Franklin’s eyes clouded, and his expression sobered as he thought of his partners. “No ... we weren’t lucky. We worked hard, damn hard. Every day for more than a year, rain or shine, we were diggin’ an’ movin’ rocks and dirt and panning every stream we could find ’fore we finally hit pay dirt.”
“What happened after you met the miners?” Falcon asked, hoping to change the subject.
“Like I said, I’d been doin’ some thinkin’ on that long walk down the mountain. Frank an’ Johnny and Billy an’ me go way back.” He cut tortured eyes toward Falcon. “We fought in the war together when we wasn’t no more’n pups. Anyhow, wasn’t no way I was gonna take the gold all of us dug outta that mountain and go to Tombstone and live the high life after what happened to my friends.”
He stopped, his voice choking, and reached over to stir the fire with a long branch for a moment, silent tears glistening in the firelight on his cheeks.
“So, I gave those miners enough dust to see ’em through the winter in exchange for that bronc over there, a rifle, a couple of pistols, and some ammunition. Then I went back to our camp and gathered up that sack full of dynamite and followed you boys on up the trail.”
Hawk grunted, throwing his butt in the fire. “So you want to hunt Indians, huh?”
“No, Mr. Hawkins. I want to kill Indians.”
“You know how to use that hogleg on your hip?” Falcon asked.
Franklin shrugged. “I can usually hit what I aim at, though I ain’t no fast draw.”
Hawk looked over at Falcon. “Another gun or two wouldn’t hurt nothin’.”
“Yeah,” Falcon answered. “And that dynamite’ll come in handy, too.”
He looked up as a few heavy snowflakes began to fall, dancing like fireflies in the light of the campfire.
“You boys better bundle up. Looks like it’s going to get a mite cold tonight. I’ll take the first watch,” Falcon said, wrapping his furlined coat tight around his shoulders and edging closer to the fire.
* * *
The next morning, with hoarfrost covering the ground, the three men packed their horses and got ready to ride.
“We’ll go in single file, about fifty yards apart, with Hawk leading the way,” Falcon said. “That way, if we come upon an ambush, maybe they’ll only be able to get one of us.”
“You think that’s likely?” Franklin asked.
Falcon shrugged. “Who knows? Apaches seem to know when someone’s on their back trail. I wouldn’t be surprised if Naiche didn’t leave a few braves behind to make sure no one follows him to their camp.”
“So, we make as little noise as possible, an’ we ride with our guns loose,” Hawk added, jacking a shell into the Henry he carried slung across his saddle horn.
“Gentlemen,” Franklin said as he swung into the saddle, “you’ve made my day.”
Falcon smiled as he climbed on Diablo. “The Chinese have a saying, Franklin. When you start out on the revenge trail, dig two graves ... one for your enemy, and one for yourself.”
“I prefer the bible version,” Hawk added, pointing to the scalp locks hanging from his horse’s mane. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, an’ a scalp for a scalp.”
Chapter 17
It was a small group of covered wagons, only five, with half a dozen men and boys on horses serving as outriders flanking the oxen and mules pulling the wagons. A few women wearing sunbonnets and heavy woolen dresses walked beside or behind the larger rear wagon wheels in a cloud of chalky dust.
Naiche watched from a high rocky outcrop, taking note of a man with long silver hair, dressed in buckskins, riding out in front of the wagon train.
He spoke to Chokole sitting beside him on her pony. “The old one is their guide, taking them west to build a new village where more white men will come to settle and build their houses of mud. We have all seen these groups of wagons, and they stop near water to build their villages and claim the land for themselves. The old man is showing them the way.”
“The old one is very watchful,” Chokole said. “He looked at this mountain for a long time, even though we are far away. He may have Spirit powers telling him that we are here.”
Naiche grunted. “White men do not hear Spirit voices. They do not know where we are hidden, or that we are watching them from this place.”
“Do you think we should attack now?” Chokole asked.
Naiche looked far beyond the wagons to a narrow pass through the Dragoons where the wagons must travel. “No,” he answered. “We wait for them at the pass, hiding high among the rocks. Then, we will kill them all.”
Chokole looked north. “Toza has not returned to tell us if the soldiers are coming.”
Naiche was not worried. “The bluecoats move slowly, and they stop often to rest. There will be plenty of time to kill the white-eyes in those wagons and ride back to our camp with whatever we take from them. The mules will give us meat. The oxen will be old and tough, and the meat will not taste as sweet as the mules.”
“Perhaps we should wait for Toza,” Chokole warned.
Naiche ignored her. “Tell the others to mount. We ride around the wagons and take our hiding places above the pass. There will be no soldiers for many suns. Their Pawnee scouts drink the white man’s crazy water, and they see nothing. Now is the time to strike.”
Naiche and Chokole left their lookout spot on the side of the mountain to enter a twisting arroyo where the other Apaches waited with the horses.
Chokole told the young warriors of Naiche’s plan as she was mounting her horse. Naiche swung aboard the back of a stolen army horse and swung south, leading the others down from one winding ravine to the next, angling southwest to move around the slow wagon train in time to prepare their ambush.
The Apaches rode single-file, and as they began a wide circle around the wagons, each warrior carefully loaded his Winchester and pistols.
* * *
Jasper Meeks didn’t like the smell of things. Although he hadn’t seen an Indian, he could almost feel their presence close by. After years of scouting for General Crook and Phil Sheridan he had a sixth sense when it came to the close proximity of an Indian war party.
He spat tobacco juice over his right shoulder and spoke to Billy Clements. “We’s gonna have to move through that tight pass up yonder, Billy, an’ that’d sure as hell be the right spot fer an’ Injun ambush.”
“But it’s the only way through these terrible mountains,” Billy protested.
Jasper wagged his head. “There’s other ways around, only it’ll take a few extra days to swing so far north.”
“I say we drive through the pass,” Billy replied. “We have two sick women down with the fever, and we simply must get them to the closest doctor.”
Jasper shrugged. “Fever won’t matter much if they get shot dead movin’ through that tight spot, but it’s up to you. You’re doin’ the payin’, and I’m only givin’ you my advice on that sort of thing.”
“Do you really think Apaches would attack so many of us?” he asked.
“If there’s enough of ’em.”
Billy seemed undecided for a moment. “I say the risk is worth taking. Doris Taylor is very ill, and so is Miz Roberts. We need to get them medical attention as soon as possible. Take us through the pass, Mr. Meeks.”
Jasper spat again and gave the rocky peaks ahead of them a closer look. He could all but smell the presence of Indians close at hand. “Tell all your menfolk to git their rifles out an’ loaded. Just in case.”
Billy swung his horse away to inform the other outriders of Jasper’s warning.
* * *
The first volley of gunfire from the top of the pass sent Jasper diving off his horse to the ground with his rifle. His red roan gelding was spooked by the noises and took off up the pass at a gallop, leaving Jasper afoot.
He belly-crawled to a spot behind a slab of limestone fallen from the rim and kept his head down, waiting, listening to the sounds.
Men were cryi
ng out in pain. Women shrieked, and children cried out for their mothers. A wounded horse fell not far from the rocks where Jasper was hiding, a bullet hole though its shoulder. The pounding of rifles filled the pass with a wall of noise.
A team of oxen bellowed, and one collapsed in its yoke with blood pumping from a hole in its side. A screaming woman ran a few paces toward one of the wagons when a bullet struck her down, turning her pale blue blouse into a patchwork of crimson stains and faded fabric.
Billy Clements was shot off his horse, with a bullet through his neck. He landed hard, choking, trying to yell a warning to the women and children.
A slender boy of eight or nine, one of the Taylor twins, raced toward the back of a wagon when a .44 caliber rifle slug lifted him off his feet, spinning him around with his arms outstretched until he landed on his back with blood pooling around him.
Jasper had tried to warn Billy Clements and the others, but no one would listen. They were farm families, defenseless, knowing almost nothing about guns or how to fight Indians.
Jasper had only one thing on his mind ... getting out alive, somehow.
A slug ricochetted off the rock where he was hiding, singing off harmlessly down the pass. Jasper eyed his escape route, a way to move up the pass to fetch his horse if he stayed close behind the shelter of fallen boulders.
Crawling, moving only a few feet at a time, he moved from rock to rock, leaving the settlers to fend for themselves. He felt no remorse for leaving them behind. He’d tried to warn them and no one would listen.
The clap of exploding gunpowder came from both sides of the pass. Jasper continued to crawl, worming his way as far from the wagons as possible.
He spotted his roan less than a hundred yards up the pass where it had stopped, ears pricked forward, listening to the guns and the bellowing of wounded animals.
“If only that damn roan will stay still,” he whispered as he crept onward as quickly as he dared.
“Help us, Mr. Meeks!” a voice cried behind him. The voice belonged to Luther Taylor.
“I warned you,” he said to himself, still moving steadily but carefully toward his red roan gelding.
“Where are you, Mr. Meeks?” the same voice asked, shrill amid the banging of guns.
For a moment Jasper felt a touch of shame, abandoning these helpless people like he was, but he aimed to get out of this pass with his hair at any cost.
“Help us—” The crack of a rifle silenced Luther Taylor forever.
Jasper took a terrible risk. He came to a crouch with his rifle cradled in one arm and took off in an awkward run, staying as low as he could.
A gun roared from the top of the pass and a slug plowed up a spit of sand and dirt near his feet. He dove behind a rock and lay there, panting, collecting himself.
He glanced back down the pass and saw a sight he fully expected. Apache warriors were already running between the wagons with bloody knives, slicing off every scalp they could find.
Jasper jumped up again and took off in a zigzag run toward his gelding, praying that the Indians were distracted with their scalping just long enough for him to reach his mount. Once he was aboard his roan, he’d challenge these Indians to a horse race.
He made it to his roan just in the nick of time, for suddenly two rifles began firing at him from the rim of the pass. He swung over his saddle and gathered his reins, drumming his heels into the gelding’s sides.
His horse was eager to escape the exploding guns and ran as hard as it could across rough ground, pounding out a rhythm with its hooves.
Jasper risked a glance over his shoulder, and what he saw made the short hairs on the back of his neck prickle.
An Indian mounted on a pinto pony was charging up the pass close on his heels. The warrior had a rifle to his shoulder as though taking aim, but Jasper Meeks knew a thing or two about shooting from the back of a moving horse. He quickly brought his Winchester up, turning back in the saddle, aiming carefully.
The Indian’s rifle popped. The whisper of hot lead brushed close to Jasper’s left cheek.
He took his time, steadying the muzzle of his rifle until he was certain of his target. Then he gently squeezed the trigger as his horse carried him headlong toward the west end of the pass where the ground was level.
The rifle slammed into his shoulder, and a young Apache went flying off the back of the pinto, flinging his rifle away to grab a wound in his chest.
“Gotcha,” Jasper growled, levering the empty cartridge casing out, sending another into the firing chamber just in case more Apaches were following him.
His roan reached the end of the pass, and Jasper found himself in open desert country. The red roan was a thoroughbred cross he’d purchased from the army a few years back, and it had plenty of speed and stamina.
“Come git me, you red bastards!” he cried, turning his horse north to head for Fort Thomas.
To Jasper’s surprise no more Indians were following him, and after a quarter mile of hard galloping, he slowed his roan down to a short lope.
Still watchful, he pushed toward Tombstone and Fort Thomas to inform the post commander of the ambush. One thing he was sure of... none of the settlers accompanying Billy Clements to California would make the journey. All of them would be dead by now.
He celebrated silently that he had escaped a close call and not lost his scalp. Reaching into his saddlebags, he pulled out a bottle of red-eye whiskey and took a healthy swallow while his horse loped toward Tombstone.
Jasper Meeks prided himself on being a survivor. This had not been his first close scrape with death at the hands of a tribe of warlike Indians. The settlers had paid dearly for ignoring his advice.
Chapter 18
Naiche stood near the spring, well beyond the wickiups, to watch Isa and the others ride into the mountain valley. Word had come from a lookout that more than a dozen of the People were climbing the secret Apache trail into the Dragoons with over forty horses and mules Naiche smiled inwardly. More warriors were coming to join them in the war against the white men. Soon his people would be free.
Chokole waited beside him, and she spoke softly when the first of the riders came down a narrow game trail leading to the valley floor. “Look, Naiche! The horses are loaded with bundles of many-shoot rifles.”
Naiche noticed several of the braves with Isa were wearing bloody, torn uniform coats of the soldiers around their shoulders. “It is Isa who leads them. He has won a great victory against the bluecoats and taken their weapons and horses. We are much stronger now.”
“Yes. And I see old Nana with them. He is wise, and a brave fighter.”
“We must send word to Geronimo in Mexico. He will be pleased.”
“Now we can strike the white settlement south of the town the white men call Tombstone.”
Naiche said nothing as Isa galloped his horse away from the line of warriors. He rode up to Naiche and gave the sign of friendship before he jumped to the ground.
“We have killed more than forty of the bluecoats,” Isa began. “And we took rifles from the locked room at the stinking fort, along with many horses and bullets. See how many warriors have come to join you? I bring all this to you, Chief Naiche, so we may begin war against the white-eyes.”
“It is good,” Naiche said, seeing so many bundles of the repeating rifles tied across the empty saddles of the soldiers’ horses.
“We took many scalps,” Isa continued. “We killed all the bluecoat soldiers who followed us, and have brought their guns, bullets, and food, along with the horses. More warriors will slip away from the reservation when they hear of our great victory.”
The fat cavalry horses would carry them swiftly to the white settlement, Naiche thought, and with repeating rifles they could wipe out the entire group of white settlers quickly. “You are a brave warrior, Isa,” Naiche said. “You will tell the others of your victory at a council fire tonight. We have roasted mule meat, and bags of flour and sugar. Tonight, the People will celebrate the courag
e of you and your warriors.”
“We bring many rifles, more than seventy, and pistols taken from the dead soldiers who followed us. There are boxes of bullets, so many I could not count them, along with bags of the bluecoat soldiers’ strange food. Some of it has a terrible taste, but no more of our women or children will be starving, as they did at the stinking fort. It has been a good day for the People. The spirits smiled on us.”
Naiche frowned, thinking of the days ahead. “More soldiers will come. We have also drawn the blood of the white-eyes by attacking a group of the wagons that bring the settlers like locusts to destroy our land. The war with them will be long, and many of the People will die. But the spirits are with us now, and we will drive the whites from our homeland forever.”
Nana and the other warriors led dozens of horses and mules loaded with rifles past the spot where Naiche, Chokole, and Isa stood. Nana looked at Naiche and gave the sign for a brave heart in battle. Then he rode toward the wickiups where the women and children were gathered at the spring pool to watch the arrival of Isa’s war party.
Chokole spoke. “All the warriors must be trained in the use of many-shoot rifles ... how to load and fire them. Tonight, at the council fire, we must begin their training.”
Naiche agreed with a silent nod. “There is little time before more soldiers are sent to follow your tracks, Isa. We must be ready to strike the settlement near Tombstone in two or three suns.”
“We will be ready,” Isa said. “Most of the warriors who followed me know the ways of the new rifles. Only the youngest have not learned how to use them.”
“I will instruct them,” Chokole promised. “With these guns our warriors will have the strength of five times their number. I will give each warrior a rifle and a box of bullets before we gather at the council fire.”
* * *
The rhythmic beat of deerskin drums accompanied chants coming from the dancers circling the fire. Warriors sat on the ground, Apache-fashion, each holding a Winchester rifle, as Chokole instructed them in the loading of bullets into the cartridge tube through a metal loading gate.
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