Paradise Sky

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 stu

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.

I dropped back down behind the horse.

“Bad enough they’re going to kill us,” Cullen said, “but they got to act nasty, too.”

“I gave him a bellyache,” I said.

We watched for a long while, but those Indians was as quiet as the dirt. After a short time, I’m ashamed to say I was so exhausted I nodded off. When I awoke it was daylight and my throat wasn’t cut and I still had my hair.

I looked and saw Cullen was awake. He had gone out and got his Spencer and had it laid across the horse. I said, “Damn it, Cullen. I’m sorry. I fell out.”

“I let you. They’re gone.”

I sat up and looked. There was the dead horses with buzzards lighting on them. A few of them birds was eyeballing our horse and us, but I didn’t see any sign of the Apache.

“I been watching close,” he said. “They’re gone. They just picked up like a circus and left. Guess they figured they’d lost enough men over a couple of buffalo soldiers, or maybe it was like the lieutenant said: they saw a bird and figured it was a bad omen, and it told them to take theirselves home.”

“What I figure is they got too drunk to think straight, woke up with hangovers, and went somewhere cool and shaded to sleep it off.”

“Reckon so,” Cullen said. Then: “You meant what you said about me being a top soldier and all?”

“Consider it came from someone left in charge that got everyone killed but you and me. I got the horses wiped out as well, and on top of that I left a lot of army equipment back there and fell asleep on guard duty hanging over a dead horse’s neck. Only thing I didn’t do was join them and lead them on a raid to burn down the fort. Taking all that into consideration, it might mean a little less.”

“Lieutenant shouldn’t have split us up in the first place. I am not Napoleon, but even I know that. It was his fault for leaving a private in charge. But I do appreciate what you said.”