Ralph Compton - Blood and Gold

I’d killed this man’s twin brother, and right then I knew I was in deep trouble. And what he said next confirmed it.

“Your dying will be slow and very painful,” the Apache said quietly, like he was making polite conversation in Ma Prather’s parlor. “Only a very brave warrior could have killed my brother, but even so, at the end you will scream loud, I think.”

The moonlight lay like polished steel on the hard planes of the Apache’s face and the thin gash of his mouth. This was not the face of a merciful man, and anyhow, mercy for a captured enemy was a concept totally foreign to him.

“Go to hell,” I said, knowing I had nothing to lose by it.

The Apache nodded, saying nothing, no doubt having many times heard this same empty bravado before from men who later died shrieking for mercy or for death.

He rose to his feet and stepped to the fire. When he returned he held a handful of long, jagged cactus spines. He squatted beside me again and slowly, methodically shoved two dozen of the spines just under the skin of my chest and belly, leaving about an inch of each showing.

The pain was an intense, scorching fire, and I bit my lip, determined not to cry out. The torture was only beginning and it could last for two or three days. Could I take it without screaming? I knew the answer to that could only be no.

The Apache turned and uttered something to a warrior sitting by the fire. The man nodded, rose and carried over a thin, burning branch from the fire. The Apache took the brand from the warrior and then, one by one, lit the exposed tips of the spines.

Certain kinds of cactus spines—cholla is one of them—will burn well when dry, flaring up like struck matches.

When the Apache lit a spine, it very quickly flamed its way under my skin, and I smelled my own flesh as it sizzled and burned.

I bore the first two or three, arching my back, heaving against my vicious bonds, and the terrible pain that slammed through me. But after several more spines were lit, I heard someone scream, coming from a long distance away. Then, to my horror, I realized it was me.

Sweat trickled down my forehead as the spines burned and I ground my teeth so hard, my breath hissing, that my jaw began to throb. But that was a little pain against the greater agony of the scorching, flaring spines.

The moon looked down on me and the stars glittered and I heard the wind sigh among the pines. But I was alone with my torment, and all of them—moon, stars, pines and wind—were completely indifferent to my suffering.

The flames from the brand lit another spine, and another. The stink of my own burning flesh was sharp in my nostrils, and no matter how I bucked and strained I could not escape the searing agony of the fire.

Beside me the Apache looked on with cool indifference, like a doctor beside a patient’s bed, interested but detached.

He was testing me to see if I was the great warrior he thought I was, and I had the feeling I was failing the test badly.

One thing I wanted to do before the pain became unbearable and I started to uselessly scream and beg for mercy: I wanted to spit in that damned Apache’s eye.

I raised my head, trying to gather saliva, but there was none. My mouth was bone dry. Defeated, filled with pain and the greater pain of loss and despair, I let my head thump back onto the ground just as the Apache lit another cactus spine.

Thunder crashed around me and I heard someone scream again.

Chapter 26

The scream was not mine, nor did the thunder come from the sky. I was hearing the cries of dying men and the roar of guns.

The Apache beside me sprang to his feet as John Coleman and his hands charged into the camp. All of them were mounted, having somehow found a way to bring their horses up the slope.

Coleman was in the lead, grim and terrible, his Colt hammering as his horse bucked and kicked, throwing up great clods of dirt. Taken completely by surprise, Apaches were running in every direction and six or seven of them were already stretched out on the ground.

The Coleman punchers were riding through and around the Apache camp, shooting at everything that moved. I raised my head and saw one of the Coleman riders throw up his hands and topple out of the saddle. Then John himself was hit. His horse reared and crashed heavily on top of him.

But, despite the losses among the Coleman riders, the Apaches were in full flight.

A very few had managed to reach their horses and were riding, hell for leather, toward the top of the mountain. Others were fleeing on foot, but these were mercilessly cut down by the vengeful Coleman hands.

Among all the confusion of flying hooves, the screams of the dying and the flash and bang of guns in the flame-streaked darkness, I lifted my head, straining against the rawhide bonds—in time to see an Apache on a gray horse gallop away in the distance before being swallowed by the night.

A Coleman rider with red hair and mustache reined up his horse beside me and swung out of the saddle. The man kneeled beside me, shook his head and whistled through his teeth. “Geez, Dusty,” he said, “what the hell did they do to you?”

This was no time for polite conversation. “Cut me loose!” I yelled.

The rider did as I asked, and I scrambled to my feet and, my head swimming, immediately fell down again.

“You best lie there quiet,” the hand said. “Man, you’re a mess.” He touched my chest and when he brought his hand away I saw it was covered in blood and blackened pieces of scorched skin.

“Help me to my feet,” I said. “And help me find my damn clothes.”

The Coleman hand pulled me upright, and this time I didn’t fall.

Men were riding this way and that, some of them still shooting, and a couple of hands were bent over the still, sprawled form of John Coleman.

Helped by the redhead, I found my clothes where the Apaches had dumped them after stripping me. I put on my hat, then my pants and stomped into boots. The shirt I left aside, fearing the rough army wool would rub against the wounds on my chest, and slipped the suspenders over my bare shoulders.

I felt weak and sick, but I had something to do that needed to be done.

“Get me a horse. And a gun,” I said to the Coleman hand.

“But, Dusty, you’re in no condition to—”

“Hell, man, don’t argue,” I yelled. “Do as I say.”

Me, I have no idea what that puncher saw when he looked at me, his eyes wide and shocked. A wild man, I guess, a raving creature who had just been to hell and back, his chest and shoulders covered in dried blood and scorched and blackened flesh.

Whatever it was, the redheaded puncher didn’t think it wise to argue further. He handed me the reins of his horse and gave me his own gun belt and Winchester.

I buckled on the belt, shoved the rifle into the boot, then swung heavily into the saddle. I glanced over at John Coleman. “How is he?” I asked one of the men kneeling beside him. The puncher looked up at me and slowly shook his head, telling me all I needed to know.

I swung my horse around and headed up the slope. Behind me I heard the Coleman hand yell: “Dusty, where are you going?”

Ignoring the man, I rode higher. The moon bathed the side of the mountain in light and a breeze stirred the branches of the pines. I felt stiff and sore and constantly worked the swollen fingers of my right hand, surprised to find they were better than I’d expected.

I topped a low ridge, rode through some dense juniper and followed the dip downward. I climbed higher again, wary now, the Winchester across the saddle horn, and came up on a wide stand of ponderosa pine.

I let the horse take a breather and scanned the tree line and the higher rocks above the pines. And saw nothing.