Slaughter's way (20 page)

"Walk the Appaloosa until it coolsr Slaughter snapped to a man. **Ease him down by the fire, boys. Coonsldn— "^

*Here I is, Mr. John,'' the Negro replied. Tou fix him with this here drink while I goes and gets my doctorin' Idt out."

It said much for Alvord's iron constitution that he was still conscious after his injury and the long, gruehng ride back to camp. After drinking, he looked at his boss.

"Didn't find the camp, boss."

"Lie easy boy," Slaughter replied. "They jimip you?"

"Nope. Come across a wagon, couple of feUers with it Went to warn them about Tanaka. Tinned out they

didn't need any warning; they was looking for him."

^'Looking for Tanaka?" growled Burton, glancing first at Slaughter, then back to Alvord.

*"I^em, around a hundred Winchester rifles and maybe twenty thousand rounds of prime .44.40 shells to use in 'em, some powder and lead. Only I didn't stop to take no trail coimt of it.'*

**Renegadesl"

Slaughter spat out the word as if it burned his mouth. It rolled around the camp, each man giving a special note of revulsion as he said it.

""They sure were!'

Alvord's reply left a tolerable lot unexplained. From what he had already told the other men, he must have looked into the rear of the wagon. But no renegade, with a bullet or a rope his only hope if caught, would ever permit any chance-passing stranger to take such liberties.

However, from the emphasis Alvord had placed on the last word of his speech, it appeared that the gun-nmning renegades were in no position to do any objecting.

'"What'd you do with the rifles?" Slaughter asked as Coonsldn arrived with his simple medical kit.

Xeftit."

"'You left the rifles?" Burton barked.

*'Short of burning the wagon, and bringing down every Apache in miles a damn sight sooner than I wanted, what else could I do; tow it myself?"

"How about their team?"

'"One of the horses took lead in the fussing."

*'You lie still, Mr. Biurt," Coonskin warned, working at cleaning the wound. *'This am going to hurt you a mite."

Gritting his teeth, Alvord lay still as Coonskin removed the blood-soaked bandage. Then the scout looked at Slaughter.

^'Wagon's well hid, boss. Take some finding even if you was looking for it."

That figured. Renegades would not wish to be seen doing their business out in the open; even in an area

over which the Apaches were supposed to reign supreme. They were Hkely to pick a spot where they could make their deal without the danger of anybody locating them.

While Coonskin cleaned and bandaged his leg, Al-vord told Slaughter everything he could think of, recalling the smallest details, even down to the green leaves and twigs which aroused his curiosity.

''Comes morning, if not already,'' Alvord finished, ^TTanaka's going to be looking for that wagon."

"Us and Tanaka both, huh, John?" Burton drawled.

''Us, yeah. Tanaka, no, at least not tonight,'' Slaughter repHed. 'Whyn't he make a play for the herd already, Texr

"Maybe don't know we're around."

Although he said it. Burton did not beheve that for a moment. If Tanaka's men had been in the vicinity in the late afternoon, they would have seen signs of the cattle and brought word to their leader. Tanaka would hardly pass up a chance to kill oflE white men and run off their cattle.

"He's doing something big," Slaughter guessed. *That's why he hit the stage and took its money. Those renegades learned of the shipment and fixed it v^th Tanaka to take the money to pay for the guns they had stashed away. With all those guns and plenty of shells Tanaka would be a big man among his people, and have plenty of support."

"John's right at that" Alvord growled. "Only a thing that big'd need plenty of medicine making afore it could be decided on."

"They'd've decided it afore they hit the stage," Burton objected.

''Have to give thanks to their war god for coming out so easy," Alvord explained. "Easy &ere, Coonskin, I ain't got but the one right leg."

"I reckon that the renegades didn't fix any meeting place with Tanaka," Slaughter remarked. "Or why would they chance sending up smoke and attracting attention to where they were?"

"You've a right smart point there, John. We've got to stop him. If Tanaka gets them guns, there won't be

a living white man from the Pecos to the Cahfomia line and back the long way."

"We're going to stop him," Slaughter answered.

"Even if you took every man along, it'd still be two to one at least against us, and that's pretty odds even for us Texans/'

"It'll be stiflFer. They's only me, Burt, if he can ride. Talking Bill and Hernandez's lil' toy going."

Burton stared at his boss for a long moment.

"It's a long chance, John."

"It's the only one we've got. You'll keep the herd moving, Tex. Happen I don't catch up with you before you reach Fort McClellan, sell the herd, pay oflF the crew and take the money home to Bess."

Fort McClellan was still a good eight days' drive away, so Burton asked, "Where'U you be?"

"DeadI" Slaughter answered quietly.

The plume of smoke had been rising into the air, sucked up by a draft of wind, since just after dawn. Now it was almost ten o'clock and John Slaughter stood with Burt Alvord by the fire, looking across the range to where Tanaka led his men toward the entrance to the valley between the two mesas.

On arrival the previous night, or in the small hours of the morning. Slaughter's party went to work. First they removed and buried the two renegades and dragged the dead horse out onto the range. They turned the wagon sideways on across the valley, made other preparations and then hid their horses, leaving a mule brought from the herd to make up the full number necessary for the wagon's team.

Taking sacks of lead from the wagon, Slaughter s party fixed them into place so they hung at the right of the wagon, each supported by a rope which went over the top and was fastened to the lower edge of the canopy on the left side. The weight tended to draw up on the canopy, but a single piece of rope held it in place, hiding the surprise waiting for Tanaka on his arrival.

At dawn Slaughter and Alvord, the latter wearing his spare pants and favoring the wounded leg, donned

the dead frei^ters' wolf-sldn jackets, draping them over their shoidders for easy removal. Then they started the fire and waited.

"You set in there. Bill?" Slaughter asked over his shoulder as the Apaches entered the valley.

*Tit as a flea and raring to go,"" came the reply.

Talking Bill must have been feeling the strain of waiting, tossing words aroimd wholesale in such a manner.

The tension might be easily imderstood. It seemed that Tanaka had brought his entire band along to collect the rifles. Which same made a tolerable fair handful of bad mean Apaches for a man to look at—even if he did know about Hernandez's little toy being in the wagon.

Out ahead of the rest rode Tanaka. He was a squat-built, tough-looldng Apache of middle-age and sitting a big pinto horse like he was part of it. If proof had been needed as to who attacked tiie Wells Fargo stage, Tanaka for one gave it. A shoulder holster containing a short-barreled Webley BuUdog revolver was strapped aroimd his stocky, brawny chest, and across his arm he carried one of the specially built twin-barreled ten-gauge shot-gxms Wells Fargo issued to its guards. Before him, across his horse's withers, hung a couple of medicine bags of fringed, beaded and decorated buckskin and inside would be tibe money from the stagecoach's bullion box.

Reaching down, Tanaka lifted the medicine ba^ from his horse and raised them into the air. He kept his eyes on the two white men as he rode slowly nearer. Slaughter and Alvord stood watching the Apaches come closer, a hundred yards, ninety, eighty, seventy-five. Soon it would be time to make their play, or they might be too late. They must not let the braves come closer than fifty yards.

Leading his men on to their destiny, Tanaka rode easily. The Apache contemplated his future, and a very fine future it seemed. His i>eople needed a leader to carry them along a war tr^ which would sweep the white-eyes from their land. No such leader was around, except Tanaka. Mangus Colorado had been long dead, miurdered by the white-eyed soldiers he so foolishly

trusted. Victorio and Cochise were turned to old women, fit orJy to sit by die council fires and talk of peace with the white-eyed brother. Even the witch man Geronimo hid Kke a skulking coyote down below the border instead of riding north and making his prophecies of war and victory.

So Tanaka decided he must be the one. That great leader who would come from their people and lead the brave-hearts to drive out the hated white man for all time.

He was pleased he had not killed the haM-breed who brought word to him of the white-eyed gun sellers. On seeing the man riding toward the camp, Tanaka held ofiE the pleasure until he heard the man-of-no-people speak. That had been a fortunate move. The two white-eyed gun sellers spoke of a way to obtain many repeating rifles and bullets. Such a simple way, and offering the added pleasmre of killing off a few more white-eyes.

It seemed the white-eyes were keeping their word. There stood the wagon and the men looked much as when he had met them by the small fire in the darkness a few nights ago. Tanaka decided to pay for the guns this time, in the hope of learning where he might buy more weapons. When the gun sellers were no longer useful to him, they would go the way of other white-eyes.

With the guns, Tanaka and his men would retiun to the reservation and gather the brave-hearts. There might be a few objections, but Tanaka doubted it. On an earlier visit to his people, an old-man chief objected to his ways. The chief had a beautiful daughter, a girl worth at least thirty good ponies—or had been imtil her father challenged Tanaka's will. They had staked her out and built a little fire on her face. Two yoxmg bucks who objected were taken, their eyeHds cut off, ears removed and tongues slit. After that nobody objected to anything Tanaka did.

Once he became supreme war chief, Tanaka swore he would never make the mistake so many other leaders made. They allowed too much freedom aroimd the coxmcil fire, too many people to have a say in what should be done. Tanaka did not intend to make so

foolish a mistake. When he rose to his greatness, he and he alone would make the decisions.

Suddenly one of tibe braves gave a yell and jumped his horse forward from the Apache ranks. By that time they had reached fifty yards' distance from the wagon and that young buck Apache had cause for his alarm. The two white-eyes looked all too familiar. A man did not forget the sight of someone who had come close to killing him; and the young buck was the one who escaped from the attempted ambush on the banks of the Came River.

Reaching his leader's side, the buck spat out a mouthful of fast-spoken Apache. In the guttural tone of his people, he told Tandca of his suspicions. A snarl twisted Tanaka's face as he looked at the men who had killed his brother, not a really important matter, and who it seemed had tricked him; which was, to Tanaka's mind, the most heinous and unforgivable act a man could make.

Tanaka brought his shotgun oflE his arm and opened his mouth to yell an order to charge. He left it too late.

While neither Slaughter nor Alvord recognized the buck or spoke any Apadae, they guessed what must have happened. So both Texans went for their guns. Fifty yards was well beyond anything like gunflghting range— no matter what Ned Buntline and other blood-and-thim-der writers of the dhay claimed. However, Slaughter had developed a technique or two for getting the most out of his Colt in the quickest possible time.

Drawing the Colt, Slaughter kept on lifting it until he held it shoulder high and at the end of an extended arm. At the same time, his left hand came up to grip and support the right. B^nchng his head forward. Slaughter took sight and toudbed oflF his first shot. By using that method, he added a good quarter of a second to his draw, but had the advantage of being able to use the gun's sights.

How well Slaughter used those sights showed when Tanaka, his shotgun only half raised and his orders unspoken, took a bullet between the eyes.

Alvord lacked Slaughters extra skill with a Colt 166

and, had he been given a choice, would have preferred to hold his rifle. That would have been out of the question, for Tanaka had the suspicious nature of a lobo wolf and might not have ridden in if he saw a man holding a rifle.

However, that many Apaches made a fair target, even for a fast-draw and instinctive-ahgnment shot. Al-vord cut down one man, though it cannot be truthfully claimed he tried to hit the man out of all the others.

Before any of the Apaches, who had never before seen a real fast gunfighter in action, could make a move, Slaughter and Alvord had fired tibeir shots and were bacliig to the cover of the wagon.

Inside the wagon, Talking Bill heard the shots and sprang to do his part. One slash of the knife he held cut tiSough the rope holding down the left side of the canopy. On the ri^t side, the lead weights, relieved of their anchor, crashed to the ground. The resulting pull on the ropes stripped the canopy off the wagon. In doing so, it left the way dear for Hernandez's Uttle toy.

It stood squat and evil on its tripod. The five-barreled, lightweight .45 caHber Catling gun Slaughter had taken from the possession of a Mexican bandido. Talking Bill leapt to the rear of the gun as soon as he slit the rope, gripped the firing handle and started to crank it around. TTie barrels revolved and flame spurted from each as they reached to tiie top of their circle.

At that range, faced with a crowd. Talking Bill did not need to take a careful aim. He turned the handle and swung the barrel so a spray of lead scythed across the Apaches* front. In the War Between the States Talking Bill had handled a captured Catling gun.

Half a dozen men went down, a couple of horses collapsed under their riders and all was confusion in the Apaches' ranks. With their chief dead, and their own medicine clearly as bad wrong as it could be, the brave-hearts took the only way out.