It pains me to say this, too, but our state and our towns and our people and citizens and visitors and friends would be much better off if Matt McCulloch, the jackal with the Devil in his soul, would be killed.
“No one calls for justice; no one pleads a case with integrity. They rely on empty arguments, they utter lies; they conceive trouble and give birth to evil.”
—Isaiah 59:4.
To these three jackals—Sergeant Keegan, the despicable Breen, and Ranger McCulloch—we quote from the Book of Kings: “You have done more evil than all who lived before you.”
Yes, yes, yes, there are likely other jackals in our midst. And more will come. But for this town, this community, this county, this glorious state and the entire Southwest to grow, we need to get rid of—one way or another—this trio of jackals.
CHAPTER 1
“Begging the lieutenant’s pardon, sir, but, if you were to ask me, sir, that’s not a trail I’d be inclined to follow.”
Sergeant Sean Keegan, Eighth United States Cavalry, stood beside his dun gelding, tightening the cinch of the McClellan saddle, and sprayed a pebble with tobacco juice. He knew the lieutenant, proud little peacock that he was, kept watching and waiting for Keegan to look up before he began ridiculing the sergeant in front of the men.
Keegan let him wait.
Eventually, though, Sean Keegan did look up, and even pushed up the brim of his slouch hat so Second Lieutenant Erastus Gibbons of Hartford, Connecticut, fresh out of West Point, could see exactly what Keegan thought of the fool.
“Did Captain Percival put you in charge of this patrol, Sergeant?”
“No,” Keegan said, and wiped his mouth when he added, “Sir.” He thought, But he should have.
“And Sergeant”—Lieutenant Gibbons seemed to like this—“in what year were you graduated from the United States Military Academy?” It made him feel important. Made the kid with acne covering his face think that he was a real man. A soldier, even.
“Never went. Never even got to New York state.” Keegan tugged on the butt of the Springfield rifle in the scabbard, just to make sure he would be able to pull it out cleanly and quickly. They’d have need of it in a few minutes if he couldn’t talk some sense into the green pup.
“That’s what I thought,” the lieutenant said.
Keegan gathered the reins to his dun. “And when was it, sir, that you got your sheepskin from West Point?”
The eight troopers, all about as young and as inexperienced as the lieutenant, laughed, which made the lieutenant’s face turn as bright as the scarlet neckerchief he wore around his fancy blue blouse.
“Quiet in the ranks!”
As Gibbons, who had been at Fort Spalding all of four months, took time to bark commands and insults at his enlisted men, Sergeant Keegan climbed into his saddle and lowered the brim of his hat.
The hat, he guessed, was likely older than Erastus Gibbons.
When he had talked himself into even a deeper red face, the kid sucked in a deep breath, and turned his wrath again on the sergeant. “Do you remember our orders, Sergeant?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So do I, Sergeant. Captain Percival said if we were to come across tracks that we suspected belonged to hostile Apaches, we were to pursue—and engage—unless the tracks led to the international border. Is that your understanding of my, no our, orders, Sergeant?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Have we crossed the Rio Grande, Sergeant?”
“No, sir.”
“And what do you make of those tracks?” Gibbons pointed at the ground.
“Unshod ponies. Four. Heading into that canyon.”
“Unshod. What does that lead you to believe, Sergeant?”
“Likely Apaches, Lieutenant.”
“So why should not we, numbering ten men, pursue, as we have been ordered, four, four stinking, uncivilized, fool Apache bucks?”
If the Good Lord showed any mercy, Keegan thought, He would let Erastus Gibbons drop dead of a stroke or heart failure right now.
The way the kid’s face beamed, there had to be a fair to middling chance that would happen, but the lieutenant caught his breath, uncorked his canteen, and drank greedily. His face began to lose its color, and Keegan began to think that nobody lives forever, and that he had lived a hell of a life, but getting eight kids killed alongside him wouldn’t make him proud when he had to face St. Peter, or more than likely, Old Beelzebub or Satan himself. He didn’t care one way or the other about Erastus Gibbons’s fate. The punk had become tiresome, a boil Sean Keegan couldn’t lance.
“Orders say pursue, Lieutenant,” Keegan pointed out. “I’m all for pursuing. Just not following . . . into there.” He nodded at the canyon’s entrance.
“Sergeant, you disgust me.”
Still, Keegan tried again. “Four Apaches can do a world of hurt, sir. Especially in that canyon.”
The kid shook his head. “All right, Sergeant. What would you have in mind?”
Keegan pointed at the tracks. “Those Apaches didn’t hide their trail. Tracks lead right into that canyon, and this canyon twists and turns about a mile and a quarter till it opens up. They could be hiding anywhere in those rocks, waiting to pick us off.”
“Or they could be riding hard to Mexico.”
Keegan shook his head. “If they wanted to be in Mexico in a hurry, they wouldn’t ride through this death trap.”
“You haven’t told me what you have in mind, Sergeant.”
Keegan pointed. “Leave Trooper Ulfsson here with the horses in the shade. He don’t speak enough English, I don’t speak no Swede, and his face is blistered already. Leaving him here might keep him from dying of sunstroke. The rest of us climb up to the top. I work my way ahead, and when I spot where those bucks are laying in wait, I fetch you boys. We ambush the ambushers.”
The lieutenant shielded his eyes as he examined the mesa then swallowed while still looking at the top. “How long would it take us to climb up there, Sergeant?”
Fifteen minutes if I was alone, Keegan thought, but answered, “Us? Forty minutes.”
“The other side isn’t as high, Sergeant,” Gibbons said. “Why not try that side?”
“Because the Apaches will be on this side. And they’ll see us up yonder.”
The young whippersnapper shook his head. “How do you know which side the Apaches are on, Sergeant? If they’re even up there.”
“Because you’re shielding your eyes from the sun, Lieutenant. And once we start throwing lead at those bucks, they’ll be shielding their eyes to try to spot us.”
The kid looked away, wet his lips, and stared hard at the tracks and the entrance to the canyon. “And what if we find no Apaches?”
Keegan shrugged. “Then we’ve rested our horses, gotten a good stretch of our legs, Ulfsson ain’t dead, and you get to write me up in your report to Captain Percival that I’m a fool.”
“And the Apaches?”
Keegan shrugged again. “We’ll fight them another day.” If I prayed, would that change the punk’s mind?
No, no, that wouldn’t do. If Sean Keegan prayed, God himself would drop dead of a heart attack—and that would be another black mark in the book on Sean Keegan.
The kid pulled down the chinstrap on his kepi, and Sean Keegan knew the boy had made up his mind.
“Sergeant, there’s no glory to be found ambushing four Apache renegades. More important, I don’t think those savages are waiting for us. We’re going through that canyon, Sergeant. Follow those tracks, and catch the Apaches wherever they might be.”
“You’re in command, Lieutenant.” Keegan pulled the trapdoor Springfield from the scabbard and braced the carbine’s stock against his thigh.
“I gave no order to draw your long gun, Sergeant.” The boy’s face was brightening again. “Return that weapon, soldier!”
Keenan sprayed the ground with tobacco juice, then hawked up the quid, and spit it out, too. “I don’t reckon I’ll do that, bub.” He
was done showing respect to this know-it-all who was about to get killed some young boys who might’ve made decent soldiers.
The punk stuck his finger, hidden underneath that fine deerskin gauntlet, at Keegan. “You better put that Springfield away, Sergeant. Or when we reach Fort Spalding, I’ll have you up on charges of disobeying a direct order.”
“If we reach Fort Spalding, boy.” Keegan looked behind him. “And I suggest you gents follow my advice and get your carbines at the ready. You’ll have need of them soon enough.”
A few Adam’s apples bobbed, and some of the green pups even glanced down at their Army-issued. 45-70 weapons. But none dared disobey the lieutenant. Not that Sean Keegan could blame them. He slightly recalled what it was like to be a young soldier after he had joined the Second Michigan in ’61. Thinking that you had to do everything a fool officer told you to do. Not knowing any better. But Keegan had learned. Maybe some of these boys would live long enough to learn, too.
“You’ll wind up a buck private, Keegan, and in the guardhouse for a month.”
“I hope you’re right, Gibbons. Means I won’t be dead.”
The kid turned around, angry, and raised his right hand. “Follow me! Follow me!” He rode, ramrod straight—Keegan would give the kid that much—into the canyon.
He let the other soldiers pass him, felt their stares, but he did not look them in the eye. Didn’t want to remember what they looked like, for one reason. And he waited till the blond-headed, sunburned pup of a Swede, Trooper Ulfsson, passed by at the rear. Only then did Keegan nudge his dun.
“Hey,” Keegan called out, dropping his reins over the horse’s neck, and holding out his right hand. “I’ll take the lead rope to the pack mule, sonny.”
The Swede stared at him blankly.
“The rope, boy. The rope.” He gestured again, and finally, just grabbed hold of the lead rope and waited till the raw recruit understood. “You’ll need both hands soon enough, Ulfsson,” Keegan said.
The boy likely only understood his name.
The Swede rode ahead, pulled up even with another soldier whose name Keegan could not remember.
Column of twos. Riding to their deaths.
Keegan sighed and rode behind them, pulling the mule along. Yeah, Ulfsson would have need of two hands in a short while, but that’s not why Keegan wanted to pull the mule. The mule carried the kegs of water. It also carried ammunition.
They’d have need of both shortly.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
WILLIAM W. JOHNSTONE is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of over 300 books, including the bestselling series Smoke Jensen, the Mountain Man, Preacher, the First Mountain Man, MacCallister, Flintlock, and Will Tanner, Deputy U.S. Marshal, and the stand-alone thrillers The Doomsday Bunker, Tyranny, and Black Friday.
Being the all-around assistant, typist, researcher, and fact-checker to one of the most popular western authors of all time, J. A. JOHNSTONE learned from the master, Uncle William W. Johnstone.
The elder Johnstone began tutoring J.A. at an early age. After-school hours were often spent retyping manuscripts or researching his massive American Western History library as well as the more modern wars and conflicts. J.A. worked hard—and learned.
“Every day with Bill was an adventure story in itself. Bill taught me all he could about the art of storytelling. ‘Keep the historical facts accurate,’ he would say. ‘Remember the readers—and as your grandfather once told me, I am telling you now: Be the best J. A. Johnstone you can be.’”
Visit the website at www.williamjohnstone.net.
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