.45-Caliber Firebrand (29 page)

A bizarre, seated death dance, or a dance of sacrifice, Cuno thought.

Was the old man offering Michelle to the gods in exchange for the return of his own daughter, killed by Trent's waddies?

The old man held a knife in his right hand, resting on his fur-clad lap. The man looked down at the knife now and raised it face high, holding the hide-wrapped handle so that the flat of the blade faced out away from him. He didn't look at the knife but continued staring into the distance beyond Cuno, his wizened face with broad, brown nose hanging slack against his high, broad cheekbones, his eyes red-rimmed and haggard.

The old man rose suddenly from the rock.

Cuno stopped fifteen feet away. “Leaping Wolf.”

Not reacting to him, the old man dropped to his knees in front of Michelle's head. The girl lifted her eyes to him, her lips, her entire body shivering from the cold. The chief continued to chant as he passed the knife over the girl's naked breasts and flat, white belly in a slow, swirling motion.

“Hold it,” Cuno said, hearing the tremble in his pain-racked voice.

As the old man raised the knife in both hands above Michelle's chest, the girl's mouth and eyes snapped wide, and she loosed a loud, shrill scream, arching her back and neck and fighting at the stakes and leather ties holding her firmly against the ground.

Cuno's Colt barked. Leaping Wolf jerked back slightly, continuing to hold the knife in both hands, blade down, over Michelle's chest.

The old man looked at Cuno and frowned slightly, as though seeing the intruder for the first time.

The Colt roared again, smoke wafting in the cold, late-day sunshine.

Leaping Wolf jerked back against the rock, falling to his butt, knees raised before him, both holes in his chest sprouting blood through his heavy bear coat. He dropped the knife, which tumbled onto the rocks beside him, and his hands fell to his lap. His head sagged slowly back against the side of the boulder.

His lips moved, and he said something—“Sundra-No-May-He”—which Cuno suspected was the Ute name of his daughter, and then he gave a twitch. His head fell slightly sideways and, his eyes turning hard as black stones while still staring off somewhere behind Cuno, he gave a long, last sigh and died.

Quickly, Cuno holstered his Colt and dropped beside Michelle's shivering body. She looked up at him but said nothing as her teeth chattered and her blue lips trembled. Cuno grunted and sighed as he plucked his bowie from the sheath in his right boot, then, stretching out his right leg and keeping one hand clamped over the wound, he quickly sliced through the leather ties holding the girl's limbs to the buried stakes.

As he worked, he glimpsed the Winchester leaning against the rock, and a sour expression passed across his face. The bloody scalp dangling from the barrel—thick, curly, silver hair rustling in the breeze—was Logan Trent's. Cuno fought the imagined image of Trent's grisly murder from his mind, and continued working to free the man's daughter.

When he had her free, she continued lying there, trembling.

“Come on,” he said, hunkering down and sliding his left arm beneath her shoulders, frustration raking him. She needed to get up and get warm, but she didn't seem able to or willing to move. “Come on, goddamnit . . .”

He glanced at Leaping Wolf leaning back against the boulder, his head tipped nearly to his shoulder. Cuno slid his arm back out from beneath Michelle, then slid himself, wounded leg still extended, up beside the dead Ute chief. Nausea and fatigue blurred his vision and lightened his head and, as he lifted the bowie to the man's coat, he nearly passed out.

Grabbing a handful of snow and rubbing it across his face to brace himself, he cut the bone buttons from the dead man's bloody coat, then clumsily ripped it off his withered shoulders. He set the knife down, tossed the coat over Michelle, wrapped it around her shoulders, then again dropped low beside her and snaked his left arm beneath her shoulders.

She was trembling violently, blue eyes lit with an otherworldly horror.

“Come on, now.” Cuno's voice was weak. Again he shook his head, feeling the melting snow sliding down his cheeks. “Gotta help me, now . . . damnit. Gotta get you . . . back . . . to the fire . . .”

He groaned loudly as he dug his right boot heel into the ground and, pushing up with his left knee, started heaving himself to his feet.

A clatter of rocks and a crunch of brush stopped him, and he sank back down to a haunch, the girl in his arms. An Indian had stumbled out of the trees—a big man wearing a deerskin tunic, his hair pulled back in a feathered braid. The side of his broad forehead was bloody, as was his lower left leg. He held a Spencer repeater to his shoulder as he limped toward Cuno and Michelle, a frigid smile stretched taut across his chiseled, brown, war-painted face.

Cuno sank back against Leaping Wolf's still-raised knees, his heart leaping heavily. He slid his hand from around the girl to his side, but his coat flap was pulled down over his .45.

He stared, transfixed, as the wounded brave shuffled toward him, extending the Spencer straight out from his right shoulder, the man's cheek snugged up against the stock. The brave's cheeks slid even farther back from his large, white teeth, and his eyes narrowed as he stared down the rifle barrel at Cuno's head.

A gun barked. Cuno jumped. The girl in his arms jerked and sobbed.

There was an echoing screech and a puff of rock shards and snow just beyond the Indian. The brave jerked his head up from the rifle, frowning.

The gun barked again. There was a thumping sound as dust puffed from the brave's heavy deerskin tunic. He dropped the rifle to his side and stumbled sideways, staring in shock down the dry creek bed behind Cuno.

Faintly, Cuno heard the click of a pistol being cocked.

There was another bark, and more dust puffed from the brave's tunic—higher this time. He grunted, dropped the rifle, which clattered onto the slick rocks, then twisted around, stumbled over the rifle, and fell belly down on the snow-covered, sun-dappled stones.

Blood quickly welled out from under his still form.

Cuno looked over his right shoulder. Camilla knelt on both knees about fifteen yards down the riverbed, at the edge of the trees. She held the sheriff's revolver in both hands straight out in front of her face. Smoke curled from the barrel.

Her dark eyes were grave.

She lowered the gun, pushed to her feet, and holding the pistol in one hand down low by her side, hitched up her skirts and ran to where Cuno sat with Michelle Trent's quivering, fur-clad form in his arms.

“Ay-yi!”
Camilla looked at the blood pumping from the hole in his thigh. It had dribbled down his leg to melt the snow, sending up little snakes of steam.

She ripped off her neckerchief and quickly wrapped it around his leg, gritting her teeth as she tied it tight. Cuno threw his head back, bunching his lips as the pain blazed through him.

“How bad?” Camilla asked.

“Don't think it hit the bone.” Cuno raised Michelle in his arms. “Take her over to the fire. She needs to get warm. The Lassiter kids are there—looked all right a few minutes ago.” He chuffed without mirth. “As good as could be expected, I reckon . . .”

As Camilla crouched to wrap one of Michelle's arms around her neck, the Mexican girl flicked her gaze to Cuno nervously, her brown eyes filled with worry.

“I'm gonna sit here a bit,” Cuno said. “I'll be along.”

“I will be back for you.” Straightening and holding Michelle up beside her, Camilla began making her way up the creek bed. “Come, Michelle,” she told the blonde, easing her along, Michelle's bare feet slipping and dragging across the stones. “We must get you warm.”

Cuno dragged himself to the side of the boulder and leaned his back against it, keeping his wounded leg straight out in front of him, the other one bent so that his boot heel rested against the inside of his calf. He looked at the dead brave, and he smiled.

Camilla.

His vision dimmed, and he rested his head back against the boulder, nudging his hat low on his forehead.

Someone jerked his shoulder, and he opened his eyes. Camilla crouched on her haunches before him. Behind her, the orange sun was falling behind the trees.

She gave a relieved sigh, narrowing her eyes slightly. “I thought you were dead.”

“I'll be all right. You got the blood stopped.” Cuno leaned forward and grabbed the girl's arm, pulling her toward him. “Just help me back to the wagon.”

With the girl's help, he climbed to his feet and wrapped his arm around her neck, leaning against her as she guided him across the stones, heading toward the fire flashing orange through the darkening trees.

Breathing through his teeth and trying to distract himself from the pain in his torn leg, he looked at Camilla, her long hair tickling his cheek. “Don't think I caught your last name.”

“Be quiet. Save your strength, crazy gringo boy.” Camilla chuffed and shook her head as she held him close about the waist. “Cordova.”

“Camilla Cordova. Has a nice ring to it.”

“Shh.”

They angled across the creek bed and into the soggy, smoky woods. As they approached the fire, Cuno cast a reluctant gaze toward the two trees where Serenity had been staked. There were only the two leather thongs that had held his wrists, dangling against the damp tree trunks.

Looking around, he saw a blanketed form on the ground near the wagon's front wheel. A tuft of thin, silver hair blew around the top of the blanketed bundle in the breeze. Cuno stopped as a wave of grief welled up through his pain and weakness, and a large, dry knot grew in his throat.

“I am sorry,” Camilla said, looking up at Cuno from under his arm.

Cuno blinked back tears, cleared his throat. “Serenity . . .” He shook his head, ground his jaws with renewed fury at Leaping Wolf's blind vengeance. “He didn't deserve to die like that.”

Michelle Trent and Margaret Lassiter lay side by side by the fire, curled up under several heavy blankets and buffalo robes. Neither girl moved. Michelle didn't appear to be trembling anymore. She and Margaret had drifted into deep slumbers, thoroughly spent. A bloodstained leg of Margaret's doll protruded from an edge of a robe.

Karl and Jack Lassiter were carting one of the dead Indians out of the camp, both boys' faces set grimly as they each took an ankle and dragged the corpse down canyon, away from the mules and horses.

“You sit here,” Camilla said as Cuno leaned back on his hands, his legs hanging over the edge of the tailgate. “I will get some whiskey and clean those wou—”

“Hello the camp!”

Cuno palmed his .45 instantly, rocking back the hammer.

At the same time, Camilla plucked her own revolver from her coat pocket and swung around, cocking her Schofield with both thumbs and holding it out in front of her.

Cuno's pulse quickened once again as he watched a horseback rider move out from behind the escarpment west of the camp and ride toward the wagon. The man held a rifle up against his bearded cheek, reins trailing down and away from the receiver. The nubs of his cheeks were blood-smeared.

He came on slow, the white-stockinged dun loose-kneed and blowing, as though it had been ridden hard.

“You should have killed him,” Camilla said tightly.

“Drop them irons,” Sheriff Mason ordered as he drew to a halt about ten yards from the wagon.

Cuno grimaced at another pain spasm shooting up and down his leg. He continued to hold his .45 straight out in front of him, his hand trembling from weakness, but he glanced at Camilla beside him.

“Do as he says.”

Camilla frowned at him indignantly.

“Do it.”

The girl returned her gaze to Mason sitting his saddle before them, staring down the barrel of his Winchester saddle-ring carbine. The vapor from his breath puffed around his face silhouetted against the colorful western sky behind him.

Camilla depressed the Schofield's hammer and flung the gun away angrily.

“You, too, freighter,” Mason said, holding the rifle steady on Cuno.

“On one condition.”

Mason was silent—a dark figure against a branding-iron sky.

“You get her and these kids to the fort,” Cuno said.

Mason stared at him, his eyes two faintly glistening circles above the Winchester's receiver and cocked hammer. The man lifted his head away from the rifle and, keeping the gun trained on Cuno, swung slowly down from the saddle.

Dropping the horse's reins, Mason walked toward the wagon, extending the rifle in one hand. His spurs chinged. Wooly chaps flapped against his legs.

“You got a deal,” the sheriff growled. “But I'll be takin' you in, too . . . under arrest for the dead lawmen and the rifles.”

Camilla sucked a sharp breath and turned to Cuno.

Cuno returned her look. He tried to smile reassuringly, but as nausea swept through him and gauzy darkness closed down around him from within, he wasn't sure he'd gotten his lips to move.

He could feel cold blood trickling down from the nicks and cuts on his cheeks.

Turning back to Mason, who stood four feet away from him, he depressed his Colt's hammer and flipped the gun straight up in the air. He caught it by the barrel and thrust it out before him, grips first.

“Fair enough.”

Peter Brandvold
was born and raised in North Da kota. He currently resides in Colorado. His website is
www.peterbrandvold.com
. You can drop him an e-mail at [email protected].