CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Because of the simmering tension between Red Ryan and Seth Roper, Buttons Muldoon made it clear that he’d decided to forgo sleep and drive directly for Fort Bliss without any further stops.
“Buttons, there aren’t any more stage stops between here and the Franklin Mountains,” Red said.
“I know that,” Buttons said. “My plan is a halt just long enough to rest the horses and let the passengers stretch their legs.” He took his eyes off the trotting team and turned his head. “You still aim to turn Roper over to the law?”
“Just as soon as we reach El Paso,” Red said.
“Pity Dallas Stoudenmire is no longer with us,” Buttons said. “He had a way of dealing with the likes of Roper. He’d just shoot him.” He called out over his shoulder. “You hear that, Seth?”
From his perch on top of the stage, Roper said, “Hear what?”
“That if ol’ Dallas Stoudenmire was still El Paso city marshal he would shoot you on sight fer a scoundrel.”
“Stoudenmire couldn’t shade me, not on his best day, he couldn’t,” Roper yelled above the rumble of wheels on the sun-baked ground.
“Easy to say now he’s dead,” Buttons said.
“What about you, Ryan? Do you reckon I could’ve shaded Stoudenmire?”
“I know you can shoot an unarmed man in the belly, Roper,” Red said. “And that’s all I know.”
Roper laughed. “You’re a funny man, Ryan, a very funny man.”
Muldoon didn’t like where the conversation was headed. He hoorawed the team into a canter . . . and fifteen minutes later he saw the Apache.
* * *
“Ahead of us, Red,” Buttons said.
“I see him,” Red said. “He’s watching us.”
The Apache sat his pony just out of rifle range. He wore a soldier’s blue coat with corporal’s chevrons on the sleeves and carried a Winchester, the butt resting on his thigh.
Red grabbed his shotgun and said, “Drive straight at him, Buttons. Let’s see what he does.”
“Right now, he’s not doing anything,” Buttons said. “Ah, and now he’s made a liar out of me.”
The Indian yipped, swung his horse around, and rode back the way he’d come.
“Slow down, Buttons,” Red said. “He might be trying to lead us into an ambush.”
Buttons slowed the team to a walk as Lucian Carter stuck his head out the stage window and said, “Ryan, what’s happening?”
“Apache,” Red said.
“How many?”
“Just one.”
“And one’s enough,” Buttons said.
Red heard Edna Powell say, “Oh dear no, not again,” exactly expressing his own thought.
“Ryan, where do you want me?” Carter said. “You’re the general here.”
“Stay where you are,” Red said. “If we’re attacked again, you’ll protect the ladies.”
But the attack never came.
When the Apache showed again he rode with a buffalo soldier cavalry patrol led by a white captain wearing a fringed buckskin jacket with Cheyenne beadwork. The officer led his men to the stage and drew rein.
Buttons had halted the team and now he said, “What can I do for you, Cap’n?”
“I’m Captain James Moore, Company L 9th Cavalry,” the soldier said. “I’ve been ordered to find and escort an officer’s wife to Fort Bliss. We were informed by wire from Fort Concho that she left several days ago. Is she on this stage, driver?”
“Would that be Mrs. Stella Morgan?” Buttons said.
“It would,” the captain said.
“The lady is inside,” Buttons said.
Captain Moore kneed his horse to the side of the stage, looked inside, and said to Stella, “You are Mrs. Morgan, I presume.”
Stella smiled and fluttered her lashes. “Indeed I am.”
“Captain James Moore at your service, ma’am.” He bowed in the saddle. “I am here to escort you to Fort Bliss.”
“You are very gallante, Captain,” Stella said.
“Your obedient servant, dear lady.” Moore looked at Edna and Rhoda. “And you women are?”
“I’m the wife of Corporal Powell,” Edna said, smiling. “And my companion is the wife of Corporal Carr. Our husbands are serving with the 15th Infantry.”
“Ah yes, I was told a couple of enlisted men’s women might be on the stage,” the captain said, dismissing them.
Stella said, “For a moment there I harbored the brief hope that Major Morgan would be with you, Captain.”
“Alas, dear lady, the major was wounded in a skirmish with some hostiles,” Moore said. He read Stella’s face and said, “Nothing serious, a slight inner leg wound, but enough to keep him out of the saddle for another week or so.”
“Then I’ll count the hours until I can be at his side,” Stella said.
“And that’s what I would expect to hear from an officer’s lady wife,” Captain Moore said. “I hope that when I enter into the state of matrimony I find a bride who will display such love and devotion.” He glanced at Lucian Carter, touched the brim of his forage cap, and then swung his horse away.
“Judging by the bullet holes in the coach, you’ve been under attack,” Moore said to Red Ryan.
“Yes, Captain, we had a brush with Apaches,” Red said.
“Well, I have good tidings. The latest news we have on the wire is that the war chief Ilesh is dead and that the Chiricahua are already drifting back to the San Carlos,” the soldier said.
Red wanted to say, “I know he’s dead, because we killed him,” but he decided against it. Captain Moore wouldn’t believe him anyway. He settled for, “That’s good to hear.”
“Indeed, it is,” the captain said. “Probably Ilesh and his band ran into a punitive column from Fort Concho, and they killed the rascal.”
Buttons looked at Red from the corner of his eye, but said nothing. Roper was also silent, no doubt because he didn’t wish to draw attention to himself. The army exerted real power on the plains and with Ryan’s threat of a murder charge hanging over him, the last thing he wanted was to deal with any kind of legal authority.
Buttons said, “You plan to ride straight through to the fort, Cap’n?” Buttons said.
“No, driver, we’ll camp tonight and reach Fort Bliss by tomorrow evening,” Moore said. “It will be good for Mrs. Morgan to get out of the cramped stage for a while and enjoy the stars.”
“And the other ladies will too,” Red said.
“What other ladies?”
“Mrs. Powell and Mrs. Carr.”
“Oh, yes, of course, and them too,” Captain Moore said.
* * *
When night fell and Captain Moore and his buffalo soldiers made camp, the troopers made a fire big enough to boil coffee and fry bacon. Buttons Muldoon was amazed. “Cap’n, we’re surrounded by nothing but grass, how do them black boys find the makings for a fire?” he said.
“I don’t know,” Moore said. “But I swear they could start a blaze on top of an iceberg.”
The night passed uneventfully, apart from one incident that puzzled Red Ryan and made him wonder at Stella Morgan’s thinking. She sat close to Captain Moore, her firelit eyes on the scout. “He is an Apache, isn’t he?” she asked, nodding in the Indian’s direction.
“Yes, he is,” Moore said. “His name is Nascha and he’s a Jicarilla.”
“Bring it over here,” Stella said.
Moore looked puzzled but he spoke to the scout in his own tongue and the man stood near Stella. After a while she reached out a hand and the tips of her fingers lightly stroked the smooth skin of the Apache’s brown, muscular thigh. Stella’s tongue touched her top lip and she shuddered, her breath coming in little gasps. Finally she withdrew her hand and said, “Send it away, Captain Moore. It smells.”
The officer did as Stella asked, then he and Ryan exchanged glances. Moore looked as puzzled and ill at ease as Red did.