Warrior Born (A White Apache Western Book 3) Page 12

  “Great men plan big,” the Maricopa amended, smacking his wide chest.

  “I am glad you are here to help me,” Clay flattered him. “The white-eyes will lose many lives if they try to kill us.”

  Grinning enigmatically, Corn Flower grunted, then spoke in a low voice to the other two. Their faces gave nothing away but their muscles tensed.

  Clay was holding the Winchester across his thighs, the barrel drooping, but slanted toward the warriors. Braced for a rush, he watched them carefully, ready for anything—or so he thought.

  “Look!” Corn Flower cried, rising and pointing westward. “The Americans come!”

  Despite himself, Clay automatically looked and realized he had fallen for a ruse as old as the hill on which he knelt when the three Maricopas uttered piercing shrieks and sprang.

  Chapter Eleven

  An angry Billy Santee wheeled his horse, glared balefully at the nervous men staring back, and lowered his quicksilver hands close to his expensive Colts. “We can’t give up yet!” he barked. “I ain’t ready to call it quits!”

  “Be reasonable, Santee,” the lanky Bart said. “We never did find their trail. And the sun will be up soon.”

  “We’ll be able to spot them now.” Santee refused to bow to public opinion. “I say we stay out all day if we have to.”

  “We’re tired and hungry,” Bart mentioned. “We wouldn’t be worth a plugged nickel if we did find the vermin.”

  “My boss gave me a job to do and I aim to do it,” Santee stubbornly announced. “Since I can’t do it alone, I’ll put a lead pill into the first son of a bitch who calls it quits.”

  “You’ll do no such thing!” said Harve Denton, who had sat silently listening to the heated exchange long enough. “As you’ll recollect, I’m in charge here. Miles told you to work for me. And I’m saying we head for the Box D and rest up tonight in case those filthy red devils come back.”

  “They won’t show their faces again, and you know it,” Santee said in disgust. Gillett was going to be awful displeased, he knew, on learning they had muddled things up. But he might be able to direct Gillett’s wrath elsewhere—at Denton, for instance—if he could rightfully claim that he’d been overridden all the time and that Denton’s carelessness had resulted in the Apaches skedaddling.

  “We can’t hunt them down if we’re exhausted,” the rancher declared. “We’re heading back, and that’s final.”

  “Whatever you say,” Santee said, and puzzled everyone by chuckling at his private joke. He fell in beside Bart, relishing the attention. The riders to the right of him swung off a few yards, giving him more room, and that made him laugh harder, which in turn caused the entire outfit to regard him as if he’d gone loco.

  Soon the sun rose. Santee peered along the back trail, anticipating the arrival of Surgio Vasquez. The uppity Mex had refused to tag along last night, claiming he could track better once daylight arrived. Santee hadn’t bothered to debate the point because he’d been cocksure he would be the one claiming the White Apache’s head as his trophy before the night was done.

  Santee had no intention of letting Vasquez steal his thunder. If the Mexican went tracking, Santee would go with him. If Vasquez objected, Santee would prod him into slapping leather and demonstrate that he, Santee, was the fastest damn gun shark in Arizona.

  But the morning hours dragged on, and Surgio Vasquez did not appear. Santee fretted that Vasquez had found tracks and was right that minute closing in on the Apaches. He fidgeted in the saddle the rest of the ride. When the buildings came into sight, he raked his spurs against his flagging horse and galloped to the stable, where two punchers stood smoking. “Where’s that no-account greaser?”

  “Who?” one said blankly.

  “You know who the hell I mean. Vasquez.”

  “I wouldn’t call him a greaser to his face if I were you,” the hand remarked sarcastically. “He’s a bad man to cross.”

  Santee leaned down, baring his teeth as would a mountain lion about to bite. “And you reckon I’m not?”

  The Box D puncher swallowed and nervously glanced at the gunman’s waist. “Hell, everybody in Arizona knows you’re a regular curly wolf. Everybody!”

  “You’d do good to remember that,” Santee said. “Now where is he?”

  “Rode out last night with Griffen and a bunch of the boys,” stated the other cowpoke. “Seems that one of those rotten Apaches snuck in here and stole a horse right out of the corral.”

  “What?” Santee said, agitated by the notion of Vasquez succeeding where he had failed.

  “True enough,” said the man. “The savage lit a shuck but it didn’t do him no good ’cause the sorrel he stole had a bum leg. Appears the boys caught up with him, and he shot a horse out from under Edwards, who moseyed in about an hour ago—”

  “Vasquez!” Santee hissed. “Where’s he?”

  “Still out yonder,” answered the first hand, jabbing a finger to the south. “Him and the rest ain’t back yet. Edwards says they were fixin’ to hunt that Apache down no matter how long it took.”

  “Be worth it, too,” the other Box D man said.

  “How do you figure?” Santee demanded.

  “Edwards told us they were lucky as sin. That Injun who stole the sorrel—”

  “Yes, yes,” Santee said impatiently.

  “Why, it’s none other than the White Apache.”

  Billy Santee was off his horse in a flash, lightning dancing on his brow. “I want me a new horse,” he ordered crisply, “and I want it five minutes ago.”

  ~*~

  Elsewhere, much earlier, the man who had most galled Billy Santee was crouched beside a stretch of bare earth, his nose to the musty soil, his eyes raking the surface for the tiniest of lines and smudge marks.

  Surgio Vasquez was upset. He was not one to buck the odds, and the odds had just increased dramatically against him. Hunting the White Apache had been perilous enough. Hunting four Indians, by himself, was the same as asking to have his hair lifted.

  Where had they come from? Vasquez reflected. Which tribe did they belong to? The moccasin pattern definitely wasn’t Apache or Lipan or Comanche or Yuma. His best guess was that the newcomers belonged to one of the more peaceful agricultural tribes in the region, yet if that was the case, why had they linked up with the White Apache? Did Taggart know them? Unlikely, since as far as Vasquez knew, Taggart’s only dealings with Indians had been delivering beef to the Chiricahua reservation.

  That, in itself, was telling. Vasquez sometimes speculated on whether Taggart had struck up friendships with several of the warriors back then, and whether those friendships accounted for the Chiricahuas saving Taggart from being lynched.

  Why else would the Apaches have done it? They hated whites almost as much as they hated Mexicans. A Chiricahua would as soon spare the life of an Americano as have his daughter marry a Sonoran scalp hunter.

  There were so many mysteries about this strange white man, who now lived as an Apache. Why would anyone forsake their way of life and their own kind to live among his enemies as an enemy? No Mexican would ever do such a thing.

  Vasquez stepped into the saddle and rode on but much slower than before. He settled the Spencer in his lap. Soon the sun would peek above the horizon, and he would be able to make better time, but not too much better if he wanted to avoid being bushwhacked.

  Had the choice been his, the tracker would have turned around and headed for the ranch. But the decision had been stripped from him by two factors over which he had no control. The first was the fury of Miles Gillett should he fail. The second was the chance to beat out Billy Santee, to rub in the gunman’s nose the fact that he was better than the gunman. And not even Vasquez could say which factor influenced him more.

  The promise of dawn painted the sky pink. Birds awakened to warble their morning litany. A few lizards, early risers, moved sluggishly abroad, awaiting the sun’s warmth on their bodies so that they would regain their strength and be able to
scamper about with dazzling speed in search of insects.

  Surgio Vasquez shifted to relieve a kink in his back and was raising a hand to scratch the stubble sprouting on his chin when he faintly heard the piercing shriek of war whoops followed by the blast of a gunshot.

  ~*~

  Lilly Gillett paused before the full-length mirror in the plush corridor of her home to admire herself. Her luxurious hair shone, her full body shaped the contours of her dress just right. She was an eyeful, as men might say, and proud of it. Hips swaying, she sashayed into the sitting room where her husband sat reading the latest newspaper from Tucson. “Shouldn’t we have heard something by now?” she inquired.

  “Not yet, dearest,” rumbled his voice from behind the uplifted pages. “Be patient. This sort of thing takes time.”

  “I don’t like the waiting,” Lilly confessed, prowling to the window where she admired the splendid vista of the eminent dawn. The two of them always rose an hour before sunrise. She had never been an early bird herself, but it was a habit with Miles, a habit she enjoyed sharing since he was most amorous in the mornings. Every day started the same way, with half an hour of intimate, frenzied lovemaking, the sort she had only dreamed about when younger, the sort that left a woman limp with satisfaction and grinning wickedly.

  “It’s the female disposition,” Miles commented. “Women always want everything done right away.”

  “Men are no different,” Lilly responded, miffed. She never liked it when her husband treated her as if she were a little girl instead of a mature woman. Patronizing, they called it, and it made her see red.

  The newspaper crumbled noisily, and Miles looked at her. “Now don’t start,” he chided. “I know that tone, but I wasn’t being insulting. Men and woman have different traits, is all. We both have our failings.”

  “To hear you talk sometimes, a body would think you didn’t have any,” Lilly sniped.

  “Have I ever claimed to be perfect?” Miles retorted. “I reckon no one knows better than me what weaknesses I have. But where most men are ignorant of theirs, I recognize mine and control them.” He smoothed the papers. “Most of the time.”

  “When have you not?”

  “When I had that damnable Taggart in my grasp and I let him slip away.”

  Turning, Lilly went over and gently squeezed his wide shoulder. Under her fingers rippled sinews of steel. “That was hardly your fault, my love.”

  “Wrong,” Gillett said bitterly. “I had him right in the palm of my hand. I could have crushed him like this.” Extending an arm, he slowly bunched his thick fingers. “But I wanted the bastard to suffer first. I wanted him to grovel, to beg me to put him out of his misery.” He sighed. “I was too bloodthirsty for my own good.”

  Lilly stroked the brooding man’s brow. How unlike Clay, her first lover, was this great hulk of a genius who was in the act of carving out a ranching empire that would one day rival the biggest spreads in Texas. During those quiet early morning moments when they lay clasped in each other’s arms, he had often confided his innermost longings, his secret goals. The day would come when her man would be the single most powerful person in Arizona. And she would be right at his side, hobnobbing with senators and bankers and others of their ilk. Money, power, and prestige would all be theirs; the prospect made her giddy. “Live and learn,” she said to soothe him. “I don’t blame you one bit for what happened. If it had been up to me, I would have done the same thing.”

  Gillett patted her knuckles. “That’s one of the reasons I was so attracted to you, my dear. You’re the only woman I’ve ever met who is as ruthless as I am.”

  “And loves it just as much.”

  Laughing, Gillett pulled her down onto his lap and cupped her exquisitely chiseled chin in his mighty paw of a hand. “The way I figure, we’re a match made in heaven.”

  “Or somewhere a bit lower,” Lilly tittered.

  Gillett mashed his lips to hers and molded her willing flesh to his. When they parted they were both flushed, breathing heavily.

  “Care to retire to the bedroom for a second helping?” Lilly teased.

  “Gladly,” Gillett said, “were it not for a previous commitment in Tucson.”

  “You have to go all the way into town?”

  “Can’t be helped,” Gillett idly stroked her hair while staring out the window. “Jeffers has found a legal chink in Old Man Binder’s armor.”

  Lilly wriggled in delight. “He really thinks we can take the property right out from under Binder’s nose?”

  Gillett nodded. “And if Jeffers says we can, we can bank on it. That law wrangler of mine is the most devious son of a bitch around. He has a real nose for loopholes.”

  “We should keep a good man like him on the payroll at all costs. I do hope we pay him enough so he won’t take his shingle elsewhere,” Lilly joked.

  “Never fear on that account,” Gillett said.

  “Why not?”

  Before Gillett could explain, there was a polite rap at the door and a man called out, “My apologies, sir. A rider has just delivered a message from Mr. Denton.”

  “Fetch it in,” Gillett commanded, giving his wife a push to her feet. She primped herself as the door swung in and their manservant brought over an envelope.

  “The rider is awaiting a reply,” Partridge said.

  Harve Denton’s distinctive scrawl always reminded Gillett of the tracks of a beheaded chicken. His lips moved slightly as he read, then he slapped the note against the arms of his chair and cursed.

  “What is it?” Lilly was all interest.

  “That fool Denton couldn’t catch a dead hog. And I sent him my best men to help out!”

  “Clay got away?”

  “Not yet. But I’m not one for letting grass grow under me.” In his annoyance Gillett tore the note to shreds, then tossed the pieces onto the floor. “Tell the rider to have my men sent home once Vasquez and Santee show up.”

  “Will do, sir,” Partridge said, then hurried out.

  “What will you do if they fail?” Lilly probed.

  “Put the next step into motion,” Gillett said. “And this time I’m not leaving anything to chance. This time the buzzards will feast on Clay Taggart’s rotting flesh.”

  “I can hardly wait.”

  ~*~

  Many miles to the southeast of the Triangle G, a small band of Apaches stood in a ravine arguing in a rare heated fashion. At the center of the storm of harsh words was Delgadito, brawny arms folded across his muscular chest, his head uplifted at an arrogant angle. “I have said all I am going to say.”

  Fiero paced back and forth nearby. “I cannot follow your trail anymore. First you befriend the white-eye and tell us we must accept him as one of our own, and when we finally do, you tell us we are too friendly and would have us turn our backs on him in his time of need.”

  “A warrior must be able to look after himself,” Delgadito said. “Lickoyee-shis-inday lives as one of us now, true. But he must prove he is worthy.”

  “So that is it,” Fiero said. “You are testing him.”

  “Yes,” Delgadito responded, and saw Cuchillo Negro scowl and turn away.

  “Why did you not say so from the beginning?” Fiero snapped. “Then I would have understood.”

  “And I,” Ponce said.

  “Must a man explain all his thoughts?” Delgadito criticized them. “I myself brought the white-eye to our kunh-gan-hay. Shee-dah! I alone.”

  “We all know this,” Fiero said.

  “Then you should know I have the right to decide his fate,” Delgadito stated.

  “To-dah!”

  The sharp “No!” fixed all eyes on the speaker, Cuchillo Negro, who so rarely raised his voice that Fiero and Ponce were startled. But not Delgadito. He suspected Cuchillo Negro’s motivation and said, “You disagree, my brother?”

  “I disagree,” Cuchillo Negro said flatly.

  “Would you share your reason?”

  Cuchillo Negro waited before
answering, and when he did, he began by addressing questions at no one in particular. “Since the beginning of time the Shis-Inday have gone on many raids, have they not?”

  “Yes,” Delgadito said.

  “They have taken many captives, brought back many women and children.”

  “We all know this.”

  “What was done with those captives? Did we kill them?” Cuchillo Negro concentrated on the firebrand and the young warrior. “To-dah. We took the women as wives and the young ones as our own, to be raised in the Apache way. And when the children grew, they were Shis-Inday from head to toe. They looked on themselves as Apaches, and we looked on them as Apaches.”

  “Why bring this up?” Ponce broke in.

  “You would not think of saying to one of them, ‘Yes, we made you Apache, but you do not have the right to decide your fate. We can throw your life away when we want, as we want.’ You would not do such a thing because every Shis-Inday has the right to decide his or her own life according to his or her own wishes.”

  “This is so,” Fiero said.

  “When we open our arms to others, we do not open them halfway,” Cuchillo Negro elaborated. “Either they become Apache or they do not, and those who do are one of us.”

  “You have said it,” Fiero agreed.

  “Then why do we have one standard for the captives we take and another for Lickoyee-shis-inday? He has been among us many sleeps now, learning to be as we are. Our eyes have seen his progress. We have seen how hard he works.”

  Delgadito’s active brain had already guessed where his friend’s words were leading. He could see the others were being influenced, and it upset him that the warrior he most trusted was doing this to him.

  “So, I say White Apache has the right to decide his own fate.” Cuchillo Negro concluded. “He has earned this right as surely as anyone else adopted by our people. For us to desert him now, after he has saved all our lives at least once, is to prove the lies of the whites who say Apaches are without worth.”