Chapter 23
The three riders taking the point were all big men wearing dusty range clothes, pants tucked into scuffed boots that sported spurs as big and round as tea-cups. Each wore a Colt on his hip and had a Winchester booted under his left knee.
They drew rein when they were five feet from Stryker.
“Howdy,” the older man said, “name’s Abel Warden from over to Tucson way. I’ve got three hundred head of beeves for Fort Bowie coming up about half an hour behind me.” He waved a hand to the man on his right. “This is my foreman, Arkansas Charlie Mullins, and this young feller here”—he nodded toward the man on his left—“is John Warden, my oldest son and segundo.”
Abel Warden laid his hands on the saddle horn, his eyes ranging over the battle-scarred adobe and the dead soldier still lying in the dust in front of the building.
“You’ve been through it,” he said.
Stryker nodded. “Apaches. They quit when they saw you coming.” He smiled. “I don’t think that’s going to be a permanent arrangement.”
He introduced himself and Birchwood, then said, “You know Nana is out and joined up with Geronimo?”
“Heard that. Figgered they’d head south into Old Mexico, though. Back in Tucson, they say General Crook is headed for the Territory to lead another expedition against the Apaches.”
“I hadn’t heard that.”
“Well, it’s what they say. ‘Lead another expedition, ’ was how it was put to me.”
Arkansas Charlie and the younger Warden were staring at Stryker with that slack-jawed, rube-at-a-carnival- freak-show look he’d come to know so well. Abel, older and maybe wiser, didn’t let it show.
The man’s eyes ranged across around the post again, then to the dozen soldiers, then back to Stryker. “This all you got, Lieutenant?”
“This is it. Everybody else is at Fort Bowie.” Warden nodded. “Maybe you should come with us.”
“How many drovers with you, Mr. Warden?”
“Us three and three others.” He saw a flicker of doubt fleet across Stryker’s face. “They’re all good men, Lieutenant, and they’ve fit Indians before. Comanche mostly, and Kiowa. They’ll stand.”
Warden nodded in the direction of the cottonwoods. “The creek over there still got water?”
“Some. But three hundred head of cattle will drink it dry.”
“Good. Then there’ll be none left for the Apaches.”
“One thing, Mr. Warden: I have womenfolk with me, a young girl and a crazy lady. And two wounded soldiers, one of them real bad.”
“Can they walk? I got no wagon, only a pack mule.”
“They can walk. The badly wounded man will die real soon.”
Warden nodded. He turned to his foreman. “Charlie, you and John bring up the herd.”
When the men had left, Warden followed Stryker to the adobe. He swung out of the saddle and set a foot inside, but quickly stepped back again, gulping air.
“Whoa, Lieutenant, no disrespect,” he said, “but I can’t stomach that stink. It could turn a man for sure.”
“I have two dead men inside,” Stryker said. He did not elaborate. “And it’s hot.”
“Kill any Apaches?”
“Maybe two. I don’t know. The Apaches dragged them away.”
“They’ll do that. They always try to recover their dead.”
Warden’s gaze scanned the mountains around him. “Which way did they go?”
“North, back into the hills.”
“How many?”
“Again, I don’t know. Forty, fifty, at least.”
“They’ll be back.” Warden thought for a while, then said, “I’ll have the boys cut out a couple of head and leave them here. Apaches are always hungry and they may wait to fill their bellies before they come after us.”
“They might,” Stryker allowed.
“Or they might not,” Warden said. “Comanches are notional, so are Kiowa, but they don’t come close to Apaches in contrariness.”
A half hour later, Warden’s bony herd spread out along the creek. “They’ve been living on mesquite beans since damn near we left Tucson,” the man offered by way of explanation. “I think every blade of grass is burned down to the roots between here and the Colorado.”
The rancher’s three other riders were just as shaggy and trail-worn as their boss, but they looked like tough and competent men and they kept their tongues still and rifles close.
While the cattle watered, Birchwood’s infantrymen buried their dead, including the soldier and Mexican from the jacals, both of them already badly decomposed.
“Sir, we have a problem,” Birchwood said, saluting.
To Stryker’s surprise, he’d found all three of their horses still in their stables. It seemed that the Apaches, confident of victory, had left them there to be picked up later.
Now he stroked the criollo’s nose, enjoying the relatively cool gloom of its stall and he looked at Birchwood, his eyes asking a question.
“It’s about Private Carter, sir. The chest wound.”
“What about him?”
“To be brutally frank, sir, he’s not dead yet.” The young officer hesitated and then said, “I don’t want to leave him behind for the Apaches.”
“Nor do I, Lieutenant. We’ll use the travois again. Mount it behind one of the horses.”
“He won’t survive the journey to Fort Bowie on a travois, sir, and he’ll be in great pain. He’s already suffering dreadfully.”
Suddenly Stryker was irritated. “Then what do you suggest I do, Lieutenant? Shoot him?”
“No, sir. Private Carter is one of my men. I’ll shoot him. But I need an order from you to that effect.”
Irritation turned to anger. “Mr. Birchwood, you wish to salve your conscience with the excuse that you were only following my order. You’re right. Carter is one of your men. If you plan to shoot him, then the responsibility lies with you.”
“I was neither trying to evade my responsibility nor salve my conscience, sir,” Birchwood said stiffly. “Since you are in command, I thought you should give the order.”
Stryker’s anger died. Birchwood was right; he was in command and he was the one to give the order. Besides, he already had blood on his hands. He’d shot Hooper after the Apaches had gotten to him and one mercy killing was much like any other.
But it shouldn’t be like this. It was not meant to be like this. He had never intended to make these life-and- death decisions.
Stryker’s future career had been all mapped out for him, a handsome tin soldier who married the colonel’s daughter and would make an excellent career for himself in Washington. He shouldn’t be here, in a stinking stable in the middle of a stinking desert, listening to a boy second lieutenant ask him for his permission to kill a man.
“Mr. Birchwood,” he said, not looking at the lieutenant, his expression empty, “If Private Carter does not show much improvement by the time we leave for Fort Bowie, I order you to shoot him, to spare him from further suffering and to prevent him from falling into the hands of the enemy.”
Now he looked at Birchwood. “Would you like that order in writing?”
For a moment the lieutenant seemed scandalized. He had grown up in a society where a gentleman’s word was his bond and was never questioned. To doubt Stryker, an officer and a gentleman by writ of Congress, would be to betray his own class and everything it held dear.
“That, sir,” he said, his face pale and tight around the mouth, “will not be necessary.”
Stryker understood perfectly and did not press the matter. “Very well, Mr. Birchwood, carry on.”
The young man saluted sharply and left. Stryker looked around the shadowed barn and whispered aloud, “Where the hell are you, Joe? I need you.”
