Ghost Warrior (13 page)

T
here was another owl call from a different hill. This one was in a lower key, more deep-throated than the other, even lower-pitched, and it carried the oddly seductive tonal quality of a mating call.

But Zak was not fooled.

A human throat had made that second call, and the first one as well.

The Navajos were hiding on two hills, waiting. Watching.

“Colonel,” Zak said, “you're in a tight spot here.”

“I know that, Cody.”

“I can get you out, but you have to do exactly as I say. Do you have a problem with that?”

“No. You're the Indian fighter, Cody.”

“You're up against white men, too, Colonel.”

“Look, call me Jeremiah, or Jerry, will you?”

“If you call me Zak.”

“All right, Zak. What do you want me to do?”

“The first thing is to shuck that saber you're packing on your belt. Bury it in blankets. You'll rattle like a box full of washers once you start climbing that hill.”

“What hill?”

“Right now, Jerry, you're backed up against a wall of rock. It'll be like standing in front of a firing squad when the sun comes up tomorrow. But you can ease around that limestone face and there'll be another hill just to the west of it. You and your men will be protected by that wall of stone while you do this.”

“How do you know there's a hill west of my position?”

“Because I rode through this country the other day. Listen. Let your men slip away in small groups, meet you on the backside of this big bluff. Then, proceed west to this other hill. It'll be the smallest one, but you can leave men there to protect your flanks and rear while you take those howitzers up the next hill, which is right next to it, connected by a wide saddleback.”

“I'll follow you, Zak.”

“Once you have the high ground, you can defend yourself. Set your cannon to fire down along that defile and place your men all along the ridge so that you can lay down fire over a large area.”

“You sound as if you're not going to be on this expedition.”

“I'm not,” Zak said.

“What are you going to do?”

“I'm going to leave my horse and rifle with your men and go on foot into the trees on those two hills.”

“Just by yourself?”

“Jerry, this is the way I fight. I have a pair of Apache moccasins in the bottom of my saddlebag. I'll pack my pistol and my knife. I want to lessen the odds against you.”

“One man against so many?”

Zak drew in a breath, let it out through his nostrils.

“Sometimes one man can do more than a company in country like this.”

“You're taking a big risk.”

“Let me worry about that. Now, get your men and cannon up on that second hill. There's a Navajo camp just beyond it, but they can't come up that way without great cost. So that flank is protected. To your rear are more canyons and ravines that will be difficult for the Navajos and white men to negotiate without suffering heavy losses. So you'll have only one flank to protect and they'll think twice before mounting an attack from that side.”

“Sounds like a feasible plan,” Loomis said.

“It's going to be tough for you to get those howitzers up those hills. Better start now. Send maybe half your company ahead by twos and threes, then haul the first cannon, send more men and then the other cannon, and finally, the last of your men.”

“Got it,” Loomis said.

“Good. Let's get going, then.”

The two men walked back to the camp. While Loomis issued orders through his lieutenants, Vickers and Bullard came up to Zak, who told them of the plan.

“You don't want us to go with you?” Vickers said. “Sergeant Bullard here said he'd follow you to hell.”

“No, I'm going alone. Randy, you take care of my horse and rifle.”

“Yes, sir,” Randy said.

“Keep the reins looped over the saddle horn. Make sure my rifle rides tight in its boot. Don't hobble him. He'll stay with you if I tell him to.”

“He will?”

“But I want to be able to whistle him to me if I need him. So keep him in sight, but let him roam free. Can you do that for me?”

“Sure can, Zak.

Zak spoke to the horse, patting him on his withers.

“Stay, Nox, stay,” he said.

Zak handed Randy the reins and dug into one of his saddlebags. He pulled out a pair of beadless moccasins and a red-and-yellow headband.

“Where'd you get those?” Jeff asked, pointing to the moccasins.

“A present from Cochise.”

Zak sat on a rock and took off his boots and hat. He slipped into the moccasins and wrapped the headband on and tied it in the back so that both ends dangled down the back of his neck.

“You look like a white Apache,” Jeff said. “Damned if you don't.”

“Yes, sir,” Bullard said, “you sure as hell do.”

“Once I get where I'm going,” Zak said, “I hope I'm invisible.”

Men began moving along the face of the sheer bluff and Zak melted into the night, slipping across the flat to the base of a hill. He did not climb there, but crept in a circle around it to the back side. He heard the wheels of the carts as they rolled over rocks. The howitzers rumbled on their wheels and then he was in the silence on the back side of the
hill. He carried neither food nor canteen, but only his Colt and a full cartridge belt, his knife, and the clothes he wore on his back.

Zak made no sound as he ascended the hill. He avoided dry branches and did not dislodge any stones. With each step he took, he felt the ground with the sole of his foot before putting his full weight on it. It was slow going, but he angled up the slope, using the scrub pines and juniper bushes for cover. He crept along, hunched over, stopping every few seconds to listen. When he got close to the summit, he heard the soldiers moving down on the flat. He also heard whispers from a clump of trees off to his left.

He closed in on the whisperers, taking special care with each step. He made no sound with his moccasined feet and he did not brush against branches or scrape the bark of any tree.

He squatted as he came close, closed his fingers around the staghorn grip of his knife. He eased it out of its scabbard, so slowly the sharp blade made no whisper against the smooth leather. When it was in his hand and out of its sheath, he crabbed forward until he could see two figures huddled together behind a jumble of rocks.

It took some time for his eyes to define each man, but their heads moved and one or the other would rise up to peer over the rocks at the soldiers down below.

The two men spoke in a language Zak did not understand.

Navajo.

But they interspersed their talk with Spanish words, like
soldado
and
ejercito
, and once he heard the name Narbona, and a few minutes later,
Minerva. Minnie Biederman. Narbona's sister. So, she was with her husband, and maybe with her brother. Where were the white men? He listened for a long time. The two Navajos did not talk much, but they kept rising to peer down at the progress of the soldiers. He wondered if they were the only lookouts on the hill, or if they were just the two at the highest point.

He strained to hear anyone else who might be close.

He heard no talk, no sound.

He crept closer until he was only a few feet behind the two men. They did not look over their shoulders. They were intent on their spying.

Finally, when the noises of the soldiers and the rolling stock grew faint and then vanished, one of the men spoke above a whisper. Zak could not understand him. The man used no Spanish, but the other one listened and then rose to his feet and stole away off to his left. Zak could hear his footfalls for several seconds and they faded into a soundless vacuum. The other man stood up and stretched his arms. He continued to look downward.

That's when Zak made his move.

He rose to a crouch and lunged toward the standing man. He grabbed him across the mouth with his left hand and forced him to the ground. He put the tip of his blade against the man's throat. The man dropped his rifle, but Zak caught it with his foot and eased it to the ground. The man wore no sidearm, only a knife on his belt. Zak left it where it was.

“Habla la lengua?
” Zak asked.

He loosened his hold slightly on the man's mouth, enough to allow him to speak.

“A little,” the Navajo replied in Spanish.

“Where is Narbona?”

“He has gone. He is in the hills. You will not find him.”

“No, but you will. Tell Narbona the Shadow Rider is here. Tell him the Shadow Rider is coming to kill him.”

The man grunted and struggled. Zak pricked the soft skin of his neck with the tip of his blade.

“I will cut your throat if you fight me,” Zak said. “You will live if you carry my words to Narbona.”

“Narbona will kill me.”

“You can die here or at Narbona's hand. I give you that choice.”

“I will carry your words to Narbona.”

“If you look behind you, I will be the shadow you see. Do you understand?”

“I understand.”

“Go, then. Go to Narbona.”

Zak jerked the man's knife from its scabbard and gave him a kick. The man trotted off in the same direction as his companion had gone, his
bandol-ero
rattling against his bare chest as he ran, leather slapping against skin, cartridges clicking together like tiny castanets.

Zak threw the knife down the slope, heard it strike a bush and then clank on a stone. He threw the rifle down over some bushes. It was an old Spencer carbine. The rifle clattered over pebbles, then skidded to a stop.

He drew a breath, held it, stepped back into the trees and deep shadows. He listened. He waited, then angled left in the same direction the two
Navajo braves had taken. Again, he moved, slow and wraithlike, through the scrub pines, staying well off the path the two Navajos had taken, but keeping it within eyesight. He checked every suspicious clump of shadow and every hollow, every large rock, every bush.

He had gotten a good look at the man he'd held at knifepoint. He would remember his face and the crimson breechclout he wore, the beaded moccasins. He heard nothing as he began to descend the hill and, as he started climbing the next, he began to think he was all alone.

The climb was steep and he stopped to catch his breath.

That's when he heard the soft crunch of a footfall on sandy ground.

Zak froze and crouched low, his feet apart and flat on the ground, his legs beneath him like a pair of springs. He held the knife low, under the calf of his leg so that the blade would not shine in the faint spray of starlight.

Silence for a few moments.

Then another footfall, close by. Heavy breathing. Another crunch—and it was not made by a moccasin, but a boot.

A figure loomed in front of him, advancing a careful step at a time. Step, wait, step, wait. The man was stalking him, Zak was sure of that. He crouched still lower, but was prepared to spring up if the man got within striking distance.

“Largos, you there?” the man said. Zak did not recognize the voice, but he knew it was a white man.

Zak made no sound.

The man took two more steps and Zak saw him framed against the stars, a rifle in his hand, his pistol tied low on his leg. He did not recognize him, but knew he must be one of Biederman's men.

The man saw the crouched shadow and started to raise his rifle.

Zak lunged at him, his blade pointed at the man's gut.

The rifle came to the man's shoulder.

An owl hooted nearby, sounding like a rooster with a sore throat, the same cadenced cry, pitched two octaves lower than a barnyard fowl. An owl that was not an owl, but a very good imitation. The stars behind the man streaked across the sky, spun wildly just above his head. Then Zak could see them no more.

He only saw the blackness of the man's midsection.

He was close enough that he could smell the man's fear.

W
hen time cracks its whip, a small square of universe can bend and twist until a man feels as if he walks through a quagmire of quicksand or is hurtling off a cliff into an interminable abyss at the speed of lightning. And sometimes, time becomes all jumbled up, going fast, then so slow it seems to crawl. Time, someone once said, is God's way of keeping everything from happening all at once.

But now, everything seemed to be happening in a single whip crack of light.

Zak drove the blade of his knife deep into the gut of the man with the rifle. He struck him with the force of a pile driver cut loose from its moorings. The blade went in hard and Zak's momentum added power to his thrust so that he was sure the tip of the knife struck hard bone, the supple bone of the spinal column.

The man doubled over and Zak carried his weight on his back for a second or two, until they both went down in a heap. There was a terrible gush of blood all over Zak's back, and the smell of the man's bowels emptying. The heavy Henry rifle rang on stone like a blacksmith's hammer
on an iron anvil, and hands tore wildly at his gun belt, fingers clawing for purchase, until the two rolled like a pair of intertwined tumbleweeds kicked into motion by the sudden force of a prairie twister.

Zak twisted the blade inside the mushy innards of the man and heard parts of him screech like pulled nails from an oak plank, while others snapped and flapped like springs made of melting rubber. The blade traveled in a short arc and parted flesh and skin, opening the man's side up like a gutted watermelon.

With the knife freed from its carnage, Zak reared up and rammed the blade square into the man's neck, slicing through his Adam's apple, releasing a freshet of blood that spewed a scarlet fountain onto the man's chest and onto the ground. The man sagged into death, a lifeless corpse destined to return to dust.

Zak wiped the blade of his knife on the dead man's trouser leg, slid it back into its sheath. He retrieved cartridges from the man's shirt pockets and picked up the Henry. It was heavy, a Yellow-boy, with its brass receiver. The magazine was full, the rifle cocked. Zak eased the hammer down to half cock and padded away, following the contour of the hill. He headed toward the place where he had heard that owl call, treading quietly with his moccasined feet.

He heard the call again. Twenty, thirty yards away, on the opposite slope. He began to climb, grabbing the trunks of scrub pine, pulling himself up, zigzagging to take advantage both of the cover and the trees for his handholds. He listened, heard
the sound of breathing a dozen yards from him. He crouched down and crabbed forward, a half foot at a time.

The stalking was easy. He came upon a lone Navajo sitting on a flat rock in plain sight, his back to him. He was looking down at an empty flat. All of the soldiers, carts, and cannon were gone, and nobody was walking through the temporary camp to check for lost objects.

The Navajos were biding their time, possibly waiting until morning before seeking out the soldiers, mounting an attack. Or they were moving around on other hills that Zak could not see. If so, they were noiseless, as was he. The brave below him cupped his hands to his mouth and gave the owl call again.

Zak let him finish before he laid the Henry down and snuck down toward his prey, knife in hand. His arm moved like a spring, and he buried the knife in the center of the Navajo's back, twisted it, then quickly pulled it free of bone and wet flesh and sliced the blade across the man's throat. He held out his left arm and the brave fell into it. Zak eased him down on his side. The man was dead, his Spencer carbine by his side. Zak let it lie. He carried the Henry with him. It made a good walking stick for the steeper parts of the hills, and if he needed a long weapon, he'd have it with him.

He climbed to cover atop the hill and sat there for a long time listening. He heard an answering owl call from far away, pondered its meaning. Was it an answering call to the one he'd just witnessed, or did it carry some new message to the Navajos
roaming the hills or sitting like sentinels, awaiting the dawn?

He sat there, pondering what he had accomplished, what the results showed him. Not much. There were few rifles on that particular hill. Where were Biederman, Minnie, and Pete? Where were Narbona and Largos, the main body of whites and Navajos? They were not on the hill where he sat. And they were probably not gathered in any numbers on the next hill.

Narbona probably figured the soldiers would bivouac and stay put in one place. Easy pickings. But now the soldiers were on the move and protected, for the time being, from another attack. It was difficult to fight a battle in the darkness. And the Navajos believed in spirits and did not like to hunt or do battle at night. If they did make another strike, it would be just at dawn, or shortly thereafter.

He was getting nowhere, picking off a man at a time. He wanted to get close to either Narbona or Biederman, or both.

Cut the heads off two snakes, if he could.

The night was his ally, but he was as blind as anyone else. The moon had not yet cleared the high mountains and there was only the Milky Way and billions of stars shedding a faint light on the earth. And the mountains, the hills, were perfect hiding places for animals and humans. Every clump of brush, every cactus, every rock, and every tree robbed the senses. Everything with a shape looked like something else. Unless something moved, all shadows were the enemy, each shape potentially dangerous.

He could wander the night and get nowhere, or he could continue on toward the Navajo camp he and Bullard had spotted. If people were moving around, he would see them. If all were sleeping, he could get close and perhaps learn the enemy's plans when daylight came. He had the advantage at the moment. He knew where the soldiers were heading. He knew where one of the Navajo camps was, and he knew there were enemy sentries here and there, in singles, twos, and maybe threes.

That was enough for now, Zak decided. He drew in a long breath and began his stalk up the adjacent hill, varying his route so that he did not ascend in a straight line.

To his surprise, he did not encounter any sentinels during his ascent. He would have expected Biederman or Narbona to have sentries posted all along that exposed area. He thought they must be pretty confident that no soldiers would attempt to climb those hills during the night.

One or both of them were pretty arrogant, Zak thought, and when he reached the crest, he realized that he was alone on top of that hill. But when he began his descent on the other side, he heard human voices and froze in his tracks.

He could not understand the words, but knew they were in English, spoken by Americans. Curious, he crept closer. Again, he was hunched over so that he was no higher than any of the trees or plants. He stopped every few steps to listen. The conversation died and then rose up again. It was not really a conversation as such, but more like two people standing together making comments every so often.

“Hell of a place to spend the night,” one of the men said, and Zak could hear him without strain.

“You ask me, Biederman's a little touched. Maybe not plumb loco, but touched.”

“Ain't him, so much. It's that Injun squaw of his. The Minie ball.”

The other man laughed.

Zak did not recognize the voices, but he suspected they were two of Biederman's henchmen, part of his “army.”

“Yair, she's a strange one. Them eyes, like a pair of gun barrels.”

“You seen her brother?”

“That Narbona?”

“Umm, that one. He's got mean writ all over him.”

“I seen him talkin' to Leo. They looked like a couple of pollyticians jabberin' away.”

“Yep, that's what they look like and what they are. Old Narbona thinks he's goin' to get back all his Navvyho land, and Leo means to keep it for hisself.”

“You better not let Leo hear you say that, Red.”

Red laughed.

“Or Narbonny neither, I reckon.”

The men were silent for a few moments and Zak crept closer.

Maybe, he thought, these two were some kind of rear guard. If so, then neither Narbona nor Leo expected any threat from this particular direction.

The two men stood near the bottom of a small hill. He could see their cigarettes glowing in the dark.

They were close, but they were in a bad spot for Zak to stalk them. They might not hear him descend to their level, but they would surely see him when he stood up to brace them.

Zak waited. He was concealed behind some juniper bushes and a small pile of stones. He watched the cigarettes float in the darkness, trailing sparks, scrawling arcs and geometric lines as the men moved their hands. He could not see their faces, only their dark silhouettes, their hats and, when they puffed, a faint light on their lips.

Then he heard rocks falling. The two men turned around, dropped their cigarettes to the ground.

“Pete, that you?” one of the men called out.

“Yeah, Farris. Red still with you?”

“Naw, he run off,” Farris said, with a sarcastic twang to his voice.

“Don't get smart, Farris. Red, you see anything?”

“Nope, Pete. Nary.”

“Well, you two boys go on up to the camp, get yourselves some grub.”

Pete hove into view, a lanky stick figure scrambling down the slope of a little hill, a sliver of light glinting off his rifle. He joined the two men. One of them offered him a cigarette. He took it, and the other man, Red or Farris, struck a match and lit it for him. Zak saw their faces in the blaze of the match for only a second or two. But he recognized Pete.

“You goin' to stay here, Pete?”

“For a little while. I think them soldier boys have gone beddy-bye for the night.”

“Yeah, it's real quiet.”

“They're probably suckin' on their sugar tits,” Red said. Zak knew which one he was because he had seen a lock of his hair when he lit the match.

All three men laughed.

“Go on, get your asses up the hill and keep goin' another mile. You'll see a campfire.”

“What's Leo doin'?” Farris asked.

“Humpin' his squaw,” Pete said.

Red and Farris laughed. The laughter was bawdy.

“Any Injun squaws in our camp?” Red asked.

“No,” Pete said, “but Frenchy's always willin'.”

“Damn you, Pete,” Red said, “you know I don't go for that.”

“Well, Frenchy sure does,” Farris said. “You get in a tight, Red…”

Red uttered an obscenity and the two men walked up the little hill and disappeared over the top. Pete stood there, smoking. He lay his rifle down and stood there, looking up at the stars.

So now Zak knew where Leo's men were. A mile away. Evidently the Navajos were in their own camp. It could be right next to Leo's, in fact. But he knew where Leo was, and that gave him hope that he might take out one field commander, perhaps.

The night was turning chill. Cool air blew down from the high peaks and Zak felt it on his face.

Pete would not stay where he was for long, he was sure. He was already stepping up and down in place. Perhaps the cold was seeping up through his boots.

There was no sound from the two men who had left.

Pete finished his cigarette. He threw it down and crushed the butt with the heel of his boot.

Zak held his breath. He would wait a few more minutes.

No, Pete would not stay long.

It was time for him to go.

It was time for him to die.

Zak laid the Henry down. He let the barrel rest in a fork on one of the bushes.

He wiped his sweaty palms on his trousers. One of them became sticky with blood. He wiped the blood off on a different spot.

Pete heard the slight sound.

He reached down and picked up his rifle.

Yes, Pete, Zak thought. Time for you to go.

Time to die.