The sun had not reached its highest point in the sky when Cantrell and four riders met Stryker and the others on the trail. The man had swapped the flashy palomino for an ugly, hammerheaded mustang that looked like it could run all day and then some.
Stryker told Cantrell about his meeting with the Comanche, but the man showed no surprise. “He had to see you for himself,” he said. “Thomas makes his own judgments.”
“Where is he, your worship?” Trimble asked. “I was just saying last night that he looks like a real nice feller.”
“He is ahead of us. He will find the men we seek.” Cantrell looked at Trimble. “Thomas has killed seventeen men, eight of them on my order. He is not ‘a real nice feller’ as you say, old man. He makes a terrible enemy.”
As they headed south along the ragged edge of the foothills, Stryker fell in beside Cantrell. After sorting out in his mind the order of his words, he said, “Are your wife and father laid to rest?”
The man nodded. “Yes, in our family mausoleum. One day I will rest beside them.”
“I’m sorry, Don Carlos. I thought I might find the words, but I can’t.”
The young man was silent, a frown on his handsome face. “It is done, Lieutenant, and all the words have been said.” He turned bleak eyes to Stryker. “I should have ridden with the gun. Instead, as my wife was being raped and murdered, I was on the range, to see how the summer rains had improved my grass. That is something I will live with forever.”
“The Apaches are far to the east; how could you expect there would be danger?” Stryker asked. “Wild beasts like Pierce and Dugan are few and, like wolves, seldom encountered.”
Cantrell nodded. “You speak well, Lieutenant, and I know it comes from the heart. But the sin is mine and words will not wash it away.”
The trail stubbed its toe on high, broken country and the way south became difficult. Oak and pine forests continually barred the way and deep, brushy arroyos cut across their path. Stryker looked longingly at the scrub desert to the east, mostly flat-riding country, its hazy pink mesas rising like dismasted ghost ships on a shifting yellow sea. But there was little water in the desert and what there was was hidden deep and hard to find. It was a place where determined men might endure, but not horses.
After two hours, Trimble, again riding point, began to find sign left by the Comanche: two deep cuts in a tree trunk or a couple of rocks laid in the middle of the trail. Thomas had Pierce and Dugan’s scent, and he was following them close.
The trees thinned again, and Stryker could see half a mile of trail ahead of them. It led through a rocky canyon, then climbed abruptly among scattered juniper and piñon toward a high plateau.
The flurry of shots came from beyond the table-land. Then there was a lull, followed by several more.
Trimble came down the slope at a fast canter, drew rein and pointed behind him. “The cornered rats are fighting back, Cap’n. I reckon the Injun is in a world of trouble.”
Stryker kicked his horse into motion, Birchwood beside him. Followed by Cantrell and his men, he hit the slope at a run and drew rein at the top of the plateau. Level ground stretched away for a hundred yards, then began a gradual descent into a wide forested valley. There the mountains intruded, and a sheer V of raw rock at least sixty feet high jutted into the valley floor. The trail ahead curved around the mountain and then was lost from sight.
The sound of two more shots crashed headlong into the quiet of the day, followed by a ringing silence.
Stryker drew his Colt and charged down the incline, the rest thundering after him. He swung around the rock outcropping at a gallop, then found himself in the south end of the valley. Here timber-covered peaks soared skyward on each side, and a mountain drain-off cut across the valley floor. On the far bank of the creek, half hidden by cottonwoods, sprawled a tangle of ancient volcanic rock. Thomas was sitting on one of these, blood staining the front of his shirt.
There was no sign of Pierce and Dugan.
Chapter 37
Stryker splashed across the creek, flanked by Birchwood and Cantrell. The Mexican had waved his men forward and they’d galloped off to the south with Trimble. But Pierce and Dugan could easily lose themselves in this country and it would be a useless pursuit.
A bullet had plowed across the Comanche’s left shoulder, near the neck, a bloody wound that had turned the front of his shirt crimson.
“The two men we hunt were hidden in the rocks,” Thomas said, addressing Stryker. “One of them fired too soon and”—he motioned to his shoulder—“gave me this. I rode into the trees and fired back. They did not wait around long.”
Cantrell stepped closer to the Indian, his face concerned. “Can you ride, amigo?”
“Si, patrón,” Thomas answered. “I would ride with more serious wounds than this.”
He turned away and foraged among the trees for willow leaves and wildflowers. When he returned to the waiting men his shoulder was padded and the bleeding had stopped.
Thomas looked at the sky, clear blue with no cloud in sight. “Thunder is coming,” he said, “and much rain. There is an abandoned village ten miles to the south and it is my mind that the men we chase could seek shelter there.” He nodded. “Maybe so.”
A look of horror flashed in Cantrell’s face and he hurriedly crossed himself. “I know that village, Thomas. El Pueblo de la Muerte is a place of evil. We cannot go there.” He looked at Stryker. “It was a plague village, many years ago, and the ghosts of the dead still walk there.”
“Don Carlos, maybe there are things that scare Pierce and Dugan—I don’t know, but I doubt that ghosts are one of them.”
“The men we chase will not go to the village, Lieutenant. No one goes there.”
“They might, if they don’t know its reputation.”
“My vaqueros are simple men and so superstitious they will ride five miles around a place where a vaquero was struck by lightning. They will not enter the pueblo.” As the Comanche had done, Cantrell looked at the sky. “Besides, there will be no storm.”
Thomas shook his head. “Your pardon, patrón, but the thunder is coming.”
Stryker turned to Birchwood. “Are you afraid of the boogerman, Lieutenant?”
“No, sir.”
“Thomas, you will enter the village?”
“I do not fear spirits.”
“And Trimble will make four of us.” Stryker looked at Cantrell. “Don Carlos, you and your men can stay at a distance and seal off the approaches to the village from the north and south. Pierce won’t head east into the desert and his way to the west is blocked by the mountains.”
“Five of us will go, Lieutenant. It is my duty. I will post my vaqueros around the pueblo as you say.”
Cantrell’s men returned an hour later. They’d seen no sign of Pierce or Dugan. Cantrell spoke to them, about the death village and the task he had for them.
Reading the expressions of the vaqueros, Stryker saw that they had no desire to get close to the place. Years before, men like these had passed on their fears of haunts and ghosts to the Texas punchers, who were now among the most superstitious group of men on earth.
One by one, a few of the older riders among them spoke up, their brown faces concerned, even frightened. All of the vaqueros had faced Apaches, outlaws and cattle rustlers without thought for their own hides. But these were men who believed that bad luck would follow if you used the same iron on an animal twice, placed your left foot in the stirrup first or put on your hat in bed. The supernatural was very real to them, and the evil reputation of the plague pueblo realer still.
In the end, and after what seemed to be a lot of convincing, the vaqueros agreed to cover the north and south approaches to the village—at a safe distance.