White Apache 9

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  CONTENT

  About This Book

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Although his enemies called him a desperado, Clay Taggart was in innocent man on the run. From the Arizona Territory to Mexico, Taggart and a crew of Apaches blazed a trail of vengeance. When the territorial governor offered Taggart a chance to clear his name, the deadliest tracker in the West set his sights on the White Apache—and prepared to blast him to Hell.

  To Judy, Joshua, and Shane

  Prologue

  The man in the shack was nervous. He paced the rickety floor like a caged cougar, one hand resting on the butt of the Remington tucked into his waistband. Quite often he licked his lips and tugged at the corners of his mustache. Regularly he prowled to the two small windows and gazed out at the somber Illinois woods in which the shack was located.

  The sun had set less than ten minutes ago. Twilight still claimed the countryside but would soon give way to darkness. A short while ago the birds in the forest had been offering their farewell chorus to the dying day. Now the woodland lay as quiet as a cemetery, the trees devoured by lengthening shadows.

  Suddenly the man stiffened. Faint footsteps could be heard on the narrow path that led to the front door. Whipping out the revolver, he leveled it at the latch. When, a few seconds later, a light rap sounded, he had to swallow twice before he could speak. “Who is it?”

  “Who do you think?” came the haughty reply. “Let me in, Mr. Benson. It’s a bit brisk out and I don’t intend to catch my death of cold.”

  Benson was a thin man; his clothes hung on him like rags. Unconsciously, he smoothed his faded jacket as he stepped to the door and opened it a crack. “Is it really you, Mr. Randolph?” he asked, his voice cracking with emotion. “I honestly didn’t think you would come.”

  William Randolph was not a man who suffered fools gladly. Sniffing in distaste at the foul odor that wafted from within, he gestured impatiently for the door to be opened all the way. “Of course it’s really me,” he snapped. “Who else would be insane enough to travel to this godforsaken spot to meet with you?” He regarded the shack as he might a pile of cow dung. “My job, sad to say, is not nearly as glamorous as most people believe it to be.”

  Charles Benson jerked the door wide and offered his hand. In his haste, he forgot about the Remington and nearly poked his visitor in the gut.

  Randolph gave the pistol the same sort of severe look he had given the shack. “Is that absolutely necessary?”

  “Sorry,” Benson blurted, shoving the gun back into his belt. “I can’t be too careful. There is a price on my head, you know.”

  “Unjustly so,” Randolph said. “Or so you claim.” Primly folding his slender hands at his waist, he slowly entered, being careful not to brush his immaculate suit against the jamb or the ramshackle furniture. His long nose crinkled. “Was it also necessary to pick this filthy hovel? I would have preferred a nice hotel in the center of the city.”

  Randolph sighed wistfully. “It has been a while since last I savored the wonderful nightlife Chicago has to offer.”

  “I wouldn’t know about any of that,” Benson said, poking his head outside. The trail was empty; the woods were as quiet as ever. Satisfied, he shut the door and moved to a pitiful excuse for a table where he took a seat. “I’ve been on the run so long that I can’t remember the last time I was able to relax and enjoy myself.”

  “If you’re fishing for sympathy, you won’t get any from me,” Randolph said. “Not until you’ve convinced me that you are not the callous murderer the law claims.” He glanced at the two windows, then casually moved to a spot in the center of the gloomy room. “Before we go any further, I would like some light. I can’t conduct a proper interview otherwise.”

  Benson shook his head. “That’s not wise. No one knows I’m living here, and I don’t intend to advertise the fact.”

  “My good sir,” Randolph said formally, “be reasonable. There isn’t another dwelling within half a mile. No one can see this place from the road, so you’re perfectly safe.”

  “I’d still rather not.”

  “I must insist. If you refuse, I’m afraid I’ve come all the way from New York in vain. Our interview is off. Your sister will have wasted her time, and mine.”

  Uncertainty etched Benson’s haggard features. He gnawed his lower lip for a full half a minute, then reluctantly crossed to a lantern on a peg and lit it.

  “That’s much better,” William Randolph said happily. He stroked his neatly groomed sandy mustache and beard, then adjusted the fine, black bowler hat he wore. A long gold watch chain sparkled when he moved his coat aside to take a leather-bound tablet from a vest pocket.

  “Wouldn’t you like a seat?” Benson asked, gesturing at the other chair.

  Randolph flipped a few pages, ignoring the question. “It was eight months ago that you beat your employer, Percy Wainright, to death with his own cane. A warrant was issued for your arrest but you fled New York City—”

  “Can you blame me?” Benson interrupted. “Wainright’s father has offered 10,000 dollars to the man who brings me in, dead or alive.”

  “What else did you expect? The man you murdered was the son of one of the richest, most powerful men in New York—”

  Again Benson cut his visitor off. “Mr. Randolph, you work for the New York Sun. You have a reputation for being the best reporter in the city, maybe in the whole country. That’s why my sister believed you when you looked her up and told her that you were willing to listen to my side of the story. She never would have set up this meeting otherwise.” Benson paused. “You must know how the Wainrights made their money. They run the worst sweatshops in New York. They’re vicious, evil—”

  Randolph held up a hand. “Please. Everything they do is perfectly legal.”

  Benson could no longer contain himself. Livid, he sprang erect. “Legal?” he practically roared. “Was it legal of Percy to corner my sister in a storeroom? Was it legal for him to take vile liberties? He forced himself on her!”

  “There’s no proof of that,” Randolph said, unruffled.

  “He admitted it to me when I confronted him!”

  Benson said. “He sat at his desk and laughed in my face, telling me there was nothing I could do, that it was her word against his, that if she pressed charges he would ruin her. He bragged that he would buy witnesses to prove she was a trollop!”

  “So you flew into a rage and beat him to death,” Randolph said. “How very unfortunate for Percy. But how fortunate for me.”

  Benson blinked a few times. “What do you mean?”

  William Randolph took off his black bowler hat. The instant he did, a rifle barrel pushed aside the drab rags that had been tacked over the west window. Benson tried to pull the Remington, but he hardly touched it when a thunderous blast filled the cabin and the rear of his cranium exploded outward, showering the wall behind him with bits of brain, gore and blood. The fugitive was dead before his body fell to the floor.

  Three brawny men bearing rifles rushed into the shack, they ringed the body. One knelt to verify that Benson was dead.

  Presently, in strolled another man: a tall, elderly figure, his clothes the most expensive money could buy, his dark eyes smoldering with satanic glee. In his left hand
was a smoking rifle which he gave to one of his subordinates. Going up to Randolph, he pulled out a thick wad of bills. “Here’s your blood money, Bill. And I must say, you earned every penny. Everything went exactly as you said it would.”

  Randolph caressed the $10,000. “Thank you, Mr. Wainright. It’s always a pleasure to be of service to a fine gentleman like yourself.”

  Wainright walked to the sprawled form, drew back a foot and kicked Benson in the groin. “That’s for my son, you bastard.”

  Together, the reporter and the older man stepped outdoors. “Will you be returning to New York City in the morning?” Wainright asked.

  “No, I’m off to Arizona after a stop in St. Louis,” Randolph said.

  “Arizona? Whatever for? It’s a wasteland. I hear there’s nothing out there but rattlesnakes and scorpions.”

  “There’s also someone with a $25,000 price on his head, which I intend to collect.”

  “You’ve never failed yet.” Wainright pulled up the collar of his coat to ward off the brisk breeze. “Who is this doomed soul, if I might ask?”

  “They call him the White Apache.”

  Chapter One

  Clay Taggart was a white man but he did not look like one. His raven hair had been cropped below the shoulders and tied with a headband, Apache style. His clothing consisted of a breechclout and knee-high moccasins. The sun had bronzed his skin to the point where, from a distance, he might easily be mistaken for a full-blooded warrior. Small wonder, then, that he was known far and wide as the White Apache. Or, as the Apaches themselves called him, Lickoyee-shis-inday.

  Only his piercing, lake-blue eyes gave away Clays true heritage. But with those eyes Clay could read in a glance more than most white men could decipher in a lifetime. Clay knew, for instance, that the three white men he was tracking had passed that way less than an hour ago, that soon he would overtake them and learn why they were so deep into the Chiricahua Mountains, where few whites ever came.

  The remote range was part of a vast reservation set up by the government. It was supposed to belong to the Chiricahua for as long as the earth endured.

  At least those were the terms under which the great leader Cochise had agreed to a treaty. Less than six months ago the great leader had gone to his grave believing that his people had a place where they could live for all time, a haven they could roam as they pleased. Recently, however, whites were violating the terms of the agreement without punishment. Prospectors sought gold among the high peaks. Trappers and hunters paid no heed to the boundaries. Settlers nibbled at the fringes.

  At the rate things were going, Clay mused, it wouldn’t be long before the treaty wasn’t worth the paper it had been printed on—which was typical. Try as he might, he couldn’t recollect a single treaty his former people had ever honored.

  Shaking his head, Clay focused on the hoof-prints in front of him. As the Good Book made plain, there was a time and a place for everything. And it would not be smart to let himself be distracted when he was so close to his quarry. If they spotted him, they’d likely set up an ambush.

  The marks in the ground told Clay that two of the men rode stallions, the third a mare. From the boot tracks made when the men stopped to relieve themselves, Clay also knew that the man who rode in the lead all the time was a big, husky character. Another was skinny and bowlegged. The third wore old army boots with holes in the soles.

  Clay had been out hunting when he came on their trail. That had been five hours ago, shortly after sunrise, and although his woman expected him back by noon, he was not about to give up the chase. Learning the identity of the trio was more important than having fresh meat for the evening meal. Especially since there was a very good chance the men were after him.

  Clay Taggart had the distinction of being the single most wanted hombre in the whole territory. Anyone wearing a tin star, the entire Fifth Cavalry, bounty hunters, scalp hunters, every type of human predator alive—they were all after his hide.

  Their reasons varied. The lawmen wanted him on a trumped-up murder charge. The army was after him for riding with a notorious band of renegade Apaches. The bounty hunters and scalp hunters were more interested in the $25,000 being offered for his head than they were in seeing justice served.

  None of which mattered to the White Apache. Let them come, he told himself. Let them all come. He would send them packing as he had so many already. It was kill or be killed, and he had every intention of outlasting his many enemies.

  Suddenly the canyon walls echoed to the whinny of a horse. White Apache promptly ducked behind a boulder and listened for the sound to be repeated so he could pinpoint the animal’s position. After a bit he heard instead the clink of a shod hoof on stone. Then, faintly, there were voices.

  It surprised him. White Apache had not expected to catch up to the riders quite so soon. Wary of a trap, he cat footed forward, blending into the terrain as his Apache mentors had taught him, using the available cover so masterfully that only another Apache could have spotted him.

  Clay came to a bend and slowed. The voices were louder, but he still could not make out the words. Lowering onto his belly, he snaked to the corner.

  The whites had stumbled on a spring. In the shade of the right-hand canyon wall they’d made camp. Wisely, they had tethered their mounts to picket pins near the water. Two of the animals were grazing on sparse grass, but the third, a big black stallion, pranced and tossed its head.

  The three men were much as Clay had imagined them to be. A hulking specimen in a wide-brimmed hat sat with his back propped against a saddle. Strapped around the man’s waist was an ivory-handled Colt. Sticking out of the top of a boot was the bone hilt of a large knife.

  The second man was thin enough to be a broom handle. He fiddled with a coffeepot while feeding dry brush to a greedy fire. His hat was a Stetson, and he favored Mexican spurs with huge rowels.

  Last, there was a grizzled old-timer in faded buckskins. This one carried a Spencer in the crook of an arm and wore army-issue boots. A former scout, by the looks of him.

  Curious to hear what they were saying, Clay wormed his way around the bend, hugging the base of the towering stone wall. Whenever one of the trio glanced in his direction, he froze. Soon he was among boulders and could make better time. As silently as a specter he closed in on his quarry, stopping twenty feet out. The tantalizing aroma of coffee reminded him how long it had been since last he had any.

  “—so good,” the skinny one was saying. “We’ve come this far without the Chiricahua being any the wiser.”

  “Don’t let it go to your head, Bodine,” said the scout. “We’ve been lucky, is all.”

  The thin man snickered in contempt. “You’re getting a mite gun-shy in your old age, Plunkett. Fess up. All these high-and-mighty Apaches just ain’t as tough as you made ‘em out to be, are they?”

  Plunkett bristled at the suggestion of cowardice. “Go to hell, you damned Johnny-come-lately! I was fightin’ these red devils since before you were born, and I say we should thank our Maker that they haven’t made wolf meat of us yet.” Glancing at the giant, he said, “Tell this jackass, Quid. I swear; he’ll get us all killed if we’re not careful.”

  The man named Quid was rummaging in his saddlebags. He looked up, annoyed, and growled, “If you ask me, the two of you don’t behave no better than a couple of ten year olds. If I’d known that you were going to jabber like chipmunks the whole time, I never would have let you boys throw in with me.”

  Bodine averted his gaze, but Plunkett refused to be cowed.

  “That’s not fair and you dam well know it,” the older man groused. “How many times have we ridden together now? Nine? Ten? And have I ever given you cause to complain before?” He did not wait for an answer. “No, I haven’t. It’s this kid you’ve brought along. He’s enough to drive a body to drink.”

  Quid produced a piece of jerky. Taking a large bite, he smacked his lips, then said, “Simmer down, Bob. You’re right. You’re a good man
to have around in a pinch or I wouldn’t keep cutting you in for a share of the money.”

  “And I’m the best tracker you’ll find this side of Tucson,” Plunkett boasted. “All those years of eat-in’ lousy army grub paid off, I reckon.”

  Clay Taggart crept steadily nearer. He had to be extra careful because the wind was blowing from him to them and he didn’t want their mounts to pick up his scent. The black stallion had already been agitated by something and would not stand still. Whenever it raised its head to test the breeze, Clay flattened.

  Presently Clay drew within twenty feet of the shallow oval pool. Holding his Winchester in front of him, he slowly thumbed back the hammer. The three men were so busy jawing that none heard the telltale click.

  “If you’re so blamed good,” Bodine challenged the old scout, “why is it that you can’t find hide nor hair of this White Apache we’re after?”

  Plunkett muttered a few curses, then rasped, “It’s not as if he’s going to put up a sign tellin’ us where to find him. He’s like a ghost, that one. They say he doesn’t leave any more trace of his comings and goings than a true Apache would.”

  “Excuses, excuses,” Bodine said.

  Quid stopped chewing. “You’re pushing, Jess. We can’t hold it against Bob if it’s taking longer than we figured. I told you this wouldn’t be easy, that it might take us a long time to find the turncoat. For one third of the reward money, I think you can afford to be patient.”

  Bodine laughed lightly. “Hell, for that much money, I’ll wait until doomsday if need be.”

  Clay took that as his cue. Springing erect, he trained the Winchester on them and said, “I reckon it won’t be quite that long, mister.”

  “You!” Plunkett cried.

  To say they were flabbergasted would be an understatement. Bodine gawked, frozen in the act of reaching for a tin cup. The scout let his mouth drop, revealing a gap where three of his front teeth had been. Only Quid recovered right away and started to make a stab for his fancy pistol before he thought better of the notion.