Cry of Eagles (16 page)

Buford looked back up the mountain slope. He could see bodies lying everywhere ... some wounded men were crawling toward safety, crying out for help. Loose horses were scattered all over the mountainside.

“Jesus,” Buford whispered, his hands shaking.

He heard Sergeant Skinner whimpering with pain. “I just had a feelin' they were in them goddamn trees,” Skinner said, his face twisted into a grimace.

Buford glanced up at the mountain trail again. The shooting had all but stopped, and now Apaches were running from one fallen body to the next, scalping some of his men while they were still alive.

Buford heard their screams, and he knew he would hear them in his sleep for the rest of his life.

“I sure as hell wish I'd listened to you,” he told Skinner, watching the grisly work of the Apaches from a half a mile away. “Next time—if there is a next time—I'll damn sure pay more attention to your advice,” he said, already planning on how to explain this fiasco to his superiors back at the fort. He knew his career hung in the balance, and he would need a good story to keep his stripes.

The shrieks of men being mutilated by Apache knives echoed from the forested slope. “Dear God,” he muttered, trying to control the tremors in his limbs. “They're gutting our men while they're still alive. What kind of savages are these damn Indians, anyway?”

“The worst kind there is,” Skinner replied in a weak voice. “They ain't human, Cap'n. The army should‘a killed every last one of 'em when we got 'em to Fort Thomas.”

Although he did not say so aloud, after today's events he wholeheartedly agreed. Total extermination of the Apache race was the only sensible solution.

“Let's head back to the fort,” he said. “The colonel isn't going to like what I have to tell him.”

Nine survivors of the ambush rode off to the north, leaving the screams of their dying fellow troopers to resound over an empty desert.

As he rode, Captain Buford thought once again of the mutilated Apache bodies they'd found hanging by the trail. Could it be that the army had an ally they knew nothing about? Perhaps some other Indian tribe was making war on the Apaches. It was an interesting theory, one he would have to share with Colonel Grant. It might take the old man's mind off his failure as a leader. At least, it would give the colonel something else to think about besides how many men Buford had gotten killed, and how he had escaped with his life while so many others died.

It was well past midnight when Buford led what remained of his Company through the gates at Fort Thomas. Sergeant Skinner had lost so much blood he had to be held in the saddle for the final few hours, riding across a starlit desert with a tight bandage around his shoulder to stem the blood flow.

Buford spoke to one of his men. “Take Skinner to the post surgeon at once. I have to awaken Colonel Grant to give him my report.”

Troopers riding on either side of Sergeant Skinner assisted him toward the surgeon's quarters while Buford rode across the fort compound to the colonel's small house, set apart from the soldiers' barracks.

He swung down, weary to the bone, his mind dulled by what he had seen when the Apaches attacked. He'd mourned over the loss of so many of his men, angry at himself for trusting Jaseh to warn them of danger ahead and for ignoring Sergeant Skinner's words of caution about a possible ambush.

He climbed the porch steps and rapped softly on Colonel Grant's door, wondering if he would be stripped of his rank for having taken his men into an outright disaster, a virtual slaughter. It was a clear demonstration of failure at military leadership, an end to his dreams of a promotion.

Moments later a lantern flickered to life behind one of the cabin windows. The colonel's wife came to the door clad in a long cotton sleeping gown.

“Yes?” she asked, peering past a crack in the door to see who had disturbed them at this late hour.

“Captain Buford Jones, ma'am. I'm sorry to awaken you so late, but I must speak to the colonel at once.”

“Please come in, Captain. Take a chair and I'll wake my husband.”

He walked in, hat in hand, and sat in a rocking chair near a window. The lantern glowing softly on a coffee table cast moving shadows on the cabin walls.

“This could be the end of everything for me,” he whispered to himself.

Colonel Grant ambled into the front room in his undershorts and socks, giving Buford a sleepy but wary look. “What is it, Captain? Why have you come to see me in the middle of the night when you should be patrolling that region south of the massacre at Bisbee?”

“We were ambushed, sir,” Buford began, standing up to give a formal salute before he spoke.

“Ambushed? Where? Do we have casualties?”

“Very heavy casualties I'm afraid, sir. We lost twenty-four men to a surprise attack as we entered the Dragoon mountain range. The old Mescalero, Jaseh, picked up the trail of the raiding party and we followed it to the western edge of a northern section of the mountains. As you know, sir, the Dragoons are at least sixty miles long, and we expected to meet armed resistance once we entered the higher regions. But they laid a trap for us at a wooded spot just as we were beginning our climb. They took us completely by surprise.”

Grant came over to a bullhide chair across from Buford and sat down, staring him in the face, wide awake now. “Did I hear you correctly, Captain? Twenty-four troopers from Company D are dead?”

“Yessir,” he replied, dry-mouthed, watching the anger come to life in the colonel's eyes. He hastened to explain. “They shot the old Apache first. They were well-hidden on both sides of the trail in a dense pine forest. There was absolutely no warning.”

“The Mescalero ... Jaseh. Was he drunk?”

“No sir. I kept his bottles of whiskey in my saddlebags to prevent just such a thing. I told him he could only drink after we camped for the night.”

“And your Indian scout still was unaware of the renegades' presence before the ambush?”

“Totally. As I said, he was the first man killed when the shooting started.”

Grant took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment, a pained expression on his face. Buford expected the worst from his commanding officer. Loss of rank. A transfer to one of the cold northern Territories where soldiers froze to death as often as they died in battle. Or a court-martial.

“Twenty-four men,” Grant said quietly, blinking, fixing Buford with an icy look.

“Nine of us made it out alive. Sergeant Skinner has a deep wound in his shoulder. He's at the surgeon's quarters now for medical attention.” Buford paused long enough to show Colonel Grant the bloody slice across his scalp. “I narrowly avoided death myself, sir,” he said, pointing to his wound. “Had the bullet been only an inch or two lower, I would be lying dead on that trail with my men.”

“What is your estimate of the number of renegades who attacked you?”

“At least fifty, sir. We were badly outnumbered,” he lied, having no idea how many rifles had been firing at them when the ambush took place. “Quite possibly more.”

“Fifty,” Grant muttered. “Our roll call of the Apaches held prisoner here showed only thirty men were missing. This could mean Geronimo has joined forces with the Curricula chief Naiche. Or it may well be that some of Naiche's renegades are escapees from San Carlos. I will wire the Indian Agent there this morning. If Naiche has fifty armed Indians under his leadership, equipped with our own repeating rifles, I'll be forced to send for reinforcements.”

“I would strongly recommend that, sir,” Buford said as a way of pleading his own case. “There may have been far more than fifty Apaches shooting at us. It was hard to make an accurate count while we were under heavy fire.”

Grant slumped lower in his chair. “Let us pray the other companies we have searching for these runaways have fared better than you did. This calls for a new tactic. I must combine what forces we have into a single unit and drive straight into the heart of the Dragoons to ferret them out and destroy them, or bring them back in chains.”

“I wholeheartedly agree, sir. We can put roughly a hundred and fifty cavalrymen afield, leaving a small force to keep a sufficient guard on the Apaches here at the reservation. With one hundred and fifty armed cavalry, we can strike Chief Naiche with overwhelming superiority.”

“Yes,” Grant whispered, lost in thought. “This calls for a sound strategy and superior numbers when we engage them. I was unaware they had grown so strong. Based on your report, I am quite sure a large number of Apaches have slipped away from the San Carlos reservation. I'll wire them at dawn. Get some rest, Captain. I shall send messengers out to collect the other Companies we have in the field, and preparations will be made to launch a major offensive.” He briefly held his head in his hands before he continued. “All these Indian attacks, the tremendous death toll, and the way these Indians carve up their victims will make newspaper headlines all across the country. When my report reaches Washington it will sound as if I've been unable to put down a major Indian insurrection. There will be a hue and cry from all quarters to have me transferred, or demoted. This is the worst possible event a military commander can endure.”

Buford allowed himself to relax. The colonel wasn't blaming him for what had happened. He stood up abruptly and moved toward the door. “Goodnight, Colonel,” he said, letting himself out.

“Yes, goodnight, Captain Jones,” Grant said as Buford was closing the door behind him.

He untied his horse and led it toward the stable, relieved at the colonel's reaction. He hadn't even had to distract the colonel with the tale of the mutilated Apaches, after all. A small white lie had salvaged the career of Buford Jones, a lie no one could dispute since it was truly impossible to judge how many Indians had set upon them on the mountainside. His surviving troopers, even Sergeant Skinner, would not dispute his estimate.

Buford unsaddled his horse and put him in a corral. More than anything else, he was thankful to be alive. He would not think about how he had abandoned his men under fire, at least not now.

He headed for the surgeon's quarters to see if he needed stitches where his hair had been parted by a bullet.

* * *

Isa stood with Juh while the others collected every weapon and bullet from the bodies of the dead bluecoats. The night was dark, an inky sky sprinkled with stars above the pine limbs over their heads.

“It was good,” Juh said, four ripe scalps hanging from his waistband, blood dribbling down his bare legs. “The white-eye soldiers are stupid. They know nothing about making war. They rode into the jaws of our death trap like men who were blind, and they were easy to kill.”

Isa heard mounted warriors coming back with the stray horses frightened away by gunshots, free to run loose when their riders were killed. The horses and ammunition carried behind the soldiers' saddles would be valuable as the war continued. “It was a great victory,” Isa agreed. “Naiche will be pleased when we bring back more horses and rifles and bullets.”

“And the scalps of our enemies,” Juh added with a note of pride in his voice.

In a patch of starlight, sprawled on his back across the trail, lay the traitor Mescalero who brought the bluecoats to them. “We have another enemy now,” he said gravely. “The old Apache betrayed us. There will be others, our own blood brothers, who will lead more bluecoats to our village for the price of a few bottles of the white man's crazy water. This will be our greatest danger, that one of our own people who knows the hidden trails and springs in these mountains will bring the enemy to our wickiups.”

Juh nodded once. “You speak true words. Even some of the bravest warriors among the People are no longer Apaches in spirit. The reservation has done this to them.”

Isa knew how true this was. After years of starvation, rotting food rations on ration day, and brutal punishment at the hands of the soldiers, a growing number of the People had given up in their hearts and minds, adapting to reservation life as little more than shadows of men and women, living in despair, waiting to die. “Some will betray us. More will join us when they hear of our victories.”

Juh's grip tightened on the stock of his repeating rifle. “Naiche is a wise chief. He has the courage of a mountain lion. And with the white man's many-shoot guns, we can drive them from our homeland.”

“Only if we have warriors to use the magic rifles,” Isa warned.

Juh looked at him in the darkness. “Chokole brought us the restless ones from Fort Thomas and San Carlos. More will hear of our battles, and they will come. Naiche must send Chokole back to the reservations, in spite of the danger, to tell our people of this victory, and how strong we are now.”

Isa believed this was true. If word could reach San Carlos and Fort Thomas of their success fighting the bluecoats, more Apaches would find hope of returning to the land of their ancestors as free people. “We must go now. Tell the others to ride only where the rocks will hide our tracks. When we return to the village with horses and guns, Naiche will call for a council fire. Our war drums will beat again. Fresh scalps will hang from lodge poles. It will be as it was before the bluecoats captured us, a time for war and celebration over the defeat of our enemies.”

“I can hear the drumbeats and war chants now in my heart,” Juh said, walking away to give Isa's instructions to the warriors leading strings of riderless cavalry horses from the forest.

Isa turned to face the east, wondering if Cuchillo had found and killed the four white men yet. From his experience fighting white-eyes, they were no match for the People in combat, and he wondered how Cuchillo had allowed his men to be killed by such as these.