“Since you know all that, Hargrove, go ahead and tell us just who they're fighting back there,” Teasdale remarked.
“A posse, maybe?” Hargrove rubbed his beard-stubbled chin, wishing he could come up with at least one more possibility. When none came to him, he finally said with a halfhearted shrug, “Hell, I don't know; it was just a hunch is all. Who do you think is back there, Sergeant?”
“I have no idea,” said Teasdale. He turned his horse back along the trail in the darkness and heeled it forward.
“Well, squat,” Hargrove grumbled under his breath. “His opinion was no better than mine.” In
moments, they had passed on into the velvet darkness beneath a dome full of starlight.
At daybreak the sound of gunfire erupted again, this time in the nearer distance ahead of them. Teasdale stopped the other three soldiers with his raised hand. “Listen to that now,” he said to Hargrove as the big man rode up and stopped his horse beside him. “I can tell you most certainly where that's coming from and who's doing it,” he said.
“That's coming from the settlement at Little Sand,” Hargrove said, his eyes staring ahead through the silver mist of morning.
“Notice anything missing?” asked Teasdale.
“Missing?” Hargrove looked puzzled. “No. Why would I notice anything missing?”
“It's the Gatling gun.” Teasdale allowed a faint, tight smile as he stared ahead. “They've had no better luck then we did getting it to fire. That helps our odds considerably.”
“By the saints, Sergeant!” Hargrove shook his head in exasperation. “We're still outnumbered beyond any sane measure.”
Teasdale ignored him, then turned to Trooper Frieze as he and Doyle Benson rode up on his other side. “How's the wound, Trooper?” he asked.
Frieze shivered in a cold sweat. “I'm fine, Sergeant. I might have me a touch of infectionâ¦but it'll soon pass. I'm hoping so anyway.”
“Good man,” said Teasdale. “Just hold on a couple of hours longer. We'll find a doctor for you in Little Sand.”
“He's looking worse by the minute,” said Doyle Benson, giving Frieze a quick once-over in the grainy dawn light. “God almighty, look at his face! Frieze, your eyes are all blue underneath like some kind of dead man's!”
“That's enough out of you, Benson!” Sergeant
Teasdale commanded. “Get yourself back there twenty yards and guard our rear.”
“Our rear?” Benson looked confused. “Sergeant, everything from me back is our rear. I can guard it from where I satâ”
“Shut up, Benson!” Hargrove bellowed. “Come with me!” He grabbed the young soldier's horse by its bridle and jerked it along beside him. In the gray morning, Teasdale and Frieze heard him chastise the young man as they rode farther back. “The hell's wrong with you, Benson?” Hargrove growled at him. “You never say something like that to a badly wounded man!”
“I thought it wasn't that bad,” said Benson. “He said himself it's just an in-and-out wound.”
“Never mindâ¦. Just shut your stupid face!” said Hargrove.
As Hargrove's and Benson's voices faded, Trooper Frieze tried to sound as if nothing was wrong. “Soldiers always have to bicker and bellyache, don't they, Sergeant?”
“How bad is it getting, Trooper Frieze?” Teasdale asked instead of answering him.
“Aw, heck, Sergeant. Like I said, it ain't nothing,” Frieze offered bravely.
“On the square, Trooper,” said Teasdale. “I need to know so I can figure it into our plans.”
“On the square then,” said Frieze. “It's the strangest feeling I ever had. It wasn't bad at all till the past couple hoursâ¦. Then, Lord have mercy, this fever hit me all at once. I swear I never felt nothing like it before in my life.”
“All right then,” said Teasdale. “You just hang on. We'll get the doctor in Little Sand to treat you. We'll leave you with him a few days, just until you're past the fever stage.”
A silence set in. Then Frieze said, “What if this fever hangs on and gets worse? I've heard how it is to die of blood poison.”
“Blood poison? Who said anything about blood poison?” said Teasdale. “You might come out of this sicker than a dog for a few days, but that's a long way fromâ”
“Begging your pardon, Sergeant Teasdale,” said Frieze, cutting him off. “I thought we was still talking on the square here.”
Teasdale stopped himself and let out a breath. “Sorry, Trooper. You're right. This is still on the square. As fast as that infection came on you, we haven't a moment to waste getting you some medical attention. But we will be in Little Sand by mid-morning at the latest. Hang on till then, all right?”
“I'll sure try. You count on that,” said Frieze. “I can't say that I feel like I'm dyingâ¦. But I swear, this is the damndest thing ever.” His voice nearly gave in to the deep shiver in his chest, but he managed to hold it off. “I hate the thought of living through a bullet wound only to die from the sickness of it. It don't seem fair somehow.”
“Quit thinking about dying. Put the
fair
part out of your mind too, Trooper,” said Teasdale. “A few days from now, you might be laughing about this.”
“Suits me, Sergeant,” said Frieze. “Dying ain't exactly something I ever planned on doing.”
“That's more like it,” said Teasdale. “I need you to stick in here real tough for me. Will you do that?”
“You know it, Sergeant,” said Frieze, making an effort to sit taller in his saddle.
“Good man.” Teasdale heeled his horse forward, this time speeding it up a bit.
By the time they reached the outer edge of the valley where the settlement of the Little Sand River
stood, the sun was high and boiling. Entering through broken-down timber gates on a narrow path that ran between rows of shacks and crumbling adobes from a time long past, Teasdale raised his hand and once again stopped the other three soldiers in their tracks. From a tall pole just inside the broken gates, the body of a man clad in buckskin swayed back and forth on the hot, still air. Thirty feet farther along the thin path, another body hung from a similar pole, this one with a feed sack down over its head.
“Those dirty murdering bastards,” Sergeant Teasdale whispered. He turned to Hargrove and Benson. “Get up there and cut them down. Frieze and I will go raise the townsfolk from hiding.”
“Stay where you are,” said a voice from behind the burnt remains of a hide wagon. “Nobody does nothing till we say so!”
“Easy, sir,” said Teasdale, raising his hands chest-high in a show of peace. “We're soldiers.”
“So was that last bunch came through here,” said the voice. “Look what they done.”
As Teasdale and the other three soldiers watched cautiously, a half dozen men and women stepped out from behind the smoking pile of charred wood and bent metal bracing. In front of them stood a portly older man dressed in greasy buckskins. He carried a big fifty-caliber buffalo rifle in the open crook of his left arm. His dirty thumb lay across the cocked hammer. At his moccasined feet stood a skinny spotted hound with its hackles raised. The dog held a low, steady growl in its throat.
“I differ with you, sir,” said Teasdale. “The men who did this were not soldiers. They're a murdering band of thieves called the Peltrys.”
“I know all about them,” said the old man, lowering
the rifle an inch now that he had a better look at the men and their dusty uniforms. “It's Moses and Goose. I knew them back when they were snot-nosed babies. Pity somebody didn't mash their heads back then, save the world all this grief.” He gestured a hand toward the body hanging from the first pole. “That's Rance Stofeild. He cut new trails with Bridger back before this land had ever seen a white man's footprint on it. Sonsabitches have no respect for nothing anymore.”
“We'll help you cut him down,” said Teasdale. Behind him, Hargrove and Benson stepped down from their saddles and helped Frieze to the ground. Three men and a woman rushed forward and assisted Frieze. “Is there a doctor here?” Teasdale asked.
“No,” said the woman, “but I'll see to him.” They hurried Frieze away toward a whitewashed shack.
“Thank you kindly,” said Teasdale, tipping his dusty cavalry hat. “I'll be right along, Trooper,” he said to Frieze.
“They like to call themselves Southern guerrillas,” said the old man, continuing on about the Peltrys, “but Rance lost two grandsons who fought for the Stars and Bars, and he wasn't about to hear the Peltrys pretend they were decent Southern boys. He called the Peltrys what they really are, and it got him hung. I oughta have done somethingâ¦. But I didn't.” He looked ashamed and remorseful.
“Now, you stop that kind of talk, Campbell Hayes. There was nothing you could do,” said a matronly woman standing close behind him. She looked at Sergeant Teasdale as he stepped down from his horse. “He stood up to them when they first got here, and one of them knocked him cold and tied him to a hitch rail.”
“It was the first time in my life I felt just plain powerless,” said Campbell Hayes, his glance going up to Rance's body hanging in the air. “What a hell of a time to go flat in my old age.” He looked back at Teasdale. “But by God, sir! If you're hunting them polecats, I'm going with you.”
“Ordinarily, sir, I would be glad to have you join us,” said Teasdale. “But as you can see, we're hard-pressed and ill-outfitted for this task. I won't jeopardize your safety.”
“My safety be damned, Sergeant,” said Campbell Hayes, looking up to where Benson, who had shinnied up the rough wooden pole, had taken a pocketknife from his trouser pocket and begun to cut through the taut rope holding the dead man suspended above the ground. “I just want to kill the Peltrys and watch Stofield's hound, Junior, piss in their dead faces,” On the ground, the dog recognized his name and deepened his steady growl. “What put you on their trail anyway?”
“We're part of a guard detail,” said Teasdale, “accompanying a gun wagon to the camp up in the hills. We had a Gatling rifle that was supposed to keep the area safe from Mescaleros this winter. The Peltrys hit us yesterday. These men and myself are all that's left of the detail.”
“I saw that Gatling gun,” said Campbell Hayes. “Good thing the Peltrys weren't smart enough to get it working. They tried spraying this whole settlement with it. Seems like the army would better protect a weapon that fierce.”
“Yes, I agree,” said Teasdale, leading his horse along in the direction the townsfolk had taken Frieze. “By the same token, you'd think a weapon that fierce would be capable of protecting itself. And it would
have, if it hadn't kept jamming on us. But that's all water under the bridge now. I have to get that gun back and take down the Peltrys in the process.”
“Then you best be prepared to ride into Old Mex,” said Campbell Hayes, walking along beside him, keeping his eyes turned away from the sight of his dead partner's body hitting the ground like a sack of feed. “They hole up in the northâ¦. The
Federales
in the provinces turn a blind eye to their thieving, cutthroat ways so long as they keep their noses clean over there. Everything for the right price, of course.”
“Of course,” said Teasdale. He seemed to consider things for a second, then he said, “If I have to cross the border, I will. Can you tell me where we might get fitted with some civilian clothes around here?”
“All depends,” said Hayes. “Am I going with you or not?”
“What about your business?” asked Teasdale. “The buffalo won't wait for you to get back here.”
“The buffs are about played out anyway,” said Hayes. “Besides, I'm short a hide wagon nowâ¦and skinning ain't a one-man job. Hadn't been for Stofield, I'd have drug up from it two seasons back. I know the northern hill country over there, if the fight goes that farâ¦which I know it will.”
Thinking about it as they walked along, Teasdale looked down at the dog staying close to Hayes' heels. “What about your partner's dog? Is there anybody here you can leave him with?”
“Anybody here in Little Sand would be honored to keep Junior,” said Hayes, “but I wouldn't think of leaving him here. He'll be worth his weight in gold to us in the Mexican wilds. After what they done to his master, Junior will sniff us out a Peltry from a mile upwind.”
“Just keep him out of my way,” said Teasdale,
passing a glance down to the skinny canine. “Gather what supplies you can find for us,” he said. “Whatever these folks can spare.” He stopped dead in his tracks as if just reminded of what the Peltrys had done. “Are these folks going to be all right?”
“Why, hell yes,” said Hayes. “They was ready to shoot your eyes out if you and your lads weren't what you should be. Fighting people are
whole
people, I always say.” He grinned behind his long silver beard.
“All right then. Be ready to ride as soon as I see how the trooper is doing.”
“He ain't going with us, the shape he's in, is he?” Campbell Hayes asked, looking astonished by the prospect.
“You saw him,” said Teasdale. “You tell me where you think he's going.”
“Ummph.” Hayes winced and grunted under his breath. “It's a damn shame, a young feller like that. Does he know how serious it is?”
“He knew it before I did,” said Teasdale, shaking his head. “I never seen a wound go bad that fast. We cleaned it with water the best we could. Still, it didn't help. One of my troopers said it was full of blue wool from his shirt.”
“Nothing makes any difference when a man's time is at hand, Sergeant,” said Hayes. “The Lord calls it the way it falls. I'll get to gathering up those supplies.”
Teasdale stopped a few feet from the whitewashed shack and spun his reins around the hitch rail. As he stepped up onto a rickety boardwalk, the woman who had taken charge of Trooper Frieze met him at the open doorway and motioned him inside. “Wait right here, Sergeant. We'll have him cleaned up in no time.” She turned and left the room.