Promise of Revenge Read online

  Copyright © 2010 by Mona Paine

  First Skyhorse Publishing edition published 2014 by arrangement with Golden West Literary Agency

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  Cover design by Brian Peterson

  ISBN: 978-1-62873-630-4

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-62873-988-6

  Printed in the United States of America

  Table of Contents

  Tomahawk Meadow

  Promise of Revenge

  Tomahawk Meadow

  I

  It was one of those situations a man sometimes rode into without warning, without expectation, and without any desire or taste for. The range men fired a volley just as Buckner’s horse turned up out of a dusty, bone-dry cañon, and the sound startled Buckner as much as it surprised his horse. They hunched toward the top-out because they were already committed to the extent of this trail, but the moment they got up there where foggy dust lay here and there and where men were locked in a fierce little savage battle, they both wished they were almost anywhere else.

  It was easier to make out the range men than it was to see their adversaries, but in this territory at this time Ladd Buckner had no doubts about the identity of the wispy, raggedly firing people across the arroyo-scarred grassland in among the thin stands of pines. In fact, when the range men seemed to be in the act of converging, in the act of mounting their common effort and peppered the first and second tier of trees, several of those bushwhacking individuals, stripped to moccasins, clout, and sweatband, whisked back from tree to tree in a shadowy withdrawal. They were Apaches, which meant they were also Ladd Buckner’s enemies. They were in fact the enemies of everyone, even including certain subdivisions of their own nation.

  Buckner swung off, drawing out the Winchester as he stepped to the talus rock soil, then turned his horse out of the cleared place in the direction of the trees, and sank to one knee as a bronco Apache swung free and darted up an exposed stretch of highland trail, racing for cover. Ladd Buckner fired, along with four or five range men who had also been awaiting just such an opportunity, and the fleeing man turned over, headfirst, like a ball and rolled into a tree where he unwound and lay sprawled and lifeless.

  Another pair of bronco Apaches suddenly turned back, and Buckner, who was on higher ground than the other range men and for that reason had a better sighting, tracked the lead Indian and fired. The Apache gave a tremendous bound into the air as though bee-stung and lit down, racing harder than ever. Among the range men someone shouted encouragement in a pleased voice. Buckner tracked the second Apache, and fired. That time he’d held slightly downhill instead of uphill, and the Indian’s legs tangled, then locked, and he fell in a limp heap.

  Finally now the Apaches had guessed they had an enemy on their right flank where they had expected no one, and began cat-calling back and forth as they attempted to shift position, but the range men were after them now like hawks. The stranger’s arrival and deadly shooting had completed the necessary unity among the bushwhacked range men; they systematically fired at every movement up along the foremost ranks of spindly forest, keeping the attacking Apaches on the defensive.

  A man’s powerful, deep voice sang out in English: “You up there . . . keep watch! They’ll get behind you if they can! Keep down . . . keep low!”

  Ladd Buckner heard without heeding. He knew as much about Apaches as any of those range riders down yonder. He was not worried about himself; he was worried about his horse. Apaches would kill a man’s horse if they possibly could, although they much preferred stealing it.

  But this time it appeared that the Indians had had their belly full. In a space of minutes when they’d had no reason to think it possible, since this had been their careful bushwhack, they had lost two warriors, shot dead on their feet, from a direction that their previous scouting had shown them there was no danger. The range men began hurrying, finally, passing up along the gritty bottom of an arroyo, booted feet grinding down hard as they hastened ahead, knees bent and never straightening as they came on toward the nearest stand of pines. They had been caught completely unprepared by the first Apache volley, and they’d taken a couple of casualties, but that momentary surprise did not last and now the range men, coldly and mercilessly angry, were going after their attackers. They made such good progress that a brace of broncos who had boldly—and foolishly—advanced well ahead of their companions to jump down into one of the arroyos and attempt a stalk closer to the range men could hear them coming. The range men made no attempt to be silent; they talked and cursed and scuffed dirt and stone and rattled gun stocks along the sides of their arroyo. They did every careless thing that to Apaches was a sin, but they kept coming and eventually the Apaches could no longer remain in the arroyo.

  Ladd Buckner was straightening around after having brushed some belly-gouging sharp small stones from beneath him when the first raghead appeared, head and shoulders like a rattler lifting more and more and more as they twisted left and right. Ladd held fire. The Indian jumped out of the cleft in the grassland and turned up across the open territory in a desperate race for the upland shelter where his tribesmen were already withdrawing. Ladd settled the gunstock closer, snugged it back until it became almost a part of his slowly twisting body, and was ready to fire when the second bronco sprang up out of the earth and also began wildly running. It was a distraction but only a momentary one, then Ladd fired.

  The foremost Indian gradually slackened pace. He seemed to want to continue to rush along but the harder he tried the slower his gait became, until the other bronco ran up and without even a glance shot past and kept right on running. From far back a number of range men sang out, then an immediate ragged volley ensued. The unhurt, swiftly speeding buck went down and rolled end over end. His uniquely slowing, stumbling friend was not fired upon. The range men, like Ladd Buckner, lay there frankly interested in just how much longer the wounded buck could keep up his charade. Not much longer. He stopped, legs sprung wide, used his Winchester for a support, and turned very slowly to look over where Buckner had fired from. He could not see the man who had hit him but he tried to locate him. Then his knees turned loose and he fell, first into a sitting posture, then he rolled over.

  The Apaches had failed in their attempt at a massacre that would have provided them with horses, pocket watches, pistols, and shell belts as well as cowboy saddles that brought a great price deep in Mexico. The reason they had failed had simply been because someone who could shoot accurately had appeared suddenly over where there was not supposed to be anyone, and he was still over there, prone in the rocks. As the broncos withdrew, wraith-like into their shadowy world, one bitter man went back and aimed into the talus where Buckner was, and fired. The slug ricocheted like a furious hornet. Buckner pressed lower than ever and tried to find that Indian. He never succeeded.

  The bronco sent in another probing shot, do
ubtless hoping to come close enough to make Buckner move, but he was not dueling with a novice. Buckner felt the sting of stone without moving any part of him except his eyes. He tried as hard to locate his adversary as the bronco did to locate him, and the end of it occurred when the range men got up to the northernmost end of their arroyo and suddenly, recklessly sprang out and raced for the nearest trees. The Apache had to end his manhunt and race up into the shadows in the wake of his retreating companions.

  The range men blazed away where there were no targets, which was not as futile as it sometimes appeared. Apaches could be anywhere, prone under leaves, up trees watching for stalkers below, or even stealthily coming back to fight again. They weren’t. They had failed, and, although the numbers were equal, they did not fight pitched battles. It was not their way and never had been. They were specialists in ambush, in stealthy mayhem, in wispy comings and goings. By now, wherever they had hidden their horses back upslope, they would be springing aboard to haul around and race away. Their casualties were already forgotten. At least three were dead, which they could not have helped but notice, but that bronco Ladd Buckner had shot down last was wounded. Still, the broncos did not have room, or time, for chivalry. If a man dropped, wounded or simply out of air or perhaps just stunned, he was counted a fatality because the enemies of the Apaches rarely took prisoners. The Apaches did not take them, unless they were half-grown children, and neither did their enemies.

  Those charging range men burst past the first tier of trees, red-faced and in full throat. They wanted blood. In their environment there was no such thing as a worthwhile Apache. If they could have got up where the broncos had their tethered horses, they would have killed every man jack of those Apaches. It was hot out upon the grassland; that meant it was even more breathless in the humid foothills; those range men unlike their foemen were not accustomed to running on foot, and the Indians had achieved a speedy head start.

  The gunfire ended, and after a while even the futile chase ended. The Apaches had disappeared, so the range men turned back, whip-sawing their breath, shirts plastered flat with salt sweat, their legs and hips aching from the mad charge up from the grassland into the spindly forest. They cursed between deep-drawn breaths and tried to guess which way the ragheads had gone so that perhaps later on they might be able to go in pursuit. Until they were low enough again to see beyond the forest’s fringe to the range beyond, they seemed to have forgotten that man over in the talus rock who had so perfectly confused the Indians by appearing on their right flank with his deadly gunfire.

  “Whoever he is,” a youthful, wispy, tall rider said, “he sure as hell deserves a medal.”

  “Came up out of the cañon just before the fight started,” stated an older man. “I seen him. I figured, by God, he was another raghead, except he had a white man’s way of settin’ his horse and all. You’re dead right . . . he sure come up out of there in the nick of time.”

  “We’d’ve cleaned them out anyway,” grumbled another man.

  “Yeah, most likely,” conceded the older rider. “But he came up out of there and sure made a hell of a lot of difference.”

  There was no way to dispute this statement even if the other riders had wanted to dispute it, which none of them did. Then they came out of the trees and saw Ladd Buckner squatting beside that wounded bronco, and angled off in that direction. The sun was high, the air smelled of burned powder, and far out several saddled horses grazed peacefully along.

  II

  Buckner was not an exceptionally tall man. He stood six feet, and in heft weighed about twenty pounds less than a couple of hundred, but if this amounted to an average man in physical respects when the three range men ambled up and halted as Ladd Buckner arose from beside the wounded Indian, it became clear to the observing survivors of that raghead ambush that Ladd Buckner was something more than simply a range rider who had inadvertently come down out of the northward hills and up out of that gravelly cañon at the precise best moment for him to appear upon Tomahawk Meadow.

  A dark-eyed, black-haired, stalwart man shoved out a soiled hand and said: “I’m Chad Holmes, range boss for the Muleshoe cow outfit. This here is Buster Dent, Jack Caruthers, and Pete Durbin.”

  They pumped hands once, then let go, and Chad Holmes looked long at the unmoving, snake-eyed Indian on the ground whose middle had been bandaged. Then Chad turned from the waist to look elsewhere and said: “You fellers better see if you can catch those damned horses, and, if so, you’d better tie Morton and Devilin across their saddles.” As the cowboys turned away, Muleshoe’s range boss turned back for a more thoroughly assessing study of Ladd Buckner. “You sure came up out of that cañon at the right time,” he said.

  Buckner sounded indifferent as he replied: “Mister Holmes, I’d have given a lot to have been ten miles easterly in some other cañon, but once we started up out of there, we didn’t have room to turn around to head back down.”

  Holmes looked at the Apache again. “Where did you hit the son-of-a-bitch?”

  “Through the body,” replied Buckner. “It’s one of those wounds you don’t know about until some morning you look at him, and he’s stiff as a ramrod or else he’s grinning back at you.”

  “He isn’t going to grin,” said the dark-eyed range boss.

  Ladd hooked thumbs in his bullet belt and considered Muleshoe’s range boss. Chad Holmes was dark, ’breed-looking, stalwart, and physically powerful. He was about Buckner’s age, thirty or thereabouts, but he was thicker and not quite as tall. Muleshoe had plenty of reason to hate this particular raghead. Most northern Arizona range men had abundant reason to despise most Apaches.

  Ladd Buckner also had reason to hate ragheads, but, although he understood exactly how the range boss felt, he was opposed to murder even when it was committed against ragheads, so he said: “Mister, this one belongs to me.”

  Holmes shot a dark glance upward. “What does that mean?” he demanded.

  “I saw him, I fought him, and I shot him. I also patched him up. He belongs to me. That’s how they call their shots.”

  “Yeah, but we’re not ragheads,” stated the range boss. “This son-of-a-bitch was in a bushwhacking band and I got two dead cowboys to prove it. We got laws about something like that.”

  Ladd sighed. “You don’t lynch this one, mister.”

  Holmes began to look less baffled than antagonistic. “You’re going to stop the four of us?” he quietly asked. “What’s your name, mister?”

  “Ladd Buckner. No, I’m not going to stop the four of you, Mister Holmes, I’m only going to stop you, because you and I are the only ones standing here.” Buckner paused, traded looks with the ’breed-looking Muleshoe boss, then gently smiled. He had a very nice smile. “Mister Holmes, I don’t deal in favors, but this time I guess I got to. I did you boys a little favor coming up out of the cañon when I did. Do you object to settling up small debts?”

  Chad spat aside and glanced again at the venomous-eyed, prone Apache. “All I got to say to you, Mister Buckner, is that, if you insist on being foolish over one stinking raghead . . . all right. Just don’t be around here when my riders come back because they aren’t going to stand for this, if you’re still here.” He looked sulphurously upward. “What in the hell sense does this make? You’re risking your life keeping one of those underhanded, treacherous bastards alive. You patch him up and the minute he gets a chance he’ll slam a knife to the hilt between your shoulder blades.”

  Buckner disputed none of this. He knew Apaches as well as anyone else knew them. “If he gets behind me, it’ll be my own darned fault,” he told Chad Holmes, and looked up and around. “You know, Mister Holmes, I was on my way southward to a place called Piñon when I came up out of that blasted cañon. How much farther is it?”

  “Twelve, fifteen miles,” stated the range boss. “It’s our nearest town. In fact, it’s the only town anywhere around the Tomahawk Meadow range country.” Holmes assumed an interested look. “You acquainted down there
?”

  Ladd wasn’t. “No, sir, but I read in a newspaper up at Cache Le Poudre about a harness works being for sale down there.”

  Holmes dryly said: “Mister, if you can sew a trace or rig a saddle as well as you can shoot, I’d say you’ll make a fair living in this territory.”

  The Indian attempted to sit up and Chad Holmes turned stonily to watch. Ladd Buckner stepped back and set a big leg behind the bronco for support. It was a rough but a generous gesture. The Indian settled back and glared. “Subbitch,” he snarled at Chad Holmes.

  Neither of the range men moved nor replied. Far out one cowboy had managed to catch one of those loose saddle animals and was now astride it going in search of additional stampeded saddle horses. It would be inevitable that some of the loose stock had not stopped after being abandoned when the Indians had first struck. By now those horses would be two-thirds of the way back to the home ranch of Muleshoe.

  Ladd Buckner leaned to hoist the wounded Indian up to his feet. Chad Holmes, arms crossed, stood and watched. If the raghead’s life had depended upon some merciful act by the range boss, there would have been another dead Apache.

  Ladd encircled the Indian’s middle with a strong arm and turned to head in the direction of his saddle animal. Chad remained, arms crossed, bitterly watching, but he did nothing to interfere.

  Buckner had to waste time because the wounded Indian sagged badly a couple of times. When he got to the horse, eventually, the Indian looked back and grunted.

  The Muleshoe men were clustered around their range boss. They were mounted, but there were no spare horses. That meant the two dead cowboys would have to make the trip to the home place flopping behind someone’s cantle.

  Ladd propped the Apache against a sickly pine with yellowing needles, held the reins to his drowsing horse, and waited a long while leaning upon his Winchester. But the range hands did not come. Maybe Holmes had given an order that the men had obeyed, or, more likely, he had not given any order at all but had simply pointed out that Ladd Buckner was no one to fool with, if he chose to oppose them, and they did not need any more casualties, certainly not over one lousy raghead who was probably going to die anyway.