Chapter Six.

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Michael Stevens plodded north, a bright blue New Mexico sky above him, the Rio Grande a half mile to his right. His recent past was a nightmare of pain, longing, and desperation. Ever since those men had attacked him and his sister, he had been frantically trying to find her. His life came as flashes of memory from before the time they beat him down, kicked him in the head and left him for dead. He remembered crawling after the large group of men who had looted and destroyed their farmstead, stolen all their food and their horses.

He remembered thirst and weariness, wanting to sleep but terrified he would never wake up again. Suddenly it was night, and he heard the sounds of a large animal moving close by. Gut wrenching fear. He recalled smelling horse shit and sweaty horse, and immediately he was sure he would not die. Someone was close, surely someone would assist him.

A horse was nuzzling him awake, and it was early morning somehow. So cold. The big wet and sloppy kisses he was getting were obviously from someone he knew. No one kissed a stranger with that much familiarity.

Kathleen? No, as desirable as that would have been, it was not his Fiancé--it was his horse Bellé. Looking around, he saw a man dressed in Grey and green lying on the ground, his head cocked at an angle that did not look very healthy. The man appeared to be looking at his own arse, sideways and anti-clockwise.

Lovely Bellé. She was such a smart girl, but the only person she would allow to ride her was Michael. The deceitful creature tested a rider's skill before throwing them off. Evil, conniving little wench that she was.

He was in the saddle, following the unmistakable trail left by wagons and many men on horseback. Being unsure what he could do when he found them, but unable and unwilling to quit as long as they had his little sister. He didn’t remember puking but the smell and taste were unmistakable. Time passed in a haze.

***

Michael woke suddenly. He was bound to a tree, and a man was gently slapping his face. Bellé, the ungrateful wench, loomed close to another horse with a feedbag on her nose, showing no concern for his current situation. Try and focus.

The man spoke, “Hey, look at me,” followed by a slap in the face, “Come on. Here, have some water.” The water hit his tongue, and it was the sweetest thing he had ever tasted. He choked a little, and the water stopped.

“Don’t waste it or you won’t get anymore, do you understand?” Another slap made his head ring. “Do you understand me?”

After choking out a reply, the man gave him more water as a reward. Then blackness overcame him.

Pain. Someone shook him roughly, saying, "Wake up, soldier. Who are you? Name and rank?”

This time, the slap was lighter. “How far ahead are the rest of your troop?”

Confusion and pain. Mike croaked, “I’m Michael Stevens. Where am I? What did you do with my sister?”

He tried to move, then froze when he noticed the barrel of an enormous gun pointed at his face. He looked around, trying to focus on anything other than the pain in his eyes. His hands were bound behind his back. A rope around his chest kept him upright against a dead tree trunk, with his legs stretched out in front of him.

Behind the man there was a small fire and two unsaddled horses were standing close together, looking on curiously. The gun barrel tapped him twice on the head. Not very hard, but enough to cause his head to throb with pain. He looked back at the man and saw the gun pointed away from him; the man squatting before him.

“Okay Mike, tell me what you are doing out here all by yourself and why did you fall behind the troop? Are you rear security? How did you get separated from your troop? I can tell you’re hurt. What happened to you?”

Mike groaned, shook his head, and winced, his eyes watering from the pain. “What do you mean? Where am I and who are you?” His head throbbed. The gun barrel tapped him on the head again, harder this time. More pain.

“Answer me, godsdamn you. Why did you kill that man on the trail behind us?” The man glared at him. “How many men are in the troop? Is it a full troop? What is the name of your commander? What is your unit designation? Look at me, soldier.”

The slap made his head ring. Pain almost blinded him. The man’s voice lowered. It rumbled in his chest. “I am about to get really fucking unpleasant. And it’s going to cause you a lot of pain if you don’t start answering my questions.”

The gun was now pointed directly at his face. The hole in the end of the barrel was huge. “If you don’t start talking to me, I am going to shoot bits of your body off. You’ll live… well, you might live, but you won’t have any usable hands or feet. I’m going to start with your feet. Your knees are going to be ugly and cause you lots of pain for the rest of your life. For however long that may be.”

The man reached down and forced Mike’s legs apart. This allowed the stranger to move closer. Intimately close. Intimidatingly close.

The man knelt between Michael’s spread legs. He tipped his hat back, and he leaned in. Forehead and noses almost touching, two pairs of brown eyes gazed at each other.

He whispered. “If we get that far, I imagine getting your cock shot off won’t hurt as bad as getting kneecapped.” The man leaned back and produced some odd-looking ropes with loops on the ends.

“These things are called tourniquets, and I am going to tie them around your upper arms and legs. We use them for controlling bleeding. These things mean you won’t bleed to death before I get my answers.”

He threaded them underneath his armpits. The man grabbed him by the throat with a vice like grip and pulled his face in so they were looking eye to eye again, the gun barrel jammed into his left cheek.

The man hissed, “And I will do my best to make sure you live. I have bandages and medicine. I will keep you alive, and my men will find you and the note I leave that will order them to keep you alive at all costs.” His grip tightened. “The rest of your miserable fucking life is going to be unpleasant and painful.” The man holstered the pistol.

Using his left hand the man threaded the tourniquets around Mike's upper thighs, pulled them tight and secured them somehow. The man released his throat.

“That is assuming you don’t get eaten by coyotes because I left you tied to this pretty tree.”

The man had inserted a small tree branch in to the loops of the ropes around his arm. He twisted. “It’s a beautiful tree.” He twisted again until the thing was tight, but not uncomfortable.

“It really is pretty. There are streaks of purple twisted into the grain of the wood. It’s fascinating.” The other rope tightened on his right arm.

The incredible menace in the man’s voice was terrifying. Once Mike finally grasped the meaning of the words, he was horrified by the incredible menace in the man's voice.

His heart raced and his mouth went dry again as he tried to talk to the monster in front of him. He croaked, “I’m Michael Stevens! I live northeast of Los Gatos city across the river to the Maclusky ranch! Those men…those men, they killed my friends and burned our house and took my sister! I’m trying to…”

His eyes watered, his stomach turned and his words sputtered to a stop as he started gagging in fear. The man grabbed him by the throat again and stared into his eyes for what seemed like an eternity. The gun was once again pointed at his face.

“Look at me Mike. Tell me why you are wearing the ‘Green and Grey’ jacket of a Brotherhood cavalry trooper, with a trooper’s hat and rifle on the saddle of that mare over there?”

Mike looked over toward Bellé in confusion and saw what the man was talking about. His saddle was on the ground. The rifle and hat that had belonged to the man with the broken neck were next to the saddle. His head was pounding in time with his heart, almost the cadence of a galloping horse.

He cleared his throat, and on the second try croaked, “The man, he took my horse! She’s a bitch! Anyone but me she will throw them after about an hour or two, when you relax. I woke up after they left. I don’t know why they didn’t kill me, but I’ve been following them for the past couple of days. I think…I don’t know, my head hurts.”

His voice rose. “I found the man with the broken neck. I took his coat and his hat and his pistol and fell asleep.” His voice rose higher.” When I woke up, Bellé was trying to find the carrots I usually have with me!”

He coughed,“I am not a soldier! I need to find my sister!” He started weeping, his head pounding he turned to the side, fell over against the rope holding him to the tree and threw up, choking on bile. The man looked at him for a moment, then helped him upright and offered him the canteen.

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“Take a sip, rinse your mouth, and then spit it out.” Still weeping, Mike complied. The man looked at him again, then held up a shiny metal square. “Look at this,” he said as he reflected sunlight into his eyes, then held up a finger and told him to follow it with his eyes. The man went back to his knees and then gently grabbed Mike’s head in his hands. When he got to the large lumps on the back of his head, he stopped.

“Well, shit.” He sat back on his heels and looked at Mike carefully and said, “Tell me everything you remember.”

***

Mike was drained after the man's long questioning. Circling around some of his answers like a wolf after a wounded steer. After the sun had moved a fair distance through the sky, the man untied and then moved him away from the tree. He then reached behind Mike’s back and manipulated the shackles that had been holding his wrists. There was a clicking and rattling noise and suddenly his hands were free. The straps around his arms and legs came off next.

“Can you stand up?”

Mike nodded and said, “I think so.”

The man helped him to his feet and said, “Let’s go big guy, over there by the fire. Unless you want to stay here. Smells like puke, if you ask me.”

Mike snorted and shook his head no. The pain flared. They shuffled to the fire, with Mike leaning heavily on the stranger. The smell of something cooking made his stomach growl. Before he could sit down, Bellé whickered at him, shook her head and stomped her hoof on the ground.

He took four shuddering steps and managed to grab her around the neck before he almost collapsed, then stood there hugging her for a few minutes. Keeping his back to the man, he shook as he cried silently into her neck. It seemed important for the man not to see his tears.

With a loud sniff, he turned around and wiped his eyes. He saw the man leaning over the pot on the fire, his back to him. Before he could move, the man said, “Don’t even think it, Son. Come on over here and have some food.”

Head pounding, unsure of what the man meant, he stumbled over and plopped onto a blanket where the man pointed. The man handed him a large, flattened, thin metal bowl with warm soapy water and a small cloth and told him to wash up while he finished cooking the meal. He complied. The man looked at him and refilled the bowl with warm water and told him to remove his clothing and clean himself up.

“I need to make sure that knot on your skull isn’t your only injury. Infection can kill you just as dead as a concussion.”

Mike was too numb to care. He removed his clothes and washed with the warm soapy water and then let the man examine him.

He stood uncomfortably while the man put a stinging greenish blue fluid on the cuts and scrapes on his body. The man swathed them with clean white bandages.

The stranger shook his head. “I can’t do anything about all that bruising, I’m sorry.”

He obeyed the curt order to put his clothes back on. The stranger looked at him. “Sit”, he commanded, handing him a small bowl with a metal spoon, then a metal cup with a handle.

Mike finished the food without identifying it. He was so hungry. He asked for more but was told to wait for a while and then he could have more. The man handed him two small blue and white capsules and told to swallow them with water. When he asked why, the man responded by just pointing at them and miming the act of putting them in his mouth. Mike reasoned that the man probably wouldn’t poison him after feeding him and swallowed.

He inspected the man. He observed that the man's clothing was well made and well-fitted, but dirty. The stranger’s clothing screamed wealth. The cloth being woven so tight it looked almost as if it was made of featureless slate.

Slate Grey trousers tucked into well-made, knee-high black leather riding boots. A deep dark-blue long-sleeved shirt with a high collar. A charcoal Grey vest with a black cloth jacket with a high collar and a hem that fell below his waist. An overcoat, dark brown, almost black. It had a short rain cape covering the shoulders. The coat was so long that it would end at his knees when he stood up. It had brass buttons and buckles. A very dark brown leather hat with a wide brim and a braided hat band with silver wire incorporated into it shielded his face. Black gun belt with a long dagger on the side opposite his holster. Lines etched his face. Some were from smiling a lot, some lines from scowling. He looked distinguished, a man in his early, maybe mid 40s. A long, faint scar started above his left eye and moved back into his hairline, stopping above his ear.

His eyes were dark brown, with crow’s feet at the corners. The hair at his temple was going grey. The tipped hat revealed the hair on his head was black, shot through with tiny streaks of grey. It was short. His face only had a small bit of hair on his chin, otherwise he was clean shaven. His eyes promised murder. He was thin, but well built. Not very tall, but not very short. His hands looked soft compared to Mike’s own work-hardened and calloused hands.

“What were those things?” Mike mumbled, with his head down.

The man looked at him for a moment, then answered with “Medicine for the pain in your head.”

Mike lifted his head, then asked, “Who are you?” The man held his hand out, pointing at the bowl. Mike passed the bowl over quietly.

“People call me lots of things. Many of them are impolite. Some are vulgar. You can call me Allen.”

“Sí señor.”

The man chuckled, “Or that.”

Mike finished the second bowl of spicy soup, roasted prickly pear leaves and some hard bread. After another cup of water, he asked Allen, “Why are those men murdering, stealing and kidnapping? You said they are soldiers. Whose soldiers? And why are you chasing them?”

The man…no, Allen looked at him and shook his head. He answered, “The same reason you are Son, they took someone from me and I am going to get them back.”

Allen had broken camp and was packing his strange looking triple saddle bags when Mike asked, “So can I come with you?”

Allen said “Nope. And before you ask why, it’s because you’re injured. Your injury is serious. Your brain has been badly hurt. It’s called a concussion."

“I can’t believe you came this far without killing yourself, but if you come with me, I have to trust you. Trust that you will do what I tell you to do, how I tell you to do it, and WHEN I tell you to do it.”

Allen looked him in the eye. “With your injury, I can’t trust you to do that. It’s not your fault. How much of the past few days do you remember? Not a lot, I bet. And don’t try to fool me Son, I have had a couple of concussions. I know exactly what you are going through right now.”

He gathered up the cleaned dish and mug. “Fuck me, you can barely stand and I don’t even want to think of what will happen if you try to ride that horse at anything more than a walk.”

“If we have to hurry, you will fall off of that horse, and getting another concussion this soon will kill you just as dead as a broken neck. ‘Cept it won’t be as painless.” Mike started to protest and Allen held out his hand, palm toward him, and said, “Stop.”

“Even if you were healthy, I would hesitate to take you along. I don’t know or trust you. If I told you to kill a man, a man guarding a camp in the middle of the night, could you do it? Quietly?”

Alan shook his head. “Have you ever killed a man? It’s hard, it’s very hard. Look at you. You got seven kinds of shit kicked out of you by a group of soldiers. I have been following them for a while and I’m guessing that burnt farm three days back was yours. Well, there were plenty of burnt homesteads and walled compounds before that, but you are the only survivor I’ve met.”

“It’s hard in another way too, in a more important way Michael Stevens’son. Most people can’t really do it without training. You have to train them in specific ways, under circumstances that are likely to happen, so a soldier can do it blindly. It becomes a reflex, and it has to be a reflex, Mike, because most normal men and women don’t want to kill people. It’s really hard to do, Michael.”

“People do it out of self-defense. Or rage. Or desperation. Sometimes they do it accidentally. People will kill to protect their loved ones from violence. And all of those things are hard to deal with. People wake up years later from nightmares. Screaming and crying out in fear and anger. Now imagine doing it in cold blood simply because I told you to do it.”

Alan shook his head. “The Brotherhood will conscript boys as young as 15 into their army. You won’t find a cavalry trooper that young, but they have horse handlers and cooks that young. Look at me Mike. Do you think you could stick a knife in the neck of a 15-year-old boy?”

Allen cocked up his left eyebrow. “For no other reason than I told you to do it? Would you murder a child because I told you to?”

Mike stared at him silently for a moment, then nodded his head. He winced in pain.

Alan closed his eyes and bowed his head. “Not good enough son, that reaction should have been an instantaneous ‘SÍ señor!’ If I were to order you to kill a sentry and you failed to do it, you would put my life in danger. And that might stop me from completing my mission. That is something I cannot risk.”

Alan finished packing the saddlebags and then started lashing them to the saddle of his mount. “And like I said, you’ll only slow me down.”

Mike sputtered in outrage, “I can help! Even if you don’t think I could kill someone, I could be a distraction or something.”

“Mike, listen to me Son, you are about to fall over this very second.”

Mike spat, “I’m not your son. Don’t you ever call me that again.”

Alan shook his head. “Okay, fair enough. If you want to help, stay here and give a message to the men that come looking for me. That’s the best thing you can do.”

Mike shook his head no. He winced again. He had to stop doing that. “You can’t stop me from following them, not unless you kill me. Do what you will.”

Mike leaned over and tried to pick up Belle’s saddle, overbalanced, and went face first into the ground.

“Good luck to you, young man. I hope things work out for you.” And with that, Allen walked away. He then fell into a trot alongside his horse. As they moved out of view around a small group of trees, Mike heard a voice come floating on the breeze.

“If I was you, I would get rid of that jacket and hat.”

Mike spat at the ground in disgust. Tears of anger and helplessness rolled down his cheeks. He wasn’t sure how long it took to get his horse saddled, but the sun had moved much closer to the horizon. He was exhausted, shaking, and hungry. Sitting with his back to a warm rock, he took inventory of what sort of equipment and tools he had lying about, as well as what was in his saddlebags. In the saddlebags he found his hat, which was in terrible shape. Smashed flat.

Contemplating his poor hat, he realized that wearing the hat and coat of the group that was marauding up the river might be a bad idea. Which was a shame because the jacket was pretty warm. There were two water skins and a mess kit. A blanket. A leather pouch full of bullets, a hatchet and…his knife! Rooting around in the enormous bags he found some edible travel rations that were hard as a rock but smelled good.

He put further exploration on hold to eat them.

Rifle and scabbard tied to the saddle, he mounted and headed for the top of a low hill and looked around. Nothing but sagebrush and stunted cedar trees. Clumps of prairie grass. No sign of Allen. Off to the north, it looked like a change in the trees. That must be a bend of the Rio Grande. Way off to the northwest, close to the low mountains on the horizon, was a smudge of smoke. The setting sun turned the western sky into a beautiful smear of orange, purple, and blue. Toward the northeast, the sky was already a visual cacophony, with smears of blue and green light across the sky. The Sky Fire, the Aurora Borealis, was looking to be very strong tonight. That was bad.

The Night Walkers were more active on bright nights. All things considered, he might not survive the night. Shivering, he remembered the night’s chill. He fingered the jackets’ lapel, checked the pockets, and then took it off and dropped it on the ground next to the hat. He might get killed, but at least it wouldn’t be by accident. The pain behind his eyes was making itself known again. Not bad, not yet, but it was a promise of things to come. He turned north.