“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.
Finally he said, “What’s up ahead, Joe?” “Apache sign, Lieutenant, a heap of it. And a dead white man.”
Stryker stood in the stirrups, easing himself in the saddle. The dead man could wait. “Where are the savages headed?”
“I’d say right now they’re in the Chiricahuas due east of the Sulphur Hills, trying to discover where the white man was headed. The man wouldn’t have been riding alone if he didn’t have a place to go and a mighty important reason for getting there. The Apaches must figure there’s a ranch or a farm around there someplace.”
“But eventually they’ll turn south, huh?”
“I can’t say that, Lieutenant. Geronimo is trying to make a name for himself as a war chief, and old Nana will go along with whatever he says.” Hogg looked beyond Stryker, his gaze shifting to their back trail. “They could head north.”
The implication of that hit Stryker immediately. “You mean attack Fort Bowie?”
The scout shook his head. “No, Geronimo is not strong enough to tackle a post of that size. But by this time he’s sure been told that there’s only a single infantry company guarding Fort Merit.”
“How many warriors does this Geronimo savage have?”
“Hard to say, but he might have fifty or more, and, judging by the tracks I saw earlier, more young men are joining him.” Hogg shrugged. “He’s got enough, especially if Yanisin’s band throws in with him.”
“Colonel Devore told me the Apaches would head for Mexico.”
“Colonel Devore ain’t here, Lieutenant.”
For a few moments Stryker sat his saddle, thinking it through. Finally he looked at Hogg, his mind made up. “Joe, I want to see those tracks for myself. Lieutenant Birchwood, bring up the column at your best speed.”
The young lieutenant saluted, and Stryker turned to his scout again. “Let’s go.” He set spurs to his horse and headed south, into the glowering heat of the dancing day.
The dead man lay where he’d fallen. He was on his back, his eyes burning out in the sun. He’d been struck by a volley of shots and was probably dead when he hit the ground.
“What do you make of him, Joe?” Stryker asked.
“Looks like a sodbuster to me, but he hasn’t done none o’ that lately. Look at his hands, they ain’t guided a plow in some time.” He glanced at Stryker. “It’s getting hard to tell now the sun’s got to him, Lieutenant, but when I first saw him, when he was fresher, he had the look of a drinker.”
Stryker looked around him. “Unshod ponies. How many would you say?”
“Six, maybe seven. They either broke off from Geronimo’s main bunch or they were riding to join him when they stumbled on this man.”