Dawn crept across the now calm Rio Grande river, sending the sunlight flashing around the two brothers who were huddled together. No longer raging in fury the water was now little more than three feet deep. The bright rays woke Tom Hardy first, and he scrambled to his feet to stretch the cramp out of his aching joints. It had been cold during his sleep, and he felt older than his years as he paced around, trying to get his legs to loosen up before waking his drunken brother.
Then he saw them across the water.
It had been the glinting of sunlight upon their lances that first caught his eye. He tried to make out what he had not previously noticed — the band of Apache sitting astride their painted ponies — and his brain desperately attempted to figure out what he should do next.
His mouth was dry from the crippling sleep, but now it was getting worse as fear raced through his body He kneeled down next to the snoring Whit and shook his brother feverishly. It was never easy waking Whit at the best of times, but somehow the urgency in Tom Hardy’s hands penetrated Whit’s blurred mind, managing to get him out of his drunken dreams. The whites of the younger Hardy’s eyes were raked with red veins as he gazed up in befuddled apathy.
‘Apache’ Tom whispered. His voice was shaking so much that he had barely been able to say that one simple word.
His younger brother got on to his elbows and gave Tom a confused stare.
‘What about them“?’ Whit asked, rubbing the sleep and sand from the corners of his sore eyes.
Tom indicated with his head at the group of men across the river.
Whit focused on the Indians and then looked up into Tom’s face for answers.
‘What we gonna do?’ he asked in a lowered tone, as if the braves might be able to overhear their conversation across the breaking waves of the wide river.
‘I don’t know,’ Tom croaked.
‘I wish Dan was here,’ Whit said, as he slowly turned over on his side and searched for his gun.
‘So do I.’ Tom kept his back to the river and the band of curious braves. ‘He was a better shot than either of us.’
‘Reckon they are friendly?’ Whit checked his pistol to see if he had remembered to load it. To his surprise, he had. Although he had no memory of when and where he had done so.
Tom Hardy rose to his feet, still clutching on to his blanket as he moved toward their horses. He studied the Indians more closely from the cover of the bushes and tree.
There were only five men, dressed in a combination of styles that ranged from Mexican farmer to native tribesman. Their hats gave their identities away though. Only Apache wore feathers in their ten-gallon hats. Only Apache had long black hair that always seemed to have been sheered in a straight line at shoulder-length. The lances too bore eagle feathers tied with dyed grass from just below the sharpened steel points.
Unlike the tribes to the north, who frequented the vast, endless plains, the Apache never seemed very intimidating by the way they dressed, but these were probably the most dangerous of Indians that any white men could encounter. They were not easily fooled by trinkets, and would fight to the death. These were the men who sat watching the two Hardy brothers from their small ponies.
Tom indicated to his brother to join him behind the cover of the tree, which Whit duly did.
‘I can’t see any rifles,’ Tom said, pointing at the quintet of Apache braves.
‘That don’t mean they ain’t got any’ Whit sniffed as he too watched the silent observers.
Tom raised his eyebrows as he rested his arms on the back of his brother’s horse. His belly was grumbling for breakfast and coffee but this was not the time or place to consider getting domestic.
‘But it might.’ Tom rubbed his rough hairy chin as he tried to get his brain around their problem.
‘Apache without rifles?’ Whit shook his head. ‘I think you’re crazy. Dang crazy.’
‘Start to saddle up,’ Tom said, as he grabbed his younger sibling by the ear. ‘Try not to let them see you doing it.’
‘What you going to do, Tom?’ Whit enquired, as the older man stepped toward the two saddles upon the ground by the bushes.
Tom slid his Winchester out of its sheath and pulled out a box of cartridges from his saddle-bag.
He started forcing the shells into the rifle, cranking its lever with every insertion.
‘I’m going to sit by this tree and give us some cover whilst you get them saddles on to them horses, boy,’ Tom replied. ‘So get them saddles on to them horses fast.’
‘How come you get to cover me and I gotta do all the work?’
‘Maybe because I can shoot straighter than you, Whit.’
‘Only a tad straighter,’ Whit grumbled as he folded the blankets and tossed them over the backs of their horses.
Tom Hardy knelt down by the tree and leaned into its trunk as he held the fully loaded repeating rifle in his sweating hands.
The Apache looked like statues as they sat upon their ponies watching the two men. Only their long black hair moved as the breeze off the fast-flowing river blew it around their shoulders.