Part 13 (1/2)
The raw alcohol should make the braves easier to take down.
Setting his rifle and saddlebags against a low rock shelf, Yakima reached into his boot and plucked his Arkansas toothpick from its leather sheath. He hefted the six inches of razor-sharp steel, then glanced through the notch in the shelf. The braves were facing the burning mule train, one yawning widely while the other continued to chatter in his guttural tongue.
Holding the blade tip straight up, Yakima cat-footed to the top of the rocky scarp and crouched atop the crest.
He whipped the knife up to his shoulder, snapped it forward. It careened through the air, angling down the slope, flas.h.i.+ng in the sunlight until the six-inch blade smacked into the right Apache's back with a thump.
At the same time, Yakima propelled himself off the scarp, diving, hands straight out in front of him. The stabbed Apache stood and yowled as Yakima closed his hands around the other brave's neck and drove him straight forward, slamming him hard against the ground.
The brave wriggled and lurched, but Yakima kept his hands pressed firmly to the young Indian's neck and, holding his knees tightly against the brave's back, gave a sudden, savage jerk. The neck snapped, and Yakima could feel the shattered bones grind beneath his hands.
He turned to the wounded brave, who lay belly down five feet away, kicking feebly, one hand reaching toward the bone handle protruding from the center of his back. Liver-colored blood spurted out around the blade with each beat of the brave's pierced heart.
Suddenly, he lifted his head, his entire body jerking, sighed, and set his chin in the dust.
Yakima reached over and pulled the toothpick from the brave's back, wiped the blood on the Apache's smoke-stained leggings, and peered through the brush toward the mule train. He saw little from this vantage but smoke and occasional brown figures in red bandannas moving around.
Relief washed over him as he stood and turned toward the snorting, startled horses. He'd taken one step toward a muscular buckskin when a rifle boomed behind him.
A bullet smacked a rock near his right ankle, the hot lead ricocheting wildly.
Yakima whipped around, grabbing his .44 from its holster and thumbing back the hammer. An Apache crouched forty feet away, ejecting a spent sh.e.l.l from his Spencer's breech, legs spread, a savage snarl bunching his square, flat, saddle brown face.
As the Apache leveled the Spencer once more, Yakima whipped his Colt up and fired. The slug bored a hole through the Apache's left shoulder.
The Spencer boomed and blazed, but Yakima's shot had jerked the Apache's slug wide. As the brave screamed and staggered backward, trying to bring his rifle up, Yakima aimed and fired again, drilling a dark hole through the man's calico blouse and punching him straight back and down behind a rock.
His moccasins hung up on the rock, his brown feet showing through the scuffed soles, twitching.
Shouts rose from the direction of the mule train. Yakima's heart thudded as he snapped a look that way, spotting two Indians running toward him, heads bobbing above the brush. He lurched toward the buckskin, grabbed the reins, and then quickly went down the line, cutting all the reins free of the single picket line they were tied to. Then he fired his revolver into the air twice.
As the Indian ponies whinnied and scattered up the side of the canyon, the Indians' shouts grew louder, the harsh tones of the Apache tongue rising. Yakima didn't bother taking another gander toward the canyon. He just turned the horse by its braided rawhide reins and ground his heels into its flanks.
They were up behind the rock shelf in seconds, and Yakima swooped down to grab his saddlebags and rifle from among the rocks. He draped the bags over the horse's rump and pressed his heels once more into its rib cage.
The stout buckskin had been the right choice. It took off in long, lunging strides, moving so fast straight up the slope that Yakima, used to having a saddle horn to hang on to, had to cling to the horse's mane and grind his knees into its hide to keep from tumbling off.
Rifles popped behind him, the slugs tearing into the slope around the buckskin's hooves, hazing the horse into even faster, longer strides, throwing up rocks and gravel behind. One bullet sizzled just past Yakima's right ear and spanged into the turf with a sharp clack clack. Several more drilled the rocks to his left, one missing him only because the horse had swerved to avoid a coiled Mojave green rattler.
Horse and rider bounded over the ridge crest as three more shots tore the ground just off the horse's hooves.
Ten feet down the other side, Yakima straightened his back, hauled on the buckskin's reins, and leapt down. Holding the reins, he ran back up to the ridge crest. Below, three Indians were sprinting toward the base of the slope, within ten feet and closing. Another one, a wiry youngster with greased hair flas.h.i.+ng in the sunlight, bounded up the slope, leaping from rock to rock.
Yakima raised his Winchester and fired three quick rounds, not taking time to aim. A bullet clipped the youngster's right knee. The brave dropped with a howl, hugging his kneecap, while the other three dove behind boulders.
Wheeling, Yakima ran back and leapt onto the confused, prancing buckskin. He gigged it down the ridge, hugging its neck and clinging to the mane, feeling the sure feet working beneath him. At the bottom, he ground his heels into the horse's flanks and shot out onto the rolling desert beyond.
The buckskin hesitated a few times, wary of the stranger on its back, who no doubt smelled as bad to its nose as Apaches did to white men's mounts. But Yakima held the reins taut, not letting the horse turn its head, and continued heeling the hard ribs until he was loping fluidly over the hogbacks.
He glanced behind a couple of times but saw no sign of the Apaches. They were obviously a renegade band and, hopefully, more interested in the spoils of the mule train attack than in seeking the stolen horse or vengeance for their dead and wounded.
Yakima rode hard for the rest of the day, back on the overlapping trail of desperadoes and posse. When the falling sun etched dangerous shadows in the lee of rocks and brush clumps, he rested the buckskin in a dry wash.
At good dark, he set out again, closely studying the hoofprints before him. He hoped that by taking advantage of the bright starlight at this alt.i.tude, he would be able to catch up to the gang before their sign was obliterated by wind or rain.
Of course, he would have to somehow skirt the posse again, unless they caught up to the Thunder Riders first, in which case they might prove an effective diversion. On the other hand, they could very well get Anjanette and Wolf killed, and give Yakima no chance at all.
He lost the trail only once all night, which cost him an hour, but at nine o'clock the next morning, having catnapped for ten minutes, he was still following the hoofprints, scuff marks, horse apples, and torn shrubs. Around ten, he halted the mustang at the edge of a cottonwood grove and stared over its head toward a draw cut perpendicular to the trail.
From the draw, a great cacophony rose. Over the draw's lip, dark shapes s.h.i.+fted and bounced. There was the sound of large wings flapping, the occasional enraged shriek of fighting buzzards.
Yakima thumbed the Winchester's hammer back and put the buckskin ahead. The horse chuffed and shook its head, nostrils working, a wary cast to its eyes. When it turned suddenly sideways, balking and threatening a buck, Yakima slid off its back and wrapped the reins around a small cottonwood.
Holding the Winchester high across his chest, he strode slowly forward. As the draw gradually opened before him, the putrid smell of death and the rancid fetor of exposed viscera touched his nose. The buzzard squawks and shrieks rose, rattling his eardrums.
He squatted on the lip of the bank, staring into the draw's sandy bed. A dozen or so bodies lay twisted and strewn in the blood-soaked sand beneath the fluttering blanket of bald-headed turkey buzzards. The buzzards churlishly poked and prodded the flesh and exposed entrails, ripping out several inches of bloodred tissue at a time.
The gang had made short work of the posse and about four of the posse's horses. The buzzards were cleaning up.
”Fools,” Yakima growled.
He was about to rise and head back toward his horse when what sounded like a man's scream rose amid the clamor of the feeding, fighting birds.
Yakima slid his gaze right, frowning, raking his eyes around the carnage.
A shrill, horrified scream sounded from about halfway across the draw. ”Get away, you ugly b.a.s.t.a.r.d! Git! Git!”
Yakima rose, slid down the bank, and strode toward the source of the shouts. He stepped through blood-soaked sand between two dead horses, the saddle hanging down the side of one, scattering the chirping birds, and stopped.
Three heads sat in the sand before him, s.p.a.ced about six feet apart.
The head of Sheriff Speares was on the left, facing up the ravine. His swollen face was scrunched up, wincing, the eyes slitted. Beside him, facing him, was the head of the banker. The man's eyes were closed, his lower jaw slack, his face bruised and sun-blistered, blood leaking from several ragged buzzard holes. To the right of the banker and facing away from Yakima was the pewter-haired head of Marshal Patchen.
The marshal's head moved, and a shrill voice rose from it: ”Stay away from me, you son of a b.i.t.c.h!”
Yakima looked toward the opposite bank. In the shade of a boulder, a buzzard stood facing the buried marshal, one ragged wing outstretched as the bird quivered on its long, crooked talons, preparing to wing over for a quick bite.
”Ah, s.h.i.+t,” Patchen said tightly, spitting dirt from his lips and laughing maniacally. ”He's comin' again!”
Chapter 16.
Yakima raised the Winchester and blew the bird's head off with a single round.
As the headless buzzard hopped around in a wide circle, beating its wings in a bizarre death dance, Yakima moved forward and shuttled his gaze between Speares and Patchen, both buried to their chins in the ravine's fine sand. Their faces were pink with sunburn and mottled purple from bruises and cuts where, Yakima a.s.sumed, the buzzards had been working on them prematurely. The sheriff's nose was still swollen, but it didn't stand out so much now, as the rest of his face was nearly as badly inflamed.
It was hard to tell how long the banker had been dead, but his face looked like a gouged clay mask streaked with red. His gray hair, crusted with dry blood, slid around in the breeze.