“Pick it up, you heathen,” Wellman told him. “And you can tell the devil I give you a better break than you and your kind is givin’ them little girls.”
The outlaw hesitated.
“Pick it up, scum!” Wellman shouted.
The gunny grabbed for the Colt. He closed his fingers around the butt and jacked back the hammer, leveling the muzzle at Wellman’s belly.
Wellman’s rifle was lying on the bar. The old mountain man smiled grimly and drew his Colt, cocking and firing with a decades-practiced swift deadliness. The longbarreled. 44 roared smoke and belched flame, the slug taking the slave-trader between the eyes, knocking him backward and dumping him on the floor.
Matt jerked another wounded man from the floor and sat him in a chair. “The fort where Lake and his men do their business; where is it?”
The gunny soiled himself; the stench of him filled the beery, gunsmoke-acrid closeness of the saloon. “It’s down on the border, just south of Miller Peak. It’s between the Huachucas and the Patagonias. And that’s the truth, Bodine. I swear to God it is.”
“I oughtta shoot you for even speakin’ God’s name,” Wellman growled.
The marshal looked like he was about to wet his long handles.
The barkeeps were getting ready to once more hit the floor.
Laurie sipped her lemonade and looked at the wounded man through cold eyes. Sam took a long swig of beer and stifled a belch.
“I don’t know nothin’ else!” the gunslick hollered “ ’Ceptin’ Porter and them is gonna raid some ranches on the way down and grab some more kids for barter.”
“A lot of ranches between here and there,” Wellman muttered. “Bound to be some more kids grabbed.” He turned from the bar, his eyes savage, burning with frontier justice. “I’ll git a rope from my hoss. Well hang him and them others still alive.”
When the doctor straightened up from tending a patient who had been laid on a billiard table across the room by some citizens of the town, there was a gun in his hand, the hammer back.
“There’ll be no lynchings in this town,” he warned the mountain man.
“That there’s Dick Wellman, Doc,” the marshal warned.
“I don’t give a damn who he is!” The doctor’s eyes touched the three men and Laurie. “Now you people listen to me. These men are my patients. Officially so. You interfere and I’ll have the territorial governor sign warrants for your arrest. Now go on about your business—somewhere other than this saloon.”
Wellman glared at the doctor for a moment, then slowly relaxed, leaning back against the bar. “All right, Doc. I won’t cause you no more trouble. And that’s my word on it. You can put that hogleg away and go on about patching these crud up.” He turned his back to the doctor and picked up his glass of rye.
“I think I’ll check in at the hotel,” Laurie said. “I’ve been looking forward to a nice hot bath for a week.”
“Let’s all go check in,” Matt suggested. “I think the doctor would work easier without us looking over his shoulder.”
“Thank you, Mister Bodine.” The doctor lowered the pistol, looked at it strangely, and then laid it beside the outlaw and returned to his ministering of the wounded.
When the searchers were gone, the marshal shook his head at the doctor’s bravery. “I don’t think I’d a had the nerve to do what you done, Doc.”
The doctor smiled and picked up the pistol. “Just between you and me, Martin, the damn gun was empty!”
Chapter 7
The few residents who ventured out after the shooting gave the four of them a wide berth as they walked toward the town’s only hotel for a bath and a change of clothes. After cleaning up, they stayed together and ate a quiet supper in a cafe and went to bed early. They slept soundly, for the rowdies in town had pulled in their horns and walked lightly that evening.
They had resupplied before they had supper, so long before first light the four of them were saddled up and ready to ride. Little had been said, since nothing was open where they might get a cup of coffee. They planned to ride until dawn, then make coffee and fry some bacon.
Laurie broke the silence as they were putting the little town behind them. “Why did we practically buy out the store, Dick?”
“ ’Cause they ain’t nothin’ where we’re goin’, child. And I mean nothin’. Not until we slide over to the west a tad and resupply at Tucson—if we take a notion to do that. If not, we got enough to make the border. You boys know anything at all about this country?”
Neither Bodine nor Sam knew anything firsthand about it; only what they had garnered around campfires and barrooms.
“She’s wild and beautiful,” Wellman told them. “ ’Specially where we’s heading for now. The Muggyowns. That’s what us oldtimers call it. Proper name is the Mogollon Rim. She’s rugged, any way you want to cut it. ’Pache country. When we get past the Muggyowns and cross the San Carlos, we’ll hit the desert. And people, if you ain’t never crossed a desert, you all in for a shock. It’s a livin’ hell.”
“Is there water where we’re going?” Laurie asked.
“Oh, yeah. We’ll cross Silver Creek today and make night camp on the edge of the Rim. Ten-twelve miles from the beginnin’s of the Muggyowns. Watch your hair, people. And whatever happens, save a bullet for Laurie. You don’t want her to get tooken alive by the ’Paches. If they overrun us, put a bullet in her head and then shoot yourselves. Better that than bein’ tortured for days by them ’Paches. And I ain’t jokin’ you none a bit. I killed a friend of mine down on the San Carlos back in . . . oh, round about ’60, I reckon it was. He begged me to and I done it. Must have been a good three hundred and fifty yard shot, but I put ’er true and ended his misery. Made them savages hot, too. They was lookin’ for a couple days sport with Del. They chased me for a week after that. I can get along with most Injuns. Lived with ’em for years. But I hate a gawddam ’Pache worser than I do anythin’ else on the face of this earth.” He spat on the ground. “Makes my mouth hurt just talkin’ about ’em.”
* * *
“It’s beautiful,” Laurie said.
They were looking down on the Mogollon Rim, after having spent the night at what was left of an old trading post near a lake. Dick had told them that the same man had rebuilt the post four times before finally giving up and pulling out.
“No business?” Laurie had asked.
“Gawddam ’Paches,” Dick told her, then spat on the ground. “That man made the best whiskey in the territory, too. Never will forgive them heathens for running him out of the country.”
Bodine knew that Sam would not take offense at the mountain man’s remarks, and his blood brother did not. His father, Medicine Horse, had not been a savage or a heathen, having been educated in the east; but Sam was just as proud of his Indian side as of his white side. He knew the Indian way of life, as wandering nomads, living off the land and fighting and stealing horses from other tribes—more for sport than need—was very nearly over. All over the West, tribes were being placed on reservations, making the land safe for settlers. And the Apache would eventually lose his battle with progress, just as other tribes had lost and were losing.
In reflective moments, among very close friends, Sam would admit that.
“We’ll camp here,” Wellman said, looking around him, his eyes alive with the fires of old memories “And post guards come the night. This is old Big Rump’s country. Or was. I don’t know if old Wah-Poo-Eta is still alive, or not. I hope to hell he ain’t.”
“Big Rump?” Laurie questioned.
“Tonto Apache chief. He’s the one took Del alive and was torturing him. The man I kilt to ease his misery. Old Wah-Poo-Eta had him a rear-end looked like the caboose on a train. But mean as a rattlesnake. They’s a road the military uses, called the Crook Road. We’ll come up on it down south a ways; cross it on our way down. It runs from Fort Apache up to Camp Verde. We might run into some soldier boys and if we do, don’t tell them nothin’ about what we’re f
ixin’ to do.”
“Why?” Laurie asked. “Wouldn’t they help?”
“Nope. Doubtful, at best. At the worst, they might try to stop us. ’Sides, they got their hands full fightin’ the ’Paches. Rustle up some grub and coffee. I’m gonna take me a looksee around. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. If I ain’t back then, don’t come a-foggin’ into the timber lookin’ for me. I might mistook you for a Injun and shoot you.” He picked up his rifle and slipped into the timber, moving as silently as a ghost.
Wellman came back hours later, long after dark, walking up to Sam, who was taking the second shift at watch, from ten to two in the morning.
“ ’Paches all around us, boy,” Wellman said. “White Mountain Apaches.” He shook the coffee pot and poured a cupful of the strong brew, then tossed dirt over the dying coals. “Jerky for breakfast. No fires. We’ll pull out of here first light and head southwest. Salt River Canyon’s about a three-four day ride from here. Through some of the most rugged country you ever seen in all your borned days. If we get through it with our hair, it’ll be a miracle. ’Cause something’s done stirred up the Injuns.”
Bodine had been listening to them talk. He slipped out of his blankets and joined Wellman and Sam. “Chappo and his bunch?”
“Could be. I got me a hunch they’s out lookin’ for more little girls to swap to that worthless scum down on the border.”
“How far down to this canyon you mentioned?”
“Nearabout a hundred miles. White Mountain Lake is just to the north of us. Long Lake is just to the east of us. We’ll cross the rim of the Muggyowns mid-mornin’ and be hard in ’Pache country. Indee’ll be all around us?”
“Indee?” Bodine questioned.
“The People,” Sam told him. “I once read that if the Army had not wrongly attacked a village back in ’69, killing women and children, the White Mountain Apaches probably would not be on the warpath today.”
“Maybe,” Wellman admitted with a grunt. “And maybe not. But the chief, Minjarez, don’t like white men. Never has. Him and me, we’re about the same age.”
“You know him?” Bodine asked.
“I know him,” Wellman replied. “And I don’t trust him no further than I could throw you. And he don’t like me worth a damn.”
“Why?” Sam asked.
Wellman grinned. “ ’Cause I shot him back in ’50, that’s why!” He laughed softly. “And to make matters worse, I shot him in the butt!”
* * *
Bodine pulled the lonely and cold last shift, the dog watch, and roused the others an hour before dawn. They chewed on some hardtack washed down with water from their canteens and broke camp just as the sun was turning the eastern sky a gray-silver.
“Let’s ride,” Wellman said, swinging into the saddle. “Rifles across the saddle horn, people. You see anything suspicious, you sing out. For the next hundred miles, stayin’ alive is somethin’ we gonna have to work at.”
The sun broke through just as the four of them crossed the rim and the dew was still shining like broken diamonds on the varied ferns and grasses. Ponderosa pines grew tall and thick and lush, standing like silent sentries all around them.
“This is the most beautiful country I have ever seen,” Laurie put into words what the others were feeling.
“Enjoy it while it lasts,” Wellman tossed the words over his shoulder. “When we hit the desert you’ll think you died and went to hell. The rim drops off sharp a few miles ahead. They’s a crick at the dropoff. We’ll pull up there and fix some breakfast. I want some coffee.”
Matt gathered enough dead wood for a cook-fire and Sam built a hat-sized fire under the low-hanging limbs of an oak, so what little smoke there was from the dead limbs would dissipate through the limbs. Wellman used his Bowie knife to slice the bacon—he liked it thick—while Laurie peeled the potatoes and got the skillet hot. Sam made the coffee.
“Gonna be cold tonight,” Wellman said, sucking on a welcome cup of steaming coffee. “Might even get below freezin’. What month is it, anyways?”
“October, I think,” Laurie told him.
“Time does get by a person, don’t it? Twenty-five years since I been down this way, I’d guess.” He took a plate from Laurie and began shoveling it in.
The howl of a wolf floated across the stillness of the morning under the rim. Wellman noticed as both Matt and Sam lifted their heads and quickly cut their eyes to one another.
“Onihomahan, eh?” he asked.
“Yes,” Sam said.
“What’s that mean?” Laurie asked.
“Friends of the wolf,” Matt told her.
“They scare me,” she admitted.
“No reason for them to,” Sam said with a smile. “My father said he has never known of a healthy, full-grown wolf to launch an unprovoked attack against a human being. And I’ll bet Dick has never heard of such an attack, have you, Dick?”
The old mountain man grinned. “I had a hunch you’d get me into this soon’s I brung it up. No, cain’t say as I ever heard of any such attack. But that don’t mean I’m gonna pet one.”
“You see, Laurie,” Matt explained, pouring another cup of coffee, “if a person is going to live in harmony with the animals, you best try to understand them. Now, I don’t know if anybody’s ever gonna understand a grizzly bear. I’ve had them charge me—thank goodness I was in the saddle—and I’ve gone back later and tried to figure out what I did to provoke the charge. Most of the time it was because I was near the bear’s cache of food. But there have been times when there wasn’t any reason. He or she just didn’t like the man scent and wanted to kill. A grizzly is just unpredictable.” He cut his eyes to Dick. “You agree with that, Dick?”
“Yep. But do carry on, son. Hell, I ain’t been out in the wilderness but sixty year. You might learn me something.”
Matt knew the mountain man was only kidding with him, and did not take umbrage at the remark. He turned his head and an arrow whizzed by his nose, so close he could feel the wind of its passage. Had he not turned his head, the arrow would have gone right through his skull.
Wellman went one way, Sam went another, and Bodine threw his arms around Laurie and together they went rolling into the brush. Before the shaft of the arrow had stopped quivering, the campsite was deserted.
Matt was very conscious of the heat of the woman next to him. The abrupt contact with her had shown him there wasn’t any artificial stuffin’ sticking out; only what God gave her—which was more than sufficient.
He slowly released her and went belly down, drawing his Colts. His rifle was by his bedroll. Cautiously, using only his eyes and not moving his head, he surveyed the campsite.
“Why didn’t they shoot us instead of using arrows?” Laurie whispered.
“Might be of a different tribe and at war with the White Mountain Apache,” Matt returned the whisper. “Could be Chappo’s bunch and they don’t want the others to know they’re in this area. And it could be they don’t have guns.”
“Victorio’s bunch,” Wellman called from across the small clearing. “Look at that arrow.”
Matt looked. He could tell Sioux and Cheyenne and Crow and Arapaho and many of the Plains’ Indians arrows, but he knew very little about the Apaches. And from Dick’s hiding place, he wondered how the old man could tell the difference in the arrow.
But he didn’t think this was the time or place to question the statement.
A sudden cry of anguish cut the stillness and shattered the beauty of the forest. The cry ended in a moaning burble and silence once more prevailed for a few seconds.
“They’re young,” Sam’s voice floated out of the timber. “Just boys.”
“You got ’im?” Wellman asked.
“I got him.”
Screaming, a young brave, probably in his late teens, leaped out of hiding and charged across the clearing, a knife in his hand. Bodine, Sam, and Wellman fired together. The brave was stopped in mid-stride as the slugs hit him in the side, the c
hest, and the back, flinging him to the ground.
All heard a faint rustling sound, then the sounds of several running, moccasin-clad feet, the running sounds growing fainter, finally fading away.
But the men were all experienced fighters, and none of them moved or talked for fifteen minutes. Wellman broke the silence.
“They’re gone,” he announced.
“How can he tell?” Laurie whispered.
“The smell,” Bodine told her. “We all have a different odor. We smell different to an Indian.”
“Let’s pack it up and get gone,” Wellman said, stepping out from his hiding place. “We was lucky that time. Let’s be about ten miles gone from this place afore them ’Paches find help and come back.”
Ten minutes later they were in the saddle and riding.
Chapter 8
The four of them crossed Carrizo Creek and spent the night in a cold camp, not even chancing a small fire to cook with. At first light, they pulled out, with Wellman taking them more south than west, angling toward Salt River Canyon, the old mountain man remembering trails he’d traveled a quarter of a century back.
The country was slowly beginning to change from rugged timber and high lonesome to a slightly more arid terrain. Once they came close enough to see a huge mountain lion, watching them silently from its perch atop a rock. The big cat made no hostile moves toward them, but its muscles remained taut and its unblinking eyes never left them as they rode past, staying well out of leaping range of the mountain cat.
“When we get some farther south,” Wellman said, “the ’Paches up here is gonna seem tame. Chappo’s got to have the blessin’s of Gokhlayeh to be doin’ what he’s doin’.”
“Who?” Bodine asked.
“Gokhlayeh. One Who Yawns. And Big Mouth With Bad Breath—that’s what I named him—don’t like me not one little bit. I met him back when he was just a youngster; maybe twenty years old, or so. He didn’t have much say back then, but then he left for a time, made him a name, and became a subchief. Made a name for hisself by turnin’ tricky and becomin’ poison mean. A few years back, the Mimbres cut a deal with him to recruit warriors. They picked the right man. He gathered together the worst bunch of savages in New Mexico and Arizona. They unholy terrors, is what they is.”
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