Terror at Hellhole Read online

  “What’s it gonna be, Print?” Waringer shouted. “Give up or do we drag in dead meat?”

  Hands raised, the startled bandits came slowly to their feet, eyes squinting at the many rifles pointed down at them. They were quickly brought up from the ravine.

  “How the hell yo’ find us so quick?” Print asked, disbelief set in hard lines on his shiny black face.

  Waringer jerked his head at the two Quechans. “Honas, there, could find you blindfolded in pitch dark,” he said, ironically using the same words Laustina had spoken earlier.

  “Shee-it!” Laustina spat irritably, his angry face screwed up in a nasty sneer when he looked disdainfully at the puzzled Negro. “What the hell did I tell yuh, Print! They can smell horseshit an’ tell yuh how old it is!”

  But Hedgemon Print’s stark brown eyes were only for Honas Good, and the livid hatred there forebode an evil reckoning with the hawk-faced young Quechan.

  Sheriff Waringer took his lariat from his saddle and passed the loop over Print’s head, drawing it up against his neck. “Clasp your fmgers and straighten your arms,” he ordered, then he ran the rope from the neck down to the man’s wrists and tied them firmly together. He tossed the end of the lariat to one of his deputies. “Tie that to the saddlehorn, then throw me your rope.”

  With the deputy’s rope he put a loop over Laustina’s neck, tying the outlaw’s wrists in the same manner. He handed the end of the rope to another posse man before he mounted his horse.

  He addressed the two prisoners: “We’re gonna take us a nice long walk back to Yuma. Keep your hands on that rope and maybe your neck won’t get rubbed raw. You try to get your hands loose and I’ll have the horses running, I promise you. And I don’t think I need to tell you what’ll happen to your necks.”

  The two prisoners exchanged glances wordlessly, then the big Negro’s eyes returned to pour their hatred at Honas when the strange procession moved forward.

  Yuma lay twenty miles west, twenty sandy miles sparsely covered with grease wood and dusty, gray-green cactus bleakly hanging on to the waterless existence. They moved slowly through the blinding glare of the brassy sun and the day’s heat pounded down on the grim caravan slowly wending its way toward Yuma.

  Somewhere along the way Laustina’s hat had fallen from his head while he dragged stumbling feet in the dusty wake of the deputy’s horse. No one stopped to retrieve, nor did he ask for its recovery.

  Honas glanced across Waringer’s saddle to find Print’s eyes boring at him, saw dark lips clenched in hardened black cheeks. Pure venom blazed in the prisoner’s eyes.

  He looked at the hatless Laustina’s face, noting the ashen-gray flush creeping over it in spite of the heat. He knew that the man was close to coming undone, that a heat stroke was near.

  “Aaaah,” Laustina cried. “Yuh shit-eatin’ badge toter! Can’t yuh treat us like men!”

  Stern featured, Sheriff Waringer rode with eyes straight ahead. If he heard the prisoner’s babbling, he gave no sign, nor did any of the posse turn or pay heed to the man.

  “Yuh bastards weren’t good enough to find us—yuh had tuh get these Indian dogs tuh sniff-shit at us. Yuh burnin’ bastards, take this rope off an’ give me a gun, an’ I’ll face all of yuh, here an’ now!” Laustina shrieked.

  Stumbling, he staggered before regaining his balance, then he screamed at the two Quechan trackers: “Dirty whore-born, red-faced scum! I’ll git even with yuh if it’s the last thing I ever do. I swear it, do yuh hear?”

  Honas’s dark eyes drifted over to Print. The Negro’s eyes still blazed wordless hatred at him and in his heart he knew that the outlaw was thinking the same things as Laustina was mouthing in his half-demented raving.

  But slobbering and ranting, the bull-like Laustina did not break; his fence-post legs were still plowing dust when the group turned into the city street at Doten’s Blacksmith Shop. And Honas Good was surprised at the burly outlaw’s stamina. He knew that the man’s hatred would be equally as great, and his vengeance as pronounced.

  Back at the Yuma jail after the prisoners had been safely locked into cells, Sheriff Waringer called Honas into his office. He held out an official-looking envelope.

  “Honas, I’m empowered to pay a hundred dollars for leading us to Print and Laustina, and the Wells Fargo people threw in two hundred dollars for you,” he said expansively, “because we recovered seven thousand dollars from Print’s saddlebags—Wells Fargo money that was taken from the stage during the holdup. Split with Palma anyway you see fit.”

  Honas took the envelope containing the money without a word, while the lawman moved around behind his desk and sat down.

  “Don’t know how you do it, Honas, but you always seem to manage to keep them alive,” the sheriff said. “Now you take that ehato, he’d just as soon have killed them as not—and he generally does. Why, just last week he killed an escapee down by the river. Hear tell that he could’ve taken him alive real easy.”

  “The Flatnose Apache enjoys killing,” Honas said. “Nor does he care that a dead man can’t walk. I keep them alive so that I do not have to carry them back.”

  Waringer’s smile faded slowly when he saw that Honas was serious. “Never gave that much thought. I only considered takin’ them alive gives us a chance to punish them, make examples of them.”

  “Death is the final punishment, it needs no example,” Honas said. “Nor does the same offender ever commit another offense. Why not kill them where you find them as Chato does.”

  Waringer tilted back in his chair, feeling satisfied now that the chase was over. “I didn’t know that you felt that strongly, Honas.”

  Hawk-faced, Honas straightened to his full height. “There is great evil in the men you call Laustina and Print, an evil that only death can erase.”

  The sheriff thumbed his hat up from his eyes, a grin spreading over his rough features. “I’m glad that you’re not the erasin’ kind. The judge should be hangin’ those two, an’ no doubt he will because the stage driver died last night. But even if he don’t string them up, you can bet they’ll do a long term behind the Big Wall on the hill,” he said matter-of-factly.

  Honas stood silent, his young face expressionless for he had long since decided to play their little game of capture and punishment as long as it was to his financial advantage.

  Waringer scrubbed a palm over the stubble on his loose jaws, then he returned to his earlier theme. “Too bad old Flat-nose is such a bloodthirsty Apache. We’ve already got too many bounty hunters who shoot first rather than go to the trouble of herdin’ them in.”

  “That is how it should be,” Honas said. “Perhaps Chato has his reasons for bringing them in dead.”

  “But killin’ an escapee makes the tracker a judge an’ jury,” the lawman argued, “if he is allowed to kill any man he’s after.”

  “Has not judgment been passed the moment a crime is committed?” Honas asked fiercely. “Who, then, has a better right to kill than the tracker who suffers the rigors of the trail, and who is consistently faced with death from ambush in the doing?”

  Waringer took new interest in the intense young Quechan, then shook his head. “You’re too profound for me to argue with. Anyway, I’m glad that you’re doin’ it my way, Honas. I’m glad that I can count on you.”

  Stone-faced, Honas nodded, then turning, he left the office, moving with soundless moccasins.

  The lawman took off his hat and dropped it on the floor beside his desk, readying himself for the paperwork at hand, but his mind kept straying back to Honas and what he had said. Glad he was that the Quechan worked for him. Already there were far too many trackers who didn’t understand, Indians who were too anxious to get their man.

  Bemused, he shook his head. So far a few of them had brought in innocent citizens mistakenly, some of them even dead. And that got to be plumb embarrassing for a lawman. Then his thoughts strayed back to the hooded death he had seen in the young Quechan’s eyes, and his mouth tightened into
a straight line.

  “I’m damned glad he ain’t after someone for a personal reason,” he muttered aloud, “an’ I damn sure hope he’s never after me.”

  Yet an ominous foreboding pervaded his mood as he settled down to work.

  Chapter Two

  Colorado City was founded in 1850 on the south bank of the Colorado River just west of its junction with the Gila, at the site of a ferry crossing. When the community grew, the name of the town was changed to Arizona City, and in 1862, a flood destroyed the mud and adobe structures. As more and more emigrants passed through the area, the town was rebuilt using a variety of permanent materials.

  In 1873, the new community was named Yuma City, which is thought to be taken from the Spanish word humo, meaning ‘smoke,’ because the Indians frequently created smoke clouds to induce rain. Completely surrounded by the natural barrier of the relentless Sonoran Desert, Yuma City became the logical place for a prison—badly needed in a territory teeming with brazenly lawless men. Several other physical and geographical features assisted in making this site ideal for the prison.

  The rushing waters of the mighty Colorado and Gila rivers added further insurance against escape. The neighboring Quechan Indians who roamed this savage land with a careless leisure and the instinctive latitude of a wraith, were frequently utilized to return escapees fortunate enough to have eluded the dangers of the rivers, or the stem rigors of the unmerciful desert. The prison authorities welcomed the assistance of these skilled hunters by offering bounties of fifty dollars for an escapee.

  This arrangement, however, was not always as harmonious as one might imagine. Many Quechans made it a point to kill the prisoners before dragging them in, for older Indians like Palma still remembered with bitterness the impact of the Anglos upon their land.

  Emigrants passing through the valley never had time to complete a single growing season and therefore they helped themselves to the Quechans’ mesquite beans and melons, while their cattle devoured the grain and maize crops. When the Indians fell upon the intruders stealing their food, soldiers were sent from the fort; the army refused to consider that the emigrants were at fault, that the crops were not theirs for the taking.

  When the Quechans repeatedly attacked the settlers for their depredations, the troop commander decided to mount a full-scale campaign against them. Palma vividly recalled the time when the army under the command of Major Heintzelman, reinforced by two hundred and fifty soldiers from San Diego, raided the Indian villages in an attempt to drive the Quechan men from the river area. But the warriors had fought back valiantly swinging with their large war clubs and sharp knives, killing six soldiers before they had to retreat. Later, forty dragoons under Major Fitzgerald tormented a group of Quechans moving their families; they pressed the Indians, brutally trying to make the young and old travel faster. The Indians had turned on the troops, and in defiance of powder and ball, attacked with only their primitive weapons but were able to force the soldiers to retreat.

  Palma armed with a sharp spear, had driven the spear point through two soldiers, and had wounded three others during the fight. Unable to defeat the Quechan warriors, the army had retreated. Later, they adopted the tactic of burning the Indians’ mud and brush hovels and their grain-fields, forcing them to scatter in search of food and shelter.

  To make matters worse, the Cocopas tribe then invited the weakened Quechans to visit them, and while there, the Cocopas hosts attacked their guests, killing a large number of men and women, and taking many others as captives.

  Demoralized, the scattered Quechans were never again able to mount an effective fighting force and had to content themselves with small groups of warriors who made limited raids on the settlers, or even their enemies, the Cocopas. While these warrior groups were not large enough for concentrated battles they were able to strike their foes by stealth, then flee before the enemy could recover.

  Tall and blocky, Palma fought in most of these battles. Never a leader, he was, however, a strong warrior for his hatred against the enemies of his people was great. Then one day he realized that the Quechans’ fighting days were numbered, and when a young warrior named Ho-Nas Good began to court his daughter Avita, he stopped fighting entirely.

  Quechan marriage ceremonies were simple in those days and when Ho-Nas constructed a mud and brush house nearby, Palma did not object for he had already looked favorably on the young man. Soon Avita had spent four nights in Ho-Nas’s bed, during which time he did not touch her, and then, because he had no family for her to prepare a meal, which was normally required to complete a marriage ceremony, she brought him home.

  A deep mutual respect developed between Palma and his young son-in-law, and together they would forage the desert for food while his wife and newly married daughter planted melon and pumpkin crops in a swale south of Gila Slough. Spring floods overflowing their land provided irrigation so that their crops flourished in the rich soil.

  “My father,” Honas had said one day while they were out setting rabbit snares. “Last night I had a strong dream—a dream wherein we earned much money tracking down escaped prisoners for the superintendent of the walled prison on the hill, and for the sheriff in Yuma City.”

  Palma stared at Honas hard, not liking what he had heard but knowing that dreams formed strong powers. “I would never work for the white people,” he snapped. “It would be unthinkable to work for our enemies.”

  “Then would you work for me?” Honas had asked. “I could deal with them so that you would only need to assist me. Because I have been educated by the padres of San Sebastian, I understand the white man and his foolish ways. And because we are Quechans, we are superior to them in ability to seek and capture the escaping prisoners.”

  Disturbed, Palma studied the hawk-eyed young man while he pondered the idea. What Honas said had much merit and he considered it. “But, if I do go with you, I will never seek another Indian even if he is a prisoner,” he had said. “And I will always try to kill the white escapees whenever I can.”

  Doubt crossed his son-in-Iaw’s face. “It is better, my father, if we do not kill them unless it is necessary to protect ourselves, for the white man foolishly still has regards for convicts even though they have committed evil deeds. It is the way of their religion.”

  “Why is this so?” Palma asked, puzzled by what Honas had said.

  The younger man shook his head. “This I do not know, but it is so. Our Gods are not like their God, therefore we do not have to spare our enemies. But if we do not kill the prisoners, our services will be in greater demand than for other trackers.”

  “Does not Chato often kill the men he seeks?” Palma asked, clearing his throat gruffly. “I have heard it said so many times in Yuma City.”

  “But he is an Apache with an inborn hate,” Honas had answered, knowing the direction Palma’s thoughts would lead him.

  “I, too, have a deep hatred,” the older man muttered angrily, sifting back through memories burned deep into his mind.

  “You and our people have suffered much at the hands of the white man,” Honas told the older Indian. “More so than the Apache because we were never as well organized, nor were we so cruel as they. Moreover, Chato hates all men regardless of race. He respects only strength and power.”

  Palma nodded sagely. His young son-in-law was indeed a man of wisdom, a man far more intelligent than other men of so few summers. “And what would we do with our wealth?” he asked. “The Quechan has never worshiped worldly goods.”

  Honas looked pleased, sensing that his father-in-law was relenting. “We will have warm clothing for the winter, white men’s clothing, and dresses for our women. We will be able to buy coffee and sugar, and bright cloth and needles with thread for our wives.”

  Caught up in the desire to add to the list, Palma said: “I would like some tobacco and a good pipe.”

  “That, too, my father. We will soon have good rifles and knives that French Frankie will get for us, and steel traps that the m
erchants sell.” Then Honas added firmly, “And one day I will buy Avita a real house in the city.”

  Feeling already committed, Palma sighed. Tired of war, and continually fleeing from one place to another, he decided that he would do it. “Then so be it, my son. I will do as you ask.”

  Honas placed a hand on Palma’s shoulder. “May it always be so, my father.” And the older Indian nodded in agreement, for to obey a dream was strong medicine.

  They moved their dwelling and together they built a larger house in a clump of trees at the site of a little-known water hole, away from the beaten path. Soon they began to prosper by working together.

  Tracking for the warden of the prison, and at other times helping Sheriff Waringer at Yuma City, the two Quechans speedily earned a reputation for their ability to track down and bring back alive the prisoners they had been engaged to capture. Only if there was a gunfight, did the two men fail to return with live renegades. Soon they were called during all prison breaks because they could ferret out hiding places undetected by guards, and the Yuma City sheriff always selected them for his posses. Only Chato, the Apache, could match Honas’s skill to follow a spore on the blazing desert, but because of his inherent cruelty, preference was usually given to the young Quechan if he was readily available.

  Honas led the group of searchers through the underbrush thriving along the coffee-colored river. Occasionally reeds grew out into the water wherever the swift flow had been restricted by sandbars or accumulated debris and drift-wood.

  Pausing, he pointed up the steep sandy bank and said, “Your man Ayala, this is where he left the river. He crept up into those bushes until he got past the outskirts of the settlement. Up there he can travel faster with less chance of being seen.”

  Palma nodded and spoke in agreement, “The spoor is fresh. He has moved slowly, staying in the brush until he was past the river people living here.”

  Guard Frank Allison scuffed the sand with a square-toed boot. He smiled grimly. “Guess you’re right. None of the Mexicans or whites who live along the riverbanks claim to have seen anyone. It must have taken Ayala some tall hiding and sneaking around to get this far without being seen. That’s bound to have slowed him so we must be pretty close.”