Twisted Hills (20 page)

It was daylight by the time the rope gave way against the sharp iron band circling the wooden wagon wheel. When the ranger felt the rope break, he made no changes in his stance. He watched the soldiers and the gunmen move about the campsite. By the time Dolan sent one of the soldiers to stand watch over him, it was too late.

Sam stared intently at the young soldier, and judged the distance from where he stood at the wagon wheel to the place where he knew the dun stood in the rocks. He saw the French rifle that the soldiers had taken from him. It was leaning against a rock near the young guard's side. He needed that rifle, first thing, he told himself. Yet he waited and watched until he felt the time was right to make his strike. When he saw the soldier's attention move away from him and out across the desert floor below, he knew he could wait no longer.

But just as he prepared to launch himself forward at the soldier, he felt the entire hillside tremble and sway beneath his feet. The tremor caused the young soldier to snap to attention and steady himself. Soldiers and gunmen around the campfire made remarks aloud as they staggered like drunkards. Knowing he might not get another chance, Sam didn't let the deep land tremors stop him; he leaped forward.

In one quick move, he knocked the soldier backward, grabbed the French rifle from against the rock and turned to make his run for the horses. Racing straight for the rocks where the dun stood, Sam heard someone by the campfire shout, “He's getting away!” But he didn't miss a step, not even as rifle and pistol fire erupted behind him.

As he streaked across the campsite, rifle in hand, guns firing behind him, in front of him, suddenly he heard the loud yelping and shouting of Apache warriors. They had sprung up on the hillside and come spilling down over rock and boulder like a swarm of hornets. Luckily, Sam veered around a large boulder toward the horses in time to hear three arrows whistle past him. He didn't slow down.

The soldiers and gunmen around the campfire wasted no time retaliating. They concentrated their gunfire on the rocky hillside above Sam, where warriors let out their war cries and fired at them on their way down, using rifle and bow. It was the chance he needed. He raced around a large boulder to where the dun and several of the soldiers' and gunmen's horses stood in a row, reined to a lariat line the soldiers had earlier strung from a tall rock to a thin single pine standing behind the large boulder.

Without slowing, Sam saw a young Apache warrior standing between him and the horses, drawing back the string on a bow. He only had time to veer a step to the side and hear the warrior's arrow whistle past him. Then, before the warrior could restring an arrow or even get out of his way, Sam charged through him. Knocking him aside with his rifle barrel, Sam slid to a halt at the rope line and hastily untied the dun and threw himself up into the saddle, rifle ready in hand. Along the line, horses whinnied and neighed and reared in place, having first been frightened by the earth rumbling and swaying beneath them, and now by the raging gun battle.

Around the boulder, the battle intensified. But it was their fight, not his, he told himself. In the dirt, the young Apache had collected himself and sprung to his feet. He raced toward Sam atop the dun with a knife poised and ready. But the dun bolted forward and climbed headlong onto the steep hillside, pitching a face full of loose rock and swirling dirt into the warrior's eyes. As the dun climbed and Sam hung on, the sound of a fierce gunfight exploded from the campsite behind him.

Just in time,
Sam told himself.

Yet, even as the dun dug its way up the hillside, bellying down and pawing with all four hooves, Sam heard Apaches yelling at the bottom of the hill. Then he heard their rifle shots explode and felt the bullets kick up dirt all around him and the struggling dun.

The dun went down under him, sliding backward on its belly, losing ground, and Sam rolled off its back onto the hillside and tried dragging it forward by its reins. Bullets sliced through the air close to his head. With Sam's weight off it, the dun managed to kick and paw its way back up onto its hooves in a spray of gravel and dust. The determined horse dug upward; Sam dug and tugged and pulled upward right along with it. With one hand holding the reins, Sam swung the French rifle around with his other hand and fired at two warriors below him.

The warriors heard the bullet slice past them. Seeing the dun digging up the hillside, and both man and animal growing farther up and away from them, the warriors turned away and ran the few feet to the row of spooked horses. The terrified horses stood rearing and kicking, trying to free themselves from the rope line.

“Earthquakes and Indians . . . ,” Sam murmured to himself. He shook his head. “What next?”

Twenty feet farther up, the hillside flattened a little, giving way to a gravelly bed of scree that stretched upward over a hundred feet and ran in an endless wide swath to either side. Sam looked back and saw the two warriors below, mounted now and forcing their horses up the hillside behind him. Knowing a straight climb would send him and the dun sliding and tumbling backward, he led the dun sidelong, cautiously, diagonally up through the loose shifting scree, each of his and the dun's steps sending loose streams of rock skittering down the hillside.

The dun grumbled as it fought for footing against the slippery gravelly talus. But the two continued upward, slowly, sidelong until at length both Sam and the dun stepped onto a solid narrow game path. Looking back down the hillside, Sam saw the two warriors negotiating the same trouble on the steep terrain. The fact that they were still there told him they wouldn't stop their pursuit unless he stopped them. But that had to wait for now, he told himself, hearing the battle rage down at the campsite. Any second other warriors could join these two.

He turned to climb atop the dun. As he did so, the earth beneath his feet trembled again, violently. He heard the bed of scree rattle; he saw it slide inches down the hillside on its own. The dun shied sidelong and stopped, its stance wide, trying to right itself on the face of an unsteady planet.

“We can't wait for this,” Sam said to the wary dun. He settled the horse as the world around them jarred to a halt. Then he swung up into the saddle, rifle in hand, batted his heels to the horse's dusty sides and rode away.

•   •   •

At midmorning Sam and the dun had topped the highest paths over the hill and descended the winding switchback trail down to the desert floor. As the path led him across a rocky stretch of broken stone and sand, Sam stopped the dun and stepped down from his saddle. He looked back at the trail dust rising and looming up the hills behind him. From the far sides of the hills, the sound of battle still resounded, but it had become less fierce, he noted to himself.

As he flipped open the saddlebags and grabbed the other gun he'd taken from the other dead scalp hunter, Bo Roden, he studied the hills in either direction. He hoped the Apaches might ride on and leave him. But he doubted they would. He checked Roden's big black-handled Colt, made sure it was loaded and shoved it down in his waist. From the dun's saddlebags, he took out a tin of bullets and filled his front trouser pockets. Somewhere in the heat of things, he vowed to himself that he was taking a holster belt off Segert's body—or the body of one of his gunmen—to make up for the one he'd lost somewhere as he'd been dragged around Agua Fría.

With the French rifle in one hand, he led the dun back and forth along the sandy ground until he found fresh tracks leading out onto the desert floor. He wasn't about to let Segert slip away from him now—not after all he'd gone through.

A half hour later, he had found the fresh tracks of many shod horses. Deciding the tracks could only belong to Lilith, Segert and his gunmen, he had followed them out and along the desert path to the trail back toward Agua Fría. From here to Agua Fría, if that was where they were going, as it appeared to be, he could trace their trip in his mind almost mile for mile. On this trail, it was a certain bet they would stop to water their horses and rest for a night or two at the old ruins where he himself had stayed.

“And that's where we're headed,” he said to the horse beneath him, as if the animal had inquired. The dun perked its ears at the sound of his voice.

Sam only rubbed the horse's warm withers and rode on.

Two miles farther Sam felt a bullet thump, ricochet and whine away, followed by a rifle blast on the trail behind him. In reflex, he batted his boots to the dun's sides and looked back as the horse bolted into a hard, fast pace. Behind him he saw the number had grown from two to three Apache warriors riding toward him. There could be others joining them anytime.

“Get us out of here,” he said down to the dun. He wasn't going to be shot at from behind if he could keep from it.

Another bullet fell to the ground behind him as Sam and the dun sped away. He had a move in mind, but he'd have to put more distance between himself and the three warriors in order to make it work. He flipped the rifle around and jammed it down into the saddle boot. He needed to get out of rifle range, he told himself. Lying low and forward on the dun's back, he batted his boots harder to the horse's sides, asking even more than the tiring animal had already given.

“Go, go, go!”
he shouted.

The dun found more somehow. The horse chuffed in protest as it sped along, its hooves digging deeper, stretching longer, dangerously longer; but Sam felt them moving away from the pursuers. He looked back, and the three warriors appeared smaller behind him. They were coming fast, but their ponies were no match for the dun.

When he felt he had all the ground he needed, slowing only a little, he veered the dun out away from the trail just below the crest of a low rise and swung wide into a world of sand and squatting cactus. As the horse made the swing, Sam sat back on the reins and brought it to a hard and treacherous halt, sand flying and swirling up around them both. The dun whinnied long and loud but backpedaled quickly against the bit in its mouth.

Before the horse had even completely stopped, Sam doubled the rein on one side and twisted the dun's head so sharply the animal starting toppling to the ground on its side. As it went down, Sam jerked the rifle from its boot and leaped from the saddle at just the right second. As the dun flopped onto its side, he pressed its neck down with his left hand, letting it know what he wanted.

With the horse stretched out in the sand, Sam laid the cocked rifle out across its back, across the saddle. He took aim on the warrior to his right as the three warriors topped the rise and came speeding down the trail, abreast in a rise of dust.

Whether or not the warriors saw that he and the dun had circled out and dropped to the dirt in a shooting position, he had no idea. He squeezed the trigger and let the hammer fall.

The warrior on his right flew twisted and limp from his horse's back and rolled to a halt in the dirt, his arms and legs spinning askew like broken pinwheels.

Sam heard the other two warriors shout as they separated and spread out. Sam levered a fresh round and took quick aim again. He'd caught them by surprise. He knew his advantage would run out fast. This was their land. There was no contesting it.

He squeezed the trigger again. Another warrior fell. But his horse sped on, the third warrior running along its far side, keeping the horse between him and Sam's rifle sights.

But Sam had seen this trick before. He turned on his belly, keeping the rifle to his shoulder as the two horses and the warrior sped along the trail. He waited, sighting in on the riderless horse, knowing the warrior was lying low on the other horse, just beyond it. At any second the warrior would either break forward past the lone horse or rein his horse down suddenly and drop back behind it. Either move he made, Sam's rifle would be ready. He would take aim and fire.

But Sam didn't have to take aim. He already had it. Watching the riderless horse, he saw the warrior's horse falling back quickly—saw its rump coming into view. He targeted it and let it slide farther back until the warrior came up into sight, his rifle raised and ready.

But in the split second it took for the warrior to draw a bead on him, Sam squeezed the trigger and felt the slam of the rifle's recoil against his shoulder. The shot resounded and echoed along the hill line. The third warrior flew away from his saddle, rolled along the trail and fell limp in a large puff of dust. The two horses sped along the trail and began to wind down as Sam stood bowed at the waist and looked all around.

As he searched back along the trail, he picked up the dun's reins and jerked them tight while he booted the horse's rump—not hard, just firm enough to let the dun know what he wanted. The dun rolled up onto its hooves in a spray of dust. The Ranger swung his right leg over the saddle and rose with the animal beneath him, his rifle in hand, ready to ride.

He looked around again as the horse shook itself and slung its head. Patting the dun's withers, Sam gave the animal a touch of his boots and put it forward at a walk along the empty trail.

“That was good,” he said to the horse. “Real good.” He relaxed in the saddle, let out a breath of relief and rode along slowly until they came to the fork in the trail that would lead them to the ruins. In the sky, the sun began to stand lower toward the western horizon. “I don't know about you,” he said to the dun. “It feels like it's been a long day to me.”

In the ruins, Mickey Galla sat on a cap rock atop a long mound of dirt and stone that had once been a lookout wall. He gazed almost blankly off into the shadows of evening. Holding a stone in either hand, he raised and lowered each in turn. His rifle was leaning against the stone he sat on, its barrel pointed at the sky. When Clyde Burke walked up quietly behind him, Galla didn't even turn toward him.

Burke shook his head, watching Galla raise and lower the heavy stones in his hands. An hour earlier Burke had looked up and seen the muscle-bound gunman lying on his back, pushing a much larger stone down from his chest with both hands. Now this.

Jesus.

“Hello the lookout,” Burke said, stepping up onto the mound.

Galla didn't answer.

“Hello the lookout, damn it,” Burke repeated in a stronger tone.

“I heard you. You don't have to yell,” Galla said, still raising and lowering the rocks without looking around at him.

“I didn't want to surprise you, cause you to drop something on your foot,” Burke said.

“I'm all right,” Galla said, still staring out as he continued lifting the stones, one on either side, sitting rigid except for his bending elbows. “What do you want?”

“What do I
want
?” Burke stopped and stood staring at him from five feet away. “I don't want nothing,” he said. “I was just talking to Segert. He said tell you to keep a close watch back along the trail him and the peddler gal rode in on.”

“I've got it covered,” Galla said. He stopped lifting the stones, stood up and stepped around the rock and sat back down, facing out in another direction.

Again with the stones,
Burke told himself, watching the broad-shouldered gunman begin his routine again. After watching for a moment, he had to say something.

“What do you get out of all this?” he asked, trying not to sound too critical.

“You have to ask?” Galla replied, his shoulders and upper arms bulging inside his shirt.

Burke shrugged; he didn't get it.

“Anyway,” he replied, “Segert said him and the woman is riding on, taking four riders with them. He wants us to wait here for Dolan and the ones he left back there.” He jerked his head in the direction of the distant hill line. “They're bringing the gold from the rifle deal.”

“Yeah? Why'd he not bring it?” Galla asked, still lifting the stones one after another in steady repetition.

“He ain't got it,” said Burke. He stepped in closer and lowered his voice. “Said Jones got his hands on it and hid it, bigger than hell.” He gave a short chuckle. “I
know
you remember Jones,” he added, referring to Galla's broken nose still healing from Sam's punch with a rifle butt.

Galla stopped and looked around at Burke with a flat stare.

“You being funny?” he asked.

Burke lifted his hands chest high in a show of peace.

“Segert said they heard gunfighting behind them coming across the desert last evening,” Burke said. “So, he says stay on our toes.”

Galla stared hard at him again.

“He didn't mean it how it sounds,” Burke put in. “He means expect anything.”

“I know that,” said Galla, going back to lifting stones. “What was the peddler gal so broken up about?” he asked.

Burke shook his head.

“Damned if I know,” he said. “She's done nothing but cry and sniffle ever since they rode in. Might be she's crying over Jones. Anytime I talk about him, she starts in again. What time she ain't crying, she's stropping a knife she carries. I decided it best that I shut up. So I did.”

Galla grinned a little to himself, gazing out along the desert trail.

“Do you remember how you did it?” he asked.

Burke stood staring at him for a moment, and finally said, “Go to hell, Mickey,” and turned to walk away. But then he stopped and looked back at Galla from the edge of the high lookout mound. “One more thing,” he said. “The woman warned us both to look out for a she-panther laid up here.”

“Do I look like I need
warning
to you?” Galla asked over his shoulder without looking around. He raised the stones high, flexing his shoulders and massive arms. He hurled the stones one at a time out off the top of the mound. The stones fell and hit the side of the dirt slope with solid thuds.

“Not to me, you don't,” Burke said; he shrugged. “What the hell do I know?”

•   •   •

On Sam's ride back to the trail, he'd swung past the bodies of the two warriors lying sprawled in the dirt. Dust had already settled in a dry hazy layer on their open eyes. On the ground near one of the warriors lay a battered telescope similar to the one Sam carried most times. Amazing how gear had a way of changing hands out here, he told himself.

Walking along toward the third body, he picked up a battered hat that had flown from the warrior's head as he fell from his horse's back. Sam turned the hat in his hands, realizing that he'd seen it before—early this morning when it had been sitting atop Daryl Dolan's head. He let out a breath and sailed the hat away and walked on to the third dead warrior.

Looking down in surprise, he saw his own Colt stuck down in a wide leather bullet belt circling the warrior's waist. The last he'd seen his Colt, it had been in the hand of Captain Silvero, he reminded himself. Stooping down, he picked up the Colt and unbuckled the bullet belt. There was little question how the gun battle had turned out. This one had plundered a hat and a pistol and hurried out to join his two fellow warriors as soon as the battle had swayed in their favor.

Buckling the bullet belt around his waist, Sam gazed back in the direction of the hills where the battle had been fought and wondered which way the rest of the Apaches had gone afterward. He checked the Colt and shoved it down behind the belt. He wasn't going to stay in one spot long enough to find out, he decided. Then he remounted the dun and rode on.

Yep, amazing . . . ,
he thought, feeling the bone-handled Colt lying hard against his belly, glad to have it back.

He rode on until deep in the afternoon, keeping the dun paced at an easy clip, letting the horse rest in the cooling breezes off the Blood Mountain Range. At a water hole in a stone tank just off the desert floor, he watered the dun and himself, and let the horse pick at clumps of dry, thin wild grass while he sat watching the fall of night on the long trail behind him.

The dun walked up and stuck its wet muzzle against his shoulder and chuffed.

“Sure,” he said as if in reply, “ready when you are.”

He dusted his trousers, capped a canteen and swung up into the saddle, rifle and canteen in hand. He turned the dun back onto the trail toward the ruins at a walk. An hour later, he chucked the horse up into an easy but steady gallop and did not stop again until he saw the hoofprints he followed lead off the desert floor and up in the direction of the ruins high on a rugged hillside.

When another hour had passed, Sam stopped and stepped down from the saddle and looked up at the black outline of the old earth-covered ruins standing against a purple starlit sky. He continued to follow the hoofprints until at a fork in the trail he swung right and took a thinner path around the ruins to a rear entrance he'd found the other day.

In the dark, he led the dun through the ancient empty marketplace he'd found, staying wide of the grown-over wall where he knew the she-panther nested above her domain. As they entered the long black tunnel through the hillside, the dun looked back across the wide marketplace and grumbled and muttered under its breath. Sam gave a short, easy jerk on its reins and walked on, leading the dun into the darkness.

But before he and the horse had gone fifty feet into the black tunnel, Sam froze when a lantern flared bright and sudden fifteen feet in front of them. He raised the rifle one-handed, but didn't get it cocked. He saw the broad shoulders of Mickey Galla as Galla leaped from a hollow in the side of the cavern tunnel and stabbed the butt of a rifle straight into his face.

•   •   •

“Damn, Mick, don't kill him!” said Burke as Sam slammed down against the stone floor.

Galla grabbed the dun's reins from Sam's hand.

“I didn't kill him,” Galla said, “not yet anyway. I want to break a few bones, snap a few fingers first.”

“No,” said Burke, “first thing is, we find out what happened back there—find out where's Dolan and the others.” He paused, then said, “Maybe find out who's carrying the gold for the rifles, if you get what I'm saying.”

“Yeah,” said Galla, “I get what you're—” His words stopped as the earth rumbled and swayed beneath them.

“What the hell?” said Burke, trying to steady himself on his feet. He looked up in the lantern light and saw a stream of dirt spill down from the ceiling. “Whoa! Is this place falling in on us?”

“I don't know,” Galla said. He swayed sidelong; so did the dun, getting spooked. Yet, in an instant, the earth made a hard thump. Galla tightened his hold on the dun's reins and settled it. With his free hand, he reached down and grabbed Sam by his collar. “But let's get the hell on out of here, just in case it is.” He reached down, picked up the French rifle Sam had dropped and stuck it into the dun's saddle boot. He snatched Sam's newly recovered Colt from his gun belt and held it out for Burke.

Burke hurried over, took the Colt and shoved it down into the waist of his trousers. With the glowing lantern held up before him, Burke took the lead. They left the chiseled-out tunnel the same way Sam and the dun had come in, Galla dragging Sam along the ground like a bundle of rags. When he heard Sam groan, he looked down and shook him vigorously by his collar.

“I hope that rifle butt hurt as bad as I meant for it to,” he said.

They stopped outside the tunnel and Galla dropped Sam flat on the ground at his feet.

“The hell are you fixing to do?” Burke asked, holding the lantern over closer.

“I'm fixing to wear a pair of boots out on this no-good ambushing son of a bitch,” Galla said. He drew a boot back to give Sam a kick.

But Burke stopped him.

“Hold it, Mick!” he said. “Ain't you the least bit curious how come Jones shows up instead of Dolan and the others?”

“No, not particularly,” Galla said.

“I am,” said Burke, stepping in front of Galla. “Dolan's supposed to be bringing the gold.”

“He's . . . not coming,” Sam groaned from the ground, a hand covering his bleeding nose.

Galla stepped around Burke and stood looming over the Ranger with his big fists clenched at his sides.

“How about anytime I want to hear from you, I'll crack another rib?” Galla said. He drew his boot back again.

“Jesus, Mick!” said Burke. “Leave him be, at least until we know what's going on out there. He could be pulling a whole band of 'paches on his trail.”

Galla settled and stepped out of Burke's way.

Burke set the lantern on a flat rock, reached down, pulled Sam up and propped him against a rock.

“You know the question,” Burke said, looming over him. “How come you're showing up instead of Dolan?”

“Like as not, Dolan's dead,” Sam replied, tilting his head back, holding his throbbing nose. “An Apache war party hit the camp. I took Dolan's hat from a dead warrior on my way here.”

The two stared at him.

“Too bad for Dolan,” said Burke. “What about the gold for the rifles? Are we supposed to believe the 'paches took it?”

“I don't know,” Sam said. “The last I saw it, I got up in the night and moved it.”

“What do you think?” Galla asked Burke as they stared down at Sam.

“So far, it's all sounding the same as what Segert said before he left,” Burke replied.

“It's the truth,” Sam said.

“What do you think?” Burke asked Galla.

“I think if we're not hearing the truth, we will be when I commence kicking him all around the clearing.” Galla stepped forward again and drew back a boot.

“Damn it, Mick!” said Burke. “Why do I keep having to say this? Let the man talk. You can kill him anytime.”

“I hid the gold up in a crevice,” Sam said, stalling for time, looking for a way off the spot. “The next morning Segert and some soldiers surrounded me. The Apaches hit before I told anybody where I'd hidden it.”

“Yeah?” said Galla. “How'd you get away? They just let you walk off over the hillside?”

Both gunmen chuckled.

“I'd already worked my hands loose,” Sam said. “When the Apaches struck, I made a run for the horses, got one and got away. This is the truth, so help me.”

“You believe him, Mick?” Burke asked. As he spoke, he cocked his rifle.

“Mostly,” Galla said, staring down at Sam. “Except I never knew an outlaw in my life who'd run off and leave gold behind, 'pache raid or not.”

“I'm having trouble with that part myself,” Burke said. He seemed to consider the matter, then said, “Go on, now, kick something loose. See if his story changes any.”

“It's about time,” Galla said. He stepped forward and drew back a boot.

“Hold it,” Sam said. “All right, you got me. I didn't leave the gold behind. I'm no fool. I brought it with me.”

The two gunmen looked at each other with slim grins of satisfaction.

“Give it up,” Galla said.

Sam sighed, blood running down from his nose, through his beard stubble, dripping off his chin. He shook his head.

“There's plenty for the three of us,” he said, bargaining now.

“But even more for
two
,” Galla put in.

“All right,” Sam said. “I hid it up there, right on the other side of the wall.” He gestured a nod toward the heavily vine-covered wall. “Just in case I ran into trouble here,” he added.