Читать книгу The Border Trumpet - Ernest Haycox - Страница 6

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SUNLIGHT burned against the earth, catching up the thin and bitter flashes of mica particles in the soil, and heat dropped over the post, layer on layer until it was a substance that sluggishly stirred when the weight of a body was put against it. The flag hung lifeless against its pole; the sprinkling cart traversed the parade, damping the dust and leaving its steamy smell behind. A few Indians came from the camp outside the post and crouched in the false shade of the commissary building. Al Hazel's wife crossed the parade for the Major's washing, her olive Mexican cheeks smothered in a dead white flour paste. Lily Marr slept in an exhausted sleep in Eleanor Warren's bed. Drill call brought two skeleton troops, I and K, to the parade where Captain Harrison, his cheeks turned a lobster-red by the sun, drilled them briefly.

At noon Lieutenant George Mixler brought his detail down Aravaipa Creek and reported. He was a heavy young man whose naturally cheerful face was overcast by worry; after he had welcomed Eleanor he went straight toward his own dobe quarters. From her position under the ramada of the commanding officer's house, Eleanor heard him speak to Harriet, and heard Harriet's voice rise unreasonably and dissolve into crying.

The day droned on, the terrific summer's heat pressing down on a parade bare of life. Eleanor soaked her hands and face in tepid water and, unquenchably curious in spite of the weather, followed the walk around the quadrangle, past headquarters, post bakery, guardhouse and sutler's store—and down along the line of men's barracks. Back of the commissary she saw troopers beneath the open shed of the blacksmith shop. Tom Benteen, stripped to his waist, had the hind foot of a horse between his legs, fitting a shoe. When she came nearer she heard him explaining to the troopers; and she paused to hear him explain. "Set it up tight, make your clinch clean. We'll take a few extra shoes along. I want no crippled horses on the trip."

Sweat streamed down his skin, it rolled out of his sandy hair, down across the flat of his cheeks. Troopers led their horses from the stables and back again, Benteen standing by. "This one will blow his tendons ten miles out. Pull a fresh mount from the corral, Levi. That's about all. Check your cinches and buckles. If you've got any bad saddle blankets, go to the quartermaster. Fill your canteens after supper. You'll get rations then. Twenty rounds extra for carbines and ten for revolvers."

When he came around she saw the pull of heat on his face. He took his shirt from the ground and put it on; he came forward, removing his hat; and there was, again, the nearness of a smile behind his eyes, and the same strong curiosity.

She said: "Come along. We've got some Sonora lemons."

The skin below the open roll of his shirt collar was quite dark; his hands were long and broad against heavy wrists. His trouser belt was cinched against a typical cavalryman's small flanks and the yellow stripe on the trousers made him seem longer-legged than was actually so. She wanted him to talk, curious as to the way he might break the strangeness between them, but he had a kind of indifference that covered him. All he said just then was a matter-of-fact, "It is a damned kind thought," and that oath was as natural and inoffensive as anything could be. Once, in turning across the parade her foot, turned on a slick-sided piece of gravel; his arm pulled her up at once and then, looking up to him she saw how alive was the interest of his powder-gray eyes.

He followed her into the dobe's kitchen, and went back to the porch basin to wash up while she ground the lemons and pulverized the coarse sugar lumps. He brought in the ollas hanging to the porch rafters and poured the tepid water into the glasses. He sat on the edge of table, lifting his glass to her. "To you;" he said, and drank with the lusty, audible relish of a thirsty man.

"It would be good to have some ice," she said.

"The trick of getting along in this weather," he told her, "is to let nothing bother you. Watch the Indians, or the Mexicans. They bend but they never break. Sleep when it is time to sleep and work when it is time to work. They're admirable people and they know something most Americans don't, which is how to get fun out of living."

He was thoroughly relaxed, his muscles loose, his legs sprawled. There was no strain in him, no haste or worry. She said: "That's the way you are, but you didn't learn it from the Mexicans. You were born that way."

"Eleanor," he said, "you're a smart girl."

"No," she said, "I was raised among men."

She refilled his glass and sat in a corner chair, more and more interested in him. The room held a deep shade and no sound stirred the post. Even in the half-light her auburn hair held a shine. Her long lips were gently set, showing gravity, showing will; Her shoulders were square and definite against the chair's back; they were strong. In the lengthening silence she was aware of his continuing, careful attention. In many ways he was an odd man, sharper with his eyes than other men, more attentive to details than other men. There was deception to him—the deception of a swift mind lying behind seeming indifference. She had lived in the army long enough to know that in all men there was a liberal streak of vanity and false pride, making them easy targets for flattery; these things were in Benteen, because he was a man, yet she was rather sure that it would be harder to reach him through flattery, because of the irony in his eyes—an irony that controlled his judgments of himself as well as of other people. It was a definite impression she had.

She spoke on impulse. "Tom, would you do me a favor? Next time you play poker, please ask Phil to join you."

It was always dangerous to interfere with the likes and dislikes of men, yet she had a feeling that between herself and Benteen was a quick understanding. In some ways they were the same kind of people, both able to stand apart and watch the world run by. She felt this about him. He had lowered his head. His long forefinger gently rubbed the rim of the glass. He said, "Of course," but the lack of interest in his voice told her more than he intended.

She said: "What is it?"

He raised his head. "What?"

"No," she said. "Nothing. It would have been a foolish question."

He shook his head. "Useless, maybe. But not foolish. Some questions have no good answers. That's one of them." He stood up and came on until she saw the flaky grayness of his eyes and the entire gravity in them. Inside him, deep away, some change occurred, swift and violent enough for her to feel that wash of its force. She realized that he was trying to tell her something in his own reticent way. "You can change the color of your dress, or the way you do your hair. You cannot change the kind of a woman you are and you can't change a man into something you want him to be. Don't try, Eleanor."

She murmured: "How do you know that?"

"I tried it once."

"You sound very old," she observed; and her woman's curiosity grew greater and greater.

He could smile. It was a long, sound smile that showed the white surfaces of his teeth. "I got into the first battle of Bull Run at fifteen and went clear through to Appomattox. Two things bring a man along pretty fast, if he's the kind to learn at all—war and women."

She was a practical girl who had seen too many soldiers not to know them. So she said: "When was the first woman, Tom?"

"The first and last," he corrected. "At twenty-one. She was an unreconstructed rebel in New Orleans. If you ever go into the deep South. Eleanor, never let the magnolias and the summer twilight fool you."

She had an instant guess. "That's why you transferred, isn't it? To get away from her. Is she married now?"

"I don't know."

"I think," said Eleanor, carefully watching him, "she regretted that as much as you still do. It would be like a woman."

He said: "Do I show any regret?"

Phil Castleton's voice crossed from the front doorway. "Eleanor." He came on to the kitchen. The sight of Benteen brought him up and he stood with his shoulders pulled straight—a betraying expression on his face; and at once the room was too small for these two big men. Of Castleton's resenting dislike there was no question at all, but though Eleanor watched Benteen with a genuine concern, she could make out no visible reaction.

She broke the difficult silence by pouring Castleton a glass of lemonade. "Warm, but wet, Phil."

He took the glass and said, "Thanks," but didn't immediately drink. His manner was pretty clear; he wanted Benteen out of the kitchen.

Benteen said: "Where's that girl?"

"Sleeping," Eleanor answered. "Did you want to see her?"

"Maybe," put in Castleton, "she could add something to what she told you last night."

"What would that be?" inquired Benteen, soft and idle.

Castleton said briefly: "She did her whispering to you, not to me. My observation is you have good luck with stray characters and broken-down Indians."

Benteen swung around, facing Castleton; and this hot room held storm and trouble. Benteen said: "The term stray character scarcely applies to the lady, Mr. Castleton."

Castleton colored. His brief laugh concealed nothing of the swift anger in him. "I do not know her. Pending better knowledge I withdraw the remark."

Benteen looked at Eleanor. "Thanks for the drink," he said and left the room.

Castleton said: "If this is your day for open house, Eleanor, shouldn't you invite more than one man?"

She spoke gently. "That's a foolish remark, Phil."

"A man in love is apt to be a fool," he said and lifted his glass. He was smiling again. "To you." But his eyes, above the rim of the glass, were round and hot with real anger.

Sergeant McSween called: "The detail will leave at tattoo and ye'd better be takin' some rest meanwhile. The lieutenant Benteen is a man that likes to march."

Sunlight glowed through the drawn burlap curtains of the barrack room, In this hot semi-dark the men of the K and I troops took their siestas on the close-placed cots, Harry Jackson lay shirtless against the straw ticking and felt sweat accumulate beneath him. On the wall at the foot of the bed hung his saber, blouse and forage cap. A bright sliver of light struck in at the corner of the window curtain. Just above the window, in a crevice of the dobe wall, a tarantula hung in a motionless fur-black ball, half as large as Harry Jackson's fist.

Voices rolled idly and fatiguedly through the half-gloom. From the corner of his eye, Harry Jackson saw van Rhyn seated like a tailor on his bed, bending over a book. Van Rhyn was an older man, close to forty, with a long, shrunken face and a bony frame that no amount of food could fill. Like the rest of the crowd he was stripped to the waist. A small gold locket and chain swung against his flat chest. Van Rhyn was a peculiar man who always kept his finger nails clean and his boots shined and sometimes he used words that none of the rest of the troopers quite understood. It all made a mystery to young Harry Jackson who was twenty-one.

The bunks of I troop ended with van Rhyn; beyond was K troop's half of the barracks. Down there the men of K were arguing about religion, and pleased with the knowledge it was not their turn to go out on detail tonight. Big Mitch Canreen walked to the window, pushing the burlap aside to squint through the barrel of his carbine. "Anyway, boys," he said, "we'll be hopin' you sleep well on the rocks. When you reach the Injuns bring me back a load of baked mescal."

Sergeant McSween never let a man's insult go unanswered. "'Tis the least to say we'll see Injuns. In I troop we pick no daisies by the wayside. Did I hear any of ye talkin' about the bloody savages ye've shot?"

Corporal Oldbuck answered that one. "Well, Benteen's got the luck for that—which I will admit. Castleton ain't."

"Castleton," said another man. "I—"

But McSween stopped the comment before it came. "I'll hear no comparison as to officers."

Mitch Canreen spoke from the far end of I's line, "We'll take care of your duties, boys," and laughed a long, flat laugh.

Young Harry Jackson lay quite still, his legs pushed beyond the foot of his bed. His lips closed and he turned the palms of his hands over, pushing them against the bed. His heart quickened its beating; his throat dryly clacked when he swallowed.

McSween shot back his question: "Whut would ye mean by that?"

"Nothin' for you, Sarge," called Canreen. "But maybe another one of your lads will know." He was laughing again. Head half turned, Harry Jackson watched Canreen stroll forward. Canreen was a heavy, wicked Irishman; even in the half-light Harry Jackson saw the blackness of the man's eyebrows and the solid roll of his lips. Canreen was a bruiser and had had his brutal fights; it showed on the scars of his face.

"If it meant anything to me," said McSween tartly, "I'd clip your ears."

"Sure, Sarge, but you wouldn't know anything about love, hey?"

The drowsy talk fell away and Harry Jackson, flat on his bed tick, knew why. Even in this stifling heat a coolness rolled down his arms and the pit of his stomach tightened on emptiness and he felt an old, sick fear. McSween rolled around in his bunk and his words came out softly for Harry Jackson alone. "Ye'd better try to lick him now, son, or he'll make the rest of your hitch a hell of a wan. There's no livin' with the ape if he believes he's got ye scared."

Canreen came on toward the I troop side. He stopped by the window and turned, the ball-shaped tarantula hovering one foot above his black head. His mouth kept changing, it kept loosening and tightening; he had small eyes deep in his head. Both hands were behind him. He said: "Canreen will take care of it. The old soldier will show I troop rookies, hey?" He was at the foot of Harry Jackson's bed. He turned half away and brought his arms to the front, swinging a broomstick across the bottom of Jackson's boots. The sound flattened against the dead air and hot pain shot up Jackson's legs and made him roll from the bed. Canreen's laughter went wildly along the room, but when Harry Jackson came down the length of the bed and faced him, he saw the glitter of evil in Canreen's eyes. Young Harry Jackson stood with his blistered feet apart, his arms idle and as loose as water. There was no strength in him at all.

Canreen said: "She'll never miss you; Harry. I'll spend a night there myself—"

He was still afraid, this young Harry Jackson; deadly afraid of the beating he was certain to take. But Canreen had spoken a thing that turned Harry Jackson inside out, and the fear was less terrible because of it. Jackson pulled up his head, knowing he could never whip that heavy brute of a man, and then saw his saber hanging by the window. He flung out his arm, seized the saber's hilt and pulled it free of its scabbard and made one wild, outward slash that grazed the surface of Canreen's chest, leaving a faint red track there.

Canreen yelled at the top of his voice. "Hey—!" and dodged backward. Men sprang up from the cots. McSween called: "None of that, boy! None of that!" Harry Jackson didn't hear it. The fear and the jealousy in him was a flame that burned at his lungs. Canreen paced backward, momentarily out of range of the swinging saber; he let go with his hard cursing, and turned and seized van Rhyn's saber from the wall. Suddenly all the men in this barracks were crying in full throat. "All right, boy—all right—lick the hell out of him! Knock him down!"

McSween shouted, "Stop that—ye want somebody to hang for murder!"

Canreen stopped and waited, his shoulders drawn together and his round, cropped head lowered. Young Harry Jackson, turned still and half-blind, saw the red gleam in Canreen's eyes and the meaty roll of Canreen's lips. Van Rhyn's whisper came to him.

"Finish what you start, Harry."

It was this soft phrase which drove young Harry Jackson forward so precipitately that Canreen was caught off guard. The point of Jackson's saber caught and drove down Canreen's weapon. Canreen jumped back and brought his saber forward; when it struck the hilt of Jackson's saber a solid spasm rushed up Jackson's arm, as though it had been broken. All Harry Jackson saw was the shape of Canreen's round head and the dim blur of Canreen's bare chest; everything else was gray and formless and the cry of voices was only a confused tone. He rushed on, striking at Canreen in lunging, crosswise, full-armed slashes. Canreen yelled, "Hey!" and gave ground, and the sound of steel on steel went clanging through the barracks. Young Harry Jackson saw the point of Canreen's blade streak past his eyes and felt wetness suddenly along his lips. He heard his own breathing come deep and croupy from his lungs; he kept pushing on, wanting to kill Canreen, trying to kill Canreen. He saw Canreen's saber go crosswise and, sweeping in, he hit Canreen with the flat of his blade on the side of the face. Canreen dropped, knees and hips and shoulders collapsing at once; he lay on the floor and rolled from side to side, raising his boots to shield his stomach. Young Harry Jackson beat Canreen across the knees, hearing Canreen cry, and afterwards he was caught from behind and dragged back and flung completely around, across one of the beds. McSween seized the saber. McSween was saying in a calm voice, "It is enough, lad."

Somebody yelled: "Attention!"

Silence came to the room. McSween reached down to the cot and dragged Harry Jackson to his feet as Lieutenant Benteen swung into the barracks. "McSween," he said, "what's this?"

McSween's voice was even and polite—the voice of the old soldier turned smart by years of service. "A bit of an accident, sor. Canreen tripped on his saber, and it batted him across the head, strange-like. An odd accident, sor. I nivver saw the like of it before."

Young Harry Jackson backed against the rear wall of the barrack room so that he might have its support for his quivering legs. The heat was about to suffocate him. He could not drag in enough air and the sound of his gasping effort told Benteen the whole story. Benteen saw the boy's red-purple face and spoke quickly. "Lie down. Van Rhyn, get a bucket of water. Hurry it up—the boy's about to have a heat stroke. Did he trip on his saber too, McSween?"

"He was runnin' in the sun, sor. I've warned him many a time against it."

Canreen pulled himself from the floor. He put both arms against the wall and dropped his head against them, Blood dripped steadily from his nose. McSween pushed Harry Jackson to the bed and van Rhyn came back with a bucket of water. Nothing was said. Benteen watched Canreen a moment, and turned, his attention to Jackson. Jackson's heart moved the skin of his chest; its straining labor was loud enough for Benteen to hear. McSween murmured: "Would the lieutenant be wantin' somethin'?"

He met Benteen's eyes, his own leather countenance gravely wise; these two men understood each other and played the game according to the rules. Benteen said: "You had better put Canreen's saber somewhere out of reach, McSween," and left the barracks.

Sergeant Hanna came from the shadows at the end of the room. "Canreen, get the hell back to your bunk, If it had been Castleton ye'd be walkin' post for a month."

Young Harry Jackson lay flat on his bed, feeling the warm wetness of the water van Rhyn slowly poured over him. Van Rhyn's face was a blur in a mealy grayness that surrounded everything. He kept reaching deeper for wind, feeling starved and choked for want of it, feeling the rack of his heart, His knees shook and all his muscles were trembling. McSween's face vaguely appeared. Van Rhyn's face dropped near and he saw the older man's reserved, odd eyes pretty clearly.

"Good boy. Never run from anything, or you'll be running all your life. Better be dead than that, I'm telling you, son. I know."

But Harry Jackson, in the strange dimness of his mind, was thinking: "I've got to watch out for Canreen, He'll try to kill me."

The ambulance detail returned near three o'clock with the dead Mexican. At five Major Warren stood over the grave in the post cemetery and spoke the brief funeral service beginning, "Man that is born of woman," under the day's last burning sunlight. There was no further ceremony. The officers and small funeral detail turned back to the parade, Lily Marr and Eleanor Warren accompanying them. Mess call sounded in the first blue shadows of evening; then suddenly and completely, full dark fell across the mountains, across the narrow valley of the San Pedro, and once again the outline of the Santa Catalinas was a black ragged-edged mass against the glittering shine of the high stars. A new moon, tipped over on one of its horns, made a lightless arc of the low horizon. Heat pulsed along the earth, thick-scented with dust and sage.

McSween called through the thin lamplight of the barracks: "We pull out at tattoo." Standing in the dense shadows by the corral walls, Harry Jackson heard the echo of the sergeant's voice, and the clatter of the eight o'clock guard relief coming up to number five post near the edge of Aravaipa Creek. The relief stopped. Number five's Irish brogue cut the stillness: "Halt—who's there?"

"Corporal of the guard."

"Advance, cawprul of the guard, with the countersign."

This was the moment, while the guard stood at the far end of his beat, that Harry Jackson circled the corral, slipped into the dry creek bed and crossed it, thus putting himself beyond the lines. For a moment he lay belly-flat on the rough sand-and- gravel soil, one hand touching the butt of his revolver as he stared into the muddy dark surrounding him, The lights of the post sparkled behind. The small fire of Nachee's peaceful Indian camp made a round glow half a mile away. To the right of that fire, and another half mile onward, the light of Valley Ranch broke the black. These lights meant nothing, for it was a habit of Antone's band to creep singly down from the hills and lie in ambush at the very edge of the post with lance and arrow. Knowing this, Harry Jackson nevertheless took the risk; pushed to it by his desire. Rising, he went forward at a quiet walk until the sound of his boots could not carry back to the guard; thereafter he broke into a trot, every muscle of his body strained and stiff from the afternoon's fight. Fifteen minutes later, well-winded, he drew up at the first of the little scatter of dobe houses forming the Valley Ranch, and knocked on a latched door.

There was a delay and, to Harry Jackson's attentive ears, the scrape of more than one set of feet; then the door opened and he passed quickly in and faced Rose Smith.

The smell of tobacco smoke in the room revived the torment of his jealous fears. He didn't look at her for a moment. He stood with his shoulder point swung away, staring at the opposite wall—a tall, slender boy whose face was still clear, still unmarked by the roughness of life. He had deep blue eyes and the gawkiness and the sober intensity of youth wrote its mark on him completely. He said: "If you ain't alone I'll get on back—"

She said at once: "Just my uncle. He left a minute ago."

"Oh," he said, flat and relieved. "Well—"

She was a dark, compact girl, full at hip and breast, with red lips that stirred at sight of him. She was older than Harry Jackson, though this he never knew. Older in years and older in her eyes. Looking at him, her face showed a softening, a puzzled change, as though she didn't quite understand him. She touched his arm, letting her hand lie there. "Maybe you'll sit down."

"No," he said, "I got to get back. I leave with the scout detail after tattoo. Just came to see how you were."

"Why, all right, Harry."

"I just wanted to know," he said slowly.

She said: "I'll think of you, Harry."

"Lord," he said, "that's what I do all the time. It is hell to pull out and think of you here. I wish you were in Tucson, or in the post. And it is tough to think my outfit might leave Arizona any time. I think of that a lot of times. I've got a year to go on my enlistment. Where'll you be next year, Rose?"

"Why," she said, "here, I expect. I don't know."

He said: "You shouldn't be near an army post, or near soldiers."

"You're a soldier, Harry."

"You know what I mean—the kind I mean."

"Yes—I know."

He said, "Well, I've got to get back," and pulled himself straight before her. She let her hand drop from his arm and remained before him with her lips soft and with a small, formless smile. She had a pliability, a waiting silence, a smoky-eyed expectancy. But this he didn't see. What he saw was a picture built from the eagerness and the hunger and dreaming of a boy, all fair and all pure. He held his hat, his feelings strong and severe in his eyes. He said, quite formally, "I will see you soon," and opened the door and pulled it shut.

The girl put her arm against the door, listening to the fading run of his boots. Afterwards, when silence had quite come, the rear door opened and Mitch Canreen stepped in. "Who was it, Rose?"

Her shoulders rose and fell for answer. Canreen laughed, his scarred lips pulling apart, and settled down in a chair loosely. "Sure," he said, "sure. The kid. He don't know much, Rose. Come here."

But she stood by the door a long while, strangeness still on her face—the strangeness of the thought young Harry Jackson had left behind him. Presently she sighed and her expressive shoulders lifted and fell, as though it were something that had to be put aside, and moved across the room.

Tattoo ran the parade in strong, slow notes, sinking into the velvet-layered mystery of this night. Equipped for field duty, twenty men of I troop stood by their horses on the parade, a long blur in the blackness. Sergeant McSween's voice struck its grumbling command into the silence and other voices snapped back at him, counting off. Standing at the edge of the parade, Eleanor watched Benteen and Howell Ford cross the shadows and appear before the other officers grouped with Major Warren. They always went through this, shaking hands and exchanging best wishes. But Phil Castleton was in the background, aloof and silent. Major Warren said:

"I wish you to remember, Mr. Benteen, that your judgment always must prevail in the field. You are to catch Antone if that is possible, to keep him moving if you cannot catch him. Should you come upon him, be sure to estimate your chances carefully. Make a fight under any decent odds. If you must lose men to break up Antone's power, then do it. But under no circumstances should you waste a life foolishly. That temptation will be constantly before you. Antone will see to that. I have a great regard for the troopers in this command. They're the finest soldiers on earth and they're in your hands. Be sure you give them proper leadership. I wish you good luck."

Benteen's voice was slow and cool. He said, "Yes sir," and moved on until he stood before Eleanor Warren, tall-shaped against the night. She said, "Good luck," and took his hand. Afterwards he wheeled away with Howell Ford.

Sergeant McSween's solemn voice cross the parade. "Detail formed, sor."

"Prepare to mount. Mount!"

There was the smash of twenty bodies hitting leather, the grunt of horses and the clank of carbines and canteens and belted trenching tools.

"Right by twos, harch!"

The line moved, gray and indistinct; saddle leather made a little song against the ruffled beat of the walking horses. Eleanor went along the edge of the parade, as far as the end of officers' row, following that column as it passed the guardhouse and the breaking corral and blended with the shadows lying over the San Pedro. Standing there, she listened to the slow fade of sound. Right of her, through the open door of the adjacent sutler's store she saw Cowen's stiff shape against the light. Half a dozen troopers sat before him and Cowen's voice was dryly addressing them. "I wish now to read the letter of a man in Switzerland who went down into the horrors of drink and took the pledge. 'Dear sir and esteemed friend—'" This was as it had been in Stanton. Cowen had organized his Soldiers' Temperance Union. At last all sound of Benteen's detail died beyond the San Pedro and only the dogged rumble of Cowen's voice and the lower murmur of dispersing officers remained.