They Came To Cordura

by Swarthout, Glendon

  From a great distance he saw the stares, the uncomprehending faces, heard his own echo loud in the dark canyon, and swept away by his vision he strode unsteadily from the soldiers.

  He went to his own fire. It was almost out. He did not know what he had said. He built up the fire, then sat down, removed his glasses, cut off another length of the loosened tape of the left bow, and putting them on again without cleaning them got out pencil and notebook and wrote rapidly.

  Milo Sharp Trubee, 111644, Private, C Troop, 12th Cavalry, for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at risk of life, above and beyond the call of duty, in action involving actual conflict. On i6 April, 1916, at 05.41 hours, during an attack by Provisional Squadron, 12th Cavalry, upon Villista forces holding a ranch called Ojos Azules near Cusihuiriachic, Mexico, A and C. Troops, on the left flank of the line of charge, ran head-on into a three-strand barbed wire fence strung across their front. Before wire-cutters could be used, heavy enemy rifle-fire was directed upon the massed target from a log corral among the outbuildings of the ranch to the west. One of A Troop was killed instantly. Further casualties might have been incurred had not Private Trubee of his own volition spurred from his troop and ridden perpendicular to the fence for more than a hundred yards, calling the enemy fire upon himself. Pulling up near the corral without cover, he emptied his pistol at it, killing one Mexican, then taking his rifle dismounted, climbed through the fence and ran towards the corral. Reaching it he fired over the logs, killing two more of the enemy and disabling three horses, so that the remainder of the Mexicans fled on foot.

  He was watched. Trubee stood, his lips working.

  “Beggin’ the Majer’s pardon. . . ”

  Sight of him set off the alarm in Thorn. Lieutenant Fowler had told him he thought Trubee knew about Columbus. If he did, the officer sensed deadeningly what was coming.

  “Be at ease,” he said. “Just a minute.”

  And only then did he recall he had decided to wait until base before writing Chawk’s and Trubee’s citations. He hesitated, then bent over his notebook.

  By his daring and sacrifice, Private Trubee, a veteran of twenty-two years service in the cavalry, enabled Troops A and C to cut and pass through the wire fence without further loss, the former to engage an enemy stone-fence position on a hill to the south, his own troop to cut to pieces and prevent the escape of the bulk of those Villistas attempting to reach their horse herd. Signed and sworn to, 19 April, 1916, Thomas Thorn, Major, Cavalry, Awards Officer, Punitive Expedition, U.S. Army.

  He put the inevitable off as long as possible, rereading the citation and signing it before folding it away.

  “Well, Trubee?”

  “That was a right movin’ speech, Majer, sir. Made me recollect a lad in my troop was stationed up at tha San Carlos Agency in the old days. He knowed a piece from tha ainshunt Greek, called tha Phoe-bee or such like, and would speel it off till there weren’t a dry eye. ‘Twas all about tha soul an’ tha spent, as I recollect.”

  “What can I do for you?” Thorn asked.

  Trubee swivelled his head as though to make sure no one was within earshot. When he turned to the officer his expression was malevolent.

  “No grudge about you layin’ hans’ on me, Majer. I don’t carry a mean bone in my body. But a common, ordin’ry soljer has to look out for himself or be took advantage of. I know suthin’ you may not figger I know, an’ it puts me a leg up on you.”

  “Columbus,” Thorn said.

  “That’s tha short of it.” Trubee scratched at an eruption on his cheek. ‘I don’t plan to make a stink less I have to. But they’s two things I’m after, an’ I don’t see as you can turn me down.”

  Thorn got to his feet and moved to the other side of the fire.

  “One.” Trubee raised a finger. “I don’t want no damn dekkeration. I don’t hanker to be made lead mule. I get dekkerated an’ all tha officers’ll have it in for me.”

  Thorn scarcely had time to wonder at the similarity between Trubee’s objection and Lieutenant Fowler’s before the private held up two fingers.

  “Two. I ain’t had no tail since we come down here. Tha lootenant was tellin’ about that woman. She’s no better than a up-town fancy whoor. She’d have give good US soljers to them Mixicans, wouldn’t she? You turn ‘er over to me, Majer, an’ after I get astraddle she won’t be so damn fancy. You let me put the bit to ‘er. . . ”

  “That’s enough!” Thorn snapped. “I refuse to bargain.” He stood erect, knowing full well rank would not serve him now. “I told you not fifteen minutes ago you had to be a better soldier and a better man. For the sake of what you did at Ojos I will overlook . . .”

  Trubee scrambled up, snatched off his hat and shook it at the officer. “Don’t you rare up at me, Majer!” he hissed. “You’re lucky I kep’ my mouth shut this far or big Chawk would’ve broke you in two yestiddy! Oh, I been bidin’ for this! Twenty-two years officers been dealin’ to me but for one time I got tha cards! You give me tha woman insteada the medal, give me ‘er from here to base or I’ll raise such billy-hell about Columbus you’ll be tha one in stockade, not ol’ Milo!”

  “You cheap, blackmailing. . . ”

  “Major Thorn.”

  Both men started. Out of the shadows Hetherington swayed towards them, might have fallen had the officer not supported him.

  “Major, I’m so sick. . . ”

  Thorn laid his hand on the youth’s forehead. The skin was dry and very hot. Quickly he unrolled his blankets and helped Hetherington into them, taking off his shoes and leggings. The private said he had been poorly all day, but the run after the woman had brought the weakness on fast.

  “You should have told me, son.”

  “Didn’t think I ought, with a long hike ahead,” the private groaned. “But sir, I never been so bad off before.”

  Thorn’s first thought was that it must be malaria. In his saddlebags he had quinine, which he could administer until the fever ran its course, but a bout of malaria, he recalled from Cuba, might last four or five days, and they could not wait even one. Unaware that Trubee had gone, he stood over the youth and bowed his head in despair. Finally, forcing himself to act, he got the quinine-box and holding Hetherington up pushed a tablet between his chattering teeth, and when he could not swallow it let him have a little water from a canteen. The youth shook with chill. Gently Thorn moved him closer to the fire and pushed into the pines. Trubee was nowhere to be seen. The others, bedding down, inquired about Hetherington, and he told them he would have to wait until morning before saying how serious it was. He said there would be no guard posted, they would all need as much rest as possible. Then, on an idea, he searched for the Geary woman in the dark, finding her where they had dropped her. She was not asleep. He ordered her to come with him, and after a moment she wrapped a blanket about her shoulders and followed.

  Thorn led her to Hetherington. The youth’s eyes were closed and he breathed through his mouth. He lay still, his cheeks flushed, and the officer, fearing him too close to the fire now, lifted him farther from it. He did not move.

  “He has come down with something,” Thorn said quietly. “Fever and chills. I am no surgeon, and all I could think of was malaria. I gave him quinine a few minutes back. You have been down here a long time. Is it malaria?”

  “No. We don’t have that north of Jalisco. I expect it’s typhoid.”

  “That can’t be. The entire Expedition was immunized before crossing the border.”

  “We have typhoids your shots won’t touch. I had it once. The gente are naturally immune.”

  “What can we do for him?”

  “The fever will go up and down for a day or two. If it finally breaks, he’ll pull through. Otherwise he’ll die.”

  She spoke dully, showing neither interest nor pity. She seemed empty, as though the impact of her failure to free herself and her fit of hysteria had taken the arrogance, the fight, out of her. The tears she had at last allowed herself had puffed the
flesh about her eyes so that though she was less handsome, she was less hard.

  “Is there any way it can be kept down?”

  “A lot of cold water. Or rubbing alcohol.”

  “Will the quinine help?”

  “A little. Not enough.”

  Thorn looked down at the private. “Do you know of any water near here?”

  ‘‘No.’’

  “I will use all we have to save him,” Thorn said.

  She started away.

  “Rubbing alcohol!” Thorn’s head snapped up. “You have a bottle of tequila in your saddlebag. Bring it.”

  ‘‘That’s mine.’’

  He clenched his fists. “Bring it.”

  She shrugged, dropped her blanket and walked out of the light. Thorn waited. The youth moaned softly. They could not stay, they had to move out in the morning, and if Hetherington were not better, if he could not walk, if taking him or leaving him became an issue, if Trubee talked. . . His shoulders slumped with fatigue. Minutes passed. The Geary woman did not return. When she did there was a trace of the old swagger in her stride, and as she held out the bottle he saw why. More than a third of the tequila was gone.

  “You drank it.”

  She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “One for the road.”

  He tore the bottle from her, wanting to smash it in her face. “How you could—what has he done to you?” Fury choked him. “You give him to his enemies to kill, mark his face like some animal, you steal what may save him—a boy, good and brave and selfless.”

  “Sure, bread of the earth, so on and so on,” she said. The liquor had revived her. “There must be something wrong with you mentally. If you’re so blind you can’t see them for what they are.”

  “Do you know them?” he burst out. “You told me yourself—a stranger might be God. . . ”

  She looked at him appraisingly. “Just what the hell is wrong with you?”

  He heard Hetherington. From the boy’s open mouth sounds became words, took on pattern.

  “And Ar-phaxed lived after he begat Salah four four hundred and three years, and begat sons and daughters. And Salah lived thirty years, and begat Eber: and Salah lived after he begat Eber.”

  Forgetting her, the officer knelt, uncorked the bottle and pouring a little tequila into his cupped palm applied it to the youth’s forehead, cheeks and throat. Hetherington’s eyelids fluttered but he continued to speak, now in a whisper, now in a quaver punctuated by moans. The Geary woman said it sounded like something from the Bible, and Thorn, his anger absorbed by his task, replied it was. Sitting, in order to keep from spilling the liquor, he went on rubbing all the exposed areas and unbuttoned the youth’s shirt to reach the skin of his ribs and chest. After a time the woman, still standing behind him, questioned him about the private and in low tones Thorn told her what he knew.

  “‘I will heap mischiefs upon them,’” Hetherington recited. “‘I will spend mine arrows upon them. They shall be burnt with hunger and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction: I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust.’” When she asked what the youth had done, Thorn found his citation in the oilskin envelope and handed it over his shoulder. She came close to the fire to read and then, saying nothing, passed it back. Hetherington’s fever seemed to rise steadily. His legs stirred, his hands moved constantly.

  Thorn raised him and put another quinine tablet between the parched lips and lowered his head and let water run into his mouth. Looking around, he saw the Geary woman had left. He counted the tablets. Twelve remained. He went on with the tequila, applying it with care so as not to lose a drop. Loudly, as though performing before a congregation, the boy recited: “‘Wherefore hast thou afflicted thy servant? and wherefore have I not found favor in thy sight, that thou layest the burden of all this people upon me? Have I conceived all this people? Have I begotten them, that thou shouldst say unto me, Carry them in thy bosom? I am not able to bear all this people alone, because it is too heavy for me.’” Coming out of coma some of the words were slurred, but they were delivered with such force that they carried beyond the pines, into the black canyon, and returned from rock. In the firelight his skin glistened with the oil of the tequila and Thorn sickened with the odor of the stuff. He could not tell if the alcohol evaporated rapidly enough to lower the skin temperature. His hands were cooled but the night air itself might be responsible. His shoulders ached with bending and rubbing. After another hour the fever appeared to crest. For several minutes the boy suffered intensely. Sweat beaded his forehead. His head twisted from side to side. At last his body relaxed. He seemed to sleep. Thorn took off his glasses and holding them sank face down upon the needled earth beside him, exhausted. Close to his eyes, where Hetherington’s feet protruded from the blankets, through a hole already worn in one of the clean socks the officer had given him, stuck a big, bony toe.

  Chapter Ten

  THEY had to wake him. There was grey light and monotone of ground wind through the lower branches of the jefferys. Hetherington’s fever, after sleep, had subsided and he believed he could walk if the pace were slow.

  Dividing the last of the flour, salt and bacon grease among the men and the Geary woman and dribbling portions of water into tin cups, Major Thorn reminded them they would have no more water until night unless they found it. Renziehausen cooked for Hetherington and fed him the little he could eat and helped him rise and stretch his legs.

  While the senior officer ate he issued orders for the march. Saddles and saddle blankets would be left but each man might carry one bag, making a shoulder-hitch for it from a hobble. The axes were to be taken, the picket ropes, all weapons and ammunition, first-aid packets, and two blankets rolled. Hetherington’s equipment was to be split up and the load shared. He would carry the canteens and Lieutenant Fowler the bag of corn.

  They turned to and in a quarter-hour left the jefferys, not in formation but in straggle, Hetherington being assisted on either side by Major Thorn and Renziehausen, the Geary woman at the rear. It was the fourth day out of Ojos Azules. No one looked back at the place where they had been pinned down, at the place where all might have died. First sun struck their faces. What lay before them did not seem impossible now that it was begun. Taking a chance on refusal, Thorn asked Chawk to start them out with a song suitable for cavalry to march to, and after a grunt the sergeant obliged, his grudging bellow filling the canyon.

  “If to thy window comes Porfirio Diaz,

  Give him for charity cold tortillas;

  lf to thy window comes General Huerta,

  Spit in his face and slam the door.

  If to thy window comes Inez Salazar,

  Lock your trunks so he can’t steal;

  If to thy window come Maclovio Herrera,

  Give him dinner and put the cloth on the table.

  If to thy window. . . ”

  Hetherington sagged, already too weak to walk. They had not even reached the canyon mouth. Thorn left him with Renziehausen and took the others forward telling them to break out axes, they would have to make a litter. In one of the stands of bull pines at the chute he selected and helped them cut and lop two six-foot branches and, using one of the picket ropes, knot a webbing between them. There would be no more songs.

  “How many miles you figger to base, Major?” Chawk asked unexpectedly.

  “Forty, more or less.”

  “Christamighty.” The giant stood, dropping an end of the rope. More of his bandage had come loose overnight and strips hung from his hat to his shoulders. “We can’t pack nobody forty miles.”

  “We can try,” Thorn said. He tied the free end and picked up the litter.

  “The rest ain’t apt to make it,” Chawk said. “I seen this tried before. Corporal I was on scout with up in the Big Bend busted his leg an’ our horses took sick from bad water an’ when we seen it was him or the rest we put ‘im out of his mis’ry.”

  “We will all make it. Or
none will,” Thorn said.

  “As easy leave two behind as one.”

  Thorn turned his back on him and with Lieutenant Fowler went to unroll Hetherington’s blankets in the litter and assist him on to them. When the enlisted men rejoined them he did not like their looks. He wondered if Trubee had told Chawk about Columbus. Since there were five men he said they could change off on the carry, one man being relieved a half-hour out of every two. He teamed himself with the Lieutenant on the front end and Chawk with Renziehausen at the rear and gave the word to hoist. The webbing held and after a moment to balance and adjust equipment they started a second time, Hetherington on their shoulders.

  Slowly the detail moved through the chute and out of the canyon, toeing the foot of the hill mass until it slanted slowly to the northeast. From distance it would have appeared ant-like, halting, starting, worrying along an enormous burden. At first the sick youth was not too much load but unless there was outward pressure on the poles his weight drew them together so that he sagged out of sight in the webbing and maintaining this pressure strained the muscles of forearms and shoulders and caused the bearers to walk aslant which in turn caused them to misstep and stagger. A stop was soon made to shift blankets to pole shoulders to prevent the bark from rubbing through shirts and galling flesh, another to put Trubee on and relieve Renziehausen, another to separate Chawk and Trubee who could not pair on the same end because there was a foot difference in height between them.