Wager dragged a leafy mesquite branch behind us to blind what trail we might leave on the rocky ground as we rode down off the mesa, descending to the valley below. My feet smelled like something a surgeon in the war would of cut off. Long red streaks crept up my ankles, pus leaked from the cuts and if a feather’d lit upon them, I’d of screamed in agony. But I had to ride. Since I’d been the one to see the way of things and talk Wager into deserting, it was my obligation now to save him. That gave me the strength to keep my mind right.
We rode all that night, pushing hard for the border.
When daylight came, I couldn’t stop peering over my shoulder, fearing the sight of a plume of dust on the horizon closing in on us. But there were no signs of life other than the lizards that scurried past, their tails cutting curlicues in the dust, and the vultures that always seemed to be spiraling around overhead, the feathers at the tips of their wings reaching down to us like fingers.
We came down off the high plains into the heavy heat that hung over the lowland. The few breezes we’d caught up on the mesa were gone now, the air turned too thick to breathe. Heat from my ruined feet rushed up through my legs until every bit of me throbbed. Fever sweat poured off me though I’d had but a few swallows to drink. And then, of a sudden, the pain stopped. The sun grew brighter and brighter until the vultures overhead were wisps of pale gray winging through a white sky. The air was light and I breathed easy.
Creatures I’d never before seen on the prairie appeared. A leopard prowled about me on spotted legs that ended in feet made of the skulls of enemies. A pack of hyenas tore apart the bodies of both Mary the whore and the mother who’d pulled the plow. A lion crushed the golden curls of Custer between his bloody teeth. General Sheridan ordered the lion to turn the Boy General loose. An elephant, roaring and snorting, stampeded toward him. Iyaiya chased behind, holding her shield low and her spear high. My grandmother threw her head back and shouted joy to the heavens. I was in the band of warrior girls singing back to her. The elephant wheeled about and charged my grandmother. I lifted my spear to save her then remembered that my feet had been amputated and only the pain was left.
“Cathy, swallow. Come on, darling, take a drink.”
Mama held a cup to my mouth. Iyaiya hovered behind her. Another voice called me. I ignored it and Mama and Iyaiya and I were floating in the cool, green water and nothing hurt anymore. They’d been waiting for me. Helping me all they could. It was time to be with them again.
“Cathy, open your eyes, heartstring. Please. We’re almost there. Don’t leave me now. We’ll rest on the other side. Cathy, don’t die. Please open your eyes.”
Mama and Iyaiya were so close. Just a minute more and we’d be together again. And Lem! And Solomon! I swam toward them, my mother, my grandmother, my baby brothers and sister, all the ones I’d lost. They looked back at me, smiling. Even Solomon and Mama smiled. They held their hands out, urging me to hurry.
“Private! This is a direct order! Open your eyes!”
I snapped my eyes open. They all vanished.
It was too bright to see anything, then a face came into focus.
Wager.
He gathered me into his arms, brought his canteen to my lips, and I took the last swallow.
“See that, Cathy?” He pointed down to the valley, stretching out at the base of the bluff we sat atop. “That low ridge off in the distance that’s turning pink now in the sunset?”
The sun was setting, but through the haze of dust and distance, I saw the pink ridge a few miles away and nodded.
“Cathy, that’s Mexico. See the silver thread running along in front of it?”
I nodded.
“That’s the Rio Grande River. That’s the border. We cross that and we’re safe. Once we’re on the other side, they can’t come after us. The sovereignty of the United States stops there. We’ll be safe. We’re almost there. We’ll rest here a few hours then push on.”
“Why did you stop?” The words felt like razors cutting out of my throat and the world tipped and spun whenever I raised my head.
“You were raving, Cathy. Out of your head. I had to get some water into you or you wouldn’t have made it. You’re still in danger.”
I put my hand on his. He brought it to his ravaged lips, kissed it, and said, “We’ll rest here a bit. As soon as Belle is ready, we have to push on.”
I glanced over and saw Belle slewing her head back and forth as she cropped off wads of grass. My mount was nowhere in sight. “Where’s the brown?”
He shook his head.
“We only have one horse?”
“I’ll walk and you can ride. It’s not that far. Even walking, we’ll be in Mexico before dawn. Will you be ready?”
“I’ll be ready,” I answered. I wanted to say more, but needles of pain were poking me. I struggled to hold my eyes open and my throbbing head upright.
“Don’t leave me now, okay?” Wager said. “I don’t want … I can’t do this without you. We’ll get your feet doctored in Mexico.”
I nodded, wondering idly if they’d have to amputate them. I hoped not, but if it stopped the pain, I’d make that trade.
“Cathy.”
I looked at him. The fever and weakness made the feelings I had for him rise up and pour from my eyes.
For a long time he said nothing, just stared back at me. Finally, he spoke. “You make a hell of a man, woman.”
“Wager,” I said, naming my world.
We embraced, him looking south, off to the country where we’d build new lives together, me staring back behind at the country we were running from. The one that had no place for us. He fortified my spirit by whispering of his plans to find us a plot of land away from anyone and anything where he would build us a house with his own hands from bricks made of adobe. “We can grow a few crops. Raise some chickens?”
“And goats,” I whispered, for those beasts could survive anywhere.
“And children,” he added. “We’ll raise fine children as strong as their mama.”
“And as pretty as their daddy.”
After that, I slumped against his shoulder, too exhausted to speak, to hold my head up. Even taking air in caused my heart to hammer. I was closing my eyes against the needles stabbing them when I noticed, far off behind us, a giant flame rising up, a torch of wildfire, hazy and orange in the distance.
“A brush fire,” I whispered.
Wager looked back over his shoulder, staring to the north, and said, “Goddam them to hell.”
It wasn’t a wildfire. It was the trail of dust, burning orange in the last rays, led by a sniper with a buffalo gun riding hard toward us.
“We’ll ride double on Belle,” he said.
One look at the worn-down beast, though, told me what was there for both of us to see. “She can’t do it, Wager. Maybe with one, but two’ll kill her before we make a hundred yards.”
“I’ll strap you on and I’ll walk.” He bent down to scoop me up. I held him off.
“Too slow. They’ll catch us.”
“Okay, then you take Belle. Ride for the river and I’ll make my way down.”
He meant it. One more second and he’d of ordered me to ride.
“No, Wager. I stay. You go.”
“No—”
Anger gave me the strength to say, “Listen! Instant Drewbott finds out what I am, he’ll send me packing before word gets out he had a female in his command for two years and never knew it. You, Wager, it’s you he’s gunning for. You he got the sniper for.”
The words were costing me. I gathered what little strength I had left so that he’d understand how it had to be. “Wager, here’s what’s gonna happen. You gon take Belle. Get across the border. Get safe. Wait for me. I will come and find you.”
“I can’t, Cathy. I can’t leave you.”
The men were closing in. There was no time for argument. “Wager, you only have one choice to make here now. Ride free and live. Or stay here and draw their fire to both of us. If you leave, if they don’t capture you, that’ll give them one more reason to keep me alive. To make me tell them where you are.” He hesitated and, in a voice that came directly from my grandmother who was a warrior-wife of the Leopard King, I ordered him, “Go. Now.”
Wager Swayne forked his leg over the saddle, reined Belle around, lifted his heels to spur her, then stopped, reached his arms down to me and said, “Cathy, come with me. We can—”
I’ll never know what his next words were to be for I gathered up a handful of gravel and hurled it at Belle’s backside. She reared and took off with enough speed going down the slope that gravel avalanched down the hill. I watched until they rode into the shadows beneath the bluff and were swallowed up.
The thump of the soldiers’ hooves riding hard from the north grew louder. By the time they arrived, Wager’s dust had settled and it was almost too dark to see. Tack creaked. Hooves clattered against rock. The smell of men and horses, leather, boot black, and gun oil engulfed me. Gravel pelted my face as the major in command reined up and bellowed down, “Where is he?”
The sniper, a white sergeant, pulled up beside him. Two more white officers flanked him and ten troopers crowded in behind. John Horse was not with them. I chose to believe that, after leading them to the spring, he refused to help track me and Wager. The officers at the front had the look of Civil War vets who’d made the army a career because they liked a hard life with hard rules. One of the troopers led a horse that carried the familiar form of a corpse rolled in a blanket. Lem. I was relieved. He would be buried properly.
“Where is the traitor?” the major yelled down at me.
Traitor. So that was the story Drewbott had told. Thank the Lord I’d made Wager leave. The major continued screaming, ordering me to tell him what direction Wager was heading in.
My eyes closed of their own accord and the voices drifted farther and farther away until a voice called out, “Major, look at this!”
“What is it, Belton?” the major demanded.
“I got him in the glass, sir! See that streak of light cutting across over there. He’s making for the river, sir!”
My brain, then eyes, snapped into focus.
The major pulled out his own glass and zeroed in on something that made him sit up. “You,” the major shouted at the sniper. “How long to set up your tripod?”
“He’s too far out of range, sir,” the man answered.
“Well, then, saddle up, we’re moving in, I’ve got a bead on the traitor!”
“Belton,” the major ordered the black trooper with the spyglass. “Stay here and guard the prisoner! The rest of you, move out!”
I heard the clop and drag of hooves as horses were wheeled around. Then the snap of quirts being whipped against hide. Again I was pelted with gravel as they rode off. I struggled to sit up. My arms wouldn’t hold me.
“Belton,” I called up to my guard, a slump-shouldered fellow with a bit of a gut who was still mounted. He didn’t hear my feeble whisper as his attention was on his troop mates charging down the hill.
“Belton!” It was agony to raise my voice, but I caught his attention. He glared down. Seeing how close I hovered to death, though, he softened. I beckoned him to come closer, and, after glancing around to make sure that everyone was, indeed, gone, he dismounted, squatted beside me and demanded, “What?”
“Let me look,” I asked.
“I ain’t giving you my glass,” he snarled.
“Please, I want to see. Belton, I’m dying. Please don’t deny a man his dying wish.”
Reluctantly, he handed over the glass and I fit it to my eye in time to see Wager emerge from the shadows. Belle had slowed but she was upright and trotted onto the sandy ribbon of land that ran along the river.
Four hundred yards or less behind him, I spotted the sniper setting up his tripod. A few moments later, the first trooper emerged from the shadows. Wager would be out of range in a few seconds. But if Belle tripped or stumbled or broke stride, or if Wager didn’t make it across the border before the sniper sighted in, they’d have him. The first trooper pulled his carbine from its scabbard, aimed, and shot wild. The report startled Belle and she put on a burst of speed, breaking into a gallop.
The rest of the troopers emerged and swarmed after Wager. I stopped breathing. He was so close. Two other troopers fired. Belle surged forward. Her front hooves hit the water. Carbine fire pocked the river. One shot exploded half a foot behind Wager in a spray so big it had to of come from the Sharps. The sniper had his range. Next one’d get him.
Belle’s back hooves kicked up a rooster tail of drops that fanned out behind, shining in the low evening light like handfuls of gold coins sprayed up by the river. When he was halfway across the broad divide, the major held up his hand and his men reined to a halt.
Wager had crossed the border. He was on the other side, beyond the reach of the United States Army. The shots stopped. He was safe. Wager was safe. I sagged back against the bedroll and darkness took me.