The Colonel's Lady Page 8

  It happened very quickly. I was to learn that everything Apaches did was quick. We rode into the draw, and the ridges and boulders became suddenly alive with a stunning burst of fire. I remember sitting stupidly, watching three troopers pitch out of their saddles. Kohi had planned it well, for three more troopers had fallen, and four valuable horses, before the shock of combat cleared our brains.

  I became aware of the noise and confusion, and Skiborsky's bellowing, and the lunging and pitching of riderless horses there in the close confines of the gully. There were eight troopers now, where there had been fourteen a few minutes before. Heaven alone knew how many Apaches there were.

  “Skiborsky!” I heard Halan yelling. “Take the patrol up the wall of the draw. Up to that big flat rock. We can make a stand there.” He wheeled his horse, turning to the young, bewildered lieutenant. “Mr. Loveridge, take one man as horse-holder and get back up the draw with these animals. If it's possible, bring them out and get them behind us.”

  The men, lashed to life by Skiborsky's curses and threats, began swinging down from the saddles. Carbines came out of boots and began answering the Indian rifles. We clawed our way up the rocky wall, and when we reached the top, Halan called, “Hold your fire. Make them come after us.”

  They came after us when they saw us coming out of the draw. There were four of them, paint-smeared, completely naked except for breechclouts and knee-high moccasins and bright-colored, dirty headbands. They came as fast as shadows flicking across the ground, and Captain Halan yelled:

  “Fire!”

  One volley was enough. The four Apaches went down under the blast of the carbines and we ran for a rock.

  The eight of us made it to the rock and squirmed over it on our bellies and dropped down to the other side. We now had solid rock to our backs and a scattering of boulders in front to furnish us a serviceable fortress. There was a sharp report of a carbine beside me and I looked around and saw Morgan squinting over the barrel of his saddle gun. He looked up soberly.

  “By God, this is a different kind of war!”

  “Where's the Dutchman?”

  “The Dutchman can take care of himself.” Then Steuber crawled up beside us, sweating and cursing.

  “By God,” he said, “we're goin' to be busy for a while.”

  Morgan spat. “Not for long. We're not goin' to last long. There must be half a hundred of them red bastards hidin' behind rocks out there.”

  It was suddenly quiet. We lay there in a rough half circle waiting for them to come after us. Skiborsky and the captain had inched their way up to some high ground to get the lay of the land. Then Skiborsky inched down again and came toward us.

  “What're they waitin' on?” Morgan wanted to know. “Why don't they come?”

  Skiborsky grinned that grin of his. “They'll come soon enough. Anybody here feel like bein' a hero?”

  “We'll all be heroes before long. From duty to killed in action.”

  “The Captain says to ask for a volunteer,” Skiborsky said. “Somebody's got to break out of here and bring some help, and damn quick.”

  “From Larrymoor?” I asked.

  “Hell, no. We'd all be dead by then. The E Company patrol ought to be somewhere south of Star Creek—between the creek and the Boulders, the Captain judges. With some luck a fast rider could get through and bring them back in time to save a scalp or two.”

  “I don't feel lucky,” Morgan said.

  “I'll try it,” Steuber said, looking over the barrel of his carbine.

  “You make too good a target, Dutchman. Besides, no horse could hold you up for that long. How about you, Reardon?”

  “All right.”

  “A goddamn hero,” Morgan said, and spat in disgust.

  Skiborsky looked at him, grinning fiercely. “Maybe all your yellow's not on your legs, trooper.”

  Morgan's head jerked up. “Maybe you want a hole in your gut. Say something else like that to me and you'll get it.”

  “You're the man for the job, Morgan. You're light and you know about horses, and you can shoot if you have to. How about it?”

  “Is that an order?”

  “I told you I'm askin' for a volunteer.”

  “Then go to hell. I'll stay here and die my own way.”

  “Someday,” Skiborsky said, “I'll break your back, Morgan, just to hear it crack. All right, Reardon, you get the job. Go talk to the Captain. He'll tell you what to do.”

  The desert was still quiet, but not as quiet as it had been. We could hear them moving around out there, skittering from one boulder to another, holding a powwow of some kind or other. I slung my carbine and began edging away toward the rock where the Captain was.

  “Trooper Reardon, sir. Skiborsky said you had a job for me.”

  “Did he tell you what it was?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You may not make it,” he said.

  “Then I guess none of us will.”

  He wiped his face on his handkerchief. “Yes, I guess that's right. That's a good-sized war party for Apaches— about fifty, I'd say. They'll charge before long. We'll be able to throw them back the first time, maybe the second.... But they'll make it on the third try. They always do. Maybe the E Company won't be enough to help us, but we've got to try it anyway.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you know where the place is?”

  “South of Star Creek, sir. Between the creek and the Boulders.”

  “That ought to be about right. Mr. Loveridge got the horses out of the draw and has them behind us now, back there on the other side of that boulder. Do you think you can get back there?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well... good luck, Reardon.”

  It wasn't going to be an easy matter getting to the horses. There was about a hundred yards of open desert between us and Lieutenant Loveridge, and it had to be crossed some way. I decided that it would be better to run than to try to crawl from rock to rock, so I got a good hold on my carbine and pulled my campaign hat down on my forehead and lit out.

  It was a long way. A lot longer than a hundred yards, it seemed. I must have made the jump just as they were getting ready to attack because I heard the Indians let out a howl of anger, and then they were burning the air down with bullets and arrows. The troopers were yelling and shooting now like crazy men, and the young lieutenant up ahead was waving me on.

  I finally made it, but I felt that I had already used up all my luck. I wanted to go back and tell the Captain to get somebody else to do the job.

  “Are you all right, trooper?” the Lieutenant asked.

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “The Captain wants somebody to locate the other patrol and get them to give us a hand. I got the job.”

  The lieutenant and the horse-holder were out of the line of fire now, hidden from the draw by the giant boulder. But I was just as glad that I wasn't in their place. Sooner or later the Indians were going to discover those horses back there, guarded by only two men. And then they would charge the position, and I didn't like to think of what would happen after that. The horse-holder cut out a strong-looking roan and tightened the cinch for me. Then we heard the yelling and shooting begin again across the open stretch of desert and we knew the attack had started.

  “You'd better ride, Reardon,” the Lieutenant said. “You'll have a better chance of making it while things are hot.”

  I got in the saddle and looked at the stretch in front of me. Maybe I said a little prayer. I don't remember. Then I put the iron to the roan and we spurted into the open.

  We went straight through it, because there was no other way to go. Over the rattle of gunfire I could hear the troopers shouting me on, while I hung onto the horse's neck and wondered how the Apaches could possibly miss an animal that size. Maybe they were shooting at me, and that was the trouble. Maybe they all had a greedy eye on that big red horse, and maybe they were all thinking what a figure they'd cut astride an animal like that, and that was the reason they didn't a
im for him. If I had been in their place, I would have put a bullet through the big roan's heart, no matter how pretty an animal he was, and then I would have gone after the rider.

  But you never know what goes on in an Apache's mind. Somehow, they had missed us both, and the racket of the battle fell quickly behind once we were in the open. The roan was pounding and grunting, and finally I realized that I still had the iron to him, so I let up a little and gave him a chance to breathe.

  Chapter Six

  IT WAS ABOUT eight miles from the place where the Apaches jumped us to the Boulders, and about two miles farther to Star Creek. A long way on the desert, especially if you're riding a horse that's already tired and you're not sure if he's going to hold up for the distance or not. It doesn't make it any easier when you know the Indians must have fresh ponies being held back out of line of fire somewhere, and you keep wondering what you're going to do if they decide to use them and come after you.

  They didn't come, though. I guess they figured the patrol was more important than just one man, and they were going to concentrate their attention there and finish it off before I had a chance to bring help.

  I tried to ride light, but it's hard to ride light when the heat has sapped your energy and wrung you dry. After a while you get to feeling that it doesn't make any difference one way or the other. You're not going to make it anyway. So you just hang on and let your horse run himself to death and you don't much care if he dies under you or not.

  But the big roan didn't die. He had been cared for and pampered and fed on plenty of government corn shipped all the way across the desert from Mexico, and all that was paying off now. He was big and strong and had a heart as big as Texas. I finally realized that and gave him a chance. I began to pace him. We walked, we cantered, we galloped, and then we walked again, all in the prescribed cavalry fashion, even when my thighs ached from wanting to sink the iron to him.

  The sun got hotter—or seemed to get hotter—and the big roan grunted and stumbled but he didn't go down. And finally we got to the Boulders. I loosened the cinch for a minute and let the horse drink sparingly at the spring, and I filled my saddle canteen and drank myself.

  I wondered where the E Company patrol was. I looked at the sky, and the sun was still high. Too high. Apache almost always stops his attack when darkness sets in, but if I waited that long it wouldn't make any difference whether I found the patrol or not. I tightened the cinch and got back in the saddle.

  When I got to Star Creek I followed it south, hoping it was the right direction, but there was no way to be sure. If I had a bugle, I thought, I could blow the thing and maybe the bugler with E Company would answer me and let me know which way they were. But I didn't have a bugle, and probably E Company didn't have one either. I did have a Colt's .44-caliber revolving pistol, though. I drew it and fired three times into the thin desert air.

  I waited for what seemed a long time. Then, from far off, came the answer spat, spat, spat, sounding like a woman beating a rug about three miles away.

  I hoped it was the patrol. I hoped it wasn't Kohi, or one of his lieutenants, setting a trap for some damn-fool cavalryman who didn't have any better sense than to be riding around by himself in the desert. But I couldn't sit there worrying about it. I nudged the roan forward again, down the creek, where the shots had come from.

  About ten minutes later a two-man detail broke out of some brush ahead of me. A red-faced, red-eyed corporal, and a Pima scout.

  “You from E Company patrol?” I called.

  “That's right,” the corporal said. “Who the hell are you?”

  “With A. We got jumped up north and need some help.”

  The corporal took two thoughtful bites from a twist of tobacco. “That horse of yours looks about played out. You'd better take my mount and go on down the creek and tell the Lieutenant about it. That's Lieutenant Gorgan. He's in charge of this patrol.”

  Lieutenant Gorgan was a white-haired, red-faced man old enough to be a colonel but would probably retire no higher than a captain. If he managed to live that long. The patrol was taking a break in a sandy bend of the dry creek as I broke through the brush.

  “Mr. Gorgan, sir?”

  “That's right, trooper.”

  “Trooper Reardon, sir, of A Company.”

  He listened quietly while I told him about the attack and where it was and how long I thought Halan could hold out. He gazed at the sun for a moment, then motioned to his sergeant.

  “Sergeant,” he said wearily, as though we were discussing the weather and the subject bored him, “you'd better pull out two men to act as trains. Strip down to battle gear, carbines, revolving pistols, and two bandoleers of ammunition per man. Throw off forage and surplus equipment—trains can bring it up later.”

  The thing was done with no fuss at all. “Reardon,” Lieutenant Gorgan said, “would you like to go along with us?”

  “Yes, sir, I would.”

  “Then you'd better fall into the column someplace.” He rode to the head of the column, which had already formed, raised his arm lazily, and called, “Forwar-r-rd!” as though he were on the parade at Larrymoor. “At the walk, ho-o-o-o!” Then, “At the trot, ho-o-o-o!”

  There is a great deal of difference between crossing the desert all by yourself and doing it with a column of cavalry. When you're alone the emptiness and silence are overwhelming, and the heat starts crazy ideas running around in your brain like demented mice, and, after a while, if it goes on long enough, you begin seeing things that you know are not really there, and pretty soon you began to wonder what is real and what isn't. That's the way the desert gets you when you're alone. But when you're in the company of twelve good tough troopers, and an officer you can trust—then it's different.

  The desert didn't seem so big now, or so powerful. We strung out across that stretch of wasteland raising enough dust and making enough racket for a small army. There was something comforting in the grunting of the horses and the rattle of loose steel and the hoarse curses of the troopers. There was even a comfort in the strangling dust that boiled up around us and over us as we rode. I was not alone, and that's the important thing when you're in the desert.

  We reached some high ground finally and Lieutenant Gorgan halted the column to let the horses blow. “Reardon,” he called, “you'd better come up here with me.” I kneed out of line and rode up to where the officer was loosening his cinch.

  “Hell on horses,” he said dryly, cutting the leather from his mount's chest. He seemed more concerned with his animal than with the patrol up ahead somewhere. If there was anything left of the patrol. He looked up.

  “Loosen your cinch, trooper. We're not going to be of any help if our horses break down. Now, just whereabouts is this fracas taking place?”

  I pointed to a rise of boulders and cactus in the distance. “Beyond that ridge, maybe a mile on the other side, there's a dry gully, sir. I judge it to be a long one, from what I saw of it. That's where they jumped us.”

  Gorgan took out his binoculars and studied the rise. He put the glasses back in the case and called back, “Un-bit and graze!”

  “Sir...” I started.

  Lieutenant Gorgan looked a question.

  “It's just that the patrol is pretty hard pressed, sir.”

  He grinned faintly, wearily. “And you think we ought to be getting on. Well, maybe we should. But if there are as many Indians as you say, what could we do?”

  I thought of Morgan, Steuber, even Skiborsky. Maybe they were dead by now. Maybe they were all dead. And here we sat, almost within sight of the massacre, doing nothing about it.

  “Patience, trooper,” Gorgan said softly, still grinning faintly. “It doesn't pay to get worked up in this heat.” He called back over his shoulder, “Sergeant.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Have the men cut some brush, Sergeant. Mesquite, sage, greasewood, anything they can find. A good pile.”

  I saw then what he meant to do, but it still seemed a c
riminal waste of time, when time could mean the difference between life and death for ten good cavalrymen less than three miles away. But the troopers cut the brush, a big pile of it, and they tied it in three large bundles and looped the ends of their lariats around them.

  “Sergeant,” Gorgan said, “do you see that queer-looking rock formation up ahead, kind of like an outsized X, or maybe a spread-eagle man?”

  “Yes, sir,” the sergeant said.

  “I think that's the place. Just behind that formation. Give us a good show, Sergeant.”

  The sergeant grinned. “Yes, sir!” He turned on his heel and bellowed, “Parker, Lorrain, get hold of that brush and follow me.”

  Gorgan rubbed his chin thoughtfully as the sergeant and two troopers cut out from the column and headed toward the rock formation. Each of them dragged large bundles of brush from the ends of lariats, and a huge curtain of dust boiled up behind them.

  The rest of the column bitted up, tightened cinches, and mounted. We rode down the grade at the walk. Before we reached the rise the Lieutenant brought us into line, with the great cloud of dust at our backs.

  “I suppose,” Gorgan said to no one in particular, “that we should have guidons flying and bugles blowing for a thing like this. But we'll have to make up for that in other ways, I guess.”

  We topped the ridge in thin line formation. I glanced back and saw the three troopers riding crazily in circles, boiling up more red dust. The wind caught the dust cloud, seemed to lift it and drop it on top of us.

  “At the gallop!” Gorgan shouted. “Guide on me!”

  We swept down from the ridge, a thin insignificant line of light cavalry. But, to the Apaches seeing us coming out of that storm of dust, we must have looked like a regiment. Gorgan bellowed orders to draw pistols as soon as we came within sight of the gully. We drew our pistols and emptied them at full gallop, without hoping to hit anything. But the shock and racket of fourteen revolving pistols being emptied at once added to the illusion of numbers, and that was what Gorgan wanted. We stopped long enough to let our covering of wind-swept dust catch up with us and fired one shocking volley with our carbines. Then, as we swept past what had once been the patrol's horse-holders, Gorgan shouted orders to draw sabers and charge.