Blood and Gold

by Joseph A. West

  I watched the troopers dismount, all of them black men in the ragtag uniforms of the frontier army, no two of their sweat-stained campaign hats alike, each shaped to the wearer’s individual taste. Most wore the blue shirt and yellow-striped breeches of the horse soldier, but a few affected store-bought pants and all had brightly colored bandanas around their necks.

  To a man the men looked worn-out and hollow-eyed, but their weapons were clean and as they searched for wood to boil their coffee, their restless attention was constantly on the hills around them.

  These were first-class fighting men who had earned a reputation among the Apaches of being brave and tenacious enemies, no small accolade from Indians who were mighty warriors themselves.

  O’Hearn himself looked to be about sixty, but he was lean and hard, honed down to bone and muscle by constant campaigning and the harsh nature of the land itself.

  The soldiers shared their coffee with us, and while we drank, O’Hearn paid a great deal of attention to Lila. She was so beautiful that morning that when I looked at her, I felt pain as much as pleasure. Lila had a way of doing that to a man and when I was around her I found it hard to think straight.

  It was the captain’s voice that brought me back to reality. “Ma’am, I’m returning to Fort Griffin and I’d be happy to escort you and your father there until the Apache renegades are penned up.”

  Lila flashed her dazzling smile. “Thank you kindly, Captain,” she said. “But Pa and I are anxious to reach our farm while there is still time to plant a crop.”

  O’Hearn shook his hoary head. “Ma’am, I have a daughter your age, and I would tell her the same thing I’m telling you. It’s too dangerous for a woman to be out here. The Apaches have split up into a dozen different war bands and they have the whole country between here and the Brazos in turmoil.”

  He nodded his head to the south. “Yesterday they killed two men at a cabin over on Valley Creek and before that they hit a preacher and his family on the Concho. Killed five people, three of them children.”

  The officer looked from her pa to Lila. “I urge you, ma’am, to accompany us to the fort where you’ll be safe.”

  Lila was silent for a few moments, obviously weighing possibilities, but then shook her head, a tendril of raven black hair falling over her face. “Captain, Mr. Hannah assures us we can reach our farm in a couple of days. I really do wish to press onward.”

  The soldier shrugged, a helpless gesture. He turned to Ned. “And you, Mr. Tryon? What do you think?”

  Ned looked exhausted and suddenly old. “My daughter has a mind of her own, Captain. I’ll do as she says.”

  O’Hearn studied Ned closely, taking in his haggard appearance and bloodshot eyes and drew his own conclusions. “Then God help you,” he said. His shrewd blue eyes turned to me, judging me, sizing me up from the scuffed toes of my boots to the top of my hat. “Now it’s all up to you, Mr. Hannah, I think.”

  I nodded, drawing a breath from deep in my chest. “Once we cross the Brazos we’ll be safe. My ranch is down there.” I tried a smile. “We’ll get it done.”

  “Well, maybe so,” O’Hearn said, unconvinced. He drained his cup and turned to the sergeant. “Mount ’em up, Sergeant Wilson.”

  The soldiers threw the dregs of the coffee onto the fire and swung into the saddle.

  Captain O’Hearn looked down at Lila and touched his hat brim. “One last time, ma’am, I beg you to reconsider.”

  “I’ll be fine, Captain, but thank you so much for your concern.”

  The soldier seemed to realize that any further attempt at persuasion was useless. He waved his men forward and the troop clattered past us, their accoutrements jingling loud in the morning silence.

  After the soldiers disappeared from sight a deeper silence descended on the valley, and the heat of the sun did little to warm me.

  Without a word to Lila, I went back up the hill and retrieved my horse. By the time I caught up with the wagon the day was brightening to noon and the sky was swept clear of clouds. As I surrendered the black to Lila, a hawk circled high above me, then glided off on still wings to the north only to dive with tremendous speed at something crawling in the grass.

  A little death had just occurred, but it was one among many, and the sky and the sun and the listening hills seemed none the poorer for it.

  We traveled through the growing heat of the day under a smoldering sun and saw no sign of Apaches. But I knew they were out there sure enough, moving through the vast land that had swallowed them, making no sound, gliding like vengeful ghosts.

  I walked beside the oxen, my rifle across my chest, knowing I had no hand in the course of future events, but must wait for whatever happened to come to me.

  It was a perilous situation that did little to settle a man’s mind and I felt exposed and mighty vulnerable.

  That night we made a cold camp in a thicket of mesquite and shared a poor supper of the peppermint balls I’d bought at Doan’s store.

  Later, after Lila and her pa had sought their blankets, restless, I took up my rifle and scouted around the camp. Above me, in the dark purple heavens, a sickle moon was reaping the stars and a rising wind whispered warnings in my ear in a language I could not understand.

  I climbed a small hill above the camp that rose to its crest in a series of narrow benches. Once at the top, I stayed there, listening to the silence that suddenly stirred below me.

  Carefully, I descended the other slope of the hill, then froze when I heard a hoof click on a rock. My eyes slowly penetrated the gloom and I saw a huge, shaggy shape walk along the sandy bed of a wash, every now and then stopping to dip its bearded muzzle into a shallow pool where the rain had gathered.

  Even in the uncertain moonlight, there was no mistaking the humpbacked shape of an enormous buffalo bull. The animal lifted his head, caught my scent and, his eyes rolling white in panic, he galloped along the wash and disappeared into the darkness.

  The bull must have been among the last of his kind and his survival was nothing short of a miracle. Miracles are not for men who believe, but for those who disbelieve. And right then, with all the puncher’s inborn superstition, I was willing to believe that the buffalo was a sign Lila and me and her pa would also survive.

  Thus reassured, though I knew in my heart of hearts that I was surely clutching at a straw, I returned to the camp where the others were asleep. I caught up my blanket and drew a little ways off, settling my back against a boulder that jutted from the earth among a few post oak. I wrapped the blanket around me and forced myself to stay awake.

  I thought about Lila Tryon and the way she looked and the way she looked at me.

  Was I falling in love with her?

  That was unlikely, on account of how I planned to very soon marry pretty Sally Coleman.

  But Sally giggled!

  The single memory of that high-pitched, undulating tee-hee giggle cut through all the rest like a knife.

  Could I wed a gal with a giggle like that?

  Once, it was only a few months ago but seemed like a lifetime, I’d thought her giggle a darlin’ thing and when I heard it my breath would ball up in my throat and I’d go weak at the knees.

  Now, remembering, I realized it wasn’t so cute, but kind of little-girly and immature.

  Lila didn’t giggle. She had a good, outright, white-toothed laugh that chimed like a silver bell.

  Ashamed of myself for my treachery, I put both women out of my mind, forcing myself to concentrate on what was happening around me, and the soft sounds stirring amid the gathering night.

  Ned Tryon tossed in his blankets and cried out in his sleep and a coyote yipped in the distance and once I heard, or imagined I heard, a far-off rifle shot.

  The wind gusted over the buffalo grass, bending it this way and that, setting the leaves of the post oaks to fluttering. Shivering, I drew my blanket closer around me, worrying over that rifle shot, if that’s what it was.

  One way or another, I reckoned it
was going to be a long night. . . .

  I woke with a start as the darkness died around me, probing fingers of dawn light forcing open my eyes.

  I stood, stiff and weary, and studied the land around me. The plains and sentinel hills lay still, bathed in brightness from broken clouds that looked like someone had dipped a giant brush in gold paint and stippled them across the vast blue canvas of the sky.

  Many people believe the sky is a thing separate from the earth, but it’s not—it’s part of it. And soon we’d be traveling, not under its arching canopy, but through it, golden light stretching out all around us.

  Last night I’d feared to build a fire, but now, wishful for coffee, I gathered a few sticks of dry wood from the hillside, then filled the pot from the wash, where I’d seen the buffalo.

  The fire I kept small, just enough to boil the coffee, and when it was done I poured a cup for Lila and brought it to her. The girl woke and smiled at me and I felt my heart thud in my chest. Lila took the coffee gratefully, handling the hot tin cup with care.

  I poured coffee for myself, squatted beside her and built a smoke. I thumbed a match into flame and lit the cigarette.

  “We should wake Pa,” Lila said.

  I nodded. “Soon. He had a pretty restless night, crying out in his sleep an’ all. I reckon we’ll let him rest for a few more minutes.”

  Lila glanced over at her sleeping father. “He’ll be just fine when we reach our farm,” she said, a wistfulness touching her voice. She looked at me, almost challenging me to say different. “I know he will.”

  Me, I let it go. I’d said all I needed to say on the subject of Ned Tryon and I’d no call to speak further. Deflecting any possible questions, I said: “I reckon we’ll cross the Brazos tomorrow about twelve miles north of Round Timbers. Before then we’ll reach the headwaters of the Little Wichita and then Deepwater Creek.” I drew deep on my cigarette. “It’s good country down there, plenty of grass and wood.”

  Lila picked up her cup gingerly, holding it with her thumb and forefinger by the rim. “The farm has been my dream and Pa’s dream for months,” she said. “I can hardly believe it soon will come true.”

  I tossed away my cold cigarette butt. “Best we get moving,” I said.

  Thirty minutes later we took to the trail again, but this time I rode the black, scouting just ahead of the wagon.

  The sun was straight above my head and the day was warm when the three riders came.

  And there was no mistaking the huge, yellow-haired man who rode grimly at their head, a scoped rifle across the horn of his saddle.

  It was Lafe Wingo.

  Chapter 13

  Wingo rode my paint, and he sat upright in the saddle, heavy-shouldered, his bold blue eyes taking in everything, missing nothing. He wore a soft, thigh-length buckskin shirt decorated with Cheyenne beadwork and gray pants tucked into expensive boots. The tooled gun belt around his waist carried a long barreled Colt with ivory handles and he affected the elegant mustache and Imperial worn by many Texas gunmen of the period. Wingo wore a silver necklace made of disks decorated with blue stones in the Navaho manner and his thick wrists were adorned with wide, hammered silver bracelets. A gold ring with a green gem glittered on the little finger of his left hand.

  He looked well-nourished and sleek, a man used to the best bonded whiskey, fine cigars and beautiful women.

  Cold-blooded murder paid well, though I could understand why a man with his expensive tastes would need the thirty thousand dollars he’d been so willing to kill to acquire.

  Gold and blood. The two so often went together, all summed up in this one killer.

  Lafe Wingo reined up when he was a few yards from me, looked me up and down, and I saw his lips curl as he mentally dismissed me as no danger.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” he asked, the challenge in his voice unmistakable. “You’re way off your range, ain’t you, puncher?”

  I wanted badly to kill this man, but he had moved the muzzle of his rifle so it was pointing right at my belly. I could shuck a gun fast, but all Wingo had to do was twitch his trigger finger and I was a dead man. The odds were against me and right now all I could do was bide my time.

  Behind Wingo a tall man in a black shirt and cowhide vest sat bent over in the saddle. I couldn’t see his face but the bottom half of his shirt was dark with crusted blood and I heard him groan in pain.

  Beside the wounded outlaw rode a tall, red-bearded man with thick, untamed eyebrows and penetrating black eyes. He carried a Colt in a cross-draw holster, and unlike Wingo, this man wasn’t underestimating me. His careful eyes watched me like a hawk on the prod and right there and then I decided this man could be even more dangerous than Wingo.

  The blond gunman was waiting for my answer, so I swallowed my anger and jerked a thumb over my shoulder, playing the green puncher to the hilt. “Name’s Dusty Hannah and I’m escorting a wagon down to the Brazos country.”

  Wingo was suddenly interested. “Wagon? What kind of wagon?”

  I shrugged. “Four-wheeled farm wagon hauled by a team of oxen.”

  Wingo nodded. “They call me Lafe Wingo.” He paused, shrewd eyes boring into mine. “Mean anything to you, boy?”

  I shook my head at him. “No. Should it?”

  The realization came to me then that Wingo, with the hired killer’s total disregard for his victims, didn’t recognize me. He had shot me at a distance, then up close had kicked me in the ribs, but to him I’d been another faceless, nameless nonentity who’d fallen to his gun.

  “My name means much to many people in many places,” Wingo said, his gunman’s pride wounded. “I guess you’ve led a sheltered life.”

  He nodded to the man slumped in the saddle. “This here is Hank Owens. He’s gut-shot and I don’t expect him to live.” He jutted his chin toward the bearded man. “That’s his brother Ezra. We had a run-in with Apaches last night and Hank was gut-shot and Charlie, another brother, was killed.”

  Alone among Indians, Apaches usually chose not to fight at night, believing that a warrior unfortunate enough to get killed must wander for all eternity in darkness. But the Apache is notional, and he’ll fight in the dark if put to it, especially if he senses an advantage.

  My life depended on me playing the part of the innocent young puncher, so I looked at Ezra and said: “I’m mighty sorry about your brother, mister.”

  The man shrugged, his black eyes unreadable. “Charlie was all right. Had him a limp and he talked too much was all.”

  Hank Owens groaned. He lifted his head and looked at Wingo. “Lafe, you got to get me to a doctor. My belly’s on fire.”

  Wingo turned to the man and smiled. “We got a wagon for you to ride in, Hank. I reckon we can make you right comfortable.”

  “Where are you headed?” I said, knowing what the answer would be as soon as I asked the question.

  “Why, where you’re headed, boy. I guess the Brazos country is as good as anyplace else and we may need an extry rifle before we’re done,” Wingo answered. He smiled, his eyes mean. “That is, if you can hit anything with a rifle.”

  “I do all right,” I said, refusing to be baited. My eyes slid to my saddlebags slung behind Wingo’s blanket roll and the man, missing nothing, demanded suspiciously: “You got something stuck in your craw, boy? If you do, spit it out.”

  I shook my head at him. “No, I was just admiring your paint. Nice pony.”

  Wingo’s suspicions were not laid to rest. “You mind your business, boy,” he said. “That is, if you want to keep on breathing.”

  Lafe Wingo was a trouble-hunting man and right now he held all the aces, so I bit my tongue and said nothing.

  Figuring he’d intimidated me enough, the gunman asked: “Where’s your wagon?”

  “Back along the trail a ways,” I answered.

  Wingo nodded. “Let’s go.”

  With me leading the way, we rode up on the wagon a few minutes later.

  Wingo’s eyes immediate
ly moved to Ned Tryon and, with the skilled gunman’s sharp perception, saw him for what he was and dismissed him with a disdainful curl of his lip.

  Not so with Lila.

  She had removed her cloak and the shameless wind was busily molding her dress to her legs and the womanly curves of her slender body. Her hair was tied back in a pink ribbon and her large, expressive eyes, when she looked at Wingo, revealed an odd mix of alarm and fascination.

  For his part, Wingo leaned forward in the saddle and grinned. “Well, well, what have we here?” He brushed his sweeping mustache with the back of his finger and asked, his voice silky: “What’s your name, pretty lady?”

  Something akin to jealousy flared in me. I didn’t want Lila speaking to this man, so before she could answer, I said: “This is Lila Tryon and her pa over there is Ned.” Then without really knowing why, I added: “They’re farmers.”

  Wingo reared back in the saddle and let out a loud guffaw, and even Ezra’s grim mouth stretched slightly in a grudging smile.

  “An’ I’m the king o’ Prussia,” Wingo roared. He nodded toward Ned. “Him, just maybe.” His hot, eager eyes moved to Lila. “But little lady, a fine-looking gal like you was never meant to walk a furrow behind a mule’s butt.”

  The blond gunman’s insolent, experienced gaze slowly took in Lila from the top of her head to her shoes. I could tell he was undressing her in his mind as he went, stripping her naked garment by garment, anticipating.

  And Lila felt it.

  Her cheeks flushed and she snapped: “Nevertheless, my father and I are farmers and we can think of nothing we’d rather do than plow our own land.”

  Wingo nodded, his smile slipped and his face hardened. “I prophesy before we reach the Brazos I’ll make you change your mind on that score.”

  Lila opened her mouth to speak, but Ned surprised me. “You let my daughter be, mister,” he said, taking a step closer to Wingo, his fists clenched. “She’s young and she doesn’t yet understand the ways of the world.”