Sergeant Matthew Stryker hit a brace and saluted Lieutenant Grimes. “A Troop present and accounted for.”
“Very well.” Grimes returned the salute with a wave of his hand in the general direction of his forehead.
Stryker took a step back, still at attention.
“At ease,” Grimes said.
The troop of twenty-four infantrymen shifted to a position that put their feet shoulder distance apart, one hand at the small of the back and the other holding a Springfield rifle with its butt on the ground.
“Gentlemen.” Grimes started pacing up and down in front of the ranks. “We are assigned to see Mr. Wasserman’s train of wagons safely through Cooke’s Canyon. Now you know and I know that the Apaches like to hit wagon trains just before they get to the gap. Keep your eyes peeled and your rifles ready.”
“Wagons ho-o.” The shout came from a broad, blunt Dutchman dressed in buckskins and a floppy felt hat. The wagons, which looked the worse for wear, rattled into a line with ten yards or so between them.
“You know the drill,” Lieutenant Grimes hollered. “A Troop, port arms. Positions on the train. Ho-o.”
A Troop of the Fifth Infantry Regiment, carrying new .45-70 Springfield carbines, Colt M1860 Army pistols, web belts of .45-70 ammunition, and leather belt boxes of paper-wrapped powder and ball for the pistols. In addition, each trooper had a bayonet, sheathed at his left hip, though none had ever used the weapon. The soldiers trotted after the wagons in a line of twos, Lieutenant Grimes in the lead on a bay army horse.
The lieutenant rode to the head of the train and took a position alongside the wagon master, Gunter Wasserman.
Stryker walked abreast of the front wheel of the lead wagon, and the men of A Troop spread evenly on either side of the wagons all down the line. Troopers Charlie and Johnny Greer, twin brothers from Amarillo, Texas, brought up the rear. A Troop had two scouts out, Cherokee Lion Watie and black Seminole Winston Many Ponies, who everyone just called “Ponies.”
The scouts ranged ahead, and the train with its blue-clad protection, made its way toward the gap at the slow, ambling pace common to wagon trains. They’d be lucky to make fifteen miles while daylight lasted.
Lion Watie came busting up the trail from the direction of the gap. His Appaloosa pony tossed its head and pranced when Lion reined it to a stop some way off from the wagon train.
“Sergeant.”
“Sir.”
“Let’s go see what he’s got.”
“Sir.”
Stryker trotted along behind the lieutenant’s horse, which in turn, trotted toward Lion Watie.
Lion sat looking of toward the gap when Grimes and Stryker got to him.
“What’s up, Lion?”
Lion’s pony still pranced, nervous about something.
The wagon train plodded onward.
“Too quiet,” Lion said.
Lieutenant Grimes narrowed his eyes. “See any hostiles?”
“A man don’t see hostiles,” Lion said. “He feels ’em, or smells ’em. I got a bad feel, that’s what I’m sayin’.”
“Can’t hold a wagon train up, just because you got a ‘feeling’,” Grimes said.
Lion shrugged. “I’m saying ... ” He reined the prancing pony around. “Dunno why you want scouts out, lieutenant. Surely don’t.”
“That’s easy, Lion. Early warning. An eye on the Apache before they get an eye on us.”
“Hmmm. I’ll go looking, but just remember what I said.” Lion gigged his pony west and rode away.
“Damn.” Lieutenant Grimes spurred his horse, which jumped toward the wagon train. Stryker followed at a ground-eating trot, his Springfield held at port arms.
Grimes pulled his horse up alongside Wasserman’s buckskin gelding. Stryker was only a few steps behind, but he couldn’t hear what Grimes said to the wagon master. He started down the line of infantrymen that guarded the wagon train. He spoke to each. “Keep a watch. Lion don’t like the lay of the land.”
Each man nodded.
“Damn. Sure would like a dram of Irish dew,” Paddy O’Malley said, “No good to fight Apaches dead sober.”
“Buy ya a shot back at Cummings,” Stryker said. “Stay alive.”
The two Greers slogged too far behind the last wagon to Stryker’s liking. “Charlie. Johnny. Close up. Them Apaches hit, you’ll get shot first off.”
The Greers double-timed until they marched no more than three steps behind the last wagon, which was driven by a woman. Her sunbonnet covered head and neck and its visor shadowed her face. Stryker paced beside the wagon for a few minutes.
The woman spoke, her voice harsh and husky. “Whaddaya want?”
“Yes, ma’am. Cooke’s Canyon is always a good place for Apaches to hit hard and fast. Where’s your man?”
“Dead.”
Stryker made no reply. There was nothing he could say.
“My boy’s here, though. He’s going on ten.”
“Where’s he at? Can he shoot?”
She waved a hand at the wagons ahead of hers. “Up there somewhere. He can put out the eye of a squirrel from twenty-five or thirty paces. He’s right handy with that Hawken of his.”
“Hawken?”
“Best long gun ever made, my Jeremy always said.”
“So you’ve got a muzzle-loading musket to protect yourself with, then? And a ten-year-old tike pulling the trigger?”
“Nah. I got me a big ol’ Dragoon Colt, too. Loaded with buckshot in all six cylinder holes. Don’t have to shoot so straight that way.” The woman laughed, but the sound was hollow and the worry in her eyes belied the forced mirth.
“Come an attack, I’ll try to get back to you. The Greer boys’s right by your back wheels. You drive careful now, missus.”
“Matilda. Matilda Williams,” she yelled when Stryker was a dozen paces away.
Stryker raised a hand to show that he heard her.
He’d planned on making his way back to the leading wagon, which was driven by Steph Wasserman, son of the wagon master. Off to the north, Cooke’s Peak stood out amongst the mountains of the Cooke Range, and to the south rose the Florida Mountains. Cooke’s Canyon was the only east-west way through. And the Gap, a narrow defile that could take only a single file of wagons, waited ahead where Lion Watie said things were too quiet.
~*~
The train was only seven wagons, but that made no difference to Yuyutsu, a Mimbreno Apache war leader. Since his father’s death by bluecoat bullet ten years ago, Yuyutsu lived to kill—blue coated soldiers if possible, any white man or woman if not. Today’s wagon train seemed different, but not enough for Yuyutsu to change tactics.
The wagon master watered the stock—horses, mules, and three milk cows—at Cooke’s Spring before moving into the canyon. Perhaps the wagons were going to Tucson. Yuyutsu cared not. He saw only the blue-coated soldiers marching on each side of the wagons, targets for flint-tipped arrows and balls of lead from stolen .45-70 Springfield rifles; targets for scalping knives and tomahawks painted black to keep them from shining and giving away a hiding brave; targets for ropes to tie white men upside down on wagon wheels and roast their brains within their heads. Bluecoats had killed Juan Jose Compa, and now his son exacted revenge upon wagon trains in Cooke’s Canyon.
Yuyutsu and his men and boys watched every wagon, every horse and mule, every ox and cow, and every man, woman, and child that trudged down Cooke’s Road and through Cooke’s Canyon. The line that ran stagecoaches through the canyon had given up, but the white eyes built a fort called Cummings north of Cooke’s Spring.
Seven wagons. Seven men, but one wagon with no man. And then the bluecoats marched out of the fort and took positions on both sides, up and down the line of wagons. Yuyutsu smiled, but it was not a good smile to see. Bluebellies to kill. White eyes to kill. Children to take. Women to take. One to become warriors and mothers. The other to sell to Nakaye—Mexicans paid pesos for white slaves, and pesos bought rifles and bullets, which warriors needed to kill in this new kind of fighting.
Yuyutsu and his men and boys watched. And took care as only Apaches can take care that they were not seen—by human eyes at least.
He saw the scout on his horse with spots on its rump. He saw that the rider, who was no white man, felt the presence of Yuyutsu’s people. He acted uneasy. His horse pranced, nostrils distended. The scout knew. But that was not enough. Not nearly enough.
From his watching place between two house-sized boulders, Yuyutsu swept the canyon for signs of his warriors. He saw yucca and sumac, saltbush and sage, junipers and broombrush, pincushion cactus and agave. All this he saw, but there was no sign that Apaches lay in wait for the seven-wagon train from Fort Cummings.
The wagons rumbled on, each pulled by four mules. The nervous scout moved back and forth across the trail like a wolf searching for rabbits or quail. The man who commanded the wagons rode a very large horse at the head of the train, beside him a bluecoat, perhaps the soldiers’ leader, on a bay that looked like every other bay horse the White Eye soldiers rode.
The scout disappeared around the bend leading to the gap. If Yuyutsu’s planning and medicine aligned, the scout would never return.
But he did.
~*~
Lion Watie came thundering out of the gap, leaning over the withers of his fleet Appaloosa.
“’Paches! ’Paches!”
Lion’s faint cry carried an urgency that caused Matt Stryker to loosen the flap of his regulation army holster and pull out the Colt M1860 Army .44 revolver. “A Troop, to the ground,” he roared. “Fire at will.”
Lithe dusty forms seemed to materialize from the very dirt of Cooke’s Canyon, some with bows, most with knives and tomahawks. Two leaped up behind Lieutenant Grimes and Wagon Master Wasserman. Stryker triggered his Colt and the .44 slug caught the Apache behind Grimes in the spine, but not before the Indian had drawn his knife across the lieutenant’s throat.
Grimes fell to the left of the bay horse and the Apache to the right. Wasserman bled on the ground as a dusty brave gigged his big horse away.
Lion Watie turned his racing Appaloosa up a slight rise with a crown of red sandstone. Stryker immediately saw what the scout was doing. He’d find some shelter in the rocks, so Stryker needn’t worry about him.
The lieutenant was down. The wagon master was down. Who knew what others were down? Stryker had to move, or lose his troopers and the wagon train.
“A Troop. One mule each. Head for the rocks.” Stryker pointed at the rocky crown on the high spot where Lion Watie forted up.
An Apache leaped into view from the far side of the first wagon. Stryker met him with a bullet from his revolver. A woman screamed. Troopers swarmed to cut mules from their traces.
“Everyone able to move, take a mule to high ground,” Stryker yelled.
One mule. Two. Half a dozen. Another Apache tried for Matt Stryker, leaping up from behind a cholla with his tomahawk raised and his knife in hand. A bullet from Stryker’s Colt stopped him dead. Three more rounds in the pistol. Single shots with the Springfield.
Two wagons lunged out of the line, Apaches at the reins. Stryker wished for a Sharps, but wishes would not kill Apaches. More mules broke free, troopers clinging to their backs. Stryker went to one knee and brought his Springfield to his shoulder. He sighted the first runaway, led it a bit, and touched off a round. The Apache on the high seat toppled, hit the ground, and bounced—lifeless. Stryker reloaded.
“Greers!” Stryker roared.
“Yo-o,” came a reply.
“Gechor cracker-asses on mules and head for the fort. Get some horse boys to come help.”
“Yo-o.”
Moments later, two mules hightailed it back toward Fort Cummings with the two Greer boys clinging like monkeys to their backs. Two Apaches materialized in their way, only to be met with lead balls thrown by the Greers’ Colts. Stryker noted their shooting skills with a grunt of approval.
The battleground went silent. Dust floated in the air, gradually settling. One wagon, loaded with who knew what, got out of sight before Stryker could get a bead on the Indian driving.
Three wagons burned. Two remained in line without sign of damage, except that nothing moved.
Pistol in one hand, Springfield carbine in the other, Stryker trotted to his lieutenant’s side. Grimes lay akimbo, eyes wide to the sky, sliced throat open like a second mouth. The Apache that killed him lay head-to-toe with the lieutenant, dead from Stryker’s bullet. The dead Indian didn’t make Stryker feel any better.
He trudged to the rock crown to assess the situation. He found the stones were not natural, but purposefully arranged in a rough circle by someone, sometime, only God in heaven could know when or by whom. “Who’s down?” he asked.
“Clawson’s gone. Rupert’s gone. I seen them red devils come right outta the ground and hatcheted them two afore they could cover up. Dead, they is,” Jackson said from behind a big Missouri mule.
“I seen Webber go down,” a trooper said. “Damned red savages.”
Wills spoke up. “Nelson’s dead, I reckon. Don’t know for sure.
A steel gray horse with black mane and tail came galloping across the Killing Ground. Winston Many Ponies, a black Seminole scout, pulled up just outside the circle of rocks. “They’re gone,” he said. “T’were a bunch led by Yuyutsu. He’s the son of Juan Jose Compa, the chief who was once a Mexican, what was killed back in ’57. He’s as much after revenge as he is spoils.”
Stryker nodded. “I’ve heard of him.” He worked at reloading his Colt Army, using paper cartridges with the bullet enclosed. He tamped each charge with the built-in rod, dug caps from the box on his belt, and armed the three new charges.
“I didn’t hear much firing,” Stryker said to no one in particular.
“Weren’t no one to shoot at, hardly,” Trooper O’Malley said.
“I got one,” Mick Finney said. “I think I did anyway.”
“Apaches start taking casualties and they run,” Ponies said. “They’d rather live than be brave. They can always fight some other day, or so they think.”