Apache Ambush

15

For three days the freight wagons climbed ever higher into the rugged vastness of the Mimbres Mountains. The rutted excuse for a road twisted and turned like a snake crawling through briars.

Unease gripped the drivers and guards. They were in the heart of Mimbres country now, and the Mimbres were ruthless in their efforts to drive the white invaders out. Every outrider had a hand on a revolver at all times. Every wagon guard kept his rifle handy in his lap. The drivers stayed vigilant and cast many an anxious glance at the slopes to either side and at strips of forest and clusters of boulders that might hide a steely-eyed warrior.

As if the Apaches were not enough of a worry, there was Jefferson Grind and his men. They might strike at any time.

"I am surprised he hasn’t already," Timothy P. Cranmeyer remarked the morning of their fourth day in the mountains.

‘‘Maybe losing those men he sent to find you has made him cautious,’’ Fargo speculated.

‘‘Or maybe he has some nasty trick up his sleeve,’’ Krupp said. ‘‘He is a devil, that one.’’

Fargo remembered Wilson saying almost the exact same thing right before he died.

Stack came riding up from the rear of the line. ‘‘No sign of anyone trailing us,’’ he reported.

‘‘The men are jumping at shadows,’’ Cranmeyer said. ‘‘If something doesn’t happen soon, they will be nervous ruins.’’

‘‘I will keep them in line, sir,’’ Krupp pledged.

Cranmeyer stared off up the road. ‘‘I want one of you to ride on ahead and search for a spot to rest at midday.’’

‘‘I’ll do it,’’ Fargo said. He would rather be on his own anyway. To Stack he said, ‘‘Keep an eye on things.’’

‘‘You can count on me.’’

Fargo gigged the Ovaro and soon was around a bend and out of sight. He rode alertly, his hand on the Colt. In Apache country a man must never let down his guard. An instant’s lapse was all it took to send him into oblivion.

The day was ungodly hot, as all their days had been. Hot and dry and still. Unusually still, Fargo thought. A feeling came over him, a feeling he’d had several times in the past couple of days, that unseen eyes were watching. Nerves, he told himself, without much conviction.

The clomp of the Ovaro’s heavy hooves seemed unnaturally loud. More nerves, Fargo thought. He came to another bend and once around it rose in the stirrups.

In the distance reared ever-higher peaks. Silver Lode was up there, with a promise of safety, and whiskey.

Beads of sweat trickled down Fargo’s neck and back. To breathe the scorching air was like breathing fire. He was tempted to use his canteen but he refrained. It would be two days before they reached the next water. There might be some closer, but if so, only the Apaches knew where. That was their edge over the white man. They knew every secret spring and tank. Where the whites had to stick to established routes between water holes, the Apaches could roam at will, relying on their secret knowledge to sustain them. Even Apaches needed water now and then.

Lost in his musing, Fargo rounded another twisting turn and idly swiped at particles of dust hanging in the air. Suddenly he stiffened. Dust did not rise into the air on its own accord. It took wind—and there was none at the moment—or else someone had gone by that very spot not five minutes before him.

It could be a white man, or more than one, heading for Silver Lode. Or it could have more sinister meaning. Fargo decided to find out. A light jab of his spurs brought the Ovaro to a trot. The grade grew steep, and he hunched forward in the saddle.

It saved his life.

A rifle cracked and lead nearly took off his left ear. Instantly, he swung onto the stallion’s side, hanging by a forearm and a leg, Comanche-style. He half feared the ambusher would shoot the Ovaro but he made it to an outcropping of boulders and drew rein in their shadow.

Involuntarily, Fargo shuddered. It had been close. Half an inch to the right, and he would be lying in the road with a bullet hole in his head.

Shucking the Henry, he levered a round into the chamber. As best he could tell, the shot had come from ahead and to the left of the road. He sought some sign of the shooter but the emptiness mocked him.

Fargo waited. He was in no hurry to ride on. The bushwhacker might still be up there, waiting for another chance.

A lizard scuttled out from under a boulder, saw him and promptly scuttled back under it again.

A hawk soared high in the sky, wings outspread. It wheeled over the slope Fargo suspected harbored the bushwhacker and turned in slow circles, as hunting hawks were prone to do. It showed no alarm.

Apparently the bushwhacker was gone.

Fargo rode on, the Henry across his saddle, and for a half mile or so his skin crawled with the expectation of another shot. But none came. The tension was beginning to drain from him when he came to a broad shelf that would do for their nooning, and drew rein.

Dismounting, Fargo moved to where he could look back down the road. The wagons were not in sight but they should be soon. He squatted and idly plucked at brown blades of grass.

Except for the attempt on his life, the past three days had been uneventful. From dawn until dusk the train was on the move. At night everyone was too tired to do much more than eat and turn in.

The Frazier sisters were keeping to themselves. He had not had a chance to talk to them, let alone go for another stroll. Twice, though, he had noticed Cleopatra eyeing him as if she was hungry and he was food. Which was fine by him. He did not approve of what she had done but he would not refuse her when the time came.

Fargo chuckled. His fondness for women might one day be the death of him. How many times had he ended up in trouble because of them? He had lost count.

Presently the wagons appeared, so far down the mountain the riders were ants. It would be a while before they got there.

Fargo debated riding on and decided to stay put. The Ovaro was tired, and there was no sense in pushing the stallion more than he had to. Horses could be felled by too much heat and not enough water, the same as the people who rode them.

With that in mind, Fargo walked to his saddle and unslung his canteen. He permitted himself several sips. Then, untying and moistening his bandanna, he cooled the stallion.

A fly buzzed past. Fargo was about to retie his bandanna around his neck when the bright gleam of sunlight on metal compelled him to dive flat. He felt slightly foolish in that the flash could be from a vein of quartz or something else.

The boom of a rifle proved otherwise.

In a twinkling Fargo was in motion. Rolling up into a crouch, he threw himself at his saddle and mounted in a single, smooth movement. Even as he used his spurs he was shoving the Henry into the scabbard. He wanted dearly to ride toward the shooter but worry sent him on up the road. Worry not for himself, but for the Ovaro. Apaches liked horse meat as much as whites liked venison, if not more.

Another shot kicked up dirt next to the stallion.

Fargo got out of there. He started to swing onto the Ovaro’s side but the stallion veered to avoid a boulder, and the next thing he knew, he was hanging by one ankle and clutching the saddle horn to keep from plunging headfirst to the dirt.

A laugh floated down from above, a short, savage bark of mirth.

Fraco.

Fargo had to do something. He could not keep counting on providence and flight. Accordingly, as soon as he was around the next bend, he swung up and brought the stallion to a stop.

A tug on the Henry and he hit the ground running.

Fargo was taking another gamble. He was going after the breed. If he was wrong, and it wasn’t Fraco but a Mimbres war party, he might pay for his mistake with his life.

He sprinted toward the spot where the shot came from, weaving like a wild man in case the shooter had spotted him.

No thunder pealed.

No hot lead sought his flesh.

Fargo was two hundred feet above the road when he heard the beat of hooves. The sound did not come from the road but from the next slope. He pushed himself, running flat out, and spied rising tendrils of dust. He also glimpsed a horse and rider as a gully or a wash was swallowing them.

Out of frustration Fargo kept running. He was praying for a shot, just one clear shot. But he did not see the rider again.

Puffing for breath in the terrible heat, his shirt caked to his body with sweat, Fargo stopped and gulped breaths. All his hard effort had been for nothing.

He was about where the shooter had been when the shot rang out and he glanced about, not really expecting to find anything other than a smudge or two.

To his surprise, there were moccasin tracks. The killer had made no attempt to hide them. He saw where the man had knelt to shoot. He saw something else, too— something that caught his breath in his throat and sent an icy chill rippling up and down his spine.

‘‘It can’t be,’’ Fargo said out loud.

But it was.

In the dirt near the imprint of the killer’s knees was a human finger. It had been cut off at the third joint. Bone poked from the pink flesh at the severed end, and a drop of dry blood sprinkled the skin.

Revulsion gripped Fargo. He had seen worse, a lot worse, but this was so unforeseen, it shook him. Hunkering, he poked the finger with the Henry, rolling it over. The person who lost the finger had been white. The dirt under the fingernail suggested it was a white man and not a white woman; women tended to keep their nails cleaner than men.

Fargo straightened. He was not about to touch the damn thing. He turned to return to the Ovaro, and received a second jolt.

Another finger lay a few yards away, in the direction the bushwhacker had taken to reach his mount.

Fargo walked to the second finger. It was the same as the first, only bigger. The middle finger, he reckoned. He went a few yards farther on and there was a third. The little finger this time, right next to a clear set of moccasin prints.

‘‘Fraco, you son of a bitch,’’ Fargo growled. As if there was any doubt who was responsible. But who had lost the fingers? Howard and Harriet had all of theirs.

Wheeling, he retraced his steps.

Soon he was in the saddle again. He passed the spot where he had been shot at and continued on down the mountain to meet the freight wagons.

Cranmeyer, Krupp and Stack were riding point. All three were somber as they drew rein to await him.

‘‘Let me guess,’’ Fargo said before they could get a word out. ‘‘Someone is missing.’’

‘‘A guard,’’ Cranmeyer confirmed. ‘‘He was at the rear. He disappeared just a short while after you rode off. We couldn’t find a trace of him anywhere. The Mimbres, I suspect.’’

‘‘It was Fraco.’’

‘‘How do you know?’’ Krupp asked.

Fargo told them about his latest clash with the half-breed. ‘‘The fingers I found must belong to your missing man.’’

‘‘But how did Fraco and him vanish into thin air? We looked and looked and there wasn’t a trace.’’

Stack broke his silence. ‘‘Fraco lives in these mountains. He knows them inside and out. Every animal trail, every ravine, every shortcut.’’ He stopped and glanced at Fargo. ‘‘Damned peculiar, him missing you twice like he did. Makes me think he was not trying to hit you.’’

‘‘Cat and mouse,’’ Fargo said.

‘‘That would be my guess,’’ Stack replied. ‘‘Fraco has a mean streak bone deep. He is the kind to gut a puppy to watch it die slow.’’

‘‘Hell,’’ Krupp said.

Stack had more. ‘‘It could be he wants us to know he is out there. He wants it to prey on our nerves.’’

‘‘It will not prey on mine,’’ Cranmeyer declared. ‘‘I am getting these wagons through come hell or high water.’’ He reined around. ‘‘Come, Mr. Krupp. We will inform the others.’’

Fargo squinted up at the sun and tiredly rubbed his chin. It had been a long day and it wasn’t half over.

‘‘There is something you should know,’’ Stack said.

‘‘Not if it is more bad news.’’

Stack told him anyway. ‘‘About a year ago eleven members of a wagon train were picked off one by one. They never saw who did it. Only one man lived, and he was half dead when he was found. But everyone suspects Fraco was to blame.’’

‘‘You are saying he might try the same with us.’’

‘‘We are too big a train for him to wipe us out single-handed. But he might whittle us down some.’’

Fargo shifted to regard the long line of wagons, drivers and guards. Which one of them, he wondered, would be next?

‘‘Do you regret coming along?’’ Stack asked him.

‘‘No.’’ Fargo was glad he played poker a lot.

‘‘Oh? I would have guessed different. Or do you like having your ears buzzed by lead?’’ Stack pushed his hat back on his head. ‘‘It has been hell, and the worst is yet to come."

Skye Fargo agreed.