The young man’s face was flushed from being singled out for attention. He swallowed hard. “Kill them, sir.”
“And their women?”
“Kill them, sir.”
“And their children?”
“Kill them, sir.”
“God curse the savages to hell! That’s the spirit, Trooper Muldoon,” Stryker yelled.
Another voice, from the end of the line, said, “I wish we had our sabers, sir.”
Stryker strode in the direction of the voice. “Damn his eyes, who said that?”
“I did, sir. Trooper Murphy.”
The lieutenant stopped in front of the man, a slight, stooped towhead with eyes the color of rain. “True blue, Murphy. And so do I wish I had my saber. But if we can’t give them the steel, we’ll give them good old American lead.”
A ragged cheer went up from the soldiers, and even the normally staid Hooper joined in the clamor.
Hogg stepped to Stryker. “You fight Apaches afore, Lieutenant?”
“No, this will be my first action.”
“You’re learning fast.”
Stryker smiled his crooked smile. “Look at my face, Mr. Hogg. It’s because I’ve got hell on my side.”
Chapter 3
Lieutenant Stryker rode beside the guidon, Hogg taking the point somewhere ahead of the patrol. The sun was now full in the sky, and the brush-covered hills around them were free of shadow. Scattered stands of mesquite and juniper grew in the valleys, and once Stryker saw an isolated cottonwood standing as a lonely sentinel near a dusty dry wash, close to the burned-out skeleton of an old freight wagon.
Four miles due east lay Apache Pass. To the west arced the worn track of the old Butterfield Stage route. Ahead of Stryker the rocky southern peaks of the Dos Cabezas Mountains shimmered in the heat haze.
Stryker dismounted the patrol to rest the horses, and led his men forward at a slow, shuffling walk. The only sounds were the creak of leather and the rattle of horse harnesses, the click of hooves and boots on rock.
The lieutenant’s long johns stuck to his upper body and legs, and sweat trickled through the gray alkali dust on his cheeks. Behind him, covered in that same dust, the soldiers plodded forward like a column of ghosts. Trooper Kramer, who had a weak chest, wheezed with every step, and his mouth was wide-open, battling for each tortured breath of bone-dry hot air.
Nothing moved in the vast land, but somewhere up ahead were the Apaches, unseen, yet a palpable presence all the same.
Ahead of Stryker the figure of a mounted man undulated in the heat waves, his horse’s legs impossibly long as it picked its way forward like a distorted giraffe.
Gradually the image settled and re-formed into its usual shape, the buckskin-clad figure of Joe Hogg astride his mustang.
Stryker halted the column and waited for the scout to come.
“Water ahead, Lieutenant,” Hogg said, drawing rein. “And dead people.”
The lieutenant said nothing, waiting.
“Ashes of the ranch house are still warm,” the scout continued. “I’d say it happened no more’n two hours ago.”
“The dead?”
“Man, woman, three children.”
“Where are the Apaches?”
“I don’t know. But they’re around, lay to that.” Stryker turned. “Mount up,” he yelled.
But before he could swing into the saddle himself, Hogg stopped him. He dug into the pocket of his coat, leaned from the saddle, then dropped a handful of spent shells into the officer’s palm.
“I found some of these at the stage and more at the ranch. Shiny brass, .44-40 caliber. This was brand-new ammunition fired from repeating rifles.”
“What do you think, Joe?” Stryker asked, looking into Hogg’s eyes.
“I think at least half of them bucks have repeaters, Henrys or Winchesters. Judging by the firing pin strikes, I’d say, like the ammunition, the rifles are new.”
Stryker’s voice was tense, tight. “Somebody running guns to them?”
“That would be my guess.”
“Tell me it’s Rake Pierce, Joe. Damn you, tell me it’s him.”
Hogg was quiet for a while. A horse shook its head, the bit chiming. Trooper Kramer was agonizingly coughing up phlegm and dust, and somebody laughed and slapped the man’s back.
Finally Hogg sat back in the leather and said, “Well, before we left Fort Merit, Colonel Devore told me that Pierce was running guns to the Apaches. But he said he was in the Madres.”
“Why didn’t you tell me, Joe? Why didn’t Colonel Devore tell me?”
“We didn’t want to get you worked up over nothing, Lieutenant. The Madres are a far piece away and it’s a heap of country to cover, even if the Mexicans would allow it, which they wouldn’t.”
“But Pierce could be here, in the Arizona Territory.”
“Anything is possible, Lieutenant. For sure, Sergeant Pierce was always a man who didn’t cotton to being penned up in one place for too long.”
Stryker swung into the saddle and gathered up the reins. “I want him, Joe. I want that bastard at the end of my gun.”
“If he’s in the territory, I’ll do my best to find him for you, Lieutenant.”
“Yes, find him. And when you do, let me be the first to know,” Stryker said. “I’d sell my soul to kill that man.”
Hogg was silent, obviously thinking about what he had to say. Then he said it, a plainspoken man with harsh words wrenching out of him like whetted iron.
“Lieutenant Stryker, from what I’ve seen an’ heard on this patrol, you no longer have a soul to sell.”
It was difficult to read Stryker’s face, a stiff, misshapen mask that could no longer reveal emotion. Only the eyes were alive, now clouded like a sky before rain.
“Then I’ll drag Rake Pierce down into hell with me, and consider my eternal damnation well worth the price.”
Under his gray beard, a smile found its way to Hogg’s lips. “Lieutenant, if I was a preaching man, about now I’d say, God forgive you.”
Stryker nodded. “Mr. Hogg, I assure you, if you were a preaching man you would not be with this column.”
Once again Stryker took his place beside the guidon. “Ride ahead,” he told Hogg. “Find me those savages.”
“There’s water at the ranch, Lieutenant.”
“The men and horses have water enough. We can always swing by there and replenish our canteens on our way back to Fort Merit.”
“There’s also six Christian people who need buryin’.”
Suddenly Stryker was irritated. “Mr. Hogg, we’re not a damned burial detail. The dead are beyond hurt. They can fend for themselves.”
Hogg shook his head. “It just don’t seem right, Lieutenant.”
“Mr. Hogg, as long as I’m in command, I’ll decide what’s right. If you have any reservations on that point, you may return immediately to Fort Merit.”
The scout was silent for a few moments, as though he was turning over that option in his mind. Finally he said, “I reckon I’ll stick, Lieutenant. We can all go to hell together.”
