‘Think we’ll hit trouble?’ Stotter eased the six-horse team down a bit, wary of letting the horses blow themselves too early when he might need a turn of speed later. ‘How you rate them Army rumors?’
‘Ain’t seen no broncos yet,’ grunted Weisskopf. ‘Most o’ the bands are gone down into Mexico fer the winter. Could be the Army actin’ up. Wantin’ credit fer holdin’ off hostiles.’
‘Could be,’ agreed Stotter.
But he noticed that his partner was holding a thumb over the hammer
of the Winchester rifle he carried. And that he had filled his
pockets with shotgun cartridges.
Inside the coach, Cal Backenhauser watched his two fellow travelers.
For the first few miles the Englishman had kept up a flow of conversation designed to elicit information from the two men. He had become used to the swaying gait of the concord after a short while and brought out his sketch pad. Though neither would admit it, both the drummer and the man in the black frock coat were flattered that he was drawing them.
It was odd, Backenhauser reflected, how people loosened up when he drew them. Wanted to talk about themselves; would tell him things they would seldom mention to another casual acquaintance. Even Azul had revealed aspects of his past that the Englishman was sure he didn’t tell many people.
And now he knew that the drummer was called Del Brown, and had to get to Lordsburg to fix a deal for medical supplies with the local doctor, who also tended the Army detachment stationed there. Brown came from New Jersey; he was unmarried at thirty years of age, and frightened enough of his bosses that he preferred to risk the Apaches rather than chance losing the order.
The artist sketched in a short, fair-haired man, noting that he was going bald on top, with a dark gray suit, complete with vest and watch-chain, and button-sided boots.
For the other traveler he drew a gaunt outline, shrouded almost menacingly in black: black hat tilted forwards over black hair, shadowing a black mustache. Black suit – the only point of light the silver watch-chain spread across the black vest – with the cloth of pants and coat and vest matching the shinier black of the boots.
Black gun belt. Even the buckles scrubbed dull and not polished, so that they gave off no shine.
His name was Jonas Cardeen, and he was a gambler. Backenhauser didn’t know enough about guns to decide what he was wearing, but he got the feeling that Cardeen knew how to use the pistol.
Cardeen was forty-two, heading for Lordsburg because he had heard the town held more money that was easier for the taking than the last few settlements he had passed through.
Backenhauser didn’t like him, but he was
glad the gambler was along.
Where the Placeras to Lordsburg stage route came down off the hills into the wide breadth of Paradise Valley, running for close on thirty miles over open, mesa-ringed country, Knife-With-Two-Sides waited.
The Mimbreño Apache had got his name from the first time he attacked a pinda-lick-oyi. He had been sixteen years old then, and anxious to prove his manhood. He had stalked a copper miner prospecting along the Gila River and attacked the white man armed only with a knife. The miner had blasted three shots towards the Apache and then felt the weight of the blade slice into his throat. Before he died, he had shoved the knife against the young warrior’s face, his own hand cut through to the bone before he forced the blade against the Mimbreño’s mouth, and left a permanent scar. The blade had cut through the Apache’s lip on the left side, slicing off part of the nostril and threatening to pierce his eye.
The young Apache had killed the white man and gone back to his rancheria with a bleeding face. The cut had left a wide, white scar that ran down from the bridge of his nose to below his lips. It healed, puckering the left eye into a downwards twist, and running livid across his cheek to where his mouth was twisted forever out of line.
Since then he had concentrated on fighting whites whenever he could, and when the winter cold began his cut nostril ran heavily with mucus that dripped over the scar of his mouth and reminded him of the original wound.
Now he had seven warriors with him. Seven good men, not yet ready to concede the lands of Apacheria to the pinda-lick-oyi. Not yet ready to go south; not while they could still strike against the whites.
Moon Dancer and Funda were placed in the hollow where the stage would dip down over the long salt wash; Jaunito and Hondo were positioned on the farther rim; Knife-With-Two-Sides was waiting, mounted, with Violento, Eagle Chaser and Sabadillo.
‘This is foolish,’ said Sabadillo. ‘If we attack this coach, we shall only bring the patrols on us, like dogs coming down on a lobo wolf’s neck.’
‘Dogs have to find the wolf first,’ said Knife-With-Two-Sides, ‘before they can bite him. We shall attack the coach and then go back into the hills. They won’t find us there.’
Eagle Chaser said, ‘Be quiet, Sabadillo. They have not caught us yet.’
And Violento said, ‘It will be a good killing. We might take enough to buy guns and ammunition. So we can kill more.’
Knife-With-Two-Sides chuckled and touched his brother’s shoulder. ‘That is the way of it: we take from the pinda-lick-oyi what we need to fight them.’
The horsemen laughed, accepting his
leadership.
The first arrow hit the left-hand leader in the valley of muscle connecting leg to chest. It dug deep, propelled by Moon Dancer’s bow. It drove in to grate the stone tip against the muscle of the leg so that the horse’s movement ground it deeper and the animal screamed and went down.
At the same time Funda put an arrow into the right-hand leader, planting it neatly in the animal’s throat. His aim was tidier than Moon Dancer’s, planned more carefully, though the effect was the same. It struck the plunging neck, cutting into the windpipe so that the horse squealed and began to choke on its own blood. Its head dropped, shafting the arrow deeper still into its neck, cutting through the sinews so that the animal lifted its head again in an attempt to release the pain. Instead, the movement served only to drag the barbed head loose in a welter of blood that choked the horse and set it bucking.
The remaining four animals piled into the leaders, spilling them over and down in a roiling welter of horseflesh that threatened to tumble the coach.
Stotter hauled back on the reins, fighting to stop the team before it piled up.
His efforts ceased when Hondo’s arrow slammed into his chest.
The shaft was built of straight hickory wood, tipped with a head of chipped stone, the recurved edges knocked out into a vee-shape. Stotter felt it go in and let go the brake as he tried to haul the arrow from his body. Then he screamed and let go as a second barbed missile plucked through his left eye and imbedded in his brain.
The stage team piled madly into the dying leaders. And the coach ran down the edge of the wash, smashing the drive pole into a horse as it toppled over.
The pole ground through the horse’s ribs and tore loose from the harness. It sank into the ground and provided a pivot point for the bulk of the stage. The concord tilted, then crashed sideways, sliding down the rim of the wash with Stotter’s body pitching clear into the melee of screaming horses.
Weisskopf launched himself to the side as he felt the coach go out from under him. He landed in a rolling dive that smashed the breath from his lungs and left fear in his belly.
He came up on his knees with the Winchester spouting flame at the far side of the hollow.
And three arrows plucked his life away.
The first tore into his left arm, jerking it clear of the rifle so that his shots flew wide. The second pierced his belly, grating off the pelvic girdle to ram upwards into the sac of his stomach so that he screamed and released his grip on the Winchester as the pain burst through him. The third, aimed at his throat, struck his toppling head, entering through the soft apex of his skull to drive down through the softer brain beneath and kill him instantly.
Knife-With-Two-Sides whooped, slamming his
heels against his pony’s flanks to drive the mustang forwards as
Violento, Eagle Chaser, and Sabadillo followed him in the headlong
charge towards the wrecked coach.
Azul had not anticipated an attack so close to Placeras. To his own way of thinking it was too close to allow a safe escape route, the proximity serving to identify the location of the broncos as surely as a definite sighting of their camp.
He was a good half mile short of the trail when it happened. And the gray horse was close on winded from the long run to catch up with the stage.
