by Peter Dawson
Squatting there, he made out the shape of letters: m ik e tro u bl e. ab o ve ran the first ragged line. And, below it: am. inv es t . One of Clears’s own boot prints obscured the rest, all but the final letter g. “Am Investigating,” was doubtless what Gentry had written last.
The saloon man swore feelingly, taking several more seconds in fully understanding the message. Even as he straightened and turned to swing up into the saddle again, he wasn’t sure of anything but that Gentry was away on some obscure errand. “Trouble above” he took as indicating that something had happened on the post, but how Gentry had discovered this was beyond his understanding.
He left the clearing in much more of a hurry than he had come in on it, pushing the mare fast up through the timber, across the creek, and then cutting onto the road at a lope. Four more minutes saw him riding in on the fort’s main gate. He didn’t know the sentry, so didn’t question him, not wanting to waste time.
He was halfway across the parade, making for Headquarters, when he saw something that, along with what Gentry had said, brought him a strong sense of foreboding. It was Captain Sam Grell coming out of Fitzhugh’s quarters and then up along the graveled path at a slow run. Clears had never expected to see the adjutant traveling at any pace other than his usual stiff and precise walk, and the thought instantly struck him: Something’s knocked Sam off his dignity.
Putting Qualls’s mare on at a stiffer trot, he managed to swing in at the tie rail before Headquarters well ahead of Grell. And it wasn’t by accident that he stepped onto the path just as the captain came along it.
“What’s the hurry, Sam?” he asked as Grell came abreast him.
“Can’t explain now.” The adjutant was out of breath and at once turned in toward the porch, adding: “Come on in.”
Clears followed him into the building, coming through the door in time to hear him telling the sergeant major: “...over there and have Moore ask for a repeat on that last message from Starke. Shake a leg, now!”
The sergeant brushed quickly past Clears, headed for the door. The saloon man took this moment to say: “I can come back later if you’re tied up, Sam.”
“No, now all I do is wait.” Grell gave a perplexed shake of the head. “It’s about over...all I can do at any rate. Do things ever pile up on you till you wonder if you’re in your right mind?”
“Only in a business way. Which usually means I’m making money.”
The adjutant sighed gustily. “Well, this isn’t making anything for anybody except trouble. Hadn’t even finished shaving this morning when it started. McCune dead, Ewing and the horses gone, the Old Man sinking so fast we....”
“McCune dead?” Clears cut in sharply. “Tim?”
Grell nodded gravely. “Sorry, Mike. I’d forgotten what a friend he was of yours. Yes, I’m afraid he’s gone.”
“But I was with him only night before last!” Clears protested in a bewildered, disbelieving way.
“It hit me just as hard as it’s hitting you, Mike. We don’t exactly know what happened. He and Ewing were sent up to the Box yesterday with all the animals we could spare. You probably know how short we’ve been on feed.”
Grell lifted a hand to silence the interruption he saw Clears about to make. “It wouldn’t interest you why McCune was chosen for the duty. At any rate, a man was sent up this morning to relieve him. This man found McCune lying by his fire with a knife wound in his back. There was damned little else he could make out. All the ground was trampled with hoof prints. He did pick something out of the ashes of the fire, though. It was the head of an Apache war club.”
“Apaches? How could that be? Those outlaws were wiped out ’way south of here day before yesterday. How could it be them?”
A wary, questioning look crossed Grell’s face. He nodded slowly. “Yes, we knew that, the major and I. But no one else did. How could you?”
“Ben Qualls was on the reservation two days ago. His friends out there had been talking with their people down south. Smoke talk. The way they got it, Sour Eye was finished, his band wiped out.”
“So they were, Mike. But we were ordered to keep quiet about it until they’d rounded up the last few that got away. So....”
“So it couldn’t have been Apaches that got Tim.” Anger was crowding Clears now.
Grell shrugged. “Not unless it was a bunch that got away from the fight. I’m trying to get information on that now. A message from Starke this morning insisted every man in that band was accounted for by late yesterday afternoon, either dead or prisoner.”
Clears stood wordless a long moment, then asked quietly: “What have you done with Tim?”
“They’re bringing him down now.”
“Are you going to do anything about the ones that killed him?”
The grating edge to Clears’s words made Grell say gently: “We are, Mike. As soon as we have a thing to go on. Caleb Ash is up there now, seeing what he can find.”
The saloon man’s bewildered, angry look was fading. He shook his head perplexedly, then thought of something else. “You say Fitzhugh’s sinking?”
“Rapidly. He’s much, much worse this morning.”
“Dan’ll be sorry to hear that.”
“Dan’s still around?” Grell was obviously surprised.
Clears nodded. Then, sensing the delicacy of the subject, he asked: “Any word from Denver for Miss Tipton?”
“There is.” Grell stepped over to the sergeant’s desk and sorted through some papers, at length looking down at one to say: “They’ve located that family portrait and will send it along next week with the paymaster’s detail.”
“Which means she waits two more weeks before she knows where she stands,” Clears said dryly. “Hell, by then Ash may have the goods sold!”
Grell smiled tolerantly. “You must admit he has a sound claim to them. You can’t expect us to have that picture sent across by special courier, can you?”
“Knowing the Army, I don’t expect a thing, Sam.” Clears’s mild drawl took the sting from his words as he turned to the door. Halfway through it he paused to say: “I’d like to know what Ash turns up.”
“You will, Mike. I’ll send word down as soon as we have anything at all to go on.”
“Much obliged.” Clears went on out across the porch. He was so preoccupied that he didn’t so much as glance ahead until he was halfway down the steps. Even then it was a second or two before he really saw Mary Fitzhugh waiting at the head of the path.
He tipped his hat, said — “’Morning, Missus Fitzhugh.” — and went on out to her.
She ignored his greeting, asking: “You are Mister Clears?” Then, giving him barely time to nod, she asked: “Have you heard about Sergeant McCune?”
“Just.”
“Has Dan?”
“Not yet. He....”
“Then he’s still here,” she said in a hushed, relieved way. And now her look swiftly lost its concern, and her face assumed its striking good looks.
“Yes, he’s still around,” Clears told her.
“You must tell him that I want to see him before he leaves,” she said urgently. “It’s very important. My plans may have changed. I want him to know.”
“Everything depending on what happens to the major?”
She eyed him closely a moment, trying to decide whether or not his words held a barb intended for her. Then, deciding they didn’t, she replied: “That naturally influences my plans. If he...if he passes on, I shall leave, of course. Now that they’ve rounded up those renegades, the stages will be running again. Would you mind telling Dan that I’ll be leaving as soon as I decently can? That if he’s going by stage I would like him to wait over a few days for me? I loathe thinking of traveling alone.”
“You needn’t worry about his leaving right away.”
This time the saloon man spoke with an unmis
takable edge of dryness to his voice. But she ignored it to ask: “Needn’t I?”
“No.”
She saw that he wasn’t going to enlighten her any further without her asking him to. Yet she was so eager to know what made him so sure of his statement that she put down her pride. “What makes you think he won’t leave?”
He smiled faintly. “Just a hunch, Missus Fitzhugh. He has a certain interest here. Call it a feminine one.”
For an instant his words filled her with happiness. Then suddenly a feeling of dread struck through her, and she was powerless to keep back a question. “You mean the Reed woman?”
“No. I mean Faith Tipton, Missus Fitzhugh.”
Mary visibly winced. Her face lost color, and a contemptuous look patterned it. “I am aware that you are entitled to your opinion on who she is, Mister Clears.”
Mike Clears acknowledged her remark with nothing but a slight bow, the gesture at once courteous and mocking.
“But I do give Dan credit for having better judgment than you suggest,” she insisted.
Her statement had only the effect of making his smile more definite. And suddenly she was filled with a rage so violent that she drew herself up to her full height and, turning haughtily, walked away from him without another word. She had taken but a few steps when she realized the absurdity of parting from him in such a way, but her pride was steel-hard now, and she kept moving on down the path.
Her thoughts were at a seething boil of uncertainty now, her hopes of the last few days melted away to nothingness. She wanted to cry out against the injustice of what Mike Clears had implied, and in her rage her hands clenched the front of her light wool coat, pulling at the goods until the collar pressed achingly against the back of her neck. No disappointment in all her experience measured up to the overwhelming quality of this one. She felt lost, cheated, and time and again told herself: He’s an evil man! He’s wrong about Dan!
But as she came even with the cabin that had held her prisoner these past three days, she knew that Mike Clears could have no reason for deceiving her. Halting at the branching of the path, she eyed the porch door with loathing and revulsion. It seemed impossible that she should willingly submit to going in there ever again and subject herself to the drug-tainted air and the menial drudgery of caring for a man toward whom she felt not the slightest affection. Too many of the major’s mannerisms reminded her of Phil Fitzhugh. His kindliness and goodness she had come to look upon as a mockery of her late husband’s shortcomings, until she had decided that Fitzhugh pretended to being something he really wasn’t.
The sound of the opening of the cabin’s door all at once intruded upon her rebellious thoughts now, and she looked across there to see George Spires sauntering out to the porch’s edge. He was smiling at her in his gentle way, reminding her of his insistence some minutes ago that she get out for a walk and a breath of fresh air.
Now he called out to her: “Back so soon?”
She squared her shoulders resolutely, wanting nothing so much as to be alone with her thoughts. And quite suddenly the cabin became less a prison for her than a haven, a place where she could be alone. And she walked in along the path, telling him — “I shouldn’t have been gone so long.” — not even thinking as she assumed the cloak of the devoted daughter-in-law, a rôle she had long ago decided she must play.
“Nonsense. There’s little you can do for him now.”
The quiet way the medico spoke made her glance quickly up at him. “Has something happened?”
He nodded gravely. “I’m afraid it has. He’s in a coma. He may go any minute.” He took his watch from his vest pocket, looking down at it. “Can you spare me for ten minutes, Mary? A quarter of an hour at the most. There’s a very sick man in the dispensary, and I should be there to treat him. They just sent me word of it.”
“By all means go see him.”
“You won’t mind? I’m sure nothing will happen while I’m away.”
“Of course I don’t mind, Doctor.”
She came on up the steps, and he politely held the door open for her, coming in only long enough to get hat and bag before going on out again.
Then, as the door closed behind Spires, all of Mary’s worries settled down on her once more. She took off her coat and, her thoughts still a torment, mechanically went through the chores that had so fully occupied her since the major had taken to his bed this last time. First of all she did the breakfast dishes. Then, reluctantly, she went to Fitzhugh’s bedroom and filled the pitcher on his bedside table, rinsed out his glass, straightened the sheets and blankets that covered his fevered and now strangely frail body.
It was as she was gently lifting his head, intending to smooth the pillow, that she suddenly became aware of Fitzhugh’s sunken eyes being open, staring up at her. For a moment, thinking back on what Spires had said of his condition, she was really alarmed. But then that passed, and she tried not to look at him as she laid his head back again.
Abruptly his weak voice cut across the room’s stillness. “Mary, have I ever told you that I’m extremely fond of you?”
She straightened quickly, looking down and studying his drawn face to see if his talk was the unconscious rambling that had kept her awake most of last night, or if he really knew what he was saying. But his eyes seemed alert, and she decided he was conscious. So she forced a smile, telling him: “That’s a very nice thing to be saying, Father.”
“I mean it, Mary. You are worthy in every way to have been Phil’s...his....”
The low note of his voice trailed off and his eyes slowly closed. And Mary, noting his peaceful expression, was suddenly galled at thinking of how utterly absurd and unfair his words had been. In that moment her uncertainties and disappointments seemed unbearable, much more than she could stand.
She stared down at Fitzhugh’s sunken face, thinking: Your loving son! That good and noble man I married! Do you really want to know what he was like, you fool? And then a host of images passed fleetingly before her mind’s eye, and she was once again seeing Phil’s sodden contempt for her when he drank heavily, the brutality and meanness in him that had become a part of her everyday life from the moment he had learned he was coming out here. He was a thorough coward, Major! And he died a coward. Do you hear? He was the most worthless man I’ve ever....
She plainly heard the click of the front door’s latch, and her rushing thoughts came to an abrupt halt. For a moment as she caught a step crossing the living room, she felt a stark fear, wondering if she had been speaking aloud, if whoever this was had overheard her.
George Spires came into the bedroom doorway then. He stopped there, not understanding her frightened look. “What is it, Mary? What’s wrong?”
And as she stood mute and motionless, too overwhelmed by her emotion to utter one word, he came quickly across to the bed. With a startled look he reached down and closed his fingers about Fitzhugh’s wrist, staring around vacantly at Mary a long moment.
Then he straightened and, with a slow shake of the head, said very quietly: “Poor girl. I had hoped to be here to save you this. It must have given you a turn to see the life going out of him.”
* * * * *
Looking out over Sentinel’s steep slope from a promontory high along its face, Dan Gentry reined in on the roan and paused to watch the last direct blaze of the setting sun lift along the mountainside. His long frame was slack in the saddle, one boot lifted clear of the stirrup and the weight of his upper body leaning on a forearm braced against the horn. He had covered many up and down miles today. Having eaten his last meal at daybreak, the prospect of shortly reaching his camp was distinctly inviting.
This forerunner of twilight laid a hush through the timber, and for a time, as he sat there, the gradually quieting breathing of the roan was the only sound disturbing the stillness. Then from far below came the muted striking of an axe and, wondering if it came from
fort or town, Gentry’s glance moved northward until he could see a small wedge of the bench and pick out the log wall of the post.
Abruptly, something he saw down there made him settle more squarely in the saddle. He frowned, not at first understanding, thinking his eyes were tricking him in seeing the colors, floating lazily from halfway up along the pole that lifted well over the tops of the trees edging this side of the parade. Then suddenly he knew without a trace of doubt that the flag was really flying at half staff and he also knew the reason for it being there.
That dread certainty, along with a heavy sadness, was settling through him when all at once the clear notes of a bugle ran up the slope sounding “Retreat”, and afterward “To the Colors”. The cadence of the calls were timed slower than he had ever before heard them, as though deliberately wanting to strike a note of mourning. And as he watched, he saw the colors dip slowly out of sight behind the solid rank of the pines.
He waited a moment longer before turning downward again, his thoughts remote and very grave. And as the roan took him on down into the trees he was unashamedly and silently weeping.
Ten minutes later and another half mile downward, when his grief had spent itself, he looked out once more across that lower country and noticed a haze of wood smoke hanging over the break in the timber below. That spot marked his camp. Though he thought he knew the reason for the smoke, he rode on warily. By the time he looked down through a thicket and saw Mike Clears hunkered alongside a small blaze near the spring, he had regained control of his emotions and was himself again. The saloon man heard him coming in and straightened, turning his way. And as he came aground beside the fire, Mike Clears studied him closely, at once noticing something in his friend’s expression that made him say gently: “So you already know?”