CHAPTER TEN
The two army wives kneeled one on each side of the raving Maud Nolan and wrung their hands.
“Oh . . . what do we do?” the older woman wailed. Her name was Rhoda Carr, a respectable forty-year-old who’d never before faced the realities of the savage Indian wars, where killing and rape had become commonplace.
Edna Powell, ten years younger than Rhoda and usually a rosy-cheeked mirror image of her companion, sat stunned, staring at Maud Nolan with horrified eyes, her plump cheeks no longer rosy but ashen gray.
Rhoda looked up at Red Ryan with pleading eyes and said again, “What do we do, Mr. Ryan?” She’d pulled down the woman’s dress so that the others would not see her nakedness.
Red had no answer to that question. He felt helpless, lost. He kneeled beside Maud, took her work-calloused hand in his, and said, “Maud, you’re going to be all right. You’ll be just fine.”
Recognition dawned in the woman’s eyes and she said, “Red, where is Emmett? Don’t let him see me like this.”
Ryan looked at Seth Roper. The big gunman shook his head.
“Emmett will be along presently,” Red said. “Everything is going to be fine.”
Maud grabbed the sleeve of his shirt. “Red,” she whispered, “kill me and end my disgrace. Will you do that for me . . . as a kindness?”
Red gently squeezed the woman’s hand, his mouth working.
Dear God, give me the words. Tell me what to say that will make this better.
After awhile, he said, “You’ll be all right, Maud.” He was sick at heart that God had failed him and that a young woman he knew and liked had been raped and abused and teetered on the ragged edge of madness.
The sanity of a woman who lived on the vast, empty Plains was always a fragile thing. Often, she succumbed to what doctors called Prairie Madness, brought about by isolation and harsh living conditions. Sometimes, driven over the edge by the never-ending wind that rushed through the long grass, forceful and pitiless, the alien heartbeat of an enemy more powerful than anything she’d known in her previous life, her mind gone, she’d stand outside the cabin and scream and scream until she could scream no longer.
Now Maud Nolan was screaming . . . but inside . . . and she was in a dark place from whence she might never return.
In the past, in lonely army outposts on the rim of nowhere, Rhoda Carr had birthed babies and buried the hurting dead. Now, after a tremendous effort, she gathered her strength and stepped into the void.
“Edna, we’ll take Mrs. Nolan into the cabin and bathe her and dress her in clean clothes,” she said.
Edna Powell managed a nervous smile. “Yes, that might help. No, it will help, Rhoda, won’t it?”
The older woman shook her head. “I don’t know. I just don’t know,” she said. Then, “Say a prayer, Edna. Sometimes a prayer works when all else fails.”
* * *
Red Ryan stood aside and let the women carry Maud Nolan into the cabin. It was then that he saw Stella Morgan for the first time since the fight began. She stood with her back against the stage, as though she felt reassured by its solid bulk. Stella had done nothing to help Mrs. Nolan, keeping her distance. But her beautiful face was pale, her eyes haunted. Rape is one of the most terrible crimes on earth, and the young woman had witnessed it firsthand. The vestiges of its savage violence still whispered darkly in her mind.
Then Buttons Muldoon stepped beside Stella and said something that forced her to smile, and she hugged him, briefly, his sturdy presence an anchor that helped her hold fast to her own faltering courage.
Sprawled Apache bodies lay scattered around the station, and the spare team they’d tried to steal had spread out and grazed as though nothing had happened.
Despite his own efforts, the battle had been won by the revolver skills of Lucian Carter and Seth Roper, and Red did not try to pretend otherwise. Had the fight been a rifle clash at distance, the result might have turned out otherwise, but up close at spitting range, bucking Colts in the hands of two skilled gunmen had been a decisive factor, and together they’d inflicted great slaughter.
Unbidden, the thought came into Ryan’s mind that if he ever had to face both Carter and Roper in a gunfight, the odds would not be in his favor.
“You done good, Ryan.” Seth Roper stepped beside Red. “For a spell there, it was a close-run thing.” He glanced at the blood on Red’s shoulder. “I see one of them winged you.”
Ryan nodded. “It’s not serious. I saw you get your work in, Roper. You killed your share and then some.”
The big man shrugged. “Look at them, all young bucks. Green as hell, they knew nothing. How’s the woman?”
“Bad . . . not good . . . I don’t know.”
“Pity about that. They say Apaches are hard on white women.”
“Seems like.”
“Come, I’ve got something to show you.”
Roper turned on his heel and Ryan followed him into the barn.
“He was lucky. He had time to shoot himself,” Roper said. Then, as a disinterested aside, he pointed to his own left temple and said, “Shot himself right there. He was a left-handed man.”
Because of the Mescaleros’ fear of a suicide, Emmett Nolan’s body was untouched and his gun was still in his hand.
“He knew enough to kill himself before the Apaches captured him,” Roper said. “Had he fit Indians before?”
“I don’t know,” Red said. “But I guarantee he knew what Apaches do to a man. He didn’t want to face that, and I don’t blame him none.”
Roper shook his head. “Too bad.” He glanced around the well-kept barn. “Looks like he understood his business.”
“Emmett Nolan knew horses,” Ryan said.
And that would prove to be the dead man’s only epitaph.
* * *
After the dead Mescalero were dragged out of the station by Red Ryan and the other men and dropped a mile away among the long grass, two women sought out his company.
The first was Rhoda Carr, her round, homely face grim. In answer to Red’s inquiry about Maud Nolan, she said, “She won’t talk. We bathed her all over and dressed her in her best clothes and she let us do it without saying a word. And Mr. Ryan, she’s pregnant. I’d say three months.”
“Are you sure?” Red said.
Rhoda made a face. “Have you any idea how many pregnant women I’ve seen in my time?”
“Yeah, I reckon you have,” Red said, way out of his depth. “We’ll take her to Fort Bliss. There are doctors there.”
“Right now, she doesn’t need a doctor, she needs her husband.”
“Emmett Nolan is dead,” Ryan said. Then, a small lie that he intended to repeat in the hope that it might ensure a Patterson and Son pension for his widow. “The Apaches killed him.”
“Oh, poor Mrs. Nolan, with the baby coming and all,” Rhoda said, wringing her hands as was her habit. “What is to become of her?”
Ryan placed his hand on the woman’s plump shoulder. “We’ll take good care of Maud,” he said, fully aware that all he could do was put her in the stage and take her to a doctor.
Rhoda Carr was not convinced, but she was old enough and experienced enough to know that the big, redheaded man with the kind green eyes could not pull miracles out of a hat. Well, they needed only one miracle, a miracle that would make Maud Nolan well again . . . but there was a dire shortage of those on the frontier.
* * *
“Red, how is the woman?” Stella Morgan said.
“I’d like to say that she’s fine, but she isn’t,” Ryan said.
“What happened to her . . . the Apaches . . . I’d never recover from that,” Stella said.
“I think maybe Maud won’t get over it either,” Red said.
The woman’s face was very pale, her full lips almost white, and strain lined her face. “It could have been me,” Stella said. “I’ve been thinking about that, thinking about it constantly, and for the first time I’m really scared.”
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“We hurt them, hurt them bad,” Red said. “The Mescalero are few and the deaths of seven young warriors is a big loss. They may not try us again.”
“But is there a chance they will?” Stella said.
“I don’t know,” Red said. “The Apache is the most notional creature on earth, and there’s no telling what he will or will not do. All I can say is that I think there’s a good chance they’ll leave us alone and go after easier prey.”
Stella thought about that and then said, “If the Apaches come again and it looks like we’re about to be overcome, I asked Seth Roper to put a bullet in my brain.” She gave a slight smile. “He said he’d be happy to oblige.”
“Yeah, he would say that,” Red said. Then, again stating something he didn’t believe himself, “It won’t come to that.”
“But there are no guarantees,” Stella said.
“When it comes to Apaches, there never are. Why don’t you go see Maud Nolan, Stella? Try and talk to her. Maybe you can help.”
The woman shook her head. “No, I don’t want to go anywhere near her. I don’t want to touch her. I won’t want to look at her defiled body and think, I could be you. I’m not strong enough for that. I’m not Joan of Arc. I don’t wear armor.”
“No, I guess none of us do,” Red Ryan said.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Buttons Muldoon decided to keep his own team and set the Nolan horses loose to fend for themselves. He told Red Ryan that even tired, the six in his hitch were better than the others.
“Nolan’s wheelers were always too small and I told him that a few times,” he said. “But he never did listen and learn. Well, it’s too late to teach him anything now, ain’t it?”
“You’re the boss, Buttons,” Red said. “Now grab a couple of shovels from the toolshed, we’ve got a burying to do.”
“What about them other two, Red?” Buttons said, his voice whiny. “Can’t they do some digging?”
“If you were Emmett Nolan, would you want to be laid to rest by the likes of Seth Roper and Lucian Carter?”
“No, I guess not. But I got to eat afterward. Here, you think them women will rustle us up some grub?”
“I doubt that they’re in the mood, Buttons. But I’m a fair hand with a skillet.”
Buttons was surprised. “I never knew you was a cook.”
“I’m not. But I know how to make coffee and burn an antelope steak.”
“And that sounds good enough for me,” Buttons said.
“I figured it would be,” Red Ryan said.
* * *
To Red’s surprise Seth Roper grabbed a shovel and pitched in, but making a hole for Emmett Nolan was not easy. The ground was root-bound and there were rocks as big as buffalo skulls. The work was so hard that after an hour of steady digging Buttons Muldoon spat on his hands and said, “Damn, this is like plowing a wet field behind a drunk mule.”
Waist deep in the hole, Red leaned on his shovel and said, “Buttons, when did you ever plow a wet field, or a dry one, come to that?”
“Never. But if I ever did, this is what it would be like.”
* * *
Like so many Western men, Emmett Nolan was buried without much ceremony. Stella Morgan was at the graveside as were the other army wives and Carter and Roper. By the amber light of oil lamps, they all joined Muldoon in singing “Shall We Gather at the River,” or as much of it as they remembered, and then it was over. In the course of time, prairie grass would cover the scar on the earth made by Nolan’s grave, and his last resting place would be lost forever . . . and only the wind would remember and keep its secret.
* * *
Red Ryan stood watch throughout the night while the others slept, and at first light he mounted Nolan’s saddle mare and rode out to where the Apache bodies had been left. As he expected, they were gone.
“And that means the Apaches are still around,” Buttons Muldoon said.
“Seems like,” Red said, using a fork to scramble eggs in the hot fat left by the bacon.
Buttons watched Ryan’s culinary skills with more than passing interest, sipped his coffee, and said, “Red, I got a bad feeling.”
“What kind of bad feeling?”
“An all-over bad feeling and the rheumatisms in my hands are paining me like they always do when hard times are fixing to come down.”
“Apache hard times, you reckon?” Ryan said, filling plates with eggs, bacon, and fried sourdough bread.
“Right in the here and now, is there any other kind?”
“I guess not,” Ryan said. “Go give the passengers a holler for breakfast. Tell them to come and get it or I’ll throw it out.”
* * *
Seth Roper and the two army wives ate heartily, but Stella Morgan picked at her food, and Lucian Carter complained that his eggs were greasy.
“I’m a shotgun guard, not your personal chef, Mr. Carter,” Red said.
“Hey, Carter, you gonna finish them eggs?” Roper said.
“Hell, no. Here, take them.”
“Thank’ee,” Roper said. Wielding his fork like a shovel, he dug in with a will and then raised his eyes to Red and said, “You’re a good cook.”
“Thank you,” Red said. And then to Rhoda Carr, “I boiled a couple of eggs for Mrs. Nolan. Do you want to take them to her?”
“Yes, I’ll do that now.” The woman dabbed her mouth with a blue and white checkered napkin and rose to her feet.
“There’s some buttered toast to go with the eggs,” Ryan said.
Rhoda Carr came back a few moments later, her eyes as round as coins, her face pale. “I dropped the eggs,” she said. “Oh, dear me, I dropped the eggs.”
The woman was in shock, and Red said, “Steady, Mrs. Carr, what has happened?”
“She’s gone.”
“Mrs. Nolan?”
Angry at himself—who the hell else could it be?—Red dashed past the woman and hurried to the cabin. The bed was empty and there was no sign of Maud.
“Red, how did she get past us in the dark?” Buttons said. “How did she do that?”
“I’ve no idea, but she did,” Red said.
“Apache bodies gone, Maud Nolan gone, everything is vanishing around here,” Buttons grumbled. “I’ve never seen the like.”
Red swung into the saddle of the mare, a tall, rangy horse with a lot of Thoroughbred in her. “Buttons, gather up what supplies you can and then load the passengers. Once I find Maud I’ll catch up with you on the trail.”
Lucian Carter and Seth Roper stepped beside Ryan, and Roper said, “You lost the crazy woman?”
“I’ll find her,” Red said.
“Careless of you all the same, Ryan,” Carter said, stepping in front of the horse.
Red kept his quick temper in check. “She can’t have gone far,” he said. “Now, will you give me the road?”
He kneed the mare forward, roughly bumped Carter aside, and Buttons put his hand over his mouth to hide his giggles.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Red Ryan could find no tracks leading from the station, and when he scanned the distances around him nothing moved but the wind rippling the prairie grass with the sound of waves breaking on a shingle beach.
Ryan swung the mare south and at a distance of a quarter mile made a loop around Nolan’s Station. He saw no sign of Maud Nolan. He tried the same route, this time a half-mile out. As he rode the northern flank of his loop, the stage drove out of the station, Buttons Muldoon up on the box, handling the reins with his usual practiced ease. The wheels kicked up ribbons of dust, and the coach was soon lost behind a tan-colored cloud.
Red Ryan resumed his hunt, each loop expanding the distance between himself and the station, but there was no life on the land, only endless grass and the vast, turquoise bowl of the sky.
In the end, after two hours of searching, it was a Mescalero who led him to Maud Nolan.
Red had drawn rein, telling himself that the hopeless search was over. A small, slender woman could easily
lose herself in such an immense, rolling plain. She might even be close, hiding like a hunted animal in the long grass, watching him with mad eyes, seeing not Red Ryan, but yet another male . . . another enemy.
The sun was high, and sweat trickled down Red’s back under his buckskin shirt. The mare’s head hung, and her glossy chestnut flanks were stained black. Red stepped out of the saddle and took his canteen from the saddle horn. He let the horse drink from his cupped hand and then drank himself. It was as he lowered the canteen that he saw the Apache.
Ryan had earlier dismissed what he’d seen as a notched rock formation in the distance, and it was only now when he saw it with rested eyes that he could make out an Indian. The man stood, holding the reins of his horse as he stared down at something in the grass, and Ryan knew with certainty that it could only be Maud Nolan.
Red swung into the saddle. He’d left his shotgun with Buttons, but he slid Emmett Nolan’s Winchester from the boot under his knee and kicked the tired mare forward. On the plains, under a burning sun, the eyes can play tricks, and even a hardened desert warrior like the Apache stared at Ryan for a long time before he shielded his eyes with his hand and took a closer look. After a moment, the Indian made up his mind. A mounted white man riding toward him meant only one thing . . . a bitter foe to be dealt with.
The Mescalero immediately dropped to one knee, threw a rifle to his shoulder, and fired. The bullet kicked up dust twenty feet in front of Ryan’s horse, and at the same time Ryan heard the distinctive, sharp bark of a Springfield. The range was more than a hundred yards, but Ryan dusted off a few shots with the Winchester, all of them misses. But the young Apache, armed with a single-shot weapon, decided he didn’t like the odds. He jumped onto his paint pony, raised the Springfield above his head and yelled at Ryan probably the only white-man insult he knew, “Son of beech!” The young buck then sped away, his galloping mount trailing a farewell of dust.
Red figured the Apache had been hunting, stumbled on Maud Nolan by accident, and wasn’t really looking for a fight. The Mescalero were like that. They’d only get into a scrap when they felt like it—though they felt like it most of the time—and always when the odds were in their favor. It didn’t make them any less brave. It was just their traditional, raid-and-run approach to warfare.
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