Blood and Gold

by Joseph A. West

  “Now damn you!” I yelled at Ned.

  The man finally realized how desperate things were and his left foot smacked into the stirrup. I spurred the black and, Ned grimly hanging on to the saddle horn, took off after the others. Behind me I heard Hank scream in terror and scream again, shrieking, shattering screeches that scraped my strung-out nerves raw.

  After about a hundred yards I turned, looking for pursuers. But the Apaches were milling around the wagon, yipping war cries, intent only on Hank.

  I had no regard for killers like Hank Owens, but I couldn’t ignore the fact that he was about to die a hideous, agonizing death. Even though gut-shot, his dying would not come quickly or easily. The Apaches knew well how to keep a man alive, the better to prolong the torments they inflicted on him. Hank would last many long, suffering hours, and in the end, he’d curse Lafe Wingo, curse God and curse the day he was born and the father who sired him and the mother who bore him.

  His only hope was that he’d die out of his mind, no longer capable of understanding his appalling reality, and so travel beyond the reach of the Apaches.

  Wingo had been right though, heartless as it was. His sacrifice of Hank had bought us time. The question was: Had he bought us enough?

  As I rode in the dust of Wingo and Ezra Owens, I had no answer to that question.

  I’ve been told that small worries cast big shadows, but what was facing me now was no small worry and uppermost in my mind wasn’t Simon Prather’s money or Lafe Wingo. It was all Lila, and that surprised me.

  I slowed the black to a walk and Ned stepped down. Ahead of us, Wingo and Ezra had done the same, and I saw their heads swivel this way and that as they hunted for any kind of cover.

  They found it a few minutes later, an abandoned wagon lying tipped on its side about fifty yards off the trail. Beyond the wagon ran a creek, maybe twenty feet wide with steep banks, a single cottonwood spreading leafy branches over twelve inches or so of sluggish water. Some curly mesquite grew quite close to the creek and here and there catclaw peeped from the buffalo grass.

  Wingo and Ezra dismounted and took positions with their rifles at either end of the wagon. As Ned and I got closer, Lila came out from behind the wagon and stepped toward us.

  She looked at Ned, the afternoon light harshly revealing the sunken planes of his unshaven cheeks and the dark circles under his sagging eyes.

  “Pa,” she asked, “are you all right?”

  The man nodded. “I just need to rest for a while.”

  I swung down from the saddle and followed Lila and her pa to the wagon. Then I ground tied the black and slid the rifle from the boot.

  “Boy, you keep watch behind us,” Wingo yelled. “I don’t want them Apaches coming at us across the damned creek.”

  “They got Hank,” I said. I was telling Wingo something he already knew, but I was determined to leave the outlaw at least that three-word epitaph.

  “The hell with him,” Wingo said, leaving him quite another.

  The big gunman seemed to have forgotten about killing me, at least for now. Judging by the tenseness in his jaw and the way his knuckles showed white on the stock of his rifle, I figured the Apaches were his more urgent concern.

  I took up a position near the creekbank, keeping the cottonwood to my left, and glanced around. The ashes of a fire lay in a circle near the bank and a battered coffeepot and a man’s flat-crowned hat were half-hidden in the grass.

  It looked like the teamster who had driven this wagon had been attacked by Apaches only a couple of days before. I had no doubt they’d killed the man, but a scattering of shiny brass cartridge cases around the wagon showed where he’d made a good fight of it.

  Just the previous spring, having all the confidence of the young, I figured that life was forever. But now, as the hours ticked slowly toward late afternoon, I had the uneasy feeling that maybe I wasn’t as immortal as I’d thought.

  Unbidden, the thought came into my mind: Dusty, if Wingo doesn’t get you, the Apaches will.

  I realized that I was in one hell of a fix and that realization brought me no comfort.

  Over by the wagon, Wingo yelled at Lila: “Girl, see if you can find some wood or maybe some dry cow chips. We’re going to need coffee.”

  “Lafe, you think that’s wise?” Ezra asked, his face strained, thin mouth pinched. “I mean the smoke.”

  Wingo slowly shook his head, acting like he was feeling more sorrow than anger. “Ezra,” he said, real slow, “don’t you think the Apaches already know exactly where we are?”

  A dawning realization crossed the man’s face and he gulped. “Yeah, you’re right. I guess they do.” Ezra’s eyes scanned the empty land around him. “I’m jumpy, is all. It’s this damned waiting that’s getting to me.”

  “Me too,” Wingo said, his tongue running over his cracked lips. “It’s like I keep hearing footsteps.”

  Although Lafe Wingo and Ezra Owens were experienced fighting men and possessed courage of a sort, theirs was the kind of bravery suited to short, explosive moments of action, the now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t daring of the typical frontier gunman.

  This kind of taut waiting, while a man chewed on his heart and his belly was all balled up in a knot, required a quieter, more enduring courage that neither Ezra nor Wingo seemed to possess.

  Did I?

  I couldn’t even guess. I knew I was scared, so only time and events would provide the answer.

  A long-handled shovel lay near the wagon and I used it to dig myself a shallow rifle pit. Then Wingo and Owens took their cue from me and did the same.

  The three of us were as prepared as we were ever going to be, and the next move was up to the Apaches.

  The day was shading into a cool, blue-shadowed twilight under a burnished sky the color of Black Hills gold when the warriors attacked. They came at us from two directions, one party of eight men charging directly toward me, intent on crossing the creek, the others concentrating on Wingo and Ezra.

  Ignoring what was going on behind me, I fixed my attention on the task at hand. I fired at the Apache in the lead. Too fast. A clean miss. Taking a deep breath, I forced myself to slow down and fired at the man again. Another miss. The Apaches were closer now, riding hell-for-leather.

  I got up on one knee, levered a round into the chamber, fired, and a man went down. I fired again. Another hit, though this warrior just swung out of the charge, blood staining the front of his shirt, and loped back in the direction he’d come.

  Behind me I heard the constant crash of rifles as Wingo and Ezra fired. I jumped out of the trench and gave ground, bullets kicking up dust at my feet. The Apaches reached the creek and began to mill around, bunching together as they slowed their ponies to make the steep descent into the sandy streambed. I threw down the Winchester, shucked my Colt and hammered three fast shots into the clustered horsemen.

  Two men went down, one of them screaming, and I emptied the Colt into the rest, as far as I could tell, scoring no other hits.

  But it was enough.

  No Indians, not even Apaches, will take casualties like that without pulling back to lick their wounds and talk things over. The warriors swung their horses around and loped away. I grabbed the Winchester, sighted on a trailing Apache and pulled the trigger. Click! I had hosed the rifle dry.

  A bullet fired from somewhere well beyond the creek slammed into the dirt inches from my right bootheel as I fed shells into the Winchester. I looked around for a target, saw nothing and stepped over to the wagon.

  The Apaches were gone, but three of them lay stretched out on the ground, short, wiry men in faded Spanish shirts and wide blue and red headbands.

  I’d often spoken to old soldiers who’d fought in the War Between the States and as I stood and surveyed the carnage around me, I recollected one of them saying that the generals on both sides never did learn the folly of attacking entrenched infantry with light cavalry.

  The Apaches had made that same mistake, and judging by the
number of their dead, I’d say they’d paid dearly for it.

  Wingo and Ezra had killed three, and I had downed three and wounded at least one other. The Apaches, always few in number, could ill afford a butcher’s bill of that magnitude.

  I stepped past Wingo and Ezra, their faces streaked black with powder smoke, and went to Lila who was huddled behind the wagon, her pa’s head in her arms.

  “Was he hit?” I asked, kneeling beside her.

  Ned looked at me and managed a weak smile. “A bullet burned across the back of my head,” he said. He reached behind him, probing for the wound and when his hand appeared again it was bloody.

  Lila rose to her feet. “Pa, I’ll get some water from the creek and bathe your head.”

  “Better let me do that, Lila,” I said. “There are dead men over there.”

  The girl nodded gratefully, but as I turned to leave, she stopped me and threw herself into my arms. “Dusty,” she whispered, “thank God you’re all right.”

  I tilted up her chin with a forefinger and her lips parted, her eyes suddenly hungry. I kissed her then, hard and long, and when my lips finally left hers I said: “And I’m glad you’re all right too.” Then with a husky voice, and battling to understand my feelings for her, I added: “I better get that water.”

  As I walked past Wingo, the man’s eyes followed me, a burning, barely subdued rage flushing his face.

  The gunman wanted Lila, and he’d kill to get her. But I was prepared to fight to keep her, so as I filled my canteen from the creek, I figured that at least for right now, things were pretty much balanced out on that score.

  I handed Lila the canteen and stepped beside Wingo and Owens.

  “Shouldn’t we ride on out of here, Lafe?” Ezra was asking. “Seems to me we whipped them real good.”

  Wingo nodded. “We whipped them all right, but they might be back. We stay right where we are until sunup. If we leave now and they catch us out in the open, we’re dead men.”

  Wingo turned to me. “You, boy, rustle us up some grub and see to more coffee. It’s going to be a long night.”

  Wingo was right on that score—because an hour later, just as dark was falling and the first sentinel stars appeared, Hank Owens began to scream.

  Chapter 17

  Hank’s agonized shrieks echoed out of the darkness, screech after shrill screech scarring the tremulous night, spiking into our ears like sharp shards of broken glass.

  Lila put her hands to her mouth and her eyes widened in shock and fear.

  Ezra Owens had gone very pale, his lips bloodless, and even Wingo looked green around the gills, with his rifle clutched close to his chest and his troubled gaze desperately trying to penetrate the gloom.

  There came a fleeting moment of ringing quiet; then Hank screamed again in mortal agony, obviously suffering pain that was beyond pain.

  Hearing those dreadful cries, I figured that the Apaches were working on Hank’s belly wound, trying to wear us down through mounting terror. Scared men make mistakes, and that was what the Apaches were counting on.

  I’ve learned since that you can’t judge the Apache by the standards of white men.

  He grows up hard in a hard land and from an early age sees much of death, usually long drawn-out, painful and ugly. In the harsh, unforgiving school of the desert and mountain from whence he springs, the Apache knows that each living creature thrives only by inflicting death on another. The Apache feels nothing in the way of kindness and compassion toward an enemy, because those are women’s emotions and show only weakness. Yes, the Apaches were torturing Hank Owens horribly, but it was cold, impersonal, without sadism.

  It is the way of the Apache warrior to test, by inflicting great pain, the courage of an enemy. He believes that if an enemy proves strong and brave, his strength and bravery will become part of his own—and his chances of surviving one more day in his pitiless environment become that much better.

  It is a harsh way, but even as I listened to Hank’s screams, I made no judgments and no condemnations. Why judge and condemn the wolf because he pulls down and savages an elk?

  It is the way of the wolf . . . and it is the way of the Apache.

  I stepped over to the fire and poured myself coffee, the dying man’s screams drowning out even my thoughts. Then I returned to my post.

  The cup was hot and I placed it carefully on the side of the wagon and just as carefully, with hands that shook only a little, rolled myself a smoke.

  I lit the cigarette and drew my Winchester closer to hand and looked out on the menacing darkness, the scowling sliver of the horned moon touching the grass only here and there with faint, grudging light.

  Hank screamed and screamed again, the wild echoes of his rising shrieks reverberating around us before finally dying away, fading like ghastly bugle calls into distance and the haunted night.

  Several slow moments of silence passed as I smoked and drank coffee, enjoying the harsh bitterness of both. Lila sat close to my feet, her chin resting on her drawn-up knees, her eyes wide-open but seeing nothing. Beside her, Ned dozed, waking now and then with a surprised jerk of his head.

  Ezra Owens, his mouth working, stared into the darkness, a drawn look about him that showed even under his thick beard. The man was confronting some inner demons that he didn’t seem to be handling well.

  Wingo chewed on the end of his mustache, his restless eyes everywhere, showing the strain of this enforced inaction but, as far as I could tell, mastering his fear.

  Hank screamed again.

  Cursing, Ezra stepped out from behind the wagon, threw his Winchester to his shoulder and cranked off round after round into the flame-torn night, ejected brass shells tinkling around his feet.

  Ezra shot the rifle dry and kept on pulling the trigger, the hammer clicking time after time on an empty chamber.

  Finally he lowered the Winchester and walked back behind the wagon. Wingo clapped his hands together in derisory applause. “That was a great help,” the big gunman said. “All you did was shoot at phantoms and waste ammunition.”

  “Maybe so,” Ezra said, his face grim. “But Hank is my brother, even though he never amounted to much. I figured I owed it to our ma to do something.”

  The outlaw slumped against the wagon, then slid to his haunches, holding the rifle between his knees. I glanced at him and noticed an absorbed, calculating look on his face, like he was carefully thinking something through.

  I had no idea what Ezra had on his mind, but whatever it was, the not knowing bothered me plenty.

  The moon sank lower in the sky and the dark shroud of the night drew itself closer around us. Hank had not screamed for a couple of hours and I figured he’d finally been taken by merciful death.

  But I was wrong. The Apaches were not yet done with Hank Owens.

  During the darkest part of the night just before the dawn, a lone Apache on a magnificent gray horse galloped past the wagon, something large, flopping and bulky held in his arms.

  Wingo snapped off a shot at the warrior and missed. Without slackening his pace, the Apache threw his burden to the ground and was gone, the drum of the gray’s hooves fast receding in the distance.

  I stepped out behind the wagon and so did Wingo. We walked to the thing lying on the ground and soon saw it for what it was.

  It was Hank . . . or what was left of him.

  The man’s eyes had been gouged out and his naked, ravaged body was covered in blood from the top of his scalped head to his toes.

  Hank had died hard and in unbearable pain—an end I’d wish on no man.

  Wingo toed the body, looking for signs of life. There were none. “Just as well,” he said. “All I could have done for him is shot him.”

  And that was when Ezra Owens made his break.

  Wingo was riding my paint and he hadn’t unsaddled the animal. The saddlebags with Simon Prather’s money were still on the horse along with his blanket roll.

  All this Ezra knew.

  The outlaw
suddenly sprang to his feet and ran for the paint. He swung quickly into the saddle and fled, dust spurting from the pony’s flying hooves.

  Wingo watched Ezra go. He just stood there doing nothing, his smile real small and tight and knowing. Then, before I realized what was happening, he jerked my Winchester from my hands and threw it to his shoulder.

  BLAM!

  The shot shattered the fragile night into a million separate fragments of sound, the echo bouncing across the flat grassland. In the distance, half obscured by the night shadows, I saw Ezra jerk in the saddle, straighten up to his full height in the stirrups, then topple into the dust.

  The paint kept on going, his hooves drumming until I could hear them no longer.

  I reckoned Ezra had been at least three hundred yards away when Wingo nailed him, and that in darkness. It was a fine shot by anyone’s standards and spoke volumes of the outlaw’s skill with a rifle.

  Wingo turned to me, still smiling, his eyes hard. “I figured ol’ Ezra was going to try that sooner or later.” His face took on a thoughtful look. “I guess that just leaves you and me, boy.”

  “I reckon it does,” I said, wondering if I could shuck my Colt before Wingo swung the rifle on me.

  But it didn’t come to that.

  The outlaw merely stood silent for a few moments, shrugged and handed me back the Winchester. “And soon it will only be me. And the girl.”

  When I look back on it, I knew I should have shot him then and saved myself a world of grief later. But the moment came and went because the Apache on the gray horse rode out of the newborn morning and stopped about a hundred yards from the wagon. As far as I could see, he carried no weapon.

  The warrior cupped his hands around his mouth and cried out: “Matanzas con Sus Dentes!”

  Kills with His Teeth. It must have been he who had given me that name after my fight with the Apache at the hogback.

  “What the hell is he hollering about?” Wingo asked, his face puzzled.

  “It means Kills with His Teeth,” I answered. “It’s a name the Apaches gave me.”

  Wingo looked at me in surprise. “Hell, for a younker, you sure got around, boy.”