Arizona blue - gunfighter - in - "death along the canyon's rim!" (part two of two: episode: 28) "gu
In the morning, Blue had circled the cabin, noticed it was next to the rim of the Grand Canyon, and that Maggie O'Brian, from Minneapolis, Minnesota, had come down to the Canyon, on kind of an experiment trip (so she had told Blue), her husband was a geologist, a professor, young as he was from the University of Minnesota, and was studying the rocks and formation of the strata within the canyon walls. They had been married just two years, with a new born, but three weeks old.
Maggie watched Blue as he eased cautiously around the cabin, looking for snakes, and perhaps one or two Indians, and /or those cowpokes, that had halfway raped her the night before.
But what he really wondered was, her husband had been gone going on two weeks now—and as he had told Maggie over breakfast, “I hate to say, but most likely your husband is dead, especially if he's always come home within a few days, you can't stay out here all alone,” said Blue.
Now they were standing at the edge of the canyon, both looking down its north rim.
“You were lucky last night,” said Blue, “These men would have taken you along for sport, had I not shown up, and used you until they were tired of you, and left you for the Indians when they had no more use for you.”
With a conflicting impelling voice, Maggie O'Brian conferred, “I'm most grateful for your coming at such a needed moment, but I can't just leave him, and expect he will follow us, he is no tracker, or hunter per se, we've lived here going on six months, and he has done some hunting, but as you can see not much, but I have enough food for a few more weeks, until he comes back, I can't go, no I won't.”
Blue a tinge astonished saw no hope for her, with his left hand, he rested it on her small shoulder, wiped the dust from his forehead with his right, “Ok, Mrs. O'Brian, but I got to go, if I see him along the rim… (he hesitated, then finished by saying) I'll ride that way a few days, as you mentioned, perhaps he is doing some of those experiments, looking for rocks and all, but I may not have the time to get on back here if he is…you know, as I expect he is, dead.”
Wide-eyed she was, almost in wonderment, Blue thought, he was a fighting man—a real, go to hell part of trouble for anybody to handle, and could be brutal, but never with a woman, or weaker individual, he'd just walk away, with his broad-jawed face. But today it was hard to walk away from this pretty little housewife, that wished to stay, happily stay, he knew she was going down, should he leave, that her husband was dead somewhere along the rim.
As he had come, so abruptly he left, the stone faced rider, waved his hand at Maggie, and bellowed, “Take care.” And rode off, spit out some tobacco juice, “let's go Dan…” he commanded and slowly they left, his hands gripped his Winchester.
It was on the second day of riding along the rim, he had noticed scattered items, cloths, etc., here and there, then a body laid in front of him, it was Maggie's husband, it fit his description, he lay along the rim, his head on a rock, and snake bites in and on and all over his body, a nest of rattlers nearby, and his horse, lay several feet away, also dead. He conjured, that the horse must had got bit, threw him, and when he landed perhaps the rock killed him instantly, if not the snakes did the job.
“That's how it happens out here,” he told Dan, and dug a grave right there.
“Come on, come on Dan! We got to get back to the lady before the Indians do, or someone one else.” After that, for a time Blue never said a word to Dan, and his horse knew there was trouble in the air. He rode fast and rigidly braced himself against the saddle, even kicked Dan, which he normally did not do.
He got back in 18-hours, it was briskly hot, he noticed coming in from the side, the kitchen window open, and instinctively he knew something was wrong. There was a discarded rifle in the yard, “We've got to get to her Dan,” Blue said, hoping it was those three men that took her and not a group of Indians.
As he rode further on, he saw ahead of him several Indians, he kept his distance, and he was dizzy from the lack of food, the heat, the long ride, as was Dan, whom was almost ready to drop. Pain–racked his brain when he saw them wrap her up in rope, they had just had there fun with her (what ever fun that was, for they were laughing), her cloths in fragments; now she was thrown over the back of a horse like a sack of potatoes. Twenty of them, she glanced back, the Indians didn't notice Blue they were two busy laughing and drinking and looking at her, he was some three hundred yards behind them by a towering rock, he was but a shadow between the sun and the wind, but she knew who he was, and she new she was doomed, she understood he could not do anything, and perhaps she didn't care, for there was only one shadow she saw, not two, and her baby was dead.
Pain slashed his side, like sharp claws, there was no clarity to his mind, should the Indians see him, neither his horse nor he could out run them, escape, they were awfully tired.
Written 5-9-2007 (11:57 AM)
