Come Sundown

by Mike Blakely

  The warrior was cautious as he approached the ridge. He craned his neck to see over it, into the next draw. The moment his eyes turned toward me, I said, “Huh!” loud enough to startle him. I drew my bow. He had the chance to surrender, but I knew he would not, and I had orders to kill any Mescalero warrior on sight. The Apache reacted quickly and bravely, yanking a factory-made trade hatchet from his waistband. He drew it back to throw it, but my arrow sped true and pierced his chest. He rolled backward from his pony without a sound and lay motionless on the ground.

  To my astonishment, the soldiers down the slope behind me raised a cheer. Angered, I wheeled my horse to the right and saw the other advance scout alarmed by what he had heard. He had not seen me kill his compatriot. Paddy was chiding the troops for making so much noise. I dropped lower behind the ridge that separated me and the other scout, and rode hard to the south. The curious brave urged his pony far enough forward that he could peer over the ridge, and he saw me, saw the array of soldiers, saw his friend’s riderless pony. Outnumbered and alone, he wheeled to the east.

  My Comanche war yell burst from my lungs and my horse lunged his head and neck harder in pursuit. Now my choice of pony made me proud, for that buckskin tore dirt from the desert and crashed recklessly through thorns to catch the fleeing rider. I dropped the reins across his neck and drew another arrow from my quiver. Before the rider could reach the next ridge, I had pulled within range. I sent my arrow flying with all the force of the bow combined with the charging pony. It sailed a little higher than I had intended and hit the warrior where his right arm joined his shoulder, knocking him forward. He tried valiantly to hold on, but his pony shied left to avoid a cactus patch and the warrior fell hard to the ground.

  I charged on. The Mescalero rose, drew a knife with his left hand, and turned to face me, his right arm dripping with blood and hanging uselessly at his side. The arrow was sticking through his shoulder, but he didn’t have time to break it off. I wished for a Comanche shield as I closed on him, but all I could do was ride down on my enemy and kick him in the chest to knock him down. He struck with his knife and the razor-sharp blade pierced my left calf so deep that I felt the steel briefly scrape my bone. Pain shot up my leg and forced a yell of agony from my throat.

  All the hundreds of races and riding contests I had run with my Comanche friends remembered themselves to me. With reins and leg pressure I sat the buckskin instantly on his haunches and wheeled him all in a second. One more leap put me back over my enemy. I dove from the saddle onto the warrior’s chest, this time pinning his good arm. I drew my own knife as he struggled under me. I avoided looking into his eyes, and plunged my blade between his ribs. He lurched, and I withdrew my blade to stab again.

  The cheer rose again from the ridge behind me, and again Paddy barked at the troops for breaking the silence. My heart pounded so that I could barely breathe. I knew what a Comanche warrior would do now. I made a quick, brutal slash across the forehead of the dead Mescalero. I grabbed his long hair, spun my body to sit on the ground above his head, placed both feet on his shoulders and pulled hard. I had to take a wrap with the warrior’s locks around my palm, for his hair was dressed with bear grease and slipped in my grasp. I was charged with strength by combat and pain from my leg wound, and the scalp peeled away from the skull easily, with the same sickening sound a snakeskin makes coming away from the writhing body of a headless rattler. I cut the scalp away from the dead man’s skull.

  I stuffed the horrible trophy in my saddlebag without looking back at my victim. I sheathed my knife, mounted, and rode at a canter to the other Mescalero’s body. Some soldiers had gathered around to inspect the trappings of the dead brave. “Step back,” I ordered, knowing I had to finish this quickly. They watched, stunned, as I scalped the corpse the same way I had the other.

  “Goddamn!” one soldier said, as I mounted. I rode away to the place where I had prayed and chanted the night before, trying to calm myself. My lungs and chest hurt from the sheer exertion of battle. I didn’t have much in my stomach, but what I had there wanted out. The blood of my enemies covered my hands, and my own blood dripped at a troubling tempo from my left stirrup. I felt a scowl on my face, and I shook my head to rid myself of it.

  Paddy came loping to me. “You all right, Greenwood?”

  “My leg’s wounded. Pretty bad, I think.”

  “Get down. Let’s see.”

  I dismounted and sat on the ground. Paddy unceremoniously sliced open the leg of my trousers.

  “Those are good buckskins,” I complained.

  “Better to cut it open now. Leg’s gonna swell anyway.”

  “I’ll doctor it. It won’t swell.”

  “Right,” he said, the skepticism thick in his tone of voice. “I forgot you were part medicine man. Well, you can patch your pants good as new later.” He whistled through his teeth as he pulled back the bloody buckskin.

  “How bad is it?”

  “You were lucky. It’s a hell of a gash, but you won’t bleed to death. Must have missed the big veins. Hope you don’t get the gangrene.”

  “I can make a poultice.”

  Paddy grunted. “Out of what?”

  “Cedar. Alder. Maybe some milkweed.”

  “Well, there’s cedar everywhere, but I don’t know where you’ll find that other.”

  “I can hear some up that draw,” I said.

  “Hear it?”

  “Burnt Belly taught me. The plants speak if you listen.”

  Paddy Graydon’s brow gathered as he regarded me with concern. “You’re teched, Greenwood. You’re talkin’ loco.”

  “Just find me something I can use for bandages,” I said. “I’ll do the rest.”

  I found an alder bush in a dry streambed, as I expected. I hadn’t really heard it speak. I just figured I was likely to find some there. Maybe I had heard it. Quién sabe? Anyway, I peeled some of the inner bark of the alder bush and laid it over the opening of my knife wound. Paddy came with some strips of fairly clean white cloth he had found somewhere and helped me bind the wound.

  “We’d best hurry,” he said. “The main party can’t be far away now.”

  “Yeah.”

  “That was a hell of a thing to watch, Greenwood, you killing those two scouts without a gunshot. Now we can surprise Manuelito when he comes over the ridge. The boys are all fired up to fight after watching you.”

  “Wasn’t much else I could do.”

  “There’s many a man couldn’t have done it at all. What is that name the Comanches call you?”

  “Plenty Man.”

  He nodded as he made a knot in the bandage to finish it. He had done a nice, neat job of wrapping my aching leg. “Well, I don’t have much use for a Comanche, but I’ll agree with them on one thing. For a little cuss, you’re plenty man.”

  I sighed. I felt weary. “Well, it’s not over. The real fight’s yet to come.”

  He pulled my blood-crusted buckskins over the wound and helped me to my feet. “Yeah, I know. I can’t hardly wait.”

  I mounted on the right, Indian style, so I wouldn’t have to use my wounded leg to step up. Paddy and I rode to the ridge to wait for the Indians. He had his men poised just behind the ridge where I had killed the first Mescalero scout. I peeked over the ridge and saw three soldiers on foot using mesquite branches to obliterate the tracks I had made chasing down the second scout. They had already covered up the blood and any other signs of the struggle. They finished their task hastily, and rejoined the rest of the party behind the protective ridge. Now only Paddy and I remained far enough forward to peer over the ridge. My leg began to ache, and I felt ill, but I tried to emulate a good Comancbe warrior and embrace the pain. We didn’t have to wait long. Within ten minutes, Manuelito himself came over the ridge, riding his fine tall claybank, probably stolen from some white man’s ranch.

  Paddy held his palms toward his soldiers as if to say, “Get ready, boys, but wait …” Manuelito came on down the opposing slope, his b
est warriors behind him. They could not see us, for Paddy and I barely peeked over our ridge, and even then the tops of our heads were obscured by brush. A cavalry horse snorted behind me, but apparently the Mescaleros did not hear it over the noises of their own party on the move. Now the younger braves were coming over the ridge across the draw from us, followed by women and children. The first woman to ride down sat on a huge red mule pulling a travois. This, I assumed, was Manuelito’s wife, as she led all the other women.

  “That lanky buck behind Manuelito’s got to be Long Joe,” Paddy whispered.

  I nodded.

  Paddy’s palm was still turned to the troops. He waited until Manuelito had reached the bottom of the draw and the whole party was within view on the slope facing us, all of them between two hundred and three hundred yards distant. They made easy targets for good marksmen. My heart began to sink with dread. I knew our orders all too well. I expected Paddy to order a charge at any second, but instead he motioned to his men with his fingertips, as if to say, “Step forward, boys.”

  I was dumbfounded at this order. The entire company moved ahead at a walk. He was going to show himself to the enemy, spoiling the element of surprise.

  “Paddy!” I hissed, between my teeth.

  He silenced me with a fierce glance, placing his trigger finger to his lips.

  The line of troops stepped to the ridge, each man turning his mount a little to the right, as if preparing to fire his carbine. Manuelito pulled the reins of his war bridle when he saw us deployed before him. I expected him to turn tail and flee, his warriors guarding the retreat of the women and children. To my surprise, he did not. He simply raised his hand to stop the advance of his party. The Mescaleros all sat proudly but calmly on their mounts. The terror I had expected to see among them failed to materialize, and I was confused by their nonchalance. Manuelito lowered his hand, then raised it again, this time in a sign of greeting.

  “Ready!” Paddy yelled.

  Carbines rose for action all along the line.

  “Paddy,” I said. “Manuelito wants to talk.”

  It was José Largo—Long Joe as the Americans called him—who understood first. He wheeled his mount and tried to warn the party. Manuelito sat his claybank with his hand raised in peace.

  “Fire!” Paddy shouted.

  Gunfire rumbled like a bad drumroll. A line of white smoke balls blossomed as bullets hummed across the draw. Manuelito took a rifle ball in the stomach and crumpled, his palm still open and empty. José Largo pitched forward from the impact of the shot that hit him between the shoulder blades. Three other Mescaleros jerked unnaturally in their saddles and fell. One of them was a woman. I will never forget the horrible image of all that human flesh and horse flesh and the surrounding earth taking the impact of invisible missiles. It was like firing both barrels of a scattergun into the surface of a calm pool.

  The Indians fled in terror now, some of them obviously wounded, judging by the way they swayed on their mounts.

  “Charge!” Paddy screamed.

  I glanced at him and saw a terrifically maniacal look in his eye as he leapt forward on his mount. The men, drilled in his kind of volley and charge, slipped the barrels of their carbines into the leather rings fixed to their saddles, drew revolvers, and charged, each trying his best to catch up to Captain Paddy Graydon.

  I loped along to the rear, having lost my stomach for the fight. I rode by the body of Manuelito, reposed in an uncomfortable position on the ground. He had signed for a parley and had been answered with lead. Something, I now realized, was wrong with this whole encounter. The Mescaleros had not been prepared for trouble. The two scouts I had slain earlier had died too easily. My stomach twisted with nausea and guilt. What was this? I couldn’t explain what had just transpired in this lonely draw, but I knew one thing for sure. This was not honorable warfare from any fighting man’s point of view—white or Indian. I had just witnessed a massacre.

  I came to the Indian woman who had been shot from her horse as she fled. As she lay on her back, eyes closed, I saw her chest lurch in a gasp for breath. Jumping from my mount, I approached her, noting the bloodstained ground beneath her body and the bloody tear in the front of her dress where a bullet had left her body. I could hear pistol shots in the distance.

  “Puedo ayudarle,” I said in Spanish. “I can help you.”

  She lay with one arm pinned behind her back, as if she had fallen on it. But as I approached to look at her wound, her eyes flew open and the hand lashed out from under her, grasping a knife that almost cut my throat before I could leap back.

  “Please,” I continued, in Spanish. “I want to help you.”

  She spat on me, and winced in anguish from the pain that the exertion of spitting had caused her.

  “Drop the knife. Please. I want to save your life.”

  She glared at me with all the hatred and anger a small Mescalero woman could possibly contain. “You are him, aren’t you?” she hissed.

  “Whom?”

  “The one who killed Lame Deer’s son. The trader who lives with the Snake People.”

  “I am called Plenty Man among the Comanches. Yes, I trade with them. The killing of Lame Deer’s son was an accident, a long time ago.”

  She shook her head. “Now you have done this. You are with the other one.”

  “The other?”

  “The other trader. Beach. You are with him in this.” She was weakening. Her elbow slipped out from under her and she fell back on her shoulder blades, but she still watched me and she still held the knife.

  “What of the trader—Beach. What did he tell you?”

  “You know.”

  “I do not. I was told by Carson—Little Chief—to seek battle with your warriors. My own Comanche spirit-protectors instructed me to go to battle and fight. That is all I know of this.”

  “You lie.”

  “I did not fire into your people. The soldiers did. You must tell me what you know.”

  She looked at me with confusion. “Manuelito wanted peace. This he told Beach. Beach said we must ride to Santa Fe to talk with the big soldier chief. Beach said he would help.”

  “Help how?”

  “He would send soldiers. Friendly soldiers.”

  I looked at her with astonishment. “An escort?”

  She grimaced and nodded. “To Santa Fe.”

  Now my head spun in realization of how stupidly I had been used by Beach and Graydon. A cold shame gripped my heart and my stomach to think of the cowardly way I had ambushed two unsuspecting scouts seeking an escort; how I had stood and done nothing as forty-two soldiers poured lead into a peace party.

  “I must save your life,” I said. “Please, let me. You must tell what you know to Little Chief and to the big soldier chief in Santa Fe.”

  “You tell them. I am ready to die.”

  The guns had faded now in the distance. I knew she was right. I had to tell Kit and General Carleton about this. The woman’s head fell back on the sand and her grip slackened around the knife. Quickly, I grabbed the weapon and used its razor-sharp edge to cut open the front of her blouse. The wound was bad. The bullet seemed to have passed through her stomach and intestines, and perhaps through her liver, as well. Blood oozed up from the bullet wound in swells. I cut away a corner of a blanket she had been wearing about her shoulders and pressed it as hard as I dared on the wound, trying to stem the blood flow. I covered her with the rest of the blanket as I did this, trying to keep her warm. But there was no saving her. Her body began to tremble and breath rattled in and out through her throat. Her breathing stopped first, but her heart beat for a minute or two after that. Mercifully, it ended at last. I closed her eyelids and covered her face.

  I checked the bodies of the slain men. All were dead. I laid them on their backs and crossed their arms over their chests. I covered them with blankets, as well.

  By now, the soldiers were returning, driving captured horses and mules before them. There were sixteen mounts in all
. The tall claybank of Manuelito and the big red mule ridden by his wife were among them, the travois having been cut away from the mule. Some of the soldiers brandished scalps. One in particular rode to me and said, “Lookee, here, Greenwood. I got me one, too!”

  I simply looked away with disgust and guilt.

  Paddy rode up. “What happened to you?” he asked.

  “I tried to save that woman.”

  He nodded, a bit of concern in his eyes. “Too bad about her. Stray bullet. I told the boys before the fight to avoid that.” Now he pointed with pride over the ridge. “You missed it. We killed five more warriors in the chase. Wounded some others. Got some good horses.”

  “No prisoners, Paddy?”

  He glanced at me and shook his head. “They ran like skeered rats. There was no catchin’ ’em with anything but bullets.”

  “Any of our boys killed?”

  “No casualties. Excepting your knife wound.”

  I sighed. “I’d just as soon bury the dead Indians and get the hell out of here.”

  “Bury ’em? Their people will just come dig them up.”

  I knew he was right about this, so I let the argument go.

  “What’s got into you?” Paddy said.

  “I just didn’t like the way it happened. They didn’t have a chance.”

  “Given a chance, they would have killed some good boys.” He paused. “That squaw say anything, Greenwood?”

  “Yeah. She wondered if I was him.”

  “Him? Who?”

  “Never mind. It happened a long time ago.”

  Just then I noticed a soldier pulling the blanket off the body of Manuelito. He drew his knife and grabbed the dead chief’s hair.

  “Hey!” I yelled.

  The soldier looked at me, confused.

  “No! You didn’t earn that!”

  The soldier looked at me, then at Paddy, then back at me. “Well, you took a scalp. Hell, you took two!”

  “I shouldn’t have. It wasn’t right.”

  “No scalping,” Paddy said. “That’s an order. There’s no time. You men have performed well, and now it’s time to ride hard back toward Stanton. You’ve all earned some rest and some hot grub.”