Apaches claimed they could smell white people, and the lieutenant figured that by now he must be within sniffing distance.
Ahead of him, the gathering darkness suddenly parted, and Joe Hogg, his Henry across the saddle horn, emerged from the gloom like a gray ghost.
When the scout rode closer he pointed over Stryker’s shoulder, wordlessly indicating that he should go back the way he’d come.
Hogg rode on and the lieutenant and his men followed. After a hundred yards, the scout swung into the lee side of a rock and drew rein.
He got right to the point. “Lieutenant, the Apaches are holed up back yonder, maybe half a mile, in an arroyo that opens into a small hanging meadow. They got mule meat cooking on sticks, and—this is where it gets mighty interesting—they’re passing around jugs. I reckon the rancher they killed must have been a whiskey-drinking man, because them bucks are well supplied and half of them are drunk already.”
He paused. “Got a white woman with them. Red-haired gal, seems young.”
“How many Apaches?”
“Pretty much as I guessed. Twenty young bucks, give or take a couple.”
“No women or children with them?”
“Only the redheaded gal.”
Stryker nodded. “She doesn’t count.”
He called over Trooper Rogers. “Head back to the camp and tell Sergeant Hooper I said to bring on the rest of the detail. Tell him to come at a walk, no talking and no noise.”
Rogers, a young man with freckles across his nose and a wisp of downy mustache on his lip, looked warily around him. “It’s getting dark, sir.”
Irritated, Stryker snapped. “What about it?”
“Well, sir, I mean . . . there are Apaches about, sir.”
Hogg’s teeth gleamed in the gloom. “Don’t you worry about it, sonny. If the Apaches decide to git you, your hair will be gone an’ your throat cut afore you even know it. You won’t feel a thing.”
Rogers swallowed hard, tried to talk and decided not to trust his voice, especially since his fellow trooper was sitting his horse, grinning at him.
“Carry out your orders, Trooper Rogers,” Stryker said.
The man swallowed again, saluted and rode away.
“There goes a scared young man,” Hogg smiled. “An’ I can’t say as I blame him. Apaches are nobody to mess with.” He looked at Stryker. “Now we wait, huh?”
“Yes, for Hooper.” The lieutenant found the makings and motioned toward Hogg. “Will they smell this?”
There was a smile in the scout’s voice. “Lieutenant, if them drunken bucks are out on the prod, they already know we’re here, so smoke away if it pleases you.”
Stryker smoked his cigarette and then another. The night air grew cool and a horned moon rose in the sky. Close by, among the shadowed arroyos, a pair of hunting coyotes called out to each other, and prowling critters made their small sound in the underbrush.
Leather creaked as Hogg shifted in the saddle, his eyes restlessly searching into the darkness. He looked at Stryker. “Hooper’s close.”
After years of Indian fighting, the scout’s senses were honed as sharp as those of any Apache. If he said Hooper was close, then he was.
Stryker loosed the flap of his holster, thumbed a sixth cartridge into his Colt and replaced the weapon. He waited.
Sergeant Hooper led his men forward in an untidy column, riding over broken ground. He saluted the lieutenant and said, “Detail all present and accounted for, sir.”
Stryker nodded, then glanced at Hogg. The scout read the question in his eyes and said, “Maybe another thirty minutes. Let them bucks get good an’ drunk.”
“Sergeant Hooper, we’ll fight dismounted,” the lieutenant said. He disliked the thought of weakening his command, but there was no alternative. “Leave Trooper Kramer and one other man with the horses.”
Hooper saluted again. “Permission to picket the mounts, sir.”
After nodding his approval, Stryker again turned to Hogg. “Will they be guarding the arroyo, Joe?”
A white moth fluttered past the scout’s face. “Maybe, but I doubt it. The Apaches don’t know we’re here.”
“You sure about that?”
“Sure I’m sure. If they were around, they would have smelled your tobacco smoke, Lieutenant. You’d be dead by now.”
“Hell, Joe, you told me I could smoke.”
“I said, ‘If it pleases you.’ I didn’t say do it.”
Stryker glared hard at Hogg. But the scout only shrugged and turned away, his talking on the subject done.
After Stryker judged that the thirty minutes had passed, he swung out of the saddle and Hogg did the same.
“Sergeant Hooper, we’re moving out,” Stryker said. “Carbines, but leave the canteens behind and, like I did with Trooper Kramer, anything else that makes a damned racket.” He gave Hogg a sideways glance. “And no smoking.”
If the scout felt the slightest pang of guilt, he hid it well. He stepped to his horse, reached into the beaded possibles bag that always hung behind his saddle and took out a tally book. He tore out a page, folded it lengthwise and stuck it in the front of his hat.
He stepped closer to Hooper. “I’ll scout the arroyo again. When I come out o’ there, tell them alley rats of yours to look for the white paper in my hat. I don’t want them boys gettin’ scared, taking me fer an Apache, an’ cuttin’ loose.”
Hooper nodded and looked around him at the troopers. “You heard Mr. Hogg. Look for the white paper in his hat. Got that?”
There were a few scattered nods; then Stryker stepped forward as the scout mounted his pony and drifted into the gloom.
“Men,” he said, pitching his harsh voice low, “in a few minutes you will be fighting the tigers of the human species, an enemy cruel, crafty and quick to scent danger. The Apache is a treacherous animal, patient in defeat, merciless in victory. All you can do is kill him. And that’s what I expect of every one of you—kill . . . kill . . . kill again.”
Stryker’s voice stilled the troopers’ quiet cheers. “And here’s good news. Any man who falls in the engagement will be posthumously promoted to corporal.”
This time the only huzzah came from Hooper. He looked around at his men and said, “Now there’s generosity from the officer for you, lads. It’s not every day a dead man is promoted to full corporal.” He saluted Stryker. “You can depend on us to do our bit, sir.”
“Excellent,” Stryker said. God, he disliked Hooper intensely. “Move out the men, Sergeant, and from now on keep it quiet.”
The lieutenant in the lead, the detail moved into the gathering darkness. Above them, shedding a bladed light, the sickle moon silently reaped the stars. Stryker saw one fall to earth and he imagined that it thumped onto the desert sand and was now laying somewhere close, glowing red and smoking like a cinder.
He walked on across broken country, skirting the foothills. Behind him his troopers, cavalrymen who had an intense dislike of walking, stumbled and cursed softly, drawing muttered threats from Hooper.
Suddenly Hogg emerged from the gloom, leading his horse at a jog, the white paper in his hat bobbing.
“Hold your fire, it’s Hogg,” Stryker whispered, words repeated down the line.
The scout pulled up in front of his officer. “No guards at the arroyo. They’re drunk, Lieutenant, all of them.”
Stryker smiled. “Then we’ll go at once and kill every man jack of them.”
“The girl will be in the line of fire.”
“I’m afraid she must shift for herself, Mr. Hogg.” Stryker had no way of knowing, but right then the scout was wondering about him.
Had the shackle chain that destroyed his features also destroyed everything inside him that was once good and decent? Did his face now reflect the true nature of the man?
Joe Hogg was a traveled man, and Stryker’s face in the pallid moonlight stirred a memory. A mask, Chinese or Nipponese, he couldn’t recall. He’d seen it at a theater in Denver—or was it San Francisco?—a grotesque, twisted, furious thing worn by a dancer. Later, the dancer had removed the mask, revealing the face of a pretty, oriental girl. But if the lieutenant removed his mask, would the face underneath be the same . . . unchanged . . . a mask within a mask?
Hogg, who was afraid of no man or of anything that walked, crawled or flew, shuddered. A night breeze probed the skin of his face, reminding him that each one of us wears a mask.
But not like Stryker’s, he told himself. Never like that.
“Move out,” the lieutenant whispered. “The thoughtful Mr. Hogg will lead the way.”
Chapter 5
The entrance to the arroyo was a rectangle of blackness that stood out against the greater gloom of the night. The land was silent, except for the coyotes talking among the hills and the rustling rush of the breeze.
Rising almost perpendicular to a height of ten feet, the walls of the arroyo were crested by stunted juniper and mesquite, a perfect hiding place for an ambushing Apache. The defile itself was narrow, choked with brush and stands of prickly pear, allowing the passage of only one soldier at a time.
Stryker held up a hand, halting Hooper and his men where they were; then he and Hogg advanced deeper into the arroyo.
After thirty yards the walls spread farther apart, then opened up into a grassy area about two acres in extent. A small fire burned in the middle of the clearing, close to a single cottonwood and willow. Apaches were sprawled around the fire, one of them lying on his back, snoring loudly.
Stryker and the scout lost themselves in the shadows at the base of the twenty-foot wall of ridged, yellow rock that formed an amphitheater around the entire area. The moon was still visible, riding high, ringed by a halo of pale red and blue.
Beside Stryker, Hogg broke off a stem of bunch grass and stuck it between his teeth. The scout had his revolver in his right hand, thumb on the hammer.
An Apache, wearing a breechcloth, moccasins to his knees and a fancy Mexican vest, struggled to his feet and walked closer to the fire. He had a dark, cruel face, flat-lipped, his eyes deep in shadow.
The man staggered to a jug, picked it up, shook it, then threw it aside. He stepped to a woman, her red hair cascading over her shoulders in dusty waves. Naked, she sat with her legs drawn up, forehead resting on her knees.
The Apache dug his hand into the woman’s luxuriant hair, yanked back her head and stared into her face. He looked at the redhead for a few moments, grunted, then forced her head back on her knees.
Hogg’s black eyes were glittering in the firelight, aware of the woman, watching the Apache, teeth bared around the grass stem. He raised his gun, but Stryker tapped him on the shoulder and shook his head. He motioned to the arroyo and, crouching low, began to back away in that direction.
For a few seconds Hogg remained motionless.
The Apache walked away from the woman, staggered and fell flat on his face. He didn’t get up again.
Silently, the scout followed Stryker into the arroyo and rejoined the lieutenant who was talking with Hooper.
“They’re dead drunk and snoring,” Stryker was saying. “Sergeant Hooper, you will form two ranks on me and shoot into the savages at my command.” He turned. “Mr. Hogg, you will fire independently at targets of opportunity. Use your Henry to good effect.”
The scout said nothing, but Hooper snapped off a salute and said, “We’re ready, sir.”
“Then let’s proceed with the attack,” Stryker said.
Quietly, Hogg again reminded the lieutenant about the woman.
“Ah, yes,” Stryker said. He looked at Hooper. “There’s a white woman back there. Try to avoid shooting her if you can.”
Hooper and the men followed Stryker into the clearing and shook into two lines on the officer’s left. “Front rank, kneel,” Stryker whispered. “Now pick your targets.” Then, “Front rank,
fire
!”
Bullets crashed into the sleeping Apaches. Indians rose, groggily fumbling for their weapons.
“Rear rank,
fire
!”
Apaches staggered under the impact of the powerful .45-70 rounds and went down hard. At Stryker’s side, Hogg was working his Henry.
“Front rank,
fire
!”
At least half the warriors were hit. The others tried to regroup and a couple were ineffectually firing their rifles.
“Rear rank,
fire
!”
The Springfields crashed and more Indians went down.
“
Independent fire!
” Stryker roared.
As a ragged volley swept the clearing, an Apache charged directly at Stryker through a hanging pall of gray gun smoke, a knife in his upraised hand. At a distance of eight feet, the lieutenant shot into the man’s stocky body, then fired his Colt again. The Indian screamed and went down.
“Advance five paces!” Stryker yelled. “Get the hell out of the smoke.”
All the troopers but one obeyed the command. Stryker didn’t wait to see who had fallen, but stepped forward into cleaner air.
The clearing looked like a charnel house. Apache bodies, stained scarlet, lay in heaps and a few wounded groaned and tried to crawl away from the terrible firepower of the Springfields. The indifferent moon braided silver light over the scene and smoke drifted everywhere, like spirits rising from the dead warriors.
“No prisoners,” Stryker yelled. “Sergeant Hooper, see that it’s done.”
Hooper was invisible somewhere in the crashing darkness, but his loud, “Yes, sir,” carried in the breeze moaning through the stillness.
Joe Hogg appeared from the gloom, a Winchester in his hands. “Brand-new, like I figgered, Lieutenant.”
“It’s got to be one of Rake Pierce’s guns,” Stryker said. He looked around him as though searching the arroyo walls for the man. “Where the hell is he?”
“My guess would be the Madres, Lieutenant,” Hogg said mildly.
Stryker swore. “Damn him, damn him to hell.” Shots echoed around the clearing, the sound hitting the hard rock walls like a hammer on an anvil.