Lord Apache

by Robert J. Steelman

  Coogan spat a rich gout. "All right with me." He shrugged. "Stage company pays me either way." He pointed toward the shimmering playa. "Dassn't go back through Centinela Canyon, that's for sure. But we c'n cross the river and head back along the old County Road. It's longer, and rockier 'n hell—beg your pardon, ladies—but we ain't so likely to get bushwhacked."

  "That makes sense," the man in the plug hat agreed. "And we might just run into George Dunaway and his men—telegraph said they was over this way. Maybe George can give us an escort and we can try to get through to Prescott again."

  Valentine seemed to be the recognized leader of the group, the one they all deferred to. "All right," he sighed. "Common sense, I guess." He turned to John Drumm. "How about you, sir, and your man? We can make room for you in the coach if you'd like to go to Phoenix."

  Drumm shook his head. "We're bound for Prescott and are late already. We mean to take the new Atlantic and Pacific Railroad at Bear Spring and reach New York in time to catch a fast packet, before the winter storms. No, I think we'll stay here and chance it. We are well armed, and will give Agustín a rousing welcome if he attempts to attack us again. Besides, we are hoping Lieutenant Dunaway can soon 'put the cork in the bottle and ram it home,' as he says. Then we can take the next stage and resume our journey."

  The red-haired young lady was indignant. "All this gab about fleeing back to Phoenix!" she cried. "What are you—men or milksops? I am not afraid to go on!"

  "That's the God's truth!" her gray-haired companion agreed, brandishing the parasol. "I ain't either!"

  Valentine's tone was politic as he said, "Miss Larkin, we couldn't really risk harm to you and Mrs. Glore. The ambush in the canyon was a near thing; if we try to go on, we risk much more." He smiled. "I would never forgive myself if anything untoward happened to that glorious titian hair!"

  Miss Larkin's milk-white skin flushed. Her blue eyes darkened.

  "Then you won't go on?"

  "I am afraid we cannot."

  She looked about her. Her bosom heaved, and she clenched her fists tightly.

  "Then Beulah and I will just stay here!"

  "You can't do that!" Valentine protested.

  She looked at Jack Drumm. "Beulah and I will stay here, with this gentleman, till another stage comes north and we can board it."

  Drumm, who had been silently listening to the argument, could scarcely find his voice. "You—you can't be serious!" he stammered. "You can see our situation is serious here! There is no way to tell when the Apaches may mount another attack on us!"

  "That's right," Coogan agreed. "Not meanin' to interfere, ma'am, but you got to come back to Phoenix with us! Maybe later—"

  "We just had an uncomfortable experience in Phoenix," Miss Larkin insisted, "and I don't mean to repeat it! No, we will stay here!"

  "But we have practically no food!" Drumm protested, annoyed with the arrogant female. "Most of our supplies were destroyed, and my man and I have been reduced to eating Indian corn!"

  Mrs. Glore held up her bulging reticule. "Since Phoebe and I come West," she remarked, "I've found that food is an uncertain commodity. So I've got bacon in here, and eggs—a wheel of cheese —some tortugas or whatever they call 'em—"

  "Tortillas," the man from Tubac muttered.

  "Well, whatever. We'll get along all right."

  "I forbid it!" Drumm insisted.

  Phoebe Larkin looked at him with a hard blue eye. "You can't forbid us anything! This is part of the United States, which is a free country. A lady has a perfect right to stop and visit wherever she's a mind to." She turned to the driver. "If you will just pass down our valises—"

  Coogan looked at Jack Drumm. "Short of hog-tieing her—"

  "You lay a hand on her and I'll turn you inside out and stomp your giblets!" Mrs. Glore promised, holding the parasol like a weapon.

  "Be quiet, Beulah," Miss Larkin instructed. "I can take care of myself. Always have, and always will." She picked up a valise. "Beulah and I will take shelter in that little shack over there until someone is brave enough to see us to Prescott!"

  "Now wait a minute!" Drumm insisted, seeing the two females head toward Eggleston's reed hut. "You can't—"

  Disappearing among the reeds, they paid him no attention. The company watched them go. Sam Valentine muttered, "Well, she's a strong-minded young lady, that's sure! Any Apache would be unlucky to cut her trail!"

  There was nothing more to be done. Valentine shook hands, the legislators climbed back into the stage. Coogan spat again from his inexhaustible supply of amber juice and mounted the high seat beside the driver, long rifle across his lap. "Meant to tell you," he called down. "This is Agustín's old stamping grounds, along the river here; kind of a sacred place. His gods hang out here! Keep a sharp eye out, Mr. Drumm, for him and his coffee-colored bastards!"

  Before Drumm could acknowledge the warning, the driver cracked his long whip; quickly the stage disappeared into the reeds, wheels churning in the mossy mud. A moment later it reappeared on the far side of the Agua Fria, heading toward the distant County Road, and Phoenix.

  "This," Jack Drumm muttered, "is a deucedly peculiar situation, Eggie!"

  The valet looked toward the two females, who were waiting impatiently, as if for a tardy innkeeper.

  "That is true, sir," Eggleston agreed, rubbing his battered nose and wincing.

  Jack Drumm stood in the middle of the now-deserted Prescott Road. He felt frustrated and ineffectual, a feeling new to him. In sharp contrast to his gloomy mood, the setting sun painted the scene in a manner almost pastoral; a landscape by Constable, perhaps, or Joseph Turner. Eggleston's rude cabin sat on a rise surrounded by verdure, like a ruined crofter's cottage, while the solitary mule grazed along the stream. To Drumm's ear came the sound of the Agua Fria, tributary of the Salt, plashing into mossy pools, gurgling through the matted soil of the river bottom. Even the dark clouds hovering about the peaks of the distant Mazatzals were shot with gold, and a hazy mellow light enveloped all.

  "Homeward the plowman wends his weary way…" he murmured, not remembering the exact words of Thomas Gray's Elegy, "and leaves the world to darkness and to me." Thinking of the annoying turn events had taken, his own mood was as dark as the coming darkness of the world.

  Chapter Three

  In the growing dusk they ate supper, supplied for the most part from Mrs. Glore's reticule—slices of cheese wrapped in tortillas, and an apple apiece along with ears of boiled Indian corn. They washed down the scanty fare with river water that Eggleston had poured into a pan to allow mud and ooze to settle. Miss Larkin wanted a fire to make tea, but Drumm forbade it.

  "We are in Apache country, ma'am," he said curtly. "I am not about to draw their further attentions with a flame that can be seen for several miles." Inwardly he reproached himself for his coolness; Miss Larkin was a female of some status, apparently, judging from her expensive clothes, and he was hardly acting the gentleman. Still, it was unladylike of her to press herself on them, commandeer Eggleston's reed hut, and place herself and her companion under his protection without so much as a by-your-leave. But Miss Larkin was also a beautiful female. Jack Drumm was conscious of his wrecked mustache, of the ugly blood-caked scar along his cheek, of torn and dirty clothing and a need for a bath, while she smelled of clean flesh and Paris perfume.

  "I—I mean—" he amended, "well, that is to say—we cannot be too careful, ma'am! We are all alone here, on a hostile desert."

  Cross-legged on a blanket Eggleston had spread, she seemed not to notice but went on prattling in her quick decisive way.

  "Take some more cheese, Mr. Drumm! Beulah bought it in Phoenix—it's a Mexican cheese, called queso duro." She got to her feet gracefully, like a deer rising, and looked at the growing sprinkle of stars. In the west there was only a faint orange flush shading off into dusky purple overhead. "I guess the desert is an unfriendly place, yes! But it is sure pretty." She took a deep breath; the fine bosom rose and fell under the lace ru
ching, a jeweled pin at her throat caught a last glimmer of light. "Smell that, will you? Some kind of desert plant, I'll bet! Oh, the night is so beautiful!"

  At Drumm's nod, Eggleston went obediently to gather blankets and pillows and whatever conveniences he could find around the wrecked camp. Moments later, assisted by Mrs. Glore, he was working in the reed hut by the shaded light of the camphene lamp, preparing couches for the two females.

  "You spoke," Drumm said grudgingly, rolling another piece of the hard cheese in a tortilla, "of a bad experience in Phoenix, ma'am."

  She sat beside him again on the blanket, sipping at a cup of water.

  "I don't want to talk about that! It was too scary."

  Miss Larkin was certainly not like Cornelia Newton-Barrett, not like Cornelia at all. But her presence, the female presence, made him think longingly of Cornelia, of home, of peace and contentment and amenities denied in this inhospitable desert.

  "I suppose," she said brightly, "you're wondering who I am— how Beulah and I came to be out here, far from everything, traveling to Prescott!"

  He inclined his head politely, shifting the position of the needle-gun across his knees. "You do not need to explain yourself to me, Miss Larkin."

  "Just call me Phoebe," she said. With a quick gesture she took off the bonnet and China silk scarf and tossed her head, freeing the mane of red hair to flow richly about her face. "That's what I answer to back in—back in—" She paused, picked up the colorful scarf, worked it between her long fingers. After a moment she said, "My father is a wealthy judge in New York City, and Mrs. Glore is an old family friend of the Larkins. You see, I always had a lot of young fellows sparking me there—"

  Drumm was puzzled. "Sparking you, ma'am?"

  She giggled. "I forgot you were English! That means—well, courting me!"

  "I see," he said, somewhat stiffly.

  "I guess Papa was afraid the boys were getting too serious! So me and Beulah—Papa packed us off to travel the West, visit my wealthy Uncle Buell Larkin, who made his fortune in a gold mine at Prescott. Papa didn't want me to marry anybody but another judge, and there wasn't any in the pack that always hung around the house."

  "That's the God's truth," Mrs. Glore called. "Every word of it!"

  Drumm fumbled a hand over his damaged mustache when he looked at Miss Larkin. "I have a friend who was with me at Magdalen College. Geoffrey moved to New York City to take over his father's import business. He lived someplace in New York City near the Bronx. Tell me, do you know the Bronx?"

  "The Bronks?" Phoebe shook her head. "There was a family of Bronsons, but they were kind of white trash. The judge never wanted me to associate with them."

  Drumm was puzzled. "No, no!" he protested. "I mean the Bronx! It's a locality in New York City."

  Phoebe pondered. "Oh, yes," she said. "The Bronx."

  She regarded him with asperity. "Well, I did live there!"

  "I did not deny it, ma'am."

  Her blue eyes narrowed. "But just what are you getting at?"

  It had been a long and arduous day, and he was not in the best of moods. "I was not 'getting at' anything!" he said stiffly. "I was only wondering why you had never heard of the Bronx. Even in London we know that area!"

  "And in New York," she said loftily, "we have better manners than to haze our guests so!"

  He blinked. "Really, Miss Larkin—"

  "I have been a perfect lady," she said. "I have shared confidences with you, told you a few details of my personal life as a proper female might, and now you are abusing me!"

  Open-mouthed, he could only stare at her. The blue eyes were dark with annoyance, the lips firmly set in disapproval. Dusting her hands in a gesture of finality, she got to her feet. "It really is not nice to be so suspicious, Mr. Drumm. I wonder you have any friends!"

  "Look out!" he called after her. "Ma'am, be careful! You're walking right into a barrel cactus—Echinocactus grusoni, I think!"

  Pausing in flight, she drew her skirts aside from the menacing spines.

  "Thank you," she said curtly, "but I don't need your help, Mr. Drumm. I saw the cactus myself and I don't need any man's help! I can take care of myself—always have, and always will!"

  While Eggleston slept, Jack Drumm took the first watch. He squatted for a long time, chill and uncomfortable in the single burr-covered blanket remaining to him after the valet had fitted out the reed hut for the females' occupancy. Moodily he stared into the darkness. Along the river the coyotes started their music, and a night bird tuned up in a nearby bush.

  Miss Larkin was certainly an odd person; he suspected she was not even a proper lady. As for that story of living in New York City, it was an obvious fabrication. But there had been no need to lie to him; what did he care about her past?

  Near one in the morning, to judge from the position of Orion's belt, he woke the weary Eggleston and lay down himself, hands clasped behind his head. Around the distant Mazatzals forked lightning played, shimmering silently against the dark clouds. Long moments later he heard a cannonading of thunder. But she was beautiful! Not the patrician handsomeness of Cornelia Newton-Barrett, but instead a kind of coltish attractiveness, a careless charm that seemed unaware of its own beauty. Closing tired eyes, he finally slept, exhausted by the events of the day.

  In the first flush of dawn he awoke. A single ray of sunlight crept through a notch in the sierra, lighting the disorder and confusion of the camp. Eggleston lay propped against a boulder, Sharp's rifle across his knees, sleeping. Poor Eggie—the valet was done in too! But soon they would be on the cars at Bear Spring and out of this infernal wasteland. Drumm yawned and stretched his arms. In spite of cramps in his legs and an aching back, he felt almost cheerful. Home, soon—the green hills of Hampshire!

  The morning was yet chill, and he did not care to leave the scanty warmth of his blanket. As he lay there, he was puzzled by a faint rumbling, so faint he seemed almost to feel it rather than hear. He raised himself on an elbow and looked around.

  Miss Phoebe Larkin had also heard the strange noise. In the gray of dawn she hurried from the reed hut with a blanket about her shoulders, otherwise dressed only in camisole and lacy petticoats. Her feet were bare.

  "What was that?" she called to Drumm.

  "I don't know," he said, and sat up—looking, listening.

  Phoebe stood in the shaft of sunlight, tumbled red hair falling about her shoulders and glistening sleekly, like the brush of a fox in autumn. "There! I heard it again!" She raised a slender finger. "Listen!" She wore a lot of rings; though Drumm was no expert, many of them were heavy with what appeared to be diamonds.

  He got up quickly in his drawers, his own blanket held modestly about naked legs. Now there was no doubt of the queer sensation. Under his feet the hard-baked earth quivered, trembled, rolling slightly so that he felt giddy. It was almost like his attack of mal de mer on the stormy passage from Marseilles to Alexandria.

  Eggleston woke up and stared at them. "What is it?" he called. Then he felt the rumble and jumped to his feet.

  "In my guidebook," Drumm said thoughtfully, "there is an account of a dreadful earthquake that occurred near the city of Los Angeles, west of here, in the year seventeen hundred and—"

  The rumbling grew; the earth shook.

  "Seventeen hundred," Drumm repeated, "and—"

  Hair done up in curl-papers, Mrs. Glore rushed from the reed hut. "Lordy, Lordy, Lordy!" she quavered. "What's happening?"

  "Mr. Jack!" Eggleston shouted. "Look!"

  Down the valley of the Agua Fria, rolling like a steam locomotive, came a wall of water as high as their heads. Boulders, trees, and uprooted bushes caromed in the muddy torrent. The last thing Drumm saw as the great tide reached them was Eggleston's reed hut, riding high on the crest.

  He opened his mouth to cry a warning but there was no time. The waters reached him, bowled him over, filled his mouth with sand and mud. The world turned, the Mazatzals wheeled into the sky, and dawn-flecked clouds
fell to earth, or where the earth should have been. Carried along like a chip of wood on the Thames, he paddled madly, trying to avoid obstacles looming in his path; a giant boulder, a towering saguaro, a smoke tree. Traveling at express-train speed, he closed his eyes in horror as the desert Niagara raised him high on its crest to fling him at a patch of spiny cholla. At the last moment a freakish shift of the current deposited him with a splash into a shallow pool at one side of the main course of the Agua Fria.

  Stunned, he lay in the mud and ooze until he realized he was drowning. Thrashing, he staggered to his feet, drawing gasps of air into his lungs. Someone was screaming, a shrill insistent female keening that hurt his ears. He ran toward the sound.

  "Phoebe! Oh, Phoebe! Dear Lord, where is she?"

  The roar of the water had grown fainter. Against its diminishing rumble he heard Mrs. Glore scream again, saw her white face, her open mouth, the pointing finger paralyzed with horror.

  "There! There she is!"

  The great wave had scoured out a pool in the once-tranquil bed of the river. On its foam-flecked surface Drumm saw something floating, a white flower unfolded on the surface. Desperately he threw himself into the water, now well over his head, and swam to the white blossom. It was Phoebe Larkin's petticoats; he grabbed a handful of silk and started to backstroke with one arm, holding the petticoats with the other. Faintly, above the frantic splashing of his efforts, he heard shouts, commotion, Mrs. Beulah Glore still screaming with fire-whistle intensity.

  "She's drowned! She's drowned!"

  Blackness engulfed him. His arm felt leaden and he gasped for breath, feeling his mouth fill again with the muddy water. But Eggleston had splashed into the pool to help him.

  "You're almost there, Mr. Jack!"

  Just as he could swim no more and was about to release his hold on the floating fabric, Drumm's feet touched bottom. He staggered from the water, hauling Miss Larkin by her petticoats. Depositing her on a grassy hummock, he collapsed. Dimly he realized that the roar of the waters was almost gone. As he listened, it dwindled downstream, the sound like that of a goods van passing into the distance.