He looked around him. “You men at the front windows, give Lieutenant Birchwood some covering fire.” As the Springfields crashed, Stryker nodded to Birchwood and yelled, “Go, Lieutenant!”
The door swung open and Birchwood and his men dashed outside.
Immediately the tempo of the Apache fire increased, the flat bark of the Springfields a drumming counterpoint to the sharp ring of the Indian Winchesters.
There are times when a man does a wrongheaded thing and later he can’t explain the why or the wherefore of it. Stryker knew he was in command, aware of the fact that he should not risk his life rashly and unnecessarily. Yet he drew his Colt and plunged from the adobe, his eyes seeking a target the instant he got outside.
Birchwood’s men were kneeling in line, firing steadily. The Apaches, sensing the kill, had left cover and had formed into a loose arc, working their Winchesters.
Stryker emptied his revolver at an Indian wearing a red headband and fancy Mexican vest, and was sure he’d scored a hit. But the man vanished from sight and there was nothing to mark where he’d been but a wisp of dust.
An Apache fell to Birchwood’s fire, and then one of his men toppled forward, his faced covered in sudden blood. A bullet tugged at Stryker’s sleeve and a second kicked up dust at his feet. Another Apache went down, and they began to give ground, moving back, seeking cover again.
“Inside, Lieutenant,” Stryker yelled. “We burned them.”
He had reloaded his Colt and fired it dry before following Birchwood and his men into the adobe. The soldier who’d been shot was dead and they left him where he lay.
As he slammed and bolted the door behind him, Stryker’s reeling mind betrayed him. Unbidden, the thought came to him, “Please, God, let Private Sam Stearns be as dead as the man outside.”
Suddenly ashamed of himself, he stepped beside the young soldier. Stearns was still alive, his blue eyes huge and frightened in his ashen face. As bullets rattled into the adobe, Stryker spared a quick glance at Kelly. The girl was terrified, but she was still huddled silent in a corner and was unhurt.
The lieutenant turned his attention to Stearns’ leg. Someone, probably Birchwood, had ripped the youngster’s pants to allow for the gangrene’s grotesque swelling. The leg itself was black, stinking, shining in the half-light like a gigantic, loathsome slug.
“Sir . . .” Stearns began. He could say no more, the words dying on his lips.
Stryker nodded. “I know, son. I know.” He laid his hand on the boy’s fevered forehead. “Very soon you’re going to have to be very brave.”
“Yes, sir, I know.” His eyes were haunted as if he stood, trembling, at a door marked FEAR. “The trouble is, sir, I’m not very brave.”
“Soldier, you’re doing just fine so far,” Stryker said. “When this is over I’m going to have Lieutenant Birchwood make you a corporal.”
The boy managed a wan smile. “I’d like that, sir.” “Those stripes will be on your sleeve in no time.” Stryker turned. “Lieutenant, I need two men.” When the soldiers stepped to the table, he said, “Hold him down.”
A bullet ricocheted off the iron stove, sang its vindictive song, then buried itself in a wall. At one of the windows a soldier fired, cursed, and fired again.
“You’ve got a good hold of him?”
One of the soldiers, yet another frightened youngster, nodded, pressing down hard on Stearns’ shoulders.
“Then let’s get it done,” Stryker said. He picked up his instruments, a razor sharp kitchen knife and a bone saw. It was not yet time for the saw and he laid it aside.
Bending over, he poised the knife over Stearns’ leg. Then he cut deep.
Chapter 21
Private Stearns’ scream was immediately echoed by Kelly’s terrified shriek. The girl was standing, her eyes transfixed on the body lying on the table. A soldier moved to comfort her, but she ducked away from him and cried out again.
Sweat beaded on Stryker’s brow and his hands were crimson, slippery, slick, slimy with blood. Tears ran down the cheeks of the younger of the two soldiers holding down Stearns’ arching body, and his lips moved in what might have been a prayer.
Green bile rising in his throat, Stryker sliced deeper, deeper still. Blood spurted from the soldier’s leg, gushing fountains of red, splashing the front of the lieutenant’s shirt.
The firing had stopped. The Apache, as curious as deer, looked at one another, wondering what was going on inside the adobe.
There! Stryker saw the white of bone.
He set the knife aside and picked up the bone saw.
The saw bit into green bone, skidding, making a noise like grinding corn. Stearns was beyond screaming. His mouth was wide-open, but he made no sound.
Breathing heavily, Stryker worked the saw back and forth. He shook stinging salt sweat from his eyes.
My God, would the bone never cut?
Then he was through and he used the knife again. Now it was like cutting fatty pork, greasy and slick.
The leg was free. The stump was red, raw, pumping gore.
“Birchwood!” No time for the military courtesies. “Bring the cleaver.”
The young lieutenant tried the wood and steel handle of the cleaver, jerked his burned hand away, then wrapped a rag around his hand.
“The cleaver, goddamn you!” Stryker yelled.
Stearns was screaming again, bucking wildly against the strong hands of the soldiers holding him.
The boy was in mortal agony, Stryker knew. But worse was to come. He knew that too.
Gingerly taking the hot handle of the cleaver, he quickly shoved the cherry-red steel blade against the raw, scarlet meat of the stump.
Stearns screamed into the sizzling silence. Only once. Then a ringing quiet.
The youngster’s eyes were wide-open, filled with the memory of pain. The two soldiers, feeling the life go out of Stearns, lifted their hands off his shoulders.
Stryker opened his fingers and let the cleaver clang to the floor.
“Sir, his poor heart just give out,” the older of the two soldiers said. “It couldn’t take it no more.”
Lifting bleak eyes to the man, Stryker said nothing. Now the bitter gorge was rising in him and his mouth filled with saliva that tasted like acid.
He turned away, bent over and retched uncontrollably. He threw up everything that was in his stomach, then gagged convulsively on its emptiness.
“Try this, sir.” Birchwood was beside him, a cup of coffee in his hand. “It might help.”
Stryker took the cup and with bloodshot eyes looked over the room. “You men,” he said, “step careful over here. I made a real mess.”
His thoughts turned inward. A mess of everything.
The coffee cup in his hand, Stryker stepped back to Stearns’ body. Seemingly out of nowhere, slow black flies were angling above the bloody stump. He walked into a cell, dragged a blanket off the cot and spread it over the youngster’s body. The soldiers were watching him, their eyes neither accusing nor sympathetic. Just . . . watching.
He felt he had to say something, anything. In the end, all he could manage was “I’m sorry.” Words as inadequate as they sounded.
Stryker hadn’t really expected “You did your best, sir,” or “Sam was too far gone, sir,” but what he didn’t anticipate was total silence. It was not a hostile quiet and in its emptiness it did not apportion blame. Perhaps it was just dull resignation, that and the awareness that come night the moon would rise but they would not see it because they might all be as dead as Private Stearns.
Speaking into the vacuum, Stryker said, “I just wanted all of you to know that I tried.”
This time there was no answering silence. Soldiers shuffled their feet, lit their pipes or stepped to the stove
