Ambush on the Mesa Read online

  “So?”

  Hastings looked up. He wiped the sweat from his eyes. “We had him … lock, stock and barrel. But he wouldn’t surrender. Not that old devil. But we got him.”

  “How?”

  “Wasn’t no sense in charging in on him. He was like a cornered rat. Mr. Ballard was our C.O. — a good soldier and a mathematician. He studies the lay of the land. The Apaches was holed up under a big cave just like this one we’re under. Open ground in front — no cover at all. No way to get at them from either side or from the top. But we got ‘em. All of ‘em.”

  “Keep talking. It kills the monotony.”

  “Yeah. Well, as I said, Ballard was a mathematician. He looks at the slope of the cave roof, does some figuring. Says something about the angle of rebound being the same as the angle of incidence. Whatever that meant at the time I didn’t know, but I learned damned soon. Ballard tells us to aim at the cave ceiling. We fired volleys until the barrels were misty with heat. At first we heard screams. Then groans. Then nothing. Ballard stands up like he was on parade and walks right into that God-damned cave like there was nobody there.”

  “So?”

  Hastings looked steadily at Hugh. “Those slugs had bounced down from the roof right into those Apaches behind the boulders. Jesus but it was awful! The slugs had keyholed into them. There was pieces of skull with hair still on them scattered all over. Not one of them poor bastards was alive. It looked like we had given them a dose of canister or grape at pointblank range from a mountain howitzer. But we didn’t lose a man.”

  Hugh felt a little sick.

  Hastings closed his eyes. “Ballard got a promotion. Later he was ordered to West Point to teach mathematics.”

  “It figures.”

  Hastings looked up at the reddish rock which formed the roof of the cave over the dwellings. “That place was just like this.”

  Hugh leaned back against the terrace wall. “I’ve been trying to figure out what Dobe-gusndi-he means.”

  Hastings laughed dryly. “That’s the joke. It means invulnerable.”

  “Stop,” said Hugh. “You’re killing me.”

  Hastings stared at Hugh for a minute, then burst into cackling laughter. “That’s one thing I’ve always liked about you, Kinzie,” he said. “You’ve got the dryest God-damned sense of humor.”

  Hugh stood up and looked back at the heat-soaked dwellings. “Speaking of dryness,” he said quietly. “I’m going to take a look-see for Greer.”

  “I hope that sonofabitch is dead. He never was a soldier and never will be.”

  “We might need him before we get out of here.”

  “Him?” Hastings spat dryly. “He’s nothing but a burden. Like that psalm-singing bastard Morton.”

  Hugh shrugged. “We’ll have to do something before long, Matt.”

  Hastings rubbed his jaw. “Yeah. But what?”

  “Na-tse-kes.”

  “What in the hell is that?”

  Hugh looked out at the canyon, silent and foreboding under the brilliant sun. “One thought at a time, over and over again in the mind, exclusive of all others.”

  “Sometimes I think you’re part Injun.”

  “One thought at a time: how to get out of here … alive.” Hugh walked toward the dwellings.

  Hastings rubbed the stock of his gun and looked across at the far wall of the canyon. “Yeah,” he said softly. “Yeah. I know what you mean, hombre.”

  Hugh looked along the line of crumbling dwellings. Thirteen people had come there for sanctuary. Three of them were dead. The sanctuary had become a prison and the sentence for each of the remaining ten people there was death.

  Chapter Fourteen

  MYRON GREER lay in the hiding place he had found. There he was safe from the prying eyes of the others in the party. His liquor supply had run out and he had been looking for more when he had found his hiding place. A roof had collapsed at one side, forming a triangular-shaped pocket between the floor and the wall. Greer had crawled inside and had carefully arranged rocks to conceal the entrance. It was stifling hot. His clothing was soggy with sweat and irritated his itching skin. Now and then the white worms seemed to moil and heave in his gut A mallet thudded steadily at the base of his skull, and opening his eyes, even in the semidarkness, seemed to send a lance of burning pain deep into his skull.

  There was a searing thirst in Myron Greer’s throat and a more terrible thirst in his soul. He rested his head against the gritty earthen floor of the dwelling. It had always been the same with him. He had never quite fitted anywhere. As a child he had been unwanted, even by his playmates, because of his ungainliness and lack of skill even in the simplest sports and games. His father had been a big, powerful man with a huge bump of self-ego and a determination to push himself to the top. Myron’s mother had protected and defended him, encouraging him with his books and studies. He had been better than average in that, in any case.

  In college he had found out that the bottle is a good prop for a man who is never sure of himself. It had carried him through four years. By the end of that time he had a degree and a perpetual thirst which kept him from holding a job for more than a month or two. He was all right until he got his wages, then the glass spurs — whisky glasses — would take over, and Myron Greer would get on a two- or three-day drunk, lose his job, and suffer for a week with the aftereffects of the rotgut. Gradually he had managed to stay drunk most of the time to escape a hangover and the more feared sieges of remorse.

  He had drifted West and while drunk he had enlisted, to fill out a recruiting sergeant’s quota for the month and to prove to a derisive group of fellow drunks and giggling hurdy-gurdy girls that Myron Greer really was a man.

  Greer gently beat his throbbing head on the floor. He was sicker than he had ever been on coming out of a bout with John Barleycorn. The only thing that would help was more of the same. Hugh Kinzie had taken the liquor from the rooms below the terrace and had been keeping an eye on that marvelous store of liquid joy.

  Suddenly he remembered seeing that big sonofabitch Clymer pawing around in a pile of debris the night before. Greer sat up suddenly and smashed his head against one of the ancient roof beams. He winced. Then he licked his dry cracked lips. Maybe Clymer had cached a bottle there. It was worth the try. But only after dark.

  Boots grated behind the hiding place. Greer lay down quietly. They were looking for him. It was just like the days when he was a child and he would hear the thud of his father’s feet coming up the stairs to make sure Myron wasn’t reading in bed. Then Myron would shrink under the covers and draw his legs up toward his belly. He would wrap his arms about himself and lie perfectly still until his father was gone. Slowly he drew up his legs and then wrapped his thin arms about himself. He closed his eyes. Maybe blessed sleep would come this way.

  • • •

  The sun had died in the western skies in a phantasmagoria of pink, rose and gold. The canyon was deep in thickening shadows. Heat still filled the canyon, waiting to be dispersed by the night winds. The five stray horses drifted from in front of the cliff dwellings in search of the tinaja further down the canyon. There was plenty of water for them there.

  Bats flitted through the darkness, emerging from their daylight hiding places. Jack rabbits pattered through the brush and bounded toward the waterhole. Small gray foxes moved about in their ceaseless search for rodents. Kit foxes hunted for mice and lizards along the rock ledges. It was the nocturnal merry-go-round: small animals killed and ate smaller animals only to fall victim to larger predators. The night was the time for the hunter.

  Hugh Kinzie wiped the sweat from his face. Chandler Willis shifted his chew and spat. “I ain’t seen the little sonofabitch since he relieved me on tower guard so’s I could help bury Harry Roswell.”

  “You don’t suppose he’s left the dwellings?”

  Willis grinned crookedly. “Him?” He’s got a bottle stashed somewheres. Little bastard wouldn’t give me a drink. He’ll stay around until
he drinks up all the liquor. But even all that rotgut wouldn’t make Myron Greer go out into that damned canyon.”

  Matt Hastings appeared from the darkness and looked at them. “You find him?” he asked.

  “No,” said Hugh.

  Hastings smashed a fist into his other palm. “I’ll kick his skinny ass up between his shoulderblades!” he said.

  They began probing into the many empty rooms. Hugh used sotol stalks he had found lying in a pile in one of the rooms, to light his way. He peered into one room after another. Some of them were filled with collapsed roofs, while others were as empty as last night’s whisky bottle. He could hear the others looking for the frightened little man.

  Hugh passed down the triangular passageway. A man came out of the darkness. “What are you doing here?” asked Clymer.

  “What the hell do you think I’m doing? Looking for four-leaf clovers?”

  Clymer raised his big head. “Some day,” he said thickly, “I’ll …”

  “Get out of my way,” Hugh said.

  “You find Greer?”

  “If I had I wouldn’t be looking for him.”

  “I’ll break his God-damned neck when I get my hands on him.”

  Hugh shook his head as he walked further up the passageway. Everyone was worried about the missing little man, and yet each of them was threatening death to him if they found him. Hugh almost wished the little man had gone down into the canyon and had died quickly.

  Abel Clymer placed a hand on a crumbling wall and swung up onto a pile of roof debris. His big booted feet sank a little into the loose debris. “Greer!” he roared through cupped hands. “Come out! Damn you, I’ll flay you alive!”

  Five feet below Abel Clymer, Myron Greer raised his head as he heard the muffled voice. Fear settled on Greer like a musty shroud.

  Clymer stamped his big feet. “I’ll kill him!” he said.

  The debris suddenly settled beneath Clymer. Ancient cedar roof beams snapped within the settling debris. One of them sheared off diagonally and slid downward. Its tip penetrated under Greer’s left shoulderblade. The relentless weight of the sinking dried mud and rock drove the sharp tip into Myron Greer’s heart.

  • • •

  Maurice Nettleton listened impatiently as Matt Hastings told him of Greer’s mysterious disappearance. “Damn it,” he snapped. “The man couldn’t have left the ruins! He hasn’t the guts of a mouse.”

  “All the same, sir, he can’t be found.”

  Nettleton waved a hand. “Mark him in the book,” he said. “Sergeant, someone must make an attempt to break through and bring in help.”

  Hastings nodded.

  Nettleton looked at Hastings’ face. “The man who volunteers and succeeds will receive a fitting reward, not to mention the gratitude of my wife and myself.”

  “I understand, sir.”

  They eyed each other in the darkness. Nettleton placed a hand on Hastings’ shoulder. “I need not tell you that we’re in a highly perilous position here, Hastings.”

  Hastings nodded again. He stepped back and saluted. Then he smartly about-faced and walked away. “The sonofabitch,” he said under his breath.

  Hastings bent his head to enter the low doorway of the room where Hugh Kinzie and Chandler Willis were waiting for him. Hastings pulled off his shirt and swabbed his armpits with it. “Who’s on guard?”

  “Morton,” said Willis.

  “Him? Jesus! You out of your mind?”

  Hugh waved a hand. “He can see and hear even if he is half cracked. What did Nettleton say?”

  “Mark him in the book.”

  Willis scraped at his dirty fingernails with his knife, eying Hastings now and then as the first soldier wrote down the entry in his book by the light of a candle stub.

  Hastings touched his cracked lips with his tongue. “Greer, M. M., Pvt. — from duty to absent without leave.”

  Willis leaned forward. “What’s the second ‘M’ stand for, Sarge?”

  “Matthias.”

  “Jesus.”

  Hastings closed the book and looked up at Hugh. “The Old Man wants someone to make a break for help.”

  “We talked about that before.”

  Hastings leaned back against the wall, wincing as the hot surface touched his naked back. “I need not tell you that we’re in a highly perilous position here, Kinzie.”

  Hugh looked queerly at the first sergeant.

  Hastings grinned. “Those were his last words to me,” he said.

  “What were your last words to him?” asked Willis.

  “The sonofabitch. Only he didn’t hear me.”

  “I wish he had.”

  Hugh reached behind him and took a bottle out of the pannier. He pried out the wire-wrapped cork. “We’ll have a drink on the Old Man,” he said.

  They drank silently. The bottle went around three times. Suddenly Willis laughed. The other two looked at him. “Tell us the joke, Willis,” said Hastings. “I’d like to laugh too.”

  Willis grinned. “Captain Nettleton,” he said. “First Lieutenant Clymer. Second Lieutenant Phillips. First Sergeant Hastings. Private Willis! You get it?”

  The other two looked at each other. Then they began to laugh. “By Jesus,” said Hastings. “Just like a God-damned Mex revolutionario army. All officers and noncoms … no privates.”

  Hugh passed the bottle around again. Then he corked it and placed it in a niche. A moment after he did so Darrell Phillips thrust his handsome face into the doorway. “What’s going on here?” he asked.

  Three innocent faces eyed Darrell Phillips. “Why, sir,” said Hastings, “nothing. Nothing at all. We were just having a bit of a joke, as you might say.”

  Phillips stared at them. “Joking? Here?” He shook his head and vanished into the darkness.

  “Maybe we shoulda offered him a drink of the captain’s booze,” said Hastings.

  “To hell with him,” said Willis. “He’s got something else on his mind.”

  “Such as?”

  “Katy Corse.”

  Hugh looked quickly at the trooper. “What do you mean?”

  Willis grinned. “I seen her switching that little rump of hers at him. She’s too good for us. She’s working on him. Probably waiting for him somewheres out there in the darkness for a little ride on the two-headed beast.”

  Hugh moved like a cat. His left hand gripped Willis’s shirt front. He dragged the trooper up to his feet His right hand slashed back and forth from one side to the other until Willis sagged in the grip of Hugh’s big hand. Hugh dropped the semiconscious trooper to the floor and looked down at the bloody ruin he had created. Then he flicked the blood from his hand.

  “Jesus,” said Hastings. He looked down at Willis and then at Hugh. “You had no call to do that”

  The blood mist cleared from Hugh’s mind. He snatched up his carbine and walked outside. The liquor was boiling in his mind. He had been a damned fool to drink on an empty stomach. He strode to the tower and climbed up beside Isaiah Morton.

  Morton looked at him. “Are we doomed, Mr. Kinzie?” he asked quietly.

  “You may be. I’m not.”

  The first faint light of the moon showed in the sky. Morton looked out at the canyon. “The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones.

  “And caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry.

  “And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, thou knowest.

  “Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.

  “Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live.”

  Hugh looked down toward the terrace. Katy Corse was with Darrell Phillips. Isaiah Morton raised an admonishing finger. “She doted upon the Assyria
ns her neighbors, captains and rulers clothed most gorgeously, horsemen riding upon horses, all of them desirable young men.

  “Then I saw that she was defiled, that they both took one way.”

  Hugh turned. “Get to hell out of here,” he said thinly. “Gather the canteens and fill them from that water basin.”

  Morton stepped back.

  Hugh drew the fanatical man close to him. “And keep your prophesying to yourself.” He shoved the man toward the ladder.

  Morton rearranged the front of his coat. He opened his mouth to speak.

  “Git!” said Hugh.

  Morton climbed clumsily down the chicken ladder.

  Hugh looked at Katy and Phillips. The officer was close to her, speaking swiftly and quietly. Hugh gripped the edge of the crumbling window and felt his strength pour out of him as he watched them.

  • • •

  The moon began to silver the sands and etch the shadows of the brush upon them. But there was a different light this night upon the high ground north of the silent canyon — a reddish glow pulsated irregularly against the night. Then the wind began to creep up the canyon, sweeping an odor across the mesas. Not the odor of mesquite and juniper, but the rich odor of roasting meat.

  The tempting odor was borne on the wind. It seemed to search with invisible tendrils until it permeated the air throughout the cliff dwellings. Nine people raised their heads and inhaled the titillating scent.

  • • •

  Chandler Willis wiped the blood from his battered face. Matt Hastings had left. Willis felt for the cached bottle. He drained it and raised his arm to hurl the bottle angrily at the wall. Then he lowered it. A thought that had been in his mind for some time began to take on more important proportions. He stood up and snuffed out the candle. He picked up his carbine and walked out on the terrace. All of them were standing there looking across the canyon to where the glow of the fires illuminated the night sky. The odor of the roasting meat clung tempting and inviting over the ruins.