Diamond In The Rough (Bodie Kendrick - Bounty Hunter Book 3) Page 11

  “Kendrick! What a beautiful spot,” Amelia exclaimed.

  “Thought you’d like it.”

  Amelia paused to study the line of ragged rocks piled across a narrowing of the stream just before it dropped down away from the flattened area. She looked back at Kendrick. “Did you put those rocks there to dam up the stream and make this pool?”

  Kendrick had hoped she wouldn’t notice. But there was no use trying to deny it. He tossed off a shrug and said, “It was no big chore. I saw how the stream narrowed there, while I was doing my exploring last evening, so I thought I’d throw a few rocks across it and see if it’d back up to amount to anything. Looks like it turned out pretty decent.”

  “It turned out lovely! What a thoughtful thing to do.”

  Kendrick was surprised to feel himself actually blushing a bit under her approving words. He wasn’t blind, he’d seen from the start what an attractive woman Amelia was. And Faleejah as well. Not exactly his type, either one of them; but attractive all the same. Over the past few days, however, he’d become grudgingly aware that, where Amelia was concerned, he was steadily finding her mixture of beauty and feistiness and bravery more and more appealing. The urge to build this pond had been almost a boyish impulse to gain her favor and now he felt a little embarrassed by it.

  Clearing his throat, Kendrick said, “With randy ol’ Hickory around, I wasn’t sure how I was gonna spring this on you so you and Faleejah could give it a try without worrying about him sneakin’ to get a peek. Figured I’d probably have to hogtie the old goat to keep him away. But now that problem’s solved.”

  Amelia smiled impishly. “And you’re strong-willed enough to hold back from taking a peek?”

  Kendrick felt a blush threatening again. One corner of his mouth lifted in a wry grin. “Not something I could guarantee, ma’am. Not if I was anywhere close by. That’s why I’m headin’ off a safe distance thataway.” He jabbed a thumb toward the east. “Aimin’ to fetch us some venison for supper tonight. I figure Kazmir can be trusted to keep an eye on things here while I’m away—an eye on everything, that is, except what he ain’t supposed to be looking at.”

  Kazmir, armed with a Winchester that Kendrick had instructed him to bring along, said somberly, “You can be assured I will stand guard over the women honorably.”

  “I know you will,” Kendrick told him. “I shouldn’t be gone too long. If you hear a shot somewhere in the distance, it’ll just be me bringin’ down a buck. If the women are ready to go back before I return, just follow the stream down the way we came. If you’re still here at the pond, I’ll give a shout before I come in.”

  Kazmir nodded. “Understood.”

  Kendrick started away but halted when Amelia called his name. He looked back over his shoulder at her.

  “For whatever it’s worth,” she said, her gaze very direct, “I wouldn’t have any qualms about you standing guard over us and doing so honorably, either.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  A rifle report cracked sharply and went echoing down the southern slope of the mountains.

  Kendrick froze where he stood on the edge of a grassy clearing. The shot hadn’t come from him. He turned his head slowly and looked to the west, the direction from which the sound had originated—the direction in which he’d left Amelia, Faleejah, and Kazmir at the pond.

  As a sense of concern started to quickly swell in Kendrick, there came a staggered volley of more shots. The wild cacophony of gunfire and echoes that ensued would have been confusing to the untrained ear. But, to Kendrick, it was immediately clear that more than one rifle was involved. At least three. Three or more rifles exchanging lead in a reckless frenzy.

  He began running—his tall, powerful frame plunging through underbrush, skimming between trees, and leaping over rocks with surprising grace. As he ran, the sound of gunfire seemed to sputter and stop. The echoes faded shortly thereafter.

  Kendrick’s mind raced in concert with his feet, trying to recall, to calculate, how long he’d been gone from the pond, how far he might have traveled. He’d been moving slowly before, stalking. Now he was eating up ground rapidly.

  Suddenly he broke into sight of some rock outcroppings and trees that he’d fixed in his mind as identifying markers. Not far now. His breath was chugging loudly in and out of his chest, his footfalls were landing harder with each long stride.

  “Kazmir! Amelia!” Kendrick shouted.

  No response.

  He neared the line of piney brush and birch trees that ran along the creek and the pond he had dammed up. He slowed down, continuing to move forward in a half-crouch with his Winchester muzzle leveled ahead of him. A shell was already jacked into the chamber.

  “Kazmir!” he called again.

  It was Amelia who answered. “Kendrick! Over here. Be careful!”

  Kendrick angled slightly to his left, moving toward the sound of her voice. He came upon all three huddled in a thick growth of brush tangled around the trunks of four tightly grouped birch trees. The women were nearly nude, clutching flimsy blankets about themselves—what they’d likely been using for towels, Kendrick guessed—to cover as much as possible. Kazmir was kneeling bravely in front of them, facing the water. His expression was intense. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead and on his upper lip.

  Kendrick slipped in between Amelia and Faleejah. “What the hell happened? What was all that shooting?” he wanted to know.

  “Indians! They attacked us,” answered Faleejah in a quavering voice.

  Amelia pointed. “Over there.”

  Kendrick’s eyes followed the line of her finger. On the far side of the pond he saw the body of a man sprawled with his hips and legs up on the grassy bank, his upper body out in the water. He was clad in moccasins, buckskin breeches, and a calico shirt cinched at the waist by a leather belt. His arms and long black hair trailed out into the water. And around his head floated tendrils of scarlet.

  Farther up the bank, another similarly dressed body lay sprawled on its back. This one was partly obscured by underbrush, but the deep green of the latter was liberally stained with more splashes of scarlet.

  Kendrick rocked back on his heels. “Aravaipa Apaches, by the look of it. The ones Hickory told us about.”

  Amelia looked equal parts shaken and angry. “I thought he said they stayed farther up in the mountains.”

  “Except for hunting parties,” Kendrick reminded her. The way her creamy white breasts and other parts of her kept trying to spill out of the flimsy blanket made it hard for him to concentrate. And if he tried looking away, he saw more of the same only from Faleejah’s dusky lushness.

  “That’s what this must have been, a hunting party,” Kendrick went on through gritted teeth. “I guess coming upon two lovely, naked women stirred more excitement in ‘em than they could control.”

  “They didn’t see me at first,” Kazmir said. “Just like I didn’t see them, not until Faleejah screamed. Then I turned and saw them right there on the edge of the water.

  “I was sitting down on the south end of the pool.” Kazmir pointed. “I had my back to the women and was looking out over the desert. But I had my rifle right by me. When I turned and saw the Apaches, I raised the rifle and immediately started shooting. They had rifles, too, and fired back. But I managed to get two of them before the third got away.”

  “Cutting down two with three of ‘em blazing away at you, that’s mighty impressive shooting, friend,” said Kendrick. Then, frowning, he added, “It’s just too bad you let the one get away.”

  “I think it was only one. I only ever saw three to begin with,” Kazmir said. “After the third one ducked out of sight, I think he kept running. But I can’t say for sure.”

  “There was only three,” Amelia said with certainty. “None of us saw anything to indicate otherwise. And I agree further with Kazmir—the third one is on the run, not lurking around anywhere out there for a taste of more.”

  “Yeah, he’s likely running alright. That’
s just the trouble,” Kendrick muttered.

  “What do you mean?”

  “If he goes running back to the main tribe and tells ‘em what happened here, then this little skirmish will only be the start of a lot bigger trouble. No matter how bad the Aravaipas want to avoid conflict with the whites, I can’t picture ‘em turnin’ the other cheek after two of their braves have been killed.”

  “But they were the ones who initiated the trouble,” Amelia insisted. “Those braves came right to the water’s edge and started calling things to us. I don’t know their tongue so I couldn’t tell exactly what they were saying, but it was clear what their intentions were. If you could have seen the sneer on their faces and the look in their eyes … “

  “I’m not disputin’ that. But it likely won’t be how the one who got away will tell it. The main message he’ll carry is that his two pals are dead, shot down by whites who have shown up on their mountain. Like I said, I can’t picture the rest of the tribe takin’ kindly to such news.”

  “I did not mean to make matters worse,” Kazmir said anxiously. “But I had to protect the women, did I not?”

  “You did what you had to, Kazmir. Nobody’s sayin’ otherwise,” Kendrick told him. “But that don’t change the fact that sooner or later the Aravaipas are gonna come lookin’ for revenge.”

  “So what are we going to do?” asked Faleejah.

  “For the time being, you three are gonna stay right here. Keep to cover. I’m gonna circle out and make sure that last brave is on the run, like we figure, and also that there are no other hunting parties around close. If that turns out to be the case, when I get back we’ll hightail it down to the camp and start packing up and getting ready to make tracks out of here just as soon as we can.”

  “What about the diamond?” Amelia said.

  “Hickory and Caleb have had time to make it to Caleb’s camp by now. Caleb said it was about an hour away. They should be on their way back with the camel. If that’s where the diamond is, then it’ll be with ‘em. Any luck, they’ll have heard the shooting and will be quick-stepping it to get down and find out what it was all about.”

  “And then we’re all just going to leave—make tracks out of here, as you put it?”

  “That’s my plan. If the Aravaipa village is higher up and farther back than Caleb’s place, then hopefully that means it’ll take that running brave two, maybe three hours to get there. Then figure another half hour to an hour for the chief and the elders to get worked up and form a plan for coming in search of us … That gives us at least four hours, maybe as much as six, to slip out ahead of ‘em. And if that sounds to you like a cowardly thing—running away instead of staying and trying to make a fight of it here on their mountain, where they know every bush and rock and blade of grass—I can’t help it. That’s what we’re gonna do.”

  * * * * *

  By the time Hickory and Caleb made it back to the camp, Kendrick and the others were well on the way to having nearly everything packed up and ready to hit the trail.

  Kendrick had completed his reconnoiter and found no sign of any other Aravaipas in the area. He did come across the tracks of the one who’d gotten away, leading off through the brush and rugged ground in the long strides of a man literally running for his life. Although Kazmir thought there was a chance that he may have hit the third brave, too, Kendrick was unable to spot any telltale flecks of blood to bear that out.

  At the pool’s edge, where lay the bodies of the two hunters who had fallen victim to the panicked Egyptian’s skilled shooting, Kendrick retrieved their rifles and cartridge bandoliers. The guns were vintage repeaters, but still usable and presumably reasonably accurate. As he gathered them up, Kendrick reflected bitterly that getting back the rifles and ammunition might be almost as important to some of the remaining tribesmen as meting out revenge for the dead braves.

  When Hickory and Caleb showed up—leading the tallest, shaggiest, ugliest camel Kendrick had ever seen—the first words out of Hickory’s mouth were almost an exact echo of what Kendrick had said when he first made it back to the pool.

  “What the hell’s going on? What was all that shootin’ a while back?”

  “We had some unexpected visitors,” Kendrick answered. As he laid out the rest of it, Amelia, Faleejah, and Kazmir proceeded to flock excitedly around the Red Ghost. The animal stood calmly chewing grass, one end of a rope knotted loosely around its neck. The other end of the rope was held by Caleb Frost, himself growing rapidly un-calm as he overhead what Kendrick was saying.

  When he’d listened enough to where he was no longer able to hold back a reaction, Caleb used his free hand to jerk the slouch hat off his head and fling it to the ground. “Hell Almighty! That does it—that tears the blanket right down the middle! When the rest of the Aravaipas hear that two of their hunters have been gunned down they’ll come boilin’ down out of the mountains fit to be tied. Our goose will be cooked to a fare-thee-well!”

  “It will,” Kendrick agreed, “if we’re dumb enough to stay here and let ‘em come boilin’ down on top of us. Why do you think we’ve got the horses saddled and the pack animals mostly loaded? We were only waiting for you two to make it back. I figure we’ve got precious little time before the Indians get formed up for an attack. By the time they do, I’m planning to be hard-chargin’ the hell away from here and out across the desert.”

  “The desert!” Hickory echoed. “We’ll be leavin’ ourselves wide open out there. No cover, no place to run—won’t that be suicide?”

  “I don’t think so. Not if I’m calculating right.” He swung his attention back to Caleb. “How about it? How are the Aravaipas fixed for horses? You say they’ve been holed up in these mountains for a few years now—livin’ off the land, findin’ everything they need right here, keepin’ strictly to themselves so as not to draw attention from the army … I’m betting they got very little in the way of horses because they got very little need for ‘em. Am I right?”

  The old prospector scrunched up his face. “Well now, I never really thought about that. I ain’t never seen their village proper, mind you. They could have horses there. But the huntin’ parties I’ve run across from time to time have always been on foot.”

  “Just like those three today,” Kendrick pointed out. “Think about it. If you’re up in these mountains to stay, you surely can travel the game trails and such a lot quieter and easier on foot than clompin’ around on a horse.”

  “I bring my burros up to haul my gear,” Caleb said. “After that I just leave ‘em graze until I need to go back to town for supplies. Otherwise, that’s how I do my movin’ about—on foot.”

  Hickory nodded. “Okay. It might be a gamble, but if we take out across the desert on horseback and the Aravaipas are comin’ after us on foot, then we’d be able to outdistance ‘em easy.”

  “I don’t know about easy,” Kendrick said. “But, yeah, that’s the way I see it. And as far as being a gamble—how much of a chance do we stand of holding ‘em off here in these mountains where they know every tree and rock to come at us from behind?”

  “None. Or skin close to it,” Hickory admitted.

  “Then we need to get a move on,” said Kendrick. Once again he cut his eyes to Caleb. “You realize we’ve burnt your bridge, too. No way you can stay here and keep prospectin’—the Aravaipa will sure as hell rope you in on the blame and if the only revenge they can get is on you, they’ll take it. You’ll have to come with us.”

  Caleb made a sour face. “I won’t be leavin’ much of any account behind, except for my burros. They’ll probably end up in Aravaipa bellies. Damn, I hate the thought of that … But there’s sorry little I can do about it. You’re right, I’ll have to join you in making a run for it.”

  At that moment, a sudden, excited chorus rang out from those gathered around the camel.

  “We found it! We’ve located the diamond,” Amelia called out. “It’s right there, just under the skin, exactly as described!”

&nb
sp; Kendrick and the two old timers hurried over. They all took turns rubbing their hands over the spot on the Red Ghost’s back, just ahead of the front hump, where a sizable lump could be felt. The beast looked around with mild interest from time to time, but otherwise continued to calmly chew grass.

  “That’s real interesting,” said Kendrick. “But we ain’t got time to fool with it right now. We need to get a move on. We’ll bring the camel with us and dig out the diamond later.”

  “No!” Amelia protested. “It will only take a matter of minutes to make the incision, withdraw the gem, and sew the slit back shut. Kazmir has been specially trained and has the precise tools to do it. He will be finished before the pack animals are loaded the rest of the way. Then Nabda can be released to run free again.”

  “I like the sound of that,” Caleb interjected. “That poor devil has been through enough. We don’t need to keep him around and put him to risk in case more lead starts flyin’.”

  “The longer we tarry here, the more risk there will be for lead to start flyin’!” said Kendrick.

  “If we don’t have time to make the incision, then we don’t have time to argue about it,” Amelia insisted. “Let us go ahead and get it over with.”

  “You cussed stubborn woman,” Kendrick growled. “Commence your cuttin’ then. But you hired me to get you through this in one piece and that’s what I full intend to do. So if that damn diamond ain’t out by the time these pack animals are ready, I’ll tie you belly down across a saddle and drag you away from here!”

  As it turned out, the time limit Kendrick set for Amelia proved to be more than sufficient. While he and Hickory re-distributed the load off one of the pack horses—spreading what they removed more or less evenly onto the other animals so that the one they stripped down could be used for a mount by Caleb—Amelia returned to assist in the extraction of the diamond. She and Faleejah stood on either side of the Ghost, soothing and steadying him, as Kazmir conducted the actual extraction. Caleb, bent on making sure no harm was done to the camel, stood watching closely.