It would have been child’s play for Clay Taggart to have picked off the bull from a distance with the Winchester. A single shot through the skull from a hundred yards out would have done the job nicely. It would also have given Clay plenty of time to slip away before the cowboys spilled from the bunkhouse and fanned out to find him.
By rights, that is what Clay should have done. It was quicker. It was safer. It was the smart thing to do. But, as with slaying Gillett outright, it would have been too easy. And it would also rob him of the deep feeling of satisfaction he would get from doing it the way he had planned.
As the bull lumbered toward him, White Apache coiled his steely arms and legs. The creature sniffed loudly again and again. White Apache could only hope that the delicious aroma of the hay would smother his own scent or so overpower it that the bull would not realize its mistake until too late.
The animal’s hide was dark brown, which made its features hard to see in the dark. It halted a few steps away and bent its giant head from side to side, as if studying the pile. Warm, fetid breath gushed from its lungs, stirring the hay and washing over the prone man. A huge hoof pawed the ground.
For tense moments the bull simply stood there. It could not seem to make up its mind whether to take a bite or not.
White Apache scarcely breathed. The towering mountain of muscle edged nearer and lowered its mouth to nip at the edge of the hay. Its large teeth crunched loudly. It swallowed, snorted, and took one more step. Now its head was right above White Apache. Looking up, he saw the underside of its wide chin and the many loose folds of flesh which were his target.
White Apache coiled his legs, then exploded upward, wrapping his left arm around the bull’s neck even as he buried the Bowie in the creature’s neck, not once but several times. The bull uttered a grunt of surprise and started to back up. White Apache plunged the blade in once more, twisted it, and slashed from right to left, severing hide and blood vessels from one side of its throat to the other. A sticky, warm geyser spouted downward over his shoulders and chest. In the blink of an eye White Apache was drenched.
Bulls were not the brightest of animals. It took a few more seconds for this one to register the fact that it was being attacked, and to react. Suddenly throwing itself into the air, it whirled as it came down and shook itself as a dog might to shake off an unwanted flea. When that failed to work, it bucked like a bronco.
White Apache clung on for dear life. He stabbed and stabbed, slicing the neck to ribbons, while more and more blood cascaded over him. The monster’s front hooves slammed down so close to his body that flying bits of dirt peppered his face and torso. Over and over he was yanked high into the air, then flung at the ground so hard that his teeth jarred together. His legs and hips were battered mercilessly.
The bull abruptly stopped. It planted its legs wide and commenced whipping its body from side to side while at the same time it forked its sharp horns down at its tormentor.
White Apache held on with both arms and tucked his knees to his chest. He was snapped from side to side so violently that his arms were nearly torn from their sockets. His body smacked the earth repeatedly. Pain lanced him without let up. He began to think that he had let his thirst for vengeance blind his judgment, that it would have been better to kill the brute from a distance than to attempt the feat with his own two hands.
Unexpectedly, the bull straightened and ran toward the fence. Head down, hooves flying, it pounded to within a few feet of the rails before it veered aside and circled the corral at breakneck speed. Its movements grew more frantic with every passing moment.
Less blood poured onto White Apache. His arms were already so slick, though, that he had trouble holding on. When the bull cut to the right, he felt his hands start to go. Rather than make a futile effort to regain his purchase, he let himself be hurled loose and rolled with the momentum. Like a spinning top he shot over a dozen feet before he came to rest on his left side, facing Gillett’s pride and joy.
The bull was staring right at him. It pawed the earth, bobbed its head, and charged.
White Apache knew what those flailing hooves would do to his body. The bull was already so close that he had no time to leap to his feet and flee. All he could do was throw himself to one side and roll like a madman. He heard the bull go pounding by, and the instant it passed, he sprang erect.
For such a massive brute, the bull was amazingly quick and agile. It whirled in a twinkling and came after him, head down, horns cocked to gore.
The fence seemed miles off. White Apache flew toward it, his arms and legs pumping. He did not look back. He did not need to. The bull’s breath was warm on his back and he swore that the ground under him trembled as if to an earthquake. There was thunder in his ears, but whether it was the wild hammering of his own heart or the hammering of the creature’s hooves he honestly couldn’t say.
Suddenly the rails were right there in front of him. White Apache hurled himself into the air. His left hand caught hold of the top one and he catapulted himself up and over. He was going so fast that he was unable to keep from tumbling when something hit his hip a jolting blow. For harrowing moments he sailed head over heels, to land on his shoulder with enough force to knock the breath from his lungs and leave him gasping and helpless, at the bull’s mercy.
As if through a gray haze, White Apache could hear the animal snort and stomp. Mustering his strength, he turned his head.
The bull was still inside, its dripping muzzle pressed between two of the rails, its dark eyes fixed on him in hellish hatred. It could have smashed through with ease, reducing the timbers to so much kindling, and been on him in a flash. But habit won out over hatred.
White Apache fought to clear his head as he propped his hands under him and struggled to stand. He had the presence of mind to glance at the bunkhouse and the main house. All was quiet. No lights had come on. No doors had opened. It would have been a different story if the bull had smashed out of the corral. And Gillett’s men still might be roused from slumber if the animal made a lot of noise in its death throes.
Hefting the Bowie, White Apache walked around the corral to the far side. As he wanted, the bull shadowed him, glaring all the while. He stopped near the Winchester. Now all he had to do was wait.
The bull stood a few feet away, wheezing like a bellows. Every so often it would give a mighty shake of its head. It swayed from time to time but always recovered.
White Apache did not clean off his knife. Not yet, anyway. He simply watched as the animal slowly weakened. Many minutes went by, but he did not move.
As a tribute to the bull’s stamina, almost an hour elapsed before it swayed for perhaps the fortieth time. This time, however, it lost its balance and fell heavily, straight down. It tried to get back up, its legs thrashing wildly. But it could not.
Another twenty minutes were gone when the animal finally snorted and rolled onto its side. For the longest while it breathed softly, its tail twitching every now and then. At long, long last it exhaled loudly and was still.
White Apache wasted no more time. A lithe bound took him over the corral fence. He alighted close to the bull, poised to flee in case it revived.
His concern on that score proved groundless. It was indeed dead.
Bending over the neck, White Apache set to work. The Bowie was sharp but the hide was tough and the flesh thick with muscle. He broke out in a sweat as he sawed clean down to the bone. It proved difficult to turn the head when he needed to go further until he set down the knife, spread his legs wide, gripped a horn in each hand, and twisted.
For the most part, White Apache worked in silence. The night wind carried the occasional yip of coyotes. At times one of the animals in the stable would make a noise, but never loud enough to be heard up at the house or by the cowhands.
In due course White Apache had the neck severed, but his work was not quite done. He went to the trough, washed the Bowie clean, and dried it on his loincloth. After sliding the blade into its beaded sheath, he returned to the bull. The head now lay bent at a strange angle. The tongue jutted from parted Ups. Again he gripped the horns and braced himself.
Shoulders bunching, White Apache gave the head a violent wrench. It twisted, but not sharply enough to do what had to be done. Once more he tried, with a similar result. Taking a few deep breaths and firming his arms, he jerked his body around, throwing his entire weight into the movement. The head lifted, bent. He heaved, straining. The snap of the neck bone breaking was like the crack of a derringer.
White Apache nearly fell on his face when the head gave way under him. He dug in his heels, rose, and faced the buildings. No one appeared, and he was turning back to the task at hand when a latch rasped faintly and the door to the bunkhouse swung inward.
Instantly White Apache dashed to the rails. He was up and over quicker than a lizard could have done. Reclaiming the Winchester, he sprinted around the stable to the far corner. From there he could see that a single puncher had emerged and was hurrying over.
The man was an older hand, sporting a grizzled chin and hair cropped short. He had on an undershirt with holes in it and his pants. In his right hand he held a rifle. As he neared the stable he worked the lever and slowed down.
Clay Taggart reined in an impulse to curse a blue streak. He did not need this, not when he was so close. Staying well hid until the front of the stable blocked the cowboy from sight, he sprinted forward, careful not to step on anything that might give him away. At the front corner, White Apache stopped.
The hand was thirty feet away, close to the corral but not quite close enough to see the bull clearly. The man was looking every which way and acted puzzled. No doubt he had heard the neck break but he could not figure out what had made the noise. Slowly turning, he moved nearer to the rails.
It would be all over once the puncher saw the bull. The man would shout to high heaven and the rest of the cowboys would rush out to see what all the fuss was about.
White Apache thought fast. Spinning on a heel, he raced back around to the rear of the stable. The back door was closed but opened readily. He ran up the aisle to a stall containing a cow. Opening it, he grabbed the startled animal by the ear and steered it toward the front. The wide double doors were still ajar, so all he had to do was give the cow a swat on the rump and it walked on out as if taking a moonlit stroll.
“Bessy? What the hell are you doing loose? Did that damned Johnson forget to pen you in again? He knows how you like to wander.”
White Apache darted into the shadows. Through a crack he saw the old cowboy take hold of the cow and lead her back.
“I’ve got to have another talk with that yack. You’re our best milker, and I can’t have you traipsing off every time you get it into your head that you need to gallivant.” The man rubbed her neck affectionately. “Without your milk, girl, the vittles I ship up would be a sight less tasty.”
The man was the cook. As any rancher knew, the cookie was the heart and soul of every cow outfit. He not only kept the hands fed and a hot pot of coffee ready at any hour of the day, he acted as nursemaid when punchers were busted up, watched over bedrolls when a drive was under way, acted as banker when men had loose change which needed to be kept safe, and always had a ready ear for any problem or complaint which might arise.
Clay had many fond memories of the cooks he had known. So now, as the grizzled man pushed on the door to usher Bessy back into the stable, a mental tug of war took place. Part of Clay wanted to spare him. Another part of him wanted to bury the Bowie to the hilt. He put his hand on the knife but wavered, torn by the two conflicting urges.
Bessy ambled inside and on down the aisle. The cook strode only a few steps behind her, grinning.
From out of the darkness swooped Clay Taggart. His arms swept up. The cookie caught the motion out of the corner of his eye and pivoted, bringing his own rifle to bear. Clay struck first, smashing the stock of the Winchester into the cook’s temple. A second blow was not needed. The cook dropped in his tracks like a poled ox.
White Apache stepped back and regarded the unconscious man a moment. It was fortunate, he mused, that none of the other members of the band had been there. Fiero, especially, would mock him for being so weak. An Apache never spared an enemy when there was no need.
Bessy had stopped to look around in dull confusion. Clay gave her a healthy swat on the backside and she took off toward her stall as if her tail were on fire. He moved to the double doors. A quick check verified no one else had appeared so he dashed to the corral and scaled the rails.
The bull’s head was heavy. Instead of lifting it, Clay took hold of a horn with one hand so his other hand would be free to use a gun, and dragged the grisly trophy to the gate. Once he had the gate open, he continued dragging the head out of the corral and on across the neatly tended yard which separated the stable from the house.
The head left a gory smear in its wake. Clay deliberately dragged it through a flower garden and then up a tidy walk to the front porch. To his right sat a bench flanked by a trellis. To his left, a settle draped with flowery vines the likes of which he had never seen before. They were as much out of place in Arizona as swamp grass would be. He knew that Lilly must have had the plants sent from somewhere back in the States, which made them precious to her. Out of sheer spite he went over and cut every last vine to shreds.
Most men would have been satisfied at that point. They would have left the bulls head on the bench or the settle or in front of the door. But not Clay Taggart. He wanted to strike the fear of God into Miles Gillett, and to do that, he had to take a gamble most men would label insane.
Clay tried the screen door. It was unlocked. Nor was the inner door barred. Which was not at all unusual out in the country, where folks tended to trust one another—and in Providence. Doors were rarely locked. In fact, the man who took up the practice was often viewed with suspicion. What was wrong with him, the common sentiment went, that he saw fit to shut out his own neighbors?
The Winchester, Clay left propped against the jamb. He braced the screen door wide with a foot, then hauled the head inside and set it on the polished floorboards in the hall. Grinning in sadistic glee, he dragged it past several rooms to the foot of a staircase.
The house was as still as a tomb. It was so quiet that Clay could hear the raspy growl of someone sawing logs upstairs. Gripping both horns, he toted his prize to the landing and there paused to get his bearings.
There were two doors on the right, one on the left. Clay crept to the latter and peeked within. When he set eyes on the pair in the canopy bed, he gave a start, even though he expected them to be there. His pulse quickened and the room seemed to spin before him, so intense were his emotions. It took every ounce of self-control he had to keep him from drawing his six-shooter and finishing the pair off then and there.
Asleep in the bed were Miles and Lilly Gillett. The rancher was on his wide back, a forearm draped over his brow. Lilly lay curled on her right side, her lower lip fluttering as she breathed.
Clay’s memory was jolted by her beauty. Inwardly he traveled back to the days before his life fell apart, to the time before Lilly had been forced to wed Gillett to save her father’s ranch, to the days when the two of them were together all the time and talking seriously of marriage and the family they would have.
A thrill tingled Clay’s spine. It was as if he had stripped off the years, and there he was, running hand-in-hand across a sunny meadow with Lilly at his side. Her long hair flew in the wind as she laughed in gay abandon and turned eyes filled with love on him. They halted under the limbs of a willow on the bank of a gleaming river and kissed as they had kissed hundreds of time before. The lush feel of her ripe body, her warmth, the musky scent of her perfume, all combined to make Clay’s head swim.
Lilly had always had that effect on him. She had been the one great love of his life and she had thrown that love up in his face. There were times when merely thinking about it was enough to make Clay want to scream.
This was one of those times. Clay clenched his fists and grit his teeth and allowed the feeling to pass before he went on about the chore he had set for himself.
Miles Gillett appeared to be out to the world. Which struck Clay as odd, given the comments he had overheard on the ridge. The cowboy named Carter had claimed that Gillett was having trouble sleeping nights, and waking up at the drop of a feather. Yet there the man snored.
Then Clay spotted the bottle on the nightstand beside the bed. His moccasins made no noise on the plush rug as he walked over and lifted it to the window. The scrawl was hard to read but he recognized it as the handwriting of old Doc Sawyer in Tucson. The sawbones had prescribed the concoction for stomach trouble and bad nerves.
So.
The stories were true.
White Apache’s eyes lit with sadistic glee as he stealthily went back around to the hallway and brought the head inside. He froze when Lilly shifted and muttered under her breath. She smacked her red lips a few times, curled up on her other side, and was sleeping peacefully in moments.
The sheet had slid partially off her. Clay saw her full figure from the waist up. He saw how her bosom strained against her sheer nightgown and the rise and fall of her flat belly as she breathed, and a lump formed in his throat. Swallowing, he went to the landing for the bull’s head and brought it to the foot of the bed.
Now came the truly difficult part. Even people who were hard to wake up would do so instantly if they felt someone—or something—crawl into bed with them.
Clay Taggart slowly lowered the head to the quilt. He had to shove both hands up under the folds of the neck to keep it from slipping. Exercising the utmost care, he eased the head down so that the back of it rested on the footboard. The bed barely sagged.
Miles Gillett abruptly stirred. His arm dropped to his side and he rolled to the left. His eyes seemed to blink once or twice. For a few moments it appeared that he was about to wake up. But once he had rolled over, he subsided, his chin drooping to his chest. He snored louder than ever.
Ever so slowly, Clay slid his fingers out from under the neck. They were caked with flecks of blood and gore. He looked around. The pink canopy caught his eye. Reaching up, he wiped his hands on the ruffle.
Clay backed from the bedroom. He paused in the doorway, once again torn by two desires. On the one hand, he yearned to go over to Gillett and slit the bastard from ear to ear. On the other, he wanted to torment his enemy Apache-style, to make Gillett endure living hell before he finally evened the score.
It was Lilly who decided the issue. She rolled onto her back at that exact moment. The sheet shifted lower still, exposing her exquisite figure down to the knees. Pale starlight bathed her, imbuing her with such stark beauty that it took Clay Taggart’s breath away. It also reminded him of how much he had lost, of how much Miles Gillett had to atone for.
No, Clay decided. Killing the man would have to wait. There would be another time, another place. As soundless as a specter, he glided to the landing and down to the first floor. The wind whipped his long hair as he stepped onto the porch and retrieved the Winchester.
White Apache was halfway along the gravel walk when he spied a figure near the stable. The cook had revived much sooner than he had expected and was crawling toward the bunkhouse. Swiftly, White Apache ran over:
The man was so weak that he could hardly lift an arm. Blood trickled from a nasty gash in his temple, down over his cheek and chin. His head was so low to the ground that he did not realize he was no longer alone until he extended his right hand and his fingers brushed White Apache’s foot. Going rigid, the man glanced up. “Oh, God!” he croaked. “Not you!”
“Do you know who I am?” Clay asked quietly.
The sourdough managed to nod.
“How?”
“Your eyes.”
Clay Taggart hunkered down. “There was a cook named Brewster once. He worked for my pa. He took a shine to me and used to make me son-of-a-bitch-in-a-sack every chance he could. If you ever run into him, tell him how obliged you are.”
“For what?”
“For your life,” Clay Taggart said, and slammed the stock against the man’s jaw. The cook sagged. This time he would be out for quite a while.
Rising, Clay walked into the stable and selected the finest horse there, a roan stallion. It behaved itself as he led it out onto the plain, swung up bare-back, and applied his heels. In moments the night closed around him, and he chuckled, quite pleased with himself.
Little did White Apache know that the last laugh was not to be his.