An Arizona Christmas

by William W. Johnstone

  The journey was underway again.

  * * *

  Nothing happened during the morning, although each time the coach stopped, Smoke noted that Scratchy still had a worried frown on his bearded face. While they were stopped for lunch and a fresh team at a station called Natty Flat, Smoke approached the jehu as he was staring back the way they had come. The air was hazy in that direction.

  “Something wrong?” Smoke asked quietly.

  “What?” Scratchy gave a little shake of his head as if Smoke had interrupted some deep thoughts. “Aw, no, it’s fine. Nothin’ to worry about.”

  “No offense, Scratchy, but you seem a mite worried. I’m a pretty good judge of things like that.”

  Scratchy hesitated for a moment, then said, “I don’t want to get the passengers all stirred up for nothin’, ’specially the ladies. I still don’t like how much dust’s in the air, and if you look back to the west, it’s even thicker. You ever been in a sandstorm, Mr. Jensen?”

  “A time or two. They’re not much fun, as I recall.”

  “No, they sure ain’t, and in these parts they can be so bad you ain’t never seen nothin’ like ’em.”

  “Nothin’ like what?” a new voice asked.

  Smoke and Scratchy looked over to see that Preacher had come up in time to hear the tail end of the conversation.

  “Sandstorms,” Smoke said.

  “Lord have mercy!” the old mountain man exclaimed. “Once I got caught in one that was so thick, I looked up and seen a prairie dog a-diggin’ hisself a hole a hunnerd feet in the air!”

  Scratchy laughed, seemingly in spite of himself. “Yeah, I’ve seen ’em that bad, too.”

  “You reckon that’s what we’ve got coming today?” Smoke asked.

  “Maybe. It’s hard to say. Could just be a mite dustier than usual, and that’s all it’ll amount to. That’s what I’m hopin’ for, anyway.”

  “Should we wait it out here?”

  “No, I can get us through,” Scratchy answered without hesitation. “I been drivin’ coaches in this part of the country for a long time. Started on the old Butterfield route as a youngster. Even if it comes a blow, I can get us through.”

  Smoke nodded. “That’s good enough for me, then.”

  Scratchy looked at Smoke and Preacher. “You won’t say nothin’ to upset the other folks?”

  “Nothin’ to say,” Preacher replied.

  Scratchy seemed satisfied with that.

  The coach departed the Natty Flat station a short time later. The last one in line, Smoke paused for a second and glanced up at the sun. It was brassier than it had been earlier in the day. Instead of its usual midday brilliance, its light seemed to have been dimmed somehow, as if a curtain hung over it.

  A curtain of sand, maybe?

  “Anything wrong, Smoke?” Sally asked.

  Smoke wasn’t one to lie to his wife, not even little white lies to spare her unnecessary worry, so he said, “I hope not,” and stepped up into the coach, shutting the door firmly behind him.

  CHAPTER 24

  About an hour after leaving the last station, Smoke felt the stagecoach vibrate a little harder as its speed increased. Up on the box, Scratchy’s whip cracked as he shouted at the team.

  Smoke looked across Sally at Preacher and saw that the old mountain man felt the change as well.

  Preacher wasn’t the only one. Tom Ballard leaned forward tensely and said, “Is something wrong?”

  Mrs. Bates gasped and asked, “Could it be those Apaches?”

  “I’ll have a look.” Smoke reached over and loosened the canvas cover on the window beside him. He took his hat off, stuck his head out, and peered behind the coach as best he could. He didn’t see any Apaches, but what he saw made his jaw tighten in alarm, anyway.

  Sally saw that, and knowing her husband as well as she did, she said, “Smoke, what is it?”

  “Looks like a sandstorm.” That was putting it mildly. He had never seen anything like it before.

  In the distance behind the stagecoach rose a wall of flying sand that looked like a massive cliff or bluff, but those geographical features didn’t move. The towering cloud of sand seemed to be rushing over the landscape, swallowing up everything it came to and obliterating it.

  “A sandstorm?” Catherine Bradshaw repeated. “Well, how bad can that be?”

  No point in keeping the knowledge from the other passengers, Smoke thought. “Pretty bad,” he said as he sat back on the seat again and tied down the canvas curtain. He knew from the way the coach had sped up that Scratchy and Mike were aware of what was behind them, too. Smoke offered no suggestion of turning back. The storm would engulf them long before they could reach Natty Flat.

  Their only option was to outrun it to the next station and take shelter there while the storm blew itself out. From what he had heard about some southwestern sandstorms, that might take quite a while. If worse came to worst, they might have to stop and ride it out inside the coach.

  With a storm the size of the one following them . . . that might be enough to bury the horses, the stagecoach, and everybody inside it.

  Up on the box, Scratchy looked more worried than Mike had ever seen him. In fact, the old jehu looked downright scared. And that scared Mike, who had seen Scratchy face all kinds of trouble without ever flinching.

  Mike raised his voice over the clattering wheels and the thundering hoofbeats. “You reckon we can stay ahead of it?”

  “We have to!” Scratchy replied. “If it gets too bad, I ain’t sure I can keep the team movin’! Once we stop, we’re done for if there ain’t no place to get inside!”

  Mike’s hands tightened on the shotgun. He had faced bandits on several occasions, and even though those had been harrowing incidents, he hadn’t had time to be scared, either for himself or for the coach’s passengers. With possible disaster closing in behind them, he had more of a chance to think about what it might mean. Like most Westerners, the code he lived by demanded that women and youngsters be protected at all costs. He and Scratchy were paid to risk their lives, but those other folks weren’t.

  As Scratchy worked the reins and the whip, he kept looking back over his shoulder at the approaching storm. After a few minutes, he suddenly said, “I got an idea!”

  With no more warning than that, he hauled on the reins and pulled the team to the left, which sent the coach in a big, sweeping curve that left the road behind. Luckily, the surrounding terrain was still level and hard-packed enough that the coach’s wheels were able to roll over it without much trouble. The ride got a little rougher, but it had been far from gentle to start with.

  “What in blazes are you doing?” Mike yelled. The coach was heading north by northeast now, which put the massive sandstorm on their left as it closed in.

  “We can’t outrun the damned thing!” Scratchy replied. “It’ll catch up to us sooner or later! But look at it! It stretches farther to the south than it does the north. If we can get to the upper edges of it, maybe it won’t be as bad!”

  That seemed like a mighty risky plan to Mike, but at the same time, he could understand Scratchy’s reasoning. The storm wouldn’t be as powerful at its fringes as it was at the center. They might be able to keep moving through it and eventually break out into the clear.

  Unfortunately, now that they were traveling parallel to the wall of flying sand instead of moving in the same direction, it was barreling down on them even faster. Mike didn’t know what the odds were of them reaching safety before the storm smashed down on them in all its choking fury, but even if he’d been a gambling man, he wouldn’t take that bet.

  The turn to the north made it possible for the other passengers to look out the windows on the left side of the coach and get a good look at the monster bearing down on them.

  “Oh, my heavens!” Mrs. Bates cried out. She recoiled back against the seat as if she had been struck and reached out, groping blindly for George. She couldn’t take her eyes off the storm. Her hand found the boy�
��s shoulder and closed down tightly enough to make him wince.

  Catherine stared wide-eyed at the wall of sand, her mouth opening in an shocked O, even though no sound came out.

  Tom Ballard’s hands clenched into fists. The bleak expression on his face said that he realized he couldn’t strike out at the natural disaster in the making, but the impulse to do so was in him, anyway.

  Even Sally, who had more fortitude than any woman Smoke had ever known, clutched her husband’s arm for a second. “That looks bad.”

  “It’s a-blowin’ up a humdinger, all right,” Preacher said.

  “What’s Scratchy doing?” Ballard asked. “We should be trying to get away from the storm, not traveling at right angles to it.”

  Smoke had grasped the old jehu’s plan as soon as he felt the coach start to turn. “He’s going to try to reach the northern edge of the storm before it sweeps over us. He may not be able to make it, but at least on the outskirts the storm shouldn’t be as bad.”

  “That’s still pretty risky.”

  “Not as risky as letting the center of that behemoth overtake us. If it did, we’d all stand a good chance of choking to death.”

  “That can’t happen,” Ballard muttered. “I’ve got to get back to Tucson.”

  “To be with your family for Christmas,” Sally said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Ballard said.

  But once again Smoke got the impression there was more to the newspaperman’s anxiety than that.

  George coughed. “It sure is dusty in here.”

  Even though the main body of the storm was still off to the west, wind gusts were blowing out in front of it with enough force to whip up swirling clouds of dust. Smoke drew a bandanna from his pocket and held it out to Catherine. “You should tie this around your face so your mouth and nose are covered.”

  “What about your wife?” Catherine asked as she hesitated in taking the bandanna.

  “Don’t worry. I’m prepared,” Sally said as she drew a large handkerchief of her own out of her bag.

  “Here you go, ma’am,” Preacher said to Mrs. Bates as he extended his bandanna to the older woman. “You better do likewise. You want to keep from breathin’ as much o’ that stuff as you can.”

  “You should give it to George!”

  “Aw, I’m all right, Grandma,” the boy said, but another cough followed the words.

  Smoke leaned forward. “Pull your shirt up like this, son.” He tugged upward on George’s shirt to demonstrate. “Hold it over your mouth and nose. That’ll help.”

  George did as Smoke suggested, then hunkered on the bench in the middle of the coach.

  Tom Ballard found a handkerchief and held it over his face as the ladies were doing. Smoke and Preacher persevered the way they were, giving no sign that the dust was thickening in the stagecoach except a slight squinting of their eyes.

  The coach hit a rough spot and jolted heavily. Smoke thought the wheels actually might have left the ground for a split second. Scratchy was getting all the speed he could out of the team. The question was whether that would be enough to get them to safety in time.

  Seeing that Mrs. Bates looked terrified, Sally lowered the handkerchief she’d been holding in front of her face and said, “Mr. Ballard, would you change places with me?”

  Ballard looked puzzled, but he said, “Of course, Mrs. Jensen.”

  In the coach’s close quarters, making the switch was rather awkward, but a moment later it was done and Sally was sitting beside Mrs. Bates.

  She took hold of the older woman’s hand. “It’s going to be all right, Violet. Mr. Stevenson is an experienced driver. I’m sure he’s going to get all of us through this just fine.”

  “Do . . . do you really think so, my dear?”

  “I really do.”

  “But that storm looks so bad, and . . . and we’re going so fast I’m afraid we’re going to crash!”

  George said, “I think going this fast is fun!” He grew more solemn, though, as he added, “I don’t like the looks of that storm. We had some sandstorms up in Flagstaff, but never one like that!”

  “Oh, George, I’m sorry I dragged you away from there.”

  “I reckon you had to, Grandma. I couldn’t stay there by myself.”

  Smoke was glad to see that the boy had dropped his sullen, complaining nature . . . at least for a while. Mrs. Bates was already upset enough without having to worry about that.

  “I wish we were out of this,” the older woman said in a half-moan.

  Catherine, on Mrs. Bates’s other side, patted her on the shoulder and said in a reassuring tone, “It’s going to be all right. Why, I think the air is starting to clear up a bit already.”

  Smoke was a little surprised to see the young woman exhibiting concern for anyone else. That was encouraging, too. Folks could be petty and self-centered, but when things got bad, most of them were able to put that aside and care for their fellow human beings.

  Luckily, only a handful were such skunks they just needed shooting. For varmints like that, Smoke, Preacher, and fellows like Matt and Luke were around to deal with them.

  That thought had just gone through Smoke’s mind when something thudded hard against the side of the coach and he felt an all-too-familiar sensation as something ripped through the air in front of his face. He jerked his head around and spotted the rough-edged hole in the coach’s side next to the window and recognized it immediately for what it was.

  He had seen too many bullet holes not to.

  “Down!” he shouted over the racket made by the bouncing, careening stagecoach and the howling wind. His hand flashed to the Colt on his hip. “Everybody down on the floor!”

  Preacher reacted as instantly as Smoke had, drawing his revolver with his right hand while he reached across with his left and took hold of Catherine Bradshaw’s arm. “Get down there next to the bench, miss,” he snapped. “Hurry!”

  Sally might not have realized exactly what was going on, but she knew Smoke and Preacher wouldn’t be acting like that unless something was very wrong. She put her arms around Mrs. Bates and urged her to the floor, joining the crowded huddle there.

  Tom Ballard told George, “Get down there with your grandmother, son!” He looked at Smoke. “Is it . . .”

  Gun in hand, Smoke was peering out the window, his neck twisted so he could look behind the coach. He had already spotted figures on horseback racing through the haze, trying to overtake the stagecoach. Others were off to the sides, closing in. He saw another spurt of orange muzzle flame, but the bullet didn’t seem to hit the coach.

  Smoke turned back toward the front of the stagecoach and bellowed, “Scratchy! Mike! Apaches!”

  CHAPTER 25

  Up on the box, Scratchy roared curses as he popped the whip over the heads of the team. The horses were already running at full speed, but he had to keep trying to get more out of them. He didn’t look back to see how close the Indians were. That wouldn’t help anything.

  Mike reached down, placed the shotgun on the floorboards at his feet, and snatched up his Winchester. As he turned on the seat to see behind the stagecoach, he worked the rifle’s lever to throw a cartridge into the chamber.

  Exposed between his lowered hat brim and the bandanna over his mouth and nose, his bare skin felt the sting of a million needles as the fine grains of sand pelted it. He squinted and made out half a dozen or more figures galloping after the coach on the squat ponies the Apaches favored.

  Those horses had plenty of stamina and had plenty of meat on them for emergencies. Although they weren’t built for speed, a few of the riders had managed to draw ahead of the others and were almost even with the coach on both sides. Mike saw a flash of muzzle fire and heard the bullet smack into the coach.

  He brought the Winchester to his shoulder and aimed as best he could through the blowing sand. The rifle cracked and kicked against his shoulder. He couldn’t see well enough to tell if the bullet found its target or not. As he swung the rifle aro
und, he triggered four more shots as fast as he could work the Winchester’s lever.

  Spray enough lead and maybe one or two of the shots would knock an Apache off his pony, he thought. If he could bring down a couple, the others might break off the attack.

  They must really be on the prod, he told himself. Otherwise they would have headed for shelter when they saw the storm coming. Instead, they had used the flying sand as cover until they were practically right behind the stagecoach, then launched their attack. If they managed to kill any of the horses, the chase would be over before it even had the chance to get started good.

  “You hittin’ any o’ the red devils?” Scratchy yelled.

  “Don’t know!” Mike replied as he momentarily lowered the Winchester. “I’m sure as hell trying!”

  Shots boomed from inside the coach. Some of the passengers—Smoke and Preacher, almost certainly—were using handguns to put up a fight. Mike wasn’t sure Colts would do much good in their current predicament, but if anybody could do damage with. 45s, it was Smoke Jensen and the old mountain man called Preacher!

  Their Winchesters were in the boot at the rear of the coach. Smoke wished they had the repeaters. They would be able to get the rifles into action if Scratchy managed to get to a place where they could fort up. Until then, they would do what they could with their revolvers.

  The Apaches were at the far edge of handgun range, and the sand in the air made aiming difficult if not impossible. Few men had the almost supernatural ability with a gun that Smoke and Preacher possessed, however.

  Smoke drew a bead on one of the raiders and squeezed the trigger. The Colt roared and bucked in his hand. He caught just a glimpse as the Apache threw up his hands and toppled off the racing pony. It was enough to tell him that one member of the war party was down, at least.

  Preacher fired from the window on the other side of the coach, then exclaimed, “Got one o’ the varmints!”

  “So did I. They’re not dropping back, though.”