They pulled out of the remains of the Apache village at twenty-three minutes after four in the afternoon. The time being correct by the gold hunter watch that Crow carried in his inside pocket. The whole raid and all of the killing had lasted barely an hour.
Carter had made a feeble attempt to get his men to count up the dead, but they were surly. Sated with death and eager only to get as many miles as possible under their horses” hooves before dusk closed them down.
Haydon and Chandler rode through the wreckage and made a cursory count. Tolling up the dead where they lay.
O’Croxley’s castrated corpse had been made more decent and tied over the back of his mount, with the hope that he might be given a proper burial somewhere later. Not that it made a lot of difference to the dead trooper.
“Twenty-two dead, Sir,” reported the Sergeant. Clapping his hands together against the bitter wind.
“How many children, Haydon?” asked Crow.
“Difficult to say. We figure some of the dead have been dragged into the wickiups. The ones that aren’t burned.”
“Twenty-two,” mused Carter. “Jesus, but that’s … And not Cyrus Quaid.”
“No sign of him. Hide nor hair, Sir,” said Chandler. “Guess the total count of hostiles could be around thirty. Some wounded. You can hear them screamin’ inside their huts.”
“And a few maybe drowned in Sandy Creek, tryin’ to escape,” said one of the troopers.
“Good day’s work, Lieutenant,” said Crow, his voice totally neutral. So that the young officer wasn’t able to tell just what the shootist felt about the brutal massacre.
“What the Hell do we do now?” asked Carter, looking round at the circle of men. One of the troopers was trying to rig a bandage for himself. Patching up an elbow wound where an elderly Chiricahua woman had lashed out at him with a shovel, nearly breaking his arm.
“Get out quick,” said someone, but the officer didn’t see who it was.
“Sergeant?”
“We’re kind of low on man-power to try and go into those mountains and raid Small Pony in his camp.”
“I agree,” said Chandler.
“Why, corporal?”
“Small Pony must have upwards of thirty or forty men. Chances are that he’ll learn of this killing,” pointing through the curtain of snow behind them. To where they could all still hear the tumbling waters of Sandy Creek. “Then he’ll be on after us.”
“In this weather?”
Crow spoke. “You slaughter thirty Apache women and children, Carter, and I doubt you’d find a hole big enough to hide in between here and China.”
“We got guns.”
The shootist came close to a smile. A smile that lacked much humor. “Sure. You. Sergeant and a Corporal. Me. Six troopers, one with a bad arm. Not a lot to fight with, son.”
“We can’t leave that poor child.”
“Sure we can.” Stepping in near to the young man, so that Carter jumped back and nearly fell. “Listen and listen good. I may sound like a preacher at a river-crossing camp-meeting, but you best listen. Or every man here’s deader’n a beaver hat.”
“Go on, Crow,” hissed Haydon, brushing some flakes of freezing snow from his moustache.
“I’m in command, remember. You are hired just as a scout.”
“Time’s wastin’, boy,” said Crow. His quiet voice larded with menace. “I figure we’ve got ourselves a real nest of spiders here. And it’s only goin’ to be a few hours before they come after us. If we’re lucky we can ride hard until dark. That gives us time tomorrow morning.”
“If we aren’t lucky?”
“They’ll be with us by around noon. Trail us fast on ponies. They’ll know ways we won’t. Maybe circle us.”
“I don’t like giving up on a mission,” said Carter, biting his lip until a bright bead of blood showed, vivid against his pale skin.
“Sure. And I don’t like endin’ up dead, Carter,” replied Crow.
“Then we’ll go. Straight here and now. Mount and move out. Sergeant.”
“Sir?”
“Give the order. Ride tight and hard. Corporal Chandler?”
“Aye, Sir?”
“Cover the rear. Keep your eyes well open and well sharpened.”
“And we hope for the luck,” said Haydon to the shootist as he stepped past him ready to mount up.
“We hope,” agreed Crow.
The mission hadn’t gone well.
And that was the way it carried on.
Unlucky.
They didn’t see a sign of any of the Apaches. The worst news was that the snow eased down around five that afternoon. Finally stopping as the light failed and the moon appeared. Clean and silver, like a sliver of polished steel. Throwing its sharp shadows across the white land.
“Just what we didn’t want,” commented Crow as Carter called a halt.
“Now what?”
“We go on.”
Through the night, Crow?” asked Haydon, unable to hide the surprise in his voice.
The temperature dropped fast, to something close to thirty below. A biting frost that turned the fallen snow to crusted ice, making the horses labor, hooves crunching as they moved back towards the distant Fort Garrett. The stars came out through the drifting high cloud, sparkling like diamonds scattered on a cloth of blackest velvet.
“Sure, through the night. We’re goin’ to be seen from ten miles off in this light.”
“Black on the snow?”
Crow nodded. “That’s it. Stand out like a dead dog in a baby’s feeding tray.”
So they kept going. Every now and again Carter would give the order for every man there to dismount and walk alongside his animal. Allowing the horses a brief rest. The cold was agonizing. Seeming to set its teeth into the hollow bones of your face, making them sing with pain. Teeth seemed too large for gums and the eyes watered, then the liquid nearly froze. Making the eyes feel sore in their sockets.
Chandler saw the Indians first. Faint dark smudges close to the beginning of the hills, around four miles behind them. Everyone halted and looked back, stopping where they stood.
“No damned point in waitin’ for them,” said Crow, his voice loud in the unearthly hush. “They see us. Means they’ll come after us.”
“Will they catch us?” asked the young officer, teeth nipping at the ragged edge of a finger-nail.
Crow again took out the watch. “We can keep ahead until dawn.”
“Then?”
“Then I figure we’d do well to start lookin’ for two things.”
“What?”
“Good defensive place.”
“And, what else?” asked Carter.
Sergeant Haydon guessed the answer and laughed. “A miracle, Lieutenant, Sir. Just a fuckin’ miracle.”