Paradise Sky

“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 ru

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, outma

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.