Stryker looked around him, searching the young, troubled faces that were waiting for him to say something, words of strength and wisdom that would reassure them. He gave up the search. There was no one else, only Steve Stryker. He had to do it.
“One of you men, bring a bottle of rotgut from the bar,” he said. “I want this soldier good and drunk.”
Stryker placed the flat of his hand on Private Stearns’ heaving chest. “I have to take your leg off, son,” he said. “There’s no other way.”
The teenager tried to smile. “I like to dance, sir. I was good at it back home in Tennessee. My . . . my sisters teached me, and my ma.”
“One time at a cotillion I saw a man dance on one leg,” Stryker lied. “He did all right.” He leaned closer to the youngster. “What’s your given name, soldier?”
“Sam, sir. My pa set store by that name, said it was crackerjack.”
Stryker smiled. “It sure is a crackerjack name, just like your pa said.”
A soldier brought a bottle and with a rough, kindly gentleness raised the youngster’s head. “Get this whiskey down you, Sammy, boy,” he said. “I want to see you hymn-singing, snot-slingin’ drunk.”
A bullet shattered a window pane and thudded into the far wall, followed by a furious fusillade of fire that threatened to shred the adobe into Swiss cheese. The soldiers at the windows were shooting, but no hits were scored. Apaches moved like wraiths and were hard to kill.
A big, bearded trooper yelped as a bullet cut across his bicep and another got a faceful of splinters as a shot exploded the dry timber of the window frame.
Stryker watched Stearns try to drink, but the raw whiskey would not stay down and the youngster threw it back up, now tinged with scarlet blood. The inside of the adobe was thick with drifting gunsmoke, the stink of sulfur hung in the air and the amber light of the burning stove transformed the adobe into an antechamber of hell.
The coffee was boiling, but Stryker had a large, flat meat cleaver in the coals, the iron glowing dull red, and the fire stayed lit.
“Got one!” a soldier yelled.
“The hell you did!” somebody answered. “He’s still running.”
Birchwood had a half dozen men kneeling behind him at the door. He looked at Stryker who was standing motionless beside Stearns.
“Permission to sortie, sir,” he said. “I can bring more of our rifles to bear.”
Like a man waking from a dream, Stryker moved to a window. Outside, the Apaches were tightening the ring around the ranch, taking advantage of every scrap of cover. As Stryker watched, an Indian rose up, fired, and then disappeared again like a fleeting shadow.
A direct attempt to storm the adobe anytime soon was unlikely. The Apaches were playing a waiting game, trying to whittle down the number of men inside before launching an all-out assault.
Already two soldiers were wounded, both slightly, but the Apaches were finding the range and their fire was becoming more economical as they chose their targets.
Stryker stepped away from the window and raised his voice above the roar of gunfire. “Deploy in line, Lieutenant,” he said, “and see if you can drive them back. A couple of volleys; then get inside again. For God’s sake, don’t linger.”
He looked around him. “You men at the front windows, give Lieutenant Birchwood some covering fire.” As the Springfields crashed, Stryker nodded to Birchwood and yelled, “Go, Lieutenant!”
The door swung open and Birchwood and his men dashed outside.
Immediately the tempo of the Apache fire increased, the flat bark of the Springfields a drumming counterpoint to the sharp ring of the Indian Winchesters.
There are times when a man does a wrongheaded thing and later he can’t explain the why or the wherefore of it. Stryker knew he was in command, aware of the fact that he should not risk his life rashly and unnecessarily. Yet he drew his Colt and plunged from the adobe, his eyes seeking a target the instant he got outside.
Birchwood’s men were kneeling in line, firing steadily. The Apaches, sensing the kill, had left cover and had formed into a loose arc, working their Winchesters.
Stryker emptied his revolver at an Indian wearing a red headband and fancy Mexican vest, and was sure he’d scored a hit. But the man vanished from sight and there was nothing to mark where he’d been but a wisp of dust.
An Apache fell to Birchwood’s fire, and then one of his men toppled forward, his faced covered in sudden blood. A bullet tugged at Stryker’s sleeve and a second kicked up dust at his feet. Another Apache went down, and they began to give ground, moving back, seeking cover again.
“Inside, Lieutenant,” Stryker yelled. “We burned them.”
He had reloaded his Colt and fired it dry before following Birchwood and his men into the adobe. The soldier who’d been shot was dead and they left him where he lay.
As he slammed and bolted the door behind him, Stryker’s reeling mind betrayed him. Unbidden, the thought came to him, “Please, God, let Private Sam Stearns be as dead as the man outside.”
Suddenly ashamed of himself, he stepped beside the young soldier. Stearns was still alive, his blue eyes huge and frightened in his ashen face. As bullets rattled into the adobe, Stryker spared a quick glance at Kelly. The girl was terrified, but she was still huddled silent in a corner and was unhurt.
The lieutenant turned his attention to Stearns’ leg. Someone, probably Birchwood, had ripped the youngster’s pants to allow for the gangrene’s grotesque swelling. The leg itself was black, stinking, shining in the half-light like a gigantic, loathsome slug.
“Sir . . .” Stearns began. He could say no more, the words dying on his lips.
Stryker nodded. “I know, son. I know.” He laid his hand on the boy’s fevered forehead. “Very soon you’re going to have to be very brave.”
“Yes, sir, I know.” His eyes were haunted as if he stood, trembling, at a door marked FEAR. “The trouble is, sir, I’m not very brave.”
“Soldier, you’re doing just fine so far,” Stryker said. “When this is over I’m going to have Lieutenant Birchwood make you a corporal.”
The boy managed a wan smile. “I’d like that, sir.” “Those stripes will be on your sleeve in no time.” Stryker turned. “Lieutenant, I need two men.” When the soldiers stepped to the table, he said, “Hold him down.”
A bullet ricocheted off the iron stove, sang its vindictive song, then buried itself in a wall. At one of the windows a soldier fired, cursed, and fired again.
“You’ve got a good hold of him?”
One of the soldiers, yet another frightened youngster, nodded, pressing down hard on Stearns’ shoulders.
“Then let’s get it done,” Stryker said. He picked up his instruments, a razor sharp kitchen knife and a bone saw. It was not yet time for the saw and he laid it aside.
Bending over, he poised the knife over Stearns’ leg. Then he cut deep.
Chapter 21
Private Stearns’ scream was immediately echoed by Kelly’s terrified shriek. The girl was standing, her eyes transfixed on the body lying on the table. A soldier moved to comfort her, but she ducked away from him and cried out again.
Sweat beaded on Stryker’s brow and his hands were crimson, slippery, slick, slimy with blood. Tears ran down the cheeks of the younger of the two soldiers holding down Stearns’ arching body, and his lips moved in what might have been a prayer.
Green bile rising in his throat, Stryker sliced deeper, deeper still. Blood spurted from the soldier’s leg, gushing fountains of red, splashing the front of the lieutenant’s shirt.
The firing had stopped. The Apache, as curious as deer, looked at one another, wondering what was going on inside the adobe.
There! Stryker saw the white of bone.
He set the knife aside and picked up the bone saw.
The saw bit into green bone, skidding, making a noise like grinding corn. Stearns was beyond screaming. His mouth was wide-open, but he made no sound.
Breathing he
avily, Stryker worked the saw back and forth. He shook stinging salt sweat from his eyes.
My God, would the bone never cut?
Then he was through and he used the knife again. Now it was like cutting fatty pork, greasy and slick.
The leg was free. The stump was red, raw, pumping gore.
“Birchwood!” No time for the military courtesies. “Bring the cleaver.”
The young lieutenant tried the wood and steel handle of the cleaver, jerked his burned hand away, then wrapped a rag around his hand.
“The cleaver, goddamn you!” Stryker yelled.
Stearns was screaming again, bucking wildly against the strong hands of the soldiers holding him.
The boy was in mortal agony, Stryker knew. But worse was to come. He knew that too.
Gingerly taking the hot handle of the cleaver, he quickly shoved the cherry-red steel blade against the raw, scarlet meat of the stump.
Stearns screamed into the sizzling silence. Only once. Then a ringing quiet.
The youngster’s eyes were wide-open, filled with the memory of pain. The two soldiers, feeling the life go out of Stearns, lifted their hands off his shoulders.
Stryker opened his fingers and let the cleaver clang to the floor.
“Sir, his poor heart just give out,” the older of the two soldiers said. “It couldn’t take it no more.”
Lifting bleak eyes to the man, Stryker said nothing. Now the bitter gorge was rising in him and his mouth filled with saliva that tasted like acid.
He turned away, bent over and retched uncontrollably. He threw up everything that was in his stomach, then gagged convulsively on its emptiness.
“Try this, sir.” Birchwood was beside him, a cup of coffee in his hand. “It might help.”
Stryker took the cup and with bloodshot eyes looked over the room. “You men,” he said, “step careful over here. I made a real mess.”
His thoughts turned inward. A mess of everything.
The coffee cup in his hand, Stryker stepped back to Stearns’ body. Seemingly out of nowhere, slow black flies were angling above the bloody stump. He walked into a cell, dragged a blanket off the cot and spread it over the youngster’s body. The soldiers were watching him, their eyes neither accusing nor sympathetic. Just . . . watching.
He felt he had to say something, anything. In the end, all he could manage was “I’m sorry.” Words as inadequate as they sounded.
Stryker hadn’t really expected “You did your best, sir,” or “Sam was too far gone, sir,” but what he didn’t anticipate was total silence. It was not a hostile quiet and in its emptiness it did not apportion blame. Perhaps it was just dull resignation, that and the awareness that come night the moon would rise but they would not see it because they might all be as dead as Private Stearns.
Speaking into the vacuum, Stryker said, “I just wanted all of you to know that I tried.”
This time there was no answering silence. Soldiers shuffled their feet, lit their pipes or stepped to the stove for coffee. The men manning the windows found sudden interest outside. Flies droned and gorged under the table amid the blood puddles. Kelly was sobbing quietly, but Stryker, who did not know how to comfort himself, could do nothing for her.
He looked at his hands, crusted in rust red. There was no water to spare to wash them. Stryker smiled a bitter little smile. Yes, he’d been caught red-handed, demonstrating his lack as a leader and as a man.
The early morning brightened and hard sunlight bladed through the windows, catching up flickering dust motes. In the cruel illumination Stryker’s disfigured face was a fearsome parody of his once handsome features and men did not look at him, or, if they did, turned quickly away, shocked by what they’d seen.
He drank his coffee, his churning belly slowly settling.
Then the Apaches started firing again.
By noon, another soldier was dead and two were wounded, one with a sucking chest wound who could not live. As far as anyone could tell, since the sortie outside, not a single Apache had even been scratched.
The Apache fire was increasing as more warriors, coming up from the south, joined in the battle. As Indian confidence grew, Geronimo had sent in mounted attacks, the warriors boldly riding right up to the adobe. The soldier with the chest wound had been struck by a lance hurled through a window. And, as the whooping Apache rode away, he’d demonstrated his disdain for the marksmanship of those inside by showing them his bare ass.
Stryker could not fault Birchwood’s infantrymen. They were green troops, hastily recruited and trained for the Indian Wars, and this was their first taste of fighting Apaches, a deadly, ruthless enemy much their superior.
Joe Hogg could have made a difference, but Joe was dead. His Henry was propped in a corner and Stryker, ignoring the bullets zinging through the windows, crossed the room and picked up the rifle.
If he could get to one of the saloons, he could lay down a good fire and attack the Apaches from the rear. That would give Birchwood another chance to try a breakout and catch the Apaches off guard. It was a slim chance, but it was the only chance any of them had. If he made it to—
The Apache fire suddenly ceased.
A soldier at the window closest to him was staring outside, his eyes wide, his jaw slack. “What the hell?” the man said.
Stryker stepped to the window and saw what the soldier saw. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said.
Chapter 22
A red-haired woman was walking across the dusty, sun-splashed ground toward the adobe.
Her dress was stained and torn and her hair hung over her shoulders in dirty tangles. She walked purposely, neither looking to the left nor right, her eyes fixed on the building.
All Indians, but especially the Apache and Navajo, had a superstitious dread of madness, believing that sufferers had been possessed by a powerful, malevolent demon. One by one they left cover and shrank back from the woman, watching her with black, wary eyes.
She was a nepotonje, a bear watcher, since all understood that the demon often reveals itself in that guise. The more pragmatic Sioux would call her simply, witkowin, crazy woman, but the Apache knew better than that.
The flaming red hair was unmistakable and Stryker recognized her immediately as the silent, staring woman he’d rescued from the Apaches. He assumed she’d have left with the other women from the post, but, deranged as she was, she must have run away and hidden in the hills.
But Jake Allen had found her in the hospital, tried to force himself on her, and she’d killed him. That would explain the gunman’s death, but it shed no light on what he was doing at the abandoned Fort Merit in the first place.
As he saw the woman reach the adobe and a soldier unbolted the door for her, Stryker felt a vague pang of disappointment. After Joe Hogg had found female tracks on the bluff, Stryker had harbored a flicker of hope that somehow Millie had come back, looking for him. He had not fanned the flames of that hope, knowing how foolish it was, yet now he realized that a feeble, dying spark had still lingered in him.
The woman stepped inside, looking around her. Her eyes showed no recognition of the soldiers, or any interest in where she was. But she did see Kelly. Without a word she crossed the room, her battered shoes clinking through the empty brass shells littering the floor, and sat beside the girl. Kelly looked at her warily, but the woman reached out and took her in her arms, laying her head on her breast.
“Sleep now, child,” she whispered.
Those were the first words Stryker had ever heard her say.
Apaches didn’t scare worth a damn and although the crazy woman had unnerved them, they soon resumed firing on the adobe.
“Mr. Birchwood,” Stryker said. “A word, if you please.”
The young lieutenant stepped beside him and, his breeding coming to the fore, tried to say all the right things. “Don’t blame yourself, sir,” he said. “No one could have done better.” He looked at the blanketed body. “Private Stearns must have had a weak heart.”
> “There was nothing wrong with his heart, Lieutenant. Without ether or even whiskey, the pain was just too much for him to bear. I’m to blame. I’m a damned butcher, not a surgeon.”
Birchwood would not be moved. “It had to be done, sir. It fell to you and you did your best.”
Bullets thudded into the adobe. Stryker glanced out of a window and saw the Apaches massing for another mounted attack.
Stryker had intended to tell Birchwood about his plan to reach one of the saloons and catch the Indians in crossfire. He pushed that aside for now and stepped to the window. One of the soldiers moved back and Stryker took his place. He was aware of his limitations. A fair hand with the revolver, he barely passed muster at the Point in rifle shooting, coming in dead last out of a class of thirty-eight.
Now he steeled himself. The Henry wasn’t a cumbersome model 1869 Cadet Rifle and maybe he could do better. He had to do better. He racked a round into the chamber and waited for the attack.
It never came.
The Apaches suddenly faded back into the hills, leaving behind them only emptiness and silence. As Stryker watched, a dust devil spun across the parade ground and abruptly collapsed into a puff of sand. A piece of yellow paper, tossed by the breeze, fluttered around the adobe like a moth before rising higher into the air and vanishing from sight.
From behind Stryker, a man asked, “Why the hell did they pull back like that?”
No one answered him because no one knew.
Stryker walked to the door, stepped outside and looked around him. The peaks of the Chiricahuas were bathed in afternoon light, their lower slopes green. A bird called. The scent of cedar and sage hung in the air like a thin mist, as subtle and understated as the French perfume of a beautiful Washington belle. Deep in the bunch grass, crickets sawed tunes on their serrated legs, filling the morning with scratchy sound.
The riders came from the west—dirty, shaggy men mounted on small, wiry ponies.
Stryker had left his field glasses in the adobe. He took off his slouch hat and held it high against the sun, his eyes squinting in the glare, trying to make out the manner of these men.
Stryker's Revenge Page 12
