CRAZY HORSES: A Porter Rockwell Adventure (Dark Trails Saga Book 2)

by David J. West

  Porter looked around. There were too many men, too many guns leveled at Roxy, Emily, Quincy, and even the incapacitated Redbone, let alone himself. People would die. The bandidos grinned and laughed wickedly, as if they hoped Porter would try just so they could shoot his friends.

  “We’re gonna duel then?”

  Matamoros nodded.

  “All right,” said Porter, letting his gun belt drop.

  “Porter, no,” pleaded Roxy. “Don’t worry about us, kill him!”

  Matamoros smiled like a cat with a mouse between its claws. Porter knew he had something up his sleeve but what?

  “No one can say that I didn’t give the infamous Mormon gringo a chance. I don’t want anybody saying I shot you in the back or something. No, they will fear my name more than yours, once I kill you. But you and I, we will fight my way. Diego!”

  The bandit Matamoros had shouted at vanished for a brief moment then came back with another saber. He offered it to Matamoros.

  “Porter,” called Roxy. “Don’t. He beat Redbone faster than I could see.”

  “With what? That pig-sticker?”

  Roxy vigorously nodded.

  Matamoros’s grin widened, if that was even possible. “I see that you are a man not easily frightened. I like that.” His visage darkened. “But I am going to cut your heart out and feed it to you.”

  “Whatever you say, Estupido.”

  Matamoros reddened, as if a feverish storm cloud flew across his face, but he drew in quick breaths through his flaring nostrils and calmed himself. “There was a time when that would have upset me. You are a very rude person saying that to a man like me, and you will pay with blood!”

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  “We fight with these,” said Matamoros, tossing the saber at Porter’s feet.

  “You want to fight me with that?” drawled Porter in contempt.

  Matamoros nodded, flashing his eyes in triumph as he swished his blade through the air in a figure eight at incredible speed.

  “Am I supposed to be impressed?”

  “You ought to be, Gringo. I am the best swordsman in all of Mexico! During the revolution, I cut down five of Maximillian’s best bodyguard in a row! They were French, the best Napoleon the third had to offer to defend his puppet.”

  “Who?” teased Porter.

  “I know what you are trying to do, Gringo, and it won’t work.”

  Porter snickered. “So, you want me to pick up this piece of pig iron and fight you? Like pirates?”

  “Like men!” shouted Matamoros, indignant.

  “All right, hold on.” Porter put on his roping gloves. Thick cowhide meant for when he was working the range.

  Matamoros grinned wickedly, guessing Porter thought he would be defending his hands from the quick slashes he could inflict, just as he had so recently done to Redbone’s exposed flesh.

  Porter flexed his hands within the gloves, stretching the fingers in and out. He then picked up the saber with his right hand. He swished it through the air back and forth getting a feel for the blade. “It ain’t my kind of weapon, but I suppose it will get the job done.”

  Matamoros laughed. “I’m glad you think so.” He brought his blade up. It captured sunlight across the razor-sharp edge, dazzling the sight of all present.

  Porter however stuck the tip of his blade in the ground and casually danced the tip through the dirt as if he were signing his name.

  “What are you doing? You are disgracing that blade. It was forged in Toledo!”

  “Ohio?”

  “Spain!”

  “Fine,” drawled Porter absently. “I just thought I’d write you a message before I kill you.”

  “What?” snapped Matamoros. “A message in the dirt? You’re loco Gringo. Absolutely loco.”

  Porter continued sweeping the tip of the saber back and forth in the dirt.

  Matamoros stepped closer, curious. His blade was up and at the ready to parry any sudden move on Porter’s part. But the gunfighter kept his blade tip down in the dirt continuing his meandering scrawl.

  “I cannot read those scratches. I’ll just kill you now if you will not defend yourself.”

  “Just read it,” insisted Porter.

  Matamoros kept his blade up and at the ready. Even with a swift swordsman, he was closer to being able to cross blades than someone who had their point down and in the dirt. Porter couldn’t possibly be fast enough to cut him. Not against the fastest swordsman in all of Mexico.

  Porter’s left hand shot out and grabbed Matamoros saber about a third of the way down the blade.

  The bandit chief’s eyes went wide with shock. Sudden fear gripped him as strong as Porter’s own hand. He tried but he could not pull the saber from Porters grasp. “No! Gringo! No!”

  Porter raised his own blade and brought it down like a thunderbolt across Matamoros’s neck.

  The bandit’s cries were lost, even as his lips still moved. His head nearly came clean off. It flopped down on his chest as a red wave gushed. Somehow his sombrero stayed on.

  Dumbstruck, the bandido’s collective mouths dropped. Some reacted with violence, some fled.

  Now armed with two blades, Porter flung the left one at the nearest bandit, throwing off his shocked aim, as he cut him down.

  Quincy dove for Porter’s gun belt and started firing, just as the bandits returned same.

  The bandits shrieked in terror. It was an uproar, a crazed, bewildering nightmare of Porter coming at them with deadly Toledo steel and lead flying.

  Roxy wrapped up Redbone’s wounds while Emily struggled to work her own bonds free.

  Quincy kept firing until the six-gun was empty. With his hands tied he couldn’t very well reload but he sure tried.

  Porter stormed after the bandits like a mad dog with the bloody sword. He cut down one bandit as he turned to level his pistol. Another cried out as he found his escape cut off. Porter’s mercy was gone. One man leapt to escape out a window and was stuck thru between the shoulder blades for his troubles.

  An Apache rifleman fired at Porter from around a corner. He ducked back but didn’t see the mad gunman anymore. The dead Mexican in the window was the only sign of anyone having just been there. Backing away, the Apache glanced behind and then forward again. He knew death was close.

  He stepped to where the horses were corralled. A sound caught his ears and as he looked forward he saw a flying sword that took him in the head.

  Porter charged and took the Apache’s rifle.

  One bandit was making good his escape on horseback. Porter leveled the rifle and took aim.

  “Wait,” said Quincy. “We need one alive. We need to know where they took the girl.”

  “What are you talking about,” growled Porter.

  “They sold the girl, she isn’t here,” responded Quincy.

  Porter lowered his aim and shot the horse out from under the fleeing bandit. The man went flying and hit the earth in a cloud of dust. Porter halfway hoped the man hadn’t broken his neck in the fall.

  He went after the man just in case the bandit could get up and run.

  Porter walked up on the man cautious, in case he might roll over and shoot, but there was no danger of that. His neck was twisted at bizarre crooked angle and he wouldn’t be rolling over anywhere except in hell.

  Searching the man’s pockets, Porter found nothing to indicate anywhere the man might have been hoping to get to. It had just been a blind panic to escape. He didn’t even have a canteen. Porter took the dead man’s gun belt and strode back to the fort.

  The others were now free of their bindings. Roxy and Quincy were doing what they could for Redbone, but it didn’t look good for the old Indian.

  Quincy was the first to speak, especially noticing Porter had not returned with the escaping man. “Did you kill him?”

  Porter shrugged, and said while thumbing behind himself, “Yeah. Broke his neck.”

  “We needed him Port! We don’t know who or
where they took Redbone’s daughter. How are we supposed to find them? Our tracker isn’t up to tracking no more. He might not make it.”

  “Pull back your reins, Quint. I can track,” growled Porter.

  “Not as good as Redbone, you can’t, Yankee! ‘Sides you said it had to be him that rescued his own daughter anyhow. And, if he lives, he won’t be up to no rough travel.”

  “We’ll find a way. Quit being such a damn pessimist, Quint!”

  Emily spoke up. “I might have an idea of where they went.”

  “Well?” snapped Roxy, surprised.

  “When my sisters and I were prisoners, I understood a little of what Matamoros’s men were talking about. They kept saying that they were going to sell us to a Senor Mala Cosa, a Mr. Bad Thing? I don’t know who that was or what they meant by that. They did say that he was residing near some ruins.”

  “Ruins? Did they mention which ruins? This landscape is littered with ruins. Throw a rock out here and you’ll hit somebody’s ruins.”

  “They might have mentioned a square tower.”

  Porter shook his head. “Not enough to go on. I can think of at least four.”

  “They said something about it being north of the winged rock and one said needle point.”

  Porter grinned. “Now we’re getting somewhere. That’s the sacred mountain of the Diné.”

  “Diné?”

  “That’s what the Navajo call themselves. It means ‘the people’. But, the Winged Rock, that’s the big striking mountain not too far south from here. You can see it when we get out of this valley. The important thing though is that we’re close. Those square tower ruins are due north of us.”

  “How far?”

  “Hard to say, this desert is rough going. Easier if we stick by the river and we’ll have water, but we don’t know how long whoever has the girl will stick around that place. Maybe they’ll be moving on real soon.”

  “We have to try,” said Roxy.

  “Course we do, I’m just wondering if some of us should stay and some of us should hurry it along.”

  “What’s that mean?” Roxy snapped. “I’m not just going to hang around here feeling useless. I am going with you—to help.”

  “Useless? Looking after those in need is helping. And needed badly.”

  “The hell you say.”

  “The hell I do say! Little Sister, you’ve got a gift of caring those that are injured, I’ve got a gift for making people injured, do the math and let’s do what we do best!”

  She crossed her arms frowning, but there was no verbal argument. Porter nodded at her, hoping there was an understanding, but the back of his mind itched that this wasn’t over.

  The moon rose as darkness fell and everyone slept as hard as they had in ages.

  26. Tracking

  The next morning, Chief Dan and his sons arrived after having gathered back their crazy horse herd. They took over the fort and began by clearing out the dead. He chanted his songs and burned sage to purify the place, but it didn’t take very long before he said he wasn’t sure it could be purified and it was a good thing the bad men had been killed and driven out and that was the end of it.

  Porter and Quincy made sure their horses were fed, watered and brushed down. They then prepared provisions, especially water.

  Quincy noticed the section of wall that had come down. “How the hell did that happen? The stampede?”

  Porter shrugged, but Chief Dan answered. “The hairy man did it. He could find no other way in.” His sons glanced at each other in surprise.

  “He did what? How?” He shouted at Porter, “Maybe you do got a Samson thing going.”

  Porter nodded and mounted his horse.

  “Little Sister, you’ve got this. It’s an important job. Tell you what. If Redbone is feeling patched up enough that he can be moved, we will leave some markers along our trail you can’t miss. Remember we’re heading almost due north, but will have to do some zig-zagging on account of ravines. Always keep your eyes skinned for trouble. But, if Redbone gets a fever and is delirious, you better stay put.”

  Roxy scrunched up her face, cursed and stalked off.

  “What’d I say?”

  Quincy shook his head. “Don’t ask,” he laughed. “We best get moving.”

  They rode alongside the river for several miles. When it switched back running westward, they continued straight ahead north into the bleak desert.

  They left a marker of stacked stones, just in case Roxy and the others followed, but Redbone appeared to be in bad enough shape that Porter didn’t think he would be able to ride for days.

  By late afternoon, they were well into rolling grass and sage-covered hills where, every now and again, a section of stone would loom out showing the beginnings of a ravine or small canyon. Porter examined these entrances and deemed that no one had passed through them. He also found sign of where the men of Matamoros had passed by earlier to sell the girl. But with shifting sands and hard rock sometimes he would also lose the trail.

  “If I didn’t have a pretty good idea on where they were heading already, this would be a mighty frustrating task.”

  “I believe,” said Quincy. “Now, once we find this Mala Cosa, what then? How many men do you think he might have?”

  “I have no idea, but I didn’t want the trail to get too cold, and we don’t want him killing the girl if we can stop him.”

  “You think it will come to that? You think we’re running out of time?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know my constellations as well as some, but I fear that something might happen when the moon is full. Like tonight.”

  “Convenient.”

  “Tell me about it. It’s always a full moon when some dark things take place and people go crazy.”

  Stars popped into existence within the deep azure sky and the moon rose in the east from behind the great mesas. The wind was still and a feeling of cold more than actual temperature struck them as they rode up on a bewitching little canyon. It gouged itself into the table of land like a festering wound and great dark rocks were jumbled about like healing scabs.

  “I take it this is the place?”

  “Don’t say that to me,” snorted Porter.

  “How you want to do this?”

  “Well, riding right up there is a death trap.”

  “Agreed,” said Quincy. “Course everything has been a death trap on this trip.”

  “But I believe the girl is in there and the trail leads in there.”

  “Uh-huh. I don’t like where this is going.”

  Porter turned in the saddle, saying “I’ll ride in slow and easy, giving you time to go up on the left and be over watch with your rifle.”

  “Split up? And me up there?” He said, pointing on the ridge.

  “Yeah, you’ll be my guardian angel.”

  “Guardian angel? You’re the Destroying Angel, what you need me for?” Quincy said, with a chuckle. But he tipped his hat and started riding up the left-hand side.

  27. Drums in the Night

  The mouth of the canyon beckoned Porter to enter like a spider welcomes the fly. The red-brown stones that had tumbled from the entrance reminded him of teeth. He couldn’t help but wonder if these jaws were about to snap shut, but a hero has to do what only he can, and Port knew he was the only one who could ride in and out of this alive.

  Porter held off riding in until Quincy was on top of the table land and could effectively see ahead. Somewhere an owl hooted. Letting his stallion slowly trot in, Porter watched every boulder and shadow for movement that might betray an ambush. He thought something moved ahead in the darkness, but he couldn’t see what it was. Waiting a long moment, he determined it could not have been a man and so it should not have been a danger.

  Glancing up toward Quincy, the buffalo soldier didn’t seem aware of anything yet either. When he was at least a quarter mile in, Porter thought he heard the soft mutter of drums. A trick of the night made him think he could see the flickering, da
ncing glow of flames from somewhere far up the canyon.

  He caught sight of Quincy and the buffalo soldier signaled all clear. Porter signaled back and continued a slow, easy trot through the canyon. There was a trail moving through the clary sage, but it was hard packed and might have been there for ages untold.

  Red ruins of some ancient castles squatted about either side of the canyon. They were made of red brick, stacked high and tight, but with an occasional window or door that made them look like grinning skulls in the darkness. Port kept his eyes skinned for trouble, any hint of enemies, but there was no sign of anyone except perhaps ghosts dwelling in those stone houses.

  Keeping an eye out for Quincy, Porter saw no sign of his friend who had already dismounted. He decided it might be wisest if he did the same. Porter climbed off his horse and lightly wrapped the reins about a sage. The animal would have no issue freeing itself if it put its mind to it. But for now, if Porter had to run, his horse would be nearby.

  The drums were louder now, pounding, and a long drawn out cry of horror and agony suddenly echoed through the canyon.

  With his Colt .45 drawn, Porter picked up his pace. He made his way around the bend, each footfall revealed a little more of the glow of the fire and the throb of the drums.

  High above on his right was the largest of the ruins, outlined against the starry night. As he reached the last bend, it was the curious square tower straight ahead that most captured his attention.

  A blazing bonfire in front of the tower lit up the canyon and reflected off the red monolith. A rough stone altar was prepared across from the flames and a dark figure moved with malevolent abandon.

  Porter noticed the scent of decay about him. Bones of man and beast were strewn here and there. The voice cried out again and directed his attention from the death underfoot to that which loomed ahead, Porter pressed on.

  “This time, you came willingly into my abode,” thundered a voice from the flames.