by R. Kent
“Maybe I was taken by surprise. Hit over the head. Jumped and gagged. How would you know?” I reached to untie the holster’s string around my thigh then glared at her.
Sahara didn’t waste any time in spouting her reply. “No one would take you by surprise.” She shucked out of her thick winter coat as if there was nothing more to be said.
I unbuckled my gun belt, the weight of which seemed to be heavier this past month.
Off the bar across the doorway, I hung my gun. It was difficult to restrain myself from throttling Sahara. I righted the table, bench, chair, and stool with too much vehemence.
The world wasn’t as over-simplified as the spoiled, city-raised chit could attempt to arrange it to be. It wasn’t good guys against bad guys. It wasn’t the good guys always won and the bad guys always lost. Good guys didn’t always win. Good guys weren’t always good. Good guys could die just as quickly as bad guys. And in my estimation, good guys always got hurt, no matter the outcome.
The blankets were strewn around the room. I shook the dust from them. Potatoes needed chasing back into their bag. Done. Luckily, the sacks of beans hadn’t split open. I restacked the sacks of beans, salt, flour, and coffee against a wall. And all the while, Sahara slumped in the middle of the dirt floor. Her personals were spilled. Her neatly arranged bundles from Percival’s Mercantile were scattered. She looked deflated.
“My money’s gone.”
“What money?” I asked.
“The rest of my dowry.”
“What?”
“Dowry.” She didn’t look at me. She seemed defeated. “You know, money that would go to my husband to help start a fine life. Money my mother had saved up since the day I was born. She wanted me presented properly.” Sahara absentmindedly pulled at her collar and scrubbed her hand along the back of her neck.
She wore my necklace. The alternating beads of copper and turquoise twinkled from the firelight.
I took my gun from the wooden bar and unblocked the door. “The horse,” I stammered. But she didn’t look up. “I’m, um, going to the overhang…to take care of the horse.” Still nothing. She sat crumpled on the floor. “I’ll just feed and water the horse. Rub him down some.”
I grabbed a short piece of rope from the wall and slipped out the door, leaving it ajar. With my gun belt hanging in two hands, I bumped my back down the logs, sliding until the cold earth met my buttocks. She wore my necklace.
Soft sniffling, turning into wracking sobs, emanated from the cracked doorway. “Mama, I lost my dowry.” Sahara sucked on air like it was choking the life from her. “I’m living in a sod hut.” She hiccupped uncontrollably. “Austin hates me.”
Hogan. And I don’t hate you. I don’t. But you could never love me if you knew everything I am. And all that I’m not. I dropped the holstered gun to the packed dirt and scoured at my face with calloused hands. I was very, very tired.
At daybreak, the livery horse snuffled through my hair. He licked his lips and chewed in contemplation. His harness jingled and creaked. The horse blew dust from his nose, spraying gritty mist onto my ear.
I hauled myself off the cold ground and strapped my gun on. The fire inside had burned down. I added a log to the red coals. Sahara slept on the floor. Her arms wrapped around the curled pup. Tears stained Sahara’s cheeks.
The fire snapped and crackled to life. As I left, I gently closed the door all the way.
The horse jigged and swerved as we approached the overhang. His nostrils flared. I stroked his neck and led him behind a hillock of rock to stand, watching. I had skirted wide around the worn path, wary of ambush. The horses skittish behavior signaled that my precaution had been wise.
I smelled it too. Blood.
The metallic tang tainted the biting breeze. Coyotes didn’t howl. Owls didn’t hoot. It was like the early morning was holding its breath but for the small, chill current of warning.
A buggy picked its way through rubble and boulders. I had built the hogan where there was only one way in. That meant there was only one way out. I would always know which direction danger was coming from.
As the rig plodded closer, I saw the brown cow tied to the back. Following on her heels was a staggering, weak speck. I did not clearly see the driver. They were slouched too low over the lines.
Chapter Nine
“Oh my God.” Sahara ran at full speed toward the ambling buggy. “It’s Rose.”
I wrapped the short rope around the harnessed horse’s neck, leaving him ground-tied, and stepped from behind the rocks.
Sahara was beside the rolling buggy, pushing at Rose’s shoulder to prop her upright. Rose had been unconscious.
Stirring, Rose asked, “The cow? Is the cow all right?”
I slowed the buggy horse enough for Sahara to scrabble in.
“She’s fine. Everything’s going to be fine.” Sahara put her arms around Rose’s shoulders and flopped Rose’s head onto her.
Rose’s jaw was red and lumpy. Blood trickled from her nose and oozed from the cuts over her cheekbones. Her eyes were blackened and swollen. Her face was disfigured. Sahara dabbed at Rose’s nose as the buggy bounced along the rocky debris.
Sahara swiped a sheen of sweat from her own forehead, smearing a line of blood across her wrinkled brow. She was beautiful. Now wasn’t the best time to notice. But Sahara was fiercely beautiful.
A broken plume collapsed from Rose’s cap. Her flouncy blouse, usually tamed by a corset, flapped loosely. The skirt running from her sculpted waist, over generous hips, to her buttoned ankle boots, was torn in slits. I wouldn’t have recognized her if not for the particular fashion of her ruined clothes.
At the hogan, I lifted Rose from the seat. She wasn’t light. I struggled to carry her. Not what a woman wanted to hear.
“Bring her in. Put her on the pallet.” Sahara took charge in a manner I hadn’t seen before. She set a pot of water on a hook over the fire to boil. She tore scraps from the hem of a cast off petticoat and shoved me to the side in her determination. “Who did this to you?” she asked Rose.
“Indians. But not Indians. They dressed like Indians. Only, they wore flour sacks over their heads thinking I wouldn’t be able to tell.” Rose waved her hand in front of her nose. “But Indians don’t stink so bad as them.”
Whites. But who? Barflies? Hired guns? And why hurt Rose? She was McKade’s. Surely he wouldn’t sanction this. If for no other reason, he wouldn’t take the loss of income from her convalescence. “Was it McKade’s men?” I asked.
Rose waved me away and tried to sit up. “I’ll take care of it,” she said. With a hand to her forehead, she continued, “But maybe I’ll just sit here a moment first.”
“I’m going after them.” Someone had to make this right. Someone had to make them pay. “Bolt the door behind me.”
“I have to get back to town,” Rose exclaimed. “I can never stay away long. He’d never let me see her again. She’s the only flesh and blood I have.”
“Hush now.” Sahara doted over Rose as I slammed the door.
I ran. As I ran, I dragged my thick coat on. The old buggy horse still stood in the rocks where I’d left him. I unharnessed the horse, dropping the leather webbing to the ground. I hoped he was broke to ride. All I knew was that he looked tired. Tired, worn out, and aged.
It was no trick getting on him. He lined up to a knee-high rock as if waiting for shafts. I swung a leg, sliding it gently over his protruding spine. So far, so good. He skittered away from my nigh leg, then hit the off leg. He was totally unfamiliar with a rider. His body bunched beneath me when he felt trapped between my legs. Not saddle broke.
I didn’t have time for a rip-roaring deal. I held my legs off of him and drove him forward with my voice, like I was taking a summer buggy ride to a Sunday sermon. “Easy. Getup. Easy. Step up.”
He’d seen better years. His whither sat so high and sharp, at best I was missing my saddle, at worst…I didn’t need to think on the worst. Suffice to mention, I’d be r
ubbed raw in all the wrong places.
The first few steps told my body his spine was a ridge that shouldn’t be ascended. But he was game. He settled to my weight on his back as we jogged off.
Rose’s assailants didn’t bother to hide their tracks. Six or seven men. Right where Rose described they overtook her. And they hadn’t left more than two hours ago. Coals still glowed in a ring of stones. Dumped coffee turned the frost dark. Boots had scuffed the dirt where bits of ladies’ lace littered the ground like fluttering tufts from molting quail. They had been Whites.
The gang was headed in the direction of town at a lazy lope. One of the horses dropped to a jarring jog. They weren’t in any great hurry, but they were on a determined line. It surprised me when two of them split off toward Apache land. I climbed down from the exhausted buggy horse to have a closer look.
My trap line started in the low brush ahead. The tracks ran straight for it. I gently eased myself back over the horse’s sharp spine, then pursued the tracks into the brush and mesquite bramble.
Snares were tripped. But anything could have done that. The snow had blown off and the ground was too hard here for tattletale prints. I slid from the buggy horse to reset the snares.
Deep within the mesquite, a twisted branch protruded from a small iron-jawed trap. A flour sack, limp and lifeless, was staked between rocks with a sharpened stick. I shivered inside my thick coat. They know I’m after them. They want me to follow.
The tiny hairs on the back of my neck prickled.
“Os-ten.”
I spun. My Smith and Wesson leveled instantly at the intruder’s gut.
“Whites.” He waved a brace of rabbits, pointing to the snares. It rankled me that TwoFeathers never flinched when I drew on him.
I reset the trap with viscera and bits of rabbit fur. There were scrapes on stone from steel shoes. I trailed them. TwoFeathers followed without following. His path meandered parallel to mine, within sight and earshot. I didn’t know if he was keeping me company or on his own mission.
The sun hadn’t done much about warming the morning. I blew into my cupped hands. Now and again, I inspected hoof marks. I needed to discern all I could about the enemy before meeting up with them.
And we would meet up. Only time stood between us.
I recognized that one of the horses was unevenly shod. A new front shoe was paired to a worn one. Justice kept his horses shod. But it was too great of an expense for the common man of Molasses Pond. So, the horse was rented from Molasses Pond Livery. The worn shoe was rolled in the toe. That told me something also. It was particular to the individual animal’s way of moving, which I recognized. The sorrel.
Seth.
The other animal was stout. Heavier. Shorter, by the looks of his stride. Horseshoe shaped scuffs from this animal drove more deeply into the rocky landscape. And slivers of potato peels were dropped as the horse walked. The peels were thin and precise, not chunky or butchered. Jeb.
The two of them followed my trap line.
“Why is it you never duck?” I growled at TwoFeathers.
“Os-ten does not shoot.” He touched the tips of his fingers alongside his head then swiped the open palm in front of his face. That amounted to “brain” and “walled or blocked.” Brain blocked. Thinking made me stop, or hesitate.
Hesitating would get me killed.
Pa’s voice echoed in my mind, “Never pull a gun unless you intend to pull the trigger.”
Trouble was, I was too fast. Too fast for my mind to keep up. Too fast to be sure that what I knew I’d hit was truly what I wanted to hit. I never missed. But I did hesitate. I hesitated because I wanted to be sure I was shooting the right man for the right reason. I smoothed my palm over my holster. I’d have to correct for that thinking.
Pull the gun. Pull the trigger. Pull the gun. Pull the trigger.
My next trap too, was sprung and empty.
Blood warmed the icy crystals on the ground around the closed metal jaw. It had caught something. Seth or Jeb had made short work of dressing the kill. Strangely, they had left the entrails discarded next to it.
I crouched to reset the trap. The viscera would make good bait—
Urine. They had marked my trap line like a dog pissing on its territory. I jerked the trap loose. Nothing would come near the trap now.
Grr. I slopped the bear claw jaw and chain over the horse’s back. Then thought better of it. I took off my thick coat, and slid the padding between the trap and the animal’s protruding spine. The tired buggy horse stood solid for this new invasion. Actually, he looked done in.
The next trap was devastated, raided, pulled up, with the stake rope cut. I slung that metal jaw over the animal’s back too. The chains jangled, but a driving horse was used to a jingling sound.
Seth and Jeb were riding hard and spending less and less time at each of my traps. The areas were torn apart, ripped, and kicked. They were hell-bent for—
Sahara.
My line made a loop back to the homestead. And there was only one more trap between them and the hogan. Only one more pause between them and Sahara.
Panic blasted through my chest. “Sahara.” I hollered, as if she would hear me.
A gun went off in the distance.
A yelp.
TwoFeathers disappeared into the bramble.
I ran, dragging the horse behind me.
The acrid odor of spent gunpowder carried over the distance on crisp, clear air. The stench heightened my sense of fear, making the old horse twitchy. I rubbed my palm along his neck and down his shoulder. Above his elbow, I felt dotted indents. The gelding wore rowel marks dotting his shoulders. The spur scars traveled the length of his barrel. His flanks had been chewed raw at some point in his life. Thick, gnarly skin bunched beneath the shaggy growth of winter’s coat.
I couldn’t think on that now. I had to get to the hogan. Fast.
My fear for Sahara infused the old horse with too much worry. His eyes rolled up until the whites showed. Sweat broke out around the base of his short, fuzzy ears. As I threw myself at him in a furious attempt to mount too quickly, the horse spun away.
I grabbed the bridle and dragged his nose close to my shoulder. We spun. The traps fell to the ground. The horse reacted like the lump of equipment would eat him. He leaped into the air. His white-ringed eyes searched for escape.
I kept a hold on him. We spun. “Easy. Sahara needs us. Whoa now. Easy. She needs us.”
I needed her. I needed Sahara.
With the rope drawn across my midsection, I grasped a clump of mane, twisted it into my fist, and threw myself at the horse. Old Navajo trick.
When I was up, I held his head around to my leg hoping he’d settle. No such luck. And no time. I let the rope slacken through my hand. His neck straightened.
For a second, he stood.
With his next intake of breath, the pitching fit was on.
In a tug-o-war, I dragged his head to the opposite side, bending it around. The frightened horse spun his hind end in a futile effort to break free. I sat tall while he frenzied. As he settled into a spin, I reached to tie the end of the lead rope back onto the bit, once again having two reins.
When I let his head loose this time, he reared. I grabbed mane. Fistfuls of mane. It was all there was to hold onto. I had to be careful not to dig him with my heels.
His forelegs hit the ground solidly on his descent. The slam snapped my jaw closed. It felt like all my teeth had cracked. He bolted. The horse’s hard-walled hooves clawed the crisp November earth. I hung on like a bloated tick.
Beads of perspiration swelled on my forehead. I leaned over the horse’s shoulders urging him in his flight.
His hooves pounded the frosty soil in a maddened four-beat gallop. We whisked past a twisted sycamore tree. Its branch whipped my face, slicing my cheek over the bone. Blood gushed from the fresh cut. I felt the wind spread it. I hoped it streaked in red stripes, like war paint. Because I was riding to war. My wide-brimmed hat flew
off. My hair whipped out to lash at my neck, as wild as the mane on that frantic horse.
The animal’s nostrils flared crimson. His eyes ringed with white. Lather broke out over his shoulders and neck. I could feel the pounding of each hoof, the sucking of every breath, and the maddened pulsing of his heartbeat.
The hogan came into view. One man whirled astride the sorrel. Another was on the ground, bent over a smoky torch. The horsed man roped a corral post. He pulled it down with his loop, dragging the wood pole to whip it against the hogan’s door.
A flaming torch was thrown to the hogan’s roof. It festered and fought to grow.
I was still a distance away. There was nothing I could do but urge my frenetic horse on. I didn’t have a rifle. My revolver couldn’t overtake the range. I didn’t have a shot.
Anger welled from within me, snuffing any fear.
I rode down on the scene, whooping and ki-yaying.
My war cry burst into the men’s havoc, drawing their attention away from the hogan.
Sahara was nowhere in sight. Neither was the buggy Rose had arrived in. And the cow was missing again.
But the door to the hogan stood strong, giving me hope that the women were safe.
The frigid air bit my lungs as I sucked in vast volumes to steady my fury.
The fog, exhaled from the gelding’s nostrils, misted around my head. It stiffened strands of my hair, freezing it solid. I must have been an eerie sight. I felt like a spirit warrior flying over the rough terrain on a spirit warhorse. An Apache spirit rider was untouchable. I was invincible.
Seth spun the sorrel, staring in my direction. The sensitive sorrel’s eyes rolled into his head at the pain of his wrenched shank bit. Seth hollered for Jeb to ride. He waited only a split second for Jeb to retake his mount before galloping off.
The men booted the animals. Retreating legs flapped like birds with enough fervor to have taken to the air.
I reined up at the hogan, hauling on my mount’s head hard enough to invert the animal’s posture. He dove his front hooves into the ground, hopping to a stiff-legged halt that threw me from his back.