“What’s there, a rope?”
“What’s here? We’re done in this part of Sonora, played out.” Jones’s voice was a parched, rasping croak, Carmen’s, too.
They plodded on, the sun rising, a miserable ride in the mounting heat, misery embittered by the knowledge of defeat. The horse couldn’t be pressed too hard. It was already carrying the weight of two. If something should happen to it to cause it to go lame, Black Angus and Carmen would be forced to go afoot in this high desert, paring slim chances down to next to nothing.
A line of low rocky ridges rose in the east. A blur of motion flickered in the corner of Jones’s eye, motion where none should be.
A line of mounted men came into view cresting the ridge, eight or more, neat, compactly made, dusty, copper-skinned men with long black hair astride tough. scrappy little horses.
“What, what is it?” Carmen mumbled, rousing from a drowsy torpor.
“Apaches,” Jones said. That woke Carmen up.
The Apaches must have been some of Victorio’s bucks, Jones reckoned. A raiding party. He turned his horse’s head, pointing it north.
The line of Apaches went north along the ridge, keeping pace with Jones and Carmen on the horse. Jones knew they were being played with because, ordinarily, Apaches never skyline. They’re too trail wise for that. They’re only seen when they want to be seen.
Jones fought to keep calm, to quell the rising panic in him, but what was the point? He found himself kicking the horse in the sides, urging it forward into a lurching run.
The Apaches angled down off the ridge, coming up behind Jones and Carmen. It wasn’t much of a chase, not against that overloaded, exhausted horse. The Apaches prolonged it, stretching it out so as to not to end the fun too soon. They fanned out, yipping, howling.
The horse stumbled over a gopher hole, falling and throwing its riders. It rose on all fours, unharmed, and shakily trotted off, one of the braves riding out to intercept it.
Jones and Carmen struggled to their feet, dazed, swaying, groaning. The Apaches closed in, silent once more.
“What do we do now, Angus, what do we do now?” Carmen babbled.
Jones knew the answer to that one. He’d seen what Apaches do to captives unlucky enough to be taken alive. He drew his gun. Only one bullet was left. He’d forgotten to reload after the fight and there was no time left now.
“Sorry, Carmen,” Black Angus said. He put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger, blowing his brains out. He died smiling, his Devil’s own luck still holding. Under the circumstances, this was triumph.
“Jones, you dirty coward,” Carmen shrieked.
The Apaches formed a ring around her, hemming her in. They sat their horses, faces implacable, eyeing her.
Carmen grabbed the gun from Jones’s dead hand, pointed it at the nearest Apache and pulled the trigger. It clicked on an empty chamber. She kept pulling the trigger, squeezing metallic clicks out of the empty gun.
One of the Apaches barked a laugh, and two or three others smiled. They moved in, the ring closing on Carmen.
TWENTY-THREE
On Monday, September 18, 1880, the convoy of freed girls and their rescuers rode into Tombstone, Arizona.
It rode through town, people rushing out of doors to see, throngs of them lining the street, cheering and shouting. Men waved hats in the air, women fluttering handkerchiefs, kids running around yelling and screeching. More than a few excited citizens fired guns in the air, whooping it up.
It was as if a carnival had come to town, touching off a festive mood of celebration. Wagons and riders turned into Allen Street, rolling to a halt in front of the Hotel Erle.
“Great day in the morning!” Colonel Davenport said. Then he started cheering and shouting louder than anyone else.
The church pastor was there, and members of the ladies auxiliary do-good society, crowding the wagons, ready hands reaching up to help the girls down and into the hotel.
Mrs. Sanderson and Mrs. Whiteside were at the fore—Mrs. Whiteside sobbing with joy, Mrs. Sanderson dabbing at the moist corner of a gimlet eye with the tip of her hankie.
The street was so thick with cheering crowds that there was barely room to move.
Matt Bodine and Sam Two Wolves exchanged glances and rueful smiles, knowing that the happiness of the moment had been bought at the price of the lives of some damned good men and a long trail of corpses of some damned bad ones. A hundred ways to kill, yes, and a thousand ways to die.
“What was it that Fritz Gunther, the undertaker, said? ‘In the midst of death, we are in life,’” Sam quoted.
“I’ll drink to that,” Matt said. “Hell, I’ll drink to anything. I’m thirsty.”
“Lead on, brother,” Sam said.
It was an open bar at the Hotel Erle, Buckskin Frank Leslie and associates setting them up as fast as riotous revelers could slam them down. It was on the house, gratis, with Colonel Davenport buying.
Matt and Sam moved so fast that they even beat Ringo and Curly Bill to the bar, but not Geetus Maggard. Maggard was already there, tossing them back, way ahead of any of the rescue party.
“Nobody can beat that hombre to a free drink,” Matt groused, exasperated, shaking his head.
Sam didn’t answer, he was too busy making the acquaintance of a big tumbler of red whiskey—no chaser.
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Following the death of William W. Johnstone, the Johnstone family is working with a carefully selected writer to organize and complete Mr. Johnstone’s outlines and many unfinished manuscripts to create additional novels in all of his series like The Last Gunfighter, Mountain Man, and Eagles, among others. This novel was inspired by Mr. Johnstone’s superb storytelling.
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Blood Bond 16: A Hundred Ways to Die Page 31