“Then I’ll ride there myself with Mr. Corcoran,” said Boutelle. “I shall have dispatched a—”
“You will not.” Anger came at least strongly enough to stiffen Finley’s words and make him stand abruptly. “Now you listen to—”
He grabbed Boutelle’s arms as the younger man started turning and twisted him back. “I said listen!” he snapped.
“If you think—”
“There’s more involved here—”
“Get your hands off me!”
“—than just a senseless Indian murder!” Finley drowned him out. “Use your brains! What possible good could Braided Feather have gotten out of murdering two of our citizens on the very day he agreed to a peace treaty with us! After ten years of constant battle! No! I say, no! It wasn’t Indians!”
“And I say only an Indian could do what was done to those men!” Boutelle lashed back. “I say only an Indian could conceive of it!”
“You don’t—”
“I’m riding to that fort, Mr. Finley!” the younger man yelled. “With you—or without you!”
“You are not!” roared Finley, his hands tightening so hard on the younger man’s arms that Boutelle winced. “I’m the authorized agent for this territory and until I’m replaced, it’s my decision to make! And I say there’ll be no soldiers yet!”
Boutelle’s repression of fury was easily visible. Finley could almost see him swallow it.
“Very well,” the younger man said in a tight, quiet voice. “Very well, Mr. Finley. You are quite correct. Your authority supersedes mine.”
He paused, looking at the agent with cold contempt.
“At least for now,” he said.
Spinning on his heel, he moved for the door. Finley started to say something, then changed his mind. Let him go, he thought. Maybe righteous indignation would keep him occupied for a while, the preparation of damning reports to Washington.
Well, there was no time to waste in concerns about Boutelle. Grabbing his hat and jacket, he stepped outside.
“Oh, Jimmy,” he called to a young boy passing by.
“Yes, sir.” Jimmy Taylor came over to him.
“Like to earn a short bit?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m expecting Al Corcoran back here any second,” Finley told the boy. “Will you tell him that I’m going to the hotel for a minute, then I’m going to the livery stable for my horse.”
“Yes, sir.”
Finley pressed the coin into the palm of the boy’s hand. “Tell him to wait right here, Jimmy. Tell him I’ll be right back. You understand?”
Jimmy nodded. “Yes, sir, I understand.”
“Good.” Finley patted his shoulder and turned away. What if Dodge came back while he was gone? the thought occurred. He’d better tell Harry Vance to tell the professor to stay in his room until he got back.
Blowing out breath, Finley stepped off hurriedly, wondering how in God’s name he was going to talk Al Corcoran into going in peace to the Apache camp.
Al Corcoran came out of Packer’s Funeral Parlor and started walking the horses down the street. He was going back to Finley’s office now and Finley had better have his mind made up.
Corcoran shivered fitfully, still feeling sick. He was sure that he would never forget the experience of carrying his brothers into Packer’s back room. He could still smell that raw-meat odor of them in his nostrils, still see in his tortured mind their torn flesh and protruding bones as he lay them down on the tables in the dim, chemical-reeking room.
He sucked in raspingly at the air. The Apaches would pay for this, by God. One way or another, he’d get out to Braided Feather’s camp for revenge—even if he had to go alone with a high-powered, telescopic lens rifle. There would be payment in full, he swore that to himself and to the memory of his brothers.
He was thinking that when he saw the man.
At first it failed to strike him. He walked on past the store, his mind too deeply intent on thoughts of vengeance to notice the evidence before his eyes. Then, abruptly, he stopped and looked back so quickly that it drove sharp twinges of pain up his neck.
The man was wearing Tom’s clothes.
For a moment, Corcoran couldn’t move. The enormity of it seemed to paralyze his muscles. He stood, immobile, his eyes fixed on the tall stranger who sat on the porch of the general store, looking toward the hotel.
Then the fury came, breaking Corcoran loose from his paralysis, moving through his veins like a current of acid. Slowly, mechanically, he walked across the street and tied his lead horse to the post.
He took a deep, trembling breath and unbuttoned his jacket, pushing the right side of it back with his hand. For a moment, he rested the curve of his hand on his pistol butt.
Then, lowering his hand, he stepped up to the edge of the walk.
“You,” he said.
The man’s gaze turned and lowered to the murderous eyes of Al Corcoran.
“Where did you get those clothes?” Corcoran asked slowly. He shuddered at the sight of this savage-looking man, but forged ahead.
The man was silent, his dark eyes perusing Corcoran’s face.
“You hear me?”
The man’s lips curled upward slightly in a scornful smile.
“I do not understand you,” he said in Apache.
Corcoran shuddered with animal hatred. “An Injun,” he whispered through his teeth so softly that only he could hear it.
Abruptly, he reached back and slipped the Colt from its holster. The man’s gaze dropped to the barrel end pointed at his chest.
“What are you doing?” he asked in Apache. There was no alarm in his voice.
“Get on that horse,” said Corcoran, gesturing with his head. He felt his finger tightening on the trigger and willfully loosened it.
A man came out of the store and stopped in his tracks at the sight of Corcoran’s drawn pistol. Corcoran noticed him from the corners of his eyes.
“Get back inside,” he said.
“I do not understand you,” the stranger said, as if Corcoran had spoken to him.
Corcoran’s chest heaved with shaking breath. Jerkily, he moved back a pace and gestured toward the second horse with his pistol barrel. He emphasized the movement by a loud cocking of the Colt’s hammer.
The man still did not look disturbed. He glanced over at the hotel, then, without a word, pushed to his feet. Stepping down off the walk, he released the reins of the second horse and mounted it with a single, fluid motion. There he sat waiting while Al pulled his own horse free and mounted it hastily.
“All right,” said Al, “now get.” With the pistol barrel, he pointed toward the north end of town.
The man drew his horse around and started walking it down the street. Behind him, pistol held across his saddle, rode Corcoran. This was one Apache Finley wasn’t going to save, he was thinking. Finley wasn’t even going to know about it. Maybe the agent was right about it not being Braided Feather, but he was wrong about it not being an Indian—because, right there ahead of him, tall and steady on his horse, rode the Indian who had killed his brothers. The one who was going to die in the same way they had.
“Hurry it up, will you, Sam?” asked Finley.
“Yes, sir, Mr. Finley.” The old man dropped the saddle across the mare’s twitching back and started working on the straps.
Finley stood impatiently on the straw-littered floor of the stable. His fingers flexed restlessly inside his gloves as he sighed deeply. Yesterday, about this time, he had been in the Bluebell Restaurant with Boutelle, having his steak and eggs. The day had looked promising.
How much could change in twenty-four hours.
He glanced toward the old man and saw that he was almost finished now. Moving to the horse, he rechecked the straps hastily, then nodded. “That’s fine, Sam.” Raising his boot to the stirrup, he lifted himself to the saddle quickly.
“See you,” he muttered and nudged his boot heels against the mare’s flanks. Its shoes
clattered noisily across the stable floor, then squished into the mud outside. Finley reined it left and rode down the street to his office.
Jimmy was still there, leaning against one of the balcony columns. As Finley drew up, the boy straightened and came over to the edge of the walk.
“Hasn’t he come back yet?” Finley frowned.
“No, sir.”
“You’re positive you couldn’t have missed him?”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Finley. I never caught sight of him.”
“I see.” Finley clenched his teeth. “Well, thank you, Jimmy.” Pulling the mare around, he heeled it into a quick canter down the street.
A minute later he was rushing out of Packer’s front door, his face a mask of alarm. Was Al already taking things into his own hands? Had he ridden to Fort Apache by himself or with Boutelle? Or worse armed himself and started off for Braided Feather’s camp? The agent looked around indecisively, the fist of one hand hitting at his leg. Good God, was there to be no end to this insanity?
He was riding past the store when he saw that the man was no longer there. Reining up quickly, he dismounted and jogged inside.
“Mr. Casey, did you see where that strange man went?” he asked.
He didn’t expect the answer he got.
Corcoran rode behind the man, his .44 leveled at the broad back. Every few seconds he had to consciously restrain himself from squeezing the trigger and sending a bullet into the stranger’s body.
He didn’t want to do that yet. He wanted to save that for last. First, he wanted to make the man beg for his life, to cry for mercy. Or, failing that (these damned Injuns sometimes died without a sound) he wanted, at least, to kill him slowly, inch by inch. Not with one merciful shot.
Corcoran pressed his teeth together and shivered. He had never wanted to kill so much as he did now. His eyes glittered as he stared at the man ahead. Damned butcher, he thought. The Indian must have sneaked up on his brothers from behind. This had been no face-to-face attack, that was for certain. His brothers had been strong, husky boys. No one Indian, no matter how strong, could have done what had been done to them unless . . .
Corcoran’s breath hissed out between his lips. Damned murdering bastard! he thought. When I’m through with you, they not only won’t know who you were, they won’t know what you were.
Raised in his stirrups, Finley galloped out of Picture City, eyes scanning the meadow for Corcoran and the man. He had to find them now, before . . .
He grimaced painfully. Before what? his mind demanded. There was no answer. Only vivid memories of a dead, staring Indian so terrified that his heart had stopped and of two hideously mutilated bodies. Only premonitions of a horror that went far beyond all fears men came to live with and accept.
Corcoran tightened his reins and pulled the bit back in his horse’s mouth.
“Stop,” he said.
Ahead, the man, without glancing back, pulled in his horse and halted it. They were in a small, tree-ringed glade that slanted down gradually toward a narrow, rushing stream. It was a place hidden to anyone but those within a range of several yards. Corcoran didn’t want anyone to stop this play.
The man sat motionless on his horse as Corcoran dismounted. The heavyset man walked slowly across the ground and raised his pistol.
“Get down,” he ordered.
The man raised his leg backward over the horse’s body and settled easily to the ground. It drove a fiery bolt of rage through Corcoran to see the pant leg of his brother hitch up across the boot top.
“Raise your hands,” he said.
The man raised his arms, his expression one of unconcern. Corcoran stiffened, a tight, venomous smile forming on his lips.
“I thought you didn’t savvy me,” he said.
Was that a smile? Beneath his glove, the fingers that held the Colt went white across the knuckles.
“I understand,” the man said calmly.
With a savage cry, Corcoran jumped forward and slammed the pistol barrel across the man’s skull.
Without a sound, the man staggered back a few paces, then caught his balance. As he straightened up, the raised collar of the jacket he wore slid down, revealing the livid scar. The sight of it jolted Corcoran, but not enough to drive away the murderous fury in him.
“You son of a bitch, Injun scum,” he said in a soft, tense voice. “I’m gonna cut you into meat.”
The man stood erect again, seemingly oblivious to the trickle of blood across his forehead.
“Wipe that filthy smile off your—”
Corcoran broke off suddenly and smiled crazily himself.
“No, go ahead,” he said through his teeth. “Smile, you Injun bastard. That’s how they’ll find your head—smilin’.” He looked down at the scar. “That’s gonna make me a perfect line for cuttin’.”
A chuckle sounded deeply in the man’s chest.
“Go on, laugh, you bastard!” said Corcoran, his voice breaking.
The man did laugh. Eyes glowing with a savage amusement, his lips flared back, his laughter rocking terribly in the air. Hatred boiled up behind Corcoran’s eyes. With a deranged sob, he pulled the trigger and fired a bullet into the man’s chest.
Finley jerked the mare around and looked in all directions. Dear Christ, was he too late already?
In the distance, a second shot rang out and echoed off the hills.
Corcoran stood frozenly, staring at the man. His mouth hung open; a line of spittle ran across his jaw.
The man stood smiling at him.
Corcoran fired again, instinctively.
The man twitched back a little but did not fall. A hollow sound of disbelief stirred in Corcoran’s throat.
“Who are you?” he asked, but the words came out only as a jumble of brainless sounds.
The man took a step toward him.
“No.” Corcoran edged back, his eyes wide with terror.
The man kept coming. With a sobbing gasp, Corcoran fired again, and again. He kept pulling the trigger even when there was only the click of the hammer on empty chambers.
“All gone,” said the man.
Corcoran cried out hoarsely as he backed against the tree. He pressed against the gnarled trunk tightly, shaking his head in tiny, fitful jerks, his eyes bright and staring.
“Who are you?” he gasped.
The man stopped a few paces away.
“Look,” he said, and he stretched out his arms.
Corcoran recoiled against the tree, the beginning of a scream strangled in his throat. He stood there for a moment looking at the man with eyes that had lost their sanity. Then his vibrating legs gave way, and he slid down to a half-sitting position on the tree roots, looking up stupidly at the man and what the man was becoming.
When the monstrous shadow fell across him, he tried to scream, but there was no strength in him. Mouth yawning open in a soundless shriek, he went limp against the tree. He barely heard the inhuman screech that filled his ears.
A trembling Finley pulled up his horse.
He didn’t want to enter that glade. A moment before, Corcoran’s two horses had come bursting out of it and passed him, their eyes mad with terror. He wanted to turn and follow their frenzied gallop across the meadow. The scream still seemed to ring in his ears—a sound the like of which he had never heard in all his life.
Only after a long while could he force the shuddering mare to enter the glade.
It seemed to be deserted. No tall figure stood there waiting for him; there was no sign of Al Corcoran. Finley sat stiffly on the fidgeting horse, his eyes moving over the silence of the glade.
Then he saw the pieces.
8
Thirty minutes before he saw the low line of Picture City’s buildings in the distance, Professor Albert Dodge knew in a flash of angry revelation that he was going back to Connecticut.
He’d had enough, more than enough. Odd that it took this last abortive foray into the hills to make him realize it. God knew the disenchantment had be
en mounting for at least a year. Perhaps this last, frustrating trip was a disguised blessing.
Under the circumstances, he wasn’t sure who was more of an idiot—“Appleface” Kelly or himself for believing Kelly. “Oh, yes, sir, Perfessor. There is sure as hell some broken pots out there, some bones, too.” Dodge could hear the man’s assured voice repeated in his memory. “Moron,” he muttered. He’d soon discovered that the pot shards were dry clay formations and the bones leftovers from wild animal kills.
Then it had begun to rain.
Rain? he thought irascibly. More like horseback riding underneath a waterfall. In less than twenty seconds he’d been drenched. No shelter at first. He’d tried to stop beneath the overhang of a piñon tree. That had been a waste of time. After several minutes of that, he’d been forced to move on, the rain alternately coming straight down on top of him or blowing into his face with the violence of buckets of water flung at him by some deranged antagonist.
On top of that, his horse had slipped and fallen.
By the time he’d located the small cave, he was dripping wet and screaming vehement curses at Kelly, the sky, the land, life itself.
The cave helped precious little. He’d crawled into it nonetheless, over still-moist animal droppings and the remains of small, partially devoured creatures he could not identify.
There he had cowered, while the rain poured down, at last falling into a sluggish sleep despite his dread that some wild animal—a coyote, a cougar—might clamber into the cave and attack him. It would have been a fitting conclusion to Kelly’s Folly, he thought. To be ripped asunder by some ravenous beast.
All he’d gleaned from this infernal little outing was a fallen horse, a bruised side, a chilled body, and mud-caked clothes where he’d fallen from the horse. He was lucky, he supposed, that he didn’t have a broken leg or worse; the damned, skittish animal could have landed square on top of him.
No, he was going back; that was suddenly, definitively settled. Back to Fairfax College if they’d have him. What a fool he’d been to leave there in the first place, and for what? Heat, wind, dust, rain, snow, the company of fools and no archaeological results worth a tinker’s damn.