by Jory Sherman
“Yeah, only up to our ankles in here now.”
“I can get my men to sweep the water out of here. Maybe light a little fire to dry things out.”
“No fire,” Trask said, his voice like a steel trap snapping shut. “Have your boys sweep out that dead Mex. The water’ll go away on its own.”
“Christ, Ben. You don’t have to be so all-fired hard. The man had a family. Worked five years for me.”
“The man was a coward.”
“Hell, we was all scared when that flood started rushin’ in here.”
“This whole deal’s turning to shit, Hiram. You can’t make it no better with your bawlin’ over spilt milk.”
“You could have let the man drown by his own self.”
“Hell, that what you think?”
“Maybe.”
“The whole bunch would have bolted for that door if I hadn’t stopped your man.”
“Maybe not.”
“You’re a poor judge of men, Hiram. I’m thinkin’ we’re not likely to find any alive at the other stage stops, damn it all.”
“Aw, he couldn’t have got all of ’em. That Cody feller, I mean.”
“I know who the hell you mean, Hiram. And you’re dead wrong. Cody probably rubbed out ever’ damn one of your men. I just hope your man at Bowie comes through for us. We’re goin’ to be way short of guns if he don’t.”
“It’s all set, I told you. Stop worryin’, Ben.”
“Just like these old stage stops were all set.”
“I didn’t know you had a killer doggin’ your tracks, Ben.”
“Well, if those other men of yours are dead, you’re going to have to send one of the Mexes to the fort.”
“I know. Willoughby’s goin’ to come through for us. He wants Cochise worse’n anybody.”
“Has he got enough soldiers to do the job?”
“He says he does.” Hiram paused, kicked away a rat that was trying to crawl up his leg. “I believe him.”
Trask shook his head. He was weary and frustrated. Losing O’Hara had been a big setback. Now he had to rely on Ferguson and an army man he’d never met. So far, Willoughby had proven reliable. He had set up the kidnapping of O’Hara by Ferguson’s men. But the entire operation hinged on Willoughby’s support. Trask was a gambling man, but he wouldn’t bet on this one. Not with Zak Cody dogging him at every turn.
“Hiram, maybe you’d better tell me the name of the soldier who’s bringing the extra guns when we go after Cochise.”
“You’ll like this one, Ben. None other than the quartermaster at Bowie.”
“Name?”
“He’s a lieutenant, but he’s plenty savvy. He’s got holdings in Tucson, too, and big plans. His name is John Welch.”
“And you trust this man?”
“I do. And so does Willoughby.”
“Do you know how many men he’ll bring?”
“No. Only Willoughby knows that. But I’m sure we’ll have enough.”
“Why are you sure?” Trask asked.
“Because Willoughby said there’s hardly a man at the fort who doesn’t want Cochise’s scalp.”
“I don’t want any of them in the way when we get that Apache gold.”
“Don’t worry. The major says we can keep all we can find. He just wants to start a war with the Chiricahua while he’s in command of Fort Bowie. Satisfied?”
“I reckon,” Trask said.
The water inside the line shack was going down, ever so slowly. The wind was slackening, too, Trask noticed. The stench inside was still overpowering, and now there was the cloying aroma of polluted water, dead things, maybe mold. He wanted to leave, but knew it was too soon. There could be other flash floods, and for the moment they were all safe. He had kept Ferguson’s men from going into a panic, and it only cost him one man—a cowardly man, he was sure.
Ferguson directed two of his men to carry out the dead body, put it in the flowing water. The two men bent to their task in silence and did not speak when they returned. But they both glared at Trask and he made note of the hostility. He not only expected their anger, he welcomed it, because he was a man used to treachery, on both sides of the coin, and such knowledge gave him the edge he wanted. Complacency was not a condition he tolerated, either in himself or in others. The complacent man stood to lose all he held dear, including, sometimes, his life.
Ferguson walked back over to Trask and stood next to him, gazing through the gaping hole that had once been an adobe wall.
“You waiting for that flood to stop running, Ben?”
“No. I don’t care about that. It’s still raining and at least we’ve got a roof over our heads.”
“How long we goin’ to stay in this cesspool?”
Ferguson’s questions were beginning to annoy Trask. The man was trying to get into his thoughts. To Trask, that was an invasion of his privacy. He didn’t like questions. Especially questions that asked him what he was going to do when he was still figuring everything out.
“Hiram,” Trask said, “ever notice how slow time crawls by when you’re in a place you don’t like much?”
“I never thought about it much,” Ferguson said.
“Well, think about it. We ain’t been in this ’dobe shack very long, but it seems like we been here for eleventeen hours, sure as shit. But we ain’t. It’s still rainin’ like hell outside, water ever’ damned where, wind blowin’ a blue norther, and you want to go back out in it. Shit, you can’t light a cigar or a cigarette, you’re soakin’ wet clean through your clothes, colder’n a well digger’s ass, no shelter, no warm fire, nothing but mud and water and black night. Bite on a goddamned stick if you can’t take it no more where you’re at.”
“Well, Christ, Ben, you don’t need to go off on me like a double-barreled Greener. I was just wonderin’.”
“Hiram, I declare. Sometimes you’re a pain in the ass and the neck.”
“Well, all right, Ben. Shit, I just asked a damn simple question.”
That’s what it was, Trask thought. A simple question formed in a simple mind. But he was getting cabin fever, too, and Ferguson had touched a bare nerve. He knew they would have to leave soon. As soon as the flooding stopped, maybe. That wasn’t the most pressing thing on his mind, however.
Somewhere out there, on his back trail, Zak Cody was waiting out the storm, too. And he probably had O’Hara with him, maybe others. He knew that Cody was close. He could almost feel the man’s eyes on him. The way he saw it, he had two choices. He could ride on for the rendezvous with the soldiers from the fort, hoping to outrun Cody. Or he could wait, maybe set up an ambush and kill Cody before continuing on. Neither plan offered much. A betting man would pass on both.
He listened to the pelting rain, the slush and slosh of the river running down the road. He thought he heard one of the horses whinny but couldn’t be sure. He thought of wolves, but knew the horses would kick up a worse racket than a whinny if they were attacked. At least they were on high ground, well away from the flash flood. They would keep.
He looked around the room, unable to see much in the darkness. But he could make out the shapes of men against the wall, all huddled together like beggars. The water inside had dwindled to a muddy puddle, level to just above the soles of his boots, dank and stinking, muddy and choked with dead insects, rats, and other varmints.
Lou Grissom stood a foot away from the Mexicans. He looked composed. He never said much, Trask had noted, but he seemed capable. He had the look of a man who knew where he was and where he was going. Like his man, Willy Rawlins. He might be able to leave those two behind to take care of Cody, ambush him. But he wondered, would two men be enough? He did not know the Mexicans, but they also seemed a capable bunch. If he and Ferguson rode on, they could rendezvous with Welch and the soldiers under his command.
But could he spare Rawlins? And would Ferguson allow Grissom to stay behind? Might it not be better if they all stuck together and just watched their back trail, pushed the horse
s to lengthen the distance between him and Cody? To divide his forces now might put the entire expedition in peril.
“Hiram,” Trask said, “I’m going to talk to you and the men about what we’re facing after we leave here. Maybe we can figure out what our best chances are to meet up with Welch.”
“You worried about that Cody feller?”
“He’s out there. He’ll be coming after me.”
“Seems to me that’s your problem, Ben.”
“No, it’s our problem, Hiram. Just let me have my say and we’ll get the hell out of here as soon as we can.”
“Just so I have a say in what we do, Ben.”
“Sure, Hiram,” Trask said, once again concealing his irritation with the man.
“Grissom, you and the boys come over here close,” Ferguson said.
“Willy,” Trask said, “come on over.”
“What’s in the hopper?” Rawlins said as he walked close to Trask.
Trask looked the men over before speaking.
“We got a situation here,” he said. “Cody and O’Hara, maybe some others, are bound to be on our trail. I’ve already lost too many men, and Ferguson here has probably lost all of his boys who were holed up in these old stage stations. So, I’ve got to figure out what’s the best thing to do. I’ll give you all a vote. That all right with you?”
All of the men nodded.
“I can leave some of you here to bushwhack Cody and O’Hara. Cody’s good, though. And fast. A dead shot. O’Hara, I don’t know about. They may have help. Or, we can all leave this ’dobe together and ride like hell to meet up with the soldier boys who are going to help us. Now, question is, what do you boys want to do? Split up, some stayin’ here to shoot it out with Cody and O’Hara, or all ride on? Think about it.”
“I think we ought to stick together,” Grissom said, much to Trask’s surprise.
“Why?” Trask asked.
“Anybody knows you split your forces, you weaken the whole outfit. I was in the army once’t and I learnt that.”
“I agree with Lou,” Rawlins said. “Together, we got a good chance if that Cody feller catches up with us and wants to sling lead. The more of us there is, the more chance we have of surrounding him and puttin’ out his lights.”
Juan Ramirez raised his hand. “May I speak?” he said.
“Sure,” Ferguson said. “Go ahead, Juan. What’s on your mind?”
“Together, we are strong,” Ramirez said. “We are few, but maybe we are more than this Cody. I think we should ride together. We have lost friends already who were not with us on this ride. This is what I say and this is how we all feel.”
Trask held up both hands.
“All right,” he said. “You’ve convinced me. I think you’re right. As soon as we can, we’ll mount up and ride like hell. It’s going to be rough, what with the mud and water and all, and we’ll probably have to bat our way through this rain. But we’ll stick together. As for Cody, and O’Hara, keep your eyes open and shoot them on sight.”
All of the men nodded in assent.
“And one more thing…” Trask said.
He paused, and there was a silence in the room as everyone listened for his final words.
“Shoot to kill,” Trask said.
Chapter 15
Deets screamed as the iodine burned through raw flesh.
Scofield clamped a hand over his prisoner’s mouth.
“That ain’t goin’ to help none,” Scofield said. “And, I got more to do. That was just to wash out the germs, feller.”
“What else you goin’ to do?” Deets gasped, the pain gripping him, surging through the nerve ends all around the wound.
“I got some salve here I’m goin’ to pack in there, make that hole heal up faster.”
“Take it easy, will you, soldier?”
“If I had a fire goin’ I’d put a hot iron to it and close that hole for good. You’d likely jump about four feet off the ground.”
Deets swore under his breath.
O’Hara appeared next to Scofield, pulling down on the front of his hat brim to shield his face from the rain.
“Corporal,” he said, “if he yells out again, knock him cold with the butt of your sidearm.”
“Yes, sir.”
O’Hara walked back to his post, angry with himself for losing his temper. But Deets was one of those men who had been his captors. He was still angry about being kidnapped and held prisoner against his will. As a soldier, he was bound to avoid capture, and if captured, to use all means at his disposal to escape. He had not escaped, not on his own. Cody had been his rescuer, much to his embarrassment. He felt he had not conducted himself well, and so he knew he was packing around a lot of guilt. And that didn’t feel good, he admitted to himself. As a career soldier, he felt this was a black mark on his record.
But his anger could grow legs and venture beyond himself to Major Erskine Willoughby, acting commandant of Fort Bowie. Willoughby was behind his capture, he was sure of that now. His scheme to wipe out the Chiricahuas was diabolical and traitorous. He had to be stopped. He had to be brought to justice before a military tribunal. But first, of course, there was the matter of Ben Trask and Hiram Ferguson. They were the enemy in the field. Willoughby was safe and out of reach at Fort Bowie. “Damn it all,” he growled under his breath.
Scofield stuffed a salve into Deets’s wound. Deets groaned but did not cry out.
“What’s that you just did?” he asked, his voice quavering as he shivered with pain.
“Some kind of medicant we use to plug leaks in our boys. Keep you from bleedin’.”
“It burns like fire.”
“Fire would be better. If I had a hot coal, I’d stuff it down there. It would damn sure close off that hole.”
“Damn,” Deets said, and shivered again as if gripped by a cold chill.
Scofield stood up. “I ain’t puttin’ no bandage on you. Too wet out. You just lie still and let the medicine work.”
“I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
“No, you sure as hell ain’t. Next bullet you get will give you a permanent headache.” He paused. “For about a half a second.”
Deets shut up then, and Scofield walked over to his horse and returned the salve and iodine to his saddlebags. Then he stood guard over Deets, who turned his head to one side to try and keep the rain from drowning him.
Distant thunder rumbled, sounding like a game of nine pins in a great hall, and distant lightning made the black clouds glow with a pale orange light. The rainfall thinned to a steady patter, with only small gusts of wind to hurl patches of it to a misty spray.
Zak hunkered down under his horse’s belly, squatting between his boots, Apache style, his butt just an inch or so off the wet ground. He thought of Deets and how lucky the man was to be alive. The night played tricks on a man’s eyes. He knew that, but still, he should have shot more true. No matter. He had accomplished what he meant to do, getting O’Hara away from Trask and his men. Ted seemed a capable enough soldier. Someone had betrayed him, someone in the army, or he would not have been kidnapped.
So much rain in such a dry land, he thought. But he had seen odd weather before, in the Rockies and out on the Great Plains. The mountains made their own weather. One minute the sun could be shining bright, with nary a cloud in the sky, and the next, huge white thunderheads could boil up out of some hidden valley and bring rain or snow within the space of a pair of heartbeats. He had seen dust devils turn into violent twisters, and known winds that brought blizzards down from the north to a land basking in sunshine and warmth.
But he knew the storm was moving eastward, losing its strength. He could feel the air change, and the rhythm of the wind and the rain had shifted into a lower gear. The rain was no longer slanted, he noticed, but falling straight down, the wind gone, and there was less of it. He watched as the curtain of rain thinned and left spaces in the darkness. By sunup, he figured, it would all be over. Such fierce winds had driven the storm onwar
d, and the clouds were losing their moisture so rapidly they would be puffs of white cotton before noon.
He heard a muffled shout and put a hand to his ear.
“Colonel, sump’n over here.”
It was Rivers.
“Be right there,” Zak shouted, and crawled out from under his horse, waddling like a crab until he could stand up.
His clothing clung to him and his boots creaked as he traversed the short distance to where Rivers stood guard.
The soldier was leaning over the edge of the hill. He stood up straight when Zak came up alongside of him.
“What you got, Rivers?” Zak asked.
“I dunno. I heard a rattle, like some loose rocks rollin’ down there, and thought I saw somethin’ big come up at the bottom of the bank. I thought maybe someone snuck up on us. I just caught a glimpse when some lightning sparked off in the distance.”
“Is it still down there?”
“I reckon.”
“Heard any more rocks tumbling?”
“No, sir. That’s what’s so spooky about it. I ain’t heard nothin’ since that kind of thud sound and them rocks clatterin’.”
“You did right, calling me over, Private. Now, step back. I’ll take a look. If there’s another lightning strike, I might be able to see what it is.”
“Yes, sir. I got the shivers from it.”
Zak peered over the side. He saw nothing but darkness. The bottom of the hill was like a black pit. The water from the flood was still running, but not as fast, nor as noisily. He heard the water gurgling as it passed the base of the hill. He stared, without straining his eyes, moving them from side to side, trying to pick up some kind of shape out of the blackness.
“You go on over and stand guard by my horse, Rivers,” Zak said. “I’ll take this post until we find out what it was that made that noise. You did well.”
“Thank you, sir. I hope it ain’t no ambusher.”
“Probably a dead animal.”
“A big dead animal,” Rivers said.
And then he was gone, sloshing through the rain to where Nox still stood, neck bowed, tail drooping and dripping water. Zak watched until the yellow slicker Rivers wore turned from bright yellow to the color of curdled milk. He noticed that Rivers didn’t crawl under Nox but stood beside him, his head shielded from the wind behind Nox’s neck.