“Thirteen to twenty-two.” Luc smiled. “I think our bandits are outnumbered by us.” He glanced back at Abraham and the Sergeant-major nodded in agreement, his black face a contrast to the sandy desert.
Cal cleared his throat. “Begging your pardon, sir. I’ve dealt with
outlaws before. They put up a good fight, but they have very little at
stake. The only thing they have in common is greed. They’ll turn tail and run if they don’t see a clear victory. Valenzuela pays for loyalty. His people won’t stick around to defend him if they think the odds are too great.”
Luc nodded in agreement.
Reggie scowled. “What does this darkie know?” His gaze swept over the whole patrol implying that none of them knew anything. Reggie annoyed him at times, but he was good officer despite his feelings
Luc ignored Reggie, but saw Cal’s face tighten for a brief second, then the boy’s expression went completely blank, hidden behind a careful mask.
“What I know,” Cal said in a tightly controlled voice, “is that Valenzuela attacked my village twice. When he saw we weren’t giving up, he went after less determined folks.”
“I think our Cal has more experience under his belt than I thought.”
He noticed Cal’s lips twitch like he was fighting a smile.
Cal suddenly sat straighter in the saddle, his puny shoulders thrust back. Luc suppressed a smile. Little Cal’s attempt at acting like a man amused him. Unbidden, his dream came back and Luc’s amusement faded. Was he attracted to a boy? Mon Dieu! Luc shied away from the appalling thought.
“Let’s get going,” Luc spurred his horse. Liberty jumped ahead. The Sergeant-Major called for double time and the whole patrol set off toward the foothills and Valenzuela.
* * *
Cal lay on her stomach, positioned on a flat rock overlooking the outlaw encampment. Dust rose in a spiral from beneath the hooves of the stolen horses as they milled in a makeshift corral to one side of a small stream. A ramshackle adobe shack in the center of the canyon acted as the bandits’ headquarters. One wall had tumbled down revealing the shadowed interior. Three chairs surrounded a table propped up by bricks. Two men sat at the table talking, gesturing expansively with their hands. One of the men was Valenzuela.
Cal watched the outlaw, a feeling of anger rising inside her. She hated Valenzuela. He had destroyed her village two times and kidnaped two young women. Even though the men of the village had followed in an attempt to rescue them, the women had never been found. Cal scanned the encampment counting the outlaws again. Five more had joined the band during the night. The odds had changed.
Next to her, Lieutenant Delacroix watched, his fancy binoculars pressed to his eyes, as he scanned the surrounding peaks looking for guards. The heat of his thigh against her’s made her uncomfortable. She scooted over slightly to put some distance between them. She wondered what he saw through his binoculars and envied him his ownership of them.
The bandits were preparing to move out. Pack animals stood patiently against hitching posts while the bandits fixed and ate their lunch. A dozen men hunched over bowls of food. They’d eaten in shifts. One set guarded the canyon, while the other ate.
“Let’s get back,” Lieutenant Delacroix said, “I want to surprise them while they’re still eating.”
“Luc,” Reggie said, “don’t you think it would be easier to surprise them in the canyon? You could station the men on the rim and fire down on them.”
“I don’t want to injure any of the horses and ... I want prisoners.” His voice was grim. “We’ll attack them now while they are off guard. In the canyons they’ll be alert and be ready for trouble.”
Callie slid across the hot rock and down the back side of it. Her feet hit dirt and a cascade of pebbles rained down on her. “I can slip into the camp, sir, and take out a few of them. Just to even up the odds.” She would start with Valenzuela. He was arrogant and cocky. He’d be easy to kill.
He flashed an amused smile at her. “Have you killed before?”
She’d never had to before, but couldn’t let him know. “Rustlers don’t take kindly to bein’ captured.”
Respect flared briefly in his eyes. She looked away ashamed, aware she had earned it under false pretenses.
Lieutenant Delacroix shook his head. “I’d just as soon you stayed here and kept an eye on things.”
“But, sir,” Callie objected, “you’re out-numbered two to one. You need everyone.”
“That’s a direct order, Payne. You’re here because you can read sign, not because you fight.” He reached for his horse’s reins and stepped into the stirrups and swung a leg over the horse. He headed back to his patrol hidden in a small pocket canyon a hundred feet away.
Callie resisted the urge to stamp her feet in frustration. She wanted to be in the thick of the battle. Her horse moved impatiently. Callie soothed the animal as she reached for her brand new, army issue Springfield carbine, and shimmied back up the rock. Even if the Lieutenant said stay put, she could still shoot from where she was. She owed Valenzuela for a lot of deaths in her village. Not even Lieutenant Delacroix was going to take that away from her. She found a comfortable spot on the rock to watch the bandits’ camp, ready to help the minute the Lieutenant and his men shot into view.
* * *
Luc and Reggie had set up their plans after their first study of the canyon. Luc nodded and Reggie set off, taking six men in one direction to flank the outlaws, skirting the canyon walls, staying out of sight until he was on the far side. They had agreed on fifteen minutes to get in position before engaging the enemy. Once the shooting started, Luc and his men would stop the outlaws from escaping down the canyon trail to the desert.
Luc’s men picketed their horses in the small pocket canyon. Luc then motioned his men to hide in the rocks. He didn’t anticipate a lot of resistance. He’d read a report on Valenzuela. The man was dangerous, but only when the odds were in his favor. Luc and Reggie had decided on a big show of force to trick Valenzuela into believing they had more soldiers than they did.
Gunfire erupted from the other end of the canyon. Startled, Luc glanced back. His men were only half way to their positions. “Damn it, Reggie.” He half shouted. Reggie hadn’t given Luc enough time. Luc waved at the Sergeant-Major. “Get the men into their positions.”
A bullet whined past his ear. He fell to the ground reaching for his Colt. He spied an outlaw on an outcropping. Luc sighted down the barrel and pulled the trigger. Behind him he heard his men scrambling to get into the rocks and then return the outlaws’ fire.
A thunder of horses hooves sounded. The ground vibrated beneath him. The outlaws had stampeded the horses and were heading them straight for Luc.
He dashed for a cluster of boulders. Seconds later, the lead mare of the stolen horses dashed past him. His own people began firing. He pressed himself against the canyon wall. He had no place to go. The horses streamed past him. He glanced up. He could scale the wall if needed. Over the edge of the wall, Cal stared down at him, his eyes dark with alarm.
With his Colt in his hand, Luc fired at a mounted outlaw heading straight for him. The outlaw jerked out of the saddle, blood blossoming on his chest.
More gunfire erupted. One of the stolen horses stumbled against him, knocking his Colt out his hand. Weaponless, he groped for the Colt, but another horse knocked him over. A second later, another one crashed into him, crushing him against the canyon wall. The horse screamed, blood spurted from it’s neck and with head flopping, slid down to roll against him, pinning him tight to the rock. Pain exploded in him. His legs went numb beneath the massive bulk of the dead horse.
Luc shoved, but the limp animal would not roll away. An outlaw thundered up to him, sighting down his rifle at Luc. Luc waited. For a moment the outlaw seemed suspended in slow motion. Then a shot rang out and he was lifted out of the saddle, blood ripping from a gaping wound in the side of the head. The outlaw rolled over his horse’s flanks to be trampled
by the stampeding animals.
A second later, Cal dropped down next to Luc and handed over his side arm. Luc took the pistol and with Cal to cover him began shooting at the departing outlaws.
When the battle had ended and the dust settled, five outlaws, including Valenzuela, had escaped, ten were dead, and the rest prisoners. The only casualty to Luc’s patrol was one of Reggie’s men, Private Thomas Hawkins, who’d been caught in the crossfire. Hawkins, who had been with Luc since 1866, had been a good man. Luc didn’t look forward to telling Hawkins’ wife about her husband.
The Sergeant-Major formed a squad to roll the dead horse away from Luc and free him. When he was free, Luc found he could barely stand. The weight of the horse had stopped the circulation in his legs and they were numb. With the Sergeant-Major’s help, he walked about stamping his feet until feeling returned.
While he worked the feeling back into his legs, Luc set about restoring order to the chaos. He sent a detail to round up the stampeded horses and sent their only medic to check the wounded. He also sent two men to check out the wagons the bandits had been loading to see what else they had stashed away.
Luc saw Cal calming the new private who was bleeding badly from a wound on his leg. The private was barely older than Cal. Yet Cal seemed to be much older.
Blood stained Cal’s arm and Luc didn’t know if he’d been wounded, or if the blood belonged to someone else. Cal had saved Luc’s life with his quick thinking, and Luc was grateful. Cal helped the wounded boy to his feet and eased him over to a rock. While the boy shook, his face contorted with pain, Cal cleaned a gaping wound and bound it with bandages.
Luc had been worried the boy wouldn’t know what to do, would freeze when the firing began, and then Luc would have another death on his conscience. But he hadn’t.
As though sensing Luc’s gaze, Cal looked up, then turned away again. Though Cal seemed calm and tranquil, Luc could see his hands shaking as he tore a bandage into two edges and tied it tight about the other boy’s leg. For some reason, Cal’s reaction made Luc feel better. The boy had feelings, deep feelings that he tried to hide beneath a veneer of bravado.
The captured outlaws had been tied hand and foot to each other. They sat in a circle talking quietly amongst themselves. They were an odd mix of Mexicans and Texans. Two soldiers guarded them.
Reggie dusted himself off as he approached Luc. “Shall we interrogate the prisoners now?”
Luc glared at Reggie. He pulled the other man aside. “I told you to give me fifteen minutes to get in position.”
Reggie shrugged. “Private Hawkins signaled me you were ready.”
Luc shook his head. Reggie had to be mistaken. Luc knew Hawkins had been a careful soldier. “Hawkins knew better than to act on his own.”
Reggie shrugged again. “I heard gunfire and thought you’d started without me. I wasn’t going to wait until the party got heated up. I thought you had left yourself exposed to enemy fire.”
Luc glanced at the Sergeant-Major who talked to the medic while the medic checked out a scrape on his neck. “Sergeant-Major told me Hawkins was the first one down.” Reggie’s mouth twitched. “I don’t know where the first shot came from. Maybe the bandits ...” Reggie waved his hat at the prisoners. “They were shooting off their guns for the sheer joy of it. You’re going to take some darkie’s word over mine. Damn it, Luc. We’ve known each other for years. I’m a seasoned combat officer. I knew what I was doing.”
Maybe that was the problem, Luc thought. He and Reggie had known each other for too long. Reggie over-stepped his bounds too many times and one day he’d go too far and Luc would have to put him back in his place. Reggie wouldn’t like that at all. All the blue-Boston blood would roil up and explode at the insult.
“We’ll talk about this later, Lieutenant,” Luc said, his voice full of promise. “Let’s interrogate the prisoners.”
The outlaws were a scruffy lot--dirty, tough-looking and angry. Obviously they hadn’t been expecting anything like a raid on their
encampment. Luc stood in front of them for a moment, watching them watching him. “What did you trade the horses for?” Luc finally asked. No one answered. They kept their mouths shut and their eyes answered him with a cold and unblinking stare filled with indifference.
Reggie hit one of them across the mouth. The man’s head snapped back. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. He spit out a tooth. The yellow object bounced off Reggie’s boot and than onto the sand. Reggie face twisted to an ugly grimace.
Luc fought the urge to laugh at the insult. “I think you have your answer.”
“I can make this scum talk.” He raised his hand to hit the man again.
Luc grabbed Reggie’s wrist. “Enough.” Luc gestured to the Sergeant-Major. “Let’s get our guests on their horses and move out.” He wanted to be as far from the canyon as possible before Valenzuela thought to regroup and maybe attempt to take back when he considered to be his.
Luc turned around and saw that Cal was gone. He moved through the milling horses and finally heard the sound of someone puking in the bushes.
He found Cal bent over a depression in the canyon floor. The boy’s eyes were glazed over and his whole body shook. His shirt was torn along the seam of the arm from shoulder to wrist and wet blood stained the fabric. He’d lied about having killed before. Luc recognized the signs of the boy’s fear.
“You better have the medic examine your arm.”
Cal glanced at the blood. “I’m fine, sir. Just a little scratch.” He probed at the wound with a grimy finger.
“I don’t think so. I’ll walk you over to him.” Luc reached for Cal, but Cal jerked back.
Cal wiped his mouth. “I’m really all right. I’m just not feeling good. Must have been something I ate.”
“You don’t have to lie to me, son. It’s hard staring someone in the face and then taking his life. I know. I’ve done my share of killing.”
Cal uncapped his canteen and washed his face, rinsing out his mouth and spitting into the sandy dirt. Then he dribbled the water down his arm. The trickle of water turned bright red. “I thought ... I could do it. But now I don’t know.”
“Killing is a part of war. You can’t avoid it.” Luc had been sick for a week the first time after his first battle and the lives he’d ended. He’d curled up in his tent and shook with more than his fears. He’d worried that killing would become too easy. That he would like it. But as the war had progressed, he’d found a neutral area in his mind where he could distance himself from his feelings yet still manage to obey orders.
Cal wiped his mouth with the cuff of his shirt. “I didn’t like it at all. My Mama told me to revere life. But I kept seeing all the people dead in my village because of these banditos and I thought I could kill them all without thinking. I didn’t know it would bother me so much.”
“You’d best learn to handle your feelings now, son. Otherwise, you won’t be any use to me.” Luc knew he couldn’t afford to coddle Cal, but he couldn’t let the boy suffer. “Thank you for saving my life, Payne. I’m in your debt.”
Luc left Cal to care for his wound. The two men he’d sent to check on the wagons, had also searched the outbuildings of the camp and come running back for him to take a look. What he found shocked him. Freight boxes filled with rifles and a couple thousand rounds of ammunition. U.S. Army issues rifles. Brand new. The stolen rifles the Army had been looking for several months. Luc stared at the boxes.
“What did you find?” Reggie asked as he entered a building.
“Take a look.” Luc pointed at the boxes.
Reggie bent over the boxes, eyebrows raised. “Someone is getting ready for a war.”
Luc didn’t know what Valenzuela was preparing for, but Cal had mentioned he wanted to be the President of Mexico and was stashing weapons. Cal had called that right. “I saw some wagons behind the barn and a bunch of mules. Get the mules hitched up to the wagons and organize a detail to load these boxes.”
“We can’t take them,” Reggie objected. “They’ll slow us down.”
“I’m not leaving anything. If we do, Valenzuela will be back to claim them. Then this day will have been worthless. I don’t waste my time.”
“We don’t have the manpower to assign drivers to the wagons.”
Luc rounded on Reggie. “We’re officers in the United States Army, we will do whatever it takes to get these rifles back to Fort Duncan. We’ll take them all.”
Reggie continued to argue. “A smart man would cut his losses. I don’t think Valenzuela is going to come back here.”
“I’m not willing to take that risk.” Luc turned and stepped back out into the sunlight. He shaded his eyes and scanned the canyon. He had the sense he was being watched.
He glanced around and saw Cal standing in the shade of towering tree watching him with an inscrutable look. Cal had saved the day and Luc put aside any reservations he had about letting the young boy join the Scouts. Cal had proved his worth. And Luc smiled at him, but Cal didn’t smile back. Instead he turned and walked toward his horse.
* * *
Pain radiated down Callie’s arm every time her horse slipped on a rock, or rolled in the shifting sand. Callie could hardly wait for Lieutenant Delacroix to order the men to made camp for the night. She wanted privacy to tend her wound.
The horses the Lieutenant had recaptured trotted ahead of the unit. The prisoners sat on their horses, a dispirited lot, with their guards alert to their every move. Private Hawkins’ body had been wrapped in his bedroll and slung over the saddle of his horse.
Night fell and finally Delacroix called a halt. Callie slipped gratefully from her horse to the ground. She rubbed down her horse and fed it and then slipped away into the brush to clean her arm. She tried not to think about the man she’d killed.
After The Lies Page 6