The Thunder Riders Part 13

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, flashing 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 flashing 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 shifted 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.

Patchen spoke through gritted teeth. "You better talk to your jailer, Speares. If he's still alive."

Yakima spread his feet and set his Yellowboy on his shoulder, gloved finger through the trigger guard. He stared skeptically down at the two buried lawmen.

"Should've known better than to leave old Suggs in charge," Speares rasped.

Patchen chuckled darkly, his head twitching.

"Breed," Speares said, wincing at a sudden sharp pain. "I'll put in a few good words with ol' Saint Pete if you drill a pill through my head."

Patchen ran his dry tongue across his lips, smearing a blood drip. "Give me one, too. I'm about worn out, tryin' to get out of here and hold them predators back. That gang of yours are sick sonsab.i.t.c.hes."

"Must be half Apache," Speares mused. "Only they were kind enough to leave our eyelids."

Patchen rolled his eyes toward Speares. "Makes it slower that way."

Yakima poked his hat back off his forehead. "How long you been here?"

Patchen glanced up at him, eyelids fluttering. His eyes were bloodshot, the lids pink and sand-caked. "Since yesterday afternoon."

"Long enough for me," Speares said. "If the buzzards don't get us by sundown, wolves and cats will move in tonight." He spat. "Spare a couple bullets, breed. I'd do as much for you."

Yakima sighed and looked around. A scarred Spencer rifle lay nearby, half buried in the sand. He set down his prized Yellowboy, grabbed the old Spencer by the barrel, and began shoveling sand away from Patchen's chin with the stock.

Patchen watched him skeptically, hopefully. So did Speares. Neither man said anything while Yakima shoveled the sand away from the marshal's chest, shoulders, and back.

When he'd gotten down to the man's belt, Patchen gazed up at Yakima, incredulous. Yakima pulled his Arkansas toothpick from his boot, reached around, and cut the rope tying the marshal's hands behind his back. Patchen continued staring at Yakima as, planting his hands to both sides, he worked Patchen's legs out of the riverbed.

Yakima straightened, breathing hard. He looked at Speares, now staring at him curiously, one eye squeezed shut. He tossed the Spencer down and picked up his hat and Yellowboy.

"You can dig the sheriff out. I got business ahead."

Shouldering the Winchester, he walked back across the ravine, mounted the bank, and strode through the brush to the buckskin. He grabbed the reins, leapt onto the saddle blanket, turned the horse around.

In the ravine, Patchen was using the Spencer to dig out Speares-slow, weary strokes, the sheriff spitting sand from his mouth. The buzzards squawked and quarreled as they consumed the dead bodies around them.

Yakima put the buckskin down the bank and gigged it through the sand, weaving around a dead man and a dead horse. He glanced at Patchen, who'd stopped working to stare at him.

"Go on home!" Yakima yelled. "Stay the h.e.l.l outta my way!"

He could feel the two lawmen staring at his back as he took off on the buckskin up the opposite bank and lit out for the brushy hills beyond.

Midafternoon of the same day, Anjanette and the Thunder Riders galloped over several low hogbacks, twisting around the ruins of an ancient adobe village, and checked their horses down the side of a sage-covered bluff. Beyond, towering sandstone peaks jutted, streaked with the copper light of the west-angling sun.

At the ridge's base, beyond a gra.s.sy bank and a line of tall deciduous trees, lay a stream sheathed in downy fog.

The entire gang spread out in a long line just below the hill's brow. Sitting her dapple-gray ten feet off Considine's left stirrup, Anjanette could faintly feel the silky caress of the warm air from the stream against her face.

The sun had shone nearly every day of their ride from Saber Creek, but the air, except for a couple of hours at midday, was cold. She imagined shedding her clothes and soaking in the warm water, the fatigue draining from her saddle-sore bottom and thighs.

She was about to remark on the strange warm stream, when the fog thinned on the other side of the trees and she caught a glimpse of what appeared to be more ruins climbing the side of the far ridge-a honeycomb of houses sitting one atop the other, with crumbling walls and caved-in roofs. Several square or rectangular openings gaped out over the fog-shrouded stream, like the empty eye sockets of an emaciated skull.

The fog closed, and the ruins disappeared.

Leaning forward on his saddle horn, Considine glanced at her. "Canyon of Lost Souls, the Injuns call it. The stream's called River of No Return. A few miles east it just slips into the ground, disappears."

"As many times as we've been here," said Mad Dog McKenna, at Considine's right, "this place still gives me the creeps."

"Gives everybody the creeps," said Latigo Hayes. "That's why it's a great place to cool our heels!"

"You mean warm warm 'em-don't you?" The black outlaw, Ben Towers, gave a groan of pleasure, hugging his shoulders. "That h.e.l.l-fired water's the next best thing to a woman!" 'em-don't you?" The black outlaw, Ben Towers, gave a groan of pleasure, hugging his shoulders. "That h.e.l.l-fired water's the next best thing to a woman!"

Mad Dog glanced at Anjanette, then curled his lip at Considine. "Jack here has the real thing."

"So do I!" yelled MacDonald, putting his horse up beside Toots's mount and wrapping one arm around the big woman's stout neck, guffawing.

Toots rammed an elbow into his ribs, nearly throwing him off the side of his horse. The others laughed.

Considine glanced at the gang members gathered on both sides of him. "We'll hole up here for a couple days. Give the horses and ourselves a rest before we make the last pull to Junction Rock!"

"Sounds good to me, Boss!" shouted one of the men as he and the rest of the gang spurred their horses down the hill toward the trees and the thick fog beyond, yelling and yowling. Toots rode up beside Considine, glowered at Anjanette, then turned a dimple-cheeked smile on the outlaw leader. "If you want a real real woman to soap your bones, Jack, I'll meet you at the river!" woman to soap your bones, Jack, I'll meet you at the river!"

With that, she ground her heels against her paint's flanks and, cackling, galloped down the slope in the sifting dust of the others.

Considine turned to Anjanette. "Don't worry about her. She's just kiddin' around. She already got herself a beau at Junction Rock-a big bearded mestizo who runs a saloon and hunts bear. She's pure-dee stricken by that fool."

"In that case, it'll be nice to get to Junction Rock," Anjanette said. "I'm getting tired of looking over my shoulder at her."

Considine jerked the black stallion's bit to remind him who was boss. The abrupt reining and the nightly hobbling, as well as several sudden lashes from a bullwhip, had helped take the fire out of the stallion's eyes.

The outlaw leader turned to Anjanette, smoothing his thick, drooping mustache with one hand and dimpling his cheeks. "Come on! A long soak in that water is the closest to heaven I ever been this side of the sod." He winked and ran his gaze down to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and back up again. "Almost, that is!" that is!"

He raked the black's flanks with his spurs, galloping down the slope while angling left of the other riders. Anjanette glanced once more toward the ruins concealed by the fog, suppressing a sudden chill, then threw her head back, shaking her black hair from her eyes, and put her steeldust after the stallion.

She'd ridden a hundred yards when Considine and Wolf disappeared into the cottonwoods and the fog. Anjanette followed, feeling the air grow warmer the closer she rode toward the river. She followed Considine's path through the trees, the fog enveloping her, the warmth pressing against her, the smell of sulfur filling her nostrils.

The steeldust's shod hooves clattered on the rocks, and then she could see the stream sliding along to her right, murmuring slightly. Ahead, the black stood with its reins wrapped around a stout cottonwood, its neck arched indignantly.

Anjanette looked around. "Jack?" She was surprised by how loud her voice sounded inside the gauzy fog, echoing off the rock wall on the other side of the stream.

Considine's voice came back, nearly as loud, slightly breathless. "Here!"

Anjanette gigged the steeldust ahead, saw Considine's blurred shape hopping around at the edge of the stream, kicking out of his jeans. When the denims lay in a pile among the small black rocks and gravel, he bent forward to shuck off his underwear, then splashed naked into the water, his pistol belt coiled around one arm, a cheroot protruding from his lips.

"Come on, girl!" His voice thundered. "Don't be shy. I got somethin' to show you!"