by R. Kent
“I’m going with you,” Sahara said. She stood just inside the overhang, hands on her hips, with a look of determination. The morning sun set her red hair ablaze in surreal color.
Hastily, I folded fur flaps over the gun, tacking the bracelet to my wrist. “You’ll slow me down.” I plucked a deerskin satchel from the floor, upending it to shake loose any visitors.
“I won’t slow you down.” She stuffed a cloth wrapped bulk into my bag. Her fingertips lingered on my forearm. “Furthermore, we’ll take the pup.”
Sahara would slow me down. She was a house flower. I wasn’t heading on a Sunday picnic. “I’ll consider the pup, but you’ll stay.” I dropped the pouch of coins inside the bag with a slight of hand, then plucked her wrapped bulge from the satchel. “What’s this?”
“Molasses bread. It’s the first loaf I’ve ever made.” She reached to flip open the cloth. The bread was a gnarly lump. “There’s not much molasses to be found in Molasses Pond. And it doesn’t come cheap,” she said. Stray wisps of hair fell across her face. She pushed them behind an ear.
I looked at her. Really looked. Her forehead was tense with worry, but her eyes were soft with pride. Hair fell back over her cheek. She shoved at it. She was pretty—when she wasn’t being irritating. Sahara brushed the front of her clothes.
“What’s that?” I waved a finger up and down, pointing at her outfit.
“Store-bought clothes,” she said with a huge grin, then chewed on her bottom lip as if she’d gnaw it off. “Men’s store-bought clothes.” Sahara took her hands from her hips and clapped them, bouncing on the balls of her feet. She twirled for me to digest the entire picture. “You like?”
The clothing was practical. Workable. Woolen trousers and a thick cotton, button-down shirt. Beneath, she wore a bright red long-handle undergarment. The clothes would have been a great expense. I was still struggling to accept that my gifted necklace had been bartered away. I’d have rather seen her wear it, just once, even if I’d had to incur the cost of her clothing expenses myself.
Sahara tucked the thick pants into her tall boots, “In case of brambles, burs, or snakes.” Dangers the clerk had mentioned. With her heavy overcoat, the outfit looked bulky and straight. The slack garb toned down her full breasts, slim waist, and curvaceous hips. None of it could cover up the fact that she was all woman.
That was in her walk. The way her upper body flounced, jiggling her chest forward, shimmying her shoulders as no man would have. It was in the sway of her hips. The free swing of her arms. The little clap she did when she was happy or excited.
Sahara smoothed her hands along her sides, following her feminine form. She absentmindedly caressed her curves, straightening wrinkles and tucking bulk. No man cared to be that meticulous with clothing.
“You know, these clothes are quite comfortable.” Sahara jammed her hands into her pockets then brought them out to hitch at her waistband, adding a few harrumphs. “Maybe I should have a gun,” she said while clapping her hands together.
“No. No gun. Learn to use the clothes first.”
She drew her fingers into guns and slapped them against her hips in the ready. Squinting her eyes, pursing her lips, and thrusting her jaw forward, Sahara spun on her booted heels to saunter off in an exaggerated manner. Her impression of a man?
Slowly, she turned, pelvis thrust forward, a snarl on her face. Sahara mocked a spit to the side.
When she drew, I was ready. I pulled a hair faster, leaving my hammer down.
She froze. Shock registered across her face.
Sahara opened her palms and slid them along her thighs. Her carriage shrunk. She turned away.
“Not bad,” I said. “Pretty fast. Just needs a little work.” It was only play after all. I hadn’t meant to scare her.
“You’re deadly fast. I’ve never seen anyone that fast.”
Deadly fast? I had to be deadly fast. And deadly accurate. My gun had become a way of survival in the White’s world. Sahara would never understand that. She was a White.
It was a White man who incited the Indians to massacre my White family’s wagon train. My White pa killed my baby sisters and my ma. It was White soldiers who killed my adoptive Navajo people. White missionaries forced their religion onto me. A proper White family scrubbed my body clean and strapped me into White women’s petticoats. And a White man called me out for a gunfight he had no business being in. That White made me a murderer.
I spun the cylinder on my revolver, then flopped it from side to side in a quick inspection.
“Did you know where you hit those men?” Sahara asked, turning back to me.
“I hit what I was aiming at, Sahara. I always hit what I aim at.” I let a long sigh slip on an exhale. “I didn’t kill them.” My body caved a little, like when I got dead tired. “The one that yanked his revolver first? Seth. I sliced his ear for him. And the one with the knife that then pulled his gun? Jeb. I took the tip of his little finger off.” I stared into her eyes. I thought there was a mix of fascination and horror. “I didn’t kill them.” I could have.
Silence. I watched the back of Sahara’s head bob with its red hair shimmering in the sunlight. She said nothing for too long.
The gun in my hand was well oiled for smooth action. It was always ready to go to work. I shoved the killing instrument back into its holster, stuffing the leather loop over the hammer.
“Maybe you should have,” Sahara whispered.
“What?”
“Killed them. Maybe you should have killed them.” She faced me. “Have you ever killed anyone?”
“That’s not a question you ask out here.” I walked away, gathering bullets, jerky, a water skin, and a lariat. Stepping into the bright sunshine, I said, “Let’s go. If you’re coming, that is. And the pup stays here. She’s too young and would only cause a wreck.”
The trail wasn’t easy to pick up. Seth and Jeb would have galloped for town, so I had a general direction in which to start. But Charlie Horse wasn’t likely to have arrived in town with them. Each set of tracks running off the beaten path had to be investigated. Tracks scattered every which way. The difficulty was in singling out particular prints. At least there were prints.
Fresh tracks ran toward the butte. That’s where Charlie Horse would go. I followed those.
In a dry gully, the hoofprints doubled. The hard pack was tortured, with its rocks strewn and the ground gouged. Stallions had fought. The herd then continued toward the butte. There was a smaller group following at a respectful distance.
I bent, prodding the imprints for a specific sign.
“Charlie Horse.” I brought the tips of my fingers to my nose and sniffed lightly. “It’s him.” I waved my fingers under Sahara’s nose.
Sahara grimaced, looking like she had smelled a bad fart from unsavory company.
“Charlie Horse is prone to gravel abscesses in his front hooves.”
She didn’t get it.
“He was sulking on one for weeks. It’s finally blown out.” I squatted to rub my fingers more aggressively through the crescent impression in the dirt. Sahara hunched down. “Smell.” I held my gritty fingertips out to her.
“Oh. How awful.” Sahara batted the fetid air in front of her face.
“Over there.” I pointed to a band in the distance. The horses naturally blended into the landscape. Sorrels and bays were one with the brown and red rocky terrain. They moved slowly through jagged footing to pick at wisps of scrub.
My horse emerged from behind a large boulder. Big egg spots on a glaring white rump made him stick out from the others and the ruddy backdrop like a sore thumb. His coloring was unique and highly prized among The People. He was not a White’s horse. So I had stolen him from the White soldiers.
Whites had stolen him from a Palouse River Indian tribe previous to my acquisition. I had a right to take him back. More right than the Whites had to owning him.
A short rope draped from his neck. He still wore my saddle.
I signaled Sahara to stay put.
Speaking in Navajo to Charlie Horse, I walked forward. He pawed the ground. The band of mares around him picked up their heads. I made the sign for “horse” and continued the silent language instead of speaking aloud.
Still, Charlie Horse proved difficult to approach. One wrong move and he would send the herd scrambling up the butte, following in their wake.
The clatter of foals’ hooves sent gravel rolling as each clambered to their dams’ sides. On the periphery of my vision, a tall, stout mare blew a snort. She was the alpha. The band milled closer together. Watching. Waiting.
Charlie Horse bowed his sculpted head, bobbing acquiescence several times. At this, I spun out a loop and let fly. He walked into it.
I signed “horse” in a respectful thank you. Then changed that to “my horse” by closing my right hand and bringing it toward my neck. I ran my thumb over my index finger and rotated my wrist, thumb now to the front. He came toward me. A barely noticeable limp shortened his gait.
I pressed my face to Charlie Horse’s well-muscled neck, and ran my hand over his shoulder, finding new gouges and cuts. The short neck rope dangled. I took hold of it to drag the lariat to his throat. While I tightened the cinch, I said to Sahara, “You start walking Charlie Horse down. I’ll be right behind you. I want to try for a stray saddle horse.” I scuttled away before she said a word.
The band began herding closer to each other, preparing for flight. The lead mare poised to fight. Her ear twitched toward the rocky incline. Her eyes flickered with uncertainty. She was a rough bay with four white socks and a Roman nose. Nothing pretty to look at, but square and heavily muscled. She kept one ear and one eye pinned to me.
I zigzagged the rocky terrain quickly and quietly in a non-threatening manner. I watched the ground, not so much for where I walked, but for keeping my eyes from threatening the herd like a predator. I was a predator. Prey animals had eyes on the sides of their head. Predators had eyes in the front. The eyes of a predator could send prey into flight.
In close enough, I made a rope shot for a young gelding carrying a brand. At that same instance, a scream ripped the still air. The gelding whirled. The herd bolted.
Sahara. I ran, coiling my empty lariat as I went.
Charlie Horse blasted past me. The rope on his neck swung. I thought to grab hold as he whipped by. But I would have probably been dragged to death before he even noticed I was hanging on. Besides, Sahara might be injured. She was definitely in trouble.
I ran as fast as I could. Low brush scratched at my ankles. My flailing lariat snagged on a short boulder. I tripped, tumbling into a spiky cactus.
Still, I got up and ran to Sahara.
I jumped into the dry arroyo and followed its path to a dryer, open flood plain. There she was. Alone. Seemingly fine.
“What happened?” I gasped, gulping for air.
“Snake.” Her face was puffy and red. Her eyes overflowed with tears.
“Did it strike you?” I pulled her to the barren ground, rolling her over to check where she was bitten. “Where—”
“No. No. It just scared me. The horse went into the air. He stomped at the snake.”
“Did he pull you?” Charlie Horse was solidly rope broke. I’d never known an occasion that he’d fought a neck rope.
“No. He didn’t pull exactly. I thought he might so I threw him the rope.” Tears streamed in earnest. Sahara wailed and blubbered. “I don’t know anything about horses. All I know is that they smell. They take a lot of work. And I’m safest when they’re pulling a buggy, driven by someone other than me.”
What was there to say? I stood, hauling her up with me. I needed a horse. I needed that horse. Charlie Horse. We had been through a lot together. He was my closest confidant.
“We could get you to town. We’re near enough. I’ll go back for Charlie Horse.”
Her crying lessened to hiccupping sniffles. I waited. She neatened her clothes, tucking her pants back into the tall boots and her shirt into her pants. Sahara slapped at the dust and grime, then finger-combed her furious red hair.
We set off toward Molasses Pond. I started picking cactus spines from my buckskins, coat, and wrists. The needles that found flesh had already made my skin red and angry.
Within the hour, the sun hit its zenith. I handed the water skin to Sahara.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Water.”
“No. That. That blinking.” She pointed past a thicket of mesquite. “There’s something shining.”
I yanked her to the ground for a second time today. What would sunlight be glinting off of out here?
Sahara squirmed. “What are you—”
I slapped a hand over her mouth and shushed into her ear. “Stay here.” Then, I circled wide in a low crawl for a closer look.
Charlie Horse. His neck rope was twisted in mesquite. I squatted behind strewn boulders. Waiting. Watching.
“For heaven’s sake, Austin. What is it already?” Sahara stomped toward me as tall as a hundred-year-old saguaro cactus and as loud as a rutting bull elk.
Okie dokie then. If someone were laying in wait to ambush us, they’d have taken a shot already. “It’s Charlie Horse.”
Sahara craned her neck around the boulders. “Oh, the poor thing. He’s caught in that awful brush.”
Copper conchos adorned my saddle in each corner, under the latigo tie strings. They were engraved with the Spiral of Life.
I didn’t see him. That didn’t mean TwoFeathers wasn’t out there. Actually, I was sure he was. I fished the jerked meat from my satchel and handed a few strips to Sahara before leaving the bundle sitting on the nearest rock.
Charlie Horse’s rope had been tangled in the twisted fingers of a mesquite bush. I wrestled it loose then walked him off. He limped.
“I’m going to keep heading into town. I need Charlie Horse shod to protect his hooves.” We resumed our pilgrimage. Sahara was quiet. I picked at more cactus spines.
Sahara emptied the water skin and chewed on the jerky strips. She looked worn out when we reached the outskirts of Molasses Pond. She hadn’t complained once on the long walk. That told me she was done in. If the girl had any life left in her, she’d have been gibbering nonsense every second.
Main Street was certainly a welcome sight. I felt Sahara’s mood lift as we marched into town.
Jeb staggered into the roadway in front of us with a bottle of whiskey in one hand. A clean white bandage wrapped his other hand. That was probably where I had shortened his little finger with a bullet. He grabbed after three boys rolling a hoop with their sticks. Too drunk to catch them. Undeterred, Jeb took a hearty swig from his bottle and eyed a woman crossing the street from Percy’s Mercantile. Though she ventured wide, Jeb swayed his way to pinching her skirts.
At her squelch, the pastor, in a brown frock coat and white collar, hustled to escort the woman.
Wobbling drunk, Jeb pointed to the pastor. “He ain’t one of us,” Jeb shouted to the men lingering on the boardwalks and around the crumbling fountain. “You ain’t one of us,” he announced. “Pastor Goody-two-shoes. All high and mighty with the Lord.” He poked the pastor in the chest. “He’s a prissy dude, aintcha. A dude from back East.”
He took hold of the pastor’s coat lapels which steadied him, and bolstered his confidence. Jeb growled, “Let’s see your God save you from this.” He yanked a knife from his belt and held it to the pastor’s throat. “Since you ain’t one of us, you can go to hell.” He pressed the knife to the pastor’s Adam’s apple. “I’ll kill all of you who ain’t one of us.”
“Austin, don’t.” Sahara clutched at my arm.
I shirked from her light grasp, tucking Charlie Horse’s reins into her hand.
Jeb didn’t see me coming. I reached across to clench on to his bandaged knife hand. He shrieked like a tiny church mouse nabbed by a rat terrier. Eyes wide with pain, he dropped the bottle of whiskey out of his other hand onto the packed roadway.
It smashed.
I hadn’t the strength to wrestle his arm from holding that knife up to the pastor’s throat. I squeezed his injury, hoping he would let go of the knife.
Molasses Ponders lined the boardwalks, gawking like there was a parade stalled on Main Street. They poured from tents. Percival’s Mercantile emptied. Hammers stopped pounding. Buggies halted. Horses stilled. It was as if the entire town held its collective breath.
Blood from a thin cut stained the pastor’s pristine collar.
Seth hailed from the Watering Hole’s boardwalk. I jerked my gun and shoved it over the pastor’s shoulder to point at Seth.
Seth smiled at me. He held his hands up like it was all fun and games. “Jeb,” he called as he stepped into the road.
Jeb attempted to shuffle around. I shook my head.
“Lookyhere, Austin, I can’t help this sitchiation any unless you let my boy go.”
“Isn’t happening. I want the knife.”
“Well now, that’s not going to happen either. Ya see, Jeb is awful fond of that particular knife seeing how he’s misplaced one of recent.”
“The knife comes off the pastor’s throat. I’ll give it to your care.”
“Now that sounds real good. Don’t it, Jeb?”
Jeb twitched his eyes toward Seth. His left eye was blackened. Above, sat a swollen knot.
“Jeb’s just feeling out of sorts. He’ll be fine if I take him back inside.” Seth approached with his hands still grasping for air. “I’ll take the knife now, Jeb. You can have it back after.”
Jeb flickered his eyes to Seth again. His bandaged hand relaxed inside my grip. He allowed the knife to fall into Seth’s hand.
Hugging Jeb around the shoulders, Seth escorted him back to the Watering Hole. Jeb struggled against Seth’s hold. He made a grab for the knife. Failing, he contented himself with hollering. “He ain’t one of us. He’s a savage breed. An injun. Unnatural. And he will go to hell at the end of my knife.”