As Red fed shells into his shotgun, Roper dropped a speeding warrior at a distance of fifty yards and then a second. “Good shooting!” Ryan yelled, but he didn’t know if the man heard him above the din of the hurtling stage and the roar of gunfire. Moments later the Apaches peeled away and returned to the others on the flank. The attack had been a success in that it identified only a driver and two fighting men aboard the stage . . . but the butcher’s bill had been high. Unlike the Sioux or Cheyenne, the Apaches were never a numerous tribe and the deaths of three young warriors was a loss grievous enough that it stung Ilesh and the Mescalero elders.
The young war chief would attack again, but next time he would use more caution.
* * *
Aware that a cat-and-mouse game had begun, Buttons Muldoon slowed the team to a walk while Red Ryan stepped down and checked on Lucian Carter and the women. The two plump army wives looked pale and frightened, but a small Hopkins & Allen .32 revolver lay on Stella Morgan’s lap and her eyes betrayed no fear. As far as Red could tell, Carter had not drawn his guns, so the man had listened.
“Will they attack again?” Stella said.
“Depend on it,” Red said.
“Do we have a chance?” the woman said. “Any chance at all?”
“Yes, of course we do,” Red said. He walked beside the stage, his hand on the door.
Stella frowned. “That was a lie, Mr. Ryan, now tell me the truth: Do we have a chance?”
Red looked at the Apaches riding ahead of them and the ones on the side who were getting worked up into a frenzy by the shouting young warrior on the paint.
“Not much of one,” he said. Then he added what he knew was an empty platitude, “But a Patterson and Son stage always gets through.”
Stella picked up her gun. “Good, then it’s settled. I will not let myself be taken. I saw what they did to Mrs. Nolan.”
“It will not come to that,” Ryan said. “You can never tell about Apaches. If they lose more young men they may decide the prize isn’t worth the cost.”
Buttons yelled, “Red! Here they come!”
“What about me?” Carter said.
Yelling over his shoulder, Ryan said, “Sit tight. I’ll tell you when.”
* * *
Red Ryan climbed into the box, pointed at the Apaches ahead of them and said, “Buttons, straight into them at a run!”
Buttons slapped the team into a gallop, the two big wheelers, steady as rocks, setting the pace for the leaders. The stage drove into the Apache charge, splitting it in half . . . then followed a cartwheeling melee of broad, painted faces, roaring guns, and wild, yipping war cries. Red blasted a warrior who tried to skewer him with a lance made from a cavalry saber, its steel head a foot long. The man fell away, screaming, but Ryan didn’t see him drop. Behind him, Roper, bleeding from a forehead wound, fired steadily, scoring hits. Then the stage was through and there was open ground ahead. But immediately an attack came from the right, the Apaches keeping their distance as they galloped parallel to the stage, firing. Bullets slammed into the coach, splintering blue-painted wood, and Red heard a woman scream. The young warrior on the paint and the line of a dozen warriors suddenly wheeled their mounts and charged directly at the stage.
“Carter! Now!” Red yelled.
Lucian Carter reacted at once. The Apaches were close, coming on fast, well within revolver-fighting range. Carter’s blazing Colts hammered death. Shooting through the open top of the stage door, a revolver in each hand, he killed men rapidly, his big. 45 bullets punching great holes in chests, shattering skulls.
Red Ryan, fighting for his life with his own belt gun, heard Carter’s fusillade and wondered at its speed. But only for a second. The young warrior on the pinto galloped straight as an arrow for Red, his Winchester extended as though he held a pistol. The Apache’s features were contorted into a mask of hatred, but he never got time to shoot. Buttons’s whip snaked through the air and cracked like a lightning bolt across the warrior’s face. The man momentarily reeled in pain and shock, blood streaming from a slash across his right cheek. It was all the time Ryan needed. He shot the Apache high on the man’s chest, fired again, a killing bullet that entered under the chin and plowed into the brain. The Mescalero screamed, threw up his hands, and fell backward off his horse . . .
And in that instant the tide of battle turned.
The warriors close to where Ilesh fell from his paint cried out to each other in alarm, and one by one the Apaches streamed away from the battle. Their young war chief had been killed, and it was a bad omen . . . today was not a day to fight.
Roper fired a few parting shots to speed the Mescalero on their way, and a sudden silence descended on the plain, broken only by the moans of the Apache dying and the soft sobs of one of the army wives.
The sprawled bodies of nine young warriors lay around the stage, three of them wounded and those were quickly dispatched by Roper’s Colt.
Red Ryan’s immediate concern was for his passengers.
Edna Powell’s left shoulder had been burned by a bullet, and Rhoda Carr held the woman in her arms and cooed her sympathy. Stella Morgan was unharmed, her revolver still on her lap. A round had grazed Seth Roper’s head, but it was only a scratch, and Lucian Carter’s coat sleeve had been torn by an arrowhead.
“You all right, Buttons?” Ryan asked the driver.
Buttons smiled and nodded. “Red, I got nine lives, and I reckon I used up half of them in the last few minutes.”
“Four-and-a-half to go,” Red said.
“Seems like that’s what I recollect from my school day ciphers,” Buttons said. “But what does a man do with half a life?”
“Spark half a woman, eat half a pie, work for half wages and shave just half of your face.” Red grinned. “How about that for a start?”
“Sorry I asked,” Buttons said.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The Apaches would retrieve and mourn their dead, and Red Ryan had Buttons Muldoon drive the stage a couple of miles from the battle site before he told him to stop so he could talk with the passengers.
“Normally, we’d drive on through to Fort Bliss,” he said, “but there’s a settlement ahead they call Niceville, and I recommend we stop there and rest the horses.” He smiled. “And yourselves.”
“And there will be grub,” Buttons said.
Lucian Carter looked out across an endless expanse of prairie and said, “How far to the fort?” Mrs. Morgan is most anxious that we get there with all due speed.”
“Two days, I reckon,” Red said. “We’ve got enough grub to last us that long.”
“But we’re low on ammunition,” Seth Roper said. He stood close to Stella. “What if the Apaches decide to come back?”
“I don’t believe that will happen,” Red said. “The way the Apaches broke off the fight I think one of their dead was Ilesh, their war chief. We’ll be at Fort Bliss long before they stop mourning him.”
“You sure about that, Ryan?” Roper said.
“As sure as a man can ever be about Apaches,” Red said.
“If Ilesh is dead, they’ll return to the reservation,” Buttons said. “The Apaches are leaderless, and they won’t stay on the warpath. It’s not their way. They’ll sulk on the San Carlos for a year or two until a new leader appears.”
“Buttons has it right,” Red said. “The Apaches are done for a while.”
“We only got your word for that, Ryan,” Carter said.
“And Red’s word is good enough for me,” Stella said. “If Niceville has a hotel, I’d like to have a bath and then sleep between sheets for a night.”
Red was surprised at that. Stella was so anxious to reach Fort Bliss she’d been willing to risk being caught up in an Apache uprising to get there. Now she was in favor of a delay. Why? Red had no answer to that question, and it troubled him.
“Where is this settlement, Ryan?” Roper said.
“I don’t know for sure, but the Ranger told me it was north of he
re. I don’t think it will be difficult to find.”
“In this damned wilderness?” Carter said. “We could go right past it.”
“Roper, if you lend me your horse I can scout ahead of the stage,” Red said.
Roper shook his head. “Nobody rides my horse but me. I’ll do the scouting.”
“Suit yourself,” Red said. He smiled at the two army wives. “Does stopping for an overnight stay at Niceville suit you ladies?”
“Is that what the place is called, Niceville?” Edna Powell said. Part of her petticoat had supplied a fat bandage that Rhoda Carr had applied to her arm.
“That’s what the Ranger called it,” Red said.
“Then it sounds a happy place for an overnight stay. Does it not, Mr. Ryan?” Edna said.
“I’m sure it is,” Red said. Then, to himself, It’s a robber’s roost and God forgive me for lying to innocent ladies.
Red’s reasons for stopping in Niceville were twofold . . . the horses needed a rest since there were no more stage stops between the Mountain Meadows station and Fort Bliss, and a good meal and a proper bed would calm everybody down after the ordeal of the Apache attack. He owed it to the passengers because that was the Patterson & Son way. And then there was a third reason . . . he wanted to know why Stella had left Carter and chosen Seth Roper as her new man. And where did that leave the soon-to-be-retired Major John Morgan and his plan to settle with Stella in Washington?
Red had more than enough questions . . . and he feared the answers.
* * *
Buttons Muldoon drove the stage in a northwest direction, allowing the team to walk. Seth Roper had ridden ahead and was no longer in sight, and since about four hours of daylight remained, Rhoda Carr and Edna Powell expressed the hope that they still might sleep in Niceville that night.
After half an hour on the trail, Stella stuck her head out the window and asked Red if she could join him up on the driver’s box. Red hesitated, since that was strictly against company policy, but considering what the woman had been through earlier, he relented.
“This once,” Red said. “And only because Buttons isn’t exactly an entertaining companion.”
“I’ve got the croup because of them damned Apaches,” Buttons said. “You try to be an entertaining companion when you got the croup.” Stella sat between him and Ryan, and Buttons gave the woman a sharp look. “Getting to be a tight squeeze up here.”
Ryan smiled. “I don’t mind a bit.”
Buttons thought about that for a few moments and then said, “Now I study on it, neither do I.”
Stella’s eyes constantly scanned the distance in front of them and Red figured she was watching for Roper. To put her to the test, he smiled and said, “I guess you’re looking forward to getting reacquainted with your husband, huh, Mrs. Morgan?”
The woman’s lovely face showed no reaction, and then she shrugged and said, “John is a good deal older than I am.”
Red thought that an odd thing for the woman to say, though Buttons stepped into the breach and grinned, “There’s many a good tune played on an old fiddle, Stella.”
“But not too old a fiddle, Mr. Muldoon,” the woman said.
Red tried a different tack. “You’ll settle in the Capital?”
This time Stella smiled. “Yes. John . . . Major Morgan . . . inherited a great deal of money and property, including a town house in Washington, when his dear Mama died, and I’m sure he’ll want to make it our home. Oh, look! A jackrabbit!”
Red looked where Stella pointed but didn’t see anything but wind in the grass.
“Ah, it’s gone,” Stella said. “You missed it.”
But what Red didn’t miss was that Stella Morgan stood to inherit a fortune if her husband died. It could be a motive for murder . . . and might explain her newfound attraction for a gunman and killer like Seth Roper.
Stella spoke again, “Do you think Seth will find Niceville?”
“Depends on how good a scout he is, ma’am,” Buttons said.
“I’m sure he’s a fine scout,” Stella said.
“Then he’ll find Niceville,” Buttons said.
It seemed that Lucian Carter was not of the same opinion. As Stella had done earlier, he shoved his head out the stage window and said, “Hey, Ryan, where the hell is Roper?”
“I don’t know,” Red said.
“Well maybe we should see if this stage can go faster than a walk and head directly for Fort Bliss,” Carter said.
“Red, tell him the team’s beat and one of my leaders took a bullet to a leg. He’s stumbling a tad,” Buttons said.
Red said, “Carter, Buttons told me to tell you—”
“I know what Buttons told you to tell me,” Carter said. “You boys ought to learn how to drive a damned stage.”
Carter pulled his head back inside and Buttons said, “What’s his all-fired hurry?”
“I think Lucian is as anxious to board a train for Washington as I am,” Stella said.
“Does he have to be such a pain in the neck about it?” Buttons said.
“I don’t know Lucian very well, but he can be impatient at times,” Stella said. She inclined her head toward Buttons and looked at him from under the dark fringe of her eyelashes and said, “Mr. Muldoon, don’t push him too hard. Lucian can be a very quick-tempered man.”
Red said, “I saw him use his guns. Good shooting for a bank clerk.”
Stella smiled slightly. “Lucian wasn’t always a bank clerk.”
Then Buttons said, “Rider coming in. Looks like Roper.”
And Red lost his chance to question Stella further.
But there was something at the back of his mind, a vague, nagging whisper of a memory. Lucian wasn’t always a bank clerk. What was it about the name Carter and some kind of an association with New Orleans, or was it Baton Rouge? Try as he might, he could not remember . .
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Niceville is an hour from here, due north,” Seth Roper said as he rode beside the stage.
“What’s it like?” Red Ryan said.
“It’s Texas’s own little corner of hell.”
“You mean it isn’t safe for my passengers?” Red said.
“I didn’t say that. It’s got a hotel and a saloon, but it’s a rough-looking place. Only face I recognized was Hamp Becker and four of them outlaw guns he runs with. I got to say that ol’ Hamp’s wanted dodgers don’t do him justice. He looks a sight meaner in person.”
“I heard Becker was dead, hung by the citizenry up Amarillo way,” Buttons Muldoon said.
“Then you heard wrong. A high-line rider like Hamp Becker takes a power of killing.”
“Buttons, where do we go from here?” Red said. “Push on through to Fort Bliss or take a chance on Niceville?”
Roper smirked and said, “You got me with you, Ryan, and I saw Carter use his guns. The young man is fast, as fast as I’ve seen. Bottom line is, between me and him we can protect you.”
Red refused to be baited. “I can take care of myself, Roper,” he said. “But I’ve got three women passengers to look out for. The policy of the Patterson and Son Stage and Express Company is that the safety and comfort of its passengers must be the employees’ first concern.”
Roper’s smirk stretched into a grin. “Real company man, ain’t you Ryan?”
“They pay my wages,” Red said. Then to Buttons, “All right, Buttons, the horses are tired and one of them’s wounded, and the women are tired and so am I. We’ll take a chance on Niceville being nice enough.”
Buttons nodded. “Whatever you say, Red. And don’t it make you feel good all over that Roper will be there to protect us?”
Roper’s smile was razor thin. “You’re a joking man, driver. I shot a man for that one time. After the third good joke came out of his mouth, I shut it for him permanent.”
“Any time you feel like hobbling my mouth then have at it, Roper,” Buttons said. He looked like an ornery ol’ longhorn bull. “The entire Yankee a
rmy couldn’t kill me, the Comanche tried and so did the Apaches, and three times in my career I’ve buried road agents by the side of the trail.” Buttons was a man who stood with his feet solidly planted on the ground, a man with no fear in him, ready and willing to burn powder, and Roper was no fool. He knew Muldoon couldn’t match his gun skill, but the driver would take his hits and shoot back. He was a sturdy man, and he’d be hard to kill.
“Just so you know,” Roper said. “I don’t take to joking men.”
Red allowed the gunman to save face. “Buttons, time to wake up the horses,” he said. “Maybe we can find us a steak in Niceville.”
“Two inches thick and done to a crisp,” Buttons said. “Like my sainted Ma used to make.” He grinned and rubbed his belly. “That lady sure knew how to burn a steak and bake a pie.”
Roper already forgotten, Buttons was his old self again.
* * *
Red Ryan figured that whoever christened a hotel, general store, livery stable, and blacksmith’s forge Niceville had a wicked sense of humor, either that or he was drunk at the time.
He said as much to Buttons Muldoon, who said. “Maybe it was ol’ Clay Allison his ownself. They say he’s crazy anyway.”
The rickety, three-story hotel, like the rest of the buildings, rose out of the prairie like a rotten tooth and a faded, painted sign over the front door proclaimed:
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