Doubtful Canon (3 page)

“You bet!” Ian Spencer Henry blurted out, unaware that I was tugging on his shirt sleeve, begging him to slow down, to think this thing through. For all I knew, this odd man really did intend on cutting out our hearts and eating them, burying our bodies deep in an abandoned mine where no one would ever dream or dare to look.

“What’s the split?” It was Jasmine who broke the silence, who suddenly commanded the albino man’s attention. He laughed, and I choked down my fear.

“You gots sass. I likes that. It’s thirty thousand dollars. Gold coin. It bein’ my gold, and what with me havin’ better’n twenty years invested in the deal, I figger on me gettin’ twenty-five of it, but that’s five thousand dollars to split amongst your own-selves. Five thousand dollars. But afore I go tellin’ you my story, you got to answer me a few questions. Such as…how come you kids ain’t in school?”

“We’re orphans!”

The voice surprised me—for it was my own. I saw my share of five thousand dollars as a ticket out of the purgatory in which I had found myself trapped. I could put Shakespeare and my drunkard father far behind me. Finally I could bury him, alongside Ma, Patsy, and Kaye, at least in my memory, my reasoning.

“Orphans! Jack, we ain’t….”

I kicked Ian Spencer Henry’s shin so hard, he cried out in pain. “Jack!” He whimpered, and I bit back a curse, knowing the albino had caught my lie.

Only…he hadn’t. I don’t think he even heard anything after I told him we were orphans.

“Orphans.” He tested the word. “Orphans, huh? Criminy, that might work. That just might work. Orphans, by my boots and socks! Yes, sir. Orphans.”

He traced a calloused fingertip over the rim of the lunch pail, nodding, licking his cracked lips. “All right,” he said at last. “I’ll tell you the story, then we’ll talk. But here’s me rule. Twenty years I been after this gold, and I ain’t ’bout to lose it now. So oncet I tells you this story, oncet you hears it, it don’t leave your lips. Ever. I tell you this, just so you know I ain’t no fool spreadin’ lies. But you don’t tell nobody oncet I’m done. Else I
will
cut out your hearts. But iffen you wants to join me, pardners we’ll be. There’s a fortune in gold coin in Doubtful Cañon, and I aims to get it. By all rights, it’s mine anyways.”

So he told his story. At least, part of it.

He finished the peaches, slurped down the juice, wiping his face with his dingy bandanna, then belched.

“You kids,” he said, “y’all wouldn’t happen to have no whiskey on you, would you?”

Feeling the stares of Ian Spencer Henry on me, I bit my lip as my face flushed. Maybe he thought I might have brought a bottle of Pa’s forty-rod to hide from him. Maybe he just feared how I would react to the albino’s question.

“Rye? Tequila? Don’t rightly matter as long as it’s wet and bites. Anything?”

“No,” Jasmine answered. “I’m eleven going on twelve. Ian Spencer Henry and Jack just turned twelve. We’re too little….”

He laughed. “Too li’l’? Young ’uns, I was drinkin’ rye whiskey without no water chaser afore I was ten. Figgered, criminy, sneakin’ off to this ol’ mine for a snort, that’s somethin’ I’d ’a’ done back when I was just a shirt tail. So….”

“No whiskey,” Jasmine repeated, her voice firm, face hard, demanding. “Nothing.”

Until that moment, I had not realized that Jasmine and I held something else in common. We despised whiskey and those who let strong drink ruin their lives. My pa. Jasmine’s fallen mother and her lynched father.

“Well….” The old man sighed. “Well, that’s all right. Now, the story. Where was I?”

“You were leaving the station at Stein’s Peak,” Ian Spencer Henry belted out. “Sam Golden and the Mex rode atop the Concord, leaving you and the gunman named Bruce and the boss man, Mister John James Giddings, inside. The Apaches had left the station in ruins, your team was tuckered out, but you had no choice but to go on. So you rode out…for Doubtful Cañon.” Ian Spencer Henry grinned, revealing the missing front tooth, his prize, for lack of a better word, possession. “Doubtful Cañon. And death!”

Whitey Grey nodded solemnly. “You gots a good memory, boy. I likes that in a pardner. Yeah, that’s about the size of it. So, yeah, we left, rode into the Valley of the Shadow of Death, the sun sinkin’ lower now in the horizon, and that’s what awaited us in that mean ol’ cañon of treachery and barbarity. Death.”

The white-skinned man picked up his tale.

Stein’s Peak be the largest point in the Peloncillos, but Doubtful Cañon’s the most dangerous spot in the mountains, maybe the most dangersome in this whole territory. Like I done tol’ you, our mules was pret’ much played out, even with the hatfuls of water Sam Golden had given ’em back at the station. They was game, though, and Sam Golden knowed he had to get us through that cañon in a hurry.

Talk about a bone-jarrin’ ride, we inside that Concord was bouncin’ ever’ which way. I recollect hearin’ some fool joke that the best way to make a good jam was to put a bunch of womenfolks in one of Mr. Butterfield’s stagecoaches for the ride ’cross New Mexico.

“Hiya! Hiya! Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, and Zechariah, get movin’ you blasted mules!” Sam Golden yelled from atop, and kept lashin’ out with that blacksnake of his’n.
Pop! Pop,
it’d go. Sounded just like a gunshot ever’ time.

Fact is, that’s what I thought it was at first.
Pop!
Figgered that was Sam Golden’s whip again. Only it wasn’t. And then I knowed.

“Apaches!” The Mex yelled out something in Mex, and cut loose with both barrels of the shotgun.

Well, that gunfire sounded like there was a whole army of Cherry Cows, but Apaches always raided with small parties. ’Course, one Apache is oftentimes enough to gets the job done.

So I crouched down by one door, and Bruce, he took the other, us bouncin’ up and down and ’cross, tryin’ to find somethin’ to shoot at, tryin’ to keep still just long enough so ol’ Sam wouldn’t spoil our aim. Mr. Giddings, he was right behind us, a Navy Colt in his right hand, kept lookin’ back at the saddlebags of money he was carryin’, sworn to protect. He’d look over my shoulder, then Bruce’s, all the while tryin’ to balance, to keep his feet in that cascadin’ stagecoach. A bullet splintered the wood not more’n an inch from my head, and I fell on my haunches, stunned, then scrambled back to my position and poked that ol’ Enfield out the window. Seen ’em chargin’, I did, through the thick dust Sam Golden was raisin’, ’bout five of ’em murderous savages, yippin’ like wolves, black hair blowin’ in the wind, faces all painted for war. That’ll put fear in your gut. Make a man swear off drinkin’ for a month of Sundays.

We was rollin’ somethin’ fast, but steady now, not bouncin’ so much, and I drawed me a bead on the nearest of ’em Cherry Cows. Had him dead center. Figgered on sendin’ him to that happy huntin’ ground.

“That’s right, Sam, just keep it steady,” I said, almost like I was prayin’…which maybe I was, I reckon…and right afore I pulled the trigger, we run over a rock ’bout the size of Denver City. My Enfield roared, but I knowed I’d missed. Knowed I hadn’t even scairt that Apache, and I was bouncin’ all the way to Bruce’s side of the Concord, cussin’ Sam Golden for all he was worth, half figgerin’ that the coach would turn over after a jolt like that, that the mules would break their traces and we’d crash.

“Sam, you fool! We can’t shoot nothin’ with you drivin’ like that!”

He didn’t answer. Bruce chanced a couple of shots from his Navies, then ducked. Mr. Giddings fired, too. That thick white smoke burned my eyes, which has always been prone to irritation with my condition, you see.

I cussed, took back my position, and drawed one of my Navy Thirty-Sixes. We hit another rock or hole or somethin’, and I jammed my hand against the door frame, like to have busted my wrist, come close to leavin’ that Navy in the dust for one of ’em chargin’ Injuns to pick up. I cussed Sam Golden again, cussed him loud and hard and proper. That’s when I realized I didn’t hear that poppin’ no more. Didn’t hear the Mex shootin’, neither. Didn’t hear nothin’ from up top. Smelt smoke is all, smoke and dust and the stink of our own sweat, ’cause we was sweatin’ heaps.

“Sam?” I hollered. “Sam Golden, you ain’t dead, are you?” When he didn’t reply, I called out the Mex’s name, and Mr. Giddings took up the query, too.

“Valdez? Golden? Answer us. Do you need assistance?”

The answer we got was another bone-bustin’ bump.

“Only assistance they need,” I said underneath my breath, “is a merciful Lord.”

Well, I shoved the Navy in my sash, and, riskin’ my head and hair, I stuck myself out of the window. Heard a bullet whistle by. Then an arrow thudded in the Concord door, slicin’ my britches, and blood trickled down my thigh. But I had me a good grip on the rail up above, and pulled myself up. Hat blowed off. Wonder it’d stayed on my head this long, and ’em Apaches went to whoopin’ and hollerin’ like happy devils when they seen my white locks. Figured that would make a mighty good trophy hangin’ from one of their acoustics. Then I grabbed another hold, pulled myself up higher, put my boots on the door.

When we bounced again, well, that was almost the death of Whitey Grey.

“Hang on!” Mr. Giddings called, but I didn’t need no encouragin’. With a final lunge, I was atop the Concord.

“Mister Grey?” I heard the boss man call out. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah!” I snapped. Dust and dirt stung my eyes, and I crawled and rolled, more like fell, off the top into the driver’s box.

“How are Valdez and Golden?”

“Dead!” I answered, leg startin’ to pain me, and tried to find the reins.

Only, they wasn’t there. No reins. No Mex. No Sam Golden.

The Mex and jehu, I figgered, had gotten ’emselves kilt, shot offen the coach. The reins was danglin’ down amongst the harnesses, traces, tree, and Overland road. Then I seen a big buck of a Cherry Cow, standin’ on a rock, ’bout to shoot me dead, but I whipped out one of my Navy Colts and blasted that cur. Saw the blood just a-spurtin’ from his breast as he flung back into the cactus.

Arrows and bullets was flyin’ ever’where, and ’em mules was runnin’ for their lives. Reckon they knowed that Apaches fancy mule meat. Sweeter it is than venison or beefsteak. Likes it my ownself. Me, I was tryin’ to figger out just how I could gets control of the team. Well, then I spotted the rock. Big one. Big! And I knowed we was all goners.

I was jumpin’ afore we hit, hopin’ that with luck I’d just break my neck and not get caught alive by ’em Cherry Cows. Landed hard, and heard the crashin’, the screamin’ of the mules, figgered Bruce and Mr. Giddings was dead, too. My lip was busted, had lost two good teeth, and I knowed my right ankle was broke, but I was still breathin’, and I rolled over, pulled myself to my feet, saw the Concord there on its side, the mules runnin’ down the cañon. I spat out blood, reached for one Navy, but I’d lost it in my tumble, so I jerked the other free, and limped toward the wagon. Those Apaches was right behind us. The door on the top flung open, knockin’ off a few arrows, and then I spied Mr. Giddings’s bell crown hat. He tossed up his saddlebags afore he crawled out atop. An arrow knocked off his hat, and he pivoted like a gunman and fired two quick shots.

Game as a bantam rooster, he was. He tossed off ’em there bags, and turned ’round, helpin’ Bruce out of the Concord.

Well, I run faster, fast as I could, ankle busted like it was, and my leg still bleedin’ and smartin’ from that arrow wound. Takin’ up me a position by the busted wagon tongue, I eyed the Apaches and shot one of the horses dead, spillin’ the rider. Hope that Cherry Cow busted his neck.

That took a little starch out of ’em Apaches. They figured this fight was all over, but we showed ’em we wasn’t quittin’. Couldn’t quit. Not amongst ’em red devils. Mr. Giddings hopped down beside me, carryin’ those heavy saddlebags on his shoulders, pistol in his right hand. He didn’t look too banged up considerin’ the spill he had taken in that coach. Should’ve broked his neck.

But, Bruce, now, he didn’t fare so well. White bone was stickin’ out of his right forearm, and his face was covered with blood. Big gash on his forehead, nose smashed to a pulp. Didn’t have none of his guns, neither.

I figgered he wouldn’t be long for this world, but don’t reckon I guessed he’d die that quick. What happened was, afore I could say a thing or draw a breath, a Cherry Cow arrow pierced his throat, right underneath his Adam’s apple, from one side to the other. Just like that. We was just starin’ at each other, wonderin’ how we was still alive, and then that hired killer was gaggin’, chokin’ on his own blood, eyes bulgin’ out of their sockets, and afore it even struck us what had happened, he had sunk to his knees and leaned against the stagecoach and just up and died.

Mr. Giddings and I found us a better hidin’ spot, and then I spied my Enfield. Stock was busted, and it bein’ a singleshot, which I had done fired, it wasn’t good for a fightin’ weapon no more, but I sure needed some help walkin’, so I picked it up to use as a crutch.

“We’re dead. There’s no escape, no hope, but we cannot let this gold fall into the Apaches’ hands,” Mr. Giddings said.

“Hold on there!” I called out, but Mr. Giddings just took off runnin’ toward the rocks, the weight of that gold slowin’ him down, causin’ him to stagger and weave. “Come back here, you fool!” Bullets kicked up dust at his feet, but he made it to the cañon’s edge, disappearin’ in the rocks. I spotted black hair and a blue headband just above where he had vanished, knowed it was an Apache, and fired two shots with my Navy.

Now, I couldn’t keep up with Mr. Giddings, not with my ankle busted, and I reckon I had me as good a spot to die as any right there by the stage. Had water, a little food, another cylinder, capped and loaded, for my Thirty-Six in my possibles bag, and my fallen comrade, ol’ Bruce from Wisconsin way, for comp’ny. I looked at the sun, then toward where I had last seen Mr. Giddings, and, with a sigh, I just leaned against the coach and sank down to a seated position, proppin’ up the busted Enfield beside me.

The wheel was spinnin’ overhead, squeakin’, and afore too many seconds had passed, I realized that was the only sound I heard. Nothin’. Deadly quiet. I spat out some more salty blood, checked my Navy Colt, wondered if I should just kill myself now and be done with it. No use in waitin’ for the Apaches to attack, ’cause they would, soon enough.

It’s funny what’ll go through a man’s mind when he’s that close to dyin’. Well, no point in gettin’ to all that, now. So there I sat, waitin’ to die, figgered Mr. Giddings was dead by now, and next thing I knowed, I seen him. His head popped up from the rocks, next his whole body, ’em saddlebags gone, but the six-shooter still in his hand. First, I taken it for a mirage, maybe some apparition, but I never heard of no mirage talkin’.

“Mister Grey?” he yelled.

Well, I was just too stunned to answer. I lifted my Colt a wee bit, tried to wave him back, but he must have figured I was bad hurt, so, brave man that he was, he come chargin’ back. I won’t forget that. Won’t forget what a gallant man he was.

Fool, though. Just a fool thing to do. Should have stayed in the rocks. Might have made it out of that scrap alive, but he was comin’ toward me. Comin’ to save me.

The first arrow hit him in the back of his left leg, right in the bend of the knee, and he fell. He was rollin’ over when a bullet shattered his left arm. I saw the Apache, the one I had seen afore and shot at, rise up, an old Sharps in his hands, grinnin’ like he’d just drawed to an inside straight, and started to fire that big ol’ buffalo gun, but Mr. Giddings beat me and him to it. He put two bullets in that Cherry Cow’s belly afore that Injun knowed what had happened.

Well,
I was thinkin’,
he took one of ’em vermin with ’im.

But that was it. Arrows flied out from all over like a covey of quail, pinnin’ Mr. Giddings to the ground.

I just sank back down, almost cried, I did, but then I shook some sense into me. Scairt as I was, bad hurt as I was, I wasn’t ’bout to shame Mr. John James Giddings’s memory by bawlin’ like some yellow-livered coward. No, sir. I could die as game as he could.

So I cocked that Navy of mine, and waited for ’em Apaches to come finish the job.