A Texas Hill Country Christmas (4 page)

 

Major Patrick Macmillan raised his right hand in a signal for the cavalry patrol following him to halt. The soldiers reined in and so did the civilian riding beside Macmillan.

Matt Jensen rested his hands on the saddle horn and leaned forward to ease muscles grown stiff from long hours of riding. His black Stetson was cocked back on fair hair. Under an open sheepskin jacket, he wore a faded blue bib-front shirt similar to what the troopers wore, although Matt wasn't a soldier and never had been.

He had done a considerable amount of scouting for the army, though, now and then over the past several years while he'd been drifting around the frontier, always eager to see what was over the next horizon. He was Smoke Jensen's adopted brother, a respected gunhandler in his own right, and a young man with an adventuresome streak in his personality.

This expedition had started out as a bit of a lark for Matt. He had been at Fort Griffin, a good distance west of here, when word came that a group of renegade Comanches had left the reservation in Indian Territory and were raiding across the north central region of Texas. The fort's commanding officer had sent out a patrol right away, putting his second-in-command in charge, and Matt had signed on as a civilian scout. He was acquainted with Major Macmillan and liked the veteran officer. He and Macmillan had worked together before, so the whole thing seemed like a promising adventure to Matt.

But the task had turned deadly grim over the past few days, as the patrol had come across two isolated ranches that had been attacked by the renegades. The places were burned out, and the people who lived there had all been tortured, killed, and mutilated.

Families. Women and children. It was hard not to feel hate burning inside when you saw what had been done to those innocents and then had to bury what was left of them.

No, Matt reflected as he sat his horse next to Macmillan and looked down into the thickly wooded valley in front of them. This wasn't a lark anymore. It was a mission of vengeance now.

“This is marked on our maps as Dark Valley,” Macmillan said. “It's easy to see why.”

“Yeah,” Matt agreed. Even though the sun was shining, an air of gloom hung over the narrow, steep-sided valley. It seemed almost like something kept the light from penetrating all the way to the bottom of the valley.

The slopes were covered with live oaks, which retained their leaves all year long. That gave the valley a dark green, almost black cast.

From behind Matt and Macmillan, Sergeant Houlihan said, “Why would anybody want to live in a place like this? 'Tis more of a fittin' home for demons, I'm thinkin'.”

The sergeant, a wizened, birdlike, but extremely tough little Irishman with a bushy mustache, was just expressing what Matt felt.

Major Macmillan took off his hat and ran his fingers through his graying hair. He said, “According to what we've been told, there are several ranches in the valley. We have to warn the settlers about Black Moon and his band and encourage them to leave. They'll be safer going into the nearest town for a while.”

“You'll get some arguments,” Matt said. “Folks don't want to leave their homes, especially when they know they might come back to find everything burned down and in ruins.”

Macmillan put his hat back on and said, “They may change their minds when they hear about what we've found so far. At the very least, all the women and children should be sent to safety.”

“I agree with you, Major. I just know how stubborn some of these Texans can be.”

“Stubborn is one thing,” Macmillan said as he hitched his horse into motion and started down the slope into the valley. “Foolhardy is another.”

Matt rode after the major. His eyes never stopped moving as he cast his gaze back and forth over the rugged landscape around them. Behind him came Sergeant Houlihan and the twenty troopers who made up the patrol.

After a few minutes, Matt nudged his horse up alongside Macmillan's mount and said, “Better let me ride on ahead, Major. That's what a scout's supposed to do, after all.”

“I don't like sending out a man alone when there are hostiles in the area,” Macmillan said with a frown. “Take one man with you. Your choice.”

Matt thought about it for a second and then nodded. He knew why Macmillan didn't want him scouting alone. If anything happened to Matt, a second man could gallop back to the others with a warning.

“I'll take Private Brenham,” he said.

“Very well.” Macmillan hipped around in the saddle. “Sergeant . . .”

“I heard, sir,” Houlihan said. He turned his head and called, “Brenham, front and center!”

One of the young troopers pulled his horse out of the line and trotted forward to join the sergeant, Matt, and Major Macmillan as the three of them reined in again.

“Yes, Sergeant?” Brenham asked in a southern drawl. He was a Georgia boy, Matt knew from talking to him, who had been able to knock a squirrel out of a tree with a bullet from an old single-shot rifle almost before he could walk. Matt figured it would be good to have such a sharp-eyed marksman with him.

“You're goin' with Mr. Jensen,” Houlihan said as he nodded toward Matt. “That is, if you're up for a wee bit o' scoutin'.”

A quick grin appeared on Brenham's face before he made his expression solemn again.

“Sure, Sergeant.”

“Keep your eyes open, trooper,” Macmillan said. “And listen to Matt. You'll find that he knows what he's talking about.”

Matt was only a couple of years older than Brenham, but he had been making his way on the frontier for a long time and had the added advantage of having spent several years when he was just a kid in the company of Smoke and the old mountain man called Preacher. Living with those two had been an extensive education in survival.

Matt lifted a hand to his hat brim in farewell to Macmillan and Houlihan as he turned his horse. Brenham fell in alongside him as they rode toward the valley floor. Live oaks grew thickly around them, mixed with post oaks that had lost their leaves during the autumn. That brown and tan carpet crackled a little under their horses' hooves.

The foliage was so thick it wasn't long before the two young men were out of sight of the rest of the patrol. Once that happened, they might as well have been the only humans for miles around. This valley was a lonely, desolate place, apparently without even much animal life.

Matt buttoned up his sheepskin jacket as he rode. The sun didn't have any warmth down here.

Brenham asked, “How long you reckon it's gonna be before we catch up to them renegades, Mr. Jensen?”

“Call me Matt. I'm not an officer.”

“My name's Taw, then. It's a plumb honor to be ridin' with you. I've heard a heap about you and your brother.” Brenham paused. “But about them hostiles . . .”

“I don't know,” Matt answered honestly. His jaw tightened as he thought about the last ranch they had found in the aftermath of a raid. “They were less than a day ahead of us last time, so there's a good chance they're pretty close.”

“I'd give a lot to catch one o' them varmints over the sights o' my rifle. I swear, the things they done . . .” Brenham seemed to choke on the words for a moment. “One of the gals at the last place, she reminded me of my own little sister.”

“Best not to think too much about that,” Matt advised, even though he knew that was easier said than done. The things he had seen would continue to haunt him for a long time, too.

“That Injun Black Moon, he's supposed to be the ringleader o' the bunch, ain't he? Some sort of Comanche war chief?”

“That's what the wire that came to Fort Griffin said.”

“How did he come to jump the reservation right now, so close to Christmas? I could understand it more if he'd waited until spring to go raidin'. Thought most of those Injuns like to sit on the reservation durin' the winter when the weather's bad.”

“Something happened to set him off, I reckon,” Matt said. “We may never know what it was. But he was able to talk some of the other warriors into going with him, and that's all that really matters. We need to round them up and get them back where they belong.”

“After what they done?” Brenham sounded surprised. “To tell you the truth, Matt, I didn't figure we'd be takin' any prisoners.”

“More than likely it won't come to that,” Matt said. “I don't expect them to give up without a fight.”

“I hope they don't,” Brenham said fervently. “I really do.”

They rode on, watching and listening intently for anything out of the ordinary. Matt had studied Major Macmillan's maps of the area, but he had never been to Dark Valley before and wasn't sure exactly what they were going to encounter. About an hour after he and Brenham had parted company from the rest of the patrol, he brought his horse to a halt and pointed.

“Smoke on the other side of that ridge,” he said.

“I see it,” Brenham said. “Don't look like a house or a barn on fire, though. More like chimney smoke.”

“I think so, too,” Matt agreed. “That must be one of those ranches we're supposed to be looking for. I'll go ahead and ride on in so I can warn the folks living there. Think you can backtrack to the patrol and bring them here?”

“Sure I can,” Brenham declared. “I been a backwoodsman all my life, Matt. Was runnin' around them Georgia hills when I was just knee-high to a possum.”

Matt grinned and said, “All right, then, head on out—”

He stopped short as a volley of gunfire erupted somewhere not far away. The shots came from the direction of the chimney smoke they had spotted a few moments earlier, and there were too many of them to think it was somebody shooting at an animal or anything like that.

No, that was a real life-or-death fight they were hearing, and Matt knew what it had to mean.

They had caught up to Black Moon and the other renegades at last.

Matt jerked his Winchester out of the saddle boot.

“Taw, get back to the patrol!” he said. “Bring them back here as fast as you can.”

“Dadblast it, Matt!” the young trooper protested. “I can't go off and leave you—”

“That's an order, soldier!”

Brenham pulled his horse half around and said, “You told me you weren't no officer, so I don't have to do what you say!”

Matt bit back an impatient curse.

“Listen, we both know what's happening on the other side of that ridge. There's at least a dozen renegades in Black Moon's war party. Two men can't stop them any more than one man can. The whole patrol needs to be here if we're going to have any chance of saving those settlers.”

Matt's words made sense, but he could tell Brenham was torn by the logic anyway. Finally the soldier grimaced, hauled his horse the rest of the way around, and called over his shoulder, “Don't kill too many of the rascals 'fore I get back!”

He jammed his heels into the horse's flanks and sent it leaping into a gallop. The cavalry mount's hooves drummed against the ground as Taw Brenham raced back the way he and Matt had come.

Matt headed the other way, toward the ridge beyond where the fighting continued.

He rode most of the way up the slope, winding his way rapidly through the trees, but he reined in and swung down from the saddle just before he reached the crest. Charging blindly into the middle of a Comanche raid wouldn't accomplish anything except to get him killed. His long legs carried him quickly to the top of the ridge, where he stopped and stood with the rifle in his hands as he surveyed the scene below him.

The ranch house was about three hundred yards away, a double log cabin with a covered, open space known as a dogtrot between the two halves of the structure. A barn with an attached corral and a smaller outbuilding that was probably a smokehouse stood not far off. There was a vegetable garden, bare at this time of year, behind the cabin. It was a nice-looking spread, nothing fancy about it, but a place where a family could live and work and build something worthwhile.

Whoever had built the cabin had cleared all the trees for about fifty yards around it, leaving only short stumps. That was a wise move, because it meant attackers had to cross that open ground to reach the cabin. A sprawled, unmoving figure in a buckskin shirt and wool trousers showed that one of the renegades had tried and failed to do just that.

Puffs of powdersmoke came from loopholes cut into the cabin's thick walls, as well as from gaps between heavy wooden shutters that had been pulled mostly closed over the windows. The settlers were putting up a good fight. Matt wasn't sure how many defenders were in there. Five or six, he estimated.

They were outnumbered, though. At least a dozen raiders were scattered around the place, some crouched behind trees, others firing from the barn as they poured lead at the cabin. Black Moon and his renegades were well armed with stolen Winchesters and Henry rifles. It wouldn't be easy to root out the defenders, but if the Comanche warriors had plenty of ammunition they could lay siege to the cabin and eventually force the settlers to come out and die.

Or maybe they would try to hurry things along by setting fire to the place, Matt thought. If they could get a torch onto the wooden shingles on top of the cabin, the defenders wouldn't have any choice other than staying inside and burning to death—if they didn't choke on the smoke first—or fleeing right into the bullets of the enemy.

From where Matt stood, he could see several of the renegades. They didn't know he was up here, so he was confident he could pick off two or three of them before they were aware of what was going on.

If he did that, however, he would lose the advantage of surprise.

It might be more effective to go right down there among them and try to kill as many as he could, hand to hand, before they realized he was there. That was what Preacher would have done....

Then the decision was taken out of his hands as one of the raiders did something Matt never would have expected. The man stepped out into the open where the people in the cabin could see him.

They didn't fill him full of lead, though. In fact, their guns fell silent, because the renegade stood there with a prisoner held tightly in front of him. A boy, probably around twelve, skinny and ungainly, with a shock of fair hair that stood out sharply against the Indian's dark buckskins.

Someone inside the cabin screamed. A woman, Matt thought grimly. Probably the boy's mother.

Sunlight flashed on the heavy blade of the knife the renegade held at the captive's throat.

“Come out or the boy dies!” the warrior called in good English he had probably learned on the reservation.

One of the shutters flew open. A woman looked out in bug-eyed horror and cried, “Tommy!”

Somebody inside the cabin grabbed her and dragged her away from the window as rifles blasted outside. A man's arm came in sight as he tried to reach out and pull the shutter closed again. Blood flew as a bullet hammered through the back of his hand and made him howl in pain. Even wounded, though, he managed to grab the short piece of rope attached to the shutter as a handle and jerk it. The shutter thumped back into place.

A second later, guns roared from inside the house as the defenders opened fire again. None of their bullets came close to the renegade with the hostage, however. They couldn't shoot at him without risking the boy's life.

That might not have made any difference, because the Comanche let out a shrill war cry and raised the knife. Matt knew he was about to either plunge it into the boy's chest or cut his throat.

Matt brought the rifle up, socketed the butt firmly against his shoulder, and took half a second to aim. That was all the time he had.

He pressed the trigger.

The boom of the shot was pretty well lost in the racket from all the other gunfire, but the results were obvious. The bullet took the renegade in the side of the head just as the knife started to fall, bored through his brain, and exploded out the other side of his skull in a pink spray of blood and bone. He dropped like a stone, letting go of both the boy and the knife.

It was a near-miraculous shot, and Matt knew he might not have been able to make it again.

But he had made it this time and that was what counted.

The results were instant. As soon as the renegade let go of him and collapsed, the boy took off running. He had the presence of mind not to try to make it to the cabin. He never would have survived a dash across that open ground. The Indians would have shot him in the back if he'd attempted it.

Instead he turned and sprinted back into the trees, which were a lot closer. Matt lost sight of him right away.

At the same time, a couple of the renegades must have realized where the fatal shot had come from, because they turned and started up the ridge toward Matt's position.

He didn't give them a chance to reach him. The Winchester's lever flashed down and then back up as he worked it. The rifle cracked as it bucked against his shoulder. The slug tore through one renegade's torso and knocked him off his feet. He started tumbling back down the hill.

Almost before that man hit the ground, Matt had worked the rifle's lever again and shifted his aim. Once more the Winchester barked its deadly message. This time the target stumbled from the slug's impact but stayed on his feet until Matt drilled him a second time. That put the renegade down for good.

By now the rest of the raiders were beginning to realize they were caught in a crossfire. They went to the ground, hunting better cover, and within a matter of seconds Matt couldn't see them anymore.

He knew they were still there, though, because bullets began to crackle through the brush and trees around him. He ducked behind a tree as a slug whined past his ear.

Now it was a question of whether the renegades would break off their attack on the ranch to come after him. He hoped they would, even though that would increase his personal danger. He wanted to draw them away from the cabin and give those settlers a better chance to survive.

He continued throwing lead at the raiders, although he had to aim by sound now that he could no longer see them. The longer he could keep them occupied and concentrating on him, the better.

A faint whisper of sound in the brush to his left was all the warning he had. As instinct made him turn in that direction, one of the Comanche lunged into the open and flew at him in a diving tackle.

Matt swung the Winchester and clipped the renegade on the jaw with the barrel, but the man's momentum carried him into Matt anyway. The collision's impact knocked Matt over backward.

He rolled and threw the attacker off him. Matt was up instantly on one knee and drove the rifle's butt down at the man's head. It landed in the middle of the renegade's face with a crunch of gristle and bone.

Another branch crackled, this time to Matt's right. He twisted in that direction and fired the Winchester from the hip as he caught sight of a face twisted in a hate-filled snarl. The slug caught the raider under the chin and angled on up into his brain. He toppled as blood fountained from the wound.

Matt surged to his feet and glanced at the man he had struck with the rifle. The renegade was dead with blood leaking out of his ears. In a matter of moments, Matt had killed five of the Comanche, cutting their force almost in half.

But there were still more than half a dozen of them on the loose, so he wasn't out of the woods yet—literally.

More crashing in the brush made him lift the Winchester. He saw movement and almost fired, but he held off on the trigger at the last second.

The boy who had been taken prisoner by the Indians burst into view, stopped short, and stared at Matt over the barrel of the rifle. His face was pale to start with and dusted with freckles, but it got even more washed out as he must have realized how close he had just come to dying.

“Gosh, mister!” he said. “Don't shoot!”

Matt started to lower the Winchester, then whipped it up again and squeezed the trigger. The boy yelped in terror, then looked over his shoulder as he realized that Matt had targeted something behind him.

Another of the renegades lay there, staring sightlessly at the live oak branches above them. Matt's bullet had left a neat hole between his eyes.

More of the raiders were on their way, though. Matt heard them coming. He glanced around, spotted a deadfall several yards away, and grabbed the boy's arm.

“Come on, kid,” he said. “We've got to hunt cover.”

They ran for the log and vaulted over it. As they did so, shots rang out and slugs exploded splinters from the rotten wood. Matt pushed the boy down on the ground and thrust the rifle barrel over the log.

The odds were against them, but he would make a fight of it. He saw shapes flitting through the trees and said under his breath, “Here they come.”