Stryker's Revenge

Chapter 36

Trimble found a camping spot in an oak grove near a thin rock spring. The old man fried bacon and wrapped the greasy strips in tortillas, a supper Birchwood, with his youngster’s appetite, declared a “crackerjack meal.”

Trimble sat opposite Stryker across a hatful of fire, and froze his coffee cup to his lips, speaking quietly around the rim. “Don’t look around right now, Cap’n,” he said, “but there’s somebody in the trees.”

“Maybe it’s a bear,” Birchwood said. He opened the cotton shirt and undid his holster flap.

“My teeth are aching like hell,” Trimble said. “It’s an Injun fer sure.”

He rose slowly to his feet, both hands up and visible on his cup. “Come right on in, big chief,” he said, talking into the black wall of the night. “We’ve got coffee on the bile.”

A few tense moments passed; then the darkness parted and a man carrying a rifle stepped into the camp. He wore white cotton pants tucked into high moccasins, a shirt of the same color and over that a blue vest, decorated with beadwork. His hair was cropped short with no attempt at style and the top half of his face was painted black.

He was looking at Trimble, but his eyes missed nothing, especially the slow rising of Stryker and Birchwood.

“He’s Comanche, by God,” Trimble said. “I haven’t seen one o’ them in nigh on twenty year.” The old man raised his hand, smiled and said, “Maruawe, great chief.”

The man ignored the traditional Comanche greeting and looked around the camp, his eyes resting briefly on Stryker’s face.

Trimble had run through all the Comanche he knew and now he said, “I see you have cut your hair and blackened your face. You are in mourning, great chief.”

“My name is Thomas, and this you will call me. I mourn the death of Donna Maria Elaina Cantrell. She was my friend.”

Stryker was on edge. Did the Comanche believe they were guilty of the girl’s murder? Was he about to push it?

Birchwood was obviously thinking along the same lines, because his hand was close to his Colt, his eyes fixed on the Indian.

“I will drink coffee now,” Thomas said. He squatted right where he was, waiting.

Birchwood forced himself to relax. His hand dropped from his gun and he said, “You speak English very well, Thomas.”

The man nodded. “The Texas Rangers taught the Comanche to speak English pretty damn quick.”

He accepted coffee from Trimble, then fished a pipe out of his pocket, which he lit from the fire.

After a couple of minutes of silence, Stryker said, “Thomas, we did not kill Mrs. Cantrell.”

“I know you did not. If I thought otherwise, you’d all be dead.”

The man was silent again, then took something from his pocket. He held up a small silver locket. “I found this on the trail a mile south of here. It was given to Donna Maria by her mother when she was a child. She wore it around her neck all the time. Don Carlos would laugh and say, ‘I offer you diamonds, but you will wear only a cheap silver locket.’ And Donna Maria would say, “Husband, this locket is more precious to me than diamonds.’ Yes, that’s what she would say. I have heard her say that many times.”

The Comanche was quiet again, deep in thought; then he said, “The men who murdered Donna Maria threw the locket aside as having no value, as they considered her life of no value. Soon they will curse the day they were born and the mother that bore them.”

Thomas drained his cup, then rose to his feet. He looked at Stryker. “You ran afoul of a cougar or a bear?”

“No, this was done by Rake Pierce, one of the men we are hunting.”

The Comanche nodded. “Then him I will leave for you.”

He turned away and let the darkness swallow him.

“Right nice feller,” Trimble said. “A talkin’ man, fer an Injun.”

“I’m glad he’s on our side,” Birchwood said.

“He’s on his own side,” Stryker said, staring into the night. “I hope he does what he said and leaves Pierce for me.”

The sun had not reached its highest point in the sky when Cantrell and four riders met Stryker and the others on the trail. The man had swapped the flashy palomino for an ugly, hammerheaded mustang that looked like it could run all day and then some.

Stryker told Cantrell about his meeting with the Comanche, but the man showed no surprise. “He had to see you for himself,” he said. “Thomas makes his own judgments.”

“Where is he, your worship?” Trimble asked. “I was just saying last night that he looks like a real nice feller.”

“He is ahead of us. He will find the men we seek.” Cantrell looked at Trimble. “Thomas has killed seventeen men, eight of them on my order. He is not ‘a real nice feller’ as you say, old man. He makes a terrible enemy.”

As they headed south along the ragged edge of the foothills, Stryker fell in beside Cantrell. After sorting out in his mind the order of his words, he said, “Are your wife and father laid to rest?”

The man nodded. “Yes, in our family mausoleum. One day I will rest beside them.”

“I’m sorry, Don Carlos. I thought I might find the words, but I can’t.”

The young man was silent, a frown on his handsome face. “It is done, Lieutenant, and all the words have been said.” He turned bleak eyes to Stryker. “I should have ridden with the gun. Instead, as my wife was being raped and murdered, I was on the range, to see how the summer rains had improved my grass. That is something I will live with forever.”

“The Apaches are far to the east; how could you expect there would be danger?” Stryker asked. “Wild beasts like Pierce and Dugan are few and, like wolves, seldom encountered.”

Cantrell nodded. “You speak well, Lieutenant, and I know it comes from the heart. But the sin is mine and words will not wash it away.”

The trail stubbed its toe on high, broken country and the way south became difficult. Oak and pine forests continually barred the way and deep, brushy arroyos cut across their path. Stryker looked longingly at the scrub desert to the east, mostly flat-riding country, its hazy pink mesas rising like dismasted ghost ships on a shifting yellow sea. But there was little water in the desert and what there was was hidden deep and hard to find. It was a place where determined men might endure, but not horses.

After two hours, Trimble, again riding point, began to find sign left by the Comanche: two deep cuts in a tree trunk or a couple of rocks laid in the middle of the trail. Thomas had Pierce and Dugan’s scent, and he was following them close.

The trees thinned again, and Stryker could see half a mile of trail ahead of them. It led through a rocky canyon, then climbed abruptly among scattered juniper and piñon toward a high plateau.

The flurry of shots came from beyond the table-land. Then there was a lull, followed by several more.

Trimble came down the slope at a fast canter, drew rein and pointed behind him. “The cornered rats are fighting back, Cap’n. I reckon the Injun is in a world of trouble.”

Stryker kicked his horse into motion, Birchwood beside him. Followed by Cantrell and his men, he hit the slope at a run and drew rein at the top of the plateau. Level ground stretched away for a hundred yards, then began a gradual descent into a wide forested valley. There the mountains intruded, and a sheer V of raw rock at least sixty feet high jutted into the valley floor. The trail ahead curved around the mountain and then was lost from sight.

The sound of two more shots crashed headlong into the quiet of the day, followed by a ringing silence.

Stryker drew his Colt and charged down the incline, the rest thundering after him. He swung around the rock outcropping at a gallop, then found himself in the south end of the valley. Here timber-covered peaks soared skyward on each side, and a mountain drain-off cut across the valley floor. On the far bank of the creek, half hidden by cottonwoods, sprawled a tangle of ancient volcanic rock. Thomas was sitting on one of these, blood staining the front of his shirt.

There was no sign of Pierce and Dugan.