Cry of Eagles (4 page)

Naiche sat under the stars, admiring the Winchester, turning it over in his hands. He understood only a little of how the gun worked. With a box of cartridges between his folded knees he kept watch from a ridge above the Chiricahua's hidden canyon where the wickiups of the women and children sat in an uneven line along the bare banks of a spring-fed stream high in the Dragoons.

Roasting a mule carcass on a firepit below, several woman attended to the cooking, turning it often on a spit above dry pinyon limbs, giving off no telltale smoke that would alert the soldiers to their presence. Now the starving children would have something to eat—the mules and flour and sugar and salt pork taken from the settler's cabin. It would serve to put some meat on their bones to help them survive the winter months ahead. The Spirits had indeed smiled on their successful raid tonight.

Chokole walked softly up the ridge, balancing her Spencer in one hand. He gave her a single nod to acknowledge her presence and continued to examine the many-shoot rifle.

He understood how the cartridges were fed through a metal loading gate into a tube below the barrel, counting five, and a sixth fit into the firing chamber. By working the lever under the stock, a shell was ejected while the hammer was drawn back in firing position, then another was somehow magically pushed into the chamber. By lowering the hammer gently with his thumb he did not have to waste a cartridge by firing it to see how the weapon worked.

At last
, he thought,
I understand the white man's deadly gun and I am ready to go to war with it.

Chokole squatted beside him. “The meat is almost ready,” she said, also admiring the rifle. “Do you know how to make the bullets shoot?”

“I will teach you its ways,” he promised. “But we must have many more, one for each warrior in our band.”

Chokole watched the distant desert floor many miles to the north, in the direction of Fort Thomas. “It will be a long war,” she said, “even with many-shoot rifles. The white-eyes are so many, and we are so few. They are like ants moving across the land.”

“More will join us,” Naiche told her, even though her wisdom was as great as any member of the tribe, she having lived for more than thirty winters. As a young girl she had been chosen to be a sixth wife of Cochise, before the old chief died. She had never taken a husband or given birth to children, preferring war over the traditional life of an Apache woman.

“Many are afraid, Naiche. The soldiers and their cages have broken their spirits.”

“It is true. Some of our bravest warriors no longer have the will to fight. Even Geronimo cannot reach them when he begs them to join us. They are dead in spirit, and only their weary bodies live on at the stinking white man's reservation.”

Chokole nodded, the copper scent of blood still strong on the scalps tied to her belt. “Geronimo tells them this place called San Carlos is the worst. They dug a hole in the ground and covered it with logs, tossing scraps of food to him like a dog, forcing him to live in his own excrement. I was with the Chiricahuas on Salt Creek when the soldiers brought him there in chains, covered with his own filth, starving, blood dripping from his wrists and ankles where the chains cut into his flesh. But when he looked at me, even though his head was bowed, I saw the same fire in his eyes. They could not break his spirit, and they could not break yours while you were in the cages. You are a brave chief, Naiche.”

He accepted her compliment in silence, for deep inside he knew he would never be the fighter Geronimo was “I fight for my people, Chokole. More will join us soon. Until that time comes we must continue to raid the white-eyes and take their repeating rifles and bullets. When Isa comes with warriors and guns from Fort Thomas, we will be much stronger. Then we will attack the larger ranches and white man's villages, until we burn them all from the face of Earth Mother. It is The Way.”

The call of an owl came from a distant mountaintop, a signal from Otoe that no one was following them. The tracks made by the white-eyes' iron horseshoes were hard to wipe away from the earth with a mesquite or pinyon branch, and Naiche had worried that someone who could read sign might lead the soldiers to them. Without iron tools other than simple knives there was no way to remove the iron from the stolen mules and horses.

“No one comes,” Chokole said needlessly, for she knew Naiche recognized the call of the owl made by Otoe.

“The Four Spirits are smiling. We have food and strong horses, and mule meat, and the cattle will keep the children and women alive in spite of their bad taste.”

Chokole grunted her agreement, taking the Winchester when Naiche offered it to her.

“I will show you how to load and fire it,” he said, “but we have no bullets to waste, only three boxes. Once you understand how the bullets travel in and out of the barrel, and the way it must be loaded, it will be enough until we engage the enemy in battle.”

“Will we fight again soon?” she asked, peering down at the rifle and its strange loading gate.

“As soon as our warriors' strength returns. They have been hungry for many suns, and now we have plenty. Before the new moon comes, we will strike again near the white mans' town they call Tombstone. There is a ranch to the south. I have watched it for two suns, and there are few white-eyes to guard it. I counted only five.”

She held the Winchester to her shoulder, looking between its sights. “With this I can kill six of the enemy without reloading. I must have one, and we must find more for the others very quickly.”

* * *

Isa led fourteen silent shadows among the barracks at Fort Thomas. Only three, including Isa, carried knives, while the rest had no weapons.

They crept to a corner of the building where rifles and ammunition were kept under the watchful eye of two soldiers.

Isa whispered to a young warrior beside him. “I will kill the one on the left. You kill the one on the other side, and be sure to cover his mouth so no one will hear his death screams.”

The warrior named Sola gave the sign for agreement.

Isa readied his blade, inching forward. Sola came soundlessly behind, a crude knife made from a rusted plowshare in his fist.

Isa lunged around the corner of the small building, thankful there was no moonlight to make him an easy target.

A shadow stirred on one side of the door. The gleam of a rifle barrel was dull, hard to see in dim starlight. Isa's lunge sent him crashing into the soldier's chest while Sola made a similar dive to reach the other guard.

“What the hell—” the soldier gasped, bringing his rifle up just as eight inches of iron entered his belly.

Isa jerked the blade upward, hearing the crack of bone and pop of gristle as blood shot all over his right hand. His free hand clamped the guard's mouth shut as he slumped against the wall, dropping his rifle to reach for the pain racing through his body.

Isa twisted the knife into the soldier's heart and felt him grow slack, muscles quivering while more blood squirted from his mortal wound.

Sola drove the second guard against the armory wall and pinned him there, ripping and tearing into flesh with his rusted knife, a hand covering the soldier's mouth.

“Arrrgh!” the bluecoat blubbered between Sola's powerful fingers. He slid to the ground on his rump, his Winchester tumbling from his grasp.

Isa jerked his knife from the soldier's body and took the unfamiliar iron key from a ring attached to the guard's belt. As he had seen the soldiers do so often, he put the key into the lock and twisted it.

The door opened into a dark room filled with rows of rifles in wooden racks.

“Tell the others to come quickly,” Isa whispered to Sola as he hurried to a wall lined with repeating rifles.

More shadows rushed into the armory. Without a word Isa directed them to the rifles, four for each man, while he took down cardboard boxes of cartridges and began stuffing them into burlap bags, two tied together so each warrior could carry a pair over his shoulder.

“There are so many,” Sola whispered, helping Isa gather boxes of shells.

“It will not be enough,” Isa replied. “We will hide the ones we cannot use in the cave where Naiche waits for us. When more of our people slip away from the reservation, they will have rifles and bullets.”

One of the guards groaned outside, and the sound made Isa's heart labor. He ran to the door, jerking his bloody knife from his belt, and made a slashing motion across the throat of the soldier making the noise.

Isa gave the fort compound a sweeping glance. It was late and all, but a few soldiers would be asleep. It would be an easy thing to slip past the few who paraded back and forth in the night near the horse stables and kill two more who watched the back of the barns.

He raced back inside to finish loading the rifles and sacks of cartridges.

* * *

Henry Peters was rolling a smoke, his rifle resting against the rear wall of the stable. He hated night guard duty, for the boredom often got to him. Dave Watkins was asleep inside the barn atop a mound of hay, a serious violation of regulations.

In the flare of the match he held to the tip of his smoke he thought he saw a snarling face very close to his, and he blinked to be sure he wasn't dreaming.

Pulling the match away from his face, flicking it out so he could see clearly, he felt a powerful blow to his stomach.

In a sudden rush of understanding he saw an Indian, an Apache, staring into his eyes as a white-hot pain shot through his belly, spreading like fire.

“Jesus!” Peters grunted, feeling one of his ribs snap in two.

The pain was more than he could take, and his vision clouded. He thought he heard Dave Watkins give a muffled yell from the hallway into the stable.

Then all was black around him, and he felt no more pain and heard no more

* * *

Fifteen mounted Apaches under the leadership of Isa rode quietly away from Fort Thomas burdened with more than fifty Winchester .44 caliber rifles and three hundred cartons of shells. Isa led them south, often riding back and forth or in apparently meaningless circles until the desert floor provided a slab of rock where the iron-shod cavalry horses would leave very little sign.

“It is good,” Isa told Sola. “Now we are ready for a war with the white-eyes.”

“Naiche will be pleased,” Sola answered, glancing over his shoulder.

“Yes. And word will reach Geronimo in Mexico that we have many-shoot guns. He will bring more Mimbres warriors across the mountains to join us.”

“I do not think so,” Sola said. “Geronimo is like the big mountain cat. He prefers to fight with only a few warriors, to strike quickly and then disappear. I do not think he will come to our camp in the Dragoons.”

Isa wondered if Sola could be right. It made little difference, for when it came to shedding the white man's blood, Naiche had few equals.

Heading toward the Dragoons by starlight, Isa changed directions often to throw off pursuit. No one must find them until they were fully prepared for the war that was sure to follow.

Falcon put on his traveling clothes and walked to the Oriental Saloon. He found Doc still sitting at his favorite table playing poker. His friend looked like death. His face was pale and covered with sweat, the skin stretched taut over bulging cheekbones and sunken eyes that held only the tiniest spark of life. He had been playing poker steadily for over twenty-four hours, since the gunfight at the corral, his only sustenance, cigarettes and whiskey. Falcon could see the man was dying a little more every day. Perhaps that was why he refused to sleep until he passed out—fear that the man with the scythe would come to him in his slumber.

Falcon looked into Kate's eyes as she sat next to her man. The people in town called her Big Nose Kate, but Falcon no longer noticed her features. He saw only her love and devotion for Doc. She looked as if she had been crying—probably after trying to get him to eat or sleep, which always made him angry with her. He didn't like to be babied.

“Hey, Doc,” Falcon called as he approached the table.

Tired eyes flicked his way, then seemed to come a little more alive as Doc smiled. “Hello and good morning, Master MacCallister.”

Falcon stood there, his hands on his hips and a stern look on his face. “I'm fixing to head on down the road. Are you going to let a friend leave town without letting him buy you breakfast?”

Doc's eyes narrowed even as his lips curled in his everpresent sarcastic grin, as if he knew what Falcon was trying to do. “I would never be so rude as to do that, Falcon. Just give me a few more minutes to finish teaching these young men the rudiments of poker, and I shall join you at Campbell and Hatch's.”

As Falcon turned to go, he caught Kate's grateful smile of relief. She gave him a quick wink before she turned back to Doc and the poker game.

Campbell and Hatch's Saloon was a combination bar, dance hall, billiard parlor, and eating establishment. As such, it was just as busy at this time of morning as it was at night. The crowd consisted mostly of businessmen getting a bite to eat prior to opening their doors, red-eyed cowboys trying to get some coffee into them before riding back out to punch cattle, and a few dance hall women taking a break before going to bed for the rest of the day.

Falcon grabbed a table and sat facing the room, as was his habit. When the waiter came he ordered two breakfasts and told the man to keep the coffee coming when his guest arrived.

Doc walked in a few moments later, and Falcon noticed he was limping slightly from the bullet wound in his right hip. He could still see the bullet hole in his pants and the bloodstains on the cloth. Evidently Doc hadn't even changed clothes before he began his nonstop poker playing.

Doc took a seat next to Falcon, so he, too, could watch the other men in the bar. When the waiter brought their cups of coffee, Doc took out a silver flask and poured a dollop of amber liquid into them.

Doc held up his cup toward Falcon. “A toast,” he said, a strange look in his eyes. “A toast to the man behind the scenes.”

Falcon clinked his cup against Doc's. “What do you mean?”

A sly smile crossed Doc's lips. “Don't think you went unobserved in your little altercation with Johnny Ringo.” He took another drink, and added, “Your timely interference was much appreciated. The man might have gotten lucky and actually hit one of us with that rifle.”

Falcon laughed. These last few years, there had not been many men he enjoyed being with. Billy the Kid had been one, and Doc Holliday was another. The man's sense of humor, and his loyalty to his friends, caused Falcon to feel a kinship with him that was rare for a man who spent most of his time alone.

“What are you going to do now, Falcon?” Doc asked, as the waiter piled plates of scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, tortillas, sliced tomatoes, and potatoes in front of them.

Falcon shrugged. “Mosey on down the trail, I guess. I've still got a lot of country to see.”

“Why not stay here in Tombstone? It is a growing town, and given enough time I might be able to teach you how to play poker.

“That'd be the day,” Falcon said. “In the little time I've watched you, I've noticed you have a tendency to go against the odds. In the long run, that's a no-win strategy.”

“Ah, but that is the key, my friend. For me, there is no long run, only the here and now.”

Doc bent his head and began to nibble at his food, but Falcon could tell his heart wasn't in it. He knew consumption took away the appetite, but he wished Doc would at least try to take better care of himself. Of course, he didn't say that, for he respected him too much to try to tell him how to live what was left of his life.

After they finished eating, Doc said he was going home to take a nap, and Falcon went to Morgan Earp's house, where both he and Virgil were recovering from their wounds.

Wyatt answered the door, a pistol in his hand. “Oh, it's you, Falcon. Come on in.”

“Expecting trouble?” Falcon asked as he took his hat off and entered the room.

Morgan was lying on a sofa, propped up on several pillows, bandages on both shoulders. Virgil was across the room with his wounded leg stuck out in front of him on an ottoman, a shotgun cradled in his arms.

Wyatt peered out the door for a moment, then closed and bolted it. “Yeah. Sheriff Behan has been making noises about arresting us for murder.”

“But he has no authority in Tombstone. He's the county sheriff,” Falcon said.

Virgil nodded. “That's correct, Falcon, but he still has plans to haul us in to stand trial.”

“How do you think it'll play?”

Morgan gave a short, harsh laugh. “There's no tellin'. Half the people in Tombstone make a lot of money off The Cowboys' trade. They're gonna be plenty pissed off that we've shut them down.”

“Well, I just came to say good-bye, and good luck,” Falcon said, walking around the room and shaking hands with each of the brothers. “But if you need some help—”

Wyatt shook his head. “No, Falcon, you've done enough. This is our battle now, and we'll see it through.”

Falcon took Wyatt's hand. “I'll keep watch in the newspapers. If I see that the trial is going against you, I'll be back.”

“Thanks Falcon.
Vaya con Díos,
partner,” Wyatt said.

* * *

Falcon climbed on Diablo and began to ride to the southeast out of town. Just as he got to the city limits he saw three men on horseback followed by two buckboards coming toward him.

As he pulled abreast of the wagons, he glanced inside and his stomach went cold. There were several bodies laid out in a row. All had been scalped, and one's head looked as if it'd been cooked in a fire, then its skull split open.

“Hold on, there!” Falcon called as he wheeled Diablo in a tight turn. “What's happened here?”

One of the men—they were miners by their looks—shook his head. “We found these poor folk at a cabin up in the foothills of the Dragoon Mountains. Looks like the Apaches had quite a time with them.”

Falcon climbed down off Diablo, his heart aching at the sight of the slaughtered settlers. There were two women, their naked bodies covered with blood-soaked blankets. Falcon pulled back the blanket and felt his gorge rise at the sight of the gutted woman, her entrails hanging loose. Noonday sun glinted off her bare skull where the scalp had been hacked off. Her face, even in death, still wore a look of horror at what had befallen her.

Falcon brushed flies off her face and gently closed her eyes with his fingers. Then his fist clenched as he felt the familiar killing rage sweep through his body. In his mind's eye, the woman's face became that of Marie, his wife, who had been crucified by renegade Indians in the not too distant past.

He forced his voice past the knot in his throat. “Do you know who did this?” he asked.

The miner shrugged. “Some soldiers came by our claim the other day and said Naiche and a small band of followers was on the warpath in this area, but the blue-bellies was havin' trouble locatin' 'em.”

“Naiche, huh? I've heard of him. Some people call him the human tiger, because of his thirst for white man's blood,” Falcon said, turning away, unable to look at the woman's body any longer.

“Yeah,” one of the men on horseback added, “they also said another band of ‘bout twenty or so Injuns escaped from Fort Thomas last week with over fifty Winchester repeatin' rifles and a whole load of ammunition.” He leaned to the side and spat a stream of brown tobacco juice onto a cactus beside the road. “I plan on stayin' in town fer a while to give those soldiers a chance to catch them redskins.”

“That's fer sure,” another of the miners said. “They bad enough with bows an' arrows, but they gonna be plumb hell with repeatin' rifles in they hands.”

“Looks like they took off with some horses and mules belongin' to these folks, an' whatever weapons they had. There wasn't much left of the cabin that hadn't been trashed,” said the man driving the buckboard.

“There was blood everwhere,” another said, shaking his head. “Poor devils must've suffered somethin' fierce. 'Couple of 'em looked like they'd been scalped while still alive, and we never did find one of the heads that'd been cut off.”

Falcon slammed his fist into the side of the wagon, making the driver jump and almost swallow his cud of chewing tobacco. As he choked and spit, Falcon turned to him. “How do I find this cabin?”

“Take the north fork of the road headin' up into the Dragoons, 'bout three mile up ahead. You can't miss it. But mister, I gotta tell ya, yore crazy if you go up there.”

Falcon climbed into the saddle and rode off, his back stiff and his neck thick with anger. He'd be damned if he was going to let this happen to anyone else's wife. Not if he had any say in the matter.