A Good Day to Die Read online

  The hat had cushioned his skull, blunting the impact when he banged it against the rock. Sam put a fist inside the lopsided crown, pushing out most of the worst of the dents. He fitted the hat back on his head, breath hissing through clenched teeth at the pain.

  Getting his legs under him, he rose shakily to his feet. Dizziness made him sick to his stomach. He kept the gorge down and the sickness passed.

  Five Comanches lay sprawled around him. Two he was dead sure of: the brave he’d shot at point-blank range and the one he’d shot through the top of the head. The others looked dead, but he delivered the coup de grâce of a bullet in the head to each of them.

  The mule’s-leg had spat out a lot of lead, but with a capacity of seventeen rounds, he could afford it. He reloaded, fingers initially thick and fumbling as he pulled the first cartridges from their loops on the bandolier and fed them into the receiver. The dizziness receded as he executed the practiced routine, recovering much of his usual dexterity toward the end.

  He made sure his Navy Colt and Green River knife were in place. He wanted nothing so much as to stagger back to his horse and ride out, but knew he’d be a fool not to take advantage of the prime vantage point. Steadying himself, he went through the gap toward the far end of the cliff top.

  Beyond the boulders lay a patch of stony ground shaped like an egg with the narrow end pointed toward the edge. Measuring about twenty feet at its longest axis, the outcropping was covered by thick, tough grass and bare, brown clay. It looked like the hide of an animal afflicted with the mange. Shards of a shattered brown whiskey jug lay strewn about, explaining the Comanches’ lack of proper precautions. Sam told himself that he’d’ve gotten them all anyway even if they hadn’t been drunk. He almost believed it.

  He prowled around, still too unsure of his footing to go too close to the edge. The cliff top thrust out into nothingness like the bow of a ship coursing through sky-blue seas, giving a panoramic view of the countryside below.

  The south slope of the plateau was a rampart stretching for miles to east and west. In some places, it showed long, gently rising hills which could easily be climbed by even the least sure-footed horses and their riders; in others, fault lines created jagged ravines, steep gullies, and precipices that only a mountain goat could climb. Some sections were thickly forested, with woods spilling out into the flat; others were bare of all but a few sparsely scattered bushes and clumps of dwarf trees. The slope was marbled with thin blue veins that were brooks, streams, rivulets and runs, branching out across the plains.

  More important, Sam Heller saw no Comanches in view, not on the slope or the near ground of the flat. In the middle distance, there were various widespread dots of motion that could have been roaming cattle or mounted men—they were too far away to make out.

  Turning, gazing inland across the tops of the boulders walling off the summit, Sam saw thin lines of sparsely scattered smoke rising from among the thick-belted trees of the plateau. He knew them for the grave markers of burned ranch houses, farms, and wagons, but they would have been meaningless to any unknowing passersby on the plains, if any there were.

  Sam went back the way he came, passing through the boulder gap. He picked up each Comanche’s rifle and broke it in the middle against a rock, wrecking it so it could never be used again. Two were repeating rifles, so new they still had the grease on them.

  “I’d give a plenty to know who’s supplying repeaters to the Comanches,” he said to himself.

  He walked the cliff trail back to the fork. The stampeded horses had long since fled, a thin brown smudge of dust in the sky the only sign of their passing. With all the Comanches gathered at Locust Lake, the horses would not escape discovery for long. The braves were expert trackers, so—best get a move on.

  Sam neared the glade at the side of the trail. Lydia stepped into view, holding a rifle at her side and the horses’ reins in her other hand. Blue eyes glittered in the taut white mask of a face framed by a pair of yellow braids.

  Had he expected some great effusion of emotion at his safe return, some reaction, even, Sam would have been disappointed. But he wasn’t one for such expectations.

  “Took your time, didn’t you?” Lydia said.

  Was she joking? If she was, it would be a good sign, but Sam couldn’t tell. Her expression was dead serious. He showed a halfway grin. “Any trouble?”

  She shook her head. “I heard the shooting. How many did you kill?”

  “Five,” he said, not bragging, just a simple statement of fact.

  She nodded. Sam took Dusty’s reins from her and mounted up. Lydia climbed on Brownie.

  “Let’s ride,” Sam said.

  “You’re the one holding things up. I’ve been waiting on you,” Lydia said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Sam said sarcastically, taking the point. They followed the trail’s east fork to the bottom of the glen on the flat.

  TEN

  The stream widened out below Hopper Glen, running east through a belt of woods at the foot of the plateau’s south slope. Sam was glad to have the cover of the trees hiding him and the girl from any hostiles roaming flat or heights.

  When they were a mile or so away from the glen he judged it was safe to water the horses. Dusty and Brownie stood at stream’s edge, heads down, drinking thirstily. Swarms of gnats hovered over some of the shallow pools and side pockets.

  Sam’s sore head throbbed. He longed for a smoke but the betraying scent of burned tobacco would carry a long way in the outdoors. A drink of whiskey would have been even better, if he hadn’t taken the head-knocking. As it was, he was afraid a drink would make it worse, so he abstained from tapping the bottle in his saddlebag.

  Hauling back on the reins, he caused Dusty to lift his snout out of the stream. “Don’t let the animals drink too much. It’s bad for ’em. Slows ’em down and that’s bad for us.”

  Lydia urged her horse away from the water.

  “We’ll trail east through the woods as long as they hold out, then break out across the flat to Old Mission Road,” Sam said.

  “Hangtown’s a long way off,” Lydia said doubtfully.

  “We’re not going to Hangtown. We’re going to a ranch I know. It’s a lot closer.”

  Scorn replaced doubt on the girl’s face. “With all them Comanches out on the warpath? What ranch could hold out against them?”

  “This one can. It’s held out against Comanches for a hundred years. It’s built like a fort—Rancho Grande.”

  “I know of it,” she said, unimpressed. “A big spread, owned by Mexes. They got no use for Anglos, Mister Yank, in case you ain’t heard.”

  “I know a few folks there.”

  “Friends of yours?” She sneered.

  “Yes and no.”

  Lydia laughed without humor. “If that ain’t a Yankee for you! Talking out of both sides of your mouth and not a straight answer out of either.”

  “It’s complicated. I’ve got a few amigos there, and some others who’d cheerfully cut my throat,” Sam said. “But even enemies put aside their differences when Comanches are on the loose. They’ll be glad of an extra gun.”

  “Two guns,” Lydia said quickly. “I can shoot, too. And I got me some evening-up to do.”

  Sam nodded, urging his horse forward. The girl followed. “Yankees and Mexes! This state is sure going to the dogs,” she muttered.

  “Let’s hope it doesn’t go to the Comanches.”

  Lydia was silent after that. They rode on. The woods were thick with wildlife. Birds flew overhead, and small critters such as hares, chipmunks, and red and gray squirrels scurried through the underbrush. Deer tracks showed on muddy stream banks. Sam regretted the prime deer carcass he’d had to cut loose on the heights.

  A mile went by, then two. The woods followed the base of the slope. When the slant began to curve north, away from where Sam wanted to go, they paused at the edge of the treeline, scanning the broad, empty plains. Sam took a piece of jerky from his saddlebag, cut off a slic
e and offered it to Lydia.

  “I ain’t hungry,” she said.

  “It’ll help you keep up your strength. You might need it,” Sam said.

  “Can’t eat. Ain’t got the stomach for it.”

  “You want some later, just sing out.”

  She shook her head.

  Sam shrugged. “Looks clear. Might as well head out.”

  They rode out from under the trees, into the open. Sam bit off a chunk of jerky, wedging it in the back corner of his teeth. Sipping some water from his canteen, he held it in his mouth to soften up the jerky, tough as a boot sole.

  The sun was high and hot. The flat stretched out toward the horizon, a vast, sprawling tableland under the Big Sky, almost dizzying in its size and scope. Rolling plains were broken by rises, hollows, and stands of timber. The grass was a rich bright green, slightly yellowing at the tips and edges.

  Good grazing land for cattle and, not so very long ago, for buffalo. But the buffalo herds were thinning out, their numbers shrinking every season.

  The prime source of sustenance for the Comanches, buffalo supplied them with meat, hides, sinews for bowstrings, bones for tools and implements, and hooves for glue. They followed the herds, hunting them when they weren’t busy hunting two-legged prey.

  A rock wall running north-south far in the western distance were the Broken Hills, that jumble of peaks, cliffs, and promontories known as The Breaks. A scant handful of bold and/or solitude-minded settlers lived along its eastern edge, dangerous country to roost in. Sam wondered how many would be left alive once the Comanche raid had run its course.

  He steered a course to the southeast. The hollow feeling in the pit of his belly deepened as the covering thicket of the woods fell behind. From time to time he turned in the saddle, looking back to scan the scene for hostiles.

  The horses moved along at a brisk gait. Sam set a not too fast pace, leaving the horses plenty of reserve in case they had to run. He also didn’t want to raise a telltale cloud of dust that would finger them to enemy eyes.

  The girl wasn’t much for talking, which suited him fine. Not that he blamed her. On the other hand, he didn’t want her thinking overmuch on what she’d experienced. Still, how could she not?

  Sam’s eyes were active in a stony face as he surveyed the landscape. Several miles passed. The land rose and fell like long rolling swells on the open sea—but it was a sea of grass. The duo crossed two streams, or maybe the same stream twice, winding and doubling back on itself. It was hard to judge such things, in the lonesome Titan immensity. Sam devoutly wished it would stay lonesome.

  He and Lydia rode side by side. Breaking the silence at last, she said, “What you doing in these parts, anyhow? Ain’t Yankeeland good enough for you?”

  “I like to roam,” Sam said.

  “Reckon you wish you’d kept on moving instead of lighting in Hangtree,” she said, something like a smirk showing on her mouth for an instant.

  “You might have something there,” Sam said evenly.

  “What for you come up on the hills?”

  “A day’s hunting.”

  “Now you’re being hunted,” Lydia said with a flash of bright, innocent malice. “How do you like that?”

  “How do you like it?” he countered.

  The girl fell silent, her face set in a sullen cast.

  Presently they struck a trail, not even a dirt road but a trail, running east-west. “We’re getting close. This trail runs parallel to Old Mission Road, which lies six, seven miles farther south,” Sam said.

  They crossed the trail at a tangent, continuing on their southeasterly course. A long shallow incline topped out on a grassy table dotted with stands of timber and patches of brush. Bunches of longhorned cattle wandered in the distance.

  A patch of dust, no bigger than a man’s thumb held at arm’s length, smudged the blue sky of the southwest quadrant. Sam squinted at it. Its source, whatever it was, was as yet unseen. An involuntary grunt escaped him.

  Lydia saw what he was looking at. “Them?” she asked, her tone dull, fatalistic.

  “Don’t know. Could be a herd of longhorns, or some ranch hands out riding.”

  “There ain’t no ranches here,” the girl pointed out.

  “There’s that,” Sam admitted.

  “So?”

  “Let’s see what they do. To run now would kick up more dust and mebbe tip ’em off if they ain’t already seen us.”

  “They say them Comanches don’t miss much.”

  “They do say that.”

  Keeping on their course, Sam fought the urge to put his boot heels into Dusty’s flanks and break into a run. The patch of dust changed direction, moving parallel to their course.

  “They’re following us,” Lydia said.

  “Looks like,” said Sam.

  They continued across a long stretch of open ground, their progress seeming agonizingly slow. There was no cover to be had in the near or middle ground, just open flatland.

  The source of the nearing dust cloud revealed itself as a blur of moving black dots, marching antlike across a green table. That seeming slowness was only an illusion caused by vastness, for the space between the duo and the unknowns was steadily narrowing.

  “Riders,” Sam said, “about a dozen.”

  “Run for it?” Lydia asked.

  “You a good rider?”

  “I ain’t gonna fall off Brownie, if that’s what you’re asking, Mister Yank.”

  “Put some speed on but don’t go all out just yet, save something for later. Ride!”

  The chase was on. That it was a chase, there could be no doubt. The duo’s horses broke into a run. Dusty was faster than Brownie but Sam held him back, letting the girl ride several lengths ahead of him. He wanted to know where she was at all times.

  As for the pursuers, he only had to look back over his shoulder to see where they were. The pack moved up fast, kicking up dust. The not-so-distant brown plume grew into a pillar rising into the sky.

  Whoops and shrieks sounded, thin and far-off, but no less ominous for that.

  Comanches! Too near to be outdistanced in the long run, and no sheltering ravines or thickets of wood in which to lose them. Hunters not easily shaken once they had the scent of blood in their nostrils. They were still a fair piece off, but the gap was steadily decreasing.

  Sam had a plan, desperate though it might be, but he was looking for more advantageous terrain to set it in motion.

  Up ahead, he saw a slight break in the unreeling emptiness of the flat—a rock outcropping, a handful of boulders, and a couple of scraggly trees.

  Sam pointed it out to Lydia, shouting, “Make for the rocks!”

  “What’ll we do there?”

  “Fight!”

  That seemed to satisfy the girl. She rode all out for the rocks, leaning far forward on the coursing horse, almost doubled over Brownie’s muscular, dark-maned neck. A good little rider at that, Sam noted approvingly.

  The landscape was a breathless blur as they closed on the rocks. Hoofbeats pounded, digging dirt. Some man-sized boulders stood heaped around a gnarly mesquite tree and a scruff of brush.

  Sam and Lydia pulled up to a halt in the lee of the boulders. Their bases were planted deep in the turf. Behind the rocks was a bowl-shaped depression, little more than a foot deep and about ten feet wide.

  They dismounted. Lydia said, “What good’s this? Injins’ll just ride around it.”

  “It’s a place to make a stand, better than you might think.” Pulling his blade, Sam cut the rawhide thongs securing the long, flat wooden box to the metal rings in the side of the saddle. Gripping the case by its suitcase handle, he carefully set it down against a rock.

  Taking hold of the bridle, he pulled his horse’s head down and to the side, urging, “Down boy, down! You know the drill!”

  Dusty did know it. He was a veteran warhorse, survivor of many past battles. Legs bending, the animal knelt down in the bowl and lay on his side, flanks quivering a
s he panted for breath. It was a trick that had served him well in many a hot firefight. Sam wanted to minimize the chances of Dusty being hit by a stray slug; he set a lot of store by the animal.

  Brownie didn’t know the trick and wasn’t minded to follow suit, going by Lydia’s inability to make him obey.

  Sam said, “Tie your horse to the tree! Tie him good so he can’t break loose!”

  Lydia hesitated.

  “Comanches won’t shoot him. They want him alive.”

  “But your horse laid down.”

  “Dusty’s been in the war and knows what to do. Brownie don’t and this ain’t the time to try and learn him!”

  The charging Comanches were several hundred yards away. Every inch of that fast-narrowing gap meant the difference between life and death. Lydia hitched Brownie to the tree and ran over to Sam with her rifle in hand.

  “Take cover behind the rocks and keep your head down, girl.”

  “The hell you say, Mister Yank. I aim to kill me some of them red devils!”

  Sam chuckled, amused despite himself. “I believe you will at that, missy. Keep your nerve and we might just get out of this alive.”

  “I reckon I can stand anything an ol’ heathen Northerner can, and more!”

  Sam was done talking. He went down on one knee, laying the wooden box flat on the ground. He unfastened twin brass snaps at the join, opening the case.

  “What for you fiddling with that?” Lydia asked.

  “I’ve got a ... secret weapon, you might say.” Sam lifted the lid of the wooden box, exposing its contents. Within the hollows of a black crushed-velvet encasing lay several pieces of hardware: an elongated rifle barrel, a wooden stock, and a telescopic gunsight.

  Crouching behind a chest-high rock, Lydia took up a shooting position, placing the Henry rifle across the boulder’s flat top and snugging the butt of the stock into a hollow of her thin shoulder. “Them Injins is getting awful close,” she said, her thin voice quivering.

  “Don’t shoot yet. It’s a waste of ammunition. Wait’ll they get closer,” Sam said.