Rope Burn

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  “If you were in that much of a hurry, you never should have stopped to get drunk and maul young women.”

  MacDonald let out a harsh laugh. “You’re talkin’ about Honey? She don’t mind the fellas havin’ a little fun. She likes it! Anyway, any gal who works in a saloon oughta be used to a little rough treatment. It ain’t like they’re delicate little flowers!”

  “That’s right, Sarge,” another trooper said. He added a few obscene comments about Alice “Honey” Winslow to what MacDonald had just said.

  Ace sensed his brother getting angry. “Take it easy,” he advised quietly. “Another fight’s not going to do our case with the commanding officer any good.”

  “Don’t you ever just want to wallop somebody who’s got it coming?”

  “All the time,” Ace said. “But if I did that, I wouldn’t have much time to do anything else.”

  Chance grunted disdainfully, but he settled back down on the ground.

  After a few minutes, Ace asked, “What happened to the other two men who were with you? Did they take off on their own like Marshal Glennon suggested?”

  “That’s exactly what they did, the sorry sons. I would’ve tried to stop them—we agreed to stick together—but they slipped off when I wasn’t looking. Well, good riddance to them.”

  “Yeah, good riddance,” another man said dryly. “We’re goin’ back to hell, and who knows where they are?”

  “Going back to hell?” Chance repeated.

  “Shut up,” MacDonald snapped sullenly at the other troopers. They fell silent, obviously unwilling to cross him.

  Later, when the men were trying to go to sleep, Chance whispered to Ace, “You heard how he described the place we’re going as hell. Still think the commanding officer there is going to listen to reason?”

  “There’s not much else we can hope for, is there?”

  Ace lay there thinking, and after more time had passed, he whispered, “Something’s not right about this.”

  “Wha . . . ?” Chance responded sleepily. “What are you talking about? Of course it’s not right! We got railroaded for murder, and now we’ve been thrown in with a bunch of army deserters!”

  “Marshal Glennon gave in too easily when the lieutenant said he wanted to take us. There was no legal basis for that, and yet the marshal went along with it. Evidently the judge agreed, too. There has to be a reason they did that.”

  Chance sounded more awake now as he said, “You mean it was some sort of . . . I don’t know. A scheme of some kind? Something crooked?”

  “If it is, the marshal and the judge have to be in on it, and the lieutenant must be, too. I wonder if we’re the first civilians who have been taken back to Fort Gila as deserters.”

  “I don’t know, Ace. That seems like a real stretch to me. Why would anybody do such a thing?”

  “That’s what I can’t figure out,” Ace admitted. “And I’m not sure we’ll get any answers until we get to the fort.”

  “Your little theory doesn’t make me feel any better. Now I’m more worried than I was before.”

  “But at least we didn’t hang,” Ace pointed out, then said, “I wonder if we were ever really supposed to, or if they were just trying to scare us into cooperating and being glad for the army to take us into custody.”

  “If they were, they did a pretty good job of it!”

  Ace remembered how it had felt, standing on that gallows with a noose around his neck, and said, “Yeah, they sure did.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The night passed quietly—but that wasn’t destined to last.

  Ace woke to the smells of coffee brewing and bacon frying. The prisoners had been fed cold, meager rations the night before and had passed around a canteen of water because Lieutenant Olsen didn’t want to build a campfire. As far as Ace knew, there had been no recent reports of Apaches raiding in the area, but he supposed the lieutenant wanted to be cautious.

  This morning, though, they would have a hot breakfast before continuing on to Fort Gila. The trooper in charge of it filled plates and coffee cups.

  “Blast it, how do you expect us to eat with these chains on?” MacDonald complained.

  “You can manage or not, I don’t care,” the trooper said. “The lieutenant didn’t tell me to take ’em off of you, so I don’t reckon I ought to.”

  MacDonald raised his voice. “Lieutenant Olsen, these cuffs are mighty tight, and they make it hard to eat. Considerin’ what we’re goin’ back to, you oughta have a little pity on us!”

  Olsen walked over and smirked at the prisoners. “No one forced you to enlist, Sergeant. You knew what you were getting into.”

  A few yards away, Ace and Chance exchanged a glance. MacDonald’s comment didn’t make them feel any better about what they were facing. If the brutal, hardnosed three-striper was dreading whatever waited at Fort Gila, it had to be pretty bad.

  Bacon, a biscuit, and a cup of hot, strong coffee made them feel a little better. While a couple of the soldiers were hitching the mules to the wagon, MacDonald said to Olsen, “We got to take care of personal business before we set out again, Lieutenant.”

  Olsen waved a hand at the landscape. “There you go, Sergeant. Anywhere you please.”

  “Blast it, at least let us go behind those trees over there!” MacDonald pointed with his manacled hands.

  Olsen grinned and asked, “What, are you worried about your delicate sensibilities being offended, Sergeant? Fine, go behind the trees. One at a time, though, and with a guard.”

  MacDonald rattled his chains. “And we got to have these things off.”

  Olsen lost his grin and said, “Don’t push your luck, mister.”

  Grumbling, MacDonald shrugged and struggled to his feet. He trudged off behind the trees with a rifle-carrying trooper following him. When he came back, the others took their turns, one by one. Ace and Chance would be last.

  When the final member of the party of deserters had gone off behind the trees with the guard, Chance said quietly, “This might be our best chance to make a break. And our last chance.”

  “We talked about this,” Ace said. “We don’t want to be fugitives for the rest of our lives.”

  “From the sound of it, that might be better than what’s waiting for us at that fort.”

  The worst part of it, Ace thought, was that Chance might be right. The way MacDonald and the others were acting about being taken back to Fort Gila made him think twice about everything he had said to his brother. He supposed they had to at least consider the idea of trying to escape . . .

  An alarmed yell, followed instantly by the blast of a shot, interrupted those thoughts. The sounds came from the trees where the last of the deserters had gone, accompanied by a guard. Immediately, the camp was in an uproar as the men turned toward the commotion, cursed, and shouted questions.

  A figure burst into view, dashing down the slope. That was the prisoner, Ace realized. He was making a break for it, just as the Jensen brothers had discussed doing, and based on the speed with which he was moving, the shot fired by the guard hadn’t hit him. He certainly didn’t seem to be injured as he sprinted down the ridge.

  Several of the troopers lifted their rifles, but Lieutenant Olsen called, “Hold your fire!”

  They stopped what they were doing and looked at him in surprise. Meanwhile, the escaping prisoner was getting farther away with every passing second and each lunging stride.

  Olsen held out his right hand and snapped his fingers. “Private Franklin,” he said to one of the troopers near him, “your rifle, please.”

  “Sir?” the soldier said in obvious confusion.

  Olsen just snapped his fingers again, and Private Franklin handed him the Springfield rifle he held. The lieutenant checked the weapon, then lifted it to his shoulder and aimed down the slope toward the fleeing man. Olsen laid his cheek against the smooth wood of the stock and peered over the sights for a long moment before stroking the trigger.

  The crack of the shot m
ade several of the men flinch. The fleeing man flung both arms straight out. Momentum kept him running down the slope for several more steps before he finally tripped and lost his balance. He plunged forward, landing face first, and skidded a few more feet. When he came to a stop, a little cloud of dust swirled around his sprawled figure for a moment, then dispersed in the gentle, early morning breeze.

  Echoes from the shot rolled away, leaving silence in their wake. Most of the men, troopers and prisoners alike, stared down the slope at the would-be escapee’s body.

  Not Sergeant MacDonald, though. He was looking at the lieutenant, Ace noted, and hatred burned in the noncom’s gaze.

  With a look of smug satisfaction, Olsen tossed the rifle back to Private Franklin, who caught it rather awkwardly. “You need to check the sights on that rifle, Private,” Olsen said. “I think they’re a hair off. I may have gotten Bleeker through the left lung rather than the heart. A couple of you go down there and make sure he’s dead.”

  “You didn’t have to kill him,” MacDonald grated. “He wasn’t much more’n a kid. Green and scared. He would’ve stopped if you’d fired over his head.”

  “Not likely. The guard who was with him had already fired a shot, and Bleeker didn’t even slow down. So I made certain he stopped, didn’t I?”

  Chance said, “I thought you brought me and my brother along because you were so determined to go back to the fort with ten prisoners.”

  Olsen looked annoyed for a second, but he shrugged and said, “Bleeker gave me no choice. By trying to escape, he was attempting to desert again, and deserters can be shot.” He looked around. “Where in blazes is Private Figueroa? He was supposed to be guarding Bleeker.”

  One of the troopers approached nervously. “I’m sorry, Lieutenant,” he said. “Bleeker just panicked and took off running. I yelled for him to stop, and then I fired a warning shot at him.”

  Olsen looked at MacDonald. “There’s your warning shot, just as I said.”

  The sergeant just glared and made no reply.

  Olsen turned back to the frightened private and went on, “If you ever find yourself in that situation while you’re under my command, no warning shots. You shoot to kill, do you understand?”

  Figueroa swallowed hard and nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  Olsen raised his voice. “That goes for all of you in this detail. These prisoners are deserters. That means they’re criminals. The lowest of the low. If you have to fire a shot, make sure it’s meant to be a fatal one.”

  The men Olsen had sent down the ridge to check on Bleeker came trudging back up. One of them saluted and reported, “Private Bleeker is dead, sir.”

  “Could you tell if I got him through the heart?”

  “Uh, no, sir, not for sure. Looked like you might have, but I reckon it’d take the post surgeon to tell you that.”

  “Very well. We’ll stop as we go by and put him in the back of the wagon. It may be a little crowded back there since Bleeker won’t be able to sit up anymore, but you prisoners will just have to make do.” Olsen looked around at his men. “And I want the shackles back on their ankles, too! Get to it.”

  The soldiers hustled to carry out Olsen’s orders while he stood there looking pleased with himself.

  MacDonald didn’t look pleased, though. Ace thought the sergeant looked like if he could get his hands around Olsen’s neck, he would gladly squeeze the life right out of the lieutenant.

  * * *

  Olsen was right: it was more crowded with a corpse in the back of the wagon, and certainly the rest of the trip to Fort Gila was even more unpleasant than the first part had been.

  Ace found himself sitting across from MacDonald at the rear of the wagon bed as the vehicle rocked along, surrounded by mounted troopers. Keeping his voice low so maybe the driver and guard up on the seat wouldn’t be as likely to hear him over the thudding hoofbeats from the mules and the creaking wheels, Ace said, “You’ve had run-ins with Lieutenant Olsen before, haven’t you, Sergeant?”

  MacDonald turned his head and spat over the sideboards. “I never met an officer I liked,” he said, “but Olsen is worse than most.” He added an obscenity, then, “He’ll hurt people, just for the fun of it.”

  From where he sat beside Ace, Chance said, “That’s rich, coming from you, MacDonald. If you hadn’t been hurting that girl in the saloon, none of us would be here.”

  “No, if you’d kept your nose where it belonged, none of us would be here!”

  “Take it easy,” Ace told both of them. “We’re in enough trouble without the two of you locking horns again.” He paused. “Just what’s waiting for us at the fort, MacDonald?”

  The sergeant glared at him for a second, then let out an ugly laugh. “You’ll find out when you get there,” he said. “And knowing that I’ll get to watch is the only thing that makes this whole mess bearable.”

  He folded his arms over his chest, glared at the Jensen brothers, and refused to say anything else. Knowing how the others in the group took their lead from MacDonald, Ace didn’t bother trying to ask them what it was like at Fort Gila. He knew they wouldn’t give him any information, either.

  The temperature had risen steadily along with the sun. Ace and Chance’s hats had been left back in Packsaddle with the rest of their gear, so they had nothing to protect their heads from the scorching rays. By midday, it was miserably hot in the back of the wagon, and the shirts of all the men were dark with sweat.

  The little procession was headed toward one of the low mountain ranges that dotted the landscape. The slopes were grayish green, with a few stunted trees growing in what was mostly bare stone. Ace wondered if any bands of Apache were hiding in there. That was unlikely, he decided, since the mountains seemed to be their destination.

  The journey came to an end before the wagon and the riders reached those peaks, however. They topped a small rise, and Ace saw Fort Gila about half a mile ahead of them, in a small, shallow valley watered by a tiny stream that threaded through it. The fort consisted of a dozen adobe buildings arranged around a dusty parade ground. The American flag on a pole at one end of the parade ground hung limp and still, since the stifling air was completely motionless now.

  A low adobe wall, barely higher than a man’s head, surrounded the compound. It wasn’t laid out in a perfect square but, rather, jutted out at one of the rear corners to enclose a corral. A small garden patch was located in the other rear corner, behind one of the buildings. Ace had been around enough frontier forts to have a pretty good idea what functions the buildings served: the office of the post commander and other administrative offices; a sutler’s store; officers’ quarters; enlisted men’s barracks; an infirmary; an armory, and other storage areas. One of the buildings was probably the guardhouse where prisoners would be locked up. Prisoners such as the deserters . . .

  And Ace and Chance Jensen.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Lookouts inside the fort must have seen them coming, because a pair of heavy wooden gates in the adobe wall swung back as the group approached. Lieutenant Olsen was in the lead, of course, and if a man could strut while on horseback, the lieutenant was strutting.

  The trail led past something Ace hadn’t noticed until they got closer to it. A small cemetery with perhaps a dozen graves in it was laid out to the left, outside the fort’s adobe wall although a short picket fence surrounded it. No grass grew inside it, but a few patches of hardy cactus had taken root in the dirt and gravel. It was a desolate spot, made more so by the fact that the markers on nearly all the graves were simple wooden crosses bleached by the sun and weathered by the elements. Winding up lying for all eternity in such a miserable place would be a terrible fate.

  Only one of the graves had an actual headstone. Set at the rear of the cemetery, it also contained the only spot of color in the graveyard, a small vase of flowers that must have come from that garden. Ace’s keen eyes made out the name chiseled into the stone.

  AMELIA SUGHRUE

  A few words,
a sentiment of some sort, more than likely, were below the name, but Ace couldn’t make them out. He was able to read the year of birth, though—1838—and the date of death, fourteen months ago.

  Ace was surprised to see that a woman was buried here at this lonely frontier outpost. Considering that she had been in her mid-forties when she passed away, probably she had been the commanding officer’s wife. No one else would have been allowed to bring a family member to such a small garrison.

  Ace nudged his brother and nodded toward the cemetery as they went past, but Chance just nodded and said, “Yeah, we’ll probably be there soon enough.” If he had noticed the tombstone, he gave no sign of it.

  Sentries stood at attention just inside the gates as the procession moved in. Olsen rode toward a fairly large building that Ace took to be the headquarters of this garrison. This guess was confirmed when another officer emerged from the building onto the porch and came down the two steps, then walked crisply to meet the newcomers.

  This man was tall and well-built, but his shoulders sagged slightly, as if weighed down by some burden. Despite the heat, he was in full uniform. His hat had the crossed sabers insignia of the cavalry on it, and the shoulder boards on his jacket indicated that he was a major. A corporal, probably his aide, trailed him, as did a private carrying a rifle.

  Olsen reined in, swung down from the saddle, and snapped a crisp salute to the major, who returned it and said, “At ease, Lieutenant. Was your mission successful?”

  “Yes, sir, for the most part, Major.” Olsen moved his left hand toward the wagon, which had also come to a stop. “As you can see, I’ve brought back Sergeant MacDonald and the other men who deserted.”

  The major frowned at the prisoners in the back of the wagon and said, “I count only nine men . . . and two of them appear to be civilians.”

  “Private Bleeker was killed trying to escape, sir. And those two had already changed into civilian garb.”

  “Wait just a blasted minute!” Chance exclaimed. He started to stand up. “We are civilians! We’re not in the—”