“God save us!” O’Callan shouted as the Apaches attacked. “The growed-up ones have joined their kids!”
Bronze-skinned warriors swarmed around the hastily erected defensive position. Their fierce howls of rage blended with the shrill voices of their small sons as they swept down and around the fortifications based on the two wagons. Arrows moaned hauntingly through the air and thudded into the thick oak planks of the sturdy vehicles. Others made meaty smacks as they struck exposed, vulnerable flesh. Frenzied horses added their own terrible sounds to the fray. Lacking any finesse, the onslaught of hostiles seemed as though they feared nothing and sought only to die.
“They’re crazy,” Bradley shouted over to O’Callan. “They weren’t even that loco when they had us surrounded in the brush during that mail run. What’s got into ’em?”
“I dunno,” O’Callan replied. “They’re dyin’ happy, an’ that’s a bad sign fer us.”
As suddenly as they had come, the warriors of Halcon swept away to one side and out of sight. The entire assault had lasted little more than a minute. Lieutenant Johnston approached in a wary crouch.
“The civilian scientists are in a panic. That last charge could have taken a very nasty turn,” he observed.
“It already has, sor,” O’Callan declared. “We can hold out through the night an’ tomorrow mornin’, but after that, we’re goners.”
“We must be able to do something to save ourselves,” Johnston urged desperately.
“Beggin’ yer pardon, sor,” O’Callan explained. “There’s but two ways off the top o’ this darlin’ butte—out that way where them Apaches are, or ... that way.”
O’Callan pointed over the edge of the precipice, a good four-hundred-foot drop. “The desert floor looks soft and sandy from here, sor, but take me word fer it: ’Tis hard as a quartermaster sergeant’s heart.”
“My God! Then are we all doomed to die here?” the naval officer demanded.
“Probably not all, sor. We’ll jest have to break out. A few lucky ones will make it. By the by, sor, be sure an’ save a final cartridge fer yerself. Ye sure as hell don’t want them heathen to git their hands on ye still alive.”
His face pale, the lieutenant went mumbling off to himself as O’Callan and Ormond sat down together behind a wagon. O’Callan sipped sparingly from his canteen and offered it to the petty officer, a rare gesture whose meaning was not lost on Charlie Bradley, watching from several feet away.
“An’ how long have ye been in the navy, Ormond?”
“Eighteen years. I joined up during the big war and served on the blockade. To tell you the truth, I hadn’t been eating too regular before I went in the navy, and I got used to it during my service. So I signed up again when the war ended. I was lucky. What with all the cutbacks, there were few who had berths.”
“Sure an’ ’twas about the same far me,” O’Callan recounted. “Though I had the honor of going into the army before the war—got twenty years in now, do ye believe it?”
“You sure don’t look your age,” Ormond lied smoothly.
“Well, I don’t know about that. I’ve been too long in the field. I wish me education was more refined, then I could try an’ work meself into a nice, soft staff job. But I’m afraid that’s out fer me.”
“I learned to read and write in the navy,” Ormond said. “The chaplains run school for us poor, ignorant sailor boys aboard ship.”
“Now that’s nice, yes ’tis,” O’Callan concluded, nodding. “An’ what do sailors do when their thirty years are completed?”
“Awh, I’d tell you what I’m gonna do, but you’d laugh.”
“Faith an’ I’d do no such thing,” O’Callan pledged. “You jest go right ahead an’ tell me.”
“Well ... ” Ormond hesitated, shook his head resignedly and blundered ahead. “I want to open up a waterfront saloon in San Diego. That’s in California, ya know. A dignified place where the local gentry and a few petty officers could enjoy a drink or two ... maybe even some gambling.”
“Lord love ye, Ormond!” O’Callan bellowed, surprised beyond all hostility. “Now, damn me eyes, if that ain’t the same plans I got fer meself. Except I’ve been on this desert so long I can’t get it out o’ me soul. So, I want me darlin’ saloon to be in Tombstone or Tucson. Some part o’ Arizona Territory.”
“That’s the best way in the world to become a gentleman, O’Callan. Own a good-sized saloon.” Ormond said it almost as wistfully as O’Callan frequently did.
“Awh, ye’re right about that, Ormond. Kin I call ye Murray?” Startled, Ormond nodded agreement. “Except fer bein’ in different services, Murray, we’re as alike as peas in a pod.”
“We sure are, Terry,” Ormond said. “Gentlemen saloonkeepers, that’s us.”
“It’ll be a grand life, believe me. Imagine walkin’ downtown of a mornin’ an’ ever’body greetin’ ye right polite an’ respectin’ ye fer yer fine business sense.”
“Yeah,” Ormond echoed, the sight filling his mind. “Maybe getting on the city council or something.”
“What about runnin’ fer mayor, hey? Jest think o’ the bloody fine life open to a gentleman saloonkeeper,” O’Callan enthused.
“I just hope we live to see the day,” Ormond said softly.
“Sure an’ ’twould be a shame if we don’t.”
“A waste of talent,” Ormond lamented.
“I don’t want ye to think I’m braggin’, Murray, but I always had the feelin’ that me becomin’ a saloonkeeper was ordained in Heaven, an’ that’s the truth of it.”
“Then maybe Heaven will protect you tomorrow, Terry,” Ormond suggested.
“I pray so,” O’Callan replied. “Once I’m outta ammunition, this darlin’ carbine won’t.”
~*~
Dawn broke in pale pink lines on the horizon, filling the desperate men’s souls with peace—to be quickly shattered amidst Apache yells as the Indians launched an early attack. The soldiers and sailors enjoyed fair protection behind the wagons and hastily thrown-up earth parapets, and they inflicted casualties almost at their leisure. Their marksmanship, and the Apaches’ careless exposure of themselves, kept the situation well in hand. Their only real problem grew larger with each round fired. The ammunition dwindled alarmingly.
“We’re in a heartbreakin’ situation,” O’Callan summed up. “We’ve got to break outta here on foot, an’ that means shootin’ the poor hurt lads that can’t make it. Sure an’ it’ll be kinder fer ’em that way.”
“In the Name of God!” Johnston sputtered. “I can’t believe I heard what you just said, Sergeant O’Callan.”
O’Callan nodded his head sadly. “’Tis a terrible thing, I’m not denying it, but we’ve no choice in the matter. The Apaches torture their captives somethin’ terrible. Ye don’t want that on yer conscience, do ye, sor? So, we’ll have to do it, then form as skirmishers an’ fight our way through. With only the mules left, there’s not enough mounts fer ever’body.”
“What about the wagons?” Ormond suggested.
“The mules couldn’t run down the trail, Murray. The wagons’d go so fast they’d run over ’em.”
Ormond shook his head. “I don’t mean with the mules, Terry. I mean roll down in a wagon without ’em.”
“Huh!” O’Callan exploded. “Ye mean in a loose wagon? Ye couldn’t steer it, bucko; it’d get its hind-side ahead of its foreside an’ turn over.”
Johnston smiled, suddenly relieved by a thin portion of hope. “I’ve been going to sea with Ormond for ten years, Sergeant O’Callan. When he’s got a gleam in his eye, that means his mind is working on something. And I’ll lay odds, based on the past, that it’s a good idea.”
“What I was thinking, Mr. Johnston, was to turn one of them wagons into a landing craft on wheels. I could rig up a rudder stick and a sail. She could be steered by any good cox’n.”
“Ye mean to roll down backwards and steer from the opposite end?” O’Callan asked, grasping part of the suggestion. “The wagon tongue is too big fer a man to handle that way, Murray.”
“Not if we took off the tongue and rigged up a steering device, linked with pulley and line. Even a small boy could manipulate it like that.”
O’Callan shrugged. “I don’t know much about such things, but if ye think it’ll work, I’m fer it.”
“We’ll only have enough time to fix up one,” Ormond went on. “It’ll be crowded, but we can all squeeze in.”
“The more the better, an’ that’s the truth of it,” O’Callan replied. “We’ll have to be bristlin’ with Springfields to fight off them Apaches when we roll by.”
“I suggest you form a work party immediately,” Johnston commanded.
“Then I’ll post me darlin’ lads on the perimeter an’ make sure the Apaches don’t interfere with our plans.”
O’Callan rushed off to implement his part. He arranged his men, placing them on a hundred-percent alert. He needn’t have ordered it: the men were touchy enough and wary of Apaches. Once satisfied, he settled himself back to his post while Ormond and the sailors went to work on one of the wagons.
“Lord,” O’Callan whispered, crossing himself. “Sure an’ if it’s in Yer darlin’ plans fer me to have that saloon, help Murray sail that bloody land boat o’ his ... Amen.”
~*~
Halcon sat silently as the warriors gathered around him and sank to their haunches. The boys stood behind their elders, as was proper. The nearly constant desert wind had ceased in a hush created by the intense heat of midmorning. In the stillness, birds sang on the mesa and the sounds of thumping and banging came from the direction of their hated enemy. The entire group regarded each other silently for several minutes before Halcon spoke.
“It is the little pony-soldier chief with the burning lip.”
“Sargento, not jefe,” Three-Ponies corrected. “He is a sargento.”
“Sergeant or chief, it is all the same,” Halcon replied impatiently. “The little pony-soldier chief with the burning hair under his nose leads them well, and as before, we’re losing men. Too many are dying,” the war chief concluded. “It is a bad thing.”
“Spirit-Woman-of-the-Mountain leads us, Halcon,” a treble-voiced youngster said defensively.
“It is true, Father,” Da-soda-hae spoke up. “Through the mochuelo she has spoken to us. I followed the burning-lip jefe to this place and watched for two days. There’s no agreement in the camp. The red-haired one quarreled often with the pen-dik-oye with the funny clothes and bent legs. Spirit-Woman-of-the-Mountain told me this would be so and that the pony-soldiers would fall into our hands like so much rain. She leads us by these signs. Maybe it is her will that many of us die.”
“Not so. Spirit-Woman-of-the-Mountain also told you that we were all dead and that you must take the warpath because of this. Yet you see us standing here before you. Is that not so? It’s a sign. Spirit-Woman-of-the-Mountain wants our man-children to live. This I feel. Soon the pony-soldiers will shoot all of their bullets ... eat all of their feed ... drink all of their water. They have no horses. Their wagons are no good on the steep trail. They’ll have to run down it. This is what Spirit-Woman-of-the-Mountain has planned for us. She doesn’t mean for us to throw ourselves into the rain of their bullets.”
Halcon sat silently, letting the others turn his words over in their minds. After several moments, he spoke again.
“We’ll hide in the rocks and wait for the white-eyes to run. Then we will kill them.”
Again the group pondered his words. One warrior stood, arms folded across his chest. “I think so, too. Spirit-Woman-of-the-Mountain has given us these soldiers and their things as presents. She will shed tears if we die for them. Let us do as Halcon says.”
The others nodded their approval.
Halcon stood and called his son to him. He turned the lad around to face the others and placed his hands on the boy’s shoulders.
“You know my son, Da-soda-hae. Spirit-Woman-of-the-Mountain has spoken to him through an owl. I will no longer call him by the name of his boyhood, Da-soda-hae. He will be called Mochuelito, the owl of the desert. I, his father, now name him this, and so he shall be called until the end of his life.”
Three-Ponies shrieked a long yell of jubilation. “Ayeee! It is truly a great day for the People!” One by one, the warriors and boys walked up to the youngster. They each acknowledged his new name by looking at his face and speaking it aloud to him. “Mochuelito!” The syllables echoed in his mind.