Authors: J.A. Johnstone

The Loner: Inferno #12 (7 page)

BOOK: The Loner: Inferno #12

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Chapter 10

Instinct sent The Kid’s hand flashing toward his own Colt. Harwood might be a fine scout, but he was no fast gun. The Kid could have drawn and fired a couple of times before Harwood cleared leather.

But that didn’t happen. Horace Dunlap moved up fast behind Harwood, swiftly thudding a revolver against the back of his head. Harwood’s hand opened, releasing his gun as he toppled forward.

The Kid’s gun was leveled, but his finger wasn’t on the trigger. Dunlap said, “You can pouch that iron now, Kid. I’m much obliged to you for not killin’ him.”

“I wasn’t going to kill him, but I might’ve had to break his arm with a bullet,” The Kid said. “I’m glad I didn’t.” He slid his Colt back into leather as he looked down at Harwood. The scout was out cold.

Milo Farnum came up and scooped Harwood’s gun from the ground. “I’ll hang on to this for a while. Just to make sure everybody’s cooled off.”

“That’s a good idea, Milo.” Dunlap turned to face the crowd and raised his voice as he went on. “You folks go on about your business. All the excitement’s over.”

A grim-faced Jessica climbed down from the wagon and went over to kneel beside the unconscious Harwood. She put a hand on his head where Dunlap had hit him.

“He’ll be all right,” the wagonmaster said. “I didn’t wallop him that hard. Reckon he’ll have a headache when he wakes up, but that’s all.”

She shook her head and murmured, “No, that’s not all. He’ll have a broken heart, too.”

“Ain’t nothin’ I can do about that, ma’am.”

“No, it’s too late. There’s nothing anybody can do.”

The Kid turned away and walked toward his horse, leaving Jessica kneeling beside Harwood. Dunlap and Farnum followed him.

When they reached the dun, the wagonmaster said, “Maybe it ain’t none of my business, but if you want to tell me what just happened, Kid, I’m listenin’.”

“And if I don’t want to tell you?” The Kid asked.

“Then I’d be obliged if you did anyway,” Dunlap said, his voice hardening. “I signed on to bring these folks out here. They’re my responsibility.”

The Kid shook his head. “Not anymore they’re not. They’re here. This is Raincrow Valley. You did your job.”

Dunlap rubbed his jaw for a second and shrugged. “Reckon you’re right about that ... but I still feel like I got a duty to look after ’em. There’s been some talk about, well, about makin’ me the mayor of these parts, if you want to call it that. There’s no town yet, but maybe there will be, one of these days.”

“And Scott’s our friend,” Farnum added. “We want to know what happened to start this.”

“Fine,” The Kid said. “Mrs. Ritter decided she doesn’t want to marry him anymore. He blamed me for that.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Because he saw her kissing me.”

Dunlap and Farnum glanced at each other, then both gave him hard looks.

“You say
she
was kissin’
you
?” Dunlap asked.

“That’s the way it was,” The Kid replied curtly.

Dunlap sighed and nodded. “I suppose I can believe that. I ain’t known Mrs. Ritter all that long, but she strikes me as a gal who usually does just about whatever she wants to.”

Farnum regarded The Kid suspiciously. “You didn’t do anything to put the idea in her head?”

“No, I didn’t,” The Kid said. “And you can believe me or not. I really don’t give a damn.”

“I reckon I believe you,” Dunlap said with another sigh. “But no matter who’s to blame for it, this here’s a mess, and we got to do somethin’ about it.”

“I intend to.” The Kid picked up his saddle blanket and threw it over the dun’s back, smoothing the coarse fabric.

“Hold on there,” Dunlap exclaimed. “What’re you doin’?”

“Getting ready to ride out.” The Kid thought it was obvious what he was doing. He shouldn’t have to explain it.

“Tonight?”

“I think that would be a good idea.”

Dunlap snatched his hat off and pawed at his thinning hair in his habitual gesture when he was upset about something. “There ain’t no need to do that. Just steer clear of Scott and Mrs. Ritter. Maybe they’ll work things out between ’em and maybe they won’t, but we’ll give ’em a chance to.”

“This isn’t that big a camp,” The Kid said as he lifted his saddle and placed it on the dun’s back. “There’s too much of a chance I’d run into one or the other of them, and if that happens, Harwood’s liable to try gunning me again. I told you, I don’t want to hurt him.”

“But you can’t travel at night,” Dunlap protested.

“I don’t see why not.” The Kid fastened the saddle cinches. “This is a big valley. I can make camp on my own a few miles away, where there’s no chance of more trouble with Harwood. I was going to be riding on in a day or two, anyway. I’ll find somewhere else, maybe lay up for a week or two to let my horse rest. What’s north of this valley, anyway?”

“More mountains,” Dunlap replied. “Get over them and there’s a basin with some ranches and a little settlement called San Blanco.”

The Kid nodded.

“That’s where I’ll head, then.”

“Dadgum it!” Dunlap slapped his hat back on his head. “At least let me round up some supplies for you. We got plenty of food. We can spare enough to get you to that town. Shoot, that’s the least we can do for you.”

The Kid wasn’t sure why everybody felt so grateful to him when he hadn’t really done anything to help these pilgrims. But some extra provisions would make his journey easier, so he nodded. “All right. Thanks.”

“Come on, Milo. We’ll get those supplies.”

Farnum shook his head. “You can handle that,” he told Dunlap. “I’m gonna stay here, just to make sure there’s no more trouble.”

“There won’t be,” The Kid said.

“You can’t be sure about that. Depends on how soon Scott wakes up.”

The Kid supposed Farnum had a point. “Suit yourself.”

After Dunlap had hurried off, Farnum went on, “Scott ain’t a bad hombre, you know.”

“I never said he was.”

“He’s a pretty close-mouthed cuss most of the time, and he ain’t what you’d call friendly to most folks. But he really cares about that woman. Mrs. Ritter.”

“I don’t doubt it,” The Kid said. “Any problems they have are between them, though. I don’t have anything to do with it.”

“I got a hunch you’re right.” Farnum nodded. “I’ve seen the way she looks at you when she thinks nobody’s watchin’. I didn’t know her when her husband was over there in Arizona with Crook, but Scott’s told me enough I figure she was really devoted to him. Must’ve hit her mighty hard when he died. Scott said he figured she’d never want anything to do with another man after that, but he got it in his head he was gonna see if she’d warm up to him anyway. Well, she did, after so long a time. But now maybe she figures she made a mistake.”

That was the longest speech The Kid had heard Farnum make.

“I hope they work it out. I don’t wish trouble on anybody.”

“That’s sort of an odd way for a gunfighter to feel, ain’t it?”

“Not when that gunfighter just wants to be left alone.”

Dunlap walked up a moment later carrying a canvas sack that bulged with food and supplies.

“There you go, Kid,” he said as he held it out. “With our thanks.”

“I’m the one who ought to be thanking you.” The Kid took the sack and tied it to his saddle. Then he extended his hand to Dunlap. “Good luck to you.”

The wagonmaster gripped his hand hard. “The same to you, Kid.”

The Kid hesitated, then asked, “Did you happen to see whether Harwood regained consciousness yet?”

Dunlap nodded. “Yeah, he was sittin’ and talkin’ with Mrs. Ritter. I didn’t disturb ’em, and nobody else is, either.”

“Good. I hope it all works out.”

The Kid shook hands with Farnum as well, then swung up into the saddle. “Enjoy your lives here in Raincrow Valley.” He touched his fingers to the brim of his hat in a salute and turned the dun to ride out of the circle of wagons.

Full night had fallen, but once The Kid was away from the campfires and his eyes had adjusted, the millions of stars in the ebony sky overhead provided enough light for him to see where he was going. He followed the creek, figuring that would be the easiest route to the northern part of the valley where he intended to spend the night.

It likely would take him a few days to get out of the valley and cross that mountain range Dunlap had mentioned. He and the dun would be worn out by the time they reached the basin on the other side. He was already looking forward to finding the settlement and taking it easy for a few days.

A half moon rose in the east and scattered more silvery light across the valley. The creek’s meandering course quickly took The Kid out of sight of the wagon train camp, and when he looked back, he could no longer see the fires.

He rode until he thought he was four or five miles north of the camp. When he came upon a pine-dotted knoll overlooking the creek, he decided it would make a decent place to stop for the night. He rode up the slope and found that the top of the knoll was fairly level. It would do to spread his bedroll, and there was enough grass to keep the dun happy.

The Kid dismounted, unsaddled, and picketed the horse, then delved into the bag of supplies Dunlap had given him. He found some biscuits that felt fresh and a hunk of salt pork. Starting a fire and brewing some coffee seemed like too much trouble. He would make a cold camp for the night, then have coffee in the morning. He sat on a fallen pine to eat, washing down the food with water from his canteen.

When he was finished with his meal, he piled up some pine boughs, spread his blankets on top of them, took off his boots, and stretched out with his gunbelt coiled on the ground beside him. His head rested on his saddle.

It would be chilly before morning, he thought as he looked up at the stars. In fact, most of the day’s warmth had already faded away, and those stars with their silvery glitter had a distinctly cold look about them.

That was because the stars didn’t give a damn, The Kid mused. They sat up there looking down on the earth, and the petty trials and tribulations of the puny humans who lived here were utterly meaningless to them.

It didn’t pay to think too much about things like that, The Kid told himself. If a man realized how tiny and insignificant he was in the universe’s grand scheme of things, he might be too overwhelmed to go on.

With that thought in his head, he rolled onto his side and closed his eyes to go to sleep.

He hadn’t been in that position for more than a second or two when he heard gunfire in the distance.

The Kid stiffened, then flung his bedroll aside and reached for the revolver lying next to him. With the Colt in his hand, he got to his feet and walked over to the edge of the knoll. His pulse hammered in his head as he stared to the south, toward the wagon camp, but it wasn’t loud enough to drown out the sound of the shots that drifted through the night air.

The gunfire wasn’t the only thing that alarmed him. As he looked in that direction, he saw an orange glow climbing into the sky, faint at first, then growing stronger with every passing second. Something was burning down there, and the flames were big enough to light up the heavens.

The Kid turned sharply and started toward his horse. He might not be able to get there in time to help the immigrants, but he had to try.

He had taken only a step when a dark shape suddenly flung itself out of the shadows under the pines and lunged at him as a savage war cry split the air.

Chapter 11

The Apache never had a chance. The Kid’s gun was already in his hand, and it roared twice in less than a heartbeat, slamming a pair of slugs into the attacker’s chest.

The bullets stopped the Apache like running into a wall. He crumpled, probably dead when he hit the ground.

He wasn’t alone, though. A Winchester cracked, spitting flame and leaden death into the night. The Kid felt as much as heard the rifle bullet hum hotly past his ear. He triggered a shot at the muzzle flash as he went down in a rolling dive.

His brain was working automatically, trying to figure out how many Indians he faced and where they were. He heard a sharp, angry neigh from the dun, so he knew one of the Apaches was over by the horse.

As The Kid came up on one knee with the Colt leveled, he spotted a figure in the moonlight, trying to get around the dun. The Kid fired and sent the man spinning off his feet.

Rapid footsteps sounded behind him. The Kid whirled as he came up, but the Apache was too close. He crashed into The Kid in a flying tackle, and both of them went down.

The Kid expected to feel the bite of cold steel at any second. He kicked loose as the Apache grappled with him. The man lunged after him, and moonlight glinted on a knife blade. Steel rang on steel as The Kid blocked the thrust with the barrel of his Colt.

He sank a knee in the Apache’s groin, making the man grunt in pain. The knife slashed at him again. The Kid ducked desperately as the blade went over his head. He grabbed the Apache’s wrist, clamping the fingers of his left hand around it to hold the knife off.

With his right hand, he shoved the revolver’s barrel under the man’s chin and pulled the trigger.

Flesh muffled the boom as the shot blew the Apache’s head apart. The man fell back dead. The Kid plucked the knife from his fingers and rolled away from the corpse.

He had just fired the last round in the Colt’s cylinder. Extra cartridges were in his pocket, but the knife would have to do until he could reload.

As he knelt there with the empty gun in one hand and the knife in the other, listening to the pounding beat of his pulse inside his head, he looked around the clearing where he’d made his camp and didn’t see anyone else. The dun still moved around skittishly, but that was due to the smells of powdersmoke and death that hung in the air.

The Kid’s instincts told him his enemies were dead. He trusted those instincts, but he wanted confirmation. He stood up, slipped the knife behind his belt, and reached into his pocket for those extra shells. It took only a moment to thumb them into the cylinder.

With the gun ready, he checked the three bodies. The Apaches were all dead, just as he’d suspected.

With that grim chore out of the way, he quickly holstered the Colt, strapped the gunbelt around his hips, and pulled on his boots. He got the saddle on the dun as fast as he could.

He hadn’t forgotten the sounds of battle he had heard coming from the south, or the glow of flames lighting up the sky.

He tried to concentrate on the task at hand, but a part of his brain still listened to the shots. They were dwindling, fewer and fewer of them, and The Kid knew that was probably bad. He tried to tell himself that the Apaches had given up their attack on the wagon camp and retreated ...

But the orange glow of the fire told a different story.

“The bastards,” he muttered under his breath as he tightened the saddle cinches. “The cruel bastards.”

The Apaches must have been watching the wagon train for the past couple of days, he thought. They were probably curious and wanted to see where the immigrants were going. Once it was obvious they planned to settle in Raincrow Valley, the Apaches had moved in to snatch away their chance for happiness, and most likely their lives as well.

The raiders had been lurking out there in the darkness, watching the camp, and they had seen The Kid ride away. They had sent three men after him, no doubt thinking that was plenty to slaughter one lone white man.

Those three had found out just how wrong that was.

The Kid couldn’t take any pleasure in that. As soon as everything was ready, he put his foot in the stirrup and swung up into the saddle. Leaving the dead warriors where they had fallen, he rode down the hill to the creek and started south. He pushed the dun as fast as he dared in the darkness.

From time to time he stopped to listen. When he didn’t hear any more shots, a feeling of rage filled him. Fate had conspired to keep him away from the settlers on the very night they could have most used his help.

The orange glare in the sky brightened, then began to fade. The fires were dying down, The Kid knew. It was just like the attack on the Conestoga, only on a much larger scale. He dreaded the sight of the devastation that awaited him.

But not for a second did he consider turning back. He had ridden out of that village several days earlier when violence was about to erupt, and that decision had nagged at him. The circumstances tonight were much different—he hadn’t had any idea the Apaches were about to attack the camp—but he wasn’t going to turn away again.

He slowed down as he approached the camp. Fires still burned here and there, but most of the wagons had already been consumed. Bodies, human and animal alike, littered the ground thickly. All the oxen had been slaughtered, but as far as The Kid could tell, the Apaches had taken some of the horses with them. They could trade those horses below the border, maybe, or kill them and eat them on the way back to Mexico.

A bitter taste filled The Kid’s mouth as he rode up to the camp and saw the sprawled corpses. Men, women, even children ... no one had been spared.

He dismounted and started through the camp on foot, searching for survivors. Horace Dunlap’s body lay just inside the circle of charred wagons. The wagonmaster still clutched a gun in his hand. He had been shot to pieces, riddled with at least a dozen bullets.

The Kid would have been willing to bet that Dunlap had taken some of the attackers with him, though.

He moved on, listening for a moan, peering through the flickering light of the flames that still burned for any sign of movement. He didn’t find any.

After a few moments he came to Jessica’s wagon. At least, he thought it was her wagon. In the midst of all this destruction, it was difficult to be sure.

He saw a familiar figure lying face down next to the burned wagon. The Kid hurried over and knelt next to the man, grasping his shoulder and rolling him onto his side.

Scott Harwood’s head hung limply on his neck. His face was twisted in death. The broken shaft of an arrow protruded from his chest. The Kid could tell what had happened. That arrow had driven deeply into Harwood’s body, killing him, and the shaft had broken off when the scout pitched forward.

Still on one knee, The Kid looked around, thinking that Jessica’s body had to be nearby. He figured she would have died fighting, just as many of the others obviously had.

He didn’t see her, though, and when he stood up and got as close to the burned wagon as the heat still coming from it would allow, he didn’t see her body in the ashes and debris, either.

It didn’t matter, he told himself. If she wasn’t there, she was somewhere else in the camp, but she was just as dead either way. From everything he had seen so far, the Apaches had wiped out everyone.

He kept looking, and a few minutes later was rewarded by the sound of a weak moan behind him. Swinging around quickly, he asked, “Who’s there? Can you hear me?”

Another moan turned into a reedy voice saying, “O ... over here ...”

Even strained by agony, the voice was familiar. The Kid ran toward one of the sprawled shapes and dropped to a knee beside it. The wounded man lay on his side. Easing him over onto his back, The Kid propped the man’s head up.

Milo Farnum gasped in pain as The Kid moved him. The front of the old scout’s shirt was dark and sodden with blood.

“K-Kid?” he choked out. “Kid ... is that ... you?”

“That’s right, Milo. Take it easy. I’ll see if I can help you.”

A grim chuckle came from the old-timer. “Ain’t no ... chance of that. I’m ... gutshot. Been tryin’ to ... hang on ... ’cause I thought maybe ... you’d hear the fightin’ ... and come back.”

The Kid understood. Farnum should have been dead, but grit and sheer determination had kept the scout alive.

“I’ll go get my canteen—”

“No! Water ... water won’t help. I want ... I wanted to tell you ... those red bastards didn’t ...”

Farnum’s voice trailed off. The Kid waited, thinking for a second that Farnum had died, but then he heard the rasp of breath coming from the old man’s throat.

“What didn’t they do, Milo?”

Farnum had to force the words from his tortured throat. “They didn’t ... kill everybody!”

The Kid’s heart slugged in his chest as the meaning of Farnum’s words sunk in. He leaned closer and asked, “They took prisoners with them?”

“Y-yeah. I seen ’em... . They had ... Jess Ritter ...”

Jessica was still alive!

“And Miz Price ... and her daughter ... and another lady ... Leah Gabbert... . I saw ’em ... drag those gals off... . Thought maybe ... if you came back ... I could tell you... . They headed south.... You gotta ... go after ...”

When Farnum’s voice faded, it was replaced by a long sigh, the likes of which The Kid had heard too many times in his life.

The scout was dead.

Despite that, The Kid said, “I’ll go after them, Milo. You did the right thing by hanging on until I got here. I’ll go after them and do everything I can for them.”

After making that vow, he eased Farnum’s head to the ground.

The Kid stood up and continued his search of the camp, hoping he might find someone else alive, but that hope was futile. Farnum had been the only survivor, and now he was gone.

By the time The Kid finished his search, the horrors of what he had seen were ingrained in his soul. He had been witness to death and destruction before in his life, but never on this scale.

What made it even worse was the fact that he couldn’t do anything about it. Burying all these people would take him days, and in the heat the stench would choke a man before he could ever get them in the ground. Even if that cavalry patrol had been there to act as a burial detail, it would take a long time to dig so many graves.

Thinking about the troopers made The Kid’s jaw clench in anger. If Lt. Nicholson had accompanied the wagon train to Raincrow Valley, as Horace Dunlap had asked, the immigrants might still be alive. The cavalry would have camped there for the night, and the Apaches probably would not have attacked.

Would the raiders have bided their time and struck later, after the cavalry was gone? That was possible, The Kid supposed, but there was no way to know for sure either way. He forced those thoughts out of his mind for the moment.

But if he ever crossed paths with Lt. Blake Nicholson again, he would make sure the man knew what had happened there.

In the meantime, there was nothing The Kid could do except keep the promise he had made to Milo Farnum. He walked through the devastation, past the littered bodies, and left the circle of burned wagons. The well-trained dun waited for him with reins dangling. The horse tossed its head as The Kid came up, maybe spooked a little by the coppery smell of so much freshly spilled blood.

“Yeah, we’re leaving,” The Kid told the dun. “There’s nothing we can do here.”

He mounted up and turned the horse to the south. Even though it was dark, he didn’t have any trouble following the trail up to the pass through the hills.

When he reached it, he paused and turned to look back. The fires were all out, but piles of glowing embers still winked here and there in the darkened valley, like the eyes of the ghosts that might linger there. He wasn’t a superstitious man, but a little shudder ran through him as he gazed out over that place of death.

Gehenna
, he thought.
That’s what they ought to call Raincrow Valley now.

He turned to face south again and heeled the dun into a trot.

Somewhere out there were four women, terrified prisoners of the Apaches.

And Kid Morgan was their only chance for survival.

BOOK: The Loner: Inferno #12

11.43Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

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