The Fire of Greed (7 page)

Chapter 10

“AIN'T SEEN THAT DAMNED PEAK IN AN HOUR OR TWO,”
Simon Lynch complained.

“It's just the damned trees,” Ben Muriday assured his partner. “We been headed in the same direction all this time. I'm sure of it.”

It was the afternoon of their second day out of Luera, and they were impatient to catch sight of the red rock canyon that was the landmark that would take them to the Dutchman's gold. He had said that it would be found on the third day, but they had been in such a starry-eyed hurry that none of them had thought to ask him whether it would be early or late on the third day. Meanwhile, Muriday had more than once advanced the theory that if they picked up their pace, the red sandstone cliffs might be found on the
second
day.

“You still sure we done the right thing with this gold?” Gabe Stanton said to Jasper Gardner in low voice so no one else could hear. “I mean goin' off on this tangent with Muriday's wild-goose chase. We could be sittin' around with our feet up right now . . . or headed to California to spend our
own
gold.”

“Why do it halfway? We talked about this. Why settle for ridin' off to California with nine grand when we could have as much as ten times that?”

“You're right,” Stanton admitted. “But these woods and these mountains . . . it all gives me the willies.”

“Ain't as hot as the desert though,” Gardner reminded him.

“Nope. T'ain't so hot no more, but this brush makes for slow going. I sure wish somebody woulda cut a trail through this crap.”

“If there was a trail, somebody
else
would already have made off with Dearing's gold by now,” Gardner reminded him.

The four men, each driven toward the promise of wealth of fantastic proportions, urged their horses through increasingly difficult terrain where none of them would have gone otherwise. There was no question of picking up their pace. If anything, the pack mules were slowing their progress. The lead ropes on the mules, as well as on the spare saddle horse, which now carried their expedition supplies, were occasionally snagged or tangled in the brush or on the limbs of deadfall. This cost time and tried the patience of Muriday and Lynch.

They had believed Gardner and Stanton when their new partners explained that the cargo on their mules was merely the possessions they were taking with them on their westward migration to California. Naturally, Gardner and Stanton had chosen not to tell them that the packs contained a pilfered payroll, or that their spare saddle horse had belonged to a previous partner who had died from a bullet in the back of his head. Had Muriday and Lynch known the latter, they would not have been so quick to invite Gardner and Stanton to join their expedition.

“You'll find a better use for them damned mules when we get ourself up to Dearing's,” Muriday laughed when Gardner and Stanton both had to dismount to extract a mule from an especially difficult entanglement with the brush.

It was at that moment that shots rang out.

Gardner felt the rush of air on his cheek as one round came within inches of hitting his head.

He and Stanton, already dismounted, scrambled to take cover, while Muriday and Lynch quickly dropped off their horses to crawl behind a nearby log.

More shots came, nicking the log and spattering fragments from the boulders above them.

“Bushwhackers!” Lynch shouted, stating the obvious.

“Apaches!” Stanton replied, advancing a theory with which no one took exception.

“How many?” Gardner asked.

“At least two,” Muriday guessed.

“The bastards got us ambushed in a real good spot,” Gardner observed.

The attackers had no doubt been shadowing the large, noisy party of treasure hunters for some time, waiting for a favorable spot to spring their trap. They had been dealt an especially fortuitous hand when the pack mule became snarled in a place where the four men were hemmed in by a line of boulders.

In such a place, those springing the ambush from high ground had the advantage, which was always magnified by the proclivity of the startled victim to make rash decisions. If the latter survived the initial moments when he was totally exposed to opposition fire, and got under relatively safe cover, he could gain back a measure of control. The ambusher still had the advantage if he had sufficient force to press the momentum of the initial attack, but he had to do so quickly to prevent a standoff from developing.

Muriday aimed his Model 1860 Colt .44 and squeezed off three rounds in rapid succession.

Gardner was about to admonish him for wasting ammunition, when he realized what the man was doing. His three shots elicited a fusillade of return fire, which resolved the question of how many attackers were in the high ground above them.

“Just two of 'em means they're just a couple of young bucks out to steal horses,” Gardner explained. “They were hoping to spook us and grab some stock. I've seen it before. Sometimes, they just break off and run if they don't nail you right off.”

“You see 'em?” Stanton asked.

“Yeah, but just barely,” Gardner replied.

“You fellas cover Stanton while he grabs his rifle out of his scabbard,” Gardner ordered. “He was a sniper in the First Pennsylvania. He can hit anything.”

As Muriday reloaded, Lynch crawled to a position as far as possible from Stanton's. On a count of three, they both began firing at the ambushers, while Stanton stood to grab his old army-issue Trapdoor Springfield.

Without hesitation, he aimed at one of the Apache who had shifted his position to fire his Winchester at Lynch.

A high-pitched howl told them that Stanton's .45-caliber, 405-grain slug had found its mark.

The second attacker, now finding himself alone, decided that his position was no longer tenable, and he ran.

A second shot from Stanton's Springfield, fired at a moving and partially obscured target, failed to find its mark.

Jasper Gardner leapt on his horse and urged it to clamor up the hillside in pursuit.

The other three watched as the powerful animal lunged upward and was lost from view in the thick ponderosa. They listened as horse and rider crashed through the brush, imagining that the second Apache would have reached his own horse by now. There was the sound of shouts and then of gunfire. There was the crack of a Winchester, the pop of Gardner's Colt, more shouts, a scream, and then nothing but the afternoon wind in the higher branches of the trees.

The three men held their breath, staring at the unseen place up on that hillside where they had last heard the shouting. A moment later, perhaps half a whole minute, as their ears began to ring, as so often is the case when a cacophony is superseded by deafening silence, they looked at one another.

Next, they looked around as the cool chill of apprehension seized them with the fear of an ambush, which can often materialize out of silence.

From somewhere in the trees, a jay shrieked, and from elsewhere came a return comment in the voice of one of its own.

A moment later, perhaps half a minute, though it seemed like ten, there was a resumption of noise from where the fourth of their foursome had disappeared.

There was a shout as though in triumph, as Jasper Gardner reappeared. High above his head, he held a long, streaming, black thing. None of them immediately recognized what it was.

It was only when he came near that they recognized that he had not one, but two, long, black, bloody scalps.

* * *

THE BOUNTY HUNTER AND THE DUTCHMAN HAD HEARD
the fusillade in the distance, and each had instinctively gone low in his saddle and touched the stock of the rifle in his scabbard.

“Four miles at least,” Geier whispered. “It sounds closer, but this ist how sounds carry in these mountains.”

They counted not the shots, but the clusters of the shots, both knowing to delineate the initial volley from the separate cluster that ended the exchange.

The Dutchman cocked his head as they heard the shouts, but his expression said that he could make nothing of it.

“Apache,” Cole commented.

The Dutchman merely nodded, and after a moment to listen for more shots, they both pulled their long guns and continued, as quietly as possible, with eyes peeled at the surrounding high ground.

For about an hour, they followed the path through the brush disturbed by the four men, but as they approached the ambush site, they made for higher ground, not wanting to follow the trail to that exact point. There was still a faint trace of burnt gunpowder in the air. The breeze that toyed with the treetops had not much intruded upon the air at ground level.

They dismounted and continued cautiously. There was no reason to believe that anyone was still about, but they took no chances. They parted company, moving in parallel, separated by about twenty yards, to make themselves two targets, rather than one.

“
Ach, du lieber!
” Geier exclaimed.

It was the Dutchman who had found the body of the second Apache.

He was studying the deceased when Cole arrived.

“I found another over yonder,” Cole said as he approached his companion. “Bullet in the head at some range. Probably a rifle shot.”

“This man was hit at closer range . . . two times,” the Dutchman replied.

“What would possess these devils to take the time to
scalp
two Apaches?” Geier asked rhetorically.

“The same thing that possessed them to shoot their partners in the back,” Cole answered.

“They probably don't know they did themselves a favor,” the Dutchman observed after he had inspected the other body.

“How's that?” Cole asked.

“Our friends have mutilated them in the Apache way . . . not the white man way. This will confuse the Chiricahua.”

“Not infuriate them?”

“These savages are Mescalero,” the Dutchman explained. “They are likely two who wanted to prove themselves as great warriors by riding into Chiricahua country to steal horses. The Chiricahua will not be alarmed by finding dead Mescalero. They will be pleased that the trespassers have been killed and humiliated. But the Chiricahua will come if they heard the shots, so we should move quickly.”

Chapter 11

IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE AMBUSH, THE FOUR TREASURE
seekers had continued in silence, united by a concern that more Apache would pounce at any moment. Three of the four rode in the silence of concern, unnerved by Gardner's impulsiveness in lifting the hair of the two ambushers then casually tying the scalps to his saddle as trophies.

Even Stanton, who had killed the first Apache, and who had been Gardner's willing accomplice for all manner of mayhem for years, cast his partner a glance that expressed his opinion that the scalping of two Apaches in the heart of Apache country was unnecessarily provocative.

By late afternoon, the consternation had faded, superseded by renewed optimism as they broke out of the trees into a small meadow and could clearly see the snowcapped peak, straight ahead.

“Told you so,” Ben Muriday shouted. “Lookie there. We been on the right track all the day. Just like I said we was.”

“I'll be damned,” Stanton said with a smile.

They paused to let the horses graze in the meadow, and to study the terrain in the distance for any hint of red sandstone cliffs.

Stanton noticed Muriday looking askance at the pack animals, and imagined he wanted to complain to Gardner, as he had earlier, about them slowing down their progress. However, even someone like Muriday, not given to politeness, was not going to incur the wrath of the man with two scalps tied to his saddle.

* * *

LIKE THOSE WHOM THEY PURSUED, COLE AND GEIER
guided their course by the snowcapped peak, although after passing the ambush site, they altered their trajectory toward the top of the ridgeline so as to maintain a position on higher ground. Here, they found a deer trail, and made good time following it, while the others continued in a more dense section of the forest below.

“Can't believe it,” Cole said with a sigh of relief, handing his brass spyglass to the Dutchman.

“So,” Geier said, focusing on a group of riders in a clearing below. They had dismounted and were checking cinches while their stock grazed.

For the first time since he had left the railroad line east of Santa Fe at the beginning of this adventure, Bladen Cole was able to cast his gaze upon the men whom he had been trailing. They seemed to have stayed one step ahead of him for the past five days. Now he had caught up, and it was time to plan his next move.

“You have caught your prey,” the Dutchman said and smiled.

“Not quite,” Cole said cautiously. “Catching them dismounted
is
how I'd like to do it, but they're a quarter mile away. They'd both see us and hear us coming down this rocky slope. They could start shooting, or mount up and ride out faster than it would take to get down there . . . or both.”

“I see.” Geier nodded. “You have a bit of a hunter in you.”

“That's the job. Now is the time to follow . . . watch . . . wait.”

“Until tonight, perhaps.”

“Yeah,” Cole confirmed. “Probably until after they dismount again to make camp. Probably until they turn in for the night and the only real obstacle is a dozing sentry.”

“At their most vulnerable.” Geier nodded. “And before they arrive at the red rock canyon.”

“I expect that there will be some shooting, and some spilling of blood, tonight,” Cole told the Dutchman. “I thank you greatly for taking me this far, but I think I should take it from here.”

“Are you dismissing the old Dutchman?” Geier laughed.

“You promised to help me find these men . . . and you did. It's my hide on the line to take them into custody. This will be my fight, not yours.”

“I'm offended that you feel my services would not be useful in the next phase of your enterprise, Mr. Cole. Ist not two guns better that one?”

The Dutchman's smile said that the extent of the offense he took was not deep, but there was a trace of disappointment in his voice.

“But . . .”

“The fact that I came with you at all ist due to my huge resentment at the deeds which you told me were done by these men. I would like to remain with you to assure that they
will
be taken into custody. I have invested my time in this venture of yours, and I do not want it to come to naught.”

“I don't want to see you taking any chances,” Cole said.

“I am not a man who is given to chance,” Geier said, the smile fading from his face.

In the distance, the gathering cumulus had now billowed up around the snowcapped peak, obscuring much of it. A long line of steel gray clouds had shouldered their way in from the west. Thunder rumbled across the landscape, and late afternoon lightning crackled within the thunderheads. As with most summer thunderstorms across the Southwest, the threat of rain was an idle threat, but the wind picked up as the two riders made their way down the talus slope to the clearing where their quarry had paused.

Between the wind blowing through the trees and the rolling thunder, the sounds made by the two riders were masked from those whom they followed. Using his telescope to keep an eye on them, Cole matched their progress, as he and the Dutchman stayed to higher ground.

Two hours passed, and then a third. The disturbance within the clouds built to its crescendo and began to slacken as the sun dipped toward the western horizon and fell behind the thunderheads. The lightning flashes were fewer, but more vivid in the gathering darkness.

The four riders kept going, wringing every possible mile out of the day before it was overpowered by the evening. Cole recognized that he would have done, and often had done, the same, when his progress was ruled by urgency.

* * *

“IT'S STARTING TO GET ON TOWARD NIGHT,” BEN MURIDAY
observed, staring into the shadowy forest ahead of them. “We better ought to make camp before we have to do it in the dark.”

“And in the rain,” Simon Lynch added.

“We had rain clouds all around us for the last three hours,” Gabe Stanton reminded him, “and we ain't had a drop of rain.”

“It can come up sudden in these parts,” Lynch replied. “Don't mind settin' up camp in the rain. Just don't wanna do it in the dark too.”

“He's probably right,” Jasper Gardner said disgustedly. “If we keep on, we could go past those red cliffs and not even see 'em. Over yonder in that open space would be a good spot. That way there ain't no cover the Apaches can use to sneak up on us in the night.”

With that, they chose their campsite, dismounted, and began setting up a picket line for the stock. As he had the night before, Lynch set about building a fire pit as soon as he had unsaddled his horse.

Gardner and Stanton unsaddled their own mounts and began to pull the pack saddles from their mules. The first one came off with practiced efficiency, but the ropes on the second pack saddle had become tangled, and the tangling was hard to see in the quickly gathering darkness. Stanton gave it a hard jerk, the mule bucked violently, and the whole apparatus unraveled suddenly. This sent the pack saddle crashing heavily with a sharp metallic clatter as the bags of gold coins hit the ground.

“What the hell you got in there?” Ben Muriday exclaimed. “Sounds like you're carryin' a whole load of horseshoes.”

“Yeah,” said Stanton.

“None of your damned business,” Gardner said.

They had not anticipated the need to merge their stories about what exactly they carried on their mules.

As Muriday approached, they saw that there had been a tear in the corner of the pack saddle and about two handfuls of twenty-dollar gold eagles had spilled onto the ground.

The fire flared up as the three men stared at the ground, the recently minted coins seeming to be inflamed in the flickering reflected light.

“
Ooooh
, God in heaven, what have we here?” Muriday asked. By now, a curious Simon Lynch had hurried to see what they
did
, indeed, have there.

“Lordy, you have got yourself a king's ransom in there. Where'd you get all that?”

“It's ours . . .” Stanton insisted.

“What'd you do to get paid all that?” Lynch asked.

“You fool,” Muriday spat. “They didn't get
paid
all that . . . they
stole
it!”

“Don't recall saying that,” Gardner said. “You're jumpin' to conclusions that you ain't got proof for.”

“Tell me I'm wrong then,” Muriday insisted. “I ain't never seen nobody goes around scalping Indians who's been gettin' paid hundreds . . . thousands of bucks for doing anything.”

“What if it did get robbed somewhere?” Stanton interjected. “And I ain't sayin' it
was
. Tell me you ain't stole your share or you wouldn't steal it if you was given a chance.”

“So, how much you got there?” Muriday asked.

“More like thousands than hundreds,” Gardner admitted.

“Both them all full of gold?” Lynch asked, pointing to the other packsaddle.

“Some of it's greenbacks,” Stanton explained.

“Where
did
you get it?” Lynch asked.

Gardner looked at Stanton. Stanton looked at Gardner, and Gardner shrugged.

“Up around Santa Fe,” Stanton said.

“Is somebody lookin' for it?” Muriday asked.

“I s'pose it's more like somebody wished they had it back,” Stanton said. “Ain't nobody actually
lookin
' for it. If there was, we lost 'em.”

“Tell me this, then,” Muriday asked. “If you got all
this
, why in hell you sign on to go with us after the Dearing Diggings?”

“Helluva lot more gold up there than's here,” Gardner replied. “This stake we got here's pretty good, but there ain't a man I ever met who has got hisself
too much
gold.”

Greed is the fuel that feeds the fire of greed.