They Came to Kill

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  Jamie held up a hand to stop his visitor. “Why don’t you go ask those fellas to get rid of the Apaches for you, then? That’s what you’re after, isn’t it? You want me to take on the whole blasted Apache tribe?”

  “There’s something else—” Charlton broke off and turned to look at Hargrove, Bolton, and Parkhurst. “If you gentlemen wouldn’t mind, I’d like to speak with Mr. MacCallister in private.”

  Colonel Hargrove frowned. “With all due respect, General, the President made us part of this delegation, too.”

  “I’m aware that, but . . . I’m asking you, Jedediah. Not as one soldier to another, but man to man.”

  Hargrove looked at him for a long moment, then got to his feet and jerked his head toward the door. “I believe I’ll go smoke a pipe on the front porch. Come along, Major, Lieutenant.”

  The three officers left the room.

  Once they were gone, Charlton lifted a hand that trembled slightly and passed it over his face. “I came to you, Jamie, because I know you, and I don’t know Carson or Bridger. I know your capabilities, and I know I can trust you.”

  Jamie leaned forward and said harshly, “Spit it out, Owen.”

  “My son is out there . . . somewhere in that wasteland west of El Paso . . . and I want you to find him.”

  CHAPTER 4

  For a long moment, Jamie didn’t say anything. Owen Charlton’s head drooped forward as he sighed. He stared at the floor, but he seemed to be seeing something else.

  Finally, Jamie said quietly, “I don’t remember you talking about a son when we knew each other before, Owen.”

  “Well, we never talked that much about family. We were there to do a job, and we did it.” Charlton forced his head up so he could meet Jamie’s gaze again. “I have a son. His name is Damon. He was . . . he is a lieutenant in the army. He was posted to the fort that was established a few years ago just across the Rio Grande from the Mexican city of El Paso del Norte.”

  “I’ve been there,” Jamie said. “Quite a settlement growing up around it. Some call it Franklin, others just call the whole place, on both sides of the river, El Paso.”

  “Yes,” Charlton nodded, “and now that so much of the land west of there belongs to the United States, it’s going to be the gateway to the West . . . but only if that territory can be at least partially civilized.”

  “Which brings us right back to the Apaches. What do they have to do with your son?”

  “More than a year and a half ago, Damon led a patrol out there into the badlands to try to gauge the enemy’s strength and position. They never returned to the post.” Charlton’s hands knotted together again, so tightly this time that the knuckles turned white. “Eventually, a stronger force was sent out to search for them. They found the patrol . . . or what was left of it. The mutilated remains of twenty-one mounted infantrymen. When the patrol left the fort, it numbered . . . twenty-two men. A lieutenant, a sergeant, and twenty enlisted men.”

  “Your son’s was the body they didn’t find?” Jamie guessed.

  Charlton nodded. “That’s right. You understand, the elements . . . and the scavengers . . . had not been kind to the men. But none of them wore a lieutenant’s uniform. This makes me believe that Damon was captured by the Apaches.”

  “You know it was an Indian attack responsible for what happened to them?”

  “The bodies were full of arrow wounds,” Charlton said. “There’s no other conclusion to draw.”

  Jamie sat back in the rocking chair and rubbed his chin. “If the Apaches were able to tell that Damon was the leader, yeah, they might’ve taken him prisoner rather than killing him outright with the others.”

  He didn’t say the other things that were going through his mind. The Apaches might have captured Damon Charlton so they could take him back to their village and take their time torturing him to death. They were experts at making a man’s death take a long, agonizing time. It was great sport for them.

  But the chances that Damon might still be alive after more than a year and a half—which was obviously what his father was hoping—were practically nonexistent.

  “So you can see why I came to you,” Charlton hurried on. “I can’t ask the army to search for him as a personal favor to me. It just wouldn’t be proper.”

  “But you can ask me to do that.”

  Charlton flushed. “I’ll beg you to do it, if that’s what it takes. I’m not too proud for that, Jamie. I’ll do anything to find my son and rescue him from those savages, even if it means getting down on my knees and pleading with you.”

  “Stop that,” Jamie snapped. “I wouldn’t ask any man to do that, and sure as blazes not an old friend.” He paused. “But I’m still a mite confused about all this, Owen. You’ve got an army post, what, a hundred miles or so from the area you’re talking about? If the army hasn’t been able to deal with the Apaches, how in the world do you expect me to?”

  “It’s because you’re not in the army, Jamie. You don’t have to worry about rules and regulations. You’re acquainted with frontiersmen . . . top-notch fighting men . . . and you can recruit any of them you want, as many as you want. I have access to funds that can be used to not only to outfit them but also to pay them for their services. It’s our hope that a small, fast-moving force of seasoned Indian fighters can succeed where the army has, at least so far, failed.” Charlton shrugged. “As you might expect, there’s considerable opposition to this idea, too. Colonel Hargrove and the others are here because the president insisted that they accompany me and present a united front, but they don’t like it. They consider it a slap in the face to the army. And as a military man myself, I have to admit, it goes against the grain to believe that civilians can do the job better. But that’s what we intend to find out.”

  “And find your son at the same time.”

  “Yes. The Good Lord willing, you’ll locate Damon while you’re out there.”

  Jamie didn’t believe there was any possibility of that. But what if it was one of his boys . . . what if it was Falcon who was missing? He would cling to any shred of hope, too. He would never stop thinking there was a chance his son might come home.

  “You say I can ask anybody I want to come along with me?”

  Charlton’s face lit up at that question. “Does that mean you’ll accept the job?”

  “Depends on the answer to the question I just asked you.”

  “Absolutely. Anyone you want. I have complete faith in you, Jamie, and as long as I do, so does the president.”

  Jamie nodded slowly and said, “All right, then. I’ll have to see if I can find the fella I’m thinking about. If I can, and if he agrees to help me round up some other men and will come along himself, I’ll give it a try.”

  “That’s wonderful! Who is this man you’re thinking of?”

  “They call him Preacher.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Santa Fe

  The streets, or so the old saying went, were laid out by a drunkard on a blind mule. They twisted this way and that, with no apparent rhyme or reason, and many of them were so narrow that the second-floor balconies of the Spanish-styled adobe buildings on either side almost touched. A man who was athletic enough could leap easily from one balcony to another—as many hombres fleeing from cuckolded husbands had proven over the years.

  The man called Preacher wasn’t the sort to mess with married women, but he was being pursued through the streets of Santa Fe anyway. At least, the men on Preacher’s trail thought they were pursuing him.

  In reality, he was just leading them on, waiting for the right moment to spring his trap.

  Earlier in the evening, he had spotted them watching him in the cantina where he’d been drinking and enjoying a game of dice. The gods of chance had been kind to the mountain man, and he had walked away from the game with a goodly number of gold coins in his poke.

  That had increased the interest of the three bus-caderos, who sported fancy sombreros and gaudily embroidered jackets and had pisto
ls and knives thrust behind the colorful sashes they wore around their waists. Preacher would have been willing to bet the trio had never done a lick of honest work to pay for those things.

  He’d downed one more shot of tequila at the bar after stepping away from the game, and the glass had rattled a little against the hardwood as he set it down.

  As he wound through the streets, he gave some thought to what had led to the chase.

  He swayed slightly and announced to the chubby bartender, “Reckon I’ll go and turn in for the night.”

  “Señor Preacher, perhaps you should avail yourself of one of the rooms upstairs,” the bartender suggested. “You appear to be a trifle unsteady on your feet.”

  “I’m fine,” Preacher said loudly. “Got me a fine hotel room a few blocks from here. But I appreciate the sentiment, Pancho.”

  “I worry because there could be bad hombres abroad in the night—”

  “Can happen,” Preacher broke in. He leaned on the bar for a second, then pushed away from it and turned toward the entrance. He pushed through the strings of beads that hung over it like a curtain and stepped out into the chilly night.

  He walked about a block, weaving a little and singing “By the Sad Sea Waves,” which he had heard Jenny Lind perform at a concert a year or so earlier during a trip back east. When he paused and looked behind him, he caught a glimpse of three figures silhouetted for a second against the light in the cantina door. They were after him, all right.

  “You ought to be ashamed of yourself, ol’ son,” he muttered to himself. “Baitin’ them poor fellers on like this. Been a while since you had much excitement, though, and there’s a hunch a-percolatin’ in this ol’ brain that those boys have done this sorta thing before. Prob’ly left more ’n one poor son of a gun bleedin’ to death in an alley. So I don’t ’spect to lose a heap o’ sleep over what might happen here in the next little spell.”

  While he was talking, he turned a corner into an even narrower street. His keen ears picked up a faint whisper of boot leather on hard-packed dirt behind him. His stalkers were still there.

  Since then, Preacher had led the three would-be robbers on a merry chase, in and out of alleys and cramped streets. Several times, he’d figured he was in a good spot for the varmints to jump him, but they held back for some reason. Up ahead, the alley he was following opened up into a plaza, and it wasn’t likely they would attack him there. Maybe they had thought better of the idea of robbing him. If they decided to just fade away, he would let them go and head back to his hotel after all.

  Loud, angry voices coming from the plaza ahead of him took him by surprise. They were in English, too, which in Santa Fe was normally less than a fifty-fifty chance.

  “—away from him, Clementine, or I’ll—”

  “—filthy hands off—”

  “—let her go!”

  Fellas arguing over some soiled dove, Preacher supposed. None of his affair, whichever way you looked at it. But tempting those three bandidos to come after him hadn’t really been his business, either, and he’d done that. With them behind him and this fresh trouble up ahead, he didn’t hardly know which way to turn.

  The would-be thieves settled that for him with a rush of footsteps from behind. Now they decided to make their move, he thought as he whirled around, any semblance of a drunken state vanishing in a heartbeat.

  Torches flickered in the plaza. Enough light from them filtered into the alley for Preacher to spot the three figures hurtling toward him. He ducked as the first attacker reached him, rammed a shoulder into the man’s midsection, and straightened and heaved, throwing the hombre right over his head. The would-be robber let out a startled yell as he flew through the air, a cry that was suddenly cut short as he crashed down on his back.

  Preacher heard something whipping through the air at him and weaved aside. The club thudded against the ground, and the man wielding it grunted as he stumbled forward, thrown off balance by the missed blow. Preacher backhanded him in the head and knocked him against the wall of one of the buildings flanking the alley.

  The third man lunged at Preacher, who spotted a tiny glint of torchlight from the long, heavy blade of a knife. He jerked his belly out of the way but felt the razor-sharp edge rake along his buckskin jacket. He reached down and clamped a hand around the man’s wrist. He tried to twist it enough so the hombre would let go of the knife, but the man resisted. At the same time, he fumbled with his other hand at the mountain man’s throat and got hold of it. They staggered back and forth as they wrestled with each other. Preacher grasped the wrist of the hand choking him and tried to pull it free, but the varmint was too strong.

  Preacher understood. This fella was the biggest and most powerful of the trio, but he had hung back a little, letting the other two jump him first in order to gauge just what they were facing. If those two were able to knock him unconscious or kill him, so much the better. They could have stolen his poke and been gone. When they failed, though, the third man stepped in, figuring that the intended victim had been softened up a mite, anyway.

  That hadn’t worked according to plan, so Preacher and the leader were left to battle it out on equal terms. Even worse, the first two were recovering and would be rejoining the fight any moment.

  Preacher stopped trying to loosen the hand gripping his throat and instead used that fist to punch where he figured his opponent’s face was. The blow landed solidly, and Preacher felt the hot spurt of blood across his knuckles. It came from either the man’s nose or lips—Preacher wasn’t sure exactly where he had hit the son of a gun.

  But he heard the grunt of pain and felt the man’s head rock back under the impact. Preacher hammered another punch home. He pushed hard with his feet and drove the man backward. There had to be a wall behind him somewhere—

  There it was! Sour breath laden with tequila fumes gusted in Preacher’s face as he rammed the man into the adobe wall and pried the hand away from his throat. Just in time, too. Preacher’s pulse had been thundering inside his head and a red haze seemed to drop in front of his eyes, all because of the lack of air. He gulped down a breath, twisted hard with his other hand again, and the crack of bone rewarded him, accompanied by a cry of pain. The knife clattered to the ground.

  Footsteps sounded behind him. The other two thieves were trying to get back into the thick of it, just as he’d expected. He grabbed the front of the third man’s shirt and wheeled around, pulling the stunned hombre with him. A hard shove sent him floundering right into his partners in crime. Skulls rapped together, legs tangled, and the whole bunch went down in an ungainly sprawl.

  Preacher’s throat hurt as he tried to get enough breath in his lungs. His hands dropped to the pair of .44 caliber Colt Dragoon revolvers holstered on his hips. He could have hauled out those hoglegs first thing and ended this robbery before it really got started, but that wouldn’t have been sporting.

  Realizing he didn’t care about sport anymore, he leveled the guns at the three men who were struggling to regain their feet and eared back the hammers. That ominous metallic sound was enough to make the thieves stop moving around.

  “This has gone on long enough,” Preacher said. “You fellas savvy what I’m sayin’?”

  Panting from exertion and pain, one of the men answered, “We speak your language, viejo.”

  “You can call me old if you want, cabrón, but I’m the one on my feet with guns in my hands. You boys are wallerin’ around on the ground like a bunch o’ babies.”

  They spat more curses at him until Preacher’s sharp voice cut them off.

  “Listen here. Back there in the cantina, I found out your names.” That was a lie, but they didn’t have to know that. “I know where to find you, too. If I hear anything about you robbin’ any more poor folks, I’ll hunt you down, and there won’t be no playin’ next time. I’ll just kill you, one by one. No mercy, no talk . . . just death.”

  “That is bold talk for one so old! Who are you?”

  A faint smil
e curved Preacher’s lips in the darkness, under the drooping, gray-shot dark mustache. “In the mountains up north, the Blackfeet call me Asesino Fantasma. That name mean anything to you?”

  One of the men couldn’t contain a gasp. “The Ghost Killer!” he said to his friends, confirming that Preacher’s notoriety had made it that far south. “They say he has slain thousands of Indians!”

  “And my share of white men and Mexicanos, too,” Preacher said. “So you know I mean what I say, and you know I can do it. If you don’t want to wake up some mornin’ with your throat cut from ear to ear, you best not stray off the straight and narrow from now on, comprende?”

  The biggest of the trio sat up and asked in a surly voice, “Why does the famous Ghost Killer not go ahead and slay us?”

  “Oh, I’m sure you boys deserve it. Tell you the truth, that’s how I figured this little dustup would end. But I guess I’m just feelin’ generous tonight. And I’ve already killed so many no-good skunks this month, I reckon it gets old after a while.” Preacher gestured with one of the Dragoons. “Now vamanos while you got the chance.”

  He kept them covered as they got up and scuttled away along the alley. He really should have killed them, he mused. As he’d told them, they no doubt had it coming for past crimes. But nobody had appointed him judge, jury, and executioner, and he’d drifted into Santa Fe to enjoy himself, not to clean up all the crime in its narrow, winding streets. Although, he thought as his eyes narrowed, that might be an interesting chore for another time . . .

  He had just holstered the Colts when a scream came from the nearby plaza. During the scuffle in the alley, he had lost track of the squabble going on in the plaza. Obviously, it had escalated. The woman screamed again as Preacher wheeled in that direction.

  “Dadgummit!” the mountain man said. “One fracas don’t hardly get over with ’fore the next one breaks out.”

  It had always been that way, so he didn’t know why he should expect anything different. With his hands resting on the butts of the Dragoons, he strode toward the plaza.