‘Them Apaches gotta be outta their minds,’ Mel Rubinger hissed through teeth clenched around a half-smoked and long dead cigar.
This as the silence beyond the hill to the east was disturbed by the thud of many unshod hooves against the ground.
‘No crazier than you people, I figure,’ Edge replied as, like every man squinting towards the sun rising above the hill crest, he checked there was a shell in the breech of his rifle. ‘Just that they hate you as much as you hate them.’
The Apaches appeared in a long line, reining their ponies to a halt on the top of the hill. Edge was able to pick out Thundercloud and another sub-chief on the right and the third of Acoti’s lieutenants to the left. The chief himself would be at the centre of the line, he and perhaps thirty other Indians impossible to see against the dazzlingly bright sun.
But every brave could see the chief, and upon a signal from him, the mounts were heeled into a sudden gallop. The thud of pumping hooves masked by the blood-curdling war whoops which were vented from every Apache throat.
In the Lutters’ place, the stage line office, the sheriff’s house, the bank and the premises of the dead Bob Sweeney, men and women gasped and trembled. But quickly recovered their composure. Now that the war-painted and shrieking Indians were in sight they were less terrifying. And looking at them, the citizens were able to steel themselves for the effort to extract their revenge. With, in their minds, an image that was as clearly defined as the awesome spectacle of the charging attackers. A vivid memory of Bob Sweeney. Ernie Noble. Young Dargan. Betty Temple and Francine’s young brother and sister. Seth Reed. And every other man, woman and child who was buried over the brow of the hill as a result of Apache hate. Maybe a thought was spared, too, for Costello, Hillenbrand, Jaroff and Draper.
There was no hesitating at the bottom of the dip between the hill to the east and El Cerro de Muerto. Probably, the speed of the charge increased as Acoti led his braves up the slope of hallowed ground which had been desecrated by avaricious white eyes. Certainly the volume of whooping and shrieking from the braves’ gaping mouths got louder.
Then, a moment later, the voicing of hate was counterpointed by the crackle of gunfire. As the Apaches abandoned their reins to control their ponies with knees and heels: so they could use both hands to pump the actions and explode shots from the Spencer repeaters. Aiming at shacks and tents, tunnel entrances and parked wagons.
‘Come on, you sonsofbitches,’ Mel Rubinger rasped, the teeth around the cigar bared in an evil grin. ‘Keep in mind all that crap your holy man preached.’
It wasn’t until the blond-haired man with the pot belly said this that Edge realized there was no church in San Lucas. And that during the hours of darkness and dawn, he had seen no one praying for deliverance.
‘That’s right, Mel,’ Cass Lutter growled. ‘It’s gonna be like takin’ candy from a bunch of babies.’
Similar exchanges were taking place throughout every building along the short street. As the vengeance-hungry people of San Lucas savoured the prelude to triumph.
While, further down the slope, the Apache attack lost impetus. As the braves, despite the fanatic fervor filling their minds and whole beings, realized something was wrong.
They had lost the advantage of the sun’s dazzling brightness now. And were within rifle range of the whole town. Yet not a single shot had been fired at them. Their own wildly fired bullets hit only the unfeeling ground or equally inanimate and futile man-made targets.
The battle-cries faltered and died, to give way to shouted questions - as ponies were reined to snorting halts. Attitudes of aggression changed to suspicion as heads swung this way and that - eyes raking the surrounding ridges.
Chief Acoti began to stare fixedly at the row of frame buildings under the brow of El Cerro de Muerto. One by one and then in groups, his sub-chiefs and his braves followed his example.
Now the sun acted in favor of the whites - its light sparkling and glinting on the windows of the buildings. Making it impossible for the Apaches to see if there were faces peering down at them from behind the panes of glass.
Abruptly, Acoti shouted an order which was passed along the now straggled line of the halted advance. And the braves slid from the backs of their ponies and lunged for the cover of shacks and wagons and mine adits. No shots were fired.
No words were spoken within the buildings.
A selected few men among the whites stepped back from the windows and still-closed doors. Far enough so that they could raise their rifles to their shoulders and take aim. Except for five other men who crouched, ready to wrench open the door of each building, everyone else withdrew to the rear of the rooms.
The advance of the Apaches was now silent and cautious, spurts of speed between areas of cover and then pauses before the next dash. But relentlessly the Indians lengthened the distance between themselves and their abandoned ponies, shortened it towards the one-sided street.
Edge and probably everyone else who waited so silently in cover was aware that the Indians knew the buildings were occupied.
It would have been better if all except those selected as marksmen had left town. But nobody wished to be denied the experience of tasting the sweetness of revenge. And it was impossible to fool such innately intelligent people as Apaches into believing that buildings crowded with blood-lusting enemies were deserted. Not any longer - now that the period of ecstatic frenzy had been exhausted.
So they knew.
Knew that eyes and guns tracked their advance. And perhaps they regretted Chief Acoti’s decision to abandon full-scale attack for cautious advance. Which, at close range, made them easier targets for white eyes who were not skilled with weapons.
But they did not make the further mistake of bunching together. Instead, they spread out far across the slope. So that for the final rush towards the buildings they would be able to attack at the front and sides, and some of the braves on the flank could go around the rear.
‘Now!’ Lee Temple yelled from where he stood beside Kurt Tuchman at the window on the store side of the Lutters’ place.
And exploded a shot from his Winchester.
Part of a second later, a fusillade of rifle shots rang out. Accompanied by the shattering of window glass and the crash of opening doors banging against walls.
Then it seemed that every sound that had ever been made since the creation of the universe was collected and released to echo just once in the space of no more than three seconds.
Just ten of the shacks on the claims had been prepared. Those closest to the single street. Tightly packed with almost every metal-made item in San Lucas. Pots and pans, stoves, shovels, bedsteads, cutlery, lamps, crowbars and storage drums. Taken from other shacks and from the buildings on the street. Then every grain of blasting powder from Robert Sweeney’s place had been divided among the shacks. And finally a bundle of dynamite sticks was fixed to the outside walls of each prepared shack. In sight of the marksmen but hidden to the advancing Apaches until it was too late.
Two marksmen aimed at each bundle. Only one pair had to pump the actions of their repeaters and fire a second time. Probably missed, because by then the top of El Cerro de Muerto and everything and everybody on it was trembling and heaving as if at the start of an earthquake.
But the shack disintegrated anyway. Detonated by something which crashed through the air from another explosion. A tongue of flame, a spark or a piece of viciously twisted metal.
Other things were hurled upwards and outwards. Limbs and heads. Hands and feet. Chunks of human meat too mutilated by blast and flame to be identified. Here and there an entire body.
Apaches were not the only casualties. The prepared shacks were too close to the buildings on the street. But because so few of the citizens of San Lucas were skilled with a rifle, this had to be so. To ensure sufficient bullets struck the targets.
Edge threw himself to the floor as soon as he squeezed the trigger. Those without rifles had been instructed to get do
wn before the fusillade was fired. And those who did the firing should have done as the half-breed did.
Many men and women wanted too much to see the Indians pay at the precise moment that the debt was extracted.
Blast blew the broken shards of glass out of the frames. And pieces of twisted metal flew across the street to beat against the walls or find entry through windows and doorways.
A sliver of glass penetrated Rubinger’s right eye with enough force to drive through his head and pierce his brain. He died without a sound, a fountain of blood gushing.
Kenny Lewis, in the doorway of the Lutters’ place was blown over backwards. He screamed and then became silent in death as a piece of mangled stove burst open his skin and imbedded itself in his intestines.
A woman in the bank was killed solely by the impact of the blast hurling her against a desk and breaking her back.
Screams filled the air which reeked of burnt powder. Screams of those wounded by blast or shrapnel and those who looked upon the injured and the dead
Then, as the ground ceased to tremble and ears ceased to ring with the force of the explosions, the killing began again.
As the citizens of San Lucas lunged from the buildings and into the billowing black smoke that veiled the street and the area where ten shacks had once stood. Yelling and firing as they ran, on a seek-and-destroy mission against the braves who survived the devastating effects of the whites’ main defensive tactic.
Edge did not join the mindless charge through the blinding smoke. Merely watched for a few moments, grimaced when he saw Howie Royko hit in the side of the head by an Apache bullet, then turned and moved away from the window. He paused just once on his way towards the door that gave access to the rooms for rent at the rear of the Lutters’ place. To pick up the Winchester of the dead Rubinger and leave the Spencer in exchange.
Grace Lutter was among the group of women who watched him - some of them holding crying children against their skirts. There was no triumph on any of their faces. Most of them were dumb with shock as they stared at him. Perhaps many did not even see him. Maybe could not hear the shouts and the shooting from outside.
‘You leavin’ now, Edge?
‘Guess so, ma’am.’
‘Like all of us soon. Them that are left.’
The half-breed nodded. ‘The Apaches were always on the winning side.’
The skinny old woman looked at him in confusion and anger.
As the shooting became sporadic. There’ll be more of us left than them, mister!’
He halted beside the closed door. ‘And like you said, you’ll be leaving. The silver lode’s all worked out. No reason for you to stay. Or for whites to live here. And it isn’t the entire Apache nation that was just wiped out. Those that died will go to the Happy Hunting Ground proudly. They won back the hill for their own kind.’
A woman began to sob. It was the only sound on El Cerro de Muerto as, outside, the surviving men of San Lucas surveyed their own and the Apache dead.
In the livery, crowded with horses, Edge’s mare stood ready to leave, saddled and with a bedroll in place, the bags bulged with supplies and the canteens filled with water.
Weeping and wailing swelled in volume. As Edge led the mare from the stable and swung up into the saddle, the voice of Cass Lutter cut across the sounds of misery.
‘One more has to die, Lee! Let’s go get that Indian-lovin’ Butler bastard!’
Voices were raised in agreement. The people of San Lucas had not yet expunged their hatred. Lee Temple waited for the noise to subside. Then shouted,
‘First, we bury our dead !’
Edge, hidden from all eyes behind the Lutters’ place, turned his horse away from the south-west and towards the north-east. The mare vented a low snort.
‘Makes no difference to you, little lady,’ he murmured, stroking the animal’s neck. ‘But I figure that while they’re opening up new ground, I’ve got to cover some old.’
Chapter Fourteen
Edge rode around the hill crests and did not look down on the town. He had seen too many battlefields, during the war and afterwards. Large and small. Witnessed enough of death and destruction to last him a lifetime. And was aware that for as long as his life was to last, he would see others.
So he was unaware if anyone in San Lucas saw him and the horse diminish in size and perspective as he moved up to the highest ridge of the surrounding hills and then went from sight on the other side. Certainly no one called out to him.
He rode slow and easy at first - in his habitual ever-watchful manner. Then, down in the desert valley and back on the defined trail between town and the Butler place, he asked the mare for a canter. And the well-rested animal responded with enthusiasm.
He did not see the lone rider trailing him at a great distance until the cluster of buildings showed at the end of the trail. And so it was not for this reason that he had increased his pace. Rather, because he felt he had had enough of this barren and inhospitable part of the country. Was anxious to complete the chore he had set himself and be gone.
Closer to the Butler ranch he sensed watching eyes - but no menace. The door in the early morning shade of the stoop did not creak open until he rode onto the hard-packed earth of the front yard and swung down from the saddle.
‘What do you want, mister?’ Calvin demanded.
He was dressed in pants and a shirt. There were no boots on his feet. His left arm had not been put back in a sling. His face was clean, but not shaven.
Edge looked back out along the trail. There was still just the one rider coming in. Without haste.
‘If you and him brought bottles, you’re wastin’ your time. Ma’s through with all that kinda stuff.’
‘Your wife show up, feller?’
The sandy-haired youngster’s frown of belligerence slipped a little. ‘Yeah. Yeah, Little Fawn made it. She told me about meetin’ you. Thanks.’
‘They in there? Your Ma and your wife?’
‘Sure. Sleepin’. Both of them were dead tired.’
‘Then best you wake them up.’ Edge jerked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘That could be Cass Lutter heading this way. Him or somebody else from San Lucas who figures you’re to blame for what the Apaches did to the town this morning.’
‘Just one? I can handle just one.’
He turned to go back into the house.
‘No, Calvin!’ Little Fawn said as the half-breed crossed the threshold. ‘Please, no more killing.’
The Apache half-breed girl was coming out of the rear bedroom. Unwashed and disheveled, just as she had been when Edge last saw her. She still wore the same torn dress and was holding the gap together with one hand.
Her husband ignored her, to lift the Winchester rifle from where it leaned against the wall by one of the armchairs.
Then the door of the other bedroom swung open and Lorna Butler, fisting sleep from her red-rimmed eyes, came out.
‘You?’ she said to Edge. Then raked her gaze towards her son. ‘Cal, what’s goin’ on?’
‘The Apaches hit San Lucas this mornin’. Edge came out to warn us somebody might figure I was to blame. And somebody is sure headin’ in on the trail.’
‘I say no more killing, mother of my husband,’ Little Fawn cried.
The white woman moved fast across the room to snatch up Calvin’s Colt Paterson from the shelf between the two armchairs.
‘If it is kill or be killed, it’s not goin’ to be my boy who dies!’ she announced coldly.
She shot a powerful glance towards her daughter-in-law, made to advance on the threshold where Edge stood, then halted and snapped her head around to stare at Little Fawn. And vent a groan.
The girl had dropped her hand away from the tear in the dress, and the fabric was gaping open. But it was obviously not the sight of the immature swells of the half-exposed breasts which triggered shock through the woman.
‘Where...?’ she began and made a sound of strangulation. Then cleared her constricted thr
oat to demand, ‘Where did you get that pendant, girl?’
Little Fawn, eyes wide and lips gaping, glanced down at the heart-shaped piece of metal which hung on the thong around her neck. Then looked fearfully at Lorna Butler, Calvin and Edge.
‘My mother! Please! Why you ask? My mother tell me my father give it for me. On day I am born!’
‘Ma, what’s wrong?’ Calvin croaked.
‘Oh, my dear God!’ Lorna Butler said, her face wan and her body rigid. ‘What have you done, Cal?’
The woman advanced on the girl, who made to shrink back but seemed to be rooted to the spot. Lorna Butler halted, reached out with her free hand, gripped the throng and snapped it with a powerful jerk. Then held the pendant six inches in front of her face and stared at it for a stretched second of silence.
‘Ma?’ Calvin screamed.
The rider on the trail heard him and demanded a gallop of his horse.
The woman turned just her head away from the girl to stare at Calvin. ‘It was mine!’ she said stonily, clutching the ornament in a tight fist. ‘He said I must have lost it. But I knew he was lyin’. I knew he’d taken it to give to one of his Indian whores!’
‘My husband did not give it to me,’ said Little Fawn. ‘I tell you this. It was my father who—’
‘I know!’ Lorna Butler shrieked. ‘Your father! Who was Calvin’s father, too! The child growin’ in your womb is by your half-brother!’
Little Fawn raised both hands to her face and clawed at the flesh.
Calvin Butler sagged against the wall.
His mother stood as unmoving as a rock figure. Not even breathing.
Edge turned and stepped out across the stoop as the beanpole-thin Sheriff Lee Temple reined in his horse and slid from the saddle.
I’ve come to arrest Cal Butler,’ the newcomer announced grimly. ‘Convinced the folks back at San Lucas that he should be tried by due process of law.’
EDGE: Red Fury (Edge series Book 33) Page 13