The roan, dangling reins tangled in a cholla cactus, rolled patient eyes at him.
"Good horse," Jack said again, and untangled the reins. Once more they started southward. In the distance he could see a vein of green that must be Turkey Creek.
The rising sun grew warm, then hot. At noon it had driven the chill from his bones, and he took off his coat and laid it over the saddle before him. His unsated hunger grew, possessed him. He felt faint, and wondered whether it was the heat or simply lack of food. Resting for a while in the shade of a desert ironwood, he thought longingly of Beulah Glore's hot biscuits, smothered in sidemeat gravy. What was happening at the ranch? Was there any word of Phoebe Larkin? He saw a tiny mouse gamboling about the twisted roots of the ironwood, pausing only to stand on hind feet and nibble seeds. He remembered Charlie the Papago snaring mice to eat, and almost wished he had a bit of thread or twine. After all, mice were animals, mammals, the same as beef cattle or sheep, only smaller. He would clean them first, of course, and it would take several mouse haunches to make a mouthful, but—
He got painfully to his feet and put the bowler hat on his head. The brim was narrow but the headgear, however inappropriate in these wilds, offered some protection against the sun.
"Tom!" he called, looking about for the horse. But behind him something made a small snapping sound and he wheeled, frightened. The carbine was in the saddle scabbard; he was defenseless.
Nothing—no further sound. He stared into the thicket of greasewood where the noise had seemed to originate. "Who's there?" he called. His voice sounded dry and reedlike.
Again, nothing; no sound. The wind blew, the sun bore down. Tom ambled up and stood patiently by him. Jack snatched the carbine from the scabbard, grasping it uncertainly. In the wilderness of scraggly bush he did not know where to aim.
On sudden impulse he picked up a stone and flung it into the bushes. Anything was better than waiting to be slaughtered.
"Who's there?" he called again.
He was sweating; the shirt was wet, and the breeze pressed it cold and clammy against his chest. As he stared into the bushes, clutching the Spencer nervously, he caught sight of a gray doglike animal loping from the greasewood and onto the stony slope. The coyote looked back at him, tongue lolling pinkly from its mouth.
He sighed with relief. What he had heard must have been the coyote, sleeping off an all-night hunt in the bushes. He and Tom had come on it unexpectedly, that was all. But he would not dismount again without the carbine.
Agustín may be heading for the same country—
that was what Corporal Jim Bagley had reminded him.
High and hazy, the Mazatzals now loomed on his left. He stared at them, narrowing his eyes against the sun, wondering where the Apache camp lay. Could Phoebe Larkin be up there, looking longingly down at the playa and freedom, or was she—was she—He refused to think about it. Together man and beast plodded on. The roan was tired now also, and ambled slowly unless Jack urged him on. Finally reaching Turkey Creek, they watered in the sluggish pools. Remembering Beulah Glore's "poke salat," Jack chewed a handful of greens pulled from the muck. They tasted rank and medicinal, and nearly made him sick. Again he thought longingly of Eggie's omelets, Mrs. Glore's brown-crusted pies, the warm fragrant tortillas and rich
frijol
beans in the
cantina
at Prescott that night with Alonzo Meech.
Spitting out the shreds of grass, he rose, backside sore and chafed. Not too far down Turkey Creek, now, lay the junction of the Agua Fria, and the ranch. Straining his eyes into the distance, he saw dust devils whirling above the playa, tall spirals rising up and up, thousands of feet into the dry desert air. The wind was blowing hard. Looking at the towering columns, he saw something else, something that made him immediately apprehensive: blinks of light like small diamonds, sparks of brilliance punctuating the hazy distance. Watching, he saw one glimmer out. Almost immediately another flashed, as if in response, from the foothills of the Mazatzals. Were the Apaches out in force? Had other bands, encouraged by Agustín's rebellion, gone on the warpath against the white man? Perhaps the valley of the Agua Fria was already filled with them, looting, murdering. Perhaps Rancho Terco was finally overrun, perhaps even the Army was at last powerless to defend the valley. Climbing again onto the weary roan, he clapped his heels into the sweating ribs.
"Let's go, damn it! Hurry, Tom!"
When he splashed through the muddy pools of the Agua Fria just above the ranch the sun was low on the western horizon. Weary in the saddle, clothing worn and stained and face stubbled with beard, he hardly heard the challenge.
"Halt! Who goes there?"
Only half comprehending, he gazed slack-mouthed into the reeds while the horse stumbled on, splashing in the mud.
"Halt, I say!"
The roan ambled on; the cavalry picket fired. Jack Drumm's bowler hat flew from his head. Startled, now fully awake, he threw his hands in the air and yelled, "God damn it, stop shooting!"
The reeds parted, a bearded face poked through.
"Advance and be recognized! That's what I'm supposed to say, mister!"
Wrathfully Jack slipped from the saddle to pick up the punctured hat. It had cost him four pounds sixpence at Mason's in the Strand. "What in hell did you think I was? Did you ever see an Apache in a bowler hat?"
The picket stepped from the greenery, reloading his Springfield. "I seen a Sioux, onct, wearing a plug hat and a long-tail coat. Shot the hell out of Corporal Voss." He squinted. "Who the hell are you, anyway?"
He herded Jack Drumm toward the cavalry headquarters, a tent pitched in the ruins of the despoiled Rancho Terco. Sadly Jack stared about. Ramadas had been burned, the painfully built adobe pulled down until only the walls, to a height of about a yard, remained. The corral had been destroyed, the watchtower set afire. Now it was only a blackened skeleton watching over a landscape of discarded clothing, broken pots, a few books. Everything smelled of fire, of rapine, of death. Something glittered in the ashes. Stooping to pick it up, he saw it was the Apache knife that had pinned Agustín's last warning to a post.
Someone spoke his name. It was Ben Sprankle, followed by a gaggle of his children. "Mr. Drumm!"
"Hello, Ben."
Sprankle's face was worn and sooty, a bloody bandage was tied around his arm. "They come down on us at night," he said in a dull voice. "Guess we got a little careless. Anyway, they was on us in an instant, whooping and hollering. There must have been a hundred of 'em! They come over us like a wave, set fire to everything, run off our stock. It wasn't no good to stand and fight; they was everywhere! Sloat—" He broke off, eyes filling with tears, and bit at his lip.
Jack waited.
"Sloat—he told me to take the women and the kids and hide 'em in the reeds. The last I seen of him, he was in the middle of the fracas, swinging an empty gun. Then—"
Mrs. Sprankle put a comforting arm around her husband. "There now, Ben!"
"Miss Larkin," Jack said. "Did she—did she—"
Sprankle took a deep shuddering breath. "I guess they hit your diggings the same time they did our'n. They was all up and down the river. I heard screams from your place, but then it hushed up. Miss Phoebe ain't no place around. We searched both sides of the river but all we come up with was this." Fumbling in his pocket, he brought out the tiny derringer and handed it to Jack. Both barrels had been fired.
"I wanted to go after her," Sprankle said, "but the cavalry said no, said they'd take care of everything."
They stood silent together in a community of grief. Finally Sprankle said, "I guess the only one that ain't suffered from this was old Uncle Roscoe. He left here early in the morning day before yesterday. Said he was going on a little practice run to get himself in shape for a spell of prospecting in the Mazatzals. Went up that way—" He gestured toward the snow-covered peaks. "I hope them devils didn't run on him too. I dunno."
With difficulty Jack cleared his throat. "What about Charlie's family?"
Sprankle shrugged. "They must have had some kind of a pree-monition. Skedaddled—at least I didn't see no sign of them during the fighting, and they ain't around now."
"Maybe they were the wisest—to leave this place, I mean. Run away."
"They can't drive
me
out!" Sprankle bristled. "This is my home, home for Edie and the kids! We ain't going to leave our
home
!"
George Dunaway slouched from the tent, where a lantern burned in the dusk, and an officer with gold leaves pored over a map. "It's you," he said. "Drumm."
"That's right."
"I thought you were on your way back to England—Hampshire, wasn't that it?"
"I got the word at Bear Spring," Jack said. "Corporal Bagley was kind enough to share a telegraph message about a raid along the Agua Fria. He said Phoebe was apparently kidnapped by Agustín."
"Seems to be the case." Dunaway pulled aside the tent flap and introduced Jack to Major Trimble. The major, a small trim man and obviously a West Pointer, shook hands.
"It must have been a raid in force," Jack said. "All the way down from Bear Spring I saw their mirrors, signaling."
Dunaway grunted. "Not their mirrors—ours." He pulled a tripod-mounted instrument from the rear of the tent. "New Army heliograph."
Proudly Major Trimble showed Jack the polished mirror, the shutter that was depressed to send telegraph-code messages of dots and dashes of reflected sunlight. "We've needed something like this for a long time!" he enthused. "The red bastards always seem to know where our forces are, where we're headed for, when we arrive. They're smart, but now we've got a tool to outsmart them, beat them at their own game! Now we can communicate over a range of fifty miles on a clear sunny day, concentrate our forces in a few hours to wipe them out!" He smashed a fist on the desk. "Obliterate them, destroy them!" His eyes shone.
"What are you going to do about Miss Larkin?" Jack asked.
"When they come down, as they eventually will have to do—"
"When they come down? Do you mean you're just going to wait for them?"
Major Trimble stiffened. George Dunaway cleared this throat, but the major silenced him with a curt wave of the hand.
"Mr. Drumm, we're doing all we can! We have an effective battle plan mapped out, and it does certainly not include sending U.S. troops helterskelter up into the Mazatzals. That is exactly what Agustín would like—a chance to cut us up piecemeal. No, sir, we are deployed along the Agua Fria in an extensive skirmish line and there is no way out for the rascals but to come down and try to fight their way through our lines. That is when we will break them for once and for all!"
"But how long will that be?"
Major Trimble smiled a small savage smile. "When the snow up there starts getting deep, and the children are crying from cold and hunger. That is when they will come down, and we will be waiting for them with our new battery of Gatling guns."
Hopelessly Jack Drumm looked at Dunaway. Dunaway looked back, discouragement in his eyes.
"I told the major," Dunaway muttered, "I was willing to take a dozen men—including Jim Bagley, if I could get him back here from Bear Spring—and go up after her!"
Major Trimble shook his head. "I'm not going to have any dead heroes! We've already lost over a dozen men in this campaign, and General Crook himself is watching our operations with a keen eye! No, gentlemen—no heroics—just good sound tactical planning and organization."
Outside the tent, Jack and George Dunaway stood together in their discouragement.
"God damned little bastard!" George said through set teeth. "Threatened to court-martial me if I went anywhere without orders!"
Around them were pitched the shelter halves of B Company, together with a company of recently arrived infantry. Campfires glowed in the dusk, coffee boiled, Jack caught a whiff of frying bacon and remembered his hunger. Someone sang a song called "Laura Lee" in a mournful baritone, and the setting sun glinted for a moment on the polished barrels of the new Gatlings the infantry had brought.
"When the snow starts getting deep!" Jack blurted. "How long will that be?"
"Two, three weeks anyway," George said, kicking at the dust. "That little tin soldier won't move until February at the earliest."
Together they sat on a bench partly consumed by the flames.
"Do—do you think there's any possibility she's still alive?" Jack asked, his voice trembling.
Dunaway shrugged. "Who the hell knows? Sprankle and the rest can't tell us anything—they were too busy saving their own butts! But from what I know of old Agustín, he's got her up in his camp in the Mazatzals." Taking a metal flask from his pocket, he drank, then handed it to Jack Drumm. "Bourbon. Good bourbon. None of that Old Popskull they sell at the Lucky Lady."
Jack shook his head. "I didn't think you were supposed to drink when you were on duty."
Dunaway snorted. "If I didn't drink sometimes I'd go crazy!"
"Major Trimble—"
"Screw Trimble!" Dunaway wiped his mouth, put the flask back in his pocket. "Yes, Phoebe's up there all right, and it's my guess she's alive. You know, up in the Dakotas once we were having a little dustup with some Oglalas we had cornered in a canyon. One of them stood up on a rock and pulled down his pants to show us his ass. That was their way of showing off. Kidnapping Phoebe—stealing a white woman right under our noses—that's probably Agustín's way of doing the same thing."
Behind them, boots crunched in the dust and ashes of the ruined ranch. George Dunaway stared moodily ahead, not caring if it was Major Trimble himself. Jack turned.
"Gentlemen," Alonzo Meech said. "Mr. Drumm!" Taking off his broad-brimmed hat, he sat amicably beside them on the charred bench.
"I guess," he said, "we're probably all three looking for the same female person."
The sergeant major came to summon Dunaway to the command post.
"What does Trimble want now?" George asked morosely.