Ambush on the Mesa (8 page)

Someone called out along the terrace. Isaiah’s voice died away. A faint murmuring echo came from the arched rock wall high above the cliff dwellings. Cold sweat bathed Isaiah’s gaunt body.

From somewhere in the darkness a dry voice spoke up. “If them Apaches didn’t hear that, they’re deaf. He’s a shoutin’ minister, that man is.”

Isaiah bowed his head in prayer.

Marion Nettleton was still tired. She had had more rest than anyone else in the party, and had been exposed to the least amount of hardships. She lay awake in the darkness, trying to imagine she was in her big bed in the cozy room in her father’s castellated monstrosity of a house back in Missouri. She had a strong will, and a fine imagination, but she could not fight back the eerie darkness of the ruins, always pressing in for every advantage.

Maurice was outside somewhere, bumbling about, trying to play the part of the frontier soldier. Maurice had always been good to her. She had fallen in love with him, or thought she had, because he had had all the outward manifestations of the kind of man she wanted, but time and closer acquaintance
had showed her how wrong she had been. He was on the defensive with her now, catering to her every wish, pampering and petting her, when she had hoped for a man like her father, who ruled women, and everyone else for that matter, with a will of iron.

Marion had come west with Maurice, hoping that he would assert himself and build up a reputation, but unfortunately he had been too long under the hard thumb and the strong will of Shelton Bennett. They hadn’t been at Fort Ayres more than a month when it was obvious his men were laughing at him. Mother Nettleton was his nickname behind his back. Marion often had wondered what they called her behind her back until one day she had overheard two noncoms talking together about her. She had not been mentioned by name. “The Little Corporal,” one of them had said.

Marion hadn’t been too nervous when they had left Fort Ayres. Now doubt had a firm hold on Marion Nettleton. She had depended on these people for her comforts; now she was dependent on them for her very life. Maurice had bungled as usual. If he had abandoned the beef herd he would not have lost the largest part of his company, as well as the services of a skilled Indian fighter. If he had moved swiftly toward the Rio Grande, instead of traveling almost leisurely for the comfort of his wife, he might have escaped the net cast about him by Mangus Colorado. Now he was more concerned about his wife’s little desires than about the dangers surrounding them. Hot coffee, a soft place to sleep, warm blankets in the cool nights, and cold water during the hot days: none of those things would matter if a screaming horde of bloodthirsty Apaches came down on them and ripped Marion’s clothes from her, and ripped the ivory citadel of her shapely body with greasy hands.

Marion sat up and slowly fixed her hair. She had once thought Abel Clymer was the man to save her. At first she had hated the scout, Hugh Kinzie, with his sharp orders and bitter eyes. But Hugh Kinzie could save her if anyone could. Marion stood up and brushed her clothing. There would be a moon that night. He had once promised to stay close to her on the trail. This night she would give him his chance. Not too much, just enough to set the hook in tightly.

• • •

There was a faint suggestion of the moon in the eastern sky. Dan Pearce looked back over his shoulder. He could just make out the cliff dwellings up on the slope behind him. No
one had followed him. It would be quite some time before that three-striped bastard Sergeant Hastings missed him. By that time Dan would have the silver service and any other loot from the mule packs, cached away.

Dan padded through the brush. It was almost like the old days back at Five Points when he had prowled the streets looking for drunks to smash and pluck. He looked up at the high walls of the canyon. It was almost like walking through a narrow street in New York, between rows of sagging tenements. Dan Pearce would make it all right. He had the luck and the guts.

Katy Corse slowly hooked up the front of her dress. The heat of the day was long gone and a cool wind whispered up the canyon. She wanted a bath and clean clothing, but she cast the thought from her mind. There was hardly enough water for drinking purposes, and the only women’s clothing available belonged to Marion Nettleton. She hadn’t offered Katy the use of any of it.

Katy walked out onto the dim terrace. There was a brooding quiet about the canyon. She could feel, rather than see, the men of the little party, staring out into the dimness and listening to every night sound. She had been through experiences like this before. At Tubac she had lived through an attack when she had been fifteen years old. Her mother had been killed in that one. In 1858 her father had been the sutler at Fort Buchanan, and Katy had helped him. Two years later he had been killed by Apaches while bringing in supplies. Katy had turned over the sutler’s store to Cass Wilkerson. Cass had kept her on as his clerk. It was then she had met Hugh Kinzie.

Katy felt the breeze cool her warm flesh. She had fallen hard for Hugh Kinzie, probably because he hadn’t paid much attention to her on a post where every trooper, one way or another, honestly or dishonestly, had tried to gain her favor. Hugh Kinzie was a great deal like his brother Ronald. Strangely enough, Katy had been interested in Captain Kinzie, but he had paid no more attention to her than he had to his horse or dog. Hugh seemed to have been a little more human, but still had that Kinzie aloofness about him.

Herbert Oglesby had played up his suit vigorously to Katy about the same time Hugh had seemed to be a little interested. Katy liked Herbert and had used him to place a
little jealousy in Hugh Kinzie, to see what he’d do. Katy had overplayed her hand, for Hugh had shied away like a badly broken horse. In common with most of the men on the post, he had assumed she was Herbert’s woman. Nothing she could do, within reason, had changed Hugh’s coldness toward her. Herbert had proposed. She had accepted, hoping Hugh at last would do something. He hadn’t. One day he was there; the next day he was gone into the hazy mountains. A month later Herbert Oglesby had died with a flint arrowhead buried in his chest.

Katy walked to the edge of the terrace. Somehow, every time she tried to be nice to Hugh, she put her foot into it. Hugh was feisty, and had to be handled with a fine touch, and Katy Corse seemed to lack that touch.

A man came up behind Katy. She turned quickly, hoping it was Hugh. She looked up into the dim face of Darrell Phillips. There wasn’t any hesitation in him. He swept her close and pressed his lips against hers. She was so surprised, there was no fight in her.

“If you’re going to dally,” a dry voice said behind them, “you’d better get off the skyline. The moon is coming up.”

Phillips released her and turned quickly to look into the amused face of Hugh Kinzie. “You’ve not right to come up on us like this!” snapped Phillips.

Hugh looked out into the canyon. “You’re close enough to that slope for a Mimbreno to come up on you and have a knife into your back before you’ll even smell his stink.”

Phillips raised a hand. He stepped forward.

Hugh smiled. “Don’t do anything you’ll be sorry for, Mr. Phillips.”

Phillips lowered his hand. In front of Katy Corse, he wanted desperately to prove he was a man but not at the expense of fighting Hugh Kinzie.

Hugh raised his head. “You’ll be on guard tonight. We’ll all take turns. The enlisted men are getting tired of doing all the work. We’re all in this. We’ll have to forget about rank for a while.”

“All right, Kinzie.”

Hugh looked at Katy. “Don’t get too far from any of the men, Katy.” He turned and walked away into the darkness like a great lean cat.

Darrell Phillips looked at Katy. “What did he mean by that?”

She looked away. Her hands closed into tight little fists. “Damn you,” she said hotly. “Get away from me!”

Phillips reached out a hand toward her, hesitated, then turned on a heel and walked away.

A blanket of silence seemed to have settled over the great canyon. Even the wind had died away. It was almost as though the canyon was waiting for something to happen.

C
APTAIN
N
ETTLETON
had called a council of war. Pressures were working within him. Clymer was bullying him. Phillips certainly wasn’t looking up to him. But most of the pressure came from Marion. She had a way of letting a man know how she felt about him without even opening her mouth.

Maurice paced back and forth in front of the watchtower. Hugh Kinzie leaned against the tower wall. Abel Clymer squatted beside the terrace wall with his huge hands dangling between the frayed knees of his trousers. Darrell Phillips alone stood straight up, with squared shoulders, his hands folded together in front of him.

Nettleton plucked at his lower lip. “Gentlemen,” he said hesitantly. “We must decide on a plan. Our food is almost gone. There’s hardly enough water for us, and the animals are in bad shape for lack of it. Another day of this heat and they’ll all be dead.”

“Apaches don’t attack at night,” said Abel Clymer. “What’s to prevent us from stripping away all excess equipment and making a try to get out of here?”

Then Darrell Phillips spoke up. “Perhaps we could make a sortie against the Mimbrenos. Say half a dozen good men could leave here when the moon is gone and climb up the canyon wall to strike the Mimbrenos in their camp.”

Nettleton looked at Hugh pleadingly. Hugh shifted his chew and spat leisurely.

Nettleton paced back and forth. “Both suggestions are good. Perhaps, by combining them, we can work out an effective means of escape.”

“Such as?” asked Hugh quietly.

Nettleton turned. “We can lighten the loads of the horses and mules. Some of us can remain here with the women. Others, capably led, can attack the Mimbrenos, thus diverting them from those of us who are down here. While the Mimbrenos are being diverted, the women can be started for safety. Then, when the women have a good start, those who have been holding the Mimbrenos, can follow the main party, covering their retreat until we’re out of the canyon.”

Chandler Willis was on guard up in the watchtower. Hugh heard the trooper shuffle his feet, then spit hard against the cave wall a few feet from the side window of the tower. Hugh didn’t have to see Willis’s face to know how it looked.

Nettleton was now fully taken up with his masterful plan, carried away by the way the pieces of the plan fell together neatly and surely. “We will divide into two parties. The attacking party will, of course, be led by one of us. One of us must take charge of the main party here. A man of judgment, who can guage the precise time to move out.”

“That leaves two of us,” said Hugh dryly.

Nettleton hesitated. This was the crucial time. His plans always appeared well on paper, but getting men, those creatures of varied impulses and emotions, to follow his cleanly outlined plans had always been the problem of Maurice Nettleton. He straightened up. After all, he
was
the commanding officer. “I will take personal command of the main party, with Mr. Phillips as my aide. The main party will, of course, include the ladies, Sergeant Hastings, Corporal Roswell, Private Stevens and Mr. Isaiah Morton.”

Abel Clymer raised his big head and stared at Nettleton.

Nettleton looked away. “Mr. Clymer will lead the attacking party, with Mr. Kinzie as scout. The party will consist of Privates Willis, Pearce and Greer.”

There was a soft whistle from up in the tower. “Jesus Christ,” said Chandler Willis.

Abel Clymer got to his feet and cracked the knuckles of his left hand. “As senior officer, Captain Nettleton, I, rather than Mr. Phillips, should be with the main party.”

Phillips raised his head. “The captain has given his orders,” he said.

Clymer whirled. “So? Maybe you talked him into it? I’ve got a good mind to break your damned jaw, Phillips!”

Phillips dropped his hand to his holstered Colt. Clymer
moved in close and gripped the younger officer by the shirt front. “You haven’t got the guts to pull that gun on me,” he snarled. “Admit it! You talked Nettleton into taking you instead of me!”

Nettleton bustled forward. “Clymer! I’m in command here!”

Hugh stood up straight and spat his wad of chewing tobacco over the terrace wall.

“You’re the big man around here,” said Phillips softly. “Show Marion Nettleton what a
real
big man you are by protecting the rest of us. Clymer.”

Clymer slashed a big hand across Phillips’s face. Phillips jerked back his head. Clymer swung him about and rammed his back up against the tower wall. “Damn you! I’ll protect her, all right! While you’re out there holding back those Apaches!”

Hugh pushed Nettleton aside. He drew out his Colt and cocked it. He rammed the muzzle into Clymer’s back. “Come on, stud,” he said. “Lay off the heroics. The whole damned plan stinks in the first place. We’re not going through with it.”

Clymer released Phillips. He turned his head to look into Hugh’s shadowy face. “You haven’t got the guts to shoot, Kinzie,” he said with a sneer.

Hugh stepped back. The big man had some guts. Hugh holstered his Colt.

Nettleton came forward. “What do you mean about not going through with the plan?” he demanded.

Hugh looked out into the quiet canyon. “Those horses and mules wouldn’t get ten miles. We don’t even know if there is a trail beyond this canyon. If you left here right now it would be daylight long before you got out of this canyon. The damned thing may go on for miles, every inch of it overlooked by the Mimbrenos. As for your so-called sortie. If you took every man you
have
here you’d all be dead long before you reached the ‘camp’ of the Mimbrenos, as Phillips called it. They haven’t any camp with rows of tents and bivouac fires going. They’re lying out in the brush in the darkness, listening to every night sound. You could walk right through the middle of the camp and never know it was there until knives came up from the very ground itself to gut you. If five of us went looking for those bastards in the dark, as was suggested here, none of us would come back,
and if we did get a crack at them before they got us, we’d hardly make a dent in their forces. Then they’d be after the main party. They could outrun our horses afoot.”

Clymer spat. “So? What do
you
suggest?”

Hugh shrugged. “It seems I’m the only one here without an idea.”

Phillips wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth. “Perhaps one man might get through to the Rio Grande and bring back help.”

Nettleton bobbed his head. “A capital thought, Mr. Phillips.”

Clymer glanced at Hugh. “
Him
, I suppose?”

“You can volunteer,” said Hugh dryly.

“Will you go?” asked Nettleton. He gripped Hugh by the arm.

“I could go. I
might
get through. But as for bringing back help, that’s out of the question. There aren’t enough men in the Department of New Mexico right now to defend the Rio Grande Valley. Canby certainly won’t send troops into these mountains to get wiped out.”

Clymer wet his thick lips. He glanced back at the dwelling where Marion Nettleton was. “Perhaps I could get through with one of the women.”

Phillips touched the corner of his mouth. “I can do the same,” he said.

Maurice Nettleton hesitated, as he always did. He looked at Hugh. “My wife,” he said quietly. “I know she wouldn’t go without me, but perhaps I can force her to.” He looked hopefully at Hugh. “What do you think, Kinzie?”

“Go ahead,” said Hugh. “Mr. Clymer is willing.”

Nettleton tugged at his side whiskers. “I didn’t have him in mind. You’re the most skilled of us in this type of business. We can cover you until you’re in the clear. Marion is not strong, but she has courage. Will you take her?”

“You mean you’re sacrificing yourself to save your wife?” asked Hugh dryly.

“Yes.”

“You seem to have forgotten something, Nettleton.”

“So?”

“Katy Corse.”

The sudden quiet that followed Hugh’s words was suddenly broken by the splitting crash of a gun at the east end of the canyon. The report slammed back and forth between the canyon walls.

“An attack!” cried Nettleton. “Turn out the gurad!”

Booted feet slammed on the terrace. Shadowy figures formed along the terrace wall. Matt Hastings buckled on his gunbelt. “Check your carbines! Check the caps on your revolving pistols!” he said. “Corporal Roswell!”

“Here!”

“Greer!”

“Here!”

“Pearce!”

There was no answer. Hastings looked up and down the shadowed terrace. “Pearce!” he called out angrily.

Willis appeared on the terrace.

“Stevens!” said Hastings.

“Yo!”

“Willis!”

“Here!”

Hastings shoved back his hat. “Where’s Pearce?”

“Damned if I know, Sergeant.” said Willis. He glanced up the canyon.

“Anyone see him?” asked Hastings.

There was no answer.

“That sonofabitch go over the hill?” asked Hastings.

“Couldn’t blame him,” said Willis.

“Shut up!”

The canyon was quiet again. Hugh padded behind the enlisted men and stopped at the far end of the terrace. He looked toward the great rock wall. The shot had come from somewhere near it.

Hastings came up behind Hugh. “What do you think?” he asked.

Hugh shrugged. “You find Pearce?”

“No.”

They waited. Now and then one of the waiting men moved. One of them coughed. A carbine butt thudded against the terrace.

Hastings looked at Hugh. “You think it was him, Kinzie?”

Hugh rubbed his jaw. “The shot came from near that dead mule. There was silver on the mule. You think Pearce would want that silver enough to go up there?”

“He had larceny in his soul.”

Hugh looked up at the sky, then down at the ground. “Wherever he is, his damned larceny took him there then.”

“Maybe he’s lying out there wounded.”

Hugh looked along the mesa wall. There was a faint trail
there, with a sheer wall rising up beside it to the mesa top. “I can take a look-see along that,” he said quietly. “I might be able to see down into the canyon from there.”

“He ain’t worth it,” a dry voice said behind them.

“Shut up, Willis,” said Hastings.

Willis grinned. “I’ll go along with the scout,” he said.

Hugh vaulted over the low wall and handed his carbine to Hastings. “You can see us from here. I’m not worried about them getting at us from the mesa side. But they can get up through that brush to below the trail. If they come at us, keep firing between us and them.”

Willis leaned his carbine against the wall and loosened his Colt in its holster. “Shoot at anything what don’t wear a hat, Sarge,” he said.

Willis followed Hugh along the steep slope until they reached the trail. There was no sign of life. Silence ruled the canyon.

A hundred yards from the ruins, Hugh looked back over his shoulder. The face of the trooper was plain to see in the moonlight. There was something about Chandler Willis that didn’t quite fit right with Hugh. He was a hard worker and usually willing. He did his duty, no more, no less. Yet he always seemed to be waiting for something.

Hugh paused at a place where a rock shoulder cast deep shadows against the mesa wall. The moon shone on the areas of sand and rock with a silvery light. The rocks and brush drew etched shadows behind them. There was no movement.

Willis scratched his corded throat. “Now what?”

Hugh studied the canyon floor. It looked as empty as a crater on the moon. Something warned him to go back. He had no particular liking for Dan Pearce.

“Let’s go back,” suggested Willis quietly.

“I thought you wanted to make a break from the party,” Hugh said.

Willis half closed his eyes. “Now, scout,” he said quietly, “you got no idea of making a break now.”

Hugh looked down into the canyon, trying to locate the place where the mule had died.

“You haven’t, have you?” persisted Willis.

“No. But why did you come along with me?”

“I don’t want nothing to happen to you, scout.”

Hugh glanced at the secretive man beside him. “Stay here,” he said. “Cover me until I’m out of sight in that brush clump near the big rock fall.”

Willis nodded. He shifted his chew and spat. “Be careful, scout. I don’t want nothin’ to happen to you.”

“Your concern touches my heart,” said Hugh dryly.

He slipped along the trail, using every patch of concealment, until he was even with a thicket of brush which rested at one end of the great rock fall. He loosened his knife in its sheath and swiftly touched his Colt butt. Then he eased down the slope and into the brush, moving like a hunting panther.

He reached the first slope of the rock fall, which had angled out from the canyon entrance. Sometime in the past, there had been another great rock fall, which had cascaded down the first slopes, leaving a transverse ridge of loose rock down the older slope. The mule had died just beyond the ridge.

Hugh’s every nerve seemed to be sensitized. He could smell the pungent odor of the brush, still warm from the heat of the day, mingled with the sour smell of his sweat-soaked clothing. He stood absolutely still except for his eyes, which scanned the moonlit terrain ahead. Now and then his nostrils quivered as he drew in a sharp breath, trying to get a scent. Something puzzled him. The mule had been out there long enough to develop gasses. Sense of smell and hearing should have been warned by now, for dead things can whisper restlessly when cool night air contracts warm flesh.

Hugh got down on his knees and crawled forward slowly, feeling his way with his hands, settling loose rock and placing each knee carefully. Sweat worked down his body and he mentally cursed the scouring his hands and knees were taking from the sharp edges of rock.

He lay flat just before he reached the crest of the ridge. He listened, then crawled forward, easing into the shadow of a tilted slab of rock. He looked down the far slope. Then he knew why he hadn’t got wind of the mule. He could see the moonlight on the big white bones. The carcas had been stripped for meat and guts, as cleanly as though buzzards had been at work. Apaches had a preference for sweet mule meat.