on top. “Kahtenny is out there, and he wants his squaw.”
“We told him to send you dead.”
“Must have been some mistake there,” I said. “I’m still alive.”
“Not for long,” the other Hadden said, sounding mighty savage.
“I take it you boys haven’t had much doings with the Apaches,” I said, “so
listen to some reason. No matter what’s between you boys and me, you’d better
listen real good.
“That Kahtenny is poison mean, and he’s a fighter from way back. You see him out
there almost alone, but he isn’t alone. He’s got a dozen Indians in these rocks,
and more a-coming. If you want to get out of here alive you’d better turn loose
his squaw.”
The one in the rocks, he ups and says, “We’ve fought Injuns afore. We ain’t
turnin’ her loose. That there’s a right tasty bit of Injun.”
Now I knew the chips were down and their cards were on the table. I was sort of
watching everything, thinking about how long it had been since I practiced a
left-hand draw, and thinking how they were probably counting on that right hand,
far from the gun and resting on the pommel, under the left one. I had done that
a-purpose, and was hoping it was going to give me the margin I needed. There was
this thing of reaction time … it takes an instant to see what’s happening and
for it to register on the mind and dictate a move.
“If you boys are as smart as I think you are,” I said, “you’ll let that squaw
loose, and the same for the young lady over yonder. You know what will happen if
you bother a white girl out here.”
“Nothin’ ” That was the man with the rifle up in the rocks. “Ain’t nobody goin’
to tell.”
“You’re forgetting about my boys,” I said. “They’ll know and they’ll be telling
the story about now.”
“Not Spanish Murphy,” Arch Hadden said. “He won’t tell nobody nothin’. We found
him tied on his horse and he didn’t look like he was going to make it, so we
shot him. We just naturally finished him off.”
Dorset was right behind the squaw now, and I never had any doubts about her
doing what was best. That little lady had a head on her shoulders and the
chances were that right now she was unloosing the squaw.
I knew I had to stall. I had to play for time. “No use you boys building up for
trouble,” I said. “Turn that squaw loose, and the lot of us have got a fighting
chance. We can make it out of here if we move fast, before Kahtenny gets fifty,
sixty Injuns out yonder.”
“You ain’t got the message,” Wolf Hadden said. “We’re goin’ to kill you, boy.”
Me, I smiled at him. Somehow I had to keep those boys talking, get their mind
off the moment to give myself an edge. If I was going to do anything at all
against the lot of them, I’d need all I could get.
“Most men who try to fight Apaches only learn by losing … and when you lose a
fight to an Apache you never get no chance to use what you learned. You boys
take my advice and turn loose that squaw, and Kahtenny might just ride off and
leave you be.”
“You scared?” That was that one up on the rocks. He was beginning to get kind of
irritating, like a mosquito around the ear.
“You bet I’m scared. I’ve seen these boys work. Now, I — ”
All of a sudden one of those boys yelled, “Arch! That damn squaw — ”
She was loose and she was moving, and she was moving almighty fast. The man up
in the rocks swung his rifle and when he did I forked out that waistband gun
with my left hand and my shot was a hair faster than his.
He fired at the squaw and I shot him right through the brisket, and then swung
the gun to Wolf, who was coming up with a Remington Navy.
Dorset, she suddenly threw herself at the man nearest her and she hit him right
behind the knees. He was standing on a bit of a slope, and when she hit him he
buckled at the knees and fell forward on the gravelly hillside.
The man who’d been alongside the fire, instead of grabbing his gun, turned to
lay hold of Dorset, and at the same time that I cut loose at Wolf I jumped my
horse at Arch.
He made a quick step back to get out of the way, and a rock rolled under his
feet. He fell as he drew, jolting the gun from his hand.
I swung my horse and got in another shot at Wolf, who burned me with one
alongside the shoulder. He was just setting up to take a dead shot when my
second bullet caught him, and he backed up a full step. My black was on him, and
he rolled aside, and I felt bullets whipping around me.
Somehow Dorset had a gun. She fired at one of those boys and then taken out
running, the child in her arms, for the pony string.
About that time I saw an Apache up on the slope, and he was shooting down at us.
I swung my horse again and went after Dorset.
She wasn’t wasting any time, and fortunately they had left a couple of horses
saddled. She pulled the drawstring on one of them and swung the child to the
saddle, then she went into the saddle herself with a flying leap and we were
off, running our horses across that desert like crazy folks.
Maybe we were a mite crazy. I had an idea we weren’t going to make it, but every
jump we took gave us a better chance. Behind us I could hear a fight taking
place, and somebody else was running a horse off to the right.
Suddenly the desert split right open ahead of us, a deep cut maybe eight or ten
feet across. I saw Dorset jump her horse, and I slapped spurs to mine and that
black took to flying as if it was second nature. We both landed safe and swung
down into a hollow, raced across it and up the other side, and into a forest of
cholla where our horses swung right and left and about through that prickly
stuff.
We leveled out in the open and put them to a run, and when we finally got them
slowed down we had made it away … for now.
Looking back, I could see nothing behind us. We had come several miles, and now
we walked the horses under some cedars whilst I unlimbered my Winchester,
checked it again, and returned it to the scabbard. Then I reloaded both my
six-shooters. I could remember shooting four to five tunes, but eight shots had
been fired, showing I’d been doubling up. I had no recollection of having drawn
the second gun, but I surely had. When I’d reloaded, I moved alongside Dorset.
She was holding the youngster on the saddle in front of her. “What happened to
the others?” I asked. “They got away. Harry is like a little Apache himself.
When those men came up he just disappeared into the brush with the others.”
“Let’s hope he made it.”
The country was changing now. It was much more broken, but there was also more
growth. There had been a desert shower, one of those sudden rains that sometimes
deluge only a small area and then vanish. This one had left water standing in
the bottoms of the washes and in hollows atop the rocks. It had filled the
desert tanks, so we watered the horses.
My eyes felt like hot lumps in my skull, and they seemed to move with incredible
slowness when I turned to look around. My fingers felt stiff, and I worked them
and tried to loosen them up. My mouth was dry, and after I’d drunk it was dry
again in a few minutes.
All of a sudden I was dead tired again. All the days of driving ahead, running,
fighting, and worrying a way out were beginning to catch up with me. But we
started on.
The horses plodded ahead, dazed with weariness. Several times I found myself
dozing in the saddle, each time I’d wake up with a start of fear, and look all
around. My mind seemed to be in a state of despair. Spanish was dead … Tampico
Rocca was dead … where was John J.?
It would soon be dark, and if we expected to make the border we had to find a
place to stop for rest. If it had to be, we ourselves could keep going, but not
the horses, and without them our chances were gone. “Do you think they’re