After a bit, Heber said, hope in his eyes, “Do you think that’s what happened?”
McBride shook his head. “No. I don’t think that’s what happened.”
Bear jumped at the chance to talk. “Heber, if we’d been Indians you’d be dead by now. You don’t walk out in front of Apaches and say, ‘Halt, who goes there?’ That’s a sure way to lose your hair.”
“Bear’s right,” McBride said. “Conrad, you’d better get up the hill with the rest.”
The German looked relieved, then concerned. “But Herr McKay—”
“I’ll talk to McKay. Get going. We’ll follow you.”
McBride and Bear rode after Heber to the base of the hill. Channing came down to meet them. He had shed his gambler’s finery and was wearing boots, canvas pants and a ragged checked mackinaw. He was wearing two guns in crossed belts.
“Glad to see you back, McBride,” he said. “See any Apaches?”
“Saw their sign. They’re around.”
“We heard shooting just after sunup. It came from the south.”
“I know, Heber told me. I guess the Apaches tangled with the Rangers.”
McBride’s eyes scanned the hill. “Your men in position?”
“Yeah. I’ve told them we’ll fall back to the Elliot house if the Indians look like they’re taking the hill.”
Bear leaned forward in the saddle and asked, “It’s cold and getting colder, Channing. Will they stick?”
“I reckon. They’ve got nowhere else to go.”
McBride turned to the old man. “We’ll put up our horses, and then I want to check on the El Coyote Azul.” He looked at Channing. “My ladies here?”
The gambler shook his head. “I woke them, but they haven’t showed yet. Neither has Mrs. Whitehead.”
“I’ll round them up.”
McBride swung away from the hill and dismounted outside the cantina. Followed by Bear he stepped inside. To his surprise the place was warm and he smelled bacon frying.
Bear grinned. “Breakfast!”
He walked into the kitchen and appeared a couple of minutes later, carrying a coffeepot, cups and a platter piled high with thick sandwiches of bacon and sourdough bread. “The little gals say they knew we’d come back hungry. When they saw us ride in, they got out the fry pan.”
McBride took a chair, picked up a sandwich and nodded in the direction of the kitchen. “After you eat, tell them to get up the hill with the others.”
“I will, John, but they won’t do it. They reckon it’s better to be an Apache’s squaw than get all shot to pieces on the hill. And they’re right. An Apache is right partial to a gal with plenty of meat on her bones—proves he’s a great hunter.” Bear grinned. “Partial to a fat gal my ownself.”
“Then at least we can get Mrs. Whitehead up there.”
“Maybe. But she doesn’t want to leave her husband’s body. I don’t think she’ll go.”
As McBride had learned, eating was a serious business in the West where food was hard to come by and restaurants were few and far between. He and Bear ate in dedicated silence and afterward McBride used the tip of a forefinger to pick up the last of the bacon and bread crumbs.
“Bear, tell the ladies thanks for the grub and tell them I wish they’d change their mind about staying.”
“I will, John, but—”
Bear stopped, listening to the thud of hooves and jangling of harness outside in the street. A wizened, scarred old man who moved like a cougar, he rose to his feet, picking up his rifle. “Trouble, I think,” he said.
“The Rentzins?”
“Could be.”
No, McBride’s mind protested, it’s too soon, way too soon.
He got to his feet, put some distance between him and Bear and waited. If they rushed the door, he could drop several of them and make it more difficult for the others to get inside.
The curtain pushed aside…and a huge man wearing a long fur coat and wide sombrero stepped inside. He grinned like an amiable alligator. “John McBride, my good friend, it is I, Angel Guerrero, come to visit you at last.”
Chapter 31
Six other men piled in behind Guerrero, one of them Papan Morales, his hands very close to his guns. The man was looking at McBride with hard eyes, his mouth creased in an I-told-you-so grin.
“There is a little matter we have to discuss, Mr. McBride,” Guerrero said. “It is called the angel’s share.” He spread his hands. “It is a small matter, I know, but one I hold very dear.” He smiled, his teeth white under his thin mustache. “I will take my hundred dollars now and trouble you no more. Well, no more until a few weeks have passed.”
Out of the corner of his eyes McBride saw that Bear was tense and ready. But if it came down to it, this would be a gunfight they could not win. Desperately, he clutched at a straw.
“Guerrero, help us fight the Apaches who are threatening to attack this town and then we’ll talk about the money.”
“Ah, yes, the Apaches,” Guerrero said. “Their leader is Goyathlay. He is a great warrior, mighty in battle, and he is my good friend. Alas, his wife and children were killed when soldiers attacked their ranchería. Now my friend thirsts for revenge against the blancos. All this he told me.”
The bandit’s black eyes crawled over McBride’s face. “Mr. McBride, you know Papan who stands near me, my good right arm. He wants to kill you very badly. But last night I prayed for guidance and this very morning I told him, ‘No Papan, violence is not the way. McBride will pay me my money and then we will ride on in peace.’” His head turned to Morales. “Papan, my friend, were those not my words?”
“Sí, you said those words to me this morning.”
Bear, looking agitated, could not contain himself. “Guerrero, if the Apaches kill us all, there will be no more angel’s share. Suicide will be gone.”
“This is very true, old man,” Guerrero said. “But I saw your riflemen on the hill. Perhaps you will win the fight and our business arrangement will go on as before.”
“Not without your help it won’t,” McBride said.
“That cannot be. I am a friend of the Mescalero. You see, at heart I am a simple trader. I supply the Apache with rifles and ammunition and sometimes mescal, and they pay me in good Mexican gold coins. They are my friends as you are my friend, McBride. Angel Guerrero does not kill his good friends.”
Morales said, “Pay us our money, McBride. It is your rent for this fine cantina and our due.”
“He speaks the truth, McBride,” Guerrero said. “You must pay your rent. It is the honorable thing.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then Papan will kill you. Or I will. Later I will regret killing a friend, but what must be done, must be done.”
McBride’s back was to the wall. He didn’t have a hundred dollars and saw no way out. Guerrero now had ten men behind him and they were as eager for the kill as wolves stalking a wounded elk. In the narrow confines of the cantina no one would miss and McBride knew he and Bear were tiptoeing very close to death.
Then he had a flash of inspiration. Even as the thought hit him, he realized it was a desperation play, the last roll of the dice, but it was all he had.
He hung his head, his voice strained. “Angel Guerrero, my friend, I have lied to you. I gave your money to another bandit. He is a fearsome man and says he is taking over this territory. He told me I must pay him for his protection. I was very afraid and I said, ‘But the hundred dollars belongs to Angel Guerrero.’ But this man, he would not listen. He took the money and told me, ‘When I see this Guerrero I will send him to join the angels, with a bullet in his belly.’”
An angry muttering went through the bandits and Guerrero looked outraged. “Who is this man?”
“His name is Ransom Rentzin,” McBride said, trembling, playing his role to the hilt. “He rides with his two brothers and a dozen other bandits. They are all hard, determined men and wish to take what is rightfully yours.”
“Where can I
find this thief?” Guerrero demanded, his black eyes glittering.
“He is camped to the west of here. He has a wagon, drawn by mules, to carry the loot he plans to take from Suicide—and from you.”
McBride uneasily shifted his feet. He knew he was dangling a hook in front of Guerrero, a hook without a worm. Would the man go for it?
The bandit took a step toward McBride and grabbed him by the front of his coat. “I will go find this man, Rentzin, and kill him. But if you are lying to me, McBride, if there is no such man, I will turn you over to my Apache friends. You will scream for a bullet until your throat bursts, but they will not listen. They will laugh and torment you all the more. McBride, my good friend, it will take you a long time to die, I think.” Guerrero shook his head. “Oh, a very long time.”
“I do not lie. Ride to the west—you will find him as I told you.” McBride hung his head again, and the bandit asked suspiciously, “Is there more? Something you have not told me?”
“I can’t say it. You are my friend.”
“Say it or I’ll cut out your tongue and you’ll never speak again.”
McBride trembled again. “He says you are the son of a two-peso whore and that you were spawned in a brothel in Hermosillo by a one-legged—”
“Enough!” Guerrero screamed. He drew his gun and waved it under McBride’s nose. “If you are lying to me about what he said about my sainted mother…”
“I told you I did not want to repeat what Rentzin told me.”
The bandit stood in silence for a few moments, staring hard at McBride. Then he turned to his men. “We ride to the west, muchachos. I have a man to kill.”
Guerrero’s men crowded out of the cantina, but their leader stood for a moment in the doorway, staring back at McBride. “If you have lied to me, you will curse the day you were born.”
“Good luck, my friend,” McBride said, trying to look pious. “I will pray for you.”
After a final, hard look, Guerrero stalked outside and McBride waited until he heard the pounding hooves of departing riders before he flopped, completely used up, into a chair. He realized his hands were shaking for real and green butterflies chased each other around his belly.
Bear’s eyes were on him, hard and calculating. “John, all you can do now is hope Guerrero and the Rentzins wipe each other out.”
McBride shook his head. “That’s unlikely. All I’ve done is bought us a few more hours of life. Instead of dying now, we die later. The end result is the same.”
The curtain parted and Dave Channing stepped inside. “I saw Angel Guerrero ride away. Did you pay him his money like everybody else in this town does?”
“No, at least not yet.” Briefly, McBride told Channing how Bear had seen the Rentzins west of town. Then he said, “I sent Guerrero after the brothers, fed him a story that they planned on taking over his protection racket. With a lot of luck, maybe they’ll kill each other.”
Channing smiled. “Angel Guerrero is a hard man to kill.”
“I need a man like him. I thought he might help us fight the Apaches,” McBride said. “I was wrong about that.”
“He’s half Apache himself,” Channing said. “Gets on just fine with Indians. He’s raided into Mexico with the Apaches and a couple of years back he helped the Comanche wipe out a company of U.S. infantry on the Staked Plains. Guerrero won’t help us fight Indians.”
McBride rose to his feet. “Bear, maybe you and Dave can try again to convince the ladies to come with us. Then round up Mrs. Whitehead. I’ll stable the horses and join you both on the hill.”
McBride forked the horses a generous amount of hay and all the oats that were left. He stepped beside the mustang and patted its neck.
“If I don’t see you again, it’s been real nice knowing you.” He smiled. “And I didn’t mean what I said about punching you in the head.”
The ugly little horse munched on oats, its nose to the ground. McBride walked to the stable door and turned. The mustang was watching him. He waved a hand and the horse looked at him steadily for a moment, then lowered its head and went back to eating.
As horses went, the mouse-colored mustang wasn’t much, but McBride felt he was taking leave of an old friend forever.
Thirty minutes later, in a driving sleet storm, the Apaches attacked.
Chapter 32
It was Dave Channing who saw the Apaches first. “McBride!” he yelled. “They’re coming!”
McBride left the cover of the rocks where he’d been crouched and made his way to the gambler.
“Down the hill to the left about fifty feet,” Channing said. “Behind that dead juniper you see there.”
Bear was suddenly and silently at McBride’s side. “They won’t rush us,” he whispered. “Apaches are too savvy for that. They’ll pick us off one by one and try to wear us down.”
An Apache showed himself for a split second at the white base of the juniper. Bear raised his Henry and fired. The bullet chipped wood from the trunk of the tree, but the Indian was gone.
“You got him!” a man yelled. It was McKay. He was farther up the hill, concealed in a shallow gully overgrown with sagebrush. Above him, around the base of the rock shaped like a flatiron, were Heber and Kaleen.
“Hell no, I didn’t,” Bear growled. “I missed him clean.”
The sleet was being driven by a west wind, spattering into the faces of the defenders on the hill. Low black clouds hung motionless in the sky, spreading an ashen light that made it difficult to see, turning the Apaches into fleeting shadows.
Heber and Kaleen began firing at darting, bobbing figures that never stayed in sight for more than a second. Both men yelled, claiming hits that didn’t exist, their bullets chipping rock and rattling through brush where an Apache had been but was no longer.
Heber, a large target, fired, fired again, then rose to his feet, pumping his rifle above his head. “I winged another one!”
A bullet chopped into the meaty part of his left shoulder, spraying blood, and he yelped in pain and surprise. The German ducked down at the base of the rock and was quiet for a long time.
Channing fired his Colts slowly, taking his time. He did not boast of hits, but his shooting helped keep the Apaches from getting closer.
McKay and Kaleen were also firing, too fast, unsure of their targets. Bear swore loud and long, then said to McBride, “I’m going up there. Tell them boys you don’t shoot when there’s nothing to shoot at.”
Crouching low, the old scout climbed the hill. Soon afterward the fire from McKay and Kaleen slowed.
McBride took a snap shot with his .38 at heavy brush cover that might conceal an Apache. He was rewarded by a shriek, then the noise of a man making his way back down the muddy hillside.
He turned and glanced up at the Elliot house. The window of the turret room was open, but no one was shooting. It seemed that Allison and Moses did not care to join in the fight.
He turned to face the enemy again and instantly realized that his single, quick glance may have cost him his life. He saw the blur of a painted face, blue headband and upraised lance. The Apache was less than twenty feet away, running toward him, screaming his hate. McBride tried to get to his feet, slipped on mud and fell on his haunches. He raised his revolver. The Indian was right on top of him, the eight-inch-long iron blade of his lance gleaming in the gray light. McBride fired and the Apache’s left eye disappeared in a burst of scarlet.
The lance head buried itself in the dirt inches from McBride’s chest, and the Apache fell heavily on top of him. The man’s blood splashed over his face and he cried out in disgust and fear.
McBride rolled the Indian off him, aware that Channing was standing, his legs spread, both Colts hammering. He saw an Apache start to go down, then another. Wounded in both legs, the Apache dropped to his knees, bringing his Sharps to his shoulder. Channing shot the man in the head and the Indian screamed and fell flat on his face.
As quickly as the wild rush had begun, it was over. Rifle
fire forced Channing to take cover and McBride crawled to his side. “Good shooting, Dave,” he said.
The man nodded, his lips tight and grim. “Thanks. It’s been a while.”
The Apaches had been burned. They had lost three men and now they settled down to sniping at the men among the rocks. McKay was burned by a bullet and Kaleen had his rifle stock shattered.
Then Heber was killed.
The big German was moving to another position lower down the hill when he was hit. His head was shattered by a heavy bullet and he dropped without a sound.
Bear saw it and yelled to McBride, “John, up here!”
McBride turned to Channing, aware that the man occupied the most exposed position. “Will you be all right alone?”
The gambler nodded. “If the Apaches get any closer, I’ll hightail it up the hill.”
“Good luck,” McBride said.
He crawled higher, attracting shots, but he reached Bear unharmed. “Heber is dead,” the old scout told him.
McBride took the loss hard. Heber had showed himself to be game enough and they could ill afford to lose him. “I’ll get Channing up here,” he said.
A bullet hit a rock near Bear and spat stinging chips into the old scout’s cheek. He put fingers to the wound, looked at the blood without interest, then said, “The Apaches didn’t kill Heber. He was shot in the back of the head”—Bear nodded toward the Elliot house—“from up there.”
McBride felt ice in his belly. “Are you sure?”
“Saw smoke drift from the high-up window. The wind carried it away pretty quick, but it was there all right.”
The shot had come from the turret room.
Bear was talking again. “John, somebody in the house is bent on killing white men.”
McBride was torn. He had to get into the house, but that would leave only five men to defend the hill, a couple of them wounded. So far they’d managed to keep the hostiles at bay…but if they came all at once…
Bear saw his concern and read him correctly. “John, we’re caught in a cross fire. We can’t hold out for long against those odds. Somebody has to get into the house and silence that rifleman.”
Shadow of the Gun Page 18