Return to Massacre Mesa - Edge Series 5 (21 page)

‘John Dingle ain’t, that’s for sure plain enough to see!’ Conners muttered bitterly and crouched down like Edge and the women.

‘Soldiers,’ Crooked Eye answered and sprawled out into a fully prone position before he began to wriggle forward.

The young Comanche did not lower his voice and Conners realised this meant that whatever danger existed it was not within earshot. So he rose on to his haunches beside the peacefully sleeping Dingle and cracked a backhanded blow across the man’s 142

cheek. Then he clamped his free hand over his mouth to partially muffle the man’s startled reaction.

He took it away and Dingle sat up sharply, looked fearfully around him, cradling the stinging side of his face and demanded: ‘Goddamnit it to hell, Ches, what in -?’

‘A fine sentry you turned out to be!’

Rose rebuked: ‘You’d both better shut up, you crazy fools!

‘Doesn’t either of you men possess a modicum of the sense you were born with?’

Lucy challenged.

Edge remained just below the hillcrest, looking bleakly at the two men. And he saw Conners was glowering his anger at being taken to task by the women while the smarting Dingle was suddenly afraid: aware that maybe trouble far worse than he had with Conners was lurking some place not too far beyond the hilltop. Then they both sprawled to the ground and crawled up over the final few feet of the slope to join the line of three prone figures already peering northward out over the desert. And all of them shaded their eyes with both hands to gaze intently into the far distance at where a column of riders and two wagons moved inexorably in a direction that would eventually take it into the hills several miles west of where the watchers were positioned.

Because they were a considerably distance off and the morning sun had already created a distorting heat shimmer to haze the arid land, it was not possible to pick out distinct detail of any of the individual riders. But it could be seen that they were all attired in similar clothing and rode in a well-ordered single file behind an enclosed wagon with a second identical rig bringing up the rear. Because of the measured pace of the column the hooves and wheels raised very little dust.

‘I count twenty of them?’ Conners suggested.

‘About that, feller,’ Edge agreed. ‘The riders plus the fellers we can see aboard the wagons.’

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‘My sight is not what it used to be,’ Rose complained grimly. ‘You spoke of soldiers, Crooked Eye?’

‘I think this from the way they ride,’ the boy replied. ‘And also there is something about how they look – all of them much the same. Even though there is a great distance between us.’

‘It’s the cavalry right enough,’ Conners said with conviction. ‘It’s the army’s way to ride neat and tidy in a line like that. I guess they’ll be out of Fort Chance?’

‘It’s the only military establishment for scores of miles around,’ Lucy pointed out.

‘What you figure is up, Ches?’ Dingle asked.

Conners answered sourly: ‘The damn game, maybe, if them army boys know something we don’t.’

‘Don’t you have any ideas about this, Edge?’ Rose sounded anxious. Edge asked of Lucy Russell: ‘Do they usually patrol this far away from the post, lady?’

She shrugged and replied morosely: ‘I’ve not really taken much interest in military matters since Glenn . . . anyway, for many years now. But I suppose they could be hunting Mountain Lion and his band. Ever since the stage was attacked and those men were killed there’s been a great deal of discontented talk in town about how the army ought to make more strenuous efforts to track down the renegades.’

Edge took out the makings and returned his attention to the distant riders as he began to roll a cigarette. ‘Okay you people, I’ll watch to see if the column changes direction while breakfast gets fixed. Just try to keep the smoke down, best you can, uh?’

Lucy wriggled backwards, stood up and started eagerly down the slope. Edge signalled for the weary looking Crooked Eye to follow her. Conners showed his customary scowl, pushed back from the crest of the hill and muttered: 144

‘Okay, I’ll help to take care of that. To kind of make amends for how I guess me and John fouled up about the guard duty last night. But I ain’t normally so much of a dope.’ He hooked a thumb to direct his ill humour toward the crestfallen Dingle who had already withdrawn and started hurriedly down toward the camp. ‘John is sometimes stupid enough for the both of us.’

Rose Bigheart kept her voice low as she and Edge returned their attention to the far off line of soldiers that was now beyond the closest point to the watchers and becoming more indistinct by the moment through the slick looking heat haze. ‘Do you know what I think, Edge?’

He lit the newly formed cigarette and shot her an expectant glance. ‘I’m listening, lady.’

‘I think perhaps that the army is looking again for the stolen money.’

‘Do you know of a reason for them to pick this particular time to do that, lady?’

She grimaced and made a soft sound of contempt. ‘Some White Eyes who employ a Comanche squaw to do their menial chores often forget she is in their house while they are talking. I am told little directly but I overhear much. And I know that every now and then the commanding officer at Fort Chance receives orders from Washington to make another search.’

‘And you’ve – ‘

‘And at other times,’ she cut in, ‘when there is a sudden interest shown by people like us, a search party is sent out to check up on what the civilians are doing. This is when more than just one or two pass through Lakewood to look for the government dollars, you understand? Then the military thinks that maybe these strangers have new information the army does not know about. It has happened before.’

‘Those troopers out there aren’t trailing us: or Conners and Dingle,’ Edge pointed out.

She nodded sagely and reminded: ‘But they are in a large force of well armed 145

fighting men, Edge. And so they have little cause to fear a small band of Comanche hotheads. They are able to ride the shortest and most dangerous route between Lakewood and Mesa Desolado and not worry about an ambush in such open country.’

Edge said: ‘So you don’t figure there’s any danger that those troopers out there are going to suddenly make a left wheel and head toward us: unless we do something real wild to attract their attention?’

She looked askance at him for a few moments and decided he was not patronising her, nodded and replied: ‘I think that is right.’

‘Okay, lady: so let’s go get us some breakfast.’

‘If you do not mind that our two new partners will hear what I am now ready to tell you?’

‘We made a deal with those fellers,’ Edge reminded and directed an intrigued look at the squaw.

‘I know that. But I also think I know they are the kind of men who are likely to do some double dealing if they get the chance and decide they can get away with it?’

‘So we’ll have to take real good care that we look out for ourselves when the time for their double dealing comes around, uh?’ He looked at the earnest faced squaw and she suddenly showed a broad grin that revealed yawning gaps in her discoloured back teeth.

Then she modified her expression to a sardonic smile and returned her attention to the far off riders as she asked: ‘Do not White Eyes have a saying about not teaching a grandfather to suck eggs, Edge?’

‘It’s grandmother,’ he corrected and began to snake backwards away from the crest of the valley side. Then he rose to his feet when he knew he would not be skylined on the ridge and lodged the Winchester firmly in the crook of his left arm. As she came upright, she shrugged and said: ‘My mistake: I often make them. It was certainly a mistake for me to think you would not know that our new companions 146

are untrustworthy. I would guess you hardly ever make that kind of mistake about those kinds of people?’

‘I’ve got a basic rule of life for avoiding serious trouble, lady,’ he said as they moved toward the camp. Where the two men seemed to be arguing and contributing nothing to the making of breakfast while Lucy stirred the contents of a skillet alongside a coffee pot on a small fire. And Crooked Eye was curled into a ball catching up on lost sleep nearby.

‘All of us should have rules by which to lead our lives, Edge.’

‘Right. And my first one is that where people are concerned, I always expect the worst of them. That way I’m never disappointed and every now and then I get a nice surprise.

‘I hope this does not end up that I will be a disappointment to you, Edge.’

‘Just keep thinking and doing things the way you are now and there’ll be no sweat, Rose,’ he told her evenly.

When they came within earshot of the camp it was clear that John Dingle, a grim expression on his snub-nosed face, had been tensely holding back from shouting while he watched them approach. ‘Are you sure that those men all of us saw are soldiers?’

he demanded. ‘Are they still riding away from us? What do you figure they’re doing out here? Ought we to take account of them heading into the mountains?’

The impassive featured Edge made a histrionic ushering gesture toward the Comanche squaw, then hunkered down and cupped a hand to scoop a little water from a pot beside the fire.

Rose said to the disconcerted Dingle and the embittered Conners: ‘It’s the army from Fort Chance out there sure enough. And it’s my guess they’re headed for the same place we are. But since they’ve got nothing to hide and nothing to fear they can ride the shortest way to where they’re going. It seems to me that we have no reason to take account of them until they try to stop us all doing what we came out here to do.’

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‘Stop us?’ The anxiety of the short and fat Dingle expanded.

‘It seems to me like you know something that me and John don’t?’ The voice of the more powerfully built Conners held the tone of a mistrustful snarl, the query addressed to Edge as he used the tepid water to hand-scrub his bristled face and rinse the grit of sleep from his eyes.

‘The lady’s doing the explaining, feller,’ Edge reminded him. ‘Why don’t you listen to her?’

Lucy Russell’s determined gaze switched between Edge and Rose as she warned through gritted teeth: ‘Nobody had better try to stop me from finding Glenn’s remains to take back and have buried in a Christian grave!’

For stretched seconds the squaw shared an implacable expression between the resolutely frowning woman and the man who glowered his dislike of her because of her race. Then she sighed and answered with resignation: ‘All right, it is now the time for me to tell everyone some more of what I know.’

They all eyed her quizzically as Edge re-lit his cigarette and Lucy abandoned her breakfast preparations.

‘You know already how I chose to leave my Comanche husband and son to cohabit with a White Eyes?’

‘Yeah, yeah!’ Conners growled with heavy sarcasm in answer to the rhetorical question.

‘His name was Hiram J. Ricketts and he was a prospector in the Cedars. Hiram never amounted to much, but he was a good man to me and he always believed for a very long time that one day he was going to be rich. But the way it turned out, it was not from finding silver in the ground that could have made him wealthy.’ She peered morosely into the middle distance but it was obvious she was not looking at the dusty ground and weather-sculpted rocks spread before her fixed gaze: instead she saw vivid images from the past played out against the unprepossessing backdrop of the barren valley.

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Dingle started incredulously: ‘Are you saying this Ricketts guy found the – ‘

Conners gestured with both hands at his partner and urged irritably: ‘Let her finish, John. Let her tell it, man. Come on, woman, get on with it!’

Rose shook her head, altered her mood and showed a contrite frown. ‘I am sorry.’ Her gaze moved between Edge and Lucy Russell to emphasise that she was addressing her innermost thoughts to them. ‘It’s been so long since I have spoken of what happened all those years ago. I have thought so often about what took place but there was no opportunity or need for me to recount it to others.’

‘You feel free to be our guest right here and now, squaw!’ Conners invited with grim irony.

Dingle glowered at his partner: impatiently concerned that the other man’s needling attitude would drive the Comanche back into a private world of long ago events. Rose ignored them both while she continued to look at Edge and Lucy and recall the distant as she began to put her thoughts and memories into words. Explained how she had Hiram Ricketts had decided to abandon his dream of finding a fortune in silver in the mountains and had started out for the small settlement of Fort Chance. Went on to tell how they heard the far off gunfire and saw the wagon with the bolting horse in the traces. Then how she and Ricketts discovered the scene of the massacre: came upon the corpses, the single surviving officer and the broken open crates.

While three listeners peered fixedly at Rose, hanging on her every word, Edge took over the breakfast preparations and Crooked Eye slept peacefully, the squaw shifted her gaze from out of the past seen in the present to look sympathetically at Lucy Russell.

The younger woman vented a low gasp, swallowed hard, leaned forward and clutched a hand to her throat. ‘Was it Glenn, Rose. It had to be him, didn’t it? Surely it was Lieutenant Montgomery who was still alive? And was he . . ? Did he . . ?’

‘Damnit, woman, let her tell it!’ Dingle snapped.

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Conners’ tone was even harsher. ‘Yeah, let the squaw get to the point of all this, why don’t you!’

Rose nodded confirmation that Lucy Russell’s assumption was correct. ‘It was your lieutenant. He was in a very bad way: shot in the chest. We did what we could for him, me and Hiram Ricketts.’ She screwed her eyes tightly shut and moved her head slowly from side to side. ‘We lifted him on to the wagon that had carried the worthless crates. And took him to the cave on the far side of the Mesa Desolado where we had lived while Hiram searched so hard for the silver ore he hardly ever found.’