‘What’re you doing in here, feller?’
The War between the States was long over and the freed slaves were leaving their homes, spreading out across the land in search of work. Many of them, full of pipedreams, headed north, out of the cottonlands of the deep south, into the land of promise. There they expected to be treated as equals and to find a land flowing with milk and honey. North to the land of the people who fought the War to give them freedom. This migration caused many people to wonder as to the wisdom of their actions. It was fine and patriotic to talk about all men being free and the rights of man, but it was only the people who did not need to worry about the Negroes taking their work who talked that way. The others, the poor class who did the fighting held no brief for or against slavery. Few of them would have considered the conditions the average slave worked under as being worse than their own. It was this poorer class who saw the influx and felt the true effect of this cheap labor which moved in on them.
The problem that the freed slaves caused was already being felt in New York and the repercussions were echoing in the tiny frontier hamlet of Orejano, Arizona.
Sam Bone halted on his way to the bar of the only saloon in Orejano. His black face showed no expression as he turned to see who was speaking, for he was accepted here amongst the free and easy white men of the frontier as their social equal. The accents of the speaker were not, as a chance stranger might have expected, the deep southern drawl. Rather they were the harsh tones of New York and not the better part of New York at that.
Turning, Sam Bone saw what he feared and felt sickness in the pit of his stomach. The speaker was a tall, darkly handsome young man wearing the uniform of a trooper in the United States Cavalry, and would be part of that detachment which was even now setting up a temporary camp outside town. By his side stood a second, not so tall, or so handsome soldier, mirroring the first’s truculence.
Bone turned back towards the bar as the two came from the side table where they’d been seated. He saw his friend, the old bardog, polishing a glass with a rag that might have been new about the time of the first battle of Bull Run, and taking everything in.
‘Vin here asked you a question, mister,’ the second young man said.
‘Just came in for a drink, friend,’ Sam answered.
‘Did you now?’ The one called Vin teetered forward, a half empty whiskey bottle in his hand. ‘Then you can just drag on out again. We don’t let no black feller drink in the same place as us. Do we, Jocko?”
‘Thought you Yankees made all men free?’ the old bardog asked as he dropped a hand under the bar counter towards the butt of his sawed-off ten gauge.
Vin Bartelmo, product of the Bowery, even then one of the toughest suburbs of New York, slouched forward and thrust his face over the bar, looking down at the old-timer.
‘You shut your face, old man, or I’ll shut it with a boot. Sure we set them lousy blacks free, but now they’re coming north and taking all the work. Folks won’t take on white men when they can get blacks and they’ll let white men off to take on blacks. That’s all they’re good for, taking white men’s work.’
‘Not me, friend,’ Sam Bone spoke gently, trying to steer off the anger of the young soldier before there was serious trouble. ‘I don’t need no more work, got more than enough of my own.’
‘Yeah?’ Bartelmo sneered back, looking at his friend and fellow New Yorker, Jocko Davies. ‘I bet it’s work some white man would have been doing if you hadn’t took it away from him.’
Sam Bone couldn’t really argue about that at all, for he was doing a white man’s work. It was a leatherwork shop left to him by the man who had brought him west as a servant, attendant and friend, the man who had been reared with him on a plantation in Georgia: the man who’d been both master and good friend.
However, Sam wanted no trouble with these two soldiers, for he knew the Army would always side with their own kind against any civilian. In the deep south the Army might once have enforced a strictly ‘if he’s black he’s right’ policy, but not out in Arizona and at this time. He knew that the bardog would back up his play to the hilt but that would only get the old-timer into bad trouble.
‘If you feels that strong about it, white boy, I’ll go,’ he said.
Even as Sam turned from the bar and walked away, Bartelmo put a foot in his back and shoved hard. Sam Bone staggered forward, hitting a table and hanging on to it to stop himself crashing to the floor. His face showed some anger as he turned.
‘Don’t you go abusing this coon no more, soldier boy,’ he warned, his voice brittle with anger. ‘I was a soldier long ’fore you was borned.’
Bartelmo smashed the bottle against the bar, his face twisted into a savage sneer as he moved forward. Outside he heard horses stop and the thump of heels as two men came to the batwing doors. He thought they would be other members of his troop coming for a drink. This would serve to show the others how the tough men of New York handled things. He moved in with the bottle held, its cruel, jagged ends aiming to rip into the black face.
The batwings swung open and two tall, Texas men entered. Texas mien, or their range clothes and their star decorated Justin boots lied. They were a handy-looking pair, one slightly taller, wide of shoulder, lean of waist and handsome, wearing a buscadero gunbelt and a matched pair of staghorn-butted Colt guns in the carefully placed holsters. The second was slim, pallid and studious-looking, though there was a whipcord hardiness about him that did not go with the pallor. He, like his friend, wore range clothes except that he wore a brown coat, the right side stitched back to leave clear the ivory butt of his low holstered Colt Civilian Peacemaker.
For an instant they halted, taking in the scene. Then the taller moved forward with hands just brushing the butts of his matched guns. Halting between Bone and the drunken soldier he snapped:
‘I’m a Ranger. Put down that bottle. Right now.’
Bartelmo teetered on his heels, looking at the tall young Texan, then he swung the bottle up like it was a meat axe meaning to smash the jagged ends down at this rash stranger who’d come between him and his fun.
The Texan’s right hand dipped faster than the eye could follow, the bar light glinted dully on the five-and-a-half inch barrel of the Artillery Peacemaker in his palm and flame tore from the muzzle. The bottle exploded and Bartelmo yelled as chips of glass showered on him, stinging his face. The yell of pain ended abruptly as the Texan’s gun whirled back to leather in a smooth move which ended with the same hand, now a fist, sinking into Bartelmo’s Old Scalplifter filled belly. With a grunt of pure agony the soldier doubled forward, then a hand gripped his collar and heaved. Bartelmo shot by the Texan and landed on hands and knees at the feet of the second of that reckless breed.
Filled full of whiskey and misguided loyalty to his friend, Davies swung a blow at the tall Texan who’d dealt so roughly with Bartelmo. It was a good punch but just seemed to melt in thin air as the Texan struck back. Hitting with the same speed as he’d drawn his gun, the Texan got a lot of weight behind his punch; Davies went backwards across the room, smashed into the bar and hung there for a moment, then slid down with a blissful expression on his face.
Bartelmo got to his knees, holding his stomach and snarling in pained anger as he fumbled to get the gun out of his holster. The second Texan looked down with mild benevolence. Studious looking or not he could move with a speed that was at least equal to his fast-moving friend’s. His boneless-looking hand dipped and the Colt came out, lifting then coming down with force and precision right behind the soldier’s ear, dropping him back to the ground again.
‘Nice moving gents,’ the bartender said delightedly. ‘Belly up and have something on the house.’
The taller of the pair grinned, the grin making him look even more boyish than ever, but the blue eyes were not young; they were eyes that met a man’s yet showed little of what the Texas boy was thinking.
‘Root beer then, cold as you’ve got it, a meal and some information.’
The bardog’s eyes grew frosty and wolf cautious. He’d heard the young man describe himself as an Arizona Ranger and it did not pay a man to answer too many questions.
‘Beer’s as cold as I can git it,’ he answered. ‘I can fix you up with a meal if you’ve got time to wait for me to cook it. But information is something I’m long done out of.’
‘We’ll take the first two then, friend.’ The other man joined his partner at the bar. ‘I can’t take any more of Waco’s cooking and mine’s even worse.’
For a moment the bardog studied the men, taking in the spread of the man called Waco’s shoulders and the lean lithe form of the other. That one name meant something to him.
‘Waco, huh?’ he asked, relaxing slightly. ‘You’ll be Doc Leroy then?’
‘Right as the off side of a hoss, Colonel,’ Waco replied. ‘We’re here looking to meet a gent called Sam Bone.’ Before another word could be said the batwings opened and a tall, handsome young Lieutenant followed by a short, tough-looking corporal entered. They stopped at the door, looking down at the two recumbent figures on the floor. The officer frowned as his eyes went to the group at the bar. ‘What’s all this?’ he asked grimly.
‘They you’m?’ Waco answered, meeting the officer’s eyes without flinching. ‘You should keep them muzzled mister. Took on too much bravemaker, got rough, got all tuckered out and laid them down to sleep.’
‘Though I can’t see anyone wanting their souls to keep,’ Doc Leroy went on. ‘I reckon you’ll be Mr. Beaulieu of the Seventh?’
‘I am.’
‘Cap’n Mosehan of the Arizona Rangers sent us down here to team up with you.’
‘Then it would have been more correct to report to your officer instead of making for the first saloon,’ Beaulieu snapped. He was young and not long out of West Point, but he did not intend to allow these two civilians, even if they were members of the Arizona Rangers, to make a fool of him. He meant to show them from the very start that this was an Army patrol and would be run as such.
‘Mister,’ Waco’s voice was cold and unfriendly. ‘The only officer we’ve got was at Tucson last herd count, he isn’t here.’
‘And we came in here to ask about the scout who’ll be coming with us,’ Doc put in, attempting to stop conflict.
To hide his confusion, Beaulieu turned and ordered the , corporal to take the two unconscious men out and souse them in the water trough, then get them back to the camp lines. The corporal took hold of Bartelmo’s collar, dragged him to where Davies lay, then with one collar in each hand hauled them out through the door. Beaulieu watched them go, then turned and gave his full attention to the two Rangers.
‘And did you find that scout?’
‘Never had a chance, you came in afore the gent behind the bar could answer our question,’ Waco replied. ‘Do you know anybody called Sam Bone?’
The bartender and the Negro started laughing, then Bone pointed a black finger at his chest. ‘I’m Sam Bone, suh. At least I is one Sam Bone, there might be more of us. I dunno, ain’t only met but me.’
‘You?’ Beaulieu’s face showed his surprise; he came from Boston and the only Negroes he’d ever seen were house servants. ‘Are you the scout?’
‘Why wouldn’t he be, mister?’ Waco asked.
Beaulieu flushed red, realizing that he was getting off on the wrong foot with the men he would have to rely on so much in the next few days. ‘Cap’n Daniels said you took him out after the Apache Kid last year. He speaks highly of you, Mr. Bone.’
‘We never caught the Kid, though it weren’t for looking.’
‘Don’t let that fret you none, Sam,’ Doc answered. ‘The pick of the Arizona Rangers couldn’t catch him either, could we, Waco?’
‘Some pick!’ Beaulieu snorted, then grinned at the other two. He was one of the new officers of the 7th Cavalry. The hard drinking, hard fighting, hard headed men who rode under Custer were for the most part no longer with the regiment. The ones who survived Custer’s folly at the Little Bighorn were for the most part posted to other regiments. They would never have taken the word or acted human with a pair of civilians. He was sensible enough to know that he was not trained for the sort of work they were going to undertake. These two men knew the country, knew the people who lived in it. If he treated them as human beings they would do the same for him and help him all they could. He would get nowhere by flouting his West Point superiority with these two reckless sons of the saddle; they respected a man for what he was, not who he was.
‘Do you know the border well, Sam?’ he asked.
‘He knows it better’n most, soldier boy,’ the bardog growled. ‘Ole Sam here’s the best scout the Army’s got and I don’t bar Tom Horn nor Seiber from your count.’
This news relieved Beaulieu, for the task he was going out on was not easy. The adjutant of the Seventh made that quite clear when briefing Beaulieu for the assignment. He made one point clear beyond all others. On no account must the patrol cross the International Line into Mexico. They were to go out and patrol in the hope of catching the notorious bandido, Augustine Chacon, but they must not go into Mexico under any circumstances.
Two other young Lieutenants of the Seventh had already come to grief on such an assignment, for the Mexican Government raised a mighty howl at what they termed an armed invasion of their territory.
To prevent this occurring with more serious results, Beaulieu was taking a civilian scout who knew the border and two Arizona Rangers. Waco and Doc had a very special part to play if they should manage to run across Chacon and cut him off from his men. Under a gentleman’s agreement between Captain Mosehan and Don Emilo Kosterliski, the Commander of the Guardia Rurale, members of either organization could disregard the border when in the pursuit of one of their own nationals who slipped across in the hope of gaining immunity. This, however, was a purely unofficial arrangement and did not apply to Chacon, who was a Mexican citizen. But Kosterliski had told Mosehan he would close both eyes to any attempt to take the murdering bandido, even if the said taking was done in Mexico.
That was what brought Waco and Doc to Orejano, to patrol with the Army; giving them a fighting force to match against Chacon’s murderous gang. Then if Chacon got back over the border, to bring him in, dead or alive.
‘When can we start?’ Beaulieu asked.
‘We’ve got us the scout and the soldiers,’ Waco ignored Beaulieu, winking at Doc. ‘So after ole granpappy here gets his tired ole hide into the kitchen and raises us a meal we’ll be all set to go.’
The bardog growled something about the young folks of today having no respect for age or wisdom; spat into the spittoon across the room and walked out into the kitchen. Beaulieu stepped out of the saloon and told his corporal, who was just getting Bartelmo and Davies on to their feet. The young officer gave orders for camp to be broken and the troop ready to move out; then he returned and sat with Waco and Doc. It came as something of a surprise to him that these two southerners would allow Sam Bone to sit at their table with them, for he thought that all men of the deep south treated negroes like dirt, whipping or shooting them at the slightest excuse. He was beginning to realize that the southern man knew more, far more, about Negroes than himself.
‘You know our mission, of course?’ he asked.
‘Sure,’ Waco agreed. ‘Chacon is supposed to be across the border. That means he most likely isn’t. But if he is, then Cap’n Mosehan thinks he’ll head for the border up this way, between here and Sasabe on the California line. That’s why we are patrolling out that way.’
‘One thing, mister,’ Doc warned. ‘We might or might not run into Chacon or one of the other Mexican gangs. If we run into Chacon don’t you go selling him short. He’ll likely have up to fifty men riding with him against your troop of twenty and us three. Happen he gets the idea we’re hunting him, ole Peludo'll just as likely come looking for us.’
‘He’s only a Mexican,’ Beaulieu scoffed.
‘And Sitting Bull was only an Indian.’
Beaulieu’s face flushed deep red. Any mention of the disaster which befell the 7th Cavalry at the Little Bighorn rankled amongst the officers of the regiment, who were trying to live it down.
‘So?’
‘Don’t you go swell up and bust, not while I’m eating,’ Doc’s grin robbed the words of their sting. ‘I was born on the border in Texas and all my life I’ve known Mexicans. They can count real good and likewise know that odds of two or three to one is good medicine. Specially from ambush and with the chance of getting some free Cavalry Peacemakers out of the deal.’
Once more Beaulieu’s inborn sensibility came to his aid and he looked at the two with a friendly smile. He could see a difference in their attitude towards him even now and knew they would do all they could for him.
‘All right, I’ll put myself in your hands; then when the Court Martial convenes I’ll say I was led astray by evil companions and they’ll go light on me.’
After the meal Waco and Doc rode with Beaulieu to the Army camp. The patrol was going to travel light and would be leaving the tents here under guard until they returned. The troopers were waiting by their horses, Bartelmo and Davies looking worse for wear along with the others. They watched the Texans with hate-filled eyes and then turned their attention to where Sam Bone came riding up afork a mule that looked as old as sin and even more wicked.
‘Look there, that black feller’s riding scout for us,’ Bartelmo hissed in a voice which carried all along the line.
‘Yeah,’ Davies agreed, his voice also carrying. ‘I bets he took that on when there was a white man who could have done it.’
Waco hurled the big paint stallion back along the line and brought it to a dust raising halt before the two startled troopers as they struggled to control their shying horses. He waited until the two got their horses under control then leaned forward, thrusting his face towards the men: his voice was vibrant with anger as he said:
‘Now listen to me, soldier. I’m saying this but once, so you lay back your ears and listen real good. Leave Sam Bone be. He’s doing a chore that not many men would want to handle, not living down here on the border. Get this into your damned, hawg-stupid Yankee head. Ole Sam, he lives down here in Orejano. If Chacon gets to know he’s riding scout against him, Sam’s life won’t be worth a Yankee’s word to an Injun. And soldier, that’s not worth much. Sam’s not like you, he doesn’t have a regiment of cavalry round to protect him all the time.’
Bartelmo looked back, then his eyes dropped and he snarled. ‘I won’t forget what you did to me in that saloon.’
‘Happen you won’t,’ Waco answered. ‘But remember this. I could just as easy put the bullet into your fool head. Next time I have to draw on you I’ll do just that and think nothing of it.’
The soldier snarled under his breath but kept his mouth shut until Waco turned the paint and rode back to the head of the line were Beaulieu sat watching. Bartelmo’s hand dropped, unfastened the revolver holster and curled round the butt of his gun.
Corporal Machie slammed his horse forward, barking out, ‘Take your hand off that gun, you damned fool. Look there.’
Bartelmo looked and suddenly his stomach went cold: he could see that he was very close to an early grave. Doc Leroy was sitting afork his black horse; in his hands, its bore looking like the mouth of a cannon, was a Winchester Centennial rifle. While it was actually only .45.75 caliber the gun looked far larger when it was pointed in one’s stomach at that range.
‘Happen you’re tired of life in the Seventh, you just lift the gun clear,’ Doc said cheerfully. ‘I don’t reckon the regiment will fold up and fade away without you along.’
Bartelmo let loose of the gun; he could see the eyes of the other troopers on him, for he was known amongst the other recruits who formed his patrol as being a hardcase. They would begin to wonder if he was so hard after all.
Beaulieu watched all this with worried eyes: it was his first assignment on his own and he could see there was going to be trouble unless he kept a firm check on Bartelmo. For a moment he thought of leaving the soldier behind but knew that would be foolish. Bartelmo was not to be trusted with movable property and would probably sell the tents. There was only one thing to do, take him along and watch him all the time.
Raising his hand, the young Lieutenant gave the order to march out.
~*~
For three days the patrol moved through the arid border country, travelling slowly and checking every likely spot for sign of passing Mexican bandits. They found no new sign at all but it made good training for Beaulieu. The Apache wars were over but the conditions they worked under now were almost the same. There was a need for constant vigilance and the men were alert. The first day they’d been inclined to take things easy, but that night around the fire Waco had told them how Chacon and other Mexican bandits treated gringo prisoners. He warned them that the Mexican was an expert at ambush and would lay the patrol given a chance. In graphic words he warned them of the danger and they believed him, knowing that he was telling the truth.
From that time they rode cautiously and acted as if they were working against Apaches. Of all the soldiers only Machie was a veteran; he’d seen service with the Seventh against Apaches and was with Reno’s troops at the Little Bighorn. He, with the help of Sam Bone and the Rangers, taught his men the secrets of desert survival and most of them learned well.
Yet over all the patrol was the brooding trouble causing of Bartelmo and his friend. Davies was a mere sycophant, following Bartelmo’s lead, and they worked at turning the others against Sam Bone and the two Texans. They did it on the sly, for neither was willing to tangle with Waco again. For the most part they did not have much success at turning the country boys against Sam Bone. The southern recruits knew Negroes and accepted Sam as a man doing a difficult job. The northern recruits, coming from country villages, rarely, if ever, saw Negroes and treated Sam as an equal without thinking about it. Just a few, city bred like Bartelmo, were willing to follow him and even they would not argue against that tall, slow talking but fast moving Texan.
On the third night Bartelmo watched Sam Bone talking with some of the recruits round one of the fires. He nudged Davies and rose, walking across, listening to the laughter as Sam told the soldiers some story. Bartelmo pushed through and stood, looking down at Sam Bone.
‘Hey, feller, what did you do in the War while us white folks was fighting to set you free?’
‘Why I fought too.’
‘You fought?’
‘I sure did, white boy. I fought and I fought and I fought. But it weren’t no use at all. They got me in the Army in the end.’
There was a roar of laughter from the men round the fire at this, the laughter bringing Bartelmo’s temper to an uncontrollable pitch and he snarled, ‘Get up, mister, I’m going to kick your face in.’
Waco came to his feet in a lithe bound, coming in between Bartelmo and Sam Bone, his soft easy drawl bringing the other man to a halt.
‘Soldier, you’ve said more than enough. Get yourself back to your own fire or I’ll finish what I started in Orejano.’ Machie was also on his feet. He caught Bartelmo’s arm and spun him round, pushing him hard. ‘Get away from here, you damned, no good goldbrick. I don’t want to see Waco kill you.’
Bartelmo staggered back. He stopped and glared at the others, knowing better than to try and fight Machie. His eyes glowed with hatred and his body was shaking with anger as he snarled:
‘Fine bunch, you lot. Look at you, suckin’ up to that black b like he was your long lost brother,’ he spat at Sam Bone, the saliva hitting the dark face.
Slowly, Sam came to his feet, rubbing the saliva with the back of his hand. His voice was cold, deadly and bitter. ‘Boy, you gone too far. I’ve took all I aims to from you. If you wants to do something make a start.’
Bartelmo lunged forward, his fists driving at the older man’s face. Just what happened next none of the recruits could say, although Waco, Doc and Machie knew what was happening. They all saw Sam Bone avoid the fists, then there was a tangle of arms; two bodies came together. Then Bartelmo was down on his stomach with Sam Bone standing astride his back, pulling his head back with two strong hands locked under his chin. That was an old Apache wrestling trick and a far more dangerous hold than many.
‘Best give up, soldier,’ Waco warned. ‘Happen Sam drops down with his knee he’s going to bust your back. I wouldn’t want to have to tote even you back out of here like that.’ Contemptuously Sam Bone let loose of the soldier and stepped back. Bartelmo rolled on to his back, then sat up, his hand went to his belt, starting to unclip the flap of the holster.
Machie stepped forward, dragged Bartelmo to his feet and hurled him towards the fire where he’d been sitting with his cronies. ‘You get back there and stay there. When we get back to the fort me’n ole Sergy O’Brien’ll teach you some better manners.’
Bartelmo returned to his own fire and sat down. The rest of his bunch, except for Davies, got to their feet and started to drift towards the other fire where the laughter was resumed amongst the men round it. Bartelmo made no attempt to say anything to them: he knew that they would not accept him as their leader any more. They thought he was tough and on two occasions he had been shown up by those two men. For a time he and Davies sat in moody silence.
‘I’m sick of this whole lousy outfit,’ Bartelmo snarled. ‘Look at them, all of them, sucking round that black feller. They make me retch. I’m going over the hill tonight. We ain’t likely to be going any further west; starting to swing north and then east again tomorrow. So I’m going to take my chance and go down over the border and work my way along to California. You coming with me?’
Davies thought this over. He admired Bartelmo, but he also knew that they were more at home in the city. Out here they were lost and would have a hard and hungry time of it. He also remembered what Waco and Doc had told them of Chacon’s way with prisoners.
‘Not me, Vin,’ he answered. ‘We don’t know how to travel in this country and the Mexicans won’t act friendly. You know what that Ranger told us the first night out?’
‘He was lying, that’s what he was doing,’ Bartelmo answered, seeing Davies weakening and not wanting to go alone. ‘You bet that shavetail told him to tell us all them lies to stop us deserting.’
‘I don’t think he was.’
Bartelmo saw that there would be no chance of getting Davies to go along with him so he snarled, ‘All right then. I’ll go it alone. You give me all your ammunition, you won’t need it and I might.’
Without argument Davies emptied his pistol pouch and the bullets for his Springfield carbine, retaining only the bullet in the carbine’s breech and the loads in the revolver. He did not expect to need the ammunition on this patrol as they had seen nothing to shoot at all the time they’d been out.
‘When you going?’ he asked.
‘I’m standing guard from midnight, I’m going then,’ Bartelmo answered. He was wondering if there was a chance of his killing either Sam Bone or the Ranger before he went. This idea he gave up as impracticable: the shot would wake up the camp and he would never get away.
The patrol went to sleep, rolled in their blankets and at midnight Bartelmo was shaken awake and told to take his turn of guard duty. He allowed a few minutes to go by before he made for the horse lines and collected his horse. He disturbed the other animals but, working fast, he saddled his horse, mounted and rode out of the camp.
Waco and Doc were sleeping side by side. They both woke at the same moment, rolling from their blankets and sat listening. Each of them held a gun and they came to their feet; across the fire from them Machie was also sitting up and looking round and Sam Bone was out of his blankets, fading into the blackness like a shadow.
Shaking Beaulieu awake, Waco hissed, ‘There’s somebody just pulled out of camp.’
The young officer showed his control over his nerves; he did not make a sound for a moment, then replied, ‘Who is it?’
Machie came to them and supplied the answer. ‘Bartelmo’s gone over the hill.’
Sam Bone arrived back to confirm the statement; he had seen Bartelmo riding out but was too late to do anything about it. However, he’d left his hat to serve as a marker for the detail who would go after the deserter, saving them the time of looking for tracks.
For a moment Beaulieu was silent, then he said, ‘We’ll have to send a detail out after him.’
‘Too dark to do a thing now,’ Waco answered. ‘Comes dawn Doc and me’ll go on after him.’
‘Alone?’
‘No, the two of us,’ then the levity left Waco’s voice. ‘You hold your men on the route we planned out this evening at daylight. Me’n Doc’ll get on his trail and bring him back. If he comes up with either Chacon or any other Mexican bunch we’ll have them down on us.’
‘You don’t think they would attack an Army patrol this size?’
‘Why not, they’re bigger’n us and they’ll know it if they meet Bartelmo.’
‘We don’t know that Bartelmo would tell them anything,’ Beaulieu wanted to look at the best side of a fellow soldier against the civilians if he could.
‘A man’ll talk good and plenty with his feet shoved into a fire and a Yaqui skinning knife working under his hide,’ Doc answered. ‘Which same’ll be mild to what they’ll do if they don’t get talk out of him and fast.’
‘Then when they know how many men are in the patrol they come alooking for it,’ Waco went on. ‘And they won’t come whooping and yelling like a drunk Comanche headed for a pow-pow. When they come it’ll be from ambush, trying to get as many of you as they can in the first volley.’
‘Ole Peludo can shoot: he’s got him a Sharps Reliable that holds true at a mile and a half and for close work he’s got him one of these Winchester Centennial rifles. Took it from a storekeeper at Morenci. He’ll show you that Mexicans can fight when he’s ready and got his place picked out,’ Doc carried on.
‘When he’s got it picked you’ll get a chance to use that short-growed wall gun there.’ Waco pointed to the weapon which was Beaulieu’s pride and joy.
It was a sixteen inch barreled Colt Peacemaker, the butt cut for an attachable, skeleton stock, making it either a revolver or a carbine. It was a present to the young officer from his mother and he was sure it would do great things although the two Texans scoffed at the idea. They pointed out that Ned Buntline presented five of those long-barreled pistol-carbines to the Dodge City police force and none of that ‘noble’ bunch of lawmen ever amounted to anything with the guns.
‘If we see Chacon I’ll shoot him a couple of times with my gun before he gets into range of your stingy guns,’ Beaulieu replied, although he knew that behind the banter the two young Texans were worried by the desertion. ‘Do you think we’ll get him back?’
‘Mister,’ Waco’s voice lost all its levity and became grim. ‘We’d better get him back one way or another, and do it afore he falls in with the Mexicans.’
~*~
Waco and Doc were in their saddles at the first light of dawn, riding along the line of tracks made by the departing soldier. Riding side by side they followed their usual routine when doing something like this. Waco followed the sign, reading it as easily as a professor would read a child’s first primer. By his side, rifle across his knees ready for instant use, Doc kept his attention on the range ahead of them.
There was nothing hard, to a man of Waco’s ability, in following the tracks left by Bartelmo. The soldier had left camp and headed south-west in a straight line, making no attempt to hide his sign. Even if he’d made the attempt, it would have taken a better man than the green soldier to mislead Waco.
For two hours they rode at an easy walk; Doc alert for possible ambush and Waco reading the sign. Then Doc brought his horse to a halt and pointed ahead. Hovering and circling in the sky were black shapes, and now and again one would swoop downwards then rocket up again.
‘Buzzards. Could be him.’
‘Could be,’ Waco agreed. ‘I surely hope it isn’t. If it is, then he and us have found bad trouble.’
The deserter had found trouble, bad trouble, just as Waco predicted. They found him lying spread-eagled on the ground, still tied to the pegs which were driven into the earth. Bartelmo was stripped to the waist, his feet still resting on the embers of a fire and with strips of skin removed from his torso. The Mexican bandits had tortured him, then shot him in the stomach as they left. Yet he was still alive, the rise and fall of his chest told them that. How he’d lived this long they did not know; he was barely conscious now, raving in delirium.
Waco made a wry face and rode his horse by the writhing body, swinging down from his saddle to go over the ground and learn what he could from the sign. What he saw gave him cause to worry. A large band of Mexicans had been here, camped, and from the sign, Bartelmo rode in like he was coming home for dinner. They’d pulled him from his horse and staked him out there. The rest he could imagine and shut the thought out of his head.
Doc bent over the writhing, gibbering man; then made out the words Bartelmo repeated over and over. The young Ranger straightened up, looking at his horse. In his warbag he carried a small case with a few surgical instruments; he was equipped to handle broken bones or bullet wounds. But there was nothing he could do for this man for he had neither the equipment nor the drugs to ease, the pain. Bartelmo might lie in agony for a few moments or for hours, there was no way to relieve his sufferings. No way but one.
Doc stood still for a moment, then set his face hard and took out his revolver.
Waco heard the shot but did not turn round; there were some things a man did not want to look upon. He swung into the saddle and waited until Doc came alongside, afork his big black. The pallid face showed no expression at all, but Waco knew his friend was tense behind that expressionless mask.
‘Bartelmo took it like a man. They near-to burned his feet off and skinned him. That means he held on as long as he could. He must have broke in the end and they put a bullet into him.’
Waco gripped his partner’s arm, squeezing it hard. ‘You couldn’t have done a thing for him, the way he was. He was in agony and wouldn’t ever have made it back to Orejano; couldn’t have got him any place where a doctor could take care of him. The sooner I’m back with the blue bellies the happier I’ll be.’
‘And me. Bartelmo kept muttering the regiment was out. That must have been what he was on about and told them. He might have been all kinds of a fool but he died like a man.’
Waco considered this for a spell. Just long enough to put the Kelly pet makers to the flanks of his big paint and head it for the troop of cavalry.
~*~
Sam Bone rode alongside Beaulieu at the head of the patrol, keeping the men moving at a steady pace. They were riding along the bottom of a high cliff, following the now dry bed of what had been a large river. The other bank was a far more gentle slope, covered with rocks, cholla, prickly pear and stinkwood. The cliff wall was in places broken open by what must have been off-shoots of the river, one of them, the largest they’d seen so far, was just ahead.
Sam Bone looked around, rolling his eyes and keeping his attention on the more gentle slope. It was the sort of place an Apache would pick to lay an ambush.
‘I’ve got me a real bad hunch, suh,’ he said, licking his lips. ‘Real bad. Like the time we was hunting ole Geronimo. I got to feeling them Apaches was about.’
‘Well?’
‘They was.’
Sam gave his complete attention to that gentle slope again, scouring every inch of it, trying to locate something which would give him warning of danger ahead.
‘You feel the same way now?’ Beaulieu asked, also looking.
‘I surely does, suh. Reckon you’d best slap the butt on that there long gun of your’n. Happen I’m right, there won’t be time later on.’
Beaulieu drew the long-barreled revolver from the special holster on his saddle and from the back of the holster took the skeleton stock. He screwed the stock on to the butt and sat nursing the gun across his saddle. Looking back he saw Corporal Machie at the rear of the column ease back the hammer of his Springfield. Machie too sensed that all was not well and was alert and watchful.
‘Any sign of the Rangers?’ Beaulieu asked.
Sam twisted round in his old saddle and nodded. ‘They’re coming now, suh. Looks like they found that young feller.’
‘He’s not with them,’ Beaulieu answered, also turning.
‘No suh, he ain’t. That’s why I reckon they found him. Too late.’
Beaulieu raised his hand, halting the patrol just opposite the gap in the cliff. He waited for the Rangers to catch up and wondered what they’d found that was bringing them back in such a hurry.
Riding his big paint stallion at full gallop. Waco scanned the range ahead of him. On the slope above the patrol he saw a flash of color where such a color should not be. He fastened the reins to the saddlehorn, steering the paint with his knees and pulling the heavy Winchester rifle from his saddleboot. He brought the rifle up and fired, the bullet screaming off in a vicious ricochet just in front of the spot where the color had showed for a moment.
From ahead of the patrol, appearing as if they’d come right out of the ground, came many Mexicans, all with rifles lining down on the soldiers. Lead screamed down at the soldiers and for a moment there was panic amongst the recruits; Davies screamed, clutched at his leg and slid from his saddle.
Beaulieu panicked for an instant himself, then regained a grip on his nerves and took command. Even as Machie opened his mouth to bellow orders the young officer shouted, ‘Up that gap there. Dismount and fight on foot.’
The recruits whirled their horses and headed for the hole in the cliff, each man dropping from his saddle as the horses went through the gap and taking up whatever cover he could find. Two of them did not make it, despite the fact that Beaulieu, Machie and Sam Bone were giving them covering fire. The bullets cut round the men and as Beaulieu opened his mouth to tell the other two they could move in Machie was hit in the head and slid from his horse.
‘Get back in there with your men, Lootenant,’ Sam yelled.
Beaulieu whirled his horse, a bullet tearing the campaign hat from his head as he went back. Sam Bone was about to follow when Davies, realizing that he was being left out there, gave a wild screech and sat up.
Sam Bone spun the mule round and headed towards the soldiers, yelling for the patrol to give him covering fire. It was then that he saw the two Rangers barreling down towards him and heard Waco’s wild cry of;
‘Comanche style, Sam.’
Riding by Davies, Sam Bone turned his mule and started it forward. The mule was an old, balky and ornery beast but he knew that when guns roared and lead sang in the air he must obey every command without objection. He lunged forward at a good speed and behind came the rapid thunder of hooves. Sam Bone bent in the saddle, hand reaching down to take hold of Davies’ right arm; then from the corner of his eye the negro saw the huge paint alongside and Waco leaning over to grab the other blue-clad arm. Davies felt himself lifted up and with feet dragging was pulled along between the racing animals.
The Mexicans tried to concentrate their fire on this tempting target, but from under the cliff Beaulieu, exposing himself recklessly, directed a savage covering fire, possessed in his attempt to prevent any Mexican getting a clear shot at Waco.
Through a hail of screaming lead Waco and Sam Bone dragged Davies into the comparative safety of the hole in the cliff. Waco let the soldier fall to the ground again and looked round him. Just how this place was formed he did not know, but it was not what he would have chosen. The hole led into a valley which went back for some hundred yards, then ended in a steep wall. All the valley amounted to was a pocket in the cliff face. There was some grass growing in the pocket, but no water that Waco could see.
Doc joined his friend, examining a hole in his coat and condemning all greasers to eternal damnation. The pallid young man bent over Davies and looked at the bullet wound. From the position of the hole and the fact that Davies could move his leg Doc knew the bullet had missed bone and gone right through. He straightened up and went to his horse, opening his warbag and taking out the box with the surgical instruments.
Davies was sitting up, holding his leg. He looked at Doc, then to where Sam Bone was kneeling alongside Waco, working an old Henry rifle.
‘The black feller came back and saved me,’ he said.
‘Sure,’ Doc agreed. ‘Now if I’d been Sam I’d have let you lie there in case I was taking some white man’s work toting you back in. Here, let me look at that leg.’
With Davies attended to, Doc went back, keeping in what cover he could find until he settled down behind the large rock where Beaulieu, Waco and Sam Bone were kneeling. The young officer held his long-barreled Colt and was putting bullets in the loading gate as he turned the chamber. Doc regarded the weapon with disgust and scoffed:
‘Likely he aims to lean over and poke ole Chacon right in the eye.’
‘Can’t,’ Waco replied. ‘Ole Peludo ain’t with that bunch.’
‘You been over and asked them?’
‘Don’t need to, Doc. If Chacon was there this ambush’d been better set out than it was. He wouldn’t have left a place like this open for us. When you brought your boys in here, Beau, you’d have found rifles waiting for you. That bunch out there aren’t up to Chacon’s style of work.’ Beaulieu was willing to accept Waco’s judgment of the situation and he had an idea the young Texan would prove right. He looked up at the sheer wall of the cliff and asked: ‘Is there any way they can get above us?’
‘Not for a couple of miles, Lootenant, not on a hoss,’ Sam Bone answered. ‘I know this wall here. It goes on for mebbe five miles and for two it’s like this, too steep for a hoss.’
‘Too steep for that ole mule of your’n Sam?’ Waco asked with a grin. ‘You been telling us all along it’s part goat and can climb like a cat.’
‘Ole General Ambilech could get up it and down in a couple of places,’ Sam replied. ‘Why’d you ask?’
‘Just curious,’ Waco answered.
‘Could the Mexicans get above us?’ Beaulieu inquired.
‘Sure, but they won’t,’ Waco replied with confidence. ‘Not if it means doing it on foot. They don’t need to. All the water we’ve got is in the canteens; they can wait until thirst drives us out. Never saw a Mexican who’d take the hard way to do anything, not when there was an easy way of doing it.’
‘How about at night?’
‘Depends on how well they know the country. Put yourself in their position. They’ve got us pinned down and they’re moving along to get in better places.’ Waco pointed to the darting shapes as Mexicans moved from cover to cover until they got in positions opposite the soldiers. ‘Would you pull even half of your men out and send them wandering round in the dark, climbing that wall there when you can get all you want without any of that trouble?’
Beaulieu smiled at the thought of this civilian giving him a lecture on military tactics. He gave an order to his men not to shoot unless they were sure of a hit, for some of the recruits were firing every time a Mexican showed himself. The firing died away on this side of the valley, but the Mexicans kept firing at the rocks in an attempt to make the soldiers waste ammunition.
‘I wouldn’t,’ the officer finally agreed.
‘Nor would they. Besides, like I said, a Mexican will never do anything the hard way when he can do it easy. How about—’
‘Gringos, hey gringos!’ a voice shouted from the other side. ‘Come on out, leave us your money and your guns and you can go free. We don’t want to harm you.’
‘You want our guns come on over and get them,’ Waco yelled back. ‘But you watch the other soldiers don’t get you.’
This caused something of a sensation amongst the Mexicans, several of them gathered together in a bunch well up on top of the other slope. All were talking and there were Shouted inquiries in Spanish which Doc and Waco translated for the benefit of Beaulieu. It was Doc who explained about Bartelmo’s story of the regiment being out. The Mexicans appeared to be taking it seriously, but they did not show any signs of calling off the attack until some sign of reinforcements showed.
Beaulieu called one of his men, the oldest soldier amongst the recruits, and told him off to collect all the canteens, then place a guard on them. He then made the rounds of his men, darting from cover to cover and risking death at each move. With each man he stayed for a time, talking to them and raising their spirits. With this done he returned to Waco, Doc and Sam, who’d been watching him with some admiration.
‘Reckon you’d best have that bugler of your’n sound a few calls through the day, like he was calling to the other soldiers,’ Waco suggested.
‘And you’ve been saying all along that he was a waste of time,’ Beaulieu replied. ‘Do you reckon we could make a run for it?’
‘Not without losing at least half of the patrol,’ Waco replied. ‘We’d best stay where we are for now.’
‘After that?’
‘Waal, I’ll tell you. For a choice I’d rather go out fighting than be captured by that bunch over there.’
For the rest of the day the Mexicans held down a steady and desultory fire on the soldiers, doing no damage and causing no casualties. The aim of the bandits was to hold down the gringos until proof that the rest of the regiment were or were not out. If the regiment was out, the Mexicans would head for the border fast. If not, well odds of two to one were just what the bandits liked.
Night came down and across the valley fires sprang up, lighting the area in front of the pocket even though there was no moon. Waco guessed this would happen and warned Beaulieu that there would be no wild rush out into the night as they had hoped might be presented to them. The soldiers pulled back into the pocket as being easier to guard; sentries were put out and the rest of the men stood down, but without fires.
Just before they turned in for the night, Waco and Sam Bone held a conference; what they talked about none of the others knew. The recruits and Beaulieu got little sleep that night, but when they were not taking their turn at rounds, Waco and Doc rolled in their blankets and slept soundly.
‘Sam Bone’s gone!’
Waco rolled out of his blankets in the cold light of dawn and looked up at Beaulieu. The young officer pointed to where Sam had tethered his mule the night before.
‘Lit out, huh?’
‘Yes, I thought he might have stuck by us. He even took the bugle along.’
Waco did not reply. He went to the edge of the pocket and looked across to where the Mexicans were taking up their places.
‘Did you know he’d gone?’
‘Why sure, I heard him.’
‘Why didn’t you try and stop him?’
‘No need. Like I told you last night me, Doc or Sam could likely get up that face and head back to Orejano, it wouldn’t do the rest of us any good at all. Long afore we could make it there and get reinforcements fetched from the Fort the greasers would have us. ’Sides, me’n Doc couldn’t get a hoss up there and I surely can’t see us walking far in these boots.’
Beaulieu watched Waco, wondering why the young Texan was watching the other side of the valley so carefully. He could not understand the young Texan’s attitude at Sam Bone’s desertion. Beaulieu opened his mouth to ask a question then saw a Mexican rise and point off along the valley.
‘Get your men mounted!’ There was urgency in Waco’s voice. ‘Pronto! ’
‘What do you mean?’ Beaulieu asked.
‘Move, mister, we’re going into the attack. We’re going out of here whooping and hollering fit to bust, and shooting.’
‘You seen something we missed, boy?’ Doc asked.
‘Mebbe. Happen I call this wrong you can cuss me out. If Saint Peter allows cussing up here.’
Beaulieu stared as Waco ran back and tightened the girths of his paint’s saddle, then swung up. There was an urgency about the Texan that brooked no delay and put direction into the limbs of the soldiers. They grabbed their horses, one of them heaving Davies into his saddle before mounting himself. All eyes were on the tall young Texan who sat at the head of the pocket, a gun in either hand.
The Mexicans were getting excited, men running backwards and forwards and pointing off, while shouting to each other.
‘Yeeah!’
The rebel yell shattered the air, throwing back echoes against the walls of the pocket. With that yell Waco put the pet makers to his paint, causing it to leap forward like the devil after a yearling. Beaulieu roared out, ‘Charge!’
For once in his life, in the brief, whirling second after he left the mouth of the pocket, Waco thought he’d made a bad mistake. Looking along in the direction the Mexicans were staring he saw dust rising; far too much dust for one lone man mounted on a mule. If he’d called this play wrong he’d soon know, for Mexican lead would cut him down.
Then from the fast-rolling cloud of dust came the most beautiful sound Waco had ever heard. A bugle screaming the wild, mad notes of the charge.
That was all the Mexicans wanted to hear. They saw the soldiers coming at them, led by the wild Tejano on a wild-eyed horse and with a brace of roaring guns in his hands. Then they heard the bugle and knew that the captured soldier spoke truly, the regiment was out. A fair portion of it was coming this way. Enough to narrow the odds against the men they’d ambushed.
The slope was crowded with running Mexicans, bounding up to the top and heading for their horses as fast as they could go. There was no sight in the world so guaranteed to rouse a soldier as the backs of a fleeing enemy and those recruits reacted like veterans. They cut down on the running Mexicans, sending them rolling in the dirt.
At the top of the slope Waco roared. “Beau, call them off!’
Beaulieu stared wildly at Waco, then back at the rapid riding Mexicans, scattering and heading for the border as fast as they could go. Then the mad fighting light died from his eyes, and like a bugle call his voice rang out ‘Re-form on me. Re-form the troop.’
It took some time to cool the fight-mad soldiers down, but at last they were under control again. Flushed and grinning at each other they assembled, all eager to tell each other of the part they had taken in the fight.
‘What happened?’ Beaulieu turned to Waco. ‘Where did the other troop come from?’
‘Over there. Colonel Bone and his one man, one mule army.’
Sam Bone rode up, one hand holding the bugle, the other patting his mule’s neck. From his saddlehorn was a rope and at the end of it, still stirring up dust, was a big clump of mesquite. His face was split by a grin that almost stretched from ear to ear and he raised his hand in a salute.
Waco held out a hand, gripping Sam’s and asked, ‘Why’d you do that. You like to scared me out of a year’s growth when I saw that dust.’
‘You mean you knew all along that Sam was out there?’ Beaulieu asked, eyeing the two grinning men. ‘Why didn’t you say?’
‘I didn’t know if he’d make it at all. We fixed it together. Sam took ole General Ambilech up the face there where a hoss couldn’t have gone. He was supposed to stay back out of sight and blow calls. Looks like he thought his own idea out and tried it.’
‘What now, Lootenant?’ Sam Bone asked.
‘Form a burial detail for our men and then carry on looking for Chacon.’
‘Won’t do any good at all,’ Waco answered, ‘Chacon isn’t out.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘Ole Peludo’s like a silvertip grizzly. He hunts with his bunch and he won’t let no other bunch hunt his bailiwick. That crowd there weren’t fit to wipe Chacon’s boots; they’d never work any place where he was likely to be.’
Beaulieu looked at the still shapes on the hill, then at Waco and Doc. ‘I reckon you’re right, like always,’ he said.
~*~
The patrol returned to Orejano by the shortest route. There was confirmation and proof of Waco’s judgment waiting for them in the shape of a message from Captain Mosehan. Waco read it then handed it to Beaulieu.
‘Chacon seen on New Mexico line; return to Tucson as fast as possible or even faster.’
The young officer turned to Sam Bone. They were at the door of his small shop and the troop were lined up ready to move out again.
‘Forgot to ask you, Sam. Where did you learn to blow the bugle?’
‘Was the bestest bugler my regiment ever had, suh,’ Sam answered.
One of the soldiers turned to Davies and snorted. ‘You said Sam didn’t fight in the war, didn’t you?’
Beaulieu gave the order and the troop rode by the three men, the answer Davies gave being lost to them.
‘I’m sure pleased they didn’t ask me what regiment,’ Sam Bone remarked. He stepped into the building and came out carrying an Army uniform.
It was Confederate grey, not Union blue.