DONNELY PASSED ORDERS to a grizzled sergeant with a bloodstained kerchief tied around his stubble-cut grey hair, and the veteran relayed them to the troopers. Out of the captain’s original twenty-strong command, two men were dead and four more wounded. Three horses had been killed, and one other was too badly hurt by arrows to make the journey back at the pace demanded by the threat to the mission. McLain watched as the sergeant went down on one knee, crooning softly to the animal as he pressed his Colt against the sweating skull and pulled the trigger. The wounded men were lifted astride their saddles and tied in place while the others primed their weapons and waited nervously for the order to move out.
‘We’ll head straight up the slope, Sergeant.’ Donnely settled a kepi over his short hair, tugging the chin strap into place. ‘Position the wounded at the center of the column.’
‘Yessir!’
‘McLain, you’ll ride with me.’ Donnely faltered when he saw the big man’s stare, and amended the order to a request. ‘If you will. If you are coming back with us.’
McLain shrugged, checking the caps on the Dragoons. ‘I guess I am, Captain. I guess I don’t have nowhere else to go.’
Donnely nodded without speaking and swung into the saddle. His saber flashed clear of the scabbard as he turned to shout an order at the fresh-faced trooper standing his horse a few paces behind.
‘Bugler! Sound the charge.’
‘Shit!’ muttered McLain. ‘By the book.’
The saber swept down and the clear, stirring notes of the bugle echoed from the walls. McLain rammed his heels against the sides of the roan stallion and took off at a gallop that left the Cavalry captain struggling to keep pace.
Most of the Comanches were chasing down their ponies, and only a disorganized force occupied the slope. The Cavalry went up in column of twos, plunging hard and fast over the flat, then slowing as they hit the gradient. McLain kept his left hand on the reins this time, using the Dragoon in his right to blast a path upwards through the trees. Donnely came level, swinging his horse to McLain’s right to allow free use of the saber. Twice McLain saw him cut flesh, the first time when a Nokoni ran from the trees with a lance thrusting for the soldier’s belly. Donnely hacked down, chopping the stone tip from the pole, then reversed his stroke to slash the blade over the Indian’s hands. One fist burst clear from the lance and went flying through the air as the Comanche stared in surprise at the stump and fell back into the undergrowth. The second time, Donnely ducked under the blast of a musket and turned the saber in a downswinging movement that carved a crimson gash from shoulder to belly.
McLain emptied his Dragoon and slammed the pistol into the holster, reaching over to draw the second.
Before he had time to use it, they were up on the rim and riding hard for the pass. They went out past the three bodies McLain had left there and got down on to the grass. There was no sign of pursuit, and Donnely slowed his pace to shout an order at the bugler.
The notes of recall clarioned through the night air: the troop halted. And the sergeant came up to report.
‘O’Connell and Bronson are dead, Captain. And we lost Vickers. I don’t think Bannister will make it much farther.’
‘Damn!’ The captain spat over the grass. ‘We’ll keep moving until midnight, then take two hours’ rest. Tell the men, Docherty.’
‘Yo!’ The sergeant went back down the column.
There were no fires lit when they halted. The troopers gathered in disconsolate groups, chewing biscuits and hardtack while the wind got stronger and froze off the sweat of battle-excitement. Guards were posted, patrolling the perimeter of the temporary camp with their greatcoats rustling and flailing in the breeze. McLain hauled a blanket around his shoulders and went back to check his horse. It was something he had learned as a guerrilla: a fighting man on the run was no better than his animal and his guns.
‘You done this kinda thing before?’
The question, coming out of the darkness from a man in a Union coat, prompted him to turn, the right hand fisting his Colt halfway clear of the holster before he recognized Sergeant Docherty.
The older man chuckled, and spat a stream of chewing tobacco over the ground.
‘Missouri guerrilla, ain’t you?’
He pointed at McLain’s saddle. One of the bags had opened when the Confederate had taken food out: the maroon shirt was exposed.
‘Was,’ said McLain. ‘The war’s over.’
‘An’ you took the amnesty. I heard you talkin’ to the captain.’ Docherty offered a wad of tobacco; McLain shook his head. ‘Don’t make no difference to me. My folks come from Missouri. Little place called Quahatchi. You know it?’
‘No.’ McLain shook his head.
‘I could be there now.’ Docherty hunkered down beside McLain and watched him knead the stallion’s fetlocks. ‘Except there wasn’t enough to support three sons, so I joined the Army. Funny that. If I’d stayed on, I could’ve been a guerrilla same as you. Who was you with?’
‘Anderson,’ said McLain. ‘And Harvey.’
‘Bloody Bill an’ Butcher Harvey.’ Docherty shook his head like a man trying to shake memories from his mind. ‘I knew them both when they was just kids.’
‘You don’t object?’ McLain couldn’t quite understand the gist of the sergeant’s conversation. ‘Me fighting for the Confederacy?’
‘Never touched me much.’ Docherty stared around the flattened grass where the bodies of the sleeping troopers made dark lumps on the ground. ‘I took all my service down here. Ain’t hardly seen a grey uniform, just Comanche an’ Apache. A few Yaqui, an’ the odd gang of Mex bandits. I signed up when I was thirteen.’
‘Unlucky number,’ murmured McLain.
‘Not really.’ Docherty emptied his mouth and carved a fresh wad. He chewed for a while, then said: ‘The Army’s been pretty good to me. Hell! if I hadn’t joined up, I’d be workin’ a dirt farm now. Or drifting like you.’
‘I’m drifting?’ McLain queried.
‘What else you doin’?’ Docherty spat more tobacco. ‘You took the amnesty and come to Texas. You got no money, else you wouldn’t be stuck here with us. We get ordered to go places, but you … you’ve got a choice. What were you before?’
‘A farmer,’ said McLain. ‘I got burned out.’
‘So now you’re lookin’ for someplace else to settle.’ Docherty stood up. ‘This ain’t a bad place, if you can make it here. There’ll most likely be a town on the Rio Verde before long. A man could make hisself a place there, if he wanted. If he don’t go flaunting Missouri shirts at people.’
‘Yeah.’ McLain stuffed the shirt back in the saddlebag. ‘Maybe.’
‘Think about it,’ said Docherty. ‘If we all live that long.’
McLain watched him amble away to inspect the picket lines as he spread his blanket on the ground and set his saddle to form a pillow. He stretched out, staring up at the stars; they were big and bright, gleaming from a night-cold sky that was pure blue velvet. He remembered watching a similar sky with his wife, lying back against a spread of fresh-mown hay that had smelled much the same as the crushed buffalo grass: sweet and sleepy; welcoming. Maybe Docherty was right. Maybe he could build a new life here. The woman back at the mission … what was her name? Alice Patterson? … had said much the same thing. And here it would be new.
Maybe.
If there was something here for him.
If there was a town starting.
If the Comanche left anything.
They moved out with a bank of low cloud hiding the moon. Trooper Bannister had died during the halt, and his body was left in a shallow grave. Donnely gave McLain the dead man’s greatcoat.
‘You say the main camp was west of the mission?’ asked the captain.
McLain nodded. ‘Around fifty tents. There were as many to the south, then some to the east.’
‘So this whole attack from the north was just a decoy?’ Donnely sounded worried. ‘That’s what Sergeant Kincannon said?’
‘Yeah.’ McLain tugged the coat tighter around his neck as night gave way to the wet, grey mistiness of the false dawn. ‘The fires showed the day after you left, he said. Like they was planning a big raid.’
‘Damn!’ Donnely pursed his lips. Then turned to stare at McLain. ‘How do you know so much about all this? Why did you warn us?’
‘I come through them,’ grunted McLain. ‘An’ Kincannon asked me to warn you. I didn’t see there was much else I could do.’
‘Why would a Rebel want to help Union soldiers?’ asked Donnely. ‘Not long ago you were fighting us.’
‘Maybe you ain’t heard, captain.’ McLain’s voice was cold. ‘But the war’s over. There ain’t no sides now. Just stayin’ alive.’
‘We’ll see.’ Donnely whipped his horse up to a faster pace, drawing the troop behind him. ‘I’ll decide later.’
McLain grunted an irritable reply and let the soldier forge ahead.
The mist broke up as the sun rose, the true dawn replacing the eerie light of the false dawn, the sun bursting from the eastern side of the sky with a pure, yellow radiance. The grey that had covered the heavens got peeled away to expose a spread of pale azure, cut across by high drifting clouds of cotton-wool purity. The air got hot, and the greatcoats were stowed behind the saddles. The wind shifted around to the south and eased down to a pleasant breeze. The column – reduced now to fourteen men and two of them wounded badly enough to be useless in a fight – pushed on towards the Rio Verde Mission.
They halted at noon, resting up for two hours before going ahead at a fast pace. They sighted the river and took a direct line parallel to the banks until late afternoon, when Donnely called another halt to rest the horses and then struck eastwards, crossing the river north of the bivouac. After that they moved due south again at a steady canter.
After two hours at that pace, McLain eased his horse down and shouted for Donnely to listen to him.
‘We keep this up,’ he said, ‘we’re gonna wear out the animals before we even get there.’
‘If what you told us is true, McLain,’ said the soldier, coldly, ‘then we need to get there fast. As fast as we can.’
‘Not on blown animals, for Godsake! At this pace, you won’t even make it all the way. You’ll end up walking! Rest them, Captain.’
‘I can’t order you, McLain. You made that obvious.’ Donnely turned to wave sergeant Docherty up alongside. ‘But I can tell my men what to do.’
‘Best we slow down, Captain,’ said the veteran sergeant. ‘The men are tired, an’ the horses are getting winded.’
‘We’ll move ahead,’ snapped Donnely. ‘On the double, Sergeant!’
‘Yo,’ grunted Docherty, lifting his eyebrows in McLain’s direction. ‘Like you say.’ There was a pause. ‘Sir.’
‘You’re crazy.’ McLain took his horse out of line. ‘You’re goddam crazy.’
‘But not a coward,’ said Donnely, wheeling his horse round to wave an encouraging arm at his men. ‘I hope to engage the hostiles.’
‘Be a short affair,’ McLain grunted as the troop swung past him. ‘An’ a sad one.’