by Chuck Tyrell
“Ain’t likely.”
“We’ll see.” Another cuff.
“Follow me,” Stryker said, and he struck out at a brisk walk, headed away from the line of light that formed in the sky behind the mountains to the east.
Will Black and Boogie Hill followed, not a difficult task because Stryker did not walk fast. Samson came along behind, hauling Ben Stroud by the arm. None of them noticed the lone figure that walked at much the same pace, but about half a mile to the north of the misfits’ track.
As the eastern sky lightened with the dawn, Stryker stopped. “Now we leap frog,” he said. “Do you know what I mean?”
Heads shook “no.”
“I will stop here. The rest of you walk on ahead. I’ll watch the back trail and the surrounding lay of the land while you troopers move ahead. At about a hundred paces, Boogie, you stop. I’ll start walking to catch up. You watch the back trail and off to the sides for anything out of place.”
“Yo,” Boogie said, but he looked a little scared.
“Another hundred paces and Willem, you stop and be lookout. By then I’ll be up to Boogie and we’ll keep on walking toward you. Ben and Samson’ll move on for a hundred more paces. Then stop and become the lookout. Got it?”
“Yo.”
“Move out.”
It didn’t go as Stryker imagined. Boogie made more noise than half a dozen ponies. Willem Black obviously didn’t know the desert and had already picked up spines from one of the cactuses that lay in wait for people who walked carelessly.
Two hours into the desert, Stryker called a halt, letting the men rest in the shadow of an upcropping volcanic rock.
“Any of you men notice the feller following after us?”
“Nope.” Negatives came from Samson, Boogie, and Willem.
“He been there from the start,” said Ben Stroud. “I drunk tiswin with him last night. Told him what Stryker was gonna do. Reckon he’s come along to see how good a Indun Stryker is.”
“Got a name?”
“He’s a White Mountain Apach’, name a Bly, on account he’s taller’n most everyone.”
Stryker walked away from the troopers gathered in the shade. He moved almost due north toward the last place he’d seen the Apache. A bit over a hundred yards from the upcropping, he squatted in the shadow of a mesquite bush. “Bly,” he said in a low but natural tone. “I would speak with you.”
The answer came from no more than three yards away. “I hear you, Gopan the protector, the one called Stryker. Speak.”
“Ben Stroud told you what I want, but I will say it again. I would become as an Apache in the desert and in the mountains and in the Ponderosa forests.”
“Not every Indeh is a good warrior, Gopan.”
“This I know. Not every bluebelly is a good soldier. It is true.”
“Do you know our name for the one called Ben Stroud?”
Stryker shook his head.
“Nartana. Tiswin dancer. He is no longer a man. For that matter, he is no longer counted among the Indeh. He cannot teach you what you want to learn.”
Stryker chewed on his upper lip. “Bly. Can you teach me?”
Silence. Then, “Maybe.”
“You can be my scout. The army will pay you.”
“Army promises ... never good.”
“Try me.”
“Um. I will test you. One moon.”
“Bly. I cannot use one month. Only fourteen sunrises. Then you and I must teach the soldiers.”
Bly came from near a clump of bitter bush not large enough to hide a man. He squatted by Stryker, facing the same direction. “Gopan. Do not trust Tiswin Dancer Nartana. He has no honor.”
“The Indeh raised him.”
“I tell you, Gopan. Do not trust Nartana. He must earn any trust you give to him.”
“I hear you, Bly. We will return to Fort Bliss. Tomorrow, as the sun rises, I will walk. You come, teach.”
“Deyaa.” And Bly was gone.
Stryker made his way back to the upcropping volcanic rock.
“Damnable dry,” Ben Stroud said. “A man could sure use a drink.”
“Don’t do no good wishing,” Stryker said. “Now. Back to the fort just like we come out. Leapfrogging all the way. Samson, you and Ben move out. Willem, you follow. Then Boogie. I’ll come last. Understood?”
“Yo!” they chorused. Except for Ben Stroud.
“You hear me, Stroud?”
“Oughta, loud as you’re talking. Sound carries a helluva long ways out here.”
“Then move out, Samson.”
The big sergeant grabbed hold of Ben Stroud’s arm and frog marched him back the way they’d come.
A hundred paces and Samson stopped, pulling Stroud to a halt beside him. Willem started toward them, passed, and continued for another one hundred steps. Then Boogie. And finally, Stryker.
“Everybody at my tent by four.”
“Ain’t nobody got a watch,” Stroud groused.
“Shouldn’t need one. Good soldier can tell time by the sun. Learn. Samson, you come with me.”
“Sir.”
“The rest of you, here at four.”
“Yo.” The men went to their tents, probably to sleep. Only Ben Stroud headed for a water olla. The tiswin was talking back to him now.
Stryker retrieved his gunbelt and converted Remington Army from his tent. “Come along,” he said, buckling the gunbelt in place.
Samson followed behind. “Walk alongside, Samson. We need to talk.”
“Sir. But mens around might figure me uppity were I to walk right up beside a white man.”
“Whatever you figure’s safe. But in my troop, there ain’t no black or white or red or yellow.”
Samson still walked a step back, but close enough that he could hear what Stryker said.
“I’ll be gone for a while, maybe ten days, maybe two weeks. You’ll be in charge.”
“Why me?”
“You got what it takes.”
Samson said nothing.
They walked on.
“Whatcha want me to do, then?” Samson asked.
“Come along,” said Stryker. But when he started up the steps to the door of the sutler’s store, Samson hung back again.
“What now?”
“No black man can go into the sutler’s. Them’s the rules.”
“I tell you, there’s no difference in my troop.”
“Other white folk ain’t in your troop, sir, begging pardon, sir.”
Stryker opened the door and stuck his head in. “McCabe,” he called.
McCabe’s answer came from deep inside the store. “Hello? That you, Matt Stryker?”
“It is. Could ya come to the door for a minute?”
“Surely. Be right there.”
“Is there anything I can do to help, Mr. Stryker?” Elsinore McCabe’s warm voice carried more than a little welcome.
“No, ma’am. I just need to speak with your father.”
“Sometimes speaking with me can clear up more than speaking with him,” she said. She’d stepped to the end of a free-standing row of shelves so Stryker could see half her face. A large woman with her waist tightly cinched, as was the fashion in eastern states, Elsinore offered him a tempting view of femininity.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said with a deadpan face.
McCabe came bustling from the rear of the store. “Yes. Yes. What is it you need, Matthew?”
“Step outside, if you would.”
“Certainly.”
Stryker stepped back and McCabe came face to face with Samson Kearns.
“Wha-a-a-a?”
“Reginald Kearns, lately of the Fifteenth Infantry, is the first sergeant of A Squad, Headquarters Division. I’d like him to come with us to the gunroom. If you please.”
McCabe stammered and cleared his throat. “W-w-well, didn’t realize your troop was colored.”
“Just think of us as a rainbow, McCabe. All the colors—white, black, red, yellow—in one
bunch. Can we come in?”
McCabe whipped his gaze up and down the street. No one seemed to be watching. “Um ... yes. Well. It really would be apropos if he were to go round to the back door ... ”
“You don’t want my first sergeant’s boots dirtying your floor, is it?”
“Not me, Matthew. Not me at all. Any man’s money ... woman’s for that matter ... yes, money’s all the same color, I say.”
“Then we’ll go in the front door, won’t we?”
Again McCabe swept the surrounds with quick glances, left, center, right. “Well. All right. Step smartly now.”
Stryker ambled into the store, Samson a step behind.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” Elsinore said. “May I help you?”
“Gunroom,” Stryker said. “Come on, Samson.” He strolled down the wide aisle, readymade clothing on one side, airtights on the other.
Samson did his best to be invisible.
McCabe came behind, as if he could block anyone’s view of the huge black man walking within the bounds of his store. The few hairs on his head stood straight up, showing his agitation.
“Door’s locked,” Stryker said, nodding at a hasp and padlock.
“Of course. Guns are almost as precious as silver and gold.” McCabe unlocked the door. “Gentlemen ... ” He motioned them inside.
Stryker inhaled. The air in the room carried the scent of gun oil and gunpowder. He smiled. His face looked much like that of a mountain cat, crouched and ready to spring on a hapless baby lamb. “Those Yellow Boys ready?”
“Yes, they’re cleaned and in perfect condition.”
“Show me.”
McCabe laid the rifles out.
“Fifteen shot repeaters,” Stryker said to Samson Kearns. “No single-shot Springfields for my troop.”
Kearns’ eyes glittered. “Prime, sir.”
“You gotta stop calling me ‘sir’.”
Kearns shook his head. “Maybe out in the desert, sir. But not here on the ground.”
“Pistols?” Stryker said to McCabe.
The sutler laid out converted Remington Army M1860 six shooters.
“Today we’ll take four of each, and eight hundred rounds of ammunition.”
“Going to war, are you?”
“May be, McCabe. May be.”
“Now. Samson Kearns. You’re to take the troop out every morning and evening and made sure every man can hit what he aims at from a hundred yards with the rifles and twenty-five with the pistols. Go to McCabe if you need more guns and ammo. Clear?”
“Yes, sir.” Samson’s eyes took on that glitter again.
Chapter Five – To Live Off the Land
When Stryker rose in the predawn, Samson Kearns stood beside his tent. Stryker picked up the set of first sergeant’s stripes he’d gotten with Major Adams’ authority and handed them to Samson. “Sew ’em on, or get ’em sewed on. Make sure every soldier in A Squad looks and acts topnotch when on fort grounds. Practice with rifle and pistol every day. Get those misfits to where they hit what they aim it. Hear?”
“Yes, sir.” Samson took the stripes.
Stryker again dressed in muslin shirt, canvas pants, Apache moccasins, tan bandana, and a cloth wrapped around his head like a broad headband. “I’ll be back in ten days to two weeks. You hold A Squad together until I get back.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Go to Major Adams if anyone gives you sass or any other problem.”
“Yes, sir.”
Stryker drew his Bowie and tested its edge with a thumb. Nodding, he returned it to its sheath. Without another word to Samson, he walked away, not with the regimented stride of an army officer, but with the smooth loose-jointed step of a woodsman.
Matthew Stryker was born to land in Virginia, but fortune made him the second son, not the man who would inherit the plantation. As a youngster, he’d spent more time in the woods than on the sprawling acres of cotton and corn that made up Seven Oaks in Weyanoke. A hundred black men, give or take a few, and more than half that many black women farmed Seven Oaks’ acres for Ammon Stryker, Matthew’s father. And where men and women gather, children come. Some black as their mammies, some what was called “yaller,” children that were fathered by a white man but doomed to slavery anyway.
Matthew’s best friend as a free-ranging boy was a “yaller” kid by the unlikely name of Leonidas.
“Damned darkies can’t learn to tell their bum holes from post holes,” Ammon Stryker often said, but Leonidas made a liar of him. Oh, he acted the dumb darkie around the master or the foreman, saying yassuh and nawsuh, and crinkling his brow like he wasn’t sure just what he was being told to do. But when Leonidas and Matt Stryker were out together, across the creek and into the woods, no one was smarter that Stryker’s yaller friend. In fact, they spend many hours on the riverbank going through Matt’s schoolbooks so Leonidas learned everything Matt learned, and more.
As second son, Stryker by custom went to Virginia Military Institute from the time he was fourteen. That meant going to Lexington and living like a Spartan for four years. But New Market came before those four years were over, and after the VMI Cadet Corps drove the Yankees off the heights above Bushong’s orchard, Stryker was made an officer among the troops guarding Richmond. He was captured with a piece of cannon shell in his thigh when the Confederate government evacuated Richmond and set fire to the armory. Stryker’s wound wasn’t even from Yankee guns.
He ended up in Anton prison, leg wound and all. Surgeons were busy chopping limbs off men worse off that Stryker, so he was able to talk a volunteer nurse named Martha into helping him.
Leonidas’s ma, a pure black woman who carried on with the traditions her granmammie brought across the ocean from never-never land. As Stryker remembered, she said, “When ya gots sumpin what’s cuts deep inter ya, then ya best pour it fulla rum—the stronger, the better—if’n ya can. Ya gots stickers ’r slivers ’r sumpin down inside, dig ’em out an’ let ’er bleed plenny.”
Then she said to get a wad of spider’s web and slap that into the wound, the cover it up with a weed she called woundwort. Stryker found out later the regular name for it was yarrow. Bind it up tight, she said, and don’t take the bandage off for a week.
Anton was not a healing environment, and nearly half the Secesh rebels that went into the prison never came out. With whiskey that would rot the guts of any drinker, with globs of spider webs, and with woundwort and a bandage made from a dead man’s shirt, Stryker survived. In fact, he walked with hardly a limp when the call went out for southern men to join the Frontier Army.
Stryker joined as a private in the Fifth Infantry. No one mentioned a thing about pay, and Stryker didn’t ask. It turned out to be fifteen dollars a month, paid every three months or every six months or whenever the doddering old men in congress got around to allotting the money.
Still, nearly four years at VMI beat army traditions into Matt Stryker’s bones, and he did the necessary things without even thinking.
Almost before the Fifth Infantry arrived at Fort Kearny, Stryker was a corporal. He made sure his men got the best of whatever there was to be had, and he was forever badgering Sergeant Major Baker for more ammunition.
“Stryker, I’ll swear. Them six boys in your squad shoot up more powder and ball than a whole company oughta.”
Stryker’s squad stood out in the battle at Beaver Creek, and he was given sergeant’s stripes. Some of those men—the Greer brothers from Texas and Mickey Finney; Dick Grady and Orson Bailor—were still with him, and they were good men in a fight, good men to have at your back, anytime.
A shadow hit Stryker from the right and slightly behind, but he’d caught the flicker of movement in his peripheral vision and rolled with the impact, throwing his attacker in a move akin to a flying mare. Stryker grasped the wrist as it went by, so the attacker landed on his back in the desert dust.
Stryker’s Bowie knife came to his hand as he swept it back and up to put the razor sharp steel at
the attacker’s throat.
“Enough, Gopan.” Bly the White Mountain Apache put both hands up, fingers spread wide.
“Why attack me, Bly?”
“We must ever be watching for attack,” Bly said. “But I see that Gopan is always ready.” Bly scrambled to his feet.
“Thank you for the lesson. I will try to be more wary.”
Bly nodded. “Wary? If the word means taking care, you must. Now we run.” He trotted away, and somehow he raised no dust. Stryker followed, doing his best to imitate Bly’s dustless jog. He was not very successful. Nor did Bly pay any attention to Stryker, it seemed. The Apache moved at a reasonably fast trot, but he blended with the brush and the foxtails and the cactuses. Yes, he moved, but no more than the movement caused by a gust of wind or a desert dust devil.
The dry air of southern New Mexico removed sweat the moment it came from the pores. Bly maintained his effortless pace. Stryker jogged easily at first, but as the sun climbed higher, his legs began to feel the strain and his lungs began to burn as he breathed in, rebelling, perhaps, at an atmosphere with virtually no humidity. But Bly didn’t stop, so neither could Stryker.
Bly pulled farther and farther away from Stryker, and finally disappeared. He didn’t leave much of a trail to follow, and Stryker finally slowed to a walk so he’d not lose what little sign Bly left behind.
The trail dropped into an arroyo and continued—faint footprints in the sand. The gash in the desert floor made a sharp curve so Stryker moved to the inside of the curve so he’d be least conspicuous.
“Well done, Gopan.” Bly’s voice came clearly, but the Apache was invisible. Then he moved, materializing out of the wall opposite Stryker.
“Not so well, Bly. You left me far behind.”
Bly nodded. “White men never run. Walk, or use horses. Apache run better than horses. Fifty miles. Seventy miles. No difference.” He showed his teeth in a smile. “Easy, Gopan. Man no run, man no can run.”
“Practice,” Stryker said, his tongue like a wooden stick.
“Run.”
Stryker nodded. “Run.”
Bly held out a wet-looking green glob stuck on a stick. “Eat.”
Stryker eyed the blob. “What’s this?”