Springfield 1880 Read online

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Foster looked at the wagons, the men, and then turned around in his saddle to stare at the road to Fort Bowie.

  “You nervous, Lieutenant?”

  “Cautious, sir.”

  “Want some company?”

  “You have Mexico, sir.”

  “Well, the canyon you cut through is shady, and it is a trifle warm today. And my horse here”—he patted the neck—“seems a bit winded. I could at least get you to the other side of the canyon. Maybe even all the way to Dos Cabezas. There’s a saloon there. You can reacquaint yourself with your old nemesis, tequila.”

  Holden’s head shook good-naturedly.

  “Well . . . let’s just say that I might not make it to Mexico. Dos Cabezas might do me fine. I’ll ride along with you, Lieutenant, if you have no objections.”

  “I always enjoy your company, sir.”

  “Very good.” Foster raised his hand and turned his horse. “Forward, yo-oo.”

  CHAPTER 3

  The wagons creaked, groaned, and the wheels sank in the sand. The new recruits weren’t exactly experienced muleskinners, either.

  Jed Foster shook his head and found a cigar in the inside pocket of his buckskin jacket. He bit off the end, spit, and shoved the cigar into his mouth, fished a match from another jacket pocket, and struck it on the butt of the Winchester rifle sticking out from the scabbard that faced toward the horse’s neck . . . unlike the scabbards on most Army saddles.

  “Eight men? That all you got?”

  Holden shrugged. “All they sent us.”

  “The old man was expecting twenty.” Foster laughed and slapped his thigh. “So was I.”

  “You know this man’s Army, sir.”

  “Yeah.” The cigar came out, and Foster spit to the side. “All too well I know this man’s Army.” With bitterness he rarely showed, he pitched the barely smoked cigar into the sand. For a few yards, he said nothing, but finally turned in the saddle and looked at the wagons behind him.

  “Two Huns, I take it,” Foster said. “Some farm boys. A city slicker. One boy who must’ve lied about his age. And another who must be older than I am. Plus one swarthy gent who’ll desert the first time he gets. Bet he joined up to avoid some law.”

  The canyon drew nearer.

  Foster studied the north wall. Holden looked at the south side. Sergeant Lusk had dropped back about twenty yards behind the last wagon.

  When they dipped into the canyon, the air immediately turned cooler.

  “Let me ask you something, Mr. Holden,” Foster said. “Why do you do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “Soldier in this man’s Army. I know what a first lieutenant makes.”

  “I don’t.” Holden laughed and lowered his shoulder to show off the straps. “I’m still a second lieutenant.”

  “Well, let me assure you, Grat, that you won’t get rich on a captain’s salary, either.”

  Holden laughed, but shook his head, and replied in all seriousness, “I don’t do this for the money.”

  “For the glory then? Custer got glory. He also got butchered, got his command killed. And I don’t see a whole lot of glory coming to anybody in this godforsaken hellhole.”

  “How about for pride?” Holden said.

  The captain turned, stared, grinned, and tugged on his goatee. “Pride. Now there’s something a man can hang his hat on.”

  “I’m serious, Captain. Pride in what I do. What we do. What I can do.” He hooked his thumb at the wagons. “Those eight new recruits. I’d love the chance to shape them into soldiers. I think I can do it. They’re young. But I’ve been with them for a hundred miles. They’re game. And, no disrespect intended, sir, but I don’t think that dark-skinned one will run. He’s game as a bantam. He’ll stick with us because he gave his word.”

  The white hat got pushed back. Foster leaned back, looked the men and the wagons over, and said, “But what if they’re all dead before we reach Dos Cabezas?”

  Holden didn’t answer . . . but he stared at his senior officer with a bit of uneasiness. Then Foster reached into his saddlebag and pulled out a bottle.

  Maybe, Holden told himself, that explained it.

  Foster bit the cork, pulled it out with his teeth, and took a swig. He took another swig from the bottle and corked it. “How much do you think those rifles and ammunition would bring?” He took another pull from the bottle.

  “Sir?”

  “How much money could you get?”

  “I don’t understand, sir.”

  Foster laughed and held out the bottle toward Holden, who shook his head.

  “It’s not tequila, Grat. Rye. Not the best I’ve had, but you can’t find the best in southern Arizona.”

  “You’re on leave, sir. I’m on duty.”

  Foster cackled and shifted the bottle to his left hand. “How much money would they bring, if we were to sell them?”

  Holden smiled, but he also brushed his hand casually across the flap of the holster. He had not refastened it. Maybe his nervousness before Captain Foster showed up had some founding to it. Maybe Foster, drunk as he appeared, wasn’t the hero the lieutenant had thought.

  He made himself answer. “If the colonel is right, Captain, the weapons aren’t worth the time and manpower it took to get them from Fort Lowell to here.”

  “Depends on the buyer, I guess. Ain’t that the case!” Foster reined in. “Hold up, Grat. No sense in both of us getting shot off our horses.”

  Before Holden could say anything, Captain Jed Foster turned in his saddle, and ordered the drivers to stop and wait. Then he spurred the steel dust ahead, slowing only when he reached the edge of the canyon. Cautiously he loped out of the canyon several yards, gun in his right hand, whiskey bottle in his left, reins in his teeth. He spurred the gelding to the north, fell out of view, came back into view trailed by dust and disappeared on the south side only to reappear a few yards ahead.

  He stopped, looked up, down, behind him, and at length, using his knees, guided the horse back to the edge of the canyon.

  “All clear, come ahead.”

  Holden breathed easier, but still kept his hand near the holster, and kicked the horse into a walk. As he cleared the canyon, Foster again held out the whiskey bottle.

  “No, but thank you, sir.”

  “Then hold up for a moment, Grat. I want to talk to you. See if you can do me a few favors while I’m gone. No, it’s not paying off any of my gambling debts.” He winked. “And, no, it’s not about filling in on any of my myriad dalliances.”

  He waved the Germans on. “Keep riding. Don’t slow till you’ve topped the grade. It rained recently, and the sand’s soft.”

  He sent the next wagon on, then called out to Sergeant Lusk. “Sarge. Best ride back down the canyon. Make sure nobody’s following us. Look for dust. Then get your arse back here in a hurry.”

  By then, the third wagon was out of the canyon, creeping along.

  He kept holding out the bottle. Jed Foster was persistent. He called Grat Holden stubborn. “Or a teetotaler.”

  “Wouldn’t call me that, sir. But, again, I’m on duty.”

  “Hold up!” Foster yelled. The recruits—even the Germans—obeyed.

  Holden cocked his head. It was an odd place to stop four wagons.

  “Come with me to Mexico, Grat. We’ll have us a high old time.”

  That’s when Grat Holden reached for his holstered Schofield. But he never got to it, for Jed Foster still held his long-barreled Colt, and swung it with crushing force across the top of Holden’s head.

  CHAPTER 4

  Grat Holden tumbled out of the saddle the moment gunfire erupted up the trail. Jed Foster watched the gallant young fool hit the ground hard as his horse took off at a gallop toward the wagons. Blood ran down Holden’s face. He did not stir. Quickly, Foster slipped off his horse and drew his 1873 Winchester from the scabbard.

  The Army issued Springfields to its soldiers, but officers
could always, at their own expense, outfit themselves with something that shot more than once like a Springfield, and something that was unlikely, after many rounds, to fix things so you had to pry out the empty copper cartridge from the breech with a knife—before the Apaches were riddling you with arrows.

  Foster’s horse was trained not to run with all the gunfire popping around him. Foster did not concern himself with the eight green recruits on the four freight wagons. He focused on Sergeant Byron Lusk, galloping down the canyon with his Springfield single-shot carbine ready.

  Deftly, Foster worked the lever, jacking a .44-40 shell into the chamber. Resting the twenty-four-inch barrel on the seat of his saddle, he drew in a deep breath, and braced the stock against his shoulder. He lined up Sergeant Lusk’s back in his sights, released his breath, counted one-two, and squeezed the trigger.

  The rifle kicked, the steel dust did not move. Stepping away from the smoke the Winchester belched, Foster saw the sergeant’s horse still running. He saw Sergeant Byron Lusk, who’d won some Confederate medal while fighting as a captain with Jeb Stuart’s cavalry, lying in the center of the trail. Then Foster shot the horse.

  He turned, spit in disgust, and worked another round into the Winchester. The Army preferred carbines for troopers. Foster liked the rifle, especially the Winchester. It held three more rounds than the Winchester carbine. He had fired twice. That left him with thirteen. He knew he should have kept a live round in the chamber. Then he would have started with sixteen .44-40 cartridges.

  “Thirteen,” he said. “Bad luck.” He sent another round into the air and worked the lever again.

  Foster glanced at Holden, still unconscious in the dirt. As hard as I clubbed him, Foster thought, Grat will sleep till Independence Day.

  The men Foster had hired remained in the rocks on both sides of the road. Foster couldn’t see the lead wagon, but he figured the two Germans were dead. He couldn’t see Lieutenant Holden’s horse, either, and that troubled him.

  The rest of the raw troopers, however, must be game. Smoke belched from inside two of the freight wagons and troopers returned fire in both directions. Foster shook his head. Young Grat was right. Those fellows might have made something of themselves in this man’s Army. Just not the one who ran toward Jed Foster.

  Tears cut through the gunpowder residue that darkened his pale face. He was the city boy, young, red-headed, freckles on his nose. Blood poured from his left arm, and dribbled down his fingertips. He had dropped his Springfield. Seeing Foster, the kid slid to a stop. He blinked. He said, “Mister . . .”

  Foster shot him in the chest.

  Moving to his right, around the new corpse, Jed Foster inched his way toward the last wagon. No problem there. He could see the driver, the farm kid, lying on the seat, not moving, the top of his head a bloody mess. Foster went to the back of the wagon and peered inside. The crates were wrapped in canvas, tied down with thick ropes. Foster had to give Grat Holden a nod of respect. The kid knew what he was doing.

  He moved to the mules, stamping their feet, snorting, braying, nervous, and wanting to stampede. But the driver had set the brake. The wagon wasn’t going anywhere until Jed Foster wanted it to go. He gave the off-mule a wide berth as he moved toward the next wagon.

  At least one man left in that one. Foster saw the driver come out of the box and fire at the bandits on the north side of the road. Waiting, hoping those idiots he had hired wouldn’t accidentally gun him down, Foster braced the rifle and waited.

  The man came up, but as Foster prepared to pull the trigger and put a bullet in that hardcase’s spine, another trooper came up from the back of the wagon. Foster had figured he was already dead. This was the one Foster had predicted would desert.

  He spotted Foster and knew exactly what to do. He had been aiming at the gunmen on the ridge to the south but swung the rifle at Jed Foster and pulled the trigger.

  CHAPTER 5

  Foster let out a curse and dived as the bullet burned his blond hair. He rolled over, snapped off a quick shot, and saw the man dive back into the bed of the wagon, and the other rider disappear inside the driver’s box to reload.

  Foster levered the Winchester, which felt hot in his hands.

  His men seemed to be concentrating on this same wagon. He hoped that meant the recruits in the wagons in front lay dead.

  Taking cover in the rocks, Foster aimed at the tailgate of the wagon. He could send some bullets through the wood. Make the dark man in the back nervous. Maybe get lucky and hit him. He swore.

  And risk ruining one of those Springfields. Or somehow hit the ammunition. The odds of blowing up the wagon by some chance shot were so high, it never could happen. But Foster had too much invested to risk any damage to any rifle.

  He would have to get his men to charge. He might lose a few, but that would be no loss. Or better yet, he could work his way up the hill, find a spot and shoot down on the two soldiers. Pick them off. They were sitting ducks.

  But not any longer.

  Foster blinked and came up swearing as the mules began pulling the wagon off the side of the road and toward the wagon in front. He could just make out the gloved hands that gripped the lines to the mules. The driver—that young kid who couldn’t be old enough to enlist—was pulling out. Not retreating. No way any of those boys were cowards. He was showing some brains.

  The swarthy man in the back of the wagon popped up, snapped another shot that sent dust and chips of rocks into Foster’s eyes, and disappeared as a bullet from one of Foster’s men splintered the tailgate.

  Furiously working to rub the grime out of his eyes, Foster yelled, “Stop that wagon!” He tripped, fell to his knees, came up, and ran, blinking and rubbing, clutching the Winchester. He tripped over the body of the one soldier who had showed yellow, the one Foster had gunned down back when he thought everything was in hand.

  He could see. His vision was blurred, but he could see. The steel dust remained exactly where Foster had left him. The whiskey bottle he didn’t remember dropping beside Grat Holden wasn’t broken. Foster grabbed the reins, and started to find a stirrup, only to see Holden rolling over, pushing himself up with his hands.

  “How—?” Foster cursed again, kicked his left leg free of the stirrup, and ducked underneath the steel dust’s head. Viciously, he brought his boot up, heard the crunch as the heel slammed into Holden’s head and sent him into a clump of cactus. He was out cold. Maybe dead. At that point, Jed Foster didn’t care one way or the other.

  Leaping into the saddle, he spurred the steel dust into a lope.

  Past the first wagon, the fleeing Studebaker started picking up speed. Those four mules were either fresh or scared.

  “Don’t shoot the mules!” Foster yelled as he loped by the other three wagons, a few riddled with bullets, and the soldiers either dead in the wagon seat or lying in bloody pools that were quickly being sucked into the Arizona dirt.

  Everything was going to hell.

  Then, luck—as frequently came to Foster—prevailed.

  The kid couldn’t see exactly where he was going, unless he wanted to get his head shot off, so he left that up to the four mules. At the speed they were going, when they started downhill toward Dos Cabezas, the back of the wagon slid, and the wheel landed in the ditch.

  Foster held his breath, fearing the wagon would tip over. Once again, his luck held. The wagon drug for ten or twelve feet, then stopped. Stuck for the time being.

  His men hurried on foot. Foster reined in his horse. Those two in the wagon had showed they were fighters. They wouldn’t give up so easily.

  The boy jumped out of the seat, landing on the road. Two bullets ripped into him. He staggered back as one of the bandits—a portly fellow who had been a civilian muleskinner down at Camp Huachuca—laughed and brought up his Remington. The kid, though, didn’t drop his Springfield. Somehow, he braced it against his bleeding side, turned, and touched the trigger. The bullet tore through the portly skinner’s throat, and he landed a
gainst a paloverde tree. Dead, his head was almost torn off.

  Four or five more bullets drilled into the kid, who fell beside the front wheel. The mules started dragging again, practically pulling the wagon out of the ditch.

  “Surrender!” Foster yelled.

  The green recruit didn’t. He came up, put a .45-70 slug into another idiot Foster had hired, and the soldier disappeared behind the wood.

  Standing in his stirrups, Foster yelled, “Rush him! Rush him! Before he can reload!”

  Some of the men turned and stared at Foster as if he were mad. Foster put a bullet at their feet and jacked another round into the rifle. “I said charge him!”

  They ran.

  Foster remembered riding with George Custer during the war. Remembered what Custer had once told him. Men are expendable. Sometimes it takes a lot of dead men to win a battle.

  The gunman came from both sides and the rear. The swarthy man came up again and fired, sending a bullet that went through one man and then dropped the fool immediately behind him. The dark man dropped behind the wood again, but the boys had the bloodlust. They ran to the wagon. Some climbed onto the wheels. Some just jumped up and fired. They fired. They fired. They fired. One even reloaded, stuck his Colt over the tailgate, and emptied the pistol again.

  CHAPTER 6

  Foster touched the horse with his spurs and rode down the hill.

  “Enough. Enough!” He reined in and peered inside the back of the wagon.

  “All right,” he said, out of breath. Sweating. Hell, Jed Foster never sweats, he told himself. He started to sheath the Winchester, but saw his man the dark one had shot. The one with a bullet through his belly and his back.

  The man groaned, begged, bled.

  “Can you ride?” Foster asked.

  The man tried to answer but only managed to spit out blood.

  Foster didn’t ask again. He brought the rifle up, shot the dying man in the head, then took charge. “Get that body out of the back of this wagon, and get this wagon turned around. All of the wagons must be turned around. Are any of the drivers and guards alive?”