by Short, Luke;
“Settle an argument for us, Ward,” Linus called. His mouth was straight with suppressed anger, and there was a glint of wrath in his blue eyes.
“There’s no argument, Linus,” Loring said calmly. He handed Ward a piece of paper from Storrow’s notebook, saying “That’s Wolverton’s last message for the day.”
Ward accepted it and read, “Band still headed Cardinal Springs. Have pushed hard but am unable to make contact. Wolverton.”
“What do you make of that?” Linus demanded.
“He’s on the run for fair,” Ward said.
Storrow asked, “Will he bypass us when he discovers us?”
“If he won’t fight Wolverton, he won’t fight us.”
Linus looked at Loring in wicked triumph. “There’s the advice of the man you pay for it, sir.”
“I haven’t heard any advice,” Loring said quietly, and an edge of malice came into his voice as he added, “The only advice I’ve received from Kinsman is that since the Apaches are ferocious fighters I should respect them.” He made a grimace of disgust. “The great, fierce Apaches. How can you respect rabbits who won’t fight?”
Ward smiled faintly. “They’ll fight. All they want is a ground of their own choosing and fewer numbers than they are.”
Storrow said, “Like a small immigrant train.”
“Or a lonely little detail,” Ward agreed.
“There you are, sir,” Linus said quickly, flatly, triumphantly. “He said it. I didn’t.”
Loring’s dark gaze regarded Linus calmly, passed fleetingly over Storrow, and settled on Ward. “Linus has a scheme to bring on a fight. Storrow likes it, and I’m reserving judgment. It’s this—but first a question. Do you think Diablito’s band would fight a small detail if it were put in his way?”
Promptly Ward answered, “Yes, in a second. He’s probably having hell’s own time with his young warriors. The only fight they’ve had was in the skirmish this morning, and he collected them with the promise of fighting, not running. If they saw anything they could take easily, they’d go at it, and he’d let them because he wouldn’t be able to stop them.”
Loring considered this under Linus’ uncompromising regard and then he said, “Linus proposed we break camp tonight under cover of darkness and move up the trail toward Diablito. The troop will pull off the trail around midnight and send a detail a half-mile or so ahead. Let the detail build a fire, make camp, and put out guards, just as if it had been traveling all day and had made a dry camp. When Diablito’s scouts run into it in the night and see its size, they’ll report it back and the band will attack the detail at dawn. When it does, the rest of the troop moves into support of the detail and we have his whole band engaged.” He paused, and Linus’ glance shifted to Ward. “Would it work?”
“I think it would,” Ward said.
There was a moment of silence, in which Linus wisely held his tongue.
“What did you propose instead?” Ward asked curiously.
“To wait here, barring them from water. With Wolverton behind them and us before them, they’ll be forced to fight.”
He looked challengingly at Ward, who said nothing. Linus and Storrow were silent too, and now Holly’s words book soldier flashed through Ward’s mind.
Loring shrugged, then, and said calmly, “However, there’s always more than one road to town. All I want is to engage that band. If your way will do it, Linus, let’s try it.” He looked at Linus now and smiled, and Linus, whose temperament never let him hold a grudge of more than five seconds’ duration, smiled too.
“Thanks for that, sir.”
Ward had the sudden feeling that he had seen this before, and then remembered. It was on the day of the paymaster’s escort to Craig, which he and Holly had discussed. With the solidness of final belief, it came to him than that he had the real reason now for his caution of Loring. The man had no trust in himself, no thoughts of his own that ever reached conviction, no belief in his Tightness that ever bred tenacity, no toughness of mind that in other men made their lives a sober, stubborn gamble on the strength within them. Why, he’s hollow, Ward though in mild astonishment, and lest his face show his thought he bent down now and picked up the canteen at Loring’s feet and drank from it.
It hadn’t been generosity that had let Loring send Linus on the scout up Calendar Canyon, and it wasn’t fair-mindedness that was prompting him now; it was indecision, a great silent cry for help that no schooling, no breeding, no set of rules had ever supplied him or ever would, Ward knew.
Loring took off his hat now and mopped his awry black hair with his neckerchief. He said, looking at Ward, “Well, it looks as if it’s up to you and Tana to pick a spot for the fight, Kinsman. You both know the country. Agree on the place and describe it to Linus. He’ll have the detail.”
Ward put the canteen on the ground, saying, “Tana won’t be back.”
Loring had started to turn away, but now he halted and regarded Ward. “Still suspicious? Want to make a bet?”
Linus put his quick startled glance on him, and for a moment the three officers stared at him.
Ward said, “His story about the dust of a party sighted to the south of us sounded fine this noon. The only trouble was, I had taken a look too, and there was no dust. So when he asked to have another look later, I wondered about it. When he left to have his look, I cut north and waited by the trail. He came by on his way to Diablito.”
“And you killed him?” Loring asked slowly.
For five long seconds, Loring looked at him, and then Ward saw the temper edging into the shock in his eyes. Loring said to Linus, “Will you and Mr. Storrow excuse us, Mr. Delaney?”
Linus and Storrow looked at each other. Linus rose, and without a word, he and Storrow walked off toward the spring together.
Loring said levelly, “You’ve been waiting for a chance to prove me wrong, haven’t you, Kinsman?”
Ward thought about this and then said, “Yes, I guess I have.”
“Do you recall the reason for the thrashing I gave you in Hance’s barn?”
“I’m not likely to forget it.”
“It was for interfering in affairs which were none of your business, which were Army business.”
Ward said thinly, “Aren’t you forgetting something, Captain?”
“Am I?”
“Tana was on his way to Diablito. I’d intended bringing him back here so you could see what he had to say for himself. But I misjudged my surprising of him, and he attacked me and I killed him.”
Loring took a deep breath and lowered his head a little. “Kinsman, I have uncovered you in two lies in the past—once when you lied about what Riordan called Linus, and once when you lied to Mr. Tremaine about your reason for wanting to see Riordan in the hospital. I don’t value your word highly.”
“Then saddle up and I’ll show you where Tana is,” Ward countered.
“I’ll take your word for that. But your reasons for killing him, even the necessity, I will continue to doubt. But I am even more concerned about something else”—his voice grew rough—“your damned meddling in Army affairs. And I propose to stop it.” He paused so as to give weight to what followed, “You will guide us to our position tonight, and then you will leave us. Your services will be terminated.”
“You’re wrong,” Ward said. “They are terminated now.”
He wheeled, and started for the picket line, and he had gone only five steps when he slowed and then halted. He was motionless a moment, then he turned and regarded Loring who was standing, hands on hips, watching him.
“Let’s make it midnight,” Ward said.
Martha Riordan put the plate of oatmeal cookies in the small basket, covered it with a towel, and taking the basket let herself out of the house into the twilit evening.
Coming into the parade ground past the officers’ quarters, she noted again how strange an air the post had about it, an air of both waiting and desertion, as if all activity were suspended until the troops r
eturned. It baked in the vast emptiness, waiting.
She took the walk past Brierly’s house and went on, cutting behind G’s barracks and taking the gravel path to the hospital. At the door to the ward, she started to draw the pass out of her pocket, but the lounging guard waved her in and returned to his newspaper. The lamp at the foot of Tom’s bed was lighted, and he lay there staring at the ceiling, turning his head only when she came up to him.
“Tom, I baked some cookies today. I got the last of Hance’s oatmeal, too.” She lifted out the plate and uncovered it and laid it on the bed. Riordan picked one out, and took a bite from it.
“Like it?” Martha asked.
“I’m eatin’ it,” Riordan growled.
Martha pulled a chair up to the edge of the bed and sat down, saying, “It’s the strangest feeling around the post, Tom, almost as if it had been abandoned. Crossing the parade, I saw some red ants starting to build their mound. In another—”
“Be quiet,” Riordan growled. “Pull your chair closer and listen.”
Martha obediently hunched her chair forward as Riordan glanced past her at the inattentive guard.
Riordan said softly, “You know Jim Hartford that packed supplies in here last spring?” At Martha’s puzzled nod, he said, “Well, he’s come in with the quartermaster train and he’s over at Hance’s. I want you to get hold of him and remind him of the money he owes me. Tell him I’ll call it square if he’ll help me now. I want him to get a horse tomorrow, a good one, and a big canteen and some grub. You give him a sack of my clothes. Tomorrow night after dark, he’s to tie the horse with all my gear in a sack down at the rifle butts and leave. That’s all.”
Martha felt a cold finger of apprehension. “Tom, what are you planning?”
“I’m going to break out of here,” Riordan said grimly.
A dozen urgent protests welled up in Martha now, but she singled out only one. “But your leg, Tom! You can’t.”
“A scratch,” Riordan scoffed. “I been limping around the place, groaning like a kicked hound, because this is better than the guardhouse. Come closer.”
Martha gazed apprehensively over her shoulder at the guard, but he was still reading his paper. She hunched her chair against the bed.
“Don’t you see,” Riordan said softly, fiercely, “I got to get out of here before I’m tried. This is the time to break. The post is undermanned. I’ve been listening to the sentry calls, and I could put a team and wagon through the lines with no trouble.”
“But where’ll you go?”
“Silver City first. They haven’t got a tracker on the post or the men to trail me now. By the time they have, my trail will be cold. I’ll wait for you there, maybe take a job in the mines, and then we’ll go on to California.”
“You’ll be a deserter,” Martha pointed out.
“Along with a third of the men in the West,” Riordan scoffed. “You want me to stay here and be tried? I’ll be an old man when I get out.”
Martha looked down at her folded hands, her mind in a wild turmoil.
“Brierly’s alive, isn’t he? I hurt him, but no worse than many a man’s hurt me.” He hesitated, watching her, and then he said solemnly, “I’m not going to jail for that, Martha. I’ll die first—and so would you, wouldn’t you?”
“I—don’t know, Tom.”
“It can’t fail,” Riordan said with flat conviction. “Doc Horton’s gone, but the hospital orderly changes my bandage in the evening. When he’s out of the way, I call to the guard to hand me some of my gear from the next bed. Once his back is turned, I’ve got him.” His big hand fisted unconsciously. “I change into his clothes, cross the sentry line, pick up the horse, and ride out, a free man. Now, will you see Jim Crawford first thing tomorrow?”
“Oh, Tom, I don’t know,” Martha said miserably. “It’s just asking for more trouble on top of troubles already.”
“No troubles are more than I’ve got,” Riordan said grimly. And then, because it had worked before and he was sure it would work again, he said, “Are you my wife or aren’t you? Does a woman stick by her husband only as long as he’s in luck? Is that what the church says, or is it something different?”
“Oh, Tom, you know I’ll stick by you!”
“Then get me out of here!” Riordan said angrily. “Once we’re shut of this damned Army and in a new country, we’ll begin all over. You’ll see. Things’ll be like they were when we were first married.” He paused. “Well?”
“All right, Tom,” Martha said almost inaudibly. “I’ll do it.”
Because this had driven all else from her mind and she needed to think, Martha rose now and said good night. Riordan, watching her go, smiled faintly and stuffed a cookie in his mouth.
Outside, Martha walked slowly back to the parade. The early evening was still hot, but there was a moment when she shivered uncontrollably, and then it passed. She was, she knew, a fool for promising to help Tom escape, but when have I not been? she thought bitterly. She had been a fool to love him in the first place, and she was a fool for staying with him, now that she no longer did. She was probably being foolish to believe that once Tom had made his escape and they were in California life would be different and better, but she did believe. It was all, really, that was left her.
She moved off the parade ground into the dim alley of a street where their house was, and went inside. Standing in the middle of the dark room now, knowing she could not change the course of events, she speculated on the probable success of Tom’s escape. If he made it, there was little danger of his being discovered. And it was true that desertion was common, so common in fact that many young men in the East, too poor to pay their way west, enlisted with the purpose in mind of later desertion. But his oath of enlistment is as sacred as your oath of marriage, she thought, then. Suddenly, she knew this was all wrong, that it was part and parcel of her shabby, sordid life with Tom, and that she had neither the power nor the will to change it.
In the darkness, she brought her hands to her cheeks and pressed until she felt pain, and she whispered, “Oh, Linus, Linus, help me.”
Some three hours after dark, Ward finally reined in and waited for Loring to catch up with him and halt the column. They were in the confines of a steep-walled canyon, and had been, more often than not, since they had left the plateau north of Cardinal Springs. The clatter of shod hooves on the canyon floor boomed into the night with a discordant racket, so that Loring, as he came abreast him and halted the column, had to bellow over it to make his orders heard.
When Storrow and Linus, trailing him, pulled in their mounts, Loring protested. “Good Lord, Kinsman, this is a box. You can barely see the sky. How can we hold a troop of cavalry here?”
“Dismount them and send your horses back. You are fighting afoot, aren’t you?”
“Naturally, but how do we get out of here?” Loring asked testily.
“You can’t see it, but we’re at a cross canyon. The only trails to the two rims are here. Unless you want to move on almost a half-mile to where the canyon widens out and the detail will camp.”
Loring said nothing; Ward knew he was considering the risk of holding his horses a half-mile to the rear in a close canyon, and he thought, He’s trying to remember what it says in the book.
Loring said then, “I always understood your precious Apaches go for the horses first.”
“They’ll go for mine,” Linus said patiently. “They won’t know your horses are there, sir.”
Loring said stiffly, “I’m considering all factors, Mr. Delaney. Things may not go as well as we hope.”
Ward said, “Your men will fight on the rim, the height of land, Captain. They can fall back along the rim to the horses in case of trouble, keeping the ’Paches from them.”
“You have planned our tactics for us, too, before you leave, Kinsman?” Loring asked with a savage sarcasm.
Ward didn’t answer and now he heard Loring turning in his saddle and, his voice still rough, say, “Mr. St
orrow, pass the word back for Sergeant Isaacs and his platoon to come forward. You’ll remain here until my return.” To Ward, he said, “Let’s see the rest of this.”
Word passed back and Sergeant Isaacs and his platoon presently appeared. Ward put his horse in motion and they rode down the remainder of the canyon. Its walls, after two hundred yards, began to fall away, and presently the footing was stony soil again.
Ward rode on a few minutes longer, then reined in. He could hear the creak of Loring’s saddle as he turned for his look.
Then Loring’s voice, stiff and unbending, said, “I’m unable to get an idea of the ground here, Kinsman. What is it?”
“You’re about in the center of a bowl with sloping sides. There’s big rock scattered all around you, enough for cover, but too much for a fight on horseback. Where we’re standing it is fairly open. It’s a long rifle shot to us from either side.”
“So long they’ll have to come down to us?”
“They’ll do that anyway. Your troopers can move in along the rim behind them.”
“Very good. Is this satisfactory, Mr. Delaney?”
“If Ward says it is,” Linus answered.
“All right, dismount your men and make camp, Mr. Delaney. Kinsman, that’s all we need from you. Your pay will be waiting for you when you reach Gamble.”
Linus pulled his horse over next to Ward’s and, in Loring’s plain hearing, he said, “I’m sorry it had to work out this way, Ward.”
Loring turned and gave the command to Sergeant Isaacs and his platoon to dismount.
Ward said, “Keep your head down, Linus.”
“Up or down, what’s the difference,” Linus said quietly with an odd touch of disinterest, and then his voice lowered. “I haven’t anything to give Martha; I shouldn’t anyway. But if Troop G winds this up shy an Irish lieutenant, will you tell her I spoke of her? Tell her”—his voice trailed off—“Tell her it’s a hell of a world. Still, she knows that. So long.”
He pulled his horse around and moved over to his men, and Ward rode off toward the west slope and climbed it. On the ridge, he halted his mount and turned to look back. Below him, a small brush fire was already going, the troopers moving back and forth and around it as they made camp.