St. Agnes’ Stand. Thomas Eidson

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СКАЧАТЬ the shadows of the cliff. One second. Two seconds. Suddenly the Apache’s head smashed against the rocks, the body sliding limply to the roadway. It had been a clean kill.

      The two Indians who had beckoned the younger brave were crouching against the side of the cliff, searching for who or what had slain their comrade so efficiently, so silently. The heavy one lunged from the wall and yanked up the dead man’s arms, dragging the body quickly down the rocky slope, while the second one scrambled after the precious musket. They had no idea where the bolt had come from and that would keep them from climbing the boulders for another shot, for a time.

      When it was safe, Swanson studied the wagons again through the telescope, curious. The Indians were still fanned on the slope, but they looked more alert and less confident. He brought the circular field of the lens to play on the wagons and wondered again if there was anyone still alive behind them. There was no movement, but that didn’t prove anything; a man would be a damn fool to show himself with Apaches watching. But if they were alive, why hadn’t they killed the pissing Apache?

      He was moving the circle of glass slowly along the space between the bottom of the wagons and the ground, trying to catch a movement of some kind, when he saw her. He couldn’t believe his eyes. A woman’s face, not pretty, not young, but a woman, nevertheless, stared out directly at him from the gap between the two wagons, staring as if she were looking straight into his eyes. Then she was gone. Swanson searched the area where he had seen her for another hour, but she never reappeared.

      It was blisteringly hot where he hid among the rocks; the gnats had retreated but the flies had taken their place and they were driving him crazy, and he was getting a little wild for water because he’d bled a good deal from the wound. It didn’t take much for him to make up his mind to pull out. He just did it. He’d done all he could for the people in the wagons. He had bought them precious time. He was surprised and sorry there was a woman involved, but there wasn’t a single logical thing he could do to save her.

      He struggled to his knees and put the telescope on the wagons one last time. She wasn’t to be seen, but he knew she was there; her face seemed oddly burned into his memory somehow. He guessed it was the surprise of seeing her in the first place, which caused her face to keep flashing in his thoughts. Getting her out would be impossible. Only a fool would try. He was no fool.

      The mule was where he had left it. When he had finished restrapping the crossbow and the leather pouch to the saddle, he stood a while, listening for danger and sipping from his canteen, figuring his options. His biggest concern now was the three men behind him. Having lost half the day, they had to be close; and they too would take the road to Fort Rucker, since it was the only place in a hundred miles for fresh horses and supplies.

      If he were smart, he would strike west along the Gila River into Arizona Territory; with a little luck, he could make it and the Texans weren’t likely to follow him deep into Apacheria. After a week of trying to lose them over hard rock desert and shifting sand that didn’t leave much trail sign, and failing to do so, he knew the three men tracking him weren’t new at this game, and they certainly weren’t fools. They wouldn’t want anything to do with the Apache if they could avoid it; not even to avenge the death of a friend.

      The Gila was his best chance and quickest route to California; but as he stood there next to his mule, he knew he couldn’t take it. Not right off, anyhow. First, he would head for Fort Rucker; he owed the woman at the wagons that one chance. He didn’t owe her his life, however, and he promised himself he would turn west the first time his pursuers broke out between him and the fort. Having scouted for the army, he’d take no chance some second-jack cavalry officer would side with the dead man’s friends and turn him over to be hung. His mind made up, he didn’t expect to have his hand forced quite as soon as it was.

      The dog had rejoined him on a trail leading down out of the arroyo, and after he had given it water he had looked up and spotted his pursuers crossing a ridge top half a mile ahead. The sun was behind Swanson and there was little chance the men would see any reflection off the glass, so he stood and put the telescope on them.

      They were outfitted and looked like typical Texans, lean and tough, strapped with the new Walker Colt pistols that were making their way into the territory and carrying a selection of different rifles under their legs. One rode a big, high-stepping pinto with a broken tail and a nice singlefoot. It was an animal he might have traded the mule for, and he watched it admiringly. The men’s faces were shadowed by large hats, and he couldn’t see them; but the way they rode, letting their horses pick the trail, taking care to lean forward over the necks of their mounts whenever they climbed to go easy on the beasts’ kidneys, he understood them. And, under different circumstances, he would probably get along with these men. But the circumstances weren’t different; he had killed a friend of theirs and now they aimed to kill him, so he waited until they disappeared into a chaparral-filled arroyo, then he mounted and struck west towards the Gila.

      The Apaches had won; the woman had lost. It was that simple. There was nothing he could do about it.

      He had been riding for half an hour, checking his backtrail periodically, when he came over a bluff and saw the cloth. The sharp colours against the dull taupe hues of the hills seemed to physically slap at his senses. Hundreds of feet of brightly coloured calico cloth were strewn in all directions over the tops of the brush at the bottom of the small valley. Some Apache braves had had fine fun on horseback.

      Out the corner of one eye, he saw a thin trail of smoke threading its way into the sky, rising from what appeared to be a third wagon that had broken through the ambush and made it this far. His muscles tensed and a searing pain shot up from the gash in his leg. The dog was standing a few feet in front of the mule, its hair rising in a stiff ridge down the length of its back.

      He pulled his pistol and checked the cylinder, then waved the dog into the valley. The air around him was bright and cheerful, filled with the sounds of water and birds. After a quarter hour, the dog returned and flopped down on the trail. He was soaked and satisfied looking and Swanson knew he’d been swimming. He tightened the bandage on his leg and swung down. He had stiffened up, but fortunately the leg had mostly stopped bleeding. Quietly, he worked his way down the slope.

      The freight driver had been dead for at least two days and what was left of his head was blackening in a repulsive mass in the heat. Swanson kicked a turkey vulture off the corpse. The bird’s ugly bald head and neck were glistening with grease and blood and it was too heavy to fly. It stood off a few yards, its wings outstretched and its mouth open, hissing at Swanson.

      The man had been buried to his neck in the soft sand a few yards from the wagon, but not before his privates had been cut off and stuffed in his mouth. His face had been brutally disfigured; his eyelids, nose and ears cut off, an eye gouged out with a stick. Then he’d been used for target practice with lances and arrows. It had probably been over in half an hour, and made him the lucky one. They had taken longer with the woman. Her white skin looked obscene in the sunlight, and Swanson covered her with a black robe he found in the dirt near the wagon.

      He had no time to bury them; the Apaches would be back for the cloth and the other goods in the wagon. After taking a long drink and filling his canteens and a deerskin bag, he soaked his head in the clear pool of water, cleaned his wound, and then let the mule drink his fill.

      He rode through half the night, putting good distance between him and the valley. Five hours before dawn, he made a cold camp in thick mesquite. He hobbled the mule and unsaddled it, drying the animal’s back carefully with a cloth; then he turned the blanket over to the dry side and resaddled, half tightening the cinch so that he could still mount if attacked. He cocked the crossbow and slipped a bolt into the firing groove, then he threw a tarp on the ground and lay down in what was still hundred-degree heat and tried to sleep. The feeling of the deed crinkling in his pocket was good.

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