CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Wooden Arm dismounted, holding the hackamore by his right foot, which pinned the braided horsehair to the dirt. He knelt down. With his good hand, he pawed the earth with his fingers. The other arm remained entrapped within the splint. It probably would have come off already, had Wooden Arm not taken a few spills—common for cowboys or anyone else who had spent far too much time on the back of a horse, especially a Comanche horse or a damned mustang pony.

McCulloch waved Breen ahead to take over his position. “Keep them headed west,” he said, and then spurred his horse ahead of the trotting mustangs and rode to the teenaged Comanche boy. Still in his saddle, McCulloch kicked his feet out of the stirrups and swung one leg over, hooking it on the horn.

Looking up, the boy studied McCulloch and waited.

McCulloch signed, The tracks of the wagons still lead west.

Wooden Arm nodded his head up and down and whispered a guttural, “Yes.”

The former Texas Ranger smiled, thinking, Well, hell’s fires.

McCulloch himself had picked up a few Comanche words over the past few weeks, months, that had turned into an eternity. He could say puhi tyait (dead grass), Kusiokwe (Pecos River), isawas (poison) and puku (horse, pony, mustang . . . something like that). Hell, he could even say kaawosa (jackal)—if it ever came up in conversation.

“It’s a free country,” McCulloch said, knowing that would never come out right no matter how hard he tried to sign it to a Comanche. “Military road, maybe, but it’s open for all travelers.” He pointed, made some vague signs that loosely translated to They go their way. We go ours. As long as they don’t poison any water holes. He frowned at that thought, twisted in the saddle, and stared at the woman on the left side of the mustang herd, her handcuffs rattling as she kept hold of the reins.

Wooden Arm stood and used his good arm to point to the mesa that paralleled the road. McCulloch frowned. The Comanche kid had taken off after a mustang that decided it wanted to find those proverbial greener pastures, even if McCulloch doubted if any mustang would find anything other than juniper and a clump of brush here and there.

Speaking in Comanche, Wooden Arm pointed and eventually turned to McCulloch and said through his hands, even using his fingers on the hand of his busted arm.

When the boy was finished, McCulloch looked up at the top of the mesa. “Show me,” he said while signing the words.

A moment later, he turned and yelled at Sean Keegan. McCulloch pointed at the mesa, then at the boy and himself, touched the spurs to his horse’s hide, and followed Wooden Arm, who had mounted his wiry Comanche pony quickly. Off the trail they rode, into an arroyo, up the side, and climbing the rough, red-stoned rise that flattened out about three hundred feet above the trail.

Letting the Comanche kid hold the reins, McCulloch stepped out of the saddle and studied the tracks of two horses, shod, carrying medium-sized riders. He stood and walked along the trail, noticing that the junipers and cactus would have hidden the two riders from anyone traveling below. He moved to the rim’s edge and peered through the brush, saw his mustangs, his party, his wagon, even his—dare he call them—friends?

But those tracks had been left by men who were not following the mustang herd. They were at least a day, possibly two, ahead. They were following the wagon train.

“This is none of our concern,” he told Wooden Arm with his English and his hands. But they continued to follow the trail left by the riders. A half mile west, McCulloch dismounted again and picked up the crushed out remnant of one of those slim, stinking small cigars the Mexicans favored. And he found the marking of a spur’s rowel on a rock where a rider had dismounted and almost tripped. All right. That meant that the two riders were likely Mexican.

Hell, he told himself, we’re in New Mexico Territory, almost in Arizona Territory, both of which once belonged to Mexico. Of course there would be Mexican riders.

It was still no concern to McCulloch. What concerned him was down below, raising dust and moving west. When the mesa ended, and the trail led down the northern side of the rise so that none of the travelers below to the south would have seen them, McCulloch signed to the Comanche that he had seen enough.

They rode down the slope to rejoin their companions, and Matt McCulloch busied himself focusing on the job at hand. Keeping the mustangs moving, keeping an eye on that evil woman, Charlotte Platte, keeping a watch for any man or men on the rises north and south of them who might be trailing them, and not some party of families heading west.

Yet when they made camp that afternoon, and after they had degraded Charlotte Platte once more by making her strip and drink from the cook spoon or ladle every ten or fifteen minutes while she cooked supper, McCulloch pointed to the ridge that rose off northwest of the trail.

“There were two riders,” he said. “Likely Mexican. Following that wagon train.”

Keegan looked at the ridge, while Breen looked at what passed for a trail.

“There are a lot of men in that wagon train,” Keegan said. “I don’t think two men pose a problem.”

“Wooden Arm figured they’ve been following them for a while,” McCulloch said.

“Could be sneak thieves,” Breen said. “Waiting for those folks to get careless so they could make off with some horse, oxen, maybe some supplies.”

Breen spit, shook his head, and added, “From what we’ve seen of their camps since we started following their trail, they tend to get careless every time they make camp.”

“Yeah,” McCulloch said.

“It could very well be, laddies,” Keegan said, “That those two hombres are just scouting along, taking notes, making plans. Maybe they have been ordered to keep an eye on the pilgrims, then ride up ahead, join their fellow blackhearts. Ambush those pilgrims.”

“Either way,” Breen said, “Those folks aren’t our responsibility. All we have to worry about is getting Matt’s horses . . . and more important, my prisoners . . . to Precious Metal.”

“Wim-men,” Broken Arm said, jabbing his good fist west. “Ride . . . wag-gons . . . all-so.” He waited to see if he had been understood.

“Hell,” Breen said. “That son of a gun was a whole lot easier to tolerate when he didn’t speak anything but grunts and barks.”

“Women ride in our train, too,” Sean Keegan said, nodding at Charlotte Platte.

“That’s no woman,” McCulloch said.

“And she’s worth five thousand dollars,” Breen said, “In Precious Metal, Arizona Territory.”

“Hell,” McCulloch said.

“Hell,” said Breen.

“He-ell,” grunted the Comanche kid.

“Well,” said Keegan, “Before we all be forgetting what jackals we be, let me, as an old horse soldier, point out that Camp Singletree is yonder way. We could swing by it in a day, two at the most, and one of us can report to the commanding officer what we have found. He can send a company of cavalry to escort those fine pilgrims to wherever they want to set down roots.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Breen whispered, and McCulloch confirmed that with a short, quick nod.

“Supper’s ready!” Charlotte Platte roared, and banged her spoon against the cast iron pot.

“Now that we’ve settled that troublesome matter,” Keegan said with a grin, “Let’s eat. This day and all this talk have left me famished.” He turned toward the cook pot, saw the cook, frowned, and stepped back behind Breen, McCulloch, and even the Comanche boy. “You boys go first. I must remember that my fine mother raised me to be a gentleman.”

* * *

They did not have to detour south to Camp Singletree. The next evening, blue-coated soldiers rode into their camp. The gruff-looking sergeant nodded and introduced his commanding officer, a pimply faced second lieutenant named Bright. He was, Keegan later said, badly named.

“We are scouting for hostiles.” Lieutenant Bright’s eyes locked hard on Wooden Arm.

“Apaches?” Keegan asked.

“Navajos,” said the kid in blue.

“Navajos.” Keegan almost laughed. “Lieutenant, me lad, we’ve had no trouble with those Indians since before the rebellion ended.”

“That is no longer the case,” the lieutenant said. “We have reports from Don Marion Wilkes that Navajos have been raiding his cattle, and others say they have far more nefarious plans in mind. Massacre. Taking over the country—”

“That we stole from them.” Breen laughed.

That flummoxed the snot-nosed kid, but then he pointed at Wooden Arm. “And what is that, if I may ask?”

“Can’t you tell, laddie? Ol’ lieutenant me boy,” Keegan said, “That’s a scarecrow.”

“It’s our guide,” Breen said.

“A Navajo guide?” the lieutenant asked.

His sergeant grunted and added roughly, “Beggin’ the lieutenant’s pardon, sir, but that ain’t no Navajo.”

“That’s a fact, Sergeant,” McCulloch said. “He’s our guide. He’s on release from the reservation in the Indian Territory. Bill—I mean General Sherman, that’s William Sherman—but, hell, we’ve known each other so long, he’s still Bill to me and I’m still Cody to him.”

“Cody?”

Matt McCulloch nodded. “That’s right. William F. Cody. Buffalo Bill, my pards call me. Ain’t that right, pards?”

“Yeah,” Breen said. “That’s right, Buff.”

“Lieutenant”—Keegan pointed west—“here’s one thing that might concern you more than our guide and our boss, the gallant William Cody. There is a party of white settlers riding west. You can see their tracks plain as day. They were about a day or two ahead of us, but they move like a snail.”

McCulloch picked up the story. “We spotted tracks of a couple of horses—shod horses, not Indian ponies—”

“Unless the savages stole them,” the sergeant growled.

McCulloch frowned, but let his head nod up and down. “I’ll give you that, Sergeant. They could be Indians who ride shod horses, smoke Mexican cigars, and wear big spurs on their cowboy boots.”

“They could be trailing those settlers, planning an ambush up the trail,” Keegan concluded.

The sergeant twisted in his saddle and looked west, considering, but then his eyes moved to the mustangs, and he forgot about playing hero and rescuing a party of homesteaders. He got the look in his eyes that Keegan, Breen, and McCulloch had seen far too often.

“Good lookin’ mounts.” He looked back at McCulloch, who just stared.

When the sergeant moved his hand toward his holster, McCulloch put his hand on the grips of his Colt.

“Lieutenant,” the sergeant said, “We do have authority to confiscate horses should we need them during wartime.”

Most of the color left the green pup’s face.

“Wartime?” Breen asked, rising and letting his hand push back the jacket he wore to fight off the desert chill with the coming night. His hand hovered next to his double-action Colt.

“There’s this . . . um . . . trouble . . . with the . . . Navajos,” the lieutenant said.

“We’ve been on this patrol since yesterday,” the sergeant added.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” Keegan said, and the soldiers noticed that he now held his Springfield in his arms. “Since yesterday? Boys, when I rode, there were months I didn’t get out of me saddle until it was time to eat the horse that had carried me to Hell and back.”

“Well”—the lieutenant looked around—“there’s this war.”

“There’s a war about to start,” McCulloch said, “If you make one move toward those mustangs.”

“They have a date with this man’s army at Fort Wilmont,” Keegan said, “And you might have a date with old Lucifer himself if you get in our way.”

“Fort Wilmont.” The boy officer straightened in his saddle. The Irishman’s statement had given him a way of retreating without shame. “Well, that is different, gentlemen, since you have a contract with our brothers in Arizona Territory for your horses, and since you have a signed release for the savage . . . umm . . . Cherokee,” he guessed. “I think we have all we need for now.”

“Just try to follow that trail,” McCulloch said. “Let those folks know they might have some unwelcome company.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” the lieutenant said, head bobbing.

“At least send a galloper to them,” Keegan said.

“Right. Galloper. Very good, sir. Now—”

“Supper’s done,” Charlotte Platte hollered again from the fire. “Come and get it.”

Hands moved away from the weapons as the wind picked up, carrying with it the aroma of stew.

McCulloch nodded at the young officer and his surly sergeant.

“Gentlemen, we’d be honored if you and your men would dine with us this evening before you ride on about your duties.”

“Aye,” Keegan said. “We insist.”