Warrior Born (A White Apache Western Book 3) Read online

  Clay did not wait to see if any were alive. He bolted into the stand and halted beside the four Apaches, fingers flying as he reloaded his six-guns.

  “Amarillo?” Delgadito asked.

  “Yah-ik-tee,” Clay answered, which was Apache for “he is not present.” Apaches never mentioned that a friend was dead, a taboo stemming from their belief in ghosts. Instead, they used figures of speech to say the same thing.

  “He will be missed,” Delgadito responded.

  And that was all any of them had to say. They did not treat death as whites did. There would be no public mourning, no remembrance of any kind.

  “The white-eyes come in force,” Fiero commented eagerly, gazing at the field. “Let us stand and fight! We can slay many before they kill us.”

  “Why waste our lives when we can live to kill again?” Cuchillo Negro said. Always the most practical, he began to hasten off.

  “We must go,” Delgadito agreed.

  Clay was content to jog in their wake. The forest of mesquite was a long way off, and he knew they would be lucky to reach it without losing anyone else. He tried not to dwell on Amarillo’s fate; deep down he felt responsible since the Apaches would not have been there if they weren’t helping him settle a blood debt.

  Most troubling of all, the Apaches might feel the same way. Clay worried they would hold the death against him and refuse to help him anymore. To lose a warrior on a raid was regarded as a terrible calamity, and the one leading the band on such an occasion lost valuable standing in the tribe. Since he’d been the leader, he was accountable.

  Strung out in single file, the warriors ate up the distance at a steady pace. Clay twisted repeatedly, seeking sign of Denton’s hands. Lanterns flashed at the ranch house and stable, and the breeze brought the faint noise of a great deal of commotion, but as yet, not one cowboy showed himself past the trees.

  Half a mile had been covered when Clay saw dozens of lights bobbing back and forth, spreading outward from the buildings. The punchers sped toward the stand, evidently assuming the Apaches were still hidden there. A few fired rashly into the oaks, wasting ammunition.

  The warriors broke into an out-and-out sprint, their goal the mesquite, now visible as a murky band far off. Clay brought up the rear, doing the best he could but still unable to match their speed. Gradually, he fell behind, a few yards initially, then more than a dozen. None of the warriors noticed, and he was not about to advertise his weakness by giving a yell. He would forge on and catch them eventually.

  Suddenly the thunder of hoofs sounded to Clay’s right. Slowing, he brought the Winchester up, seeking the silhouette of a rider. But where there should be a lean black figure atop a horse he saw a bulky black outline that bore down on him with all the subtlety of a steam engine.

  Clay didn’t need moonlight or a lantern to identify the creature. It was a bull! A thousand pounds of solid muscle housing a temperament charitably described as irritable. And this specimen was clearly on the rampage, angered by the intruders in its domain.

  Clay went to take a hasty bead, but the gigantic brute was on him in a twinkling, moving with astounding speed for something so huge and heavy. Outswept curved horns glinted dully in the starlight as the bull’s massive head lowered for the killing sweep.

  Taking a step to the left, Clay flung himself prone and heard the bull go rumbling by, so close it seemed as if the ground itself shook. He scrambled erect and saw the bull wheel. Turning, he fled for his life, an eye on the monster barreling toward him.

  The bull was only feet away when Clay repeated his tactic of throwing himself aside. This time he was a bit slower than before and he paid dearly for his sloth. A horn caught him on the side, gouging a shallow groove along his ribs, the impact throwing him head over heels.

  Clay came down on his back, his breath whooshing from his lungs. Disoriented, he lay still, hoping against hope the bull wouldn’t see him or pick up his scent. Near at hand, the grass rustled, and there were heavy thuds.

  The bull was hunting for him.

  Rolling onto his stomach, Clay craned his neck. The behemoth plowed along off to the right, grunting and snorting in a bovine tantrum. Clay crouched, pivoted, and skulked in the opposite direction. He had gone a considerable way, and was feeling fairly confident he had eluded the bull, when hooves drummed—directly ahead—Clay froze, amazed the bull had been able to get in front of him without his knowing it. He reared high enough to see, and what he saw sent a ripple of consternation down his spine. In his rush to get away from the bull he had blundered badly. When he should have been heading to the southeast to reach the mesquite, all the time he had been heading to the northwest, toward the ranch buildings. And closing in on him were a long line of punchers, every other man bearing a lantern held high to illuminate the field.

  Flattening, Clay scrambled into the thickest patch of grass in his vicinity. The bull was all but forgotten now, in the face of this greater danger. Because one of the lantern bearers was heading uncomfortably close to his position, Clay crept to the left in order to get beyond the circle of pale light.

  “Anything yet?” called a stern voice well behind the riders.

  “Nothin, boss,” answered a puncher Clay recognized as the tall man named Bart, from the buckboard.

  “Keep searching. They couldn’t have gotten away this fast.”

  Farther down the line someone piped up with, “They re Apaches, ain’t they?”

  Clay came to a point midway between Bart and another hand. Bart held the lantern and slowly swung it from side to side, a cocked six-shooter resting on his thigh. Like the rest, he would shoot at anything that moved.

  Lying on his stomach, rifle on his chest, Clay commenced bending grasses over his body. His movements were unhurried, silent. His eyes flicked from Bart to the other hand, who wore a wide-brimmed black hat, packed a pair of ivory-handled pistols, and favored big silver spurs. Something about him set Clay’s nerves to jangling, causing him to remember that horrible day when the posse had strung him up. In particular, he recalled a certain smirking gunman who had roped him, then dragged him for miles across the burning desert. He could still feel the stinging bite of every cactus needle and the razor slice of every sliver of rock.

  That rider was Billy Santee!

  Clay impulsively gripped the Winchester and would have shot the young gunny right that moment if the act would not have been sure-fire suicide. To savor sweet revenge he must stay alive. He eased his thumb off the hammer, frowning.

  Santee’s presence added a new element to the situation. Santee worked for Gillett, and it was a safe bet that the gun shark would not be there without Gillett’s knowledge and approval. That meant Gillett was the one who had guessed where Clay would strike next and had acted accordingly. It also revealed where the extra men came from. They must be some of Gillett’s hired guns, not run-of-the-mill cowhands.

  Fresh hatred rose in Clay’s gorge, releasing bitter bile in his mouth. To be outfoxed was one thing, to be outfoxed by the son of a bitch he had sworn to kill was like rubbing salt on an old wound. No matter how Clay schemed, Gillett was always one step ahead of him.

  Santee and Bart were almost abreast of Clay, only thirty feet separating them. Clay could see the lantern light glinting off their hoglegs and the oval silver pieces adorning the gunman’s gunbelts as clear as day. He could see their eyes darting right and left, a tenseness in their coiled frames.

  Without warning, the night was rent by a crashing sound. Billy Santee moved like liquid lightning, clearing leather with ambidextrous precision and firing four shots so swiftly it was impossible to tell one from the other. Nervous trigger fingers all along the line twitched in accord, booming a fusillade that ended in a piercing bawl.

  “Stop firing, you yaks!” snapped a strapping man, who appeared at the center of the line. It was Harve Denton, himself, and he was livid. “That’s old Scarface you just shot!”

  Clay dared not turn his head to see for himself, but he didn’t ha
ve to. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer animal.

  “How the hell was I supposed to know?” Santee was arguing. “All I saw was something comin’ at us.”

  “One of my prize bulls!” Denton snarled. “Wait until Gillett hears about this!” Applying a quirt, he rode westward, missing Clay by mere feet. The gunmen and cowpokes closed in to see for themselves and were reminded of the task at hand by Denton’s outraged order. “Back in line, damn it! The White Apache and his cutthroat friends are still out here somewhere, remember?”

  The reminder brought guns up in a flash, the men looking every which way.

  So far no one had spotted Clay. But he feared that might change as Billy Santee advanced. The gunman had the instincts of an animal.

  Clay made a point to observe Santee out of the corner of one eye rather than stare right at him. The Apaches believed that a person could sense when someone was gazing at him long and hard, and accordingly, Delgadito had taught Clay to avoid doing so at close range.

  Abruptly, Santee stiffened and peered at the surrounding ground. A gleaming Colt in each hand, he twisted from side to side, resembling a coiled spring about to explode into action.

  Meanwhile, Bart also advanced, the light from his lantern streaming forward as he rode.

  Clay squinted as the glow enveloped the thin blanket of grass covering him. The flimsy covering was all that stood between him and certain death. The rest of Denton’s small army were so close that if anyone spotted him, he’d be gunned down before he could run five feet.

  The young gunman unexpectedly reined up ten feet away. As Clay had suspected, Santee had a gut feeling that something was not quite right. Santee couldn’t isolate the reason, but he figured there must be an Apache nearby. Rising in the stirrups, he concentrated on thicker patches of grass where one of the crafty redskins might be hiding. He searched to his right, then swiveled to his left.

  “Santee! You comin’ or do we leave you behind?”

  The line of riders was moving onward. Annoyed, Santee hesitated. He wanted to cover the area thoroughly, but he didn’t care to be left there alone. Not that Apaches scared him. They simply didn’t fight fair. “I’m comin’,” he grumbled, telling himself his suspicion was all in his head.

  Two yards away Clay Taggart let a tiny breath out through his nose. Immobile as a rock, he didn’t twitch until the sounds of the horsemen had faded into the night. Then he rose, the stems rustling ever so slightly.

  Now what do I do? Clay mused. His enemies were heading toward the mouth of the valley, the very direction he had to go to reach the mesquite. Trying to sneak past them was too risky a proposition. His gaze idly roamed the ranch and settled on the buildings.

  Odds were that Denton had most, or all, of the men taking part in the hunt. The ranch itself might be temporarily deserted, and there was bound to be a spare horse or two left behind.

  Smiling at his cleverness, Clay dogtrotted toward the rear of the stable, which lay plunged in gloom. Lanterns shone at various points; the front of the house, the bunkhouse, and on a post at the corral. No figures were moving about, but Clay had learned long ago never to take anything for granted.

  A low snort drew Clay up short. From the south hustled a large black form. Clay, thinking it was another bull, took aim. Just when he was ready to fire, the animal veered off, and Clay was able to see that it was a cow, with a calf tagging along.

  Steadying his nerves, Clay silently stalked close enough to the stable to hear voices inside. On elbows and knees, he snaked to the corner. The voices were louder, but he still couldn’t make out the words being spoken. Crawling to the closed rear door, he pressed an ear to the gap at the bottom and heard a low curse.

  “All these good men done in by those damn butchers!” someone declared.

  “If I had my way,” said another, “I’d wipe the red vermin out. I’d exterminate every last man, woman, and child.”

  A third person made a comment, a man with a decided Spanish accent. “They do what they have to. We do what we have to.”

  “What the hell does that mean, Vasquez?” demanded the first man.

  Clay’s interest perked. Vasquez. Another name from the lynch party. Everyone in Tucson had heard of Surgio Vasquez, the finest tracker on either side of the border, the man who Miles Gillett had hired to track Clay down for the posse.

  The Mexican was answering. “Apaches are born fighters, Senor Roarke. They live to make war. And so long as they live, there will be those who refuse to accept reservation life, who will demand our blood for the land taken from them—”

  “All the more reason to rub them all out,” Roarke spat. “Keeping them lousy redskins on a reservation is a waste of tax dollars.”

  “And the government wastes enough as it is,” said the third man.

  There was a shuffling sound, and when the three men next spoke, they were much nearer.

  “What I don’t savvy,” said Roarke, “is this White Apache. How could any white man ride with Apaches? He must be plumb loco.”

  “It’s more than being crazy as a loon,” remarked the other. “He’s just rotten to the core. Didn’t you hear about him trying to rape Mrs. Gillett? And she’s the kindest, sweetest, most decent woman in the territory. Why, I hear she wouldn’t harm a fly if it was crawling on her nose.”

  “That Taggart will get his pretty soon,” Roarke predicted. “There isn’t a white man in this neck of the country that wouldn’t shoot him on sight. And not just for the reward money, either.”

  “A thousand dollars is a lot.”

  “After this it’ll be five thousand,” Roarke said.

  Surgio Vasquez spoke with a keen edge. “It will, won’t it?”

  “Hell, yes,” Roarke responded. “The more killing and stealing Taggart does, the higher the reward will go. If he lasts a year I reckon his head will be worth a fortune.”

  “A fortune,” Vasquez repeated.

  Clay still listened but his mind was in a whirl. A thousand dollars bounty on his head! That was more than had been offered for Ben Johnson, the most notorious man in the territory. Every money-hungry gunman around would be after his skin. They’d hound him mercilessly, maybe even go into the Dragoons after him, in violation of the treaty. Suddenly a few words caught his ear.

  “—tend to Nature’s call. Be back in three shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

  Footsteps scuffed the dirt floor. Clay looked up at the latch and heard a metallic rasp as a hand gripped the other end and pushed.

  Chapter Nine

  Clay Taggart’s mind and body were so superbly coordinated that the instant he heard the latch move his finely honed muscles exploded into motion. Shoulders rippling, he shoved off the ground, putting his back to the wall, as the door swung outward and came within an inch of slamming into his face.

  Clay fingered the trigger of his Winchester and listened to the cowboy walk off into the field. A shadow suddenly filled the crack between the door and the frame, and there was the flare of a match being struck. Clay smelled acrid smoke.

  “So how come you ain’t out there with Harve and them, Vasquez?” Roarke inquired from inside. “You being such a good tracker and all.”

  Vasquez puffed on his cigarrillo. “Only a man with a death wish dares to overtake Apaches when they are in their element.” He took another drag. “Besides, tracking in the dark is slow business. At first light I will take the trail, and by noon, I will have brought them to bay.”

  “Too bad the reward goes to the hombre who makes wolf meat of the White Apache, and not to you for doing all the tracking.”

  “I did not think of that,” Vasquez said.

  “’Course, knowing Harve as I do,” Roarke said, “he’ll probably hog the bounty for himself. He’s a greedy man. But don’t ever say I told you so or I’ll flat-out lie. Denton ain’t one to cross, not if you want to stay healthy.”

  Surgio Vasquez stared at the glowing end of his cigarrillo, pondering. He did not like the idea of someone else benef
iting from the work he did, especially when not one of the gunmen or cowhands could get close enough to Taggart to draw a bead without his help. And if one of them brought Taggart down, Vasquez would be out both the government bounty and Gillett’s promised bonus.

  Then there was this matter of the government reward. Earning a thousand dollars was well and good but could not compare to earning five thousand. Or perhaps ten thousand. Vasquez smiled, anticipating all he could do with so much money.

  “I hope Morgan gets back with the sawbones soon,” Roarke mentioned. “Those poor bastards in the house are hurt real bad.”

  “At least they are alive,” Vasquez said.

  “How many Apaches you figure were out there? Ten? Twenty, maybe?”

  “Two.”

  “Quit pulling my leg. There had to be more. Two couldn’t have killed all these men and wounded all those others.”

  “The one who came into the house did most of the killing. The one by the stable was more interested in saving his hide.”

  “Think it was him in the house? The White Apache?”

  “If so, he is more Apache than white. He is truly worthy of his new name.”

  On that note their talk ended. The third man returned, Vasquez went in, and the man pulled the door closed behind them.

  Clay quickly got out of there. Originally, he’d figured on sneaking into the stable to steal a horse since the corral was illuminated by lantern light, but now he hurried around the end of the building and crept toward the corral fence. The last twenty yards were covered on his stomach.

  Two horses stood near the lantern, the only mounts left. From under the bottom rail Clay studied them, picking a sorrel as the better animal. Slinging the rifle, he started to slide into the corral when the stable door opened wider and out stepped Surgio Vasquez, still smoking.

  The Mexican adjusted his sombrero, then walked toward the ranch house.

  Clay waited to see if Roarke and the other man would emerge, but neither did. Applying both hands to the rail for leverage, he propelled himself past the fence. Both horses saw him and the black mare shied.