The Jackals

by William W. Johnstone

  Gwen nodded. “I figured. I just wasn’t thinking.”

  “It’s hard to think,” he said.

  They looked at each other. Breen found it hard to look away from such a good-looking woman. He ran his hands through his white hair while trying to think of something to say. She opened her mouth and said something, but by that time, something had caught his attention.

  Without a word, he walked past her to the shutter. He bent and looked through the opening, a thin rail up and a thin rail across, either a lowercase t or a cross, depending on your view of such matters. He saw nothing but darkness, but that wasn’t what was bothering him. It’s what he heard.

  “They’ve stopped singing,” Gwen said from behind him.

  “Yes, ma’am. And they’re not pounding the drums, either.”

  “Do you think they’re planning on attacking?”

  His head shook. “That’s not in the nature of Apaches.”

  “Then . . . what—?”

  They heard the answer before Gwen Stanhope could finish her question.

  It was the most terrifying scream anyone at Culpepper’s Station had ever heard.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “Mother of Mary,” Harry Henderson wailed. “Is that some wild animal?”

  Jed Breen felt the bile rising in his throat. He started to answer, but then he remembered Gwen Stanhope right beside him.

  “No,” Sean Keegan said bluntly. “It’s not.”

  The shriek sounded like complete agony and terror, but not human, more like the screams one would expect to find in the deepest pits of Hell. The newspaper editor walked toward the closest window, drawn by his ingrained curiosity as a journalist—or maybe by some unholy trance.

  “Stay away from that window, Griffin,” Keegan said.

  Griffin stopped, and his face cringed tightly when the scream pierced the black night again.

  “My God,” Gwen Stanhope said.

  Henderson clamped both hands over his ears and squeezed his eyes shut as though that could block out the terrifying, demoralizing yells.

  Tied up and stretched out on the floor, the Apache grinned.

  McCulloch and Breen walked to meet with Keegan.

  “You know what that is?” Breen said. “Don’t you?”

  Keegan nodded a grim nod.

  “Who is it?” McCulloch asked.

  They spoke in whispers. Breen nodded at the woman: “She came in on the stagecoach with Griffin, Henderson, and some others that didn’t make it.”

  “I smelled them when I snuck past the stage,” McCulloch said.

  “Yeah,” Breen said. “The jehu was dead. He’s somewhere along the side of the road, I reckon, or what the Apaches left of him, I imagine. The shotgun took over in the seat and got the coach here. Got brained with a tomahawk when that second band of savages swarmed us. Anyway—”

  “Rourke?” McCulloch interrupted, but still kept his voice down. The three men were quite aware that Gwen Stanhope, Sir Theodore Cannon, and Alvin Griffin were staring at them, desperate to hear what they were saying. Henderson, on the other hand, kept his hands over his ears and his eyes clamped shut.

  “Yeah,” Breen answered. “You know him?”

  “He served with the Rangers for two years. Got a better offer from the stagecoach company.” McCulloch spit the foul taste out of his mouth. “Thought it was safer, too.”

  “And would be,” Keegan commented, “if the Apaches weren’t on the prod.”

  “Go on,” McCulloch told Breen.

  “That’s about it. Apaches were chasing the stagecoach. They pulled up. I went out to help and we all made it inside. Barely. Rourke came out to cover me when I fetched the handcuff keys from the dead deputy. That’s when he got beaned with the tomahawk. I swear, I thought he was dead.”

  “Nobody’s blaming you,” Keegan said. “I was out there, too, and I could’ve dragged him inside.”

  “If you had tried that,” McCulloch said, “chances are the Apaches would have gotten inside. Then you’d all be dead, and I’d be alone. Don’t blame yourself. I know Rourke. Rode on many a mission with him. He wouldn’t want you to have risked your hides for him.” Suddenly, McCulloch grinned and shook his head. “He always said if he lived past thirty it would be a miracle.” He nodded. “By my recollection, he’d be thirty-four about now.”

  The scream echoed, sounding like ten other men being crucified.

  Gwen Stanhope sucked in a deep breath and held it for the longest time. The cabin was fairly dark, but the three men could see that the woman was on the verge of tears. The actor, the newspaperman, and Henderson didn’t look steady, either. And no one could blame them.

  Clearing his throat, Keegan turned around and looked at the Stanhope, Griffin, and Cannon. He didn’t care if Henderson could hear him or not. “All right. You’ve probably figured it out by now. This is the Apache way of fighting.” He shrugged. “And, if you think about it, and not think like Christians or regular folks, it’s not a bad way to fight. The Apaches, they think that by torturing a man, they take away his power, and that power comes to them. You can call it hogwash or pagan or anything you like, but that don’t change the facts. And power or not, they also do it to get under our skin.

  “Nah. That ain’t exactly right. They do it to crack us up. Drive us crazy. You folks are doing good right now. I’ve been on patrols with soldiers who couldn’t stand it. Seen it break down officers from West Point, even officers and enlisted men who fought in the late war, and those had seen and heard some of the most horrible things that nobody ought to go through. That’s about the size of it. Maybe the carpetbagger over yonder’s got the right idea. Try to block out that fellow’s misery. And when the bucks come at us in the morning, you remember this night. That man out there suffering. And you remember that if they catch you alive, that’s what you’ll have to endure. It’ll make you fight harder. I hope. For all of our sakes.”

  He stopped and stood, waiting, but he did not have to wait very long.

  “What about that poor man out there?” Gwen Stanhope said.

  “Ma’am—” Breen stopped. He couldn’t think of anything to say.

  “Surely, you can’t let him suffer.”

  “That’s what the Apaches want, sister,” Keegan said. “Draw some of us outside. Then they’d have someone else to torture. One less gun to fight. One more agonizing torment to drive us mad.”

  “I’m mad,” the woman said. “And if you aren’t going to do the right thing, then by God I am.”

  She started for the door, but stopped when Matt McCulloch walked to the Apache and kicked the man’s moccasins. The Indian looked up.

  Breen and Keegan walked to McCulloch, standing on either side of him.

  “She has a point,” McCulloch whispered.

  “You know better ’n that,” Keegan said. “And remember what Rourke said.”

  “I remember.” He looked Keegan hard in the eye. “And I know something I won’t want to remember. And that’s that I let a pard, a onetime Ranger, die like that.”

  “Well, when you get caught, and it’s you that they’re ramming that heated barrel of your Winchester into holes in your body they’ve cut or even natural ones, you’ll be remembering that it’s us that’ll pay the price for your bravery when they kill us all tomorrow morning.”

  “Keegan’s right,” Breen said. “The Apaches will be expecting one of us to try to put Rourke out of his misery.”

  “Uh-huh.” McCulloch stared down at the glaring Apache. “So I’m thinking that we do something that’ll occupy their minds. Drive them mad.”

  Breen and Keegan looked at the warrior.

  “Fight Apaches,” Keegan whispered, “like Apaches.”

  The thought made even a hard man like Jed Breen swallow down the bile crawling up his throat. “Risky,” Breen said after a long pause.

  “Could get us all killed,” Keegan said.

  “Nobody lives forever,” Gwen Stanhope said.

  The men t
urned. She had come up behind them. Her face, lighted only by the coals of the fire, showed no shame, no soul, perhaps. She seemed to be agreeing with the three men.

  “Yeah,” Keegan agreed. “And if we don’t do something to change the odds, ain’t a one of us going to be living after tomorrow.”

  “Especially,” Breen said, “if old Holy Shirt loses his argument and the Apaches arm themselves with repeaters.”

  The newspaperman had found his courage and come to them, too. So had Sir Theodore Cannon, but he said nothing.

  “You can’t be serious,” Griffin said. “You’re white men. You can’t fight . . .”

  “Oh, but we can,” Keegan said, warming to the thought.

  “Listen,” Griffin continued. “First, he’s an Apache. He won’t scream if you torture him. He’s not human.”

  “He’ll scream,” Keegan said. “Because he can’t stop himself. I’ve learned a lot during my time out West. I’ve learned a lot from Apaches like him.”

  “We can hold out here,” Griffin argued, moving to another front of attack. “When the stage isn’t at El Paso tomorrow morning, the manager will alert the authorities. A posse will come. Probably a patrol from Fort Bliss.”

  “By the time the Army gets here, we’ll be dead,” Breen said.

  “But,” Griffin continued, “this place is solid. Impregnable. The Apaches can’t get in here. Unless we let them.”

  “They won’t have to get in here,” McCulloch said. “If they decide to fight with bullets and powder.” He pointed to the shutters. “Those gunports. Good in some ways. We can shoot out. But all a man with a repeater would have to do is stick barrels through there and just cock and pull the trigger, cock and pull the trigger.”

  Keegan picked up the thought. “Lead will be bouncing around this place like a swarm of bees. Or hornets. We butchered about thirty Apaches once the same way. They were in a cave. We just fired into the cave. I can still hear the whines of those ricochets. And the screams of the Apaches. Women. Kids, too. And a few bucks. It was a bloody mess when we went down to bury them all.”

  “Four windows,” Breen said. “Four rifles. It wouldn’t take them long. Be a regular enfilade. Messy way to die.”

  The newspaperman paled.

  “There’s the trapdoor,” said Breen, looking at the woman. “When it comes to that, you need to get down there. There’s just room for you. That’ll keep you alive.”

  Gwen Stanhope shook her head. “No,” she said, and managed a smile. “But thanks. I won’t meet my Maker and hear him saying I showed yellow.”

  “Well . . .” the newspaper editor began. “We must . . .”

  “If you suggest that you hide in that little cellar, know that that trapdoor will never open to let you out, you lily-livered peckerwood,” Keegan told him.

  The journalist turned even paler.

  Harry Henderson wet his lips but did not attempt to plead his case to hide in what was little more than a cubbyhole dug into the hard rock.

  “I shall go,” Sir Theodore Cannon said. “Not into that pit of despair. No. I couldn’t fit in that thing. Trust me, before Mr. Breen arrived, I tried. Nay, I mean I shall go to do my duty, to put one poor, tortured soul out of his misery. Why, lady and gentlemen, in Baltimore, the New Republican Enterprise raved about my death scene in Julius Caesar. I shall—”

  Keegan cut him off. “I’d like to see you play that part, Sir Theo. In El Paso. And I’m sure Mr. Griffin here will write up the fact that you were the first to volunteer. But we’ll need you here, sir. In case this don’t turn out the way we hope.”

  “Rourke’s my responsibility,” Breen said.

  “No,” McCulloch said. “I knew him. Rode with him. And he’s my friend.”

  Breen held out his Sharps. “But I have this.”

  McCulloch held out his hand. “Thanks. You take my Winchester.”

  The bounty hunter sighed and slowly extended the big rifle to the former Ranger, who exchanged the long rifle with the telescopic sight for his Winchester carbine.

  “Apache’s mine, then.” Keegan reached down and jerked the Indian to his feet, then shoved a balled-up bandanna into the warrior’s mouth, and shoved him toward the door. The old Army sergeant moved to the fireplace and stoked the coals until they glowed red. He tossed some kindling onto the coals, and once they ignited, added two pieces of wood.

  Motioning toward the windows, he turned and said, “Stay away from here. Apaches aren’t ones to fight at night, but they damn well might be charging here directly. They see you through the ports, they’ll try to send you to Hell.” He grabbed a crowbar, and tossed one end into the fire. “I’ll be back for this directly.”

  Breen removed his hat, and reached inside his jacket, withdrawing a woman’s stocking of black lace. “Don’t way a word,” he warned as he slipped the stocking over his head. “White hair. Dead giveaway.”

  “Why don’t you just dye your hair with bootblack?” Sir Theodore Cannon asked.

  “Because ladies like my white hair.” Breen rubbed the stocking over his hair. “This one in particular. Said it makes me look distinguished. And Apaches see like nighthawks.” He picked up his shotgun in his free hand.

  A moment later, they stood at the door. Gwen Stanhope lifted one end of the bar, and the actor did the other. Henderson still sat in the corner, his eyes still closed, and his hands still over his ears.

  The newspaper editor blinked. “You can’t do this. You simply cannot do this.”

  No one listened. The door opened just a crack, and McCulloch slipped outside. The door shut. They waited as Keegan silently counted to sixty.

  “You can’t—”

  “Shut up,” Gwen Stanhope told Griffin, and the editor obeyed.

  The door opened again, and Breen went outside with his shotgun and McCulloch’s carbine.

  Keegan counted only to thirty.

  The door cracked again, and he pushed the Indian through. He glanced at those who would remain inside, saying, “Stay here. Give me five minutes, maybe ten. I’ll be back, but just for a jiffy.”

  And he was gone.

  * * *

  McCulloch made it to the cistern by the corral. Rourke, God bless him, helped him make it that far. Those excruciating screeches bouncing off the walls of the canyons and hills around Culpepper’s Station covered any noise he made. The fact that there was no moon helped him, too, but the stars, millions of them, and bright, allowed him to find his way.

  The fires in the hills told him where he would find Rourke. But there was an Apache he needed to deal with first. The Indian was on the other side of the cistern, dipping his hand in the water, bringing it up, letting it drip, slaking his thirst. Probably a boy in his teens. Laying the Sharps next to the wall, McCulloch unsheathed his knife. He heard another noise and turned his head, catching the light as the door to the station opened ever so slightly. A shadow appeared, and McCulloch knew Keegan was slipping back inside.

  The Apache knew it, too, and stopped drinking water. He moved to McCulloch’s right.

  * * *

  Sean Keegan remained silent as he crossed the room, ducked into a crouch when the light from the fireplace reached him, and eased his way to the fire. Finding a heavy canvas pad, he used it as a mitt to grip the end of the crowbar. He examined the glowing end of the iron and nodded his approval.

  Thirty seconds later, he was back at the door, nodding at Stanhope and the actor. “Bar the door this time. Two knocks, two seconds, four knocks. That’ll be me. Three knocks, four seconds, one knock. That’ll be McCulloch. Four knocks, six seconds, that’ll be Breen. Any other sequence, keep the damned bar on the door.” With his free hand, he tipped his cap at Stanhope and nodded at Sir Theodore Cannon. “If this don’t work out, it’s been a pleasure knowing you folks—except you, Griffin.”

  Once the door closed behind Keegan, Stanhope and the thespian slipped the cottonwood bar into its holders.

  * * *

  Jed Breen never considered himsel
f a patient man. This just wasn’t his kind of fighting, and the black stocking over his head wasn’t comfortable as after so many years he could no longer smell the scent of Alice Portis’s body, or at least her legs, on that black silk and lace. He would have to get back to Denver sometime. Maybe see if Alice had some new stockings she could give him. This one was starting to run.

  He had positioned himself in a clump of creosote bushes, not even four feet high, and Alice Portis’s stockings did not diminish the tar-like stink of the creosote. Off to his left grew a spiny ocotillo, its arms waving in the wind like the tentacles of a squid.

  Neither the creosote nor the cactus would provide him any cover if the Apaches started shooting. That’s why Breen had picked this spot. Apaches wouldn’t expect a man to hide there.

  They had to know the three men were out there. The light from the fireplace would have revealed the moment Breen, McCulloch, and Keegan had exited the station. Now that Keegan had gone back inside and come out again, Apaches had to be everywhere, searching, smelling, and getting ready for the kill.

  Breen could see one over by the cistern, not even bothering to hide. He could also make out the figure of Matt McCulloch, lying on the ground on the other side of the Apache. Breen could kill the Apache easily with McCulloch’s carbine. But that would give away his position.

  “Will you hurry up?” Breen whispered.

  A moment later, as if Sean Keegan had heard Breen, the yell cut through the starry night.

  “Aiiiii-yeeeeeeee-iiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!”

  It bounced around the barn and station, louder, more horrifying than the distant yells from Rourke. Breen lifted the Winchester, and when the Apache yelled again, he used the screams to cover the sound as he eared back the hammer. The Apache kept yelling, so Breen cocked both barrels of the shotgun at his side.

  Breen had to smile. Sergeant Sean Keegan had learned a lot, after all, during his time on the Apache frontier. What would newspaper editor Alvin Griffin IV be thinking inside the station about now? And would that squirt with the grips still be covering his ears? Breen didn’t have to wonder about the Apaches. He could hear them now that the buck’s screams, even the echoes, had died.