Once a Hero Read online

  “The story is told that he found a gold nugget the size of an egg in his dead brother’s fist. He took it, and he said nothing about the gold to the other men.

  “You need to understand that these men with Coronado were very superstitious. They were afraid and fled to the north. The story of the fierce Indians and their god who protected the mountain kept everyone away for almost two centuries.”

  Kee scooped up the last of the beans with a bit of bread and chewed slowly while he searched his memory for something he had heard. Setting down his plate, he reached for the coffeepot only to find that Isabel anticipated his desire. She handed over the cup.

  “I seem to recall that Miguel Peralta came up from Mexico hunting silver when the mines played out. I know I heard some story about Justin Kincaid meeting the man when he went down there to buy cattle. Justin had a claim or two at the time. It was how he started. My grandmother told me the story of how they met then, and she decided Justin was the only man she wanted. She comes from an old and respected family. It was she who brought the Spanish land grant to the marriage. And they had their troubles when Mexico sold off this territory. Men came and claimed the land didn’t belong to them. Kincaid fought, and filed on the land. He made improvements to every water hole he could find, and claimed more land. I know Peralta visited their ranch a time or two.”

  “Yes,” she said with a nod, “Peralta came and with him my grandfather and his brother. They looked for silver when the mines in Mexico were exhausted. Miguel was given a land grant here. And he did not find silver, but a rich vein of gold. Richer than he had dreamed of. My grandfather was very young, but he remembered Peralta named the hat-shaped peak that rose above the mine as Sombrero. Now I hear they call this place Weaver’s Needle.”

  “After another prospector. Isabel, there are so many stories—”

  “But this is not one more. I have come to claim more than the gold, Kee. I promised my grandmother that I would find my grandfather’s body. She wishes to bury him on the lands of his family since the padres came.

  “I have seen the gold. I have touched it. When my grandfather first came here, he made a map. He knew the Apache watched the men work. He even warned Peralta, for at the time there was an Apache woman who worked around their camp. She told him that the Apache had no use for the gold. It was not this that they grew angry about. But the place was a home of their god, and they believed the men desecrated this place.

  “Before you say anything more, yes, it was true that they forced the young Indians they captured to work for them. Peralta used them harshly to labor in the mine.”

  “And this was a time for Indian troubles,” Kee said, then finished off his coffee.

  “Yes. What my grandfather told me was that white trappers invited the chief of the Mimbres Apaches to a fiesta. Mangas Coloradas barely escaped with his life when the trappers massacred the Indians to procure scalps. It is a shameful piece of Mexico’s history that they paid bounty on Apache scalps regardless if they were men, women or children.”

  “Everyone, Isabel, who lives in the Arizona territory knows how the Apaches were betrayed. Cochise, another chief of Chiricahua was shot while attending a peace talk. They claim his mountain spirit helped him escape. After that, things fell all to hell. Every white was fair game, every Apache hunted to be forced onto the reservations.”

  “What you say is true, Kee. This Apache woman and my grandfather were lovers. He warned Peralta that the Apache were growing angry for their continued presence. He begged him to move everything to a high camp, secure the mine and hide its entrance. After a night of such talk, Peralta agreed. The men worked feverishly to load as much gold ore as they could onto the mules. They were to head back to Mexico and await a better time to return.

  “But it was not soon enough to save them. The Apaches attacked the train as they left the mountain. My grandfather said the very air was filled with arrows like the flights of swallows. There was hand-to-hand fighting, the Indians using pointed stone hatchets against the unarmed men. The pack animals bolted. All were thought to be slaughtered that day. Those who found the bodies later put up a marker there.”

  She stopped and without thought took the cup that Kee handed her. She sipped the cool coffee, shuddering with remembrance of the horror in her grandfather’s eyes.

  Kee rose from his place by the fire and grabbed hold of his blanket. He knelt by Isabel’s side while he wrapped it around her.

  “Thank you, Kee. I forget how cold the mountains become at night.”

  Kee settled in beside her. He wanted to hold her close and banish the painful memories that lived in her eyes.

  “Maybe you’ve told me enough for tonight.”

  “No. I want to finish telling you what happened. Some you may know, for after that attack, the stories began. My grandfather and one other young man survived. They hid in a small cave while the burros fled into the ravines and washes, their saddles packed with gold ore. The Apache, as I said, had no use for the gold. They hunted the mules and pack animals for food. The saddle packs were thrown aside.

  “My grandfather managed to catch one of the burros and escaped. The other man refused to go with him. He wanted more of the gold to take home. He was never seen again.

  “Then,” she continued with a sigh, “a few years later, my grandfather heard that two prospectors had found a few of the dead burros with full saddle packs. These men were smart. They took out the gold and did not try to return. They did not go near Apache Junction where the news of the gold would likely end with their deaths. My grandfather learned later that they pounded the ore and went to the mint in San Francisco to collect their money.

  “And a few other prospectors have found saddle packs. Some lucky enough to get away, and others have died. Not all their deaths can be laid at the feet of the Apache.”

  Isabel shifted her seat on the ground. She reached out to add another piece of wood to the fire, but Kee grabbed it first.

  “No more wood tonight. The scent of wood smoke carries a long way. The last thing we need is company. Sit closer to me if you’re cold.”

  He made the offer without thought until he caught her slant-eyed gaze. “I’ll behave. Promise. Just lean close and I’ll put my arm around you. Comfortable?” he asked a moment later when her head came to rest on his shoulder.

  He took her murmur as assent. He wished he could say the same for himself. But he had asked for this nearness, and promised he’d behave. Sometimes, he told himself, a man ought to have his tongue twisted before he said more foolish things.

  “Isabel, what I don’t understand about your story is the long wait before coming here. I mean, you claim to have a map, which likely is no good, but still, you’re sure there’s a gold mine. So why wait?”

  “Simple,” she answered with a slight shrug. “The Apache were on the warpath. You must know of the terrible raids on both sides of the border when the renegade bands stole everything from animals to children and sold them to whoever had the money or they traded for guns. When we heard that General Crook was being sent here to hunt them down, we could only wait and pray that he succeeded.

  “And now they are on the reservations and the land is open.”

  Kee didn’t say anything, but something rang false to him. It was not so much that he believed she was lying to him now, but that she was leaving something out.

  Something important.

  Isabel grew alarmed at his pensive stare and his silence. She covered his hand with hers about to ask what was wrong when he jerked his hand away.

  “What have I done? Or said to make you—”

  “Sorry, Isabel. All the talk about the Apache brought to mind the way they killed my folks. But that’s another story for another time. You still haven’t told me how those men got involved with you.”

  She wanted nothing so much as to have him tell what happened to his parents, but something about his voice warned her off. She stared at the shadowed wall, and sorted her thoughts, then contin
ued her story.

  “This part gets a little confusing, Kee, even to me. My grandfather heard of Jacob Walz. That he, with an Apache woman named Ken-tee who worked at the Vulture Mine near Wickenburg, stole ore from the mine and hid it here in the mountains. My grandfather knew that was only part of the truth. Do not ask me how this is so, I do not know. Not with any certainty. I do know that Ken-tee’s Apache family believed that she betrayed them and told of the mine’s location to the Dutchman.”

  “Funny about Walz calling himself a Dutchman. He was German.”

  “You sound as if you knew him, Kee.” At her side, Isabel clenched the blanket. She looked at Kee, but he had turned to look outside the darkened doorway. She wanted to see his eyes. They were the windows of truth, or so she had been taught and believed. What was he hiding from her? Had she been foolish to trust him?

  Isabel examined the thought, and found that instinct said no. She had not been foolish. Trusting Kee Kincaid was not a mistake she would live to regret.

  Not that it would matter. She had withheld the most vital piece of information about the finding of the mine.

  And that she would tell to no one.

  Isabel lifted her hand and pressed it against her upper chest where she felt the reassuring shape of the carved disk. She closed her eyes and thought of her promises. She would carry this through no matter what stood against her.

  Kee suddenly came to his feet in a controlled rush, and motioned her for silence. He kicked earth over the dying coals. His long legs ate up the distance to the doorway where he snatched up his rifle and disappeared.

  Isabel sat stunned. She had not heard a sound.

  The only thing that saved Kee from a bullet was his quick move to a crouch as he came out the doorway. That and the fact that he had been staring at the darkness so his vision was not impaired by the fire. He could hear Outlaw snorting. He had to set him free. There was no chance that he and Isabel would make it out of here with the horse.

  The way things looked, they might not make it out of here at all.

  Stone chips flew as he darted and dived for the broken-walled room. He whistled, and quickly dropped to his belly as shots went wild overhead.

  He felt the mustang’s hot breath at the same moment he whispered an order to go. Using the cover of the horse moving down the trail Kee ran back to Isabel.

  “Stay down. Those aren’t warning shots they’re firing, Isabel. I don’t know for sure how many are out there. We’ve got two choices. Make a stand here or we find a way out.”

  He threw a look over his shoulder at her. “And I’ll be damned if I can figure out how they found us.”

  She turned away even as he did, hiding the haunted and very guilty look in her eyes.

  Chapter Nine

  Guilt drove Isabel to help find a way out. And then she remembered the inner room and the wooden ladder. She snatched up a thin piece of wood and poked at where the fire had burned. There were still a few coals and she fanned them until the end of the wood caught fire.

  Kee kept up a measured cadence of return fire and did not see her disappear, only to return and call him.

  “I’m here, Kee. I am not tall enough to see if there is an opening in the roof.”

  Kee ran back to her. “Take this and just fire a shot every few minutes to let them know we’re here.”

  He took the burning wood from her and quickly found the ladder. The firelight showed no immediate opening above. But Isabel was right to think there might be another way out.

  Kee was desperately weary. He’d had less than three hours’ sleep and faced another long night of running. It went against his grain to run, but he had to think about Isabel. Alone he would have fought it out.

  But she trusted him.

  Kee quartered the small room, getting a crick in his neck from looking upward. He heard Isabel firing just as he had told her, one shot to their three or four.

  He planted the burning stick in the ground and climbed the ladder. He pushed against the roof, turning his head just in time as earth fell. No matter how hard he pushed, he could find no opening. He wasted time to move the ladder and try again. No luck. The best he could figure was that a rock slide had covered over the opening.

  But there had to be another way out.

  In disgust that he had somehow been at fault so that they’d been found again, Kee kicked the wall. Small stones tumbled free. He was just desperate enough to try again and was rewarded with larger rocks falling to the earth.

  He grabbed the torch and fell to his knees before the small opening. The draft of air stirred the fire. Once again he planted the burning stick and started to widen the hole. Some of these mountains were riddled with caves. The air wasn’t all that stale. Somewhere up ahead there was an opening feeding the air in. He worked feverishly to pull the larger rocks away and never felt the cuts on his hands.

  When the opening was large enough that he could squeeze through, he tossed the burning stick inside.

  The light was too feeble to allow him to see much. A black cavern, leading who knew where. As he backed out, he realized that Isabel’s shots were longer apart.

  “Kee,” she whispered moments before he reached her. “I think someone is coming up the trail. I heard what sounded like a boot scraping against rock. But I cannot see anything.”

  “I found us a way out. Trouble is I don’t know where it leads.” He drew his Colt and fired a few shots to keep heads down. “Reload the rifle. We can’t take much with us. You go first. Light another piece of wood. Grab the canteen and a blanket while I give those boys something to worry about.”

  Kee belly-crawled to the doorway. He needed time to find where each one was shooting from. Time they weren’t giving him. Someone down there had a damn good eye. Bullets sprayed all around him. Rock fragments stung his face. Still he fired back. He had to give Isabel time to hide.

  Her frantic calling of his name made him begin a backward crawl. He felt her hand on his leg, heard her whisper to hurry. He was half in and half out of the doorway when someone called her name.

  The shock was great enough for Kee to come to his knees. And he heard it again. That husky voice calling out for Isabel. That very feminine voice that no man could pretend to imitate.

  The distraction proved deadly. The bullets slammed to the side of him, and someone down below got lucky.

  Kee felt the rocking pain in his shoulder. He emptied his gun, and with Isabel giving him covering fire, got back inside.

  “Kee, your shoulder, you’re bleeding.”

  “Yeah. But we’re going out. Now.”

  “You need—”

  “What I need and what I’m getting these days ain’t riding the same trail. Let’s go.”

  He pushed her ahead of him. And that voice called out again. Closer this time. He wanted to know who it was. He wanted a lot right now and settled for getting clear of here.

  Isabel was crawling through the hole when Kee smelled something burning. He turned to look and saw someone kick burning brush inside the stone room.

  They may have found them, but they didn’t know too much about these cliff dwellings. Kee pushed the saddlebags closer and saw Isabel grab hold of them. He dropped down.

  “You go. Don’t turn around. Don’t wait for me. Find us a way out.” He gritted his teeth against the pain in his shoulder and reloaded both his Colt and the rifle. He heard Isabel for a few seconds, then the black cavern swallowed all sound.

  He crawled in backward, laying the rifle beside him. He ignored the pain, though he still felt it. While he was alive and able to do something to stop the pursuers, he started piling the rocks back. Time. He needed more time.

  Shots fired simultaneously echoed in the other room. Kee was nearly deafened by the report. To him it sounded like eight or ten guns, but he knew it was close confines that made it sound like that.

  He had built up the rocks until he had enough room for his rifle barrel and half his face. Just enough to squeeze off his own round of
shots at the first man to appear.

  “Alf’s shot! Get that bastard!”

  Kee didn’t know or care who yelled. He had one down and kept firing to keep them back. The more time he bought for Isabel the better the chance she could find a way out.

  Suddenly Isabel was back. “Come on, Kee. I found an offshoot cave. There are ancient steps cut into the face that lead upward. I did not go far, but I think it is a way out.”

  Kee got to his feet, caught himself swaying and might have fallen if she had not braced her shoulder under his arm.

  “Lean on me. You are hurt because of me. I will—” Her voice was lost as the full range of guns arrayed against them were fired into the storage room. She heard shouts, knew there was too little time, and hurried him along.

  The wood she had left burning was almost down to coals. They needed light and she had found none.

  “This way. Do not be afraid to lean on me, Kee. I am stronger than you think.”

  Kee didn’t answer. He was saving his breath, and his strength for what lay ahead of them.

  “You start climbing,” Isabel ordered. “I will hold them off.”

  So much for saving his breath. “Just like a woman to start arguing now. It’s you they want, not me. I’m already shot. You’ve got a chance. I’m buying that much for you. Go.”

  “Kee, I—”

  “Now!” Despite the near killing pain, he lifted her up. “Go. Hurry.” Kee handed up the bundle she had made with the blanket. “Don’t stop for anything or anyone.”

  With his forearm he wiped the sweat that dripped from his forehead and stung his eyes. Isabel had disappeared up the carved stone steps into a black hole.