Blood of the Devil

by W. Michael Farmer

  I was tired from the long ride and work of burning the rancheria bodies, but thoughts of the coming day and the destruction and desolation Sangre del Diablo had left in the rancheria kept me awake. I watched the lightning arrows awhile and saw the legs of rain out of clouds walking between them. My mind drifted like a leaf carried by the wind.

  And then I lay on the mountaintop, the mountain of my vision, the mountain high above Rufus’s lodge. The sky was filled with lightning arrows snapping and crackling and Wind spirits moaning. I heard a voice but not with my ears.

  Show the Power I gave you is stronger than that of any witch. Face him first with empty hands. My Power will stand beside you and help you. Let him bring you his hands filled with weapons to kill you. I will make you and your warrior brothers safe. Send him blind to the Happy Land. Do not fear this evil. Wipe it out.

  And I saw, as in a dream, a vision in a vision, the witch on a black horse running on white sand by fast-running water as he charged me. There were many faces, many guns behind him, watching, and I stood alone, unafraid, my hands empty, my rifle standing by me. My rifle and I were as one, and the witch was falling and attacking and was no more.

  I heard my name called from far away. Light filled my eyes and Kah looked in my face; his hand shook my shoulder.

  He said, “Yellow Boy holds his rifle ready to shoot. He has visions? Speak to us.”

  I said, “Ussen is with us. I have seen the day. Let us find the place where the witch will die.”

  When I returned from my vision, enough light filled the canyon to see features of the river. We began following the ridge trail back toward the witch and his captives as we looked for a place to make an ambush. Off to the southwest, we could see the plumes from the witch’s fires rising straight into the cold, bright air until they bent as one over the hills and ridges and drifted toward the rising sun. Beela-chezzi guessed, and we all agreed, that the witch and his captives would be where we could easily see them by the time of shortest shadows. We stayed on top of the ridge above the river looking for the place in my vision. He would ride; I would stand, and he would die.

  Not far from where we rested, I saw the place. The walls of the canyon were steep, nearly vertical, on either side of the river, and there was a long, straight stretch of white sand with no trees for cover except for small scrub oaks and an occasional piñon right next to the rising walls of the canyon. I stopped and told my friends the spot I wanted lay below us.

  Rufus looked at me, his brows raised in question. He spat a stream of brown juice and said, “They ain’t much to hide behind on the stretch of sand, but them trees is gonna make good cover once them demons run. You sure you want this place?”

  “This is the place I saw in a vision when we slept before dawn. Beela-chezzi and Kah will stop escapes back upstream. Yibá will stay here with the ponies and shoot when the attack starts. Rufus and I will shoot from downstream. See the little waterfall in the middle of the line of sight along the stretch of sand, and then another that begins about where the river bends north.”

  I looked at each one before I told them the rest of my vision.

  “In my vision, I faced the witch alone with empty hands.”

  Yibá frowned and shook his head. “Without surprise and facing him alone, the witch will kill you.”

  Beela-chezzi said, “The boy is right. Our only chance against so many is surprise.”

  Rufus cut a chew from the tobacco in his vest pocket while he looked at the ground and shook his head. “Yore call to make. I’m ready to die.”

  Kah sighed. “I’ll never see the child Deer Woman brings me.”

  I waited while they bent their minds to my vision, and then I said, “Wait to shoot until I kill the witch. Ussen will bring him to me. The Comanches and banditos will see only the struggle between us. They won’t realize how exposed they are. Kill as many Comanches and banditos as you can as fast as you can when the witch is no more.”

  Kah and Beela-chezzi nodded, and I knew they believed my vision came from Ussen.

  “Try not to kill any captives, but do what you must to wipe out all the Comanches and banditos. Don’t let one ride away. Today the ghosts of our people find rest at last. When I face the witch, only one of us will walk away.

  “Yibá, from this ridge, you’ll be able to see them coming a long time before they get down there. Flash me with your mirror down on the river bend there where Rufus and I will wait. One flash means you can see them. Two flashes means use caution. Three flashes means wait to shoot.”

  Beela-chezzi, Kah, and Yibá looked at me with fire in their eyes. It was a good day to die.

  Rufus looked sad and shook his head. “Don’t go lettin’ that devil do you in, amigo. We’re all with you.”

  CHAPTER 34

  THE WITCH COMES

  The top of the river canyon ridge stood more than two hundred yards above the river. The fastest way down followed a steep wash filled with piñons and scrub oaks and big black boulders made in mountain fire before the time of the grandfathers. Rufus, Beela-chezzi, Kah, and I ran switchbacks from boulder to boulder, tree to tree to as we descended. The light whisper of the river at the ridge top became a steady burbling rumble, and the air grew cool and comfortable as we approached its splashing waterfalls and swirls around boulders scattered along white, sandy banks. It took us four fingers of the sun’s trail to reach the river and stand, dirty and beat up, in the cold water drifting past our ankles.

  We waded along the river’s edge, stepping on big rocks to hide our tracks along a bank of bright, white sand until the river made a sharp turn toward the west with a long stretch of sandy banks practically free of trees and brush where we wanted the ambush. At the turn, and no higher than twenty yards back up the ridge, a jumble of black and brown boulders formed a perfect place for Beela-chezzi and Kah to shoot from behind to stop any escape back up the river. Beela-chezzi and Kah took a quick soak in the river, jumped, shivering, out of the icy water, and climbed up to hide behind their rock wall.

  Rufus and I continued to hide our tracks as we waded downstream, working our way around boulders in the waterfalls, each pool where a waterfall ended before the next one began looking like a stair step made for giants. At the end of the stretch of beaches the river made another sharp turn, this time back to the northeast. At that bend Rufus waved good luck, stepped across the river on rocks sticking above swirling water, and climbed into another little jumble of boulders up the far side, about ten yards above the beach. On the near side of the stream, I had found two boulders clumped together that looked like the Rabbit Ears Peaks in the Organ Mountains north of Rufus’s rancho. Their high points were about my shoulder height. A few other small boulders had nested around them, making perfect cover for looking through the narrow crack between them and shooting upriver.

  I sat down on the sand, the boulders at my back, and saw Rufus sitting behind his boulders in the cool shade with his old hat over his eyes. I leaned back, checked my rifle’s load, levered a bullet into the chamber, set the safety, and waited, listening to the low rumble of the river across its boulders. Birds whistled and called as they flew and jumped from limb to limb in the brush and trees on the far side. Crows passing high above squawked and cawed at us for disturbing their retreat.

  The events on the long trail that brought me to this place on a river high in the Blue Mountains of Chihuahua drifted through my memory like puffs of white clouds across the sky. I remembered the night I was given my Power by Ussen, the rage and sorrow I felt when I found my people massacred and scalped, the pleasure and satisfaction Juanita had given me with our life together, and now with our little daughter, Kicking Wren. I thought of my father and He Watches and all they had taught me. I smiled when I realized that one of my teachers was sitting just across the river, ready to help wipe out my enemies.

  I picked up a handful of pebbles and flicked them with my thumb to splash one at a time in the swift river current as I thought of Sangre del Diablo, who had t
ortured and killed my adopted grandfather, He Watches, and had hung me on a cross to die with drying, green rawhide cutting through my joints. I remembered thinking him dead by my hand after he had shot me, as he floated facedown in the great river, leaving a dark, red streamer of blood before he stood and staggered out of the water, somehow finding the strength and will to live, while darkness and dreams filled my eyes.

  Now, with the help of Ussen, I had another chance to kill this evil witch and make the world smooth again. It had been a long trail, and I was . . .

  A bright flash of light fell where I sat. I looked to the top of the ridge where I saw the glint off Yibá’s mirror. I waited. There was no second flash. I crawled out of the boulder’s shade to find the sun and flashed a golden reflection off my rifle’s receiver toward the spot where Kah and Beela-chezzi waited. Beela-chezzi flashed he understood and then flashed twice—caution. I knew they must be able to see or hear the witch’s band and their captives approaching. Rufus nodded when I flashed him and raised my eyebrows to ask if he was ready. I flashed once at the top of the ridge to acknowledge Yibá and tell him I understood, and then I crawled behind the boulders to watch the bend in the river upstream and wait for the witch and his captives.

  In the span of the sun moving four fingers against the horizon, four Comanches, two on each side of the river, mounted on shining, buckskin ponies, suddenly appeared at the far bend of the river and paused, their long black hair falling from under brown straw hats they had taken from the Opata. They wore white shirts with long sleeves that covered their big, muscular arms and torsos. Canvas pants stuffed in boots protected their legs, and they had bandannas tied loosely around their necks. Even from a short distance, with the exception of the long, black hair, they looked like vaqueros. With squinting eyes, they scanned the stretch of sand below them. The two on the left side of the river crossed to join the others because there was no room for a trail on their side, and together, they slowly moved along the white sandy beach toward Rufus and me. Brown, nearly naked children appeared, followed by women in torn blouses and skirts, most barefooted and some with babies in their arms, following the four leaders. Four horsemen were on either side of the group. Each man had a long, slender stick he used to beat any who wandered out of the group or who couldn’t keep up. None of the captives appeared tied or roped together. They had learned obedience quickly, for when several pointed toward the river and asked in words I knew must mean they wanted a drink, the leading Comanche shook his head, raised his switch, and no one else asked for water. The group moved on down the bank, stopping by the pool of the first waterfall. Their masters let them sit down to wait and rest.

  The witch, with a bandito on either side, came around the bend. I had lost memory of how big he was, and I drew back a little when I first saw him. He towered over the men on either side of him and rode with a bandanna tied around his hairless head. Black paint covered his eye sockets. He wore no shirt, but his canvas pants were stuffed in boots like the others, and a shiny repeating rifle, glinting in the sun, lay across the pommel of his saddle that cast myriad glints from silver conchos.

  He frowned and yelled above the rumble of the fast water, “Que paso? What’s happening? Why do you stop?”

  A horseman in the lead, his face fierce, scowling, eyes painted with black circles like the witch’s, perhaps the witch’s new Segundo (number two), yelled back, “These dogs beg for water.”

  Sangre del Diablo nodded and said, “We have far to go. I don’t want to lose one. Let them drink and rest here.”

  The riders between the captives and the river turned their ponies to face the captives, opening a space between them like gates, and motioned them past their horses toward the water with a swing of their long switches. Even with all the horror and abuse they must have seen and endured in the last two days, the little ones yelled with delight as they ran to drink and jump in the water, the women, even ones carrying babies, not far behind.

  The witch rode downriver slowly, regally, studying each captive, woman and child, as he passed. Arriving at the four leaders who had dismounted and were loosening cinches to rest their ponies, Sangre del Diablo let his horse, a big black gelding, drink while he twisted in the saddle to look over the canyon and the next bend. He looked directly at the boulders where I waited unmoving, barely breathing, my heart pounding with excitement. His gaze moved from my boulders to the rocks where Rufus, I knew, had his big buffalo rifle sighted on the middle of the witch’s chest. Seeing nothing, the witch turned to look back up the river where all his Comanches and pistoleros had dismounted to rest and water their horses and the captives rested. The banditos who had ridden beside the witch each led five pack animals, and moved to let their ponies and the pack animals drink.

  Looking through the crack between the rabbit ears boulder, I studied Sangre del Diablo and saw the bullet scar on his chest where I shot him as he crossed the great river. If my shot had been even half a finger length lower, he would never have staggered out of the great river and walked away. Now Ussen had delivered him to me again. Time for deliverance was at hand. I was ready. My thumping heartbeat slowed, and my spirit grew peaceful. This day Sangre del Diablo, so calm, so evil, so deserving to die a long, hard death, would ride into forever darkness in the Happy Land of the grandfathers. I knew it would be so. I had seen it in a dream.

  I waited until the image in my dreams became real before I stepped to the side of the boulders to become visible to the evil I had longed to confront the last three years of my life. I left my rifle, cocked and ready, hidden from view behind the boulder. I faced the witch alone with only the Power Ussen had given me, my hands empty, obedient to the voice in my dream. I wanted to face the murderer of our People, my father and grandfather. I wanted to put out the fire of hate and revenge that burned in my guts. The witch turned the gelding toward the bend in the river where I waited, and I could tell I filled his eyes like some unexpected vision.

  He stared at me a few seconds as if trying to decide if I were real or a vision. I crossed my arms and stared at his eyes in the middle of the black shadows of his painted skull sockets. He shook his head as if coming out of a dream, and from deep in his belly howled like the wolf I had heard when I chased him across the llano to the great river. Comanche warriors, banditos, and captives looked at him in terror, and then they saw me. Children stopped their play and stared. Women covered their mouths with their hands, certain they were about to see another man murdered. Comanches and banditos dropped the reins of their horses and cocked their rifles and pistols. The canyon became deathly still except for the steady swish and rumble of the river flowing across the waterfalls.

  Sangre del Diablo laughed, a great booming sound of delight, and yelled, “Apache! The spirits have blown you into my hands. I’ll drink your blood and eat your heart to honor your courage. Warriors! This Apache is mine.” The Comanches and pistoleros started grinning, looked at each other, and relaxed as they lowered their weapons.

  Sangre del Diablo tossed his rifle aside, and pulled from behind his saddle cantle a war club made from a smooth river stone the size of two of his great fists stacked together and fixed with sinew and rawhide to the big jawbone of a mule. He swing the club over his head and jerked back on the reins, making the big black rear up before he charged down the sandy beach toward me. Howling like a wolf, the witch swung the club effortlessly in big looping arcs made by the stretch of his immense arm. He must have thought I was there for no other reason than to give him the honor of him killing me. Fool, I thought, don’t you understand Ussen has sent me to claim you. Today you go to the Happy Land.

  The distance closed between us in blurred fury as the black’s pounding hooves threw puffs of sand high in the air. I didn’t move. The Comanches began to shake their rifles and scream, “Hoya! Kill him now, Chief of Witches!” The Nakai-yi banditos stared unbelieving at me.

  Twenty yards, fifteen yards, the swooping deadly arc of the war club began. He came on, the big black running flat o
ut. Howling and slashing the air with his war club, Sangre del Diablo raised up in his stirrups and leaned toward me as he cocked his war club arm for a nice smooth swing that would burst my head like an egg cracked against a cooking pot. Five yards and the war club began to fall fast, with all the power in his great arm behind it. I dodged behind the boulders, the Henry rifle filling my hands as if it had never left. I heard the swish of air from the war club’s arc even in the heaving wind and pounding hooves of the big black.

  Time seemed to slow like a leaf drifting on wind as the witch thundered past. The Henry came up in flame and thunder, sending a bullet into the black’s brain. Its front knees buckled and it began to roll forward. The witch tried but failed to pull his feet from the stirrups to jump free. The black rolled over the top of him and collapsed on its right side, pinning the witch’s leg to the ground.

  I ran forward to finish him, but with his great strength he braced his free foot against the saddle, pushed free, and rolled to his knees. I brought the Henry up to fire. His war club, faster than a striking rattlesnake as he swung wildly, caught the end of the Henry’s barrel with such power that it jerked the rifle out of my hands and sent it spinning, still cocked, to land to one side of and behind the witch. Snarling in fury he pulled the great knife he carried, the kind the Indah call Bowie, and staggered to his feet as he swung the club and knife back and forth like snakes trying to lull birds into a death trance.

  I backed away and pulled my own knife, the one He Watches had given me many harvests before. The witch thrust his knife and swung the club in a backstroke. I dodged his knife and leaned back from the club. My knife slashed his forearm holding the club as it swooshed past my face. The cut made his hand relax and the war club flew out of his grasp as his knife stabbed the air again past my belly.