Riding to Beat the Pain – Vin Tanner

More out of curiosity than anything else Vin Tanner squinted through his Army issue brass spyglass at the small Indian encampment below, his gaze landing on first one wickiup then another. Sweat rolled down his face as the hot noonday sun beat down on him and he carefully wiped his face on his sleeve keeping the reflection off the polished brass to a minimum. What was spread out before him was more than likely a faction of the larger raiding party he had spotted a few days earlier poised to cross into Mexico for the express purpose of stealing cattle as well as kidnapping any folks unlucky enough to get caught up in their sweep.

The Apache below him were, for the most part, at rest. The tribe members quiet and immobile in the fierce heat. That is all except for one stern looking warrior who stood expectantly, arms crossed over his massive chest, waiting. A lone figure, small and thin and most likely a female, stumbled ungracefully into the small clearing, dried branches stacked high in trembling arms.

The warrior's hand snaked out with lightning speed and struck viciously at the stunned worker, her face hidden behind a curtain of ebony hair and, as the wood fell in a jumble on the ground in front of them, she hung her head and waited for the next blows. They came swiftly; one, two, three in rapid succession but the female kept her feet and balance in defiance of gravity and most likely the brave. Dissatisfied with the punishment meted out so far the warrior then grabbed one of the fallen branches and beat the woman until she did fall to the ground and tucked herself into a ball.

Having lived with two different tribes, Vin knew the lot of a squaw was hard but that of an Indian slave was harsher and more brutal and that nothing he could do, short of putting a bullet in her head and ending her life of misery, would change that fact. He then watched in disgust as the warrior kicked the curled woman for good measure and thought that maybe a well-aimed shot at the Indian's feet on his way out of the arroyo would cause the son of a bitch to think twice before abusing the captive further.

Vin took one last look as the brave moved out of his line of sight then, as if instinctively knowing she was being watched, the slave woman rose into a sitting position and stared directly at the tracker. He lowered the spyglass and swiped a hand over his strained eyes then took it up again to see if what he had just seen was right. The sun and the heat had ways of playing tricks on a person.

The slave's tangled dark hair was dull and matted and her face and arms were smeared with some sort of filthy grease, most likely pilfered axel or rendered bear fat, which she had slathered on as protection from the blistering sun. Nothing unusual there. What had caught his eye only moments before were her eyes and when he looked again they were still as blue as his and, at that moment, just as tortured. Lowering the spyglass Vin sat back on his haunches to wait.

On the high desert nights were cool and desert predators left the relative safety of crevices and overhangs in search of food while birds of prey whooshed overhead cutting short, often times with high pitched shrieks, the lives of various other desert dwellers. As darkness grew Vin Tanner continued to watch the Indian encampment from atop the small outcropping taking care not to loosen the brittle red rocks and send down a shower below alerting the small band to his presence. As it was the horses had caught wind of him and nickered softly shifting from unshod hoof to unshod hoof while Peso waited patiently on the far side of the rocks out of earshot of the other equines.

Vin watched until the fading light made it impossible to see anything outside of the ring of the main cook fire where the slave woman dipped her fingers into the near empty pot and scraped the remains of the prairie dog stew off the sides and ate hungrily. She then walked slowly to the edge of the creek to wash up while the others drifted inside various shelters to sleep.

Squatting by the water's edge the woman rinsed her calloused hands, sluiced water over her face and smoothed down her matted hair as best she could. A wave of dizziness overcame her and she rocked back on her heels and toppled over in the dirt where she lay until her head cleared. Stiff and battered muscles, along with branch whipped skin, made it especially painful as she rose and made her way back to the fire's edge where she tossed aside a few stones before laying down on the cold, hard packed earth.

Unfettered as she was, Vin wondered momentarily why she didn't just walk away but he knew that by walking into the desert at night she would more than likely freeze to death. He also knew a runaway slave, when caught, was severely punished and though her present lot was hard she was still alive, her nose uncut.

The leader of the small band walked silently to where the woman lay still as death, feigning sleep. He toed her painfully in the back and receiving no response he simply fell upon her, roughly rolling her onto her back. Lifting her deerskin covering he entered her quickly, brutally; a cowardly act for a warrior but his right as the obvious owner of the slave. The woman never uttered a sound and when the Indian was finished with her she curled into a ball, silent sobs shaking her body. Vin lowered the spyglass.

Sitting quietly as the sliver of moon began to wane and the cooking fire in the draw was reduced to a glowing pile of embers Vin planned his escape route out in his mind, the quickest way out of the area, the quickest way back to Four Corners. A lone coyote cried in the distance and young pups answered in immature barks and yips. The night was noisy and the dogs of darkness bespoke their joy at simply being alive and covered the sound of his footfall and the sudden intake of her breath as he squatted and closed his hand over the sleeping woman's mouth.

Vin held fast as she bit his hand and tried to scrabble away. He grabbed her roughly by the hair to stop her backward motion and whispered harshly, "Stop! Don't fight me. I've come to help you." He saw the whites of her terrified eyes and, tightening his hand over her mouth, he pinned her torso to the ground with his knees and tried desperately to stop her from making any more noise.

She was strong and continued to fight him, his words failing to have any effect on her. "Be still! I've come to take you back with me," he then translated into his rudimentary Apache. All movement from her ceased and they sat like two statues watching the entrance of the nearest structure, the woman breathing heavily through her noise, his one hand still covering her mouth, the other fisted painfully in her mass of raven hair.

The camp remained silent and still and Vin was thankful that hunger had most likely forced this small band to eat any camp dogs they may have had. He removed his hand from the woman's mouth and gently let loose of her hair and falling into a primitive sign language he urged her to get up and go with him. Nodding, she rose to her feet and walked quickly away from the camp in the direction he indicated and soon they were both mounted on Peso's broad back.

Vin walked the horse slowly and quietly as he picked his way through the darkness until the sun began to break the horizon. He then urged the horse to pick up the pace and they fled to the north toward civilization. The exhausted woman sat astride in front of him and fought to stay awake, her emaciated body jerking every time she began to doze off. Ignoring the smell of her, one that he'd come to tolerate fairly well during his times with "his tribes", Vin pulled her in close to his body and, with one arm wrapped tightly around her waist, she leaned into him and slept.

They ate up the miles relentlessly until the sun became too hot and, rather than run the horse in the baking noonday heat, Vin stopped their hurried flight near a large outcropping of rocks through which a medium sized stream ran. He dismounted and pulled the woman down to stand beside him.

He could now see her well in the daylight and though her hair was long and black as coal like the People's it was soft and fine as were her features. Dark lashes fringed the bluest eyes he'd ever seen and, as he unsaddled Peso and dropped his saddlebags into the dust, they stared at him fearfully. The horse had wandered away to drink from the stream and Vin made no threatening moves toward her; just saw to the comfort of his horse then squatted next to the stream to fill a canteen.

Cupping his hands, the tracker lifted water to his parched lips while the woman watched out of the corner of her eye. If he meant to harm her there were plenty of rocks scattered in the streambed with which to bash in his head she figured and moved to the stream a few feet down from him to drink her fill.

Vin hooked the canteen over his saddle horn, pulled the spyglass from one saddlebag and, climbing a few feet up the outcropping, he searched the horizon through the lens and saw only the shimmering waves of heat radiating off the desert. Snapping it shut the device slipped from his hand and rolled beneath a ledge. He reaching under the rock to retrieve it and felt a white-hot pain lance through his entire hand and, when he pulled it from the shadows, a gila monster hung on for dear life. "God Damn!" he cursed and clumsily scrambling down from the rocks, the spyglass all but forgotten.

Taking in a deep cleansing breath he walked slowly but purposefully to his saddlebags, the reptile swaying gently as he walked, and pulled out his spare shirt. With his good hand and his teeth he quickly tore a strip off the tail and clumsily tried to wrap it around his wrist to fashion a crude tourniquet. Beneath the clamped jaws and wriggling teeth his hand throbbed, the pain radiating out to his fingertips and up to his wrist and he laughed at his clumsiness and his misfortune. He'd come close to it many times, had even had a horse snake bit out from under him, but now it seemed his luck had finally run out.

As he tried to draw the scrap of cloth tighter, nimble hands took the ends and the woman tied it as tightly as she could. She then placed her fingers on his chin and raised his gaze from his hand to her face and waited expectantly. "Knife," he said to her in Apache and pointed to the saddlebags as sweat broke out on his brow.

Rummaging through the leather pouches the woman produced a large Bowie knife with Souix markings on the bone handle. She returned to the tracker and tried to hand it to him.

"No, I need your help," he said in English then placed the blade on his wrist. He made cutting motions and the woman shook her head vehemently. Vin couldn't really blame her and laid his hand out flat on a rock. He would do it himself and hoped that she at least had the guts to cauterize his stump before he bled to death. The razor sharp blade started to slice into his skin painfully but before he could finish the job the woman wrenched it from his grip and threw it to the ground.

"Stupido!" she spat out and shoved him forcefully into the creek. She followed him in and, when he tried to get to his feet, she pushed him back down and held his hand, along with the entire gila monster, under the chilly waters. Within a few minutes the reptile slowly loosened its grip, let loose and started to swim downstream.

The woman then helped him up and onto the stream bank where she removed his sopping wet gun and gun belt and the tourniquet. She wrapped the blue material around his hand, motioned for him to hold it above his heart, stuck the knife in her legging, picked up the firearm and went to where his saddle lay. She dragged it into a patch of shade and pointed to it.

Vin didn't think he'd be able to make it over to her let alone re-saddle Peso as his legs grew heavy and unwieldy. She walked back to where he stood unsteadily, grabbed his arm and fairly dragged him into the shade and helped him to lie back against the saddle. She pulled a tattered blanket from the bedroll tied behind the cantle and laid it next to him.

"A blanket? In this heat?" he signed feebly, "You gotta be crazy."

"Like a fox," she signed back to him. The poison lulled him into the beginnings of a stupor and, instead of keeping a wary eye on her, he just closed his and thought that, if they were to make it back to Four Corners alive, they should be on their way just as soon as the sun dropped low enough in the sky. Once closed, his eyes refused to open again and his limbs declined to obey any commands as a chill ran the length of his body and he thought, "This ain't good. This ain't good at all."