“He got to his hideout without Army rations!” Ervien flared. “Let him get back without them! Who are you to be giving away Army supplies? Let the black devils starve!”
* * * *
A blazing anger left Burke inarticulate for a moment. Ervien leaned his elbows on the desk. “Once you’d sent Ponce back, I suppose you sat there eating up your remaining rations and waiting for more instead of extending your patrol, as you were ordered?”
“We sat six days. And why not?” Burke’s voice thickened with anger. “Good God, Phil, why didn’t you send the forage and rations and take it out of my pay if necessary? Instead, you sent a flat refusal and ordered out the patrol!”
“You made the patrol, didn’t you?”
“With half my troop afoot and sick from horsemeat!”
“You have been gone four weeks and three days.” Ervien tapped he desk with his soft forefinger for emphasis. “You were issued rations for five weeks. I know that, because I just checked the supply records with Sergeant O’Mara. If you and your men suffered, you’ve nobody to blame but yourself.”
There was, Burke knew savagely, no rebuttal open to him. Technically, Ervien was right, and yet Ponce, the Apache subchief he had been ordered to send back to the reservation, could not have brought his half-starved band through that poor, barren country without Army supplies.
Ervien leaned back, laced his fingers atop his curly chestnut hair, and surveyed Burke. He said dryly, “You feel abused, Burke?”
“I feel my men have been treated like dogs.”
“Like troopers,” Ervien said sharply. “And damned poorly officered troopers.” He sat erect and said matter-of-factly, “We’ve got word that Federico, Ponce’s nephew, is skulking around the Mogollon Rim north, waiting for Ponce to get fed and supplied by the agency here. When he’s rested, Ponce intends to break and join him, and raid the Navajo country with him.” He paused, isolating this. “Tomorrow, suppose you draw rations and forage for two weeks, take K Troop up there, confirm Federico’s presence or absence, and return in two weeks. See if you can turn in a satisfactory job this time.”
A stunned anger rose in Burke. He thought of his troop, a dozen hospitalized, the rest sick and exhausted, and he knew Ervien knew this. He said slowly, “You mean that, Phil?”
“Those are your orders.” Ervien’s lips were set grimly.
Burke had a grip on his temper, yet it was failing fast. He put both hands on Ervien’s desk and leaned on them. “Phil,” he began in a shaky voice, “this will make the fourth consecutive patrol for K Troop. In the past six months we’ve been out all but nine days. I suggest you send another troop.”
“Those are your orders,” Ervien repeated.
Then the rage came, and with violence. Burke slowly straightened up to attention, and said with a savage formality, “I refuse to obey them, sir.”
There was a long moment of silence, during which Ervien eyed him shrewdly. Burke knew Ervien was casting up the probable results of a court martial, and when Ervien spoke now, it was still with confidence. “Want another chance, Burke?”
“No, sir,” Burke said. “My only way of protesting that treatment of sick men is by refusing to obey your order. I do refuse.”
Ervien said coldly, “Very well, you will consider yourself under arrest and confine your movements to the limits of the post, pending further action, Mister Hanna.”
“Very good, sir.” Again Burke saluted, again had it returned, about-faced, and was halfway to the door when Captain Ervien said, “By the way, Mister Hanna,” in a soft, commanding voice.
Burke paused and looked at him. Ervien picked up a sheaf of papers from the corner of his desk and tapped them. “I’ve read your report on the alleged offenses against the Apaches committed by Mr. Alec Corinne, their agent. I’ve just discussed the matter with him, and have only one comment.”
Burke waited silently.
“You seem to have a difficult time learning the soldiering profession. I suggest you study it and listen less to gossip. Let the Indian Bureau discipline its agents. That is not the Army’s business.” He tossed the paper into the wastebasket and Burke went out.
CHAPTER TWO
TENDER WELCOME
The late afternoon sunlight lay still and blazing on the parade ground, and the young trees lining the gravel walk rustled in the hot breeze. Burke tramped down the steps and turned right up the walk. The rage was still in him, a live thing that almost sickened him. He had, he knew, been systematically harried and ridden until he had rebelled—and now Ervien had him. Nor did he have to look for the reason; you didn’t write blistering reports about a crooked Indian agent and submit them to a superior officer who was engaged to marry the agent’s daughter, as Phil Ervien was going to marry Vinnie Corinne.
He turned up the short walk leading to the low outsize adobe building that was the unmarried officers’ quarters and went in. The lounge was empty, and he went on down the corridor to his bare corner room at the rear of the building. He sank onto the plain iron bed and sat motionless, stupid with weariness.
This, then, was his homecoming—on which he had planned to be married. The prospect of seeing Calla now brought a strange reluctance to him. In a matter of minutes, Lucy, Abe’s wife, would have learned of his arrest and would have told her sister Calla. News traveled like that in a remote post. And Calla, with everything set except the marriage day—which Burke was supposed to have settled with Ervien a moment ago—what would Calla do?
Tiredly, despondently, Burke pulled off his boots. She couldn’t marry an officer under arrest, a man who could not wear a sword at his own wedding because he was forbidden now to carry arms, or leave the designated limits of the post. Or command troops.
Burke swore darkly, thinking, Thirty is too damned old to let myself be baited into a fight with a CO, but he knew that wasn’t right either. Rising, he stripped off his torn and filthy uniform, put on slippers and robe, and went down the corridor to the big bathroom. There, he shaved and bathed with the slow thoroughness of a man who has done neither for many weeks, then started back to his room.
Before he reached the door, he halted and sniffed. Only one man he knew smoked the black and vile Apache trade tobacco he was smelling now. He went on, and in the doorway, before he looked, he said gloomily, “Hello, Rush, you damn carrion crow.”
Rush Doll was seated back-tilted on the chair at the foot of Burke’s bed, his feet on Burke’s blankets. He grinned sparsely around the long cigarette pasted in the corner of his mouth. He was a man of fifty, graying and dried by decades of Arizona summers. He wore a castoff army shirt, denim pants, and Apache moccasins, and was, unqualifiedly, the best packmaster in the West, and Burke’s friend.
He gibed now by way of greeting, “Footed it back, I hear.”
“On horsemeat,” Burke said wryly. He opened a drawer of the chest in the corner and took out some clothes.
Rush said presently, “What’s a general court martial?” Burke turned to look at him.
“So it’s out, is it?”
“You wouldn’t go on patrol tomorrow, they say.”
Burke nodded and savagely slammed the drawer shut. He said morosely, “The need for Lieutenant Hanna, and only Lieutenant Hanna, on patrol is what gravels me.” He glanced obliquely at Rush. “Remember that report on Corinne you helped me with?”
Rush shook his head. “No. That’s not the reason.”
Something in Rush’s tone held Burke motionless.