They Came To Cordura

by Swarthout, Glendon

  Thorn’s eyes closed.

  The sound they made was that of a bird being killed, beating its wings in dust and terror.

  As Thorn’s eyes closed a great and compassionate hand was placed upon him and the stump of his body toppled sideways and he slept.

  When she awakened him it was the neither time, the catch-breath between dark and dawn. She bent over him as he lay. The hills about them were hushed. The chill air was crystal. Chawk snored among the soldiers. She had dressed.

  “I am ashamed of what I said last night,” she murmured. “I am ashamed of what I have been all my life.”

  “Here.” He sat up, and from his breast pocket took the oilskin envelope. “In this are their citations. Hide them. If anything should happen to me keep them and turn them in to the commanding officer at base. Swear to me you will do this.”

  “I swear.”

  She unbuttoned her shirt and put the envelope inside.

  He came to his knees.

  “I thank you.”

  They knelt facing each other. Her hair was down. He put both blistered hands gently, with wonder, in the tangled mane.

  Without glasses his face was that of a stranger to her, yet revealed, young in the quarter-light, haggard, hungry, alone. She trembled. At the corner of her mouth the tiny muscle beat. Her fingers brushed the cracked lips, the hollowed eyes.

  “You are the bravest man I have ever known,” she said.

  He stilled the moving muscle with his finger.

  “I could cherish you,” he said.

  As do the blind they touched each other, meeting for the first time through their fingers.

  “What is your name?” he asked.

  “Adelaide,” she whispered. “What is yours?”

  “Thomas.”

  Chapter Twelve

  LIKE ghosts the men rose from the ground. Rags of mist tattered the hills.

  Trubee told the commander he could not take a step, could not stand his turn on the handles. His heart ‘done a jack-rabbit’ on him every few minutes and he could not breathe. He doubted he would last the day out. His eyes rheumy, he begged the Major to see his wife and children at Columbus after ‘Old Scratch’ had him. The veteran seemed an old man, shrunken, as the eruptions on his face were reduced in size, and, touched by his condition, Thorn assured him he would do what he could. They assisted him to the platform and placed him on blankets.

  Hetherington slept. His forehead was cool. The typhoid had spent itself. He recognized Major Thorn. Soon he became conscious of his resurrection. Tears welled from his eyes and his hands clasped. It was the doing of the Lord, he whispered. For performing His work in war the Lord had spared him. He was hungry and thirsty, but they had neither food nor water for him or for themselves. He was too weakened to walk and they carried him to the handcar.

  Blankets and saddlebags were strewn upon the platform. Trubee lay at one side, Hetherington across from him, Lieutenant Fowler climbed on front, Renziehausen and the Geary woman behind. Major Thorn and Sergeant Chawk took the handles.

  The car rolled. The scree-scree-scree of the cog-wheels commenced. On iron the wheels rumbled. It was the sixth day out of Ojos Azules.

  The three far hills seethed, their lower slopes black, the peaks pouring smoke.

  The Tex—Mex did not change. It worked the flanks of the hills as before, and as before there were the rails winding, the spaced piles of boulders for repair, the long grades up which the car labored, the three at the rear pushing.

  Heat of the sun struck the five on their feet the final blow. Past the point of physical exhaustion, some began to behave strangely. It was as though, having so long been part of a detail, a unit, they sought instinctively to free themselves, to escape the handcar and the proximity of the others, to act as individuals.

  During the stops they wandered away from the tracks. To Major Thorn, who had each time to round them up, they played out the proof of Ben Ticknor’s observation, that men tested beyond their capacity by thirst became emotionally unstable. The alkali water drunk the preceding day had left their systems dryer than before. They were dehydrated men.

  Once he could not find Adelaide Geary or Lieutenant Fowler. He forced himself to mount a ridge. In the gully below, by a waterhole, the woman had removed her shirt and appeared to be bathing her bared upper body, her arms, her breasts. He could not focus clearly. But only a few feet from him, screened from the woman by scrub cedar, Lieutenant Fowler gazed, intent on her, unbuttoning the fly of his breeches. Something made him turn his head. He saw the officer on the ridge.

  At one stop Renziehausen helped Hetherington try his legs. They walked to and fro together, Hetherington on stocking feet because his shoes had been lost crossing the mineral basin.

  “Better get real friendly with yer pal,” Chawk advised Renziehausen. “No girl going to look at you with no ear.”

  “I will so have one,” the boy said, taking Hetherington to the platform. “Major says the surgeons’ll make me a rubber one so real nobody can tell. It fastens on with wax.”

  “Hell! You b’lieve that? You’ll be lovin’ up some biddy an’ she’ll pull it right off! Why, honey, she’ll say, all yer other parts made outa rubber, too?”

  “Leave him alone,” Thorn ordered. He was seated on his end of the car.

  Chawk cocked his bushy head. His attitude towards the officer this day was one of bewilderment, as though during the night he had rutted out his hate and ferocity upon the woman and had nothing with which to replace them.

  “You know what, square-head,” he jeered, “you better hitch up with a freak show!”

  It happened with stunning swiftness. Furiously, recklessly, the boy flung himself at the non-com, head first, as he might have over a wooden gate. The giant wrestled with him momentarily, spun him around, raised him from the ground, viced him with one arm, and with his free hand tore at the bandage at the side of his head, gripped the flap of lobe flesh which was all that was left of his ear, and as the boy screamed, ripped it out of the surrounding skin.

  “There, by Gawd’n by jingo,” Chawk said, holding the trophy high and turning to the others, “I done a real circumcise on ‘im!”

  No sooner were the words out than Renziehausen had catapulted on to his shoulders and borne him to the stone of the track bed. Chawk crashed on his side, the mutilated boy’s fists raised like clubs, when the butt of Thorn’s pistol struck him once on the back of his skull. He fell forward, rolled off the non-com and lay unconscious on his back.

  Chawk sat up. “Good thing you done that, Major. I’d ‘ve broke his back.”

  Thorn splashed water from a canteen into Renziehausen’s face. His eyes opened, such accusation in them, such crucifixion of spirit that Thorn could not look, could not explain he had done it to save the brain in the already injured head, had to rise and walk away.

  When they had pumped another half-mile neither Lieutenant Fowler nor Renziehausen would spell on the handles. After the incident on the ridge the Lieutenant would not face his superior. As for the earless boy, he covered himself with his hand, would not speak or move.

  That left Major Thorn and Chawk. During the next stop Lieutenant Fowler and the non-com strayed away together. When they returned Chawk refused to pump. Thorn pulled a gun, put it back. He said he would manage alone as long as he could. Ordering them to march ahead, saying ‘No’ when the Geary woman offered to team with him, he bent over the rear handle and gradually depressed it. Carrying only Trubee and Hetherington the car moved, so slowly that they could stay ahead of it and the woman close behind.

  He managed almost ten minutes before letting it roll dead. He rested over the handle. He seemed to be past caring whether they jumped him or not. They could hear his breathing. After a time he straightened. Something about him, something imperceptible, was altered.

  “There’s water-hole,” he said, pointing across the tracks. “Coming to base, report like soldiers. Mister Fowler, have them wash.”

  Even Trubee a
nd Hetherington stared.

  He drew the gun again. “On your feet, Pershing and Poe.”

  When they did not respond he holstered the automatic, found his saddlebag and carried it to the waterhole. While they waited he went to his knees, pulled his shirt and sweater over his head, and in BVD.s above the belt wet his face. Something flashed at his face. He was attempting to shave.

  Before Adelaide Geary reached him he had hacked at one cheek until it was bloody. For some reason he did not object when she swabbed his face with his shirt and collected his things. He allowed her to lead him back to the handcar, but ordered her away from the handles.

  Once more he set the car in motion. The three men, though footsore, could easily walk before it along the tracks. Noon neared. A glittering sun was in the heights. The sky was filmy. The air had in it augury of rain. Sounds of the rusty cogs and of the wheels, iron on iron, and of scuffling heels, were muted, enveloped soon by silence. Lion-colored, the hills bided. The officer fought enough momentum from the car to make a short grade without knowing that Adelaide Geary aided with a shove. At the top, as they came up, he paused to examine his hands. The palms were blistered. Surprisingly there was still moisture in him: of such size had been the blisters, which were broken now, that water from them made his hands glisten. As he moved to reach down, something splintered under his heel. Picking up his shirt he shook pieces of glass and metal from a pocket. He had stepped on his glasses. Unpinning the oak leaves from the collar, putting them in his breeches pocket, with his knife he cut strips from the shirt and wound them into bandages around his hands. To move the car this time he had to press the full weight of his body upon the handle.

  He pumped about the waist of a hill, let the car screech down a draw, and sighting a grade ahead worked the handle convulsively. Halfway up-grade the slipping of the cogs slowed him, and jumping down he doubled and pushed the car, bracing the toes of his boots against the cross-ties, to the crest.

  He clambered on the platform, was too used up to take the handle immediately, leaned on it, looked at the men. To his unaided eyes they seemed blurred, their burned and stubbled faces softened, ennobled by privation and suffering.

  “Brave! Good! Redeemed!” he addressed them unexpectedly, his voice splitting. “Forgive you!”

  They watched him warily. It had not, as he had feared, occurred to them he would not use the guns upon them, but each was sensible there would be no need to jump him. They had but to wait.

  The next grade was longer. The men climbed. When they turned he had got out the remaining picket rope, tied one end to the car and lashing the other about his waist, moved forward until the rope was taut. The vehicle weighed eight hundred pounds, with the freight of Hetherington and Trubee more than half a ton, yet miraculously he towed it, the muscle along his ribs corded, legs pistoning one after the other against the cross-ties. Twice he ordered the woman away from the car. Minutes seemed to elapse between steps.

  With the car at summit he sat down heavily between the tracks, then grasping a rail pulled himself up, and with the picket rope still about him staggered to the car and hoisted himself behind the handle. His eyes bulged, the air whistled through his teeth. The strips of shirt had fallen from his hands. The rope was tangled with the ammunition-belt sagging about his hips.

  “If I could dwell where Israfel hath dwelt’n he where I!” he shouted. He stopped, remembered. “He wouldn’t sing so well mortal mel’dy!”

  They gaped. Renziehausen forgot to cover himself. Hetherington raised on elbows. Chawk swore under his breath. Behind the car Adelaide Geary turned her back.

  He lay on the handle. It descended. The cogs caught and the handcar rolled.

  The three men understood the meaning of the long steep grade ahead, and limping swiftly halfway up sat down as though in an amphitheater to watch.

  He did not try to pump. Stumbling off the car he lunged forward till the rope tightened. He bent to the burden. Crushed stone spurted under his boots. The two men on the car twisted to see.

  He struggled more than fifty yards. He neared the waiting men. He slipped to one knee. The car hung against the rope. As he strained upward his foot went out from under him and the machine of iron and wood rumbled backward, gained instant momentum, jerked him flat, pulled him down-grade between the rails with such speed that he could not regain his feet, thudded his body brutally over stone and ties. He was raked the full fifty yards he had struggled and another twenty before the drag of his weight slowed and finally stopped the car. He lay without movement.

  The three started downhill, Lieutenant Fowler in the lead. The Geary woman, who had been near the car when it hung, began to run as they passed her. Chawk extended a leg and tripped her. She fell.

  They approached cautiously. He was not dead. His head lifted. He had no face. The cheeks, chin and nose had been mauled by the stone and ties into a crimson mask. One eye was open because the lid and brow had been scraped loose. His hand pushed under him and appeared with one of the guns. They halted.

  After a moment Lieutenant Fowler stepped to one of the piles of rocks, selected the largest, and moved forward. The prostrate man did not fire. Lieutenant Fowler came close, stood over him, and raising the rock high, plunged it into the small of his back. His head sank to the stone. Chawk and Renziehausen were on him next, grunting with emotion as they threw.

  Only once as they stoned him did Thomas Thorn cry out, and then the sound, torn from his throat, was not one of agony but of exaltation.

  Hearing it, his health wondrously restored by it, Trubee hopped off the car, hobbled to the pile, took a rock, and sitting down pounded until he could no longer lift his arm.

  When they were done they sat or sprawled exhausted. It was Lieutenant Fowler who stirred. Clearing the body of rocks he turned it face up and unclenching the fingers from the grip of the automatic muzzle to forehead and put a bullet through the skull. The others started at the explosion. He then threw the weapon away, unbuckled the other, the holstered pistol, strapped it to his thigh and the belt of clips about his waist. After that he unlaced his shoes and leggings and replaced them with the dead man’s boots. Next, rummaging the officer’s pockets, he found the black notebook, and taking time only to leaf it, cast it far away. All these things he did as though by plan, but too hurriedly, impelled by both terror and excitement.

  Squaring his shoulders he addressed the men as he might have an entire squadron, almost at the top of his voice, so rapidly that he had to repeat himself.

  “As ranking officer I am in command. As ranking officer! Major Thorn surrendered the horses and we were ambushed again. Another ambush! We drove them off, but the Major was killed. Killed by the Mexicans! Is that clear? Is it?”

  They nodded.

  “Be sure it is. Be very sure! Now move him over there. Right there!”

  Obeying, Chawk and Renziehausen carried the body nearer the rock pile. On a further order they concealed it under a cairn of rocks. Unable to wait until they were through, however, Lieutenant Fowler commenced to spiel at them again, loudly. The detail could now operate as it wished. What all of them wanted was to return to regiment as soon as possible. If they went on, followed the railroad to base, they might be questioned in detail about the Major’s death; moreover, someone else might take it upon himself to see that they were awarded Medals of Honor. This was his scheme: head south until they located the farmers who were burning the hills, get food and maybe horses, and push on to regiment.

  Chawk felt reflectively in the bush of his hair. “What about her? She better be shut up.”

  “Her?” Lieutenant Fowler wheeled, discovered that the woman had come down the hill. He had forgotten her. He had run out of plan. He puffed his cheeks and expelled air, then forced himself to think, rigging desperately at his neckerchief. Finally he motioned to her.

  She strode to them. Her face and loosened hair were gritty with dust from her fall.

  “You want to go back to Ojos, don’t you?” he demanded. “
No need to tell you what’s in store for you at base, is there? Is there?”

  She waited.

  “All right. I’m an officer and gentleman. By act of Congress officer and gentleman,” he told her. “We’re going south to regiment. Keep your mouth closed and you can go back to Ojos, part way with us. Back to Ojos.”

  Her silence angered and confused him. “If you don’t agree to this we’ll have to have another casualty.” He threw back his head and laughed without mirth. “Ha-ha! Another casualty!”

  “You didn’t kill him,” she said steadily.

  Before he could comprehend, a new thought made him clap his forehead.

  “Dear God, the citations! Where are they?”

  “He burned them,” she said. “Early this morning. He said you weren’t fit to have them.”

  “You’re lying!”

  “He killed himself,” she said.

  “You lie, damn you! Give them to me—Chawk, get her!” he cried wildly.

  She tried to run. Within twenty yards Chawk had her from behind, seizing the mane of her hair and whirling her to the ground with such a crash that she lay only half conscious, the breath beaten from her, as Lieutenant Fowler pulled open her shirt front, searched until he located the oilskin envelope.

  He untied it. The authorization signed by General Pershing, he read carefully before tearing it into small pieces. He then unfolded the pad of citations.

  “Here they are. Well. Here they are.” He went back towards the others, Chawk following. “I’ll burn them. He didn’t, but I will.” An idea came to him. “We can see them first, all of us! They’re ours now, not his. Ours! Chawk. Renziehausen.” He passed out the hand-written sheets. “Trubee.” He stepped to the handcar. “Hetherington.” This done, he stood with his own.

  The woman dragged herself to her feet, started in the opposite direction, then reversed and shuffled towards the detail.

  “Gallantry! Risk of life! Ha-ha!” laughed Lieutenant Fowler, finishing first.