Читать книгу Judgment Day - William W. Johnstone - Страница 8

Rap rap rap.

Jenny looked up sharply, and Matt fairly leaped to his feet. Both remained silent, though, waiting to see if the knuckle-rapper had a blade and a spear or an arrow, or if he was friendly.

After a moment, a voice came through the floorboards.

“Mr. MacDonald? Ma’am?” Curly hissed from above. “You folks down there?”

“Yes, Curly,” Matt said loud and clear. He looked relieved. Some of the color was even seeping back into his face. He climbed up the ladder, calling out, “Hang on, just got to throw this bolt….”

One-handed, he slid free the four-by-four beam that secured the trapdoor, then gingerly opened it upward. Curly beamed down at them, relief coloring his freckled cheeks.

“Sure glad to find you folks all right,” he said, and after making way to let Matt climb up, stuck his arm down toward Jenny.

It figured that Matthew wouldn’t give her a second glance of concern, let alone a first one, Jenny thought. Had her mother ever felt this way about her father? She hoped not. And if she was wrong about her folks, she sure hoped that they’d had a nice hired man or two around. Like Curly.

He helped her up the steps, then shyly let go and took a step backward. “Thank you, Curly,” she said, more for Matt’s benefit than Curly’s. Matt didn’t even turn around, and Curly grunted nervously. At least Curly acknowledged that she was there, she thought.

Matt was at the front window. He said, “They went right past us,” and then, “They’re burning the town.”

Jenny looked past his shoulder and saw the smoke rising up north. Not the whole town, she thought. It’s just the church again, like two years ago. Jenny had been in town the last time the Apache had come. Then, they’d set the church ablaze and shot her brother. But the town hadn’t had the stockade up back then. She told herself that everyone was fine and that the Apache were fighting a losing battle.

And that her brother had everything under control.

For once, she was glad that her husband didn’t go into town on Saturdays.

Jason probably already had enough on his plate without Matthew elbowing his way in.

Jason was at the top of the eastern portion of the stockade, emptying his rifle at a swarm of Apache—a knot of them really—who had attempted to break through the stockade wall. Now, three of them lay dead outside it. A fourth clung to his pony’s mane, his blood flowing down over the horse’s withers and front legs like red war paint.

Jason raised the muzzle of his rifle and relaxed a hair as the fifth and six warriors rode away, their bloody comrade and his pony between them.

He twisted his head at the sound and creak of approaching footsteps. Dr. Morelli climbed up the ladder and stepped up to the plank that supported Jason.

“How’s it going?” he asked as he hunkered down.

Jason shrugged. “I doubt anybody’ll try to come in this way again for at least ten, fifteen minutes.”

Morelli grinned despite himself. “It seems to me to be getting a little quieter down at the south wall.”

“Don’t doubt it.” Quickly, Jason glanced at the western horizon. The sun was low in the sky. “Be all the way dark in about a half hour or so. How many wounded do we have?”

“Only half a dozen, unless somebody else took an arrow while I was making my way over here. Nothing serious. I think your deputy got the worst of it, but that was only because he was plenty sore already and he tensed up. Around the arrow, I mean. Took it in the back.”

Jason’s brow furrowed. “How’s he doing?”

“Fine now. Had to dope him up to keep him down, though. You know how he is.”

Jason allowed himself a little smile. It sounded like Ward. He said, “He’s a tough old pelican.”

“Not so old, Jason,” the doctor replied as he backed off the plank and began to make his way down to the ground. “I take it you don’t need me distracting you.”

Jason glanced out over the stockade. The wounded brave and his escort had ridden out of sight, and the bodies on the ground lay still. He said, “Hold up, I’ll go with you,” and followed Morelli down to the ground.

The sounds of battle had faded away to potshots. Jason imagined the rest of the attacking force was pulling out until first light.

As he and Morelli started back toward the center of the square, he said, “Help me pick some boys to stand night watch, will you?”

Morelli nodded.

“And I don’t think everybody older than I am is ready for a rocking chair.”

Morelli, himself Jason’s senior by several years, nodded again. “Good thing.”

Against his own better judgment, Jason added, “Well, I don’t.” And even as the words left his lips, he knew it was a lie.

So did Morelli, who nodded again. And smiled.

“Aw, crud,” Jason muttered, his head shaking.

Morelli and Jason assigned the least fatigued men to lookout posts around the stockade. The arrows had long since ceased to fly by the time they finished assigning duty for the first and second shifts, and Olympia Morelli and several other women were busy preparing a communal supper over a fire someone had built in the town square. Megan MacDonald was among them, and in spite of the scene she’d put on this morning, Jason was mightily relieved to see her there.

And to see that she was unharmed.

He had no chance to speak to her, however, because Morelli dragged him over to the sheriff’s office. Ward Wanamaker was inside, in a cell, his back and shoulder swathed in bandages. He was snoring loud enough to wake the dead.

“Hope you don’t mind, Jason,” Morelli said, “but I put him here. The cot in the other cell’s for you.”

“What’s wrong with my house?”

“It’s full of Milchers.”

Jason hiked a quizzical brow.

Morelli didn’t hesitate. “I know you put the fire out, but the second floor didn’t look safe to me. Actually, the steeple bell had already fallen through the ceiling, along with half the steeple. Or what was left of it. And directly onto somebody’s bed. Lucky that he or she wasn’t in it. And really, the first floor didn’t seem any too stable either.”

“And here I thought we did such a good job…”

“Oh, you did, you did!” Morelli declared. “But I just didn’t want to take any chances. And I didn’t think you’d mind….”

Jason snorted softly, and shot another glance toward his snoring deputy. “No, Doc, that’s fine. What about him? You give him enough dope to carry him through the night?”

Morelli nodded thoughtfully. “I think so. If he wakes, you can always whack him over the skull with the butt of your gun.”

Jason laughed softly, if briefly.

The wagon train, east of Fury

“I wish to heck you’d stop yellin’ ‘Circle the wagons’ when you wanna stop,” groused Olin Whaler, who drove the second wagon, which was pulled by four massive mules, each one just as stubborn as Olin. Olin had dreams of California gold. Or silver. It didn’t much matter to him.

“Why?” asked Blake.

“A body can’t circle four wagons, that’s why,” Olin replied testily. “Maybe five, for sure six, but not four.”

Blake took a deep breath. Olin had been a thorn in his side since he joined the group back in Santa Fe. “We can sort of circle them, Olin. Basically, I want everybody in a tight group. You can understand that, can’t you?”

“Stop it, Rev.”

Olin thought that because he was Catholic, he didn’t owe Richard Blake a doggone thing, let alone the respect that Blake was fairly sure he deserved as a man of God. And which he got from everybody else.

Frankly, Blake thought he’d like to give Olin a good swat with that Bible Olin was always accusing him of thumping.

Firmly, he said, “Olin, as long as I’m in charge of this little train, we’ll do things my way. And when I yell ‘Circle the wagons,’ I mean for you to circle them as tightly as you can. Or square them up. Whichever configuration you care to convert it to. Understand?”

Beside him, he heard Laura whisper, “Don’t press your luck, darling.”

He knew she meant that Olin was at least six feet three, had no respect for him, and had a bad temper, to boot. But he stood his ground. And said a silent prayer.

Dear Father in heaven, he prayed as he stared at Olin, please get this big lummox to listen without hitting….

God must have been paying attention, because Olin angrily stared at him a moment longer, then turned on his heel and stalked off toward his wagon and his family.

“Shall Becky and I start gathering firewood?” Laura asked.

He turned away from Olin’s retreating form and toward her. “Yes, that would be a good idea,” he said, reaching for baby Seth as he sighed with relief. “Watch out for snakes.”

“Don’t forget the spiders,” she added, walking off.

“And spiders,” he said, chuckling a bit. He waved at Randy Mankiller, the only one of the men looking his way, to come along. Laura and Becky couldn’t get enough wood by themselves. In fact, he’d be surprised if they could find any at all out here. The view to the horizon was clear in all directions. No trees, living or dead.

Randy, a lanky, part-Cherokee who originally came from northern Texas, joined him at a trot. “Whatcha need, Reverend?”

Blake grinned. “Want to help me fetch some wood, Randy?”

“Not really, but I reckon I’m game.”

Blake clapped him on the back. “Just what I like to hear. The game part anyhow.”

“I hear you, Reverend,” Randy answered. “You think we’re actually gonna find any downed trees out here?”

“Randy, I’m hoping that the Lord will provide.”

The two set off across the prairie.

Fury

At eleven that night, his belly bursting with Olympia Morelli’s good beef stew and biscuits, Jason finally fell asleep in the second cell despite Ward’s heavy snores.

But good things never lasted long, at least so far as Jason was concerned. He was awakened at half past one by a shout and someone roughly shaking him and kicking the frame of his cot.

“What!” he snarled as he rose, aiming a punch at the kicker and shaker.

He connected with something just as his eyes came fully open to see a figure fall back into the bars of the cell with an audible grunt of pain.

He swung his legs off the side of the cot, then struck a match to reveal boots and pants. Not an Apache. He lit the lantern he’d carried inside.

When he turned up the wick, he saw Ward Wanamaker sitting on the floor opposite him, slouched forward, one arm crossed over his chest and pressed to the bandages that swathed his shoulder and back.

“Aw, crud, Ward,” Jason said as he leapt to his feet and knelt beside his deputy. “You all right? Didn’t know it was you.”

“Didn’t know it was you either,” Ward breathed, his voice slurry with the last remnants of Morelli’s medication. “What happened, Jason?”

“On your feet, first.” Jason helped him up and around the corner and back to his own cell. Slowly, he lowered Ward to his own cot and helped him stretch out. “All right,” he said. “Better?”

Ward nodded, his eyes half closed.

“What happened is that you took an arrow, and Doc patched you up. Then they moved you in here and gave you enough painkiller to make a half-grown bullock sleep for a week straight.”

“Indians gone? You take care of ’em?”

“No,” Jason said, and he couldn’t keep the disappointment from oozing into his voice. “The night took care of ’em, but they’ll be back come sunup if I’m any judge.”

It was still quiet outside, but he knew it was only a brief respite from the next barrage of arrows and gunfire and the sounds of men’s screams.

At least they wouldn’t have the Milchers’ steeple to aim at anymore.

“You send for the cavalry?” Ward asked.

Jason shook his head. “You know it’d take a week for them to get here. Either we’ll all be dead by that time, or the Apache will.”

Ward nodded. His eyes fluttered.

Jason said, “Get some shut-eye for now.”

“You’ll wake me for the next fight?”

“The minute we need you.”

“Right,” Ward whispered as his eyes closed.

Jason stood up quietly and went back to his own cell. As he settled back onto his cot, he whispered, “Next time, I’m gonna have to tell Morelli to give you enough for a full-grown bull.”

Down at the MacDonald ranch, Jenny had insisted they sleep down in the hidden compartment beneath the living room of the house. Matt had fought her on it, but not very hard, she noted. He was asleep across the way, snugged into his blankets and softly snoring.

How nice that he could sleep.

Through the darkness, Jenny made a face at him.

Everything was quiet so far. The night was still, and she knew that Curly was secreted in the bunkhouse hidey-hole, too, along with the other hands, Carlos and Wilmer. She supposed she should feel safe, but she knew that if the Apache set fire to the place, they were locked in down here, and likely doomed.

It wasn’t the most pleasant outcome, and she hoped that the Apache would ride off on the same trail they’d used to ride up to Fury. It would swing them far out to the east. Close enough that their dust cloud could be seen by anyone at the ranch, but far enough to hide her and hers from the naked Apache eye.

She hoped.

She rolled onto her side and flipped the blanket over her head, hoping to screen out Matt’s snores. When that didn’t work, she tried listing the things that they’d brought down with them, in hopes of saving them in case the Apache torched the house.

She hadn’t been able to bring the piano, more’s the pity, or her mother’s breakfront. Just small things, Matthew had insisted, and in this case, he’d been right. So they’d brought along his important papers, the ones he usually kept at the bank, and the jewelry and the silverware. They had also brought plenty of water, a thunder mug, a bag filled with foodstuffs, and enough kerosene to last them through several days and nights, should it come to that.

She hoped it wouldn’t, but it was best to be prepared. She had sent food, water, and kerosene to the bunkhouse with Curly, too.

Matt grunted in his sleep, and she rolled toward him. What was he saying?

He muttered it again.

Beneath her blankets, she shrugged. He sounded so happy. It was probably some girl’s name, if she knew him. And she’d learned all his tricks this last nearly two years. She knew he had other women. And he knew that she knew, not that he’d ever admit it.

She stared up toward the ceiling, up toward the trapdoor and the crossbar that secured it in place. If I had half the guts my brother thinks I do, she thought, I’d climb up and open that door.

But she didn’t. She’d learned that long ago. If she was braver and not half so silly, she’d still be single and living in town with Jason.

With a sigh, she closed her eyes and fell slowly into a fitful sleep.

What is wrong with us? Lone Wolf asked himself as he stared around him.

All around him, braves were licking their wounds, tending their dead, speaking in low voices of the day to come. The medicine man and his potions were in heavy demand.

They had lost many ponies, too. How could they attack without ponies?

When he had last scouted the whites and their town called Fury, things had been much different.

The walls had not looked that high from a distance.

They had not been so heavily armed.

He had imagined they would give in more easily.

He had been wrong.

But he could not admit as much. The war chief could never be wrong.