The Indian walked toward him. But only a step. He made a point of planting both feet.
“It’s you,” Joe said.
“What?”
“Lower your gun,” Joe advised Clarity. “We are making peace.”
“That seems like surrender to me.”
“Lower that carbine or I will take it,” Joe said harshly.
Reluctantly, Clarity obliged.
“Now set it on the ground in front of you, stock first,” Joe advised.
Clarity did that, too. “Can I get up?” she asked angrily. “I don’t like groveling.”
“What you like or dislike was not a condition for you coming along,” Joe pointed out. While he spoke, he walked slowly toward her. He extended his left hand toward the woman. “Take it.”
Clarity reached up and he helped her stand. She brushed herself off.
“Now take a step back,” Joe said.
The woman huffed but did as Joe instructed. When she had done so, Baishan resumed coming forward. The Apache picked up the woman’s carbine and considered it for a moment. Joe knew that if the Indian kept the gun, it would mean a fight. Clarity had surrendered the gun. If Joe did the same, it would mean he was a woman.
The moon was behind the Indian. He held the rifle close and examined it in the moonlight with sharp, knowing eyes. He turned to pass it to the Apache to his right, the one wearing a quiver. Both had a hand on it.
“No!” Joe barked.
The Indian did not stop what he was doing and Joe moved toward him. In an instant, the third Indian trained a rifle on him. Joe looked at the gun pointed at his chest. With frontier-trained reflexes, and without hesitation, Joe jumped forward and grabbed the barrel hard, pulling it toward his right side. The Indian was surprised and so was his horse, which whinnied and shied. The Apache released the gun to tend to his horse.
Joe filled both hands with rifle and pointed it at the Indian who had been set to receive Clarity’s carbine. The mounted Apache froze.
Baishan shouted something in his own tongue, cowing his companion, then strode angrily toward Joe. The frontiersman leaped back and turned the rifle not toward Baishan but at the head of Baishan’s horse.
The Apache stopped.
“Yeah,” Joe sneered. “You’d’ve walked your own puffed red chest straight into this barrel, show me how brave you are. But trade your horse for my gun? You’d be shamed among your pals.”
Clarity watched the three Indians with growing concern. Her hands were at her sides. She wondered if the Apaches saw—or cared—that they were just inches from her six-shooters. If they intended for her to be the next pawn in this game, she didn’t care what Joe said or did. She’d shoot these savages—the braves on the end in one salvo, then two bullets into Baishan’s heart.
Baishan and the other Apache still had one hand each on Clarity’s carbine. After a stretch that seemed to last longer than the trip from St. Louis, but was only seconds, the leader wrenched the carbine from his companion and thrust it toward Joe, barrel up. Joe immediately turned his own weapon from the horse, also pointed toward the night sky. If he aimed down after the Indian aimed up, that, too, would seem like submission. They traded weapons and the confrontation was over.
“We hear shots,” the Apache continued as if nothing had transpired.
Joe jerked a thumb toward the gulch. “The one who fired—he cannot speak,” Joe said, dragging a thumb down through his heart, indicating he was dead.
“He speak,” Baishan insisted, adding, “show.”
CHAPTER 9
“What does he mean, ‘He speak’?” Clarity asked. “Is he going to try and talk to the spirit of the dead man?”
Joe and the woman had moved behind the cottonwood where White Paint had been tethered. The man took his time unknotting the reins. He had a concern he wanted to think through.
“No,” Joe advised her as he tugged at the leather. “At least, I don’t think so. I believe he means to look for clues. Indians see things that white men don’t. Even white men like me.”
“What does it mean if they help you?” Clarity asked.
He smiled crookedly. “You’re smart,” Joe said. “That’s just what was concerning me. You don’t want to be in an Indian’s debt. I also don’t want to help him massacre the Rebs and leave the road clear for him to go after the Serrano for his own bragging reasons.”
They mounted, Joe first. He returned the carbine to its saddle holster. The Apaches waited for him to start out, then followed behind several paces. That, too, was a show of superiority. Joe was a scout, like a dog. He was not a warrior. That particular distinction wasn’t important to Joe, who’d known many great scouts in his time. That included the great William Clark, partner of Meriwether Lewis, who he met in St. Louis about twenty-seven, twenty-eight years ago. Joe let the insult pass.
“Do you think that’s why this man is suddenly being cooperative?” Clarity asked, leaning close to Joe’s ear so the Indians wouldn’t hear. “To capture the shaman?”
“That, or rescue him,” Joe said. “You help another tribe like that, especially saving a big medicine, they are in your debt.”
“Only one of them is carrying a bow and arrow,” Clarity said. “Why?”
“These make noise,” he said, patting his sidearm.
“Of course,” Clarity said. She thought for a moment. “All of what just happened between you two. That was—like a totem, yes? Whoever’s head places the highest is the most important?”
“That’s a pretty comparison,” Joe said. “Baishan—he feels he won the fight back there. So his head is higher.”
Clarity was openly surprised. “How does he figure that?”
“In his mind, he traded a gun for a horse,” Joe answered. “That’s a very good deal to him.”
“Even though he ended up back where he started.”
“Not quite,” Joe said. “He learned something about the situation, about my ways, about the Rebels. He learned enough to make him want to find out more. The Apache still consider these to be their lands, and anything that happens out here affects his people.”
“Can we afford to spend this time indulging him instead of chasing the Rebels or preparing for them to come after us?”
“They come for us, the Rebels, these are the boys you want nearby,” Joe said. “As for the rest, I’m a tracker but these fellas—this land flows through their veins. They see and hear and smell things we might miss. Plus, their ancestors lived here and—you asked about spirits. Many Indians believe they can communicate with them. Maybe. Considering how little we got, it can’t hurt.”
“You’re more trusting than I am,” Clarity replied.
“Of what? These men or their skills?”
“Both,” she answered.
“Is that just Injuns or men in general?”
She thought for a moment. “Both,” she replied.
“That include your brother?”
“No,” she said without hesitation. “He’s different. It’s a habit of his. Merritt has looked out for me since we were kids.”
“I’m guessing he’s not the one who taught you to shoot like you do.”
“Learning how to shoot was a necessity of living in Murray, Kentucky,” she said.
“Hunting?”
“Partly that,” she said. “A flash flood at the family farm took our parents and all our possessions. Save one.”
“What was that?” Joe asked.
“My name.”
“I was wondering about that,” Joe said. “Uncommon.”
“It was a gift from my mother,” she said. “A wish, a blessing. A quality she hoped would always be with me.”
“Sounds like it worked.”
“Very much so,” Clarity said. “I feel, in a way, that my mother is always with me, saying it softly in my ear.”
“But you were saying—?”
“Yes,” she said. “Merritt worked for the church, sweeping and cleaning at first, and I provided the food. I
t was a hard life but we were happy. My brother was ordained—and then the War came.”
“Kentucky was neutral,” Joe said. “You?”
“We did not support the secessionists and Murray was in a Confederate stronghold, maybe the strongest still in the Union,” she said. “I discovered that the man I was engaged to marry, a gunsmith, Billy Roche, was providing weapons to the Yankees. At the end of the struggle he wanted me to flee west with him. I refused.”
“Might I ask why?”
“I decided that being a spinster in my home was better than being with a man I didn’t really love away from my home,” she said. “But Billy—he liked the idea of having a wife who knew guns and could help him set up a new business somewhere out Pacific way. He tried to force me.”
“So there was this accident,” Joe said.
“There was,” Clarity replied. “With one of his new guns. And the joke is, of course, I ended up going west.”
“At least it’s with a man you care about, and who cares about you.”
“Yes,” she said. “Though that is not the same thing, of course.”
The party reached the gulch and the landslide that had spilled just beyond it. The Indians dismounted and left their horses at the eastern edge of the rocks. There was only a sliver of moonlight coming from over the blown-off top of the cliff.
The Indians chattered among themselves, pointing, apparently discussing the damage caused by the powder.
“Where Rebel?” the leader finally asked.
In response, Joe drew and fired from the hip. The Indians started at the suddenness of his movement as the shot pinged off a rock just over halfway across.
“He’s over there,” Joe said, holstering his weapon before the Indians could swing their own guns around.
The Apaches relaxed and Clarity grinned with understanding. Joe O’Malley had just demonstrated to the Indians that this lead dog had teeth. Teeth that could have bitten them.
The two Apaches who had been riding on either side of the leader moved forward in the dark. Their leather moccasins were like a second skin, feeling their way over the rounded or jagged surfaces of exploded rock. As they moved they also listened to what was happening above them, making sure their passage or hidden cracks were not disturbing rocks that had not yet fallen.
When they reached the spot that bore Joe’s fresh bullet scar, the Apaches saw the arm and gun jutting from the rubble. The rocks around the dead man were too large to move.
The two Indians spoke—to each other, Joe assumed, not a ghost. When they were finished, one of them walked to the part of the path that was still clear. The other drew his knife. While the first Apache gathered dry brush and pulled a flint from the medicine pouch he carried, the other squatted and casually cut off the dead man’s arm.
Clarity watched with fascination.
“You have to admire their efficiency,” she remarked.
“What they are is heartless savages who’d just as soon do that to a live man,” Joe responded. “Or woman,” he added.
“Your granddaughter does not seem to feel at risk. She seemed to have an affinity for the shaman.”
“She has her own way of looking at Injuns,” Joe admitted. “She fawns on them like they’re all wiser and holier than your brother, say. We don’t share those opinions.”
The two fell silent as they watched the proceedings. The severed arm did not bleed very much. The skin was bluish white, a combination of death and lit by the moon. Joe imagined that most of the man’s blood was on the underside of the rocks. The Apache brought the limb to the fire that the other Indian had started. He looked it over. He sniffed it, tasted a fingertip as if he were sucking ants from a reed, then shook the arm into the flames. There were faint, short-lived sparkles in the air above the fire.
The Apache was done with the arm and dropped it to the ground. While the other brave doused the fire, his companion spoke to the leader. Then Baishan regarded Joe.
“Red metal,” the Apache announced.
“Copper,” Joe said. “From one of the abandoned mines, as I figgered.”
“How many mines are there?” Clarity asked.
“At least a half dozen scattered through the foothills,” Joe informed her.
“One path,” Baishan said. “All.”
It took a moment for Clarity to understand his meaning. “He’s saying the Rebels can only leave by a single path, regardless of where they are?”
“If their intent is to meet up with the stage, yeah,” Joe answered. “To escape, which I don’t think they’ll do, there are plenty of ways to go.”
“Right,” she said. “They want the shaman.”
“No,” Joe said. “They must really need the shaman. Otherwise, after you plucked their feathers, they would’ve gathered their things and ridden east. They wouldn’t have bothered bringing a hill down on us.”
Joe approached the Indians, who were all standing by the horses now, talking among themselves. The moon had inched above the ravaged cliff and cast a ghostly light on the trio.
“We are going west,” Joe said, pointing. “Get a new horse.” He grabbed his own wrist. “The Rebels must be stopped.”
Baishan regarded the frontiersman. “Serrano on coach?”
Joe stiffened a little. He didn’t like the question or the way it sounded—more like a statement than a query. The belittling way the Apache had spoken of the shaman and his people earlier did not match his sudden interest.
Joe made a point of hooking his thumbs in his gun belt, not far from the revolvers. It wasn’t threatening. Yet.
“Why does Baishan ask?”
The Apache ignored Joe’s move and dragged a finger across his closed lips.
“He’s done talking,” Joe told Clarity.
The Indian had already turned his back on Joe and moved without haste toward his horse. That was not a challenge to shoot him in the back. It meant he was finished with Joe. The frontiersman continued to stand in a casual but ready posture though he did not expect the other two Indians to attack.
He was correct. The three mounted swiftly and rode off the way they had come. The drumming of their hooves was swallowed by the wall of tumbled rock.
“I do not understand what just happened,” Clarity said.
“One of two things,” her companion informed her. “Either they are going after the Rebels or they are going after the shaman.”
“Why?”
“I couldn’t say,” Joe told her. “No white man knows why Apaches do what they do. But we better get you another horse and go after the stage. That’s the only thing I care about.”
“What if we meet them on the road, with the same intention.”
Joe answered, “We defend what’s ours. And for now, the passengers are ours.”
Joe went over to White Paint and mounted, offered her his hand. A moment later they were galloping back toward the station.
* * *
A quiet had settled over the copper mine after the detonation and subsequent gunfire. Marcus, the man who was scheduled to relieve Silas, had waited a minute, listening, before he approached Kennedy and Hathaway. Both of the Easterners were at the mouth of the mine, listening.
“I should go out,” Marcus said. “Find out what happened.”
“No,” Kennedy said. “Either Silas took care of this his own way or Silas got taken care of.”
Dr. Peterson had picked up a plate of cold beans, took a mouthful. He set the dish down and ambled over to the three men.
“We won’t have been the only ones who heard that,” he pointed out. “There are the folks at the Whip Station or possibly Apaches. Maybe a night patrol from Fort Yuma or Fort Mason.”
“Are you suggesting we go out and risk meeting any of them?” Kennedy asked.
“No, sir. I’m saying we should maybe set out after the reason we came here,” Peterson said. “To secure the medicine man.”
“That ain’t gonna tell us what happened to Silas,” Marcus snapped at the
medic. He turned back to Kennedy. “I fought shoulder to shoulder with him fer four years. I’m going out.”
“You fought with everyone here, other than us,” Kennedy barked. “If those gunshots weren’t from Silas, I can’t afford to have you dead.”
“Or to lead an enemy back here,” Hathaway said.
Marcus made a sound to show that he didn’t like that option. But he also didn’t have a more suitable response. He huffed unhappily, turned, and stalked back to the rear of the mine.
“Marcus,” Peterson said, “we could probably do with someone watching the foothills from higher ground.”
The former Confederate considered that, then turned back toward the front of the cave. “You got any objections, Kennedy?”
“Not to that,” the leader replied.
Marcus took one of the rifles and shouldered past Kennedy and Hathaway, making sure to bump into them both. The two men let it pass. When you ally yourself with bitter, vengeful soldiers, it’s not just one enemy they’re angry at. It’s anyone who tells them “no.”
The Rebel climbed the small rocks that had been dumped outside the mine years before and made his way to a ledge some thirty feet above. He sat there like a statue, indistinguishable in his tattered gray jacket from the surrounding rock.
Kennedy turned to the other men and suggested they arm themselves in case something had gone wrong and someone somehow figured out where Silas had come from.
Hathaway and Kennedy resumed listening. The former leaned close.
“Y’know, I don’t disagree with the doc,” Hathaway said. “What about the mission? The stage’ll be heading back out if it hasn’t left already.”
“I know,” Kennedy replied. “But it will also make a stop in the morning. Might be better to try and catch it in the light of dawn than to set out in the dark.”
Tod Crane, the injured man, propped himself on an elbow. His friend, Dan Ridgewood, gently tried to urge him back.
“I’ll be okay,” Crane said. “I’m ready to ride now!”
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