Kilpatrick studied the rifle. His lips moved, but no words were spoken, and at length he looked back at McMasters. “After I practically got us both killed yesterday, you trust me with a gun.”
“Man’s got to trust somebody. Now, I better get that Remington. Feel kind of naked without it.”
“I won’t change my mind, John,” Kilpatrick said. “You get me near a telegraph, near a sheriff or town marshal, I’m doing what I know is right. You can’t bribe me.”
Distaste filled McMasters’s mouth. He sucked in a deep breath, let it out, and drank some more coffee. “Wasn’t meant for a bribe. It’s meant to maybe keep us alive between here and Apache Junction. You work far with that rifle. I work close with the Remington. If need be. Maybe there won’t be any trouble today.”
Maybe. That had to be odds even Marcus Patton would not bet against.
The redhead was bringing Kilpatrick his coffee, and McMasters stood. He did not want to find his cinch loose or his stirrups compromised. He had better check and double-check Vasquez’s work. As he walked toward the nearest horse, Kilpatrick called out his name. McMasters stopped, but only half-turned, keeping most of his attention on Vasquez and the sorrel he was saddling.
“I did love her,” Kilpatrick said.
McMasters did not answer. He went to fetch his shotgun, and then he walked over to the Mexican as he finished with Carter’s horse.
* * *
They made lousy time, and McMasters could only blame Daniel Kilpatrick for that. No. He couldn’t blame the young lawman. He had only John Christopher McMasters to blame. It was a fool idea, and the clopping of the hooves on the hard rock as they climbed the rugged hills just made him even sleepier.
At noon, they stopped at an abandoned adobe hut along some creek bed that rarely saw water. They dismounted, for the incline became steeper, rockier, and much more narrow on the trail that led into the Superstitions, and to the village of Apache Junction.
“You’d think a body would know better than to try to homestead here.” The gambler, Marcus Patton, picked up a piece of a China plate, shook his head, laughed, and tossed it into a clump of cactus. “Farmers. Damned fools. This is a damned desert. Didn’t anyone tell them?”
McMasters knelt by what once had been a garden. Or at least, the homesteaders had tried to make a garden. He wondered how long they had lasted. Not five years. Not long enough to prove up their claim and get their own land. Maybe not five months. Perhaps not even five weeks. He found a thin strand of barbed wire.
Seeing that, Marcus Patton laughed again. “And I guess they got some of that devil’s rope to keep cattle out of their garden. Damn, damn those fools. This ain’t even fit for cattle. It’s a country only fit for—” His head shook.
“Death,” Emory Logan said.
The gambler’s eyes appeared to tear over. His voice even cracked as he turned away. “Yeah,” he said, and hurried to his bay horse. “Yeah. Death.”
McMasters carefully studied the wire then took it with him to the buckskin. Unfastening one of the saddlebags, he laid the wire with its sharp barbs, more razors than hooks, atop the boxes of buckshot.
“What ya want that rusty wire fer?” Emory Logan asked.
“To wrap it around your manhood if you get cross with me, Reb,” McMasters said.
With his mouth open, Emory Logan just stared with his one good eye. Once McMasters refastened the saddlebag, he grabbed the horn, and pulled himself into the saddle, pulling the Remington from the scabbard even before his right foot found the stirrup.
“All right. Mount up. Quit burning daylight.”
Single file they rode, McMasters pulling up the rear.
In the afternoon, he saw storm clouds beginning to form to the south, dark and menacing, but so far, offering only a threat of moisture. And so far, no lessening of hellfire’s heat. At the point, climbing the ridge, rode the woman. Behind her, Alamo Carter had dismounted and was leading the sorrel. That made sense to McMasters. No sense in making the beast carry Carter’s bulk up the hill. They had a long way to go.
McMasters had thought they would make it in to Apache Junction by early evening. At the rate they were moving, they’d be lucky to get there by midnight. There was nowhere else to go. Junction was the nearest town.
He found Kilpatrick maybe twenty or thirty yards behind Alamo Carter. The boy gripped the horn with both hands and slumped forward. He was stubborn. He should have let them make a travois, and if things did not improve in a hurry, McMasters would make him dismount and be pulled behind. Even if he had to handcuff the kid to the travois posts with his own manacles.
Behind Kilpatrick came the Mexican, who was singing some song in Spanish. McMasters focused on the bags of food strapped to Vasquez’s palomino. Next, he looked ahead at Kilpatrick’s horse and the sacks of ammunition. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
After Vasquez rode the gambler, who was fanning himself with his hat, and ten yards farther down the hill was Bloody Zeke. Just ahead of McMasters rode the one-eyed bigot.
McMasters’s horse began to urinate, so McMasters shifted in the saddle, shoved the Remington into the scabbard, and fetched his canteen. He rubbed his raw lips across the spout, letting the moisture ease the pain, and took one small sip. After he returned the canteen’s strap to the horn, he removed his eyeglasses and began cleaning the lenses with his bandanna.
“Vamonos muchachos. Viva Padre Miguel Ángel.”
McMasters’ head shot up, and he quickly slid the eyeglasses back on, reaching for the Remington as he did. He caught a glimpse of the palomino bolting out of the line, loping up toward Kilpatrick. Near the crest of the hill, Mary Lovelace had turned the pinto around.
“Look out!” she screamed. Her words echoed across the desert.
“Dan!” McMasters spurred the buckskin. He thundered past the Reb, so close that the brown horse began to buck.
Emory Logan squealed as he tried to keep his seat, tried not to be bucked off and over the ridge into the rocks and hell below. By the time McMasters reached Bloody Zeke, who had reined his black to a stop, Emilio Vasquez had pulled up alongside Daniel Kilpatrick.
“No!” McMasters screamed, and watched, horrified, as the Mexican killer shoved the deputy marshal as he lifted his head and turned around, one hand reaching for the Winchester in the scabbard. Then Daniel Kilpatrick was gone, and McMasters saw only an empty saddle.
But he heard, briefly, the scream.
Not from Dan.
Mary Lovelace had dismounted and left her horse as she ran down the slope. The Negro whirled, straightened, and reached instinctively for a belted gun, only to realize once he pulled the Merwin Hulbert that all he held was a bunch of metal—worthless without bullets.
McMasters saw in horror as Vasquez jerked the Winchester from the scabbard, wheeled the palomino around, and worked the lever.
“Son of a bitch!” the gambler cried, and Marcus Patton slid off the bay horse, and quickly went around the horse as Vasquez thundered past.
The first shot whined off a boulder ahead of McMasters. Vasquez galloped toward Bloody Zeke, who stopped the black, holding the reins firmly, and watched the rider, leaning low in the saddle, working the lever, and firing, one-handed again.
McMasters swore and pulled hard on the reins, bringing Berdan to a hard, sliding stop. He leaped from the saddle, tried to keep his feet, but tripped and slid forward on both knees. A roar reached his ears, coming simultaneously with a searing pain across his left cheek as a bullet tore a gash. He tasted blood. He blinked away sweat. Somehow, his glasses remained seated on his nose and ears, and Emilio Vasquez and the thundering palomino came clearly into view. The Mexican levered the gun, dropped the reins, and brought the Yellow Boy to his shoulder. He aimed and he smiled.
And McMasters pulled both triggers of the Remington.
He did not even remember bringing the twelve-gauge to his shoulder. Hell, maybe he hadn’t. Maybe he had just braced the shotgun against his stomach, tilted it upwar
d, and fired. He was up and seeing through the dust. Suddenly realizing what was coming right for him, he dived toward the rocks on his left. The horse, that beautiful palomino, tumbled mane over tail, barely missing McMasters and knocking the shotgun from his hands. The Remington fell onto the trail and McMasters slammed into the rocks. Cactus spines speared his fingers. At least, he seemed to grasp, that he was on the hill side of the path, in no danger of falling over the ledge. But Emilio Vasquez, his brain told him, could still shoot him dead.
McMasters pushed away and looked up the hill, saw more dust. A body that did not move seemed to be sitting on the road, legs stretched out, the back leaning against the rocky wall. But no head. McMasters could not see a head.
Suddenly, Berdan snorted and let out a fearful cry.
Vasquez, McMasters told himself, is dead. He spun around. The palomino, dead like its rider, had rolled into the rocks, coming to a stop, but McMasters’s buckskin was rearing, backing up, getting close to the edge. McMasters ran. He had no time to try to soothe his horse, no lullabies to sing, no calming words to call out. He jumped, grabbed the reins in both hands, and pulled hard. He remembered the colt, and that day a lifetime ago on his birthday. The colt had almost pulled him over the Mogollon Rim. The buckskin weighed a damned sight more than a colt, and was five times as strong.
Fear shined brightly in the buckskin’s eyes, and the horse backed up, losing its footing. One leg went over the edge, pawing desperately to locate solid ground.
Somewhere, McMasters found the strength, and Berdan regained his footing. Probably realizing he was about to fall into a vast emptiness, that terrifying void, the buckskin jumped forward. His shoulder caught McMasters and sent him reeling, gasping, and bleeding from his cheeks. His palms scarred by the pull of leather reins across flesh, he landed on his knees again. Through the dust, he saw something else. Gritting his teeth, he reached for his .45-caliber Colt, which cleared the leather and pointed at the figure holding the Remington shotgun.
CHAPTER 23
“It ain’t loaded,” Alamo Carter told him. “And I ain’t got no shells.”
“Keep it that way.” McMasters looked past the black killer and felt the hurt . . . and guilt . . . as he saw the others peering over the ridge. He bit his lip.
“Rope’s on your horse,” Carter said. “We’ll need it.”
That gave McMasters hope. “Is he alive?”
The ex-Army scout gave a slight shrug. “If he is, it’ll be a miracle.”
McMasters walked ahead of Alamo Carter, pulling Berdan behind him. He thought about mounting the buckskin, but wasn’t certain he’d have enough strength to even get one foot into a stirrup. He had taken the Remington from Carter and shoved the weapon into the scabbard. He did not look at the mangled, bloody thing that had once been Emilio Vasquez, and did not bother to pick up the Winchester repeater that the killer had dropped. He just walked up that hill.
By then, most of the others had turned to watch his approach. Only the redhead kept looking into the abyss.
McMasters heard her shout, “Kil-pat-rick?”, spacing out the syllables.
Her echo answered and nothing else.
When he reached them, he wrapped the buckskin’s reins around a clump of creosote and moved to the rim’s edge. Below, he found a garden of stone boulders that led to the Salt River four hundred feet below. Saguaros dotted the hills, even an Arizona walnut, and paloverde trees covered the riverbanks. Less than halfway down the slope, pinned between two jagged dark rocks, lay Daniel Kilpatrick.
“Kil-pat-rick?” Mary Lovelace called out again.
His left leg was bent at a hideous angle, both arms drooped over the sandstone edges, and his head hung facedown as if he stared at something in the shade. Twenty-five or thirty yards below, a green bush had snagged his hat. His left boot lay in a bare spot between the rugged boulders.
McMasters could see the blood on the stone ten feet below that marked where Kilpatrick had first hit after Vasquez had shoved him off his horse and over the edge. He did not need Alamo Carter to read the sign for him. McMasters could tell. Kilpatrick had bounced off that rock, landed on another natural cairn, slammed hard and rolled down the clear spot and dropped off the next ledge, rolling and smashing his way to his final resting place.
It could very well be just that.
“Leave him,” Bloody Zeke The Younger said. “Ain’t nothing we can do for him now.”
McMasters pushed himself up and took the coiled lariat from his saddle.
Alamo Carter stepped in front of him and held out his hands.
“I’ll go down there. Fetch him.”
McMasters shook his head. “My job. I got him killed. No sense in risking your neck.”
“You didn’t get him killed, McMasters,” the former slave said. “That Mex had that knife for a long time. Like as not, he would’ve slit that deputy’s throat long before we ever got to Yuma. And killed that old driver, too.”
“In which case,” Emory Logan said with a snort before he sprayed dirt with tobacco juice, “we’d be free and not on some fool’s errand bein’ led by a crazed ol’ hoss-lover.”
McMasters secured the end of the lariat to a giant boulder, pulled it tight, and tossed the rest of the hemp down the canyon.
“That ain’t nowhere near long enough,” Mary Lovelace said.
“Shut up,” the gambler told her. He smiled and nodded at McMasters. “If he wants to go, let him go. That’s his friend down there.” He cleared his throat. “But you just tell us what we can do to help, McMasters.”
McMasters shook his head and fished gloves out of the back pocket of his britches. He pulled them on and again tested the firmness of the rope.
“You’re seventy-five feet short of Kilpatrick,” Mary Lovelace told him.
“Close enough,” McMasters said. “I can make my way down to his . . . body. Get him up to the rope.” No wind, no threatening clouds anywhere to be found, just the relentless late July sun, yet he felt a coldness despite the heat.
“And then what?” Alamo Carter asked.
“Just wait for me”—McMasters started down then looked up—“unless I get killed.”
His boots found a hold below, and he began lowering himself.
“Fat chance,” the gambler said.
Then they were out of view, except for Mary Lovelace and Alamo Carter. “Fat chance,” McMasters said softly and chuckled. Fat chance, he thought, that they’ll be there when I’ve gotten Dan’s body? Or fat chance that I’ll get killed?
He stopped thinking and concentrated on what he was doing. He came to the clear spot, felt his boots sliding on the loose gravel, and had to dig his heels into the dirt to stop from going over the drop-off. He looked down, sucked in a deep breath, and glanced back up. Mary Lovelace had disappeared, but Alamo Carter kept staring at him. The big man was sitting, his legs dangling over the edge, holding the rope with both hands and bracing his back against the boulder.
If McMasters had been betting, he would have wagered that one of them—including Alamo Carter—would be cutting that rope to send John McMasters to join Daniel Kilpatrick in the deathtrap below. He looked down again, picking out the best path.
He figured the others had already gathered their horses, filled their weapons with bullets, and were loping up or down the trail. There was nothing he could do to stop them, just as he could do nothing if Alamo Carter had decided to loosen the rope and let McMasters drop to his death.
Maybe they’d let him live, figuring—McMasters chuckled without humor—that he’d die trying to get Kilpatrick off those rocks anyway. They would not stay, and that, if McMasters somehow survived, would not be a bad thing. Emilio Vasquez had taught him that much. It had been an insane idea to persuade six hardened killers facing execution, life imprisonment, or long sentences in the dungeon called Yuma Territorial Prison to join him on a suicide mission. Trust them?
He leaped down, feeling his feet send loose stones tumbling. He bounced off the rock wal
l, came back, bounced off again, and knew he had come to the end of the line. He let go of the rope and dropped the rest of the way.
His boots hit rocks and dirt, and he fell over, twisting to land on his buttocks and sliding ten feet to the forest of boulders. Breathing heavily, sweating like a pig, he looked up. The rope dangled there. He waited for it to start creeping up to the ridge above, leaving him trapped below, more than three hundred feet of treacherous terrain to the Salt River below, about fifty or so feet of an even harder climb up.
The rope, however, just dangled, still within his grasp. He had time, maybe, to change his mind. Save his hide. Although, once he got back to the trail, if those five killers remained waiting for him, he figured they would have loaded their guns and would not hesitate to use them on him.
He turned back and slid down to the rocky edge.
McMasters jumped the next two-foot drop, bending when he hit and stumbling into the hot sandstone. He caught his breath, reached above him until he had a good hold of a boulder, and struggled to pull himself up. Once he had reached the boulder’s top, he sat, feeling the sharp points of jagged rocks leaving indentations in his buttocks and thighs. He saw Daniel Kilpatrick’s body. He did not bother to look up at Alamo Carter or anyone else who might be staring down at him. He doubted if the black man remained up there. Even God isn’t watching anymore.
McMasters removed his glasses, stuck them in his pocket, and wiped his face and eyes . . . and some tears . . . with the bandanna. He had known it in his heart, but so close to Kilpatrick, no more than twenty-five feet below him, he could tell that the young deputy marshal was dead.
Still, McMasters moved carefully, stopping once when he caught the rattling of a snake. He wet his lips, waiting, until he decided that the rattler’s warning came from several yards to his right. Not near Kilpatrick’s body. He bent his knees, using his arms for balance, and took one precarious step after another, until some long while later, he was touching the hair of what had once been the young man who was to become his son-in-law.
Remington 1894 Page 18