Blood and Gold

Wingo nodded. “We whipped them all right, but they might be back. We stay right where we are until sunup. If we leave now and they catch us out in the open, we’re dead men.”

Wingo turned to me. “You, boy, rustle us up some grub and see to more coffee. It’s going to be a long night.”

Wingo was right on that score—because an hour later, just as dark was falling and the first sentinel stars appeared, Hank Owens began to scream.

Chapter 17

Hank’s agonized shrieks echoed out of the darkness, screech after shrill screech scarring the tremulous night, spiking into our ears like sharp shards of broken glass.

Lila put her hands to her mouth and her eyes widened in shock and fear.

Ezra Owens had gone very pale, his lips bloodless, and even Wingo looked green around the gills, with his rifle clutched close to his chest and his troubled gaze desperately trying to penetrate the gloom.

There came a fleeting moment of ringing quiet; then Hank screamed again in mortal agony, obviously suffering pain that was beyond pain.

Hearing those dreadful cries, I figured that the Apaches were working on Hank’s belly wound, trying to wear us down through mounting terror. Scared men make mistakes, and that was what the Apaches were counting on.

I’ve learned since that you can’t judge the Apache by the standards of white men.

He grows up hard in a hard land and from an early age sees much of death, usually long drawn-out, painful and ugly. In the harsh, unforgiving school of the desert and mountain from whence he springs, the Apache knows that each living creature thrives only by inflicting death on another. The Apache feels nothing in the way of kindness and compassion toward an enemy, because those are women’s emotions and show only weakness. Yes, the Apaches were torturing Hank Owens horribly, but it was cold, impersonal, without sadism.

It is the way of the Apache warrior to test, by inflicting great pain, the courage of an enemy. He believes that if an enemy proves strong and brave, his strength and bravery will become part of his own—and his chances of surviving one more day in his pitiless environment become that much better.

It is a harsh way, but even as I listened to Hank’s screams, I made no judgments and no condemnations. Why judge and condemn the wolf because he pulls down and savages an elk?

It is the way of the wolf . . . and it is the way of the Apache.

I stepped over to the fire and poured myself coffee, the dying man’s screams drowning out even my thoughts. Then I returned to my post.

The cup was hot and I placed it carefully on the side of the wagon and just as carefully, with hands that shook only a little, rolled myself a smoke.

I lit the cigarette and drew my Winchester closer to hand and looked out on the menacing darkness, the scowling sliver of the horned moon touching the grass only here and there with faint, grudging light.

Hank screamed and screamed again, the wild echoes of his rising shrieks reverberating around us before finally dying away, fading like ghastly bugle calls into distance and the haunted night.

Several slow moments of silence passed as I smoked and drank coffee, enjoying the harsh bitterness of both. Lila sat close to my feet, her chin resting on her drawn-up knees, her eyes wide-open but seeing nothing. Beside her, Ned dozed, waking now and then with a surprised jerk of his head.

Ezra Owens, his mouth working, stared into the darkness, a drawn look about him that showed even under his thick beard. The man was confronting some inner demons that he didn’t seem to be handling well.

Wingo chewed on the end of his mustache, his restless eyes everywhere, showing the strain of this enforced inaction but, as far as I could tell, mastering his fear.

Hank screamed again.

Cursing, Ezra stepped out from behind the wagon, threw his Winchester to his shoulder and cranked off round after round into the flame-torn night, ejected brass shells tinkling around his feet.

Ezra shot the rifle dry and kept on pulling the trigger, the hammer clicking time after time on an empty chamber.

Finally he lowered the Winchester and walked back behind the wagon. Wingo clapped his hands together in derisory applause. “That was a great help,” the big gunman said. “All you did was shoot at phantoms and waste ammunition.”

“Maybe so,” Ezra said, his face grim. “But Hank is my brother, even though he never amounted to much. I figured I owed it to our ma to do something.”

The outlaw slumped against the wagon, then slid to his haunches, holding the rifle between his knees. I glanced at him and noticed an absorbed, calculating look on his face, like he was carefully thinking something through.

I had no idea what Ezra had on his mind, but whatever it was, the not knowing bothered me plenty.

The moon sank lower in the sky and the dark shroud of the night drew itself closer around us. Hank had not screamed for a couple of hours and I figured he’d finally been taken by merciful death.

But I was wrong. The Apaches were not yet done with Hank Owens.