Bodyguard

by James W. Marvin

  Crow didn’t speak. There wasn’t anything to say at all. The Easterner had just wanted it off his chest and Crow was handy.

  ‘You think we’ll die, Crow?’ asked Okie.

  ‘Sure. Death comes to all men. Be nice if I knew otherwise. I don’t.’

  ‘Nor I. But I didn’t want to go to meet my Maker with a death on my mind. It would mean an eternity in the flames of Purgatory.’

  ‘I don’t believe that. One eternity has to be enough for me. I figure that when you use up the last breath, then that’s it.’

  ‘The end,’ said Okie, shocked by the calm voice.

  ‘Sure. I guess I’ve seen a sight more bodies than you. The eyes go kind of milky after a couple of hours. Day or so and ... if it’s summer, the guts swell. The eyes go, and the lips. Private parts swell too. Week or so and they burst apart from the gases. I seen that during the War. Hundreds. Maybe thousands. There’s no blessed peace and resurrection there, Okie.’

  ‘How many . . . how many have you killed? Yourself, Crow?’

  The arrow came hissing through the moonlight, pitching into the rock between the two men, snapping with a dry, sharp sound, ending their discussion.

  ‘Oh, God!’ cried Okie, slipping sideways, fumbling for the butt of his gun. His wife stirred at the shout and also drew one of the prettied-up Colts, holding it in both hands, staring wildly around for a first sight of the enemy.

  Crow rolled back towards the slight overhang of cliff, not bothering to go for one of his guns. There was no point in drawing a pistol if they were too far off for it. Or reaching the Winchester if within seconds he was going to be buried under a wave of attackers. In any battle, if it was possible, the moments you spent in weighing up the situation might be the calm moments that ended up saving your life for you.

  More arrows came slicing through the night, each one carrying its own distinctive whispering sound. From the way they bounced, some of them burying in at an angle, Crow saw that they all came from the same direction. The Apaches were in front of them, with no sign of any attack from the rear. It might be a trap to try and force the whites into the arms of an ambush, but the shootist doubted it. They must have at least a dozen warriors against himself, Okie, the woman and the sick boy. If the Indians had been watching them through that long, crystal day, they would know how weak they were. No, if he guessed right this was going to be a frontal charge, and the rain of arrows, with a few scattered rifle shots, was just the preliminary to it.

  ‘Hold your fire! Don’t shoot yet!’ he called, settling himself into a comfortable position, laying the scatter-gun, ready cocked, in front of him on a low shelf of rock. The Peacemaker alongside of it. Holding the rifle, a round levered into the breech, in his hands.

  Waiting.

  Beneath the blankets, the humped figure of the boy didn’t stir. Crow guessed that Edgar was still sunk in a fevered sleep, beyond the reach of any threat to his safety.

  ‘Shall I bring in my son?’ called Okie, from behind a splintered boulder.

  ‘No. Leave him be. Now they’ve got us pinned down they’ll not bother about him. They’ll know he’s sick. It’s us they want out in the open. Stay close.’

  ‘How long will they be?’ asked Amaryllis. She was huddled out of sight a little to the right. Crow could see one booted foot sticking out, that was all.

  ‘We wait them out,’ replied the shootist. ‘They want us to start firing back. So they can pin us and count shots. They know we lost the mules. So they know we don’t have that much ammunition. We wait.’

  ‘How long, though?’ repeated the woman.

  ‘Long as it takes,’ he replied.

  They waited.

  The shooting stopped, with only an occasional arrow or bullet to keep them jumpy.

  Still they waited. By Crow’s count it was nearly six hours since the first arrow had split the air between himself and Okie. Both the Easterners were drawn right to the edge, keeping up a whispered conversation that seemed to be mainly concerned with exploring every old sore in their marriage and picking at it until it bled all over again. Crow lay back, relaxed and ready, keeping quiet. Warning the other two, finally, to hold their noise, when it began to grate on his nerves.

  ‘Lay still. And keep ready. They’ll come before dawn so we don’t see them so well.’

  Edgar still didn’t move, the dark shape under the coverings out there in the middle of the camp, slightly in the shadow of a fold in the ground. It was this that had protected him most from the Indians’ attack.

  The waiting went on for another hour and a half until Crow’ staring out in the dim light, saw …

  ‘They’re coming,’ he breathed, his voice hardly loud enough to stir the wings of a moth, yet just measured enough to carry to the Okies, warning them of the approaching Indians. ‘Don’t fire until I say, then pour it in. Might get but one chance.’

  Crow used the old frontier trick of not looking directly at what he wanted to see. Somehow, in very poor light, it seemed easier to pick out your target. They were coming slowly toward the whites. Less than he’d expected. Maybe eight. Maybe nine. It was hard to keep track of them as they flitted from rock to rock, from deep shadow to new cover. Perhaps the chief had not thought two old women worth a continued pursuit by all his warriors. They would know the strength of the white party and eight or nine Apaches should have been more than a match.

  Should have been.

  If it hadn’t been for the man whose name was Crow. Nothing else. Just Crow.

  ‘Eight,’ he said. Easing back the hammer of the Winchester, drawing a bead on the Apache furthest away from him. Knowing that the Purdey would settle for anyone who managed to get closer to him. It was the ones near the back of a fight that you needed to check out for. While you were busy taking the men in the front, the others’d come bursting through the smoke and split your head with a war-axe.

  Richard and Amy Okie were hanging on the ragged side, squinting at the approaching Indians, as they drew nearer. The gap closed to fifty feet. Only when they were within thirty feet and he sensed them tensing for the charge did Crow take a deep, calming breath, and set his finger to tightening on the trigger of the rifle.

  ‘Now!’ he yelled. Killing the man he was aiming at with a bullet plumb between the eyes, kicking him on his back, his hatchet whirling in the air and tinkling among the boulders close by the woman.

  The second shot killed the next Apache, ripping through his throat and shattering the bones of his neck. Both the Okies were on their feet, firing wildly into the advancing Indians. Through the smoke Crow saw one of the warriors go down, holding his left shoulder, blood black against the light cotton of the shirt.

  But he was busy himself. Levering and firing, using every round, worrying less about careful aim than laying down a wall of lead for the Apaches to run into.

  Four of the eight were done. Five if you counted the man wounded by the Easterners’ erratic shooting. The others were hesitating, only a dozen or so paces from their enemy, shaken by the maelstrom of death that cut about them, seeing their brothers dying from the relentless shooting of the tall man, barely visible in his black clothes, face the palest of blurs against the wall of rock.

  Crow dropped the warm rifle, picking up the Colt, fanning off four more rounds at the surviving Indians, two bullets hitting a short man in the stomach, folding him up like a bowing courtier, a third shot splitting the top of his skull apart, leaking blood and brains over his agonized face.

  The remaining two hesitated, halting in their tracks, looking at each other. Crow held his fire, knowing that the point came to any man where bravery wasn’t enough. It was all right to take part in a wild, running infantry charge, even though men might be falling around you. But the fierce flood of adrenalin through your nerves carried you along, with no time to think or fear. But when you were brought to a stop, then the cold of death swept over you and you realized that your chances of surviving the engagement were less than good—that was when even the b
ravest of men might turn and run.

  ‘I’m out of bullets, Crow!’ shouted Okie, his wife echoing the yell.

  ‘Stay there.’

  The last two braves still held their ground, considering whether to go back or come on. Crow still didn’t shoot, though they were well within pistol range. If nobody came back, then the chief would be bound to send his largest war party to find out why. One man might not be believed. But two survivors would vie with each other to paint the darkest picture of the impossibility of any victory against the withering and lethally accurate firing. There would be hesitation, and by the time they decided what to do, then Crow and the Okies could be gone and away, into the maze of narrow canyons shown on the last part of the map.

  ‘Go with honor,’ called Crow, using the Apache tongue. ‘It is no shame. Come against us and you will both die. There has been enough of dying with your people. Leave us and take your lives as our gift.’

  They stared at him and he slowly bent and took up the scatter-gun, still cocked. Holding it up where the two warriors could see it and realize that death would be devastating and total if they attempted to charge once more. The first tendrils of dawn were already appearing from the eastern sky and Crow watched their faces. Neither of them was more than eighteen, he guessed, still not moving.

  ‘Go,’ he called out. ‘Go with honor and live long and father many children.’

  Without a word they turned on their heels and left, walking quickly away, vanishing from sight among the pits of black shadow. Crow waited, gesturing for Okie and his wife to keep hidden, listening for the sound of …

  ‘Ponies! They’re leaving. Quickly now. We must be away from here before they reach the others.’

  Amy Okie stood, still holding the empty gun, looking without any emotion at the bodies of the Apaches. Her husband had tucked his gun in his belt, its ornamented butt gleaming in the pale light. He walked towards the still figure of his son.

  At that moment the Indian that had been wounded in the shoulder made his play for glory. Powering himself from hiding, a glittering butcher’s knife gripped in his right hand, blood staining all of his shirt, down his useless left arm. Lips pulled back from white teeth in a snarl of hatred. Going not for the man, but for the helpless boy.

  Amaryllis saw him moving a moment before the others and she screamed. The Indian was making for the sleeping boy, driving himself with a dreadful intentness of purpose, ignoring the woman. Oblivious to the threat from Crow’s shotgun. Richard Okie was in the way, between the Apache and the boy, and also between Crow and the approaching warrior.

  ‘Move, Okie!’ called Crow, holding the Purdey out, ready to pull the twin triggers the moment he saw a chance of a clean shot.

  ‘No,’ said the Bostonian, surprisingly quietly. Leveling his pistol at the young brave, holding it steady. The Apache never hesitated in his attack, snarling at the white man, bringing the knife back ready for a great thrust upwards.

  The click of the hammer on the empty cartridge was loud in the stillness. Crow was still unable to shoot the Apache without hitting Okie and he started to move to one side. Knowing that he was going to be an eternity too late to save his employer.

  ‘Oh, my God,’ said Okie, seeing doom lunging at him.

  He hardly even tried to parry the lunge of the knife. The Apache closed with him and Crow saw the Easterner’s body jerk backwards at the impact of the long blade. The brave stabbed twice more and Okie threw his head to one side in pain, blood suddenly coming from his open mouth.

  Panting the Indian straightened, dropping the white man at his feet, looking across the small space towards Crow. The crimson knife still poised in his fist.

  The shootist aimed high, squeezing both triggers, coming close to blowing the warrior’s head clear off his shoulders, sending the body staggering back a few paces, blood fountaining from the severed arteries in the throat.

  Richard Okie was still alive when Crow reached him. Amy made no effort to go to him, taking no notice of her son, simply flopping down in the wet earth, letting the pistol fall by her boots.

  The eyes were beginning to cloud with the fast approach of death, but the lips moved a little. Crow bowed his head to try and catch the words. ‘Couldn’t let him ... let him hurt … my son.’

  ‘No. You did good.’

  A hint of a smile on the fleshy lips. Crow looked down, seeing that two of the wounds were in the stomach, opening up the flesh beneath the layers of clothes, blood coming more slowly. The third one was higher, and had probably cut into the heart.

  Life was now a bare matter of seconds for the merchant.

  ‘Look after him for me . . . Crow.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Sorry, no money . . . None. But she’ll pay you from the mine.’

  ‘I’ll be sure of that.’

  ‘Watch her.’

  ‘I’ll take care of her and the boy, Okie.’

  ‘No . . . Not take care of her . . . Take care. Told lies. About poor Radley. Black bird was . . . Wasn’t me did for him . . .’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Wasn’t . . .’

  The eyes closed and the head slipped back, relaxed. It was over for him.

  Crow straightened to see the woman looking curiously at him. ‘He dead?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then we’d best go. Be at the mine before dusk.’

  Crow watched her stand and his eyes had gone very cold.

  Chapter Eleven

  More snow began to drift down across the death-scattered camp as the three survivors started to leave. Not that Edgar Okie took any active part in the preparations for the departure. He was deeply asleep, his breath faint, fluttering way down in his chest, barely feathering out in the cold air. As Crow bent over the blanketed figure Amaryllis came over and showed the first sign of interest in her son for some time. The first hint, Crow thought, that she still showed any motherly concern,

  Then she spoke.

  ‘Can we not leave him here?’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Leave him here. The child is clearly about to die. He will slow us down.’

  Crow could hardly believe what he was hearing. It was odd, as he’d been thinking that they would do well to leave the dying boy, but he was always concerned mainly with his own salvation. But to hear Edgar’s own mother saying to abandon him!

  ‘Sure he will. But he’s your son, Amy.’

  ‘My name is, and you will please recall this, Mrs. Okie, Crow. Now my husband is happily deceased I am your employer. You are to be my bodyguard.’

  ‘And guide?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Same deal?’

  She hesitated. ‘Yes. The same as before. Now, rather than waste time talking shall we get on?’

  ‘The boy?’

  ‘I suppose we had best bring him along a little further, though …’ she tutted as if a careless porter had mislaid her hand luggage.

  ‘I could always slit his throat, Ma’am,’ he said, unable to hide the bitter anger. Unwilling to hide it.

  ‘You had best watch your tongue, Crow.’

  ‘I don’t give a damn, Amy, about you, or the boy. I got me the job of takin’ you to the black bird and finding the mine. If it’s there. And then …’

  ‘What do you mean “if” it’s there? Of course it is. The map’s been correct in every detail so far, has it not?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he admitted.

  ‘Then it will be there. And the silver will be there also. Do you know anything about silver, Crow?’

  ‘Some.’

  ‘I have seen it. Pure ore. Finest quality. It was the most wonderful …’ she licked her lips and clasped her bitten gloves to her bosom. Eyes looking inwards with the same kind of expression that she had shown when she had wanted Crow to possess her.

  ‘Got to go.’

  ‘Yes. I will take the ammunition and Richard’s spare pistol.’

  ‘Heavy for you. Both of ’em.’

  ‘I
am not a weak woman, Crow. I know that when we met, what seems an eternity past, I was . . . unwell.’

  ‘That’s a way of puttin’ it. I’d have said you was hooked tighter than a tick to that heroin.’

  She chewed her lip until he expected to see it bleed, eyes narrowed. He recalled for a moment Okie’s words about taking care of her. No, just take care. That was it.

  ‘I would not have you presume that I am still the woman I was. And please don’t reply to me with one of your foolish jests, Crow.’

  He tugged at a forelock, grinning. The wind blew snow in his face and he tossed his head, the mane of long black hair flowing about his shoulders. ‘Then we’d best go. I’ll take the boy like before. You lead the spare mule.’

  ‘Why do we need it? It carries no food.’

  ‘That’s kind of true and not true.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ she snapped.

  ‘I mean that there’s enough food on its skinny carcass to keep all three of us in meat for better’n a week.’

  Less than twenty minutes from the death of Richard Okie, the three of them set off again on the long trail towards the Black Bird Mine. If all went well they hoped to be within sight of it later that afternoon.

  The weather closed in totally after barely two hours riding, the snow coming down thicker and faster than before. Shutting them off from the rest of the world. It was at the point in the map where Crow needed to be able to see well, counting narrow side-trails, to make sure he had the right one. Taking rough bearings off surrounding peaks that the snow had rendered as invisible as if they were in Africa. It was impossible to go on and he called a halt, leading the mules after his stallion, finding a slightly sheltered spot beneath some cliffs.

  ‘Can we not go a’foot?’ asked Amaryllis Okie, stamping her boot angrily in the deepening snow.

  ‘Sure we can.’

  ‘Then why . . .?’