Ralph Compton - Doomsday Rider

When he reached the base of the hill, he tied up his horse, and Charlie, muttering under his breath, did the same thing.

The two men climbed the rise, crouching low, and entered the cover of the pines along its summit. They slid through the trees like silent ghosts and reached the western slope of the hill.

Below them, the rise fell away to a narrow valley, a shallow creek running its full length without a single bend. Cottonwoods grew along both banks, and a single willow hung its branches over the creek where the Apaches were camped.

The Indians had no fire, knowing from hard-won experience that smoke in the Tonto Basin attracted soldiers, and each man was standing by his horse, listening to a warrior with gray in his hair who every now and then pointed in the direction of the pueblos.

The rest of the warriors were young, perhaps out on their first raiding party, but they were just as dangerous, and maybe more so, than older men.

Fletcher had seen enough. He eased back off the hill, then ran down the slope to his waiting horse.

“Now what?” Charlie asked as they swung into the saddle.

“Now we try again to talk some sense into those pilgrims.”

The old man shook his head. “It won’t work, Buck. They didn’t listen to you the first time and I don’t reckon they will now.”

“Maybe so, but I want to be there when the Apaches attack.” He looked at Charlie with bleak eyes. “Old-timer, them young bucks are going to be seven different kinds of hell.”

The two men rode to the pueblos at a gallop, attracting the usual interest as the Chosen One’s people poured out of their blanket-covered doorways.

“Why did you come back? You aren’t welcome here,” the man called Emmanuel yelled, his face flushed with anger.

“Go away!” a woman called out. “Leave us.”

She looked around at her feet, found a broken pottery shard, and heaved it at Fletcher. Now others joined in, pelting him and Charlie with bits of pottery and rocks.

A flying pottery shard opened up a cut on Charlie’s forehead, and the old mountain man roared in anger, his rifle snaking out from the boot under his knee.

“No, Charlie!” Fletcher yelled. “Let them be.”

“Damn these people, Buck!” Charlie said, a trickle of blood streaming down his face. “I don’t give a damn if the Apaches kill ’em all.”

More rocks were flying, but the Chosen One ran from the pueblo and stepped between his disciples and the riders. He raised his staff and yelled, “No! Stop this at once.”

One by one the crowd let the rocks drop from their hands, though the eyes that were turned on Fletcher and Charlie were bright with anger and bitter resentment.

The Chosen One looked up at Fletcher. “You were told to leave us. Why did you come back?”

“To give you once last chance to listen,” Fletcher said, his own anger flaring. “The Apaches were standing by their horses when we saw them just a couple of minutes ago. They’ll be here soon, so get your people inside the pueblo and do it now. Me and Charlie can hold them off for a while with our rifles.”

Fletcher looked around at the crowd of people, especially the dozen or so men. “If any of you men have weapons, arm yourselves. There isn’t much time.”

“Shame!” a man shouted. “You’re bringing shame to all of us.”

“Ride away,” a woman said. “Leave us alone. You two are the very spawn of Satan.”

“Listen to me!” Fletcher yelled. “You must listen.”

“We listen only to the Chosen One,” Emmanuel hollered. “He is our leader, not you.”

Fletcher turned helplessly to Charlie, but the older man laid his rifle on the saddle horn and spread his hands wide. “Boy, I tole you it was a damn waste of time.”

“You must leave us now,” the Chosen One said. “And you must never come back here again. I am anointed by the Lord and so protected by his sword and shield, and I will deal with the Apaches.”

Fletcher opened his mouth to speak but never said the words.

The Apaches came then. They trotted out of the valley and fanned across the flat, snow-covered ground in front of the pueblo cliff. Once in a long skirmish line, they slowed their ponies to a walk, rifles held ready across their chests.

There were thirty of them, lean as famine wolves, hard-eyed and merciless, all of them trained to be fighting men from birth, and they knew no fear, nor did they accept, or even understand, the concept of mercy.

The Apaches had been observing the pueblo for days and knew what they were facing: a ragtag, shirttail bunch of unarmed settlers.

But what they hadn’t counted on was the presence of the two men they saw lead their horses toward the front of the lowest pueblo. Shrewd in the ways of enemies, the Apaches recognized Fletcher and Charlie for what they were: fighting men like themselves and that gave them pause.

An Indian doesn’t like to be surprised, and the sudden appearance of the two riders with their Winchesters surprised them. They slowed to a halt and began to talk excitedly among themselves, forming a rough circle around their gray-haired leader.

For his part, Fletcher watched the Apaches come, swallowing his fear like a dry bone in his throat. “How many cartridges you got, Charlie?” he asked, surprised that his voice was reasonably steady.

“What I got in the rifle and maybe another six, seven in my pocket. How many you got?”

“Not near enough,” Fletcher said.

The Apaches spread out, wary now, but coming on at a trot.

“They’ll attack all at once in a rush,” Charlie said. “I don’t think we’re gonna stop them, Buck.”

“Not out here we won’t,” Fletcher said. “Get into the pueblo.”

He and Charlie left their horses and ducked into the room behind them. It was small, like all the rooms, with two tiny windows to the front and a smoke hole in the ceiling.

The walls would turn a bullet, but if the Apaches rushed the door, protected by nothing more than a Navaho blanket hung on a string, there would be no stopping them. Fletcher knew that in their last few hell-firing moments, he and Charlie could kill a dozen warriors, maybe several more, but that still left plenty to even the score.

That thought was confirmed when Charlie extended his hand. “Been real nice knowing you, Buck Fletcher,” he said. “I got to say, you’re one hell of a man.”

“You too, Charlie,” Fletcher said, smiling, taking the old man’s hand. “If it comes right down to it, I’ll be right proud to die at your side.”

But there would be no death that morning for Charlie and Fletcher. Dying aplenty there would be, but for others.

It was the Chosen One who saved them.

As Fletcher watched in horror, the man ran toward the Apaches, his staff upraised, the cross glittering in the cold morning light.

“My children,” he yelled, “I come to preach Christ crucified. Prepare ye the way of the Lord.”

Even as the Apaches circled him, the Chosen One seemed blissfully unaware of his danger. His face shone with that unholy light Fletcher had noted earlier, and the man’s voice rose in what came close to a scream of passion.

“Doomsday is coming, my little ones, and you have been chosen by God to lead the people out of the valley of death and into light eternal.”

The disciples, Estelle in the lead, were walking toward the warriors, their heads tilted back, eyes raised to the uncaring gray sky, singing a hymn Fletcher had never heard before.

Lead your people to glory,

The time of the end draws nigh.

Chant the song of doom,

Chant the song of doom.

The Chosen One leads us to heaven,

He shows us the righteous path.

Charlie spat through the pueblo window. “That ain’t no kind of damn hymn a good Protestant should be a-singing. Hell, it don’t even rhyme.”