Authors: J.A. Johnstone

The Loner: Inferno #12 (8 page)

BOOK: The Loner: Inferno #12

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Chapter 12

He rode to the edge of the hills and stopped. Since the Apaches had prisoners now, not to mention those horses they had taken from the camp, it was likely they would head for the border in a straight line, just as fast as they could.

But The Kid couldn’t be absolutely certain of that, so the smart thing to do would be to wait until morning and pick up their trail once it was light. A war party of a hundred men couldn’t travel without leaving behind plenty of signs, even in the arid wasteland.

When he thought about Jessica Ritter and the other three women, he wanted to keep going, but he forced himself to stop and unsaddle the dun.

If he was going to have any chance of rescuing the captives, he had to keep his emotions at bay. He had to be as coldly calculating as a machine. It was the only way to overcome the overwhelming odds he faced.

The Kid picketed the horse and spread his bedroll again for the second time that night. He wrapped up in his blankets against the nighttime chill and tried to sleep.

But even though his eyes were closed, he kept seeing horrific images of fire and blood and death. He hadn’t witnessed the slaughter at the wagon camp, but in his mind it was like he had been there, watching and hearing everything.

Every terrible thing.

Despite that, weariness eventually claimed him, but his sleep was restless and haunted by nightmares. He was glad when he woke up the next morning in the cold gray light of dawn.

The Kid stood up and stretched to ease muscles that ached from tossing and turning so much on the hard ground. He gathered broken branches from some nearby scrub brush and built a small fire.

He soon had coffee boiling and shaved slices off a chunk of salt pork into his frying pan. There were plenty of biscuits left in the bag of provisions Horace Dunlap had gathered for him the night before. As he hunkered on his heels next to the fire and ate, The Kid thought about the people who had donated that food for him.

Most of them—maybe all of them—were dead. The meal tasted like ashes in his mouth, but he forced himself to eat anyway.

By the time the sky was light enough for him to start searching for the war party’s tracks, he had his gear packed away and the dun saddled. The Apaches must have come through this area, he thought as he mounted and began to ride along the edge of the hills.

That hunch proved right. He had gone less than a quarter mile when he came to a broad swath of hoofprints and mocassin tracks that led off to the south. Some of the Apaches were on foot, but that wasn’t surprising. An Apache warrior moving at a steady trot was capable of running a horse into the ground, Frank had told him.

The Kid turned to follow the tracks. Figuring out how many men were in the war party was impossible. The prints were too jumbled up.

The only thing he could be sure of was that there were a lot of them.

From the looks of it, the Apaches weren’t trying to cover their trail. They knew they had avoided the cavalry patrol, which had moved on west. And they wouldn’t be expecting any pursuit from the devastated wagon camp. As far as they knew, they hadn’t left anyone alive behind them.

After a few days, when the three Apaches who had gone after The Kid failed to return, the rest might start to wonder what had happened to them. They wouldn’t be concerned, though. The Kid was only one man.

What could one man do to hurt them?

The night’s chill disappeared rapidly as the sun climbed into the sky. As the heat grew, The Kid wondered how far it was to the next source of water. He had filled both canteens in the creek in Raincrow Valley before he rode away, but in the semidesert, that water wouldn’t last long. The dun would require quite a bit of it.

The Apaches had to know this territory,
he reminded himself. They would need water, too, and would know where to find it. As long as he was following them, he would come to it sooner or later.

A couple of hours after sunup, he spotted dust rising to the west. Unless the war party had made a sharp turn for some unfathomable reason, that was the wrong direction for them. The Kid reined in and rested his hands on the saddle horn as he studied the dust.

It wasn’t the first such cloud he had seen recently. In that arid country, any group larger than a few riders raised considerable dust. The cloud was about the same size as the one he had seen a few days earlier as the cavalry patrol approached the wagon train.

Could it be?

The Kid decided the smart thing to do was wait and see. The delay in going after the Apaches grated on him, but he needed to know whether or not he had a new threat galloping toward him. He looked around, spotted a cluster of boulders about half a mile away, and rode toward it, figuring the rocks would conceal him while he got a look at those riders.

Once he was behind the boulders, he dismounted and pulled his Winchester from its saddle sheath. He found a good spot where he could see the approaching dust cloud and waited.

Within a few minutes, he could make out the riders. He thought he saw the bright colors of a flapping guidon, so he fetched his telescope from the saddlebags to check.

Yes, The Kid thought grimly as he peered through the glass, the cavalry had returned ...

Much too late to do any good.

He closed the telescope, put it away, and stepped out from behind the boulders. Pointing the Winchester into the sky, he fired three shots as fast as he could work the rifle’s lever.

The troopers slowed in response to the shots, then turned toward him without stopping. The Kid lowered the Winchester and waited until the blue-uniformed soldiers rode up and reined in.

Lt. Nicholson was in the lead, with Sgt. Brennan behind him. Nicholson stared at The Kid in surprise. “Morgan! What are you doing out here?”

“I’m trailing that Apache war party. What are
you
doing?”

The lieutenant’s face darkened in anger at the contemptuous tone in The Kid’s voice. “Not that I have to answer to you, but we’re returning to Fort Bliss. We reached the limits of the area we were supposed to patrol.”

“Let me guess. You didn’t see any sign of the Apaches, did you?”

“As a matter of fact, no. What’s that you said about trailing them?”

The Kid didn’t answer the question directly. Instead he snapped, “You didn’t see them because they didn’t want you to see them. They probably knew where you were every minute of the day and night and could have ambushed you at any time. The only reason you’re not dead now is because they found a more tempting target ... that wagon train.”

Nicholson drew in a deep breath and glared down at The Kid from his saddle. “The wagon train?” he repeated.

“That’s right. Except for four women the Apaches carried off as prisoners, every man, woman, and child in that party of immigrants is dead now, and I figure you’re partially to blame for that.”

Angrily, Sgt. Brennan crowded his horse forward. “Hold on just a damned minute! You best keep a respectful tongue in your head when you’re talkin’ to the lieutenant, mister.”

“I’m not in the army. Those gold bars don’t mean anything to me,” The Kid said coldly. “If you’d stayed with the wagons, Nicholson, the Apaches might not have attacked.”

“You can’t be certain of that.”

The Kid shrugged. Nicholson was right about that. He couldn’t be sure. But there was a good chance it was true.

The lieutenant dismounted and handed his reins to Brennan. He turned to The Kid. “Tell me what happened.”

The Kid summed up the bloody, tragic circumstances in as few words as possible. Nicholson’s face had acquired a tan during his service in the Southwest, but he turned pale underneath it as The Kid described how everyone with the wagon train had been killed except for the four women who were taken prisoner.

“You say you were trailing the Apaches?” Nicholson asked when The Kid was finished.

“That’s right. Their tracks are hard to miss.” The Kid paused. “You might have even noticed them if you’d kept riding.”

Nicholson’s lips tightened at the thinly veiled insult. “We saw the glow in the sky from our camp last night. The sergeant told me something was on fire, and I was planning to investigate. I recalled that man Dunlap saying the wagon train was headed for Raincrow Valley, and I wanted to be sure the settlers were all right.”

“Little late for that,” The Kid drawled.

Brennan started to get down from his horse. “By God, I’ve had just about enough of you, mister!”

Nicholson waved the noncom back into the saddle. “Stay where you are, Sergeant. Civilians are ... entitled to their opinion, even when they don’t know what they’re talking about. I had my orders, Mr. Morgan, and I followed them. My conscience is clear.”

The Kid wondered if that was completely true, or if later on uncertainty and guilt would visit Nicholson on some dark night of the soul. He had experienced plenty of that himself.

But he said, “If you want to follow something, how about following their tracks? The Apaches probably aren’t expecting any pursuit. We might be able to catch up to them in time to do those women some good.”

Nicholson frowned in thought as he considered the suggestion.

“For God’s sake,” The Kid burst out impatiently, “your orders are to find that war party, right?”

“To locate and engage the hostiles, yes,” Nicholson said with a nod.

“Well, those tracks will lead you right to them. Even a stiff-necked son of a—” The Kid forced himself to stop and take a breath. “Even you ought to be able to see that, Lieutenant.”

“You’re right. Following those tracks is exactly what I should be doing, Mr. Morgan. And you’re going to help me do it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“From this point on, consider yourself under my command,” Nicholson said. “You’re now attached to this patrol as a civilian scout, and therefore under the jurisdiction of the United States Army.”

The Kid’s eyes widened. “The hell you say!”

Nicholson jerked his head in a nod. “That’s right, the hell I say. I’m declaring this part of the territory to be under martial law, and as such I have the right to impress civilians into temporary duty.”

“That can’t be legal,” The Kid protested.

“If you think so, you can take the matter up with my superior officers when we get back to Fort Bliss. In the meantime, you already said you were trailing those Apaches. I intend to do the same thing. Why should you object to riding with us?”

“It’s not the riding with you I object to, it’s the blasted business about being under your command.”

“Well ... perhaps it won’t come to that. We want the same thing, after all, don’t we? To punish those savages and deliver justice to them for their crimes?”

That wasn’t what The Kid wanted at all. He wanted to rescue Jessica and the other three women. Killing some Apaches in the process would be a good thing, but it wasn’t the main objective.

If he said that, it would just lead to more arguing with Nicholson, and they had already wasted enough time. “Let me get my horse. I’ll ride with you.”

“I thought so,” Nicholson said with a smile.

The Kid wanted to wipe the smirk off the lieutenant’s face with a fist. If he was lucky, he would get the chance to do that later.

For now, getting those women away from the war party was the only thing that mattered to him. He led the dun out of the boulders, swung up into the saddle, and moved to the front of the patrol alongside Nicholson.

As he rode past Sgt. Brennan, he saw hate smoldering in the noncom’s eyes. There would be trouble with Brennan before it was all over, The Kid thought.

That was fine. The mood he was in, he was ready for trouble, and plenty of it.

Chapter 13

The Kid led the patrol to the tracks and pointed out how they arrowed straight south. “They’re making a run for the border. The Apaches may not be expecting any pursuit, but they want to get below the line before anybody can catch up to them, just in case.”

“The savages took four women as prisoners, you said?” Nicholson asked.

“That’s right. Mrs. Jessica Ritter, Mrs. Violet Price, Mrs. Price’s daughter ... Elsie, I think her name is ... and a woman named Gabbert. I don’t know if she was married or not.” The Kid paused. “If she was, she’s a widow now.”

“That’s regrettable. I hope circumstances allow us to be of assistance to them.”

The Kid knew what that meant. Nicholson would be perfectly willing to sacrifice the prisoners’ lives if doing so helped him destroy the war party.

The odds of that happening were pretty slim, The Kid thought. The patrol was outnumbered three to one and was outgunned, to boot. The best they could hope for would be to hit the Apaches hard, inflict some casualties, then get away without being wiped out themselves.

But in doing so, they might provide enough of a distraction for The Kid to rescue the captives. That was what
he
hoped for.

The patrol headed south at a brisk pace, following the tracks. Nicholson didn’t really need the services of a scout. The trail was so easy to see, even a greenhorn like him could follow it.

If Frank Morgan had been there, he could have examined the tracks and the droppings left behind by the Apache ponies and figured out how far ahead the war party was. The Kid wasn’t that skilled as a tracker, although the past couple of years had given him some experience in that area.

“How far is it to the border?” Nicholson asked after a while.

“I don’t know,” The Kid replied. “Around fifty miles, I’d say, but that’s just a guess.”

“How will we know when we get there? There’s no river separating the countries here in New Mexico Territory, like there is over in Texas.”

“Don’t know that, either. There are a few settlements right along the border, I think. We may have to find one of them and ask folks where the line is.”

“I can’t pursue the hostiles into Mexico. You know that, don’t you? If I were to cross the border, it might provoke an international incident.”

The Kid managed not to laugh. Out in the middle of nowhere, it was unlikely anybody would know or care if Nicholson and his troops crossed the border. The Mexican government might make a stink about it later on, but it would be too late to do anything other than complain.

They could avoid the issue entirely by catching up to the war party and dealing with it sooner rather than later. Every hour those women were in the hands of the Apaches was another hour when something bad could happen.

The Kid was under no illusions about how the prisoners were being treated. Probably all four of them had been raped already. Even if they survived the ordeal and escaped from captivity, their lives had been changed forever.

A lot of so-called good Christian folks wouldn’t have anything to do with a woman who had lain with a savage, even against her will. That attitude didn’t make any sense to The Kid, but he knew it was true.

If there was anybody strong willed enough to rebuild her life after such a thing, it was Jess Ritter. All the women deserved that chance, not just Jess.

“We’ll worry about the border when we get there,” The Kid told Nicholson. “Right now let’s just keep moving as fast as we can without running these horses into the ground.”

As they rode, The Kid constantly scanned the horizon ahead of them, looking for the dust raised by the Apaches and also watching for places where there might be an ambush. The raiders could have left some warriors behind, in case anyone gave chase. Even a relatively small group of Apaches could deal out quite a bit of damage if they took the cavalrymen by surprise.

Nicholson called frequent halts to rest the horses. The Kid didn’t like the delays, but he knew it was the right thing to do. On the frontier, a man’s mount had to be protected at all costs. It was often the only thing standing between that man and a lingering, miserable death from thirst or starvation.

During one of those stops, The Kid was giving the dun some water from his hat when Sgt. Brennan came up to him, trailed by a couple of troopers. The Kid glanced at Brennan and saw the belligerent look on the noncom’s face.

That trouble The Kid expected had shown up sooner than he anticipated.

“You’re mighty quick to talk about how the lieutenant didn’t stay with those pilgrims, Morgan,” Brennan said, getting right to the point. “But where were
you
when those Apaches attacked?”

The Kid kept a tight rein on his temper. It probably wouldn’t do any good, but he was going to try to prevent the conversation from turning into a problem.

“Like I told Lieutenant Nicholson, I was camped a few miles up the valley.”

“How come?” Brennan persisted. “You traveled with ’em for several days. How come as soon as they got where they were goin’, you up and left ’em?”

“That’s none of your business.” When The Kid was explaining things to Nicholson, he hadn’t mentioned what had happened between him and Jess, or Scott Harwood’s reaction to it. He certainly didn’t intend to explain it to the loutish sergeant.

“I reckon it is,” Brennan said. “You can’t go around accusin’ the lieutenant of abandonin’ those settlers, when you did the same damned thing! Actually, what you did was worse, to my way of thinkin’. The lieutenant had orders to follow. You just flat left ’em for the Apaches to slaughter!”

The dun had finished drinking. The Kid poured the little bit of water left in the hat into his hand and wiped it over his face, relishing the momentary coolness in the heat of the day.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Sergeant,” he said without looking at Brennan. “I had my reasons for what I did, and again, they’re none of your business.”

An ugly laugh came from the noncom. “What were you doin’, Morgan? Messin’ around with some poor sodbuster’s wife?”

“Back off,” The Kid snapped.

Instead, Brennan crowded closer. “That’s it, ain’t it? You didn’t leave. They ran you off. You’re just a no-account gunman who can’t keep his hands off other men’s women!”

“Brennan, I’m warning you—”

“What’re you gonna do, gunfighter? Shoot me?” Brennan laughed again. “The lieutenant and the rest of the boys will hang you if you do. It’d be pure murder if you drew on me. I’m not even carryin’ a gun.”

That was true. The sergeant’s rifle was still in its sheath on his horse.

With a grimace of disgust, The Kid turned away. He’d had enough.

But Brennan hadn’t. His hand shot out and grabbed The Kid’s arm. “Don’t turn your back on me, you no-good—”

The Kid twisted around, still holding the Stetson, and threw the hat in Brennan’s face. He reacted instinctively by letting go of The Kid’s arm and throwing his hand up to block the hat coming at his eyes. The Kid stepped in right behind it and hooked his right fist into Brennan’s midsection, a powerful blow that buried his fist in the noncom’s belly.

Brennan gasped and doubled over. The blow had driven the air from his lungs. He was out of the fight for a moment.

The same couldn’t be said for the two troopers who had walked over with him. They lunged at The Kid, fists swinging wildly.

The Kid avoided one man’s charge, but the second man caught him with a looping punch that grazed his jaw. The impact was enough to make him take a step back. Trying to seize the advantage, the second trooper rushed in and attempted to land a second blow.

The Kid blocked that one and snapped a left jab into the man’s face. Blood spurted from the soldier’s nose as The Kid’s fist landed solidly on it. Grunting in pain and surprise, the soldier stepped back. The Kid swung a right that slammed into the man’s jaw and knocked him against the dun. The horse shied away and the soldier fell.

After his momentum carried him past The Kid, the first trooper recovered his balance and tackled The Kid around the waist, driving him off his feet. He landed on the hard-packed rock and sand with stunning force.

The soldier flailed punches against his ribs. Knowing he couldn’t let himself get pinned down, The Kid brought up a knee and drove it into the man’s belly. Grabbing the front of the uniform shirt, he threw the cavalryman one way, then rolled the other to put some distance between them.

Brennan had recovered, and stepped in, aiming a kick at The Kid, who was trying to get to his feet. The Kid’s hands shot out, grabbed Brennan’s foot, and heaved. With a startled yell, Brennan went over backward and came crashing down on his back.

The Kid managed to stand up, but as soon as he did, the two soldiers came at him again. He blocked, punched, and slugged as other troopers gathered around, shouting encouragement to their comrades.

Brennan scrambled to his feet and rushed in to throw more punches of his own. The Kid was battered back and forth, but stubbornly stayed upright. He didn’t know where Nicholson was, but the lieutenant had to be aware of what was going on. The Kid wondered if Nicholson was going to let the fight continue until he was knocked down and stomped to death.

The answer came a moment later as Nicholson bellowed, “Attention! Attention, damn it! That’s enough!”

The spectators broke apart and started to form ranks, but Brennan and the other two kept throwing punches. The Kid ducked under a sweeping blow and threw an uppercut that caught one man under the chin and drove his head back so far it seemed like his neck ought to snap. The blow had enough steam behind it to lift the trooper off his feet and dump him on his back.

The Kid elbowed the other trooper aside and went after Brennan. He let his rage fuel him as he shot in punch after punch with blinding speed. His fists hammered Brennan’s face and body. Brennan backpedaled, but couldn’t escape the barrage. The Kid didn’t stop until Brennan’s eyes rolled up in their sockets and he collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.

The Kid stood there with his chest heaving and blood trickling down his face.

Nicholson strode up to him and glared. “You’re under arrest, Morgan,” he snapped. “I won’t have brawling among my men.”

“You can’t arrest me. I’m not a damned soldier.”

“I told you, this area is now under martial law because of the threat of the Apaches.” Nicholson held out his hand. “Give me your gun.”

The Kid took a step back and nodded toward Brennan and the other two soldiers. “If you’re going to arrest anybody, it ought to be them. They started it.”

“That’s a lie, Lieutenant,” one of the troopers said. “Morgan threw the first punch. I saw it.”

Mutters of agreement came from several of the other men.

“I didn’t do anything until Brennan grabbed me,” The Kid insisted.

“When we get back to Fort Bliss, the commanding officer will hear your testimony and decide whether to seek civil charges against you. Until then, I’ll take your gun, Morgan.”

The Kid glanced around. There were close to thirty troopers, and while none of them held a rifle at the moment, their Springfields were close by. Those weren’t good odds, and anyway, he didn’t want to shoot American soldiers.

Well, maybe one, he thought as he looked at Nicholson.

“It wouldn’t be smart to take my gun when we’re on the trail of a hundred bloodthirsty Apaches, Lieutenant.”

“If we encounter the hostiles, I’ll return your weapon.”

“How about if I give you my parole?” The Kid suggested. “That’s what you army types call it, isn’t it? I swear not to use my gun against you, and you don’t push this until it’s gone too far for either of us to back out. Deal?”

Nicholson hesitated. He didn’t want to back down in front of his men, yet the arrangement The Kid had proposed did have some precedent.

“All right,” Nicholson said with an abrupt nod. “You give me your parole now, and we’ll deal with your actions once we get back to Fort Bliss. That’s acceptable.”

The Kid returned the nod, even though he had no intention of ever going to Fort Bliss with the stuffed-shirt lieutenant.

Nicholson jerked a hand toward Brennan, who was still unconscious. “Get the sergeant up and throw a little water in his face,” he ordered. “Not much, though. We can’t afford to waste it. We ride in five minutes.”

The Kid picked up his hat and slapped it against his leg to knock the dust off. He watched as several soldiers roused Brennan from his stupor.

When the sergeant had his wits about him again, he looked over at The Kid with a glare of pure hatred. “This ain’t over.”

“I know,” The Kid told him.

It probably wouldn’t be until one of them was dead.

BOOK: The Loner: Inferno #12

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