Longarm and the War Clouds (12 page)

“She is with Ta-Ki-O-May—Woman God who resides inside the mountain and gives strength to all who come to her. To women, she gives a special strength. I wish to believe that Ta-Ki-O-May gave that special strength to Lucy, who needed it most of all, before she died, and that she has it now inside the Mountain Spirit. I wish there were other women here, to console her, but there is only Stalking Puma's braves—here to protect this sacred ground until it is safe for our entire band, the Blood Mountain People, to come and live here again.”

Black Twisted Pine stared up into the scaffold that had been erected beyond all the other ones. It was the newest scaffold, its poles unskinned, and it stood at a point where the canyon began to dogleg to the west. Longarm followed Black Twisted Pine's gaze at the hide-wrapped body resting on the woven bed of brush extended between the scaffold's four legs. The body was entirely wrapped though the birds had worked loose a bit of the deerskin at the top, and some locks of red hair protruded to blow around in the wind.

Three large crows were on the body, pecking at it. Black Twisted Pine did nothing to interfere. It was the natural order. Lucy Belcher was dead and her body would feed the living until her bones were strewn down on the canyon floor with the others. Then, in time, her bones would be dust.

The body did not matter to the Chiricahua. Only the spirit mattered.

Longarm was still trying to work his mind around what he'd been told.
Lucy Belcher was dead.

“How?” he asked Black Twisted Pine.

“Belcher.”

Longarm stared at the man, who continued to stare up at the scaffold until he turned to Longarm, his eyes hard and angry. “I went to the Belcher house early in the morning like I always did, to split firewood and help Mrs. Belcher start the day. I sensed something was wrong, so I went upstairs. Their bedroom door was open. I went in and found Belcher passed out, holding a bloody knife to his chest. Lucy lay beside him, dead. Stabbed. Belcher woke up. He was covered in blood and he smelled like whiskey. He was confused, but when he realized what he'd done he blamed me. He told me that Lucy had told him that she and I were going to go away together. So he killed her in a drunken rage and passed out. He laughed and told me to go ahead and take her . . . to take Lucy if I loved her so much . . . and he hoped we would have a very beautiful life together!

“I was in shock, but I wanted to kill him. Only, he had a gun on me. He didn't use it because he didn't want to alert anyone else around the fort. I took Lucy. I had told her about Blood Mountain, and she wanted very badly to come here and live and to be given the strength she'd wanted for so long. In my sorrow, I thought that perhaps the goddess in the mountain would bring Lucy back to me. So I took Lucy, saddled two horses, and rode out away from the fort under cover of darkness.”

He stopped and looked down. Tears dribbled down Black Twisted Pine's rugged cheeks.

Longarm glanced at the scaffold once more, grinding his molars on the fury he felt for Belcher. The major had killed his wife in a fit of jealous rage and then told her father that she'd run off with Black Twisted Pine. Was the man so deep in his proverbial and literal cups that he didn't think that Longarm and War Cloud would learn the truth?

Black Twisted Pine said tightly, “I vowed that one day I would go back across the border and I would kill Major Belcher. Until then, I would remain here and protect this sacred ground with my brothers.”

A voice rose from the rocky western slope: “I'm sorry you won't have that opportunity, renegade!”

Longarm jerked his head toward the slope, and felt his lower jaw loosen when he saw the blue-clad soldiers standing there amongst the rocks. Belcher was at the center of the group. He was flanked by Captain Kilroy, who didn't look any too happy about being there. There were five other soldiers—three privates, Sergeant Fitzpatrick, and a corporal.

“How in the hell . . . ?” Longarm said, aghast.

“We just followed my sister-in-law and my housekeeper,” Belcher said through a self-satisfied grin. “You were probably so busy keeping an eye on them that you didn't look far enough back to see us.”

Black Twisted Pine took one step toward Belcher. Longarm threw an arm out in front of the man, holding him back. Belcher and the other soldiers were all armed with Winchesters. Just then yet another soldier appeared about twenty feet up the slope from the others. He lowered a Gatling gun from his shoulder and spread the tripod it wasn't mounted on atop a flat-topped boulder. The redheaded private with a broad, freckled, sunburned face, slanted the barrel toward the canyon, eyes threatening beneath the brim of his leather-billed hat.

Belcher glanced up at the Gatling gun and then returned his maddeningly self-assured gaze back toward the canyon. “Marshal Long, War Cloud—I suggest you step aside. I am having my men arrest this man and take him back to Fort McHenry to await court-martial.”

“On what charge?” Longarm asked, incredulous.

“Why, for the killing of my wife, of course.” Belcher studied Longarm and then scowled with feigned incredulity. “Surely, you don't believe what he said about
my
having killed Lucy?” He gave a caustic chuff. “He somehow filled the poor girl's head with a bunch of nonsense about this mountain, convincing her to run off with him, and then, being the savage that he is, killed her. Probably got tired of her and cut her throat . . . or maybe he was drunk on
tiswin.
The Apaches love that stuff, you know.”

As he'd spoke that last sentence, Belcher had turned his gaze up canyon. Longarm looked in the same direction. The other Apaches were walking toward him, all staring through the scaffolds at the soldiers, some nocking arrows, others bringing old-model Springfield or Spencer rifles to their shoulders.

Belcher jerked a suddenly nervous gaze at War Cloud. “Keep them back! I have a Gatling gun here, and I will not hesitate in the slightest to cut them down. To cut them all down—to a man! Hell, I'd get a medal for it!”

Both War Cloud and Black Twisted Pine thrust their hands out, forestalling the dozen or so warriors. They all stopped as a loosely formed group, some dropping to their knees, all keeping their angry gazes on the soldiers.

Black Twisted Pine shouted at his people to stay back, that the soldiers were after him, not them.

Then he turned to Belcher. “You are a liar, white man. But if you promise to leave my people alone, and just take me, I will come with you willingly.”

“Hold on!” Longarm stepped forward, his face flushed with fury. “Belcher, it's Black Twisted Pine I believe. Not you. And none of you other men should believe the major, either.” He glanced at Captain Kilroy, who looked as though he were trying to pass a kidney stone. “What about you, Captain. You know both the major and Black Twisted Pine. Who do you believe?”

Belcher pointed angrily at Longarm. “Marshal, you're obstructing justice! One more word out of you, and I'll shoot you myself!”

He snapped his Winchester to his shoulder and aimed down the barrel, his eyes flashing wickedly.

“Major!” War Cloud shouted, taking one step forward.

Longarm grabbed the scout's arm, pulling him back.

Belcher shifted his rifle to War Cloud. To the soldier manning the Gatling gun, he said, “Private Daniels, if we do not have Black Twisted Pine in custody by the time I've counted to five, open up with your Gatling. Start with those savages just up canyon there. Take them all down, do you understand?”

Private Daniels hesitated. Then he nodded and lowered his head to aim down the Gatling gun, which he swung up canyon, toward the Chiricahuas.

Belcher looked at Longarm and quirked his lips with that menacing, jeering grin. “Marshal, stand aside. I'm taking Black Twisted Pine into custody. I do hope that he won't be shot for resisting arrest. And that I do not have to shoot you and your redskin scout for obstructing justice.”

Longarm felt as though his heart would explode from the raw anger flaring behind it. He said, “You won't get away with it, Major. If you take Black Twisted Pine, you'd best make damn sure he arrives safely at McHenry, or I will personally see you hang, you son of a bitch!”

Belcher smiled down the barrel of his Winchester, which he shifted around between Longarm, War Cloud, and Black Twisted Pine.

“It is all right, lawman,” Black Twisted Pine said, his voice hard and even. He started forward. “I will go with the soldiers.”

In the upper periphery of his vision, Longarm saw Magpie rise up from behind a rock jutting from the side of the ridge, about fifteen feet above Private Daniels manning the Gatling gun. The girl stepped off the rock and dropped straight down, landing just behind Daniels with a grunt, bending her knees.

Daniels jerked with a start, began to swing around toward Magpie. The girl tightened her jaws and bunched her lips as she smashed the butt of her pistol across the private's left temple.

Daniels gave a clipped scream and crumpled beside the Gatling gun.

Magpie leaped over him and hunkered down behind the gun, giving a wicked war cry, and swung the maw with a squeak of its swivel toward Belcher. The major swung around, aiming his Winchester. The rifle roared but his shot whipped over Magpie's head to slam into the ridge wall behind her.

Magpie aimed at Belcher, squinting her dark eyes over the Gatling's maw. Belcher jerked back against a boulder and out of the line of Magpie's fire.

Longarm ripped his Colt from its holster and shouted, “Hold it, Major!”

“Kill 'em!” Belcher shouted, fumbling his rifle around toward Longarm.

Longarm snapped his pistol up and fired.

At Kilroy threw his hands up, he shouted at the other soldiers, “Stand down, men! Hold your fire!”

Belcher slammed back against the boulder and, dropping his rifle, clutched his left shoulder from which blood was oozing, staining his dark blue tunic.

At the other soldiers raising their rifles tensely, Kilroy again shouted, “Stand down! Stand down!”

Belcher loosed an enraged bellow and then swung around and ran through a notch in the ridge behind him, below and right of Magpie, who tracked him with the Gatling gun, turning the crank and throwing several belching rounds at the man, all her shots merely pluming the dust at the major's heels.

Longarm shouted, “Everyone stand down!” as he bolted forward and up the face of the ridge. He glanced once at Captain Kilroy, who raised his left hand in supplication, lowering the rifle in his right hand. Longarm bolted past the soldiers and ran into the notch.

Belcher was ahead of him, running hard but sort of crouched forward, cupping his wounded shoulder. A booted foot and part of a denim-clad leg suddenly angled out from the rock wall in front of him. Belcher screamed as he tripped. He hit the ground and rolled, dust rising around him.

He lost his hat and one suspender slid off his shoulder.

He turned and rose up on his heels, his face a red mask behind his dark mustache and a generous coating of dust. His lips shone white between his teeth as he grinned savagely and extended his army-issue .44 at Leslie McPherson, who had just then stepped out from a small alcove in the ridge wall, facing him, screaming, “Why, Anson?
Whyyyy?
”

Longarm stopped running and raised his own .44. The gun leaped and roared, stabbing flames at Belcher. The bullet punched through the major's right shoulder, slamming him straight back as he triggered his revolver into the air.

He lay gasping, writhing, grinding the spurred heels of his cavalry boots into the dirt.

Longarm walked forward. He stood beside Leslie staring down at Belcher. Blue Feather walked out from behind another boulder to glare down at the man, as well.

Belcher stared up at them, fear and rage sharp and bright in his eyes. He gritted his teeth, snarling like a wounded bobcat.

“To answer your question, girl,” Longarm said, wrapping an arm around Leslie's shoulders and drawing her tight against him. “He's a coward.”

War Cloud, Magpie, and Black Twisted Pine walked up behind Longarm and the two other women to stare down at Belcher. And then Kilroy and the other soldiers came, as well—all with guns lowered. The Apaches, including Stalking Puma, joined them, too, and they all stood as one group staring down at the writhing, snapping, cursing, incoherent beast that was Anson Belcher.

“Let's get him doctored,” Longarm said finally, sheathing his Colt. “We want him facing the court-martial and gallows in perfect health.”

Watch for

LONGARM AND THE STAR SALOON

the 422
nd
novel in the exciting Longarm
series from Jove

Coming in January!