Friends

by Charles Hackenberry

  Wasn't but five minutes 'til DuShane fired his pistol again and I heard it zing off a rock over in Clete's direction. I fired through the crack, stood and touched off another round before I ducked back down. But that time, he didn't return my fire and Clete didn't shoot either.

  The sun was hot and turning that pocket where I watched and waited into a granite oven … the only shade under my hat. I took a drink from my canteen and noticed a hawk riding the wind above the peak where that billy was before. After a while he drifted over and circled slow around our pile of rocks. He was a good ways up but not so far I couldn't see how slick and shiny his brown feathers was. He craned his neck back and forth, looking down, getting a gander at what was moving below him … which was us. He sailed back over toward them other rocks, where he was before, caught himself a careless sparrow, and settled down over there to eat it.

  I stopped watching that hawk and was about to look through my opening again when directly above me a shadow dark as night and tall as a horse reared up against the sun. All I could see of his face was his pale eyes staring crazy at me. I was trying to bring the muzzle of that scattergun up, but he swung the stock of his heavy rifle over his head like a club and it come down at me like lightning. All I had time to do was put my hand up, and all I had time to think was I'm gone, I'm gone. And then it thundered and everthing went black as swamp water.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Only I wasn't gone. I swum hard back up to the light on the surface of that black pool. I come to myself gazing straight into the sun and wondering how long I'd been out. It didn't feel like a long time, but maybe that's how it always seemed. Much practice as I was getting, being knocked on the head, you'd think I'd know. Blood run down my face from a gash above where my hair started, and the knot raising there felt big as a turkey egg. Little finger of my left hand was out of joint at the knuckle, too. Soon as I snapped it back in place it swole up tight. I almost passed out again when I stood up.

  I found my scattergun, checked the shells and'd just pulled up to fire it, meaning to warn Clete, when I glanced down the way we come up. DuShane was just about to the bottom. I fired one barrel and he jumped the rest of the way. I fired the other at him while he was sprawled on the ground after his fall. Last I saw of him, he'd gathered himself up and was ducking under the trees, heading downhill.

  I reloaded and fired again, into the air this time, both barrels. "Clete!" I yelled. "He got behind me and is down below!"

  Nothing happened. The bleeding stopped sometime about then, but I couldn't see DuShane nor Clete and no noise from neither. After wiping some of the blood off my face, I set my hat back on, which I guess had saved me a busted head, pulling it front some to keep it off the swelling. Maybe I did pass out again then, I'm not sure. Everthing seemed to melt and run together and I throwed up worse than I ever remember doing before. When I felt a little better, I reloaded and fired both barrels again, not knowing what else to do.

  Clete showed himself partly, way over to the right and halfway to the top from where I was. I pointed so as to be sure he could see where I meant. "He's down there now!" I yelled. Clete stood up the rest of the way and looked up toward the top and then back at me. I seen him shake his head before he turned and headed my way.

  I didn't wait for him. Instead, I gathered up the canteens and jerky bag to start down and that's when I saw the long heavy rifle with the tube on top that DuShane'd hit me with, the stock splintered some and broke completely off the rest. I was surprised he left it there, but with no more bullets and it in two pieces like that, maybe it was more trouble carrying than it was worth.

  My head hurt plenty going down over them rocks. Damn if I didn't feel stupid and shamed for letting him get away, and that hurt worse. I don't much remember climbing down, it seemed a real short time 'til I was at the bottom and looking at his tracks. I couldn't see Clete up above yet, so I followed DuShane's sign for a piece.

  He'd started off running downhill, back the way we come here, but he'd slowed to a long-strided walk after only a few rods. It surprised me he didn't think to look for our horses, but he didn't-easy as it would of been to find them. Maybe my shooting at him done some good after all, even though I was pretty sure I didn't hit him. I went and untied the horses and brought them back up to the base of the cliff. Clete was nearly halfway down by then. I sat my horse and watched him come the rest of the way.

  "What the hell happened?" he ask.

  "I don't know," I lied. "I looked up and there he was all of a sudden." If it would of done any good to tell him I was watching a hawk instead of our man, I like to think I'd have mentioned it, but I didn't.

  "I can't see how–" He got a good look at me once he was in the saddle and the mad went right off his face. "Jesus, you're a mess. Are you shot?"

  "No," I told him. "He banged me on the head with that rifle of his. Broke it in two on my head, but I'm still walking around, I think. Hurts a little is all."

  "The bleeding stopped?"

  I lifted my hat to show him and then said that I was all right, though I wasn't sure I was.

  "You're lucky," he said. "Most men aren't blessed with a skull as thick as yours."

  I nodded my head a time or two, which made it hurt all the worse, and then saw he was ribbing at me.

  "He must've headed back down the valley," Clete said.

  I showed him where the tracks went and we started after DuShane again, me behind Clete. I kept my eyes peeled sharp to both sides of us, leaving up front to him. Down where DuShane's horse lay dead, I thought I saw something off to the left and yelled to Clete, but it turned out to be a squirrel or something.

  The more I thought it over, the less I believed he'd try and ambush us again. He was running now, trying with all he had to put distance between him and us.

  When we got to the edge of the prospector's clearing, Clete threw his hand out sudden to the side, palm back. "There he is!" he said quiet. He grabbed his Henry and jumped off just inside the trees. DuShane was running hard, though kind of limping too, his long brown coat flapping in the breeze, and him about to make the woods at the far end.

  I watched Clete drop to one knee and draw a fine bead on his running target. "Stop!" I yelled, and even right then I didn't know if I meant Clete or DuShane.

  Clete was so surprised he turned to me quick and just looked.

  DuShane must of heard me too for he stopped, all right. Only then he drew his pistol and fired a shot at us that whistled through the branches overhead. Missed us by yards, but it was enough to get Clete's mad up again. "You sonofabitch!" he yelled. Then he sighted level down the Henry's barrel, squeezed the trigger, and hit DuShane before he took a third step from where he'd shot at us. The slug spun that tall man around twice and he lost hold of his gun, which sailed lazy into the air. He corkscrewed beneath the top layer of brush so I couldn't see where he lay.

  Clete stood and tried to get sight of him too, but he couldn't see him either. He mounted then, walked the gray into the clearing and after steadying it good, stood on his saddle for a look-see.

  "Is he down?" I ask.

  "If he is, it's no fault of yours," Clete answered pretty sharp, still facing the lower end of the clearing. He dismounted and walked closer, keeping low. I stayed a little behind and off to the left, walking my horse like Clete was doing, my scattergun ready. Five yards from the end of the clearing I found DuShane's Colt, spent cartridges in every chamber. Close by a puddle of blood was already starting to seep into the ground. We both seen the direction he'd crawled off.

  "He's headed for the creek," Clete said, kind of excited. "C'mon, he can't be far and he's not armed now." We went into the trees at a slow run, and twenty yards in front of us, there was DuShane on the ground, dragging his one leg-crawling on both hands and one knee. Clete's slug had took him low in the hip and his whole pants leg was soaked with blood. His left leg and foot was turned nearly sideways to his body, dragging useless behind him, but still he crawled along pretty fast, 'speci
ally after he seen us. Clete dropped his reins and started to run hard. He caught up to DuShane just where he'd crawled into the creek a little ways.

  Clete was right beside him, his Remington pointed directly at DuShane's head, but that lanky fool kept crawling toward deeper water, so Clete kicked one arm out from under him. DuShane's face splashed into the stream and he come out sputtering and screeching and yelling loud, shouting something I couldn't understand, though it sounded more like cursing than anything else. I could see Clete was getting madder and madder that the man wouldn't give it up and face the idea that he was beat, but he wouldn't. When DuShane started crawling away again, Clete put a boot behind the man's scrawny neck, put enough weight on him so he went under, and then held him there.

  I stood on the bank holding the horses and watched. "What'd he say?" I ask Clete.

  "I didn't catch it, but I didn't like the sound of it." He had to jump around and dance some to keep DuShane down.

  I watched Jezrael DuShane's floppy black hat float downstream a little ways and then sink. "Don't you think you could let him up now?" I ask. "Seems like the fight's all out of him."

  Clete turned to me, his face a blank, and then looked down at DuShane. "Let him get a taste of how it feels. Besides, drowning is a sure cure for bad habits, so they say."

  "You better stop now or you'll kill him!" I yelled, but Clete didn't answer or even tum my way. DuShane'd stopped flailing his arms around and laid like a waterlogged plank in the knee-deep water, Clete's boot still pressing hard on the back of his neck.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  I dropped the reins and splashed toward Clete through the creek. I didn't know I was going to crash into him 'til I done it. He stumbled across DuShane, twisting himself around so that when he fell, he hit the water ass first, both feet flying high, but taking care to keep his gun up out of the stream.

  I went to pull DuShane up, to keep him from drowning, but his head was already above the surface, water pouring from his mouth and long stringy hair. I took his shoulders to set him up better and when he turned toward me, his eyes wild, in his hand was a little hideout gun, already cocked. I spun backwards just as the shot blasted into my face, stinging like red ant bites.

  I cracked my head on a stone, I guess, under water for a second, the shot ringing in my ear like a fire bell. But even then I knowed the ball missed me. I sat up in time to see DuShane start to crawl on across the stream and Clete, still sitting, reach over and rap him on the head with the barrel of his Remington.

  To tell the truth, I don't know what happened for a while after that. Everthing got blurry and slow. I must of set there in the creek dazed a long time because when I waded up on the bank DuShane was stretched out, passed out, and facing the sky with his hands tied behind his back, underneath him.

  Clete was breaking sticks and feeding them to a little fire he'd built, his hat off and drying on a stone nearby. He glanced at me when I sat down beside his fire but he didn't say nothing.

  "Go on," I told him. "Tell me how stupid I was."

  He didn't even look up. Instead, he took off his shirt and his boots and set them to dry in front of the fire on sticks he poked into the ground. It had clouded up and was a lot cooler under them trees than it'd been up above in the rocks, and before long I was shivering like an aspen in the wind, my head hurting worse than ever and a ringing in my left ear like a bad hangover. I stripped down to my long johns and set my clothes to drying too. I unpacked my bed roll, laid it even and stretched out on top of it. I remember pulling a blanket over myself, but nothing else for a while.

  First thing I knowed, Clete was shaking me awake. When I sat up he put a dish of bacon and beans in my lap and then went to eating his. It was still pretty bright, so I guessed I didn't sleep but about an hour. My head was pounding less, but the ringing in my ear made it hard to hear anything on that side. Damn, but that food tasted good, though, and I had mine about half wolfed down before I noticed that DuShane was sitting up too, his face turned away from us.

  "You going to feed him?" I ask Clete.

  "No sense in that-wasting good food. Soon as we're done here I'm going to hang him." Clete spoke real matter-of-fact, like he was telling you the time of day.

  DuShane's head snapped around and he looked at us, his pale gray eyes flashing fire. Though I'd been studying his sign for weeks, that was the first good look I got at his face, which was long and skinny like the rest of him. His nose was more like the beak of a hawk than a regular nose, and his teeth, the few he had, was yellow as piss. A big ugly scab stretched above one eye, probly where the barrel of my .36 hit him. The whole front of his shirt was dried brown blood. His dark hair was streaked with gray, thin in front and long, and it was plastered to his face and red buzzardy neck and down into his eyes. To say it plain, he looked like hell. Fresh blood'd oozed from the wound all down his muddy pants, and his foot there laid right out to the side-out of joint at the hip. Must have hurt him bad, but his face didn't show it. What it did show was what he'd a liked to do to us.

  Of course I was surprised at what Clete said, about hanging him. It was something an Indian or a Pinkerton would say, tell you what he was going to do to you before he done it, just to watch you squirm, but it wasn't like Clete to act that way. I thought on it some more while I pulled on my boots. Somehow, I just couldn't believe he would take it that far, even after I thought it over good. "Why you going to hang him?" I ask.

  He sopped up the last of his bean and bacon juice with a bite of bread, then chewed and swallowed before he answered. "Well," he said, smacking his lips some, making me think of Banty Foote. "Partly because it's a waste of time not to. And partly because I don't feel like nursing him all the way back to Two Scalp, where they'd just hang him anyway. Mostly, though, I'm going to hang the bastard because I feel like it. On top of that, I asked him something and the sonofabitch won't answer me." Clete tossed his tin plate next to the fire and poured us both a cup of coffee. When he handed me mine, I seen just the hint of a sly smile on his face.

  Well, of course I understood then. I seen that Clete was just throwing a scare into DuShane to get him to talk, trying to find out whatever it was he wanted to know. After he finished his coffee Clete stood up, fished some paper out of his saddle bags and walked off into the brush.

  DuShane sat and stared at me.

  "What'd he ask you?" I ask him.

  "None of your gawdamn bidness!" he spit out. You could hear the rebel clear through his talk, the surly way they like to draw out their words when they're mad.

  I had a sip of my coffee and lit my pipe. "Well, it's your funeral," I told him. "But it'll cost you your life, of course, not telling him what he wants to know. Clete Shannon is not a man to trifle with, as you have already found out once today. You better understand. He'll really do it-hang you, that is. Course, it's your life, and if you want to toss 'er away this afternoon, you found the certain-sure way to do 'er. I seen him hang men for less cause." Naturally, that was a lie. I never even seen Clete so much as shoot at someone who wasn't trying to kill him, let alone take a man's life in cold blood.

  But that old boy didn't even blink an eye.

  Clete come back and just stood there a minute before he spoke. "Let's get this over with. Help me boost him into my saddle."

  I led his horse up close, and then Clete took his rope and tied a noose while DuShane sat there and watched him do it. Clete got on one side of him and me the other. DuShane started to squirm when we begun to lift him, and his hurt leg, which was on my side, twisted more out to the side and he let out a terrible howl and then went limp, which made it easier to set him square into Clete's old McClellan. As tall as he was, he didn't seem to weigh nothing at all.

  He come to with a start and didn't appear to reconize us for a minute, but he seen the fix he was in, all right. "Help me, Lord, help me!" he shouted, trying to look up through the pines to the sky.

  "You'd be better off praying to the Devil, you sonofabitch," Clete said. He p
ut a foot in the near stirrup, put the noose over DuShane's head and then tightened it on his neck before stepping back down. "You earned this when you set that old woman's house on fire." He handed me the end of the rope and walked downstream a ways, looking up.

  DuShane watched him and then turned to me and spoke, looking and sounding a little nervous both. "What's he doin'?"

  I took off my hat and rubbed the different sore spots on my head. "Why, I suspect he's looking for a stout limb to hang you from. If I was you and wanted to live 'til sundown, I'd tell him what he wants to know. What was it, anyhow?"

  "Go to hell, you damn Yankee! I ain't answerin' to him or you or nobody!"

  I figgered it would do no good to explain to that cracker I was a Texan.

  "Bring him down here," Clete yelled.

  When DuShane and me got there, maybe sixty yards and up from the stream a piece, Clete took the end of his rope and tried to throw it over a high, thick limb of a dead pine, one that'd shed about all its lower branches. After missing a second time, he found a stone the size of his fist, tied that to the free end, and finally got his rope up and over the branch he'd picked out. That done, he yanked it tight so that DuShane had to sit up high in the saddle just to draw his breath. Keeping his line taut, Clete walked out behind his horse a short ways and then throwed a couple hitches around a smaller pine, pretty high up, for he was at the end of his rope.