No, the Apaches would have shown no mercy, and that was exactly what they had received from their enemies.
Sandoval joined in the grim work, and when the chore was done, he again invited Jamie and Preacher into the hut.
“We really need to be getting back to our camp,” Jamie said, “but before we go, Señor Sandoval, do you mind if I ask you a question?”
“Of course not, Señor MacCallister.” Sandoval called him by name since Jamie and Preacher had introduced themselves to him while they were dragging off the bodies for the scavengers. “What is it you wish to know?”
Jamie gestured toward their surroundings. “Why do you stay out here in the middle of nowhere? You have to know it’s not safe for your family.”
“It is my land,” Sandoval replied with an eloquent shrug. “And the creek, she never runs dry. At least, she has not in the time we have been here, almost three years. Each year, I work a little more land and grow a few more crops. In time, I will cultivate this entire valley and be a rich man . . . or at least, not a poor one.”
“If the blamed Apaches don’t wipe you out first!” Preacher exclaimed.
Jamie could tell the mountain man was feeling some of the same exasperation he was.
“But you have to understand, señors, the savages were not always as bad as they are now. Most lived in the mountains farther south and were content to remain there. It was only a year or so ago, after Perro Blanco rose to power, that they began to raid more.”
“Perro Blanco,” Jamie repeated. “Who or what is that?”
“The new war chief of the Apaches. There are farms such as this one here and there, and an old trader travels among them in his wagon. He brings rumors of the raids led by Perro Blanco and how he tries to bring all the scattered bands together. He claims that when he does, he will drive out all the Mejicanos, along with any gringos who dare come down here, and this land will belong only to the Apaches.”
Jamie rubbed his chin. “That’s what he’s got in mind, does he?”
“So it is said, Señor MacCallister.”
“Then it sounds like this hombre Perro Blanco is somebody we need to meet up with,” Jamie said, and Preacher nodded in grim agreement.
Armando Sandoval stared at them in confusion. “You wish to meet the war chief of the Apaches?”
“We’ll introduce ourselves with lead,” Preacher said.
CHAPTER 34
When Noah Stuart reached the camp and delivered Jamie’s message, Tennysee grew serious for a change. He took charge and said, “Pete, Greybull, Deadlead, you fellas come with me. We’ll give Preacher and Jamie a hand if they need it. The rest of you stay here.”
“And be left out of the action?” Ramirez said. “I’m coming with you!”
Tennysee pursed his lips and looked like he was going to argue, but then he said, “All right. Just don’t go rushin’ in all recklesslike. We’ll see how the ground lies before we take a hand in whatever’s goin’ on.”
Ramirez nodded his agreement, and within a very few minutes, the five men were mounted and riding off to the southwest, following the direction Stuart had indicated.
Fletch said, “Maybe I should have gone, too. It’s not fair to all the other fellas that I just stay here in camp all the time.”
“Your job is here,” Clementine told him, “making sure the wagon stays safe. And me, too.”
Fletch blew out a breath. “The way you handle a rifle, I’m not so sure you even need me around anymore.”
“Don’t you ever think that, Fletcher Wylie!”
Edgerton, who was sitting on the lowered tailgate of the surveyors’ wagon to rest his heavily bandaged leg, grimaced and said, “If you want to talk about something not being fair, it’s me being laid up like this. I’m a fighting man. I can’t abide just sitting around.”
“In a few more days, you’ll be up and around more, Mr. Edgerton,” Clementine told him.
“In the meantime, we have your sparkling company,” Dog Brother said with utter solemnity. The half-breed’s expression never changed as the others stared at him in the shocked realization that he had made a joke.
“Yeah, sure,” Edgerton grumbled.
Dupre brought out his fiddle and suggested, “Perhaps some music is what we need to pass the time.” He tucked the instrument against his shoulder and under his chin and lifted the bow, poising it to scrape across the strings.
Before he played a note, a shot blasted somewhere not too far away, and the fiddle seemed to leap out of Dupre’s hand as a bullet tore through it and sent splinters flying in the air.
Dupre howled Gallic curses, but an instant later more shots shattered the morning air and drowned them out. Fletch grabbed Clementine and dived underneath the wagon with her. Everyone else in camp scrambled for cover as well. Edgerton threw himself backward between the wagon’s sideboards. Bullets whipped through its canvas cover.
Noah Stuart and Chester Merrick had been standing next to one of the front wheels on their wagon. Stuart dropped to his knees and brought Merrick down with him by tugging on the other man’s arm. They crawled underneath the wagon with Fletch and Clementine. Merrick lay on his belly and covered his head with his arms, as if that would stop a bullet.
“Where in tarnation are those shots comin’ from?” Pugh yelled.
“Up in the rocks to the east!” Dupre called back. Normally, a guard would have been posted up there, but the sentries hadn’t taken their positions yet since most of the group was still in camp.
These weren’t the sort of men to hunker in fear. They began firing back, even though they couldn’t see the ambushers. They spotted little puffs of powder smoke among the rocks and aimed at those, knowing that their shots would be coming close to the bushwhackers, at least.
During a lull in the firing, Dupre called, “Is anyone hurt?”
From under the surveyors’ wagon, Fletch answered, “We’re all right down here, me and Clementine and Mr. Stuart and Mr. Merrick.”
Dupre and Pugh were crouched together behind the Wylie wagon, at the back end of it. The Molmberg brothers were at the vehicle’s front end. None of them had been hit.
Dog Brother replied from some brush on the far side of the little pool. “I’m all right.”
No response came from Edgerton.
Dupre noticed that and said, “Hey, Edgerton! Are you hit?”
Still nothing.
Grimacing, Dupre looked at the four people huddled underneath the other wagon and asked, “Can one of you see about him?”
“I’ll go,” Fletch said immediately, but Noah Stuart put a hand on his shoulder to stop him from moving.
“No, let me,” Stuart said. “You’ve got your wife to worry about.”
Fletch looked like he wanted to argue, but Stuart had a point. After a second, the young man nodded. “All right, but be careful.”
“I’ll try to keep the wagon between me and those gunmen.”
Over at the Wylie wagon, Pugh said to Dupre, “Those are modern rifles the varmints are usin’. You can tell by the sound of ’em. That ain’t Apaches.”
“I was just thinking the same thing, mon ami,” Dupre replied. “We have been ambushed by white men.” He glanced at the other wagon and saw Clementine’s bright blond hair underneath it. “The girl’s brothers, perhaps?”
“More ’n likely,” Pugh replied. “Preacher figured they’d try to catch up to us.”
Noah Stuart crawled out from under the front of the wagon where he had taken cover and grabbed hold of the wheel to help himself get to his feet quickly. Moving as fast as he could, he clambered onto the driver’s box. A bullet struck the seat not far from his hand, chewing splinters from the wood that stung his skin. He powered himself into a dive over the seat back that carried him into the wagon bed, where he sprawled among the crates of supplies and surveying equipment.
Edgerton lay just inside the wagon at the back end, not moving.
“Mr. Edgerton!” Stuart called. “Mr. Edgerton,
can you hear me?”
The frontiersman didn’t answer, didn’t budge.
Fearing the worst, Stuart started crawling toward the back of the wagon. Bullets continued thudding into the thick sideboards, and he caught his breath at every impact. He didn’t know when one of the slugs might penetrate the wood and hit him. Hearing bullets going through the wagon’s canvas cover, too, he kept his head down. Those few moments were as nerve-wracking as any Noah Stuart had ever experienced.
When he was close enough, he reached out, grasped Edgerton’s shoulder, and shook it. Edgerton rolled loosely onto his back. Stuart recoiled as he saw that the man’s eyes were open wide but staring sightlessly up at the canvas above them.
He raised himself a little higher on his elbows and lifted his head until he saw the large bloodstain on the left side of Edgerton’s shirt. One of the bullets had struck him as he was trying to reach cover inside the wagon, and judging by the blood’s location, it had penetrated the left lung or perhaps the heart. Either way it had proved fatal.
Stuart flinched as he felt as much as heard the wind-rip of a bullet past his ear. He flattened out again and stayed there. He thought about trying to back up and get out of the wagon, but that would just put him at an even greater risk, he realized. The best thing he could do was lie there and wait for the ambush to be over.
But what if the shooting continued until everyone else in the party had been picked off? Then the killers would come and find him alone. He’d have no chance of escaping death then.
Torn by indecision, Noah Stuart lay there a few feet away from a dead man and listened to the roar of guns outside.
CHAPTER 35
Jamie, Preacher, Audie, and Nighthawk were on their way back to the campsite when they met Tennysee, Deadlead, Greybull, Powder Pete, and Ramirez. The two groups of men reined in and greeted each other.
“I reckon Noah made it back to the camp all right, or else you fellas wouldn’t be heading in this direction,” Jamie said.
Tennysee nodded. “That’s right. He said you rattled your hocks off to the southwest to check out some shootin’. What’d you find?”
“More Apaches. They were laying siege to the jacal where a farmer and his family live next to a little creek off that way.”
Tennysee’s eyebrows climbed up his forehead. “There’s somebody dumb enough to try farmin’ in this hellhole?”
“He’s not just attempting it,” Audie said. “He appears to be having a small degree of success. I took a look at his field while we were there, and while I doubt that he has any actual education on the subject, he’s using solid irrigation techniques that go back to the ancient Romans. That’s probably just instinctive on his part. He seemed fairly intelligent.”
Tennysee snorted. “Not smart enough to keep from bringin’ his family out here where the ’Paches can get ’em.”
“Some men are born to take risks,” Jamie said. “That’s how civilization spreads.”
“These Apaches,” Ramirez said. “Did you run them off or . . . ?”
“We dragged ’em off,” Preacher said. “Into the bushes for the buzzards and the coyotes.”
“Then you did not leave any for us to kill.” Ramirez sounded disappointed.
“We found out something, though,” Jamie said. “The Apaches have been raiding so much in these parts because they’ve got a new war chief who’s trying to get them to work together and run out all the intruders, white and Mexican alike. Calls himself Perro Blanco.”
“White Dog,” Ramirez said. The gunfighter shook his head. “These savages and their names. The half-breed is called Dog Brother, and now we have White Dog to contend with.” He glanced at Preacher. “And your cur is just plain Dog.”
“I believe in keepin’ things simple,” the mountain man drawled.
Powder Pete said, “You were goin’ to see if you could find any sign of whatever it was ol’ Noah saw reflectin’ sunlight yesterday. Did you turn up anything?”
Jamie shook his head. “No, we got sidetracked before we could do that. We’ll take up that chore again if you boys want to head on back to camp.”
“Since we’re already out here, why don’t we just come with you?” Tennysee suggested.
“Yeah,” Greybull rumbled. “That way, if there’s any more excitement, we won’t miss out on it.”
Jamie thought about it for a second and then nodded agreement. There was still a good-sized force at the camp in case anything happened there. He wasn’t expecting trouble, particularly, but out here it was always possible and the air had an unsettled feel to it this morning, as if something was going to happen but he didn’t know what.
The nine men rode together, turning south again when they reached the line running between the camp and the distant mesa where it seemed like Noah Stuart’s mysterious flash might have originated. The mesa was rather small, and as they approached, Jamie once again suggested that the men spread out and circle around the little tableland so they could get a good look at all sides of it before they came too close.
Nothing about the mesa seemed suspicious as far as Jamie could see, and Preacher agreed. They waved the others on in, and the circle slowly closed.
Jamie immediately noticed the hoofprints and horse droppings and pointed them out to Preacher, who had already seen them, too. The mountain man studied the tracks for several moments, then dismounted and hunkered next to a pile of droppings.
“You gonna pick ’em up and see how soft they are?” Tennysee asked with a grin.
“Don’t have to,” Preacher replied. “I can tell just by lookin’ at ’em that some critter left ’em here earlier today.” He looked up at Jamie. “Tracks are muddled enough it’s hard to say for sure, but I figure there were eight horses here. Maybe nine or ten, but I don’t think so.”
“Clementine has four brothers,” Jamie said. “An extra mount apiece would make eight.”
“Yeah, but they left Santa Fe after we did. How much after us, we don’t know, but we had to have a good lead on ’em.”
“With extra horses and no wagons to slow them down, they could close up that gap if they didn’t mind pushing hard. And shod horses left those prints, so it’s mighty unlikely they belong to the Apaches.”
Preacher nodded slowly. “You’re right about that.”
“If they are the señorita’s brothers,” Ramirez said, “where did they go?”
“Señora,” Jamie corrected him, although he knew it wouldn’t do any good. Ramirez’s “slip of the tongue” was deliberate.
Nighthawk said, “Umm,” and lifted a tree-trunk-like arm to point.
“My large friend is right,” Audie said. “There are tracks angling off slightly east of north . . . as if the riders intended to circle around and approach the camp from that direction.”
“If they’ve got a spyglass or somethin’ like that,” Preacher said, “it’d explain that flash Noah saw. And they’d know the camp ain’t as heavily defended as it was because they spotted all of us ridin’ away.”
“Blast it. You’re right,” Jamie said. “We need to get back—”
He didn’t get any farther than that before the distant popping of gunfire reached their ears.
* * *
The Mahoney brothers alternated shooting so they could pour a steady stream of fire at the two wagons and the people who had taken cover around them. They were careful not to target the area where Clementine had taken cover, but if they could kill everybody else in the group except her and Fletch, they could go down there and take their sister back.
They would save Fletch for some special entertainment, Clete had explained, and Clementine would be forced to watch. And when they were finished, she would never dare cross them again.
The problem was, they hadn’t downed any of those other men with their first volley, and the blasted varmints were putting up a fight! The brothers had been forced to duck behind the rocks they were using as cover when the return fire came too close.
Finally, Cle
te called, “Hold your fire, hold your fire!” As the shooting died out, he went on. “We don’t have an unlimited supply of ammunition. We can’t just sit here and blaze away at ’em all day.”
“Then what are we gonna do?” Harp asked.
“Maybe since we stopped shootin’, they’ll think we left, and then they’ll come out and we can kill ’em then,” Lew suggested.
Clete scrubbed a hand over his face and grimaced in frustration. His brothers had never been the brightest sorts, and once again he told himself how lucky they were to have him around to handle the thinking for them.
“That would only work once, if it even did then,” he said. “We’d be lucky to get a couple of them, and then the rest would know what we were up to. What we need to do is split up. Two of us will stay here and keep them pinned down, while the other two work their way around to where that ridge sticks out from the bluff on the west. That way we can catch them in a crossfire—”
“Hey, Clete,” Jerome interrupted him.
“Just shut up until I’m done, Jerome,” Clete said without looking at his brother.
“But Clete—”
Swinging around sharply, Clete said, “Blast it, if you think you’ve got a better idea—”
“No, it ain’t that.” Jerome pointed. “Look.”
Clete looked. To the southeast, the direction Jerome was pointing, a large dust cloud rose. It would take a good number of riders to kick up that much dust.
“Is that the rest of the bunch comin’ back?” Jerome went on.
“No, they rode off to the southwest,” Clete said. “That’s got to be somebody different.”
“Who?” Lew asked.
“Looks like quite a few of ’em, whoever it is,” Harp added.
Unfortunately, Harp was right, and Clete had no idea about the answer to Lew’s question. The rapidly approaching riders probably were Apaches but might be something else. An army patrol? Mexican bandits? Clete didn’t know, but one thing was certain in his mind.
The Mahoney brothers had no friends down here in this wasteland except for each other. “Come on,” he snapped. “We’re gettin’ out of here.”
They Came to Kill Page 20
