Ambush (4 page)

Ward gave him a full, mild stare of irony and said, “So I hear,” and shook hands briefly. Linus noted the deep sun-wrinkles at the corners of Ward's eyes; his chestnut hair had grown fan-tailed at ear and neck, and his clothes were rags, even down to the patched moccasins. He was a worn man, used and unbent and serene and secret, Linus thought; and then Loring's friendly and ponderous gravity laid its dull matter-of-factness on this meeting.

“Anything you need, Kinsman, outside of some sleep? If not, I'll take you to the Major right now.”

“All right,” Ward said. He looked at Linus, his glance at once sharp and yet touched with a reminiscent humor, and then he moved off with Loring.

Cutting across the parade ground toward the adobe Headquarters building, which made up one side of the wide eastern sentry gate, Loring said, “Don't mean to rush you, Kinsman, but this is urgent.”

Ward supposed that, and he said nothing; they passed into the orderly room and at the door in its side wall, Loring knocked punctiliously and was bid enter.

Loring stepped aside for him, and Ward walked into a close heat to confront Major Brierly, rising from his desk. Brierly said, “How are you, Kinsman?” and came around the desk to shake hands. He was a man of medium height, spare, with a rectangular, smooth-shaven homely face made florid by purple veins. From his gray eyebrows down, his face was deeply weather-tanned; above his brows, his forehead was white and terminated in a saddle of gray hair that seemed to join two big ears. He was not, Ward knew, a garrison soldier, and his respect was genuine as he shook hands.

“Captain Loring,” Brierly said then, “my compliments to Miss Dunnifon and will you escort her here, please?”

Loring stepped out, and Brierly looked searchingly at Ward.

“Missed a few meals, didn't you?”

Ward nodded.

“Holly find you? He with you?”

“He found me and Diablito both,” Ward said dryly. “Yes he's with me.”

Brierly motioned him to a straight chair against the side wall, and then sat down behind his desk. The sternness faded perceptibly from his pale eyes now, and he said, “You better blow off before we start. I couldn't send a detail in there for you without that Little Devil swarming all over it.” He spoke Diablito's name with clipped, quiet hatred. “Holly seemed a fair bet. Was he?”

Ward said without irony, “Looks that way. I'm here.”

“I don't like to butt into a man's business. Wouldn't have butted into yours, if I could've helped it.”

There came a knock on the door, and it opened, and a girl stepped into the room. Both Ward and Brierly came to their feet, and Ward saw the girl's glance instantly settle on him with a strange and searching intentness as she paused inside the door, and then came slowly into the room.

“Miss Dunnifon, may I present Mr. Kinsman,” Brierly said. “He is the man we've waited for.”

The girl walked over to him and extended her hand. She was in her middle twenties, Ward judged. She had a clear olive skin, and her hair was so black it was colorless. Her eyes were of the palest green, and wide, giving an impression of almost animal alertness, and her expression, while unsmiling, was pleasant, tentative, almost cautious.

He was conscious of a swift, merciless appraisal, like that in the eyes of a polite child accepting a gift, who knows, welcome or not, that it may never be rejected. Her hand was strangely cool in his; she said pleasantly, “I grew up with a Kinsman, a girl. We all called her ‘Cousin,'” and then she said more formally, still unsmiling. “How do you do.”

Ward inclined his head and said, “Ma'am,” softly, and then Major Brierly spoke, his tone resigned, “We'd probably be cooler if we moved to the stables. Unfortunately, it wouldn't look right, so sit down, my dear.”

Loring, who had been standing by the door, swiftly stepped to a chair and moved it to a place before Brierly's desk. Ward intercepted the quick soft smile of thanks she gave Loring before she sat down; saw, too, the tenderness it brought to Loring's face before he turned and started out of the room.

“Captain Loring, please remain,” Brierly said. He glanced at the girl and almost smiled. “I think Captain Loring is more than mildly interested. Am I right, my dear?”

The girl smiled assent, and Loring returned to stand stiffly beside her chair as Brierly seated himself. Now he spoke to Ward, who was watching the girl quietly arrange the folds of her pale green dress.

“Miss Dunnifon is an Army ‘brat,' Kinsman, the daughter of Colonel Dunnifon. That'll help explain some of what follows.” He stared at his desk a moment, marshaling his thoughts.”

“This spring,” he began, “when Diablito broke out, he took two small bands with him, do you remember? They split up, and one of them—Sal Juan's band—headed into Mexico, raiding on the way?”

Ward nodded.

“It was a pretty confusing time too, if you'll remember again. A small train was wiped out, the other side of Bowie, and a still smaller one by Steen's Peak. That's the one we're talking about. It was a Government survey party, who wouldn't wait for an escort. You heard about that, of course.”

Ward nodded again.

“What you didn't hear was that there was a woman with them.”

Ward said slowly, “No, I didn't hear that.”

“A Mrs. Carlyle,” Brierly said. “The junior surveyor was Carlyle, a young chap out of Ohio, and new. He and his men, and his wife, were joining the Government party in California. They were traveling in company with a couple of immigrant wagons, and when they'd stop at a post, Carlyle—by arrangement—would pass his wife off as one of the immigrant women. It was against rules, of course, for his wife to be along. At Bayard, Carlyle's train wouldn't wait for escort. Somewhere beyond Bayard, the immigrant wagon broke down. Carlyle, with his wife, and party, went on, and Sal Juan caught them. He killed everyone except Mrs. Carlyle. We know that because a woman's body was not among the dead. The immigrants, who had gone back to Bayard, were afraid to talk when they heard of the massacre. That only came out later.”

Major Brierly eased gently off his chair against the heat and settled back again.

“Sal Juan's band went into Mexico, and”—Brierly's voice turned wry—“The Army was stopped by the border. Apache scouts at Bowie now tell us a part of Sal Juan's band has filtered back and joined Diablito. We have it from the Mexicans that a white woman was in the band, and now is no longer with the remainder,” He paused. “Are we to assume she was with the party that joined Diablito?”

Ward didn't answer. He watched Brierly incline his head toward the girl. “Mrs. Carlyle's maiden name was Mary Dunnifon—Ann's sister.”

Ward's startled glance shuttled to the girl. She was watching him intently to see, he supposed, if the story impressed him. It did, and in a way he hoped she would not see.

Brierly said then, “I wanted you here, Kinsman, to ask two things of you. The first is,
if
Mrs. Carlyle is with Diablito's band, do you think it possible to ransom her?”

Ward shook his head in prompt negation. “From anybody else but Diablito, maybe. From him, no.” He hesitated, then said matter-of-factly. “If he knew she was connected with the Army, that the Army wanted her, he would send back her head in a sack.”

He looked at Ann Dunnifon, and she did not flinch; her cheeks lost a little of their color, but she held his glance steadily. Loring, he noticed, looked both distressed and mildly outraged.

Brierly said, then, “That confirms other opinions. Now, for the second question.” He fisted his handkerchief and mopped his brow. “I am authorized—” he began, and then halted and corrected himself, his tone grim—“I have orders to establish the whereabouts of Mrs. Carlyle. I have not been able to carry out those orders, Kinsman, without letting Diablito know we suspect him. I have sent men in under a white flag to discuss surrender terms. They saw no indication of Mrs. Carlyle's presence. I sent an Apache scout secretly. He was killed. I—” He ceased talking, and eyed Ward steadily. “You have come back from living in his country for weeks. Would you—or could you, even—go back and get the evidence we're after—confirm Mrs. Carlyle's presence or absence?”

Ward studied his hands for a still moment, and then looked at Brierly. “If I confirm it, what do you do?”

“I have orders upon confirmation of Mrs. Carlyle's presence with Diablito to take the field, pursue Diablito and his band, and return them to the reservation.” He smiled dryly. “Also, for the third time, I am authorized to pay for the services of a guide—yourself.”

Ward's glance shifted to the girl, and seeing her expression he thought wryly,
They've primed her with stories: I'm the man with the magic
, and his glance shuttled back to Brierly. “Is this campaign to rescue Mrs. Carlyle, or to corral Diablito?”

“Both. Officially, Diablito's return is necessary. Unofficially, the War Department is not going to see the daughter of one of its favorite colonels in the hands of hostiles.”

Ward shook his head in negation. “It's one or the other.”

“Then it's to rescue Mrs. Carlyle.”

“Does it make any difference, Mr. Kinsman?” Ann Dunnifon asked.

Ward looked at her steadily. “If your sister, Miss Dunnifon, is with Diablito's band, she is a slave. When Diablito is sure the Army is after him, he will pull off the Peak and run. When the Army starts to crowd him, he'll let his women and children be captured. But not his slaves, and especially not a slave whose people are killing his. Even if your sister could outwalk, outwork, or outride the Apaches. Diablito's last act before surrendering would be to kill her.”

He looked now at Brierly. “You are asking me to locate a woman, so she may surely be killed. I will not do that.” He rose, nodded, and walked softly out of the room.

Chapter II

Stretched out in the barber chair with a hot towel over his face, Ward listened idly to the multitude of early morning sounds around the sutler's post. To his left, through the door into the big store, came the low voices of two Army wives, discussing dress material. It was strange to hear women's voices again; the sound of them—musical, now hesitant, now rushing, now blended—was a long forgotten pleasure. From the shop itself, he picked up an occasional rustling noise which he presently identified as a waiting customer leafing through a limp, month-old newspaper.

Lazily, then, he thought of the days ahead. He was through here, since he had rejected Brierly's offer; and as the Peak and Rouf's mine were barred to him, he might as well head for Silver City. For a few days, his friendships and business would hold him in that bright and raucous bedlam, and then he would leave. That was far enough ahead to plan.

To his right, in the saloon, there was a subdued murmur of voices. He heard the talk cease now, and he listened to a solid tramp of boots approaching the barbershop. They came through the door, started to skirt his chair, then halted.

He felt the towel lifted gently from his face and he opened his eyes. He was looking up at the square, smiling, sun-blackened features of a trooper with faded sergeant's chevrons on his sleeve. The sergeant said, “Even with the new clothes, them moccasins give you away, lad.”

The sergeant held out his hard, work-roughened hand and Ward took it saying, “Mack, I thought your enlistment was up. What about that saloon in Cincinnati?”

The sergeant regarded him soberly. “It's this way, Ward. It takes me two years to break in a lieutenant so he's safe to leave G Troop with. And it's whenever my enlistment is running out they send me a new lieutenant.” He grinned and tossed the towel to the barber behind Ward's chair, and then he eyed Ward speculatively. He was a man of close-knit frame, clean and hard as bone in his blue uniform. The streak of humor in his eyes leavened the tough and sober cast of his face, and set a man to wondering how many distant fights through four enlistments had been started for the fun of them.

“It's said you're coming back to us,” Sergeant Mack suggested slyly. “It's said the Little Devil has got you mad once more.”

“I came back for a shave, Mack,” Ward murmured.

They looked at each other in friendly mockery, and Ward knew that Mack was too good a soldier to ask for confidences. Mack winked solemnly at him and shook his head. “If we take the field, I'm betting it's tonight.”

“How's that?”

Mack grimaced. “The paymaster is due today, the first pay in four months. With half the lads drunk, and the other half with busted heads and hands, that's when it comes.”

He waved negligently and tramped on, and Ward, with his barbering finished, paid and moved into the store. His new calico shirt was still stiff with the creases of the store shelf. The hot bath and the barbering were suggestive of a festive occasion, but as he stepped out onto the long veranda and felt the rising heat of the day, a faint depression came to him. Already, the squat earth-colored lines of the distant post were indistinct in the waves of heat, and he was remembering the cool solitude of the Peak. He had been summoned here on a useless errand by a well-intentioned man whose superiors were condemning a woman to death. The thought of it was not pleasant, and he moved down the steps into the sun, nodding to a trio of soldiers in the veranda's shade.

There was little for him to do between now and this evening, when, once the heat of the day had died, he would set out. He must check on the neck wound of his Apache pony; he would pick up his mail, settle his score with Mrs. Hance, the sutler's wife, for room and board, and the rest of the day was idle.

Fort Gamble's corrals lay to the south of the quartermaster's storehouse. Ward cut between A Stable and the forage shed and paused there to shake hands with Trooper Ennis of I Troop, who, stripped to the waist, was sacking grain. Afterwards, he approached the north corral and, folding his arms on the top bar, paused to look over the horses. The clang of a hammer on anvil drifted down from the blacksmith shop.