Doubtful Canon (10 page)

Quickly Jasmine looked away, making the sign of the cross, while I fought down rising bile and dropped my rock.

“Giddings?” Whitey Grey gave Ian Spencer Henry a look of bewilderment, uncertainly.

“You said the desert here preserves a body,” my friend explained. “Like the Apache ear you took from that shed. Is that Mister Giddings?”

Again the albino blinked. His left hand fished the ear from his pocket, returned it, and he bit his bottom lip, his face masked in confusion, turned back to consider the mutilated body fifteen yards away.

Whitey Grey cleared his throat. “Mister Giddings?” he called out and sank back behind the rocks.

No answer, except his haunting echo. The albino looked even more puzzled. So did I, but it was Whitey Grey who baffled me.
Did he think a dead man could answer him?

Poor Jasmine Allison just looked sick.

A full minute stretched before Whitey Grey rose to study the corpse again. His pale head shook, he sank back onto his haunches, and he started mumbling, more to himself than to answer Ian Spencer Henry. “No. No. Can’t be. We buried Giddings, what was left of him anyway, bones and all. No, that ain’t Mister Giddings. He’s dead. I seen him die. I practically kilt….” He shut up, gripping the Winchester tightly, eyebrows lowering, his face registering fear.

“Apaches is amongst us!” he screamed, his voice echoing like a choir in a cave, and he ran, crossing the small passageway, hurdling the arrow-filled body, darting for the other wall.

The wind began to howl, kicking up a brief but violent dust devil that lashed out against a fortification of granite boulders, behind which hid three shaking children and one albino adult.

Ian Spencer Henry, Jasmine, and I had raced after our fleeing leader, finding shelter on the far side of the narrow cañon, although what made it a better spot than the other side, we would remain clueless. When the wind abated, or maybe after we had survived ten or fifteen minutes without being killed, Whitey Grey’s mettle returned.

“This was the spot,” he said, looking up, his voice quiet in reflection. “Too narrow to turn a Concord, turn anythin’ ’round.” Lacking mirth, he laughed. “ ’Long ’bout here’s where it all happened. I recollect it fine, picture it.” He pointed toward the road’s edge. “There’s where the Concord got wrecked.” Pointed again to a clearing. “Over yonder’s where Mister Giddings got laid low. We buried him…yonder.”

“We should bury him, too.” I gestured toward the eyeless corpse.

“Bury ’im?” The white-skinned man snorted in derision, his voice, like his courage, rising a few levels. “With Apaches amongst us?”

“Yeah,” said Ian Spencer Henry, angering me by siding with the white-skinned man. “Besides, I left the pack with the shovel and pick over there.”

“You done what?”
The albino looked angry, then sickened as he stared across the cañon floor. Sure enough, Whitey Grey’s makeshift pack leaned against a twisted alligator juniper, handle to the pickaxe sprouting up like a pale tree. Our leader groaned. “Son, son, son,” he said, “we’ll have need of that pick and shovel.”

“And my pistol,” Ian Spencer Henry added. “I brought along Pa’s old Navy Colt. It’s in my war bag. I remember how much you said you liked your old Navy, it being the weapon of your choice. And I’ve read that Wild Bill preferred it, as well.”

“Lots of good it done him,” said Whitey Grey, taking his revolver from Jasmine’s quaking hands and shoving it into his waistband. “And lots of good that shovel and pick’s gonna do us settin’ over yonder. Might need ’em to gets my gold. Will need ’em.” He glared at Ian Spencer Henry.
“Go
fetch ’em, boy.”

“But…but…but….” My friend sought help, and, finding none, said: “But it was Jasmine’s turn to carry the pack. She should go.”

Whitey Grey was not swayed. “You’re goin’.”

“But…but there are Apaches all over.”

“Likely not,” he said. “Else they’d have cut one or two of you chil’ren down whilst you crossed the cañon.”

“But you said we’re surrounded by Apaches. More or less, you said it.”

“Been wrong. Let’s see iffen I’m wrong now.”

Ian Spencer Henry tried to argue further, but Whitey Grey’s patience had limits, so I laid my canteen on the ground, slid through the opening between the rocks, and made my way across the old Overland road.

“Jack!” Jasmine yelled. “Don’t…!
”

I didn’t listen, just kept walking, sure to feel an arrow slice into my heart at any second. Silence returned. I could feel the anxious stares of Whitey Grey, Ian Spencer Henry, and Jasmine Allison boring through my back as I moved slowly, not quite deliberately. Don’t cite my action as bravery. One of us had to get those tools, and I owed Ian Spencer Henry. Yes, he had irritated me a minute earlier, but I couldn’t forget all he had done in the past. Back along the Southern Pacific tracks, he had charged out of the desert, maybe stopping the wild man named Whitey Grey from killing me, and he had been my friend, a true friend, since I had known him. In the desert, he had shared his water with Jasmine and me. Besides, Ian Spencer Henry hadn’t gotten us into this mess. Back in Shakespeare, had I said no, had I told them we were not running away with a man we did not know chasing gold we did not know existed, we wouldn’t be in such a predicament. If anyone needed to cross the road, as bait for Apaches, it had to be me.

One mistake almost cost me my breakfast. As I walked past the dead man, I looked down at him. I had seen his face from a distance, the darkened, bloody holes where his eyes had been, the mouth locked in an eternal scream, but distance is one thing. Up close, with the fear of an imminent Apache attack palatable, that’s something entirely different. He hadn’t been scalped—Apaches weren’t prone to such depredations—probably not even tortured, but I could not think of death coming in a more gruesome fashion. Once I’d read a newspaper description of a body killed by Indians in which the writer said the dead man resembled a porcupine or pincushion, but those allusions do an injustice.

This was once a man?

I swallowed, took a deep breath, let the dizziness pass, went on.

Would I soon join him?

Nothing happened. To my surprise, I reached the canvas pack where Ian Spencer Henry had left it. Struggling with the weight, though it wasn’t that heavy, I pulled the strap to my left shoulder, hefted it, kept my right hand free, and began the walk back, not far in a physical sense but stretching infinite miles in my beleaguered mind.

Just put one foot in front of the other,
I told myself.
There’s nothing you can do now anyway. If they kill you, they kill you. Destiny’s not something you control, Jack Dunivan. Walk. Walk. It’s the easiest thing in the world to do. You’ve been doing it for eleven years.

“That a boy, pard. You’s almost here. Good lad, Jack Dunivan, good lad.”

My eyes opened. Apparently I had closed them for ten or twelve rods. Now I again saw the remains of Willie Spoon; at least I assumed the dead man to be the guide from Lordsburg.

“Don’t look at him, Jack,” Jasmine said. “Don’t stop.” Her eyes widened in terror, wonderment, bewilderment, something. “Jack…what on earth?”

Leaning down, I grabbed the collar of the dead man’s muslin shirt, and, with a grunt, I heaved, surprised at my strength. The arrows, those that had driven through the man’s body, snapped at their ends. Maybe Willie Spoon didn’t weigh much, for he certainly looked small in death, or maybe men are as light as air once life leaves them. Maybe I summoned up some force of energy through my own fear. I gave another yank, squatting, pulling, dragging him toward our makeshift fort.

“Boy,” Whitey Grey said, “don’t bring ’im in here.” He sounded like a child, scared of the dead.

“Gross,” said Ian Spencer Henry.

No one offered to assist me, even when it became clear that the Apaches wouldn’t kill me, and I didn’t blame them. Turning sideways, I managed to slide through the rock opening, tossing the pack and tools at Whitey Grey’s feet, then reached back with both hands and dragged the dead man inside, too, arrows breaking in the rocks, shafts tearing at his body, but he was beyond hurting. Letting him drop, I collapsed, trying to catch my breath, fighting the distress in my chest and bowels.

“Gross,” Ian Spencer Henry repeated, but kept staring at the remains. Jasmine looked away. Whitey Grey stared at me with rage.

“Did Apaches do that?” My friend pointed at the face.

“Ravens, I suspect,” the white-skinned man said without looking away from me. “We probably scairt ’em off. Or the Cherry Cows give ’em birds a fright.”

“Gross,” Ian Spencer Henry said again, and looked at me. “What did you bring him here for, Jack? He’s dead. Nothing we can do for him.”

“We can bury him,” I said. “We can bury him if we’re decent people.” Now I was looking into Whitey Grey’s soulless eyes. “You
owe
him that much, don’t you, Mister Grey?” I pointed at the corpse, although now I could not summon up courage to look into the dead man’s face again, or his bloodied body. “You remember him, sir, for he remembered you. Willie Spoon? He was freighting with that group that found you at the station twenty years ago. If not for him, and all those others with him, the Apaches might have killed you, or you would have starved to death at the old Overland station. Then you’d be buried, along with Mister Giddings and those others killed by the Apaches.”

“Over yonder then.” The albino pointed to the small clearing. “Where we buried Mister Giddings and poor ol’ Bruce from Wisconsin way.” He grinned. “Give ’em Cherry Cows one more chance to kill you.”

“Fine,” I said, no longer believing Indians remained in the vicinity. I opened the pack, grabbed the shovel with the broken handle, loosened the rawhide thongs securing the pickaxe, and walked to the unmarked graves.

“Here,” Ian Spencer Henry said. “I’ll join you, Jack. Let me help.”

“Me, too,” Jasmine said.

The albino just swore, found a spot in the shade, and rolled a cigarette.

We dug near the two graves, not that you could tell this was a cemetery of sorts. The freighters had been in a hurry to bury Mr. Giddings and the other man. The rocks they had piled over the shallow graves had been scattered here and there after two decades. If any cross or other marker had ever been erected, and I doubted they had, they, too, had been washed, blown, or ripped away.

Jasmine swung the pickaxe with the fury of a Shakespeare miner. I worked the shovel, ignoring the blisters forming on my hands, scraping more than digging, not making much progress in the hard earth. Having fished out a wooden box from his war bag, Ian Spencer Henry stood guard.

He had pulled a .44 Colt from the box, proudly showing it off to an unimpressed Whitey Grey, who merely said: “’Taint a Navy, boy, but an Army. Careful not to blow off your hand shootin’ it.”

Once, the Army Colt had been impressive, its nickel plating ornately engraved though now dotted with flakes of rust, the brass pieces tarnished green, the checkered ivory grip faded to a mellow yellow. The box also contained a copper flask upon which, under a coat of dust, were engraved scenes of a cannon, balls, and flags, with crossed muskets at the top, and a bullet mold. A tin of percussion caps lay in one corner, and other caps had spilled out, and Ian Spencer Henry pulled out a box of prefabricated paper cartridges and loaded the revolver, or tried to, for most of the old, antiquated cartridge fell apart before ever reaching the cylinder, spilling ancient black powder into the dust. Yet he had managed to get three cartridges and caps in place, and proudly stood in the shadows, protecting us.

Oh, Ian Spencer Henry would come to our assistance when needed, shoving the Colt into his waistband and helping Jasmine pry loose the pickaxe, kicking rocks and mounds of dirt out of the way, even offering to spell me while I nursed the blisters.

Which is more than Whitey Grey did. He just stood several yards away in the corner, Winchester in his arms, Colt on a boulder top within easy reach, eyes searching the cañon rim.

With dusk approaching, and bedrock refusing to bend to our muscles, I announced the grave sufficient, though we had not even reached a depth of two feet, and we retrieved the corpse.

“Good,” Whitey Grey said. “Y’all be his pall-bearers.”

“You should say something over his grave,” Jasmine said.

He considered this for a moment, looking again up and down the cañon, and his head bobbed, which surprised me. “Reckon that’d be all right,” he said, and, picking up his Colt and rifle, followed us as Jasmine, Ian Spencer Henry, and I dragged the dead man to his final resting place. We didn’t look at the body, and, when he tumbled into the pit face down, no one volunteered to roll him over.

“No need to, chil’ren,” the albino said. “Let the ol’ hand alone. He’s tellin’ the Apaches what he thinks of ’em.” And he laughed, this time with humor, although we found nothing funny.

I removed the Irish woolen hat, too large for me anyway, that Whitey Grey had procured, and bowed my head, waiting for the strange man’s eulogy and prayer.

He kept it brief.

“We commit his body to the deep in the certain…oh, amen. Scrape some sand o’er ’em, chil’ren, and let’s go gets my gold. I think it’s up yonder way.” He pointed catty-corner from us, and stepped back while Ian Spencer Henry and I, as soon as we had recovered from the albino’s actions, began covering the remains of the late Willie Spoon.

“I wonder what happened to Miss Giddings,” Jasmine said to no one in particular.

“She’s worser off than that ol’ boy,” Whitey Grey answered. “But at least she’s out of my territory, away from my gold.”

“That’s a cruel thing to say,” Jasmine snapped back.

“She was warned, li’l’ girlie. Railroaders told her Doubtful Cañon ain’t no place for no petticoat. Just be thankful ’em Apaches who done that, or ’em who wisht they had done it, ain’t ’round here no more.”

His words had barely registered when death knocked me senseless.

I lay sprawled on my back, fighting for breath, the broken-handled spade knocked somewhere in the cactus. Instinctively I reached out, grabbed a hand, forced my eyes open, and stared into the blackest, cruelest eyes I had ever seen.

“Look outs, chil’ren!” Whitey Grey screamed. A gunshot roared. “Blast my luck, they’s here. The Apaches is here!”

Another shot.

I gasped. The hand I held gripped a huge bone-handled knife with one wicked blade inches from my throat.

He had not screamed some blood-curdling yell, had merely fallen from the sky, it seemed, and landed on me. His face was copper, mouth closed, eyes venomous, shiny black hair hanging to his shoulders, and a scarlet silk headband across his forehead, his cheeks plastered with grains of sand I could make out clearly. He stank of sweat, of buckskins and grease. The blade lowered.

“No you don’t,” I said, or tried to say. “You’re not killing me!”

Another weapon
boomed.
Hoofs. My ears rang. Shouts now, like coyotes yipping.

“Shoot him!” It was Jasmine’s voice. “Shoot him.”

With what? I don’t have a gun.
My mind worked briefly. She wasn’t talking to me, but urging Ian Spencer Henry to save my life.

What’s taking you so long?
I thought, wanting to seek out my good friend, wanting to see that Ian Spencer Henry would indeed save my life, but I remained scared witless to take my eyes away from the Apache on top of me.
Kit Carson, Buffalo Bill, Deadwood Dick…they’d have sent this man to Glory by now, Ian Spencer Henry!

Man? No. Why he was nothing more than a boy, maybe my age, no more than a year or two older.