Shadow River (6 page)

“And here we are, hombres,” Burke chuckled quietly to the other men. He tapped his horse forward at a walk, then jerked it to a halt as the long squall of a panther resounded from somewhere far inside the ruins' vine-clad walls.

“Easy, now,” Sam whispered to his horses, feeling the dun tense up beneath him, the white barb draw back on its lead rope. The men sat tense and silent.

“There's a panther living in here,” Sam said.

“Yeah, she's the one I told you et up Mick Galla,” Burke put in.

“We'll just keep watch for her,” Sam said, nudging the dun forward, pulling the white alongside him.

The men eased their wary horses forward as another squall resounded out and down from the hillside. The sound was far enough away to not cause alarm, yet, having seen firsthand what the big she-cat could do, Sam decided to steer clear of it.

The men followed Sam as they wound around inside the ruins and reached a wide area surrounded by a ten-foot stone wall. As they stopped their horses and stepped down from their saddles for the night, the panther let out another cry.

“That ol' pussy sounds hurt to me,” Burke said. “Whatever's got her so cross, I hope she don't come blaming us for it.”

Sam listened as he led his horses over to a young ironwood growing flat and misshapen against the stone wall and hitched them to it.

“I'm going to see what's ailing her,” he said.

“You're going to
what
?”
said Burke incredulously.

“You heard me,” Sam said. “Do you want to sleep with an injured cat prowling around all night?” He dropped the saddle from the dun, stepped over and pulled the pack off the white barb.

“Well, hell, you're right,” Burke said with a deep sigh. He paused, then said, “If you're loco
enough to go looking for a hurt panther in the dark of night, I expect I'm loco enough to go with you.”

“Stay here and get yourself some rest,” Sam said. “I shouldn't need any help.”

“Huh-uh, I'm going,” said Burke. “You're the only one knows where that gold is buried. I ain't going through all this and have you et by a cat the way Mick Galla was—leastwise, not until we've got our hands on that gold.”

Sam shook his head, but he waited until Burke dropped his saddle and slid his rifle from its boot. Turning to Black, Sam said quietly, “We're going to see about the panther, find out if she's dangerous to us. We can't have her spooking the horses all night.”

“She sounds hurt,” Black replied. “I'll build us a fire down out of sight. You'll have coffee waiting when you get back.”

“Obliged,” Sam said. “We won't be long.”

Sam and Burke climbed up over a vine-draped stone wall and struck out uphill in the direction from which they'd heard the panther's pained wailing. Scaling the stony hillside like two dark insurgents reconnoitering some greater plane, they pulled themselves up and over boulder, stone terrace, wall and earthed embankment. A half hour later they stood on what had likely been an ancient marketplace, complete with an overgrown stone-tiled floor and a long stone bench that had served as a public privy above a deep brush-covered ditch.

“This is where we left Mick Galla, after the cat et him up,” Burke said in a lowered tone, looking all around, recognizing the vine-draped wall and the remainders of weathered-out stone columns.

“Yes, it is,” Sam said. He gestured upward along an earth- and vine-covered stone wall. “Her lair is right over that wall.”

“At least we know she's not there tonight,” said Burke, moving forward, searching as he went for the body of the ill-fated gunman, Mickey Galla, in the pale moonlight.

Before going three yards farther, Burke stopped short and stared down at the ground beside what was once a stone bench.

“Good God, there he is,” he said. “Or what's left of him,” he threw in as Sam walked over and stood beside him.

On the ground in the moonlight lay scraps of trousers, a brass belt buckle and a human skull lying on its cheekbone. Ragged patches of hair still clung to blackened skin atop the head. Beetles crawled freely in and out of the open eye sockets.

Burke shook his head.

“You figure she et him the rest of the way up?” he said, unable to take his eyes off Galla's skull. Sam saw other bones scattered here and there, including part of a rib cage a few feet away.

“She probably had her turn with him,” Sam said.

“Damn it, I wish we'd buried him,” Burke said, also looking around now at Galla's other bones and remnants. “Although, I'll be the first to say, we had no shovel with us.” He shrugged down at the skull as if explaining himself. “It don't seem right, feeding ol' Mick to the very cat who killed him. She probably brought her cubs down, just had themselves a big ol' time—”

Sam cut him off.

“Put it out of your mind, Clyde,” Sam said, seeing Burke going further and further with the matter. “The panther and her cubs are not the only thing that dined on the dearly departed.” He boot-toed a black-gray feather lying on the ground. “There's been buzzards, rodents, rollbacks and now rock beetles—ants next, if not already.”

Burke winced at the picture Sam painted while beetles roamed the skull on the ground.

“I know it's true,” he said. “But I don't like seeing it, close up.”

“Neither do I,” Sam said, already stepping away. “But it's a hungry world. Everything takes its turn at the table.”

“Jesus,” said Burke. “Mick was strong and tough as a Canadian grizzly. Look at him now.” He blew out a breath and tore himself away from staring at the bones and skull of the strong, tough man he'd watched fistfight the she-panther there a month earlier. “It just goes to show you . . . ,” he added, moving along with Sam.

“Goes to show you what?” Sam asked.

“Hell, I don't know,” said Burke. “A lot of things, I guess.”

They walked through the lower ruins and back onto another stone-laden hillside. After climbing another fifteen minutes, they stood up in the full moonlight onto a walled and leveled spot that was strewn with jagged stone that appeared to have been spat from the sky over time. Upon appraisal of the level area, its character suggested that it might once have been a parade field or some ancient sports arena.

“Um-hum,
just what I thought,” Burke said, staring across the stony echelon toward the far wall and beyond it to the more upslope hillside. “We'll be climbing rock all night. And I'll tell you something else,” he added. “I've already gone farther than I wanted to. If that ol' cat's on the move, she could drag us along for miles—”

“Shhh,”
Sam said, holding up a hand to quiet him as he listened toward something beyond the far wall. They listened as the panther cried out, her voice sounding closer, but weaker in the moonlit night.

“She's no threat to us anymore,” Burke whispered. “Let's go on back.”

“Wait,” Sam said. “There's something else. Hear it?” He listened more intently. Burke attempted to close in on the sound beside him. From the same direction as the cat's cry came the low indistinguishable mutter of voices and laughter.

“Oh, hell,” Burke whispered, the two crouching instinctively, their rifles coming up ready in their hands. They listened even more intently for a moment. Finally Burke whispered, “I can't make it out. Is that 'pache or English?”

“I don't know,” Sam whispered, easing forward. “But we'd better slip in closer and find out.”

“Wait!” said Burke. He grabbed Sam's arm, stopping him. “If that's 'pache camping the other side of that wall, I'm nearer than I want to be already. Slipping closer does not sound all that rewarding.”

Sam gestured a nod back in the direction of the other three men camped unsuspectingly inside the ruins.

“Any least sound from back there and we're going to have a fight on our hands,” Sam said. “We need to know how many we're looking at before we go back and tell the others.”

“Bad as this sounds,” said Burke, “I'd sooner we slip off into these ruins and wait till everybody's smoke settles. We can get out of here then with a full head of hair and go on and get the gold for ourselves.”

“I don't leave anybody behind to die if I can keep from it,” Sam said, shaking his forearm free from Burke's hand.

“Damn it, Jones,” Burke whispered. “When did you become such a do-gooder? There's not a son of a bitch back there thinks he's going to live forever. Let's find a cave and go deep—save our own skins and pick through what's left come morning.”

“Do what suits you, Clyde,” Sam whispered, gesturing toward the deeper ruins. “But get out of here as quiet as you can. I'm going on like I said.”

Burke hesitated and watched as Sam moved forward toward the far wall.

“Damn it, Jones,” he cursed under his breath, finally hurrying forward and moving along beside Sam. “I'm nothing but a damn fool when it comes to gold. If I have to keep you alive, I expect I will. You had no right heaping guilt on me that way. I'd hate to die saving somebody just as ornery as I am.”

“I'm not planning on dying,” Sam said sidelong to him. “And I didn't heap anything on you.” He stared straight ahead at the dark far wall. “We're going in and out of there as quiet as ghosts.” He paused, then added, “You're going to be glad you did it, once it's done.”

“Ha.
That's real funny, Jones,” Burke said in a critical tone, moving along quietly beside him.

They crept across the rocky field until they hugged against a pile of collapsed stone at the bottom of the overgrown wall and listened to the sounds from the other side. In the last few yards, they had seen the slightest glow of a firelight wavering from the other side. The quiet voices they heard in the night were not Apache; they were Spanish. Through the voices they heard the constant low whine and growl of the cat. The sound was that of an animal that had spent itself threatening and resisting, and was now exhausted from its efforts.

“Mexicans. We can go back now,” said Burke in a whisper, sounding relieved by their discovery. He shoved his hat up and looked at Sam in the moonlight as the she-cat groaned in pain. “They've most likely wounded that ol' gal and are just watching her die for the hell of it. Mexicans are good for that sort of thing.”

“It might be
federale
s,” Sam whispered in reply.

“So?” Burke whispered. “
Federales
are still Mexicans.” He stared at Sam. “They still love to torture a cat.”

“They'll be no different than Apache if they catch us here,” Sam said.

“Then let's get out of here, like I said,” Burke said.

“We will,” said Sam. “As soon as I see how many there are over there.”

“How are you going to find out without tipping our hand?” Burke whispered, getting a little put out.

Sam gestured up at the top edge of the wall as he handed Burke his rifle.

“Here, hold this, I'm going up,” he said.

Burke took the rifle Sam thrust to him and looked through a stand of brush and dry tangled vines hanging from the wall.

“No, wait! That's crazy,” he said. But it was too late. Sam had already darted up a rock pile and huddled back down out of sight.

“Lord God, he's got us both killed,” Burke whispered to himself. He lay silently, rifle ready, watching as Sam slipped forward again and cloaked himself in the hanging vines.

•   •   •

Sam grabbed two thick vines and tested his weight on them. Finding the vines strong enough, he wasted no time climbing hand over hand until he pulled himself atop the crumbling wall. Like some silent reptilian creature, he burrowed in beneath a thick bed of dried vines lining the wall's upper edge. There he lay perfectly still looking down into the circling firelight below.

On the ground in the outer glow of firelight, he saw a two-wheel mule-killer cart loaded heavily with supplies and ammunition, covered with a ragged trail canvas. Behind the cart stood two brush-scarred mules tied for the night alongside six horses to a drawn rope along the stone wall.

Too much ammo and supplies for only this many men,
he told himself, looking at the six
federales
lounging closely around the campfire. The six men, their dusty tunics opened down the front, passed around a bottle of mescal and made gestures and laughed at the she-panther, who had been stretched out Christ-like between two thick low branches of a twisted hackberry tree. The panther hung there panting, hopelessly bound by ropes, her head lolling on her outstretched shoulder. Sam saw fresh red blood on her exposed chest. Her milk teats hung loose on her belly. Against the tree stood a long crudely whittled lance made from a pine sapling. The sharp tip of the lance was red with blood.

Uh-oh . . .
Not necessarily panther blood, Sam told himself, seeing six young Apache warriors seated across the campsite, a guard standing over them with a rifle at port arms. Moving his eyes along the warriors from face to face, Sam saw dried-over untreated bullet and saber wounds on their chests, heads, arms and bellies. He reminded himself of the fierce battle he and the outlaws had heard on their way up the hill trails. This was the outcome.

Looking closely, he recognized one of the warriors as the prisoner of the three scalp hunters he'd encountered over a month ago on his way to Agua Fría. He'd given the warrior a drink of canteen water; later the warrior had managed to untie himself and get away from his captors. Looking at the bloody, familiar face, Sam saw the warrior turn his eyes ever slightly up and appear to be looking back at him.

Sam started to duck down, but he caught himself and froze in place. The warrior could not have seen him, he told himself. If he had, Sam doubted he would say anything to his Mexican guard. Still, he decided, he'd seen what he'd climbed up here to see. He started inching back out over the edge of the wall. Before dropping down, he saw one of the soldiers walk over drunkenly and pick up the lance from the tree. He poked the point of the makeshift lance into the she-panther's already wounded side. The panther jerked and squalled out weakly, but she could do little else.

“Por favor. Baile para nosotros algún más, la anciana!”
the soldier said to the half-conscious panther. The Apache prisoners looked on stone-faced.

“Por favor, por favor, anciana.”
He poked her again, this time not as hard, but it didn't matter. The
old woman
was not going to dance for him as he'd requested at the end of the sharp lance. The cat was exhausted, maybe dying, Sam told himself. He thought for a second about the she-panther's cubs—cubs he'd never seen, cubs he didn't even know for sure existed, he reminded himself. Then he dropped over the wall into the hanging vines and started to climb down as quietly as he'd ascended them. But he stopped when he heard a short burst of the soldiers' laughter, a weak growl from the tortured cat.

All right, that's enough!

He climbed back up and slipped beneath the tangle of vines. Looking all around from his loose cover, he saw a break in the vines a few yards ahead of him. Below the break, the gourd around the wall lay in blackness outside of the circle of firelight. Silently he inched forward on his belly like a stealthy snake, causing only a slight rise and fall atop the dry layer of vines as he passed beneath them. At the break, he crawled out onto the wall and dropped down onto a sloping pile of broken rock.

He crawled around in the blackness at the bottom edge of the wall until he stopped and watched the soldier lean the lance back against the tree. The soldier shrugged at his friends, walked back over and joined them at the campfire. Sam saw the bottle of mescal make its rounds from man to man.

Wait a minute. This is crazy,
his own voice inside his head told him.
Why are you doing this?
He stopped suddenly in the black darkness and lay as still as stone against the bottom of the wall. He thought about it. This had nothing to do with his job, with why he was here, with what was expected of him. This panther had killed at least one man that he knew of—he'd seen her do it. She would kill him too, if she got a chance. Anyway, she was probably too far gone. Nobody would risk their life doing this!

I know all that,
he replied to himself, dismissing all the questions running back and forth through his mind.
But this will only take a minute. . . .
He cocked his leg at the knee and brought his boot close enough for him to reach back and pull out a big knife in his boot well. As he inched forward again, he froze at one point when he could have sworn the young warrior he'd recognized looked around toward him as he crawled down into a shallow water-cut ditch that ran along the wall behind the hackberry tree.