Hill looked at him thoughtfully. “I wish I could stay to see it, Major. It would be a remarkable accomplishment. How many men did you bring with you?”
“Sixty-six, in three under-strength troops.”
“Yes, that would be about it. You see, Major, the Mohaves number about three thousand, at the best guess, and I would imagine about seven or eight hundred of them are warriors. Their tactics are different. They are excellent guerilla fighters, but that is not their way under ordinary circumstances. They prefer hand-to-hand combat. They want to grapple with their enemies. Sometimes in battle with other Indians they grab them and drag them into their circle, where they are hacked to pieces.
“The Mohaves are strong men. They use clubs, knives, bows and arrows, and a sort of mallet with which they attack the face with what a prize fighter would call an uppercut.
“A few days ago when Callaghen was leading back the remnant of that patrol, the Indians followed on horseback, but that is rare. The Mohaves prefer to fight on foot. I believe their reason for following on horseback in the recent case was to taunt the soldiers, to show them how easy it was for them, how hard for the soldiers on foot.”
“Yet they were driven off?”
“Largely by Callaghen, from what the Delaware and Croker said. Callaghen lured them in close, then, according to Croker, who is no admirer of Callaghen, he put on a display of pistol shooting the like of which Croker had never seen. No Indian likes to suffer losses, so they pulled off.”
“Very interesting.” Sykes was thoughtful. This situation might be different from what he had expected. “What do you think are my chances for pitched battle with the lot of them?”
“No good at all. They would have to be quite sure of a smashing victory before they would put any large number of men in the field. However, in a war with the Maricopas and the Punas they did put some two hundred warriors in the field, allied with Yavapais, Yumas, and Apaches.”
Hill went to the fire for the coffeepot. “Their arrows aren’t much good at long range, and they don’t have many rifles. One of their preferred methods of fighting is to charge into a group, grab a man and throw him over the shoulder for the Mohaves coming up behind to kill. Often an Indian will throw a man over his shoulder and those behind will plunge knives into him or beat him to death with clubs.
“You might not think,” he added, “that such tactics would work against the guns of the white man, but with a sudden rush they are very effective. When unexpected, they can be disastrous.”
Sykes was quiet. A bigoted man he might be, but he was no fool, and he was suddenly aware that the Mohave was something new for him. “They live along the river?”
“From the Needles north for sixty or seventy miles, I’d say. Naturally, there are no actual boundaries, and any such statement must be elastic. They hunt very little for one reason, there simply isn’t much to hunt. They are farmers, planting on land flooded by the Colorado, as the Egyptians did on land flooded by the Nile. They grow corn, wheat, pumpkins, squash, melons, and a few other things. Mesquite beans are an item of diet that is very important.”
“They travel on foot?”
“Preferably. And they can run all day, day after day. They come out of the desert like ghosts, and vanish into it the same way.”
Suddenly Sykes was no longer listening, for his thoughts had returned to the strange story of the River of the Golden Sands. Was there such a river? Could he find it? And if so, could he get the gold out for himself? Without anyone knowing?
CHAPTER 7
Callaghen was a man at home in the desert, which has always been a place of legend and of mystery, a lost world wherein lost mines and lost cities have been found, seen, or speculated about. In the vast emptiness of the desert almost anything could happen.
The desert preserves. What other lands destroy, the desert keeps. It accepts dead things, holds them close, and draws away the rot that would destroy; given time, it mummifies or crystalizes.
If the dead are undisturbed, the sun, the dry air, and the sand take out the moisture and preserve the body. Much of the Egyptian success with mummification was due to the dryness of the air rather than to any secret process. We would know little of the history of the ancient world if so much of it had not happened in arid lands. Callaghen, who knew something of the deserts of the Sahara, Afghanistan, India, and Turkestan, and who had ridden many a desert mile by camel as well as by horse, was prepared to believe that this desert, too, had its mysteries.
But he was wise enough to know that man has no final answers. The knowledge of ancient peoples has merely scratched the surface. Out there in the desert there might be things of which man as yet knows nothing.
At Buffuin’s saloon in Los Angeles a man had shown him gold nuggets found in the San Gabriel Mountains, and gold-dust washed from its streams. Within a mile of Camp Cady he had picked up pieces of agate, and had found jasper and chalcedony in canyons to the north. Twice he had been shown “rubies” found near a crater in the desert, but the rubies had proved to be garnets… attractive stones, but definitely not rubies. Several times when on patrol in the desert he had crossed Indian trails that went to unknown places. There was Indian writing at a dozen places he had visited evidence that men had been there.
Once, digging an entrenchment in the desert, he had found a layer of black soil, built from decayed vegetation at some time when the desert must have been less arid. He had come across the same thing in the Sahara; and on rock walls in the Hoggar he had seen paintings of horse-drawn chariots, giraffes, zebras, and wild cattle… all creatures that must have lived there at an earlier time when the climate was much less dry.
Captain Hill was interested in all this. As for himself, his papers would be along soon and then he would leave. He had been thinking of coming back, but he knew that too often other things intervene and such plans come to nothing. If he once left here it was unlikely that he would return. In fact, he dared not. He had seen too many men surrender to the witchery of desert nights, and to the enchantment and mystery of it all. The desert could be a demanding mistress who gave up nothing to a man, but took all, whatever he had to give. Gold… and the desert… They had been the death of many a good man.
Croker came over to Callaghen and sat down. “Hotter than hell out there,” he commented. “Seen the new C.O. yet?”
“No.”
“He’s testy. Sharp and testy. I think we’re in trouble.”
Callaghen, irritated that his thoughts had been interrupted, did not respond. Besides, Croker was probably leading up to something, and no matter what it was, he wasn’t interested. He did not like the man, nor trust him.
“This here desert now,” Croker went on, “has secrets, things a man would give his eyeteeth to know… You given any thought to this Allison? I think he had something on his mind. If you and me knew what it was we might make ourselves a pretty penny. If he wasn’t a genuine soldier, he ”
“What gave you that idea?” Callaghen interrupted.
“Come off it. You know there ain’t no secrets in the army. Somebody always hears things on the grapevine. The story is that Allison had been an officer all right, but that he came out here to pass himself as a replacement. He knew it would take a month or two for anybody to find out, and meanwhile he’d have a government escort whilst he prowled about looking for whatever it was. No Indians to worry about… ”
“He made a mistake, didn’t he? When a man’s time comes, not even the army can protect him.”
“You believe that? A man’s fated to die at a certain time or place?”
Callaghen shrugged. “No, I don’t. It was just a manner of speaking. Usually a man dies when he gets careless.” He looked hard at Croker. “And I never get careless, Croker.”
The other man laughed, without humor. “Have it your way. Only thing is, I think whatever the lieutenant was after, you know it. And if you go after it, I’ll be right on your tail.”
“What I’m after, and all I’m after, are my discharge papers and the first stage or freight wagon to Los Angeles.”