by Ralph Cotton
“That’s it, he’s dead!” Corporal Donnely jerked away from a boulder, jacking a round into his rifle chamber. “I’m gonna put one bullet right between—”
“As you were, Corporal!” Sergeant Baines yelled as he shoved him back.
“But, Baines! You can’t allow him to pull out now! This is pure madness!”
“I’m not allowing him…or you, or anybody else,” he said as he swung a hard gaze around at the others, “to jeopardize my men or this mission. For the last time, is that clear, Donnely?”
“I fail to see how shooting this jack-legged worthless bast—”
Sergeant Baines snatched him by his sweaty shirt and yanked him forward. “Careful, boy. You’re one heartbeat away from going home wrapped in pine.” A hammer cocked beneath Donnely’s chin, Donnely felt the warm steel barrel push against the soft flesh. Baines had made sure the other soldiers didn’t see the pistol, pulling Donnely in chest to chest against him.
Baines’s voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. “Listen to me, you down-rank peckerwood! I’ve got my hands full here without you getting these men all worked into a lather. My job is to handle this shave-tail lieutenant…your job is to handle these men while I do it. The next time you fail to back me up, there won’t be enough of your shirt left for me to grab.” He lowered the barrel an inch. “Now nod your ragged head and say, Yes, Sergeant Baines, I agree.”
“Yes-Sergeant-I-agree.” Corporal Donnely’s head bobbed as if on a loose spring.
“Now stick tight here, Corporal. This will only take me a minute.” Sergeant Baines stepped back in a way that kept his pistol hidden from the rest of the troops.
“What exactly is the hold-up? Did you not hear my order, Sergeant?” Lieutenant Howell asked, speaking down to Baines as he came walking up to him. Lieutenant Howell’s horse fidgeted, stepping high-hoofed in place. Baines caught it by the bridle, settling it.
“Indeed I did, sir…as did all the Border Dog—I mean the bandits up in the rocks, I’m certain.”
The lieutenant’s face reddened a bit, but before he could respond, Sergeant Baines added quickly, “And I have to say, sir, I only wish I’d have come up with this same idea hours ago.”
The lieutenant looked puzzled. “Oh? You do?”
“Aye, sir, that I do.” Baines smiled and winked. “Make them think we’re going to attack, eh? Get their guard up facing us while we slip a couple of men up wide around them and find out just exactly how many we have left up there?” He pushed up his sweat-stained campaign hat. “Yes, sir, I agree one hundred percent.”
The lieutenant sat quiet for moment, a contemplative expression on his sweaty face. “Then what are we waiting for?”
“Not a thing, sir. Just thought it best to stall a few moments, let them sweat. Right, sir?”
Again a contemplative gaze. “Yes, Sergeant, exactly. Now carry on.”
“Oh, one thing, sir.” Baines stopped short as he turned. “Since I have so many new men, I’m sure you’ll want an old hand like me to be one of the men scouting?”
“Yes, of course. That goes without saying.” The lieutenant waved him back with a gloved hand. “Now let’s get it done, shall we?”
Sergeant Baines moved to the men behind the boulder, where he squatted down and they drew around him. “Listen up, lads, the lieutenant has decided to move with caution—a damned good idea, I might add.” He shot Corporal Donnely a glance, then went on to explain. “I’ll take two men with me and do a little recognizance up there. Corporal Donnely will be in charge here until I return.”
When Baines finished talking, he pointed a gloved finger. “You two troopers come with me. The rest of you pass the word down the line for everybody to hold fast to this position no matter what, unless the corporal says otherwise.”
As the men moved away and Sergeant Baines stood up dusting his trousers, Corporal Donnely gave him a questioning gaze. “This wasn’t his idea…it was yours, wasn’t it?”
“It makes no difference whose idea it was. Ideas come from all directions.” He stared at Donnely through cold gray eyes. “Are you back on my side?”
Donnely nodded. “Yeah, I’m with you…but I see how it’s going to be. You’ll keep on covering his worthless arse, won’t you?”
“Until the saints step down from the sky, Corporal. Indeed I will. I’ll cover his, you’ll cover mine, the men will cover yours, and may the good Lord cover us all.” He managed a weary smile and winked. “That’s been the way of the soldier since time eternal.”
“That doesn’t make it right.”
“And that doesn’t make it wrong. We’ve got two women up there, Corporal…they need us to come get them. What say we do that and forget all this grab-arse? Those men who broke through yesterday might not be crossing the border at all. They might very well be coming back, to hit us from behind.”
“Then why have they waited so long?”
“Because they could be bringing back more men with them.”
“Jesus.” Corporal Donnely let out a breath, thinking about the grim possibility. “Yes, you’re right, they could be. Don’t worry, I’ll hold things together down here. But one thing I’ve got to know…would you have shot me?”
Baines’s smile dropped like a flag to half-mast. “Buck me again if you truly want to know.” He turned and walked toward the horses.
“Fair enough. But I’m telling you now, Sergeant, I’ll follow your orders here, and when we get back to the fort, I’m requesting a transfer.”
Baines looked over his shoulder, the smile coming back to him now. “When we get back, Corporal?” He shook his dusty head. “Never say when while the if is still in question.”
It was hot in the afternoon when Sergeant Baines and the two men had belly crawled from rock to rock, higher and higher for the past hour. He’d deliberately chosen two brand-new recruits to go with him. These men were young, frightened, and would follow whatever order he gave as long as it didn’t put them out front in a shooting situation.
“This is as far as you two go,” Baines whispered over his shoulder. “Keep your heads down and stay put here.”
“For how long, Sergeant?”
Baines looked into red-rimmed eyes, mantled by dusty hat brims. “Until hell freezes, lads.”
The two young men looked at one another with uncertainty as Sergeant Baines slid forward toward a sheer rock wall towering above the steep sloping land surrounding them. “I hope you know what he meant by that, Dubbs,” one whispered to the other, “because I sure don’t.”
“Yeah, I understand. He’s saying use common sense—be ready for anything.”
“Well, since you know what he wants, I’ll just do like you say, all right?” He fidgeted with the rifle in his hands. “You’ve been soldiering a month longer than me anyway.”
“All right then. Just stay down and stay quiet like he told us to. We’ll be fine.”
Ahead of them, Sergeant Baines rose up at the base of the rock wall and slipped into the black shadow of a crevice. Inside the darkness, he laid his rifle on the ground, took off his shirt, and began a hand-over-hand climb as the crevice grew wider. When his arms could no longer stretch across the width of the jagged opening, he reached out with his foot onto a narrow ledge and stepped out on it, struggling upward finger-hold by toe-hold until he scooted his weight over the edge and flattened himself on the ground.
Baines unsnapped his holster flap, took out his pistol, checked it, then crawled across the hot flat summit for twenty yards. At the other edge, he peered down through the spiny branches of a low juniper clinging to the cusp of rocky soil. Saints preserve us, he thought. On a wide spot in the dusty trail, he counted seven men strewn out around the loaded wagon. In the rocks a few feet above them, he counted four more in a high guard position.
The tandem wagon had been uncoupled and pulled apart. The ammunition crates had been moved into the front wagon, the one still hitched to the mules. In the second wagon, six kegs of black powder had been drawn in
to a cluster with a long wick hanging down from the center of them. Rocks had been piled up around the kegs. A doubled length of rope stretched from the rear of the wagon to a stand of rock, holding it in place. In the first wagon, sat the two women, their hands tied, the one in the ragged dress wiping a forearm across her face. Beside her, the dark-haired woman looked up and along the high edge, her eyes moving past him, then back down. Had she seen him? Baines ducked back instinctively. In front of the wagon, he’d seen the craggy face of Major Martin Zell.
It had been many years, but Baines remembered that face. Time had blown its aging breath across the man—his shoulders a bit thinner now—yet the fiery aura of Major Zell was no less bold or intense than the day Baines had watched Zell’s Confederates overrun the Union position at Peach Orchard. Baines leaned farther back from the edge and closed his eyes for a second. He’d been right about it being Major Zell, and he’d been right about there being more men up here than the lieutenant had anticipated. This had been a trap waiting for them, a disaster in the making.
In the wagon below, Maria had caught a glimpse of someone high up on the rocky edge, seventy feet above them. She leaned a bit forward and spoke to Zell loud enough for whoever was up there to hear. “These soldiers are not fools. They will not ride in here blindly and be blown apart.”
Zell turned and looked at her, wondering what had caused her to say such a thing. Then he raised his face slowly and scanned the edge of the rocky crest above the trail as Maria continued. “And they will know you are turning back and taking the high trail north while the rest of your men come back and attack from below.”
Zell didn’t answer. Instead, he spoke to Bowes as he scanned the high ridge. “Mr. Bowes, didn’t you send Payton and Leo Parker to stand guard on the high point?”
“That I did, sir.” Bowes scanned the ridge with him. “They should have been up there an hour ago.”
“Then I must assume they have the summit secured,” Zell said. He turned to Maria. “I have never shot a woman…please don’t provoke me into doing so.”
Beside him, old man Dirkson hurried back from checking on the mules and with a grunt raised himself up into the wagon seat. “I’ll get this wagon turned and out of here, Major. Don’t worry about these womenfolk. I’ll see to it they cause no trouble.” He jerked the wagon brake loose and turned the wagon around in the narrow trail, glancing harshly at Maria as he tugged back hard on one rein and slapped the mules’ backs with the other. “Don’t test him, little lady. Zell ain’t the sort of man you can bicker with.”
Atop the rock summit, Sergeant Baines heard Zell’s words and moved back farther from the edge. There were two men up here? He glanced all around. Then where were they? Well, wherever they were, they hadn’t seen him crossing the summit. He’d made it this far, and thanks to the woman in the wagon, he now had an idea what the lieutenant could expect when he brought the troops up into the rocky pass. Zell intended to move the wagon load of ammunition off across the high rock land, let the soldiers attack him from below, then light the wick and cut the rope holding the wagon load of black powder kegs as he pulled his men back.
This was a smart move on Zell’s part. Baines took a deep breath. If the lieutenant fell for it, there would soon be dead soldiers all over the hillside. Baines wasn’t about to let that happen. He eased back to the edge of the cliff and looked down as the old man coaxed the mules forward, pulling the heavily loaded wagon up onto a rough path leading off the narrow trail. Baines saw the dark-haired woman shoot a guarded glance up in his direction as the wagon pulled away.
Okay, here goes…Baines shoved his pistol back down in his holster and snapped the holster shut. Then he slipped over the edge, caught a toe-hold in the wall of rock and slowly started down.
At the bottom of the rocky trail, Lieutenant Howell stepped his horse back and forth, getting restless. It had been over an hour, with no word from Sergeant Baines and his two men. When Howell saw a thin sheet of dust drift above the rocks a hundred yards up the slope, he turned his horse and called out to Donnely. “Corporal, prepare your men to advance.” The rise of dust meant the bandits were moving out. He wasn’t about to lose them now.
“But, sir—!”
Corporal Donnely had started to protest, but Lieutenant Howell cut him off. “Corporal, you have my order! Move quickly!”
At the first sound of men and horses moving upward across the rocks, Zell got down from his saddle and stood in the trail. He looked back at the wagon load of black powder twenty yards behind him and then at his riflemen. One man had stayed back with the wagon, a lit cigar in one hand and a knife in the other. “Ready, men. Here they come,” Zell called out to the men who’d taken position among the cover of rocks and deadfall.
Above the wagon, Sergeant Baines inched downward, hugging inside a dark crevice, keeping an eye on the man behind the wagon. A trickle of loose sand spilled from beneath Baines’s boot heels. He prayed the man below wouldn’t see it. “Let them press us back, men,” Zell said in a lowered voice. “Make them think we’re giving them the high ground. Prepare to fall away on both sides.”
As the first sound of sporadic rifle shots came exploding up from Howell’s troops, Sergeant Baines had made it to the ground and leaped into rock cover ten feet behind the man at the wagon. By the time Howell’s attack had reached full pitch, and rifle shots sliced through the air like angry hornets, Baines had crawled forward on his belly with his pistol out. He hugged the ground four feet behind the man at the wagon when Zell turned and called, “Light the fuse! Cut the rope! Barnes!”
Twenty yards down the slope, Lieutenant Howell leaped out of his saddle under a barrage of rifle fire. The men had spread out along either side of the trail, down from their saddles and taking cover where they could. “My God, Corporal! How many are up there?” Howell ducked down as he shouted. Bullets whined overhead.
“We might’ve known by now, sir, had we waited to hear from Sergeant Baines!”
Lieutenant Howell ignored him. “Press upward, men!” But as he stood to wave the men forward, a volley of fire sent him ducking back down. “Gads, man! They do not fight like a gang of ruffians!”
“No, sir,” Corporal Donnely said in a tight voice, reloading his rifle, “they most certainly do not.”
A young private came sliding in beside them beneath a hail of bullets. “Corporal, back there, riders coming!” His breath heaved in his chest.
Donnely looked behind them at the rising dust across the flatlands below. From within the swirl of dust, he saw the men coming forward abreast, twenty or more of them, their horses closing fast. “Oh, my Lord.”
Zell had seen the riders as well and moved his horse off to the side of the trail behind the cover of a tall rock. “Prepare to move back, men!” He turned, calling back the wagon, “Cut the rope and let it go—!” But his words stopped short, seeing the body lying on the ground beside the wagon. “What the hades?”
Behind Barnes’s body on the ground, Baines stood holding the knife and the cigar. Zell saw him cut the fuse short, stick the tip of the glowing cigar to it, then run, leaping over the edge of the rock trail and rolling down into a bed of jagged rocks.
“Take cover!” Zell leaped as he screamed, seeing the fuse sizzle up the side the powder keg.
For a second, the whole slope of sand and rock seemed to lift off the earth and hang suspended. Then it fell with a bone-jarring thud as a heavy rain of rock and splintered wood showered down on Major Zell, his men, and the soldiers on the rocky slope below. Horses screamed and tumbled, blown sideways off their hooves, red ribbons of blood spurting away as broken rocks bored through them. Dust shot up, then balled downward in a gray-gold swirl of heat and debris, like lightning from within a blackened cave.
“My God!” a cowering soldier cried out. Baines heard him as he scrambled wide of Zell’s men and downward through a shower of sand and hot swirling air. He stumbled, falling over rock, and running on as he rose to his feet. A rifle shot glanced pas
t his head as one of the soldiers recovered from the blast and rose up to fire.
“Don’t shoot!” Corporal Donnely cried out. “It’s the sarge!” As he yelled, he looked back on the flatlands, seeing the other group of Zell’s men closing fast, their weapons coming up, blossoming fire from their muzzles. Now bullets spun in from below, ricocheting and slicing the air around the pinned soldiers. “To the rear, men! Turn and fire!”
Sergeant Baines hit the ground beside the stunned lieutenant, snatching his rifle from his hand. He rose to his knee and fired at the coming riders as they veered and made their way into the rocky slope, keeping to one side out of Zell’s riflemen’s line of fire. Above the soldiers, Zell and his riflemen had recovered from the blast and began firing down on the helpless soldiers. Baines turned and fired back. “Sergeant, we’re trapped here!” Lieutenant Howell drew himself into a tight ball against the rock behind him.
“So it appears, sir.” Baines fired steadily, first in one direction, then the other.
“We’ve got to push upward!” Donnely yelled above the heavy rifle fire. “Our only chance is to push them up the trail and get ourselves better cover.”
“What trail? There is no more trail!” Baines shouted.
Donnely glanced over his shoulder to where the dust began to settle. The blast had brought down tons of broken rock into the narrow opening, turning the trail into a high wall of jagged rock. “Sweet Jesus!” He turned and continued firing.
“All we can do is swing hard to the side.” Baines waved a dusty, blood-streaked hand. “We’ve got to get deeper between them. Make them fire on one another!”
Lieutenant Howell spoke in a trembling voice. “These…these men. They are not bandits at all, Sergeant! They are a seasoned military body!”
“Yes, sir, I believe you’re right.” Baines reached over and tore open an ammunition pouch on the lieutenant’s belt. He hurried, reloading the rifle.
