CHAPTER 5 - PLAYING WITH KNIVES

There was no more excitement for quite a while. I quickly grew irritable when nothing was going on and we hadn't seen a town for miles and miles. I had lost track of the days, but I guessed we must have been riding for a week or more. It was scorching hot during the day and chilly at night. We had to sleep out in the open, huddled in our bed rolls around a couple of camp fires. I longed for something to drink and a woman, but it looked like it was going to be some time before I got either.

A few days later we found a better place to hole up and let the horses rest for a full day and night. It was just a broken down old fort in the middle of nowhere, but at least there was some shelter. The sun had been blazing down all day for weeks, scorching the patchy grass that grew out of the dust and drying up the creeks. We were lucky to find that there was still an old well nearby and were able to haul up buckets of water for ourselves and the horses.

I took a short nap, but I was never able to sleep much during the day. I wandered about, kicking at the dust, bored. The heat was exhausting. I decided to find some shade and get out of the sun for a while. Maybe I could drift off for another hour if I tried hard enough.

The only area where the broken down walls were high enough to afford sufficient shade from the sun was already occupied by Chavez. It meant if I was going to shelter I would have to at least be within a few feet of him.

Billy and Tom were fooling about near the well and Doc was sleeping somewhere else. I couldn't see Hendry. In the end I threw myself on the ground as far from Chavez as I could get, which wasn't more than about three feet and used my bedroll as a pillow. He opened one eye and watched me warily for a few seconds, then closed it again. I simply lay and stared up at the impossibly bright blue sky, wishing to God we would find a town soon before I went crazy. It was too hot, too dusty and I wanted a woman - or a man - anything to relieve the ache. It must be two weeks now. That was a hell of a long time for me. I wished I could sleep and stop thinking.

Chavez slept. He lay flat on his back, his guns on the ground next to him. I turned my head to the side and watched him sleep, completely oblivious and unarmed. I reached down and pulled my knife out of my boot, studying it, the sun glinting off the blade. I wondered if I cut his throat whether he would open his eyes and see I'd finished him, or simply die without knowing what had happened. Afterwards there would only be two outcomes. Billy and the others would kill me, or I would ride for Old Mexico alone. Neither outcome was satisfactory. I liked being in this gang too much. I guessed I could put up with Chavez a while longer. I stuck the knife back in my boot with a sigh.

Somehow I must have eventually drifted off to sleep. I exploded out of it when a gunshot echoed through the air and a split second afterwards, Chavez woke and sat up with a startled, "Uhhhh!" He snatched up his gunbelt, pulled one of the guns out of it and began to run towards the sound as more gunshots went off. I scrambled to my feet and followed quickly, wondering who was attacking us.

It was Billy shooting a newspaper. Pat Garrett had turned Sheriff and was pictured, the article about him stating he was hunting Billy down. I wasn't surprised. No one could be trusted. Pals, my ass. Billy needed to watch his back. Billy and Hendry were still looking at the paper.

"What about me? What do they say about me?" I demanded, unable to help myself. If I'd got a mention, I didn't want to miss it.

"Nothing, Dave," Billy said sarcastically. Chavez snorted and I scowled at him. I peered closer at the paper anyway, just in case. I wasn't the world's best reader, but if it said "Dave Ruda…" I would see it. It didn't. It only talked about Pat and Billy. Disappointed, I walked away. One day the papers would write about me.

Much to my relief, we were on the trail again soon after, which was better than just waiting around. I hoped we would at least find some form of civilisation later.

It wasn't long before we came upon something, but it wasn't a town - it was a burial ground. Chavez made everyone halt at the perimeter, saying it was an Apache burial ground and that we would go around. I looked at him. I couldn't keep my mouth shut.

"Chavez, why don't you go peck shit with the chickens, huh?" I sneered. "You know what they're paying for Apache bones in Silver City right now? Christ Almighty, they're making ashtrays, they're making combs, they're making knife handles. You can get fifty cents for a good Indian leg bone. It's all out there, so don't you go getting sentimental now, alright?"

Chavez reached out and gripped my arm. "You go in there, smart gringo, and I'll bury you there," he said menacingly. I agreed although I had no intention of backing down at all. Chavez withdrew his hand and turned his horse away.

"Let's go," he said.

Shaking my head, I urged my horse forward. I steered it towards one of the burial mounds, threw myself out of the saddle in excitement and began throwing rocks in every direction.

"Whoooo! Silver City here I come!" I cried. I had just got to the first bone. Then all hell broke loose. Chavez was galloping his horse straight at me.

"Yaahhhhhhhh!" he yelled and I turned on my knees, just in time to see him hurtling at me and launching himself from the horse's saddle. He hit me like a tornado and knocked me flat. We rolled over and I struggled to reach my gun while trying to hold him off with the other arm. A moment later Chavez backed away and stood up and I grabbed the gun out of its holster, just before he launched himself at me again, his hand gripping my wrist, smashing it on the ground to make me release the weapon. I gripped it tighter and tried to push him away. He was kneeling over me, hair trailing over my face and almost blinding me. I jerked upwards, smashing my forehead into his face and he hardly seemed to react to it. He forced my hand down against a rocky patch of ground and I let go of the gun despite my determination not to. Chavez backed off, got to his feet and whipped out the double-bladed knife.

I sprang to my feet, grinning all over my face. I loved a good fight. I would probably be repeating that on my death bed and it didn't occur to me at that moment that I didn't exactly have the upper hand. I was winded and my right wrist throbbed. I grabbed for my gun holster and found it empty. Damn, stupid mistake. I stooped and snatched the knife from my boot.

Chavez was doing that damn twirling thing with the knife and I couldn't keep my eyes off it. He must have been doing it on purpose. Everyone knows that in a fight, you hold the eyes of your opponent, but I couldn't look at his face; I kept looking at the damn knife, twirling and glinting in the sun. And he had a feather tied in his hair. Jesus, I was going to get myself killed if I kept looking at stupid things like that. I slashed out at him wildly and missed. He danced around me and I tried again. This time he retaliated and the very tip of his knife cut through my sleeve and nicked my arm. It was a tiny scratch, but he'd drawn the first blood and I stopped grinning and ground my teeth. Now I was livid. No greaser was going to get the better of me in a fight. I dropped to one knee, pretending to clutch my arm, scooped up a handful of dirt and threw it up into Chavez's face. It blinded him and he immediately covered his eyes with both hands and stumbled backwards a step.

Right beside me was an Indian leg bone that I'd dug up and I now grabbed this and lashed out with it, hitting Chavez in the mouth. I hadn't realised what a good weapon a bone would make on its own. Chavez crashed to the ground, shaking his head, his mouth bleeding and now I had the advantage, I stepped closer. He raised himself up a little bit and I drove the knife down hard. I was aiming at his chest, but he threw up his left arm at the last second to protect himself and the blade went clean through. He clenched his teeth, but never made a sound. I was stunned. He was tough. I tried to pull the knife out, but it seemed stuck.

"Shit," I muttered. Then I watched as Chavez brought his other hand up with his knife in it as if in slow motion and swiped at me. It cut me across the belly and I let go of my own knife handle and fell backwards. It hurt like hell. The area around the cut felt like it was on fire.

"Shit!" I gasped again. "Son of a bitch!" I pulled my torn shirt away from the wound and grimaced. I clenched my teeth and looked for another weapon. My gun was inches away and I grabbed it up and pulled the hammer back.

Chavez looked back at me, still apparently unfazed, my knife blade sticking through his left arm and his own knife, dripping with my blood, in his right hand. I hesitated and turned around when I heard a number of guns being cocked. What now? I looked over my shoulder.

"I don't think so, Dave," said Billy. He, Doc, Hendry and Tom were all sitting on their horses with their guns aimed at me. I turned back towards Chavez who was rising slowly to his feet. He put his own knife away and nodded almost imperceptively at the others. Then he lowered his eyes to where I was still sitting on the ground with my gun pointing at him.

"You want your knife back?" he said calmly.

"Shit," I said for the third time. Once again I was the godamned fool in the gang. I got to my feet and put my gun away. Chavez was holding his arm out with the knife handle sticking upwards, gripping his elbow with the other hand. He stared at me as I approached. I felt like something that had crawled out from under a rock and I avoided his eyes. I gripped his wrist with my right hand, grasped the knife handle and then glanced over my shoulder again at the others. They all still had their guns aimed at me. I turned back towards Chavez, tightened my hand around the knife and yanked it upwards. The only reaction from Chavez was that his face stiffened and his eyes flickered. He didn't make a sound.

"Thank you," I said reluctantly and walked off as quickly as I could without looking like I was trying to run away.