Apache Sundown

by Jory Sherman

  “No,” Trask said. “I don’t want no light showin’.”

  Rawlins grumbled, but took up a position next to a front window where he would stand watch.

  Ferguson pointed to Jaime Elizondo and Fidel Gonzalez. “You two stand first watch,” he said. “I’ll relieve you, Jaime, in three hours.”

  Jaime nodded and stood at another window.

  Gonzalez took up a position at the back window.

  “Can somebody go back out there and get our bedrolls?” Lou Grissom said. Nobody answered. “I’ll go, then. Who all wants their bedrolls?”

  Everyone answered in the affirmative.

  “Take me two trips, likely,” Grissom said. “You bunch of yellow-bellied cowards.”

  Some of the men laughed.

  He want out into the rain and closed the door behind him without being asked.

  “Too bad we lost that soldier, O’Hara,” Ferguson said to Trask. “And I reckon that Cody kilt Cavins and Deets.”

  “Looks like,” Trask said. “We don’t need O’Hara. I’ve got the maps he marked up for us. We can find Cochise’s gold without him.”

  “You think he marked the maps right, Ben?”

  “Why not? Hiram, you worry too damned much.”

  “I worry that those maps might take us right into a trap.”

  “What makes you think that?” It was turning cold, and Trask shook with a sudden chill.

  “I do not trust a soldier to tell the truth to an enemy,” Hiram said. “They are trained to lie.”

  “Maps don’t lie. We know Cochise has a camp somewhere on those maps. We will find him. We will find the damned gold.”

  “We have lost many men. Cavins and Deets, probably. That shooting back there. They were guarding the lieutenant and now they are not here. And two men dead in this adobe. What about the others?”

  “What others?” Trask said.

  “The men I had in the other old shacks up the road.”

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Take it easy, Hiram. Worry don’t get you nowhere. It gets you a damned bellyache.”

  “I bet that Cody killed all my men on this old road. And we need them if we’re going up against the Apache.”

  “We have enough,” Trask said. “If I quit every time the horse bucked, I’d never get anywhere.”

  “You’re stubborn,” Ferguson said. “Stubborn as a dadgummed army mule.”

  “Can we smoke, boss?” Rawlins said.

  “No. No lights. And no talkin’ from here on.”

  “Hell, who’s gonna hear us talk in this racket?” Rawlins said, referring to the rain slapping the adobe and the rumble of thunder, which was almost constant.

  Rawlins couldn’t see the glare that flared in Trask’s eyes, but he could feel something burn on his cheek and knew Trask was looking at him. He shifted the weight on his feet and said nothing as he turned back to stare out the window at the slashing rain that beat at the door with an erratic, windblown tattoo.

  Trask admitted to himself that he was stubborn, but he gave the trait credit for keeping him alive all these years. The West was a savage place, more dangerous than the eastern settlements with their governors and laws. The wildness suited him, though. He often wondered if there was something in the water of a mountain stream that made his blood run hot when he was chasing a man down to rob him, or a man was chasing him. Ever since he had killed Cody’s father, robbed him of his gold, he knew that he was a savage man at heart, and he exulted in that knowledge, as he exulted in the savagery of the West itself. In some ways, he admired the red man because an Indian lived by his wits, often with nothing more than a war club, a bow, and arrows. He had no use for them as people but admired the hot blood that ran in their veins. He had taken his share of scalps just so he would know what it felt like, and the feeling he got from taking a life was like a drink of the strongest whiskey mixed with the blackest, hottest, strongest coffee. The feeling burned all through him at such times, and it lingered in his memory like banked coals, always there, basking, glowing, ready to take flame from breath or the wave of a hand.

  Lightning danced in the dark sky, dashing their faces with phosphorous. Strikes landed close by and the air smelled of sulfur. With each whip crack of sound, the thunder boomed and the adobe seemed to shake with the fury of the storm. The rain fell faster and harder, and the wind whipped and surged with a powerful energy that blew rain through every crack. Each gust made the drops sound like lead pellets hitting the adobe clay like birdshot.

  Rawlins shouted above the roar. “Listen.”

  They all heard it, and some of the men crowded to the window. Trask stood on tiptoes to look out, while Ferguson struggled to see through the mass of men.

  The sound was eerie, far off at first, but all recognized it for what it was.

  A river was roaring down the road like a locomotive on a downhill run. A mighty sound of water, a wall of water, clogged their ears and struck fear deep into their bowels.

  Ferguson swore.

  The rushing water muffled his oath and swallowed it up as the flood burst into view. The sound became deafening as tons of water flowed over the road and surged up the slope toward the adobe.

  Maybe, Trask thought, the flash flood would catch Cody out in the open and drown him like a rat.

  At the same time, he prayed that the water would not rise up to the roof and burst through the windows and door, suffocating them under a deluge of adobe mud.

  Chapter 8

  Zak had to ride to the end of the small butte and around it, then head back up the road to the spot where he had rescued O’Hara. Lightning lit his way, the jagged streaks some distance away but moving closer. He counted off the seconds it took for the sound of thunder to reach him. Six miles, he judged, from the last brilliant burst of lightning until the first thunderclap resounded in his ears.

  One slow second of time equaled a mile in distance that the sound traveled. Six seconds, six miles. Not much time, he thought, to encircle the butte, get a rifle and scabbard, ammunition, whatever else he could find that would help him arm O’Hara and feed them all for what promised to be a long and tiring journey.

  As he rounded the end of the hill, Zak worried about the storm passing over him and breaking over hard ground that sloped down the road. A flash flood could wash over him, Colleen, O’Hara, and the two soldiers, perhaps drowning them all.

  A bolt of lightning speared the ground five hundred yards ahead of him. In the brilliant dazzle, Zak saw a curtain of rain that shimmered like a silver curtain. The thunder followed a second later, and he knew the massive black clouds were going to dump gallons of rain on him before he got to his destination. He touched spurs to Nox’s flanks and put the horse into a trot, hoping the animal would not step into a gopher hole and break its leg.

  Just before he reached the place where he would turn and head for the road, a gust of wind nearly blew him out of the saddle. It was a straight-line wind that dashed him with gallons of water, so much that he had to hold his breath and breathe through his nose. Then the gust turned into a gale that pressed against his chest and bowed Nox’s head.

  He rode into the brunt of the lashing front edge of the storm. Out in the open, the wind hit him full force. The rain stung his face with a thousand sharp needles, battered the brim of his hat, spattered against his slicker like steady rounds of grapeshot. Nox fought against the wind, moving his head from side to side, his neck bowed, his eyes barely open, hooded to avoid the stings.

  Zak turned the corner of the hill, and Nox wanted to turn tail and head the other way to keep the wind at his rump. He urged the horse on. They found the road, which was already awash, and turned east. Now he had the wind at his back, but there was dangerous lightning all around and Nox was a handful, fighting against instinct and common sense under the annoying dig of his spurs in both flanks. The wind howled up the road, channeled on both sides by high rocky ground.

  “Come on, Nox, old boy. Stay with me, son,” Zak said
, leaning over the pommel, his voice carrying to the horse’s ears. He patted Nox’s neck to reassure him. “We both could use a good dry barn or a stable.”

  The darkness was deep, and only the lightning lit their way to the place where Zak had used his pistol against Trask’s men. He kept looking for a loose horse, hoping at least one was still there and not galloping off to high ground seeking shelter.

  Water began to wash rocks and dirt down the slopes. Zak could hear the flow of water, the clack of rocks against one another, the rushing sound the liquid made as it coursed downhill. He knew the danger. If there were any large rocks above him, they could be dislodged and start a small avalanche, or even just crash into him, smashing him and Nox to the ground, perhaps breaking their bones. He stayed to the center of the road, peering into the blackness, scanning both sides at every sizzle of light from the electrified sky.

  At last he saw a dark shape off to his right. He caught just a bare glimpse of something large enough to be a horse and his heart soared in his chest.

  “Almost there, Nox,” Zak said, and patted his horse’s withers.

  Another bolt of lightning touched off more thunder and more rain, but he saw the horse, its butt to the wind, its head hanging down, unaware of his presence. Rain had slicked its hide, and when the lightning struck the hilltop off to his right, the light sorrel looked like a metal sculpture, frozen for a moment in the flash, as if some photographer had touched off a tray of flash powder.

  Zak headed for the horse. He eased Nox up alongside it and grabbed the trailing reins. The horse did not shy away, but held fast. Zak saw the rifle jutting out of the scabbard on the opposite side. That was enough for him. He would lead the horse to where O’Hara, Colleen, and the two soldiers were waiting and strip the animal there. Perhaps there was grub in the saddlebags. The storm was too heavy to dawdle. All he had to do was ride up the road to the end of the hill on his left and he knew he’d find them waiting for him. He wanted to get out of that false canyon quick in case the rain caused a flash flood before he could reach the folks he had sent on ahead.

  As Zak started up the road, he heard a voice on the opposite side.

  “You hold on there. That’s my horse.”

  “Who are you?” Zak asked, trying to find the source of the voice. The darkness hid the man who had called out to him.

  “I’m Jesse Bob Cavins. Who are you? Al? That you? Deets, I—I got plugged.”

  Zak wondered if it was one of the men he had shot. Probably, he thought.

  If so, he hadn’t killed him. But how badly was the man wounded?

  “Yeah, Jesse Bob. It’s me, Al,” Zak lied. “Tell me where you are.”

  “That really you, Deets?” Cavins said.

  Zak saw him then, a shadowy hulk against the bank. Crippled, but still alive and standing on his feet. Slouching was more like it.

  “Yeah,” Zak said. “Put away that pistol, will you?”

  “You sound funny, Al,” Cavins said.

  “The rain.”

  “Yeah, the wind, too.”

  Cavins moved, and Zak saw that he was holstering his pistol. He nudged spurs into Nox’s flanks and the horse approached Cavins with wariness, sidestepping toward him as if ready to bolt. Zak pulled on the reins so Nox felt the bit against his tongue and mouth.

  A flash of lightning illuminated Cavins. Zak saw the darker stains on his slicker, streaks that were being washed away. There was a lot of blood. He figured he must have caught Cavins in the gut or just below the ribs.

  The lightning revealed Zak to Cavins as well.

  “You ain’t Al Deets,” Cavins said, his voice a throaty rasp.

  “You figured that out, did you?” Zak said.

  “Damn it, who in hell are you? Trask send you back for me?”

  “In a way, yeah.”

  “Well, help me get on my horse, then.”

  “I’m taking your horse, Cavins.”

  “You what?”

  “You won’t need your horse anymore. And you’ve seen your last sunrise.”

  “Damn you. You ain’t with Trask.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Who in hell are you?”

  “I’m the man who put that bullet in your gut, Cavins.”

  The wind whipped up the road, dashed rain like flung sand on both men. Streaks of jagged lightning etched the black clouds with silver filigree, and the ensuing thunder belched in a mighty basso profundo that reverberated across the stormy skies like some dire pronouncement from an Olympian deity.

  Cavins jumped when the thunder roared. Then he started to lower his hand in a furtive movement, a slow glide toward his holstered pistol.

  “You might want to think twice before you draw that pistol, Cavins,” Zak said.

  Cavins let his hand float a few inches above the butt of his pistol. It hovered there in midair.

  “How’s that?” Cavins said, his voice a fear-laden rasp.

  “You’re looking right up at a big old boulder perched atop a mountain.”

  “I don’t get your meanin’, mister.”

  “I mean you’re a raindrop, Cavins. I’m just teetering, waiting for that one drop to dislodge me. Then I’m going to roll down and fall right on top of you.”

  “You’re full of shit,” Cavins said, and dropped his hand. He started to pull the pistol from its holster. He might have gotten it going an inch or so when Zak’s hand flew to his Walker Colt. Cavins’s eyes widened as if the wind had thrown acid into them.

  Zak’s hand was a blur, and Cavins heard the ominous click as Zak thumbed the hammer back to full cock.

  “No,” Cavins gasped.

  “Yes,” Zak said, aiming the pistol straight at Cavins’s forehead.

  He squeezed the trigger and orange-red flame belched from the muzzle of the Colt. The bullet struck Cavins square between the eyes, smashing bone and flesh to pulp, flattening slightly before it sped through his brain, smashing his head backward into the rocky slope of the hill. His arm and hand went slack and he slid down into a puddle of water, leaving a red streak that turned pink in the rain and then vanished like the bloom on a December rose.

  Zak ejected the empty hull from the cylinder of his pistol, shoved a fresh cartridge in, closed the gate, and slid the weapon back in its holster.

  Cavins lay sprawled on the ground like a broken doll, his mouth open, eyes fixed in a frosty stare, somehow looking alive as raindrops struck them. In the next lightning flash, Zak saw the black hole in the center of his forehead, washed clean by the rain.

  It felt like a graveyard in that spot, so dark and dank and lifeless. He turned Nox away and headed up the road. Cavins’s horse trotted after him, his head down, soaked to the skin beneath his hide.

  Lightning danced in the skies and thunder rumbled loud and far in the darkness of the night. The wind blew the rain parallel to the earth, a billion stinging needles stabbing the horses, stinging the back of Zak’s neck.

  Zak hunched over and pulled the collar of his slicker up at the back.

  Maybe this was how it was with Noah just after he climbed into the ark, he thought. It felt like the end of the world, and he knew it wouldn’t be long before there was a flood somewhere out there on that godforsaken desert where no signs of life were to be seen.

  Chapter 9

  Lieutenant O’Hara saw it first.

  A shadow in the rain, looming out of the darkness.

  He reached for his pistol with his right hand, touched Colleen’s arm with the left. He felt her stiffen.

  “Don’t shoot,” Zak said. “It’s me.”

  The shadow moved toward the clutch of horses, the people huddled beneath them.

  “It’s only Zak, Ted,” Colleen said.

  “There’s two of ’em,” Rivers said.

  “Naw, that other shadow’s just a horse,” Scofield said.

  Ted crabbed out from under his horse and stood up, rain pouring over his hat and slicker.

  “What you got, Cody?” he asked.
>
  “A rifle for you. Maybe some ammunition in the saddlebags, and grub. You can either change horses or unstrap the rifle and scabbard, switch it to your saddle.”

  “I’ll change horses. Where we going?”

  “High ground,” Zak said. “This gusher’s going to spawn flash floods.”

  “Right,” O’Hara said. “Come on, soldiers, mount up. Colleen, bring my horse to me once I mount the other one.”

  He walked to the horse Zak was leading and took the reins from him. He climbed into the saddle as the others mounted up.

  Colleen led Ted’s horse to him and handed him the reins.

  “You lead off, Cody,” O’Hara said. “This is a fair mount for a civilian horse.”

  The two soldiers chuckled as Zak pulled away from them on Nox.

  He wanted to gain ground on Trask, but he also knew they were all in danger as long as they were on flat ground, at the mercy of the heavy rains. The wind was at their backs, at least, but in such a storm it could circle and come at them head on, slowing them down. It was so dark he could not see very far ahead, but he had been down that old wagon road and he knew there were places where they could get to higher ground. But he might have to range wide of the road to find a suitable place. And wherever they wound up, they’d be at the mercy of the weather, with no trees, no shelter at all.

  Lightning ripped through the clouds, splashed light on the bleak terrain. Thunder was a constant artillery barrage, sometimes so close it was deafening, and off in the distance more thunder and more lightning.

  A rattlesnake skittered out in front of Nox, slithering away from the road, its diamond-back skin illuminated briefly from a flash of lightning. It disappeared in the dark, heading, Zak thought, to safer ground, probably flooded out of its home tunnel.

  “Follow the snake,” he said to himself.

  He turned Nox in that direction, marking the path in his mind. The snake would know where to go. Zak could only take his bearings in those brief moments when the land was lighted. He would have to keep all the information in his mind, and all of it in the proper order. The storm would not last forever, and when it was over and the sun came out, he didn’t want to be lost.