Sally paused in her efforts and used the back of her hand to wipe dark hair away from her sweaty forehead. She glanced over at Smoke. “I must look a sight.”
“A mighty pretty sight,” he told her.
“Oh, don’t even attempt any flattery, Smoke Jensen. I know better.”
“Wasn’t flattery. Just the plain, honest truth. I’ve never seen you when you didn’t look absolutely beautiful to me.”
She laughed. “You know, for a man with such a reputation as a gunfighter, you must have mighty poor eyesight sometimes.”
A few feet away, Mike and Catherine were working side by side, too, using their hands to scoop away the sand.
“You can take it easy and rest for a little while, Miss Bradshaw.”
“I thought you agreed to call me Catherine. And anyway, I can do my part. I’m all right. Just a little tired and hot and thirsty . . . and hungry. Well, maybe I’m not exactly all right . . . but I can keep going for a while.”
“Your lieutenant is a lucky man to be gettin’ himself such a fine wife.” At the sudden frown on Catherine’s face, Mike added quickly, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have been so bold—”
“No, that’s all right. I’m just not sure Lieutenant Preston is getting himself such a good deal.”
That was an odd way to put it, Mike thought. A good deal. Folks didn’t usually refer to a marriage that way, at least not in his experience. Catherine was from back east somewhere and Lieutenant Harrison Preston was in the army. Mike didn’t know all that much about either of those things.
As they all cleared away the drift from lower down, the sand on top slid and spread out, causing the gap to widen.
Finally, Smoke said, “I reckon that hole’s big enough for me to climb up there and get through.”
“I’ll go,” Mike said immediately. “I’m an employee of the Saxon Stage Line, Mr. Jensen. It’s my job to go check on the coach and bring that water back.”
“It’ll take two men to carry that barrel, remember?”
Tom Ballard said, “I’ll be the second man.” When Smoke opened his mouth to argue, Ballard held up a hand to stop him. “Everyone else in this group is going to have a lot better chance to survive in the long run if you’re still alive, Smoke. You know that. I’m just a newspaperman.” He smiled. “I’m expendable.”
Smoke didn’t like anybody else stepping up and doing a job he thought he ought to do himself, but it was true that he had more experience in staying alive under extreme circumstances. He and Preacher had come through some pretty harrowing experiences in their lives. With Scratchy wounded, and the women and George out of the question, what Ballard said made sense.
“All right, Tom,” Smoke said. “But Preacher and I are snaking our way out there, too, to cover you and Mike while you’re fetching the water.”
Ballard nodded. “That sounds fine to me.”
“I’ll go first,” Mike announced. He took off his duster and left his Winchester in the cave. Climbing to the top of the sand heap that remained in the entrance wasn’t easy, but he managed without sliding down and having to start over. Sand cascaded down from his efforts.
When Mike reached the opening, Smoke said, “Take a look first. You want to be sure you’re not diving right into trouble.”
Mike paused, balanced precariously on top of the sand, and twisted his head back and forth. “I don’t see a thing. The stagecoach is buried up to its hubs in sand, but there’s nobody around it.”
“Anybody hiding inside it?”
“Not that I can see. The dead horses are gone, too. Do you think the Apaches dragged them off?”
“Nothing Apaches like much better than horse meat,” Smoke said. “All right, Mike. Slide on down outside. I’ll come next, then Tom, then Preacher.”
No one objected to the way Smoke had taken command. He was a natural-born leader, and the others all knew he was their best chance of getting out alive. He took his rifle with him as he climbed the drift, bellied through the opening, and slid headfirst down the far side.
It felt good to be out of the cave and in the sunlight again. The dust floating in the air in the storm’s aftermath gave the sky a brown tinge, but it was clear enough for Smoke to see for hundreds of yards over the arid landscape dotted with scrub brush. Nothing was moving out there.
In short order, Ballard and Preacher joined them.
Ballard said, “Let’s go get that water. I’m sure ready for it.”
“Reckon we all are,” Mike said. With Ballard at his side, he strode toward the stagecoach.
They had gone only a few steps when an arrow seemed to come out of nowhere and smacked into Mike’s thigh with a meaty thud.
CHAPTER 35
With a hoarse cry of pain, Mike stumbled and clutched at his wounded thigh but managed to stay on his feet. With his left hand, Ballard grabbed Mike’s arm and steadied him. At the same time, he used his right hand to yank the pistol from his pocket. Eyes wide, he searched for something to shoot at.
Smoke and Preacher lifted their rifles to their shoulders and looked around, too. Smoke caught just the faintest flicker of movement at the top of a dune about fifty yards away and instantly snapped a shot at it. Sand flew, and a startled yelp told him he had either hit the ambusher hiding out there or had come mighty close to him.
Mike and Ballard were still too far from the coach to reach it safely and use it for cover, especially with Mike having to hobble along on an injured leg. Smoke fired again in the general direction of his first shot, as did Preacher.
As he levered the Winchester, Smoke called, “You two get back here! We’ll cover you!”
Smoke and Preacher kept up a steady fire, spraying slugs around the area in front of the cave as Mike and Ballard hurried toward them. Mike limped heavily, leaning on the newspaperman helping him stay on his feet. Despite the covering fire, more arrows flew around the two fleeing men. The Apaches were masters at concealing themselves in the smallest possible spaces.
As Mike and Ballard stumbled past Smoke and Preacher, Mike looked up and cried, “No, Catherine! Get back in the cave!”
Smoke couldn’t look around, but he heard Catherine sliding down the mound of sand.
“I’ll help you!” she said.
Mike groaned, either from pain or fear . . . or both . . . that she would be hurt. It was no use arguing with a stubborn woman, though. With Ballard on one side and Catherine on the other, all three struggled toward the opening at the top of the drift.
“You next, Preacher,” Smoke said as he peered through powder smoke.
“Naw, I’ll bring up the rear. Get your carcass back in there, boy.”
Smoke didn’t waste time arguing. He started up the sand, twisting to fire his Colt toward where the arrows were coming from. One of the shafts whipped past his head, missing him by about a foot, but that was the closest they came.
When he reached the top, he holstered the Colt and lifted the Winchester again as he called, “Preacher, come on!”
Preacher retreated to the drift’s base and began climbing. It was tough going. The sand slid underfoot with each lunge upward, but the old-timer was built of rawhide and whang leather and kept going. As he struggled to reach the opening, Smoke’s bullets continued kicking up dirt in the area where the Apaches were hidden.
When Preacher was close enough, Smoke stopped firing and extended a hand down to him. Preacher grasped it, and Smoke hauled him up. Both of them toppled through the gap and tumbled down into the chamber the elements had carved out of the sandstone bluff.
“Lord have mercy!” Preacher exclaimed when they reached the bottom and came to a stop.
Smoke sat up and looked around. Enough sunlight came through the opening that he could see the entire cave. Mike sat with his back against the wall, not far from Scratchy. Sally had cut his trouser leg away from the wound and was examining it, along with Catherine, to see how bad it was. Ballard, Mrs. Bates, and George stood by, watching them tend to the wounded man.
“Yeah, I reckon. That arrow’s gonna have to go on through the young feller’s leg.”
“I know.” Smoke got to his feet. “Keep an eye on that opening up there. Make sure no Apaches try to sneak through it.”
“They’ll get a bullet in the face if they do,” Preacher declared.
Smoke went over to join Sally and Catherine.
Sally glanced at him. “The arrow’s lodged pretty deeply.”
“I know,” he said with a nod. “Mike, I reckon I don’t have to tell you what has to be done.”
Mike’s face was a little washed out under its deep tan. He swallowed. “Yeah, I know. Best get it over with.”
“Turn on your side a little more. You want a bullet to bite . . . or a belt?”
“No”—Mike looked at Catherine—“but maybe if you’d hang on to my hand . . .”
“Of course,” she said without hesitation. She caught hold of his left hand in both of hers.
Then he clasped his right hand over hers.
He nodded to Smoke and then looked away, fastening his gaze on Catherine’s face.
Smoke grasped the arrow, set himself, and with a quick bunching of corded muscles under his shirt, he shoved the arrowhead the rest of the way through Mike’s leg.
Mike tipped his head back and showed his teeth in agony, but he didn’t make a sound other than a faint growl from deep in his throat. His hands gripped harder on Catherine’s. Pain showed on her face, but she didn’t pull away.
Now that he could reach the bloody arrowhead, Smoke took hold of it and snapped the shaft. Then he pulled what was left of the shaft back through the hole in Mike’s leg.
Mike took a deep, shuddery breath, and then his head fell to the side. He had passed out. Probably the best thing, considering that the wound still had to be cleaned.
“Scratchy, we’ll need that flash of rye,” Smoke said.
“Ain’t much of it left, but there ought to be enough,” Scratchy said as he handed over the silver flask. He sighed. “Better not anybody else get wounded.”
Smoke unscrewed the cap from the flask and dribbled the fiery liquor into the entrance wound on the front of Mike’s thigh. Mike stirred a little as the whiskey bit into raw flesh, but he didn’t regain consciousness. Smoke turned the young shotgun guard’s leg so he could do the same thing with the exit wound.
He started to hand the flask to Sally then changed his mind and passed it over to Catherine. “You saw what I just did. Can you do that every couple hours and keep fresh bandages on the wounds?”
She nodded, none too confidently. “I think I can. Is it all right to use strips from my petticoat for dressings?”
“Yep. I think that would do just fine.” Smoke stood up and moved back over to where Preacher had an eye cocked on the partially blocked entrance.
Sally followed him, smiled, and said quietly, “Are we going to have to change your name to Cupid Jensen?”
“It’s not that at all,” Smoke said gruffly. “I was going to get you to take care of him, but then I figured we might need you more for shooting instead of nursing.” Then he smiled, too. “Of course, Mike’s a fine young man, and I don’t reckon it’ll bother him to learn that he had such a pretty gal taking care of him.”
“A pretty girl who’s engaged to another man,” Sally pointed out.
“Well, Lieutenant Preston’s not here, although I wouldn’t mind seeing him right about now, especially if he was leading a company of cavalry.” Smoke grew more solemn as he looked at the mound of sand. “So we’re still bottled up in here with no food or water and no way to get away from the Apaches.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Preacher drawled. “We’ll all die o’ thirst a long time before we’ll ever starve. That is, if them damn stubborn redskins don’t get us first.”
* * *
Smoke and Preacher climbed to the opening and lay there with their heads just above the sandy crest as they peered out.
“I don’t see a blamed thing movin’ anywhere,” Preacher said after a few moments.
“Neither do I, but if we were to try to get to that stagecoach, I reckon our friends would announce themselves.”
Preacher grunted. “Them ’Paches ain’t no friends o’ mine. You know, I never had anything in partic’lar against the Injuns, despite how many of ’em tried to kill me over the years. Well, the Blackfeet, maybe. For pure cussedness, there ain’t nobody in the world who tops ’em. But anyway, I had some mighty fine friends among the tribes in my earlier days. Truth be told, probably fathered a good number o’ younguns, too, and like I told you that first time we met, I prob’ly got more grandkids and great-grandkids scattered around the frontier than I can count. So can’t nobody say I ain’t been a friend to the Injuns who been friends to me.”
He spat out through the opening, made a face, and went on. “Dang, a man can’t hardly work up no spit when he’s this dry. As I was sayin’, there’s been plenty o’ times when the red man got a raw deal in this country, especially from the crooked politicians and the damn paper pushers they’ve paid off. Like that blasted Injun Ring in Washington we’ve tussled with a few times.”
“You’re not saying anything I don’t agree with, Preacher,” Smoke told him. “I reckon you’ll get to a point sooner or later?”
“The point’s this. I might have some sympathy for anybody who’s fightin’ for his land and the way he wants to live, but them ’Paches ain’t just fightin’ for that. They’re crazy mean and cruel. Torture’s just a sport with them. I can’t abide that. Killin’ an enemy in battle is one thing. Makin’ him take a day or two to die while he’s screamin’ for mercy . . . well, that’s another. I could put a bullet in the head of ever’ one o’ them varmints out there and never lose a second’s sleep over it.”
“I reckon you’ll get a chance to try.”
Preacher’s weathered old face was grim as he said, “You know what’s happenin’ out there right now, don’t you?”
“The Apaches are waiting for us to show our faces?”
“More than that. They’ve sent out word that they got a bunch of white folks trapped here. Might not ’ve been more ’n a couple dozen in the bunch that jumped us first. But I’ll bet you a fancy new hat more o’ them bucks been slippin’ off the reservation ever’ night since the trouble started. Could be two hundred or more renegades roamin’ around by now, and once they hear what’s goin’ on, they’ll be headin’ for this place to get in on the fun.”
“So you’re saying the odds against us are just going to get worse.”
“That’s what I’m a-sayin’,” Preacher declared.
“You think we should try to bust out of here now, before we’re outnumbered twenty to one?”
Preacher rasped a hand over the silvery stubble that dotted his lean jaws. “Might be too late to make a break. If there was any way to get that stagecoach rollin’, I’d say we ought to give it a try. Some of us wouldn’t make it, but we’d have more of a fightin’ chance. On foot—” He shook his head. “That’d just be throwin’ our lives away.” Preacher sighed. “It’d sure be nice to see ol’ Matt and Luke come a-gallopin’ over the horizon right now. Maybe even with them two hell-raisin’ younkers with ’em . . . what do you call ’em? Ace and Chance?”
“That would make a difference, all right,” Smoke agreed. “But it would take a miracle for something like that to happen.”
“Well . . . it’s the right time o’ year for it, ain’t it? And if you’re gonna wish for a miracle, you might as well make it a good one.”
Smoke couldn’t argue with that, but he commented, “I’m a little surprised to hear talk of miracles coming from a hardheaded old coot like you.”
“Oh, I’ve seen some things in my life,” Preacher said. “Things there ain’t no reasonable explanation for . . . in this world or any other.”
While they were talking to pass the time, they had continued scanning the apparently empty
terrain in front of the cave. Both men knew better, however. There were probably dozens of their enemies lurking out there, watching the cave.
Smoke heard someone clambering up the sand hill behind them. He turned his head to look and saw Tom Ballard. “Come to help us keep watch?”
The newspaperman flopped down beside them. “I came to talk to you because I have an idea. Those Apaches want to kill us, but what they really want to do is capture us, right?”
Preacher said, “They could get a lot more sport out of it that way, yeah.”
“Do you think they’d be satisfied with one captive?”
Smoke frowned. “What the hell are you talking about, Tom?”
“I’d be willing to strike a bargain with them. I would surrender myself, and in turn they’d let the rest of you go.”
Preacher let out a harsh laugh.
Smoke shook his head. “You’d be throwing your life away. The Apaches don’t make deals. Even if they did, they’d just kill you—probably taking their time about it and making sure we could hear you scream—and then come after the rest of us, anyway. It was a noble thought, Tom, but it won’t work.” Smoke smiled. “Anyway, you have work to do in Tucson when you get back.”
“When I get back,” Ballard repeated with a bitter edge in his voice. “You don’t really think—”
“Smoke,” Preacher said suddenly, “there’s somethin’ movin’ ’way out yonder—and it ain’t them blasted ’Paches.”
CHAPTER 36
Smoke and Ballard immediately turned their attention toward the opening and peered out. Ballard’s noble but futile idea was forgotten. Preacher pointed, and the other two men followed his finger.
Smoke’s eyes were at least as keen as those of the old mountain man. He spotted a dark speck about a mile out on the desert. It moved in and out of sight as it climbed and descended the slight rises that rolled across the arid landscape. “Is that a wagon of some sort?”
“I think it is,” Preacher said.
Ballard shook his head. “Your eyes must be a lot better than mine. I can’t see a thing out there.”
An Arizona Christmas Page 23