The pistol roared, bathing the miserable hut in white smoke and deafening the Ranger’s ears. He stepped to his right and back, but to his amazement, the big man still stood. How the hell could I have missed? McCulloch thought.
The Mexican brute even grinned and started toward the gringo again. When McCulloch pulled the trigger a second time, he knew with all certainty that he had not missed, and that his weapon had not misfired.
Smoke rose from the man’s muslin shirt—that’s how close the Colt’s barrel was to the giant’s body—and McCulloch saw the hole the heavy slug had punched through the coarse shirt. He also saw a hole two inches above where the Colt’s first bullet had struck.
The leviathan said something in Spanish, but McCulloch could not hear for his ears rang with thunder and the blood rushing to his head.
“I do not die,” the monster said in English, laughed, and lifted the broken jug over his head. His laughter turned into a deep-voiced howl.
When the big man took his first step, McCulloch’s left hand fanned back the hammer, and the Colt roared again. Keeping his finger squeezing the trigger, McCulloch fanned the hammer, and kept shooting, while he backed up until he was to the right of the doorway. Three more rounds, and then the hammer fell on an empty chamber, though McCulloch heard nothing but the dull explosions from the Colt.
The brutal man still stood, laughing, and while his right hand kept the busted jug over his head, he used his left to rip away the front of the smoldering, bullet-riddled shirt. McCulloch saw what kept the man on his feet, kept him alive. Beneath the shirt he wore a wooden undershirt, and beneath the wood, McCulloch figured there was a steel plate. On the other side of the heavy plate, more wood, and perhaps some wool or cotton just to make it a tad more comfortable.
Bringing the Colt back over his head, hitting the dirty wall, McCulloch prepared to hurl the revolver at the massive monster’s head—like that would save his hide—and then maybe he could dive through the doorway and run like hell.
He saw the brute’s mouth open as if to speak or laugh, but no words, no noise came out of his mouth, At that moment something entered the mouth of the Mexican, cut his tongue, and blew out a large portion of the back of the killer’s head. Blood and brains splattered the wall and the man fell wordlessly onto the dirt. That jarred the building so much that sand began pouring from the roof, followed by stones, branches, thatch, and the nest of a pack rat.
McCulloch could hear nothing but the ringing, yet he knew the roof was collapsing, and he turned and staggered outside, still clutching the empty revolver. Dust and smoke poured out of the opening as he stumbled toward the rails of the corral near the miserable building.
He was still there when Keegan joined him. McCulloch could hear the Irishman whistling. Good, the old Ranger thought, that means I’m not stone deaf.
“What happened?” Keegan asked.
Shaking his head, McCulloch said, “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” He saw the Springfield in Keegan’s hands. “Reckon I ought to thank you.”
“Not me,” Keegan said. “Breen. Mine’s still loaded. I just came to help you. Left Jed back there with his Colt to make sure our mustangers stay put. I figured I could make that shot, but, hell, Jed’s Sharps has that fancy scope.”
The north wall caved in.
“There goes the crypt,” Keegan said. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“Not yet,” McCulloch said. He waved Wooden Arm over to read the signs from the corral.
* * *
The desert stretched before them, distant hills—Navajo country—and buttes to the north, red sand and red rocks beyond. The stagecoach road dipped south, yet wagon tracks kept moving west.
Wooden Arm shrugged. Keegan spit tobacco juice. The mustangs snorted.
“Why would they go west?” McCulloch asked. “They’re not lost. They’d been following the road all this way since they struck it, same as us.”
“Didn’t ye say that Mex was reading a newspaper from Arkansas?” Keegan asked, and when McCulloch nodded, he explained. “Well, have ye ever met any gent from that state that had any lick of sense?”
“My mother came from Arkansas,” McCulloch said.
Keegan wiped his mouth. “Like ye ever had a mother, Matt.” He sighed and pointed. “They probably bought some land in that godforsaken blight of sand and scorn. Suckered, but they are nay our concern, pardner, and we have mustangs—your mustangs—to get to the army. That means following the stagecoach road.”
After kicking a clod of dirt, McCulloch swung into his saddle. “It doesn’t make any sense. What’s ahead, between here and the crossing of the Colorado River?”
“I dunno, Matt.” Keegan stared ahead, then back at the approaching mustangs and covered wagon. “More of the same. Dead River, I believe, is a bit—”
“Dead River?” McCulloch stared intently.
“Aye. Though I don’t think in my few scouts in this bad country if ever I saw a spot of water. Even after a whale of a monsoon.” Keegan cocked his head. “Is something troubling ye, Matt?”
“Dead River,” he whispered. “Just triggered something in the back of my head. Can’t place it right now. But I think it was a dream I had.”
“I haven’t had a decent dream since the one of Peggy O’Doul, fine blond-headed gal, sweet lass . . .”
McCulloch pulled off his hat and waved it toward Jed Breen, who was riding point.
“Keep them moving west,” McCulloch yelled. “Straight ahead. Don’t let them turn south. We’re riding this way.” Spurring his horse, he galloped down the north side of the herd, to reach the drag position with Charlotte Platte, to make sure the herd—and this motley outfit of jackals and a woman—rode toward Dead River.
Keegan glanced at Wooden Arm, who smiled like a fool, and awkwardly made it onto the back of his pinto. The boy rode toward the herd of mustangs, too,where Breen was leading them west, away from the road that was the safest way to travel.
“Bloody hell,” Keegan said and even considered crossing himself and saying a prayer.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Linton had told them this was a shortcut. Easy traveling. But one day since leaving the stagecoach road, Annie Homes felt sick with dread. The land was flat, unlike some of the mountainous areas they had crossed, but traveling proved slow. Six times they had been delayed because of broken axels, stuck wagons, or busted wheels. Another time they had to stop until the choking dust stopped blowing. When the Reverend Sergeant Major Homer Primrose III asked the brutal guide if perhaps they should turn around and take the wagon road, Linton had laughed.
“Ya made yer bed, pilgrim, and here’s where yer gonna have to sleep,” he had said. “Hell’s fire, preacher, this’ll save us time.” His arm had shot out toward the sinking sun. “Straight shot west. Turn south when we hit dem Sacramento Mountains, and Rapture Valley awaits ya.”
This morning proved the worst, even more draining than that evening they had spent at Five Scalps way back, what seemed forever ago, in the Panhandle of Texas.
Mrs. Stanton was sick. She had left Dead Trout, Arkansas, because of her lung ailments. Everyone said that the desert Southwest was almost a cure for lung troubles, but the dust for the past few days had proved so thick, she began coughing, took a fever, and lay in the back of her wagon, being tended almost constantly by Betsy. This day, Annie’s mother had gone over to the Stanton wagon to spell the teenage girl, and take care of Mrs. Stanton herself. Annie’s mother was a god-fearing woman, with a kind, caring heart.
At least the dust had finally stopped blowing, except for what the animals, wagons, and those people who trudged along beside the caravan kicked up. Annie sat beside her father as they moved west.
Linton rode up, and Annie wished she had volunteered to help Mrs. Stanton. Then she would be inside the back of a wagon, and the vicious guide would not be able to stare at her with such lecherous eyes. He was speaking to the Randalls in the wagon ahead, pointed somewhere to the south, a
nd spit into the wind before turning his horse around and kicking it into a trot. He grinned widely when he realized Annie was not in the back . . . hiding.
Once he twisted his horse around to ride alongside her father’s wagon, he said, “We’re gonna camp just up ahead, Walter.” He pointed again. “Good campground. It’s the Dead River.”
“River.” Walter Homes wet his severely chapped lips. “You mean there’s water?”
Linton chuckled. “Only your sweat.” His eyes found Annie. “That’s a shame, though. It would be something if some of us could take off all our clothes and dip into some nice, clean, refreshing water. Yes, sir, Walter, it would be something nice to do.” The laughter grew louder as he tipped his hat, kicked the horse, and trotted off to the Stanton wagon. He called back. “Make camp in the bed of the stream. You don’t have to worry about any flash flood. That river hasn’t seen water since Columbus set foot in this country.”
* * *
It was dead, all right—the river—though Annie knew water had flowed here. Maybe during a flash flood. The bed dipped several feet below the land, and the bed was sand, gravel, hard and not, but not one cactus or the tough scrub that grew in this country had sprouted in the bed. She could see trees in the distances, but not any tall trees, not the pines and the elms and the oaks from back home in Arkansas. Maybe the puniest cottonwoods ever to grow. She didn’t know. But if a tree, even one more twig than fir, could find water to live in this country, well . . . there was hope.
Still, the sand and the heat and just the bleakness of the land tried to drain her spirits. But they would be in this spot for just one night. One night, and they’d leave Dead River and make their way west. Linton or not, she knew that they would find their way to Rapture Valley.
Her father made them circle the wagons, just as he always did, even though Linton said there was no need to go to all that trouble, that the high banks of the Dead River would offer enough protection, and that it was too hot and windy to work too hard for just one night. Walter Homes remained firm, and the wagons were brought in and the terrain and width of the riverbed meant the circle became more of a triangle and a larger camp than usual. Still, the livestock was brought inside. Annie knew her father had spread the wagons out to make things easier on the women and the sick, especially Mrs. Stanton. Maybe even for Annie’s sake, too. She had grown so weary of smelling the dung and urine of oxen and mules and horses, it would be nice to be able to catch fragrances of the desert.
* * *
“What’s that dust over yonder, Capt’n Linton?” Hawg asked.
Annie had gotten a fire going, with a pot about to boil water for tea, when she heard Hawg calling out. She rose from the fire, and stepped to the side where she saw him pointing to the north through the slight opening between two wagons. She saw the dust, too, created by a fair-sized crowd moving. She frowned. The dust seemed to have settled for the day.
Linton—Annie would not give him any rank, and especially not captain—raised his hand over his eyes and chuckled. “Just the wind, boy.”
She felt a shadow cross her and saw her father looking, too. He stared a full minute, then turned, his eyes studying her intently before he moved to the wagon. Annie breathed in deeply and felt her heart jump a bit, for her father had pulled out his musket, and leaned it against the back of their wagon.
“Maybe that’s a herd of antelope,” Winfield Baker said. “I could go for some backstrap meat tonight.”
“Ain’t no antelope in this country,” Muldoon said. “Just coyote’s.”
Winfield chuckled. “I could eat coyote, too.”
“So could I,” Thad said.
They all laughed. Linton moved away from Hawg and approached the northern tip of the wagons, where the Reverend Sergeant Major Homer Primrose III sat getting his cookfire ready.
“Boys.” Annie watched her father approach Winfield Baker and the other young men. He lowered his voice, but Annie could hear him.
“Get your guns. Long guns. Have them handy.”
Hawg started to laugh until he saw the deadly seriousness in Walter Homes’s face.
“The wind’s not blowing,” Homes said softly. “And when it was, it was blowing west to east. That dust cloud’s moving southwest. And it’s moving like a lot of horses.”
“Wild mustangs?” Thad’s eyes beamed. “I’d love to see a herd of those.”
“I hope that’s what you do see,” Walter Homes said. “But let’s have our weapons handy, just in case.”
The kettle started to whistle. Annie didn’t even notice it till her father took it off the fire. The dust stopped just beyond a small rise.
Horses, Annie thought. But not wild mustangs.
“Annie?” her mother called out. “Is that tea ready?”
“In a minute, Ma.”
“But I heard it whistling.”
Annie sighed, almost cursed, and found the cup she had prepared with tea leaves for her mother. She filled it with hot water, and brought it to where her mother was coating the skillet with grease for their evening supper. “Here’s your tea, Ma.”
“Oh.” Smiling, her mother rose, wiped her hands on the apron, and took the tea, using the apron to protect her from the heat. “It’s not for me, child. I shall take this to poor Gertrude Stanton, bless her heart.”
Her mother left with the cup of tea, but she stopped when someone called out, “Riders headin’ this way.”
Hawg and Thad decided to hurry for their rifles. Winfield Baker already leaned his Enfield against his parents’ wagon, and Mr. Baker was fetching the long musket he had carried in the War.
“Oh, there ain’t nothin’ to worry ’bout, folks,” Linton grinned with reassurance. “Those look like Navajos. Peaceful since Kit Carson bloodied their noses. Likely just want to say howdy and see if we’re lost. Not many white folks cross this country. Come on, preacher, we’ll go speak to them. They might even give us some Indian tobacco or silver, which they take a shine to. They’ll bless us and we’ll be on our way. Navajos haven’t caused any trouble since the 1860s, when y’all was giving Yankees hell, right?”
A few of the men chuckled with good humor, but Walter Homes remained stone-faced.
The Reverend Sergeant Major Homer Primrose III climbed onto the back of a mule, while Linton tightened the cinch to his horse then mounted it. For some reason, despite camping for the evening, their guide had not bothered to unsaddle his horse.
Annie moved so she could watch clearly as Linton and the preacher rode out to the party of four riders. She used her hand to block out the sun, intense even while it sank, and stared hard. The four riders, on small mustang ponies, eased their horses to a stop. She could make out enough of their features. Clean shaven. Long, black hair. They wore moccasins and woolen or cotton britches. Their skin appeared to be deep copper, and she caught flashes of silver and other jewelry that these men wore as cuffs around their ankles, necklaces dangling from their chests and against vests for shirts, one of which looked to be beaded.
The preacher held out his right hand, and he said something, but they were too far for anyone in the camp to catch the words. Linton backed his horse away, and began moving his hands this way and that. Sign language, Annie figured. She didn’t like their guide at all, but it was amazing to see . . . how these two different cultures could communicate without using oral words. Amazing.
She had seen Indians, of course, but mostly those of the Five Civilized Tribes—Seminoles, Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws—but never anything like these. It was exhilarating, seeing Indians this close, even though they had to be two hundred yards away.
The Reverend Sergeant Major Homer Primrose III nodded his head, gestured back toward the wagon train encampment, and Linton moved his hands again. Then the preacher lifted both of his hands skyward, and Annie knew what he was doing. Offering prayer or trying to convert the savages to Christianity.
But those Navajos, those four tall men, had something else in mind.
The nearest one raised a rifle and shot the Reverend Sergeant Major Homer Primrose III out of his saddle. By then, Linton had turned his horse around, and was galloping hard back to the wagon train.
It took forever for the sound of the gunshot to reach Annie’s ears. All she saw was a blast of white smoke, saw the mule turning around, kicking up in panic, and saw the preacher flying back and landing in the hard brush.
Linton raced on. Another rifle blew out smoke, aiming toward Linton. Then the first shot reached Annie’s ears, and it sounded like it would not stop. The second shot came like a distant echo.
“It’s an ambush!” Linton screamed.
Annie did not look at him. None of the Indians chased him. The four drew their bows and filled the preacher’s unmoving body with arrows. One jumped off his horse and knelt beside the good reverend. When that Indian stood, he raised something in his hand. He screamed, or so it seemed, but the words never reached Annie’s ears.
Because Mrs. Donovan was screaming, “We’re all gonna be killed. They’ve kilt the preacher and they’ll do the same to us. We’re all gonna be massacred. Massacred!”
Suddenly, thunder roared, and dust thickened.
Annie understood. Her father had been right. That had not been antelope or coyotes or the wind causing the dust. Suddenly, she realized that there had been more than four Indians—four lying, murdering Navajos—behind that gentle rise. She did not know how many Navajos were left after Kit Carson’s campaign against them, but it would not have surprised her to learn that the entire Navajo tribe were galloping straight for their stronghold.
Stronghold? Wagons with tired travelers, children, women, holed up in a dried riverbed, miles and miles from the main trail where most white travelers would be. They were alone. Alone. In a strange, desolate wilderness.
Where charged the Indians, whooping, shooting, screaming. A bullet punched through the canvas of her father’s covered wagon.
“Annie,” she heard him yell. “Get down. Get down.”
But she could not move.
“There must be sixty or more!” someone yelled, just as Linton’s horse leaped over a wagon tongue. “Dirty, stinkin’ no good, lyin’ Navahos. They’ve broke their promise. Murdered the preacher. And here come what looks like the whole damned tribe.”
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