“To Silver City, then El Paso.”
The man glanced at Will Reilly again, started to speak, but subsided. After a moment he looked over at Bridger, who was watching out the window, his Winchester between his knees.
“Where you going?” the man asked.
“Through the Pass … I hope.”
“Is it as bad as they say?
“Worse. Maybe we’ll be lucky. It’s a narrow trail and built for ambush. If they want us bad enough, they’ll take us.”
“I can shoot,” Val offered.
“No better than me,” Dobie declared belligerently.
“You may have to shoot, both of you,” Bridger said.
“One thing,” the businessman said, “we’ve plenty of guns and ammunition.”
Bridger Downs did not reply. Maybe that fellow thought so, but with Apaches you never knew.
They rolled into Steel’s Ranch as dawn was breaking, and got stiffly down from the stage, standing in the chill air of morning to stretch their muscles. Val trudged sleepily after Will Reilly as they went inside.
A coal-oil lamp with a reflector behind it was burning on the wall, and a lantern stood on the table where the hostler had left it when he came from the stable.
“Breakfast’ll be on soon,” he said, and then added, “It gets right cold of a morning here.”
Bridger Downs lounged by the door, watching outside, for this was Apache country, and they might not wait for the Pass. Sponseller was standing under a paloverde tree, watching the changing of the teams.
The driver strolled over to the Australian. “Did you know Reilly before?’
Sponseller shrugged. “There was a Reilly came ashore from a ‘Frisco bark, and he made a play for a girl … or she made it for him … and her bloke took exception. There was a pretty bit of a brawl, and Reilly won, which nobody thought he could do, and then the Larrikins took after him.”
“What happened?”
“Some of them caught him … the worse for them.”
“He got away?
“Oh, they’d have fixed his tripe if he hadn’t, but the girl smuggled him aboard a China clipper that left whilst they watched the bark he’d come in. The story’s often told down along the Cut and in the dives around Circular Quay. I don’t know if it was him, but they’ve the same look.”
“He’s a good man to have along, going through the Pass,” said the driver.
“What’s the fat feller got in that bunch of long boxes?”
Pete shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. They’re heavy.”
“Gold?” Sponseller speculated.
“Doubt it. Hasn’t the feel of it, somehow. Gold is heavy, all of a chunk. You know when you pick it up. This hasn’t the same feel.”
The sun came gingerly over the mountains, and the sky and the ranch yard were pale yellow. Pete looked at the mountains for smoke, but saw none.
He looked around again. With Reilly, Sponseller, Bridger Downs, and himself, there were four good rifles. The miner was a likely shot, and as for the fat businessman with the mutton-chop whiskers—there was no telling, although he had a keen eye and did not, somehow, have the look of a tenderfoot.
The horses pawed earth, and Pete went over to take the lines from the hostler. Reilly walked outside and lit a thin cigar and squinted at the mountains. He was wearing a black broadcloth suit, a white planter’s-style hat, highly polished boots, now somewhat dusty, and a dove-gray vest.
“If they’re riding, Val, you have to lead them a little. And if they’re up in the rocks, aim a little high and watch your bullet strike. There’s a tendency to shoot low.”
“Yes, sir. Do you think there will be a fight?”
Will Reilly shrugged. He glanced at Sponseller, who had taken off his hat to run his fingers through his curly blond hair. “Do you still favor red shirts?” Reilly asked, and he walked to the stage.
Sponseller swore softly, then grinned. “I’ll be blowed,” he said.
“What did that mean?” Bridger asked.
“He was the one,” Sponseller said. “I was wearing a red shirt all the time in those days. I was one of the Larrikins. It was our chief that he whipped … whipped him fairly, too.”
They mounted up. The driver glanced once at the station, touched the brim of his hat with his whipstock, and they left the station at a brisk trot.
With the horses occasionally walking, then trotting, the stage moved toward Apache Pass. Val now sat by a window, with the words ringing in his ears: “If you see an Indian, or anybody else does, you get out of the way, and fast!”
He liked looking at the desert and the mountains. A roadrunner kept pace with them for some distance, seemingly amused by racing along; sometimes it ran ahead of the stage, sometimes beside it.
The air was cool; the dust stayed behind them. There was a faint smell of horse and leather, and the hot, baking smell one sometimes gets from old painted wood in the sunlight.
Quail flew up … a buzzard swung wide circles in the sky. The rocks of the pass began to take on detail. The trail dipped into a hollow, emerged suddenly, and wound among boulders and brush.
“All right,” Will said, “we’ll change places.” He had moved to sit by the window when the stage suddenly gave a lurch and they heard the driver’s wild yell, “Hi-yah! Hi-yah!” And almost simultaneously the boom of a rifle sounded right over their heads.
Crouched near the floor, Val could see nothing, but he could feel the grind of the wheels over gravel and stones, and hear the rattle and creak of the stage as the horses fled eastwards.
Suddenly Bridger Downs fired, then fired again and again. Will was holding his fire, as was the miner. The drummer had drawn a pistol.
All at once there came a ripping sound, and there was a bullet hole in the side of the stage right above Will’s head. At almost the same moment the stage gave a leap as though it were taking off to fly, and then it came down with a grinding crash, a wheel splintered, the stage plunged forward, and slowly fell on its side.
How he did it, Val never knew, but Will was suddenly outside. He had lost his grip on his rifle, but as the Apaches came charging down upon them he stood erect, and when Val scrambled through the door, now on the top side of the stage, he saw Will fire. An Indian, dashing toward them on horseback, was struck from his horse.
The Indian fell, hit the dust and slid, and then, surprisingly, started to get up. Coolly, Will shot him again.
The others in the stage were scrambling out. Will Reilly stepped over quickly and pushed Val to the ground among the rocks. “Stay there!” he said sternly.
Pete was sprawled in the dirt half a dozen yards from the stage, and he lay still.
Dobie and his mother were crouched close against the bottom of the overturned stage, and the boy’s eyes were bright and hard. There was no fear in them, but rather curiosity and a sort of eagerness. Val wondered how he himself looked.
Turning his head, he picked out the men. Bridger Downs had quickly found himself a spot, and kneeling on one knee, he was waiting for a good shot. Sponseller, who had jumped clear when the stage started to go, was about fifty feet away among the rocks, in a somewhat higher position.
The miner, crouched near Val, was favoring an arm, and there was a slow staining of red on his coatsleeve, but he had his rifle in position, partly braced by the fork in a shrub.
The drummer had crawled to the back of the stage and was trying to get one of his long boxes off the roof of the stage.
He turned to Val. “Boy, can you help me? Crawl over here.”
Val moved over toward him, and lying down, managed to crawl over and unlash the other end of the box without exposing himself to the Apaches’ fire. He pushed the box, the drummer heaved, and it crashed to the ground. The drummer picked up a rock and began to pound on the edge of a slat.
Val crawled back and looked around again. The stage lay just off the trail, forming a partial wall on one side, while on the other side was a bank of rocks and brush. One of the stage horses lay dead almost under the stage, and it must have been his fall that sent the stage into its wild careening.
Val lay crouched close to the ground as the Indians worked closer. He could smell the dust and the powder smoke. Something splintered behind him; the long box broke open and the drummer began taking out rifles. He had twelve brand-new rifles, and from another box he began taking out ammunition.