“How come you didn’t stay?”
“I was lucky I got out with my skin. Prospected a couple months in the Madres, and got run out by a bunch of Mexes. They don’t cotton much to gringos down there.”
“Then how come you’re going back now?”
“I expect there’s enough of us to be safe. Besides, these repeater pistols ought to scare them off.”
The two men moved away beyond earshot, and Charley spent a time considering what he had heard. None of it was particularly new, but it crystallized something in his mind and made him begin to wonder actively just what he was doing here. Somehow he had drifted into this thing and let it carry him along with it, never quite knowing very much about it at all. Everything was vague, tenuous—strange promises of land and mineral deposits; he knew little of farming and nothing of mining. What had it to offer him? Was there a past or a future? There was no past he could return to; there was nothing certain about the future. Maybe death on the Devil’s Road. He had heard of that, well enough: a desert of sand and cactus, lined with the white bones of animals and men.
Around him the crowd milled like an ant colony, staying close to one another in a packed bunch as if to protect itself against something evil. Questions, unvoiced, traveled across the short spaces between men and made them all wary. Spooked, Charley thought, and looked at Norval Douglas, out on the meadow a little way distant with the captain and lieutenant. Douglas was the one firm rock amid all this confusion—a man who never displayed uncertainty. What surprised Charley when he thought about it was how little, after all, he knew about Douglas. But Douglas owned a calm of features and a bleak but positive self-assurance in his yellow eyes, and these things seemed like buoys in a tossing sea that was without a place to anchor.
The council broke up and Douglas came toward the crowd with Will Allen, while Captain McDowell set off across the grass toward the earth-hump where General Crabb stood in his thoughtful pose. Something about that picture of Crabb in the near distance, alone on a tiny hilltop, reminded Charley of an illustration of George Washington he had seen somewhere. Crabb wore no hat and the breeze lifted his hair, moving it lightly. His eyes were dark and brooding. Captain McDowell approached him, red beard chopping when he talked, and Crabb listened with courteous interest, afterward making a brief answer; thereupon McDowell made a smart about-face and came back toward the company.
McDowell planted his feet and called the company to attention. There being no real military discipline in the group, the effect of the command was mainly to muffle conversations and turn curious eyes forward. McDowell stroked his red beard and eyed the company skeptically—it was rumored he was a West Point man—and spoke in avoice calculated to draw attention: “Let’s have a little quiet, gentlemen.”
When the foot-shuffling and coughing and story-concluding was done, McDowell turned his back to the company and stood facing Crabb, hands behind his back and feet spread. Down the line, Captains Holliday and McKinney likewise silenced their companies and swung away to stand at ease watching the general. Charley observed the hip-slanted posture of Captain Bob Holliday of Company B, and found himself wondering whether perhaps Holliday wasn’t easier to get along with than McDowell, who stood with a certain spine-stiffness that indicated arrogance.
These were the flats of El Monte, and supplies stood stacked beyond Crabb’s outline. The horse remuda was down there staked out, and Crabb’s five Conestoga wagons waited, hitched each to sixteen mules. The general drew himself up and faced the command; and spoke in a bell-clear voice:
“Gentlemen, this is truly an auspicious occasion. We stand today on the threshold of a great experiment. The continued prosperity of America may well depend on your strength, your steadfastness, your courage.”
Someone within Charley’s hearing muttered petulantly, “Get done with the politics, General, and let’s get to riding.”
Crabb launched into his speech, a thunder of energy and rhetoric punctuated by wide sweeping gestures and occasional beard-tugging. It was the same kind of talk Charley had heard before—a call to loyalty and duty, a warning that laxity could breed danger, a promise of rich lands and lodes for the colonists. Behind Charley, at intervals, the petulant kibitzer would mutter a comment. “What the hell is he talkin’ about?”
“Shut up, Shorty,” said another voice. “He’s making sense.”
“Yeah? Sounds like chicken-clucking to me, that’s what I think. Chicken-clucking.”
“Shut up, Shorty.”
Crabb waved his arms, promising riches beyond a man’s imagining. Manifest destiny, Crabb talked of—the destiny of an entire continent to become one nation. “Are we to allow our land to stagnate in a slack eddy of time while just tothe south of us a vast and wealthy ground lies fallow? Gentlemen, no!” And more, and more. Charley planted his feet and folded his arms and stood through it without being touched by it; it was merely one of those countless things he put back in his mind for storage, and now and then would draw out to regard briefly before returning it to its pigeonhole. “In Mexico today,” Crabb said, “there is a man of peace—a man of democracy—a man who speaks no treachery against the United States. That man is our friend. His name is Ignacio Pesquiera.”
“And,” the muttering Shorty grumbled, “he happens to be your wife’s cousin. Don’t try foolin’ us, Crabb.”
The muttered comment barely reached Charley. Crabb had paused momentarily; now he drew up his chest and stood with his blocky figure very solid and very self-assured; he tugged his brown beard with his fingers and said, “No one is bound to us. No one need stay. You are free to go home if you wish. The road on which we embark today is a road of hardship and danger. I will blame no man who wishes to leave us. But if you must, quit us today; for the road back will become more difficult as we march farther from this port. Gentlemen?”
“Long as I get paid,” Shorty muttered, “I stick.”
A murmur of apprehensive talk ran around the gathering; but no one moved, and in a moment Crabb said, “Very well. Captains, organize your companies. Mount your men. Be prepared to march in one hour. That’s all—and the best of luck to every man.”
Crabb stepped off the hump of land and walked slowly away across the yellow grass. A cloud was crossing the sun. Its sharp-rimmed shadow swept across the meadow, overtaking Crabb and covering him. His choppy-striding figure passed the piled supplies and disappeared behind a wagon. Charley shifted the weight of the rifle on his shoulder and saw Captain McDowell open his mouth to utter a command.
CHAPTER 11
The man who came walking unhurriedly up the sharp tilt of the sidewalk was small and trim, and dressed in a conservative gray business suit which he had selected with some care. It was a quiet street; below nearer the harbor teemed the San Francisco traffic. The bantam pedestrian was plainly of Mexican heritage—his dark skin, angled eyes, and straight glistening black hair revealed that much. He skipped the point of a cane lightly along the walk. His glance was speculative. The wind had driven fog off the bay and now the morning sun rippled off its surface beyond the docks; from this hillside he could see across the tops of the city buildings to the islands and the vague blue rim of land across the bay. He turned up a weatherbeaten stair that took him onto a wooden porch, and lifted the brass knocker.
An Oriental opened the door and gave him a polite look. He said, “This is General Cosby’s residence?”
“Yes.”
“I wish to see him. My name is Cassio.”
He stepped inside. The houseboy said, “One moment please,” and went back through the house. Cassio removed his hat and looked idly around the dim hall until the houseboy came back, took his hat and cane, and led him into a furnished study. Behind him he heard the door close quietly.
The desk was near the bay window. The man behind the desk was round-cheeked and wore a pince-nez. A paunch was beginning to swell at his midriff. He said gruffly, “Señor Cassio?”
“Yes. I have come recently from Hermosillo.”
“I see,” Cosby said. Cassio felt dry amusement at the care with which Cosby concealed his curiosity. Cassio said, “Three days ago I passed through San Pedro. General Crabb’s party had left there a week before, about one hundred men strong. He was outfitted with five prairie schooners. They carried food for sixty days. By now I would suspect they have passed Warner’s Ranch.”
Cosby was frowning. “Why do you bring this news to me?”
“I thought you might find it interesting,” Cassio murmured, and smiled gently.
“All right,” Cosby said. “What do you want?”
Cassio could see that the general was not a man to whom amenities meant much. It would be best, he decided, to come immediately to the point. He said, “I have it on good authority that you have been commissioned to raise an army of a thousand men and take them by sea to reinforce Crabb in Mexico.”
“Is that so?” Cosby said.
“I was not aware it was a secret.”
“Go on,” Cosby said.
Cassio had to smile. He said, “Let us say that I represent a group of financial men in Sonora. These men know of your—or rather, of Señor Crabb’s agreement with Ignacio Pesquiera. But they are troubled. They recall quite well that when Norteamericanos were allowed to settle colonies in Texas, the results were not good for Mexico.”
“I see,” Cosby said. His voice was a scrape. “You’ve come up here to warn me—to threaten us, is that it? I can advise you right now it won’t work. Bigger men than you have tried to frighten me.”
Cassio waved a hand deprecatingly. “Nothing of the kind, I assure you. No one wishes to endanger you.”
“In that case, you have conveyed the feelings of your friends. I acknowledge your concern. Now, if you don’t mind, I have things—”
“One moment,” the Mexican said smoothly. “Perhaps you do not appreciate the extent to which my associates are troubled. You see, for us it would not be a good thing at all if anything were to happen to the present regime in Sonora.”
“Gandara’s or Pesquiera’s?”
Cassio chuckled. “Señor Gandara is quite finished, I assure you. My associates are quite satisfied with things as they are.”
Cosby’s eyes narrowed. “You can assure them, señor, that General Crabb and I wish no harm to Pesquiera.”
“Can I?” Cassio murmured, and immediately smiled amiably. “No matter. My point is this: it might cause much apprehension among our people if a large force of armed men were to arrive on our shores under your command. So agitated, the people would perhaps begin to question the good intent of our present government. Now, Sonora has just suffered a lengthy and tiring revolution. No one wishes to see the tables turn at this late hour. You see my point?”
“Maybe,” Cosby said. “What do you expect me to do about it?”
“Ah,” Cassio breathed. “Exactly. Many of us would be quite happy if your thousand-man force failed to materialize.”
Cosby merely looked at him expressionlessly. Cassio allowed himself to smile. “Crabb himself is within the limits of his agreement with Pesquiera. He advances with a small party—less than a hundred men. His ostensible purpose is to seek out a site for a future colony. Very well, let him; the damage is now done. But if a large armed force were to come around by sea and meet him—that, then, would be beyond the limits of his agreement. It would be, I can promise you, tantamount to an act of war. Do I make myself understood, se‱or?” There was, abruptly, a bite in Cassio’s smooth tone.
“I thought,” Cosby rumbled imperturbably, “that you didn’t intend to threaten me. What do you call this?”
“Advice,” Cassio replied. His smile returned. “My friends in Hermosillo are quite wealthy. I have been empowered to make a rather substantial offer on their behalf—in the nature of a payment for insurance, one might say.”
This was the moment he had prepared for; he stood now waiting tautly, his smile hovering, watching Cosby and trying to make out Cosby’s reaction.
If Cosby was startled, he made no show of it. One eyebrow cocked up, and he removed his pince-nez to blow dust from the lenses. When he put them on his nose again, he said, “I see. What makes you suspect I might be inclined to accept that kind of an offer?”
“The size of the offer,” Cassio answered promptly, softly.
“Which is?”
“Fifty thousand dollars,” Cassio said mildly, and added, “In gold.”
Cosby steepled his fingers. His lips pursed. Cassio found himself disliking the man intensely. A wagon clattered by on the cobblestones outside, wooden brakes scraping against the downhill slope. Presently Cosby looked up and said one word.
“Done.”
Shortly thereafter, with a pleasant smile illuminating his face, Cassio left the house and strolled down toward Market Street. He was comfortable with the knowledge that General Cosby was no longer a threat to the peace.
Late afternoon. Sun in his face, turning it crimson, Captain David McDowell stood in the triangular opening of the tent, holding its flap back and waiting for the others to come up. McDowell’s red beard was turned to livid flame by the low sun. He saw Sus Ainsa, dressed in black and looking very lean and supple, cruising the company street. Shortly a man came along, Freeman McKinney, captain of C Company, a tall man with a bald head that rose to a kind of point. McKinney, never a talkative soul, nodded briefly to McDowell and stooped to go into the tent. McDowell stayed where he was and saw the bottom rim of the sun flatten against the horizon. A long lance of bright pastel vermilion shot forward from the setting orb.
Presently Norval Douglas came along, dressed in mountain buckskins. McDowell took note of the yellow glitter of Douglas’s eyes; it had never failed to unnerve him. Douglas also leaned and entered the tent, and when the sun had dropped another degree and the sheet of pastel hues had spread across the entire western quarter of the sky, with reds and yellows the color of brilliant limestone cliffs, then Bob Holliday came swinging down the path with long-legged, easy strides. Holliday was handsome and clean-shaven; he had an amiable smile and presented an elongated, raw-boned figure in the strange rose light of the dying day.
Holliday was in command of B Company, and McDowell’s lips pinched together tautly when Holliday grinned lazily, said, “Evenin’, Dave,” and curled inside the tent like a long uncoiling snake. McDowell bit his lip and stooped to go inside, letting the flap fall behind him so that it became suddenly dark within the tent, and almost simultaneously, Freeman McKinney said, “Hey, somebody got a candle?” and Norval Douglas lighted the wick of a whale-oil lantern. That little incident impressed on McDowell the different ways of thinking of Douglas and McKinney.
“Pin the flap back, Dave,” Douglas said in his quiet drawl. “Let’s have some light in here.”
McDowell turned around and folded the tent-flap back. On the rim of the earth, the sun was an overturned bowl angry in hue. Long shadows zigzagged along the ground. McDowell sat down Indian fashion, cross-legged, in the triangle of the opening, and swept his companions’ faces.
“What’s the trouble, Dave?” Freeman McKinney said.
“I thought we ought to have a little talk between us,” McDowell said, “before we get too far out in the desert.”
“What about?”
“The general,” McDowell said, referring to Crabb.
There was a brief interval of silence, with red sundown light painting their faces before him, and Bob Holliday said in his casual tone, “What’s wrong with the general?”
“I’m worried,” McDowell answered. “About him and about us.”
“Why?”
“For one thing, I don’t like the way he waited until we were twenty miles out in the desert before he told us what he’d found out from Mexico. He may not have said so, but it seems clear to me that the turn of things down there throws a whole new light on what we’re doing.”
“What you mean is,” Holliday suggested, “you don’t trust Pesquiera.”
“No,” McDowell
agreed. “I don’t. He doesn’t need us any more. His troops don’t have anybody to fight—they’re free to fight off the Apaches themselves. What does he need us for?”
“I’m sure,” said Freeman McKinney, “that the general’s thought about that. He knows what he’s doing.”
“Does he?” McDowell said quickly. “He’s a politician, not a soldier.”
“What of it?” Holliday said.
“When the time comes for military decisions,” McDowell said, “do we leave them up to Crabb?”
“You always were a worrier,” Holliday observed, and stretched his lanky legs along the tent’s grass floor. He was leaning back, propped up on his elbows, and his eyes were sleepy.
“Another thing,” McDowell added. “We’ve got to decide whether we’re going to act like a bunch of colonists or a regiment of soldiers. You can’t have it both ways. But the general keeps seesawing—from one minute to the next I can’t tell if he aims to immigrate or invade. I think we ought to take it up to him. Frankly, I want a clear answer before we go any farther.”
Holliday’s half-lidded eyes rose. “The trouble with you West Point boys is you never know what to do until somebody gives you an order. Hell, Dave, why not go over to his tent and ask him?”
McDowell ignored the man’s amiable insult; he answered, “Because we haven’t agreed among ourselves yet.”
“What’s there to agree on?”
McDowell looked around. The dying sun cast softer shadows. In the corner, Norval Douglas sat silent, a man to whom stillness was important. McKinney’s bald head gleamed and he frowned at his hands. Holliday looked mild and unconcerned. “Are we game for anything at all?” McDowell asked.
McKinney’s frown turned toward him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I mean,” McDowell said in precisely pronounced words, “are we all willing to stand behind the general no matter what happens?”
“I still don’t follow you,” McKinney said.
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