Zak walked over to Jeffords.
“Those men weren’t scalped by Apaches,” Tom said.
“No. I didn’t figure such.”
“Let’s have a talk, Cody. I know you’ve got business with Major Willoughby you haven’t even mentioned yet, but I want to fill you in on some things.”
The two men walked over to the stables, stepped inside where it was cool. Willoughby was issuing orders to the post surgeon and assigning men to burial detail. It was plain to Zak that Willoughby was rattled by what he had seen. Obviously, there was a reason he’d been left in charge of the post. He was probably good at organization, but did not handle himself well under fire. It was something Zak noted when dealing with people, and it often gave him an advantage over men he did not personally know well.
Nox was tied up at the far end of the stables, his bridle replaced by a rope halter. He chomped on corn and oats set before him in a small trough. Other horses stood looking out of stalls, or rubbed up against the walls and posts. There was the sound of switching tails and low whickers as others fed or drank. Flies buzzed in an insistent monotonous drone. The smell of urine and manure, thick and pungent, mixed with the musty scent of straw.
Jeffords slid his hat toward the back of his head, cocking the brim up to show his face, the salt and pepper sideburns. He was a lean, wiry man, with weathered lines in his face, clear blue eyes set wide on either side of his chiseled nose.
“Cody, I’ll be straight with you. I’m probably the only one on this post who will. There’s a whole lot of war going on in this part of Arizona, and it’s not just with the Apaches.”
“What are you driving at, Jeffords?”
“That business with the coach, for one. Those soldiers weren’t scalped by any Apache.”
“I figured that.”
“The whites around here want the Apaches wiped out, shipped out, buried, gone. I think this latest incident proves that the situation is coming to a head.”
“The army know this?”
“It does and it doesn’t. The army is dealing with some marauding Apaches. But the Apaches are being goaded, too, by whites who want the army chasing them clear out of the territory. I’m trying to make peace, but right now it looks pretty hopeless. The Apaches don’t know one white man from another, and right now they think the whole world is against them.”
“You have a line on who attacked the coach?” Zak asked.
“Your guess is as good as mine, but the owner of the line, Ferguson, is in this up to his armpits. And the word is that he and other businessmen have hired some outside help.”
The hackles bristled on the back of Cody’s neck.
“Outside help? Maybe from Taos?”
Jeffords’s eyebrows arched. His eyes widened in surprise.
“There was some talk about Ferguson bringing in a gang of hired guns from Taos. I was trying to get a line on that news when I got word about Ted O’Hara being sent out on patrol. By that damned Willoughby. That was against my recommendation and directly against Captain Bernard’s specific orders.”
“Bernard. Reuben Bernard? Isn’t he the commanding officer of Fort Bowie?”
“Yeah, he is. Then some idiot sent Major Willoughby down here and put him in charge. Reuben is putting out fires all over the territory, chasing Apaches with a vengeance, attacking their villages, burning their homes. It’s an ugly situation. I can’t prove it, but someone leaked information about Ted O’Hara, who never should have left this post with a damned patrol.”
“Why?”
“Ted has been working with me, under orders from high up, Crook, in fact. He has information about Cochise and other Apache leaders I’ve been talking to. It’s not just chance that he was picked out from that night camp and taken hostage. Someone wants the information he has in that Irish head of his.”
“Will O’Hara tell what he knows?”
“Not unless he’s tortured beyond endurance. And even then, I think he’d die before he divulged what he knows. He’s trying as much as I to bring the Apaches to the peace tent.”
“What exactly does O’Hara know?” Zak asked.
“He knows where all the secret camps of the Apache are. He’s been to them. With me.”
“Did Willoughby know this when he sent O’Hara out on patrol?”
“I think so. He had to know.”
“So, do you think Willoughby deliberately sent O’Hara out so that he could be kidnapped?”
There was a silence between the two men. Jeffords squared his hat again. He looked off toward the horseless coach and let out a deep expulsion of breath.
“I hate to think that,” he said. “But Willoughby, on his way out here from Tucson, spent time in Vail and Tucson, meeting with the towns people. They could have gotten to him, persuaded him toward their point of view.”
“And what is that?” Zak asked.
“That the Apaches do not want peace and that they can’t be trusted. That the U.S. Army should wipe them out like they would a bunch of rattlesnakes. Bernard holds to that view as well, I fear.”
“Have you heard talk of a man named Ben Trask?” Zak said.
