Last Stand at Papago Wells (1957) (15 page)

When the shot sounded, Cates thought for an instant that the sergeant had fired. Then Sheehan turned slowly around and let go his rifle. He fell then, fell from the rocks to the edge of the pool. He got up and took two staggering steps forward, then fell face down on the sand. Cates ran to him, and when he turned him over there was no question. Sergeant Sheehan was dead.

"That's one less, Cates," Kimbrough said. "Brings you a little closer to the end."

"It brings us all closer."

Cates gathered up the rifle, then checked Sheehan's pockets for ammunition.

"Logan!" It was Lonnie Foreman. "They're comin'!"

They scrambled into position, yet the desert was empty. Suddenly as Foreman pointed, indicating a mesquite, Cates saw the brush move with a movement not of the wind. He swung his Winchester and fired three times, rapid fire, searching the bush with carefully spaced shots.

Lugo fired once, then again. On the far end, overlooking the arroyo, both Kimbrough and Taylor fired. There was a momentary silence brought to an end by Beaupre. The old skinner was suddenly on his feet, emptying his Winchester '73 into the brush. He fired rapidly, all seventeen bullets, smashing his shots into every bit of cover. Then he shifted position, loading swiftly. Leaping to the rocks, he smashed bullets at the edge of the dunes, running from place to place and firing as he ran and from each pause. He fired into every available bit of cover, his shots ricocheting off rocks into concealed places or smashing into the brush.

"Jim!" Cates yelled at him above the sound of firing. "Get down! Down!"

Beaupre was up on the rocks. He fired; then, seeming to detect a movement, he swung swiftly about and fired at the base of a saguaro cactus. A burst of firing came from out front and Beaupre's body jerked, turned half around and fell back inside.

Cates ran to him. Beaupre's eyes flickered. "I had to do it, Logan," he said hoarsely. "I couldn't take it any longer. You--you take care of Tony. He's a good Indian."

"Jim!" Cates begged. "Hang on, man!"

Beaupre's eyes seemed to veil over. "Sorry--sorry, boy. Watch your back. You just watch your back."

Cates looked up to find Jennifer standing beside him. Cates got up slowly. "What did he mean by that?" she asked.

Whatever else Jim Beaupre had done, he had broken the attack. As though his death had brought death to the Apaches, silence descended upon the desert. Nothing moved, nothing made a sound, only the sun remained the same. It was hot, hot.

"Think he hit anything?" Lonnie asked.

"Maybe. I think so. It was good fire, right into all the cover there was. We'll never know."

Lonnie looked at him. "You don't think we'll get out?"

Cates shook his head. "No ... suddenly I've a hunch we'll make it, or some of us will. Only you never know about Apaches. They carry their dead away. You never know if you've killed one or not, unless you kill them all."

"Six gone," Lonnie said. "Six good men."

Jennifer came over beside Cates and crouched down beside him. He turned to look at her. "Do you have a mirror?"

"A mirror?" Her eyes searched his. "Do you mean I should look at myself? I know I must be--"

"No, I want a mirror, the larger the better."

"There's one among my things, but--"

"Get it. Then you and Junie take turns. I want you to flash that mirror toward that peak over there"--he pointed toward the northeast--"and in that direction"--he indicated the northwest--"and I want you to travel the reflection between the two places. I want you to start now, relieve each other, and continue all through the daylight hours. Understand?"

"You mean to signal? We're signaling?"

"We hope you are," he pushed his hat back. "By this time there should be an armed force out. Maybe your father, maybe the Army, maybe a bunch of civilians and soldiers out of Yuma. They won't be expecting us to be this far south, and maybe there won't be anyone close enough to see your mirror, but I know a mirror can be seen for miles, even the sunlight on a bright concha. We'll try, and we'll hope."

"My mirror is not small," Jennifer said. "I have a special pocket in my saddlebag for it. Father had it made for me, and the mirror, too. It's a steel mirror, and is six-by-eight."

"Good! That's better than I'd hoped."

"Logan." She waited beside him. "Why couldn't we have done this before? We may be too late."

"Maybe, but I don't think so. Look, the way I've had it figured it would take several days for them to realize there's been trouble over this way. Maybe it was sooner, but probably several days. The same is true of Yuma. At first they wouldn't be worried when the posse didn't come back, or the soldiers. But as the days went by, they would be.

"It would take a while for them to agree that something should be done. Some are always for delaying, believing the people would come in, but by now they're sure something is wrong. Allow them two to three days out of either place to get here, and allowing for all that would have to happen before they get started and I think the time is now, and from now on."

"All right."

When she left him he studied the desert. He let his eyes sweep across it from close up to far out, then began searching the area with painstaking sweeps of his eyes across the terrain. When that was over he began to search the hills with his field glasses. Yet when half an hour had passed, he gave up.

Several times during the day haphazard arrows were fired into the camp, and twice there were shots, but no harm was done.

It was midafternoon when Kimbrough, Zimrnerman and Taylor approached him. He had shifted back from his position to stretch his legs and have a drink of water. They walked up, Kimbrough in the lead.

"Cates, we want to make a run for it. We've horses enough now, and we think we can get through. At least some of us can."

"Sorry."

"Look, Cates," Kimbrough said roughly, "we've had enough of this. If we stay here they'll pick us off one by one. We'd rather make a fight of it."

"Kimbrough," Cates said slowly, "that route north out of here is called the Camino del Diablo--the Devil's Highway, if you prefer English. The only water on it is at Tinajas Altas, some tanks in the rocks of a ridge above the trail. Hundreds of men have died there, some of them within a few feet of the water. If you're lucky you'd find water when you get there, covered with green scum, maybe, but water. Only sometimes the tanks are empty. What do you do then?"

"We can make it."

"Sorry. Besides," Cates added, "we're still one horse shy. We have eight horses and nine riders."

Zimmerman swung his rifle. "I'll fix that, an' quick!" He lined his sights on Lugo, who was watching out across the desert.

"You drop that gun." Lonnie Foreman was sitting among the rocks, the Winchester in his hands trained on Zimmerman. "You drop it or I'll kill you!"

Zimmerman dropped his gun to the ground, swearing bitterly.

Grant Kimbrough had his hand negligently near his pistol. "Does somebody else always do your shooting for you, Cates? Seems to me the last time it was a girl."

"I knew Lonnie would take care of Zimmerman," Cates said mildly. "I was waiting for you."

Grant Kimbrough's face grew very still. His eyes widened just a little. His hand was very near the gun, and he had only to draw. Logan Cates waited for him, the same mild expression on his face, his eyes smiling a little.

Kimbrough dropped his hand and turned away, and Cates looked after him. Kimbrough was not afraid, that Cates knew. The man was no coward, but Foreman was up there with a rifle and Cates was sure that Kimbrough believed that if he shot Cates, Lonnie would in turn kill him.

From the rocks nothing was visible. Shots kept coming, and the Indians were out there. Taylor tried two shots during the afternoon, but his eyes kept swinging to where Big Maria sat with her gold. Nobody had gone near her, nobody had spoken to her. Her heavy features looked dull, only her eyes seemed alive. She had not left the money even for a drink. Whenever anyone moved, the shotgun followed.

During the last light of evening Logan Cates made a round of their defenses. If there were still enough Indians out there a rush might sweep over them and wipe them out. Yet the Indians might have suffered, too. He thought of Churupati ... even his own people said he was insane, that his medicine was bad, and they would have nothing to do with him. He remembered the descriptions of the black-browed warrior, of the killings he had committed, the deaths for which he was responsible.

Some of the Indians had died, certainly more than they realized. Once that very morning he had sat trying to count up the possibilities, and they made an imposing array. The defenders were all good shots, and though few good targets had appeared, some of the searching fire would have scored.

The night came on and the wind began to blow again, and when the heat was gone the desert was cold. The wind was piercing, blowing through them, sapping the warmth from their bodies. They built a small fire and took turns warming themselves.

Cates went to the tank and dipped up a drink. When he finished he glanced at Maria, then suddenly dipped the cup deep and straightening, started toward her. Somebody said something in an undertone, and Kimbrough looked sharply around. Cates walked on, and Maria shifted the shotgun to cover him.

"Stay back."

It was the first thing she had said in hours. Cates continued to walk, holding the cup in front of him. "You need a drink, Maria," he said calmly, "and I'm bringing it to you."

"Stay back!" There was rising panic in her voice.

He walked up to her and handed her the cup. She looked up at him, then accepted the cup while keeping her right hand on the trigger guard of the shotgun. She drank thirstily, and then handed the cup back to him, her eyes never leaving his. Deliberately, he turned his back and walked away from her.

"She might have killed you!" Jennifer was horrified, aghast.

"She didn't," he replied.

"Mr. Cates." It was Junie. She was up in the rocks with Beaupre's rifle. "Mr. Cates, I think I can see a fire."

Chapter
Fifteen

Logan Cates scrambled up into the rocks, and in an instant all with the exception of Big Maria were staring off toward the northeast in the direction she was indicating.

Nothing showed but the long line of mountains, dark blue with the late evening, shadowing to black where they met the desert. Only the mountains, the sky with the last of lingering day, the few stars showing their faces shyly against the backdrop of distance, and the sentinel saguaros nearby. Only the cholla seemed to hold a fault glow of their own; only these things, and nothing more.

They waited, and then they saw it, they all saw it, and they saw it at once. It was miles away, it was well up the mountainside, and it was definitely a fire.

"Who would want a fire that big?" Lonnie wondered.

"It doesn't have to be big," Cates told them. "On a night like this if it's high enough, a man can see a campfire for miles. They may be more than ten miles off; fact is, they are closer to fifteen."

"It's white man's fire," Lugo said. "No Indian build big fire."

"So," Taylor said, "what good does it do us?"

"If they can build a fire that we can see," Cates said, "we can build one they can see. Only we've got to build up on the rocks."

"Anybody going near it will be a target," Taylor objected.

"We can feed it from below. We can poke sticks into it while staying out of sight. We can build the fire on that flat rock." He indicated a rock right behind where the man on watch always stood. "And I'll build it. Rustle wood, all of you."

There were a few sticks left where the fire had been and he gathered them up and carried them to the rock. It was the highest rock around, and it was shoulder-high to a standing man where one stood. Gathering the sticks he hurried back, placed them in order, and then with some crumpled leaves, a piece of cloth torn from his shirttail and some smaller sticks, he got the fire going. Then, reaching up from a crouching position, they added sticks to the fire.

The flames crept along the sticks, crackled and took hold. The flames leaped up, and each one vied with the others in running to carry wood to the fire. Soon a great, roaring flame lifted into the sky. Sparks climbed and mounted like floating stars high into the sky. Under the brush there was more wood, old dried and gnarled sticks, blackened by sun and exposure. These were added to the flames.

Suddenly a shot struck the rock where the fire was burning and ricocheted wickedly across the clearing. A burst of firing followed, but they huddled under the rocks and waited. Then they crept out and began gathering more sticks. Lonnie ventured down into the arroyo and returned with a load of big sticks thicker than a man's arm.

Suddenly, Cates was astonished to see Maria come up, bearing an armful of wood. She dropped it, then went back for more. Suddenly, as she was walking back with wood, she looked around at Jennifer. "Jen," she said, "I think they will come for us."

Her voice was strangely soft, and Jennifer glanced wonderingly at Logan Cates.

They worked busily, and despite the shooting, kept the fire going. Logan got his Winchester and began to shoot back at the muzzle blasts from the brush. Once when he fired they heard a scream from the brush, and after that, silence.