Night of the Coyote (The Coyote Saga Book 1) Read online

  He peered outside the entrance of the cave. Sunrise was an hour away. His best chance was to escape into the darkness. In the unlikely event Skye awoke, Ethan left his makeshift cup full of water at her side. Next to the cup, he placed his loaded Peacemaker, on the outside chance she could use it for her protection if things did not work out. He tried not to think about the other use she might have for it.

  He took one last look at her, trying to indelibly imprint her face on his mind, and then he turned away, snatched up his Winchester, and disappeared through the mouth of the cave.

  29

  FROM HIS PERCH on top of Scalped Ridge, Ethan had an eagle’s view of the valley below, the spiny ridge, and the pine-covered slopes that afforded the only approach. Since the first fingers of sunlight crawled over the mountaintop, he had been watching the men inch their way toward the ridge, zigzagging through the trees, searching as they climbed. He had the horses spotted, too. They were staked out in a draw near the spot, where earlier, tell-tale black smoke produced from wet firewood had curled skyward and marked the place where Skye’s pursuers had spent the night.

  Horses. No more than a half hour away. A downhill walk. Four men stood between him and those horses—between Skye and a doctor. From his position in the rocks, he could hold off four men for a long time. But Skye did not have a long time.

  The gunmen had spread out and were well protected by trees and brush. With his rifle, he could pick off one easily enough. But that would warn the others, and they could keep him pinned down, perhaps circle around the rocks, and eventually overrun his position. Odds were, though, it would be a standoff. That was not good enough.

  Abruptly, one of the men broke out ahead of the others and made a beeline for Ethan’s nest of rocks. He had not been sighted or the gunman would not have been approaching with such abandon. The man, like Ethan, had evidently singled out the best watchtower on the ridge.

  Ethan burrowed down in the rocks, watching as the man climbed over the rise and bore in on his hiding place. Damn. All of the choices had been made for him. The gunman carried his Winchester hanging low on his hip. He was a young man in his early twenties, Ethan judged. Fine-boned and swarthy. He was finally going to meet the elusive Race Sanchez.

  Ethan waited a moment longer. Then, when Sanchez was within twenty feet, Ethan poked the barrel of his Winchester between some boulders. “Don’t make a move for your gun, mister. My rifle’s aimed right at your belly button.”

  Sanchez froze and his reptilian eyes darted nervously. “What the hell?”

  “Do as I say, Sanchez, or you’re buzzard meat.”

  “I ain’t arguin’ mister, but who the hell are you? I ain’t looking to do you no harm.”

  “My name’s Ramsey. Does that have a familiar ring?”

  “The law wrangler?”

  Ethan remained hidden, hoping that the other gunmen would not be alerted to what was taking place on the ridge. “I’ll be asking the questions. Did you find your friend?” Sanchez had regained his composure and now appeared quite calm and relaxed. That was when a man of his breed was most dangerous.

  “What friend?”

  “The friend you’re missing. There were five of you.”

  “So, you’re the hombre that done Buster in. I couldn’t figure that out. Couldn’t see how the woman could have killed him. Last I seen of her she looked to be in damn poor shape.”

  Ethan’s finger tightened on the trigger. “You’re the one that shot her horse?”

  “I won’t deny it.”

  “Who are you working for, Sanchez?”

  “How’d you know my name?”

  “Who are you working for?”

  “I don’t see what I got to gain by telling.”

  “Your life. We’ll bargain—your life for information.”

  “I don’t got you pegged as a killer, Ramsey.” He tossed down his rifle; it would be a clear signal to the others that something out of the ordinary was going on. “I don’t think you’re the kind of man who’d kill another in cold blood.”

  “Not unless I’m driven to it, and I just have been. Right to the brink.” Ethan caught a barely perceptible swaying of Sanchez's right hand that betrayed his intention. “I warned you once. I can see you, but you can’t see me. You’ll be dead before you slap leather.”

  Sanchez smiled broadly, revealing white, even teeth. “I got no ideas amigo. You want to bargain? I’m listening. What are you dealing?”

  “I told you . . . your life for information.”

  “You’ll let me go free? Just walk away from here?”

  “No. I’ll take you in, but I won’t kill you.”

  “You’re just giving me a choice as to how I die.”

  “Not if you haven’t killed anyone.”

  “You want to know who I’m working for?”

  “You hear right.”

  “I don’t see that it matters none if I tell you. No matter what happens betwixt you and me.” The cocky smile seemed to be engraved in his face. “I work for Webb.”

  “There are two Webbs.”

  “Not that sniveling pup that calls himself a Webb, that’s for damn sure.”

  “You were hired by Gideon Webb?”

  “I ain’t going to say it twice.”

  “Did you kill my partner, Ben Dobbs?”

  “Never heard of no Ben Dobbs.”

  Possible, Ethan thought. Race Sanchez was likely unconcerned with the names of the men he killed.

  “What do you know about the Harpers?”

  “Burned out by injuns, they say.”

  “What were you doing at the Harper place yesterday?”

  “Just looking around.”

  “What were you looking for?”

  “I’m done answering questions.”

  “Why did you try to kill Miss dePaul?”

  Sanchez’s thin lips curved into a scowl. He was through talking, Ethan decided. That suited him.

  From behind the rocks, he could not see the other gunmen, and for all he knew, they could be closing in on him. Ethan stood up keeping his rifle fixed on Sanchez’s belly. The other men were out of sight. That worried him.

  “Throw your pistol down, Sanchez. Take the butt between your fingers and drop it to the ground.”

  “You’re asking me to strip myself naked.”

  “Do it,” Ethan commanded. “Now.”

  Sanchez’s lithe body seemed to coil like a wire spring as he went into a crouch, and his lightning quick hand closed on the six-gun. Ethan’s gun cracked twice before the gunman’s pistol cleared the holster, driving two bullets into his chest just inches apart.

  Sanchez groaned, looked down at his bleeding chest in disbelief and then back at Ethan with astonished eyes. He staggered several feet toward Ethan, still groping frantically for his pistol, before he pitched forward and landed face down on the rocky ground.

  A rifle fired from down the slope to Ethan’s left and another fired from the right, spraying shards of rock only a few feet from Ethan’s hip before he dove for cover. Two of them had him hemmed in, and somewhere there was a third. He doubted that getting Sanchez out of the way had been worth the price of letting the others out of his sight.

  He rose up from behind the rock, fired two quick shots and ducked just before the gunmen answered him with shots that chipped more stone. These were not ordinary cowhands, Ethan concluded. They knew their business. What bothered him most was that there still seemed to be only two riflemen. One, he guessed, was in the timber at the fringe of the bald ridge, perhaps fifty yards away. The other must have found a fortress of his own in the rocks off to the right along the spine of the ridge.

  If the third gunman had slipped over the ridge during the showdown with Sanchez, he would be hidden from view. He could only hope that the third man had not grabbed the opportunity.

  For the better part of an hour, Ethan traded shots with the gunmen. He had their positions isolated now, but he had not drawn blood and did not delude himself that
he had much prospect of doing so.

  If something did not break his way soon, he decided he would try to charge the gunman in the rocks and hopefully draw him out, or get a better angle on him before he took a bullet. A reckless thought, but he had no better one.

  Ethan fired off a quick shot at the gunman in the trees. This time he got no response from either quarter. A few moments later, he fired at the rifleman in the rocks. Again, no retort. He leaned back against a boulder and pondered his dilemma, pulling the brim of his hat forward to ward off the blistering rays of the sun.

  His throat and lips were parched and dry. The cave would be chilly, but Skye, if she were awake, would be welcoming the coolness by this time. A gunshot reverberated from the canyon side of the ridge. The cave!

  He grasped the rifle and leaped up and raced along the spine of the ridge, disbelieving that he had not been shredded by the gunmen’s bullets before he escaped through a break in the rocks that led to the honeycomb of caves. He slid down the slope like a log in a sluice, nearly overshooting his objective and catapulting over the edge of the canyon wall before he dug his booted heels into the shale and clay and tumbled to a stop. He clambered along the slope and saw the body sprawled outside the cave before he reached the entrance. The third man, he guessed, as he barely hesitated, giving the man whose nose had been nearly blown off, only a quick glance before he scrambled through the narrow opening. “Skye, it’s Ethan,” he called. “I’m coming in. Don’t shoot.”

  Somehow, she had raised herself to a sitting position and was leaning against the rear cave wall, facing the entrance, her good arm propped on one knee, the pistol clenched in her hand and aimed at the cave opening.

  “Did I kill him?” she asked as he pried her fingers loose from the gun.

  “Yes.”

  “I am glad. That is a wicked thing to say, is it not? Do you suppose it is the savage in me?”

  “Probably.” After holstering the pistol, he felt her forehead. It was like her skin was stretched over hot coals. He checked what was visible of her left arm. The flesh was scarlet and puffy. But it was bloated more than swollen. Nearly twice its normal size. The skin had turned dark purple.

  “Did you hear the coyote, Ethan?”

  He looked into her lifeless, glassy eyes. “Coyote? What do you mean?”

  “The coyote was howling. You did not hear it? That is what awakened me. That is when I heard the man outside the cave.”

  There had been no coyotes howling in the vicinity of Scalped Ridge this morning, but you didn’t argue with anyone this sick.

  “Did I kill the man, Ethan?” she asked for the second time.

  “Yes, I guarantee it.”

  “I am glad, did I tell you that?”

  “Yes, you told me.”

  “The coyote warned me, Ethan. He told me what to do. I think he was the same coyote Lame Buffalo heard. Is that possible?”

  He humored her. “Yes, I suppose so.” She was delirious. What reserves she had drawn on to ward off the would-be killer, he would never know. Her eyes fluttered and then closed.

  “Ethan,” she said sleepily, in a near whisper.

  “What is it, Skye?”

  “I want to live. I do not want to die.” Her head slumped forward, and mercifully, she was unconscious again.

  He had to get her to the horses. He was helpless to do anything for her here. Better for them both to die quickly in a rain of gunfire, than to cower in a cave and to watch this woman who had somehow touched his heart, slide inch by inch into the black chasm that was death.

  Minutes later, Ethan carried Skye over the crown of the ridge. The men who met him there were not the ones he had expected. Badger Claw, Skye’s thwarted suitor, and two other Sioux warriors stood beside the bodies of two white men whose backs were decorated with Sioux arrows.

  Badger Claw, his face grim, approached Ethan warily, his brooding eyes scrutinizing the woman in Ethan’s arms. He placed a hand on Skye’s face and touched her swollen hand and then stepped back and glared at Ethan challengingly. He spoke in Brule Sioux. “We will take her to our village. Our medicine man will say prayers for her, make powerful medicine.”

  Ethan shook his head. “No.”

  “We can take her from you.”

  “No.” He had not used his crude Sioux since leaving Fort Laramie, and he answered awkwardly. “You can take her only if you kill me first.”

  “That would be easy,” Badger Claw spat. “We have already killed two white eyes. A third would give us each a scalp.” He smiled coldly. “The Puma’s scalp would be a fine prize in the village of my people. I would claim it for my own.”

  “Do you think Lame Buffalo would honor the warrior who killed the Puma under whose protection he placed his own son? And what becomes of Bear Killer if the Puma is killed by Sioux? Do you wish to answer your chief for that?”

  The smile faded from the Indian’s face. “Sky-in-the-Morning will die.”

  Ethan’s eyes blazed and locked with those of the belligerent Sioux. “Sky-in-the-Morning will not die. I will not let her die. I must take her to the medicine man of my people. He is a great and wise man. Go to your village and ask your medicine man to chant for Sky-in-the-Morning. Together, the powers of our medicine men can save her life.”

  Skye moaned. “Ethan?”

  “I’m here, Skye. Everything’s all right. I’m taking you to Dr. Weintraub now.”

  “The coyote told me to kill the man, Ethan. I did kill him, did I not?” Her voice trailed off.

  When Ethan looked up, he saw Badger Claw was watching her, and he thought he saw a softening in the Indian’s stern face. Perhaps Skye was something other than a prospective second wife for him to possess.

  Again, speaking in Sioux, Ethan said, “I am going to where the bad white eyes left their horses. Kill me if you must, but if you wish to help Sky-in-the-Morning, you can build a travois to carry her on and provide me water for our journey.” He turned away and started walking in the direction of the horses.

  30

  ETHAN SAT SLUMPED in a chair in Dr. Weintraub’s cramped reception room, gazing dreamily at the fluttering flame in the oil lamp that provided feeble light for the room. Dr. Weintraub had relegated him to the chair over Ethan’s vigorous protests, insisting he and his nurse would perform their tasks better without an observer in the surgery.

  “You don’t want to be responsible for our doing anything less than our best, do you?” the doctor had countered. “If you care about her, let us do our work.”

  The young doctor had won out, and now Ethan was well into his fourth hour of waiting.

  They had been escorted to the outskirts of Lockwood by Badger Claw and the two warriors. Shortly before sundown, he had ridden down Lockwood’s main street leading the horse that pulled the two-poled travois on which Skye was secured. The town had been quiet when he rode in, but word traveled fast and by the time he reached Dr. Weintraub’s office, the street was lined with buzzing spectators.

  Will Bridges had been in to express his concern. “We’ve got a lot to talk about,” Will had said meaningfully. But at the time, it had passed Ethan by. His mind was occupied by one thought—Skye had to live. The feeling he had at the mere notion of her dying could be described in one word—emptiness.

  The door to Dr. Weintraub’s surgery opened, and the lanky doctor entered the waiting room. Ethan rose to meet him, but Dr. Weintraub waved him back into the chair; he could feel his heart pounding in his chest. “Damn it, Henry, don’t do this to me.”

  “She’s alive, Ethan.”

  He was flooded by an initial wave of relief, but then his apprehension surged. “That’s not telling me a damn thing. She was alive when I brought her here. Will she be all right? Will she be alive tomorrow? I want to know.”

  “I wish I could say. She’s a strong one. I think she can survive the infection, but she’s in a state of deep shock. These things are very unpredictable. But I’m very hopeful.”

  “Can I see her?”


  “Shortly . . . if you want. But even if she pulls through, it will be several days before she knows anyone. I’ll be keeping her sedated with laudanum and some new opiates we’re trying.”

  Weintraub was normally a very easy-going, soft-spoken gentleman who inspired confidence, but Ethan noticed he was fidgeting in his chair, trying to avert Ethan’s gaze.

  “You haven’t told me everything, Henry, have you?”

  The doctor sighed deeply and looked up. “I wonder if I’ll ever get hardened to these things. Being the conveyer of bad news is the worst part of being a physician.” He sucked in his breath. “I had to take her arm, Ethan.”

  Ethan sank back in the chair. It was like being kicked in the belly by a horse, yet he should not have been surprised. He had seen countless wounds and injuries. Intellectually, he knew from the first moment how it would be. But emotionally, he had denied it.

  A suffocating silence filled the room for some moments before Ethan finally spoke. “How much did you have to take?”

  “I left about four inches below the elbow. If I could have seen her right away, I might have been able to set the bone. But it was becoming gangrenous. Even then, I don’t know. The bone was splintered and twisted badly.” He shook his head in defeat. “It’s very tragic. She’s such a lovely young woman.”

  “Are you suggesting she’ll be less than beautiful because of this?” Ethan replied testily.

  “Ethan, don’t pick a fight with me. I’m your friend. Miss dePaul’s doctor. Of course, I’m not suggesting that. I don’t feel that way. But some men might have their fool notions about what a perfect young woman should be, and that might include having five fingers at the end of each of two full arms. There are some who might be repelled by a disfigurement like Miss dePaul’s. The important thing will be how she feels about herself. I am not a physician of wide experience, Ethan, but I know how a person can be crippled more emotionally than physically by something like this. You seem to be . . . well, close to her. You need to be aware of this. She may need a lot of support from her friends to make adjustments.”