The Copper City Read online

  Other Boson Books by Chris Scott Wilson

  Double Mountain Crossing

  The Quantro Story

  The Fight At Hueco Tanks

  Desperadoes

  Scarborough Fair

  Praise for Chris Scott Wilson

  “. . . his western books . . . earned critical praise all round . . .” Middlesbrough Evening Gazette

  “ . . . no nonsense about may the best man win. Interesting to Western lovers.” The Birmingham Sunday Mercury

  “ . . . the author is a novelist and he knows how to tell a story . . .” Mary Williams of The Cleveland Clarion

  The Copper City

  by

  Chris Scott Wilson

  Boson Books

  Raleigh

  Copyright

  Published by Boson Books

  An imprint of C&M Online Media Inc.

  © 2011 C.J.S. Wilson

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information and storage retrieval system, without the express written consent of the copyright holder.

  ISBN 978-0-917990-54-0

  This is a work of fiction. Names, with the exception of historical figures, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  For information contact

  C&M Online Media Inc.

  3905 Meadow Field Lane

  Raleigh, NC 27606

  Tel: (919) 233-8164

  email: [email protected]

  http://www.bosonbooks.com

  Cover design by the author; saguaro image © Adam Kazmierski, iStockphoto

  Dedication

  For Harry Slack, the famous outlaw

  who always loves a sequel.

  And Hazel too.

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 1

  He heard them coming long before he saw them.

  Quantro avoided looking directly into the embers of the fire, in order to retain his night vision. It was necessary in the rich darkness of the Sierra Madre Mountains of Sonora, Old Mexico. He had draped a blanket, poncho-style, around his shoulders to ward away the chills of the night, but now he shrugged it off and came to his feet. The Winchester rested snugly in his hands, capable, reassuring as he stepped out of the firelight and into the darkness.

  The horses were close now. A hoof chipped against rock. Quantro eased into the shadows with a caution born of experience. A thick pine speared up into the night. It provided cover. While one hand rested on the coarse bark, the other leveled the rifle toward the gateway of the clearing. They would come in that way. It was the only route open to riders.

  He waited.

  His face, once young, was now aged beyond his years. He had been both the hunter and the hunted. It showed. Only the long blond hair that crept from under his stetson to curl lazily on to his shoulders hinted at the last traces of youth. Instead of laughter lines, hard score-marks bordered the edges of his mouth, making him appear even gaunter. The eyes were ice-blue, steady.

  The big buckskin stallion snickered softly, ears up. It shifted weight from one hoof to another, as though poised to flee, but its nostrils were flared, an indication of its wild temper.

  Quantro smiled, squinting into the night.

  One moment the clearing was empty, and the next they were there.

  “Anyone here?” the first rider said, craning as he scanned the stand of trees that ringed the campfire. His rifle rested negligently over his saddle horn. He was an older man, leathery-faced, his beard flecked with grey. Quantro saw the man’s fingers were inside the rifle’s trigger-guard. He was taking no chances. When nobody answered, the old man sniffed. “I said is anybody there?”

  Quantro chuckled in the darkness. “Coffee’s on the fire, Pete.”

  The older man’s face cracked into a smile and he relaxed visibly. He turned to the Indian girl sitting her pony behind him. “Sure is friendly, ain’t he?”

  White-Wing’s eyes swung from Pete Wiltshire to the man who emerged from the trees. This was the man she had left her people to be with. She was a Chiricahua Apache, one of a small band that had escaped confinement on the reservation at San Carlos to hide out in the Mother Mountains, the blue Sierra Madre, on the head-waters of the Bavispe River in Mexico. There they had found peace from the rurales who hunted them from one side, and the Americans who hunted them from the other. And now she had left them for this blanco, this gringo she had nursed back to health. After he had been shot, she had snatched him back from the very talons of death, watching him grow stronger each day. She had taught him Apache and bastardized Spanish, and with whom she had come to find the meaning of love.

  It was why she was here.

  “Climb down, Pete, and sit a spell.” Quantro stalked back to the fire, then stooped to shake the coffee-pot. Somehow, he couldn’t face looking at the girl. He had deserted her, deciding it was best to leave her with her own people, where she belonged, rather than taking her out of Mexico with him. His own future lay back across the border and, attracted to her though he was, he knew she could only be a burden to him. But, as she had that time by the pool, it seemed she had again contradicted his decision almost as quickly as he made it. If they hadn’t been interrupted, he would surely have succumbed to her charms. He was aware of his own powerful feelings for her, but something in him bridled that she should take matters a man should decide into her own hands. As he crouched by the fire, pouring coffee, he glanced sideways at her. Angry as he was, he was still glad she was here. Since he had ridden away from the Apache camp, he had felt lonely. That in itself was crazy. It had only been a few hours, and in the two years before Pete had found him dying on the Devil’s Plateau, not far from EI Camino del Diablo, The Devil’s Road, in Arizona Territory, Quantro had been almost constantly alone, riding his solitary mission of vengeance.

  Like all trails of vengeance, it had run in circles. After killing the last of the four men responsible for his parents’ murder, he had himself been hunted down by the man’s son. To stay alive, he had killed the boy, but not before being badly wounded himself. Then Pete had found him, and White-Wing had attended his sickbed.

  “How’d you figure it was us?” Pete asked, squatting to wrap his hands around the hot tin mug.

  Quantro grinned. “When I stopped at the head of the pass just before sundown, I saw the horses behind me. Who else would it be?”

  “What about Crawling-Snake?”

  “One day it’ll be him coming up behind me, but not today. I reckon he must be in a bad way after White-Wing used my rifle on him.”

  Pete sipped at his coffee then sniffed. “Heard his face didn’t look all too pretty either.”

  Quantro said nothing, remembering Crawling-Snake’s face when the fish-hook caught in the corner of his eye, then gouged a zigzag trail down his cheek. The blood had poured into the clear water of the creek where they’d fought. The Apache hadn’t been the most handsome of men before, and he certainly wouldn’t be now.

  “And now?” Pete asked, eyeing the younger man’s closed face.

  Quantro sighed and looked across the fire. “I’d figured on going back up to Colorado and finding me a job. I want a ranch, so I can carry on where my father left off.”


  “Buying ranches costs a whole heap of money.”

  “I know, but I’ll do it some way.”

  “Bounty hunting, like before?”

  Quantro shook his head. “No, that’s over. I only took the bounties on those killers because it paid the way to get the others. I was just lucky they were already wanted.”

  “You need another way now.”

  Quantro looked over his shoulder to White-Wing. She had already picketed the two riding ponies alongside the buckskin and was now unloading the packhorse. Although still irritated at her taking the notion to follow him, he still took pleasure in watching the way she moved, her strong thighs straining against her doeskin dress as she heaved supplies down from the pony’s back. He remembered her standing naked before him at the creek, only seconds before Crawling-Snake had jumped him…

  “She’s your woman now,” Pete said.

  “She’s nobody’s woman,” Quantro said flatly, angry at himself for dredging up memories that could only weaken his resistance towards her obvious attractions. Taking a squaw into white man’s country could only spell trouble with a capital T.

  “You’re wrong, Quantro. She’d made up her mind you were the man for her, and then when you beat Crawling-Snake you only set her mind more solid on wanting you.”

  “Well, she’ll have to change it.”

  Pete chuckled. “Then you don’t know Apache girls. She’ll follow you to the ends of the earth, but in the end she’ll catch up with you.”

  “Wouldn’t place money on that.”

  “I would.”

  Quantro shrugged, somehow liking the idea she would go to those lengths for him, yet he was reluctant to take on the responsibility of her. Again, his eyes strayed to where she was working and, as he watched, she finished caring for the ponies and came by the fire. She crouched next to him, her dark eyes resting heavily on his conscience. What the hell.

  “Okay, Pete, so I’ll accept there’s the three of us from now on. Where do we go from here?”

  Pete swallowed a mouthful of coffee, then pursed his lips. “Been thinkin’ some.”

  Quantro watched has face. “Yeah?”

  Pete’s eyes met his. “Ever been to Cananea?”

  “Cananea?”

  “A town. Me and Wild-Horse brought you by there when you were wounded. You were too far gone to pay much attention. It’s a mining town. Built on copper. There’ll be jobs there hauling ore, or a man with your talents with a gun could work as a guard.”

  “My pistolero days are over.”

  “Pays better than cowpunching. You want a ranch you have to go where the money is. ’Sides, just because you’re a guard doesn’t mean you have to go ’round shooting holes in everybody, you just have to look like you can use a gun.”

  “If you brought me past there, then Cananea’s on the way north?” Quantro asked, reckoning the route.

  “Sure is.”

  “Suppose it can’t do any harm to take a look-see.”

  “Can’t do us any harm at all,” Pete agreed.

  Quantro’s eyes switched to White-Wing’s small frame. “What about her? Anybody figures she’s Apache’ll holler out good and loud. She’ll end up on the reservation at San Carlos almighty quick.”

  Pete tossed the coffee grounds into the fire and reached for his sack of Bull Durham. “Don’t you worry none about her. She speaks good Spanish. Take her out of those doeskin dresses and she’ll pass as Mex easy.”

  Quantro looked at the Apache girl’s face. Pete was right. She didn’t have the normal broad, flat face common to her tribe, and she was taller than average too. Put a flat-crowned hat on her and a flared riding-skirt and she’d almost look Spanish enough to be the daughter of a nobleman. Still, he liked her in that soft beaded dress…

  “Okay, Pete, you got a deal. Cananea it is.”

  The older man grinned. “We ain’t got nothing to lose. Foot-loose and fancy-free.”

  “Yeah, I usta be,” Quantro mumbled, coming to his feet. He crossed to his gear and began to spread out his bedroll in preparation against the bitter night. Carrying his Winchester, he quietly stalked over to where the buckskin stallion cropped at the mountain grass. He checked the picket and patted the horse’s neck.

  By the fire, White-Wing looked at Quantro’s blankets, then at Pete. The older man shook his head. She nodded, her eyes wandering longingly to where Quantro petted the big horse. When he turned and came back to his blankets, she remained motionless.

  “I’m for some sleep,” he said, settling down.

  “Me too,” volunteered Pete, rising to his feet. He jerked his head just enough for the girl to see it. Gracefully, she rose and followed him. When they were out of earshot, she drew close.

  “I thought he wanted me,” she whispered.

  “He does.”

  “Then why won’t he look at me? It is as if I am part of the stones of the mountain.”

  Pete tried to smile his reassurance. “Give him time girl. He wants you all right, but he’d already made up his mind to do one thing before we came along and made him change it. He just needs a little time to get used to the idea.”

  She turned to look at Quantro, nestled down against the mother earth. She wanted to be there with him, to touch his strong body and to feel his hands on her. She had been prepared to leave her people, leave the place she loved, for him.

  And now he was like this.

  Hadn’t she already sown the seeds?

  If there was one thing she knew, it was that she would have him.

  CHAPTER 2

  It was two days’ ride to Cananea.

  Quantro, ignorant of the country, led the way. Pete rode closely behind, offering advice when the younger man asked, but otherwise he remained silent. White-Wing, riding her own pony and leading the packhorse, brought up the rear. She had remained quiet since the night she had arrived unbidden in his camp. Unobtrusively, she had tended the horses and cooked the meals, noticing that Quantro always managed to avoid speaking directly to her. But she had seen his eyes on her, and to feed the hunger she saw in them, she had casually added an extra swing to her buttocks as she moved. Out on the trail he ignored her completely.

  They had followed the high, twisting trails that clung miraculously to the canyon walls. More than once, Quantro, who had been unconscious during the ride up into the mountains, stared with awe at the sheer drop that was directly below his outside stirrup, while his other boot grazed the rock face of the wall beside him. If the buckskin had made one mistake, they would have both pitched over into the void like Juh, the Apache chief, whose name the pass now bore.

  The first night they had camped at a clear spring, the last night they would spend in the mountains. Quantro had shot a small deer that he had handed wordlessly to White-Wing to prepare for the cooking-pot. Even he had to admit, as he spooned the stew greedily, that she was a good cook. When they had eaten they slept surrounded by scrub oak.

  The next day took them across rolling hills. When Quantro spied a bunch of well-fed cattle emerging from a draw in search of rich grazing grass, he watched them with interest. They were branded with a Z. He reined in and sat the buckskin, allowing the slight breeze to cool the sweat that had gathered down the center of his back.

  “Whose beeves are they?” he asked as Pete hauled up alongside. “I’ve never seen that brand before.”

  Pete sniffed. “San Berdoo ranch. Owned by John Slaughter.”

  “An American ranching in Mexico?”

  “Sure,” Pete replied, fashioning a cigarette as they waited for White-Wing and the packhorse to make up ground. “A Spaniard name of Ignacio Perez built a hacienda some way north of here, by San Bernardino Springs, in Arizona. Ranch runs clear down here. They say there’s something like 73,000 acres.”

  “That’s one lot of land. What about the Indians? Didn’t they run him off?”

  “Not right away. Fact is, for as long as anyone can recall, the springs have been a camping-ground for both Apaches and Navajos
when they were riding the war trails.” He paused to chuckle. “Anyways, they both kept an eye on this Perez, and with Indian logic they figured it was best to leave him in peace. Truth was, they knew a high-class caballero, gentleman, like him would breed only the finest of horses, and what Indian doesn’t want the best animal on four legs running beneath him? They figured it would be easier to steal his horses than raise them for themselves. Anyhow, when the Mexican governor issued a scalphunting pronunciamento back in ’42 to get rid of the Apaches, Cochise of the Chiricahuas and Mangas Coloradas of the Mimbrenos decided to sack the hacienda as a small gesture of their disapproval. After that it was deserted until a couple of years back when John Slaughter bought the place. Seems to be making out, too.”

  They ate the last of the deer that night camped by a spring where mesquite and madrona flourished, then the next morning angled down an arroyo with the mountains on their left. They picked their way carefully down the pot-holed track that led away from the Sierra Medio, the Middle Mountains, and rode on to a broad valley. Quantro continually asked questions about the country, storing the information should it be needed in the future.

  Also, he gained an impression of how long he had been unconscious when he had been wounded, when Pete and Wild-Horse, the Apache, had brought him all this way. Considering the severity of the terrain it seemed a miracle he was alive at all. For a moment he turned around in the saddle to look back at White-Wing’s slight frame as she guided her pony, as good a horseman as any of them. To hear Pete tell it, he owed his life to her, not Pete. Quantro eyed her thoughtfully. He reckoned it was a little of both. If Pete hadn’t had the patience to drag him all this way, then she wouldn’t have had the opportunity to tend to him. He was aware of the enormity of the debt he owed them both. Two strangers who had befriended him when he sorely needed help.

  After they skirted a pine-capped mesa, they moved on to a stretch of lava, sighting Black Mountain. After the lava ridge they stopped to rest the horses. Ahead of them now was an ocean of browning grama grass bending before the hot, dry wind.