Ambush on the Mesa Read online

  Darrell Phillips looked down at his Wellington boots. Made by Bascomb of London. The best boots’ in the whole department, and he had to wear them into this country. The boots were scuffed, and one of them had a slit clear through the fine leather. No amount of polishing and buffing would ever make these boots look like anything worthwhile again.

  Phillips closed his eyes and leaned back against the warm wall of the little room he shared with Clymer. He wrinkled his nose a little. Abel Clymer carried an animal-like odor about with him even when he was freshly scrubbed. Clymer had given him nothing but hell from the first day he had showed up at Fort Ayres. According to regulations both Abel Clymer and Darrell Phillips were officers and gentlemen. Their commissions had made them both officers. The difference between the two of them was that Abel Clymer had reached the miraculous estate of being a gentlemen by the act of becoming an officer, while Darrell Phillips had been born a gentleman and would die as one.

  Phillips thought of Katy Corse. She would have been as much out of place in his mother’s drawing room as Abel Clymer would have been, but there was something refreshing about her, despite her easy frontier manners. Somehow she had been able to ease the pain of his bitter loneliness. She was attractive and well formed…. He shuddered a little as he thought of bringing her home to his mother.

  He stood up and picked up his hat. Katy was outside somewhere. He had to see her, to talk with her.

  Chandler Willis slitted his eyes as he looked out over the canyon. Damned if he had seen any Apaches, but he knew as well as the big scout did, that they were there. Lying in the brush on the heights across the canyon; maybe even up on the mesa which rose above the cliff dwellings. Willis had almost made his break back there when they had found the smashed remains of Winston’s cattle-herding detail. He could have maybe made his way to the Rio Grande alone, then south to join Baylor’s Second Texas Rifles at La Mesilla. But two men had been watching him: Lieutenant Clymer and First Sergeant Hastings. Either one of them would have shot him if they had figured he was going to desert to the Confederacy.

  • • •

  Chandler Willis cursed his luck. He had killed a man back on the South Llano in the fall of ‘59, and had made it across the Rio Grande the range of a rifleshot ahead of the dead man’s relatives. From there he had drifted to Fort Bliss, where he had enlisted for a winter’s feed and shelter. Hastings had tagged him with the nickname Snowbird because of that.

  Willis shifted and spat again. That damned Yankee Pearce was up to something crooked. He needed Chandler Willis for something. Something for Pearce’s profit, not Willis’s. Yankees were all alike.

  He wondered how loyal Hugh Kinzie was. He was tough enough to be a real Tejano. Maybe he was thinking of joining the Confederacy. The two of them together could clean out this bunch of Yankees, and ride like kings into La Mesilla with a mess of rifles and equipment, plus some damned good horse and mule flesh.

  • • •

  Maurice Nettleton looked down at his sleeping wife. Sweat dewed her oval face. Her soft lips were parted, showing her even white teeth. Her breasts swelled against the material of her traveling dress. Nettleton swallowed hard. A cold greenish wave of fear flowed through him as he thought of losing her.

  She had made him. He had been an obscure second Lieutenant of dragoons at Jefferson Barracks when he had met her and had instantly fallen in love. He had come from a fairly well-to-do family, which made it possible for him to court her. Shelton Bennett had always said he wanted a son-in-law as tough in the rump as he was, but it wasn’t really the truth, for Shelton Bennett ruled everybody who would allow him to. And his daughter, too, for all her soft looks, was as hard as nails. She had married young Maurice Nettleton because she had thought he was the kind of a man she could mold to fit her needs. Her judgment had been faulty.

  Their first years of married life had been like a dream. Living in the fine big house in St. Louis; having his promotion come through years ahead of time; getting assigned to department headquarters as a staff officer. Then Shelton Bennett had quarreled with somebody in the War Department. It had been enough to have Maurice transferred to godforsaken Arizona. The pain had been assuaged a little by his promotion to captain. Marion had looked on the affair as a gay adventure. But Maurice had been badly shaken. The country was too big and dangerous. He’d had no experience with these hard-bitten frontier soldiers. Abel Clymer, who had run Fort Ayres before, listened to Maurice with some respect, but he still ran the post. Then the slow realization had come over Maurice that Clymer was making a strong play for Marion. He was solicitous with her, and used every opportunity to show up Maurice.

  Maurice Nettleton began to fan his wife. He could hear Abel Clymer’s bull voice in the next room, where he was riding Darrell Phillips. Nettleton looked at the fine engraved Colt pistol in his holster, one of a pair presented to him by Shelton Bennett. Nettleton felt his hands tremble. He hated violence and bloodshed. All he wanted to do was get his wife to safety, then get himself assigned to a staff job where he could be beside his wife when she needed him. But if Abel Clymer stood in the way, he would see that Maurice Nettleton would fight for his own.

  • • •

  Matt Hastings pulled his soggy shirt up over his head and swabbed his armpits with it. He had a fresh shirt in his pommel pack, but he had been saving that for his entry into Santa Fe. In twenty years’ service he had bucked his way up through the ranks by his ability to follow orders, and always look like a soldier. There had been a time when the diamond of a top soldier was all he desired, but the rumors of war changed Matt Hasting’s ambitions. For the first time in his army career he began to think of wearing shoulder straps instead of chevrons. Instead of obeying his officers’ orders implicitly he had begun to think that perhaps he knew more than they did. He had begun to burn the midnight oil reading every military book he could lay his hands on. Matt knew them all by heart, which was a hell of a lot more than that bumbling Captain Nettleton could say, or Abel Clymer with his big mouth, or Darrell Phillips with his sensitive face and fine manners.

  Matt wiped off his carbine and pistol. He’d hold this J Company outfit together if it was the last thing he ever did.

  • • •

  The sun had died in the west, weltering in rose and gold. Purple and black shadows mantled the mountains. A cooling wind crept out of the hills and rustled the brush.

  Jonas Stevens walked along the line of thirsty horses. They had been jerking at their picket lines. Jonas touched his cracked lips with his tongue. He had saved his ration of water for that day, but there wasn’t enough, for one of the animals. The lack of water was one of the many things he had never figured on when he had asked for duty in the Southwest. Not for himself, but for the animals. It was different back East. Plenty of good water and fine grazing for cavalry mounts. Jonas patted the nose of one of the horses. He looked down into the dim canyon. Maybe there was water down there somewhere. Kinzie hadn’t said so, but Kinzie was a secretive sort. But if there was water down there, Jonas Stevens would see to it that the horses and mules got to it.

  • • •

  Harry Roswell was standing his guard shift in the tower. He looked down at his two stripes. He wore them because he always obeyed orders without question, even those of a corporal who was senior to him. Matt Hastings had once said that seniority amongst corporals and second lieutenants was like virtue amongst whores, but Matt Hastings was a capable first sergeant worth half a dozen green officers.

  Roswell touched his two stripes and then straightened his hat. He gripped his carbine and threw back his shoulders. His seniors could rely on him to carry out their orders. He dropped through the opening in the floor and felt about for the chicken ladder.

  • • •

  It was pitch dark in the canyon. A coyote howled. The wind moaned through the chasm, rustling the brush, and haunting the cliff-dwelling ruins with ghostly whisperings. Something moved furtively at the wall that edged the front of the terrace. A man
rolled over the wall and landed softly on the slope. He lay there a while, listening to the night. Then he eased his way down the slope until he reached the brush at the bottom. Then he was gone through the brush, heading for the east end of the canyon.

  • • •

  Isaiah Morton sat in the darkness of a tumbledown room, with his back and head pressed against the warm wall. His Bible lay open on his lap, and one of Isaiah’s spatulate fingers rested on the page. It was too dark to read, but it really didn’t matter, for he knew the book by heart. He was sure that God had placed him in his present company for some obscure but righteous reason of His own. They were an ungodly lot. Their passions and desires were close to the surface. There was no inner peace in any of them. Some of them laughed at Isaiah Morton, but he had taken it as part of his martyrdom, part of the task which had been given to him in a vision. For Isaiah Morton had been picked to bring Christianity to Mangus Colorado. It had been said that an old priest had tried to do so many years before. But he had failed. Some said that Father Font had been a good man, and had failed not because of anything he had done, or had not done, but rather because his own people had betrayed Mangus Colorado.

  The scout, Hugh Kinzie, a hard and violent man, had said the Mimbrenos were waiting for their chance out in the darkness. When that chance came they would strike and kill. Isaiah tried to conjure up a picture of Mangus Colorado.

  “He sitteth in the lurking places of the villages: in the secret places doth he murder the innocent: his eyes are privily set against the poor.” Isaiah Morton stood up and paced back and forth. “He lieth in wait secretly as a lion in his den: he lieth in wait to catch the poor: he doth catch the poor, when he draweth him into his net.” Isaiah’s harsh voice rang out, echoing from the walls. “He croucheth, and humbleth himself, that the poor may fall by his strong ones!”

  Someone called out along the terrace. Isaiah’s voice died away. A faint murmuring echo came from the arched rock wall high above the cliff dwellings. Cold sweat bathed Isaiah’s gaunt body.

  From somewhere in the darkness a dry voice spoke up. “If them Apaches didn’t hear that, they’re deaf. He’s a shoutin’ minister, that man is.”

  Isaiah bowed his head in prayer.

  Marion Nettleton was still tired. She had had more rest than anyone else in the party, and had been exposed to the least amount of hardships. She lay awake in the darkness, trying to imagine she was in her big bed in the cozy room in her father’s castellated monstrosity of a house back in Missouri. She had a strong will, and a fine imagination, but she could not fight back the eerie darkness of the ruins, always pressing in for every advantage.

  Maurice was outside somewhere, bumbling about, trying to play the part of the frontier soldier. Maurice had always been good to her. She had fallen in love with him, or thought she had, because he had had all the outward manifestations of the kind of man she wanted, but time and closer acquaintance had showed her how wrong she had been. He was on the defensive with her now, catering to her every wish, pampering and petting her, when she had hoped for a man like her father, who ruled women, and everyone else for that matter, with a will of iron.

  Marion had come west with Maurice, hoping that he would assert himself and build up a reputation, but unfortunately he had been too long under the hard thumb and the strong will of Shelton Bennett. They hadn’t been at Fort Ayres more than a month when it was obvious his men were laughing at him. Mother Nettleton was his nickname behind his back. Marion often had wondered what they called her behind her back until one day she had overheard two noncoms talking together about her. She had not been mentioned by name. “The Little Corporal,” one of them had said.

  Marion hadn’t been too nervous when they had left Fort Ayres. Now doubt had a firm hold on Marion Nettleton. She had depended on these people for her comforts; now she was dependent on them for her very life. Maurice had bungled as usual. If he had abandoned the beef herd he would not have lost the largest part of his company, as well as the services of a skilled Indian fighter. If he had moved swiftly toward the Rio Grande, instead of traveling almost leisurely for the comfort of his wife, he might have escaped the net cast about him by Mangus Colorado. Now he was more concerned about his wife’s little desires than about the dangers surrounding them. Hot coffee, a soft place to sleep, warm blankets in the cool nights, and cold water during the hot days: none of those things would matter if a screaming horde of bloodthirsty Apaches came down on them and ripped Marion’s clothes from her, and ripped the ivory citadel of her shapely body with greasy hands.

  Marion sat up and slowly fixed her hair. She had once thought Abel Clymer was the man to save her. At first she had hated the scout, Hugh Kinzie, with his sharp orders and bitter eyes. But Hugh Kinzie could save her if anyone could. Marion stood up and brushed her clothing. There would be a moon that night. He had once promised to stay close to her on the trail. This night she would give him his chance. Not too much, just enough to set the hook in tightly.

  • • •

  There was a faint suggestion of the moon in the eastern sky. Dan Pearce looked back over his shoulder. He could just make out the cliff dwellings up on the slope behind him. No one had followed him. It would be quite some time before that three-striped bastard Sergeant Hastings missed him. By that time Dan would have the silver service and any other loot from the mule packs, cached away.

  Dan padded through the brush. It was almost like the old days back at Five Points when he had prowled the streets looking for drunks to smash and pluck. He looked up at the high walls of the canyon. It was almost like walking through a narrow street in New York, between rows of sagging tenements. Dan Pearce would make it all right. He had the luck and the guts.

  Katy Corse slowly hooked up the front of her dress. The heat of the day was long gone and a cool wind whispered up the canyon. She wanted a bath and clean clothing, but she cast the thought from her mind. There was hardly enough water for drinking purposes, and the only women’s clothing available belonged to Marion Nettleton. She hadn’t offered Katy the use of any of it.

  Katy walked out onto the dim terrace. There was a brooding quiet about the canyon. She could feel, rather than see, the men of the little party, staring out into the dimness and listening to every night sound. She had been through experiences like this before. At Tubac she had lived through an attack when she had been fifteen years old. Her mother had been killed in that one. In 1858 her father had been the sutler at Fort Buchanan, and Katy had helped him. Two years later he had been killed by Apaches while bringing in supplies. Katy had turned over the sutler’s store to Cass Wilkerson. Cass had kept her on as his clerk. It was then she had met Hugh Kinzie.

  Katy felt the breeze cool her warm flesh. She had fallen hard for Hugh Kinzie, probably because he hadn’t paid much attention to her on a post where every trooper, one way or another, honestly or dishonestly, had tried to gain her favor. Hugh Kinzie was a great deal like his brother Ronald. Strangely enough, Katy had been interested in Captain Kinzie, but he had paid no more attention to her than he had to his horse or dog. Hugh seemed to have been a little more human, but still had that Kinzie aloofness about him.

  Herbert Oglesby had played up his suit vigorously to Katy about the same time Hugh had seemed to be a little interested. Katy liked Herbert and had used him to place a little jealousy in Hugh Kinzie, to see what he’d do. Katy had overplayed her hand, for Hugh had shied away like a badly broken horse. In common with most of the men on the post, he had assumed she was Herbert’s woman. Nothing she could do, within reason, had changed Hugh’s coldness toward her. Herbert had proposed. She had accepted, hoping Hugh at last would do something. He hadn’t. One day he was there; the next day he was gone into the hazy mountains. A month later Herbert Oglesby had died with a flint arrowhead buried in his chest.

  Katy walked to the edge of the terrace. Somehow, every time she tried to be nice to Hugh, she put her foot into it. Hugh was feisty, and had to be handled with a fine touch, and Katy Co
rse seemed to lack that touch.

  A man came up behind Katy. She turned quickly, hoping it was Hugh. She looked up into the dim face of Darrell Phillips. There wasn’t any hesitation in him. He swept her close and pressed his lips against hers. She was so surprised, there was no fight in her.

  “If you’re going to dally,” a dry voice said behind them, “you’d better get off the skyline. The moon is coming up.”

  Phillips released her and turned quickly to look into the amused face of Hugh Kinzie. “You’ve not right to come up on us like this!” snapped Phillips.

  Hugh looked out into the canyon. “You’re close enough to that slope for a Mimbreno to come up on you and have a knife into your back before you’ll even smell his stink.”

  Phillips raised a hand. He stepped forward.

  Hugh smiled. “Don’t do anything you’ll be sorry for, Mr. Phillips.”

  Phillips lowered his hand. In front of Katy Corse, he wanted desperately to prove he was a man but not at the expense of fighting Hugh Kinzie.

  Hugh raised his head. “You’ll be on guard tonight. We’ll all take turns. The enlisted men are getting tired of doing all the work. We’re all in this. We’ll have to forget about rank for a while.”

  “All right, Kinzie.”

  Hugh looked at Katy. “Don’t get too far from any of the men, Katy.” He turned and walked away into the darkness like a great lean cat.

  Darrell Phillips looked at Katy. “What did he mean by that?”

  She looked away. Her hands closed into tight little fists. “Damn you,” she said hotly. “Get away from me!”

  Phillips reached out a hand toward her, hesitated, then turned on a heel and walked away.

  A blanket of silence seemed to have settled over the great canyon. Even the wind had died away. It was almost as though the canyon was waiting for something to happen.

  Chapter Ten