The tent canvas ticked as Trimble’s bullets thudded into it. But there was no sign of Pierce or Dugan.
Men were milling in confusion around the camp. Someone, Stryker thought Birchwood, had scored another hit. He saw the lanky man running for cover in the trees, fired at him and missed.
Now the renegades were getting more organized and bullets were kicking up dirt around Stryker and the others. A man firing at an uphill target tends to shoot high, but Pierce’s men were finding the range.
Firing as they came, a half dozen charged for the ridge. Trimble dropped one, and the rest took cover.
Birchwood yelped as a shot kicked gravel hard into his face. He laid down his rifle, knuckled his stinging eyes . . . and missed the start of the Apache attack.
Two dozen riders swept into the camp like hawks attacking doves. With incredible speed and violence, the Apaches gunned down men as they scrambled for cover or ran for their horses. A few of them, unlucky enough not to die, were clubbed to the ground, including the lanky man in buckskins.
It was over as suddenly as it had begun. Six dead men lay sprawled around the camp and the remaining four were herded against a wagon, their hands in the air. Stryker read the fear in their faces, each of them well aware what was in store for him.
Some of the Apaches gathered around the body of the dead girl. One of them stepped away, clubbed his rifle and drove it into the skull of the lanky man. The man’s head exploded in a scarlet halo of blood and brain, but the Apache kept clubbing him, even when he lay dead on the ground.
One of the others dropped to his knees. Raised his hands as though in prayer and loudly pleaded for his life. This amused the Apaches highly, until one of them kicked the man into silence.
There was no sign of Pierce and Dugan. As wary as barn rats, they’d pulled out and left their men to face the Apaches.
Trimble wriggled closer to Stryker. “Cap’n, we’d better skedaddle. The Apaches—”
He never completed what he had to say. The rifle muzzle pressing into the back of his head stilled the words in his mouth.
Stryker turned, looked up and found himself looking into cruel black eyes, glittering in a lined, weather-beaten face, an iron lance blade at his throat.
Trimble found his voice again, looking at the Indian with the lance. “Hail, great chief Geronimo,” he said. “I’m right pleased to make your acquaintance.”
The Apache, his face emotionless, motioned with his lance, and Stryker and the others got to their feet. Their guns were taken from them and they were pushed down the slope of the ridge.
“Cap’n,” Trimble whispered, “I don’t have a real good feelin’ about this.”
Stryker nodded. “I don’t need your teeth to tell me that.”
Stryker knew that to be taken prisoner by Apaches was to admit to yourself that you were already dead. He recalled that the sign above the gates of hell read, Abandon hope all ye who enter here, and he could read words to that effect in the merciless eyes of the warriors around him. They were writ plain enough.
Yet he felt one small glimmer of hope.
They were not herded together with Pierce’s men, but ordered to sit near the campfire. Trimble noted that as well, because he was smiling and nodding at the Apaches, though they studiously ignored him.
Birchwood seemed scared, and that was no fault in him. But he held his head high, preparing to die like an officer and a gentleman and bring no disgrace to his regiment or family.
An hour passed. The Apaches reverently wrapped the body of the dead girl in a blanket and carried her into the trees. The three remaining captives were stripped naked and spread-eagled on their backs, their ankles and wrists bound with rawhide to stakes. The man who had begged for mercy was whimpering, and one of the others, who could have been the breed Billy Lee had mentioned, told him to shut the hell up.
The Apache that Trimble had identified as Geronimo stepped in front of Stryker. There was nothing about him to suggest he was a great war chief. He wore a white Mexican shirt, breech cloth and buckskin moccasins to his knees. His head was bound in a black headband and he carried a new Winchester ’73 in his hands.
“Who speaks for you?” he demanded.
Stryker rose to his feet. “I do.”
Geronimo looked at him closely, with the wide-eyed curiosity of a child. “Broken Face. I have heard your name spoken many times.”
“And I have heard the name of Geronimo many times. And always men say you are a great chief, a brave warrior and mighty hunter.”
If Stryker thought flattery would get him everywhere, he was quickly disillusioned. The Apache looked at him with disdain. “You have the same easy way with lies as all white men.” His eyes hardened. “You are a soldier. Why do you come to take our land?”
“That is not my reason for being here,” Stryker said. “I hunt a man called Rake Pierce and another called Silas Dugan.”
“Why?”
Stryker touched his face. “This, and other reasons.”
Geronimo was silent for a few moments, reading Stryker’s eyes.
The Apache had a keen intelligence and would not be easily fooled. Stryker knew only truth would satisfy this man. He would detect a lie as easily as a diner spots a fly in his soup.
“I too hunt Pierce and Dugan,” Geronimo said.
“They’ve killed and scalped many of my people.” He waved a hand. “But they are gone from here.”
“Yes, but they were here, and then they rode away.”
“They scented the Apache, as the antelope does the wolf.”
“That is so.”
“What will you do when you find these men?”
“Kill them.”
Again Geronimo was silent. Then he said, “It is said that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. I will think on this.” His eyes swept the three men. “You may live or you may die. I will decide.”
He turned on his heel and walked away.
Birchwood looked at Stryker. “Well, sir, I think that went rather well.”
Trimble stated what was in Stryker’s mind. “Sonny,” he said, “if you think that, you’re a damned eejit.”
Chapter 34
The day slowly stretched into late afternoon and the heat grew. An Apache brought a bladder of water and tossed it at Stryker’s feet. Over at the other side of the camp, men were shrieking, a sound that put Stryker’s teeth on edge.
If things turned out badly and the torture began, could he resist screaming and instead curse his enemies? Could he die well?
The cries of men in mortal agony that echoed around the valley convinced him otherwise. They were dying like dogs, and so would he. The Apaches knew how to kill a man slowly and in great pain. Sometimes the torment would last for hours, other times for days.
The women were the worst, or so he’d been told, but there were no women here. That thought brought him little solace.
Birchwood was sitting, his chin on his drawn-up knees. He glanced at Stryker. “Where the hell is he? Let’s get it over with.”
“Geronimo will be here in his own good time,” Trimble said. “An Apache don’t like to be rushed into a thing.”
A scream ripped through the fabric of the afternoon; then another, and another, tearing loose from a man’s throat. The Apaches, their faces solemn, were roasting meat on a small fire that had been lit on the man’s belly.
Birchwood was very pale. “I won’t let them kill me like that,” he said. “I’ll try to take one of the bastards with me.”
Both Stryker and Trimble looked at him, but said nothing. Then the old man said, “Cap’n, you in good with God?”
“No. Are you?”