For a moment he felt a surge of panic that quickly passed. As far as he could tell, the bullet wound in his side had healed, thanks to Decker. When the man was sober he was a good doctor, and Stryker told himself that his smashed face was no doubt back to normal.
Time would tell . . . when the bandages were removed.
“I haven’t changed my mind, Colonel,” Stryker said. His voice was a harsh croak, far removed from the usual fine baritone that he had so often used to entertain his fellow officers with selections from Mr. Gilbert and Mr. Sullivan’s latest operettas.
He had not lied to Lawson. He hated, with a passion, the silent, brooding desert, its infinite distances, the land and sky scorched to the color of chalk. And there was no honor to be gained fighting Apaches, no medals awarded for killing Stone Age savages.
Without the colonel, he could end up as so many others had done in the frontier army, an aging captain, if he was lucky, with nothing to look forward to but a retirement of genteel poverty eked out in some dusty western town, with stories to tell but no one to listen to them.
As though he’d read the lieutenant’s thoughts, Lawson slapped his hands together and said heartily, “Come now, Major Decker, shall we proceed with the”—he smiled—“unveiling?”
“The Man in the Iron Mask,” Millie whispered. She put a hand to her mouth. “Why did I say that?”
“Understandable, my dear,” Lawson said smoothly. “After all, the only person who has seen Lieutenant Stryker’s handsome features this past two months is Major Decker. A mask indeed, but of cotton, not iron.”
The doctor, a stricken look on his face, leaned over Stryker and whispered into his ear, low enough that only he could hear. “Steve, God help me, I tried my best.”
Stryker swallowed hard, a growing apprehension in him that was but a step away from fear. As Decker began to unroll the bandages, the lieutenant listened into the wind-lashed night, a man afraid of what was to come.
He winced as the cotton gauze ripped away from dried blood, and Decker whispered, “Sorry.”
Stryker stared at the dusty ceiling, which was cob-webbed in the dark corners where the spiders lived. He again felt the spike of panic.
Two months, and in all that time Decker had not let him look into a mirror!
For God’s sake, why not?
Millie’s hands were hot in his own and he felt sweat on her palms. She was breathing unevenly, quiet little gasps that were now coming quicker as the layers of bandages were peeled away.
Outside, in the darkness, the coyotes were talking, and Stryker heard sentries call out to one another. The wind pounded around the eaves of the hospital, as though eager to be let inside and witness what was happening.
Made uneasy by the hunting coyotes and bored with the human activity, the little calico jumped down from the sill and found a sheltered spot behind the wheel of a parked freight wagon. She curled into a ball, nose to tail, but did not sleep.
When she heard the woman’s scream, she jumped to her feet, head lifted, eyes aglow with emerald fire.
“I’m sorry, Steve!” Millie Lawson jumped to her feet. She didn’t look at him again. “I’m so sorry! I can’t. . . . I just can’t—”
She turned and ran to the door, ignoring her father’s call to stop. The girl threw the door open wide, then dashed blindly into the darkness, her sobs drifting behind her like leaves in a wind.
Shocked, his face drained of color, Colonel Abel Lawson pointed an accusing finger at Decker. “Damn you, Major!” he yelled. “Damn you to hell!”
The doctor looked like a man who had just been punched in the gut. “I did my best to piece him together,” he said. There was no defiance in his voice, only weary resignation.
“Then your best wasn’t good enough, was it?” Lawson snapped. “The damned mule doctor could have done better.”
Stryker looked at the two men, then traced his fingertips over his face from forehead to chin. Battling to keep his voice steady, he said quietly, “Major Decker, please bring me a mirror.”
He didn’t look at his reflection or scream until he was alone.
By then, Surgeon Major Decker was already stinking drunk.
Chapter 2
Lieutenant Steve Stryker watched Joe Hogg ride toward him at a slow canter. The scout’s head was on a swivel, his eyes constantly scanning the chaparral-covered hills around him.
Hogg was by nature a careful-riding man, but his vigilance put Stryker on edge.
He turned to the soldier at his side, like himself stripped down to long johns, hat and boots against the merciless heat of the day. “Draw carbines and form a skirmish line, Sergeant Hooper.”
Hooper swung his horse away and yelled at the eighteen troopers behind him. “You heard the officer. Draw carbines an’ form a bloody skirmish line.”
The cavalry troopers, tough, hard-bitten runts riding grade horses, drew their Springfields and shook out into a ragged line, leaving one man with the pack mules. Then, like Stryker, they sat their mounts silently and watched Hogg come.
The scout was a narrow wisp of a man who seemed to be formed only of height and width, like a figure on a playing card. He had the thin, hard-boned face of a desert rider and his shabby, trail-worn coat and pants had faded to the color of the desert itself. In a close-up fight, he was good with the heavy revolver that rode his hip, better with the Henry .44-40 booted under his left knee.
Stryker had been told that Hogg had killed eight white men in gunfights, and he believed it. The scout was sudden, dangerous beyond measure, and if there was any softness in him, Stryker hadn’t found it yet.
The lieutenant waited, knowing that Hogg, a taciturn man who didn’t like to be pushed, would speak in his own due time.
“Apaches—a mixed band by the sign,” Hogg said finally. “I found Chiricahua and Mescalero arrows up there.”
“Where are they?”
“Not where they are, Lieutenant, but where they was.” Hogg turned in the saddle and pointed. “Beyond the ridge of the saddleback yonder. Norton and Stewart stage out of Globe. Five men dead and one woman.” The scout’s black eyes sought Stryker’s, deciding not to rein in his tongue. “The woman was young and she was used, rode hard fore an’ aft, afore they cut her throat.”
“An officer’s wife headed for the fort?”
“Could be. But now it don’t matter a hill o’ beans who she was, do it?”
“Damn it, Joe, I thought the Chiricahua were still holed up in the Madres, licking their wounds after the beating they took from the Mexicans in the Tres Castillas last year,” said Stryker.
“I’d say the twenty young bucks who attacked the stage didn’t learn that lesson.” The scout shrugged. “They must have just broke out recent, lookin’ to raise hob in general and avenge the deaths of ol’ Victorio an’ sixty warriors in partic’lar.”
“They’re succeeding.”
The sun was very hot and gulping the still, dry air was like breathing inside a blast furnace. Buzzards were gliding lazily over the saddleback, patiently anticipating the feast spread out below them.
“Where are they headed, Joe?” Stryker asked.
“North, toward the Cabezas. They cut out the stage mules. I’m guessing they’ll camp in the foothills tonight and fill their bellies with mule meat.”
“Then we can catch them?”
“We can. Them bucks don’t even know we’re here. Looks like all of them headed north.”
Stryker took time to roll a cigarette, aware that Hogg’s eyes were still on his face.
He was the only man who looked at him straight. Stryker had grown used to people staring at the tunic buttons on his chest when they spoke to him, unwilling to raise their eyes and confront the horror of his disfigured features. But the scout looked and never flinched.
