“Oh,” Birchwood said.
Stryker glanced up at him. “Yes, that was her name all right.”
After the storm passed, they mounted again and rode south and that night camped in the looming shadow of the Packsaddle.
As though ashamed of its temper tantrum, the desert compensated by putting on a show. The violet sky was clear, glittering with far-flung stars, and a bright moon rose, braiding the pines with mother-of-pearl light. A soft breeze rustled, heavy with the scent of damp moss, and out in the darkness the waking coyotes shook themselves and sprayed from their coats water that haloed around them like beads of silver.
Stryker sat by the fire, drinking coffee and smoking. Opposite him, Birchwood was deep in thought, his young face crimsoned by the flames.
“Something troubling you, Mr. Birchwood?” Stryker asked. “You still tearing yourself apart over your whiskey bender?”
The young man shook his head. “No, sir. My betrothed can’t hear me, I know, but I’ve made another vow that I will not enter houses of ill repute and that my lips will ne’er again touch whiskey.”
“Very commendable, Mr. Birchwood. I’m sure your lady would be pleased to know that her cavalier has sworn off whores and strong drink.”
Birchwood looked sharply at Stryker, but the lieutenant’s face was empty.
After the time it took him to light another cigarette and sample his coffee, Stryker said, “So what’s sticking in your craw?”
Birchwood poked a stick deeper into the fire, throwing up a shower of sparks. “I think we should head back to Fort Bowie, sir. We’ve followed our orders and ascertained that there are no Apaches within miles of the post. Now it’s time to go back.”
“We will, just as soon as I settle with Rake Pierce.”
“We have no orders to that effect, sir.”
“Mr. Birchwood, the man is a deserter, a murderer, a gunrunner and a scalp-hunter. He needs killing. I don’t require orders to that effect.”
“Sir, have you noticed that there are only two of us?”
“Trimble doesn’t count, huh?”
“He’s out of it. This isn’t his fight.”
“Or yours, Mr. Birchwood?”
The young officer hesitated, then said, “You asked me what was troubling me. Well, sir, it’s the right or wrong of going after Pierce that troubles me. I don’t know where my duty lies. But I doubt that giving my life for my senior officer’s personal vendetta should be a part of it.”
Birchwood’s comment had stung, and Stryker felt molten steel scald his insides. “Your duty, Lieutenant, is to follow orders and I’m giving you one now. You will join me in the pursuit of the deserter and renegade Sergeant Rake Pierce. Have I made myself perfectly clear?”
The young officer’s face was stiff, the iron discipline and respect for authority of the frontier army presenting him with an impassible barrier. “Yes, sir. Perfectly, sir.”
“I’m very glad to hear that, Mr. Birchwood,” Stryker said.
Suddenly Trimble was beside him. “Don’t look now, Cap’n, but we got comp’ny,” he said.
Chapter 30
Stryker unbuttoned his holster flap as he rose to his feet. Two men sat their horses in the shadows, black outlines against the moon-raked night. Some primitive instinct warned him of danger and he felt a malevolence gather around him, as though the air had suddenly grown colder.
“Hello the camp!” one of the riders yelled.
Stryker stepped out of the firelight. “Come on ahead.” Somewhere to his left he heard Trimble cycle his Spencer. Birchwood had faded to his right, half in shadow.
He watched the riders come, aware that he’d not been alone—Clem and Birchwood had sensed the brooding danger as he had.
The two men stayed beyond the rim of the firelight. “Smelled your coffee,” the man to the right of Stryker said. “We could sure use a cup.”
Before Stryker could answer, the rider looked beyond him into the gloom. “Clem Trimble, is that you I see skulking back there? I know I heard your Spencer.”
The old prospector stepped out of the gloom. He let his rifle hang loose in one hand and knuckled his forehead with the other. “Yeah, it’s me, Billy. Ol’ Clem Trimble as ever was.”
The man called Billy smiled. “You loco old coot, I thought your hair would be hanging in some Apache buck’s wickiup by now.”
“Apaches never troubled me none, Billy. Until lately, that is.” He grinned. “It’s real nice to make your acquaintance again, Billy. I don’t recollect meeting your compadre there.”
“This here is Tom Diamond from up Denver way,” Billy said. He was talking to Trimble but his eyes were trying to pin Stryker to the darkness.
“Right pleased to meet you, Tom,” Trimble said.
“Last I heard o’ you was when you gunned ol’ Shep Shannon down Abilene way.”
Diamond’s head turned slowly, like a lizard. “Shut your trap, old man,” he said. “I’m tired of hearing you talk.”
Trimble nodded, smiling, saying nothing.
The old prospector looked afraid, and Stryker reckoned he had every right to be. There was an air of malice and threat about the two riders and an aura of danger that seemed to wrap them both to the eyes in a sinister black shroud.
“Still want that coffee?” Stryker asked.
The man called Diamond answered. “Sure we do, but we’ll get it ourselves . . . afterward.”
“Cap’n, this here is Billy Lee, the man I was telling you about if you recollect, him being kin to ol’ Bobby Lee an’ all.”
Trimble was warning him, Stryker knew. He was stretched tight, his mouth dry, a cold sweat on him.
Lee nodded. “The old coot’s right. Cousin kin to the great man himself. And that’s why I don’t cotton to Blue bellies, especially ugly ones like you.” The man grinned and turned to his companion. “You ever in all your born days see an uglier Yankee than that ’un?”
Diamond shook his head. “Can’t say as I have.” “Know your enemy” was a saying at the Point, and Stryker took time to study the two riders. Both were dressed like Texas drovers, but they wore guns, belts, boots and spurs that no cowhand could afford. That’s where their similarities ended.
Lee was short, thin, with the eyes of a snake. Like any westerner who laid even a tenuous claim to manhood, his top lip was covered in a downy fuzz that did nothing to conceal a small, cruel mouth. He was poised, eager and ready to kill.
By contrast Diamond was a tall, handsome man with a thick dragoon mustache, black hair falling to his shoulders in glossy ringlets. He wore two Remingtons strapped to his chest in shoulder holsters, a gun rig Stryker had never seen before. At first glance he looked like a thinking man, but that was an illusion. Diamond was a mindless killer, and now he wore that brand on his face like a mark of Cain.
Lee was talking. “What are you soldier boys doing here?”
Stryker began, “My name is—”
“I know your damned name. I asked you what you’re doing here.”
Anger flared in Stryker. “If you know my name, then you know what I’m doing here.”
“You tell me, soldier boy.”
“We’re scouting for Apaches.” This from Birchwood, who looked like a towheaded farm boy in the ruddy firelight.
“You’re a damned liar,” Lee snarled. “You already know Geronimo is being chased into the Madres by Crook.
