Trail of Golden Dreams (9 page)

Next time she opened them,
she saw the top of the big sombrero disappear over the ridge.  Two more
riders retreated down the side of the canyon behind Reno King, with the Indian
ponies chasing them and the Apaches continuing to shoot their guns.

When the firing finally
stopped, Josie eased Traveler out from behind the bush and walked him to where
Jimmy Garrett lay.  She glanced down at Jimmy’s bloodied body. “You were
stupid to trust Wade Kendall,” she told her old school chum. 

She wondered if Del, the
marshal or King was injured.  They’d all escaped down the hill, but that
didn’t mean they hadn’t been shot.  If they’d gotten lucky and escaped
injury, she pondered whether this little battle would deter them.  She could
only pray they’d been spooked enough by the Apaches to forget about her and
turn back for home—but she didn’t count on it. 

The Indians reined their
ponies back off the ridge and approached.  Josie was no longer afraid of
them. They’d fought off the posse for her, so she didn’t expect them to kill
her now. Her gaze moved from one to the other, staring into their dark eyes.
The one who’d communicated with her moaned softly.  His shirt was ripped,
and he was bleeding from the shoulder.  “You’re hurt,” she said.

“Mexican,” he replied,
wincing from pain.  It was the first expression of emotion she’d witnessed
from any of them.

 “Are either of you
injured?” she asked the other two.

One shook his head. The
other drilled a hole into her, which she ignored.  Neither seemed winded,
for having just fought a quick but violent gun battle.

“That bullet needs to come
out,” Josie told the bleeding Indian.

Without a word, he swung
off his pony and dropped the reins on the ground, and then stuck his hand under
the hem of his breeches and drew out a large jackknife. She thought it must
have been strapped around his calf.  His black eyes narrowed at her as he
held the knife in front of her face.  For a split second, she thought he
was going to cut out her gizzard after all.  The other two jumped off
their mounts and strode to his side.

“You dig out
bullet,” the buck told her matter-of-factly.

Her mouth
gaped.  “What? I don’t think I can.”

She was surprised
when the youngest Apache spoke as clear English as she’d ever heard.  He
said, “If you don’t, Taza will lose his arm.”

“Taza? 
That’s your name?” she asked, peering into the injured man’s face.  His
forehead was wide and his cheekbones high.  His nose was crooked, like it
had been broken.

Nodding, he sat
cross-legged on the hard ground.  He slashed open the rest of his shirt
with the knife and then held the blade out to her.  It glinted in the sun
when he turned it over.  “Do now.”

It felt like she’d
just been punched in the stomach.  “Don’t you have a woman somewhere who can
help you?  Or one of you can remove the bullet,” she pleaded to his
friends.  She searched their faces, but they only stared back, blankly.

“You,” Taza stated
firmly.  The way he said it led her to believe he was a man used to
getting his way and not being argued with. 

Josie
sighed.  She owed these men her life.  How could she refuse to
help?  She climbed off Traveler and tied him to a bush, because he wasn’t
as well behaved as the Indian ponies.  Then she knelt on the ground in
front of Taza and accepted the knife.  “I’ve never done nothing like this
before,” she warned.  “You could bleed to death if I cut a vein or an
artery.  Do you understand what I’m saying?  There’s nothing I could
do out here to stop the bleeding.  We’re far from a doctor.”

“Understand,” Taza
answered.  He gazed, stone-faced, into her eyes, causing her to shudder
under their intensity.

“Have you got any
water on you?” she asked, glancing between the three of them.  “I should
clean this knife.  It doesn’t look so clean.”

“We have no
water,” the young one answered.  “I have mescal.”  He pulled a small
bottle out of a bag that was tied around his waist.  When he handed it to
her, she popped the cork and poured some of the liquor over the knife, and then
wiped it good with her shirtsleeve.  Then she did something she’d never
done before—tipped the bottle up and took a long drink.

“My hand needs
steadying,” she explained, while wiping her mouth with the back of her
hand.  Her lungs suddenly felt like they were going to explode.  She
coughed, and her eyes filled with tears.  The liquor burned her throat
from the inside out.  The Indians chuckled, including the injured man,
Taza.

“Alright,” she
said, once she’d recovered sufficiently, “you’d better tell me what to do.”

Taza picked up the
mescal bottle and guzzled the remaining liquid then said, “Poke inside hole
with blade.  When you feel lead ball, fish it out.”

“Easy,” the
youngest brave offered, as he crossed his arms over his chest.

She tossed him a
sideways glance.  “Sure.  Easy,” she repeated.  There was no
hiding the tremors in her hands.

“Dig quick,” Taza
suggested.

Josie met his dark
gaze and then let her eyes swing to the wound.  She inhaled deeply and
stuck the blade into the angry flesh before losing her courage.  Taza’s
muscles tensed, and his eyes fluttered shut.  His lips drew back, but he
didn’t scream or make any noise whatsoever. She peered at the young Apache, who
dropped to one knee at Taza’s shoulder.  He nodded, encouraging her to
continue. 

She nodded
back.  With all the courage she could muster, she pushed the blade down
into the hole and began to probe.  After several minutes of tentative
probing, perspiration peppered her forehead and salt water dripped into her
eye.  For a moment, her eyes went blurry and she thought she might
faint.  This was much more difficult than she had imagined—digging into a
man’s flesh this way. 

Taza’s low voice
snapped her back to the here and now when he commanded, “Push deeper.”

He was the bravest
man she’d ever known.  He didn’t even flinch as she cut into his arm.
Josie blinked and forced the tip of the blade deeper into the welling pool of
blood.  At one point, the knife was almost buried to its handle. 
“Where’s the damn bullet?” she said aloud.  She suddenly wondered if the
other two would kill her if she failed to retrieve the lead, or if Taza died.

A muscle spasm
racked his arm.  A moment later, she felt the tip of the steel scrape
against something.  Was it bone?  No, it had to be the lead
ball.  “I think I’ve hit it,” she cried, excited and thankful. 
Taza’s eyes rolled open.

Josie focused all
her attention on the lodged bullet. She imagined it in her mind, lying there,
flattened from impact, waiting to be lifted out like a splinter.  She
gently began to pick at it with the tip of the knife, twisting at the flattened
edges of the lead.  The blood flowed out of the wound, but she felt she
was very close to removing the bullet, even though it was slow in coming.

What if Taza lost
too much blood?  How much was too much?  She gazed into his face
again.  Perhaps it was her imagination, but he looked pale. 
Dear
God
, she prayed,
help me
.

She couldn’t let
the man die.  She had to do something now! Sliding her finger down the
edge of the blade, Josie felt around until she touched the lead with the tip of
her finger.  The blood pounded in her ears as she hooked her nail under
the flattened piece of metal.  Then she pushed it against the edge of the
blade and started to draw it up and out.

When the bullet
slid into view, she felt such exhilaration she had to bite her tongue to keep
from shouting for joy.  She choked out, “I got it!  I got it!”

The young warrior
untied the bandana wrapped around his head and thrust it at her.  “Use as
bandage,” he said.  Josie tied it as best as she could around Taza’s
shoulder.  Although a little blood soaked through, it seemed to do the
trick.  After a couple of minutes, the blood flow stopped.

Taza stood,
without assistance, once his arm was bandaged.  Josie stood, too, despite
her legs feeling wobbly.  When she saw her hands were stained red with the
Apache’s blood, her head went woozy, but the last thing she wanted to do was
faint.  After all, the worst was over.  She hadn’t killed the Indian,
Kendall and his men had been run off, and she was alive. Leaning over and
bracing her hands on her knees, she drew a deep breath into her lungs and then
blew it out.  When she wiped her hands on her pants, she pretended it was
red paint and not a man’s blood. 

The three Indians
leaped onto their ponies with the fluidity of gazelles. Her eyes grew large
with admiration. When Taza was sitting straight with reins in the hand of his
good arm, he looked down at her and asked, “You have name?”

“Yes.  It’s
Josie Hart.”

Taza thought a
minute and then said, “I call you Lolotea.”

When she angled
her head, the young warrior translated.  “My father gives you a new
name.  Apache name.  You are now Lolotea, gift from God.”

Josie was rendered
mute.  First of all, she was stunned to have an Apache name bestowed upon
her.  Secondly, it came as a shock that Taza and the young man were father
and son. Taza’s face was as smooth and unwrinkled as his son’s, and his body as
muscular and lean.   She didn’t know what to say, except, “Thank you,
sir.”

Taza jerked his
head once, and then yipped as he kicked his pony in the sides. He, his son, and
the sour-faced buck galloped to the crest and spiraled down the canyon wall,
out of sight.  In the brief moment she stood there alone, it all seemed
surreal, like the warriors had been phantoms—here and then gone in the blink of
an eye.

She walked over to
Traveler and untied him from the bush.  As she hauled herself into the
saddle, she suddenly felt a hundred years old.  So much had happened
between yesterday morning and today, but there wasn’t time to fret or
ponder.  She just prayed the marshal and his bandits were long gone and
not waiting to ambush the Indians at the bottom. 

Josie clicked her
tongue, leaned back in her seat, and Traveler started down the far side of the
hill.  She had many miles to travel in order to reach her
destination.  She hoped this first morning wasn’t a bad sign of things to
come.  She shot up a little prayer, as she rocked back and forth on the
big mule’s back. 

“Dear God, please
let me ride this trail with no further incidents.  I need to get to San
Francisco more than anything in the world.  Thank you.”

Faith and her own
good sense had gotten her through a lot of hard times in the past. She knew
that was all she could count on now.

Chapter Seven

When Grey heard
the gunshots ringing out from the canyon, he spurred Lightning toward the
bottom of the hill.  For several miles, he’d been keeping out of sight,
following the four horsemen, and was perplexed when they veered from the trail
and rode into the canyon. It hadn’t taken him long to guess they’d spotted the
girl and were going after her.  He sure wished he’d caught up with her
first.  If the marshal and his men killed her, they’d have the map now. 
He needed that map, and intended on getting it back, no matter what the
cost.  At the same time, he didn’t wish the pretty little half-breed dead,
either. 

For a moment, he’d
considered riding up and facing down the men with her.  Then his common
sense had kicked in. It would have been suicide to ride into that blaze of
gunfire for no good reason, except to get his head blown off.  So he’d
reined Lightning behind a clump of brush and waited—hoping Josie Hart’s big
mule could outrun those horses like he’d done in the forest.

After the shooting
stopped, Grey waited a little longer.  Before there was time to consider
his next move, three of the four riders came racing back down the canyon like a
twister was chasing them. One wore a huge Mexican sombrero.  That would be
the tracker, Reno King. The others he saw clearly as they passed by his hiding
spot. He’d had words with both Marshal Kendall and his deputy in Dry
Gulch. 

Grey felt confused
when the trio reined their mounts south, back the way they’d come.  If
they had the map, wouldn’t they head north?  What the hell was going on?
An idea occurred to him.   Maybe the Hart girl had gotten away, and
something else had scared the posse.  Despite the desert sun being as hot
as Hades, chills danced across his neck, conjuring up a bad feeling.  He
had to find out what had happened up there.

He was just about
to walk Lightning into the canyon when three pinto ponies and their riders
trotted around the curve and came into view. Squinting into the brilliant sun,
he glimpsed black hair and bronzed skin. Apaches!  Clicking his tongue, he
was able to maneuver his horse behind the brush without being spotted. When the
Apaches reached the bottom of the hill, they kicked their animals into a gallop
and struck out across the desert.  Grey noticed one had his arm wrapped
up. 

“What the hell,”
he mumbled again.

Now he was really
concerned.  If Josie had got caught between the posse and killer Apaches,
there was no chance she was still alive.  But where was the map?  It
was obvious Marshal Kendall didn’t have it, or he and his men would be heading
north right now.  And he doubted the Indians had it.  As far as Grey
knew, Indians couldn’t read English.  They wouldn’t know what the map
stood for.  If Josie was dead, the parchment must still be on her, he
thought.  He
had
to find out. 

He trotted Lightning up
the canyon, braced for what he was sure he’d find on top, a ravaged, dead young
woman.  It made his skin crawl to think of those Indians touching
her.  Grey didn’t know her well, but he knew she didn’t deserve to be
butchered by those Apache animals.  She’d had a hard enough life as it
was.  He hoped to God they’d murdered her quick so she hadn’t had to
suffer.