Apache canyon (14 page)

Half-supported by Brady's arm, Tucker hobbled across the few feet to the horse. "You'll have to give me a boost up, I guess."

"Sure." Tucker gritted his teeth, and Brady pushed him up into the saddle. He noticed that the red-haired man was sweating again. Tucker's look troubled him; he knew Tucker was sujffering far more pain than he let on. The wound might be a good deal more serious than Brady had at first suspected.

He said nothing of all this, however. He swung up behind Tucker and gigged the horse gently forward.

It was a slow ride. By the time they reached the yard, Tucker's head was bobbing down against his chest and Brady was holding him upright in the saddle. Brady felt the quick need to get Tucker inside and lay him down. Harris and one of Yeager's brawny sons came out and helped him carry Tucker inside where they stretched him out on a pallet near the fireplace. In one dark corner George Sutherland bulked, his frame held rigid by a massive resentment. Harris was bending over and knelt there, too. Brady looked across the room at Pete Rubio, who stood with his hand protruding from the sling and his rifle stubbornly gripped in his free hand. Brady said, "How's that arm, Pete?''

"I'll make out all right," Rubio said. "How about him?"

"No telling, yet." Brady looked down at Tucker, and then at Sutherland. "You've sure caused a lot of grief for one man," he said. Sutherland pointedly ignored him. The woman went out of the room and presently returned with a coffeepot full of steaming water and a bedsheet, which she proceeded to tear into strips. Then, gently nudging Harris aside, she knelt beside Tucker and went to work with calm and silent competence. Tucker s eyes were closed and his breathing was a hoarse rasp.

When the woman stood up and turned, Brady spoke to her in Apache dialect: "What do you think?'

The woman shrugged and went away. Brady frowned down at the redheaded sergeant. "He didn't seem in such bad shape when I picked him up. I took an arrow out of him. He was pretty cheerful."

"Probably pierced an artery," Harris said. "He's still bleeding through the bandage."

Tucker's eyelids fluttered and he squinted up seeming to have trouble focusing his eyes. "You're a cheerful cuss," he said crankly to Harris, "Has anybody got some whisky, damn it?"

Harris turned. "Yeager? Get some whisky for this man."

"Sure," Yeager said, and in a moment came into the room with a bottle which he handed to Harris. HaiTis tipped it to Tucker's hps. The sergeant drank greedily, then laid his head back with a long sigh. "That's good," he murmured. "That's good." "Want some more?" "No, thanks. Captain." "Hurtmuchr

"Not too much. Listen, Captain--you people have got to get out of here. Those Apaches will burn this place down around your ears."

"You're in no condition to travel, Tucker." "Then leave me be. I ain't going to last long anyway. I can feel it. Get the hell out of here, will you?" Harris smiled vaguely. "Is that an order, Sergeant?" "Yes, sir. It's a goddamn order." Harris patted his shoulder. "You're a good man, Emmett," he murmured, and got to his feet. "Will, how long do you think it will be before they jump us again?"

"Nobody knows but the Lord." Brady raked a match along his pants to ignite it, and ht his cigarette. "I'm a mite surprised they haven't started shooting aheady. I didn't see any sign of them up on the hill."

"Maybe they lost more men than we figured on. I killed two of them and I think I put a slug in another. He kept running but he was limping badly. How about you?" 

"Three." 

"Tucker?"

Tucker's eyes were half closed. "Four, I think. Give me the bottle, will you?"

Harris stooped to put the bottle in Tucker's hand.

Brady's moody eyes watched the sergeant. "That's nine down, maybe ten." Harris said. "Better luck than we could have hoped for."

"They got overconfident," Brady said. "If they'd put proper watch on their backtrail, they'd have spotted us."

"How many do you think are left?"

"Out of that bunch," Brady said, "maybe ten or twelve. There's a good chance that more will be joining up with them, a few at a time. Word goes through these mountains pretty fast when there's something important."

"Maybe they're waiting for reinforcements, then."

"And maybe they're waiting for nightfall," Brady said, "so they can set fire to this place and then pick us off like sitting ducks when we make a run for it."

Sutherland's hard, precise voice cut across the room resentfully: "There may not be as many of them to reckon with as you suspect. We gave a pretty good accounting of ourselves."

It brought Pete Rubio's head around contemptuously. "We didn't even make a dent. Captain. There's hundreds of them in these mountains."

Sutherland subsided into continuing silent anger Brady gave him one brief, flat glance and tumec back to Harris. "I can only think of one way out—an< it's a damned poor risk."

"Spill it out," Hanis said.

Brady looked around the room. Posted at the windows, Yeager's sons kept careful watch, their rifles ready. The tiny openings plunged the room into deep gloom which was relieved only by the red flickering flames in the fireplace and two lanterns on the far wall.

Brady said, "The minute it gets dark-and not a second later-we could make a try. They probably won t be expecting it quite so fast. We get on our horses and run like hell. We take the short-cut, down tlirough Apache Canyon. It's a rugged trail, but they'd trap us on the long route. If we could beat them LQto the canyon, we could hold them off long enough to reach the floor of the vaUey-theoretically. Once we get onto the desert, I doubt they'll push us farther. Too much chance of it backfiring, like it did the other night when they tried to break Tonio out."

Harris was considering the proposal soberly. 'Where does that leave him?" he said, pointing to Tucker.

Tucker's eyes slid open. "Right here. Captain. Don't fret about it" Tucker assumed a lazy grin. "I'm a mite too tired for a long trip."

Harris shook his head. He looked around at the others. "All right. Will. We'll try your plan. Tucker goes w4th us. Any objections?"

Sutherland was the only man to move. He stepped a pace forward from the corner; but suddenly he was the target of a fixed gaze from every pair of eyes in the room; and Harris said, "You've got no say in this. Keep still."

"You're a fool," Tucker said to Harris. "Ill slow you down, that's all. I'm no good for anything. What's the point of hauling a deadweight corpse with you?"

"You're not as close to dying as you think you are," Harris said, pointing toward Tucker's bandaged side. "The blood's started clotting now. It's not coming through the cloth any more."

Tucker looked down, grinning. "Hallelujah," he breathed. "Think of that." His head tipped back and, still smiling, he lifted the bottle to his lips. "Will, maybe I'll make you a good wrangler yet." He saluted witli the bottle and di-ank again.

The afternoon wore on with no sign of Indians until at four o'clock Rubio spoke from his post at the window: "They're keeping an eye on us from up there. Out of rifle range."

"Then they're waiting for nightfall," Brady said. He sat with his back to the side of the fireplace. Red light, reflected from the flames, rippled along the side of his trousers. He ran a cleaning rag tlirough the bore of his rifle and inspected it, and began reloading the magazine while he watched the steady rise and fall of Tucker's chest.

In the dim corner beyond, Sutherland stood with his back straight and his arms folded recalcitrantly over his chest. His eyes avoided meeting anyone's glance. Harris was leaning in a dejected pose against one wall, head propped on his hand and elbow to the wall; Rubio and Yeager and two of the younger boys were on guard and the two other boys were in the kitchen with their mother. It was, Brady thought idly, an odd conglomeration of people, to say the least. His belly was heavy, satisfied; laconic as she was, Yeager's wife was a fine cook.

With no particular apparent interest, Harris said, "What does the weather look like, Rubio?"

"Clearing up. Won't be as, dark a night as we'd like."

Harris nodded with a certain reservation. Brady was working on his tenth cigarette of the afternoon. Waiting made him edgy. He poked a twig into the fireplace and used its burning tip to Hght his smoke, and tossed the twig into the fire.

Suddenly George Sutherland pushed himself out from the corner. Brady looked at him. Sutherland had been working himself up to something all afternoon; that much had been easy to see. Now it was coming. Sutherland walked across the room with de-hberate strides toward Harris, and came to a halt within arm's length of him. "I want to talk to you."

"We've got nothing to talk about," Harris told him levelly.

"You've wrong," Sutherland said flatly. "None of this changes anything."

"Are you talking about your wife?" lam. "IVe told you before. I had nothing to do with her." "He's telling the truth," Brady said. "Go back to your comer and shut up."

Sutherland wheeled. "How do you know so much about this? For a two-bit buckskin scout, you seem pretty well informed."

Brady stood up, uncoiling his length without hurry. "Sure," he said. "Eleanor's not interested in Captain Harris." He watched the recoil of Sutherland's face against his use of the woman's first name; he showed Sutherland his savage grin and used his words like a whip to punish Sutherland: "I'm the man you've been looking for, Sutherland. I'm the one who almost talked your wife into running away with me. And maybe I still will, after this. Life's too good for you— Captain. You don't deserve it."

"Of course," Sutherland breathed. "I should have known. If she was to turn to anyone, it would have been somebody like you—an irresponsible, footloose tough. I should have knovm," he growled-and Brady saw his hand clawing at the holster flap.

Brady's gun was half-drawn when Harris's hand swept forward, batting the lifting revolver away from Sutherland's fist. The gun clattered to the floor out of reach. Sutherland whirled; HaiTis said mildly, "That's the kmd of thing we might expect from you. I think you're sick, George. I don't think there's any room in the army for you."

Sutherland glared at him in helpless rage; he wheeled again, facing Brady across the distance between them. His voice sounded half-choked: "You— you!"

Brady let his gun fall back into leather; he unbuckled his gunbelt and let it drop. "Come ahead, if you've a mind to." His own voice sounded weary.

Sutherland chewed on his rage a moment longer, then broke into a clattering nm, charging. As he came past blindly, his heavy boot almost rammed into Tucker's head. That uncaring action broke the last of Brady's self-control, so that he stood finally as fully angry as Sutherland. His Ups peeled back from his teeth and instead of dodging Sutherland's charging rush, he stood his ground and measured the distance. Choosing the moment carefully, he rammed his fist straight-aim into Sutherland's face.

It was a cruel blow; it flattened Sutherland's nose, making blood spurt from it; Brady felt the cartilege - crush under his fist.

Sutherland wheeled back. Looking down at Tucker, Brady knew this would not do. In spite of his hot raging temper, he backed away from Sutherland, thus leading the man across the length of the ; room until they were both safely away from Tucker. Then set his feet and lifted his guard and stood awaiting Sutherland's attack.

The savagery of Sutherland's contorted face was heightened by the blood that matted his nose and hps and dripped from his chin. He roared incoherently and plowed ahead until Brady once more struck him a blow that set him back on his heels, jarring his entire body. The shock of it must have warned Sutherland, for he grew abruptly calm and lifted his fists cautiously, and began to circle around Brady, moving on the balls of his feet, slightly bent forward. Brady waited for him, heat glaring in his eyes.

He had fleetiag glimpses of the others—Harris, Yeager, Rubio, and the two boys, even Tucker--watching them and holding their distance; he kept his attention on Sutherland, and as Sutherland gradually circled closer, he began a duel of jabbing blows with Sutherland. The officer outweighed him by a few pounds, but they were both big-boned men and evenly matched.

This, though, was the first fist fight Brady had ever entered when he felt a driving desire to maim and kill his opponent.

His anger had settled, into a cool and calculating shrewdness by now; he aimed each blow with care and made effective use of his guard and felt for a while that he was gradually getting the better of Sutherland, until Sutherland suddenly changed his method of attack and rushed in, ignoilng Brady's blows, locking him in a viselike hug and dancing him around. Brady shifted his hips to avoid Sutherland's lifting knee; he felt the powerful arms restricting his breath, and he stamped his foot down against Sutherland's instep.

It broke the man's hold, bent him over, and made of him a target that no one could miss. Brady's fist came up from hip-level and pounded like a hammer into Sutherland's lowered face. Punishing an aheady crushed area, it rocked Sutherland back and made him howl. Brady pressed him relentlessly, pounding a quick rataplan of hard-knuckled fists against Sutherland's midriff. Sutherland's guard was ineffective; with fierce anger Brady kept bringing the fight to him, so that Sutherland could not escape him. His fists became twin pistons, battering Sutherland with wicked regularity; with each blow he made a little restitution for McQuade, for Brophy, for Barnett.

A red haze swirled before his eyes; he reaUzed in a foggy way that they had him in a grip, that Harris and Rubio were holding his arms, and tliat Harris was shouting in his ear: "For God's sake, that's enough, Will! Let him alone!"

His body sagged. "All right," he said in a broken voice. The haze drifted away from his vision and he saw Sutherland against the wall, his mouth open and his eyes closed, a broken tootli and blood oozing out of a mass of cuts and bruises; Sutherland shd slowly down the wall and rolled onto his side and brought his knees up against the pain. Little mmmuring cries came steadily from the man's chest.