Warrior Born (A White Apache Western Book 3) Page 11

  Clay didn’t move until the racket the horses made died in the distance and quiet reclaimed the night. Peeling himself from the boulder, he stood and winced when pain speared through his left ankle. He took a few tentative steps, testing his leg. Evidently, he had strained a muscle in the fall. The injury was aggravating but not severe enough to slow him down.

  Gritting his teeth, Clay climbed to the south rim. The hills were so close he imagined he could reach out and touch them. Rifle in hand he jogged forward. Half of the five hundred yards had fallen behind him when the breeze brought news of the riders. They were coming back, and from the sound of things they appeared to be on the same side of the arroyo as he was.

  The ground here was flat and barren. There was no grass in which to hide, no weeds or trees or underbrush. Clay went prone, cheek to the earth, head pointed at the oncoming horses. They were even closer to the arroyo and would miss him if they didn’t alter course. But they did.

  Clay saw the six men swing toward the hills. But their new direction would bring them uncomfortably near, so near they’d undoubtedly spot him.

  With the insight came action. Clay leapt to his feet and bolted.

  “There he is!” a man bellowed.

  Gunfire boomed. Deadly hornets buzzed on either hand, one stinging Clay on the left arm but not deep enough to draw blood. Excitement had caused the riders to shoot in haste, a mistake they would swiftly remedy. He had to discourage them, and to that end he whirled, jerked the rifle to his shoulder, and cut loose with three rapid shots.

  The Box D men were caught flat-footed. In their greed, they had raced toward their quarry without regard for their own safety. All but one. Surgio Vasquez had held back, unwilling to throw his life away, no matter how much money was involved. He saw the White Apache move with astounding speed, saw Taggart spin and Taggart’s rifle flare red. Edward’s horse crashed down; then the rest scattered.

  Vasquez galloped to the west. Once he lost sight of everyone else, including the White Apache, he guided his mount southward, moving parallel to Taggart, and slowed to a walk so Taggart wouldn’t hear him.

  Unknown to the tracker, Clay did. The rest had fled back to the arroyo so there was just this one still after him. Vasquez probably, he suspected, and angled to the east, shutting his sore ankle from his mind. Before long, sparse brush rose before him, indicating he was almost to the hills. On seeing a welcome slope, he smiled and plunged into the murky soup at its base.

  Clay halted to listen. He no longer heard the one rider to the west. For the time being he was safe. Whether his pursuers gave up depended on how badly they wanted him, or the bounty. He replaced the cartridges he’d used, turned his back on the valley, and forged on.

  At that selfsame moment, Surgio Vasquez arrived on the opposite side of the same hill. Shucking his Spencer, he slid off and led his horse by the reins along a winding route deeper into the stark region. After passing a half-dozen hills, he forked leather and made for the top of the one to his left. Below him the slope was dotted with pinon trees. Eastward rolled more hills, blending into the far horizon.

  Vasquez sought any hint of movement. He had the White Apache all to himself now, and he did not intend to let the opportunity go by. All the money would be his, the thousand from the government and the five hundred from Gillett. His only regret was that the price on the White Apache wasn’t higher.

  The tracker deduced that Taggart was somewhere to the south of him. All he needed was a fleeting glimpse to pinpoint the renegade’s position and he would close in at his leisure, relying on tracks once dawn broke.

  A pale streak prompted Vasquez to lean forward, eyes glued to the spot. He had found the gringo, several hundred yards to the southeast moving across a low slope. Lifting the reins, Vasquez took himself lower, pronto, to keep from being seen. Once on level ground, he held his horse to a brisk walk, so as not to overtake his quarry prematurely. He wondered how the Americanos were faring and hoped they would go back to the Box D and leave the tracking to a professional.

  ~*~

  Vasquez would have been unhappy had he witnessed the scene at the arroyo. A heated dispute had arisen. The cowpoke named Edwards was jabbing a finger at Griffen. “Like hell you can’t take me along! You could if you wanted to. Just let me ride double. I can take turns with each one of you.”

  “It’d slow us down too much,” Griffen objected.

  “And every minute counts,” Terrill added. “All this squabbling is giving Taggart time to get away.” He nodded toward Edwards’s dead horse. “It ain’t our fault your claybank took a slug.”

  “I want to be in on the finish,” Edwards insisted. “I want a chance to earn the bounty.”

  “Sorry,” Griffen said.

  Edwards tried a different tack. “You can’t just ride off and leave me here with Apaches roamin’ the valley! I’d be afoot and it’s miles to the ranch.”

  “The sorrel is back yonder,” Griffen brought up. “Catch it, and it might hold up until you get back.”

  “Might,” Edwards spat.

  “The best we can do, pard,” Terrill said.

  Edwards glared after them, flooded with wrath until the cough of a cougar reminded him where he was. Stooping, he heaved his saddle over his shoulder and trudged into the darkness. “I hope to hell they turn that traitor into a sieve,” he fumed.

  ~*~

  The traitor in question was a mile and a half from the arroyo and thinking he was in the clear. Clay had not heard anyone dogging him since he lost the solitary rider. His foot hurt worse the farther he went, and he decided to find a sheltered spot to rest. As luck would have it, he came on a hill where long ago part of the slope had buckled, leaving a jumbled maze of boulders and huge earthen clods. He meandered into these: a flat boulder gave him a spot to sit.

  The ankle was sore to the touch. Clay drew his Bowie knife and sliced off a wide strip from the bottom of his shirt. This he looped around the ankle and tied tight. It wasn’t much, but the extra support might help reduce the swelling.

  Going on, Clay reflected on whether he should try to find the Apaches or go all the way to their secret retreat in the Dragoons. If the band wasn’t there when he arrived, they were bound to show up eventually. Or there was a third alternative.

  For the first time in many weeks, Clay was completely on his own. He could do as he pleased, go anywhere he wanted. How about Mexico? he queried himself. No one knew him. He’d be able to lose himself in the throngs, start over in a new line of work. Best of all, federal jurisdiction stopped at the border. The government couldn’t bring him to trial for his White Apache escapades without the cooperation of the Mexican government. And for the right price, it was rumored, any government official could be bought.

  Or Clay could shuck the whole Southwest and head for another part of the country. Montana, perhaps, where there was so much land and so few people. Or Idaho, where a man could lose himself forever. Or California, where life was carefree and the sun shined three hundred and sixty-three days of the year.

  The thought was appealing. Then Clay thought about Miles and Lilly Gillett, about Lilly’s treachery and how Miles stole his ranch out from under him. He would have to forego his revenge if he left, and that was something he would never do. They had to pay for what they had done, and pay with their lives.

  Once again, unchecked rage boiled within Clay, and for the next ten minutes, he hiked on oblivious to his surroundings, reviewing the events over and over. It was an error a full-blooded Apache would never make, an error he realized on hearing the far off clink of a horseshoe on stone.

  Someone was following him. Clay went up the hill on his right, ascending some forty feet. From behind a pinon, he searched for sign of his shadow but could find no one. Lying in ambush appealed to him, but there might be more than one, and he was not inclined to tangle with them just yet. He’d rather pick a better time and place, particularly if Surgio Vasquez was among them.

  His ankle protesting, Clay broke into t
he tireless dogtrot of the Shis-Inday. There were times, like now, when he felt as much Apache as white. And the longer he stayed among the Apaches, the less he thought about his white past, about his folks and his ranch and everything he had once deemed important. None of it mattered anymore. Nothing did, except being on the warpath against Gillett and the posse members. Against his own kind.

  Suddenly, Clay had the feeling he was being watched. He glanced around, chiding himself for having the overwrought nerves of a ten year old, and involuntarily caught his breath in his throat on seeing several spectral forms on the hill to his right. They were men on foot, near naked men running in single file. They were Indians.

  Clay slowed, his first impulse to call out to them. Then he realized they couldn’t be Apaches, not the way they were dressed. And they couldn’t be friendly, or they would have made their presence known already. For them to be skulking along the way they were did not bode well, at all.

  Racing to the north into a gap between a pair of identical hills, Clay glued one eye behind him. Whoever they were, they didn’t give chase. Forty yards from where he’d turned, Clay stopped and waited. The seconds crawled by with agonizing slowness, and still no one showed.

  Hoping he had lost them, Clay resumed his eastward trek. A nagging pinprick of apprehension goaded him into maintaining his top speed for much longer than he should have, so that when he finally halted, he was winded from the exertion.

  At an open space separating a rocky hill from a grassy one, Clay faced around, the Winchester at his waist. He didn’t wait long this time, and when convinced there was no danger, he pivoted to depart.

  The three Indians stood fifteen feet away.

  Clay stiffened, starting to bring up the rifle when he saw they were making no move to use their weapons. One held a lance, two others had bows, but both were slung over their bronzed shoulders. He recovered sufficiently to hide his surprise, his pride bothered at being taken unawares.

  “We greet you in peace,” said the man holding the lance in Apache dialect, his atrocious accent proof of his infrequent use of the tongue.

  Clay studied them, trying to identify them from their clothing and hairstyle. They weren’t Comanches; he was certain of that. Comanches never went anywhere unless on horseback. Nor were they Navahos. They could be Maricopas. Or they could be Pimas. And that was bad news because both tribes hated Apaches. “I greet you the same,” he responded.

  “I am Corn Flower,” disclosed the talker. “How are you known?”

  There was no hesitation on Clay’s part. “Lickoyee-shis-inday.”

  Corn Flower relayed the information to his companions, then bent his mouth in the semblance of a friendly smile. “White Apache. We have heard of you.”

  “You have?” Clay said, unable to smother his consternation. For the first time, the full extent of his notoriety was fully impressed upon him. Being wanted by the law and the military was no surprise in light of Gillett having learned his identity. Being known by Palacio and the reservation Apaches was also only natural since any news important to the tribe was soon spread from one end of the reservation to the other. But this, being heard of by members of a tribe with which he’d had no dealings, was downright staggering.

  “Your name is on many lips these days,” Corn Flower said. “They say you are a white man who has become Apache. They say you are wanted by your own kind for killing other whites in the Apache fashion. They say you are a formidable man.”

  Clay let the flattery go without comment.

  “We are on our way back to our village.” Corn Flower continued. “We had camped for the night on a hill so we could see if anyone came near us. Shots woke us. And then we saw you.”

  “And followed me,” Clay said.

  “From the hill you appeared to be Apache. We wanted to learn if there were more and if you were hunting us.”

  The excuse made sense as far as it went. “To which tribe do you belong?” Clay asked.

  “We are Lipans.”

  Such an atrocious lie was laughable but Clay wasn’t in the mood. Lipans were much like Apaches in their dress and customs. They resembled one another so closely that some whites believed the Lipans were a branch of the same tribe. The Apaches, themselves, considered the Lipans brothers in spirit, but not true Shis-Inday.

  “We are friends to all Apaches,” Corn Flower compounded his deceit.

  “And to all whites?” Clay inquired.

  “Lipans are special friends to white-eyes,” Corn Flower said. “Every Indian knows it is bad medicine to harm one.”

  But not one wanted by the law, Clay mused. The bounty would go to whomever killed him, red or white. Pedro Azul and his brother had tried. And he wouldn’t put it past these Pimas or Maricopas to try, either. “Now that you know I am not Apache you can go on your way,” he said.

  “You would not like our company?”

  “Where I walk, I walk alone.”

  “Not entirely alone. There are men after you.”

  “How many?”

  Corn Flower made a show of thinking a moment. “We counted eight, Lickoyee-shis-inday.”

  Which was two more than Clay had seen, and one of those had taken a wicked spill. No, the warrior was lying again. And Clay could guess why. So, now he had to decide whether to let the trio tag along, where they would be under his nose the whole time, or to brush them off and have them come at him from out of the dark, when he least expected them to pounce. “Will you help me if I am attacked?” he asked, knowing the answer he would get before it came.

  “Of course. Lipans always stand ready to help their brothers, the Apaches.”

  “Come then,” Clay said, motioning for them to fall into step to one side. Unknown to them he had the Winchester cocked and he kept it that way as they headed out in a ragged line, bearing on his original easterly course.

  It made Clay uncomfortable to have three hostile Indians jogging within arm’s reach. They played their part well, casually ignoring him, hiding the vile intent lurking in their hearts. Rarely did they so much as glance at him.

  The charade went on until a half an hour before dawn. The hills dwindled both in number and size. Clay picked the last high one he could see and climbed to the flat crown for a panoramic view of the countryside. By now the sky was light enough for him to spot any riders, even those a long way off, but there were none.

  “They gave up,” Corn Flower commented.

  “Or they are behind a hill or in a gulch,” Clay said. “We will wait here a while.”

  The bogus Lipan relayed the news to his equally bogus fellows, and all three sat or squatted, none of the bowmen so much as touching their bows.

  “I am curious, White Apache,” Corn Flower said.

  “About what?” Clay had stepped to the right a few yards and knelt, his body aligned so the trio were always in sight.

  “Why you have given up white ways for Apache ways. This has never been done before.”

  “It seemed like the right thing to do at the time,” Clay said softly in English.

  “What?”

  “There are many reasons a man does what he does and some of them can only make sense to that man.”

  “Your words are true,” Corn Flower conceded, and promptly tried another subject. “Your own kind hate you for what you have done. Does this bother you?”

  “White men like to throw stones at those they cannot understand.”

  “Throw stones?”

  Now Clay changed the topic. “Where did you hear all this about me?”

  “From a trader named Decker who comes to our people once each moon. We are a poor people and do not have many fine blankets like the Pimas or bracelets and necklaces like the Pueblos, so Decker offers us many goods for a night with our women.”

  Clay thoughtfully pursed his lips. Corn Flower, by admitting they weren’t Pimas, had inadvertently revealed who they truly were: Maricopas. Both Pimas and Maricopas had similar builds in that the men of both tribes were barrel chest
ed, with narrow shoulders, long trunks and arms, and bow legs. Since they weren’t Pimas, these men, built as they were, had to be the other. And it fit what little he knew about them. Both tribes lived in permanent villages and tilled the soil extensively. They were as warlike as the Apaches or the Comanches, but neither had they given up the notion of war entirely, particularly the Maricopas, who were noted for their ferocity in battle. As a rule, the two tribes enjoyed peaceful relations with Americans. But there had been a few incidents, always involving Maricopas, that had blemished their record.

  “You have Apache wife yet?” Corn Flower inquired.

  Such a question was the last Clay would have expected. “No,” he responded curtly. “Apache women do not marry white-eyes.” He paused. “Where did you learn to speak the Apache tongue so well?”

  “When I was little the Apaches stole me on a raid. Until my twelfth winter, I was raised by them and learned all their ways. Then one day some American soldiers fought our band and captured many of us. When they learned I had been taken, they sent me back to my own people.” His chest puffed out. “Now I am a big man in my tribe because I can do many things an Apache can do but others cannot.”

  It was no secret that the Pimas and Maricopas believed the Apaches were endowed with superhuman abilities, and Clay had no trouble imagining how a devious man like Corn Flower could turn that to his advantage.

  “I have men who follow me,” Corn Flower boasted, pointing at his companions. “Others also.” In his excitement, he so forgot himself that he did not keep up the pretense of being a Lipan. “We are not content to sit in our lodges smoking pipes while our women wait on our every need. No, we want to live as our people lived long ago, as warriors! We want to strike fear into our enemies and show them that we are as powerful as Apaches.” A bloodthirsty gleam lit Corn Flower’s eyes, and he wagged his lance excitedly. “Soon the old men will be put in their proper place, and we will be the ones who lead our people. And I will be over all the rest.”

  “You have big plans,” Clay said. And he saw how he fit into those plans. Corn Flower would be considered a mighty man indeed, if he were the one who slew the infamous White Apache. Young braves would flock to him in droves. Corn Flower would achieve his heart’s desire in half the time it would otherwise take.