Burt dried his right hand on the side of his pants and then took up the rifle. He checked the chamber and found it loaded. Then, taking a rest for his elbow to support the long gun, he looked through the iron sights. Something wrong? Deuces had ridden to the west among some great boulders. To get a good shot was impossible with all the mountain mahogany and juniper between them.
His heart rate sped up. He wanted to get on his feet and rush the deal. But that would only spook Deuces. The sensible thing was to wait. No way Deuces could suspect he was up there hiding. He tried to space his breathing. A new headache pierced the top of his head with a drumlike pattern. Must be the elevation doing that to him.
His mouth dry, he tried to draw some saliva. A case of heartburn hit his chest, and he held on to his patience. Then he saw the dish face of the paint coming out of the evergreen boughs, and he knew to get ready.
Deuces, hatless, with an eagle feather twisting and rapping the side of his head in the wind, held a rifle in the crook of his arm. He wore a new-looking white blouse, and his brown legs were bare. Some gold coins hung in a necklace around his neck.
Not his style to take a prisoner like this—from ambush—not his at all, but if he issued a command or showed himself, Deuces would either run off or start shooting. This was the only option left. The territory couldn’t afford another Apache uprising with the loss of lives and property it would incur. Nor could the rest of Deuces’s people stand to be in prisons like those where Geronimo and the others were held in Florida.
His aim in place, he drew a breath and held it. Steady. He squeezed the trigger off. The black gunsmoke blinded him for a second, before the wind swept it away. He rose to his knees, levering in another round. But Deuces was hit hard with his arms in the air, his rifle flew away, and the paint spooked out from underneath him.
In an instant, Burt was on his feet. He raced across the rocky ground between them. For a moment, he wondered if she would take up arms against him, but the young Apache woman on horseback looked too fear-stricken to shoot him or even ride away with the two pack mules.
Out of breath, Burt viewed the crumpled body, thirty feet down the steep mountainside. His arms flung wide, blood covered his chest, and his mouth was open. “He’s dead,” Burt said finally, and sat down the rifle. Then, at the snort of a mule, he whirled to look at her.
Bugeyed and her white knuckles grasping the mule lead ropes, she nodded in agreement.
“I’ll need one of those mules,” he said, satisfied the man that he’d sought so hard and long lay dead under the rim.
“I’ll buy this mule,” he said to her, taking the lead away from her when she didn’t answer him.
Woodenly, she agreed.
“You want this gear?” he asked, looking over the panniers filled with clothing and cooking pans. In seconds, he set the heavy canvas bags off the cross bucks and on the ground.
She sat frozen on her horse.
“I’ll leave them for you,” he said, and took the mule over to the edge. Deuces’s crumpled body lay sprawled on his back. His head pointed downhill. From the look in his open eyes, there was little doubt in Burt’s mind the Apache was dead. He hitched the mule to a sapling to save him wandering off, then took cautious side steps down the steep slope until he could see the bloody wound in the scout’s chest. Death came swiftly, he decided, and looked up to see if there was any threat. Nothing but the mule’s face against the brilliant azure sky. He shivered-it was finally over.
He labored to drag the limp form up the hillside. He needed to take the body in, get it positively identified and then buried. Finally, after a tug-and-pull war, he had Deuces’s corpse strapped across the pack saddle. He led the mule over to where the woman sat on a rock, moaning a death song.
Numb-acting, she stared off to the east.
“Can I help you?” he asked, counting out twenty dollars for the mule.
She never looked at him, not even when he forced the money into her hand. She only sat there, shaking her head and moaning in sorrow over her loss. Burt felt sorry for her, but he still had a long hike down the mountain ahead. She’d have to find her own way back—a shame the paint horse ran away.
Taking a deep breath and a sigh, he looked a last time across the yellow grassy valley far below and turned to gaze downhill from the trailhead. Long ways down to the ranch, he’d better get going. Still had to round up his two deputies. He looked out through the pines at the far-off red Dragoon Mountains. He’d better get back in time for that party she had planned on for so long.
The music of the Mexican band carried outside along with the laughter and noise of the large gathering in the house. Burt stepped out onto the porch. Estrella told him that a stranger was out there who wished to talk to him.
“Burt Green.” He stuck out his hand to the man dressed in cowboy gear standing on the porch
“Tom Horn, Marshal,” the man said. His grasp was firm, and he met Burt’s look.
“Good to finally meet you.What can I do for you, sir? We’re having a party. Could I invite you in?”
“No, I was just passing through. I needed a little information.”
“Certainly.What’s that?”
“Where did they bury Deuces? He meant a lot to me. We worked as scouts together, but I guess you knew all about that.”
“Yes, I’m sorry it didn’t work out better.He’s buried in the Methodist church cemetery in Wilcox.”
“Thanks. Good to meet you.”
They shook hands again, and Horn was gone.
“Burton, who was that?” Angela asked, standing in the lighted doorway.
“Tom Horn.” He looked into the inky night where the man had disappeared.
“Did you invite him in?”
“I did, but he said he was only passing through.”
“What did he want?”
“Wanted to know where they had buried Deuces.”
“Why?”
“Guess he meant a lot to Horn, is all I can say.” He shook his head to try to dismiss the whole thing.
“Come back inside. You’re missing all the fun.”
He smiled at his lovely wife and agreed. No sense missing any more.
Three months later, he was reading the latest issue of the Tucson Times’s front-page headlines: “Mormon Bishop Taylor Found Not Guilty.” Burt already knew the partial jury made up of Mormons had turned Taylor loose. The notion left him worked up until another article caught his eye. Body of a renegade Apache scout strangely dug up and the corpse removed. The grave of the notorious army scout Deuces was found open and empty by a church official when he arrived to prepare for services.
Burt dropped the paper in his lap and looked off toward Mount Lemon and the Catalinas, knowing full well that somewhere out there, Tom Horn had replanted Deuces’s body with his ancestors.
Deuces Wild Page 22