He dismissed the idea and his thoughts turned to his command. He was to garrison forts at Marl Springs, Bitter Springs, Rock Springs, and Fort Piute, as his judgment saw fit, to ensure the safe passage of freight caravans and stages along the Government Road. He was to make no move against the Mohaves unless they first attacked him. His mission was to protect the road.
Major Sykes had never before seen the desert. He had come to California by ship. He had no idea what the “forts” were that he was to garrison, nor what a campaign in the desert could be like. He had heard of desert fighting, he had talked with officers who had fought the Apaches in New Mexico and Texas. He was quite sure he could handle the situation, his only doubt being what he might be able to make of it.
Camp Cady was on the Mohave River. He envisioned an imposing post beside a sparkling stream. There would be boating perhaps.
His first sight of the desert from the top of the pass was a shock. Captain Marriott, the second in command, commented, “There’s a lot of desert out there. Fourteen thousand square miles, they say, depending on whose figures you use.”
“That’s impossible, Captain! That’s larger than the state of Massachusetts.”
“Yes, sir. And you can add part of Connecticut for good measure. That’s a lot of rugged country, sir, and there’s very little water.”
Major Sykes was appalled. Never in his wildest speculations had he considered such a vast expanse of desert, and it was his job to patrol the Government Road through that wasteland with just three troops of soldiers!
“Have you served in the desert, Marriott?”
“No, sir, but I’ve traveled through it. Water is the problem. Water enough for a troop of men is hard to find.”
“How do the Indians manage?”
“They scatter, sir. They know tiny water holes or seeps with just enough for one or two men. By the time they and their horses drink it may take hours to fill up again.”
It was sundown when they rode into Camp Cady, and Sykes’s spirits hit rock bottom. There were trees offering some shade, and there was the river—a mere trickle, by his standards. The huts were built of adobe or logs, and roofed with brush. Some of the soldiers actually lived in brush huts, preferring them in warm weather.
Captain Hill awaited him. “You’ll be tired, sir. I’ve had water heated, so if you’d like a bath—”
“You haven’t formed the men?”
“There are only eight men, sir. Three are on guard duty at present, and the others have just returned from a patrol.”
The casualness of it offended him, but he was hot and tired, and in no mood to quibble. In Hill’s quarters, the captain got out his treasured bottle of whiskey. “This may help, sir. I know this place is rather a shock after the Coast, but it grows on you. There’s something about the desert, sir, that gets to you.”
“I shall try very hard not to discover it,” Sykes replied shortly.
Hill reviewed for him the Indian situation. “You have two men here,” he added, “who are invaluable. There’s a Delaware Indian who has scouted for the army, served in it as he does now, and he is a master at tracking. The other one is Sergeant Morty Callaghen.”
“Sergeant?”
“Yes, sir. I promoted him to sergeant after Lieutenant Allison was killed. He’s a very able man. He knows the desert better than any white man I know, and after Allison was killed he took over and led the remnants of the patrol back out of the desert. I doubt if any other man could have done so.”
“I know the man.”
Hill spoke mildly. “Too bad you are losing him. He’s the best man you have.”
“I do not intend to lose him.”
“His enlistment is up, Major. He is waiting for his papers now. Once he has them, I doubt if he’ll remain long.”
Sykes dismissed the subject. “This Allison you mention. He was named in one of your reports, but nobody at headquarters knows anything about him.”
Captain Hill explained as best he could, adding some of Callaghen’s speculations.
“Gold?” Sykes stared at him. “There’s gold in this desert?”
“It’s been found from time to time. It’s mostly rumor, I think, but some of the rumors are quite substantial. The one that intrigues me the most is that of a River of Gold that is said to flow under the desert.”
“Under?”
“Rivers do not last long in the desert, Major. They sink into the sand and disappear. Perhaps they just evaporate, but the story is that there’s a river running deep in a cavern beneath the desert, and that its sand is mixed with gold. The Indians had stories about a River of the Golden Sands.”
“Nonsense.” Even as he said it, Sykes was thoughtful. Supposing…just supposing such a story were true? He was here in the desert. He had ample time to look around, and an excellent cover for doing so. And if he found something it would, of course, belong to him.
He dismissed the idea, and thought of more immediate things. In the morning he would go over the lists of provisions, ammunition, and weapons on hand. He would have a look at the riding stock and the pack animals, and learn just what he had to work with.
After he had had his bath he sat and talked with Captain Hill over a drink and a cigar.
“The Mohaves now,” Sykes said. “Do you see them often?”
“You only see them when they want you to see them.” Hill paused. “You must understand, Major, the Mohave is a different kind of Indian. He is not like the Plains Indians. Not even like the Apaches, with whom he is sometimes grouped. The Mohaves are of the Yuma family, but they are very different indeed.”
He took a sip of whiskey. He was going to have to leave it alone. He was getting to like the stuff too much. “When they want to navigate the river they do not make dugouts or birchbark canoes….They make boats of reeds, not unlike those of the ancient Egyptians, or the pre-Inca Indians of the Andes.
“They are tall, handsome people, better bred, perhaps, than most Indians. They lack the stately posture and the dignity of the Plains tribes, but the women are often very fine-looking. Their customs, too, are different. I think you will find them interesting.”
Sykes glanced at Hill with no particular admiration. “I have never felt that savages were a subject for study. My mission here is to make the road safe for travel. I shall do exactly that. The first time I meet them in battle, I shall wipe them out.”
Hill looked at him thoughtfully. “I wish I could stay to see it, Major. It would be a remarkable accomplishment. How many men did you bring with you?”
“Sixty-six, in three under-strength troops.”
“Yes, that would be about it. You see, Major, the Mohaves number about three thousand, at the best guess, and I would imagine about seven or eight hundred of them are warriors. Their tactics are different. They are excellent guerilla fighters, but that is not their way under ordinary circumstances. They prefer hand-to-hand combat. They want to grapple with their enemies. Sometimes in battle with other Indians they grab them and drag them into their circle, where they are hacked to pieces.
“The Mohaves are strong men. They use clubs, knives, bows and arrows, and a sort of mallet with which they attack the face with what a prizefighter would call an uppercut.
“A few days ago when Callaghen was leading back the remnant of that patrol, the Indians followed on horseback, but that is rare. The Mohaves prefer to fight on foot. I believe their reason for following on horseback in the recent case was to taunt the soldiers, to show them how easy it was for them, how hard for the soldiers on foot.”
“Yet they were driven off?”
“Largely by Callaghen, from what the Delaware and Croker said. Callaghen lured them in close, then, according to Croker, who is no admirer of Callaghen, he put on a display of pistol shooting the like of which Croker had never seen. No Indian likes to suffer losses, so they pulled off.”
“Very interesting.” Sykes was thoughtful. This situation might be different from what he had expected. “What do you
think are my chances for pitched battle with the lot of them?”
“No good at all. They would have to be quite sure of a smashing victory before they would put any large number of men in the field. However, in a war with the Maricopas and the Pimas they did put some two hundred warriors in the field, allied with Yavapais, Yumas, and Apaches.”
Hill went to the fire for the coffeepot. “Their arrows aren’t much good at long range, and they don’t have many rifles. One of their preferred methods of fighting is to charge into a group, grab a man and throw him over the shoulder for the Mohaves coming up behind to kill. Often an Indian will throw a man over his shoulder and those behind will plunge knives into him or beat him to death with clubs.
“You might not think,” he added, “that such tactics would work against the guns of the white man, but with a sudden rush they are very effective. When unexpected, they can be disastrous.”
Sykes was quiet. A bigoted man he might be, but he was no fool, and he was suddenly aware that the Mohave was something new for him.
“They live along the river?”
“From the Needles north for sixty or seventy miles, I’d say. Naturally, there are no actual boundaries, and any such statement must be elastic. They hunt very little—for one reason, there simply isn’t much to hunt. They are farmers, planting on land flooded by the Colorado, as the Egyptians did on land flooded by the Nile. They grow corn, wheat, pumpkins, squash, melons, and a few other things. Mesquite beans are an item of diet that is very important.”
“They travel on foot?”
“Preferably. And they can run all day, day after day. They come out of the desert like ghosts, and vanish into it the same way.”
Suddenly Sykes was no longer listening, for his thoughts had returned to the strange story of the River of the Golden Sands.
Was there such a river? Could he find it? And if so, could he get the gold out for himself? Without anyone knowing?
CHAPTER 7
* * *
CALLAGHEN WAS A man at home in the desert, which has always been a place of legend and of mystery, a lost world wherein lost mines and lost cities have been found, seen, or speculated about. In the vast emptiness of the desert almost anything could happen.
The desert preserves. What other lands destroy, the desert keeps. It accepts dead things, holds them close, and draws away the rot that would destroy; given time, it mummifies or crystalizes.
If the dead are undisturbed, the sun, the dry air, and the sand take out the moisture and preserve the body. Much of the Egyptian success with mummification was due to the dryness of the air rather than to any secret process. We would know little of the history of the ancient world if so much of it had not happened in arid lands. Callaghen, who knew something of the deserts of the Sahara, Afghanistan, India, and Turkestan, and who had ridden many a desert mile by camel as well as by horse, was prepared to believe that this desert, too, had its mysteries.
But he was wise enough to know that man has no final answers. The knowledge of ancient peoples has merely scratched the surface. Out there in the desert there might be things of which man as yet knows nothing.
At Buffum’s saloon in Los Angeles a man had shown him gold nuggets found in the San Gabriel Mountains, and gold-dust washed from its streams. Within a mile of Camp Cady he had picked up pieces of agate, and had found jasper and chalcedony in canyons to the north. Twice he had been shown “rubies” found near a crater in the desert, but the rubies had proved to be garnets…attractive stones, but definitely not rubies.
Several times when on patrol in the desert he had crossed Indian trails that went to unknown places. There was Indian writing at a dozen places he had visited—evidence that men had been there.
Once, digging an entrenchment in the desert, he had found a layer of black soil, built from decayed vegetation at some time when the desert must have been less arid. He had come across the same thing in the Sahara; and on rock walls in the Hoggar he had seen paintings of horse-drawn chariots, giraffes, zebras, and wild cattle…all creatures that must have lived there at an earlier time when the climate was much less dry.
Captain Hill was interested in all this. As for himself, his papers would be along soon and then he would leave. He had been thinking of coming back, but he knew that too often other things intervene and such plans come to nothing. If he once left here it was unlikely that he would return. In fact, he dared not. He had seen too many men surrender to the witchery of desert nights, and to the enchantment and mystery of it all. The desert could be a demanding mistress who gave up nothing to a man, but took all, whatever he had to give. Gold…and the desert…They had been the death of many a good man.
—
CROKER CAME OVER to Callaghen and sat down. “Hotter than hell out there,” he commented. “Seen the new C.O. yet?”
“No.”
“He’s testy. Sharp and testy. I think we’re in trouble.”
Callaghen, irritated that his thoughts had been interrupted, did not respond. Besides, Croker was probably leading up to something, and no matter what it was, he wasn’t interested. He did not like the man, nor trust him.
“This here desert now,” Croker went on, “has secrets, things a man would give his eyeteeth to know….You given any thought to this Allison? I think he had something on his mind. If you and me knew what it was we might make ourselves a pretty penny. If he wasn’t a genuine soldier, he—”
“What gave you that idea?” Callaghen interrupted.
“Come off it. You know there ain’t no secrets in the army. Somebody always hears things on the grapevine. The story is that Allison had been an officer all right, but that he came out here to pass himself as a replacement. He knew it would take a month or two for anybody to find out, and meanwhile he’d have a government escort whilst he prowled about looking for whatever it was. No Indians to worry about...”
“He made a mistake, didn’t he? When a man’s time comes, not even the army can protect him.”
“You believe that? A man’s fated to die at a certain time or place?”
Callaghen shrugged. “No, I don’t. It was just a manner of speaking. Usually a man dies when he gets careless.” He looked hard at Croker. “And I never get careless, Croker.”
The other man laughed, without humor. “Have it your way. Only thing is, I think whatever the lieutenant was after, you know it. And if you go after it, I’ll be right on your tail.”
“What I’m after, and all I’m after, are my discharge papers and the first stage or freight wagon to Los Angeles.”
Croker stared at him, unbelieving, then he snorted and walked away.
Puzzles irritated Callaghen. There was an answer to most things if a man added things up right. The trouble was, you had to have all the pieces, and in this case there was very little on which to make any decision—it was all supposition. He had a map, of course…or he had had it. He had sent back the map with those other things that went to the address in Allison’s gear. That he had kept a copy of it was his own business.
—
THE NORMAL DUTIES of the camp continued. Callaghen waited impatiently for his discharge, but saw little of Sykes. Major Sykes was studying reports, and was finding nothing to give him pleasure.
Nowhere did he find a report of a major attack by the Indians. There was continual harassment, with hit-and-run attacks, horse-stealing, and sniping, but nowhere was there any indication of the Indians attempting a real battle. The record showed only another difficult kind of army duty. Both now and during previous occupations of the desert posts, there had been disciplinary problems and desertions.
Hot in the summer, cold and windy in the winter, the high desert offered nothing to entice a soldier. There were no towns nearer than San Bernardino or Los Angeles where he might go on leave, and getting to either place required considerable travel time.
Captain Hill’s reports he found brief and to the point, but there were notes appended as to tactics, the beliefs of the Indians, their sourc
e of food, methods of fishing, and all manner of odds and ends. In spite of himself he found these interesting. Captain Hill had certainly been observant. Though he had never served under General Crook, he understood this was the sort of thing Crook required of his officers. He believed in understanding the enemy. Sykes was not at all sure he agreed, but some of it could be of value in closing off the food supply and bringing the Indians to terms.
He studied Callaghen’s report with particular interest. That the man had been an officer was obvious. The report was brief and to the point, and was put together with meticulous skill. The tactics used by the Mohaves, the condition of the water holes, the kind of country over which they marched, the death of Lieutenant Allison—all were told clearly and with no wasted words.
This last matter was going to be a headache. They would want to know who this Allison was, how he came to be there, how he came to be killed, how he happened to be in command of an army patrol?
He took from the file the orders Allison had submitted on his arrival. Everything was in order. Hill certainly could have had no reason to suspect the man was other than he had appeared to be.
There was a brief outline of Allison’s military record. Graduated from Virginia Military Academy—well, that could be checked. He had served at two eastern stations far from the frontier, and anyone might have served at those posts during the time Allison claimed he was there.
Both Hill and Callaghen agreed that the man was a soldier, so he must have been one who had left the service not long before…or who had been a former Confederate. A rebel officer…that could be.
Certainly, whatever he had expected to do would have had to be done quickly, for such a trick could not go long undiscovered. Especially as everybody knew that Sykes was about to take over.
Suddenly, he felt a chill. He put the reports down carefully and fumbled in his pocket for a cigar and matches.
Callaghen (Louis L'Amour's Lost Treasures) Page 5