The Jackals

by William W. Johnstone

  The Apaches began talking. Breen tried to pinpoint the locations, but the voices came from all over the compound.

  It was going to be interesting. If Jed Breen were a betting man, and he was, he’d bet that not a one of them got out of that mess alive.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “Nooooo!!! Yiiiiii-eeeeeeee. ¡Dios mío! Ohhhhh-yiiii-eeeeeeeee!”

  “Got you speaking in tongues, eh?” Sean Keegan hissed into the Apache’s ear as he drew the poker and raised it underneath the Indian’s nose. “At least Spanish. Ever wondered how it felt? The ones you give this to? Yeah. Yeah. Don’t worry, buck. I’ll kill you soon. But let’s try to see if you can yell in French or Russian or Greek this time?”

  He stepped behind the Apache he had secured to the beams across the top of the lean-to and brought the poker, not as hot as it had been, and shoved it.

  “Arrrrggggh, yiiiiiii-eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, ohhhhhhhhh!”

  * * *

  Two of them came bounding out of the barn, raising their tomahawks over their heads, and yipping like mad dogs.

  Breen made a quick decision, and laid McCulloch’s Winchester on his lap. He picked up the sawed-off Parker twelve-gauge, and waited.

  He touched one trigger, and looked away to save his eyes from being blinded by the muzzle flash. The shotgun roared, the stock slammed against his shoulder, and Breen was moving away from the ocotillo and creosote, and diving toward a boulder.

  Only then did he look at the two Indians. Both were down, one not moving, the other writhing, and gagging, and trying to sing his death song. Arrows thudded into the clump of creosote where Breen had been moments earlier. One barrel. Two Indians.

  The odds, Breen thought, are improving.

  * * *

  Once the two Indians dropped from Breen’s shotgun blast, the young Apache let out a guttural cry and raced around the cistern. He never saw McCulloch, who jumped up as the young Indian raced by him. McCulloch’s right hand grabbed the Apache’s hair, and jerked him back. The brave dropped the war club he was holding and kicked at McCulloch’s leg, but it only glanced off his shin.

  The kid was tough. Brave. And seasoned as a fighter for one not out of his teens. He would have made a good warrior for his people. McCulloch hated to slice the throat, but such was war. He carved deep into the neck, cutting to the bone, preventing the Apache from crying out. Then he shoved the dead or dying brave forward, away from the cistern.

  Two flashes leaped out of Keegan’s pistol, and Breen’s shotgun roared again. McCulloch ducked and found the Sharps. As more Apaches rushed toward the station, he disappeared into the rocks and headed toward the campfires. And toward the screaming of his friend named Rourke.

  * * *

  Inside the station, Gwen Stanhope grabbed an old Henry rifle, jacked the hammer, and moved to the nearest window.

  “You heard what they said!” Alvin Griffin yelled at her. “Stay away from the windows. The Apaches will cut you down.”

  “Not if I kill them first.” She slid against the wall, rammed the barrel through, and tried to see anyone moving in the coal-black night.

  “You might kill the bounty hunter!” Griffin yelled. “You might shoot the ex-Ranger by mistake.”

  The rifle roared, and Stanhope worked the lever.

  Off in the corner, Harry Henderson removed his hands from his ears, clasped them together, lifted them to the rafters. “Everlasting Father, for the sake of the love which Thou didst bear to St. Joseph, whom Thou didst choose above all to occupy Thy place on earth, Have mercy on us and on those who are dying . . .”

  Gwen Stanhope said, “Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be to the Father.” She fired again.

  Henderson continued. “Everlasting Son of God, for the sake of Thy love toward St. Joseph, who didst protect Thee so faithfully on earth, have mercy on us all and on those who are dying . . .”

  Whispered the blonde, “Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be to the Father . . .” And the Henry .44 spoke again.

  While Henderson kept praying, Theodore Cannon moved to another window, sticking a Dragoon Colt, converted to take modern cartridges, through the cross-shaped slits, and pulled the trigger.

  “You’re all a bunch of damned fools!” Griffin yelled, barely able to hear his own voice as the guns roared inside and outside. “You’ll all be killed.” To his surprise, he saw that sniveling coward Harry Henderson rise, cross himself, and leave his carpetbags on the floor.

  He found Keegan’s carbine, the Springfield trapdoor, and rushed it over to the actor. “I can reload. I can’t shoot. But I can reload.”

  “An actor is nothing without his stage manager!” Cannon cried, and handed the empty, smoking Dragoon to the little coward. He took the big cavalry long gun and pushed its barrel through the opening.

  “Fools!” Griffin told them.

  They answered with gunfire, then Sir Theodore started in.

  “These famish’d beggars, weary of their lives;

  Who, but for dreaming on this fond exploit,

  For want of means, poor rats, had hanged themselves:

  If we ben conquer’d, let men conquer us,

  And not these Bretons; whom our fathers

  Have in their own land beaten, bobb’d, and thump’d,

  And in record, left them the heirs of shame.

  Shall these enjoy our lands? Lie with our wives?

  Ravish our daughters?”

  He pulled out the smoking carbine and handed it to Henderson, who lifted the heavy .44 in a trembling hand.

  Alvin Griffin could not believe what was happening. Madness. Everyone in the station had turned insane, except for himself. It was the screaming of the Apache that had caused it. He had to blame the jackals. And then he saw the two carpetbags on the floor, one lying on its side. That innate curiosity of a newspaperman grabbed hold of him. The woman and the two men kept up their barrage, so Griffin eased his way to the ugly grips. He wet his lips, knelt beside the nearest bag, and started to open it.

  * * *

  Keegan held the poker in his left hand and the Remington in his right. He thumbed back the hammer and waited. McCulloch was gone. He felt certain of that. He couldn’t find Breen’s location, not since he had emptied the shotgun a few moments earlier.

  Apaches yipped across the yard, and guns roared from inside the station.

  He nodded his approval. When he recognized the report of his Springfield carbine, and saw an Apache grab his leg and roll in the dirt, he figured he had underestimated the fight and spirit in some of those people. Another Apache grabbed the wounded one and dragged him out of sight. Keegan was aiming his pistol at the hero, but did not touch the trigger. That would have been a difficult shot. Even for a man like Sean Keegan.

  He heard the noise behind him and dropped to a knee as he spun. He felt the lance sail over his head and saw the outlines of two warriors. The one on Keegan’s left had thrown the spear and was jerking a long-bladed knife from a fringed sheath. The one to Keegan’s right was about to cut loose with an arrow.

  He couldn’t kill them both, but he could send one to hell with him.

  Keegan squeezed the trigger, and the arrow sliced between his legs as the Indian fell backward. Turning toward the Apache with the knife, Keegan cocked the Remington, but before he could touch the trigger again, the Indian was being catapulted into a yucca. Keegan had felt the blast of the bullet against his ear.

  He spun back, and saw what had to be Jed Breen jacking another load into McCulloch’s Winchester.

  Though he doubted if Breen had seen him, Keegan nodded his thanks then went back to the Apache, now unconscious with his head hanging down. Keegan sighed. Apaches had ways of keeping a man they were torturing awake. That’s why Rourke remained alive, unfortunately, and was still screaming—although the explosion of bullets was drowning out that sound of agony. Keegan knew he had a lot to learn before he became that adept. And now that he had a taste of it, he figured he didn’t want to learn any more.

  H
e looked at the Apache. “I want you to know,” he said, though the Apache probably heard nothing, and even if he did, it would be unlikely that he understood English. “That I hold you in the highest regard, warrior to warrior, man to man. I respect you. I respect your valor. I respect your people, though we are enemies. Maybe in the next world, we can smoke a pipe and learn from each other. Until that day comes, adios.”

  He shoved the barrel of the Remington under the Indian’s chin and pulled the trigger.

  * * *

  McCulloch was pretty high in the hills now, and he could see the flames from the Apache camp. Figures moved in easy sight. If he had to guess, he was about four hundred yards from where Rourke was being tortured. That had to be where most of the warriors and a few squaws were gathered. Maybe Rourke was dead.

  Anyway, McCulloch knew he couldn’t get any closer. The top of the ridge was flat, hard, and devoid of any place where a man could take cover. He figured he was maybe a quarter of a mile from the station—but that was as the crow flies. It would take about a half-mile of traveling, and probably a little bit more, for a man to get back to the shelter of the station.

  He heard just the wind and the muffled voices of the Apaches. He thought about finding the Indians’ pony herd. He could drive off the horses, but that wouldn’t work. It certainly would not help matters. The Sioux, the Cheyenne, the Comanch’, and the Kiowa, those Indians depended on horses. Get rid of their ponies, and you had practically won the battle. But Apaches? They were foot soldiers. They used horses, but they sure didn’t need them.

  Movement caught his eye. He remained still as he studied the camp. Some bucks who had been down below had returned to camp, and were gesturing wildly, pointing, shouting in Apache—one even stamped his feet. McCulloch nodded. Keegan and Breen, and—from the gunfire he had heard—others inside the station had all done their job. Done it well.

  They had helped get McCulloch that far. Now he had to do his job.

  He swallowed in disgust. The Apaches had grabbed a pole, and something dangled from that pole as they carried it to what appeared to be a mound of . . . something. It was too far, too dark, for him to see exactly what was up there.

  The pole’s bottom edge was rammed into the ground, then tilted upward, and secured.

  “Damn,” McCulloch whispered, because now he knew what the Apaches were planning. “They’re going to burn Rourke alive.”

  * * *

  The din of battle had stopped. An eerie silence fell over Culpepper’s Station. Even Rourke’s yells from the hills had been stilled—for the time being.

  His back against the well, Breen reloaded the Winchester and his Parker. The night was cool, as nights tended to be in that country, and it chilled Breen because he had been sweating so much. He watched the figure take a roundabout way before Keegan sank to the ground on Breen’s left. The old Army sergeant pushed the empty casings out of his revolver, picked up the brass, and thumbed those into his shirt pocket.

  “He should be there by now,” Breen said.

  “If he’s alive,” Keegan agreed.

  “I guess Holy Shirt’s still in charge.”

  “Good thing.” Keegan wiped his brow. Breen wasn’t the only man who had been sweating. “But his power’s gotta be slipping after the hurt we put on those boys tonight.”

  “The Apache?” Breen asked.

  Keegan knew what he meant. “I shot him. Couldn’t stomach what I was doing no more.”

  “You’re not the demon Griffin pegged you as.”

  Keegan smiled. “Oh, I am. But even a jackal’s got his limitations.”

  “Should we go inside?” Breen asked.

  “Best wait. If we don’t hear a shot in the next half hour, and that stagecoach guard starts yelling again, we’ll have to finish the job McCulloch started out to do.”

  “That’s what I figured you’d say,” Breen said, “you righteous trash.”

  “Don’t give me that, bounty hunter. You was thinking the same damned thing.”

  * * *

  “Is it over?” Harry Henderson asked in a plaintive voice.

  “I don’t know,” Gwen Stanhope said. “I think someone’s over by the well.”

  “It’s Breen,” Sir Theodore Cannon said. “Actors,” he added, “have to be able to see in the dark. Wait.” He took the Springfield out of Henderson’s hands and began to shove it through the slit in the wood and iron shutter. The hammer cocked ominously, but a moment later the thespian softly lowered the hammer, and pulled the cavalry carbine out of the gunport. “No, that’s the old sergeant.”

  “They’re not coming in,” Gwen Stanhope said.

  “Waiting on the Ranger,” Cannon said.

  “Well . . .” Henderson said, “what do we do?”

  Alvin Griffin IV saw his chance. “You keep an eye out. I’ll be at the door. I’ll let them in. You just keep a sharp eye outside. There are plenty of Apaches still alive. You can warn the soldier and the bounty killer if you see them. I’ll be here at the door. Ready to open it. Henderson!”

  The drummer, or whatever he was, looked up. Griffin pointed at the middle window. “Take that one. Three pairs of eyes are better than two.”

  His bout with bravery must have taken root, for the man in the black suit rose and stumbled toward the other shutter. Griffin couldn’t believe his luck. The coward had found his backbone, but so had Alvin J. Griffin IV. He picked up one of the carpetbags and moved in the shadows to the door. Newspapering could be prosperous, but a carpetbag full of currency seemed much more inviting. He would sneak out in the darkness, Apaches be damned. He would take some of the canteens. He knew a good place to hide and a Mexican family about five miles south. Apaches did not like to attack in the dark, and sure wouldn’t be inclined after the beating they—Griffin decided that he had done his part—had given them this night. He doubted if the three vermin would go looking for him.

  Money—especially that much money—was worth the risk. Besides, he was only taking one bag. Once the bounty hunter and those other scum realized how much money Griffin had left behind, they’d be fighting amongst themselves for it.

  By that time, either the Apaches would have killed them all or they would have killed themselves. And if they happened to survive, Griffin would already be across the border in Mexico. Maybe he could start up a newspaper in San Blas.

  * * *

  A .50-caliber Sharps rifle took getting used to. By the time Matt McCulloch had joined the Texas Rangers, the company had forgone those single-shot rifles and opted for repeating rifles. The previous captains had seemed to prefer single shots, saying that a Sharps put a man down with one bullet, but likely figuring that Rangers would waste lead if they had repeaters. By now, the Texas government knew that Texas Rangers weren’t ones to shoot recklessly. They shot to kill, and made every shot count.

  The fire was going.

  McCulloch raised the rifle and leaned closer toward the telescopic sight. He heard Rourke screaming again and begged his friend for forgiveness. “I had to wait for the flames, pard. I couldn’t see you without that fire.” In his friend’s face he saw the pain, the wildness of the eyes, desperate and pleading for mercy.

  And Matt McCulloch granted Rourke, that brave, brave soul, the mercy he so deserved.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The Sharps sounded like a cannon, and Rourke’s screams stopped instantly, replaced by the whoops and curses of the Apaches.

  By that time, Matt McCulloch was already racing down the hillside. After all those years on horseback, riding to catch mustangs, riding wild mustangs till they were broken, riding, riding, and riding, McCulloch’s legs had bowed something considerable. Running was not his strong suit. Apache moccasins might be better than high-heeled cowboy boots, yet they did not make running easier. The soles of boots were thicker and reinforced much more than the moccasins, which let him know every time he stepped on a sharp rock or cactus. But he ran. He had to run. Or he’d die.

  An arrow sparked as t
he obsidian point glanced off a boulder. McCulloch bowled through creosote, hurdled a yucca, and almost tripped over a loose rock. Behind him, the Apaches ran, angry and ready to kill.

  He ducked underneath a mesquite, but not low enough. The thorns tore through his vest and shirt and carved into his shoulder blades.

  Out, he leaped over a narrow arroyo, rounded a rock, and saw a young Apache standing a few feet before him. The Apache seemed just as surprised as McCulloch, and, being only in his teens, was slow to react. McCulloch rammed the barrel of Jed Breen’s Sharps into the brave’s bare stomach. The boy groaned and staggered to his left, falling to his knees and gagging as he clutched his bruised belly. McCulloch almost dropped the rifle, but somehow secured it, and dodged in and out of a few ocotillo cacti.

  His lungs burned. His right hand gripped the heavy rifle. His left hand clutched his side. His chest seared with pain, and his heart felt as though it might burst.

  He reached the hill, gritted his teeth, and churned his legs as he climbed the hard rock, leaping to a stone, slowing down only when he had to climb. The rifle slipped from his grip, and McCulloch cursed, fighting for breath, and let himself slide down the slick but hard rock. He had gripped the rifle and started to pick it up when another Apache appeared. The brave growled, and McCulloch buried the heel of his left foot into the man’s nose. The warrior cried out, let go of his hold, and fell backward, crashing into at least two of his comrades.

  McCulloch scrambled to his hands and knees, somehow managed to push himself to his feet, and made himself climb again. He had not realized just how close his enemies were behind him.

  When he reached the peak, he saw the light shining like a beacon through the slits in the shutters of the station.

  He just might make it.

  * * *

  “I don’t think he made it,” Keegan said.