horrified expression marking his haggard old face.
“Dan, get down!” Longarm shouted.
Longarm’s warning came too late. One of the Indians popped up like a cork in a tub and shot Dan, who staggered back into the cave.
“Dan!” Longarm shouted.
There was no answer and Longarm felt a sudden rage, but he’d been in too many fights to do anything foolish or rash. He’d only seen Dan for an instant and didn’t know if the man was dead or alive, but it seemed pretty obvious that he wasn’t going to be much help.
Longarm caught a glimpse of one of the Indians moving toward the horses. Suddenly, he knew that he had to stampede their animals so that the Indians could not either get to their canteens or escape and perhaps find some willing friends.
Stampeding the horses was easy and only took a few well-placed bullets to send the five animals rearing back on their reins and breaking free. Longarm saw an Indian leap up and try to catch one of the ponies. He snapped off a rifle shot and the Indian disappeared into the brush.
“Did I get him?” he asked himself out loud.
Longarm didn’t think so. Or, if he had, he figured that the Indian was only grazed because he had dived rather than fallen into the brush. Longarm glanced up at the sky. It was almost sundown, and he knew that the Indians were probably Apache and that they would wait until after dark to make their move. The trouble was, would they come after him, or simply leave and go after their stampeded horses? Longarm figured they’d do the latter. Apache were brave, but they were also very smart, meaning that they might decide to leave, get help, an return when they had the advantage of surprise.
I can’t allow that to happen, Longarm thought. I’ve got to go out there and finish them off or they’ll come back with reinforcements. and I’m as good as dead without a horse to ride away on.
Longarm cursed his decision to shoot the two gunfighters first. He would have been better off to kill these Indians. A couple of gunfighters would have acted very predictably and come after him, making things much, much easier.
Darkness fell gently across the desert and the sky flamed with rose colors. The air cooled and the heat- constricted earth seemed to sigh with relief as the first stars faintly appeared in the indigo sky.
Longarm began to retreat until his back was to the cave. He ducked inside to find Preacher Dan still breathing but unconscious. Working quickly in the darkness, Longarm groped for the man’s bullet wound. When he found it, he knew that he had to get Dan to a doctor or the man was finished. He was probably finished anyway, but perhaps not. The fresh bullet had struck the old prospector in the ribs and most likely had broken several, but Longarm was able to determine that the Apache bullet had passed through Dan’s body on a trajectory that might not have ripped apart any vital organs. The wound was still bleeding, so Longarm did the best bandaging job that he could, given his difficult circumstances.
So, Longarm thought, as he assessed his predicament and the necessity of having to go after two Apache in the brush, things aren’t looking too damned good.
He checked his weapons and started to leave the cave, his mind already focused on the problems he was about to tackle. But some inner warning caused him to step sideways and that was what saved his life. One of the Apache had gotten above the mouth of the cave and had jumped at Longarm’s back with a drawn knife. But even though he had missed burying his knife in Longarm, he was agile enough to land on his feet and attack with a murderous scream.
Longarm didn’t have time to draw his pistol. In fact, it was all that he could do to raise his forearm and block the downward thrust of the Apache’s knife. He slammed the Indian in the groin with his knee and heard the man grunt with pain, then reel backward but attack again. This time Longarm had a moment and he used it to go for his six-gun. But the Indian came too fast and, before Longarm could make his cross draw, the Apache knife was slicing at his arm, opening it wide and causing the blood to flow and the gun to fall to the ground.
“All right,” Longarm said, knowing he could not regain the weapon. “Let’s finish this.”
The Apache was more than ready and began to circle, knife blade held upward, legs and back bent. Longarm was damned worried. in the first place, the Apache was smaller but probably quicker, and that was all to his advantage. In the second place, the second Apache was probably very close and about to join the fight. Longarm knew that with his gun spilled somewhere in the darkness he stood no chance whatsoever against two determined Apache.
“Come on!” he hissed, teeth drawn back and blood flowing warmly down his left arm.
His enemy lunged forward, and Longarm tried to grab his wrist but failed. Again, he felt the Apache’s blade rip across his flesh as hot and burning as a cattleman’s branding iron. Longarm reached for the derringer that he carried at the end of his watch chain. The Apache saw the movement, but he didn’t react quickly enough, so Longarm drew out the derringer and shot him dead in his tracks.
Not worrying about the Apache, Longarm jumped forward, hands sweeping blindly across the ground in search of his spilled six-gun. It seemed to take forever to locate the weapon, and when his big hand closed on its grip, the blood in his fist made holding the weapon nearly impossible. Even so, Longarm was able to thumb back the hammer and roll sideways three times before the second Apache charged out of the darkness with his gun bucking fire and lead.
Longarm shot the Indian at almost point-blank range. The Apache folded, but even as he was dying he was trying to get his gun up and shoot again.
“Sorry,” Longarm said as his boot lashed out and sent the Apache’s weapon spinning into the brush. “But this time you and your friends lose.”
The fight was over. Longarm felt weak and had one hell of a tough time getting the knife wounds to stop bleeding. Maybe, though, that was good because it would prevent any poisoning. Once the wounds were bandaged, he longed to go to sleep but knew that he dared not.
Instead, Longarm returned to the caves and filled two canteens of water. He reloaded his six-gun, picked up the Winchester, and checked to make sure that Dan was still alive.
“I’ll be back before sunrise with at least a couple of their horses,” he told the old man. “And then we’ll get you back to Wickenburg and a doctor. If you can hear me, just hang on, Preacher. No need for you to go to the Promised
