Blood of Eagles (21 page)

Read Blood of Eagles Online

Authors: William W. Johnstone

BOOK: Blood of Eagles
7.68Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
TWENTY-TWO
Utsonati had squatted in a cedar clump, as unnoticedas the gray-green fronds around him, and watched Tuck Kelly die. He had been so close that the second bullet through the outlaw sprayed him with crimson drops.
The man had perched himself up there to ambushthree riders below. Utsonati knew that two of them were dead. But the third one, the woman, had been luckier. Twice her rifle had found its target, and then the one called Tuck had lain sprawled on grassy caprock a dozen feet from where Utsonati squatted.
The outlaw had gasped, and bloody froth billowed at his lips. He'd turned his head, gaping in disbelief, and Utsonati shifted a little, letting himself be seen. A look of amazement had shadowed Tuck's dimmingeyes.
“Dirt!” Utsonati said, his boy's voice cracking like a whip. “Earthworm dung, I see you dying. I will still see you when you are dead.”
A sound like gurgling sobs had escaped the bubblesat Tuck's lips, and new blood gushed there. Then the man was gone.
Utsonati had crept to the edge of the caprock and peered over as screams came from below, followed by a single gunshot. The boy had watched for a momentand then drawn back, feeling sick. At that distancehe could not see exactly what the man was doing down there, but what he was doing it to was no longer alive. With a frown, Utsonati had raised his rifle, but his hands were unsteady. He'd turned away, taking deep breaths, willing the sick feeling to pass.
When he returned to the edge of the bluff, the man had been gone. Only sprawled pale limbs and death lay where he had been.
Utsonati had almost quit, then. He had seen too much of blood and horrible death. But deep in his mind a spirit had stirred.
Didanawa-i
didn't quit. The legendary warriors of the Cherokee were tenacious beyond belief. It was one of the things that had made
Didanawa-i
the most feared of men. All across a continent in a time long ago, the
Tsalagi
were known and respected ... and their
Didanawa-i
were feared. Among all the true people—the Shawnee and Iroquois of the east, the Cheyenne of the west, the Huron of the north ... even the haughty Lakotaand all their kin—the Cherokee were revered and feared.
Even the horse people of the southern plains, the snake people whose name among their neighbors was Comanche and meant enemy, there was one man to always be feared—any man who was
Didanawa-i.
Didanawa-i
never quit. Utsonati would not quit. With grim determination, the boy had set out afoot toward a canyon a mile away where his horse waited. Then, mounted and ready, he had taken the trail of the white man who butchered women.
Within three miles, Billy Challis had known that there was someone behind him. The bloodlust that consumed him for a time—that wild thrill that alwayscame from hearing the screams of a female, dominating and hurting her—had been denied him, and he was wild with anger. The bitch had killed herself! There had been no thrill in what followed. Only rage.
Over darkening terrain he had pushed his frightenedhorse, careless of its caution, until the hot rage died a little, wearing away as lust does and leaving the same dissatisfied anger that it always left. The frenzy in his head had died to a feeble trill. And with his senses cleared, he had known that he was being followed.
He'd doubled back a couple of times, ridden into a draw, and then whipped his horse until it climbed frantically to the top, giving him a sudden unexpectedview of his backtrack. There had been no movement back there in the dusk, not even a hint. But he had known that someone was there.
With animal cunning he'd spurred his horse, breaking into a run, and pummeled its ribs for a fast quarter-mile. Then he'd swung down, slapped its rump and watched it skitter off into the darkness. It wouldn't go far. It was hurt and exhausted.
Then he had cut to the right, scrambled to the top of a rise, and had lain down to wait. It was dark then, and he thought that whoever was back there had probably stopped. But the darkness would pass. The pursuer would come, sooner or later. And Billy Challis would be waiting.
 
As stars came out overhead, Utsonati had slowed his horse to a walk, sniffing the evening breeze. There had been water near. He could smell the sweet odor of damp earth, a hint of mud, and the faint stench of tadpoles.
Not a creek
,
then
, he had thought. Probably just a little pond, where rainwater still stood trapped waiting for hot sun to reduce it to mud flats.
He'd stopped, standing in his stirrups to listen to the night birds, turning his head this way and that. The rider ahead had no longer been moving. The birds had sung of quiet all around.
Thoughtfully, the boy who was a rattlesnake had squinted at the starlight prairies around him, then stepped down and led his horse. He'd chosen a low place—a little swale between hills—and unsaddled the animal to graze. He'd made no fire, but eaten a little pemmican and drunk water from his canteen, then given water to the horse. Then he had gone on, on foot.
The pond nearby was just as he had thought—a natural tank in a low spot between overhanging caprock ledges. Not a good place to be at night. Every wild thing within miles would come there to drink ... everything with fangs or claws, fur or scales. It was their place, not his, and he'd respected that.
Skirting around, he'd heard faint sounds coming from the shadows. Some creatures were already there, defending their territory against intruders.
Beyond the ledges he had squatted to smell a sage clump, then another, and found the trail of the man he was following. Sudden buzzing almost at his feet had startled him, but he stood still, and the rattler slithered off into darkness.
“Utsonati,
” the boy had breathed, “You know me. You are my brother now.”
The low prairie, between the hills, was alive with creatures of the night, but Utsonati had walked among them secure. He was
Didanawa-i,
and they knew him.
Without realizing it, Utsonati had passed within a hundred yards of the crest where Billy Challis lay waiting. Only when he found the man's half-crippled horse, still saddle-bound and standing in a field of fresh grass, had he realized that the man was behind him. The murderer was on that caprock ridge that he had gone around. He was waiting there, in ambush.
And it was then, as he worked his way back toward the hilltop, that the prairie had betrayed him. Just where caprock began, Utsonati had edged around a cedar thicket, and soft limestone crumbled. His feet had gone out from under him and he tumbled, rolling down the incline into moonlight. Shards and fragments clattered around him.
He'd heard a shout, and a bullet sang off stone just inches from his head. The boy rolled, dodged, and scrambled to his feet as another shot rang and something tugged at his jacket. He had run, out of the moonlight into dark shadows.
Chalk fragments whistled around him. A bullet whisked past his ear, and dark talus exploded before him, blinding him. And then there had been no footing. He fell, rolling and bouncing, into deep darkness.
Darkness and sudden silence. Carefully, painfully, he had wiped the dust out of his eyes. He was in a black place, with no light at all except the faint glow of moonlight through a jagged crevice in the stone. A cave, he had thought. He'd stirred, squinting, tryingto see. He'd felt around for his rifle and couldn't find it.
Just darkness and silence ... and something else. Something like a low-pitched rasping growl that was very close, and he had sensed the presence of anothercreature, so close he could feel its body warmth. He'd reached out a tentative hand, and frozenas his fingers touched thick fur.
The growl became a threatening rasp, and in the patch of moonlight there was a silhouette. It had wide alert ears and a wide furry face, and even in the darkness he had seen the glint of feral eyes and bared fangs.
“Wa-hya',”
the boy whispered. In Cherokee, the word meant wolf.
 
“Got the son of a bitch!” Billy Challis had giggled as the dodging shadow below him disappeared over the edge of the caprock slant. He could barely see in the faint light of stars and quarter moon, but there was no mistaking that last glimpse. The shadowyfigure down there hadn't jumped or dived from the ledge. It had fallen.
Thrusting fresh loads into his .45, Billy had started down the slope, angling toward the ledge. At its edge he'd peered downward but seen nothing—just the jumbled shadows of broken eroded limestone and the brushy slope below, angling down toward a pool of water. Whoever was down there had been invisible, hidden by darkness and the night.
Scuttling to the right, Billy had worked down the taper of the caprock, where the ledge disappeared into hillside slope. Twenty feet, then another twenty, and the brushy slope was only a few feet below—a weedy darkness beneath the wedge of pale stone. He'd gauged the distance, started to jump, then stopped as high-pitched buzzing came from directly beneath him.
Rattlesnake!
Billy had backed away, shivering. He hated snakes, and it had sounded like a whole den of them, right there at the base of the rocks. It was full spring. The days were turning hot, and the nights belonged to the rattlers. He'd angled farther to the right, steppingcarefully, then stepped gingerly to the lower slope and eased down toward the water, going wide around the snakes but still keeping his eye on the place where the pursuer had fallen.
When he figured he was clear of the snakes, he had started up the slope again, heading for that spot. Scours and crevices made the limestone bluff a puzzle of dim shapes and darknesses.
Billy had been almost at the bluff when he heard the growl, and as he jerked upright it had become louder, more ominous. Somewhere just ahead somethingbig lurked, and its growl was so near that he could almost smell its hot breath. Plain animal fear had washed over Billy. He dodged back, and rattlesnakessang and buzzed all around, echoing one another'swarnings.
“To hell with this!” he muttered.
Thoroughly spooked, Billy Challis had turned and run. Something solid hit his boot and he'd felt its writhing tug as he tore free. With a shriek, he'd sprinted, gained the top of the bluff, and didn't stop there.
First rattlesnakes, then prairie wolves! Whoever was down there in that hole, he wasn't worth it. Billy ran, looking to find his horse, to get the hell away from there.
 
Nobody in Paradise knew that the stages were coming until riders came in from the northeast and reported three fast coaches crossing Wolf Creek at the downstream bend. By the time Asa Parker, Sypher, and O'Brien gathered at the land office, the three stagecoaches were close enough to see.
“It's them!” Sypher said. “The syndicate people! My investors! They're here!”
Parker exploded. “How did they get here without you knowing about it? You said they'd meet up with that idiot Stratton at Emporia, and we'd have plenty of word!”
“I don't know.” Sypher returned his glare. “Maybe they came straight from Wichita. Anyway, they're here. And don't try to blame me, Asa! You've had all spring to nail down this territory. Why aren't you ready?”
“Jesus Christ!” O'Brien muttered, scribbling furiouslyat papers littering his desk while he squinted at the elaborate tract map hung on the wall. “Asa ... I mean, colonel ... I don't have titles ready for all the tracts we marked out. Hell, I don't even know for sure which ones have squatters on them.”
“Shut up!” Asa Parker roared. “So we got a few squatters down on Rabbit Creek. Fine! Let's just make the best of it. Now get ready to receive payin' guests, and make it good, O'Brien! This is the one that counts.”
The parade into town was by far the most elegant sight ever seen in Paradise: three ornate Concord stages, each pulled by a six-up hitch and sporting laquered panels and brass trim, all flanked by riders of a different cut from the rabble that roamed the Neutral Strip.
They pulled up and stopped in the rutted street between the hotel and the land office, and dignitariesstepped down, gazing around at the ramshackle little settlement that they had come to judge.

Other books

The Hangman's Child by Francis Selwyn
Foreign Bodies by Cynthia Ozick
Smitten by Colleen Coble
His to Take by Kallista Dane
What We Lost in the Dark by Jacquelyn Mitchard
Forgotten Mage by D.W. Jackson
Texas Blue by Thomas, Jodi
Streams of Mercy by Lauraine Snelling
Perseverance Street by McCoy, Ken