"Advance," Murray countermanded. "Those savages only had knives."
"That's all they came with," Edge muttered, speaking to himself and not moving from his own position a few feet from the door of Murrays quarters.
The men went at the run, spreading out in a V formation with Sawyer in the lead and Horne on his right side. It was Home who fell first, his chest exploding into a great swathe of mangled flesh and shattered bone fragments as a half dozen shells ripped into him from the hayloft above the stables.
"They've got the Winchesters!" Murray yelled incredulously as more rifle fire exploded within the stables and two of the enlisted men collapsed, one gushing blood from a head wound, the other clawing at his stomach. The soldiers began to fire now, those who were backing Sawyer and the sentries on the wall, joined by others who emerged from the cookhouse on the run. A hail of bullets poured into the stables doorway and through the opening in the hayloft above. One brave ran screaming from the doorway, clutching at his shattered jaw as two more pitched forward from above. More heavy slugs tore into their bodies, confirming their deaths with great spouts of blood. Another soldier went down with redness blossoming on his chest and his shriek drowned by the barrage of rifle fire.
A bullet kicked up a dust puff inches from Murray's boot and the Colonel ran at full tilt to join Edge. A few more rifle shots sounded and silence descended except for the baleful whimpering of a soldier who sat in the center of the now empty compound, trying to hold back the blood which was draining from a wound in his groin.
"What were you in the army?" Murray snapped, wincing in sympathy for the injured man.
"Captain."
Even if you were a goddamn general I outrank you now," Murray threw at him. "I’m running this fort and I don't want, any civilian smart-talking me back."
A rifle barked and the injured man was thrown backward in death as his forehead split open.
You ain't running it very well," Edge muttered pointedly."Why don't you burn them out?"
Murray looked at Edge as if he considered him a simpleton. "There are fifty horses in there."
Edge spat "I ain't heard a sound out of them. I figure there's only fifty carcasses in there."
It was obvious Murray had not considered this before for his face was suddenly heavy with the shock of the realization.
"Colonel!" a voice called from the far side of compound.
"Sawyer?" Murray answered.
"We're going to lose a lot of men if we try to rush them again.
Rage spread a dull redness across the Colonel's face. "Goddamn it, lieutenant I'm not an imbecile. Hold your tongue and wait for an order."
"Sir!" the lieutenant acknowledged as another fusillade of shots resounded from the stables, the Apaches firing blind.
"Burn it!" Edge snapped.
"You know how much high explosive is stored in the arsenal next door to the stables?" Murray demanded.
Edge grinned without humor. "No, Colonel, but we'll all find out soon enough. It's all getting thrown at us."
Murray pondered the point for several minutes, glanced' malevolently at Edge and folded his hands around his mouth. "Lieutenant, organize a fire-fighting detail. Have the marksmen keep the stables under surveillance and put every other man on the detail. Civilians as well."
"Your order, Colonel," Edge told him. "I only made a suggestion."
"What do you want, a commendation?"
"No. Action." Edge reached up with his rifle and unhooked the kerosene lantern that hung above the door to Murray's quarters. He turned the wick high; ducked as a bullet splintered wood from the door frame and hurled the lamp as he straightened. It seemed to be falling short of the target, but as it sailed into a decaying arc before the hayloft opening Edge brought up his rifle and loosed off a shot. Sprays of burning oil splashed into the loft and down the front of the stable and immediately wood and hay caught and started to bum furiously.
Murray looked at Edge with an expression close to repugnance. "You enjoy destroying things don't you, Edge," he said.
"It helps when you don't have a conscience about it," Edge answered without looking at the other man, fastening his eyes on the stables facade as the flames caught hold. Two shots sounded from within the building, then there was a babble of alarmed cries before the crackling of the burning wood swamped it.
"Get the fire-fighters ready," Murray yelled, his anxious eyes following the course of the spreading blaze as the all-devouring flames licked toward the arsenal. A half dozen braves came out of the stables doorway in a rush, firing as they emerged, and, ran into a solid wall of bullets from a row of kneeling marksmen on the far side of the compound.
"Move those buckets!" Murray ordered and several men ran forward to start a human chain between the well by the cookhouse and the stables.
Another bunch of Apaches rushed from the stables and dropped two soldiers and a woman before they met their own fate. The fire-fighters dashed back into cover.
"Hell, is the entire Apache nation holed up in there?" Murray exclaimed.
"You can't be that lucky," Edge told him as the whole of the stables frontage was lost in a sheet of yellow flame that shot high into the air, lighting up every feature of the interior of the fort. From this wall of fire burst three braves; unarmed and screaming their agony as their hair and breechcloths were consumed by flames.
Edge snapped off three shots and the braves were dropped in their tracks, falling on to the bodies of their dead brothers, spreading the fire to the inert forms. Murray ordered the fire-fighters forward and a medical orderly ran out to attend to the army's wounded. A woman dashed to the center of the compound and fell to her knees, clasping her hands together and staring skyward.
"Please God, let it be over;" she cried, spilling tears down dirt-streaked cheeks.
"He ain't listening," Edge called to her. "It’s only just beginning."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
EDGE slept alone in one of the big bunkhouses which comprised a dormity for forty troopers. The men who normally had their quarters there, and the others-who bunked in a similar long room next door, were all on the wall, covering every square inch of ground around the fort. The last remnants of the town's population, numbering seven men, six women and two young boys, chose to spend the night in each other's company in the cookhouse, sharing their fear and thus reducing it.
The soldiers heard the drums first, then the civilians. A near-hysterical scream from a woman roused Edge to instant alertness and he, too, heard the steady, ominous beating of clenched fists upon taut hide. He had been stretched out, fully clothed, on a bunk and he came erect with a sigh and moved outside. He breathed in deeply of the clear, cool air and glanced up at the sky. The cloud which during the night had obscured the half moon was already rolling away toward the west, as if afraid of the first rays of the new sun that were search-lighting up from the eastern lip of the world.
Edge stretched again and strolled across the empty compound toward the well, glancing up at the line of blue-coated troopers ranged along the wall. The steady beat of the drums was growing louder, getting nearer. There was already a half-filled bucket standing on the lip of the well and he bent over it, splashing the cool water on to his face. Then he took off his hat and used the dipper to pour water on to his head. He heard a whimper behind him and turned to see a woman framed through the holes and tied to the sides of the litter, forcing him to look ahead. To stare ahead now, into the first harsh rays of the morning sun with eyes that had lost their means of protection: the Apaches had sliced off the Englishman's eyelids.