The Brothers O'Brien

by J. A. Johnstone

  O’Brien nodded. He had five rounds in the Navy and those he would save. If the worst happened, he would not let the Apaches take any of his family alive.

  Moving to the window, he peered outside, his view restricted to a narrow rectangle. The snow had thinned a little, but the keening wind had grown stronger. Piñon and juniper shivered, their limbs trembling. and the mesa was a vague, gray bulk behind a billowing white curtain.

  He heard the crash of Ironside’s rifle, then the disappointed curse he hurled through the rifle slot when he missed his target.

  An arrow slammed into the shutter where O’Brien stood, and he eased up his Henry. He caught a glimpse of a bent figure, bow in hand, sprinting along a deer trail leading to the creek. O’Brien fired, but he shot at a shadow. The Apache disappeared like a puff of smoke into the underbrush by the trail, and O’Brien thought he heard the man’s derisive laugh.

  He dusted a few more shots into the brush where he’d last caught a glimpse of the Indian, but he was certain he did no execution.

  His anger flaring, O’Brien cursed, boiling mad at the savages for not being true blue and acting like white men. They should come at him in an orderly rank, ready to take their medicine.

  He didn’t know it then, but the War Between the States had taught him one kind of fighting and the Apaches were about to teach him another.

  Behind him, O’Brien heard Saraid cry out, a long, drawn-out paean of pain and hope that struck him to the heart.

  “Good girl, Miz Saraid,” Nellie said. “The baby’s comin’ just fine. Now push, lady, push . . .”

  O’Brien didn’t turn. He pretended to himself that he had to keep his eye on the Apaches, but in reality, he didn’t want to see his child come into the world. He or she would have one quick glimpse at life and its wonders and then . . .

  He touched the revolver on his hip, but immediately shook his head, refusing to look at the pictures in his mind. Staring through the slot, he saw nothing but the snow and wind.

  “Colonel, it’s a boy!” Nellie yelled above the shriek of a newborn. “You have another son.”

  O’Brien turned and looked from the baby to his exhausted wife. Strands of hair lay damp across her flushed forehead, but her eyes shone, the look of a woman who has just experienced a miracle.

  Bullets hit the cabin with a noise like hammered nails.

  He looked outside again. Three Apaches were moving to his left at a quick trot, in the direction of Ironside’s window. “Is Luther down?” he mumbled to himself.

  “Saraid!” O’Brien said aloud.

  “Go, Shamus,” she said. “Look out for Luther. Patrick and I will still be here when you get back.”

  O’Brien opened the door and dashed into the main room of the cabin.

  “Colonel, they’re after the horses,” Ironside said.

  Horses were the difference between life and death in the wilderness, the reason why the theft of one was a hanging offense. Without horses O’Brien and his family would be marooned in the high desert country and the dying would begin very quickly.

  “Luther, stay here and protect the cabin. I’m going after them.”

  Samuel stared at him, his eyes wide. The boy was very pale, but he seemed unafraid. Only then did O’Brien see the scarlet splash of blood on his son’s left arm.

  “Are you wounded, Samuel?” O’Brien said, on a rising note of horror.

  Ironside spoke quickly. “He got grazed by a ball, Colonel, came clean through the door. One of them Indians using a Sharps Big Fifty, I reckon.”

  O’Brien stepped to the door, then looked back. “Samuel, are you sure you’re all right?”

  “I’m fine, Pa.”

  O’Brien had no time to express the pride he felt. He spoke to Ironside, who had his eyes fixed to the rifle slot. “Luther . . .”

  Without turning, the man said, “I know what to do, Colonel.”

  There was nothing more to be said. O’Brien slid back the door’s wooden bolt and charged into the tumbling snow and the wild wolf wind.

  Chapter Eight

  O’Brien, his rifle up and ready, moved to the corner of the cabin in a crouching walk. His eyes searched into the snowstorm, but his visibility was limited to a few yards around him. He saw no Apaches.

  Walking carefully, his eyes never at rest, he stepped toward the corral.

  A rifle roared and a ball kicked up a startled exclamation point of dirt and snow at his feet. He swung the rifle to his right, seeking a target. The snow-blurred shape of an Apache was not twenty feet away. The Indian frantically rammed a fresh ball into the barrel of an old muzzle-loader, his eyes on the white man.

  O’Brien shouldered his Henry. Snow and ice stung his eyes and he knew his aim would be an uncertain thing. But before he could take a shot, he heard the flat report of Ironside’s rifle. The Apache took the hit square in his chest and staggered back a step before thudding onto the hard ground.

  Luther had made a good shot, and O’Brien vowed to thank him—if they both lived that long.

  He stayed where he was and got down on one knee, his gaze reaching out to the corral. One of the draft horses trotted to the rail opposite the lean-to. The animal lifted its head, then looked behind it, as though troubled by something—or someone.

  Despite the cold, O’Brien’s right hand sweated on the Henry’s stock and his heart hammered in his ears. He recognized the symptoms of fear. He’d felt them many times during his four years of war.

  He knew the kind of men he was about to face. Resolute, ruthless, and relentless, superb guerilla fighters, the Apaches wanted him dead. They’d never leave until they had his scalp and his horses.

  O’Brien moved again. Reaching the corner post of the corral, he took a knee again. Toward the lean-to his big sorrel whinnied, alarmed by a man smell he’d never encountered before.

  Planning his every movement, O’Brien rose carefully to his feet.

  The snow no longer relented, but came down thicker and faster, tossed this way and that by the gleeful wind. He shivered, suddenly cold. He could no longer make out the lean-to, and the horses were agitated, prancing shadows. He bent to slip under the top rail of the corral, a movement that saved his life.

  An arrow thudded into the fence post where his head had been a moment earlier and the shaft thrilled a few moments before it stopped.

  Footsteps pounded toward him. He completed his duck into the corral, and then straightened. His eyes barely had time to register the charging Apache before the man was almost on top of him. The Indian had tossed away his bow, but held a war lance high, ready for a killing downward thrust. The steel head was two-and-a-half feet long, made from the blade of a Mexican cavalry saber, rawhided to a painted and feathered shaft.

  The Apache’s lean brown face was close to O’Brien’s, the features contorted into a mask of hate. Separated as they were by the poles of the corral, the Indian didn’t stab the lance at the white man. He drew back his arm and threw it.

  Shamus O’Brien was young and his reflexes were good. He twisted away at the last moment, but the hurtling lance still found him. The blade entered his back low, an inch or two from his spine, and he cried out in pain as the honed saber bit deep.

  As he staggered a step or two, trying to bring his Henry to bear, all the weight of the bobbing lance shaft stressed its carbon steel blade. The Apache had ground the thick back of the saber to give it an edge and the blade was thin. It snapped somewhere in O’Brien’s back and the shaft dropped to the ground.

  Waves of agony slamming at him, O’Brien knew he was weakening fast. The horses were more nervous, meaning there had to be another Apache somewhere behind him in the corral, hidden behind the swirling snow. He figured he could count the remainder of his life in seconds.

  The Indian who had hit him with the lance made no attempt to climb into the corral. He drew a Joslyn .44 from a rawhide holster on his hip and shoved the big revolver out in front of him at eye level.

  Crazed with pain, O’Brie
n fired from the hip, levered another round, and fired again. His first shot missed, but the Apache, hit hard, rode the second bullet into eternity.

  An arrow hissed like a spiteful snake past O’Brien’s left ear. He turned, levered the rifle, and searched for a target. He saw the Apache almost instantly, a stocky warrior wearing a Union army greatcoat with corporal’s chevrons on the sleeves.

  The day was cold and the Apache’s numbed fingers fumbled as he attempted to nock a second arrow. The delay cost him his life.

  Levering the Henry as fast as he could, O’Brien pumped three bullets into the Indian, the last two hitting him as he fell.

  Beside himself with rage, O’Brien’s vision narrowed to a black tunnel shot through with searing streaks of flaming scarlet. He staggered to the dead Apache and slammed bullet after bullet into his face.

  “You bastard,” he screamed. “You try to kill me on the day my son is born.” Shots racketed into the icy wind-lashed day, then the click, click, click of the hammer falling on an empty chamber.

  O’Brien threw down the Henry and his boot thudded again and again into what was left of the Apache’s bloody face.

  “Colonel!”

  The voice came from behind him. He turned, his face still twisted and ugly by a mindless rage. Ironside stood in front of him.

  “It’s over, Colonel. The Apaches are dead or gone.”

  But O’Brien didn’t see Ironside. He saw an Apache warrior with a rifle in his hands, coming at him.

  He took a step back, snarling, clawing for his Colt.

  Samuel saved Ironside’s life that day.

  “Pa!” He ran to his father and threw his arms around his waist. “It’s me. It’s Samuel.”

  O’Brien looked like a man waking from a dream. He blinked, and then looked down at the boy. “Samuel?”

  “Please come home now, Pa. Ma needs you.” The snow did its dervish dance around father and son and the cold air smelled like raw iron. O’Brien’s sorrel whinnied and danced on its toes, and white arcs showed in its eyes, made uneasy by the presence of dead men.

  “Saraid,” O’Brien whispered, as the madness fled his eyes.

  Samuel dropped his arms from his father’s waist, then stared at his hands, glistening, stained red with blood. “Luther.” He held them up for the man to see.

  Ironside stepped to O’Brien’s side and placed his strong right arm around him. “Time to go home, Colonel.”

  Shamus O’Brien didn’t hear. His eyes closed as he descended into darkness.

  Samuel walked a few steps behind as Ironside carried his father into the cabin. He did not take his eyes off his bloody hands . . . a sight he’d remember for the rest of his days.

  Chapter Nine

  “No, Miz Saraid, you must stay in bed,” Nellie said. “You don’t have your strength back yet.”

  Saraid eased back on the pillows, her newborn suckling at her breast. She smiled at the black girl. “Nellie, you’re an angel in a man’s mackinaw.”

  She turned her attention back to Ironside. “Tell me again, Luther.” Saraid looked exhausted, but her eyes were alive, shadowed with concern. “The truth now. How is my husband?”

  Ironside shuffled his feet, not knowing where to cast his gaze. Saraid sympathized with the man and his discomfort, but said nothing.

  “Well, ma’am,” he said, looking down at his feet, at the ceiling, anywhere but the bed, “the Colonel has a chunk of steel in him that I can’t get out.” He suddenly looked old, the lines of his face deepening, tight as drawn wires. “It’s buried deep and too near the spine, you understand.”

  “Oh, Miz Saraid,” Nellie said, burying her face in her hands.

  “What does it mean, Luther?” Saraid’s voice was calm, level, a fact that spoke of her inner strength.

  The man hesitated a few moments. “If the steel stays, the Colonel will get well again, or he won’t.”

  “Will the lance head move closer to his spine when he moves?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The wind talked low around the angles of the cabin, spreading sly lies to the falling snow and shivering trees.

  “What can we do, Luther?” Her voice was less calm, less certain.

  “There’s nothing to do except pray, I guess.”

  “Will you pray with me, Luther?”

  “Saraid, I’m not exactly on speaking terms with God, but if you think it will help, then I surely will.”

  Samuel stepped through the open door and Ironside forced a smile, pretending a confidence he didn’t feel. “How’s your pa, boy?”

  “Luther, he’s hot. I put my hand on his forehead and Pa’s real hot.”

  “Maybe I should damp down the fire,” Ironside said. “I’ll take a look.”

  But a different kind of fire burned inside Shamus O’Brien. It was five hours since he’d battled the Apaches and now he fought once more, in single combat against a raging fever.

  O’Brien was no longer in the New Mexico Territory. He’d returned to another place and time, as a boy again in a greener, more ancient land. He muttered, smiled, and laughed, bringing substance to memories as faded as mist.

  Despite Nellie’s protests, Saraid rose from bed, settled the baby, then stepped out of the bedroom and walked to the table where Ironside had laid out her husband. O’Brien lay on his right side so his wound wouldn’t come in contact with the rough timber.

  A glance told her that Ironside had indeed dug deep. The wound was raw and bloody, open and obscene, like the scarlet mouth of a painted whore.

  “Saraid, you get back to bed,” Ironside said. “There’s nothing you can do here.”

  The woman, aware of the milk that stained the front of her nightdress, pulled her shawl tighter around her. “My place is here, Luther, at my husband’s side.”

  “The baby—”

  “Is asleep. Nellie is with him.”

  Saraid touched O’Brien’s forehead with the back of her fingers. When she looked at Ironside her eyes were bleak. “Luther, Shamus is too hot. If we don’t get the fever down it could kill him.”

  O’Brien raved and jerked on the table, refighting an old, forgotten battle. “Sound retreat!” he muttered. “Cannon . . .” He shook his head. “Too strong . . . cannon . . . retreat . . .”

  Ironside listened intently. “I remember that fight. The Colonel was ordered to charge Union batteries, cavalry against cannon. We lost our whole brigade that day.”

  “Luther, now we have another battle to fight, and this one, we can’t afford to lose.” She touched her husband’s forehead again. “He’s burning up.”

  Ironside looked lost. “What do we do, Saraid?”

  “We must break the fever, quickly, before Shamus dies of it.”

  Ironside had nothing to offer but another question, so he kept his mouth shut, his eyes on Saraid’s face.

  “The creek,” she said. “And quickly.”

  Ironside’s troubled eyes asked the question that Saraid answered. “It’s the quickest way to break the fever, Luther.”

  “But it could kill him.”

  “I know. But if we do nothing, he’ll be dead by sunrise anyway.”

  The snow had stopped and the clouds had cleared, revealing a waxing moon that rode night herd on the stars. Patches of wind-drifted snow lay in places and the trees wore virginal mantles of frost. An opalescent light illuminated the way to the creek and beyond in the hills, silvered the coats of a pack of hunting wolves slipping through the pines like phantoms. The night air smelled sharp and of the hard winter.

  Shamus O’Brien was a big man and heavy, but Ironside carried him effortlessly. Even through his blanket mackinaw he felt the searing heat of O’Brien’s naked body. Beside him Saraid huddled in her husband’s army greatcoat and battered campaign hat, her feet shuffling along in a pair of oversized boots. She carried a folded blanket over her arm she would not wear. It was for Shamus.

  To her relief, the bodies of the dead Indians were gone, and their blood no lon
ger stained the ground. As was their custom, the Apaches had taken away their dead.

  Try as she might, she could not bring herself to hate the Apaches for what they’d done to her husband. They were a primal force of nature, like the wind or the falling snow, and she did not hate those. Even as she reached the creek, she thought of the Indian women grieving for dead sons on the very day her own son was born.

  Ironside stood by the icy bank and glanced at Saraid.

  The bottom of her nightdress was wet, and she shivered in the barbed cold.

  “Saraid, I think—”

  “Put him in the water, Luther. There”—she pointed to a runnel close to the bank—“where the creek runs deeper.”

  “You should be home, Saraid,” Ironside said.

  “Do it, Luther.”

  Gently, like a mother laying her baby in a bath, Ironside lowered O’Brien into the water. The creek ran fast and the icy flow cascaded over the big man’s head and body.

  Saraid kneeled and helped support her husband’s head and chest, making sure his mouth stayed above the surface and his wound did not contact the pebbled bottom of the creek.

  He cried out several times, but from the numbing cold of the water or in a dream, neither Saraid nor Ironside knew.

  Visible even in the darkness, the creek flowed pink over Ironside’s hands for a while as blood from O’Brien’s wound stained the water. Then it stopped as suddenly as it had begun.

  “Look at the Colonel,” Ironside said. “He’s white as bone.”

  “I know,” Saraid said. “But I don’t believe his fever has broken yet.”

  “Saraid, we’re killing him.”

  “A while longer, Luther. Just a while longer.”

  Suddenly Patrick opened up his lungs in the cabin, and Saraid felt the milk start in her breasts.

  Ironside looked at her, his face concerned. “Go to the baby. I’ll stay here with the Colonel.”

  Saraid shook her head. “The baby can wait for a while.”

  The wind had dropped, but it picked up again and rustled restlessly in the trees. One by one the stars winked out as clouds reclaimed the sky, then covered the moon. Snow flurries spun around Saraid and Ironside, and the cold night took on a sharper edge.