He waited one hour, letting the roan stallion catch its wind, then mounted up and rode towards the mission.

Three miles farther on he saw a trooper staring at a horse that was stretched on its side with foam and blood frothing from the nostrils and mouth. He went past the man at a steady canter, ignoring his cries. Then he saw three soldiers trying to lift their animals to their feet. The horses were blowing spume from the nostrils, their sides heaving as they fought for breath. A quarter mile after, he passed two more men leading their ponies. Then two dead animals, the soldiers trudging through the grass with slumped shoulders and aching feet.

And then he reached the mission.

There was a thin swirl of smoke coming from the roof of the cabin, and the corral behind was empty. Most of the tents were either burning or trampled down, and there were bodies littering the perimeter walls like bait for the vultures circling overhead.

Where a gate had been there were now just two smoldering stumps. The wood of the cross-frame was chopped down to form the fire at the center; in place, three lances, imbedded in the ground, the hafts lashed together so that they could support the man dangling by his ankles, face-down over the fire.

McLain pushed the corpse aside as he rode into the central area.

He saw Wade – the man he had fought – stretched out between two dead horses. Both animals had been gutted by lances, and Wade’s body was drawn unnaturally long and thin. Moses Patterson was draped over the steps of the cabin. He was naked, with broken bottles protruding from the orifices of his body, mingling whisky with the blood. Kincannon was sprawled in front of the saloon. There were five dead Comanches spread in a circle round him, and his pistol was stuck into his mouth. The top of his head no longer existed: behind him, long trailers of drying blood and sticky grey brain matter draped the steps.

McLain dismounted as Donnely came towards him and saw him staring at Kincannon’s body and said, ‘I expected better of him. I never thought he was a coward.’

‘Captain.’ McLain turned round, his face pale. ‘You don’t know shit! That man wasn’t no coward. Look!’

He pointed at the dead Indians, then at the empty pouches on Kincannon’s belt.

‘He did everything he could.’

Donnely sniffed. ‘I expect a soldier of the Union Army to do better than shoot himself.’

McLain reached down to turn the corpse over. Four broken arrows protruded from Kincannon’s back, the shafts broken off. Up the steps of the cabin there were the sundered ends and the body of another Comanche, his face pounded in. McLain gestured at the butt of Kincannon’s gun, where the brass strap was sticky with blood and black hair.

‘He did pretty good, Captain. ’Bout as good as a man can.’

Donnely opened his mouth to answer, but then Sergeant Docherty came running up.

‘We got all the bodies accounted for, sir. All except Alice Patterson. It looks like the Indians took her with them. Also our reserve ammunition and guns. And the bodies have all been stripped.’

Donnely’s mouth opened wider, and his face went pale. ‘I got burial squads collecting the bodies, sir,’ said Docherty. ‘I said to put them over by the river. Where the old Mexican graveyard used to be.’

Donnely ignored the statement.

‘All the guns?’ he asked. ‘Everything?’

‘Yessir. Guns, powder ’n’ ball, caps, horses, sabers. Everything. We’re wiped out.’

‘I’m ruined.’ Donnely dragged a hand backwards and forwards over his mouth. ‘My God! I’ll lose my commission for this.’

Docherty said nothing, adding to the captain’s fear with his silence.

Captain Donnely reached some kind of a decision, and turned to face his sergeant.

‘Listen, Docherty. You’re a twenty-year man, aren’t you?’

‘Yessir. Now, about the bodies ...’

‘In a moment.’ Donnely waved negation with an imperative hand. ‘They won’t run away, but this problem might. Now listen.’

‘Sir? I don’t understand.’

‘You will if I take those stripes off you,’ snapped the captain. ‘How long you got to go before you retire? Two years? Three?’

‘One, sir,’ said Docherty. ‘Just one.’

‘So if you lost those sergeant’s chevrons, you’d lose everything?’

‘Yessir!’

‘Then arrest this man.’ Donnely swung round to face McLain. ‘He’s responsible for this massacre. He’s a Johnny Reb who led us into a trap.’

‘You bastard!’ McLain dropped his hand to the Dragoon holstered on his right hip. ‘I’ll kill you.’

‘No you won’t!’

Donnely’s saber lifted clear of the scabbard to dig against McLain’s throat.

‘The Confederacy was using Indians all through the war. No reason to believe you’d stop now.’

‘Sir!’ Docherty faced his captain with worried eyes. ‘You’re making a bad mistake.’

‘Are you refusing an order, Sergeant?’ Donnely kept the saber tipped against McLain’s throat. ‘With just one year to go?’

‘No, sir!’ The sergeant drew his pistol. ‘I guess not.’

‘All right.’ Donnely lowered the blade as the pistol touched McLain’s back. ‘Then place him under arrest. I want him under guard until I finish composing my report. We’ll do it by the book.’

‘What the hell’s that mean?’ McLain asked.

‘It means I have to make a full report of this debacle,’ said Donnely. ‘Explaining how we were lured out from the mission and delayed by the concerted efforts of hostile Indians and dissident Rebels. One of whom I managed to capture; after he had succeeded in leading several of my command into jeopardy, resulting in the deaths of some eighteen men. After that, I’ll hang you.’

‘I’ll see you dead first,’ snarled McLain.

‘I doubt it,’ said Donnely. ‘Do your duty, Sergeant.’

‘Come on,’ said Docherty, his voice tired. ‘Let’s go.’

He was pushed inside one of the few remaining tents while a grumbling trooper was ordered off to pace the flap outside. There was a canvas campaign bed set against one wall, the palliasse stained thick with blood, and an overturned wooden table at the far end. McLain left the table where it lay and swung the palliasse to the other side: the blood was thinner there, not quite percolating all the way through the straw of the center.

He stretched out, wondering why Donnely had forgotten to order his guns taken from him. And why sergeant Docherty had failed to observe the omission.

Around dawn, he found out.

Docherty came in through the opening of the tent like a thief in the night. He settled a hand over McLain’s mouth as the Missouri man woke up and reached for his pistols.

‘Listen,’ he said. ‘I never wanted to go along with that crazy order, but I got no other choice.’

‘No?’ McLain sat up as the hand came free. ‘You’re next in command, ain’t you? So you got the right to say Donnely’s gone mad.’

‘An’ I got a pension due me, too,’ said Docherty. ‘I ain’t about to give that up. Hell! I don’t like what he’s doin’ to you, but I got to follow orders.’

‘Fine,’ said McLain. ‘You’ll follow them all the way to my hanging.’

‘No!’ Docherty shook his head. ‘1 got a plan worked out. There ain’t many of us got much time for Frank Donnely, so it should be easy. At least the first part.’

‘Yeah?’ McLain sat up, not sure whether to believe the sergeant, or not. ‘Tell me.’

‘We got your horse outside the tent.’ Docherty dropped his voice as he said it. ‘That big carbine of yours on the saddle. Along with food an’ loads for them Dragoons. You go out under the back, there ain’t gonna be no one sees you. After that you got two choices.’

‘Getting shot one of them?’ asked McLain. ‘In the back?’

‘Jesus! No.’ Docherty shook his head. ‘I’m tryin’ to help you. Help you get out from under that West Point starch-shirt officer. I’m riskin’ my stripes for this.’

‘All right.’ McLain decided to believe him. ‘Tell me.’

‘You can ride free,’ said Docherty. ‘You’ll get posted as a rebel; as a wanted man, but you could maybe find some place to live.’

‘Lookin’ over my shoulder all the time?’ said McLain. ‘Wondering when someone’ll recognize my face?’

‘The other one’s maybe harder,’ said Docherty. ‘But it could mean you get established as a regular hero.’

‘Tell me.’

The sergeant sucked in his cheeks and sighed. Then: ‘Alice Patterson got took by the Comanche. She’s got family in San Antonio. More in Fort Davis. I heard she was related to a general. If you could find her … an’ bring her back … you’d be a genuine A-one rated gentleman. That’d clear anything Donnely wants to set against you.’

‘That’s a long gamble,’ said McLain. ‘I don’t know nothing about Comanche. An’ she could be dead by now.’

‘I never said it was easy,’ whispered Docherty. ‘I’m just offerin’ you a choice.’

Thanks,’ said McLain. ‘I’ll take it.’

‘Which one?’ asked the sergeant.

‘Hell!’ McLain grunted. ‘I’ll try to find the woman.’

‘Thought you would.’

Docherty went over to the far side of the tent and lifted the flap. McLain crawled through. The last thing he heard was the sergeant saying, ‘Good luck.’

‘Yeah.’ He muttered as he swung stride the roan stallion. ‘I heard that before.’

Wary of attracting attention, he walked the roan slowly towards the western perimeter. The sun was not yet breaking through the grey cloud cover, and the bulk of Donnely’s command was sleeping inside the cabin. There were guards out, but after the hard ride down from the hills and the sour shock of the massacre, they were slow to react as McLain urged the big horse to a sudden run. He chose a spot midway between two patrolling men, lifting over the low wall in a surge of power that carried him out on to the flat while the troopers were still peering into the greyness and calling questions to one another.

He held to a gallop until he struck the river and forded over, then slowed to a canter, heading west.