Ambush (20 page)

The warriors stood or lounged around two of the fires, and now Ward set himself the task of counting them. At this distance, he could count only twenty-seven or eight men, and allowing for another eight, on scout or watching the detail, it was about half the number Holly reported.

Ward considered this, watching the activities of the camp. A pair of warriors left camp at a dead run, and presently three more drifted in, but the number never lessened or gained appreciably. Many of the men were going over their arms, checking their guns, bows, and spears. One of the warriors, wearing a ragged shirttail out over his breechclout and carrying his bow and a handful of arrows, came up to a woman. From her, he took the animal intestine which was the Apache's water bag, had his drink, looked now at his arrows, found a faulty one, and set it in his bow. Someone called to him and pointed to a target, and warrior drew on it swiftly. The defective arrow started true, then yawed and was lost in darkness; the men laughed.

From their actions, Ward knew, this fight would be classified as a raid. There was no time for the dance, which always went with war. They had stumbled on an enemy they could annihilate while they paused for rest and food.

Looking closely now, Ward thought it was Diablito who was sitting by the fire, his back to the ridge, for he was the one spoken to most often. Presently, this man rose and threw something in the fire, then turned to speak to one of the women, and seeing him now, Ward was sure. He was undersize, with a great wide and long chest that made his legs seem short and stubby. His leggings were folded down, and to a man unfamiliar with his history, he would seem only a mildly comic figure, unimportant.

Now Ward, knowing what he must do, pulled slowly back off the ridge. His descent was as careful as his ascent had been until, in the narrow canyon, he turned south at a trot.

Here, then, was what Loring had wanted, the body of the band itself, with its women and perhaps Mary Carlyle. But the fact that the band was only half the size Holly had estimated puzzled him. Had the band, refusing altogether to fight, split up in two parts, hoping to divert pursuit? Or had part of it lagged, hoping for an ambush of Wolverton's troop? He did not know.

Guided now only by the stars and his sense of direction, Ward kept south, widely skirting the ground between the Apache camp and the detail, and when he judged they were behind him he cut east again, and on the canyon rim, was presently picked up by the challenge of a soft Irish voice.

“Kinsman,” Ward identified himself, and waited until the trooper appeared cautiously in the night. “Take me to Captain Loring, soldier,” he requested.

“Lieutenant Storrow is on this side of the canyon, lad. Loring is on the far bank of this damned gully. Come along.”

Ward descended the precipitous slope to the canyon and was immediately challenged by the sentry on the other side, who turned him over to another trooper. They climbed the tight curving wash, which was only an eroded runoff from the rim, and the trooper turned to his left at the head of it, threading his cautious way between troopers resting among the boulders until he hauled up and said, “Mr. Kinsman to see you, sir.”

“Kinsman?” Loring's voice from the ground was startled. “Where?”

“Right here, sir.”

“Very well.” The trooper vanished, and Ward now heard the movement of Loring rising, and saw his thick bulk halt in front of him. “I thought I told you to go,” Loring said bluntly.

“I've found your Indian camp, Captain,” Ward said. He told Loring of his discovery, and as he talked, he noted Loring's silence, his sparse questions and he tried to cover all that Loring should know, yet he wondered,
Is the man too proud to receive information he needs?

When Ward was finished, Loring asked, “You say you couldn't see Mary Carlyle?”

“I was too far away to recognize her if I had.”

“That's a pity,” Loring said, disappointment in his tone.

“Maybe she's not with them. The whole band isn't there.”

“Whose judgment are you quoting?” Loring asked impatiently, sharply. “Holly's? Is it likely he saw them all on the peak? Would they stop to be counted?” Loring snorted softly. “I'm familiar with Holly's judgments, which are right not quite half the time. How would he estimate the number in the camp?”

“The size of it and the number of
jacals
.”

“Precisely. Guesswork. If you were unsure of a count of hostiles yourself, what would you do, Kinsman? Underestimate or overestimate in your report to the Army?” Loring's dry voice was truculent.

“Over.”

“To be on the safe side, yes, which is what Holly had done. No, there's the band, all of it, headed by Diablito, and Mary Carlyle must be with him. Nothing else makes sense. There may be a handful of men watching Wolverton, perhaps intending to delay him, but the band we're after is there. We should—” He ceased talking, and then he said sharply, “Sergeant Mack!”

“Yes, sir.” The voice came from Ward's right.

“Someone's smoking. Find him and take his name.”

Loring resumed, and now there was a distinct exultation in his voice. “All right, Kinsman, what's your judgment? That we—”

“That the band isn't all there,” Ward said mildly, stubbornly.

There was a long, onrunning silence, and finally Loring said with a bitter patience, “I have tried to indicate in every way short of arresting you, Kinsman, that I am not interested in your guesses, hunches, suspicions, or the fruits of your intuition. You were hired to guide us. You were dismissed because you did more. If you're not willing to come back on that basis, go now.”

“And let you find the camp?” Ward asked dryly.

“You have me at a disadvantage there,” Loring admitted. “What's the price of your leading Storrow and his detail to the camp—that I hear more of your opinions?”

“Yes.”

“All right. Opine,” Loring said sarcastically.

Ward said levelly, “I'll take Holly's word that the band was twice as big as the one I saw. That means they've split—and since the sun went down, or Wolverton would have signaled you.”

“Foresighted of them,” Loring remarked dryly.

“Why they split, I don't know,” Ward went on doggedly. “Maybe to divide Wolverton's command so they'll only have half of it to fight, maybe to delay Wolverton, or maybe they are just running.” He paused, and Loring said nothing, and Ward went on stubbornly talking against this wall of dislike that might as well have been deafness. “In other words, there's another band roughly the size of this one loose—close or far, I don't know. But just remember it.”

“That's all?” Loring asked patiently.

“Yes.”

“Very well. I should like you to guide Storrow and his detail to the Apache camp. Agreeable?”

“That's why I came back,” Ward said tiredly.

Loring called Sergeant Mack, who came up quietly beside them, and Loring told him to bring Lieutenant Storrow to him. Waiting now in the night, Ward knew that when Storrow returned Loring's first move would be to seek counsel under the pretense of open-mindedness. His jealousy of the Army prerogatives would be handily forgotten now; it was the old pattern of Loring's life, the bold plan and the inner retreat, the imperceptible shifting of the burden of facing the risk and the unknown onto someone else, the self-doubt stilled by the returning wash of his polite arrogance and guaranteed authority.

Ward sank down on his heels now, content with the silence between them. Should he tell Storrow of his belief that the band was split, and that the unknown half was a possible danger that Loring refused to recognize?
He'll be with me
, Ward thought, and he knew he had done what he could, what he should.

Loring said now, “It was generous of you to return, Kinsman. I'm grateful to you.”

Ward scrubbed his hand wearily over his mouth and peered into the darkness that was the source of Loring's voice, a sudden and vast irritability washing over him.

“Now,” he said dryly, sardonically, “I'm happy, Captain.”

Chapter VII

Linus wasn't really asleep when he felt the hand on his shoulder and heard Sergeant Isaacs' voice murmuring, “It's gettin' about that time, sir.”

“Are the sentries in, Sergeant?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Seen or heard anything?”

Sergeant Isaacs' voice was soft and wry. “No sir, that's the trouble. It's too damn quiet.”

The detail was already awake. In the east was the faintest graying of the pre-dawn flush. The fire was dead and would remain so. Now Linus moved quietly among the detail whom he had disposed last night behind the cover of protecting boulders in a rough circle. He knew the first attack would be the heavy one, with the Apaches throwing all their numbers into it. If that were driven off, the detail's chances of holding out for hours seemed a likely bet. Linus had already written off the horses on the picket line, which would be the first to go. Once Diablito thought he had them cornered, encircled, and afoot, he would be sure of his victory.

Linus spoke to each man, telling each the same thing, to hold his fire until he could see, and to expect the all-out first attack which would erupt out of the rocks in front of them at the first light of dawn; he moved back then to his own position, exchanged his pistol for a carbine, placed the pistol beside him, and waited.

A horse on the picket line snorted now. It was a safe guess that the mounts were quietly being cut loose, to be stampeded away from camp at the first shot. Linus felt an impulse to anger, and checked it; this was part of their job as the decoy, to pretend to be stupid and asleep.

Dawn came with an agonizing slowness, and as first light seemed to rise out of the earth, the camp was utterly silent. Linus heard a sound behind and turned to see trooper Isbel crawling toward him.

When he was close Isbel said, “Sir, one's in plain sight of me. Is it time?”

“Shoot him,” Linus said impatiently.

Isbel turned, started to crawl back. The stillness then was broken by the
whang
of a bowstring. The
whump
of the arrow in Isbel's body was a continuing noise. Isbel simply folded on his face.

Linus rolled over and saw a diminishing shape against a close rock and fired.

The whole morning exploded in a racket of yelling. From the same rock, the bowman leaped out, already in a run, and Linus' shot knocked him down.

The horses stampeded now, and Linus moved and saw the frightened animals aiming straight for the camp. Trailing them, holding to their tails, were three Apaches. He held his fire as the lead horse pounded into the camp, across the dead fire, swerved, stepped over a trooper who was firing belly down and oblivious to him, and took out for the west slope.

Linus bellowed, “Isaacs!” and saw Sergeant Isaacs turn. Immediately, Isaacs understood. As the last of the horses, running neck and neck, stampeded through the camp, the three Apaches broke and scattered, and Linus raised his pistol and shot and missed. His man lunged for the nearest trooper, his brown body, naked save for the breechclout, wiry and lean as he raised his spear. Linus shot; the Apache went over, stumbling on the trooper's legs. The trooper raised and brought down the butt of his carbine on the bare back of the Apache and then again on his head, smashing again and again in a passion of rage.

Isaacs had drawn a careful bead on the second man. He followed him with his rifle for two long seconds like a winging duck, and then shot and the Apache went down.

The third Apache had streaked across the camp. He pounced on one trooper belly down, sank his knife once in the trooper's back, leaped over the rocks, and vanished.

All the detail was firing now, and Linus looked out at the slope in time to see a figure disappear behind a rock. Then the Apache stood and yelled, his back to the detail, and then, as a pair of riflemen swung on him, he vanished.

In front of Linus now, there was no one in sight. He heard the Apache call passed on around the circle, and presently the firing slackened and finally ceased. The first attack had been driven off.

Linus looked back over the camp; and met the glance of Trooper O'Mara, who grinned at him and winked.

Sergeant Isaacs called, “Load up, boys. They'll be on us again!”

Linus started to crawl for the stabbed trooper now, but O'Mara, closest, was already moving toward him. Grabbing him by the hair, O'Mara raised his head, then laid it back gently. He glanced over at Linus and shook his head in negation.

Another trooper was plucking the shells from the bandoleer of Isaacs' dead Apache, Linus saw, and as he was watching him he heard a lone shot from Corporal Samson, farthest from him.

Samson called, “He wasn't dead,” and he rolled over and said to Isaacs over his shoulder, “He is now.”

And then it was quiet again.
Two dead
, Linus thought, and he wondered where Loring and Storrow were.

The crack of a rifle was the signal now for the new attack. It swelled and was almost continuous from all sides, the troopers hugged their rocks, peering out only at intervals. Linus had a moment of wonder at this, since it was steady, aimed shooting, and looking out now, he saw the swift movement of an Apache, dodging from rock to rock, moving toward the camp. The Apache riflemen were trying to keep their enemies down while the bulk of the band moved up to closer positions, and as soon as he understood this, Linus called, “They're moving in again, Sergeant.”

And then his attention was attracted by a movement on the east slope. In the growing light, he could only see his pistol. He was at it, working swiftly, when he heard the sudden swelling of rifle fire, and he glanced up. The slope in front of him, still in the half-light of dawn, was blossoming in a ragged line with the dull orange winking of rifle fire from Loring's troopers. Looking back over his shoulder, he saw firing from the west ridge, too.