Tom Horn And The Apache Kid Page 6

  Emile Van Zeider, escorted by five of his brawniest goons, entered and stood near the doorway. Peg nodded toward the Apache Kid. Van Zeider moved with heavy, deliberate steps, and his goons fanned out in a half circle rimming the window table.

  “Gentlemen,” said Van Zeider, “there’s been some mistake.”

  “Not yet,” said Horn.

  “Go away,” Sieber added, “before you make one.”

  “Me and my friends here aim to set something straight.” Van Zeider moved a step closer.

  “Yeah,” said Horn. “Well, me and my friends’ve been near enough to hell to smell smoke. And we aim to do some snorting! So go away. There’s a lot of generals we ain’t drunk to yet. Pour.”

  Captain Crane poured.

  “You and your friends can drink to every soldier in the United States and Russian armies, but”— Van Zeider pointed to the Apache Kid—“not him. Not in here.”

  “Why not?” Horn asked evenly.

  “We don’t sell whiskey to Indians.”

  “Don’t you?” Horn said just as evenly.

  “It’s against the law.”

  “Is it?” Horn lifted his glass. “General Philip Henry Sheridan!”

  “General Philip Henry Sheridan!” the others repeated.

  They drank—all but Horn. Van Zeider’s hand shoved against his elbow, causing the scout to spill some whiskey.

  “Look what you did,” Horn said calmly.

  “We don’t sell whiskey to Indians,” Van Zeider repeated.

  “That ain’t no Indian,” Sieber said calmly. “That’s my son.”

  “Your son, my ass. He’s a redbelly, and we don’t sell whiskey to Indians.”

  “I heard you say that,” Horn nodded. “I also saw some Indians who drank your whiskey, then butchered a Mexican family.”

  “You’re a liar!” Van Zeider growled, and gripped a handful of Horn’s shirt at the shoulder.

  “Get your satisfaction, you son of a bitch!” Horn leaped to his feet and smashed the fisted knuckles of his left hand into Van Zeider’s cheekbone.

  The Kid had already selected his target and in an instant buried a swift, breath-busting fist into a goon’s breastbone. Sieber broke the whiskey bottle across the brow of another victim, but Captain Melvyn Crane was the unfortunate recipient of a foul blow behind his ear. However, Sieber repaid the ungallant blow-giver with a kick to the shank. Crane recovered quickly and delivered a crunching punch into the dastard’s teeth.

  After that the brawl got better. Chairs flew, and so did fists, elbows, bottles, and boots. Some of the customers unwisely chose to join in on the side of the house. They mostly got in the way of the goons, who could’ve used more professional assistance.

  Peg waddled up and down the bar, yelling unheeded advice to Van Zeider and company. Van Zeider took another blow from Horn that flung him over a table toward the bar. Horn turned his attention in the direction of the fracas. By now Sieber had assumed a lofty, less assailable position atop the unlit iron stove and was overseeing the proceedings with detached amusement.

  The Kid and Crane were left to their own devices.

  Emile Van Zeider rose to both knees, shook some of the fog from his throbbing head, and pointed under the bar to Peg. The bartender nodded, reached below, and hauled up a shotgun. One hand on the barrel, the other on the stock, Peg tossed the weapon to Van Zeider, who was now on his feet.

  Stock butted against his hip, Van Zeider aimed the shotgun toward Tom Horn. Fast as a wasp, the Apache Kid unsheathed a knife and threw. The knife stuck to the hilt in Van Zeider’s chest. The shotgun tiled astray and went off, blowing the cantina window into bits and pieces.

  General Miles and a covey of troopers appeared at the door, and things became suddenly quiet. Ridiculous white plume or no, Miles was still the commander of Fort Bowie.

  Emile Van Zeider lay near the bar on the dirty floor. His eyes, mostly white, rolled upward and toward the left. His blanched, bloodless face twisted in pain. There was blood on his chest and more coming.

  “Get that man to a doctor!” Miles barked.

  Four troopers immediately rushed to carry out the command.

  “It was that Injun!” Peg pointed at the Apache Kid. “That goddamn Injun throwed the knife into Van Zeider!”

  “Arrest him,” Miles ordered.

  Two troopers peeled off and went for the Kid. One of the troopers lifted the Kid’s Colt from his holster and the other pointed toward the doorway.

  The Apache Kid looked at Sieber, who nodded. The Kid walked ahead of the soldiers past Tom Horn, whose life he had saved.

  Their eyes locked for an instant; then the Kid headed for the door.

  Miles turned toward Al Sieber, who was still perched atop the stove. “Well, Mr. Sieber, what’ve you got to say?”

  “I don’t suppose, General,” answered Sieber, “that you’d care to join us in a drink?”

  Chapter Twelve

  Shackled, Geronimo stood inside his cell gripping the iron bars as he watched the two trooopers unlock the cell directly across from his. He could almost reach out and touch the Apache Kid. Almost. But Geronimo didn’t want to touch the Kid. He wanted to kill him.

  The iron bars clanked shut. A trooper twisted a key; then both troopers marched back up the narrow hallway dividing the two facing rows of cages.

  The Apache Kid turned and ran his fingers across the lock. He didn’t try to avoid Geronimo’s stare. The two Apaches on opposite sides of the same war were now on opposite sides of the same cellblock.

  Doctor Jedadiah Barnes had seen and stitched worse wounds—much worse. He said as much to Karl Van Zeider, who paced in the waiting room as the doctor came out of his office carrying the knife the Apache Kid had planted in Emile’s chest.

  Doctor Barnes, a venerable veteran of Civil War battlefield medicine and scores of Indian campaigns, was an informal sort of fellow, a rumpled, rounded man with splotches of broken blood vessels splattered across his ruddy face. A set of steel-rimmed glasses framed a pair of owlish gray eyes and strings of silver-gray hair twisted onto the front of his bison brow. A perpetual silver stubble poked through his face. His shirt had survived many winters and few washes. His shiny blue trousers and matching vest were embedded with smeared stains of coffee, liquor, and blood, partly camouflaged by a ramble of wrinkles. Jedadiah Barnes took his medicine wherever he found it. He had found enough in Arizona the last dozen years to keep six doctors steeped in blood and stitches. He saved more patients than he lost. Of course, some of his patients lost arms, legs, and parts of organs in the pro cess, but the majority kept on living. So would Emile Van Zeider.

  Doc Barnes stuck the Apache Kid’s knife into one of the posts that helped hold up the waiting room.

  “He’ll be fit to walk in a week, go back to work in two. He can start drinking whiskey again most any time. Deep wound but clean. Your brother was lucky, Mr. Van. Two inches lower woulda split his heart like a ripe tomato. Damn lucky.”

  “Yes.” Van Zeider looked at the knife sticking in the post. “Well, the Apache Kid won’t be so lucky.”

  General Nelson Appleton Miles had declined Al Sieber’s invitation to have a drink. Instead, he had ordered Sieber, Horn, and Captain Crane to report to his office.

  The two scouts and the young officer, still showing the effects of the brouhaha, stood listening as the commander of Fort Bowie meted out his judgment.

  “Captain, in view of your exemplary record up to now, I am going to forgive your curious behavior in the cantina.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Crane arched to attention.

  “However,” Miles went on, “I strongly suggest that in the future you choose your companions with a great deal more…discrimination.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Miles paused and focused on the two scouts. “You men will be held responsible for damages. Fortunately, Mr. Van Zeider will survive.”

  “What about the Kid?” Horn asked.

  For a moment Miles savor
ed the power of his command. Fort Bowie was like a ship at sea and General Miles was the captain. His word was law. But unlike a ship in the middle of a boundless ocean, there were appeals. However, appeals took time. Anything Miles ordered would be done and then—and only then—possibly reviewed. General Miles rested both elbows on the arms of the chair where he sat and slowly and deliberately tapped the edges of his fingers and thumbs against each other.

  “The Kid, as you so quaintly call him, is as murderous as those other savages he’s locked up with.” Miles ceased tapping his appendages and peered over the edges of his fingers, which now formed a tepee. “And he’s going to be treated exactly the same.”

  “What does that mean?” Sieber questioned.

  “It means”—Miles broke up the finger tepee— “the Apache Kid’s going to be shipped with the rest of them to Fort Marion.”

  “You can’t do that!” Horn exploded.

  “Don’t use that tone of voice with me, Mr. Horn,” Miles shot back quickly, “or you’ll find out just what I can do.”

  “But sir, I—” Captain Crane started to speak, but Miles cut in.

  “And you, Captain Crane, will be jeopardizing your career if you say one more word in this matter.”

  “Take it easy, Captain,” Horn said, trying to calm the waters. “Look here, General, Geronimo’s sworn to kill him. The Kid chose to fight with us and against them.”

  “He should have chosen,” Miles replied, “not to try and kill Mr. Van Zeider.”

  “He had no choice,” said Sieber.

  “Mr. Van Zeider was aiming to blow me apart with that ten-gauge,” Horn added.

  “That hasn’t been determined,” Miles answered. “Maybe he was trying to stop the fight by firing a warning shot.”

  “Yeah,” Sieber grunted, “right through Tom’s back. Besides, if the Kid had wanted to kill Van Zeider, that Dutchman’d be deader than a canned sardine.”

  “General,” Horn tried to reason, “you put him on that train and he’ll never get off alive. You know that.”

  “I’ll ship him in a car with the women, children, and wounded,” Miles responded. “I’ll give him that much consideration.”

  “What happens when he gets off the train?” Horn pursued.

  “That will be all!” Miles dismissed the discussion.

  “No, that won’t be all, you perfumed peacock!…” Horn moved forward, but Sieber grabbed him.

  “Hold it, Tom. That ain’t gonna do any good. Come on, let’s get outta here.”

  “That is a smart suggestion,” said Miles. “It would even be smarter if both of you left Fort Bowie. The change of scenery might improve your temperament.”

  “Thanks for the advice, General,” said Sieber as he nudged Horn toward the door. “But we ain’t ever been accused of being smart. Vital, once in a while, but never smart. And as for our temperament, so far it’s been down right see-date.”

  From the time of her arrival at Fort Bowie, Shana Ryan had found Karl Van Zeider to be a gentleman, charming and helpful. When Tim was killed, Van Zeider took it upon himself to write Shana a consoling letter telling her of her brother’s death. In that letter he offered to buy the operation, saying that he would keep the store open until she replied. If she decided to sell, he would send her the money immediately.

  Shana replied that she was coming west to visit her brother’s grave and that she probably would sell but would make her decision after thinking things over.

  Shana had no strong ties to the East. Besides, she wanted to get away from Brent Bradford’s ever-yeasting ardor. He was convinced that no reasonably sane woman could continue to resist the spell of his obvious charms. At the Boston train station he pressed those dry lips onto hers and rubbed his chest against her breast with what he considered passion and promised to wait at the bank until she returned. As far as Bradford was concerned, they were all but betrothed.

  He had been waiting now at the counting house for more than two months, while writing seventeen passionate letters and receiving three polite but noncommittal missives in return. In his last letter Bradford had written that he was ordering an engagement ring that he had specially designed himself…

  Karl Van Zeider met Shana at the railroad station near Fort Bowie and escorted her to her brother’s grave. She ordered a headstone and had it placed.

  Van Zeider turned over the profits from the store, meager as they were, and increased his offer from two thousand dollars to twenty-five hundred. Shana was sorely tempted to sell. Still, she felt near her brother here, walking where Tim had walked, touching the things he had touched, and putting fresh spring flowers on his grave.

  She even harbored the hope that somehow Tim’s killer might be found and brought to justice. But what justice? Suppose the killer were hanged? What solace would that bring to her—or to Tim Ryan in his cold, narrow chamber six feet beneath the earth?

  Once again she listened to Karl Van Zeider’s courtly, caramel-coated voice as he stood across from her in the store. Perhaps it was the things Tom Horn said and implied, but lately Shana had begun to get a slightly different perspective of this tall, helpful, courtly gentleman with the restless eyes.

  “Shana”—Van Zeider reached across and gently touched her forearm—“are you listening to what I’m saying?”

  “Yes. Yes, Karl—of course I am.” His fingers were longer and stronger, but in a way his touch reminded her of Brent Bradford’s—moist and covetous, not warm and comforting. “What were you saying?”

  “That you seemed to be on another planet,” Van Zeider smiled. “Or maybe in Massachusetts. Were you thinking about that young man you’ve been writing to, Mr. Bradford?”

  “I guess in a way I was,” Shana replied, and changed the subject. “Karl, I’m glad your brother’s going to be well.”

  “What? Oh, yes, so am I. Look here, Shana, you’re a young beautiful woman. But the strain’s beginning to show. All this is just too much…”

  “For a young beautiful woman?”

  “Exactly.”

  “I’d better take a look in the mirror, Karl. I didn’t realize I was deteriorating so rapidly. Before you know I’ll be scaring the customers away.” Shana was beginning to enjoy vexing the worldly entrepreneur. “ ‘Oh, don’t go into Ryan’s Store!’ I can hear the mothers telling their little children. ‘There’s an old hag in there. Some say she’s a witch from Salem, a bony old hag with sunken eyes and a wart on her nose.…’ ”

  “Oh, stop it, Shana!” Van Zeider smiled a forced smile. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t tease. Karl, you’ve been a big help and I appreciate all you’ve done.”

  “Look here, Shana—you know my brother and I have most of the franchises from Prescott to the border. Fort Whipple, Lowell, McDowell, Apache…”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “And it’s our line that freights the goods in.”

  “I know that, too.”

  “I’m prepared to raise the offer to three thousand dollars.”

  “That’s more than the store’s worth.”

  “Probably, but not to me. I have plans, Shana. I intend to be a power in this territory.”

  “You already are.”

  “Not the kind of power I have in mind. Arizona’s the crossroads of the country. Whoever controls this territory is a man to be reckoned with from the Mississippi to California. Give me five years, and I’ll be...”

  “Governor?”

  “I don’t want to be a governor.” This time Van Zeider’s smile wasn’t forced. “Or a general or even a president.”

  “You just want to control all those people?”

  Van Zeider’s smile grew to a grin. “Let’s just say I want to make sure all those people in high places are friends of mine.” Van Zeider’s voice assumed an intimate tone. “And Shana, I’d like you to be a friend of mine. More than a friend.”

  Good God, Shana Ryan thought to herself, is this one proposing
too? Will I end up with suitors from one end of the country to the other? Suitors who don’t suit me? Or is it part of a promissory ploy by an ambitious, worldly man playing a game to get something from a vulnerable, guileless woman? But this was no time to weigh and analyze Karl Van Zeider’s intentions. And at the same time she caught a glimpse of Tom Horn and Al Sieber walking toward the guard house. Their step was neither jaunty nor light. There was a thundercloud look in both faces. Her thoughts were broken by the sound of Van Zeider’s voice.

  “Shana, if you do sell, you don’t have to go back to Massachusetts. There can be a fine future for you here in Arizona. But not as a storekeeper trying to grub out a living among soldiers and savages.”

  Fortunately for Shana, Mrs. Dockweiler entered the store at that moment and promptly let loose a long-winded litany while waving several spools of thread and railing about being sold the wrong colors. They didn’t at all match the other thread she had purchased six months earlier from the dearly departed Mr. Ryan, and Miss Ryan ought to learn how to run a store or find someone who did.

  Karl Van Zeider shrugged and smiled his charming smile, whispering to Shana, “Besides the soldiers and savages, I forgot to mention the over-weight, bellicose female customers who are spoiling for a fight. Please think it over.”

  Shana nodded and as Mrs. Dockweiler discharged her declamation without so much as a beat for breath, Van Zeider left.

  At least, Shana thought to herself, Karl Van Zeider has a sense of humor.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The long, narrow stone guard house was built along the western slope of Fort Bowie’s compound. A few slim slits embedded with iron bars served as windows but didn’t afford the residents much of a view. The barred, unglassed apertures did allow the sizzling summer wind and dust to make the structure insufferably hot in summer and the ragged, ice-edged wind and grit to make it shivering cold in winter.

  If a prisoner had to pick a season of residence, autumn or spring were the times. But that was little consolation to the Apache Kid. Horn and Sieber had no trouble getting in to see him. The guards were old friends. The trouble came in telling the Kid of Miles’s decision. Both men leaned hard against the bars confining the former scout. Horn and Sieber tried to appear casual, even optimistic, but as Geronimo stood in the nearby cell and stared across at his infernal enemies, the words came in short, harsh whispers from the two scouts.