There was water to the south, and goat raisers were spotted across the plain. A short two day ride to the south lay the shack town of Caliente. Logan grimaced at the name. Mexico had a dozen towns with the same name, and as caliente meant hot, the title was fitting.
This Caliente had become home to wanted ruffians unable to recross the border into American territory as well as a small host of Mexican desperadoes. Caliente was a rough town, but if a visitor minded his own business and avoided hard drinking or heavy gambling he could do business and depart with little fear.
In the old days, the scouts had gone often to Caliente, and Logan had been known there. In Caliente he had learned that the Apache called him Dark Shadow, and he had been coldly amused. Josh guessed he could go there to replenish his large canteens, but only if the raiders continued their flight to the south. Until the outlaw turned to fight, Logan intended to stay close on Punto’s trail.
It was nearly two hours before the raiders moved. Logan had checked them from time to time, but the band huddled as if around a campfire far beyond shooting range. Probably making big medicine, Josh figured, and he would be who they were talking about.
Punto went over his plan three times. He had chosen his men carefully, and those most involved were made to repeat exactly what they were to do.
As he laid out the details Punto saw his men’s confidence rise. Spirit returned, and admiring smirks cut dirt lines on their sun blackened faces.
Punto said, "This is a muy mal hombre, amigos. Do not expect that he will walk into your rifle like a donkey coming to com.
"Whoever he is, he has hunted before. He will be as quiet as a panther and as clever as a coyote. He has already shown that he cares nothing for the woman’s life, but I do not believe he will resist the bait we will offer.
"When he comes, he will be as watchful as a hawk, and he will suspect a trap."
A man giggled, and Punto added, "That is right, we will place a trap for him, but it will have sharper jaws than he will expect."
Punto added a final and sobering thought for them to weigh.
"Amigos, one day past we were twenty-one. Now we have fifteen ready to fight. This is a dangerous hombre. We have suffered because we did not know him. Now, we are ready. To the man who kills this devil I will give one hundred dollars in gold."Tongues licked lips because the sura was huge, and a man who had that much gold could live as a hidalgo for many months. Those who would have no chance to shoot wished now that they had been chosen to trap and kill the devil with the terrible gun.
Some of the raiders went to tear down their camp in the thicket. Logan watched carefully as they collapsed tents and rounded up horses. He counted how many went in and what number rode out
The count was the same. Punto may not have left a man in ambush. On the other hand, the cutthroat might have placed a man in hiding and strapped a dummy to an empty saddle. Logan was too far away to tell for sure.
Punto would most likely avoid the mountains and move south, and Logan would follow on the high ground. When he could, he would slip down and kill one or more of the outlaw band. He would whittle away at them until they split or he tired of the game. Then he would execute Punto.
Excellent plans, Logan almost snorted aloud. As if Punto did not have his own schemes to frustrate and eventually kill the gnat that harassed them.
There were also the paralleling mountains across the Zapata. Those mountains were only four miles distant. Punto could reverse the situation by riding into those twisted ridges. Then he would have the high ground, and Logan would have to find him, get within shooting range undetected, make a shot and successfully escape. All would be difficult tasks.
Logan hoped Punto did not choose the other mountains because he was not as familiar with that range. Most of his Apache fighting had been in the hills he now occupied.
On strange terrain his task would be even more hazardous. As long as the raiders stayed in the open, the long Sharps would give him a powerful advantage. Logan smiled grimly. He must remember that Punto knew that and beware of any plans the bandit might conjure to get in close where their ordinary rifles could be put to use.
The raiders had again gathered. The band had drifted a little further away from the thicket and milled about as if uncertain what to do.
Then they peeled away, driving the horse herd ahead, heading south down the again widening valley. Only the girl and one rider remained unmoving. A short distance along the band again halted, and Logan could make out that they were looking back at the motionless rider and their captive.
Logan’s heart sickened. They were going to kill the girl, and he could do nothing. He wished to turn away, but forced himself to watch closely. He recognized the bandit as the one with the hugest sombrero Logan had ever seen. The raider wore the hat against his back hung by its strap around his throat. Logan would remember the man, and if the chance came ...!
Logan saw puffs of smoke from the bandit’s rifle barrel. The man fired and rode a little before shooting again. He fired five times before swinging his rifle in a mocking salute to whoever watched from the mountains and galloped to join his milling comrades.
But the woman lived. Logan saw her moving, and not as if wounded or hurt. She stood, and Logan heard himself exclaim aloud. The big hat bandit had just fired close around her, making believe he was killing. Why? If killing the woman served them in any way, Punto or the others would not have hesitated an instant. For a moment Logan could make no sense of it.
Then he had an answer. Punto believed his enemy would have to care for the girl. If he did not, the woman would quickly die. Without food and nearly naked, she could not last more than a few days.
Logan found himself breathing noisily. Punto had figured it right. Despite his vows, he could not abandon the woman. There she stood, helpless and alone far from her home. Logan could forfeit her life while killing raiders, but he could not ride off and just leave her. Damnation, he could not.
Logan knew how Erni would feel about it. If she was watching from somewhere up there, Erni would insist that he care for the helpless. Vengeance would be far behind in her wishes.
Keeping close watch on the withdrawing raiders, Logan chewed on it, but he knew that he had to help the woman. Julie Smith was more important than another dead bandido.
He would go down and do what he could. Perhaps he could take her to Caliente and leave her until his killing was finished. If he had an extra horse he could start her north on her own. The woman could plod that distance in two long days without any measurable danger. Only he did not have a horse to give. Damnation.
Logan’s manhunter's mind did not take over until he was saddling. He halted, leaning against his horse, letting his mind figure, not liking the directions it was taking.
He put himself in Punto's place. The man was probably taking his raiders to Caliente. There he could rest and have his wounded treated. In a cesspool like Caliente, the girl would have been worth something. Was Punto the type to toss profit aside?
Punto might wish only to drop off his wounded and keep going, but Logan believed the other raiders would insist on hanging about the Caliente dives and sampling their decadent pleasures before moving on. The bandits had been in the field for a long time, and they had money to spend and stories to tell. Punto would have trouble hauling them from their amusements.
If the raiders did settle in to celebrate in Caliente, Logan's side trip to deliver the girl into safe hands would barely delay because he would be back before the outlaws finished in the town. Punto too could see that far ahead, so why then had he abandoned the girl? To taunt his opponent? Simply to get the woman off his hands? No, because Punto would have killed her to enrage and insult his enemy.
Logan found himself wondering about the man called Punto. The bandit was skilled at what he did. Raiding into the United States had once been easy, but not anymore, and Texas Rangers had been known to ignore the border and chase such outlaws as far into old Mexico as it took to bring them
down. So, Punto could plan and successfully execute his plans, and the man was clearly merciless. A dangerous enemy, Logan recognized. One who did not waste and who could think ahead.
Logan again attempted to put himself in Punto's place. The task was easy to do. Logan supposed that in some ways they were much alike. Although his motives were different, Logan killed as easily as Punto, and with as few regrets.
Punto was probably a former soldier. He appeared to be about the right age for Civil War service, and war would account for the disfiguring face wound. Most likely Punto had been a Confederate because few Yankees found cause to flee to Mexico.
What mattered here was that Punto might have learned a lot about military tactics. If he had, Punto would understand ambushes, fake attacks, and pretended withdrawals. He too could lay traps as Logan had, to maneuver an enemy to where he was vulnerable.
Few bandidos had those skills. Most hit and ran. If cornered they fought to the death because they would be hung anyway. They instinctively knew to defend at narrow places and to fight downhill if possible, but sophisticated plans were not encountered.
The Apaches Logan had fought had been more clever. They schemed and dreamed at their fires and learned from honored elders until they became wily and cunning. Punto, Logan began to realize could be like the Apache. Juan of the one eye, who now had a wound, would also be like Logan’s old enemies. Logan began to rethink Punto's abandonment of the captive woman.
If he were Punto, he might place the woman as bait. The plan would be to lure him close, but that meant an ambusher hidden nearby, and Logan had detected nothing. The thicket was too distant to be shot from. Where else? Logan's mind visualized what he had seen.
Perhaps three hundred yards from the girl there was a thick tangle of briars. A rifleman could be hidden there, but the distance to the girl was too far for an ordinary rifle to be certain of its target.
The tangle was the only concealment. Perhaps Punto had hidden a shooter there in the expectation that Logan and the girl would follow the raiders south and that the rifleman could shoot when they passed. Logan was uncomfortable with his reasoning. Too much depended on which way Logan rode with the girl. Punto would want a sure kill.
Completing his loading, Logan lead his animals to the rim. He sat down to consider what he should do.
Far to the south the raiders' dust cloud still moved away. By now they were past the next riding trail down the mountains. Perhaps Punto had placed ambushers there to trap him if he chose that rugged descent to the flat land.
Logan carefully examined the briar tangle with his telescope, but he saw no suspicious lumps or silhouettes. The girl had not moved much, and that seemed odd to Logan, but her mind could be broken, and she could be unaware of her condition. After all she had gone through, Logan could imagine that. Or, the bandits might have told her not to move. Her spirit shattered, the woman might obey. The last option seemed most logical to Josh Logan. Somewhere out there, and not very far out, there was an ambusher waiting as patiently as Job for an enemy to come close to the girl. But where? Logan could see no possibility.
Logan looked again at the raiders' far distant dust plume, now so far there could be no sudden turn around. It was time he went down to help Julie Smith as best he could, and to discover what Punto had waiting for him.
The smart way, Josh decided, would be the Apache way. An ambusher would expect him to come riding down. Instead, he would cat foot it down the cliffs and slide in behind the briar tangle. If there was nothing there, he would look real close at any dips that might be on the desert floor that could somehow hide a marksman. Logan again loosened cinches and dropped the mule’s packs.
He walked along the ridge line searching for an inconspicuous place to go down. Trying to see to the bottom yet not be seen by someone below was laborious, and before he found his route, Logan experienced another insight.
If there was not an ambusher in the tangle, might there be one with his rifle trained on the briars. That would be clever. Punto could have expected his unknown enemy to suspect an ambusher in the tangle and to carefully check before venturing forth on the open ground. Josh liked that. He moved quicker along the ridge until he was well past the briar patch. From directly above, the briars still appeared empty, so Logan might have reasoned a step further than Punto had expected.
Or, he might be acting utterly stupid, and the whole thing was what he had first considered: Punto just used the captive to occupy the enemy while the band made its escape.
Logan traveled with both rifles, his pistol, and his canteen. He carried the Sharps, and would until shooting became short. The Spencer was slung across his back. The pistol was jammed into its clumsy hip holster, but it rode comfortably. The Spencer's ammunition pack was a huge irritation. It bobbed and bumped against Logan's opposite hip at each movement. In this kind of fighting, Logan could not imagine needing a vast number of Spencer rounds, but if he left them behind he could learn to regret it
His descent was down a narrow wash that at times steepened into a slide so vertical that he had to let himself go, and try to balance safely until the gully flattened a little. Stones and loosened gravel clattered noisily to the desert floor, but he believed he had chosen far enough away from a probable ambush site to remain unnoticed.
The descent was exposed to anyone below, and there was no going back up. Logan's nerves stayed tense until he was down. So, he was down, now what?
From almost against the cliff, there was nothing to see. The cliffs bulged and his view of the briar tangle was obscured, but he carefully checked the country in between before moving warily along the edge of the flat land trying to see and to hear everything.
It was rare to sweat in the dry desert heat, but Logan felt moisture on his palms and body. He had not stalked a man in many years, and although the skills seemed as sharp as ever, the tension was exhausting, and it became difficult to keep his concentration focused.
The thought that there was no one there anyway was beguiling, and he had to fight himself to stay careful and to know where he stepped before a foot moved. Time slid by like a swift river, and Logan wondered if the girl still sat in the open slowly cooking in the debilitating heat.
Tobacco smoke! The scent bit at Logan's nostrils and plucked his nerves. He felt himself freeze as his eyes darted. There, just ahead but behind a rock cropping a tendril of exhaled smoke arose. As sure as the earth moved he had been right. Clever was Punto the raider, but this time not cunning enough.
Logan eased his Sharps to the ground and unslung the Spencer. This would be close and fast. Could he assume there was only one ambusher? There was no sign of a horse, so he had no clue. He heard no conversation, but if Punto had left a pair of ambushers, Logan would kill them both.
Logan's final approach was surprisingly easy. The rock was smooth and hard, worn clean by a thousand years of sand blown erosion. He crossed swiftly, his moccasins noiseless on the stone.
Rifle already aiming, Logan stepped around the outcrop. A single ambusher rested on one elbow his cigarette dangling, and a long barreled gun nearby. The man started as if snake bitten, but he had no chance, and Logan gave no quarter. He held on the bandido's chest and sent his bullet home. The Spencer bullet expanded as it entered, and exiting behind the body it took bits of destroyed heart with it.
Logan spared the corpse only a rapid glance. The man was dead and there were no signs that he had a partner. Logan swung his attention to the briar patch. If he had come down on the patch from above, the raider would have shot him as he passed. The range was so close he could not have missed.
But was the tangle itself occupied? Logan sat on the dead man's chest and studied the undergrowth. There was no one there. Logan stood and stretched tension from his shoulders. His body ached as if he had run for miles. Damn, he was getting old.
The question was, where was the ambusher's horse? Without an extra horse he could not send the girl home. There had to be a horse. No one walked in the Mexican desert un
less he was too poor for even a burro.
Logan decided by elimination. If Punto's enemy did not come down the path he had scrambled up after the camp ambush, he would probably come down the next trail to the south. Punto might have sent someone to guard the next horse trail that came down the mountain.
Punto would suspect that his enemy had his own horse, because, just as Josh believed there had to be a riding animal for the ambusher, so would Punto know that there was one for his enemy on the mountain.
Logan guessed it might be three miles to the next path. Perhaps that was too far for his shot to have been heard.
Instinctively Logan's eyes swung south, and there he came. A rider trailing two horses. One for his dead comrade and another for the girl.
So, it had not been too far to hear. Not nearly three miles that was certain, or perhaps the rider coming in had been only a horse holder waiting out of sight for something to happen.
The raider coming on strong believed that his partner had killed their enemy. Logan snatched the dead Mexican's hat, and staying low, waved it in what he hoped looked like enthusiastic excitement. An answering wave was accompanied by a distant whoop.
Damn, the man had gotten close. If he had possessed the caution of an experienced warrior he would have come in quietly and carefully until he was sure what had happened. If he had, he would have caught stupid old Josh Logan looking the other way.
Logan pulled the hat low and stayed down himself. When he rose up, the horses were being pulled to a stop, and the rider's face was wide with a pleased grin.
Logan took only enough time to see the grin fail and to register that the horse handler was barely more than a youth. The Spencer's bullet struck the young raider in the face and his hat flew straight up. The body fell with a foot caught in a stirrup. The horse reared and swung away. Logan hurried to capture reins before the startled animals could flee. He got one trailed animal's long rein, but the rider's mount and the last horse raced away with the flopping and bounding body driving them wild.
Dark Shadow Page 9