Ralph Compton - Doomsday Rider

The girl’s eyes held both fear and loathing, and Fletcher decided he could not let it go any further. “Let her be, Scar,” he said.

The gunman whirled, his hands above his Colts, his eyes blazing with hate and fury.

Fletcher stood easy and relaxed, even as he knew he was running a desperate, dangerous bluff with empty guns. “Don’t try it, Scar. You won’t even clear the leather.”

Hays thought about it—and for a single heart-pounding moment Fletcher believed he would say the hell with it and make the play.

But slowly the gunman relaxed, his fingers unclawing. “Damn you, Fletcher,” he snarled, “once this is over and the Apaches have cleared out, me and you will go at it.”

He turned to Estelle. “And you,” he said, “pack a bag.”

* * *

As the long day stretched into evening, there were no further attacks, though Charlie and Fletcher stood at the window of their room, empty rifles cradled in their arms.

Hays had vanished into one of the other rooms in the pueblo, but Wilson stood outside near the wagon, alert and watching the night.

Charlie nodded in the man’s direction. “You figure the sergeant there tipped off ol’ Scar about the pay wagon?”

“I’m willing to bet that’s what happened,” Fletcher said. “I would say he was one of the escort and it was him who killed the major and the young trooper.”

“How much do you reckon is in there?” Charlie asked.

Fletcher shrugged. “There’s the best part of three cavalry regiments in the basin, not counting scouts. I’d say thirty thousand dollars, maybe more.”

Charlie whistled. “Ol’ Scar could have a time with that down in Nogales.”

“He sure could.” Fletcher nodded, saying one thing, thinking another.

“What’s on your mind, Buck?” Charlie asked.

“Charlie, we’ve got to get some ammunition,” Fletcher said. “We’re powerless against Hays and Wilson with empty guns. When it comes right down to it, I don’t want to go up against Scar’s Colts when all I can do is throw rocks at him.”

“Both them boys are carrying .44.40 Winchesters like yours, and Scar’s revolvers are .45s,” Charlie said. “That’s where the cartridges be, if’n you can get to them.”

“Getting to them, that’s the problem,” Fletcher said. “We can’t tell Hays our guns are empty. He’d kill us both without even giving it a thought.”

Charlie was silent for a few moments, then slapped the side of his head. “Buck, what are we thinking about! There are all kinds of dead Apaches out there and they’ve got cartridge belts. Got to be our caliber among them.”

Fletcher looked at Charlie, thinking it through. “Don’t the Apaches always carry off their dead?” he asked finally.

“Mostly they do, but I’m betting those young bucks are still lying out there. I don’t think the rest of them warriors will want to be slowed down by dead men until they take the pueblo, not with Georgie Crook’s flying columns out after every Apache in the basin.”

Fletcher nodded. “It’s worth a try.”

“Damn right it is.” Charlie grinned.

The two men stepped out of the pueblo into the darkness. Behind them the windows glowed yellow from the light of oil lamps and candles, and Fletcher thought he heard Hays drunkenly yell something and then fall silent.

“Mescal,” Charlie whispered.

“You heard him too, huh?”

“Ol’ Scar, he’s a terror when he’s drinking,” Charlie said. “You don’t want to be around him, and you don’t want your womenfolk around him either.”

Off to their left, Wilson stood guard at the wagon, his Winchester in his arms. He was turned toward the sound of Hays and didn’t look in the direction of Charlie and Fletcher as, crouching low, they made their way across the snow-covered flat.

The dead warriors were still there. Or at least one was, the prostrate form Charlie tripped over in the darkness.

The Apache was young, no more than sixteen by the look of his smooth face, but he had apparently not yet participated in enough raids to acquire a rifle. A quiver of arrows slanted across his back and his bow, the Osage wood shattered by a bullet, lay a few feet away.

Charlie motioned silently and he crept in the direction he’d pointed, Fletcher following. Another warrior lay flat in his back, the top of his head blown away. But this man wore a cartridge belt across his chest and another circled his hips.

“Hell, Buck,” Charlie whispered, “we’re in business.”

Both belts held .44.40 shells, and Charlie and Fletcher quickly loaded their rifles and stuffed the remaining rounds into their pockets.

A search of the other bodies turned up just one belt of .45s, but it was enough for Fletcher to load both his Colts and fill half the loops in his gun belt.

Above them the clouds had parted and the moon rode high in the sky. The snow had been replaced by a hard frost and the breath of both men smoked misty white in the cold air.

“It’s sure quiet out here,” Charlie whispered. “You reckon maybe them Apaches decided enough was enough and pulled out?”

Fletcher shrugged. “I guess there’s one way to find out.” He nodded to the hill looming above them. “From up there.”

He walked to the hill and began to climb, Charlie close behind him.

They reached the pines and moved through the restless trees to the western slope overlooking the valley. Fletcher dropped to his belly and studied the valley below.

Charlie dropped beside him. “See anything?”

“It’s what I don’t see that cheers me some,” Fletcher answered. “I don’t see any horses down there or men either. I think they’ve skedaddled.”

“When?” Charlie asked. “ Más temprano? ”

“Yeah, much earlier. I think maybe right after Hays and Wilson arrived and they lost those six warriors.”

Fletcher rose to his feet. “Let’s go down there, Charlie. But step nice and easy.”

The two men made their way down the slopes, rifles at the ready. But there was no need. The Apaches were gone.

Only the Chosen One remained.

Sixteen

The Chosen One hung between two closely growing cottonwoods, his spread out arms lashed to the trunks.

Before lapsing into agonized incoherence, he had preached to the Apaches of Christ crucified, and that had given the young warriors an idea. A braided grass rope had been rammed down on his head, its entire length spiked with a tangle of vicious cholla thorns, and blood from the wounds had dried in dull red streaks over his face and shoulders.

Hundreds of dry ocotillo thorns, slender and sharp, had been stuck all over his body and one by one had been set alight, burning down to the flesh, each one marked by a circle of black, scorched skin.

Fletcher counted seventeen arrows sticking out of the Chosen One’s body, and each had struck a spot where it could inflict the most pain without killing. And finally, apparently impressed by his endurance, the Apaches had mercifully cut the man’s throat before riding away.

Charlie looked over what was left of the Chosen One and spat. “That’s a hell of a way for a man to die.”

Fletcher nodded, his face grim. “Cut him down from there.”

Charlie drew his bowie knife and did as he was told. “Now what?”

“Now we carry him back to the pueblo. I think it’s time Estelle and the rest of those people realize the Chosen One isn’t coming back.”

“Ain’t that a shade harsh, Buck?”

“Maybe, but it’s a sight better than staying here to be slaughtered by any Apache war band that happens to be riding by.”

The Chosen One was a big man, and heavy, and both Charlie and Fletcher were breathing hard by the time they carried him to the pueblo.