The Colonel's Lady

by Clifton Adams

  “Gentlemen,” Weyland said, unfurling a large map of northeastern Arizona, “I have received vague reports from our Indian scouts hinting at the presence of foreign Apache tribes near the Coyotero stronghold here.” He stabbed with a pointer at a place on the map, slightly above the Boulders, in the hills. “Vague reports and hints are not enough. If Kohi is reinforcing his troops with Chiricahuas and Mimbrenos, I want to know the facts. I want to know where they are coming from, how Kohi has persuaded them to join him, and, most of all, how many there are of them. If he is planning all-out war against the United States troops in northeastern Arizona, I want to know about it now.”

  He held the pointer across his chest, like a carbine. He smiled at us. I could almost feel his pale glance sliding over my face.

  “Furthermore, gentlemen, I intend to have these facts. I propose the formation of an independent detail to accompany the next patrol, a detail consisting of four Indian scouts and one officer whose job it will be to gather this intelligence and present it to this headquarters. Of necessity, the scout detail must screen far ahead of the patrol column. It must work every inch of the hills near Kohi's stronghold. To do this, while avoiding direct contact with the hostiles, is the direct responsibility of the officer in charge. Are there any questions, gentlemen?”

  There was an uneasy shuffling, but there were no questions. Making the regular patrols was one thing, but being saddled to a suicide mission was something else again. The junior officers, especially the married ones, seemed to shrink as the Colonel studied us, one after the other.

  Weyland looked at me, and I thought he smiled, just a little. So this was the way it was going to be, I thought. He had planned it well. It was as clean and neat as a well-used bayonet, and as deadly. Whether or not the scout detail was necessary, I didn't know. If it hadn't been that, it would have been something else.

  “Mr. Reardon,” the Colonel said pleasantly, “will be in charge of the detail. Captain Halan, the Lieutenant will accompany your patrol tomorrow morning. That will be all, gentlemen.”

  We all mumbled something. We saluted and filed out of the headquarters building, leaving the Colonel standing there in front of his map, smiling. Or maybe I only imagined he was smiling. Halan fell in beside me as we hit the front porch.

  “That's quite a job the Colonel cut out for you, Reardon.”

  I felt myself grinning, but it was only with my mouth.

  “Drop by the orderly room after recall and we'll go over the march orders together. We'll go over the Indian scouts too; they'll likely be as treacherous as the Apaches, once you get them alone.”

  “Thanks. I'll do that.”

  Gorgan caught me halfway across the parade, headed for Officers' Row. “Now that,” he said dryly, “is what I call starting right in to soldier, without all the dilly-dally that usually goes along with a commission. What has the Colonel got against you, anyway?”

  I looked at him sharply, but it was only a question. “Somebody has to do the job.”

  “Maybe so. But you don't know anything about Kohi, or Apaches, or the country we're going into. One patrol you've been on. After twenty patrols you still wouldn't be fit for a job like this. Why didn't the Colonel get a contract scout from Tucson to handle it? There are plenty of men who know every hill and gully up here like they know the scars on their hands.”

  I grinned. “Why don't you ask the Colonel?”

  “I'd like to.”

  I had a feeling that Gorgan was putting together a lot of small pieces of information in his mind, and in that methodic way of his he was building an answer that was uncomfortably close to the truth. He glanced at me thoughtfully, and then looked away. When we got across the parade ground Gorgan said, “Well, it's something to think about, but I haven't got time for it now.” He flicked a white gauntlet at me and walked off toward his company orderly room.

  After taking a dozen steps or so he paused and turned. “I almost forgot,” he called. “My wife said to tell you you're invited to supper tonight, if you haven't got something better to do.”

  I wasn't eager to take supper with the Gorgans, for there was always a chance that I could meet Caroline once more before the patrol pulled out the next morning. But I couldn't think of any reasonable way of getting out of it at the moment.

  With reluctance I called, “Thanks. That will be fine.”

  It was still early in the morning and the companies were just beginning to form for drill. I headed toward my hut to wait for recall. Being on special duty is all right for a time, but after a while you begin to miss the steadying routine of company life. Time goes by heavy and sluggish. It was quiet—too quiet—inside the hut, and my part-time striker had already come and gone, having buffed my boots and brushed my uniforms and straightened things around. I noticed that my whisky was about two fingers lower in the bottle than it had been an hour before, but that's to be expected when you have a striker to do for you. I found myself automatically reaching for the bottle and sloshing some of the rotgut into a mess cup.

  I needed a drink. It was too early in the morning for that kind of thing, but I didn't care. I poured and threw it down and shuddered as it hit my stomach.

  But the whisky didn't help. I stood at the hut's single window and watched the line companies make intricate, dusty patterns on the bald parade. But what I saw was Weyland.

  It was a strange feeling, knowing that a man had deliberately and cold-bloodedly set out to kill you, and that the complicated machinery of execution had already been set in motion and there was nothing you could do to stop it. I had wondered at first why he hadn't drawn his revolver on the spot and killed me, but a thing like that would have been too simple for the Colonel. Too much of the drama would have been lost. He liked to plan these things, the way he planned his action against an enemy in the field. Any damn fool could draw a gun and kill a man, but it took a great deal of military maneuvering to do it the way the Colonel was doing it.

  It wasn't as fast as the direct way, and not as clean, maybe, but I would be just as dead when it was over, and that was the important thing. The device, of course, was simple, like all effective military devices.

  A scout detail.

  It would look good on the books. There would be none of the unpleasantness of a court-martial. But a scout detail—the kind the Colonel planned—was as good as a one-way ticket to the post cemetery. I corked the bottle and went over to A Company to talk to Halan.

  Halan wasn't there when I got there, so I sat in the Captain's chair and went through the morning report to kill time. Morgan, I saw, was pulling company duty for insubordination, and I grinned at that. The usual number of men put in requests to see the doctor, as they always did when their turn at patrol came up. Sergeant Roff came in as I was putting the morning report away.

  “Good morning, Sergeant.”

  “Good morning... sir.”

  I wasn't prepared for the cold, courteous hate that he managed to put into those words. Now the Sergeant's ugliness was more than physical. It was a live hate behind his eyes.

  “I want to offer my congratulations, sir, on getting your commission,” he said, and there was a definite sneer touching the corners of his mouth. “It came fast, didn't it, sir?” he said. “I've been in this man's cavalry a long time, sir, and I've never seen a commission come as fast. If the Lieutenant will pardon me, sir, for mentioning it.”

  It was broad, low comedy, the way Roff put it, coming down hard on the word “sir” every chance he got. Contempt was unmistakable in his voice, but there was nothing obvious that you could call on him. I smiled slightly as he stood there as stiff and straight as a ramrod, a brazen burlesque of military courtesy, and I couldn't blame him for being angry. The man had given his life to the Army. Over the years he had worked and sweated and maybe even prayed for a pair of gold bars like the ones I now wore on my shoulders. If I had earned them, it would have been something else, but I hadn't earned them and Roff wasn't going to let me forget it.

&
nbsp; So I couldn't blame him for the way he felt. But I was glad when recall sounded and Captain Halan came into the orderly room.

  “I've been talking to the Colonel,” he said. “I'll be frank, Reardon—I don't think this scout detail is a job for you. I tried to get the Colonel to put another, more experienced officer in charge, but he seems to have his mind set on you, for some reason.” He smiled, but the smile seemed a trifle weary. “I'm afraid,” he said, “that I built you up too high in that report. The Colonel thinks there's not another officer on the post capable of handling this scout. He quotes from my report to back his judgment.” He sat down and shoved an opened box of cigars across the desk. “Have one.”

  “Thanks.”

  We held matches to them and the dry tobacco blazed and crackled. I understood that Halan had been trying to get Weyland to put him on the scout detail. I wanted to thank him for trying to save my skin, but there was no way to do it. He sat and puffed, watching the bluish smoke cloud the small room.

  “Anyway,” Halan said finally, “I got four of our best Indians lined up for you, and maybe that will be some help. You'll have Juan and Black Buffalo, both Papagos; and Walking Fox and Red Hand, two Pimas. Papagos and Pimas work pretty well together. They don't squabble among themselves and they both hate Apaches. Watch them, Reardon, and learn what you can from them. The sutler's not allowed to sell them whisky, but you'll have to watch them and keep them away from tiswin. Apaches make the stuff in shallow pits and cover it up to let it ferment. Indians have noses like bloodhounds when it comes to smelling it out. It's against department orders to let civilians or native scouts take part in fighting, so keep firearms away from them. Let them keep their knives and hatchets, though. Where you'll be, knives and hatchets will do you more good than guns, anyway.”

  I nodded, and Halan talked on and on, and I began to appreciate his understanding of this frontier country and its people. He understood a little of the Apache tongue, and had even talked once with Kohi. He had met Mangas Coloradas, chief of the Mimbreno Apaches, and Cochise of the Chiricahuas, during one of the brief periods of peace between the whites and the Indians.

  Halan put his cigar down and shoved a map case at me and a pair of regulation binoculars. “You'll need these,” he said, and smiled without humor. “The Colonel wants a map drawn of Kohi's stronghold. He wants to know how many warriors Kohi has and how many reinforcements are coming up from the south. It's a big job and it looks like it's all yours, Reardon. Good luck.”

  There was nothing much to say to that. Captain Halan sat back and closed his eyes and thought his own thoughts. Maybe he was already writing me off the roster and wondering who he was going to get to take my place.

  It was a long day, from that point on. I went to the quartermaster's and drew supplies for myself and the four scouts. I inspected the horse I was to ride and saw that he was cared for and then I went back to the hut and cleaned my carbine and revolving pistol. I went outside finally and looked at those high, ragged hills, and they looked peaceful and sleepy under the numbing beat of the sun. I began to think that all my fears were imagined. There was nothing more normal than a scouted detail when you wanted information about the enemy. Things like that happened all the time. Sometimes the details came back and sometimes they didn't; that was all a part of fighting a war. But then I would remember the Colonel, and I would know that it was no ordinary detail.

  I went back in the hut and studied the bottle of whisky, which was almost empty, but I didn't touch it this time. I wondered if there was any way I could see Caroline before the patrol pulled out the next morning.

  Thinking of her excited me, stirred me, and I imagined that if I closed my eyes I could reach out and touch her. Caroline was real, even in my thoughts. She was all woman—she was all women, it seemed, in this heat-drugged desert, in this last outpost of nowhere called Larrymoor. She was Sweetbriar and another, better way of living, but most of all she was Caroline', with eager lips and willing body, and she was softness where everything else was hard, and I couldn't get her out of my mind.

  On impulse I went outside and walked up the row of huts occupied by bachelor officers, past the larger houses belonging to the married officers and their families, and finally I came to Caroline's house and there I stopped.

  She was in there somewhere. I knew it. I could feel her in there, watching me, maybe. Smiling at me. Laughing at me. Heaven alone knew what Caroline would be doing. I thought if I stood there long enough she would see me and give me a sign.

  “Haven't you ever seen a post commander's house before?”

  The voice shook me. I snapped my head around to see Gorgan coming out of the headquarters building. He was grinning, but I had a feeling that there was something behind that grin, and I didn't know what it was.

  “I just finished clearing my ammunition issue through the quartermaster,” I said. It didn't make sense, but Gorgan didn't notice. Or pretended not to notice.

  “Don't forget supper tonight,” he said, walking on past, toward the stables.

  I said something, turned, and walked back toward my hut. What was going on in that brain of Gorgan's? Could he look through me, the way I had a feeling he was doing, and see what was going on in my mind? Did he somehow know about me and Caroline?

  It didn't seem possible, but Gorgan was a strange one and you could never tell what he was thinking. I uncorked the whisky bottle this time and emptied it into a mess cup and downed it. Gorgan, goddamn him. If he hadn't come along maybe Caroline would have...

  But she wouldn't have. She had taken a chance once, in her own house. She wouldn't do it again.

  It was A Company's turn to stand retreat formation that day, but I wasn't in it. As the band played, as the troopers marched stiffly back and forth across the parade to the bellowing of officers and noncoms, I remembered Gorgan's supper invitation.

  Well, I had let myself in for it and there was nothing much I could do about it now. I began to strip down as a preparation for shaving and bathing. As I emptied my pockets I came across the twin silver stars that Caroline had given me. The symbols of Caroline's ambition for me. I threw them on the table with the rest of the things and went out on the back stoop to wash and shave.

  The retreat formation broke up as I lathered my face, and before long I heard somebody knocking on my front door. “Come on in,” I called. “I'm back here at the wash bench.”

  It was Halan. He came to the back door and looked out. “I brought you an official copy of the patrol orders,” he said. “I thought you might want to look them over.”

  “Thanks. Why don't you wait inside? I'll be through in a minute.”

  “All right. You getting ready to go somewhere?”

  “Over to Gorgan's. His wife invited me for supper.”

  I was splashing water on my face and couldn't see him, but I knew Halan was grinning. “Are you sure it was Gorgan's wife,” he asked, “or his daughter?”

  “His wife,” I said. “And I'm going because I'm damn tired of Army mess, and for no other reason.”

  Halan laughed and went back into the hut. I finished shaving and rinsed my face and toweled off. Maybe it was just as well, I thought, if Halan wanted to think there was something between me and Sarah Gorgan. At least it would help keep attention away from Caroline. I found my shirt and pulled it over my head and called, “I'd offer you a drink, but I don't have any left.”

  No answer from inside. I gathered up the soap and towel and washpan and went in. Halan wasn't anywhere in sight.

  The orders were on the table beside the odds and ends I had emptied out of my pockets, but the Captain was gone. I went to the window and saw him striding across the parade toward the A Company barracks.

  Well, maybe a captain had more important things to do than talk to a second lieutenant.

  I went through the orders, but there was nothing there that I didn't already know. They were exactly like any other set of orders, put forth in cold precise military phraseology, and it was d
ifficult to believe that I was reading the master plan for my own execution. But that was what it was.

  I sat down and went through them again, trying to think of them in that light. I found that I couldn't do it. I couldn't believe that this scout detail would be my last. No matter how well the Colonel had planned it. No matter how much he willed it.

  Gorgan, Halan—all the others—maybe they didn't think I would come back from that scout. But I knew I would. I'd fool all of them. I would come back and I would take Caroline from under the Colonel's nose, and to hell with all of them.

  I wadded the orders up in one fist and hurled them across the room. “To hell with you especially, Colonel! If you want to kill me you'll have to do it directly, not by military maneuvering. Because I'll come back every time!”

  I felt better after that outburst. I rustled up some clean pants and a blouse and headed up the row toward Gorgan's.

  The Lieutenant's place was larger than my hut at the end of the row. About four rooms, I judged, with a lean-to at the back for cooking. Over the years they had managed to pick up things that gave the house a homelike touch. No expensive copies of famous paintings, as Caroline had, and no heavy pieces of silver. But there were rich colored blankets from the Navajo country, and mounted antelope heads above the doors, as well as a great many pieces of needlework, some framed and hanging, some serving as scarves and doilies on the tables. There was a pleasant mixed aroma of tobacco and scrubbing soap and rich cooking.

  “We're happy you could come, Mr. Reardon,” said Mrs. Gorgan.

  “It's an honor to be invited to your home, Mrs. Gorgan.”

  “Good evening, Mr. Reardon,” Sarah Gorgan said, and I was surprised that somehow she looked more grown up in a plain cotton dress than in the elaborate party dress she had worn to the dance.

  “Good evening, Miss Gorgan.”

  “Cigar, Reardon?” the Lieutenant said, offering an open box of crooked cheroots. “I've got some Kentucky rye around here somewhere that I've been saving since God knows when.” Handily, the whisky happened to be on a table in front of him, so he poured some into two glasses and handed me one. The women vanished quietly into the back part of the house, and we could hear the opening and closing of oven doors, and the heavy fragrance of venison roast drifted into the room.