The Last War Chief (Outlaw Ranger Book 4)

by James Reasoner

  However many there were, Braddock still had to bring them to justice or die trying.

  "Thanks anyway, Three Horses, but I ride alone."

  "Because of that?"

  The old man pointed at the badge on Braddock's shirt. Braddock frowned and said, "What do you mean?"

  "The hole in that badge...it means you are apart from all the other Rangers. Is this not true?"

  Braddock started to brush past him, muttering, "I've got to get riding—"

  "You are the only one of your kind," Three Horses persisted, "just as I am the last war chief of my people. That is why you ride alone. Perhaps two who ride alone...should ride together."

  "Forget it," Braddock said. He headed for the dun. "Go back to whatever it is you do around here."

  Behind him, Three Horses was silent.

  Deputy Bell came up while Braddock was tying the supplies behind his saddle. The lawman said, "Are you sure you don't want me to come with you, Ranger?"

  "No, you don't need to leave the town without any law. After a tragedy like this, folks need to see that there's still somebody in charge."

  "I never thought that'd be me," Bell said. He took a bandanna from his pocket and wiped sweat off his face. "I'm the youngest of the three deputies. Hal Vickery, he was in charge of keepin' order here in town, and he's dead. Gene Dixon, he's chief deputy. Sheriff Warner sent him down to the southern part of the county to look for some cattle thieves. Probably won't be back for a few days. That just leaves me."

  "You'll be fine," Braddock told him, although in truth he hoped that nothing else bad happened in Dinsmore until that older deputy got back. Bell might find himself over his head pretty easily.

  The deputy didn't look convinced by Braddock's reassurances, but he said, "I saw Old Pete talking to you. Sorry if he bothered you."

  "The old Indian? He said his name was Three Horses."

  "Yeah, but most of the time he spouts the Comanche version of it, and nobody can pronounce that so folks started calling him Old Pete. Maybe that other name means Three Horses, but you couldn't prove it by me. I don't speak Comanch'."

  Braddock said, "Was he really a war chief?"

  "Who the hell knows? You've seen him. He's just a drunken old sot and a part-time handyman. Showed up here about five years ago and he's been hanging around ever since, making a pest of himself. What did he want, anyway?"

  "He wanted to come with me. Wanted to help me track Fenner and his gang."

  Bell's pale eyebrows went up as he said, "You're not taking him along, are you?"

  "Not hardly," Braddock said.

  Chapter 6

  The Caprock rose anywhere from five hundred to two thousand feet above the rolling, scrub-covered terrain to the east. The outlaws' trail ran close enough to the rim that Braddock had a spectacular view in that direction. Some people might say the landscape was ugly, but Braddock found a stark beauty in it. He was a Texan, born, bred, and forever, and just about everywhere in the Lone Star State had something to recommend it, as far as he was concerned.

  There wasn't much in the direction he was headed except some isolated ranches. Maybe Fenner and his gang were going to ground at long last, after their bloody trek from the border country. With all the robberies they had carried out, they had to have a pretty good stash of loot by now. They might hole up somewhere, wait for any pursuit to die down, and then venture out to enjoy their ill-gotten gains somewhere like Denver or San Francisco.

  They might even scatter to the four winds, which would make it extremely difficult to track down all of them. Braddock wanted to catch up to the gang before that could happen. He pushed the dun as fast as he dared. The horse had covered a lot of ground in the past few weeks, however, and Braddock couldn't risk asking too much of him.

  Red sandstone boulders littered the edge of the Caprock in places, and fissures cut into the escarpment's face. It was rugged country that could hide a lot of dangers, and Braddock was well aware of that and kept his eyes open.

  Because he was alert, he saw afternoon sunlight reflect off something metal among a clump of large rock slabs. Letting his instincts take over instead of thinking about it, he leaned forward in the saddle and jabbed his boot heels in the dun's flanks. The horse leaped forward as a rifle cracked. Braddock heard a bullet whine just behind him as it ripped through the space where he had been a split-second earlier.

  More shots crashed as Braddock galloped toward the nearest cover, some low rocks less than half as big as the boulders where the would-be killers were concealed. They had chosen a good spot for their ambush. The ground was bare and open except for some small mesquite trees that wouldn't really provide much concealment or stop bullets. The rocks were Braddock's only chance. He couldn't hope to outrun rifles.

  Bullets kicked up dust around the dun's flashing hooves. Since they had missed their first couple of shots at him, they were trying to shoot the horse out from under him, Braddock knew. If they were able to do that, then they could pick him off at their leisure.

  The dun was moving so fast it made a difficult target, though. The horse jumped a little as a slug burned across its rump, but that was the closest any of the bullets came. As they neared the rocks, Braddock pulled his Winchester from the saddle boot, kicked his feet free of the stirrups, and dived off the horse's back.

  He lost his hat as he flew through the air. He landed running, lost his balance, went down, and rolled. A bullet whistled past his ear as he came up and lunged forward to stretch out on his belly among the rocks.

  He hoped there weren't any rattlesnakes sunning themselves in there. Even if there were, they might be better company than a bunch of hot lead.

  Braddock didn't hear any of the telltale buzzing that would have let him know he had scaly companions in this precarious sanctuary. Of course, the blood was pounding pretty loudly in his head by now, drowning out just about everything else. But as his pulse slowed, he heard the shots from the boulders about fifty yards away, the thud as bullets struck the rocks that protected him, and the occasional whine as a slug ricocheted off.

  As long as he kept his head down, he was safe. Enough rocks were scattered around him to keep the bushwhackers from having a clear shot at him.

  They must have realized they were wasting lead, because their rifles fell silent. Braddock lay there breathing hard as tense seconds crawled past.

  They were trying to bait him into making a move, he thought. From the sounds of the shots, two men were hidden in the boulders, and he'd be willing to bet that both of them had their rifles aimed at the spot where he had disappeared. Their fingers would be tight on the triggers. If he raised his head, even for a second, they would fire, and it was even money whether or not they would blow his brains out.

  So it was a waiting game. Braddock was pinned down, sure, but a glance at the sky told him there were only about five hours of daylight left. He would get mighty hot and thirsty in that time, baking here under the sun, but it wouldn't kill him. And when night fell, he would be able to move again.

  He twisted his head around to look for his horse. The dun had kept running for about a quarter of a mile before coming to a stop. He stood there now, grazing aimlessly on clumps of hardy grass. At least the bushwhackers weren't shooting at him anymore. No reason to kill a perfectly good horse when his rider was the real target and that rider was no longer in the saddle.

  Two men, Braddock mused as the back of his neck began to get warm. Hidden in the boulders along the rim like that, it was obvious they had been waiting for someone to come along. Him in particular? Braddock doubted it. More likely Clete Fenner had left a couple members of the gang to discourage any posse from Dinsmore that had followed them.

  Braddock was only one man, not a posse, but maybe they had spotted him through field glasses and seen the badge on his shirt. They would know he was a lawman. They might have even figured out it was a Ranger badge.

  Might have been better not to wear the thing, but it was part of who he was. That was why h
e had refused to turn it in or give up enforcing the law, the job he was born for, no matter what some judge or politician said.

  Damn, the sun was hot, even though it wasn't directly overhead. Braddock wondered how much time had gone by. Seemed like an hour, but he knew that probably only a few minutes had passed.

  If the two bushwhackers really wanted him dead, they would have to make a move before dark. They couldn't afford to just squat there in the boulders and wait. More than likely, one of them would try to flank him, move around so that he had a clear shot. Braddock listened intently for any sound that might warn him that was happening.

  Suddenly, shots boomed out again, the echoes rolling across the Caprock and the valleys below. A distraction, thought Braddock. One of the killers was on the move.

  He twisted, using his elbows and toes to wiggle himself over to a narrow gap between the rocks. He thrust the Winchester's barrel through the opening and waited. He knew it was fifty-fifty that the outlaw would go that direction, and even if he did, Braddock would have only a split-second to fire.

  A flash of movement in the distance. Braddock had already taken the slight bit of slack out of the trigger. He squeezed it the rest of the way. The Winchester cracked wickedly as it bucked against his shoulder.

  The shots from the boulders stopped. Braddock heard a man yelling in pain. A faint smile tugged at his lips under the mustache. Instinct—and one hell of a lot of luck, to be honest—must have guided his shot. He edged forward, trying to see if he could spot the man he had wounded, but his field of vision was too small, the angle too restricted.

  A few moments later, both rifles opened up on his position again. The man he had winged must not have been hurt too badly. He had retreated into the boulders and joined his companion in an angry fusillade at the rocks where Braddock had taken cover. They were just venting their spleen. They still couldn't get a good shot at him.

  Then he heard a boom and a startled shout. Braddock knew from the sound of the earlier reports that the bushwhackers were using Winchesters or Henrys. That shot hadn't come from a repeater. It had sounded more like a heavy caliber buffalo gun.

  Somebody else was getting in on this fight.

  The question was, on which side?

  Chapter 7

  From the door of his tar-paper shack, Three Horses watched the Ranger ride out of Dinsmore, heading north along the edge of the Caprock on the trail of the outlaws.

  The Ranger had made a mistake. He should have accepted Three Horses' help. Three Horses was a tracker and a warrior. He would have given his life to help bring those men to justice.

  Maybe he still could.

  He turned and went to the bunk where he slept on a bare corn-shuck mattress. Bending over, he reached under the bunk and pulled out a rifle. It was very old. Rust pitted its barrel, and at some time in the past its stock had been cracked and then mended by having wire wrapped tightly around it. The breech and the bore were clean, though. Three Horses used a rag and a stick every day to wipe away the red dust that got into everything.

  Many years earlier, the rifle had belonged to a buffalo hunter, a huge, bearded, shaggy man who resembled the beasts he stalked and slew. During a battle with a group of hunters who had taken cover in a buffalo wallow, Three Horses had counted coup on the man, then turned his pony to race back in and put an arrow through his throat. He had taken the rifle, which he had thought of then as a shoots-far-gun, as his by right, since he had killed its owner, just like the Henry he had taken from a dead rancher several years later.

  By now he knew it was a .50 caliber Sharps. He had shot it a few times and never liked it, but he had wrapped it in a blanket and hidden it among the few possessions he'd been allowed to take along when his people were herded northeast to the reservation in Indian Territory. He could not have said why he hung on to it, other than the fact that he sensed there was powerful medicine in it, and one day that medicine would be revealed to him.

  All he was certain of was that he could not leave it behind when he fled the reservation. He reached under the bunk again and pulled out the other thing he had brought with him, a white man's carpetbag filled with even more precious possessions.

  He felt stronger now. The whiskey had sweated out through his skin. When he held his hands in front of his face, they trembled, but only a little.

  Could he do this? Three Horses had to admit he didn't know. But he had to try.

  Carrying the Sharps in his left hand and the carpetbag in his right, he walked back into town to the livery stable owned by Asa Edmonds. From time to time, Three Horses cleaned the stalls for Mr. Edmonds. He found the man sitting on a barrel just outside the barn's open double doors.

  "Howdy, Pete," Edmonds said. "Hell of a thing, wasn't it? The way those outlaws came in and killed so many folks, I mean."

  "Yes," Three Horses agreed. "A hell of a thing."

  His people, as a rule, didn't curse, but you had to talk to white men in a language they understood.

  Edmonds frowned at the carpetbag and the rifle. He asked, "You goin' somewhere? Takin' a trip?"

  "Yes, I must leave Dinsmore for a time."

  "Goin' back to the reservation?" The liveryman grinned. "You ain't goin' on the warpath, are you?"

  "There is something I have to do."

  "Well, don't let me stop you. You just go right ahead." Edmonds chuckled, as if the idea of an Indian having anything important to do amused him.

  "I would like to borrow the mule, the one called Abner."

  A frown replaced Edmonds' grin as he said, "Wait a minute. You want to borrow my mule? You mean rent it, don't you? I ain't in the business of lettin' folks borrow my animals."

  Three Horses shook his head and said, "You know I have no money. But I will give you something in return for the loan of the mule."

  He set the carpetbag down, leaned the Sharps against the wall, and opened the bag to take out a tomahawk. Its handle was decorated with bits of brightly colored rock and feathers tied on with rawhide.

  Edmonds' eyes opened wider as he said, "That looks real."

  "It is real. It belonged to Satanta. He gave it to me himself, for saving his life during a battle with the bluecoats, before they took him later on and hung him."

  That was a lie in more ways than one. Three Horses had made the tomahawk himself, just to pass the time during the dreary days on the reservation. He had never met the notorious warrior Satanta.

  But Edmonds didn't know that, and he let out a low whistle.

  "You're sayin' you'll gimme that if I let you borrow Abner?"

  Three Horses nodded and said solemnly, "Yes."

  "But I don't have to return it, even when you bring Abner back."

  "That is right. It is yours."

  Three Horses held out the tomahawk, and the liveryman took it.

  "You got yourself a deal," Edmonds said.

  "You will provide a saddle, too?"

  Edmonds frowned and said, "Dang, there must be somethin' to that idea that you Injuns are related to the Jews, the way you like to haggle. Ah, hell, sure, I'll throw in a saddle. Just not one of the good ones. Get one of 'em that's set aside in the tack room. You know the ones I mean."

  Three Horses nodded and walked into the welcome shade of the barn. He went to the stall where Edmonds kept the mule Abner and led the animal out. Mules were supposed to be balky, but Abner and Three Horses had always gotten along well and Abner cooperated now. Three Horses got a ratty blanket and a saddle that needed mending from the tack room and soon had Abner ready to ride.

  Edmonds was still sitting on the barrel, turning the tomahawk over in his hands. He looked up at Three Horses and said, "I've figured it out. You're gonna go hunt buffalo."

  "When I hunted buffalo, I used a bow and arrow, not a gun."

  "What's the rifle for, then?"

  "To hunt men," Three Horses said.

  He rode off and left the liveryman staring after him.

  Chapter 8

  It was amazing h
ow much a man could change in less than a day's time. A matter of hours, really. When he had climbed out of his bunk this morning, Three Horses hadn't expected anything other than one more day of struggling to get by as he battled the demons inside him. One more day of cadging drinks, one more day of doing menial labor if he could find anyone willing to hire him, one more day of being humiliated and laughed at by people who didn't believe him when he told them what he had been in the past.

  He had been humiliated and laughed at, all right, but he had also been beaten and kicked like a dog. He had stared into the face of death only inches from his, when the outlaw killed Denning. He had seen blood spilled and heard the cries of the grieving. He had felt the worm of fear inside him, eating away at his soul.

  In the past, when anything this upsetting had happened, Three Horses had sought solace in a bottle. Solace and forgetfulness. There was nothing like whiskey to numb the pain of a man's pride as it slowly withered away.

  So why was today different, he wondered as he rode along the rim of the Caprock? Perhaps some men reached the end of their rope and died, as he had expected to, while others grasped that rope and used it to pull themselves up.

  Which would he be?

  His eyes were not as sharp as they once had been, he discovered as he followed the trail left by the outlaws. At first he had no trouble, but as he continued north he found that from time to time he had to rein Abner to a halt, swing down from the saddle, and bend over with his hands on his knees to study the ground more closely. He didn't lose the trail, but the days when it would have been as plain as could be for him to see were long gone.

  He had been riding for several hours. It had been quite a while since he had spent that much time on horseback, and his old bones were really starting to feel it. Maybe he should have ridden with just a blanket, as he had in his youth, he thought, but he had grown accustomed to using a saddle like a white man. He should have known better.

  He was thirsty, too. A canteen full of water hung from the saddle horn, but Three Horses knew that wasn't what he wanted. When he lifted his hand to wipe the back of it across his mouth, he noticed that it was shaking a little more than it had been back in town, when he had decided to follow the Ranger and the outlaws. Maybe he ought to turn back, he thought. It wasn't too late.