The Basques had moved the band of sheep farther south, down by Powwow Butte, which was near a crossing of the Greybull. The feed was good there, and the crossing would not be difficult for the sheep if it was decided to follow Windy Mandalian’s advice and move in closer to Outpost Number Nine. Ciriaco and some of the men had been all for the move, and right away. But Otio was not so sure now, having changed his mind.
“We must hold our independence,” he said. “We are not little children who have to depend on the army.” He looked at the flashing river as he finished speaking, and then he added, “Besides, we can catch some good trout here.”
“But Otio, there is the safety of the sheep.” There was urgency in his uncle’s words. “You know the ardiak always come first. You yourself have said so.”
“That is true,” Otio said. “And I am thinking of them. But I am thinking we came here to see the conditions. Now maybe we could move up higher into the mountains, rather than down along the plains. We must see.”
They were standing in the presence of a beautiful sunset; the almost painful light cast by the dying rays of the sun stretched across the valley and into the willows and box elders along the bank of the singing river.
Yet the herders were watchful. They knew now through grim experience that it was at such times that an attack could come, when—as Otio warned—they were off guard. It was what had happened, and it was
what Windy Mandalian had insisted on their knowing.
“That is by God just the moment when them cusses comes at ya!” Ciriaco said, suddenly shifting into his imitation of the scout.
Otio laughed aloud. And Xerxes, coming up to where the two were standing, joined in. But he had to stop, for laughing hurt his wounded arm.
But Ciriaco wasn’t through—not at all, he had only just started, spurred now by Julio and Marc, who had come up after looking at the water along the bank of the river.
“I mind the time this feller I knew name of Dutch Charley got plugged in the wrist by his best friend Dutch Fritz.” And Ciriaco even lowered one eyelid just as Windy had done, the night he stayed with them after the fight with Quick Thunder and his warriors. “Old Dutch Charley’s got his ass in a uproar on account of Dutch Fritz had stole his bed. Well...” And here Ciriaco spat out a river of phlegm and spittle. “Well, sir, the doc come and dressed the wound. But after the doc left, Dutch Charley pulled off the bandage and did his own doctorin’, pouring kerosene into the wound. Gangrene set in right quick and the next thing anyone knowed, poor Dutch up and cashed in.” More spitting. “He is planted over yonder, by Gooseberry Gulch.”
His listeners rocked with laughter, slapping their thighs, pounding each other on the back.
“What is the point of your story, Mr. Scout, sir?” Otio asked, picking up on Ciriaco’s game.
“Hain’t no point. Just tellin’ you the dumb things humans sometimes do to theirselves. See, Dutch Charley thought he knowed it all. ’Course he didn’t.”
“You say we Basques do not know this country, nor the Indian men who will come fight us. And so you want us to go to the soldiers and ask them to fight for us?”
Ciriaco lowered one eyelid, held it for a moment, then raised it.
“I am sayin’ it don’t hurt to know everything, mister.”
Otio laughed. He looked at the others, spreading his hands and shrugging. What, after all, could you do with someone like Uncle Ciriaco?
Ciriaco squatted, his elbows on his knees. He grinned. Suddenly springing upright, he stood stiff and tall, his lips in a straight line, staring straight in front of him. He snapped off a perfect salute. “I, sir, am Lieutenant Matthew Kincaid, Mr. Esteban. The United States Army is at your service, sir.”
“Ah, the name was not Kincaid,” said Xerxes. “Windy said it was Con... something.”
“That was the Captain Conway,” Ciriaco said, “and his other officer, Matthew Kincaid. They are at the army fort, where we should go,” he added, looking darkly at his nephew.
Otio said nothing. Now Ciriaco quickly took a new posture. His expression was totally impassive; he stood erect, but not military. His eyes pierced the atmosphere in front of him. He turned around himself in a circle, and now stood before Otio, his arms folded across his chest.
“I kill white man. We not let white man take our land, we kill, we cut off all his balls!”
They were just about to collapse into laughter again when Little Marc came racing up.
“Indians!” he cried, pointing to the river crossing. “On the other side. On horses!”
Otio snatched up his rifle, which he had leaned care-^ fully against one of the hide panniers in which they carried supplies.
Swiftly he gave orders to the men and the dogs to bunch the sheep closer and tighter, and with Ciriaco and
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Michel he ran down to a stand of willows at the river crossing, from where Marc had seen the Indians.
“But there are only two,” Ciriaco said.
“They are still Indians,” Little Marc said.
“There could be more.” Otio looked up toward the top of the willows. “Be careful. There is a jay up there, and we do not want him to fly away.”
They were silent while the two riders approached on the other side of the river.
“They do not see us,” Ciriaco whispered.
“It is true.”
“Nor do they look like warriors.”
“Maybe they are just going somewhere, not looking for us.”
“And maybe they are part of a big party.”
“They will see the sheep.”
“We will simply have to wait,” Otio said with finality.
The two riders, both on pinto ponies, were very close now, almost at the opposite bank of the river. It was clear that in only a moment or so they would be crossing the river and would pass right where the men were.
“I do not think they were in the fighting with us,” Otio said. “There is not the paint on their faces.” His finger was on the trigger of the Spencer.
“They are well in the range,” Ciriaco said.
Otio grunted. He knew that. Yet something kept him from shooting.
“One of them is a woman,” Ciriaco said.
“That I have seen,” Otio said.
“They will surely see us.”
“Yes, surely,” said Otio, as the two riders stepped their ponies into the river crossing. The water came just to their hocks, and they went slowly.
They had just gained the bank near the willow where Otio, Ciriaco, and Little Marc and Michel waited, when
the man who was in the lead saw them. He kicked the pinto, raising his rifle, just as Otio lifted the Spencer and shot him through the neck.
The woman had started to wheel her horse, but seeing the man fall, she dropped from her horse and ran to his side.
“He is dead,” Otio said walking up to her.
Suddenly she had drawn a knife and charged him. But he was quicker, stepping to the side and putting out his foot to trip her, while with the heel of his hand he smashed her in the lower back. She tumbled to the ground, the knife flying out of her grasp.
She lay on the ground, doubled in pain, her breath coming in grunts. Otio watched her while the others kept their distance, no one trusting.
‘Two of you watch their backtrail,” Otio said, not taking his eyes off her. “And Marc, pull the dead one into the clump of willows.”
He let himself relax just a little then, when all at once the fallen Indian woman uncoiled and dove at his legs. But Otio did not fall. Seizing her arm, he swung it around behind her back. A cry broke from his adversary as he pushed her down on her face, with his knee in the middle of her back. After a moment she stopped struggling. Slowly, Otio lessened the pressure on her arm and quickly turned her over on her back.
She was not a woman. She was a young girl. A beautiful young girl.
Before a territory is voted the status of a state, it has one Congressional representative—a delegate. Under the rules of Congress, delegates cannot vote, but Warner Conway, well aware of governmental structure, knew that a delegate such as Hawes Thatcher swung a powerful club in the corridors of the Nation’s Capital. The country’s ten territorial delegates worked in fairly close accord, for their problems were usually similar; and since the territories covered about half the geographical area of the nation, they wielded an effective power. Maybe a man of Hawes Thatcher’s status had no vote, but he did very much have the ear of Congress.
While the captain and Matt were relieved to learn that Thatcher’s visit was not official, they were both well aware that for a politician, nothing is really unofficial, and that Thatcher and his daughter had not just dropped in on Outpost Number Nine for a spring vacation.
As Conway put it to his adjutant, “He’s not here officially. Matt, on an inspection tour or anything like that—so he says—but he’s not here for nothing, and so we’re going to have to play with whatever he’s dealing.”
All of which was in both officers’ minds as they sat with the delegate and his daughter, eating supper in the commanding officer’s quarters.
Conway watched Hawes Thatcher bowing his head to Flora Conway, his hostess, in acceptance of sugar in his cup of coffee. Reaching into the pocket of his gray broadcloth coat, the delegate from Wyoming drew forth
his pipe. “May I?” he started to ask, arching his expression toward Flora.
“But of course, Mr. Thatcher.”
“Ah, but won’t you try an excellent Havana, sir?” asked Warner Conway, picking up the box on the table beside him. “I pride myself on the quality of these.”
Matt watched the pleased smile spreading across Conway’s face as he spoke; the captain really loved good cigars.
“Indeed, yes!” Thatcher’s eyes lighted up as he returned his pipe to his pocket.
“I have them sent out from Rubin’s in San Francisco.”
“Do you?” Thatcher rolled the cigar in his fingers, then held it under his wide nostrils. “Ah... nothing like a good cigar, is there, Captain? Yes, I know Rubin’s.” And he bit the little bullet of tobacco out of the end.
“Matt?” Conway held the box for his adjutant.
“Thank you, sir.”
“A delicious dinner, Mrs. Conway.” Hawes Thatcher’s urbane voice fell comfortably into Flora Conway’s parlor.
“I’m so glad to see you so pleased, Mr. Thatcher.” Flora Conway was radiant, Kincaid thought, watching her as she tilted her head toward Julie Thatcher.
“More coffee, my dear?”
“Oh, no thank you, Mrs. Conway.”
Thatcher had lighted his cigar, and now he stretched his long legs out in front of him, crossing one ankle over the other, his eyes following the little cloud of tobacco smoke as it rose gently to the ceiling.
Warner Conway glanced at Julie Thatcher. “Well, Miss Thatcher, I do hope you will find Outpost Nine not too boring.”
He felt the warmth of the girl as she smiled at him while accepting an after-dinner chocolate from Flora.
“I’m actually very excited. Captain Conway. I’ve never been in this part of the country. I was telling Daddy all the way here how beautiful it all is.”
“It is beautiful,” Flora agreed. “It took me a while to get used to it, I must admit—the size, the silence compared to back East—but...” She spread her hands open on her lap, smiling. “Now I love it.”
“Well, again,” Thatcher said, “our apologies for just dropping in without warning.”
Conway shrugged, with a gentle laugh accompanying his words. “After all, when the telegraph is down, the telegraph is down.”
Matt suddenly found Julie Thatcher’s eyes on him.
“This is the first time I’ve ever visited an army fort, Lieutenant,” she said, and dropped her eyes to the chocolate she was about to bite into. “Are there many soldiers?”
He thought he detected color in her face, and found himself wondering if Thatcher had noticed.
“There are quite a few. Only this happens not to be a fort. Miss Thatcher.”
“Not a fort?” Her blue eyes opened wide in surprise, while her head turned, her lips parting slightly; and Matt felt his pulse quicken.
“It’s an outpost,” said her father, coming in. “Right, Lieutenant? Regiments have forts, but companies don't. Isn’t that correct?”
“That’s it,” Conway said.
“And the regiment is where we took the ambulance ?” asked Julie.
“Yes, ma’am,” said Matt. “We look like a tort; it’s just a technicality. But the army seems to like technicalities,” he added with a grin, and Conway shot him a warning glance.
“And thank heaven they do,” he added, bringing his
grin to a laugh. “It’s the one thing that’s structured out here—the army.”
Conway, watching the smile on the delegate’s face, relaxed. You just could never trust politicians, he told himself. A man like Thatcher could so easily twist Matt’s remark into a criticism of the army , and God knows what else. And of course report it in Washington.
“Well, you do appear to be extremely comfortable here, Captain,” Thatcher said, his glance covering the room. “Mrs. Conway, I see you’re a bom homemaker.”
“And you, Mr. Thatcher, are a bom guest.”
Matt and Warner Conway both watched the delegate melt under the superb handling of the captain’s lady.
Thatcher drew his long legs in, and now crossed one thigh over the other, taking a drag on his cigar. “I’d say things look good and easy at Easy Company.” He chuckled at his own joke.
“Oh.” Julie sat straight up in her chair, like a little girl, clapping her hands together. “Lieutenant Kincaid, I have a big question.”
Without even realizing it, Matt offered her his most engaging grin. “What is it you wish to know. Miss Thatcher?”
“Why do you call it Easy Company? What a funny name, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
Everyone had a good chuckle at that.
“There’s an Easy Company in every regiment, Miss Thatcher,” Matt told her. “The companies go A, B, C, D, E, F, and so on; but the army calls them Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog, Easy, Fox, etcetera.”
“What a charming solution to the dullness of simple alphabet letters!”
Matt saw Flora glance at her husband now at a slight pause in the conversation. “If you will all excuse me,
I’ll just clear things away,” she said, rising gracefully to her feet.
“Please let me help you, Mrs. Conway,” Julie said, getting up.
“That would be nice,” Flora said. “We’ll just take everything out and stack it, so the men can attend to their cigars.”
“I love cigars,” Julie said, with a smile at her father.
Thatcher frowned severely at her, and she pouted and, picking up the unused silverware, followed Flora out of the room, the conversation toppling into a crashing silence.
“My daughter—uh—has a devilish sense of humor at times,” Thatcher said after a long moment. “She delights in trying to get my goat.”
“Ah,” Conway laughed agreeably, eager to cover the gingery moment. “The ladies certainly know how to do that, don’t they?”
In the other room with Flora, Julie Thatcher was controlling an attack of the giggles. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Conway. But you know. Daddy is so terribly pompous at times. And the truth is, I really wanted to say something quite different, and he knew it and that’s why he was the way he was.”
“He knew what you really wanted to say, dear?”
Julie nodded. “He knew what I really wanted was to smoke a cigar. I love them.”
Flora didn’t miss a beat. “That’s nice, dear. Well, you know men mostly don’t approve of ladies smoking cigars. I personally don’t care one way or the other, so I don’t mind if you want to light up.”
Julie’s eyes opened wide, and she stared open- mouthed at her hostess. “Mrs. Conway! I like you. You’re a real lady!”
Bugler Reb McBride was in form. His lips, recovered from the sporting encounter at the Silver Tip Saloon, had returned to normal. They were no longer bruised, cut, and swollen, and the notes of his bugle on this particular morning called the men to reveille and not to furious cursing. Reb was again a real bugler. Even Ben Cohen had a smile just barely on his face as he stepped out of the orderly room for morning muster.
Seeing the delegate from the Wyoming Territory standing in conversation with Lieutenant Kincaid, the first sergeant's smile turned to a scowl. When the company orderly, Four Eyes Bradshaw, approached him, Cohen was in no mood for the little corporal’s salutation.
“It ain’t a nice day, Corporal Bradshaw, it’s a shitty day.” And Ben Cohen glared up at the clean blue, cloudless morning sky into which the sun had just started to rise.
“Sarge, if I could just quick-like tell you my idea...” Bradshaw was a slender young man, nervous, eager, but Cohen knew he had a tough backbone underneath. And he was loyal all the way to his sergeant. But he was at the same time no fawning boot-polisher.
“What bright idea, Corporal? It better be good to offset the way this day is starting.” And he glared in the direction of the delegate, for Cohen feared, and with reason, the presence of any meddling government personnel.
“I was thinking of Mr. whatever-his-name-is, I can’t remember—the delegate,” said Four Eyes.
“Shit.”
“No shit, Sarge. Maybe if we handle it right, I got a good idea of how we can get us all promoted.”
“Yeah? How?” Sergeant Cohen turned his big head
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and looked down at the man beside him. “Hurry it up, we got muster in a minute.”
“I’m oyerdue a stripe, Sarge. Right?”
Cohen didn’t answer.
“And you’re long overdue promotion with full pay. And if I may say so, the captain and Lieutenant Kincaid are over age in grade, and...” Four Eyes paused to gulp air.
“And what?” The growl came like a little roll of thunder.
“And maybe we can work it with this delegate person to put in a good word.”
“Christ!”
“I mean, Sarge, instead of fighting him like we do those damn inspectors, those IG characters, let’s pretend to cooperate with him, and maybe he’ll help us. What do you think?”
“I think it’s time you got your ass into formation or you’ll go down AWOL from morning muster!”
“You’ll have to excuse my ignorance, Captain Conway, about army matters. It’s true I’m the Wyoming delegate in Washington, and the territory is very much army, but I am unfortunately not as familiar with military setup as I would wish to be.”
“That’s easily arranged, Mr. Thatcher. And look, sir, it’s not so easy to remember all the companies and regiments and battalions and what they’re made up of. But Matt and I will be glad to give you a good filling-in.”
They had just finished breakfast and had returned to the parade. It was, Conway noted, a lovely morning— sharp, yet already starting toward the soft warmth that was characteristic of early spring on the High Plains.
“I see there are a number of Indians about, Captain,
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and I must assume they’re not hostiles.”
“They’re friendlies, sir, transients. They stay over at Tipi Town, where you see those tents. And...” A little smile touched the captain’s lips. “I must tell you, Tipi Town is a hive of gossip. Sometimes our scout, Windy Mandalian, picks up some useful tips.”
It took them a while to cover the post, the captain indicating various points of interest, the delegate asking questions. They were, Conway was pleased to note, intelligent questions, the kind a person who was truly interested in his surroundings would ask, rather than the kind an inspecting officer from Regiment would be digging with, trying to catch someone out. But Conway still felt that Hawes Thatcher had something on his mind.
It was toward the end of the morning when they finally returned to the orderly room. As they entered, Sergeant Ben Cohen looked up from his desk.
“Any action, Sergeant?” the captain asked.
“Nothing, sir.”
When they walked into Conway’s office, Thatcher said, “I know you’re a very busy man, Captain Conway, but I wonder if you could spare me a moment.’
“Of course.” Conway indicated a chair and sat down
himself. “A cigar?”
A rather sour smile appeared on the delegate’s face. “Uh—thank you. Perhaps later.”
It must be important, Conway reflected, for he had noted how much Thatcher had enjoyed his cigar on the previous evening.
“It’s, uh, rather a delicate matter 1 wish to discuss with you. And, of course, absolutely confidential.”
“Of course.”
“I mean, it is personal.”
“You have my word, Mr. Thatcher, that I will let the matter, whatever it is, go no further, unless in my position
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as commanding officer of Outpost Number Nine, it is necessary for the welfare of Easy Company and the military situation.”
“But of course. I shall trust your discretion.”
Hawes Thatcher rubbed his fingers across his forehead, hard, as though trying to rub something away.
“Perhaps I will take you up on that cigar. Captain.”
Smiling, Conway opened the box and offered it, then took one for himself. The moment of silence that followed was broken only by the scratching of the match as they lighted up.
Then, suddenly, as though arriving at an ultimate decision, Thatcher blew out a cloud of smoke and said, “My daughter is pregnant, Conway. That’s why we’re here.”
Warner Conway looked at the man on the other side of his desk. He could see it had cost Thatcher something to say that.
“You will wonder why here, at your particular army post. Well, I have been given to understand that Julie’s— uh, the man who is responsible for this state of affairs is supposed to be driving a freight wagon on the loop that includes a haul from Cheyenne to Fort Laramie to Fort McKinney.” He paused, drawing on his cigar; then, leaning back, a frown on his face, he looked down toward the toe of his boot. “I am not anxious, as you can surely imagine, to encourage any gossip at either McKinney or Laramie. After much thought, I came to the conclusion that here would be the best place to run into the, uh, gentleman. I understand the freighters often stop over at Outpost Nine.”
Conway caught the fire in Thatcher’s eyes as he spoke.
“What is the man’s name?”
“Harry Venable.” Thatcher raised his eyebrows. “At least I suppose it’s his right name. Ever hear of him?”