Ralph Compton - Doomsday Rider

Fletcher knew with a growing certainty that there was no give in this man and there would be no surrender. He had to kill him and he had to do it soon.

He was losing blood from two knife wounds, both of them shallow to be sure, but nonetheless draining him. His breath came in short, hard gasps, and there was a dull fire in his chest.

But, despite all this, Buck Fletcher himself was no bargain.

Lean and big-boned, he bore on his body a dozen scars from bullet and saber wounds, and he was equally as strong and enduring as the Apache who faced him. He was stubborn in a fight, fearless, confident, and hard to kill. And he proved it now.

Fletcher did not wait for the Apache to attack again. He holstered his Colt and sprang at the man, his clawed right hand seeking the warrior’s throat.

The Apache feinted with the knife, looking for an opening. But Fletcher grabbed the man’s wrist and wrenched it upward, so that the warrior had to cut down with the blade, most of the power coming from his weaker triceps muscles.

Fletcher moved in closer and his fingers closed around the warrior’s throat. His thumb sought the protruding Adam’s apple and he ground hard, digging in deep with his wide, hard nail.

The warrior tried to twist away, but Fletcher’s thumb dug deeper. The two men struggled close as entwined lovers amid the gently falling snow, muscles straining, each refusing to give up an inch of ground.

Fletcher looked into the Apache’s eyes and saw only hate and defiance and the desire to kill. The warrior tried to hack downward with the knife, but Fletcher’s grip on his wrist was like an iron vise, and though the man’s arm trembled with the effort, the blade did not move.

His thumb dug deeper as Fletcher’s fingers closed tighter around the Apache’s throat, squeezing hard. He felt the man’s right arm weaken as the warrior’s breath was cut off, and Fletcher moved in even closer, his face only inches from that of the Apache as his fingers tightened like bands of steel around the man’s throat and tightened more.

A low moan came from somewhere deep inside the Apache and the light left his eyes, no longer burning in the darkness like those of a wounded tiger. Fletcher felt the man go limp and he stepped away and let him drop to the ground.

The Apache lay unmoving, as dead as he was ever going to be, his face upturned to the sky and the falling snow.

Breathing hard, Fletcher looked down at the dead man for a few moments; then, his eyes wild and staring from the stress of combat and the nearness of death, he picked up his Winchester and began to walk back to the pueblo.

The flat, angry report of a rifle shot echoed through the still canyon of the night, and behind him Fletcher heard a muffled scream.

He spun around fast, cranking his Winchester, in time to see an Apache fall, the entire top of his skull blown apart.

Fletcher ran for the pueblo as a bullet, then another, split the air above his head. He stopped, turned on his heel, and saw a dozen Apaches swarming after him, a series of running, flickering shapes in the darkness.

Fletcher fired, cranked his rifle, and fired again. A bullet kicked up a fountain of snow at his left foot, and he turned and ran on.

Charlie’s rifle spat orange flame from the pueblo, and Fletcher heard the old mountain man yell, “Run, boy!”

A bullet burned across Fletcher’s shoulder and he stumbled and fell headlong into the snow. He looked up and saw Charlie step outside the pueblo, his rifle hammering, bright stars of flame from the muzzle flaring in the darkness.

Fletcher picked himself up and ran. He reached Charlie, turned, and threw his Winchester to his shoulder, seeking a target.

The Apaches were gone.

Charlie slapped Fletcher on the back. “Damn it all, boy, that was close. For a spell there I figured fer sure you was a goner.”

Fletcher smiled. “That makes two of us.” He shifted his rifle to his left hand and extended his right to the old man.

Charlie looked down at Fletcher’s hand suspiciously. “What’s that fer?”

Fletcher laughed. “Why, you old grizzly, for saving my life back there. That was one hell of a shot you made in the dark.”

The old man’s face was puzzled. “You can drop your hand, Buck, less’n you just want to shake for the sake of it. I didn’t make that shot. Hell, boy, I’m good, but I’m not that good.”

“Then who did?” Fletcher asked, now as perplexed as Charlie.

“Beats me, boy. But I’ll tell you who it wasn’t—it wasn’t one of these here pilgrims, since they don’t hold with guns an’ shooting folks an’ sich.”

But someone had shot that Apache back at the slope, someone with considerable marksmanship skills who killed at a distance, and Fletcher, knowing in such matters, recognized him for what he was: a professional.

“Seems to me, Buck, you got a guardian angel looking out for you,” Charlie said. “Maybe he accounts for the itch at the back of my neck.”

Fletcher nodded. “Maybe he’s an angel, Charlie. But could be he’s something else entirely.”

All the clustered rooms in the lowest level of the three pueblos were occupied, and now people were pouring out of them, looking first to Fletcher and then to Charlie.

“What happened here?” asked a tall, skinny man, his receding chin and the wattles under his neck giving him the look of an outraged turkey. “What was all the shooting about?”

“Apaches,” Fletcher replied. He pointed with his rifle into the darkness. “Out there.”

“You didn’t hurt our friends, did you?” the man asked.

Fletcher felt anger flare in him. “Mister, your friends were doing their level best to hurt me. I got two knife wounds and a bullet burn across my shoulder. I wouldn’t say that was right neighborly.”

The Chosen One, Estelle behind him, appeared from the farthest door of the pueblo and walked rapidly to Fletcher, the huge cross on his breast swaying with each step.

“Apaches,” Fletcher said again before the man could speak. “One attacked me over there by those standing rocks, and there’s another dead one on the slope. That one wasn’t killed by me, and I don’t know who did it.”

“Two?” The Chosen One gasped, his face shocked and unbelieving. “Two of our children dead?”

“There will be more,” Fletcher said, his voice harsh and uncompromising. “I think the Apaches will attack this pueblo come first light. You’d best get ready.”

“If that happens I will speak to them,” the Chosen One said. “The power of the Lord is in me, and by his grace I will make the Apache see the light. They will forsake the rifle and the bow and take up the hoe and the plow.”

“Mr. Chosen,” Charlie said, “you’ll be whistling at the wind. Those are wild young Apache bucks out there and they ain’t about to listen to reason.”

“They will, Mr. Moore; they will listen to me because the mighty voice of the Lord is in me and I speak with his tongue.”

There was a scattered chorus of “Praise the Lord” from the disciples; then the turkey man stepped belligerently toward the Chosen One.

“We must send these men away,” he said, waving a thick-veined hand toward Fletcher and Charlie. “They bring us only violence and death.”

“Emmanuel is right, Chosen One,” another man said. “They are killing our children and even now are planning to kill more.”

An angry chorus of approval went up from the crowd, and the Chosen One bowed his head, his lips moving in silent prayer. After a few moments he looked up, his eyes shining, and said, “I have prayed for guidance and it has been given unto me. If our children come tomorrow as these men say they will, I will preach to the Apache of Christ crucified and prepare them for the day of doomsday and the terrible judgment to come. The Lord, in his infinite wisdom, has made the Apache his chosen people and I am but his instrument.”