THE RIDERS HALTED a half-mile out from his fire, watching.
Then they split up and spread out. In seconds two of them were gone from sight, using the hollows and the sparse vegetation to cover their progress. A progress he knew would bring them to him on either side. The third rode straight in.
He was a short, ugly man with a broken nose and shoulder-length black hair hanging in greasy folds from his headband. He rode a pinto mustang with a pad saddle and carried a .’0 caliber Sharps canted over the pony’s shoulders. Azul saw that the hammer of the buffalo gun was cocked.
‘Greetings,’ he said. ‘Will you talk with me?’
The Apache stared at him, not moving. The big carbine was angled round to point at Azul’s chest.
‘There are two guns ready to take your life,’ he said. ‘They are the fast-firing kind the whiteman use. But they are not really necessary: I could kill you now.’
‘I know,’ said Azul. ‘But why should you? I sent smoke to call you. I speak your tongue because my mother was Rainbow Hair of the Chiricahua, daughter to Mangas Colorado.’
‘Hai! So you are the one called Azul.’ The hammer of the Sharps set down with an audible click. ‘I have’ heard much about you. I am Lame Pony of the Ojo Caliente.’
‘I greet you, brother,’ said Azul. ‘Will you join me and take coffee?’
‘Whiskey would taste better,’ grunted Lame Pony, ‘but I will join you anyway. Hey!’ he gestured to the hidden braves. ‘Naza! Fox Runner! Come here and drink coffee.’
Azul listened to the sound of the approaching mustangs. He took care not to turn round, simply waiting until both warriors dismounted and chose to show themselves. Naza was a tall buck in a faded red shirt and a Cavalry kepi. He looked nervous and kept his Winchester close beside him even though he smiled a greeting and thanked Azul for the offer of coffee. Fox Runner was older, dressed in a mixture of white and Indian clothes. His torso was covered by a blue Army jacket with three holes across the chest, each one rimmed with a dull stain. He wore buckskin leggings with a breech-clout covering the crotch, where the seat was cut away. There was a Cavalry belt around his waist, holding an old Colt’s Dragoon and a long-bladed knife.
Like Lame Pony, both Naza and Fox Runner wore gaudy cloth wound about their heads.
‘You have the war band,’ said Lame Pony. ‘Why?’
Azul reached out to lift the coffee pot from the fire. He filled his mug and passed it over.
‘You know my name,’ he said as Lame Pony sipped and passed the tin cup on to Fox Runner. Azul noticed the hierarchy. ‘So you know that my rancheria was destroyed by white scalphunters.’
‘It has been told,’ said Lame Pony. ‘Also that you follow the white ways to avenge the killing.’
Azul nodded. ‘Yes. I have hunted the killers a long time now. And I have found them. And killed them.
‘That is good.’ Fox Runner and Naza grunted their agreement. ‘So why did you summon us?’
‘There is one who still lives,’ said Azul. ‘He is called Nolan and he is held prisoner in the jail in Tucson. This morning he waved my father’s scalp in my face and laughed at me.’
Lame Pony turned his head aside and spat. Naza grunted and thumped a clenched fist against his naked thigh. Fox Runner made the devil sign.
‘That is bad,’ said Lame Pony. ‘It is bad that the white men come and take our country away and kill us when we fight them. To offend a man with the hair of his father is an insult that must be answered. We shall help you. I can summon thirty men willing to settle this matter. What shall we do? There are many guns in Tucson, but I think we could raid the whiteman jail and kill this hunter of hair.’
‘No.’ Azul shook his head. ‘If you did that the whites would bring the soldiers against you and kill your rancherias as they did mine. This thing rests between me and the one called Nolan. I must kill him myself. I made that promise to my father and my mother.’
He unbuttoned his sleeve and rolled the cloth up to expose the scars. ‘I took blood oath on this. He must die by my hand alone.’
The Apaches nodded their assent, grunting appreciation of his undertaking.
‘We shall help you,’ said Lame Pony. ‘What would you have us do?’
Azul passed the coffee cup round again. ‘The man leaves Tucson on the train that departs when the sun is highest. He is being sent to the town called Yuma, where they will put him into the prison. I must get aboard that train and find him. Then I must take him off and kill him.’
‘That will be difficult,’ said Lame Pony. ‘The trains go faster than a mustang and they are very hard to stop. Why not become a whiteman again and ride the thing from the stopping place? That would be easier.’
‘No,’ said Azul. ‘The white law-giver has said that he will kill me if I go back to the town. He will be with the man called Nolan, and I should be foolish to risk dying before I can kill Nolan.’
‘True,’ grunted Lame Pony. ‘What can we do then?
If something were to block the rails so that the train must halt, or slow down,’ said Azul, ‘it would give me a chance to climb on board. If I knew that two horses waited, I could take the man off and ride away.’
Lame Pony laughed, his ugly face splitting up into creased lines of appreciation.
Fox Runner slapped his leg and said: ‘There are plenty of cows around here. They are fat for the winter on whiteman’s grain and our grass. They would make a fine barrier.’
‘And I could bring the ponies up,’ said Naza. ‘It would feel good to teach the whiteman a lesson.’
‘So.’ Lame Pony got serious. ‘We shall do this, though I understand what you say about the Army. I think it might be better if no one else knows.’
‘No one else needs to know,’ said Azul. ‘Three good brothers are enough.’
Lame Pony stood up. ‘Then let us go,’ he said. ‘Better that we have our cows caught ready than hunt them tomorrow.’
Azul shucked the dregs from the coffee pot and swilled it with sand. He packed pot and mug back into his saddlebags and mounted the black pony after kicking dirt over the fire.
He rode away with a tight, menacing smile on his face.
Nolan felt uneasy after Raul Granos left him.
He didn’t know the Mexican, or trust him. And the fancy-panted printer hadn’t given any impression of knowing how to handle a gun. Nolan wondered if he would come through as promised. Greed was the obvious spur, but it might not be enough.
Nolan went to sleep wondering.
Raul went to sleep thinking about the money. He woke up five times and quelled his doubts with whiskey. Killing wasn’t his line, but he thought he could manage for that kind of reward.
Big George Gilman made his rounds wondering about the scribbled message Lyle Watson had left him. He couldn’t understand Lyle’s writing at the best of times and with the deputy gone home to sleep out his off-duty spell, there was no way of telling what the note said.
Gilman hoped it didn’t spell trouble. All he wanted right then was to get Nolan on the train with his two deputies to look after him on the way to Yuma.
Three, he figured, should be enough. Lyle and Bob and Will were reliable; and he had been on his feet for more than twenty hours. Goddam Breed! he thought. If he hadn’t shown up so early, he could be in bed now instead of swapping duty with Lyle. Still, he could catch up in the morning.
Carmady rolled over in the big bed and stared at the ceiling.
Linda Velazquez was a warm huddle beside him, giving off a sweet-scented odor of perfume and wine and sex. On that score he had to allow the half-breed a debt of gratitude. If the ’breed got Nolan out of Tucson and brought him back he’d have more than earned his five hundred dollars. And five hundred out of two grand was a low investment. If the ’breed got the plates and the money, too, Carmady would be laughing.
All the way to Mexico City. Or maybe Europe.
Anyways, some place where Allan Pinkerton or anyone else couldn’t find him.
Whatever the outcome, he stood to win. He slapped Linda on the rump and dragged her round to face him. Her arms opened in automatic welcome.
Carmady moved on to her, glad that her legs did the same.
Azul and the three Apaches rode west until they came to a low bluff facing on to the rail tracks. The scarp face went down into a tiny canyon with a stream spilling water over the rocks. There was grass at the bottom and a stand of pinon around the entrance.
It was a good place for cows to herd up, and there was about seven head spread around the far end.
The Indians lifted riatas from their saddles. Azul’s rope was made of hemp, but he knew how to use it.
They drifted slowly up the canyon. The cows lowed nervously, but by the time they realized what was happening four ropes had dropped over horns and necks and four fat steers were being dragged, protesting, out of the watering place.
The four men urged the cattle clear of the canyon, then across the night-swept desert to a buffalo wallow a quarter mile from the tracks.
They waited there until it was close to noonday, then led the cows out and haltered them to short tethers over the rails. Before the steers could panic and tear loose each man stepped up close and shot them between the eyes. The heavy bodies crumpled across the tracks, too many for the engine’s cowcatcher to shove loose without stopping and backing up for several runs.
After that, Azul and the three Ojo Caliente warriors settled down to fix the next part of his plan. It was agreed that Naza and Fox Runner should go on ahead with the horses to where the train slowed for the gradient lifting over a ridge. Lame Pony would stay with Azul, then ride on to join the others. Should the half-breed need help, they would be close by.
Azul stared off down the tracks, waiting anxiously for the train to show.
Thank you, my brothers,’ he said as Naza and Fox Runner prepared to leave. Thank you for your help.’
‘It is a good plan,’ grinned Lame Pony. ‘A plan that will teach the white men a lesson. They will not like it.’
‘No,’ murmured Azul. ‘It is what they would call a bum steer.’