Blood and Gold

Chapter 26

The scream was not mine, nor did the thunder come from the sky. I was hearing the cries of dying men and the roar of guns.

The Apache beside me sprang to his feet as John Coleman and his hands charged into the camp. All of them were mounted, having somehow found a way to bring their horses up the slope.

Coleman was in the lead, grim and terrible, his Colt hammering as his horse bucked and kicked, throwing up great clods of dirt. Taken completely by surprise, Apaches were running in every direction and six or seven of them were already stretched out on the ground.

The Coleman punchers were riding through and around the Apache camp, shooting at everything that moved. I raised my head and saw one of the Coleman riders throw up his hands and topple out of the saddle. Then John himself was hit. His horse reared and crashed heavily on top of him.

But, despite the losses among the Coleman riders, the Apaches were in full flight.

A very few had managed to reach their horses and were riding, hell for leather, toward the top of the mountain. Others were fleeing on foot, but these were mercilessly cut down by the vengeful Coleman hands.

Among all the confusion of flying hooves, the screams of the dying and the flash and bang of guns in the flame-streaked darkness, I lifted my head, straining against the rawhide bonds—in time to see an Apache on a gray horse gallop away in the distance before being swallowed by the night.

A Coleman rider with red hair and mustache reined up his horse beside me and swung out of the saddle. The man kneeled beside me, shook his head and whistled through his teeth. “Geez, Dusty,” he said, “what the hell did they do to you?”

This was no time for polite conversation. “Cut me loose!” I yelled.

The rider did as I asked, and I scrambled to my feet and, my head swimming, immediately fell down again.

“You best lie there quiet,” the hand said. “Man, you’re a mess.” He touched my chest and when he brought his hand away I saw it was covered in blood and blackened pieces of scorched skin.

“Help me to my feet,” I said. “And help me find my damn clothes.”

The Coleman hand pulled me upright, and this time I didn’t fall.

Men were riding this way and that, some of them still shooting, and a couple of hands were bent over the still, sprawled form of John Coleman.

Helped by the redhead, I found my clothes where the Apaches had dumped them after stripping me. I put on my hat, then my pants and stomped into boots. The shirt I left aside, fearing the rough army wool would rub against the wounds on my chest, and slipped the suspenders over my bare shoulders.

I felt weak and sick, but I had something to do that needed to be done.

“Get me a horse. And a gun,” I said to the Coleman hand.

“But, Dusty, you’re in no condition to—”

“Hell, man, don’t argue,” I yelled. “Do as I say.”

Me, I have no idea what that puncher saw when he looked at me, his eyes wide and shocked. A wild man, I guess, a raving creature who had just been to hell and back, his chest and shoulders covered in dried blood and scorched and blackened flesh.

Whatever it was, the redheaded puncher didn’t think it wise to argue further. He handed me the reins of his horse and gave me his own gun belt and Winchester.

I buckled on the belt, shoved the rifle into the boot, then swung heavily into the saddle. I glanced over at John Coleman. “How is he?” I asked one of the men kneeling beside him. The puncher looked up at me and slowly shook his head, telling me all I needed to know.

I swung my horse around and headed up the slope. Behind me I heard the Coleman hand yell: “Dusty, where are you going?”

Ignoring the man, I rode higher. The moon bathed the side of the mountain in light and a breeze stirred the branches of the pines. I felt stiff and sore and constantly worked the swollen fingers of my right hand, surprised to find they were better than I’d expected.

I topped a low ridge, rode through some dense juniper and followed the dip downward. I climbed higher again, wary now, the Winchester across the saddle horn, and came up on a wide stand of ponderosa pine.

I let the horse take a breather and scanned the tree line and the higher rocks above the pines. And saw nothing.

If the Apache I sought had come this way, he was well gone, or holed up somewhere.

From where I sat my horse, I was maybe three-quarters of a mile above the flat. Ahead of me the slope gradually grew steeper, rawboned granite rocks and mountain scrub becoming more frequent beyond the tree line, where the pines faded and finally stopped.

Wishful for tobacco, but having none, I kicked the horse into motion and climbed higher. I rode through the ponderosas and in places the passage between the trunks was very narrow and tight, made worse by darkness, because very little moonlight penetrated the thick canopy of the treetops. When I emerged on the other side I was scraped and cut by branches and many of the burn wounds on my chest were oozing trickles of blood.

Ahead of me the slope rose at a much steeper angle, but I spotted what looked like a narrow game trail winding upward toward the swaybacked crest of the mountain. The area on either side of the trail was surrounded by V-shaped rock formations, here and there massive boulders scattered around as though they’d fallen from the pocket of a striding giant.

The moon was drifting lower in the sky, but still spread a thin light, and the breeze, now that I was higher, blew stronger, edged with cold. This I welcomed, because the chill refreshed me and helped clear my head.

I reached the game trail and began the steep climb. But the horse, bred for the range, not mountains, balked, sidestepping on me, tossing his head as he tried to turn back. I fought the horse for a couple of minutes, then decided it was hopeless. All I was doing was draining my already low reserve of strength. I swung out of the saddle.

Where was the Apache? And was he alone?

Those questions crowded into my head, unsettling me as I led the horse back to the tree line and found a patch of bunch grass where he could graze.

I took up my rifle, walked to the trail again and started to climb. The going was hard and I was weak from the torture I’d suffered and from loss of blood. Every so often I had to get down on one knee, battling to catch my breath and gather my strength, my head bowed. Then I climbed again.

The thought never once occurred to me to give up and turn back. The Apache had wronged me and that I could not forgive or forget. The man had a reckoning coming and it wasn’t in me to let him escape it.

I passed a small rock formation no taller than a man on a horse, shaped like an inverted V, topped with a scattering of smaller boulders and clumps of scrub grass and black thorn bush.

I’d only taken a few steps past the rock when I heard it: a soft, quick, whum . . .whum . . . whum . . .

Turning fast, bringing up the Winchester, I took the blade of the spinning steel tomahawk in my right arm, where the heavy meat of the shoulder muscle meets the biceps.

The wicked little hatchet had been thrown at my back, but I had heard its whispering passage through the air and turned at the last moment. I had saved my life, but the blade was buried inches deep in my arm.

Instantly I lost all feeling in the arm and it flopped uselessly at my side, the Winchester slipping from suddenly nerveless fingers, thudding to the ground at my feet.

Above me I heard a loud whoop of triumph and the Apache jumped from the rock and ran at me, a knife in his upraised hand.

But I was in no shape to fight this battle on his terms.

Desperately, I clawed for the holstered Colt with my left hand, dragging it out of the leather by the hammer and cylinder. The Apache was almost on top of me. I threw the six-gun in the air and grabbed it correctly, thumbing back the hammer as my finger found the trigger.

The Apache closed with me and he slashed viciously downward with his knife. I twisted away at the last moment and the blade raked down my left side, drawing a thin line of blood but doing little damage.

Off balance because of his swing, the Apache stumbled into me and I raised my right boot and shoved him away. The warrior staggered back a couple of steps, his face twisted into a snarl of rage, and came at me again.

I triggered the Colt, feeling the gun awkward in my left hand, and saw the Apache jerk as the bullet slammed into him. Hit hard, the man slowed for just a split second, but it was enough. I fired again and again at point-blank range, every bullet finding its mark in the warrior’s body.

The Apache stumbled against me and I pushed him away again. He spun, fell on his face and then rolled over on his back, his black eyes blazing with a mix of hatred, defiance and the lust for revenge.

The warrior raised his head, frantically searching around him, and a hand stretched out for his knife, which had fallen nearby. But he never made it. His teeth bared in an ugly snarl, the breath rattled in his throat and he fell back, his terrible eyes closing for the last time.

I felt no pity for the man and no remorse. I understood what had driven him, because I’d seen the same single-mindedness of purpose, the same desire for revenge, in John Coleman. I did not admire it in Coleman, nor did I in this Apache.

I stepped over the warrior’s body and stumbled down the slope, found my horse and rode away from there. I didn’t look back.