Tom Horn And The Apache Kid (10 page)

Horn, Sergeant Cahill, and Trooper Ward rode northwest toward Globe.

The train, on its double silver path, headed due east, across the Arizona border toward the Pecos River that bisected the
territory of New Mexico.

New Mexico, stepsister to Arizona and battleground of the Comanche Nation, whose warriors were the finest light cavalry in
the history of mounted warfare.

New Mexico, where John Simpson Chisum drove ten thousand beeves from bankrupt Texas after the Civil War and carved an empire
out of rawhide and horn. It was said that Chisum had so much land that it would take a man on a good horse all summer to cover
it.

New Mexico, where the Murphy-Dolan-Brady ring challenged Chisum’s claim and set off the Lincoln County cattle war, which counted
among its participants some of the bloodiest pistoleers ever to pull a trigger.

Among them were Jess Evens, George Peppin, Bob Beckwith, Charlie Bowdrie, Tom O’Folliard, and two friends named Pat Garrett
and William
Bonney, who ended up on opposite ends of gun barrels. Bonney, better known as Billy the Kid, was a good-humored, jovial lad
who had the dev il lurking within him. One moment a happy, open-hearted companion, the next he was a blood-splattered psychopath
whose own blood was finally splattered by his former friend, Sheriff Pat Garrett. In 1881, when he was twenty-one, Bonney was
laid to rest in peace, and the New Mexico Territory has rested more peacefully ever since.

That peace would soon be shattered again as the train from Arizona chugged east into the be-clouded sun and toward the Pecos.

Geronimo and his men were crowded onto the floor of the forward car, from which the passenger seats had been removed to make
more room. Squatting, the Apaches had slept through the night.

With dawn their eyelids lifted, but not their bodies. Still they sat, shackled, as two soldiers walked through, one carrying
a shotgun, the other a rifle. There would be no breakfast—just a noon meal of dried corn and a spartan supper, with a ration
of water in between.

Geronimo sat against the rumbling wall of the swaying car. He stared straight ahead as the two soldiers strode by. The shotgun
soldier spat on the leg of the Apache stretched out next to Geronimo. The Apache didn’t move. The two soldiers worked their
way back toward the rear door and platform.

Outside the sky turned dark, suddenly foreboding, clouds masking the sun, precursors of the coming rain.

The two soldiers unlocked the door to the second car. It, too, was seatless, loaded with the wounded—one warrior was already
dead—and with women and children and the Apache Kid.

The Kid sat, his back braced against the wall, and stared across at the opposite window. The New Mexico countryside raced
by. The first droplets of rain streaked the dirty window.

Every mile took the Kid closer to his certain death at the hands of Geronimo and his revenge-sworn Apaches. Every mile took
him farther from his birthplace and, most important, from the territory where he knew every canyon, coulee, and rock, the
uncharted dominion where he could hide forever. Maybe in time Sieber and Horn could do something, or maybe after a long time
Miles and the army would forget about one lone Indian on the loose in a nowhere place. Maybe he would cross into Mexico. But
the Apache Kid knew there was no maybe about Geronimo’s intentions.

The two soldiers stopped. One nudged the other as they both looked down at a very pregnant young squaw, naked from the waist
down, laboring in pain to deliver a baby as a brace of Indian women crouched at her side. The soldiers took in the show for
a time, then walked to the rear of the car, unlocked the door, and stepped to the platform and into the light rain.

“Sure does stink in there,” said the shotgun soldier.

“Yeah, like old guts,” the other soldier said as they opened the door to the caboose.

The sable clouds swirled into a dark cauldron. Lightning ripped across the boiling sky, and rain
spilled in sudden torrents against the coursing train as it plunged into a long, black tunnel.

The car was swallowed by darkness. The train whistle screamed. The pregnant squaw screamed, and as the train tore out of the
tunnel into the rain again, the baby was born.

The cannonading balled-up figure of the Kid smashed through the window, twisted and tumbled bleeding through the air, slammed
on the ground, spun crazily over and over until it seemed his every bone would be broken, then crashed with a shuddering impact
against a wet boulder.

In Globe, Arizona, the bright ball of sun shone out of a yellow sky. Tom Horn had already won the bronc-riding contest, but
it appeared that no one would be able to match Charlie Mason’s new world record for roping and bulldogging a steer. Mason’s
time of fifty-one seconds seemed unbeatable.

Cahill and Dawson were betting that Tom Horn could beat it.

Horn was in the saddle waiting to try.

At the judge’s signal the wild three-year-old range steer was set loose from a pen and driven at a run by two cowboys toward
a marker two hundred fifty yards away. As the red-eyed steer crossed the marker at full speed, the judge fired a second signal,
and Horn, riata in hand, spurred after the racing animal.

When he closed to within forty yards, Horn swung the loop of his lariat in a swift, clean circle. At twenty yards he flung
the rope like a sling, and its loop settled around the horns of the charging beef and drew tight, tumbling the bewildered
animal off its feet as Horn’s horse came to an abrupt stop.

Horn flew off his mount, carrying the lash end of the lariat with him, keeping it taut, coiling up the slack while approaching
the thrown steer. The crowd stood and yelled as Horn looped a half hitch on the steer’s forelegs and another on his hind legs.
A third and final knot bunched all four of the stunned animal’s legs together in a bouquet of beef.

Done.

“Time,” the judge announced, “forty-nine seconds flat! A new world record!”

The rain still pelted into the buckled, unconscious body of the Apache Kid lying at the base of the boulder.

His escape had been discovered when the soldiers returned to the car to disperse the noon meal. The train stopped at Valverde,
and telegraph wires tapped out the news north to Santa Fe, south to El Paso, and west back to Bowie. Within hours every fort
in both territories had been alerted and patrols were sent out from the Rio San Pedro to the Pecos.

A rain-soaked squad out of Fort Bayard had been reconnoitering for hours, when a scout pointed to the twisted heap that lay
in a swale fifty yards from the railroad track.

A trooper reached down, turned the Kid over, and looked into his blood-and rain-streaked face.

“Alive?” the still-mounted sergeant asked, peering out of his slicker.

“Barely.”

“Better get him to Bayard,” the sergeant said. “What’s left of him.”

Al Sieber and Captain Crane walked briskly out of General Miles’s headquarters toward a hitching post where Sieber’s horse
was tied with saddle bags bulging.

“I’ve never seen the general so flustered,” Crane smiled.

“Yeah, he was downright epizootic,” said Sieber. He folded a tele gram, put it in his breast pocket, and started to mount.

Shana came running toward them. “Mr. Sieber, is it true? Has the Apache Kid escaped?”

“That’s part of it,” Sieber answered.

“What do you mean?”

“You tell her the other part, Captain.” Sieber swung into the saddle. “And don’t forget to send that telegraph to Globe.”
Sieber wheeled his animal around and galloped away through the compound.

“What is it, Captain?” Shana persisted. “What happened?”

“The Kid was badly hurt during the escape. He’s been captured again. They’re holding him at Fort Bayard.” Captain Crane motioned
toward the headquarters building. “But that’s not what’s got General Miles in a flurry. There’s something else.”

“What, for heaven’s sake? Has it got to do with Tom?”

“In a way. I’m sending a telegraph now. Governor Zulick’s decided that what the Kid did to Van Zeider constitutes a civilian
offense. He telegraphed Miles that the general had no right to put the Kid on that train. Zulick’s remanded the Kid to Sieber’s
custody and authorized him to take the Kid to Tucson, where...”

“...you’ll stand trial in a civilian court,” a saddle-worn Sieber explained to the Apache Kid in the hospital stockade at
Fort Bayard.

The Kid’s head was ban daged and covered by his handcuffed hands as he sat listening on a bunk. The Apache Kid lifted his
face slowly. It was bruised and discolored.

But that wasn’t the only difference. There was a different look in his eyes, a look that had been branded deep. It would be
there from now on.

The look was hate.

“We’ll get the best lawyer in Tucson,” Sieber assured him.

“After Tucson, what?” the Kid whispered.

“We’ll have to take it one step at a time.”

“Yuma. That’ll be the next step. Twenty years in that hellhole in Yuma.”

Major Edward McReedy, commanding officer of Fort Bayard, walked down the hallway to where a soldier stood guard. Sieber moved
a couple steps toward the major.

“He must be made of catgut,” Major McReedy remarked. “We thought he was going to die.”

“Maybe part of him did,” Sieber replied softly.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“I’ll provide you with a wagon and an escort—”

“I don’t need any escort.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Sieber. He may be in your custody, but he’s my prisoner, and I’m responsible until he’s turned over to the
proper authorities in Tucson. I’ll provide a wagon and escort whenever you’re ready to leave.”

“Thanks,” Sieber grunted.

“You have an idea when that will be?” Major McReedy inquired.

“Whenever the Kid can travel.”

“Now.” The Kid rose. “I’m ready now.”

“Well, I’m not,” said Sieber. “I don’t travel like a colt no more. I’m plumb tired and saddle sore. We’ll leave tomorrow.”

Tom Horn, Sergeant Cahill, and Trooper Ward sat at a table in the Globe Café with the scant remnants of three sixteen-ounce
steaks and a nearly empty bottle of whiskey in front of them. Someone had thoughtfully provided Horn with a pillow to sit
on. A score of customers were eating and drinking at other tables.

“Hey, Sam,” Cahill called to the waiter, “fetch another bottle of that tornado juice and give everybody in the house another
drink on Sergeant Patrick Cahill, courtesy of Tom Horn, who can rope and ride anything with hair on it!”

Each of the three men had a stack of money in front of him.

Cahill nudged Horn. “Tom, how much prize money did you total out to?”

“Twelve hundred simoleons.”

“Hell,” said Cahill, “ain’t nobody gonna break those records for fifty years—a hundred!”

“We’ll do her again next year eh, Tom?” Trooper Ward laughed.

“I might stay right here until then!” Cahill banged a fist into Trooper Ward’s shoulder.

The waiter arrived with a fresh quart of whiskey. Cahill handed him the nearly empty bottle. “Here, Sam,” Cahill grinned,
“give the rest of this to your cat and let him go out and howl at the moon to -night.” Cahill laughed and pounded the table,
just as a young man entered the café.

“Tom Horn in here?” the young man asked aloud.

“Hell yes,” said Cahill. “Right here—the one sitting on the pillow.”

“Telegraph, Mr. Horn.”

“Thanks.” Horn took the tele gram and flipped the young man a quarter. He read the message from Crane about the Apache Kid.
The young man stood looking at all the money in front of Horn.

“Checked the hotel first,” the young man said. “Coulda left the telegraph there. But I made a special trip all the way over
here.”

“Yeah,” said Horn, rising and tossing the young man another quarter. “Thanks.”

Horn took his money from the table, stuffed it in his shirt, and started out.

“Hey, Tom,” Sergeant Cahill hollered, “where the hell are you going?”

“Fort Bayard,” Horn hollered back, and went out the door.

From Fort Bayard the prison wagon creeked past Silver City southwest toward Lordsburg. The wagon was built to hold up to twenty
prisoners. This warm and windless day it held only one. The Apache Kid sat on the bench built along the length of the wagon
wall and stared out the small barred back window, the only opening in the otherwise completely enclosed lorry.

As he stared he continued to work on the handcuffs. He had been doing just that since the wagon, along with the driver and
a mounted guard, with Sieber riding alongside, left Bayard hours ago.

His right hand was compressed, and the Kid kneaded the flesh under the iron bracelet with his left hand. Some of the skin tore
away, and the kneading pro cess was now aided by lubricating blood.

Sieber had replaced the Kid’s clothes, ripped and shredded by the fall from the broken window, with a pair of booger-red pants
and a blue cotton shirt. The Kid still wore his scouting moccasins— and the eagle claw.

Tom Horn had ridden through the night from Globe. He had left Pilgrim with Sergeant Cahill, bought a good horse, then swapped
mounts at the usual posts along the way, Safford, Fort Grant, and Wilcox. Now he was back at Bowie, where he would saddle
a fresh horse and head east toward Lordsburg.

Shana saw him ride the burned-out mare across the compound and into the stable. She locked the store and entered the barn
as Horn cinched up a strong, deep-chested roan.

“Tom…” Shana touched his elbow, and he turned close to her. “You look awful. You’ve got to get some rest.”

“First I’ve got to meet up with Al and the Kid. I figure that’ll be just the other side of Lordsburg.”

“A few hours, Tom. What difference will a few hours make?”

“I’ve got to get there, Shana. But I was coming to see you first.”

“Were you?”

“Here.” Horn pulled money out of his shirt. “I won twelve hundred in Globe. Keep a thousand for me. Don’t want to carry all
that much. If we need it in Tucson, I’ll come for it. Will you do that?”

“Tom, you need sleep....”

“Will you?”

“Look at you. You’re dirty, worn out, half dead…and I think you’re wonderful.” She reached up and kissed him.

Horn handed her the money, thrust the toe of his boot into the stirrup, legged over the saddle, and went to his spurs.

Sweat and pain streaked down the Kid’s contorted face. His right hand was a mass of bloody meat as he worked the iron cuff
lower and lower, almost to his bruised knuckles.

The trooper riding alongside Sieber lifted the loosely tied yellow bandana from his neck and wiped at his sweat-mottled face.

“Hotter than hell’s hinges,” he said, and un-screwed the lid of his canteen. The trooper took a swig, then held the canteen
upside-down, showing Sieber that it was empty.

Sieber nodded and pointed down a slope to a stand of trees along a stream about seventy-five yards away. “Give me your canteen.
We’ll noon here.”

“Sounds good.” The trooper screwed the lid back on the canteen and handed it to Sieber.

“Tell the driver to pull up. And let the Kid out to stretch his legs and take a leak.”

“Yo.” The trooper smiled and rode toward the driver as Sieber headed down the slope.

“Pull up, Jess,” the trooper instructed the driver. “This’ll be our noon stop. Gonna let the Kid out.”

Inside, the Apache Kid listened and with a last desperate effort slipped his blood-glossed hand free from the cuff just as
the wagon lurched to a stop.

“Come on out, Kid, and do what you haveta.” The trooper unlocked and opened the door.

The Apache Kid held his hands together as if they were still shackled and started toward the rear of the lorry.

“This is the last stop before Lordsburg, Kid,” the trooper said. “We’ll get a hot meal there to night.”

The Kid backed out of the wagon, still concealing his unbound hands. The trooper stretched both arms in the air and twisted
his neck to get the trail kinks loose. As the Kid’s foot touched the ground near the soldier, he spun and unleashed a left.
Fist and handcuff smashed into the trooper’s face, felling him.

The Kid sprang toward the downed trooper’s nearby horse and pulled the Winchester from its scabbard. Up front the debarking
driver, unaware
of what had happened, stepped to the ground as a rifle cracked and a bullet crashed into his spine.

The dazed trooper looked up, and as he started to rise, a slug from his own Winchester tore into his forehead.

At the sound of gunfire Sieber dropped the trooper’s canteen and turned toward the wagon, reflexively lifting his Colt from
its holster. Sieber froze. He saw the Kid holding the Winchester, with the handcuffs dangling from his left wrist.

“Kid!”

A strange look danced into the Apache Kid’s eyes. He took quick but careful aim and fired one shot.

The slug shattered Sieber’s left shin, tearing apart bone, muscle, and cartilage. The old scout dropped in agony.

A half mile to the west, Tom Horn heard the faint pops of rifle shots and spurred his mount.

The Apache Kid was already riding away on the trooper’s horse, holding the reins in his left hand while the blood-wet fingers
of his right gripped the Winchester.

Al Sieber half stumbled, half crawled back toward the stream. He made it to the water, set down the Colt, and tore away his
pant leg. Just above the bootline his leg was a crimson pulp. He dipped his hands into the stream and had just begun to wash
the wound, when he heard the hoofbeats. Sieber clawed his Colt and turned back toward the slope.

At the wagon Tom Horn reined in his lathered horse and looked a moment at the two dead men on the ground, then spotted Sieber
and galloped down the grade toward the fallen scout.

Horn pulled up just short of Sieber, flew off his mount, and knelt at the wounded man’s side.

“Al...”

Sieber’s lips were thin and white with pain and rage.

“That dirty son of a bitch!” said Al Sieber.