The Savage Curse Read online

  John ran in a zigzag pattern toward the laboratory, his feet moving very fast in small, ground-eating steps.

  He heard the shots from Gale’s rifle and saw the Navajo escape injury. He knew there could be dozens of braves on that long slope up to the mesa. Any one of them could pick him off before he reached the lab. And there could be others just outside the lab, waiting for him.

  He reached the back of the building and stopped, breathing hard. He looked back at the line of tailings, the carbon ore glistening in the sun, and could see the dark shapes of Gale’s and Ben’s heads, the snouts of their rifles. He raised a hand to let them know he was all right. Then he began to slide around to the sidewall of the building. He stepped slow and soft, so as to be almost noiseless.

  His temples throbbed with his rapid heartbeat, and something curdled in his stomach, a tangle of nerves that had begun to spark with the first electric shoots of fear. He forced himself to take deep breaths, to quell the rising anxiety he felt at being in a place where he could not see his enemy, a place where the odds were greatly against him. The Navajo were experts at hiding in plain sight. They could be all around him, like black cats at night, ready to spring on him and tear him to bits.

  John waited, listening. He counted the seconds in his mind. He heard nothing.

  Then he drew his pistol and stepped around the corner of the building, his thumb on the hammer of the Colt.

  A great sense of relief coursed through his senses as he looked down the wall toward the door and saw nobody there.

  He paced off the steps to the door in his mind. Eight, he figured, if he stretched his stride. He took the first step, waited, then took another. His palm was sweaty on the grip of his pistol, but his thumb held fast to the crosshatched hammer, ready to bear down on it and cock the hammer.

  He tried to remember if Gale had closed the lock on the door or left it open. If it was closed, he would have to put a bullet in it to break it open. If not, it would take only a second or two to slip the lock from the door. He had to risk it, either way.

  John drew a breath and glanced at the western sky. Far off, puffs of clouds were floating in a phalanx toward the east. If he squinted, they looked like the sails of ships floating across a blue sky. Those clouds might bring weather, he thought, but not soon, not this day. The rest of the sky looked clear and serene.

  He took a breath and started running for the door. Anyone below the rim of the mesa-like outcropping might hear him, but if a head popped up, he would be able to get off a shot.

  He reached the door.

  The lock hung there, open. He slipped it out of the ring and pulled the hasp back. He threw the lock inside the lab and stepped inside. Just as he did, he saw a shadow out of the corner of his eye. He was halfway through the door when he felt a blow to his leg that was still outside. He twisted and saw arms wrapped around his leg. A small Navajo, no more than a boy, had tackled him. But that was the least of his worries, he realized. As he brought the pistol down hard on top of his tackler’s head, he saw a grown man with reddish brown skin looming toward him, his arm upraised. In his hand, the Navajo held a large knife poised to strike. The blade flashed in the sun like a fish breaking water on a blue lake.

  The Indian boy crumpled under the force of the blow and John kicked at him to knock him away. Just then, before he could slip inside the doorway, the man with the knife reached him before John could bring his pistol to bear.

  The young Navajo, senseless, rolled away from the building like a lumpy rug. The Indian with the knife closed on John, his black eyes jittery as bouncing marbles, his scowl ferocious with the flash of his white teeth. John knew the man meant to kill and the muscles in his arms rippled like snakes.

  John twisted to meet the charge and swung his pistol toward the hurtling man. The Navajo lashed out with his left hand and grabbed John’s right wrist, while his right arm came down like a pendulum with that gleaming knife. John threw up his left hand, grasped the Navajo’s wrist, and felt steel cords in the palm of his hand. The Navajo’s weight carried him forward like some juggernaut of flesh and John staggered backward through the door, grappling with a man bent on murder.

  He could feel the man’s animal breath on his face, hot as a desert wind, and he dug his fingernails into the soft flesh of both wrists, feeling the pain in the tips of his fingers. The Navajo made no sound. He did not cry out nor show any signs of the excruciating agony he must have felt. John wrestled the man in a half circle and the two men moved like macabre dancers on a musty stage, John panting from the exertion, the Navajo breathing through his nose like some primitive beast, his mouth half open as if he wanted to slake his thirst on human blood.

  The Navajo had a red bandanna tied around his forehead, but wore no war paint. His body reeked of sand and dust and the faint taint of greasewood or creosote, as if he had emerged from the land itself only moments before.

  John held on to his pistol with an iron grip even though the Navajo brave was trying his best to wrest it from his hand. Nor could he shake the knife loose from his attacker’s hand, no matter how hard he dug his fingers into the man’s wrist.

  “Voy a matarte, gringo.” The Navajo spoke in Spanish. I’m going to kill you, gringo.

  “No vas a matarme, hoy, Indio,” John replied. You aren’t going to kill me today, Indian.

  The two fell to the floor of the laboratory and grappled. The Navajo tried to roll on top of John, but John brought up a knee and drove it into the man’s genitals. The brave did not cry out, although John knew the pain must be excruciating. The two men rolled again, over and over, until they were stopped when the Navajo’s back struck an anvil. His body contorted in pain, but he showed no sign of it on his face, nor did he utter anything more than a grunt as the air was knocked out of his lungs.

  John struggled to stand, and so did his assailant. The two regained their footing and the Navajo kicked John in the shin. He almost went down, but staggered away, dragging the man with him. They danced in rigid unison, each trying to gain the advantage of the other. They looked like men walking on plates of red-hot iron, their feet rising and falling as first one pushed, then the other.

  “You are strong,” the Navajo said in Spanish.

  “You are strong also,” John replied in the same tongue.

  “Very brave.”

  “Like you,” John said, winded.

  The Navajo grinned for just a second, and a light danced in those black eyes of his as the two men moved around the lab. John was sweating, the Navajo was not.

  Sunlight streamed through the windows, columns of light that seemed alive with dust motes that were like tiny golden fireflies. John realized that the fight could go on until one or the other of them weakened and then either he would fire a bullet into the warrior’s brain or he would get a knife rammed into his throat. But he could not break the Navajo’s hold on his wrists. They were pushing and pulling on each other like men on either end of a crosscut saw. Back and forth, to and fro, they went, each grunting with extra effort, each tiring, but neither willing to quit.

  They moved past the door and John kicked it shut. Then he whirled the Navajo around and, with a flick of his elbow, jarred the crossbar loose. It fell into place, locking the two inside the laboratory.

  John wondered if there were more Indians outside and, if so, why were they not coming to this one’s aid. Were they all converging on Gale and Ben, perhaps flanking them on both sides? No, they couldn’t do that without being seen, he decided. But he had his hands full and could not think about that now.

  Both men were tiring, but John saw no lessening of the Navajo’s strength. He realized that he could not go on much longer. He had to break the Indian’s hold on him, end the struggle. He saw only one way to break the deadlock. It meant taking a chance, but taking chances was a part of life. It was, he thought, the undecided man that fell victim to disaster.

  John drew in a breath to summon up every ounce of strength he could muster. Then he stopped pushing on the
Navajo. He looked the man straight in the eye, fixing him with a look that he hoped would convey both honesty and determination.

  “Basta,” John shouted into the Navajo’s face. Enough.

  The Navajo’s eyes betrayed his surprise. A shadow seemed to crawl across his face. His mouth went slack and his upper lip sagged downward to cover his teeth.

  Then John released his grip on the wrist that held the knife. At the same time, he jerked his gun hand with a mighty wrench of his arm. He felt the Navajo’s fingers loosen. He ducked down and scrabbled backward, keeping his feet evenly spaced in a squatting position.

  The Navajo swung the knife, slicing the air over John’s head. This threw the Navajo off balance and he staggered away in a half turn. John stayed where he was and balled his left hand into a fist. He swung hard and drove his fist into the Navajo’s back with such force he could feel the electricity shoot up his arm. His hand went numb. But the blow rocked the Navajo off his feet and he fell to his knees. John rose up and grabbed the hand that held the knife. He bent it backward until he heard the bone snap. The knife tumbled to the floor.

  John swung the pistol hard at the side of the warrior’s head, butt-first, and smashed the Indian in the temple. He heard a small cracking sound and the Navajo’s head snapped to one side and he crumpled as if all the bones in his body had melted. He fell to one side and lay still, his eyes closed, his breathing shallow.

  John stepped over the fallen man and aimed the pistol at a point in the center of the Navajo’s forehead.

  He cocked the Colt and drew another breath, held it.

  Then his finger curled around the trigger in the attack position.

  The Navajo was a scant second away from eternity and the laboratory went deathly still.

  17

  BEN PULLED A BANDANNA FROM HIS HIND POCKET AND DABBED AT the sweat beaded up on his forehead. He wiped his hands on his trousers and put the bandanna back in his pocket. He looked longingly at the approaching puff clouds wafting like clumps of cotton in the western sky. He wished they would cover the sun, but they were still far off, and the disk in the sky was a blazing furnace. John had slipped around the corner of the laboratory building a good ten or fifteen minutes ago, and neither he nor Gale had seen any smoke rising from the chimney. Neither had spoken to the other in all that time, and it was so quiet it seemed to Ben that they were both shouting at each other in the silence of their minds.

  “You reckon . . .”

  “Ben, I . . .”

  They both spoke at once and then both laughed.

  “It’s just so quiet,” she said, “and no smoke from that chimney yonder. I do hope nothing’s happened to John.”

  “As long as we haven’t heard a shot, John’s probably all right.”

  “Then why hasn’t he stoked up the danged stove in that lab?”

  “I don’t know,” Ben said, wrinkling his forehead in puzzlement. “Maybe he’s still outside, lookin’ things over.”

  “It’s mighty peculiar,” she said. “And would you look at them clouds a-floatin’ in from the northwest. That means weather in my book.”

  “Later, maybe. I just wish them clouds would cover the sun for a little while.”

  “Take a pull on one of them canteens, Ben. It might cool you down.”

  “Water’s near to boilin’ in the one I got here,” he said.

  They were quiet for a few more minutes. Fidgety. Then something to the north caught Ben’s eye. Way down on the plain. A puff of dust, he thought, and he kept his gaze on it for a few more seconds.

  “Gale, looky yonder, toward Tucson. You see anything?”

  Gale scanned the valley below.

  “Could be the start of a dust devil,” she said. “Hard to tell.”

  “Yeah. You see the dust, though, right?”

  “I see some dust,” she said.

  “Could be more Navajos riding up here,” Ben said.

  “That would not be good. We’re probably outnumbered as it is.”

  “How many Navajos are running around this part of the country?”

  Gale shrugged. “I don’t know. Kit Carson chased most of ’em to reservations, but many of ’em didn’t like it and broke loose. No tellin’ how many are runnin’ loose.”

  The dust seemed to subside and Ben let out a sigh of relief.

  The two were silent for several seconds, both staring toward the northwest.

  “Ben?” Gale said.

  “Yeah?”

  “You and John,” she said, “You got any ties anywheres else?”

  Ben shook his head. “Nope.”

  “No family?”

  “John lost his ma and pa and little sister in Colorado. Neither of us has any close kin. Why?”

  “Oh, I’m just thinkin’, that’s all.”

  Ben let out a long breath through his nose.

  “You got somethin’ in mind, Gale?”

  “Maybe. Not right away. I just wanted to know. I like both of you. A lot.”

  Ben blushed slightly.

  “That’s mighty nice of you to say, ma’am.”

  “You’re good folks,” she said.

  Ben sat up straight peering over the pile of tailings. There was dust in the sky. He could not tell if it was windblown or caused by cattle, sheep, or horses. But there was too much dust to ignore.

  “I see it,” Gale said. “Looks like riders, maybe, comin’ our way. See those dark specks every now and then? Inside the dust cloud.”

  “I see somethin’,” Ben said. “Can’t make it out.”

  “Could be Injuns,” she said. “They don’t seem to be ridin’ real fast if they are.”

  Whatever was kicking up the dust was too far away for Ben to tell what it was. He felt a trickle of sweat course down his temple and his gut tightened. The wind was blowing their way, and so was the dust.

  “Don’t you have a spyglass?” Gale asked. “My heart’s squeezed so tight I can hardly breathe wondering who in tar-nation is kicking up all that dust.”

  “Yeah, John has a pair of field glasses in his saddlebags. Wonder why I didn’t think of it.”

  “I’ll get ’em,” Gale said and leaned her rifle against the pilings. She dragged one set of saddlebags toward her. They were heavy. She opened one and began rummaging through it with both hands. “Not in this one,” she said. She dipped her hands into the other one, her fingers probing for a large object that could be a pair of binoculars in a leather case.

  Ben shaded his eyes and peered intently at the cloud of dust. He could just make out the legs, chest, and head of a horse in the forefront of the dust, but could not make out the rider.

  “Ah, here they are,” Gale said, pulling the case out of John’s saddlebag. She took out the binoculars and put them to her eyes. She adjusted the focus.

  “I can just make out part of a horse,” she said to Ben.

  “Give ’em here,” he said. “Let me take a gander.”

  Gale scooted over close to Ben and handed him the binoculars. She leaned back and got her rifle, but stayed close to him as if she did not want to return to her former position.

  Ben refocused the field glasses and gazed down in the sunlit valley. The glasses magnified his view by a factor of twenty and he could make out the lead horse. The rider was still obscured by the blowing dust, but the horse looked to be a fine mount.

  “That ain’t no Injun pony up front,” he said.

  “The Navajos ride everything from burros to saddle horses,” Gale said.

  “It’s a tall horse, I think, maybe sixteen hands high. Can’t make out the rider.”

  Just then, they both heard a quail call. It was very loud and close at hand. The sound seemed to be coming from over the rim of the mesa.

  The sound startled Ben and he lowered the binoculars.

  The call persisted.

  “That ain’t no quail,” Gale said.

  “Sounds like one. What is it?”

  “Navajos imitate ’em. It’s some kind of signal,
I reckon, from down below the mesa.”

  Ben felt the skin tighten on the back of his neck. He peered over at the laboratory, all along the edge of the mesa, then on both sides.

  “Somethin’s up, maybe,” he said. “But I don’t see nothin’.”

  Gale scanned the same area, her finger curled around the trigger of her rifle.

  The calling stopped, and they could both hear the wind crooning in the valley. It sounded like a faraway river or some creature keening just beyond their view.

  He looked up at the sky. The little clouds were even closer, but behind them huge altocumulus clouds were forming, giant billowing thunderheads as white as snow.

  “Hear that wind?” he said. “And see them clouds yonder?”

  “Yes,” she said. “There’ll be a storm likely. We get ’em here. That wind. It means we’ll get a cloudburst come evenin’.”

  “Well, we got the cave and that lab if John takes it over. We can stay dry.”

  Gale didn’t say anything. She was looking at the dust cloud again.

  “Take another look at what’s down there,” she said. “Looks to be a passel of riders.”

  Ben put the binoculars back up to his eyes. The riders were still miles away, but he could now see the lead rider better. His throat lumped up as he saw the column behind him. And he thought he saw something fluttering above them, like a kerchief or some kind of flapping bird.

  The lead rider was dressed in blue. But he saw a yellow stripe down his leg. Behind him, the next rider held a staff and the flying thing was flapping over his head.

  “Them riders might be soldiers,” he said. “I think I see a guidon. And they’re ridin’ two by two. Injuns don’t ride that way, do they?”

  “No,” she said. “Let me take a look.”

  Ben handed Gale the field glasses.

  “I believe those are soldiers,” she said. “Yes, I can see their uniforms. United States Cavalry, Ben. And they’re probably tracking those Navajo jaybirds hunkered down below this mesa.”

  “You sure?” he said.

  “Pretty sure. Still a lot of dust a-blowin’, but they’re riding in formation and they got them yellow-striped pants. Might have come from Tucson out of Fort Apache.”