by Peter Dawson
BEYOND
FORT NORTH
BEYOND
FORT NORTH
PETER DAWSON
Copyright © 2017 by David S. Glidden. Copyright © 1949 by the Curtis Publishing Company. Copyright © renewed 1977 by Dorothy S. Ewing.
E-book published in 2017 by Blackstone Publishing
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Trade e-book ISBN 978-1-5047-8868-7
Library e-book ISBN 978-1-5047-8867-0
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the Library of Congress
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Chapter One
Toward 11:00 that morning he had several fleeting glimpses of the formation assembling, though the guardhouse window let him see only the far edge of the log-palisaded parade so that he couldn’t be exactly sure of what was going on. There was one moment’s keen lift of pride that crowded out his deep depression as K Troop trotted smartly across his narrow field of vision. Afterward he ran a hand over his dark hair, then along his flat, clean-shaven cheeks, and finally down to smooth his dark blue tunic, the gestures automatic and prompted by the unconscious wish that there should be no flaw in his appearance.
At the approach of this critical moment for which he had been waiting these many interminable days, Dan Gentry found himself drained of all emotion. That was in a way surprising, for at this turning point in his life he had supposed he would be plagued by bitterness and regret. But both were long gone, buried deep under the weight of four weeks’ solitary reflection that had added up to nothing but a complete and confounding failure at understanding why this should be happening to him.
Nothing remained but to undergo the unpleasantness of the ceremony that would punctuate the already established facts. He was wishing only that this was over, that he could finally be away from here and on his own.
The abrupt and heavy thud of boots along the corridor planking turned him from the barred window now, and in the gloom beyond the cell grating he made out two figures approaching. The taller was oppressively familiar. But sight of the other, short, stocky; and with a saber under arm, stirred in him a pleasurable anticipation he managed to conceal nicely as the padlock was rattling against the hasp.
“That’ll be all, Corporal.”
Sergeant Tim McCune spoke in a brittle tone and waited out there, watching the tall trooper go back along the corridor. Only at the hollow slam of the guardroom door did his glance swing around to Gentry. He stepped into the cell then, drew stiffly to attention, and saluted.
Gentry returned the salute and over an interval of several seconds the two eyed each other silently. The way McCune’s round Irish face slowly lost its enigmatic set before a tightening expression of naked despair finally made Gentry drawl: “Well, Sergeant, it’ll all be over half an hour from now.”
“So it will, sir.” McCune shook his head in a baffled way. There was a pleading for understanding in his glance as he went on. “Captain, you told me not to, but I’ve been watching him. Every minute off duty. Last night I was there in his barn loft keeping an eye on that shack where he sleeps. It was like all the other times. There’s been nothing, not one damned thing, to tie him into this.”
“Which is the way we knew it would be.” Gentry was putting down an irrational disappointment, having to tell himself that nothing could change things at this last moment. “But thanks for trying, Sergeant. Maybe there’s no proof to get against him. My hunch could be wrong, way wrong.”
“Or it could be dead right, sir. Caleb Ash could be brother to the devil and surprise no one. And he’s hated you since the day you two met, when you turned down half his string of new remounts.”
Gentry’s wide shoulders lifted, fell. When he said nothing, McCune breathed furiously: “I know you’re sick of going over it again and again, sir. But something’s there, I tell you. Look at the money he made replacing those animals we lost last month. To hear him tell it, he handles remounts only as a sideline. Sideline, hell! He’s cleared more on this last sale than his livery and freighting will make him over the next two years.”
“That’s still no proof of Caleb rigging the trouble I ran into,” Gentry said quietly.
McCune sighed deeply, gustily. “Then there’s this other...this about Lieutenant Fitzhugh. Why take that on your shoulders, too? Just because he was the major’s son? Sir, fine as Major Fitzhugh is, there’s just so much one man can do for another.”
“Look, Sergeant,” — the hardness that came to Gentry’s glance then was prompted by the thought that the decision he’d made weeks ago, out there in that desert cañon and in sight of all the dead, was still the right one — “this is the way I want it, the way it’s going to be. Nothing would be changed by smearing young Fitzhugh. That detail was wiped out except for the two of us. It was my gamble from the very beginning. Orders were disobeyed, and I was in command. If you....”
“But it was Lieutenant Fitzhugh, not you,” McCune cut in unthinkingly. His face reddened and he hastened to add: “If you’ll excuse the mention of it again, sir.”
“Sergeant, I’d hate ever having to call you a liar. But if you ever give me away by so much as a word...one word, mind you...that’s what happens.” Gentry’s look abruptly softened. And now he spoke gently, saying: “This will probably be our last chance for speaking privately, Tim. You’ve been fine all the way through. More than worth your stripes. You have my thanks for everything you’ve done.”
“Which has turned out to be blessed little, Captain.”
Gentry moved his head in a spare negative. “Hardly.” His tone was utterly serious. “I could be off there in a grave alongside those eighteen others. You’re the reason I’m not, and I’ll never forget it. Never.” He held out his hand then. “Now let’s get on with this.”
McCune reluctantly surrendered the saber and watched Gentry buckle it to his belt. Then, as though the sight of that tall and erect shape pained him, he turned impatiently out into the corridor. Gentry followed in another moment, and both were silent as they walked on past the two other empty cells and through the deserted guardroom to its outer door.
Only there did McCune’s sense of discipline desert him. He swung abruptly around and, without a word, took Gentry’s right hand in both his own and wrung it fiercely. His blue eyes were moist, bright with a helpless anger as he turned then and stepped out the door, snapping hoarsely: “’Ten’shun!”
Two troopers, privates, standing at either side of the graveled path came to a ramrod stance. McCune waited until Gentry, momentarily blinded by the strong sunlight, had come out haltingly to stand between them. Then he said tonelessly: “Conduct the prisoner to the adjutant. Forward...March!”
There was a moment’s confusion, McCune having forgotten to give his men the order to shoulder their carbines. And Gentry, catching that, smiled thinly as they stepped on away from his sergeant toward the parade’s edge. Then abruptly and for the first time everything out there came into sharp focus, sobering Gentry, awing him.
It was a bright summer day typical of the high country, warm but not hot, the air clear and bracing. Somewhere above in the timber a crow set up a raucous scolding to accent the stillness. It was the stillness more than anything else that first of all impressed Gentry.
Then, against the backdrop of the log buildings and the high palisade, he saw K Troop drawn up beyond the flagpole in a precise line str
etching toward the main gate. I Troop ranged the stableward length of the parade, its formation more ragged than K’s. Major Fitzhugh’s slight shape rigidly sat his big sorrel gelding at the center of an ordered rank of officers immediately behind the rock-ringed base of the flagpole. And as his guards now right-angled toward that group, Gentry caught the tight set of Fitzhugh’s thin, sensitive face and was shocked by its pallor and the deep hurt it reflected.
He could no longer witness such a thing, and in trying to ignore it as he advanced, he centered his attention on Sam Grell, adjutant, senior captain, and second in command. Grell stood alone and to this side of the flagpole, his expression one of flinty indignation, his ordinarily kind face brittle but lacking the wounded quality Fitzhugh’s held. And Gentry, well knowing the man’s usual gentleness and friendliness, once again moved his glance in search of something that didn’t offend.
Then, through the gap between the two troops, he spied Caleb Ash. Until this second he had been comparatively calm, anything but nervous, his conversation with McCune all but forgotten. But now instantly a towering rage mounted in him, and he could feel his stride falter, could sense that he was trembling.
Ash’s massive frame stood leaning against the corner of Headquarters porch beyond a small group of somber-garbed women gathered on the walk. The man’s indolent pose, so unmilitary against this precise setting, struck Gentry as being intentionally mocking and arrogant. He scarcely noticed that the liveryman and part-time civilian Army scout had dressed for the occasion, that Ash wore a gray derby, black coat, and white shirt in place of his customary buckskins. All that mattered to Gentry was that they had permitted the man to be here to witness his humiliation, probably to gloat over it. And he told himself: Damn him, he’s won!
There was a sobering finality to that realization, one that quickly doused the blaze of his anger and left him hardly caring. A moment later he sensed that the interval over which he could so deliberately take in his surroundings was drawing to an end. And now, because everything about him seemed so alien, so unfriendly, he tried to forget that Ash stood across there and raised his glance along the slope of pine and aspen beyond the palisade toward the rocky heights of Sentinel.
Yet that vista, so cool and quiet and forever satisfying, was the thing that finally put beyond reach the stoicism he was groping for. And as the trooper on his left growled abruptly — “Detail...halt!” — to stop the trio at exactly the required two paces from Captain Grell, Gentry was feeling a bitterness that was deep and stark and unsettling.
This keen edge of emotion was knifing him as Sam Grell unfolded a sheet of paper and tonelessly began reading the Orders of the Day. So intently was Gentry trying to control himself to the bearing of this moment that he almost missed the adjutant’s words concerning him. Even then only snatches of the indictment penetrated his consciousness.
“...conduct unbecoming of an officer and gentleman. This man knowingly and against orders sacrificed the lives of his fellow men in a criminal and foolhardy action.... Thus, in carrying out the sentence of the courts-martial, Daniel Gentry shall thereafter be stripped of all honors, decorations, rank, and insignia. His name shall be stricken from the records of these honorable men....”
Only when Sam Grell crumpled the sheet and threw it savagely aside did Gentry realize that the long-awaited moment was upon him. His former close friend and brother officer stepped up to him now and reached across to unbuckle the saber first of all, his tugs at the belt vicious, uncompromising. Grell put the saber under his left arm and then, beginning at the collar of Gentry’s tunic, tore off the polished buttons. The epaulets were last of all, and the left one was stubborn and finally tore loose only after Grell had ripped the sleeve halfway from the shoulder seam.
Finished, Grell stood there, his glance lifting to meet Gentry’s. Abruptly he spoke in a clear, angry voice that carried out over the parade. “I regret that regulations will not permit me to do violence upon you. I should like nothing better than to beat you with a cinch strap until you couldn’t....”
A loud cough, Major Fitzhugh’s, cut across his words. He set his jaw firmly and tossed aside the epaulets and the buttons. Then he took Gentry’s saber from under arm, drew it from the scabbard, and, lifting a knee, broke the blade with a hard downthrust, the steel ringing a complaint against the warm stillness.
Gentry’s glance was drawn irresistibly to Major Fitzhugh then as Sam Grell’s voice intoned harshly: “Guard, conduct the prisoner to the gates!” And as both troopers laid a hold on his arms, giving no command now but simply pulling him away, Dan Gentry inwardly recoiled from the blue-eyed hate shining so brightly upon him out of his commanding officer’s pallid countenance.
Almost at once the drums started a low, steady roll. And as Gentry and his two guards walked away from Grell and started along the ranks of K Troop, Gentry felt the full weight of his disgrace settling over him. Finally he brought his glance away from the faces he knew so well, having neither the strength of will nor the fortitude to stare out the open scorn he saw holding his men. In that instant he remembered Ash and, wondering how much the man had been able to see and hear of all this, resisted the urge to turn and look toward Headquarters.
The tone of the drums was vibrant and continuous, and all at once Gentry recognized in their hollow cadence the strains of the rogue’s march, his imagination fitting the harsh and condemning notes of music to the insistent beat, the sound filling his head almost to bursting.
At length, mercifully, he was past the last in the long line of horses and men and alone with his guards. Yet now, as he left the formation the roll of the drums seemed to take on a heavier beat, the sound dogging his heels, not letting the strain slacken. The nearest high shoulder of Sentinel picked up the throbbing note and threw it back in a pulsating crescendo of accusation. He hurried now, the chant of the drums driving out even the surface calmness that had stayed with him until this moment.
He finally caught himself on the very point of breaking into a run, caught a hold on his reason again. He slowed his stride, letting the two troopers come even with him. They walked on across to the gate that way, Gentry no longer finding the thunder of the drums so unbearable. Even the cackling laughs of the women standing by the huts along Laundry Row lost their sting of derision as they struck him. He was calm once more.
The sentry at the gate turned his back as they approached, kept it turned. Squarely in the gateway the two troopers shoved their prisoner roughly on ahead and stopped. Gentry found himself finally alone.
He went on along the town road until presently he could look out over the rim’s edge and see the scars of the placers across the cañon below. The first buildings along the crooked street down there were just coming into sight when he unwittingly halted, all at once having heard the crunching of his boots against the gravel as an alien sound. Only then did he realize that the drums had gone silent.
Halfway surprised, he turned and looked back as a voice raised in command shuttled across the parade. He saw the formation breaking up, the big geldings swinging into a column of fours. The sentry and his two guards still stood in the gate. They were facing him, carbines in the bends of their arms, their stances purposely menacing.
Then as never before came the full realization of what had happened to him. Gentry felt unclean, really dishonored. And in this moment as his glance went beyond the gate he had the sight of Caleb Ash, standing there alone on the walk before Headquarters, to drive home the full weight of his disgrace.
Ash stood with long legs planted wide apart, hands on hips. The distance was far too great to be at all certain, but Gentry imagined he could read a broad grin on the man’s ruddy face. And for a long moment it was all he could do to resist the urge to go back there, force his way through the gate and across the parade, to lay hands on Ash.
But in the end he somehow got a grip on himself and turned and walked on down the road with that same feeling
of impotence he had learned to know so well over the past weeks.
Now all that remained was to leave this country for another where he could make a new start and begin forgetting.
Chapter Two
A quarter mile beyond Fort North the dust-smothered ruts of the road met a margin of tall lodgepoles and immediately swung out toward the rim’s edge. From that point onward the wheel tracks dipped steeply along the winding cut made by Elk Creek in reaching the cañon bottom. And there, where the road was first closely flanked by the trees, a young woman stepped from behind a thicket of scrub oak and stood watching Gentry’s approach.
There was an outright shock in her eyes at seeing the strangeness of his lagging stride, the way his hands were thrust deep in pockets, the vacant stare he fixed at the ground ahead of him. So stunned was she by his changed appearance that she let him get almost abreast of her before she remembered and called in a hushed, frightened way: “Captain!”
Dan Gentry stopped at once, her one word jarring him from his preoccupation and his glance shuttling across to her as a thin fog of dust, kicked up by his boots, overtook him. His lean face went slack with surprise at recognizing that slender and strongly feminine figure in its dress of unrelieved black. Instinctively he reached up to touch the brim of a hat he no longer wore, the gesture all the same gracious, courteous as he drawled: “You, Missus Fitzhugh.”
For a moment she stared at him, wide-eyed and hurt at seeing how disheveled he looked with the torn sleeve and his blouse hanging open. Then a forced smile rid her pale oval face of its bewilderment and turned it quite beautiful. She held out a hand, beckoning him. “Back here,” she said softly, “where no one will see us.”
“Of course.” He couldn’t help putting an even dryer edge to his tone as he added: “You shouldn’t be seen with a pariah like me.”
