Quick Killer (A White Apache Western Book 4) Read online

  “I know a root that would do some good,” Cuchillo Negro said, “but I do not know if I can find one quickly enough.”

  “Try,” Clay said, and the warrior ran off. Clay looked up at Fiero. “We will need a small fire in case there are no roots. And I would like you to break open a cartridge so we can use the powder.”

  “Am I a woman that I should jump when another man tells me what to do?”

  “No. You are Delgadito’s friend and you want him to live.”

  Fiero sat there a full minute mulling what to do. He had agreed to let the Americano lead them, and he had on occasion helped the white man, such as the time he instructed Lickoyee-shis-inday in how to meet a formal challenge by another Chiricahua, but he wasn’t one to take direct orders from anyone, not even another Apache.

  Fiero gazed into Lickoyee-shis-inday’s eyes and was surprised to see silent, sincere appeal. The thought struck him that this strange white-eye would probably do the same for him were he to be gravely wounded, a startling revelation. As Fiero saw it, whites and Apaches were inveterate enemies. Granted, Lickoyee-shis-inday had proven different from most of his kind, but the concept of a white man actually caring whether an Apache lived or died was virtually unthinkable. “Would you do the same for me?” he bluntly asked.

  “Of course. We must always be ready to help one another. If we do not stick together, we will not last long.”

  The proposition needed a lot of thought. Fiero climbed down and walked into the trees, saying over a shoulder, “I will fetch wood for the fire.”

  “I am grateful,” Clay said. With that problem taken care of, he studied the wound, gingerly probing around the bullet hole. The blood just wouldn’t stop. He wondered if Delgadito would die, and what he should do in that case. The Apache stirred weakly. Clay shifted, his head lifting, and found the Apache’s dark eyes regarding him with odd intensity.

  “I will die soon, Lickoyee-shis-inday.”

  “You do not know that for certain,” Clay responded. “It is not fitting for a man to talk of death when there is every chance he will live to be wrinkled with old age.”

  Delgadito gazed skyward. “An Apache knows when his time has come. This wound is worse than any other I have ever had. I can feel my insides growing wet with blood. They say when that happens there is no hope.”

  Alarmed by the news there was internal bleeding, Clay said brusquely, “Let me be the judge of whether you will pull through or not.”

  “Some things are beyond the control of men, and this is one of them,” Delgadito said so softly the words were barely audible. “It is not for us to say if I will live.” Sighing, he closed his eyes. “I do not mind telling you that I welcome death with a warm heart.”

  Exasperated, Clay switched to English. “How the dickens can you say such nonsense, pard? Life is too damned precious for us to chuck it aside without putting up a fight.”

  “I tired, White Apache,” Delgadito said, and moved an arm enough to touch a finger to his chest. “In here.”

  “You’re talking craziness.”

  Delgadito was fast losing consciousness. He spoke once more in his own tongue. “When the white-eyes took our freedom, they took our life. Those on the reservation are already dead but do not yet realize it.” He coughed and his voice dropped even more. “It is better that I die now, before the Shis-Inday are no more.”

  “Don’t give up the ghost yet,” Clay said in English. He remembered hearing somewhere that it was best to keep people in Delgadito’s condition awake and talking, so he went on, “If there’s anyone who knows about taking the big jump, it’s me. I was guest of honor at a string party, after all. But I didn’t go meekly, and that’s one of the reasons I’m still kicking. You’ve got to do the same. Like me, you have something to live for.” Clay’s features hardened. “I’ve got a no-account snake in the grass to settle with, and you have a whole passel of white-eyes to deal with.”

  Clay stopped on seeing that the warrior was unconscious again. Since there was nothing else he could do until the others returned, he slipped a rifle bullet from his bandoleer and drew his butcher knife. Prying the cartridge open took a while, but at length he poured the small amount of gunpowder it contained onto a flat rock.

  Fiero showed up with an armful of wood and soon had a fire going. Not long after Cuchillo Negro returned to report no luck in finding the type of root he needed in order to make a poultice.

  “Then we do this the hard way,” Clay said.

  The flow of blood had reduced to a trickle. Clay slowly sprinkled grains of gunpowder around the edges of the wound, then lightly pried the wound further apart and fed grains into the hole. He had to be careful not to use too much or the cure would prove instantly fatal.

  Fiero and Cuchillo Negro watched without commenting. It was Apache custom for warriors to hold their own counsel when they had nothing worthwhile to say. Both wanted their former leader to live, but both also knew his fate was in the hands of Yusn.

  Clay wished there was water nearby so he could wash the wound beforehand. As a substitute, he ripped off a small piece of his shirt, moistened it with spittle, and wiped off as much excess blood as the material would absorb. Then, tossing the cloth aside, he selected a slender firebrand and lifted it from the fire. Tiny flames licked at the air as he lowered the lit end close to the bullet hole.

  Delagdito stirred but did not awaken.

  “Here goes nothing,” Clay said to himself, and dipped the burning tip. Immediately the gunpowder caught. There was a blinding flash and flames shot from the hole. The acrid scent of smoke and charred flesh filled the air.

  Delgadito’s dark eyes snapped wide, reflecting acute torment. He tried to sit up but couldn’t. Raising his head, he stared at the smoke pouring from the wound, then at Clay. His mouth parted as if he were going to speak.

  “I did the only thing I could,” Clay said in his defense.

  Eyelids fluttering, the tall warrior collapsed and lay insensate, his chest rising and falling.

  Blood had stopped flowing from the hole. Clay eased a fingertip into it to ascertain whether the internal bleeding had likewise ceased. The flesh was a sickly black for over an inch deep. Underneath it was brown except at the bottom where it was a healthy pink. He found no trace of fresh blood.

  “Do we go now, White Apache?” Fiero asked.

  Clay could not quite believe his ears. “Go?”

  “Yes. To kill the white-eye who is your enemy.”

  “And what about Delgadito?”

  “We have done all we can for him.”

  “But he is too weak to move. We must stay the night to watch over him. In the morning we will head back to Sweet Grass.”

  “We will not go through with the raid?”

  “No. We dare not leave Delgadito here alone. He cannot fend for himself. We will take him back to Sweet Grass where he can heal in peace.”

  Never in Fiero’s experience had he heard of an attack being called off simply because a lone warrior had been hurt. Once, he would have objected strenuously to being denied his share of possible plunder because of the misfortunes of another. Apaches looked out for themselves. That was the essential creed by which they all lived, the acknowledged law under which they had existed since time immemorial. Yet here was this White Apache telling them that they must regard the welfare of other warriors as they would their own. It was an idea that would take considerable time to accept, if ever.

  Cuchillo Negro had risen. “We will do as you say, White Apache. I will see to the horses.”

  “And I will hunt game for our supper,” Fiero declared.

  Watching them walk off, Clay smiled. Something told him he had won another round in his campaign to win them over to his way of thinking. Provided all went well, before long they’d be his to command as he pleased, and then Arizona would run red with the blood of those who had wronged him!

  Chapter Eight

  The young Chiricahua called Ponce arrived at Sweet Grass as twilight d
escended on the remote retreat. After setting the horses free to graze, he rode to the gurgling stream and squatted to drink. As his hand dipped into the cool water, his eyes drifted to a fresh set of tracks in the soft soil nearby. He immediately stiffened and glanced suspiciously around.

  Apaches were masterful trackers. From an early age they were instructed in the art, taught by the very best warriors. So skillful were they, their ability was considered by many to border on the supernatural, an illusion the Apaches did all they could to foster.

  Warriors learned, for instance, that when the toes of tracks pointed inward, then the prints had been made by Indians, and when the toes pointed outward, then white-eyes or the Nakai-hey were responsible. From the depth of tracks and the strides taken, Apaches could tell the approximate weight and height of those who made them. They were also versed in the many styles of footwear, from moccasins to boots to sandals.

  So it was that the instant Ponce set eyes on the fresh prints he knew they had been made by someone wearing Apache moccasins. Since the other renegades were off on the raid, he knew it couldn’t have been one of them. And since it was rare for reservation warriors who had accepted the white yoke to come to Sweet Grass, he immediately assumed the footprints had been made by another Army scout sent to ferret out the band.

  Rising, Ponce scoured the stream and was confounded to see another set of fresh tracks, this time a trail left by a woman. His blood quickened as he hunkered down to examine them, for they were of a size and shape he knew as well as he knew his own. Yet they could have been made by any woman the same age, he reasoned, and stilled the alarm blaring in his breast.

  The tracks led northward toward the rugged heights dominating Sweet Grass. Ponce levered a round into the chamber of his rifle and set off on the trail at a dog trot. Because he was following fellow Apaches, he took more precautions than he would have had he been following whites. Like a flitting specter he covered the rough ground, never still in one spot for more than a second at a time, never exposing himself for even the briefest of moments. Totally silent, he pressed upward until he came to a stand of ponderosa, and here he paused behind a wide trunk to adjust his mind to the rhythm of the woodland.

  Somewhere to the east a squirrel chattered, to the west sparrows chirped gaily.

  Ponce gazed up the mountain slope, a slope he was very familiar with from the many times he had explored it in search of game for their meals. Above the timber reared clusters of jumbled boulders, a maze few could negotiate. He couldn’t imagine the couple going there.

  Ponce was perplexed by the couple’s presence. It made no sense for a scout to have brought a woman to Sweet Grass. Nor did it make sense for a reservation warrior to have done so. Apache women were every bit as hardy as their men and equally capable of living off the land, but women weren’t permitted to take part in warfare. There were exceptions, of course, but they were rare.

  Believing his quarry to be among the tall pines, Ponce advanced slowly. He was quite surprised when the tracks led straight through the trees to the rocky elevation beyond. From the base of the lowest boulder he swept the cluttered boulder field without spying anyone.

  Ponce was about to go on when one of the woman’s tracks arrested his attention. Marking the bare earth beside it were dozens of dark drops. Ponce touched one with a fingertip and sniffed his finger. It was blood, as he knew it would be. He took another step, saw where the woman had stumbled to one knee, and then spotted a severed finger lying close by.

  Ponce stared at it, at the trickle of blood still oozing from the pink flesh, and felt an icy, invisible finger scrape the length of his spine. Quickening his pace, he went another fifty yards and came on the second finger. Like the other, it had been cut off mere minutes ago.

  They were markers, Ponce realized, deliberately left for him to find. He ran now, recklessly, winding among the boulders until he came on a small cleared space and there in the center, wedged upright in the soil, was a third finger.

  Halting, Ponce raised the finger to his nose and inhaled. His jaw muscles twitched and he flushed scarlet. He darted behind a rock monolith and gently set the finger down. Then he sprinted onward, sheer rage filling him with blood lust so intense he could hardly think straight.

  Two more fingers were found before Ponce reached the crest of a ridge. The twilight had deepened to near complete darkness and it was difficult for him to see the tracks. Often he had to feel the ground for the telltale impressions.

  Once past the ridge, the slope steepened sharply. Ponce climbed in an awkward crouch, his pace reduced to a virtual crawl. A flat shelf afforded a place to ease the cramps in his calves. He saw a large flat rock in front of him, and on top of it the vague outline of something foreign. Only when he bent down did he make out the outline of a human foot, a woman’s foot, sheared off at the ankle by a razor-sharp tomahawk.

  The blood trail was a black ribbon leading ever upward. Ponce climbed on, the scent so strong he no longer had to bother finding footprints. He seemed to remember there being a clearing on top of the next slope, and there was. But the figure spread-eagled in the middle was a new addition.

  Ponce ran to her, blood thundering in his ears. He’d done more than his share of torturing Mexicans and Americanos in his time, and had seen the gruesome handiwork of those who hunted his people, but those experiences did little to prepare him for the shock of seeing the woman he cared for butchered and dying.

  Ko-do’s eyes, ears, and nose were gone. Her left hand was a stump, her right leg ended at the ankle. Strips of skin were missing from her neck and arms. She breathed in feeble gasps, her body trembling. Looped around her neck was a length of rope.

  Ponce knelt and touched her forehead. Ko-do flinched, shuddered more violently, then whined. “It is I,” he said softly.

  Somehow she found the strength to speak in a strangled whisper. “I am sorry. I told him where to find you.”

  “Who?”

  “Tats-ah-das-ay-go.”

  “I will cut out his heart,” Ponce vowed, running his finger across her brow.

  “For my sake, do not fight him.”

  “You know better.”

  Ko-do’s breathing slowed. For the longest while she made no comment. Then, “What are you waiting for?”

  “It is a hard thing for a man to do.”

  “Please.”

  “He will hear.”

  “He already knows.”

  “I will miss you, Firefly.”

  “And I you.” Ko-do convulsed briefly. “Please. Do it now. For me.”

  Without hesitation, Ponce placed the muzzle of his Winchester against her temple and stroked the trigger. As the blast echoed off across the valley he wheeled and darted into the boulders. He expected an answering shot, but there was none.

  Anyone other than an Apache might have broken down at that point, might have succumbed to shock or tears or sorrow so profound it numbed body and soul. Ponce did not. He had been bred since infancy to control his feelings, to bend his emotions to the iron rod of his will, to achieve a state of complete self-mastery. So although inwardly profound sadness mixed with a raging thirst for revenge dominated him, he neither showed it in his expression nor allowed the upheaval to cloud his mind. He knew his judgment must be unimpaired if he was to stand any chance at all of beating the notorious Quick Killer.

  Ponce listened, but heard nothing. He looked, but saw no one. Yet as sure as the moon was rising in the east, Tats-ah-das-ay-go was out there somewhere, waiting to slay him at an opportune moment.

  Every Apache had heard of Quick Killer, the Army scout who rubbed out renegades for the price of a good horse. Yet Quick Killer’s chosen line of work wasn’t held against him. Many warriors would have liked to do the same but weren’t as skilled at tracking or killing.

  Several times Ponce had heard Delgadito mention that one day the white-eyes would send Quick Killer against them, most recently after Nah-kah-yen tried to wipe out their band. According to Delgadito, Tats-ah-d
as-ay-go was twice as good as Nah-kah-yen. Clever, tough, and as swift as lightning, Quick Killer was more to be dreaded than the whole Americano Army.

  Knowing this, Ponce didn’t hesitate. He was going to avenge Ko-do’s death, come what may. In that respect, he was no different from all men everywhere. No man would ever sit idly by when their loved ones were threatened or slain. They will do what has to be done regardless of the consequences.

  Ponce moved among the boulders with catlike speed and silence, senses alert for his enemy. He suspected that Quick Killer was aware of his movements and mystified because the scout didn’t attack, especially after all the trouble Quick Killer had gone to in order to lure him to the spot.

  The breeze picked up, as it often did at that time of the night, the fluttering whisper of its passage loud enough to drown out faint noises. Ponce turned this way and that as he sought his quarry, never rising higher than a low crouch, his cocked rifle clenched firmly.

  Presently Ponce came to a cleared space and went to dart across it. He took a single step when a rifle boomed to his left and his right leg was jarred out from under him by a jolting blow. On elbows and knees he scrambled for cover, then took stock. He didn’t return fire even though he knew the scout had moved after pulling the trigger and he had a fair idea where Quick Killer was now concealed. Any Apache would have done the same.

  The bullet had caught Ponce in the fleshy part of the thigh and bored a neat hole clean through. There was scant blood and the bone hadn’t been broken, so Ponce considered himself extremely lucky.

  Crawling, Ponce bore to the right. He tried putting himself in Quick Killer’s moccasins and decided the scout’s next move would be to circle around and come at him from the opposite direction. Only he would be waiting. Once Delgadito and the rest saw Quick Killer’s body, they would regard him with greater respect than had been their custom to date. Ponce could hardly wait.

  The second rifle shot sounded much closer. Ponce jerked his head back as dirt spewed into his face, then he rolled against the base of a boulder where the deep shadow screened him. He touched his cheek and felt blood. By the width of a finger had his life been spared.