by Tony Masero
‘You fellows been having a party?’ asked Tarfay.
‘Mister Tarfay! Is that you?’ a voice called out from the gathering grouped around him.
Surprised, Tarfay searched the crowd, ‘Who’s that? Who’s there?’
‘It’s me,’ said Tag, stepping forward. ‘Tag Donovan.’
Tarfay looked down at the barely recognizable boy, his hair was now grown long down to his shoulders and was tied under a wide bandana and with his bronzed face and Apache clothes he was hard to tell from amongst the other young men.
‘Good Lord!’ breathed Tarfay, feeling a grateful surge rise in his chest. ‘You’re alive.’
‘Sure am, pleasure to see you, sir….’
‘What you say?’ interrupted Shiska. ‘You know this man, white boy?’
‘Sure I know him, he’s….’
‘Hold on,’ said Tarfay cutting him off sharply. ‘I never came here to concern myself with any white captives; I just came to trade horses. Nice to see you again, Tag but I got business to discuss with this fellow, or with the chief, is he here?’
‘No, sir,’ said Tag. ‘He’s out on a raid. They gone to….’
‘Be still!’ snapped Shiska, striding forward threateningly. ‘Go, get away from here boy and be silent.’
Tag wilted but gave Tarfay a knowing look.
The Ranger made as if to ignore him and dismounted, turning to Shiska he said, ‘Take a look at the ponies, you’ll see they’re the best.’
The Indian went over and studied the horses, running his hand down their limbs and over their flanks. His fingers paused over the army brand and then he nodded approval, ‘Good,’ he said. ‘You have more?’
Tarfay bunched his fist, opening and shutting the hands three times, ‘Over thirty, all prime animals.’
‘You bring them in,’ ordered Shiska, waving the muttering crowd to back off.
‘Now hold on,’ said Tarfay. ‘Let’s see what you got to offer first.’
‘Okay,’ said Shiska. ‘We sit, we talk, make trade.’
It was the Indian way, Tarfay knew they would sit and jabber for maybe an hour discussing everything except what mattered, the talk would range from the state of local hunting, the weather, who had been sick, who had died and so on until at some point a deal would be made.
Tag was desperate to talk to Tarfay and he waited impatiently for the opportunity. He guessed to Ranger had come to get him and his heart pounded in his chest that the man should take such a risk for his benefit. There was so much to tell him about how Delgado and Mama Bass had suffered and how he and Eloise had been separated.
From the corner of his eye Tarfay searched out Tag from amongst the crowd that surrounded them and he could see the worried excitement on the boy’s face as he hopped from foot to foot. He could not tell if it was just the anticipation of rescue or some other information that the boy wanted to impart. So he sat and listened patiently whilst Shiska began a long rambling discourse about how tough things were for the Apache at the moment and there was so little good hunting. All of it Tarfay realized was a preamble to getting the lowest deal possible on the horses.
Tarfay decided enough was enough and he climbed suddenly to his feet.
‘Let’s cut to the chase,’ he said. ‘I want that boy and his sister. That’s the deal, you get the horses and I get the kids.’
Shiska started back and slowly got to his feet, ‘You have said you not interested in boy.’
‘Well, I changed my mind. That’s it, flat out, give me those two and you can have the herd.’
Shiska looked from him to Tag and back again, ‘I think you trick me, white man.’
Tarfay was tired and irritable and he was concerned that the rest of the tribe could return at any minute, a factor that was constantly preying on his mind now. ‘Life’s too short, just hand them over and you get all the stock.’
Shiska shrugged, ‘I cannot do that. There is no girl with this boy and the boy belongs to our chief, Telkashay.’
‘No girl!’ exclaimed Tarfay. ‘Then where the hell is she?’
Shiska shrugged again, this time indifferently. ‘I think you give us horses and just maybe we let you live.’
The mood in the camp swung and Tarfay felt the icy shift as the remaining braves tightened their posture and looked at him menacingly.
‘You really want to play it that way?’ he asked.
Shiska snorted, a slow smile spreading on his face as he turned to his braves.
‘Wait!’ snapped Tarfay.
He raised a hand high above his head and all the warriors watched him expectantly as Tarfay walked towards them. His face was grim as he pointed at one man, a skinny fellow who glowered back at him in curiosity.
‘You going to let me take the boy?’ Tarfay asked with an air of finality.
Shiska spat at him derisively, ‘He is not mine to give.’
‘Have it your way,’ said Tarfay, lowering his hand in a decisive sideways cut.
The brave he had selected flew sideways, a streak of crimson flying from his head as the crack of a rifle resounded through the campsite. The man flopped down at Shiska’s feet and he jumped back. There was a moment’s silence and then pandemonium broke out as the crowd separated and fled, the braves trying to form a defensive ring as they searched the surrounding mountain slopes for the shooter.
‘To me, Tag,’ called Tarfay, striding across to his hanging gun belt and drawing his pistol before swinging around and pointing it at Shiska. ‘Don’t even think about it,’ he warned. ‘I got men up there able to take you all out you make a wrong move.’
Tag brushed past the tense warriors and ran over to stand beside Tarfay.
‘Mount up on one of those ponies, boy,’ Tarfay ordered. ‘You lead the other two out; I’ll be right behind you. And you,’ he said, turning to Shiska. ‘You’re outgunned so don’t be stupid, I’ll leave you the horses, they’re in a box canyon not far off. You’ll find it easy. Let it rest there. I’m sorry about your man but you asked for it.’
With that and still holding the gun on them he stepped up into the stirrup and swung into the saddle. As he quickly followed Tag out of the camp a rain of fire came down from the mountainside as Cornpone and Jimmy scattered the Indians and kept them running for cover.
Tag looked back only once over his shoulder hoping to see Chevato and offer him some sympathetic show of apology but he could not see him amongst the fleeing Indians and anyway he realized with a sudden stab of sorrow that if he should ever see his friend again they would meet as enemies now.
They rode fast and Tarfay led the way back to the canyon where Mortimer and Link were waiting.
‘We heard gunfire,’ Link called.
‘Yep, get ready to ride.’
‘The others?’ asked Link.
‘They’re coming, it’s just covering fire.’
‘Wait!’ interrupted Tag. ‘You got to hear this.’
‘We ain’t got time, boy’
‘Listen, it’s important.’
There was a clatter of stones and both Cornpone and Jimmy clambered down the rocks and ran over to join them.
‘Howdy, Tag. You sure look like you’ve gone native,’ grinned Corpone, taking in Tag’s Apache clothes and bronzed looks. ‘What’s happening?’
‘There’s a big raid planned,’ Tag said hurriedly. ‘Telkashay and Shulki have joined forces they intend to ambush an army pay train. It’ll be a massacre.’
‘Where’s this happening?’ asked Tarfay.
‘A place called Campaign Pass; they’ve gotten eighty braves together and intend to kill every soldier and take the money, guns and horses. Scart Benjamin is with them.’
‘Scart is with them!’ snarled Tarfay. ‘Goddamn! That rat sure gets around.’
‘We got to warn them army fellows,’ Cornpone said grimly.
‘I know it,’ said Tarfay, his eyes flashing as he thought it through. ‘Anybody here know this Campaign Pass?’
‘I do,’ admitted L
ink. ‘Drove a herd through there couple of years back, it’s about fifty miles that a-way,’ he pointed due east.
‘Yes, you’re the best bet on a horse anyway, I reckon. You’ll ride faster that the rest of us, take a couple of those good ponies as changeover. Ride like hell and see if you can warn the army before they make the pass, we’ll follow on behind.’
‘What about these animals here?’ asked Cornpone, indicating the gathered horses happily grazing in the canyon.
‘We leave them.’
‘Sure is a lot of horseflesh, I’m sorry to see them go.’
‘They served their purpose and they’ll keep the Apache busy for a while.’
‘Such is the way of the Lord,’ Mortimer wailed obscurely as he raised his eyes heavenwards.
‘What’s that mean?’ frowned Cornpone.
‘Do not store up treasures on earth where moths and vermin destroy, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven.’
‘A never heard of no moth going for a good pony,’ complained Cornpone in confusion.
‘Forget it,’ snapped Tarfay. ‘Let’s ride.’
But Link Denver was already gone, heading due east at top speed with his extra ponies in tow and the rest of them quickly followed on behind him. Link proved to be a good horseman and had soon pulled far ahead, driving the ponies with his quirt and leaving only a single trail of dust as he raced away from them.
The others went at a slower pace and Tarfay turned to Tag as they rode.
‘What about your sister?’ he called across.
‘I think she’s okay, she with the other band under Shulki. He’s a mean one though, it’ll be hard to get her back.’
‘We’ll get her,’ Tarfay answered determinedly. ‘That’s what we’re here for.’
‘I’m real grateful to you for coming, Mister Tarfay. I thought you’d forgotten all about us. Who are these fellows, by the way, are they Rangers?’
‘Nope, they’re just some associates we picked up along the way.’
‘Well, I’m real grateful to y’all,’ Tag called out a collective thanks.
‘Must have been tough,’ Tarfay observed.
Tag shook his head, ‘Not so bad. I got some bad news about your people though,’ he added sorrowfully.
‘I know about Delgado,’ Tarfay admitted. ‘Mama Bass made it through.’
‘She did! Wow! I thought she was sure a goner the way them Indians treated her.’
‘That’s one tough old lady there. She walked a heck of a distance, all chewed up with a spear in her back, beats me how she did it.’
Tag bit his lip; ‘You really think we can get Eloise back?’
‘We’ll get her, don’t you worry.’
Then, with heads down, they all rode on in silence.
Chapter Thirteen
Link caught up with the last of the supply wagons riding at the rear of the column, an ambulance wagon pulled by four mules and accompanied by two cavalry outriders. He could see that already the rest of the column ahead was well advanced into the trail to one side of the broad entrance of Campaign Pass.
It was a wide valley mouth sided by jumbled slopes of jagged rock colored a raw red by the deposits of mineral ore embedded when the valley had been formed during its antediluvian origins. Each side swept away and up from the hilly dust of the uneven valley floor and grew in scale as the valley progressed and the winding cut narrowed with higher sides the deeper it went.
Rock fall had formed harder packed earth along the right hand side of the valley and forced the troops and heavy wagons to ride along close to the rock face keeping to the path in a tight file. A gently sloping drop ran away from the edge of the roadway and slid into a tumble of scrub and drifting sand that had formed softly undulating waves of dunes covering the valley floor.
‘Hold up!’ Link called as he rode up, dragging the last of the exhausted ponies to a sliding halt alongside the wagon. He estimated there must be some fifty men making up the command and although he could not see the head of the column to be sure, he knew it would be a tight contest unless he could warn the soldiers in time.
‘What’s the all-fired hurry?’ asked the driver, leaning from the seat where he sat alongside the army doctor, an elderly man dressed in a long white dustcoat.
‘Ambush ahead,’ panted Link. ‘Indians waiting on you.’
‘Lucky you didn’t get your head shot off, coming up on us like that,’ frowned the doctor.
‘You got to pull up right now, there’s trouble ahead,’ pressed Link.
‘We can’t do that without proper orders.’
An outrider corporal pulled his horse over to join them, ‘What in damnation’s going on here? We’re falling behind, godammit!’
‘Fella here says there’s an ambush up ahead,’ explained the driver.
The corporal looked the dust covered Link over, ‘Where you come from, mister?’ he asked suspiciously.
‘There’s no time for this, corporal. Apaches are waiting on you; they know you’re carrying gold. A couple of outlaw whites filled them in on the score and they are hell bent on taking you guys down.’
The corporal chewed his lip thoughtfully; he was still suspicious of Link’s arrival on a lathered pony and wondered if some trick by road agents was in play.
‘You’d better come along of me,’ he said. ‘We’ll go up the column and see the colonel.’
‘Come on then,’ said Link, not waiting for the soldier and geeing his tired pony on.
They raced along beside the long line of strung out cavalrymen heading into the valley and heads turned and watched the riders streaking past with open curiosity.
‘Ambush!’ cried Link as he rode on ahead of the corporal. ‘Look to your weapons.’
‘What you say, man?’ cried a lieutenant at the head of a troop that came midway in the line of march. He was unsure of Link’s words, not hearing them clearly in the speed of the cowboy’s passage.
Link rose in the stirrups and turned in the saddle opening his mouth to call back. There was the booming retort of a rifle and Link was lifted and torn from his saddle. He tumbled into a churning pillar of dust as his pony reeled and fell and the cowboy and horse spun over and over down into the deep rolling drifts alongside the trail.
The column staggered to a stop at sound of the shot and all the cavalrymen wheeled and bunched up, nervously looking around to see what had happened.
‘Who fired?’ bawled the lieutenant.
The corporal chasing up behind Link, saw his fall and realized instantly that the warning given was no trick and was very real.
‘Indians! We’re under attack!’ he screamed urgently, his call cut off as a volley of shots came from high on the valley wall and cut him to pieces in the saddle. The corporal’s body shook under the repeated impact and he rocked on the back of his racing horse before his juddering boots kicked free of the stirrups and he tumbled lifeless into the dust of the track.
Horses screamed and whinnied as the cavalrymen wheeled and the men shouted in consternation. The lieutenant’s commands were lost amongst the bedlam as rifle shots and streams of arrows poured down into the column and more blue uniforms fell. Panicked riders rode in every direction and were picked off as they fled.
From his place above, Shulki grinned in satisfaction, the rifle growing hot in his hands. He could not fire and reload fast enough. Alongside him his scattered braves lying amongst the rocks used both rifle and bow to keep up a continuous chain of fire down into the exposed troops below.
The army survivors were dismounting and scurrying into cover to return fire from amongst the fallen boulders at the edge of the valley. In front the colonel at the head of the leading section of the column had heard the shooting and called a halt, he sat poised and waiting for some clarification of the situation. The narrowing valley twisted and turned leaving sight of the column behind hidden momentarily from the colonel and he hesitated waiting for a report.
Then, when none came and the sound of battle gre
w louder, he briskly ordered his scouts back to discover the cause whilst he had his men formed a defensive ring with the horses held in their midst. As the scouts, one a white man, the other a hired Apache reservation policeman headed back down the line. Indians rose in a wave from the dust of the valley floor, shedding the blankets that disguised their hiding places and ran across to pull the two men from their horses. The scouts were overwhelmed as a band of Telkashay’s braves leapt up and dragged the ponies over pulling them to the ground and swarming over the fallen scouts. Short work was made of the two men, furious hatchets and knives fell repeatedly and the scouts were hacked to death in minutes before the Indians slid away to confront the leading section and keep them pinned down.
The two pay wagons, three quarters of the way along the broken line, were attempting to wheel into a protective circle but the narrowness of the trail and the soft sand made the task difficult for the heavily loaded wagons. They faltered and churned, the dust giving way in sliding drifts under the wheels as the wagons left the hard packed track. One of the wagons began a soft decline and it fell from the trail as the outer wheels sunk deeper, the driver leapt free and the panicked mule team dragged the vehicle over onto its side and brought it sliding down to lay like a stunned beetle in the dust.
The rear of the long column, with the ambulance wagon in its midst was also attempting to pull back as the sound of hot fighting reached them and the realization came home to the men that Link’s warning was genuine. But the mounted remainder of Telkashay’s force was waiting for them and broke cover to seal off the valley and cut off their retreat.
It soon became clear to the lowliest private amongst the troopers that the entire column was on very dangerous ground and in the heart of a deadly situation.
Scart soon saw his opportunity.
As well as his swift mood changes Scart was not above making instant and decisive decisions when it came to his own benefit. He noted the overturned pay wagon from his position were he lay hidden with Crome and the Mack brothers amongst the rocks on the far side of the valley. So far they had taken no part in the battle but only kept a wary lookout for stray bullets and the way the fight was going.