“Looks like we’ve got a job of work to do,” Stryker said.
“Yes, sir?”
“We gotta find a renegade Apache called Yuyutsu and hit him hard.”
“Yuyutsu, sir? I’ve heard of him. He’s wild. Don’t never come around to any of the forts looking for handouts. Don’t listen to Cochise or Alchesay or any of the people the Army calls chief.”
“Let’s go talk to Bly.”
“He’ll just say what I said.”
“We’ll talk to him anyway.”
“Sir.”
“Sure wish you’d stop doing that.”
“We still in white man’s country, sir. No offense meant.”
As the two men walked around the parade ground, a company of blue-clad infantrymen practiced marching. On the battlefield, they’d react to their sergeant’s commands without a second thought, until enemy guns cut down sizeable portions of the marching men. Wellington’s men fought that way against Napoleon’s best and won. But that was another war. Stryker’s mind went back to the Moslim tactics he’d studied at VMI.
They’d cache supplies of food here and there in their territory. They’d scatter and reassemble to predetermined places. They’d live off the land whenever necessary. And they’d hurt their opponents while taking a little damage to their own troops as possible.
Bly sat in front of his wickiup as if laziness were his lifestyle. No sign of Dahtegte, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t nearby and listening.
“Bly. If you will, I wish you to guide me to the Sierra Madre Occidental. You and Dahtegte. The Army will pay you.
The White Mountain Apache snorted. “Bluecoats never say what is true.”
“I say. Sixteen dollars every month for you, and sixteen for Dahtegte.
“Why go to Mexico? Bad Nakaye there pay money for Apache hair.”
“We hunt Yuyutsu. General says hit him hard.”
“That man hunts only Mexicans, and those who hunt Apaches for their hair.”
“He is a renegade. His is the one who attacked the wagon train my soldiers guarded on Cooke’s Road. He has no concern for who he kills or tortures.”
“He is a man.”
“My job is to find him and fight him. I would like you to help me.”
Bly frowned. He looked at the sky. He looked at the ground. He looked away toward the Rio Grande, and back at Stryker’s face. “I will go,” he said. “It is not good to kill those who cannot fight. Yuyutsu is wrong. I will go.”
“And me,” said Dahtegte. “No man such as the mad one they call Yuyutsu should be able to kill who he wishes. Nakaye are wrong to pay for Apache hair. But we—Bly and Dahtegte—will find Yuyutsu. Then you can see if bluecoats called unfitable ... ” She threw a glance at Bly, who said, “Misfits.”
“ ... Misfits can fight Apache warriors.”
“Not one is as good a warrior as an Apache,” Stryker said. “All we can do is make it so uncomfortable for him that he will go somewhere else, or he will ask for peace.”
“Hmmm.”
“Sit,” Bly said. “We must talk.”
“Top. You go back and get the Misfits ready. We’ll leave before dawn. Every man with fifteen rounds in his rifle and six in his Remington, with fifty extra, however he wants to carry them. Every man should have a knife. Not a prize possession, but one that he won’t mind digging with. No food, no water. The land will give us what we need. And make sure every man has two bandanas. One to use as a headband and one to cover the face. Tan, if possible. Got that, Top?”
“Yeah, Cap. I got it. We’uns’ll be ready whenever y’all wanna go.”
Stryker nodded. “Begone with you, then. Oh, and put Ben Stroud back in the guardhouse. It’s more like home to him.”
“I’s gone.” Samson dogtrotted off toward the A Troop tents.
“The black man is a good man,” Bly said.
“That’s why he’s top soldier.”
“I hear that Yuyutsu’s rancheria is not for into the land of the Nakaye.”
“Can you find out for sure?”
“May be.”
Stryker, Bly, and Dahtegte sat around a hatful of fire for most of the night, talking about how to hit Yuyutsu’s band of warriors. The false dawn came too quickly.
Samson waited at Stryker’s tent. “Men are ready, Cap,” he said.
“Good. Give me a minute, then call the Misfits here.”
“One minute, Cap.”
Stryker ducked into his tent to don muslin shirt, cotton pants, a bandana headband, a bandana neckerchief, and a gun rig that hung from his right shoulder across his chest to put his Remington at his left hip, butt forward. The canvas pouch that contained fifty rounds of .44 cartridges hung just behind the pistol. His feet were encased in Apache moccasins with rawhide soles that curved up in front to protect the toes. His Winchester Yellow Boy lay on his bunk in a soft leather sheath much the same as mountain men once carried. The neutral natural color might keep the rifle’s unnatural shape from attracting Apache eyes.
“Men’re waitin’, Cap.”
“Moment, Top.” Stryker checked his Bowie and the knife he thought of as a digging tool. He stepped from the tent to see a gaggle of men that might well have been Apaches themselves. Good.
“Misfits. General Hunter’s sending us out to hit Yuyutsu, a renegade Mescalero that’s been killing people right and left down in Mexico.”
Bly and Dahtegte stood just outside the normal person’s nighttime circle of cognizance.
Stryker explained their destination, a slash of a gulley running north from the Tres Hermanas of Sierra Madre Occidental, the mountain range that ran from the Chiricahuas down into the middle of Mexico. “It’s take two days to get there. And we’re going Apache. That means every man chooses his own way and don’t ever travel by twos and threes. Now. Lion. Ponies. You talk with Bly and Dahtegte over there. They’ll fill you in. Between the four of you we’ll see if we can get every Misfit to the right place.
“Misfits. Off you go. Two at a time. Top, you and Fergie lead off. Never get closer than a hundred yards of each other. Watch the country. Memorize it. Make it so you always know where you are from an Army fort. Off you go.”
Samson and Ferguson left at a dogtrot. Lion, Ponies, Bly, and Dahtegte disappeared. Stryker gave Samson and Ferguson ten minutes, then second pair. By the time he brought up the rear, the sun was starting to lighten the skyline in the east.
Sixty miles and more to Tres Hermanas. A four-day trip with mules and wagons, but Stryker’s Misfits had no such burdens. Stryker took the long way, skirting northward around the Potrillos. He walked all day, keeping his inner rhythm in sync with the breezes and the wildlife around him. And, even though his route was the longer one, he arrived at the rendezvous before the Misfits. He selected a sheltered place beneath the overhanging branches of a paloverde.
“Gopan, you move quick. Most cannot see you, but I can.” Dahtegte spoke from a tangle of mesquite less than ten feet away.
Stryker said nothing. He shifted his line of sight away from the mesquite thicket, leaving it right at the limit of his peripheral vision. A dark shadow, too thick to be part of the bush, filled the uphill portion. It could be a boulder in this mountainous area. Or it could be a human form ... just could be.
“I see a rock,” Stryker said in a low voice meant to carry only as far as the thicket and no more. “It looks like a rock among the mesquite, but then again, it is too beautiful to be a rock. I wonder if it might be the fair but ferocious warrior I know as Dahtegte? I wonder.”
No sound came from the mesquite, and the shadow did not move.
“You should never trust your eyes, Gopan. Trust your spirit. If you reach out with your spirit, you will know where I am.” Dahtegte’s voice came from just behind Stryker’s neck. He froze and made no move, yet his every sense searched for some sign of the Apache warrior woman.
The sense of her breathing went away. A tiny rustle that seemed out of place came from behind him. Still he sat, frozen. Then there was nothing. A wren landed on a branch of Stryker’s paloverde shelter. It searched his eyes with a wren’s native curiosity. Then Stryker blinked and the wren flitted to a branch out of his reach.
“The bird gives us a good lesson,” Bly said, his voice neither too soft nor too loud. “It is far enough away to be out of reach but close enough to see what the possible danger is. We should do the same.”
“I hear you, Bly.”
“Your top black soldier nears. Listen.”
Without trying to spot either Bly or Dahtegte, Stryker listened. The sound of footsteps came through the earth. Dragging footsteps that seemed far heavier than one man would make. “Too heavy,” Stryker said.
“Perhaps he carries the one who left with him.”
The dragging footsteps stopped.
“Top?” Just loud enough to be heard, if the other person was listening.
“Yo.”
“Up the western bank, Top.”
“Yo.” The dragging footsteps came closer. Then a big shadowy form with a man-sized lump over a shoulder struggled up the side of the gulley.
Stryker started to rise, intending to help.
“No.”
“No?”
“Each of the Misfits must be able to do what is necessary.”
Stryker’s voice took on an edge. “Every Misfit is a brother. None is left behind.”
“What you say is true, Gopan, but now, when there is no enemy Indeh close by, each must do for himself.”
“I’m here, Cap,” Samson said. “Fergie broke a leg. Wasn’t right just to leave him out there for the buzzards.”
“You did good, Top.”
Stryker then spoke to Bly. “What does a wounded man do?”
“If he has a horse, he rides for safety. If not, he finds a place that he can defend if the enemy comes.”
“Is there such a safe place nearby? A place where Ferguson can wait for our return?”
“Greers’s coming, Cap,” Samson said.
Stryker stopped talking to listen. The vibration of footsteps came through the desert ground. “Meet them, Top. Take ’em to the cottonwoods and wait. Don’t build fires. Don’t talk. We’ll send Misfits over as they show up.”
The Misfits came. Some more loudly than others. Bly and Stryker carried Ferguson to a hideaway among a jumble of boulders that lay at the base of a sheer rock face. Ferguson had not made a sound, but Stryker could see that the Misfit clenched his teeth against the pain of the broken bone in his lower leg.
When Ferguson was laid out, Stryker slit his cotton trousers to the knee. The leg was not bent unnaturally, but showed swelling midway between knee and ankle. Stryker ran his hand over the swollen area. “Looks to me like you cracked that little bone on the outside of your leg. Don’t seem compound, so I reckon it’ll heal itself. You just lay back and rest until we get back to you, hear?”
Ferguson spoke between clenched teeth. “Sure could use a drink, Cap.”
“I’ll get water for you, Fergie. And we’ll see what there is to eat around.” Damn. First deployment and one of the Misfits had to break a leg. Still, if they were going Apache, they had to leave Ferguson on his own. The other Misfits sat near the cottonwoods that grew on a level place near the bottom of the gully. Those trees told Stryker there was water, but he had no idea where to dig for it. Furthermore, neither of the Apaches were there, nor were Lion or Ponies. The Misfits watched Stryker. No one spoke. No one moved.
Put your heart into what you do. That’s what Dahtegte said to him. He closed his eyes. He could feel the presence of the Misfits. He could feel their expectation. And he could feel the immovable mountain that rose to the south and west of the gully. In his heart, he followed the water that always filled the gully after rain washed across the Tres Hermanas peaks. Water that carried dirt and sand and sometimes large rocks and larger tree trunks. Surely the water had vanished last from the widening pool-like place in the bed of the wash. Stryker opened his eyes. He looked toward the mountains, hulking black shadows under a bright tree-quarter moon. The flow of water in his mind took Stryker to the northern downhill edge of the cottonwoods. The gulley widened and leveled out, before dropping over a ledge of red sandstone. Back from the ledge three or four feet, Stryker pulled his digging knife, dropped to his knees, and started making a hole.
“You don’ mind, I’ll do a turn, Cap,” Samson said.
Stryker handed him the digging knife. “The water may be a foot down. It may be six foot down. But it’s here somewhere.”
Samson dug. Then Charley Greer dug. And his brother Johnny dug. The hole became wider and deeper, but no damp showed.
Buck Grady dug. Ed McKinnester dug. Even Willem Black took a turn.
Down four feet and the sand stayed dry.
“Water’s down there,” Stryker said. He took the knife, climbed down inside, and dug deeper. The bottom of the hole stayed dry. Damn, damn, damnably dry. At six feet down, the digging knife struck rock. No water.
Samson clambered out of the hole. “Damn, Cap. Diggin’s thirsty work.”
“Stryker had no words to reply with. He was supposed to be leader of the Misfits, but a leader would never make his men go thirsty. Would he? All he could say was, “There’s always water near cottonwoods. They can’t survive without it.”
“Ain’t none down there, Cap.” Samson kicked sand back into the hole the Misfits had so laboriously dug. “Might as well put all that sand back in.”
He got down on hands and knees to shove sand into the pit. Other Misfits joined. Filling the hole in the gully floor took much less time than digging it out. But the effort added to the thirst that clawed at every Misfit’s throat.
“What next, Cap?” Samson said when the gully floor was level again.
Stryker didn’t have an answer. “Let’s try to get some sleep,” he said.