The Thunder Riders Part 2

The man glared up at him, then cursed and slowly did as he'd been told. Yakima dropped to a knee, set the rifle down, and quickly wrapped the rawhide around the man's wrists. When he'd tied a square knot, leaving a good five feet of the rawhide hanging free, he ordered the man to his feet and shoved him toward his horse.

In a minute, he had the lawman lying belly down across his saddle and was tying his ankles together. When he'd looped the end of the lariat around the man's wrists for one finishing dally, he led the horse back out toward the boulder from which the man had fired the warning shot.

In the shade of the boulder, Yakima stopped, wrapped the reins around the saddle horn, then walked back past the man's head, which hung down behind the stirrup fender. He stopped at the horse's right hip and held his rifle out like a club.

The lawman turned his red, enraged face at Yakima. His hat was back on the porch, and his pewter hair hung toward the ground. The blood from his split lip had switched direction and was trickling into his eye socket. "You'll rue this day, you son of a b.i.t.c.h."

Yakima rammed the Winchester's barrel against the dun's hip. The horse lunged off its rear hooves and galloped down the rise and into the chaparral beyond, weaving around barrel cactus and ironwood shrubs, scaring a wren out of its cactus burrow, and kicking up a fine curtain of cinnamon dust.

"Not half as much as you," he said when the hoof thuds had dwindled into the distance.

Yakima returned to the cabin and, wrapping his bandanna around his nose and mouth, stepped inside.

He didn't look at what was left of the old German's hacked up body on the floor. He knew where the old man kept his coal oil, so, sidestepping the ma.s.sive pools of congealed blood and viscera, he grabbed the oilcan off its shelf, popped the cork, and doused the room. Stepping outside, he dribbled the remaining oil on the porch, then tossed the can back into the cabin. He struck a lucifer to life on his thumbnail and tossed the burning match through the door.

The match ignited the oil with a thunderous whoosh whoosh, and flames instantly filled the cabin's interior and licked out through the door, smoke billowing, the fire roaring and snapping and crackling as it rapidly consumed the dry wood.

Yakima leapt off the porch and, holding his rifle over his shoulder and not looking back at the cabin, strode down the hill to where the black stallion and the paint horse waited in the brush.

He mounted up and, dallying the packhorse's lead rope around his saddle horn, put Wolf into a wind-splitting run. He held his rifle across his saddlebow and kept a sharp eye on the ridges. The smoke would no doubt attract Apaches, and he wanted to be out of the area when it did.

After twenty minutes, he checked Wolf into a trot. He stopped at Ironwood Springs for ten minutes, letting the horses draw water from the murky granite tanks, then headed off again under the bra.s.sy sky. He saw no one but a couple of saddle tramps on a distant horse trail until he pulled up on the crest of the low ridge overlooking a vast sunlit valley, broken here and there by rock outcroppings and boulder-strewn knolls.

Amid the sage a mile from the ridge lay Saber Creek-a motley collection of sandstone hovels strewn w.i.l.l.y-nilly about the valley floor. The town, once a Mexican village, had grown up haphazardly along the b.u.t.terfield Stage line. It still wasn't much, and because its sandstone and adobe buildings and bleached-log corrals blended so well with the sandy valley floor and the chaparral, many folks didn't know it was here.

Yakima didn't care for the town, as it didn't care for him. But it had a nice watering hole and a mercantile, and it would have taken him another day to ride to Benson.

He put the horses down the ridge and followed the trail between the outlying corrals and goat pens and into the town itself, weaving around the heavy traffic-ranch wagons and freight outfits serving the gold and silver mines in the Dragoons and Chiricahuas.

A woman's voice rose behind him. "Look what the cat dragged in!"

He stopped and turned, squinting against the wagon dust. A young woman stood by the stone well coping twenty yards before the best saloon in town-Charlier's Hotel and Tavern. Anjanette Charlier smiled at him boldly from beneath the hand shading her eyes, her long jet-black hair dancing in the chill breeze. She was a tall, dark, regally beautiful young woman, with what appeared to be a small knife scar on the right side of her dimpled chin.

She wore a simple brown skirt with a wide black belt, men's black stockman's boots, and a red bandanna. A cream blouse stretched taut across her full b.r.e.a.s.t.s, the top two b.u.t.tons undone to expose deep cleavage. Half French, Anjanette had been raised by her French grandfather, who had prospected nearly every mountain range in Arizona before buying a saloon here in Saber Creek and putting his granddaughter to work renting rooms and slinging drinks to miners, drovers, and mule skinners while he cooked and tended bar.

Yakima pinched his hat brim, feeling the old male pull. Old Antoine's granddaughter was not the kind of exquisite beauty a man saw every day on the Arizona frontier. "Miss Anjanette."

"It's been a while," she said, placing her free hand on her hip, her bosom swelling till a good half of her cleavage pushed up from the V-necked blouse. "What's kept you up in those hills so long, Yakima Henry?"

He'd met her last time he was in town, when he'd gotten thrown out of the Saguaro Inn and had had nowhere else to drink. She'd served him several relatively cold beers, a hot supper, and, since it had been a slow evening, had sat down to chat and play a game of red dog. No wh.o.r.e, this girl. A pretty tavern owner's granddaughter who served only the liquor, not herself, though Yakima didn't doubt that plenty of men had tried to change her and her grandfather's mind about that.

"I've been working my shotgun ranch," he said, savoring every moment of the girl's beauty. "Had no time for town-till I saw my tea tin was empty."

"Stop by for a drink later." She grinned and thrust a hip out, let her eyes flicker across his chest and shoulders. She tossed her straight black hair back. "First one's on the house, and Old Antoine's got soup on the stove, though I won't vouch for how good it is. I didn't see see him throw any rats in it." him throw any rats in it."

"Don't mind if I do. Sounds right delicious."

He turned forward and gigged the black down the dusty, bustling street, moving through wagons, horseback riders, and the occasional mining rig drawn by donkeys. Dogs and goats ran loose in the streets, and chickens scratched in front of the old brush-thatched dwellings owned by members of the original Mexican families.

He wanted to visit the sheriff's office about as much as he wanted to run barefoot across hot coals, but it wouldn't be right not to inform the lawman about the Apaches running wild. Crossing to the far side of town, he pulled up before the small sandstone building housing the sheriff's office and jail. A brush arbor shaded a six-foot patch of hard-packed dirt in front of the building.

Yakima wrapped Wolf's and the packhorse's reins over the hitchrack, before which three saddle horses stood hanging their heads. He mounted the stoop and knocked once on the stout cottonwood door, then tripped the metal latch and stepped inside.

He stopped just over the threshold. The sheriff sat behind his desk on the room's right side while three other men sat to his left, in spool-back chairs. The three men- all dressed in dusty trail garb and battered Stetsons, with six-shooters on their hips and Winchester carbines resting across their laps-turned to Yakima suddenly, surprised by the interruption.

The sheriff turned also, ridging his s.h.a.ggy sand-colored brows. Mitch Speares was big and rangy, in his mid-thirties, and wore two Remingtons, positioned for the cross draw, on his narrow hips. His thick silver-blond hair hung over his collar, his bangs combed low across his right eye. His brushy mustache and sideburns were a couple of shades darker than his hair, and his dung-brown eyes were set close to his wedge-shaped, sun-blistered nose.

Yakima kept his left hand on the door handle. "Sorry for intrudin', Sheriff."

"What's the matter with you, breed? Can't you see I'm in a meetin' here?"

Yakima shrugged and stepped back, pulling the door closed. "Have it your way, Sheriff."

Speares scowled. His swivel chair squawked as he stood and shouted, "Well, what the h.e.l.l you want want?"

Yakima opened the door again, but remained outside. "Just thought you might wanna know about the Apaches who paid me a visit last night. I think it was the same bunch that killed Lars Schempelfennig yesterday."

"Schempelfennig? Who the h.e.l.l cares? That crazy desert rat's been pushin' his luck far longer than it would have held for most folks in 'Pache country."

"Just thought I'd mention it." Yakima's gaze was blank, but his lips twisted in a smile. "If I recollect, there's a few shotgun ranches in that area. I figured it might be your job to warn them if you heard Chiricahuas had jumped the reserve and taken to the warpath."

As Yakima began drawing the door closed again, Speares said, "Hold on, G.o.dd.a.m.n it. Get your a.s.s in here, breed."

Feigning a guileless look, Yakima moved into the sheriff's small, dim office, leaving the door half open behind him. Small gaps between the rocks of the building's wall shone with bra.s.sy daylight. Dust motes slanted through the light shafts. A couple of prisoners slumped on the jail cots at the back of the room. One, who had one foot on the floor, was loudly sawing logs while a rat nibbled off the tin plate near his boot.

Speares looked at Yakima distastefully. "Where was Schempelfennig's place exactly?"

"Torcido Gulch."

"How far up?"

"Three miles after the red cliffs."

Speares looked at one of the men seated to his right. "Doesn't Rack Lewis have a place up that way?"

One of the men-stocky, unshaven, and wearing hemp suspenders-nodded. "Bill La.r.s.en has a horse ranch just east of Rack's. Have 'em about ten kids between the two of 'em."

One of the other deputies turned to Yakima, scowling as he said, "Yeah, but La.r.s.en's kids are all half-breeds."

The deputies chuckled, shoulders jerking.

Speares glanced at the man who'd spoken last. "Leo, you better ride out an' warn 'em."

Leo frowned. "What about the gold shipme-" He cut himself off, glanced at Yakima, then returned his gaze to the sheriff. "You didn't deputize us fellas to be errand boys, Mitch. Besides, I won't get back before-"

He stopped again when the sheriff turned his stony eyes on him. "You'll get full pay whether you're here or not." Speares's tone was at once reasonable and sharp-edged. "Now ride on out an' warn Lewis and La.r.s.en about the Apache trouble. In addition to your regular pay, there'll be a bottle in it for you. Maybe I'll even be able to coax one of the wh.o.r.es over to the Mexican's place to spread her legs for ya-if'n you finally take a bath."

The other deputies chuckled as Leo's face turned red behind his three-day growth of beard. With an injured expression, he stood, donned his hat, and hefted his rifle. As he brushed past Yakima, he cut a hard glance to the half-breed, then strode out the door and spat loudly under the brush arbor.

Yakima looked at the sheriff, then turned toward the door.

"Henry."

Yakima swung back to Speares, who stood facing him, thumbs hooked behind his cartridge belt as he rose up and down on his boot toes. "Make sure you're out of town by sundown. I don't want you breakin' up any more saloons."

One of the remaining deputies chuckled and gave one corner of his waxed mustache a twist. "I heard him and some Mex really tore apart the Saguaro Inn. Left a good bit of blood on the floor, too."

Yakima kept his eyes on the sheriff. "I'll be leavin' first thing in the morning-after I've bought the supplies I need."

Speares slitted his left eye. "Think so, do ya?"

Yakima splayed his fingers on his thigh, in front of the holstered, stag-b.u.t.ted Colt, and held the lawman's hard gaze. The deputies shuttled glances between Yakima and the sheriff. It was suddenly so quiet that the rat could be heard making soft snick-snick snick-snick sounds as it nibbled bread from the tin plate in the cell. sounds as it nibbled bread from the tin plate in the cell.

Speares smiled. "I reckon it is is gettin' a mite late to be headin' back through 'Pache country. I'll relax my rules just this once. Just make sure you stay away from Charlier's. Understand?" gettin' a mite late to be headin' back through 'Pache country. I'll relax my rules just this once. Just make sure you stay away from Charlier's. Understand?"

Yakima kept his expression neutral, but he felt a devilishtingle. Normally, to avoid trouble, he would have done what the sheriff ordered. But he wasn't much in the mood for following orders. He shook his head.

"Can't do that neither, Sheriff. Miss Anjanette already offered me a drink. Standin' her up wouldn't be polite."

One of the sitting deputies said slowly, "Why, that smart-a.s.s-"

"Now, now, Charlie," Speares said, lifting the corners of his mouth once more as he continued locking gazes with Yakima. "No point in gettin' our fur up. Ain't healthy." He reached into the breast pocket of his collarless pin-striped shirt and flipped a coin to Yakima, who grabbed it out of the air. "First drink's on me, breed. We'll be seein' you later."

Yakima flipped the nickel in his hand. "Obliged." Pocketing the coin, he stepped straight back out the door, then grabbed both sets of reins off the hitchrack and, keeping an eye on the sheriff in the jailhouse's dim interior, swung onto the black and pulled the two horses into the street.

In the jailhouse office, Speares watched the half-breed ride away, his heart thudding, his gut burning, then turned to the two deputies sitting tensely, staring at him curiously.

"Get the h.e.l.l out of here!" he barked. "Be back at first light with those rifles loaded. We'll head from here to the bank. Do not-I repeat, do not do not-be late!"

The two men whom Speares had deputized an hour ago to help make sure the gold shipment made it from tomorrow's stage safely into the bank vault, lurched to their feet and filed quickly out the door.

When they were gone, Speares sagged into his chair. He continued staring at the empty doorway, his eyes stony, his lips bunched with fury, and slipped one of his long-barreled Remingtons from its cross-draw holster. He flicked open the Remy's loading gate, took a cartridge from a leather loop on his belt, and filled the chamber he normally kept empty beneath the hammer.

Speares cursed and spun the cylinder, then snapped around in his chair to face the cell directly behind him. Inside, the mule skinner, Kirby Yates, whom Speares had arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct at four o'clock in the morning, continued snoring loudly. Thumbing the Remington's hammer back, Speares extended the pistol straight out from his shoulder and fired through the bars of Yates's cell door.

The pistol report sounded like a cannon blast in the close quarters.

Both prisoners leapt up on their cots with startled grunts and groans. "What the h.e.l.l was that that?" bellowed Yates, jerking his foot off the floor and craning his head toward his blood-splattered plate.

Speares lowered the smoking revolver and turned toward the door, holding the Remy in both hands as though weighing it.

"Rat," Speares said as he flicked open the loading gate and removed the spent sh.e.l.l.

Chapter 4.

Yakima cut a look over his left shoulder as he angled across the street toward the Arizona Livery and Feed Barn. Mitch Speares had been an outlaw longer than he'd been a sheriff-it was widely known that the man had been a regulator in Wyoming and Colorado and was probably still wanted up that way-and Yakima knew he wasn't above trying to backshoot an adversary.

The sheriff did not appear in his open doorway, so Yakima rode the black up the livery barn's hay-covered ramp. He ducked under the heavy freight hook hanging from the loft and clomped on into the barn's shadows, which were thick with the smell of hay, manure, and livestock.

A voice rose from the darkness on his left. "Well, I'll be d.a.m.ned. I figured you'd know enough to stay outta town after what happened last time."

The liveryman ambled out of the shadows, a hay stem wedged in his big yellow teeth, his snakeskin galluses bowing over his bulging paunch. He held a worn bridle in his gloved hand. Scowling, he tipped his leather-billed immigrant cap off his freckled forehead.

"What happened last time wasn't my doin'." Yakima slipped his Winchester from his saddle boot and slung his saddlebags over his right shoulder. "Besides, I worked off my bill at the Saguaro Inn. Split enough wood to last 'em the next three winters."

"That ain't what I'm talkin' about," said the liveryman, whose name was Charlie Suggs. "I'm talkin' about that Mex you fought. He sees you in town, he's gonna want some payback for cuttin' off his finger."

"I'll give him one of mine. Feel better?" Yakima reached into a front pocket and flipped a gold piece in the air. "One dollar in advance. I'll pick up both horses first thing in the morning."

Suggs closed his fist around the coin and continued scowling at Yakima. "You can find yourself an alley tonight, too. I don't want you in here. d.a.m.n it, Saber Creek is a civilized town, and uncivilized folk need to stay in the mountains where they belong."

"That free?"

Suggs squinted and c.o.c.ked his head. "Huh?"

"That advice free?"

The liveryman filled his lungs. His round bearded face turned red. "Yeah, it's free!"

"Good, because I just came to have my horses stabled. Grain 'em and rub 'em down and go easy on the water till they cool."

Yakima headed toward the open door.

"Anything else?"

"Yeah." Yakima glanced over his shoulder. "Clean out their hooves and check their shoes."

As he descended the ramp to the street, casting a cautious glance toward the jailhouse on his right, he heard the liveryman grumbling behind him, "Sh.o.r.e are cheeky for a dirt-worshiper!"

The wind was kicking up as the sun angled behind the distant sawtooth ridges. Yakima squinted his eyes against the blowing dust and straw as he headed west, stepping over fresh horse apples and goat dung.

As he approached Charlier's-a two-story adobe built in the old Spanish style, with a couple of small balconies with wrought-iron railings on the second floor-a tumbleweed flew toward him, and he ducked. The weed continued on past him and pasted itself against the front window of Thaddeus Wilford's undertaking parlor.

Gentle piano music filtered out of the tavern before him, sounding beneath the moaning wind like a spring rain on a tin roof. Half a dozen horses were tied to the hitchrack, and loud male voices spilled over the batwing doors.

Mounting the porch fronting Charlier's, Yakima paused to peer over the scarred batwings. The room was about half full, and tobacco smoke wafted up to the low, herringbone-patterned ceiling. Several Mexican freighters in dusty trail garb sat in the shadows to the left. Most of the other tables were occupied by American cowboys, Mexican vaqueros, mule skinners, drifters, and a few burly, sun-seared prospectors in hobnailed boots. A short, skinny Mexican with a receding hairline and a handlebar mustache was playing the piano.

Anjanette was running drinks from the bar while her pugnacious grandfather, Old Antoine, set them up and served the four men bellied up to the mahogany. Yakima made for a table in the room's far right corner, weaving around the other tables and avoiding outstretched legs and beer pooling on the stone tiles. He set his saddlebags and rifle on the table, kicked out a chair, and was about to sit down when someone poked his back.

He turned. Anjanette smiled up at him, a beer in one hand, a shot in the other. The red bandanna held her coal black hair back from her face. Her voice was raspy. "Something to cut the trail dust?"

"Don't mind if I do. Just the beer. I don't drink the hard stuff in town." He reached for his right hip pocket.