Norton, Andre - Novel 15
Read Norton, Andre - Novel 15 Online
Authors: Stand to Horse (v1.0)
Stand to
Horse
Contents
''Sergeant, Dismiss the Detachment"
''Ain't No Winter Fer Apaches''
“The Game's Made, 'n the Ball's Rollin'!”
“They Brought All Their Sand—“
Never Stick a Picket in an Anthill
“You Ride to Your Funerals, Soldados!”
''Camels 'n Apaches Dont Drink''
“This Is as Good a Place To Die as Any”
“I Have Drunk of These Waters—''
Note
Trading caravans and the fur-trapping Mountain
Men found their way to
Santa Fe
early in its history, but when the War with
Mexico
in 1845 added the vast Southwest to the
territory of the
United States
, that land was virtually unknown to the
majority of Americans. A skeleton force of the army occupied a string of forts
and posts across desert and mountain, holding as best it could the unposted
borders against Apache, Ute, and Navaho.
Between the end of the Mexican War and the
beginning of the War Between the States, this pitifully small force was
forgotten by the people of the civilized East. Undermanned, criminally
underpaid, with poor supplies or none at all for long stretches of time, they
did their duty and were wardens of an empire their fellow countrymen did not
really want.
It was largely an army of the foreign born.
Irish escaping from the famine which devastated that land in the 1840's and
Germans eager for a freedom lost at home poured into the
United States
and readily found their way into the
frontier army. The business failures of 1857 and 1858 brought into the ranks
native-born Americans who enlisted to eat and to get a new start.
And it was not an ignorant army. Buried in
regimental histories or in small privately issued books and in state historical
journals are the diaries and letters of these men. Not only the officers but
also the privates and the sergeants kept careful accounts of their daily lives,
the raiding forays which they accepted as a matter of
course,
and descriptions of the wild land they had made their own. Many of them after
serving one or two hitches in the army settled down on the frontier and helped
to build the western nation.
Captain Bourke's memoirs, Sergeant Bennett's
journal, Sergeant Bieber's diary, and Private Lowe's account are all rich
reading for the one lucky enough to find them in reports of state historical
societies, regimental histories, and university publications. Some of the stories
set down so matter-of-factly in these pages seem like the wildest romance—yet
they are true.
The author wishes to express appreciation for
the help of Miss Root and Miss Lybarger of the History Division of the
Cleveland Public Library, since it was through their efforts that many of these
long overlooked accounts of frontier warfare were unearthed for use.
All the incidents in Stand to Horse are based
on actual experiences of army men who have left their records to astonish the
modern reader.
To hunch one's shoulders and still stand at
attention is something of an acrobatic feat, but Ritchie Peters, Private, First
Dragoons, tried to do it as the keen mountain wind picked at the line of men on
the
Santa
Fe
parade ground. Late November in the First Military District of New Mexico meant
winter—just as it had back home in
New York
. Only here were no buffalo robes and hot
soapstones to comfort the toes. And an army overcoat had none of the
wind-beating properties of the fur-lined one he had worn last winter. Ritchie
abruptly tried to turn off those straying thoughts. He was not going to think
of last winter! Instead he concentrated on here and now.
As one of the recruits arriving after the fall
march from Jefferson Barracks and as green to his job as the droop-eared
remount he had ridden most of the way, he found his present surroundings
vaguely depressing. The small group of officers who had assembled to inspect
the newcomers had very little swank or gold braid about them. Bearded, their
faces coarsely reddened by exposure to just such winds as punished them
now,
they were bundled up in a motley collection of fur
coats, heavy Indian-style leggings, and scarves. They appeared far less
military than the ragged line they had come to assess, because those of the
recruits who hadn't traded most of their worldly goods for whisky still were in
regulation uniform.
By lottery, company commanders had drawn each
man's name in turn from a hat. Willy-nilly, he, Ritchie Peters, was now
attached to Company K with four years, eight months to serve in its ranks. For
a second time he had to jerk his mind back to the matter at hand. The Colonel
was speaking. He had a high rasping voice, which sounded tired and old, as if
it had fought against the wind too many times on too many parade grounds making
the same little welcoming speech.
"...
credit
to
yourself and your comrades, holding a frontier against an enemy more determined
and bitter than any the arms of the
United States
has faced before. Your duty and your life
..."
Ritchie blinked and tried to wriggle his
numbed toes inside his boots. The remount behind him stamped and blew
impatiently. Shrewdly Ritchie
squirmed
an inch or so
forward—that roan bit at times.
He let his eyes travel from the Colonel to the
officers who stood behind their commander. There were four of them, one a pace
or so beyond the other three. And he was the one who had held the hat for the
lottery. Unlike the others he was clean shaven, not even wearing a cavalryman's
full mustache, and he held himself lance straight in spite of the wind. His
face was only a handsbreadth of tanned skin between cap brim and upturned
collar, but Ritchie found himself wishing he could see more of it. Something in
the lithe way the unknown officer moved suggested that he was younger than most
of his companions.
". . .
depends
upon your own conduct." The Colonel's voice dropped. He moved his feet in
the light scuffle of snow that had fallen as they stood there. Now he jerked
his head around to the man Ritchie had been watching.
"Sergeant, dismiss the detachment!"
So he was the Troop Sergeant! Mechanically
Ritchie's body obeyed the orders that had been drilled into him during the past
bewildering months. He went through the business of stabling the roan, dodged
the last vicious snap of that animal's yellow teeth, and followed the rest of
his fellows into the barracks.
The fort was constructed after the usual
pattern of a hollow square with the parade ground in the center, bordered on
one side by the low adobe officers' quarters facing the guard house, the
commissary department, and the offices. On the other two sides were barracks.
Ritchie, having learned to be thankful for the smallest of favors bestowed by
fate, was glad that the one he was to inhabit was nearer to the stable yard.
The buildings were all of one story with flat roofs and a parapet protecting
the outer wall, a parapet which was loopholed. There were no windows in the
outer wall of any building.
It was already dusk in the barracks, and small
lanterns and flickering candles made pools of light to fight against shadows.
But the thick 'dobe walls kept out the wind, and there was a fire on a sort of
raised hearth at the far end of the room.
Ritchie had a quick impression of masses of
raw color-Indian blankets, weapons, baskets, illustrations clipped from old
papers and pasted to the walls. But he was so tired that he stumbled thankfully
toward the bunk pointed out to him and dumped his small collection of baggage
on the floor beside it, content for a moment or two just to squat there and let
the warmth sink in through the layers of all the warm clothing he possessed to
his ice-touched bones.
“Hi, there, Johnny Raw!
Green as they come, ain't he, fellas?"
Ritchie looked up. He had to raise his eyes
some distance to meet those in the round head with undipped shoulder-length
hair that met and was lost in a wiry mat of black beard. A thick boot nudged
his knee.
'To'—I'm talkin' t' yo', Johnny Raw! Does yore
Maw know yo're playin' soljer with us bad boys? Does she now?"
Ritchie got wearily to his feet. This was a
greeting he had had to face before. There always was one of these
would-be-funny men in every barracks. But if you didn't take your own part
against them, nobody else was going to stand up for you. He hated fights; the
cold little tingle of fear that ran along his backbone every time he faced up
to one began to run down from the nape of his neck. He still wore a fading
bruise along his jaw as a souvenir from the last one, fought on board the
steamer which had brought them to
Independence
. But there was never any other way out of
this.
"Rather out of your class, aren't you,
Birke?" The new voice was low, and a drawl slurred the words.
''
Tigre
facing down a ring
cat?"
There was some laughter in answer to that. The
speaker lounged past the tall Birke and sat down on the next bunk. "Seeing
as how this is my front parlor, so to speak, I'm not hankering to have it
discommoded. Go roar somewhere else, man."
Surprisingly Birke accepted that suggestion
with good humor.
"Johnny Raw's got him a bunkie. Smell out
th
' pennies, d'ya, Sturgis?"
For a single tense second there was a dead
quiet as if all the men in the little circle about them had been struck dumb.
Then the lounger on the bunk laughed.
"Six months since payday. Anybody who
shows a penny around here is like to be mobbed. Hear that, Johnny Raw?" He
turned to Ritchie.
Birke guffawed and shambled away, taking his
followers with him. Ritchie gave his full attention to the man who had saved
him from battle—or who had at least deferred the encounter.
He was much slighter than the black-haired
giant he had quelled, slender, narrow of waist and hip even in the bulk of
winter clothing. A light-brown beard had been trimmed into a dashing imperial,
and mustaches had been lovingly and painstakingly rolled into needle points.
His features were finely cut, his hands those of an expert horseman. He smiled
at Ritchie and then rose and bowed with a grace only one trained from birth to
the social niceties could equal.
"St. George (it sounded more like
S'George) Sturgis, at your service, sir."
Automatically Ritchie slipped back into the
old, familiar world and responded as he would have six months before to one of
his father's friends.
"Ritchie Peters, sir." His answering
salutation was as unstudied as the other's had been.
Sturgis nodded, as if some question of his own
had been answered. With the air of a host aiding a welcome guest, he began to
help Ritchie stow away what remnants of personal property still remained to
him. There was little enough in his blanket roll, though at that he had come
far better equipped than had most of the other recruits. He had taken the tip
of the recruiting officer and had laid out most of the cash that remained from
the sale of his watch, his two hunters, and the brace of pistols his father had
given him on his last birthday to buy extra clothing and other small supplies,
worth more than their weight in placer gold on the frontier. Sturgis looked
over this wealth and then glanced at Ritchie with a tinge of real respect.
"You can't be on a second hitch," he
mused. "By the look of you in a clear light you have no right to be signed
up for your first. Was the recruiting officer blind on the day you signed
papers?"
Ritchie shrugged. "They don't ask too
many questions when a man wants to sign up. If I have a few added birthdays on
the company roles, it doesn't concern anyone but
myself
!"
"That's the right spirit, m'boy!"
Sturgis was grinning. "But you've better than a good head on you if you
picked out all this on your own." He motioned to the stuff Ritchie was
unpacking. "Lord, most of the boys show up here with one pair of socks and
their shirttails flapping in the breeze. You'll be a nabob here. And now, what
will you do with yourself the rest of this fine afternoon?"
Ritchie stood up and gave his short cavalry
jacket a jerk to bring it smoothly down at his waist.
"If we linger here, Herndon will find a
little work for idle hands," Sturgis continued.
"Herndon?"
"Our worshipful Troop Sergeant—the
sternest slave driver west of the
Mississippi
. I'll bet a month's pay he could make a
cane-field boss look like a cooing dove! Stay clear of Sergeant Scott Herndon,
m'lad, and you'll live an easier life. Would you care to see the town?"
Ritchie looked doubtful. "Can we?"
Sturgis produced a slip of paper. "There
are ways, Peters, of getting what you want—even in this man's army. This is a pass.
We can take it and go—right through that gate and into the big wicked city of
Santa Fe
.
Santa Fe
"—his voice fell into a sort of
chant—"in the valley of the
Rio
de
Santa Fe
, where the river emerges from the foothills
of the
Sangre de
Cristo Mountains
on
the east. And on the west is the
Jemez
Range
, most times full of Apaches. Is that what
you remember from your school days?"
Ritchie laughed. "Don't think they ever
mentioned the place. There was too much agitation most of the time about Greek
irregular verbs and such—"