The Apaches came at him in a rush.
Howard saw the danger and dug his spurs into the flanks of his horse. He charged the hostiles, screaming a war cry without words or meaning, adding wild sound to an ancient race memory he’d torn from the time of his Anglo-Saxon warrior ancestors.
Not for nothing had the frontier army abandoned sabers as a weapon against Indians. The Apaches easily dodged Howard’s slashing steel, and two of them dragged him from the saddle.
Tone, a professional soldier to the core, attempted to save his officer.
He leaned against the wagon and punched shells into his empty revolver. He’d been hit hard by a bullet high in the chest and it was weakening him. An arrow thudded into his left shoulder and he cried out in sudden agony. But he bit back the pain, pushed away from the wagon and tried to bring the Colt to bear.
But the gun was heavy . . . way too heavy . . . and he didn’t know why.
Tone’s vision tunneled until all he saw were the three Apaches running at him. He lifted the revolver with both hands. No good. The weight of the gun was beyond his strength and it dropped from his stiffening fingers.
A bullet thudded into Tone’s belly just above his belt buckle. Another slammed into him. He heard an Apache shriek in triumph....
And then he heard nothing at all.
The Apaches were disappointed in Lieutenant Miles Howard.
He had not died well. After only an hour of fire and the knife, he’d screamed like a woman in childbirth and had not borne the pain as a warrior should.
The coyotes were yipping in the hills and the moon was rising when Howard’s spirit mercifully left his blackened, bloody body. No one sang his death song.
But the Apaches, especially the Chiricahua, were great pranksters. And here was an opportunity for mirth.
They had a flea-bitten Mexican burro in camp and they agreed that it was worth sacrificing the animal’s meat to play a good joke on the soldiers at Fort Defiance.
Later, when they’d tell Geronimo about the joke he’d laugh and say they did well. And then he’d say, “After all, what is a white man useful for but to play good jokes on him?”
Yes, that’s what he’d say.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Winnifred Grove had felt a familiar stirring in her loins and the budding of her breasts when she thought of Captain Owen Shaw. He was a fine-looking man. Of that there was no doubt, with his fine, sweeping cavalry mustache and soulful brown eyes, to say nothing of his broad shoulders and tight, horseman’s hips.
But a lady, especially a married one, must never surrender to lustful fantasies, so Winnifred told her husband that she was stepping out onto the porch to catch a breath of fresh night air, now that the dust of the day had settled.
Andrew, ever solicitous, had at once jumped up from his chair to get her wrap and warned her not to spend too much time outdoors, “lest you catch a chill, my darling.”
The night was indeed cool, but Winnifred was glad of that. She’d been a little overheated of late.
She sat on a wooden bench and looked out across the dark parade ground. Well, not dark, the bright moonlight made everything so opalescent, but shadows pooled everywhere, as deep and mysterious as Captain Shaw’s eyes.
Winnifred noticed that there were beads of condensation on the brown surface of the hanging ollas, like sweat on the tanned shoulders of a lover who has exerted himself heroically in bed.
She shook her head. Lordy, she was in heat and Andrew couldn’t satisfy her and never had. It was as though she was trapped in a burning building searching for an exit, knowing all the time that there was not one to be found.
There was no escape in sight. No relief.
Winnifred squeezed her knees together and for a few moments tried to think of other things. How about that ridiculous old bore, Maude Ashton?
The recent widow was going around dressed all in black, in heavy mourning for her dead husband, moaning and crying with a face as long as a Missouri mule’s. Why, she looked like the pictures Winnifred had seen of old, widowed Queen Vic who’d been mourning for . . . what was it? . . . a hundred years or something. Maude was just as plain, just as dumpy, and just as po-faced as her majesty.
Finally she shook her head. Well, that didn’t work. Thinking of Maude Ashton just depressed her.
Damnit, there was only one thing left to do....
The large pocket of her day dress held two items, a round tin of strong English mints and a pint of rye.
She took out the bottle, popped the cork and slugged down several ounces. There, that was better. Winnifred wiped off her mouth with the back of her hand, put the bottle back in her pocket and then sucked on a mint so strong, it covered up the smell of whiskey.
However, there was no real need. It would never enter Andrew’s thinking that, because of his inadequacies in the bed department, his wife was a secret drinker and an unfulfilled nymphomaniac.
Let him think that the façade of sexual prudery they presented to the world reflected his wife’s true feelings.
Winnifred smiled to herself, her teeth like yellowed piano keys.
If only you knew, Andrew . . . if only you knew.
Perhaps it was whiskey courage or the closeness of her husband and the other officers, but when Winnifred heard the soft shuffle of a tired horse out in the darkness she felt no alarm.
It was probably that nice young Lieutenant Howard riding ahead of the wood wagon.
And it was Howard. Or what was left of him.
Winnifred rose, stepped to the edge of the porch and gazed into the moonlit gloom. The wind had sprung up and small veils of dust lifted from the parade ground. A night bird called from the ashy canopy of a wild oak and leaves rustled as it looked for a place to roost. The bird finally settled and then fell silent.
Winnifred Grove had to smile. All she could make out was the silhouette of man and mount, but the animal was tiny, a small donkey she guessed. Lordy, had the lieutenant’s beautiful white destrier bolted, forcing him to return to the fort astride a burro?
Oh, what a delicious hoot! His brother officers would tease him unmercifully!
Winnifred stepped off the porch and walked onto the parade ground where she could greet the returning hero.
She smiled. “Why, Lieutenant Howard, I declare, how dirty you are.”
The officer made no answer as the burro plodded closer.
Then Winnifred saw his face.
And she screamed. And screamed.
Alarmed, as sudden shrieks echoed through the silvered darkness, the night bird scattered leaves and twigs in its haste to scamper out of the oak.
Mercifully, Winnifred Grove fainted and her last horrified screech stilled in her throat.
Major Andrew Grove, dressed in a house robe, slippers and tasseled smoking cap, found his wife sprawled on the parade ground. A trickle of saliva ran from the corner of Winnifred’s mouth and her eyes were wide open, as though the horror she’d seen had frozen them in place.
First Lieutenant Frank Hedley, half drunk, his boots on the wrong feet, pounded outside and demanded to know what in holy hell was going on. Captain Owen Shaw, wearing his gun, arrived a few moments later.
“Oh my God, look at that!” Major Grove exclaimed, the monocle popping out of his eye.
He staggered back, one hand pointing to the horror on the blood-soaked burro, the other clutching at his chest.
Then he too fainted.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The scream woke Sam Flintlock, but Abe Roper got out of his blankets and onto his feet faster.
“What the hell?” he said, to no one but himself.
“Some poor woman run into Jack Coffin in the dark?” Flintlock said.
“That ain’t funny, Sam’l,” Roper said. “We need that damn breed. I don’t want him hung until after we get the bell.”
Charlie Fong, scratching his belly, padded on bare feet and blinked at Roper. “What’s going on, Abe?”
“I don’t know, bu
t I aim to find out. Get dressed, you two, and we’ll go see. It might be Apaches.”
Flintlock dressed, then shoved his Colt in his waistband. He slung the powder horn over his shoulder and picked up the Hawken.
“What the hell do you aim to do with that, Dan’l Boone?” Roper said. He was only half awake and testy.
“It might come in handy,” Flintlock said.
“You want handy, take a Winchester.”
“The Winchester’s my saddle gun, Abe. This here Hawken is fer show.” He lifted his chin and scratched his unshaven neck. “Or something like that.”
“You’re nuts,” Roper said. “You dream about ol’ Barnabas again?”
“He was advisin’, like he always does,” Flintlock said.
“He tell you to take the Hawken?”
“He surely did.”
“I’m surrounded by madmen,” Roper said. He opened the door, stepped outside, and the others followed.
There was a commotion on the porch in front of the administration building and commanding officer’s quarters.
Flintlock heard a man scream, “Take it away. Oh, dear God in heaven, take it away.”
Then another man said, “Calm down now, Major.”
Abe Roper ignored the officers on the porch and walked directly to the donkey and its grotesque burden.
After a while he turned to Flintlock and said, “Apaches all right. He’s been skun.”
Captain Owen Shaw, his caped greatcoat hurriedly thrown over his night attire, stood close by, but said nothing. He was deathly pale under his dark tan.
Flintlock and Charlie Fong stared at the body. It was braced upright on the donkey’s back by a frame of pine branches, and Howard’s purple and pink intestines spilled over the little animal’s back and trailed in the dust.
“Hard to tell who he is, ain’t it?” Roper said.
“Hard to tell if it was ever human,” Charlie Fong said.
“It’s human all right,” Flintlock said. “It’s the young lieutenant, or was.”
“Damn, he died hard, didn’t he?” Roper said. Howard’s eyes were gone and his genitals had been cut off.
“I wouldn’t wish that kind of death on my worst enemy,” Flintlock said.
“Damned Apaches,” Fong said, and spat.
Flintlock shrugged. “It’s what they do, Charlie. They learned how to flog and flay a man from the Spanish, and how to burn him so it hurt for a long time.” He glanced at Howard’s body again. “Yup, it’s what they do, all right.”
“You fellows there!”
Flintlock turned and saw a man leaning forward with both hands on the rail of the picket fence that surrounded the porch. He wore a smoking cap that was at a crooked angle on his graying head.
“Yes,” the man said, “I’m talking to you.”
“And who are you?” Flintlock called back.
“Damn your impertinence, sir.” The man put a monocle in his right eye, as though trying to get a better look at Flintlock. “I’m Major Grove, the new commandant of this post.”
“What can we do for you, Major?” This from Abe Roper.
“Take that horrible thing away,” Grove said. “Take it away and bury it or burn it. I’ll give each of you a dollar when the job is done.”
Flintlock had no particular liking for Captain Shaw, but the man rose in his estimation when he took a few steps toward Grove and yelled, “Sir, this man was an officer in the United States Army and died on active duty. He should be buried with military honors.”
A few soldiers had gathered around and by the expression on their faces they approved of what Shaw had said.
“Where are the other members of the wood party?” Grove said.
“Dead, I should imagine,” Shaw said.
“And no wood?” Grove said. “You mean there’s no wood?”
The man’s voice was quivering, as though he teetered on the verge of hysteria.
“Hell, General, if your soldier boys were all kilt by Apaches they ain’t likely to bring wood, now are they?”
Asa Pagg had emerged from the gloom and now he stood, hands on his hips, grinning at the major.
“That man is correct,” Grove yelled. “Lieutenant Howard was clearly derelict in his duty. Now take that away and bury it somewhere in haste. A dollar for every man who volunteers.”
At that point Winnifred Grove recovered from her swoon, helped by Maude Ashton fanning her face with a damp handkerchief. Winnifred pushed the woman away and fixed a stare on the nightmare astride the blood-splashed burro.
“We’re taking it away, my dear,” her husband said. “I’ll dispose of it.”
“Now,” Winnifred said. “It’s obscene, Andrew. Do it now.”
“Of course, my precious.”
Out on the parade ground, Flintlock’s and Shaw’s eyes met.
“Hell, we’ll bury him,” Flintlock told him.
Shaw nodded. “All the damned major has done during his entire army career is count cans of beans and tubs of salt beef. He’s never seen what Indians can do to a man.”
“You can’t let the Apaches get away with this, Shaw,” Flintlock said. “If you don’t head out after them they’ll take it as a sign of weakness. They’ll be back and next time Geronimo will go for your throat.”
“In the event of an attack we have men enough to defend the administration building and possibly the sutler store,” Shaw said. “At least for a while. We don’t have the numbers to meet the Apaches in the open field. In any case, with the exception of the five cavalry troopers who formed his escort, the soldiers now under Major Grove’s command are not fighting men.”
Shaw glanced at the porch where Grove still yelled orders that now fell on deaf ears. “And we have two white women to protect,” he said.
“What do you think, Sam?” Asa Pagg said, grinning. He seemed highly amused.
“Abe?” Flintlock said.
“I say we burn ’em, make them savages wish they’d never heard of Fort Defiance,” Roper said.
“Count me in,” Charlie Fong said.
Flintlock directed his attention to Pagg. “You heard it, Asa.”
The big outlaw turned his head. “Joe? Logan?”
“I never fit Apaches before,” Logan Dean said. “I’ve been meaning to give ’er a try.”
“Me neither, but I’ll give it a whirl,” Harte said. “‘Half a league, half a league, half a league onward, all in the valley of Death rode the six hundred. “Forward, the Light Brigade! Charge for the guns!” he said. Into the valley of Death rode the six hundred. ’”
“That one of them poetries you write, Joe?” Dean said.
“Nah, it was written by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, three score years ago,” Harte said.
Abe Roper shook his head. “Seems to me there’s some mighty strange folks gathered in this fort tonight,” he said.
Pagg grinned. “Joe is mighty queer all right, but when the lead starts flying, he’ll stand his ground and play the white man.”
“Then let’s saddle up and get it done,” Flintlock said.
“You takin’ that old smoke pole, Sam?” Pagg said.
“Seems like.”
“Then Joe ain’t the only one that’s strange.”
“I can’t stop you men,” Shaw said. Then, half-heartedly, “But I wish you’d reconsider.”
The thought had occurred to Shaw that if Pagg stopped a bullet, he could handle Dean and Harte. “What about him?” he said, nodding in Howard’s direction. The skinned body was already attracting flies and it smelled.
“I said we’d bury him,” Flintlock said. “And we will.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Damnit all, Sammy,” Abe Roper said. “That thing following on behind us spooks the hell out of me.”
“You ain’t alone there,” Asa Pagg said. “Way that burro follows us just ain’t natural. Like it’s being guided by the hands of a dead man.”
“Let Lieutenant Howard be,” Flintlock said. “He’ll lead us t
o glory.”
The donkey with its grisly burden had tacked on to the riders as they left the fort and it had kept up with the horses, Howard’s dreadful body swaying on its back as though he was returning, tipsy, to his grave.
The trail was narrow and wound through rocks and trees, but twice Flintlock and the others had ridden past meadows thick with night-blooming wildflowers, moonlight covering the grass like a frost.
Here and there the tracks of the wood wagon were visible in the gloom and after an hour they swung west, into timbered hill country. The air was sultry and still and thick with insects that buzzed and bit.
Flintlock stepped from the saddle and walked back to the others.
“I smell smoke,” he said.
“I don’t smell it,” Pagg said.
“Well, trust me, it’s there,” Flintlock said.
“How do we play this, Sam’l?” Roper said, his voice a hard whisper. “What did ol’ Barnabas teach you about sneakin’ up on Apaches?”
“Nothing. Barnabas never fit Apaches.”
“Lucky for him,” Roper said.
“The way I got it figured,” Flintlock said, “is that we go from here on foot, except for Lieutenant Howard. He’s riding.”
Asa Pagg said, “Anybody catching his drift? I’m damned if I am.”
“Then listen up, Asa,” Flintlock said. “And I’ll talk real slow so even you can understand.”
“Why haven’t I shot you afore this, Sam?” Pagg said.
“Because you’re such a warm and compassionate human being,” Flintlock said.
The irony flew right over Pagg’s head. “Damn right I am. Too softhearted fer my own good. A lot of people have told me that.”
“They still alive, Asa?” Charlie Fong said.
“Most of them are dead. Keep up with the lip, Chinaman, and you’ll be joining them.”
Fong laughed into his hand as Roper said, “All right, everybody, listen to Sam’l.”
Flintlock outlined his plan and when he was done, Pagg grinned and said, “Hell, the poor soldier boy should get a medal for this.”
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