Ralph Compton Doomsday Rider Read online

  “False prophet!” another woman yelled. “We should stone you for being the devil’s harlot.”

  “Them folks is sure getting all riled up,” Charlie said, feeding tobacco into the bowl of his pipe. “And I can’t say as I blame them.”

  He looked to Fletcher for comment, but right then the gunfighter had other, more pressing concerns.

  He was down to three shells for his rifle and a dozen cartridges in the loops of his gun belt for his Colts. Charlie wasn’t in much better shape.

  “I got five in the rifle and that’s it,” he said, his face gloomy.

  “The Apaches tested us today,” Fletcher said, “making us use up our ammunition. By this time they must know we don’t have many shells left.”

  The Chosen One’s piercing screams rang out again across the night.

  Charlie swallowed hard. “Just make sure you save one for yourself, Buck. Them’s words of wisdom.”

  Both their horses were in the room with them, standing heads down and miserable, Charlie’s mustang bleeding from a stray round that had burned its shoulder.

  Now Fletcher led the horses outside and staked them on a patch of grass at the bottom of the cliff that was relatively clear of snow. There was a small lean-to room at the northern end of the pueblo that had a good solid roof, and he laid both saddles in there.

  When he came back inside, Charlie peered out at the gathering darkness and asked, “How long can he keep that up?”

  The Chosen One’s shrill shrieks had been shredding the fabric of the day since late afternoon. He had earlier interspersed his screams with pleas to the Apaches to repent and accept Christ. But his words were now an incoherent babble as pain that was beyond pain seared into his brain and set aflame every tormented nerve in his body.

  “A long time, Charlie,” Fletcher said, looking down at the smoke he was rolling. He lit the cigarette and added, “I reckon he’ll scream like that all night. I’d say them young bucks are having themselves a good ol’ time.”

  Charlie spat. “Damned Apaches. They got no consideration for a man’s sleep.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Fletcher saw a flicker of movement. He turned, glanced out the window, and saw Estelle run across the snow toward the valley and the Apache camp.

  Without a word he pushed aside the blanket hanging on the doorway and ran outside, ignoring Charlie’s startled cry of protest.

  Awkward and heavy in her pregnancy, Estelle was stumbling across the snow, her skirt held high as she did her best to run.

  “Wait!” Fletcher yelled.

  The girl quickly glanced over her shoulder, her face pale and frightened, but she did not slow down.

  Fletcher pounded after her, his long legs closing the distance fast. He caught up with Estelle and grabbed her by the shoulders, bringing her to a halt.

  “Let me alone!” the girl yelled, struggling to get out of his grip. “I must go to him. The Chosen One needs me.”

  Fletcher spun the girl around and brought her face close to his own.

  “They’ll kill you too,” he said, his voice low and urgent. “There’s nothing you can do to help him now.”

  Estelle tried desperately to twist out of Fletcher’s grasp on her shoulders, her eyes wild, but he held her all the more tightly, her huge belly pressing against him.

  “Estelle,” Fletcher said, “you heard those screams. You don’t want to see him, not the way he is now.”

  “Let me go!” the girl shrieked. She opened her mouth, showing small white teeth, lowered her head, and clamped down hard on Fletcher’s wrist.

  The girl’s teeth were sharp and they bit deep, and Fletcher let out an agonized “Ow!”

  “Let me go!” Estelle yelled. And again her open mouth hungrily sought his wrist.

  Fletcher shook his head and muttered under his breath, “I guess there’s a first time for everything.”

  He let go of the girl’s shoulder, drew back his right fist a couple of inches, and clipped her on the chin. Estelle’s blue eyes flared wide in shocked surprise; then she went limp and Fletcher caught her in his left arm before she fell.

  Fletcher glanced down at the girl’s face and felt an instant pang of guilt. “Now you’re beating up on pregnant ladies, Fletcher,” he whispered to himself. “Maybe next you’ll start kicking newborn puppy dogs.”

  But Fletcher had no time to explore those melancholy thoughts further, because there was a sudden scuffle of moccasined feet near the base of the hill, and a piece of the darkness moved.

  His gun flashed into his hand and Fletcher stepped backward in the direction of the pueblo, never taking his eyes off the now-shifting curtain of the dark.

  Unlike many plains tribes, notably the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Comanche, the Apache were not keen on fighting at night, believing a warrior killed in the darkness was doomed to wander eternity in an endless gray mist.

  But if put to it, they would. And did.

  Here were a man and woman alone and isolated on the flat before the pueblo, and that was too good an opportunity to pass up.

  The blackness moved again and Fletcher made out the shape of an Apache stepping warily toward them, his sturdy bowed legs testing the ground in front of him with each step.

  Estelle lying limp and unconscious in his arm, Fletcher raised his Colt and fired, the snow around him flashing orange.

  The Apache melted back into the darkness, and Fletcher did not know if he’d hit the man or not. A rifle crashed off to his left and he fired at the muzzle glare, then fired a second time. Once again he did not know if he’d scored a hit.

  Feet pounded behind him and Fletcher spun, his gun coming up fast. It was Charlie.

  The old man took in the situation in an instant and asked, “What happened to her?”

  “I socked her,” Fletcher said.

  “Oh,” Charlie said, “for a minute there I thought something bad had happened to her.”

  Covered by Charlie’s rifle, Fletcher carried the unconscious girl back to their room in the pueblo. A few discipies started to crowd around, but Charlie shooed them away. “There are Apaches out there,” he said.

  The Chosen One’s people had learned the terror of the Apache and it had been a hard, bitter lesson. Now they ran back into their rooms, a few of the men wielding hoes and shovels as weapons.

  But the Apaches had returned to the night and none came near the pueblo.

  As gently as he could Fletcher laid Estelle on a mat in the corner of the room. The girl’s eyes flew open and she said groggily, “Wha . . . what happened?”

  “You fell,” Fletcher said, his voice even, “and hit your chin on a rock buried in the snow.”

  The girl tried to rise to her feet. “I must go to him,” she gasped.

  Fletcher gently but firmly pushed her back onto the rug. “You’re not going anywhere,” he said. “There are Apaches out there and they just did their level best to kill both of us.”

  Out in the darkness where the valley lay, the Chosen One screamed again, and he kept on screaming until he could scream no longer and his terrible shrieks finally gurgled into silence.

  Estelle covered her ears with her hands and sat rocking back and forth, moaning wordless sounds, a primitive ritual for the dead as ancient as woman’s grief.

  Fifteen

  Before first light the two dozen surviving disciples buried their dead at a distance from the pueblo in a patch of open ground. The earth was winter-hard and difficult to dig, and of necessity the corpses were buried shallow, but hopefully, the people told each other, deep enough to deter scavengers.

  Fletcher and Charlie stood guard with their rifles as men, women, and children lingered at the gravesides and did their best to pray, the light from a dozen lanterns casting pools of yellow and orange around their feet as falling snow, driven by an awakening wind, frosted their bent heads.

  When the prayers were done and the burying over, one of the men turned to the others and said, “We must leave this place as soon as we can, b
ecause there is only death here and the honeyed words of the false prophet.”

  A ripple of agreement went through the mourners, and another heavily bearded man said, “Listen, all of you: Gather up what food you can and be ready to move out at daybreak.”

  “Where will we go?” a woman asked, a couple of youngsters clinging to her skirt, wide-eyed and scared since they had been unable to sleep away their fears.

  “North,” the bearded man said. “We will walk toward the soldiers.”

  Charlie took a step toward the crowd, his rifle in the crook of his buckskinned arm. “You won’t make it,” he said. “If a big snow doesn’t get you, the Apaches will.”

  “The Apaches will get us if we stay here,” the bearded man said, and again the rest of them voiced their agreement.

  “Well, I can’t argue with that,” Charlie said. “But even if’n it’s a slim one, which it is, you’ve got a better chance of getting out of this alive if you stay right here.”

  “You brought this misfortune down on us,” a woman with a thick blond braid hanging to her hips said. “Why should we listen to you?”

  “Because,” said Fletcher, “we’re the only men here with rifles.”

  The bearded man stepped belligerently toward Fletcher. “Maybe we’ll just take those guns from you,” he said, his fists clenching.

  “Mister, try that and I swear to God you’ll be digging more holes for dead men,” Fletcher said, his voice flat and cold.

  Estelle walked in front of Fletcher. She was wearing a pale blue dress embroidered with small white flowers, and she’d thrown a shawl around her shoulders. Her thick hair was pulled back in a bun, and in the lantern light a bruise showed black on her chin.

  The girl threw up her arms for quiet as the disciples crowded around her, angry and spoiling for a fight. “Listen, as I’ve told you before, the Chosen One is alive. He cannot die until doomsday comes to pass. Stay right here. He’ll come back to us, perhaps today, maybe tomorrow. But he’ll come back. He would not leave his people stranded in this wilderness with no one to guide them.”

  “He screamed all night,” somebody said. “He can die just like the rest of us.”

  “Yes, he can die,” Estelle said, “like any mortal man. But, since he is the Chosen One, he will be resurrected to glory and return to us.”

  Fletcher saw hesitation and doubt in the faces of many of the disciples, including that of the bearded man, and it was he who spoke next.

  “Do you tell us the truth, Estelle? Will the Chosen One live again?”

  “Oh, yes, oh, yes, he will. This I believe with all my heart and soul.” The girl’s eyes swept the crowd, her face shining. “He came to me in the night, after my grief for him was spent. He bent low and whispered in my ear, ‘Grieve no longer. I shall return, for I have been granted the power over death itself.’”

  The disciples were silent for a few moments, then began to talk among themselves. Finally the bearded man said, “We’ll wait until this time tomorrow. If the Chosen One returns, he can lead us out of the wilderness.”

  Charlie leaned toward Fletcher and said in a hoarse stage whisper, “Ain’t none of us gonna be here this time tomorrow.”

  Estelle rounded on Charlie angrily. “Oh, ye of little faith. The Chosen One will return and he will save us. You’ll see.”

  “Lady, for your sake as well as mine, I hope you’re right,” was all Charlie said.

  * * *

  The Apaches attacked again an hour after dawn.

  This time they walked their ponies toward the pueblo in a long skirmish line, firing as they came.

  Dozens of bullets thudded into the wall near Fletcher and Charlie, and a flying chip of stone nicked Fletcher’s cheekbone and drew blood.

  Fletcher fired until his rifle ran dry, then went to his Colts. He stood at the window, his guns hammering, then ducked down again as bullets split the air around him.

  Two Indians lay sprawled on the snow, but the rest kept on coming, a slow, inexorable walk toward the pueblo, firing as they rode.

  “Buck,” Charlie said, setting aside his empty rifle and drawing his bowie knife from his belt, “I think this is it. You got a bullet for me?”

  Fletcher glanced out the window. The warriors were very close and he had only a few rounds left in his Colts.

  “I’ll save one, Charlie,” he said, meaning every word of it.

  Charlie brandished the bowie. “Just let me stand at the door and cut a few first.”

  Scattered firing broke out somewhere behind the advancing Apaches, in the direction of the valley. This was followed by a smashing volley as most of the warriors in front of the pueblo turned their ponies and began shooting.

  “Now what the hell?” Charlie yelled.

  More and more Indians were streaming away from the pueblo toward the valley, yipping their war cries.

  The reason became apparent a few moments later when a small wagon drawn by a pair of mules galloped into the flat.

  The mules were being driven hard, and Fletcher caught a fleeting glimpse of two men up on the box and the painted U.S. Army sign above crossed sabers on the side of the wagon.

  One of the mules went down, but the impetus of the wagon dragged the dead animal with it to the front of the pueblo.

  The two men, one in cavalry blue, jumped from the box, leveled their rifles, and blasted shot after shot at the Apaches, their firing accurate and deadly.

  From the window Fletcher emptied his Colts at the galloping, whooping warriors, and the Indians, confused by this firestorm of lead and losing men, broke and streamed back to the valley.

  They left six dead on the snow, their blood splashing red around them.

  Fletcher and Charlie stepped out of the pueblo and walked toward the new arrivals, and beside him Fletcher heard Charlie’s startled yelp of surprise.

  One of the men was Sgt. Andy Wilson, the other Scarlet Hays.

  And with that recognition the cold realization came to Fletcher that both had vowed to kill him.

  “Well, well, well, fancy meeting you here,” Hays said. “If it ain’t the great Buck Fletcher.” The gunman’s fingers moved to his split lips. “Last time I seen you was at Fort Apache.”

  The threat was implied, and Fletcher took it as such.

  “What are you doing here, Hays?” he asked as his eyes shaded to a cold gunmetal gray. Had this man come to murder Estelle?

  The hatchet-faced gunman smiled, his teeth showing crooked and stained from chewing black plug tobacco. “Hell, we was driving south, heading down Nogales way, when we was jumped by Apaches. We came tearing in here and . . . well, here we are and there you are.”

  Acutely conscious of his empty guns, Fletcher said, “We’re not out of the woods yet, Scar. Those young bucks will be back.”

  “Maybe so.” Hays looked out at the Apache dead. “We hit ’em pretty hard, me and ol’ Andy here.”

  Hays turned his head to the sergeant. “Oh, my sincere apologies; you two haven’t been introduced. This is—”

  “I know who he is,” Fletcher said, cutting him off.

  Wilson was a big man, huge in the shoulders and thick in the arms, his hands big-knuckled and scarred, the fighting mitts of a pugilist. His hair was cropped close to his head and a full cavalry mustache hung limp and untrimmed under a nose that had been broken many times. There was an air of casual, heedless brutality about the man, and this was reflected in his black, soulless eyes and the arrogant, aggressive way he held himself.

  “We’ve met,” Wilson said to Hays. He nodded at Fletcher. “Me and him have a score to settle, only this time he won’t have a damn officer to hide behind.”

  Hays’s smile was insolent as his fingers strayed to his lips again. “Yeah, well, we all got scores to settle, Andy.”

  Fletcher’s eyes slid past Hays as though he was a thing of no importance and rested on the wagon.

  “Pay wagon,” Hays said, grinning. “Me and Andy here, we found it an’ we’re saving it for G
eneral Crook.”

  “Sure you are,” Charlie said. “An’ pigs fly.”

  If Hays was offended he didn’t let it show. “Had three other boys with me, but they never showed,” he said. “Told them to catch up, but they didn’t.”

  “They’re dead,” Fletcher said. “Apaches got Clevinger and Gittings, and the Kid drew down on me.”

  “The Kid was greased-lightning fast,” Hays said.

  “I was faster,” Fletcher said.

  The disciples had poured out of the pueblo and, curious, surrounded the pay wagon, Estelle among them.

  Hays saw the girl and a thin smile tightened his mouth.

  “That’s how I like them,” he said to Wilson out of the corner of his mouth. “Once they swell they’re available all the time, and they’re all big butt and bobbers.”

  As Wilson guffawed, Hays set his derby hat at a jaunty angle and stepped beside Estelle. “How do, pretty lady?”

  The girl looked at Hays and didn’t like what she was seeing, and her eyes grew wide with something akin to fear.

  “Hey, Scar,” Charlie said, “that woman just lost her husband.”

  “Well, ain’t it just too bad.” Hays grinned. “Now she needs a real man to look after her.”

  Estelle tried to walk back to the pueblo, but Hays blocked her path. “Please step aside,” she said. “I’m tired and I must rest.”

  Hays’s face was ugly. “Don’t you come the high-and-mighty fine Eastern lady with me,” he said. “I got a feeling you and me is going to be heading down Nogales way together, an’ that’s a lot better than me leaving you to the Apaches. Well, some better, at least.”

  The girl’s eyes held both fear and loathing, and Fletcher decided he could not let it go any further. “Let her be, Scar,” he said.

  The gunman whirled, his hands above his Colts, his eyes blazing with hate and fury.

  Fletcher stood easy and relaxed, even as he knew he was running a desperate, dangerous bluff with empty guns. “Don’t try it, Scar. You won’t even clear the leather.”