Apache Death (12 page)

"About time," Edge muttered as he heard a rifle shot from the area of the waterhole and chanced a look around the rock to see the three mounted braves make a sudden change of direction to take them toward where the Englishman was positioned. Then he saw the Englishman stand, making a target of the top half of his body above the lip of the waterhole: saw him go through the action of firing the rifle. But there was no puff of telltale smoke and no report. He saw the wrist movement that should have ejected an empty case and fed a fresh round into the breech and although he was too far away to see it, Edge knew the kind of expression of fear and frustration which would be pasted upon the Englishman's face. "New gun's got him into a jam," Edge muttered as he saw his erstwhile partner fling the Winchester away and jerk his arm to release the tiny, double-barreled pistol. 

But in the next moment the Englishman's problems with a jammed rifle were of secondary importance as Edge spun to face the source of a sound and found himself confronted by two snarling braves. They were only ten feet away; the one with a smashed hand preparing to launch a knife at Edge as the other—who had a gaping wound in his shoulder—wielded a tomahawk which he obviously intended to use at close quarters.

"Still a mite too handy," Edge murmured and sent a bullet crashing through the good wrist of the knife-thrower who dropped his weapon and folded to the ground screaming his pain.

The other brave took the gun report as a signal to leap forward, tomahawk raised. He was already behind the gun muzzle as Edge tried to swing the Winchester for a second shot. But there wasn't time and he could only fall sideways, out of the line of the descending blade. The Apache landed full length on the ground and immediately sprang to all fours and was beginning to come erect and turn as Edge swung the Winchester again.

"The axeman goeth," Edge murmured as he squeezed the trigger and the brave sat down hard, dropping his weapon and staring at the large hole in his naked right thigh. "One for the Chinaman," Edge continued easily, and fired again, ripping a gaping wound in the brave's other thigh. "One for the woman at the end of the line." Again he worked the action of the Winchester and sent a third bullet smashing into the brave's good shoulder. "That one's for the kid," he said, unmoved by the brave's screams and the look in his brown eyes which begged for mercy. "Last time," he said with an icy grin as the brave's belly grew a hole at its center. "Guess English would call that one for the pot," he concluded.

"Edge!" The Englishman yelled the name at the top of his voice and the monosyllable rang with both pain and terror. Edge turned to look toward the waterhole and saw the Englishman in full view, staggering like a drunken man as he struggled to yank an arrow from the front of his shoulder. One of the braves who had attacked him was sprawled nearby in an attitude of death while the others, having obviously already made one pass, were thundering toward him again.

"Not a hope," Edge said to himself as he surveyed the range, but he began to fire and continued even when he saw the puffs of dust kicked up short of the galloping ponies.  The two Apaches had their bows slung across their backs and Edge could see no flashes of knife or tomahawk blades as they closed in on the helpless Englishman. They were riding close together and it seemed as if they were intent upon trampling the white man beneath the flying hoofs. But, at the last moment as the Englishman turned to try to run from them, the braves sheered away from each other to pass on each side of their victim. Then, with a smoothness and skill circus performers would envy, the braves leaned away from their mounts and lifted the Englishman clear of the ground. A tomahawk was drawn then raised and brought down. But it was the flat side of the blade that made contact and unconsciousness rather than death which brought an end to the Englishman's struggles. The man who had delivered the blow relinquished his hold and the other brave threw the unconscious form of Lord Fallowfield across the neck of his pony.

"You ain't no maiden," Edge muttered as the two Apaches headed for the rocks from which they had emerged, "but maybe you're the closest they can find."

He heard a groan behind him and turned to see the brave with the useless hands trying to
haul himself erect against the large boulder. When the man realized he had been seen he froze into a half standing position, trying to force agony from his face and replace it with a scowl. But his pain was too harsh. Two fingers had been blown from one hand and there was a mushy red hole drilled through the opposite wrist.

"Cochise?" Edge demanded, pointing after the retreating Apaches, but looking into the eyes of the wounded brave.

The man flinched at the snapped word, but held Edge's stare without altering his expression.

"Cochise?" Edge tried again, with the same tone and still pointing. The brave held his silence. "English don't like talk," he continued after a moment. "Maybe you'll be meeting him in the happy hunting ground in the sky. You can have long silences together. But keep your back against a cloud."

Then he shot the Indian, firing from the hip with the Colt, grouping three bullets in the area of a silver dollar on the man's heart. After that he went to find the Englishman's, Winchester, unjammed it and fed the unused ammunition into his own gun. He took Lord Fallowfield's horse, too, because it was closest and had already been watered.

He rode north.

LORNA Fawcett was a beautiful woman. Even dressed in shapeless, undecorated squaw's garb, her hair matted and unbrushed, her face smudged by dirt and devoid of lipstick and rouge, the natural beauty of face and figure were evident. Her hair was the color of newly rusted metal and hung long to the middle of her back, the crowning glory of a face with green eyes, a rich, full mouth, and an unmarked complexion on skin sculptured by a fine bone structure. It was the face of a woman of twenty-five which until a few days ago had shown no marks of a single experience which could be termed bitter. But then Chief Cochise and a band of braves had attacked her father's farm. Now as she stood close to the slit opening of Cochise's tepee, looking across the Apache encampment set in the mouth of a wooded canyon, the horror of what she had seen and experienced that terrible day was like a dulling stigma on her every feature, emblazoning her mental anguish but unable to detract from the classic lines of her beauty.

They had come in the morning, as her mother was preparing breakfast. Her sister Rachel was still in bed and her father was feeding the livestock. The Apaches had approached stealthily and killed her father at the wire fence before he could do more than wing one of them. Lorna had been by the window and seen the arrow thud into his chest, then started to scream as a brave leaped from his pony to claim the scalp. Even before her mother had time to rush to Lorna's side twenty more braves, led by the tall, arrogantly handsome Cochise, had sprung into the house through doors and windows, whooping their triumph and brandishing knives dripping with the blood of slaughtered livestock. Two of them emerged from the bedroom carrying the screaming Rachel, their hands exploring her nakedness as lust contorted grotesquely daubed faces. As
Lorna and her mother tried to rush across the room to Rachel's aid, Cochise restrained Lorna with an arm around her waist, while her mother was felled by a vicious slap across the face. Lorna began to struggle frantically, fear and rage exploding from her throat in a continuous, high-pitched wail which was drowned by the demonic laughter of Cochise and the jubilant whooping of the braves as they staked out Rachel on the floor and bound the girls’ mother to a chair.

Then the orgy began, as brave after brave dropped his breechcloth and threw himself upon the helpless body of a girl who had gone to bed a virgin. As the girls' mother pleaded for release from the torture, those braves who had spent themselves at the bloodied loins of the hysterical Rachel rampaged through the rooms, smashing, tearing and defiling everything which had made the house a home for the Fawcetts. As
Lorna watched, she experienced a metamorphic transformation inside her mind, perhaps even her soul. She became quiet, almost docile, in the vice-like grip of the Apache chief and her throat, seared by the screams, blocked any further sound. Her bright eyes continued to stare, wide and pained, at the scene of savagery, but it was apparent that she had capitulated to the inevitability of what was happening. It was as if a shutter had been slammed down upon her will to resist and when the last brave had satiated his lust and two more leaped forward to hack off the breasts of their victim, Lorna could merely shudder at the sight and wince at the sound her young sister's screams. And when the tomahawk crashed down on to, and then through, the skull of her mother there were no more emotional reserves upon which Lorna could call. She watched the action and saw the great spurt of crimson blood with an expression of vacant acceptance, and the set of her features did not alter as the braves grouped before her and made their wishes clear with the lower parts of their naked bodies as they shouted to Cochise.

But Cochise had his own plans for Lorna and the braves accepted his orders meekly, garbing themselves in their breechcloths and filing out of the house to mount their ponies. Then, with the ease of a child carrying a rag doll, Cochise slung Lorna across his shoulder and left the house, whispering softly in her ear words she would not have heard even if the Apache had been speaking English. For the viciousness of what she had witnessed had rendered Lorna insensible to everything which happened after her metamorphosis. Thus, she experienced without emotion the ride to camp, the hatred of the Apache squaws as she was led to the chief's tepee and the ordeal of Cochise's cruel raping.

Since becoming the chiefs white squaw she had accepted everything without resistance, eating, sleeping, and spreading, her voluptuous body beneath the hard maleness of Cochise whenever he signaled her to do so. Her only contact was with him and she was allowed to roam no further than a few feet from his tepee: she was universally hated by the Apache squaws and the object of blatant envy from the braves. She was a beautiful zombie and showed her first sign of human curiosity when she saw the two braves ride into the center of camp with a white man as their captive.

Standing before the tepee in the bright afternoon sunlight, she followed the progress of the braves and their prisoner with bright eyes and there issued from her throat a low grunting sound which could have been indicative of pity for Lord Hartley Fallowfield or perhaps was an exclamation of recognition for a fellow human being who was not a member of the savage tribe with whom she had been forced to live. The braves and their captive immediately became the center of interested attention and as they approached the chiefs tepee other braves fell in behind them so that when the two mounted Indians halted in front of Lorna, they were at the front of a huge assembly of braves. And, formed into lines at each side, were the women of the tribe. There was no noise, except for the quiet groans of the white man as he regained consciousness. The braves who had captured him slid from their ponies and the animal across which the Englishman was slung was urged forward a few paces. Then, as the Englishman groaned again he tried to raise his head but dropped it at once, moving his center of gravity so that he slid off the neck of the pony and crumpled into a heap on the ground. The flap of the chief’s tepee was pushed open and Cochise stepped out, the clean lines of his handsomeness unmarked by warpaint.

He stood beside his white squaw and surveyed the scene in silence for several moments, then barked a question. Both braves stepped forward and began to answer at the same time, anxious to claim the capture as his own. Cochise silenced them with a sharp command and pointed to just one of them, who rattled out his report. Lorna Fawcett continued to look at the Englishman, who had raised his head and was staring back at her with a confused expression.

"What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?'" he croaked, trying to raise a smile but failing.

They were the first words of English the girl had heard since she had listened to the hysterical pleas of her mother and her lovely face showed comprehension. But she held her peace and watched without emotion as at a command from Cochise, the two braves hauled the Englishman to his feet. They had to support him in the upright position for his confused brain could not coordinate his muscles and he stood like a drunken man. His black hair was matted with dried blood from where the tomahawk blow had split his scalp and as he stood Lorna saw for the first time the broken shaft of an arrow protruding from his shoulder, the patch of black, coagulated blood crusting his suit coat. Pain masked his face, but he attempted to hold himself with dignity as Cochise stepped in front of him, hatred shining in the dark, Apache eyes. Moving with a precise speed, Cochise brought up his arm, grasped the arrow shaft and jerked it from the wound, raising an agonized scream and drawing fresh blood from the Englishman, whose pain was mercifully swamped by the soft blackness of a faint. The braves prevented him from collapsing to the ground and in obedience to another command from Cochise, dragged him unceremoniously into the chief’s tepee. The group began to break up then, but two of the more elderly squaws came forward at a signal from Cochise and followed the braves in through the flap. Lorna went in after them and sat in the comer, watching as the braves were dismissed and the women began to attend to the unconscious man's wounds, using herbs and hot water from the cooking pot and applying salve with bunched leaves.  Cochise, too, watched for several minutes, then seemed to tire of the nursing and moved out of the tepee without a glance in the direction of Lorna. He never paid any attention to her unless the biological urge stirred in his loins.

The squaws worked with skill and in silence and even in her trancelike condition Lorna was able to realize that their care was having a beneficial effect, for the Englishman, stretched out on the crude settle, began to breath more regularly and his face grew, less haggard and gained some color. A gentle bathing of his brow with warm water finally revived him.

He awoke to find himself naked above the waist and saw his shoulder was padded with a leaf dressing and felt that his head was also expertly bound with a crude bandage. He glanced around him, grimacing with pain, but able to force a smile at the two squaws, who answered him with vacant stares. Then he saw Lorna and raised his hand in a weak gesture of greeting.

"So I wasn't dreaming," he said, his voice still accented by a croak which detracted from his cultured tones. Her expression was no more friendly than that of the squaws.

"Don't you speak English, my dear?" he tried.

She moved her head in an almost imperceptible nod and he gritted against his pain to try to broaden his smile.

But when he attempted to raise himself into a sitting position one of the squaws forced him to lie down again. She did not have to exert very great effort. "Are
you their prisoner, too?"

Again the slight movement of her lovely head encouraged the Englishman. "How long?"

Now she shook her head and he sighed.

"I suppose I'm for the high jump?" A quizzical expression caused him to amplify the remark. "They're only building, me up to knock me down. They'll kill me?"

She lifted her shoulders in a shrug and the movement raised the bodice of the unattractive smock to indicate the fullness of her breasts, unfettered beneath the drab material. The Englishman smiled his appreciation.

"I can see why the boss collared you for himself," he said.

"Aren't you afraid to die?" she said suddenly and seemed to be surprised by the sound of her own voice. They were the first words she had spoken since leaving the farm.

"It talks as well as walks," the Englishman answered, and adjusted his expression into one of sympathetic interest. "What's your name, my dear?"

"Lorna Fawcett," she told him, taking a step nearer to where he was lying. "They will kill you."

While one of the squaws stared hatred at Lorna, the other went to the flap and babbled in her native tongue.

"Don't you have' any influence with the big man?" For the first time there was a note of fear in the Englishman's voice and his smile was suddenly ragged at the edge. He sighed. "I suppose not—except flat on your back with your legs open. No use to me."

"I'm not here from choice," she told him. "They killed my family."

The flap was drawn aside and Cochise glowered into the tepee.

"We've all got our problems," the Englishman rasped as Lorna scuttled back against the hide wall.

Cochise regarded the Englishman in stony silence for several moments, then barked a command which sent the remaining squaw scuttling past him out of the tepee. Immediately, two braves rushed in, grasped the Englishman by his arm pits and dragged him off the settle and toward the flap. Cochise stepped aside and they pulled him outside. The chief turned to follow them, hesitated, then gestured with his head for Lorna to accompany him. She went, meekly, feeling the first stirring of human emotion since her ordeal had begun—trepidation not for herself but for the fate of the Englishman. And this turned to horror as she saw what the braves were doing to their prisoner.

The tepees of the camp had been set up in a circular pattern, with a broad open space at the center, surrounded by those of Cochise, his brother and other subchiefs and the shaman. In the middle of this space the two braves who had removed the Englishman from the tepee were staking out the prisoner, tying his hands and feet to four lances which had been driven into the ground at such a distance that his limbs were stretched to their extremes. The other members of the tribe were formed into two lines, facing the prisoner on each side, with a space left vacant at the center of one line to allow Cochise and his white squaw to view the proceedings. The chief sank into a cross-legged posture on the ground and gestured for Lorna to do likewise. But she was looking at the Englishman, whose face and naked upper body glistened with sweat from fear and the effort of trying to struggle against the tightly-knotted restraining ropes. Angered by the woman's non-compliance with his command Cochise chopped her viciously across the back of her knees and she sat down hard with a cry of pain. The rest of the watchers sank to the ground then, their brown faces showing varying degrees of eager anticipation for the entertainment to come.