A shot rang out from the direction of the post hospital. A pause, then another.
Stryker pulled his Colt and kneed his horse into a fast canter. Beside him Hogg broke a little to the left, putting some fighting space between him and the lieutenant. The scout reached the hospital building first and leaped from his horse. Stryker watched him dash inside, then vanish from sight.
Hurting, Stryker swung stiffly out of the saddle. He turned and saw Birchwood and his men running across the parade ground toward him, rifles at the slant. His boots clumping on the hard-baked earth, Stryker stepped into the hospital—and almost tripped over a dead man.
Jake Allen lay on his back, shot twice in the belly at so close a range the skin around the wounds was blackened. He was unbuttoned and his pants and drawers had fallen down around his ankles. A combination of surprise and pain had already stiffened on his face and his eyes still held the horror he’d felt at the timing and manner of his dying.
Hogg and Birchwood stepped into the hospital at the same time. The young lieutenant saluted and said defensively, “Sir, your orders said nothing about gunshots, so I took it on my own initiative to come immediately to your aid.”
Stryker smiled. “You did the right thing, Lieutenant.”
Now he looked questioningly at Hogg and the scout said, “Something you should come look at.”
All three men stepped out the rear door of the hospital. Beyond lay a hundred yards of sand, rock and cactus that gave way gradually to a low, mesquite and juniper-covered bluff. Behind the rise soared the vast bulk of a mountain peak, its upper slopes green with pine.
Hogg got down on one knee, and motioned to Stryker. “Take a look at that, Lieutenant.”
Stryker bent and saw what the scout was showing him. It was a track, small, narrow, made by a woman’s shoe.
“More of them heading toward the bluff,” Hogg said. “I scouted over that way a piece, but didn’t see hide nor hair of anybody. It’s like the gal who left this track just vanished into thin air.”
“Joe, who the hell is she?”
The scout shrugged. “White woman, slim, young enough to hightail it fast. That’s all I can tell you.”
“Lieutenant Birchwood, take some men and search the bluff. Find that woman, whoever the hell she is,” Stryker said.
After the young officer left, he and Hogg walked back into the hospital building. The scout looked at the body. “Somebody sure saved me a bullet.” His eyes ranged over the man’s naked groin, and he smiled. “Ol’ Jake sure is stiff, ain’t he?”
Stryker nodded. “Before he rode two bullets into hell, he had the woman here.” He shook his head. “What was Jake Allen doing at Fort Merit alone?”
“Maybe he wasn’t alone, Lieutenant, at least not at first. For some reason he stayed behind.”
“The woman?”
“As good a reason as any.”
“It might help explain why he died, but it doesn’t explain the deaths of the soldier and the Mexican.”
“They’re all tied together somehow, Lieutenant, and only the woman can tell us how.”
“We’ll find her,” Stryker said. “Now it’s time to take a look at the commanding officer’s office.”
Unlike the jacals and adobes around the post, the office showed no sign of a hurried departure. Everything was in its place and even the half-dozen sharpened pencils on the desk lay in a neat, soldierly row. A fresh sheet of paper was in the desk blotter and the coffeepot, empty and clean, sat on the stove.
Major Hanson had left no note.
“And why should he?” Stryker said to Hogg. “He figured we were heading for Fort Bowie with Yanisin and his people.”
The scout nodded. “It looks like somebody higher up had a lick of sense and knowed Hanson couldn’t hold Fort Merit with a company of infantry. I reckon he was ordered to pull out with the cavalry.”
“But why leave a soldier behind?”
Hogg shrugged. “A deserter maybe, or a straggler from the half company you sent to reinforce the garrison?”
There was no answer to those questions and Stryker let them go. He glanced around him, not liking the echoing, ominous silence of the office, and stepped to the window. A couple of soldiers were pushing the brass cannon back on its wheels and a few more, their rifles at the ready, were checking out the saloons and general store.
After a while Stryker said, without turning, “We’ll cross Apache Pass and head for Fort Bowie. I don’t want the Apaches to catch us here.”
This time he turned, smiling. “Joe, Mrs. McCabe and Kelly are walking across the parade ground beside the wounded soldier’s travois.”
“Will you excuse me, Lieutenant?” Hogg asked.
“Of course.”
Stryker watched as Hogg and Mary embraced; then the scout put his arm around the woman’s waist, took Kelly’s hand and walked toward the post’s married quarters. He felt a sudden twinge of envy that he instantly regretted. It was true that no one was ever glad at his coming or sad at his leaving, but that did not give him the right to be envious of the happiness of others.
Stryker turned away from the window, and built a cigarette. He was lighting it when, to his surprise, Hogg stepped quickly inside. The man seemed agitated.
“Lieutenant, you can forget Fort Bowie, on account of how we’re not going anywhere,” he said. “There’s talking smoke all around us.”
Stryker didn’t hesitate. “Call Lieutenant Birchwood and his men down from the bluff. I’m going to round up the others.” He looked at the scout. “Hell, this is bad, Joe.”
“About as bad as it gets,” Hogg answered.
Chapter 19
“No sign of the woman, sir,” Birchwood said, his face pale under his deep tan. “But I found out what happened to the relief column. For some reason Corporal Yates and twelve men made a stand on the bluff. They’re all dead and stripped of their arms. I don’t know what happened to the six others.”
Stryker turned to Hogg. “Joe, I hate to ask you this with the Apaches so close—”
“I’ll check it out, Lieutenant.”
The scout left as he always did, silently, like a puff of smoke.
“How many effectives do we have, Lieutenant?” Stryker asked.
“Fourteen, sir. The wounded man, Private Stearns, you already know about.”
“Where is he?”
“In the hospital.”
“We’ll have to move him. We can’t defend the entire post.”
“Sir, his . . . Private Stearns’ left leg is black and it smells like rotten meat. I fear gangrene. It will have to be cut off if we are to save his life. I thought perhaps Mr. Hogg . . .”
“Perhaps. I’ll have a word with him. In the meantime I want to look at the saloons and the hog ranch. One of them may be more defensible than any of the post buildings.”
“What about the cannons, sir?”
Stryker smiled. “I don’t think those relics have been fired since the war. Besides, Lieutenant, only white men stand in line and make themselves a target for grapeshot. The Apache fights a war of movement and he never stays long enough in one place for that.”
Birchwood nodded. “You know a lot about the savages, don’t you, sir?”
Stryker shook his head. “I don’t know anything about Apaches, Lieutenant. But I do know, with a few men, we’re being called upon to defend a military post against the best guerilla fighters in the world. Does that thought fill you with confidence?”
“No, sir.”
“Me neither.”
The Bull’s Head saloon, where Stryker had first encountered Jake Allen, was a sod and canvas building and would offer no protection from bullets. The other saloon was a small, windowless adobe and was even less promising.
The hog ranch was farther out, a squat, adobe with an attached corral and to the right of that, a small barn, a chicken coop and an outhouse. There was also a well, usually dry.
Stryker and Birchwood walked in the direction of the ranch, thei
r heads on swivels, constantly watching the smoke rising from the foothills on three sides of them. The Cabezas Mountains did not possess the same pillared majesty of the Chiricahuas, but they were raw and rugged, and the Apaches knew them well.
Stryker had the feeling he was being watched, that somewhere Geronimo was standing on a rocky plinth studying him with cruel, raven eyes that glittered with black fire.
It was not a reassuring sensation and it brought prickly beads of sweat to the lieutenant’s scarred forehead.
The adobe had been built well, with thick walls and a sod roof that would resist fire. It had two windows to the front, one at the side facing away from the corral, and two at the back. There was a door leading to the outhouse and another at the front. Both were made of stout timbers to keep out the summer wind and the winter cold.
Inside, the single, dirt-floored room was partitioned into a half dozen tiny cells, each with a blanket for a door. A small bar stood at one end, the shelf behind holding a dozen or so bottles, and there was a rough pine table and benches.
Birchwood looked around him, his voice almost reverent. “So this is what a brothel looks like,” he said.
“It’s what a hog ranch looks like,” Stryker said. “There are brothels and brothels, Lieutenant.” He looked at the young man. “You’ve never been in one before?”
“Oh no, sir. I promised my betrothed on the day I graduated from West Point that I would not consort with fancy women and that my lips would ne’er touch whiskey. I stand by those promises.”
“Well, I guess what you’ve never had you won’t miss, Lieutenant.” Stryker looked around him. “This place has excellent fields of fire and the walls are thick. We will make our stand here.”
“A bit cramped, though, sir.”
“With you, Mr. Hogg and me, we’ll have seventeen defenders. Trust me, when the Apaches come at us in force and the bullets start flying, it won’t seem so cramped.”
“No, sir. I mean of course not, sir.”
Stryker smiled. “Brothel fumes getting to you, Lieutenant?”
“I find the place a bit . . . unnerving, sir.”
“Well, if you don’t tell your betrothed that you’re frequenting a bawdy house, then neither will I. Now get your men moved in here and bring as much ammunition as you can find.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And, Lieutenant, stay away from the bar. Suddenly you’re inclining toward some mighty bad habits.”
“Them boys up on the bluff were killed by Apaches, Lieutenant,” Hogg said. “They were all scalped and cut up bad, and a few have arrows in them.”
Stryker was irritated. “Why the hell did that corporal, whatever his name was, decide to fight up there?”
“Probably a sodbuster who didn’t have the sense to know the Apaches could get around behind him an’ attack every which way.”
“Why didn’t the Indians fire the buildings, Joe? Huh? Why didn’t they fire the damned buildings?”
“My guess is they was scared off, or went after something else in a big hurry.”
“But they’re back, damn them.”
“To finish what they started, maybe.”
Stryker bowed his head in thought for a few moments, then lifted bleak eyes to Hogg. “It was Pierce. They went after Rake Pierce.”
Hogg smiled. “You’re stretching your mind out across some mighty big territory, Lieutenant.”
“I know, but I’ve got a bond with that man, Joe. It was forged in the deepest fires of hell and nothing will ever break it. He’s alive. Damn him, I can feel him, feel him—” Stryker made a grabbing motion with his right hand—“this close.”
Hogg inclined his head. “Whatever you say. But one thing fer sure, Geronimo is back. As to the why of the thing, I don’t know. It’s hard to figure an Apache. He’ll bamboozle you every time.”
The first probing attack caught Stryker’s men out in the open.
The lieutenant was watching Birchwood’s infantry file toward the hog ranch when the Apaches struck, two dozen mounted warriors charging out of a narrow arroyo.
Hogg was bringing up the rear, carrying Kelly, his other arm around Mary McCabe’s waist. Yet he fired first. In one fast, graceful motion he shoved the girl into Mary’s arms, turned and drew his Colt.
In anyone else but Hogg, fanning the big revolver would have been a grandstand play, a fancy move full of sound and fury that signified nothing. But in the time it takes a man to blink, he hammered off five shots into the Apaches, killed a pony and sent the rider sprawling. The horse fell in a tangle of kicking legs and for a moment plunged the oncoming riders into confusion. Too close, another Apache mount got caught up in the dying pony’s legs and went down, throwing its rider. The remaining Apaches swung wide, away from the wreck, and were firing their Winchesters from the shoulder. But those precious few seconds Hogg had gained gave the scattered soldiers time to deploy and unlimber their Springfields.
A short, sharp gunfight between Birchwood’s men and the Indians followed, with no hits scored on either side. Then the Apaches were gone, leaving only a drifting cloud of dust to mark their passing.
The Apache who had been thrown by his dying horse had broken his neck and was as dead as he was ever going to be. The warrior who had collided with him had lost his rifle, but sprang to his feet, a knife in his hand, yelling his defiance. Stryker raised his revolver and cut him down.
Joe Hogg had been dead when he hit the ground, a bullet in the middle of his forehead. Mary McCabe, shot several times, lasted a few moments longer, gasping, her frightened eyes clouding in death even as Stryker kneeled beside her.
Kelly was unhurt, but she was hugging and kissing her dead mother, sobbing uncontrollably.
Birchwood stood beside Stryker, looking down at the dead. “Oh my God,” he whispered, over and over again.
“Lieutenant, see to your men,” Stryker snapped. “Occupy the adobe, then form a burial party.”
It took a while, but Birchwood said, “Yes, sir.”
“And Lieutenant, they had a few weeks of happiness. Maybe that’s more than many of us are allowed.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now go about your duties.”
Stryker reached out and closed Hogg’s eyes. He felt that he’d lost his good right arm, and more than that, he’d lost a friend. His only friend.
He looked to the mountains, now bathed in pale gold light as the sun dropped lower in the sky. The breeze brought the scent of pines and dust and of secret places where water tumbled and the gunmetal fish played.
Suddenly he felt very alone. Lonelier than the lonely land. Lonelier than the first man the day after Creation.
“God help me,” Stryker said aloud.
Kelly turned, looking at him with tearstained eyes. But he had no other words, not for her or for himself.
Chapter 20
Before sundown, Stryker saw Joe Hogg and Mary McCabe buried.
Kelly was inconsolable, lost in grief that no child should be asked to bear. Crowded into the adobe, the soldiers did their best, rough and ready men who believed that if they only made the girl laugh, she’d feel better.
After a while they gave up, and Kelly retreated into a dark place they could not reach.
It was widely believed by Stryker and everyone else that Indians would not attack at night, fearing that if they were killed their souls would wander in eternal darkness. But Apaches were willing to fight at any hour, if they thought it would give them an edge.
Throughout the long night they fired probing shots at the adobe, and one of them coaxed cracked notes from a bugle and kept it up for a nerve wracking hour.
On the partition walls of the cells, the soldiers had found crude charcoal drawings of men and women engaged in various sexual activities, and, despite Lieutenant Birchwood’s prim disapproval, they became a topic of excited conversation and speculation until the men drifted off to sleep.
Birchwood had placed the bar off-limits to his soldiers, but Stryker pour
ed himself a stiff drink and built a cigarette. To his joy he had found a supply of tobacco and papers at the general store, even though the Apaches had taken time to loot the place before they left.
Men were sprawled all over the floor and on the stained and odorous cots once used by the whores and their clients. Kelly was huddled in a corner, covered by a soldier’s greatcoat, and seemed to be asleep. Private Stearns, his young face ashen, lay on the pine table, groaning softly, trying his best to be brave. Every now and then a soldier manning the windows stepped beside the youngster, trying to comfort him. Stearns’ left leg was black from his toes to above the knee and would have to come off.
Stryker had brought a supply of knives and meat saws from the post kitchen and he would do the surgery at first light. He shook his head and whispered into the snoring darkness.
“Thanks, Joe, just what I needed.”
The long night shaded into morning and outside birds began to sing. Men stirred and stomped their feet and pipes were lit. Birchwood gave his permission to light the stove just long enough to boil coffee, and Stryker silently approved. It was going to get hot enough in the crowded adobe as it was, and a burning stove would not help matters.
He had not slept. The constant Apache sniping and the prospect of cutting off Private Stearns’ leg had kept him awake throughout the night, though cigarettes and whiskey had helped.
Birchwood, exhibiting the resilience of the young, looked fresh and rested. He stepped beside the wounded soldier and his face fell.
“It’s worse, Lieutenant, huh?” Stryker asked.
“Yes, sir. It has to come off soon.” The young officer looked directly into Stryker’s eyes. “It will kill him if we don’t.”
Birchwood had said “we.” But Stryker knew there was no “we.” There was only “you.” What the boy was really saying was “It will kill him if you don’t, First Lieutenant Stryker.”
Back at the Point, this was called “the burden of command.” He was the senior officer present, and it was his call. That’s what Birchwood expected, and that’s what the soldiers expected.
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