“If I knew the answers I would be a happy man,” White Apache answered.
Just then Maria Mendez rose high enough to snap several shots in their direction. Ponce took aim but she ducked before he could fire. His anger flaring, he vowed, “She will pay for all she has done. I swear it.”
Not forty feet away, someone else was just as mad at her. “What the blazes did you do that for?” Tim Cody snapped. “We don’t want to draw their fire.”
Maria scowled. “White Apache,” she emphasized. “You know of him, yes?”
“Who doesn’t,” Tim replied sullenly, wishing to hell he had never heard the name. There was a tug on his shirt and he glanced down.
Wes Cody knew he was dying. Strangely enough, he felt little pain. But he did feel remorse. Remorse for having been harebrained enough to go along with his grandson’s crazy notion. Remorse for having led his two best friends to their deaths. And most of all, remorse for having let a rift form between his son and himself. When all was said and done, life was too precious to spoil it by holding grudges.
“I’m sorry, son,” Wes said, forming red bubbles with every word he spoke.
“For what? I’m the one who talked you into this,” Tim said. His anxiety mounted and he felt an urge to tear at his hair and shriek at the heavens. Composing himself, he lightly squeezed his grandfather’s shoulder. “Now you hush. And don’t you fret none. Ren and me will get you out of this, Grandpa. You’ll see. You’ll be back at your cabin before you know it, on that chair of yours, whittling away just like you used to do.”
“Not hardly,” the scout croaked. “My time has come Timothy. I just wish I hadn’t been so damned full o’ myself.” A searing spasm in his chest gave him pause He bit his lip until it passed, then said, “Ren? You there?”
The gambler leaned closer. “Need you ask, pard?”
Wes managed to grin. “It’s just like in the old days isn’t it? Except back then we had more brains than to let ourselves get boxed in like this.” He chuckled, but it sounded more like a sputtering gasp. “You’d think it would be the other way around.” With a supreme effort he lifted a hand and rested it on the gunman’s shirt. “I’ve got one last favor to ask.”
Ren stared deep into the eyes of the one man who had always been there for him, who had always treated him with kindness and respect. “You hardly need to bother. I know what you want. And you know that I’ll do whatever it takes.”
“I never doubted it,” Wes said, bobbing his chin once. “You always did do to ride the river with,” he added more faintly. His eyelids fluttered.
Tim sensed that the older man was fading fast. Terrified, he gripped his grandfather’s shoulders and shook. “Grandpa! You can’t die on me! I need you!”
Wes Cody’s eyes snapped wide and he gave his grandson the most loving look he had ever given anyone. “Enough, Tim. It’s time you stopped actin’ so pussy-kitten. Be a man. Hold your head high.” He opened his mouth again as if to say more but suddenly stiffened. One final, lingering breath he took, then he said, “Where the blazes did that light come from?” And he was gone.
Timothy Cody threw back his head, tears gushing. “Grandpa! Nooooooooooo!”
Fifteen yards off, White Apache cocked an ear and listened to the tortured cry of despair. “There must only be two of them left,” he commented.
“And the woman,” Ponce reminded him. She was all he thought of. His head still hurt from her blows, but the pangs were nothing compared to the aching knot of burning rage which flamed in his chest. He would not rest until he paid her back. Cautiously rising until he could see over the top of the boulder, he leveled the pistol Lickoyee-shis-inday had given him and pulled back the hammer.
As if in answer to the warrior’s ardent wish, Maria Mendez appeared. She spotted him at the very instant that he spied her. They fired simultaneously.
White Apache saw blood spurt from Ponce’s right shoulder as the Chiricahua was jolted backward. A .44-40 had enough shocking power to knock a grown man down, and Ponce was driven to one knee. White Apache reached him before the brash warrior keeled over and went to lower him down slowly.
“I do not need help!” Ponce declared, wrenching free. The movement sparked dizziness so intense he swayed and clutched at a boulder for support. “A Shis-Inday shrugs off scratches like this.”
But it was more than a scratch, and it bled copiously. The entry wound, located just under his collarbone, was the size of a fingertip, while the exit wound had to be as big as Clay Taggart’s fist.
“You should lie down until we can clean the bullet hole,” Clay said, thinking that without prompt tending infection might well set in.
“I do not need to rest,” Ponce said in contempt. He tried to stand but his knees were as weak as a newborn foals and they gave way. Sagging against the boulder, he clasped his shoulder and grumbled, “Maybe for a short time it would be best.”
The young warrior was not the only one who had been hit. Lying on her back, an arm pressed to her bloody side, Maria Mendez fought back an urge to howl in anguish. She had dropped the rifle and groped for it, intending to stand and carry on the fight.
“Oh, no you don’t,” Ren Starky said, snatching the Winchester out of her reach. “We’re hightailing it while we still can. I gave Wes my word and I aim to keep it.”
Tim Cody was in virtual shock. He gawked blankly at his grandfather, unable and unwilling to accept that the man who had taught him to ride a pony at the age of seven, the man who had taught him to shoot and hunt, the man who had in many ways done more for him than his own father, was gone. “It can’t be,” he kept saying over and over. “It can’t be.”
Ren Starky had no time or inclination to be gentle. The Chiricahuas had been much too quiet for much too long and he wouldn’t put it past the warriors to be sneaking up on them at that very moment. “On your feet, kid,” he said, roughly yanking the grandson erect. “Help the filly.”
“What?” Tim said, too dazed to comprehend what was transpiring around him.
“Help her, damn your hide!” Starky commanded. “Unless you want to end up like Wes.”
That got through. Nodding dumbly, Tim stumbled to the woman’s side and hoisted her off the ground. He couldn’t hold her and the pistol both so he lowered it to his holster, only to have the revolver snatched by the gambler.
“I’ll need this more than you will,” Starky said somberly. The gun had to be reloaded, then he crept westward toward the opposite canyon wall, a cocked pistol in each hand. By wagging his arm he made it plain that he wanted the other two to get in front of him. Once they were, he backed along in their wake. He saw no sign of their attackers but he was too savvy to believe the band had given up. Someone was watching them. He could practically feel it.
And the gunman was right. White Apache had been circling around to where the whites and Maria were concealed when they abruptly materialized in front of him. Well hidden, he watched them, noting the woman’s condition, the terrified youth, the whipcord man in the frock coat.
It had been White Apache’s plan to get close enough to disarm them. Only after doing so, and dealing with the other Chiricahuas, could he devote attention to Ponce. But now he had been thwarted. They would see him the moment he showed himself. And given the lethal aspect of the man in black, he’d be gunned down in the blink of an eye. His only recourse was to shoot them first.
White Apache stayed low until they were out of sight, then he shadowed them, waiting for something to distract the gunman. A moment was all it would take. Once the man in black was down, the woman and the boy would be easy pickings.
Preoccupied with the fleeing trio, White Apache hunkered behind a boulder. Suddenly he sensed that someone else was close at hand. Whipping around, he beheld a tall, powerfully built Chiricahua in a breech-cloth not five feet away. The warrior had a nasty temple wound and held a Winchester.
Sait-jah still lived. He had revived mere minutes ago, thirsting for the death of the white-eye who had s
hot him. Dogging their heels, he was surprised to see another Chiricahua he did not immediately recognize come out of nowhere. He was about to whisper a word in greeting when the warrior spun. With a start, Sait-jah realized that the man had eyes the color of the sky.
Only one person dressed and acted like an Apache but had the eyes and features of a white man.
“Lickoyee-shis-inday!” Sait-jah snarled, and automatically brought his rifle to bear. Or tried to.
White Apache did not know the tall Chiricahua personally. He bore the warrior no ill will. But there was no mistaking the man’s hatred or his desire.
Lunging, White Apache swung his Winchester. The two barrels rang together and the warriors was deflected before the gun could go off. Reversing his grip, White Apache rammed the stock into the Chiricahua’s jaw and the man sagged, stunned but not out, his rifle clattering at his feet. White Apache drew back the Winchester to strike again.
The blow had rattled Sait-jah to his core. But his prowess in combat was legendary among his people for good reason. He was bigger than most and stronger than most, but he also had another trait which had carried him through more fights than any Chiricahua alive; he absolutely refused to give up.
So although Sait-jah was stunned, he was far from beaten. Throwing himself to the left, he evaded White Apache’s next swing and kicked with all his might.
It was like being stomped by a mule. White Apache doubled over, the breath whooshing from his lungs. He lost his grip on his rifle and stabbed a hand at his Colt.
The iron warrior pounced. His brawny arms closed around Lickoyee-shis-inday’s chest and tightened, the muscles rippling like bands of steel. Once, not all that long ago, Sait-jah had broken the back of a foe by squeezing until the spine popped. Another time he had grabbed a fiery mustang by the neck and wrestled the animal to the ground. Among his people a saying had sprung up: The branches of a willow and the arms of Sait-jah. They are both the same.
White Apache was finding this out the hard way. Expanding his chest and straining until the veins on his neck stood out in bold relief, he attempted to break the giant’s grasp. It was like trying to resist slabs of granite.
“You die, white-eye!” Sait-jah hissed, agleam with bloodlust.
The pain was excruciating. White Apache swore he could feel his ribs buckling. Any second he expected to hear them crack like dry twigs. If he did not do something and do it quickly, he would die.
Snapping his head back, White Apache drove his forehead into the tall warrior’s nose. Cartilage crunched, but those steely bands continued to constrict. In desperation White Apache butted the warrior again, once in the mouth, Once in the jaw. At the same time, he speared a knee into the Chiricahua’s groin.
Pinwheeling pinpoints of dazzling light exploded before Sait-jah’s eyes. Despite himself, he sagged.
Exerting a herculean effort, White Apache broke free. Scrambling backward, his hand brushed a rifle.
He seized it by the barrel, lurched to his feet, and clubbed the giant on the same side of the head as the bullet wound. The warrior crumpled, but incredibly tried to rise again.
“Stay down, damn you!” White Apache said, and swung again with so much force that the stock shattered.
The giant looked at him and began to raise an arm. Thunderstruck, White Apache simply stood there, watching those thick fingers draw closer and closer. Just when they were about to close on his windpipe, his adversary groaned and toppled like a patriarch of the forest.
White Apache cast the broken rifle down and retrieved his own. He had half a mind to finish the warrior off then and there but the shot would alert the whites. Deciding to take care of them first and then return, he gave chase, his legs too unsteady for his liking. Fortunately, he doubted his quarry had gone all that far.
And he was right. seventy feet away, Timothy Cody propelled the Mexican woman along under the watchful eyes of Ren Starky. The gambler had high hopes he could get them in the clear. Then a boulder the size of a freight wagon barred their path and they skirted it to find something much smaller lying in the dirt, its coat matted with its own blood.
“Lobo!” Tim cried, forgetting himself.
The wolf had been cut high on the front shoulders and again low on the left side. The latter was deep enough to expose internal organs.
Lobo could do no more than lift his head and sniff. On verifying that the two-leg with whom he shared his food was not there, he laid back down.
Ren Starky halted. He hated to see the poor animal suffer. Knowing how attached Wes had been to it, he was inclined to put the creature out of its misery. The shot, however, might attract Apaches. He went to go on by and learned the Apaches were already there.
A pair of swarthy warriors charged from the shadows. The shorter had a thigh wound. Both held rifles. They opened fire in unison, one aiming at the gambler, another at Tim Cody.
Starky reacted on impulse, doing what had to be done without regard for the end result. His thumb stroked the hammer twice even as he sprang in front of the grandson. A branding iron seared his chest. Another lanced his stomach. One of the Chiricahuas dropped but the other was tougher and gamely fired again. Starky banged off three shots of his own and was rewarded with seeing the warrior sprawl forward.
The gunman’s legs turned to mush. He collapsed against a boulder, his arms drooping. “Go on, kid,” he said. “I’m done in.”
Tim couldn’t let go of the woman for fear she would wind up flat on her face. He hesitated, tom between dread for his own safety and his feelings for the gambler. “I won’t,” he said. “You’ve got to come, too.”
Ren Starky smiled wearily. “Wishful thinking. I got what I came for. Now go, or it will all have been in vain.”
“I—” Tim began, but did not know what else to say. Brimming with tears, he turned and hastened off, not once looking back.
The pair were still in sight when White Apache strode up to the man in black. He had heard the last exchange. It brought back memories of another time, another life, of a different code by which he had lived. He stared after the escaping couple but did not raise his rifle.
Ren Starky looked up. He was too weak to twitch a finger, let alone use a pistol. Squinting, he said, “Blue eyes? Well, I’ll be damned.” He laughed, the laughter dissolving into a racking cough. Rousing himself, he grinned and said “Ain’t this a hell of a note, Taggart?” Just like that he died. His boots were on and he had a smoking pistol in each hand.
Clay Taggart closed the man’s eyes. Without delay he ran back to where the giant had been, only to learn the warrior was gone. Drops of blood led eastward.
“I can take a hint,” Clay said to himself. He would find Cuchillo Negro, gather up Ponce, and get out of there before any more nasty surprises were thrown their way. Then it was back to their secret canyon, to the new life he had chosen, to live by the new code he had adopted, the code of the Apache.
For as long as life remained.
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