The Riflemen

by Tony Masero

  The lead scout approached the Colonel, his companion hanging back a pace or two. “Some wounded Mexican help still there,” reported the scout. “Many buildings burnt. Raiders go that way,” with a flat hand, he indicated the southwest. “They go slow. Have cattle, horse.”

  “And the little girl?” the Colonel asked.

  The scout could only give a shrug in reply. “Maybe taken. She’s not with the Mexicans.”

  “How many?” Guardeen asked.

  “Eight riders.”

  “All right,” said the Colonel. “Looks like we have some clearing up to do here. Put the place to rights. They have a day’s start on us. Mr. Guardeen, you’re a veteran skirmisher. D’you mind riding on ahead and see if you can catch up with these fellows and slow them down a might? I’ll send the scouts along with you, they can lead you on and let us know where you are when we’ve done here.”

  “That we can do, Colonel.” Guardeen rode back to Thaddeus and with a nod of farewell they parted from the column and, followed by the scouts, headed into the southwest.

  They cut across the raiders’ sign within a half hour: a clear trail in the dust, deep and wide with the obvious passage of all the stolen stock. With few words spoken between them, the group continued their journey, riding hard through the rest of the day and into the night. Resting briefly before the dawn, they cold breakfasted and then started out again as pink edged the horizon off their left shoulders. The two scouts kept to themselves and that suited Guardeen just fine, as he had never had a high opinion of a people who could work against their own kind.

  It was mid-morning and they were cautiously wending their way between a forest of towering boulders spread on a plain of red dust when the lead scout held up his hand and brought them to a halt. “They know we are coming. They wait. Make an ambush.” He indicated a pass cut through a mile-long range of pink rock ahead.

  “How’d they know we’re here? That we’re that close on their tail?” Guardeen asked.

  The scout rested his ear to the flat of his hand. “Listen on rock. Hear sound from hoof of horse. They smart people. Know we come, leave big trail for us, find good place for ambush. This the place.”

  “What d’you think, Thaddeus?”

  “I say we trust him. Makes sense. If I was setting someone up, that’s where I’d do it.”

  Guardeen nodded. “Me too. All right, this is what we do. These rock formations here will give us the cover, so we separate. I’ll take the southeast, Thaddeus, you go west.” He turned to the scouts. “You two carry on slowly, directly in front, making as much noise as possible to cover our separation. If we can, Thaddeus and me will work around and get above them. Outflank them and hit them from two sides.”

  “What about the child?” Thaddeus asked.

  Guardeen looked at the lead scout. “Can you do that? Get in there whilst we distract them and fetch out the girl?”

  The Indian shrugged noncommittally. “Can try.”

  “Let’s try real hard, huh?” Guardeen said with an edge in his voice. “Don’t you men do anything until you hear us firing with the big rifle. That’s when you move. Understood?” The scouts nodded. “Right, let’s do this.”

  Guardeen and Thaddeus peeled off and gave spur to their tired ponies as they rushed to outflank the expected Indian ambush. The dust was a risk, Guardeen knew that. If the renegades were watching, they might see their dust and guess their intention. It was a risk they had to take. He hoped the towering outcrops he was riding between would offer concealment.

  An hour later, Guardeen was scampering over rugged-edged rocks and slippery scree as he clambered up the southeastern end of the ridge. The climb was steep and his heeled riding boots were not the best footwear for the job. His backpacked Sharps, pistol, water and weighty ammunition belt did little to help and he was sweating profusely in the heat.

  The sun beat down with simmering intensity out of a clear sky as high noon approached, its heat bouncing back off the pale rock, doubling the power and searing the rockface under his touch.

  Guardeen stopped and drank from the canteen, rationing himself. Then he was on the move again, now climbing the sheer face of an inclined final slope that led to the summit. The muscles tightened in his legs as he sought to save himself from sliding on the glossy surface and his fingers dug into every small indentation and crevice.

  He crouched panting as he finally reached the flat top of the range. Beyond him stretched a smooth floor of pale shiny pink rock molded by savage winds and abrasive dust storms over centuries. He detected no sign of life and so he stood, carrying the Sharps in the crook of his arm as, one-handed, he strapped his revolver to his waist. Setting off, he made his way toward the crevice that broke the range midsection and marked the pass below where the expected ambush was set. A movement ahead caused him to stop sharply and bring the rifle to his shoulder. But then he made out the dark shape of Thaddeus, stripped to the waist, his skin gleaming in the sunlight as he hurried towards him around rocks on the opposite side of the canyon. Guardeen lowered his rifle and waved recognition at his partner, and then they both carried on to peer over the edge of the weatherworn lip of the canyon.

  The drop was sheer with a large overhang and impossible to climb up from below without equipment thus explaining why the summit was free of guards. The edge of the canyon overhang was a smooth rounded lip and was difficult to approach without risk of sliding over and into the drop. Guardeen paced the wide crack, searching for a suitable spot from which to shoot. There were figures far below, he could see their movement in the shadows cast by the sun shining directly into the canyon. Finally, he found a nook, a crevice where a section had fallen away and left a shallow hard-edged shelf big enough to take the full length of his body. He dropped into the spot and peered down.

  They were there all right. He counted them off. Seven he spotted immediately. Cattle and horses were held in a boxed side canyon with two renegades guarding them. Five others crouched patiently waiting in hiding places along the side walls of the pass.

  Then he had him, coming from behind the cover of a pile of rocks. The leader, Johnny Two Steps, a thin, bony wraithlike figure. Attached to a long leather lead around his middle, he dragged behind him the small figure of a little girl in a dirty ragged dress that her pa said had once been a pretty pale blue. Emily appeared numbed and followed the jerking pull of the lead with sullen and docile obedience.

  Guardeen silently cursed the Commanchero leader. Then he looked across at Thaddeus. By means of sign, he indicated that they should take opposite sides of the canyon to their present positions so that their targets did not coincide. When he knew Thaddeus understood, Guardeen indicated Johnny Two Steps and gave the sign to show the leader was his alone to target.

  Johnny Two Steps moved in jerking uncoordinated movements, occasionally twitching and rolling his head in an uncontrolled manner. He shuffled backwards and forwards in plain sight following a series of dance steps understood only by the workings of his demented mind. The little girl trailed behind him tiredly, stumbling as she followed his every move. Guardeen was worried by the position of the two in the center of the valley floor: it placed them in a dangerous position for any wild crossfire that might ensue, but on the other hand it made it easier for the Yaqui scouts to find the child; and the Apache were less likely to shoot for fear of hitting their leader.

  Guardeen unfastened his ammunition belt, the gauged grainage marked on each of his handmade shells inside. He made his selection and slipped a 60-grain shell into the open breech. Then he sighted on the jigging figure of Johnny Two Steps.

  “About to be your last dance, old fellow,” he breathed as he clicked back the hammer on the Sharps.

  Slowly, Guardeen followed the tripping figure and eased the breath from his body and began to squeeze the trigger. The booming echo of the shot rattled around the canyon in a repeating cacophony of sound. A plume of dust leaped up from the valley floor behind Johnny Two Steps and he fell over in a flopping b
undle of limbs. The heavy caliber bullet drilled through the shoulder.

  Thaddeus fired a second later, his echoing shot feeding off of the Sharps’s fading sound. The renegades below began firing wildly down the canyon, not knowing where their opponents were. Guardeen watched in distress as little Emily, standing alone and hunched over, wept in terror with her hands covering her ears at the center of the noisy maelstrom of rifle fire. Miraculously she remained unharmed and with a determined grimace, Guardeen reloaded and commenced firing. At his marksman standard, Guardeen could top ten rounds a minute, and he continued at this rate, disabling as many renegades as he could.

  Finally, one of the renegades realized that they were being attacked from above and not from the mouth of the canyon. He called to his companions and they altered their aim to take in the lip of the canyon over them. The glare of the sun directly above hindered them and much of their shooting was wild and either lost to the air or screamed harmlessly off the rockface. In the midst of this, the two Yaqui scouts rode into the canyon, one levering shots from his Winchester whilst his partner swept down and one handed lifted Emily from where she stood in the center of the valley. The scout wheeled his pony and rode off at full speed, not aware that the leather lead around Emily’s waist was still attached to the body of the wounded renegade leader.

  Still hiding amongst the rocks, the surviving renegades watched with horror as their leader was jerked away in a cloud of dust, his frail body bouncing over the rocky ground. Finally, the leather snapped under the strain and the renegade leader tumbled to a standstill amongst a tangle of sagebrush. The remaining renegades, wailing angrily, took their revenge out on the second scout and peppered him with rifle shots as he turned to follow his partner. His horse was hit and in a cloud of dust, he tumbled to the ground, scrabbling for cover behind some rocks.

  During the distraction, Guardeen and Thaddeus took the opportunity to shoot at the two renegade rustlers still guarding the stolen stock and, by ricocheting shots off the rockface behind, drove the already startled animals out into the valley.

  In the panic that ensued, as the stampeding creatures raced for freedom, Guardeen watched the remaining rustlers raise their hands in surrender.

  Guardeen and Thaddeus looked across the dividing space and exchanged satisfied nods of success at their accomplishment.

  At that moment, the distant sound of a bugle call reached Guardeen. “Hey!” He laughed cynically. “Here comes the cavalry, just in the nick of time.”

  Chapter Nine

  As evening set in, the troop camped at the head of the canyon, sheltering beneath the high walls. Campfires were lit and outlying pickets set while the evening meal was prepared. Guardeen sat on a rock and cleaned his rifle, indifferent to the neat row of trussed rustlers sitting behind him.

  Colonel Winter was well pleased by the outcome as he viewed the prisoners. “You two are a veritable army,” he said to Guardeen and Thaddeus.

  “Don’t forget your own men, Colonel,” Thaddeus replied. “Credit where it’s due. Those two scouts did real well.”

  Little Emily, with a smudged face and big sad eyes, was draped in a blanket to cover her bruises. She’d hardly spoken and was all cried out yet she still had a desperate need for comforting human companionship. For some reason, she’d taken to Thaddeus and followed him everywhere. She hung attentively to his leg until Thaddeus picked her up and held her in his arms. “There, there, child. I know you’ve seen some terrible things but all that is done now. You’re safe with us. Old Thaddeus and Uncle Nick is going to care for you here.”

  “What you saying there?” growled Guardeen. “Uncle Nick! I’m not anybody’s Uncle Nick. Not uncle to nobody.”

  “Come on now. She’s just a child. A little scared baby. You got to spread a little comfort for her.”

  Emily snuggled tiredly into Thaddeus’s neck, her tiny arms clinging to him tightly.

  “Never seen the like since I was on the plantation in the old days,” observed Sergeant Bull, stepping up to join them. “White child taking to a Negro man like that. She sure likes you, Mr. Thaddeus Johnston.”

  “And I like her too, don’t I, my little chickadee?”

  Guardeen looked at Thaddeus with an expression of disgusted surprise, wondering what had come over his partner. One minute a merciless shooting machine and now a doting figure of surrogate parenthood. “She got her pa back at the fort, you know?” he said peevishly.

  “I know, I know that, Mister Nick.”

  “You can’t keep her, you know that too?”

  “Now you’re being silly. I don’t want to keep her. I’m just letting her know somebody cares for her.”

  “Damn you, Thaddeus. You are the strangest creature I ever did meet.”

  “I always said you should get around more, Mister Nick.”

  Colonel Winter interrupted them. “Well, I guess this is the parting of the ways. You two are heading on south. We’ve had report of more trouble east of here, which I have to look into. I’ll detail off Sergeant Bull and some men to drive the Longfellow stock back to the fort and they can take the little girl with them.”

  Guardeen stood up and offered his hand. “That’s the way of it, Colonel. We’ll be on our way come first light.”

  “You need anything in the way of supplies?”

  “Would appreciate coffee. And bacon if you’ve got any to spare.”

  “I’ll see you get it.”

  “Obliged, Colonel.”

  Thaddeus uttered a long sigh. “I’m not going.”

  Both Winter and Guardeen turned in surprise. “What did you say?” Guardeen asked.

  “I’ll catch up with you later, Mister Nick. I’m taking this little mite back to her pappy.”

  “Dammit, Thaddeus! The colonel’s got men to do that. You don’t have to go anywhere.”

  “No, sir. I have to go. She needs me. Had too much fear put into her to go riding off with strangers again.”

  “But we’ve got a job to do.”

  “I know, I know, and we’ll get it done. I just have to do this thing first.”

  “Well, maybe I don’t want you doing this thing first,” Guardeen snapped.

  “I’m a free man, ain’t I? I can do what I want to do. That’s what you said.”

  “Well, yes .... but .....,” blustered Guardeen, caught unaware by the turn of events.

  “But .... what, Mister Nick?” There was a stern look of determination on Thaddeus’s face. It confused Guardeen; he’d grown so used to his amenable partner’s unswerving loyalty that he had no answer except anger. He said nothing in response. His face was frozen rigid as he swept up his saddle and blanket and began to saddle his mount. Coldly, he packed his saddlebags.

  His face sad, Thaddeus watched him, his free hand patting little Emily’s blanket swathed back reassuringly.

  “You did the right thing there, Mister Johnston,” said Sergeant Bull, placing a hand on Thaddeus’s shoulder. “We’re all free now. Lot of men died to make it so.”

  “Yes sir,” agreed Thaddeus, determination still locked in his face. “Though it isn’t about that. It’s about this little baby girl here.”

  Guardeen mounted up and slid his Sharps into its scabbard. He looked down at Thaddeus as he rode past. “If I see you again, Thaddeus Johnston, free man and all, it won’t be too soon for me.” He put his heel to the horse and at the gallop was soon lost in the darkness.

  Chapter Ten

  Anger consuming him, Guardeen rode out the rest of the night; he only decided on rest when the sun neared its zenith the next day. He found a high spot with the shade of some boulders and slept off the worst of the heat. When he woke, he felt refreshed and cooked a meal. He ate beans and bacon and reconsidered his argument with Thaddeus.

  His mind traveled over the hard words spoken and he experienced some remorse at what he said but he still felt offence at Thaddeus’s rejection of his leadership.

  His pride wouldn’t allow him to recognize the inflexibility
of his own intransigent standpoint. His prime concern had always been the completion of their mission and he believed that should take highest priority. Their most recent task, seeking out the renegade Indians, was an acceptable diversion, as it did not take them away from their route south.

  So, Thaddeus’s desire to return to the fort and thereby prolong their journey met with little sympathy from Guardeen.

  His thoughts on the welfare of the girl Emily were far removed from consideration in his argument. He’d never married or had children of his own so there were no comparisons to be made.

  On the other hand, Thaddeus had once been married, with a child of his own. He’d spoken often of the joy of watching an infant grow, of the delight in seeing the child’s early steps and hearing never-ending questions. That had all been lost to Thaddeus at some time while he’d been away fighting with Guardeen.

  The Guardeen homestead had been overrun, pillaged and burned by a southern robber band freelancing as legitimate raiders. The remains of the place, left under a tangle of weeds and despair with the farm workers killed or run off, had left a sorrowful cavern of emptiness in both men’s hearts.

  On their sad return, whilst Guardeen had grieved over his lost family and home, he wondered if perhaps he’d been remiss in not considering his loyal friend sufficiently, whose losses had been just as great.

  Each of them had suffered, it was true, but the destruction of his home farm had hardened Guardeen’s heart even more than the extremes he’d suffered in battle, for it struck at the very roots of his being. His partner meanwhile had survived with some glow of pity still alive in his soul and it was this that had divided their ways.

  In such a mood, he approached the lands of the Papago, the great Indian nation that traversed the border and encompassed 120,000 square miles of dry Sonoran Desert. Here there was hardly a living thing, apart from sidewinders and Saguaro cactus; but for Guardeen this hot arid vastness perfectly paralleled his feeling of dry emptiness.