Ambush (19 page)

“Along with a third of the men in the West,” Riordan scoffed. “You want me to stay here and be tried? I'll be an old man when I get out.”

Martha looked down at her folded hands, her mind in a wild turmoil.

“Brierly's alive, isn't he? I hurt him, but no worse than many a man's hurt me.” He hesitated, watching her, and then he said solemnly, “I'm not going to jail for that, Martha. I'll die first—and so would you, wouldn't you?”

“I—don't know, Tom.”

“It can't fail,” Riordan said with flat conviction. “Doc Horton's gone, but the hospital orderly changes my bandage in the evening. When he's out of the way, I call to the guard to hand me some of my gear from the next bed. Once his back is turned, I've got him.” His big hand fisted unconsciously. “I change into his clothes, cross the sentry line, pick up the horse, and ride out, a free man. Now, will you see Jim Crawford first thing tomorrow?”

“Oh, Tom, I don't know,” Martha said miserably. “It's just asking for more trouble on top of troubles already.”

“No troubles are more than I've got,” Riordan said grimly. And then, because it had worked before and he was sure it would work again, he said, “Are you my wife or aren't you? Does a woman stick by her husband only as long as he's in luck? Is that what the church says, or is it something different?”

“Oh, Tom, you know I'll stick by you!”

“Then get me out of here!” Riordan said angrily. “Once we're shut of this damned Army and in a new country, we'll begin all over. You'll see. Things'll be like they were when we were first married.” He paused. “Well?”

“All right, Tom,” Martha said almost inaudibly. “I'll do it.”

Because this had driven all else from her mind and she needed to think, Martha rose now and said good night. Riordan, watching her go, smiled faintly and stuffed a cookie in his mouth.

Outside, Martha walked slowly back to the parade. The early evening was still hot, but there was a moment when she shivered uncontrollably, and then it passed. She was, she knew, a fool for promising to help Tom escape,
but when have I not been?
she thought bitterly. She had been a fool to love him in the first place, and she was a fool for staying with him, now that she no longer did. She was probably being foolish to believe that once Tom had made his escape and they were in California life would be different and better, but she did believe. It was all, really, that was left her.

She moved off the parade ground into the dim alley of a street where their house was, and went inside. Standing in the middle of the dark room now, knowing she could not change the course of events, she speculated on the probable success of Tom's escape. If he made it, there was little danger of his being discovered. And it was true that desertion was common, so common in fact that many young men in the East, too poor to pay their way west, enlisted with the purpose in mind of later desertion.
But his oath of enlistment is as sacred as your oath of marriage
, she thought, then. Suddenly, she knew this was all wrong, that it was part and parcel of her shabby, sordid life with Tom, and that she had neither the power nor the will to change it.

In the darkness, she brought her hands to her cheeks and pressed until she felt pain, and she whispered, “Oh, Linus, Linus, help me.”

Some three hours after dark, Ward finally reined in and waited for Loring to catch up with him and halt the column. They were in the confines of a steep-walled canyon, and had been, more often than not, since they had left the plateau north of Cardinal Springs. The clatter of shod hooves on the canyon floor boomed into the night with a discordant racket, so that Loring, as he came abreast him and halted the column, had to bellow over it to make his orders heard.

When Storrow and Linus, trailing him, pulled in their mounts, Loring protested. “Good Lord, Kinsman, this is a box. You can barely see the sky. How can we hold a troop of cavalry here?”

“Dismount them and send your horses back. You are fighting afoot, aren't you?”

“Naturally, but how do we get out of here?” Loring asked testily.

“You can't see it, but we're at a cross canyon. The only trails to the two rims are here. Unless you want to move on almost a half-mile to where the canyon widens out and the detail will camp.”

Loring said nothing; Ward knew he was considering the risk of holding his horses a half-mile to the rear in a close canyon, and he thought,
He's trying to remember what it says in the book
.

Loring said then, “I always understood your precious Apaches go for the horses first.”

“They'll go for mine,” Linus said patiently. “They won't know your horses are there, sir.”

Loring said stiffly, “I'm considering all factors, Mr. Delaney. Things may not go as well as we hope.”

Ward said, “Your men will fight on the rim, the height of land, Captain. They can fall back along the rim to the horses in case of trouble, keeping the 'Paches from them.”

“You have planned our tactics for us, too, before you leave, Kinsman?” Loring asked with a savage sarcasm.

Ward didn't answer and now he heard Loring turning in his saddle and, his voice still rough, say, “Mr. Storrow, pass the word back for Sergeant Isaacs and his platoon to come forward. You'll remain here until my return.” To Ward, he said, “Let's see the rest of this.”

Word passed back and Sergeant Isaacs and his platoon presently appeared. Ward put his horse in motion and they rode down the remainder of the canyon. Its walls, after two hundred yards, began to fall away, and presently the footing was stony soil again.

Ward rode on a few minutes longer, then reined in. He could hear the creak of Loring's saddle as he turned for his look.

Then Loring's voice, stiff and unbending, said, “I'm unable to get an idea of the ground here, Kinsman. What is it?”

“You're about in the center of a bowl with sloping sides. There's big rock scattered all around you, enough for cover, but too much for a fight on horseback. Where we're standing it is fairly open. It's a long rifle shot to us from either side.”

“So long they'll have to come down to us?”

“They'll do that anyway. Your troopers can move in along the rim behind them.”

“Very good. Is this satisfactory, Mr. Delaney?”

“If Ward says it is,” Linus answered.

“All right, dismount your men and make camp, Mr. Delaney. Kinsman, that's all we need from you. Your pay will be waiting for you when you reach Gamble.”

Linus pulled his horse over next to Ward's and, in Loring's plain hearing, he said, “I'm sorry it had to work out this way, Ward.”

Loring turned and gave the command to Sergeant Isaacs and his platoon to dismount.

Ward said, “Keep your head down, Linus.”

“Up or down, what's the difference,” Linus said quietly with an odd touch of disinterest, and then his voice lowered. “I haven't anything to give Martha; I shouldn't anyway. But if Troop G winds this up shy an Irish lieutenant, will you tell her I spoke of her? Tell her”—his voice trailed off—“Tell her it's a hell of a world. Still, she knows that. So long.”

He pulled his horse around and moved over to his men, and Ward rode off toward the west slope and climbed it. On the ridge, he halted his mount and turned to look back. Below him, a small brush fire was already going, the troopers moving back and forth and around it as they made camp.

He put his horse west now, and rode loosely, slack in the saddle, and he speculated on what the morning would bring. There seemed little that could go wrong, because Linus would fight his detail skillfully, and with Loring and Storrow in his support, they would have their fight. Probably, it wouldn't be a finish fight; Diablito, with the knowledge that Wolverton was coming, would fall back to his horses and disperse the band. Mary Carlyle would never be seen, and the band would form again in Mexico.

His horse, crossing a patch of shale, was wary of the uneasy footing, and once across it, Ward cast back in his memory for the nearest trail to pick up. But he was aware at the same time of an obscure feeling of guilt that was riding with him, and he did not have to reach for the reason. He had guided the troop into a strange country at night and then left them, by request it was true.

It was an odd circumstance and it held its dangers, which he considered now. No man was foreordained to know the mind of an Apache; suppose a single scout for the band, with no stomach for a fight, scouted past the detail and turned up the main body of the troop? Loring would be in for a very different fight then, with no knowledge of the terrain. The fact that he had ordered this ignorance didn't alter the degree of danger, and Ward reined up, a stirring of alarm mingled with his guilt now. He caught himself looking back toward the east, as if he could see into the night, and he thought,
Turn around. Go back with your tail between your legs
. And trailing this thought was the unwelcome memory of a dozen things that he should have told Loring or Linus if his disgust and pride hadn't won out over simple caution.

He put his horse down the slope ahead, and when he had reached the floor of this shallow canyon, his mind was made up. Turning down canyon, he rode a few minutes longer, then reined in and stepped out of the saddle. He unsaddled, picketed his horse, and then took off his shell belt. From it, he drew a dozen cartridges which he scattered in the folds of his neckerchief before putting it in his pocket. From his holster he drew his pistol, opened the loading gate, and rammed the pistol in the waistband of his trousers down to the open loading gate, which held it in place. After taking a long drink from his canteen, he put it beside his saddle and moved off noiselessly into the night, back up the slope.

When he saw the campfire of the detail below him from the ridge, he paused only a moment. The troopers were scattered around the fire sleeping, and the picket line was set up away from the mouth of the canyon; while he watched, a sentry crossed between him and the fire.

Ward moved off the ridge down the slope, heading for the trail above the camp. He knew the Apache scouts would travel the ridges, but when they picked up the detail they would come down close to count the numbers. Taking up his position behind the pooled blackness of a rock, he lay down to wait.

It could have been an hour he waited, fighting the desire to sleep when, from somewhere behind him, a pebble rolled a few feet in a faint clatter. He lay motionless, stilling his breath, and presently there moved into his view, between him and the dying fire, the form of an Apache. He faded in behind a rock that was man-high, and presently Ward saw his erect figure edge around it for a full, bold look. The figure disappeared then, and while he was watching for it to appear closer to the fire, he heard the dim call of a far coyote.
Too far away to be one of them
, Ward thought;
They won't risk a call now
.

He never saw the scout again, but he waited another half-hour, then drifted quietly down toward the trail. He did not cross it, but traveled parallel to it among the rocks of the gentle slope, heading north. Now that their quarry was spotted he judged the Apaches would use the easier trail in their travel.

Another long half-hour passed, and he traveled slowly, halting often and long. Once, in his halt, he heard the barely audible murmur of a runner on the trail below him, also headed back for the band.

It was where the valley widened for a broad off-shoot canyon to the west that he heard the low murmur of voices. He did not move closer, but sank to the ground, listening, trying to read the meaning of this meeting. Presently, he heard the voices cease, and the sound of a man again at a run heading up the feeder canyon. Considering this, and the faint smell of dust still in the night air, he knew that he had already missed the main band which had been diverted up the canyon.
Had they camped or would they jump a few ridges and keep south?
The guard posted at the junction was there to direct the scouts who had Wolverton inevitably under surveillance, he judged.

He drew further back from the junction and peered up the west canyon, weighing his judgment against what he knew of the fighting habits of the Apaches. If they aimed to attack, they would first move their women to a safe camp. They would leave the horse herd there, too, since if they attacked they would have to fight on foot. The question was, Had Wolverton crowded them so they would feel it safer to keep moving? It seemed unlikely, since Wolverton's troopers and their mounts, lugging all the gear the Army thought was essential, had taken two punishing days of fighting and traveling, and would need rest.

Quietly, then, Ward pulled away and turned up the feeder canyon. He kept just below the line of the ridge and traveled carefully. He knew that the Apaches, once a fight was in prospect, would be pulled from their defensive alertness by the excitement, and yet he took no chances.

There was a soft and secret coming and going on the trail below him, and he could not read its meaning. The canyon presently elbowed north, its floor abruptly lifting to break out into a bench directly under the line of a ridge. When he saw the first campfire pinpointing the night, he knew that the band was far enough ahead of Wolverton and could safely halt.

He struck straight west now, crossing this ridge and its valley and the climbing height beyond, dropping down into a steep canyon. Holding to this for a half-mile, he presently pulled out of his circle half completed, and now his climb was careful. Twice he halted, and waited for the faint stirring of a fitful breeze to die, lest his scent alert their horses. Once, he revised his judgment and moved further north along the slope, and at last, the dim sounds of the camp came to him. Just under the ridge, he waited longest, and then moved on, to it, his every sense sharpened wire thin and alert. The camp came into view below him and to the south, and he was content to watch it from here. His first thought, seeing its entirety, was that Holly had miscounted. It was a smaller band than reported. There were four or five small fires built. At first glance, the camp seemed utterly disorganized, but he knew that was deceptive; it could move in a matter of minutes. The horse herd lay closest him in a makeshift corral of rope and brush, and was policed by the adolescent boys. There were forms on the ground resting, and women moved from one fire to the next. Was one of them Mary Carlyle? Ward wondered. He was too far distant to tell.