Then, to Hanson, “Major, I’ll need you later for the court-martial of Trooper Ruxton, and bring another of your officers. I’ll tell you when.”
“I’m at your service, sir.”
“And you will testify to this soldier’s guilt, Lieutenant,” the colonel said.
Before Stryker followed Hanson out the door, Devore’s voice stopped him. “By the way, Lieutenant, you have the right to dislike Apaches, even hate them if you must, but remember, they’re still God’s children.”
Stryker nodded, but said nothing.
Chapter 9
At five minutes after seven that evening, as the day shaded into night and a cool, desert wind gusted the rising moon, Trooper Louis Ruxton, age twenty-seven, birthplace Cork, Ireland, was condemned to death by firing squad for the crimes of inciting mutiny, insubordination and the attempted escape from lawful military custody.
Sergeant Miles Hooper, age thirty-eight, birthplace Birmingham, England, was found guilty in absentia and sentenced to death.
At seven-forty-five, without benefit of the last rites, there being no Catholic chaplain present at the post, Trooper Ruxton was shot to death by firing squad, the coup de grace administered by Major Hanson.
Small mercies had been extended to the condemned. The firing squad was chosen from the Twenty-third Infantry, and not from among Ruxton’s own comrades, and Colonel Devore ordered the condemned to be given as much brandy as he could drink.
That Ruxton puked all over himself as he was being taken to the place of execution became a topic of discussion among the post’s enlisted men. A few said it was due to cowardice, but most agreed that a surfeit of brandy had been his undoing.
Stryker watched the proceedings impassively. There were many deaths. Trooper Ruxton had merely been one of them.
“I don’t particularly like you, Lieutenant,” Joe Hogg said, laying his glass on the rough pine counter of the Bull’s Head saloon, a sod and canvas building a hundred yards from the fort. As was his habit, the scout looked Stryker in the eye. “You hate too much, and that could get us all killed.”
“Liking or not liking doesn’t come into it, Joe. Damn it, man, I need you to scout for me.”
“The scouts have been called in. We’re ordered to report to Fort Bowie with the cavalry tomorrow.”
“I know—Colonel Devore told me. He said I could talk to you. I have to bring in a chief by the name of Yanisin and his people. Long John Wills says there’s about twenty-five bucks of fighting age in the village.”
“I hear you’ve got a company of the Twenty-third.”
“Yes, if thirty-four men and a second lieutenant fresh out of the Point can be called a company.”
Hogg picked up his glass. “Drink up; it’s my call.” Stryker downed the raw whiskey in a gulp, then built a cigarette as the bartender poured for them.
“Did you ever hear of ol’ Yanisin afore today?”
Stryker shook his head. “Can’t say as I did.”
“He’s a tame Apache, maybe the only one. When you get to the rancheria, Lieutenant, he’ll be there with the women, children and the old folks. But his young men will be long gone, jined up with Nana an’ them.”
“My orders are to return Yanisin and his people to Fort Bowie. If the bucks are not there, I’ll hunt them down.”
Hogg shook his head. “Not with thirty-four infantry you won’t. Them twenty-five Apaches have you outnumbered, Lieutenant.”
Stryker tried his whiskey and liked its harsh taste. “Then scout for me, Joe. Hell, you’re worth an extra ten soldiers.”
“Is that all?” Suddenly Hogg seemed distracted. “I thought I was worth a heap more’n that.” He was looking over Stryker’s shoulder, his eyes wary and puzzled. “Feller over yonder making noise,” he said.
Stryker turned and met the belligerent stare of a tall, exceptionally thin man dressed in a stained black frock coat, checkered pants and a battered top hat.
“What the hell you looking at, soldier boy?” the man asked, smearing each word with insolence. “I don’t like being looked at by the damned freak who murdered my friend Lou Ruxton tonight, as fine a man as ever lived.”
The man had the look of the frontier gambler/ gunman and some primitive instinct warned Stryker that he was best left alone. Beside him sat a younger man in dusty range clothes, but the gun on his hip was clean enough and his grin held a challenge.
But, despite himself, Stryker’s anger flared. He stiffened, his hand dropping to his holstered Colt.
“Lieutenant, let it be,” Hogg whispered.
The tall man heard. “That’s right, pappy—let it be,” he said. “For now at least. Jake Allen is in a killing mood tonight.”
There were a dozen men in the room, and a hard-eyed saloon whore, in a shabby yellow dress, her cheeks and lips the same shade of crimson, her eyelids bright green. She grabbed a bottle from the bar and walked toward Allen’s table. “Have a drink, Jake,” she said, smiling. “This one’s on me.”
“Get away from me, you tramp,” Allen said. “I’m hungry, and you wanna know what I like when I’m hungry? A dead man for supper, served up blue.”
He glared around the bar, his eyebrows lowered. “All right, somebody speak up. Who wants to die tonight, or do I have to pick a volunteer?”
No one in the room made a sound, including three tense young cavalry troopers sitting at a table with a bottle of rotgut. All three were unarmed.
“You, Allen or whatever the hell you call yourself, sit down and behave or I’ll place you under arrest,” Stryker snapped.
Allen grinned, showing a few, blackened teeth. He looked elated, the unholy joy of a man whose finger had just found a trigger. “Is that so?” he said. He swept back the skirts of his frockcoat with an unnecessarily dramatic flourish, revealing a fancy two-gun rig. “Then why don’t you arrest me, ugly soldier boy?”
Behind him, the younger man had also gotten to his feet. His eyes had an eager, reckless light, the acolyte prepared to sweep up the master’s leavings.
Stryker knew it had come down to it, but he’d never faced a draw fighter before and his flapped and buttoned holster gave him pause. How many bullets could Allen get into him before he unlimbered his artillery? Could he take the hits standing and return fire?
As it happened, he had no need to answer those questions, because Joe Hogg stepped into it.
“Jake Allen, do you know me?” he asked.
Allen sneered. “Why the hell should I know you, grandpa?”
“Because I know you. You’re Jake Allen, out of Waco, Texas, the famous back-shooter and woman killer.”
Allen had wanted to kill before, but now he was in a homicidal rage. “Damn your eyes, give your name,” he snarled. “Let me hear it before you die.”
“Why, it’s Joe Hogg, as ever was.”
Allen didn’t move an inch, but everybody in the saloon saw him mentally back up a step. “I have no quarrel with you,” he said. His cheeks were suddenly chalk white. “My gripe is with the soldier boy.”
The young man had quietly resumed his seat. Suddenly he wanted no part of what Joe Hogg had to offer.
“Lieutenant Stryker is my friend, Jake. If you have a gripe with him, you got one with me.” He smiled. “You’re wearing double irons, Jake, let’s see how fast you shuck ’em and get to your work.”
Allen swallowed hard. Eating crow never comes easy, but he had to force this down. “No harm done, Joe. I was somewhat in depressed spirits this evening, is all. Now, if you’ll give me the road, I’ll be on my way.”
The scout made a bow and a sweeping gesture with his arm. “Just make it a long way, Jake.”
Allen hesitated. “Hell, man, the Apaches are out.”
Hogg smiled. “I know.”
Allen, aware that every eye in the saloon was on him and of the triumphant smile on the carmine lips of the whore, knew he had it to do. He could walk out with his tail between his legs or trust to his gun.
How many men had Joe Hogg killed? He couldn’t remember. He didn’t want to remember. All that mattered was that a man who had plans to go on living didn’t draw down on him.
Stryker gave him an out.
“Get on your horse and ride, Allen,” he said. “If you are not off the post in ten minutes I’ll toss you in the guardhouse and throw away the key.”
Allen grabbed at it like a drowning man clutching a straw.
“I’ll go, soldier boy,” he said, “but we’ll meet again when you ain’t got a gunfighter to hide behind.”
“The pleasure will be all yours, I assure you.”
Allen turned to the young man who was sitting at the table, his hands in view and very still. “Let’s go, Sam,” he said.
The man called Sam shook his head. “Reckon I’ll stick right here, Jake.”
Allen had run out his string. He turned on his heel and walked out of the saloon, the mocking laugh of the whore scorching his ears.
Hogg turned to Stryker. “Like to live dangerously, don’t you, Lieutenant?”
“He’s that fast, huh?”
“Faster than you can ever imagine. By the time you got your holster flap unbuttoned, Jake Allen would have emptied his Colt into you.”
“But you seemed mighty sure you could take him.”
“No, I wasn’t sure, not sure a-tall. And, Lieutenant, what I said about you being my friend, don’t go. That was just for ol’ Jake’s benefit.”
“And mine?” Stryker smiled.
“Take it how you want.”
The whore moved to the bar, her hips taking their time to catch up with the rest of her. “Can I buy you boys a drink?” she asked. “I’ve known Jake Allen since I was working the line in Deadwood a few years back, and I ain’t never seen anybody put the crawl on him before.”
Without waiting for Stryker or Hogg to answer, she said to the bartender, “Tom, let’s have the Hennessy from under the bar.”
The man looked surprised. “That’s gonna cost you a dollar a shot, Lorraine.”
“Yeah, well, it’s worth it, ain’t it?”
The bartender poured cognac for the two men, then filled the woman’s glass. She raised it high. “Here’s to you boys.”
After they drank, Lorraine ordered the glasses filled again. Her eyes moved to Stryker’s face. “What the hell happened to you?”
“A man rearranged my features with a shackle chain. Does it bother you?”
The woman shrugged her naked shoulders, the white skin scarred all over from bites. “Soldier, men have come at me all my life, saying different things, wearing different faces. I’ve seen them all, some handsome, most ugly, but lust turns any man ugly anyway, even the pretty ones. Makes them look like goats. Hell, after all that, if your face don’t bother you none, it don’t bother me.”
Stryker drained his glass. “It bothers me.” He touched his hat. “Thanks for the drinks.”
He turned to leave, but Hogg stopped him. “I’ll scout for you, Lieutenant. For sure, Jake Allen will come after you and I’ll get a chance to put a bullet into him. I made him back down tonight and he’ll never forgive me. I don’t want to leave an enemy like him on my back trail.”
“I appreciate it, Joe,” Stryker said.
“And so you should.” The scout’s eyes were moving over the swell of Lorraine’s breasts and hips. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got more important things to attend to.”
Chapter 10
By noon, Stryker’s command had cleared Picket Canyon, the columned ramparts of the Chiricahua Mountains soaring to the east, their slopes and hanging valleys green with silver oak, apache pine and carpets of wildflowers.
The day was hot, the sun a brazen disk in the sky, and the infantrymen were beginning to suffer under the weight of their packs. To the west, the Sulphur Springs Valley, a vast wilderness of sand, scrub and mesquite, drowsed in hard, white sunlight and made no sound.
Behind Stryker, the brogans of the infantry thudded on the hard-packed earth, and now and then a man muttered a curse as something with thorns clawed viciously at his passing legs.
Beside Stryker rode Second Lieutenant Dale N. Birchwood, the scion of a blue-blooded Boston family who looked as though he was already rethinking his Army career.
Birchwood was hot, sticky and uncomfortable in a uniform that seemed a size too small for him, and his young face was bright red, rivulets of sweat cutting through the dust on his cheeks. He rode a gray Thoroughbred that smelled strongly of sweat and seemed more suited to the green, foxhunting pastures of Massachusetts than the desert country of the Arizona Territory.
To his credit, Birchwood had not uttered a single word of complaint since leaving Fort Merit, and his eyes sweeping the shimmering terrain ahead were alert and searching.
Now he turned and looked at Stryker. If he was revolted by his fellow officer’s smashed face, he had the good breeding not to let it show.
“Sir, Mr. Hogg has been gone for quite a while,” he said. “Do you suppose he’s contacted Apaches?”
Stryker shook his head. “His immediate concern is to find water, and that’s not easy to do in the Chiricahuas. If he’d bumped into Apaches, trust me, he’d be back here by now, hell-for-leather.”
“Major Hanson told me you had quite a battle with the Indians yourself, sir.”
Stryker smiled. “I bushwhacked a bunch of drunken Apaches in a box canyon.” He shrugged. “Still, you kill them any way you can, don’t you?”
Birchwood nodded. “I believe that’s the way of it, sir.”
“That’s the way of it, Lieutenant.” Then, as though talking to himself, he said, “Yup, that’s the way of it, all right.”
Fifteen minutes later, Joe Hogg rode out of the blazing day, his Henry across the saddle horn. The scout rode tall and tense in the saddle, looking around him, not liking what the land was telling him.
Stryker halted the column and waited.
Hogg kneed his mustang close to Stryker, then took off his hat and wiped sweat from the band. “Hot,” he said.
The lieutenant waited. Beside him, Birchwood’s gray tossed its head, champing at the bit. One of the infantrymen hawked and spit dust.