Apache Moon

  BRADDOCK'S LUCK

  Stunned, Duane looked up to see Gootch pinning him down, holding the knife to his throat. Their faces were only inches apart. The point of the knife pierced Duane's throat, and Duane realized that he was going to die.

  “No!” hollered Phyllis. Her onrushing boots could be heard, then the sound of a scuffle. “Let me go!” she yelled.

  The knife sliced deeper into Duane's throat as Gootch grinned fiendishly above him. Then suddenly Gootch pulled back, rose to his feet, raised two fingers, and made a brusque statement in his language.

  “He said,” Delgado interpreted, “that he has given you your life two times, but next time you will not be so lucky.”

  Also by Len Levinson

  The Rat Bastards:

  Hit the Beach

  Death Squad

  River of Blood

  Meat Grinder Hill

  Down and Dirty

  Green Hell

  Too Mean to Die

  Hot Lead and Cold Steel

  Do or Die

  Kill Crazy

  Nightmare Alley

  Go For Broke

  Tough Guys Die Hard

  Suicide River

  Satan’s Cage

  Go Down Fighting

  The Pecos Kid:

  Beginner’s Luck

  The Reckoning

  Outlaw Hell

  Devil’s Creek Massacre

  Bad to the Bone

  The Apache Wars Saga:

  Desert Hawks

  War Eagles

  Savage Frontier

  White Apache

  Devil Dance

  Night of the Cougar

  THE

  PECOS KID

  Book 3

  APACHE MOON

  LEN LEVINSON

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1993 by Len Levinson. All Rights Reserved.

  Ebook © 2013 by AudioGO. All Rights Reserved.

  Trade ISBN: 978-1-62064-860-5

  Library ISBN: 978-1-62460-201-6

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  CHAPTER 1

  IT WAS DAWN, AND A CHILL WAS ON THE TEXAS desert. Duane Braddock opened his eyes; the dark tops of cottonwood trees shivered in the breeze above him. He lay in his bedroll, and his woman was sprawled atop him, her cheek on his chest. The fragrance of her auburn hair filled his nostrils as she slept peacefully, breathing deeply. Duane felt happy to be alive . . . for a few brief moments.

  Then he remembered where he was: Apache country. If they caught him, they'd tie him upside down on a wagon wheel, build a fire beneath his head, and perform a little dance as his brains broiled out of his ears. Duane listened for hoofbeats, or the sound of an Apache moccasin on the hard-packed dirt behind him. He slept with his gun in his right hand, and aimed it into thick cactus and juniper.

  “What's wrong?” asked the sleepy voice beside him.

  “Thought I heard something.”

  She yawned and stretched her arms. “Time to get up.”

  He gazed at her bare shoulder, many shades lighter than her bronzed cheeks. “We can stay in bed a few more minutes.”

  “Duane . . .”

  But they couldn't waste time, because Duane Braddock was wanted for a certain double murder farther north. He and Phyllis Thornton believed that the Fourth Cavalry was hot on their trail, with Apache scouts leading the way. In a small town called Shelby, two men had tried to bushwhack Duane in a general store, but he shot first and then the local cavalry commander arrested him for murder. While he was awaiting trial, Phyllis busted him out of the army camp. That was three days ago, and now they were Romeo and Juliet on the dodge. He'd just turned eighteen, she was sweet sixteen; they planned to get hitched at the earliest opportunity, but couldn't tarry in the bedroll now.

  Reluctantly, he separated himself from her and stood naked on the morning desert. A cliff swallow sat atop a fishhook cactus and watched curiously as they dressed, for the bird seldom saw such strange two-legged creatures in that part of the desert. Duane strapped on his Colt and tied the bottom of the holster to his leg, gunfighter style. Then he picked up his Henry rifle, made sure it was locked and loaded, and laid it back down. He wondered whether to chance a small fire. There was dead wood lying around, and a small flame would dissipate smoke quickly in the morning air.

  “What are you doing?” she asked as she fastened the buckle of her black jeans.

  “Thought I'd make a fire. The meat'll be easier to chew if we cook it.”

  “Not if there's an arrow in your gullet. Put away the matches, Duane. No fires, please.”

  Phyllis was far more cautious than he concerning Indians, but she'd been raised on a ranch in Comanche territory and heard about Indian depredations, massacres, rapes, and so on all her life. She wouldn't give an Indian the time of day if she had a watch in every pocket, but Duane had grown up in a Catholic monastery and still wasn't very familiar with the secular world.

  Duane was an orphan who'd left the monastery approximately three months ago, because he'd wanted to try life as an ordinary person. He'd studied Saint Thomas Aquinas, sung Gregorian chants, and helped bake bread in the monastery ovens, but since then had gone from one violent confrontation to another with people who tried to push him around or take advantage, like the duo in Shelby. Fortunately, shortly after arriving in the secular world, he'd been taught the tricks of the trade by an old retired gunfighter named Clyde Butterfield. Duane also had been blessed or cursed with an unusually fast hand.

  The violence and uncertainties of the real world often baffled his theological mind, and he'd learned the hard way that his best friend was his Colt New Model Army .44. He was adventuresome, rambunctious, usually optimistic, still somewhat pious, nearly six feet tall, wide of shoulder, with white teeth and long black sideburns. His black curve-brimmed cowboy hat was minus its usual silver concho headband, which might attract undue notice in the naked desert. He also wore black jeans, a green shirt, and a red bandanna.

  Duane prepared the horses, while Phyllis packed their few belongings. Sometimes she wondered if she'd gone crazy on the night she'd bribed him out of the Fourth Cavalry camp. What am I doing in the middle of Apache territory with a man I know less than a month! But there was no turning back, and she loved Duane passionately, although frequently she entertained reasonable doubts about the events that had overtaken her during the past weeks.

  They met at her father's ranch, where Duane had been hired as a cowboy. It was love at first sight, they'd intended to get married, and then came the shootout in the general store. Sometimes Phyllis thought she'd run off with a complete stranger. Although Duane was two years older than she, he seemed immature and naive, perhaps because he'd spent nearly all his life in that peaceful and remote Catholic monastery, while she'd lived on a ranch beset by Indians, rustlers, outlaw gangs, drunken cowboy employees, and bad weather.

  But she was no illiterate country bumpkin. Her mother had been a schoolmarm and personally administered a strict, thorough education interspersed with ranch chores. Phyllis Thornton was a true daughter of Texas, ready for anything. As she pulled on her left boot, she heard gunfire in the distance and instantaneously was flat on her belly, Colt in hand, gazing around apprehensively.

  Duane lay nearby, holding his rifle tightly, finger on the trigger, trying to figure out how far away the shots were. “Sounds like a small war.”

  “Good thing you
didn't light that fire.”

  “We'd better stay put until the excitement's over. Might as well have breakfast.”

  He unwrapped the haunch of antelope meat he'd shot yesterday. It was red, bloody, laced with fat and ligaments. The only thing to do was whip out his Bowie knife, slice off a chunk, and hand it to her.

  At that moment, a white head with a black eye poked beneath a cholla cactus. It was Sparky, a mongrel dog that Duane had befriended in Shelby. The dog had a face like a coyote, a body like a beagle, and the hair of a terrier. Whenever there was food, Sparky would make an appearance.

  Duane cut off a strip of meat and threw it to the animal, who caught it in his jaws. Then Duane sliced a piece for himself as shooting continued faintly in the distance. They had no salt, plates, or silverware, and he was fascinated by the spectacle of Miss Phyllis Thornton eating raw meat with her hands. Blood dribbled down her chin, but she appeared untroubled. She rode horses, fired guns, wore men's clothing, and gobbled raw meat like an Apache. There was something barbaric about her, and it gave him satisfaction to know that he'd sleep with her every night for the rest of his life. They washed their raw meat down with tepid water.

  “I wonder who's winning?” Duane wondered aloud, listening to random shots bouncing off purple mountains and gold mesas.

  “I'd give anything for a sourdough biscuit right now, and a cup of coffee.”

  She'd lived in cow camps with her father and mother, but never on the desert with a person who knew the terrain even less than she. She wished the Bar T ramrod was there to provide advice, but she and Duane only had each other and the grace of God.

  He placed his hand on hers. “We'll cross the border in another few days, and then you can have all the biscuits and coffee you want.”

  “If we get through these damned Apaches,” she replied.

  “We'll get through. This is no time to get discouraged.”

  He tried to sound cheerful but entertained reasonable doubts himself. They called it a desert because there wasn't much water, and Apaches were bloodthirsty fiends. The Fourth Cavalry might arrive at any moment, but Duane and Phyllis couldn't travel due to the distant shootout.

  He gazed at her curvaceous body and let his eyes linger on her upright breasts pressing against the front of her cowboy shirt. The shooting stopped, the desert was silent for several minutes, and birds resumed their serenade.

  “I think we should stay here for a while longer,” she said. “We don't want to run into whoever won the gunfight.”

  “You'll get no argument from me.” He leaned closer, touched his lips to her ear, and placed his hand on her breast.

  Tall, wiry Federal Marshal Dan Stowe rode a lineback dun stallion toward the main house and barn of the Bar T Ranch. His flat-topped, wide-brimmed silverbelly hat was slanted low over his eyes, and he carried a Remington-Rider Double-Action revolver in a hand-tooled leather holster, slung low and tied down. He also sported a long light brown mustache styled in the flamboyant manner of General George Armstrong Custer, under whom he'd served in the great Civil War.

  Federal Marshal Dan Stowe climbed down from his horse, threw the reins over the rail, and hitched up his britches. He'd come all the way from San Antone with a warrant for the arrest of Duane Braddock, dead or alive. His face was weather-beaten; he had thin lips and a long pinched nose.

  A prosperous spread, Stowe thought as he scanned the barn and outbuildings. He heard wood chopping in the distance, while a cowboy carrying a rifle appeared at the corner of the ranch house. “He'p you, Marshal?”

  “I'm lookin’ for Big Al Thornton.”

  The cowboy pointed to the front door of the main house. “Right through thar.”

  Stowe climbed the three steps and knocked on the door. It was opened by an attractive matron wearing a gray dress with a white apron. She took one look at the badge and said, “We've been expecting you.”

  He removed his hat and made a friendly smile. “My name's Stowe, and I'm here to see Al Thornton on official government business.”

  “I'm Mrs. Thornton—have a seat, Marshal Stowe. Could I get you a cup of coffee?”

  “If it's no trouble, ma'am.”

  He looked her over with the eyes of a whorehouse connoisseur and considered her an attractive sturdy older woman who'd managed not to gain five hundred pounds since getting married. A Navaho blanket decorated the wall above the fireplace, while a painting of Sam Houston hung from the far wall. Stowe dropped onto a chair, crossed his long, lanky legs, and thought of the mission that had brought him to that remote corner of Texas.

  A local cavalry commander named Lieutenant Clayton Dawes had arrested an outlaw named Duane Braddock, also known as the Pecos Kid. But the Kid had escaped with the aid of Miss Phyllis Thornton, daughter of the man with whom Stowe was about to speak. The Kid had allegedly shot two people in cold blood, and that was all Stowe knew so far about the violence in Shelby. The accuser, Lieutenant Dawes, was currently on a scout, expected back in a day or two.

  Mrs. Thornton returned with the mug of coffee, which she passed to the lawman. “I'll get my husband now.” Then she paused. “I hope you don't have bad news.”

  “Not as far as I know.”

  She disappeared down the hall as Stowe sipped the coffee, thick and black, cowboy style. Stowe had been a cowboy once and found the work arduous, the pay minuscule, and bunkhouse life a bore. He'd been a lawman for five years and liked the work better than anything so far. You had to outthink your man, and that made the chase interesting.

  A powerful-looking, white-haired man appeared, wearing a rawhide vest over a brown shirt with flowing sleeves. “Don't git up, Marshal,” he said. “What can I do fer you?”

  “I'm afraid I'll have to ask you some questions, Mister Thornton.”

  Big Al sat on the sofa, leaned forward, and spread his hands. “I know what yer a-gonna ask afore the words're out'n yer mouth. You want to know all about Duane Braddock and my daughter. All right—I'll give it to you straight from the shoulder. Duane Braddock come here from out of nowhere, and it was brandin’ season, so I hired him on the spot. Accordin’ to the ramrod, he was a hard worker, but he had a firecracker temper and made an enemy of a rancher named Jay Krenshaw, who hired a fast gun called Otis Puckett to kill him. Ever heard of Puckett?”

  “He operated out of Laredo, far as I know.”

  “Duane outdrew him in a fair fight, although there's some that said Duane's dog distracted Puckett, but Puckett was a professional and I don't think he'd let a mutt interfere with a fast draw. Then Krenshaw tried to shoot Duane in the back, but Duane managed to get off the first shot.”

  Stowe rubbed his lantern jaw thoughtfully. “Sounds like self-defense to me.”

  “That's what it was. Hell, ask my ramrod. He was thar. So was most of my cowboys. They was a-givin’ Duane a party, ‘cause he was a-gonna marry my daughter.”

  Before Stowe could ask another question, Martha Thornton spoke. “Duane doesn't have a bad bone in him. Sure, he's a little hotheaded at times, but so're a lot of other people I could name, like Lieutenant Clayton Dawes. In my opinion, the lieutenant exceeded his authority when he arrested Duane.”

  “With witnesses like you,” said the marshal, “any judge in his right mind would let Braddock off. Why'd Braddock make a run for it?”

  Big Al replied, “Put yerself in his mind. He's only a kid, fer chrissakes. They didn't have a stockade, so the lieutenant tied him to a wagon wheel, and Duane was afraid somebody might shoot him in the back, plus there's injuns in the territory. My daughter understood how he felt, so she turned him loose. I reckon they're headed fer Mexico, if'n the Apaches ain't caught ‘em yet.”

  “As far as I'm concerned,” Marshal Stowe replied, “they're still at large. What can you tell me about Braddock's background?”

  “Accordin’ to what he said, he was raised in a Catholic monastery in the Guadalupe Mountains until a few months ago. He went thar when he was one year old, because his parents was dead. His fa
ther was an outlaw name of Joe Braddock—ever heard of him?”

  “I saw Joe Braddock's name in our files before I left San Antone. He was a real bad egg.”

  “His mother was a dance-hall girl, and Duane don't even know her name. They wasn't married, and Duane is embarrassed about how he was borned. I wouldn't mention it if'n I was you.”

  Stowe unbuttoned his shirt and took out the warrant. “I'll do whatever's necessary to bring him in. I understand that he's also shot men in other jurisdictions.”

  Mrs. Thornton sighed as she sat beside her husband on the sofa. “Duane's a peaceful boy, but folks won't leave him alone. He was a good hand, and the men in the bunkhouse liked him, but he made an enemy out of Jay Krenshaw, and that's how it started.”

  Stowe slapped the warrant with the back of his hand. “Of course, if the lieutenant drops the charges, I won't have to go after Braddock. I don't know where that puts your daughter, since she helped him escape.”

  Mrs. Thornton tried to be brave, but her one and only child was on the dodge. Big Al placed his arm around her shoulder as he said, “I've hired a lawyer in Austin, and he'll git ‘em both off. If Duane wasn't guilty in the first place, she had a right to turn him loose.”

  “I have no warrant for her arrest,” Stowe said. “She's a free citizen as far as I'm concerned.”

  Big Al glanced at his wife. “I'd like to speak with Marshal Stowe alone in my office, if'n you don't mind.”

  He led the lawman down the corridor to a small room with a desk and an old Confederate flag nailed to the wall. Big Al dropped to his favorite chair and looked into the marshal's eyes. “Let's you and me understand each other. My daughter is the most precious thing in the world to me. If’n you bring her back, I'll give you two thousand dollars, cash on the barrelhead, no questions asked.”

  Never, in Marshal Stowe's law enforcement career, had he been offered such a fat bribe. It was as much as he earned in two years! Ordinarily he'd turn it down, but two thousand dollars? Before he could answer, Big Al raised his right hand and said, “You don't have to break no laws or violate no oaths. All I'm askin’ is do yer best to git her out. Here's a hundred for expenses, and you'll git the rest in cash when she's in this house.”