Callaghen stepped into the saddle, stood in the stirrups, and looked around.
“Sir, that rock formation just ahead I’ll scout it for you. It might be a good place to halt the men.”
“Do that.”
Sprague moved the column toward the rocks as Callaghen rode away.
Callaghen touched his horse on the neck. “Take it easy, boy,” he said softly. “I’ll need your help.”
He hated being out in the open, and when he found a shallow wash he took to it. A River of Gold!Well, he could do with some of that.
Somewhere just over the horizon the stage was coming up the road, and in it was the only girl he had ever loved, the only one he had ever wanted for himself. He’d known a few, here and there, and a fine lot they had been, but this one was the one he wanted… and he had nothing to offer her no money, no prospects. All he had was skill with guns, and a knowledge of the ways of fighting men and a thin chance of living through the next few hours.
Suddenly he saw ahead of him a winding trail, just two wagon tracks across the desert.
And then they came out of the ground like ghosts, gray-brown ghosts, dusty from the sand in which they had been lying. An arrow struck his saddle, glanced up, and missed his face. There were at least six of them, and they were all around him. He did not waste time in heroics, but slapped the spurs to his horse and got out of there fast.
Another arrow passed him, and a huge Mohave grabbed at his leg. Callaghen clubbed down with the barrel of his gun, saw the slash of blood across the Indian’s head, and the man let go. Then Callaghen was running his horse, all out.
Ahead of him were rocks, and he went into them, but they were there waiting for him. There were only two of them and he took them in fine style, shooting as he went in.
One took a bullet in the chest; the other grabbed him and he felt himself jerked from his horse. Most Mohaves were big men, but this one was a giant.
Callaghen hit the ground and lost his grip on his pistol. He slugged the big Mohave in the wind, but it never even slowed him down. The Indian lunged, and Callaghen stepped in with a left jab, then smashed an overhand right to the nose. The Mohave had never met a boxer before, and it stopped him in his tracks.
Callaghen’s hand went for his belt gun. Too late the Mohave saw it slide into sight. He yelled and leaped, but the gun stabbed him with flame and he stopped, eyes wide, then fell forward and Callaghen sprang aside.
He whistled for his horse and it came trotting to him, stirrups flopping. A bullet clipped a rock close to him, and he grabbed for the horse and ran beside it into the shelter of the rocks.
He could hear shots now from the south. The command had been attacked, too. Finding a space between two boulders in the shade, he led his horse into it. “Stay there,” he said quietly. “One of us has got to get out of this.”
He slid his rifle from the carbine sling which he had been carrying looped around the pommel of his saddle, contrary to regulations. Now, with it in hand, he knelt behind the rocks, and reloaded the empty chambers of his pistols.
The spot was the one the two Indians had occupied, and it was a good one. There was no approach from the rear or from above; the undercut rock gave him both shelter and shade, and a good field of fire in three directions. Moreover, he could look right down the road along which the stage would come.
It was hot out there, and it was going to get hotter.
CHAPTER 9
Nothing moved out there. The sky was without a cloud, the land stirred slightly, leaves moved gently.
He settled down to wait. He had water, and he knew how to be patient. Without patience no man should go into the desert. The rocks wait for the years to change them, the plants wait for the rain. The Indians, too, know how to wait.
Callaghen had learned patience in other deserts, in other lands. He sat still now, just keeping alert and waiting, ready to pick up any movement. The Indians knew where he was, and they would choose their own time. In the meantime, the command had ceased firing, and silence lay upon the desert.
The stage should be along soon, and in the stage was Malinda Colton.
Heat waves shimmered over the sand, blinding him to the near distance. He could see far off, and he could see the sand in front of him, but a few hundred yards away everything was vague and indistinct.
Though his eyes and ears were alert now, his thoughts wandered to the Suleymani Hills and Dost Mohammed. He had been an officer then, in command of a thousand wild Afghan horsemen, who were born to the saddle and were fierce fighters. They preferred the blade to the bullet, and they preferred to ride close.
In those days he had carried three hidden rubies, to buy his way out of trouble, or to build a home somewhere when the fighting was over. He had ridden a Bokharan saddle and worn a green leather belt studded with jewels. He had lost that belt in a poker game in Delhi when the fighting was over.
Today he carried the scars of the years, the scars of a dozen weapons, the memories of fifty battles, a hundred skirmishes. How long could a man go on? A man needed a haven away from all the fighting, a place to live, to love, to raise sons and daughters. A place where the soil was his, where the trees were his… for the time being. For the trees and soil we take in trust, to pass along to those who follow us better, we hope, than when we found them.
He had always realized that he might die right here; he had always been aware that the time might come at any moment. In the spinning of planets and the march of suns, in the centuries and the milleniums of time, one man is a small thing, and does not matter very much. It is how a man lives that matters, and how he dies. A man can live proudly, and he can die proudly.
Callaghen wiped the sweat from his forehead, gave a glance at his canteen, but waited. Were the Indians still out there, he wondered. Or had they moved away, vanishing into the desert in their usual silent way?
Something suddenly moved out there, but he held his fire. He was not the man to shoot at something he did not see clearly. Even as he watched, his mind went back to Sykes.
The man disliked him, or perhaps his feeling was even stronger. Malinda might be a part of the cause, but only a part. Sykes was one of those men who must feel themselves superior, and his rank gave him that opportunity. He was not a bad officer; he had that feeling of superiority over his men, and felt secure in it.
From the moment he discovered that Callaghen had been an officer of rank equal to his own, Sykes had resented him. It was not proper, he felt, for an enlisted man to have such rank, and whenever Sykes issued a command he undoubtedly felt that Callaghen was critical of him.
He had waited for an opportunity to assert himself in some fashion, to demonstrate that he was superior, but that opportunity had not come. Moreover, the sudden reappearance of Malinda had once more made plain that she preferred, or seemed to prefer, Callaghen to Sykes. It was something Sykes could neither admit to himself nor accept.
Now Callaghen dried his palms on his shirt front and took hold of his rifle once more. He would soon be out of this; he would soon be a free man. His discharge was overdue, but mails were always late out here and he thought nothing of that. However, until that discharge was in his hands he remained a soldier, subject to Sykes’s orders. Sykes would offer him no breaks, of that he could be sure, but he needed none that Sykes could give.
The command should be coming along soon. His eyes searched the heat waves over the desert, but nothing stirred there. He listened, and heard nothing. Some time had passed since a shot had been fired. The shooting had been followed by a long silence; he had not returned, and they had not come up to him.
He was suddenly startled by a thought that came to him. Suppose he had been abandoned? Suppose they thought he was dead? If they believed that, they might ride on to Bitter Springs, hoping to intercept the stage there rather than on the trail. In that case he was on his own. He swore softly, but he realized how likely that might be. How far had he ridden, he wondered. Three miles? Four?