Blaze! Bad Medicine

by Michael Newton

  No one in his right mind, Dill thought.

  He couldn't make things right with one last, maybe suicidal gesture, but at least he had to try and balance out the scales. Whatever happened to him later on, Dill figured that he had it coming for his laziness and failure to perform the job he'd sworn to do.

  But now, enough of that. He eyed his posse, men slumped in their saddles, with dark rings under their eyes, at least a couple of them still hung over from last night at the Saloon. They'd already had coffee, courtesy of the Café, and it was all that he could do for them, besides the pep talk he'd been working on all night.

  "People!" he barked, to capture their attention. "Thanks to all of you for turning out and shouldering your civic duty. I can't promise we'll come back with any of the Hoskins family alive, but I can promise that I'll give it everything I have, and reckon all of you will, too. Before we're done, you'll all be heroes to the people of Inferno. You're the ones who wouldn't shirk and didn't close your eyes when things got bad. Stay strong, and when we get back here—tonight, tomorrow, who knows?—all the drinks will be on me."

  A ragged cheer went up at that, two members of the posse yanking off their hats and waving them around. Some of the horses shied at so much sudden noise erupting in the street, still thirty minutes short of true sunrise.

  "We're headed north," Dill said, "into the Casa Grandes. We'll be looking for the troops who passed through yesterday, along with Mrs. Hoskins and her kids, of course."

  "And the goddamn Apaches!" someone said, from the back rank.

  "And them. Or maybe they'll be hunting us. I wouldn't put it past 'em. Anyway, be ready for a fight, whatever shape it comes in. Any of you who were in the war, remember what you learned. As for the rest, take care and watch out for the other members of our team whenever possible. Shoot straight, and make it count."

  Without another word, Dill kicked his horse into a trot and started toward the western end of town, where he'd turn north as soon as they were clear. The others fell in line behind him, keeping up, and when he reached the town limits, giving a quick glance back, he was relieved to find that none had bolted from the posse, having second thoughts.

  Not yet, at least.

  As Dill saw it, things could still go one of four ways in the end. First option, they could run into the soldiers coming back, with Mrs. Hoskins and her children still alive or tied over their saddles, dead. The second possibility, Dill's party might not find the cavalry at all. Third option, they could tangle with the renegades and bring the captives back, alive or dead. And finally, the one he hated most: all of them could be shot and hacked to pieces before sundown, no one back in town any the wiser as to what became of them.

  It was a gamble, sure. But he'd already rolled the dice and found a dozen men to back his play, for good or ill. If they went down beside him in a dusty, soon to be forgotten battle on the eve of total war, what of it? Which of them was likely to present society with any greater contribution if they lived another century or more?

  It suddenly occurred to Olin Dill that he was riding off to meet his maker with a dozen men much like himself, the kind no one would miss.

  With that in mind, Dill wasn't sure if he should laugh or cry.

  * * *

  Rosalind Hoskins tried to shield her children with her body, as successive rifle bullets flew into the cave and ricocheted from stony walls and ceiling. She had no idea who was attacking now, with all the soldiers dead, too soon for reinforcements to arrive, but from the sound or it, there were no more than two or three outside.

  With her head down, whispering assurances to Orville and Daphne, Mrs. Hoskins didn't see the leader of the renegades come up behind her, reaching down to clutch a handful of her hair and twist it painfully.

  "Get up!" he ordered. "Come with me, all of you. Now!"

  Rosalind struggled to her feet, dragging her children after her. The gunfire from outside slacked off once they were standing, though she had no reason to believe the snipers there could actually see her. Glaring at the leader of her kidnappers, she asked, "What, now?"

  "My men and I are leaving soon. There is another way out of the cave."

  "And?"

  "You will not be coming with us."

  For a fraction of a heartbeat, Rosalind felt sweet relief—until she read the warrior's meaning in his cold, dark eyes. She and her children were not going with the others, because they would all be dead.

  "All right, then," she replied, defiantly. "Get on with it."

  "Get on with what, Mama?" asked Orville, clinging to her skirt.

  "Hush now, son."

  "You have an undefeated spirit," the Apache leader said. "It may yet serve you in the afterlife."

  "I have no fear on that score," Rosalind answered. "You, on the other hand, should brace yourself. You'll have no second chance in Hell."

  That actually made the savage smile. Loosing her hair, he used the same hand to unsheath the same knife he had used to kill his enemy before her eyes, brief moments earlier.

  "I meant for all of you to suffer," he explained flatly, without affect. "But now we have no time to do it properly."

  "Get on with it!" she said, again, as Daphne wailed, "Momeee!"

  The raiding party's leader reached for her again, knife rising toward her throat, when suddenly another burst of gunfire echoed from the entrance to the cave.

  * * *

  Kate and J.D. had no clear plan for their attack on the Apache stronghold. After their first exchange of gunfire with the renegades holed up inside, they had laid back, reloading, getting ready for the push they knew must come, though not convinced exactly when or how. At last, it was a child's voice that persuaded them—a girl's voice, by the sound of it, crying, "Momeee!"

  "Jesus, J.D.!"

  Kate was already on her feet and charging forward, before he could call her back. J.D. had no choice but to follow her and hope she wasn't cut down in the next few seconds, while he watched it all.

  If that happened, her knew exactly what he'd do. His last rush would be straight into those hostile guns, killing as many of the shooters as he could, before they did for him. It seemed impossible that he could drop them all, though stranger things had happened in his life. However many managed to survive, however many holes they blasted through him on the run, J.D. was braced to die with Kate, his one and only love, knowing he'd done his utmost to avenge her at the end.

  They ran on, firing as they went—and then, a strange thing happened.

  One Apache bolted from the cave, as if forgetting he had cover while his adversaries were exposed. He was aiming down the barrel of a Sharps carbine, but never had a chance to fire it as Kate's .44 slug tore into his chest and slammed him back against the nearest rocky wall. A second later, J.D. shot him in the face, a grisly way to lift his scalp, but as effective as a tomahawk.

  The renegade collapsed, and then they reached the cave's mouth, one crouching to either side and shielded by the adit's stony frame. Two heavy Sharps guns blasted empty air between them, missing by a yard or more on either side, and while the riflemen reloaded, Kate and J.D. saw their chance to slip inside the cave.

  Still dark in there, with no fire left, and dawn's light still a few hours away. They saw movement among the shadows, deeper in the cave, but couldn't tell one target from another, friend from foe. Wild fire was just as likely to dispatch the Hoskins family as to eliminate their kidnappers.

  "J.D.," Kate said, "we need a light."

  "Damn! I forgot to bring my lantern with me!"

  "Funny boy!"

  And then, as if on cue, a light flared at the farthest reaches of the cave. It came not from a muzzle flash, as J.D. had expected, but a small torch suddenly ignited and upraised by one of the Apaches, spreading its illumination on the battleground.

  Five Indians now stood before J.D. and Kate, all armed. In front of them, the Hopkins woman and her children stood, arrayed as human shields. A painted warrior held the mother with one arm around her
abdomen, below her breasts. His other hand was ready with a bloodstained knife, pressed to her throat.

  "Welcome, white eyes," the blade man said. "Behold our sacrifice to Tobadzistsini, God of War."

  Chapter 14

  "It's not your smartest move to do that," Kate advised the spokesman for the renegades.

  He laughed at that—an honest laugh it seemed, not forced—and said, "It is my only 'move,' as you say." Then, turning to J.D. on his left, "You let a woman speak for you?"

  "I've found she does all right," J.D. replied, tight-lipped, Winchester sights framed on the seeming leader's face beside the Hoskins woman's pale visage.

  "White eyes are strange, letting their women take the lead."

  "Buster," Kate told him, "you don't know the half of it."

  "She fights beside you, also," the Apache said.

  "And keeps up pretty well," J.D. agreed, feeling his wife begin to simmer. They were separated far enough to keep the painted riflemen from taking both of them at once, but he could feel her anger's heat regardless, in the cave's confines.

  "You want to talk about me, talk to me," Kate demanded. "If you want to talk about what men do, those I know don't threaten helpless women with a knife."

  "Helpless?" The leader laughed again. "Your race devours everything before it like a swarm of locusts. When the women come, we know the theft of our ancestral lands is nearly done. Why not kill them, as well, together with their pups? Your Colonel Chivington explained it at Sand Creek, when he said, 'Nits make lice'."

  "Not my colonel," Kate snapped. "I would've drilled the bastard if I had a chance. Right now, he's not the problem. You are."

  "Let me solve it for you," the Apache challenged. "I cut this one's throat, and then we all start firing, yes? My warriors have a place assured among their ancestors. And you?"

  "I plan on having dinner back at the hotel tonight," Kate said.

  "You are...what is it called? An optimist?"

  "I've always walked away, so far."

  Instead of answering in English, then, the lean Apache with the knife in hand growled something at his fellow braves. Their rifles were already aimed at the intruders in their cave, already cocked. Kate braced herself to die, vowing to kill the leader of the war party if he began to slit his captive's throat. Whatever happened after that was down to Fate.

  But he—and Fate—surprised her.

  Instead of carving Mrs. Hoskins where she stood, the warrior shoved her forward, stumbling toward J.D. and Kate. With that, he turned and ran into the darkness farther back, inside the cave, shouting a final order to his men as he took off.

  And that was when all holy hell broke loose.

  * * *

  Six rifles fired at once, their thunder deafening inside the cramped space between rocky walls, ceiling, and floor. J.D. and Kate had practiced for a situation such as this one, dropping low in perfect unison and firing as they went, while heavy Sharps slugs rattled overhead and out the cave's mouth, or caromed as ricochets inside the smoky chamber.

  Two Apaches fell when Kate and J.D. fired. That left two on their feet and one in flight, the leader of the band whom, J.D. knew, must not escape. Children screaming in their shrillest voices made the scene a little more like Hell on Earth, grating on J.D.'s nerves like fingernails dragged slowly over slate.

  Forget that! Children scream when they're afraid, and other times besides.

  He pumped the lever-action on his Winchester and swung around to pin another hostile in his sights. He caught the brave reloading his Sharps carbine, fairly quick about it, but not nearly quick enough to save himself this time.

  J.D.'s next round ripped through the red man's throat, releasing gouts of blood and nearly severing his spine. The warrior's head tipped over at an angle it could never make in life, a beat before his legs folded and took him down. The Sharps, still not reloaded, clattered useless on the cavern's stony floor.

  Two more shots, almost simultaneous, and J.D. spun around to see if Kate was standing. She was not, kneeling instead, but she was still unharmed. The warrior who had been on the receiving end of her last shot was down, sprawled out as if he had been crucified, bright crimson spreading out across his buckskin shirt.

  The hostages, though weeping frantically, appeared to be unharmed.

  Kate turned to J.D., cracked a smile, and said, "I've got it covered here. You'd better stop the chief, or whatever, from making tracks."

  "I hear you," J.D. said.

  He felt like stopping for a hasty kiss but didn't risk it. Up ahead of him somewhere, the leader of their enemies was beating feet like there was no tomorrow. J.D. didn't think he'd run like that, deeper inside the mountain, if he didn't have an exit plotted in his mind. The question now, was whether J.D. could catch up with him and head him off before he got away, to start the whole damned reign of terror up again from scratch.

  Cursing under his breath to spare the mother and her kids, he pumped another round into his rifle's chamber and took off.

  * * *

  Eagle knew his men lay dead behind him. They had served him well enough—except for Wolf, of course—and when he formed another band to carry out his work, his vision, he would cast them all as heroes of the struggle to redeem their land from whites. Meanwhile, it was imperative that Eagle should escape, elude pursuit by soldiers and by vigilantes, to begin recruitment on the reservation once again.

  The victories he had achieved within a short time, all the scalps he'd lifted in the process, would be proof to young and angry bucks that they should follow him. Their only other option was to live as white men told them to: disarmed and barred from travel, hunting, everything that made their old life paradise.

  Once more, Eagle would start with nothing but his dream and his charisma, drawing to him others who believed as he did, that the white man's way was wrong. This time, with any luck, more braves would join him in his quest for freedom. Possibly enough to rise and push the white eyes back, out of the territory they called Arizona and beyond.

  But first...

  He reached the rocky stairway leading to a chimney in the mountainside. Eagle had tested it the day after they found the cave and knew that he could wriggle through it to the world outside. Once there, if he felt he could spare the time, he'd wait with tomahawk in hand to see if anybody followed him. Not too long, naturally, just enough to satisfy himself.

  He started up the crude steps, etched by Nature over eons, and was halfway to the top when someone spoke, behind him.

  "Far enough." A white man's voice.

  He turned to face the man who, with his woman, had cut down the rest of Eagle's war party. His spirit sank, seeing the Winchester held steady on his chest.

  "My other men—"

  "Are in the Happy Hunting Ground," his adversary said.

  Eagle snorted. "You think I am Oglala Lakota?"

  "I don't really care," J.D. replied. "You had a fair run, but it ends right here. Today."

  "You think so, white eyes? This is only the beginning."

  "Sure. Maybe for someone else, not you.

  "And if I choose to fight?"

  "I'm counting on it, Mister."

  Smiling, Eagle drew his knife and tomahawk, holding them overhead. "My ancestors!" he cried, then launched himself through space, snarling.

  The Winchester exploded, and his world turned brilliant white.

  * * *

  They found horses concealed inside a little pocket canyon, northwest of the cave, where an emergent stream provided water and kept green grass growing for the dozen animals to graze on when they weren't employed. There were no saddles, but they got Rosalind Hoskins mounted on a gentle mare, her children stacked in front of her, and led the rest down to the spot where Kate and J.D.'s horses waited patiently for their return.

  "I guess they got these from the farms they raided," J.D. said.

  "Which means we can't go selling them," Kate said.

  "It never crossed my mind!"

  "Uh-huh
."

  They'd gotten tired of Mrs. Hoskins thanking them, Kate asking her to cut it out and focus on her kids. They had a good ride to Inferno, couldn't take it fast with children clinging bareback to an animal they'd never seen before, and that would take some time.

  Well on toward noon, J.D. picked out a smudge on the horizon and said, "Riders coming."

  "Army?" Kate inquired.

  "Can't tell, yet, what they're wearing," he replied.

  They sat still where they were, their Winchesters in hand, until they made out Marshal Olin Dill, followed by something like a dozen men they didn't recognize. Dill stopped and blinked at them before he said, "We came to save the prisoners."

  "And right on time," Kate jibed.

  To that, no answer from the lawman, but the porky man who rode beside him asked her, "What about the savages?"

  "All done," J.D. informed him.

  "Dead? You got 'em all?"

  Kate nodded backward, toward the Casa Grandes, as she said, "Follow our tracks and check it for yourself. Look close enough, you'll find a cave. Outside, the soldiers from Fort Royster who came looking yesterday."

  "Are they...?" Dill couldn't finish it.

  "Dead. Yes," she said.

  "We'll have to go and see it for ourselves, you understand. And maybe bring the soldiers back."

  "Whatever makes you happy," J.D. said.

  "One thing, though," Kate tacked on, stern-voiced.

  "What's that, ma'am?" asked the marshal.

  "If we hear of anybody selling off Apache scalps in town, or anywhere around these parts, we'll take it hard."

  "As hard as steel on flint," J.D. agreed.

  Dill might have blushed, or maybe it was just sunburn. "No, sir," he said. "No, ma'am. We ain't scalp hunters. Nothin' close to that. These men are deputized."