Power in the Blood

by Greg Matthews

  They rode north at a pace calculated not to tire the mules, when both men wanted to sprout wings and lift themselves beyond the desert. They rode in silence, each holding tight to his fear, neither willing to discuss their chances. By late afternoon it was still possible to locate the approximate position of Dobson by the distant spiraling of vultures, and their tininess was comfort of a kind. Drew preferred to think that if he and Taynton were to be targets for Dobson’s killer or killers, it would already have happened. It had been wise to separate themselves from the rest of the search party, which presumably had then become the focus for attack, in that they possessed more mules and guns for the taking.

  “We need to be heading for high ground for the night,” advised Taynton, “somewhere we can see for a little ways around us at least. I reckon we can both forget about sleep.”

  Such a spot was found as the westering sun painted the landscape around them a bloody red. Drew led the way up a narrow defile to an isolated shelf of rock some fifty feet across, with sheer sides falling away around almost three quarters of its perimeter. Unless they were attacked by monkeys, they could reasonably expect to defend the point of access to their redoubt.

  As the sky dimmed and darkness seemed to rise from the twisted rocks like mist, Drew and Taynton took up positions that would enable them to decimate an enemy attempting to close in. The mules were hobbled away from any potential line of fire, and were noticeable only by the occasional chinking of their bridles once the light was gone completely. The moonless sky was like spangled velvet, a curtain for whatever might be approaching. It was the darkness that created fear, and Drew wished for morning before night had truly begun. It was a worry to the nerves, being obliged to squat behind the cover of a small boulder and fix one’s attention on the only pathway danger might approach by, a pathway barely visible, made even less so by constant staring. Drew had to close his eyes sometimes in order to see again. The world of shadows around him was formless, depthless, a funnel of gloom hiding even his friend from him.

  “Taynton … Taynton, are you all right?”

  “Don’t talk,” came a low murmur. “Don’t even breathe loud.”

  Chastened, Drew concentrated on remaining quiet. He was forced to rest his eyes more often as physical tiredness and the strain of staring into darkness wearied them, and twice found himself waking from brief snatches of sleep. The second time he did this, Drew was ashamed to have betrayed Taynton’s trust. He had no watch, and could not be sure what time it was. The moon had risen at last, a sullen curve low on the horizon, shedding little light. The mules stirred for a moment, then were still. Drew wanted more than anything else to hold a whispered conversation, but resisted, knowing Taynton would only hiss at him to shut up and watch the defile for signs of movement. He stayed silent, and watched, until sleep overcame his guilt and fear again.

  The third time Drew awoke, traces of dawn were evident in the sky. He was appalled at his own weakness, his personal treachery in allowing his friend to shoulder all responsibility for their safety. He could never admit what he had done to Taynton. Drew stared around himself with an intensity born of remorse. It was a good thing nothing had happened in the night because of his lack of alertness. He watched sunlight begin washing the air with a limpid brightness that quickly became harsh and clear. There was no point now in remaining silent, and in any case, he needed to stand and piss.

  “Taynton …?”

  There was no reply. Drew called his name several times more, his voice low, then realized Taynton had also succumbed to tiredness and strain, and fallen asleep, as Drew had. It was almost a relief to know his weakness was shared. Drew pulled himself upright from behind his boulder and emptied his bladder. His entire body ached from the chill of the retreating night and the unyielding rock that had been his bed of unease. Adjusting his galluses, Drew approached the cleft he knew Taynton was hidden in, but Taynton was not there, having presumably gone to check the mules. Yet such a move would have been seen by Drew, who had been awake for some time now.

  Alarmed, Drew hurried to the spot where he had heard the mules’ bridles clinking in the night, and found that place also empty of life, although Taynton was indeed there. His throat had been sliced open, and he lay on his back, both boots neatly standing on his chest, his stockinged feet pointing at the sky. There was no mutilation other than the gaping throat, which already was attracting the attention of flies. Taynton’s canteen, carbine and ammunition pouch were gone, along with both mules. Drew sank to his knees and vomited the scant remnants of yesterday’s food.

  He could not bring himself to delay his escape by burying Taynton’s body. As he had the day before, Drew abandoned moral precept in favor of flight, but this time his terror allowed no shade of guilt to intrude. He could only assume the killers had not known he was there, and were content to have murdered one man and stolen his belongings.

  He walked north, through country wild and waterless, his canteen almost empty, the sweat ring around the band of his hat drying fast in the air. As the hours passed, Drew began to stumble, and several times fell. He was as sorry for himself as he could remember having been since childhood, and wished fervently for belief in any god that might deliver him from the result of his own foolishness and inferiority.

  By noon, even these mental exertions were no longer indulged in, there being room inside Drew’s skull for nothing but awareness of his thirst. His tongue had the texture of a rolled-up sock, filling his mouth with its swollen presence. His feet ached inside their tight cavalry boots, each toe registering its own exquisite pain at the chafing given by its fellows, and Drew felt the beginnings of a blister on his left heel. The temptation to throw down his heavy Springfield carbine was strong, but Drew fought the impulse; if he had truly been overlooked by the fiends that had stalked himself and Taynton to the rock shelf, then his gun might serve to bring down game to feed upon. His stomach now hurt with almost as much insistence as his feet, and Drew could do nothing for either but stagger on in hopes of coming across salvation.

  At last, and with little resistance, he fell onto his face and remained there, telling himself he needed the rest, and would presently rise to resume his wayward march north. It was greatly comforting, this new mode of nonmovement, and Drew briefly contemplated allowing himself to sleep, if that was possible under such a furnace as the sun. He decided he would allow himself to rest until nightfall, when the cooler air would make progress less difficult. It would have been better to lie down in shade, but he knew he could not lift himself just yet; maybe later.

  “I think he sleeps,” said a faintly mocking voice.

  “Yes, he has no strength inside him now,” came another.

  “Better to let him sleep forever, do you think?”

  “I think we must do this for him.”

  Drew raised his head, then levered his chest from the ground; he could do no more than that. Two slender Indians stood nearby, their coppery skins seeming to glow in the sunlight. They wore the long breechclout and tall moccasins and untamed hair of Apaches. Both carried government-issue Springfields, and their hips were heavily laden with ammunition. Their heads were bound in ragged cloth bands, and they wore doleful smiles on their handsome faces. They did not resemble bloodthirsty savages, were more like graceful desert spirits of some kind. Drew found it hard to credit their deeds, or to accept that these apparitions would presently do to him what they had done to Dobson and Taynton.

  He brought himself to his knees by concentrating mightily, and surprised himself by croaking, “Water …”

  “To drink?” said the first Apache, coming nearer. “But that would be a waste.”

  “Soon now you will need no water,” said the other.

  “Water …,” Drew repeated, if only to delay his dying.

  The first Apache shook his head. “No,” he said, “we can give you none.”

  “We do not wish to,” added the second. “You do not listen.”

  “White people are deaf peo
ple,” agreed the first.

  “A man who cannot hear, what good is he?”

  “Or a woman.”

  “Yes, a woman too. Is this one a woman?”

  “That may be. It has the feebleness of a woman.”

  They stood over Drew, cradling their rifles, a mild gloating in their features. Drew could smell their sweat and see clearly the many small scars etched into the skin of their muscular thighs. A rifle bore suddenly appeared inches from his nose.

  “Should we play with this one?”

  “I think I am too tired.”

  “I am not tired. Be at ease, I will play with him.”

  “If you wish.”

  “Jesus …,” said Drew.

  “He calls for his savior,” said the Apache who was not tired.

  “Jesus …,” Drew said again. “Nail …”

  “What does he say?”

  “He says our names that were.”

  “How can he know them?”

  “You, soldier, how do you know to call us by these names? They are not good names!”

  “No, they are not! Now we will both play with you for a long time.”

  “It’s me … Bones.”

  “Bones?”

  The Apaches looked at each other.

  “John Bones …,” Drew reminded them, “at San … San Bartolomeo … John Bones, dammit …”

  “Is it?” asked Nail in His Feet, peering closer.

  Bleeding Heart of Jesus flipped Drew’s hat off with the barrel of his gun. “It is, my brother. It is him, John Bones.”

  “How can he be a soldier, our friend John Bones? This can not be him!”

  “It is him. He has made a bad choosing.”

  “Give him water.”

  An army canteen was offered to Drew. He unscrewed the cap and sipped, as he had been taught, then lost control and gulped greedily at the warm liquid, aware as he did so that his reunion with the mission boys of long ago was not yet a success. They stared at him with looks of consternation.

  “He has good fortune. We would not have seen his face in the night.”

  “No, it would have been a bad thing to kill our friend without knowing.”

  “Why are you a soldier, John Bones?”

  “I made a promise to a man. He gave me my life.”

  “That was a bad promise,” said Bleeding Heart of Jesus.

  “For my life, I would do the same,” said Nail in His Feet, his tone sympathetic.

  “Grandfather would not like to hear those words.”

  “Grandfather is dead,” Nail in His Feet reminded.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” said Drew. He could not tell if he was still considered a friend, given the colors of his uniform and skin.

  “He knew this day would come,” said Bleeding Heart of Jesus. “He told us so.”

  “Yes, we would meet with you again, John Bones: Grandfather told us this.”

  “It was you who let him inside San Bartolomeo to take us away and learn the true ways.”

  “Grandfather said we must be your friend forever.”

  “Well, uh, I’m sure the old gentleman was right.”

  “So we will not kill you.”

  “No, we will not.”

  “Thank you.”

  Drew stood up, legs quaking with relief. The brothers studied him.

  “You are much older.”

  “You boys look different too.”

  “And our names, they are different.”

  “Yes, we do not use the names you once knew us by.”

  “Those are our shame.”

  “Now I am Panther Stalking.”

  “And I am Kills With a Smile.”

  “Grandfather gave us these names.”

  “He gave us the learning to kill white people.”

  “We have killed very many of them.”

  “I heard about it,” said Drew. Congratulations did not seem to be in order. He was unsure what attitude to strike with these swaggering acquaintances from the past.

  “Now you will tell us what you have done in the time that has gone by.”

  While Drew provided a summary of events, Panther and Smile led him a short distance to their new mules, and allowed him to select one. He chose his own.

  “That is a good one,” said Smile.

  “I was myself riding that one,” said Panther, “but you may have it.”

  “Where is it you wish to go, John Bones?”

  “North, to Colorado.”

  “So the army does not take you again?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then we will go with you.”

  “But we will come back,” said Smile.

  “Yes,” agreed Panther. “We belong here.”

  “We will kill every white man.”

  “Unless they leave,” added Panther.

  “Yes, we will let them leave if they wish.”

  “We are fair.”

  “We keep our word.”

  “See how we kept our word to Grandfather and did not kill you?”

  “I’m very appreciative,” Drew assured them.

  “Now you will be known to everyone,” said Smile. “You will be the only white man to see our faces and live.”

  “No,” corrected Panther. “We were seen by many in the jail at Magdalena, and they are all still living.”

  “Then we should go back there and kill them.”

  “Enough talk of killing. We have our friend John Bones, just as Grandfather said. We must take him away from here, to pay back what he did for Grandfather, and for us. Without John Bones we would still have the bad names, and be Christian men.”

  “Do not talk of things to make my insides sick.”

  The brothers kept up their mild wrangling for miles. Drew had been told that Apaches never spoke unless necessary, and saw that Smile and Panther were not ideal models of the breed. He supposed this was because they had spent too many of their early years at the mission, which had corrupted their natural Apache reticence. They had learned the murderous ways of their ancestors since having been liberated from San Bartolomeo by Smart Crow Making Mischief, but they were a hybrid type of Indian, it seemed to Drew, as he listened to their petulant jabbering, a pair of scolding jays that delighted in pecking out the eyes of lesser birds.

  In time, they felt silent, and Drew found himself able to remember Taynton. Until then, he had not spared his late friend much thought. He could not complain to his rescuers over their having killed someone he liked; it would mean nothing to them, Taynton’s skin being white. Drew would have to swallow the loss without a mention, or risk Panther and Smile’s turning against him. Without them, he might not reach the Colorado line. Curiously, he found he could not hate the brothers for their deeds, and this also bothered him. Was mere acquaintance sufficient for forgiveness? Drew could form no opinion, and in the end stopped trying. It was better to accept the things that had happened, incorporate them into his overall view of the world as a place in which events occurred without rhyme or reason, a constant jostling of actions and resultant reactions that were guided by no higher intelligence, no cosmic adjudicator. Smile and Panther had probably killed Taynton, instead of himself, simply because he was nearer, and for no other reason, certainly not because Smart Crow had predicted they would meet again. It was baffling, the way things turned out as they did.

  The journey to Colorado lasted eleven days. Drew ate wild game shot by Panther Stalking and Kills With a Smile.

  “We like these army guns,” said Panther.

  “They kill further off than any other.”

  “Springfield’s a powerful piece,” Drew concurred.

  “But we wish they would shoot more than one bullet.”

  “You want a repeater, steal a Winchester.”

  “We have three already,” boasted Smile. “We have a secret place where we keep guns.”

  “We wish to have a cannon also. Is there one at Fort Mobley?”

  Drew recalled the small howitzer in the armor
y, its metal dusty from lack of use.

  “No, and there’s no need for you to kill anyone there either. No one ever goes out on patrol for the likes of you two. Leave the fort alone.”

  “We have seen there is no wall there. Why is that?”

  “Nothing’s the way it should be at Mobley.”

  Sometimes the brothers described their raids and ambushes to Drew, but he would not react to their stories, knowing they did this to goad him over the deaths of his own kind.

  “You do not care that we do this?” asked Panther, when Drew had said nothing after hearing a particularly gruesome description of a family being scalped and violated.

  “I care,” said Drew, “but these people you speak of are dead, and nothing I say to you will make them live again.”

  “That is so.”

  “If I believed I could stop you from doing more of the same, just by talking to you, I would, but I see in your faces and hear in your voices that you like to do this killing. You like to give pain.”

  “Yes, we like this very much. Grandfather told us it is our life, our real Apache life, to kill whites and give pain to them before they die.”

  “They fear pain very much,” said Smile, “and many of them will go away when they are told about the pain we give.”

  “Some will leave,” Drew said, “but most will not. There are just too damn many for all of them to be scared of you all the time. You can never win against so many.”

  The brothers became silent for a while, then Panther said to Drew, “There is nothing else we can do.”

  “We have promised Grandfather,” said Smile.

  “And that’s why I say nothing when you tell me what you’ve done,” Drew said. “You won’t change.”

  “No,” agreed the brothers, without the least shade of regret, and the remainder of the ride that day was without talk of any kind.

  Panther and Smile took care to avoid ranches and towns as they escorted Drew north. The trio passed the outposts of white civilization in darkness, rather than risk being seen.