“You’re ready, Lieutenant,” Hogg said.
“Another drink, Joe.” Stryker took a pull on the jug. “Joe,” he said, gasping from the raw fire of the whiskey, “you are a very intelligent man. You know all about busthead.” He tapped the side of his flattened nose with a forefinger. “Only—only very intelligent men know what you know.” He hiccupped. “About—about generinuine busthead, I mean.”
Stryker held the jug to his chest, and gazed at Hogg like an owl. “Joe, I never—” he gulped a breath—“no, I didn’t, I never, ever, asked you about Trooper Kramer’s frog. Did you cure his asam-asth—”
“Hell, no,” the scout said. “He took to liking the frog so much, he decided to keep it as a pet. Fed it mashed biscuit and flies and the damned thing never did die.”
“So he still has his—”
“Gaspin’ worse than ever,” Hogg said. “Now roll over, Lieutenant.”
Stryker saluted. “Yes, sir.”
He rolled over—and immediately started to snore.
“Get the jug, ma’am,” Hogg said.
He took a folding knife from his pocket, then said, “Pour the whiskey over the blade, ma’am.” He saw the confused look on the woman’s face and smiled. “I saw the young post doctor at Fort Bowie do that one time. I don’t know why, but he must have had a good reason.”
“When did you last use the knife, Mr. Hogg?”
“To gut an antelope, ma’am, a six-month ago.”
“Maybe that’s the reason.”
“Could be, ma’am. But there’s just no accounting for why Army doctors do things.” He waved the woman closer. “Bring the lamp over here. I’m about to start the cuttin’.”
Lieutenant Birchwood made his excuses and left, the opening and closing of the door allowing a blast of desert heat and dust inside.
“It’s deep,” Hogg said. His fingers and the knife were red with blood. Stryker groaned in restless sleep, the wound on his back like a scarlet, open mouth.
Sweat dripped from the scout’s forehead and he cursed under his breath. “Damn it to hell, but it’s deep. I’m cuttin’ too much, ma’am. Way too much.”
The woman called Mary’s voice was level. “The bullet has to come out, Mr. Hogg.”
“Get a rag, ma’am. Wipe away the blood so I can see what I’m doing.”
Mary used a cloth to swab the blood from the wound, then held it for Hogg. “Wipe your hands and the knife.”
The scout did as she said, and then his eyes met hers, his face a worried mask of orange light and shadow in the flickering glow of the oil lamp. “I could be killing him.”
“Get the bullet, Mr. Hogg. If you don’t, he’ll die anyway.”
Outside, Lieutenant Birchwood was yelling orders to his men, his voice distant and muffled. Stryker was breathing heavily, in short, tortured gasps. A random desert breeze rattled the shutters over the cabin windows and from the corner, a child’s voice pleaded softly, “Ma . . . ma . . .”
“In a minute, Kelly,” Mary said. “Just a little minute.” The woman said to Hogg. “She’s very afraid of men.”
The scout was concentrating on his knife, his mouth set in a hard, tense line. “Bad for a little ‘un to be that way, ma’am.”
“Her father terrified her.”
Hogg nodded. “I reckon that would do it, ma’am.” His slippery knife skidded, scraped on bone. He let loose with a string of hair-raising curses, then muttered, “Sorry about that, ma’am.”
“Air out your lungs if you feel the need, Mr.
Hogg.”
“You’re most gracious, ma’am.”
A minute passed, then another. . . . Hogg’s knife dug deeper. . . .
“Damn it to hell’s fire, I got it!” the scout yelled. “The son of a bitch is a .44-40 ball, unless I’m much mistaken.”
Mary leaned over the bed. “How is he?” “Sleeping. Or just unconscious.” Hogg looked into the woman’s eyes again. “He’ll need care.”
“I’ll do what I can, Mr. Hogg.”
The door swung open and Birchwood stuck his head inside. “I heard you yell that you’d recovered the bullet, Mr. Hogg. Now could you come outside at your earliest convenience and look at something?”
“What is it?”
“I was hoping you could tell me, Mr. Hogg.”
The scout wiped his bloody hands on the cloth. “Be right there, Lieutenant.”
“Oh, and ma’am,” Birchwood said, “I have some questions for you.”
He did not sound friendly.
Chapter 12
Lieutenant Steve Stryker woke to lamplight and a pounding headache.
He tried to sit up in the bed, but he was defeated by pains in his side and back that were living entities, clawing at him, warning that they would give him no rest.
He laid his head back on the pillow and a groan escaped his lips.
Suddenly Mary McCabe was at his side. She placed a small, cool hand on his forehead. “How are you feeling, Lieutenant?”
Stryker groaned again. “What did Joe Hogg hit me with? A rifle butt?”
Mary smiled. “No, just a jug of genuine Arizona busthead. Then he cut the bullet out of your back.”
“Good. If Hogg’s whiskey doesn’t kill me, I can ride tomorrow.”
Mary let that slide. “Hungry?”
“You know, I could eat something, hardtack and salt pork maybe.”
Mary stepped to the stove where a fire burned. She returned with a bowl and a spoon. “Beef broth,” she said. “It will give you strength.”
Stryker tried to take the bowl, but the woman moved it away. “You can’t feed yourself. Let me do it.”
Rather than argue, which in any case he did not have the energy to do, Stryker opened his mouth submissively and let the woman feed him. The soup was good, rich and hot, and Stryker ate the bowl empty and was wishful for more.
From outside drifted snatches of talk from the soldiers, and the scrape and clatter of tin forks. “Lieutenant Birchwood camped here,” he said. “That makes sense. We’ll move out at first light tomorrow.” He looked at the woman. “You and your daughter will have to come with us, ma’am. The savages will be back.”
“It’s Mary McCabe.”
“Yes, I vaguely remember. Then Mary McCabe it is.”
The door opened and Hogg stepped inside, letting in the night that loomed dark and vast behind him. He smiled. “Still alive, I see, Lieutenant.”
“No thanks to your whiskey.”
“Numbed the pain though, huh?”
“That’s what happens when busthead makes a man’s heart stop.”
“He has no fever, Mr. Hogg, and his wounds are clean,” Mary said.
The scout turned to the woman. He seemed very big and shaggy in the lamp-shadowed gloom of the cabin. “Don’t pay no heed to Lieutenant Birchwood, ma’am. Right now he’s a mighty worried young man.”
“I told him the truth, Mr. Hogg. My husband didn’t tell me what he was doing and I never asked.”
“But you saw the wagons.”
“Yes, I did. I was ordered to stay in the house, but I could see from the window. There were six or seven men with the wagons, including an Apache. One of the men was called Williams, another, who seemed to be in charge, went by the name of Rake, or maybe it was Jake, I can’t remember.”
Despite his pain, Stryker struggled erect in the bed, his face intent. “Ma’am, Mrs. McCabe, was the boss’s name Rake Pierce?”
“I didn’t hear his last name, but, yes, he could have been called Rake.”
Hogg looked at Stryker. “The dead man we found was the lady’s husband. She identified him from the watch he was wearing.”
“I’m sorry,” Stryker said absently, his mind working, trying to drag his body with it.
“Don’t be,” Mary said. “He was a drunken, vicious brute who deserved to die.” Her fingertips strayed to the savage scar on her cheek. “This is a lasting memento of my marriage to Tom McCabe.”
“Ma’a
m,” Hogg said, “you should have left him.”
“And go where, Mr. Hogg? I didn’t even have a horse. Maybe Kelly and I could have walked to a settlement, but he would have found us and brought us back.” She smiled slightly. “And how could I make a living? Scarred as I am, I couldn’t even become a whore.”
“How did Rake Pierce meet your husband?” Stryker asked.
“Tom often visited the Army posts for whiskey and whores. He could have met Pierce, if that’s who he was, at Fort Merit or Fort Bowie.”
“Why would Pierce want him?”
“My husband knew this country like the back of his hand, Lieutenant. After he got sick of farming, which didn’t take long, he hunted and prospected all over the Chiricahuas and as far south as the Perilla Mountains.”
Hogg nodded. “Ol’ Rake needed a scout, and good ones are mighty hard to find.”
“Mrs. McCabe, when were the wagons here?” Stryker asked.
“Three days ago, I think. When a woman sees only cabin walls she loses track of time.”
“Joe, we didn’t see wagon tracks on the hogback.”
“There’s another way in and out of the basin, Lieutenant. It’s a narrow, rocky canyon to the east of the cabin, but it’s passable, even for freight wagons. I scouted over that way and found wheel tracks. That’s how the wagons came and went, all right.”
“Why didn’t your husband go with them, Mrs. McCabe?”
“Lieutenant, it pleased him to beat me or rape me, depending on his mood. He didn’t take me into his confidence when he was enjoying either activity.”
Hogg’s boots thudded on the hard packed dirt floor. He laid a hand on the woman’s shoulder. “We buried him deep, Mrs. McCabe. He isn’t coming back.”
Mary nodded, looking up at him, but said nothing.
Stryker’s mind was still racing. “Joe, why did McCabe split up from the rest of them?”
“Dunno, Lieutenant. Maybe McCabe left on a scout, agreeing to join up with Rake and the others at a certain place. Trouble is, he ran into traveling Apaches who shot first and asked questions later.”
“Can we track those wagons?”
“We can track them.”
Stryker swung his legs out of the bed and discovered that he was naked except for the bandage that circled his waist and looped over his shoulder. “Mrs. McCabe, could you avert your eyes?” He looked at the little girl who was standing close to her sitting mother’s knee, regarding him with wide, solemn eyes. “And the child, if you please.”
The woman smiled, but she and her daughter suddenly found something to do at the stove.
Stryker got to his feet, calling to Hogg to get his clothes.
Then a wave of pain and weakness hit him and he was falling headlong into a bottomless pit of darkness.
Chapter 13
“Lieutenant Stryker, you’re shot through and through and you’ve lost a lot of blood,” Mary McCabe said. “You’re not fit to go anywhere.”
The woman’s face was an oval blur in the wan lamplight. “How long have I been out?” he asked.
“Not long, ten, fifteen minutes.”
“Is Joe Hogg still here?”
“No. He left.”
“Please tell Lieutenant Birchwood I want to see him.”
When the officer stepped into the cabin, Stryker saw concern etched in the frown that had gathered between the young man’s eyebrows.
“How are you, sir?” he asked.
“Well, I tried to get out of bed and fell down. Does that tell you something?”
Birchwood said nothing, but he shifted his feet uncomfortably.
“Tomorrow morning you will break camp before sunrise and proceed south to the Apache village. Bring Yanisin and his people this far, then send Mr. Hogg to fetch me. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir. I will leave a squad here to protect the cabin should the Apaches decide to attack again.”
“No, you won’t, Lieutenant. You might need all the men you have and then some.” Stryker was tired and in pain. Looking at the fresh-faced Birchwood he suddenly felt old. “There’s a possibility that the Apaches will turn north and attack Fort Merit. For that reason, you will send half the company back to reinforce the post garrison.”
“I was not aware of that possibility,” Birchwood said.
“I’m guessing, Lieutenant, and I know that trying to outguess Apaches is always a dangerous business. But if I’m right, Major Hanson can’t hold the fort against Geronimo and Nana with just a single understrength company.”
He shifted uncomfortably in the bed. Mary McCabe had put some kind of poultice on his wounds and now they itched.
“Joe Hogg says Yanisin is a tame Indian and he shouldn’t give you any trouble. The big question is: How will his young men react? Listen to Mr. Hogg. He knows Apaches better than most. If you reach the rancheria and the young bucks show signs of a fight, get the hell out of there in a hurry. Do not engage them.”
Stryker’s eyes searched the younger man’s face. “Do you understand your orders, Lieutenant?”
“I do, sir. Perfectly.”
Stryker tried to smile and used the young man’s name for the first time. “Dale, I’m sending you out with half a company of infantry when what you really need is a regiment. Just . . . just be careful.”
“I will, sir, as far as my orders allow.” He saluted smartly. “Sir, with your permission I’ll see to my men.”
“Yes, do that,” Stryker said. God, he was weary. “Dismissed, Lieutenant.”
Birchwood saluted again, turned smartly and stepped out of the door.
Stryker had the nagging feeling that he was sending the young man to his death.
Still weak and lightheaded, Stryker managed to drag himself out of bed to see the company leave. Mrs. McCabe was asleep in a chair, her daughter lying on a pallet on the floor.
As quietly as he could, he stood in the doorway, the chill desert night not yet giving way to the dawn.
The company moved out silently, marching toward the hogback. Birchwood saw Stryker, grinned and saluted. He then took his place at the head of his men.
Joe Hogg kneed his horse toward Stryker and drew rein opposite the door.
“You look like hell,” he said.
“And I feel worse.” Stryker’s eyes sought the scout’s face in the indigo light. “Bring them back, Joe,” he said. “Every last one of them.” He hesitated, then added, “And bring yourself back.”
Hogg smiled. “Gettin’ shot done you some good, Lieutenant. You’re suddenly full o’ the milk of human kindness, as ol’ Shakespeare says.”
“You saved my life, Joe. Nobody else could have dug that bullet out of my back.”
The scout nodded. “I think maybe yours was a life worth saving. I sure hope so.” He looked beyond the cabin door to the darkness inside. “Take care of Mrs. McCabe, Lieutenant. Two scarred people should look out for each other.”
He slid his Henry from the boot. “Take this; it’s fully loaded. If you need more than sixteen shots, you’ll be in a war you can’t win anyway.”
Stryker shook his head. “I can’t take your rifle, Joe. You may need it.”
“Hell, I’m surrounded by men with rifles. A Colt won’t do you much good if the Apaches come back.”
Stryker took the Henry, amazed at how heavy it felt in his weakened hands. “Ride easy, Mr. Hogg,” he said.
The scout touched his hat, then turned around and cantered into the darkness. Soon there was no sound but the talk of the coyotes and the morning song of the desert wind.
“Both your wounds look much better,” Mary McCabe said. “They’re healing and I don’t see any sign of an infection.”
“What do you use on the bandage that works such wonders in just three days?” Stryker asked, smiling.
“A tea of chaparral and live oak bark. That and the clean desert air keeps wounds clean. I’ve lived long enough in the wilderness to pick up a few things about Indian medicine.”
“I still
feel weak as a kitten.”
“It will take time.”
“I don’t have time. Lieutenant Birchwood and his men will be here soon, herding an entire Apache tribe north.”
“You will go with them?”
“Yes. You and Kelly and me. We’re all going.”
“Do you really think the Apaches will attack Fort Merit?”
“I don’t know for sure. It depends on Geronimo. If he thinks he’s strong enough, destroying an Army post would bring him much renown and respect among his people.”
“How is the bandage? Is it as tight as you wanted?”
“It will do.” The woman had helped him dress earlier, and now Stryker swung his legs over the side of the bed. “Bring me my boots, Mary.”
He tugged on the boots, then said, “Now help me to my feet.”
Leaning heavily on the woman, Stryker stood erect. Suddenly the cabin reeled around him and he reached out to the wall and closed his eyes, swaying, until the feeling had passed.
“You’ll fall down,” Kelly said, looking up at Stryker, her sad little face troubled.
“No, I won’t,” he said. He patted the child’s head. “See? I’m feeling all better now.”
Mary smiled. “She worries about you.”
“I thought I might have scared her.”
“Children can see past faces to what a person has inside, Lieutenant. Only adults are blind to that.”
“Then thank God for children, huh?”
The woman nodded. “Kelly is the only good thing that came out of my marriage. I thank God every day for sending her to me.”
Stryker buckled on his cartridge belt and holstered Colt. He picked up the Henry and it still seemed heavy. He slung a canteen over his shoulder.
“You should be in bed,” Mary said, watching his face, pale under his weather-beaten tan.
“I know. But I need to find out what’s happening.”
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