“Die, damn you, die!” Ike got to his feet and used this leverage to press his foe back.
He towered over the kneeling man, but if he had stood even a few inches taller, the leverage would have been enough. The Apache looped one arm around his legs and hammered with his fist behind his knees. Ike lost his balance and again ended up flat on his back. It took all his strength to hold the knife just inches from his chest. And then his muscles turned to water from exhaustion. Try as he might to avoid it, the steel blade cut into his flesh. First the tip pricked his skin. Then it entered and worked down to bounce off a rib.
Ike cried out. He shouted again, this time in victory. Somehow he had knocked out the brave and saved his own life. He pressed his hand to the spot where the knife had cut through his coat, vest, shirt and a half inch of his body.
He swallowed hard when a nearby bolt of lightning illuminated the ground. The Apache lay stretched out on the ground. A bullet had blown off half his head. Panicked, Ike swiveled and looked around.
A dark figure sat astride a horse a dozen yards off, a rifle still pulled up to a steady shoulder. Ike raised his hands and stood, barely able to keep his balance.
“Don’t shoot. You saved my hide.”
A more distant flash lit the figure.
“You’re a soldier. You came in the nick of time.” Ike sagged in relief. The cavalry had arrived.
“Who’re you?”
Ike stammered out his story. He doubted any of it made a lick of sense. He got no response from the cavalry trooper. The rifle stayed fixed on him. Ike had the feeling that a single word was all it’d take to be dispatched like the Apache brave. He had no idea what that word was.
Just as he started to blurt out he was a lawman and show Deputy Yarrow’s badge, four more riders joined the soldier. Then came an entire column. Trotting at the front rode a lieutenant. His gold braid turned to fire in every flash across the sky.
“What do we have here, Sergeant?”
Ike edged away from the dead Apache. Running was foolish, but the urge proved almost too much for him to overcome. Something was wrong, and he was sure to be the one blamed. For whatever it was.
The soldiers were all black and the officer white. Buffalo soldiers. He had heard there were several posts so composed of the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry. He’d also heard they rode camels and a dozen other unlikely stories. Again, he started to declare himself a Federal marshal.
“The dead one’s a lookout for ’em. He trailed behind the main band. I’d hoped to keep him in sight so we could find the rest, but that ain’t gonna happen now.”
The officer rode closer and peered down at Ike. “Looks like you made our job considerably harder because we rescued you from losing your hair. You held us up, and there’s no way to track them in the rain.”
As if God heard those words and laughed, rain began splatting all around. Slow, heavy, cold drops fell at first, then blasted down with more vigor.
“You intended tracking this one because he was behind the main band? The dozen or so warriors that went in that direction?” Ike pointed.
“You blowing smoke or do you know they rode that way?”
“I saw them. From the tracks, when I was on the handcar. I definitely saw them.”
The lieutenant motioned to his sergeant, who dispatched a half-dozen soldiers to scout in the direction where Ike had last seen the Apaches.
“How’d you happen to be out here in the desert all alone, with a storm boiling up out of Mexico like that?” Three quick peals of thunder punctuated the officer’s words. The heart of the storm rolled closer by the minute.
“That’s a long story. I need to get back on the train heading north up to Marfa. It’ll stop there to—”
“Take on water and coal, yeah, I know,” the lieutenant said. He held up his hand to quiet Ike when the sergeant returned. The two exchanged terse words. The sergeant wheeled about and galloped away.
“Corporal, did you find the Indian’s horse?”
“Here, sir.” A soldier came out of the murk, leading a pony painted with mystic symbols.
“I hope you can ride bareback.”
“I’ll try,” Ike said. “Thanks. I’ll just ride on down the tracks and—”
“You’re coming with us.” The officer rattled off commands about forming the column and finished with orders to the corporal to keep an eye on their unwilling civilian recruit.
Ike leaped onto horseback, expecting to be bucked off. To his surprise, the pony paid no attention to having a new rider astride its back. He just wished the soldier following closely didn’t give him the uneasy feeling of being ordered to shoot him in the back if he tried to leave the cavalry patrol.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Ike pulled his hat down low on his forehead and patted the pony’s neck. The horse also lowered its head to keep the driving rain from blinding it. Ike wondered if he had ever felt wetter without taking a bath and doubted it. The rain plastered his clothing to his body, and the cutting wind swung icy knives against exposed flesh with every gust. Worse yet, the knife wound in his chest, minor though it was, not only reminded him of how close he had come to dying but also sent ripples of real pain into his heart.
“I wonder if this is the way it feels,” he muttered.
“What’s that?” The corporal riding knee to knee with him glanced over.
“I got stabbed in the chest. The Apache almost drove the knife into my heart—with just a tad more pressure, he’d have skewered me like a pig. I was wondering if this is what it’d have felt like if he had killed me.”
“I been shot, I been stabbed. Once I almost bled to death. You go all cold and shiver.”
“Like now?” As if to demonstrate, Ike shuddered uncontrollably from the soaking wet and frigid wind. Raindrops flew off him like he was a half-drowned mongrel.
“Naw, nothing like this. You was lucky it was Sergeant Benjamin that saw you fightin’ with the Indian. He’s ’bout the only one of us who coulda made the shot in the dark and wind and rain and all. He’s a caution, that man. Fine shot. The best.”
Ike heard the unstated, Or cared enough to take the shot.
“What fort are you stationed at?”
“Fort Davis. Ain’t much of a fort. We got a knee-high mud fence around the parade grounds to keep in the chickens. Otherwise, we have sentries posted up in Limpio Canyon to warn us if the Indians sneak up on us in our sleep with the intent of slittin’ our throats.”
“No palisades?”
“I was stationed at one with high walls. Up in the Panhandle.” The corporal shook his head. Drops of water spun from his cap. “That was quite a challenge. Blue Northers blow across the plains something fierce, then there’re tornadoes. After that I was up north at Fort Wingate. The Navajos made rope out of horse tails, tied a rock on the end, throwed it over the ten-foot adobe wall and sawed through. Took ’em the better part of an hour to saw out a section, or so somebody said later. Half the garrison got slaughtered in their bunks that night. The guards at the main gate never knowed we were under attack.”
Ike had to ask, “Were you one of them? One of the guards?”
“Used to be a top sergeant. It’s taken me five years to get back to corporal after havin’ my stripes ripped off. But I don’t mind. What else would I do if I warn’t in the army?”
The easy byplay between them almost loosened Ike’s tongue. He held back the lie of being a US Marshal. That would have lifted his standing in the corporal’s eyes, but why did he care? The soldier had orders to shoot him out of the saddle if he so much as looked like he was hightailing it.