"Highest spot wins,” Deacon answered, accepting the challenge. “Figure Charlie owes Jericho a pain or two before we put him out of his misery."
"If the Chief hadn't dodged an inch, he'd ‘a’ been food for the turkey-buzzards.” Sam blasted a stream of tobacco at the cactus, marking his spot. “Hope he doesn't get his hair parted while he's down there."
"Shit, Sam, worry about your own. I'm sure partial to keeping mine.” Deacon McCallister scratched his red beard meditatively and complained softly again.
"I can smell myself. I wouldn't want an Indian to get downwind of me. I need a bath. I hope to hell Charlie gets back here soon."
"Ah, Deak, if the Comancheros are driving a herd of rustled cattle, Charlie figures they plan to sell or trade them to Mangas Colorado's band before they cross the border. He's not going to let up on this till we trap Jericho, one place or another. Better get used to your stink, ‘cause you're going to be wearin’ it for a while."
"Yea, I've got that.” Deacon closed his eyes against the sun, so still one could have mistaken him for asleep.
He muttered aloud, “But I've got a couple of questions, like what do the Indians have to trade for the rustled cattle, and more important, how in
hell
does Charlie plan to take down Jericho while we're surrounded by half the Apache nation?"
"Hostages,” Charlie Wolf answered Deacon's first question with disgust. “White women—all but one are trussed up in a tent. One of them refused Okiah, the medicine man, so he gave her to the tribes. They've got her tied outside like a dog, handy for any buck passing to climb on."
"Damn shame; we probably ought to put her out of her misery.” Samuel frowned at the image. He'd seen enough hostage survivors to know that this one wouldn't want to live.
"Not a decision for you to make,” Deacon warned him; his former calling sometimes influenced the few convictions he still held. “Just make sure the medicine man gets in the way of a bullet when we go in. I'd hate for her abuse to go unavenged."
"We're not going in,” Charlie corrected them. “
I'm
going in tonight, alone. Be ready with those horses, Sam. Deacon, cover me from above. I'll be bringing the women out the back way."
"What back way? There is no back way; that's why the Indians put their camp here."
Charlie nodded at the cliff they'd peered over earlier in the day. “I'll be going in the back way."
There was no argument to be made. Charlie Wolf did things his way. If they objected, he still did things his way.
Charlie cut through the back of the tent wall and freed the four white women inside, shoving them out the back slit that he'd made. He hesitated. He'd planned on leaving the one at the tent's side. She was the only one who would be missed before morning. But he'd expected to find an Indian guard who would need to be silenced inside.
Hell, the sentry's outside with number five. Change of plans.
The guard would wake the camp when he came back inside and saw the captives gone.
Charlie recognized the Arapaho who was announcing his pleasure loudly enough to wake the sleepers surrounding the tent. Charlie wanted to cut his throat for that reason alone.
The woman was silently enduring the assault when Charlie ducked out of the tent; she barely looked up.
"Come back later,” her Indian abuser grunted in Arapaho at Charlie, seeing just one more Kiowa roaming the camp, waiting his turn on the woman.
The guard was on his knees, mounting her like a dog, he had the hem of her skirt pushed around her shoulders and her rump exposed. The woman looked with dull eyes at Charlie, expecting, he supposed, that he would climb on next.
"Long time no see, Descartes,” Charlie greeted the sentry in Kiowa, and then added in perfect English. “You always were a pig."
Descartes opened his mouth to yell a warning, but the woman reared up, her dress billowing over his head, blinding him for the moment. Charlie had the brave on the ground and his throat cut before he could make a sound.
He sliced through her bonds and motioned her to the back of the tent, dragging the Indian's body into the spot she'd occupied. Unless another brave got randy before the night ended, it would appear that the woman was sleeping and they'd have a good head start.
Charlie had to fight off the frantic women, repeating in English twice, “I'm here to get you out."
"I can't climb,” one woman advised him.
"All right,” Charlie agreed and set the others on the trail, carefully showing the next in line the handholds after starting each up the cliff. When the fourth woman started the climb, Charlie swung in behind her, ignoring the woman on the ground. She frantically climbed behind him.
They crawled up the cliff front, following the night trail he'd left. He let the fifth woman pass him and erased evidence of their presence. Deacon joined them halfway, helping the silent women as they clambered over the ledge and onto a plateau of scrub pine.
The first woman across the ledge helped Deacon with the rest. When Charlie came over the lip and stood before them, she spoke to both men.
"I'm not going back.” The voice of the fifth woman was surprisingly strong—firm and determined for one who had survived such an ordeal.
Neither Deacon nor Charlie answered her, but the red-haired bounty hunter turned and reached as though to stop her from leaving. She spoke again and his hand dropped to his side.
"My family thinks I'm dead. It's best that way. Tell them Elizabeth Grace Souter is dead. Tell my family that I died in an Apache Indian encampment in 1881."
When they reached the top, where Samuel waited with the remuda of horses, Elizabeth Souter was gone. Deacon greeted her absence with foul words that were ignored by the other two bounty hunters.
The rescued women looked at the cursing giant, afraid that they had exchanged captivity with savages for maniacs who now held them captive.
It was out of their way, but the bounty hunters took two days from their hunt to accompany the women to safety.
Buffalo Creek was closer to where they'd stashed their prisoners, so they took the women to the small Texas village rather than the county seat, Flat Rock.
Hiram Potter was the local peace officer and could be counted on to see that they got the attentions of a doctor before they were taken home.
While they were there, the sheriff sent a rider to Eclipse to wire the relatives.
"You say that there was a fifth woman who made it out with you?” Potter asked.
"She said to tell her kin she was dead. I expect she is by now.” Sam McCallister looked uncomfortable at what he knew about her circumstances.
Sheriff Potter's eyebrows rose sharply, and he nodded in understanding. “Just as well she didn't come back,” was all he said. Then he turned his gaze to Charlie Wolf.
"How is it you came across the Indian camp? The entire U.S. cavalry under that fellow Buell has been quartering this area of Texas looking for the Apache and renegade Comanche tribes."
Charlie Wolf stood at the window, staring at the passing women on the street ... white women who were afraid of him. He had fucking on his mind and hadn't thought of much else for days. He sighed and turned back into the room. He really didn't want to talk to the sheriff.
Deacon answered, “When we picked up the wanted posters in Abilene, there was a story making the rounds that Jericho is in this area, moving toward Mexico. The bankers and cattlemen have finally slapped a decent reward on his head, and it looks like he's hightailing it to south of the border.
"Charlie Wolf is the best tracker in the territory. While we were running down some of the trash we carried handbills on, we crossed fresh pony tracks."
Charlie turned back to stare outside. He watched two women who had stopped to gossip across the street. One was short and plump, the other tall and angular. Both caused an ache in his groin, reminding him that his cock needed the attentions of a whore. Grimly, he turned back into the room, focusing on the conversation in the sheriff's office, instead of the women.
"We threw the assholes in a cave and blocked the opening so we could follow the tracks. It wasn't Jericho, but I guess these ladies will benefit from our mistake,” Sam McCallister assured the sheriff.
"Their families will be grateful to you boys—probably some money in it, if you've a mind to put in for it.” Hiram Potter looked curiously at the half-Kiowa McCallister cousin.
Charlie bore the scrutiny with stoic disregard. He knew what the lawman saw. He was as tall as his cousins. But his skin was the color of teak, blue-black hair fell down his back, and his high, slanting cheekbones proclaimed him Indian.
His nose, once a straight blade, had been broken too many times and was now a misshapen lump on his face. Stitch marks bisected his right eyebrow, made a trail down his right cheek, and crossed his chin. The scar was a light color against the dark bronze of his face.
He did nothing to deny his Indian blood or reassure those he did business with, dressing to please his Kiowa side. He wore soft deerskin pants and shirt, lacing his high leather moccasins from the top of his feet up to his knees.
A colorful breechcloth hung from his hips, covering his deerskin pants at the groin area. He wore a black wide-brimmed hat that shaded his face, concealing any expression that might be surprised from him.
On the rare occasion when he took off the hat, only his light gray eyes indicated his mixed blood.
Charlie Wolf fingered the vicious scratch marks that covered his cheek. “Yea, they were real happy to see me."
Not one to mince words, Sheriff Potter responded, “Well, damn, McCallister, you dress like an Indian, and you wear your hair like an Indian. Hell, you even walk like an Indian. What did you think the women were going to do?"
Once the Buffalo Creek business was complete, the three bounty hunters retraced their trail to where they'd stashed six bodies and two live prisoners.
The bank robbers they'd left handcuffed to each other and barricaded in a flat cave, were down to a few swallows of water and glad to see the McCallisters return.
"Never thought I'd be glad to see you bastards.” The man who had shot his friend in the back over a beer stank of human waste and sweat. “You are not the law. You can't arrest us."
Charlie made him jog beside the horses as they carried their cargo to Flat Rock. “Not fit to mount a horse of mine.” The other man, the more dangerous of the two, ran beside him, shackled to him with chains.
"Shut the fuck up, Dawson. If I didn't have to drag your sorry ass all the way to Flat Rock, I'd kill you myself just to get some quiet.” The buckskin that this man had been riding followed in the remuda of horses the bounty hunters led.
The bodies of the dead had not fared so well and had ripened under the unrelenting Texas sun.
Loaded down with rotting corpses and towing two prisoners, the three bounty hunters headed for Flat Rock.
"Explain to me how getting the white women loose helps us catch Jericho.” Sam was the youngest of the trio. His tone was belligerent, knowing that he hadn't figured something obvious.
Deacon answered, “Jericho's beef won't be going to the Indians. We only left the Apaches a few horses to trade for close to two hundred head of cattle."
"This renegade, Mangas Colorado—is he a relative?” Sam was only half teasing. Charlie frequently visited the remnants of Gray Wolf's Kiowa band in hostile Indian camps. He remained friends with those he'd ridden with for three years following his father's death.
Charlie growled, “Mangas Colorado is a
Mimbreno
Apache. Not as fierce as the Kiowa."
"So does that make the two of you friends, or relatives? You've been talking about getting an Indian squaw. I don't think you're going to be too popular with your in-laws the next time you have a reunion."
Charlie had been negotiating for a wife with one of the Kiowa riding with Mangas Colorado.
"Mangas is no fool. He knows I won't point any army scouts his way. As far as Jericho, he'll use that coyote as long as he can. If he were not desperate, the Comancheros would already be dead."
Charlie regretted alienating the Kiowa tribesman before he could take possession of his squaw. Woman finding was an arduous task. He motioned at the fifteen Indian ponies that were in their caravan.
"Looks like the cavalry have been running them into the ground.” Instead of the sturdy, well-tended stock he expected to steal from the Apache chief to trade back for a woman, these animals were the best of a worn and old lot. Sam had hazed the rest, chasing them until they ran off.
It didn't matter now, because by taking the white hostages, he'd be
persona non grata
with the Indians for a while. Charlie sighed, only half listening to his cousin.
He'd thought about taking the fifth hostage as his woman.
Hell, I'd have been doing her a favor.
The sight of Descartes mounting her had stayed in his head, stirring needs he usually had under control.
Deacon changed the subject, drawing him back from the dark memory. “How come three different tribes are holed up together in that canyon? Something big looks to be brewing."
"...Army troops are arriving to force the Apaches onto the reservation at San Carlos. Figure Mangas Colorado is waiting for Victorio to arrive before they join publicly to disagree with the government's plan."
He stroked the scar on his cheek as he contemplated the continued struggle for dominance between the two halves of his blood.
To Sam's question he answered absently, “Jericho's going to have to push those cows all the way to Mexico. It'll be a lot easier to follow his trail from the Indian camp and pick off the nighthawks herding stolen cattle than if his band is riding fast, carrying human hostages on a remuda of fresh horses."
Sam frowned and asked, “We going to tell the army where Mangas Colorado is hiding?"
Charlie's flat gray eyes held his when he asked, “Think you can find this spot again?"
"Hell, no.” Sam relaxed and nodded.
"Then I guess you don't have anything to tell."