Текст книги "Paradise Sky"

Автор книги: Joe R. Lansdale

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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

8

It was a white man without any drawers, just wearing a red-and-white-striped shirt and a red neckerchief, and he was running down a little rise of dried grass, going fast as a jackrabbit, and in a moment we seen what had given him his inspiration.

Behind him, whooping and having as good a time as kids at a birthday party, was Indians. Apache, to be right on the money, dressed in little to nothing but sunshine and headbands. Four of them was on horseback, six of them was on foot, and for a moment I thought that naked man, his johnson slapping about, was going to outrun them horses. Closer he got I saw that the stripes on his shirt was crawling and running together, and I realized it wasn’t no shirt at all but that his chest was all cut up and his throat was cut bad, too, but still he was up and running.

Them Apaches was so interested in chasing him down they didn’t even see us. He had either escaped them or they had let him go to have a game, cause I guess living out there with nothing but mesquite berries and some bushes you had to find your fun where you could get it.

The white man, though we was still a considerable distance away, had seen us by this time, and he started yelling at us and waving his hands as he run, flicking them left and right like birds taking flight.

“They’re funning him,” Rice said, figuring same as me.

It was then that I remembered we was soldiers. I climbed up in the wagon and pulled that government-issue Spencer out of it, got down, and took me a spot standing, prepared to fire at the Apache that was closing in on the white man.

Rice said, “Hell, you can’t hit them from here, and neither can they bead in on you. We’re out of range, and I heard Indians ain’t good shots at all.”

One of the running Apaches had spotted us, dropped to one knee, and pointed his rifle. When he did, Rice flung his arms wide, said, “Go on, shoot, you crooked-shooting heathen.”

Rice was wrong about the distance and Apache marksmanship. That Indian had beaded him down good with what appeared to be a Henry rifle. Rice got it right on top of the nose and fell over with his arms spread and thumped against the ground on his back, dead.

The Former House Nigger said, “I reckon they been practicing.”

It was in that moment that I learned a valuable lesson. Don’t never wait on shooting at something if you’re going to shoot. Had I not hesitated my shot would have most likely covered the distance and stopped that Indian from firing.

The Apaches that was on foot came down on that running white man then, and they was close enough now I knew I recognized that white fellow. He was none other than the one who had been the town drunk until he became a store owner and field wrangler. He was of course the same that had helped Ruggert kill my pa. It was Hubert. I couldn’t decide if I should shoot him or the Apache, and cause I was stunned by these developments, I didn’t shoot neither. The Apache took him to the ground, and we could see knives and rifle butts flying up in the air, coming down, and we could hear that poor bastard’s head and bones cracking like someone was crushing walnuts in his fists. We opened up on them with our weapons, and it sounded like whips snapping. I fired, and it was a good distance of a shot, but I was square on aim. My Apache target was dead before he hit the ground.

One of the Apaches on horseback rode right at us. Someone in our group fired, and the horse took the shot. The Indian toppled to the ground, rolled, and came up on his feet, his horse having turned completely over on its back with its four legs in the air, like someone had upended a table.

All the other Indians had scampered back behind the rise, and the riding Indians had dismounted and pulled their horses down to the ground, out of sight. But that one Apache, he didn’t go nowhere. You can say what you want about the Apache, but they are about the bravest thing that ever lived—outside of a drunk preacher who thinks God is on his side and when deep in his cups thinks he is God.

This brave come running right at us, all of us having gone to our knees and firing away at him fast as we could. I had excellent training with guns, but my long-gun shooting was a mite off with that Spencer, having done most of my education with a Winchester. I was used to firing rapidly and not reloading after each shot.

I figure that Apache notioned he had some big medicine, cause not a one of our shots hit him. He run right through that hail of bullets in haint-like fashion. As he got closer, I could see he had some kind of muddy paint on his chest and face, or maybe he was just filthy. He had a big grin, too, like he knew he was beyond the powers of our hot lead. He even paused—and I swear if I’m lying I’m dying—then he started to prance sideways, first to the left, then to the right. Our bullet-bees hummed around him, but none of them landed for the sting. With that big grin still on his face, he stepped in a hole and went down. Even from where we were, we could hear his ankle snap like a yanked suspender. Without meaning to, every one of us troopers went “Ooh.” It was so nasty-sounding it made us hurt.

That fall must have caused that Apache’s magic to fly right out of his ass, cause we all started firing at him again, and this time he collected all our bullets. He was deader than a government promise before the smoke cleared.

The Apache didn’t move from their spot on the hill. I’m sure seeing their partner made into a cheese grater gave them pause, brave or not. We popped off a few shots in their direction, killing one of the horses, whose head had managed to poke over the skyline. But to the best of my knowledge we didn’t hit nary an Apache.

We hustled up on that wagon and clattered it across that little creek. I crouched in the back, looking for Apache. Sure enough, they had come back down the hill, none of them with horses, having hidden them somewhere. There was more of them than before; it was like they had split into other Indians.

Firing commenced from within the trees, and I knew Prickly Pear and the other soldier, who I think was called Dash—though the years have clouded my memory of him, as he was the silent type—heard the commotion and was shooting at the Indians, covering what we would later politely call a retreat.

We come around behind the trees, banged the wagon down a little rise, and fetched up in there among the growth near the creek. Prickly Pear and this other fellow was spread wide of each other on their bellies, aiming their rifles across the creek, firing, reloading, firing. The Apaches was ducking into dips and draws we didn’t know was there until they disappeared into them like rabbits.

I had the horses unhitched quick-like from the wagon and placed with the remuda, which was between the trees. I made a firing line there at the creek. I put Bill to the rear with a tree at his back and one near his front for protection. I told him to watch for creepers and to yell out if he seen any. As it was, I was hoping we just had a front attack to worry about. The hill was long enough they could go wide on us, but even with them being Apache and the land being a confusion of drop-offs and gullies, I took it in my head that it would be hard for them to flank us. This from an old Apache fighter of about fifteen minutes.

I dug into my goods, got my Winchester, and strapped on that holster Mr. Loving had made with the LeMat in it. I stuck my Colt in another holster that slid toward my back, jammed the service pistol under the gun belt, then crouched over to the creek and dropped down on the ground flat as a leaf. There was a bush in front of me, and I hoped it might hide me. Someone among them Apache was a pretty good shot, having picked off Rice like that.

I watched as the Apache come along on their bellies, a head rising now and then to check things out, and then ducking out of sight. They somehow managed to cut the pecker off the dead Apache’s horse without us being any wiser until they shoved it in Hubert’s mouth, then propped him to a sitting position with a stick or something. This was meant to scare us, and it worked.

I was surprised Hubert had showed up, of course, but had suspected for a while that he and Ruggert and that big colored fellow I had seen was after me, but so much time had passed I thought they might have quit. Still, I figured they had come upon me by accident and might not even know they had found me. Maybe Ruggert and the colored man was lying dead and chopped up on the other side of the hill with a horse dick in their mouths. By the time it came to the Apache shoving one between your teeth, a stick of licorice, a cigar, or a horse dick was all pretty much the same to you.

I was trying to consider if it was possible for us to make a quick mount and ride off, but I concluded that would be a bad idea. It would put us in a busy way as they rushed down upon us, for surely they would. It seemed wiser to hold our ground, as we had trees for protection from the sun and we had plenty of water, something they might not have. The water might have led them to us in the first place.

It was then that Hubert reached up, partly pulled and partly spat that horse dick out of his mouth, and started moaning. He rolled off of what was propping him up, which turned out to be a hatchet, the blade of it stuck in his back. He went to crawling into some high grass and out of sight, but a couple of Apache came up on him then. They dragged him back and disappeared behind the grass, and we could hear screams.

It went on and on, and I began to feel sorry for Hubert. I tried to picture Pa burned up and lying next to the hog, but it wasn’t enough. It was just awful hearing him caterwauling.

Prickly Pear called out, “I can’t stand it no more. I’m gonna go get him.”

“No, you’re not,” I said. “I’ll do it.”

“Why you?” said the Former House Nigger, bellying over close to me.

“Cause I’m in charge.”

“I’m going with you,” he said.

“Naw, you ain’t,” I said. “I get rubbed out, you’re the one next in charge. Lieutenant said so. You don’t want it to get down to Prickly Pear, do you?”

“Oh, hell, no,” the Former House Nigger said.

That crying out hadn’t ceased. It carried on and on. The sound of it was starting to make me sick to my stomach. It was like they was peeling his skin off an inch at a time, and for all I knew they was.

I turned to the Former House Nigger.

“When I get out there a ways, you and the others keep them busy as a hive of bees, but don’t send a blue-whistler up my ass. I’m going to see I can get to him, pull him out of there, or if I have to, finish him off.”

“Hell, we can’t even see them,” the Former House Nigger said.

“Then you got to shoot where you think they are, make them keep their heads down, or clip the top off one if it pokes up.”

I laid the Winchester on the ground next to my Spencer, deciding it was too burdensome to crawl about with. I had the two pistols from Mr. Loving, which I was highly familiar with, so I laid the service pistol on the ground with the rifles. Pulling my big knife, I put it between my teeth.

I waited a moment to listen and hope Hubert had quit crying out, but he hadn’t. He was still at it, louder than before. In that moment I couldn’t think of him as no one other than a poor man in a horrible situation.

I slithered alongside the creek as the men put up a line of fire, and then slipped into the creek bed. I was able to stoop and stay hid because the bank was high on the Apache side. I hunched down and ran along that way until I made it to where there was a wide swath of grass and the creek bank broke open in a sandy V. The wind was moving the grass. I stuck my face in it and parted it just enough for a line of sight, hoping I wouldn’t be seen and that the movement would be mistaken for the breeze at work.

There wasn’t anything to see but more grass. I bellied up in it like a snake and began to slide along, going quiet as the guest of honor at a funeral. Finally I come upon a drop-off, a gulley, actually, and by moving the grass slightly with my fingers, I could look down the length of it and see two Apache down there with the body of Hubert. He was good and dead, his throat slit, and them two Apache was trading out with the moans and cries and such, doing all they could not to laugh about it. The sneaky bastards; if that didn’t beat all. I was mighty impressed.

It was then one of them seen me.

They jumped up and come running at me, one with a knife, though he had a cap and ball pistol stuck in a sash around his waist. The other was toting the hatchet he’d pulled from Hubert’s back.

I didn’t have no other course than to pull the knife from my teeth and jump down in that gulley with them. I didn’t want to shoot a pistol and make noise and bring the whole batch of them down on me. The one carrying the knife lunged at me with it, and though I was able to avoid his strike, his body hit me like a cannonball, and away we went a’rolling.

The other was almost on me with that hatchet. I caught sight of him out of the corner of my eye as I struggled with the other, but that buck had made a mistake by raising his head above the gulley line. One of the troopers got off a shot that knocked his noggin apart. His hatchet went flying, and he went tumbling.

Now it was just me and the one with the knife. I was trying to cut him, and he was trying to cut me. We was using our free hands to hold each other’s knife hand at the wrist. I managed to squeeze his wrist enough he let go of his knife, but he jerked his hand loose and went for the gun in his sash, got it pulled, fired at me point-blank. I was moving, though, so the shot only singed my hair and made my ears ring like a church bell.

I got hold of his gun hand, partly covering the gun with my fingers, slipping one of them down on the hammer so he couldn’t pull the trigger. This didn’t work long. He yanked his hand free and stuck the gun in my face and squeezed the trigger again.

The pistol misfired. He was so startled by its failure he let go of my wrist with the knife in it, and that’s what cooked his goose. I stabbed him in the chest, kicked him off of me, leaped on top of him before he could shoot again, and went to stabbing wildly. Finally I put the edge of the knife to his throat and pulled it across. He gave me a look of disappointment, like maybe he’d just discovered I had my finger up his ass. He gurgled blood out of his mouth and nose, kicked once like he was stepping down on a bug, and went still.

Wasn’t nothing to be done for Hubert, so I put the knife away, pulled the Colt, and started crawling back to the creek the way I had come. The Apache saw me this time, as I had raised quite a ruckus in the gulley. Now I was making haste where before I had been trying to sneak. A bullet singed the butt of my trousers, but other than that I got back to the creek bed, and finally back to the soldiers, without any real wound.

When I was there, I said, “Who made that shot on the Apache?”

“That would be me,” said the Former House Nigger.

“Listen here,” I said. “I don’t want you calling yourself the Former House Nigger anymore. I don’t want no one calling you that no more. You’re a buffalo soldier, and a good one. I tell you another thing while I’m telling how the hoss ate the apple: ain’t none of us need to be called riding niggers, so we damn sure as hell don’t need to be calling one another that. I say we don’t. I won’t, and I’ll fight the man that can’t resist it. Rest of you men hear that?”

They all heard me well enough, including Bill, up the hill between them trees.

“You getting paid for that preaching, nigger?” said Prickly Pear, and everyone laughed.

“This here is Cullen,” I said. “He ain’t nothing but Cullen, or Private Cullen, or whatever his last name is. That’s what we call him. You hear that, Cullen? You’re a soldier, a top soldier, at that. You saved my life.”

“It was a good shot,” Cullen said, so only I could hear it.

“Damn sure was,” I said.

“What about the white man?” Cullen asked.

“Dead. Apaches was making the noises we heard.”

“That ain’t fair,” Cullen said.

“It ain’t a card game,” I said.

“Thing worrying me,” Cullen said, “is pretty soon we got to worry about when the sun goes down.”

“That is a concern,” I said.

I got my Winchester, stuck the service revolver in my belt, stretched out beside the Spencer, and took a breather, having concluded that I had the men positioned as best I could. We had a good view, and it would take some work for them Indians to come out of that grass and us not see them, but as Cullen had said, what about when the sun went down?

9

As the light faded, I began to fret. We had a lot of ammunition on hand, which was a good thing, but my feelings that I had the men well positioned dimmed with the sun. I rushed down our firing line and spaced the men along the creek in what I felt was better positions, having the last man on either end turn slightly to their side to protect from any kind of surrounding maneuver. I left Bill up there between them two trees, giving him strict instructions to watch carefully and not fall asleep, though I couldn’t imagine anyone nodding off under the circumstances, which would be a bit like finding a bear’s cave with a bear in it and being inclined to nap next to it.

Night crept up on us. It turned blue over the top of the hill, then the blue spread, went black. Shadows tumbled over us and wrapped themselves in the trees like torn canvas. A piece of the moon rode up. Its light hit the top of the hill, caused the tips of the grass to gleam like sword points and the little run of water in the creek to shine. Mosquitoes buzzed, and not too far from us we heard a big frog bleat.

I told Cullen I was going to check the line. I left my Winchester with the Spencer on the ground and hurried along, keeping low as I went.

I started with the rear, which wasn’t no line at all but was Bill. I found him lying between the trees where he was supposed to be, but he was facedown, and the ground around him was wet. I turned him over and dug a match out of my soldier shirt, struck it on one of the trees. His throat was cut.

My skin goose-bumped, and the service revolver sort of leaped into my hand. I eased away from him and back down toward the creek, my ass crack clenched up like a fist. Starting at the far end of the line, I found that soldier whose name I could never remember and now didn’t need to learn. There was an arrow through his head. It had gone in above his ear and come out the other side.

I scrambled down the line, such as it was, came to Prickly Pear, and said, “You alive?”

“Why, hell yeah, I’m alive,” he said.

“There’s two that ain’t,” I said.

“Oh, shit,” Prickly Pear said, and he followed me as I went at a stoop down the row and found everyone else alive, right up to Cullen. When I told Cullen what had happened, he said, “Jesus.”

“They’re like ghosts,” I said.

I turned to look at the horses. The remuda rope was still there, but two of the horses was gone. About then I heard Satan snort, saw him kick out, heard a slapping sound and a release of breath. I ran over there in a hurry. There was enough moonlight through the gaps in the trees I could see Satan had kicked an Apache in the head, one of his hooves cracking his cheek, causing the eye to roll out on its strings and hang there. I don’t know if that Apache was dead or not, but I seen then there was another darting away. I raised my pistol and hit him square in the back, and he went down. I shot the one on the ground for good measure, twice, then hustled back to the others.

I had by now what you might call some serious misgivings about my leadership. I said, “What we got to do is get on our horses and try and ride for it. We ain’t safe up in here. This just gives them a way to get to us and us not see them.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Prickly Pear said, and he and the others started running for the remuda. I picked up my Winchester as well as my Spencer and followed Cullen to the horses in haste.

I let everyone saddle up and mount, while I turned nervously this way and that with the loop-cock Winchester, the Spencer on the ground at my feet. When I was sure everyone was mounted, I got the bridle on Satan, loosed him from the remuda, and just as I got him saddled, he took that moment to rear up, jerk the reins from my hand, dart through the trees, and was gone.

“Now, ain’t that something,” I said.

Cullen said from horseback, “We’ll ride double,” and he held out his hand to pull me up.

The boys was all sitting their horses, ready to go, when there was a whoop, and an Apache leapfrogged over the back of one of the horses, taking a soldier off of it with him. They went rolling on the ground, the Apache pounding the trooper a couple of times with a hatchet, then darting into the woods swift as a rabbit.

The soldiers flurried like startled quail. Wasn’t no military drill about it. It was every son of a bitch for himself. I swung on the back of Cullen’s horse, hanging on to the Winchester but having forgotten the Spencer on the ground. We rode out of the wooded area and came out in the open. The partial moon was surprisingly bright.

I looked back, seen those soldiers was still up in the trees, having lost control of themselves and their horses. I saw the shadowy shapes of horses and men go down, and we could hear them screeching like children. There was gunfire, probably from both sides, and then it all went silent.

Did we wheel about and go to the rescue? Hell, no. There wasn’t any rescue to be done. We had been outsmarted, outmanned, and outfought. If we didn’t want to be down there among them, we had to ride faster than a blue norther blows. That’s when a shot came our way, hit our horse. It fell down, sent Cullen plunging. I was able to come off the falling beast and land on my feet, still clutching my Winchester.

Then the horse got up, the wound not being a finisher. Cullen, like a grasshopper, leaped on its back and took the reins again. I grabbed the horse’s tail and said, “Go,” cause behind us those Apaches was coming, and though what they was yelling at us I couldn’t understand, I doubted it was compliments on the cut of our uniforms.

I told you how Mr. Loving had taught me that horse-tail trick, but Cullen bolted off so fast I nearly got my arm jerked out of the socket. Still, I managed to hang on, and Cullen pulled back on the reins and let the horse lope, but nothing beyond what I could deal with.

The Apaches was mostly on foot, but there was a few with horses, and they had gathered them up. Some had our horses, leading to a high number of them becoming mounted, and pretty soon they was all coming after us. Since I had managed a little space from them with that horse-tail trick, I yelled for Cullen to stop. He reined that horse so sharp it near sat down on me. I swung up behind him, knowing if that horse had anything left we were going to have to use it. That tail trick wasn’t going to work anymore, not with them on horseback.

The critter was favoring the wound in its right hip, but we couldn’t let that stop us. We had to ride till there wasn’t any riding to be done. It was starting to look like we had us a chance, and damn it, all of a sudden the horse crumpled and tossed us over his head. When we got to our feet the animal was panting loudly, down on its bent front legs, its neck bowed, mouth wide open, the moon in its eyes.

It was done for.

I swapped the Winchester to my left hand, pulled my service revolver, and shot the horse through the head. It dropped dead, but it was still stuck there on its bent front legs, its ass in the air. I put a boot to its side and knocked it over. We hustled in between its legs and peered over its body at them that was chasing us. And believe you me, they was coming right smart. There was more of them than I figured, as I hadn’t exactly been able to take a head count before. They had been hidden out there in the grass, and then the trees, and now all of them was on horseback, bearing down on us like a dose of the flu.

I had hung on to my Winchester, but Cullen had lost his Spencer when the horse tumbled. It was on the side of the horse where the Apaches was. He pulled his revolver, and we both laid up behind the horse, making a fort of the poor thing. I was stretched over the dead critter’s neck, and Cullen was hanging over its ass. I beaded down on an Apache and fired, then fired again. Two of them came off their horses and hit the dirt.

My eyes was on their horses, as I was hoping to nab at least one as it ran by so we could make a run for it, but it was like the beasts knew what I was hoping. They spread wide to either side and run, disappearing into the night like it had swallowed them. Truth was, it was unlikely we could have snatched one before them Apaches come down on us.

Cullen was firing his pistol, and though he didn’t hit any Apaches, he killed a horse, and that threw one of the riders pretty hard. The Indian lay there on his back a moment, rolled over, and pushed up with his hands. He was stunned and hardly knew where he was. I took that moment to shoot him in the top of the head. It was so easy I almost felt bad about it. I had killed three of them now. It had put a stop to their headlong ride. They heeled up their horses, leaped off, and pulled them over on the ground by biting their ears and dropping their weight. You get your teeth in a horse’s ear, you can pull it to the ground like it was light as a feather.

When they got their horses pulled down, they shot them to make their own forts. I had been told that an Apache wasn’t like a Comanche, who would try and keep his horse no matter what. The Apache was a practical Indian. He’d run one until it couldn’t run, and when it fell over, he’d stick it with something sharp so that it got to its feet, and he’d ride it till it fell over and couldn’t get up no matter how much you poked it. After that, he’d cut its throat, drink its blood, build a fire and eat some of it, then he’d cut off its nuts and take those with him as something to nibble on.

They had a half circle of horses out there, and they decided they was going to camp out and wait on us. It was a pretty good plan, considering we didn’t have nowhere to move that they couldn’t see us. We was two on foot and they was still six or seven at least, and that was a considerable number against us under the circumstances; though there was no doubt my shooting was whittling them down a bit.

They was firing at us, and the bullets were plopping into our horse and throwing up blood and sweat, and that dead cayuse was fluttering farts out the back end and through them bullet holes.

After a bit they tired of shooting and took to saving their ammunition, which was what we was doing. I reckoned their plan was to rest in shifts, and when we was tuckered out and needing water, they’d put the sneak on us. I offered to shoot Cullen if it looked as if we was about to be overrun and tortured.

“I’d rather shoot you, then shoot myself,” he said.

“Okay. You shoot me, then shoot yourself.”

“What if I shoot you, then I make an escape?”

“I’d rather it not work that way.”

“But it could.”

“Here’s the deal: you shoot me only if you have reckoned you’re going to have to shoot yourself, otherwise we’ll try for escape together. I don’t want no idle shooting going on, especially since one of those shots will be for me.”

“All right, then,” he said.

That wasn’t quite the end of it, though. We kept tossing this back and forth, wanting to make sure we was clear on these matters, and there wouldn’t be any willy-nilly shooting going on. When we felt we had it straightened out, we shook hands on it.

It was a bright night and the land was flat and there wasn’t a whole lot of creeping they could do without us noticing, but they could still outflank us because they outnumbered us. If they made a mad rush, they’d have us. Then again, they knew we’d get a few of them, too. I was hoping that wasn’t an exchange they was high on making.

After a while we seen a fire flare up from behind that curving wall of horses, and then we could smell horse meat sizzing. They had chosen one and dug into its insides and made themselves a nice, late supper. We, on the other hand, had one horse, and eating our fort didn’t seem like too good an idea. Still, I pulled my knife and cut the horse’s throat, and we took turns putting our mouths over the cut and taking in some of the still-warm nourishment, though there wasn’t any real flow to the blood anymore. It tasted better than I figured, but at that point in time I was so famished I would have eaten a buttered pile of buffalo chips and thought them tasty as apple pie.

When we had all we could suck out of the drying wound, we lay there peeking over our horse, listening to the Apaches laughing and cutting up. There’s them that says they don’t have no humor, but I tell you sure as hell they was tickled about something that night. I figured we was a part of it. Or maybe one of them had told a good joke. If things wasn’t bad enough, after a while they began to sing in English, “Row, row, row your boat.”

“Goddamn missionaries,” I said.

“They’ve got some kind of liquor,” Cullen said. “I know drunks when I hear them.”

We had to listen to that go on for a couple of hours without them tiring of it. They was so good at it, in good voice and well in tune, and having such a big time over there I almost wanted to join them. Now they moved to further humiliation by having one of them stand up, bend over, and pull up the little flap he was wearing and show us his butt. There in the moonlight that redskin’s meat was as white as an Irishman’s ass. I was about to pot him when he turned around and showed us his dangling business, humped at the air like he was doing a squaw. That was enough. I had taken all I was going to take. I lifted up quick from behind the horse’s neck and shot at him. I was aiming at his pecker, but think I got him in the belly. He let out a bark and fell back, and we didn’t see him again. I bet right then they was wishing they had moved those horses back a few yards before killing them and using them for protection.