by Savage Texas
“Nice country—for an ambush,” Dawkins said to himself.
On the far side of the creek, a long, gentle slope rose to a tree-topped table. The road climbed the hill and disappeared into the trees. Several miles beyond, screened from view by the brush, lay the town of Hangtree, capital of Hangtree county:
Hangtown.
A wooden plank bridge spanned the river. Flatbridge, it was called. Only it wasn’t there anymore. A hole gaped where the center of the span had been, showing only fast-flowing blue water.
This gave Dawkins pause. “What happened to the bridge?” he wondered aloud.
He took off his hat and scratched his head. His skin was shiny with sweat. He used the hat to fan himself. “Only one way to find out,” he said.
He put his hat back on and rode downhill. On the near side of the creek, on the left-hand side of the road, stood a grove of willow trees, their boughs yellow-green. The grass was dark green, the creek sapphire, the sky turquoise.
Under the willow trees, in the shade, were a man and a horse. The man was sitting and the horse was standing. The horse was tied to a tree; it browsed contentedly on new green shoots and leaves. The man sat on a fallen tree trunk, smoking a cigar. He stood up, facing Dawkins.
The smoker wore cavalry blue and held a rifle at his side, muzzle pointing at the ground. A cigar stuck out of one side of his mouth. He stood there, smoking and waiting, as Dawkins approached.
The scout halted a few paces away. The two men eyed each other. The cavalryman broke the silence. “Looking for something, Mister?” he asked.
“Yeh—the bridge,” Dawkins said.
“It ain’t here no more.”
“I can see that. What happened to it?”
“Comanches,” the soldier said.
Dawkins couldn’t help but give a start. He stiffened, stoop shoulders hunching as if anticipating a heavy blow. His eyes widened, trying to see everywhere all at once. No Comanches were to be seen.
Dawkins got a grip on himself after that first rush of belly-knotting body terror, pure and instinctive. He’d knew what the Comanches could do, particularly to any poor bastard unlucky enough to be taken alive by them.
Sense returned. If Comanches were anywhere around, the soldier would hardly be sitting under a tree smoking a cigar. He’d be making tracks for somewhere else, pronto.
The trooper looked like a tough customer. He had a good size on him, blotting out a fair amount of landscape. A hogshead-barrel torso with sloping shoulders and thick arms was supported by a pair of squat bowlegs. A short-brimmed cavalryman’s cap perched at a jaunty angle on the back of his pumpkin head. Thick, curly black hair was cut close to the scalp, topping a gargoyle face.
A blue uniform tunic with dull brass buttons lay draped over a broken branch projecting from the fallen tree. The trooper wore a brick-red flannel shirt, sleeves rolled up past the elbows. His gun belt was worn low on his right hip, pistol facing butt-out in its holster, cavalry style. Its top flap was unbuttoned for quick and easy access. In his massive, pawlike hands the rifle looked like a carbine. His blue pants bore the yellow vertical side-stripes of the cavalry. They were tucked into the tops of knee-high brown leather riding boots.
An ugly, powerful brute, thought Dawkins, a bull of a man. Reassuring to have around when the Comanches were on the warpath.
“You must be the man I’m looking for,” he said. “I’m Dawkins, out of Fort Wolters—with the wagon.”
“I don’t see no wagon,” the soldier said. If a buffalo could talk, its voice might sound something like that, Dawkins thought.
“It’s on the other side of the hill. They sent me on ahead to meet up with our escort, a patrol from Fort Pardee,” said Dawkins.
The cavalryman was silent. “Where is it?” Dawkins asked. “The escort from Fort Pardee?”
“You’re looking at it,” the soldier said.
“Eh? What’s that you say?”
“The rest of the troop is way to hell and gone, scouring the countryside in search of a war party of Comanche bucks,” the cavalryman said. Leaning his rifle against the fallen tree, he pulled on his tunic. It was several sizes too small for him, bursting at the seams. The sleeves were each blazoned with a set of sergeant’s stripes. He didn’t bother buttoning up.
He went to Dawkins. “I’m Sergeant Sales from Fort Pardee,” he said. “If you was an officer, they wouldn’t have sent you on ahead. You ain’t so I won’t bother to salute.”
Reaching into a side pocket, the noncom pulled out a sheet of notepaper folded into a square and held it out to the other. “Here’s my orders,” Sales said.
Dawkins took the document, eyeing it. It was topped by a U.S. Army letterhead and stamped with the seal of the commanding officer of Fort Pardee. It bore a handwritten note.
Dawkins squinted blearily at it. “Looks okay to me,” he said.
“’Course, I can’t read too good,” he added. He returned the document to Sales.
“Give it to Lieutenant Greer, he’s heading up this detail,” Dawkins said.
“How many are you?” Sales asked.
“Twelve, counting the driver and shotgun rider.”
Sales swore, a heartfelt obscenity. “That’s all?”
“Lucky to get that many, we’re stretched so thin at Fort Wolters,” Dawkins said. “Nobody knew we were gonna run smack into a Comanche rampage!”
“What do you think we’re doing up in the Breaks, practicing parade ground drill? We got Comanche war parties coming and going—Kiowas and Lipan Apaches, too!”
“Lieutenant Greer ain’t gonna like this,” Dawkins said mournfully. “He’s a green shavetail on his first posting out West,” he confided.
Sergeant Sales shrugged his massive shoulders, further straining the already overstressed fabric of the tunic. “Tough,” he said.
He crossed to his horse, sheathing the rifle in its saddle-scabbard. Untying the reins, he gathered them up in one hand. Still-lit cigar stub chomped in the corner of his mouth, he swung up into the saddle. His horse grunted from the burden of the big man’s weight. He moved alongside of Dawkins. “Let’s go,” he said.
Dawkins a-hemmed. “A word to the wise,” he said. “The Lieutenant’s kind of a stickler for army discipline. Soldierly deportment and whatnot. You might want to spruce up some before meeting him.”
“Me? What about you? Hell, you ain’t even in uniform,” Sales countered.
“That’s different. The wagon guard detail’s all in civilian clothes, to call less attention to the mission.”
The noncom barked out a derisive laugh. “The Comanches’ll lift your scalp all the same if they catch you.”
“When that first looie of yours finds out how things lay, he’ll change his tune pretty damned quick,” he added.
“Well, mebbe,” Dawkins said, “but I doubt it.”
The convoy was on the other side of the ridge, at the foot of the eastern slope. The men were at ease, taking a break. They were watchful, wary. The sun was at its zenith. It was hot. Insects buzzed in the brush. Some of the men idled in the shade, what shade there was to be found, smoking, sipping warm water from their canteens, chatting low-voiced.
Sergeant Sales had shaped up to some extent before meeting Lieutenant Greer. His cap was screwed on tight to the top of his head. The cigar-stub had been discarded along the way. He and Dawkins dismounted, handing the reins of their mounts to a horse-holder. Dawkins led the way, Sales following.
Their arrival—rather, that of the single, solitary noncom—had sparked muted interest among the detail, whose members stared in frank, open curiosity. They were trail-worn and weary but looked spruce compared to the sergeant.
Lieutenant Greer had brown hair, dark eyes, and a well-trimmed mustache. He was in his early twenties, still shiny and fresh-faced, the Texas sun not yet having baked all the youth out of him. He looked like a schoolboy beside burly, brutish Sergeant Ben Sales.
“This here’s Lieutenant Greer,” Dawkins said
by way of introduction before quickly sidestepping out of the scene.
The sergeant managed to pop a stiff-backed brace and fire off a sharp salute at the young first lieutenant. “Sergeant Sales reporting for duty, sir!”
Greer returned the salute. “As you were, Sergeant.”
Sales handed him the document he’d earlier shown to Dawkins. Greer studied it. It seemed in order. It was a handwritten note from Captain Ted Harrison, commander of Fort Pardee, identifying the bearer as Sergeant Sales, heading the troops detailed to escort the convoy the rest of the way to the outpost.
Greer carefully refolded the note, putting it into the right breast pocket of his shirt. “Where are your men, Sergeant? Securing the bridge?”
“That’s a problem, sir,” Sales said. “The bridge is wrecked and my men are off chasing the Comanches who did it.”
Greer’s eyes looked ready to pop. Catching himself, he scowled, narrowing them.
Sergeant Sales explained that a Comanche war party was running riot in Hangtree County, that they’d destroyed the bridge, and that Swift Creek was too fast and deep to allow for a crossing.
Greer’s flushed face reddened, his lower lip quivering. “How can that be? I was told that the Comanches wouldn’t start raiding south from their home grounds for another month or two!”
“I’m afraid they ain’t holding to schedule this year, sir,” Sales said. “Comanches is like that—ornery.”
Greer scrutinized the other for some hint of mockery or insubordination, but the sergeant kept a poker face.
Sales said, “Wahtonka—he’s the big man of the Comanche war chiefs—”
“Yes, yes, I know who he is, I’m not totally uninformed about local conditions!” Greer snapped. “Go on, man!”
“The war between North and South never quite registered on the savages out here. They got the crazy idea that it was them that caused the army to pull up stakes back in Sixty-One and abandon the line of forts along the frontier that was keeping them red devils in check. The Comanches don’t know or won’t believe that the troops were being pulled back East to put down the Rebs. They figure they got us on the run.
“Now Wahtonka aims to finish the job. He wants all the whites pushed back off the plains, leaving them free and clear like they used to be. He and his bucks started their killing and burning early this year. They hit hard two weeks ago farther south, wiping the town of Midvale off the map.
“A few nights ago they struck below the south fork of Liberty River, hitting some ranches, raping, raiding, killing. We don’t know if it’s the same bunch that sacked Midvale or if this is a whole ’nother war party. They tore up the bridge across Swift Creek to slow pursuit. I sent my men after them and stayed behind to guide you to the fort.”
Lieutenant Greer was taken aback. “You decided—?! But that’s a violation of orders—dereliction of duty! Your mission is to escort this detail to Fort Pardee,” he said, sputtering, outraged.
Sales was blandly, patronizingly composed, in the timeless mode of veteran soldiers explaining the facts of life to green, untried junior officers. “Begging the lieutenant’s pardon, but that just ain’t so,” he said. “Standing orders from Captain Harrison and the district military commandant is that we’re charged to fight and kill the savages and protect the civilian population. That mission trumps all others.”
Greer sniffed. Under trail dust his face blazed red. “If there’s one thing I detest, it’s a barracksroom lawyer, Sergeant.”
“I’d be facing a court-martial if I disobeyed Captain Harrison and missed the chance to take some Comanche scalps, sir.”
“Don’t be too sure of that, Sales. You may be facing that court-martial sooner than you think.”
Sales faced that prospect with calm self-assurance. “It’s the lieutenant’s privilege to prefer charges—once we reach Fort Pardee. If we reach it. If the Comanches knew what this wagon is carrying they’d ride hell bent for leather to have it. By sending my men after them I took the inititiative, buying us some time.”
“All very well and good, Sergeant. But the bridge is out, remember? And according to you, Swift Creek is too fast and deep to ford!”
“Yes, sir. It is, here. But several miles upstream the creek widens out. We can cross at Mace’s Ford and strike out west along the Old Mission Trail, then angle northwest through the Breaks to the fort.”
“All right, then,” Lieutenant Greer said. “Very well, Sergeant. We move out now!”
FIVE
A dirt road ran along the foot of the eastern slope of the ridge east of Swift Creek. The wagon convoy followed it five, six miles north until they came to a trail cutting it at right angles. The convoy halted.
Sergeant Sales and Scout Dawkins rode to the top of the ridge. On the far side, in the valley below, Swift Creek widened, becoming more shallow, its current slowing. It was a broad, flat, lazy band, gently twisting and bending. Downstream at Flatbridge it had been dark blue, but here it was greenish-brown.
“Mace’s Ford,” Sergeant Sales said.
There was a mounted man on the east bank and a man on foot with a horse nearby on the west.
“Those two are mine. I sent them on ahead to make sure that there’s no surprises waiting for us,” said Sales. He took off his hat and waved it over his head. The man on the near side of the ford held a rifle in one hand, pumping it up and down in the air several times in response.
“Looks okay. Let’s go down to make sure,” Sales said. He and Dawkins rode down to the creek. The ground was thick with tall grass, rushes, willow trees. Everything was green and moist. Small streams and rivulets webbed the flat, tufts and hummocks thrusting up between them. There was a smell of damp earth, water. The air was a little hazy.
The trail was hardpacked, but not as dusty as it had been on the slope. It ran right straight to the water’s edge. A man in a cavalry uniform sat his horse near the creek. He had narrow eyes and a close-cropped blue-black beard. His jacket was unbuttoned and open and he sat slouching in the saddle. Sales and Dawkins reined in, facing him.
“Dawkins—Corporal Reese. Dawkins is a scout for the convoy,” Sales said, indicating the cavalryman. “How’s it look, Reese?”
“Okay, Sarge,” Reese said.
“No Comanches?”
“Ain’t seen an Injin all day.”
“You won’t see them till they lift your scalp.”
“I still got my hair and so does Fenner, so I guess we’re in the clear.”
“Good.” The creek was about fifty feet wide here. Sales put a hand to the side of his mouth and shouted to the man on the west bank. “Okay on your end, Fenner?”
“All set, Sarge!” Fenner shouted back.
Dawkins frowned. “Hell, he sounds like a Johnny Reb.”
“He was. He’s been galvanized,” Sales said, using the term for a former Confederate soldier who’d been recruited into the service of the Union. “The army don’t much care who’s fighting the Comanches as long as they get the job done. As for Fenner, he likes eating regular—even if it is Yankee mess-hall chow.”
Sales turned to Reese. “Button up that tunic and get yourself squared away. It’s time to start looking like a soldier. We got us a first lieutenant who’s all spit-and-polish.”
Reese saluted jauntily. “Yes, sir!”
Sales’s face clouded. His expression, always stony, was now glowering. “Don’t call me ‘sir,’ you dumb son of a bitch. I’m no officer. Get smart with me and I’ll kick your butt so hard your tailbone’ll be coming out the top of your head.”
That wiped the smirk off Reese’s face. He straightened up in the saddle.
“Sorry, Sarge—”
“Shaddup. Never mind that you been up all night and day chasing Indians, we got to show the lieutenant something.” Sales faced Dawkins. “You can tell Greer it’s safe to make the crossing.”
“All right,” Dawkins said.
“And make it quick—there’s a Comanche war party on the loose and we’re
still a long way off from Fort Pardee.”
Dawkins nodded. He turned his horse, riding uphill, disappearing on the other side of the ridge.
Presently the convoy came into view, descending the trail to the creek. Lieutenant Greer rode at the head of the column of armed guards, followed by the wagon. The horses could see and smell the water. Some of them got antsy, nostrils flaring, ears twitching. They had to be held in.
Sales rode over to Lieutenant Greer and saluted. “My men have scouted the area, sir. The way is clear.”
Greer acknowledged the report with a curt nod. “Thank you, Sergeant.”
One of his men rode up. “It’s been a long, dry journey, sir. The horses could use some water,” he said.
“Get them across the creek first,” Greer said. “I want to make the crossing as soon as possible. We’ve already lost too much time thanks to this detour. Once we’re on the other side we’ll water the animals. But don’t let them drink too much. I don’t want them swelled up so they slow us down.”
“Yes, sir,” the other said. He went to pass the word to the rest of the men.
The convoy started across the creek, horses kicking up little splashes and spumes of water. The stream was less than three feet deep at its center and much shallower for most of its width. A mild current swirled around the horses and wagon, chuckling and purling. A light breeze lifted, rustling through the rushes, making them wave their tops.
Crossings are always a bit disordered. The line got stretched out, making a noisy hubbub. The wagon’s harnessed team lurched forward, heaving and pulling. The horses wanted to stop and drink. The driver handling the traces fought them, grunting and cursing, cracking the whip over their heads to keep them moving. The wagon bounced and jostled on its springs. Even at midstream, the water level was well below the bottom of the wagon bed.
Sergeant Sales rode alongside Lieutenant Greer. He had to shout to be heard over the racket. “Hey, Lieutenant!”
