The Sons of Grady Rourke
Read The Sons of Grady Rourke Online
Authors: Douglas Savage
Other books by Douglas Savage:
A Mouthful of Dust
Highpockets
Incident in Mona Passage
Cedar City Rendezvous
The Court Martial of Robert E. Lee
The Glass Lady
Untold History of the Civil War Series:
Women in the Civil War
The Civil War in the West
Civil War Medicine
Ironclads and Blockades in the Civil War
Prison Camps in the Civil War
Rangers, Jayhawkers, and Bushwhackers in the Civil War
The Soldier's Life in the Civil War
A Novel
Douglas Savage
M. EVANS
Lanham ⢠Boulder ⢠New York ⢠Toronto ⢠Plymouth, UK
Published by M. Evans
An imprint of Rowman & Littlefield
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
10 Thornbury Road, Plymouth PL6 7PP, United Kingdom
Distributed by NATIONAL BOOK NETWORK
Copyright © 1995 by Douglas Savage
First M. Evans paperback edition 2013
All rights reserved
. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available
ISBN 0-87131-757-5 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-59077-215-7 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-59077-216-4 (electronic)
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesâPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America
In memory of Joseph and Rachel Savage, to whom America was the
goldeneh medina
.
A man can commit murder here with impunity.
âJohn Tunstall, 16 November 1876
Lincoln, New Mexico
What they didn't burn, they stole.
âSusan McSween
Lincoln, New Mexico
Introduction and Acknowledgments
T
HE DEAD MAN'S JOURNEY
â
J
OURNADA DEL
M
UERTEâTHE
locals called it: the blistering ocean of sand and sage between the Rio Grande River to the west and the Sacramento mountain range to the east. The bones of men and horses had bleached in the mile-high desert for three hundred years. Spanish conquistadors were the first white men to explore this furnace of southeast New Mexico Territory and the first to perish. Even in the heart-stopping cold of January with its blinding snows, the lifeless land was still the
Journada del Muerte
.
In the thin air, the two riders coming down the mountain were sharply etched against the hard, blue sky. Steam blowing out of the ice-encrusted nostrils of their mounts and the two pack horses surrounded the horsemen in a white veil of horse breath. Descending down the eastern face of the Sacramento Mountains, the four horses walked slowly and painfully on cracked hooves. What little moisture the high desert had sucked out of the air in the fall had frozen solid in the sandy ground. The icy earth offered only a steep path paved with shards of glass. Blood seeped around well-worn iron horseshoes. Behind the traveling band, the White Mountain ridge crept slowly toward the setting sun as the trail pointed down and to the east; toward the headwaters of the Rio Bonito.
Thick fur coats made the two riders look like mounted bears. Their little caravan followed the southern side of the river where the water had stopped flowing from west to east three months earlier. With ice crunching under his animal's feet, the lead rider looked north, over his left shoulder toward Capitan Mountain. It formed the snow-capped northern side of the steep valley that the Rio Bonito split down the middle. Three frozen rivers cut parallel scars through the arid land: the Rio Bonito to the north on the riders' left, Eagle Creek to the south, and the Rio Ruidoso still further south. All of the frozen streams joined the Rio Hondo over the eastern horizon.
When the riders looked at the sky, they saw that the white sun would stay high long enough for them to make Fort Stanton, ten miles into the Valley. Both riders knew the trail since boyhood. Words were not wasted in country where opening a man's mouth would make his cracked lips bleed like his horses' soles. Beyond the fort lay the clapboard settlement of Lincoln. By January 1878, the bleak one-road town had been at war with itself for a year.
“T
HOUGHT THEM BOYS
was dead.” The cold traveled through the younger man's teeth until his forehead throbbed. He secured the tent flap behind him.
The clerk at the sutler'S tent did not stay outside long. He braved the evening cold only until he was satisfied that the sound of horses was not warning of a thirsty squad of the 9th United States Colored Cavalry.
“Don't matter,” the older man said. He had known better than to go into the gray cold. If the riders were Buffalo Soldiers, they would find their way to a barrel of corn whiskey on their own. The sutler's tent was the one place at Fort Stanton where the all-black cavalry troopers were equal to their white officers. “You sure it's the Rourke brothers?”
“Damned sure,” the clerk said as he rubbed his hands furiously over the pot-bellied stove at the center of the large tent. A stove pipe climbed toward the top seam of the canvas shelter. “I knew the older one before the war.”
“Oh. Which brothers was they?”
“Sean, the oldest. Think the other one with him must be Patrick, the middle brother. Liam was just a kid when I last seen them over ten years ago. Heard he was riding with the Seventh. Maybe he got himself killed with the rest of them at Bighorn. Likely as not.”
“Likely as not. Come help me with the firewood.”
The clerk took an armload of dried pine and shoved it into the stove. Resin crackled and hissed. He paused when he heard horses whinny from the wind stinging their watery eyes.
“Guess they come home to claim the old man's land.” The old sutler took off his gloves when the last log went into the large stove. “Such as it is.” A stream of tobacco juice landed and sizzled in the fire.
In the darkness under a brilliant moon, Fort Stanton was an indistinct change in the icescape. It was not a walled structure, but merely a collection of snow-covered log buildings erected in the valley halfway between the Sacramento Mountains and Lincoln. The buildings stood along the perimeter of a parade ground. From a distance, the thirty-three-year-old fort looked as though a hillside worth of trees had simply collapsed, rolled down Capitan Mountain, and stopped in a dirty pile of timber beside the frozen Rio Bonito. Confederates had occupied the place briefly during the war. Apaches finally drove the Rebels out. Paths through the knee-deep snow carved a lacework pattern between the buildings, huts, and corrals for the post's horses. Thin horses huddled against the nighttime cold under rough-hewn lean-tos built within the pens. Steam rose from fresh manure that hit the snow hard and round from poor forage.
Sean and Patrick Rourke tied their weary animals to a hitching post outside the fort's administrative hut. A black private in blue greatcoat escorted the brothers into Captain George Purington's office. The white officer came around his desk to extend his right hand. His cigar remained clutched between his teeth.
“I'm Captain Purington, brevet lieutenant colonel of this post. You boys look like you could use a drink.”
“Thank you, Colonel.” Sean spoke for the two brothers. “That would be welcome.”
The two civilians sat down opposite the small desk. The sentry went back to the frigid darkness as the commanding officer poured three glasses before returning to his seat behind the desk. The newcomers removed their heavy mittens and opened their fur coats. With chapped red hands, each brushed melting snow from his wild beard. The fort's commander handed the men glasses and kept one for himself.
“The hair of the dog, boys,” the soldier smiled, lifting his glass.
A lantern on the officer's desk cast cozy yellow light on the riders' weathered faces. The lamp light made only faint shadows on the young face of Patrick Rourke, not older than twenty-five. But on Sean's face, only seven years older, the flickering light crashed against creased and bluish flesh to the right of Sean's nose. A jagged fissure was gouged from the bridge of his nose. Between his beard and his hairline, the right half of his face was badly mangled. Beneath his eye, the skin lacked the wintery red of his left cheek. The world had not been kind to the young man.
Sean felt the officer's eyes quickly studying his burned face. Brevet Colonel Purington's eyes narrowed for a moment. Without meaning to, Sean's right hand touched his poorly healed wound.
“Shiloh. I was sixteen. Wore the gray.”
Purington nodded. He frowned, remembering worse wounds.
“I wore blue in the east under old âUseless' S. Grant. Saw the elephant in the clouds above Chattanooga. Already seems like a lifetime ago; like it was someone else and not really me.”
“Yes,” Sean sighed. His right hand went down to his tattered knee. His left hand lifted his glass again.
“So you're old Grady Rourke's boys?”
“Yes, sir.” Patrick spoke for his brother whose face was still remembering. “We've been on the trail for a month. Snow laid us up on the train six weeks ago. Not even the Southern Pacific could break through in the west.”
The soldier played with his cigar.
“Understand Grady was in the Army? Mexico, wasn't it?”
“Yes.” Patrick spoke warmly. “He was decorated at Sierra Gordo in '47. He was discharged in '50. He was real proud of his years in uniform.”
“I understand that. Too bad: his accident and all.” The officer seemed saddened. “No details that I can really give you boys. Stoved up by his horse is all I really know. My condolences.”
“Thanks. Guess we need a place to sleep. Stable would be fine, Colonel.”
“Nonsense. You're sons of a military man. I can put you up with my non-commissioned officers. Sorry you'll have to bunk with darkies. But they're damned good soldiers. The Ninth is a good bunch.”
“That would be fine, sir. The way we smell, they may take more offense at Patrick and me.”
The officer stood in a cloud of cigar smoke.
“Then you'll be going on to Lincoln tomorrow?”
“Yes, sir. First lightâweather permitting, of course.”
“We'll put some hot food into you first. I'll have the orderly hay your animals tonight, too.” He flicked his ash onto the earthen floor. “Ain't one of Grady's boys in the service now?”
“Yes,” Patrick said proudly. “Liam's mustering out soon from Colonel Miles' command up north.”
“The Nez Perce campaign?”
“Yes, sir. Gone after them runaway Indians making for Canada. We left California before he could wire us.”
“I can tell you that they rounded up every last one of them. Chief Joseph himself surrendered in October. The other chiefâLooking Glassâwas killed. Sad business.”
