Ralph Compton - Blood and Gold

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.

If there were Apaches around, I wanted them to know by that victorious scream that I’d killed one of them, that I’d torn out his throat with my teeth. I wanted them to suffer as I had suffered, wanted them to know fear as I’d known fear.

Finally, blood from the scalp running down my arm, I slowly returned to sanity.

Suddenly drained, I dropped the filthy scalp on the Apache’s back, picked up my rifle and staggered down the slope. At the creek I fell flat on the bank and splashed cold water onto my face and arms, washing away as much blood as I could.

Lila met me at the door of the cabin, awakened by my dreadful howling. She took one look at me and shrank back in horror, stiff with shock, her eyes wide and fearful, face as white as someone dead. I ignored the girl, brushed past her and collapsed onto a bunk.

Then merciful sleep took me and I knew no more.

I woke slowly to a gray dawn.

Shivering, I put on my hat and stepped to the stove. The fire had gone out during the night and I made it up again and soon had a small blaze going.

Lila and her pa were still asleep, so without disturbing them, I picked up the coffeepot and my rifle and stepped outside.

The rain had stopped but surly gray clouds hung low in the sky and the gullies and clefts of the surrounding hills were deep in shadow. The air smelled clean and fresh, like a woman’s newly washed hair, and a whispering wind teased the buffalo grass, the shy wildflowers nodding their approval.

I kneeled by the creek and began to fill the coffeepot, wary, my eyes searching the ridge. Nothing moved, but that in itself brought me little comfort. Apaches didn’t believe in making themselves obvious. There could be a dozen of them up there. Or none. Fickle fate was dealing the hand and I’d have to gamble that the Apaches had moved on and that the ridge and scattered rocks were as empty of life as they seemed.

Such thoughts do little to reassure a man, and after I filled the pot and rose to my feet I reckon I was a slump-shouldered study in uncertainty, feeling a lot older but not much wiser than my eighteen years.

The fight with the Apache had left me with a numb ache all over my body and my shoulder burned where his knife had grazed me. I remembered the fight like a man remembers a bad dream, hazy, terrifying and confused, without rhyme or reason.

I had scalped the warrior and held my bloody trophy aloft and like a madman I’d howled my triumph to the uncaring night.