“Now listen to me,” O’Callan bellowed at his men. “I want Lance Carp’ril Bradley on point with one other man. Barton and Schweitzer will be rear guard.
I want the other twelve o’ ye to keep out as far on the flanks as the trail permits. Ormond, if ye’ll be so kind, I’d appreciate it if ye’d divide yer men up between the wagons an’ have ’em walk along behind to lend some help to the animals when we start the climb. It’ll be bloody steep in places.”
“Right, O’Callan,” Ormond answered as he turned to his sailors. “Divide yourselves up into watches of two men and fall to on the stern of each wagon. When things slow down, it’s ‘all hands heave to with a will’—and put your weight behind it.”
O’Callan mounted and took one last look at the group. He sucked in a deep breath. “Ford, yo-o-o-o-o!”
With creaking wheels and jingling trace chains, they rolled out of the station and began their trek.
At first, the animals pulled their burdens easily. The sailors walked behind, enjoying the uniqueness of their duty. Within an hour they began to sense the slowly growing strain on their legs as the terrain gradually became steeper.
By midday, the sailors were all but exhausted. They had spent much of the morning shoving against the tailgates of the wagons and straining on the spokes of the wheels while the mules snorted and leaned into their harness, hauling the heavy burdens higher up toward the butte. At noon, the sailors ate their field rations in numb silence while their cavalry escort did likewise, except that O’Callan had formed them into a defensive perimeter around the stopping place.
Afternoon became a repeat of the process as men and animals struggled toward the summit. The going grew steeper now, and O’Callan had been forced to call in six of his flank guards to use their strength and that of their horses to ease the mules’ workload.
“Jest be glad this bloody trail is straight and not curved,” O’Callan observed. “Imagine what yere problems’d be if’n ye had to wrestle these darlin’ wagons around a few steep turns. Now put yer bloody backs into it and push them wagons.”
“Sergeant O’Callan,” Johnston called to him from the wagon set. “Wouldn’t it be better if we used all of your men to pull these wagons?”
“I’m afraid not, sor. I don’t want us stumblin’ up a blind trail. Apaches, ye know.”
The naval officer nodded silently and watched the almost-unbearable labor of his men at their posts. Finally they came up over the crest, and the sailors staggered off to one side to collapse, breathing hard and, in some cases, retching. A weak cheer was thrown up, then the cavalrymen galloped off to scout the top of the mesa, while the sailors climbed into the wagons for the short remainder of their journey.
~*~
Da-soda-hae had watched the caravan as it headed up the trail to the top of the butte. He had become puzzled when the wagons began the laborious climb, so he hung back to see what they were going to do.
When the white men did not come back down by dark, he ventured up the trail, walking in order to keep quiet. The moon had barely risen when he sighted the camp. Da-soda-hae shook his head in wonderment. The pony-soldiers obviously planned to stay in this exposed area for quite some time. He smiled to himself and returned down the steep incline at a swift trot. His band of young warriors waited far away. He had to get to them quickly.
These white-eyes didn’t realize it, yet they unconsciously obeyed the will of Spirit-Woman-of-the-Mountain.
Sixteen
Sagebrush and yucca flowers perfumed the air on the top of Dog Leg Butte. Men stripped to the waist scurried here and there in the midmorning heat. Two days of backbreaking labor had gone into the effort so far. Most of the tents to house the observers, and the permanent wooden platforms for the meteorological equipment, had been erected. Likewise, all but a few of the delicate recording instruments that were fed by the spinning cups of the anemometer and other gadgets had been put in place. It remained all too complex for O’Callan to understand. It didn’t keep him from cracking the whip over the work force.
“If ye’re gonna stop moving, Carson, ye might as well lay down. An’ if’n ye lay down, we’ll think ye dead an’ bury the remains. Ye’re up here to work ... so do it!”
O’Callan’s troops had been called on to aid in this difficult work, and over much grumbling and shifts in patrol schedules, he had complied. Albeit with a sour will. The weather station could now be defined by a large Sibley tent and four rows of smaller two-man shelters, called pup tents, used by the soldiers and sailors. Later, once the army took over permanently, adobe bricks would be made and cured for more stable accommodations.
“Nothin’ but a fancy way to waste an honest so’jer’s time,” O’Callan grumbled to Lance Corporal Charlie Bradley.
“But Sergeant O’Callan,” the young probationary NCO protested, “it’s all very scientifical. And once it’s operating all right, it will be run by the army.”
“That’s what I mean. Wastin’ a man’s time when he should have his arse in the saddle, chasin’ after hostile Injuns.”
O’Callan observed nothing the next morning to change his mind. As ropy tendrils of white cloud scudded across the pale blue sky to gather in scattered places and form into small, fat-bellied cumulonimbus hammers, O’Callan urged each man assigned to patrol duty across the flat-topped mesa to take along his rain gear.
“’Tis gonna rain, I can feel it in me bones,” he cautioned.
“I’ll wait and see what the weather man has to say,” Charlie Bradley replied flippantly.
“An’ ye’ll be a slick-sleeve trooper again, Bradley,” Terry O’Callan warned ominously. “I says take yer rain gear an’ I mean take yer rain gear. The orders of a troop sergeant ain’t open fer argument by a lance carp’ril who thinks he knows more about weather predictin’ than the bones of an Irishman. Now git ye off an’ keep a sharp eye.”
“Coffee, Sergeant O’Callan?” Lieutenant (j.g.) Johnston called from the door of the main weather station.
“That’s music to me ears, sor. I’ll be right over.” By noon, great masses of thunderheads swelled on the horizon. Chill blasts of wind alternated with the usual gush of hot air rising from the desert floor below. Lieutenant (j.g.) Johnston and his party hemmed and hawed while they bent over a large plotting table. Intently, the scientists scribbled notes under the undulating sides and top of the Sibley-tent weather station. The sky darkened immediately overhead within fifteen minutes. A sickly band of green lay on the near horizon, between earth and roiling clouds, when the noon meal was served.
Terry O’Callan ate alone, on a large rock, grumbling to himself as he spooned lukewarm beans and greasy fatback into his mouth. His full red brush of mustache wiggled in time with his churn of jaws and his eyes squinted against the icy blasts of wind. Johnston found the cavalry sergeant there after a brief search around the area.
“Well, Sergeant O’Callan, my men say we should have a solid prediction right after we finish eating. I hope you appreciate the historic significance as well as the military advantage of this project now.”
“Beggin’ yer pardon, sor, but I’m not so sure I see any military advantage to this scientifical experimentin’, let alone that history will remember our doin’ it. By the way, sor, ye’d best be gettin’ yer slicker, if ye don’t mind me sayin’ so. It’s gonna rain.”
“I’m sure the accuracy of our weather prediction will determine that better than you, Sergeant,” the naval officer replied smugly, stung by O’Callan’s indifference to their project.
An instant later, the sky overhead split open with an ear-ringing crash of thunder, so close that the flash appeared to come after, instead of before, the calamitous roar. A sailor holding a folded sheet of paper ran up to where the two men stood, saluted Lieutenant (j.g.) Johnston and extended his left hand.
“We have it, sir,” he cried jubilantly as the deluge descended upon them. “Bo’sun Ormond’s compliments, sir, and it’s going to rain,” he finished as rivulets of co
ld water ran down his face and the desert downpour soaked his uniform, sticking it to his chilled skin.
“Devil take me,” O’Callan gloated through a grin. “’Tis a scientifical marvel, it is.” He adjusted his heavy rain slicker and walked away from the two navy men to inspect the camp’s perimeter.
~*~
Da-soda-hae adjusted his stride as he realized that his eagerness to reach the others of the new Owl Society had caused him to hurry faster than was wise. His desire to give them word of the strange camp of the Pen-dik-oye had made him abandon caution. If he did not keep in the measured stride of the People, he would tire and never reach them.
Halcon’s youngest son, now a man in his own eyes, had run his horse into the ground, cut its throat, and taken the heart and liver for sustenance along the trail he had to run to reach the camp of his man-children companions, who waited eagerly to take the warpath. How easy it would be, he exhorted.
His heart thudded smoothly in his young chest and he felt the warm flush of blood going freely to his legs and arms. His breath remained even, and only the sound of the air rushed past his ears. Then a sudden change in the background noise caused him to break stride, to falter, and then stop. Was that the rumble of wagon wheels? Did the white-eyes seek him out? Or had he broken the rhythm of his breathing and made the blood roar and sing in his ears? Da-soda-hae looked around, skin tingling as the sun weakened on his bare skin and a sudden chill that passed over brought a cluster of goose bumps to his naked chest.
Rain! One of the infrequent and deadly thunderstorms of the desert threatened him from a short distance away. Above, the air sparkled clear, though pale and sickly blue, with glittering crystals of ice high up that seemed to twinkle and taunt the breechcloth-clad youngster. He turned once more to the clouds above Dog Leg Butte, then back again to run on, to close the distance between himself and his small band of child-warriors. Even before the sky had fully darkened above him, large drops of rain fell to splatter on the dusty skin of Da-soda-hae, to wash off the desert grime and restore his body to its natural light-bronze color.
He hurried on, seeking a way out of the narrow, twisting arroyo in which he ran. Head swinging freely from side to side, Halcon’s youngest boy began to feel the first touches of real fear as the rain increased and he could hear far behind him the ominous rumble that forewarned a gouting wall of water that would come pummeling down the gulley toward him. A white-eye would say he weighed no more than sixty-five pounds soaking wet, though the concept was alien to the Indian lad. He only knew that his slight, muscular frame would be no match for a surge of water that could move gigantic boulders and throw cottonwood logs of twenty long paces or more in length like straws. Half an hour later, Da-soda-hae ran in water up to his ankles.
A look behind showed him that the rising flood neared him at an even more rapid pace. He spied a narrow rabbit-run leading out of the arroyo and chose to follow this slim trail to safety. As his body shifted to obey his mental command, one foot came down on a loose stone and he felt himself slip while numbing pain shot up from his ankle. He toppled headfirst into the rising waters, and darkness snuggled down over him.
In a matter of only a few seconds, Da-soda-hae had been moved down the stream, and as he awoke he saw the rabbit-run rushing away from him. Struggling to his feet, he found the water already chest deep and rising. White froth from around a bend behind him warned of the nearness of the full force of the deluge. He limped on his swollen ankle as he felt himself tugged back into the water’s path by heavy folds of soft deerskin that formed flaps and pouches in his loincloth. Without regret or hesitation, he bent down below the raging water and drew his knife from the sheath in his high-topped moccasins. He cut away the rawhide cord that held his sole garment, feeling the loincloth being swept away in a sudden surge of dark water. An instant later, the high wall of liquid crashed over him and drove him from his feet.
Few Apache children ever learned to swim, then-natural environment not encouraging it. An instinctive struggle for survival brought Da-soda-hae to the mud-slicked side of the wash, his aims thrashing and splashing in the torrent. He gasped for breath, half choking on the water that had now risen to his chin, and began to drag himself free of its treacherous clutch. Cactus needles tattooed his belly with scarlet lines. His last reserves of strength and will became exhausted in the effort to bring him to the slippery upper lip of the nearly full arroyo. He rolled over onto the muddy surface of the desert and lay panting.
“Oh, mighty Thunder God, husband of Spirit-Woman-of-the-Mountain,” he gasped aloud. “Make your angry voice and fearsome waters roll back that I might reach my brave Mochuelos and bring them to avenge the death of our warriors.”
~*~
True to O’Callan’s prediction, a howling wind came up out of the desert and buffeted the little camp unmercifully throughout the night following the thunderstorm. Soaking wet, chilled to the bone, the soldiers and sailors of the weather-station party spent an uncomfortable time restoring and lashing down the Sibley tent, and went grumbling to their wet blankets following a cold supper. It dawned a bit better the next morning as the Fort Dawson troopers and Johnston’s sailors endured sand in both their breakfasts and their ears. O’Callan had grown worried, and he sought out the lieutenant.
“Sor, I’ve got to send out a patrol. There’s no gettin’ out of it.”
“How long will they be gone?”
“All day, sor.”
Johnston shook his head. “I’m sorry, Sergeant O’Callan. I’m going to need all hands to set up the equipment again and secure it in this wind. Besides, it turned out that the patrolling you wanted to do during our trip out here was unnecessary.”
“And I thank God fer that, sor. But we’ve got to be on our guard durin’ a noisy wind like this. Sure an’ even Ormond could sneak up on a body in it.”
“Forgive a sailor’s instincts, Sergeant,” Johnston offered through a thin smile, “but a strong wind at one’s back is a comforting thing.”
“Forgive an Injun fighter’s instincts, sor, but a strong wind’s no comfort with an Apache arrawh in yer back. We’re in a hell of a bad spot. O’ course, ye took note o’ the fact that there’s but one way in and out o’ this darlin’ place?”
Johnston no longer smiled. “I appreciate your advice, and I’ll give it the most serious consideration. In the meantime, you’re to turn to and form a working party with Ormond. We must get this equipment rerigged promptly.”
O’Callan clenched his teeth and saluted.
The work proved difficult in the high wind. All the equipment and rigging had to be lashed down, which meant driving spikes into almost-solid rock. The lines that anchored the tall wind-measuring towers were expertly brought evenly taut on all sides, so that in spite of himself, O’Callan admitted some grudging admiration for the sailors’ professionalism with rope. Ormond and O’Callan seemed to be growing closer together until they worked themselves into another clash that same afternoon.
It started with O’Callan requesting a roster of Ormond’s sailors. “Sure,” Ormond agreed. “I’ll make you out a list. But what do you want it for?”
“Fer guard roster,” O’Callan explained. “Yer Mr. Johnston won’t permit no patrollin’ until we’re all set up again, so the best thing I kin do in the meantime is post some guards at the top o’ the trail.”
Ormond scowled. “Wait a minute,” he protested. “My men have other tasks here. You army people were supposed to furnish the escort.”
“My men that I’m allowed to spare from this work are out on the perimeter, and as soon as the riggin’ is done here, they’ll be out on patrol. All I ask is that yer bloody sailors man one guard post.”
“I’ll be damned if they will,” Ormond snorted. “Nobody said nothing about us standing watch.”
“It’s only one man at a time, fer God’s sake!” O’Callan exploded. “There’s six of ’em, so that’s but two hours on and ten off. Sure an’ I’d think that even a lazy bastard of a na
vy man could stand up to that.”
“There you go again, you son of a bitch!” Ormond cried. “You’re asking for another beating, O’Callan.”
“Another? Why ye black hearted Ulster bastard, ye’ve yet to hand me the first one. So why don’t ye jest stick up yer fists and seal yer doom? I promise I’ll end it all quick.”
“That’ll be enough of that,” Johnston interjected. He had seen the two gesturing angrily at each other and had hurried over to put an end to any fighting. His long, aristocratic face quivered with suppressed indignation. Curly blond locks escaped from under his round, blue service cap.
“What are you arguing about now?”
“All I asked is one sailor to put on guard on top o’ the trail,” O’Callan complained. “I don’t think there’s a thing unfair in a request like that.”
“We’re not here to stand any watches, Mr. Johnston,” Ormond countered, hand going to his sparse, black chin-beard again. “I’ve got enough to worry about.”
Johnston raised his hands in a calming gesture. “Sergeant O’Callan has obeyed my orders without any trouble, Ormond. Let’s reciprocate and allow him to have one man at a time to stand any watches he may deem necessary.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” Ormond called to one of the sailors. “Here’s your first, O’Callan.”
As they waited for the sailor to trot over to them the man they’d summoned suddenly spun around and dropped to the ground. A feathered shaft protruded from his back. O’Callan surmised the situation instantly.
“Apaches! Git to yer posts.”
Several cavalrymen ran wildly toward the camp from the perimeter. Johnston watched the developing fight in disbelief. Amidst the growing sound of gun fire, as the troopers shot at unseen targets, he turned in confused appeal to Terry O’Callan.
“Just what the hell is going on, O’Callan?”
Seventeen
The Long-Knives 6 Page 14