Stryker's Revenge

Chapter 10

By noon, Stryker’s command had cleared Picket Canyon, the columned ramparts of the Chiricahua Mountains soaring to the east, their slopes and hanging valleys green with silver oak, apache pine and carpets of wildflowers.

The day was hot, the sun a brazen disk in the sky, and the infantrymen were beginning to suffer under the weight of their packs. To the west, the Sulphur Springs Valley, a vast wilderness of sand, scrub and mesquite, drowsed in hard, white sunlight and made no sound.

Behind Stryker, the brogans of the infantry thudded on the hard-packed earth, and now and then a man muttered a curse as something with thorns clawed viciously at his passing legs.

Beside Stryker rode Second Lieutenant Dale N. Birchwood, the scion of a blue-blooded Boston family who looked as though he was already rethinking his Army career.

Birchwood was hot, sticky and uncomfortable in a uniform that seemed a size too small for him, and his young face was bright red, rivulets of sweat cutting through the dust on his cheeks. He rode a gray Thoroughbred that smelled strongly of sweat and seemed more suited to the green, foxhunting pastures of Massachusetts than the desert country of the Arizona Territory.

To his credit, Birchwood had not uttered a single word of complaint since leaving Fort Merit, and his eyes sweeping the shimmering terrain ahead were alert and searching.

Now he turned and looked at Stryker. If he was revolted by his fellow officer’s smashed face, he had the good breeding not to let it show.

“Sir, Mr. Hogg has been gone for quite a while,” he said. “Do you suppose he’s contacted Apaches?”

Stryker shook his head. “His immediate concern is to find water, and that’s not easy to do in the Chiricahuas. If he’d bumped into Apaches, trust me, he’d be back here by now, hell-for-leather.”

“Major Hanson told me you had quite a battle with the Indians yourself, sir.”

Stryker smiled. “I bushwhacked a bunch of drunken Apaches in a box canyon.” He shrugged. “Still, you kill them any way you can, don’t you?”

Birchwood nodded. “I believe that’s the way of it, sir.”

“That’s the way of it, Lieutenant.” Then, as though talking to himself, he said, “Yup, that’s the way of it, all right.”

Fifteen minutes later, Joe Hogg rode out of the blazing day, his Henry across the saddle horn. The scout rode tall and tense in the saddle, looking around him, not liking what the land was telling him.

Stryker halted the column and waited.

Hogg kneed his mustang close to Stryker, then took off his hat and wiped sweat from the band. “Hot,” he said.

The lieutenant waited. Beside him, Birchwood’s gray tossed its head, champing at the bit. One of the infantrymen hawked and spit dust.

Finally he said, “What’s up ahead, Joe?” “Apache sign, Lieutenant, a heap of it. And a dead white man.”

Stryker stood in the stirrups, easing himself in the saddle. The dead man could wait. “Where are the savages headed?”

“I’d say right now they’re in the Chiricahuas due east of the Sulphur Hills, trying to discover where the white man was headed. The man wouldn’t have been riding alone if he didn’t have a place to go and a mighty important reason for getting there. The Apaches must figure there’s a ranch or a farm around there someplace.”

“But eventually they’ll turn south, huh?”

“I can’t say that, Lieutenant. Geronimo is trying to make a name for himself as a war chief, and old Nana will go along with whatever he says.” Hogg looked beyond Stryker, his gaze shifting to their back trail. “They could head north.”

The implication of that hit Stryker immediately. “You mean attack Fort Bowie?”

The scout shook his head. “No, Geronimo is not strong enough to tackle a post of that size. But by this time he’s sure been told that there’s only a single infantry company guarding Fort Merit.”

“How many warriors does this Geronimo savage have?”

“Hard to say, but he might have fifty or more, and, judging by the tracks I saw earlier, more young men are joining him.” Hogg shrugged. “He’s got enough, especially if Yanisin’s band throws in with him.”

“Colonel Devore told me the Apaches would head for Mexico.”

“Colonel Devore ain’t here, Lieutenant.”

For a few moments Stryker sat his saddle, thinking it through. Finally he looked at Hogg, his mind made up. “Joe, I want to see those tracks for myself. Lieutenant Birchwood, bring up the column at your best speed.”

The young lieutenant saluted, and Stryker turned to his scout again. “Let’s go.” He set spurs to his horse and headed south, into the glowering heat of the dancing day.

The dead man lay where he’d fallen. He was on his back, his eyes burning out in the sun. He’d been struck by a volley of shots and was probably dead when he hit the ground.

“What do you make of him, Joe?” Stryker asked.

“Looks like a sodbuster to me, but he hasn’t done none o’ that lately. Look at his hands, they ain’t guided a plow in some time.” He glanced at Stryker. “It’s getting hard to tell now the sun’s got to him, Lieutenant, but when I first saw him, when he was fresher, he had the look of a drinker.”

Stryker looked around him. “Unshod ponies. How many would you say?”

“Six, maybe seven. They either broke off from Geronimo’s main bunch or they were riding to join him when they stumbled on this man.”

“What the hell was he doing out here by himself?”

“Like I said, he was goin’ someplace.”

“Someplace . . . in this damned, godforsaken wilderness?”

Hogg pointed. “The pony tracks head that way, toward the hogback yonder. My guess is the sodbuster’s farm is back there.” Stryker said nothing, and the scout prompted. “And maybe his woman and his kids.”

“We’ll wait for the company to come up,” the lieutenant said.

Suddenly the crash of a rifle shot echoed through the foothills, and then another.

“Might be too late by then,” Hogg said quietly.

Stryker shook his head. “Damn you, Joe. You do love to pick at a man’s conscience.” He turned and looked behind him. But Birchwood and his infantry were not yet in sight.

“Oh, hell.” He drew his revolver. “Let’s rescue the farmer’s wife, even if it kills us, which it surely might.”

A narrow game trail led between a series of low hills covered with mesquite and juniper. There was no relief from the pitiless sun that hammered at both men and their horses. Stryker smelled the rankness of his own sweat rise from the dark arcs under the arms of his faded blue shirt. The light was a hard glare that hurt the eyes and turned the sand into a lake of molten steel. The heat was a malevolent, living entity and in all the vast land only the slopes of the mountains, green with pines, looked cool.

“You’re doing the right thing, Lieutenant,” Hogg said, turning in the saddle.

“Joe, you can write that on my gravestone: He Done the Right Thing.”

More shots, coming from beyond the hogback. The scout read them. “Five, six Apaches firing, but only one answering shot. From a Sharps .50, I’d say.”

“The farmer’s wife is fighting back.”

“Seems like.”

Stryker studied the land ahead of him. Nothing moved but a lone buzzard quartering the sky. There was no breeze here in the foothills and the air hung still, as thick and hard to breathe as warm cotton.

The game trail petered out as the hills gave way to a wide meadow, cratered with hollows. The ground was thick with cactus, mostly cholla and prickly pear, here and there vivid swathes of desert bluebells and marigolds.

The riders crossed the meadow, then hit the slope of the hogback at a canter, dislodging loose gravel that clattered behind them. Before they reached the ridge they dismounted. Stryker retrieved his field glasses from his saddlebags, and with Hogg at a crouching run beside him, covered the rest of the distance on foot.

Lying on his belly, he scanned the basin below.

The slope of the hogback dropped gradually into an open area of grass and broken land that looked as though it had once been plowed. There was a small cabin overhung by a huge cottonwood, a pole corral and sizeable barn. Among the outbuildings were a smokehouse, an open-fronted shed for a blacksmith’s forge and a smaller cabin that seemed to serve no ascertainable purpose.

The place had once been a fine-looking farm, but now looked shabby and rundown, held together by baling wire and twine.

Hogg’s elbow dug into Stryker’s ribs. He held up two fingers, then pointed to a jumble of boulders about thirty yards from the cabin that looked like they’d been cleared from a field. Now the scout held up one finger and pointed to the pole corral.

Stryker scanned both areas with his glasses, but saw nothing.

Then an Apache moved. The warrior at the corral stepped from behind a fencepost and fired at the cabin. There was no answering shot.

Stryker indicated to Hogg that they should back away from the crest of the hill. Once he could stand on his feet again, he asked, “You saw three Apaches. Where are the others?”

Hogg shook his head. “Dunno. But I reckon there’s two or three more. When an Apache don’t want to be seen, you don’t see him.”

Stryker nodded. “Joe, position yourself at the top of the hill again and when the Apaches show, drop them with your Henry.”

“Where are you going to be, Lieutenant.”

“I’ll mount up and head directly for the cabin.

The savages are tightening the noose, and whoever is inside there could be hurt and needs help.”

“Sounds like a mighty good way to cut a promising army career short,” Hogg said, without a trace of humor.

The lieutenant smiled. “Then be sure to tell Colonel Devore about Stryker’s gallant ride.”

“I will, but he’ll be sorely disappointed in you, Lieutenant. He had his heart set on making you a captain.”

Stryker waited until Hogg was in position, then swung into the saddle. He wiped the fear sweat from his gun hand on his breeches, then fisted the Colt again.

He saw Hogg glance back at him, swallowed hard, and kicked the bay into motion. The big horse crested the hill at a gallop and plunged down the other side, the bit in its teeth, mane flying.

Now there was no turning back.