Down went Linton. The girl turned, screamed, and one of those young, tall kids kicked the knife out of Linton’s hand.
“You!” the boy yelled, bringing his musket up.
Linton kicked him, knocking the boy down. The scalp hunter sat up, spit out blood, and realized that hayseed from Arkansas hadn’t busted his nose and mouth. It was . . . the Indian . . . the damned Comanche kid . . . the one from all that way back in Texas.
That Comanche boy was the one holding a scalping knife.
“No!” Linton screamed, rolled underneath a wagon, and kept rolling until he was clear. Standing up, dust all around him, he ran east. Ran as hard as he could. He looked back once, and saw that Comanche kid who looked like a misshapen scarecrow running after him.
* * *
Breen had moved to the front of the wagon, working the Sharps at the fleeing white raiders. McCulloch saw someone race into the dust, and realized the man was that scalp hunter from Texas . . . and Wooden Arm was chasing him.
“Damn.” He stepped out to see if he could catch up to the Comanche boy.
“Don’t move!” a voice called, and McCulloch turned around.
“I owe you for hanging my cousin,” Hank Benteen said.
McCulloch looked at his Winchester, the hammer down. “I didn’t hang your brother,” he said, which was an honest statement.
“Yeah, but you’re here.”
“So is the man who hanged Lovely Tom Benteen Lovely,” a voice shouted to McCulloch’s right.
He couldn’t see the man, and he wasn’t too certain that he actually heard it, but Benteen turned on his heel, and blood erupted from the front and back of his shirt as he spun to his knees, dropped his pistol, coughed once, and collapsed into the Dead River.
McCulloch turned, tried to go after Wooden Arm, but a bullet splintered the wagon’s side, sending wood chips into his face. He fell back, cursed, came up, and tried to roll over.
Charlotte Platte leaped on top of him, yelling, “Stay down, you dumb fool. Stay down.”
He realized the uselessness of it and sighed.
* * *
Linton saw the dead Mexican with the arrow in his back, scalped, laying atop that dude the bounty hunter had blown off his horse. His plan was to keep running. Then he saw what the dead Mexican held in his hand. It was a money belt.
He slid to a stop, picked up the belt, turned, and slashed out with the heavy leather and canvas belt at the broken-armed Comanche.
The boy went down, and Linton laughed. Maybe he would get that scalp after all. He stepped toward the kid, saw that obscene splint on one arm, then looked at the other that was moving. Something left the hand, and something hit Linton right beneath the ribs.
Linton lay on the ground, clutching at the hilt of the knife that stuck in his chest. He couldn’t get the damned thing out, but then that fool Comanche kid with only one good hand straddled him. The good hand jerked the knife out, and the pain made Linton loose all control of bladder and bowels.
He tried to talk, but blood filled his mouth. He saw the kid take the knife, blade dripping with Linton’s own blood, and felt the blade begin to carve across his scalp. Something sounded like a loud pop, but Linton couldn’t feel much of anything by then. He saw that scalp held in the boy’s good hand. Then the boy shouted, and shoved Linton’s own hair into his mouth.
A shadow suddenly crossed their faces. But the shade was nowhere near as dark or cold as the blackness that swept over Linton.
Broken Buffalo Horn looked down and smiled as his son looked up. Tears ran down the Comanche medicine man’s face. The young Comanche had set out on his vision quest a long, long time ago. He had killed his first enemy, counted coup, and taken his first scalp.
The Comanche medicine man shook his head and laughed. He had forgotten. All those suns ago, in the flats near the bad water place, his son had killed two of his enemies there. This dead white-eye was his son’s third. Yes. Yes. There would be much singing in the camp when they returned home.
Killed A Skunk leaped off his horse, ran to Broken Buffalo Horn’s son and hugged him. “Look!” Oblivious to the gunfire and smoke and noise all around him, he shouted, “Look, Lost His Thumb. Look, Broken Buffalo Horn. We have found your son.”
Broken Buffalo Horn shook his head. “No, Killed A Skunk. We have found the man who is my son.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
“When did you get here?” Breen asked Keegan.
The Irish horse soldier shrugged. “It was still dark.”
“You sneaked through the line those cutthroats had around us?” McCulloch asked.
“Yeah. I can be quiet. Especially when every one of those fools was snoring.”
“So you just came here . . . back to camp. Nobody spotted you?”
“Most of your guards was sleeping. I just found a quiet spot and went to bed.”
“Without even looking for Breen or me?” McCulloch shook his head. “Without telling someone all of our guards were asleep? What kind of army soldier are you?”
“A retired one,” Keegan snapped. “And a tired one. I’d walked I don’t know how many miles during the night.”
“Walked?” Breen said. “What happened to your horse?”
Keegan snorted, spun around, and bellowed, “Doesn’t anyone in this emigrant train cook coffee?”
* * *
McCulloch, Breen, Keegan, and Walter Homes met in the center of the dry sands known as the Dead River before six Navajos and three Comanches.
Wooden Arm smiled at the three. “I speak for you.” He made movements with his hand, and McCulloch stepped forward.
He pulled out his knife and nodded at the boy. I think that splint can come off now, son, McCulloch signed. He shook his head and apologized. To be honest with you, son, that splint could have come off—should have come off—two, four weeks back. I just left it on because . . . well . . .
The boy smiled as McCulloch cut off the leather thongs that held the wood in place.
“Because I Comanche.”
McCulloch stared at the boy and nodded again. “I reckon so.”
“You are friend,” Wooden Arm said. “You gave me life, my name. From now on, I called Wooden Arm.”
The Navajos, the Comanche leader with the buffalo headdress, and McCulloch did the talking with signs mostly, interpreted in broken English by the teenage boy.
“My friends”—Wooden Arm pointed to Broken Buffalo Horn, Killed A Skunk, and Lost His Thumb—“and Navajos round up horses we find.” He looked at McCulloch with sadness in his eyes. “We count fourteen dead ponies.”
McCulloch nodded. “Yeah.”
The boy smiled. “Black Heart not one of dead ponies. I help Navajos search for ponies.”
McCulloch laughed. “I wish you luck.”
“I find Black Heart, I return to you.”
If you find him—McCulloch signed the words just to make sure the boy understood—he is yours. He belongs to you. He is too good a horse for a white man. He belongs to a Comanche.
There was silence, then Wooden Arm changed the subject. “We escort you to camp of long knives.”
“Singletree,” McCulloch said, nodding.
“We no get close where long knives live.”
“I don’t blame you,” McCulloch said.
One of the Comanches, a wild-looking one with a thumb missing on one hand, pitched a canvas and leather belt at Walter Homes’s feet. The Comanche spit, and moved back into line.
“This,” Wooden Arm said to Homes, “Carry pale-eyes money. You use. Buy horses. Oxen.” He pointed to the Navajos. “They let you pass.”
Homes laughed. “I think once we are reequipped, we will follow the wagon road to Rapture Valley. I never want to see the Dead River again.”
* * *
Four days later, Keegan, McCulloch, and Breen watched the party of emigrants roll out westward on the stagecoach road from Camp Singletree.
“Folks from Arkansas,” Keegan said, “Are not as bad as
I thought. I’m thirsty. Meet you gents at the post sutler’s. He serves soldier’s whiskey. I’ll teach you green peas how to drink it, but know this—only a jackal can handle soldier’s whiskey.” He tipped his hat and strode across the parade ground.
“Well?” Charlotte Platte asked. “I guess I’m still your prisoner.”
Breen shrugged. “The commanding officer signed an affidavit that I brought in Hank Benteen and Hans Kruger. That’ll be worth some money.”
“You didn’t shoot either of those two,” McCulloch said. “Hell, Sean saved my hide by killing Benteen. He should—”
“Be a bounty hunter?” Breen laughed. “He’s got a lot to learn. Possession is ninety-nine percent of the law, and I brought in those two corpses.”
“You are a jackal,” Charlotte Platte said.
“No doubt about it, ma’am, but I shot that leader of those cutthroats because a man like him didn’t deserve to live. Those men back in Precious Metal didn’t deserve to live, either. I don’t know any Charlotte Platte.” He tipped his hat, smiled at McCulloch, and walked toward the post sutler’s, too.
“And what about you?” Charlotte asked as she turned to McCulloch.
He shrugged. “There are plenty of mustangs in West Texas. Maybe I’ll have better luck next time.” His eyes studied the dirt, but eventually found Charlotte Platte. “And you?”
“A stage comes through Tuesday,” she said. “Bound for El Paso. I have just enough money—from someone’s money belt that some angel put under my pillow—to get me there. It’s just a hop and a skip from Mexico.”
“I’m glad, ma’am.” He looked at the two men entering the sutler’s.
“Matt.”
McCulloch looked back at the beautiful murderess. “I’ve heard there are wild mustangs in Mexico.”
He nodded. “Heard that myself.”
“Maybe . . . one day . . . you might want to see about catching some of those.”
“Maybe so.”
“Well”—she smiled—“if you happen by a nice restaurant in some out of the way village near Vera Cruz, I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”
“I’d like that, Charlotte.” He winked. “But you’d have to be stark naked when you fix it for me.”
“I’d like that,” she said with a gleam in her eye, and added, “Matt.”
“Not as much as I would, ma’am.”
She laughed. “You are a jackal.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said as he removed his hat, leaned forward, and kissed her forehead. After straightening, he pointed his hat toward the post sutler’s. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to join a couple of other jackals to teach them a thing or two about soldier’s whiskey.”
Her eyes followed him all the way until the door at the post sutler’s closed behind him.
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he’s in for the longest, hardest ride of his life. Where danger
lurks around every turn—and all roads lead to hell . . .
700 MILES OF MAYHEM
Gold. Silver. Cold hard cash. Stagecoach guard Red Ryan and his driver Buttons Muldoon have ridden shotgun on some pretty valuable cargo in their day. But they’re about to learn—the hard way—that the most dangerous cargo of all is human. They’ve been hired to escort a cowardly traitor facing an army court-martial in New Orleans. Every hired killer in Texas wants him dead, including gun-handy Hannah Huckabee, a woman with a mysterious past and an agenda of her own. But she’s just one of the dangers they’ll face along the way. There are cutthroat gangs bent on slaughtering anything on two legs. And 700 miles of the deadliest terrain Red Ryan has ever had to shoot his way out of . . .
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CHAPTER ONE
“So, tell me,” Patrick “Buttons” Muldoon said, “when we reach Fort Concho, what do you calculate the Limey coward will look like?”
Shotgun guard Red Ryan’s gaze was fixed on the vast sweep of the Texas prairie ahead of the Abe Patterson and Son Stage and Express Company coach. Without turning to look at Buttons, he said, “I have no idea. But I guess he’ll look like anybody else.”
Buttons had slowed the six-horse team to a walk, and the only sound was the steady fall of the horses’ hooves and the jingle of harness. The sky was bright blue, with no clouds, but the wind blowing from the north held an edge, a harbinger of the coming fall.
Buttons spat over the side of the stage, the ribbons steady in his gloved hands, and said, “I mean, will he be scared of his own shadow? One of them rannies who wear white drawers because they’ll never know when they’ll need a white flag?”
“You mean is he kissin’ kin to Moses Rose?” Red said.
Buttons grinned, “Yeah, that’s exactly what I mean.”
“Then I don’t know,” Red said.
Buttons seemed disappointed. “Hell, Red, you don’t know nothing.”
“I don’t know the answer to a conundrum that don’t make any sense,” Red said. “How do I know what the hell the coward will be like?”
“Yeah, well, we’re taking him all the way to New Orleans, so I guess we’ll find out, huh?” Buttons said. “Hell, we might find out the hard way. Maybe he’ll try to stab us in the back.”
“Sure, and maybe along the trail he’ll haul off and do something cowardly,” Red said.
“Man, that’s something I’d surely like to see,” Buttons said. “I ain’t never seen a coward do coward stuff, especially a Limey coward.”
Red nodded. “Me neither. Now, quit talking for a minute and study on what that there blue thing is ahead of us.”
“What blue thing? Oh, wait, I see it.” Buttons was silent for a few moments, peering into the distance. Then he said, “It’s blue and white, but I can’t make it out. A tent, maybe?”
“Maybe. Whip up the horses,” Red Ryan said. “Let’s go find out.”
“Keep the Greener handy,” Buttons said. “It may be some road agent trick that we ain’t seen yet.”
“I reckon we’ve seen them all,” Red said. “But you never know.”
Buttons snapped his whip above the team, and the horses lurched into a fast trot. “You’ve got younger eyes than me, Red, he said. “Can you make out what it is yet?”
“Not yet. But I guess we’ll know soon enough.”
* * *
A large circle of blue and white striped canvas, much torn, spread across the prairie grass. Beside it were piled several leather trunks. A man and woman stood beside a battered wicker basket large enough to accommodate two people, and as Buttons Muldoon drove the stage nearer, the woman raised a hand and waved.
“Hell, Red, it’s a gal and a Chinee with her,” Buttons said. “In all my born days I ain’t never seen the like.”
“And she’s a right pretty gal at that,” Red said. His tanned cheeks bore a three-day growth of rusty beard and he wished he’d shaved.
Buttons reined the team to a jangling halt and then raised his hat. “Well, howdy, young lady,” he said. “We weren’t expecting to meet company on this run. Nothing as far as the eye can see but grass, and even more grass.”
Red smiled, showing his teeth. “He’s Buttons Muldoon, and my name is Red Ryan. We’re representatives of the Abe Patterson and Son Stage and Express Company, and we’re at your service.”
The girl nodded. “Of course, you are. I’m Hannah Huckabee, and by profession I’m an adventuress. My companion is Mr. Chang.” Then, as though she thought an explanation necessary, “I saved his life from a street gang in Shanghai and he followed me home.” She had a very pleasing English accent.
Hannah Huckabee, who looked to be in her la
te twenties, was a tall, slender woman with well-defined breasts and a narrow waist. She wore a tan-colored dress with plenty of flapped pockets that was short enough to reveal lace-up brown leather boots that were scuffed from hard use. A cascade of glossy black hair fell from under a pith helmet that sported a pair of dark-lensed goggles above the brim. Belted around her waist was a blue, short-barreled Colt with an ivory handle and on the opposite side a sheathed bowie knife of the largest size. A pair of expensive brass field glasses, probably of German manufacture, hung around her neck. Her eyes were a lustrous brown, the black lashes thick and long. When she smiled, as she was doing now, her teeth were very white . . . and Red Ryan thought her the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen in his life.
Buttons Muldoon, ever a gentleman when he was around the ladies, said, “Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am, but what are you and the Chinee gent doing all the way out here in the wilderness?”
“Right now nothing, except being lost,” Hannah said. She smiled her dazzling smile. “And, of course, I’m also talking to you, driving man.”
“He means how did you get here?” Red said.
The girl pointed to the tattered canvas on the prairie grass. “Hanging from that in a basket is how we got here.” Then, reading the question on Red’s face. “What you see here are the remains of a hot-air balloon. It was my intention to explore the Caprock Canyons for signs of the culture that existed there ten thousand years ago. I mean pottery, spear points, and the like. You know, the usual archaeological stuff. Mr. Chang and I were also getting in some long-distance practice for our coming around-the-world balloon trip.”
“Oh, I see,” Buttons said, trying to look wise, but he didn’t see at all.
Neither did Red.
“The Caprock Canyons are in the Panhandle country,” he said. “How come you ended up here?”
Hannah Huckabee shrugged her slim shoulders. “We left the New Mexico Territory three days ago and then got hit by a most singular thunderstorm with a strong north wind and were blown off course. The balloon was ripped up, and Mr. Chang and I came down here. We landed pretty hard and were lucky to escape with only a few cuts and bruises. We could’ve been killed.”
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