The impact and whir of the round took a shaft of skin from his scalp, and the Lion reared on the horse and looked back over his shoulder. He saw the speed of Ulysses and knew he couldn’t keep his prize. He cut the bind and threw May from the horse, hoping to gain enough speed to reach the southern hills.
It was the mistake and moment Toby needed. He reined up Ulysses, and as the Lion tried to attain speed again Toby took a long aim at the Lion’s broad back and fired.
The shot went low and hit the mare square in the ass, the round tumbling through the horse’s entrails, collapsing her convulsing body into the sand. She raised a mighty cloud of dust, throwing the Lion in a cartwheel along the ground head over heels three times before he landed in a clump of arms and legs twenty feet from his dying horse. The femur of his right leg had snapped and the bone emitted from the flesh, stretching the fabric of his pants. He drew his pistol from his waistband and raised the pistol to fire, but Toby and Ulysses went flying past him and Toby swung the rifle butt into his shoulder, sending the weapon fluttering away and throwing the Lion onto his back, the force of the blow separating the Lion’s shoulder and raising a revolting hump in his shirt beyond his right shoulder. The horse-driven force also sent the bone of his leg ripping through the fabric, and the white shard of bone broke the fabric like a shark’s fin breaks the surface of a calm ocean.
Toby reined up and dismounted in one move and stood twenty feet from the Lion.
The Lion crawled on his hand and good knee, dragging his broken body, grunting “Os” and “Um.” It was a language Toby had never heard, and as the Lion moved toward him, he hobbled like an injured lizard upon the ground. The Lion was completely bald except for a long gray ponytail that ran down the back of his neck. The top of his skull was traveled with a vicious bleeding wound from the shot, and the blood ran in rivulets about the old jagged scars that crowned his skull. Even on his hands and knees he was massive, his great bulk of chest and shoulders straining against the thin white cotton of his shirt.
Toby stared at him, and the Lion rose up on one knee ten feet from him and began to chant. Toby listened to the cadence and his memories went to May and the time they had snuck off to swim by the pool where the Criss bends sharp to the south. The water ran deep in that pool, so deep Toby had never touched its bottom, so deep it stayed cool in deep summer. He dreamed of May there by the pool and how her body would lay close to his as they warmed and dried in the sun. It was as he turned to face her in his dream that he heard May screaming. He climbed from his dream to see the White Lion hopping on one leg toward him. Toby lowered his rifle and squeezed the trigger, but he’d spent the last cartridge, and the weapon’s chamber was empty. He looked down at his weapon and then up, and the Lion was upon him, hopping at him like some great kangaroo slashing with a long knife that flashed in the sun. Toby swung the rifle at the broken leg and connected at the knee, causing the Lion to let out a great anguished cry. As the Lion fell, he slashed with the blade, sinking it into Toby’s left thigh, the wrenching flash of pain twisting Toby’s mind.
The Lion struggled to his feet again, relentless in his desire to kill the boy. Toby drew his pistol in an instant and put it to the Lion’s head and pulled the trigger, but all he heard was the sharp click of the hammer going home. He had spent all his rounds into the backs of the charging renegades during the battle and had not stopped to reload as Gabriel had taught him. The Lion reached for him, but Toby fell backward, the Lion’s blade sticking out of his thigh. The Lion fell with him, and Toby kicked him with his good leg at the hump sticking from his shoulder, and the Lion let out a moaning groan. Toby pulled the knife from his leg and crawled away backward, the Lion after him, moving clumsily along the ground with his one good leg and one good arm like a sidewinder. Toby kicked with his good leg at the hump of the Lion and slashed at the top of his head with the knife but could not pierce the bone of the skull, and on the Lion came, clawing at him with his left hand.
Toby kept crawling backward, kicking the hump and stabbing the head. He turned and crawled on all fours and leapt to his feet, hoping to reach the bandoliers on Ulysses, hopping on his good leg. He reached the stallion and pulled a single round from the bandolier stitched to the saddle. He could hear the Lion crawling toward him as he opened the chamber, the Lion spewing forth cries and words in that language he had never heard. Toby could sense him, the weight of his approach throbbing through the ground, the weight of his undecipherable oaths piercing the air like a wind. He went to seat the round into the chamber, but it was jammed with a clod of sand. He clawed at the chamber with his pinky nail and blew the dust from it until he cleared it enough to seat the round in the chamber.
The Lion grabbed Toby’s leg, sinking his fingers into the knife wound, and dragged Toby to the ground to strangle him with the power of his enormous left hand. Toby looked into the Lion’s eyes and put the barrel to his nose and cocked and dropped the hammer in one fluid motion. The White Lion raised his head for a moment toward the sun and rolled over dead upon Toby’s legs.
Toby pushed the Lion off him and looked around. He was a hundred yards from the old steps that led into the temple. He limped on his good leg and climbed the steps and entered the cave. He reached the back of the cave and saw a slit of sunlight radiating through the back wall. The shimmer illuminated the stone altars that decorated the cave. He looked out the slit and saw in the distance the great lake. Women were skinning hides along its banks on both sides, the blood swirling in currents of red that spun in the azure water of the lake. The blood flowed like a young woman’s parasol, circling and twisting to the heart of the lake. He looked to the far shore, and riding along the lake toward the temple were fifty warriors on horseback in war paint.
He turned to run and saw Miguel hiding in the shadows of the stone altar. He remembered the blue-black eyes of the boy he had tied to the tree. Miguel was holding a feathered wreath, which he held tightly to his chest. Toby walked to him.
The small boy turned his eyes up, and said, “Dios me ayude.”
Toby gripped his pistol by the end of the barrel and brought the butt of the handle down upon the soft crown of the child’s head, knocking the light from his eyes.
He climbed down the stone temple steps and saw May holding Ulysses. She was wearing the Lion’s cloth shirt and it lay in awkward folds upon her thin body. He looked at the Lion lying naked in the dust and saw that May had sunk the blade of his knife through the center of his back. He went to the Lion and there was no scalp to take so he removed the knife from his back and sliced off both his ears, putting them in the pocket of his riding jacket and gouged out his eyes with the tip of the blade as Raif had told him. Toby looked at the Lion’s pelt on the ground but mounted Ulysses, leaving the pelt in the sand. He swung May up onto the horse and spurred Ulysses.
He reached the company and reported to the colonel that fifty to a hundred riders were making their way from the southern hills, and they had less than an hour on them. The company mounted and headed up the valley. From atop the rise they looked out over the valley floor and could see the mounted war party milling in a great circle about the entrance to the cave where the Lion’s naked body lay. The colonel turned and said, “They’ll need to parlay to vote a new chief and that’ll buy some time,” but a moment later the war party was on the move again, headed north to the valley. The company took the cattle and horses and drove them hard to the northern rise of the valley.
At the very top of the pass Jed dismounted and took a position between two rocks, his silhouette hidden in the long shadow of a great boulder. He laid the long rifle upon the rock and took out the last fifteen shells that Drier’s shop had casted special for the long rifle, its stock still a glossy cherry wood with its hunters and prey bounding on it.
Raif came over to him and dropped a Winchester with twenty more rounds. The broken shaft of the arrow still stuck out from Raif’s shoulder; his arm was tied with a bandana to his chest in an awkward sling. “You need to buy us
no more than an hour or two; don’t go lett’n ’em get close. We’re gonna shit the steers so you hold ’em an hour. Don’t go gett’n caught up in it, you heed me?’ Raif warned him.
“This ain’t my first time at the rodeo, Raphael. You all get going and don’t forget to leave me good ponies and don’t you go pick’n any, Raif. Toby’ll do the pick’n of my mounts. This is perhaps not the best time for this, brother, but you never had no judgment when it come to horseflesh, if’n we’re gonna be honest about it,” Jed drawled.
Raif looked at Jed. “Buy us an hour or two and then ride hard.”
“You’re repeat’n yourself, brother, a habit you ain’t had for some time. I’ll see you at that witch of yours hut,” Jed spat out.
When the war party had ridden up into the valley the company had stampeded the steers down the pass and then rode off to put the Ash and the northern mountains between them and the renegades. Jed watched from the top of the valley as the company disappeared on the horizon, and the last time he had ever felt so alone was when they laid his folks in the earth. He returned to the crease in the rocks and watched the war party wind its way up the valley toward his position. He squeezed himself tighter into the rock overhang trying his best to be absorbed by the dark shadow cast by the boulder. He had a good sight down the valley. He put the rounds for the long rifle on a shelf of rock and placed his leather shooting patch under his elbow. He watched the warriors as they wound up the valley and deftly rode their war ponies around the stampeding herd. What a waste of good cattle, he thought. The stampede had slowed the war party, but they never stopped moving toward him, winding up the trail in a line of war ponies snaking to the top of the valley.
Jed aimed with the long rifle, and he sent the lead rider tumbling from his pony. He took aim at the next, and he too sprung up like a jack-in-the-box off the back of his horse. He could see in front of him the licks of dust as the warriors fired, but he knew he had the drop on them with the long rifle by a hundred yards, if not more. Jed sighted and fired, and two more fell from their stallions as the round went through the first and out a second warrior.
The rest dismounted, and he could see them making for the sides of the valley on foot. He looked through the long scope atop the rifle and spied the warriors moving in the low brushes to the east, and he fired at the leads. They stayed hidden in the bushes for about two hours, then without warning they started coming on again, running now in bursts of speed and then hunkering down behind anthills, mounds, or rocks, whatever defilade they could find. He aimed and sent another down, but he realized they were not stopping despite taking such losses. He had six rounds left for the long rifle. He prayed they’d hunker down again until nightfall and then move on him but on they came without regard for the long rifle. He fired the remaining six rounds but on they came despite the fallen in the trails. He raised the Winchester and fired but the round sailed past without hitting its mark, and he saw a puff of dirt fifty yards behind the warrior. The elevation was steeper than he reckoned and he feared he didn’t have the skill of the sharpshooter to figure angles of such height with the Winchester. He had driven them to move on foot, and he had bought some time, but they were still moving, and he couldn’t stop them with the Winchester from this position.
He looked five hundred yards down the valley, and he could see a single warrior leading thirty war ponies with a single tether up the valley. The other warriors were all on foot going around the sides to gain positions about his perch. He checked the Winchester again and lowered the yardage sight. He sighted it down the valley and spotted a warrior less than two hundred yards from him. He fired and the warrior spun in the trail and lumped over to the side. The shot sent twenty hidden in low bushes sprinting toward him, and he knew they were breaking for him between shots. He rattled off three errant shots, but the warriors did not pause. He knew they had figured out the company had left a single man behind to slow them down, and they were willing to take losses from a single gunman. He looked to the east, and saw the warriors gaining on that side, cresting up and out of sight from where he hid. He figured it weren’t more than a few minutes before they would be even with his position and come in from the flanks or maybe even behind him. He couldn’t see the ones on the far west side, and he knew he needed to get moving.
It wasn’t going as he had planned.
He fired into the warriors running the ridge to the east and missed badly, the angle from the side of the valley difficult to judge. The warriors looked to be at his elevation, but the distance and the slant of the sun had tricked his sighting. He fired and missed again. He turned to the warriors moving up the trail below him, and they were now near a hundred yards away. He could see the sweat glistening on their shoulders, the heaving of their chests as they trotted up the valley oblivious to the threat of instant death lurking above. He aimed in on the lead and dropped him in the trail. The warriors following vaulted over the fallen renegade, their bare feet continuing to pound up the steepening trail toward the rocks he hid among without so much as a pause to survey if the fallen still breathed. He aimed in again and saw the dirt spit up at the feet of the next warrior. He had missed, and he looked at his hands and saw they were shaking. He slung the Winchester and long rifle across his back and scrambled from the shadows; his dash sent a dozen rounds pinging about the boulders where he had sniped from. He ran to his horse and rode up the last rise of the valley. He descended down a short path out to the flat plain and raced across the dry plain toward the next mount he knew would be waiting for him at the crossroads south of the Ash Run.
He figured his next stand to be at the Ash; he would cross before they could enter the river’s current and he could ding ’em from the far side. He tried to fool himself into believing that maybe they wouldn’t even cross, but he spat and cursed himself for his foolishness. He knew the fanciful thinking was rising in tune with the steady flow of fear welling up in his chest. He rode the naggy pony hard knowing he’d have a fresh mount if he made it to the next rally point the company’d set for him. The warriors didn’t have a change of pony. Ten miles into the ride, though, his horse started to falter, and he reined up and looked behind him. Jed could see the dust clouds rising from thirty riders in the distance, the dust shimmering in the dying sun to the southeast.
He rode on and came to the old silver mines and descended the switchbacks gouged from the land and found his next mount tied to a rusting mine car. The company had left water in an old tin for the animal, and the pony didn’t look to be in such bad shape. He trusted Toby’s judgment. Slung across the mount’s neck was a bandolier with ten more rounds for the Winchester. He took a moment to study the warrior’s long rifle that he’d carried these past ten years before he hid it beneath the rusted flap of an old iron trough, lying to himself that he’d come back for it when they came back with cavalry and more riders and slaughtered the southern tribe. He traded the saddle from his spent pony as it licked feverishly at the small droplets of water at the bottom of the tin and mounted the fresh pony, spurring it up the old cutbacks on the far side. He passed the darkened shanty, which clung to the wall of the cliff like a spider. It rested near a great hole in the side of the rock where Jed’d heard tell a dozen miners were trapped for all time.
At the top of the ridge, he looked back over the mine and on the far side, the war party was descending the switchbacks he’d come down a half hour ago. They were gaining on him. He muttered to himself, “Goddamn sumbitches can ride.” He spurred the mount on and pushed for Ant Hill, a pioneer ghost town where every soul had disappeared some fifty years ago, not a trace left; every soul got up and left one day, leaving an empty town. It was there he’d find the next mount. He spurred the pony on and set it on a dead reckoning for Ant Hill. He crossed another dry plain and looked back when he reached the far shore of the ancient sea. The thirty were coming on him like an endless wave. He could see the war ponies bouncing like corks on the incoming tide of the hardpan, a relentless, seething bobbing. The harder he
drove the pony the more they gained on him; they came on like wraiths blown upon a dried field by a strong wind. He galloped into Ant Hill and saw what he feared most, the pony lay on its side kicking its rear leg in a last defying gesture at the man in black. He rode up to see the snake with its spine crushed in the middle from a hoof stomp. The horse’s leg bloated from the venom of the young viper. Jed looked down at the mount he was riding: its skin glistened with white froth and its breath rattled and labored out the sides of its mouth. He pulled its reins to the right to get a move on and felt that telltale sign, the momentary delay in obeying the reins. Jed knew the beast was spent, that it was asking you to reconsider your decision to ride for your life. The horse wanted to quit; it was ready to lie down and be eaten by the pack. Jed spurred the pony out of Ant Hill and toward the Ash Run, which lay a full score miles north.
Out on the hard pan again, he made decent time, and he and the pony reached a gait that he judged was about right where the pony wouldn’t quit, but when he got to the top of a short steep rise, the animal faltered and dropped, dying underneath him without so much as a gasp. The animal’s heart exploded in silence within the beast’s ribs from the last exertion. He ran to the top of the knoll and looked back and saw the war party still bobbing across the hard pan, riding horses that did not die, that had endless life, their pace always the same. He murmured to himself, “Damn, them sumbitches can ride.”
It was a mile to the Ash, and Jed started running. It was now he remembered his squabble with Luther. He had sassed Luther in front of a dozen spring hands, telling him he was a no-good drifter, freeloader, jack-off ass clown. Jed had fired his putdowns so rapid the dozen drifters started guffawing at the old man.
Angels of North County Page 26
