‘What the hell happened out there?’ Perkins fumed. ‘I send you out with a dozen men and you come back with almost half your number gone. Your orders were simply to stir up trouble, not get all your men killed.’
‘They jumped us,’ Esa tried to explain.
‘Sir!’
‘Sir.’
Esa went on to explain what happened at the Yavapai camp while Perkins listened in silence to the report.
‘Is your wounded man going to make it?’
‘Yeah,’ Esa nodded, ‘he’ll be fine.’
Perkins paced to the window and stared out at the parade ground that glowed orange under the sinking sun. It was a usually a magnificent time of the day when the desert was transformed into something magical.
He turned back to Esa and said, ‘OK. With the bodies you left out there, it won’t be long before we start to see the results. And when we do, we’ll make contact with the Yavapai and offer them an alliance.’
That was the part of the plan that worried Esa. Rile up the Apaches to get them on-side and they’ll just as likely slit your throat for being a white man.
‘I hope you’re right, Sir,’ Esa said. ‘If you ain’t, then we’re all dead.’
‘Then we’ll all be beyond caring won’t we?’
There was a knock at the door and a private entered, a worried expression on his face.
‘What is it, Spence?’ Perkins snapped, annoyed at the interruption.
‘I’m sorry, Major,’ he apologized, ‘but Captain Simeon doesn’t seem to be anywhere on the post.’
Perkins frowned. ‘Did you look everywhere?’
‘Yes, Sir.’
Perkins looked at Esa. ‘Have you seen him since you’ve been back?’
‘No. The last I heard, he was out lookin’ for the escapees.’
‘Are the others back?’ Perkins asked Spence.
Spence nodded.
‘Then where the hell is Simeon?’
Both men stared blankly at him.
‘Damn it! Find out where he is.’
Perkins watched them leave and returned to his seat. He tried to work out what Simeon might be up to and where he’d gone. Each scenario he came up left him with a nagging feeling that once he found out, he wasn’t going to like it.
~*~
‘I asked you a question, Sloan, now damn well answer it,’ Esa snarled.
There was no love lost between the two men and Sloan looked at him defiantly.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘We lost contact with him. He told us to come on back while he checked out something he’d seen.’
‘You’re lyin’.’
Sloan shrugged. ‘Maybe. But there ain’t no way for you to prove it, is there?.’
The was a drawn out silence as Esa’s icy stare lingered on him. A horse snorted in its stall farther along the stables while another shifted about noisily. The air was filled with the smell of straw and horse shit.
‘I ought to beat the truth outta you here and now you lyin’ son of a bitch,’ Esa growled taking a step toward Sloane.
The dry triple-click of a gun hammer going back made Esa halt. Then he felt the gun barrel pressed hard to the back of his head.
‘If you take one more step Esa I’ll blow your damned brains all over the stables,’ Sergeant Larry Granville whispered harshly so no one could overhear.
Esa showed no fear at the threat and said, ‘Stay out of this, Granville. It ain’t got nothin’ to do with you.’
‘He’s my man, Esa. Leave him be. Get gone Sloan.’
Esa turned slowly and faced the square-jawed Granville after Sloan had disappeared. Even though he was almost six-feet tall, Granville had a further four inches on him.
‘All I wanted to know is where Simeon was?’
‘He told you, now get.’
As Esa started to leave, Granville called after him. ‘I know what you and Perkins are tryin’ to do, Esa. Shelby told me. You’re both mad. Tryin’ to use Apaches to help your cause. All you two stupid bastards will do is get the men killed. The cause is dead. Even the General knows it.’
Esa turned and said, ‘This ain’t over.’
‘Yeah, it is,’ Granville corrected him. ‘Be gone.’
The big sergeant took one last look around the stables to see if there was anybody else there. Satisfied that he was alone, he turned and walked out the double-doors that led onto the parade ground.
The air outside was chill against his skin and the sky was clear so the moon and stars stood out brightly. Granville made to walk on when there was movement behind him. He whirled about to face Esa.
‘What the hell …?’
Granville got no further before his opposite number raised his six-gun and shot him in the face. The effect of the .44 caliber slug on human flesh and bone was devastating. It destroyed everything in its path until the back of Granville’s head exploded violently outwards.
The body collapsed at Esa’s feet with a dull thud. He looked down with disdain at the corpse and then hawked. He rolled the globule around in his mouth then spat on the dead man’s ruined face.
He sniffed and said, ‘Damned traitor.’
~*~
Somewhere in the moonlit darkness off to the east, a coyote yipped and finished with a drawn out high-pitched howl. It was instantly answered by two more. One to the southeast and another to the northwest.
Savage poked at the small fire with a stick and said, ‘I see you got some friends out there hangin’ around.’
‘They ain’t coyotes,’ Lucifer pointed out.
‘I know. You want to hope they don’t get you. They’ll kill you nice and slow. Probably take a week. Peel the skin right off you.’
‘What about you?’
‘Hell, they’ll probably kill me just for associatin’ with you. I know I would.’
Lucifer’s face grew hard and he said, ‘I’ll go and check the horses.’
‘No,’ said Savage with a shake of his head. ‘I will.’
‘Don’t you trust me?’ Lucifer sneered.
‘I’d trust a coiled rattler before I’d trust you, Lucifer,’ Savage answered. ‘Even them Apaches out there are more trustworthy than you.’
Lucifer’s voice took on a hard edge. ‘When this is done, you and me are goin’ to have a reckonin’.’
Savage ignored the remark and walked beyond the firelight to check on the horses. The coyotes started up again and the sorrel shifted nervously.
‘Easy horse,’ he soothed. ‘They won’t be comin’ tonight.’
The animal snorted as though it understood the calming words. Savage stood there beside the animal for a time staring out across the desert. He watched as inanimate figures like the giant saguaros seemingly took on life.
The Apaches called back and forth to one another and Savage figured there were now at least five of them out there in the dark. He decided then that they would ride on before the sun came up, maybe even a couple of hours before dawn.
It would take at least another day and a half to reach the fort. Add another day turnaround before the cavalry headed back into the mountains.
Savage walked back into the firelight and saw that Lucifer had laid down beside the fire, back to him, trying to keep warm. He shrugged his shoulders and said sarcastically, ‘I’ll take first watch shall I?’
Lucifer remained silent.
‘Nope, I insist. Don’t go getting’ up on my account.”
Nothing.
Savage frowned. He moved closer to the still form and noticed the dark stain on the sand beneath him. Hesitantly, he reached down and gripped Lucifer’s shoulder and rolled him onto his back.
The man was dead. His throat had been slashed right across and gaped wide like some sort of macabre smile.
‘Well now,’ Savage said as he straightened and dropped his hand to the butt of the Remington. ‘It looks like Lucifer has gone to Hell.’
~*~
Everywhere he looked, the morning sky was filled with signal-smoke. North, east, west, and south. There was no escaping the fact that he was surrounded. Savage had left the campsite well before dawn. He’d left both Lucifer and his horse behind. The dead man’s weapons, however, he’d kept. The Navy Colt, he placed in his saddlebags and the rifle was rolled up in his bedroll.
‘Somethin’s sure got them riled up, horse,’ Savage said out loud to the sorrel. ‘Surely it ain’t because of Lucifer. All this smoke ain’t from the Chiricahua. There’s somethin’ else goin’ on. Somethin’ big.’
The horse shifted uneasily beneath him and waited patiently as Savage took off his hat and wiped the sweat from his brow. He’d stopped to assess his options and studied the surrounding country. There was a faint dust haze in every direction except to the south of his position on the low ridge. It wasn’t the way he wanted to go but seemed to be the only avenue open to him and was more than likely the way the Apaches wanted him to go.
Savage reached down and took the Yellow Boy from the saddle scabbard. He checked the action and sat it with its but resting on his right thigh.
He eased the horse forward and said, ‘Looks like things are about to get a whole lot more interestin’.
Savage chose to go west. Not because he wanted to, but because that was the most direct route to Fort Craig. He rode between two giant saguaros and followed the faint trail down the slope before he cut off it and dropped down into a dry wash.
He followed its winding path for two miles until the sound of horse hooves rumbling across the desert reached his ears. He hauled back on the reins and brought the sorrel to a halt. Then he spotted them. Their track would bring them within fifty yards of his position.
Savage urged the sorrel forward until it was hidden behind a clump of brush at the edge of the wash. He dismounted and stood near the sorrel’s head and rubbed its muzzle to keep it quiet while the strange horses passed.
The drumming grew louder and he could see them clearly when he peered around the edge of the clump. Thirty of them. Their long black hair bounced against brown shoulders covered in dust kicked up by their horses as they cantered along.
The sorrel surged against Savage’s grip and he fought to keep it from breaking loose. As the drumming grew quieter it settled again and all that was left of the Apaches passing was the billowing cloud of dust.
Savage climbed back into the saddle. ‘Come on horse, it’s time we got the hell outta here.’
~*~
Ben Simeon saw the same smoke that Savage had seen that morning and cursed Perkins and his lunatic scheme. This entire part of Arizona territory was about to have the lid blown off and Perkins was too wrapped-up in his own world and blinded by his cause to see how dangerous the situation could become. He’d pushed his horse for most of the night but the animal was tired. He knew that if he didn’t locate Savage soon, he would be forced to stop for a long period for his mount to rest.
Without warning, the ground in front of him heaved and exploded upwards as a figure came clear of the depression it had been hiding in. The renegade Rios had managed to circle around to get in front of Simeon and had buried himself just to the left of the trail to wait for his quarry. He brought up a battered Spencer repeating rifle and aimed it at Simeon.
The hammer on the rifle fell and the sound of the gunshot rocked the surrounding desert. Just before the bullet knocked the captain from his horse, he could see the look of triumph on the renegade’s face.
The impact of the heavy caliber slug felt like a hammer blow to his chest and as he fell, Simeon’s body became numb from the shock of it. He hit the ground hard, his face planted firmly into the coarse sand. Unable to move, he could hear Rios approach. The sound of his footsteps was followed by a shadow that fell across him.
Rios prodded at the open wound in Simeon’s back where the bullet from the Spencer had exited. The captain stiffened and screamed as pain shot through his body.
‘Good,’ Rios hissed in a low voice. ‘You are still alive. But you will soon be dead.’
The renegade bent down and grabbed the prone Simeon roughly by the shoulder and rolled him onto his back. The killer’s eyes flew wide when he found himself staring down the barrel of Simeon’s six-gun.
‘Eat this you son of a bitch,’ Simeon said, his cold smile exposed blood-stained teeth.
The gun crashed loudly and spewed a mix of flame and blue-gray smoke from its barrel. The slug smashed into Rios’ face, blowing brain matter and bone fragments from the back of his head. The lifeless body fell to the ground with a dull thud and Simeon snarled wetly, ‘Got you, you bastard. Damn well … ‘
He coughed and a rattle emanated from deep within his chest. ‘I guess you got me too. And good.’
Simeon tried to sit up but the pain from his wound wracked his body and stopped his attempt. He tried again, gritting his teeth and clenching his jaw to counteract the blinding pain. He let himself fall back and lay panting from the exertion.
He decided to take a minute before having another go. There was a strange sensation from deep in his chest as it started to fill with blood.
Simeon looked up at the cloudless sky, the pale blue seemingly endless. While he stared out at it, every breath grew shallower until eventually, he stopped breathing altogether.
Twenty minutes later, as if on cue, a vulture began to turn lazy circles overhead. It was soon joined by several more. Before long, the first of the carrion eaters landed. It waddled cautiously over to the closest corpse, looked it over to make sure it was dead and sank its sharp-pointed beak into Simeon’s right eye.