CHAPTER 14

General Rhodes Guilford was sitting at his large desk in the fort, smoking locomotive-steady puffs from a cigar, drinking a whiskey—two shots was enough, for now—and waiting. He was waiting impatiently for two things.

One was the return of the two Mission Indians he had dispatched to the O’Malley family’s Whip Station. The two men he had sent to the previous stop in Vallicita had already returned. The stage had stopped there, the shaman Tuchahu was aboard, and it left for Whip Station on time. Malibu and Sisquoc should have returned by now with news that the coach had reached the O’Malley place late with the shaman no longer aboard.

Everything depended on that. Kennedy and Hathaway knew it. If that had not occurred . . .

That left the other thing he was waiting for. Word from those two Eastern functionaries. A dispatch . . .

No, “information,” he reminded himself. Civilians don’t call it a dispatch or intelligence or orders. They call it information. News. They write it on a piece of paper without formality or regimental detail.

“Bloody brown,” he muttered, blowing smoke and using the expression he had uttered so often during the War. It was a short phrase that described the rivers and streams his men often had to cross during the War Between the States. Waters turned from clear to brown by the bleeding bodies within the cool flow or on the uncaring shores.

General Guilford was waiting for information. He had been waiting since sunset. Now, nearly eight hours later, he was restless and tired. It was a bad combination.

The other thing the fifty-one-year-old officer was waiting for was the event that would follow. The abduction of Tuchahu was just the start. The war against the Indians . . .

He pulled on his cigar and drained his glass and resisted the desire to refill it. He had to stay clearheaded, at least for the next several days. Maneuvers had to be done carefully, as they had been against General Lee.

Of course, Andrew Johnson and his macaronis on the Potomac were not the adversaries that Lee had been. For one thing, they were not in the field, had no idea what was really going on. For another, they were fools. They could never imagine what was coming. The greatest event in the four centuries during which white men had trod upon this land.

One of the greatest events in the history of the world.

The honored Civil War officer was not a patient man. That was one of his greatest strengths. Short of stature, with a neatly clipped beard he nonetheless commanded a room with his barrel chest, penetrating, pale gray eyes, and a voice that could be heard over cannon fire. It had been tested time and again as his troops pummeled Confederate positions with ball and bayonet, sometimes with fist and teeth.

Men served Guilford. They wanted to please him. They did what he ordered.

They would do this.

The stocky man rose and walked around the ornately carved mahogany desk. He went to the open window through which a muscular breeze blew. Fort Yuma had no stockade. It sat on a high hill, was open to the elements that came from east and west, that rose from the Colorado River. Day and night came the sound of boats. The fluttering of the flag high atop its tall, white pole. The regular rattle of the stagecoaches that charged along the Butterfield route.

Fort Yuma was the most important stop along the line. Here, any substantial repair or reinforcement could be made. Arms could be purchased if an accident or carelessness had claimed a firearm. Medical care was available. So was a bath, for those who had had enough of dirt and sweat.

A woman could also be had. Some drivers, like “Maggot” Reynolds, even had a second wife here and a third in San Francisco, though none knew about the others. The men kept this knowledge private because Maggot’s brother was the quartermaster and bribed them with liquor. They didn’t think Guilford knew, but no good general is ever without sources of . . .

“Intelligence,” he said out the window. “Good, solid military intelligence with able and reliable informants.”

The lights of lanterns and a few torches spotted the terrain. Above, the stars were few, obscured by the brilliant beacon of the moon. Guilford was not a Westerner by birth. He was from Connecticut, the son of a hatmaker. But in the two years he had been here, the general had fallen deeply in love with the scope of the West, its rugged geography that challenged a man to be better. Its leather-tough inhabitants. Even its Indians, who had courage and accepted whatever came, defeat as well as victory, death instead of life.

He inhaled deeply. As he did so, he heard a rider racing along the dirt road that wound up the hill from the west. At that pace, the horseman had to know that route well.

General Guilford flicked the cigar out the window. He retraced his steps and sat behind his desk. He always wanted to be ready, at his command post, ready to respond, when a dispatch—news—arrived.

The officer knew exactly how long it would take for the courier to be brought to him, what sounds his boots would make on the eight-year-old planks. He took fresh paper, moved the inkwell closer, picked up his Esterbrook steel pen.

He smiled at the tableau. In Washington, this was power. Out here . . .

His aide-de-camp, Lt. Bernard Anthony, knocked on the general’s door.

“Enter!” Guilford bellowed.

The knob turned and a young courier walked in. He doffed his hat, sandy hair spilling out, then stopped before the desk and saluted smartly.

“At ease,” Guilford said.

The general extended his hand just as the youth removed the folded paper from his pocket. He did not have to ask the young man if he had read it. There was honesty in his clear eyes and boyish cheek.

Guilford scanned the pencil message, then put it in the center drawer of his desk.

“See to refreshment before you leave, trooper.”

“Thank you, sir.”

The boy turned smartly and left. The orderly shut the door. The general reflected on the message.

“Bloody Kennedy,” he said, creating a new denunciation. If Guilford had not needed a patsy, he would have selected a man with greater skill. Even Hathaway seemed more capable—though perhaps not in Washington. That required a different kind of competence.

Fortunately, there were still enough men from Brent Diamond’s ad hoc unit to see this through. They didn’t know what the true objective was. All they knew was that, for now, they were required to take orders from the Easterners.

“For now,” he said aloud.

Guilford rose and selected a fresh cigar from the humidor cabinet that stood beside his desk. He took a stick match from the dish on top and lovingly touched flame to tobacco. He drew on the cigar, held the smoke for a moment, and then blew it out slowly.

He was disappointed but he was calm. Despite the setback, the general took consolation that Dr. Peterson would soon be in the field with them, making sure that events unfolded according to plan.

The general smiled.

“My plan,” he said. General Festus Williams had contributed thoughts about covering the territory to the north, where Fort Mason had jurisdiction. But the main area of contention would be the south. To the north, the desert made military actions a severe challenge.

* * *

“Hold!”

Riding slightly behind Joe O’Malley, Clarity had been admiring the play of moonlight on the terrain. They had entered an area of high grasses. Joe had explained that underground springs keep this land fertile during spring and summer, after which rot feeds the birds and insects.

“Jackson built his irrigation plan after what nature thought up out here,” he had told her. “’Stead of running ditches from the nearest water, he dug down and stuck in cloth that draws it up. Lay that under the plantings.”

It was a clever idea, Clarity had to admit. The constant, mineral-rich water source no doubt explained why the carrots Sarah had served at the station had been so good.

They had been riding in silence for quite some time, stopping only to water the horses at a small pond. The frontiersman had taken them across terrain that had no trail. It would intercept the stagecoach line at a point some six miles north of the station. B.W. still might get there first, given his head start. But the road Joe and Clarity rode was shorter.

Clarity walked her horse beside Joe and listened.

“Someone’s coming from the east,” she said.

“A stampede o’ someones,” Joe agreed. “Sticking to the trail, riding hard, likely the Rebs.”

Clarity circled the horse around, looking for a place where they could take cover. There was nothing. Not around them, not as far ahead as he could see. The land was just arid, low hills and brush. Even the rocks were small. That was one of the reasons the stagecoach came this way. No effort was required to make the trail.

“What’re you doing?” Joe asked.

“If it’s the Rebels, we went to watch them, don’t we? Pick them off?”

“Yeah,” Joe said.

“That means them not knowing we’re here, right?” Clarity asked.

“Girl, they’ll know we’re here first time we fire,” Joe said.

“Of course,” she replied.

Clarity felt suddenly, strongly aware of her own limitations. The land made her feel small, but Joe’s instant grasp of situations made her feel almost childlike.

“They followed the stage trail to overtake the coach, and because it’s a flatter, cleaner ride at night,” Joe said. He sat there, staring at the ground, doing mental calculations. “Juncture between us and the trail is about two miles. Stage can’t be that far ahead, maybe another two miles. And that’s if they haven’t stopped for any reason.”

“Why would they?”

“Breakdown, Injuns, road coulda fallen in for a stretch. A lot of reasons. Wherever they are, we want to get between them and the Rebels and slow the pursuit. Maybe get the Confederates to bump up against the Apaches, if they’re out here, too. Then they can kill each other. But that ain’t a plan, it’s just the start o’ one.”

Joe said that almost as if he were chastising himself. In a sense, he was. He had been riding these many hours, knowing this moment was coming, and he still hadn’t figured out exactly what to do.

“We can’t lie flat again with nowhere to hide the horses,” Clarity said.

“No,” he agreed. “And we don’t want the horses shot.”

Joe thought for a moment, looking to the west. He held up a finger, then said suddenly, “Let’s ride!”

The frontiersman exploded forward at a gallop, Clarity falling nearly three horse len’ths behind before she kicked into motion. With effort, she caught up.

“What’s the plan?” Clarity yelled as she was near enough to be heard.

Joe half-turned and answered, “To beat them just short o’ where our paths are gonna cross and make sure they stop.”

* * *

Sarah O’Malley knew she would not be able to sleep. She had not even tried. With Gert, she had taken turns sitting with Dick Ocean and keeping an ear turned to the plains.

Jackson had fallen asleep in the rocking chair. That had not been his intention, but Sarah knew that needs do not often yield to wishes. Because of his injury, her husband had to work twice as hard to keep even with what Slash or Joe could do. He didn’t ask for favors but how he pushed himself, she thought both proudly—and with sadness. He had never been quite the same after that fall. His will had not broken but something about his spirit had.

Sarah did her best to try and act as if nothing had changed, but it had. And they were all too busy to try and find ways to make things better, either by picnicking or traveling to San Diego or just reading by the fire.

Jackson had tried. The book was on the floor.

The woman had made coffee and took it out to Sisquoc first, then Malibu who was still in the loft. He came down when he saw her so that she would not have to climb up.

“Thank you,” he said when she poured him a cup.

“You’re very gracious, since it is I who should be thanking you,” Sarah said. “Mr. O’Malley—Jackson—Gert and I would not have been able to do this alone. Not as well as you two have.”

“Happy to help family of Joe,” he said, sipping gingerly. “We know him from before.”

“I know,” she said. “He has spoken of you, always as friends—even when there was conflict.”

“Brave honor brave,” the Indian said.

“You came here to make sure the shaman was safe,” she said. “I heard you talking with Joe earlier. Is this what you expected? Something like this?”

The Yaqui considered the question before answering.

“Strange things have been happening,” he said. “Many couriers between the forts. Mission Indians sent out, all of them. Never before like this.”

“Surely not because of a few Rebels.”

“I agree,” Malibu said. “Surely not.”

“Do you have any ideas? Any thoughts about it?”

Malibu was silent again. He drank for a spell and then said, “I have not seen enough. But I have spoken with other Mission Indians in the field. We are all—”

He stopped and made a sign, pointing to his forehead and dragged a hand across his eyes.

“You can’t see . . . think . . . confused?”

“Yes,” Malibu replied. “Something is being hidden. Ask Sisquoc. He sees it, too.”

“I’ll leave him be,” she said. “There isn’t much we can do about it.”

Sarah offered him a refill but Malibu declined. Thanking her again, he returned to the loft.

The woman thought as she walked back to the station. Gert was standing in the doorway.

“How is Mr. Ocean?” Sarah asked.

“Asleep again,” Gert said. “Quietly, though. His fever seems to have gone down a little.” She smiled. “Father is asleep.”

“It appears The Last of the Mohicans . . . will last.”

“You can go to bed, if you like,” Gert said. “I’m fine.”

“I don’t think I could, now.”

“Why? Isn’t everything all right?”

“I don’t know,” Sarah replied. “Malibu says there is something—well, mysterious going on at the forts. He hasn’t many details. It seems to be just a feeling.”

“Indian instincts are always good,” Gert said.

“That’s what concerns me, a little,” Sarah admitted. She reached the door and kissed her daughter on the forehead. “Maybe I will lie down. Please wake me if you need anything.”

“Of course,” Gert said.

Standing alone now, with only the wind and the creaking timbers of the station for company, Gert suddenly turned and went to the root cellar. Moving quietly so she would not disturb Dick Ocean, the young woman went to a small oak chest in the back and removed its contents.

Minutes later, sitting behind the station over a small brazier of burning arrow weed, she began to pray. It was a Pechanga ceremony to Wi’áasal, the Great Oak, the source of all life and wisdom. She prayed not for herself but for the man at the center of this dangerous pursuit—and the men, and woman, risking their lives to protect him.

* * *

To the east, the makeshift unit of former Confederates crashed through the night like the fabled soldiers of Quantrill’s Raiders.

Kennedy and his fellow Union bureaucrats had always despised newspaper reports of men like that. They hated the Raiders because of what he himself was feeling now. Fearless, dashing, filled with grim purpose. Who would not want men like these galloping to their rescue or rallying around their cause? The Union had masses of men but they did not have units that were intentionally flamboyant. They were the living embodiment and avenging devils of the Southern aristocracy.

Neither Douglas Kennedy nor Jessup Hathaway was William Quantrill.

The two Easterners were in the rear. For the first two or so miles, they had struggled to maintain a heroic front. They rode as hard as their fellows. But Kennedy had never done more than take Sunday rides in nearby Virginia. And Hathaway was an Appalachian boy. He could fish and possum-hunt with the best of them, but his riding consisted of a dray horse he and his pa used to haul timber cut by local lumberjacks. This pace—and this discomfort—were entirely new to them.

Kennedy couldn’t help but think that much of this gallop was spite and not devotion to duty. Except for maybe Doc Peterson, the unit was interested in a payday, not the extermination of the savage population. The doctor was difficult to understand. He was professional in his dispensing of medical care. But he was contrary, at times argumentative, and seemed unhappy to be among them.

Surely, out here, a man with medical skills could find employment elsewhere. It did not make sense to Kennedy. Fortunately, it did not have to. As soon as the Indian shaman had been taken prisoner by parties unknown, and murdered where the savages could find him, the War of Extermination would begin. The only loose end, the O’Malleys, would not be a problem for very long. On the way back, they and their station would be destroyed by Apaches.

At least, that was the tale the soldiers from the San Diego Barracks would tell. They were the ones who would find the tomahawks, lances, bows and arrows left behind in the ashes. It had always been part of the plan to incite outrage and a call to arms by burning the Whip and Diamond Stations. But only Brent Diamond was in on the plan. It was the reason he had never done repairs on the Vallicita outpost. He would only have had to rebuild it, eventually. This was, after all, his plan. Diamond grew up in Tennessee with the president. It was said that if not for the War, Diamond would have been as powerful down South as then–Senator Andrew Johnson was up North. Kennedy could see it, when he met Diamond for the first time just the other day—this was a rivalry between the men. But it was the kind that had the side benefit of building nations.

These raiders, Diamond’s men, loved that homesteader. The few times his name was mentioned, it was done so as if they were talking about General Lee himself.

Kennedy had to admit to envying that a little. Perhaps, though, when the West was cleared of Red Men he would have that achievement to carry him to political glory and whatever wealth a smart man could wring from that.

The riders slowed now and then to allow their horses a respite. There had been no full-out rests, no impediments, nothing surprising.

“Whoa!” one of the men in front said. “Barricade—”

Before he could finish, before anyone could stop, the road, the night, and two mounted men vanished.

* * *

Lying in bed, listening to the silence, Brent Diamond had to acknowledge that he was a clever man.

He had been the son of a dirt farmer who, one day, when he was still a boy, up and rode a log down a river and established a shipping empire at the other end. Before most of the landed patricians of the South met him, the young man was already dressing like them, acting like them, was every bit as good as the cotton farmers and tobacco growers.

What’s more, they had needed him. There was increasing population up north and greater-than-ever demand for goods produced on Southern plantations. Diamond had built his fortune on that mutual need.

Then hell was unleashed and Diamond fled. His boat line was among the first targets, since it was a means of getting much-needed black market income for goods. The Union motivation was simple: Why pay for what you can now legally steal as spoils of a war of rebellion?

He sailed west until it was necessary to join a wagon train. That was how he met John Butterfield, who had an interest in all overland operations. Though Butterfield was a Northerner he was a lifelong stagecoach driver. He knew and loved transportation. His affection for the men who worked in that field transcended politics and boundaries. To a stagecoach driver or boatman, boundaries were simply a means to charge tariffs. They were artificial, needless, and proudly ignored.

Butterfield practically gave the native Tennessean the Vallicita Station with the promise that Diamond fix it up as soon as he recovered financially.

Diamond had recovered financially months ago. In addition to the money from Butterfield, he earned a good deal from items sold to travelers. These were made by his girl Rosa and her seven-year-old boy and included hand fans, fruit-scented water that he called perfume, and combs made of squirrel ribs. But he had not used that money to repair the station. He had used it to begin making much, much larger repairs.

It seemed strange to be in such peaceful surroundings at the station, his servant and her son abed in a locked room, knowing that so much was going on miles beyond.

It’s almost decadent, he thought.

The man’s long face showed the hint of a smile. It was the first one he had known in well over a year. But that was exactly right. After an arduous journey across the country with a slave—former slave, as she kept reminding him—and her sullen boy, this was the first time he felt as he once did. That the world had been righted and he was on the top of it.

He thought briefly of Bonita and Joshua. He had never molested her, as was his right—as was the way of so many slaveholders. He had beaten the boy, but only when he failed to keep the master’s boots polished or brush the dust and grasses from his pants. Even so, that was less than other slaves received. And out here, they worked no less and no more than any white woman or squaw living on barren scrub. He kept the door locked at night, not because he feared violence against his person but because he was afraid they would flee on a foolish mission of their own. Diamond heard her prayers at night, asking God to keep her husband and his mother safe.

That man, Isaiah, had been a red-hot bastard. The slave, an uneducated son of an equally ungrateful slave, had an easy job. His wife and mother had easy jobs, and yet he had tried to escape and take them with him. Now, his damnable woman wished to do the same. Diamond would not lose his only two companions, two very able servants, and have to replace them with Indians or Mexicans who did not even speak his language.

It was as if the insanity of the War had not yet subsided. The Colored race was still mad.

When this is over, they can leave, he told himself. Then he would have position, power—all that he had lost, and more.

Part of him was very curious to see how far they got. Love and devotion made people blind and stupid. On foot, without survival skills, she would not last more than a few days.

She should thank me every minute of her miserable life, he thought.

Brent Diamond fell asleep with the baying of a wolf somewhere in the distance.