Lord Apache (4 page)

Drumm pointed to the flanks of the distant mountain. The winks of reflected light were not now evident, but from the same approximate point showed a curl of smoke.

"We can hardly do that!" he objected. "The Apaches are waiting for us over there!"

After the confusion and disruption of the battle, the bony mare grazed peacefully in the reedy bottoms. Throwing his saddle over the back of the animal, Meech glanced at the distant smoke.

"Well," he said, drawing the cinch tight, "I don't know about you folks, but I've got business in Prescott, Apaches or no Apaches! My pay keeps right on going, even during an Indian war, and the home office expects me to earn it."

Incredulous, Drumm said, "But you're riding into danger!"

Pinching his nostrils together, Meech blew his nose into a nearby cactus.

"Wouldn't be the first time," he grunted. "It goes with the territory, as the drummer said." Climbing gingerly into the saddle, he let down his backside with caution. "You fellers ain't coming?"

Drumm shook his head. "I shouldn't like to risk traveling to Prescott right now, with the road swarming with Apaches. It's safer here, at least for the present. Anyway, there may be a stage passing soon, or freight wagons."

Meech shook his head and wrapped the reins around his knuckles. "I hate to leave the two of you here in such a situation, 'specially after you took me in and shared your grub. But I've got a job to do, and I mean to get about it." Raising a hand in salute, he said, "
Pax vobiscum—
that's Latin for 'good luck.'" Posting uneasily, he rode toward the distant smoke. A hundred yards down the road, he turned to call back.

"When I get to Prescott, maybe I can get a man to come out with a wagon and take you and your servant and what traps is left into the village—if you're still here, that is!"

Eggleston watched the detective go.

"I would hate," he murmured, "to be that criminal whom Detective Meech is looking for! I think he would ride through the portals of hell to bring back his quarry!"

For two days Jack Drumm and his man sweltered in a dug rifle pit behind an earthen wall, a canvas rigged on poles the only shelter from sun and wind. The clouds had vanished, and the weather turned bright and hot. During the day they saw occasional streamers of dust in the distance. Eggleston expressed a hope that they represented oncoming wagons and coaches from Phoenix, bearing news of the capture of Agustín and his roving marauders. But no wagon passed them on the Prescott Road. The bleak landscape took on an otherworld quality, a painted drop in a London theater. They started at each rustle of a bush, the flight of a desert wren, a lizard skittering over a flat rock. They started, and sweated, and waited.

"I would certainly prefer," Eggleston said, "to at last be safe in Prescott, or whatever the village is called. Do you think we could possibly start off for there at night, Mr. Jack, riding double on the mule, and—"

"Much safer to wait here, at least for the time being," Drumm told him. "Perhaps Lieutenant Dunaway and his troopers will finally pass by and escort us safely there."

"I wonder," the valet said, slicing a heel of bread and spreading on it the last of the ragout, "how that Detective Meech got on?"

"Probably scalped, and lying in some lonely ditch between here and Prescott." Drumm took the proffered sandwich. Most of the food had been carried off or destroyed during the raid; this was the last. Though Drumm's prized Belgian gun was useless, they still had his .53 caliber Schroeder repeating carbine, which was a needle-gun of good design, his custom Tatham pistols in their plush-lined case, and a Sharp's .50 caliber rifle. Eggleston in addition had the six-shot revolver purchased for him by Drumm in Great Russell Street before the trip, and there was plenty of ammunition for all weapons. "But I am still hungry," Drumm muttered.

Eggleston scoured the ragout pot with the last of the bread and asked, "Why do you suppose the good Lord ever made this accursed place?"

His master washed down the crust with murky water from one of the pools of the Agua Fria. "To give good men a glimpse of Purgatory, of course, and thus make them better Christians!"

Eggleston pursed his lips, looking at the jagged wound across Jack Drumm's cheek. It was black with caked blood and bordered with a greenish-yellow stitching of pus.

"I do not like the looks of that, Mr. Jack," he said. "Will you let me wash it—there is a little of that good Charente cognac left in a broken bottle, and I understand that alcohol is beneficial to such wounds—and put some kind of a bandage on it?"

His master shook his head. "The Drumms are a hardy lot. I am sure it will soon start to heal. I fear, however, it has somewhat marred my features." He touched it tenderly. "The rascal's knife cut away some of my mustache, as I noted in the mirror this morning. My chief worry is that after such bad treatment the hair will not grow again in a proper pattern."

Mopping perspiration from his bald head, the valet wandered disconsolately away among the reeds. Drumm watched him go, concerned. In a domestic way Eggleston was very capable. No one could make a better omelet, give a higher luster to the household silver, or keep such proper order below stairs at Clarendon Hall. Andrew had not wanted to give up Eggleston to serve as his younger brother's valet on the Grand Tour, but Jack Drumm in his insistent way prevailed. Now he had dragged poor Eggie over the better part of the circumference of the world. The valet had begun to look the worse for wear, though he complained little.

He was reclining on the mound of earth thrown up when they had dug the rifle pit, topi pushed over his eyes to shade them from the glare of the sunlit desert, when he heard the valet cry out.

"There!" Eggleston shouted. "That will do for you, you rascal, you!"

Snatching up the carbine, Drumm plunged through the reeds.

"What is it, Eggie? Where in the hell are you?"

Eggleston stood ankle-deep in mire. He pointed to the writhing body of a great snake, pinned to the ground by the rock he had dropped on it.

"I almost stepped on the serpent, Mr. Jack!" The valet's face was pale, and his muddy hands trembled. "I—I was reaching into the reeds when I heard this buzzing sound! The thing struck at me, but fortunately I jumped back in time, though I fell headlong into the muck."

Drumm crushed the head of the serpent with the butt of his carbine.

"The diamondback," he noted. "
C. atrox
, I believe. Common from the state of Texas to the southern part of California." His eye fell on the rude structure among the waving reeds and he asked, "Whatever are you building here, Eggie?"

The valet moved gingerly past the still-wriggling coils of the snake to stand beside his handiwork. "Not knowing how long we may be stranded here, sir, I took the liberty of cutting some reeds to make us a better shelter—someplace to be out of the wind and weather." Proudly he showed his master the beginnings of a rude shack, standing on a little knoll above the general course of the river. With his knife the valet had cut the tall reeds and woven them together with strands of vine, making wall sections that he had propped together preparatory to tying them in place with further cords of the tough vines growing in the bottoms.

"My father was a weaver," he explained, "and taught me the trade at an early age. Later I will daub these reeds with mud from the river bottoms and put on a roof to shelter us from the sun."

Drumm clapped him on the back. "Capital, Eggie! You are indeed a coper, one of the best! Here—let me help you!"

While they were working on the shelter, Drumm pausing from time to time to scan the distance for signs of further attack, or possibly rescue, Eggleston came upon a stand of odd-looking plants. He pulled one up and inspected it, roots dripping mud and water.

"That is Indian corn," Drumm said. "What the Americans call 'roasting ears.' Do you remember—in the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco they were served boiled, with butter and salt and pepper?"

"I wonder how it came to be here?" Eggleston mused.

"Probably a passing cavalry patrol once stopped to feed and water its mounts, dropping a few grains that later took root."

"Even with butter and salt and pepper," the valet said, "I remember thinking it more suited to the feeding of animals than humans. Nevertheless—" He stripped off an armful of the ears. "It is a
kind
of food, I daresay. We can not afford to be too particular!"

Drumm was plastering the roof of the hut with black clinging mud when he heard the faraway sound, a muffled popping. Running to the canvas shelter, where Eggleston was stripping the husks from the ears, he snatched up his spyglass. Focusing, he scanned the horizon. At last he made out, descending the jagged cleft of the canyon where they had first met George Dunaway and the men of B Company, a coach and team traveling at fearful speed.

"It is probably the stage from Phoenix," he told Eggleston. "From the sound of gunfire, they have encountered Agustín and his braves in the canyon."

Indian corn forgotten, they watched the distant speck, hearing the muffled rattle of gunfire borne on the wind. The coach seemed to crawl interminably toward them, though the horses were galloping hard.

"It is difficult," Drumm muttered, "to estimate distance in this ridiculous country!"

"But I am glad," the valet said, "that there is at least
some
vehicle on this lonely road, even if it be fleeing from red Indians!"

The coach reached level ground, rocking toward them in a cloud of dust. Moments later it arrived, stopping in the road with a squealing of brakes. The driver reined up the six-horse team so hard that the animals sat back on their haunches; the dusty high-wheeled coach swayed on its thoroughbraces.

"Good Lord!" Eggleston murmured. "Look at that, Mr. Jack!"

The California and Arizona stage line sign was riddled and splintered with bullet holes. Arrows stuck into the boot, fringed the baggage atop the coach like quills of a hedgehog. A feathered lance was driven halfway through one door.

The driver, a whiskered man in a straw hat, jumped down and opened the door. The leathery ancient in greasy buckskins who sat beside him on the high seat laid aside his rifle and assisted the passengers from the coach. Most were important-looking men in clawhammer coats and uncomfortable-looking paper collars; all were heavily armed with rifles and pistols. There were also two ladies. One of the females was young—tall and angular, narrow-waisted, with a wealth of red hair tied in place by a China silk scarf. The other was middle-aged, gray tresses done up in a bun, and carried a capacious reticule and a parasol. A powerfully built man with a square-cut black beard and gold watch chain shook hands with Jack Drumm. "Sam Valentine," he introduced himself, "from Maricopa County." He pointed to the others. "We're all elected to the new session of the Legislature. Traveling to Prescott when some of Agustín's braves jumped us in Centinela Canyon back there." He looked around at the ruins of Jack Drumm's camp. "What in hell happened to
you
?"

"Drumm," Jack said. "Jack Drumm. My valet and I were traveling through here when they attacked us also, night before last. The rascals ransacked the camp, destroyed most of our gear, and drove away our animals—except for that one mule."

The old man in buckskins grinned toothlessly at Drumm. "At first," he cackled, "I didn't recognize you, Mr. Drumm! By God, you surer 'n hell look different from the feller I sold them brutes to Saturday a week!"

It was Coogan, the mule dealer from Phoenix.

"Company hired me to take the stage through so's these gentlemen could make their Legislature session, but we got our butt shot off in the canyon back there." Coogan shaded his eyes and stared northward. "And if I ain't mistook, more of them bastards is ahead of us, between here and Prescott, just a-waitin'!" He pointed to a thin pencil of smoke in the distance. At the same time they all saw the wink of the distant mirror.

"What do we do now?" someone asked.

The young lady with the red hair and the sprinkle of freckles spoke up.

"Why, we go on, of course! Mrs. Glore and I have got to reach Prescott. We've got important business there!"

There was an uncomfortable shuffling of feet. An elderly man in a plug hat cleared his throat but said nothing. Another broke open the cylinder of his revolver, shucked out the empty shells, and reloaded. Sam Valentine took out a stogie and put a match to it.

"How does it look to you, Ike?"

The old man leaned on his rifle and spat tobacco juice. "Hell, I ain't afraid of Indians—never was! I fit 'em ever since me and General Dodge was up to our ass in Comanches on the Brazos back in '58! But I figger that fracas in the canyon was only the curtain raiser." He nodded toward the distant mountains. "Agustín and most of his rascals are probably up there gettin' the main show ready."

There was more shuffling of feet, scratching of heads, uncertain colloquy. One man muttered, "By God, here we are halfway to Prescott! We can't turn back now!"

"Certainly not!" the red-haired female insisted.