by Jory Sherman
Zak squatted, leaned over the edge of the hill, peering downward. He closed his eyes for a few seconds, then opened them again. He tried to distinguish what stood out from the blackness below, a shape, anything that was darker or larger than anything else. He fixed on a spot that looked promising and waited for the faint light from any distant flash of lightning. Several seconds passed and then he got what he was waiting for, a lightning strike some five or so miles away. The bolt threw just enough light for him to make out a shape sprawled at the base of the hill. He thought he saw a pair of legs rippling in a pile of water. Human legs, attached to a torso that left no more than a quick impression on his mind.
Something, or someone, was down there, but it was no animal. It was two-legged, most probably a man. He had seen just enough to make him curious. He judged the slope, figuring he might go down and be able to climb back up. He touched the butt of his pistol, eased it just a bit from its holster, then let it fall back of its own weight into the leather.
He stood up then, turned to where Rivers stood, some yards away.
“Private Rivers,” he called, “come here. Bring my horse.”
He heard a muffled, “Yes, sir,” and the yellow raincoat moved. He saw the soldier lead Nox toward him, and he waited, holding out a hand to gauge the amount of rain falling at that moment.
Rivers came up, held out his hand with the reins.
“No, I just want that lariat,” Zak said as he reached for the coiled lariat that hung from his saddle. “You hold Nox real still.”
“What are you going to do, Colonel—I mean, Mr. Cody?”
“There is something down there. A man, I think. Hurt or dead, I don’t know which. I’ll use the rope to climb down and check what we have there.”
“Yes, sir,” Rivers said.
Zak uncoiled the rope, made two loops, one on each end. He settled one loop around the saddle horn and snugged it up tight. Then he threw the rope over the edge of the hill until it lay out straight.
He patted Nox on the neck. “You hold tight, boy,” he said.
He stepped over the edge onto the slope. He grabbed the rope to brace himself, then started downward, digging in the heels of his boots at each step.
“Hold my horse fast, Rivers.”
“Yes, sir. He’s real steady so far.”
Zak reached the bottom and held onto the loop as he felt around his feet with his hands. His fingers touched something soft. He squatted as he saw a man’s face. No hat. He felt the man’s neck, put two fingers on the carotid artery. No pulse. The man was dead.
There was enough slack in the rope for him to slip it under the man’s body, up under his arms. He pulled the loop taut and then jerked on the rope.
“Rivers. Back Nox up. Real slow.”
Rivers didn’t answer. But the body started to move up the slope of the hill. Zak walked alongside, tugging on one arm, holding onto the rope with his other hand, both for balance and to help him with his climb.
A few moments later the body slid over the edge of the hill. Zak, out of breath, stepped up next to it and stood, breathing hard.
“You can bring my horse close now, Rivers,” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
Zak leaned down, slid the loop from the dead man’s body and flung it aside. The man was on his back, his eyes closed. When Zak bent down to look at his face, he saw that it was a Mexican.
Rivers stood by, still holding Nox’s reins. “You got you a Mex there, sir,” he said.
“Let’s see how he died.”
“Maybe he drowned, sir.”
“Now, who in hell would try to swim in a flash flood, Private?”
“I dunno, sir.”
Zak grabbed the body by the shoulder and leg, tugged at it until the Mexican lay facedown. He ran his hands over the back of the dead man’s shirt.
“Uh-oh,” he said, and his hand stopped moving. He bent over and saw the bullet hole, right in the middle of the man’s back. “Shot in the back.”
“Sir, I didn’t shoot nobody,” Rivers said.
“No. Maybe Ben Trask shot this man. For some reason. Flood carried him down this far. Trask probably isn’t far away. Maybe in one of those old stage stations.”
Rivers said nothing.
Zak stood up. He didn’t know what had happened, of course. But someone had shot the Mexican in the back. And he knew he hadn’t done it. Even by accident. He could feel Ben Trask’s hands all over this one. A man like Trask wouldn’t hesitate to shoot a man in the back.
But why?
Maybe Trask had some mutinous Mexicans on his hands, he thought. Maybe Trask had blamed this man for the loss of O’Hara.
It didn’t matter. Trask was losing men right and left.
If this kept up, the odds would rise in his own favor.
“What are you thinking, sir?” Rivers asked finally, after Zak had been silent for several minutes.
“I’m thinking this is one less man I have to kill to get at Ben Trask, Private.”
“Yes, sir,” Rivers said, and a cold shiver slithered up his spine like a wet lizard crawling up a tree.
The rain continued to spatter them as Zak slipped the rope off the saddle horn, untied the loop, and began to coil it back up, just to keep his hands busy. He wanted to grab Trask’s neck and squeeze and squeeze until the man’s face turned purple and he died of manual strangulation.
The bastard.
Chapter 16
Gray-black crepe hung from the dark clouds like tattered shrouds masking the sun. The rain had stopped and the clouds overhead had turned to a puffy gray pudding over a storm-ravished land. The flood had passed on and disappeared into a porous earth, leaving behind its detritus, shreds of cactus and ocotillo, the carcasses of rats and snakes and other animals, rivulets of mud and streaks of washed sand and cobbled dirt. There was a slight breeze, a warm one, and Zak knew things would dry out pretty fast.
He saw no signs of life, nor any sign of Trask and his outlaw band. Nothing moved in the feeble light of morning. He walked to each post and told those standing guard that they could walk around and stretch their legs, shake out their soogans.
Colleen and her brother Ted talked together and munched on hardtack. Zak stopped a few feet away from them, doffed his hat to Colleen.
“We’ll get moving pretty quick,” he said to Ted. “I think Deets hasn’t told us everything he knows.”
“What makes you think that, Zak?”
“Doesn’t make any difference. I’m going to see if he won’t change his mind about his loyalty to Trask and tell me more. I have a hunch he knows plenty.”
“You’re not going to torture him, are you, Zak?” Colleen said.
“It’s a nice morning, Miss Colleen. You ought to be dried out pretty soon.”
With that, Zak walked away from them and headed toward the west end of the hill.
Colleen stared after him, her face a mask of consternation, her forehead creased, her eyes slitted. She quelled the impulse to throw a retort at Zak’s back, and instead squeezed her raincoat by the collar until her fingers turned white.
Rivers and Scofield stood over Deets. They looked up when Zak walked up on them.
“Deets here don’t seem so bad this mornin’, Mr. Cody,” Scofield said. “He ain’t got no fever or nothin’.”
Deets looked up at Cody, a questioning look in his eyes. His lips were parched, his skin pale. He was still soaking wet, but Zak saw that Scofield had put a fresh bandage over the wound.
“On your feet,” Zak told Deets.
“I can’t move,” Deets said. “I got pain. No feelin’ in my legs.”
“Boys, get Mr. Deets here on his feet, and kick him in the ass if you have to.”
Deets swore as the two men jerked him to his feet. He groaned and doubled over after his feet touched the ground.
“Deets, I want you to identify a dead man. You’re going to walk to the other end of this hill or be dragged. Suit yourself.”
“I don’t
think I can walk that far,” Deets said.
“Deets, you got more than a scratch. You’re lucky to be alive. But you got some more talking to do, and you can make it real hard or real easy.”
“Maybe if I leaned on one of the soldier boys, I could might walk that far,” Deets said.
Both Rivers and Scofield bristled at being called “soldier boys.”
Zak looked at both troopers, his eyebrows arched.
“I guess we might could do that, Mr. Cody,” Scofield said.
“Deets, you straighten up and try taking a couple of steps,” Zak said. “Corporal Scofield will catch you if you start to fall.”
Deets straightened up. He groaned in pain, sucked in a deep breath.
Zak and the two soldiers waited.
Deets put a boot out and took a short step. Then he put his weight on that foot and moved the other. He looked shaky, but no one lifted a hand to help him. He looked at Zak.
“Try a couple more steps,” Zak said.
“Hell, he can walk good as you or me,” Rivers said.
Deets gingerly put another foot out, then the other. He winced each time he moved, but Zak was satisfied that he could walk.
“Keep walking,” Zak said. “Should tighten up that hole in you, make you heal faster.”
“Like hell,” Deets said.
“Do it,” Zak told him.
Rivers and Scofield walked beside Deets. The three men followed Zak. As he passed Colleen and Ted, he motioned to O’Hara.
“Ted, you should come with us. I think we’re going to find out a thing or two.”
“Not from me, you ain’t,” Deets muttered.
Zak said nothing.
“I’m coming, too,” Colleen said, falling in step beside her brother. Soon, all of them were standing over the body of the dead man.
The corpse lay on its back, black eyes dark as olive pits, staring vacantly at the mouse-gray sky. Deets stared at the face for a long time, his gaze taking in the deeply etched lines around the bared teeth, the lips pulled back in rigor, giving the dead man a ghastly frozen grin, the skin taut, dark as a tobacco juice stain.
“Christ,” Deets uttered, a whispery breath behind the crisp sibilant.
“You know him?” Zak asked.
Deets choked out the name from a constricted throat as if the word had hissed out of a heavy clog of foreign matter.
“That’s Jaime,” Deets said, “Jaime Elizondo.” There was a hoarseness in his voice that had not been there before.
“He one of Trask’s men?” Zak asked.
“In a way, I reckon. He worked for Hiram. Hiram Ferguson. Jesus, what kilt him? Did he drown?”
“Lead poisoning,” Zak said.
“You kill him, Cody?” Deets asked.
“He wasn’t shot here, Deets. Flood washed him down here. I dragged him up. He was shot in the back, if that means anything to you.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“None of us shot this man. He was killed by one of your pards. Maybe Ben Trask.”
Deets swallowed hard. His lower lip began to quiver and his eyes turned rheumy. Zak could see that he was thinking about Trask, mulling over the possibility that his boss had shot Jaime Elizondo.
“Might be,” Deets said.
“This could have been you, Deets,” Zak said.
“Naw. Ben wouldn’t…”
After a moment of silence, Zak broke in with telling words.
“You saying Trask wouldn’t shoot you in the back if you crossed him?”
“I dunno.”
“You know damned well he would, Deets.”
“It ain’t somethin’ I think about a whole lot, Cody.”
“Well, maybe you should. You know where Trask and Ferguson are going, don’t you?”
“Generally. Maybe.”
“He doesn’t have enough men to take on the Chiricahuas.”
Deets said nothing.
“He’s going to need help. More guns than he has now. Isn’t that right?”
“If you say so.”
“The Apaches would wipe him out so quick he wouldn’t have time to jerk his rifle out of its scabbard, Deets.”
“I dunno.”
“Yeah, Deets, you do. You’d better spill what you know about Trask’s plans or you’ll be the first one I turn over to Cochise for an Apache sundown.”
“Wh-What’s an Apache sundown?” Deets asked.
Zak uttered a dry laugh.
“It’s not pretty. Something the Apaches do to a white man they don’t like much. Something they’ll do if I ask them to.”
“I—I don’t know much. Honest.”
“Bullshit,” O’Hara said. “He knows all about Trask’s plans. I know. He’s one of Trask’s most trusted men.”
Zak turned to O’Hara. “Maybe you heard something while you were a prisoner, Lieutenant. How much do you know about Trask’s plans?”
“I know he’s going after Cochise and his gold. That’s about it. He thinks Cochise has a huge hoard of gold hidden somewhere on the desert.”
Zak suppressed a smile. He knew better. But he wasn’t about to say anything in front of the two soldiers and Deets.
“Nothing about meeting up with other outlaws?”
O’Hara shook his head. “No. I got the idea he thought he had enough men. But I didn’t know how many until we rode out of Ferguson’s. I thought he was going to be badly outnumbered if he took on the Chiricahua.”
Zak looked at Deets, who was moving both his lips to keep his emotions invisible.
“Well, Deets, are you going to tell me what Trask means to do, or do I have to beat it out you?”
Colleen gave out a low gasp.
Zak shot her a look that was meant to chastise her for daring to interfere. She lowered her head and put a hand to her mouth.
“I told you, Cody, I don’t know nothin’,” Deets said.
Zak stepped up close to Deets, looked him straight in the eye. Deets glared at him in defiance.
All the others held their breaths as the two men stared at each other.
“You ever have hard times when you were a little kid, Deets?” Zak asked.
“Yeah. Who didn’t?”
“Lean times? When there wasn’t much food to put on the table?”
“Yeah. What’s the point, Cody?”
“Your mother ever say there was something at the door during those times?”
“Maybe. I don’t remember.”
“Think, Deets. She said you had to look out for such times, didn’t she?”
“She might have. Like I said, I don’t remember.”
“Sure you do. She told you what was at the door, didn’t she?”
“You mean, like when the wolf’s at the door?” Deets was starting to squirm inside his skin.
“Yes, that’s right. She told you to beware of those times when there was a wolf at your door. Probably you thought there was really a wolf at your door, didn’t you?”
“I reckon. Well, us kids didn’t really believe there was a real wolf at the door, but we knew what she meant. I still don’t—”
Zak cut him off.
“Well, there’s a wolf at your door now. That’s me. I’m the wolf at your door, Deets. And, if you don’t tell me what you know about Trask’s plans, I’m going to open that door and start eating you alive.”
“Shit,” Deets said.
Zak pulled the bandage off Deets’s side and pressed a finger against the wound.
Deets dropped to one knee. He groaned in pain.
Zak grabbed one arm and jerked him to his feet.
“The door’s open, Deets. I’m coming in. I’m a hungry wolf.”
Zak stretched out his hand, a single finger pointed at the wound in Deets’s side.
“No, don’t. I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
“Spit it out,” Zak said.
“Well, I know some soldiers are going to meet up with Trask and Ferguson. In a couple of days from now, I reck
on.”
“Where?”
“Up at the last old stage stop on this road.”
“Who’s bringing the soldiers?”
“I don’t know for sure. I don’t think Ben knows, either.”
“You ever hear the name Willoughby?”
“Yeah, I heard it. He’s the soldier runnin’ the fort—Fort Bowie. Ben mentioned him some. More than once.”
“Is Willoughby bringing him the troops?”
“I—I know Willoughby is helping out, but just before we left Tucson, I heard Hiram—Ferguson, I mean—tell one of his men to skedaddle to Fort Bowie and see the quartermaster, tell him we were leaving.”
“You hear a name?” Zak asked.
O’Hara cleared his throat.
Zak looked over at him.
“The quartermaster is John Welch,” O’Hara said. “He came in with Willoughby and a bunch of other soldiers. I believe they served together.”
“That’s all I know,” Deets said, staring down at the wet ground where his bandage lay, stained with the suppurated fluids from his wound.
“You’ve tortured that man enough, Zak,” Colleen said.
“Miss Colleen,” Zak said, “you don’t know what torture is until you’ve seen an Apache sundown.”
The words hung in the air like a warning.
Zak turned away from Deets, spoke to O’Hara.
“Saddle up,” he said. “All of you. We can’t let Trask meet up with those soldiers. We’re outnumbered as it is.”
“Zak,” O’Hara said, “are you crazy? We don’t stand a chance. I won’t put my sister in danger, either.”
Zak stopped and turned around to face him.
“Ted, I outrank you. I’m playing that card. You and the soldiers are now under my orders. We leave in five minutes.” He turned to Scofield and Rivers. “You keep Deets braced between you. He makes one false move, you empty his saddle. Got that?”
“Yes, sir,” Scofield said.
Rivers nodded.
“Now,” Zak said, “let’s burn what little daylight there is and light a shuck for that last stage stop.”
Colleen glared at him, but Zak turned away.