Diamond In The Rough (Bodie Kendrick - Bounty Hunter Book 3) Page 12

  From a small leather pouch, Kazmir withdrew a vial of colorless liquid, a numbing agent, that he poured generously over the lump they had located on the Ghost’s back and then rubbed it deep into the skin under the reddish fur. Following that, he took out a gleaming scalpel, probed momentarily with it, then made his incision with a quick, short stroke. The Ghost seemed barely to notice. A second later, as the outer hide and a layer of fatty tissue mixed with mucousy blood over the inner wall of muscle gapped open, the diamond popped out into Kazmir’s palm.

  There was a murmur of excitement from all gathered close. Even Caleb craned his neck for a better look.

  Kendrick and Hickory exchanged glances.

  As the others continued to oooh and ahhh, Hickory finally said, “C’mon, dammit. It’s biggest part of what we came for, ain’t it?”

  “Aw, hell,” Kendrick heard himself mutter, and then he was striding alongside Hickory as they made their way over toward the ugly camel and the prized possession it had just given up. Kazmir, having handed the gem over to Amelia, was busy closing the incision he’d made with a long, curved needle and sturdy gut thread. While the rest of those gathered ‘round went on admiring what Amelia held up for all to see, the Ghost, as usual, kept chewing grass and looking unconcernedly about with his large, heavy-lidded eyes.

  The diamond, when held up to the light, was indeed an impressive rock. It was almost as large as Amelia’s palm.

  “The Devotion Diamond,” Amelia said somewhat breathlessly. “Uncovered now for the first time in decades. And before that, thousands of years ago, held as I am holding it now in the hands of Cleopatra, and Caesar before her. It’s a truly awesome thing.”

  To which Kendrick grumbled in response, “Yeah, well, if we don’t get a move on pretty quick, its next stop is gonna be hangin’ on a leather thong around the neck of some Aravaipa chief or medicine man. And they ain’t gonna give one hoot in hell that it used to belong to some famous ancient queen from a place and time they never heard of.”

  Amelia glared at him. “Kendrick, you’re about as romantic as a slab of rock.”

  “I may not be romantic. But I still got my scalp, and now you got your blasted diamond. So how about we make for the desert where we have our best chance of trying to hang on to both?”

  Chapter Eighteen

  As they made their way down out of the higher, steeper slopes of the foothills, the afternoon heat seemed to rise up from the desert floor and roll over them. When the hills had mostly flattened out, they paused long enough for Caleb to release the healed and diamond poor Red Ghost and shoo him off to once again roam free.

  Wearing a sad, lopsided smile, the old prospector stood for a moment at the beast’s slobbering head, running a hand along his long, curved neck. “Time for you to be off and go back to tendin’ your own business, ol’ rascal. Get clear of this business of ours, you hear? Might not be healthy for you, and likely not for us either.” He loosened the rope on the Ghost’s neck, slipped it up over his ears and off over his nose. Then, letting the rope hang limp in one hand, Caleb reached back to the camel’s rump and used his other hand to give it a swat. “Go on now. Git!”

  Emitting a guttural sound from somewhere deep in its throat, followed by a wet snort, the Red Ghost gave a little starting hop and then trotted off in that knock-kneed, awkward-looking gait that camels could sustain for hours on end, eating up miles of ground in the process. Angling to the west and a bit south, the beast soon disappeared in the undulating rise and fall of low ridges and brushy gullies.

  “There goes what used to be the richest camel in the world,” Amelia said somewhat wistfully.

  “Until we came along,” Kendrick muttered.

  “He’s still got a kind of wealth, the only kind he gives a rip about,” said Caleb. “He’s got his freedom and a whole desert to roam over.”

  “Speaking of which,” Kendrick said, bringing everybody back to harsh reality, “we’ve got our own piece of desert we need to be roaming over. Come on, let’s get to it.”

  Scarcely a dozen minutes later, however, as they were emerging from the last rocky reaches of the Pinaleno foothills, with their own “piece of desert” stretching out ahead of them, trouble reared its ugly head. It came not from behind—as they’d been fearing—but rather from dead ahead. Trouble was eight lathered horses sat by eight grim-faced, heavily armed men pounding hard toward them from little more than a quarter mile out.

  Kendrick, riding at the head of his group, saw the approaching dust cloud as soon he topped a ragged rise that flattened out long and gradual and presented a wide, unobstructed view of the flat desert sprawling due south. He checked Blockhead sharply and spat a curse as he reached for his spyglass.

  Amelia reined up beside him. “What is it?” she said as Kendrick muttered another curse with the glass extended and pressed to his eye.

  “Company comin’,” Hickory said, bringing his horse up on the other side of Kendrick and right away spotting the distant dust cloud.

  “Reinforcements?” Caleb said hopefully from behind Hickory.

  “For the Injuns maybe,” Hickory grunted. “Less’n I miss my guess, those ain’t friendlies ridin’ down on us.”

  “Christamighty,” Caleb groaned. “Ain’t you folks got any friends?”

  “Got you, don’t we?” Hickory reminded him.

  Caleb groaned again. “I’m quick findin’ out that ain’t no bargain from my side of it.”

  Kendrick lowered the spyglass.

  “That who I think it is?” Hickory asked.

  “Uh-huh. Anse Wilby and more than a half dozen of his closest personal pals—all bristlin’ with bad intentions.”

  Kendrick had never actually met Anse Wilby, but he’d heard the man’s description often enough. Smallish in physical stature, prematurely white hair that flowed down to his shoulders, shaggy brows of the same bone white color, inclined to dress all in black for the sake of presenting a darker, more dangerous "image", and always packing a brace of pearl-handled Colts worn in matching cross-draw holsters of black leather trimmed with silver studs … In other words, the very man Kendrick saw magnified in the viewing circle of his spyglass, riding at the front of the eight horsemen headed straight for them.

  "Anse Wilby!" Caleb echoed in a mournful tone. "I know that name. Anybody finds themselves standin' on the wrong side of him is standin' in mighty unhealthy territory."

  "We're already in unhealthy territory," Kendrick snapped. "You got anything else you want to piss and moan about?"

  "So what are we going to do?" Amelia said. "If they've been riding hard across the desert like that, their horses must be nearly played out. Can we make a run for it?"

  "Maybe if we had the chance to make a break, get a jump on 'em. But they're bound to have seen us by now and they're too close, ridin' down on us too fast."

  "What then?"

  Kendrick twisted around in his saddle and looked back the way they had just come. At the base of the rise where they were now reined up, off a ways to the east, there was a line of broken, sun-blasted boulders.

  Kendrick pointed. "Down there. We'll take cover and face 'em from there."

  "What about the Aravaipas due to be showin' up sooner or later?" Hickory wanted to know.

  Kendrick's eyes bored into him. "They're runnin' a little late. Wilby and his boys are practically in our faces. Seems pretty clear to me which ones we need to pay attention to first."

  "Reckon it does at that," Hickory conceded.

  A moment later, they'd wheeled their horses about and were tearing down the back side of the rise toward the nest of boulders Kendrick had indicated. As they milled in amongst them, Kendrick swung down from his saddle, pulling his Winchester from its scabbard as his feet hit the ground.

  "Get the horses back in those higher rocks," he barked. "Get 'em to lay down if you can. We let Wilby's bunch shoot our horses out from under us, we'll be in an even worse fix than we already are."

  Hickory, Caleb, and Kazmi
r began urging the horses toward where the boulders jutted up the highest.

  Kendrick shoved Blockhead after them and gave him a slap on the rump to scoot him on his way. "Now listen to me," he said, turning to face everyone. "Let me do the talking to these jaspers, you hear? Just keep to cover and don't say or do anything. And for Chrissakes don't start shooting—not unless you see me open the ball first. I'm gonna lie, bluff, do whatever I can to try and get us out of this without trading lead. In case you do get cornered into having to say something, stick to the same lies I'm spouting. Got it?"

  All heads bobbed in agreement.

  Kendrick turned back toward the rise and walked a half dozen paces in that direction. Then he stopped, planted his feet wide, jacked a shell into the chamber of his Winchester. He stood like that, waiting.

  Behind him, crouched down behind a low wall of broken boulders, Hickory said under his breath, "I hope that big son knows what he's doin'. One thing for sure: If it comes down to raw nerve, he's playin' with a whole deck of aces."

  At his elbow, her gaze locked on Kendrick's broad back, Amelia said confidently, "He knows what he's doing. He always does."

  Half a minute later, three riders—Anse Wilby and a man on either side—edged cautiously into view above the crest of the rise.

  Kendrick held his rifle in one hand, arm extended so it was in plain sight, and fired a shot skyward. The report rolled off flat and dull across the desert but rang more sharply up into the foothills.

  "That's far enough," Kendrick called.

  Wilby and his men reined their horses.

  Narrowing his eyes, Wilby said, "That's kind of an un-friendly way to greet somebody, ain't it, mister?"

  "Ain't feelin' all that friendly today," Kendrick replied. "Especially not when I see eight gun toughs hard-chargin' straight in my direction … Makes me feel more cautious than friendly."

  Wilby nodded. "Never a bad idea to be cautious."

  "Real glad you approve."

  Wilby's mouth fell into a lopsided grin but, beneath the still-narrowed eyes, there was no humor in it. "Let's cut the horseshit, Kendrick … I know who you are. You know who I am … And we both know why each of us is here."

  "So what does that bring us to?"

  "The diamond. Sooner or later. That's the point of everything else, ain't it? … Do you have it yet?"

  "Do I look like somebody sportin' a diamond?"

  "Not really. But, the way I hear, there's a certain camel critter runnin' around these parts who's been packin' the damned thing for the past twenty or thirty years. Don't reckon anybody'd look at him and take him for the diamond type neither."

  "Well, whether he looks the type or not, as far as we know he's still got the rock. We haven't caught up with him yet."

  Wilby edged up higher on the crest of the rise. The rest of his men, fanned out to either side, eased into view also.

  Wilby eyed Kendrick suspiciously. He said, "You and me have got what you might call professional differences, what with us bein' hired on opposing sides. That much we can work around, up to a point. But if I was to find you was flat out lyin' to me … well, I'd have no choice but to take that personal."

  "Take it however you like," Kendrick said edgily. "But if you want the cold truth so bad, here's something you oughta know: Back there" —he jabbed a thumb over his shoulder to indicate the mountains behind him— "we ran across a pack of Aravaipa Apaches who've been layin' low in the Pinalenos for quite a spell. Unfortunately, we got tangleways with a handful of 'em and a couple of braves ended up dead. Unless I miss my guess, the rest ain't far behind us, on the blood trail for revenge. Once they show up, I don't figure they'll be particularly inclined to sort out one group of whites over another. "

  "That's a lot of hogwash, Anse," spoke up a narrow-faced man on Wilby's left. "He's loco as a prairie dog with his tail on fire. Everybody knows the Apaches and every other Injun around these parts got herded onto the reservation a long time ago."

  Kendrick said, "That fella must not've been with you for very long, has he, Wilby?"

  "What makes you say that? And what difference does it make, anyway?" Wilby said.

  "Because if you surrounded yourself with jackasses dishin' out advice like that, you couldn't have stayed alive this long."

  The narrow-faced man went rigid in his saddle. "Let me take him, Anse. This big sumbitch thinks he's cocky, let me set his sun for him. A couple of those he killed back in Lowdown were close friends of mine. Let me settle the score."

  "Back off before you bite off more than you can chew, Turk," Wilby said without taking his eyes off Kendrick. "In the first place, you ain't ever had a close friend in your life—leastways not one you didn't owe money to or pay money for. In the second place, this ain't the first time I heard stories about Aravaipas hidin' up in these mountains."

  "Yeah, and that's all they are—stories," Turk insisted.

  "Put a lid on it, Turk. Don't make me say more," Wilby grated.

  Turk squirmed unhappily in his saddle, but kept his mouth shut.

  All the while, Wilby kept his eyes on Kendrick. When he sensed Turk was settled down, he said, "So maybe I can buy you runnin' into some Injun trouble. What I don't get is why you took up into those mountains to begin with. Don't try to tell me you expected to find the camel up there?"

  Kendrick shook his head. "No, what we went lookin' for was this old codger here." This time he jabbed a thumb in the direction of Caleb. "He's seen the Red Ghost more times than anybody else, while out crossing the desert and such. The last time not so very long ago. We were hopin' he could give us a lead as to where we might go looking in order to have the best chance of findin' the Ghost for ourselves."

  "How about it, old timer?" said Wilby, his eyes cutting to Caleb. "You know where to find the Red Ghost?"

  In spite of what Kendrick had said earlier, Caleb went ahead and answered the question from the hired gun. "Hell no, I don't know where to find the Ghost. I just know some of the places he's apt to roam, from the times I've run across him before. Not a thing you can guarantee, though. Not me, not nobody—not by a damn sight."

  "Yet you're fixin' to show these people where you think the Ghost can be found. Ain't that what you're up to right now?"

  "What I'm up to right now," Caleb snapped back, "is gettin' down out of these mountains ahead of the Aravaipas takin' my scalp. And, in case you'd like to know—thanks to this blamed outfit gettin' trigger-happy and killin' those two braves——I'm havin' to leave behind my burros and all my prospectin' gear to do it. That's how serious I'm takin' the threat of those Aravaipas, just like Kendrick is tryin' to warn you. So, if you and him don't mind too much, I'd be obliged if the two of you could get done with your blasted chin-waggin' so the lot of us can commence to gettin' the hell out of here!"

  In spite of himself, Kendrick couldn't suppress the hint of a grin. He hadn't wanted any of the others to say anything, least of all for Caleb or Hickory to get rolling with one of their long-winded tirades, but damned if the old prospector hadn't just done a great job of pitching the exact line Kendrick himself had been trying to sell.

  Wilby didn't look quite convinced, though. At least not yet.

  But, before he could respond one way or another, a new voice rang out from Kendrick's group.

  "Enough! Enough falsehoods and wasting of time!"

  Kendrick jerked around to see Kazmir rise up suddenly from behind the boulder where he'd been crouched. His hand flashed out and grabbed a fistful of Faleejah's long hair, yanking viciously. The girl was pulled to her feet and staggered as Kazmir drew her close to him. In his other hand he clutched his Winchester, the muzzle of which he now pressed roughly to the side of Faleejah's head.

  "Nobody move, or I blow the sow's head off her pretty shoulders," Kazmir snarled.

  Faleehaj gasped, partly in pain, partly in astonishment at this treatment from her former servant.

  Amelia rose to her feet, looking equally astonished. "Kazmir! What in God's name i
s the meaning of this?"

  "Stay back," Kendrick warned.

  "No! Do not stay back," Kazmir countered. "Do not listen to him. He is no longer in command here. As long as I have this gun against the sow's head, I am in control. Listen only to what I say."

  "He has gone mad!" Faleejah wailed.

  "What's going on down there, Kendrick? You got yourself a little mutiny in the ranks, do you?" jeered Wilby.

  Kazmir jerked his chin, motioning to Amelia. "Bring the diamond over here. Hold it up for those on the hill to see."

  "I won't."

  "Do it! Or the blood of this sow will be on your hands and then I will shoot you next."

  "You hurt either one of those women," Hickory said in a low, raspy voice, "I'll string pieces of you for buzzard bait across the desert floor from here to Tombstone."

  "Do what he says," Kendrick urged Amelia. "Even if he gets his hand on the diamond, he ain't gonna go far with it."

  Amelia took a wooden, foot-dragging step toward Kazmir. At the same time she reached into the deep pocket of her split riding skirt and withdrew the Devotion Diamond. She raised it up and held it a few inches above her head. Sunlight reflected off its facets and sent streaks of radiated brilliance shooting outward.

  Kazmir called up to Wilby. "Do you see, my ally? Together, we have been successful for Totter. The Devotion Diamond is now ours to take back to him."

  Kendrick's jaw dropped. "What the hell … "

  Wilby chuckled throatily. "Yes, my ally, I see indeed. Totter told me I'd find a friend when I caught up with your group. He didn't tell me you were gonna make it this easy."

  Faleejah's teeth bared in a loathsome sneer. "You treacherous dog!" she hissed at Kazmir.

  "Shut up!" Kazmir jerked her hair and her head bent back painfully. To Amelia, he snapped, "Bring me the diamond. Carefully put it in my pocket and then back slowly away."