Lawless Trail

by Ralph Cotton

  “That a boy,” Kelso said, easing forward the last fifteen feet, his Colt still hanging in his right hand. He knew how much he needed the horse to get across mile after mile of rocky hills and long stretches of desert between here and Agua Fría. “Easy now, ole pal of mine . . . ,” he whispered, taking the last few steps. “You know I wouldn’t hurt you for the world.”

  The horse stood still, blowing and staring at him until Kelso got close enough to reach out for the dangling reins. But just as he made a grab for the reins, the bay spun sharply, bolted off twenty yards, stopped again and seemed to jeer at him.

  “You lousy son of a—” Kelso gritted his teeth, jerked his Colt up and fired again before he could stop himself. Because he was weakened and winded, the impact of the shot knocked him off his feet. As the bay turned and loped away from the sound of the shot, Kelso staggered to his feet and bolted after it, weaving, screaming, cursing both the horse and himself. He fired another wild, reckless round as he ran. Again the gun’s impact knocked him to the ground.

  For a half mile the bay continued to play its mindless stop-and-go game with him. Kelso, falling with every shot fired, was gasping for breath and so engrossed in catching the horse, he neither saw nor heard the four unshod Indian ponies and their riders bound up behind him and sit watching him curiously from forty feet away. Still cursing the bay, Kelso staggered in place, winded and sweat-soaked, his mind bordering between sunstroke and hysteria.

  “I’ve . . . got . . . you . . . now . . . ,” he said, his breath heaving in his chest. He shoved fresh rounds into his Colt with shaking hands while the horse stood fifteen feet away, scraping its hoof on the arid sandy ground. “You . . . rotten . . . dirty . . . no good . . .” Kelso panted and wheezed and struggled to catch his breath as he finished reloading, lifted the heavy revolver with both hands and took aim.

  On one of the Indian ponies behind him, a young Apache brave named Luka looked at an older warrior, Wallace Bad Man Gomez.

  “This one shoots at his own horse . . . ?” Luca whispered sidelong to the older warrior.

  Without taking his dark eyes off of the staggering, cursing white man in front of them, Gomez nodded his head and laid his hand on the stock of an old short-barreled flintlock rifle lying across his lap.

  “I have seen them do even worse,” he replied, referring to his days as scout for U.S. Cavalry’s desert campaign. He stared intently at the staggering, cursing white man. “And they wonder why we want to kill them.”

  The others grunted in agreement.

  Kelso, with his revolver cocked and ready, finally steadied himself and smiled a dry lip-cracking smile.

  “I’ve got you now, you run-off son of a bitch,” he murmured to himself. He started to squeeze the trigger; but he stopped and clenched both hands tight on the gun butt as a searing pain sliced through his back. The Colt’s barrel tipped upward, and fired a blue-orange streak into the sky. Kelso staggered in place but remained upright. His eyes widened as he saw an arrow shaft suddenly sticking out of his chest, its chiseled stone point smeared red with his blood. His left hand turned loose of his Colt and felt the tip of the arrowhead as if to make sure it was real.

  Oh no! Damn it . . . ! Kelso said to himself. No sooner had he realized that an arrow was stuck through him than another bloody arrow head appeared beside the first as if to reinforce his findings. “All day it’s . . . been like this . . . ,” he gasped to himself. Behind him he heard his bay’s hooves pounding away across the desert flatland.

  Son of a bitch . . .

  He turned to face the four Apache, his gun still up in his right hand, but weaving unsteadily. One of the arrows through his back had sliced one of his wide suspender straps. The strap flew loose so fast, it caused the other strap to fall off his shoulder. As he’d turned, his low-slung gun belt and loose trousers fell down around his boots. He faced the Apache in his dirty long-johns as a third arrow whistled in and sliced deep into his chest.

  Kelso grunted with the impact of the arrow; his Colt fell from his hand. Scrambling, he managed to stoop down for the gun as he saw one of the Indians come charging toward him. He grabbed the gun and stood just in time to see pony and rider streak past him in a roil of sand. He felt a strong hand lift his hair, hat and all atop his head, and in the next second, the rider was gone, swinging his pony in a short, tight circle, letting out a war whoop.

  Kelso turned and stared, feeling a dark, sharp burning across the top of his exposed head. He caught a glimpse of his hat brim fluttering to the ground a few feet away.

  “Oh . . . my God,” he said, his gun hand falling to his side, dropping the Colt to the ground. “I’ve been ruint.” He stared in disbelief at the young warrior whooping and shouting, waving the crown of Kelso’s hat back and forth in his hand—Kelso’s hair and bloody skin hanging beneath it. Staring at his own stringy hair clasped in the warrior’s hand, Kelso sank straight down to his knees; then he flopped forward onto his face in the hot, sandy dirt.

  As the Apache sat their horses above Kelso, the older warrior, Gomez, saw one of the young warriors raise a battered French Gruen rifle to his shoulder and take aim on the center of Kelso’s bloody back. He held up a hand toward the warrior, stopping him.

  “Let this fool’s shots be the last ones heard,” he said. He shook his head in disgust. “Even his horse deserts him.” He looked all around as he turned his horse and gestured for the others to do the same. The young warrior Luka held Kelso’s bloody scalp and stringy hair out for the others to see.

  “A good day for one of us is a good day for all of us,” he said proudly. The warriors and their horses fell in alongside Gomez and rode away abreast, out across the flatlands.

  In the preceding silence, two hours passed before Kelso opened his bleary eyes at the feel of the horse’s hot, wet muzzle nudging the side of his neck. A layer of dust had gathered on the top of his raw, bloody skull. In a weakened state, as he tried to push himself up from the ground, he felt the dried blood and the points of the two ground-stuck arrows reluctant to turn him loose. Yet, as his memory returned to him through a fiery painful haze, he managed to struggle upward onto his haunches and look at the bay, who stood staring at him.

  “I’ll kill you . . . for this . . . ,” he said painfully, reaching all around on the dirt for his Colt.

  The bay only chuffed and blew and shook out its mane, as if taunting the man for the sudden loss of his hair. Kelso, realizing the Apache had taken both his handgun and rifle, gave a deep sigh and pulled himself up on the bay’s front leg and leaned against its side. The horse stood quietly.

  “I don’t know . . . what else can . . . befall a man . . . ,” he groaned, seeing the brim of his hat and its sliced-off crown lying in the dirt at his feet. He stooped, picked up the brim and pulled it carefully down over his raw-scalped head, drawing the string taught under his chin. He crawled up the horse’s side. “I’m killing you . . . first chance I get,” he whispered to the bay. Righting himself in his saddle as best he could with arrows still sticking through him, he managed to turn the horse and ride away.