slender arm exposed to the shoulder. “We tried to make it on one hardscrabble farm after another, but it just never seemed to work out for us. Then, after Ma died, Pa started to drink heavier and everything fell apart quicker than usual.”
Her eyes searched mine, pleading for something I knew I could not give. “You think we can make it this time, don’t you, Dusty?”
I went part of the way, unwilling to surrender more. “Lila, that’s hard country down on the Brazos. Maybe you can make it, maybe you can’t. But believe me, it won’t be easy.”
The girl nodded, reading more into what I’d said than was intended. “Thank you, Dusty. I needed to hear that, especially from you.”
She touched my hand, and again I found it hard to breathe.
Later, after Lila was bedded down on one of the bunks, I took up my Winchester and scouted around outside.
The rain had stopped for now. A waning moon rode high in the sky, hiding her face behind a hazy halo of silver, dark lilac and pale blue, and the air smelled of grass and the tang of distant thunder. The shadowed hills were still as things asleep and the fragile night silence crowded around me like broken glass.
I climbed to the ridge of the hogback and looked down at the trail below, seeing nothing but a wall of darkness.
Then I heard a muffled step behind me.
Chapter 11
I turned as the Apache came at me fast as a panther, a knife upraised in his right fist. As he closed I swung the butt of the Winchester, trying for his head. The Indian saw it coming, dodged at the last moment and the rifle hit only the hard muscle of his left shoulder. The impact was enough to stagger the man, but he recovered quickly and jumped at me again.
Around us were only jagged rock and the dark canopy of the sky and I realized with a sickening certainty that soon, very soon, a man must die here tonight, and maybe two.
I grappled with the Apache, my left hand on his wrist, desperately keeping his knife away from me. Now, our feet shuffling on the wet grass, I felt his wiry strength and it scared me. This man was taller than me and he was as strong, and maybe stronger, than I was.
We moved very close to each other, the warrior’s belly pushed against my own. He was bending me backward with the sheer, brute strength of his arms and shoulders, and his merciless black eyes glinted in triumph.
I let myself fall on my back and the Apache landed on top of me. His knife hand broke free and he raised it to strike. I twisted my body and arched upward, my bared teeth lunging for his throat. I bit down hard on the left side of his neck and tasted smoky blood as his knife came down. The blade raked along the outside of my shoulder, burning like a red-hot iron, and I heaved with all my strength to my right, throwing the Apache off me.
The man rose, his knife poised. I circled to my left, keeping the Indian in front of me and feinted with the rifle butt. But the warrior was not fooled and he just stood there watching for an opening, the blood from the deep bite wound on his neck running down the shoulder and front of his yellow shirt.
I didn’t know how many Apaches were out there. If I fired the rifle I could bring a passel of them down on top of me and right now that was the last thing I wanted.
But the Winchester was the only weapon I had; the folding knife in my pocket was useless in a fight like this.
I smelled the musky, feral odor of the Apache and my own rank sweat as we circled each other. My mouth was dry and my hurtling heartbeats hammered in my ears like muffled drums.
The Apache crouched a little, feinted with the knife, then switched to an underhand motion and slashed upward, trying to gut me. I hit his upcoming forearm hard with the barrel of the rifle and heard bone crack. The warrior cried out and the knife slipped from his nerveless fingers.
I moved in and smashed a powerful right to the man’s chin, then another. The Apache reeled back a step, steadied himself, then dove for the knife. But my swinging boot crashed into his face when he was still in the air and that hurt him. He rolled on his back and slammed up against one of the rocks, the wind coming out of him in a sharp gasp.
Snarling, the Apache lay still for a few moments, then sprang to his feet. He came at me, his clawed fingers wide, seeking my eyes.
As he came in, I threw another right, but my fist glanced across his cheekbone and the Apache shrugged it off. We closed, his fingers still reaching for my eyes. As we wrestled, snarling like wild animals, our faces only inches apart, I felt the warrior’s strength weakening.
The terrible, raw wound in his neck where I’d torn at him was streaming bright scarlet and it looked to me that I’d chewed through a vein that carried his lifeblood.
The Apache seemed to realize this too and knew he had to finish the fight soon. He took a half-step closer to me, his right foot swinging, trying to kick my legs out from under me.
I stepped away from him, threw a hook that missed and left myself wide-open for his right hand. The Apache’s thumb, with its long, hard nail, dug into my eye, trying to blind me and I felt a sudden gush of blood on my cheek. I reached up with my left and grabbed his forearm. The broken bone crunched under my fingers and I squeezed harder. The warrior screamed and tried to jerk his arm away but I held on, grinding my fingers deeper.
The Indian again cried out, his face shocked and white from pain, and tore free of me. I didn’t let him get set but swung the rifle again. This time the butt caught him squarely on the side of the head and he crashed violently into a rock and crumpled to the ground.
I staggered back, gasping for breath, unwilling to move, waiting for the man to get back to his feet. From a great distance away I heard thunder rumble and off to the west sheet lighting flashed above the Staked Plains.
Slowly the Apache rose. He was splashed in blood and sweat and his nose and arm were shattered, but there was no quit in him. Wary now, he shuffled toward me, his silent moccasined feet slowly sliding through the wet grass.
I didn’t have the strength left to meet him, so I stood where I was and waited for him to come to me.
The Apache ran at me, trying to grasp me with his left hand. But I took a single step toward him and grabbed his broken arm again. I turned my side to the Apache and hammered the arm onto my upraised knee. One, two, three times.
Screaming, the warrior pulled the arm out of my grasp. He swung his leg and knocked my feet out from under me and I thudded onto my back, hitting hard rock. Winded, with my rifle lying three feet away, I lay there, desperately trying to catch my breath.
I moved my hand to support myself as I struggled to get to my feet. I shifted my hand again and my fingers touched the handle of the Apache’s knife. I grabbed it and held it ready.
The man, snarling his fury, tried for the rifle. He dived for the Winchester and I threw myself on him. The arc of the knife blade glinted in the moonlight as I swung it high and plunged it deep into his back. I heard the warrior’s gasp of pain and rammed the knife into him again and again. The Apache’s legs kicked convulsively and he rattled deep in his throat, then lay still.
I rolled off the man and lay on my back, my mouth open, gasping for air.
After a while I stumbled to my feet, teeth bared, panting, looking down at the man I’d killed. I’d battled this warrior with fangs and claws and I had won, and by right of conquest his head and weapons were mine.
No longer completely sane, crazed by the sudden, shocking violence of the fight, I kneeled, grabbed a handful of the Apache’s long, greasy hair and scalped him.
Jumping to my feet again, I brandished the dripping scalp high, tilted back my head and let a savage Rebel yell tear from my throat. It was a barbaric, angry shriek, half wail, half scream, heard on hundreds of battlefields during the War Between the States. But the yell had much more ancient and darker roots, stretching back across the echoing centuries to the war cry of the wild, blue-stained Celtic sword warriors from whom my ancestors had sprung.
