Apache canyon (13 page)

It mattered little. The house was ringed, on the fringe of timber, by at least twenty Apache guns.

"They're pretty busy," Brady observed.

"I wonder what they decided was all of a sudden so important at Yeager's?"

"No telling," Brady said "Yeager's got some help inside."

"I noticed." Harris was watching the timber-edge around the ranch. "What do you think, Will?"

"I think Yeager's got his hands full."

"It wouldn't do us any good to go charging through the Apache lines and fort up with Yeager. A few more gims wouldn't do him that much good. We can give him more help from back here, if we do it right."

"Silently," Brady said. "If we can pick a few o them off, one at a time—with knives maybe—it ma) give them something to think about. Long enougl for us to make a break and get Yeager out of then with his crowd."

"It's worth a tiy," Harris said. He was starting t( worm back when Brady stopped him. Brady wa< pointing downhill. "Look in the corral. What do yoi: see?"

"Horses. What of it?"

"Look at that big bay. The one with a white stocking on its left forefoot."

"You've got good eyes," Harris murmured. "I can't tell one horse from another at this distance. What's all the mystery?"

"I could swear that's Sutherland's horse," Brady said quietly.

And Harris's eyes came around slowly to his, widening. "My God!" Harris whispered.

Brady nodded soberly. "He had fifteen men with him when he left the fort." He dug his hand in and started pushing himself back oS the exposed rim of the hill. "Come on."

There were yellow glinting pinpoints in Brady's eyes. "All right?" he asked; and Harris nodded, moving away softly through the trees. Brady turned and looked at Tucker. On Tucker's face was a touch of restlessness, a touch of isolation. His bleak eyes reflected a faint bitter light. Tucker looked at Brady, nodded briefly, and swung away. Ripples of light glinted along the blade of the knife in Tucker's hand. Presently he disappeared into the woods to the right. Brady turned to the left and moved ahead.

Over the hill, the talk of guns kept up in unceasing savagery. Now and then came the boom of Yeager's heavier buffalo gun; the long intervals between Yeager's shots proved that Yeager was choosing his targets with care. Brady walked ahead with long paces, circumnavigating the back of the hill slopes until he estimated that he was almost opposite the point from which he and Harris had overlooked the besieged ranch. Here he turned an abrupt right-angle and went straight up the hill, dropping lower as he approached the summit until, going over the top, he was on his belly once more. He stopped at a point of vantage to consider the trees below. When he rubbed his chin, heavy whiskers stung his hand. Temper pushed at his self control--the rattle of guns continued, battering his ears--but he lay flat and carefully regarded the timber immediately ahead before he moved, and when he did, it was with great care.

The wind carried with it the smell of rain and the sharp, raw scent of the wild comitiy. He crept through the forest, bent low enough for his fingers to touch the ground, and presently, like a dog bristling against a faint unfamiliar scent, he halted. A bright shift crossed his features—a surface sign of excitement—and wrinkles converged around his eyes. Ahead, through the trees, his attention had narrowed upon a squatting brown figure, rifle to shoulder.

Brady turned his head from side to side, putting his cool, almost indifferent glance deliberately on the surrounding trees. No one else was in sight. Ahead of him, the Apache's gun roared and the Apache flipped open the trapdoor breechlock to shove a new cartridge into the Springfield. Brady unlimbered his knife and began his stalk, moving from tree to tree. The Apache, keeping his back to Brady, had his attention held intently on the ranch house across the intei-vening open ground. Brady let his body down flat and crawled slowly, keeping the thickness of a pine trunk between him and the -Indian. The Apache fired another shot, again re- t loaded his .45-70 and took aim, waiting apparently for a target. Brady took his eyes deliberately off the ' Apache's back and again swept the surrounding : thickets, still seeing nothing; he lifted the knife and ' dug in his toes. From a distance of only ten feet, he made his run.

The Apache heard him, but not in time. Brady locked his arm about the man's tlnoat and without hesitation plunged the knife cleanly between the ribs.

The Apache sighed. Breath bubbled in his chest; his back arched with incredible power, all but breaking Brady's hold; then the body went slack, and Brady let it to earth slowly, pulling the knife out and wiping it clean on the ground. The Apache's torso jerked, but a moment's close inspection satisfied Brady that he was dead.

Brady coolly picked up the Indian's loaded rifle, cocked the big hammer, and took aim on a ringlet of rising gunsmoke that was a quarter-way around the circle of trees. When that Indian gun fired again, he had his target, and fired. The big .45-70 recoiled against his shoulder-and he saw a half-naked figure fall plunging out of the trees.

Brady rammed the carbine muzzle-first into the ground, thus blocking the barrel with mud and making the gun a death-trap for any passing Indian who might pick it up and try to shoot it. Then he laid the gun down beside the dead Apache and moved off silently through the shadowed timber.

His face was turned harsh and raw by the violence he was embroiled in. Threading the trees, he caught sight of another kneeling figure firing upon the ranch house; he again dropped flat and again wormed forward.

But this Indian was not so easily to be caught from behind. At irregular intervals the Apache's head turned while he watched the roundabout trees with care. Brady froze, flat against the earth. When the Indian took aim on the house again, he moved quickly forward, halting again when the Apache had fired and reloaded and turned to inspect the trees.

Brady placed himself behind a tree and gauged the distance between him and the Indian, and reversed the knife in his hand, balancing it, holding it by the tip. The Indian bent over his rifle, taking aim on the house; and Brady's arm went back, grew taut, and flung the knife with full power.

It sank hilt-deep in the back of the Indian's neck. Brady's flesh broke out in sudden cold sweat; his arm was msty and it was, he knew now, through luck only that he had struck the Indian. He had aimed for the back, not the neck. Breath oozed through his nostrils.

He scuttled forward and knelt, regarding the Apache. The man's loose, blind expression was plain enough evidence that he was dead. When Brady removed his knife, he put his back to the dead man and surveyed the circle of timber, the long meadow, the defiant fortress that was Yeager's house.

And it suddenly occurred to him that there was a difference in the hard-clattering sound of the day. The volume of fire from the Indian positions had decreased sharply.

It took little wondering to figure out the reason for it. He himself had accounted for three of the Apaches. If Harris and Tucker had done half as well, the Indian's force would have been reduced by a fourth or a third. Brady's lip corners turned down in a passionate display of bitterness. He was sick-physically sick-of killing, of death. He stared bleakly through the trees, and it came to him that the rate of fire from he timber-circle was continuing to decrease. It was impossible to befieve that Harris and Tucker were accounting for it. Then, suddenly, the woods were quiet.

The riflemen within the house realized it, too; losing their targets, they quit firing. A sti'ange, eerie silence blanketed the valley. Brady nodded grimly. The Apaches, aware that something had gone wrong, had fallen back to reassemble and hold council.

Acrid fumes of sulphur instated his nostrils. The smell of gunsmoke was thick. A commotion broke out of the trees across the valley, and a moment's consideration told Brady that it was Harris, mounted and leading the other horses at breakneck speed into Yeager's corrals.

When Hanis's run drew no fire, Brady left the woods and dogtrotted across the meadow, waving his hat in signal to those within the house.

Coming out onto the porch, standing aside from the door, Yeager ran his hand down his back length of beard and said, "I guess you gents must be the reason why those bucks lit out."

Brady followed Harris up to the house. "They haven't gone far," Brady said, "They'll be back pretty soon."

Yeager shmgged his big shoulders. "Let 'em. I can hold them off all summer if they want to tiy me. There's a well inside the house and I've got plenty of grub stored up. Plenty of gunpowder, too."

"All it will take," Brady said mildly, "is a couple of kerosene-soaked fire-arrows landing on your roof." "I thought of that," Yeager repHed. "They can't get close enough to the house to shoot fire arrows. It's all open land-and I can cut them down before they get within bow-and-arrow range." "At night?"

"Most likely," Yeager said complacently. His supreme self-confidence was irritating.

Throughout this exchange, Harris had been surveying the hills with a troubled glance. "I wonder where Tucker is? Do you suppose anything happened to him?

"Give him a little time," Brady said. "If he doesn't show up, I'll go looking for him."

"All right," Harris said, still troubled. He turned toward Yeager. "Who's inside the house, Yeager?"

"Couple of your soldier boys, and my family."

"Is Captain Sutherland in there?"

"I am." Sutherland came through the door, limping very slightly. A rifle hung in his hand. His round face was streaked with dirt and sweat; his uniform was torn and filthy. He favored Harris with a mocking salute and came to a stand wearily, feet braced wide apart, his lip curled a little.

Harris looked at him with a bit of awe. "Where are the rest of your men, Sutherland?"

That was when Pete Rubio came out onto the porch. Rubio had a little difficulty moving; his arm was bandaged tightly, hung in a sling across his chest. He too grasped a rifle.

"I'm the rest of his men, Captain," Rubio said.

Sutherland spoke with tight stiffness: "We were ambushed by a superior force and cut to pieces."

"Where?" Harris demanded.

"Rifle Gap."

Without hesitation, Harris turned his glance on Pete Rubio. "Is he telling the truth, Rubio?"

"Pait of it," Rubio drawled. When he looked at Sutherland there was ill-concealed hatred in his eyes. "It wasn't in Rifle Gap, it was beyond Rifle Gap. And we wouldn't have been ambushed if the captain here hadn't decided he knew more about Indian fighting than Indians do." Rubio spat a dark bitter stream upon the porch.

Sutherland glared at him, not speaking.

"So you made a break for it," Brady said, 'and the Apaches chased you this far."

Rubio nodded, spitting again. "We couldn t shake them loose. They kept picking us off-we traveled all night, taking the wounded with us. What you see standing here is all that's left." Dry malice filled his eyes when he looked at Sutherland.

"I see," Harris said quietly. He was plainly shocked. Brady felt the bitter sting in his belly of unwilling belief. "This washes you up, Sutherland," he said, turning away. "I'm going up to look for Emmett Tucker."

"Good luck," Harris breathed. Walking away, Brady heard Harris say, "You can consider yourself under arrest. Captain."

Brady mounted his horse and swung away from the yard. In his mind lifted a dismal anger against the sour irony that had allowed Sutherland, who had killed his command as surely as if he'd taken a gun to them, make good his escape.

Tracks of pain streaked Tucker's eyes. He lay sprawled on the ground with the shaft of an arrow rising from his side. His lips were pale.

Brady got down and went to him, carrying a canteen, whipping out his kerchief. He soaked the cloth and put it to Tucker's mouth. Tucker looked up with silent gratitude.

Brady considered the wound. "The arrowhead's caught between a couple of ribs," he said. "That makes you lucky-the ribs kept it from going in deeper." After a further moment's self-deb ate, he said, "Listen to me, Emmett."

Tucker didn't blink. Brady swept the roundabout timber witli a quick sui-vey and said, "I can t move you until we get that arrow out. Otherwise it might work its way into your lung. You understand me?"

Tucker grinned tightly. "Go ahead," he said in a hoarse croak. "Pull it. Will."

"It will be rough."

Tucker's head moved in a slight nod. "Got a spare bullet?"

Brady punched a cartridge out of his belt-loop and put it gently into Tucker's mouth. Tucker worked it around with his tongue until it sat crosswise between his teeth.

Brady said, "All right?"

Tucker repeated his nod.

Bracing his knee against Tucker's ribs, Brady took firm hold with both hands on the arrow shaft. Tucker's eyes remained open, staring with combined interest and pain at the operation.

His voice, muffled around the bullet, croaked impatiently: "Come on—come on."

"Yeah," Brady grunted, and yanked.

Tucker made no sound at all. Brady regained his balance, holding the bloody arrow, and had the impression that Tucker hadn't even bhnked. But sweat stood out on Tucker's forehead. Blood welled from the wound; Brady took the soaked kerchief and pressed it against the flesh.

"Hold this in place—tight as you can."

Tucker's hand came up and pressed the kerchief down. Slowly it turned dark. Tucker's mouth opened a Uttle and the bullet fell out'. When Brady picked it up, he saw that Tucker had almost bitten it in two. He grinned at Tucker and tossed the bullet away. "A piece of luck," he said. "I was afraid for a minute that the arrowhead might stay in. We'd have sure been in trouble if that happened." "What now?"

"You're going for a little ride. Down to Yeager's. No telling how soon those Apaches will be back." "I'm game," Tucker said. "Take it easy, that's all." "Easy as we can," Brady replied. "Keep that compress held tight. When we get down the mountain, we'll bandage you up properly."

"Sounds good," Tucker muttered, grunting and grimacing while Brady helped him to his feet. "I hope to hell Yeager's got some whisky." "All set?" "Let's go."