To Hell and Beyond

by Mark Henry

  “I mean it,” Clay said. “Why so much secrecy over a kidnapped girl? Even if Pilar is a colonel’s daughter. Let’s just ride in there and take care of it like we took care of those scalp hunters.”

  “If it were always that easy, we’d let the girls in town do it,” Webber scoffed.

  Trap touched his sore nose. He didn’t remember it being all that simple.

  “Whatever you say.” Clay went on with his thought, unperturbed by Johannes. “He gave us a heck of a lot of information without telling us much of anything—except that our job would be dangerous.”

  “Welcome to the Army.” Webber gave him a slap on the back.

  Clay narrowed his eyes. “That Colonel Branchflower reminds me of a tight silk nightie on a curvy woman—everything gets covered, just not very well.”

  * * *

  “I hate to leave her so soon,” Trap confided to Clay a few minutes later, after Johannes excused himself to say his good-byes to a Mexican girl he’d been seeing. “An hour isn’t gonna be much time for a honeymoon.”

  “No offense intended, partner.” Madsen took off his hat. He grinned wide enough to show all his teeth. “But I seen the look in your child bride’s eyes when you walked away from her a little bit ago. Maybe you didn’t recognize it, but I sure enough did. I reckon an hour will be more than enough time . . .”

  Trap nodded slowly, thinking about what he’d seen in Maggie’s eyes. It was what had made his legs go so weak—a hungry look that bored into his very soul. “Well, then,” he said. His mouth was dry. Thoughts of Maggie’s toes, her face, her smells all flooded in around him like a warm and comforting breeze. “Reckon I should hurry along . . . I guess . . .”

  “Go ahead and go then.” Clay smirked. “Your damned feet ain’t nailed to the ground. Get a move on, she’s waitin’ for you.”

  Trap snugged his hat around his ears and took off at a run.

  CHAPTER 33

  “Yeah, verily.” King James wagged his finger at Clay. “If the United States Army sayeth thou shalt be issued a Smith & Wesson Schofield, then that is exactly what thou shalt receive.”

  Madsen grimaced and shot a pleading look at Roman.

  “It’s a free pistol,” Webber whispered. “He’s not saying you have to throw your Colt down the crapper. Just accept the damned thing so we can be on our way.”

  It took a little over half an hour for Sergeant James to finish gear issue for all four men. Although Clay accepted the Army’s new sidearm, a Schofield break-top revolver chambered in .45 Smith & Wesson, he tucked it away in his saddlebag with a snide look and a few choice words. He was comfortable with his Colt Peacemaker, and made it clear that although he enjoyed fine new rifles, as far as pistols were concerned, his old friend with ivory grips and a comfortable feel would remain by his side for as long as he drew breath.

  The other three men each took the new-issue sidearm as well as a Winchester 1876 chambered in the new .45-75, a necked-down but still powerful cartridge similar to the .45-70. While not as accurate as Clay’s Sharps .45-90, the Winchesters were capable of throwing big chunks of lead downrange at a high rate of speed—a quality that was sure to come in handy in the sort of mission Colonel Branchflower had promised the Scout Trackers.

  With no pack mule, each man had to carry all his own gear. Rations consisted of hardtack and salt beef, some of which Webber insisted was left over from the War Between the States. Each man drew two canteens and a new blanket roll.

  “He’s a straight shooter, that Lieutenant . . . I mean Captain Roman,” Clay said outside the quartermaster’s store. The captain was still inside taking care of a few last-minute details with King James. “I’m sure proud he let me keep Clarice. Reckon he’ll do to ride with on this kind of engagement.”

  “He’s more than capable,” Webber agreed. He struck a match with his thumbnail and touched it to the end of a short cigar clenched between his teeth. “I’m thinking this will be good duty.” He puffed the smoke until the end glowed orange and lit his ruddy face. “Anything is better than the drudgery of garrison duty. Give me the trail any day of the week.”

  Trap thought about that for a minute. As long as he had Maggie, life at Camp Apache would be a lot of things, but dull wasn’t one of them.

  Johannes puffed happily at his cigar and smirked at Trap. “Maggie get upset about you leaving so soon when we just got home?”

  “She knows I have a job,” Trap said. “She wants me to do the right thing. Honor means a lot to her.”

  “I tan i epi tas,” Webber said, nodding his head. “So, our Maggie’s a warrior too.”

  Clay turned around from tying a canvas nose bag full of oats to his saddle and balled up his fists. He had fight written all over his face. “I tan . . . what the hell did you just call Maggie?”

  Webber tapped the ash of his cigar and gave Madsen a patronizing smile. “Hold on there, righter of all wrongs to womanhood. I didn’t say anything bad. It’s Greek.”

  “It damn sure is,” Clay snorted.

  “It’s what the Spartan mothers used to tell their sons when they left for battle: Return with your shield or on it. Like Maggie, those women were warriors. They believed in honor.”

  “I heard my father talk about the Spartans.” Trap nodded. “Good fighters, lots of honor, but an awful rough life.”

  Webber gave Trap an approving look. His brow rose as if he was a bit surprised. “You, or at least your father, knows his Plutarch.”

  Clay shook his head. “We may not all be as learned as you, Mr. Webber, but even I heard of Plutarch.”

  “Is that so?”

  “I told you I was pretty near raised by my pa’s string of whores.” Madsen grinned. His ire faded immediately once he found Johannes wasn’t saying anything derogatory about Maggie. “Them poor old girls gotta have somethin’ to do during the day. Most of ’em develop a powerful appetite for books. When I was a sprout, I just hung around and listened; some of it must have sunk in accidentally.”

  “Well, I am a happy man,” Webber said. “I’ve not only been made part of an elite team of adventurers, they happen to be semi-learned adventurers as well. I thought I was going to have to do all my philosophizing to Captain Roman. He’ll break into a good erudition once in a great while, but most of the time, he likes to keep quiet.”

  “He strikes me as being very well educated,” Trap said, meaning it as a high compliment.

  “I heard he’s a Mormon.” Clay turned to tighten the cinch on his roan. The horse was prone to take in air and snugging the girth was a chore best done in steps. “I don’t reckon I ever met a real live Mormon before.”

  “Hell.” Webber picked a bit of tobacco leaf off the tip of his tongue. “You’ll meet plenty of ’em out here. They’re thick as thieves in some parts of this godforsaken desert. For some reason, the Mormons flock to these desolate places.” Webber lowered his voice to make certain Roman, who was still inside, didn’t hear him. “I figure they identify with the ancient Children of Israel, running after the Promised Land all the time. The ones I’ve met are right and honest enough, if a little quirky. Some of them even marry more than one woman at a time.”

  The way Webber shifted his eyes put a sinking feeling in Trap’s gut. He never did like talking about someone when they weren’t around.

  “I’ve seen the captain’s wife.” Clay grinned. “I don’t think he’d need another one. I do believe she’s the only one he’s got.”

  “She is at that, Mr. Madsen.” Roman’s voice poured from the dark interior of the adobe building. He followed it out into the flat evening light. The air and the conversation were just cool enough to pink his cheeks. “Her name is Irene and you may address her as such. She is the light of my life.”

  The captain looked around at the three members of his little group. His face was impassive, a blank page, impossible to read. “She is the only wife I have, or ever will have for that matter.”

  He took a deep breath, held it a moment while he pondered, t
hen slowly exhaled. “Gentlemen, I should clear the air regarding my religion from the outset. You’re welcome to speak to me about it at any time, but I won’t push it on you. I attend church with my dear wife when in garrison, but I am not your preachy brand of Mormon. It is my sincere belief that the Good Lord made us each with a purpose: some to be preachers and some to be warriors—each a righteous instrument in His hands. I assume I am riding with warriors.

  “Please do me the service of asking if you have a question. I don’t want there to be anything unanswered from those who may have to die beside me. Here are a few things to get you acquainted with me. I don’t use tobacco, I never consort with lewd women, and I won’t partake of beer or hard liquor. The funny thing is, I didn’t do these things before I converted, so it hasn’t been much of a switch for me. Additionally, I don’t happen to drink coffee or tea, though I don’t look down on those who do.”

  The men all stood, still as glass, by their horses. Webber’s cigar hung limply in his lips, Trap stared at the ground and Clay wrung his hat in his hands.

  A wry smile started slowly at Roman’s eyes, spread over his high cheekbones, and down to the corners of his mouth.

  “And one more thing. I rarely ever curse, but take heed when I do, for then you can be sure I’m damned good and mad. Now, carry on, men. I’d like to be on the trail inside the hour.”

  * * *

  By five o’clock other soldiers began to drift past the quartermaster’s store on their way to supper or evening duties. Webber and Madsen were already in the saddle. Their horses seemed to sense their eagerness to regain the trail and pawed the ground, snorting with impatience. Clay let his roan step out a little to work off some of the tension. Webber followed, still talking on about Plutarch, the warriors of Sparta, and their hard-hearted mothers.

  Trap thought about leaving Maggie while he put the finishing touches on his gear and checked his cinch one last time. In a way, he supposed, coming back for a short time, then leaving again so soon made it more difficult than if he’d just stayed away. It was like picking off a scab—no, that wasn’t it, because riding away from Maggie produced a wound that didn’t quite heal.

  He resigned himself to the fact that he had to make a living. He hadn’t chosen a life on the trail; it had chosen him—or at least Colonel Branchflower had—and Trap had to admit he enjoyed the challenge.

  He’d just picked up Skunk’s front foot when he caught a hint of something different on the wind. When he looked up, Maggie stood in front of him, smiling softly in her own understated way.

  She wore one of his mother’s dresses with blue and white checks and a matching ribbon around her loose hair.

  “I got you a little something for the trail, husband.” She handed him a small parcel, no bigger than a cartridge box. The dress had buttons that went up the front, all the way to the neckline, but Maggie had left the top four undone. The soft skin at her collarbone was flushed and pink. “I wanted to give you this before, but I . . .” Her voice was low and breathy. A mischievous gleam sparkled in her eye. “But my mind was on other things.”

  Trap blushed. He didn’t dare say what he was thinking. Sometimes he wished he had Clay’s quick wit so he could make Maggie laugh. He was vaguely aware of Madsen and Webber working their horses a few yards off, and of the creak of saddle leather as the captain climbed aboard his tall bay. Everyone else was mounted and Roman wasn’t one to dawdle horseback. Trap knew he didn’t have much time. Instead of speaking, he opened the package.

  “It’s a compass.” Maggie lifted the small brass instrument out of the box in Trap’s hands and held it up in front of him. “You are a man on the move, Trap O’Shannon. You have been leaving me since the day I met you. This will help you always find your way home.”

  “Where, I mean how . . . ?”

  “Your father paid me a little for helping at the school. I wanted to give you something as a wedding present.”

  “But I didn’t. . . .”

  She put a finger to his lips. “Yes, you did. You are my husband. That is all that matters.”

  A blond corporal leaned on gangly legs against a cedar support post in front of the quartermaster’s store and smirked behind a mouth full of crooked teeth. “Well, ain’t that just the most precious thing you ever heard, Costello. ‘My husband’?” He elbowed a swarthy Italian trooper next to him in the ribs. “We’re beddin’ down with the enemy now?”

  Costello gave a nervous chuckle. “Come on, Fannin. Watch what you do now.”

  Trap’s neck burned. He knew a fight between two soldiers generally saw them both in the stockade—no matter who started it. But some things could not be tolerated. He took a deep breath. Maggie shook her head.

  “Don’t.” She mouthed the word. “If you fight him, you will lose all you have gained today.”

  Corporal Fannin spit into the sand, then sucked air in through a large gap in his top teeth. “I wonder what it’s like to bed a red woman.”

  Trap gave Maggie the reins to his horse and gave her a pat on the shoulder, moving her gently out of the way of what was sure to be an all-out brawl. He spun, both fists doubled, to face his loudmouthed adversary.

  “I bet they’re all hot like a fire coal,” the instigator rolled on, raising his eyebrows and rolling his shoulders like he had a chill. “That’s the only reason I could see to be with one of the little . . .”

  Hezekiah Roman backed his muscular bay straight into the gabby corporal, pinning the surprised man against the cedar post.

  Unaccustomed to having anything but a tail occupying the crack of his backside, the molested gelding flattened its ears and pitched, sending the offending man into the air and catching him with both well-shod feet on his way back down.

  Corporal Fannin hit the ground with a sickening thud, clutching his groin with both hands. What little color he’d had drained from his pallid face. His Italian friend wisely stepped out of the way as if they’d never met.

  “Mr. Fannin,” Roman snapped, giving his snorting horse a pat on the neck. “You’d think a man such as yourself, employed in the United States Cavalry, would have the brains to stay out from behind the rear end of a mount. You will assign yourself to stable duty for the next month so you may learn proper horse-handling procedures and protocol.” The captain spun his bay, and then side-passed over to the moaning soldier. He was an artist on the back of a horse. Madsen’s jaw hung open in pure, unabashed hero worship.

  The huge gelding stretched its neck out and nibbled at Corporal Fannin’s uniform trousers.

  Roman leaned down, his voice a firm stage whisper from which all around could listen and learn. “Cavalry troops of old utilized that move in battle to kill any enemy foolish enough to try and attack them from the rear. This horse could easily jump up flat-footed and kick your fool head off. All I have to do is give the command. Mister, you speak to one of my men or their women like that again, and I’ll give that command. Are we clear?”

  “Yes, sir,” the corporal blubbered, his voice considerably higher than it had been.

  * * *

  As when garrison women lined up to welcome home the troops when they came in, they lined up to say good-bye when their men left. In this case, only Roman and Trap had wives there to see them off, but Clay and Webber both had pretty young things to send them off with a kiss.

  “Good-bye, my son of Mars,” Irene Roman shouted as the little group trotted out into the piñons outside Camp Apache. “You are my hero!” The captain blew her a kiss and tipped his hat.

  Maggie’s good-bye was more subtle. She stood watching as the group left, fingering the leather pouch around her soft neck. A smile Trap could feel on the back of his neck blazed like a flame in her black coffee eyes.

  Trap turned back to look at her until the trees blocked her from his view.

  “I only been in the Army two hours and I hate it already.” Clay twirled the reins absentmindedly in his hands and looked up at the darkening sky as he spoke. “I only joined this
escapade to get a chance to see that little darlin’ Pilar again. Women,” he sighed. “What’s a man supposed to do?”

  Trap kept his eyes forward, studying his horse’s twitching ears. He thought about Maggie’s tender good-bye to him back at their little dog-run cabin only an hour before. The last thing he wanted to do was talk to Clay about something so private and intimate. He’d surely rib him for the rest of the mission.

  Afraid his face was still flushed at the thought of it, Trap kept his eyes focused on the rock-strewn terrain ahead.

  “Females can sure enough cause a body a considerable amount of grief.” Clay shook his head and sighed again, too caught up in his own thoughts to notice Trap’s discomfort. “Ain’t that right, partner?”

  “I reckon they can,” Trap said.

  Roman reined up so all four men traveled abreast.

  “Leaving is always difficult,” he said. “I hate to leave my loved ones as much as the next man. When I am home, I dread the thought of a lonely expedition. I must confess that I truly despise the thought of leaving a hot bed and a hot woman for the cold and bitter trail. But . . .” He stopped his horse and looked his men each in the eye in turn. “Once I’m on the trail, I realize this is where I can be the most use to society. What good am I if I sit at home and tickle my wife? What good are any of us? I know you all want to get home, except maybe for Webber.” He grinned, showing he was almost human. “Well, mark my word on this. I’ll see that each of you gets back or die trying.

  “Remember, though we are few in number, a small but persistent cadre of disciplined men often has an advantage over a much larger force.” With that he trotted back into the lead.

  Clay turned to Trap and grimaced. “I don’t like them odds, partner,” he whispered. “I ain’t had a disciplined day in my life.”

  “Today is as good a day as any to begin, Sergeant Madsen,” Roman said over his shoulder, proving his hearing was truly beyond human.

  “Sanguis frigitis,” Webber mused, under his breath.

  Now Clay lowered his voice. “Hell’s bells! More Greek already? You’re making my head hurt.”