They Came to Kill

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  Clementine jackknifed herself up and dived onto Clete’s gun arm, pinning it to the ground with her weight. He started to reach for her with his left hand, but Preacher was there and his booted foot came down hard on Clete’s left shoulder, making it impossible for him to move with the two of them holding him. Preacher saw dark red blood pumping steadily from the wounds on Clete’s thigh and knew the man had only moments to live.

  “You got anything to say to your brother, Clementine, you best do it now,” he told her. “He’s goin’ fast.”

  Clementine lifted her head, snarled as she gazed down into Clete’s face, and told him, “Go to hell.”

  Clete’s back arched and a ghastly rattle came from his throat.

  “Reckon he’s knockin’ on the Devil’s door right now,” Preacher said.

  Clete sagged as all the life went out of him. Clementine began to cry. As terrible as they were, they had been her brothers, her flesh and blood. But they had made the decision to follow the twisted path that had brought them all there.

  Feet pounded on the ground nearby and then Fletch was there, lifting Clementine away from Clete’s body and calling out her name. He clutched her to him, and Preacher severed her bonds so she could return her husband’s embrace.

  In a voice that shook with surprise and relief, she cried, “Fletch! I thought you were dead!”

  “Never!” he told her. “Nothing could ever keep us apart!”

  Preacher stepped back so the couple could enjoy their reunion. Audie rode up, and Nighthawk strode away from the huddled, broken shape that lay behind him, all that was left of one of the other Mahoney brothers.

  Noah Stuart knelt next to the fallen Chester Merrick and lifted Merrick into his lap, saying, “Chester! How bad are you hurt?”

  Preacher wanted to know the answer to that question, too. He told Audie and Nighthawk, “Keep an eye on things,” and walked over to Stuart and Merrick.

  The assistant surveyor was sitting up, opening and closing his mouth and looking a little like a fish. When he found his voice, he said, “I . . . I’m not dead!”

  “Nope,” Preacher told him. “And I don’t even see any blood on you.”

  “But . . . that man shot at me . . .”

  “Appears he missed,” Preacher said dryly. “Which means you just fell off your horse after you shot the varmint.”

  “I never said I was a good rider!” Then something occurred to Merrick, and he went on. “Did . . . did you say I shot that man?”

  “That’s what you were tryin’ to do, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, but . . . did I kill him?”

  “Matter of fact, you did,” Preacher said. “It took a couple of minutes for him to bleed to death, but in the end, it was the buckshot from that scattergun o’ yours that did him in.”

  “Well, I . . . I guess . . .” Whatever else Merrick was going to say was lost, because his eyes rolled up in their sockets and he started to fall backward as he fainted.

  Stuart was there to catch him. “He’ll be all right.”

  “Yeah, I reckon so.” Preacher looked around. “Anybody else hurt?”

  Dog had joined Audie and Nighthawk and appeared to be unharmed. That was a relief.

  Audie said, “We seem to have come through the battle unscathed.”

  “Good,” Preacher said with a decisive nod, “because we need to get back down yonder to those hills and see if we can find Jamie. He’s liable to be needin’ a hand by now.”

  CHAPTER 48

  After Dog Brother was gone, Jamie continued to watch the gathering of warriors near the largest fire in the Apache village. The man he had pegged as Perro Blanco ranted for a while longer, then stalked off to stand beside the creek, apparently staring at nothing as he brooded.

  The group he had left behind him broke up and the warriors drifted away, some going to their wickiups, others checking on the pony herd or tending to other tasks. Dogs barked here and there, but that was the only sound from the village. Any conversations going on were too quiet for Jamie to hear them.

  He kept his attention focused on Perro Blanco. After a while, one of the women hesitantly approached the war chief as he stood by the creek. She looked young, although Jamie couldn’t make out many details at this distance. She spoke to Perro Blanco, and he turned sharply toward her. She drew back a little, as if afraid, but then gestured stubbornly and said something else. Perro Blanco glared at her for a few seconds, then jerked his head in an abrupt nod. She turned and went toward the wickiup.

  He followed.

  Everything Jamie had seen was pretty plain to him. Perro Blanco was upset because once again, an attack on the white invaders had failed. He had said as much to his warriors, who hadn’t taken the criticism kindly but couldn’t really refute it, either. Jamie and his companions had done a lot of damage to the tribe. Perro Blanco would never be able to unite all the bands and form an army of Apache warriors as long as he continued suffering these defeats.

  After the discussion with the other warriors had broken up, Perro Blanco’s woman had approached him and offered to comfort him. He had resisted at first but then succumbed to her blandishments. The two of them were alone in that wickiup where she had taken him.

  And the rest of the village was going to sleep.

  Jamie glanced back toward the gap looming behind him. Dog Brother might have had time to reach the others, but it would still be a while before they got to him. Jamie knew he ought to wait for them, but he wasn’t sure he would get such a good opportunity again. Perro Blanco didn’t have any of his warriors around him at the moment, and he was distracted, too.

  Jamie pondered for a moment longer, then slipped over the top of the ridge and started down the slope toward the Apache village. Despite not knowing how long this chance would last, he didn’t get in a hurry. In these circumstances, stealth was as important as not wasting any time.

  All the fires were burning down. As far as Jamie could see, no one moved around the village except for one old man who shuffled along with what appeared to be an equally ancient dog plodding behind him. Jamie wondered idly how the dog had managed to avoid the stewpot and reach such an advanced age, but after a second he put that out of his thoughts and asked himself were the Apaches so confident in their safety that they hadn’t posted any guards?

  That appeared to be the case. The old man and the dog trudged on across the village in the fading light from the dying campfires and disappeared into one of the other wickiups. The whole place was still and quiet as Jamie reached the bottom of the slope and started toward the dwelling where Perro Blanco had gone with the woman. He stayed to the thickest shadows, moving soundlessly past the other wickiups toward the one that was his destination.

  Many years earlier, when he’d been a captive of the Shawnee, he had learned how to walk quietly through the woods so as not to alert the game he was stalking. If he made too much noise, he would be the prey. He was determined that wouldn’t happen.

  Reaching the wickiup, he realized a hide flap hung over the entrance. He leaned close and listened intently, barely breathing. No voices came from inside, no sounds of anyone moving around.

  Suddenly, someone snored. He heard a feminine voice mutter in response, then someone stirred around for several seconds before quieting again. The snoring continued raggedly. Perro Blanco was asleep, and so was his woman, but the racket coming from him had disturbed her slumber momentarily. Judging by the sounds, she settled down as his snoring tapered off, continuing but not as loud as when it had started.

  Jamie lifted the hide flap and slipped inside.

  A fire had been kindled in a small, rock-lined pit, but it had burned down to embers, too. The glowing coals gave off enough light for Jamie to make out the two shapes stretched out on the ground beside the remains of the fire. Perro Blanco lay on his back. The woman was curled on her side, a couple of feet away from the war chief.

  Jamie slid his bowie from its sheath. He could kill Perro Blanco. The man would never a
waken, would never know what had happened to him. But Jamie would never know the truth about Perro Blanco’s real identity, either.

  Maybe he really was simply another Apache warrior. But one way or the other, Jamie wanted to know. He lifted the knife and dropped to a knee beside Perro Blanco.

  At the very last instant, some instinct warned the war chief. His eyes flew open and he started to sit up, but Jamie struck with the swiftness of a snake as the round brass ball at the end of the bowie’s bone handle slammed into Blanco’s head before he could do anything. A faint shiver ran through him, and he was out cold.

  Jamie twisted, knowing the sound of the blow might awaken the woman. She jerked upright into a sitting position as her mouth dropped open to let out a scream.

  He backhanded her before she could make a sound. Hitting a woman went against the grain for him—but so did being tortured to death. Anyway, he told himself, he didn’t hit her hard enough to do any real damage. The blow just stunned her and knocked her back to the ground.

  Jamie continued to act quickly. He cut strips off the woman’s long skirt and bound her hands and feet. Another strip was wadded into a ball, wedged into her mouth, and tied in place. She probably could work her way loose eventually, but it would take her a while. Even if she wasn’t able to free herself, someone was bound to find her in the morning, and the night was more than half over.

  That left Perro Blanco to deal with. Jamie tied his hands behind him, but that was all. Then he hefted the war chief and slung him over his shoulder. Perro Blanco was leanly built but still no lightweight. Jamie’s massive strength was renowned from one end of the frontier to the other, though. He straightened under the burden and shouldered out past the hide flap.

  The fires outside no longer gave off much light at all. The village was in darkness except for the silvery glow of the moon and stars. Jamie glided past the wickiups, but he hadn’t gone very far before he froze at the sound of a voice nearby.

  The voice was thin and reedy and sounded like it was muttering some sort of complaint. He couldn’t make out the words, but they were in the Apache tongue, he was sure of that. He stood absolutely still, cloaked in shadows, as whoever was roaming around came closer.

  That blasted old man! Jamie saw him shuffling along with the dog still following him. The dog stopped suddenly and stiffened. A low growl came from the animal’s throat as its hackles rose. Jamie knew the dog had smelled him and recognized the scent as that of an intruder.

  He didn’t want to kill either the old-timer or the dog, but he would if he had to. Seconds ticked past tensely as the dog continued to growl and the old man turned and spoke to it sharply. He motioned for the dog to follow him. Jamie couldn’t understand the words, but he figured the old man was telling the dog to shut up.

  After a moment, the dog did so. It let out one final chuff and then followed the old-timer, who had turned toward one of the wickiups.

  As Jamie watched them go, he realized the old man was heading for Perro Blanco’s wickiup.

  Was that really his destination, or would he veer off in another direction again? Was he just wandering around blindly, unable to sleep?

  Jamie didn’t wait to find out. With Perro Blanco’s still-senseless form slung over his shoulder, he headed for the ridge as fast as he could move without making a lot of racket.

  He had reached the slope and started up it when a screech ripped out from the village and shattered the night’s stillness. That blasted old pelican had found the woman and realized that Perro Blanco was gone!

  Jamie tightened his grip on Perro Blanco and lunged up the slope, hoping that he wouldn’t lose his footing and tumble back down into the hands of his enemies. He was breathing hard and his pulse pounded like a drum inside his skull by the time he reached the ridge’s crest. Carrying a grown man uphill at a dead run was enough to tax any man’s strength, even a veritable Hercules like Jamie Ian MacCallister.

  His horse waited only a short distance down the far slope, and he was thankful for that. He spoke calming words to the animal as he slung Perro Blanco facedown over the horse’s back in front of the saddle. It took only a second for Jamie to find the stirrup and swing up.

  Angry shouts rose into the air on the other side of the ridge. He was sure the woman would tell the warriors that some giant had crept into the wickiup and stolen Perro Blanco, but for the moment they wouldn’t know which way Jamie had gone with his prisoner.

  Jamie hadn’t had time to try to cover his trail, so it wouldn’t take long for the Apaches to light some torches and find the tracks he’d left. They would be after him in a matter of minutes. He needed to cover as much ground as he could. Dog Brother would be on the way back with the rest of the men. If Jamie could meet up with them before the Apaches caught him, the odds of getting away would improve drastically.

  Holding the prisoner in place with one hand and clutching the reins in the other, Jamie galloped hard across the rugged hills of northern Mexico. He had almost reached the gap through which he and Dog Brother had come earlier and was starting to think he might have given the Apaches the slip after all, when he heard savage whoops behind him, interspersed with his horse’s drumming hoofbeats. He turned his head to look. In the moonlight he saw a large group of riders topping a hill behind him, leaning forward intently on their swift ponies as they raced after him.

  Well, it was a race now—with life and death as the stakes.

  CHAPTER 49

  Since his horse was carrying double, Jamie couldn’t run the animal flat out for very long at a time. Every few minutes, he had to slow down and let the horse walk. Those delays grated at his tightly drawn nerves, but he knew that if he ran the horse into the ground, that would be the end for him. He would never get away from the pursuing Apaches.

  And if they did catch him, he would be lucky if he was killed in the ensuing battle. Being captured alive meant that he would wind up back in their village, suffering the torments of the damned as they had their hellish sport with him. The imps down in Hades had nothing on the Apaches when it came to torture.

  Perro Blanco suddenly groaned. He didn’t stir, but the sound told Jamie that the war chief was regaining his senses. That meant added trouble.

  They were almost at the gap. Jamie urged the horse on, alert for any sign that the animal’s strength was starting to flag.

  He heard the frenzied whooping again and looked back. The pursuit had closed to within a few hundred yards. Maybe what he ought to do, he thought as he reached the opening between the two massive upthrusts of rock, was dismount and fort. He could use some of the boulders for cover, and he knew he could pick off several of the Apaches as they tried to come up the slope.

  But he only had a limited number of shots before he would have to reload, and when his guns ran dry, the Apaches would overrun his position and that would be the end of it.

  Best save the last round for yourself, old son, he thought as he reined in.

  He heard a sudden flurry of gunfire from an unexpected direction—ahead of him on the other side of the gap. Jamie stiffened in the saddle as he tried to figure out what that meant and could come up with only one explanation.

  Those shots had to be coming from Dog Brother and the rest of his allies.

  He had no idea what sort of trouble the others might have run into, but the shots were coming closer so it seemed like he would find out soon enough. At any rate, he wasn’t going to continue charging through the gap when he didn’t know what was going on. He turned his horse back toward the rocks clustered at the passage’s opening.

  Not bothering to be gentle about it, he shoved Perro Blanco off the horse. The war chief landed hard, and Jamie saw his head bounce as it struck the ground. While Perro Blanco was still stunned, Jamie dismounted quickly and wrapped a strip of rawhide he had ready for just such a purpose around the man’s ankles. Lashed up like that, Perro Blanco wouldn’t be able to give him any trouble while he tried to thin the ranks of the pursuers.

  The hoof
beats of their horses were loud. Jamie yanked the Sharps from its sheath and ran over to a slab of rock at the entrance to the gap. He knelt, aimed by moonlight, and stroked the rifle’s trigger. With the Apaches only a hundred yards away, the heavy round from the Sharps blew a fist-sized hole through the chest of one of them and flung him backward off his pony.

  That slowed the attack but didn’t stop it. Jamie set the Sharps aside and drew the Walker Colt. Aiming carefully, he triggered one shot. It was long range for a handgun, especially in bad light, but Jamie’s accuracy was deadly. Another Apache screamed, threw his arms up, and toppled off his mount.

  That brought the charge to a halt as the warriors hauled their ponies around and veered off in different directions, seeking cover along the slope leading up to the gap.

  That was a mistake on their part, Jamie thought with grim satisfaction. They should have just kept on a-comin’. He wouldn’t have been able to stop them. But he would have killed several more of them, and evidently none of them were all that anxious to die.

  A swift rataplan of hoofbeats echoed from the gap’s rock walls. Jamie swung around to see what fresh hell was about to break loose.

  “Jamie!” That was Dupre. “Jamie, are you there?”

  “Over here!” Jamie called back to the Frenchman. “At the other end of the gap.”

  He heard several horses galloping toward him. The thick gloom inside the passage made it difficult to see what was going on, but then guns began to bang at the far end and he knew some of the group had stopped there to hold off whoever was chasing them while the others hurried to reinforce his position. A moment later, with a clatter of hooves, those men reined in and dismounted.

  Tennysee hunkered behind the rock next to Jamie and said, “Dog Brother told us we’d find you waitin’ on the other side. Reckon that didn’t work out like you’d planned.”

  “And I told Dog Brother that if I saw a chance to grab Perro Blanco, I was going to take it.” Jamie jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “He’s stretched out over there, maybe unconscious. But even if he’s awake, I’ve got him tied up so he can’t do anything.”