81
yards ahead. It was funny, because he was looking
at half-naked, armed Apaches and he could still
hear Billy Guay’s laughter coming from behind.
Then the laughter stopped. Hyde groaned, “Oh,
my God!” and in the instant spurred his mount
and yanked rein to wheel off to the left. There was
the report of a heavy rifle and horse and rider
went down.
Angsman’s arms were jerked suddenly behind his
back and he saw three Apaches race for the fallen
Hyde as he felt himself dragged over the rump of
the mare. He landed on his feet and staggered and
watched one warrior dragging Hyde back toward
them by one leg. Hyde was screaming, holding on
to the other leg that was bouncing over the rough
ground.
Billy Guay had jerked his arms free and stood a
little apart from the dozen Apaches aiming bows
and carbines at him. His hands were on the pistol
butts, with fear and indecision plain on his face.
Angsman twisted his neck toward him, “Don’t
even think about it, boy. You don’t have a chance.”
It was all over in something like fifteen seconds.
Hyde was writhing on the ground, groaning and
holding on to the hole in his thigh, where the heavy
slug had gone through to take the horse in the belly.
Angsman stooped to look at the wound and saw
that Hyde was holding the map, pressed tight to his
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leg and now smeared with blood. He looked up and
Delgadito was standing on the other side of the
wounded man. Next to him stood Sonkadeya.
✯ ✯ ✯
Delgadito was not dressed for war. He wore a
faded red cotton shirt, buttonless and held down by
the cartridge belt around his waist; and his thin face
looked almost ridiculous under the shabby widebrimmed hat that sat straight on the top of his
head, at least two sizes too small. But Angsman did
not laugh. He knew Delgadito, Victorio’s war lieutenant, and probably the most capable hit-and-run
guerrilla leader in Apacheria. No, Angsman did not
laugh.
Delgadito stared at them, taking his time to look
around, then said, “Hello. Angs-mon. You have a
cigarillo?”
Angsman fished in his shirt pocket and drew out
tobacco and paper and handed it to the Indian. Delgadito rolled a cigarette awkwardly and handed the
sack to Angsman, who rolled himself one then
flicked a match with his thumbnail and lighted the
cigarettes. Both men drew deeply and smoked in silence. Finally, Angsman said, “It is good to smoke
with you again, Sheekasay.”
Delgadito nodded his head and Angsman went
on, “It has been five years since we smoked together at San Carlos.”
You Never See Apaches . . .
83
The Apache shook his head slightly. “Together we
have smoked other things since then, Angs-mon,”
and added a few words in the Mimbre dialect.
Angsman looked at him quickly. “You were at
Big Dry Wash?”
Delgadito smiled for the first time and nodded
his head. “How is your sickness, Angs-mon?” he
asked, and the smile broadened.
Angsman’s hand came up quickly to his side,
where the bullet had torn through that day two
years before at Dry Wash, and now he smiled.
Delgadito watched him with the nearest an
Apache comes to giving an admiring look. He said,
“You are a big man, Angs-mon. I like to fight you.
But now you do something very foolish and I must
stop you. I mean you no harm, Angs-mon, for I like
to fight you, but now you must go home and stop
this being foolish and take this old man before the
smell enters his leg. And, Angs-mon, tell this old
man what befalls him if he returns. Tell him the
medicine he carries in his hand is false. Show him
how he cannot read the medicine ever again because of his own blood.” For a moment his eyes
lifted to the heights of the canyon wall. “Maybeso
Angsman offered no thanks for their freedom,
gratitude was not an Apache custom, but he said,
“On the way home I will impress your words on
them.”
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“Tell my words to the old man,” Delgadito
replied, then his voice became cold. “I will tell the
young one.” And he looked toward Billy Guay.
Angsman swallowed hard to remain impassive.
“There is nothing I can say.”
“The mother of Sonkadeya speaks in my ear,
Angs-mon. What could you say?” Delgadito turned
deliberately and walked away.
Angsman rode without speaking, listening to
Hyde’s groans as the saddle rubbed the open rawness of his wound. The groans were beginning to
erase the scream that hung in his mind and repeated
over and over, Billy Guay’s scream as they carried
him up-canyon.
Angsman knew what he was going to do. He’d
still have his worn saddle and old-model carbine,
but he knew what he was going to do. Hyde’s leg
would heal and he’d be back the next year, or the
year after; or if not him, someone else. The Southwest was full of Hydes. And as long as there were
Hydes, there were Billy Guays. Big talkers with big
guns who ended up lying dead, after a while, in a
Mimbre rancheria. Angsman would go back to
Fort Bowie. Even if it got slow sometimes, there’d
always be plenty to do.
3 ‚
The Colonel s Lady
Mata Lobo was playing his favorite game. He
stretched his legs stiffly behind him until his moccasined feet touched rock, and then he pushed,
writhing his body against the soft, sandy ground,
enjoying an animal pleasure from the blistering sun
on his naked back and the feel of warm, yielding
earth beneath him. His extended hand touched the
stock of the Sharps rifle a few inches from his chin
and sighted down the barrel for the hundredth
time. The target area had not changed.
Sixty yards down the slope the military road
came into view from between the low hills, cutting
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a sharp, treacherous arc to follow the bend of Banderas Creek on the near side and then to continue,
paralleling the base of the hill, making the slow climb
over this section of the Sierra Apaches. Mata Lobo’s
front sight was dead on the sudden bend in the road.
He flexed his finger on the trigger and sighted
again, taking in the slack, then releasing it. Not long
now. In a few minutes he should hear the faint, faraway rattle of the stage as it weaved across the plain
from Rindo’s Station at the Banderas Crossing. Six
miles across straight, flat desert. And then louder—
with a creaking—a grinding, jingling explosion of
leather, wood, and horseflesh as the Hatch &
Hodges Overland began the gradual climb over the
woody western end of the Sierra Apaches, and then
to drop to another white-hot plain that stretched the
twelve miles to Inspiration, the end of the line. The
vision in the mind of Mata Lobo shortened the
route by a dozen miles.
Every foot of the road was known to him. Especially this sudden bend at the beginning of the
climb. He had scouted it for weeks, timing the
stage runs, watching the drivers from his niche on
the hill. And through his Apache patience he
learned many things.
At the bend, the driver and the shotgun rider
were too busy with the team to be watching the
hillside. And the passengers, full and comfortable
after a meal at Rindo’s, would be suddenly jolted
‚
The Colonel s Lady
87
into hanging on with the sway of the bouncing
Concord as it swept around the sharp curve, with
no thought of looking out the windows.
It was the perfect site for ambush, Apache style.
Mata Lobo was sure, for he had done it before.
And then it began. He raised himself on his elbows and cocked his ears to the sound that was still
a whisper out on the desert. Two miles away. Then
louder, and louder; then the straining pitch to the rattling clamor and the stage was starting up the grade.
The Apache pivoted his rifle on the rocks in front
of him, making sure of free motion, and then he
lined up again the five brass cartridges arranged on
the ground near his right hand.
When he looked back to the road the lead horses
were coming into view. He waited until the stage
was in full sight, slowed down slightly in the middle of the road, and then he fired, aiming at the
closer lead horse.
The horse’s momentum carried it along for the
space of time it took the Apache to inject another cartridge and squeeze off at the other lead animal. The
horses swerved against each other, still going, then
four pairs of legs buckled at once, and eight other
pairs raced on, trampling the fallen horses, but to be
tripped immediately in a wild confusion of thrashing
legs and screaming horses and grinding brakes.
Next to the driver the shotgun rider was throwing his boot against the brake lever when the coach
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jackknifed and twisted over, gouging into the dirt
road, sending up a thick cloud of dust to cover the
scene.
As the dust began to settle, Mata Lobo saw one
figure lying next to the overturned Concord, his
face upturned to the two right-side wheels, still
turning slowly above him. There was a stir of motion farther ahead as a figure crawled along the
ground, got to his feet, stumbled, pulled himself
frantically across the road in a wild, reeling motion
that finally developed into a crouched run. He was
almost to the shelter of the creek bank when the
buffalo gun screamed again across the hillsides.
The impact threw him over the bank to lie facedown at the edge of the creek.
He aimed the rifle again at the overturned stage
in time to see the head appear above the door opening. Mata Lobo’s finger almost closed on the trigger, but he hesitated, seeing shoulders appear and
then the rest of the body.
The man stopped uncertainly, looking around,
cocking his ear to the silence. An odd-looking little
man, fat and frightened, but not sure of what to be
afraid. He clutched a small black case that singled
him out as a drummer of some kind. He clutched it
protectingly, shielding his means of existence.
When his gaze swept the hillside, perhaps he saw
the glint of the rifle barrel, but if he did, it meant
nothing to him. There was no reaction. And a sec-‚
The Colonel s Lady
89
ond later it was too late. The .50-caliber bullet tore
through his body to spin him off the coach.
Again silence settled. This time, longer. The
wheels had stopped moving above the sprawled
form of the guard.
Still Mata Lobo waited. His eyes, beneath the red
calico headband, were nailed to the overturned
Concord. He hadn’t moved from his position. He
sat stone still and waited. Watched and waited and
counted.
He counted three dead: the driver, a passenger,
and the guard who was in the road next to the
coach—he was undoubtedly dead. But the run usually carried more passengers, at least two more, and
that bothered the Apache.
Others might still be inside the coach, dead,
wounded, or just waiting. Waiting with a cocked
pistol. Either way Mata Lobo had to find out. He
hadn’t laid this ambush for sport alone. He needed
bullets, and a shirt, and any glittering trinkets that
might catch his eye. But it was the bullets, more
than anything else, that finally made him raise himself and slip quietly down the side of the hill.
His Apache sense led him in a wide circle, so that
when he approached the Concord, Banderas Creek
was behind him. He walked half crouched, slowly,
with short toe-to-heel strides, catlike, a coiled
spring ready to snap. Mata Lobo was a Chiricahua
Apache, well schooled in the ways of war.
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He passed the baggage strewn about the ground
without a side glance and dropped to his hands and
knees as he came to the vertical wall that was the top
of the coach. He touched the baggage rack lightly,
then, pressing his ear against the smooth surface of
the coach top, he remained fixed in this position for
almost five minutes. Long, silent minutes.
He was about to rise, satisfied the coach was unoccupied, when he heard the sharp, scraping sound
from within. Like someone moving a foot across a
board.
He froze again, pressing close, then slowly
placed his rifle on the ground beside him and lifted
a skinning knife from a scabbard at his back.
He inched his body upward until he was standing, placed a foot on a rung of the baggage rack,
and pushed his body up until his head was above
the coach. He was confident of his own animal
stealth. A gun could be waiting, but he doubted it.
Only a fool would have moved, knowing he was
just outside. A fool, or a child, or a woman.
Nor was he wrong. The woman was crouched
against the roof of the coach, her back arched
against the smooth surface, holding with both hands
a long-barreled pistol that pointed toward the rear
window. She was totally unaware of the Apache staring at her a few feet away, lying belly down on the
side of the coach. When she saw him it was too late.
Revolver went up as knife came down, but the
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The Colonel s Lady
91
knife was quicker and the heavy knob on the handle
smashed against her knuckles to make her drop the
revolver. Dark, vein-streaked arms reached in to
drag her up through the door window. She struggled
in his g
rasp, but only briefly, for he flung her from
the coach and leapt down to the road after her.
She sat in the road dust and eyed him defiantly,
her lips moving slightly, her eyes not wavering from
his face. She screamed for the first time as she rose
from the dust, but it was not a scream of fear.
She was almost to her feet when the Apache’s
hand tightened in her hair to fling her off balance
back to the ground. He stood over her and looked
down into the dust-streaked face. Then he turned
back to the stagecoach.
She watched as he rummaged about the wreckage,
sitting motionless, knowing that if she tried to run
he would probably not hesitate to kill her. Her
hands moved to her hair and unhurriedly brushed
back the blond wisps that had been pulled from the
tight chignon at the nape of her neck. Her hands
moved slowly, almost unconsciously, and then down
and in the same lifeless manner brushed the heavy
dust from the green jersey traveling-dress, as if her
movements were instinctive, not predetermined.
But her eyes were not lifeless. They followed the
Apache’s every move and narrowed slightly into
two thin lines that contrasted sharply with her soft
face, like fire on water. Her body moved from habit
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while her mind showed through her eyes.
She was afraid, but only loathing was on the surface. The fear was the stabbing weight in her breast,
an emotion she had learned to control. She could
have been in her late twenties, but her chin and the
lines near her eyes told of at least six additional years.
Every now and then the Apache would glance
back in her direction, but he found her always in
the same position. She watched him bend over the
still form of the guard lying on his back, and her
eyes blinked hard as the Indian brought the stock
of his rifle down on the man’s forehead, but she did
not turn her head.
There was no doubt now that all were dead. Mata
Lobo was a thorough man, for his people had been
slaying the blanco since the first war club smashed
through the cumbersome armor of the conquistadors. His deeds were known throughout Apacheria;
they whispered the name of the bronco Chiricahua
with the bloodlust ever in his breast. There would