The Long-Knives 6

by Patrick E. Andrews

  Jimmy Brannigan had been standing in a sea of calm, on the fight’s edge until that moment. He reached under his coat and drew his service revolver. Extending his arm with a snap, the web between thumb and forefinger cocking the hammer of the Colt Model ’73 Army as he moved, Brannigan triggered off a round the second the sights came into line. The heavy .45-caliber slug smacked solidly into the wooden mallet in the bartender’s hand.

  Brannigan’s shot sounded like the first peal of Doomsday in the narrow tent saloon. It silenced the noise, made room for Doake’s anguished cry of pain as the heavy bung starter leaped from his hand and went flying to the end of the bar. O’Callan took advantage of the lull to seize by crotch and shirt front the small man who had been methodically pounding the cavalry sergeant’s hard, flat midsection.

  O’Callan heaved him over the bar. The miner’s head made a satisfying klonking as it met with Doake’s; both of them slumped into a heap among pools of spilt liquor and stale beer.

  “Thank ye fer yer kind assistance, Jimmy me boy,” O’Callan sang out cheerfully. ‘“Now, sure an’ I believe it’s time we made a strategic withdrawal.”

  Brannigan’s second slug put out the single kerosene lantern, and, as the fight resumed in darkness, he and O’Callan slipped out of the place to stand once more in the shadowy, starlit street.

  “Sure an’ it’s a darlin’ little town,” O’Callan panted, then bent his head to lick his scraped knuckles.

  Twenty-Two

  Oh, this was going to be an absolute coup. There weren’t many colonels in the United States Army who were contacted directly by the National Museum of Natural History and asked—commissioned, one might say—to do a study on the chaparral cock. Roadrunner, they’d taken to calling him. The common ground cuckoo. A silly bird, but another important step upward as a naturalist.

  Colonel Phillip Patterson, commanding officer of Fort Dawson and the regiment that operated out of it, took a short furlough, too. He wandered south and eastward from the fort, peeking and prying into the nest of the ground cuckoo, seeking information on their dwelling habits and mating ritual for an article he had been requested to prepare for the Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. His wanderings had taken him far afield of all familiar landmarks—had deposited him, in fact, in the lower canyons of the Dolores Range.

  When the adjutant had learned of his commander’s quest, he had commented acidly, to Quartermaster Butts, “The love life of the bloody ground cuckoo, is it? You ask me, there’s more’n one sort of cuckoo around here.”

  To which the quartermaster voiced agreement with a loud, well-rounded, whiskey-flavored belch.

  Now Colonel Patterson stood on the sand, transported. He had located a drumming ground, the hard-packed dirt arena in which the mating ritual was played out. He situated himself on a sagebrush-covered ridge above the site, notebook in hand, where he could observe all that transpired through his field glasses. He sub vocalized a humming little tune as he waited for his performers to fill the stage. So involved was he in his research into natural history that he started only slightly when a shadow fell across his line of sight.

  “Let’s see now,” he thought with clinical detachment. “High-topped, fringed moccasins. Short, muscular legs, wide breechcloth. Is that a shell jacket? Yes, a shell jacket, left sloppily unbuttoned. Forage cap on top of long, stringy hair. Apache. Yes, it is definitely an Apache.”

  The colonel rolled over slowly so as not to startle into precipitate action the patient aborigine, who stood contemplating him so silently.

  “Oh, hello there,” Colonel Patterson began casually. “Fa ... Ya-tah-hae! That is hello in your language, isn’t it?” he asked parenthetically. Then he switched to his unsteady command of Spanish.

  “Comprende? Buenos dias, Señor Apache. Como se llama?”

  Surprised by this unusual, courteous treatment, the Apache replied in the few words of English he knew.

  “I am called Halcon.”

  “Halcon, is it?” the colonel repeated in English. “Oh! My goodness.” Then switching to Spanish again, he went on. “I suppose then that makes you war chief of the Sierra Dolores Apaches.”

  “I am.”

  “I’m Colonel Phillip Patterson, commanding at Fort Dawson.” The colonel spoke his rank in English from habit.

  “You call yourself ‘colonel’,” Halcon pointed out. “This word is much close to the Me-hee-kano soldier chief who is called coronel. Are you the same as he?”

  “It means the same,” Colonel Patterson acknowledged.

  “Then you are the big pony-soldier chief on this side,” Halcon stated.

  “Well, yes ... sort of. I—I’m glad to make your acquaintance, Halcon. I’ve often wondered why we could not sit down and reason together.”

  Halcon smiled ruefully. “You—with all your soldiers behind you—would only make me an offer I could not refuse.”

  Colonel Patterson sighed sadly. “I suppose that is the way our diplomacy must seem to your people. But the least we could do is to—”

  “What do you do in my land? Do you scout for the other pony-soldiers that they might come and kill us?” Halcon interrupted to demand.

  “I?” Colonel Patterson was genuinely surprised. “Oh, no. As chief, the others scout for me, not I for them. I come alone.”

  The brooding anger that had darkened Halcon’s brow lifted and his smile flashed warmly, sincerely.

  “It is the same with my people, I ride out alone to see the wonder of newness.”

  “Ah, spring. A beautiful time. And it’s coming early this year,” Phillip Patterson, naturalist, replied in his native tongue.

  “Que es, ‘spring’?”

  “Why, the starting of things new and fresh. When plants grow again,” the colonel explained. “Que linda!”

  “It is true. How beautiful. Only we call this the First Moon, the beginning of new things.”

  “The New Year? How strange,” Colonel Patterson mused aloud. “Although I suppose it makes more sense than the way we do it. I think I like your way of counting time.”

  Halcon again came close to actually smiling. “You have spoken well. If you don’t come to make war, why have you come?”

  “To study the birds. To learn the ways of love among the corredor de via.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The gallo de chaparral.”

  “Oh. Si. He is a funny bird, verdad?”

  “Why do you fight us, Halcon?”

  The question had come so simply, delivered with such innocence of tone, it startled both subject and interrogator.

  “Because you are here. Why do you make war on us.”

  Colonel Patterson thought a moment. “Funny. I suppose for the same reason. Because you are here.”

  “It is the nature of a warrior to fight.”

  “It is the nature of a soldier to make peace.”

  “From the end of a gun?”

  Phillip Patterson sighed. “If we must ... if we must.”

  Halcon stiffened, reserve again clouding his expression. “You would do better speaking of such things with my son, Mochuelito. He lives with the Spirits and speaks such strange thoughts also. As a war chief, I do not hear them.”

  “I am a patient man, Halcon. Someday your ears will be ready to hear the words.”

  Halcon turned abruptly, started to walk back the way he had come, to where he’d left his pony. Then he stopped, looked back.

  “How long you stay in my land?”

  “A few days. To make notes, study ... the chaparral cock, you know.”

  “You are a strange man for a warrior chief, Coronel. Why do you watch the mating of the gallo de chaparral?”

  “We can learn much by watching our animal friends, Halcon,” came the simple reply.

  “Learn from the animal how to hunt, how to escape an enemy, which food is safe to eat. That is good,” Halcon acknowledged.

  “Verdad,” the Colonel agreed.

  “But, Cor
onel, take your woman like a man ... not like a bird. That way is bad,” Halcon said severely, missing the colonel’s purpose entirely. “Even small boys learn by better example than that.”

  “Well ... certainly ... of course,” Colonel Patterson stammered, embarrassed. “Perhaps you don’t exactly understand—”

  Halcon interrupted him. “You stay in peace, Coronel. We will talk again. Adios.”

  “Vaya con dios, Halcon.”

  ~*~

  Braying with outraged dignity, the small pack burro, purchased two days before by O’Callan and Brannigan, set its stubborn legs and refused to move an inch as the echoes of the dynamite explosion bounced down the canyon. The sudden tugging on the rope nearly jerked Terry O’Callan off his feet. Jim Brannigan was ahead on the trail, leading their saddle mounts and the big mule who carried the heavier items of their outfit. He stopped when he heard the air-tinting excellence of the blue curses issuing from Terry O’Callan in full form.

  “What ye say, Terry lad?” he called back, laughter bubbling in his words.

  “I said it was by-God fortunate fer this lame brained sorry excuse fer a four-legged beast o’ burden that we’ve near reached the end o’ our damned journey for today, or I’d be-Jasus reclassify the bloody animal as rations and issue him out fer supper.”

  “Is it that sure ye are that we’ve come to the end o’ the trail, Terrance, that we stop at three o’ the clock on so fine a day? For the past two days, every canyon we passed was crawlin’ wit’ a dozen or so fellers scratchin’ at the rock. Far’s I can tell, we’ve been walkin’ in a circle at that.”

  “We’ll be knowin’ fer certain when we finds a friendly face and kind soul to tell us where we can stake out a claim. Now stop yer jaw flappin’ an’ let’s get on with it.”

  An hour later, with darkness already crawling rapidly down the canyon walls, O’Callan and Jim Brannigan stopped for the night. With the animals staked out on a picket rope, Terry O’Callan had touched one of their few precious matches to the cook-fire tinder when a high-pitched, quavering voice called from beyond their camp.

  “What th’ hell you think ye’re doin’ on our claim? Get outta here or we’ll blast ya, ya thievin’ claim-jumpers.”

  “Don’t be gettin’ in a hurry, now, lad,” O’Callan called as he slowly turned from the fire, hands far out to his sides.

  “Don’t try nothin’,” the nervous soprano voice commanded. “Or I’ll shoot you down like the murderin’ dog you are.”

  “I’ll take that,” Jim Brannigan’s voice said from behind the unseen gunman.

  “Gran’paw ... oh, Gran’paw! I didn’t do it right, dang it. The whole damn thing went wrong,” the young ambusher called miserably into the darkness.

  “There, there, now, lad. No call to cry, ye know,” Brannigan said soothingly as he dragged along the somewhat-reluctant captive.

  Terry O’Callan turned back to quickly light their fire. In its spreading glow he discovered their error. “Saints Above! Jimmy lad, ’tis not a boy brat ye got there, ’tis a girl. An’ a right pretty one, if ye don’t mind me sayin’ so.”

  She was about seventeen, rather well put together, with all the proper curves and soft spots, green eyes, and long black hair. Her eyes had turned red-rimmed with tears and full pout spoiled the lines of her small, mischievous lips.

  “I—I suppose now you’ve caught me ... and found out I’m a female ... you’ll, ah, you’ll ha-have your way with me? Wo-won’t you?” She sounded almost hopeful.

  Their attention switched suddenly to the noise of uneven footfalls, caused by someone with a gimpy leg trying to make a stealthy approach. “Not so long as I’m around, Morgan my darlin’, an’ have this shotgun aimed at these blackguards.”

  “An’ we’re not claim-jumpers,” O’Callan raised his voice. “I’m Sergeant Terrance O’Callan, United States Cavalry, an’ this is me first sergeant and dear-as-life friend, Jimmy Brannigan. We’ve taken part o’ our furlough time to try a hand at prospectin’, so ye’ve no need to fear us.”

  “We’re only just arrived,” Brannigan took it up, talking to the man in the darkness at his back. “We have no desire to take what’s another man’s. Only want to camp overnight and move on to find a claim of our own.”

  A bent, grizzled old man stepped into the firelight, slowly, cautiously. “I’m Alf Llewellyn and this is my granddaughter, Morgan—named for Morgan le Fay. If you’ve truly come in peace, then welcome you are.”

  “Llewellyn. Welsh, that is, and no better race suited to minin’,” Brannigan spoke, extending a hand to shake.

  Alf ignored the hand. “I’m not sayin’ I’m trustin’ you fully,” he grumbled. “But be about fixin’ yer supper an’ we’ll leave ye in peace.”

  “We’re sore pressed, Mr. Llewellyn, to find us a place to stake out,” O’Callan started out, while digging cook pots from the pack beside the fire. “Seems ev’ry man from breakfast to California has got here ahead o’ us.”

  “There’s some unclaimed spots around the next bend and up that side canyon, if you want to look at it tomorrow,” Morgan offered as she looked O’Callan boldly in the eye. “Be nice if you found a good spot there. We’d be close, neighbors like, if you know what I’m gettin’ at.”

  “Morgan!” her grandfather warned. He knew only too well what she was getting at. She’d been that way since before her tenth birthday.

  “You’ll have to excuse my granddaughter, gentlemen. She’s at that age where she’s gettin’ coltish, if you know what I mean.”

  “Ye might be right, sor. Though I’m not sure as I know what either o’ ye mean,” O’Callan answered, scratching furiously at one cheek, his hand covering his mouth to hide the broad, anticipatory grin that spread below his mustache.

  Twenty-Three

  Officious barks from large, brown tree squirrels and the twittering of chickadees substituted for reveille the next morning. Jimmy Brannigan stretched prodigiously and roused himself, while Terry O’Callan scrambled quickly into his outer clothing. Here on the Mogollon Rim, at the edge of the White Mountains, winter still held sway. Brannigan tended a small fire, over which he brewed a pot of stout coffee and prepared thick slices of bacon, with potatoes and onions on the side. O’Callan tended to saddling their mounts and loading the pack animals.

  “’Tis a fine mornin’ fer findin’ us a claim, I’m thinkin’,” O’Callan sang out cheerfully.

  “’Tis a fine mornin’ fer stayin’ abed and not freezin’ off yer toes, I say.”

  “Jimmy me boy, one would think ye displeased with our current station in life.”

  “An’ he’d be right in thinkin’ it.”

  “Come now. A week from today well be rich as Croesus.”

  “Don’t be building yer hopes too high, Terry,” Brannigan cautioned.

  After their hearty breakfast, they broke camp and followed the directions given by Morgan Llewellyn. The sky shone light above them, though as yet the sun had not climbed over the rim of the gorge. O’Callan remained in fine form, humming a scrap of song softly as he led the burro.

  “Ye sound unnaturally happy this mornin’, Terry me lad. Sure an’ I figgered by now the chill would have seeped into yer bones. What’s gotten inta ye that makes ye so cheerful on such a cold day?”

  “‘Tis perhaps vice versa ye should be askin’ about, Jimmy. I feel warm an’ happy as if I was a little furnace who’s had its ashes hauled.”

  Brannigan could hardly miss the implication. But when had they had the time? “Ye dirty old goat! Have ye no sense o’ decency at all? Ye’re fixin’ to look down the end o’ a Welsh shotgun, ye are.”

  “Maybe ye should be takin’ grammar lessons, Jimmy. I said, ‘perhaps’ and ‘as if,’ not for sure. Would ye not give me the benefit o’ the doubt and consider I was merely countin’ me blessin’s and figurin’ future possibilities?”

  Brannigan snorted. “Knowin’ ye, the only blessin’s ye’d be countin’ are those ye’ve already got under the blanket,
not some maybe ye hoped to get later on. For shame. An’ what would Marietta think of all this?”

  Instantly, O’Callan sobered, his discomfort evident on his face. “Now, why in blue blazes would ye be havin’ to mention that? There’s nothin’ definite betwixt Marietta an’ me. After all, when the cat’s away, the mice …”

  “I’s bein’ the mice and the ones what are away, yer example don’t exactly fit. Yer excesses are a disgrace.”

  “Why is it I could never get away with a lie to ye, Jimmy?”

  “Because I know ye like a book. I can read ye like a duty roster. But this time ye’ve overdone it, an’ that’s a fact.”

  O’Callan tried to work up his temper, only to find it impossible, the keen edge blunted by his mellow mood. “For that matter, do ye think I should be associatin’ only with the likes o’ them whores we met in Slaughter?”

  Brannigan took offense on behalf of the absent painted ladies. “Aggie an’ Bernice? What’s so wrong with them? They run a clean, honest place.”

  “Aye. The Carter sisters certainly have the best merchandise available in Slaughter an’ fair prices to boot. Yet, who’d ever expect to find sisters runnin’ such an establishment?”

  “More to the point, who’d ever expect to find ladies of their obvious culture and cultivation runnin’ a place like that? Ye’d think those Carter sisters would be operatin’ a library or finishin’ school for refined young girls, not out here in a rough place like Slaughter.”

  “That’s been yer trouble as long as I’ve known ye, Jimmy. Ye worry too much an’ ye think too hard ... with too little with which to do either one. Get the Carter sisters off yer mind. Aye, an’ Morgan Llewellyn too, an’ let’s go strike it rich.”

  It took them the better part of two days to decide on the proper location. Their inexperience told them it just had to be a claim bursting with gold to take with little or no effort.

  “Sure an’ it’s a darlin’ place,” O’Callan enthused. “You help me put up these pyramids of rock at the four corners, Jimmy, then we’ll set up our permanent camp.”