Slaughter's way (18 page)

*'May I congratulate you on an excellent ruse, senor,'' Hernandez went on. **Your Negro must have had much faith in you to take such a chance.'*

"^He's not my Negro.'*

**But you're a southern gentleman— *^

**I never owned a slave in my life."

*Trhen why fight for the South, for I assume you did. There is a military bearing about you."

"Me? I fought Hke most Texans did. Because we figured the Federal Government had no right to interfere in the running of a state, and if the state wanted to withdraw from the Union, it should be free to do so.

T see. But I am thinking of your man. It was a neat trick, painting the sign on tibe wagon and sending him aroimd in a circle to come toward us from the west. I might have been suspicious had he come from any other direction. The clothes fooled me, too."

^'Old Coonskin sure is a fancy dresser," grinned Slaughter.

Hernandez led tiie way down a wide, gentle-sided arroyo. Swinging from his saddle, he let tibe reins fall. Also dismounting. Slaughter left his night horse, knowing it would not wander away. The two men walked along the valley bottom. Under the light of the moon it was almost as clear as day. Hernandez halted and Slaughter walked on another twenty feet, then stopped and turned to face the Mexican. For a moment. Slaughter thought he caught sight of a movement among a climip of scrub mesquite. Yet he guessed, in fact felt

sure, that Hernandez did not plan trickery. If there had been a movement, it might only be some desert animal distm'bed by their arrival

'When you re ready, senor," Hernandez said.

"Coimt to three/' Slaughter repHed, giving the Mexican a slight edge.

**I will coimt it so: one—^two—^three,'' Hernandez answered. "One—^two—^threel"

Two hands snapped down, thumbs ciuling over the hammers and drawing them back even as fingers closed on the butts and lifted. Slaughter s Colt glinted dully in the moonlight and Hernandez's sparkled, its nickel-plating reflecting the moon's rays. The Mexican was fast, very fast. Only one thing saved Slaughter's life that night The Tiffany grips, while looking ornate and attractive, did not make such a fine instinctive pointing grip as the normal butt of the Texan's Colt. While Slaughter was maybe just a shade the faster man, there would not have been enough in it to save his hfe, except that Hernandez had to take a spHt second of a split second to change his aim.

Yet that instant was enough.

The shocking power of the heavy bullet striking Hernandez's chest was enough to knock him off balance. Not much, for the returning lead came so close to Slaughter's face that he felt the wind of it. Hernandez spun around and went down, landing on his back, his gun falling from his hand.

Holstering his Colt, Slaughter walked toward the Mexican. Although Hernandez was dying and knew it, he still regarded die Texan with admiration.

^'Youi man was right, senor,'' Hernandez breathed. TThis is not Mexico."

Then his eyes went to the clump of mesquite behind Slaughter. Suddenly Hernandez hooked his legs around Slaughter's and brought the Texan to the ground. In the same move, the Mexican caught up his fallen gun.

Even as he staggered forward off balance, Slaughter hardly believed such a thing could be happening. He never expected a man of Hernandez's type to take

an unfair advantage. Now it seemed Slaughter s trust and misjudgment of a man's character woiild cost him his life.

A shot cracked out and Slaughter heard the "splat!** of a close-passing bullet. Yet the shot did not have the deep bellow of a Colt, but sounding higher and sharper, like a rifle, and the bullet came from behind him. The thought had barely struck Slaughter when he heard the sound of Hernandez's Colt opening fire.

Then Slaughter landed on the groimd, but he landed with his gun in his hand. Hernandez was sitting partially erect, firing shot after shot—^not at Slaughter but into the mesquite from which rose a scream of pain. A shape Ixurched upward, taking form as one of the bandidos who had sided Sanchez on Slaughters first visit to Central Springs. Before Slaughter could shoot, the man dropped his rifle and went down, rolled over once and lay still.

Letting his revolver drop, Hernandez looked toward Slaughter.

"M—^my apologies, senor. I forgot that Sanchez had a brother who would not easily forgive you for IdlUng him. He—he must have followed me, seen me examine th—^this—^place and guessed what I— ''

Slaughter sprang forward to drop onto one knee by Hernandez as tiie man fell back onto the sand. For a moment the Texan thought it was over, then Hernandez opened his eyes.

*T—^take the sabino — senor, it is a loyal friend—and I want—^it—^have—a worthy mas—^master. I apologize —^for Sanchez's brother— senor. I did not kn— ''

With a convulsive writhe, Hernandez stiffened and then went limp.

Taking off his hat. Slaughter paid a silent last respect to Hernandez. For all his faults and vices, the Mexican had been a man. He died the way he lived, by the gun. Yet he stayed true to his honor to the end.

PART 4

Tanaka Was A Bad Apache

Tanaka was a bad Apache. Which same means he was a real bad hombre in any man s language or judged by any nation's standards. Even other Apaches regarded him as being bad; and they were a nation which produced more than its fair share of tough, able, ruthless and merciless warriors.

When Victorio, old-man chief of the Mogollon, came in, broke the arrow and made peace with the white-eyed soldier-coats, Tanaka laughed at such foolishness and stayed out on the war trail. Nor did he stay alone. With him rode at least fifty of the toughest, meanest, most dangerous young bucks he could lay his hands on. Every one of them was tried and true, a white-hater from soda-to-hock, loved war and the loot and prestige it brought to a successful warrior.

Yet even the fifty men who rode with him regarded Tanaka as being bad medicine and poison-mean.

Tanaka and his men held western New Mexico and eastern Arizona in a state of terror. They ranged from the Came River and the borders of Paradise Basin out to the Dragoon Mountains. When danger threatened, or loot above the border failed them, the band struck south into Mexico and grew rich on the easier pickings open to them. But always they came back over the line. Back to the land the white-eyed brother took from their people by war, often-broken treaty and sheer weight of numbers.

One might ask why the U.S. Cavalry did nothing about Tanaka's depredations. Surely an army which had ' such great Indian fighters as Generals Miles and Crook —and a few glory hunters like Custer—and which had

dealt many shrewd blows to the whole Cheyenne, Comanche, Waco and Kaddo nations ought to have been able to handle a mere handful of Apaches, most of whom did not even have rifles.

The answer was that the Army tried, and tried danmed hard, to either make Tanaka a good Indian, or bring him and his men onto a reservation where their movements could be checked.

Given a stand-up fight, the soldiers would have ended Tanaka's badness in minutes, or hours at most, depending on the terrain on which they met. That was the trouble; Tanaka and his men might hate white-eyes, but they were not fools enough to stand and fight the soldiers.

Then, one might inquire, why not catch up with Tanaka and his band?

Take it this way. Arrange a horserace between a white cavalryman toting all the gear his superiors figured he needed to exist and fight with—^heavy Mc-Clellan saddle, saddlebags, blanket roll and greatcoat, mess kit, picket pin, eighteen rounds of ammunition for the revolver and a hundred cartridges to use in his carbine, food and water—and mounted on a grain-fed charger used to plenty of good food and water, and a buck Apache, who had the one set of clothes, and them not heavy, carried a rifle, some ammimition and knife for his weapons, mounted on a wiry pony used to nm-ning all day and night on a mouthful of saw-grass and a lick of brackish desert water, and somebody is going to come out a bad second. That somebody was not likely to be the Apache.

So the Army did not deal with Tanaka for a simple, but perfectly valid reason—^they could not come within a good country mile of catclnng him.

Tanaka might have gone on to great things, or at least lived out his life until so old that he would be willing to come off the war trail and accept the white-eyed brothers' charity, but he became ambitious.

And his path crossed with a man who had something of a name as a tamer of bad hombres.

Texas John Slaughter had heard of Tanaka. A man 143

covld hardly travel across New Mexico Territory and not hear about him. However, Fort McClellan lay beyond the Came River and through the heart of Tanaka's pet stamping ground and Slaughter was dehvering a herd of cattle to the fort.

It was not Slaughters way to let any mans reputation drive him out of his path. To go aroimd the area of Tanaka's power would take at least two months and the three thousand head of Texas longhoms Slaughter drove were needed urgently at the fort. Some old witch man on the MogoUon Reservation, stewed up with tiztoin or tulapai —^Apache brews which made raw com whisky seem rnild by comparison—^had a vision. The white-eyes had Hed, or so he claimed. They did not intend to feed the MogoUon on their ''spotted buflFalo," for where were the cattle? A few wiser and more sober heads advised doing nothing, but that they should wait and see what happened before painting for war.

K Slaughter's herd did not arrive on time, not even the most respected Apache chief could keep the peace. So Slaughter intended to go through with his herd and even the threat of Tanaka's raiding would not make him turn aside.

Of course Slaughter might have asked for an Army escort. A more prudent man would already have done so. Slaughter made no such request. Although the War Between the States had long ended, and Reconstmction was now only a bitter memory, tiis men would have been disgusted to think they had to ask the blue-bellies for help and protection. He had twenty-tw^o loyal, hardy and handy men, counting the cook, cook's helper; night-hawk and day wrangler, at his back and figured they would be a fighting force Tanaka might think twice before attacking.

However, it was not Slaughter's way to ride blindly into trouble, or take foolish chances when a little forethought and precaution could avoid them. A double guard rode his herd each night and there was always at least one more man out riding wide circle during the dark hours. While Apaches might not fight in the dark, they were not averse to either traveling through

it, or sneaking up, cutting a throat or stealing horses in the silent hours of the night. During the daytime, men rode far out on either flank and at the rear of the herd, and Slaughters keen-eyed scout kept watch ahead.

So far the precautions had been needless, but not one man of Slaughter s crew regretted taking them. A man expected hardships and long hours on the trail. In the face of their present conditions, they preferred the choice of extra work or the likelihood of winding up permanently dead.

Toward noon one bright day. Slaughter and his scout, Burt Alvord, rode cautiously toward the waters of the Came River,

A man did not need to ask where they came from, happen he could read the signs and knew the West. Those low-crowned, wide-brimmed Stetson hats spelled Texas men to eyes which knew the signs.

Slaughter wore range clothes, travel-stained yet stiH retaining a hint of their customary neatness. Around his waist hung a well-made gunbelt, an ivory-butted Colt Civilian Model Peacemaker in the contoiured fast-draw holster at his right side. He had a strong face, tanned, intelligent and commanding and even on a trail drive kept his black beard and moustache trimmed neatly, even though his gingery colored hair—^which matched his eyebrows—^looked longer and more shaggy than it would normally be.

If Slaughter looked like a typical cowhand from TexEis, Alvord hinted more at his work as scout. He wore a fringed buckskin shirt, faded levis pants and Indian moccasins; while a gunbelt supported a brace of 1860 Army Colts, the ri^t-side gun s butt pointing to the rear, but the left turned forward so either hand could draw it without trouble. His tanned, Indian-dark, high-cheekboned face told of a touch of Kaddo blood, but the men of the herd thought none the less of his ability as a scout, or company as a person, because of that.

Slouching ia his saddle so that his six foot of length did not seem greater than Slaughter s five foot

nine, Alvord threw a glance ahead of them to where, beyond the river, several turkey vultures—^misnamed buzzards by the cowhands^—SAvung on planing wings and glided in circles toward the ground.

There must be death across the river. Yet across the river Slaughter's herd ought to find life. Beyond the Came lay trees, bushes, deep, fattening buffalo grass; a change from the harsh, poor grazing of the Paradise Basin. Over the Came, the cattle would eat their fill while w^aBdng in the direction of Fort McClellan, putting on weight and building up fat and meat which had been lost crossing the arid, near-desert basin.

*^Von t be sorry to get across," Alvord remarked, making more conversation in one go than he had in nearly six miles of riding.

^^Or me," replied Slaughter who did not beheve in gabbing needlessly himself.

Ahead of them a flock of Gambefs quail lifted from the groimd, swooping off before them and ghding across the river. Watching the birds go, x\lvord opened his mouth to make some comment about wrishing he had a shotgun. The words were never said Just as die quail approached the bushes on the western bank of the Came, they changed direction suddenly and \1olently, the covey bursting apart and scattering like fragments from an exploding sheD.

'Took with them buzzards,'' Alvord said, forgetting thoughts of cooked quail, *Td say we done got company waiting across there."

**]Might only be a stray steer,* Slaughter replied, although he did not for a moment beheve a steer would scare off the birds. Only a predatory animal or human beings would cause the birds to scatter in such a state of panic. "Eide on do\^Ti easy, like we haven't noticed an\thing at all."

The two men carried on, riding calmly toward the river. However, they edged their horses to one side so that they would come dovm to the water some fift>' yards below where the birds showed their fright, and facing an area of much hghter brush than further along.