The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard - Elmore Leonard [50]
Street pulled a thin cigar from his pocket and passed his tongue over the crumbling outer layer of tobacco. “You know, at one time there was almost a thousand troops plus a hundred Apache scouts all in the field at one time huntin’ him, and no one even saw him. You couldn’t ask the dead ones if they saw him or not. An Apache’s bad enough, but this one’s half devil.”
He moved toward the butchered horse. “Boy’s got a real yen for steak, ain’t he?”
All the time the tension had been building in Langmade. Just standing there with his arms heavy at his sides and the weight pulling down inside his stomach. He had to hesitate until he was sure his voice would come out sounding natural.
“You’ve got the sign and I’ve got the men,” he said. “Just point the way, Simon. Just point the way.”
Street had turned and was walking toward his horse. He stopped and looked back at the officer. “Get your troop back to Inspiration and get a fresh patrol out, soldier.”
Street’s words were low, directed only to the officer, but Langmade raised his voice almost to a shout when he answered:
“We’ve got men here—get on his track!”
“I’m not goin’ to guide for dead men,” the scout answered easily. “If a thousand men can’t catch him, you can’t count on forty. Maybe just one’s the answer. I don’t want to tell you how to run your business, son, but if I was you I’d shake it back to Inspiration and get a fresh patrol out.”
Street mounted and then looked down at Langmade, who had followed him over to the horse. “The trail’s as fresh as you’d want it,” he said, nodding toward the butchered horse. “That mare hasn’t been dead three hours. And he’s got a woman with him to slow him down.”
“I’ve been out longer than that, Simon,” Langmade said. “She’ll slow him down just so long.”
The scout’s mouth turned slightly into a smile as he pressed his heels into the mare’s flanks. “That’s why I got to hurry, soldier.”
He walked the mare toward Banderas Creek and kicked her into a gallop as he turned upstream.
AN HOUR BEFORE sunset Simon Street was walking his horse along the winding trail that threaded its way diagonally down the slope of the forest-covered hill that on the western side joined the rocky heights of the Sierra Apaches. This gradual leveling of the sierra was a tangled mass of junipers, gnarled stumps, and rock, rising and falling abruptly from one hillock to the next.
The trail gouged itself laboriously in a general southwesterly direction, fighting rock falls, pine, and prickly pear, finally to emerge miles to the south at Devil’s Flats. From the crest, and occasionally down the path, you could see in the distance the whiteness—the bleak, bonebleached whiteness—that was the flats.
Street had traveled a dozen-odd miles from the ambush, making his way slowly at first along the creek bank, looking for a particular telltale sign. He knew the Apache had followed the creek, leaving no prints, but somewhere he had to come out.
The Apache would cover his tracks from the creek, but he would be coming out at a particular place for a reason. To pick up his mount. And you can’t leave a horse tied in one place for any length of time without also leaving a sign. To recognize the place is something else.
Street saw the low tree branch that had been scarred by the hackamore, and his eyes fell to the particles of horse droppings that had remained after the Apache had swept most of it into the denser scrub brush. He was on the trail. From then on it was just a question of thinking like an Apache.
For the scout, that night, it was the last of his jerked beef and a quarter canteen of cold coffee. No fire. Cold, tasteless rations while he pressed his back against a smooth rock that was still warm from the day’s heat and dueled his patience against the black pit that was the night.
His Winchester lay across his lap, and