Leaving the Galiuros, 1918: From With Blood in Their Eyes

Tom Power had glass splinters in his eye. His brother, John, had a large wood splinter in his eye, and a piece of his nose had been blown off. Both were blind on the left side. The wounds were open, bleeding, and their blood mixed on their clothing with the blood of the dead and dying they had left behind.

They kept riding, moving forward. Tom Sisson, the hired man, followed them at a distance, as they descended the Galiuro Mountains of southern Arizona, heading toward Redington and the northwest base of the mountains. It was Sunday, late morning. They were the only ones left alive.

"I think we ought to get rid of Sisson," Tom said. John said nothing. "I'd leave him, except he's the only one who can see worth a damn." John plodded forward in silence. "He didn't do us no good back at camp, and I doubt he will do us any good today," Tom added.

"He did his part," John said.

"He's no man in a fight."

"He held his own. He can see. We can't."

"And that's the only reason I'm keeping him on. He can see." Tom let his horse pick its way through the rock and scree of the draw they were descending. "I think he had something to do with Ola."

"Do what with Ola?"

"Whatever he done," Tom said. "Whatever. Somebody did something to her, and I think it was him."

"I don't think he done nothing," John said.

"Well, you wouldn't. Thinking ain't what you're good at. And somebody did something to that girl. I think he fucked her and killed her."

"He didn't do neither. And he can see. We need him."

"Then why ain't he out in front then?" Tom asked.

"No one told him to. Sisson don't do what he ain't told to do."

"And I guess that's right. No one told him to shoot anyone, so he just stuffed his big ass under the bed and let us do all the work."

"He was shooting. I know that."

"The hell. Sisson. Get up here and take the lead. You got two good eyes."

Sisson spurred his horse forward until he made his way up even with the brothers. "Where we headed?" he asked.

"Out of these mountains and away from Thems that got ropes and a need to see us hang. Someone's found those bodies by now. There might have be another that got away. We don't know."

Sisson, a big man, old, in his forties, with big, drooping moustaches, nodded and spurred his horse forward and on down the draw. The rocks were getting bigger now, rocks that had rolled a long way down the draw in the spring thaw. Sisson was a former Army scout. He knew this territory as well as any other white man did. He turned back to Tom and John. "Mexico?" he asked.

"Suppose," Tom said. "Any way we go but south, there's going to be more of Thems, looking for us. And there ain't going to be nothing left for us up here. Mexico. Mexico's where we can start over."

"Can't be posses yet. Probably no one's found out about it yet. It takes a long time to get to Safford, which is where they would go."

"No," Tom said. "Klondyke. There's a telephone in Klondyke. If Thems don't know yet, Thems is about to find out. And when Thems find out, Thems is going to be on us like hornets. It won't take Thems long to find out and to let everyone else know."

"Telephone," Sisson said. He shook his head. He didn't know much about telephones, except that he didn't like them. He had known the telegraph operators at Fort Grant, and he figured they were out of work now, because of the telephones. Now he had to outrun the damned things. He wished they had never been invented...