Novel 1972 - Callaghen (v5.0)

by Louis L'Amour

“And you?”

  “I left, sir. I came over here for a while—tried prospecting in California.”

  Hill glanced at him quickly. “You did? You know something about minerals, then?”

  “A little. Most of that I learned in Asia, later.”

  “You should spend some time in the desert. There are all sorts of rumors, Callaghen. Some say there are vast deposits of gold and silver right here in the Mohave.”

  His voice lowered a little. “Have you heard of the River of Gold? They say it runs through a cave under the desert.”

  Callaghen shrugged. “There are always those stories, sir. You know when the Moslems conquered all of North Africa in the eighth century the Christians disappeared. Of course, most of them were converted to Mohammedanism very suddenly. It was the only thing to do if one wanted to survive. But some were killed, and some left the country…in any event, they vanished.

  “As a result, there are strange stories that come out of the Sahara. Mysterious sounds are heard in the desert at night. The Berbers and the Tuaregs say the sounds come from cities under the ground, and in those cities the Christians are hiding until the right time comes for them to return.”

  Captain Hill chuckled. “They’ll wait a long time, I’m thinking. Nonetheless, Callaghen, if I were a younger man and getting out of the army, I might give a little thought to the matter. You know, some of these desert rivers have gone underground, so why couldn’t it be that they had hollowed out caves there? And if there were gold in the rock…?”

  Several days passed in routine duty. On more than one occasion Captain Hill detailed three-man patrols to scout the country around, and each time they saw Indians. Twice they were fired on and returned the fire, but with no visible results on either side. Every day they scanned the road, hoping for the promised relief. The horses and mules were taken each morning to the sparse pasture, and guarded carefully. Several times Mohaves were seen in the proximity of the camp.

  Twice trains of freight wagons went through, bound for the Colorado. The freighters were tough men, desert-seasoned and well-armed, yet on each occasion they lost horses to the Indians, and once a man was wounded. A prospector was killed within a few miles of La Paz.

  Adobe buildings had at one time been built on the present campsite, but as the army had maintained no permanent station there, they had been allowed to fall into ruin. Sudden floods had damaged some of them; in others the hastily made roofs were in need of repair. During the hottest weather the men preferred the brush shelters where a breeze could blow through.

  Callaghen led the repair work on several of the buildings, especially on some that were close together, always being careful to leave a good field of fire in case of defense by a small group. For months the army had been promising a good-sized detachment, but it had not come. And neither had Callaghen’s discharge papers arrived.

  One day when Captain Hill came to inspect some of the construction, Callaghen said to him, “Sir, about Lieutenant Allison—may I ask if you were notified of his coming?”

  “What kind of a question is that?”

  “It’s simply that I suspect, sir, that he was not a proper officer. He had been an officer; he knew the routine. But I think that he was not actually in the service now, but came here for reasons of his own.”

  “Why would he want to do that?”

  “Why not? If he knew what would be required of him, he would then be able to explore the desert for days or even weeks with a military escort. Communication is not good out here, sir, as you know. It is often thirty to sixty days between communications from headquarters. Knowing that, an officer could arrive, cover a good bit of country, and then disappear before anyone knew any better.”

  “But why? No man in his right mind is going to ask for duty in this desert.”

  “That’s just it, sir. He might have been looking for something. You yourself mentioned a river of gold. You suggested prospecting.”

  Hill waved a hand carelessly. “That was just talk. Of course, any such place as this is bound to produce stories, legends—but they’re nonsense, Callaghen, utter nonsense. This desert is a corner of hell—several thousand square miles of sand, rocky ridges, and cacti, with no water at all, or bad water. A desert is a place unfit for man, and that’s why they call it a desert.”

  Mercer was guarding the stock when Callaghen joined him. It was a clear, lovely desert morning, not yet hot. The morning sun left shadows in the canyons, but caused the ridges to reveal themselves with a stark clarity. One really never knew mountains unless he had seen them at both sunrise and sunset.

  “Beautiful country here, Mercer.…Aren’t you from Minnesota?”

  “That’s right. It’s all very different there. The Indians are different, too. We have the Sioux, and some Chippewas.”

  “You joined the unit with Lieutenant Allison, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. That is, we had our orders and were waiting for the stage. He came up and joined us, and said he was going to Cady.”

  “Too bad to have lost him. I think he’d have made a good officer.” He paused just a moment. “I forwarded his things to his sister. I don’t believe he had any other relatives.”

  “He had some friends in Los Angeles, Sergeant. One, at least. He was talking to a man at the Bella Union before he spoke to us—a very sharp-looking man with a broken nose.”

  “Chance acquaintance, probably.”

  “I don’t think so. At least, he trusted him enough to let him hold his orders for him. I saw the man give him his orders at the stage. It was the same envelope Lieutenant Allison turned over to Captain Hill.”

  Holding orders, or delivering them? Callaghen watched the horses, talking idly with Mercer on half a dozen topics. Then he went back to the compound and stepped suddenly into his quarters. Croker was there, and he had Callaghen’s duffel bag upon a cot, open.

  “What the hell goes on here?”

  Croker turned sharply. “I was out of smokin’. Thought you might have some.”

  “I don’t smoke. I never have.”

  Croker’s smile was forced. “Say, that’s right! Now, why didn’t I recall that?”

  “Stay out of my gear, Croker. I won’t tell you again.”

  “Sure, Sarge. I’ll stay out, but don’t you get too pushy. Sergeant or no, I’ll take some of that out of you.”

  “Anytime.”

  Croker pushed by him and went out. There had been nothing in the bag for anyone to look at, nothing except the usual things a soldiering man might have.

  But Croker was suspicious. Of what? Or was he, like Callaghen himself, merely guessing at something? He might know something, or he might simply be of a suspicious mind.

  Callaghen shaded his eyes and looked over the desert. The Indians were out there now, you could be sure of that. Captain Hill and only eight men here, with never enough ammunition or food on hand…if the Mohaves only realized it they could sweep over this station at any time.

  After bringing the horses into the corrals, Callaghen posted guards. Captain Hill seemed willing to leave matters in his hands, and he was prepared to assume whatever responsibility was given him.

  Night came suddenly, as do all desert nights. One moment the sun’s rays were turning the mountain ridges scarlet and gold…and then the sun was gone and the stars were there.

  Croker and Beamis had the first guard. Beamis was a raw recruit just out from Pennsylvania. Whatever else Croker was, he was a frontiersman and a soldier. He knew what slackness meant, and he would stand for none of it. Beamis wanted only one thing—to get out of the army.

  “Can’t you speak to the captain, Sergeant?” he said to Callaghen. “I have no business here. I just got mad at my wife and enlisted to show her. Now I’m not mad at her any more.”

  Callaghen had to smile. “Doesn’t pay to move too quick, Beamis. I’m sorry, but you’re in and you’ll have to stay.”

  “You mean I can’t get out? What kind of a deal is that?”

  “You j
oined, and now you’ll have to fill out your time. There’s no two ways about it.”

  “But what about my wife? She’ll leave me!”

  “If she does, you’re better off without her. Settle down, man. You bought your ticket, now take your ride.”

  He walked back to the encampment. The moon was rising, and there was already a thin glow over the mountain. It would be a tricky night, for on such a moonlit night shadows appear to move, and one may suddenly develop a feeling that a shadow is an Indian.

  It was very still. Captain Hill came outside his quarters. “It’s been a good life, Callaghen,” he said, “and I shall miss it.”

  “You’ve been a soldier all your life, sir?”

  “Not quite. Before the war I quit for four years. If I’d stayed in I might be a general now. A colonel, at least. But the peacetime army wasn’t much, and I’d had enough duty at the forts on the plains. I quit and opened a store.”

  “Like General Grant.”

  “Yes, but I was successful. I did quite well, in fact, and then the guerillas burned me out and I lost everything. So I went back into the army. If I’d gone in a year sooner I’d have made it.”

  “There are always ifs, sir.”

  Hill turned his head to look at Callaghen. “You say you’ve met Sykes before this?”

  “Yes, sir. It was he who broke me from sergeant…both times.”

  “Want to tell me about it?”

  “Well, you know how some people think about the Irish. We’re despised in a lot of places, and there are even hotels where we aren’t accepted, restaurants where we are refused service. Sykes was worse than most.

  “I knew nothing of that, but he was having trouble with his Chinese laundryman. He was berating the man frightfully, and seemed about to strike him. I offered my services.”

  “You what?”

  “I offered to interpret, sir. I speak Chinese.”

  Hill stared at him. “Chinese? You do?”

  “I speak seven languages, sir, and half a dozen dialects. Well, sir, he told me what to tell the man and I did, and managed to straighten the matter out. I saluted, and was about to leave when he called me back and told me never, under any circumstances, to interfere again.”

  “And then?”

  “He was on me, sir. He found out I was Irish, although he should have guessed it before. I got all the rough duty. But it was the girl who really made the difference.”

  “A girl?”

  “Yes, sir. She came to the post to visit someone she had known as a child, and I was detailed to ride escort when she went riding.

  “She kept looking at me, sir, and suddenly she said she had seen me before. She asked me again what my name was, and when I told her she recognized it. She had known me before, Captain…outside of Soochow, in China. I’d come up to an old temple with a small command. I was a major, sir, in Ward’s outfit—Gordon’s outfit by that time. The Ever-Victorious Army, they called it. She was just a skinny kid then, and she’d been stopped near the temple. She, her mother, and a doctor had run there for shelter from some of the rebels. We fought our way out of there and took them with us.”

  “And you were a major then? You’ve had quite a career, Callaghen.”

  He shrugged. “Ward had picked up his army off the waterfronts, Captain. He had scum of the earth, and right alongside them some of the finest fighting men in the world. He enlisted men of all nationalities, and he didn’t screen them. Combat did that for him, and we were in battle almost constantly. Seventy per cent of the men had served in other armies—there were a couple of hundred Irishmen in the outfit. When Chinese Gordon took command he had a trained battle outfit. A man couldn’t go wrong with them.”

  “Did Sykes know about the girl’s recognizing you?”

  “He saw us talking, and he was furious. I was an enlisted man and I was being too friendly. Of course, Malinda spoke up, and in the midst of it her father appeared. He’d always been grateful to me for getting his family out of that situation, so we had a long talk, and Sykes just faded out.

  “Two days later I was transferred. They were building a new outfit for frontier service, and I found myself one of the cadre that would form it.”

  “And that left him with the girl?”

  “No, sir. Malinda had a mind of her own, and she was suspicious about the transfer. No, sir. I am afraid it didn’t do him much good.”

  Chapter 6

  MAJOR EPHRAIM SYKES was a man of definite mind. Positive in his opinions, he approached every problem knowing that there could be just two possibilities: his way and the wrong way. The opinions he held had been absorbed with his mother’s milk, and nothing subsequent to that time had served to alter even one of them.

  He was tall, handsome, immaculate in appearance. He was gracious, polite, and considerate to those he regarded as existing on his level. Others he ignored, or considered only with contempt. An only child, he had been brought up to believe that as an Anglo-Saxon white man of the right church, the right schools, and the right social position, any decision he made was of course the correct one.

  He had been born on the right street in a medium-size town where his father operated the largest of the town’s three banks. In school he had been bright but without brilliance, capable but without imagination, and he had graduated close to the top of his class. At the beginning of the War Between the States he had been given a commission, and he had advanced rapidly to the rank of major, partly by virtue of a cavalry charge in which he smashed the enemy at a crucial moment, driving them from their position and so turning the tide of battle.

  A fact that he had conveniently forgotten was that the charge had begun when his horse ran away with him, and his men followed. Uncomfortable about the praise that came his way, he had gradually forgotten how the charge had begun, and modestly said it was nothing. He had, he said, been fortunate enough to detect a weakness in the enemy line at that point.

  The war ended too soon for him, for he had hoped to become a general—or at least a colonel. Failing that, despite the surplus of officers after the war, he had hoped to be sent to a good station where he might win a smashing victory over the Indians—the Plains Indians, of course, who had dash and glamour as fighting men.

  The immigrant Irish were despised by many of the “right” people, so he despised them. The only Irish with whom he had ever had contact were a group who had settled on the edge of his town to build a spur of track for the railroad. Many of them drank too much, and most of them seemed to be amused by him, and this offended his dignity. In the army he had a few Irishmen in his command, and they, too, drank too much and were amused by him.

  As his father’s partner, he owned a part of a small shoe-manufacturing plant, as well as the bank. At the plant they hired no Irish, but that attitude was quite frequent at the time, and aroused no comment.

  He had found no girl who appealed to him for more than the moment until he met Malinda Colton. Her family was of the best. Her father was a diplomat, her uncle a general. On two or three occasions he had escorted her to dinner or to other affairs, and when he found her talking on intimate terms with Callaghen—at least, both of them were laughing and seemed very friendly—he had been coldly furious.

  The fact that Callaghen had once had rank equal to his own did not impress him. “Miss Colton,” he told her gently, “the man is a vagabond, a soldier of fortune. He’s—he’s Irish!”

  That Malinda did not take him seriously was irritating. She had said then, “So was General Thomas Francis Meagher, of the Irish Brigade. He married a very good friend of ours, and they have been blissfully happy.”

  Sykes was wise enough to drop the subject. Besides, he was on shaky ground, for it suddenly occurred to him that his commanding officer at the time was General Sheridan, who was the son of an Irish immigrant.

  Now he found himself leading three troops of cavalry to occupy several forts in the Mohave Desert, in Indian country. The Indians were not the Sioux or the Cheyennes, but
he had no doubt that he could win a victory over them.

  There was one other thing. He had in his keeping the discharge papers for one Private Morty Callaghen, a name he had cause to remember. Twice, on flimsy excuses, he had broken Callaghen from sergeant to private, once by his order, once by his influence. And there is perhaps no one hated more by a man than one to whom he has done an injustice.

  It was to the dispute over Callaghen that he laid his failure with Malinda Colton. And now he was to meet the man again. It was just his luck that Callaghen was about to be discharged.

  The thought came to him that if the discharge was not delivered it would not be in effect. It was a fine point. Was Callaghen discharged when his papers were issued, or when they were delivered to him?

  He dismissed the idea and his thoughts turned to his command. He was to garrison forts at Marl Springs, Bitter Springs, Rock Springs, and Fort Piute, as his judgment saw fit, to insure the safe passage of freight caravans and stages along the Government Road. He was to make no move against the Mohaves unless they first attacked him. His mission was to protect the road.

  Major Sykes had never before seen the desert. He had come to California by ship. He had no idea what the “forts” were that he was to garrison, nor what a campaign in the desert could be like. He had heard of desert fighting, he had talked with officers who had fought the Apaches in New Mexico and Texas. He was quite sure he could handle the situation, his only doubt being what he might be able to make of it.

  Camp Cady was on the Mohave River. He envisioned an imposing post beside a sparkling stream. There would be boating perhaps.

  His first sight of the desert from the top of the pass was a shock. Captain Marriott, the second in command, commented, “There’s a lot of desert out there. Fourteen thousand square miles, they say, depending on whose figures you use.”

  “That’s impossible, Captain! That’s larger than the state of Massachusetts.”

  “Yes, sir. And you can add part of Connecticut for good measure. That’s a lot of rugged country, sir, and there’s very little water.”