Apache Lament

by Patrick Dearen

  “Boys,” the captain said when he was able, “we cannot have this.” His shoulders bent as he suffered another coughing spell. This one didn’t seem as if it would end, and when he sagged at the knees, Sam took his arm.

  “Let’s get you to your bedroll,” said Sam. “Trouble’s over now.”

  Sam could feel Franks’s weakness as he helped him back to his tarp, where the sick man sank to a sitting position with his back against his saddle. The captain was shivering, too much for even a dusk this chilled, and Sam bundled the bedroll around Franks’s shoulders.

  “Gonna bring you some coffee soon’s it’s ready,” said Sam. He reached for the captain’s war bag and canteen beside the saddle. “Here, get you some hardtack and jerky, make sure you drink plenty.”

  Franks was coughing unrelentingly when Sam left him and returned to the fire. He thought about helping the captain relocate his bedroll closer to the warmth, but the wind had turned unpredictable and could choke him with smoke. The poor man seemed to have trouble breathing as it was.

  At the fire ring, Jonesy hummed something about his “sweet Mary Jane” while Arch stirred the fire and blew on the underlying coals. About the time flames reappeared, Boye and Matto independently wandered away to their saddles.

  “Well, that was a most unpleasant episode,” said Arch.

  “Somethin’ the captain sure don’t need,” said Sam.

  “Franks is suffering considerably, all right.”

  “I tell you, Arch. I’m startin’ to worry about him. Don’t know how much of it’s from sickness, and how much is ridin’ all this way in the cold and snow.”

  “I anticipate the terrain will cooperate even less on the morrow.”

  “Yeah, and the cold too, way this trail’s climbin’ up in the Diablos.” Refilling the blackened coffee pot from a canteen, Sam twisted it down inside the coals. “Tough as things already are, Captain’s right—can’t go havin’ trouble amongst ourselves.”

  Jonesy and the other rangers soon dispersed, leaving Sam and Arch alone at the fire.

  “Wish I knowed why Boye does like he does,” said Sam, studying the young man from afar. “Preachin’ one minute, and actin’ like he’s itchin’ to die the next.”

  Arch stayed silent for a long while, and when he did speak, something—the smoke maybe—muted his voice. “Every man is a product of his past. Aspire to rise above it, he may, but it abides nevertheless.”

  Bass Canyon, thought Sam.

  As their gazes met, the shadows seemed to cast a dark mask over Arch’s face, even as the firelight flickered in his eyes. Then Arch’s voice dropped even more, until it was little more than a hoarse whisper against the crackling fire.

  “What’s passed before . . . our life experiences . . . all we’ve done and all that’s been done to us . . . they’re always here, ever reminding, doing their utmost to govern us.”

  Sam had never seen features so tormented, especially in someone who had always seemed so composed and self-confident. It was as if a door to the man’s soul had opened, and just as it closed again, Arch readjusted the frayed neckerchief that Sam had never seen him without.

  Even in Musquiz Creek as they had scrubbed themselves clean of sweat and trail dust, Arch had always kept that red-checked rag around his neck. Sam had never given it much thought, but the way Arch trifled with it in the context of the moment made Sam wonder about its significance. Sam had a lot of questions for his friend, and then out of the corner of his eye he saw Boye approaching and he knew that this wasn’t the time.

  But with Matto’s escalating feud with Boye—the kind of thing that could demoralize and divide the company—maybe the moment was ripe to pry answers out of the preacher boy.

  Boye dragged a large rock close to the blaze and sat. Not until the firelight was in his face did Sam realize the fight had brought a trickle of blood from the young man’s nose.

  “Coffee will be ready soon,” Sam told him. “Got somethin’ to drink out of?”

  Boye, busy gnawing jerky, held up a battered tin cup.

  “I want to ask you somethin’,” Sam went on. “You been in the company what now? Week? Ten days? With our butts glued to the saddle, hadn’t been much chance to talk. All I know is you’re a preacher boy.”

  “Born to a preacher, so a preacher boy I am, by birth and by calling.”

  “So you and your father both,” said Sam. “He preachin’ still?”

  “Lord called him to shepherd a flock, He did. Town of Cora on the South Leon, Comanche County. Still pastoring the little church I growed up in.”

  “Whole different country, these parts. How come you traipsin’ off out here, joinin’ up?”

  “The Lord knows what for, so no reason to hide it. Chastening me like a father with a wayward child, He is.”

  “You was sayin’ that earlier.”

  “Hard with a rod, and I’m giving Him ever’ chance.”

  Arch joined the discussion. “Sounds as if you’ve imposed penance on yourself, my young man.”

  “Nothing I don’t deserve. Stand up to His chastening and He’ll take you under His wing.”

  For a moment, Sam watched the fiery sparks trailing on the currents and disappearing. If there was indeed someone in the clouds meting out correction, he couldn’t imagine a form any crueler than Bass Canyon.

  “You’re the youngest one in the company,” said Sam. “What could you done that was so bad?”

  Boye turned his face to the sky, and for all the pain that Arch’s features had shown earlier, the preacher boy’s were vexed more. His jaw trembled, and the firelight blazing in his eyes seemed like hellfire.

  “Lord, strike me down right here! Sinned against You, I have, like David with Bathsheba. ’Cause of me she’s dead and so’s our baby. Lord, strike me down!”

  Maybe back in the canyon Arch had been right about Boye not having the power to call down judgment, but that didn’t keep Sam from looking up with a shudder. Boye, though, wasn’t through, as if confessing his sin was part of his penance.

  “Seventeen, she was, pure like a bride in white, and I go and seduce her. Lord help me, I seduced her, that sweet innocence, all gone ’cause of me. Me a preacher boy, watching her grow with child, and stay quiet I did, letting her bear the shame. Whore, they called her, whore! I wouldn’t stand by her even when her time come, and right there she dies. Our baby too, and my fault it is, ’cause ‘whosoever committeth adultery destroyeth his own soul.’ A murderer, I am, sure as I stand here. Strike me dead, O Lord, strike me dead and let me go to them both!”

  To a howling gust, thick smoke rose up and turned on Sam like a thing bent on retribution. It burned his sinuses and stung his eyes, and he wheeled and retreated half-blind. But no matter which direction he went, how far he lurched through the snow, he couldn’t escape the suffocating cloud any better than he could a terrible realization.

  If Boye deserved the worst kind of chastening for what he had done, was there a place deep enough under Bass Canyon from which to summon punishment for what Sam had failed to do?

  Elizabeth! Elizabeth, I’m sorry!

  But Elizabeth couldn’t answer, because he had chosen blessed oblivion rather than reach for his revolver to save her.

  Still tasting bitter smoke as he shivered in his bedroll, Sam lay awake yearning for the silver locket that a Mescalero hand had snatched away from Elizabeth. If he could only feel its smoothness, cling to it through this and every lonely night, relive the moment under the San Antonio live oak when he had first fastened it around her neck . . .

  Sam had never seen the midnight sky so black, but it was no darker than the gloom that crept through his soul. It was like a fog rising up from Elizabeth’s grave, an evil force determined to destroy. It searched out his hopes and his aspirations and whisked them away, stripping him bare of everything that made a man alive.

  Well, almost. There was still his hatred of Apaches—hatred and a consuming obsession to avenge Elizabeth and their unborn child wh
o would never draw a breath.

  “Walter . . . Walter . . .”

  Hidden in the night, Franks lay a few feet to Sam’s left, and over the rush of the wind Sam kept hearing him mumble as if stricken with fever. Franks was incoherent mostly, except for that one name that occasionally bridged the chasm between delirium and consciousness. Usually he spoke it with affection, but sometimes it was more of a despairing cry, like the summons of a despondent man who knew that it couldn’t be answered.

  “Walter . . . Walter . . .”

  The whisper reached deep into Sam’s inner gloom, touching that part of him where Elizabeth once had lived, and he closed his eyes and felt his own forsaken cry tremble silently on his lips.

  “Samuel.”

  Sam rolled over on his shoulder, away from Franks, and saw a looming shadow against the greater shadow of La Nariz. “Already?”

  “Indeed,” said the voice he recognized as Arch’s.

  Sighing, Sam threw back his covers and sat up. He had squandered precious sleep to dwell on his hopelessness, and now he faced two hours of standing guard in the piercing cold. Already fully dressed, all he had to do was slip on his boots, but they were like blocks of ice against his feet as he stood and took up his Winchester.

  “Walter . . . Walter . . .”

  Adjusting his overcoat collar against the wind, Sam looked at Franks, although there was little to see in the dark.

  “Feverish, I fear,” Arch said quietly.

  “Yeah. Callin’ and nobody to answer. Least, not who he’s askin’ for.”

  “Not unexpectedly, I would say.”

  Arch started away and Sam followed, dodging hidden lechuguilla the best he could. Considering the conditions, Sam normally would have expected him to head straight for his bedroll. Arch’s remark, however, had teased of something perhaps better said out of the captain’s earshot, and Sam wasn’t surprised when he continued on to the horses.

  The sudden click! click! of a revolver hammer froze Sam in mid-stride.

  “Who goes there?” challenged a frightened voice.

  “Easy, Jonesy, my man!” Arch said quickly.

  “Sweet Mary, I thought you were an Indian.”

  “Mere moments ago I cautioned you to expect my replacement.”

  “Want to ease that thing off full cock?” asked Sam.

  Jonesy laughed nervously. “Oh, the stories I’ll have when I go back to my Mary Jane.” His Yankee accent always seemed more pronounced in the dark, maybe because Sam couldn’t be distracted by his deformed jaw. “Pulling down on a couple of wild Indians, I thought.”

  “Just don’t go shootin’ none you can’t see,” said Sam.

  “She’s never been out of New Jersey, you know. Her father’s in the mercantile business there. She’s the oldest of three sisters, and you’d agree with me she’s the prettiest. I wish I had a picture to show you. Oh, I’ll have so much to tell when I go back and marry her, all right.”

  It was more information than a grieving man wanted to hear, but it was typical of Jonesy, who obviously had no idea how much darker he had just made Sam’s night. But Jonesy wasn’t through.

  “Did I tell you people about the time my Mary Jane—”

  “Jonesy, my man, could you secure a headcount on the horses?” interrupted Arch. “Should it be too dark, you could tally their ears and divide by two.”

  Sam didn’t know if Jonesy was insulted, but he heard the squeak of boots growing fainter. When there was again only the whistling wind, Sam turned to Arch’s outline. “I think you had more to tell me.”

  “Indeed. Your earlier concerns for the captain may be more warranted than you realize. There’s mounting reason to believe he’s compelling himself to actions beyond his ability, and I fear it may endanger the company.”

  Sam didn’t like where this conversation seemed headed. “We can’t turn back, Arch. I want him to fight through this.”

  “Avenging a loss should never come at the price of a person’s own life or those of his comrades in arms.”

  Sam breathed sharply. “If you was walkin’ in my boots, you might think different.” He had been aggravated at Arch before, but never angry until now.

  “I know what overtaking those Mescaleros means to you, but I’m speaking of—”

  “Not me that’s in charge anyway,” Sam interrupted. “I ride where I’m told.”

  “Samuel, you misunderstand. I—”

  “If you don’t want to be here, take it up with somebody else.”

  “Please permit me to complete what I was saying.”

  “Nobody stoppin’ you.”

  Sam thought he heard Arch draw a long breath. “It’s not you I’m speaking of, Samuel. It’s Franks who’s permitting vengeance to compromise his judgment. You need to help persuade him to yield to his illness and the weather, not to mention the Diablos. The high country’s certain to exacerbate matters for everyone.”

  “Mescaleros took ever’thing I got. If Franks thinks he’s up to trackin’ them down, not my place to tell him different.”

  “I’m concerned he may be in a dark place emotionally. Have you heard him speak of settling a score with the Yankees? And now there’s ‘Walter’ for whom he’s calling. I’d be bewildered, had I not ridden into Fort Davis for tobacco last week.”

  “What’s tobacco got to do with it?” Sam asked impatiently.

  “You know how amicable Franks is—‘so kindhearted he treats us like his own sons,’ you’ve said. Your analogy is a perfect characterization, considering what the post sutler related.”

  Sam remained unconvinced. “Sutler’s always got a big bear story.”

  “This is one that I place credence in, Samuel. Will you hear me out?”

  To the sough of the wind and distant yip-yip of coyotes, Sam listened. As the sutler had told it, he had shared a bottle with Franks one night. As the alcohol loosened the captain’s tongue, Franks opened up about things. When he had last seen his son, the boy had been thirteen, a mere child holding back tears as Franks had ridden away from their East Texas cabin to fight a war in a distant land. By the time Franks returned four years later, that child had grown into young manhood, taken up arms in the conflict, and died a senseless death in a far-off corner of hell. Ever since that moment, Franks had blamed himself for choosing duty over family, for marching off to fight a rich man’s war instead of fulfilling his role as a father. If he had just chosen allegiance to his only offspring rather than to the foredoomed cause of the South, his son might still be alive.

  “I haven’t told you his son’s name,” added Arch. “It’s Walter.”

  Sam winced. Even after all these years, memories still bedeviled Franks. Would Sam’s own torment follow him to his grave?

  “I believe the captain still has a vendetta,” continued Arch. “His son’s death by Yankees compels him to continue a fight that ended sixteen years ago. His only chance at victory is to accomplish what the Army has been unable to—annihilating those Mescaleros.”

  “Worthy cause, no matter the reason,” said Sam.

  “The captain will die out here. Perhaps some of us as well.”

  “Don’t expect me to try talkin’ him out of it.”

  “His judgment is clouded by emotion, Samuel. Do you understand what I’m contending?”

  “I understand that you didn’t lose somebody like I did. Like Franks did too.”

  “Wisdom needs to prevail. There’ll always be another day, another opportunity.”

  “Not for me. And I guess not for Franks either.”

  Sam started past to check the horses and bumped Arch solidly in the shoulder in the dark. He hadn’t meant to—or had he?—but he continued on without apology. Within a few steps more, he ran squarely into someone else, and for a split second he wondered if an Apache knife would find his ribs.

  “Whoa!” said Jonesy. “That you, DeJarnett? Or is it a wild Indian?”

  Sam wondered how long the New Jersey native had been within earshot. The compa
ny had a bellyful of troubles already, and it sure didn’t need friction stemming from a grudge the captain might hold against Yankees. Sam just hoped that the wind had drowned out what Arch had said.

  Brushing around Jonesy without comment, Sam trudged on through the snow. And then Jonesy said something that added more concern to Sam’s plateful of worries.

  “Oh, the stories my Mary Jane’s going to hear from this damned Yankee.”

  The fog wraiths that swirled against La Nariz’s rocky heights at daybreak seemed like something out of Sam’s disturbing dreams.

  Nightmares, they had been, really, dreams in which Elizabeth had cried for him across Bass Canyon. Strangely, his dream-self had experienced no trouble gripping his .45 as the Mescalero had turned his horse after her. How easily Sam had cocked the hammer and swung the barrel with the rider’s flight. The trigger’s curvature had almost been soothing against his finger as he had begun to squeeze—and then Arch had stepped in, seizing his gun arm, preventing his saving shot.

  All night long, it seemed, Sam had struggled with Arch in a dream world. Now, with the company breaking camp, Sam worried that his friend would try to stop him for real.

  Maybe it was wishful thinking on Sam’s part, but Franks seemed better this morning. He continued to cough, but he had partaken of coffee and jerky and had led his bridled horse to the saddle beside his bedroll. Still, after he hooked the right-side stirrup and cinch strap over the horn, he was unable to hoist the saddle high enough to throw it across the blanket behind the horse’s withers.

  Even several feet away, where Sam stood shaking snow from his tarp, he could hear the captain wheeze as he lowered the saddle to the ground. Sam was about to offer help when he noticed the jangle of spurs from the direction of the fire.

  “Captain, might I possibly take a word with you?”

  Sam tensed. The schoolteacher diction told him all he needed to know, but he turned nevertheless and saw him nearing through the snow—a man right out of a nightmare, the ice crackling underfoot with his every step.

  “Arch . . .” appealed Sam.

  For an instant, their gazes met, but his friend continued to approach Franks from behind. Uncharacteristically, the captain hadn’t responded, instead placing a supporting hand on the point of the horse’s hip. As Franks rested his forehead against his extended arm, his shoulders began to rise and fall in labored breath.