Pony Soldiers

by James Axler

  He reached out and pressed the start button.

  THREE TIMES ON THE WINDING out of the canyon J.B. had to call to Krysty to slow down.

  "Spur on like that and the poor beast won't have a run left in him, if you need it."

  "And a galloping man raises more dust than a walking army," Cuchillo Oro added.

  "Damned homespun wisdom," Doc muttered, lumping along on a rawboned bay mare, his straggly hair blowing in the light breeze.

  "How much furthest?" Lori asked, trying to pick grit out of her eye.

  "Another hour or so," Steps Lightly Moon replied, wheeling her pony alongside the tall blond girl.

  "Think we'll know any more?" J.B. asked.

  It was the shaman who answered. "A man might believe he sees everything, and discover that he ac­tually sees nothing."

  Doc grunted.

  NOTHING HAPPENED WHEN Ryan pushed the starter button.

  He tried it again. There wasn't the least flicker of movement.

  "Sec lock?" Jak whispered.

  "Gould be. Fireblast! Anyone comes around the corner there they'll take us colder than a well-digger's ass. Mebbe the gearshift's got… Yeah."

  There was a small switch that he flicked down, reaching again for the starter.

  The engine was almost soundless, a faint whirring sound and a gentle vibration, ticking over in the dune wag. Jak patted Ryan on the shoulder.

  "Just keep looking," the older man said, cau­tiously engaging first gear. He eased the pedal and re­leased the hand brake.

  The large wheels began to roll. Ryan kept one hand on the steering tiller, holding the pistol in his other one. The wind tugged at the gates, making them blow across, half-shut. Simultaneously, shouts erupted from the main building; lights flicked on.

  "They found Strasser," Jak hissed, readying him­self to vault out and hold the gates.

  But the breeze relented, allowing the gates to swing open again. Ryan gunned the engine, knowing that it would only be a matter of seconds before their escape was detected.

  A siren began to sound as they drove out of the for­tress, the noise like an amplified bugle. More lights came on, including big floods all around the parade ground. Ryan heard more shouting and then the crack of a firearm, followed by the much louder noise of Jak's carbine.

  "Fucking single-shot!" the boy cursed, struggling to reload the primed .43 cartridge.

  The engine was now racing as Ryan pushed it up through the gears, fighting to hold it as it careered past the front of the museum, onto a trail that snaked down the slope along the western flank of Fort Secu­rity, the log walls only feet away from them.

  A head appeared over the rampart, silhouetted against the bright spotlights. Ryan snapped off a shot, seeing the man disappear in a spray of bone and brains.

  "Yeah," Jak shouted.

  "Get down. Can't hope to do anything with that Springfield. There'll be some lead flying real soon, now," Ryan called to the boy.

  Dawn came early out in the desert. Ryan could al­ready see the pale lightening of the sky to the far east, over toward Drowned Squaw Canyon. He'd noticed on the journey to the sec ville that the track was rough and rutted. Even with the big wheels of the dune wag, he couldn't hope to make any real speed. Not without the risk of rolling the buggy.

  He wondered how long it would be before Strasser got the troopers organized enough to send out a realistic pursuit force. His guess was that the sec boss would be so maddened at the escape that he would throw everything after them, regardless of the risk. For some reason, Ryan suddenly recalled the items in the Cavalry Museum on the Fetterman massacre. The soldiers had been carried away with the thrill of pursuing what they thought was an easy target and had run blind-eyed into the jaws of the trap, victims of the cunning of High Back Bone of the Miniconjou and Red Cloud of the Sioux.

  That had been a good day.

  As Fort Security boiled into furious life behind them, Ryan thought more about the story of the Fetterman massacre

  .

  STRASSER WAS CARRIED ALONG in a haze of white anger. He struck out indiscriminately at anyone who got in his path. The fact that such a puling boy had beaten him, sprung Ryan from his cell…

  Sergeant McLaglen narrowly avoided being punched to the ground when he came rushing to the General's quarters for orders. His first shock was seeing the sec boss without the mane of yellow hair. The scraped skull with its fringe of sparse black hair made him blink in amazement.

  "Don't stand like a fucking frog with a needle in its belly! I want every man in the fort mounted and ready to leave in fifteen… no, in ten minutes. Gatling gun, everything."

  "They got the dune wag, General."

  "I know that, you bastard stupe! But it's been giv­ing us trouble for weeks. Won't take them far. Get moving and get ready."

  The tall man moved stiffly, holding his stomach as though he had a chronic attack of indigestion. There was a large bruise just behind the left ear, and a worm of brown blood was smeared across the sharp planes of his cheeks.

  McLaglen stood rooted to the floor of the office, fascinated by the intensity of madness that glittered in the deep-set eyes of the General.

  "You got five seconds to be obeying my order, Ser­geant. Then I gut-shoot you and find someone else who can do like they're told."

  McLaglen snapped to attention. "Sure and I'm gone, General."

  RYAN'S GUESSTIMATE WAS that they'd only made about five miles before the dune wag died on them. There wasn't any warning. No spluttering or cough­ing. It simply cut out, rolling quickly to a halt on an upgrade.

  "Want look at engine?" Jak asked, hopping out of the back seat.

  "No time. I reckon that Strasser'll turn out every sec man in the place after us. Best bet's that he'll be right here in less than a half hour."

  STRASSER, WIG BACK IN PLACE, immaculately uni­formed, held up a gloved hand at the sight of the abandoned buggy. He checked his wrist chron. "Thirty-five minutes from Fort Security, Sergeant. Can't be far behind them. Tracks are easy to follow."

  The dawn wind had fallen away as the day began to brighten, and the tracks of the two fugitives stood out like splashes of blood on a white satin bed sheet.

  Strasser stood in the stirrups, peering over the neck of the stallion. McLaglen heeled his own horse nearer, realizing that the General was in better spirits. He was singing quietly to himself. McLaglen felt more scared than he had when the General had been in a devour­ing rage.

  "We push on, General?"

  "Fucking right we do."

  The sergeant eyed the low ridge of a line of buttes a couple of miles ahead of them, with a weaving nest of trails through their center. "You don't mebbe think it could be a trap, General?"

  The smile broadened. "I think I hate nothing more than a coward, Sergeant." The gloved fist fell to the butt of the Stechkin pistol. "That's what I think about it."

  McLaglen nodded, frightened to speak in case his voice vanished in a squeak of fear.

  The cloud of dust from the cavalry patrol of nearly fifty men rose in a gentle spiral, circling in the desert air, warning Ryan and Jak that their pursuers were gaining fast. The thought of the long-range Russian sniper's rifle he'd seen in Strasser's room was worry­ing Ryan. Already the sec men had closed to within a little more than a mile of them. On horseback, over rough terrain, they'd run them down in less than a half hour. The ridge was invitingly close, but there was only more desert on the other side. There was no pos­sibility at all of their reaching the safety of the rancheria before Strasser caught up with them or before they were within easy range of the blaster.

  "THERE!" SHOUTED one of the troopers, a mutie from somewhere up in the high plains who found it hard to see a hand in front of his own face, but who could count the feathers on a bird's wing at a mile.

  Strasser reined in at the yell, following the man's pointing finger. He sat gazing out across the barren wilderness for several seconds before he located the two tiny specks that were moving toward the
lower slopes of the buttes.

  "Hit 'em with the rifle, General!" McLaglen shouted.

  "No, Sergeant. I want to see their faces. Watch 'em and smell 'em and taste 'em. See their eyes when they see death grinning at 'em."

  "They'll be over the rise, yonder, General."

  "So will we, Sergeant. Sooner the better. Bugler! Sound the charge."

  JAK FELL AGAIN, rolling against a pile of loose stones, crying out with the shock of pain in his injured ribs. As Ryan stumbled back to help the boy, they both heard the clear golden notes of the cavalry bugle, let­ting them know that the hunters had seen their prey.

  "Does that mean what think means?" Jak panted, hair now filthy and tangled across his scrawny shoul­ders.

  "Yeah. Only hope's to make the crest of the butte. Hold them off for a while from there."

  "Fifty of them. We only got carbine and ten rounds. Three handguns. Won't take long. Can ride right over us, Ryan."

  "No." He hauled the boy up, holding him with an arm around the shoulders. "Nobody's that fucking happy to get themselves chilled. They'll stop when we open fire on them."

  "Then what?"

  "Shoot off all our ammo and chill as many of the bastards as we can. Mebbe even take Strasser off the earth."

  "Then what?" Jak repeated, gasping for breath with the effort of striving for the top of the steep slope.

  "Then, when it's all done, I put one through the back of your head and kiss the barrel of the SIG-Sauer. Leave them dead meat."

  "I'll go with that, Ryan," the boy said, managing a pale ghost of a grin.

  "NEARLY AT THE TOP," Sergeant McLaglen shouted, spurring his horse to the side of the General.

  "Get them first! Be just like Custer at the Little Big Horn. Won't quite make it to the top!"

  Strasser was wrong about that, as well.

  The terrain was more difficult and the patrol had to slow, giving Ryan time to help drag the albino over the rim, rolling several feet down the far side before he could draw breath and open his eye.

  "Hello, lover," Krysty said.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  THE DEFENDERS OF THE RIDGE had enough firepower to make the cavalry turn back in some disarray. At least six of the sec men went down under the sudden hail of lead, but the rest were able to take cover in a snaking arroyo that ran parallel to the line of buttes.

  Ryan left Jak in the comforting arms of Steps Lightly Moon, who wept with joy at seeing the boy still alive. J.B. clasped Ryan by the hand, showing his delight with the favor of one of his rare smiles. Doc also shook hands, while Lori kissed him on the cheek. Krysty kissed him, long, hard and slow, on the lips. The shaman nodded, the sunlight flashing off the glasses, and Cuchillo Oro drew the golden cinqueda and hurled it spinning into the air, catching it by its jeweled hilt.

  "Tell us how…" Krysty began, but Ryan stopped her with a shake of the head.

  "No time. This is it. The chance to take them all. One chance." Over the side of the ridge they all heard the sudden explosive chatter of the Gatling gun, the noise stopping almost as quickly as it had begun. J.B. grinned again.

  "Bastard's jammed," he said. "Go on, Ryan. Tell us the plan."

  DESPITE HIS RAVENING ANGER, Strasser still held enough shreds of sense to know that he would never drive his sec men up that hill into the teeth of rifle fire from the defenders. For the time being he had to wait, contenting himself with sending gallopers out to both sides of the long ridge, to warn him if his prey tried to slide away. The buttes ran too far for him to be able to surround Ryan and the others.

  The skirmishing line covered most of the one long side, with his men hidden behind the tumbled boul­ders. The shooting was irregular, with neither force wanting to take the risk of offering targets to the en­emy. It was past noon before there was any change in the status quo.

  One of the cavalry gallopers came bursting up to Strasser in a cloud of dust, shouting that the hostiles were withdrawing. Simultaneously Ryan and Jak showed themselves on the crest of the butte, pouring in a burst of lead at the sec men below.

  The General threw himself to the ground, wincing as splinters of bullet and rock screamed all around him. "How many fuckers gone?"

  "Dozen or so, General. Two white women with 'em. One redhead, one yeller. Can't be many left up there."

  All the sec men heard Ryan Cawdor's voice. "You're chicken shit, General. Hide behind your double-stupe scum! You got no belly for a firefight!"

  Strasser reached for his Russian-made rifle, easing it around the corner of his cover. But there was no sign of anyone on the ridge.

  "What do we do, General?" Sergeant McLaglen called, anxiously.

  "We wait, until I say to move."

  "Sure thing, General. Sure thing."

  THERE WAS RYAN, JAK—his ribs restrapped by the shaman—J.B. and four of the oldest of the Mescalero warriors, including Many Winters. Cuchillo had led the others back to the canyon to put the most impor­tant part of Ryan's plan into operation.

  The immensely tall wise man of the tribe, clutching a decorated Sharps rifle, also insisted on remaining behind with Ryan's group.

  "Will they attack?" he asked Ryan.

  "Can't tell. We gotta hold 'em here another hour or so, then break for the rancheria and lead 'em after us."

  Man Whose Eyes See More shook his head slowly. "Yellowhair, General, Strasser, Longhair. He is the night."

  "And I'm the day," Ryan replied, squinting down the slope at the hiding sec men.

  "No."

  "No?"

  The shaman touched him gently on the arm. "You are the night as well, One Eye Chills."

  "Then what's the difference between me and Cort Strasser?"

  The Apache pondered the question for several sec­onds. "One night a little child might walk fearlessly through a darkling wood. On another night an armed man will tremble with terror on an open plain, swept with confusion. That is the difference between Stras­ser and yourself."

  "They're moving, Ryan," J.B. called. "Guess Strasser thinks he's waited long enough. Looks like he's…yeah, he's going to split them and come around both sides."

  "Fireblast! We need a half hour more. How the big fire can we slow the bastards down?"

  "I will do it," Many Winters said in his creaking English.

  The shaman turned to the old man and said some­thing in the Apache tongue, something that sounded like a question. The warrior turned his lined face up to Man Whose Eyes See More, looking past him, into an infinite distance. He said something and then moved away.

  "Don't tell me," Ryan said. "He said that it was a good day for him to die."

  "Yes. You are learning our language fast, One Eye Chills."

  "No. I'm learning something about Indians."

  Many Winters was helped onto his pony by Jak, who handed him the coup stick, a pole, ten feet long, decorated with bands of color and with the feathers of eagles. Each mark, Ryan knew, indicated some past honor.

  The old man took the battered Winchester rifle from its bucket by the saddle, throwing it to the earth. He drew a broad-bladed knife from its deerskin sheath and dropped it on top of the blaster.

  "What?" Jak said.

  "The honor comes from riding against the blue coats without any weapon," the shaman answered.

  "Bastards'll chill him," the boy said in an an­guished voice.

  "That seems to be the idea," Ryan replied. "Man knows when it's his moment to join the spirits of his ancestors. For Many Winters, the moment's right now." He paused. "And it should puzzle the bastards down there. Mebbe buy us the few minutes we need. Get ready to pull out the moment the old man buys the farm."

  "WOULD YOU LOOK at that, General?" McLaglen called.

  "What?"

  "Yonder. Coming over—"

  Strasser interrupted the gaping noncom. "I see him, Sergeant."

  His long hair braided, holding the feathered coup stick, Many Winters kicked his heels into the flanks of his pony and began to move slowly down the slo
ping face of the butte, toward the watching sec men.

  As he advanced, without any weapon, the old man began to chant his death song.

  Ryan and the other remaining men on the ridge readied themselves for the final withdrawal toward the rancheria.

  Many Winters was halfway toward the sec men, and still no shots had been fired.

  "What's he singing about?" J.B. asked Man Whose Eyes See More.

  "About honor," the shaman replied. "He tells the pony soldiers that he is pleased to meet with them. That they will bring him honor by allowing him to end his days with them. He hopes to be able to touch many of them with his coup stick. That is all."

  "It's enough," Ryan said quietly.

  Down on the flat desert, Cort Strasser called for someone to pass him his Samozaridnyia Vintovka Dragunova rifle, then steadied the long gun on a con­venient boulder, centering the cross hairs of the sight on the chest of the advancing Indian. His right index finger tightened on the trigger.

  But he still didn't fire.

  Many Winters was more than three-quarters down the hillside, still chanting in a frail, quavering voice, his eyes turned blindly toward the sun.

  "Chill him, General," one of the soldiers shouted, beginning to lose his nerve at the steady approach of the crazed Mescalero.

  Strasser's concentration slipped for a moment. When he looked again, the Apache had vanished for a moment into a dip in the trail, though he could still hear the droning voice.

  He lowered the rifle, cursing under his breath. The biting anger for the way the whitehead kid and Ryan had fooled him was still close to fever heat. Just as he'd been about to slam the buffalo horns of his pincering trap, this stinking old fart with his whining voice had come doddering along to distract every­one's attention.

  Many Winters appeared for a moment between two pinnacles of weathered stone. Hastily Strasser lifted the rifle and snapped off a shot, seeing the puff of red dust as the bullet missed the Apache by a good yard. The chanting continued as though nothing had hap­pened. And more time passed.