Blood and Gold

Chapter 25

After a couple hundred yards, the canyon widened, giving way to a wide clearing carpeted with grass and wildflowers, a few scrub oak growing around the perimeter. There was evidence that wild cattle had used this place to graze and they’d cut a narrow trail that wound up the slope of the mountain, disappearing into some tumbled boulders a few hundred feet above the level.

We were enclosed on all sides by high, brush-topped ridges, and it was very hot in the clearing. I stood my horse near the shade of an oak and wiped sweat from my hatband and brow.

The Kiowa had swung out of the saddle and was examining the trail up the mountain. He studied the piled-up boulders above us for long moments, nodded to himself, then walked over to Coleman, leading his pony.

“Where are they?” the rancher asked, irritation harsh in his voice. “Damn it, man, where are they?”

The Kiowa pointed beyond the boulders. “Higher.”

“Can we get the horses up there?”

“Yes,” the Kiowa answered, “but best we go on foot. Men on horseback make large targets.”

Coleman didn’t argue. He ordered his hands to dismount and leave their horses in the clearing. I swung out of the saddle, eased the girth on the dun, then walked to the bottom of the trail, studying the boulders above me. It seemed a likely ambush spot, but I figured the Kiowa knew what he was doing, and when he took to the slope I stepped after him, Coleman and his men falling in behind us.

Halfway to the boulders, a rabbit bounded out from under my feet and I jumped about three feet in the air in surprise. Behind me I heard a man snigger and even Coleman smiled and said: “Bunny spooked you some, Dusty, huh?”

I turned my head, gave the man a sheepish grin and kept on climbing.

The Apaches had us outnumbered, but when I’d looked around at Coleman’s hard-bitten, gun-handy riders, most of whom had fought Indians before, I figured the odds might just about be even.

But all that changed in an instant.

A rifle crashed and the Kiowa, two steps ahead of me, cried out and fell back into my arms. I couldn’t catch him, but I broke his fall as he collapsed in a heap at my feet. The Kiowa had taken a bullet square in the chest and he was already dead when he hit the ground.

A volley of rifle fire erupted from the boulders and behind me I heard men curse and yell as they were hit, the rest stampeding back down the trail to the clearing. A bullet kicked up dirt at my feet and another gouged across the stock of my rifle, splintering the walnut.

The Kiowa had been right about the Apaches’ willingness to fight, but he had been fatally wrong about where they’d make their stand. The warriors weren’t higher up the mountain—they were right here, bringing the battle to us.

I dove into a patch of thick brush and mesquite to my left, a little ways off the cattle trail, shifted the Winchester to my left hand and drew my Colt. The Apaches, scattered among the boulders, were only a dozen yards away and the six-gun would be better for close work.

But after the initial firing died down, nothing moved among the rocks. I glanced down the trail. Three of the Coleman riders were on the ground, one of the men groaning, dark red blood stringing from his mouth as he coughed and tried to crawl back to the safety of the clearing. Finally the man’s arms gave way and he fell on his face and lay still.

“Dusty!” Coleman yelled from somewhere below me. “Can you hear me?”

“Yeah!”

“Are you hit?”

“No. But the Kiowa is dead, and three others.”

Coleman swore bitterly, then hollered: “We’re trapped like rats down here. I’m going to find another way up the mountain before it gets too dark to see.” I didn’t reply and the rancher hollered again. “Dusty, keep ’em busy for a spell.”

Easier said than done, Mr. Coleman!

“I’ll do my best,” I yelled, suddenly feeling mighty vulnerable and lonely.

The dying sunlight caught the higher ridges of the mountains and the shadows of the ponderosa pines were lengthening. The lost and lonely ravines and canyons were shading into dark blue and the sky above was pale lemon, smeared with wide bands of deep scarlet.

I figured it would be full dark in no more than an hour and I could make my way back down the trail to the clearing—unless Coleman and his surviving men worked their way up the slope and got behind the Apaches.

A few tense minutes ticked by; then a shot from the boulders rattled through the branches of the mesquite bush, inches from my head. I caught a glimpse of something white move among the rocks and thumbed off a fast shot from the Colt. I saw the bullet strike rock and then whine harmlessly away. Another rifle fired from among the boulders, splitting the air above me, then another. I rose up on one knee and hammered four fast shots from the Colt, holstered the six-gun and grabbed the rifle.

I was trapped like a calf in a pen, neither able to climb higher nor make my way down. It was not a situation to reassure a man—a worrisome thing.

Something moved at the top of one of the largest boulders, just a quick blur that came and went. I waited. Gradually a head appeared, then a rifle. The Apache sighted in my direction, triggered a shot that rattled the mesquite bush for a second time, then quickly disappeared.

I raised the Winchester to my shoulder, gambling that the warrior would try another shot from that same position.

Sweat stinging my eyes, I held still, the sights of the rifle steady on the spot where I’d last seen the Apache. Somewhere higher up the mountain an early-waking owl hooted his question over and over, and farther away among the canyons the coyotes were beginning to yap.

Dark hair appeared at the top of the boulder, and with agonizing slowness, the Apache’s head and shoulders finally came into view. I watched as the warrior laid his rifle across the rock and I took a deep breath, held it and set my sights on the man’s forehead.

Just as the Apache leveled his rifle, I squeezed the trigger. Over the blast of the shot I heard a wild scream, and the head disappeared, splashes of blood suddenly staining the top of the boulder.

And now there were only nineteen left.

I smiled grimly at that thought, finding it little consolation now that our numbers had been reduced to nine by the Apache ambush.

I reloaded the Colt, filling all six chambers, cranked the spent shell from the Winchester and fed another round into the chamber. It was shaping up to be a long night.

Fifteen minutes passed with no firing on either side.

Then the Apaches came at me.

The warriors swarmed from among the boulders and ran toward me, firing as they ran.

I got off one fast shot from the rifle, scored no hit and drew the Colt. The warriors were only a few yards away, bunched together and coming fast, hoping to capture me alive. Going against everything I’d ever been taught about the handling of a six-gun, I spread my legs wide and fanned the Colt dry, the gun almost uncontrollable, roaring and bucking in my hand. But at such close range, the tenderfoot play of the fanned revolver was devastating. Two of my shots went into the ground, another flew wild, but three of the warriors went down, at least two of them hit hard enough that they didn’t get up again.

Then the Apaches were tumbling all over me.

I kicked and punched and bit and swore, crashing my fist against a chin here, swinging my boot into a groin there. Then a rifle butt slammed into the back of my head and I knew no more.

I woke to darkness.

It took me a few moments to realize that I was naked, lying on my back, my wrists and ankles bound to stakes driven into the ground.

The rawhide had been wet when I was tied. Now it was dry and had shrunk, the thongs biting into my wrists so that my throbbing hands felt like they were swollen to three times their normal size.

When I looked up, the sky was ablaze with stars and the moon, almost full now, rode high within a circle of its own silver light.

Something stirred to my right and I turned to look. The Apaches sat around a small fire and I smelled meat roasting. One of the warriors raised a chunk of dripping beef to his mouth on a stick, held the meat with his teeth, then cut off a huge piece and began to chew.

But even the tiny movement of my head had been noticed.

One of the warriors rose from the fire and stepped toward me. I saw two things very quickly: The entire lower half of the man’s face, from his chin to his eyes, was painted black, among the Apaches a sign of mourning, not war. And I recognized him as the warrior who had sat the gray horse and given me the name Matanzas con Sus Dentes.

The Apache squatted on his heels beside me, his eyes shadowed by the darkness. He stayed that way for a long while, and though I couldn’t see his eyes, I felt them burning into mine—and I felt their hatred.

Finally I asked: “Qué usted desea de mi?”

The Apache surprised me then. In English he answered: “What I want from you is your death.”

“Why do you hate me so much?” I asked. Thinking back, it was a pretty dumb question, since the Apache hated just about everybody. But this warrior didn’t see it that way.

“You are the one who tore out my brother’s throat with your teeth. He and I were”—he raised his hands, forefingers extended, and brought the fingers together—“two from the same womb, born at the same hour. As we grew to manhood, we thought the same thoughts, felt the same things. We were two, but we lived as one.”

I’d killed this man’s twin brother, and right then I knew I was in deep trouble. And what he said next confirmed it.

“Your dying will be slow and very painful,” the Apache said quietly, like he was making polite conversation in Ma Prather’s parlor. “Only a very brave warrior could have killed my brother, but even so, at the end you will scream loud, I think.”

The moonlight lay like polished steel on the hard planes of the Apache’s face and the thin gash of his mouth. This was not the face of a merciful man, and anyhow, mercy for a captured enemy was a concept totally foreign to him.

“Go to hell,” I said, knowing I had nothing to lose by it.

The Apache nodded, saying nothing, no doubt having many times heard this same empty bravado before from men who later died shrieking for mercy or for death.

He rose to his feet and stepped to the fire. When he returned he held a handful of long, jagged cactus spines. He squatted beside me again and slowly, methodically shoved two dozen of the spines just under the skin of my chest and belly, leaving about an inch of each showing.

The pain was an intense, scorching fire, and I bit my lip, determined not to cry out. The torture was only beginning and it could last for two or three days. Could I take it without screaming? I knew the answer to that could only be no.

The Apache turned and uttered something to a warrior sitting by the fire. The man nodded, rose and carried over a thin, burning branch from the fire. The Apache took the brand from the warrior and then, one by one, lit the exposed tips of the spines.

Certain kinds of cactus spines—cholla is one of them—will burn well when dry, flaring up like struck matches.

When the Apache lit a spine, it very quickly flamed its way under my skin, and I smelled my own flesh as it sizzled and burned.

I bore the first two or three, arching my back, heaving against my vicious bonds, and the terrible pain that slammed through me. But after several more spines were lit, I heard someone scream, coming from a long distance away. Then, to my horror, I realized it was me.

Sweat trickled down my forehead as the spines burned and I ground my teeth so hard, my breath hissing, that my jaw began to throb. But that was a little pain against the greater agony of the scorching, flaring spines.

The moon looked down on me and the stars glittered and I heard the wind sigh among the pines. But I was alone with my torment, and all of them—moon, stars, pines and wind—were completely indifferent to my suffering.

The flames from the brand lit another spine, and another. The stink of my own burning flesh was sharp in my nostrils, and no matter how I bucked and strained I could not escape the searing agony of the fire.

Beside me the Apache looked on with cool indifference, like a doctor beside a patient’s bed, interested but detached.

He was testing me to see if I was the great warrior he thought I was, and I had the feeling I was failing the test badly.

One thing I wanted to do before the pain became unbearable and I started to uselessly scream and beg for mercy: I wanted to spit in that damned Apache’s eye.

I raised my head, trying to gather saliva, but there was none. My mouth was bone dry. Defeated, filled with pain and the greater pain of loss and despair, I let my head thump back onto the ground just as the Apache lit another cactus spine.

Thunder crashed around me and I heard someone scream again.