A Good Day Read online

  At least he had the Sergeant and the Corporal with them, both experienced men. Men it was good to have at your back in a tight corner. Haydon, with his trim moustache and calm, unflustered manner. Chandler with his toughness and quick tongue.

  And Carter also wondered about this man they called Crow. Tall and lean, sitting his horse as though he’d been molded to it, seeming oblivious to the weather. Obviously a killer of the worst kind, yet with a strange air of authority that also made the young officer pleased that he had him as scout.

  The rain stopped around three in the afternoon.

  By that time the patrol had covered nineteen miles, with several stops while Crow slipped down from his saddle to check the trail.

  “Still the same, Lieutenant,” he reported at the last halt. Standing by his stallion, boots caked with drying mud, feeling the coolness that had come along on the heels of the rain.

  “No Indians dropped out?”

  “No. Looks like everyone cleared out the same time. Two of the scouts on Cavalry animals. Then there’s six women, three old men and John Dancer.”

  “You’re good, Crow,” said Chandler, admiringly. “I can about make out the tracks of the Army horses, and I can see the women. Not the rest.”

  “Old men spread their feet more and they walk with their weight on their heels,” explained the shootist. “And John Dancer had a slight limp.”

  “Hell, I never noticed that,” muttered Sergeant Haydon, beating dirt from his hat against the leg of his breeches.

  “It’s not much,” admitted Crow. “Maybe an old knee injury. But he favors the right a touch.”

  “But nothing of the boy?” asked Carter. Every time they’d stopped he’d asked Crow the same question. And every time he got the same answer.

  “No.”

  They couldn’t already have killed him, could they?”

  “On the trail?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Couldn’t have. Nobody left their party. We’d have seen clear sign.”

  “What about if’n they killed him back at Fort Garrett?” asked Haydon.

  Crow nodded. “It’s possible, I guess. But it was searched, wasn’t it?”

  The Sergeant breathed in deep, standing in the stirrups to stretch his legs. “Should have been. Different lookin’ for a corpse. Plenty of places it might have been hidden.”

  “But the hostiles left the fort early on. Surely someone would have heard something.”

  Crow shook his head at that. “Guess you don’t know the ways of the Apache, Mr. Carter.”

  “I’ll admit that, Mr. Crow,” replied the young officer, with a touch of anger. “But I am willing to try and learn.”

  The shootist sniffed. “Sure you are, son. Sure you are.”

  “Then tell me.”

  Crow looked at the inexperienced youth, feeling a touch of sympathy for him. When the shootist had become an officer in the United States Cavalry he was already a man grown and hardened. Tempered in ways that Carter would probably never get to know.

  The boy seemed hardly to be shaving, his cheeks smooth of any trace of down. His lips were full and soft, and he had protruding front teeth that gave him the appearance of a slightly belligerent rabbit. His eyes were a watery blue, hair close to being blond but not quite getting all the way there.

  “Way I recall it, there was a farm somewheres between the Red and the Pecos. Comanche country. Father and three sons. All grown. Mother and two sisters. One was round eighteen, the other a few years younger.”

  The troopers gathered around the shootist were all listening intently. Most of them were experienced soldiers and some nodded as the tale wore quickly on.

  “Been some trouble with stock gettin’ run off by the bucks. The man caught one of the lads. Teenage boy, out for some honor. Farmer cut off a finger and gave him a whipping. Let him go.”

  “Done better to have shot the boy,” commented the Sergeant.

  “That’s right. That way there’d have been trouble, sure enough. But it was a matter of honor. So, a few days later the Comanche came in the night. Real quiet. You was saying, Lieutenant, about how someone in the fort should have heard something. The father and his sons didn’t hear a sound at that farm, and they were all in the living-room of the spread, playing cards as I recall.”

  The only sound was the wind blowing across the barren land. Everyone was held by the tale told by the soft-voiced man in black.

  “One of ’em complained once about a draught, but that stopped. They carried on playing, knowing that their womenfolk were safe in the kitchen. After an hour or so one of them wanted to go out back to the necessary. Way out was through the kitchen.” Crow paused. “Way I recall it he was struck crazy on the spot. Never ever spoke another word. Hanged himself a couple of weeks later.”

  “Comanche?” asked one of the soldiers, voice breathless with the tension.

  The shootist nodded. “Yeah. They’d come in through the back, quieter than snow falling on water. Taken the women, probably throttled them unconscious. Had their ways with them outside, among the brush, while the card game went on.”

  Chandler coughed. “They bring them back when they’d done, Crow?”

  “They did. What was left of them. Comanche bucks with an hour to spare and three white women for their sportin’ can do a lot with skinning knives. They killed them all. Raped them first. Took the hair.” He looked round at the circle of faces. “Eyelids. Lips. Slit the noses clean down the middle. Knocked the teeth out. Broke jaws. Sliced the breasts off and opened the women up … down below there. Smashed knees and elbows. Spread them around some in the kitchen. Oh, and they cut off every finger. Thirty fingers for the one that the farmer cut off the boy. Laid them all along one side of the big scrubbed pine table.”

  He finished the tale and the silence hung on long after, running all around the small patrol. The troopers had huddled in closer together as if they felt they needed protection against the shootist’s words.

  It was the young Lieutenant Carter that broke the haunting spell. “Come on, men.” His voice breaking so that he had to try again. “Mount up and let’s be going. Still a long ways to ride today.”

  It was towards evening that they came across the Apache. A solitary figure, his pony cropping contentedly at some damp grass. One man, stooped over a small animal that he’d trapped. His back was towards the soldiers and the wind carried the sound of their movement away from him. Crow held up a hand in warning, turning and placing a long thin finger to his lips to urge caution.

  Carter followed suit and Haydon called back to warn the rest of the soldiers.

  “What do you think, Mr. Crow?” asked the officer, looking round as Chandler and Haydon joined them, just on the brow of a low ridge. Where they could watch the lone warrior.

  “I’m here to scout for you, Lieutenant Carter. I’m not getting paid to give no advice to you on what to do when you see a Chiricahua.”

  “He’s one of Small Pony’s band?”

  Crow sniffed. “Could be. Probably. Yeah, probably. Surprised to see him on his own.”

  “Better take some care,” said the Corporal. “Might be a trap.”

  The shootist disagreed. “Not out in the open like this. Even if they’re in some draw over yonder we’d still be in as good a position as them. Maybe he hasn’t heard about their taking the Quaid boy. Doesn’t expect a patrol out this way.”

  “We must capture him,” said Carter.

  “He won’t likely tell you anything. Beyond how much he hopes you die real soon,” grinned Haydon.

  The four of them stared out across the furrowed land.

  Behind them a horse stamped and there was the faint jingling of a bridle. Carter looked round as a warning for silence.

  The light was poor. The sky had filled over with a shroud of light gray, wiping away even the distant traces of blue. Darker, lower clouds scudded across that ceiling, moving south as though they were in a great hurry to get somewhere and dump their burden
of rain. Every now and again there would be a flurry of drizzle that drove into the faces of the patrol.

  “How do we get close?” asked Carter, of nobody in particular.

  “Send a couple of troopers around him in a loop, each side,” suggested Chandler.

  They’d be seen. Less they go miles off the trail, he’d see them. We don’t have enough men to circle him in,” replied the Sergeant.

  Carter sighed. “Then how can we get close in to him? He’ll spook and be long gone.”

  “Send in a marksman. Bring down the horse. Then we’ve got him.”

  “Good thinkin’, Sergeant,” exclaimed the young officer. “Who’s best with a rifle?”

  Haydon looked across at Crow, who shook his head. “Not me. I’m fine when I can see the whites of the eyes. Not so hot with a long gun.”

  “Then it’s Trooper Dearman. Comes from Kentucky. Shoot the balls off a gnat at a hundred paces.”

  “That Apache’s more than that,” commented Crow, staring hard into the failing afternoon.

  “Get Dearman. Tell him to work along that arroyo to the right. When he’s close enough he can bring down the pony.”

  The soldier was tall and lean. There was a curling scar running over his forehead and down the left side of his face, puckering the corner of his eye. He carried his forty-five caliber Springfield rifle as though he was hunting squirrels in the woods of his home state.

  Joining the officer he peered out at where the small figure could still be made out. Following the shallow draw to the right. Curling his lip unhappily.

  “What’s wrong, trooper?”

  “Damned bad shootin’ light, Sir, and that’s the damned truth.”

  “But you can get in close.”

  “Sure. Closer, maybe, but not real close. I’ll still be a couple of hundred yards off of the Indian.”

  “You can hit a horse at that range, Dearman,” said Chandler.

  “Maybe.”

  “More than maybe, damn it!”

  “Time’s easing on by us, gentlemen,” suggested Crow. “Light’s failing fast and that Chiricahua won’t wait for you.”

  So the soldier went off, still muttering his unhappiness. But Carter was adamant that this was the only way to do it. Crow didn’t disagree with him. That wasn’t what he was being paid for. But he surely didn’t agree with him either.

  He’d have sent the two best-mounted men at a full gallop over the ridge, spreading everyone else out in a line. To go for the lone warrior. He was something over a quarter mile away. Not more than one minute at a fast speed. He might not hear them for several seconds. Then he’d look around. However quickly he reacted he’d still hesitate when he saw the rest of the patrol on the skyline. He’d wonder for a few moments whether there were more of the blue-bellies. And where they might be. All the time the gallopers would be closing in on him. Crow guessed that with reasonable luck and skill they should have been within easy range of the Apache before he had the chance to swing up on his pony and escape.

  “Damned dark,” muttered Corporal Chandler, looking around to make sure that Carter wasn’t within easy earshot. But the Lieutenant was standing over to their left, using his binoculars to scan the land ahead of him for a sight of Dearman.

  “Dark for good shooting,” agreed Crow.

  “If’n he misses and that buck gets clear off, then we’re in a spot.”

  “No,” said the shootist. “Don’t agree, Haydon. The Apaches must know we’ll follow them to try and get the lad back. They’re pushin’ on at their best speed to reach Small Pony and the main tribe as quick as they can. They’ll only start to worry about us once they think they’re safe.”

  “There he is,” said Carter, his voice trembling with excitement. There.”

  The other three all looked out into the evening. It was hard to even make out the crouched figure of the Indian, still intent on his business. Still oblivious to their presence. Neither Chandler nor Haydon could see their sharpshooter, but Crow’s eyes were better than most and he could just see him. A faint blur against the surrounding grayness. Halfway between the Chiricahua and the rest of the patrol.

  “Best mount up, Sir,” suggested Sergeant Haydon, not even bothering to wait for an answer from the Lieutenant. Hurrying to where the men were sitting down in a rough circle, talking quietly among themselves. Ordering them to ready their horses.

  Crow stood and waited. Holding the reins of his stallion. The clouds seemed to be scraping across the sky, barely above his head, weeping a soft rain. Making it impossible to see what was going on out in the desert, beyond the ridge.

  “I don’t figure he can …” he began but his words were interrupted by the muffled crack of a Springfield rifle, a couple of hundred yards away in the gloom.

  “Jesus Christ!” exclaimed Carter. Wrenching out his glasses again, clapping them to his eyes. Staring fixedly across the land.

  Crow was quicker. “He missed,” he said, voice barely above a whisper.

  “He hit it,” countered the officer.

  “Sure. Figured he would. But only a flesh wound. See the dark on the neck.”

  “You got the damnedest eyes I ever did see,” muttered Carter.

  “He’s …” started Chandler, stopping again as they all heard a second shot.

  “Indian’s up on the horse,” said Crow.

  “Let’s go!” shouted Lieutenant Carter, waving encouragement to his men.

  Try and take the bastard alive!” yelled Sergeant Haydon, drawing his own Colt from the oiled holster at his belt.

  Crow was several seconds in the lead. Chandler was closest, with Sergeant Haydon galloping in third. Then came Carter, setting spurs to the flanks of his bay gelding. The rest of the patrol was trailing behind, losing time in the confusion of grabbing their own horses, one man riding with Dear-man’s mount in tow.

  The shootist was well over the ridge, galloping hard towards the Indian. The pony was bucking, frightened at the noise, in pain from the bullet wound. The man on its back was battling for control.

  “Don’t shoot!” yelled Crow, seeing that the Corporal had his rifle unbucketed. “We’ll get him easy.”

  But his words didn’t reach the Kentucky sharpshooter, in the draw to their right. He saw the flash of the shot, and the cloud of smoke from the muzzle of the marksman’s Springfield. The Apache suddenly threw his arms out, like an image of crucifixion, and he toppled backwards off his mount.

  “Shit,” said Crow, starting to rein in.

  “Could just be wounded,” began Haydon, but his voice betrayed what he knew.

  You fight with the Cavalry for a few years and you get to see a lot of men knocked off their horses by a bullet or a spear or an arrow. You get to know the way a man looks like when he’s wounded. He resists the fall. Holds on to himself. Often cries out with shock and with pain.

  When someone went like the Chiricahua warrior had just done, there wasn’t a lot of room for doubt. All the strings were cut. The lines down. He’d be lying in the cold dirt, looking up at the gray sky through clouding eyes.

  Carter spurred on past the two non-coms and the shootist. He was waving his arms and calling, his voice incoherent.

  “All he needs is a saber to swing and a doomed charge to lead,” said Chandler, sourly. “Stupid young wet-eared fucker.”

  Dearman appeared out of the arroyo, waving his rifle in the air, face split apart with a broad grin.

  “Got him,” he crowed.

  “You brainless son of a bitch,” spat Haydon. “You was supposed to be aimin’ at his horse.”

  “I did. Hit it, too. Pony wouldn’t fall.”

  The Apache mount was a faint blur, disappearing in the blackness of the swelling night. It would provide a fine warning to the Chiricahua of the advancing soldiers. But all of that was way too late now.

  Way too late.

  But that wasn’t the worst of it.

  Carter reached the dead man first, stopping his horse with a flourish. Waiting for
the others to arrive. Greeting them with a call of triumph.

  “Better than him getting away, huh, Mr. Crow? Better!”

  The shootist reined in a dozen yards away, swinging out of the saddle and stepping slowly towards the body. Though he was ninety-per-cent certain the Apache was dead, there wasn’t any point in risking his life on that ten-per-cent.

  The man was lying in a crumpled heap, shirt torn, blood black in the evening light, spread across the centre of his spine. His head was curled under an arm.

  “Sure a small one, ain’t he?” said Dearman, running up at an easy lope.

  “Sure, Jed. You gonna throw him back again?” joked one of the troopers.

  The body was small, even for a Chiricahua.

  Crow stopped and gazed down at the corpse, drawing in a deep breath as the nagging doubt began to harden up into a certainty. Looking round at Chandler and Haydon for a moment.

  “What’s wrong, Crow?” asked the Corporal. “What the Hell’s the matter?”

  The shootist stooped, kneeling in the dirt, touching the neck of the Indian with his fingers. Checking there was no pulse throbbing there. “Nothing,” he said, mainly to himself.

  “Let’s see the damned ’pache’s face,” called Dearman, busily reloading his rifle.

  “Sure,” said Crow. “Take a good look.”

  Reaching under the body, heaving it so that it rolled over on its back. The limbs flopping lifelessly away as though they had no place still attached to the corpse. Though the light was near gone, there was enough left for everyone there to see the face clearly.

  “Jesus,” said Dearman.

  “I … I didn’t,” began Carter, then stopped.

  “That sure tears the sheet down the middle,” said Chandler.

  The Indian was barely a boy. Not more than twelve years old.

  Chapter Seven

  They camped a quarter mile away from where the boy’s body lay tumbled into the arroyo. The same ravine where Trooper Dearman had hidden to pluck the young Chiricahua from the back of his pony with one lethal bullet.

  Carter posted a double layer of guards. Two men a hundred paces off from the camp, circling constantly around, meeting twice on each circuit. They were there for two hours each before they were relieved. And inside them the Lieutenant placed two more sentries. Doing the same thing but working on a fifty pace perimeter, under orders every now and again, at random, to change their directions to throw off anyone that might have sneaked in past the outer two guards.