“What became of the other man?” Aunt Madge asked. “The Indian who was on the stage with us?”
“He may be dead,” Callaghen said, and took a position in a gap between boulders that offered a little shelter. The field of fire was not what he would have wished. “He may have been shot when they attacked the stage.”
It was hot and still here. He could see the sun shining on the flanks of the horses down below, saw the men dismounting and tying their horses. They were taking their time, unhurried, unworried.
Callaghen mopped his forehead. This was a long way from Ireland, a long way from the cool, green shores of the Bay of Glandore. He rested his Henry on the rocks, and waited. Nobody felt like talking.
Major Sykes, with two troops of cavalry, rode out of Camp Cady following the thin line of the Mohave River.
The day was hot, and he kept his command to a walk. The sky was serenely blue, the desert was still. It was sixteen miles to the caves where they would camp for the night.
The hours passed. They made their nooning and then rode on. He had tasted the water of the Mohave and did not care for it, but there was nothing else. The river bed was wide and there were high banks; evidently the river carried, at one time or another, a great volume of water. Major Sykes squinted against the glare and swore softly. He sat straight in his saddle, however, and carried himself with style. He was autocratic, but no fool; this country worried him.
During a short break when he dismounted the men and gave the horses a brief respite, he spoke to Marriott about it “There’s been a good deal of talk of ambush, but the country seems very open.”
“It seems so, sir, but it isn’t. There are folds and creases and watercourses everywhere. And this country has been subject to earthquakes… they had a bad one at Fort Tejon a few years ago. The worst of it is, our route of travel depends on the water channels.”
Sykes was seated on a slab of rock, and Marriott squatted facing him. “Sir, one of my men who served here before says the canyon ahead Cave Canyon is tricky. It seems to be all abrupt walls and very high cliffs, but there are ways a man on foot can get down… and get away after an attack.”
“All right,” Sykes said, “let’s get a couple of scouts out.”
Cave Canyon was about five miles long, and the walls were high, over four hundred feet in some places. They were a kind of conglomerate, and their sheer, fluted sides dwarfed anyone who sheltered in their shade. There were hiding places, too, in those walls, hollows washed out by water falling from the cliffs, and concealed spots behind the convolutions of the cliffs.
Major Sykes liked nothing about this place, where the walls closed down on them. The men were hot and tired, and did not seem eager to go on. He himself had been glad to swing down and get his feet on the ground.
The volley came out of the lengthening shadows, and the crash of sound cut the stillness, the echoes racketing away down the canyon. Only an instant, and several shots replied; but Sykes saw nothing that could be called a target. Hastily the horses were led aside, and the men fell into firing positions.
“We’ve got some wounded, sir,” one of the men said. “Two men seriously, three with scratches.”
“All right, Corporal see to their comfort. I think the enemy may have pulled away.” He got up to reach for his canteen and stopped, feeling a chill down his spine. Across the seat of his saddle, from which he had just stepped down, there was a neat groove. A bullet would have cut right through his hips had he stayed in the saddle a moment longer.
For an instant he felt the coldness of fear actually not the fear of injury so much as the fear of dying disgracefully, or ungallantly. He did not want to die at all, but if he must die he wanted it to be in a dramatic charge, or even in a last-ditch defense, not shot from his saddle by a sniper’s bullet
“No sense in looking for them,” Marriott said. “They’d just fade away in the darkness.”
“Double the guard, Marriott,” Sykes ordered. “They may make another try.”
He was in no mood for conversation as he sat at the mouth of the cave and finished his supper. For the first time he was beginning to see what the warnings meant. It was hard to find an enemy that struck and then vanished. But he might be able to trap them into the open. If they could effect an ambush, so could he.
No enemy appeared, however. Sykes detached four of the men to take a litter and return one of the wounded men to Camp Cady. The other man died during the night.
The twenty miles to Soda Lake was covered without incident, and the next day the march to Point of the Mountain, a further nineteen miles, was equally uneventful until a scout rode in.
“Sir, there’s tracks out there the stage, sir.”
“The stage here? But that’s impossible. The stage was bound for Vegas.”
“Nevertheless, it was the stage, sir. It was accompanied by one rider. I believe it was Sergeant Callaghen.”
Callaghen with the stage? How could that be? Sykes’s lips tightened with sudden anger. He had deliberately assigned Callaghen to the Sprague patrol to get him away from the stage and from Malinda… now he was with it. This could only mean that he had deserted his command to join the stage… but why was the stage here?
“Are they headed for Marl Springs?”
“It seems so, sir. The rider was leading. I mean his tracks are sometimes wiped out by the stage tracks… an’ sometimes he rides beside the stage. There’s been some trouble on the Vegas road, sir.”
“Perhaps,” was all that Sykes said.
The command moved out at his signal and he stifled his anger. But it remained within him, a cold, hard knot in his stomach. Damn the man! Was there no way he could keep them apart? Callaghen was no fit match for Malinda. He was only a common soldier, and Irish into the bargain. She was the daughter of a diplomat, the niece of a general retired, but nevertheless a general. She had some foolish schoolgirl infatuation for him, no doubt because of those stories that he had once been an officer if he ever had been.
From their camp tonight they must go on to Marl Springs. There would be a showdown then.
When daylight dawned at Point of the Mountain they had lost three horses and a rifle. The weapon had been stolen from a stack within six feet of a guard, and within a dozen feet of sleeping men.
Noon was scarcely past when Major Sykes led his command around the shoulder of the mountain and into view of the redoubt at Marl Springs. There was no sign of life or movement around the fort until they were within a hundred yards of it, and then the gate opened slowly.
Sergeant MacBrody stood inside, and he saluted as Sykes rode up. “It’s good to see you, sir. We’ve been out of rations for two days.”
Sykes rode into the stockade, where three men manned the walls. “Where is Lieutenant Sprague, Sergeant?”
“Dead, sir. He was in bad shape after Sergeant Callaghen brought them back here, but he was killed during an attack after they left… shot through the head, sir.”
“After who left?”
“The stagecoach, sir. Lieutenant Sprague assigned three men to escort it, hoping they’d get through. There was no food for the lot of us, sir, and it seemed best they make a break for it. I believe they got away, sir.”
Four wounded men lay inside the stone house. Sykes turned to Marriott. “Captain, will you see these men are cared for? And unload rations for the others. We’ll noon here, and be prepared to move out.”
“This evening, sir?”
“We will see. I want the sergeant’s report first.”
MacBrody detailed the events of the past ten days the continual sniping, the arrival and departure of the stage, Callaghen’s rescue of Sprague’s command.
“And you say Lieutenant Sprague assigned him to escort the stage?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Were you a witness to that, Sergeant? I mean did you personally hear Sprague give that order?”
“Well, no, sir, I didn’t, but everybody knew ”
“I am not interested in what ‘everybody knew.’ Usually, MacBrody, when everybody knows something it turns out that nobody actually knows anything.”
“Yes, sir. It was said, sir, that Lieutenant Sprague, knowing the sergeant’s discharge was overdue, wanted him out of it, and Beamis also. He did not believe we had much chance here, sir.”