Trumpets West!

by Luke Short

  Rush agreed and left. Burke hurriedly dressed. As he was struggling into his blouse, Lieutenants Umberhine and Cavanaugh poked their heads in to say hello. They made no reference to his arrest. Finished dressing, Burke picked up his garrison cap and pistol belt; then, remembering, he hung the pistol on the wall. He was under arrest, so he could not carry arms.

  * * * *

  He stepped outside and cut across the parade ground, heading for the third square brick house in the row of married officers’ homes opposite. As he approached Abe Byas’s house, he wondered whether he should tell Abe of Rush’s revelation. He decided against it; Abe was Ervien’s adjutant, honor bound to be loyal to him, and there was no use troubling Abe until he had proof.

  Byas, bareheaded, was waiting on his walk when Burke crossed the drive.

  “Look,” Abe said mildly in greeting. “I’m adjutant of this post. You want to appear before me tomorrow morning for disciplinary action?”

  Burke hauled up. “What for?”

  Abe pointed to the parade ground. “It’s seeded,” he said carefully, distinctly. “Stay off it, will you?”

  Burke grinned. “I forgot.”

  As they went up the walk, Abe looked reprovingly at him. “Well, you did it up brown, didn’t you?”

  “Didn’t I?” Burke murmured.

  “You’ll learn,” Abe said. “Just keep chewing his ears until you’re in real trouble.”

  Burke didn’t reply, and Abe mounted the steps. His house was a square brick affair with a small porch and an iron-railed widow’s walk surmounting its sloping roof. Abe went in first and waved his hand toward the parlor. “Sit down. I’ll get Calla.”

  He went on through the hall toward the back rooms.

  Burke looked around the pleasant parlor, whose contents had been freighted half a thousand miles. Through the open window he caught the brassy, saucy sound of mess call being sounded, and he wondered gloomily what he was going to say to Calla.

  Sighing, he turned from the window just in time to see Calla, apron over her dress, come into the room. She didn’t, pause, didn’t speak, only came into his arms and kissed him. After she had kissed him twice more, she hugged him and said into his ear in a low, shaky voice, “I’ve got to get used to missing you, Burke.”

  Burke smiled faintly and held her from him, looking hungrily at her. The grave and mischievous amber eyes told him nothing except that she was glad to see him. Her wide mouth, soft and smiling, was happy enough. She had been fussing with her thick golden hair: it was done differently atop her head, and he thought it beautiful, just as, without knowing why, he thought her gray dress, through the sleeves of which he could feel the rounded softness of her arms, delightful. He said, “If that’s what they call a soldier’s welcome I’m for it.”

  He held her to him a moment, then asked, “Did Abe tell you, Calla?”

  She drew back and looked gravely at him. “About your arrest? Yes, I’d have hated you forever if you’d taken your troop out as Ervien ordered.” She frowned quizzically. “Did you really think I’d mind?”

  “Well,” Burke said slowly, “I wouldn’t blame a girl for being a little mad over a postponed wedding.”

  Calla said, alarm in her eyes, “Who said it was postponed ?”

  “Look, honey,” Burke murmured. “You can’t marry an officer when he’s under arrest. I couldn’t even wear a sword at the ceremony.”

  “Do you think I care anything about a silly sword?” Calla flared.

  “I do,” Burke said grimly. “I want to know whether you’d be marrying a soldier or a civilian. So do you.”

  Calla sighed in mock exasperation, took his hand and led him over to the sofa and pulled him down beside her. “Burke, let’s be practical. If you hadn’t sassed Captain Ervien, you’d be on patrol tomorrow, wouldn’t you?”

  “I suppose,” Burke admitted.

  “Then, for heaven’s sake, you’re here now. You will be until the trial. It’s the only chance he’ll give us to be together. To hell with your arrest!”

  Burke looked faintly shocked, and Calla said swiftly, vehemently, “I mean it, Burke. I’m tired of being Mrs. Hanna-to-be! The chapel is on post limits. We can get married tomorrow. In private or public, I don’t care. It’s nobody’s business but ours.”

  She smiled now at her own vehemence. “Speak up, soldier.”

  Burke grinned. “I kind of like the idea,” he murmured. “Of course—” He paused. He had just caught sight of Abe standing in the doorway. Burke said, “You’ve got a wife. Let me get one, will you?”

  “Later,” Abe said calmly. “There’s a trooper at the back door. He wants to speak to you.”

  Burke swore under his breath and started for the door. He came back, leaned over and kissed Calla, and then went into the hall toward the kitchen. That’s how much you know about the girl you’ll marry, he thought wonderingly.

  CHAPTER THREE

  REAL TROUBLE

  Lucy Byas, an older, smaller, and more placid version of Calla, was in the kitchen. She looked over her shoulder at Burke’s entrance and said, “Hello, you wild-eyed Mick.” Although she had a dish in each hand, Burke hugged her in passing, and then went on to the back door.

  “Hello, Carney,” he said to the beardless trooper on the steps, and then he saw the restrained excitement in the soldier’s face. “What’s the trouble?”

  “I thought the lieutenant ought to know, sir. Raines and O’Mara are buildin’ up a fight over issue of mounts down at the corral.”

  Burke scowled. “I left Raines in the hospital.”

  “He’s on crutches, sir. Dr. Ford let him out.”

  Burke swore and went down the steps. “You go along to supper, Carney. And thanks.” He strode down the alley, cut left down the short Street lined with the homes of the married enlisted men, and at a trot, passed A stable. Raines, K Troop’s first sergeant, was a tough, tobacco-chewing bantam of a man with an aggressive loyalty to his officers, his men, and his horses. And when Burke thought to him fighting with O’Mara, the squadron bully, the sly, toadying Irishman whom anyone but Ervien would have broken and kept broken, he was worried. And Raines was on crutches.

  Passing B stable at a run, he saw the place was deserted; all the troopers were at supper call. He cut in through the forage shed that lay between B stable and the corrals and saw a big supply wagon blocking the far door.

  Ducking round it, he hauled up. There, in front of the corral gate in the slanting sunlight, were O’Mara and Raines. Raines, on his bandaged feet, had backed against the corral poles beside a stack of forks and shovels, and was swinging his remaining crutch in a half circle, trying to fend off the squat, long-armed O’Mara. Even as Burke saw this, O’Mara moved inside the arc of the crutch, and smashed savagely at Raines’s seamed face with the swift pawing motion of a bear striking. Moving in, and pulling Raines to him, he stamped on Raines’s bandaged feet; then, half turning, he picked up the smaller man, whose fists were flailing at his bearded face, and slammed him to the ground and fell on top of him.

  Burke vaulted the wagon’s tongue; his foot caught in one of the loops of a long stay chain festooned on the tongue, and he fell heavily and came up again, running. He saw O’Mara’s fists driving into Raines’s face. Burke pulled up.

  “O’Mara!” he said in an iron voice. “Get up!”

  The voice of authority startled O’Mara, and he was already rising when he saw that it was Burke beside him. He paused, his knees half flexed, and then slowly sank back on Raines.

  “Lieutenant, you’re under arrest, with no authority for anything,” he said gently.

  “Get to your quarters!” Burke said.

  O’Mara stared quietly at him with his small red-rimmed eyes, which were calculating and sly and arrogant, and then he said in his strangely gentle voice, “Off with you, Lieutenant. I’ve this to finish.” And he slashed savagely at Raines’s face.

  Burke hit him, then, in the face, a driving blow that knocked him off Raines and i
nto the dust on his back. O’Mara sat up, raised a thick and meaty hand to his jaw, and said mildly, wickedly, “You struck an enlisted man, Lieutenant.”

  “Get to your quarters, O’Mara,” Burke repeated. O’Mara came to his feet with a slow, sure indolence, and Burke saw that his massive shoulders had burst the seam of his blue shirt. No fear and no respect, only a kind of animal cunning was in his eyes now; he rubbed his beard gently with the back of his hand and said, “It’d be a fine thing to smash you, Lieutenant—you under arrest, and not allowed to order me. It’d be your word against mine.”

  “I wouldn’t try it,” Burke advised.

  O’Mara looked around the lot in one swift glance to make sure there were no witnesses, and in that moment Burke knew that O’Mara’s hatred of authority and the whole officer system, plus his sharing Ervien’s dislike of K Troop, would drive him to attacking. And he would not be penalized for it.

  O’Mara glanced at Raines, then moved over and kicked him in the temple. “No help there, Lieutenant,” he said. Then, in a crouch, thick arms outthrust, he came slowly at Burke. He came out of his crouch like a spring uncoiling, and Burke hit him once in the throat before O’Mara’s massive arms wrapped around him, squeezing him with a breath-stopping strength.

  Burke felt his chest constricting, and felt O’Mara’s wiry beard pricking through his blouse against his shoulder. Now O’Mara heaved to lift him off the ground, and Burke brought his knee up into O’Mara’s groin with a murderous violence. O’Mara whined, his grip loosened, and Burke turned sideways, jamming the point of his shoulder into O’Mara’s face. O’Mara’s hold broke and, off balance, he back stepped until he crashed into the corral fence and fell heavily on his side among the clutter of stable tools. Burke was breathing deeply, impressed now by O’Mara’s great strength, and wary of it.

  O’Mara raised himself on an elbow and pawed the blood away from his nose. His movement stirred the tangle of tools. Looking wickedly at Burke, he pawed among them until he found a wide-tined pitchfork. Supporting himself with it, he came unsteadily to his feet, and Burke, knowing intent to murder when he saw it, reached for his pistol. He was not wearing it, he remembered then, and in the same moment, he began to back slowly away.

  O’Mara lifted the fork like a spear and came shuffling toward him. Burke wheeled, looking for a weapon. Across the lot, he spied the stay chain on the wagon tongue that had tripped him. He turned and ran for it, and O’Mara ran too.

  As Burke neared the wagon, O’Mara raised the fork over his head and hurled it like a spear. Burke fell and rolled under the wagon tongue, and the fork drove into the double tree, then boomed into the wagon box.

  O’Mara was charging again now, and Burke, on his knees, unhooked the heavy stay chain. As O’Mara was on him, Burke slashed backhanded at him with a short length of the chain. The murderous weight of it raked across O’Mara’s chest, tearing the shirt away and leaving a bloody furrow in the matted hair.

  The force of O’Mara’s charge was halted; he staggered back one step, caught his balance, and lunged too close. Burke, who had risen, backed up a step and raised the chain and savagely slashed it down across O’Mara’s shoulders. O’Mara sank to his knees, but even then he groped out and his bloody fist gripped Burke’s ankle. Again Burke brought the chain down, this time across O’Mara’s black, round skull.

  O’Mara fell on his face, not stirring. Burke stood over him a long minute, breathing deeply, and he thought he had killed the man and did not care.

  Stepping around O’Mara, he went over to Raines, who was lying on his back as O’Mara had left him. A livid bruise was rising on Raines’s temple, and the gentle slapping Burke gave his face would not bring his eyes open.

  Burke picked him up, turned, and tramped through B stable. Between B and A stables, he met two troopers, and called them to him.

  “Take Raines to the hospital. Then one of you go over to the officers’ mess and get Dr. Ford.”

  Soberly, the troopers took Raines and disappeared behind A stable. Burke stood a moment brushing the dust from his uniform. He was thinking, This is real trouble, now.

  There was nothing to do except report it, he knew. He turned wearily up toward the parade ground.

  He had passed the barracks and was nearing the sutler’s post which housed the officers’ club when he saw Captain Ervien leave headquarters building and turn toward him. Burke met him in front of the post trader’s.

  Burke saluted. “Sir,” he began formally, “I think I’ve probably killed your sergeant major.”

  Ervien’s mouth opened slowly, but no words came.

  Burke went on, “O’Mara was roughing up Sergeant Raines. When I ordered him to stop, he refused, saying I had no authority to issue orders. I hit him to keep him from hurting Raines. He thought that gave him the right to attach me, and he did. I think,” he finished, “I may have killed him.”

  Burke saw the wicked anger mount in Ervien’s dark eyes. “Mister Hanna, you seem to get in trouble even when confined to the post,” he said in a dry and savagely formal voice. “Confine yourself to quarters and mess until I have the particulars.”

  “Yes, sir,” Burke said, and Captain Ervien brushed past him.

  Back in quarters, Burke paused long enough to send the orderly over to Byas’s to explain his absence, and then went on to his room. Abe, he reflected wryly, would probably be pulled away from his supper to investigate, since he was adjutant.

  He sank wearily down on his bed. He wondered idly what Raines and O’Mara had quarreled about, and then turned to his own predicament. Outside of having to face the very serious charge of striking an enlisted man, there was Calla to think about now. Even Calla, badly as she wanted them married, couldn’t be married in the lounge of bachelor officers’ quarters. Burke swore under his breath when he thought of it.

  An orderly came from Byas’s with a tray of food—the supper Burke was to have eaten with Calla and Abe and Lucy, and he ate hungrily. Afterward he loaded a pipe and lay down again and stared gloomily at the ceiling in the lowering dusk. Either he could broodingly count his sins, or what were called his sins, or he could forget them; there was no changing anything now. He swung his feet to the floor and rose and prowled restlessly to the window and came back. There, lying on the corner of his desk and covered with five weeks’ dust, was his black notebook. A hundred hours of friendly argument with his fellow officers about cavalry tactics and Army practice had led him long ago to fortify and clarify his views by writing them down.

  He opened the book, then closed it with disgust. What did it matter if he contended, against cavalry practice, that a mounted charge against hostile Indians was not impossible? Or that a native pony that lived off the land was often a better mount than a grain-fed Army horse?

  He saw that it was getting dark, and lighted his desk lamp. He was adjusting the wick when the soft knock came on his door.

  It opened immediately, and Rush Doll stepped in. Rush put his shoulder against the wall.

  “You confined to quarters, like they say?”

  Burke nodded.

  “How’s O’Mara? Have you heard?”

  “All right You can’t kill a brute like that. He’s in the hospital. Raines is all right. He’s left.”

  “Hear what they fought about?”

  “O’Mara was tryin’ to work off his crowbait mounts on K Troop replacements, and Raines wouldn’t take ’em.” Rush straightened up. “Well, I better go send Ponce back.”

  “He’s there?”

  Rush nodded. Burke stood hesitant a moment. He was on his honor as an officer and gentleman not to break arrest. But if he didn’t see Ponce and somehow persuade him to patience until Ervien could be convinced of the necessity for making Corinne feed his people, then he would be criminally liable.

  He came to his reckless decision. “Hold him there, Rush. I’ll meet you at full dark.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  DESPERATE RISKS

  Burke couldn’t take the chance th
at the sentry wouldn’t know of his being confined to quarters, so he waited until the man had passed, then climbed out of his window. Quietly, he walked ahead until he was in the friendly shadow of the laundry. Once there, he turned and skirted the sutler’s post, the barracks, and A stable, and cut down toward the blacksmith shop, which marked post limits.

  A pair of troopers were doing some work there by lantern light on a wagon wheel. The near-by stable guard, carbine slacked under his arm, was peering off in the darkness. Beyond, in the half light of the lanterns, Burke could see Rush Doll and Ponce.

  Burke approached the guard and returned his salute. “Bellows, I’m under arrest, you know,” he began.

  “Yes, sir. I heard it, sir.”

  Burke pointed to Doll and Ponce in the darkness. “I have to talk with that ’Pache. He’s not allowed on the post after dark and I’m not allowed off it. Suppose we meet on the line and you watch us.”

  Bellows grinned. “As long as nobody crosses, I’m obeying orders, sir.”

  * * * *

  Burke went on, and paused at the line of the blacksmith shop’s wall. Rush and Ponce came to meet him, and in the dim light of the lantern Burke looked searchingly at Ponce. He was taller than the average Apache, perhaps thirty-eight, with squarish flat features holding a subtle blending of fierceness, pride, and cunning that had made him Tana’s subchief—and a rebel. He was dressed in a dirty blue calico shirt, worn tails out, breech-clout and high leggings and moccasins. Gravely he extended his hand to Burke and shook hands.

  This was hardly the time for ceremony, Burke knew, but he offered Ponce a cigar from his pocket, and it was accepted and-lighted. Burke and Rush knelt while Ponce squatted silently in the dim light. He spoke now in Apache to Rush, who interpreted to Burke.

  “He says he’s sorry you got in trouble for giving him and his band food,” said Rush.

  “Tell him I’m his friend,” Burke said. “My friends don’t go hungry.”