“Captain,” I began, “I-”
“Mr. Seiber,” the captain interrupted, and he turned to the man by his side, “see that this man is fed, then bring him to my quarters.” After a second glance, he added, “You might find him a shirt and a pair of pants, too.”
All of a sudden I felt faint. I half fell against the corner of the building and stayed there a moment. I was like that when a sergeant came out of the store, and I never saw a man look more surprised. “Tell Sackettl I’ll be damned!”
“Hello, Riley,” I said, and then I straightened up and followed off after Al Seiber.
Behind me I heard the captain speak. “Sergeant, do you know that man?”
“Yes, sir. He was in the Sixth Cavalry during the war, and he was a sergeant there at the end, acting in command through several engagements. A sharpshooter, sir, and as fine a horseman as you will be likely to find.”
Seiber made me sit down, and he poured a tin cup half full of whiskey. “Drink this, man. You need it.”
He rustled around, finding some grub and clothes for me. “Apaches?” he asked.
“White men,” I said, and then added, “The only Apaches I saw treated me decent.”
“They found you?”
So I told him about it as I ate the food he dished up, and he had me describe the Indian.
“You must be shot with luck,” he said. “That sounds like Victorio. He’s a coming man among them.”
Captain Porter was waiting for me when I walked in, and he waved me to a chair. Beat as I was from the days of travel, my hands just beginning to heal, my head in bad shape, I was still too keyed-up for sleep. The Apaches had treated my wounds, how and with what I had no idea.
Taking as little time as I could, I told him about Ange, the unexpected shot, the burned wagon, and the mules.
“If I can buy a horse,” I said, “and maybe a pack mule, I’d like to get myself some guns and go back.”
“You must feel that way, I suppose,” he said, “but your wife must have been killed … murdered, if you will. I understand how you feel; nevertheless, if there are several men against you, as you seem to believe, I am afraid you’ll have no success.”
He paused. “And that brings me to my problem. I need men. All units here are in need of recruits, and I am allowed six officers. We have only four.”
“I was never an officer.”
“But you acted in command… for how long?”
“It was two or three times. Maybe four or five months in all.”
“And the Sixth Cavalry participated in fifty-seven actions during the war, am I right? You must have been in command during some of those actions.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I could use you, Mr. Sackett. In fact, I need experienced men very badly, particularly those who have done some Indian fighting. You have, I presume?”
“Yes, sir. But I have to go back to the Tonto. My wife is back there, Captain.”
We talked for almost an hour, and by then I was beginning to feel everything that had happened to me. The three days in the Apache rancheria had helped to bring me out of it, but sitting there listening to the captain talking of old wars and far-off places, I suddenly knew I was a long way from being ready for a fight And yet there could be no delay. Even now Ange might be somewhere needing help, needing me.
“Are there any new outfits in the country?” I asked him abruptly.
He looked at me sharply, and I thought his face stiffened a little. “Yes, Mr. Sackett, there are. Three or four, I think. All of them big, all of them recently come into the Territory.” He paused. “And all of them owned by honorable men.”
“That may be, Captain Porter, but one of them saw fit to burn my outfit and try to murder me.”
“Perhaps.”
“Perhaps? I was there… I lived through it.”
“Of course. But what can you prove against anyone? You would have to have proof, Mr. Sackett.” He hesitated again. “In a court of law-”
“Captain, I’ll find the man. I’ll find proof before I act, but when I act I’ll be my own law.” I stopped him before he could interrupt. “Captain, nobody has more respect for the law than I. We boys were raised up to respect it, but there’s no law in the Territory that can reach a big cattleman, and you know it. Not even the Army.”
“Mr. Sackett, I must warn you not to take the law into your own hands.”
“What would you do, sir?”
He shot me a quick, hard look, “You must do as I say, Mr. Sackett, not as I might if I were in your place.” And then he asked, “Why do you suppose they tried to kill you? Why do you suppose your outfit was destroyed?”
“That’s what puzzles me, Captain. I just don’t know.”
He walked to the window and stood there with his hands clasped behind his back. “Was your wife a pretty woman, Mr. Sackett?”
There it was, what had been worrying me all the time, but it was the thing I wouldn’t let myself face.
“She was beautiful, Captain, and this isn’t just what a man in love would say. She was really, genuinely beautiful All my brothers would tell you the same. Tyrel, he-”
Porter turned around sharply. “Tyrel Sackett?” he was startled. “Tyrel Sackett, the Mora gunfighter, is your brother?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That would mean that Orrin Sackett is your brother too.”
“Yes.”
“Orrin Sackett,” Captain Porter said, “helped us get a bill introduced in the House. He is a very able man, and a good friend of mine.”
“And mighty near as good with a gun as Tyrel, when he wants to be.”
He returned to Ange. “Mr. Sackett, I do not wish to offend, but how were things between you and Mrs. Sackett?”
“Couldn’t be better, sir. We were very much in love.” Right there I told him something of how we met, high in the mountains of Colorado. “If you are suggesting she might have left me, you can think again.”
He smiled. “Never, Mr. Sackett. The woman who would leave you would certainly not destroy her wagon or those valuable mules, and you have told me of the money … she would have taken that. No, what I was thinking of was something else.
“Your wife,” he went on, “was an attractive woman, and she was alone. This is a country where there are few women, fewer beautiful women.”
“Captain, it just doesn’t figure. You know how western folks feel about molesting a woman. Nobody’d be fool enough-”
“Suppose he did not stop to think until too late?” Porter walked over to me. “He would have been wild with panic. He would have been desperate to cover up, to remove any possibility of what he had done ever being discovered.”
“What about those men hunting me?”
“When you find them I think you will discover they were looking for you for some other reason. I think one man-someone able to command others-is responsible, and only he or they know the real reason you are to be killed.”
Of course, it made sense. Also it meant that Ange was dead, and that her death must have been ugly. Suddenly all the fury that was in me came welling up inside until I was almost blind with it. I stood there, my head down, my whole body shaking with it. Inside me there was only one thing left, a terrible will to destroy, to kill.
After a moment I looked up. “Captain, I got to have some rest”
“Al Seiber will take care of you.” Porter paused. “Sackett, this conversation is between us. If it is ever mentioned I shall deny that it ever took place. However, in the morning you will have a horse and a mule at your disposal, and I shall speak to Mr. Seiber about the guns.”
“I have money. I can buy them.”
He nodded. “Of course. But you will want good weapons, and I am afraid what you would find at the sutler’s … at the trading post … would not be adequate.”
When I stepped outside, he stood in the doorway. It was dark now, and he stood there framed against the light. “Remember, my offer holds. If you want to join up, return here. I am sure I can arrange for your old rank, perhaps for a commission.”
After the door closed I stood there a while alone in the darkness. The stars were bright in the desert sky, the night was cold … and Ange, my Ange, was dead.
Suddenly I knew she must be dead, and that all Captain Porter had suggested was true. The chances were her body lay somewhere not far from that wagon.