Shadow River

by Ralph Cotton

  The young soldier turned and raced away toward the line of horses where saddles were being thrown and cinched, bridles hitched and gear readied. As the young guard disappeared into the chaos of soldiers scrambling back and forth, Sam and Burke looked up at Roberto.

  “Gracias, Private Roberto,” Sam said.

  Roberto gave him a nod. Then his eyes cut quickly to Black, who still sat stunned by his close call with death.

  “Your hat is on fire,” Roberto said to him.

  “Jesus!” shouted Burke, snatching Black’s flaming hat from his head with his bound hands and pounding it against the ground. “You didn’t have enough damn sense to know your head was on fire?”

  “Go to hell, Clyde!” Black shouted in loud reply. “I thought I was dead!”

  Sam ignored the two, looking up at Roberto as he saw Sergeant Bolado and a column of men mounting their horses and falling into line.

  “Is that a good idea, Roberto?” he asked. “Them going off after the Apache in the middle of the night?”

  “I don’t know,” said Roberto. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying what if there’s other Apache just waiting out there? These prisoners get half the camp chasing them, and then the others ride in and kill everybody still here. Who’s going to keep that from happening?”

  The soldier’s expression stiffened with pride.

  “I and my fellow soldiers will defend the camp,” he said. “Do you not think us capable?”

  “I think you’re capable,” Sam said, realizing there was no point in discussing the matter. “I was just curious.” He and the other two would just have to be ready to make their move when the Apache hit. And he was certain they would hit most any time once the sergeant and his patrol were far enough out of camp. “Let me ask you something, Roberto,” he said. “Is the sergeant carrying my Colt?”

  “Sí, he is carrying the gun that he took from you,” Roberto said. “But I think it is not your gun anymore.” He gave Sam a sympathetic look. “I believe it is his gun now.”

  “I suppose you’re right, Roberto,” Sam said. “To the victor goes the spoils, I reckon.”

  “Sí, to the victor goes the spoils,” Roberto repeated with a friendly smile.

  Chapter 11

  When Sergeant Bolado led his patrol out of the camp and onto the desert, Roberto stood guard as Sam, Burke and Black looked down watching the dark shadowy figures head out across the rolling sand.

  Black still wore his sliced, and now burnt, hat, but held his sagging brim up with the tip of his finger as he watched the soldiers disappear out into the night. The smell of the burnt hat permeated the chilled night air, wafting into Sam’s and Burke’s faces as they stood beside Black.

  “I should have torn that hat to shreds when I had it in my hands,” Burke said in a sour tone. “It smells worse than a wet whore’s—”

  “Never you mind what it smells like,” Black said, cutting him short. “It’s my damn hat, and I’m wearing it. I’ll hear no more on the matter.” He deliberately removed his finger from under the brim and let it drop back down beneath his eyes. He stared at Burke.

  Burke chuffed and shook his head. Then he took a breath for patience’ sake.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll give you ten dollars to get rid of it.”

  “Have you got ten dollars?” Black asked.

  Burke replied, his voice getting a little louder as he spoke, “I will have, soon as we get to where it is we’re going—”

  “Both of you quiet down,” Sam said, watching with dread and concern as the patrol made its way deeper onto the desert floor. “Keep an eye out for anything moving toward us up here.”

  “If they don’t get back in time, we’ll be like tin ducks at a shooting gallery here,” Black said, returning to his lowered voice. He straightened his burnt and battered hat. He pushed the brim back up with his finger, now that Burke had stopped chastising him.

  “Don’t count on them coming back,” Burke said, also lowering his voice. He looked all around the campsite, its number reduced now by half. “These beaners had better hope they didn’t lend any of them any money.” He cackled a little into his cupped hand, muffling the sound of it.

  Sam looked at him, then gazed back out into the purple starlit night.

  “Stay ready,” he whispered sidelong to the other two. “They’ll be coming anytime.”

  Yet, as the night progressed and Sam kept watch, nothing stirred on the desert below or the hillsides above. Finally, as Sam rubbed his eyes and decided to take a break and leave Burke watching for a while, a hard barrage of rifle fire resounded from far out on the desert floor.

  “What do you think, Roberto?” Sam asked the guard as he ran up from the end of the rope line and stopped in front of the three prisoners. “Think the Apache ambushed them?”

  “No,” Roberto said. “I think the sergeant has ambushed the escaped prisoners.”

  Sam fell silent, but he didn’t share the young private’s optimism. As he watched the desert floor, far out on the dark horizon sparks streaked back and forth, followed by another hard volley of rifle fire. After the volley a silence set in, but only for a moment. Then came single rifle shots one after the other. Then dead silence.

  “Good, it is over,” said Roberto. He looked relieved. He turned and smiled triumphantly at Sam. “I told you so,” he said.

  Sam didn’t reply. He chose to wait and see what would happen next. He watched as Roberto walked back to the end of the rope line and sat down on a rock.

  “What do you think, Jones?” Burke asked. “Think we’ve misjudged these birds? Think the sergeant is tougher and smarter than we thought?”

  “I don’t know,” Sam said. “I’m staying ready anyway. If we’re wrong, I’ll celebrate.”

  “Me too,” said Burke. “Get yourself some shut-eye. I’ve got this covered.”

  The three sat down as one; Sam and Stanley Black stretched out on the ground with their blankets over them while Burke kept watch. But the two’s sleep was not long-lasting. The hour before dawn as the first silver-gold thread of sunlight mantled the eastern hill lines, Burke shook Sam and Black by their shoulders. They awakened to the sound of pounding horses’ hooves galloping up the trail into camp. Sam stiffened and started to jump to his feet.

  “Easy, Jones,” Burke said. “It’s the patrol coming back. Roberto told me the camp guards spotted them down there ten minutes ago. Said some of them are riding double.”

  Sam rubbed sleep from his eyes and looked all around in the purple-gray morning light.

  “You should have woken me sooner,” he said.

  “And I should’ve been born rich instead of so damn smart,” Burke said. He looked at Black and shook his head in contempt. “You’re just wearing that hat to aggravate me,” he said as the three rose to their feet as one. They stood watching, Roberto right beside them, as Sergeant Bolado and his men stepped down from their saddles. Two of his men had been riding double owing to the sergeant’s horse going lame and having to be shot. Two other men rode double, one leading his horse behind them, the bodies of two Apache draped over its back.

  While two soldiers came running to the sergeant leading three fresh horses, another soldier ran over to Roberto with an excited look on his face.

  “Sergeant Bolado’s patrol has killed two of the devil Apache in a deadly shoot-out!” he said. “They only return now to replace the sergeant’s lame horse.”

  Roberto beamed at Sam and the other two.

  “The devil Apache are no match for our Mexican army. Soon there will be no more Apache left in the Blood Mountain Range, perhaps not in the whole of Mexico.”

  Sam, Burke and Black just looked at one another.

  “The sergeant said to bring the prisoners to the horses and let them see what happens to those who try to escape.”

  �
��Go loosen the other end of the rope,” Roberto told the younger soldier.

  Burke gave Private Roberto a confident grin.

  “Don’t do all this on our account, Roberto,” he said. “We’ve seen plenty of dead ’pache in our time—”

  Private Roberto turned on him with a fiery look in his eyes.

  “Keep your mouth shut unless you are spoken to,” he snapped at Burke. “Do you realize the trouble I am in if I’m found consorting with prisoners? You must not cause me trouble.”

  “You’re right, Private,” Sam said, giving Burke and Black a disapproving look. “We’ll keep quiet.”

  The three shut up and stood waiting until the other guard took the rope behind them and another guard took the rope in front.

  “March,” Roberto commanded, moving forward alongside them, his rifle at port arms.

  Stopping at the place where the sergeant and his patrol were gathered, the three looked down at the dead Apache that had been pulled from the horse’s back and pitched in the dirt. Their bodies were riddled with bullets. Their scalps were missing. Sam saw the grizzly trophies hanging from the saddle horn of the horse Sergeant Bolado rode in on.

  The sergeant turned to them from a horse he’d saddled and inspected for the trail.

  “Take a good look, gringos,” he said. “This is what happens when you try to get away from me.” Although he spoke to the three of them, he purposely singled Sam out. “The army owns this desert.” He thumbed himself on his chest. “And I am the army,” he declared. “If you value your life, you will try nothing like this on our way to Fuerte Valor. Do I make myself clear to you?” As he spoke he stepped in close to Sam, again singling him out for a response.

  Sam stood almost nose-to-nose with the sergeant, not about to back off from such an aggressive gesture.

  “Yes, you’ve made yourself clear, Sergeant,” he said flatly. He wanted to ask what was going to happen if the Apache attacked the camp while Bolado and his patrol were out chasing the escaped prisoners. But he knew that asking would do no good. Anyway, he decided, maybe he’d been wrong. Maybe the Apache weren’t coming after all.

  “Good,” the sergeant said, still standing close. He said in a lowered voice just between the two of them, “When I am finished with the devil Apache, I will have you take me to where the gold is hidden, eh?”

  Sam didn’t reply. He only stood staring, not backing an inch.

  • • •

  As shadows began giving way to the glitter of daylight on the far hill line, Sam and the other two finished a breakfast of bear meat and coffee and shook out their blankets and rolled them to carry under their arms. It had been over an hour since Sergeant Bolado had led his patrol back out onto the desert to take up the chase of the escaped prisoners. Having seen the faces of the two dead warriors the patrol had brought back to camp, Sam realized that neither of the dead bloody faces belonged to the young brave that he’d given water to over a month ago.

  Good for him. . . .

  Sam gazed out across the wide desert floor, Burke and Black on either side of him. All around them, soldiers were busy, dismantling camp, saddling and readying horses for the trail and loading the cart and hitching the team of mules to it. The mules brayed and honked and sullied in place. The soldiers struggled with the stubborn animals, one pushing them forward with his shoulder to their rumps while another pulled on a rope around the mules’ muzzles. Soldiers loaded bloody canvas-wrapped bear meat onto the two-wheel mule-killer cart.

  “So, you were wrong, Jones,” Private Roberto said to Sam with a wide smile. He stood two feet back, his rifle at port arms as he spoke. “Do not feel foolish. I know there are many who discount our army. But not I. When the devil Apache vanished into the night, I knew they were not coming back to this camp. They know how loco it would be to try to—”

  His words seemed to melt away inside his mouth as a rifle shot exploded. Sam saw his head kick hard to the side, then bounce back. A pleasant yet surprised look came to his face in spite of the spray of blood that jetted out the other side of his head.

  “Holy Mama Amanda!” shouted Burke, the three of them dropping to the ground instantly. “They’re here! The sons a’ bitches have come after all!”

  “But where?” Sam shouted, looking all around as bullets zipped back and forth from both the hillside above them and the boulders and rock below.

  Mexican soldiers began falling where they stood, some without knowing what had hit them. Others, realizing they were being attacked, made for whatever cover they could find. As a fierce battle settled in and both sides staked out their firing positions, Sam grabbed the rifle that had fallen from Roberto Deluna’s dead hand. He checked and cocked it. Beside him, Burke reached out and snatched the dead private’s battle knife from its sheath and began slicing his and Black’s rawhide bindings.

  “Here,” he said to Sam. “Get you some of this.”

  Sam held his bound hands around and watched the knife’s sharp edge slide between them. He took a second to rub his wrists as rifle fire exploded back and forth just above their lowered heads. Burnt black smoke had already begun to loom and drift slow on the chilled morning air.

  “Let’s go,” Sam said, realizing that they were doing exactly what they had planned to do should the attack come. They dared not stand, even in a crouch during this early fast stage of battle. Instead they crawled out across the rocky ground toward the place where the horses stood off to the side of a large boulder that was providing them cover so far.

  Beside the boulder they rose into a crouch and raced across ten feet of open ground and ducked in among the frightened milling horses. The rifle fire had the animals panicked, and rightfully so. One of the army horses lay dead in a dark pool of blood from a ricocheted bullet. Another hapless animal stood bleeding from a graze across its hip. Luckily, Sam found both the dun and the white barb half-spooked but in good shape, jerking nervously on their tied reins, ready to go.

  “Easy, fellows,” he said to the horses, standing between them, rubbing their necks, settling them as the battle raged. He noted as he stood there how improbable it had been to crawl through all that gunfire and no one get so much as a scratch. But he had no time to marvel on it now. Burke had run to the end of the horse string and came back dragging three saddles across the dirt.

  “Throw these on and get the hell out of here,” he said to Sam and Black.

  Sam grabbed his saddle and pitched it over his dun’s back and cinched it. He untied both his horses’ reins from the rope line and started to back them and turn them toward a thin path leading up around the boulder. But then he stopped.

  “Wait,” he said suddenly. He stared off, searching all along the upper hillside above the water hole.

  “Wait?” Burke repeated incredulously, bullets zipping back and forth across the campsite. “Are you out of your mind, Jones?” he shouted.

  “Something’s wrong,” Sam said.

  Above the exploding rifle fire, Burke shouted, “I sure as hell won’t argue with that!” as if amazed at Sam’s curious behavior. He jerked around to Black. “Do you notice anything wrong here, Stanley?” he shouted. “Anything at all?”

  Black stood crouched, staring at him wide-eyed above his sagging hat brim.

  “Listen to him, Clyde,” he said to Burke. “Apache don’t act like this! There is something wrong here. I can’t say what it is right now, but something—”

  “Jesus, Stanley!” Burke said, cutting him off as he scrambled up into his saddle and backed his horse. “If it comes to you, write me a letter first chance you get.” He swung his horse and booted it toward the path up around the boulder.

  “Cover him,” Sam shouted, pitching Black the rifle. He gathered the reins to the white barb and began to climb atop the dun. But as he saw Burke’s horse reach the path and start up it, he saw a half dozen men in soiled white peasant shirts and straw sombre
ros descend out of the rock behind the boulder and fall upon Burke and take him, horse and all, to the ground.

  Sam saw machetes on the men’s waists, but he saw none being raised or put to use. He saw Black raise the dead private’s rifle to his shoulder and take aim. But he reached down and grabbed the rifle from the side just as it fired. The bullet sliced away wildly into the grainy morning sky.

  From the rock behind the boulder, a man jumped out wearing a dirty poncho, ammunition bandoliers crisscrossing his chest.

  “Do not shoot, Jones! Do not shoot. It is I, Marcos!”

  “Marcos . . . ?” Sam stared at him as the battle raged on the far side of the boulder. Marcos . . . ?

  “You sold me rifles for the revolution,” the man shouted as if hearing his questioning thoughts. “We have come to save you, mi amigo! We are your compañeros de armas!” He spread his hands, a French rifle in one of them.

  Brothers in arms . . . ? Sam translated.

  But suddenly a light of recognition came on for Sam as he looked the stout scar-faced Mexican up and down. He did not recognize the name, but he recognized the man, the voice, the striped poncho.

  “Don’t shoot, Stanley,” Sam said to Black. “He’s right, I know him.” Sam booted the dun over to the place where the rebel leader and his men stood out of the gunfire in the sheltering safety of the boulder. As he arrived, the rebels had lifted Burke to his feet and stood brushing him off. Behind Sam, Black rode up with his burnt and severed hat tugged down atop his head. The Mexicans looked curiously at Black, then at Sam as the battle continued.

  “Come, Jones, mi compañero de armas. Follow me,” said the stocky, scar-faced rebel leader. He turned quickly and moved on foot up the narrow path. Seeing him leave, Black needed no further encouragement. He booted his horse forward and up the path into the rocks behind him.

  “Want to tell me what the hell is going on here, Jones?” said Burke, his horse having risen onto its hooves, standing beside him shaking itself off. The rebels stood nearby gesturing for the three of them to hurry on up the path behind their leader, Marcos.