With Blood in Their Eyes

Chapter Nineteen: 1918

Chapter Nineteen 1918 Through the night, the cold came in waves. When Tom thought he couldn’t bear tobeanycolder,hisbodywouldadjust,andhewouldfallasleepforashortwhile. Then another wave of cold rolled in, dropping the temperature even farther. He was happy to get up and take his watch and let Sisson try to deal with the cold while he huddled in his blanket next to the fire. He woke as the sun came up, still sitting by the dying fire, which he was supposed to be tending. He looked around at Sisson, who was still wrapped in his blanket, though moving, and at John, who was staring at him. “Good morning, brother,” John said, as he had said every morning of their lives. They sat at the rebuilt fire, melting snow in their tin cups, waiting until the water began to steam before they drank it. John walked the rest of that day, not seeming any worse for the spell of fever and delusion he had gone through. The snow had picked up, and above the tree line, the rock got more and more treacherous. Both Tom and John had worn holes in their shoes—boots, in John’s case—and Sisson had lost the heel of one of his shoes. He had tried to nail it back on with a farrier’s nail, only to have it stick into the bottom of the shoe. He pried the heel off, threw it away, and walked the rest of the way limping heavily on his right side. The pieces of canvas they had tied on were already shredded and tattered. By late morning Sisson’s knee and hip were stiff and painful from the odd gait. But they kept walking, moving nearly due east, and, as they neared the end of the Chiricahuas, the danger grew again. As unlikely as it was that any of the posses would pursue them through the winter mountains, it was just as likely that they would be camped and waiting for them at the eastern side of the Chiricahuas. It was nearing dark of the fifth day in the mountains when Sisson stopped suddenly, holding his hand up as a signal for them to stop, too. He put his hand flat to his mouth, pointed into the canyon below, and then pointed to his ear. They stopped breathing then, listening hard to the silence. And it was only silence until the wind shifted a little and they heard a man’s disembodied voice. “Fourteen mile, maybe more.” 204 With Blood in Their Eyes Tom was wide-eyed with the desire to run, but he held his ground. Sisson listened, trying to pinpoint the location. John stared ahead, impassive. Sisson held up two fingers, waited, then held up three. After a few minutes, four. They waited. Sisson nodded and put up four fingers again. Four of them. If it came to a fight, they could probably take the four simply by surprise. But there was no good reason for a fight. They had water, and they could wait out the four below. They crouched, waiting, not moving or talking. Within the hour, they heard what they had not wanted to hear—the clanking of tin. The ones below were getting ready to cook. They were staying for the night. Soon the smell of smoke drifted up to where they were. They would have no fire tonight, nor would they be able to build any substantial shelter. They would sleep where they were, by turns, waking the snorers who might signal their presence. None of that needed saying. Slowly, quietly, they dropped their packs, unlashed their blankets, wrapped themselves, and went to ground. With hand signals, they set the watch—Tom first, then Sisson, then Tom again. John shook his head vigorously. He would take third watch. Tom shook his head “no.” They could not risk John falling asleep if the fever spiked again. The smoke from the fire below picked up again before the sun was up. Those below were going to make an early start, get a jump on the brothers before sunrise. Tom woke Sisson, who rolled over and immediately understood the situation. John was still asleep, not moaning in his sleep anymore but breathing with an odd, pulsing rhythm as if he were trying to sing in his sleep. Tom and Sisson listened to the sounds from below, the voices still sporadic, carried on shifting winds that rose up from the canyon floor—“east,” “noon,” “newspaper.” And later...