Clearly the half-breed didn’t take any pride in how his father’s people had chased the Apaches out of Texas, for the most part.
“There are some paintings on the wall in there,” Jamie went on. “The old-time Indians left them there. If any of you want to take a look at them, go ahead.”
None of the men budged.
Edgerton said, “If those paintings don’t get us any closer to the varmints we came here to kill, I don’t reckon they matter much.”
“Suit yourself,” Jamie said with a shrug. It was too bad Audie wasn’t here, he thought. The former professor would be interested in the cave paintings, he was sure of that. Maybe he would tell Audie about them later. “The horses got to rest a few minutes, anyway.”
They mounted up and moved on, staying close to the bluff as they headed east. After a while, Jamie reined in again. He leaned over in the saddle to study the ground.
“Hoofprints from unshod ponies,” he announced as he straightened. “Looks like about a dozen of them.”
“An Apache huntin’ party, more ’n likely,” Tennysee said. “Iffen I recollect rightly, there’s one o’ them little mountain ranges five or ten miles north o’ here. They must’ve gone up there hopin’ to get ’em a sheep or an antelope.”
Dog Brother had ridden forward. He slid down from his horse’s back and dropped to one knee to take a better look at the hoofprints. After a moment, he looked up at Jamie and said, “These tracks are only a few hours old.”
“I thought the same thing,” Jamie replied with a nod. “And they’re all headed north.”
Edgerton grunted. “That means they haven’t come back yet. They’ll be heading this way.”
“Unless they went back to their camp by some other trail,” Jamie pointed out. “But it’s more likely they’ll return on the same trail they used going north.”
“Likely enough for us to wait an’ see?” Tennysee asked.
Jamie nodded again. “That’s what I’m thinking.”
The rest of them dismounted. Jamie sent Deadlead up to the top of the bluff to keep an eye out for the Apaches if they returned. The rest of the men checked their weapons and took little sips from their canteens. There was no telling how long they might have to wait. It might be late in the day before the hunting party rode back this way—if, indeed, it actually did.
In the meantime, there wasn’t much shade to speak of, and the sun was almost overhead. The heat grew uncomfortable and would get considerably worse before it started getting better, Jamie knew.
Luckily, only half an hour had passed before Deadlead came to the edge of the bluff and waved his hat over his head to attract the attention of the men below. Once he had it, he put the hat on again and cupped his hands around his mouth to call, “Riders comin’!”
“Apaches?” Jamie shouted back.
“Don’t know! They’re still too far out to tell for sure! But who in blazes else could it be?”
Jamie didn’t know. It wasn’t likely that any other groups of white men would be wandering around in this dangerous wasteland. He supposed the riders might be a Mexican army patrol. He wasn’t sure exactly where the border was, and he figured the Mexicans probably didn’t know, either.
He told the other men to stay where they were and climbed up the rocky slope to have a look for himself. He had a telescope in his saddlebags, but he didn’t take it with him. Too great a risk the sun might reflect off the lens and warn the approaching riders that someone was here. He would have to depend on his own eyes.
When Jamie reached the top, Deadlead pointed out the distant figures he had spotted. At this point, they weren’t much more than tiny black shapes making their way across the sun-blasted wilderness.
Jamie shaded his eyes with a big hand and squinted at the approaching figures. “Can’t get an exact count, but there seems to be about a dozen of them. That matches up with the hoofprints we found down there.”
“It’s the Apaches,” Deadlead said confidently.
“We’re going to get ready like it’s them, anyway,” Jamie said. He rubbed his beard-stubbled chin and went on. “Get down low so they won’t spot you and keep an eye on them. Let us know if they veer off one way or the other.”
Deadlead nodded. He stretched out on his belly at the edge of the bluff while Jamie went back down the slope to rejoin the rest of the group. He told them what was going on, then asked Powder Pete to take the horses back along the bluff to the west until he found a spot where they would be out of sight.
“You can lead them into the cave underneath that overhang,” Jamie suggested.
“But I’ll miss all the excitement,” Pete protested.
“Next time, somebody else can handle the horses,” Jamie said. “The rest of you, take your rifles, go on up, and find good positions along the rim. Keep the guns below the edge for now so the sun won’t reflect off them. With any luck, those Apaches will ride right up to us before they know we’re here.”
“Good luck for us, you mean,” Tennysee said. “Howsomever, I don’t reckon it’ll be all that fortunate for them if they do.”
“No,” Jamie said, shaking his head. “Not good luck for them at all.”
CHAPTER 29
Jamie went up to the top of the slope and motioned for Deadlead to move back until he was below the rim. Jamie knelt beside him and peered across the flats at the riders, who were still coming steadily toward the escarpment. They had closed the gap enough that Jamie was able to distinguish the men on horseback.
“I’m pretty sure they’re Apaches, all right,” Deadlead commented. “You can make out those bright-colored headbands and sashes they like to wear.”
Jamie agreed, having already spotted a few splashes of red and blue himself. He nodded and said, “You’re in a good position, so you can just stay right here. I’ll move off over there to the left. The rest of the boys are spreading out along the rim. When I figure the Apaches are close enough, I’ll start the ball. The rest of you open fire then.”
“Gonna be a little like a turkey shoot,” Deadlead said.
With a grim note in his voice, Jamie said, “Except the turkeys never fought back. These Apaches will.”
Staying low so they wouldn’t spot him moving along the rim, he made his way to a good place where he could crouch just under the edge and bring up his Sharps when the time was right. He looked along the rim in both directions and saw the other men readying their weapons.
A grimace pulled Jamie’s lips away from his teeth for a second. An ambush like this was very much like cold-blooded murder, and that rubbed him the wrong way. Unlikely though it might be, the possibility existed that some of the warriors in that hunting party had never slaughtered any innocents. But they would be cut down, too, either in the opening volley or the fighting that would follow hard on its heels. True, it was the job of him and his companions to kill Apaches and force any survivors out of the territory, and in the long run that would save many innocent lives . . . but some things were still hard to swallow.
Jamie was thinking about that when two of the mounted figures suddenly moved out in front of the others, pushing their ponies to a considerably faster pace. They rode hard toward the rim.
Instantly, Jamie realized what was going on. Whoever was in command of that party didn’t want to ride up to the edge blindly, without knowing whether any enemies might be lurking out of sight just beyond it. The hombre was smart, Jamie thought. He would have done the same thing if he were in charge.
Jamie ducked low so he wouldn’t be spotted and signaled urgently to his men, trying to let them know that they needed to hide as best they could. A number of boulders littered the slope and provided potential cover. If the men could manage it, they would let the scouts ride down the slope without noticing them, then jump the two men and try to take care of them without any shots to give away their presence. Jamie slid over behind one of the rocks and tried to make himself as small as possible, but for a man of his size, that wasn’t easy.
The ponies’ hoofbeats got louder as they approached, then stopped. Jamie couldn’t see the riders from where he was, because he didn’t want them to see him, but he guessed the two Apaches had come to a halt near the rim to look over the landscape. He was glad he had told Powder Pete to take the horses back along the bluff until they were out of sight.
After a minute or so that dragged by with maddening slowness, the ponies clip-clopped closer. Jamie held his breath and stayed absolutely still, knowing that movement attracted the eye quicker than anything else. About twenty feet away, two young Apache warriors on horseback appeared at the edge of the bluff and started slowly down the slope.
When their heads were turned, Jamie eased his knife out of its sheath. He waited, letting them continue descending so they wouldn’t be as visible to the other members of their group they had left up on the flats. When he judged they had gone far enough, he carefully drew back his arm and then whipped it forward as he threw the knife.
The blade flashed through the air and then landed with a solid thunk! in the side of the nearest Apache. The young man cried out and twisted around on the back of his pony as he grabbed reflexively at the knife.
At the same time, Deadlead leaped up from behind the rock where he had taken cover, on the far side of the scouts from Jamie, and charged toward them. The second Apache, who carried an old flintlock rifle, tried to swing it toward Deadlead, but the frontiersman grabbed the barrel, wrenched the rifle out of the Apache’s hands, and rammed the stock upward into his jaw. The sudden attack spooked the pony and made the animal lunge forward. The impact of the blow Deadlead struck with the rifle flipped the man backward off the pony.
The same speed that made Deadlead dangerous with a gun served him well now. He darted in and slammed the rifle’s butt in the middle of the fallen man’s face, crushing his nose and shattering bone. The Apache spasmed and then sagged back into the stillness of death.
The man with Jamie’s knife in him was still mounted. He managed to get a hand on the weapon and yanked it free. Blood flowed out thickly from the wound. Jamie charged at him and ducked as the Apache flung the bloody knife back at him.
Edgerton rushed in from the other side, and the wounded man didn’t see him coming in time. Edgerton reached up, grabbed the Apache, and hauled him off the pony. He heaved the man farther down the slope where Dog Brother was waiting with a knife clutched in his own hand. Almost too swiftly for the eye to follow, the half-breed bent over and slashed the blade across the Apache’s throat, then straightened and stepped back as blood shot up from the gaping wound. The dying warrior flopped his arms and legs for a couple of seconds before going still. Blood still welled from his throat as his heart pumped out its last feeble beats, then that stopped as well.
Dog Brother took off his hat and tossed it to one side. He pulled off his vest and then ripped the crimson headband from the dead Apache to put it on his own head.
Jamie had figured out what the half-breed was doing, so he wasn’t surprised when Dog Brother ran over to one of the Indian ponies, grabbed its rope hackamore, and leaped onto the animal’s back. He rode back up to the rim and waved an arm to let the rest of the Apaches know it was all right to come ahead.
“Hate to say anything good about that varmint because he’s surlier ’n an ol’ possum,” Tennysee drawled, “but that’s a pretty smart move.”
“It is,” Jamie agreed, “but there’s a chance that’s not the signal they agreed on. If it is, we’ve still got a chance to spring this trap. Everybody spread out and take your positions at the top again.”
While they were doing that, Dog Brother turned the pony and rode back down the slope. He dropped off the animal’s back, tore off the headband, and flung it away from him with a look of disgust. He picked up his own hat and put it back on, then shrugged into his vest as he joined the others just below the rim.
Jamie had taken off his hat so he could look over the edge. The rest of the Apaches had started moving again. They came on toward the rim at a leisurely pace and didn’t seem concerned about anything.
“Looks like your little trick worked,” he said to Dog Brother. “They thought you were one of those scouts they sent ahead.”
“I thought they might,” Dog Brother said. “I’m bigger than either of those two, so I knew they might notice that, but evidently they—”
Suddenly, with strident, angry whoops, the Apaches jabbed their heels in their ponies’ flanks and the animals lunged forward. The warriors were in bowshot range, and as they charged, they unslung their bows and sent arrows flying toward the rim.
Tennysee ducked a shaft that went right over his head and exclaimed, “Looks like the joke’s on us, boys—and it’s a corker!”
CHAPTER 30
With the Apaches already aware of their presence and attacking, there was no need for stealth. Jamie lifted himself a little higher, raised the Sharps to his shoulder, took aim, and squeezed the trigger.
He was used to the loud boom and the heavy kick. He looked through the pall of powder smoke that had gushed from the Sharps’ muzzle and saw that the man he had targeted was down. The riderless pony galloped on. Jamie reloaded as more shots blasted from the men concealed along the rim.
From the corner of his eye, he saw two more Apaches topple from their horses. Others may have been hit but were able to stay mounted; he couldn’t tell about that. He closed the rifle’s breech and lifted it again to draw another bead.
When he fired, the pony being ridden by the man he targeted chose exactly the wrong second to throw its head high. Jamie’s shot hit the animal, killing it instantly. The pony went down as if its legs had been jerked out from under it, and the yelling rider flew through the air, arms windmilling, as momentum flung him forward.
He hit the ground hard and rolled over several times but was able to spring back to his feet—just in time for a bullet fired from Jamie’s Walker Colt to crash into his chest and drive him backward. The Apaches were in revolver range, so Jamie didn’t take the time to reload the Sharps. He thumbed back the Walker’s hammer, swung it to the right, and triggered again. This shot shattered the shoulder of another Apache and dropped him howling to the ground.
Although several of the warriors were down, the rest had reached the rim and dived from their ponies, hitting the ground running as they closed with their enemies to do battle hand to hand.
One screeching warrior came at Jamie with a lance and tried to ram the weapon through him. Jamie twisted aside. The lance’s sharp-pointed flint head raked along the side of his buckskin shirt. The Walker boomed again as he fired a round into the middle of the Apache’s face. The warrior’s features disappeared in a red, powder-scorched smear.
The dead man fell against him, getting in his way for a second and threatening to get tangled up with his feet. Jamie shoved the corpse aside and looked up to see another warrior aiming an arrow at him. Before the Apache could turn loose of the bowstring, a rifle blasted. The bullet slammed into him and turned him halfway around. The arrow flew off wildly. As the Apache collapsed, Jamie glanced to the right and saw Tennysee lowering a rifle with smoke curling from the muzzle. The two men exchanged curt nods. There was no time—or need—for anything else. For fighting men, that brief look conveyed all that needed to be said.
His instincts warning him, Jamie whirled and shot another warrior closing in on him with a knife.
Gun-thunder rolled along the rim for a minute or so, and a gray cloud of acrid powder smoke gathered to make noses sting and eyes water. The battle seemed longer than it really was.
As the shots died away, an eerie silence took their place. That silence lasted until one of the wounded Apaches began to chant his death song.
That ended abruptly when Dog Brother cut the dying man’s throat.
Jamie was breathing a little hard as he looked around. He was getting too old for this, he thought. Even though he was only in his early forties, that was a pretty advanced age for a fighting man. Preacher was ten years olde
r, Jamie reminded himself—but Preacher seemed nearly ageless and probably always would.
Dog Brother, Tennysee, and Deadlead were all on their feet. The Apaches were down, either dead or dying, and the ones who still moved were stilled quickly as Dog Brother stalked among them, finishing them off.
“Where’s Edgerton?” Jamie asked as he realized he didn’t see the dour frontiersman.
“Over here,” Edgerton called from behind one of the boulders. Jamie circled it quickly and saw Edgerton sitting there with his back propped against the rock. His legs were stretched out in front of him. The left one had an arrow embedded in the thigh.
“Doesn’t look too bad,” Jamie said as he hunkered on his heels next to the wounded man.
“No, it didn’t go in very deep,” Edgerton agreed. Despite the calmness in his voice, his face was pale from the pain. “The varmint fired it just as I ventilated him, and his grip on the bowstring slipped a little, so the arrow didn’t have full force behind it. Bad enough, though.” He paused. “You know what’s got to be done now.”
Jamie grunted. “Sure. We’ll tend to it once I’ve made sure everybody else is all right and sent one of the others to fetch Pete and the horses.”
“What about the Apaches? Are they all dead?”
“Dog Brother is seeing to that,” Jamie said.
Edgerton nodded slowly, understanding exactly what Jamie meant.
Tennysee, Deadlead, and Dog Brother had come through the fight without a scratch. Tennysee volunteered to walk back and let Pete know it was safe to return with the horses.
“How bad’s Edgerton hurt?” Deadlead asked.
“He caught an arrow in the leg. I’m fixing to take it out of him.”
Tennysee had started to walk off. He stopped, turned around, and reached inside his buckskin shirt to take out a small silver flask. As he held it out to Jamie, he said, “Give him this. I reckon he’ll need it more ’n I do. Sorry there ain’t more.”
They Came to Kill Page 17
