Ambush on the Mesa

AMBUSH
ON THE
MESA

GORDON D. SHIRREFFS

a division of F+W Media, Inc.

C
ALL
T
O
Q
UARTERS
blew across the wide parade ground of Fort Craig and died away across the Rio Grande. The New Mexico night was as soft as velvet. Hugh Kinzie led his tired dun across the parade ground toward post headquarters. The dry wind swept the low mesa and flapped the canvas of the long rows of Sibley tents. Yellow lamplight dappled the barren ground from the windows of the post buildings. Hugh tethered his dun, slapped the dust from his clothing and entered headquarters.

An orderly looked up from his desk as Hugh entered. “Kinzie,” he said, “the Old Man has been expecting you.”

“I’m here,” Hugh said shortly.

The orderly hurried into an inner office and then returned. “Major Roberts will see you, Kinzie. How was it down South?”

“Rough.”

Hugh walked into Roberts’ office. Major Roberts stood up and held out his hand. He peered at Hugh from under bushy eyebrows. “What’s the news from the South?” he asked in his twanging Vermont speech.

Hugh gripped the major’s hand and then sat down. “There are Confederates at Fort Thorn. Just a patrol. Baylor has his Second Regiment of Texas Mounted Rifles at Mesilla. General Sibley is en route from San Antonio to join Baylor. He is said to have Riley’s, Green’s and Steele’s regiments of mounted rifles; Steele’s and Riley’s field batteries. Baylor has a few mountain howitzers.”

Roberts drummed stubby fingers on his desk. “Then all this talk of the Texans having a big buffalo hunt is strictly nonsense.”

Hugh grinned. “They’ll be hunting Yankees, sir.”

Roberts looked up quickly. “We’ll be ready for them. You’ve done outstanding work, Hugh. Are you going to stay on as civilian scout?”

“No.”

“We need every loyal man for the defense of New Mexico. Why don’t you re-enlist? I can get you a sergeant-major’s stripes in the Mounted Rifles.”

“You know how I feel about that, sir.”

Roberts nodded. “Yes. I recommended you for a commission again. The courier brought back the answer from Santa Fe yesterday.”

“And?”

Roberts looked away. “There is some question about your loyalty.”

Hugh smashed a fist down on his thigh. “Why? Because I was born in Virginia? For God’s sake, sir! I left there when I was seven years old to come west to Missouri with my father and mother. I fought for my country in the Mexican War when I was only sixteen. I served honorably in the Mounted Rifles until just last year. I’ve been scouting for the Federals since this war started. What more do they want?”

Roberts raised his head. “I wouldn’t have recommended you for a commission unless I believed you were loyal.”

“How can Colonel Canby turn me down then?”

Roberts shoved a box of cigars toward Hugh. “Take it easy. It just so happens that many of the old regulars have joined the Confederacy.”

Hugh took a cigar and angrily bit the end from it. He lit up and drew the smoke gratefully into his lungs. “Officers … every one of them. Claiborne, Crittenden, Loring, Lee and Johnston.”

Roberts lit a cigar and eyed Hugh through the smoke. “Have you heard from your elder brother Ronald lately?”

Hugh looked up quickly. “No. The last thing I heard he was a captain in the infantry at Fort Buchanan. Why do you ask?”

Roberts leaned forward. “The officer in charge of Fort Buchanan destroyed a large quantity of supplies there when
the forts in Arizona were abandoned. The garrison marched to New Mexico.”

“Then Ron is here?” asked Hugh eagerly.

“Your brother resigned his commission in the United States Army and went down into Mexico. It is said that he went to Texas and took service with the Confederacy.”

Hugh stared at Roberts. “He always believed in state’s rights. But he was Virginian to the core. I consider myself as a Missourian.”

Roberts waved a hand. “I know. But Ronald Kinzie was disbursing officer at Buchanan. Twenty thousand dollars in negotiable government drafts disappeared at the same time he left for Mexico. Do you understand?”

“That’s a damned lie! Ron might have joined the Confederacy — it would be like him — but he’d never steal from the Government!”

Roberts shrugged. “Times and men have changed.”

“Do you believe the story?”

“No. Your brother forwarded a letter from Mexico in which he stated he had turned the money over to a certain Lieutenant Winston who was leaving for Fort Ayres. Winston has since vanished.”

“Then he has it!”

“Perhaps. You’ve been to Fort McLane?”

“Near Santa Rita del Cobre? Yes. Major Linde had a battalion of the Second Infantry there up until last June.”

“Fort McLane has since been abandoned. But Linde was to have received those drafts from Winston, who was supposed to arrive at Fort McLane with some people from Fort Ayres. Winston never showed up.”

“It’s rather poor evidence against Ron.”

“There is a way you can clear Ron and prove your loyalty, but I hesitate to ask you.”

“Shoot!”

“Canby wants those drafts. That’s the first part of the problem. The second part is this: Captain Maurice Nettleton commanded Fort Ayres. He was supposed to have left the post some weeks ago, traveling to Fort McLane with his command. Nettleton and his command have vanished. Canby wants a search made for them. I can’t send a force to do the job. I need every man I have to defend the Rio Grande Valley should Baylor and Sibley attack us.”

“Why is Nettleton so important?”

Roberts leaned forward. “It isn’t Nettleton we’re interested in as much as it is his wife. Marion Nettleton was Marion Bennett before her marriage. The only child of Shelton Bennett of Missouri.”

Hugh whistled softly. “Boss Bennett.”

“The very same. Bennett has been raising hell. Orders have been sent to Canby to find her. I don’t have to remind you that Shelton Bennett is an important factor in the political picture of Missouri. President Lincoln is anxious to have Missouri held for the Union. If anything happens to Marion Nettleton, Bennett, in his narrow-mindedness, might just throw his influence to the side of the Confederacy.”

Hugh grinned wryly. “And you want me to go into Apache country to find twenty thousand dollars and the daughter of a boss politician to prove my loyalty?”

“Not
me
, Hugh. I just thought it might be your chance. Canby is raising unadulterated hell with me for not locating her.”

“One man instead of a regiment? Who do you think I am?”

“I don’t know of any other man in this department who might possibly do it.”

Hugh relit his cigar. “For a posthumous commission? It comes high, particularly when every two-bit politician in New Mexico, not to mention the whole damned United States, is raising a command of his constituents so that they’ll vote him in as commanding officer.”

“You’re a bitter man, Hugh Kinzie.”

Hugh studied the officer. “Would you do it?”

“I’ve been a regular for more years than I care to admit. Then too, I’m a Vermonter. It makes a difference.”

Hugh slapped a hand against his thigh. “If a man is loyal to his country, does it matter
where
he comes from? Winfield Scott is Virginia born.”

“So is Robert E. Lee,” said Roberts dryly.

Hugh stood up and paced back and forth. “I know in my heart that Ron didn’t take those drafts with him. It isn’t so much the chance of a commission that drives me on now. It’s clearing him.”

“Then you’ll go?”

“Yes. Tonight. I’ll get a fresh horse. I can be in the Black Range foothills by dawn.”

Roberts stood up. “I knew you’d go. I’ll need good officers
before this war is over. If you succeed, I’ll see to it that you get commissioned in my squadron.”

Hugh looked down at the faded green stripes along the seams of his trousers. “I’d like that,” he said quietly.

“You were one of the best sergeants in the mounted rifles. Draw anything you need for your trip.”

“Can I draw courage?”

“You’ve a full supply, Hugh.”

Hugh gripped Roberts’ hand and then left the building. He stood for a time on the parade ground listening to the dry whispering of the desert wind. He looked toward the west, where Dasoda-hae, He That Is Just Sitting There, the giant chief of the Mimbreno Apaches, was king. He was almost in his seventies now, but was still physical and spiritual leader of his tough warriors. The whites knew him by another name … Mangus Colorado … Red Sleeves.

H
UGH
K
INZIE
lay in the rustling mesquite looking down at the dim quadrangle of Fort McLane. Someone had played hell there. Roofs had been caved in and the corrals had been torn down. From a busy frontier post it had degenerated into just another ghostly ruin.

Hugh rested on his elbows and studied the terrain. He had reached the hills just before dawn the day before and had stayed hidden all day. At dusk he had gone on, paralleling the old rutted Spanish road which wound through the low hills. A strange feeling had come over him as he traveled. Before the war there had been posts all the way to the Colorado River. Now they had all been abandoned, and the Apaches once again held full sway over their big country. Between Fort Craig on the Rio Grande and Fort Yuma on the Colorado there was nothing to show that the vast lands were still part of the United States. For all he knew he was the only loyal man west of Fort Craig and east of Fort Yuma.

Hugh half cocked and then capped his Sharps. He eased his Navy Colt from its holster and checked it. Only seven
shots between him and hell. But he was at his destination now. He might as well go ahead with his dubious mission.

He passed the post cemetery with its mounded graves and tilted headboards. He stopped beside a tumbledown abode and eyed the littered quadrangle. He padded forward. His boots grated on broken glass and crunched rusting tin cans. Mattresses had been ripped and their contents scattered everywhere. The shattered wood of crates and boxes was mingled with other debris. A pile of Sibley tents and good blankets had been slashed and then set afire.

Hugh walked softly to the old post headquarters. The roof had collapsed. He eyed the mounds of roof beams and dried adobe which filled the interior. It would take him days to dig down into that mess to look for the lost drafts. The wind moaned through the ruins as he completed his inspection. He had known all along that he’d never find them. That left Marion Nettleton to be found in a country where Apaches prowled like tigers of the desert looking for white men … and women.

Fort Ayres, as he recalled it, had been a one-company post on a fork of the Gila, about eighty miles to the west. Eighty miles of danger. South of Fort McLane there was nothing except the old Butterfield Trail, now abandoned. Beyond that was almost waterless country clear down to and over the Chihuahua border. North of the abandoned fort was the roughest country he had ever seen. The brooding Black Range, without roads, and with but few known trails. He had heard there were ruins in there built hundreds of years ago by the Hohokam: the Old Ones. They had lived and prospered there, tending their patches of maize, and building their cliff dwellings, only to vanish many years before the all-conquering whites had invaded the Southwest.

Hugh padded back into the brush. The abandoned fort depressed him. He had to find Marion Nettleton and he had to keep his hide whole. Neither task would be easy, and he knew which of the two was most important to him.

His horse nickered as he approached. He led the buckskin to the north. He missed the speed of his big dun but the buckskin had a stamina in him that the dun lacked.

There was a waterhole in the Pinos Altos some miles north of the abandoned fort. He followed the rutted track through the darkness until the buckskin whinnied. He had smelled
the water. Hugh picketed the horse and went ahead on foot. He halted a hundred yards from the waterhole and tested the night with his senses. There seemed to be nothing but the night wind rustling the brush, but still he waited. It was a sixth sense he had developed in his years on the frontier. He circled the waterhole and dropped flat on a knoll which overlooked the low ground around the waterhole. Apaches would always avoid camping near waterholes. They camped on high ground, water or no water.

He eyed the brush about the waterhole. Something moved. Then a burro brayed softly. Hugh moved downwind and crept through the brush until he could see the dull sheen of the water. A man was sitting up in his blankets. Hugh could see the dim silhouette of his steeple-crowned hat. Probably a Mex.

The man stood up and raised a rifle. “Who is there?” he called out in Spanish.

“A friend.”

The rifle hammer clicked back. “Who are you?” called out the man.

Hugh took a chance. “An army scout.”

“There are no American troops this far west of the Rio Grande.”

“I am.”

“Come forward then with your hands high.”

Hugh snapped his carbine ring to the swivel on his sling, then swung the Sharps behind his back. He eased his Colt in its holster, then walked forward out of the brush.

The Mexican was a little man. He eyed Hugh. “What do you do here?”

“I am looking for a party of Americans.”

“I am alone here.”

Hugh looked about. The burro was picketed in the brush. There was no one else in sight. “I want water,” he said.

“There is enough for you.”

“Then I’ll get my horse.”

The Mexican hesitated. He scanned the swaying brush.

“Why are you afraid? Do I look like an Apache?”

“There are none within miles. I made sure of that, senor.”

“Then let me get my horse.”

“I will be right behind you.”

Hugh shrugged. He walked back toward the buckskin with
the little Mexican a safe distance behind him. Hugh led the horse to the water and let him drink. He turned to the little man. “I am Hugh Kinzie,” he said.

“Jorge Dura, at your service.”

“What do you do here, Jorge?”

Dura lowered his rifle. “When the soldiers left the fort they did not take some of their horses. They are in these hills. I am looking for them.”

Hugh knelt and drank. The edge of the waterhole was dotted with hoof marks into which the water had seeped. There had been many horses there, and not too long before. “You have seen Americans hereabouts?” he asked over his shoulder.

Dura nodded. “Some Americans were west of here. They were soldiers.”

“Any women?”

“Yes … two of them.”

Hugh stood up and held out his tobacco pouch. Dura cradled his rifle on his left arm and took the pouch. He swiftly rolled a cigarette. “This is dangerous country for Americans,” he said.

“I know.”

Dura lit up. His eyes were hard in his small brown face. “Why do you look for them?”

“I have been ordered to do so.”

Dura sucked at his cigarette. “They had good horses and weapons. Pack mules, laden with supplies.”

“Which way did they go?”

Dura jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Into the Pinos Altos. Toward the headwaters of the Gila.”

Hugh looked at the dark heights. “Why?” he asked, almost to himself.

Dura rested his rifle butt on the ground and leaned on the long barrel. “I do not know. There is no way out of those mountains. Perhaps they went there to avoid the Mimbrenos.”

Hugh nodded. Whoever was in charge of the party didn’t know that country. Few white men had been in there. It was an unmapped wilderness. Beyond the mountains were the Plains of San Augustin. If they got through they could turn east toward the Rio Grande. “
If
they got through,” he said aloud.

Dura shrugged. “It is madness.”

Hugh led the buckskin from the water. Dura bothered him. No man who knew Apaches and feared them would camp near a waterhole at night.

“Where do you go?” asked Dura.

“Back to the Rio Grande.”

Dura glanced down at his rifle. “That is a fine horse you have.”

Hugh nodded. He rested his hand on his pistol butt.
“I
intend to keep him.”

Dura smiled. He knew these big Americanos and the skill they had with the revolving pistols. “Yes,” he said quietly. “Go with God, friend.”

“Go with God, Jorge Dura.”

Hugh led the buckskin around the waterhole. Dura watched him. Then he saddled his burro and packed his blankets. He mounted and rode swiftly to the south. Mangus Colorado would welcome news of a party of rich Americans wandering around in the rough hills. Perhaps Jorge Dura could get his hands on some of their riches, through the graciousness of Mangus Colorado. It was well worth the risk.