Apache Ambush. Will Cook

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СКАЧАТЬ you don’t like it,” Calvin said. “Tim, tell me—was that why you hit him? Because he married a woman you wanted?” He shook his head. “Sorry, Mr. O’Hagen, but that wasn’t in the cards.” Opening a drawer, he plucked a yellowed folder from a stack and tossed it on the desk. “There’s the reason you could never marry her. Want me to read it to you? That’s a file, O’Hagen. A report of Apache atrocities. A long time ago, O’Hagen, but men never forget those things. Especially when a white boy does them.”

      O’Hagen raised a hand and wiped the back of it across his mouth. His eyes were hard glazed and when he spoke, his voice was like wind through tall trees, soft, yet clear. “What are you trying to do to me, sir?”

      “Put you in your proper place!” Calvin snapped. “O’Hagen, you don’t fool me. This is a case of the pot calling the kettle black.” He slapped the folder. “It’s all here: you, Contreras, Choya, and two others, the complete account of that freight wagon massacre. How can you blame Osgood Sickles? Are you trying to whitewash yourself by smearing someone else?”

      “What are you trying to cover up, sir?”

      This brought Brevet Major Calvin around on his heel, his eyes bright with anger. “Get something straight! I don’t like you and now I’ve told you to your face. You want to know why? The army’s some personal weapon to you. You’re a soldier when you feel like it and when you don’t, you run all over hell chasing Apaches. And you get away with it because you know Apaches. The big hero, getting patrols through country no other officer could get near. You don’t make enough mistakes, O’Hagen. You don’t talk enough. Sometimes I’ve gotten the feeling that you’re a damned Apache beneath that white skin. There’s others who feel the same way too.”

      O’Hagen rested his elbow on the arm of the chair and stared at Major Calvin. “You’re scared,” he said. “What are you afraid of? That I’d go over your head if you made a decision on Sickles’ complaint? You didn’t have to hold this up and dump it in General Crook’s lap.”

      “Don’t presume to tell me how to command!” Calvin snapped. He sat down at his desk and dribbled cigar ashes onto his tunic. He brushed at them absently, leaving a gray smear. “Mr. O’Hagen, get it through your head that Mr. Sickles is not just another civilian who can be pushed around. He is an Indian agent, a representative of the United States government, and I bring to your attention that he, in a direct manner, commands the disbursement of military forces in the San Carlos Agency.”

      “So you are afraid of Sickles.”

      “Worry about yourself,” Calvin advised. “You may find that poking an Indian agent in the mouth can cost you your commission.”

      “As long as I get Osgood H. Sickles, I don’t care.”

      Calvin smiled. “Is it Sickles you want or his wife?”

      O’Hagen came half out of his chair and Major Calvin pointed his finger like a gun. “Come any farther and I’ll have you shot!”

      Sinking back slowly, O’Hagen studied the major. “Are you after me, sir?”

      Calvin studied the end of his cigar. He seemed sorry for his outburst, yet was unable to summon an apology. “No. No, Tim, I’m not. Believe what you want, but I’m not after you.”

      “Then you’re in trouble,” O’Hagen said, “and looking for a goat.” He shook his head. “I don’t understand any of this, Major. You could have placed me under arrest of quarters, but instead you licked Sickles’ boots and locked me in the guardhouse.” He knocked ashes off his cigar. “Do you think I’m after Sickles because of his wife?” O’Hagen’s voice was troubled and he did nothing to conceal it. He had a bluntly honest manner that occasionally disturbed the major.

      “That was anger talk,” Calvin said. “There’s talk going around, but I haven’t spread any of it. Men are always adding two and two and getting five.” He pawed through the papers on his desk until he found O’Hagen’s patrol report. “This,” he said, waving it, “is what is eating me, Mister. In this you state that the reservation Apaches in Contreras’ band are out. Mr. Sickles has given me every assurance that none of the Indians are off reservation.”

      “Lovington’s didn’t catch fire by itself,” O’Hagen said. “And Sickles wouldn’t tell you if there were Apaches loose. I saw the sign and they’re out, a band of Mimbrenos. The hills are crawling with Apaches that have never gone to the reservation—White Mountain, Chiricahuas, Coyoteros, Mescaleros, Jicarillas—they’re movin’ about, small bands of ’em. To hell with what Sickles says. I believe my eyes.”

      “My job is to police the reservation, not conduct a personal war against Apaches,” Calvin said. “Mister, I can assume nothing more than the fact that you are trying to make a liar out of me with this patrol report.” He scrubbed a hand across his face. “Let’s try to keep a tidy house, Mister. There’s no need to report every Apache band you run across.” He held up both hands when O’Hagen opened his mouth to speak. “All right! So a ranch is hit, a mine sacked, some teamster killed. Are we to shout, ‘Indian War’?” He shook his head. “A report or two like yours and we’d have a peace commission out here, wanting to know what was going on.”

      “That’s a question I’d like answered, too,” O’Hagen said. “Major, there’ll never be a wholesale banding of Apaches; they don’t do that. Apaches are the only Indians who’ll raid alone, or in small bunches of three and four. The ambush is their war, and when they hit some small place, they wipe it out, clean.”

      “There’s no sense in discussing it further,” Calvin said. “It’s up to Crook in the morning. You’re now under arrest of quarters; is that legal enough to suit you? Absent yourself only to attend mess.” He fingered O’Hagen’s report, wanting to tear it up, deny its existence, but he was army and would send it through channels. “You’re positive you don’t want to alter this?”

      “No, sir. Is that all, sir?”

      Calvin nodded and O’Hagen went outside, there pausing to draw the cool night air into his lungs. The guard was changing by the main gate and he watched the sergeant walk up and down the rank, a lantern bobbing with each step. He listened to the sounds for a minute, tipping his head back when he caught the faint scent of soap. Libby Malloy stepped from the blackest shadows and said, “I was listening through the wall, Tim.”

      “That’ll get you in trouble,” O’Hagen said, a pleasure breaking the usual solemnity of his face.

      “Why don’t we both get out of here,” Libby said. “I mean it, Tim. We could find some place where people didn’t look sideways at us.”

      “Where is that place? Do you really know, Libby?”

      Her shoulders rose and fell. “I guess I don’t. I’d still have an Apache baby and you’d still remember that you left a man buried in the sand.” She touched him fleetingly, then came against him. “Tim, Tim, whatever’s going to become of us? I wish you had never found me. I really wish that!”

      “No, you don’t.” He brushed her hair gently. “Libby, there’s an answer some place. There’s an answer for everybody.”

      “Sure,” she said and stepped back. “You wanted to marry a woman like Rosalia because she has position. A woman who can make you forget, but she can’t. I love you, Tim, and I can’t make you forget.”

      She СКАЧАТЬ