Mariana's Knight

by W. Michael Farmer

  Then it got quiet in the canyon. Even the breeze stopped. The wrens stopped chirping, and then, as if on command, they flew up the canyon in several clouds that grew in number as they disappeared toward the south wall we had come down two days before.

  I heard two rocks grind together and a splash or two in the little stream that shouldn’t have been there. My chest tightened as I plugged the canteen and sat it down carefully before creeping up to look through the notch.

  Five riders were spread out across the center of the canyon, about five yards apart. They were moving slowly, looking from side to side with rifles drawn, pointed up, and cocked, ready to fire. The riders on the wings held back about ten yards from the point man, who splashed in and out of the winding little stream. Stone was on the south side between the point man and the flanker. Tally was on the north side between the point man and his flanker. Their arrangement couldn’t have been better if we had designed it. They passed Frenchy’s house, and a rider stopped momentarily to look in through a window, I assume to verify we weren’t hiding there.

  My breath was coming in long puffs as if I’d been running. I felt the quiet stillness around me as I picked up the rifle and felt a serene calm as I pulled the hammer to full cock. Stone couldn’t have been more than fifty yards away. It was a shot I could make with my eyes closed. The riders had stopped and were straining to look up the canyon. The lead was pointing with his rifle toward some bushes further up the canyon where Sally was sticking her head right out where they could see her, pricking up her ears in curiosity. Putting the sight picture in the middle of Stone’s back, I pulled and felt the reassuring light click of the set trigger. Stone nodded toward Tally, who started to dismount. It seemed there was no resistance at all when the firing trigger came back.

  A roll of thunder, the voice of judgment, echoed up and down the canyon as the Sharps thumped against my shoulder like a thrown fist, the long barrel kicking up three or four inches. I threw the breech down, and the ejector sent the big shell case flying. I focused on being steady as my fingers slid a new cartridge in the breech and flipped the block closed. I heard Rufus’s Winchester roar three times, its echo in time with mine as it bounced up and down the canyon. Yellow Boy’s Henry, adding to the echo, put out two evenly spaced shots, held two counts, and then fired again. I looked through the notch to find a new target.

  Chaos whirled below me. Stone lay on his back staring at the sky, a bright red stain on the front of his shirt just below and to the left of his heart. The two outriders were down, and, like Stone, unmoving. A bright red stain spread on the head of the man who had ridden next to Stone up the canyon. A horse kicking in its death throes pinned the leg of the rider closest to Rufus. His pistol was drawn, and he was wildly firing in every direction, the bullets ricocheting off nearby boulders. I sighted on his head and cocked the Sharps.

  There was a loud report from up the canyon, and his head jerked as if he’d been hit with a club as he wilted before my eyes. The outrider closest to me was on the ground screaming in agony with his hands pressed over his belly. Tally had a crease of blood across his left cheek that was starting to color his beard a deeper red. His horse lay kicking in its final death twitches.

  Two horses bucked and kicked as they nervously danced around, screaming in fright, the whites of their eyes showing their terror. They tore off up the canyon as fast as they could run. Stone’s horse also bolted up the canyon, straight toward Yellow Boy’s position. One of the bucking horses gathered his wits and ran toward the mouth of the canyon, and then, inexplicably stopped, not a hundred yards down the trail from Frenchy’s cabin.

  Tally managed to reach the cover of a boulder and returned Rufus’s fire. The bushes at Rufus’s back blocked Yellow Boy’s line of sight. The point man had escaped unscratched. He lay behind some boulders near the stream, levering fire toward Yellow Boy’s position. He fired several rounds then stopped, waiting for the shooter above him to make a mistake and show himself.

  Stone continued to lie on his back where he had fallen, unmoving, not making a sound, just staring at the sky with open eyes. The bloodstain was spreading across the entire front of his shirt. The stain was too low for him to have been hit in the heart and killed instantly, as I wanted. He was still alive, but he wasn’t going anywhere.

  Yellow Boy dropped four or five rounds close by the bush that screened Tally, then stopped. He wouldn’t shoot at a target he couldn’t see. I figured he must be coming back down the canyon to get a better shot. If that were so, then he was in immediate danger as soon as the point rider saw him.

  I saw brief snatches of Tally’s shoulders behind the rock he used to screen himself as he raised up to squeeze off a shot at Rufus. Although it wasn’t a long shot for the Sharps, his motion and short, small exposure made it a hard one. I tried anyway and missed. The thunder of the Sharps, mixed with his return fire and Rufus’s shots, filled the canyon with an apocalyptic roar. Tally snapped off a shot in my direction, the bullet ricocheting off the canyon wall a couple of yards to my left. As soon as he fired toward me, Rufus covered the rock Tally was hiding behind with five or six quick shots then stopped.

  I dropped the breech and reloaded again. Rufus couldn’t see the point man on the ground. I had to kill him or see Yellow Boy put at high risk. I couldn’t stand the thought of Yellow Boy getting shot. Less than sixty yards and a still target, it was an easy shot, even though I could only see the point rider’s legs sticking out behind the boulder where he waited. I pulled the hammer back and held a cartridge between my fingers for a fast reload. I knew, as soon as I shattered the rider’s leg, his reflex to the brutal pain would make him jerk up and show himself. I aimed for his knee. The Sharps roared, and there was a scream of pain as the rider jerked forward and momentarily exposed his upper body. I was reloaded and aimed before he sat fully upright, and there wasn’t any sound of pain after my second shot. The rider just flopped backwards and was still. I thought, Ride with murderers, die with murderers.

  The echoes from the shots faded away, and it was quiet except the gut-shot rider’s pitiful moans and pleas for water. Soon, his moaning stopped. It was still as death, except for the blood pounding in my ears. No birds, no breeze, and nothing to rattle the bushes as the shadows got longer.

  Then the steady clop of horse hooves filled the stillness. I saw Yellow Boy’s pony moving down the stream. There was no sign of Yellow Boy anywhere. I knew he wanted to take Tally alive if he could. He wanted to show me how Apaches made their enemies pay blood for blood. I saw the barrel of Tally’s Winchester roll up and over from the direction it had been pointing toward Rufus. It pointed back toward Yellow Boy’s paint. Tally fired and a bright red stripe appeared on the pony’s rump as the bullet bounced off the walls up the canyon. The horse screamed and kicked, then disappeared, running back up the canyon. There was kicking and bucking from Sally, Elmer, and Midnight as they jerked free behind their bushes and followed him.

  I shot at Tally’s rifle barrel, the only thing I could see close to him, but I missed. He must have seen the smoke from my shot because he returned fire and splattered lead on the boulder not a foot from my notch. Rufus covered his hiding place again with a quick succession of rounds, stopped, and waited, hoping Tally would make a mistake and show himself.

  Suddenly, Tally was up and running, weaving and bobbing, toward the protection of Frenchy’s cabin. I took a shot with the Sharps and saw his hat go sailing off and an ear disappear. Another round knocked Tally’s revolver holster right off its belt, but he got to the cabin and disappeared inside it. I thought, Not only is he the most murderous man I’ve ever known, he’s the luckiest.

  I swept the cabin, looking down the barrel of the Sharps, but saw no sign of him. Rufus crouched and ran down the canyon from boulder to boulder toward the house. Yellow Boy soon joined him. I saw Rufus wave, motioning me to stay where I was and cover them. I waved back that I understood and watched as they studied the cabin for a couple of minutes.

  Th
en, before they made a move, Tally dived out a window on the far side of the cabin, rolled to his feet, and took off for the outrider horse that had stopped below the cabin.

  Like a fool, I didn’t shoot the horse, but tried to hit Tally again and missed. I yelled at Rufus and Yellow Boy, “Shoot! Shoot! He’s running for the horse!” They ran toward the cabin. By the time they got there, Tally was already mounted and headed down the trail. I cursed with skill far beyond my years and thought, Will I ever learn?

  I looked up from the Sharps’ sights and through the small cloud of gun smoke surrounding me. Yellow Boy was stripping down to his breechcloth and moccasin boots as he talked to Rufus. His long knife was sheathed at his side. I grabbed the Sharps, cartridges, and canteen and ran down to them.

  When I reached Yellow Boy, who was kneeling by the stream and drinking deeply, I asked, “What are we going to do?” I was overflowing with guilt for not shooting the horse, and I knew we were in big trouble.

  Rufus rolled a quid he had been chewing to the other cheek and spat. “It’s liable to take an hour or more to run down them animals. By then Tally’ll be long gone or will have found help to come back and git us. Damn it, I knowed we shoulda shot the horses right off. Hell, Yellow Boy said we oughta, but I wanted to save ’em and wouldn’t listen.”

  He put his hand on my shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “It’ll be all right, Henry. Yellow Boy’s a-gonna run him down.”

  Yellow Boy dunked his head in the cold stream, pulled it out, and swung it back and forth, flinging silvery threads of water everywhere.

  “How’s he gonna do that?”

  Yellow Boy said, “I run. I catch. I kill.” He drew a quick finger across his throat.

  “But, but . . . you can’t catch a man riding a horse when you’re on foot,” I sputtered.

  He smiled patiently. “Sí, I catch Tally, Hombrecito.” He held up two fingers. “In two days, at canyon in Jarillas, I return. Adios.”

  He set off down the canyon in a long, easy stride carrying his rifle in both hands. His cartridge belt was strapped across his chest. I stood staring after him, speechless.

  As Yellow Boy disappeared in the late afternoon light, Rufus spat again and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “A strong man with good wind has more endurance than a horse. They’s plenty of tales floatin’ around about how Apaches afoot have caught horses by runnin’ ’em down. I was almost kilt by an Apache foot chasin’ me back in my scoutin’ days.”

  I sat down on the ground and stared up at Rufus, as he continued, “You push a horse hard, you might get sixty or seventy miles in a day out of him if he’s in real good shape. I’ve seen Apaches run a hundert miles in a day across a hot desert, and that’d kill a horse. Hell, they’s tales in the cavalry ’bout an ol’ Indian in Californy that run nearly a hundert mile across the desert to a fort. He took a little rest when he got there and then run back, making the entire trip in less time than it takes fer the sun to rise, go down, and come back up again.”

  Rufus sat down beside me and said, “That there was a two-hundert-mile run in a day and a night, Henry,” as if he were uncertain I could do the math. “My money says Red Tally is a-gonna be in hell come first light tomorrow.”

  I found what Rufus told me hard to believe, but I wouldn’t dispute him. After we’d rested a few minutes, he said, “Come on, let’s round up the stock and git over to the Jarillas ’fore first light. Somebody at Lee’s place mighta heard the shootin’ and got a little curious. They could come a-lookin’ tomorrow mornin’.”

  CHAPTER 43

  DISASTER

  We started walking up the canyon, and I asked, “What’re we gonna do with the bodies, Rufus, just leave ’em there?”

  He spat a stream of brown juice on a lizard scurrying across a boulder and said, “Naw, if they’s found, we might have lawmen coming after us for murder. We’ll make ’em disappear. Soon as we get the animals, we’ll load ’em up on Sally an’ Elmer, haul ’em up the Eyebrow, and toss ’em over. They’ll land where it’s real hard to git to. Thought we’d never git to those cavalry boys the Apaches sent over the edge back in ’eighty-two. We’ll have to ride the trail in the dark, but they’s near a full moon tonight, and we ain’t goin’ over the Eyebrow proper, so we oughta be all right. Suit you?”

  I nodded. I knew it would be hard, nasty work, but it needed doing. We were lucky in that we found all the animals grazing together after walking about fifteen minutes up the canyon. The hide on Yellow Boy’s pony had an ugly cut from Tally’s bullet that had grazed him, but it wasn’t life threatening, and Rufus said he could doctor it right up. We led them back to our supplies, and after Rufus put a poultice on Yellow Boy’s paint, we harnessed the others up. We decided we’d ride the horses and carry the bodies on the mules until we got to the southeast corner of the trail, then tie off the horses and lead the mules by foot to the spot near the Eyebrow where we could toss the bodies over. The animals were skittish and hard to handle. The smell of death, drying blood, and feces was everywhere.

  “That smell’s gonna draw varmints fast, Henry. Best have us a gun ready in case a cat or a bear sniffs us out. Bring Lil’ David and some cartridges with ye,” he said over his shoulder as he led Elmer away.

  We picked up the north side outrider, threw him over Elmer’s back, and tied him in place. Then we got the point rider. I led Elmer over to the equipment and tied him off until we could load up the other two. Then I saw Rufus walk over to where Stone lay and spit a stream of tobacco juice on Stone’s shirt. He said, “That there is what I think of yore sorry ass, Mr. Stone.”

  I was leading Sally over to help pick him up, when I heard Stone wheeze in an agonized groan, “Why’d you back-shoot me, you old bastard?”

  Rufus grinned, showing his yellow teeth through his scraggly beard, and said, “Well, I’ll be damned if ye ain’t still alive.” He leaned forward to look in Stone’s eyes and said, “Hellfire, Stone, I didn’t shoot ye. Henry Fountain did. Reckin this here’s payday, jest like it was fer Bentene.”

  Stone coughed and groaned, “God. This hurts . . . I knew that sorry little pup would get me someday if I didn’t find him first.” He coughed again and said through clenched teeth, “Guess this just wasn’t my lucky day. It ain’t yours either, you old bastard!” With his last bit of strength, he threw his revolver up and fired. The bullet caught Rufus in the side and spun him around. His teeth clamped in pain, and, holding his hand over the wound, he began to sit down slowly.

  As the thunder from the Colt’s report echoed up and down the canyon, I screamed in a sick rage, “No!” I dropped Sally’s reins and grabbed the Sharps by its barrel with both hands. I ran up to Stone, not thinking that he might possibly shoot me, too, and swung it as hard as I could into his face. Blood flew everywhere, all over Stone, onto Rufus’s back and neck, and onto the front of my shirt. Half of Stone’s face had disappeared into the back of his skull.

  I ran to see how badly Rufus was hit. He sat there, his face twisted in pain, laboring in long, slow pulls to breathe. “A dead man shot me, Henry, and damn if it don’t hurt.” He took my hand and said, “Don’t look so scart, now. Go find my doctorin’ bag.”

  I left him there and ran where we had our supplies and began rummaging for his medicine kit. It didn’t take long to find it and run it back to him. He pulled out some dried moss and a roll of bandaging. “Look at my back, Henry. Did the bullet pass through?” I looked, lifting his bloody shirt. The exit wound was there, a big, black hole oozing blood. Seeing it made my legs feel weak, but I knew I had to stay calm and strong if Rufus was to have a chance.

  “It definitely went through, Rufus.”

  “That’s good, that’s good,” he groaned as sweat ran down his face in little rivulets. “I might make it yet.” He coughed a little blood, spat, and then tore off two wads of moss. He rummaged in his kit, found a sack of evil-smelling powder and dusted the moss with it. Handing a piece of moss to me, he said, “Here, boy. Wet it a littl
e then put it on the hole in my back. Start wrappin’ this bandage around me whilst I hold some over the front.” When we finished, he sat back against a rock and said, “Don’t reckin I’ll bleed to death now, thanks to you, but I shore don’t feel like packin’ any bodies up the trail. Can you do it by yoreself while I rest?”

  “Yes, sir, I can do that. You just rest here. I’ll be back in a while. He coughed and nodded as he held his hand against the bandage and took a long swallow from a canteen.

  I tied ropes around the feet of the other two bodies and tied Sally up next to a couple of dead apple trees. I used Midnight to pull the bodies up on her and get them balanced once they were across her back. She pranced around a little, her eyes still wide with the smell of blood and all the shooting that had gone on. Stone’s head was leaking blood, and the stench from the gut-shot outrider was terrible.

  I made sure Rufus was comfortable before I led Sally and Elmer up the trail toward the Eyebrow. I was lucky the moon was full and was up early that night. There was plenty of light to see the trail. When we got to the narrow neck of the Eyebrow, I nearly slid off the edge myself getting the bodies off the mules. Stone was the last to go. Before I pushed him over, I took two cartridges from his gun belt and kept them to remember this day and the day he’d had Tally murder Daddy. I expected to put one of them in Oliver Lee. I sat Stone on the edge of the Eyebrow, his face and head smashed nearly beyond recognition. He looked like he’d already fallen over the edge once.

  I murmured, “Nothing’s ever going bring my daddy back, Stone. I just hope Daddy is somewhere, somehow, resting easier now. You got your due this day. Good-bye . . . I’m sure we’ll meet in hell.” With that, I heaved him off the side and listened as his body bounced down the thousand-foot canyon wall to crash into the trees and rocks at the bottom with a dull sound, like a boot dropping on a thick carpet.