The Rescuers Read online

  THE RESCUERS

  Tony Masero

  There were five of them. Just kids really, but they were rich kids.

  A savage Comanche war party raids across New Mexico territory leaving behind a shocking trail of bloody cruelty.

  When they capture the children it leaves the parents with a problem.

  They need a man who knows the Indians and their ways. They need Britt Marley.

  Trouble is, Britt is retired now.

  After fifteen years as chief scout with the military and with the prospect of peace and tranquility ahead Britt has much to look forward to, even so he cannot shed his past when the call comes. With the backing of the wealthiest folks in the country, Britt and his small detail of hand picked cavalry must set out on an onerous task. To find the elusive war party and bring back the children by any means possible.

  Even as he sets out, some of the troubled parents offer a handsome reward and hire a contentious gang of killers to seek out their offspring. The outcome leaves the scout with a dilemma that will inevitably lead to a violent confrontation on more than one front.

  A Hand Painted Western Publication

  Smashwords Edition

  Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations,

  or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or

  mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information or storage and retrieval system, without the

  written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  Text and Cover Art © Tony Masero 2015

  Chapter One

  Lickety-spit and hard and fast the wagon bounced and crashed over the rough track.

  Nathan Boise had known from the start that the ride was going to be a tough and tiresome one, what with Elizabeth Bayerling and the others continuing to complain as they had done the entire way.

  The mud wagon had been the only alternative as the repaired Overland Stage was not due to travel for another week. That meant four wide-open windows along each side with only loose canvas flaps against the dust. And it was hot, real hot, not even the fast movement of the wagon sent any kind of cooling breeze through only an oven blast full of biting dust particles. Captain Benteen had told the driver back at the Saint Augustine Way Station not to hold back but to keep the pace up as fast as he could for as long as he could.

  There were five of them inside and Nathan was the oldest male present at fourteen years of age. He was well built boy for his years, tall and sturdy and looking more of a young man than a youth. Smartly dressed in the gray coatee, white facings and single striped pants of a military cadet, not that he had achieved that status yet but his father, the General, had insisted he prepare himself for the nearing day when he would enter the United States Military Academy and be equipped in such a manner in preparation. His father was like that, loving yet stern in a strict militaristic tradition. But it was mighty uncomfortable being trussed up in the outfit and Nathan ran a finger around the tight high collar wishing he could release the damned thing and breathe out some of the sweat that ringed his neck.

  Not that he would do such a thing. Military discipline had been engrained into Nathan from an early age and the notion of challenging his father’s wishes was a concept he would not even consider.

  He glanced around at the others bouncing in the carriage and noted that they all looked as tired and irritable as he. The fifteen-year-old Elizabeth was a pretty girl all right, upright and proud with all the characteristics of a delicate cameo brooch and she looked a picture in her flouncy and frilled white crinoline dress and bodice. She had told him, with some smugness that her parents the Bayerlings of railroad fortune had insisted that she would soon be sent off on the Grand Tour through Europe. Nathan found her a touch haughty but no different in that than many other rich kids he had met.

  The quiet and studious looking eleven-year-old Oban Reese, the son of a shipping magnate was bound for a prestigious Episcopal boarding school in New Hampshire when they got back. Sitting next to him with a bored expression and idly toying with a red-banded wooden spinning top was the chubby eight-year-old redhead Butler Royce, whose father owned the great Royce Ranch and was worth a small fortune in meat on the hoof. Whilst little, fair and curly headed Samantha Childs who was also something of a musical prodigy, was at seven-years-old, too young to do more than sniffle constantly over her present separation from her doting and immensely rich family.

  Through the billowing dust cloud outside Nathan could see the ten-man military detail keeping pace on each side at a fast gallop, the soldiers were dressed in a variety of costume most of it nothing to do with regular uniform. They were frontier cavalry and the discipline was slack out here but even so Nathan envied them their more comfortable dress. But they kept up with the wagon and Nathan was pleased to see that at least Captain Benteen maintained some modicum of respectable appearance, although right now his neat blue tunic was coated in a crust of yellow dust.

  The Abbott and Dowling wagon was a low slung carriage and held the ground well, known for its success in wet weather it spun along with a good regular speed. The only trouble being that it was never that wet out here in the desert and that they followed a settler’s wagon road, so in between the dustpans they often struck dry ruts and the small mud wagon bounced about something ferocious at those times.

  ‘I wonder,’ sighed Elizabeth, leaning forward and catching his attention by tapping fingertips on his knee. ‘Do you suppose there is any water?’

  There was nothing of comfort but hard benches inside the mud wagon but Nathan knew the driver had a canvas bag of water hanging from his seat.

  ‘I’ll see if I can get you some.’

  ‘So kind,’ she muttered with a display of vaporous fragility, her voice almost lost by the rumble of the wheels and four-team mules.

  Nathan maneuvered himself up on the seat and balancing awkwardly by hanging on grimly to the window support, he leaned out and called up to the driver. It was difficult, the noise of their passage and the whipping dust cloud made it impossible for his call to be heard. It was Captain Benteen that saw his distress and closed his racing pony up alongside the wagon.

  ‘Mister Boise, you have a problem?’ he shouted across the intervening space.

  ‘Miss Bayerling desires water, sir.’

  ‘Of course. This dust is damnable. Here,’ he said passing over his canteen. ‘Take this, it may help.’

  ‘How far are we from Fort Rosebud now?’

  ‘Thirty-five, forty miles, I should say,’ the Captain called back.

  ‘Can the horses keep up this pace?’

  Benteen shook his head, ‘No, we must rest them soon. We’ll slow to walking pace in a while.’

  ‘Why the fast rate anyway?’

  ‘Hostile territory, Mister Boise. Sooner we’re through it the better.’

  Nathan stared off across at the flat plain surrounding them, ocher and red desert blasted into paleness by the burning sun with only a few buttes and mesas to break the monotony.

  ‘New Mexico certainly is a desolate place, sure enough,’ he commented.

  With a tip to his hat brim, Captain Benteen pulled away and Nathan slid back inside.

  ‘Thank you so much,’ said Elizabeth, taking the canteen and unscrewing the lid to daintily wipe the rim with a small embroidered handkerchief. She sipped the liquid as carefully as she could inside the bucking wagon but still it splashed.

  ‘Oh, dear me!’ she cried, wiping at herself with the handkerchief. ‘So clumsy.’

  ‘Here, let me hold that,’ said Nathan, taking the dis
c of canteen. ‘It is indeed awkward.’

  Elizabeth dipped her head in thanks.

  ‘We shall be stopping soon,’ Nathan supplied. ‘You’ll be able to make a better show of it then.’

  Elizabeth flapped the handkerchief before her, ‘I do hope so, this heat is most trying.’

  ‘Not long to the fort now I trust, Miss Bayerling. Not long now.’

  All of them were due to meet their parents at the fort and it had been a series of unfortunate and untimely accidents that had forced this course upon them. President Lerdo de Tejada had invited many of the rich and famous Anglos in the country to attend the celebrations in Mexico City in commemoration of independence from France. The timing was unfortunate as General Porfirio Diaz chose this moment to start a revolution in an attempt to overthrow the President. Separated from their parents in the ensuing panic the American ambassador had managed to get the children out under guard and transport them to the border. After their Mexican guard had left them at El Paso there they had met up with Captain Benteen out of Fort Fillimore, it was intended that they should go on to Las Cruces to pick up their stagecoach. But the vehicle had broken down and with no alternative until the next week Captain Benteen had been forced to utilize the coach line’s postal mud wagon to get them via Tullarosa and Presidio up to Fort Rosebud where their parents, who had escaped along a separate route, were waiting for them.

  They slowed to a walk and Nathan could hear the ponies outside snorting and snuffling after their extended run.

  ‘There’s respite up ahead,’ said Captain Benteen, leaning in at the window. He pointed ahead at the narrows between two mesas, their jagged slopes as red as blood in the harsh sunlight. ‘There is water there and we shall be resting for an hour before moving on again.’

  ‘Very well, Captain,’ said Nathan.

  ‘Thank heavens,’ breathed Elizabeth. ‘This country is so awful.’

  ‘When shall I see Mama and Papa?’ whined the little Samantha.

  ‘Soon,’ promised Nathan.

  ‘I want them now,’ sobbed the petulant child.

  ‘Well, they’re not here,’ snapped Elizabeth irritably. ‘So please do stop your complaining.’

  ‘She’s only a baby,’ moderated Nathan.

  ‘I don’t like it here,’ chimed in the eight-year-old Butler. ‘It’s dirty everywhere.’

  ‘It’s not as bad as Mexico,’ added Oban, in a worldlier manner. ‘I saw dead animals in the street there. Just left lying in the street.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Nathan. ‘We’ll be back home real soon, all your folks will be right glad to see you at Fort Rosebud.’

  ‘The sooner the better,’ mused Elizabeth.

  The flatbed valley floor stretching between the mesas was half in shade and gratefully the wagon passengers climbed down and grouped themselves amongst the tumble of shadowed rocks. A pool lay amongst the stones and the ponies drank greedily whilst the cavalry riders joked amongst themselves and smoked pipes and hand rolled cigarettes. Nathan was relieved to see Captain Benteen set up pickets some hundred yards apart and higher up the slopes.

  He sat beside Elizabeth who draped herself languidly over a flat rock and fanned herself limply with her handkerchief.

  ‘Oh, for a bath,’ she sighed. ‘Some clean clothes and delicate surroundings. It would be most reassuring, don’t you think, Mister Boise.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Nathan agreed. ‘But you shall have such adventures to tell of once we are back.’

  ‘Well, yes, there is that. None of my school friends will have experienced anything like this. Not that I shall recommend it to them. Take Milly Beaumont for instance. Do you know the Beaumont’s of Boston, Mister Boise?’

  Nathan shook his head negatively.

  ‘Her father is in trade, some sort of merchant dealing in millinery and whatnot. Very wealthy, even though they came of a lower order. Anyway, Milly will always….’

  The fusillade of shots that echoed and rebounded around the enclosed valley was sudden and totally shocking.

  Nathan looked up to see clouds of gun smoke rolling down from the valley slopes higher up. A soldier nearby skipped a few steps and fell rolling in agony on the ground and Elizabeth screamed at sight of the blood leaking from his torn chest. The other men were scattering in every direction and Nathan abruptly looked across at Elizabeth’s pale face and wide eyes to see if she was all right.

  ‘What is it?’ she managed to gasp.

  Captain Benteen, struggling with the reins of his excited pony came up to them.

  ‘Get the others under the wagon, Mister Boise,’ he said through gritted teeth.

  Behind them amongst the rocks the soldiers were answering fire and shouting unintelligibly at each other. The sound of shooting was loud and continued to rattle between the rock walls on either side of the valley.

  Benteen was fighting a losing battle with his bucking horse and he drew his carbine from the saddle bucket and let the animal go. It fled in a scamper past the mud wagon and out on towards the valley opening.

  ‘What is it, Captain?’ asked Nathan.

  ‘Indians,’ snarled Benteen, his attention fixed on the heights. ‘Comanche, I think, and the devils have some Springfield rifles with them.’

  Elizabeth whimpered and threw her hand over her mouth at sound of the feared name.

  ‘Listen, Mister Boise,’ Benteen spoke quietly whilst drawing close to Nathan and tugging at the flap of his revolver holster at the same time. ‘Take this, if we do not make it you will know what to do.’

  Bullets zipped past and clipped the ground at their feet, ‘Now, get going,’ ordered Benteen, pushing them both towards the wagon.

  ‘Why did he give you that?’ asked Elizabeth, staring in horror at the dark metal of the Army Colt in Nathan’s hand.

  ‘Just for protection,’ Nathan lied to reassure her. ‘Come on, now quickly, get the others under the wagon.’

  As they pushed the squirming children under the wagon, Nathan was surprised to find that although each of others were sobbing in terror he himself was cool and perfectly in control of himself, calmly he looked back up at the heights above them as he slid under the wagon. They were ambushed and well trapped that was for sure; he could make out the occasional glimpse of a brown body up there as it scampered from cover to cover. But their party was at a severe disadvantage as the Indians held the high ground and they were securely held in the valley basin.

  He had been target shooting at his father’s command from an early age so it was no hardship for him to handle the pistol and he duly cocked the weapon and sighted along its length.

  Behind him, Samantha was wailing loudly and the other two other youngsters whimpering. Elizabeth wormed her way up beside him as arrow shafts thudded into the woodwork above their heads.

  ‘What shall we do?’ she begged. He could see she was unnerved, her body shaking and lower lip trembling. He wondered obliquely, if he could ever place the pistol to her curly locks and pull the trigger. ‘I mean what happens? Shall we be taken prisoner, do you think? One hears such terrible stories about the savages.’

  ‘I’m sure we shall be all right,’ encouraged Nathan. ‘Captain Benteen is a fine soldier.’

  Despite his protestations, Nathan watched as two of the cavalrymen swung themselves across their ponies and tried to make a break for it. They rode off hastily, shouting and slapping wildly at their ponies but they never made it past the valley opening. Both ponies were brought down by gunfire and the fallen men were picked off before they could recover.

  ‘The beastly cowards,’ spat Elizabeth, cursing the dead men. ‘They would save themselves and leave us at the mercy of these creatures.’

  The firing amongst the rocks was faltering and intermittent now and Nathan made out the brown shapes creeping down nearer amongst the rocks.

  A spate of hand-to-hand fighting broke out at the perimeter of the cavalry defense line. Nathan watched the soldier and the brown figure wrestling for ascendency as if it w
ere a performance enacted on a theatre stage. The disadvantaged soldier was bellowing, calling on his fellows for help and Nathan could see the angry painted face of the Indian as he raised a hatchet and swung the small blade down in a shining steel arc. The Indian continued to hack at the soldier repeatedly as if he were a butcher chopping meat for the table and only ceasing when his victim lay still. With a loud whoop of victory the Comanche disappeared back amongst the rocks and Nathan felt his insides quiver. It was no playacting on a stage he was witnessing, this was a fight to the death and he trembled at what he must do if they were overrun.

  He watched Captain Benteen running at the crouch between his men, urging them on and kneeling briefly and taking the occasional shot uphill with his rifle. He was a bold fellow, Nathan thought, a credit to the military. But such a display of courage was not to last. The spear when it hit him, transfixed the Captain in mid-run, the slender shaft with its shining metal tip falling from on high and piercing him in the upper chest and driving right through his body to appear below at his waist. The Captain stumbled and fell, still holding his carbine and pointing it upwards at the advancing Indians.

  ‘Do your best, boys,’ Nathan heard the Captain’s weak cry. ‘For I am done for.’

  With horror he watched the Captain flop over and lie still. Now we are all done for now, he thought sadly.

  The painted face appeared before him suddenly at the gap under the wagon and temporarily blocked out the sunlight. Elizabeth shrieked and the children all cried out in chorus as the wild-eyed figure, mouth gaping and eyes white in his bronzed and painted face stared at them.

  Automatically, Nathan fired at point blank range and the face disappeared in an explosion of blood and tissue. The body dropped and lay face down flat in the dust, the long hair and bloody brain matter streaking the naked back. Beyond it, Nathan could see the last of the cavalrymen fighting desperately but it was over for them now and although some tried to surrender they were mercilessly cut down.