Doubtful Canon (11 page)

Another shot. Then a succession, a veritable cannonade. Whitey Grey’s Winchester sent round after round at our attackers, but the albino didn’t notice the fix I was in, or had enough trouble himself.

I heard the
click,
then another, followed by a curse from Ian Spencer Henry. “My gun ain’t working!” he yelled. “Confound it!”

Isn’t working, Ian Spencer Henry. There’s no such word as ain’t.

Would those be my last thoughts?

Jasmine soared, hit the young Apache, but he flung her off effortlessly. Another gunshot. Ian Spencer Henry gave a shout, slammed the revolver barrel at the Apache’s head, missing when he ducked, and hit his shoulder instead. Bone crunched, and the Apache groaned, the first emotion to register on his face other than a grim, deadly determination to rid the world of me.

His grip relaxed, and I forced the knife up and away, but he roared in pain and rage, and the blade came down savagely. I ducked, felt the knife slide past my ear, slam into the ground. The Apache muttered something, and Ian Spencer Henry and Jasmine hit him again. He let go of me to fight them, and my right hand shot out, searching for anything, jerking back from the stab of a yucca, but trying again, gripping something hard, wooden…. The spade! I brought it up, slammed the tool into the Apache’s face, felt him cry out in pain and astonishment.

He fell backward, nose spurting blood.

Another bullet sang off the rocks.

The Apache boy rolled onto the unfinished grave, saw the corpse of Willie Spoon, and shrieked in terror. He bolted.

“Hey, you!” Whitey Grey yelled out, noticing the young warrior for the first time. He swung his Winchester, fired, missing, the bullet
spanging
off the boulders, shot again, but the Apache was gone, disappearing as mysteriously and as silently as he had arrived.

A bullet, one that hadn’t been fired by Whitey Grey, kicked up sand to my right. I pulled up my knees, backed to the corner, tried to catch my breath, to slow my heart, fight down the panic. Ian Spencer Henry and Jasmine joined me, chests heaving, sweating. The albino fired again, his curses followed by…silence.

A deafening quietude that lasted an eternity of minutes.

“You chil’ren ain’t dead?” he called out after the longest time.

Lying prone, Ian Spencer Henry, his Army .44 trembling in two outstretched hands, spit out sand but did not answer. Nor did Jasmine, squatting behind me, holding the knife the Apache boy had dropped. I still gripped the spade.

My mouth and throat refused to cooperate. All I could do was move my head, and that took effort.

“What do we do?” Jasmine’s voice had returned.

Grimly thumbing cartridges into the rifle, the albino answered with a shake of his head. The wind began to wail again, or maybe the Apaches were singing a battle song, preparing for the kill.

As stillness returned and shadows lengthened, we waited, too scared to move, but eventually I summoned enough strength to kick and push rocks and dirt until the grave was covered. I can’t say I did this out of respect or decency. No, fear prompted my actions. The more I saw the back of the dead man’s head, the more I pictured my own face in a grave, mouth open, eyes gone, dead.

A peregrine falcon soared overhead, disappeared in the gloaming, and the air turned frightfully cold as darkness, perhaps death, descended. We huddled together, the three of us, surprised when Ian Spencer Henry let out a sigh of relief, and slowly rose in the creeping darkness.

“Ian Spencer Henry…,” Jasmine pleaded.

“Indians don’t attack at night,” he explained. “Don’t you remember nothing?”

Before I could protest, the albino had crawled over, startling us out of our wits. He had gathered the canvas pack, and passed a canteen while cautioning us not to drink too much. “Leave the pickaxe and that spade here, by ol’ Willie Spoon’s grave. Don’t reckon ’em Cherry Cows’ll touch it, but hide our tools near ’em graves, behind that yucca yonder. Here.” He drew his Colt, spinning it, offering it butt forward, not to Jasmine this time, but me.

It felt heavy in my hands.

“You want to swap, Jack?”

“No,” I snapped at Ian Spencer Henry, who eyed the new model revolver with envy.

“Hush now,” the albino said. “We’re sneakin’ out afore the moon rises. Think I tol’ you chil’ren that Apaches ain’t ones to attack in the dark. So let’s
vamanos.”

“Told you.” Ian Spencer Henry stuck out his tongue.

Ignoring him, Jasmine asked our leader: “Where are we going?”

“To that stone house built at the cañon’s edge near the spring. You boys done good, fightin’ that buck like y’all done. You, too, li’l’ girlie. I’d come to help you, but I was busy a mite.”

“How many Apaches were there?” I asked.

“Can’t tell. One’s all it takes to bury you. We might’ve got some luck on our side ’cause of you, Jack Dunivan. It was you who come up with the idea to bury ol’ Willie Spoon. Got a big fear of the dead, ’em Apaches do. That body in the grave spooked ’em, spooked that buck tryin’ to cut your gullet, at least, and he might’ve gone and tol’ his red-devil friends. Maybe they’ve cleared out.”

“Then why leave?” Ian Spencer Henry asked.

“ ’Cause maybe they ain’t. Can’t read no Apache’s mind. Could be they’s in a hurry to get to Mexico. Could be they’s spoilin’ for a fight. I gots no strong desire to leave my gold, us bein’ practically spittin’ distance to it, but I gots a better desire to keep my hair. I know, Jack Dunivan, ’em bucks don’t take scalps, so don’t get smart with me ag’in. We can come back and digs up that buried treasure, but let’s wait a spell. That ranch house be a better place for us to fort up than out here. Cherry Cows, mean as they are, they’d start rollin’ down rocks on our heads, save their powder, lead, and arrows. Three graves is here already, and I’m in no hurry to join ’em. Don’t y’all fret none, chil’ren, ’cause ol’ Whitey Grey had to make this walk in the dark afore, back after Mister Giddings got kilt here twenty years ago. I knows where I’m goin’. So let’s get goin’.”

Snaking in the darkness, inching through juniper, rocks, and yucca, we moved back up Doubtful Cañon, waiting for the moon to rise, but clouds filled the air, keeping us cloaked in darkness and cold. The wind moaned. We neither saw nor heard any Indians, coming across only one Gila monster, scaring it off, before wolves began a frightful song.

There was no path, not along the rugged walls, and the rocks scratched my battered palms and knees, the branches of the alligator junipers shedding on my stolen hat, assaulting my nostrils, the bark carving my back. When the wolves stopped, a falcon
screeched,
and Whitey Grey stopped abruptly.

“’Tain’t no bird, that was,” he said softly, and sat up, silently pulling back the Winchester’s hammer.

A minute passed. Five. Ten. A full half hour we sat in the cold as the wind picked up, slowly building intensity, bringing with it the rumble of thunder. Dark clouds blackened the moon, and the dam burst.

Rain, brutally icy, fell in torrents, stinging like knives, soaking our clothes until we trembled.

“Glory be,” Whitey Grey said, lowering the rifle’s hammer. “Let’s make a beeline, chil’ren.” Lightning arced over the cañon, followed by a bellowing of thunder, and the white-skinned man ran, slipping, boots splashing in the mud. Cold and miserable, we followed, trying to keep up with him. We’d fall into blackness and wait, listening but hearing nothing now but the ferocity of the storm, waiting for that flash of lightning to reveal Whitey Grey’s location. There. I’d see him, or Jasmine might spot him, and we’d stumble in the direction.

A boulder stung my hand, and my pinky finger throbbed in agony, and, when lightning struck so close our ears popped, Jasmine Allison tossed away her knife, warning us to do the same with our weapons. “I’ve heard of cowboys getting killed by lightning,” she said, “striking their spurs and guns.”

“My pa’ll strike me dead if I lost his Colt,” Ian Spencer Henry said. “He’s gonna break out his razor strop, anyway, when he learns I took it, unless I share my sixteen hundred and sixty-six dollars and sixty-six cents. And I bet Mister Grey would frown upon you was you to shuck his gun into some puddle, Jack.”

Lightning flashed again. “There!” I cried out, and pointed into the depths where I thought I’d spied Whitey Grey. “Let’s go.” I took the lead, keeping the Colt in my right hand. Lightning didn’t scare me half as much as being caught in a cañon by Apaches, or being left in the desert alone. We ran after Whitey Grey.

After a few minutes, the rain slackened, and a moment later the storm had raged past us. By then, however, we had lost Whitey Grey, and without the benefit of lightning, now well off in the distance, I held little hope of finding him again.

Instead, Whitey Grey found us.

“Hey, chil’ren!” his voice called out. “That be you?”

I answered him, and heard his joints popping, his breath heaving, a grunt, a curse, stones rolling, splashing in a puddle, then a larger splash. He stepped forward, reaching out, fumbling in the darkness, and patted my shoulder.

“How you feel?”

“F-f-f-f-ree-zing.” Jasmine’s teeth chattered. “I-I-I-I’m so cold.”

“Yeah, I knows it, but that storm, maybe it drove ’em Cherry Cows away. Softened up the ground some, too. Make it easier for y’all to dig up my gold. C’mon. That ranch ain’t much farther up the road.”

Ian Spencer Henry saw the light first.

He whispered a warning, and the albino crouched, not believing at first, even asking Jasmine and me to verify the small flickering light on the far side of Doubtful Cañon.

A reddish-white glow flickered, almost like a lightning bug, vanished, came back, and hovered about for a moment. The light began to fade, but now I could make out my comrades better, could perceive Jasmine squatting on a patch of bear grass behind a dead mesquite, her dark hair drenched, her whole body trembling. Ian Spencer Henry aimed his Army Colt at the fading light, growing smaller and smaller, and Whitey Grey tugged, twisted, and chewed on his mustache. I could distinguish the cañon rocks from the outline of the ranch house, knew the small light came from there. Only I could see more now, and, looking up, I realized the clouds had parted, moving with the storm, and the moon bathed us in reddish-yellow light.

The white-skinned man noticed it, too. “Raidin’ moon,” he said. “Comanch’ moon, we called it back in Texas. Now, I don’t know what ’em Cherry Cows think ’bout it, but ’tain’t no place to be out of doors in Texas when the moon be like this.”

“The light’s gone.” Ian Spencer Henry aimed the revolver barrel at empty, gray rocks.

“Th-th-that’s…the…h-h-house,” Jasmine said.

“Uhn-huh,” Whitey Grey said, frowning.

“You don’t….” Ian Spencer Henry looked at our leader for help. “You don’t think it’s…it’s a…ghost…do you?”

He didn’t answer. I stared away from the moon, and studied the house in the rocks, waiting for the light to reappear; but it never did.

“Candle,” I said at last. “It had to be a candle.”

“Yeah.” Ian Spencer Henry’s head bobbed. “Candle. Yeah. But who was holding it? A ghost?”

Jasmine stopped her chattering teeth. “Maybe…the r-r-rancher came…b-b-back.”

“’Tain’t likely,” Whitey Grey said, but he sounded uncertain. “And Cherry Cows gots no use for candles. Ghosts, neither. No….”

My body shivered. The moon slowly slid westward, swallowed briefly by a passing cloud, then emerging as the peregrine falcon cried out from the cañon walls.

“Let’s hoof it, chil’ren,” the albino said, and he took off running, slipping once on the wet granite, exploding with speed, crouching, running in a criss-cross motion toward the rock house. Fearing that the falcon was Apache rather than raptor, we followed.

Until a bullet
spanged
off the rocks near us.

Another round echoed through the dark, but I spotted the muzzle flash as I dived behind a shrub, Jasmine sailing beside me, Ian Spencer Henry finding shelter by a boulder, and Whitey Grey scrambling behind a mound of dirt.

“Tarnation,” Ian Spencer Henry said. “I think that rain ruint all the powder in my pistol.”

A bullet whined overhead.

“Hey, you in the cabin!” Whitey Grey called out. “Stop shootin’. We’s white men!” Another bullet, closer this time. “And a li’l girlie.”

“Go away!”

I blinked away confusion and doubt. The voice came from the abandoned house we had passed that day. A woman’s voice. Not Apache. Not even Mexican. Frightened, she had to be, but more than handy with the rifle, although she hadn’t hit any of us yet.

“Listen…”

A round cut off Whitey Grey’s protest; and he snorted, rolled over, and looked at Jasmine and me. “Petticoat,” he said, and spat. “Worthless, miserable petticoat.” Shaking his head, he hollered back at the cabin. “Woman, we’s white, I tell you, and we just gots waylaid by Apaches up the cañon. There’s a raidin’ moon out, and I ain’t aimin’ to wait out here to gets a Cherry Cow arrow in my brisket. I said, let us come in there.”

“Go away!” she yelled again, but didn’t fire her rifle.

“Woman, you’s rilin’ me. Now start actin’ hospitable….”

The rifle shot clipped a mesquite branch near Whitey Grey.

Craning his neck, he scouted the territory between his position and the house and, a few minutes later, pointed the Winchester barrel at a rock corral to the left of the house.

“You chil’ren,” he said, “you run to that ol’ corral. Keep your heads down.”

“What?” Jasmine demanded, no longer stuttering and shivering from the cold.

“You heard me. I tol’ you I ramrod this outfit. Now run. ’Tain’t likely that hussy’ll shoot y’all down. Run. Run or, by grab, I’ll start shootin’ at you, and I ain’t gonna miss.”

When we didn’t follow his orders fast enough, he brought the Winchester up and sent a bullet between Jasmine and me.

So we ran, prodded by another round from Whitey Grey that kicked up dirt behind us, stinging my legs. Ian Spencer Henry ran, too, cutting loose with his version of a Rebel yell. The woman screamed, but her shouts were lost in the accompanying gunfire. Yet she wasn’t shooting at us, but at Whitey Grey, or where he had been. When I realized she wouldn’t kill us, I looked back for the white-skinned man, but he had gone, vanished.

We dived behind the wall. My ears rang from the gunfire, and then, lying on my chest, fighting for breath, wet, cold and scared, I located the apparition that was Whitey Grey, a wild ghost flashing through boulders and juniper, charging, rifle in his arms, mouth open, releasing a much more flendish battle cry than Ian Spencer Henry’s as he dived through the front door.

A gunshot
boomed
inside, loud, violent with a finality in its report.

Then…nothing.

Rolling over, I shot a look of concern at my friends. Another cloud hid the moon. A twig scratched in the cañon walls above us, and, when the falcon cried out again, I couldn’t wait any longer, and, scrambling to my feet, I darted for the stone house, crying out for my friends to follow me.

Follow me? Ian Spencer Henry passed me, screaming to Whitey Grey, assuming the white-skinned man hadn’t been killed by the woman inside, that we were coming in, to hold his fire, not to shoot us, that Apaches were amongst us. I slackened my pace, just long enough to grab Jasmine’s hand, and ran, crashing through the threshold and stumbling on the hard-packed earthen floor.

The moon reappeared, its eerie light stretching through the open window and door, and we saw Whitey Grey, two rifles in his hands, making sure we were alone, and we were.

Whitey Grey…Jasmine Allison…Ian Spencer Henry…me…and a woman cowering in the corner, bruised arms wrapped around drawn-up knees, rocking back and forth.

Her auburn hair resembled a pat rack’s nest, frizzy, a tangled mess, her shoes scuffed and ripped, riding skirt caked in dried mud and grime, the sleeves of her blouse tattered. Though I had never seen her before, I knew her instantly.

“Miss Giddings?” I spoke softly.

Her eyes burned in recognition of her name, and she studied me curiously.

“Who are you?” Her voice sounded surprisingly calm.

“I’m Jack Dunivan. You don’t know me. I….”

“Fireplace’ll work,” Whitey Grey interrupted. “Got some wood inside, too. Let’s get some heat in this pigsty. Warm us up. Dry ’em rain-soaked duds of our’n.”

“But the Apaches…,” Ian Spencer Henry said.

“Cherry Cows knows we’s here,” he said. “Likely Mex bandits and ever’ other rascal this side of the border, after all that commotion.” He kicked a can, grabbed it, held it in the moonlight. “Glory be. Arbuckles’ coffee. Must’ve missed it when I was scoutin’ this place earlier.” He pried off the lid. “Plenty of grounds, too. No peppermint candy, but that’s all right. We’ll have us some breakfast afore sunup.”

He ordered Ian Spencer Henry to tend the fire, tossed the coffee can to Jasmine, grabbed a rifle, its stock splintered by a bullet, off the floor, and squatted before the frightened woman. “I tol’ you we was white. You kept on shootin’.” He let the old-model Henry
clatter
at her feet. “You’s plumb lucky I didn’t kill you, petticoat or not. You is Giddings’s daughter, ain’t you?”