Lawless Trail (27 page)

Kelso turned and stared, feeling a dark, sharp burning across the top of his exposed head. He caught a glimpse of his hat brim fluttering to the ground a few feet away.

“Oh . . . my God,” he said, his gun hand falling to his side, dropping the Colt to the ground. “I've been ruint.” He stared in disbelief at the young warrior whooping and shouting, waving the crown of Kelso's hat back and forth in his hand—Kelso's hair and bloody skin hanging beneath it. Staring at his own stringy hair clasped in the warrior's hand, Kelso sank straight down to his knees; then he flopped forward onto his face in the hot, sandy dirt.

As the Apache sat their horses above Kelso, the older warrior, Gomez, saw one of the young warriors raise a battered French Gruen rifle to his shoulder and take aim on the center of Kelso's bloody back. He held up a hand toward the warrior, stopping him.

“Let this fool's shots be the last ones heard,” he said. He shook his head in disgust. “Even his horse deserts him.” He looked all around as he turned his horse and gestured for the others to do the same. The young warrior Luka held Kelso's bloody scalp and stringy hair out for the others to see.

“A good day for one of us is a good day for all of us,” he said proudly. The warriors and their horses fell in alongside Gomez and rode away abreast, out across the flatlands.

In the preceding silence, two hours passed before Kelso opened his bleary eyes at the feel of the horse's hot, wet muzzle nudging the side of his neck. A layer of dust had gathered on the top of his raw, bloody skull. In a weakened state, as he tried to push himself up from the ground, he felt the dried blood and the points of the two ground-stuck arrows reluctant to turn him loose. Yet, as his memory returned to him through a fiery painful haze, he managed to struggle upward onto his haunches and look at the bay, who stood staring at him.

“I'll kill you . . . for this . . . ,” he said painfully, reaching all around on the dirt for his Colt.

The bay only chuffed and blew and shook out its mane, as if taunting the man for the sudden loss of his hair. Kelso, realizing the Apache had taken both his handgun and rifle, gave a deep sigh and pulled himself up on the bay's front leg and leaned against its side. The horse stood quietly.

“I don't know . . . what else can . . . befall a man . . . ,” he groaned, seeing the brim of his hat and its sliced-off crown lying in the dirt at his feet. He stooped, picked up the brim and pulled it carefully down over his raw-scalped head, drawing the string taught under his chin. He crawled up the horse's side. “I'm killing you . . . first chance I get,” he whispered to the bay. Righting himself in his saddle as best he could with arrows still sticking through him, he managed to turn the horse and ride away.