The old bay mare proved as hospitable as she’d looked, and responded well, if a bit slowly, to his urgings. He roved back and forth for what seemed an eternity. He knew every minute he spent looking for something he wasn’t sure existed was another wasted minute. But he had no choice. The sun was still high enough that he could see it above the western edge of the canyon. It beat down with particularly unrelenting force, and Slocum found himself missing his brimmed hat. He kept wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, readjusted the bandanna a few times, but it didn’t seem to help—still the sweat ran into his eyes.
They’d made it all the way to the southwest corner of the canyon when he saw one of the reasons for the Apache’s anger and refusal to give up their fight for the canyon. The remnants of an Apache burial ground lay before him, skulls smashed as if stomped by boots, others strewn about the graveled place. A slight breeze stirred aged, thin feathers still tied with bleached, curled rawhide strips to snapped lances, the wood as pitted as the bones. Scraps of blankets poked from the dirt, as if someone had spent time trying to cover up the dead with dirt, but gave up not long into the job.
Some of the bones were obviously those of children. Too many, he noted, and the puckered remains of small suits of beaded buckskin lay torn, curled, and puckered with wind, sun, and time. The entire scene looked as if it had been visited upon by a number of drunken, angry giants who had stomped the sacred place with abandon, as if such places deserved no reverence at all.
The sight set Slocum’s teeth together hard, and it was all he could do to restrain himself from slipping down off the horse and making it right by restoring some sort of order, and thus dignity, to the desecrated holy site. Instead, he urged the horse to his right, turned around, and headed back the way they’d come. He would put it out of his mind, but he knew he could never forget or forgive the act. And he knew it had to be Deke’s clan. Who else? Probably the trio of crazies, Rufus and her brothers.
Slocum had turned and almost reached the midpoint of the end of the canyon for a second time when the bay lowered her head and nudged to the left. He gave the horse her head—he had nothing to lose, after all—and it proved to be the right move.
She nosed between two boulders standing what seemed too close together for a man to edge between, let alone a girthy old mare. But it was the angle he’d seen them from that made them look that way. And as soon as they entered between the boulders, the sunlight’s glare was cut in half and Slocum was able to see a well-trod trail, part gravel, part churned soil, and wide enough for two or three horses to walk side by side. It led upward for a few dozen yards at a gentle slope, before switching back at a westerly angle. He guessed that happened all the way up to the rim. He sure hoped so.
He was in for another surprise before they got to that first turn in the trail, though. To his left sat just what he’d suspected, a natural space in an open-topped grotto of sorts in the rock wall, just large enough to use as a small corral. The front of it was barred with three poles, currently leaning in the dirt, holding nothing in or out. To the side, a lean-to with a short, angled roof, shingled with layers of brush and branches, protected a long wall affixed with pegs, on which rested proper tack. He saw a few saddles, blankets, and bridles, and guided the old horse over to them.
She seemed familiar with the setup and stood quietly nosing the tack.
“Wish I had a carrot for you, old girl. But if things work out, I’ll see to it you get a good feed before too long.” He laid a blanket on her broad back, selected a saddle, cinched it on, and she gave him no trouble, then he slipped on a bridle. The entire time, he worked as fast as he could, hoping to get on up and out before his absence was noticed. He expected to find crazy rebels dropping down on him from rocky crevices at any moment. But so far none showed up.
He used the slanted rails as a ladder of sorts to help boost himself up onto the horse. Once settled, he wedged one boot into a stirrup, tugged her to the right to head on up the trail, and worked to get his other boot in the second stirrup. By then they had rounded the corner to the second angled path that he hoped would lead him up and out of the canyon.
And that was when he heard the unmistakable sound of a hammer ratcheting back into the deadliest position of all.
He raised his hands just a touch, hoping to keep his right close enough to his belt that he might be able to snatch up the big knife should he get the chance—any chance at all, in fact. Slowly, Slocum turned at the waist—could he jam his heels into the old girl and make a run for it? Probably not the wisest plan . . . yet. He saw the leading edge of a horse and rider keeping back in the shadows.
A familiar voice said, “Where I come from, that’s horse theft, mister.”
“Julep?”
The rider stepped forward just enough out of the shadows for light to angle across her face. “Yeah, but I reckon you knew you were being followed. For a man on the run, you sure are taking your time.” She kept the Winchester rifle leveled on him. Her grip was sure, no shaking or hesitation. They were fifteen feet apart and she could easily plug him in the back, the side, didn’t matter at that distance. He tried hard to not make sudden moves, the moves he wanted to make, that of jamming his heels into the mare’s sides and hoping for the best. But that would be foolhardy.
Her mount looked younger, taller, more muscled. Where did she get it? Capture it in the field as he’d done, he guessed. There must have been another source of saddles stashed somewhere.
“If you’ll recall, Miss Julep, I have had a rough run of it lately. Until I’m healed up, I’d venture to guess I’ll be a slow mover for some time to come, eh?” His efforts at levity, if they reached her, fell flat. She didn’t have a very rambunctious sense of humor, he noticed, but surely she wasn’t going to side with Deke?
“Julep, I need you to let me ride on out of here. I am a free man, not anybody’s prisoner—yet—and I don’t intend to be kept like a camp dog, you hear me?”
“Keep talking and I’ll have to cut out that silver tongue of yours. Do you hear me?”
Such hard lingo from her took him by surprise, but was that a slight quiver in her voice? Might be it was all show. “Now that’s not the Julep I’ve come to know, the one who nursed me back to health.”
Her hard gaze never wavered from his face. “And you’re not the man I thought you were. If you were, you wouldn’t be tucking tail and running at the first opportunity.”
“What did you expect me to do, Julep? Stay here and be Deke’s slave?” Slocum turned in the saddle to face her fully and relaxed his hands a bit, lowering them slightly.
Julep twitched and gripped the rifle tighter.
“Okay, okay, take ’er easy,” he said, keeping his hands at chest height, where she could see them. “Let me ask you this, though. Do you know what Deke plans on doing with all those stockpiled weapons?”
Her expression didn’t change much, but he sensed he’d touched on something she was unsure of. “You do know about the weapons, right, Julep?” No change in her expression, though a nerve at one eye corner jounced. Still she kept her gaze firm on him. Slocum continued, “A cave filled to brimming with enough weapons to start a war, girl. And that’s exactly what he’s planning on doing, Julep.”
“What do you mean?” she said, almost grinning. “There ain’t nobody around to start a war with—unless. Oh, you can’t mean the Yankees. He swore a long time ago that he was never going to give up the fight. Ever since before the war, that’s all he and, hell, all my family, women, too, ever talked about was how everybody from the North should be killed off, else they’ll taint the good family stock of us Southern folk.”
“But you don’t agree?”
“No, as it happens, I do not agree with that. I don’t like what them Yankee carpetbaggers are doing to my home. Nor do I like what they did all through the war, ruining everything in sight. But I don’t wish folks any ill will. If I could just convince Deke to leave them all alone.”
“I can’t disagree with you, Julep, but fact is, as far as I know, at least, he’s not fixing to fight the Yanks again. Not yet anyway. No, he’s planning on fighting the last of that ragtag band of Apache you and your kin drove out of this canyon.”
She thrust her jaw out in defiance. “You may call them ragtag, but they are a killing bunch. You saw what they did to Henry.”
“Don’t you think they have a right to be a little angry? After all, isn’t what you and your people did to them the same as what the Yanks did to you and yours?”
“Why, it’s not the same thing at all. No, not at all.”
Slocum closed his eyes and sighed. When he opened them, he said, “I don’t have time for this, Julep. Look, when was the last time you came down to this end of the canyon? Been a while, has it?”
She nodded slowly, unsure of what he was driving at.
“Well, off in the southwest corner”—he jerked his chin in that direction below and to the left—“there’s what’s left of an Apache burial ground. A sacred place to the tribe. You know the sort of place, I can imagine way down South you all had family plots you kept tended, cleared away the creeping kudzu vine, planted flowers, maybe took a picnic lunch there and gathered with family to remember the dead.”
“You bet we did,” she said. “Got to honor those who came before us.”
Slocum nodded. “I couldn’t agree more. Which is why I found it so very sad to see that the Apache burial ground had so many babies and children in it.”
“Oh,” she said, touching a hand to her lips, genuine concern flitting across her eyes.
Slocum nodded. “Yeah, must have had a sickness come through. Bound to take out the small and the old first.”
“What’s this all got to do with me or my people?”
“Because someone—and it damn sure wasn’t the Apache—tore up that sacred Apache place, ripped apart the bodies of the dead, what bones weren’t scattered were smashed, stomped to bits by what looked to have been big boots.” He shifted in his saddle. “Now I wonder who could have hated the Apache so much to have done that?” The old mare relaxed a rear leg and stood hipshot. She was obviously growing weary of the conversation.
“Show me,” said Julep. “Show me what you’re talking about. If it’s true, I’ll . . .”
“You’ll what, Julep?”
She looked desperate, but couldn’t think of a thing to say.
“I don’t have time for that, Julep. You want to see it, you follow this path, fog my back trail, and you’ll come upon it. Me, I have too much ground to cover and no time to do it in.”
“What are you going to do?” she said, straightening in her saddle, the business end of that rifle still poking at Slocum like a menacing snake.
“I plan to head Deke off at the pass.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means that I can’t let him massacre all those Apache. They might have the will to stand and fight, but all those weapons would wipe them out. They’re a bitter people, and there are probably more of them than you know, but even if there were a hundred, they would be no match for what Deke has planned for them.”
“What can you do about it?”
“I don’t know just yet. But I have to at least warn the Apache. I can’t let them be massacred, not without warning. What they do with the news is up to them. I have to try, Julep.” He turned around and nudged the mare with his boot heels.
“Just where do you think you’re going? I’m the one with the rifle, John. Don’t you forget that.”
“I’ve wasted enough time already, Julep. If you believe what Deke’s up to is the right thing, then you go ahead and shoot me in the back. But I’ll not be turning around again. Good-bye, Julep.” He urged the mare into a quick, for her, trot up the slow incline.
“Wait, John, they tried to kill you. What makes you think they won’t try the same thing again?”
He looked back at her, but kept the mare moving forward. “They probably will.”
“You’ll be killed, John.”
“And if I don’t try, so will they—and without knowing that it’s coming. That’s not fair.” He stopped the horse. “Julep, I was in that war, too. And I fought for the same side as your family. But I long ago had my fill of all the killing. Seems to me there’s a better way of living than going around taking from people just because you want something of theirs.”
“Like the canyon.”
“Yep, just like that. And then not stopping there. Not being satisfied until you have taken the very last thing they have—their life—and all because you have a hate burning so deep in you that you can’t recognize it’s the same thing that made you so hateful in the first place.” He turned once more and nudged the horse into action.
A few seconds passed before he heard a horse drawing closer. He peeked over his shoulder and saw Julep sliding the rifle into the saddle boot. “I’m coming with you.”
“Oh no, you don’t. As you well guessed, this thing could get ugly. I’m going alone, and with any luck, I’ll get out of there in one piece. And I won’t be coming back here to your cozy little canyon. But you, my dear, will be. And right now. Now turn around and go back to your own people, your own tribe. And try to talk Deke out of it. That’s the best thing you can do right now.”
“No. You don’t know Deke. You were right, though. He’s full of hurt. The Apaches, they killed his wife. He’ll never be happy until they’re all dead. Nothing I can say or do will change his mind. I’m only his sister, he’ll never listen to me. And besides,” she said, patting the rifle butt. “I’m the one with the gun. The only thing you have is that knife you took from Rufus.”
Slocum’s eyebrows rose. “You saw that?”
“Sure I did. I’ve been following you for a while now. Ever since you . . . turned tail and ran.” She smirked. “Oh, I almost forgot, you have the knife in your boot, too. Right?”
It was his turn to smile. “Right as rain.” He sighed. “Come on then, if you’re coming. But like I said, there’s no coming back. Not for me anyway.”
“Same here, I reckon,” she said in a quiet voice. She took a last look back down the trail toward the north end of the canyon, as if she could see through the steep rock slabs that rose all around them, obscuring her view of the verdant green land that cradled the only family she had in the world.
As they rode up the trail, heading toward yet another switchback, Slocum noticed that the passage walls appeared to be closing in, narrowing. Up ahead they met above the trail and soon they were walking forward in near-black conditions, despite the fact that it was still daylight out. Then it opened up again as suddenly as it had closed over, and they rode under a series of arches, formed who knows how many thousands of years before.
Slocum had little time to admire nature’s vast engineering marvel, however, because Julep said, “Hold up a second, Slocum. You’re headed toward a dead end.”
He looked back to her and saw she was grinning.
“You’ll like this,” she said, tugging her reins hard to the left.
Then, before Slocum’s eyes, she disappeared into thin air!
He didn’t suspect her of trickery, but could he trust her? He didn’t think he had much of a choice. Still, he touched the hilt of the big skinning knife and urged the horse forward. The rock where Julep has disappeared seemed to be a solid wall of red sandstone until he was but a few feet from it. Then, as he craned his neck to get a closer look, step by slow step the horse brought him nearer, and that’s when the tall cleft opened to view. It was positioned such that unless you knew it was there, a man might ride right by the thing and not see it.
Was Julep leading him into a trap? As mysterious and surprise-filled as this canyon had proven to be, Slocum had to admit that he had no real idea how to get up and out of it. Could be she was waiting just around the bend with a whole passel of her crazy Southern rebel family and friends, ready to drag him in ropes back to the campfire and work him over, torture him for being a deserter from their bizarre cause.
And then he rounded the corner and there she was, waiting for him, a perfect circle of sunlight streaming down on her almost as if in a painting, from the round gap under a naturally formed archway in the rock trail above. And beyond that, he suspected, they weren’t far from freedom.
“You had me worried,” he said, glancing behind himself at the curve in the rocky path.
“Good,” said Julep. “But we’re not out of the woods yet. Up ahead there’s another switchback, and then we’ll be able to see what’s in store for us.”
Slocum and the mare finally made it up beside Julep. For the first time he took real notice of her mount. It was a bay mare, too, but younger, leaner. She looked spunky and fidgeted while Julep held it still.
“You sounded hesitant,” he said.
“That switchback I mentioned, it’s big, and one part of it is hidden from this end, making it a good place for someone to lay in wait for us.”
Slocum nodded, then nudged his horse forward. “Julep, I’ll need a gun. If you trust me enough to save my life, and that was before you knew me, then you should trust me now. If we’re going to be ambushed, I would like some way of defending myself that levels the odds a bit.” He patted the hilt of the knife. “This is a pretty impressive blade, but at a distance, it won’t do as much as a bullet.”
Julep hesitated, then reached behind her, unbuckled the flap on a saddlebag, and lifted out Slocum’s Colt Navy in his holster. The bullet loops were filled, the leather had been oiled, and the gun even looked pretty well tended, and not too worse for the wear, considering the fall it took from the cliff top.
“Why, thank you, Julep,” he said, checking the cylinder and filling it with fresh rounds. “This old gun has been with me a long time, and I’m pleased as punch to find it’ll be with me awhile longer yet.”
“Deke didn’t want me to give it to you. Said you had to earn it.”
“Yeah, well, the next few hours will likely see to that.”
“We found a rifle, but it was busted up pretty bad. Figure it was that cat that did it. And the fall didn’t help it none.”
“Hmm,” he said, strapping on his gun belt. “Didn’t find a knife, not unlike this one, did you?”
“No, I didn’t. Maybe Deke or one of the boys did.”
“Well, I have this one now, and I’m sure it’s bothering Rufus something fierce.” He smiled and nudged the old mare into a walk, hugging the smooth left side of the canyon wall. “Rufus is an odd duck, that’s for certain,” he said in a quieter voice, keeping his eyes forward.
Julep responded in a lowered voice. “She’s always been that way. Just plain odd. But we love her anyway.”
“Yeah,” mumbled Slocum in little more than a whisper. “There’s so much about her to love.”
“I heard that,” said Julep, but Slocum cut her short with a raised hand of warning. He nodded forward, toward a jutting shadow. It appeared to move. He slid the Colt from its holster and eased the hammer back. Right before them, a small, furry face barely a foot off the trail rounded the corner, froze when it saw the two horses and riders.
It was a fox, and though it was obviously surprised to find them there, it regarded them for a moment before it spun and disappeared somewhere uptrail.
Slocum looked at Julep with raised eyebrows. “That bodes well—if anyone were up there, the fox wouldn’t have passed this far down. As long as there aren’t any places it might have sneaked in from elsewhere.”
“Not that I know of,” said Julep. “I think we’re going to make it out of here without trouble.”
“Now that’s what I was wondering—just what sort of trouble are you expecting?”
“Well, I know a whole group of Deke’s men went out on a job not long ago. I heard him yelling to someone about it not long before I followed you.”
“How long are the men usually out on these jobs?”
“All depends, but this one . . . maybe a week or two. Hard to say. Deke don’t share much information unless you ask.” She nodded toward a curve in the rock. “Behind there’s what I was talking about. Could be someone back there.”
Slocum thought about sliding down off the horse, realized he’d need help getting back into the saddle, but decided to risk it. He edged faster now toward the hidden space, keeping his Colt at full cock and extended, one arm braced across the other. Peering around the curve, he saw that the space was empty. “Just like the fox told us,” he said.
Julep was smiling.
“How far to the top?”
“Just ahead. One more slight curve, and then we come out between two big old rocks that don’t look like so much from the top. You got to know where they are to ever find your way back here.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” Slocum nudged the old horse and they climbed the last bit at as fast a clip as he dared to urge the old horse. She performed admirably and soon Slocum felt the air shift yet again, reminding him of the slowly rising temperatures of the region.
The canyon would have been a tempting spot for travelers to have looked down upon, especially to people who had been trekking across near-barren wastes. With little respite from the elements, a distinct lack of water, daytime temperatures hot as blue blazes, and nights as brutal in the opposite extreme, there would be sweating and shivering in young and old alike. Slocum could only imagine what so many people had thought on seeing the canyon from above, all that lush-looking green, trees, and not just the size of a deceptive little oasis either.
This was a sunken oasis filled with the promise of a respite from the drudgery of travel, of sand in one’s meager daily ration of food, of sickness and boredom and worry that they’d never make the journey. It promised relief from the real threat that they might collapse and die in the desert, their corpses scavenged by wild beasts the likes of which most had never seen back from where they’d hailed. But eventually they’d not find any way down into the canyon, or would die a surprise, gruesome death at the hands of Apache, who must have placed sentries all around the rim.
Despite his urge to get away from the canyon, that last thought of Apache gave Slocum pause. He reined up just short of the last few paces and held a hand up for Julep to do the same. The devils might well be lying in wait just outside. That was what he’d do were he an Apache forced out of his home by Deke’s people.
This time he did slip down from the horse’s back. He touched his lips with a finger, indicating to Julep that she keep quiet. Then he crept, one slow step at a time, toward the opening in the rock. His boot heels crunched gravel and he paused, resting his back against stone. He glanced back once at Julep, half expecting to see her aiming the rifle at him. Or worse, to see Deke and his band of crazy rebels filling the stone passage behind her. But there was no sign of them—no noise, shadow, or otherwise. And of Julep, she had the rifle drawn, all right, but had the business end aimed at the cleft in the rock. He nodded, then shifted his attention back to the task at hand.
Crouching even lower, Slocum slipped his sweat-soaked bandanna off his forehead, balled it up in one hand, and tossed it through the opening. Almost immediately, another shadow, much like the fox’s but taller, shifted slightly.
He could just see one frayed red end of the unfurled kerchief where it lay in the sand, fluttering slightly in an unseen breeze. Now they knew he was there, and he intended to leave. He also knew they, or at least one person—Apache or white, that much was yet still a mystery—was out there. He also doubted whoever it was wanted to pat him on the back and hand him a cigar. But he’d play this hand and let them think he was satisfied that no one caught on to his weak attempt at “tricking” any ambushers.
He sucked in a quick breath, wishing like hell his battered body could take what he was about to dish up, and barreled through the stony cleft, low and spinning around as he made it through, hoping to see his attacker face-on. And he did.