The Bells of El Diablo (27 page)

He often wondered that himself, but before he could formulate a response, Vienna rode past him on his right and said, holding the reins of her trotting grullo up high against her chest, “If he hadn’t come West, he wouldn’t be here to help us get the bells to the Confederacy, would he, Jack?”

As she continued on past the wagon and rode up to where young Pablo was leading the way, James glanced at Jack. The old desert rat was still looking at him, unsatisfied by the response but not pressing the matter. James felt the bunched muscles in his shoulders
loosen slightly when Jack turned his head forward again and took another drink from his bottle.

The question remained, however. And he doubted he’d ever have an answer for it—at least, not one that would satisfy his own conscience. Truth was there was still a war going on; the enemy was invading his homeland. And he’d tucked his tail between his legs and run away from it.

Was killing his own brother a good enough reason?

He didn’t have to think about it long. Less than a minute later, Crosseye, riding on the other side of Chulo, said, “Jimmy.”

James looked at him. Crosseye lifted his chin to indicate their southern flank. James cast his gaze in the direction his old partner had indicated. Slightly behind them a good half mile away, dust rose in a tan smear. James could make out a couple of horses and riders, but from this distance he couldn’t see anything to distinguish them.

Then, all at once, as though they were merely a heat mirage, they disappeared.

“What is it?” Jack said, turning his head this way and that, listening for trouble.

James turned to him. “Riders to the south and slightly behind. About half a mile away.”

“Can you tell if they’re Apaches?”

“Can’t tell.”

“See any smoke signals?”

James scanned the broad bowl they were traversing, seeing nothing but the bald, sawtooth mountains in all directions. The only movement was a raptor of some kind hovering high above, wings flashing in the brassy
sunlight. “Nothing. What do you think, Jack? Should me and Crosseye ride out for a look?”

“Not yet. If they’re ’paches, they might be tryin’ to lure us into a trap. Best if we go on pushin’, keep our eyes skinned and make sure all our guns are loaded.” Jack snorted. “Sure am glad we got that Gatling gun. Should be all right,” he said but then repeated the sentence in a slightly more uncertain tone: “Should be all right….”

Jack nudged Chulo with his elbow, said something in Spanish. The big Yaqui nodded, glanced to the south, then shook the reins over the mules’ backs, stepping up the speed. A low jog of hills humped a couple of miles ahead, stretching for what appeared to be a mile or so across their trail. Apparently, Jack wanted to reach those as quickly as possible.

“This ain’t where the band of Lipans that call this neck of Sonora home usually stomps,” the old desert rat muttered, perplexed. “Their territory’s another day, day and a half ahead…miserable sons o’ bitches.” He tipped his bottle back and cackled to himself and James wondered again if they were out here for no good reason.

When they reached the hills half an hour later, Chulo pulled the wagon up and over the crest. As he continued hazing the mules down the other side, James told Apache Jack that he and Crosseye would scout their back trail in hopes of getting an idea of who was behind them. Jack merely cursed darkly and popped the cork on a fresh bottle.

Vienna, riding out ahead of the wagon with Pablo, hipped around in her saddle to give James a concerned look beneath the brim of her straw sombrero. He waved, trying to put her at ease, and then he and
Crosseye galloped at an angle down the slope away from the wagon. When they reached the bottom of the line of hills, they kept moving south, riding in and out of arroyos and swerving around boulders of all sizes and thickets of wiry brush and cacti.

James turned to angle a glance behind them. The wagon was a thumb-sized blotch of green now about a quarter mile away, continuing east, with Vienna and Pablo riding point, Vincente following several yards behind on his rugged mule.

“This oughta be far enough south,” James told Crosseye, and checked down the chestnut.

He stepped out of his saddle, rummaged around in his saddlebags for his field glasses, and slid his Henry repeater from its saddle boot. Crosseye grabbed his Spencer, and they scrambled up the bank, Crosseye moving every bit as quickly and surefootedly as James, though the older man’s breathing was raspy, and he grunted and muttered curses at his age.

“Don’t ever get old, Jimmy,” he said as they dropped to the side of the hill about four feet from the top.

Then they continued to crab slowly up the side of the slope, doffing their hats.

James said, “What’s the alternative, hoss?”

“Good point.”

James edged a cautious glance over the top of the sandy hill, his keen eyes taking in the terrain they’d just crossed. An arroyo angled across the rocky, sandy ground. A couple of coyotes were sauntering along its bottom, close enough that James could see the sunlight in their dun-and-gray coats, tongues hanging over their lower jaws. They jerked their heads around,
investigating every nook and cranny of the wash for prey. The one following the first cast frequent glances behind it, and James stretched his own glance back in the direction the brush wolf was peering.

James picked movement out of the desert—a ragged line of riders moving toward him. Dust rose in the still, warm air. Occasionally, the clang of a shod hoof off rocks reached James’s ears, and the occasional murmur of male conversation.

James lifted the field glasses to his eyes, adjusted the focus until the party of horseback riders swam as clearly into his view as possible from their distance of at least five hundred yards away. They formed a ragged line of roughly twelve men and horses, with a couple of packhorses being trailed by the last two men in the group.

James couldn’t make out much about their clothing except that it was the attire of white men, not Indians.

James gave the glasses to Crosseye, who adjusted the focus and stared out across the desert for a time, showing his teeth and slowly sliding the glasses from right to left as he tracked the riders.

“Well, at least we shouldn’t be in danger of losin’ our topknot,” he said finally, handing the glasses back to James.

“Apache don’t take scalps, anyway,” James said, recalling a recent Apache tutorial bestowed upon him by Apache Jack when they’d stopped to water their horses and mules at a rare desert rock tank. “That’s a Plains Indian tradition. Whenever the Apaches do it, it’s only because it’s been done to them.”

Crosseye was squinting out toward where the riders
disappeared by ones and twos behind a broad, towering stone escarpment. “You think they’re followin’ us?”

“Well, we’re headin’ in the same direction.”

“Best assume so, then.”

“Banditos, maybe,” James said.

“Yeah, well, we got the Gatling gun. If they’re followin’ us, they’ve no doubt scouted us and know about the bullet belcher.”

“Maybe it’s the gun they’re after.”

Crosseye looked at James. “Or the girl. In case you hadn’t noticed, there ain’t many o’ them to be had out here on this backside of nowhere.”

James’s lips quirked in a jeering grin. “You’d know that better than anybody.”

“Yeah,” Crosseye said, nodding and adding darkly, “Me an’ Chulo.”

James gave a sour grunt. The mention of the big Yaqui reminded him that he’d left Vienna without protection should Chulo and Vincente decide to move on her. He crawled a few feet back down the hill, doffed his hat, stood, and jogged the rest of the way down to where his and Crosseye’s horses waited. Crosseye was behind him, groaning and cursing his age again.

They swung into their saddles and started back in the direction of the wagon.

They hadn’t gone ten yards before they heard the wicked belching of the Gatling gun. James cursed and ground his heels into the chestnut’s flanks, tearing off at a ground-eating gallop.

Another spurt of Gatling fire rose above the hammering of the chestnut’s hooves. James cocked the Henry repeater one-handed, set the barrel across his saddle bow, and stared straight ahead over the gelding’s laid-back ears. The wagon was two hundred yards away, angled so that the mules were faced southeast while the back of the wagon and the gun pointed northwest.

Chulo’s bulky frame was hunkered behind the gun, and he was jerking the barrel around, aiming at a jumble of rocks and brush about fifty yards away from him. Vincente was on one knee behind a rock near the rear of the wagon, slightly closer to the escarpment. He had two pistols in his hands, and both smoked now at the same time.

The hollow cracks reached James’s ears, and their echo was drowned by another spat of fire from the Gatling gun, though James couldn’t see what either man was shooting at.

Apache Jack, Vienna, and Pablo were all hunkered down behind the wagon’s right front wheel, Vienna with her pistol out though Apache Jack kept throwing
an arm out and yelling at her to keep her head down. “These are Apaches, girl, and this ain’t no sewin’ lesson!” James heard him screech as he brought the chestnut to a skidding stop well back of the wagon.

He leaped from the saddle, smashed the butt of his rifle against the horse’s left hip, sending it galloping off and out of the line of fire, then went running ahead to drop down behind a low hump of ground about ten yards from the wagon, on the escarpment side of the trail.

“How many?” he called to Jack as Crosseye threw himself down to his right.

“Don’t ask a blind man foolish questions!” Jack spat out. “All I know is Vincente went out to shake the dew from his lily and he ended up with one ear to go with his clubfoot!”

James saw a brown-skinned, black-haired figure in deerskin leggings and a flannel headband lying twisted on the other side of some spindly willow about ten yards off the trail. Both Vincente and Pablo were looking around wildly but holding their fire. The Gatling gun squawked on its dry swivel. Chulo was grunting as he stared toward the scarp.

“Where there’s one ’pache, there’s more,” Jack said darkly. “The dead one there’s probably part of a small band. They run in little packs around these sierras, as there’s not enough water to supply many of ’em at once. I’ve never seen a band larger than, say, ten or twelve. Often smaller than that. They’re nasty devils, though. One o’ them is equal to six gun-handy white men.” Jack spat and growled, muttering to himself, probably remembering again the hot knife that had blinded him.

They waited. The breeze scratched the branches of the piñon pines together. A hawk screeched, and a rabbit gave its short-lived squeal.

“Well, we could wait out here all day,” James said finally to Crosseye. “Let’s check it out.”

Crosseye glanced from Vincente to Chulo. “What about them?”

James turned to Jack. “Jack, have your boys hold your fire while me and Crosseye scout the rocks.”

Jack nodded and yelled in Spanish. Chulo glanced toward James and Crosseye, his eyes dark, but kept his hands on the Gatling’s crank. Vincente stared toward the escarpment but lowered his pistol slightly. Blood from where his right ear used to be had puddled atop the rock beside him and dribbled down the rock to the copper-colored gravel. The grisly wound made James’s own ear ache, but Vincente himself ignored it.

James glanced at Crosseye. “Hope they mind Jack,” the oldster said.

“I’m gonna run around to the left.”

“All right. I’ll cover you and then I’ll head for that little notch in the rocks over on the right.”

James rose to his knees, looked around carefully, then sprinted out around to the left of Vincente. He dropped to a knee again to study the escarpment. When nothing moved, he continued running until he was wide of the first hump of rocks and could see into a hollow behind it.

Nothing.

He ran into the hollow and then through a notch in the low wall of boulders behind it, found himself in a corridor and then in a low tunnel amongst the rocks
that angled over and around him. He had to crouch and sort of shuffle forward, pricking his ears for movement around him. His boots clacked softly on the stone floor. It was a cavelike place, rich with the powdery smell of rock and sand and the faint aroma of pine on the breeze.

A shrill rattling rose on his right, and he turned to see a rattlesnake coiled in a deep pigeonhole amongst the slab-sided rocks, flicking its forked tongue, striated button tail raised as it shook. Other snakes slithered out from the rocks around the first, wriggling toward James and jutting their menacing, ribbonlike tongues.

The smell of ripe cucumbers emanated from the nest, and James made a face. Just when the first snake pulled its head back as though cocking itself for a strike, James shuffled forward, and the nasty rattling dwindled behind him.

He shuddered, chicken flesh rising along his spine. That was only the third or fourth Western rattler he’d seen—these fit the description of the Mojave green rattler, with striped tails—but he’d seen the others from a distance. He didn’t want to see another one that close again.

He continued to investigate the knotted escarpment with all its nooks and crannies. At one point, he saw a figure down a wash to the east of him, and he whipped his rifle around only to jerk the barrel up. Crosseye grinned, pinched the brim of his gray sombrero, and disappeared amongst the rocks.

James traversed another narrow corridor threading the escarpment. He stopped suddenly.

Something lay on the ground just ahead of him. He
aimed the Henry at it, moved forward, stopped again and stared down at a dead Apache—a boy of no more than thirteen or fourteen. Blood welled from the gaping hole in his belly, just beneath his breastbone, and from the deep gash across his throat. He held a crude, wooden-handled knife in his open right fist. The blade was coated in rich, dark blood. The kid’s half-open, dark brown eyes owned a feral quality, and his white teeth were gritted.

James stared at the gash in the kid’s throat, amazed at the young warrior’s grit. Rather than die slow from the bullet in his belly, he’d cut his own throat.