Novel 1972 - Callaghen (v5.0) (13 page)

His eyes looked across the wide valley. Beyond was a range of mountains, sheer rock reaching up for a thousand feet or more. “Like them? I do not know them, but I believe I understand them to some extent. They are fighting men, and one fighting man always has some understanding of another. All down through the pages of history the warrior has been venerated. Only Solomon is respected for his wisdom. Most leaders have been respected for their skill or their success in war. It is the same with the Indian.”

“You sound as if you believed in war.”

“No…I’ve seen too much of it. But I don’t know what to believe. This is a young land, its people love freedom, and by and large they are tolerant; but we must not become tolerant of evil, simply because it exists.

“Do you suppose we could escape at night?” Malinda asked. “Isn’t it true that some Indians do not believe in fighting by night?”

“That is true of some. They believe the soul of a man killed at night must wander forever in darkness; but there are skeptics among the Indians as well as among ourselves. I’ve never paid much attention to such generalities, and it would be just my luck to run into a nonbeliever with a good rifle.”

He looked again at the mountain range across the valley, feeling drawn to it by some urge he could not name. It was a rocky ridge, sharp against the sky. He tried to estimate the distance, which was difficult in such clear air. Ten miles? No…closer to twenty.

“My uncle will be worried,” Malinda said.

“Yes, I know. But one should never expect too much of time. No man who begins a journey knows how it will end. Nor when.”

Chapter 13

S
OUTHWEST OF THE redoubt was a small pocket in the hills where a little grass and brush grew. A trickle of water came out of a hole in the rocks and disappeared into the ground, but its subirrigation kept the grass alive. The pocket was surrounded by low rocky hills.

Under ordinary circumstances there was sufficient grazing there to handle a few horses for a short time, but supply trains brought grain for the stock. As a rule, aside from the horses of the troopers, if they happened to be cavalry, there would be no more than four to six extra horses at the post. Now there were only four besides the one belonging to the mail rider.

Callaghen was sure that the Indians were out there. Those who lurked about the post were there, and those who had followed the stage. At a rough guess, there might be anywhere from fifteen to thirty of them—probably around twenty—and that was too many.

The place was small enough to be easily guarded without undue strain on the personnel, and with the fire power they now had at the redoubt they could stand off an attack. There was water enough to keep them going, but no more than that. The spring produced water constantly, but in small quantity.

MacBrody came over to join Callaghen near the gate. Callaghen explained then, in detail, about Sprague’s command and their separation from it. He also added some comment about Wylie.

“Ever hear of the River of Gold?” he asked.

“Who hasn’t?” MacBrody said. “By the time you’ve lived out here as long as I have you’ve heard a hundred such stories—the Lost Gun-Sight Mine, the Mine With the Iron Door, the lost Ship of the Desert. And I’d lay a bet, me bye, that hundreds of men have lost their lives a-hunting for them.”

“I’m sure that’s what brings Wylie here.”

“Aye. I know the man. It is a bad one he is. I saw him a time or two around Fort Churchill, over Nevada way. He’d killed a man in Virginia City, or somewhere there, and there was a bit of talk about it. I mean he’d given the man small chance, and there was a muttering around that it was murder, but he ran with a tough crowd and nobody wanted to open the ball with them with no more reason than that, and the dead man a stranger.”

Callaghen looked around, and felt the desert as a part of him. The afternoon was drawing to a close and the distant sand dunes that banked the mountains across the valley had taken on the rose color of the sunset. The abrupt range rising opposite, lifting a mile above the valley floor, showed a glassy sheen of black under the glancing light. He felt a yearning to go out there, to cross the valley and climb those mountains and disappear into their cool distance. At close hand they would probably not be cool, but that was his impression from here.

But to do such a thing would be the solution to nothing. He was a drifter, a soldier of fortune, or to put it more truthfully, a soldier of misfortune. He had gained little of this world’s wealth in his fighting, and that little had been spent.…And now there was Malinda.

There was no avoiding the issue. He could solve no problems by disappearing into the mountains; nor could he face his problems any better by re-enlisting. He had entered the army in the first place because there was little else for a young Irishman of good family but no money to do. And for him after his brief meeting with warfare in Ireland, it seemed a logical course.

He had a quick, inventive mind when it came to tactics. Under the right circumstances he might have become a general, but the wars being fought in his time were small, inconsequential ones, allowing little scope for action. He had, literally, followed the way of least resistance. In the service most decisions were made for you, and your food and quarters were supplied; you received an order and you obeyed it to the best of your ability.

He had been a good soldier, some would say an excellent soldier. Moreover, he had risen to the rank of major in two armies, he had successfully coped with the enemy on many fields. But he had never proved himself capable of making a living at any other trade.

He could, it had been suggested, become a peace officer, for until men learned to live together in peace and subdue some of their impulses so that they could live with the benefits of civilization, there must be someone to keep the peace. But that had not been his choice, and he had continued to follow the life of a fighting man.

Now he knew that such a life was not for him—not any longer. It was a dead end…it led nowhere.

He could, he supposed, study law, of which he knew a little. That might be a way out, though not a very satisfactory one, and it was one that promised success only after several years…If he could only find that River of Gold.…But he realized that was just another evasion. He was like those men he had found in every land, men looking for treasure, for lost mines, men who had no other aim in life, and never ceased from looking until they were old and worn and tired out.

His thoughts went back to Sprague. Where was he? Had they found their way back, and did they believe him dead? Had they been ambushed and massacred? He doubted that Sprague was the man to lose his patrol. He was a careful officer who knew something of Indian fighting, and he was considerate of his men.

What was his own duty under the circumstances? Callaghen considered that. Their purpose for being in the desert in the first place was to protect the mail route and those who traveled over it. Well, that was what he had been doing.

Evening had come with its coolness. The stars were out, and the sky was without a cloud. Far away the serrated ridge of the mountains showed a sharp outline.

A fire was burning at the other side of the corral, and he could smell coffee being made. McBrody came over to him. “It is glad I am that you’re here, Callaghen. My men are dead tired from the lack of sleep. You can spell us on guard.”

“Keep an eye on your horses and ours,” Callaghen advised. “I’d not be trusting Wylie and his friend.”

The glow of the campfire and the good smell of coffee and of bacon frying were pleasant, but he was uneasy. He knew the Indians were out there, though these might not be of the same band that had attacked him after he left the command.

He had no feeling of enmity for the Indians. They lived their life, a way of life thousands of years old, and he did not think of it as good or bad; it was simply the way things were. They lived according to their needs, the white man according to his—cultures of different backgrounds, cultures each with its own principles.

The philosophy of it all was not important here; here the question was simple: to live or not to live; to fight successfully, or to die. There is a vast difference between the man who contemplates such a question at home beside a warm fire with a drink in his hand or discusses it in academic halls, and the man who faces it on a dark night in a far-off lonely place, with the sweat trickling down his ribs, and savage fighting men closing in on him.

Callaghen moved restlessly around the walls of the redoubt. What would the Indians do? For them, within the walls there was a store of booty. One thing they had working for them, and this was something they had learned very soon. The white man was impatient. He felt the need to move, to be doing. The Indian had learned patience, and he could wait out there in the bleak hills, needing little food, and knowing where there were hidden cisterns of water or seeps that could be uncovered and then covered again, and he could move as he wished.

Callaghen went back to the fire and took the coffee Aunt Madge handed him; then he moved away from the firelight, his eyes blinded from the fire. Looking into the firelight is a comforting thing, conducive to dreams. But it may leave your eyes unaccustomed to darkness, and that is not a good thing in Indian country.

Aunt Madge followed him away from the fire. “You’d best eat something, Mort. I think it will be a long night.”

“They’re out there.”

“I know.” She paused. “How many do you think there are?”

“Any number is too many. We aren’t looking for a war; we just want to keep the mail route open, and to keep the freight wagons rolling.”

Somewhere out in the night darkness a pebble rattled on the rocks. An Indian? Or just a natural stirring in the night?

Aunt Madge went back to the fire. Callaghen walked to a dark corner of the corral and sat down on the tongue of the stagecoach. He sipped his coffee slowly, listening to the sounds from outside the wall—they were few.

One by one the group around the fire left to turn in. His own eyelids were heavy and he got up, throwing out the dregs from his cup.

MacBrody was at the fire, as was Ridge.

“You want to try going on?” Ridge asked.

“We’ll wait one day at least.” Callaghen glanced at MacBrody. “Will that cut you down much on supplies?”

“We’ll work it out, Mort. By that time the freight wagons may be here, or Lieutenant Sprague may show up. And Indians are notional—they might just pull out of their own idea.”

Becker had volunteered for the first watch. Sampson, one of MacBrody’s men, was assigned to the second. “Wake me,” Callaghen said, “and I’ll stand the dawn watch myself.”

He slept as he always did, waking often, listening for a few minutes, then going back to sleep again. He had lived so long in places where to sleep too soundly might mean death that he had lost the habit. What would it be like, he wondered, to sleep a night through without worry?

The Delaware came to join him on watch. There had been no trouble, but the Indian agreed with him. “They are out there,” he said. “They will wait for us to come out.”

Together they held the watch until daybreak. Callaghen stared at the hill rising behind the spring. From the top of that hill an Indian could shoot right into the corral. Well-chosen for water and for other purposes, it was a poorly sited redoubt for defense.

After the sun was up he cleaned his rifle and his pistols, oiling them with care. Malinda came to join him, bringing coffee from the fire. “It was quiet last night,” she said.

“The Delaware thinks they will try to wait us out.”

“How long will they try that?”

He shrugged. “That is a guess for anybody. Indians are patient.…They have to get close to game to make a kill, and they have learned patience. On the other hand, they might take a notion to pull out. If Sprague shows up they will just vanish, I’m sure.”

“Mort?”

He looked up. “Mort, have you any idea where that golden river is? Wylie believes you have.”

“How do you know that?”

“This is a crowded place. I heard him talking to his friend. He’s also been talking to one of the soldiers—the one called Spencer. I think Kurt Wylie knew him from before.”

“Thanks,” Callaghen said.

The sun came up and the day grew warm. They saw no Indians. Ridge and Becker watered the horses as the trough filled, leading them up one at a time. By noon all of them were watered and the canteens filled; as well as some spare canteens and jars at the redoubt.

Wylie was restless. Callaghen slept some, talked with Malinda and Aunt Madge, and occasionally with MacBrody or the Delaware.

Spencer, the trooper who had been seen talking with Wylie, was a tall man, slightly stooped, and he had narrow, shifty eyes. He was watchful and cautious, but he seemed to avoid Wylie.

In the stone cabin over coffee, while Callaghen slept, MacBrody talked to Aunt Madge and Malinda.

“I dinna know him in the old country, but I knew his people. He was an O’Callaghan from Cork…there’s others in County Clare…in Mayo and Tipperary, too, and some of them are kin. His own family lived in a small place, a lovely place near Leap [he pronounced it Lep], a village called Glandore, and a true spot of heaven it is, with a long inlet coming in from the sea.

“Where the water comes in it is like a river’s mouth, and there’s islands across the opening of it that break the force of any waves. The inlet runs back a few miles into the low green hills, as safe a harbor as one would wish for.

“Many an Irish lad took off from there to go abroad, either to find his education or to go to war with foreign soldiers. Sure, there was little to do at home, with the British permitting no schools, nor any way for a man to advance unless he walked in their steps. I’m not saying the British were a lot of criminals for what they did…in their place we might have done the same.

“Mort’s family was a good one, and an old one. They kept from the sight of the British, and they lived well and set many a traveler to their table, and many an Irish son returning from the wars, and the bards too. Mort grew up to stories of wars in foreign lands.