Novel 1972 - Callaghen

by Louis L'Amour

  He expected Indians, and that was the trouble, for the mind must be always open and alert, excluding no possibility.

  A curious deer or mountain sheep will not move as does a prowling mountain lion or coyote, and the movements of men are different, too. A white man wears shoes or boots; the hard leather tends to scuff upon rock, to bear down too heavily on dead grass or leaves, in a way which the Indian’s soft moccasin does not, and a white man’s clothing is likely to make rustling noises in his movements, or against rocks and brush.

  Callaghen thought of none of this. He simply listened. He had stopped, as he always did, where his body made no outline against the night, merging with a tall greasewood and a clump of staghorn cactus.

  Suddenly, standing alone at the edge of the desert moonlight, silent in the stillness, Callaghen knew it was here he was going to stay. How, he did not know, for around him was desolation, yet a desolation that spoke to him in the softness of the wind, in the bareness of the mountains. But he knew at that moment that he would not leave the desert…or leaving, he would return.

  He had known deserts before, but somehow it was to this particular desert he wanted to return. Here he wished to stay. Wind stirred the sand out there on the timeless dunes.

  He heard it then, some slight sound in the sand…then silence. He held himself still, hardly breathing for fear that might blot out a sound he was listening for.

  Again it came! Somebody or something was out there. Then he heard a low, shuddering moan, and he left the shadow of the brush with a quick stride.

  He saw the man lying on the sand before he reached him, and was still half a dozen yards away when he realized who it was…the Delaware! It was The Stick-Walker.

  He went to him quickly, stooped and lifted him from the sand, and carried him back to the fire.

  “Water,” he said to Aunt Madge. “Water first.”

  There was no sign of a wound, but there was evidence that the Delaware had walked for miles—his shoes were in frightful shape.

  Wylie stared at them. “Why would a man go into the desert with shoes like that?”

  “His shoes weren’t like that,” Callaghen replied shortly. “He was riding with me only a short while ago. That’s what lava does to shoes. He’s crossed the lava beds getting to us.”

  Aunt Madge touched the Indian’s lips with water, and let a drop trickle down his throat. He gasped, and struggled up to his elbow, Callaghen helping. The Delaware took another swallow of water.

  He looked around, his eyes staring. Comprehension came suddenly when he saw Callaghen.

  “We thought you were dead,” he said.

  “Where’s the command?”

  “Gone…all gone.”

  “Killed?”

  “I do not know. I don’t think so.” He looked at Aunt Madge and the others. “We were attacked and took shelter; we returned the fire.…After a while one of our men moved. He was killed instantly…three arrows, two in his throat. We thought we heard shooting to the north”—he glanced at Callaghen—“that was you, I think.”

  “I did my share.”

  The Delaware drank again; then when helped to his feet he walked to the fire where Aunt Madge had prepared some soup.

  “I wanted to look for you,” he told Callaghen, “but Sprague refused. He had lost enough men, he said, and he must risk no more. Hours passed. There had been shots, but not many. We were not sure if we were pinned down there or not. I volunteered to scout their position, and after a while he let me go.

  “There had been at least a dozen Indians…all gone. I found cartridge cases from their firing, and I found tracks. They were not mounted.

  “I took a chance and went north. I knew I would be gone longer than Sprague would think necessary, but I wanted to know about you.”

  “Thanks, amigo.”

  The Delaware swallowed some of the soup. “I found where you had been,” he said, “and I was sure some men had died, but there were no bodies, and there was not you, so I went back to join the command, only it was no longer there. They had vanished…there were no tracks.”

  “Over the rocks behind them?”

  “Maybe.…I started to skirt the rocks, going the way as I believed they would go, and I came upon the tracks of the stage…and of the Indians. So I went into the lava beds.

  “There were places to hide there, but no Indians would travel there unless there was no other way. I followed a wash between lava flows, and crossed a wide flow; several times I saw Indians. There were a dozen at first, then four more, then five more.

  “I stayed in the lava. There was no way I could get around them to the stage, so I crossed the trail behind them and got into the mountains. The stage had turned along the western face of the mountains, and I came in from the east.”

  “What about the Indians?” Ridge asked.

  “They’re out there, you can be sure of that. I do not think they have found where you are, but when morning comes they will.”

  “We’re going to Marl Springs,” Callaghen said.

  “Then go now. Do not wait until morning.”

  Callaghen considered, then said, “We’ll go back and rest,” he said. “We’ve got five good hours of darkness ahead of us, but the stock needs rest and so do we. We’ll start before daylight.”

  They let the fire die down. All of them stretched out on blankets and slept. Wylie stood watch first, then Becker.

  Becker shook Callaghen awake, when the stars were still large in the sky. “Sarge? Time’s a-wastin’.”

  He sat up, pulled on his boots and checked his gun, then rolled his blanket and took it to his horse. In a matter of minutes he was saddled and bridled, ready to go. At the fire he said to Becker, “Wake them up.”

  There were still coals, and the blackened coffeepot was still hot. He filled a cup, held it in his chilled fingers, and drank. There was no nonsense and no delaying in either Malinda or Aunt Madge—both had lived too much in army camps.

  In fifteen minutes they moved out, cautiously, to make no more sound than necessary. Callaghen led off, walking his horse. The Delaware rode inside.

  After a few minutes they dipped through a dry wash, came up on the other side, and found a dim trail leading southwest, the one they had followed the evening before along the face of the mountain.

  They traveled an hour…perhaps four miles at the pace they were taking, and then a gap opened in the range. He dropped back beside Ridge. “Wait here.”

  He rode ahead swiftly, and when well into the opening he dismounted and struck a light. He found tracks, going and coming, and he had an idea that it was a pass. A little further on he found the tracks of wheeled vehicles.

  He rode back to the stage, and it followed him into the pass. On his left the cliff rose steeply for several hundred feet; on the right it was just as high, but not quite so steep.

  It was darker in the pass. Callaghen kept well ahead of the sounds of the moving stage so that he could listen, but he heard nothing. The sky overhead was growing gray. Before them loomed a tremendous rock wall, blacking out the sky ahead of them but the trail curved around it, straightening out to a general northeast direction.

  He had no idea how far they were from Marl Springs, but it must be at least several hours away. He looked around. The stage was coming on, Ridge tooling his teams over the trail, saving them wherever possible. Callaghen dropped back.

  “Want to give them a chance to rest?”

  “I’d better.” Ridge drew them in, and then as they stood, stamping and blowing, he asked, “We going to have to run for it, Sarge?”

  It was light enough to see now, and within minutes the Indians, if they had not already done so, would find their trail. They had gone about eight miles, and with luck it would take the Indians an hour and a half to come up with them—though less if they cut across the mountains to gamble on heading them off. The Indians were not trail-bound as were the stage and Callaghen himself. Make it two hours to come up with them, for the stage would be
moving.

  “How far to Marl Springs?” Ridge asked.

  Callaghen hesitated, trying to remember all he had heard and what he believed. “Twelve…maybe fifteen miles,” he answered.

  “Then we’ll have to fight. All right, let’s go.”

  They moved out, Callaghen scouting well ahead. The coolness of the deeper canyon was behind them and the space between the mountain ridges was widening out. A long, comb-like ridge about four hundred feet high and very steep, cut them off. They must follow the trail around it.

  The sun came up, and it grew warm. A quarter of a mile ahead of the stage, Callaghen drew up to rest his mount. The stage was coming on; the Indians might be hidden back in the canyon, if they were coming that way. If they had chosen to cut across the mountain they would have to travel no more than three miles while the stage was doing almost ten. In that case they would be waiting up ahead, where the pass opened out into the desert.

  Up there it was no more than three hundred yards wide, and there was a good ridge of hills on their left, offering excellent cover. Straight ahead, beyond the opening of the pass and a few miles of desert, he could see the black of cinder cones rising up.

  Once, perhaps a thousand years ago, this had been a volcanic area. There were dozens of those cinder cones, some of them several hundred feet high, each with its crater; most of the craters were blown open on one side.

  He waited for the stage to come up to him. The Delaware swung down and walked up to where Callaghen stood with Ridge and Becker. Without pointing, he indicated with a movement of his head the ridge he suspected.

  “If they’ve cut across, that’s where they’ll be…some of them anyway.”

  “You think some followed us, an’ the rest cut over the mountain?” Becker asked.

  “Wouldn’t you? They must have guessed we’re trying for Marl. We need water…they know that. And there are—or were—soldiers there.”

  “All right,” Ridge agreed. “I’ll stake a claim on that. What do we do? A run-by?”

  “Yes…and turn sharp at the end of the ridge. The trail will be right back in line with where we now stand, I think. Turn sharp and take them to the main trail.”

  Callaghen dropped back beside the coach, ignoring Wylie inside. “Keep down,” he said to them. “In a few minutes we’re going to start a run, and there’s liable to be some shooting.”

  Wylie peered out. “Indians?”

  “You won’t see them,” Callaghen said. “If they’re waiting for us, we’ve got about a mile and a half before anything happens.” With a look at Wylie, he added, “If you’re any good with that gun of yours, now’s the time to show it.”

  Wylie produced his gun. “I’m good,” he said. “You’ll see.”

  The stage started again and Callaghen rode on, not so far ahead this time. He checked his carbine to be sure it was not gripped too tightly by the leather, and opened the flap on his belt gun.

  Ridge handled his team perfectly. The grade was slightly uphill. Passing under a looming rock tower on their left, Callaghen glanced up at it. For an instant he found himself looking straight into the eyes of an Indian. The man was a good hundred yards off, but they saw each other at the same instant; then the Indian vanished.

  Callaghen allowed the stage to overtake him. “They’re here,” he said. “They’re waiting for us.”

  His mouth was dry. Ahead of them the pass was still narrow, and the rocks on either side seemed ready to close in on them like the jaws of some primeval monster.

  Chapter 12

  RIDGE WALKED HIS horses, saving them for the run. Callaghen felt the sweat on his forehead, and he could sense the excitement in the horse he rode. “All right, boy,” he said quietly, “easy does it.”

  At this point the pass widened somewhat, and the cliffs farther back were out of rifle shot. But ahead the pass narrowed again, and for at least a half-mile they would be exposed to fire from the cliffs.

  Callaghen looked at them, considered the situation, and decided that the Indians would likely be bunched at the entrance to the narrower passage, hoping to stop or cripple them there, then finish the job before the stage could get around the point and out of range.

  Beyond the mouth of the pass he could see those cinder cones, with a black flow of lava at their base. He saw no movement on the cliffs, but he had expected none.

  He dried his palms on his shirt front, and pulled his hat down a little lower. They would probably not shoot at him, but wait for the stage to get into the jaws of the trap.

  He started to walk his horse a little faster, glanced back and motioned to Ridge. Instantly, Ridge cracked his whip, and the team lunged into their harness and began to run.

  Callaghen heard the sharp sprang of a rifle bullet as it ricocheted from a rock nearby, and then his horse was running. The point of rocks was some distance ahead, but once around it…More shots were striking near, and then, suddenly, with a wave of sheer panic he realized the shooting was simply not heavy enough…not enough Indians were firing.

  He pulled in, saw a bullet strike the sand in front of him and to the right, and then he pulled over to let the stage come racing up. Running his horse abreast of the driver’s box, he yelled, “Pull wide around the corner! There’s more of them on the other side!”

  Ridge raised his whip in acknowledgment, and then they were racing up to the point of rocks.

  The trail turned sharp around it, and the wall of rocks would cut them off from firing in the pass. But the instant Callaghen had realized that, and knew that there were too few Indians firing, he had guessed where they would be: waiting in the rocks for the stage to round the point and then they would come running right up to them.

  He rounded the point just one jump ahead of the stage and led off into the desert, away from the trail, running due east.

  Leaping and bounding, the stage came after, dodging boulders and veering around clumps of brush, the maddened horses running with all they had.

  Shots rang out behind them, and looking back, Callaghen saw the Indians running from the rocks at the base of the cliff.

  He ran his horse for another quarter of a mile, slowed to a canter, and then to a walk. The stage rolled up to him.

  Far behind they could see the Indians, and then they vanished, the color of their bodies becoming one with the mountainside along which they moved.

  Ridge pulled up to let his horses blow. “Good thinkin’ there, Callaghen,” he said. “We almost run right into their trap.”

  “They’ll cut across the mountains, I think. They’ll try to get to Marl ahead of us.”

  After a minute or two he led off. The desert around them was empty. To the north he could now see half a dozen of the cinder cones, and to the south the Kelso Mountains. The trail ran along the base of the mountains, and the route they were now taking across the desert would take them back into the trail a mile or so farther along.

  Callaghen’s mouth was dry, his lips were feeling stiff and sore. He squinted his eyes against the sun, studying the desert over which they were advancing. Indians could be anywhere. They had lived long in this country, hunting, raiding, and food-gathering across it in every direction. They knew what possibilities it offered far better than he did—better than even the Delaware did.

  It was a slight upgrade toward the trail, and Ridge took his time. From the top of the stage he could see well ahead, and Becker was keeping a sharp eye out for trouble, but no Indians followed them.

  “We need that water,” Callaghen said to Ridge, “and they know it.”

  “What if there’s none of our men there?” Becker wanted to know. “What if somebody pulled the sojer boys out, an’ the Injuns are waitin’ instead?”

  “Then we’ll have some shooting to do,” Callaghen replied, and they rode on.

  The sun was high now, and the horses were laboring on the rough desert. Twice they passed through deep belts of sand; often they bumped and jolted over rocky areas. The desert was littered with chunks of lava, a
ll the way from fist size to boulders as large as the stage, blown out by the violence of the upheaval.

  “She must have been hot around here, one time,” Ridge said, awed by the sight. “Imagine how it must’ve been when all those holes were blowin’ at once!”

  “It might not have happened at one time,” Becker said. “Could have been from time to time, but even so, I’m glad I’m here now instead of then.”

  They drove on, and at last the horses bumped over the last stones and pulled the stage back to the trail once more. Several miles ahead the trail again cut through a narrow pass, this time through the Marl Mountains. Though it seemed unlikely the Indians were there, they would have to chance the possibility.

  It was a narrow, dangerous place, but they evidently had reached it before the Indians, and they drove through without trouble, and turned right around a point of rocks toward Marl Springs.

  The redoubt at Marl Springs was only a few months old. Lieutenant Manuel Eyre, of the 14th Infantry, had directed the building of it; at the time he had been the officer commanding at Camp Cady.

  The corral, twenty-four feet on each side, was built of strong cedar logs cut in Cedar Canyon not far from Rock Springs. At each of the opposite corners there was a stone house twelve feet square and just over six feet high. The largest spring issued from a tunnel between the fort and the mountain.

  *

  The redoubt was too close under the mountain for comfort, unless a sentry was kept on the small peak as a lookout. Originally it had been planned to have a sergeant and eight men at this post, but this had rarely been done. To the best of his knowledge there were three or four men holding the position at present. There were several horses in the corral, and as they approached he caught a glimpse of a blue uniform at the gate to the corral.

  Callaghen studied the area carefully as they approached, and scanned the country around. He walked his horse on ahead of the stage, a gun ready to his hand.

  A man wearing sergeant’s stripes came out to greet them. “Ah, Sergeant O’Callaghan is it? Sure ’n’ when I last saw you, man, you wore something better than stripes.”