beside her.
Kelly was unhurt, but she was hugging and kissing her dead mother, sobbing uncontrollably.
Birchwood stood beside Stryker, looking down at the dead. “Oh my God,” he whispered, over and over again.
“Lieutenant, see to your men,” Stryker snapped. “Occupy the adobe, then form a burial party.”
It took a while, but Birchwood said, “Yes, sir.”
“And Lieutenant, they had a few weeks of happiness. Maybe that’s more than many of us are allowed.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now go about your duties.”
Stryker reached out and closed Hogg’s eyes. He felt that he’d lost his good right arm, and more than that, he’d lost a friend. His only friend.
He looked to the mountains, now bathed in pale gold light as the sun dropped lower in the sky. The breeze brought the scent of pines and dust and of secret places where water tumbled and the gunmetal fish played.
Suddenly he felt very alone. Lonelier than the lonely land. Lonelier than the first man the day after Creation.
“God help me,” Stryker said aloud.
Kelly turned, looking at him with tearstained eyes. But he had no other words, not for her or for himself.
Chapter 20
Before sundown, Stryker saw Joe Hogg and Mary McCabe buried.
Kelly was inconsolable, lost in grief that no child should be asked to bear. Crowded into the adobe, the soldiers did their best, rough and ready men who believed that if they only made the girl laugh, she’d feel better.
After a while they gave up, and Kelly retreated into a dark place they could not reach.
It was widely believed by Stryker and everyone else that Indians would not attack at night, fearing that if they were killed their souls would wander in eternal darkness. But Apaches were willing to fight at any hour, if they thought it would give them an edge.
Throughout the long night they fired probing shots at the adobe, and one of them coaxed cracked notes from a bugle and kept it up for a nerve wracking hour.
On the partition walls of the cells, the soldiers had found crude charcoal drawings of men and women engaged in various sexual activities, and, despite Lieutenant Birchwood’s prim disapproval, they became a topic of excited conversation and speculation until the men drifted off to sleep.
Birchwood had placed the bar off-limits to his soldiers, but Stryker poured himself a stiff drink and built a cigarette. To his joy he had found a supply of tobacco and papers at the general store, even though the Apaches had taken time to loot the place before they left.
Men were sprawled all over the floor and on the stained and odorous cots once used by the whores and their clients. Kelly was huddled in a corner, covered by a soldier’s greatcoat, and seemed to be asleep. Private Stearns, his young face ashen, lay on the pine table, groaning softly, trying his best to be brave. Every now and then a soldier manning the windows stepped beside the youngster, trying to comfort him. Stearns’ left leg was black from his toes to above the knee and would have to come off.
Stryker had brought a supply of knives and meat saws from the post kitchen and he would do the surgery at first light. He shook his head and whispered into the snoring darkness.
“Thanks, Joe, just what I needed.”
The long night shaded into morning and outside birds began to sing. Men stirred and stomped their feet and pipes were lit. Birchwood gave his permission to light the stove just long enough to boil coffee, and Stryker silently approved. It was going to get hot enough in the crowded adobe as it was, and a burning stove would not help matters.
He had not slept. The constant Apache sniping and the prospect of cutting off Private Stearns’ leg had kept him awake throughout the night, though cigarettes and whiskey had helped.
Birchwood, exhibiting the resilience of the young, looked fresh and rested. He stepped beside the wounded soldier and his face fell.
“It’s worse, Lieutenant, huh?” Stryker asked.
“Yes, sir. It has to come off soon.” The young officer looked directly into Stryker’s eyes. “It will kill him if we don’t.”
Birchwood had said “we.” But Stryker knew there was no “we.” There was only “you.” What the boy was really saying was “It will kill him if
Back at the Point, this was called “the burden of command.” He was the senior officer present, and it was his call. That’s what Birchwood expected, and that’s what the soldiers expected.
Stryker looked around him, searching the young, troubled faces that were waiting for him to say something, words of strength and wisdom that would reassure them. He gave up the search. There was no one else, only Steve Stryker. He had to do it.
“One of you men, bring a bottle of rotgut from the bar,” he said. “I want this soldier good and drunk.”
Stryker placed the flat of his hand on Private Stearns’ heaving chest. “I have to take your leg off, son,” he said. “There’s no other way.”
The teenager tried to smile. “I like to dance, sir. I was good at it back home in Tennessee. My . . . my sisters teached me, and my ma.”
“One time at a cotillion I saw a man dance on one leg,” Stryker lied. “He did all right.” He leaned closer to the youngster. “What’s your given name, soldier?”
“Sam, sir. My pa set store by that name, said it was crackerjack.”
Stryker smiled. “It sure is a crackerjack name, just like your pa said.”
A soldier brought a bottle and with a rough, kindly gentleness raised the youngster’s head. “Get this whiskey down you, Sammy, boy,” he said. “I want to see you hymn-singing, snot-slingin’ drunk.”
A bullet shattered a window pane and thudded into the far wall, followed by a furious fusillade of fire that threatened to shred the adobe into Swiss cheese. The soldiers at the windows were shooting, but no hits were scored. Apaches moved like wraiths and were hard to kill.
A big, bearded trooper yelped as a bullet cut across his bicep and another got a faceful of splinters as a shot exploded the dry timber of the window frame.
Stryker watched Stearns try to drink, but the raw whiskey would not stay down and the youngster threw it back up, now tinged with scarlet blood. The inside of the adobe was thick with drifting gunsmoke, the stink of sulfur hung in the air and the amber light of the burning stove transformed the adobe into an antechamber of hell.
The coffee was boiling, but Stryker had a large, flat meat cleaver in the coals, the iron glowing dull red, and the fire stayed lit.
“Got one!” a soldier yelled.
“The hell you did!” somebody answered. “He’s still running.”
Birchwood had a half dozen men kneeling behind him at the door. He looked at Stryker who was standing motionless beside Stearns.
“Permission to sortie, sir,” he said. “I can bring more of our rifles to bear.”
Like a man waking from a dream, Stryker moved to a window. Outside, the Apaches were tightening the ring around the ranch, taking advantage of every scrap of cover. As Stryker watched, an Indian rose up, fired, and then disappeared again like a fleeting shadow.
A direct attempt to storm the adobe anytime soon was unlikely. The Apaches were playing a waiting game, trying to whittle down the number of men inside before launching an all-out assault.
Already two soldiers were wounded, both slightly, but the Apaches were finding the range and their fire was becoming more economical as they chose their targets.
Stryker stepped away from the window and raised his voice above the roar of gunfire. “Deploy in line, Lieutenant,” he said, “and see if you can drive them back. A couple of volleys; then get inside again. For God’s sake, don’t linger.”
