the Bounty Hunters (1953) (10 page)

Flynn said, Are you afraid?

Bowers hesitated. I suppose so.

Everybody gets scared sometime, Flynn said.

Do you?

Sure.

Do Apaches?

I never asked one. But we might find out. He wanted to see Bowers' face, but it was too dark. It's not so routine now, is it?

Bowers said, No, quietly.

Do you think you're a better soldier than these Mimbres?

I don't know.

When will you?

That's not it.

It's the not seeing them, isn't it?

Bowers nodded. What do you want to do?

Take them. If they think we're a bunch they might quit without a fight. Now, they're most likely camped in the square, not chancing getting trapped inside a house. If we can get on two sides and pour it in all of a sudden, we'll catch them with their breechclouts down.

What if they fight?

Flynn winked and the tone of his voice meant the same thing. You'll think of something. That's what they pay you for.

Go on.

We're about five houses from the square; you go up this row, I'll cross over a few rows and work around to the other side of the square. Just think of one thing: if it doesn't wear a hat, shoot it.

Bowers saw the form silhouetted in the doorway for a moment, then Flynn was gone.

The cavalryman turned to the window and his body tensed as he lifted his leg and hooked it over the window sill. He paused, sitting on one thigh, before pulling his body through. Then he was out. He moved to the next building and listened for a long minute before going through the window. As he did, the stock of the carbine scraped the inside wall. The sound was rasping, loud in the small room, and Bowers stiffened. He closed his eyes tightly. Finally, when he opened them, he thought: Dammit, hold onto yourself!

Inside, thick darkness again, and the window in the other wall framing the lighter shade of the outside. He went through to the next house, but remained there a longer time while he listened for the sounds that never came, and he tried to picture fear on the face of an Apache.

It took him longer to climb through this window, because now he was more careful. Just keep going, he thought. Don't think and keep going. He dropped to the ground and darted to the next wall keeping his head down. His hand touched the adobe, groped along the crumbling surface; his head came up quickly then and he looked both ways along the wall. But there was no window on this side of the house.

He moved to the corner and inched his face around with his cheek flat to the wall, then sank gradually to hands and knees and crawled along the front of the house, careful of the carbine. At the doorway he paused again, listening, then rose and stepped into the darkness. Instantly the smell touched his nostrils. It hung oppressively in the small room. A raw smell that made him think of blood, and of a butcher's shop.

He started to move and the toe of his foot touched something soft. He stooped then, slowly, extending his hand close to the floor until the palm touched it and told him what it was. Cowhide, and the bloated firmness of the belly. Freshly butchered'

Behind him there was a whisper of sound. He knew what it had to be. Turn and shoot! It flashed in his mind. Don't wait! But it was too late a hand closed over his mouth' something at his throat' the carbine jerked from his hand then came back suddenly against his face.

Flynn waited at the rear of the livery stable, his back flat against the boards. He was in shadow, but a few feet from him the sagging door showed plainly in the moonlight. A half-moon, but there were no clouds to obscure its light and the shadows about him hung motionless. Above the doorway a loading tree jutted out dimly against the sky.

The livery stable faced on the square. In the time it had taken to work around to this side, he had heard nothing; and there was no one inside, he was certain of that now; still, they could be just beyond the front entrance. He tried to picture the square as he had once seen it. It was small, with a statue in the middle. The statue of a saint. He calculated now: Anywhere in the square they could not be more than a hundred and fifty feet away. He looked up at the loading tree again, then eased through the partly open doorway and moved along the wall until his hand touched the ladder.

He tested the rungs, the ones he could reach, and as he climbed he pulled carefully on the rungs above him before bringing up his legs. Halfway, the loft was even with his head. He raised the carbine and slid it onto the planking, then raised himself after it. Toward the front, the main loading window showed dimly a square of night sky, starless, and it grew larger as he crept toward it, easing his weight over the planking. Now and then a squeak, a rusted nail bending but a small sound that would not carry beyond the building. At the opening he stood to the side and looked straight down over the carbine. There was no sound. No movement.

Flynn moved back now and eased down until he was lying on his stomach. He pushed the Springfield out in front of him, the barrel nosing past the loft edge, and at that moment he saw the Apache.

The Mimbre appeared in a doorway directly across the square, then moved close along the wall until he reached the corner of the building. He crouched then and waited, facing toward the rear of the one-story structure. Flynn raised the Springfield and dropped his head slightly for his cheek to rest against the stock, then swung the barrel less than three inches to bring it against the dim figure of the Mimbre.

He hears something, Flynn thought. That animal sense of his is telling him something. His hand tightened beneath the barrel, feeling the slender balanced weight of the carbine. He wouldn't know what hit him, he thought now. Probably not even hear it. The oil smell of the breech mechanism was strong with his face so close and two inches away his finger crooked over the trigger guard. His thumb raised. Pull it back easy, he thought. He wouldn't hear it, but pull back easy. The thumb closed over the hammer and cocked it.

The figure moved then and the barrel followed him as he glided across the narrow street to the corner of the next house. Flynn saw now that he carried a rifle and was pointing it toward the house behind the one he had just left. It was in the row Bowers would be moving up.

They know he's there, Flynn thought. They must have known it for some time. That's why they aren't in the square. But where are the others? His eyes inched along the adobe fronts across the square. Nothing moved. He swung back to the Apache on the corner. They've filtered back among the buildings and this one is waiting in case he breaks free.

Maybe they've taken him already. And maybe they haven't. But if he breaks for the street, the one on the corner will get him. This went through his mind quickly as he aimed at the Apache, realizing almost at the same time that there was no choice. He must kill the Apache on the chance Bowers wasn't already taken. Look around, he whispered to the Apache, then it will be easier. But the figure remained motionless, his back hunched into a round target, as Flynn inhaled slowly, stopped, squeezed the trigger, felt the shock jab against his shoulder, smelled the powder and heard the report echo through the deserted streets. He saw that the Apache had turned as he was hit and was facing him now, lying on his back.

Chapter
9

The wind rose, bringing clouds to dim the moonlight, and the wind moved through the streets with a low hissing sound, bending the brush clumps and splattering invisible sand particles against the adobe. The wind moved over the dead Apache, spreading his hair, fanning it into a halo about his head. But this was all, only the wind.

As morning approached, Flynn could see the Apache more plainly. The sun came up behind the stable and a shaft of cold light filtering between the stable and the next building fell directly across the Apache. The shirt would move gently as the breeze stirred, but the curled moccasin toes which pointed to the sky, and the extended arms, palms up, did not move.

Flynn thought: Your friends are probably looking at you at this same moment. One of them saying, Poor' something that ends in i-n or y-a and has a guttural sound to it. Or else something the Mexicans named you. Juan Ladron. Joselito. Or a name like Geronimo which a few years ago was Gokliya. And now they are begging U-sen not to make you walk in eternal darkness, because it wasn't your fault, Flynn continued to think. I'm sorry I killed you at night. It was not the way a warrior should die. But you would have killed me. That's the way it goes. I wish I could light a cigarette.

Where are they, in that house the Mimbre was pointing toward? Probably. With Bowers. Perhaps one has worked his way around and is entering the livery. Flynn rolled to his side and looked back toward the ladder, then to the loft opening again. Just don't start imagining things, he told himself. They'll show sooner or later. It's their move now.

Shortly after he thought this, it came.

His eyes were swinging along the ramada fronts when he caught the movement in the corner of his vision. His eyes slid back instantly to the street where the dead Apache lay. Bowers was standing at the corner of the building. His hands were behind his back.

Flynn watched him, surprised. He had not admitted it, but now he realized that he had supposed Bowers dead.

The cavalryman staggered out from the building suddenly, off balance, and Flynn saw the two Apaches then. One of them pushed Bowers again, staying close behind him, urging him on until they reached the middle of the square and stopped next to the statue. The other Apache followed and now the three of them looked up at the livery stable first, then to the buildings on either side. The Apache behind Bowers jabbed him with his carbine barrel.

Moving his head slowly along the building fronts, Bowers yelled out, They want me to say something!

You don't have to say it, Flynn thought. He watched one of the Apaches point the carbine at Bowers' head and pull back the hammer. Give up, or they'll kill him. That doesn't need words. But how do they know I'm still here? And that I'm alone? He thought of their horses then, picketed on the hill. They found the horses. They move fast and they're very thorough, and they know a man wouldn't run off without his horse. Not in this country.

Flynn' don't come out!

He moved from the opening back to the ladder and climbed down it wearily. He walked out the wide front door of the stable toward the three figures at the statue. Beyond them, now, he saw two other Apaches standing in the shadow of a wooden awning. The square was dead-still.

The second Apache stepped forward to meet him and he handed the carbine to him, then reached into his coat and drew the pistol and handed this to him.

He said to Bowers, Well, we tried. What happened? He saw the bruised cheekbone and the swelling above his right eye.

I walked into the house where they were butchering a steer, Bowers said. They were on me before I knew it.

Red, don't back away from them. Stay calm and we'll get out of this.

Bowers looked at him quickly. It was the first time he had been called that since before the Point. And it had come unexpectedly from Flynn.

The guide looked at the Apache next to him. He said roughly, in Spanish, What are you called?

The Apache eyed him narrowly. Matagente. Then he said in hesitant, word-spaced Spanish, I do not know you.

Nor I, you, Flynn said. But I know you are Mimbre+|o and at this time very far from the land of the Warm Springs. But you will come to know us very well. At San Carlos you will see us often.

Matagente's expression did not change as he listened. Now he said, San Carlos is not for the Warm Springs Apache.

This is something which ones above us have ordered, Flynn said. There is no profit in talking about it with you. Where is Soldado? Our words are for him.

You will see him, Matagente said. He motioned with the carbine, saying no more, directing them toward the house where the others stood. They had carried the dead Apache from the street and now he was under the ramada near the doorway. Matagente looked at him as he prodded the two men into the house, but still he said nothing.

They sat on the packed-dirt floor with their legs crossed and their backs to the wall and waited. For what, they did not know, wondering why they were not taken to the Apaches' rancher+a.

Matagente brought them meat, then sat near the doorway with one of the Springfields across his lap. His hand moved over the smooth stock idly. Before this he had used a Burnside .54 which needed percussion caps and powder, and often it misfired.

When they had eaten the meat, Flynn said, Take us to Soldado now.

You will see him, Matagente said, and again lapsed into silence. This new gun was in his mind this pesh-e-gar and he was thinking how good it would be to fire it.

Through the doorway Flynn could see the other Apaches standing in front of the house, talking to each other in low tones he could not hear. Then he saw them look up. One of them moved off and the others watched after him. In a moment he was back and he called in to Matagente, in the Mimbre+|o dialect. They are here.

Matagente rose and moved to the doorway as mounted Apaches suddenly appeared in front of the house. These dismounted as others continued to enter the square from the side street, walking their ponies. The sound of this came to Flynn, but he could see nothing until Matagente stepped back from the doorway. He saw the Apaches now, at least twenty, probably more, milling in front of the house, then his view was blocked again as a figure moved into the doorway.