Shalako (1962) (19 page)

Bosky Fulton drew back, then shrugged. "Let him come to me. I ain't lost anything out there in those rocks." He had taken a gamble, coming back here, but less of a gamble than it would have been out there among the Apaches.

Nor was he worried. If he could last out the Indian raids with this outfit, he would cut and run when it was over, and before they would ask too many questions about their jewelry and money. The thing to do was to get out before the Army found them.

As for von Hallstatt, that German needed killing and he was going to personally take care of that.

He remembered Shalako and was faintly uneasy. The feeling angered him, for there was nothing about Shalako that he should be worried about. Who was he, after all, but a drifting cowhand and prospector ... although he had the look of a tough man.

A couple of .44 slugs would make him look a lot less tough.

With the first coming of day the defenders drew back so they could offer mutual support.

"Why did he have to come here?" Laura asked, indicating Fulton. "I hate that man.

And he's absolutely filthy."

"He can shoot," Shalako replied. "We can use him." "Nevertheless, I don't like him.

He's mean, vicious, and cruel." For the first time Shalako learned that Fulton had planned to take the two girls with him when they left.

"A fool thing," he said. "In this country a man can get away with murder sometimes, and with stealing often enough, but a man who bothers a woman will get his neck stretched."

Shalako took up his Winchester and went over to where von Hallstatt had dug out the sand to make a better firing position. Shalako dropped down beside him and, squinting through the rocks, studied the field of fire. It was a good one.

"Watch yourself around Fulton," he said. "He means to kill you."

Von Hallstatt glanced sharply at him but, without re turning the glance, Shalako continued. "He's a killer. He's killed a half-dozen men in gun battles, and likes to have the name of being a fast man with a gun. He's proud, and he's touchy. He needs us right now, and we can use him, but when this tapers off, you be ready. Never be without a gun, and never let him have an even break. He'll kill you."

"Can he shoot that fast and with accuracy?" "You just bet he can."

"We will see. I do not like Herr Fulton."

Shalako got up to move. "Neither do I, but he's no fool, so be careful."

"Why do you warn me? I am not your friend." Shalako grinned suddenly. "Nor am I yours, but this is a matter of tactics, and his are different than yours. I figured you'd better know what to expect."

"You seem to think a good deal in terms of tactics." "I want to live."

"Perhaps," von Hallstatt mused, "he will fight according to my tactics. He is a proud man, you say."

Shalako took up a position among the rocks. He glanced slowly around. Their circle was drawn back now, and was scarcely thirty yards from side to side. Close be hind them loomed Elephant Butte, on their right, and right beside them, the lip of the canyon, and on the other side, just a short distance away, the cliffs.

"Irina"-Shalako motioned to her-"fill the canteens. You gather all our gear and take it to the edge of the canyon near the butte."

He paused ... it was very still out there. The last of the stars were gone. There was a faint gray over the distant mountains to the east. "And get Harding back there."

Von Hallstatt was on his right, Dagget close on his left. Bosky Fulton was just beyond.

"Henri," he said, "you relieve Mako. Let him get something to eat."

The Frenchman left the fire and moved away toward the cliff's edge.

He was back almost at once. "Mako's dead," Henri said. "He's been stabbed."

There was a silence. Irina felt herself cold with horror. Another of them gone ... how many more would go?

"He made a good omelet," Laura said. "He made the best omelet I ever ate."

"He would like nothing better than to hear you say that," Henri said. "He was proud of his work."

"You're not just a-foolin'?" Bosky asked, looking from one to the other. "That damn'

Apache killer is really here?"

"You watch yourself, Fulton," Harding taunted, "or he'll take your hair. That tangled mop of yours would make a pretty sight hanging from his bridle. I can close my eyes and just see it there."

"Shut up!" Bosky snarled over his shoulder.

They lapsed into silence. Another gone, and an attack was coming. It was coming and they all knew it was, but when it came it was not as they expected. It was a mounted attack and it came with a rush-about a dozen horsemen coming through the trees, fleeting, indefinite targets.

Von Hallstatt and Fulton fired as one man, and an Indian pony reared, throwing its rider. Dagget fired, killing the Indian as he started to mount.

"Did you see that?" Dagget yelled excitedly. "I got him!" He had come halfway to his feet with excitement when a bullet burned his neck, and he dropped flat, clasping a hand to his bloody flesh, an expression of startled horror on his face.

The attack broke as suddenly as it had begun, with riderless horses disappearing among the trees. The Apaches had dropped to the ground close up, and now the small fort was ringed with enemies, all within an easy bowshot of their meager defenses.

From the edge of the cliff behind them they heard Henri fire, then fire again. The sound of his heavy rifle was easily distinguished from the others.

Dagget sat, his legs spread wide, dabbing at his bloody neck. "They damned near killed me!" he said, in a shocked tone.

"But they didn't. You're only scratched." Roy Harding was crawling toward them. "Let me up there."

"You had better return," von Hallstatt told the team ster. "Soon we retreat, and there is no time for carrying you back."

"He's right," Shalako agreed.

An Indian started up and Bosky Fulton fired. The Indian fell, and Bosky shot into him before he could more than make a move to rise.

An angry yell from the trees drew another shot from Fulton.

Count Henri fired again from the cliff, and from the rocks on the side of the Butte, Irina fired. She was shooting over their heads into the trees.

There was a lull. The sun mounted, the heat grew intense. Nothing stirred.

From time to time a bullet nipped at the rocks. The brilliant blue of the sky was gone and it seemed misted over ... but there could be no mist in such a place. Von Hallstatt glanced at it inquiringly. "It is peculiar," he said. He started to fill his pipe and glanced at it again. "I think it is dust!"

The air grew suddenly cooler. Irina called to them from the rocks, and pointed. They turned to look and saw the horizon obscured with a far-off cloud.

Shalako turned quickly to von Hallstatt. "We've got to fall back and bunch up," he said. "That's a dust storm. Maybe a norther. I've seen the temperature drop thirty degrees in less than an hour in such a storm."

"Thirty degrees? It is too much!"

"Did you ever spend a spring in the Texas Panhandle? Or country adjoining it? My friend, you've seen nothing until you have!"

Quickly, they fell back. Bosky Fulton had already gone for the horses and, with Shalako's help, bunched them in a sheltered corner on the west side of the butte. A shoulder of the butte offered partial protection from the north, with the butte itself rising sheer above them.

Dagget held a bloody handkerchief to his neck, and seemed awed by the fact that he had been wounded. He glanced up at Shalako. "They might have killed me," he said.

"I had just moved."

"A bullet doesn't care who it hits," Shalako said carelessly. "Count yourself lucky."

An Indian suddenly left his shelter and darted for ward, and, from his vantage point, von Hallstatt saw him clearly. He tracked him a brief instant, then fired. The Indian stumbled and fell.

A gust of wind whipped across the clearing, scattering the remnants of their fire, driving leaves before it, the dried dead leaves of a bygone year.

Another gust, and then with a roar the storm was upon them, blinding, choking sand that blew down out of the north, obscuring all their surroundings, causing them to gasp for breath.

Shalako grabbed Irina. Quickly he tied a handkerchief over her mouth. He had already pulled his own up to cover his lips, and Fulton had done the same. Von Hallstatt was quick to follow suit, and Count Henri, the last man to scramble up to their hollow among the rocks, had already done so.

Crouching together, they waited. Only Shalako and Fulton held to the rim of the hollow in which they had taken shelter, watching below.

Suddenly, almost drowned in the roar of the wind, Fulton's rifle roared, and Shalako followed.

Von Hallstatt stumbling against the force of the wind to get into a firing position, felt a sharp tug at his clothing. Roy Harding scrambled to the rim of the cup, lifted his sixshooter and then as if struck by a gust of wind he was whirled around and fell, tumbling over and over into the bottom of the hollow.

He had been shot through the skull.

Edna Dagget screamed, and threw herself against the rocks, clinging there, far from the fallen man. She screamed and screamed again, but her screams were lost in the wildness of the storm.

The wind mounted to an awful roar, battering at the mountain. Sand bit at their faces like tiny teeth and the wind blew down their throats if they opened their mouths until they were almost strangled by the force of it.

Hunched in their tiny hollow, they waited. And under cover of the storm, the Apaches darted closer and closer.

Twice Shalako fired, and each time he missed, his shooting thrown off by the force of the wind and the dimness of his vision.

The sun was blotted out, and the hollow and all the desert around it were gripped by a curious yellow twilight. Count Henri struggled to hold the horses, which were plunging and frightened, and Irina went to help him, crooning comfortingly to the horses. Her mares steadied under her hands and held close to her, as if for protection.

Under the howling of the wind, sand rattled against the rock and their clothing, driving with force enough to draw flecks of blood on Edna Dagget's cheeks. Hovering against a wall of the mountain, Shalako tried to shield the action of his Winchester from the sand while he stared with straining eyes into the outer darkness.

Suddenly, during a lull in the wind, he heard the ugly thud of a bullet into flesh and an instant later, the report. Turning swiftly, Shalako stared up at the mountain, but there was no movement up there but the wind. It was a towering butte, the side broken by weathering, offering ledges and footholds clear to the top. And someone was up there.

Tats-ah-das-ay-go ... of course.

Someone was crying and Edna was screaming hysterically. Glancing into the hollow, Shalako saw Irina tugging at the body of Count Henri. The Frenchman was down and hurt.

Crossing to her, he bent over the man. It needed only a glance to see that Count Henri was finished. The blood was pumping from a wound in his chest, and all of Irina's efforts could not stop its flow.

He opened his eyes and looked up at them, trying to speak and the roar of the wind drowned out his voice. He collapsed suddenly, and behind him Shalako heard a scream, and a roar of guns.

Wheeling, he saw a dozen Apaches scrambling into the hollow. Fulton had fallen back against the rock wall and was firing both pistols, using fearful execution.

Von Hallstatt, cornered, was clubbing his rifle, and Dagget was rolling on the ground, fighting desperately with an Apache who had leaped upon him. Another had seized Laura and was dragging her toward the edge of the hollow.

Lifting his Winchester, Shalako steadied. An instant he held his aim, then fired.

One of the Indians attacking von Hallstatt dropped in his tracks. Wheeling, Shalako swung his rifle and shot an other man on the rim of the hollow, and then something dropped off the mountain and struck him between the shoulders.

Rolling over, he came up fast and, as the Indian arose, Shalako swung a wicked fist that knocked the Apache sprawling under the plunging hoofs of the horses.

Drawing a Colt, he fired, killing the Indian who had Laura by the hair. At the same instant a gun roared beside him, deafening him with the blast, and he saw another Indian leap back. Irina was on her knees with his rifle in her hands.

Fulton turned suddenly and ducked into the rocks just as a second wave of Indians swarmed into the hollow. Von Hallstatt rushed at them, clubbing his rifle, and when the stock broke, he drew his revolver and fired. He emptied the gun and threw it aside, grabbing up Henri's rifle.

Shalako, berserk with fury, rushed at the Indians, stopped, and opened fire. And then suddenly, they were gone.

They were gone as if they had never been. Except for the dead lying about, the awful howling of the wind, and the three men who remained.

Edna Dagget was dead, struck by a ricocheting bullet. Count Henri was dead. Laura was dazed and shocked, and Bosky Fulton was gone.

"Yellow!" von Hallstatt said. "The man's a coward!" "No, he's not a coward. He's just a damned selfish brute." Shalako fed shells into his gun, then began gathering the other weapons. "He's looking out for himself, that's all."