Flintlock

by William W. Johnstone

  “Tell Geronimo I’m serious,” he said to the warrior. “I’m not playing around here. I want to cut a deal on Fort Defiance, not his damned prisoners.”

  Geronimo heard this and understood, but his weather-worn face showed not the slightest trace of emotion.

  After a few moments’ thought, he said in the English he’d only recently mastered, “We will talk. But remember this . . . I hold your lives in my hand.”

  Pagg didn’t scare worth a damn, but he knew his life was on the line.

  It was a time for some slick, and fast, talking.

  Only Geronimo and the warrior with the fancy vest sat by the fire. Both kept their Springfield rifles close across their thighs.

  Pagg had offered them coffee, which they’d accepted, and whiskey, which they’d refused.

  After talking for ten minutes, Asa Pagg said, “So it comes down to this, Geronimo: You attack with your warriors and we’ll be inside taking care of as many defenders as we can.”

  “I do not understand this, taking care,” Geronimo said.

  “Kill. I mean we’ll attack from their rear and kill defenders. It will make your task easy.”

  “Battle is never easy,” Geronimo said.

  “Well, as easy as we can make it.”

  The Apache’s black eyes shifted to Dean and Harte and lingered on them for long moments. He seemed to be satisfied with what he saw.

  “Why do you turn on your own kind like a ravenous wolf?” Geronimo said.

  Pagg had been called worse and he smiled as he told the Apache about the pay wagon, then said, “We can share the money if you want, Geronimo.”

  “Gold and silver?”

  “Yeah, and a lot of it.”

  “We use gold and silver to decorate our weapons and make necklaces for our women,” Geronimo said. “Pah, you can keep your gold and silver.”

  “Then remember what I told you earlier,” Pagg said. “You’ll take many horses and many guns, and women too, if you want them.” He smiled again, trying to make himself seem sincere. “And with our help you can burn Fort Defiance to the ground.”

  Geronimo sat in deep thought, head bowed, until Pagg became convinced he’d never talk again. But then the Apache looked up and said, “Pagg, you are a snake, a wild beast who kills its own kind, and to make a treaty with such as you hurts my heart. But I have thought of this and I know I must do what is best for the Apache.”

  Now Pagg was eager. “Then you agree? When will you attack?”

  “Before the soldiers bring in our women and children. If I wait longer, there will be too many soldiers at the fort. Yet, I will wait awhile until more young men join me.”

  “Damnit, so when? Give me a time, Geronimo.”

  “I will wait five days.”

  “But I need a time of day, morning, noon or night? How will I know when your attack is coming?”

  “You will know.”

  Geronimo rose stiffly to his feet, a man pained by old wounds.

  “There is a full moon in five days. Expect me when it rises.”

  “I thought Apaches didn’t fight at night.”

  “The full moon makes the night as day.”

  Pagg stuck out his hand. “Well, put it there . . . pardner.”

  Geronimo ignored the gesture and he and his warrior walked back toward the brush. Then Geronimo stopped, nodded in the direction of the soldier’s body and said, “Bury your dead, Asa Pagg.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  With the help of Captain Gibbs’s cavalrymen, Flintlock and Roper buried Elliot and Cole, and the captain himself said the words over the shallow graves.

  It had rained the whole morning and by the time they returned to the trading post everybody had mud on their boots.

  “How is she?” Flintlock asked Chastity Gauley.

  “Still the same,” the man said. “Cleaner and prettier dressed, but the same. She won’t talk and she won’t eat.”

  “Well, she ain’t gonna get any better,” Abe Roper said. “That’s for damn sure.”

  “She will. In time,” Flintlock said. “She’s young and that will help.”

  “She’s a crazy woman and she ain’t worth it. Leave her here, Sam’l,” Roper said.

  “Damnit, Abe, I said no and I mean no.”

  “Easy, Sammy,” Roper said. “Don’t get mad at a man who knows better’n you do. It ain’t his fault.”

  Flintlock opened his mouth to speak, but Captain Gibbs stepped beside him, saluted and said, “We’re pulling out, gentlemen. Thank you for caring for the madwoman so well.”

  “We’re taking her with us, Captain,” Flintlock said. “We’ve decided we can’t leave her here.”

  “Yes. Well, do whatever you think is best.” A trooper brought the officer his horse and he mounted.

  Gibbs seemed to think about something, then he bent down to Flintlock from the saddle and said quietly, “Regarding your throat, Mr. Flintlock, doctors learned so much during the war that they do wonders nowadays with disfigurements. I strongly urge you to contact a physician and ask him what modern medicine can do for you.”

  “I’ll sure keep it in mind,” Flintlock said.

  “Well, the best of luck to you,” Gibbs said.

  He swung his horse around and joined his departing column, galloping past the Apache captives who were even more weak and miserable than they’d been a day earlier.

  Roper watched the man leave, then said, “Does it trouble you that much, Sam’l?”

  “What?”

  “You know what. The big bird on your throat.”

  “It troubles me some, some of the time.”

  “Folks who know you look past it.”

  “What about folks who don’t know me?”

  “Then you have a problem.”

  “A doc would have to skin me,” Flintlock said.

  Roper nodded. “Seems like.”

  “Then the bird stays where it is.”

  Jack Coffin walked toward them through the rain, his hair hanging lank and wet across his shoulders. He led his horse.

  “Time you boys saddled up,” he said. He looked around him. “Where’s the Chinaman?”

  “He’s here somewhere,” Roper said.

  “Better tell him,” Coffin said.

  “We’re taking the girl with us,” Flintlock said.

  Coffin said only, “She got a hoss?”

  “She’ll ride double with me,” Flintlock said.

  The Apaches, in common with all other Indians, had no concept of insanity as a stigma, nor did they have a word for a crazy person. The closest they came was “someone who makes me laugh” or “a person who can’t be reasoned with.”

  Coffin, raised by the Apache, accepted the presence of the madwoman without further question.

  “Tell her we’re leaving, Samuel,” was all he said.

  Charlie Fong’s horse was gone, and of the man himself there was no sign. A search of the area around the post by Flintlock and the others turned up nothing.

  “Has he wandered off before, Abe?” Flintlock said.

  “No. Not like this.”

  “Maybe he left with the soldiers,” Coffin said.

  “Charlie’s his own man,” Roper said. “He’d have told us if he planned on doing that.”

  “Do we search for him, or go on?” Coffin said.

  “This is wild country,” Flintlock said. “He could be anywhere.”

  Roper vented his frustration. “Damned Chinaman,” he said. “I could never tell what he was thinking.”

  “I say we go on and find the golden bell,” Coffin said. “He will catch up if that’s what he wishes.”

  “Sam’l, what do you think?” Roper said.

  “I agree with Coffin.”

  “Hey, I just remembered that Charlie has the map,” Roper said.

  “Then he wants the bell for himself, maybe so,” Coffin said.

  “No matter.” Roper tapped the side of his head. “I got the map here.”

 
“Then we go on?” Coffin said.

  “Yeah, we go on,” Roper said. He looked at Flintlock. “Sammy, since you’re so all-fired determined to take the madwoman with us, I’ll carry the grub sack, make more room for you.”

  “True-blue of you, Abe,” Flintlock said, smiling.

  But Roper wasn’t listening. He stared off into distance.

  “Where the hell is that damned Chinaman?” he said.

  “You’re coming with us,” Flintlock said to the girl.

  She smiled at him, but made no response, her eyes vague.

  “You look real pretty this morning,” Flintlock said.

  The girl remained silent.

  “Hell, I’ve got to call you something,” Flintlock said. “Can you tell me your name?”

  After a few moments of quiet, he said, “All right, then I’ll call you Ayasha. It’s a Cheyenne name and it means ‘Little One.’” Flintlock smiled and said, “Because that’s what you are, Ayasha, just a little one. Do you like that?”

  The girl stared at Flintlock for a long time, then she reached out and touched his throat. “Bird,” she said.

  “Yeah, it’s a bird,” Flintlock said. “Ayasha, we’ll have you talking again real soon, huh? Bird is a real good start.”

  Roper stepped into the post. “Sam’l, we got to ride,” he said. “Save your pretties for later.”

  “Soon as I find a slicker for Ayasha, we’ll go.”

  “Who the hell is Ayasha?” Roper said. “You haven’t found another crazy female?”

  Flintlock grinned and put his hand on the girl’s shoulder. “No, she’s Ayasha. In Cheyenne it means ‘Little One.’”

  “Oh yeah? Well you tell Ayasha she ain’t getting a cut of the golden bell. Not even a little one.”

  “You’re all heart, Abe,” Flintlock said.

  “I know. I’ve always been too softhearted for me own good. It’ll be my downfall one day.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  “So, it’s all set,” Asa Pagg said. “The full moon is in five, no four days now, and that’s when Geronimo will attack.”

  “And us?” Captain Owen Shaw said.

  Strain showed on him and made him look older than he was.

  “Us? Hell, you know the answer to that. We’ll hit the defenders from the rear. It will be all over in a few minutes.”

  “I’ll take no part in the killing, Asa. I won’t shoot my own soldiers.”

  Pagg’s face stiffened. “So what will you do? Sit back and then take your share of the payroll?”

  “Maybe I’ve decided I want no part of it,” Shaw said. “It was a bad idea to begin with and now the Apaches are involved, it’s gone from bad to worse. I don’t like it.”

  “Like I told you before, Shaw, you’re in too deep to back out now.” Pagg watched uncertainty waver in Shaw’s eyes. “You’ll deploy your men badly, set them up for Geronimo. That way you don’t have to dirty your hands with direct killing. Savvy?”

  “It’s wrong, Asa,” Shaw said. “Something about the whole plan is wrong. For starters, Major Grove will deploy the men, not me.”

  “Then I’ll gun the major first. It don’t make any difference to me.”

  “Nor me,” Logan Dean said. “I never shot me a major before.”

  “Hell, I ain’t never even shot a private,” Joe Harte said.

  “You’ll get to shoot all the privates you want in a few days,” Pagg said. Then, his eyes like flint, “Maybe even a captain.”

  “If I go down, so do you, Asa,” Shaw said. “Don’t ever forget that. We could swing from the same gallows.”

  “I know you’re threatening me, Shaw, but I’m not catching your drift.”

  “A few days ago I sent a letter to my sister in Boston, to be opened only on the notification of my death,” Shaw said. “It’s all there, Asa, enough to hang you.”

  Pagg looked out the window of the captain’s quarters to the parade ground. The flag hung listless in the humidity that followed the rain and a cavalry trooper walked a bay horse back and forth.

  “Got it all laid out, huh, Captain Shaw?” Pagg said without turning his head.

  “I like guarantees,” Shaw said.

  Now Pagg turned. “Here’s my guarantee, Shaw . . . if you try to cross me on this payroll deal I’ll kill you, letter or no.” He rose to his feet, the butts of his guns showing under his armpits. “Now, do you catch my drift?”

  Joe Harte normally stayed out of Pagg’s discussions. He reckoned he was paid for his gun, not his opinions. But now he said, “Hell, Cap’n, you sound like an old maid trying to hold on to her virginity at the devil’s hootenanny. You tied in with us and now you got thirty thousand dollars at stake, enough to keep you on easy street for the rest of your life.”

  Harte stabbed his finger at Shaw. “It’s too late to play coy.”

  “That much money will ease your guilty conscience pretty damn quick,” Dean said.

  Pagg grinned. “Hell, my boys say it better than me, Captain.”

  After a few moments, Shaw said, “I guess I’m already in too deep to back out now.”

  “Damn right,” Pagg said.

  “But once we split up the money, I never want to see any of your ugly faces for the rest of my life. Is that clear?”

  “Clear as ever was, Captain,” Pagg said. “You stated how you feel straight up an’ honest and true. There’s no doubt about that, says I.”

  “And if anything happens to me, say, when it comes to the sharing, don’t forget the letter I sent,” Shaw said.

  “I ain’t likely to forget,” Pagg said. “But you got no worries on that score. Share and share alike is the deal, and I’ll stick to it like stink to a skunk’s tail.”

  “I still won’t do the killing,” Shaw said.

  “Hell, me and my boys and Geronimo will do the killing. Just put those soldier boys in harm’s way and in a few days your pockets will be stuffed with double eagles.”

  “Blood money,” Shaw said, his eyes bleak.

  “Yeah, the best kind,” Pagg said.

  Asa Pagg smelled his salt pork sandwich, made a face and let it drop to his plate. He looked around the mess hall and said to the dozen soldiers who’d lingered after lunch, “How the hell do you boys eat this crap?”

  A cavalry corporal with a beard as long as Pagg’s said, “After a while you get used to it, mister. The first ten years are the worst.”

  Pagg picked bread crumbs out of his beard. “Hell, I’d never get used to it.”

  “If you don’t like the food, don’t eat it,” hovered on the tip of a young trooper’s tongue. But when he looked into Pagg’s eyes and saw black iron staring back at him, he changed his mind and lapsed into silence.

  “As to your question, Logan,” Pagg whispered, “we need him until the fort is taken and we roll out of here with the payroll.”

  “All right, Asa, why?” Harte said. “We can kill him tonight and stash his body where it will never be found.”

  “That will come later,” Pagg said. “Now listen to this . . . you know who’s in Boston town, don’t you?”

  Harte shook his head and Dean said, “I dunno.”

  “Bill Blood, that’s who. Good ol’ Scarface Billy Blood as ever was.”

  “I haven’t seen Billy in years,” Harte said. “I thought he was in New York City.”

  “Nah, a while back he cut up a feller that turned out to be some politician’s grandson and had to skip town with the law breathing down his neck,” Pagg said. “He ended up in Boston town and he’s prospering. There ain’t a ship leaves the harbor that the owner hasn’t paid Billy to keep the longshoremen in line.”

  “Billy’s a heller, as good a man with the blade as ever I knew,” Dean said. “It was him that cut Sand Baker from nose to navel, remember that, Asa? Ol’ Sand died with his guts spilling out all over the floor of the Alamo saloon in El Paso.”

  “Aye, and Sand was fast with the iron,” Pagg said. “He put a few lively lads in the grave.”
/>
  “Yeah, but Billy was faster with the steel,” Dean said.

  Harte smiled. “He was a rum one, was ol’ Billy Blood.”

  Pagg leaned across the table and dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Now listen up, both of you. Here’s what I want you boys to do . . . scout around and get a name and address for Shaw’s sister. Drop some money on the clerks if you have to, but I want that address by tonight.”

  Dean grinned. “I get it. Captain Shaw ain’t the only one who can write letters.”

  “Damn right, Logan,” Pagg said. “I’ll write to ol’ Billy this very night and drop it in the soldiers’ mail. Billy will do the rest. He owes me some favors, like.”

  “Will your letter get to him in time, Asa?” Harte said.

  “Sure it will. Because the way we’ll deal with Shaw, it will be a while afore his stinking carcass is found. By then Billy Blood will have cut up the sister and whoever else was with her and grabbed that damned letter.”

  “Suppose he can’t find it, Asa?” Harte said. “The letter, I mean.”

  “Billy will find it. He’s got a nose like a bloodhound for stuff like that.”

  Pagg sat back in his chair and sighed. “Ah, good ol’ Scarface Billy Blood. He’s gold dust, boys, gold dust, and he never forgets them as done him a favor. No, not Billy.”

  “Good with the blade is Billy,” Dean said again. “He can gut a grown man from crotch to chin quicker’n scat. Or a woman, come to that.”

  “A real talent,” Pagg allowed. “Billy’s knife hand’s got talons as thick as my wrist.” He nodded toward the door. “Now you boys go get me that name and address. Time’s a-wastin’ when there’s cuttin’ to be done.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Jack Coffin led the way north, his eyes constantly scanning the foothills of the rugged Carrizo peaks for any suggestion of a hidden cave.

  After three hours of riding, he’d found nothing.

  The rain had stopped thirty minutes before and now the clouds parted and heat shimmered in the distance.

  Around the riders lay the Red Rock Valley, a lost, lonely land of mesas and tall, tormented spires of sandstone that rose from the brush desert floor and echoed with a strange, unearthly silence.