Chapter 5

There were only two Apaches left from that raiding party, and I was damned well not going to miss my chance at them. The next man was sheltering behind a shed. Now all of the guns in the house were aimed at the last two Chiricahuas, and they must know that their time was up unless they could escape. Unfortunately for them, their horses were out of reach, and they stood little chance of escaping from me without horses.

I looked carefully to determine my best route to the next Indian, and that was when I almost lost it all. That was my wife's scalp hanging from his waist! OK, this guy was in for some special treatment if I could manage it!

Actually, he was within rifle range, so I debated shooting him from where I was. The more I thought about it, the better I liked the idea. He did not seem to have any idea that I was so close. He was concentrating on shooting at the house. That gave me time to line up a shot on his hip, which had become my favorite place to shoot these Apaches. A busted hip was going to kill them, no matter what happened to me, and it was damned hard to shoot accurately without being able to put some weight on each hip.

I took more time than I might normally have taken, because I did not want to kill this bastard before I'd had a little time to express my opinion of what he had done. Finally, I had stalled long enough, and felt that it was time to shoot. The bullet must have hit him square in the hip joint from the way his leg seemed to melt from under him. Once he was down, I put a bullet into his right arm just below the shoulder. That was not exactly where I was aiming, but the result was plenty good enough.

Again, I waved my hat so that the people in the house would not shoot me, and I ran to the latest downed Apache as soon as they waved back. I just wanted to verify that he was down for good and he was not about to shoot me when I least expected it. He was in just the shape I wanted—in great pain and not going anywhere!

One man left. One of these two had to be Yarno, and I didn't care which it was. Both were going to get the worst that I could manage for them. The last man was inside a small shed and shooting out the open door. There were no windows and the door he was using was the only one that I could see. I decided to have a little "fun" at his expense. I ran around the back of the shed where he could not see me. In the process, though, I had caught a glimpse of him. He was wearing two tiny scalps at his waist! This one had to be Yarno, I just knew it!

The shed door opened out, so I was able to slip up on the blind side and slam the door closed. I dropped the latch closed, and Yarno was locked inside the shed! I had him now, so what was I to do with him? It didn't take me long to decide. I ran to the woodpile and came back to the shed with a load of fuel. I was going to burn the bastard to death inside that shed. He would probably die from the heat before he actually began to burn, but I wanted to give him a foretaste of Hell.

Three trips were enough fuel, I thought, so I stopped hauling the wood and paused to talk to a young woman and two children who came from the house to see what I was doing. I gave them a very quick synopsis of why I wanted to burn the Indian, and the woman told me to go right ahead. The Indians had killed her father when they rode up originally, and she had just been able to get him into the house before they could stop her.

I got the fire going, and Yarno smelled the smoke. He banged futilely against the locked door, then he began to sing his death song. That made no difference to me, so I let him sing. I was especially pleased when he began to cough from the smoke inside the shed. I stood guard with a drawn pistol until his song died out. I was not sure that he was dead, so I piled on more wood and resolved to turn the shed into ashes before I quit.

Actually, burning Yarno to death did not take very long because of how dry the wood was. I don't know how hot it was inside the burning building, but it was too hot to stand very close to it at the end. Oh, yes, he did some very satisfactory screaming there toward the end. It was amazing to me how much emotional relief I had when Yarno finally died.

I went back to the blackguard who was sporting my wife's scalp to see how he was doing. I swear, it did not seem to me that he was suffering enough, so I staked him out and did the burning stick up the ass trick that the Crows had taught me. This time, I was not looking for information, so I just burned his cock and balls off without bothering with questions. When that was finished, I used my horse to drag him to an arroyo about 500 yards from the house and dumped him in. I was mildly curious as to whether he would die before the scavengers started taking bites out of him. Just in case, I shot him in the other arm to make sure that he could not fight them off.

By this time, it was getting late in the day, and, honestly, my hate of these Apaches was about to run out. I just dragged the rest of them to the same arroyo and dumped them in, whether they were alive or dead. Once they were all there, I did tell them why I had sworn vendetta against them. I didn't expect them to understand, but it made me feel better. I figured that I could gather up the horses tomorrow.

My left arm where I had been stabbed was beginning to hurt like Hell, so I gratefully accepted the invitation to spend the night with the family. They had no servants, and I got the explanation of that at supper. I also was asked to tell them the full story of my chase after the Chiricahuas, and, in return, I got the story of what was happening to them.

It seemed that Juanita Cruz was the eldest of the three children. Her mother had died in childbirth, and her father had remarried. That had produced Jesus and Dolores. The second wife had died three years ago, and Juanita had taken over running the household.

They had servants up until a month ago. At that time, a bandit band, led by Arturo Sanchez, had come through and taken virtually everything they had. They had murdered the male servants and workers and kidnapped the female servants. However, they had not harmed Juanita's father or any other member of the family. Sanchez had left them enough food to last 5-6 weeks, and he had promised to return then. They had about 10 days before he showed up.

It took about a week for Juanita to realize that Sanchez was setting her up to be his wife, whether she wanted it or not. He was being nice to her father and siblings because that was the way you treated family. She was sure that he would find a way to eliminate her father and siblings without seeming to be involved, expecting that she would eventually settle for him. Juanita asserted that she never would want Sanchez, but that would make no ultimate difference to him.

I was sympathetic to her plight, and that was my undoing! She seized upon my careless remark and asked me for direct help. I guess that I am a sucker for a lady in distress, so I agreed to do what I could to stop Sanchez from raping her, though he did not think of it in those terms.

Of course, this was pretty much a repeat of my chase after Yarno, except that I did not have the emotional weight hanging over me the way I had with Yarno. For one thing, I could cheerfully shoot dead any of Sanchez's followers without giving the matter any further thought. They were a bunch of murderers and thieves who had done me no personal wrong, so I would just be operating as an agent of Juanita as she was protecting herself. Such are the rationalizations of a man in love!