Stryker's Revenge

Chapter 22

A red-haired woman was walking across the dusty, sun-splashed ground toward the adobe.

Her dress was stained and torn and her hair hung over her shoulders in dirty tangles. She walked purposely, neither looking to the left nor right, her eyes fixed on the building.

All Indians, but especially the Apache and Navajo, had a superstitious dread of madness, believing that sufferers had been possessed by a powerful, malevolent demon. One by one they left cover and shrank back from the woman, watching her with black, wary eyes.

She was a nepotonje, a bear watcher, since all understood that the demon often reveals itself in that guise. The more pragmatic Sioux would call her simply, witkowin, crazy woman, but the Apache knew better than that.

The flaming red hair was unmistakable and Stryker recognized her immediately as the silent, staring woman he’d rescued from the Apaches. He assumed she’d have left with the other women from the post, but, deranged as she was, she must have run away and hidden in the hills.

But Jake Allen had found her in the hospital, tried to force himself on her, and she’d killed him. That would explain the gunman’s death, but it shed no light on what he was doing at the abandoned Fort Merit in the first place.

As he saw the woman reach the adobe and a soldier unbolted the door for her, Stryker felt a vague pang of disappointment. After Joe Hogg had found female tracks on the bluff, Stryker had harbored a flicker of hope that somehow Millie had come back, looking for him. He had not fanned the flames of that hope, knowing how foolish it was, yet now he realized that a feeble, dying spark had still lingered in him.

The woman stepped inside, looking around her. Her eyes showed no recognition of the soldiers, or any interest in where she was. But she did see Kelly. Without a word she crossed the room, her battered shoes clinking through the empty brass shells littering the floor, and sat beside the girl. Kelly looked at her warily, but the woman reached out and took her in her arms, laying her head on her breast.

“Sleep now, child,” she whispered.

Those were the first words Stryker had ever heard her say.

Apaches didn’t scare worth a damn and although the crazy woman had unnerved them, they soon resumed firing on the adobe.

“Mr. Birchwood,” Stryker said. “A word, if you please.”

The young lieutenant stepped beside him and, his breeding coming to the fore, tried to say all the right things. “Don’t blame yourself, sir,” he said. “No one could have done better.” He looked at the blanketed body. “Private Stearns must have had a weak heart.”

“There was nothing wrong with his heart, Lieutenant. Without ether or even whiskey, the pain was just too much for him to bear. I’m to blame. I’m a damned butcher, not a surgeon.”

Birchwood would not be moved. “It had to be done, sir. It fell to you and you did your best.”

Bullets thudded into the adobe. Stryker glanced out of a window and saw the Apaches massing for another mounted attack.

Stryker had intended to tell Birchwood about his plan to reach one of the saloons and catch the Indians in crossfire. He pushed that aside for now and stepped to the window. One of the soldiers moved back and Stryker took his place. He was aware of his limitations. A fair hand with the revolver, he barely passed muster at the Point in rifle shooting, coming in dead last out of a class of thirty-eight.

Now he steeled himself. The Henry wasn’t a cumbersome model 1869 Cadet Rifle and maybe he could do better. He had to do better. He racked a round into the chamber and waited for the attack.

It never came.

The Apaches suddenly faded back into the hills, leaving behind them only emptiness and silence. As Stryker watched, a dust devil spun across the parade ground and abruptly collapsed into a puff of sand. A piece of yellow paper, tossed by the breeze, fluttered around the adobe like a moth before rising higher into the air and vanishing from sight.

From behind Stryker, a man asked, “Why the hell did they pull back like that?”

No one answered him because no one knew.

Stryker walked to the door, stepped outside and looked around him. The peaks of the Chiricahuas were bathed in afternoon light, their lower slopes green. A bird called. The scent of cedar and sage hung in the air like a thin mist, as subtle and understated as the French perfume of a beautiful Washington belle. Deep in the bunch grass, crickets sawed tunes on their serrated legs, filling the morning with scratchy sound.

The riders came from the west—dirty, shaggy men mounted on small, wiry ponies.

Stryker had left his field glasses in the adobe. He took off his slouch hat and held it high against the sun, his eyes squinting in the glare, trying to make out the manner of these men.

He reached down and unbuttoned his holster flap.

If this was Rake Pierce and his renegades, he would do no talking. He would draw his gun and shoot the man dead. The chances were that he’d die right after, but it would be worth it if he could drag Pierce down into hell with him.

The men rode closer and Stryker was aware of Birchwood’s dozen soldiers shaking out into a line behind him. If a fight came, it would be up close and personal, and even green troops would not miss at that range.

And neither will I, Stryker promised himself. Neither will I.