Paradise Sky

10

The day turned off blazing hot. We made our way back to the trees and the creek to look about. No Apaches was hiding in there, and the soldiers was all cut up and shot up, except for Prickly Pear. We found him standing against a tree, or so it seemed, but he was just propped there, having fallen back against it. He didn’t even look to have been hurt. His eyes was open, and he had an expression like he was about to make some joke or other. I went over and touched him, thinking he might be alive and just stu

We looked about for any of our supplies that was left, but there wasn’t none. The Apaches on their decamping from their horse fort had come back and taken everything but the wagon with the cut wood in it and Prickly Pear’s clothes and gun. Cullen was convinced it was because he had backed up against that tree and put up a brave fight, and it was a sign of respect. But ain’t no one can be sure.

We didn’t even have a shovel to bury the men, and had no choice but to leave them where they fell for fear the hostiles might return. I think about that from time to time and wonder: should we have stacked them up and burned them? But in the end I guess there isn’t any right answer. I hope when they was found, as they was bound to be by others from the fort, there was enough left of them to give them a burial.

Me and Cullen walked back out to the wall of horses the Apache had made, cut off a piece of horse meat, peeled the hide from it, and with some matches we had and some of the wood we had cut earlier, started a fire and cooked it. The meat was a little rank, but we cooked it black and ate it anyway.

We drank some water from the creek, started walking in the general direction of our soldier fort with nothing but our weapons and our good intent. Went on like that for several hours, that sun beating down and us without even a canteen of water to refresh ourselves.

“I hate being a soldier,” Cullen said. “I don’t like getting shot at or chased by Indians. And now we got to go back and tell them how things didn’t go good. It’ll all be put on you, how it all went bad. And my feet hurt. And we always got to get up early in the morning. And I don’t want to cook.”

I was considering on what Cullen was saying when we came upon a pair of binoculars on the ground. I picked those up, and not long after we saw a couple of shiny buttons off cavalry uniforms lying on the ground. Following that we came upon the deer-hunting party, or what was left of them.

Their bodies and those of their horses was dotted over the landscape. The soldiers was stripped and had been scalped and cut up and such; missing eyes, ball sacks, toes, and assorted things deemed necessary for the living. The lieutenant we found partly burned up. A fire of mesquite bush and items from saddlebags had been put on his belly and set ablaze. It had burned right down into his stomach and made a hole, sizzling his i

“I guess it worked out best we didn’t go on the deer hunt,” I said.

“Appears that way,” Cullen said.

We looked around cautious-like, but it appeared we was on our own; no Apaches and no survivors. We went around and counted the dead and figured there was the right number there, though most of the troopers you couldn’t tell from a slaughtered steer. Only the lieutenant and one or two others was recognizable, one of them being Tornado. They had chopped his head off, but I knew it was him from the way he was built. They hadn’t taken his shirt and pants and boots, just his belt, and they had cut the buttons off his outfit. That’s all they took from him. And his head, of course.

The flies was something awful, and like the others we didn’t have no easy way to bury them. So there we stood, out in the hot sun amid those stinking bodies, and Cullen said, “Do you see a black horse? Or am I imagining it?”

“I see him,” I said.

“Do you see some dancing soldiers?”

“Nope.”

“Do you still see the horse?”

“I do,” I said.

“Is it Satan?”

“Yes. In more ways than one.”

“Good. Then I’m not imagining it.”

“He looks strong and rested,” I said. “Figure he found a water hole and some grass somewhere and maybe even a piece of horse ass. He has been taking it easy while we’ve been dealing with hellfire and damnation, the bastard.”

“Don’t talk mean,” Cullen said. “He might hear you. Look happy to see him.”

We started smiling, and I tried to whistle, but my mouth was dry as dirt.

Satan lifted his head and put a steely eye on us. I put my rifle and the binoculars down and started walking toward him, holding out my hand like I had a treat. I don’t think he fell for that, but he dropped his head and let me walk up to him. He still had on the bridle, and the reins was hanging down, so I reached out slow and careful and took hold of them.

I swung onto his back with more than a little effort, and as I was about to settle into the stirrups good, he bucked. I went whirling through the air and hit the ground so hard my breath flew out of my mouth like bees from a hive. When my head quit swimming and I could take a breath, Satan was poking me with his nose, making a noise that came as close to a laugh as was possible; a horse laugh, I might add.

Wobbling to my feet, I got hold of his reins and led him over to Cullen, limping slightly.

“He loves a good joke,” Cullen said. “But deep down, I think he likes you.”

“It’s pretty damn deep,” I said.

We gathered our rifles and the binoculars, climbed on Satan’s back, me at the reins, and started out in the direction of the fort, judging its location by the position of the sun. As we rode along, Cullen said, “You know, I right respect the buffalo soldiers, I surely do, and my short time there has been interesting, if not that rewarding. They are a fine bunch of individuals. Them that are still alive.”

I studied on that comment, said, “You saying something between the lines, Cullen?”

“I’m saying everyone is dead, and why not us?”

“I thought we was doing all we could not to be dead,” I said.

“And I’m suggesting we might keep that going for quite a while longer.”

I love these here United States, primarily cause I don’t know nothing else. That said, it turns out, even for thirteen dollars a month, I wasn’t all that in love with the cavalry. I didn’t like taking orders, for one, and I especially didn’t like being nearly killed by Indians. And then there was eating Cullen’s cooking.

“So if they’re all dead,” I said, “it stands to reason that we might be dead, too, just not found.”

“What I was thinking,” Cullen said.

We rode on a piece more, and then without thinking too hard on it, I started turning Satan away from the direction of the fort.

Satan had my canteen strapped on his saddle, and it was near full, and there was a couple bites of jerky in the saddlebags, so we ate that, and along with the fact we was riding, not walking, things was better than they had been shortly before. You could add to that our change of career plans, which was starting to appeal to me.

We had gone for most of a day when we seen something in the distance we couldn’t make out. I lifted the binoculars and seen there was a red-shirted colored fellow lying out there with his leg under a dead horse. A big sombrero lay on the ground nearby.