Rope Burn Page 11

  MacDonald looked across at Ace and said, “It ain’t hardly fair. Olsen likely wouldn’t even be alive if it wasn’t for you, Jensen. The Apaches would’ve gotten him if that explosion didn’t.”

  Ace’s puzzlement grew. MacDonald acted almost like he wanted to be their friend now, after all the trouble he had caused for the Jensen brothers in the first place.

  Then a possible explanation occurred to him. MacDonald had approached Costello, as well as Ace and Chance, while they were all in the guardhouse and tried to talk them into throwing in with him on an escape attempt. They had turned him down at the time, but maybe now, with Costello dead, MacDonald believed the Jensen brothers would be more likely to back his play, whatever it was. It would be an audacious move, but MacDonald clearly didn’t lack for gall.

  Drawn by the work detail’s arrival and the resulting commotion, Evelyn Sughrue hurried from the major’s quarters. As she approached Parnell, she said, “Corporal, do you have wounded—Oh!”

  Evelyn put a hand to her mouth as she stared over the wagon’s sideboards at the blanket-covered bodies.

  “Miss, you should go back inside,” Parnell told her.

  “Are those . . . are those . . .”

  “Yes, miss,” Parnell said. “We ran into some Apaches and suffered some casualties. Actually, it wasn’t so much a matter of running into them as it was of them jumping us.”

  “Who . . . ?”

  “Costello, Ryerson, and Larch. And we have some other men who are hurt.”

  “Where is Lieutenant Driscoll?”

  “Tending to Lieutenant Olsen. He’s got a head wound.”

  That sounded a lot worse than it really was, Ace thought as he watched Evelyn Sughrue bite her lip anxiously. He wanted to tell her that Olsen’s injury wasn’t serious. He had never seen any sign that Evelyn was fond of Olsen—just the opposite, in fact—but the fact that the Apaches had dared to attack a good-sized detail like that might have spooked her.

  He didn’t say anything to her, however. Evelyn had to have a pretty good idea that Olsen was taking advantage of her father’s mental state but hadn’t done a blasted thing about it. Maybe she was afraid that trying to expose Olsen would backfire on her and harm Major Sughrue, as the Jensen brothers had discussed with Costello.

  Whatever the motivation for Evelyn’s actions—or lack of action—the important thing was that Ace knew he and Chance couldn’t count on any help from her.

  As much as he hated to admit it, their best chance of getting out of here and alerting the authorities to Olsen’s scheming, just might be to cooperate with Vince MacDonald . . .

  * * *

  A burial detail was formed, and the three men who had been killed in the ambush were laid to rest in the little cemetery outside the post walls that evening, not long before the sun went down. The service was a short one. There was no chaplain at Fort Gila, but Major Flint Sughrue read from the Scriptures and said a prayer over the graves.

  Less than a dozen mourners were on hand. Olsen had said, “Those bloodthirsty savages might be looking to catch all of us outside the fort proper. We’re not going to play into their hands.”

  Olsen posted lookouts all along the walls. The gates were left open, so those outside could get back in quickly if they needed to. Since two prisoners from the work detail had been killed, Sughrue declared that anyone from that group who wanted to attend the burial would be allowed to. Olsen didn’t look happy about that, but he didn’t try to change the major’s mind. Probably figured it wasn’t worth the time and effort, Ace thought.

  He and Chance walked out to the cemetery with a few other men from the work detail, but not MacDonald or any of his cronies. Corporal Parnell and some of the troopers were there as well. But not Evelyn Sughrue. Her father had forbidden her from attending.

  “You stay in the fort where it’s safe, dear,” he told her.

  With her face showing the strain she was under, Evelyn had said, “Is anywhere out here in this wilderness truly safe, Father?”

  “It will be, someday,” Sughrue had replied gruffly. “Someday the frontier will be tamed, and folks can live in peace.”

  Ace thought that was an admirable sentiment, but then Sughrue added, “And that’s the reason we have to finish that road to Eugene’s mine! That’s one more link in the chain it’ll take to bring civilization out here!”

  Olsen couldn’t keep a faint smirk off his face when the major said that. Sughrue was completely under his spell, and Olsen knew it. The lieutenant brought that reaction under control quickly, but not quickly enough that Ace failed to catch it.

  The burial went off without a hitch. Following the service, Sughrue walked over to his wife’s grave, removed his hat again, and stood there solemnly for a long moment. Out of respect for him, none of the other men moved while he was doing that. They didn’t start back to the fort until he turned away and clapped his hat back on his head.

  As the men were walking back, Sughrue said to Olsen, “There’s something I don’t understand, Lieutenant. Corporal Parnell reported that Apache scouts had been sighted watching the work detail several times during the past week.”

  Ace and Chance were close enough to overhear this conversation as guards herded them along at riflepoint.

  “That’s true, Major,” Olsen admitted.

  “Yet they didn’t attack any of those times. They waited until our force in the field was larger, so they had less chance of overpowering it. What sort of enemy passes up better odds only to attack when the odds are worse later?”

  That was actually pretty shrewd reasoning on the major’s part, Ace thought. Costello had mentioned that Flint Sughrue had been a well-respected officer, even a hero of sorts, during the Civil War. The man’s heart and soul might have been overwhelmed by the grief he felt at his wife’s passing, but he still had the mind of a military man, at least at times.

  “I can only hazard a guess, Major,” Olsen said. “The first shot they fired was directed at me, so my theory is that they were waiting to get a crack at an officer. They wanted to kill either you or me, because they know that Fort Gila can’t get along without either of us.”

  “I suppose you’re right. How are you feeling, Frank?”

  “I’m all right, sir.” Lightly, Olsen touched the bandage the surgeon had wrapped around his head. “I have a bit of a headache, but that’s to be expected. Lieutenant Driscoll said I should be fine.”

  “Good, good,” Sughrue said, nodding as he walked along with his hands clasped behind his back. “You know how much I depend on you in these troubled times, Lieutenant. I . . . I don’t think I could get along without you.”

  “It’s an honor to hear you say that, sir. Don’t worry, nothing’s going to happen to me. I’ll see to that.”

  I’ll just bet you will, Ace thought from where he trudged along behind them. You’ll always look out for Frank Olsen before anybody else.

  * * *

  The solemn atmosphere continued that night in the guardhouse as darkness closed in. The men hadn’t done much actual work today, since they’d had to wait for Olsen to show up and dynamite that rock wall, and then after that they’d been occupied with the Apache ambush. So they weren’t as numb with exhaustion as they usually were and didn’t fall into sodden slumber right away after they’d eaten.

  Ace and Chance were sitting up, leaning against the wall, when someone sat down beside them. The familiar harsh tones of Vince MacDonald said, “Jensen.”

  “Which one?” Chance asked with a hint of a chuckle.

  “Both of you, blast it. You boys need to listen to me.”

  “I don’t know why we would do that,” Ace said. “If we hadn’t had that run-in with you in Packsaddle, my brother and I wouldn’t even be here.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that. You two weren’t the first drifters who got railroaded on phony charges and brought out here. That marshal and judge in Packsaddle have themselves a pretty good operation. They provide workers nobody would ev
er miss for Olsen and get a cut of what he makes.”

  “I thought maybe something like that was happening,” Ace said.

  Chance asked, “What happened to all the other civilians?”

  An ugly laugh came from MacDonald in the darkness. “When they get worked to death, they wind up in unmarked graves out in the desert, and it was like they were never here. Only actual soldiers unlucky enough to get on Olsen’s bad side and wind up on the work detail get places in the cemetery when they’re done. One of those unmarked graves is where you boys are bound for. I’ll bet they won’t even dig two holes. They’ll just dump you in the same one.” MacDonald paused. “Unless you get smart and throw in with me. You never should’ve listened to Costello. He was holdin’ you back from your only real chance outta here.”

  “Why would you want to help us?” Ace asked. “The trouble you and your friends had with us in town is part of the reason you didn’t get away.”

  “Because I’ve seen plenty of evidence now what sort of fightin’ men you are,” MacDonald said. Despite Ace’s wariness and dislike of the burly noncom, he realized that the words had the ring of truth to them. “I need good men for what I’ve got in mind.”

  “You’ve never said what that is,” Chance pointed out.

  “And I won’t say any more until I have your word that you’re bustin’ out of here with us.”

  “I don’t trust you, MacDonald,” Chance said. “We’re going to have to think about this.”

  “Don’t think about it too long,” MacDonald warned as he pushed himself to his feet, “because we’re not gonna be waitin’ around here forever. You just remember what I said about that unmarked grave. The desert’s a big, lonely place. Nobody’ll ever even know you’re there.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The feeling of apprehension was like a physical thing in the air as the work detail set out from the fort the next morning. This time a larger force of guards rode with the wagons and the supply cart. Every man in the group spent a lot of time looking around, but they all knew in the backs of their minds that if their number was up, more than likely they would never see the Apache who killed them. The fatal bullet or arrow would come seemingly out of nowhere.

  That knowledge didn’t stop anyone from peering around nervously at the rolling, dusty landscape.

  MacDonald made sure he sat next to Ace and Chance. When they were well away from the fort, he asked quietly, “Have you boys given any thought to what I said last night?”

  “We have,” Ace replied. As a matter of fact, he and Chance had discussed the matter in whispers after MacDonald left them alone. They agreed that neither of them trusted the burly noncom as far as they could throw him. “We’re not going to promise we’ll go along with any plan until we know what it is.”

  MacDonald glared, clearly displeased by that answer. “I don’t like anybody layin’ down the law to me.”

  “Then you probably shouldn’t have enlisted in the army,” Chance pointed out. “Taking orders is the main thing you have to do.”

  “Not exactly. Fightin’ and killin’ come first.”

  The relish in MacDonald’s voice testified that he liked those things.

  Ace said, “I’ll be honest with you, MacDonald. We don’t like the idea of throwing in with you. But we’re not going to keep working on this road until we drop dead, either. So if you’ve got an idea how we can get away, we’re willing to listen to it, but that’s all we’ll promise.”

  “You idiots don’t know when somebody’s tryin’ to help you,” MacDonald snapped. “Well, you can just stay here and rot, for all I care.”

  He moved to a different spot in the wagon, making another member of the work detail move over and give him room. He kept sending murderous glares toward Ace and Chance, who did their best to ignore him.

  When they reached the spot where the ambush had taken place the day before, all the bodies of the dead Apaches were gone. That didn’t surprise Ace. The surviving warriors had returned later for their fallen comrades.

  The man in charge of the detail today was a corporal named Cochran. Parnell had remained behind at Fort Gila. Cochran got the men unloaded and the tools passed out while guards took up their posts on both sides of the road, which was still littered with debris from the explosion the day before.

  “Get all those chunks of rock cleaned up,” Cochran ordered. “Once that’s done, you can get started widening the gap in that wall. The blast should’ve cracked it enough that the picks will chip it apart.”

  “You sound like you know something about a chore like that, Corporal,” Ace commented as he shouldered the pick he had been given.

  “I used to be a hard-rock miner before I joined the army. Get busy, mister. No time for talk. We’ve got a road to build.”

  It took a while for the tension the men felt to ease, but hard, grueling work had a way of distracting just about anybody. Swing the picks, lift the shovels, force already tiring muscles to continue working . . . It was hard to worry too much about Apaches when you were just trying to keep going.

  Even so, the men glanced toward the hills fairly frequently and searched for any sign of movement, any lurking threat.

  Nothing happened during the day except hard work, and plenty of it. The same was true the next day and the day after that. The gap in the rock wall was widened sufficiently and the work detail pushed on through the rugged terrain, clearing and leveling the route that gradually sloped upward toward the mountains. The Indian attack wasn’t forgotten, but it faded in the minds of the men. The guards remained alert, however.

  By the time Sunday approached, everyone was looking forward to a break from the routine, a chance to stay inside the fort, rest, and not worry that a horde of Apaches might sweep down out of nowhere and massacre all of them.

  * * *

  Evelyn Sughrue was mending clothes in the parlor of the little adobe house she shared with her father when she heard the rattle of buggy wheels outside along with the hoofbeats of a horse. The windows were open to let in whatever vagrant breezes might blow through and lessen the stifling Arizona Territory heat. They let in those troubling sounds as well.

  Evelyn sighed and set her mending aside. She stood up from the rocking chair where she’d been sitting. She knew it would be only a matter of moments before the knock came on the door. When it did, she was not the least bit surprised.

  She opened the door to find Eugene Howden-Smyth standing there, hat in hand, a smile on his face. No one else would have come here in a buggy.

  “Good day to you, Miss Sughrue,” he said in that cultured British accent many women no doubt found quite appealing.

  Evelyn did not.

  “Hello, Mr. Howden-Smyth,” she said. “My father should be over at the headquarters building, if you’re looking for him.”

  “I’m always glad to visit with your esteemed father, but actually, today it’s you I’ve come to see.”

  “Oh?” Evelyn said, sounding surprised even though she really wasn’t. “What can I do for you?”

  He gestured vaguely with the hat. “Perhaps we could continue our conversation inside, out of this infernal sun?”

  Evelyn thought about pointing out that it wouldn’t be proper for the two of them to be alone together in the house, but she decided not to waste the time and energy doing so. It wouldn’t do any good. Better to go ahead and find out what the Englishman wanted, she told herself.

  She already had a pretty good idea what that was. He had made it clear enough through his veiled comments and the way he looked at her.

  She moved aside and gestured. “Come in.” She could be genteel and polite, as her mother had taught her to be—although she was doing precious little these days to honor the memory of Amelia Sughrue, she thought, the way she stood by and watched as Frank Olsen plotted and schemed and took advantage of her father.

  She took Howden-Smyth’s hat as he entered the house. She set it on a small table and asked him, “Would you like something to d
rink?”

  “Some cool water would be lovely after that long, hot ride from the mine.”

  She poured water from a pitcher into a glass and handed it to him. “You were going to tell me what I can do for you,” she reminded him.

  “Of course,” he said after he had taken a drink. “You can come spend the day and have dinner with me Sunday. I find myself in the need of some charming company, and there is no one in the entire territory more charming than you, Evelyn . . . if I may be so bold as to call you that.”

  He was bold, all right. At least, his eyes were as they roamed freely over her body in the dark green dress she wore.

  Eugene Howden-Smyth was twice as old as she was. True, the touches of silver at the temples in his thick dark hair gave him a distinguished air, and it was obvious from looking at him that he was still a strong, vital man. Many girls Evelyn’s age would be delighted to have someone like him take an interest in them. And in addition to being handsome, the man owned a gold mine! Some women would consider him incredibly desirable just for that reason alone.

  Unfortunately, he was connected with Frank Olsen—and the lieutenant made Evelyn’s skin crawl. That had been true from the first moment she had met Olsen and felt as if she were looking at a venomous snake. Maybe it wasn’t fair to judge someone guilty by association, but that was the way she felt about Eugene Howden-Smyth. Because he was working with Olsen, he made her skin crawl, too, and she couldn’t do anything about it.

  She managed to smile, though—somehow—and say, “I’m honored by the invitation, Mr. Howden-Smyth, but I really couldn’t.”

  He took another drink of the water and then asked, “Why not? I confess that my cook is accustomed to throwing together simple meals for a crew of hungry miners, but I assure you he’s capable of more.”

  “Sunday is the day Lieutenant Driscoll tends to the men who need medical attention, and I often assist him in the infirmary. Also, my father and I usually visit my mother’s grave on that day.”