The Colonel's Lady (8 page)

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.

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 criminal 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.

I don't know what the Apaches thought as they saw us charging down on them, shooting and yelling like crazy men, but they must have been looking past us, into that swirling dust, and wondering what was coming after us. They had seen me get away, knowing that I was going for help. Possibly they had even let me get away on purpose, with the idea of killing off both patrols at once while they had the numbers to work with. But now they weren't sure. They couldn't see what was coming out of that dust, and what they couldn't see they didn't like.

But they didn't run in that first moment of uncertainty. They came diving at us from tops of boulders, attempting to dismount us. I saw Gorgan's horse go down under the shock of an Apache bullet. The Lieutenant went head over heels over his horse's head, hitting the ground as solidly as a rock. His face, I saw, was white as he tried to get up. He groped blindly, the wind knocked out of him, and then I saw the painted Apache flicking across the ground toward him, his scalping knife held high.

Gorgan saw him, but he couldn't move. He crouched on his hands and knees, shaking his head like a poled steer. My carbine was empty and so was my pistol, but I still had my saber. I put iron to my horse and we spurted toward Gorgan, almost riding him down. I leaned far over my mount's neck and took a whistling cut; feeling the honed edge of the saber bite into flesh and bone and come away dripping. Grinning sickly, the Lieutenant raised his hand and waved to me.

The remnants of the A Company patrol were coming out from behind their boulders now, firing and yelling and adding to the confusion. The Apaches began to break as we hacked at them with the bright edges of our sabers. Surely, they reasoned, no handful of cavalry would charge a full war party of Apaches without knowing that there was great strength to back them up.

They began to give away, skittering from one rock to another at first, then becoming disorganized and confused in the sudden, senseless fury. Finally, with howls of anger and frustration, they turned and ran.

We made a show of pursuing. But only a show. We reloaded and fired another volley as they retreated into the gully and ran for their ponies at the far end of the draw. We then dismounted and took up positions behind rocks, but they didn't come back. We heard the beat of pony hoofs far down the draw, and a fan of dust began to rise up into the endless sky. They were gone as suddenly as they had appeared.

Captain Halan came from somewhere, out of the smoke and the dust, and shook Gorgan's hand. He turned to me and said, “A good job, Reardon. I shall mention you in my report to Colonel Weyland.”

Hearing Weyland's name was a shock. I had almost forgotten that there was a Colonel Weyland, or a Caroline.... There didn't seem to be anything to say, so I saluted and walked over to the boulders where the A Company patrol had been dug in.

Skiborsky was sitting on the ground, his pants down, inspecting an arrow scratch along his thigh. “Dutchman,” he said, “how long do you figure it's been since that arrow stuck me?”

“Maybe a half hour. Why?”

The Sergeant took a deep breath, held it for what seemed a long time, then let it out. “Then I guess it wasn't poisoned.”

“What happens when they're poisoned?” Steuber wanted to know.

“It depends on what they use. If it's snake poison, you get sick and turn green and in about twenty minutes you're dead. If they make poison from rotten deer liver and pulverized insects, it's something else again. After about ten minutes your head starts to poundin' like it would bust, and after about ten more minutes you start yellin' and they have to tie you down. Inside of an hour, if you're lucky, you're dead.”

“Can't you talk about something else?” Morgan said.

Skiborsky grinned at him. “What's the matter, Morgan, your guts still crawling?”

Anger and old, old hate crowded Morgan's eyes. But then he saw me and said, “You took your own goddamn good time about gettin' back, Reardon.”

The Dutchman grinned. “Don't let Morgan fool you. He's damn glad to see you. We all are.”