They Came to Kill
Page 16
As they headed in opposite directions from the camp, Jamie lifted a hand in farewell to Preacher. He was confident that he couldn’t have picked a better cocommander for this mission. As each bunch followed the ragged lines of the escarpment, it wasn’t long before they were out of sight of the camp and each other.
* * *
“As barren and empty of human life as this region appears to be, it must bear a definite resemblance to the surface of the moon,” Audie remarked later that morning as he rode alongside Preacher.
Preacher jerked a thumb toward the sky and said, “You mean the moon that’s up yonder?”
“That’s the only one of which I’m aware,” Audie replied with a smile. “No, wait, actually, that’s not true. I’ve heard that some men steeped in the astronomical sciences believe there may be moons around the other planets, as well. As telescopic devices continue to improve, I’ve no doubt that sooner or later we’ll be able to tell for sure.”
“Other planets?” Ramirez said from behind them. “What are you talking about, little man?”
Audie looked back over his shoulder. Preacher could tell that his old friend was trying not to sound disdainful as he said, “I’m talking the other worlds orbiting our sun. Mars, Venus, Neptune, Saturn, and the others. You’re not one of those people who believe that everything in the heavens orbits around the earth, are you, Señor Ramirez?”
“No, of course not,” Ramirez replied quickly, but despite that denial, Preacher thought the gunfighter sounded like maybe he had believed that. “My only schooling was at the mission,” Ramirez went on, “and the priests, they were more interested in saving my soul than anything else.” He laughed. “They failed spectacularly, no?”
“Umm,” Nighthawk said.
Both Molmberg brothers chuckled dryly.
For a second, Ramirez looked like those responses were going to make him angry, but then he shrugged them off. That was good, because a moment later, they had something more important on which to concentrate.
“Look up yonder,” Preacher said. “About a thousand yards, at the edge of the escarpment.”
“I see him,” Audie said.
“So do I,” Ramirez put in.
Nighthawk, Lars, and Bengt didn’t say anything, but Preacher was confident that they had spotted the lone figure on an Indian pony, too.
They all reined in and watched as the distant Apache suddenly put his mount down the slope and rode out onto the flats, moving fast enough that the pony’s heels kicked up a thin curl of dust. The rider headed due south.
“Where is he going?” Ramirez asked.
“Don’t know,” Preacher said, “but he wanted us to see him. Otherwise he never would’ve been just sittin’ there on the rim like that. He was waitin’ for us.”
“And now he expects us to follow him,” Audie said. “Why would he take off like that as soon as we came in sight if he didn’t?”
“Umm,” Nighthawk added.
Audie nodded. “Yes, it seems the same way to me. That gentleman is the bait in a trap.”
“Well, shoot,” Preacher said, “if them ’Paches have gone to that much trouble, we sure don’t want to disappoint ’em, now do we?” With that he heeled Horse into motion again and turned the rangy gray stallion to the southwest, on a course that would allow him to follow the distant, galloping figure.
The others all fell in behind him, and the chase was on.
CHAPTER 27
After angling southwest for several minutes, the pursuers were behind their quarry and hurrying due south after him. Preacher deliberately held Horse’s speed down, not because he didn’t want to catch the Apache but because he knew how quickly the mounts would wear down if they were run flat out in the heat, which was already growing worse even though it wasn’t midday yet. The other men followed his example.
The Indian pony was fast, but soon its rider had to slow down, too, to spare the animal. Being set afoot out in this wasteland was a slow death sentence. The chase settled down, considering it might be a long one.
Preacher didn’t think so, and when some large rock mounds came into sight a few minutes later, that confirmed his hunch. The fleeing Apache appeared to be headed straight for them.
Those mounds were far from tall enough to be called mountains and couldn’t even be considered hills. They looked more like the Good Lord had simply dropped divine handfuls of boulders here and there. Some of the rocks had scattered, while others piled up on each other.
Audie’s horse drew alongside Preacher’s. “They’re probably waiting in there to ambush us,” the former professor called to the mountain man over the rattle of hoofbeats.
“I’m countin’ on it!” Preacher replied with a reckless grin. With that expression on his face, he looked more like a youngster than the man in late middle age that he actually was.
The Apache reached the mounds and disappeared around one of them.
Preacher waved an arm and shouted to his companions, “Spread out! We’re gonna surround the place!”
Six men couldn’t completely surround the large cluster of rock mounds, of course, but neither were they charging in a group to be slaughtered, if that was what the Apaches had hoped for.
One at a time, the men veered off, heading right and left in turn. Preacher took the middle position, riding straight toward the rocks on the same path their quarry had taken. He didn’t see any men or horses around the boulders, but he felt sure they were there, just waiting to attack.
As he got closer, he expected to see arrows suddenly start flying out at him, but that didn’t happen. The Apaches were being cagey about it, trying to lure him on, he thought. Either that, or they weren’t really holed up in the rocks after all.
As Preacher rounded the mound where the man they’d been chasing had disappeared, the ambush finally came. Figures sporting bare chests and colorful headbands around their long black hair popped up from behind some of the rocks and opened fire with their bows.
“Dog, hunt!” Preacher shouted to the big cur who had followed him into the cluster of mounds. At the same time, the mountain man pulled Horse sharply to the left and drew his right-hand Dragoon.
The gun roared and bucked against his palm as he fired toward one of the Apaches. The bullet struck the man in the throat just as he loosed an arrow. The shaft sailed far wide of Preacher. The warrior who had fired it jerked back with crimson flooding from his wound down over his chest. He pawed futilely at the flow for a second, then pitched forward lifelessly over the rock where he had been hidden.
Preacher twisted in the saddle as another arrow cut through the air not far from his head. He spotted the man who had fired it. The Apache had been bold enough to climb on top of the mound to get a better aim, and he still stood there as he tried to nock a second arrow.
The man’s attempt from that vantage point hadn’t been good enough, unfortunately for him. Preacher’s Dragoon blasted again with the same deadly accuracy. The slug punched into the Apache’s belly and doubled him over. He toppled forward and bounced off a couple of the boulders before disappearing into a tangle of smaller rocks that had scrubby brush growing up between them.
Preacher hauled Horse into a tight turn around the mound to his left. Somewhere in the other direction, Dog snapped and snarled and a man screamed as the big cur’s fangs tore into his flesh. Guns boomed elsewhere in the field of boulders as the rest of Preacher’s group got into the fight.
A high-pitched war cry jerked the mountain man’s head around. He caught a glimpse of a knife-wielding warrior diving toward him from the top of a boulder. Preacher didn’t have time to get out of the way, but he swung the Dragoon around and metal rang against metal as the gun barrel clashed with the knife and deflected it.
A split second later, the Apache’s shoulder rammed into Preacher’s chest and knocked him sideways out of the saddle.
Preacher tried to twist in midair so he wouldn’t land on the bottom, but he was only partially successful. As he struck the gr
ound, enough of the Apache’s weight came down on him that it drove most of the air out of his lungs. The back of his head hit the hard-packed dirt with stunning force. Most men would have dropped the gun and passed out, but Preacher hung on not only to consciousness but also to the Dragoon.
Hot, foul breath blew in his face as the Apache tried to get a better hold and pin him down. Preacher drove his left elbow up under the man’s chin and levered his head back. At the same time, the mountain man arched his back and twisted, throwing the Apache off to the side. He rolled the other way and came to a stop on his belly as he gasped for air to replace the breath he’d lost.
A couple of yards away, the Apache sprawled on his stomach as well. Preacher snapped a shot as the man started to surge up. The blow to the head must have made Preacher’s vision a little fuzzy. Normally he wouldn’t have missed at that range, but the Apache kept coming as the bullet whipped past him.
Preacher rolled out of the way as the warrior flung himself at him. Drawing back his right leg, Preacher straightened it and drove his boot heel into the Apache’s ribs as the man went past him. That kick knocked the man away from him and gave Preacher the chance to come up on his knees. The Apache rolled over, caught himself, and came up throwing the knife.
Preacher dived to the right. He felt the blade touch the left sleeve of his shirt, but it didn’t slice into the flesh underneath. The Apache, a stocky, barrel-chested warrior with a face twisted by hate, sprang to his feet and charged again, evidently intent on throttling Preacher to death with his bare hands since he didn’t seem to have any other weapons.
Preacher fired twice as he lay there propped up on his right elbow. Smoke and flame spurted from the Dragoon’s muzzle. The Apache stopped short for a second as the bullets hammered into his chest, then he stumbled forward another step before collapsing.
As Preacher shoved himself up onto his feet, more Apaches came into view, seeming to appear as if by magic from the rocks around him. He was surrounded, facing at least half a dozen enemies. He had one shot remaining in the revolver he held, but the Dragoon on his other hip still had a full wheel. He might not be able to draw the weapon and gun down the rest of the attackers before they overwhelmed him, but he was going to try.
He didn’t have to. At that moment Ramirez appeared, racing on horseback around another of the rock mounds. He guided his horse with his knees while the guns in both hands spat flame. Some of the Apaches tried to turn to meet this new attack, but the bullets from Ramirez’s guns ripped through them before they could do anything.
Preacher lifted the Dragoon in his right hand and shot another warrior in the head. At this range, the slug blew off a good chunk of the man’s skull.
At the same time, Preacher drew the other Dragoon with his left hand and brought it up. He thumbed off a couple of rounds that knocked another warrior off his feet.
Instinct warned him, and he spun around to see an Apache leaping at him from behind. He leaped to the side to avoid a sweeping slash of the knife the man held, then lashed out with the empty revolver he held in his right hand. The heavy Dragoon crashed into the Apache’s head with a crunch of shattering bone. The man’s knees buckled and he pitched forward as blood ran from his ears, nose, and eyes.
A scream made Preacher look over his shoulder. Ramirez had ridden down one of the warriors. His horse’s steel-shod hooves slashed and pounded the man into insensibility. But the last of the Apaches who had surrounded Preacher was drawing a bead on Ramirez’s back with an arrow. Preacher fired the left-hand Dragoon past Ramirez, who looked startled, as if he thought Preacher’s shot was aimed at him.
Then the arrow that would have skewered him from behind flew past his head, and he turned to see the Apache who had fired it folding up with Preacher’s bullet in his guts. The warrior dropped to his knees and pressed both hands to his belly. Blood welled between his fingers. His mouth opened and closed. Preacher knew he was trying to sing a death song, but the spirits caught up to him too quickly for that. He fell forward onto his face and didn’t move again.
Preacher looked around and saw that all the other Apaches were either dead or too close to it to be a threat anymore. A few more shots blasted from other areas around the cluster of rocks, then an echoing silence fell. Dog padded into sight, his muzzle bloody from the havoc he had wreaked.
One by one, Audie, Nighthawk, and the Molmberg brothers appeared, too. They appeared to be unhurt.
Preacher asked, “Got this hornet’s nest cleaned out?”
“Indeed we have,” Audie replied. “We can get a more accurate count later, but right now I’d estimate that we killed somewhere between fifteen and twenty Apaches.”
“Any get away?”
“Umm,” Nighthawk said curtly. He shook his head in disgust.
“One, but only that one,” Audie said. “He appeared to be wounded, but perhaps not fatally.”
Preacher rubbed his chin. “Jamie won’t mind that one of the varmints lit a shuck. He’ll rattle his hocks back to the others. They already knew we were here, but now they know why we came.”
“We came to kill,” Ramirez said as he slid his reloaded guns back into their holsters.
“We sure did,” Preacher said.
CHAPTER 28
Jamie took the lead as his group rode east along the base of the escarpment. Behind him in single file came Edgerton, Powder Pete, Deadlead, and Tennysee. Bringing up the rear, about twenty yards behind the others, was Dog Brother.
Jamie hadn’t told the half-breed to hang back like that. Dog Brother was doing it on his own, probably because he just didn’t like to associate with the others.
That seemed to be all right with the rest of the group. Dog Brother was a surly varmint—but he had a reputation for being good in a fight. As long as he was close by in case the Apaches jumped them, nobody gave a hoot if he was friendly.
Other than the ragged-edged bluff that formed the escarpment, the country in that direction seemed featureless. Jamie spotted a few mesas and rock spires far to the south, but closer there was nothing to be seen except flat, sandy ground and the occasional rock, clump of hardy grass, or stumpy greasewood bush.
Then Edgerton, riding a few yards behind Jamie, said, “Hey, look over there, MacCallister. Is that a cave?”
“Yeah.” Jamie had spotted it just before Edgerton spoke up.
Powder Pete said, “We’d better check it out. Might be some Apaches hidin’ in it.”
Jamie was already turning his horse toward the dark opening in the side of the bluff. “Not likely to be any Apaches in there, but I don’t suppose it’ll hurt anything to take a look.”
“More likely a den o’ rattlesnakes,” Tennysee said. “I’ll let you boys go in there iffen you want to. I don’t like them scaly critters myself.”
The lanky mountain man might be right, Jamie knew. Rattlers loved rocky areas like this. He reined to a stop while he was still several yards from the cave mouth.
And it wasn’t exactly a cave, he saw now that they were closer. A large, rugged shelf of rock extended outward from the bluff, and the overhang created a cavelike area underneath it. That area extended into the bluff, and as Jamie studied it, he decided that at some point in the past, it had been hollowed out to make it bigger. Not by the elements, but by human beings. Someone had lived there.
Nothing moved in the shadowy gloom, at least as far as Jamie could see—and his eyes were pretty good. He swung down from the saddle and motioned for the others to do likewise. “Gather up some of that dry greasewood and make a little fire,” he told Edgerton. “I want to fashion a torch before I go in there.”
Edgerton grunted and set about the task.
“There ain’t no Apaches in there,” Powder Pete said. “If there was, they’d be shootin’ at us by now, I reckon. So why do we need a better look?”
“Maybe we don’t need it, but I want to see what’s in there,” Jamie replied. “I think somebody used to live there, and I’m curious about them.”
Using flint, steel, and tinder, Edgerton got the small stack of dried greasewood branches burning. Jamie gathered more branches, bundled them together in his left hand, and held the other end of the bundle in the flames until it caught. Then he walked quickly into the cave underneath the beetling rock outcropping. He drew his Colt with his other hand in case any rattlesnakes were lurking.
He didn’t hear the telltale whirring sound that the rattles made when one of the snakes was ready to strike. The flickering light from the makeshift torch reached out to the edges of the roughly circular area and didn’t illuminate anything except sandy ground and curving rock walls. Then Jamie spotted something else on the rocks and stepped closer.
A smile touched his lips as he looked at what the light revealed. Crude figures and designs had been painted on the stone. Time had faded the painting, but he was able to make out marks intended to depict humans, animals, maybe some mountains and a river, the sun, even a scattering of stars. Whoever had lived here hundreds of years ago—perhaps even longer than that—had attempted to leave a record of their lives. They were long dead, but their paintings remained, creating a bond that stretched back from Jamie’s time all the way to theirs.
He looked at the fading marks for a moment longer, then dropped the torch to the sandy ground before the curling flames reached his fingers. He backed away from the stone wall, turned, and stepped out into the light of morning, holstering his gun.
“No Indians in there, I reckon?” Edgerton asked.
“Not now,” Jamie replied. “But there were a long time ago. Not Apaches, though. The folks who lived here were around these parts while the Apaches were still over in West Texas and hadn’t been run out yet by the Comanches.” He glanced at Dog Brother, whose features remained impassive.