Apache Rampage

by J. T. Edson

  Phyllis came to her feet. She’d heard the noise in the store and was on the point of investigating when the three came into view. Even before Phyllis could make a move to go help her daughter it was too late. She felt a violent push, and saw a red-haired shape hurling over the wagon box. It was Patty. She’d seen her little sister in trouble and needing help. Patty was just the girl to hand out that same help.

  Hurling over the wagon box Patty landed full on Mrs. Millet’s back and the fat woman thought she’d been jumped by a pile of wildcats. Patty was bigger, stronger and even more skilled than her sister, for she was ready to fight at the drop of a hat. The big woman lit down on the sidewalk, managed to roll over and wished she had not, for Patty started to bounce her already sore and aching head on the sidewalk.

  Mrs. Haslett saw what was happening to her friend and showed true loyalty. She could barely hold the wildly struggling Janice, so let loose, pushed the girl away and turned to dash back into the store, slamming the door. Janice swung around and gave an angry yell, then started to lunge forward. Phyllis caught Janice by the arm and thrust her backwards. She saw the crowd running towards the scene and knew she must act fast to save her daughters from serious trouble. She’d followed Patty out of the wagon and darted by Janice to where Patty knelt astride the now still Mrs. Millet, slamming her head on the sidewalk. There was no time to speak, nor would it be any use when Patty’s temper was up. Phyllis knotted her hand in her daughter’s hair and heaved. Patty gave an angry yell as she hit the hitching rail by Janice. For a moment the red-head tensed to throw herself at her new attacker. Then she recognised her mother and relaxed. Turning to Janice she looked at the torn frock and the blood running from her sister’s lip.

  ‘You all right, Jan?’

  Janice was breathing hard, she rubbed the blood, then nodded. ‘I’m all right now, Patty. Thanks.’

  ‘I’d do it any time,’ answered Patty.

  Phyllis did not look at the still form on the sidewalk. She saw the crowd running forward and snapped an order for her girls to get into the wagon. There was not time. The crowd surrounded them in an ugly, angry mass.

  CHAPTER THREE

  DEAD AS A SIX DAY STUNK-UP SKUNK

  Ellwood burst through the menacing and advancing crowd. ‘Back off, all of you. Back off there!’

  Mrs. Haslett opened the door about half an inch to peep out and make sure Janice was not waiting to grab her. Seeing the marshal and her friends gathered she came out, sniffing and dabbing the blood from her face. Stepping by the still form of Mrs. Millet, she advanced to the edge of the sidewalk.

  ‘Those two sluts attacked poor Mrs. Millet and me,’ she sniffed.

  Patty gave an angry hiss and turned from climbing into the wagon, but her mother caught and held her. With an angry growl Ellwood swung back his hand as if to hit the girl.

  ‘Don’t do that,’ snapped Thornett.

  Turning, Ellwood opened his mouth to say something. His hand dropped towards his side then froze. Thornett’s right hand went under his coat and came out holding the short-barrelled Merwin and Hulbert gun. One of the crowd, one of the few who were armed, made a grab for his weapon with no greater success than Ellwood. Molly saw the move and kicked open the rear door of the wagon, her rifle slanting down at him and ending the move undone.

  ‘Put that gun away,’ Ellwood ordered. ‘I’m taking you to jail.’

  Thornett shook his head gently and made no attempt to holster the revolver. He could see the dull, ugly mood of the crowd and knew things might go badly for the girls if he allowed them to be taken. One thing he was sure of now, Ellwood was not a good man with a gun. The fighting man’s gunbelt was nothing but a bluff.

  ‘I’m afraid I must decline, my good public servant,’ Thornett answered. Even at such a time he still retained his pompous way of talking. ‘Get into the wagon, Phyllis, me dove. And you, girls.’

  ‘Stop them, Major,’ screamed Mrs. Haslett. ‘I want them girls arrested for attacking me and poor Mrs. Millet.’

  Ellwood frowned. He was being given a formal complaint and should act on it. There was only one thing wrong. That gun was still lined on him, and there was a look of determination on the medicine man’s face. ‘Put down that gun,’ he said.

  ‘I’m afraid not. We’re leaving right now.’

  ‘You’re resisting arrest,’ warned Ellwood. ‘You leave this town and I’ll have you posted as a wanted man.’

  Thornett neither lowered his gun, nor relaxed. He doubted if Ellwood could post him as wanted, or would be willing to risk it. Not when a good lawyer could clear Thornett on any of the charges without pausing to take breath. However, it might prove inconvenient for him and the show to have such a thing hanging over them. It might be as well to straighten things out before he left.

  ‘We’d like to know what did happen in the store,’ Thornett said, backing the suggestion with his lined gun. ‘I would suggest you find out before making threats of arrest, Marshal. There is such a thing as being sued for false arrest.’

  Ellwood knew this and growled out, ‘All right. What did happen in there, Mrs. Haslett?’

  The woman opened her mouth, then closed it again. It was not easy to bring out the words in a manner which would be creditable to herself and Mrs. Millet. ‘They attacked poor Mrs. Millet and myself in there,’ she lied. ‘Both of them. When we caught them making up to Elwin.’

  ‘I wish to point out,’ Thornett put in, ‘that only Janice went inside. Patty remained in full view of all of you.’

  Mrs. Haslett gulped. She’d made a slip and could see Ellwood was not missing it. The town marshal frowned, knowing what was happening. Only one girl did go into the store, the other having been in sight of the wagon most of the time. He also knew the small girl would not willingly start trouble with two women, one almost twice as large as she was. He knew that, truth or lies from Mrs. Haslett, the crowd did not aim to see these people leave town.

  Looking at Janice, who stood by her mother waiting for Patty to climb into the wagon, Ellwood said, ‘All right, tell me what happened.’

  ‘The big woman hit me after I stopped the other one hitting the boy who works inside. I hit her back and they both started on me.’

  ‘Liar!’ shrieked Mrs. Haslett, then gave a scared yelp as Janice lunged forward at her.

  Catching her daughter’s arm and shoving her against the wagon, Phyllis asked, ‘Why not get the young feller out here and ask him?’

  ‘Elwin,’ called Ellwood. ‘Come on out here.’

  Elwin came from the store carrying Janice’s sack of supplies. He put the sack on the edge of the sidewalk and turned to the marshal. ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘Tell us what happened in the store.’

  ‘This young lady come in to buy supplies, and I started to show her a couple of juggling tricks. Then Mrs. Haslett and Mrs. Millet came in. Mrs. Haslett started to abuse me and her. Then Mrs. Millet slapped her face and they both started on her.’

  ‘Why, of all the lying, ungrateful wretches—!’ gasped Mrs. Haslett. She looked at the thin, miserable-looking man who was her husband. ‘Dudley, did you hear what he just said?’

  Haslett gave a guilty start, for he was looking at Janice’s half-bared bust which showed from the torn frock. He turned his annoyance at the interruption on the young man. ‘Is that the sort of gratitude we get after taking you in and caring for you all these years?’

  Elwin was on the rebellious trail and did not mean to be put on any more. He gave an angry cough of laughter. ‘Took me in and cared for me? That’s a big joke. I worked twice as hard and four times as cheap as any hired man you could have got. The young lady wasn’t doing a thing until those two started to abuse her.’

  ‘You make him shut his mouth, Major!’ Mrs. Haslett screamed.

  ‘That’s fairness for you.’ Phyllis spat the words out. ‘If the young man’d said Janice was at fault he could have talked as much as he wanted.’

  ‘Shut your mouth unless I speak to you,�
� Ellwood barked, ‘or I’ll shut it for you.’

  For once the bombast left Thornett’s voice. ‘Mister! You lay one hand on any of my young ladies and I’ll kill you.’

  Once more Ellwood looked death in the face, for the plump, mild-looking man was in deadly earnest. The big marshal looked into his own motives, not liking what he saw. He did not have the cold-blooded courage necessary to go against a man holding a drawn, lined gun. More so when the man holding it was in the right.

  The crowd was rumbling angrily although they also lacked the courage to go up against any armed person. They were willing to shove their marshal against those guns, even if they would not go up against the same guns. Ellwood listened to the rumble of the crowd and did not like what he heard. That was not the protest of a righteously outraged crowd; it was the snarl of a lynch mob. He knew that if he was able to arrest the show people, his trouble would not be over.

  So interested in what was happening were the participants of the scene that none of them saw the four newcomers to the town. Four men had just come down from the stage trail and were now sitting their horses and watching everything.

  They were young Texas cowhands, sat afork magnificent horses, one of them leading a pack-pony. Four Texas cowhands, three of them belting on a matched brace of Colt revolvers.

  One of this quartet would have caught the eye in any crowd. He was a handsome blond giant, a rangeland dandy, yet a working cowhand or his expensive, made-to-measure clothes lied. Around his waist was a brown leather, hand-tooled buscadero gunbelt supporting a finely made brace of Colt Cavalry Peacemakers in the holsters. He lounged easily in the saddle of his huge bloodbay stallion, a light rider despite his great size.

  The two men who flanked the handsome dandy would also catch the eye. One of them sat a seventeen-hand white stallion. He was tall, slim, lithe and dark looking. His face looked young, almost babyishly young and innocent, but those red-hazel eyes were neither young nor innocent. His clothing was all black, from hat to boots. Even the gunbelt was black leather. Only the butt forward, walnut grips of the old Colt Dragoon revolver at his right and the ivory hilt of the bowie knife at his left relieved the blackness.

  The other eye-catching man was younger, not out of his teens. He sat astride a seventeen-hand paint stallion, a fine-looking horse, and led the pack-pony. His clothing was expensive yet practical, like the dress of the handsome giant. He was a blond youngster, handsome, blue-eyed and friendly, and his face was strong, without any trace of dissipation. Around his slender waist was a new-looking gunbelt which carried the staghorn butted Colt Artillery Peacemakers in the low-hanging holsters.

  The fourth man sat slightly ahead of the others. He lounged in the Texas kak saddle with the easy grace of a cowhand. He was a small, insignificant man, the sort who would go unnoticed in any crowd. Even the butt forward, bone-handled Colt Civilian Peacemakers in the holsters of his gunbelt did nothing to make him look more noticeable. His clothes looked plain, but they were costly, his black J.B. Stetson expensive as were his high-heeled boots. He was a handsome enough young man, but not in the eye-catching, attention-drawing way of the golden-blond giant. Not in the lean, latently savage, somehow Indian way of the dark-faced rider of the big white. Not in the friendly, clean and open way of the youngster. His face was handsome. It was also, if one took time out to look, a strong, commanding face. Sitting his huge paint stallion the small man thrust back his hat, showing his dusty blond hair as he looked at the wagon. His face flickered in a half smile as if he thought he knew the people in the medicine show.

  ‘Let’s get moving, Doc,’ said Phyllis, not seeing the riders, her full attention on the crowd.

  Elwin stood on the sidewalk, watching. This was the supreme moment of his life if he chose to take it. Here was the means to get him away from this town. His life, previously miserable, would be even more so. Suddenly he knew he must leave Baptist’s Hollow and never return.

  Picking up the sack, Elwin stepped from the sidewalk towards his destiny. ‘I got your supplies here, mister. Can you take me along as far as Fort Owen?’

  ‘Hold hard!’ Haslett yelped, seeing the sack lifted into the wagon. ‘Is all that stuff paid for?’

  ‘Paid for and the money in the drawer,’ Elwin replied. ‘Go and count it if you want. You can keep my week’s pay.’

  Haslett was torn between a desire to go into his store and count the money and wishing to warn Elwin off. The latter won, and he tried to sound big as he said, ‘Don’t you come running back here. That’s the last time I take anybody in. Ungrateful bums, that’s all young uns like him are.’

  Ellwood watched the young man climb in through the door at the rear of the wagon. Then he turned to Thornett and gave a grim warning:

  ‘All right. Get going as soon as we know the supplies are paid for. I want you out of this town and don’t ever come back.’

  ‘Mister, do you know what you’re doing?’

  The soft-drawled words cut over the noise of the crowd and brought every eye to the four riders. It was the small man who’d spoken, Ellwood guessed and decided he was relying on the backing of the three big cowhands while speaking.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Ellwood asked, irritation thinly veiled in his tone. The town saw little of cowhands, less of Texas cowhands. Any man who knew the cowhand country would have known that here sat three men who were tophands and knew the cattle business from calf-down to trailend shipping pens. He’d also have known that here were four men more than just ordinarily competent with their guns. Ellwood knew none of this.

  ‘You aren’t sending these folks out of town at a time like this, are you?’ asked the small man.

  It was Mrs. Haslett who replied, spitting the words out viciously. ‘Why not, because four saddle-tramps don’t like it?’

  ‘No, ma’am,’ the small Texan answered, his voice an easy southern drawl. ‘Because of what we know—and you don’t.’

  Ellwood watched the small man, noting the commanding way in which he spoke. There was more to this man than first met the eye, the marshal decided. It might be well to listen to him.

  ‘What might that be?’

  ‘We found a couple of miners as we cut through the hills.’

  ‘So what?’ Ellwood snapped. ‘The hills are full of miners.’

  ‘There’s two less now, mister,’ the dark-faced boy said, moving his horse alongside the small man’s. ‘Maybe more, we didn’t stop on long enough to find out.’ He reached back and drew something from under the bedroll strapped to his saddle. ‘This’s what killed one of them.’

  The crowd scattered as if the young man had thrown a live rattler at them. Every eye went to the thing which stuck in the ground before them. It looked like a long, thin, straight stick—except that stick never grew on a tree with feathers at one end, barbed head at the other and painted bands of colour in the centre.

  ‘But that’s an Apache arrow.’

  ‘Yeah, friend,’ agreed the dark boy, his voice cold and mocking. ‘An Apache war arrow.’

  The listeners noticed the emphasis placed on that one word and knew what the dark boy meant by it. There was a whole lot the good citizens of Baptist’s Hollow did not know about Apaches. There was one thing they, and almost every other man or woman in Arizona territory knew, that was the significance of an Apache war arrow. The Apache might kill a chance-met stranger with a hunting arrow, but he would never use the same for serious business. When the Apache went to war he took his special war arrows from the medicine lodge. When he used war arrows it meant just that—he was wearing paint and at war.

  ‘So you found two dead miners, one killed by an Indian arrow,’ said Ellwood, not liking the dark boy’s attitude or tone of voice. ‘Why should that stop me turning undesirables out of town?’

  The small man studied Ellwood as if the marshal was fresh come from under a rotten log. ‘Mister, Lon said maybe more. We didn’t stay on to try and find out. The Apaches are out, swarming. There’s more of them out there than a
man could count on a lot more hands and feet than he’s got right now.’

  ‘And they’re all wearing paint,’ concluded the dark boy, ‘or I don’t know sic ‘em about Apaches.’

  That was one saying none of the crowd needed explaining. No self-respecting Apache would think of making war without putting his paint on first. On the wagon Phyllis and Doc looked at the small Texan with considerable interest. They were nearly sure they could put a brand on him. It was a famous name, one which was known from Texas to California, from the Rio Grande to the Canadian line. Phyllis was almost sure but did not speak.

  ‘That doesn’t concern us any,’ Ellwood growled and heard his town give their rumbled agreement. ‘We’ve never had any trouble with the Apaches.’

  ‘You’re like to get it,’ said the blond giant, his voice a deep, cultured Texas drawl. ‘Dusty wasn’t fooling and Lon knows Indians. It’d be downright murder to send folks out there until you know the way things lay.’

  ‘We never asked them to come here in the first place,’ screamed Mrs. Haslett, seeing her chance to get back at Phyllis and the girls, even if it meant sending them to certain death. She hoped the show people would. beg to be allowed to stay. ‘This’s our town and we don’t want the likes of them here.’

  The small Texan looked hard at Ellwood. ‘That your word?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ replied Ellwood. He might have acted differently but hated the thought of being forced into a decision. ‘It’s true we don’t want their kind here, but we’ve seen no sign of Apaches.’

  The small man’s eyes never left Ellwood’s face. They were grey eyes, cold and hard now, the cold grey stare making the marshal feel uncomfortable. ‘You’re sending white women out of here at a time like this. Into what could be death, or worse. When I pass the word of what you’ve done folks won’t even spit on you in the street.’

  ‘And who’ll bother to listen to the likes of you?’ Mrs. Haslett sneered, her eyes studying the insignificant young Texan.