” Smoke told them. He didn’t want them running the risk of another trip. “Climb in and start loading those guns!”

  Kendall had told Smoke that all the weapons in his cargo were chambered for .44 caliber rounds, so it wouldn’t matter which bullets went into which guns. Smoke just wanted all of them fully loaded and ready to deal out death.

  He finished hitching up the last two horses. Sally and Catherine were on their way back to the coach with the water barrel. They obviously struggled under its weight, but they were determined to make it. Smoke and Ballard hurried to meet them and take the burden from them.

  “No time to tie it on,” Smoke snapped. “We’ll just put it inside.” The interior of the coach was going to be mighty crowded with seven people, a bunch of guns, and the water barrel, but it couldn’t be helped.

  Once the water barrel was inside the coach, Sally and Catherine climbed in, joining Mrs. Bates and George. Ballard went next. Smoke called, “Preacher, come on!”

  “I’ll hang on the back!” the old mountain man replied.

  That was actually a good idea, Smoke thought, but he would do it instead of Preacher. “No, get in!”

  Preacher pulled himself up into the coach, muttering something about blamed, high-handed youngsters.

  Smoke realized there was enough gray light in the eastern sky for him to see his surroundings. He spotted a couple sprawled Apache bodies, their heads surrounded by dark pools of blood that had welled from their slit throats. Preacher still had that deadly skill.

  Smoke swung up onto the boot, standing on the bags under the canvas cover and hanging on to that cover with his left hand. He had the Colt in his right again. “Mike, get us out of here!” he shouted.

  With Scratchy to his right for a change, Mike was sitting in the driver’s spot. He slapped the reins against the team and called out to them. The coach lurched forward.

  Nick Kendall shoved a fresh belt of ammunition into place and got the Gatling singing its deadly song again as the coach began to pick up speed. Mike swung the vehicle around so they were heading toward the low orange crescent on the eastern horizon. Kendall swept .44 rounds across the landscape like a scythe as the stagecoach wheeled in its new direction. He had to hold his fire for a second as he realigned the barrel, then he opened fire again.

  The Apaches, seeing their quarry about to get away, threw caution to the winds and charged out of their hiding places. Dozens, no, scores of them, Smoke realized to his astonishment.

  The bullets from the Gatling gun slashed through them and mowed them down, shredding flesh, shattering bone, and knocking them off their feet. Smoke added to the carnage, drilling a couple raiders who came within range of his Colt. Shots blasted from inside the coach as well, as Preacher, Sally, Ballard, Catherine, and Mrs. Bates opened fire.

  For the most part, though, it was Nick Kendall, long white beard whipping back over his shoulder, who dealt most of the destruction. The stagecoach was a rolling arsenal of death.

  Over the thunderous roar of gunfire, Smoke heard a shout of pain and looked past Kendall to see Scratchy slumping over on the seat. The old jehu was hit again. Smoke didn’t know how bad it was, but Scratchy appeared to be out of the fight.

  An instant later, Mike rocked to the side. Smoke saw an arrow protruding from the young man’s right arm. Mike couldn’t handle the team one-handed, so Smoke slid his Colt back in its holster and grasped the rail around the coach’s roof to pull himself up.

  He crawled past Kendall, who was still firing the Gatling gun at the Apaches, and leaned down between the two wounded men on the box. “Mike! Hand me the reins!”

  Mike was bleeding badly, but he twisted around on the seat, grimacing in pain, and passed the reins over. Smoke sat on the front edge of the roof and drove from there, slashing the reins against the horses’ backs to keep them galloping. From the corner of his eye, he saw Apaches on horseback, racing their ponies alongside the coach. Kendall blasted away the raiders on his side, but more were closing in from the other side.

  Mike leaned over, fumbling with his left hand for something at his feet, and came up with the coach gun. He thrust it out and fired it one-handed, triggering both barrels. The recoil tore the Gre
ener from his grip, but the double load of buckshot smashed into the Apaches and blasted several of them off their ponies. A couple mounts fell, too, and tripped up the others. All of them went down in a welter of flailing horseflesh and smashed humanity.

  The Gatling ran dry again. Rather than trying to reload once more, Kendall hauled out his long-barreled revolver and began picking off some of the remaining raiders. He was an expert shot and had a good vantage point from the top of the stagecoach.

  Smoke glanced back, saw the bluff receding in the distance. Between where they were and the cave where they had taken shelter a couple days earlier, the ground was littered with corpses, a bloody trail of the dead that showed where the coach had passed. Not many of the raiders were still alive, and those who were had peeled off and were getting away as fast as they could. Ultimately, the pilgrims had been outnumbered by more than ten to one, but had fought their way through, anyway.

  The coach rolled toward the spot where the sun would soon peek above the horizon as Smoke kept the team moving at a fast pace. He believed the Apaches had given up for good, but he and his companions still needed to put as much distance as they could between them and the surviving renegades.

  “Ho, ho!” Nick Kendall boomed. “Left ’em in the dust, we did! Dash away, Smoke, dash away!”

  Unless Smoke had gotten confused, it was Christmas Eve.

  CHAPTER 39

  “Still no word?” Matt Jensen asked as he stood in the Tucson office of the Saxon Stage Line.

  “No, sir,” the nervous-looking clerk replied. “And now we can’t even communicate with Casa Grande anymore. The storm that passed through yesterday must’ve blown down some of the telegraph wires between here and there.”

  Matt shook his head in disgust. The stagecoach carrying Smoke, Sally, and Preacher should have arrived a couple days earlier. He knew that from the information that had been wired from Casa Grande about the railroad trestle being out. According to the stationmaster in Tucson, several people had chosen to take the stagecoach on a roundabout route, rather than waiting until after Christmas when the bridge was repaired.