The Vanquished (16 page)

Norval Douglas spent two days alone out in the hills somewhere. When he returned it was understood, though he talked little of it, that he had encountered a party of Indians and fought a small skirmish with them. He brought back the carcass of a fat mule deer and that night the company, feasting, was the envy of Companies B and C. The following day, inspired by the yellow-eyed scout's example, a group of men representing all three companies went on a hunting foray, and returned at sundown with a good haul of bobcat, javelina boars, jackrabbit and even a whitetail buck. For Charley, who accompanied that party, it was his first opportunity to make use of the arms with which he had been equipped. His first shot, at a bounding jack-rabbit, had gone well wide of its mark. He had settled down on the spot and spent an hour in target practice to accustom himself to the gun. Presently young Carl Chapin had come along, and a strange thing happened.

Chapin reined in and dismounted beside Charley's pony. Looking sickly, his eyes bulging a little from his face, Chapin loosened his cinches and came forward with his own rifle. The first thing he said was, “Don't do it that way—don't close one eye when you shoot. You lose perspective. Keep both eyes open. Here—look.” Chapin put his hand on Charley's rifle and moved it so that the stock rode higher against his shoulder.

“Try it that way. Sight on the target. Balance your target on top of the front sight. Now cock the hammer.”

A pair of metal clicks, loud in the desert, struck Charley's ears. Chapin said, “Take in a deep breath and let half of it out, then hold your breath. When you're steady on the target, give the trigger a steady squeeze. That way you won't know when she'll go off—and so you won't flinch. Try it.”

Charley followed his advice. A corner of his mind stood back and was puzzled by Chapin's sudden sociability. He squinted down the barrel, remembered to open his left eye, drew in his breath, and began to squeeze. Chapin said, “Focus your eye on the front sight, not the target.” Charley aimed at a protruding spiny segment of a cholla cactus, and squeezed.

When the rifle went off, it startled him; he jumped, and was sure his jump must have thrown the bullet far off course. But the cholla segment tilted and fell softly to the ground. “I'll be damned,” Charley said.

“Just remember to squeeze them off,” Chapin said. “You won't have any trouble.” He put his own rifle to shoulder and almost without seeming to take aim, he fired. Another piece of cholla split away from the plant and fell. Chapin tilted his powderhorn against the rifle muzzle, patched a lead ball with quick competence, and rammed the charge back to the breech with one swift, firm stroke of the ramrod. Charley had not seen him dig for it, but there was a percussion cap in his palm, which he now pinched over the nipple under the big cupped hammer. Then the pale youth slung the rifle over his back. Charley had hardly found time to unsling his own ramrod.

Down the gully, the cutbank had caved in and there was a brief talus slide. On that loose slope of rock and earth appeared the mule-eared shape of a tall jackrabbit. Charley stood still and watched it. The rabbit, startled, froze. But when Charley lifted his ramrod to seat the bullet, the rabbit wheeled and darted away. He saw it bounce past a cluster of creosote bushes and then it was gone. He cursed and capped the rifle. When he looked at Chapin, the pale youth was looking blankly at the spot where the rabbit had disappeared. He had not touched his gun. Charley said, “Damn it, why didn't you shoot him?”

Chapin shrugged his narrow shoulders, coughed twice and spat a pink stream toward the ground, and turned back toward his horse.

“Wait a minute,” Charley said.

“What for?”

“Well,” Charley began, and felt awkward. “Thanks for the help.”

“Yeah,” Chapin said, and went on to his horse. He gathered the reins and climbed into the saddle. Charley watched him ride away toward the hills.

Reflecting on the enigma of this pale and brittle-boned youth, he used up a dozen more slugs in practice, at the end of which he found the cholla pretty well chopped down. Then he hunted around the gully wall for the spent bullets, found six or seven of them, and pocketed the smashed pieces of lead. Later he would melt them down and recast them.

When he returned to camp in the evening with a rabbit dead across his saddle, he saw Chapin riding in from the north. Chapin's saddle was empty of game.

In the morning, well fed and impatient, the expedition broke camp and formed its line, and wound forward like a brown curling snake on a brown earth. It was about forty miles southward to Tinajas Altas, which were a string of nine eroded potholes on the eastern face of a massive rock mountain. Storm waters were stored in these pits, and here the party filled to capacity all its barrels, canteens, and water bags. A horse had fallen ill and been shot, and Norval Douglas had sewn watertight bags out of the hide.

Each man was reduced to one blanket and twenty pounds of baggage. Much of the baggage had been left in trust at the sutler's in Fort Yuma. Here on the desert mules began to give out, and one by one the wagons had to be abandoned. More animals were conscripted to carry packs, so that a good portion of the enlisted personnel were set afoot. Scurvy entered the camp surreptitiously; men fell sick and had to support one another. Spirits dropped rapidly. Infection attacked Chuck Parker's leg; Dr. Oxley was sure he would not lose the limb, but Parker was unable to walk, even on crutches. The next water was still ten miles distant when the final wagon cast a tire; there was no spare left, and for six days Parker and two men stayed behind on the desert, while each day the two men marched forward to get water for the animals and brought it back. Finally Crabb gave the order that stragglers must catch up. Charley was there when they removed the fevered Parker from his wagon bed and suspended him in a stretcher between two horses. They caught up with the main party at Cabesa Priete, midway along the Camino del Diablo, under a blistering March sun. The valleys they traveled—the Lechuguilla, the Tulito—were barren and dry, bounded by sawtooth mountains cut from rock without vegetation on their slopes. Sparse growths of catclaw and ironwood mingled with the scattered cacti. There was no shade anywhere. At night the temperatures dropped by fifty degrees and men shook in their single blankets. Not even coyotes called across this forgotten district. Every night when camp was pitched it was Charley's duty to sweep the area for snakes; in this heat they came out of hibernation early. Finding a snake, he would pinion its head under the curved steel butt strap of his rifle. Then he would cut the head and rattles off with his knife. Jim Woods amassed a considerable collection of diamondback and sidewinder rattles from Charley's gatherings.

CHAPTER 13

Dave McDowell scratched his red beard and frowned into the fire. It was a smoky, stinking little fire, fed with green creosote and paloverde twigs. He took a sparing sip from his canteen, rolled the tepid stale water around in his mouth, swallowed it down a raw throat, and popped a smooth pebble into his mouth, working it around with his tongue to keep the saliva going. He wished he had his tent. All the tents had been abandoned long ago. The scatter of blanket-rolled bodies was hardly military.

A tall shadow loomed in the night. That was Freeman McKinney, trailed by Bob Holliday. The lieutenants stood back in a knot of idle talk. “The general wants a powwow, Dave,” McKinney said.

“All right.” He stood up and followed them to the big fire, where Crabb sat on his blanket thoughtfully stroking the length of his brown beard. The general's deep eyes lifted slowly to acknowledge them. “Pull up some chairs, gentlemen,” he said drily.

McDowell sat down between Holliday and McKinney. McKinney's bald head glistened in the firelight. Back in the semishadow stood the constantly vigilant shape of Norval Douglas. “I'm sorry I can't offer you a drink of wine,” Crabb said. “Gentlemen, we are faced with a difficult problem.”

McDowell looked around. The whole contingent of officers was present. He nodded to Oxley and Will Allen, Quarles and Porter, Colonel McCoun, Johns and Nat Wood. He saw Bob Holliday stretch his long legs toward the fire. Across the blaze, Sus Ainsa looked on with sleepy eyes. “Sick men are becoming a burden to us,” Crabb said. “I don't mean that in an unkind way. I'm sure Mr. Douglas will confirm what I have to say.” He looked up as if seeking agreement. In the shadows, Norval Douglas's eyes glittered in frosty reflection of the fire.

“The fact is, there is not enough water between here and the town of Sonoyta to sustain us if we continue at our present rate,” Crabb said. “I daresay we're hardly making twenty miles a day. This is a grueling country to get across—we knew that when we set out. But frankly I didn't count on having to abandon the wagons and having to lose so many mules and horses along the way. We have reached a point where we will again have to ration water, as we did on the sand dunes west of the Colorado. Gentlemen, I am sure you'll all agree that we do not propose to leave our bones to bleach on this desert along with the others that we see every mile of the way.

“There are almost a score of men,” he continued, “who are unfit for forced marches. I refer to every condition from blistered feet to scurvy, and of course the wounded man—what was his name?”

“Parker,” said McDowell.

“Yes. Parker. The man needs rest and good food more than anything else, I understand. He can't get either of them here, but by the same token I doubt he's in fit condition to ram forward full-tilt across the desert to Sonoyta. Am I correct, Doctor?”

Oxley nodded. “Indubitably,” he muttered. “Indubitably, Henry.” Oxley was a strange little man but a good surgeon.

Crabb nodded slowly and an interval passed during which no one spoke. Perhaps Crabb had sunk into one of his odd reveries. But in a moment he lifted his head and seemed to shake himself. He said, “Ah, yes.”

McCoun, who, being a colonel, was at least titularly the second in command, spoke in his customary brusque manner: “What do you propose we do about it?”

“Divide the party,” Crabb replied. “I suggest we leave an officer behind in charge of the sick. That group can stay behind, rest a bit, and come on to Sonoyta at their own pace. The rest of us will leave as much water and food behind as we dare, and make a forced march to Sonoyta. There we can wait for the others to come up. It's my feeling, gentlemen, that it's that or imperil the entire command.”

“It's a risk,” Oxley said immediately. “We have no guarantee that the sick men will benefit by a few days' rest. They may be less able to travel later than they are now.”

“That's true enough,” Crabb said, “but it endangers the rest of us if we all must accommodate ourselves to the pace of the slowest man. I'm convinced we stand a better chance if we divide the regiment.”

“What about Indians?” McDowell said. “Wouldn't we be laying the sick men open to an attack?”

Norval Douglas drawled from the shadows; he seemed reluctant to come closer to the fire. “Papagos,” he said. “They won't bother anyone. It's too far west for Apaches.”

“I'm glad you seem so positive,” McDowell told him. Douglas made no answer. His expression was unreadable; only his eyes were clearly visible. McDowell, who had come around to a certain way of thinking in the past few weeks and had for a time reasoned himself into being satisfied with the state of affairs as they were, now felt the returning pressure of uncertain fears.

“I think,” Crabb said, “that it would be wise to call for a volunteer. I'm reluctant to order any officer to take on the job of handling these sick men.”

That was the trouble, McDowell thought. Crabb was altogether too reluctant. What would happen if, as commander, he came against a situation that called for a bitter decision? McDowell worried about Crabb's indecisiveness; Crabb lacked the fine line of decision that marked a militarily trained man. To have a hedging man in command might well lead to disaster.

“Will anyone offer himself?” Crabb asked.

“I'll stay with them,” McKinney said. “I could use a day or two of rest myself.”

“Very well. In the morning you'll take Dr. Oxley with you, and make an inspection. The doctor will select those men who are unfit for arduous travel. I anticipate you'll probably find yourself with about eighteen or twenty men on your hands. You'll instruct Lieutenant Henry to take over your company in your absence.”

“Good enough,” McKinney said, and stood up. “Is that all?”

“Yes. Good luck to you. We'll expect you to arrive in Sonoyta a few days behind us.”

“I'll come along as quickly as I can,” McKinney said.

The meeting broke up shortly thereafter, and on his way back to his own fire McDowell found that he had the company of Bob Holliday at his shoulder. Holliday swung along with lanky, loping strides, rolling his shoulders as he walked. His hands were rammed inside his waistband and he said, “I see what you mean about the general. He should have given a flat order. You don't call for volunteers in country like this.”

They reached the fire. McDowell shared his pipe tobacco with Holliday. The crescent moon appeared, tipped up on one point. Holliday said, “When we came across Arizona ten years ago, we skirted this desert to the north.”

“The Mormon Battalion?”

“Yes. It doesn't seem so long ago. Cooke was a good officer. I wonder what happened to him?”

“He wrote a manual on cavalry tactics. Quite good.”

“I'd like to see it sometime,” Holliday said. “It's hard to believe that stagecoaches go over that trail every day. Ten years ago we broke the trail for the first time. This is a hell of a country. Sometimes I ask myself what the devil I'm doing here.”

“One day follows the next,” McDowell said. “Eventually you die.” He was in a dark mood. “I wonder what made McKinney volunteer?”