Warrior Born (A White Apache Western Book 3) Page 8

  “Any young ones here?” Delgadito asked, certain White Apache would not want them harmed, either.

  “Not to my knowledge,” Clay said. “But if we find any, the same rule applies.”

  “Rules. Always rules,” Delgadito said with marked disgust. “Why are you whites so fond of being told what to do? Why can you not live.”

  Whatever reply Clay was going to make was forestalled when three riders appeared in the adjoining pasture. Flattening, the Apaches watched the cowpokes, their weapons ready for instant use.

  Clay abruptly realized these were the first punchers he had seen. It struck him as a bit odd. The Bar D was a big spread and by rights there should be ten to twenty hands abroad. He figured most were off rounding up cattle farther down the valley or else busy with some other chore, and he dismissed the discrepancy as unimportant.

  Another decision had to be made. With nightfall so close, Clay either had to convince the Apaches to ignore their taboo on night raids or go on alone. He’d finish off Denton, then return to assist in stealing as much of the horse stock as they could manage. Twice before he’d been able to convince the warriors to raid after dark, and he probably could have done so now, but all the talk about Mrs. Denton and children had made him leery of a mishap. It would be safer, he reasoned, to sneak into the house by himself. The Apaches could wait right where they were.

  “One of us should go with you,” Delgadito objected on being told.

  “I will,” Amarillo offered.

  Clay was inclined to refuse but knew he could not without offending them. “All right. As soon as the sun sets we go in.”

  Half an hour later the three riders came back, making for the bunkhouse. There had been no activity anywhere in all that time, which Clay thought odd. Having owned a ranch himself, the daily routine was familiar. Toward evening the punchers converged from all parts of the spread to wash up for supper. The clang of the triangle would cause a mass rush to the table, and they would gorge themselves to bursting. Over at the house the rancher and his family would sit down to a more sedate meal, and afterward the husband and wife would retire to the cool comfort of their rocking chairs on the front porch. But there was none of that here.

  In the back of Clay’s mind, something stirred. A vague feeling of unease that he tried to shake but couldn’t. There had to be a logical explanation, he assured himself. Perhaps the Dentons were gone, spending time in Tucson. If so, they undoubtedly took most of the hands with them as a treat since to a cowpoke a night spent in town was a night spent in heaven.

  Gradually, the light faded. Twilight claimed the landscape, then a veil of darkness. Lights came on in the bunkhouse. Shortly thereafter, a single lantern flared to life in the ranch house.

  So there was someone home, Clay mused. He would wait until all the lights went out, allow another half an hour to insure they were all sound asleep, and make his move.

  Toward midnight the time arrived. Clay signaled to Amarillo and crept from concealment, stalking through the grass on a beeline for the stable.

  No moon brightened the pasture. Clay paused often to look, listen, and test the air with his nose as the Apaches regularly did, even though his sense of smell was much worse than theirs. He counted on Amarillo warning him of any dangers that he failed to discern.

  Close to twenty horses packed into the corral, far more than Clay expected. Many were dozing. Only a few bothered to lift their heads as Clay and the warrior crawled along the base of the corral to the stable doors, which were closed. Rising on tiptoe, Clay threw the huge bar and cracked the near door a few inches, so he could peak inside. The gloom did not prevent him from seeing that every stall contained a horse.

  Clay was puzzled. The hands would not have left their individual mounts behind if they’d gone into Tucson. Fewer horses should be present, not more than usual. Closing the door, he crouch-walked to Amarillo and dropped to one knee. “You stay,” he whispered in Apache. “I will go in alone.”

  “Is that wise?” the cautious warrior asked. “You might need help if this white-eye fights back as did the other two.”

  Common sense confirmed Amarillo had cause for concern, but Clay hesitated. He wanted to prove to Delgadito, and perhaps to himself as well, that he could tend to Harve Denton without weakening as he had with the others. “I can take care of this on my own.”

  “As you wish, Lickoyee-shis-inday.”

  A last glance at the corral and Clay was off, sprinting to an oak tree and from there to a flowerbed. The fragrant scent of roses caught his attention. He surveyed the white-frame house, about to dash to the closest corner, when an image registered in his brain, the fleeting image of a shadowy shape at one of the windows. It was gone so quickly that he wondered if his eyes had been playing tricks on him.

  Clay went prone and waited to see if the figure would reappear. He assumed that someone had gotten up for a drink of water and just happened to look out. Since clusters of tall flowers screened him, he doubted he had been spotted.

  A minute went by without a hint of movement inside. Reassured, Clay snaked to a tree, careful to keep the wide trunk between him and the window. A low branch afforded the means of ascending to a fork shrouded by foliage. Here he sat, listening intently, attuning his mind to the night.

  Of all the Apache traits that Clay admired, patience was high on his list. They were masters at the art of ambush and could lie totally still for an incredibly long time in order to surprise game or an enemy. Patience, Delgadito had instructed him, was the key to survival in the wild. A person who had it would never starve, never be taken by surprise.

  Clay exercised his patience now. Content to sit until certain the coast was clear, he rested his rifle across his legs and leaned back, his legs dangling. He happened to notice that a stout higher limb projected awfully close to a second floor window, which gave him an idea. After a suitable interval had passed, he climbed to the limb, slung the rifle over his back, and moved hand over hand toward the house.

  The limb sagged and creaked and, for a moment, Clay feared it might break. Keeping his body still, he let the swaying subside, then inched outward. In the dark, he had misjudged the distance; the window was four feet from the branch, almost beyond reach. He had to hang by one arm, move his body in pendulum fashion, and lunge to grab hold of the sill. For a precarious few seconds gravity threatened to tear him loose. Whipping his hips, he practically hurled himself at the window and caught hold with his other hand.

  Body flush with the side of the house, Clay strained to lift his right leg high enough to hook his heel on the edge of the eaves. Getting the other foot up there took the same amount of effort. A hard shove and a mad scramble put him belly down next to the window. From here he could pull on the lowest sash bar to find out if it was latched.

  Soundlessly the window slid up. Clay put an ear to the opening and listened again. When confident silence reigned within, and he had not been heard, he twisted, looped a leg around the side jamb, and slid into Harve Denton’s house. No sooner did his feet touch the floor than he bounded to the right and unlimbered the Winchester.

  The room was small and smelled faintly of jasmine. Clay found shelves on either side crammed with quilts, blankets, and assorted knickknacks. In the center sat a sewing machine, beside it a chair and a bench bearing folded clothes and other articles.

  Mrs. Denton’s sewing room, Clay figured, tiptoeing to the door, which hung open a crack. He pressed an eye to the opening and instantly recoiled. Two men were walking down a hall toward him! He hugged a corner, his finger on the trigger of the Winchester.

  “—the damn fuss was for nothing!” a gruff voice said quietly. “There was no one out there!”

  “Fritz probably saw a cat and thought it was an Apache,” said the other one.

  “Fritz is an idiot. One more false alarm from him and the boss is liable to bust his fool head wide open.”

  Clay saw the door swing suddenly inward. Both men entered, the taller grumbling about having
had to run downstairs for no good reason. The second man saw the open window and stopped.

  “What the hell! Didn’t we leave that closed?”

  “We sure as blazes did. Then how—”

  Their backs were to Clay. He took a long stride and brought the stock of his rifle smashing down on the taller man’s temple, flooring the cowboy on the spot.

  The second puncher spun, hand stabbing for a six-shooter riding high on his right hip. His fingers were curling on the smooth butt when the stock caught him full on the jaw, crunching his teeth together. He staggered into the sewing machine, toppling it to the floor with a tremendous crash.

  Downstairs, shouts arose. From somewhere on the same floor a man bellowed, “What the hell was that noise? An Injun could hear it a mile off!”

  A short dash brought Clay to the window. He did not need to be a genius to deduce that Harve Denton had set a trap for him, and that if he didn’t light a shuck for the chaparral he’d likely take a lead plum or be the guest of honor at a necktie social.

  Lifting a leg out, Clay slid over the sill, and was about to leap to the limb, when the heavy tread of boot heels announced the arrival of a third puncher who stood framed in the doorway gawking at the two men on the floor. That moment of shock cost the man dearly, for Clay already had his rifle leveled when the puncher went to fill his hand.

  The first blast of the Winchester drove the puncher into the hall. The second blast slammed him against the wall. Arms limp, the man slid to the floor, leaving a dark stain in his wake.

  Yells, curses, and the drum of boots on the stairs goaded Clay into slinging the rifle over his shoulder, bunching his leg muscles, and jumping. He caught hold of the limb, felt it bend steeply under his weight, then heard a loud crack. A sickening sensation in his gut, he fell, shoving the limb from him and vainly flailing his arms to right himself, so he would land on his feet. Instead he smacked down on his side, the jolt jarring every bone and causing pinwheels of light to dance before his eyes.

  Too stunned to move, Clay braced for the searing impact of multiple slugs. The thunderous din of gunfire erupted, and he involuntarily flinched, only to realize seconds later the shots were not being directed at him. Sluggishly, he rose on an elbow and blinked, clearing his vision.

  Clay was at the base of the wall, within yards of a window through which several rifle barrels protruded. Lead and smoke spat from each, as well as from the guns at other ground floor windows, pouring a swarm of lethal hail into the darkness.

  Thinking the Apaches had come to his aid, Clay scanned the yard. There was no return fire from anywhere, leading him to suspect that the men in the house had panicked on hearing the shots upstairs and started firing at shadows. Cowboys were notorious for having an abiding fear of Apaches.

  Clay had to get out of there before the punchers rushed outside, but he dared not try to cross the yard with bullets flying so thick and fast. Turning, he crawled rapidly toward the corner on the assumption Denton’s men were concentrating their fire on one side of the house alone.

  A chorus of rifle fire showed otherwise. Clay stared at the rifles cracking with regular cadence and thought of the horses filling the corral and the stable. Now he knew why there had been so many.

  At the very corner there were no windows. Clay slowly stood, his back scraping the house. In front of him were trees, then a low hedge. At a lull in the shooting he bolted, weaving as he ran, and he had passed the first tree and was nearly to the second when someone bellowed, “There’s one of the bastards!” and a ragged volley blistered the very air around him.

  Clay dived and rolled to the right. Something stung his left arm. Bees buzzed overhead. He gained the shelter of the tree and listened to wood splintering as slug after slug tore into the trunk. When the firing slackened, he raced to the next oak. The hedge was now twenty feet away. Adjacent to it was a pasture and, in the pasture, several stacks of hay. As Clay looked, those stacks moved, breaking apart to disgorge men armed with rifles. Men who came straight in his direction.

  Chapter Eight

  The trap had been cunningly laid. A dozen or more men had waited in the house, covering all four sides, ready to converge at any point once an alarm was sounded. Freshly mown hay had been stacked at various points to conceal additional riflemen. And for all Clay knew, more men might have been lurking in the stable. He cursed under his breath for being the biggest jackass in all of Arizona as he ducked low and darted to the hedge.

  “Spread out!” commanded someone in the pasture. “But not too far. We can’t let them get past us.”

  Clay cocked his rifle and peered through the thin branches and leaves at the approaching figures. Denton’s men believed an entire Apache band was pinned down. Thank God he’d left Delgadito and the rest in the stand, otherwise there would have been.

  Four men now stood about eight yards out, spaced ten feet apart. They concentrated on the yard, scouring the flowerbeds and trees and hedges.

  Easing the barrel of his Winchester into the hedge, Clay pointed it at one of the cowhands. Fixing a precise bead was impossible, but at that range he did not have to be precise. He simply centered the barrel on the man’s torso and fired.

  The puncher collapsed. His pards instantly cut loose, firing wildly since they had no idea where the shot had come from. Clay swiveled, putting a slug into a second man, who tottered rearward and sprawled onto his back. The last two did not have the gumption for a stand-up fight, not exposed as they were. They retreated toward the hay mounds, levering off rounds as fast as they could work their Winchesters.

  Clay pulled his rifle out of the hedge and sprinted to his left, keeping low, his elbow scraping against the tips of branches. Some of the men inside were still shooting, but they were unable to distinguish his form against the dark background of the hedge.

  Somewhere a door slammed. Clay realized the gunmen were venturing outdoors. He had to reach the corral before they spotted him. Then, somehow, he and Amarillo must make it to the stand of trees where the others waited. Getting there wouldn’t be easy, but it was their only hope.

  A flurry of gunfire broke out near the stable. Clay rose high enough to see the corral and was aghast at spotting Amarillo out in the open. The warrior was fleeing across the pasture to escape a half-dozen men who had emerged from the stable. They had seen him, and even as Clay looked on, they opened fire, stitching the dirt around him with miniature geysers.

  Amarillo had almost gained the high grass. He flung himself forward, his arms outstretched, and was midair when bullets cored his hurtling body from back to front. Jerking from each shot, Amarillo arched his spine but did not cry out. He crumpled, landing in a disjointed heap, his legs twitching.

  The killers cheered in delight and raced toward him.

  Cold rage gripped Clay’s soul. He had never been as close to Amarillo as he was to Delgadito, but still he had regarded the Indian more as a friend than an enemy. Vaulting the hedge, he pounded after the punchers responsible, heedless of shots directed at him from different quarters.

  Amarillo had risen on one elbow in an attempt to crawl into the grass. He saw the white-eyes bearing down on him and sought his rifle but it was out of reach. Drawing a knife, he twisted, striking at the first cowboy who reached him. The blade buried in the man’s leg, eliciting a screech.

  Three rifles roared in unison. Amarillo wore a snarl of defiance as the slugs ripped into his head, a snarl that stayed locked on his features as he sagged lifelessly to the ground.

  Clay was beside himself with fury. He slung the Winchester on the fly and filled his hands with his twin Colts in a cross draw. One of the cowpokes heard him, glanced around, and tried to bring a rifle into play. Clay shot the man in the eye.

  Two more spun at the gunshots, their Winchesters slanted downward instead of level, as they should be. Clay stroked each trigger once, bucking the pair out in gunsmoke. Only three were left, the two responsible for killing Amarillo and the man with the knife wound. All three were gathered
around the Apache’s supine corpse. They saw Clay coming.

  Two snapped their rifles high; the wounded man released his and made a stab for a pistol, his speed uncanny. Had Clay not had his six-shooters out, the man would easily have gunned him down first.

  But as it was, Clay shot before any of them, blasting his pistols simultaneously, three times apiece. The trio were hit in their chests, each reacting differently. One toppled, one staggered a few feet before falling, and the third, the one who was wounded, roared like a berserk grizzly as his knees buckled and he caved to the earth.

  A loud beating in Clay’s ears was matched by the explosive beat of gunshots coming from the yard. He lingered for a fleeting look at Amarillo, then barreled into the grass and fled across the pasture in bounds worthy of an antelope. Ranch hands were in pursuit, but so far behind, he was confident he would escape, until the nicker of horses let him know that some of Denton’s men were mounting at the corral.

  Outrunning a galloping horse was impossible, even for a full-blooded Apache. But Clay ran as never before. When a man’s life is on the verge of being blown out, he does what he must to stay alive, even if he knows his efforts will be in vain.

  The stand of trees materialized. Clay gauged the distance, then checked behind him to gauge the gap between himself and the four riders. They would be on him well shy of the oaks. Lashing their horses, guns unlimbered, they swept across the field intent on doing to Clay what he had done to their friends.

  Thirty feet from the stand Clay halted, turned, and knelt to make a smaller target of himself. He extended both pistols at the lead rider, a burly cowboy with a revolver in hand.

  The night cracked with gunfire, but not Clay’s own. From the trees came rifle fire that peppered the onrushing horsemen and their mounts. In a whirl of legs and tails attended by strident neighs, the horses went down, spilling the cowboys from their saddles.