Stryker's Revenge

by Ralph Compton

  “I see it.”

  “Call me Pancho just once and I’ll shove it right up your ass.”

  Trimble cackled and slapped his thigh, as if it were the funniest thing he’d ever heard.

  A horseman traveling from here to there leaves a scar on the country, even in the mountains. The mark made by Pierce and Dugan was the death they left in their wake.

  The day was fading into dusk when Stryker and the others rode up on the abandoned coach. They had been following a well maintained wagon road that curved around an outcropping of rock and had hidden the coach until they were almost on top of it.

  Its four horses were still in the traces and had pulled the coach toward a patch of grama grass growing beside the road. But one of the rear wheels had wedged between rocks and the horses had been brought to a halt. They stood with their heads low, too tired to kick at the flies that clouded around their legs.

  Stryker swung out of the saddle and stepped closer to the coach. There was a dead man slumped in the driver’s seat. He wore the fancy trappings of a vaquero, embroidered short jacket and silver-studded pants. His ivory handled Colt was still in the holster.

  An older man was sprawled inside the coach, gray-haired and distinguished looking. He’d been shot several times. The man was impeccably dressed in the highest fashion, but by the disarray of his clothing it looked as though he’d been robbed of his jewelry and watch and chain.

  “Over here, Cap’n!”

  Stryker answered Trimble’s beckoning arm and walked to the side of the road where he was standing. “Take a look,” he said. “She says it all.”

  The woman had been young, dark and exceedingly beautiful. She lay on her back, stripped half naked, her legs forced open. She’d been raped, and then her throat had been cut. The middle finger of her left hand had been cut off, probably to get at a ring she’d worn.

  Stryker looked at Trimble. “Pierce and Dugan?”

  “Who else, Cap’n?”

  “This is a private coach,” Birchwood said. “It’s got a fancy coat of arms on the door and the words ‘Hacienda Cantrell.’”

  “Some rich rancher’s rig,” Trimble said. “Probably belongs to the man inside. I reckon this was his wife or daughter.”

  The vaqueros came from the south, eight men riding hard in a cloud of dust. Before Stryker could react, he and the others were surrounded, steady guns pointed at them.

  One of the vaqueros looked down at the dead woman and said something in Spanish to Stryker. He shook his head. “Americano,” he said.

  An emotion that could have been pity crossed the vaquero’s hard, lined face. “This is very bad for you,” he said.

  “We found the coach and the bodies,” Stryker said. “These people have been dead for hours.”

  The vaquero made no answer. He turned his head and looked as a handsome young man riding a magnificent palomino stallion galloped beside them. The man savagely drew rein, the horse’s haunches slamming into the ground.

  He leaped from the saddle and ran to the dead woman. He kneeled, cradled her in his arms and raised his face to the sky, letting out a scream of loss, grief and despair that splintered apart the hush of the evening and sounded barely human.

  The vaquero who had first spoken to Stryker had dismounted. He stuck his gun into the lieutenant’s ribs and whispered, “I think, very bad for you now.”

  Stryker knew it was useless to protest his innocence again, and he held his silence.

  After that one primitive scream, the young man held the woman in his arms, sobbing, his head bent over her. Minutes passed; then one of the vaqueros, older than the others, stepped beside him.

  He quietly said something in Spanish to the man, then nodded toward Stryker.

  Their eyes met; the young man’s were full of death.

  He rose to his feet and looked into the coach, standing motionless for several long moments. Now he turned again to Stryker. After the initial shock of seeing the lieutenant’s crushed face, he said quietly, evenly, almost without anger, “It will take you a long, long time to die, my friend.”

  Stryker had feared Geronimo, and now he feared this man. But he came quickly to anger, figuring he had been pushed around enough and had nothing to lose.

  “I’m an officer of the United States Army, and I did not kill these people,” he said. “We found them just before your men arrived.”

  “That’s the God’s honest truth, your worship,” Trimble said. “But we’ve been hunting the men who did this.”

  The young man’s eyes ranged over Stryker, taking in his sky blue breeches with their yellow stripes and the knee-high cavalry boots.

  Sensing the man’s dawning doubt, Stryker stepped to his horse and removed his and Birchwood’s shirts. He threw the young lieutenant his, then held up his own where the shoulder straps could be seen. “First Lieutenant Steve Stryker, United States Cavalry, at your service.”

  The vaquero who’d been holding a gun to Stryker’s ribs said something to the young Mexican, who reached out and grabbed the lieutenant’s hands. After a while he dropped them and said, “Pedro is right, you have no blood on your hands.”

  “We have no blood on our hands, nor do we have the jewelry that was taken from the bodies,” Stryker said. “You may search us if you have a mind.”

  The young man thought long and hard, then shook his head. “That will be unnecessary, Lieutenant. If you were the guilty ones, you would not have lingered at the scene of your crimes.” He shoved out his hand. “My name is Don Carlos Santiago Cantrell. The man in the coach is my father, and yonder lies my wife. They were returning from the mission in the village of Playa Vicente where my wife prayed that the Madonna would bless us with a child. But she gave us no child, only death.”

  Stryker shook the young Mexican’s hand, then Cantrell’s black eyes flicked to the dead man in the driving seat. “I should have ridden with the gun, not that cowardly hijo de puta.”

  He looked back to Stryker. “I am honor bound to invite you to my hacienda, Lieutenant. But tonight no lamps will be lit in my home and my people will wail in mourning. It is not a place where you would wish to be.”

  Stryker looked at the sky, at the darkness crowding closer, shadowing the vast land. “We will camp farther down the trail tonight, Don Carlos,” he said.

  The man nodded. “I will join you with my vaqueros tomorrow before the noon hour. Together we will hunt the men who did this. Give me their names.”

  “Rake Pierce and Silas Dugan. Pierce is a deserter from my regiment, and both are murderers and rapists. They rob and kill without conscience, as they did here.”

  Cantrell repeated the names, then said, “Be ready to ride tomorrow, Lieutenant. If I must, I will hunt those men to the ends of the earth.”

  The man turned on his heel and swung into the saddle. A vaquero carried his dead wife to him and placed her reverently in his arms.

  The vaquero named Pedro closed the coach door and then gave the reins of his horse to another man. He climbed into the driver’s seat and kicked the dead guard to the ground.

  He slapped the lines and the coach bumped over the rocks and lurched into motion, the other vaqueros following, surrounding their grieving patrón.

  Stryker waited until the Mexicans were out of sight, then mounted his horse. “Clem, you can see better in the dark than I can. Ride on ahead and find us a place to camp for the night,” he said.

  The old man cackled, then nodded. “I’ve got cat’s eyes, an’ no mistake, Cap’n. And lately, I’ve come to believe that atween us, we got us ourselves more lives than a cat.”

  Stryker smiled. “Maybe, but if we do, I think we’re fast running out of them.”

  “A truer word was never spoke, Cap’n.” Trimble grinned, knuckled his forehead and rode into the gloom, the first stars of night glittering high above him.

  “The old man is right, sir,” Birchwood said. “That was a damned close-run thing.”

  “And it’s not over yet,” Stryker
said. “I have a feeling our troubles are just about to start.”

  Chapter 36

  Trimble found a camping spot in an oak grove near a thin rock spring. The old man fried bacon and wrapped the greasy strips in tortillas, a supper Birchwood, with his youngster’s appetite, declared a “crackerjack meal.”

  Trimble sat opposite Stryker across a hatful of fire, and froze his coffee cup to his lips, speaking quietly around the rim. “Don’t look around right now, Cap’n,” he said, “but there’s somebody in the trees.”

  “Maybe it’s a bear,” Birchwood said. He opened the cotton shirt and undid his holster flap.

  “My teeth are aching like hell,” Trimble said. “It’s an Injun fer sure.”

  He rose slowly to his feet, both hands up and visible on his cup. “Come right on in, big chief,” he said, talking into the black wall of the night. “We’ve got coffee on the bile.”

  A few tense moments passed; then the darkness parted and a man carrying a rifle stepped into the camp. He wore white cotton pants tucked into high moccasins, a shirt of the same color and over that a blue vest, decorated with beadwork. His hair was cropped short with no attempt at style and the top half of his face was painted black.

  He was looking at Trimble, but his eyes missed nothing, especially the slow rising of Stryker and Birchwood.

  “He’s Comanche, by God,” Trimble said. “I haven’t seen one o’ them in nigh on twenty year.” The old man raised his hand, smiled and said, “Maruawe, great chief.”

  The man ignored the traditional Comanche greeting and looked around the camp, his eyes resting briefly on Stryker’s face.

  Trimble had run through all the Comanche he knew and now he said, “I see you have cut your hair and blackened your face. You are in mourning, great chief.”

  “My name is Thomas, and this you will call me. I mourn the death of Donna Maria Elaina Cantrell. She was my friend.”

  Stryker was on edge. Did the Comanche believe they were guilty of the girl’s murder? Was he about to push it?

  Birchwood was obviously thinking along the same lines, because his hand was close to his Colt, his eyes fixed on the Indian.

  “I will drink coffee now,” Thomas said. He squatted right where he was, waiting.

  Birchwood forced himself to relax. His hand dropped from his gun and he said, “You speak English very well, Thomas.”

  The man nodded. “The Texas Rangers taught the Comanche to speak English pretty damn quick.”

  He accepted coffee from Trimble, then fished a pipe out of his pocket, which he lit from the fire.

  After a couple of minutes of silence, Stryker said, “Thomas, we did not kill Mrs. Cantrell.”

  “I know you did not. If I thought otherwise, you’d all be dead.”

  The man was silent again, then took something from his pocket. He held up a small silver locket. “I found this on the trail a mile south of here. It was given to Donna Maria by her mother when she was a child. She wore it around her neck all the time. Don Carlos would laugh and say, ‘I offer you diamonds, but you will wear only a cheap silver locket.’ And Donna Maria would say, “Husband, this locket is more precious to me than diamonds.’ Yes, that’s what she would say. I have heard her say that many times.”

  The Comanche was quiet again, deep in thought; then he said, “The men who murdered Donna Maria threw the locket aside as having no value, as they considered her life of no value. Soon they will curse the day they were born and the mother that bore them.”

  Thomas drained his cup, then rose to his feet. He looked at Stryker. “You ran afoul of a cougar or a bear?”

  “No, this was done by Rake Pierce, one of the men we are hunting.”

  The Comanche nodded. “Then him I will leave for you.”

  He turned away and let the darkness swallow him.

  “Right nice feller,” Trimble said. “A talkin’ man, fer an Injun.”

  “I’m glad he’s on our side,” Birchwood said.

  “He’s on his own side,” Stryker said, staring into the night. “I hope he does what he said and leaves Pierce for me.”

  The sun had not reached its highest point in the sky when Cantrell and four riders met Stryker and the others on the trail. The man had swapped the flashy palomino for an ugly, hammerheaded mustang that looked like it could run all day and then some.

  Stryker told Cantrell about his meeting with the Comanche, but the man showed no surprise. “He had to see you for himself,” he said. “Thomas makes his own judgments.”

  “Where is he, your worship?” Trimble asked. “I was just saying last night that he looks like a real nice feller.”

  “He is ahead of us. He will find the men we seek.” Cantrell looked at Trimble. “Thomas has killed seventeen men, eight of them on my order. He is not ‘a real nice feller’ as you say, old man. He makes a terrible enemy.”

  As they headed south along the ragged edge of the foothills, Stryker fell in beside Cantrell. After sorting out in his mind the order of his words, he said, “Are your wife and father laid to rest?”

  The man nodded. “Yes, in our family mausoleum. One day I will rest beside them.”

  “I’m sorry, Don Carlos. I thought I might find the words, but I can’t.”

  The young man was silent, a frown on his handsome face. “It is done, Lieutenant, and all the words have been said.” He turned bleak eyes to Stryker. “I should have ridden with the gun. Instead, as my wife was being raped and murdered, I was on the range, to see how the summer rains had improved my grass. That is something I will live with forever.”

  “The Apaches are far to the east; how could you expect there would be danger?” Stryker asked. “Wild beasts like Pierce and Dugan are few and, like wolves, seldom encountered.”

  Cantrell nodded. “You speak well, Lieutenant, and I know it comes from the heart. But the sin is mine and words will not wash it away.”

  The trail stubbed its toe on high, broken country and the way south became difficult. Oak and pine forests continually barred the way and deep, brushy arroyos cut across their path. Stryker looked longingly at the scrub desert to the east, mostly flat-riding country, its hazy pink mesas rising like dismasted ghost ships on a shifting yellow sea. But there was little water in the desert and what there was was hidden deep and hard to find. It was a place where determined men might endure, but not horses.

  After two hours, Trimble, again riding point, began to find sign left by the Comanche: two deep cuts in a tree trunk or a couple of rocks laid in the middle of the trail. Thomas had Pierce and Dugan’s scent, and he was following them close.

  The trees thinned again, and Stryker could see half a mile of trail ahead of them. It led through a rocky canyon, then climbed abruptly among scattered juniper and piñon toward a high plateau.

  The flurry of shots came from beyond the table-land. Then there was a lull, followed by several more.

  Trimble came down the slope at a fast canter, drew rein and pointed behind him. “The cornered rats are fighting back, Cap’n. I reckon the Injun is in a world of trouble.”

  Stryker kicked his horse into motion, Birchwood beside him. Followed by Cantrell and his men, he hit the slope at a run and drew rein at the top of the plateau. Level ground stretched away for a hundred yards, then began a gradual descent into a wide forested valley. There the mountains intruded, and a sheer V of raw rock at least sixty feet high jutted into the valley floor. The trail ahead curved around the mountain and then was lost from sight.

  The sound of two more shots crashed headlong into the quiet of the day, followed by a ringing silence.

  Stryker drew his Colt and charged down the incline, the rest thundering after him. He swung around the rock outcropping at a gallop, then found himself in the south end of the valley. Here timber-covered peaks soared skyward on each side, and a mountain drain-off cut across the valley floor. On the far bank of the creek, half hidden by cottonwoods, sprawled a tangle of ancient volcanic rock. Thomas was sitting on one of these,
blood staining the front of his shirt.

  There was no sign of Pierce and Dugan.

  Chapter 37

  Stryker splashed across the creek, flanked by Birchwood and Cantrell. The Mexican had waved his men forward and they’d galloped off to the south with Trimble. But Pierce and Dugan could easily lose themselves in this country and it would be a useless pursuit.

  A bullet had plowed across the Comanche’s left shoulder, near the neck, a bloody wound that had turned the front of his shirt crimson.

  “The two men we hunt were hidden in the rocks,” Thomas said, addressing Stryker. “One of them fired too soon and”—he motioned to his shoulder—“gave me this. I rode into the trees and fired back. They did not wait around long.”

  Cantrell stepped closer to the Indian, his face concerned. “Can you ride, amigo?”

  “Si, patrón,” Thomas answered. “I would ride with more serious wounds than this.”

  He turned away and foraged among the trees for willow leaves and wildflowers. When he returned to the waiting men his shoulder was padded and the bleeding had stopped.

  Thomas looked at the sky, clear blue with no cloud in sight. “Thunder is coming,” he said, “and much rain. There is an abandoned village ten miles to the south and it is my mind that the men we chase could seek shelter there.” He nodded. “Maybe so.”

  A look of horror flashed in Cantrell’s face and he hurriedly crossed himself. “I know that village, Thomas. El Pueblo de la Muerte is a place of evil. We cannot go there.” He looked at Stryker. “It was a plague village, many years ago, and the ghosts of the dead still walk there.”

  “Don Carlos, maybe there are things that scare Pierce and Dugan—I don’t know, but I doubt that ghosts are one of them.”

  “The men we chase will not go to the village, Lieutenant. No one goes there.”

  “They might, if they don’t know its reputation.”

  “My vaqueros are simple men and so superstitious they will ride five miles around a place where a vaquero was struck by lightning. They will not enter the pueblo.” As the Comanche had done, Cantrell looked at the sky. “Besides, there will be no storm.”