Novel 1972 - Callaghen (v5.0) (5 page)

Chapter 5

T
HE CAPTAIN WAS surprised. “You know the Major?” he asked.

“Yes, sir. We met briefly on several occasions. He’s one of those who believe we Irish are second-class citizens. I understand that before the war he operated a business where he had a sign: NO IRISH NEED APPLY.”

“I have heard something to that effect. Well, we will hope that your papers come through before he arrives.”

“We Irish are used to it, Captain Hill. We had it in Ireland for years, from the British. The Catholic Irish were allowed no schools of their own. For many years no Irish craftsman was allowed an apprentice. Priests had to go into hiding, or leave the country entirely. It was very rough.”

“And you?”

“I left, sir. I came over here for a while—tried prospecting in California.”

Hill glanced at him quickly. “
You
did? You know something about minerals, then?”

“A little. Most of that I learned in Asia, later.”

“You should spend some time in the desert. There are all sorts of rumors, Callaghen. Some say there are vast deposits of gold and silver right here in the Mohave.”

His voice lowered a little. “Have you heard of the River of Gold? They say it runs through a cave under the desert.”

Callaghen shrugged. “There are always those stories, sir. You know when the Moslems conquered all of North Africa in the eighth century the Christians disappeared. Of course, most of them were converted to Mohammedanism very suddenly. It was the only thing to do if one wanted to survive. But some were killed, and some left the country…in any event, they vanished.

“As a result, there are strange stories that come out of the Sahara. Mysterious sounds are heard in the desert at night. The Berbers and the Tuaregs say the sounds come from cities under the ground, and in those cities the Christians are hiding until the right time comes for them to return.”

Captain Hill chuckled. “They’ll wait a long time, I’m thinking. Nonetheless, Callaghen, if I were a younger man and getting out of the army, I might give a little thought to the matter. You know, some of these desert rivers have gone underground, so why couldn’t it be that they had hollowed out caves there? And if there were gold in the rock…?”

Several days passed in routine duty. On more than one occasion Captain Hill detailed three-man patrols to scout the country around, and each time they saw Indians. Twice they were fired on and returned the fire, but with no visible results on either side. Every day they scanned the road, hoping for the promised relief. The horses and mules were taken each morning to the sparse pasture, and guarded carefully. Several times Mohaves were seen in the proximity of the camp.

Twice trains of freight wagons went through, bound for the Colorado. The freighters were tough men, desert-seasoned and well-armed, yet on each occasion they lost horses to the Indians, and once a man was wounded. A prospector was killed within a few miles of La Paz.

Adobe buildings had at one time been built on the present campsite, but as the army had maintained no permanent station there, they had been allowed to fall into ruin. Sudden floods had damaged some of them; in others the hastily made roofs were in need of repair. During the hottest weather the men preferred the brush shelters where a breeze could blow through.

Callaghen led the repair work on several of the buildings, especially on some that were close together, always being careful to leave a good field of fire in case of defense by a small group. For months the army had been promising a good-sized detachment, but it had not come. And neither had Callaghen’s discharge papers arrived.

One day when Captain Hill came to inspect some of the construction, Callaghen said to him, “Sir, about Lieutenant Allison—may I ask if you were notified of his coming?”

“What kind of a question is that?”

“It’s simply that I suspect, sir, that he was not a proper officer. He had
been
an officer; he knew the routine. But I think that he was not actually in the service now, but came here for reasons of his own.”

“Why would he want to do that?”

“Why not? If he knew what would be required of him, he would then be able to explore the desert for days or even weeks with a military escort. Communication is not good out here, sir, as you know. It is often thirty to sixty days between communications from headquarters. Knowing that, an officer could arrive, cover a good bit of country, and then disappear before anyone knew any better.”

“But why? No man in his right mind is going to ask for duty in this desert.”

“That’s just it, sir. He might have been looking for something. You yourself mentioned a river of gold. You suggested prospecting.”

Hill waved a hand carelessly. “That was just talk. Of course, any such place as this is bound to produce stories, legends—but they’re nonsense, Callaghen, utter nonsense. This desert is a corner of hell—several thousand square miles of sand, rocky ridges, and cacti, with no water at all, or bad water. A desert is a place unfit for man, and that’s why they call it a desert.”

Mercer was guarding the stock when Callaghen joined him. It was a clear, lovely desert morning, not yet hot. The morning sun left shadows in the canyons, but caused the ridges to reveal themselves with a stark clarity. One really never knew mountains unless he had seen them at both sunrise and sunset.

“Beautiful country here, Mercer.…Aren’t you from Minnesota?”

“That’s right. It’s all very different there. The Indians are different, too. We have the Sioux, and some Chippewas.”

“You joined the unit with Lieutenant Allison, didn’t you?”

“Yes. That is, we had our orders and were waiting for the stage. He came up and joined us, and said he was going to Cady.”

“Too bad to have lost him. I think he’d have made a good officer.” He paused just a moment. “I forwarded his things to his sister. I don’t believe he had any other relatives.”

“He had some friends in Los Angeles, Sergeant. One, at least. He was talking to a man at the Bella Union before he spoke to us—a very sharp-looking man with a broken nose.”

“Chance acquaintance, probably.”

“I don’t think so. At least, he trusted him enough to let him hold his orders for him. I saw the man give him his orders at the stage. It was the same envelope Lieutenant Allison turned over to Captain Hill.”

Holding orders, or delivering them? Callaghen watched the horses, talking idly with Mercer on half a dozen topics. Then he went back to the compound and stepped suddenly into his quarters. Croker was there, and he had Callaghen’s duffel bag upon a cot, open.

“What the hell goes on here?”

Croker turned sharply. “I was out of smokin’. Thought you might have some.”

“I don’t smoke. I never have.”

Croker’s smile was forced. “Say, that’s right! Now, why didn’t I recall that?”

“Stay out of my gear, Croker. I won’t tell you again.”

“Sure, Sarge. I’ll stay out, but don’t you get too pushy. Sergeant or no, I’ll take some of that out of you.”

“Anytime.”

Croker pushed by him and went out. There had been nothing in the bag for anyone to look at, nothing except the usual things a soldiering man might have.

But Croker was suspicious. Of what? Or was he, like Callaghen himself, merely guessing at something? He might know something, or he might simply be of a suspicious mind.

Callaghen shaded his eyes and looked over the desert. The Indians were out there now, you could be sure of that. Captain Hill and only eight men here, with never enough ammunition or food on hand…if the Mohaves only realized it they could sweep over this station at any time.

After bringing the horses into the corrals, Callaghen posted guards. Captain Hill seemed willing to leave matters in his hands, and he was prepared to assume whatever responsibility was given him.

Night came suddenly, as do all desert nights. One moment the sun’s rays were turning the mountain ridges scarlet and gold…and then the sun was gone and the stars were there.

Croker and Beamis had the first guard. Beamis was a raw recruit just out from Pennsylvania. Whatever else Croker was, he was a frontiersman and a soldier. He knew what slackness meant, and he would stand for none of it. Beamis wanted only one thing—to get out of the army.

“Can’t you speak to the captain, Sergeant?” he said to Callaghen. “I have no business here. I just got mad at my wife and enlisted to show her. Now I’m not mad at her any more.”

Callaghen had to smile. “Doesn’t pay to move too quick, Beamis. I’m sorry, but you’re in and you’ll have to stay.”

“You mean I can’t get out? What kind of a deal is that?”

“You joined, and now you’ll have to fill out your time. There’s no two ways about it.”

“But what about my wife? She’ll leave me!”

“If she does, you’re better off without her. Settle down, man. You bought your ticket, now take your ride.”

He walked back to the encampment. The moon was rising, and there was already a thin glow over the mountain. It would be a tricky night, for on such a moonlit night shadows appear to move, and one may suddenly develop a feeling that a shadow is an Indian.

It was very still. Captain Hill came outside his quarters. “It’s been a good life, Callaghen,” he said, “and I shall miss it.”

“You’ve been a soldier all your life, sir?”

“Not quite. Before the war I quit for four years. If I’d stayed in I might be a general now. A colonel, at least. But the peacetime army wasn’t much, and I’d had enough duty at the forts on the plains. I quit and opened a store.”

“Like General Grant.”

“Yes, but I was successful. I did quite well, in fact, and then the guerillas burned me out and I lost everything. So I went back into the army. If I’d gone in a year sooner I’d have made it.”

“There are always ifs, sir.”

Hill turned his head to look at Callaghen. “You say you’ve met Sykes before this?”

“Yes, sir. It was he who broke me from sergeant…both times.”

“Want to tell me about it?”

“Well, you know how some people think about the Irish. We’re despised in a lot of places, and there are even hotels where we aren’t accepted, restaurants where we are refused service. Sykes was worse than most.

“I knew nothing of that, but he was having trouble with his Chinese laundryman. He was berating the man frightfully, and seemed about to strike him. I offered my services.”

“You what?”

“I offered to interpret, sir. I speak Chinese.”

Hill stared at him. “
Chinese?
You do?”

“I speak seven languages, sir, and half a dozen dialects. Well, sir, he told me what to tell the man and I did, and managed to straighten the matter out. I saluted, and was about to leave when he called me back and told me never, under any circumstances, to interfere again.”

“And then?”

“He was on me, sir. He found out I was Irish, although he should have guessed it before. I got all the rough duty. But it was the girl who really made the difference.”

“A girl?”

“Yes, sir. She came to the post to visit someone she had known as a child, and I was detailed to ride escort when she went riding.

“She kept looking at me, sir, and suddenly she said she had seen me before. She asked me again what my name was, and when I told her she recognized it. She had known me before, Captain…outside of Soochow, in China. I’d come up to an old temple with a small command. I was a major, sir, in Ward’s outfit—Gordon’s outfit by that time. The Ever-Victorious Army, they called it. She was just a skinny kid then, and she’d been stopped near the temple. She, her mother, and a doctor had run there for shelter from some of the rebels. We fought our way out of there and took them with us.”

“And you were a major then? You’ve had quite a career, Callaghen.”

He shrugged. “Ward had picked up his army off the waterfronts, Captain. He had scum of the earth, and right alongside them some of the finest fighting men in the world. He enlisted men of all nationalities, and he didn’t screen them. Combat did that for him, and we were in battle almost constantly. Seventy per cent of the men had served in other armies—there were a couple of hundred Irishmen in the outfit. When Chinese Gordon took command he had a trained battle outfit. A man couldn’t go wrong with them.”

“Did Sykes know about the girl’s recognizing you?”

“He saw us talking, and he was furious. I was an enlisted man and I was being too friendly. Of course, Malinda spoke up, and in the midst of it her father appeared. He’d always been grateful to me for getting his family out of that situation, so we had a long talk, and Sykes just faded out.

“Two days later I was transferred. They were building a new outfit for frontier service, and I found myself one of the cadre that would form it.”

“And that left him with the girl?”

“No, sir. Malinda had a mind of her own, and she was suspicious about the transfer. No, sir. I am afraid it didn’t do him much good.”

Chapter 6

M
AJOR EPHRAIM SYKES was a man of definite mind. Positive in his opinions, he approached every problem knowing that there could be just two possibilities: his way and the wrong way. The opinions he held had been absorbed with his mother’s milk, and nothing subsequent to that time had served to alter even one of them.

He was tall, handsome, immaculate in appearance. He was gracious, polite, and considerate to those he regarded as existing on his level. Others he ignored, or considered only with contempt. An only child, he had been brought up to believe that as an Anglo-Saxon white man of the right church, the right schools, and the right social position, any decision he made was of course the correct one.

He had been born on the right street in a medium-size town where his father operated the largest of the town’s three banks. In school he had been bright but without brilliance, capable but without imagination, and he had graduated close to the top of his class. At the beginning of the War Between the States he had been given a commission, and he had advanced rapidly to the rank of major, partly by virtue of a cavalry charge in which he smashed the enemy at a crucial moment, driving them from their position and so turning the tide of battle.