He stuck his head out past the edge of the rock just enough to look beyond it. A dirt-covered ledge lay eight feet below the bottom of the notch on its east side. The ledge was six feet wide, a narrow game trail running along its length.
To the left, about ten feet away, a spur thrust out from the side of the ridge, narrowing the ledge by half.
To the right, the ledge continued for another thirty feet, widening out into a rounded outcropping twenty feet wide. A Comanche squatted near the edge, holding a rifle across the tops of his thighs. He scanned the vista below, his back to Sam.
Sam could have finished him off with the gun but he didn’t want to shoot, not knowing if there were other Comanches in the area. The throat clearing had sounded closer than he was, but placing locations was tricky when you had only sound to go on. He stuck his gun back in his waistband, wedging it in tightly.
The side of the notch was steep but not so much so that he couldn’t climb it. Testing each handhold and foothold before trusting his weight to it, he went up the south side of the notch like a lizard climbing a rock wall.
The top of the ridge was four feet across at its widest, narrower in other places. It stretched unbroken to the round-topped slab at the end of the mound.
Sam drew the Green River knife at his left hip. It came free of the sheath with nary a whisper. Fashioned after the famous Bowie knife, the weapon had a foot-long blade with narrow blood grooves running horizontally below its upper edge, a wickedly sharp point, and a razor-keen cutting edge. The maker’s mark GREEN RIVER was engraved on the shining steel just above the crossbar guard.
Wrapping his hand around the hilt, Sam started forward. Bent low, almost double, he soft-footed along the ridgetop. Stealthy though he was, he didn’t trust his ability to sneak up on the Comanche by crossing the ledge. Comanches were spooky folk, ever-alert, wary. Sam reckoned he had a better chance of closing on his foe undetected by approaching from an unexpected direction, coming from above.
He reached the end of the ridge, the round-topped slab barring further progress, and estimated his prospects. He was ten feet above the ledge; the Comanche was some fifteen feet away from the base of the ridge—too far to risk a long dive. The Indian was so close to the edge that Sam was likely to go over the side with him.
He’d have to get closer. He didn’t like that part of it, but then he didn’t like running into a Comanche scout, either.
Easing over the steep side of the ridge, Sam lowered himself to the boulder jutting out five feet below him, dislodging a few tiny pebbles in the process.
The Comanche stiffened.
Sam hopped down to the ledge, lunging toward the brave. The Comanche stood and spun around, swinging his rifle toward the intruder. Closing with him, Sam slapped his left hand on top of the rifle barrel, holding it in place for an instant.
Wiry and strong, the brave broke free, but that split-second delay made all the difference, allowing Sam to thrust his knife deep in the other’s vitals. Burying the blade below the breastbone, Sam thrust up and deeper, seeking the other’s heart.
They struggled, hand-to-hand, face-to-face. The knife point found its mark deep in the Comanche’s left breast.
Sam saw the light go out in the other’s eyes. Blood, so dark it looked black, filled the brave’s gaping mouth, spilling down the sides. The rifle slipped from his hands, clattering on stone, but did not go off.
Sam gave the blade a final, wicked twist before withdrawing it. The Comanche collapsed. Sam panted for breath as if he’d run a race. He wiped the blade clean on the brave’s shirt.
Looking around, he saw that the rocky platform overlooked the south end of the plateau and the flat below, making it a natural observation post. Going to the edge, he scanned the landscape.
The south slope of the plateau was less than a half mile away. It was cut by a gully that reached down to the flat. Trees lined both sides of the cut; through them he glimpsed a down-rushing stream.
The round-topped slab blocked the hill’s south end, barring him from the west side. Turning, he started back toward the notch, planning to return the way he had come. Without warning a Comanche rounded the spur thrusting out into the ledge.
He and Sam saw each other at the same time. Nine feet of space stood between them. The brave wore a red headband over two black braids and held a rifle at his side. Surprise, wrath, and indignation flickered across his face. He must be the throat clearer.
Sam still had the knife in hand.
It was tricky, throwing it by the hilt rather than by the blade—a complicating factor. A knife of that size needed some fourteen feet to make a complete turn in midair when thrown. Throwing it by the hilt, the knife should make a half turn in seven feet, bringing the point in line with its target.
A master knife thrower, Sam calculated at lightning speed, took a step forward to compensate for the extra feet between him and his goal, and threw the knife.
The brave raised his rifle.
The knife took him dead center in the middle of his torso, striking home with a thunk. The blow exerted a paralyzing effect, keeping him from crying out. He staggered, venting a noise between a grunt and a snort.
His rage knew no bounds, but he was already too dead to do anything about it. He sat down hard in the middle of the ledge, then flopped on his back, lying faceup.
Sam drew his Colt. Any more Comanches and he would come up shooting, no matter what. Stepping around the spur, he saw that the rest of the ledge was empty, untenanted.
He went to the edge and looked down. Two horses were hitched to a tree in a nook at the foot of the east side of the mound, presumably the horses of the Comanche sentinels.
Looking up, Sam turned his gaze to the north. Sentry Hill loomed in the middle ground, dominating the scene. There were no real mountains as such in that part of Texas but it was a high hill, hundreds of feet tall.
At the foot of its south face, two rocky spurs reached out like outstretched arms, forming a horseshoe shape with the ends pointed southward. The horseshoe enclosed Locust Lake. Near the base of the hill a spring rose, feeding a broad, shallow green lake.
Haze overhung the lake and the woods bordering it. Not a haze of fog or moisture but of smoke—woodsmoke, coming from dozens of campfires burning at various sites around the area. The fires of a Comanche camp, a small army of several hundred braves. Poised on the high ground, they were in position to swoop down in force on Hangtree County.
The sight shook Sam Heller. He rubbed his eyes and looked again to make sure he wasn’t seeing things. The unnerving image persisted.
Rounding the rock spur, he recovered his knife, wiped it clean, and sheathed it. He wedged his gun in place, climbed up to the notch, and squirmed through. He wasted no time descending the west side of the mound.
The girl had stuck. She was still in place, mounted on horseback with rifle in hand.
Sam unhitched Dusty and swung up into the saddle.
“Did something happen? What did you see?” Lydia asked.
“Too much,” Sam said. “Let’s ride!”
NINE
Sam and Lydia entered Hopper Glen. It began as a gully, narrow and high-sided, walls spreading out as the cut descended the south slope of the plateau. A stream ran through it, part of the overflow from the lake at Sentry Hill. It was heavily wooded.
The trees gave and they took away, providing cover for the duo while potentially concealing any lurking Comanches. A thin trail ran along the west bank of the stream.
Sam and Lydia rode down it single file, Sam in the lead.
He fought the urge to race down the cut and streak across the plains to Hangtown. That was the surest way to get killed. The terrain was treacherous for man and mount alike. Tangled thickets, snaky vines, and low-hanging branches could knock a too hasty rider senseless. Gopher holes and rocky spurs could trip up a horse and break its leg or send it plummeting down a steep drop.
A canopy of treetops roofed the glen, filling it with cool shadows. The smell of foliage
and moist earth was thick. Knee-high green rushes lined the stream banks. A silver thread of falling water widened into a series of shallow pools.
Hopper Glen took its name from the hordes of grasshoppers infesting it. The grassy ground was thick with active insects the color of new leaves. A number of them lay crushed along the trail, trod under by the hooves of horses that had passed that way earlier. How much earlier, Sam couldn’t tell.
A splashing sound stung him into reaching for his sidearm, until he realized it was only a false alarm, caused by a bullfrog jumping into a pond. Sam’s hand drifted away from the mule’s-leg. Not too far away, though.
Sam halted at a pile of horse droppings on the trail, Lydia reining in behind him. Getting down from the horse, he hunkered down beside the spoor, prodding and poking it with a twig.
He rose, standing beside Dusty, resting a hand on top of the saddle horn. Lydia looked questioningly at him. “Comanches have been down this way, about five or six of them,” he said, low voiced.
“Maybe it’s white folks,” Lydia said.
Sam shook his head. “Couple of the ponies were unshod, Indian-style. The spoor’s partly dried, so they passed this way a couple hours ago.”
“What do we do?”
“Same thing we’ve been doing. Keep going with our eyes open.”
Lydia nodded. Sam mounted and they started forward. Down and down they rode, descending two-thirds of the long, rolling hill. The glen, having in the course of its descent widened into a ravine, culminated in a gorge at the bottom third of the slope. The west side of the gorge was bordered by a rocky promontory about seventy-five feet high. Commanding a broad view of the flat below for many a mile, the summit would make a fine observation post.
The trail forked in two directions. One branch followed a saddle-shaped ridge to the cliff top; the other dipped down into the gorge along the east face of the cliff.
The cliff trail showed crushed grasshoppers, trampled weeds, and hoof prints on patches of bare ground. Sam glimpsed motion through a gap in the bushes on the summit. “We just found the scouting party,” he whispered.
Lydia gazed steadily at him, level-eyed.
“Can’t get past ’em without going through ’em,” Sam said.
Rocks and brush hid the Comanches on the summit from view. He couldn’t see them, they couldn’t see him. If he’d had a clear sightline on them he could have picked them off from a distance. The mule’s-leg was no long gun, lacking the accuracy even of a carbine, but he had a remedy for that in the flat wooden box tied to the side of the saddle. Too bad he couldn’t put it to use. He’d have to do it the hard way.
He and Lydia backed their horses behind a bend in the trail hiding them from anyone on the cliff top. They dismounted, Sam leading Dusty into a small glade to one side of the trail. Lydia followed, leading Brownie. He handed Dusty’s reins to her.
“If I don’t make it, get off the trail and hide till dark. Then go down to the flat and break for Hangtown,” Sam said.
Lydia nodded, wide-eyed and deathly pale.
“But I’ll make it.” Sam smiled.
She eyed him, unblinking.
Sam loosed the mule’s-leg, holding it at his side. He went to the edge of the bend, peering around it. He couldn’t see anyone on the cliff top looking in his direction.
He started along the cliff trail, moving in a half crouch, hugging the brush alongside the dirt path. He padded down the saddle ridge, chest tight and a heavy weight in his stomach. Walking softly, he darted from one side of the trail to the other from time to time, taking advantage of the cover provided by a tree trunk or rock.
The dirt path dipped, then rose to the cliff top, running between a line of trees, eight to ten feet tall, with snaky trunks and busy boughs massed at the near side of the summit. Through spaces in the brush, Sam saw horses milling about.
He sneaked up to the trees.
Five horses, saddled and ready to ride, were tied to a hitching line in a shallow natural basin. No watchman guarded them.
On the far side of the bowl rose a man-high arc of massive boulders, tilted slabs, and jagged spurs. A gap between them opened on the rest of the cliff top, framing an oblong of blue sky. From behind came the sound of voices rising and falling, an alien tongue harsh and guttural, thick with consonants.
The absence of a guard on the horses was a break. The Comanches must be almighty sure of their mastery of the plateau, Sam thought. He wondered how long it would be before the two dead lookouts at Stickerbush Knob were discovered, sending another scouting party or two down the glen—if they weren’t already on their way. Time was running out.
He edged along the tree line, staying downwind of the horses. Comanche horses tended to shy away from strangers. About half the horses in the string were unshod mounts with the distinctive wooden saddles of the tribe. They were all hitched to a lead rope, but had been left unhobbled for a fast getaway.
Easing out from behind the trees, Sam drew his knife and cut the lead rope. The horses sidled, dancing and restless. He slashed the nearest horse on its haunch, a quick shallow cut. It was a cruel trick he’d learned from Apaches, but effective. The animal shrieked, rearing, then bolting.
The other horses panicked. Sam went among them, slapping their rumps with his hat to get them moving. They needed little encouragement, following the horse already in flight.
Sam dodged, flattening his back against a rock slab on the east side of the gap between the boulders. The stampeding horses ran along the summit up the cliff trail. He breathed a silent prayer of thanks that he’d left the girl holding their horses in a glade safely off the trail. Pounding hoofbeats counterpointed his own hammering heartbeat. He couldn’t tell where one left off and the other began.
The wait for the the Comanches was not a long one. Loss of horses meant disaster for them, combining the threat of imminent danger with a potential loss of prestige on possibly the most important raid of their lives. With it came the sting of the biter bit. Horse thieves supreme, they did not look kindly on the theft of their own mounts. No one is more outraged than a thief who gets robbed.
The braves came running, charging out of the narrow gap one by one. Legs flashing, arms pumping, moccasined feet thudding softly, they climbed between the boulders and into the open.
They fanned out, racing to intercept the fleeing horses. One brave turned to shout something to another and caught sight of Sam. He was the first to die, as Sam cut loose with the mule’s-leg.
Holding the trigger down, working the lever, Sam milled out bullets, cutting down two more braves. The mule’s-leg spat chopped the first three before they could do more than realize his presence and the inevitability of their own deaths. Sizzling rounds lanced living flesh, copper-hued bodies spinning and wheeling in sudden violent death.
A fourth brave was off to one side from the others. Sam leveled the mule’s-leg at him as the brave raised a tomahawk, arm bent for throwing. The brave lurched as three rounds tore into him, then toppled, weapon unthrown.
A fifth Comanche came rushing out from between the boulders, blindly firing a rifle. Perhaps he’d been a bit slower to react than the others, or perhaps he’d been farthest from the gap when the stampede started.
Drawing abreast of Sam, he glimpsed him out of the corner of his eye. He stopped short, whirling, bringing his rifle around as he lunged toward the foe.
Sam fired first. The mule’s-leg was shorter, its cut-down barrel having less distance to traverse. The blast caught the charging brave in the belly at point-blank range, blowing a hole out the back of his spine. The muzzle flare from the mule’s-leg scorched his shirt, setting it on fire.
Dying, the brave bowled into Sam, knocking him off balance. Sam slipped on a loose stone, losing his footing. He fell backward, fetching the back of his head against a half-buried rock with a sharp crack that made him see stars. The brave fell on top of him, pinning his lower body. Fighting a wave of blackness that threatened to engulf his senses, Sam held on
to his weapon like a drowning man clutching a lifeline.
Bullets tore through the empty air above him, ripping a line of holes into the face of the boulder. Stinging stone chips sprayed him with streaks of pain that cut through the darkness crashing down on him.
He rolled onto his side, trying to kick away the corpse weighing down on his legs. The blackness retreated. Through a streaming curtain of colored lights, Sam saw that one of the first three braves he’d cut down was not killed but only wounded. The Comanche was on his feet, staggering forward, shooting. He’d been hit in the left side, which glistened wetly with dark red blood.
Raising himself on an elbow, Sam returned fire, cutting the brave’s legs out from under him. Still game, the brave dropped to his knees, shooting. A round buzzed past Sam’s head, flattening into a lead smear on a boulder behind him.
Sam kept firing. The brave lurched, swaying on his knees before pitching forward to sprawl face-first in the dirt. Sam put another slug into him to make sure, planting it dead center in the crown of his head and blowing it apart.
Breathing gustily, Sam dragged his legs clear of the dead weight of the body pinning them down. The back of his head was an aching soreness, each pulsing heartbeat felt as if it would split his skull.
He sat up, back braced against the boulder for support. He looked around for his hat, but didn’t see it.
That dark slouch hat meant a lot to him. A treasured gift, it had been given to him back in the war by General Ulysses S. Grant, after Sam had earlier expressed his admiration for the hard-fighting commander’s battered but virtually indestructible campaign hat. Grant had gotten him one like it. It was new then; hard campaigning in wars national and local had made it comfortable as an old shoe, familiar as a second skin.
Abruptly, Sam realized he was still wearing the headgear, scrunched down around his ears on top of his head. He must’ve hit his head harder than he thought. Taking the hat off, he reached around to the back of his skull, fingertips gingerly probing.
His head felt oversized, enlarged. He expected his hand to come away bloody but when he held it out in front of himself he was surprised to see that it was dry. Not only the bone but the skin covering it was unbroken. He murmured to himself, “Lucky!”
A Good Day to Die Page 12