Ghost Warrior (6 page)

Z
ak knew that if he didn't act fast, the shooter would keep them pinned down until his reinforcements came. Then he and Bullard wouldn't have a chance in hell of getting out alive.

“Those shots came from a Spencer repeater,” Zak said.

“I know. Might be one they took off'n Kelso or Deming.”

“Randy, I want you to lie as flat as you can, put two rounds up there in the trees higher up on this hill. Think you can do that? Just shoot and duck back behind that boulder.”

“What're you goin' to do?”

“I'm going to slip out and see if I can mark the muzzle flash, drop the shooter.”

“You're takin' a big chance.”

“So are you, Randy. Now, don't shoot until I get set and give you the high sign.”

“Right,” Bullard said.

Zak scooted over to an opening large enough for him to bolt through—to throw himself flat on the ground and look for that muzzle flash. He thumbed back the hammer on his Winchester, nodded toward Bullard.

Bullard rolled into the small opening, fired a shot into the scrub pines and junipers growing at the far end of the hill behind them. His rifle cracked, sounding like the snap of a bullwhip and the bullet sped toward the trees. He triggered off another shot and Zak hurled himself through the opening.

The man in the trees fired at Bullard. Zak saw the orange flash through a gap in the trees. The man was on horseback and was using a larger pine tree for cover.

Zak fired at the horse's rump, which stuck out, a brownish lump. The bullet struck the tree and sheared off a chunk of bark. The horse bucked forward and Zak saw the rider lower his rifle and fight to stay in the saddle. Then the rider turned and the horse started to gallop back up the slope and into thicker vegetation. Zak levered another cartridge into the chamber and fired a quick shot at the retreating rider. He heard the bullet smash through limbs and crack them into splinters. The hoofbeats sounded loud and then faded.

He lay there, jacked another bullet into the firing chamber and listened.

Then he started scooting backwards, feeling his way through the opening in the boulders.

“Get him?” Bullard asked.

“I don't think so,” Zak said.

“You got off a couple of shots. See the muzzle flash and all?”

“I did,” Zak said. “And I saw the rider. Just for a moment.”

“Navajo?”

“Well, if it was a Navajo, he was wearing an
army uniform—a cavalry uniform—and he had on a campaign hat.”

“The hell you say.”

“Mount up and let's ride up there. I want to see those tracks and follow that jasper, whoever he is.”

In seconds, the two men mounted their horses and rode toward the trees. They were ten yards apart and hunched over so that they didn't present their upper torsos to anyone who might still be waiting in ambush.

Zak studied the tracks and so did Bullard.

“That's mighty puzzlin' and perplexin',” Bullard said. “You might have been right, Zak.”

“That's a shod horse that made those tracks. I did see a uniformed rider. And he was shooting a Spencer repeating rifle.”

“Yep, he sure was.”

Zak looked for blood spatter or droplets on the ground. He knew that he had missed the horse's rump and he was pretty sure he hadn't wounded the rider. The tracks showed that the horse was going away at a fast trot, zigzagging through the brush and scrub trees like a fleeing rabbit.

They rode over a small saddleback and into an even larger hill, one that came to a conical peak another thousand feet higher. But the tracks veered off and started skirting the hill, dropping off to their right. Then the going got rough, for the hillside was steep. Zak saw where the shod horse had dislodged dirt and rocks, slipped sideways a few inches, then climbed higher before going lower again. There were no trails there, and the brush was thick, the ground rocky and treacherous.

Zak and Randy came to a slide and saw where the rider had plunged his horse straight down.

“Reckless,” Zak said, noticing the deep gouges the iron hooves had made as the horse braked and slid down on its rump. The slide ended in a thicket growing among three hillocks. They could both see the first dirt and rocks piled up, either wet and brown or smooth and gray, depending on which side was exposed to the sun.

“He got clean away,” Bullard said.

Zak cupped his right ear and turned his head a few inches from left to right. He listened for sounds made by the horse, the click of an iron hoof on stone, the crunch of a bush or tree limb, the clatter of dislodged pebbles. All was quiet. All was unnerving in that silence.

“Hmmm.” Zak turned his horse and rode back up to the hilltop. Bullard followed. As he rode, Zak stuffed two fresh cartridges into his rifle's magazine. He heard Bullard reloading the Spencer behind him.

“Now what?” Bullard asked when they reached the place where the sniper had fired upon them.

“Let's see if I can pick up tracks of the Navajos who ate those sheep. See if they split up or rode somewhere in a bunch.”

“You're the tracker, Zak. All I see is ground we tore up ourselves.”

Zak's jaw tightened for just a second. He thought of a phrase he had heard while serving in the army, scouting for General Crook, fighting Indians in the north and the far west.
When the pupil is ready, the teacher appears.
He didn't remember who said it, but the phrase had stuck with him. He thought
Randy Bullard might be ready to learn something about tracking, and there was no better time than the present.

“We'll ride through the moil of that bushwhacker's tracks and our own, Randy. We'll look for unshod hoof marks.”

“You goin' to teach me a thing or two?”

“Maybe. You ride alongside me as much as you can and I'll try and show you how to read the ground.”

“Fair enough, Zak. Where'd you learn all this?”

“From the Sioux, the Cheyenne, the Blackfeet, the Pawnee.”

“You been over the road, ain't you?”

Zak rode on into the brush, his leg brushing against the scrub pines, limbs from a small juniper scraping Nox's leg.

“You look at unmarked ground. Keep that picture in your mind. Then you look for a scuff mark, some little mark that seems out of place. Like there.”

Zak pointed to the ground.

“Yeah, looks like…well, I don't know what it looks like. It ain't got no clear…what do you call it?”

“Definition.”

“Yeah, it ain't got that.”

“The dirt has filled in something that was there. A hoof mark, a gouge. Wind may have pushed dirt into the track. But it's a track. Now, you follow that and look for more signs. Every so often you'll see a clear track. It might be blurred by falling dirt that built up along the sides, but it'll be clear enough.”

“I see one,” Bullard said. “And another'n right close to it.”

“Now, let your eyes roam over on both sides of it. A few feet each way. You might see more marks or tracks, disturbed soil.”

Zak smiled as Bullard passed him, his gaze locked to the ground. He was like a bloodhound on the scent. There were more tracks and Bullard was finding them, eager as a kid following the blood trail of his first deer.

Zak showed him how to look for bent branches, bruised blades of grass, a slightly dislodged pebble. All were signs of some walking creature having disturbed the natural order of the terrain. Bullard was an eager student and he began to notice things he would usually overlook.

“So, the Injuns taught you to track. But how did they do it? Like we're a-doin'?” Bullard was curious. A good sign, Zak thought.

“We walked game trails, followed buffalo herds, looked at places where quail had dusted their feathers. They showed me tracks in snow and on sand. Sometimes they had me just sit in one spot and watch a small patch of ground for half a day or more. I watched ants, grasshoppers, doodlebugs, ticks on trees and leaves. I looked at small creatures until I could track an ant across a rock.”

“Really?”

“Almost,” Zak said, with a wry smile.

They came to a game trail less than a foot wide. There were deer tracks and horse tracks, bird tracks and rabbit droppings. The trail led deeper into the hills and mountains, and they saw a vari
ety of plants: cactus, ocotillo, grass and sage, different kinds of trees. And the land began to break up into small ravines and washed-out gullies, little hills and bigger hills, a crazy quilt of patterns and designs that became bewildering passageways into a strange world, the world of the Navajo.

The horses they were tracking had broken up, all going separate ways.

“We won't follow tracks any more today,” Zak said. “It's too slow and taxing.”

“What now?” Bullard asked.

“Take to the high ground. See how far we can see. Move slow and listen. Smell. That's part of tracking, too.”

“It is? How so?”

“These Navajos are already trying to hide their tracks, or didn't you notice?”

“You mean all them flat rocks buried in the ground, the hardpan we crossed.”

“Yes. They don't want anyone following them to wherever they're going.”

“But you don't know where they're headed, huh?”

“I don't know the exact place, but I might know the kind of place,” Zak said.

“What kind of place?” Bullard studied Zak's face. Zak's hat brim shaded most of it, and there was a slash of light across his mouth and chin. His eyes were dark vacancies, sunk in shadow.

“A safe place where they keep their women and kids. A place where they can grow corn and tend sheep. A place that can be defended with only a few men. A place where they can go in one way and out another.”

“You mean like a canyon?”

“A box canyon, maybe,” Zak said, “open on both ends. Or maybe several canyons converging on a valley.”

“We ain't seen nothin' like that so far.”

“No, but we've been climbing gradually for the past two hours or so. And that sun is falling away in the sky. Dusk comes early in the mountains. The watch you carry in your pocket is no good up here.”

“I reckon,” Bullard said.

They climbed to high ground, crossed a narrow ridge and dropped down into a saddleback ravine, then continued on to another peak and crossed still another ridge. On either side were broken terrain, gullies and washes, small hills, and dry creek beds.

Near sunset, Zak rode across a narrow, tree-choked ridge and stopped suddenly, Bullard right behind him.

“See somethin'?” Bullard whispered, his senses suddenly alert.

“No,” Zak said, “but there's a steep drop-off just ahead and I smell wood smoke.”

Bullard raised his head slightly and sniffed. “I don't smell nothin',” he said.

Zak held up a hand. Then he cupped his right ear. He turned his head toward the drop-off.

Bullard sniffed a few more times.

“Listen,” Zak whispered.

The slight breeze was blowing in circles. Shifting, changing, as if the currents were uncertain at that altitude. Zak figured they were at about nine or ten thousand feet above sea level.

Bullard started nodding.

They both heard snatches of voices. Voices that faded and became almost inaudible then vanished.

Zak signaled to Bullard to dismount. He climbed out of the saddle. He tied Nox to a small pine tree, gestured for Bullard to do the same. Then the two crept up to the drop-off, both hunched over like cats stalking a bird or a squirrel.

They squatted at the edge and looked down. There was a wide valley below them. Smoke rose in the sky and turned to tangled cobwebs once it reached the draft blowing through. There were canyons on both sides, and they saw hogans and horses and heard children's laughter, the shrill high-pitched voices of women, the faint
tink
of a wooden spoon on a clay bowl, the bleating of sheep. And at the far end were small fields with corn planted in clumps, the stalks knee-high, and tree stakes where beans climbed in spirals and jiggled in the breeze.

Men rode in and out of both ends of the canyon on unshod horses, and there were men smoking in front of their hogans or washing their faces in the small creek that threaded through the valley like a small silver snake.

Bullard's mouth dropped open and his eyes widened.

“That's their damned camp,” he breathed.

“One of them, anyway,” Zak said, and he knew that every minute they stayed where they were, they were in danger.

He made a quick count of the men he could see.

It was not a small camp. And it had been occupied for some time. He counted more than fifty men, and then froze.

One of them was looking up toward them, shading his eyes from the sun. It seemed to Zak that the Navajo warrior was not only looking at him, but straight into his eyes.

He clamped a hand on Bullard's arm.

“Don't move,” he said. “Don't even breathe.”

The Navajo brave, a statue, naked except for a breechcloth and moccasins, continued to stare straight at them.

As if the man knew they were there.

T
he Navajo brave down in the valley pointed to the ledge and began yelling something in his native tongue.

“Move,” Zak said, scooting backward, away from his perch.

Bullard wriggled to get out of sight of the Navajo camp.

“Let's light a shuck,” Zak said, running to his horse. He swung up into the saddle. A moment later Bullard was mounted, and the two rode into the trees and headed downslope.

“Where to?” Bullard asked.

“Just follow me, Randy.”

Zak picked his trail, weaving in and out of trees and passing over hardpan when he could, nosing Nox through heavy brush and over small boulders, putting spurs to him when there was enough open space to run. The sun sank over the western rim of the Sangre de Cristos and beyond the Jemez, burning the last daylight in the sky, rimming the red-smeared clouds with silver and gold. Its yellow light turned the azure sky to a pale blue-green pastel as it spread out in a wide fan to mix the colors.

Both men were panting. Sweat oiled their faces, soaked through their clothes. The horses were not lathered, but their hides were slick with perspiration. Zak wheeled Nox into an aperture between two low ridges, turned into a shallow gully filled with rocks and brush. He reined up and scanned his surroundings.

They were protected from direct rifle fire as long as they stayed in the gully, and nobody could approach from either end without being seen. It was not a good spot for a long siege, but it would serve as a temporary place to rest. More than that, the acoustics were perfect. He could hear someone coming on horseback or foot from some distance away, where they were.

“We stayin' here?” Randy asked, his sides heaving, his breathing deep and labored from the exertion.

“We might lay up here until the sun goes down,” Zak said.

“Good. I'm out of breath.”

“Just listen for a while, Randy. Listen real hard.”

The horses stood hipshot, catching their breaths. Sweat striped their coats, trickled down their legs, dripped from their fetlocks. Flies swarmed for the fresh, salty liquid, and the breeze that had cooled them as they rode died out in that sunken bowl, turning it into a steam bath.

The two men listened for several minutes. They heard neither human voices nor the sound of hoofbeats. A red-tailed hawk flew over, dragging its corrugated shadow along one of the ravine walls, then floated out of sight without making a sound.
The silence rose up around them and enveloped them. They began to breathe in regular, smooth breaths as they both wiped sweat from their foreheads, faces, and necks. The horses did not show signs of alarm; Zak was watching both of them, looking at their ears, which were more powerful than his own.

Bullard pulled out his pack of cigarettes and was just about to shake one out and stick it between his lips when both men straightened up as if their spines had turned to ramrods. Both horses brought up their heads and their ears stiffened to hard cones and began to twist toward the sound.

Zak heard the clank of an iron hoof on stone, then a cascade of falling rocks less than fifty yards from them. From another direction, there was the sound of many hoofbeats. These were muffled, with no clang of metal against stone.

Both men craned their necks to peer out of the gully. Bullard stood up in his stirrups.

A rider halted his horse and waited there in plain view while the sounds of the unshod horses grew louder. A few seconds later the halted rider was surrounded by several Navajos, all buck naked except for breechcloths and moccasins.

The lone rider on the shod horse was wearing an army uniform, a billed campaign hat tight on his head. His Spencer jutted out of his boot. He started signing with his hands and Zak heard snatches of disconnected Spanish words. One of the Navajos also spoke in Spanish.

The meeting did not last long. The soldier turned his horse and rode back toward the valley of the
Rio Grande. All of the Navajos, a dozen or more, followed after him.

“That horse the soldier was riding was a bay mare,” Zak said. “Just like the one I shot at up in those trees.”

“It sure was. And I recognized the trooper,” Bullard said. He licked dry lips. “About swallered my own throat. A fucking traitor.”

“The soldier was a Mexican,” Zak said.

“Sure was. That was Sergeant Renaldo Dominguez. Good old Naldo, the sonofabitch.”

Zak said nothing. His eyes narrowed to slits as the sounds of the riders faded away and the land settled back into silence.

Shadows crawled down the sides of the ravine, filled the gully.

They heard more horses pass by, within fifty yards, following the same course as the previous riders.

“I wonder what Naldo's up to, what he told them redskins,” Bullard said when it grew quiet again.

“We can't risk finding out right now,” Zak said.

“We goin' to stay here?”

“No, but we'll have to find a safe place to spend the night.”

“Hell, it's practically night already.”

“Don't light up any cigarettes, Randy. We'll go out the other end, walk our horses real slow and find a spot to lay out our bedrolls.”

“I don't cotton much to stayin' out here all night.”

“It might be the safest place.”

They waited another hour, until it was pitch dark. Then they made their way slowly out of the
tangle of brush and climbed back onto flatter land. Zak looked at the stars and got his bearings, then proceeded to follow a ridge down onto a wide, flat place that was dotted with conical hills, cactus, and lava dust.

They stopped often to listen, but widened the distance between them and the gully, wending ever eastward and holding close to the higher hills. Zak saw a promising configuration and rode up a slope to the top of a ridge. Hills surrounded them like the shadows of giant reptiles, snaking in and out of lesser hills, flat terrain, and higher peaks. It was like riding through a deserted landscape in another world. They could not see far, and so relied on the horses to pick their way along the ridgeline.

They found a cluster of scrub pines and gnarled juniper bushes and Zak reined up. He rode around the place and looked at it from every angle.

“This might be good,” he said. “No reason for a Navajo to ride up here, and if we stay in the trees, we can't be seen by anybody riding below on either side of us.”

“What about the horses?”

“We'll grain and water them just enough so that they won't grumble about it much,” Zak said.

“Unsaddle 'em?”

“No. We might have to leave in a hurry. No hobbles, either.”

“All right,” Bullard said. “Wish I could smoke, though.”

“Tomorrow,” Zak said.

They tied the horses apart from each other, at either end of the tree cover.

Bullard laid out his bedroll after brushing away rocks to smooth the ground where he lay his blanket. Zak laid his sleeping gear out near Nox at the opposite end of the copse of trees, kicking rocks out of the way and scraping the ground free of small stones.

“It's awful quiet up here,” Bullard said.

“We'll stand watches. I'll take the first. You get some sleep.”

“I'll try. I keep thinkin' of all them redskins we saw. They's only two of us and God knows how many Injuns.”

“Don't worry about them, Randy. They're not worried about us. Get some shut-eye.”

Bullard took off his hat and stripped off his gun belt. He laid his Spencer next to his blanket and lay down.

In a few minutes, he was asleep.

Zak sat down with his rifle, the trees at his back. He looked at the stars and chewed on a piece of hardtack, washed the mass down with water from his canteen.

He had spent many such nights in the wilderness, out on the plains, up in the Rockies. He enjoyed the solitude and the stars, the vast expanse of the night sky, and when the moon rose, he looked down on a mysterious world of strange shapes and undecipherable shadows. The night land had its own rhythms and pulses. Creatures moved about, hunting, sniffing, listening, and he felt a part of that world.

He thought of Naldo Dominguez, a sergeant in the U.S. Army, now a deserter, or at least in cahoots with Narbona and the renegade Navajos.
What was his mission? Why would a man give up his duty as a soldier and join such an enemy? What was behind all the predations along the Rio Grande, and the two white men who had been with Narbona and then gone into Santa Fe? There seemed no sense to any of it.

But Zak knew that everything made sense, eventually.

A man had to figure it out, no matter how puzzling it all seemed.

But this was something he had never encountered before. This was Navajo land, and it held many mysteries.

How could an army, a troop of cavalrymen, go up against such enemies? This was not the plains or the mountains. Here, the enemy could melt away in a thousand mazes and leave no track. Worse, the enemy had no clear face. It was a mix of races and faces. If it came to a fight, army against army, where was the battlefield? Who was the enemy?

Who
was
the enemy?

That was the question.