Springfield 1880 Read online

  The two in the wagon currently in the lead were dead. No doubt about that.

  “I don’t think so,” one of the men said. “Except the one you hit on the head.”

  “Want me to finish off that bluecoat you cold-cocked?” said a greasy vagabond with a gold-capped tooth.

  “I told you that the lieutenant in charge must remain alive. But only him.”

  “You also told us,” said another, “that these boys would turn tail or just curl up and die.”

  Foster glared. He could shoot that loudmouth, too, but, well, he needed drivers and guards. “Never mind. What about the bay? The lieutenant’s horse? Did you shoot it?”

  No one answered. Obviously, they had not killed the bay. Sighing with bitter contempt, Foster nudged his horse down the trail. He saw the tracks of the galloping Army mount, and he knew part of his plan had gone to hell.

  “Damn it!”

  “But you told us not to kill the—”

  “I said not to kill the mules. We need the mules to get these wagons to Mexico.” He turned the steel dust around. “That horse will run straight to Dos Cabezas. Some drunk will stop him. Someone will see the US brand and get word to Bowie. Or that horse will gallop straight to Bowie. Either way, the Army will be sending a company when even that dumb colonel we have realizes that’s Holden’s horse. Now get these wagons turned around. It’s a long way to Mexico and we don’t have as much time to get there as I’d hoped.”

  The tailgate was opened, and the bloody corpse in the back rolled onto the ground.

  Foster rode back to the original first wagon, saw the two dead Germans, shot and killed before they knew what had happened.

  He wanted to check on the other soldiers, make sure they were indeed on their way to hell or heaven. Maybe order a few of the boys to walk around and give every one except Grat Holden a coup de grâce, a bullet in their brains. But after far too much gunfire and too much gone wrong, he had no time for that. They needed to be moving. Heading south as fast as those mules could go.

  His men were hurrying. They feared Jed Foster more than they feared getting caught by the Army. At best, they’d be spending a long time in the prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, if the Army caught them. More than likely, they would be hanged at the fort or over in Tucson. But if Jed Foster turned against them . . .

  That was another thing Custer had told him. Fear makes good motivation.

  Foster rode past Grat Holden, still bleeding, still breathing, and still lying in the cactus. He kept going, past the dead horse he had killed, and came to Sergeant Byron Lusk. He swung out of the saddle, keeping a grip on the reins and Winchester, and kicked the man over. Unseeing eyes stared up at him, and just a small amount of blood appeared on the noncommissioned officer’s blue tunic. Foster grinned at his shot. Through the heart. At a gallop. One hundred yards distance, maybe a little more.

  He climbed back onto the horse and rode easily until he was out of the canyon. Again, he dismounted, studied the progress his men were making. Satisfied, he reloaded the Winchester before he put it into the scabbard. Then he moved closer to Grat Holden. There was the whiskey bottle, and Foster’s luck had held. It had not broken.

  Taking the bottle and setting it aside, he knelt and reached into the cactus, put his hand underneath Holden’s head, and lifted it toward him.

  Holden’s eyes shot open as his right fist came up swinging. The blow caught Foster’s jaw, and sent him reeling. Holden shook his head and lunged. One hand slipped inside the captain’s tunic. The other tried to smash Foster’s throat. He missed. His eyes filled with rage. Foster shot out with both hands, catching the lieutenant in the chest. He heard the ripping of his tunic, and Holden went down on his side. He tried to come up, but Foster was in much better condition. His right fist slammed into Holden’s temple, and once again, the lieutenant fell silent and still.

  “You need to learn when to quit, Holden.” Foster tested his jaw.

  He grabbed the bottle, but did not bother lifting Holden’s head. He pulled out the cork and poured whiskey over the lieutenant’s open mouth. Then dropped the bottle beside the unconscious officer.

  “I never really liked you, Grat. You’re just too . . . decent. Enjoy Leavenworth or, if you’re lucky, being a private.”

  Once again, he mounted the steel dust and loped to the wagons.

  “Come on. Mexico and a fortune wait for us!”

  CHAPTER 7

  His jaw hurt. He couldn’t fit a hat over the bandage that covered his head. And Colonel Carlton Smythe told him he could not wear his dress uniform. At least, Grat Holden decided, he was allowed to walk to the funeral. House arrest was restricted. At least for the afternoon.

  When the door opened, he stepped outside. Another hot day. Hotter than usual.

  Holden brought up the rear, following the procession that moved past the flag flying at half-staff, and on the road that led toward Apache Pass, stopping at the post cemetery. No one spoke to him. No one even looked at him.

  The colonel said some words. The chaplain prayed. The honor guard shot their Springfields over the coffin before Sergeant Byron Lusk was laid to rest. He should have rested beside seven other fresh graves, but the recruits killed at the canyon near Dos Cabezas had been buried at the little village. It was too hot to transport blood-soaked corpses all the way to Bowie.

  They had transported one boy, though. To Holden’s surprise, he learned one of the soldiers, a kid from an Illinois farm who had a badly wounded right leg and a bullet in his groin, still lived.

  That made Holden wonder. Had the bandits and Foster left the kid alive? Or had they just overlooked him? Holden would have to ask Jed Foster that question when he found him, and just before he killed the traitor and butcher.

  The funeral ended too quickly. Soldiers filed away, still refusing to look at Holden, or even acknowledge his presence. Holden walked to the hole. He found the shovel. He studied the coffin, frowned, and sent dirt onto the wooden box.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Colonel Smythe demanded.

  Holden did not look up, just put himself into the job. “Burying my friend.”

  One of the grave diggers, the ruffian Smythe had let out of the guardhouse to do the job, laughed. That turned the colonel’s attention to the post drunk and left Holden alone to his job. A drunk wasn’t fit to bury a man like Byron Lusk, formerly an officer in the service of the Confederacy, now a sergeant killed in the line of duty for the United States cavalry.

  While he shoveled, another figure stepped to the mound of dirt. He wore chains, too, and the white cotton garb of an Army prisoner, except for his blouse. You could still see where his chevrons had been.

  Holden studied the man. Private, formerly a sergeant, Ben “Hard Rock” Masterson. Holden had busted him down to private. He wasn’t fit to bury Lusk, either.

  “I can do this myself, Masterson,” Holden said.

  The ex-sergeant threw dirt into the hole.

  “You’re the one who’s not fit, Mister Soon-To-Be-Ex-Lieutenant. You’re the one who got drunk, let this good man get killed . . . and a bunch of others. You’re the one who’s been slanderin’ Capt’n Foster’s name. You’re the disgrace to that uniform.”

  Holden dug the shovel into the mound savagely, but he would not brawl with a ruffian over a brave man’s grave.

  “Besides,” Masterson said, sending more dirt and pebbles into Sergeant Lusk’s grave. “He was my friend.”

  That’s good enough for me, Holden thought. They filled the grave in silence.

  * * *

  Back in his Spartan quarters—his roommate had moved out, finding quarters elsewhere, saying he would not stay with a coward and a drunk—Holden withdrew a scrap of paper.

  In the desert, he had awakened to the sounds of buzzards and coyotes, drawn the Schofield, and fired into the air. Then he saw the paper he had dropped. Ripped. Wadded up, probably in his hand. He’d picked it up and remembered his scuffle with that traitor, Jed Foster, and kne
w it must have come out of Foster’s jacket during the fight. As the carrion birds left the carnage, he’d seen something else. Four or five armed men riding slowly, leading his horse.

  They’d come from Dos Cabezas. Or they might have been Foster’s men, coming to finish the job. He’d slid the paper back into his pants pocket, and, still holding the smoking .45, had tried to stand. He had passed out.

  Alone, he looked at the paper and tried to make sense of it.

  What was there to make sense of? Two words—Dolores. Muncie. And the start of a date—July. The rest had been torn off.

  He heard the footsteps and slipped the paper back into his pocket. Pushing himself off his bed, he felt a sudden spat of dizziness and had to grab a bedpost to steady himself. The door opened.

  When the Army thinks you guilty of at least drunkenness if not treason, soldiers forget to knock.

  “Colonel wants to see you,” the corporal said. There was no sir added.

  * * *

  “How’s the kid?” Holden asked as soon as the door shut behind him. He stood in Colonel Carlton Smythe’s office.

  “Kid? You mean Mitchell. So he can swear, as you claim, that he never actually saw you take a drink. Just saw Captain Foster offer you one.”

  “Because he, and the others killed, were good men.”

  Smythe fumed. “Trooper Mitchell is dead. Shock, that sawbones says, from the amputation of his leg.”

  “Damn,” Holden whispered.

  “Damn?” Smythe sent a glob of mucus into the spittoon. “Damn because you think he could’ve saved you and your preposterous story? My feeling is damn you, Holden. Nine men killed. You found with whiskey on your breath and a bottle at your side. You’re the sole survivor of a massacre . . . and you’re responsible for the loss of four wagonloads of Springfield rifles and enough ammunition to start a war!”

  “I told you what happened,” Holden tried again.

  “Yes. You slandered the name of the gallant Captain Foster. He served under the martyred George Custer during the late war, Holden. Do you think anyone will believe your outrageous story?”

  CHAPTER 8

  The stagecoach slid to a stop on the rugged road leading to Bisbee. The driver cried out in fear. The guard stood in the box and brought the twelve-gauge shotgun to his shoulder, but before he could even thumb back the hammers, six arrows hit him in the chest and four more in the back. He tumbled over the coach, causing the mules to pull hard. The driver felt like letting them run, but that was one hard grade to climb, and he didn’t want to wind up looking like a porcupine.

  He also didn’t want to be tortured to death by Apaches so he dropped into the box, found the shotgun, put it under his chin. The Apaches let him thumb back both hammers. And they laughed as he fingered both triggers.

  The white-haired leader with a fat nose, fat face, and red silk headband kicked his pinto into a walk. The horse walked around the dead guard, ignored the smell of blood and death in the booth, and halted by the door. The Indian jerked it open.

  “¡Vete!” he yelled in Spanish. “¡Vete! ¡Vete! ¡Vete!” He motioned with his hand, gesturing for the passengers to get out, then he kicked his pinto and went to the wagon’s boot.

  Motioning to eight Apache warriors, he dismounted and nodded at last to the other two Apaches. They swung from their stolen horses and hurried to him, to open the boot and go through the luggage.

  The tallest of the Apaches hurried to the open door, reached in and pulled out the saloon girl who had just been run out of Tombstone.

  “Oh, my God,” she wailed, and dropped to her knees. “God have mercy. God show pity. God save me.”

  Four men—a drummer, a gambler, a banker, and a dentist—came out of the coach. They were all white, paler than usual, and the drummer had already wet his britches.

  “Ain’t you got a gun?” he whispered to the gambler.

  “I lost that in Tombstone, too.”

  “They’ll take me into the hills,” the woman said, “and ravage me till I’m dead.”

  “Better than getting staked to an anthill and have honey poured over your face and private parts,” said the banker.

  One of the warriors, a young brave in his teens, walked up to the dentist. He held out a pillowcase and grunted something in a guttural language none of the passengers could understand. He grunted again, more forcefully, and two of his comrades raised their Winchester repeaters at the dentist.

  “By Jove,” said the banker at last. He looked at the dentist. “I believe they’re robbing us.”

  The men with the old leader scattered the clothes and items from the luggage in the boot. The old man frowned at the pickings and moved his horse back to the side of the stagecoach. He spoke sharply in Spanish, then Apache.

  “That’s Crooked Nose himself,” whispered the gambler.

  “How . . . can . . . you . . . tell?” whined the drummer.

  The gambler rolled his eyes.

  The warriors ripped the brooch from the saloon girl’s dress, threatened to chop off her finger to get the ring before she managed to slide it off, and pulled off her earrings. She yelped in pain, fell to the ground, and buried her head in her hands, sobbing, waiting for the assault that never came.

  They took the gambler’s vest, and slapped him senseless when they realized he had nothing of value, although the younger one pulled the vest over his bare chest and began strutting around. They scored cash and gold pocket watches from the banker and dentist, and took the banker’s diamond stickpin as well, and they emptied the drummer’s samples but took his suitcase, which proved better than the pillowcase.

  Finally, one of the braves climbed into the driver’s box, tossed the mangled corpse of the suicidal driver over the edge, which caused the drummer to faint and the banker to throw up. Next the brave hoisted the Wells Fargo box and dropped it into the dirt.

  That seemed to satisfy Crooked Nose, who barked something in Apache, and two of the braves picked up the strongbox and carried it into the wooded hills on the side of the road.

  The rest of the Apaches busied themselves. They cut the mules loose from the Concord and herded them into the woods. They took the pillowcase and anything else that struck their fancy—the gambler’s hat, the woman’s stockings, the shotgun, the driver’s wallet and St. Christopher’s medallion. Crooked Nose barked some more orders in the rough language, and kicked his horse into a walk.

  A moment later, the passengers were standing alone in the road. They listened for a moment, heard the sounds of the mules and the Indians climbing up the hill, stones rattling, branches breaking. Within a few minutes they could hear nothing but the saloon girl’s sobs and banker’s gags.

  At length, the gambler said in a shaky voice, “They . . . didn’t kill . . . us.”

  “No,” said the dentist. “They didn’t.”

  Hearing this, the saloon girl lifted her head. The dentist covered the bloody remains of the driver with one of the coats the Apaches had pulled out of a suitcase.

  “Do we walk to Bisbee or do we sit here and wait?” the gambler asked.

  “Walk,” said the banker, who found a handkerchief and wiped his mouth. “They might be back.”

  “What happened?” asked the saloon girl.

  The dentist laughed. “No one will ever believe it, lady, but we were just held up by Crooked Nose and his Apaches.”

  CHAPTER 9

  The name of the cantina in the town of Rancho Los Cielos, just across the border in Sonora, was called Mariscos, which meant seafood . . . which was a joke. You couldn’t get any seafood in the cantina, and even if you could, you wouldn’t want to eat it.

  When she heard the jingling of traces and the snorting of mules outside, Soledad Tadeo stepped through the open door and waited.

  Four wagons. The mules were played out. Four-mule teams pulling two. Another wagon had three. The last wagon had two. The harnesses had been cut. The men, fourteen, by Tadeo’s count were bleary-eyed from the hard ride. The mules and th
e wagons had been burned with the US brand, but none of the men wore the uniforms of the soldados norteamericanos except the dashing one with the fringed leather jacket, and he wore only the pants, boots, and spurs of the Yanquis.

  The first outrider swung off his winded, sweat-lathered brown gelding and rushed to Soledad Tadeo. He grabbed one of her breasts and pushed her against the outer wall of Mariscos.

  He found himself against the wall as he grimaced in agony. She had his testicles in her left hand, and she was squeezing like a vise. She had a knife against his throat and had pricked just enough skin to draw blood. Sweat burned the cut, but the man could not feel that because of the agony below his gunbelt.

  “Touch me again,” Soledad Tadeo whispered, “and I will cut off your manhood and shove it in your mouth.” She did not let go.

  Most of the men who had ridden in with the gringo now laughed at their colleague’s predicament.

  She said so that all could hear, “If this borracho sees me again, I will kill him. And if any of you dare look me in the eye, I will kill you, too. So when you see me, cast your eyes upon the dirt. The graveyard at the top of the hill is filled with men who I did not like.” She moved the knife from his throat, nicked his left earlobe, spit in his face, and gave his balls one final twist. When she turned, the man slid onto the dirt, moaned, puked, and fell on his side.

  Only the man in the buckskins was staring at his boots.

  She yelled out a war cry in Spanish and brought the knife up as though to throw it. She also drew a nickel-plated double-action Colt and aimed it at the closest man. That did the job. All of the men stared at their dusty boots. To Soledad Tadeo, it appeared that even the mules were looking at the ground, refusing to make eye contact.

  She nodded, but lowered neither gun nor knife, and made her way through the men. As she passed each wagon, she looked into the beds. She also noted the depths the wheels had made in the road. It was a rather hard road, but the wagons had made substantial tracks.

  When she reached the other cantina in Rancho Los Cielos, she tilted her head back and cried out the name of the revolutionary, “¡Viva Amonte Negro!” squeezed the trigger of the pistol, feeling it kick twice, and slipped through the closed door of La Cantina Que No Tiene Nombre, The Cantina That Has No Name.