Return to Massacre Mesa - Edge Series 5 (2 page)

The two crates secured to the bed of the buckboard by lengths of stout rope were made of unseasoned timber held together by untarnished nails. They were identical in size: four feet by three feet by two feet deep, and were marked with stencilled white lettering that indicated the contents were US GOVERNMENT PROPERTY. Burning Fire, the dark pupils of his narrowed eyes now beginning to show a glint of fiery excitement, spoke a terse sentence and the interpreter said: ‘They are not very large, colonel?’

‘As a matter of fact, my friend, they were custom built to be of the precise size for their purpose.’ McCall turned to nod a tacit order at the two officers on the buckboard. The pair swung down and went to the rear of the rig and while the bearded major remained on the ground to begin cutting through the restraining ropes, the younger man climbed on to the bed. Used a claw hammer to prise up the top of one of the 9

crates.

McCall explained: ‘Tell the chief I have to allow I had no idea what size of container would be needed for the price you people wanted in the form you wanted it. But the United States Mint at Philadelphia has employees knowledgeable in such matters.’ The interpreter gave a monotone, unhesitant translation to his chief and the braves while McCall spoke with contained excitement, clearly feeling a sense of great satisfaction as he neared the end of a successful assignment. ‘Since the crates were delivered to Fort Chance they have remained under constant guard. Unopened, of course. And I am as eager as anyone else to see the contents.’

He shifted his gaze from the Comanche to the men on the buckboard and then to the mounted officers. Aware that only the interpreter was listening to him now, the Indians having lost interest in his opinions: likewise the junior officers. All their intense attention, running a gamut of expressions from fascination to avarice, was directed at what was taking place aboard the wagon.

McCall went on: ‘It was the choice of the Comanche. If the entire amount had been in high denomination bills it would have been far easier to transport. But you people do not yet entirely trust treasury bills. And you specified a mix of paper money and silver dollars.’ Aware that the brave who did the translating was now listening to him with total indifference, McCall lowered his voice. ‘The government in Washington is most anxious to accommodate the Comanche whenever possible.’ He added a dramatic tone to his voice: ‘So . . . there you are, my friends.’

The top of the first crate began to fold up.

‘Twenty five thousand dollars in return for peace between the Indians of this region and the white men who will come to settle here now the Civil War between the white men themselves is over.’

Up on the buckboard the young lieutenant looked into the crate with high expectation. But then this turned suddenly to silent horror and he groaned: ‘Aw, shit. We been . . . Goddamnit to hell!’

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The bearded major scrambled aboard and vented an obscene curse. He swung to look toward McCall who was switching his grim faced attention rapidly between the buckboard and the agitated group of Comanche.

‘Major Steen?’ The obvious implicit question was clearly defined by the tone in which McCall rasped the rank and name.

‘It’s not cash, sir!’ the shocked officer reported, forcing the words out of a constricted throat. He delved a hand into the open crate, rose from his haunches and opened his fist so that a cascade of sand coloured, dusty soil mixed with pebbles fell back inside. ‘Just a box full of dirt is all, colonel!’

He stooped to plunge both arms up to the elbows into the crate: to doubly ensure there was nothing of any value hidden in its depths. By this time the younger officer had loosened the top of the second crate and he tore it free with a harsh wrenching sound of nails coming out of timber that masked his rasped words. His incredulous expression and the slow shake of his head signalled this crate was as empty of money as the first one.

‘Oh, my God!’ Strickland growled through gritted teeth as he shifted his shocked gaze from the men on the wagon to stare at the Comanche. And when he saw their expressions that had never been friendly now showed a depthless hatred he clutched the bugle with both hands like it was a powerful weapon.

‘Goddamnit, I said I didn’t like this!’ Captain Hamilton snarled and the tone in his voice and the look on his slightly lop-sided face was fatalistic.

‘Sir!’ Montgomery took a firmer grip on the lance that was a weapon of sorts he still carried as no more than a pole from which the futile flag of truce hung, limp in the unmoving and suddenly almost overpoweringly hot air of noon. The other officers wrenched their heads around, tearing their frantic gazes from where they had been fixed on the two terrified men whose booted feet seemed rooted to the bed of the buckboard. And recognised the degree of malice harboured by the Comanche a moment before Burning Fire issued a terse command. 11

The braves powered forward and ducked down to snatch up their discarded rifles as McCall started to plead: ‘We don’t know the meaning of this and I – ‘

‘Hey, we’re unarmed!’ Montgomery yelled and violently hurled away the lance, useless against the repeater rifles of the Comanche.

‘We have to make a run for it!’ the heavily sweating, overweight, blond haired Lieutenant Mahoney growled and was the first to jerk on his reins and wheel his mount out of the line.

But a fusillade of gunfire punctuated what he said and instantly checked the other men from following his suggestion. Montgomery took a bullet in his chest and managed to remain in the saddle as his horse bolted off to the side: covered some thirty feet before it was hit and tumbled, a welter of blood spilling from its head as the rider was hurled to the ground. Hamilton was shot in the neck and blood gushed from his gaping mouth as he plunged off his rearing horse. Mahoney was able to half wheel his mount before he was caught by a hail of bullets and went sideways out of his saddle to fold over the front nearside wheel of the buckboard.

All the cavalry mounts had reared and bolted and now the grey in the shafts of the buckboard spurted away: the animal moving so fast that the two men and the opened crates on the back were flung violently to the ground. The lieutenant was shot in the chest as he fell and Major Steen twice in the belly when he made to struggle to his feet. And both men were quickly limp corpses among the spilled sand and pebbles that had triggered the carnage. Colonel Clark McCall took three bullets in the chest from rifles he did not see aimed at him while his head was turned to peer through the dust raised by hooves, wheels and writhing men on the brink of death.

And there were tears of distraction in his eyes as he dropped heavily to his knees. Would have pitched toward the blood-spilling corpse of Lieutenant Strickland if a hand had not snatched off his cap and fastened a vicious grip on his sparse hair. He was thus forced to peer up into the contorted face of the Comanche chief and saw now just why he was named Burning Fire as the malevolent old man plunged a long bladed knife

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at him.

‘We were betrayed! All of us were . . .‘ He managed to force out the plea as little more than a murmur with the final breath in his body before the sharp blade found the yielding target of his pulsing throat.

Burning Fire released his grip on the hair of his victim, straightened to his full height and peered at where most of the braves stood over the inert forms of the blood splattered cavalry officers or began to unfold up off their haunches. Each of them clutched a blooded knife in a tight fist and wore an expression of evil savagery. Then the chief’s dark eyes ceased to burn with the light of murderous enmity and he nodded. The unarmed interpreter began to speak and the elderly chief to answer him in their own tongue.

‘These horse-soldiers we have killed were not those responsible for failing to
honour the bargain, Chief Burning Fire.’

‘This I know, Learned Fox. So I think it may be said they have received a just
reward for being fine and honest men.’

Learned Fox and the braves who had begun to loot the corpses looked at the chief quizzically and saw his expression become impassive as he turned to stride purposefully toward his wickiup. He reached the entrance, swung around and snarled through bared teeth:

‘They say it of we Indians! But I say it is more true that the only good White
Eyes is a dead White Eyes!’

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CHAPTER • 2

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LUCY RUSSELL closed and locked the door of her father’s general
store in Fort Chance at six o’clock on the evening of the day the Comanche massacred the cavalry officers at Mesa Desolado far off across the desert to the south west. She paused for a moment, to look eagerly over the broad space between the small group of clapboard civilian buildings and the more substantial army stockade for which the settlement was named.

The twilight was pleasantly warm and the darkening sky utterly cloudless as it started to be dotted with brightly shining stars while the clear crescent moon hung a little to the east of being directly overhead. The tiny community that comprised the military fort, the family store and two others, the Wild Dog Cantina and six houses was as quiet as usual at this time of day. And Lucy made little noise as she crossed the hard packed dirt toward the house she shared with and kept for her father. A slightly built girl with an elegant gait, she had just reached the age of nineteen and was recently rid of the puppy fat that had caused her so much adolescent distress in recent years. But Glenn Montgomery had loved her dearly, even when she thought she was at her most unattractive as a girl on the verge of womanhood. And now that she was approaching a stage of her life when she looked at her best in both her features and developing figure she was totally sure of her handsome lieutenant. And, too, she was at last of an age when it was considered acceptable to be courted by a cavalry officer already in his twenties.

Not that he was going to be an army lieutenant for much longer. Tonight, if he had gotten back from the secret duty that he was assigned to somewhere out in the Cedar Mountains, she fully expected him to propose marriage to her. Then they would be engaged for just three months until Glenn completed his term of service with the military. To be mustered out on medical grounds because of the badly broken wrist he sustained in a bad fall from his bolting horse while out on patrol. 14

They would marry and Glenn would at once start his dreamed-of newspaper in this little community where it had been so safe to live during the awful war when so many in the east had suffered terribly. Now the war was over and many newcomers were expected to flock to Fort Chance. To settle and build it into a proper town where young people with ability, courage and enthusiasm would be able to live well: perhaps even make their fortunes while they raised growing families. Up until now, she reflected with a grimace as she glanced toward the Wild Dog Cantina that was the largest civilian building in the settlement, the kind of strangers who came here were bad elements: most of them fleeing from justice for crimes committed during the war. Disreputable men who stayed just a short while to rest up before heading south for the border, beyond the reach of the lawmen who were sometimes hard on their heels but seldom close enough to arrest their quarry. Her father hated this situation. For although he was really just a storekeeper –

who like the other local traders supplied the needs and a few luxuries for the soldiers at the post, farmers on their isolated spreads and mostly low life strangers who came through town – he had volunteered to be the unpaid sheriff. But there was little for him to do. Except when trouble occasionally broke out at the Wild Dog and he and Sam Tree who ran the cantina, made sure the invariably drunken soldiers did not kill each other or cause too much damage before the duty guard from the fort came to haul away the offenders.

As for the deserters and outlaws who came and went ahead of legally appointed marshals and sheriffs . . . Well, Billy Russell had no official standing so he did not receive any advance flyers on wanted men. And he could not arrest a stranger just because the man had the look of an unwashed, ill-dressed fugitive. Billy had to be content with the knowledge that more times than not he was proved to have been right in his instinctive judgement when a lawman showed up too late to capture the man he sought who was long gone over the border.

Just before she let herself into the single story house that had a recently varnished rocker on the swept clean stoop and spotless windows that gleamed in the moonlight she cast a final glance toward the army post a half-mile to the west. And 15

told herself that she must think positively. Since morning she had not seen any movement outside of the usual daily routine at the gates of Fort Chance and along the walkways at the top of the timber and adobe stockade: although she had not been able to keep a constant watch. But neither had she heard any news concerning military activity from infrequent customers at the store.