by R. Kent
“No, Jeb,” Seth hollered.
“Stay out of this, Seth. I’m tired of taking orders from you. Austin’s time’s been coming.”
“You can’t beat him.” Seth made a grab for the sorrel but missed. The sorrel spun away, three-legged lame.
“What do you know,” Jeb growled at Seth, never taking his eyes from me. “His gun arm’s stove up.”
“He’s strapped under two guns. Leave it be.”
“Don’t mean nothin’. Anyone can wear ’em. Two guns ain’t nothin’ if’n ya can’t use them.” He spit a glob of mucous without turning his head away.
If he had a tell, I didn’t know it. I didn’t need to know it. Jeb was clumsy and slow with a handgun. His forte was knife throwing. Could he kill me with a throw of a knife? Not at this distance.
Time held its breath. My surroundings came into keen focus. Initially, I watched both men, because there was no way one moved without the other.
The whites of Jeb’s eyes were riddled with jagged red bolts. Sweat beaded on his forehead, though the temperature was dropping with the waning sun. Greasy hair hung like oiled ropes onto his shoulders. His heavy coat was soiled at the bottom from dragging its draped length as he walked. The long coat was tucked open behind his holster, where the massive hogleg hung too low. Its hammer loop was off. The gun rode perched. Jeb took a wide, solid stance on his bowed legs.
Seth’s arm hung relaxed. His palm brushed his leather holster in flipping off the loop. The strain of indecision lined his face with tension. He wouldn’t dare pop the gun loose from its holster’s tight grip, lest his actions get mistaken. Seth wore the short, waist-length coat of gunslingers. It was meticulously clean at the wrists. His gun hand was manicured. His hair was short and slicked back beneath a wide-brimmed hat. His eyes were well shaded from the sun. As he readied for business, I heard the excitement in his breathing.
“We was there when you kilt poor Jamie,” Seth said.
“You’d have shot me in the back if I didn’t go when he called me out,” I answered Seth, but I decided to watch Jeb’s every flinch. This was to be Jeb’s kill.
“Jamie needed to get his feet wet. We thought you’d be his first. We thought he’d take you. You were a sorry looking runt strapped under a cannon. Pullin’ that revolver shouldn’t have been possible.”
Jeb wiggled his meaty fingers like dangling sausages. He waited for me to glance Seth’s way. Wasn’t happening.
“Ya know, we didn’t even knowed it was you. Not til the boss recognized a wanted poster that had come in on the very same stage as that sweet little whore you stole from us. McKade knows who you are now. You’re wanted for killin’ and rapin’ and pillagin’ and such, breed.” He spat a dark stream of tobacco. Thick drool oozed down his chin. “McKade tried to clean out all you injun mongrels when he was scoutin’ for the cavalry. You was like rats in a barrel. Makes no sense the cavalry kept a few of you alive.”
“McKade and I seem to go way back,” I said. “Maybe even further than he realizes.”
Jeb dropped his stance ever so slightly over his rooted feet. He was committed to the draw.
Seth’s eyes crinkled at the corners in delight. “Oh, you two do go way back. He knows it now. He’s got it all figured out.” He swallowed, struggling to get a lump down his throat. That was his tell.
Seth pulled first.
Blam. I shot the Colt Navy revolver from his hand.
Jeb yanked at his big weapon but was still lugging the over-long barrel from its holster when I turned. I blasted him in the chest. Blam. Blam. He blew backward as if a ram had butted his midsection.
Seth bolted. He was out of sight before Jeb’s body finished twitching on the ground.
“Sahara?” There was dried blood at the back of her scalp. My fingers came away sticky with the goo. I smoothed her tangled hair from her face then patted at her cheeks. Sahara’s eyes fluttered open.
“Wha…Where am I?” She tried to sit up.
“Shh. Lie quiet until you’ve had a moment to remember.”
“Mm. My head.” Sahara’s fingers searched her skull, settling on the lump. “Oh. He hit me.” She gingerly groped for other injuries. “He told me to shut up. I shot him with the pastor’s gun. He squeezed it from my hand. Then he hit me with it.”
Her body jerked at the memory. She whirled around. “Where are they?” The slight motion made her grab at her forehead.
“Gone. Jeb’s dead. Seth ran toward the opening at the end of the rockslide.” We had to head in the same direction. I hoped Seth wasn’t planning an ambush.
“Wait here.” I climbed through the debris looking for the bay. He lay among the littered boulders, bathing the dry earth with his sweat and blood. Three of his legs had broken when the rockslide broadsided him. He paddled the floppy limbs in a futile attempt to get up. Past that, I didn’t want to know.
This was my fault.
He snorted at my approach, lifting his head and thrashing his fractured legs. Sweat had darkened rings around his eyes and ears. Blood trickled from his flaring nostrils. His soft, velvety muzzle oozed a pink froth. Huffing and puffing in gasps, he labored to breathe.
I shot him.
Of all the animals, two-legged and four, that should be put down, he hadn’t been one. Sniffling, I took a moment to remember the time he busted loose under me and how he came around to be as gentle as a lamb. He had been rugged, tractable, and steady. It was a shameful waste of a life.
“Austin?”
I climbed from the rocks, scrabbling back toward Sahara. Seth’s weapon was on the ground between us. I plucked the revolver from the rubble. The handle of the gun was shattered. There was blood on the splintered grips. Seth had been wounded. Echoes of Pa resounded in my head, “Wounded bears come back enraged.”
“He’d need a gun first,” I said aloud.
“What did you say?”
“Seth’s gun is no good.” I emptied the Colt Navy revolver, pocketed the bullets, then tossed the broken weapon aside.
Even dazed, Sahara was pretty. She was the combination of a fiery sunset and fresh buttermilk. And she was sweet like that molasses bread. I really liked her. I thought I even loved her. It was unnatural, but I couldn’t help my feelings for her. To me, what I felt for Sahara was the most natural thing in my entire being.
“I’m dizzy. I think I have the vapors.” She fluttered her hand in front of her face. “I just need a minute.”
I stood next to her and petted on her shoulder like I was calming a frightened horse. It wasn’t like I’d had a lot of experience with women.
“What will you do with Jeb?” she asked.
“I can’t bury him. I won’t bury him. Not my deal. That’s for him and hell to decide.”
Two holes in his chest burbled blood. My mind threatened to flashback on killing Jamie McKade. But this gun-scum was no wet-behind-the-ears dandy like Jamie was. I had very little regret for this death. And at the moment, I had other worries. Staying alive.
With a struggle to roll his dead weight, I liberated the gun belt from Jeb’s holster and strapped my injured arm along my side. Jeb wasn’t going to be using his outfit any longer. I know he’d begrudge me the use of it, though I couldn’t see how he was about to make that clear now.
Bullets? Coat pocket. Rummaging through his long coat produced a stench. I’d heard of last gases passing on death, but I was sure Jeb stunk this bad when alive. Opening his coat had released his foul body odor. My knife. I had dropped my skinning knife in the melee of fleeing saddle horses that night TwoFeathers rescued the captive Apaches. I thought I’d lost it for good. Just goes to prove, things come back around.
Sahara picked up Jeb’s Colt Dragoon.
“What do you want that for?” I asked as Sahara lifted Jeb’s revolver with two hands.
“I want a gun.” She stuffed it in a holey flour sack that was fluttering on the breeze nearby.
“You won’t be able to shoot it. It’s too heavy for you.” I took the h
uge hogleg from the sack and flipped the cylinder open. I made sure it was fully loaded. “Don’t shoot yourself.” I handed it back.
The sorrel nickered as I approached. He pressed his forehead to my chest. I scratched beneath his jaw. The horse’s head grew heavy against me. When his eyes drooped, I bent and lifted the injured leg. “You’ll be all right.” Dried lather caked his exhausted body. “If you can make it to town, you’ll be all right,” I whispered to him.
“How does it look?”
“The leg’s not broken. Bad, but not broken. Bowed the tendon and I don’t know what else.” I gently lowered the leg and pushed my face to his neck. He smelled of everything horse, everything good and decent, and wholesome and kind. His steamy breath smelled of mashed oats. His body of lathered sweat. There were scents of oiled saddle leather and fired steel from the blacksmith’s forge. Most of all, he smelled familiar, like home.
“We’re not going to move fast. We might as well take the horse as far as he can go.” I couldn’t leave the sorrel. I knew what fate awaited him out here, injured and alone in the vast wilderness, with the blackness of night fast approaching.
Sahara smoothed her coat and slapped at the accumulated grit on her trousers while awkwardly gripping the massive gun in its holey sack. “At least you’ve captured a horse today.”
I rolled my eyes and scooped up the hanging leather reins to the sorrel. “I did.”
Sahara tested her feet, stabbing one toe forward then the other. She moved timidly at first, as if she were checking for thin ice.
The walls of Apache Pass loomed high above, casting deep shadows over us. We plodded around the settled boulders. The sun descended. Darkness threatened. The wind picked up. The temperature continued to fall.
Sahara dropped back. A gray pallor settled across her face as she silently walked behind the three-legged beat of the struggling sorrel.
Snow fluttered on the wind once we were free of the pass.
Sahara began to hum. She had a lovely voice. Most everything about her was lovely. I hadn’t taken notice at first meeting. Like any boy, I had crushed on the dazzling girl with the painted face, parading the latest fashions. Stupid me.
As Sahara hummed, the tension in my back eased. The striking pains throughout my body settled into a dull, throbbing soreness. And the whirling jumble of thoughts in my head calmed.
Pa had played the same tune on his harmonica each night. “Foolish Pioneers.” Folks had jigged around the campfire after the wagons were circled and the stock had been bedded down. When not in use, Pa’s harmonica rode in his breast pocket, ready to stave off long hours of boredom, or soothe the soreness at day’s end.
Blood had drooled over the harmonica after turning the gun on himself. Its shiny steel had once glinted in the sun. Steel glinted in the sun. Steel glinted from high on the ridge from that leg brace of McKade’s. I shook the apparitions from my head. I wouldn’t think on that now.
“Where’d you learn that song?” I asked Sahara, tugging at my neckerchief to take apart the knot.
At my question, Sahara trotted to catch up. “Back home. It’s about the gold rush of California, when everyone back East packed up to move their families West. It’s called ‘Foolish Pioneers.’”
I slipped the kerchief from my neck and wrapped it around my wrist. Then, I looped the twisted silk through my gun belt riding low beneath my hips. Jeb’s belt, securely fastening my upper arm to my body, had already eased the pain in my shoulder. But my swinging lower arm sent strikes like lightning into it.
“What are you doing?” Sahara asked.
“I need to tie this.”
“Here, let me.”
She smelled perfectly wonderful as she leaned in to knot the kerchief at my wrist. Lilac soap. How does she always smell spring fresh? Her fingertips fluttered on the back of my hand, like a butterfly caught on a gentle breeze. When she was done, her eyes stared into mine. Their green was so vivid I could feel them to my toes. She licked her top lip, then ran her fingers along my ragged scar.
Shivers shuddered the length of my spine.
“You never told me about your scar,” she said.
“Nothing really to tell.” But I would tell her anything she wanted…if she’d just touch me like that forever and always. I cleared my throat and put a little distance between us.
“Do you know the words to that song? My White pa played the tune on his harmonica.”
She sang the words softly beside me.
There’s gold on the plains, gold in the hills.
But the gold you would find is only for thrills.
Go, foolish pioneers, go West and begone.
There’s gold for the taking if you don’t wait over-long.
There’s gold in the mountains, gold in the streams.
But the gold you would find is only in dreams.
Go, foolish pioneers, go West and begone.
There’s gold for the taking if you don’t wait over-long.
When Sahara abruptly stopped singing, I looked at her. She was pale. The sickly complexion stole her unique creaminess. The gray pallor had blanched, creating a worn, deathly appearance that the moonless night couldn’t hide.
“Austin, I don’t feel so good.”
The wind blew. Snow flurries blustered. The temperature couldn’t possibly get any colder. We had to keep moving.
Sahara dropped to her knees and vomited.
Chapter Sixteen
Sahara’s face turned the color of uncooked dough. I’m not sure if it looked better or worse than the gray pallor. Both were frightening. She knelt on the cold ground, doubled over, and hurled. Her retching continued even after her stomach was emptied of its contents.
As the gagging calmed, Sahara attempted to stand. “I-I can’t.” She clutched her head. “It feels like someone’s stabbing knives into my eyeballs.”
“Stay down.” I’d seen this before, when a Navajo boy fell from his horse. Hours after, he got sick, his eyes went wonky, and he babbled nonsense. Days later, he was dead.
I leaned into Sahara’s face. One pupil was larger than the other. Panic gouged its way up my gullet like acidic bile. “Can you lay flat?”
Sahara giggled. “I’ve never seen eyes so blue. They’re like a clear summer sky that’s cooled off after a fierce, hot downpour.”
Keep her with me. Talk to her. “My White ma used to tell me that.” I buttoned Sahara’s coat, snugging her collar around her neck as she lay back on the cold, damp ground.
“Well, she must have been a smart lady.” She rolled to her side, clutching her arms over her chest.
“Truth is,” I scratched at my scar, “I couldn’t really say. Don’t know. When my baby sisters were born, I was already old enough to trot around with my White pa. Ma didn’t seem to have a lot of time for me.”
Sahara yawned. Her eyes fluttered with the strain of forcing them to stay open.
No. No. No. I couldn’t let her sleep. “My ma doted over my sisters’ light-colored, long, straight tresses, filling them with ribbons after tying them in braids. She’d have loved your hair. My hair was too unruly for Ma’s brush.” I tried to keep Sahara focused. “Now you. Talk to me.”
“Your father must have had a dark nest of hair.” Her sentence ended in a drowsy whisper.
I shook her shoulder. “No. It wasn’t like mine, I don’t think. He kept it shorn. And wore a hat. I actually can’t remember. I know I didn’t exactly look like either of them. Do you look like your ma?” I gently shook her shoulder again. “Sahara? How are you feeling?”
“Fine now. Just sleepy. I’m fine. I can stand.” She looked around confused. “It’s so dark.” Her fingers clawed their way up me like she was rock climbing the steep face of that butte. I steadied her ascent.
Sahara stood erect. She blinked once then swooned into my arms.
“Sahara? Sahara.” I tapped her pasty white cheek. “Sahara.” Blood soaked the collar of her coat. A laceration on her crown bled profusely. The jagged w
ound was riddled with grit.
I lowered her to lie flat, then ripped the hanging tail off her shirt and tied a bandage around her head, pressuring it with my palm until the bleeding slowed.
I left Sahara on the cold ground and started for the pinions. The sorrel offered to follow. I rubbed his neck. “Stay here. Look after Sahara.” I slipped his reins into Sahara’s limp fingers, making him stay put.
A coyote howled. His lonesome note was echoed in the distance by another. They were hunting.
I ran to the stand of short pines. It took precious time, too much time, to cut two poles. I could have chewed through the saplings with my front teeth just as well as carving them down with a skinning knife. I’d needed a hand ax. At least Jeb had kept my knife’s blade honed.
After I dumped the poles near Sahara, I unsaddled the sorrel, taking account of how very little equipment there was to work with. Using the upturned saddle and anything I could pillage from it, I set to building a drag. If I stayed busy, I wouldn’t have to think.
I tossed the string cinch aside. While lashing the latigos of the upside down saddle to two poles, thoughts wormed their way into my head. The very act of surviving McKade’s massacres was why he hunted me. I rubbed at the scarred skin of my neck. But he wasn’t ready to kill me. Not yet. He was still in the mood to toy with his prey. That gave me time.
McKade loved a public demonstration of his power. And he always figured out how to avoid responsibility for his murders. He had planning yet to do where I was concerned. But I was planning too. It might cause the death of me, but I would get Sahara safe from McKade’s evil clutches. Somehow.
I loaded Sahara on the drag. Her skin felt cold to the touch. I tapped at her cheeks.
“I’m tired,” Sahara said. “I’m so tired.”
“I know. But you have to stay awake.”
The sorrel’s reins slipped. I handed them back to her. “Hold on. Don’t let go.”
“I promise…” she answered in a whisper. Her eyelids fluttered, losing their battle to stay open.
“Sahara?”