by J. T. Edson
There was nothing hard, to a man of Waco’s ability, in following the tracks left by Bartelmo. The soldier had left camp and headed south-west in a straight line, making no attempt to hide his sign. Even if he’d made the attempt, it would have taken a better man than the green soldier to mislead Waco.
For two hours they rode at an easy walk; Doc alert for possible ambush and Waco reading the sign. Then Doc brought his horse to a halt and pointed ahead. Hovering and circling in the sky were black shapes, and now and again one would swoop downwards then rocket up again.
‘Buzzards. Could be him.’
‘Could be,’ Waco agreed. ‘I surely hope it isn’t. If it is, then he and us have found bad trouble.’
The deserter had found trouble, bad trouble, just as Waco predicted. They found him lying spread-eagled on the ground, still tied to the pegs which were driven into the earth. Bartelmo was stripped to the waist, his feet still resting on the embers of a fire and with strips of skin removed from his torso. The Mexican bandits had tortured him, then shot him in the stomach as they left. Yet he was still alive, the rise and fall of his chest told them that. How he’d lived this long they did not know; he was barely conscious now, raving in delirium.
Waco made a wry face and rode his horse by the writhing body, swinging down from his saddle to go over the ground and learn what he could from the sign. What he saw gave him cause to worry. A large band of Mexicans had been here, camped, and from the sign, Bartelmo rode in like he was coming home for dinner. They’d pulled him from his horse and staked him out there. The rest he could imagine and shut the thought out of his head.
Doc bent over the writhing, gibbering man; then made out the words Bartelmo repeated over and over. The young Ranger straightened up, looking at his horse. In his warbag he carried a small case with a few surgical instruments; he was equipped to handle broken bones or bullet wounds. But there was nothing he could do for this man for he had neither the equipment nor the drugs to ease, the pain. Bartelmo might lie in agony for a few moments or for hours, there was no way to relieve his sufferings. No way but one.
Doc stood still for a moment, then set his face hard and took out his revolver.
Waco heard the shot but did not turn round; there were some things a man did not want to look upon. He swung into the saddle and waited until Doc came alongside, afork his big black. The pallid face showed no expression at all, but Waco knew his friend was tense behind that expressionless mask.
‘Bartelmo took it like a man. They near-to burned his feet off and skinned him. That means he held on as long as he could. He must have broke in the end and they put a bullet into him.’
Waco gripped his partner’s arm, squeezing it hard. ‘You couldn’t have done a thing for him, the way he was. He was in agony and wouldn’t ever have made it back to Orejano; couldn’t have got him any place where a doctor could take care of him. The sooner I’m back with the blue bellies the happier I’ll be.’
‘And me. Bartelmo kept muttering the regiment was out. That must have been what he was on about and told them. He might have been all kinds of a fool but he died like a man.’
Waco considered this for a spell. Just long enough to put the Kelly pet makers to the flanks of his big paint and head it for the troop of cavalry.
~*~
Sam Bone rode alongside Beaulieu at the head of the patrol, keeping the men moving at a steady pace. They were riding along the bottom of a high cliff, following the now dry bed of what had been a large river. The other bank was a far more gentle slope, covered with rocks, cholla, prickly pear and stinkwood. The cliff wall was in places broken open by what must have been off-shoots of the river, one of them, the largest they’d seen so far, was just ahead.
Sam Bone looked around, rolling his eyes and keeping his attention on the more gentle slope. It was the sort of place an Apache would pick to lay an ambush.
‘I’ve got me a real bad hunch, suh,’ he said, licking his lips. ‘Real bad. Like the time we was hunting ole Geronimo. I got to feeling them Apaches was about.’
‘Well?’
‘They was.’
Sam gave his complete attention to that gentle slope again, scouring every inch of it, trying to locate something which would give him warning of danger ahead.
‘You feel the same way now?’ Beaulieu asked, also looking.
‘I surely does, suh. Reckon you’d best slap the butt on that there long gun of your’n. Happen I’m right, there won’t be time later on.’
Beaulieu drew the long-barreled revolver from the special holster on his saddle and from the back of the holster took the skeleton stock. He screwed the stock on to the butt and sat nursing the gun across his saddle. Looking back he saw Corporal Machie at the rear of the column ease back the hammer of his Springfield. Machie too sensed that all was not well and was alert and watchful.
‘Any sign of the Rangers?’ Beaulieu asked.
Sam twisted round in his old saddle and nodded. ‘They’re coming now, suh. Looks like they found that young feller.’
‘He’s not with them,’ Beaulieu answered, also turning.
‘No suh, he ain’t. That’s why I reckon they found him. Too late.’
Beaulieu raised his hand, halting the patrol just opposite the gap in the cliff. He waited for the Rangers to catch up and wondered what they’d found that was bringing them back in such a hurry.
Riding his big paint stallion at full gallop. Waco scanned the range ahead of him. On the slope above the patrol he saw a flash of color where such a color should not be. He fastened the reins to the saddlehorn, steering the paint with his knees and pulling the heavy Winchester rifle from his saddleboot. He brought the rifle up and fired, the bullet screaming off in a vicious ricochet just in front of the spot where the color had showed for a moment.
From ahead of the patrol, appearing as if they’d come right out of the ground, came many Mexicans, all with rifles lining down on the soldiers. Lead screamed down at the soldiers and for a moment there was panic amongst the recruits; Davies screamed, clutched at his leg and slid from his saddle.
Beaulieu panicked for an instant himself, then regained a grip on his nerves and took command. Even as Machie opened his mouth to bellow orders the young officer shouted, ‘Up that gap there. Dismount and fight on foot.’
The recruits whirled their horses and headed for the hole in the cliff, each man dropping from his saddle as the horses went through the gap and taking up whatever cover he could find. Two of them did not make it, despite the fact that Beaulieu, Machie and Sam Bone were giving them covering fire. The bullets cut round the men and as Beaulieu opened his mouth to tell the other two they could move in Machie was hit in the head and slid from his horse.
‘Get back in there with your men, Lootenant,’ Sam yelled.
Beaulieu whirled his horse, a bullet tearing the campaign hat from his head as he went back. Sam Bone was about to follow when Davies, realizing that he was being left out there, gave a wild screech and sat up.
Sam Bone spun the mule round and headed towards the soldiers, yelling for the patrol to give him covering fire. It was then that he saw the two Rangers barreling down towards him and heard Waco’s wild cry of;
‘Comanche style, Sam.’
Riding by Davies, Sam Bone turned his mule and started it forward. The mule was an old, balky and ornery beast but he knew that when guns roared and lead sang in the air he must obey every command without objection. He lunged forward at a good speed and behind came the rapid thunder of hooves. Sam Bone bent in the saddle, hand reaching down to take hold of Davies’ right arm; then from the corner of his eye the negro saw the huge paint alongside and Waco leaning over to grab the other blue-clad arm. Davies felt himself lifted up and with feet dragging was pulled along between the racing animals.
The Mexicans tried to concentrate their fire on this tempting target, but from under the cliff Beaulieu, exposing himself recklessly, directed a savage covering fire, possessed in his attempt to prevent any Me
xican getting a clear shot at Waco.
Through a hail of screaming lead Waco and Sam Bone dragged Davies into the comparative safety of the hole in the cliff. Waco let the soldier fall to the ground again and looked round him. Just how this place was formed he did not know, but it was not what he would have chosen. The hole led into a valley which went back for some hundred yards, then ended in a steep wall. All the valley amounted to was a pocket in the cliff face. There was some grass growing in the pocket, but no water that Waco could see.
Doc joined his friend, examining a hole in his coat and condemning all greasers to eternal damnation. The pallid young man bent over Davies and looked at the bullet wound. From the position of the hole and the fact that Davies could move his leg Doc knew the bullet had missed bone and gone right through. He straightened up and went to his horse, opening his warbag and taking out the box with the surgical instruments.
Davies was sitting up, holding his leg. He looked at Doc, then to where Sam Bone was kneeling alongside Waco, working an old Henry rifle.
‘The black feller came back and saved me,’ he said.
‘Sure,’ Doc agreed. ‘Now if I’d been Sam I’d have let you lie there in case I was taking some white man’s work toting you back in. Here, let me look at that leg.’
With Davies attended to, Doc went back, keeping in what cover he could find until he settled down behind the large rock where Beaulieu, Waco and Sam Bone were kneeling. The young officer held his long-barreled Colt and was putting bullets in the loading gate as he turned the chamber. Doc regarded the weapon with disgust and scoffed:
‘Likely he aims to lean over and poke ole Chacon right in the eye.’
‘Can’t,’ Waco replied. ‘Ole Peludo ain’t with that bunch.’
‘You been over and asked them?’
‘Don’t need to, Doc. If Chacon was there this ambush’d been better set out than it was. He wouldn’t have left a place like this open for us. When you brought your boys in here, Beau, you’d have found rifles waiting for you. That bunch out there aren’t up to Chacon’s style of work.’ Beaulieu was willing to accept Waco’s judgment of the situation and he had an idea the young Texan would prove right. He looked up at the sheer wall of the cliff and asked: ‘Is there any way they can get above us?’
‘Not for a couple of miles, Lootenant, not on a hoss,’ Sam Bone answered. ‘I know this wall here. It goes on for mebbe five miles and for two it’s like this, too steep for a hoss.’
‘Too steep for that ole mule of your’n Sam?’ Waco asked with a grin. ‘You been telling us all along it’s part goat and can climb like a cat.’
‘Ole General Ambilech could get up it and down in a couple of places,’ Sam replied. ‘Why’d you ask?’
‘Just curious,’ Waco answered.
‘Could the Mexicans get above us?’ Beaulieu inquired.
‘Sure, but they won’t,’ Waco replied with confidence. ‘Not if it means doing it on foot. They don’t need to. All the water we’ve got is in the canteens; they can wait until thirst drives us out. Never saw a Mexican who’d take the hard way to do anything, not when there was an easy way of doing it.’
‘How about at night?’
‘Depends on how well they know the country. Put yourself in their position. They’ve got us pinned down and they’re moving along to get in better places.’ Waco pointed to the darting shapes as Mexicans moved from cover to cover until they got in positions opposite the soldiers. ‘Would you pull even half of your men out and send them wandering round in the dark, climbing that wall there when you can get all you want without any of that trouble?’
Beaulieu smiled at the thought of this civilian giving him a lecture on military tactics. He gave an order to his men not to shoot unless they were sure of a hit, for some of the recruits were firing every time a Mexican showed himself. The firing died away on this side of the valley, but the Mexicans kept firing at the rocks in an attempt to make the soldiers waste ammunition.
‘I wouldn’t,’ the officer finally agreed.
‘Nor would they. Besides, like I said, a Mexican will never do anything the hard way when he can do it easy. How about—’
‘Gringos, hey gringos!’ a voice shouted from the other side. ‘Come on out, leave us your money and your guns and you can go free. We don’t want to harm you.’
‘You want our guns come on over and get them,’ Waco yelled back. ‘But you watch the other soldiers don’t get you.’
This caused something of a sensation amongst the Mexicans, several of them gathered together in a bunch well up on top of the other slope. All were talking and there were Shouted inquiries in Spanish which Doc and Waco translated for the benefit of Beaulieu. It was Doc who explained about Bartelmo’s story of the regiment being out. The Mexicans appeared to be taking it seriously, but they did not show any signs of calling off the attack until some sign of reinforcements showed.
Beaulieu called one of his men, the oldest soldier amongst the recruits, and told him off to collect all the canteens, then place a guard on them. He then made the rounds of his men, darting from cover to cover and risking death at each move. With each man he stayed for a time, talking to them and raising their spirits. With this done he returned to Waco, Doc and Sam, who’d been watching him with some admiration.
‘Reckon you’d best have that bugler of your’n sound a few calls through the day, like he was calling to the other soldiers,’ Waco suggested.
‘And you’ve been saying all along that he was a waste of time,’ Beaulieu replied. ‘Do you reckon we could make a run for it?’
‘Not without losing at least half of the patrol,’ Waco replied. ‘We’d best stay where we are for now.’
‘After that?’
‘Waal, I’ll tell you. For a choice I’d rather go out fighting than be captured by that bunch over there.’
For the rest of the day the Mexicans held down a steady and desultory fire on the soldiers, doing no damage and causing no casualties. The aim of the bandits was to hold down the gringos until proof that the rest of the regiment were or were not out. If the regiment was out, the Mexicans would head for the border fast. If not, well odds of two to one were just what the bandits liked.
Night came down and across the valley fires sprang up, lighting the area in front of the pocket even though there was no moon. Waco guessed this would happen and warned Beaulieu that there would be no wild rush out into the night as they had hoped might be presented to them. The soldiers pulled back into the pocket as being easier to guard; sentries were put out and the rest of the men stood down, but without fires.
Just before they turned in for the night, Waco and Sam Bone held a conference; what they talked about none of the others knew. The recruits and Beaulieu got little sleep that night, but when they were not taking their turn at rounds, Waco and Doc rolled in their blankets and slept soundly.
‘Sam Bone’s gone!’
Waco rolled out of his blankets in the cold light of dawn and looked up at Beaulieu. The young officer pointed to where Sam had tethered his mule the night before.
‘Lit out, huh?’
‘Yes, I thought he might have stuck by us. He even took the bugle along.’
Waco did not reply. He went to the edge of the pocket and looked across to where the Mexicans were taking up their places.
‘Did you know he’d gone?’
‘Why sure, I heard him.’
‘Why didn’t you try and stop him?’
‘No need. Like I told you last night me, Doc or Sam could likely get up that face and head back to Orejano, it wouldn’t do the rest of us any good at all. Long afore we could make it there and get reinforcements fetched from the Fort the greasers would have us. ’Sides, me’n Doc couldn’t get a hoss up there and I surely can’t see us walking far in these boots.’
Beaulieu watched Waco, wondering why the young Texan was watching the other side of the valley so carefully. He could not understand the young Texan’s attitude at Sam Bone’s desertion. B
eaulieu opened his mouth to ask a question then saw a Mexican rise and point off along the valley.
‘Get your men mounted!’ There was urgency in Waco’s voice. ‘Pronto! ’
‘What do you mean?’ Beaulieu asked.
‘Move, mister, we’re going into the attack. We’re going out of here whooping and hollering fit to bust, and shooting.’
‘You seen something we missed, boy?’ Doc asked.
‘Mebbe. Happen I call this wrong you can cuss me out. If Saint Peter allows cussing up here.’
Beaulieu stared as Waco ran back and tightened the girths of his paint’s saddle, then swung up. There was an urgency about the Texan that brooked no delay and put direction into the limbs of the soldiers. They grabbed their horses, one of them heaving Davies into his saddle before mounting himself. All eyes were on the tall young Texan who sat at the head of the pocket, a gun in either hand.
The Mexicans were getting excited, men running backwards and forwards and pointing off, while shouting to each other.
‘Yeeah!’
The rebel yell shattered the air, throwing back echoes against the walls of the pocket. With that yell Waco put the pet makers to his paint, causing it to leap forward like the devil after a yearling. Beaulieu roared out, ‘Charge!’
For once in his life, in the brief, whirling second after he left the mouth of the pocket, Waco thought he’d made a bad mistake. Looking along in the direction the Mexicans were staring he saw dust rising; far too much dust for one lone man mounted on a mule. If he’d called this play wrong he’d soon know, for Mexican lead would cut him down.
Then from the fast-rolling cloud of dust came the most beautiful sound Waco had ever heard. A bugle screaming the wild, mad notes of the charge.
That was all the Mexicans wanted to hear. They saw the soldiers coming at them, led by the wild Tejano on a wild-eyed horse and with a brace of roaring guns in his hands. Then they heard the bugle and knew that the captured soldier spoke truly, the regiment was out. A fair portion of it was coming this way. Enough to narrow the odds against the men they’d ambushed.
