Brotherhood of the Gun

by William W. Johnstone

  They walked on into the coolness of the wilderness area. This was lush forest country, with running streams, and a few small lakes dotting the wilderness. They walked on in silence, all of them keeping very alert.

  Wellman suddenly stopped them. “No good, boys,” he whispered. “I know where they’s meetin’, now, and there ain’t no way we can do what we got in mind.” He squatted down and Bodine and Sam squatted down with him.

  Wellman said, “They’s a small valley just over that rise yonder. Slopes down real gentle like. No way we could get close enough to do any damage with dynamite.” He pointed through the riotous colors of fall. “Crick runs dead center of the valley. It should have come to me sooner, but it’s been years since I been in here.”

  “Are you sure?” Bodine asked.

  “Positive. That balancin’ rock finally brung it back to my mind.”

  “And you suggest we do what?” Sam asked.

  “There ain’t no choice in the matter. Sooner or later we’re gonna have to fight the ’Paches in them crazy rocks north of here. This ain’t no place for conversation. Let’s get back to our horses, and bypass this gatherin’. Then we’ll talk about it. We’re close to death here, boys.”

  * * *

  “I like it,” Sam said.

  They had swung into the saddles and headed back to their pack animals, who seemed very glad to see them. Then Wellman had done something that no Apache would ever believe they would have done: he backtracked to the lake. Both Bodine and Sam now knew that if the Apaches didn’t think them crazy men before, they would now, and it would worry them.

  “I like it, too,” Bodine agreed. “How long will this gathering go on, I wonder?”

  “Several days,” Wellman told them. “Could be as long as a week. And they’ll argue most of that time. You see, no one chief rules the ’Pache. Each small band got their own leader, and they always feudin’ and a fussin’ amongst theyselves.”

  “So we might have time to search for that hidden entrance into the valley where Chappo runs and hides?” Sam asked.

  “Yeah,” his brother said. “If we could find it, we could plant charges along the sides of that narrow entranceway and turn it into a slaughter house for Chappo and his bunch.”

  Dick grinned. “I knowed they was something I liked about you, Bodine. I like the way you think!”

  * * *

  They rode out at dawn, heading northwest toward the point where the timber touched the desert. There, they would cut straight north and stay in the timber all the way up to the western edge of the crazy rocks, as Wellman called them.

  “We’ll only be about eight or ten miles from Fort Bowie when we cut east into the rocks,” Wellman said. “But it’s a rough ten miles.”

  “It’s hard for me to believe that the Apache could come and go at will just ten miles from an army post,” Sam said, shaking his head.

  “Wait ’til you see the crazy rocks.”

  They stayed in the timber and saw no Apaches or any sign of them during the ride north to the crazy rocks.

  “I can’t believe that they’re gathering just to discuss the three of us,” Bodine said, over coffee on the morning they were to enter the wild maze of rocks that was Chappo’s sanctuary.

  “The word I got from Bill Lewis is that Geronimo is tryin’ to bring the ’Paches under one leadership,” Wellman said. “His. But Chappo is the main hold-out. Chappo ain’t gonna follow no other man. He’s a devil with but one thought in his head: to either drive the white settlers out of his land, or to kill them. And he’d rather kill them all.”

  “But despite that, Chappo’s at the gathering?” Sam questioned.

  “Oh, sure. And so is Geronimo and probably Chato and Nana and half a dozen other chiefs. It will all come to naught, though. They’ll fuss and squabble the whole time they’re gathered, then all ride off in different directions with their noses out of joint.” Wellman tossed the dregs of his coffee into the fire. “Let’s ride.”

  * * *

  Just after dawn, they topped a small rise and Bodine said, “My God!” as he looked down at the maze of rocks.

  Sam was speechless at the wild sight that lay like an impenetrable labyrinth before his eyes.

  “As far as miles go,” Wellman said, “it don’t amount to much. But don’t no one yet know just how many miles it does cover. I rode around it three times and tried to get in there more times than I could count. Never could find nothing but blind canyons.”

  “Did you ever leave the saddle and climb up to a high spot and try to eyeball a way in?” Bodine asked.

  “Nope. But I imagine the soldier boys has tried that more’un once. They ain’t found the way in yet.”

  “I wonder if there are any Apaches in there right now?” Sam asked.

  “Doubtful,” Wellman said, biting off a chew from a dark plug. “This is the last hidey-hole for Chappo and his bunch. Bill Lewis told me that they only use it in emergencies, so they wouldn’t want no tracks or smoke to give it away.”

  “It looks spooky down there,” Bodine summed up both his and Sam’s inner feelings.

  “It is, Matt,” Wellman spoke the words softly. “They’s some that say ghost riders can still be heard riding in and out of the blind canyons, wailing their fears at being damned for all eternity. So it’s spooky, all right. Believe me, it is.”

  “Have you ever heard any of those ghost riders?” Sam cut his eyes to the man.

  Wellman chewed his chew for a moment. Just before he knee-reined his horse into movement, taking them down into the ghostly crazy rocks, he said, very softly, “Yeah, I have, boys.”

  * * *

  After only minutes into the wild and weird rock formations, both Bodine and Sam could well believe there might be ghost riders forever lost and wailing in this place of blind trails and lizards, rattlesnakes, scrub bushes, and heat.

  They cached their supplies, carefully hiding them with all of them picking out a certain landmark that would enable them to quickly locate the supplies if they had to make a run for it. They found a suitable box canyon—about five hundred yards from their cache of supplies—to picket the packhorses and built a front of scrubs. The horses could get out if none of them returned.

  Matt and Sam rode some yards away from the makeshift corral and waited while Wellman carefully concealed their tracks by slowly brushing them out and then gently spreading sand and dirt to cover the brush marks. It would not fool a good tracker, but would go unnoticed to anyone not keeping an eye on the ground at all times.

  Rejoining them by hopping from rock to rock, so as not to leave tell-tale tracks around their chosen home base, Wellman swung into the saddle and said, “Let’s go take a ride, boys.”

  They called a halt about an hour before dark. They had ridden completely around the foreboding stretch of land and all agreed it was no more than about fifteen or sixteen square miles. The next day they would begin entering and inspecting the many canyon openings they had marked in their minds.

  They fed and watered all the animals, gently reassuring the pack animals that they were not alone and rolled into their blankets after a cold supper. They were up at dawn, moving stiffly, working the cold kinks out of their joints and muscles and silently griping.

  At first light, Bodine slipped into moccasins and climbed up a huge upthrusting, lying on his belly atop the peak and scanning the immediate area through field glasses. He could easily see many of the blind canyons they had intended to inspect and made mental notes of them, checking them off the list.

  He could see no way into the maze and could not see any secure valley anywhere within. “It’s got to be much lower and broken up by rocks that conceal the graze and the water,” he muttered.

  Back on the canyon floor, he told the others of his suspicions.

  “Bill Lewis gleaned that much thirty years ago,” Wellman said. “But he still couldn’t find no way in.”

  “Well find it,” Bodine said, swinging into the saddle.

  �
��It would be our luck to find the opening and then get caught in there,” Sam said, and he didn’t exactly brighten anyone’s spirits with that thought.

  “That’s the Indian coming out in him,” Bodine said with a grin.

  “That’s the pragmatist coming out in me,” his blood brother countered.

  “Whatever that means,” Wellman said, taking the point.

  * * *

  At noon they stopped for a break of hardtack and water under the shade of an overhang. Sam sat down and wiggled his butt in the sand, trying to get comfortable.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Wellman asked. “You sit down in a bed of ant people?”

  “Ant people?” Bodine looked at him.

  “Yeah. Red ants. Some call them harvester ants. The Hopi and Navaho consider them sacred. They say the red ants have such thin waists ’cause during the great flood that destroyed the world, the ant people shared their food with Those That Came Before.”

  Sam looked pained for a moment. Then he shrugged. “Makes about as much sense as some of the things my . . . other tribes believe in.”

  Neither Wellman nor Matt changed expression at the slip of the tongue.

  “I assure you, it isn’t ants.” Sam grinned. “I would be moving much faster than I did. It’s some sort of depression in the earth.”

  “You mean a hole in the ground?” Wellman asked.

  “Sort of.” Sam began gently brushing away the sand with his hands.

  The others scooted over to him. “It’s a hoofprint!” Bodine said.

  “Made when the ground was muddy and then the sun baked it into the earth,” Sam added.

  Wellman stood up, stepped back, and looked at the closed faces of the rocks behind Sam. Scrub brush grew at impossible angles, clinging to the cracks in the rocks which nature had split at some long ago time, and the wind had hurled earth and sand and seed into the crack.

  “Here’s other hoofprints,” Sam said, crawling around on the ground, excitement in his voice. “And they’ve been covered over with sand.”

  “Yeah, here’s some others over here,” Bodine said. “A lot of them.”

  “But what does it mean?” Wellman stepped back, took off his hat, and scratched his head, all the while studying the face of the huge rocks.

  “I don’t know,” Bodine said, walking over to the man. “But I damn sure intend to find out.”

  He stepped into the shadows of the rocks and fell into darkness, unable to stifle his yell as he tumbled into the unknown.

  Chapter 17

  Bodine literally fell into the opening of the murky and narrow canyon.

  “Brother!”

  Bodine could just hear Sam calling for him. “I’m all right,” he yelled. He looked up the dark, twisting trail, surrounded by walls of fifty to sixty feet of stone. “I’ve found the passageway!”

  “You want the horses in?” Wellman yelled.

  “No. It’s too late in the day. We’ll get the rest of the gear and come back tomorrow. Look, I’m going to follow this trail for a while. Hand me my rifle from the boot.”

  Wellman and Sam stepped into the opening and both of them whistled in awe.

  Bodine had fallen about three feet down from outside ground level. He first had hit the solid wall of a huge rock, then, stepping to his right, he had found a large opening and had stepped into it, his boots hitting nothing but thin air. He had tumbled, rolled, and came to his boots.

  “I’ll stay up here and keep an eye out,” Wellman called.

  “OK, Dick,” Bodine said. “Sam, stay with him. Dick?”

  Wellman looked at him through the dimness.

  “Would you do the same tomorrow morning? We need someone out here.”

  Wellman hesitated. “Yeah. But I got to see this place one time; then I’ll come back and watch your backtrail.”

  “Deal.” Bodine took the rifle from Sam’s hands and then knelt down and took off his spurs, handing them to his brother. “I don’t know when I’ll be back. I’m gonna find the end of this trail. If I get into trouble, you’ll hear the shots. See you, boys.”

  Bodine started walking up the dark, almost tunnel-like trail. For some reason he doubted that the trail was four or five miles. He didn’t know why he doubted that, but the feeling was on him. It was cool in the narrow trail, but beads of sweat popped out on his forehead at just the thought of being trapped in here by Apaches. He’d take some with him on his way into that long night, but he’d eventually fall.

  He pushed that out of his mind and walked on, keeping a wary eye out for rattlesnakes. And for the deadly coral snake; this would be just right for them. He tried to remember what a desert man had told him once about the colorful bands on the coral snake. Was it red on black, get back, or red and yellow kill a fellow? He couldn’t remember.

  Damn place was spooky.

  He stopped and looked back. He could not see the opening. Naturally! he berated himself. You’ve twisted and turned a dozen times.

  He walked on.

  Once he heard a moaning sound and stopped. He finally concluded it was only the wind cutting through the high overhead rocks. He hoped it was the wind. All he’d need now would be to see one of those fabled ghost riders. He put that thought out of his mind, too, and silently fussed at himself for acting like a silly little child.

  It almost worked.

  He guessed he had walked about a mile; he had been using a trick that woodsmen had been using since the Revolutionary War: he had been counting each time his left foot hit the ground. Each step was approximately thirty inches. A hundred steps was two hundred and fifty feet; he just kept adding and adding. Some woodsmen used a rawhide thong with beads on it to keep track: each time a hundred yards was reached, they’d pull a bead down.

  He saw light up ahead, and slowed his pace, walking silently, being very careful where he put his boots down on the worn trail.

  He rounded a long curve and stepped out into a valley. He could hear the sounds of water running over rocks. And the place was deserted. He sensed that. He slipped from rock to rock, staying low, presenting less of a target if he was wrong in his guessing.

  It took him about an hour to circle the less than forty acre valley, finding both good graze and water. And he knew this after gazing up at the craggy rock walls that surrounded the valley: a person might be able to climb out, but it would be one hell of a climb.

  Still? . . .

  He walked around the inner walls, looking. There! There was where the Apache climbed up to post lookouts. Bodine slung his rifle by the strap and studied the hand holds.

  “What the hell?” he muttered. “Let’s see if there is another way out.”

  He climbed up, taking his time and being very careful where he placed his hands and feet, and thinking: Please, Mister Rattlesnake, don’t be curled up in one of these hand-holds catching the sun.

  The sun!

  He turned his head and silently cussed. It was growing late in the afternoon.

  He was halfway up. He hesitated and decided to go on. When he breached the top, Bodine lay on his belly for a moment, catching his breath. He guessed the clifftop was several hundred feet long, running east to west from the outside canyon inward, and about seventy-five feet high. Lifting his head, he gazed at a panoramic view of the crazy rocks and beyond.

  Then he heard voices.

  Voices?

  Bodine fought to contain his chuckle as the answer came to him. The trail through the rocks twisted and turned, giving one the impression that it was a mile deep. It wasn’t; he was hearing the voices of Sam and Wellman. The twists and turns were deceiving, leaving one thinking of a much greater distance.

  Bodine grinned and then moaned.

  “Did you hear that?” Sam’s voice drifted to him.

  “I’ve heared it before. I told you about them ghost riders.”

  “It was the wind.”

  “Damn if that’s so!” Wellman said. “I wish Bodine would get on out here.”

  “P
lace must be spooky in there.”

  “Oooohhhhh!” Bodine moaned.

  Silence from below him.

  Bodine had to put his face against the stone to keep from busting out laughing. The tension of the past days ebbed from him in invisible waves as he imagined the expressions on the faces of his friends.

  Then he felt guilty about what he was putting them through . . . but not too guilty.

  “What’s the matter, brother?” he called. “Did I scare you?”

  “Bodine! You coyote dropping! Where are you?”

  “Just above you. Tie a rock on the end of a rope and toss it up to me. That’ll be easier than me going back and wandering through that passageway.”

  “Ought to leave him up there,” Wellman said. “Serve him right.”

  “I think we’ll do just that,” Sam said. “Make him spend the night up there for making us worry about him.”

  “So you admit you were scared?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. We were concerned about you, that’s all.”

  “Wooooo!” Bodine moaned.

  Sam threw the rock-weighted end of the rope so hard that if it hit Matt on the head it would have knocked him cold.

  Bodine secured his end of the rope and scampered down to the canyon floor. There, he pulled the rope tight against the face of the canyon wall and secured the ground end around a thick bush. If the Apaches returned, the rope would not be noticed at night. He hoped.

  Working quickly, they covered their tracks and got out of there, Bodine explaining what he’d found as they quickly worked.

  “Then we can use the rope to both get in and out,” Sam said.

  “Yeah. It’ll be a lot quicker that way. And from the top of that young mountain, Dick can have one heck of a lookout position. You can see for miles up there.”

  “You got a plan for placin’ the dynamite?” Wellman asked.

  Bodine grinned wickedly. “I sure do.”

  * * *

  The next morning, Wellman told them both bluntly that he didn’t need no gawddamn help in climbing up no rope, so just stand aside and keep your helpful comments to yourselves, boys.