by Mark Henry
“We’ve moved your things across the dog-run with Maggie,” Hummingbird said. “I’ve been making you a new quilt.”
“She stayed up half the night to finish it,” Reverend O’Shannon said. Only the hint of a smile perked the corners of his stern lips.
Trap gave a weak grin. He felt like he should say something to Maggie, some words that she might remember on her wedding day, but his brain and tongue conspired against him. When he looked at her and opened his mouth, nothing came out but stutters.
Maggie sat beside him, moving close. He could feel the warmth of her thigh next to him. She sensed his tongue-tied predicament, and rescued him with kind words and the gentlest smile he’d ever seen.
“I remember the missionaries in the Wallowa reading to us from the Bible when I was a little girl. I had a favorite verse: ‘Entreat me not to leave thee, or to refrain from following after thee . . . thy people shall be my people and thy God, my God. . . .’” Maggie took his hand in hers and held it on her lap. Her breath came fast and she trembled like a small bird. “I don’t remember much of the Bible, but I remember that.”
James O’Shannon beamed at the quotation of Scripture from his new daughter-in-law. “I suppose I have only been putting off the inevitable.” He gave Trap’s hand a hearty shake and patted him on the back. “Remember our talks, son. Her happiness is paramount now.”
“It has been for some time, sir.”
“Well, then . . . your mother and Mag . . . your wife has been hard at work preparing something of a feast once the word came you were returning today,” the reverend said.
“Yes, we have.” Hummingbird sighed. “Papa, I suppose you and I should go make the final arrangements while Trap and Maggie sort a few things out and he gets cleaned up.”
“I suppose so.” The reverend stood his ground, unwilling to leave the newlyweds alone right away. He shook Trap’s hand again. Maggie stood and kissed him lightly on the cheek. In all the years he’d known his father, Trap had never seen the man blush before. “Yes, well . . . yes, I suppose we should go and . . .” He turned to his wife. “After you, Chuparosa.”
Before the O’Shannons could take their leave, Clay Madsen came striding across the parade ground like a man with a mission. He took off his hat when he neared Maggie and Trap’s mother and acknowledged the reverend with a polite nod. He twisted the hat in his hands as he stood.
“What’s the matter, Clay?” Hummingbird asked. “You look a little out of sorts.”
“I’m fine, ma’am,” Clay said. His dark brow was knotted in a strained arch. “Thank you for asking.” He looked at Trap and shrugged. “Sorry to drag you away from your sweetheart so soon . . .”
“My wife,” Trap corrected. It felt good to say the words.
“Your wife?” Clay’s jaw fell. “You hauled off and got married in the last ten minutes?”
“As a matter of fact I did.” Trap filled him in about the recent events with Lieutenant Grant.
Maggie eyed Clay like she might carve off a piece of him. “What did you mean drag him away?”
Clay took a defensive step back and raised his hand. “Sorry, Maggie darlin’, but the colonel wants to see me and your new husband in his office within the hour—and with the colonel, ‘within the hour’ means as soon as we can get our behinds over there.”
“I’m sure it won’t take long,” Trap said. He groaned to his feet. Fatigue suddenly overwhelmed his body, and he found himself wondering if getting married was supposed to make a person feel so much older than their natural years. One thing he did know. He thought leaving Maggie had been difficult before. Now, stepping away from her, even for a minute, was nigh to unbearable.
* * *
Colonel Branchflower’s aide-de-camp was a weasely little lieutenant named Ford Fargo. He had big ears and a shining forehead that reached the uppermost point of his sloping scalp. Fargo’s wooden desk was known to be immaculate and polished to a sheen that competed with his gleaming head. He was fastidious in his clerical skills and bordered on maniacal in his grooming.
When Trap and Clay arrived at the office, he was sitting in a wooden chair on the porch cleaning his toenails with a jackknife. His uniform coat was folded neatly across a matching chair at his side.
“Hope you don’t peel apples with that thing.” Clay curled up his nose at the sight of the other man’s feet. “We’re here to see the colonel.”
“Go right on in.” Lieutenant Fargo flicked his knife toward the whitewashed door behind him. “The others are already here.”
Trap and Clay exchanged glances. “The others?” Trap said what they were both thinking.
“Umm,” Fargo grunted through a nod that flattened his chin to his chest while he concentrated on his ghost-pale foot. “Lieutenant Roman and Private Webber are in there waiting.” Fargo wiped his jackknife on a scrap of paper and returned it to his pocket. He took his socks from the chair beside him and began to pull them back on. “Go on inside with them, but don’t go past the rail until I come in and announce you.”
Both boys stepped onto the small covered porch and hurried through the door. Neither liked spending any more time than necessary around the odd little man.
Thanks to Lieutenant Fargo’s compulsions, the front office was spotless. His desk was situated in front of long oaken rails that separated a cramped, but tidy waiting area and telegraph station from the colonel’s office proper. Even the trash in the lieutenant’s wastebasket appeared to have been arranged with a particular order. A single painting of a matronly redhead in a green dress with eyes remarkably like Fargo’s hung on the wall behind a padded chair.
“I bet she digs at her toenails too.” Clay smirked.
Roman put a finger to his lips at the comment.
Webber wore a cat-ate-the-canary grin.
The door to Branchflower’s office suddenly swung open and the colonel’s voice bellowed out like a Biblical whirlwind.
“Fargo!” The shout rattled the painting on the wall.
Roman snapped to attention. “He’s not out here, sir.”
“I’ll be go to hell,” the colonel muttered. His chair clattered back from a desk. Heavy footfalls approached the doorway. Branchflower waved the men inside with a hand the size of a shovel blade, his muttonchopped jowls set in annoyance. His bright green eyes narrowed. “He’s out cleaning his damned toenails again, isn’t he?”
Roman nodded, shooting a wry grin at the others. “He is, sir.”
Branchflower moved his massive head back and forth. It reminded Trap of a buffalo bull standing up from a wallow to shake off the dust.
“You know,” Branchflower said, his nose turning up in disgust. “A soldier’s feet are important, I’ll give Fargo that much. But if a man keeps them clean and changes his socks on a regular basis, his damned toenails ought to take care of themselves.” The colonel sank back in a huge leather chair behind an expansive desk, which was far more cluttered than Lieutenant Fargo’s. He leaned forward to rest his chin on huge fists. “That peculiar little bastard spends far too much time picking his hooves if you ask me.”
The other four men in the room remained on their feet, Roman and Webber at attention, their knuckles planted firmly against the stripe on their uniform britches. Trap was learning early that men in power often took their time to get to the point when they had a captive audience.
“At ease, gentlemen.” Branchflower nodded curtly. “I appreciate the speed with which . . .”
Lieutenant Fargo poked his head in the door and smiled under his pencil-thin mustache. “I’m right outside at my desk if you need me, sir.”
“You’re dismissed for the remainder of the day, Lieutenant,” the colonel said without looking at him.
Fargo’s face wilted. “But sir, I don’t mind staying. It’s not yet two P.M.”
Branchflower waved him off. “Go get a haircut, then. A visit to the tonsorial parlor will do you some good. You can catch up on the local gossip and give me a full report tomorrow.
”
“Aye, sir.” Fargo’s voice was despondent. He seemed to sense something was about to happen and hated to miss out on it. He started to shut the door, but Branchflower stopped him.
“Leave it open. I want to know if anyone is out there spying on us. If someone comes in—or doesn’t leave—I’ll hear it.”
Once his aide was gone, the colonel closed the wooden shutters over the single window in his office. “Every commander needs at least one sycophant—but the need is just as strong to be rid of them once in a while.” He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper when he got to the matter at hand.
“Gentlemen, you all know that Victorio has jumped the reservation with his Membreno band of hostiles. We believe he’s headed for somewhere in Mexico.” The colonel slid a stack of papers to one side and unrolled a parchment map on his desk. He used his ivory pipe and a clay ashtray to hold down the curling edges.
“Lieutenant Gatewood is in pursuit with one company along with Al Seiber and seventeen Chiricahua scouts.” Captain Hotchkiss has Company F over here”—he tapped a range of mountains to the southeast—“just in case the hostiles move this way. Troops from Fort Grant are also engaged in the search. We’re hoping to catch the wily bastard in a pincer.”
Trap and the others studied the map. There were thousands of places the Apache could hide—too many for the cavalry to find Victorio if he didn’t want to be found.
“Are we to join in this campaign then, Colonel?” Lieutenant Roman looked up from the map.
“You are not,” Branchflower said, surprising them all. “All my men, including the Apache scouts, are either on patrol or needed here in garrison. That said, a delicate issue has arisen that requires our immediate action.” Branchflower leaned back in his chair and folded his hands over a ponderous belly. He kept his voice low. “A prominent Mexican colonel named Hernan de la Cruz reported his daughter missing three days ago. She and one of her male escorts were taken while on their way to Phoenix.”
“Pilar!” The word came softly under Clay’s breath.
The colonel cocked his head to one side. “You know this girl?”
Trap stepped forward. “We do, sir. Mr. Madsen and I helped her out of a little trouble on our way to Arizona last summer.”
“I see,” Branchflower mused. “That makes things a touch more . . .” The colonel stopped in mid-sentence and shrugged his massive shoulders. He seemed to think better of what he was about to say. “We received a ransom demand, shortly after the girl went missing. It asked for a hundred thousand U.S. dollars.”
Webber whistled under his breath, bringing a stare of disapproval from Roman.
“Sorry, sir,” the private said without looking a bit sorry. “But that’s a lot of money for one girl.”
“Yes, it is,” Branchflower muttered, almost to himself. “It’s as if . . .” He stopped himself again.
He looked up at Roman without elaborating on his last utterance. “The girl’s escorts were American. The one who was taken has already been killed. They left his head with the note.” Branchflower pulled on his reading glasses again and glanced at some notes on his desk. “Men, the issue is forthright. Relations between Mexico and the United States are strained at best. There’s still some fighting going on over on the Nueces Strip. A lot of old grudges have yet to be settled. This Apache issue isn’t helping matters at all.
“To make things worse, the girl was under escort by the United States Army. It appears that a member of the military may have been involved in the kidnapping.”
The colonel rested his elbows on the table and steepled his fingers, tips together, in front of his face. “General Sheridan has authorized me to assemble a special unit for missions exactly like this one—a group of unconventional fighters—somewhat like Rogers’ Rangers during the French and Indian War.
“This mission is more important than you can possibly imagine. Unfortunately, I’m not at liberty to share everything with you at this moment.” The colonel’s gaze shifted back and forth among the men for a time before it came to rest on Clay. “Mr. Madsen,” he said, rubbing his great chin. “Al Seiber tells me you’re one of the best horsemen he’s ever seen. He also informs me that you have a gift of gab that could ingratiate you to Geronimo himself.”
The colonel left Clay to glow from the compliments and shifted his attention to Trap, letting his eyes slide up and down as if he was perusing a horse. He raised a bushy eyebrow. “And you, Mr. O’Shannon. Seiber says you track as well as any Apache he knows—maybe even better. Hell, I guess you are Apache. Is that right?”
“My mother is Chiricahua. My father is Scots-Irish.” Trap stood perfectly still and endured the scrutiny. He never tried to hide the fact that he had Apache blood, but he didn’t go around wearing the fact on his sleeve either.
“I’m told by many that both of you youngsters would fit the bill nicely for what I have in mind.” He sighed and turned to Johannes. “And that brings me to you, Private Webber. From what I hear, you possess a remarkable gift for languages and learning. I need a man with such skills, but I have to be honest with you and say that I am left to wonder why you’re not an officer.”
Webber didn’t answer, and Branchflower didn’t pursue the issue. It was obvious any decision about Johannes had already been made or he wouldn’t have been present at the meeting.
“Lieutenant Roman,” Branchflower continued. “You have the integrity and perseverance I need in a commander. No offense to the good men on Victorio’s trail, but if your record was not so stellar, you’d be out with them right now. As it is, I need you here.
“Hear me good, now; this special unit of Scout Trackers will answer only to me.” The colonel thumbed his chest. “Me, and no one else; am I clear?”
“Understood,” Roman said.
“No staff officers to get in the way and muck things up. I need fresh men, men in the Army but not yet jaded by its politics. Understood?”
Roman nodded. “Yes, Colonel.”
“Begging your pardon, sir.” Clay cleared his throat.
“Go ahead, Mr. Madsen,” Branchflower said.
“Well, sir, it’s like this. . . .” Clay stumbled a little, unaccustomed to speaking to the commanding officer of the camp. “Trap, I mean . . . Mr. O’Shannon and me . . . I mean, we ain’t exactly in the Army.”
Colonel Branchflower gave a knowing smile and produced two parchment documents from the lap drawer of his desk. He’d thought all this through already.
“That is next on my list of problems to address. Lieutenant Fargo is an odd little bird, but he’s a damned good penman, don’t you think?”
He pushed the papers across the desk. “Sign on the line at the bottom, gentlemen, and this last issue will be solved. It’s a formality really. What with one out of every three men deserting on me, the thing I truly need is your word more than any scrap of paper.”
Trap scratched out his name without thinking. From the moment he’d arrived at Camp Apache he’d known, down deep, that it would come to this. He handed the pen to Clay, who paused for a moment. The quill hung over the paper while he thought, rising and falling with each breath.
“It’s awful funny, the twists and turns of life,” Clay whispered loud enough for all to hear. “I’m about to sign away the next five years of my life, all because I fell asleep on a horse and ran into you, O’Shannon.”
“It’s voluntary, Mr. Madsen,” the colonel said. “No one will force your hand, but we could use your talents.” His voice held the closest thing to a plea Clay—or anyone else—would ever get from the proud man.
“The truth is”—the young Texan grinned—“I don’t know anything else I’d enjoy doin’ more now that I got a taste of this.” He gave a resigned sigh and leaned over the desk to scrawl out his name.
“Excellent.” Branchflower picked up the enlistment papers and blew on the ink to dry it before slipping them back in his lap drawer.
“Now,” the colonel continued. “Webber, Madsen, a
nd O’Shannon, the assignments I have in mind for this unit, hereafter known as the Scout Trackers, will certainly be extremely dangerous and more or less secret in nature. Because of this, I’m promoting each of you to the rank of sergeant with all attendant pay and privileges. Roman, it’s a little trickier to promote an officer, what with all the competitive eligibility lists and such, but I did receive permission to brevet you to the rank of captain. I imagine many of your missions will put you all in civilian dress, but if anyone has a problem with your new ranks, direct them to me.”
He took a leather dispatch pouch from his desk and slid it across to Roman. “Here’s the formal brief describing Señorita de la Cruz’s abduction, along with descriptions of her abductors and full accounts from the sole survivor of the ambush. Review it, and then destroy it. I’m not sure who we can trust with this information.”
Branchflower stood and shook each man’s hand in turn. “Gentlemen, you will come to realize that five dollars a month extra is small compensation for the harsh and dangerous duties I will assign you. But rest assured, a great deal of thought went into this decision. I have all confidence that you are the right men for the job. I urge you to make all haste in this rescue.”
The colonel’s tone suddenly became curt and formal. “Sergeants, you are dismissed for the present. Captain Roman, if you would be so kind as to remain behind for a moment. I have another matter I need to discuss with you.”
“Yes, sir.” Roman fished a gold watch from his trouser pocket. “Men, it’s twenty minutes to three. Go and bid your sweethearts good-bye. But don’t tell them where you’re heading. Meet me in front of King James’ at four for gear issue.”
* * *
“My noggin aches like it’s been filled to the brim,” Clay muttered after they walked outside.
Webber rolled his eyes and gave Madsen a good-natured slap on the back. “That’s not such an accomplishment for our good colonel.”
