Ambush on the Mesa (4 page)

“So?”

“When we reached the place where the cattle had been stampeded, Mrs. Nettleton and I were orderd to stay back so that we wouldn’t see what had happened. From what the men tell me, it was awful. But no drafts were brought back to the camp. I’m almost sure of that.”

“Who led the men to the place where Winston was killed?”

“All three of the officers went.”

“Anyone else?”

“Corporal Roswell, Privates Pearce, Willis and Stevens.” She gazed at him closely. “What are you thinking about, Hugh?”

“About going on a scout.”

“Is that all?”

“That’s all,” he said shortly. He walked away from her.

As Hugh passed the camp he heard Mrs. Nettleton call out “Katy! Do get some water and bathe my temples, like a good girl.”

Hugh looked back as he reached the trees. Mrs. Nettleton acted as though everyone in the camp were enlisted in her personal service. There was one person who wasn’t — Hugh Kinzie.

T
HE TRAIL
didn’t improve as Hugh walked north from the camp. It was tough going afoot, even for a man in top physical condition. Deer eyed him from afar, seemingly unafraid of him, and he knew by that sign that they were unaccustomed to seeing humans in their country. As he went on, he occasionally saw ancient fields which had been cultivated by the Hohokam.

It was about noon when he found the trail. It was plainly marked on the earth, trending to the northwest into a rough-walled canyon. There were no indication of wheel ruts nor hoof marks. It had been made by foot travelers, and had been well used.

Hugh shoved back his hat and wiped the sweat from his forehead. He eyed the trail, following it until it was lost to sight in thickets and rock formations, beyond which he could see a humped shape rising high into the sky — a rocky mesa stippled with scrub trees and big pines. He wondered who had made that trail and where it went. He looked to the northeast. There the country was a jumbled mass of mountains, seemingly impassable. Maybe the trail led to the San Francisco, for its headwaters were to the northwest. To follow the trail would entail hard marches, forcing the party to go miles out of their way. But possibly there was a way to trend east again toward the Rio Grande. Yet he did not want to chance breaking a way through the range to the east.

Hugh sipped water from his canteen and then began to follow the trail. There were places where rock slides covered it. There were other places where floods had swept away all traces of the trail, like a giant broom. But he found it again
after he had lost it for a time. The walls of the canyon came close together and he walked along looking high above him to see brush and graying driftwood wedged in cracks and crannies. A flash flood would fill the narrow canyon with water many feet deep, sweeping everything before it.

Long shadows were slanting down the slopes when he climbed over a jumbled mass of rock thickly grown with thorny brush. Beyond him he could see where the canyon widened; its walls slanted back on the left below the great mesa he had seen. To the right the walls were almost sheer, seemingly awaiting a gun shot to make them crumble in an avalanche. He looked up the canyon, but the shadows were thick up there and a great shoulder of rock protruded into the canyon to block his vision. There was no way of knowing whether or not the trail continued around the rock shoulder or petered out in a chaos of rock.

He sat on a rock and studied the canyon. There was a curious, even line of rock, high on the left wall. It rose in several tiers and seemed to be of a different color than the rest of the rock. Dark patches, curiously even, showed at regular intervals along the rock line. He felt for his field glasses and then remembered he had left them at the camp.

He stood up and picked up his carbine, still looking at the curious rock formation. He shrugged and turned away. He wasn’t in that lonely country to study geology.

Once he left the mouth of the canyon, he headed swiftly back toward the camp. The sun was gone behind the western heights and a cool wind blew against his back, chilling him through his sweat-soaked shirt.

A shot flatted off as he neared the camp. The echo slammed back and forth between the heights on either side. Hugh trotted forward, cocking and capping his Sharps. Then he saw the people of the party behind the low wall where they had made their camp. Greer, the orderly, was running toward the wall with his carbine in his hands.

Hugh came up behind the camp. Stevens turned swiftly and raised his carbine, then lowered it as he saw Hugh. Greer stumbled wearily to the wall and grounded his carbine. “Apaches,” he said in his high-pitched voice.

Carbines were thrust over the wall. Abel Clymer took out his Colt and cocked it. He strode back and forth as though he were on the quarterdeck of a frigate going into battle.

Hugh dropped over the wall. “Get in here, Greer,” he said.

Greer was helped over the wall by Stevens. His face was white with fear.

“Did you actually see an Apache?” asked Hugh.

“Yes.”

Hastings spat. “He’s liable to see anything.”

Greer wiped the cold sweat from his narrow face. “I was on guard, Kinzie,” he said nervously. “The wind was rustling the brush. Then I saw the brush move a hundred yards from me. There was something dark in amongst the brush. I shot at it.”

Hugh gripped him by the shirt front. “But did you see a warrior?”

Greer looked at the people surrounding him. Then he looked away. “Well, now I’m not so sure.”

Clymer raised a big hand. “I ought to buck and gag you,” he said.

“Saddle the horses,” said Hugh. “Get the pack mules ready.”

“Why?” asked Nettleton. He wet his lips. “If there are no Apaches out there we can spend the night here.”

“You’ve had a full day’s rest. The horses and mules are all right now. We couldn’t hold this position if the Apaches got above us. First thing you’d know, they’d stampede the animals, then sit up on those heights and shoot at us. We’d be like fish in a barrel.”

Phillips rubbed his jaw. “He’s right.”

Clymer shot a look of scorn at Phillips. “You’re both as panicky as Greer.”

Nettleton looked down the canyon. “What did you find, Kinzie?”

“There is a trail north of here.”

Nettleton looked at his wife and then sighed deeply. “Good! Then we can make for the Rio Grande.”

“No. There’s no way through there that I could find. This trail leads northwest, possibly to the San Francisco.”

“We’re not going that way,” said Clymer.

Hugh looked at him. “Then stay here. I’m going north. If all of you want to take a chance on that trail you’d better go with me.”

Nettleton nodded. “Then we must chance it.”

Clymer twirled his Colt by its trigger guard, then deftly slid it into his holster. “Phillips! See to the horses.”

Phillips flushed. Clymer treated him like a corporal instructing
a raw recruit. Then without a word he beckoned to Willis, Pearce and Stevens, and led them to the animals.

Hugh walked south down the canyon. He stopped at the place where the guard had been. The canyon was deep in shadow. A hawk floated high overhead on a leisurely hunt for food. Suddenly he flew swiftly off to the west. There was no other sign of life down there, but there was a brooding air about the place.

Hugh scanned the brush. It moved in the wind. A more stable man than Greer would have thought something was moving about in the brush.

Hugh walked back to the camp. Roswell was saddling Hugh’s buckskin. “See anything?” he asked.

Hugh shook his head.

“Greer scares easy.”

“Nerves have a way of failing in this country. Maybe it’s what you don’t see that frightens you.”

Roswell nodded. “I know what you mean.”

Hugh led the buckskin to the wall. Mrs. Nettleton stood there with her shawl over her shoulders. “You’ll ride all night after that hard scout up the canyon?” she asked.

Hugh took off his hat. “It’s my job, Mrs. Nettleton.”

She took in his broad shoulders and slim waist. Hugh was suddenly conscious of his whiskers and sweaty clothing.

“You feel better now?” he asked.

“Yes, thank you. Will it be a hard ride?”

He smiled. “Anywhere within fifty square miles around here is a hard ride.”

“Will we ever reach the Rio Grande?”

He looked away. “Certainly.”

She came closer. “Don’t lie to me.”

He looked down at her. “All right, then. It’s a fifty-fifty chance. Maybe less.”

She looked at her husband. He was checking the lashing on a mule pack. “Maurice is worried about me. But I’m tougher than he thinks I am.”

Hugh grinned. “You should be. You’re Boss Bennett’s daughter, aren’t you?”

She smiled. “You know of him then?”

“I’m from Missouri too.”

She placed a hand on his arm. “Now I feel better. Stay close to me on the trail, Mr. Kinzie.”

“I will.”

He watched her walk gracefully toward her horse. Abel Clymer held its reins. He looked over her head at Hugh, and there was cold hate on his broad face.

Hugh swung up on his horse. Katy Corse rode up to him. “I see you have the same old fascination,” she said.

“What’s bothering you, Katy?”

She looked at Marion Nettleton. Clymer was standing there talking to her, with a smile on his face. “Her,” she said.

“Meaning?”

Katy tilted her head to one side and studied Hugh. “There are some women who like all men. They think men have been put on earth for one purpose … to take care of them, and them alone.”

“Katy, set your mind at rest. I want to get this party to safety, then go about fighting a war. Right now I haven’t got time to worry about Marion Nettleton beyond getting her to the Rio Grande.” He spurred forward and left her.

“I wonder,” Katy Corse said softly.

Darrell Phillips posted Willis and Stevens at the rear of the party, then rode over to Katy. “You’re ready?” he asked.

She glanced at him. “As ready as I’ll ever be, Mr. Phillips.”

He leaned close to her. “My friends call me Darrell.”

“Darrell, then.”

“Thanks,” he said.

They rode together at the rear of the party.

A
NY
A
PACHE
within a mile would know where the struggling party was. The thought was Hugh Kinzie’s as he sat his horse by the side of the trail listening to the noisy progress up the dark canyon. Hoofs clashed against rock. A mule bawled now and then. Metal clashed against metal. Men cursed. The cacophony rose up into the night and echoed loudly from the canyon walls, magnifying the din manyfold.

There would be a new moon that night, of that Hugh was sure. It would help to show the trail, but it would also show
the travelers to keen Mimbreno eyes. But if they had been traveling in ink, the noises they made would reveal them to anyone.

Hugh cut a chew and stowed it into his mouth. He wanted a smoke, but knew better than to make a light. As the noise of the party was dimmed by the distance, he became aware of the natural night sounds. The moaning of the wind through the canyon. The rustling of brush. The occasional cry of a night bird.

He looked down the canyon. He was sure that sonofabitch Jorge Dura had split the wind to alert the Mimbrenos. He should have killed him with no more compunction than a mountain lion has when killing a deer. Hugh slid a hand along his cold carbine barrel. If he saw Dura with the Mimbrenos he’d break his own neck to get a bead on him.

Hugh wondered which of the men in the party he could rely on in a tight fight. He discarded Greer and Nettleton. Greer would run; Nettleton would be worried about his wife. Hastings would fight. He had guts, for all his big mouth. Stevens and Roswell would be steady. Pearce and Willis would look out for their own rumps. Isaiah Morton would be down on his knees. Phillips had a high sort of courage, in Hugh’s opinion. Clymer might be the type of big bully who turns yellow when a little man stands up to him. It was all in the deck and the Apaches had marked cards.

He listened again to the night sounds. Greer might have seen an Apache. If he had, there would be more of them, probably nosing around like questing hounds at the deserted camping place.

Hugh touched the buckskin with his spurs. There was nothing but darkness behind him as he rode up the canyon, but his imagination peopled it with Mimbrenos, moving silently and swiftly on the trail.

• • •

The moon was casting a sickly pale light into the canyon when the party reached the place where the ancient trail trended northwest. Hugh called a halt. The light was good enough for them to continue on into the big canyon he had seen beyond the rock wall.

The men dismounted. Clymer helped Marion Nettleton to the ground. Katy Corse slid from her saddle and glanced at them. Nettleton bustled over to his wife, glanced angrily at
Clymer and then looked at her. “Are you all right, Marion?” he asked.

“She’s fine, Captain,” said Clymer.

“I didn’t ask you, Abel.”

Clymer shrugged and then went to his horse. He took his canteen and drank from it, watching Nettleton and his wife.

“The big stud is working overtime, as usual,” said a dry voice behind Hugh.

Hugh turned. It was Chandler Willis.

“Got a chew, scout?” asked Willis.

Hugh silently handed him his plug. Willis cut off a chew and stowed it in his wide mouth. He worked it into pliability and then spat.
“Bueno!”
he said.

“Where’s Pearce?”

Willis shrugged. “Somewheres. Taking care of nature’s call, most likely.”

“Get him. Go back down the trail. Watch and listen. For God’s sake keep quiet.”

Willis hitched up his gunbelt. “Shore. I been around red-sticks before.”

“Where?”

“Apaches. Comanches. Lipans. Kiowas. Tonks.”

“You’re from Texas?”

Willis shifted his chew and spat forcefully. “Now I didn’t say that, did I?” He wandered off into the shadows. “Hey, Dan!” he called out. “Get your carbeen. We got guard.”

“Again? Ain’t there no other soldiers around here?”

Willis laughed. “Just you and me, sonny.
Vamos!”

The two troopers tramped down the canyon. Hugh could hear Pearce cursing luridly as he stumbled along.

Hugh walked up to the party. “We’ll follow this trail for a way yet. It’s tough going, but we can get through. We’ll walk from here on.”

“What’s up ahead?” asked Phillips.

“More canyon. It gets bigger as you go along.”

“Can we get out of it?”

“I don’t know.”

Clymer raised his big head. “What do you mean?”

Hugh leaned against a boulder. “Just what I said.”

“I don’t like your lip, scout. And I don’t like the idea of stumbling through these mountains on an unknown trail.”

“You can always go back.”

Clymer balled big hands and planted them on his hips. “Trusting one man. I don’t like it. How do we know who and what you are?”

“Look in the social register,” said Hugh dryly.

“Kinzie? Kinzie? You have a relative at Fort Buchanan some weeks back?”

“My brother was there for a time. Captain Ronald Kinzie.”

Clymer came closer to Hugh. “That turncoat? He went over to Rebels, didn’t he?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know or you won’t say? Which?”

Hugh straightened up. “I said I didn’t know.”

Clymer raised his head. “There’s something about you that doesn’t ring true, Kinzie.”

“So?” said Hugh quietly.

Clymer came closer. He glanced down at Hugh’s holstered Colt. “You lead us into hell’s half acre without knowing where you’re going.”

“I’m with you.”

“Yeah,” sneered Clymer. “For what reason?”

Isaiah Morton came between them. “Let us have peace,” he said.

Clymer hurled him aside with one huge hand. The man hit the ground, hard. Roswell pulled him to his feet. Nettleton hurried forward. “Clymer,” he said. “Stop this madness. Kinzie is doing his best.”

“His best isn’t good enough.”

“Then I
order
you to stop!”

Clymer didn’t take his eyes from Hugh. “Go back to your wife, Nettleton,” he said quietly.

Nettleton flushed.

“We’re all on our own here,” Clymer said.

Hugh looked down at Clymer’s Colt. “If you’re on your own, Clymer, you’d better make your play now.”

Boots clashed on the loose rock. Chandler Willis came up to the party. “We’d better get movin’,” he said. “I think there are ‘Paches down the gulch.”

Hastings took his eyes from Clymer and Hugh. “You seeing things, too, Willis?”

Willis spat. “I didn’t see nothing. But I heard a horse whinny down the canyon, and we ain’t left any behind, have we, Sergeant?”

Hugh looked at Nettleton. “We’d better move on,” he said. “I’ll have to lead the way.”

Nettleton nodded nervously. “Sergeant Hastings, stay as rear guard with Pearce and Willis.”

“Yes, sir.”

Clymer still stood there like a bull waiting to smash a china shop. Hugh picked up his carbine. He looked at Clymer. Clymer turned and walked to his horse.

Isaiah Morton raised his voice. “Let us be kind, one to another,” he intoned. “For are we not all brothers?”

“Shut up!” said Clymer. He checked his plump saddlebags and then led his horse up the canyon.

“Tough cob,” said Jonas Stevens to Hugh. “You didn’t have to worry. I had my carbine aimed at his back all the time he was chousing you.”

“Thanks,” said Hugh dryly.

Hugh led the buckskin past the little column. The big mesa loomed to the west, silvered by moonlight, lonely and cold-looking. He led the way over the rock slides, listening to the din behind him as hoofs clashed against rock.

The trail darkened as he entered the narrow canyon. Every instinct in Hugh Kinzie, honed by years of dangerous living, seemed to scream against going up that narrow hall of rock. It was different when an enemy could be seen and shot at; here there was nothing but the silent menace behind them. That was the worst part of it. Hugh could pull out. He’d make it somehow, afoot or on horseback. But somehow he seemed to see the calm face of Katy Corse in front of him, taking the rough trail as well as any of the men.

Hugh canted his head, listening to the sounds. High above him he could see where the moon silvered the rocks. They seemed to move and sway as the shadows of the wind-agitated brush played across them. An awful responsibility seemed to come and settle on Hugh Kinzie’s shoulders, like the Old Man of the Sea who had plagued Sinbad. Hugh tried to shake off the feeling. Sinbad had been a wanderer like himself. They had a lot in common, but Sinbad had always played a lone game, looking out for his own tough rump.

It was a helluva country. It looked smooth and peaceful at a distance, like a sleeping cat. But rile the cat and the sharp claws came out from beneath the silken fur to rip and tear. Get deep into the country and feel the godawful loneliness
drape itself about your shoulders. Feel the eerie qualities of the mountain night, engendered by the softly moaning wind and the shifting shadows.

The trail he was following, for instance. Who had made it? Where had they come from and where had they vanished to? They were long dead now. Hugh shook his head to drive away these thoughts. An old scout had once told him the best man for scouting in that country was a man who used his imagination to think only of liquor and women, and cut it off short when gruesome thoughts tried to worm their way into his head.

The great rock wall loomed ahead of him. He led the buckskin up the rough way. At the top he stopped and looked down. Clymer was helping Marion Nettleton up the first slope. Katy Corse was just behind them. Hugh could hear the men cursing as they tried to get the animals started up the slippery rocks.

It took them half an hour to get all the animals to the top. Hastings and his two men appeared as the last mule scrambled clumsily up to the top.

Nettleton shoved back his hat and looked into the great canyon, bathed in ghostly moonlight. “Is there water here?” he asked.

“I don’t know. We’ll have to ration ourselves.”

“Great!” grunted Clymer.

Hastings, Pearce and Willis reached the top. All eyes surveyed the canyon. There was a quality of deep loneliness about it. When anyone spoke he unconsciously did so in a whisper, as though standing in the nave of a great cathedral.

Hugh led the buckskin down the steep slope. There was no use in telling the others to follow. They were on a one-way road.

Hugh reached the bottom when one of the mules stumbled into a hole, fell sideways, then rolled down toward Hugh. The mule bawled once, then landed heavily ten feet from Hugh.

“Damn you, Pearce!” yelled Clymer. “You did it!”

Pearce turned to look up at the officer, his face contorted. “What the hell did you want me to do, sir? Hold him back by his damned halter?”

“Damn you! I’ll have you bucked and gagged! I’ll string you up by your thumbs! I’ll have you court-martialed! You’ll be drummed out of the service to the Rogue’s March!”

“You’ll have crap, Clymer! That’s all you’ll have!”

Hastings raised his carbine. He slammed the butt between Pearce’s shoulders. “That’s enough out of you!”

Pearce went down head first, cracking his head against a rock. He shook his head and then felt the blood flowing down his face. He opened his mouth as he looked at Hastings. Then he shut it. But there was pure hell in his cold green eyes.

Hugh walked to the mule. It was dead. He cut the pack lashings and pulled the packs free with the help of Roswell. “Lost a good mule for this junk,” said the corporal.

Nettleton stopped behind them. “Place those packs on another mule, Roswell.”

Roswell turned, a strange look on his face. “Sir? Those other two mules are overloaded as it is.”

“Then put them on a horse!”

“Whose?”

They were all down at the bottom of the slope now. Nettleton looked from one to the other of them and then down at the packs. “That’s our silver,” he said pettishly. “Our wedding gift from my father-in-law. What would he say if we left it here?”

Willis laughed softly in the background.

Hugh took his bridle reins. “Is there any food in those packs?”

Nettleton shook his head. “Just the big silver set and some of my extra uniforms packed about them. Perhaps a few dishes and some household goods.”

“Good! Let it lie.”

Nettleton looked at his wife. She nodded and Nettleton went to his horse….

Clymer was grumbling again as Hugh led the way across the canyon floor. It was still rough going because of scattered rocks and thick brush. “No water. No trail,” he said. “Led by the brother of a rebel. What next?”

Stevens was beside Hugh. He looked back. “Why don’t you shut him up, Kinzie? I know you’re not afraid of him. Why do you let him ride you like this? He’s been doing it ever since you joined us.”

Hugh looked at the trooper. “I’ve got a job to do, Jonas. To get this party to the Rio Grande.”

“And then?” Stevens looked closely at Hugh’s taut face. Hugh didn’t have to tell him anything. It was written on the scout’s face like a page of print.

“God help Clymer,” he said softly.