by Aaron Gwyn
The men had formed a line about a dozen feet in front of me and, having discharged their weapons, were standing now to load, fumbling with shot pouches or struggling to fit their ramrods into muzzles. I had no doubt a few had already dry-balled their rifles: when a trooper’s blood is up, he will often forget to charge his gun. Many a gunsmith working on a dead soldier’s musket has found four or five balls rammed down the barrel and not a grain of powder to drive them.
“Lanceros!” Juan shouted, pointing toward the Indians rushing up with their long, feathered spears.
Well, I had no intention of letting my boys get butchered like Christmas pigs. I booted my horse forward, shucked my right foot out of the stirrup and kicked young Levi in the back of the head, knocking his hat off and sending him staggering.
He said, “Hell-far, Cap!” but I kept on down the line. I caught Bob Thomas in the temple and Dick Wagner between the shoulders. I was aiming at Uncle Ike’s shoulder when he turned around to catch my boot on the bridge of his nose.
“Mount up!” I yelled. “Mount up if you want to live!”
They began to do so. Ike’s nose was badly broken, his beard sopped in bright blood. I heard him say, “We make it back to camp, you’ll wish you hadn’t done that, Captain,” but I reckoned if we lived to see evening I’d shout and sing hosannas.
I pushed my horse to a gallop and made for the ring of Indians. I had it in contemplation to force a gap in our enemy’s ranks, though I feared my horse had better sense than her rider and might very well throw me.
But a breach opened up as we approached, the Indians’ horses swerving to avoid colliding with ours, and here we came bursting through—first me, then Juan, then Levi. I looked over my shoulder and saw Wagner, McClusky, and Bob Thomas make it as well. Dean Oden had just cleared the ring when his mount was shot from under him. It seemed to happen quite slowly: the horse’s forelegs buckled and then the animal’s body struck the earth, Dean pinned underneath it—one second he was on top of his horse, the next it was on top of him. And then it was like a dam had burst and Indians washed over Oden and I lost sight of him forever.
We went pounding out over the prairie at a gallop, the six of us leaning low over our horses’ necks. Soon, the poor beasts were snorting; we were baking them, but there was no other remedy. As our mounts began to bush, the Comanches began catching up. To rights, they were riding among us, firing arrows.
Here it is, I remember thinking. This is your death. I felt I had unfinished business to conduct, having failed to find Sam and speak my mind. I’d feared that such a confession would prove disastrous, but at just that moment, it seemed a greater catastrophe that I would take my burdened heart to the grave.
This might seem a rather reflective moment to indulge in the midst of an Indian fight, but it all transpired in the twinkling of an eye, as the scripture has it. One of the braves had pulled level with me, not twenty feet away. I felt my thumb cock the hammer of the revolver in my right hand, and I felt the trigger flip out against the pad of my forefinger. I pointed the pistol and fired.
A black hole appeared on the Indian’s cheek just beneath his eye and his head whipped back as if I’d struck him a blow. He slid from the saddle, hit the ground and went tumbling. I heard the braves ululate their high-pitched screams, a sound that raised the hairs on my neck.
They harried us across a pasture of scrub and prickly pear. I knew if we kept up the pace we were riding at, we’d jigger our horses for sure. But my pistol shot had reminded the others of the Colts in their belts and several shucked them and began to fire.
The Indians were baffled by these magical weapons that could shoot more than once without being reloaded. I saw Juan put two balls in one of our attackers’ ponies. I watched McClusky draw his pistol and level it at an Indian riding alongside him.
But when he pulled the trigger, his horse fetched up short and launched Felix into the air. He hit the ground and our pursuers dropped back to encircle him. You could hear him shouting curses.
Just four of us had escaped from the fray: me and Juan, Levi English and Uncle Ike. We drew rein and bunched there for a moment, staring back at the Comanches swarming around the Irishman. The Indians rode paints, all except a tall, balding buck who sat astride a magnificent palomilla stallion, a cream-colored horse with a snow-white tail.
Juan looked over at me. “We cannot leave him,” he said.
I shook my head, figuring McClusky’s suffering would be fairly short, but before I could say it, Juan snapped the reins, booted his horse forward, and went rushing back toward the six Comanches who were about to collect the Irishman’s pelt.
Well, if I live to be a hundred, I’ll not witness such a sight again—Juan whipping his horse to a gallop and charging right into the teeth of our enemy, his Colt Patersons in either hand.
What could the braves have made of it? A man riding down on them like that? It put me in mind of Sam charging that field piece, back at Concepcion. The Indians had just turned to offer some sort of defense when Juan opened up with both pistols.
I thought his horse would throw him like McClusky’s had, but the beast only galloped faster. Two of the Comanches’ mounts reared and the gent on the palomilla—he must have been their warchief—raised his bow.
Or he started to. One of Juan’s pistol balls struck him and he lurched out of the saddle, stumbled off a ways, went to a knee. The remaining Indians scattered like quail from a bush, one rider pausing beside his unhorsed chief, reaching down and pulling the injured man up behind him.
Juan wheeled round and started to make another pass—heaven knows how many chambers he’d shot through—but the Comanches had had enough of this man and his strange artillery. They drew back fifty, sixty yards, then turned and loosed a volley of arrows.
Juan rode up beside McClusky, who lay there wheezing on the ground. The two of them exchanged words I couldn’t hear. When I reached them, Juan had dismounted and was trying to help the Irishman to his feet. One of McClusky’s legs wouldn’t straighten far enough to touch the ground, and his right arm seemed to’ve been yanked out of socket and hung uselessly.
I slid from the saddle, tucked my horses’ reins in my belt, and set about helping Juan lift McClusky and get him situated on Juan’s horse.
The sky was purpled over in the east and stars were winking down. The Indians were still bunched together, howling.
I looked at Juan, pointing to McClusky’s injured leg.
“Can he even fork a horse?” I said.
“I’ll fork any horse you please,” said McClusky. “Just get me aboard him, by Christ.”
We managed to get him boosted into the saddle. Something hissed past my ear and I realized the Indians had loosed another flight of arrows at us. They came raining down out of the lavender sky, one snapping against the pommel of my saddle, another finding a home inches from my moccasined feet, and I knew if we didn’t make an evacuation our lives would be worthless. I’d turned to tell Juan this when his head whipped forward and he pitched into my arms. I heard the Comanches scream in triumph.
I lowered Juan to the ground, expecting to see an arrow sticking out from between his shoulders, but the missile had struck the back of his skull and glanced off. I felt my heart climb up the back of my throat, and I began yelling for help.
The arrow tip had opened a nasty cut on Juan’s scalp; it bled freely, but that didn’t worry me as scalp cuts always seem worse than they are. What frightened me more was the thought that the arrow had snapped Juan’s neck; he lay limp as a doll in the grass. I squatted over him, feeling for a pulse on either side of his throat. I glanced across the prairie at the four Indian horsemen backlit against the western sky. They launched a final volley, and then their chief lifted an arm and called out in a loud voice. The Comanches turned their horses and in a few seconds they were gone.
By then Levi English and Uncle Ike had joined us. Lev
i sat his horse, staring down at Juan.
“Is he killed, Cap?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t think so.”
I glanced up and saw the horrified expression of McClusky’s face.
“Why did he do that?” he said.
“He was trying to save you, Felix—what do you think?”
McClusky shook his head.
“Jaysus,” he said, “will he not come round?”
It was midnight before we got him back to camp. He still just lay there, insensible, and I figured the likelihood of his ever rousing was poor indeed.
But as distressed as I was, my heartache didn’t hold a candle to McClusky’s. He begged us to fetch a doctor that night.
“I’m scared to move him,” I said. “And those Indians we scrimmaged with might still be about. We’ll send for Chalmers at dawn.”
“Dawn?” he said. “I’ll ride to Austin right now.”
“That leg is likely broke, Felix. Maybe your arm too.”
“Damn my arm,” he said.
Then he began to weep. He had no trouble killing a man. But the thought that Juan had laid down his life for him was unbearable. I’d never seen someone so undone by an act of compassion, so thoroughly unmanned.
* * *
Come sunup, we rode into Austin, borrowed a wagon, loaded Juan in its bed, and carted him into town, leading his horse behind us.
Doctor Chalmers came out onto the dirt street and examined Juan in the early light, lifting the lid of one eye, then lifting and staring into the other.
“Here,” he said, and his voice was too resigned for my liking, “bring him on in.”
We hauled Juan into the doctor’s house and laid him out on a low bed. The room was lit by an east-facing window, the warped panes magnifying the sunlight. The doctor cut his new patient’s shirt down the middle and stood pressing around on his belly.
McClusky cleared his throat. “Ain’t his gut that’s afflicted,” he said.
The doctor didn’t raise his eyes to acknowledge this. I hushed McClusky and stood watching Juan’s chest rise and fall. His breath seemed to come very shallow.
Chalmers moved on to examine Juan’s head wound which leaked a thin serum, and once he’d thoroughly inspected the scalp, he looked up and said, “Did anyone see how he received the injury?”
“It was an Indian arrow,” I said. “The bone seemed to turn the tip of it. He went right out like you see and hasn’t woke since.”
“No,” said the doctor, “I wouldn’t imagine.”
“Can you not tell what ails him?” McClusky asked.
The sound of Felix’s brogue seemed to irritate the old sawbones. He answered the question but looked at me when he did.
“His skull is fractured,” he said, waving me over. Bending down, staring close at the patch of scalp between the doctor’s fingers, I saw that the flesh was bruised soot black, branching out from the cut in a nasty-looking web.
“When will he come back round?” I asked.
“He might not,” Chalmers whispered.
“Speak up,” McClusky said from the other side of the room, and now the doctor looked at him. He turned to me and said, “I have no problem treating your man, but I will not do it with this bogtrotter barking in my ear.”
Murder came into McClusky’s eyes.
“You dare threaten me?” he said. “I’ve just the thing for you.” He drew his belt knife and started for the old man, but I caught him around the waist and with Uncle Isaac’s help, muscled him outside.
Once we’d subdued McClusky, I went back in and told the doctor I’d pay whatever it took to get Juan back on his feet.
“We’re salaried in land,” I said, “but I can transfer title to you if—”
Chalmers raised a hand and stopped me.
“We can discuss compensation another time, captain. For the nonce, you may leave your man with me. If he passes, I’ll see to his internment.”
I swallowed hard.
“I’ll be back through in a month,” I said. “I’ll leave his horse as collateral.”
We shook hands and I went back out and stood in the street. I figured the next time I met up with Juan, I’d be staring down at his grave. I walked to where his horse was tied and began rummaging through his saddlebags until I found his volume of Wordsworth. I took the book, went over, and climbed up on the wagon seat. McClusky was sitting there, his eyes wet and red.
“What did he say, Cap? Will he be all right?”
I reached and put a hand on his shoulder, but no words of consolation came to me. The two of us just sat, a hot wind blowing in our face and a hawk gliding high above, drawing a hunter’s circle in the silent sky.
CECELIA
—TEXAS, 1840–1843—
They shared a pallet that night, and come morning, Sam went to work constructing a corn-shuck mattress and a cedarwood frame. They never talked about it, and they didn’t need to talk—the days of separate beds were over.
Sleeping with someone was strange. Sharing space, sharing covers. Not that she needed covers. He put out heat like a potbelly stove.
They slept side by side in that bed for two more months before anything happened. It wasn’t like she would’ve thought; there was no great to-do. She woke one night to find he’d rolled over onto her arm. She tried pulling out from underneath him, but she was pinned.
“Sam,” she whispered.
He snored. He swallowed and smacked his lips.
“Samuel,” she said.
“What?” he said. “What is it?”
“You’re on my arm.”
He apologized. She drew her numb arm to her breast and began massaging it back to life. Then she glanced at him. He lay there on his side, blue eyes open. He leaned closer and nuzzled her shoulder with his nose.
It reminded her of a dog and she couldn’t help but laugh.
“You’re a peculiar white man,” she said. “Did anyone ever tell you?”
“They told me,” he said.
She rubbed her arm, smiling. She started to get a soft feeling. She scooted up against him, pressed her forehead to his chest, and lay there very still.
“Do you know how?” she whispered.
She could hear his heart all of a sudden, thumping against her head. She ran her hand along his arm, back and forth to calm him.
“It’s all right,” she said. “You don’t have to know.”
“I don’t want you thinking small of me.”
“No,” she told him. “It’s all right.”
She pressed against him until he rolled onto his back, and then climbed on top of his stomach. He felt so good, like he’d been carved out of hickory. You wouldn’t think a body could be that solid.
When she reached down and slipped him inside her, his eyes went big.
She worked her hips. She kissed the hollow of his throat.
There was an ache to pleasure that was almost getting what you wanted, almost getting it, and almost getting it, and then the warm rush of getting too much.
That was new to her—the too-muchness of life. The seasons unspooled themselves and she felt like the bounty would break her heart.
Sometimes their closeness frightened her. She’d spent so much time with just herself. Being close with him wound her up, and, time to time, she’d get irritated or cross. But then he’d stand some way, or the light would catch his boy’s cheeks, and the irritation turned to fear. He would leave her. He would die. Indians would start out from the trees and club him into an imbecile.
And then she woke one morning to find her stomach was upside down. She didn’t even make it to her feet. Threw up right there beside the blankets.
For the next several weeks, she could hardly eat. Just a whiff of food made her stomach rise. The cedars were spinning. She put a hand out to make
them stop.
She directed Samuel to make her a tea from ginger, but the tea did nothing. He rode into Bastrop, came back with two freshly killed chickens and cooked up a stew. She could drink the broth, but not much else.
Then, just like that, the sickness went away, and she was hungry for everything. She glanced down one afternoon in the fan of winter sunlight and saw how far her belly had swollen. She’d noticed before but had put it down to how she was eating.
Or maybe I’ve ignored it, she thought. Maybe I haven’t wanted to see.
There was no looking around it now. She tried to remember where she was in her moons, but she couldn’t recall the last time she’d bled, and a panic went off inside her.
And then she got very calm and her voices were discussing it, like two people trading slaps inside a room.
Do I tell him?
You do not tell him.
I’ll have to tell him. I don’t have a choice.
But here came the panic again and the voices snuffed out like candles. Because, there was no telling what he would do. He’d lived with her in this place, and that was something, but a child was quite another. It would not be white. Or not exactly.
If he recognized the half of it that was like him, would he love that half? Half-love would be fine with her, she thought. She could make up the rest.
But it will be half-hate, she thought. Half-suspicion.
Then she was angry. She went inside the cabin and slammed the door behind her.
And sat there on the bed, plotting. She’d take one of the horses and leave. She’d do it before the child came and she was restricted further. But that wasn’t right; it wouldn’t take the child coming. She’d be stricken before then. She had another month? Two months, maybe? Then she would be unable to run or ride. She wondered if this was his plan the whole time: to get her to submit to him and hobble her up with children.
Samuel came in. He was saying something to her, but the blood was loud in her ears, and she was deep inside her plans.