Stryker's Revenge (15 page)

Kelly was unhurt, but she was hugging and kissing her dead mother, sobbing uncontrollably.

Birchwood stood beside Stryker, looking down at the dead. “Oh my God,” he whispered, over and over again.

“Lieutenant, see to your men,” Stryker snapped. “Occupy the adobe, then form a burial party.”

It took a while, but Birchwood said, “Yes, sir.”

“And Lieutenant, they had a few weeks of happiness. Maybe that’s more than many of us are allowed.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now go about your duties.”

Stryker reached out and closed Hogg’s eyes. He felt that he’d lost his good right arm, and more than that, he’d lost a friend. His only friend.

He looked to the mountains, now bathed in pale gold light as the sun dropped lower in the sky. The breeze brought the scent of pines and dust and of secret places where water tumbled and the gunmetal fish played.

Suddenly he felt very alone. Lonelier than the lonely land. Lonelier than the first man the day after Creation.

“God help me,” Stryker said aloud.

Kelly turned, looking at him with tearstained eyes. But he had no other words, not for her or for himself.

Before sundown, Stryker saw Joe Hogg and Mary McCabe buried.

Kelly was inconsolable, lost in grief that no child should be asked to bear. Crowded into the adobe, the soldiers did their best, rough and ready men who believed that if they only made the girl laugh, she’d feel better.

After a while they gave up, and Kelly retreated into a dark place they could not reach.

It was widely believed by Stryker and everyone else that Indians would not attack at night, fearing that if they were killed their souls would wander in eternal darkness. But Apaches were willing to fight at any hour, if they thought it would give them an edge.

Throughout the long night they fired probing shots at the adobe, and one of them coaxed cracked notes from a bugle and kept it up for a nerve wracking hour.

On the partition walls of the cells, the soldiers had found crude charcoal drawings of men and women engaged in various sexual activities, and, despite Lieutenant Birchwood’s prim disapproval, they became a topic of excited conversation and speculation until the men drifted off to sleep.

Birchwood had placed the bar off-limits to his soldiers, but Stryker poured himself a stiff drink and built a cigarette. To his joy he had found a supply of tobacco and papers at the general store, even though the Apaches had taken time to loot the place before they left.

Men were sprawled all over the floor and on the stained and odorous cots once used by the whores and their clients. Kelly was huddled in a corner, covered by a soldier’s greatcoat, and seemed to be asleep. Private Stearns, his young face ashen, lay on the pine table, groaning softly, trying his best to be brave. Every now and then a soldier manning the windows stepped beside the youngster, trying to comfort him. Stearns’ left leg was black from his toes to above the knee and would have to come off.

Stryker had brought a supply of knives and meat saws from the post kitchen and he would do the surgery at first light. He shook his head and whispered into the snoring darkness.

“Thanks, Joe, just what I needed.”

The long night shaded into morning and outside birds began to sing. Men stirred and stomped their feet and pipes were lit. Birchwood gave his permission to light the stove just long enough to boil coffee, and Stryker silently approved. It was going to get hot enough in the crowded adobe as it was, and a burning stove would not help matters.

He had not slept. The constant Apache sniping and the prospect of cutting off Private Stearns’ leg had kept him awake throughout the night, though cigarettes and whiskey had helped.

Birchwood, exhibiting the resilience of the young, looked fresh and rested. He stepped beside the wounded soldier and his face fell.

“It’s worse, Lieutenant, huh?” Stryker asked.

“Yes, sir. It has to come off soon.” The young officer looked directly into Stryker’s eyes. “It will kill him if we don’t.”

Birchwood had said “we.” But Stryker knew there was no “we.” There was only “you.” What the boy was really saying was “It will kill him if
you
don’t, First Lieutenant Stryker.”

Back at the Point, this was called “the burden of command.” He was the senior officer present, and it was his call. That’s what Birchwood expected, and that’s what the soldiers expected.

Stryker looked around him, searching the young, troubled faces that were waiting for him to say something, words of strength and wisdom that would reassure them. He gave up the search. There was no one else, only Steve Stryker. He had to do it.

“One of you men, bring a bottle of rotgut from the bar,” he said. “I want this soldier good and drunk.”

Stryker placed the flat of his hand on Private Stearns’ heaving chest. “I have to take your leg off, son,” he said. “There’s no other way.”

The teenager tried to smile. “I like to dance, sir. I was good at it back home in Tennessee. My . . . my sisters teached me, and my ma.”

“One time at a cotillion I saw a man dance on one leg,” Stryker lied. “He did all right.” He leaned closer to the youngster. “What’s your given name, soldier?”

“Sam, sir. My pa set store by that name, said it was crackerjack.”

Stryker smiled. “It sure is a crackerjack name, just like your pa said.”

A soldier brought a bottle and with a rough, kindly gentleness raised the youngster’s head. “Get this whiskey down you, Sammy, boy,” he said. “I want to see you hymn-singing, snot-slingin’ drunk.”

A bullet shattered a window pane and thudded into the far wall, followed by a furious fusillade of fire that threatened to shred the adobe into Swiss cheese. The soldiers at the windows were shooting, but no hits were scored. Apaches moved like wraiths and were hard to kill.

A big, bearded trooper yelped as a bullet cut across his bicep and another got a faceful of splinters as a shot exploded the dry timber of the window frame.

Stryker watched Stearns try to drink, but the raw whiskey would not stay down and the youngster threw it back up, now tinged with scarlet blood. The inside of the adobe was thick with drifting gunsmoke, the stink of sulfur hung in the air and the amber light of the burning stove transformed the adobe into an antechamber of hell.

The coffee was boiling, but Stryker had a large, flat meat cleaver in the coals, the iron glowing dull red, and the fire stayed lit.

“Got one!” a soldier yelled.

“The hell you did!” somebody answered. “He’s still running.”

Birchwood had a half dozen men kneeling behind him at the door. He looked at Stryker who was standing motionless beside Stearns.

“Permission to sortie, sir,” he said. “I can bring more of our rifles to bear.”

Like a man waking from a dream, Stryker moved to a window. Outside, the Apaches were tightening the ring around the ranch, taking advantage of every scrap of cover. As Stryker watched, an Indian rose up, fired, and then disappeared again like a fleeting shadow.

A direct attempt to storm the adobe anytime soon was unlikely. The Apaches were playing a waiting game, trying to whittle down the number of men inside before launching an all-out assault.

Already two soldiers were wounded, both slightly, but the Apaches were finding the range and their fire was becoming more economical as they chose their targets.

Stryker stepped away from the window and raised his voice above the roar of gunfire. “Deploy in line, Lieutenant,” he said, “and see if you can drive them back. A couple of volleys; then get inside again. For God’s sake, don’t linger.”

He looked around him. “You men at the front windows, give Lieutenant Birchwood some covering fire.” As the Springfields crashed, Stryker nodded to Birchwood and yelled, “Go, Lieutenant!”

The door swung open and Birchwood and his men dashed outside.

Immediately the tempo of the Apache fire increased, the flat bark of the Springfields a drumming counterpoint to the sharp ring of the Indian Winchesters.

There are times when a man does a wrongheaded thing and later he can’t explain the why or the wherefore of it. Stryker knew he was in command, aware of the fact that he should not risk his life rashly and unnecessarily. Yet he drew his Colt and plunged from the adobe, his eyes seeking a target the instant he got outside.

Birchwood’s men were kneeling in line, firing steadily. The Apaches, sensing the kill, had left cover and had formed into a loose arc, working their Winchesters.

Stryker emptied his revolver at an Indian wearing a red headband and fancy Mexican vest, and was sure he’d scored a hit. But the man vanished from sight and there was nothing to mark where he’d been but a wisp of dust.

An Apache fell to Birchwood’s fire, and then one of his men toppled forward, his faced covered in sudden blood. A bullet tugged at Stryker’s sleeve and a second kicked up dust at his feet. Another Apache went down, and they began to give ground, moving back, seeking cover again.

“Inside, Lieutenant,” Stryker yelled. “We burned them.”

He had reloaded his Colt and fired it dry before following Birchwood and his men into the adobe. The soldier who’d been shot was dead and they left him where he lay.

As he slammed and bolted the door behind him, Stryker’s reeling mind betrayed him. Unbidden, the thought came to him, “Please, God, let Private Sam Stearns be as dead as the man outside.”

Suddenly ashamed of himself, he stepped beside the young soldier. Stearns was still alive, his blue eyes huge and frightened in his ashen face. As bullets rattled into the adobe, Stryker spared a quick glance at Kelly. The girl was terrified, but she was still huddled silent in a corner and was unhurt.

The lieutenant turned his attention to Stearns’ leg. Someone, probably Birchwood, had ripped the youngster’s pants to allow for the gangrene’s grotesque swelling. The leg itself was black, stinking, shining in the half-light like a gigantic, loathsome slug.

“Sir . . .” Stearns began. He could say no more, the words dying on his lips.

Stryker nodded. “I know, son. I know.” He laid his hand on the boy’s fevered forehead. “Very soon you’re going to have to be very brave.”

“Yes, sir, I know.” His eyes were haunted as if he stood, trembling, at a door marked FEAR. “The trouble is, sir, I’m not very brave.”

“Soldier, you’re doing just fine so far,” Stryker said. “When this is over I’m going to have Lieutenant Birchwood make you a corporal.”

The boy managed a wan smile. “I’d like that, sir.” “Those stripes will be on your sleeve in no time.” Stryker turned. “Lieutenant, I need two men.” When the soldiers stepped to the table, he said, “Hold him down.”

A bullet ricocheted off the iron stove, sang its vindictive song, then buried itself in a wall. At one of the windows a soldier fired, cursed, and fired again.

“You’ve got a good hold of him?”

One of the soldiers, yet another frightened youngster, nodded, pressing down hard on Stearns’ shoulders.

“Then let’s get it done,” Stryker said. He picked up his instruments, a razor sharp kitchen knife and a bone saw. It was not yet time for the saw and he laid it aside.

Bending over, he poised the knife over Stearns’ leg. Then he cut deep.

Private Stearns’ scream was immediately echoed by Kelly’s terrified shriek. The girl was standing, her eyes transfixed on the body lying on the table. A soldier moved to comfort her, but she ducked away from him and cried out again.

Sweat beaded on Stryker’s brow and his hands were crimson, slippery, slick, slimy with blood. Tears ran down the cheeks of the younger of the two soldiers holding down Stearns’ arching body, and his lips moved in what might have been a prayer.

Green bile rising in his throat, Stryker sliced deeper, deeper still. Blood spurted from the soldier’s leg, gushing fountains of red, splashing the front of the lieutenant’s shirt.

The firing had stopped. The Apache, as curious as deer, looked at one another, wondering what was going on inside the adobe.

There! Stryker saw the white of bone.

He set the knife aside and picked up the bone saw.

The saw bit into green bone, skidding, making a noise like grinding corn. Stearns was beyond screaming. His mouth was wide-open, but he made no sound.

Breathing heavily, Stryker worked the saw back and forth. He shook stinging salt sweat from his eyes.

My God, would the bone never cut?

Then he was through and he used the knife again. Now it was like cutting fatty pork, greasy and slick.

The leg was free. The stump was red, raw, pumping gore.

“Birchwood!” No time for the military courtesies. “Bring the cleaver.”

The young lieutenant tried the wood and steel handle of the cleaver, jerked his burned hand away, then wrapped a rag around his hand.

“The cleaver, goddamn you!” Stryker yelled.

Stearns was screaming again, bucking wildly against the strong hands of the soldiers holding him.

The boy was in mortal agony, Stryker knew. But worse was to come. He knew that too.

Gingerly taking the hot handle of the cleaver, he quickly shoved the cherry-red steel blade against the raw, scarlet meat of the stump.

Stearns screamed into the sizzling silence. Only once. Then a ringing quiet.

The youngster’s eyes were wide-open, filled with the memory of pain. The two soldiers, feeling the life go out of Stearns, lifted their hands off his shoulders.

Stryker opened his fingers and let the cleaver clang to the floor.

“Sir, his poor heart just give out,” the older of the two soldiers said. “It couldn’t take it no more.”

Lifting bleak eyes to the man, Stryker said nothing. Now the bitter gorge was rising in him and his mouth filled with saliva that tasted like acid.