All of the men in the patrol were experienced soldiers, most of them with at least ten years behind them. Seasoned veterans. They all knew how it was that the Indians were catching up so easily on them during that long night’s chase.
The only man who didn’t know was James Carter. He hadn’t read about this kind of campaign in his military training books. Then it was always neat and orderly. Either an advance or a withdrawal to prepared positions. Not a desperate chase for life.
But, during that bitter passage of time, he worked out what was happening.
How four miles became three.
Three down to two.
As the first pale light of dawn came pinkly to the eastern sky, the gap between the Apaches and the tired Cavalry patrol was less than one mile.
“Their horses are lighter. Little strong ponies. Not tired geldings fit only for the knacker’s yard. And the men are fresh. We’re close to exhaustion. Hungry. They want revenge. We just want to escape. On this snow they can move better. Don’t sink in. We won’t make it. Won’t make it.”
Alone in the stillness, chin hunched deep in his up-turned collar, the young Lieutenant Carter began to weep silently.
So very sorry for himself.
“There.”
Crow was leading the flagging band of blue-bellies, his stallion a good hundred paces clear of the first man. His finger pointed towards a cluster of boulders, rising up like a stone nest, just off the main trail. It didn’t look like the best defense in the history of warfare.
But it did look better than nothing.
There was even a ragged cheer from behind him.
Several of the men risked a quick look behind them to see how close the Chiricahua were. For Trooper Stantiford, with his injured elbow, it was disastrous. His arm slung high in the makeshift bandage he wasn’t in full control of his spent animal.
So that, when it set a foreleg into a hole masked with rutted ice, he wasn’t quick enough to pull it up. The horse started to fall and he began to go with it. There was time for a single, drawn-out yell of: “Shiiiiiiit!!!” and then they were both over.
In the pulp novels that thrilled the lunch-breaks of dry goods clerks in Springfield, Illinois, soldiers often fell off their horses in front of charging Indians. And one of their colleagues would always rein in and spin his horse on a dime. Galloping back, six-guns blazing, to scoop his injured comrade from the jaw of the whooping scalp-hunters.
If only life was really like that.
Stantiford managed to roll with the fall, but he’d heard the dry snap as his horse broke its leg. Nobody stopped for him. Nobody sacrificed their own lives to go back and try and save him. And he didn’t expect it. He’d have behaved the same.
Crow turned in the saddle to watch the last act of that personal drama. Seeing the man stand and face the oncoming Apaches. Draw his pistol, and then throw down a heavy glove. Clearing his hand to thumb back on the hammer of the Colt. Watching the Chiricahua screaming down on him. Waiting until they were within thirty paces and then carefully putting a bullet through his own brain.
The surviving eight soldiers joined Crow in the temporary safety of the circle of boulders. Each man jumping from his saddle, drawing the Springfield. Running to find a reasonable defensive position. Two of the troopers stood their ground in the centre of the circle of rocks, each holding the reins of four mounts. Crow had tethered his to a short spur of red-gold stone a little to the left of the position.
“They’ve stopped, Lieutenant,” called one of the soldiers.
“Why’ve they done that, Crow?”
“They don’t fancy gettin’ killed for nothing, Mr. Carter,” replied the shootist. “You better get yourself used damned fast to the idea that they are as good as we are. Maybe better.”
The Apaches had yelped their disappointment at the way that Trooper Stantiford had removed himself totally from the reach of their revenge. Now they held their ground, circling and milling around, keeping three hundred paces or so from the watching whites. Every now and again one of them would dart nearer on his pony, waving a carbine or a spear, calling defiance.
But the soldiers weren’t rank amateurs, who’d betray their position and waste bullets by firing at targets they had little hope of hitting. Every man held his fire and waited.
Watched.
The cold seemed to seek out the isolated parts of the body. Across the forehead and tight over each cheekbone. Around the eyes, settling in the jaw, making the teeth taste like iron. In the fragile bones at the back of the hand. Biting in at the groin.
Crow settled, hunched in his coat, and waited. There was no point in becoming excited. There wasn’t anywhere for any of them to go. If the Apaches wanted to they could wait for them to die of cold or thirst. If they wanted to risk losses, then Small Pony could send his warriors in and wipe them all out.
“What d’you think, Haydon?” whispered Corporal Chandler. Both the non-coms were close to Crow.
“Figure he’ll leave half his men, and go out to get some fires goin’. Then come after us.”
“No. I reckon he’ll fear a patrol and maybe leave us be.”
Crow laughed. A barely audible chuckle of genuine amusement.
“What’s with you?” asked Chandler.
“Didn’t figure you for such a bright-hopin’ man, Corporal, that’s all,” replied the shootist.
“So, what’s your guess?”
“If’n he’s as good as they say … He’ll send in some of his best young bucks. Boys after some honor. See how close they get. See how good we are. I guess we’ll hold them. Should do. Some veterans here know which end of the rifle’s which. Then he’ll hold off and wait.”
“Not a lot of hope, is there?” asked Haydon.
Crow shook his head, the movement shaking the long fall of black hair across his shoulders. “No. Less we get a large patrol out from Garrett.”
“Hell. Lot of men dead for that kid.”
“And women and kids. Old men. A whole lot of dying for a worthless white kid,” said Crow.
“And it’s not over,” sniffed Chandler.
Small Pony was an experienced fighting leader. He had seen the effects of the disciplined firing power of the dog-faced soldiers when he was a young boy. The way that they could cut through even the boldest charge, reducing proud men to mewling creatures, crawling through their own blood and intestines. So he held back from the circle of rocks where the soldiers hid. He had counted them at his leisure, these Cavalrymen. Knew how many there were. Recognized the three-stripe with the hair beneath his nose. The officer was young. And with them rode the tall man in black. A man that he had heard of from John Dancer, the day before the breed lost his life in. . . . Small Pony set his mind away from the dreadful scenes he had witnessed on the narrow strip of land among the waters of the little river.
But the cold was the enemy of both sides. Even the hardy Chiricahua suffered from its numbing bite. It would have been easy to have waited the whites out.
“They are less than two hands,” said one of the youngest of the Apaches. A squat youth called Two Moons, after a famous drinking bout when he had fought a bitter knife battle over his claim that the sky that night contained double the usual number of moons.
“But they have the rocks at their faces and at their backs.”
“With two hands I could ride them into the dust,” boasted Two Moons, making some of the older men look angry at his nerve in speaking out in front of those with more wisdom.
But Small Pony merely nodded. This was what he had hoped would happen. It gave him the chance to test out the position of the white soldiers, without seeming to give an order that would risk the lives of any of his warriors.
“Yes,” he said, finally. “You may go and try them. But take care, Two Moons. Do not ride close together, knee to knee, less one bullet slays two of you.”
“I am not a child, Small Pony,” retorted the youth, looking round and picking his ten comrades by name. Waving them to him, and shouting his instructions in a high, excited voice.
“Some will die, Small Pony,” said the oldest of the warriors, his face and body seamed with antique scars.
“Aye, my uncle, but that is so,” replied Small Pony. “Yet those that do not die will be greater and wiser warriors.”
The eleven Apaches came in at them, galloping in a ragged row, constantly switching behind and in front of each other, making it difficult for the soldiers to pick out a clear target and hold to it.
“Nobody fire until I give the word!!” yelled Lieutenant Carter, voice cracking.
“Boy thinks we’re damned peach-fuzz three-weekers,” moaned Chandler. “Soon as I can hit one, I’ll fire.”
Led by Two Moons the Chiricahua kicked their ponies on fast, closing in on the soldiers. Getting within a hundred yards.
“Fire,” screamed Carter.
But his rifle was the only one that spat smoke. The bullet digging up a fountain of dirt ten yards in front of the leading Indian.
Before the officer could realize what was happening the rest of his men were shooting. A jagged volley, aimed as each soldier made his own decision when he thought he could hit something.
Four Apaches went down. Two dead, one shot through the shoulder, the fourth because his horse had caught a forty-five in the head.
There was only time for another round, bringing down five more. The wily soldiers this time aimed for the animals, knowing that they would then buy the chance of more shots at the dismounted young warriors.
The three survivors came on, whooping, leaping the rocks and jumping from their ponies in the middle of the defensive ring.
“Get them!” called Carter.
His voice over-shadowed by Haydon. “Leave them! Me and Chandler and Crow’ll take them. Rest of you stand fast and kill those bastards out there.”
Two Moons was dead, hit by the first bullet from the sharp-eyed Trooper Dearman. Who proceeded to kill three more of the Chiricahua bucks with his next three bullets. Humming “The Derby Ram” to himself as he aimed and fired and reloaded and aimed and fired.
One of the troopers was shot in the back as he fought, killed instantly. Chandler took an arrow through the side of his neck, making him yelp with pain. Spinning sideways and falling.
The brave who’d fired the shaft jumped in with his war-axe swinging, crushing the skull of the Corporal in a single massive blow.
Haydon shot his man with a round from the rifle, aimed quickly from the hip. Crow took out his Apache with two bullets from the pistol, keeping the scattergun for a reserve.
But the young boy who’d killed Chandler was on the move again, heading for Carter. Who heard him coming and swung to face him.
“Jesus Christ!! No!” he screamed. Fear freezing his fingers on his gun. Unable to draw his pistol or his saber. Simply standing there and seeing his death sprinting towards him across the cold stones. The Indian was barely fifteen, his hands and face dappled with the blood and brains of Corporal Chandler.
Haydon didn’t have time to draw his own pistol. The Indian was too far away for Crow’s Colt.
But Dearman had just reloaded again, ready to pick off an Apache who was cowering behind his dead pony, nursing a broken leg. He looked round at Carter’s screech of terror, seeing the Chiricahua was less than a dozen steps from the officer.
The Kentuckian was a fine shot from a resting position, but swinging around and snapping off at a moving target from a standing position he wasn’t so good. He delayed the shot a moment two long, so that the Indian was on top of James Carter.
Crow saw it happening and couldn’t do a damn thing to stop it.
Dearman snatched at his shot. Pulling on the trigger.
Carter saw the Indian boy. The face was distorted with hate and anger. And fear. The axe was raised, dull with blood.
The blow hit him through the top of his nose, kicking him over to lie scrabbling on his back, looking up at a pale sky. With the odd distortion of his life-blood spurting into the air. Steaming slightly in the bitter chill. The sight puzzled him and he still hadn’t worked it out when he died.
The blow hadn’t come from the Apache axe.
It had been a forty-five caliber ball from Trooper Dearman’s Springfield rifle.
Crow killed the last of the Indians with his pistol as the boy turned and raced at him, lips peeled off the teeth with a wolfish snarl.
Small Pony was angry. The soldiers had been much better than he’d expected. Of the eleven young men who had ridden proudly in against the blue-coats only three returned alive. And one of those had a badly broken shoulder that would
likely leave him crippled for life. It was a greater toll than he’d thought possible and again he wondered about the lean man in the black clothes.
Crow.
The last two days had been bad ones for his people. The boy killed. Then the appalling massacre at Sandy Creek. Now eight of the finest of the young men taken from him. There would be sad songs around the lodges of the Chiricahua for many moons now.
He tried to decide what he should do.
Sergeant Haydon and Crow squatted together in the centre of their shrunken defensive ring and tried to decide what they should do.
Four soldiers left. Six of them against thirty warriors. They’d realized that Small Pony had deliberately sent boys against them to test them out. The next time he wouldn’t make that sorry mistake.
“We could run for it.”
The shootist shook his head. “We stay here we get to live a while longer. We run and we’re dead in an hour. They’ll ring us in and split us, like wolves after caribou.”
A quarter mile away Small Pony was in council with his half dozen veteran warriors. They were scratching with the points of knives in the dirt. In their experience they had never known such lethal fire-power. Such accuracy with long guns. If they came again at them there was no way at all that the soldiers would not kill at least ten more of them.
“It is too great a price to pay,” said Small Pony, standing with intense reluctance.
“But the blood cries for revenge.”
“And we will take it. Not now. Later. For the next years we will take soldiers when we can. Raid and kill from darkness. They will pay the blood toll many times over for these days.”
“They’re goin’,” exclaimed one of the watching troopers. “Christ! They’re just pulling out and leaving us.”
“Could be a trick,” said Haydon, cautious as ever.
“No,” replied Crow. “That’s it. We hit ’em too hard that last attack. More than they figured. Chalked up on the board what’ll happen if they rush us. They’re goin’ back to mourn.”
“And we go free.”
“Yeah. For the time. I know Apaches. They won’t just go back and rebuild their wickiups and mourn the dead. They’ll plan ways they can take revenge without them gettin’ losses.”
“And the boy?”
“Cyrus Quaid. He’s dead. Maybe not this moment. Maybe he’s still walkin’ around somewhere in that camp. But he’s a dead boy.”
“Taken some with him.”
Crow nodded at the Sergeant. “Surely did. Dead’s maybe best. Over half this patrol gone. Dozen young Apache bucks. The Lord knows how many gotten butchered in their river camp. Lot of dead.” He paused. “Yeah. A lot of dead.”
“So, what do we do now, Crow?” asked Trooper Dearman.
“Now?”
Haydon took up the question. “Yeah, Crow. Now it’s over, what do we do?”
“It’s over, Haydon.” He watched the small band of Apaches, dots against the bleak vastness of the desert, disappearing. “So, we might as well all go home.”