Ambush on the Mesa (5 page)

H
UGH
looked back as he reached the end of the tumbled rock piles. He could see the rock wall which almost blocked the canyon. It looked like the great rock walls of the ancients. There was no sign of life on it. He had half expected to see a row of warriors standing there watching the party below them.

The wall behind him stuck in his mind as he led the buckskin through a thicket of brush. It brought back the curious even line of rock he had seen on the left wall of the canyon earlier that day. He turned and looked toward it. His jaw dropped. He stopped short.

“What is it?” asked Stevens.

Hugh swallowed dryly. “Look,” he said hoarsely.

“For God’s sake!”

Phillips came up behind them. “What is it? Apaches?” Then he stopped and looked with wonder in his dark eyes.

The arched roof of an enormous cave extended for many yards along the face of the mesa side. Filling it was a silent city of stone built in terraces reaching back into the great cave. The moonlight bathed the mortared walls in soft light. Windows and doors stood out in the stark relief of their shadows. Here and there a round or a square tower stood up, breaking the irregular line of the tops of the main structures. It looked like a brooding medieval castle transported by some magical means to the mountains of New Mexico.

The rest of the party crowded up behind them. “What’s holding us up?” snapped Nettleton.

Phillips silently extended an arm to point toward the mesa wall.

“What a curious rock formation,” said Marion Nettleton.

“It ain’t real, is it?” asked Dan Pearce.

“I’ve heard of these places,” said Darrell Phillips slowly. “It’s a cliff dwelling.”

“There anyone there?” asked Willis. He hefted his carbine.

Hastings spat. “I saw a place like that in Arizona once. Only it wasn’t near as big.”

Harry Roswell walked forward. “It’s real enough. There’s one something like it out near the Santa Cruz. The greasers call it Casa Grande.”

“Who built it?” asked Katy Corse.

“The Hohokam … the Old Ones,” said Hugh quietly. “I noticed it late this afternoon, but it was hard to see. I should have known what it was … those old fields we saw along the way … a trail where no trail should be.”

They stood there in the moonlight looking up at the cliff dwelling. One of the mules suddenly brayed loudly The echo rang from the cliff wall. Hugh turned quickly and raised his carbine.

“Shut up!” yelled Clymer at the mule.

“One jackass telling the other to shut up,” said Willis.

Hugh padded back and looked toward the rock wall behind them. Mules were the best sentries there could be in Indian country. They could smell a warrior a mile away.

Something moved at the bottom of the rock wall. Hugh raised his carbine and then lowered it. He was getting as jittery as Greer. He studied the darkness at the bottom of the slope. Something had moved near the mule. Maybe a prowling coyote. There was one thing he knew for sure: Apaches loved sweet mule meat.

He backed toward the party. “Get around those rocks,” he said over his shoulder.

“What is it?” asked Nettleton.

“I don’t know. There’s something at the bottom of the rock wall near the mule.”

“My silver!”

“Damn your silver! Get moving!”

Hugh watched the place where he thought he could see the body of the mule. Hoofs clattered behind him as the horses and mules were led off the trail.

Roswell came up beside Hugh. He wet his lips. “You see ‘em?”

“No.”

“They there?”

“I think so.”

“We can’t fight out here.”

“They won’t attack at night.”

“Yeah. But what about dawn?”

“That’s it Start the rest of them toward that cliff dwelling Pronto!”

Hugh could hear Nettleton’s peevish voice. “Why does he want us to go up there?”

“We can’t hold off an attack out here in the open, sir,” said Roswell.

“He’s right,” said Phillips.

“Supposing there are Indians up there?”

Clymer laughed. “If there are, they’ve been dead a couple of hundred years. No fear, Captain, unless you’re afraid of ghosts.”

“You try my patience, Mr. Clymer!”

“Jesus God,” said Hugh to himself.

Hugh backed around the rock formation and trotted after the rest of them. They made enough noise to start every sleeping echo in that great canyon into wide-awake action.

Close up under the dwellings there was a great talus slope of broken stone stippled with thorny brush. The horses shied at the slope but the two mules slogged on. Nettleton started up the slope, dragging Marion by her arm. Katy Corse looked back at Hugh. “Are you all right?”

Hugh wiped the sweat from his face. “Yes.”

Dan Pearce stood to one side staring up at the silvery dwellings. “By Jesus, Chand,” he said to Willis, “maybe there’s treasure up in there. Gold, maybe.”

Willis looked quickly at the others. “Shut up, you damned fool,” he said.

They made clashing progress up the slope. Hugh came up last. The east end of the canyon seemed devoid of life. Maybe he had imagined seeing something move near the dead mule.

A crude low wall of unmortared stones ran the length of the first terrace. There was a place where it had crumbled, and through this place they led the animals onto a long flat terrace of irregularly shaped flat stones. The interstices had been filled with packed earth. Here and there along the terrace were rounded areas in the center of which was a sort of trap door. The shafts of crude ladders projected from some of them.

The walls of the closely joined buildings were pierced with small rectangular windows and curiously shaped doors. They looked like the capital letter T, with an exceptionally wide cross bar. Here and there crude ladders still rested against the sills of upper-story doors. Sagging wooden walkways
ways rested on beams which projected from the walls, forming a means of entry into second-story dwellings.

The structures, close up, now showed signs of ruin. Roofs had tumbled in, filling the interiors of the small rooms. Walls had crumbled, littering the terraces and passageways between structures. Clumps of brush had sprung up in patches of earth, and an occasional stubborn tree had rooted itself where its seed had been carried by the wind.

No one spoke. They studied the ancient structures with questioning eyes. The silence was broken only by the stamping of one of the animals and the sighing of the wind through openings in the buildings.

Hugh at last broke away from his trance. He walked to the far end of the terrace and looked down into the moonlit canyon. A coyote howled from the heights across from the ruins. A moment later another coyote answered the first one, this time from the east end of the canyon. Hugh nodded. The Apaches were experts at animal calls, but the trained ear could detect a difference. How many of them were out there? If they were already on the far side of the canyon they could now block the way to the San Francisco. It was time to make a decision. Stay at the ruins, where they could defend themselves, or try for the only exit from the canyon. If the Apaches caught them on the canyon floor they would be wiped out. If they stayed at the ruins they would be hemmed in until hunger and thirst drove them into the open. They were damned if they did and damned if they didn’t.

Darrell Phillips came along the terrace, still looking up at the ancient structures. “Amazing,” he said as he reached Hugh.

“Yeah.”

“How long do you think they been here?”

“Quién sabe?”

A coyote howled from far to the west. Hugh nodded. Darrell Phillips looked curiously at Hugh. “What’s wrong?”

“Listen.”

The wind moaned through the canyon. Minutes passed. Then from the west, on the ruins side of the canyon came a coyote howl. The net was completely around them now. The catch was in the net.

“Just a coyote,” said Phillips. He laughed.

“No. Mimbrenos.”

“You’re sure?”

Hugh merely looked at the young officer. Phillips nodded. “I should have known better than to question you.”

Phillips waved an arm at the cliff dwellings behind them. “This is a strange thing. These people were an agricultural people, probably simple and peaceful. Why would they build their city up here in a place difficult to reach when they could have built equally as well out on the flats?”

“You tell me.”

“Because something drove them up here, forcing them to build a fortress to live in, as our ancestors did in the Dark Ages when bands of robbers roamed the country.”

“So?”

“The Apaches are nomadic as are the Navajos. Do you suppose their ancestors forced these people to live like this?”

“It’s possible.”

Phillips picked up a stone and dropped it over the wall. It hit far below and then rattled down the slope. “There is
a
curious parallel here, Kinzie.”

“Yes?”

Phillips looked across the moonlit canyon. “We’ve been driven up here because we too are forced to protect ourselves against nomadic brigands.”

“I see what you mean.”

“One other thing bothers me.”

“Yes?”

Phillips looked at Hugh. “What happened to the people who lived here?”

Hugh shoved back his hat. “I see what you mean. I’ll tell you this: I’m not licked yet. No damned Mimbreno is going to sit out there like a spider in his web waiting for Hugh Kinzie to blunder into it. Let’s go! We’ve got work to do.”

They walked back along the terrace. Phillips glanced at Hugh. “You knew Katy Corse pretty well before the war, didn’t you?”

“You asked me that once before.”

“Yes.”

“Why do you ask me again?”

Phillips flushed. “I suppose I forgot.”

“Don’t josh me, Mr. Phillips. I have no claim on her.”

Phillips smiled. “Thanks.”

Hugh stopped and gripped the young officer by the arm,
swinging him around easily so that he faced Hugh. “You said that time that she’d make a good wife for an enlisted man. I said she’d make a good wife for
any
man. Do I make myself clear?”

Phillips tried to pull away but the strong fingers dug into his left bicep like steel wires. “Don’t threaten me, Kinzie,” he said in a low voice.

Hugh released him. “I wasn’t threatening you. I was just reminding you that Katy Corse is a lady, as good as any lady you’ve ever met, and a helluva lot more of a real woman than Marion Nettleton.” Hugh strode toward the others.

Nettleton looked down into the deserted valley. “Are they out there?”

Hugh nodded. “We’ll stay here until we are sure they’re gone.”

“How long will that be?”

“Quién sabe?”

“I don’t like it, Kinzie. We have very little food and water.”

Hugh glanced at the two pack mules. “There might be some water. As for food … well, those three mules you started out with could have carried enough cold tack for a platoon.”

“Sure, sure,” said Clymer. “But we can’t do anything about that now.”

“We can do this,” said Hugh quietly. “Place all food under guard and ration it. We might knock down a deer or a bear, if we’re lucky. Until that time we’re under short rations.”

Nettleton wet his lips. “Sergeant Hastings,” he said “take charge of all the food; gather the canteens. Place them in one of these small rooms and put a guard over them.”

Hastings saluted. “Stevens and Greer! Come with me. Check all saddlebags, cantle and pommel packs for food.”

Willis leaned against the wall. He glanced at the two pack mules. “I hope that includes Nettleton’s liquor,” he said. “I could do with a slug or two.”

Abel Clymer walked toward his horse. He took the saddlebags. “Greer!” he said. “Check these for food.”

Greer shambled over. He was scared to death of the Apaches, but he looked like he’d rather face them than Abel Clymer. “I’m sure there isn’t any food in there, sir,” he said.

“Check them!” said Hugh.

Clymer flushed. He thought he had picked his man in Greer, and he had been right, but he hadn’t figured on Hugh Kinzie.

Greer unbuckled one of the bags and thrust in his hands. He felt around, then drew out his hands and opened the other bag. He felt around in it. Then suddenly he looked up at Clymer with an odd expression on his face. Clymer eyed the little clerk steadily. Greer withdrew his hands and buckled the straps. “All right, sir,” he said. “You’re clean.”

Clymer spat over the wall and hooked his saddlebags over his left arm. “Willis!” he said. “You clean out one of the rooms for Mrs. Nettleton.”

“Yes, sir.” Willis walked toward the row of structures. He glanced at the pack mules as he did so. A man could use a drink about now.

Hastings had the food piled up against a wall. There were about a dozen cans of embalmed beef, some slabs of dry-looking bacon, several containers of hardtack. The small amount Hugh had brought with him had been added to the pile.

“Ain’t a helluva lot, is it?” asked Stevens of Hugh.

“About enough for two days if it’s stretched thin.”

“The Lord will provide,” said Morton solemnly.

“He’d better start issuing,” Pearce said.

Clymer strode over to one of the openings in the terrace floor. He tested the ladder with his hand. “Too fragile for me. Who’s lightest here? You … Greer!”

Greer rubbed a dirty hand across his mouth. “Me … sir?”

Clymer nodded impatiently. “Take a look down there.”

Greer walked over to the ladder and looked down into the hole. “I haven’t got a light.”

Clymer handed him a block of Strike Anywhere matches. Greer took them and broke one off. He drew the match across his belt buckle and held it down into the hole. It flared up in the draft. He dropped it down into the hole and stared after it. “Can’t see a thing,” he said.

Clymer shoved Greer toward the hole. “Go on,” he said.

Hugh took a picket line from a horse and walked over to Greer. He made a loop in the line and passed it over Greer’s head and then under his arms. He drew the loop tight about Greer’s chest. “Go on,” he said.

There was naked fear on Greer’s thin face. “What’s down there, Kinzie?”

Hugh grinned. “A floor. It can’t be a mine shaft,”