Doubtful Canon

by Johnny D. Boggs

  Jasmine recovered, rolling over and leaping to her feet before I reached her, and she took off for our rock fort, diving in beside the albino. I followed her, and moments later Ian Spencer Henry stumbled in, landing on his back, raising the old pistol, looking for another target.

  The wind died down, and we heard the guttural chants of the Apaches. Cautiously I looked over the top of the natural redoubt, but couldn’t see the Indians, couldn’t fathom a guess as to how many there were, five or fifty.

  “Why don’t they charge?” I asked.

  “Surprised ’em,” the albino said. “Figgered we didn’t have no guns, but they’ll come directly and finish us off. Hear ’em. They’s workin’ up their courage, singin’ their death songs. Don’t know we only gots one gun.”

  “One?” I shouted. When the white-skinned man ran here, I had assumed he was heading for his cache of guns. “You said you got your Colt and Winchester when you went back to the rock house!”

  Blinking rapidly, he studied me a moment before shaking his head. “You wasn’t listenin’,” he said. “I said that was my intention. Wanted my Colt and repeater and some water. The water I drunk. Only the guns wasn’t there. None of ’em.” He hooked a thumb toward the Apaches. “They got ’em first.”

  He didn’t explain further, but I sorted out a theory. The Apaches had watched us from the hills. Preferring to strike from ambush, they knew better than to charge the rock house, where we’d have plenty of cover. When we had left, prisoners of Brocious and Ringo, the Indians had picked up the two abandoned rifles and pistol. Most of them backtracked their way out of the cañon and worked their way up to the rim, dashed ahead to surprise us around the bend in Doubtful Cañon. They wouldn’t have used their newfound weapons, not at first, because, as Whitey Grey kept saying, Apaches cherished powder and lead, and boulders and stones often worked just as well. Maybe a few stayed behind, anticipating, if any of us survived the catapult ambuscade, that we’d retreat back to the rock house by the spring.

  My heart sank.

  That, I thought, had been Eleora Gidding’s fate. Maybe Brocious’s and Ringo’s, as well.

  “Tarnation,” Whitey Grey said. “This close to my gold, only to be kilt by ’em Cherry Cows.”

  Ian Spencer Henry, buoyed by his marksmanship, said: “We ain’t dead yet.”

  “Yeah,” the albino said. “We are. Lessen you think you can hold ’em all off with that thing.” He pointed at my friend’s old revolver. “Criminy, boy, it only works one time in ten. Nope, chil’ren, we’s kilt…certain sure.”

  Dead, I thought, and all my fault. I would be responsible for the deaths of my two closest friends. I’d pay the price, too. I looked out to the makeshift graveyard several yards away. If we were lucky, I thought, we’d wind up like Mr. Giddings and the gunman named Bruce. If not…we’d be like poor Willie Spoon, our bones winding up in some coyote’s den.

  Hopeless. Still fixed on the graves, I reached out and took Jasmine’s hand, squeezing it.

  “Let’s run then!” Ian Spencer Henry said.

  The albino’s head shook. “Make a run for it, and they’ll cut us down. That’s what’s keepin’ ’em at bay, right now. Only way they knows to gets in here is through that li’l’ hole, but they gots to finish the fight now. So they’ll come.”

  “But we can run….”

  “No, no. Just get cut down, I done tol’ you,” the old man repeated. “And I figger if I gots to die, might as well die here, close to my gold.”

  “We can hold out till dark.” Ian Spencer Henry refused to give up. “Like we did before.”

  “Sundown’s a long time comin’,” Whitey Grey said. “They won’t wait that long. Ain’t got much experience, ’em young bucks, but they’s eager to prove ’emselves. And we’s been lucky. Had ’em boys knowed better, they’d have waited till we all rounded that bend, then ambushed us yesterday. Gots lucky is all. That first rock could’ve crushed my head. Lucky then. Lucky when ’em bucks hit us here, too, that first time. Onliest reason we didn’t get kilt then was ’cause that boy attackin’ Jack fell on that dead man.”

  Dead man. I focused on the open grave. Willie Spoon, I remembered thinking earlier, had saved us in death.

  “Spooked ’em, it did. Apaches be scared of the dead,” I heard the albino say, “but they ain’t afeared of dyin’.” He sighed, resolved to his fate. “Nope. This time, it’s all over but the dyin’, screamin’, and buryin’.”

  I released Jasmine’s hand, jumped up, and grabbed the albino’s strong arms, pulling him, saying something insensible, telling him we had to get to that grave. My friends stared at me, thinking I had lost all reason, but I shot out: “It’s our only chance!”

  “What you talkin’ ’bout boy?” Whitey Grey refused to stand.

  “The grave!” I said. “You get in the grave. When the Apaches come….” I couldn’t think. “Like Lazarus.”

  “Who?”

  “Lazarus?” Jasmine said, not repeating my statement, for she sounded just as confused as the white-skinned man.

  “There’s no time to explain,” I said. “We’ve got to hurry.”

  Apache voices had grown louder. They’d be coming soon. To kill us. Yet maybe we could save ourselves, with luck, counting on that Apache dread, their superstition.

  At last, Ian Spencer Henry understood, and he shoved the Colt into his waistband, and joined my assault on Whitey Grey, trying to make him stand, force him into the opening, to the hole in the earth where we had tried to bury Willie Spoon. “Rising from the grave,” my friend said. “It could work.”

  No, it couldn’t, I thought, but what other chance do we have?

  Jasmine helped, and finally the albino rose, but stopped before we left the rock fortress.

  “You ain’t buryin’ me in no grave!” he said. “Not yet.” His words fell to a whisper. “It’s bad luck.”

  “Bad luck?” I snapped. “You’re crazy. This is our only chance! We’re about to be killed, you fool! Scalped!”

  His head shook. “Cherry Cows don’t scalp, Jack. You knows that.”

  Jasmine kicked him in the butt, and he relented and headed for the grave. We ran, and he ran with us, suddenly changing his mind, mumbling that yeah, that my plan had possibilities. “And iffen it don’t work,” he said, “at least I’ll be in a grave when I’m kilt.”

  He slid into the grave, and frantically we kicked and covered him with a loose mound of dirt, keeping his face clear, hoping the Apaches wouldn’t notice it. “When I give the signal,” I told him, “you stand up. Like Lazarus.”

  “Never met the fella,” he said.

  I swore, heard a falcon cry, dashed to the edge of the cañon, hiding behind a yucca near the sandy hill, near Whitey Grey’s gold. I saw a flash of red headband, knew the Apaches were coming, and my doubts returned. That entrance wasn’t the only way here. Easily the Chiricahua could creep along the cañon’s edge, as we had done. They could make their way to the top of the rim on this side of Doubtful, crush us by rolling boulders over the precipice. They could stand behind the strewn boulders forming the maze and shoot us from there.

  My idea…it was horrible.

  The first Apache boy came through the opening, the same one whose nose I had broken with the blunt shovel, followed by two more, one holding a bow, an arrow already notched, another with the late Willie Spoon’s Henry rifle. The first brave held the stolen Colt. We were dead.

  Jasmine knew it, and she screamed.

  Yet that shriek prompted Whitey Grey to climb out of the grave, the howling wind scattering the dust and dirt. The sight even unnerved me, for here rose this ghost, a white-skinned abomination, with stark white hair, coughing out the sand he swallowed, snorting, dancing, yipping like a banshee.

  The Apache with the Colt yelled, turned, and retreated, stumbling over the other two, forcing his way through, running, leaving the others staring in horror at the ghost climbing out of the grave. One of those began his own death song, dropped the Henr
y, turned, fled. The last Chiricahua wasn’t far behind.

  They vanished. Whitey Grey kept pounding the dirt off his body, brushing away the touch of the dead. Jasmine, Ian Spencer Henry, and I stood watching, struck dumb by the sight and the sound of thundering hoofs as the Apaches fled Doubtful Cañon.

  “It worked,” Jasmine said incredulously.

  That’s when I heard scattered shots, and more hoofs.

  “Or did it?” Ian Spencer Henry said.

  The next sound was the blaring of a trumpet.

  “The Army!” Jasmine yelled, and she took off running. Screaming, shouting with joy, Ian Spencer Henry and I ran after her, leaving the crazy old albino doing his dance, purging himself of sand from his ears.

  Short-lived was our relief.

  Oh, we stood there for a while, cheering as dust-coated black men galloped past on their horses, although I admit a strange feeling that I hoped the Apache boys would escape. I mean, my father had once told me that the Indians were fighting for their land, and these weren’t horrible killers, not to me at least. Well, they hadn’t killed me. Besides, they were just boys. Like me.

  One of the black soldiers tipped his slouch hat toward us as he rode by, a Springfield carbine in his hand, and we cheered harder. Even Whitey Grey, who had joined us, muttered some respect. “Never thought I’d be so happy to see a bunch of blue-bellies,” he said. He raised his voice to a shout. “Go get ’em, you Yanks!” Then, squinting and stepping back, he told me in a whisper: “Jack, ’em’s colored fellas.”

  “Ninth Cavalry,” said a white officer as he trotted to us on a blue roan gelding. “From Fort Bayard. I am Lieutenant Skylar Gaugy.”

  His horse pranced about as more soldiers thundered past, and the young man—with his pale face and mustache of peach fuzz, he didn’t look much older than me—had trouble controlling his mount, which wanted to take off after the others, yet he managed to grin at us. “Your mother and father are alive, children,” he said. “They’ll be relieved to see that you and your grandfather are likewise.”

  My mouth dropped. What on earth…?

  Said Whitey Grey: “Huh?”

  “Both of your sons are alive, sir.” The officer addressed the albino, and he turned back to the column as a covered wagon driven by one black soldier veered off toward us, followed by another soldier on a high-stepping gray horse.

  “What’s he talking about, Jack?” Ian Spencer Henry said.

  By then I knew. At least I felt it in my churning gut before the soldier driving the wagon set the brake, before the corporal on the gray horse held back the canvas at the rear of the wagon, and a woman jumped down.

  Eleora Giddings started for us, but a voice stopped her. Two more men climbed out of the wagon, and I knew who they were before one grabbed Miss Giddings’s arm and led her toward us, smiling.

  “We pulled your daughter-in-law and your sons from the house at the entrance of this cañon,” Lieutenant Gaugy said. “Three Apaches had pinned them there, but we ran those Indians off. It gladdens my heart everyone’s alive. We’ve seen too much death already. I’m sure your hearts are joyous, too.”

  Beside me, as the blue roan snorted and almost unseated the lieutenant, Whitey Grey snorted and mumbled something about sons.

  Chapter Twenty

  For a moment, I contemplated warning Lieutenant Gaugy and the two troopers, but Miss Giddings’s pleading face told me to stay quiet. She was right, I guess. Pretending to be my father, Curly Bill Brocious put his right hand on the butt of his revolver while his left pinched Miss Giddings’s arm like a vise. Beside them walked Dutch Johnny Ringo, his thumbs hooked in his shell belt, cold eyes blazing with arrogance, daring us to try anything.

  Two other wagons lumbered by, followed by a half dozen more cavalrymen, all disappearing up Doubtful Cañon.

  “Mister Witsenhauser,” Lieutenant Gaugy addressed Brocious, leaving me wondering how the man-killer had come upon that alias, “we have these renegades on the run. I must join my troops.”

  “Understood, Capt’n.” Brocious and Ringo stopped just in front of us, never looking back at the lieutenant.

  “I’ll leave Corporal Merchant and Trooper Muller with you.”

  Ringo suddenly frowned. “There’s no need for that….”

  “There most certainly is,” the officer said. “I not only have a duty to my command, sir, but to a higher duty, a moral one. The Apaches ran off your horse, and this country is no place to be afoot…not with three young children and a young woman. Or….” He wet his lips, trying to think of a polite term for Whitey Grey. I prayed the officer would realize the brigand’s deceit, but to no avail. “Your father,” Lieutenant Gaugy said at last. Tugging the reins, he turned the horse around and barked orders to the two black soldiers, issuing orders to escort us as far as Lordsburg, then return with haste to Fort Bayard.

  The soldiers saluted, and the corporal stepped down from his mount, wrapping the reins around the wagon wheel.

  “Ma’am,” Lieutenant Gaugy said, tipping his hat and bowing slightly, “keep your homecoming short. Gentlemen, children. Good luck!”

  He spurred his horse and galloped after his command, leaving us with two grinning gunmen and a couple of soldiers who didn’t know their commander had likely just ordered them, plus the rest of us, to death.

  “Luck,” Whitey Grey said with contempt, and spit in the dirt.

  Brocious shoved Eleora Giddings forward, urging her to—“Go see our young ’uns, Mama.”—and with a dry laugh he turned back for the wagon, offering to help Trooper Muller down. An old man, his hair and beard as white as the albino’s, the black soldier protested, but Brocious insisted. Meanwhile, Ringo had walked over to the corporal, a younger man, heavy-set for a horse soldier, hooking his thumbs in his belt, striking up a conversation about chasing Apaches.

  “Thanks,” Trooper Muller said, breaking away from Brocious’s grip. The old man started to tip his battered slouch hat in an amicable greeting, but never finished. Curly Bill Brocious clubbed the kind cavalryman with the barrel of his Russian, and the soldier cried out and toppled forward, his head barely missing a jagged rock.

  “What’s this…?” Corporal Merchant started, but Ringo silenced him with a sickening thud, using the barrel of his Thunderer, and the big man dropped without a sound.

  “Should I kill ’em now, Dutch?” Curly Bill stood over the unconscious Muller, pointing the cocked .44 at the man’s bloody head.

  “No,” said Ringo, stepping over the fallen corporal and walking back to us. “I don’t want those soldier boys to hear any shooting.”

  “I could slit their throats.”

  Ringo shook his head, smiling at us. “Just tie them up, Curly.”

  He didn’t fool me. He was trying to lull us into some security. By sparing their lives, he figured we might think we had a chance to get out of this mess alive. I knew better. Once they had that fortune, they’d kill us all.

  “You get your gold, old man?” Ringo asked, though he never took his eyes off Miss Giddings and me.

  “It’s gone,” the white-skinned man answered. “You was right, Ringy. Waited twenty years for nothin’. Somebody else must’ve found it.”

  Ringo’s face remained unreadable. I understood card players considered him a tough opponent at a poker table. He started to speak, still staring at us, but stopped when Curly Bill Brocious cried out that he needed a hand. Swearing, Ringo pivoted, warning us to stay put, and helped his partner hog-tie and gag Corporal Merchant and Trooper Muller, then drag, drop, and shove both men, still knocked cold, into the back of the covered wagon. After dusting themselves off and sharing a drink of water from a canteen, the two gunmen came back to us.

  Ringo never hesitated, never lost that smile that had returned. He drew the long-barrel Remington, thumbed back the hammer, and placed the barrel against Jasmine’s temple. Miss Giddings whirled, calling him a miserable coward, reaching for his gun hand, but Curly Bill Brocious grabbed her around her slim waist,
pulled her back, and threw her onto the ground, then aimed his own revolver at her head. Ian Spencer Henry and I just stared, uncertain. Whitey Grey tugged on the ends of his mustache. Jasmine bit her lip, but stood bravely, unflinching.

  “I’m out of patience, Grey,” Ringo said. “Where’s that gold? Or I’ll blow this child’s brains all the way to Mexico.”

  “It’s…,” I started, but Whitey Grey’s heavy sigh silenced me, and I watched him step back and hook a thumb.

  “C’mon,” he said, and led us through the rocky maze into the opening, past the graves. Stopping at the cañon wall, he pointed up the hill.

  “I don’t see no hole,” Brocious said.

  “Something happened.” The albino explained how some force of Nature had removed all sign of the cave, including the juniper. The wind picked up again, cold and stark, kicking up dust devils that quickly died. I shivered, and Miss Giddings snapped at the killers that we needed water and food. Absentmindedly Brocious tossed her the canteen before fingering a bit of peppermint candy from his pocket and throwing that in the sand, too.

  “You sure this is the right spot?” Ringo asked.

  “Yeah.” Whitey Grey thumbed at the graves. “That’s where we planted this lady’s pappy.” His jaw jutted up the hill. “It’s thereabouts. Somewheres.”

  “Let’s get out of here, Dutch!” Brocious shouted over the wind. “It ain’t worth it. That hole could be filled in with dirt, and we could spend a week digging without ever finding a thing. And this crazy old guide we have ain’t exactly reliable. Besides, more soldiers might be coming. Or ’Paches.”

  Ringo studied the hill, unblinking.

  “Come on, Dutch! It ain’t worth it, I say!”

  “Not yet,” Ringo said calmly. His smile returned, as did the life in his eyes, and he kicked the broken shovel with the toe of his new boot. When he faced us again, he dug a thumb-size bit of jerky from his own pocket and placed it in Ian Spencer Henry’s hand.

  “Eat up,” he said cheerily. “You’ll need your strength. All of you.” He pointed his revolver at the tools. “Eat up. Then start digging.”