CHAPTER NINE
Tired horses and hilly country slowed the stage, and by the time Nolan’s Station came in sight Buttons Muldoon had lit the side lamps against the fading daylight. Seth Roper had caught up an hour before and rode point. The man seemed as concerned about Apaches as Red Ryan was, and he carried his Winchester upright, the butt on his thigh, his head moving constantly.
Suddenly Roper raised his arm and called a halt.
Buttons drew rein on the team and said, “What the hell . . .”
Roper turned his horse, rode back to the stage and said, “Something is happening at the station, and it don’t look good.”
“Hell, there’s always happenings at a stage stop,” Buttons said, scowling at the man.
But Red Ryan’s gaze reached across distance and he said, “It’s Apaches, Buttons. Looks like they’re looting the place.”
“Have they seen us?” Buttons said.
“Not yet, but they will,” Red said. He made up his mind, bent over in his seat, and called out, “Carter, climb up here on top. You ladies get down between the seats. Roper, you lead us in. We’ll charge at a gallop right down their damn throats.”
Seth Roper was a frontier ruffian, but he was smart. He knew very well that the stage couldn’t outrun the Apaches and it would be a disaster if they were caught out in the open. Attacking with only four fighting men didn’t seem like a good idea either. Roper thought about making a run for it on his own, but dismissed the idea. He’d very quickly reached an understanding with Lucian Carter, one desperado to another, and the stakes were too high for him to turn his back on the money involved.
“Ready when you are, Ryan,” Roper said. “I hope you’ve got the belly for a fight.”
“When it comes to fighting, you can try me any time, Roper,” Red said, irritated by the man’s arrogance.
Roper laughed and said, “One day I might just take you up on that.”
The stage rocked as Lucian Carter climbed on top. He braced his legs against Stella Morgan’s large steamer trunk, drew his guns, and said, “Ryan, I hope you know what the hell you’re doing.”
Buttons hoorawed the horses into motion and yelled over his shoulder at Carter, “No, he don’t!”
* * *
The Apaches were preoccupied, three with Nolan’s woman, four others leading horses out of the barn, and they didn’t heed the stage until it was right on top of them. One of the Indians with the horses whooped in alarm when he saw the thundering, dust-clouded coach bearing down on him. He snapped off a shot from his rifle . . . and the fight was on.
Buttons hauled the team to a shuddering halt and immediately a tall warrior with a broad, painted face came at Red Ryan through the following dust cloud, a Colt in his fist. The Apaches were not noted revolver fighters, and the Indian’s shot missed, splitting the air close to Red’s left ear. Red let the man have both barrels of the Greener in the face, and the Apache’s features instantly disappeared in a scarlet mess, like a raspberry pie dropped on a bakery floor. Red threw down his shotgun, drew his Colt, and jumped from his seat. Events flickered fast around him, a real-life magic-lantern show that revealed images for just a fleeting moment before they were gone. Red saw an Apache fall to Carter’s roaring guns, and then another . . . damn, the man was good! Roper fought his rearing horse and then fired at a half-naked warrior who’d just rolled off Mrs. Nolan. Surprised by the attack, dulled by his lust, the Apache grabbed his rifle, climbed out of the wagon bed, and staggered to his feet. Roper shot the man down and then spurred his mount toward a couple of warriors who stood in the doorway of the barn, both of them firing, making a fight of it.
Red left those two to Roper and met a pair who’d been ravishing the now-unconscious woman. The range was close. A bullet burned across the meat of Ryan’s left shoulder and another kicked a startled exclamation point of dust inches from his boots. Red Ryan’s name was always mentioned when men talked about shootists and the new breed of Texas draw fighters, and that evening at Nolan’s Station he proved himself worthy of his reputation. At a range of just five yards, he thumbed off two shots and dropped both Apaches. One was dead when he hit the ground, the second, part of his left cheekbone torn away by Red’s bullet, gamely tried to work his Winchester but the effort proved too much for him and, his black eyes glittering with hatred, he spat his defiance at Ryan, kneeled, and waited for the bullet . . . that never came.
The young warrior had sand and Red was willing to let him die on his own terms.
But Buttons Muldoon didn’t see it that way.
As far as he was concerned a wounded Apache buck with a rifle close by was an imminent danger, and three bullets from his revolver hammered the Indian into the ground.
“Taking chances, ain’t you, Red?” Buttons yelled, his Remington trailing smoke.
“I guess I’m getting soft in my old age,” Ryan said.
“And you only thirty-five,” Buttons said. “Don’t get any softer, not when Apaches are around.”
Red took in the gunsmoke-shrouded scene, his gun ready in his hand. But the Battle of Nolan’s Station, as it would come to be called, was over. Six Mescaleros were dead and one wounded. That quickly became seven dead when Lucian Carter put a bullet though the head of the injured warrior.
Then Seth Roper called out, “Ryan, you better come over here.”
The gunman stood beside the wagon where Maud Nolan lay on her back. As he walked toward the woman, Red saw that she was plump, pretty . . . and out of her mind.