She made it back to the fire and dropped the wood beside the dancing flames. The captain was sitting by the fire, his knees drawn up. It was hard for Colter to tell from this distance and in the dimming light, but the man appeared to be washing from a bowl in his lap, a towel draped over his shoulder. The air was still enough that Colter could hear the girl speaking as she faced the captain. She jerked around quickly, angrily, and then she fell hard with a little shriek and rolled a few feet down the slope.
At first, Colter couldn’t make out what had happened. But then he saw that the captain had extended his left leg to trip the girl. Now he raised his knee again and, laughing loudly, continued to splash water on his face. The girl lay on the slope for a time, shoulders slumped in defeat. Finally, she got up and, pulling the stump along behind her, headed back down the slope in her search of more firewood.
Despite his having tracked her with her rurale captors, Colter had reserved the right to turn away if he saw that rescuing her would be too risky. There was no point in getting himself killed for a strange little girl he didn’t even know. Now, however, he pursed his lips and nodded as he stared across the narrow canyon at the captain.
“All right, little miss,” he said. “All right.”
He glanced at the sky, judging there was about forty-five minutes of daylight left. Then he crawled back down the slope to wait for good dark. And for hell to pop.
Chapter 17
Colter fed and watered Northwest, hobbling him near the pine tree so the horse could freely graze. He removed his spurs from his boots and draped them over his saddle horn. Making sure that both his Remington and Henry were loaded, drawing the loading tube out from under the rifle’s barrel, then shoving it back in and locking it, the redhead gave the coyote dun a parting pat on the neck and stole off down the canyon, making his way through the darkness relieved only by starlight.
He wished he could have made a more thorough reconnaissance of the rurales’ camp before dark. As it was, he pretty much had to hope that the luck of the Mexican gods was with him, and that he could make his way around behind the rurale camp without being shot by a picket. And that there was a way up and over that caprock from the backside. His intension was to sneak up on the camp from that direction, find out where the girl was, and free her in whatever way he could come up with on the spur of the moment.
Dangerous. But he’d been in dangerous places before. Danger had become such a way of life, he wondered if he’d ever be able to enjoy a settled life if he found one.
The farther he tramped away from his horse, the quieter and more slowly he walked. He followed the canyon around to what he figured was the backside of the one the rurales were camped on, and started to climb. Here, he moved even more carefully, more slowly, setting his boots down softly. The crunch of gravel might give him away to any pickets about, and surely the rurale captain had posted a guard or two.
Keeping his eyes and ears skinned, Colter continued to climb the steep ridge, hunkered low, holding his rifle in his right hand, using his left to push off rock and boulders, and for balance. He knew now why the old deputy U.S. marshal he’d gotten to know in Wyoming—Spurr Morgan—had preferred moccasins over cowhide boots. They were a hell of a lot quieter. Try as Colter might, he could not keep his boots from grinding gravel ever so faintly.
It was the boot-grind of another, though, that stopped him in his tracks.
The sound had come from above a rock ledge on his right. He dropped instantly to a knee. A stone rolled off the ledge and onto the ground about six feet in front of Colter. The starlight shone on it faintly. Colter pricked his ears, squeezing the rifle in his hands.
He did not hear another footfall. But as he knelt there, as patient as an Apache, he caught a whiff of tobacco smoke. He lifted his chin, sniffing the still air. The smoke was drifting down from nearly straight above him and, judging by how the smoke peppered his nostrils, not more than a few yards away.
Colter crept slowly forward, crouched beneath the ledge. He leaned his hatless head out away from the ledge and peered up over the mantel-like slab of rounded rock. A man’s silhouette stood above him, tall against the starlit sky. The man, his back facing Colter and dressed in a dove gray uniform, held a carbine with a lanyard in his left hand. His right arm was bent forward, and a gauzy stream of smoke slithered into the air around his head.
Colter caught another whiff of the eye-stinging tobacco smoke.
Colter leaned his rifle against a boulder, lifted his denim pant leg above his right boot, and slipped his wooden-handled skinning knife out of the sheath he’d sewn into the well. He’d just drawn his pant leg down over his boot and tightened his hand around the knife when he heard a boot crunch gravel behind him.
A warning bell tolled loudly in his ears.
He started to swing his head around but stopped when he heard the gut-wrenching click of a gun hammer, felt something cold, hard, and round pressed against the back of his neck. He suppressed a shudder.
A soft, deep Spanish voice said something behind him. The Mexicans down here spoke much faster than Cimarron and his Hunkpapa daughter, Rose, had spoken Spanish to him up in Wyoming, and all he could only make out were the words “move” and “little bastard.”
Colter’s mouth went dry. His heart fluttered. He gripped the knife in his right hand, mind racing, knowing he had to make a fast move or he’d die. Just then the man behind him spoke more loudly, directing his harsh words upslope.
Ah, shit, Colter thought. Too late. He heard the man who’d been smoking above the ledge walk toward him, and in the corner of his right eye, he saw the man’s gray silhouette on the ledge above him, staring down at him, holding his rifle across his chest, the cigarette smoldering between his lips. The two rurales spoke for a time, arguing, the one with his pistol pressed to the back of Colter’s neck berating the other one for letting a “muchacho” sneak up on him.
Then the one behind Colter jerked the Remy from Colter’s holster and spoke loudly in Colter’s ear, “Drop that knife, or I carve you up with it!” Or something close.
Colter opened his hand. The knife clattered to the gravel at his boots—a grating, sickening sound that filled the redhead’s gut with sour bile. He was totally unarmed. A boot hammered into his back, and he fell belly-down. The rurale held him down with his boot while he leaned down and, pressing the gun against the back of Colter’s neck with one hand, patted him down with the other. Finding no other weapons, the rurale grabbed his rifle and told him to get up.
Colter climbed to his feet. The rurale asked him what he was doing here. Colter started to answer in English that he’d gotten lost in the dark—it was all he could come with on short notice—but the man gave an impatient grunt, cutting him off. Apparently, he didn’t understand English. He told the other man to stay where he was, then shoved Colter forward with his own rifle. “Vamos!”
Colter started forward.
“Parada!”
Colter stopped. The man grabbed his shoulder and swung him around to half face him. The rurale was about Colter’s height, but broad, with shaggy muttonchops framing his pockmarked face. He stared at the brand on Colter’s cheek, then grinned and prodded him again with the Henry.
“Adelante!”
Colter walked forward, sweat dribbling down his back. What a fool he was! All he’d gotten for his trouble was most likely a bullet. If he was lucky. If he wasn’t so lucky, he’d soon likely be breaking rocks somewhere in southern Sonora and start dying slowly from exhaustion or consumption.
The rurale prodded him over the breast of the mountain and then down the other side, a game path twisting amongst the rocks vaguely limned by starlight. Colter glanced behind him. He needed to make a play for the Henry, but the rurale was staying too far back. By the time Colter could swing around, the man would punch a .44 slug through his heart with his own rifle.
> Defeat and shame burned in Colter’s ears. He’d let the son of a bitch walk right up behind him. . . .
He gave up on trying for the rifle when firelight appeared on his right, the throbbing glow silhouetting the still, columnar pines. The small group of rurales was lounging around the flames, some leaning back against saddles or sitting on rocks. They were smoking and sipping from tin cups, talking, two playing cards spread out on the ground between them. The captain was facing the fire, his back to Colter, the firelight glistening on the two gold bars on his tunic shoulders.
The blond girl sat a ways from the fire, back to a tree, hands behind her back. She was dirty and sunburned, and her hair was badly mussed, like a tumbleweed around her head. One eye was swollen, and the right corner of her mouth was split. She blinked at Colter, her eyes dull. If she recognized him, her eyes didn’t betray it.
The stocky man behind Colter called to the fire. The tall captain turned around, his gray mustache and goatee looking pale against his dark, angular face. A short cigarette jutted from one corner of his mouth. In his left hand he held a steaming tin cup. His other hand dropped automatically to the pistol thonged on his right thigh.
Colter stopped, as did the man behind him, telling the captain about the gringo he’d found sneaking around atop the mountain.
The captain canted his head to one side, squinting, as he strode out away from the fire and stopped in front of Colter. “Habla español?”
Colter shook his head.
“What are you doing out here?” the captain asked.
The other men were watching Colter expectantly, some nervously. One sergeant had grabbed his rifle and stood, jerking his head around as though looking for others stalking their camp from the darkness beyond the fire.
Colter had formulated a story—the only one that made any sense at all. “I prospect out here with my pa. I got caught out in the darkness. My horse fell, broke his leg. Had to put him down.”
“What were you doing, lurking around on the back of this mountain?”
“I saw the firelight from the other side, was makin’ my way to your camp here.” Colter gave a halfhearted grin as he regarded the big black coffeepot steaming to one side of the fire. “Sure could go for a cup o’ that mud.” He wasn’t bullshitting about that.
“Or perhaps you intended to steal one of our horses.”
Inwardly, Colter cursed. He hadn’t thought of that possible interpretation of his story.
He shook his head and started to speak, but the captain turned to one of the other men around the fire and barked an order in Spanish. When one of the men jumped to his feet, his teeth showing white as he grinned, the captain turned back to Colter and translated: “Take this thief down the mountain a ways, where his screams won’t disturb me, and beat him to death.”
“Hold on, now!” Colter said, lurching forward. “I told ya, I was just . . .”
He let his voice trail off. The captain had swung around, giving Colter his broad back, and was casually kneeling for the coffeepot. A brusque hand grabbed Colter’s shirt collar from behind, and he was jerked around so suddenly that his boots got tangled, and he rolled several yards down the slope, his battered ribs coming alive again, as did the aches in both tormented shoulders. He rolled off his right shoulder and looked up.
The stocky man who had his Henry was striding toward him, while the rurale whom the captain had summoned from the fire was walking toward Colter, as well, looping his suspenders up over his shoulders. Colter noticed the man wasn’t wearing a gun. He was hatless. Long hair fell from a nearly bald pate, and he had a small cross tattooed into his chin.
The stocky man, compressing his lips and narrowing his eyes, brought a boot back and was about to swing it forward when Colter scrambled to his feet, trying to ignore the wailing of his ribs, and backed away crouching, trying to avoid the kick. The tattooed man chuckled. The stocky man wagged the Henry’s barrel at Colter. The redhead turned away and started walking down the slope through the pines, the firelight’s reflection dwindling as he moved down the hill.
His blood jetted hot through his veins, and thoughts hammered through his skull. His eyes darted around, looking for an escape route. If he broke into a run, were these men good enough shots to bring him down before he could disappear into the darkness?
“That’s far enough,” said the tattooed man in broken English, when Colter gained the bottom of the slope. The horses picketed to his right nickered and thumped the ground softly with their hooves.
The tattooed gent snapped his suspenders with his thumbs and strolled casually toward Colter, a grim smile etched on his broad face shadowed with beard stubble. The other man turned to lean Colter’s rifle against a broad fir tree. Colter knew he couldn’t run and get away. Neither could he fight these two with any hope of winning.
Power born of raw terror throbbed in him. He looked around, scuttled to one side, and grabbed a brick-sized rock. Before he even knew what he was doing, he was bolting forward, swinging the hand holding the rock back behind his right shoulder. The tattooed man’s eyes snapped wide in surprise, and he’d just opened his mouth to yell when Colter hammered the rock soundly across the man’s left temple.
The tattooed man twisted around and back and hit the ground hard and lay there, unmoving. Blood dribbled from the gash in his crushed temple.
Colter looked at the other man, who’d just leaned the Henry against the fir and had started toward Colter. Now he stopped and regarded the tattooed gent’s still form incredulously. Colter bolted off his heels, intending to catch the stocky man off guard, as well, but then the man swung his head toward him. The man’s eyes were bright with anger, and his mustached lips curled in a sneer.
Colter stood a few yards away from him, facing him, crouching, balled fists raised chest-high, hoping against hope that the stocky gent would not call out for the others. So far, so good. He just stood glaring at Colter, incredulous and embarrassed, too proud to ask for help.
Good. Colter probably couldn’t take him, as the man outweighed him by a good fifty pounds, but he’d upped his chances considerably. As with the other gent, who looked dead, he’d have to use his lightness and quickness to best advantage.
The man walked casually toward him, lips pursed, chest rising and falling slowly as he breathed through his nose. Colter raised his fists and sidestepped, crouching, weaving—wasn’t that what the bare-knuckle fighters did to help avoid blows? He didn’t avoid the stocky gent’s first punch, however. The next came just as fast, catching Colter off guard, hooking the nub of his scarred cheek.
The pounding impact threw him straight back to land on his butt with a grunt, dust and pine needles blowing up around him. He felt blood trickle down his cheek as he watched the stocky man, who was smiling now, close on him. When the man was four feet away, Colter threw his shoulders back and kicked up with his right boot, driving the pointed toe squarely into the stocky gent’s crotch.
The man’s face swelled and he growled like an enraged grizzly as he crouched forward and clamped one hand over his burning balls. Colter shook the cobwebs from behind his eyes and heaved himself to his feet. But the man was on him almost instantly, bulling Colter onto his back so hard that he heard his teeth clatter.
The bigger man was sluggish from the blow to his oysters, and Colter managed to grind his heels into the ground and heave the man over on his back. Colter straddled him, got his hands on the man’s neck and began grinding both his thumbs into his throat. The stocky man’s broad face swelled, turned red. He growled and groaned and, hardening his jaws and closing his eyes, raised his arms up between Colter’s and thrust his fists sharply to both sides.
The blow broke Colter’s stranglehold. The stocky gent smashed his right fist into Colter’s chin. Colter grunted and flew back and to one side, hitting the ground on his shoulder.
Knowing that he had to
keep moving or die, he gained his heels and saw the Henry leaning against the tree not six feet away. He ran for it. The stocky man grabbed his right boot. Colter hit the ground hard on his chin. He cursed shrilly. Stars burst inside his head.
Colter jerked his ankle free, rose to hands and knees, and crawled madly toward the fir. He grabbed his rifle, twisted around on his butt while swinging the rifle around and jacking a cartridge into the chamber. The stocky gent was crawling toward him, a knife in his hand, a savage snarl on his spittle-flecked lips.
Blam! Blam! Blam!
The Henry’s reports sounded like dynamite explosions in the silent night. Each of the three bullets blew dust from the stocky rurale’s tunic, in a straight line across his chest. He loosed one final growl, his big face crumpling with misery, and flew backward to hit the ground on his back and shoulders, head smacking a rock resoundingly.
Chapter 18
Colter paused, letting the last echo finish rocketing around the ridges. When it died, he ejected the spent cartridge, hearing it cling off a rock behind him, and levered a fresh shell into the chamber. The rurales’ horses were nickering and pulling at their picket line. He swung around to face the dark slope. The fire flickered about seventy yards away, the trees silhouetted before it.
He could hear no voices from that direction. None of the rurales appeared to be heading toward him. Not yet. He backed up to the dead stocky rurale, stooped down, and pulled his Remington from behind the man’s cartridge belt. He also slipped a big bowie knife from a sheath on the man’s belt, and stuck that into the sheath in his own boot well. The horn-gripped knife was an improvement over his own skinning knife.
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