by J. T. Edson
Alvord reacted almost as quickly as did his boss. Rocking himself up to his feet, he turned and sprang to where his spot-rumped Appaloosa stallion stood like a lump of rock. No, Alvord had not deserted his boss. Nor did he aim to follow the Cavalry tradition of always fighting from the back of a horse. While he could draw his guns fast, and handle them at gun-fighting ranges with better than fair accuracy, Alvord preferred a rifle in his hands when engaging an enemy at over twenty feet.
With that in mind, and aware that his rifle hung in the Appaloosa’s saddle-boot, Alvord sprang away from the river’s edge. He disappeared behind the big horse, sliding his Winchester Model of 1866 rifle from its boot in passing. When he sprang into sight beyond the horse’s rump, Alvord held the “old yellow boy” in his hands.
Swinging up the rifle in an effortless move, Alvord sighted and fired his first shot. He tumbled a fast-riding Apache from a racing pony just as the brave threw down on Slaughter.
The third brave to die was slanting down his carbine, a finger curling on its trigger, when Slaughter, having fired twice without effect, and Alvord who had levered home another bullet after dropping his man, sent lead into him. That Apache was a tolerably good Indian when he hit the ground. He had a .45 revolver bullet in his heart and a flat-nosed .44 rifle ball splattered his brains and skull splinters in a flying cloud.
Seeing the fate of his lodge brothers, the last warrior brought his horse around in a rump-scraping, dirt-churning turn and sent it racing for the safety and cover of the thick bushes once more. Alvord’s rifle swung after the brave, but he could not get a shot. Realizing his danger, the Apache swung down to hang on the side of his horse and hidden from that deadly rifle. Before Alvord could lever home a bullet and cut down the horse, the Apache disappeared from sight and once more silence fell.
Slaughter came to his feet, holstering his Colt and running towards his big black stallion. On reaching the horse, he pulled his Winchester Model 1873 rifle from the saddle-boot. With the powerful .44.40 rifle in his hands, Slaughter reckoned he could do his fair share if there were more Apaches in hiding.
“Hey, ride-plenties!”
The voice drifted from among the bushes some distance to the right of where the Apache disappeared. Slaughter and Alvord watched the other shore of the Carne River, alert for any sign of a trick.
“You hear me, ride-plenties?” went on the voice, using the Indian name for a cowhand.
“We hear you,” Slaughter replied.
“One you killed is brother of Tanaka. Think long on it before you die at Tanaka’s hands.”
Once again silence dropped along the banks of the Carne. Not a branch stirred or rustled among the bushes, not a sound of a horse moving. Slaughter and Alvord stood with their rifles gripped ready for use, eyes and ears working overtime to pick up warning of where the Apache might be. Suddenly a war yell sounded and the last Apache appeared on the far side of the bushes, racing his pony across the range. He was well beyond the reach of either man’s rifle.
“Best go over and take a look,” Alvord remarked.
“Be best,” Slaughter replied.
Mounting their horses, they crossed the river. At that point the Carne was no more than knee deep and gave them no trouble in crossing. On the other side the two men made sure the three braves were dead. Then Alvord let out a deep breath, tossed his horse’s reins to Slaughter, threw his leg over the saddle, dropped to the ground and disappeared into the bushes.
Fifteen minutes ticked away. Slaughter stayed in his saddle, the rifle on the crook of his left arm. Then Alvord appeared, walking forward with an expression of relief on his face. Hunting bronco Apaches in thick bush was a sport roughly as dangerous as playing Russian roulette with a single-shot pistol, or tag with live rattlesnakes.
“Just the four,” Alvord said.
Proof of his relief showed in that he spoke when there was no need for the words. If there had been more Apaches in the bushes, Slaughter would have heard the shooting—or Alvord would not have come back.
“Let’s go over that ways and see what they hit at,” Slaughter said. “According to the Army maps, there’s a stage route runs parallel to the Carne along here.”
Half a mile beyond the river, Slaughter and Alvord found why the turkey vultures gathered. They topped a rise and looked down on the scene of a tragedy.
A Wells Fargo coach stood in the center of the rough trail down below, one of the team horses dead and still tangled in the harness. The driver hung forward on the boot, his guard sprawled face down on the trail. A passenger lay by the side of the coach and a second was draped half in, half out of the door. Only one thing could be said good about the scene, all the victims were men.
Neither Slaughter nor Alvord needed to think hard to guess what had happened. The Apaches came swooping down on the unsuspecting coach and, before the driver could urge on his team, one of the warriors came alongside. A shot tumbled the horse over dead, tangling up the others and bringing the coach to a halt. After that it had been short if not sweet. A bitter, hopeless fight and certain death for the four white men.
The first thing Slaughter and Alvord noticed as they rode towards the coach was that none of the victims had been mutilated, or more than lost their hats—one did not count that all the weapons and ammunition were taken. Yet the lack of mutilation was not in the Apache tradition. While he did not bother with taking scalps as a general rule, the Apache almost invariably removed his victim’s clothes and usually hacked the body about some.
It was Alvord, keen-eyed as always, who came up with the next mystery. He pointed to the body which lay on the ground by the side of the coach—and to the open, empty wallet lying by it. A few papers and letters such as a man might carry in his wallet had scattered in the breeze, yet there was no sign of money. The man looked well dressed, the kind who would not have an empty wallet.
“I’ve never knowed Apaches take money afore,” Alvord stated.
“Or me,” Slaughter replied, swinging from his saddle and walking to the side of the coach. “Burt, I know these two fellers. They work as special agents for Wells Fargo.”
Alvord grunted. He knew that special agents for Wells Fargo acted as trouble-shooters hunting down stage robbers, or as extra guards when a coach carried a valuable shipment. Without discussing why the men might be on the coach, Alvord made a circle around it. He returned with the comforting news that none of the passengers had been taken alive by the Apaches.
“Come round the other side, boss,” he said.
At the other side of the coach, Slaughter found a further mystery. A square, strong wooden box stood by the side of the coach, its lid thrown open and the lock which had once secured it had been shot off. Slaughter had seen the type of box before, both as a Ranger and more recently. It was the official Wells Fargo bullion box, used for transporting large sums of money. By the box lay a stiff-covered, oblong book with the words “DRIVER’S DELIVERY RECEIPT BOOK” printed in black letters on the cover.
“This’s why those two agents rode the stage, he said after picking up the book and finding its most recent entry. “There was a ten thousand dollars shipment for the Army Paymaster at Fort McClellan aboard.”
“Huh huh!” Alvord replied.
“You sure this’s Apache work, Burt?”
“If it ain’t, I’ve never seen any.”
For all his reply, Alvord felt puzzled. Certainly an Apache brave would loot, take what he wanted from the bodies of his victims; that was the Apache way of life. Always he took guns and ammunition and would never pass up a knife; if he wanted them, he would take clothes, jewelry for his own use or as a present to a squaw. One thing no Apache normally touched was money. He would never weigh down his horse with something as useless to him as the bits of paper or gold the white-eye brother used instead of bartering goods.
Neither man spoke for a few minutes, then Alvord looked at his boss.
“Why in hell would Tanaka want that money, boss?”
�
��That’s what’s worrying me,” Slaughter replied. “Head back to the herd, Burt. Tell them to cross the river tonight if they can.”
“And you?”
“I’m fixing to try and trail that buck to the others.”
“Nope,” Alvord grunted. “You pay me as scout. Damn it, boss, your place is with the herd, not trailing bronco Apaches.”
It was not Slaughter’s way to send a man into danger unless willing to go himself. Yet he saw the wisdom of Alvord’s words. Slaughter could read sign and follow a trail fairly well. However the rancher was honest enough to admit that Burt Alvord could handle the business far better. It would be foolish to try to claim more skill in the scouting line than that Indian-dark youngster. Alvord had a much better chance of finding the Apache camp and, more important, getting away from it unseen, than Slaughter would have.
And like Alvord said: when it came down to the point Slaughter’s place was with his herd, not sky-hooting off trying to do work his scout could handle far more efficiently. “Reckon they know about us?” he asked.
“Nope. Not the herd. I’ve seen no Apache sign on the basin, and I’ve looked. Likely they were scouting, saw us two coming and figured to take them some white-eye coups and trophies.”
“Go ahead and scout then,” Slaughter drawled and a rare smile flickered on his lips. “Keep both eyes open, mind.”
“Had I four eyes, I’d keep ’em all open,” Avord replied. “See you, boss.”
“When?”
The grin which came to Alvord’s lips was mirthless and cold. “Happen I’m not back in two days,” he said, “I won’t be back at all.”
With that the two men separated: Slaughter to return to his herd; and Alvord hunted for the Apache camp, his life depending on his keen senses, guns and the speed of the Appaloosa stallion.
At the herd Slaughter’s segundo, Tex Burton, listened to his boss’s news without any great show of emotion, although his right hand dropped to the butt of his gun and he unconsciously glanced at his rifle.
“Reckon Tanaka’ll be waiting at the river?” Burton asked.
“Could be” Slaughter replied.
“Reckon we ought to send the wagons on ahead?”
“Yeah. Take them along, take six of the men too, Make sure you can hold the crossing if you have to.”
“One of ’em’d best be Talking Bill, he can handle Hernandez’s lil toy.”
With that, Burton swung from his place alongside Big Bill the lead bull, and nodded to his fellow point rider, the gangling Talking Bill. Having heard the preceding conversation, Talking Bill needed to ask no questions, but headed for the two wagons which flanked the herd.
On a big drive such as Slaughter’s present herd, the cowhands’ bedrolls were not carried in the chuck wagon but brought along in a separate vehicle. It was to the bed wagon that Burton led his party, after giving his orders to Coonskin, Slaughter’s Negro cook.
Inside the bed wagon, along with the bedrolls and various spare gear used on the drive, was a special surprise, something which would make Tanaka’s men think his medicine had gone bad on him, happen they came within close range of the Texans.
Insomny Sam, the herd’s nighthawk, popped his head from under the blankets of his hammock as the covers of the bed wagon lifted and Burton swung in from the back of his horse.
“What’s up?” Insomny demanded, looking like a bewhiskered squirrel peeking out of a knothole. “Shut that danged cover. Too much daylight’s bad for a man’s eyeballs.”
Sometime in the past Insomny had heard about insomnia, decided he suffered from it and could not sleep at night. So he changed from being a cowhand to riding nighthawk, spending the dark hours in the saddle and sleeping in the daytime.
“Likely to have Apache trouble, Insomny,” Burton replied, holding the cover back to allow Talking Bill entrance. “We’re just setting up a welcome for ’em.”
“Ain’t but one thing wuss’n daylight on the eyeballs,” Insomny stated, coming out of his hammock faster than a cat off a hot stove. “And that’s Apaches on the chest.”
~*~
One thing was for sure, thought Burt Alvord as he swung from his saddle and bent down to examine the ground more carefully, that Apache who lit a shuck from the river sure did not aim to be followed. When an Apache took such an idea to mind, a man needed to be real lucky as well as a top-grade tracker if he hoped to get anywhere in following the sign. While Alvord might be as good a tracker as could be found in a hundred square miles, it seemed that his luck had gone back on him. He could not see any hint of which way the Apache went.
Going a’fork his Appaloosa with a lithe bound, Alvord sat for a moment taking stock of the situation. There was no chance of trailing the Apache to Tanaka’s camp, but a man who knew his business might find a hint of the Indians’ presence.
Maybe three miles off to the northwest was what looked to be a tolerable sized mesa; a rock outcrop rising some hundred feet and more over the surrounding area. Happen a man could get up top of there, he would be able to see for miles and might possibly catch some idea of where the Apaches had their camp.
Alvord did not ride straight to the mesa. Such an ideal lookout spot might easily be in use by Tanaka’s band, or at least by a few of his scouts. So Alvord made a start at circling the mesa from a distance of half a mile. Before he had made half of the circle, Alvord learned two things. First that what he first imagined to be a single large mesa was really two separate outcrops separated from each other by a flat bottomed valley some hundred yards wide. And secondly, there were no Apaches around it.
If there had been any Apaches around, those two fellers would not have been in the valley with their wagon—at least not alive.
The wagon stood just inside the entrance to the valley and out of sight of most of the surrounding range. It was the kind of position sensible men would select when travelling through Indian-infested range country. They had unhitched their team and left it to graze, four good, powerful looking horses that could haul a load and make reasonable speed. From the depth of the wagon wheels’ tracks, the team was hauling a fair load.
Silently Alvord and his Appaloosa drifted nearer to the men. For a couple of travelers in Apache country, they sure were not taking too much notice of their surroundings. Yet they did not look like dudes who had no idea of the dangers of the land. One was big and heavily built, the other shorter and thin. They wore Stetson hats, buckskin jackets, open necked shirts, and pants tucked into boots. Each man had a gun at his side and looked like he knew which end the bullet came from.
Neither man looked up from their fire lighting. Alvord frowned as he watched the thin man bend down to blow on to the tiny flame among a pile of sun-baked buffalo chips. Some wood lay to one side, ready to be fed on to the blaze when the chips took hold. At the other side of the fire lay a pile of green leaves and twigs.
“Wouldn’t light that, was I you, mister,” Alvord said.
Whirling around, the heavily built man grabbed at his gun. He stopped his move as he looked into the barrel of Alvord’s right-hand Army Colt. The young scout had not hesitated when he saw the man move, but got a gun in his hand. Now he sat ready to copper any bets either of the campers played.
“You move quiet, friend,” the thin man remarked, grinning in an ingratiating manner. “Took me ’n’ Doug by surprise.”
“Sure,” the big man agreed, moving his hand clear of his gun. “Kelly and me was just making camp and didn’t expect nobody.”
“Light that fire, mister,” Alvord drawled, holstering his Colt, “and you’ll get company, want it or not.”
“Huh?” Kelly grunted.
“Stage got robbed down there a piece, four men killed.”
“Tanaka’s bunch, huh?” Doug asked and his partner scowled at him.
While speaking, Alvord kept both eyes open and did not like what he saw. While the wagon looked ordinary enough, it showed signs of being well maintained. If their team were anything to go by, the men were
far from beginners at the freighting business. The men looked like they knew the range country and were at home on the trail.
“Then,” Alvord thought, “why are they acting like this?”
The lack of caution, the whirling and grabbing for a gun on hearing a white man’s voice, that green stuff by the fire; it all added up, happen a half-smart lil Texas boy could make two and two come out four.
A man who spent more than a week in Indian country knew better than to put green twigs and leaves on a fire. To do so would kick up so much smoke that every brave in a hundred miles damned near would be on his way in looking for its cause.
One thing was for sure. A pair of trail-wise freighting men like those would not make smoke—unless they wanted to attract attention. The only people around apart from Slaughter’s transient trail herd, were Tanaka and his braves. Only one kind of white man dare signal up Tanaka to bring him to them.
Take Doug too. When Alvord mentioned the stage had been robbed. Doug came right out and asked if Tanaka did it. Yet the Apache chief had never before robbed a stage. Looted and destroyed, perhaps, but one did not use the term “robbed” for that. Alvord was still not sure why he said robbed instead of attacked, massacred, wiped out, or some more appropriate phrase. Maybe it had been a hidden instinct leading him to bait a trap. If so, Doug had snapped up the lure like a large-mouth bass snatching in a floating plug.
“Just allowed to warn you,” Alvord said. “I’ll be riding now I have.”
Turning the Appaloosa, he started it walking away from the men at an angle which kept his right hand in plain view to them. Every nerve and instinct he possessed screamed “DANGER!” and his keen ears had never worked so hard to pick up the slightest warning sound.
A low hissed word came from behind Alvord, and a faint scuffle of sound he might have been excused for missing, although he caught the warning given and acted on it. Instantly the young scout pitched out of his saddle, going to the right. Even as he fell, his left hand turned palm out to fetch the nearside Colt from leather in a smoothly done cavalry twist-hand draw. Behind him sounded the click of a cocking Colt, a couple of startled exclamations. Then a shot rang out, but the bullet passed over his falling body, missing Alvord by a good foot.