The Fight at Hueco Tanks by Chris Scott Wilson

Author:Chris Scott Wilson [Wilson, Chris Scott]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Boson Books

CHAPTER 10

“Que pasa, what happened?” Juan Servada asked, looking up as he emptied the spent casings from his Colt before pushing in fresh shells.

“One on the roof,” Tanner replied, crossing to the wall from the foot of the ladder. “Won’t be taking no more scalps.”

“What about my shotgun rider?” Josh asked anxiously. Even though he regarded Black Bob as a bit of a green fool he still felt responsible for him. Fatherly somehow.

“He’s okay. Bit shaken up.” Tanner grinned. “Lost his breakfast too. Teach him not to eat so much.”

From the corner where she was still crouching Kate Lantz listened to the men talking. Her initial fear had ebbed away to leave her nervous and the explosion on the roof had made her jump badly. Curious now, she eavesdropped on their conversation. There was something wild and free that appealed to her in Jim Tanner but the way he spoke so matter-of-factly, so insensitively, about death appalled her. She was more inclined to favor Juan Servada although he lacked the power and grace of the Indian scout. He seemed gentle, good-mannered, and gave the impression he was the only ambassador of civilization in this wild place, where men and savages murdered each other as a matter of routine. Try as she may, she could not really believe, after the security of her little house in the comparative quiet of St Louis, that all this was really happening to her.

“Can I see him, Momma?” Ruth asked, looking up from the protective surround of her mother’s arms.

“Who, dear?”

“The Apache on the roof.”

“No. Certainly not.”

“But he’s dead, Momma, he can’t hurt me. Please, Momma,” she bleated, realizing she was fighting a losing battle.

“No.” It was disturbing how children could be so blood-thirsty. How could her own daughter, raised in such a sheltered environment be talking like this? Would life out west in Tucson with her sister Emily be ultimately destructive, undoing all the guidance she had tried to give her daughter? Of course, she reasoned, it was the excitement. A child raised out here would be used to it, although that was no excuse when exposed to violence.

“Is it over now?” a man’s voice whined.

Kate turned to William Loving who was still cowering in the corner, his face blanched and his fat fingers nervously skittering across his paunch as if exploring to reassure himself he was all still there.

“I don’t know,” she replied honestly. “Not that you did much to help.”

Color rushed back into his cheeks. Indignant, what he imagined as a rather imperious voice emerged as a feeble complaint. “Madam, I am not a gunfighter. I am a respectable civilized man.”

“If all the men here were as civilized,” she retorted caustically, “we’d all be dead by now. I am sure…” A howl of pain reared up into the desert sky like a hawk bursting into flight. “…Good heavens, what on earth was that?”

At the wall the two scouts exchanged glances.

“Came from in back of the ridge,” Zeke said.

Tanner nodded his confirmation, eyes straying to the skyline.

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