Land of the Free (16 page)

Roberts, who was at the head
of a column of dismounted riflemen, cupped his ear, trying to hear
better. “Halt,” he said after a moment. “Who goes
there?”

“Shh. It’s Van Buskirk.” The
whispered voice was close.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,”
Roberts hissed. “You like to scared the pee outta us,
Colonel.”

“Get your men ready,” Yank
whispered. “The path is clear for the moment but there’s no telling
how much time we have before the bodies of the sentries are
discovered.”

“Double check your gear,”
Roberts advised his men in a low tone. “Make sure you don’t have
nothing loose that’s gonna rattle.”

“All right,” Yank whispered.
“Follow me.”

“I can’t see you, Colonel.”
Roberts grunted.

“Me neither,” another voice
added.

“I can’t see nothin’,” a
third said. “It’s too dark.”

“Does anyone have a rope?”
Yank asked.

“Yes-sir, I got one.”
Roberts uncoiled a length of rope.

Yank took one end as Roberts
passed it back. “Stay close. No talking.” He led them over the
rough ground and through a narrow passage between enormous boulders
then stopped at the end of the pass. “Can you see that glow of
light over the hill?”

“Yes, sir,” Roberts
whispered.

“There’s a house and corral
there,” Yank said. “Thirteen men are sleeping around a fire.
There’s no way to tell how many are inside and how many are out
here somewhere on sentry duty. I counted forty-two horses so you
must make every shot count or we could be overwhelmed.”

“Understood,” Roberts
grunted. “Any sign of our men?”

“Yes. They’re
dead.”

“All of ‘em?”

“Two of them are hanging
from a tree. I would guess they wouldn’t bother hanging men who
were gut shot and dying.”

Robert cursed under his
breath. “Do we wait for sunrise or hit ‘em now?”

“Move forward to the ridge,
then wait for McGregor and the musketeers to get into position or
for the bandits to discover you. I’m going to slip down there, open
the corral gate, run out their mounts and cause a little trouble.
Please remember that I’m there when the shooting
starts.”

“How will we know when you
and McGregor is in position?”

“I’ll know when he is and
you’ll know when the first grenade goes off.”

“What if it
don’t?”

“If nothing happens before
dawn, head back and take charge of the column.”

“And then what?”

“And then you can answer
everyone’s questions.” Yank vanished into the night.

~

Marina had a pistol in each
hand. Her back was against a corral post and she was staring into
the dark. “Did you hear that, Jasper?” she whispered.

“Just a critter,” Folsom
replied. “Rabbit, prob’bly.”

“How do you
know?”

“The horses would be
stirrin’ and blowin’ if it was somethin’ else.”

“They’ve been gone a long
time.”

“That’s good.”

“Why is that
good?”

“It means that the bandits
ain’t discovered ‘em.”

“Comancheros.”

“What did ya
say?”

“They’re not bandits,
they’re Comancheros.”

“What’s the
difference?”

“None, actually.” She
giggled nervously. “I wish something would happen.”

“Don’t go wishin’ for
nothin’ before dawn. McGregor wasn’t gonna attack until
dawn.”

“Then I wish for dawn. How
long, do you think?”

He looked east. “The sky
might be a bit brighter now than it was a while ago.”

~

Yank glanced toward the
false dawn then removed the rope loop from the rough-made corral
gate and swung it open on noisy leather hinges. The horses stamped
nervously as he crept among them toward the house and they began to
stream from the corral when he lit his tinderbox.

McGregor and fifteen
musketeers had worked their way down to take positions surrounding
the house. “Keep your heads down boys. I just seen a spark. The
colonel is about to start throwin’ grenades.”

A moment later, the night
lit up followed by a thunderous explosion that rolled across the
prairie.

Roberts and the dismounted
riflemen were up on their feet and picking their targets from among
the startled men around the campfire as the second explosion
erupted. “Don’t let none of ‘em catch a horse,” Roberts shouted as
he was reloading. “And keep a eye on the Colonel so as you don’t
hit him by accident.”

Below him and closer to the
house, McGregor had his musketeers in line. “First squad, present,”
McGregor shouted.

Seven muskets came
up.

“Fire. Reload. Second squad,
present.”

Yank dropped to his belly as
several pistols were fired from an open window. After crawling to a
new position, he rolled onto his back, lit a fuse and tossed a
black powder grenade through the window.

~

“Dear God,” Marina gasped,
as the rocks in front of her were once again silhouetted by an
orange flash. The rumble of the explosion that followed sounded
like thunder.

“Easy there, friends,”
Folsom whispered to the horses. “Nothin’ to fear.” He patted the
mare that Marina usually rode. “Everything’s just
right.”

“Colonel Van Buskirk says
that you were an artilleryman,” Marina said.

He gave her a sharp
look.

“Well? Is that so,
Jasper?”

“What makes you
ask?”

“I was just
curious.”

“You surely picked a right
strange time to get curious about my past.”

“Is he right or
wrong?”

“Wrong.”

“Really?”

“I was a navy
gunner.”

“On a warship?”

“On more’n one.”

“Are you a
deserter?”

“My cannon blew up in my
face and I didn’t have no stomach for lightin’ no more fuses after
I got out from the hospital. The navy didn’t agree.” He cocked his
head, listening. “Muskets is firing by ranks.”

“Is that good?”

“It means we’re controllin’
the battle. But since you’ve got a soft spot for our enemies, you
might think it ain’t so good.”

She cringed at the sound of
another explosion. “It seems risky to be throwing grenades when
some of our men may be held captive by the Comancheros.”

“Our men is all
dead.”

“How do you know
that?”

“The colonel wouldn’t be
throwin’ grenades if they was alive.”

“The answer to my question
sounded a great deal like my question,” she muttered.

“You’re too hard on the
colonel, if you want my opinion, Marina.”

“I don’t want your opinion,
thank you Jasper.”

“You’ve plum forgot what
hard livin’ is all about.”

“Is that so?”

“That’s so. You been too
long livin’ the soft life: drinkin’ whiskey, playin’ poker all
night and sleepin’ late in the day.”

“Soft living?” she scoffed.
“A fat lot you know.”

“I know that the colonel
bought your freedom and that he got us all this far.”

“And butchered twenty-one
men needlessly.”

“It weren’t needless. It
were them or us.”

“No it wasn’t. He could have
avoided the conflict by just giving the Caddo a few
cows.”

“He offered to give ‘em cows
but they was wantin’ weapons.” Folsom stopped and raised his hand.
“Listen.”

She looked toward the rocks.
“What? I don’t hear anything.”

“That’s what I
mean.”

“Oh.” She listened for
another moment. “Is that good or bad?”

“Reckon that depends on
which side of the fight a person’s on.”

“You’re a miserable old
bastard, Jasper.”

“Leastways I know what I
am,” he replied. “Some folks have plumb forgot.”

The sky was gray when
McGregor emerged from the rocks and trotted his horse toward the
perimeter. “Break camp,” he shouted. “Load everything on the mules.
We’re leaving the wagons here.”

“What about chuck wagon?”
Nathan Sparks shouted back.

“It ain’t gonna fit b’tween
them rocks.” McGregor pointed.

“Should I make breakfast
first or start packin’ the kitchen on mules?” Sparks
asked.

“The colonel is wantin’ us
through this little pass as quick as we can go. I’ll get some men
to help you pack.”

“Are we in danger?” Marina
asked.

“Not in particular,”
McGregor replied. “But them rocks is a good place for a ambush and
we don’t have no idea if there’s more bandits or hostiles near
about.”

“What about our boys?”
Jasper Folsom asked.

“Them bandits hung our two
good ol’ boys from a tree and fed the others to their hogs before
we got there,” McGregor replied.

“How about them that just
went with y’all?”

“No casualties.”

“None?” Folsom asked with a
grin. “With all that shootin’, explodin’ and such?”

“Not a one,” McGregor
replied. “You gonna sit around lollygaggin’ or are you gonna move
that stock?”

“My wranglers is getting’ it
done, as any fool could see if he was to look.”

“If a fool was to look on
the prairie beyond them rocks he’d see somewheres close to fifty
head of horse that needs roundin’ up.”

“Why didn’t you say so?”
Jasper looked at Marina. “Was you gonna want your horse, Ma’am, or
was you plannin’ to walk?”

“I prefer to ride, Jasper,”
she said sweetly. “Please have my mare saddled and brought to
me.”

He laughed then trotted
toward the remuda.

“He’s not happy with me,”
she said to McGregor.

“No,” McGregor agreed.
“Neither is anybody else.” He cupped his hands and shouted.
“Dawson!”

“Hup, Sarge.”

“Get some men to help Nate
pack the kitchen.” McGregor turned his horse and rode back toward
the trail through the rocks leaving Marina alone.

November 23,
1804

The Red River, Louisiana
Purchase

A cold, fierce wind from the
west had forced them to camp early on the previous day. During the
night, the temperature had dropped to well below freezing while the
wind and lack of vegetation had prevented them from building fires.
Yank was just outside the camp aligning the sextant with the rising
sun while McGregor tried to correlate the readings to the map,
which the wind was trying to take from him.

“Are we officially lost?”
Marina asked. She was wearing her duster pulled up to her ears and
was squatted with her back to the wind. Her cheeks were red from
wind burn and her lips were so raw and chapped that they had begun
to peel.

“Yes,” Yank replied without
looking at her. “Lost. Officially and unofficially.” He looked no
better than she.

“There’s nary a place on the
map to show us a desert like this one.” McGregor turned his back to
the wind, trying to protect the map with his body.

“In his journal, Coronado
called this place the Llano Estacado,” Marina said.

“Reckon that would mean
somethin’ like the empty desert from Hell,” McGregor observed,
still struggling with the map. “Never seen a place with fewer
trees. And the grass is so poor that our animals is near t’
starvin’.”

Yank looked up from the
sextant at Marina. “If you know the name of this place I presume
that you know where we are.” He blew on his hands in an attempt to
warm them.

“I know, but almost wish
that I didn’t.” Marina got up, walked to McGregor and touched the
map.

“That ain’t possible.”
McGregor shook his head.

Yank walked over to look.
“That would put us nearly four hundred miles too far
south.”

Marina pointed over her
shoulder with her thumb toward the west. “There’s a canyon right
there through the mountains that leads to the Rio Grande valley and
Albuquerque.”

“Albuquerque is a Spanish
garrison,” Yank said.

She looked at him with a
blank expression. “What has that to do with our current
situation?”

He shook his head and then
shrugged.

“What mountains?” McGregor
asked, trying to locate the mountains on the map.

She traced them on the map
with her finger. “The southern end of the Rockies.”

McGregor turned to look
west. “There ain’t no mountains there.”

“You can see the peaks just
on the horizon.” She pulled her collar up, trying to protect her
ears from the biting wind.