Springfield 1880, page 9
They eased their way south into rugged hills.
Holden took the point and nodded at an impression in an arroyo as they climbed in and out of it.
“Moccasin print.”
“Yep,” Masterson agreed. “But that buck’s following a mule and two white men.”
He nudged his horse until he drew even with Holden’s Morgan, and tilted the barrel at other tracks, faint impressions in the shadowed edge of the chasm.
“God gave you a good set of eyes, Masterson,” Holden said.
“Which is why I’m alive.”
Twenty minutes later, their horses showed nervousness. They soon knew why.
Holden reined in and brought his Winchester to his shoulder.
“No,” Masterson said from behind him. “Don’t shoot. Those bucks might still be around.”
“Wasn’t planning on shooting,” Holden said. “Just getting ready.”
He waited a moment, the horse tried to turn around, but he made it stop. With his free hand, he removed his hat and waved it until the buzzards flew away.
Both men choked down bile at the grisly sight before them.
Two prospectors, by the looks of what remained of them. One had been smart enough, or fast enough to have taken his single-shot pistol and put a bullet through his head. The Apaches had then used knives and hatchets and rocks to smatter him into a bloody mess that now fed ants and drew flies by the hundreds.
The other had been captured alive. His partner had been much luckier.
“No time to bury them, Holden,” Masterson said.
“I know that.”
“Can’t do a thing for them.”
“I know that, too.”
“Then if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to move on. This does little for my digestion.”
“Can you tell how many there were?”
Cursing, Masterson swung off the Morgan, handed the reins to Holden, and moved around the scene. There was little room in the tight canyon. Holden looked at the rocks above, trying to see where the Apaches had hit them first.
“Can’t be certain,” Masterson said. “Rocks are hard. Not much tracks here, unlike where we were before. But not many. I’d guess no more than four or five. But one would be all that was needed for these fools.”
“And the mule?”
“Never known an Apache to turn down a chance at havin’ mule for supper, Lieuten—Holden.” They had to remember to forget the ranks, which would give them away when they were in Mexico. Even a lousy soldier like Ben Masterson found that habit, to his surprise, hard to break after far too many years in this man’s army.
“All right,” Holden said. “Let’s ride.”
“With pleasure.”
* * *
Two miles farther along, Holden reined up and nodded at a steep trail that led into the hills. He pointed at a sandy spot at the base of the trail.
“The Apaches didn’t take that mule to eat, Masterson.”
The former sergeant saw the track and nodded. “Deep. Left the packsaddle on, or whatever those fools had been using.”
“Left what was in the packs, too.”
“Gold?” Masterson asked.
Holden shrugged. “Some ore, by my guess. Gold? Maybe. Silver? Copper? No telling. And there’s a chance that those boys were going hunting for ore, hadn’t found it yet, were just carrying in enough supplies, but I don’t think the Apaches would have any interest in coffee and hardtack. They would have rifled through that back where we found the bodies of the dead miners . . . then taken just what they needed. They didn’t. So my bet is ore. Of some kind.”
He kicked the horse into a walk, and told Masterson about Crooked Nose’s war party holding up a stagecoach outside of Bisbee, and a report that a Mexican copper mine had been robbed by Apaches, too.
“Down payment,” Masterson said, “for a few hundred new-model Springfields.”
They rode on.
“Holden.”
The lieutenant glanced at his partner in the mission, saw him nodding at the hills ahead and to Holden’s left. Holden looked, but kept his horse moving, stepping over the stones and rocks that slowed their progress. Finally, he saw what Ben Masterson had spotted a few moments earlier.
“An Apache, even if he’s on his first war party, isn’t going to be foolish enough to let the sun reflect off his rifle barrel.”
“I agree,” Holden said, “but it might not be a rifle barrel.”
“Well.” Ben Masterson spit. “It sure ain’t no damned heliograph.”
CHAPTER 26
They climbed out of the narrow confines and saw where the country opened wider. It would be the place to give their horses their heads and make up the time they had lost traveling through the rough arroyo and deep canyon. But that flash of metal kept them at a deliberate pace. They spread out, rifles ready, eyes focused on the hill in the distance.
Too focused, maybe, because a stone rattled, and both men turned to the right, bringing their guns up.
It was no Apache standing behind a pale boulder, but a white man in a blue jacket with a lever action rifle against his shoulder.
Realizing he would never be able to get off a shot first, Grat Holden leaped out of the saddle, seeing three more figures rise out of the rocks. He landed, rolled, and heard a gunshot. Yet the shot did not come from Ben Masterson, nor the man in the rocks, nor close. It was muffled, distant.
His horse took off. Holden came up, saw the man slamming against the rock, his rifle spilling into the dust, unfired. Out of the corner of his eye, Holden also saw Ben Masterson leaping from his horse, slapping its hindquarters with the barrel of his Springfield, and snapping a shot at the other men, who stood there, equally confused.
The man who had been shot staggered away from the rock, leaving a dark spot where the bullet had chiseled into the sandstone after drilling through both of his lungs. Then he toppled out of view.
Holden rose, rifle ready, and squeezed the trigger, levered another cartridge into the chamber, fired. Jacked the lever again and fired. Again. Again. The men scattered, and Holden dropped as another bullet sang over his head.
He rolled, came to his knees, and dived to his left.
Bullets riddled the spot where he had been.
On his back, he watched Ben Masterson reload the trapdoor Springfield, shoot, then stand and run. He was running to a narrow opening between two rocks. The opening was suddenly filled by another man. He was wearing a porkpie hat and red and green checked britches—the ugliest pants Holden had ever seen. The man held a shotgun in both hands and seemed to be grinning . . . until he realized that Ben Masterson had palmed one of the .38s in his sash and opened up. The man did some wild dance, spun, and dropped out of the opening that Masterson quickly filled before the rocks were dented by bullets.
A bullet ripped off one of the pulls of Holden’s left boot, leaving a scar across the leather top. Rolling over, Holden saw the figure of a man in Mexican denim britches and a black hat working the lever of his Henry rifle. Then down went the man to his knees, blood spouting from the fist-sized wound a powerful bullet had made when it exited. The man’s eyes rolled into the back of his head, and he pitched forward into the sand.
Holden had seen the muzzle flash and the smoke.
It had come from high up in the hills, from where he and Masterson had seen the reflection of the sun. The man up there was no enemy. At least, not yet. He was helping Masterson and Holden.
But who the hell was he?
“Did you see that, Hank?” a man cried out from the rocks.
“Where’d it come from?”
“Up yonder. Somewhere.”
“Hell, Buster, Pete and Slim’s done fer. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“Muy pronto.”
Holden came to his knee, rifle at the shoulder. One man stepped out of the rocks, and Holden fired. The bullet caught the man in his left shoulder, spun him around, so that he was on his knees, staring at Holden’s Winchester. He tried to bring up his six-shooter, and Holden, having instantly cocked the rifle after firing, touched the trigger and blew the top of the man’s head off. Another ran for the pocket of woods on the other side, only to be drilled by a .45-70 slug from Ben Masterson’s Springfield rifle.
One more jumped up to the left of Holden, but he was already swinging around. Holden fired. Masterson fired, using his other Colt Lightning, and Holden heard another blast from the hillside and saw the smoke again. All three bullets struck and staggered the man, who dropped to his knees, looked confused, and died confused.
Echoes bounced all around the canyon. A white handkerchief started waving above the rocks, and Holden slowly realized that someone was trying to surrender.
“Stand up!” Holden said, levering another shell and aiming at the dirty handkerchief.
Two nervous white men, one bald, fat, and sweating, the other short with a mustache and goatee, rose. Their hands remained high over their heads.
Ben Masterson stepped out of his hiding place and brought the Springfield up, but he aimed the Army rifle at the rocks. The man took no chances. Just because somebody had helped them out in this gunfight did not mean he didn’t plan on murdering them.
Holden moved toward the men.
“You best do some talking,” he said, and jabbed the hot barrel of the Winchester into the bald man’s fat belly.
“It was Pete’s i-de-er,” the bald man said.
“That’s right,” said the other one. “Pete.” He pointed a bent finger at one of the dead bodies.
“We seen ’em buzzards,” said the bald one. “Knowed some ol’ boys was up huntin’ fer gold. Figgered we’d see if they found any.”
“They found Apaches,” Masterson said, but he kept the rifle aimed at the high hills.
The other brigand’s head nodded. “Pete figgered that might be the case, too. Then we’d just kill them bucks and sell their scalps down in Mexico for the bounty.”
Part of Grat Holden wanted to just shoot down those two vermin.
“Holden,” Masterson said.
Holden waved the barrel of the Winchester, and the two stupid outlaws understood. They dropped to their knees and clasped their hands behind their heads. Masterson was nodding toward the hill.
A man had stepped out of the woods. Too high up, too many shadows to make out anything about him, but he was holding a rifle in his left hand and waving his hat in his right. Then he pulled a horse out of the timber and began walking down a deer trail.
CHAPTER 27
“Keep your eyes on our two amigos here,” Ben Masterson said to Holden. “I’ll catch up the horses.”
Holden nodded. He looked at the two trembling bandits. “You thought we were the prospectors,” he said, not a question.
“Sure, sure,” the bald one said. “We wouldn’t have tried to waylay you good peoples had we knowed you wasn’t the ones we was huntin’.” He made a feeble attempt at a grin.
“Where did you put your horses?” Masterson asked them, and when they didn’t answer soon enough, he pulled one of the Lightning revolvers. “I’m not walking after our horses, boys!”
Both men pointed to a wall formed by a rockslide on the other side. “Beyond yonder,” the short one said.
Masterson lowered the .38 and made a hurried march to the makeshift livery.
“Bring a shovel?” Holden asked.
The two bushwhackers glanced at each other. One chewed on his bottom lip.
The other hesitated and tried to smile as he turned back to Holden. “I reckon we forgot.”
Masterson loped away from the fallen rocks and debris on a bay. If he ran, Holden knew he would not be able to stop him.
He waved the barrel up and down, signaling the two men to rise. Slowly, sweating more profusely, they did.
“Cover your pals with rocks.”
They scrambled to the chore, and Holden shot one glance at Masterson off after the horses, then turned back to study the man riding a pinto pony down the steep ridge. Holden found a place in the shade where he could sit on a rock and keep an eye on the burial party, Ben Masterson, and the stranger who had saved their bacon. He wished he could take a drink of water, but the canteens were on the Morgan horses, and it would be a few minutes before Masterson brought those back.
When the rider had made it halfway down the slope, Grat Holden relaxed. Recognizing the man at last, he turned his attention to the short man and the bald man, watching them drag the bodies off to the side and begin finding rocks to cover the corpses—after they plundered the dead, their colleagues if not friends, of any valuables.
“Don’t take any weapons, boys,” Holden called out to them. “Knives or guns or anything. I find you holding something, and you’ll join your pals.”
The bald one smiled, straightened, and lifted his left hand slowly, held out a finger and thumb, and carefully reached behind his back. Even more deliberately, he brought up a Remington derringer into view, holding the hideaway .41 with thumb and forefinger, he dropped it into the makeshift grave. The short one slipped a Bowie knife out of his boot and pitched it into the pile, and then pulled a single-shot Sharps pistol from the small of his back and gently rested it on one of the dead men’s chest.
They went back to work.
Masterson was back with the two Morgans before the man on the pinto had reached the bottom of the hill. The former sergeant dropped the reins of the two horses and swung from the saddle of the bay. Rising, after checking on the two outlaws to make sure they kept doing what they were supposed to be doing, Holden went to his horse and found the canteen.
He shoved the Winchester into the scabbard and nodded over the saddle.
“Recognize him?” he asked Masterson.
The former sergeant studied the figure whose pinto leaped the last two feet, kept its balance, and began picking a path toward them.
“Figures,” Masterson said, and slid his Springfield into the scabbard.
* * *
“Thanks,” Grat Holden told Sam Florence when the old scout reined in the pinto and reached into his pocket to find a chaw of tobacco.
The old man shrugged.
“What were you doin’ up there?” Masterson asked.
Once his jaw started working on softening up the old plug of chewing tobacco, Florence jutted his chin down the trail. “Found those poor folks, took Cochise here”—he patted the pinto’s neck—“up a ways to follow the Apaches.”
He watched the two men carrying a large boulder to the new graveyard.
“You done well,” he said to Holden.
“Would’ve been a different story had you not taken a hand.”
“I doubt it.” Florence spit. “They ain’t got no sand. Doubt if a one of ’em could shoot straight.”
“Thanks just the same,” Holden said.
The scout kicked free of the stirrups to stretch his legs.
“What about the Apaches?” Masterson asked.
Florence wiped his lips with his sleeve. “Took the mule. Got their horses. Went south. Don’t think they’ll be comin’ back.”
“Was the mule still carrying its pack?” Holden asked.
“And all those poor blokes put in it.”
“Gold?”
“No tellin’. Maybe. Maybe just supplies. Apaches might be able to sell the pack to some trader in Sonora, get a few pesos for it. Sell the mule, too. If they don’t eat it.” Florence snorted. “Bad timin’. For the Apaches, I mean. Had they come along a tad later or waited a spell, they could’ve gotten me, you two, and them.” He nodded as the two bushwhackers, exhausted, knelt and started scooping up sand and gravel and small stones and tossing those over the dead. “Taken our horses and everything else.”
“Which might buy them a few new model Springfields,” Holden said.
The scout shrugged. “If those that done this are part of Crooked Nose’s bunch.”
“You don’t think they were?” Masterson asked.
Florence shrugged again. “I learned a long time ago not to guess nothin’ about any Apache.”
CHAPTER 28
The village, the town, the few buildings, and corral that made up Rancho Los Cielos was asleep when the hooves thundered and about four Mexicans yipped and shouted as they drove mules down the one street, raising dust, raising hell.
The leader reined up his blood bay mare and laughed as he directed one of his riders to open the gate to the corral and the others to drive the mules inside. He hooked one leg over the saddle horn and laughed again as Captain Jed Foster stepped out of Mariscos.
“Buenos dias, amigo,” the big man said.
He wore a Mexican sombrero of straw with a dented crown that had to be at least eight inches high and a brim about the same width, except where it was twisted and curled up at the front. The hatband, made of twisted horse hair in three contrasting colors, had to be worth six times as much as the awful hat.
A dark brown poncho covered his blue silk shirt, and two ivory-handled Colt revolvers were stuck inside a large russet-colored belt that was buckled over brown and tan striped cotton britches. Leather botas were strapped just below his knees, and the plain tan leggings came down to his black cowhide Congress gaiters. He wore well-oiled, well-used gloves, and popped a quirt in his left hand. His right came down to rest on the handle of one of the Colts.
“Good morning to you,” Jed Foster said. “You made good time.”
“Siempre, mi amigo,” the Mexican said. He made a gesture with his hand and bowed slightly. “Mi nombre es Muerte . . . a su servicio, señor.”
Foster bowed. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Mister. . . Death.”
The man laughed. “You are . . . mi capitán . . . Señor . . . Foster?”
“At your service.”
The man who called himself Death waved at the corral, that was now being closed by one of his riders. The rider, Foster noticed, wore a brace of Colt revolvers butt-forward on his two hips. Another rider carried a Spencer carbine. The last one was reaching for a machete.
