make it across there ... if there aren't some Indians waiting for us
inCedarCanyon ."
The trail was not only visible from the redoubt, but from nearby they could
see the rarely used trail from Marl Springs. The trail over which they had
come was hidden behind the mountains and they could see nothing in that
direction.
"I think we should pull out now," Wylie said. "I'm going to talk to the stage
driver. We could stay holed up here the rest of our lives."
"We could," Callaghen agreed mildly. "But I think the first thing is to rest
our horses."
Where was Sprague?That question kept bothering him.
Suppose the Indians had stampeded their horses? Who was with them who knew
the water holes as he had known them when he led his small command out of the
desert? Sprague might have a map, but Callaghen knew well enough how
unreliable maps can be. Somewhere out there Sprague might be dying of thirst.
Callaghen folded the map and walked over to where MacBrody sat talking to
Ridge. "I've got to find Sprague," he said, squatting on his heels beside
them. "It just dawned on me that he doesn't have one man who knows this
country."
"How would you find them in allthat? " Ridge asked, gesturing with his right
hand.
"You'd never pass the first mile," MacBrody said. "Not even an O'Callaghan
could do that."
"Sprague's outfit might give me a lead through their tracks. I can go back
where I left them, and trail from there."
MacBrody looked at him sourly. "My duty is here, and I like it that way. I'm
looking for nothing out there."
"Don't do it, Sergeant." Ridge spoke emphatically. "You'd have small chance.
It would take a ghost to move among those Indians without their knowing it."
"Then I shall be a ghost," Callaghen said.
He squatted there while they discussed his chances, but he was scarcely
thinking of their words. He knew what his chances were, but he also remembered
his own narrow escape from dying of thirst out there. And he knew where the
water holes were. He was no hero, and he did not think of what he was doing as
heroic; it was simply that Lieutenant Sprague and his men might need help.
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With horses they might make it, of course. After all, they could locate the
trail toMarl orRock Springs , or even to Bitter Springs.
Sprague and his men were already short of water when he had left them. If
they had not reached a water hole by now, they were in serious trouble ... and
the Indians would know, just as they had known about Callaghen and the others.
"I'll go tonight," he said, "but say nothing about it to the others."
Ridge dug at the earth between his feet. "Damn it, man, I'd go with you,
but "
"You're not a soldier. Your job is with that stage."
Callaghen got up and walked to the wall. For a while he moved from place to
place, studying the area outside. Getting a horse out would be hardest of all,
for undoubtedly the Indians would move in closer at night.
There was a restlessness in him that did not come from their confinement
here. He knew it was because of that discharge which was due, that might even
now be atCampCady . He wanted to be free, moving out on his own, trying
himself in the world outside the army.
Men were building a country here. Although some sought merely quick wealth,
others were bringing the law, bringing order, establishing homes and
businesses ... it was an exciting time to live. As yet there was no great
wealth; men had only what they could make for themselves with their own
strength, their own ingenuity. It was ability that mattered. Even as he
considered that, he was thinking that even inEurope things were changing.
InEngland most members of the House of Lords were only a generation or two
away from being commoners.
The old families who had come over with the Conqueror had declined or
disappeared, and many of the conquered Anglo-Saxons were once again in
positions of trust and importance. The same sort of thing could happen here,
and a day might even come when Indians would hold important positions and
direct affairs in the land they had once lost to an invader.
It was such thoughts that made him restless now, and gave him that urge to be
out and doing ... that, and some nameless thing in the desert itself,
something that whispered to him with every wind, that stirred with every grain
of sand. His mind seemed to wander over such a range of mankind's doings. At
this very spring, how many travelers must have stopped! Even prehistoric men
who had shaped the flints or the hand axes he had seen; invaders too, who had
driven them out. The only law was change, and he wanted to be a part of that
change.
Suddenly, Malinda was beside him. "Mort, what are you thinking of?"
"I was wondering about Sprague and those men of his. They must be hunting
water now, perhaps dying for it."
"You're going out there?"
"Yes."
"But how can you find them in all that waste? How can you, Mort?"
"I have to try. I'd not forgive myself if I didn't. You stay with the stage.
Trust Ridge he's a good man. So is Sergeant MacBrody."
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"MacBrody was talking about your family, Mort."
"Just like an Irishman. He can't keep his mouth shut. There's nothing about
my family except that I am a O'Callaghan. InIreland , at least in some places,
that meant quite a lot, but here it only means I am another Irishman."
"It seems as if half the army is Irish. To say nothing of the tracklayers."
"Sure, and tomorrow they will be in politics. Leave it to them. It's the
place they can do most with their talk, and the Irish love the sound of words
... especially from their own tongues."
"You can be one of them."
"I will have to be. If a man is going to take on responsibilities he had
better prepare himself to support them."
She said nothing more, standing beside him in the evening coolness that came
out from the canyons. He saw a faint movement among the rocks, a stir of
something, and his hand went to his rifle.
An Indian? It seemed unlikely here, so close to the redoubt.
"MacBrody! Ridge!" His hoarse whisper carried across the corral and he
gestured. They came quickly with their guns.
"There's somebody out there, and I am thinking it is one of our men. If he [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]