MCLAIN RODE HARD to the west as a spiraling column of buzzards drifted down to mark the position of the dead Comanches. He still thought the Indians would hold close enough to the Rio Verde to mount an attack against the soldiers they hoped to draw out, but he didn’t know enough about Comanches to be sure. And the one firm rule of guerrilla fighting had always been to strike hard and run fast.
He ran for the remainder of the day, striking slightly south and west so as to reach the ridge before night fall.
It was a low ridge, no more than a series of hummocks that banded the wide spread of desert country and shone a brilliant yellow in the burning afternoon light. As they progressed the color changed from yellow to radiant gold, then a dark red that became rapidly covered with black as shadow crept over the horizon. The roan horse was tiring, and McLain hoped to find water in amongst the hills. He reckoned that the journey back to the Rio Verde would take at least a week, allowing for a wide swing to the south so as to avoid the waiting Indians. And for that, he needed water and food.
He found a place where a high hummock was cut partly through by a ravine, forming a protected box, and halted there. Over the rise, a spring trickled slowly into a stone basin before disappearing into the ground. The spring was located at the foot of a sandstone hump set at a transverse angle to the box: McLain reckoned that any pursuers would head directly to the water.
He filled his canteen and then brought the roan horse round to drink. After that, he fed the horse the last of the oats and went out on to the plain to scuff his blanket over the tracks, confusing his approach.
There was enough mesquite growing inside the declivity that he could make a fire, the glow hidden by the walls. He brewed coffee.
‘What next?’ Alice dabbed water on her face, wincing where she touched a blister swelled by the sun. ‘Where we going?’
‘Circle round.’ McLain sipped coffee, trying to convince his stomach that the hot liquid was filling as food. ‘Get back to the valley from the south.’
‘Be as easy to reach Fort Davis.’
He looked up in surprise: ‘I thought you said that was a week’s ride away?’
‘Was,’ she answered. ‘Not now, though. Shouldn’t be much farther than the Rio Verde. Probably less.’
‘Why?’ He filled his cup and went on pretending, trying to ignore the grumblings of his belly. ‘Why go there?’
‘That Comanche: Walking Bear, said he was gonna destroy the place. He sticks to that, then he’ll be attacking about now. We ain’t seen no more riders, so I reckon he’s pulled his men back for one big raid.’
‘Donnely’s got around fourteen men,’ said McLain. ‘They got ammunition, an’ repeating guns. They can stand the Comanche off.’
‘Walking Bear’s got guns,’ said Alice, quietly. ‘I saw him take them. He’s got guns and powder. He’s got around thirty warriors, and more supplies than Donnely.’
‘Tough.’ McLain shrugged. ‘The bastard gets killed. So what?’
‘Shawn Docherty will get killed, too,’ she said. ‘And that town I was talking about won’t get built.’
‘All right.’ McLain reached a simple, pragmatic decision. ‘We’ll head for that Fort Davis you was talking about. You’ll be safe there.’
‘Safe’s not what I want,’ said Alice. ‘I got a dream. It’s seeing a town in that valley. That’s a good place to build a town. The grass is good, and there’s water all year round. It’s good cattle country, so before too long there’ll be more people coming through. We could start a real community: a church, a school, stores.’
‘We?’
McLain tamped out his coffee cup and began to scour the mug with sand.
‘Like I told you,’ said Alice. ‘You got a place there. We’ll need honest men who know how to handle guns.’
‘Alice,’ he said. ‘Right now, all I want is to see you safe. Rio Verde or Fort Davis, that makes no difference. I come down here because I didn’t know of any other place to go. I done my share of killing, and now I’d like to leave it behind me. I’m a farmer, for Chrissakes!’
She smiled and said: ‘For a farmer you’re awful good with guns.’
‘I learned to use them,’ he answered. ‘I didn’t have no other choice.’
‘Natural talent, then,’ she said. ‘I never seen a man apply pistols so well.’
‘That’s just staying alive.’
‘You done that pretty well, so far.’
‘Because I had to. You think I enjoy killing?’
‘No. But you know how to do it.’
‘What you getting at?’
She stretched back and smiled at him: ‘Someday, John, there’s gonna be a town in that valley. Whether you take me back there, or to Fort Davis, I’m gonna see a town go up. We stay alive that long, I’m going back. I’m building up the saloon and make some place people can live. I promise you that.’
‘Good luck,’ said McLain. ‘You still didn’t answer my question.’
‘That town’s gonna need a lawman,’ she said. ‘Right from the start. Someone like you: someone who knows how to kill, without enjoying it. That’s you, John.’
‘Shit!’ he said. ‘Maybe. Maybe not. Right now, let’s sleep.’
‘We have to agree it, first,’ said Alice. ‘I think that in the morning we should head for Fort Davis. They’ll send a relief force out to the valley. That makes sense, doesn’t it?’
‘Yeah,’ said McLain. ‘Sure it does. We’ll do that.’
For the next three days they travelled through a bleak wilderness of sand and burning light. The country was lonely and bare, a spread of yellow sand interrupted only by the stark shapes of saguaro and the lower, darker clumps of cholla. They took nourishment from the cactus, McLain hacking inside the limbs to bleed out the stored water. He shot a deer, passing one night in feasting on the flesh, before packaging the remainder in strips inside his saddlebags.
The heat dried their hair and caked their faces with salt, from the sweat that ran constantly over their eyes and bodies. Blisters overran their lips, so that after a while they stopped talking, the movement too painful, the separation of the mouth a major effort that cracked the dry skin and pained the parched, cracked contours of their faces.
The deer meat lasted three days, after which they had nothing except the remnants of the cactus-flavored water.
And then McLain saw a dim, distant shape rising from the ground.
It was square, black against the heat haze, with contours that might have been neatly angled had the -glaze not shifted them, distorting them so that they wavered in the light and all he could do was point forwards and ask, ‘That it?’
‘Fort Davis.’
Alice Patterson’s voice was drier and huskier than his own. It sounded more like the croaking of a crow than anything that might belong to a woman, but it still gave him hope.
He dug his heels against the roan stallion’s sides, and then let the horse plod forwards at its own slow, weary pace.
It seemed to take a long time, but by now it was hard to tell how time passed. The last few days had gone by in a haze of heat and burning light, cold nights fading into hot days; dawn mist giving way to bitter bright sunshine that filled the day with heat and weariness, the day spaced out by the slow movement of the roan stallion’s hooves. The fort looked like an oasis. A haven. A sanctuary.
It was low and black and ugly: beautiful after the empty wastes of the desert country. The walls stood up four-square solid all round, twenty feet high where the timber that comprised the main part of the defenses lifted from the sandy ground. The upper edges of the wall were cut to points, and at each corner there was a high-built watch-tower, roofed over, with a platform five feet above the outer wall. There was a gate at the center of the southern face of the fort, a huge spread of timber with twin towers either side and a cannon looming from between the open lips of the gate.
McLain rode in as a squad of troopers came running towards him. He looked at the cannon, straight down the big, black hole of the barrel, then up at the artilleryman standing with a slow-match poised above the touch hole, ready to drop the flame on to the charge and detonate the gun straight out through the gates. Straight through McLain.
The Confederate laughed, and helped Alice Patterson down. As he was dismounting, a tall man with crossed sabers embroidered on the front of his blue hat and a real sword belted to his waist, came running towards them.
‘Alice?’ he said. ‘My God? What’s happened?’
The woman wiped a strand of hair from her tired face, and smiled wanly. ‘I look that bad, Nathan?’
The officer started to say that she did, but caught himself in time, shaking his head as he turned to the captain waiting patiently a pace behind him.
‘Jefferson, stand the men down. And have the doctor attend my quarters.’
‘Yessir!’ The younger man saluted and began to yell orders at the curious troopers clustering around the newcomers. They drifted back to their posts as the officer called Nathan put an arm around Alice’s shoulders and began to walk her across the parade ground to the low-roofed wood cabins at the center.
He glanced over his shoulder at McLain, who was checking the fort from habit.
‘You’ll accompany us, mister ...?’
‘John T. McLain,’ supplied Alice. ‘He saved me.’
‘Then I’d be honored to stand you a drink, sir. And the hospitality of my post.’
‘Thanks.’ McLain fell into step beside them. ‘But I’d like to see the horse stabled first. He come a long way.’
The officer nodded and called to a passing trooper, sending the man off with the roan stallion in tow. His brows lifted slightly when he noticed the Army brand on the pony, but he said nothing.
Fort Davis was laid out on a rectangular pattern, with the longer walls facing east and west. It was mostly of wooden construction, but along the walls, forming a solid base for the catwalks, there were adobe sheds that seemed to house supplies and a variety of animals. Inside this shape there was an area of open ground separating the central buildings from the perimeter. There was a well and a smithy; a stable; a barracks; and a sutler’s. These were mostly to the north and west, the area facing directly across the parade ground towards the gates being taken up with five squat cabins that McLain guessed would be the administrative offices and officers’ quarters. One had to be the infirmary, because a bare-headed man with a white coat covering his uniform came hurrying out with a black bag in his hand and a medical orderly running behind.
They entered the largest cabin, the one closest to the flag pole, followed closely by Alice, McLain and the officer; a major as best the Missouri man could remember the Union insignia.
A sergeant came to attention behind a desk littered with paperwork, his arm snapping neatly to a salute.
‘Doc took the liberty of usin’ your quarters, sir. No privacy for the lady in the sickbay.’
‘Fine.’ The major nodded and crossed the cluttered office to an open door on the far side.
There was a room that might have been part of a suite in a modest hotel: it was clean, furnished with the bare minimum of comforts, and impersonal. Windows opened front and back, heavy shutters folded down on the outside. There was a plain wooden table, scrubbed clean, but still showing scars, with four hard-looking chairs tucked underneath. A single armchair that had once been upholstered in dark blue plush, but now showed its age and the signs of much use in the baldness of its material. Against one wall was a simple dresser. There was a second door in the far wall.
The doctor was setting out the contents of his bag on the table, while the medical orderly fussed over the arrangement.
‘Sit down, ma’am,’ he said. ‘Let me take a look at you.’
‘I’m all right,’ answered Alice; but she sat down anyway.
The doctor set to examining her face, murmuring something about sunburn, and whistling softly when he studied her wrists and ankles, where the ropes had cut in. The major went over to the dresser and produced a bottle and two glasses.
Handing one to McLain, he said: ‘Nathan Cutter. Major; I’m in command here.’
‘Yeah.’ McLain sipped the whisky, enjoying the taste even though it scorched his parched lips. ‘You got a problem, Major.’
Cutter filled their glasses and motioned McLain to the outer office. The medical orderly followed them on the doctor’s command and began to close the shutters, returning to post himself on the door.
‘I’ll handle that, soldier.’ Cutter waved the orderly out. ‘Sergeant, you too, I don’t want anyone in here until I say.’
The sergeant rose, tugging on a kepi. He shut the outer door as he stepped onto the porch.
McLain explained what had happened. Right down to Donnely’s accusations. He wasn’t sure just why he threw that part in. because it could have made things difficult for him if Cutter chose to support a fellow officer, and he didn’t think that Alice Patterson would say anything. At least not about the false charge; at least not without asking him first. His life would most likely be a whole lot easier if he just said he’d tried to save the men at the Rio Verde, and then succeeded in rescuing the woman from a horde of bloodthirsty savages and brought her to the nearest safe place. Then he could ride away—unless Cutter chose to confiscate the Cavalry horse.
And maybe that was the consideration that prompted him to tell the whole story. Or maybe it was what the woman had said during the long ride to Fort Davis.
Either way, he suddenly realized that he didn’t have a damn thing in the world. Nothing, except his guns and his clothes; and even the shirt on his back was Army issue. If everything he owned was left him, and everything else taken away, he would be stranded on foot in strange territory with a bare back and nowhere to go. The nearest he had to friends were Alice and Docherty; by now, maybe just Alice.
He sipped his whisky as Cutter frowned and turned to stare at the big map pinned to the wall behind the sergeant’s desk.
‘Where’d you come from?’ asked the major after what seemed like a long time.
‘Missouri,’ said McLain. ‘I had a farm there before the war.’
‘Gone to Texas,’ murmured Cutter. ‘You supported the Confederacy?’
‘Fought with Anderson and Harvey.’ McLain figured it would come out sooner or later. ‘After Red Legs burned me out.’
‘Yes.’ Cutter nodded, thoughtfully. ‘There’s a lot of your people coming down here.’ He straightened his shoulders, suddenly brisking up as he turned from the map. ‘No matter. What Texas needs now is good men. You’ve proved yourself a competent Indian fighter. I could use a man like you.’
‘No thanks.’ McLain grinned. ‘I got my fill of the military back then.’
‘A pity.’ Cutter shrugged. ‘But I can understand your feelings. Don’t worry about the horse. Or that Army-issue shirt you’re wearing. I’ll sign you a docket for both. Also, I’ll sort out this business with young Donnely. If he’s still alive. How many hostiles do you calculate?’
The last sentence was delivered in a short, sharp military tone. And McLain found himself delivering a succinct report from pure habit.
‘I’d estimate a hundred on approach, Major. And there were around thirty in the Jornados. Allowing they didn’t chase us back to the Rio Verde, I’d say that band joined the main group. Probably after the attack. When I went after Alice … Mrs. Patterson … it looked like the main party had broken up, but there were still thirty to forty with Walking Bear.’
‘The hard core.’ Cutter nodded. ‘Mostly the Nokoni don’t stay too long in one place. I’d say that once they’d over-run the bivouac the majority would move on. Walking Bear could hold his own warriors, maybe a few others. Enough to wipe out Donnely’s command, if he lacked the sense to up and run for here.’
‘He was fixing to stay,’ said McLain. ‘He made that pretty obvious.’
‘Fixing to die,’ grunted Cutter. ‘Damn fool. West Point teaches excellent discipline, but it also teaches that things get done by the book. And the hostiles haven’t read the same book.’
‘Someone else said that,’ murmured McLain.
Cutter seemed not to hear, turning back to the map. ‘Look,’ he said after a while, ‘it may be a pointless exercise, but if the Comanche are still in the area, I have to teach them a lesson. I’ll chance sending two columns to the Rio Verde. It may be that the whole thing was planned as a diversion, to pull men out of this fort. So I can’t chance sending too many experienced men. You’ve got some idea of the country up there … will you go with them?’
McLain began to frown, but then Cutter added: ‘I’ll put you on the pay-roll as a temporary scout. A one-month commission. You’d be under direct command of my officer-designate: any action Frank Donnely tried to bring against you – if he’s still alive – would require my authorization.’
McLain thought about his empty pockets. Army pay wasn’t much, and Army food was worse, but it was better than nothing. Which was approximately what he had now. He nodded.
‘All right.’
‘Good!’ Cutter smiled, his lined face creasing up to expose tobacco-stained teeth, ‘I’ll have the commission prepared as soon as the doctor’s finished. You’ll leave tomorrow.’
‘I’ll check him first, Nathan.’ The doctor came out of the living quarters, ‘I’ve got Mrs. Patterson bedded down in your room, so you can bunk with me for a few days.’
‘She all right?’ asked McLain, echoing Cutter’s own query.
The doctor nodded. ‘Some burns. From the sun and the ropes. She’s dehydrated and bruised, but she’s tough. A few days’ rest and she’ll be fine.’
He turned to McLain. ‘Now let’s see you.’
Apart from saddle-weariness and minor sunburn, McLain was fit. The doctor recommended a good meal and plenty of sleep. McLain reckoned that he could get in a solid twelve hours – which was a whole lot more than he had enjoyed in months – before he rode out again. But first, he wanted to speak to Alice.
The doctor agreed, and he went into the bedroom. It was smaller than the outer chamber, and even barer. There was a single window with burlap curtains drawn across the glass; a narrow bed with a canvas campaign stool beside it, on which rested a copy of a manual on military tactics with some kind of German-looking name on the thumb-marked cover; a small wardrobe; and a wash-stand. The blankets on the bed were rough grey wool, the sheets white.
They were drawn all the way up to Alice’s chin, her hair standing out against the pillow, matching the color of the blanket.
‘Guess I must be getting old,’ she murmured. ‘When we going back?’
‘Me? Tomorrow.’ McLain grinned at her. ‘You’re waiting here a spell.’
‘The hell I will,’ she argued. ‘I got a store an’ saloon to run. Husband to bury. He wasn’t worth much, but I owe him that. Besides, there’s something I have to find.’
‘It’ll wait, Alice,’ said Cutter. ‘I’m sending two columns out to relieve the Rio Verde post.’
‘I won’t,’ she interrupted. ‘I want to get back home. I gotta get started up again. I’m losing business.’
‘There may not be any,’ said Cutter. ‘Not after this. We may abandon the post.’
‘The hell you will, Nathan.’ She smiled, spreading the salve the doctor had applied to her face. ‘You know damn’ well you can’t afford to give up that position. You do that, an’ you leave the whole valley open to the Comanche. All the way from here to San Antonio.’
‘You always did understand far too much about tactics,’ smiled Cutter; and McLain saw a look of fondness on his face. ‘But this time, you could be wrong. We may not have the men to handle it.’
‘You’ll find them,’ she replied. ‘We got good men coming in now. Like John T., here.’
‘You’ll still wait,’ said the major. ‘Until I’m sure it’s safe.’ She nodded, and eased a hand from under the covers to grasp McLain’s. ‘Now let me have a private word with this young feller. If he’s going off tomorrow, you’ll have me all to yourself for long enough.’
Cutter chuckled. ‘You never change, Alice. God knows why I didn’t marry you when I had the chance.’
‘You never asked me,’ she smiled. ‘And now we’re both too fixed in our ways.’
Cutter ran a hand through his hair, and for the first time McLain noticed that it was the same color as the woman’s: before, the officer’s bearing and deeply-tanned face had managed to suggest a younger man. He mocked a salute, ‘Yes, ma’am. On my way, ma’am.’
When the door closed behind him, Alice let go of McLain’s hand and patted the bed. He sat down.
‘Dear old Nathan,’ she whispered, her eyes getting moist. ‘He was courting me when I was too young to know what I wanted, and he just wanted the Army. Maybe I should have led him on more. He wouldn’t be so lonely now. Anyway.’ Abruptly, she changed the subject. ‘You’re going back there come morning?’
‘Yeah.’ McLain nodded. ‘I’m a scout for a month.’
‘Good. Soon as you’ve got things sorted out, you come back here an’ fetch me.’
‘There might not be anything,’ said McLain. ‘The Nokoni might have wiped the place out by now.’
She shook her head, refusing to accept the possibility. ‘There’s a fine valley with running water. There’ll be enough still left to build on. Build from, too; no matter what happens. There’s timber in the hills, and I was right when I said the Army won’t give up the position: it’s too important.’
‘Sure,’ said McLain. ‘Whatever you say.’
‘Then you give me your word you’ll come back?’ She took his hand again, clutching it tight. ‘You’ll come back an’ take me home?’
‘Yeah,’ he said, not knowing what else to promise. ‘I’ll do that.’
‘Thanks.’ She closed her eyes, as though the effort of persuading him had exhausted her. ‘You remember, now.’
‘I don’t make promises I won’t try to keep,’ he said.
‘Good. I figgered that was your way.’
Her hand slipped loose and her breathing got slower. McLain stayed for a while, until he was sure she was asleep. Then he went out softly.
Cutter handed him a fresh glass as he came into the other room.
‘She always did have that dream,’ he said. ‘About getting a town started. After she married Moses, they traveled all the time. What Alice wanted was to settle; to watch just one place grow from scratch. I guess that was one reason we never wed.’
‘I guess I understand,’ said McLain softly, thinking about his farm. ‘I know that feeling.’
Cutter nodded, and for a while they drank in silence, then the major suggested that McLain would want a bath. After close on two weeks of hard riding it was a tactful way to put it, and the man from Missouri accepted gratefully.
He took a long time in the tub, and then let an Army barber shave him and trim his hair. After that, he joined Cutter and his officers in the mess hall, more interested in the steak and potatoes than answering the questions with which he got bombarded. Afterwards, he was given a bunk in a corner of the doctor’s quarters, and fell asleep while Cutter was still talking about the habits of the Nokoni Comanches.
He woke with a start as a bugle slammed notes across the brightening sky, reaching automatically for his guns as he recognized the call of reveille.
‘It’s all right,’ said Cutter, buttoning his uniform. ‘Just roll call. You sleep on.’
McLain rolled over and went back to sleep.