Apache Death (14 page)

The unarmed hostler had just finished attending to Edge's horse and his eyes and mouth snapped wide in terrified surprise as he turned and saw a half circle of grim-faced Apaches ranged, about him. "Keeeerist!" he exclaimed, and fell sideways, reaching for a pitchfork leaning against one of the stalls.

Fifteen braves snaked knives from their breechcloths and released them simultaneously. Fifteen blades buried their points into his body, their handles bristling from his flesh
in two lines from neck to groin. The man went backward into a water trough, the blood from his multiple wounds staining the contents crimson. His death was signaled by a low moan and a loud splash, neither of which attracted attention from outside. Brown, grimed hands drove into the bloodied water to withdraw the instruments of death and as five of the braves went into the stalls and began to systematically slash the throat of the trapped animals, the other ten , moved to the arsenal side of the stables arid started to pry loose the boards of the dividing wall. One came free, then another. The blood-stained knives dug into the wood and more boards were lifted clear until a large hole, some five feet by four, had been ripped in the wall. Then five of the braves ducked inside.

Not a word had been spoken since the raiders had reached the outside foot of the wall and they continued in silence as the five braves scrambled through the hole and moments later began to pass cases of Winchester rifles and boxes of ammunition out into the eager arms of those who had stayed in the stables.

Out in the compound one of the guard’s on the stockade reached the comer around which the other five Apaches were hiding. The man began to swing his body into an about-turn but was suddenly jerked backward, into the shadows, by a hand which grasped the edge of his tunic jacket. His yell of surprise was curtailed by an evil-smelling hand which fastened over his mouth and nose. His arms and legs were pinned to the ground by other strong hands and he was held so firmly that only his eyes could move, flicking to
left and right in naked fear as he saw the shadowed figures bending over him. But within moments his vision was blurred as the air trapped in his lungs went stale. In a last desperate attempt to cheat death he willed his muscles to turn his limbs to jelly. But the Apaches were not fooled. They knew how long it took a man to suffocate to death and did not release their hold until the soldier was asphyxiated. Then nimble fingers unfastened his tunic buttons and unbuckled his belt. In less than a minute since he died, his uniform had been stripped from him and donned by one of the raiders. Then the brave elected to
carry out the impersonation shouldered the guard's rifle and ambled out from the shadows to start along the front of the stockade.

Edge emerged from Colonel Murray's quarters and breathed in deeply of the cool evening air. Freshly bathed and shaved, he felt relaxed and pleasantly weary, with only the gnawing stomach cramp of hunger forcing itself to
the forefront of his priorities above the need for sleep. But a man who lives with danger must, if he is to survive, have an built-in physical mechanism which swamps all other considerations when the mental faculty of his sixth sense signals trouble.

Colonel Murray was coming across the compound from the cookhouse, carrying a tin mug of steaming coffee and looking less tense after the sedative effect of a good dinner. He was about to call a greeting to
Edge but no sound emerged as his mouth dropped open, and he came to an abrupt halt, spilling the scalding coffee down his  pants leg. For, with an almost hunting animal movement, Edge had swiveled his head, stared toward the stockade for an instant and then thrown his rifle up to
his shoulder. The shot cut across the silence of the, compound with an ear-splitting report that drew the shocked attention of every person in a position to witness the result. It was followed by the scream of the bogus soldier as the bullet smashed into the side of his head, and a round of startled gasps from the watchers.

"What the hell …?" Murray exploded, tossing away his mug and starting to run toward where Edge was now in a crouch, raking his eyes across the facades of all the buildings at the rear of the fort.

"I was in the same army you are," Edge snapped at him without relaxing his vigil. "Never, did see a soldier wearing moccasins on guard duty."

Then the four other braves broke from the cover at the corner of the stockade and another shot from Edge's Winchester signaled a fusillade from the soldiers on the wall. Two braves dropped dead from a run and a third stumbled as a bullet ripped into his shoulder, recovered, and was lifted and smashed against the arsenal wall by four more bullets tearing into his stomach. The fourth man dived into the stables doorway.

"Hold It!" Edge yelled as Lieutenant Sawyer emerged from the men's quarters, trailing a pack of cards behind him and followed by Sergeant Horne and a group of ten enlisted men, all clutching rifles, all dressed only in pants and under-vests. "There's got to be more of them."

"Advance," Murray countermanded. "Those savages only had knives."

"That's all they came with," Edge muttered, speaking to himself and not moving from his own position a few feet from the door of Murrays quarters.

The men went at the run, spreading out in a V formation with Sawyer in the lead and Horne on his right side. It was Home who fell first, his chest exploding into a great swathe of mangled flesh and shattered bone fragments as a half dozen shells ripped into him from the hayloft above the stables.

"They've got the Winchesters!" Murray yelled incredulously as more rifle fire exploded within the stables and two of the enlisted men collapsed, one gushing blood from a head wound, the other clawing at his stomach. The soldiers began to fire now, those who were backing Sawyer and the sentries on the wall, joined by others who emerged from the cookhouse on the run. A hail of bullets poured into the stables doorway and through the opening in the hayloft above. One brave ran screaming from the doorway, clutching at his shattered jaw as two more pitched forward from above. More heavy slugs tore into their bodies, confirming their deaths with great spouts of blood. Another soldier went down with redness blossoming on his chest and his shriek drowned by the barrage of rifle fire.

A bullet kicked up a dust puff inches from Murray's boot and the Colonel ran at full tilt to join Edge. A few more rifle shots sounded and silence descended except for the baleful whimpering of a soldier who sat in the center of the now empty compound, trying to hold back the blood which was draining from a wound in his groin. 

"What were you in the army?" Murray snapped, wincing in sympathy for the injured man.

"Captain."

Even if you were a goddamn general I outrank you now," Murray threw at him. "I’m running this fort and I don't want, any civilian smart-talking me back."

A rifle barked and the injured man was thrown backward in death as his forehead split open.

You ain't running it very well," Edge muttered pointedly."Why don't you burn them out?"

 Murray looked at Edge as if he considered him a simpleton. "There are fifty horses in there."

Edge spat "I ain't heard a sound out of them. I figure there's only fifty carcasses in there."

It was obvious Murray had not considered this before for his face was suddenly heavy with the shock of the realization.

"Colonel!" a voice called from the far side of compound.

"Sawyer?" Murray answered.

"We're going to lose a lot of men if we try to rush them again.

Rage spread a dull redness across the Colonel's face. "Goddamn it, lieutenant I'm not an imbecile. Hold your tongue and wait for an order."

"Sir!" the lieutenant acknowledged as another fusillade of shots resounded from the stables, the Apaches firing blind.

"Burn it!" Edge snapped.

"You know how much high explosive is stored in the arsenal next door to the stables?" Murray demanded.

Edge grinned without humor. "No, Colonel, but we'll all find out soon enough. It's all getting thrown at us."

Murray pondered the point for several minutes, glanced' malevolently at Edge and folded his hands around his mouth. "Lieutenant, organize a fire-fighting detail. Have the marksmen keep the stables under surveillance and put every other man on the detail. Civilians as well."

"Your order, Colonel," Edge told him. "I only made a suggestion."

"What do you want, a commendation?"

"No. Action." Edge reached up with his rifle and unhooked the kerosene lantern that hung above the door to Murray's quarters. He turned the wick high; ducked as a bullet splintered wood from the door frame and hurled the lamp as he straightened. It seemed to be falling short of the target, but as it sailed into a decaying arc before the hayloft opening Edge brought up his rifle and loosed off a shot. Sprays of burning oil splashed into the loft and down the front of the stable and immediately wood and hay caught and started to bum furiously.

Murray looked at Edge with an expression close to repugnance. "You enjoy destroying things don't you, Edge," he said.

"It helps when you don't have a conscience about it," Edge answered without looking at the other man, fastening his eyes on the stables facade as the flames caught hold. Two shots sounded from within the building, then there was a babble of alarmed cries before the crackling of the burning wood swamped it.

"Get the fire-fighters ready," Murray yelled, his anxious eyes following the course of the spreading blaze as the all-devouring flames licked toward the arsenal. A half dozen braves came out of the stables doorway in a rush, firing as they emerged, and, ran into a solid wall of bullets from a row of kneeling marksmen on the far side of the compound.

"Move those buckets!" Murray ordered and several men ran forward to start a human chain between the well by the cookhouse and the stables.

Another bunch of Apaches rushed from the stables and dropped two soldiers and a woman before they met their own fate. The fire-fighters dashed back into cover.

"Hell, is the entire Apache nation holed up in there?" Murray exclaimed.

"You can't be that lucky," Edge told him as the whole of the stables frontage was lost in a sheet of yellow flame that shot high into the air, lighting up every feature of the interior of the fort. From this wall of fire burst three braves; unarmed and screaming their agony as their hair and breechcloths were consumed by flames.

Edge snapped off three shots and the braves were dropped in their tracks, falling on to the bodies of their dead brothers, spreading the fire to the inert forms. Murray ordered the fire-fighters forward and a medical orderly ran out to attend to the army's wounded. A woman dashed to the center of the compound and fell to her knees, clasping her hands together and staring skyward.

"Please God, let it be over;" she cried, spilling tears down dirt-streaked cheeks.

"He ain't listening," Edge called to her. "It’s only just beginning."

EDGE slept alone in one of the big bunkhouses which comprised a dormity for forty troopers. The men who normally had their quarters there, and the others-who bunked in a similar long room next door, were all on the wall, covering every square inch of ground around the fort. The last remnants of the town's population, numbering seven men, six women and two young boys, chose to spend the night in each other's company in the cookhouse, sharing their fear and thus reducing it.

The soldiers heard the drums first, then the civilians. A near-hysterical scream from a woman roused Edge to instant alertness and he, too, heard the steady, ominous beating of clenched fists upon taut hide. He had been stretched out, fully clothed, on a bunk and he came erect with a sigh and moved outside. He breathed in deeply of the clear, cool air and glanced up at the sky. The cloud which during the night had obscured the half moon was already rolling away toward the west, as if afraid of the first rays of the new sun that were search-lighting up from the eastern lip of the world.

Edge stretched again and strolled across the empty compound toward the well, glancing up at the line of blue-coated troopers ranged along the wall. The steady beat of the drums was growing louder, getting nearer. There was already a half-filled bucket standing on the lip of the well and he bent over it, splashing the cool water on to his face. Then he took off his hat and used the dipper to pour water on to his head. He heard a whimper behind him and turned to see a woman framed through the holes and tied to the sides of the litter, forcing him to look ahead. To stare ahead now, into the first harsh rays of the morning sun with eyes that had lost their means of protection: the Apaches had sliced off the Englishman's eyelids.

"That's just a foretaste," Edge said as he lowered the telescope and handed it back to Murray.

"What do they hope to gain," the Colonel muttered as the drummers abruptly ceased their constant beat and the plaintive whimpering croaks of the tortured prisoner became audible to the men ranged along the top of the 'wall. The Apaches gazed at the fort with mute menace but made no overtly threatening move.

"Is that Cochise?" Edge asked.

Murray raised the glass again to examine the face of the taciturn chief. He nodded.

"Then I figure he's come for his kid brother," Edge said: "He either gets him or the Englishman fries his eyes out. Then they'll try a few more Apache fun things until they kill him. It'll take a long time. Then it will be the woman's turn."

"Thought you wasn't an Indian fighter, Edge," Murray accused.

"I ain't."

"So how do you know so much about Apaches?"

Edge spat and took the makings of a cigarette from his shirt pocket. He built the cigarette with measured slowness. "They're men," he answered. "And if they want something bad enough they’ll go to any length to get it. If I was out there and you had my kid brother in here, I'd do exactly what old Cochise is trying."

"That makes you no better than them," Murray said with repugnance.

Edge licked the paper and sealed the cylinder around the tobacco. "I ain't making no claims," he said.

Murray turned away with distaste. "Go and get the prisoner, Lieutenant," he ordered. "Bring him up here. At the double."

Sawyer picked out three men and they went down the stairway, at a run and increased their speed across the compound toward the stockade. The civilians bunched in the doorway of the cookhouse watched them with fear-filled eyes. Out on Rainbow's main street the Apaches, remained silent and unmoving, like rock-carved figures. The Englishman moaned his agony.

"Bet English is cursing Yankees under his breath," Edge said softly. "Hates the way they talk so much."

"I've given the order," Murray cut in, the softness of his tone not diminishing the anger of the words.

"I'm amazed by your decisiveness, Colonel," Edge said with heavy sarcasm and turned to watch as the arrogant Little Cochise was hurried across the compound and herded up the stairway. His eyes blazed hate at every man who looked at him as he reached the staging. Murray unbuttoned his holster and drew an army issue Colt. Little Cochise was pushed forward in full view of the waiting Apaches, and Murray raised the revolver and pressed the muzzle against the temple of the sub-chief.

"Your move makes it a stalemate," Edge said.

"This isn't a game of chess," came the hissed reply.

Edge nodded his acknowledgement of the fact and lit his cigarette, drawing deeply against it as Cochise pulled on the rope, jerking the woman alongside him. He took out a. knife and sliced the ropes at her neck and wrists, then put a foot on her back and sent her stumbling forward. She staggered several yards' toward the gates and seemed about to fall, but then corrected herself. One of the Apache drummers began to beat out a cadence and the woman matched her pace to it, almost as if each thud of knuckles against the hide was a physical stimulant to her muscles. As she drew closer to the fort and the soldiers could see at close range the extent of her facial scars, a series of low gasps and groans traveled along the line.

"Open the gates for her," Murray ordered and two men left the line to clatter down the stairway.

"You going to put him outside?" Edge asked, jerking his cigarette toward Little Cochise, as the gates were opened, just wide enough to allow the woman through. She summoned enough strength to break into a run over the final few yards.

"Then what will they do?" Murray posed, his face contorted by the battle raging in his mind.

"Kill English and then attack," Edge, answered easily as the drum beat ended and the gates slammed closed. "The woman was just it bluff."

"They'll do that if I don't release him," Murray said with a quiver in his voice.

"So make it one less Indian and let's get on with it," Edge came back. "English ain't exactly a friend of mine but he ain't done me any wrong I haven't evened up."

Below in the compound two men and a woman ran from the cookhouse doorway toward Lorna Fawcett, who knelt on the ground and hid her face in her hands as she sobbed out her shame and relief.

"But there's still a chance," Sawyer put it. "Maybe they'll keep the bargain,"

"You sound as convinced of that as you look; lieutenant," Murray muttered.

"They're getting restless, sir," a man down the line called as the Apaches mounted their ponies and began to murmur their discontent.

Edge glanced at Murray and saw the young colonel was still struggling on the borderline of making a decision. "Sun's getting higher and hotter, Colonel," he pointed out. "Awful tiring on the eyes."

"Damn you!" Murray yelled and squeezed the Colt's trigger.