Even if they weren’t in immediate danger, they might have encountered whatever was attacking the cattle. Either way, Cale and Nate needed to get there in a hurry. As he rode, Cale heard another sound, one he couldn’t identify right off, but that sounded like grounded thunder. The way was dark and treacherous with the rain and the mud, but they got there and found the herd, then the horses, and finally the two cowboys.
Cale had never seen anything like it, and hoped he never would again.
“Someone’s got to tell Mr. Tibbetts,” he said.
“Yup.” Nate had never been one to use a lot of words where one would suffice.
“And someone should ought to stay with the herd.”
“Yup.”
“Draw straws?”
“Sure.” Nate tore a couple of leaves off the nearby mesquite and palmed them, the tips sticking out. “Long straw picks.”
Cale drew one. Nate opened his hand. His was half as long as Cale’s.
There were no good choices. Getting to the ranch house would mean a fast, hard ride through the dark of night, with the possibility that the rain could fall again at any time. But staying here, smelling those bodies, as the sun rose—Cale thought that would be even worse. “I reckon I’m riding,” Cale said.
“Looks like.”
“You be careful out here.”
Nate nodded his head. Cale mounted up again, thinking that as much as he dreaded the thought of telling Mr. Tibbetts what had happened, he had got the easier end of the deal.
He wouldn’t have wanted to stay with those torn-apart bodies for anything.
* * *
Rank has its privileges, people said. And it was true enough, to a point. Colonel Delbert Cuttrell, officer of the Confederate Army and garrison commander of Fort Huachuca, occupied the nicest house on the post, and he and his wife, Sadie, would keep it unless or until General Slaughter or Colonel Smyth returned from Richmond. Both men had been gone for months, summoned for high-level talks that seemed as endless as the war itself. The first few weeks they had sent back regular communiqués, but lately even those had dwindled. Cuttrell had begun to think they’d lost interest in this remote outpost, or the Confederacy had given up on it. When Union President Grant declared the Confederate States of America a free and independent nation, just weeks ago, Cuttrell had expected he would get more attention from Richmond, not less. So far, that had not happened.
Not that he minded, not a bit. He liked the house and the other perquisites of power, and he liked power for its own sake.
He was not, however, so fond of having his sleep interrupted before the sun had even come up by someone hammering on the front door and shouting his name. He rolled out of bed and started for the stairs.
“Just ignore it, Del,” Sadie said, her voice thick with sleep.
“I can’t, dear.”
“Why ever not?”
“I’m an officer in the army, Sadie. My first duty is to my country.”
“Your country’s broken. Your men are largely degenerates, thieves, drunks, and scoundrels. Come back to bed.”
Arguing was pointless. Conversation of any kind with her was more often frustrating than pleasant or useful. He loved her, but she drove him mad. He supposed she drove him mad because he loved her, because he couldn’t bring himself not to care when she said things like that.
He walked down the stairs, listening to the rasping, nasal sounds that told him Sadie had already gone back to sleep.
Jimmy McKenna was outside, banging his fist on the door. Cuttrell opened it cautiously, afraid that McKenna had been pounding on it so long that he would keep pounding even without a door in the way. McKenna was broad-shouldered and strong and Cuttrell didn’t want to start his day by being beaten half to death. “What is it, Lieutenant?”
“I’m sorry to bother you so early, sir,” McKenna said. “I hope I didn’t disturb your wife.”
“I don’t imagine you would have knocked if it hadn’t been important. Come in.”
McKenna looked at his boots. “That’s not necessary, sir.”
“Something the matter, Lieutenant McKenna?”
“No, sir. I mean, yes, there is. I just don’t need to come in to tell you.”
The man had looked uncomfortable at the suggestion, but Cuttrell didn’t pursue it. Obviously McKenna had something on his mind. “Well, spit it out, son.”
“It’s—there’s this mule train. And, well … sir, they’re all dead.”
“Who’s all dead?”
“Everybody. In the train, that is.”
“Start from the beginning, Jimmy.”
McKenna took a deep breath, swallowed twice. He was some twenty years younger than Cuttrell. The colonel’s beard showed some gray these days, and he had found a few silvery threads on his scalp, while McKenna had a thick dark thatch of hair, a sturdy build, and a face unlined by worry or age. Sometimes Cuttrell caught glimpses that reminded him of the man he had been as a young officer, during the early days of the never-ending war. Other times, he thought McKenna was hopelessly naïve and would never amount to much. “Some troopers came back early from patrol,” McKenna said. “They found a mule train, on the old Ghost Trail.”
“Not many mule trains out there anymore,” Cuttrell interrupted. “Not since the Bayou Vermilion railroad went in.”
“No, sir. Just every once in a while. Anyway, the troopers saw this one, but it wasn’t moving. Everybody’s dead.”
“Dead how? Who do they think killed everyone?”
“Apaches, maybe. That was their guess, anyhow.”
“And there’s no one left? No rescue possible?”
“According to the troopers, no. But they don’t know how many was on the train to start, so might could be there’s some prisoners.”
“I reckon we ought to go take a look,” Cuttrell said. “Even if there’s no way to save any lives, those who perpetrated the atrocity ought to be punished.”
“That’s just what I was thinkin’, sir.”
“Have the bugler call boots and saddles, son.”
“Should I rouse the Buffalo Soldiers?”
McKenna commanded the Buffalo Soldier squad, and was always looking for an opportunity to put them to use. “That won’t be necessary. We’ll just use regular troopers for this one.”
“Yes, sir.”
McKenna stood in the doorway, as if waiting for some further instruction. “Is there anything else, Lieutenant? Something you still need to convey?”
“No, sir,” McKenna said. A few seconds passed, and he seemed to catch on. “I’m going, sir. Boots and saddles.”
“Good man,” Cuttrell said. “I’ll dress and be out momentarily.”
“Yes, sir.” McKenna snapped off a crisp salute, turned on his heel, and started toward the barracks. In the east, across the parade field, the sun was just beginning to gray out the horizon. Cuttrell was glad he had a reason to put on a uniform and ride out into the field. He had been spending too much time at the fort recently, too much time home with Sadie.
He loved the woman, but as with his other vices, he loved her most in moderation.
* * *
Sadie Cuttrell watched her husband ride out through the fort’s front gate at the head of a procession of soldiers. He was a fine-looking man, his back straight, his still mostly golden hair catching the morning sun and gleaming in it. She was proud of him, proud to be married to him. She stood there, ever the dutiful wife, until the men were out of sight, dropping down toward the valley below the fort.
When they were gone, she went back into the house and closed the door. It was a big house, a little drafty, and when she was alone in it she felt like a ghost, not fully present, as if doors were merely conveniences and she could, should she choose to, simply drift through the walls. These days that feeling came more and more, sometimes when Delbert was in the house with her, sometimes even when they were giving a dinner party for the officers. If more of the officers had wives, that might help. A woman n
eeded some other women around. There were women in town, of course, but she had left that life and those women behind. What she had left them for was, she hoped, something better. She thought it was. Some days, however, she had to wonder.
Sadie crossed to the kitchen and went into the pantry. From a low shelf, behind some spices, she took a small brown glass bottle. Carrying it back into the kitchen, she dribbled some of the liquid, the color of old rust, into a glass. She eyed it, then added a little more. The taste would be bitter, so she added a dash of Colonel Cuttrell’s choicest brandy to mask it. If much brandy disappeared, he would notice, but he would never miss a tiny bit here and there.
She left the glass on the kitchen table and carried the laudanum back into the pantry. Delbert never cooked, never prepared anything for himself except the occasional drink, so he would be unlikely to find it there. Just the same, she hid the bottle well; behind the spices, it blended in and one had to know what to look for.
Back in the kitchen, Sadie swirled the liquid around in the glass, mixing it, then took the slightest sip. Even with the brandy, the flavor was unpleasant. The burning sensation on her lips was, too, but just for a moment. Then the heat began. She took another drink, a longer one this time, a good hearty swallow. With one more, she drained the glass. Almost immediately, she warmed from the inside, a glow like a tiny furnace in her belly spreading its comforting fire throughout her body. As the sensation filled her, she felt more real, more substantial. She could no longer pass through walls; in fact, she stumbled walking through the kitchen doorway, barking her shoulder against the jamb. She laughed once, a full-throated roar that Delbert considered most unfeminine, and found her way upstairs. There she sat in a seat by a window, watching the fort wake up without its commander or a large contingent of its troopers.
After a while, the laudanum had evened out her mood, and the business of the fort had settled into a routine. Sadie made her way back downstairs, almost floating from one step to the next, and out the front door. She knew where she was headed, but the time it took to walk to his house seemed to vanish, as if it had taken no time at all, as though she had merely blinked and she was there.
She didn’t knock, because she didn’t want to risk being seen. She believed—though she couldn’t swear to it, because the passage from there to here had gone by with very little observation on her part—that no one had seen her come, and that was the way she liked it. But standing around waiting to be let in was asking for trouble. She just pushed the door open, closed it behind her, and called, “Jimmy! It’s me.”
He came into the room shirtless. His chest was deep, his arms sculpted like a Greek god’s. His smile took her breath away, as it always did: somehow rakish and sincere at the same time, as if he truly believed all the lies he would tell her over the next hour. Perhaps he did; after all, what was an army officer but a politician in a uniform, and what politician had not mastered the art of self-deception?
“In broad daylight, Sadie?”
“He’s gone. I couldn’t wait.”
“Come here, then.” Jimmy held out his arms, stepping toward her as she wafted into them. He closed them around her, his grip crushing, the way she liked it.
He might have hurt her ribs, had the laudanum not been working its magic and keeping all pain and sorrow and shame at bay. He kissed her, hard, not the way Delbert did, but smashing his lips against hers and forcing his tongue into her mouth, where she took it willingly even when she pretended to be shocked. His right hand closed on her breast, as brutal as his embrace and his kiss. She responded to it as they both knew she would, as she would have even if she hadn’t had professional training; she let her mouth fall open and her breath come more heavily, arching her back to press her breast more firmly into his grasping hand.
He was leaning in to kiss her again when they heard a knock on his door. “Damn it,” Jimmy said.
“Last time that happened to me, it was you, and I was trying to sleep.”
“Sorry. I couldn’t wait on that.”
“So I gathered, when Del came back in making a huge fuss about some mule train.”
The knock came again, more insistent this time. “Sounds like you,” Sadie said.
“I’ll be back,” Jimmy said. “Don’t go anywhere.”
“Where would I go?” she asked, mostly to herself.
Jimmy vanished. After a moment, she heard the door open. “Clinton,” Jimmy said. “What is it?”
“Sorry to bust in on you like this, Loot,” another voice said. She could tell it was one of his Buffalo Soldiers, and since she’d heard the name Clinton, figured it must be Clinton Delahunt. He was the best blacksmith on the post. His shoulders and arms dwarfed even Jimmy’s, the contrast between them as pronounced as that between Jimmy and her husband. She wasn’t trying to listen, and had lost the thread of the conversation anyway, immersed in her own thoughts. Laudanum did that. So did the fact that Jimmy rarely had anything worthwhile to say, so she only paid attention to the extent necessary to keep him interested.
He and Delahunt were going on and on about something, some project they were working on, it sounded like. Sadie bit back a yawn, then let the next one come, and wandered into Jimmy’s bedroom. She sat on the bed and pulled off her shoes, then started in on the rest of her clothes. If he didn’t return by the time she was naked, she would just start without him.
She didn’t think he would mind a bit.
Chapter Five
Though he rode hell-bent for leather toward the J Cross T ranch headquarters, Cale Ceniceros couldn’t help but be struck by the beauty laid out for him along the way. The rising sun brought a rosy, gold-tinged glow to the peaks of the Huachuca Mountains to the west, where remnant clouds from last night’s storms were snagged like cotton fluff on the stem. As it climbed higher, the glow slid down the mountains’ faces, then found the valley floor, bringing each blade of green, tufted grass, each creosote bush and mesquite and upthrust yucca stalk into crystalline relief. The sky turned from a deep, almost violet blue to a paler one with hints of salmon, before finally settling on the brilliant, vivid blue of an Arizona summer day. On the ride he saw jackrabbits and hog-like javelina, three kinds of snakes, the retreating form of a bobcat, and six or seven coyotes out on morning maneuvers.
When he thought he could ride no longer, that his rump had been flattened and his spine jarred so much he might never walk straight again, he came over the last rise. In the depression below stood the ranch house, the bunkhouse, a barn, and off to the side a corral and tack house. His back might be permanently out of whack, but he would make it. He urged his horse down the incline at full gallop, and reined her in as he entered the dusty yard. Cale leaped off her back as she skidded to a stop, and took a few lurching, unsteady steps toward the house.
Jed Tibbetts appeared in the doorway before Cale even reached it. “Looks like you’re in an all-fired hurry there, Cale. What’s so important?”
Cale had been rehearsing his explanation for hours, but now that the time had come to give it, he became tongue-tied, his English fleeing him and leaving only Spanish behind. Mr. Tibbetts spoke a little Spanish, as most borderland ranchers did, but Cale knew he wouldn’t understand the words that came to mind. He struggled to find the English ones. “It’s … sorry. Mr. Tibbetts.”
“Take a deep breath, boy. Couple of ’em. It’ll come.”
Tibbetts was a lean man, wiry and strong. His face was tanned and leathered by the elements, and deep grooves ran from high on his cheeks down to his jaw. His lips were always chapped and bloody, but his blue eyes were as clear as the Arizona sky and when he smiled, which he did less often lately than he once had, the effect was like a match struck in a dark room, at once illuminating and comforting. He smiled now, while Cale breathed and collected his thoughts.
“It’s Hopkin and Pinky,” he said at last. “They’re dead.”
The smile vanished from the rancher’s face. “How?”
“Kind of like the cattle, I guess
. There was a big bull close by, that had been cut up like the others. Same thing for the men. It was … it was awful, Mr. Tibbetts.”
“You see who done it?”
“No, sir. We was over on our range, and heard gunshots from theirs. When we went over, we found both men dead. Nate stayed with them while I came to get you.”
“Which means the stock in your range has been unprotected for hours.”
“That’s right. Sorry, boss, but we thought it was the best thing. To make sure the men weren’t attacked more. Keep them safe for burial.”
Tibbetts put a hand on Cale’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “You did the right thing, son. I’ll send a couple of men out to your range to check on the beeves there. Meanwhile, you and me and some others can go fetch those bodies. You up to another ride?”
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Cale had understood that he would have to take Mr. Tibbetts back to Nate and the corpses. During the latter part of his headlong sprint to the ranch, though, he had pushed that out of his thoughts, focused only on getting there. It couldn’t be helped, though. “Yes,” he said. “Sure, of course.”
Tibbetts cast an appraising eye at Cale’s mount. “We’ll get you a fresh horse. Looks like that one’s plumb tuckered out. Go on inside, now, and Mrs. Tibbetts can get you some coffee and eggs while I get things movin’.”
* * *
Tibbetts was as good as his word, and his wife’s eggs and coffee, plus a biscuit and a little ham were even better. With Cale’s stomach full and a lively Appaloosa under him, he felt halfway alive again. He led Mr. Tibbetts and two other hands, Marlon and Reisen, back out to the rangelands where he’d left Nate. All the way, he worried about what they’d find there. What if whatever or whoever had attacked the others had come back for Nate? If there were three human bodies on the ground instead of two, he would feel responsible. He had drawn the long straw, after all. He could have chosen to stay.
Cale’s father had been a vaquero down in Sonora, his mother a white woman who had chanced to meet Enrique Ceniceros when the train she had been taking to Mexico City had broken down, and he had been nearby. He had offered the stranded passengers food and water and a pale-skinned woman with copper hair and freckles had caught his eye.
Deadlands--Thunder Moon Rising Page 3
