Chapter Four
Red Ryan and Buttons Muldoon stood at the counter of the sutler’s store eating cheese and crackers with Hannah Huckabee and Mr. Chang.
“Perhaps Colonel Grierson thinks that Captain John Latimer is not a coward,” Hannah said. “If that’s the opinion of a brave man, then it bears weight, but in Latimer’s case his sympathy might be misplaced.”
“Miss Hannah, have you heard of this man Latimer before?” Buttons said.
“Yes. He fought in the Afghan war in India, or didn’t fight as the case may be.”
Red said, “The colonel mentioned that war to Buttons and me. It must be when Latimer turned yellow.”
“It would seem so,” Hannah said. She used the tip of her left pinkie finger to remove a cracker crumb from the corner of her mouth. “The rumor is that Captain Latimer ran away from a fight to save his own skin and left his soldiers to die. His command was wiped out to a man.”
Mr. Chang tutted and then said, “Fortune turns a deaf ear to the prayers of cowards. Better for the man Latimer that he’d never been born.”
“I rather fancy that’s what he’s thinking about now,” Hannah said. “He can be thankful that Colonel Grierson elected not to throw him in the stockade.”
“Where is he?” Red said.
“He’s confined to quarters.”
“Isn’t the colonel afraid he’ll escape?” Buttons said.
“The colonel said Latimer gave himself up willingly, so I hardly think he’ll try to escape.” Hannah yawned behind her hand. “I’m all in,” she said. “I’ll read Mr. Verne for a while and then to bed.”
“It’s dark out. I’ll walk you to your quarters, Hannah,” Red said.
The woman nodded. “As you wish.” She smiled. “Red, you are very gallant.”
* * *
A well-worn path led from the sutler’s store to officers’ row, a gray ribbon in the moonlight that wound around the parade ground and across the front of the headquarters building. The shadows cast by scattered buildings were dark and deep, and exploring fingers of mist clung close to the ground, drifting in from the grasslands. The cool air smelled of the day’s as yet unsettled dust and of the strong coffee, black as mortal sin, that simmered constantly in a sooty pot in the cookhouse.
Hannah Huckabee in moonlight was a thing of beauty, and Red Ryan kept sneaking looks at her face and hair as they walked. She was a lithe, slim girl who moved well, her full lips moist and slightly parted as she breathed the cool night air. Hannah called herself an adventuress, but in Red’s opinion, goddess would be a more apt description.
It was Hannah who saw the three figures . . . or was it four . . . before Red Ryan did. But they both heard the frightened cry of a girl and then an angry male curse, followed by what sounded like a violent slap.
“Red, what’s going on over there in the dark?” Hannah said. “Can you see?”
“No, I can’t, but I intend to find out,” Red said.
“Maybe it’s just a lovers’ quarrel?” Hannah said.
“It didn’t sound like that to me,” Red said. “Hannah, go find some soldiers and bring them here.”
He quickened his pace, but Hannah kept up at his side. Ahead of them came another cry, stifled this time as though someone held a hand over a woman’s mouth.
“Hannah, there’s something going on over there. I think you should stay back,” Red whispered. His hand was close to his holstered Colt.
“No, I’m coming with you,” Hannah said. “This could be an adventure, and after all, I’m an adventuress.”
“Then stay behind me, adventuress,” Red said, smiling despite the clutch of tension in his gut.
Now as he drew closer, Red saw what was happening, and it didn’t look good. The shadowy figures of three men stood around a smaller person lying on the ground. One of the men had dropped his pants and drawers, and his bare butt was a white moon in the uncertain light.
A hiss of alarm and then a man’s voice said, “Somebody’s coming!”
Now Red saw what was about to take place and he drew his revolver. “Here,” he said, “that won’t do. I am a representative of the Abe Patterson and Son Stage and Express company, and I order you to cease and desist.”
A tall, lanky figure took a step toward him and the man said, “She’s only an Apache squaw. Now, beat it. We ain’t in the mood for sharing.”
Red turned his head slightly and said, “Please, Hannah, get away from here. Go get help.”
But the woman, the brim of her goggled pith helmet low over her eyes against the moon glare, had other plans.
“I know what you are!” she yelled. “You’re a bunch of damnable rapists.”
The tall man stepped closer. He wore a gun and a savage expression. “Shut your trap, girlie, unless you want to take her place,” he said. “Hell, now I get a good look at you, you will take her place.”
“I will do no such thing, you sorry piece of trash,” Hannah said.
The tall man said, “We’ll see about that.” He drew his gun. “Do you want to step over here, or do I come for you?”
Hannah Huckabee’s answer was short, sharp, and to the point . . . a bullet from the Colt she’d pulled from her skirt pocket that slammed into the man’s chest and dropped him.
“Damn, lady!” Red yelled.
A bullet split the air inches from his head, and then events occurred very fast.
Red thumbed off a shot at the man who’d fired at him, missed in the gloom, and then he felt another bullet tug at his sleeve. He fired again and a third time. At least one of his shots took effect, because his opponent shrieked and dropped to his knees, then fell flat on his face. While this happened, the third man was hopping around on one leg, trying to pull up his pants. As Hannah would say later, “He should have gone for his gun, not his drawers.” She fired twice, two shots very close, and the would-be rapist staggered, got tangled in his pants, and fell. He didn’t rise again.
Acrid gray gunsmoke drifted, men yelled, and booted feet pounded, coming from all directions.
Red quickly took stock of the three men sprawled on the ground, realized there was no fight left in them, and lifted a young Apache girl to her feet, her bruised, swollen face revealing the beating she’d taken.
Grierson and other officers and soldiers arrived. The colonel had pulled on boots, breeches, and his blouse but still wore his nightcap. He looked at the girl and the three dead men and said, “Mr. Ryan, do you have an explanation for this?”
Red opened his mouth to answer, but Hannah Huckabee cut him off. “Colonel, those three men were about to rape this poor girl before Mr. Ryan and myself intervened,” Hannah said. Her face flushed with anger. “I will not stand idly by when I witness the most singular violence leveled against the weaker sex. I was bound by my honor as a woman and an adventuress to intervene, sir.” She thrust out her hands. “Here, clap me in irons, but I’d do it again if I had to.”
Grierson shook his head and, in a resigned voice, said, “All right, Mr. Ryan, who shot who?”
Again, Hannah was quick to answer. “Both myself and Mr. Ryan fired at the miscreants in the dark, but I could not determine which of us did the most execution.”
“Ryan?” the colonel said.
“That sounds about right,” Red said. “It was dark and hard to see anything but moving shadows, but one of them had a gun in his hand.”
“For two people who couldn’t see, it seems that you both did very well,” Grierson said.
“Colonel, come see this,” a voice said from the gloom.
Grierson took a step forward, realized that the tassel of his sleeping cap dangled down his cheek, and irritably pulled it off his head. “What am I looking at?” he said.
“The man with his pants down,” Ranger Tim Adams said. “A couple of years ago, I saw him down old Fort Mason way. He didn’t have a beard at that time and he was in chains, but as I live and breathe, that’s Boone Marker.”
“I’ve never heard of him,” Grierson said. As though suddenly aware he was holding his nightcap, he sourly shoved it into his pocket. “Who the hell is he? Or was he?”
Red had been listening, and now he said, “Boone Marker was a gun out of the Brazos River country. For a spell, he ran with Mannen Clements and that hard crowd, and then hitched up with Dave Winter and them.”
“He was a bad one, Colonel,” Tim Adams said. “A killer, rapist, and bank robber who was sometimes confused with his older brother Brink. Before he got hung, Brink was a bad man to the bone, but he wasn’t a patch on Boone.”
“Mr. Ryan, do you recognize the other two?” Grierson said.
Red shook his head. “No, I don’t.”
“Me neither,” Ranger Adams said.
“Excuse me, gentlemen, but what about the victim here?” Hannah said. She had her arm around the trembling Apache girl’s shoulders and held her close.
“Oh, yes . . . yes, of course . . .” Grierson said. “Was she . . . I mean . . .”
“You mean, was she raped?” Hannah said.
“Ah . . . yes . . . quite . . .”
“No, she wasn’t. Mr. Ryan and I saved her just in time.”
The habit of command reasserted itself, and Colonel Grierson said, “I’ll have the post doctor treat her wounds.”
“Who is she?” Hannah said. “Have you seen her before around the post?
“No, I can’t say I have,” the colonel said. “There are some Apaches camped close to the fort, and I’ll have enquiries made there. Someone must know who she is.”
“I know who she is,” Hannah said. “She can’t speak English, but she pointed to herself and said, ‘Dahteste.’”
“I’m pretty certain that in the Apache tongue that means Warrior Woman,” Ranger Adams said.
Hannah smiled. “Good. I like that name very much. Dahteste will be an adventuress.” She said to Grierson, “I’ll take her to the doctor and then reunite her with her parents.”
“Be warned, Miss Huckabee,” the colonel said. “There are many orphans among the Apache. You may not find her parents.”
“Please, Colonel, don’t build houses on a bridge I haven’t crossed yet,” Hannah said, frowning.
Red smiled. “Colonel, if there are parents, Miss Huckabee will find them.”
“Damn right I will, Mr. Ryan,” Hannah said.
Colonel Grierson said to Ranger Adams, “Do you think that Miss Huckabee and Mr. Ryan should in any way face criminal charges?”
“No, I don’t,” Adams said. “I think they probably did us all a favor.”
“My sentiments entirely,” Grierson said.
Hannah made a face and said, “Charges? I should think not.”