JOHN COLT AND his braves gave enraged chase to the escaping Mimbreños, but Cuchillo was as skilled in the art of throwing pursuers off his tracks as he was in trailing a quarry. By circling, backtracking, and crisscrossing his own and the sign left by the Chiricahuas, he was rid of pursuit a full hour before the gray light of dawn dimmed the stars and paled the moon.
But these efforts had taken him far to the west, and he was still north of the Gila River Trail. Santa Fe was much further north—and to the east across mountains and deserts. There were doubtless many routes toward the town, and nearby Fort Marcy where—John Colt had confirmed—the hated Pinner had been posted, probably still suffering the pain of the wounds his Apache enemy had inflicted upon his body and his dignity. But Cuchillo chose to return to the trail, for despite the dangers it held for a lone Indian, it offered fast and relatively easy travel across the rugged terrain of New Mexico Territory. And the White Eyes homesteads and communities beside the trail, while presenting the greatest source of danger, were also plentifully supplied with the essential bodily needs of food and water.
The first trail he came upon, however, was not the one he had left to track down the source of the smoke in the sky. For it ran from northwest to southeast instead of due east, and he failed to recognize any landmarks he had seen during the morning of yesterday. But since it was obviously a connecting spur, he moved out onto the trodden and rutted road and heeled the gelding into a spurting gallop as the leading rim of the sun showed above the highest ridges of the San Andre Mountains.
He was still experiencing a sense of exhilaration at his escape from the trap of John Colt—an escape that left no unpaid debt behind him. Also, although he knew it was foolish vanity, he felt a keen sense of pride that his fame among the Apaches was held in such high esteem.
And foolishness led to recklessness.
He was still urging the gelding at a gallop, rider and mount breathing in deeply on the warm air of sunrise, as he rounded a sharp turn in the trail at a corner of a butte. His eyes remained watchful as the slipstream of speed billowed the black hair, but his ears heard only the thud of shod hooves against the hard-packed earth.
Thus, he was unaware of the buckboard until he rounded the turn and saw it.
By that time, the woman in control of the two-horse team had reined them to a halt and was standing on the footboard, an ancient Kentucky carbine aimed along the trail. There was nervousness on her face pressed against the stock, which expanded to stark fear when she saw it was an Apache who rode headlong into sight.
Beside her on the seat of the buckboard, which had halted thirty yards short of the corner of the butte, was a small girl about five years old. The child wore an expression of wide-eyed curiosity. Then, as she turned to say something, the woman squeezed the carbine trigger.
Cuchillo was reining his horse to a skidding, dust-raising halt by then, venting a groan of dismay as he realized he had set himself up for another lucky shot. But the fickle face of fortune that had smiled so briefly on Ramon Valdez did not do the same for this woman.
As the gelding broke from the gallop and snorted with the effort of halting so suddenly, the buckboard team moved in restless response to the noise and frantic activity immediately ahead. The buckboard rocked against its brake blocks, and the woman screamed as she realized her aim had been spoiled.
The bullet went far wide of its intended target, blasting chips of rock from the butte face. The two horses reared in fright at the shot, and the child screamed now, as the buckboard canted to the side—and the woman was pitched hard to the trail.
When the horses were four-footed again, they smelled the stench of burned powder in their flared nostrils—and lunged away from it.
The woman remained limp and silent, crumpled on the ground. The child continued to scream, tightly gripping the handrail beside the seat as the buckboard was dragged, its rear wheels locked. As fearful of the movement in front of them as of the noise and smell behind them, the horses veered to the side, and the jolting of the buckboard was abruptly worse, its free-turning and locked wheels crashing across rougher terrain. The child was lifted and slammed back onto the seat, then wrenched from side to side. Her screams were now covered by the sounds of the panicked runaways and their burden.
The gelding snorted again, as the thud of moccasined heels made an insistent demand for another spurt of speed, and a wrench of the reins commanded a different direction. He lunged into a wheel and raced into the billowing dust-rising from beneath hooves and rims. Fifty yards ahead of the bolting team was a rock-strewn area with a gulley running across it. And if a horse was not lamed first, the buckboard would certainly come to grief.
Angry at himself for the indulgence in vanity that had allowed this new dangerous situation to develop, Cuchillo drew level with the buckboard with just thirty yards to spare. But his mind worked coolly under the heat of the anger, and he elected to leap astride one of the horses rather than risk crushing the child or knocking her off by jumping for the seat.
He landed hard on the bare back of the sweat-lathered animal, the impact adding a new sharpness to the old pains. Clinging to his seat with knees and ankles, he gripped the animal’s mane and pulled against the coarse hair with every ounce of his strength. The horse snorted for release, but slowed, forcing the other part of the team to match the slackening pace.
Coughing on the gritty dust attacking his nostrils and throat, Cuchillo retained his hold with his crippled hand and reached for the mane of the second horse with the other.
They were in the area of scattered rocks by then, but the speed had been halved. And the team finally halted several yards short of the gully—winded, but unharmed.
‘You’re an Indian,’ the child said with a note of accusation, breathless and hoarse from the many screams she had vented.
‘It is something I cannot help, child,’ Cuchillo replied, and spat out dust before sliding to the ground and turning to look at the girl. ‘You are not hurt?’
She looked at him without fear as he used the back of his good hand to wipe sweat and clinging dust from his scabbed face. She shook her head, then raised a hand suddenly to her mouth and looked back over her shoulder.
‘Mommy! ‘ she cried.
She climbed hurriedly down from the buckboard and started to run back toward the trail, where her mother still lay unmoving. A small, thin, doll-pretty child with braided black hair and large blue eyes. Dressed in green dungarees and a white blouse, metal-buckled shoes and a broad-brimmed sunbonnet.
Cuchillo retrieved his horse, hitched him to the rear of the buckboard, then climbed up onto the seat and drove the team back to the trail. The child was squatting down, peering at her mother through tear-filled eyes.
‘She isn’t dead, but she is hurt real bad, Mr. Indian. I cannot make her come awake.’
Cuchillo got down and looked at the woman, who was jackknifed on her side across the fallen carbine. She was prettier than her daughter, with the same basic features and coloration, fully fleshed and with the womanliness of maturity. In her mid-twenties, Cuchillo guessed, with a fine body that had not suffered any long-term aftereffects of childbirth. She was dressed in a long, high-necked gown the same blue color as her eyes.
Her beauty was marred now, by an ugly purple swelling on her right temple. But her breathing was regular—and deep, like somebody in an exhausted but natural sleep.
‘It is not decent for a man to touch a woman like that,’ the child accused as Cuchillo felt for broken bones. ‘Unless he is married to her—like my Daddy.’
‘A doctor would look for injuries before he moved her, child,’ Cuchillo answered. ‘But there is not a doctor here.’
The child considered this, then nodded belated approval after Cuchillo had completed his cursory and inexpert examination.
‘Dr Dan Dresser lives in Tyler Bend, Mr. Indian. Like Mommy and Daddy and me. I am Rebecca Trotter and my mommy is Mrs. Trotter. Will mommy be all right, do you think?’
Cuchillo had lifted the woman and placed her on the rear of the buckboard. ‘I think so, child,’ he said as he took a blanket from his bedroll and formed it into a pillow for Mr.’s Trotter’s head.
‘I cannot drive this, Mr. Indian. I am only just learning to ride the pony I was given for my fifth birthday two weeks ago.’
She wiped the tears from her eyes and allowed Cuchillo to lift her back up onto the seat. And expressed relief when he dropped the carbine onto the footboard and heaved himself up beside her.
‘We were going to the Whipple Farm. For some eggs. A body cannot obtain eggs in Tyler Bend. But it is now more important to get my mommy to Dr Dresser, I think.’
Rebecca Trotter continued to prattle on about inconsequentials, talking precociously and too fast. While Cuchillo listened only absently, realizing the child was shocked and frightened—and that her constant monologue was either an involuntary reaction or a conscious attempt to mask her true feelings.
Cuchillo’s mind was busy considering the wisdom and consequences of what he was doing, while maintaining an alert surveillance over the surrounding country. Had he been a White Eyes, there would not have been a need to consider his action. A woman had been accidentally injured out in rugged country, and a young child was in need of help. Had a White Eyes come to their rescue, he would have been hailed a hero. But should an unknown Apache be seen driving a buckboard carrying an unconscious woman and a small girl, there was a good chance it would be a matter of shooting first and asking questions later. As Mrs. Trotter had not asked questions.
But against this danger, Cuchillo had to match the inevitable torment of a guilty conscience if he abandoned the injured woman and her helpless child.
‘My daddy is Mr. Trotter, and he works for the railroad company,’ Rebecca went on. ‘He is the boss of all the men, the Americans and the Chinese people, who work for the railroad at Tyler Bend. He is not rich, you understand. But I am sure he will reward you for what you are doing. Especially after Mommy tried to shoot you. I am sure she would not have tried to shoot you if she knew what a kind man you are, Mr. Indian. You do not say much, do you?’
Cuchillo smiled briefly. ‘While women talk, men think. It is the same for the White and the Dark Eyes.’
The child shrugged, then nodded. ‘Mommy says I am old for my age. And that I talk far too much. But I am not yet a woman, I think.’
‘When you are, you will think even less,’ he taunted gently.
She shrugged again, not understanding the sardonic humor. Then started to prattle again about her life in Tyler Bend and of a town in South Carolina that was her real home. While Cuchillo continued to consider the danger of his position—and to reach a decision.
He would drive the child and her mother to within sight of the town, explode his rifle into the air to attract attention, then ride away fast. Rebecca Trotter would give a good account of him—hopefully before a posse could be formed to give chase.
‘Hold it you bastard!’ a man snarled.
‘Iffen you wanna live long enough to hang!’ another added.
They were big men, tall and broad, dressed in work-stained and sweat-stiffened coveralls and denim caps with long peaks. Aiming single-barrel shotguns at Cuchillo as they stepped out onto each side of the trail.
Cuchillo reined in the slow-walking team and trapped the curse deep in his throat. Once again, preoccupation with thoughts had left him open to attack. Not that he would have seen any sign of the ambush had he been devoting his entire attention to searching for hidden menace. But the keenly honed sixth sense of a man who lived dangerously might have sparked a warning signal in his brain.
‘No way out, Injun! ‘
As the Apache’s dark eyes darted in their sockets, taking in every detail of the sunlit scene, he knew this to be true, and his self-anger diminished.
That word is not decent to use in front of a lady!’ Rebecca accused.
The buckboard had been rolling along a defile that cut due south through the center of a hump-backed hill. Where the narrow passage ended on a slope, there were two rock outcrops, like tall sentinels guarding the opening. And it was these pinnacles that had concealed the men until they had stepped into view. There was no room to turn the buckboard, the sides of the defile offered no cover, and the two shotguns threatened tearing death should he attempt to reach the sloping ground ahead.
‘Such guns will harm the child, too,’ Cuchillo said flatly, as the buckboard came to a halt and he hitched the reins around the brake lever. Then raised his hands into the air. ‘I would not wish this.’
He saw both anger and anxiety in the sun-burnished, bristled faces of the two middle-aged men. Influenced by such a dangerous combination of emotions, they could not be trusted to react rationally if confronted by the unexpected. It was for this reason that Cuchillo surrendered so readily—dismissing the possibility of using the child as a hostage.
Once, such a ploy had worked, then the White Eyes squaw had been older and just as well disposed toward him. But that had been in a courtroom, where tempers ran high, but only Cuchillo himself feared for his life.
‘You should apologize to me, Mr. Thomas Benteen!’ Rebecca said stiffly.
‘Be quiet, Miss Becky,’ the man on the right of the trail chided. ‘And get down off the buckboard.’
Both men were calmer now, and Benteen approached the buckboard while his partner remained stock still, aiming the shotgun from his shoulder. Benteen, who was the slightly shorter of the two and wore rusted spurs on his boots, went up on tiptoes to peer into the rear of the buckboard.
‘Mrs. Trotter’s here in the back, Price,’ he reported gravely, then glared up at the unmoving Cuchillo. ‘What you do to her, Injun?’
‘He helped my mommy, that’s what!’ Rebecca snapped. ‘And he helped me. My daddy won’t like it that you stopped us from getting my mommy to Dr Dresser.’
Benteen was nonplussed by the information,
‘Child speaks truth,’ Cuchillo told him. ‘Woman shot at me. Horses bolted and woman thrown to ground.’
‘He’s a real big Injun, Benteen,’ Price said. ‘You reckon he’s the one heads up the hostiles?’
‘So what’s he doin’ on his own and helpin’ Mrs. Trotter and the kid?’ Benteen countered, eyeing Cuchillo with deep curiosity.
Both men were still nervous.
‘Who knows why the friggin’ Injuns do any friggin’ thing?’ Price growled. ‘Up to Gruber or Wycoff to figure it out. Let’s us just wheel him down there.’
‘Mr. Horace Price!’ Rebecca shrieked in shock. ‘Keep that kind of language for when you are—’
‘I said to get down off there, Miss Becky!’ Benteen snapped. ‘Now you just do like you’re told!’
The child sighed and turned her big blue eyes toward Cuchillo. ‘I must always do as adults tell me, Mr. Indian. But don’t you worry. My daddy is boss over these two men. He will—’
‘Miss Becky!’ Benteen insisted gruffly.
She flinched at the tone, then climbed meekly to the ground. Then, while Price maintained his aim at Cuchillo, Benteen took a closer look at the unconscious Mrs. Trotter.
‘Out cold, but I dunno what else,’ he reported. ‘Best we get her down to Dresser real fast.’
He climbed up onto the back of the buckboard and jammed the muzzle of the shotgun against Cuchillo’s spine and searched for weapons with his free hand. He found the Remington .44 and the golden knife, and muttered, ‘Real fancy,’ and pushed both weapons under the belt of his coveralls. Then: ‘Miss Becky, you come up here with me. Price, you drive.’
The sun was completely clear of the eastern ridges now, yellow and dazzling as it delivered a promise of the blistering heat it would blaze down upon the San Andre Mountains throughout the long day to come. But it was not yet high or hot enough to create a haze, and Cuchillo saw the town of Tyler Bend in sharp detail as Price steered the buckboard out onto the slope.
The hill formed the northern side of a shallow valley that inscribed a long arc through the rugged country. A creek that was just a trickle of muddy water at this season of the year followed a line of least resistance along the floor of the valley. Parallel with this watercourse were the gleaming metals of a single-track railroad, curving out of sight around the sweeping turns of the valley to the east and west.
The trail from the defile ran arrow-straight down to the creek and railroad, then up the slope of the valley’s southern side to crest the far ridges. Tyler Bend was sited around the intersection of trail with creek and rails.
Once it had been a tiny community—a huddle of mostly adobe buildings outside the timber stockade of an Army post. But the coming of the railroad had brought rapid expansion—the raw newness of virtually unweathered timber showing the extent of the boom.
The small fort and adobe shacks were now on the south side of a broad plaza, with a wide street running off to the east and west. The railroad cut down the center of this main thoroughfare and through the plaza, with six cross streets intersecting it at regular intervals. The buildings flanking the streets were a mixture of single and double-story private homes and business premises.
At the western extremity of the town, a half-dozen sidetracks spurred off the main line and ceased to glint in the sunshine as they entered the shade of large warehouses.
As the buckboard drew closer to the town, running over the level floor of the valley, Cuchillo could see that there were locomotives and rolling stock in some of the warehouses and that others were richly stocked with railroad building supplies.
The buckboard clattered over a trestle bridge spanning the tiny creek, and then rolled smoothly again along the side street, which opened out onto the plaza.
There were people on the main thoroughfare, on some of the side streets, and on the area where the sidetracks led into the warehouses. Men working, women shopping, and old-timers taking the sun while it was still relatively cool out of the shade.
In the far distance, there were others—gun-toting sentries like Benteen and Price positioned at vantage points where they could watch for unwanted intruders who dared to approach Tyler Bend.
‘What’s happened?’
‘Good grief, an Apache!’
‘Are you okay, Miss Becky?’
‘Where’s your mother, girl?’
‘He’s killed her!’
The crowd gathered tentatively at first. Then swelled rapidly. Trailing the slow-moving buckboard, then gathering around it as Price hauled on the reins outside a single-story building immediately across the plaza from the open gates of the fort. But a wide border of open space was left around the vehicle and team and saddle horse as the remarks and questions were shouted—curious, nervous, and unemotional.
‘It’s him!’
‘He’s the one, goddammit!’
‘Ain’t no two ‘Paches big as that bastard!’
‘Mercy sakes, that poor little Trotter child.’
Cuchillo’s captors were no longer afraid. They seemed to swell visibly with pride as the crowd grew larger, civilians running from the buildings and depot area and soldiers loping out of the fort.
The Apache, his arms lowered now and his hands resting flat on the seat, looked impassively around at the audience and did not flinch as he understood the dangerous meaning of many of the angrier comments. He was suspected of being John Colt.
‘He is a kind Indian who means no harm!’ Rebecca shouted shrilly.
A stout woman darted across the strip of open area, snatched the child from the rear of the buckboard, and hurried back into the crowd, muttering soothing words to her struggling burden.
‘He’s Army business, Benteen!’ a disheveled and hurriedly dressed sergeant yelled, elbowing his way through the press of people.
‘That’s between Wycoff and me, soldier boy! And your snot-nose major ain’t in town right now!’
The man whose voice silenced all others stood on the threshold of the building in front of which the buckboard was halted. He was a short man—no taller than five and a half feet—but broadly built so that he almost had to turn sideways to step out onto the street. He was in his late fifties, but the tight fit of his checked shirt and denim pants showed he had not allowed his muscular frame to become flabby with advancing years. His face was dark brown and heavily lined, and he would be ugly even when he was not expressing the brutal scowl that wreathed his features now. He had bushy gray hair and eyebrows; round, piercingly blue eyes; a strangely flattened nose; and a crooked mouth. He wore a holstered Colt .44 at his belly, butt turned for a left-handed cross-draw. There was a five-pointed tin star pinned to the left side of his shirt front A sign jutting from the wall above the doorway proclaimed: OFFICE OF LAW—SHERIFF NATHAN GRUBER.
His eyes stared at the grim-faced sergeant for a moment longer, then raked around the crowd.
‘You folks go about your business,’ he ordered. ‘Ain’t not a thing to see.’ He drew the Colt and aimed it from the hip at Cuchillo. ‘Come on down and inside fast, Injun. We got an ordinance against people leaving trash on the town streets.’
‘He came down the north trail brazen as can be, Sheriff,’ Benteen said. ‘Tells a story—and the kid backs him—that he—’
‘You come in with him, mister!’ Gruber cut in. ‘Your buddy oughta get back up to cover the trail.’
‘Didn’t oughta have come down in the first place!’ the sour-faced sergeant snarled. ‘You men got told to fire off a gun first sign of trouble.’
Benteen and Price scowled at the criticism. Then Benteen jabbed his shotgun hard into the base of Cuchillo’s spine.
‘Do like the Sheriff says, Injun. Sheriff Gruber don’t like Injuns.’
‘Ain’t no one here likes Injuns!’ an old-timer called from the dispersing crowd. ‘Specially after what happened at the east camp.’
‘Long climb, Sheriff,’ Price growled. ‘Okay to take the Injun’s horse?’
‘He ain’t got need of it, mister.’
There was a great deal of low-voiced talk, but as Cuchillo climbed down off the buckboard, he could hear the shrill voice of Rebecca Trotter protesting his innocence and scolding her captor. As Price unhitched the gelding and Gruber stood aside for Cuchillo to be thrust through the law-office doorway by Benteen’s shotgun, the sergeant snarled an obscenity and hooked a hand over the shoulder of the man preparing to mount.
‘Gruber!’ he yelled as he shoved Price away. ‘This horse makes it Army business! Look at the brand! And . . . ‘ He bent closer to examine the saddle. ‘Goddammit, this is Lieutenant Gregg’s mount!’
Inside the law office, Cuchillo set his mouth in a firm, tight line. It had always been just a matter of time before somebody recognized the gelding as one of those that had carried a soldier out to the railroad camp.
Shouts of shock and snarls of anger broke across the silence that the sergeant’s revelation had created.
Gruber was talking fast and low to a frowning young man who nodded several times before turning to hurry along the street.
‘Inside and in a cell, mister,’ the sheriff rasped at Benteen. Then swung to block the doorway as the enraged crowd surged forward. His gun swung from left to right, aimed above the heads of the press of people. ‘I told you folks to move on! This is law business! Unless Wycoff can make me change my point of view! Meantime, the Injun stays in my custody! You understand that?’
Then he backed into the office, slammed the door, and holstered his gun. The tide of vocal anger rose higher, but was abruptly quelled when somebody shrieked the name of Mrs. Trotter.
The sergeant claimed the Army horse, somebody took over the reins of the buckboard to drive it to the town doctor’s office, and Price began to trudge morosely back toward the trail that led to the defile. The crowd divided and subdivided into small groups, the scattered conversations combining into an angry hiss as from a nest of disturbed snakes.
Cuchillo stood in the center of one of the four small cells behind the law office, holding Benteen’s quizzical gaze with a brooding stare. Not until the scowling Gruber had closed the door and locked it did Benteen lower the aim of his shotgun.
‘Hate Injuns worse than anythin’ else I can think of,’ the lawman spat at the Apache. ‘And that’s most things. About the only thing I got any respect for is the law. So I’ll see to it you hang, Injun. But only after due process of law.’
Cuchillo sat down on the straw mattress spread along the narrow cot, which was the cell’s sole furnishing. ‘A condemned man concerns himself with matters other than the conscience of his executioner,’ he said flatly.
‘Sassy bastard, ain’t he?’ Benteen muttered, still eyeing the Apache with a puzzled frown.
‘Injuns are every kind of bastard there is, mister!’ Gruber countered.
Confident he was now safe from the lethal result of unpremeditated violence exploded out of anger, Cuchillo expressed proud arrogance as he raised his feet from the floor and stretched out his length on the cot.
‘Cuchillo Oro’s father well known as son of great chief Mangas Coloradas,’ he pronounced. ‘Honorably joined with daughter of subchief. You so cocksure who sired you, lawman?’