Doomsday Rider

Sixteen

The Chosen One hung between two closely growing cottonwoods, his spread out arms lashed to the trunks.

Before lapsing into agonized incoherence, he had preached to the Apaches of Christ crucified, and that had given the young warriors an idea. A braided grass rope had been rammed down on his head, its entire length spiked with a tangle of vicious cholla thorns, and blood from the wounds had dried in dull red streaks over his face and shoulders.

Hundreds of dry ocotillo thorns, slender and sharp, had been stuck all over his body and one by one had been set alight, burning down to the flesh, each one marked by a circle of black, scorched skin.

Fletcher counted seventeen arrows sticking out of the Chosen One’s body, and each had struck a spot where it could inflict the most pain without killing. And finally, apparently impressed by his endurance, the Apaches had mercifully cut the man’s throat before riding away.

Charlie looked over what was left of the Chosen One and spat. “That’s a hell of a way for a man to die.”

Fletcher nodded, his face grim. “Cut him down from there.”

Charlie drew his bowie knife and did as he was told. “Now what?”

“Now we carry him back to the pueblo. I think it’s time Estelle and the rest of those people realize the Chosen One isn’t coming back.”

“Ain’t that a shade harsh, Buck?”

“Maybe, but it’s a sight better than staying here to be slaughtered by any Apache war band that happens to be riding by.”

The Chosen One was a big man, and heavy, and both Charlie and Fletcher were breathing hard by the time they carried him to the pueblo.

Around them the disciples gathered, looking down at their fallen leader, his shattered body lit by the lanterns they carried. The people were silent, each knowing that there would be no resurrection, that this was the end of whatever strange, unreal dreams they had harbored.

Estelle stepped out of the pueblo and dropped to her knees beside her dead husband. “Come back,” she whispered, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Come back to us.”

Scarlet Hays, drunk and belligerent, clutching a jug of mescal, glanced down with bleary eyes at Estelle. “Don’t you go grieving for him, woman,” he said. “Tomorrow you’re leaving with me.”

“Let her be, Hays,” Fletcher said, anger rising in him.

The gunman shrugged. “Just so you got it clear, Fletcher. She’s riding out with me in the morning.”

At that moment, Fletcher realized two things.

The first was that Hays had not been sent here by Falcon Stark to kill the girl. You don’t plan to hold on to a woman you’ve been paid to murder. Hays had stolen the pay wagon and he’d told the truth about heading for Nogales, and only a wry twist of fate—and the Apaches—had brought him here to the pueblo.

The second was that Hays and Wilson would surely try to kill him before they left.

Women clustered around Estelle, their natural empathy for another female’s grief overriding their feelings of betrayal.

The girl was led, sobbing, into the pueblo, her face and the front of her dress stained red from her husband’s blood. She looked to be all eyes, dark circles under them indicating a lack of sleep and her sorrow.

“You men,” Fletcher said, “bury this man with the others.”

They hesitated, and Fletcher said again, “Hell, you can’t let him just lie there.”

One of the men, younger than the rest, left and returned with a shovel, and this galvanized the others into action. A couple of the men lifted the body and carried it toward the burial place, and the remainder reluctantly followed.

“I’d say Mr. Chosen ain’t gonna get much of a send off,” Charlie said, spitting into the snow.

“They put their trust in the Chosen One and now they feel he deceived them,” Fletcher said. “Not only about the Apaches but about doomsday itself. It’s a bitter pill for anybody to swallow.”

Charlie was silent for a moment, then said, “Buck, I don’t think ol’ Scar was sent here to kill Estelle. He wants that woman too bad for his ownself.”

“I’d already come to that conclusion, Charlie.”

“So what happens now?”

Fletcher shrugged. “I wish I knew.”

“You could ride with her to Fort Apache, have her talk to Crook.”

“About what? That her father hates her? I’d say that isn’t going to cut any ice with Crook. Without proof that Stark is trying to murder his daughter, it would be my word against his.” He turned to Charlie with bleak eyes. “If you were Crook, whose word would you take?”

Charlie nodded. “I see what you mean.”

The old man hesitated, and Fletcher saw that he was trying to say something he couldn’t quite frame into words.

“Let’s hear it, Charlie. I got time.”

“Damn, Buck, you always seem to know what I’m thinking.”

“I’d say you were thinking about Scarlet Hays.”

Charlie nodded. “I think he means to kill you.”

“So do I, Charlie.”

The men returned from barying the Chosen One, and gradually the pueblo fell silent. The women had done all they could for Estelle, and now they left her alone with her grief.

Fletcher and Charlie lay on mats in their room, their weapons close to hand.

Out in the darkness, unheard by those in the pueblo, a gray horse tossed its head, jangling the bit, and saddle leather creaked.

The night gathered around the cliff, and pack rats scurried in the upper pueblos. From the pines on the hill an owl asked a question of the horned moon and patiently repeated it again and again. The air was chill, heavy with frost, and a few stars glittered with a hard light, distant lanterns illuminating the way across an infinite universe.

Fletcher dozed, then woke with a start.

Had he heard something?

He lay on his mat, listening. Now he heard it again, a woman’s sharp, frightened gasp, scarce begun before it was muffled.

Charlie was asleep, his rifle lying in his left arm.

Fletcher rose, pulled back the door curtain, and stepped into the darkness.

From somewhere to his left he heard a scuffle of feet and a man’s voice, low and husky, but angry and slurred.

It was the voice of Scarlet Hays—and Estelle’s room was in that direction. Fletcher sprinted across the snow, past the front of the sleeping pueblo. When he reached Estelle’s room he slowed, then stepped to the window and looked inside.

The girl was naked, soapy water on her breasts and shoulders, and at her feet a large pottery basin and a sponge.

Hays had Estelle pinned against the wall, his left hand across her mouth, the other roaming all over her swollen body, exploring.

“You ain’t gonna miss it one bit, little lady,” he said, his voice hoarse with lust. “It ain’t like you’ve never been done plenty times afore.”

Hays fumbled with the buttons on his pants, and above his hand Estelle’s eyes were huge and terrified.

He’d seen enough.

Fletcher threw back the door curtain and stepped quickly inside. His voice cut across the silence like the sharp blade of a knife. “Let her be, Hays.”

The gunman whirled, the front of his shirt damp, and Estelle stepped away, catching up her bloodstained dress, holding it in front of her.

“Damn you, Fletcher,” Hays said, “this is the last time you meddle in my affairs.”

The gunman had been drunk earlier, but now he seemed stone-cold sober and dangerous. His hands were close to his guns, and in the shadow of his derby hat his eyes were glinting chips of ice.

“Walk away from it, Scar,” Fletcher said. “Walk away from it now and we’ll talk about it later.”

“There ain’t gonna be a later, Fletcher, at least not for you.”

And Scarlet Hays drew.

His gun was out of the leather, leveling as he thumbed back the hammer, when Fletcher’s first bullet crashed into his chest. Hays’s eyes went big and he slammed against the wall, tipping over the basin at his feet, water splashing across his boots.

Hays shouldered off the wall, his gun coming up, and Fletcher fired again, the bullet hitting him an inch above his belt buckle. Hays screamed in terrible fury, desperately trying to lift a gun that now seemed too heavy for him, and Fletcher fired again and again.

The butt of Hays’s Colt slipped out of his hand and the gun turned around on his trigger finger, then dropped to the floor. His eyes wild and staring, Hays took a step or two toward Fletcher, a strange grunting sound escaping his throat; then his legs buckled and he fell on his face.

His gun ready, Fletcher turned the gunman over with the toe of his boot. But there was no need for another shot.

Scarlet Hays was dead.

Fletcher punched the empty shells from his gun and reloaded from his gun belt. He looked at Estelle. “Are you all right?”

The girl nodded, her eyes huge and frightened as she looked down at the dead gunman.

People began to crowd into the room, and Fletcher walked through them and stepped outside. Andy Wilson was walking from the wagon, his rifle in his hands.

“Where’s Scar?” he asked.

“Dead,” Fletcher said, his voice flat.

Wilson read what had happened in Fletcher’s eyes and didn’t like what he saw. He laid the rifle at his feet, spread his hands wide, and said, “I ain’t in this, Fletcher. I didn’t know she was your woman.”

“Oh, shut the hell up,” Fletcher said, anger filling the emptiness inside him.

Charlie had walked into Estelle’s room, and now he stepped to Fletcher’s side.

“Damn it, Buck, you shot ol’ Scar all to rag dolls,” he said, grinning.

Fletcher ignored Charlie and said to Wilson: “You can catch up one of those Apache ponies wandering loose out there and leave here at first light. I reckon the army will catch up to you eventually and hang you.”

Wilson’s eyes slid to the wagon and Fletcher said, “That stays right here.”

The sergeant bent to pick up his rifle but Fletcher’s voice stopped him. “So does that.”

Wilson straightened, swallowed hard, and nodded. “Anything you say, Mr. Fletcher. I’m not hunting trouble.”

The man turned on his heel and walked away into the darkness.

Charlie put a hand on Fletcher’s shoulder. “Buck, why don’t you get some sleep. Me, I’m gonna stand guard on that wagon until daybreak so Wilson doesn’t get any ideas.”

Fletcher’s eyes went to Estelle’s room, where Hays lay, and Charlie said, “Don’t worry; I’ll take care of that.” The mountain man smiled. “It will be a doggone pleasure to plant ol’ Scar at last.”

Suddenly weary, Fletcher nodded. “Thanks, Charlie. Wake me before first light so I can bid our friend Wilson a fond farewell.”

Fletcher went to his room in the pueblo, stretched out on his mat, and within moments was asleep.

When he woke it was still dark, though when he looked out the window there was a suggestion of gray in the sky to the east.

Fletcher built a smoke from his dwindling supply of tobacco, a fact that gave him a twinge of concern, lit the cigarette, and stepped outside.

It was cold and he pulled the sheepskin collar of his mackinaw around his ears and walked toward the wagon, calling out softly for Charlie.

There was no answer.

“Some guard,” Fletcher muttered to himself, smiling. “Probably sound asleep.”

Charlie Moore was asleep. But it was a sleep from which he’d never waken.

The old mountain man lay flat on his face by the wagon, an 1860 model cavalry saber, useless against Apaches but an efficient murder weapon, sticking out of his back. The tracks of Andy Wilson’s regulation boots lay around Charlie’s body and led to the back of the pay wagon.

Fletcher pulled the saber free and turned Charlie over onto his back. The old man’s eyes were closed and a slight smile showed on his mouth under his beard.

Fletcher knelt and placed the palm of his hand on Charlie’s chest. There was no heartbeat, and death had already changed the tone of his skin and deepened the wrinkles around his eyes.

Charlie Moore was seven feet tall and wide in the shoulders, but now, somehow, he looked small and shrunken.

Rising, a terrible rage in him, Fletcher opened the back of the wagon and looked inside. The soldiers were paid mostly in paper money, and most of the sacks had been taken.

He left Charlie where he was and checked on the horses. The old man’s mustang still grazed on a patch of thin winter grass, but Fletcher’s big American stud was gone.

When he returned to Charlie’s body there were a few people gathered around and a couple of the men helped him carry the old man into a room in the pueblo.

“Let him lie there,” Fletcher said. “I’ll be back for him.”

“We can bury him,” a man with tired, red-rimmed eyes said. “God knows we’ve put enough to rest around here.”

Fletcher’s face was hard and unyielding; he refused, at least for now, to give in to his grief. “I’ll kill any man who tries to bury him,” he said. “I told you I’d be back for him.”

The men around him drew back a step or two, reading his face, and the man with tired eyes said, “He’ll be here, waiting for you.”

“Make sure that he is,” Fletcher said.

He walked outside, went to his room, and caught up his rifle. Then he saddled Charlie’s horse, swung wide of the pueblo cliff and followed a trail of fresh horse tracks in the snow.

He was going to kill Andy Wilson.

With his bare hands.