Doubtful Canon

by Johnny D. Boggs

  Whitey Grey was not swayed. “You’re goin’.”

  “But…but there are Apaches all over.”

  “Likely not,” he said. “Else they’d have cut one or two of you chil’ren down whilst you crossed the cañon.”

  “But you said we’re surrounded by Apaches. More or less, you said it.”

  “Been wrong. Let’s see iffen I’m wrong now.”

  Ian Spencer Henry tried to argue further, but Whitey Grey’s patience had limits, so I laid my canteen on the ground, slid through the opening between the rocks, and made my way across the old Overland road.

  “Jack!” Jasmine yelled. “Don’t…!”

  I didn’t listen, just kept walking, sure to feel an arrow slice into my heart at any second. Silence returned. I could feel the anxious stares of Whitey Grey, Ian Spencer Henry, and Jasmine Allison boring through my back as I moved slowly, not quite deliberately. Don’t cite my action as bravery. One of us had to get those tools, and I owed Ian Spencer Henry. Yes, he had irritated me a minute earlier, but I couldn’t forget all he had done in the past. Back along the Southern Pacific tracks, he had charged out of the desert, maybe stopping the wild man named Whitey Grey from killing me, and he had been my friend, a true friend, since I had known him. In the desert, he had shared his water with Jasmine and me. Besides, Ian Spencer Henry hadn’t gotten us into this mess. Back in Shakespeare, had I said no, had I told them we were not running away with a man we did not know chasing gold we did not know existed, we wouldn’t be in such a predicament. If anyone needed to cross the road, as bait for Apaches, it had to be me.

  One mistake almost cost me my breakfast. As I walked past the dead man, I looked down at him. I had seen his face from a distance, the darkened, bloody holes where his eyes had been, the mouth locked in an eternal scream, but distance is one thing. Up close, with the fear of an imminent Apache attack palatable, that’s something entirely different. He hadn’t been scalped—Apaches weren’t prone to such depredations—probably not even tortured, but I could not think of death coming in a more gruesome fashion. Once I’d read a newspaper description of a body killed by Indians in which the writer said the dead man resembled a porcupine or pincushion, but those allusions do an injustice.

  This was once a man?

  I swallowed, took a deep breath, let the dizziness pass, went on.

  Would I soon join him?

  Nothing happened. To my surprise, I reached the canvas pack where Ian Spencer Henry had left it. Struggling with the weight, though it wasn’t that heavy, I pulled the strap to my left shoulder, hefted it, kept my right hand free, and began the walk back, not far in a physical sense but stretching infinite miles in my beleaguered mind.

  Just put one foot in front of the other, I told myself. There’s nothing you can do now anyway. If they kill you, they kill you. Destiny’s not something you control, Jack Dunivan. Walk. Walk. It’s the easiest thing in the world to do. You’ve been doing it for eleven years.

  “That a boy, pard. You’s almost here. Good lad, Jack Dunivan, good lad.”

  My eyes opened. Apparently I had closed them for ten or twelve rods. Now I again saw the remains of Willie Spoon; at least I assumed the dead man to be the guide from Lordsburg.

  “Don’t look at him, Jack,” Jasmine said. “Don’t stop.” Her eyes widened in terror, wonderment, bewilderment, something. “Jack…what on earth?”

  Leaning down, I grabbed the collar of the dead man’s muslin shirt, and, with a grunt, I heaved, surprised at my strength. The arrows, those that had driven through the man’s body, snapped at their ends. Maybe Willie Spoon didn’t weigh much, for he certainly looked small in death, or maybe men are as light as air once life leaves them. Maybe I summoned up some force of energy through my own fear. I gave another yank, squatting, pulling, dragging him toward our makeshift fort.

  “Boy,” Whitey Grey said, “don’t bring ’im in here.” He sounded like a child, scared of the dead.

  “Gross,” said Ian Spencer Henry.

  No one offered to assist me, even when it became clear that the Apaches wouldn’t kill me, and I didn’t blame them. Turning sideways, I managed to slide through the rock opening, tossing the pack and tools at Whitey Grey’s feet, then reached back with both hands and dragged the dead man inside, too, arrows breaking in the rocks, shafts tearing at his body, but he was beyond hurting. Letting him drop, I collapsed, trying to catch my breath, fighting the distress in my chest and bowels.

  “Gross,” Ian Spencer Henry repeated, but kept staring at the remains. Jasmine looked away. Whitey Grey stared at me with rage.

  “Did Apaches do that?” My friend pointed at the face.

  “Ravens, I suspect,” the white-skinned man said without looking away from me. “We probably scairt ’em off. Or the Cherry Cows give ’em birds a fright.”

  “Gross,” Ian Spencer Henry said again, and looked at me. “What did you bring him here for, Jack? He’s dead. Nothing we can do for him.”

  “We can bury him,” I said. “We can bury him if we’re decent people.” Now I was looking into Whitey Grey’s soulless eyes. “You owe him that much, don’t you, Mister Grey?” I pointed at the corpse, although now I could not summon up courage to look into the dead man’s face again, or his bloodied body. “You remember him, sir, for he remembered you. Willie Spoon? He was freighting with that group that found you at the station twenty years ago. If not for him, and all those others with him, the Apaches might have killed you, or you would have starved to death at the old Overland station. Then you’d be buried, along with Mister Giddings and those others killed by the Apaches.”

  “Over yonder then.” The albino pointed to the small clearing. “Where we buried Mister Giddings and poor ol’ Bruce from Wisconsin way.” He grinned. “Give ’em Cherry Cows one more chance to kill you.”

  “Fine,” I said, no longer believing Indians remained in the vicinity. I opened the pack, grabbed the shovel with the broken handle, loosened the rawhide thongs securing the pickaxe, and walked to the unmarked graves.

  “Here,” Ian Spencer Henry said. “I’ll join you, Jack. Let me help.”

  “Me, too,” Jasmine said.

  The albino just swore, found a spot in the shade, and rolled a cigarette.

  We dug near the two graves, not that you could tell this was a cemetery of sorts. The freighters had been in a hurry to bury Mr. Giddings and the other man. The rocks they had piled over the shallow graves had been scattered here and there after two decades. If any cross or other marker had ever been erected, and I doubted they had, they, too, had been washed, blown, or ripped away.

  Jasmine swung the pickaxe with the fury of a Shakespeare miner. I worked the shovel, ignoring the blisters forming on my hands, scraping more than digging, not making much progress in the hard earth. Having fished out a wooden box from his war bag, Ian Spencer Henry stood guard.

  He had pulled a .44 Colt from the box, proudly showing it off to an unimpressed Whitey Grey, who merely said: “’Taint a Navy, boy, but an Army. Careful not to blow off your hand shootin’ it.”

  Once, the Army Colt had been impressive, its nickel plating ornately engraved though now dotted with flakes of rust, the brass pieces tarnished green, the checkered ivory grip faded to a mellow yellow. The box also contained a copper flask upon which, under a coat of dust, were engraved scenes of a cannon, balls, and flags, with crossed muskets at the top, and a bullet mold. A tin of percussion caps lay in one corner, and other caps had spilled out, and Ian Spencer Henry pulled out a box of prefabricated paper cartridges and loaded the revolver, or tried to, for most of the old, antiquated cartridge fell apart before ever reaching the cylinder, spilling ancient black powder into the dust. Yet he had managed to get three cartridges and caps in place, and proudly stood in the shadows, protecting us.

  Oh, Ian Spencer Henry would come to our assistance when needed, shoving the Colt into his waistband and helping Jasmine pry loose the pickaxe, kicking rocks and mounds of dirt out of the way, even offer
ing to spell me while I nursed the blisters.

  Which is more than Whitey Grey did. He just stood several yards away in the corner, Winchester in his arms, Colt on a boulder top within easy reach, eyes searching the cañon rim.

  With dusk approaching, and bedrock refusing to bend to our muscles, I announced the grave sufficient, though we had not even reached a depth of two feet, and we retrieved the corpse.

  “Good,” Whitey Grey said. “Y’all be his pall-bearers.”

  “You should say something over his grave,” Jasmine said.

  He considered this for a moment, looking again up and down the cañon, and his head bobbed, which surprised me. “Reckon that’d be all right,” he said, and, picking up his Colt and rifle, followed us as Jasmine, Ian Spencer Henry, and I dragged the dead man to his final resting place. We didn’t look at the body, and, when he tumbled into the pit face down, no one volunteered to roll him over.

  “No need to, chil’ren,” the albino said. “Let the ol’ hand alone. He’s tellin’ the Apaches what he thinks of ’em.” And he laughed, this time with humor, although we found nothing funny.

  I removed the Irish woolen hat, too large for me anyway, that Whitey Grey had procured, and bowed my head, waiting for the strange man’s eulogy and prayer.

  He kept it brief.

  “We commit his body to the deep in the certain…oh, amen. Scrape some sand o’er ’em, chil’ren, and let’s go gets my gold. I think it’s up yonder way.” He pointed catty-corner from us, and stepped back while Ian Spencer Henry and I, as soon as we had recovered from the albino’s actions, began covering the remains of the late Willie Spoon.

  “I wonder what happened to Miss Giddings,” Jasmine said to no one in particular.

  “She’s worser off than that ol’ boy,” Whitey Grey answered. “But at least she’s out of my territory, away from my gold.”

  “That’s a cruel thing to say,” Jasmine snapped back.

  “She was warned, li’l’ girlie. Railroaders told her Doubtful Cañon ain’t no place for no petticoat. Just be thankful ’em Apaches who done that, or ’em who wisht they had done it, ain’t ’round here no more.”

  His words had barely registered when death knocked me senseless.

  I lay sprawled on my back, fighting for breath, the broken-handled spade knocked somewhere in the cactus. Instinctively I reached out, grabbed a hand, forced my eyes open, and stared into the blackest, cruelest eyes I had ever seen.

  “Look outs, chil’ren!” Whitey Grey screamed. A gunshot roared. “Blast my luck, they’s here. The Apaches is here!”

  Another shot.

  I gasped. The hand I held gripped a huge bone-handled knife with one wicked blade inches from my throat.

  He had not screamed some blood-curdling yell, had merely fallen from the sky, it seemed, and landed on me. His face was copper, mouth closed, eyes venomous, shiny black hair hanging to his shoulders, and a scarlet silk headband across his forehead, his cheeks plastered with grains of sand I could make out clearly. He stank of sweat, of buckskins and grease. The blade lowered.

  “No you don’t,” I said, or tried to say. “You’re not killing me!”

  Another weapon boomed. Hoofs. My ears rang. Shouts now, like coyotes yipping.

  “Shoot him!” It was Jasmine’s voice. “Shoot him.”

  With what? I don’t have a gun. My mind worked briefly. She wasn’t talking to me, but urging Ian Spencer Henry to save my life.

  What’s taking you so long? I thought, wanting to seek out my good friend, wanting to see that Ian Spencer Henry would indeed save my life, but I remained scared witless to take my eyes away from the Apache on top of me. Kit Carson, Buffalo Bill, Deadwood Dick…they’d have sent this man to Glory by now, Ian Spencer Henry!

  Man? No. Why he was nothing more than a boy, maybe my age, no more than a year or two older.

  Another shot. Then a succession, a veritable cannonade. Whitey Grey’s Winchester sent round after round at our attackers, but the albino didn’t notice the fix I was in, or had enough trouble himself.

  I heard the click, then another, followed by a curse from Ian Spencer Henry. “My gun ain’t working!” he yelled. “Confound it!”

  Isn’t working, Ian Spencer Henry. There’s no such word as ain’t.

  Would those be my last thoughts?

  Jasmine soared, hit the young Apache, but he flung her off effortlessly. Another gunshot. Ian Spencer Henry gave a shout, slammed the revolver barrel at the Apache’s head, missing when he ducked, and hit his shoulder instead. Bone crunched, and the Apache groaned, the first emotion to register on his face other than a grim, deadly determination to rid the world of me.

  His grip relaxed, and I forced the knife up and away, but he roared in pain and rage, and the blade came down savagely. I ducked, felt the knife slide past my ear, slam into the ground. The Apache muttered something, and Ian Spencer Henry and Jasmine hit him again. He let go of me to fight them, and my right hand shot out, searching for anything, jerking back from the stab of a yucca, but trying again, gripping something hard, wooden…. The spade! I brought it up, slammed the tool into the Apache’s face, felt him cry out in pain and astonishment.

  He fell backward, nose spurting blood.

  Another bullet sang off the rocks.

  The Apache boy rolled onto the unfinished grave, saw the corpse of Willie Spoon, and shrieked in terror. He bolted.

  “Hey, you!” Whitey Grey yelled out, noticing the young warrior for the first time. He swung his Winchester, fired, missing, the bullet spanging off the boulders, shot again, but the Apache was gone, disappearing as mysteriously and as silently as he had arrived.

  A bullet, one that hadn’t been fired by Whitey Grey, kicked up sand to my right. I pulled up my knees, backed to the corner, tried to catch my breath, to slow my heart, fight down the panic. Ian Spencer Henry and Jasmine joined me, chests heaving, sweating. The albino fired again, his curses followed by…silence.

  A deafening quietude that lasted an eternity of minutes.

  “You chil’ren ain’t dead?” he called out after the longest time.

  Lying prone, Ian Spencer Henry, his Army .44 trembling in two outstretched hands, spit out sand but did not answer. Nor did Jasmine, squatting behind me, holding the knife the Apache boy had dropped. I still gripped the spade.

  My mouth and throat refused to cooperate. All I could do was move my head, and that took effort.

  “What do we do?” Jasmine’s voice had returned.

  Grimly thumbing cartridges into the rifle, the albino answered with a shake of his head. The wind began to wail again, or maybe the Apaches were singing a battle song, preparing for the kill.

  Chapter Twelve

  As stillness returned and shadows lengthened, we waited, too scared to move, but eventually I summoned enough strength to kick and push rocks and dirt until the grave was covered. I can’t say I did this out of respect or decency. No, fear prompted my actions. The more I saw the back of the dead man’s head, the more I pictured my own face in a grave, mouth open, eyes gone, dead.

  A peregrine falcon soared overhead, disappeared in the gloaming, and the air turned frightfully cold as darkness, perhaps death, descended. We huddled together, the three of us, surprised when Ian Spencer Henry let out a sigh of relief, and slowly rose in the creeping darkness.

  “Ian Spencer Henry…,” Jasmine pleaded.

  “Indians don’t attack at night,” he explained. “Don’t you remember nothing?”

  Before I could protest, the albino had crawled over, startling us out of our wits. He had gathered the canvas pack, and passed a canteen while cautioning us not to drink too much. “Leave the pickaxe and that spade here, by ol’ Willie Spoon’s grave. Don’t reckon ’em Cherry Cows’ll touch it, but hide our tools near ’em graves, behind that yucca yonder. Here.” He drew his Colt, spinning it, offering it butt forward, not to Jasmine this time, but me.

  It felt heavy in my hands.

  “You want to swap, Jack?
”

  “No,” I snapped at Ian Spencer Henry, who eyed the new model revolver with envy.

  “Hush now,” the albino said. “We’re sneakin’ out afore the moon rises. Think I tol’ you chil’ren that Apaches ain’t ones to attack in the dark. So let’s vamanos.”

  “Told you.” Ian Spencer Henry stuck out his tongue.

  Ignoring him, Jasmine asked our leader: “Where are we going?”

  “To that stone house built at the cañon’s edge near the spring. You boys done good, fightin’ that buck like y’all done. You, too, li’l’ girlie. I’d come to help you, but I was busy a mite.”

  “How many Apaches were there?” I asked.

  “Can’t tell. One’s all it takes to bury you. We might’ve got some luck on our side ’cause of you, Jack Dunivan. It was you who come up with the idea to bury ol’ Willie Spoon. Got a big fear of the dead, ’em Apaches do. That body in the grave spooked ’em, spooked that buck tryin’ to cut your gullet, at least, and he might’ve gone and tol’ his red-devil friends. Maybe they’ve cleared out.”

  “Then why leave?” Ian Spencer Henry asked.

  “ ’Cause maybe they ain’t. Can’t read no Apache’s mind. Could be they’s in a hurry to get to Mexico. Could be they’s spoilin’ for a fight. I gots no strong desire to leave my gold, us bein’ practically spittin’ distance to it, but I gots a better desire to keep my hair. I know, Jack Dunivan, ’em bucks don’t take scalps, so don’t get smart with me ag’in. We can come back and digs up that buried treasure, but let’s wait a spell. That ranch house be a better place for us to fort up than out here. Cherry Cows, mean as they are, they’d start rollin’ down rocks on our heads, save their powder, lead, and arrows. Three graves is here already, and I’m in no hurry to join ’em. Don’t y’all fret none, chil’ren, ’cause ol’ Whitey Grey had to make this walk in the dark afore, back after Mister Giddings got kilt here twenty years ago. I knows where I’m goin’. So let’s get goin’.”