Blood and Gold

Chapter 11

I turned as the Apache came at me fast as a panther, a knife upraised in his right fist. As he closed I swung the butt of the Winchester, trying for his head. The Indian saw it coming, dodged at the last moment and the rifle hit only the hard muscle of his left shoulder. The impact was enough to stagger the man, but he recovered quickly and jumped at me again.

Around us were only jagged rock and the dark canopy of the sky and I realized with a sickening certainty that soon, very soon, a man must die here tonight, and maybe two.

I grappled with the Apache, my left hand on his wrist, desperately keeping his knife away from me. Now, our feet shuffling on the wet grass, I felt his wiry strength and it scared me. This man was taller than me and he was as strong, and maybe stronger, than I was.

We moved very close to each other, the warrior’s belly pushed against my own. He was bending me backward with the sheer, brute strength of his arms and shoulders, and his merciless black eyes glinted in triumph.

I let myself fall on my back and the Apache landed on top of me. His knife hand broke free and he raised it to strike. I twisted my body and arched upward, my bared teeth lunging for his throat. I bit down hard on the left side of his neck and tasted smoky blood as his knife came down. The blade raked along the outside of my shoulder, burning like a red-hot iron, and I heaved with all my strength to my right, throwing the Apache off me.

The man rose, his knife poised. I circled to my left, keeping the Indian in front of me and feinted with the rifle butt. But the warrior was not fooled and he just stood there watching for an opening, the blood from the deep bite wound on his neck running down the shoulder and front of his yellow shirt.

I didn’t know how many Apaches were out there. If I fired the rifle I could bring a passel of them down on top of me and right now that was the last thing I wanted.

But the Winchester was the only weapon I had; the folding knife in my pocket was useless in a fight like this.

I smelled the musky, feral odor of the Apache and my own rank sweat as we circled each other. My mouth was dry and my hurtling heartbeats hammered in my ears like muffled drums.

The Apache crouched a little, feinted with the knife, then switched to an underhand motion and slashed upward, trying to gut me. I hit his upcoming forearm hard with the barrel of the rifle and heard bone crack. The warrior cried out and the knife slipped from his nerveless fingers.

I moved in and smashed a powerful right to the man’s chin, then another. The Apache reeled back a step, steadied himself, then dove for the knife. But my swinging boot crashed into his face when he was still in the air and that hurt him. He rolled on his back and slammed up against one of the rocks, the wind coming out of him in a sharp gasp.

Snarling, the Apache lay still for a few moments, then sprang to his feet. He came at me, his clawed fingers wide, seeking my eyes.

As he came in, I threw another right, but my fist glanced across his cheekbone and the Apache shrugged it off. We closed, his fingers still reaching for my eyes. As we wrestled, snarling like wild animals, our faces only inches apart, I felt the warrior’s strength weakening.

The terrible, raw wound in his neck where I’d torn at him was streaming bright scarlet and it looked to me that I’d chewed through a vein that carried his lifeblood.

The Apache seemed to realize this too and knew he had to finish the fight soon. He took a half-step closer to me, his right foot swinging, trying to kick my legs out from under me.

I stepped away from him, threw a hook that missed and left myself wide-open for his right hand. The Apache’s thumb, with its long, hard nail, dug into my eye, trying to blind me and I felt a sudden gush of blood on my cheek. I reached up with my left and grabbed his forearm. The broken bone crunched under my fingers and I squeezed harder. The warrior screamed and tried to jerk his arm away but I held on, grinding my fingers deeper.

The Indian again cried out, his face shocked and white from pain, and tore free of me. I didn’t let him get set but swung the rifle again. This time the butt caught him squarely on the side of the head and he crashed violently into a rock and crumpled to the ground.

I staggered back, gasping for breath, unwilling to move, waiting for the man to get back to his feet. From a great distance away I heard thunder rumble and off to the west sheet lighting flashed above the Staked Plains.

Slowly the Apache rose. He was splashed in blood and sweat and his nose and arm were shattered, but there was no quit in him. Wary now, he shuffled toward me, his silent moccasined feet slowly sliding through the wet grass.

I didn’t have the strength left to meet him, so I stood where I was and waited for him to come to me.

The Apache ran at me, trying to grasp me with his left hand. But I took a single step toward him and grabbed his broken arm again. I turned my side to the Apache and hammered the arm onto my upraised knee. One, two, three times.

Screaming, the warrior pulled the arm out of my grasp. He swung his leg and knocked my feet out from under me and I thudded onto my back, hitting hard rock. Winded, with my rifle lying three feet away, I lay there, desperately trying to catch my breath.

I moved my hand to support myself as I struggled to get to my feet. I shifted my hand again and my fingers touched the handle of the Apache’s knife. I grabbed it and held it ready.

The man, snarling his fury, tried for the rifle. He dived for the Winchester and I threw myself on him. The arc of the knife blade glinted in the moonlight as I swung it high and plunged it deep into his back. I heard the warrior’s gasp of pain and rammed the knife into him again and again. The Apache’s legs kicked convulsively and he rattled deep in his throat, then lay still.

I rolled off the man and lay on my back, my mouth open, gasping for air.

After a while I stumbled to my feet, teeth bared, panting, looking down at the man I’d killed. I’d battled this warrior with fangs and claws and I had won, and by right of conquest his head and weapons were mine.

No longer completely sane, crazed by the sudden, shocking violence of the fight, I kneeled, grabbed a handful of the Apache’s long, greasy hair and scalped him.

Jumping to my feet again, I brandished the dripping scalp high, tilted back my head and let a savage Rebel yell tear from my throat. It was a barbaric, angry shriek, half wail, half scream, heard on hundreds of battlefields during the War Between the States. But the yell had much more ancient and darker roots, stretching back across the echoing centuries to the war cry of the wild, blue-stained Celtic sword warriors from whom my ancestors had sprung.

If there were Apaches around, I wanted them to know by that victorious scream that I’d killed one of them, that I’d torn out his throat with my teeth. I wanted them to suffer as I had suffered, wanted them to know fear as I’d known fear.

Finally, blood from the scalp running down my arm, I slowly returned to sanity.

Suddenly drained, I dropped the filthy scalp on the Apache’s back, picked up my rifle and staggered down the slope. At the creek I fell flat on the bank and splashed cold water onto my face and arms, washing away as much blood as I could.

Lila met me at the door of the cabin, awakened by my dreadful howling. She took one look at me and shrank back in horror, stiff with shock, her eyes wide and fearful, face as white as someone dead. I ignored the girl, brushed past her and collapsed onto a bunk.

Then merciful sleep took me and I knew no more.

I woke slowly to a gray dawn.

Shivering, I put on my hat and stepped to the stove. The fire had gone out during the night and I made it up again and soon had a small blaze going.

Lila and her pa were still asleep, so without disturbing them, I picked up the coffeepot and my rifle and stepped outside.

The rain had stopped but surly gray clouds hung low in the sky and the gullies and clefts of the surrounding hills were deep in shadow. The air smelled clean and fresh, like a woman’s newly washed hair, and a whispering wind teased the buffalo grass, the shy wildflowers nodding their approval.

I kneeled by the creek and began to fill the coffeepot, wary, my eyes searching the ridge. Nothing moved, but that in itself brought me little comfort. Apaches didn’t believe in making themselves obvious. There could be a dozen of them up there. Or none. Fickle fate was dealing the hand and I’d have to gamble that the Apaches had moved on and that the ridge and scattered rocks were as empty of life as they seemed.

Such thoughts do little to reassure a man, and after I filled the pot and rose to my feet I reckon I was a slump-shouldered study in uncertainty, feeling a lot older but not much wiser than my eighteen years.

The fight with the Apache had left me with a numb ache all over my body and my shoulder burned where his knife had grazed me. I remembered the fight like a man remembers a bad dream, hazy, terrifying and confused, without rhyme or reason.

I had scalped the warrior and held my bloody trophy aloft and like a madman I’d howled my triumph to the uncaring night.

That I recalled, but the why or wherefore of it escaped me. For a brief spell I’d been more animal than human, possessed by a blind, killing rage that had transformed me into something savage, something primitive and dangerous. I fervently wished that as long as I lived I’d never feel the like again.

All the soft thoughts, the lace-and-lavender thoughts I’d once had of pretty Sally Coleman were fast receding from me, being replaced by something darker, harder, more violent. As I stood there in the newborn morning, I felt my carefree youth slip-slide away, the sappy love songs I’d once sung forever stilled on my lips, circumstances thrusting a bleak maturity on me I’d never sought.

I glanced up at the lowering sky and saw only its uniform grayness, the clouds heavy with rain, without light.

Now I must get back to the cabin, yet there remained one last thing to do.

Quickly I walked to the wagon and searched under the tarp. Within moments I found what I was seeking, a half-full jug of whiskey and two more full ones.

One by one, a vague anger building in me, I smashed the jugs on the iron tire of a wagon wheel, smelling the sharp, smoky tang of the whiskey, and tossed away the broken shards.

Only then did I step into the cabin and put coffee on the stove to boil.

Ned Tryon was the first to wake.

The man rolled out of his bunk and fell on the floor, staying there for several minutes on his hands and knees, his head hanging between his arms. The thump woke Lila and she stirred, looking with shocked eyes at her pa. She made to rise, but I held up my hand, stopping her.

“Let him be,” I said.

Warned by the tone of my voice, Lila stayed where she was, gathering her blanket around her against the morning chill, eyes moving from me to her pa and back again.

Ned finally rose to his feet and stumbled toward me, trying to form words through the thick cotton lining his mouth.

“Whiskey,” he gasped finally.

I shook my head at him and held up the coffeepot. “There’s no whiskey. Have some of this.”

“Damn you, I don’t want coffee. I need whiskey.”

He staggered to the door and lurched outside and I followed him.

It didn’t take Ned long to figure out what had happened. He stood by the wagon, looked down unbelievingly at the broken jugs around his feet, then turned his shocked, bloodshot eyes to me.

“All of them?” he asked.

“All of them,” I answered, not a shred of pity in me.

“Damn you, Hannah,” the man whispered, his eyes ugly. “Damn you to hell.”

After the harrowing events of the night, I decided right there and then that I’d had just about all I could take. I stepped quickly to Ned, grabbed him by the front of his shirt and dragged him behind the wagon away from the door. I slammed him hard against the side so the whole rig shook and, anger flaring in me, said: “Mister, when you get to where you’re going, you can get as drunk as a pig as often as you want. It won’t bother me none. But until we’re clear of this country and the Apaches, you’ll stay sober as a watched preacher.”

Ned swore and tried to struggle out of my grasp, but I slammed him against the wagon again. “Listen to me,” I said, my face just inches from his own. “The only way we’re going to make it out of here alive, the only way Lila will make it out alive, is for you to stay the hell away from whiskey.”

I pulled him closer to me, anger scorching my insides like scalding coffee. “Now, personally I don’t give a tinker’s damn about you, but I do care a whole lot about Lila. You risk her life by getting drunk again and I swear to God I’ll gun you.”

Ned Tryon’s smile was thin. “Yet from this earth, and grave, and dust, the Lord shall raise me up, I trust.”

I nodded. “My friend, that’s between you and your Maker. But get this straight. One more drunk and I’ll put a bullet into you, Lila’s pa or no.”

“Hard talk in one so young,” Ned said.

“Mister,” I said, “I’ve had to grow up fast and recently it seems the hard talk has come natural to me.”

Ned stood there blinking like an owl, thinking things through as much as his muddled brain would allow. Finally he nodded. “So be it. I’ll have that coffee now.”

I didn’t give the man any credit for his decision, since he wasn’t in much of a position to do otherwise.

I left Ned and stepped back into the cabin. Lila was already up and dressed, and when her pa came inside, she kept looking from one of us to the other. I guess she felt the tension stretching between us because she made no attempt at conversation as we sat at the table and drank coffee.

Only when I refilled my cup and rolled a smoke did Lila speak to me.

“What happened last night?” she asked. Some of the horror that had showed in her eyes when I came off the ridge was still there, a reminder that this girl was unused to the West and the sudden violence that came along with it.

“I was jumped by an Apache,” I said. I motioned with my head to the ridge. “Up there.”

“Is he . . . is he . . . ?”

“He’s dead. I’m alive,” I said, ending it. I rose. “I’ll go hitch the oxen. Better get ready.”

I stepped outside and hitched up the oxen, a task that was easier than I’d expected. A horse or mule team offered a lot more trouble, being much less placid animals and by times difficult to handle.

So far the rain was holding off, and when I saddled the black I tied my slicker over the blanket roll. Sally Coleman’s bonnet was in a sorry state and getting sor rier. It had already lost a flower from the brim and the straw was starting to shred here and there.

Shaking my head at yet another unfolding tragedy, I led the black out of the barn and back to the cabin.

Last night I’d thought to ride on and leave Lila and her pa behind. But now I knew I couldn’t do it. I was well and truly trapped. Me, I was all that stood between Lila and the Apaches and what they did to a woman, and to haul my freight now would be a lowdown thing.

I made the decision but didn’t feel particularly brave or honorable, like that Lochinvar knight Ned kept wagging his chin about. All I knew was I had it to do and there could be no stepping away from it . . . not if I wanted to live with myself after.

When I went into the cabin, Lila handed me a plate of bacon, salt pork and pan bread; suddenly hungry, I wolfed it down.

Ned didn’t eat, but sat at the table, his head in trembling hands, battling whatever demons were tormenting him.

Despite myself, I felt a sudden pang of sympathy for the man. Sometimes the best remedy for wrongs is just to forget them, and I tried to do that now.

“Ned,” I said, “we got to get moving.”

The man looked up at me with faraway eyes and nodded. He rose to his feet and stumbled outside.

Lila watched him go, then asked: “What happened between you two out there?”

I shrugged. “I got rid of your pa’s whiskey.”

The girl studied me, judging my motives. “He’ll be better off without it,” she said finally. Then, after a heartbeat’s pause: “Thank you, Dusty.”

I smiled at her. “I’m starting to think that recently every person I meet is a problem in search of a solution. I found the solution, is all. At least for now.”

Ten minutes later we crested the rise and were once more among the rocks. Lila riding the black while me and her pa walked beside the oxen.

At the top we paused and I looked down at the long miles stretching away before us, the Staked Plains to the west lost behind a gray morning haze.

Without saying a word to Lila I left the wagon and went back to the place where I’d fought the Apache. The man’s body was gone but written in charcoal on a flat rock near where he’d fallen were the crudely scratched Spanish words:

MATANZAS CON SUS DENTES

I knew enough of the language to translate. It said: Kills with His Teeth.

The Apaches had given me a name and were letting me know that I was a marked man. All they wanted to do now was capture me alive. After that, using all the devilish ingenuity they could muster, they’d test me to see if I was the great warrior I seemed.

I knew that test would be much worse than anything Shorty Cummings had suffered and I would scream and shriek my way into eternity.

A sudden chill in my belly, I walked back to the wagon. Lila raised an eyebrow, but didn’t offer a question. For that, I was glad, fearing that my tongue would stick to the roof of my dry mouth.

When Lila did speak, her words did little to allay my fear.

“Dusty,” she said, pointing south, “look over there. It’s more smoke.”

I followed her pointing finger to the low hills and mesquite flats stretching away from us. In the distance I watched the smoke rise, then break, then rise again, black puffs drifting one after another into the lead-colored sky.

Fascinated, fearful, I couldn’t tear my gaze away from it. “Lila, that’s talking smoke. Apache smoke.”

“What are they talking about?” the girl asked, her dark eyes huge.

“Us,” I said.