Hogg shook his head and looked at the man. “Silas, all the time I’ve knowed you, you’ve talked big about what you was a-goin’ to do to some white man or another. But all you’ve ever done is kill women and children and lift their scalps.”
The scout laid both hands on the saddle horn and leaned into Dugan. “Now you shut your trap or I’ll leave you to the first Apache warriors I come acrost. Know what they do to a scalp hunter, Silas?”
“That will do, Mr. Hogg,” Birchwood said. “The prisoner will be delivered to Fort Merit”—he paused—“in one piece.”
“You tell him, soldier boy,” Dugan grinned.
Birchwood’s head snapped around until he was looking at the man. “Dugan,” he said, “shut your goddamned trap.”
The scalp hunter shrugged, made a placating gesture with his hands and kept silent.
“This is a good time to rest your men, Lieutenant Birchwood,” Stryker said. “We’ll have a conference and Mr. Hogg, I want you to attend.”
The scout swung out of the saddle as the infantrymen sought whatever shade they could find and lit their pipes. Hogg stepped to the criollo and helped Kelly down from the saddle, then Mrs. McCabe.
To Stryker’s surprise, Hogg and the woman kissed tenderly, then clung to each other for a long while before parting. Finally the scout picked up Kelly in his arms and he and Mary held hands as he led them into the shade of some scattered junipers.
Stryker shook his head. He had always prided himself on being a perceptive man, but he had totally missed the budding relationship between Hogg and the woman. He smiled to himself. Joe Hogg was a good man, and Mary was a fine woman. They would be an excellent match for each other.
He swung stiffly out of the saddle and walked into the junipers, where Birchwood joined them. Hogg glanced back at the resting soldiers, and the young lieutenant smiled. “Don’t worry, Mr. Hogg. Dugan is well guarded.”
The scout nodded. “He’s as slippery as a snake, Lieutenant. Don’t trust him.”
Stryker built a cigarette from his dwindling supply of tobacco and inhaled the smoke gratefully. Both Birchwood and Hogg were watching him, waiting for what he had to say.
What he really wanted to do was to interrogate Dugan and force him to tell where he could find Rake Pierce, but more urgent Army business had to come first.
“Lieutenant Birchwood,” he said behind a cloud of blue smoke, “the reason Yanisin’s rancheria was abandoned is because the Apaches are moving north. That is why you didn’t encounter any hostiles.”
“Sir, you still expect an attack on Fort Merit?”
“Yes, if it hasn’t already happened. Let the men have their rest now, because we are going to reach the post by a forced march. Your infantry will have to march day and night, rest little and live on water, cold bacon and biscuit. I want to be at the post within forty-eight hours, Lieutenant.”
“My men can do it, sir.”
“By God, sir, they’ll have to do it.”
Stryker looked at the soldiers who were sprawled in whatever shade they could find, talking quietly among themselves. Like all frontier Indian fighters, they were a ragtag bunch, but they looked bronzed and fit and their weapons were clean.
“Tell the men they have an hour to cook whatever salt pork they have left and soak their biscuit in the grease,” he said. “It will serve as iron rations on the march.”
Birchwood sprang to his feet and hurried away to carry out his orders, but Stryker’s voice stopped him. “Oh, and Lieutenant, now would be a good time to boil up coffee. We won’t have another opportunity to drink any for a while.”
After Birchwood left, Stryker turned to Hogg. “Joe, bring Dugan over here. I want to talk to him.”
The scout nodded, then said, “Here’s what he won’t tell you, but it’s what I think, Lieutenant. I reckon Rake Pierce has no more guns to sell, but now he’s trying to pick up the crumbs left on the plate. He and Silas are following the Apaches, preying on the women and children the warriors have stashed in canyons all over the Chiricahuas. An Apache scalp brings a hundred dollars in gold in Mexico and they ain’t too picky about who once wore it, man, woman or child.”
“You found Indian scalps on Dugan?”
“Eighteen, on his saddle and the saddles of the other two we kilt. A couple of the scalps could have been Mexican, but the rest were the genuine article.”
“Do you think Dugan can lead us to Pierce?”
“Maybe. Ol’ Silas will do anything to save his own skin, and he knows he’s lookin’ at twenty years in Yuma or worse.”
“Joe, I’m not inclined to make a deal with the devil.”
“Suit yourself, Lieutenant. But I’m just tellin’ you how ol’ Silas thinks.” He smiled. “And you’re right, he is the devil and he brings ten different kinds of hell with him.”
Kelly was chasing a butterfly, wandering away too far, and her mother called her back. Hogg had been watching the child, and now he turned to Stryker again.
His voice was even, but gently chiding. “We have Fort Merit to consider, Lieutenant.”
There was a time, very recently, when Stryker would have snapped that he did not need to be reminded of his duty by a scout. But the people around him, the Apaches and the hard beauty and fierce dangers of the land itself were working small changes in him.
“You’re right, I don’t have time to chase after Pierce,” he said. His fingers unconsciously strayed to the network of scars on his face. “Damn the man, damn him to hell.”
“There might be a way, Lieutenant,” Hogg said. “We can use Silas for bait, draw Rake Pierce in like a fly to shit.”
Stryker’s eyes held a question, and Hogg answered it.
“They got a partnership forged in hell and signed in blood and they need each other. Pierce is as mean and deadly as a rattlesnake, but he’s not a patch on Silas. You take ol’ Silas now—he says he’ll cut any man, woman or child in half with a shotgun for forty dollars, and he’s proved that plenty of times in the past. Killers like him are hard to find and Pierce won’t let him go without a fight. That’s just good business.” Hogg shrugged. “Anyhoo, that’s what I think.”
“Joe, I know what Pierce thinks of his friends. He threw Hooper to the Apaches to play with.” He shook his head. “Pierce won’t risk his life to save Dugan.”
“Lieutenant, Hooper didn’t mean a thing to Rake. Back at Fort Merit they were drinkin’ and whorin’ buddies, but that don’t go far once a man walks off the post. Pierce couldn’t have cared less about the Englishman, but I reckon he worries a heap about Silas.”
“How do we play it, Joe?”
“As much as I’d like Silas to hoof it, have him ride with you and Lieutenant Birchwood at the head of the column. That red beard of his is easy to spot, even at a distance.”
“How many men do you reckon Pierce has with him?”
Hogg shrugged. “Scalp hunting is a dirty business and it can be dangerous, especially if the scalps you’re hunting are Apache. He’ll have gathered a bunch of renegades around him, all of them just as bad as he is.”
“How many?”
“Enough to make a fight, Lieutenant, depend on it.” Hogg got to his feet. “I’m going to see if the coffee’s on the bile yet.” His eyes shifted to where the criollo was grazing. “You found the Apache pony, huh?”
“Mrs. McCabe did.” Stryker looked at the scout. “She’s a fine woman, Joe.”
“I know it.” Hogg smiled. “Hell, for a spell there, I thought you was sweet on her your ownself. I was gettin’ mighty jealous.”
Stryker shook his head. “I had a woman. I don’t want any other.”
“You may change your mind one day, Lieutenant.”
“Yes, the day my face goes back to the way it was. Maybe then.”
Chapter 17
The column used up the rest of the daylight to cover eighteen miles, the men slogging through intense heat and clouds of biting black flies.
Already the sycamores, cottonw
oods and flat-topped mesas of Turkey Creek were in sight. Mary McCabe rode behind Joe Hogg and Kelly was up on Stryker’s saddle. The lieutenant had half-dozed for the past hour, exhaustion and the pain of his wounds sapping him.
Dugan, sullen and silent, rode between Stryker and Birchwood, his hands roped to the saddle horn, a noose around his neck. There was no one taking the point, adding honey to the trap Stryker hoped would lure Pierce.
Thirty minutes later, just as the light began to wane and the lengthening desert shadows crawled across the sand, the sky to the north turned a deep purple, a narrow band of burnished gold showing just above the horizon.
Thunder rumbled and ahead of the column lightning spiked. Searing bands of brilliant white bladed into the desert, throwing off forked tendrils that flashed across the looming cloud mass. Soon the whole sky, from horizon to horizon, seemed as though it were covered by the scrawled signatures of a demented god.
The wind rose, driving sand before it that ripped into the marching men like grapeshot fired from colossal cannons.
Then the rains came.
A few scattered drops at first were followed by a deluge, hammering from a sky as black as doom. The roars of thunder joined the clattering clamor of the downpour and the shriek of wind, dragging the day down into a cartwheeling pit of madness.
Soldiers, bent almost double, scattered into the foothills, seeking shelter wherever they could, the lightning, wind and rain eagerly stalking after them.
“Joe!” Stryker yelled. He was fighting his horse, and Kelly had buried her face in his chest. Beside him, Dugan tried to make his break, kicking his mount in the ribs. Stryker reacted instantly. He backhanded the man hard across the face and when Dugan reeled, he grabbed the end of the rope around his neck and yanked him from the saddle.
Suddenly Joe Hogg was beside Stryker, taking Kelly from him.
“Find shelter, Joe!” he shouted. “Get into cover!”
Hogg yelled something Stryker did not hear; then he vanished into the screaming maelstrom. Lightning struck close by, among the hills, the reverberating crash like the fall of giants. Terrified, the criollo reared and Stryker was thrown heavily to the ground.
For a moment the lieutenant lay still, gathering his wits and fighting pain. Then he climbed slowly and stiffly to his feet. He looked around him, his eyes scanning the reeling chaos of lightning and rain, but there was no sign of another living creature.
Stryker didn’t see the rider until he was almost on top of him. The horse hit him a glancing blow and he staggered and crashed onto his back. Somewhere above the roar of the storm a rifle made a flat, emphatic statement, and then another.
Rising to one elbow, Stryker saw gun flashes among the foothills. He climbed erect, staggered on numb legs, then pulled his Colt. Rain pounded into his face and beat like a kettledrum on his hat.
A sudden lightning flash lit up the foothills and the rolling desert flatlands. It seemed to Stryker that the world was full of hurtling horsemen, shooting at unseen enemies among the hills.
Hooves pounded behind Stryker. He swung around and caught a fleeting glimpse of a half-naked Indian on a paint pony coming right at him, his feathered lance lowered for the kill.
Stryker moved to his right, but his ankle rolled on a rock and he fell, thumbing his Colt as he went down. The Indian pounded past, then slowly toppled off his horse.
Ignoring his pain, the lieutenant scrambled quickly to his feet. He fired between lightning flashes, marking his target’s position. He had shot an Indian, but the enemies he was trying to kill were white men, and he was certain that Rake Pierce was leading them.
“Fire!” Birchwood’s voice, coming from behind him.
Springfields crashed and a bullet split the air close to Stryker’s head. He hit the ground as another volley venomously sang over him.
“Damn your eyes, Birchwood!” he roared. “Are you trying to murder me?”
“Advance!” the lieutenant yelled. “Fire at will.”
A half dozen soldiers pounded past Stryker, and then Birchwood was kneeling beside him. “Sorry, sir,” he said. “I took you for the enemy.”
Now the fire from the foothills was steadier and Stryker was sure he could hear the staccato bark of Hogg’s Henry.
Then, as quickly as it had started, the fight was over.
Hoofbeats receded in the distance and soldiers were firing a few last forlorn shots at shadows.
Birchwood rose to his feet. “Cease fire!”
The shooting staggered to a halt and soon the only sound was the racket of the rain and the grumble of thunder as the storm moved to the south.
Birchwood helped Stryker to his feet as Hogg emerged from the gloom. “It was Rake, all right, Lieutenant,” he said. “I seen him clear and took a pot at him. Missed him clean.”
Stryker nodded. “Over there, I downed an Apache.” Hogg shook his head. “He’s Kiowa, Lieutenant. That’s how come ol’ Rake found us in the storm. A Kiowa can track damn near as good as an Apache and there are some who say even better.”
“Where’s Dugan?”
“Gone. An’ three dead soldiers over there who tried to stop him.”
“And Pierce’s men?”
“The Kiowa dead and maybe a couple more of Rake’s men winged, or maybe not.” The scout hesitated a moment, then said, “They surprised us, Lieutenant, attacking out of the storm like that.”
His failure to protect his men was a bitter pill to swallow.
Stryker turned on Birchwood. “Any other casualties?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Then goddamn you, Lieutenant, find out!”
His young face stricken, Birchwood saluted and strode away.
“How are Mrs. McCabe and Kelly?”
“They’re fine.” Hogg tried to find Stryker’s eyes in the rain-lashed darkness. “A bit hard on the boy, wasn’t you, Lieutenant? He did well, rallied his men under fire and mounted a counterattack.”
Stryker smiled. “It doesn’t do second lieutenants any harm to be reprimanded now and again. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure his actions are brought to the attention of Major Hanson.”
Birchwood reported back a few minutes later. The news was bad. Three dead and one seriously wounded, a seventeen-year-old named Stearns who was shot through both legs.
Stryker was worried. This meant another delay, but there was no way around it. “We’ll spend the night here, Lieutenant,” he said. “At first light, rig up a travois for the wounded man. Use the Kiowa’s pony.”
Birchwood saluted and turned to go, but Stryker’s sense of fair play would not let him remain silent.
“By the way, Lieutenant, your behavior during the engagement was exemplary, and I will inform Major Hanson of this when we reach Fort Merit.”
The young man smiled and saluted again. “Thank you, sir.”
Watching Birchwood leave, Stryker wondered if he’d ever been that young. Then he realized he had once, when Millie had been in love with him. A thousand years ago.
Chapter 18
There was something wrong. . . . Seriously wrong . . .
Stryker again scanned Fort Merit with his field glasses. The adobes and jacals were deserted, but, given the threat of an Apache attack, that was to be expected. But there was no sign of life at the saloons or the hog ranch and the army buildings also seemed empty, a couple of barracks doors hanging open, moving back and forth in the wind.
No flag flew above the parade ground and one of the brass cannons was tipped over on its side.
“Damn it,” Stryker whispered to himself, “where is everybody?”
He handed the glasses to Hogg. “Joe, what do you make of this?”
As Stryker had done, the scout studied the post for a couple of minutes, the glasses ranging all over the terrain and the mountains beyond.
Finally he lowered the glasses, his face troubled.
“Looks like they left in an almighty hurry, Lieutenant.”
“I don’t see any sign
of an Apache attack.”
“Or Apaches either,” Birchwood said, his own field glasses hanging on his chest.
“Mr. Hogg, let’s ride ahead and take a look,” Stryker said. “Lieutenant, if the coast is clear I’ll wave you on, and you may bring in the company and Mrs. McCabe. If I don’t show after thirty minutes, hightail it for Fort Bowie.”
“Yes, sir.”
Under a high, hot sun, Stryker and Hogg rode through the deserted jacals, and everywhere there were signs of a hurried departure. The tents of the infantry company had been struck and were nowhere in sight. Even the dogs that roamed around the post were gone.
Then they found their first dead man. The Mexican was sprawled outside the door to his adobe, facedown in the sand. A few silver coins were spilling out of his outstretched right hand and in his left he held an ornate crucifix. Blue flies buzzed around the bullet wounds in his back.
Sitting against the wall of a neighboring jacal was another body, this time one of Major Hanson’s infantrymen. The man had died in the act of raising a canteen to his mouth and his eyes were still wide-open, staring intently into nothingness. There was a neat bullet hole between his eyes.
Hogg got off his horse and kneeled beside the dead soldier. After a while he looked up at Stryker. “Both his legs are broke, Lieutenant.”
“What do you make of it, Joe?”
The scout shook his head. “I don’t know. It could be the work of Apaches, but I don’t see any pony or moccasin tracks. Plenty of sign left by boots, though.”
“How long ago?”
“Not long. Early this morning, maybe.”
“Pierce?”
Hogg shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine, Lieutenant.”
“We’ll check headquarters. Maybe Major Hanson left us a note.”
Stryker waited until Hogg mounted, and then they rode slowly toward the parade ground. The scout had his rifle across the saddle horn, carried himself high in the saddle, and looked ready for anything.
It wasn’t long in coming.
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