Counterfeit Lawman

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Ike pulled his hat down low on his forehead and patted the pony’s neck. The horse also lowered its head to keep the driving rain from blinding it. Ike wondered if he had ever felt wetter without taking a bath and doubted it. The rain plastered his clothing to his body, and the cutting wind swung icy knives against exposed flesh with every gust. Worse yet, the knife wound in his chest, minor though it was, not only reminded him of how close he had come to dying but also sent ripples of real pain into his heart.

“I wonder if this is the way it feels,” he muttered.

“What’s that?” The corporal riding knee to knee with him glanced over.

“I got stabbed in the chest. The Apache almost drove the knife into my heart—with just a tad more pressure, he’d have skewered me like a pig. I was wondering if this is what it’d have felt like if he had killed me.”

“I been shot, I been stabbed. Once I almost bled to death. You go all cold and shiver.”

“Like now?” As if to demonstrate, Ike shuddered uncontrollably from the soaking wet and frigid wind. Raindrops flew off him like he was a half-drowned mongrel.

“Naw, nothing like this. You was lucky it was Sergeant Benjamin that saw you fightin’ with the Indian. He’s ’bout the only one of us who coulda made the shot in the dark and wind and rain and all. He’s a caution, that man. Fine shot. The best.”

Ike heard the unstated, Or cared enough to take the shot.

“What fort are you stationed at?”

“Fort Davis. Ain’t much of a fort. We got a knee-high mud fence around the parade grounds to keep in the chickens. Otherwise, we have sentries posted up in Limpio Canyon to warn us if the Indians sneak up on us in our sleep with the intent of slittin’ our throats.”

“No palisades?”

“I was stationed at one with high walls. Up in the Panhandle.” The corporal shook his head. Drops of water spun from his cap. “That was quite a challenge. Blue Northers blow across the plains something fierce, then there’re tornadoes. After that I was up north at Fort Wingate. The Navajos made rope out of horse tails, tied a rock on the end, throwed it over the ten-foot adobe wall and sawed through. Took ’em the better part of an hour to saw out a section, or so somebody said later. Half the garrison got slaughtered in their bunks that night. The guards at the main gate never knowed we were under attack.”

Ike had to ask, “Were you one of them? One of the guards?”

“Used to be a top sergeant. It’s taken me five years to get back to corporal after havin’ my stripes ripped off. But I don’t mind. What else would I do if I warn’t in the army?”

The easy byplay between them almost loosened Ike’s tongue. He held back the lie of being a US Marshal. That would have lifted his standing in the corporal’s eyes, but why did he care? The soldier had orders to shoot him out of the saddle if he so much as looked like he was hightailing it.

He laughed ruefully. There wasn’t any way he could be shot out of the saddle. He rode bareback. Already his thighs knotted and ached from gripping the pony’s flanks. If he kept going through nights like this, there wouldn’t be a muscle in his body that wasn’t aching or painful or tied up like a hangman’s knot.

Ike sat bolt upright when gunfire echoed back from ahead. A quick look at the soldier confirmed his guess. Those were army rifles firing. Whatever weapons the Indians carried might have been stolen from army posts or soldiers slain in battle, but the volley came again. The reports were distinctive.

“What do we do?” Ike wanted to turn tail and run. This wasn’t his fight. The storm would hide his tracks.

“I was told to watch you.” The corporal licked his lips. “My mama always told me not to stick my nose where it wasn’t wanted. We go chargin’ into that fight, and we might get shot by a bluecoat as easy as an Apache.”

“Sound thinking,” Ike said, but in spite of wanting to retreat, he felt guilty not going to the soldiers’ aid. One more pistol hardly mattered, but they had let him keep his six-shooter. Or had they let him keep the six-shooter rather than being distracted and simply forgetting to pluck it from his holster? There was no way around him being more prisoner than guest.

The gunfire died down and then picked up again. Ike looked anxiously at the corporal.

“From the sound, the fight’s coming our way. What do we do?”

The soldier looked over his shoulder in the direction they had ridden. The railroad tracks were a goodly two miles that way, but salvation wasn’t riding the rails. Ike had no idea when the next train would steam past. In the dark, with the rain and storm all around, an engineer could miss them signaling. And if the train stopped, what could they do? Some of the passengers would be armed, but enough to scare off the Apaches? Ike doubted a few Colts aimed in the direction of a war party would deter them much.

“I got to get up there. It’s my duty,” the soldier said. “You stay here.”

“Not on your life,” Ike blurted. He spoke to the man’s broad back. The corporal hunkered down over his horse’s neck and rocked his weight forward. The horse responded with a gallop across land that was treacherous in the daylight.

Ike followed more slowly. His pony stepped lightly, as if unsure that it wouldn’t sink into the sand. He didn’t rush it. The fight grew louder. The distinctive snap of the soldiers’ rifles became louder—and the reports fewer. He reached for his six-shooter when shapes loomed ahead in the night. Only a distant lightning fork kept him from drawing. The soldiers retreated in disarray, the corporal leading them.

The patrol galloped past. Ike looked for the sergeant but didn’t see him. And the officer? The lieutenant was absent, too. Ike wanted to join the confused retreat, but something warned him to stand his ground.

Seconds after he made the decision, three Indians swept past between him and the fleeing soldiers. Another pair of Apaches galloped in from the other direction in a pincer movement that would have trapped him. As it was, five Indians cut him off from the patrol. They paid him no attention. He looked down at the pony and wondered if the paint on its flanks acted as a recognition symbol. If so, the darkness hid him only so long. If any of the warriors caught sight of him, they’d know instantly he didn’t belong with their band. Worse, they’d know there was only one way for a white man to be astride an Indian pony.

Whooping and hollering their war cries, the Indians quickly vanished into the darkness, hot on the soldiers’ heels.

A new danger loomed in the night. A man on foot stumbled forward. Ike drew and took aim. Then he released the pressure on the trigger. The bogeyman charging through the night wasn’t a danger to him—it was the army lieutenant. On foot, lurching about, the man had obviously pushed open the gates of Hell. His uniform hung in tatters, and blood oozed like black syrup from a dozen cuts.

Ike jerked up when he saw the reason. A brave rode down on the officer, a lance probing to find yet another patch of skin to slice open. The warrior wasn’t as inclined to kill his victim as to torment.

The lieutenant had lost his pistol. He waved his sword wildly, or what was left of it. The blade had broken a few inches from the hilt. Unless the Indian dismounted and engaged in hand-to-hand battle, the remnant of the lieutenant’s saber was useless as a weapon.

The officer gasped, threw his hands in the air and fell to his knees as the brave drove his lance into his back.

Fear clogged Ike’s nose and mouth. His body existed off in a world away from the stark terror that paralyzed him. But his body moved independently of his panic. Disembodied, Ike watched himself draw his gun, cock, aim and fire. The Indian bedeviling the officer let out a shriek and tumbled from horseback.

Ike rode closer, ready to fire a second time. His hand shook now as the fear gripping his brain seeped into his body. With a quick kick, he got his leg over the pony’s hindquarters and hit the ground. His knees skinned a mite from the rough desert when he dropped beside the lieutenant. The man shivered and shuddered and recoiled when Ike tried to touch him.

“Don’t kill me. Don’t!” The officer tried to get to his feet. Something went wrong. Like a tree chopped down by an expert lumberjack, he stood at attention and fell that way. The thud as he hit made Ike jerk away. The lieutenant was alive but in terrible shape. His back leaked blood from a dozen shallow cuts. One gash in his side proved more dangerous. It didn’t ooze; it gushed.

Ike did his best to tear away the man’s shirt. He tied it tightly over the serious cut. The blood clotted as the crude bandage stanched the wound. Ike crouched and wondered what he was going to do. The sky now spat fitful drops of rain at him, and the distant thunder faded. Desert storms moved fast.

As the lightning retreated with the clouds, the desert smelled sweet and pungent and turned darker than the inside of a grave. The stars remained hidden, and without the lightning bolts, no light filtered down.

“How am I supposed to get you to safety?” Ike stared at the fallen officer. His patrol had turned tail and run. The way they had galloped past told of a rout and not a retreat. The sergeant hadn’t been with them, and the corporal might be the highest rank remaining. If so, chances were good he’d never order the men back to hunt for their commanders.

From what Ike saw, chances were even better that the Apaches had massacred the lot of them.

He stretched his cramped legs and stood. No matter where they went, it was a long way on foot. He jumped when something cold and wet pushed him from the back. Ike spun. The pony stood patiently.

“Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?” Ike reached out and gently took the halter to keep the pony from changing its mind and racing off.

He had his way back to the railroad. All he had to do was get the lieutenant slung over the horse and lead it. A loud neighing caused him to whirl around, sure that the war party had returned. He broke out laughing in relief. The horse the Apache had ridden in his pursuit of the lieutenant pawed the ground a few yards away.

Ike led his pony to convince the other horse he was on the side of the angels. In a few minutes he led both horses around, speaking softly to them and gaining their confidence. It didn’t seem to matter he spoke English and not Apache.

“You musta been a horse wrangler.”

Ike almost dropped the reins to reach for his gun at the words. He relaxed and guided the horses to where the lieutenant sat up, clutching his side. The man’s face was ghostlike in the dark. Whether shock or blood loss caused it was a moot point if he could ride.

Ike held out the reins to the warrior’s horse and said, “You deserve the spoils.”

“I saw him dead on the ground. The brave bedeviling me. You shot him?”

“Before he had a chance to skewer you with his lance.”

“You deserve to take his scalp. If you want to, go ahead,” the officer said.

Ike shook his head and said, “I don’t cotton to such barbarity.” He reflected on the past week. Before fleeing from Houston, he had never so much as pointed a gun at another man with the intent to shoot. Now he left behind a trail of corpses and hardly thought about it. He touched the wallet with the brass badge in his inner pocket. Did that symbol make him that way or did the circumstance? The letter of authorization written by Judge Parker gave him a free hand to shoot anyone in his way, as long as he claimed to be Augustus Yarrow. Whatever the reason, he wasn’t even sick to his stomach now.

Did being a lawman shrivel any feelings of taking another’s life? Or was it part of the job? Everyone he had shot would have killed him first. A new worry came to him. How far would he go to keep Lily from harm? He hardly knew her or her mother, yet he felt responsibility for their safety—just as he had the unknown woman whose ruby necklace had been stolen during the train robbery.

If Kinchloe ever walked in front of his sights, Ike would pull the trigger. And Martin Schofield? Him, too.

“I’m not inclined to take a scalp, either,” the lieutenant said between clenched teeth. “My men have a standing order to leave bodies unmolested, but not all of them obey. Too many have lost brothers or even wives and children.”

Ike refrained from making any comment about the soldiers fleeing and leaving their commander to his own devices. The officer hadn’t made a good impression, and Ike knew the man would care not a whit if the Apaches had killed him. The lieutenant wasn’t even much liked by his own patrol, from the way their tone carried disdain anytime they mentioned him. But whatever opinion he held personally about the officer, he wasn’t going to leave him to die.

He bent and picked up the fallen lance. He handed it to the officer.

“This is about all the weapon I see.” Ike hadn’t any stomach to search the fallen Apache, but the dead man had held only the lance. No pistol or rifle lay on the ground nearby.

“He’s got a knife.” The lieutenant plucked the blade from a sheath, held it up and then thrust it into the scabbard intended for his useless saber. Then he used the lance more as a crutch than a weapon. With obvious pain, he mounted and settled down. Only when he was secure did he lift the lance and lay it in front of him across the horse.

Ike decided the spear was better than nothing if they had to fight again. That and the knife in the officer’s sword scabbard. He hopped onto what he now considered his pony and looked around.

“That way,” he said, starting toward the tracks. To his surprise, the officer didn’t argue and silently trailed him.

When they reached a flat area away from the dunes, the lieutenant rode alongside.

“I haven’t thanked you for pulling my fat out of the fire back there. That was the war party chief who came after me. Got the better of me, too.”

“That was Victorio?” Ike’s eyebrows shot up. “I killed Victorio?”

The officer laughed and shook his head. “That’s not the way they fight. Whoever’s dead back there was chosen to lead this raiding party. The main band is somewhere else, maybe down in Mexico by now. There’ve been rumors Victorio has a stronghold in Tres Castillos, but I doubt that. He’s able to keep moving, him and his war chief, Nana, and his sister.” The officer spat. “Lozen might be the worst of the lot.”

“His sister? This is a family affair?”

“Strong tribal bonds, and Lozen’s looked up to as a warrior by every last one of the two hundred riding with Victorio. They think she’s a shaman, that she’s got . . . the power.”

Ike wasn’t sure how to reply. The officer rambled on.

“They claim she can predict where we’ll patrol. That makes her one of her brother’s most important tacticians. And Nana? His hands burn hot when he holds them out in the direction of rifles.”

“A compass for weapons to steal?”

“Something like that.”

Ike considered the three freight cars weighed down with rifles and ammunition. Nana’s hands must be ablaze from Schofield’s rifles. If Victorio got those rifles and ammunition, all of West Texas would become an even worse bloody battlefield.

“Sir, I was thrown off a train moving hundreds of rifles.”

“Thrown off? What? You didn’t pay your fare?”

“It wasn’t like that.” Not for the first time, Ike wrestled with lying about being Augustus Yarrow to give himself some credibility. “I saw the rifles loaded onto three freight cars back in San Antonio. The train with them’s heading north.”

“North?” The lieutenant wobbled a bit and started to slip from horseback. Ike reached over and shook his shoulder. The man snapped upright. “Prepare for battle, Sergeant.”

“I’m not your sergeant,” Ike said.

“The war party is nearby. I feel it in my bones. Ambush. Watch for an ambush.”

“What do we do when we reach the tracks?” Ike knew they had only one choice. Follow the route until they reached Marfa and hope the Apaches had ridden on. He wanted to engage the officer and keep him from passing out. Appealing to his role of being in charge and making decisions seemed the easiest way of doing that.

The only problem Ike saw was that the officer had made so many bad decisions. Whether a more experienced officer would have led his patrol into an ambush hardly mattered now. It had happened.

“Tracks? Can’t read ’em in the dark. Damned rain washed out the tracks.” The officer leaned over as if trying to see hoofprints in the sand. Again, Ike had to shake him, otherwise he would have toppled to the ground.

Ike considered stopping and lashing the lieutenant belly down over the horse, but as long he remained upright, riding was better for the man. His wounds no longer leaked blood, but that might change if he were tied to the horse. Ike wished he had encountered a situation like this before so he’d know what to do.

Then he laughed bitterly. If he knew what to do, that’d mean lots of others already would have been cut down. Surviving was the only thing to occupy him now. He’d always gotten by, sometimes by the skin of his teeth, but it had never been so obvious what he had to do. Ike touched the gun riding in his holster. Not only did he have to fight the Apaches, he had to keep the lieutenant alive, too.

He turned into the cold wind, relishing the way it caressed his face and brought him fully alert. A quick glance at the lieutenant showed that stimulation wasn’t working for him. The officer slumped, and only at the last instant grabbed his horse’s neck to keep from falling off.

“You want to take a rest?” When the lieutenant failed to give a coherent reply, Ike rode closer and grabbed the man’s arm. “Let’s see to your wounds. Some of them look to have popped open again.”

Ike froze when he heard horses whinnying off to his left. He grabbed the reins of the lieutenant’s horse and yanked it to a halt. Ears straining, Ike heard low voices, indistinct but urgent. He and the officer had been spotted.

“Get down, come on, help me.” Ike hit the ground and tugged at the lieutenant’s arm. The man resisted, then collapsed and fell onto Ike. Staggering under the unexpected weight, Ike felt as if he were dancing with a partner at a barn dance, one who didn’t keep time to the music.

He clung to the officer and swung him around to keep his balance. The dead weight forced him to his knees. With a heave, he wrestled his burden to the ground and rolled him into a shallow gully. Ike looked up to see dark riders approaching from the direction of the muffled voices.

Four. At least four.

Ike drew his six-shooter and vowed to take as many of the Apaches with him as he could.