“I think you’re a sissy, and I’m going to wallop you in the dust.”
Now, one of the things Val had learned from Will Reilly was not to talk in such a situation. If you were going to fight, you must land the first blow.
He doubled his fist and swung hard. The blow was quick and it was totally unexpected. It landed on the bigger boy’s cheekbone, and then Val threw a second punch, which was to the body. The bigger boy backed up and sat down hard.
Will Reilly stepped over and caught Val by the arm. “That’s enough now. Let him alone.”
The other boy was up, his eyes blazing. “You turn him loose, mister. I’ll show him!”
“You just be glad that I don’t turn him loose,” Will said. Then he tipped his hat to the woman at the table. “I am sorry, ma’am, but boys will be boys.”
With a hand on Val’s shoulder, he walked him outside and to the end of the overhang, away from the others.
“I suppose you think you won that fight?” he queried, giving Val a quizzical look.
“Yes, sir. I knocked him down, sir.”
“You did put him down, but he was surprised and off balance. You did not win the fight. I won it for you.”
Val stared at him.
“He would have whipped you, Val. He is a little older, a little bigger, and a whole lot tougher. That boy has worked hard all his life, and he has nerve. I could see that as he started to get up.
“Understand, you did the right thing. He was pushing you. He was hunting trouble. You hit him right, but not hard enough, and the first punch should have been in the belly. The second blow was not hard enough to hurt him. He would have whipped you, Val.”
Val was unconvinced.
“The time will come when you have to take a licking, Val, so just see that you take it like a man. No whimpering, no crying—at least, not until you’re alone.
“I did not want you to take that licking now, so I stopped it. I’ve only taught you a little, and in not a very serious way, but I see the time has come. The next town where we stop will be the beginning of some real training.”
The stage was loading. Val walked out and got on with Will. There was a moment before they got into the stage when one of the riflemen nodded, “Howdy, Will.”
Reilly glanced at him, then nodded, “How are you, Bridger. Been a long time.”
“Long time, Will.” He gestured to the lean, slope-shouldered man with him. “This here’s Bob Sponseller. He s from Australia.”
They shook hands, and Sponseller measured him with cool gray eyes. “You ever been in Sydney, Mr. Reilly?”
Will Reilly smiled. “Why, that’s a possibility, Mr. Sponseller, it is indeed; but then there are a lot of Reillys in Australia, no doubt.”
“Aye, but there was one a few years back had himself a fuss with the Larrikins down in Argyll Cut when the Cut was a new thing.”
“What’s the Larrikins?” Bridger asked.
“It was a name for the street gangs,” Sponseller said, “and they had a running feud with the sailors ashore from the ships. There was this young chap named Reilly who set his cap for a girl on Playfair Street
, a girl one of the Larrikin chiefs had a preference for. There was a brawl, they say, that started with the two of them, and ended with half of Sydney fighting.”
“That is quite a story,” Reilly said. “Has that man Reilly been back again?”
“He daren’t go back. That’s one man they have their eyes ready for, and after their eyes, their fists and clubs.”
Will chuckled. “Then if he goes back he had better carry a gun.”
Sponseller smiled grimly. “Now, that would be a likely thing to do.”
Sponseller mounted the box with the driver, and Bridger Downs got inside. The whip cracked and the stage started to move. The boy Val had fought and his mother rode on the seat facing Will and Val. Bridger rode beside Val, while the miner and the man in the business suit sat on the seat in the middle.
It was twenty miles to Tres Alamos, where they had scarcely time to stretch their legs before the stage was rolling on toward Steel’s Ranch, the last stop before the dreaded Apache Pass.
It was quiet inside the stage. Val dozed, woke up, dozed again. Once he woke up and saw the other boy staring at him. “My name is Val,” he said.
“I don’t care.” Then after a minute, and rather sullenly, the boy said, “I’m Dobie Grant.”
His mother was sleeping, and so, apparently, was Will Reilly. The miner looked over at Val. “Boy, would you like to swap seats? I’d surely admire to lean back and catch some shut-eye.”
“Sure,” Val said, and moved.
The miner sat down where Val had been and leaned back. Almost at once he was asleep.
“That was a nice thing to do,” the businessman said. “Are you traveling far, you and your uncle?”
“To Silver City, then El Paso.”
The man glanced at Will Reilly again, started to speak, but subsided. After a moment he looked over at Bridger, who was watching out the window, his Winchester between his knees.
“Where you going?” the man asked.
“Through the Pass … I hope.”
“Is it as bad as they say?
“Worse. Maybe we’ll be lucky. It’s a narrow trail and built for ambush. If they want us bad enough, they’ll take us.”
“I can shoot,” Val offered.
“No better than me,” Dobie declared belligerently.
“You may have to shoot, both of you,” Bridger said.
“One thing,” the businessman said, “we’ve plenty of guns and ammunition.”
Bridger Downs did not reply. Maybe that fellow thought so, but with Apaches you never knew.
They rolled into Steel’s Ranch as dawn was breaking, and got stiffly down from the stage, standing in the chill air of morning to stretch their muscles. Val trudged sleepily after Will Reilly as they went inside.
A coal-oil lamp with a reflector behind it was burning on the wall, and a lantern stood on the table where the hostler had left it when he came from the stable.
“Breakfast’ll be on soon,” he said, and then added, “It gets right cold of a morning here.”
Bridger Downs lounged by the door, watching outside, for this was Apache country, and they might not wait for the Pass. Sponseller was standing under a paloverde tree, watching the changing of the teams.
The driver strolled over to the Australian. “Did you know Reilly before?’
Sponseller shrugged. “There was a Reilly came ashore from a ‘Frisco bark, and he made a play for a girl … or she made it for him … and her bloke took exception. There was a pretty bit of a brawl, and Reilly won, which nobody thought he could do, and then the Larrikins took after him.”
“What happened?”
“Some of them caught him … the worse for them.”
“He got away?
“Oh, they’d have fixed his tripe if he hadn’t, but the girl smuggled him aboard a China clipper that left whilst they watched the bark he’d come in. The story’s often told down along the Cut and in the dives around Circular Quay. I don’t know if it was him, but they’ve the same look.”
“He’s a good man to have along, going through the Pass,” said the driver.
“What’s the fat feller got in that bunch of long boxes?”
Pete shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. They’re heavy.”
“Gold?” Sponseller speculated.
“Doubt it. Hasn’t the feel of it, somehow. Gold is heavy, all of a chunk. You know when you pick it up. This hasn’t the same feel.”
The sun came gingerly over the mountains, and the sky and the ranch yard were pale yellow. Pete looked at the mountains for smoke, but saw none.
He looked around again. With Reilly, Sponseller, Bridger Downs, and himself, there were four good rifles. The miner was a likely shot, and as for the fat businessman with the mutton-chop whiskers—there was no telling, although he had a keen eye and did not, somehow, h
ave the look of a tenderfoot.
The horses pawed earth, and Pete went over to take the lines from the hostler. Reilly walked outside and lit a thin cigar and squinted at the mountains. He was wearing a black broadcloth suit, a white planter’s-style hat, highly polished boots, now somewhat dusty, and a dove-gray vest.
“If they’re riding, Val, you have to lead them a little. And if they’re up in the rocks, aim a little high and watch your bullet strike. There’s a tendency to shoot low.”
“Yes, sir. Do you think there will be a fight?”
Will Reilly shrugged. He glanced at Sponseller, who had taken off his hat to run his fingers through his curly blond hair. “Do you still favor red shirts?” Reilly asked, and he walked to the stage.
Sponseller swore softly, then grinned. “I’ll be blowed,” he said.
“What did that mean?” Bridger asked.
“He was the one,” Sponseller said. “I was wearing a red shirt all the time in those days. I was one of the Larrikins. It was our chief that he whipped … whipped him fairly, too.”
They mounted up. The driver glanced once at the station, touched the brim of his hat with his whipstock, and they left the station at a brisk trot.
With the horses occasionally walking, then trotting, the stage moved toward Apache Pass. Val now sat by a window, with the words ringing in his ears: “If you see an Indian, or anybody else does, you get out of the way, and fast!”
He liked looking at the desert and the mountains. A roadrunner kept pace with them for some distance, seemingly amused by racing along; sometimes it ran ahead of the stage, sometimes beside it.
The air was cool; the dust stayed behind them. There was a faint smell of horse and leather, and the hot, baking smell one sometimes gets from old painted wood in the sunlight.
Quail flew up … a buzzard swung wide circles in the sky. The rocks of the pass began to take on detail. The trail dipped into a hollow, emerged suddenly, and wound among boulders and brush.
“All right,” Will said, “we’ll change places.” He had moved to sit by the window when the stage suddenly gave a lurch and they heard the driver’s wild yell, “Hi-yah! Hi-yah!” And almost simultaneously the boom of a rifle sounded right over their heads.
Crouched near the floor, Val could see nothing, but he could feel the grind of the wheels over gravel and stones, and hear the rattle and creak of the stage as the horses fled eastwards.
Suddenly Bridger Downs fired, then fired again and again. Will was holding his fire, as was the miner. The drummer had drawn a pistol.
All at once there came a ripping sound, and there was a bullet hole in the side of the stage right above Will’s head. At almost the same moment the stage gave a leap as though it were taking off to fly, and then it came down with a grinding crash, a wheel splintered, the stage plunged forward, and slowly fell on its side.
How he did it, Val never knew, but Will was suddenly outside. He had lost his grip on his rifle, but as the Apaches came charging down upon them he stood erect, and when Val scrambled through the door, now on the top side of the stage, he saw Will fire. An Indian, dashing toward them on horseback, was struck from his horse.
The Indian fell, hit the dust and slid, and then, surprisingly, started to get up. Coolly, Will shot him again.
The others in the stage were scrambling out. Will Reilly stepped over quickly and pushed Val to the ground among the rocks. “Stay there!” he said sternly.
Pete was sprawled in the dirt half a dozen yards from the stage, and he lay still.
Dobie and his mother were crouched close against the bottom of the overturned stage, and the boy’s eyes were bright and hard. There was no fear in them, but rather curiosity and a sort of eagerness. Val wondered how he himself looked.
Turning his head, he picked out the men. Bridger Downs had quickly found himself a spot, and kneeling on one knee, he was waiting for a good shot. Sponseller, who had jumped clear when the stage started to go, was about fifty feet away among the rocks, in a somewhat higher position.
The miner, crouched near Val, was favoring an arm, and there was a slow staining of red on his coatsleeve, but he had his rifle in position, partly braced by the fork in a shrub.
The drummer had crawled to the back of the stage and was trying to get one of his long boxes off the roof of the stage.
He turned to Val. “Boy, can you help me? Crawl over here.”
Val moved over toward him, and lying down, managed to crawl over and unlash the other end of the box without exposing himself to the Apaches’ fire. He pushed the box, the drummer heaved, and it crashed to the ground. The drummer picked up a rock and began to pound on the edge of a slat.
Val crawled back and looked around again. The stage lay just off the trail, forming a partial wall on one side, while on the other side was a bank of rocks and brush. One of the stage horses lay dead almost under the stage, and it must have been his fall that sent the stage into its wild careening.
Val lay crouched close to the ground as the Indians worked closer. He could smell the dust and the powder smoke. Something splintered behind him; the long box broke open and the drummer began taking out rifles. He had twelve brand-new rifles, and from another box he began taking out ammunition.
“Come on, son, help me load these,” he said. Val moved over to help, and Dobie joined him. As fast as they could load the rifles they passed them to Will, Bridger, and the miner.
Val kept one rifle himself, and so did Dobie. Filled with excitement, the boys waited for the next rush of the Indians.
“Ma’am,” the drummer said, “if you can load these rifles for us, we’ll teach those redskins a lesson.”
Bridger, with his own rifle and two others beside him, suddenly opened fire. He was making a demonstration as much as anything else, deliberately firing rapidly to show the Apaches what they had run into.
When an Indian showed himself Bridger Downs fired six times as rapidly as he could work the lever, then spaced his shots until the magazine was empty. Then he picked up his second rifle and did the same thing.
Suddenly three Indians moved at once, and the drummer, firing with almost negligent ease, dropped two of them and dusted the third.
Then, very deliberately, he picked up a chunk of slate and tossed it into the air, smashed it with a bullet, and smashed one of the pieces before it could touch the ground.
Will Reilly chuckled, and picking up an empty bottle, tossed it into the air, smashed it, then smashed the neck while the drummer broke one of the fragments.
Sponseller called out: “What the hell you fellers doin’, play-actin’?”
Hoping some Apache would understand what he said, Will Reilly yelled back in English, and repeated it in Spanish. “We’ve got forty rifles an’ two thousand rounds of ammunition, so we might as well have some fun!”
One Indian, who lay in plain sight where he had fallen, suddenly leaped up, blood showing on his skull, and made a dive for shelter among the rocks.
Val shot … he never knew whether he hit the Indian or not, for four rifles spoke as one and the Indian threw up his hands and plunged forward against the slope, then rolled over twice and lay sprawled, arms flung wide.
Val turned. “I want a drink,” he said to Will.
Reilly looked at him and was about to speak when Downs spoke from the corner of his mouth. “Boy, you forget it. That’s the one thing we ain’t got any of!”
Chapter Four
The sun was high, the few clouds disappeared, the heat in the bottom of the canyon grew oppressive. No Apache showed along the rock walls. The five remaining horses stood in their harness, heads drooping, unable to leave, for they were still hitched to the overturned stage by one trace chain.
The Apaches evidently needed the horses, for they made no attempt to kill them. Nor did they make any further attempt to dare the fire power of the little group behind the stage.
But the Apaches knew they were out of water. Among the first shots they had fired had been th
e ones at the waterbags suspended beside the boot. So they had only to wait—and an Apache can be as patient as a buzzard.
Pete was dead—there was now no doubt of that. The miner, whose name turned out to be Egan Gates, had been wounded twice.
Val loaded the miner’s gun, and replaced it for him. “That’s a good lad,” Gates said. Then he looked closely at Reilly. “You any kind of an Injun, Reilly?
“Why?”
“There’s water yonder.” He pointed north of their position.
“There’s a spring over there, but there’s a tank up yonder in the rocks.”
“Don’t try it.” Bridger Downs was emphatic. “You’d never make it. Once it gets dark they’ll draw the net tight around us. You wouldn’t have a chance.”
A slow hour passed, and then another. Only one shot was fired, and that was from the Apache side.
There was no sound from Sponseller, and from their position they could not see him. Whether he was alive or dead they had no way of knowing.
Slowly the day grew cooler. Shadows began to reach out from the rock walls. Val lay against the earth, feeling his heart beat, and listening to the sounds. Would they ever get out alive? He tried to remember the stories he had heard. There were not many who had escaped the Apaches … but there had been a few.
His mouth was dry, so dry he could scarcely swallow. Will picked a smooth pebble from the sand. “Put this in your mouth, Val. It will keep you from being so thirsty.”
The pebble felt cool, almost cold. Saliva began to flow, and he did feel better.
A star came out, and the night air grew more chilly. Will glanced over at the woman. “Ma’am, did you have anything to eat with you?”
“Yes, there’s some bread and coffee, and some jerky.”
“There’s some’at in my parcel in the boot,” the miner offered. “You can get at it easier, but without water it won’t help much.”
Val thought of the olla back at the stage station, and its deliciously cool water. Then he tried to forget it and think about other things. He tried to remember Myra, but the only thing he could recall was her voice, how harsh it had sounded on that last night.
Reilly's Luck Page 4