Perryman muttered something Ramsay only half heard. He didn't think it was in English. That was liable to be just as well. If he didn't understand it, he didn't have to notice it. But then, slowly and with nothing like enthusiasm or even resignation, the Creek got to his feet and headed off to the latrine bay dug out from the main trench. Nobody watched him as he carried the buckets off to the disposal pit. Nobody watched him bring them back, either-more courtesy than white soldiers would have shown one of their comrades in the same fix.
'Thank you, Captain,' Moty Tiger said quietly as the two of them walked back toward where Ramsay had been drinking his coffee.
'You're welcome,' Ramsay answered. 'You were right, so I backed you up. Before too long, everybody will have the idea, and you won't need me to back you up.'
'I shouldn't have this time.' The Creek sounded angry at himself.
As an old sergeant himself, Ramsay understood that. But things were different here from the way they were in the Confederate Army or any other long-established force. 'Next time, or maybe the time after that, everything will go smooth,' Ramsay said. 'What you want to do is this-you want to make sure they do what you tell 'em before the damnyankees try another push into Okmulgee. That'll keep a lot more of 'em alive, whether they're smart enough to know it or not. They won't thank you for it, but they'll be here.'
'I understand,' the Creek sergeant said. He hesitated, then asked, 'If the United States soldiers do attack here, can we hold them back?'
'We've got the Creek Nation Army, we've got some good Texas infantry, we've got artillery back of town and over in the hills,' Ramsay said, and then, because honesty compelled him, 'Damned if I know. Depends on how hard the Yankees push things. Attacking costs more than defending, but they've got more men than we do, too.'
Moty Tiger nodded soberly. 'This is not war, the way we Creeks talk of war. This is not warrior against warrior. It is a whole nation throwing itself at another nation. It does not bring men glory or fame. It uses them up, and it buries them, and then it reaches out and uses more.'
'You're only wrong about one thing,' Ramsay said. The Indian looked a question at him. He explained. 'A lot of the time, this here war doesn't bother with buryin' the men it uses up.'
Moty Tiger pondered that. He showed his teeth in a grimace of pain, but didn't argue with Ramsay. Instead, after a grave nod, he turned around and went back down the trench, back toward his squad. They and he-and Ramsay-hadn't been used up… yet.
The train shuddered to a stop. Paul Mantarakis, conscious that the two dark green stripes on the sleeve of his tunic meant he had more important work to do- and that he had to do it under more important eyes- than before, said, 'My squad, get ready to pile on out.'
Soldiers stirred on the floor of the boxcar. Not so long ago, it had been carrying horses. The strong smell lingered. Some of the farm boys found it soothing. As far as Paul was concerned, that was their problem, not his. They grabbed their rifles, made sure they had all their gear, and grunted as they slung their packs onto their backs.
Not far away, Gordon McSweeney, also sporting corporal's stripes, was telling his squad, 'Properly speaking, these Mormons are not even Christians. They will go to hell regardless of whether we shoot them down or they die in bed. Spare not the rod, then, for not only are they heretics, they are rebels in arms against the United States of America.'
Lieutenant Norman Hinshaw was talking to the whole platoon: 'We have to root out these bandits and rebels and bring Utah back under the Stars and Stripes. Remember, most of the people we come across will be loyal Americans. Only a handful have sold themselves to the Canucks and the Rebs, and they're the ones causing all the trouble. Once we get rid of them, Utah should be a peaceable state, just like all the others.' He paused to let that sink in, then went on, 'When they first hatched their plot, these Mormon madmen blew up the railroad line right at the border and seized the weapons in every arsenal in the state. Now we've pushed more than halfway to Salt Lake City. The town ahead of us is called Price. We'll take it, repair the tracks, and move on.' He didn't ask for questions. He worked the latch on the boxcar door and slid it open. 'Let's go!'
After so long cooped up on the train, Mantarakis' eyes filled with tears when he stepped out into bright sunshine. The first breath of fresh air told him he wasn't in Kentucky any more, or in Philadelphia, either. It was hot and dry, with an alkaline tang to it. It wasn't summer yet, but it felt that way. Ahead- westward-and to the north, he saw forested mountains in the distance. A nearer line of green marked the Price River. But the land where he was standing had only scattered sagebrush and tumbleweeds and other desert plants on it. All it needed was the bleached skull of an ox to make it the perfect picture of an arid waste.
'This is the abomination of the desolation, as was spoken of in the Book of Daniel,' McSweeney said, and Mantarakis, for once, was not inclined to disagree.
The boxcar from which they'd emerged was one of dozens, hundreds, carrying the two divisions pulled out of Kentucky to their new theatre of operations. They unloaded men, horses, mules, wagons, trucks, guns-all the tools needed to wage war in the modern age, and to keep on waging it in country like this, where they would be hard pressed to draw supplies from the land.
Every officer of captain's rank or higher was running around with a list and a pencil, checking things off as fast as he could. In an amazingly short time, what had been two entrained divisions turned into two divisions ready for action. In spite of himself, Paul was impressed. Soldiers spent a lot of time groaning about officers, but every now and then they showed what they were worth.
Dust puffed up under Mantarakis' boots as he marched along. Dust hovered all around the thousands of marching men. It held a stronger dose of the alkaline tang he'd noticed before. How the devil were you supposed to raise crops on soil like this?
Plainly, the Mormons did it. He marched past a big farmhouse of a sort he'd never seen before: it looked to be made of rammed earth. In a country where it rained more often, a house like that would fall apart pretty damn quick. This one looked to have been standing for a generation, maybe two.
It stood open now. So did the barn alongside. Whoever had lived here didn't want to stick around and greet the United States Army with a big smile and an American flag. They like the Rebels, Mantarakis thought, not very happy with the idea. If only a handful of people were in revolt, why had the squad run across some of them so soon?
Then, ahead and off to the right, the familiar pop-pop-pop of gunfire rang out. 'We will move to the firing, to support our soldiers under attack,' Lieutenant Hinshaw proclaimed. The whole platoon-the whole company-did just that.
The Mormons were holed up in another farmhouse. It had a big flag flying above it, on what had to be a makeshift pole. Paul couldn't make out what the flag was, but it wasn't the Stars and Stripes. He saw muzzle flashes from several windows; the Mormons were putting a lot of lead in the air, doing their best to hold the U.S. troops at bay.
They hadn't built the place for defense, though. The barn offered one avenue blind to them for soldiers to approach. The well and the haystacks and the outhouse gave other approaches. Before long, Mantarakis' whole company was peppering the farmhouse from pretty short range. A machine gun came up and started rattling away. Dust flew from the adobe as bullets stitched back and forth. Its pole clipped, the flag fell in the dirt in front of the house. Mantarakis and his comrades cheered.
'Let's go!' Lieutenant Hinshaw shouted. Under cover of the machine gun, he rushed toward the farmhouse. Mantarakis and the rest of his squad followed. So did McSweeney and his men. If an officer had the guts to go out there, you couldn't let him go by himself.
A bullet whistled past Paul's head-not everybody in the farmhouse was down. The machine gun blasted away at the window from which the shot had come. Paul trampled on the fallen flag-it was, he saw, a beehive with the word DESERET beneath it-on the way to the front door. Along with several men, he hammered at it with the butt of his rifle. Someone inside fired through the door. A U.S. soldier fell with a groan.
Then the door went down. Soldiers were already clambering into the house through the windows. Mantarakis rushed in. Somebody shot at him from point-blank range-and missed. After a last fusillade of firing, silence fell: only U.S. soldiers were left alive in there.
Of the Mormon defenders, five had been men and two women. They had all had rifles, and had all known what to do with them. Mantarakis had seen plenty of death, but never till now a woman in a white shirtwaist with pearl buttons and a long black skirt-and with half her head blown away. He turned away, a little sickened. 'They
