Armstrong

by H. W. Crocker

  “To throw people off the scent—there’s nothing there, I reckon. Larsen found nothing.”

  “Why, Major, this is fantastic.”

  “Isn’t it, though?”

  “But Marshal Armstrong,” Isabel gasped intelligently, before turning and saying, “Major Gillette: what are we going to do?”

  “Well, Miss Isabel, and beggin’ the Yankee General’s pardon, but if Rachel was a good spy, she’s rather lacking when it comes to hostage-taking. We might be trapped here like squirrels at a barbecue, but she failed to disarm us. I’d reckon, sir, that means we could spring an ambush of our own.”

  “Indeed, we could, especially if we use these chests for cover. It could be a long wait, though.”

  “I’ve no inclination to wait, sir. I say we pay those guards a visit.”

  “Excellent suggestion: never sit and wait when you can act and do.”

  “Yes, I thought you’d like that, sir.”

  “But how?”

  He held up his lamp to better illuminate what lay behind the chests, next to the axes and shovels, the hammers and boxes of nails, and the cord wood—a plank wall, about three yards square.

  “One thing we learned from Mosby, sir, and General Stuart too—always have a way out. I’d wager, sir, that this here is a tunnel entrance. And if I had to guess, it’ll lead us to some hidden place where we can pop up like gophers. If you’ll join me, sir; I imagine it might be a little hard to shift, not having been used in a while.”

  There was a metal bar across the center of the planks, which, I now saw, was for opening this subterranean door. The two of us pulled, and as sure as my love for you burns strong, dearest Libbie, it opened to reveal a wood-planked tunnel, as fine as any miner could make. It was, however, unlit, and, of course, we had no idea if the tunnel was finished or where it might end. I knew what to do.

  “Bad Boy! Scoutinzie!” I ordered, pointing down the tunnel.

  He went off like a hare, and we waited with barely suppressed excitement for his return—and we didn’t have to wait long. He came back bearing a small pine branch between his jaws.

  “Of course,” I said. “The outlet must be in the grove behind the farmyard—if you didn’t want to be seen, if you wanted a convenient place to hide a horse—that’s the logical spot.”

  “Quite industrious of Cousin Delingpole; must have taken him quite a while. Looks like he did a right good job too.”

  “No time to admire the craftsmanship, let’s go. Major, you take the lead. Isabel, you follow. Bad Boy and I will bring up the rear, in case of enemy pursuit. Bring your lamps, and don’t crowd.”

  Beauregard set us a good pace, scrambling like a lizard down the tunnel. Miss Johnson’s pace was more like that of a graceful clipper ship, her bustle swaying gently to and fro as if borne on the waves of a salty ocean. Propriety bade me to tarry a bit, but Bad Boy pushed me with his snout, just as a mare prods an uncertain, long-legged colt to keep moving.

  As a cavalryman, crawling is not my strong suit. In fact, I found the closed quarters of the tunnel shaft disquieting, to say the least. A cavalryman wants wide open spaces where he can maneuver. If it had not been for the calming effect of Isabel’s rolling bustles, beckoning me like a beacon in the night, I confess I might have been a trifle agitated.

  In the event, it was but a trice before Beauregard reached down and helped me extract myself from the hole, which opened at the far western corner of the grove where the underbrush was thickest.

  “Well, Yankee General, sir, I’m feeling right prayerful—how about we take a pew?”

  “I’m with you, Major. Isabel, you wait in your hotel room—there might be more hellfire in today’s sermon than usual.”

  We trotted—in good order, but quickly, not wanting to be greeted by anyone—until we reached the church. Beauregard and I lined up our revolvers on the sill of the window where we had entered earlier. There were two guards sitting in chairs facing each other on either side of the crypt entrance. They were playing cards. Their revolvers were holstered.

  “All right, boys!” I shouted. “Hands up—and don’t touch those guns!” They were all obedience. “Now stand up nice and slow and ease your way over to the window.”

  Once they were within reach, Beauregard took their revolvers.

  “Now you boys, head on back to those chairs,” I said, and as they backed up, I moved in, followed by Beauregard. “Major, how about you prepare the crypt for these boys.”

  “Crypt?” said one of them.

  “How the devil did you get out of there?” said the other.

  “Let’s just say you’re not going to pull the same trick.”

  Beauregard slipped down the tunnel. I heard him hammering the escape hatch shut and shifting the treasure chests to block it.

  “It won’t be so bad. You can fill your pockets with Delingpoke treasure, but you won’t be spending it.”

  “It’s really down there? How big is it?”

  “You’ll see; you’ll be its temporary guardians.”

  Beauregard called up. “All right, Yankee General, sir. Everything’s all squared away. Even found a nice thick coil of rope. You can send ’em down, one at a time.”

  “You heard the man,” I said. “Take the plunge.” The first dropped down, and once he was hogtied I sent the second. When he was secured, I reached down, helped Beauregard up, and we replaced the stone.

  “What now, sir?”

  “I think, Major, in the spirit of your many confessions, and given that we are amidst the sanctified ruins of a church, I owe you a confession of my own: I am Colonel George Armstrong Custer, late of the Seventh Cavalry. If you had wondered how a frontier marshal could be such a master strategist and tactician, now you know. I tell you this because circumstances demand it. It is incumbent on me to operate incognito, for reasons too long to explain. But Rachel knows who I am; so apparently does Larsen; so does Miss Saint-Jean; and now so do you. That knowledge must not spread further. If Billy Jack brings the cavalry, I cannot be seen by them, and I must find a way to silence Larsen and Rachel.”

  “Well, Yankee General, sir, you could knock me over with a plume—straight from General Stuart’s hat. Custer—that’s a name to reckon with, sir, and I am honored, albeit astonished, to discover that my entire mission is tied up with Yankee generals.”

  “So, Major, without going into details, I hope you can appreciate the difficulties of my position.”

  “I can indeed, sir. You have your own secret mission.”

  “You could call it that. The entire world thinks I’m dead, Major. I cannot disabuse them until I find out who betrayed me; and until I can clear my name, I must lead the life of a knight errant, rescuing such women as I presumed Rachel to be, and Miss Johnson, and Miss Saint-Jean’s entire troupe.”

  “I appreciate your confiding in me, sir, and as sure as Marse Robert is a saint in heaven, I’ll be worthy of your trust. By my calculations, sir, Larsen will arrive here long before Billy Jack and the cavalry arrive at Cousin Delingpole’s estate. In short, your every wish might be accomplished: the cavalry seizes the Delingpole place; Larsen comes here for our mutual, personal retribution; and Miss Rachel will likely be in tow as well. That gives us time, sir, for a quick council of war at the hotel parlor, and a spot of coffee.”

  The strategy we sketched out over coffee and biscuits was elegant in its simplicity, but would, we assumed, be perfectly lethal for Larsen and his band of cutthroats. I commanded Miss Saint-Jean to lock the girls in their rooms until the showdown was over. The Chinamen were posted as hotel guards. The engagement would be fought by just the two of us, the major and I.

  We heard them before we saw them—a phalanx of perhaps twenty mounted men (Larsen was taking no chances)—their pounding hooves heralding their arrival. They brought their horses across the trench, left them at the hotel hitching rails, and exchanged sour glances with the Chinese. Then they strode over to the church. Beauregard was in the front bell tower, which gave hi
m a view not only of the enemy as he approached, but down into the church, where that enemy would soon be. I was at the opposite end, in the choir loft behind the altar. Each of us had a Winchester along with our revolvers, and between us we had the entirety of the church interior covered.

  The enemy filed in through the same window we had used. It would not be easy for them to escape. They gathered around the stone flooring, and Larsen bellowed to Rachel, “All right, where the hell are the guards?”

  “I don’t know, Seth, I left them here.”

  “Well, they sure as hell aren’t here now. That’s the stone, isn’t it? You men, get it up.”

  “First man that moves gets a bullet,” I called out.

  “If not from him, then from me,” added Beauregard.

  “We’ve got you surrounded, Larsen. If you know what’s good for you—and for your men—everyone will drop those gun belts. The game is over. President Grant himself knows what you’re up to—there’s no escape now.”

  “You think two of you can take me—with all these men?”

  “Won’t be two for long—we’ll soon have a troop of cavalry. In the meantime, I reckon we can manage.”

  “Well, guess again—at ’em boys!”

  The sound of gunfire in that enclosed space was deafening—and while they fired wildly, we made every shot count, and made certain not to harm Rachel. Given their advantage in numbers, we had to do a lot of ducking and rolling from one position to another, and the bell above Beauregard rang with ricocheting bullets, tolling for the dead. I spotted Larsen break for the window. I waited until he’d hoisted one heavy leg over the still. Then Beauregard and I nailed him with simultaneous clean shots. Larsen’s corpse acted as a cork, plugging the enemy’s sole escape route.

  “Hold your fire, Marshal; we surrender.”

  “Best choice you boys ever made,” I said. “Toss your weapons into the collection basket—the floor’ll do for now, and then stand up with your hands held high; you too, Rachel.”

  Beauregard stepped down from the little bell tower and I leapt over the loft and onto the elevated platform that held the altar.

  “All right, boys,” I said, “you wanted to see the treasure—well, it’s a mite dark down there, but you can do your best; lift the stone and drop right in.”

  Thus we had them all bottled up, save for the dead—Larsen and eight others—and Rachel, who I didn’t think belonged in a hellhole with a dozen mangy murderers.

  “Major, fetch Hercules and bring him here. He’ll watch over the stone. Set two acrobats to guard the tunnel exit in the grove—just in case—and bring two others here to get these bodies out and buried. Leave one acrobat, and Fu Yu, as guards at the hotel. I’ll meet you in the hotel parlor.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Rachel, I’ve been wondering what to do with you. I could turn you over to the cavalry—which is the real law around here—or I could send you back to the Indians or . . .”

  “Please, Armstrong, you don’t know how desperate I was.”

  “How desperate are you now?”

  “I’ll do anything. I made a mistake. I made a terrible mistake. I’m horribly sorry. Don’t send me back to the Indians. Don’t hand me over as a criminal to the cavalry. My daddy was a judge. What would he say? Oh, Armstrong, I’m so afraid.”

  “You looked pretty confident behind that gun—not like someone who reckoned they’d made a mistake. If you’d had your way, the major, Miss Isabel, and I would be dead, or maybe enslaved—Miss Saint-Jean’s showgirls too. Not a very nice way to return their hospitality.”

  “General, you know what I’ve been through; a captive of the Boyanama Sioux—and then, in my desperation, to be connected with that”—she pointed at Larsen’s corpse—“and to think that he was my only ticket to salvation.”

  “But you had been saved, Rachel; you’d been saved by me.”

  “For how long? Out here it’s the strong and ruthless who survive; I thought that was Larsen.”

  “Sounds to me, Miss Rachel, that you’ve got your philosophy all wrong. But I reckon I know how to fix that.” I kicked Larsen’s corpse through the window. Then I said to Rachel, “Out you go.”

  I was savoring a stein of Alderney when Billy Jack appeared at the doorway.

  “Sir, you’re here!”

  “Yes, quite observant of you, Sergeant. And you remember the major”—Beauregard raised his coffee cup in salute—“and Miss Rachel,” who muttered something through the neckerchief with which we’d gagged her.

  “Sir, the cavalry has occupied the Delingpole house. Larsen’s men are captured or dead. And here?”

  “Here we have the treasure, Sergeant, presently guarded by Larsen’s men—who themselves are captured and disarmed. Larsen, by the way, is dead—and likely buried by now.”

  “Congratulations, sir. In French, félicitations, mon général; in Latin, gratulatione imperatorem . . .”

  “That will do—and thank you, Sergeant. I need no further congratulations. The happy faces of the people of Bloody Gulch are reward enough. But I cannot tarry—duty calls me elsewhere.”

  “And me, sir?”

  “You, Sergeant, have missed a great deal, but Major Beauregard will explain things in my absence. I do, however, have one more assignment for you. Please take Miss Rachel to your priest and tell him that her guardian wants her enrolled in an order of nuns—one that takes a vow of silence.”

  “Sir?”

  “She is my ward, Sergeant, and I must do what I think is best for her. And do be careful.” I motioned for Rachel to stand, revealing that her hands were bound. “I wish such precautions weren’t necessary, but I fear they are.”

  “Sir,” he said and saluted.

  “On your way, Rachel. Billy Jack, Godspeed.”

  That left me alone with Beauregard.

  “Well, sir, there’s just one remaining item to clear up, and that’s the treasure.”

  “I take it, Major, that you have a suggestion.”

  “I do indeed, sir. I reckon, we should have our prisoners pass those boxes up to us. They can only guess what’s in them, and their testimony won’t amount to much. We transfer the Delingpole treasure to Miss Saint-Jean—she’s our finest business mind—with the proviso that she use the money for the betterment of Bloody Gulch. Otherwise she keeps it hidden.”

  “Sounds like a fine solution, Major.”

  “And Yankee General, sir, if I might add one more proviso: I suggest that as you ride through the West, righting wrongs and rescuing damsels, whenever you need money for your noble work, Miss Saint-Jean will be your banker, dispersing such monies as you require for as long as the Delingpole treasure exists.”

  “A capital idea, Major, and I accept your suggestion. And now,” I said, taking a final swig of precious, cool Alderney, “I must be off. I will take Marshal Ney, Edward, and Bad Boy, and a couple of Winchesters and plenty of ammunition, if you don’t mind. I have naught else of worldly value—and what more needs a man than his rifles, his ponies, and his dog?”

  “You are married, sir, aren’t you?”

  “Yes—why do you ask?” But then it struck me: “Ah—you reckon that as a celebrated writer, I should describe this adventure in a long epistle to my wife, informing her of all we’ve achieved.”

  “That’s an idea, sir. I’m sure she’d appreciate it.”

  “Such a letter exists, Major. I have been writing it as a contemporaneous account. I need only add a few parting thoughts and scenes, including the incidents of today. I will have this letter delivered to you—possibly via Bad Boy—if I might have your word that you will deliver it in person to my dearest Libbie.”

  “You have my word, sir.”

  “Well, then, there is nothing more to say but well done, Major. I will scribble the final pages of this letter by the light of my campfire tonight, and when next you hear from me, I trust it will be with further tales of glory.”

  And thus it was, my dear; and that is why that clever a
nd mysterious man Beauregard Gillette brought you this package. Though he is a Republican, treat him kindly, for I had, as these pages attest, no greater friend in this dangerous adventure; together we lifted the Larsen tyranny and liberated the Delingplume treasure.

  For now, my dear, I bid you adieu. But I will write again when I can. And please remember: if you have my staghounds Bleuch and Tuck, send them back with Beauregard. He will find me, and a man can never have too many horses and dogs.

  Until we meet again, my dear, think of me in my flowing Chinese robes, bearing a marshal’s star, and with you always on my arm.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  H. W. CROCKER III is the bestselling author of the prize-winning comic novel The Old Limey and several books of military history, including Triumph, Robert E. Lee on Leadership, The Politically Incorrect Guide® to the Civil War, The Politically Incorrect Guide® to the British Empire, Yanks, and Don’t Tread on Me. His journalism has appeared in National Review, the American Spectator, the Washington Times, and many other outlets. Educated in England and California, Crocker lives on the site of a former Confederate encampment in Virginia.

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  Copyright © 2018 by H. W. Crocker III

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  ISBN 978-1-62157-711-9

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