The Vengeance of Ender Smith

by Tony Masero

  THE VENGEANCE OF

  ENDER SMITH

  TONY MASERO

  Cover Illustration: Tony Masero

  A Hand Painted Western

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews. Publishers Note: This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and events other than historical are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to real person, places, or events is coincidental.

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright © 2012 Tony Masero

  Chapter One

  A hot sirocco wind was blowing from the south. Those in the canyon below were protected from the blast, it was only the men on the canyon rim that suffered the effects of the searing wind. Even so, they sat still and unmoving, as steady as the stones around them.

  Ender Smith cradled the Colt coach shotgun in his crooked arm and watched the woman below as she left the cover of the wickiup. It was a crude affair, an old army tent and gunnysacks thrown over cottonwood saplings and the woman left it innocently enough, without a glace around as she made her way down through the scattered cottonwoods and a field of lupine and brittlebush to fetch water from the creek.

  It was early and the sun was showing gold above the lip of the canyon, warming the backs of the three patient watchers despite the wind. The woman below still moved in purple shadow but even from his high viewpoint amongst the rocks Ender could see she was quite a beauty. She stood tall for an Apache woman, about five foot eight and moved with a slender grace as she navigated the slope down to the water with two canteens slung over her arm.

  Common Dog was a fool. He had come back to the reservation only a month after the killing and now Ender knew why. It was the woman that had drawn him back. Must be, he thought, if I had a woman looking like that I’d risk it too. He guessed the renegade had sought to hide out in this canyon and spend some quality time with the woman but he did not know that word had reached the fort of his return from one of the reservation tale-telling ‘Confidential Indians’ Major Bowmont kept in his pocket.

  That was when they had called in Ender.

  He was part-time Agency lawman on the reservation and for the rest of the time was either scouting for the military out of Fort Bowie or farming on his shared ranch with his partner Gale Hunnicut. As a man raised by the Apache, Ender was a natural choice, he spoke their tongue and they trusted him.

  He could not recall his real name, he had been taken by the Apache when he was around four or five years old as near as he could figure. They had called him En-da, ‘White Boy’. So when an army lieutenant had seen him as a young man amongst a band of Bedonkohe Apache coming in to trade at Fort Bowie they had pulled him out from the tribe and introduced him to white civilization by Anglicizing his name and adding a common enough surname.

  It had not been a pleasant experience amongst the whites at first and it had taken time for Ender to adjust. He could remember little of his childhood before the Apache and it had left him living in a middle world between the two civilizations. Not that it bothered him too much subsequently; it was just how it was.

  Peyote moved behind him, a barely perceptible movement of his moccasin boot on the dirt, the query was clear. Ender made a slight negative shake of his head. It was not time yet.

  It would have been easy for Peyote to reach out and touch his arm they were so close on the ledge but the Indian didn’t do that. Familiarity of that kind bordered on something of an unnatural sexual approach for the Apache Indians and so Ender understood why the Indian gestured with movement alone.

  Peyote and Sanza were his favored companions on this task, two of the fort’s Apache scouts and reservation police, both of them trustworthy Indians and loyal to Ender. They had worked together, off and on for the best part of two years and it had proved to be a successful team.

  All three had coated their faces with red ochre. Not as war paint but as protection against the sun and hot wind and the Indians looked a wild pair with the paint and their combination of worn woolen army blouses, loincloths and tribal accouterments.

  Ender was in his thirty-fifth year and carried a bushy mustache under his nose and a few days of growth on his chin. A serious-faced man, his eyes were his most striking feature, a blue so pale it appeared gray and was prone to harden to the quality of granite when he was troubled or intense.

  He wore mostly white man’s clothing, a wide-brimmed flat-topped Sears and Roebuck ‘Boss of the Plains’ hat, with some fancy bead trim. A white, ninety-five cent collarless calico shirt and a dark vest over it with his badge of office pinned out of sight on the breast of his shirt. The square-cut shirttails hung out over his pants and were held in place by an ammunition belt and a leather holster carrying his six-shot single action Colt.

  But he still wore his comfortable moccasins, as he could never get the hang of the heeled boots of the whites. Peyote had cut them for him as he stood on a strip of rawhide back at the reservation and the Apache had sliced the outline of his foot with a sharp knife, leaving just enough at the toe to raise the sole up when sewn, as an added protection against stones and sharp thorns. Finally, Peyote’s woman had hand-stitched them, making the soft buckskin uppers long enough to cover his knees if the going was rough but just now he kept them rolled down below the knee.

  The woman in the hollow below had filled the canteens and she climbed back up to the tented cover where, after a few minutes, smoke began to issue from the smoke-hole in the roof. Common Dog would be up and about now.

  Ender nodded and the two Indians behind slipped away back from the canyon edge, Ender followed them and once they were clear they began a climb down on foot to bring themselves unseen around to the canyon entrance.

  “Look where this idiot has made his camp,” Peyote whispered in Ender’s ear. “In a box canyon with no escape.”

  “Who is the woman?” Ender asked.

  “Aiee! She is a beauty, no? You have eyes for her, En-da?”

  Ender gave him a warning glance of admonishment and said nothing in answer.

  Peyote shrugged. “She is of the Chokonen, an unmarried relative of Sigesh, Goyathlay’s wife, I think. They call her, Catowitch, Horse’s Tail. It is the way she walks,” he swished his hand from side to side in example of Catowitch’s swaying movements.

  Related to Geronimo’s wife, thought Ender, then she comes of good stock. She certainly looked it, he considered, still not able to get her graceful movements out of his mind.

  They came to the entrance of the box canyon, where sunlight was now bright on a slope of alkali dust and loose stone leading up to a heap of fallen boulders that bordered each side of the steep canyon walls. The wind was tearing thin veils of the dust in long rivers along the ground and they moved up the slope feeling the harsh wind blowing grit against their skin. Ender motioned to Sanza to move off to the right and without a word the Indian obeyed, clutching his rifle before him. He would spot for them with the Spencer and give covering fire from higher up above the encampment.

  Ender and Peyote made their way into the canyon leaving behind the heat of the rising sun and entering the cooler air within but at last they were free of the infernal wind. They could smell the brush fire as Catowitch prepared breakfast for the two in the camp. Walking three feet apart the two approached the hut.

  “It smells good,” murmured Peyote. “Choddi. It gives me an appetite.”

  Ender nodded, it did smell good, his stomach was empty and the scent of roasting deer meat on the fresh m
orning air made his mouth water.

  When they were twenty feet away on the edge of the clearing before the wickiup, Ender stopped and called out, his voice sharp in the silence.

  “Common Dog! Get out here. I am En-da of the Bedonkohe, policeman for the reservation and have come to arrest you for the murder of the rancher last month.”

  The rag sacking covering the hut entrance was thrown back and the half-naked figure of Common Dog burst out, a Colt in his hand. His face was a wild grimace of anger and he raised the weapon without preamble, pointing it at Ender and pulling the trigger.

  Ender looked down the dark hole of the barrel in surprise, he had not expected the Indian to try and make a hopeless stand of it. Common Dog was known to be reckless but still considered to be mostly reasonable by many at the reservation.

  Ender was cursing himself and preparing for a long walk into eternity when he thankfully heard the hammer click down on a dud.

  Common Dog snarled in disgust at the misfire and quickly thumbed back the hammer for a second try. A pistol shot rang out loudly next to Ender’s shoulder and with a scream; Common Dog tumbled over and fell into the sorry looking hut behind him. The woman inside screamed simultaneously as one side of the structure collapsed inwards under Common Dog’s weight.

  The noise of the pistol’s explosion rang in Ender’s ear and its receding sound echoed back from the canyon walls on either side.

  He nodded a rueful thanks to Peyote as he waggled a finger in his near deafened ear and the two moved towards the thrashing Indian who was clutching at his blood soaked side and moaning in pain.

  “You are slow this morning, brother,” Peyote criticized Ender, tucking the smoking Army Colt back in his service holster and leisurely kicking Common Dog’s fallen weapon out of reach.

  “And you are slicker than a greased gopher even though you near took my ear off,” grinned Ender.

  As they reached the crumpled tent, the woman rushed out, her eyes wild and staring. She held a butcher knife in her hand and stopped suddenly as her gaze met Ender’s. She froze, the knife held high. The two stared at each other for a long moment and Peyote’s hand was already going back to his Colt when Catowitch slowly lowered the blade and let it drop it to the dust.

  Peyote allowed himself a slight smile of understanding as he saw the moment of pause between the two, and then he brushed past the woman to see to the fallen Indian. Ender dragged his eyes away from the woman, who still stood proudly watching him.

  “How is he?” he asked.

  “He will live,” said Peyote, rolling Common Dog over and easing the clutching hand away from the bloody wound.

  Ender turned to the canyon wall and raised his shotgun above his head as a sign that Sanza should come in. He turned back to the woman. “You are his wife?” he asked.

  She took her time answering, then drew herself up and shook her head. “Sister,” was all she said.

  Ender was confused, the look that had passed between them had spun a thousand troubling questions into his mind. It spoke of something outside the normal meeting of two people. Her youthful beauty struck him again. Tall, with long, center-parted black hair around an oval face with even features that held a slight frown as if, she too, was troubled by thoughts of a similar nature to his. She wore a short-sleeved over shirt of striped cloth above a full length skirt and there were necklaces at her throat. A tiny row of gleaming quartz crystal and another of small chalchihuitls. On her wrists silver amulets, studded with galena stones. He had to admit, she looked a damned fine picture of a woman alright.

  “You have cloth, woman?” asked Peyote. “We must bind his wound.”

  As if dragging herself away from a daze, she started and quickly went into the partially collapsed tent, returning with her brother’s shirt and a canteen. Ripping the sleeve from the shirt, she knelt and began to dress his wound.

  “Why did you come back, Common Dog? It was a foolish move,” asked Ender, standing over the wounded man and looking with casual interest at the ripped gash in his side where the lead had bored into the soft flesh of his waist.

  Common Dog grimaced, clenching his teeth as Catowitch dabbed at the wound and he stared at Ender with hate filled eyes but he said nothing.

  “He came for our mother,” Catowitch explained. “She is sick and near death, she would see her only son one time before she left us.”

  “Sorry to hear it,” said Ender. “But we have to take him in, you realize that?”

  “The white man took cattle from him,” Catowitch began, justifying Common Dog’s earlier murderous actions. “He would have killed him. My brother acted in self defense.”

  Ender nodded as Sanza arrived behind him, coming at the trot with their ponies in tow. “It’ll come out at the trial, he’ll be treated fair.”

  “He will not!” she said angrily. “The man was kin of the one called Able Quinlan. He is too powerful. This will mean my brother’s death if you bring him in.”

  Ender had not placed the connection when he had heard the victim was Jed Quinlan. But all the urgency back at the fort made sense now. Able Quinlan was a powerful man alright, he held one hundred and thirty thousand acres of graze land and it was covered with vast herds of cattle and horse that either made their way to the army on contract or to the slaughterhouses up north. He was supposed to supply the reservation with beef but it was always the thinnest and most sickly creatures that arrived and often as not they were late in coming.

  Quinlan’s connections were far reaching and Ender knew it. Politicians in Washington, governors and wealthy investors all visited his fortress-like ranch. Knowing this, he too did not give much hope for Common Dog’s chances if he were to be truthful about it.

  Chapter Two

  They built a travois from cut branches of cottonwood and stretched the old tent across it as a bed for Common Dog. With Catowitch riding her pony, they set off heading back to the fort.

  Ender told the two Apaches to scout each flank and they both headed out a half a mile or so in parallel. It was a dusty, hot ride as the sun climbed higher and Catowitch gave frequent glances at her brother lying feverishly tossing on the travois. The bullet was still in there and although not immediately life threatening it would need the doctor at the fort to remove it.

  They entered a long strip of bare desert land, low mounds rising on each side, the path before them broad and wide and reflecting the sun’s hot rays from pale crystalline sand in the simmering heat.

  “He is burning up,” Catowitch complained.

  Ender plodded on without answer.

  Catowitch swirled her pony angrily and circled the travois, her glances staring daggers at Enders.

  “You have no heart, white man,” she spat.

  Ender kept his gaze fixed ahead and the lead rope from the travois pony firmly in his hand.

  “Can you not speak?” she asked.

  Ender ignored her, there was still enough Apache left in him to discount such feminine concerns.

  Catowitch brought her pony around and blocked his path. “Would you have your prisoner arrive dead?” she shouted.

  Ender made to move around her. “He will not die,” he said.

  “He needs shade,” she insisted. “Give him your hat.”

  “Then what shall I do for shade?”

  “You are not wounded.”

  “But that is no thanks to Common Dog.”

  Catowitch laced her pony backwards and forwards in Ender’s path. “You whites!” she snapped. “You are merciless. You have no souls.”

  She was beginning to irritate Ender and he fixed her with his eyes for the first time. “I see you, Catowitch,” he said. “Know that my skin is white but my heart is Apache. My name is En-da of the Bedonkohe and amongst my people a woman knows her place and keeps still and her mouth shut before men and warriors.”

  “You are no Apache,” she retaliated. “You are just a mongrel dog whose feet are in two camps.”

  Suddenly, over her shoulder before th
em, Ender saw distant figures coming, the outlines wavering in the heat haze. From the corner of his eye he noticed Peyote and Sanza riding in fast.

  “Be quiet, we have company,” snapped Ender and Catowitch looked over her shoulder at the approaching riders.

  “Who are they?” she asked, her frown deepening.

  Peyote drew up his pony alongside in a flurry of dust and jerked his chin in the direction of the oncoming riders. “You see them?”

  Ender nodded as Sanza rode in on his other side. “They are whites,” he supplied.

  “From the fort?” asked Ender.

  “No,” answered Sanza. “I do not know them.”

  Passing her the line, Ender said to Catowitch, “Take the lead rope and get behind us with your brother,” recognizing the possible danger she obeyed quickly and without question. “Leave space between us,” he told the two Indians on either side of him and they moved apart.

  Ender lifted the shotgun from its scabbard beside his saddle and laid it across his lap.

  The riders were becoming clearer now and Ender could see that it was two men coming straight at them. One with a small curly-brimmed bowler hat on his head and a long slicker that flapped about his legs as he rode, the other was a Mexican with a wide sombrero and silver buttoned charro pants.

  They came on fast leaving a long trailing cloud of dust behind them.

  “You the one called Ender Smith?” asked the bowler hat as the two pulled up across their path.

  “I am,” said Ender. “Who’re you?”

  “Name’s Cyrus Land, this here is Rodrigo Cruzes,” he pointed a casual thumb in the Mexican’s direction. “We’ve been sent on by Mister Quinlan. Word is out you’re after that renegade and dammit, I see you’ve already caught him.” He jerked his chin in the direction of the travois.

  He was a small-headed man under the brim of his bowler, his face gaunt and unshaven with a scar on his cheek that twisted his upper lip into a disdainful curl. With the long, flapping slicker and small head there was an almost scarecrow appearance to the man.