Quick Killer (A White Apache Western Book 4) Page 4

  Lead whizzed over Clay’s head, clipping needles off the low branch of a tree. He fixed a bead on the stocky one who had taken his jerky but the man ducked back before he could squeeze the trigger. The exchange lasted less than a minute. Then the three ambushers broke and resumed their flight.

  Once again Fiero led the pack of pursuers, whooping lustily and firing at random. Clay marveled at the hothead’s audacity, for Fiero took risks more sensible men wouldn’t take in a million years.

  But Fiero didn’t see it that way. He took calculated gambles, nothing more. He was a master at reading the intention of an adversary by the man’s posture and reacting with his lightning swift reflexes before his life was put in serious jeopardy. Already he had observed that the warrior in the blue coat was the leader of the three strangers, and that whenever that warrior looked back and scowled, all three were certain to fire a volley seconds later. Now the warrior in blue did just that, and Fiero fell flat. Their bullets zinged harmlessly past.

  Clay had crouched behind a log. He braced the Winchester barrel on top and once more tried to get the stocky brave in his sights. As before, the elusive threesome wheeled and sped off as he touched his finger to the trigger. Their shoot-and-run tactic was proving successful in that they had gained a wider lead. Afraid that they would escape, Clay poured on the speed.

  There had been a time not long ago when Clay Taggart would have been left in the dust in a foot race with Apaches. But the months spent among them had steeled his sinews to a degree he never would have believed possible. Wilderness living had that effect on a man. Either he hardened, or he died. There was no place in the wild for the weak and the lazy.

  Clay could jog for half a day without tiring. He could go two days without water, three without food. He had learned to ride for twenty-four hours at a stretch and not need sleep. He had become so much like an Apache that the other members of the band had regarded him as one of their own until Amarillo’s death. And, oddly, he liked the change.

  The fleeing warriors came to a glade and bore to the right. Both the stocky Apache and the man in the coat inadvertently pulled ahead of the third warrior when he paused to reload his rifle.

  Snapping his Winchester up, Clay stroked the trigger a hair before Fiero and Delgadito. Their enemy staggered backward, clutched his chest, and toppled like a felled tree. Both the stocky one and blue coat stopped, but only momentarily. They plunged onward when they realized their friend was beyond help.

  Apaches weren’t prone to giving their lives needlessly for their fellows. Warriors who did so were branded fools and seldom spoken of highly unless they had been mortally wounded when they made the sacrifice. In such instances, since they already had nothing to lose, they would fight with a desperate fury, sometimes keeping an entire company of soldiers at bay while their people made good their escape.

  The Apache attitude stemmed from the two main precepts of their existence: to steal without being caught, and to kill without being slain. To these ends the men were trained from infancy. Obtaining plunder and conducting warfare were all that interested them. And it went without saying that in order to enjoy plundering and killing, they had to be alive.

  Fiero was the first to reach the fallen warrior. Hardly slowing, he nevertheless bashed the man’s head with the stock of his rifle to ensure the warrior was dead.

  Clay stayed abreast of Delgadito. He saw the Apache glance at their slain foe but observed no flicker of recognition. Meanwhile, the stocky warrior and blue coat had stopped pausing to fire every so often and were in full flight. The pair had changed direction, bearing to the northwest. Clay suspected they were making for their horses.

  No one whooped or yipped, not even Fiero. The race was conducted in somber silence, with each man driving himself to his limit. The fleeing twosome no longer gained any ground, nor did Clay and his companions gain any. Through the woods to the north edge of the meadow the chase progressed, and it was here that luck favored the renegades.

  Grazing nearby were a dozen horses. The man wearing the army coat went by without a second look, but the stocky warrior darted toward the animals. He lunged at a sorrel, caught hold of its mane, and went to swing up when the horse caught his strange scent and pranced skittishly to one side. Holding on, the stocky warrior ran awkwardly beside it, trying not to lose his footing. Abruptly, the horse spun, throwing the man off-balance. He stumbled and fell to his knees, his rifle flying from his hand. Frantically he reached for it, but it was beyond his grasp.

  Fiero hurtled through the air and slammed into the stocky warrior, knocking the man flat. Quickly, the stocky Apache pushed to his knees, his knife flashing from its sheath. Fiero swung his Winchester, striking the gleaming blade and batting it aside. He then pivoted, ramming the muzzle into the other warrior’s stomach. The stocky Apache doubled over but recovered almost immediately and flung himself to the left as Fiero went to strike him on the head.

  Fiero intended to take the man alive. There were questions that had to be answered, and Fiero was a master at persuading captives to talk. He leveled his rifle and prepared to shoot, to wound, not to kill.

  Suddenly a shot rang out to Fiero’s rear. A hole blossomed in the center of the stocky warrior’s broad chest. He looked down at the blood oozing forth, then snarled at Fiero. Fiero put a slug in the warrior’s head.

  Ponce ran up, beaming in triumph. “I shot him first,” the younger man boasted.

  Fiero had to resist an urge to lash out. “You did fine,” he said sarcastically. “Now all we have to do is learn how to talk to dead men and we will know who sent him and why.”

  In a burst of insight Ponce understood the reason his companion was so upset. He felt like a chastened child for having fired, and he was about to explain that in the excitement of the chase he had simply gotten carried away when the White Apache and Delgadito passed them and Fiero dashed in their wake.

  Clay had gained the lead. He could see the warrior in the army coat dozens of feet ahead on the timbered slope, still running smoothly with no evidence of being fatigued. Whoever the man was, he knew how to pace himself and had the stamina of a mustang. Clay fell into a steady rhythm, avoiding obstacles and thickets where necessary. The warrior came to the bench and bolted past the lean-to.

  Breaking into the open, Clay pumped his legs for all they were worth. Behind him pounded Fiero and the others, each eager to be the first to get his hands on their enemy. Clay was determined not to let them outstrip him. He would do it himself, thereby demonstrating once again that he was worthy of being one of their number.

  The slope steadily steepened. Clay ran on the balls of his feet, digging them in for better traction. Several times he had clear shots but didn’t avail himself of the opportunities. He’d seen Fiero’s expression when Ponce shot the stocky warrior and knew they needed the last one alive.

  The man fleeing for his life knew it too. He glanced over his shoulder repeatedly, and when he discovered that the White Apache was narrowing the gap, he pushed himself recklessly.

  Clay had one thing in his favor. He knew the vicinity better, had trekked the length and breadth of the canyon. He knew the slope they were climbing eventually flattened out on a high ridge. It was there, he figured, the three warriors had tied their mounts.

  The man in the army coat might have made it if not for another fluke of fate. A maze of thorny brush barred his ascent so he cut to the left. In so doing, he encountered a handful of downed saplings uprooted during a storm. Normally he would have negotiated them with ease, but today he was in such a hurry that he misjudged a step and his foot caught on one. He crashed down, throwing out his arms to catch himself.

  Clay had the chance he needed. He took three more long steps and leaped, his Winchester angled on high for a stroke that would have knocked the warrior out had it landed. But the Apache was a credit to his tribe. He rose on one knee and whirled just as Clay pounced. Their bodies collided and together they tumbled down the slope.

  They rolled ove
r a dozen feet, until Clay’s shoulder smashed into a tree trunk. At that juncture a knife magically materialized in the warrior’s hand, and Clay used the Winchester to deflect a stab to the throat. Racked by pain, he pushed upright barely in time to keep the Apache from burying the knife in his chest. The warrior swung again, striking the barrel, and Clay’s finger accidentally tightened on the trigger.

  The Winchester blasted.

  To Clay’s dismay, he saw the slug catch the warrior high in the shoulder and lift the man off his feet. The Apache fell against a small ponderosa, his knife falling from nerveless fingers. Game to the last, the warrior got his other hand under him and began to rise.

  Piercing whoops heralded the arrival of Fiero and Ponce. They bowled the other Apache over and Fiero wound up astride his chest. In seconds they had battered him near senseless and roughly jerked him erect.

  Fiero looked at the bleeding wound, then at Clay. “You are as bad as Ponce, Lickoyee-shis-inday,” he commented. “We needed one alive.”

  “I know, friend,” Clay answered, using the word intentionally. While initially Fiero had hated him and despised having him in the band, at the time of Amarillo’s death Fiero had come to accept the fact and been acting downright friendly on occasion. “My rifle went off by accident.”

  “There are no accidents. Only mistakes made by those who are too careless for their own good.”

  Clay was inclined to debate the point. But the nape of his neck abruptly prickled as if from a heat rash, and at the same time the two Apaches glanced up and over his head at someone behind him. Fearing there might have been a fourth ambusher no one had noticed, he spun to find Delgadito watching them.

  “Take him to our camp, Fiero. We will get the answers we need there.”

  As always, Delgadito’s features were the most inscrutable of all. Rarely could anyone read his thoughts. Clay Taggart would have given anything to know what was going through the former leader’s mind. Yet had he known, he would have been shocked. For at that precise instant Delgadito, the Apache, was reflecting on how unfortunate it was that Taggart had survived the fight. In his cold heart Delgadito harbored an unquenchable thirst for revenge on the man who had spoiled his carefully laid plan to regain a role of trust and prestige in the Chiricahua tribe.

  Once Delgadito had been a widely respected warrior. Once other warriors had flocked to join him on raids, had reveled in his victories and delighted in their share of the spoils taken. Once his name had been bandied about in the same breath as that of Mangus Colorado, Cochise, and Gokhlayeh. Then disaster had struck.

  Delgadito had refused to bow to the white man’s rule and fled into Mexico with a large number of followers. Scalp hunters drove them back across the border and later took them by surprise, slaughtering warriors, women and children as if they were sheep. Only Delgadito and five others had survived.

  For Delgadito, it would have been better had he died with the rest. He not only lost his wife, his relatives, and most of his friends, but he lost something he considered more precious. He lost his standing among the Chiricahuas. Where before he was regarded as a man of powerful medicine, now he was widely viewed as bad medicine, as someone the Gans had turned against and brought to ruin. No one wanted anything to do with him.

  Delgadito had refused to give up hope. He had always prided himself on being adept at na-tse-kes, at the deep thinking that distinguished the common warrior from the great one. All Apaches of note were highly regarded for this virtue, and he had honed his skill to a degree seldom known.

  He had schemed to have the white-eye he had jokingly named White Apache lead his small band on raids against those who had left Taggart for dead, dangling from a tree limb. He had hoped that a series of successful raids would go a long way toward changing the minds of his people. And he had intended, once White Apache outlived his usefulness, to reassume the leadership role rightfully his.

  But everything that could go wrong had gone wrong. The Nakai-hey had captured Fiero, Ponce, and Amarillo, and it was White Apache who freed them. The scalp hunter responsible for the massacre of their band had given chase, and it was White Apache who tracked the butcher down and slew him.

  Incredibly, Delgadito’s few remaining followers turned to the white-eye for leadership, for the guidance they had formerly sought from Delgadito. White Apache’s name became known among the Chiricahuas and other tribes, and everywhere it was mentioned in a more favorable light than Delgadito’s.

  Delgadito had seen the last wisps of power fading from his fingers as if they were tendrils of fading smoke. And the man he blamed, the man he wanted to destroy, was Clay Taggart. To that end, he was trying to poison the hearts of Fiero, Ponce, and Cuchillo Negro against the white-eye. To that end, he had blamed Amarillo’s death on White Apache’s bad medicine.

  Now, as Taggart stood looking hopefully at him, Delgadito turned on his heel and followed Fiero and Ponce down the mountainside. Cuchillo Negro awaited them below and fell into step next to him.

  “You did not run very fast,” Delgadito said in tactful reproach.

  “The last I knew, a Shis-Inday could run as fast as he pleased.”

  Delgadito cast a frown at the only man he regarded as a true friend. “Why must you twist my words all the time of late? Why has your heart grown so bitter toward me?”

  “Lickoyee-shis-inday.”

  “What sorcery has he worked to turn you against me?”

  “I am not against you so much as I am for him.”

  “You speak in riddles.”

  Cuchillo Negro pointed at the captive. “White Apache saved your life, yet still you seek to take his.”

  “Can you read another man’s thoughts then?”

  “Yours,” Cuchillo Negro stated flatly. “I know you as I know myself. I know the trails your thoughts take, the secrets you share with no one else.”

  “Do you?” Delgadito tried to say with scorn that wasn’t there. “One with so much power should be a medicine man, not a simple warrior.”

  “You hurl words as if they were rocks, yet you do not deny what I have said.”

  Delgadito slowed because he did not want anyone to overhear the next part of their conversation. Fiero and Ponce were yards off, hurrying onward. A look back showed White Apache sulking far behind. “I would speak straight tongue with you, my brother.

  “My ears have always been open to Delgadito.”

  “Tell me why. The plain truth, nothing else.”

  Cuchillo Negro walked in silence for a bit, and seldom had Delgadito’s nerves been so on edge. At last the former sighed. “The truth it will be, and it is truth born of our boyhoods together, of the many hunts we went on, the many grand times we had practicing the skills we would use when we became men. It is truth born of the manhood we have shared, of the many battles we have fought, the many hardships we have endured.”

  “What truth?” Delgadito said, scarcely able to conceal his impatience.

  “The truth of your mistake.”

  “You promised you would speak with a straight tongue.”

  The warrior the Mexicans called Black Knife locked his gaze on Delgadito. “In all the winters we have known each other, I can count the mistakes you have made on one hand.” He held up one finger. “And it is in this matter of the white-eye you took under your wing in order to soar among the clouds once again. You make a mistake in that you cannot see the good he can do not only for you but for all our people, the good only he could achieve because he is who he is. You make a mistake because you are thinking only of yourself. Think of the welfare of the entire tribe and you will see the wisdom of my words. I have walked with the bear. I know.”

  For once Delgadito was utterly confused. “You call that straight tongue? Of what possible good can this miserable white eye be to the Chiricahuas?”

  “You have eyes but you do not see.”

  “See what?”

  “That he can do for us what we have been unable to do for ourselves.” Cuchillo Negro halt
ed. “White Apache can free the Chiricahuas from the white man’s yoke.”

  Chapter Four

  The building was as brown and stark as the land on which it sat. A hovel, really, situated in the middle of a vast nowhere, with heaps of refuse piled out back and scruffy mongrels out front sniffing at the heels of everyone who entered.

  And a lot of people did visit through the course of an average day, the majority Apaches from the reservation who broke the law to warm their bellies with the firewater to which they were addicted. The authorities knew about the hovel, and the man who ran it, but they made no attempt to put him out of business. In the army’s opinion, drunken Indians were little threat, so the Apaches were permitted to inebriate themselves with unofficial sanction.

  Much to the delight of Santiago Pasqual, the owner of the run-down saloon. Half Mexican, half Cibeque Apache, and all greed, he made his living selling watered down whiskey to the gullible reservation braves and hoarding the profits for his eventual move to Sonora where he planned to buy a large estate and live out his later years in comfort.

  There was little actual work involved. Santiago poured drinks, wiped tables, and had his woman make burritos, tacos, or enchiladas for those of his customers who arrived hungry. It was fortunate for her she liked to cook because Santiago kept her at the stove twelve hours a day.

  Occasionally there was trouble. Drunks were always cantankerous, and Santiago sometimes had to pull his scattergun out from under the bar and remind whoever was raising Cain that buckshot meant burying. Usually the shotgun quieted them down. If not—well, he’d had to shoot a few over the years but there had never been a problem with the law. The ones he shot were always Apaches or breeds like himself.

  On this day, Santiago leaned on the counter and idly observed the fourteen men scattered about the room. Three were playing cards in a dark corner. Two others were talking in low tones. Most simply sat staring with glazed eyes at the filthy walls, their precious bottles clutched in front of them.