White Apache 8 Read online

  “More than you will ever know.”

  “Damn that gunfighter, then. He was the one who put the notion into your head. I saw it. Way back at the saloon, I saw it. So I’m not surprised. Just powerful disappointed that you’d let the likes of him break us up.”

  “It’s not him so much as the life he’s lived. It set me to thinking is all.”

  “Bull. I know better.” Clell’s voice began to fade. “Well, you do what you have to, and Tick and me will do what we have to. Just remember that whatever you decide, were your kin and we’ll always be your kin.”

  Vasco was confused. He could not understand how the life he had lived, as Clem put it, had persuaded the towheaded Bowdrie to change his ways. And he did not much like being blamed for the breakup of the brothers when he had done nothing to encourage it. He listened for the sound of footsteps and thought he heard Clem leave. After waiting a full five seconds to be certain the bounty killer would not spot him, he rose and stepped around the boulder.

  A few yards away, seated on another, was Clem Bowdrie. The Tennessean had his face buried in his arms and was sniffling so quietly that Vasco could not hear him. The gunman stopped short, hoping the tracker wouldn’t notice. But just then Clem looked up and saw him. “I’m sorry,” Vasco blurted. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”

  “Oh, Boone!” Clem cried, rising. “You must have heard us. What am I going to do?”

  “What are you asking me for?” Vasco replied testily. “Why do you think so highly of me, anyway? What did I ever do to deserve it?”

  Clem shuffled over, wiping a buckskin sleeve across eyes which streamed tears. “You don’t know yet, do you? After all the hints I gave?”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Me. Us. How I feel about you.”

  “Now listen here, mister—” Vasco began, gesturing. He choked off when Clem sprang at him and he was hugged hard enough to bust his spine. “What the hell!” he roared, reaching up to shove Clem away. His hands pressed flush against the Tennessean’s chest, and suddenly his whole world turned topsy-turvy.

  Clem Bowdrie had breasts.

  * ~*

  Clay Taggart could not believe the run of luck he was having with horses. It was the day after he had escaped the patrol’s noose, about the middle of the afternoon, when the gelding he had stolen showed signs of going lame. And he still had a long way to go before he would reach the Chiricahuas.

  Taggart halted to examine the horse carefully. One leg was slightly swollen. By his reckoning he could get another five or six hours out of the animal if he did not push too hard, so he forked leather and rode on at a brisk walk.

  The storm system had long since passed him by and gone eastward. The last he had seen of it had been late the night before when the eastern horizon had been rent by lancing bolt after bolt.

  White Apache was grateful for Nature’s tantrum. Thanks to the heavy rain, the gelding’s tracks had been obliterated. It would be impossible for the patrol to pick up his trail. He was safe, and in a few days he would be at Sweet Grass among the only friends he had in the world, Delgadito and the other renegades.

  The ride gave Clay time to think. He mused on recent events and plotted the course of action he would take once he was reunited with the Chiricahuas. For several weeks now he had been toying with the notion of paying one of the men who had helped lynch him a special visit, and he decided that he had put it off long enough.

  Clay was going to make every last one of the vigilantes suffer, just as he had suffered that terrible day when they had looped a rough rope around his neck and hung him from a handy limb. He could still recall in all too upsetting detail how it had felt to have that rope bite deep into his flesh, how horrifying it had been to have the life nearly strangled out of him. If not for Delgadito ordering that he be cut down, his life would have ended there in the Dragoons with no one ever being the wiser.

  Miles Gillett would have gotten away with killing him. Gillett, who had already stolen the heart of the woman Clay had adored, would then have been able to legally steal Clay’s land with impunity. As things had turned out, Gillett did get the land, but not without paying a heavy price, a price that would climb in the weeks and months ahead.

  Clay wished he could have been at the Triangle G to see the rancher’s face when Gillett woke up and saw the bull’s head. He wondered how his bitter enemy had taken it. Knowing Gillett as he did, he was certain there would be retaliation of some sort.

  Gillett never abided an insult, nor did he ever let anyone get the better of him. The man would not rest until he had paid Clay back.

  Well, let him try! White Apache reflected. He relished their clash. Even though the odds were so high against him, even though he had lost everything worthwhile and had no chance to reclaim any of it, even though fighting on seemed to be pointless, that was exactly what he would do.

  As Clay’s pa had liked to say, there were two kinds of men in the world; quitters and doers.

  Quitters always had a hundred and one excuses for not doing this or that. Quitters saw life in its darkest terms and regarded sunny days as simply lulls between storms. Quitters had the habit of saying “No!” so much that it was always the first word out of their mouth whenever anyone asked them to do something new.

  Doers, on the other hand, were like ravenous wolves. They seized life by the throat and tore at it in great gulps, relishing every moment, making the most of each and every day. When a job had to be done, they went out and did it with no whining or groaning or complaining. Doers did, and that was that.

  Clay Taggart was a doer. As a rancher he had worked hard every day from dawn until well past dusk to make his ranch a success. He always put all his energy into doing whatever had to be done. And it would be no different now. He had devoted himself, heart and soul, to taking revenge on Miles Gillett. Nothing short of his death would stop him.

  Or so Clay vowed for the umpteenth time as he reined up shortly before sunset to make camp. The cavalry mount was holding up better than he had counted on. It should carry him through half the next day if he were careful.

  Dismounting, Clay stretched, then stripped off the saddle and bridle. Both he draped over an egg-shaped boulder. He took the precaution of tethering the horse using a picket pin he had found in the saddlebags.

  Supper was next on Clay’s mind. He worked the lever of his Winchester and started off to find game. The prospect of rabbit stew appealed to him but there were not many rabbits to be found in that arid area. He stepped to the top of a knoll and happened to gaze westward. An oath burst from him.

  Not a mile away, rising sluggishly into the cooling air, were tendrils of dust which shimmered in the fading sunlight There could be little doubt. Whoever it was, they were after him.

  Ten

  It was getting dark much too fast to suit Antonio. The Jicarilla twisted in the saddle to regard the western sky. Almost all of the sun was gone. Long shadows were spreading across the land like living fingers, shrouding more and more terrain with every passing moment.

  They were so close to their quarry, too. All they needed was another five minutes. Antonio was sure of it.

  The scout could tell by the hoofprints they had been following since about noon that the White Apache’s mount limped at times. It explained why the renegade had held the animal to so slow a pace. Taggart would have been smarter to forget the horse and continue on foot.

  The warrior shifted to the right. The officer was also studying the sun, a sure sign that Benteen was giving serious thought to calling a halt for the day.

  Antonio did not want them to stop yet, so he said, “We close, Captain. Very close.”

  Oliver Benteen glanced at the tracks. He was not a skilled tracker, but even he could see that they were fresh. Although he had been about to call a halt, he elected to push on for another mile or so.

  The officer rose in the stirrups to see above stands of manzanita which lay ahead of them. He saw the stark Chirichaua Mount
ains in the distance. Much closer rose a solitary knoll. From its crown they would enjoy a panoramic vista of the countryside and might catch sight of Taggart.

  Goading his horse to greater speed, Captain Benteen pulled abreast of the scout and said, “Make for that knoll. It’s the highest spot around.”

  Antonio nodded. He did not bother to mention that he had seen the knoll from a long way back and had been making toward it the whole time. White men, he had learned, always liked to think that the best ideas were their own even when someone else merited the credit.

  A growth of shindagger agaves forced the troopers to bear to the left to skirt the obstacle. For a brief span they could not see the knoll. Then they emerged onto an open belt which would take them to the knoll’s base, and Captain Benteen promptly gave the command which brought the cavalrymen to a gallop.

  Antonio did not like to rush forward so recklessly, but he did not speak up. Another thing he had learned about white men was that officers were very temperamental about having their orders questioned, even when those orders were liable to get them killed.

  The Jicarilla was not the only one who was bothered by the command. Sergeant Shawn O’Grady found it harder to stay close to the officer. He had made it a point to do so every step of the way. The captain had been wounded once; O’Grady was not going to let the officer be hurt a second time. So it was that when the noncom spotted the dull glint of metal at the top of the knoll, he immediately veered toward Benteen to cut his superior off and put his own body between the officer’s and their goal.

  Up on the crown, Clay Taggart had the front bead of the Winchester centered on the officer’s chest, the hammer cocked, and his finger on the trigger. Once he killed the captain, he knew the others would see fit to call off the chase. Taking a quick breath to steady his aim, he fired.

  At the very instant the .44-40 boomed, Clay saw the big noncom fill his sights. The slug struck the trooper high in the sternum and hurled him from his onrushing mount as if he had been walloped by a blacksmith’s heavy hammer. The rest of the patrol slowed, some of them milling in confusion.

  Clay fed another round into the chamber and tried to fix another bead on the captain. The prancing horses and growing darkness thwarted him. He snapped off a shot but hit a private instead. The soldier clutched at his shoulder yet stayed in the saddle. Then the bunch of them broke for the manzanita, some to the right, some to the left.

  Their Apache scout opened fire, blasting away three times, firing on the fly but firing so accurately that Clay had to duck down as the bullets whined off the rock close to him. He brought up the Winchester again, too late. The scout gained cover.

  Clay glimpsed some of the troopers hurriedly dismounting. The officer had gone to the left so he concentrated on the brush there, hoping the man would recklessly expose himself.

  Captain Benteen was not about to do so. Crouched low under a manzanita, he stared out at the prone body of Sergeant O’Grady. Benteen knew that the noncom had sacrificed himself on his behalf. It shook Benteen to the core of his being. He had been rash, and that rashness had cost the life of a good man.

  Tearing his gaze from the pool of blood forming under O’Grady, Benteen saw four of his men and the scout thirty yards off. He motioned for them to keep down and one of the privates nodded.

  Trooper Decker scrambled up behind the officer. “Are you all right, sir?” he asked in genuine concern.

  “Fine,” Benteen said. Five other soldiers were close by, including the one who had been shot in the shoulder. Benteen crawled on his hands and knees to them. “How is it, son?”

  “I’ll make it, sir,” Private Simmons said through partially clenched teeth. Another trooper was carefully prying his shirt back to expose the bullet hole. Simmons had been fortunate. The slug had penetrated just under the collar bone and exited above the shoulder blade, sparing his vital organs and major veins.

  “What do we do, Captain?” inquired another man. “Sneak up on that son of a bitch?”

  Benteen faced the knoll. Night was almost upon them, and there would be no moon. Despite that, they would be hard-put to reach the knoll without being detected. The White Apache had the advantage. And Benteen would be damned if he was going to lose another man if he could help it. “No. We’ll lay low here for a while, then withdraw when I deem it safe. Simmons will have to be taken care of, and for that we’ll need a fire.” He paused to look at O’Grady one more time. “We’ll wait to attack until daylight.”

  “Whatever you say, sir,” Private Decker said, “but I wish you’d reconsider. We all liked Sarge a lot. We should make that lousy traitor pay. Just say the word.”

  It was tempting. Oh so tempting! But Captain Benteen shook his head. “One dead man is quite enough, thank you. Mark my words, though. If we ever get our hands on Clay Taggart, he’ll regret the day he was born.”

  *~*

  At that very moment the object of their hatred and wrath was climbing onto his horse. White Apache had saddled up right after noticing the dust cloud, then taken his position on the knoll. The leather creaked as he sank down, raised the reins, and tapped his legs against the animal’s flanks.

  Holding the gelding to a walk, he wound down the slope and off toward the hills which bordered the haunts of the Chiricahuas. They were so close that he had the illusion he could almost reach out and touch them. Once there, he believed he could relax. Few patrols ever ventured very far into the vast Apache stronghold.

  It would not have been hard for White Apache to have picked off more of the troopers. Other than the scout, none were his equal at wood lore. He could have worked his way around through the brush and slain them quietly, using his knife or his bare hands.

  Any of the other renegades would have done so. Fiero, Ponce, Cuchillo Negro and Delgadito would never pass up an opportunity to kill their despised enemies.

  In that respect White Apache differed from the warriors. His hatred was reserved for Miles Gillett and the posse Gillett had sent to lynch him.

  As for the lawmen and soldiers throughout the territory who were on the lookout for him, and as for the countless Arizonans who loathed his guts on general principle, Clay felt only mild resentment. They were not to blame for how they felt. Each and every one was an unwitting pawn in Miles Gillett’s grand scheme. They had all been manipulated by Gillett into thinking that Clay was a traitor against his own kind.

  The soldiers on his trail now were merely doing their job. Clay had fought them because they had left him no choice. If they had left him alone, no one would have died. He would have been content to go on to Sweet Grass unhindered.

  But the days when Clay could roam the territory as he pleased were long gone. He had been branded a renegade. In the eyes of everyone else in the Territory he was a bloodthirsty butcher, and the whites would not rest until he was six feet under.

  If he had any sense, Clay told himself, he would forget Miles Gillett, forget about getting revenge, and light a shuck for parts unknown. It was not too late. In Montana Territory or Wyoming Territory or maybe out in California he could change his name and begin life anew. He could grow a beard and mustache and change his appearance in other ways and no one would ever know his true identity.

  But that would mean Miles Gillett went unpunished. That would mean Gillett got away with framing him for rape and stealing his land and having him strung up. That would mean Gillett lived to a ripe old age, with no one ever the wiser that he was one of the most despicable human beings on the face of the planet.

  Clay could not allow that. He could not turn his back on everything Gillett had done and pretend it never happened. Miles Gillett’s vile acts demanded that justice be carried out, and Clay was the only one able to carry it out. He would not fail.

  Out of habit, Clay glanced back at the knoll. He did not expect the soldiers to come after him, so he was taken aback to see a figure on foot briefly silhouetted against the backdrop of sky. He caught only a glimpse, enough to distinguish the figure’s long, f
lowing hair.

  It was the Apache scout.

  *~*

  Clem Bowdrie found Boone Vasco seated on an earthen mound over a hundred yards from the campfire. He did not lift his head as she eased down beside him and primly folded her hands in her lap. “I’ve been lookin’ all over for you since you pushed me away and ran off,” she said softly.

  Vasco said nothing.

  “I’m sorry it came as such a shock I reckon I should have come right out and told you.”

  Still the Kentuckian made no reply.

  “My full name is Clementine. I’m the only girl in the family.” She plucked at her baggy buckskin shirt and tweaked the corners of her mouth upward. “You’re probably wonderin’ about why I go around pretendin’ to be a man. I’d like to explain if you’d let me.”

  When the gunman sat there with his head bowed, Clem took courage and hurried on. “I grew up a tomboy. It’s my own fault, I suppose. I had to do everything my brothers did. I hunted with ’em, fished with ’em, went rompin’ all over the mountains with ’em. It got so that I could hold my own against most any boy in the hills. Shootin’, trackin’, wrestlin’, you name it, there wasn’t a body who could lick me.”

  Clem peered at Vasco. The shadows hid his face and she could not tell if he were listening or not. She could not even tell if his eyes were open or closed. Swallowing, she forced herself to go on.

  “It’s not like I’m the only tomboy ever raised in Tennessee. Or Kentucky, for that matter. You must of knowed a few in your time, didn’t you?” Clem paused to await an answer but there was none. Coughing, she said hastily, “So anyway, after our folks passed on, we struck out on our own. I saw no reason to change my ways. And since some people don’t cotton to women who go around actin’ like men, I took to wearin’ these here baggy clothes so most wouldn’t know. I wasn’t tryin’ to deceive anyone so much as I was tryin’ to make my life a whole lot easier.”

  If Vasco was paying attention, he did not show it.