The Loner: Dead Man’s Gold Page 4

  Chapter 5

  The six young warriors crowded behind Manuelito. He hated his name because it meant Little Manuel. Not only was he big, especially for an Apache, but he had nearly forty summers and was a war chief.

  None of the other warriors ever made fun of his name, though. They knew that to do so was to invite swift death. Manuelito was known throughout the Apache strongholds in northern Mexico as a man who could kill quickly and without remorse.

  Unfortunately for his people, there weren’t too many like him anymore. So many of the chiefs had given up the fight and surrendered to the white men. Even Geronimo’s fangs had been pulled, and now he lived on a reservation somewhere, at one of the white men’s forts. Some of those who had gone with him years earlier on raids across the border into the United States refused to believe that the great Geronimo could be brought so low, but Manuelito knew it was true. Only a few of the old, canny fighters such as himself were left.

  But there were still young men who wished to fight, hungry for the glory of battle as young men always were. Manuelito had led six of them across the border a week earlier with no firm destination in mind. They would just look around and see what they could find.

  A couple of days earlier, they had found an isolated ranch defended only by a man and two boys. Those defenders had died easily, leaving the woman and the girl-child for Manuelito and his companions to enjoy. After a day, the minds of both females were broken, and it was not nearly as pleasurable raping them when they no longer knew what was going on, so Manuelito had told two of the young warriors to go ahead and cut their throats. They had left the ranch house burning behind them with the corpses still inside it.

  Since then, the Apaches had come across nothing else to entertain them, until that afternoon when they heard shots in the distance. More than likely, gunshots meant white men, although it could be Mexicans. Manuelito didn’t care. He would kill either one, without prejudice. If they were not Apache, they were enemies.

  When night fell, they saw the fire. White men, then, thought Manuelito. Mexicans were not so stupid as to announce their presence like that. The war party left its horses out on the flats and approached on foot, stealing silently through the darkness.

  As they drew closer, Manuelito could make out the wagon, and then the two people moving around it. One was an old man, to judge by the way he walked and his white hair. The other was a woman.

  But what a woman…

  Tall and shapely, unlike the squat Apache women he was accustomed to, and with hair like fire that cascaded down her back. Manuelito had heard of redheaded white women, but he had never actually seen one until now. As he watched her, he felt his lust growing. He would take her first, after they had killed the old man.

  Or perhaps it would be better to let the old man live for a while, so that he could watch. The flame-haired girl was probably his daughter or granddaughter, and it brought a grunt of satisfaction to Manuelito’s lips to think of the old man being forced to look on while they all took the girl, one after the other. Then they could kill both of the foolish whites. It would be a good night’s work.

  Manuelito turned to the young warriors and issued his orders in swift, harsh Spanish. Some of them might not like it that he was claiming the redheaded woman for his own first, but none of them would challenge him. Manuelito was certain of that. He motioned for them to follow him.

  The Apaches lay on their bellies and crawled forward until they were just outside the circle of light cast by the fire, so close that they could almost reach out and touch the two whites, who were completely unaware of the danger. Manuelito had been watching closely. He knew the girl and the old man were alone. No one else was in the camp.

  “I’ll take the first turn standing guard, Father,” the girl said.

  Manuelito understood the white man’s tongue, although he would not speak it. The words tasted like ashes in his mouth. So the white-haired man was the girl’s father, as he had thought. Now that he had gotten a closer look at them, the old man seemed almost too old for that, but Manuelito didn’t waste any time worrying about such things. He was more interested in the gun the flamehair wore in a holster on her hip. Was it possible she actually knew how to use it? Manuelito had never encountered a female who carried a gun like that. Even if she could handle the weapon, he wasn’t particularly worried. He knew he was faster than any white woman.

  The Kid figured the lurking shapes in the darkness were Apaches. He was sure neither white men nor Mexicans could move with such stealth. He could barely make them out, and he was looking for them.

  Several years earlier, he and his father had run into some trouble from renegade Apaches in New Mexico Territory. Obviously, there were still a few hold-outs in the mountains south of the border who hadn’t given up the fight against the white men.

  The Kid waited. It would be better if he knew exactly how many enemies he was facing before he opened fire. He also didn’t want to reveal his position by shooting too soon. He watched the figures as they crawled along the sandy ground toward the fire. Finally, he decided that there were half a dozen of them, give or take one. Formidable odds, but he had the high ground and he had fifteen rounds in the Winchester. It was time for him to take them by surprise and start picking them off.

  Just as Manuelito to was about to leap up and rush at the redheaded woman, screaming a war cry that would paralyze her with fear, one of the young men jumped to his feet and sprang forward, no doubt allowing his lust to get the better of his common sense. He had to be crazed by the sight of the redhead, otherwise he never would have gone against Manuelito’s orders.

  Manuelito surged up and yelled piercingly, and so did the rest of the war party. The young man who had disobeyed orders was reaching out for the woman, but Manuelito was only a step behind him. Manuelito was so close that when the rifle cracked and the young warrior’s head exploded from the slug that bored through it, the spray of blood and brain matter splattered all over the side of Manuelito’s face. As he stumbled to an abrupt halt, more shots rang out.

  This was not good.

  The Kid didn’t have time to think, only to react. He tracked the Indian for a split-second with the rifle, then stroked the trigger. The Winchester cracked and bucked against his shoulder, and the Apache flopped at Annabelle’s feet, drilled through the head.

  By the time the warrior hit the ground, The Kid had already shifted his aim and fired again. His second shot wasn’t quite as accurate as the first. The bullet grazed the shoulder of the big Apache who’d been right behind the one leaping at Annabelle and knocked him sideways and down. That left five members of the war party still on their feet. As The Kid came up on one knee, he tracked the rifle from left to right, spraying bullets at them as fast as he could work the lever. He hoped Annabelle and Father Jardine had the sense to get down and stay down.

  From the corner of his eye, he saw that that wasn’t the case, at least where Annabelle was concerned. She had drawn that S&W .38 from its holster and slammed out three shots of her own. The Kid saw blood spurt as those slugs punched into the chest of one of the warriors and knocked him backward.

  The Kid’s fire had cut down two more of the Apaches. That left just two on their feet, and The Kid accounted for one of them by sending a bullet into his belly. The remaining warrior turned and ran like the Devil himself was after him.

  The Kid turned his attention back to the second man he’d shot, the one he’d only grazed. With a grimace of disgust, he saw that the big Apache was gone. He must have scrambled up and dashed off into the shadows, too. He hadn’t been wounded so badly that he couldn’t move fast.

  Holding the revolver level and ready to fire, Annabelle hustled Father Jardine behind the wagon. They crouched there, shielded to a certain extent by the vehicle in case the two surviving Apaches fired at them from the flats.

  “Stay where you are!” The Kid yelled to them as he stood up and leaped off the slab of rock. He landed on the hillside and started half-running, h
alf-sliding down the slope toward the camp.

  With a clatter of rocks, he reached the bottom of the hill and ran behind the wagon to join Annabelle and the priest. Annabelle stared at him, but The Kid noticed that Father Jardine didn’t seem particularly surprised to see him again.

  “Have you got a shovel?” The Kid asked.

  Annabelle’s eyes widened even more. “A shovel?” she repeated. “What are you doing here? Why do you want a shovel?”

  “Saving your lives, to answer the first question,” The Kid replied curtly. “And that’s why I want the shovel, too. We need to get that fire put out, and the fastest way to do it is by throwing sand on it.”

  “Let me,” Father Jardine said as he reached inside the wagon and pulled out a short-handled shovel. He ran out into the open and started throwing sand on the flames.

  “Blast it, Father, I intended to do that!” The Kid said.

  “You and Annabelle have guns, Mr. Morgan. I don’t. If those savages shoot at me, you can return their fire.”

  The Kid had to admit that made sense. Anyway, no shots came from the flats during the two or three minutes it took for Father Jardine to shovel enough sand on the fire to smother all the flames. The big Apache was wounded and probably in no mood to fight at the moment, and the other one had been just about scared out of his breechclout and leggings. A welcome darkness closed in thickly over the camp as the last of the flames sputtered out.

  “Thanks, Father,” The Kid said. “You should be safe now, but come on back over here behind the wagon just in case.”

  “I can’t,” Father Jardine said as he set the shovel aside and straightened.

  “Why not?”

  “I have work to do,” the priest said.

  And with that, he walked over to the nearest of the fallen Apaches, dropped to his knees beside the warrior, and began to pray.

  Chapter 6

  The Kid heard the swift, softly spoken words, recognized them as Latin, and figured that praying was what Father Jardine was doing. He had taken Latin in college back east, of course, and after a moment he was able to recall enough of what he had learned so that he was certain the priest was performing the last rites.

  “You’re wasting your time, padre,” The Kid said as he walked out from behind the wagon. “Those Apaches are heathens, at least by your lights. For a couple of hundred years, missionaries have been coming out here to try to convert them, but none of them have been very successful.”

  “That won’t stop me from asking for forgiveness for them,” Father Jardine said.

  “Well, then, how about this? Some of them might still be—”

  Before The Kid could finish his warning, one of the fallen Apaches reared up with a harsh cry of mingled pain and hate and raised a knife. The Kid saw starlight wink off the blade as the warrior tried to lean over and plunge it into Father Jardine’s back.

  Before the knife could fall, The Kid swung up the Winchester’s barrel, put the muzzle against the side of the Apache’s head, and pulled the trigger. The shot blasted away a good chunk of the warrior’s skull and hammered him to the ground.

  “Like I was saying,” The Kid continued as the echoes of the shot rolled away across the flats, “some of them might still be alive.”

  Even after that, he thought for a second that Father Jardine was going to argue. But then the priest sighed and stood up.

  “Very well. I’ll let you attend to your work first, Mr. Morgan.”

  “That’d be a good idea,” The Kid said.

  Annabelle followed him as he checked on the rest of the warriors. All four of them were dead.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked. “I thought you abandoned us.”

  “I just rode up a ways into the hills where I could keep a better eye on you. I had a hunch something like this might happen tonight.”

  “Did you know those Indians were following us?”

  “Nope. Like I said, I just had a hunch. There are so many different ways a couple of pilgrims like you two can run into trouble out here, I figured it was bound to start catching up to you.”

  Father Jardine said, “You may think you’re insulting us by calling us pilgrims, Mr. Morgan, but I assure you, I’ll wear that name proudly. All of us are pilgrims on the journey upon which the Lord has set our steps.”

  “No offense intended, padre, but I don’t want it to be a dead man’s journey, despite the name of the place you’re headed for.”

  Annabelle mulled over what The Kid had said a moment earlier, and then spoke, “Let me get this straight…You rode off and used us as bait in a trap, hoping that someone would attack us?”

  “Not hoping, no,” The Kid replied with a shake of his head. “I just wanted to be ready in case there was trouble.”

  “So you don’t intend to abandon us, after all. You’re going to come with us and help us.”

  The Kid’s jaw tightened. He wished Annabelle hadn’t put it quite so bluntly, because part of him felt like a fool for going along with her. But he knew it was hopeless to argue not only with his own instincts, but also with the spirit of his late wife as well.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I reckon I’m coming with you.”

  And he hoped he wasn’t making one hell of a mistake.

  The Kid fetched his horse from up the hill while Father Jardine continued praying over the dead Apaches. By the time the Kid finished unsaddling the buckskin, the priest had picked up the shovel again and was digging in the hard ground. The Kid heard the rasping sounds as the blade bit into the dirt and gravel.

  “What are you doing, padre?” he asked.

  Father Jardine paused in his work and looked up. “Why, I’m digging graves, Mr. Morgan.”

  “For those savages?” The Kid gestured toward the dead Apaches.

  “They’re still the Lord’s children, whether they knew Him or not, and deserve a decent burial. The Apaches do inter their dead, do they not?”

  The Kid thought about it for a moment, then shrugged and shook his head. “To tell you the truth, Father, I don’t know. But if you leave those bodies where they are, the scavengers will take care of them.”

  “I won’t hear of it.”

  The Kid sighed and walked over to Father Jardine. “Give me the shovel,” he said. “Dr. Dare, do you know how to handle a rifle?”

  “I do,” Annabelle replied.

  The Kid handed the Winchester to her. “Keep an eye on the flats. You ought to be able to see fairly well now that your eyes have had time to adjust to the fire being out. If you see anything moving around out there…shoot it.”

  “Without knowing first who or what it is?”

  “I was under the impression you and the padre don’t have all that many friends out here.”

  Annabelle gave an angry sniff. “Meaning that anyone who approaches the camp is an enemy?”

  “That’s a pretty good bet,” The Kid said. “Anyway, the chances of somebody bothering you again tonight are pretty small. You said it would be a while before that Count Fortunato came after you again, and I reckon those two Apaches won’t be looking for any more trouble right away. I hit one of them, and I don’t know how bad he was hurt.”

  While Annabelle stood watch, The Kid took over the chore of digging a grave. Only one grave, though, he explained to Father Jardine, not five. That was as far as he would go to humor the priest.

  With a sigh, Father Jardine agreed. “All right. As you said, Mr. Morgan, they are heathens.”

  Digging in the hard, rocky ground was tiring and time-consuming. The Kid paused after a while to set aside his hat and take off his buckskin shirt. Nights in this part of the territory were cool, even during the summer, but The Kid was working up a good sweat. He would put the shirt back on as soon as he finished digging, to make sure he didn’t catch a chill.

  When he judged that the hole was deep enough and wide enough, he tossed the shovel aside, pulled the shirt on over his head, and went to the nearest corpse. He bent over, grasped it by the feet
, and dragged it to the grave. He sensed Father Jardine watching his actions with disapproval, but that didn’t stop him from dumping the body into the hole unceremoniously. The Kid wasn’t interested in deliberately offending the priest, but he wasn’t going to change his ways too much to placate Father Jardine, either.

  When he had dragged all five corpses to the grave and tossed them in, he asked, “Do you want to say words over them now, or wait until I’ve covered them up?”

  “It would be more fitting if the grave was covered,” Father Jardine replied stiffly.

  “All right.” The Kid picked up the shovel again.

  Getting the dirt back in the hole was a little easier than taking it out. The Kid worked steadily until he had a mound of sandy dirt and gravel that marked the final resting place of the five Apaches. Then he stepped back to lean on the shovel and catch his breath.

  Father Jardine brought a Bible from the wagon. As The Kid stood there next to Annabelle and listened to the priest reciting the Latin words, he realized that Father Jardine hadn’t been checking to see whether or not that hombre out on the flats was dead. He’d been praying over Fortunato’s henchman. He probably would have insisted that they bury both of those men, too, if it hadn’t been for the fact that Annabelle was wounded and they’d had to light a shuck out of there.

  When Father Jardine was finished with the ritual, The Kid took the Winchester back from Annabelle. “Both of you better turn in and get some rest,” he told them. “I’ll stand guard the rest of the night.”

  “You most certainly will not,” Annabelle said. “I can take my turn.”

  “As can I,” added Father Jardine.

  “You’ve already been awake all night,” Annabelle went on. “If you stay up the rest of the night, you’ll be utterly exhausted tomorrow.”

  The Kid grunted. “Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been tired.”