“Well, I guess what you’ve never had you won’t miss, Lieutenant.” Stryker looked around him. “This place has excellent fields of fire and the walls are thick. We will make our stand here.”
“A bit cramped, though, sir.”
“With you, Mr. Hogg and me, we’ll have seventeen defenders. Trust me, when the Apaches come at us in force and the bullets start flying, it won’t seem so cramped.”
“No, sir. I mean of course not, sir.”
Stryker smiled. “Brothel fumes getting to you, Lieutenant?”
“I find the place a bit . . . unnerving, sir.”
“Well, if you don’t tell your betrothed that you’re frequenting a bawdy house, then neither will I. Now get your men moved in here and bring as much ammunition as you can find.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And, Lieutenant, stay away from the bar. Suddenly you’re inclining toward some mighty bad habits.”
“Them boys up on the bluff were killed by Apaches, Lieutenant,” Hogg said. “They were all scalped and cut up bad, and a few have arrows in them.”
Stryker was irritated. “Why the hell did that corporal, whatever his name was, decide to fight up there?”
“Probably a sodbuster who didn’t have the sense to know the Apaches could get around behind him an’ attack every which way.”
“Why didn’t the Indians fire the buildings, Joe? Huh? Why didn’t they fire the damned buildings?”
“My guess is they was scared off, or went after something else in a big hurry.”
“But they’re back, damn them.”
“To finish what they started, maybe.”
Stryker bowed his head in thought for a few moments, then lifted bleak eyes to Hogg. “It was Pierce. They went after Rake Pierce.”
Hogg smiled. “You’re stretching your mind out across some mighty big territory, Lieutenant.”
“I know, but I’ve got a bond with that man, Joe. It was forged in the deepest fires of hell and nothing will ever break it. He’s alive. Damn him, I can feel him, feel him—” Stryker made a grabbing motion with his right hand—“this close.”
Hogg inclined his head. “Whatever you say. But one thing fer sure, Geronimo is back. As to the why of the thing, I don’t know. It’s hard to figure an Apache. He’ll bamboozle you every time.”
The first probing attack caught Stryker’s men out in the open.
The lieutenant was watching Birchwood’s infantry file toward the hog ranch when the Apaches struck, two dozen mounted warriors charging out of a narrow arroyo.
Hogg was bringing up the rear, carrying Kelly, his other arm around Mary McCabe’s waist. Yet he fired first. In one fast, graceful motion he shoved the girl into Mary’s arms, turned and drew his Colt.
In anyone else but Hogg, fanning the big revolver would have been a grandstand play, a fancy move full of sound and fury that signified nothing. But in the time it takes a man to blink, he hammered off five shots into the Apaches, killed a pony and sent the rider sprawling. The horse fell in a tangle of kicking legs and for a moment plunged the oncoming riders into confusion. Too close, another Apache mount got caught up in the dying pony’s legs and went down, throwing its rider. The remaining Apaches swung wide, away from the wreck, and were firing their Winchesters from the shoulder. But those precious few seconds Hogg had gained gave the scattered soldiers time to deploy and unlimber their Springfields.
A short, sharp gunfight between Birchwood’s men and the Indians followed, with no hits scored on either side. Then the Apaches were gone, leaving only a drifting cloud of dust to mark their passing.
The Apache who had been thrown by his dying horse had broken his neck and was as dead as he was ever going to be. The warrior who had collided with him had lost his rifle, but sprang to his feet, a knife in his hand, yelling his defiance. Stryker raised his revolver and cut him down.
Joe Hogg had been dead when he hit the ground, a bullet in the middle of his forehead. Mary McCabe, shot several times, lasted a few moments longer, gasping, her frightened eyes clouding in death even as Stryker kneeled beside her.
Kelly was unhurt, but she was hugging and kissing her dead mother, sobbing uncontrollably.
Birchwood stood beside Stryker, looking down at the dead. “Oh my God,” he whispered, over and over again.
“Lieutenant, see to your men,” Stryker snapped. “Occupy the adobe, then form a burial party.”
It took a while, but Birchwood said, “Yes, sir.”
“And Lieutenant, they had a few weeks of happiness. Maybe that’s more than many of us are allowed.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now go about your duties.”
Stryker reached out and closed Hogg’s eyes. He felt that he’d lost his good right arm, and more than that, he’d lost a friend. His only friend.
He looked to the mountains, now bathed in pale gold light as the sun dropped lower in the sky. The breeze brought the scent of pines and dust and of secret places where water tumbled and the gunmetal fish played.
Suddenly he felt very alone. Lonelier than the lonely land. Lonelier than the first man the day after Creation.
“God help me,” Stryker said aloud.
Kelly turned, looking at him with tearstained eyes. But he had no other words, not for her or for himself.
Chapter 20
Before sundown, Stryker saw Joe Hogg and Mary McCabe buried.
Kelly was inconsolable, lost in grief that no child should be asked to bear. Crowded into the adobe, the soldiers did their best, rough and ready men who believed that if they only made the girl laugh, she’d feel better.
After a while they gave up, and Kelly retreated into a dark place they could not reach.
It was widely believed by Stryker and everyone else that Indians would not attack at night, fearing that if they were killed their souls would wander in eternal darkness. But Apaches were willing to fight at any hour, if they thought it would give them an edge.
Throughout the long night they fired probing shots at the adobe, and one of them coaxed cracked notes from a bugle and kept it up for a nerve wracking hour.
On the partition walls of the cells, the soldiers had found crude charcoal drawings of men and women engaged in various sexual activities, and, despite Lieutenant Birchwood’s prim disapproval, they became a topic of excited conversation and speculation until the men drifted off to sleep.
Birchwood had placed the bar off-limits to his soldiers, but Stryker poured himself a stiff drink and built a cigarette. To his joy he had found a supply of tobacco and papers at the general store, even though the Apaches had taken time to loot the place before they left.
Men were sprawled all over the floor and on the stained and odorous cots once used by the whores and their clients. Kelly was huddled in a corner, covered by a soldier’s greatcoat, and seemed to be asleep. Private Stearns, his young face ashen, lay on the pine table, groaning softly, trying his best to be brave. Every now and then a soldier manning the windows stepped beside the youngster, trying to comfort him. Stearns’ left leg was black from his toes to above the knee and would have to come off.
Stryker had brought a supply of knives and meat saws from the post kitchen and he would do the surgery at first light. He shook his head and whispered into the snoring darkness.
“Thanks, Joe, just what I needed.”
The long night shaded into morning and outside birds began to sing. Men stirred and stomped their feet and pipes were lit. Birchwood gave his permission to light the stove just long enough to boil coffee, and Stryker silently approved. It was going to get hot enough in the crowded adobe as it was, and a burning stove would not help matters.