Hard Country (18 page)

“Let’s go get some of these sons o’ bitches,” Cal said.

Kerney shook his head. “Not yet, and not just the three of us.”

“First water,” Ignacio said. He was on his belly behind a shrub next to Kerney, dirty from head to toe.

Kerney smacked his lips at the thought. His canteen was bone-dry. “How? Where?”

Ignacio pointed to an arroyo at the bottom of the ridge. “We dig and we find water.”

Kerney nodded. It was a damn good idea. Daylight was fading and already everybody was suffering mightily from lack of water. Without it they’d be useless come sunup when Victorio attacked to wipe them out.

A steep gully of scrub oak dropped down into the sandy arroyo, where a low, slender overhang would give them some cover. After nightfall it would be safe to dig there for water if they could get down without getting shot.

Kerney looked at Cal. “Are you game?”

“Yep.”

Kerney passed the word of Ignacio’s plan down the line. Within minutes two dozen empty tin canteens covered in kersey cloth and three shovels were stacked in front of him. If they found water, troopers would lower the canteens on a rope one by one to be filled and hoisted up.

Night settled over the ridge with no improvement in the battle, other than a few more casualties. Some Apaches moved to within a hundred feet of the ridge and were firing at any sound troopers or animals made. Another eight horses and two more pack mules were hit, and the pitiful nickers of the dying animals were dreadful to hear.

Sharpshooters kept the Apaches above occupied as Kerney, Cal, and Ignacio rolled into the gully and belly crawled to the arroyo. They kept low to the base of the ridge, scooted to the narrow overhang, and started digging. The sound of their shoveling brought a fury of gunfire in their direction, bullets ricocheting off the rock face inches above their heads.

At two feet down the sand became moist. Another foot yielded a trickle of water. They dug deeper, until water pooled in a small pocket no more than six inches deep. Kerney filled a canteen and took a swallow. The muddy water was gritty with sand and tasted like dirt, but it didn’t matter; it was wet. He passed the canteen along to Cal and Ignacio and called for another to be lowered.

Using Cal’s bandanna as a filter, they strained the muddy water into the canteens and were able to fill twenty of them with drinkable water before the pocket ran dry. The troopers on top whispered down their thanks as each canteen was hoisted up.

In the thin night air, the chants and songs of the Apaches carried from every direction, and high up where the squaws and old men had gathered to watch the fight during daylight, a bonfire now burned brightly.

After digging a dry hole in a search for more water, Cal threw his shovel down in disgust and leaned back against the ridge wall. An Apache bullet dug into the rock above the overhang.

“Those damn Apaches will wipe us out if we try to climb up out of here. We’re trapped for the rest of the night.”

“It’s not much longer to daybreak,” Kerney said, “and at least we’ve got some water.”

“Now, ain’t we the lucky wretches,” Cal replied.

Up above, gunfire had slackened. The moon was high in the night sky, which meant Victorio probably had his bucks moving in for the kill at first light. For certain they’d use the arroyo; it was a natural pathway for a charge up the ridge, and they would likely come in from both sides.

John Kerney unbuckled his cartridge belt, put it within easy reach, and held his six-shooter in his lap. They had crawled down the gully with only their pistols, and once the Apaches were upon them and their bullets were gone, that would be the end of it. But they’d take a few bucks with them before they went.

He’d not slept more than six hours since leaving Tularosa with Captain Carroll’s column, and he was light-headed with fatigue. He knew Cal and Ignacio were in the same fix, but nobody complained. Close beside him, Ignacio sat mumbling a prayer to himself in Spanish.

The night was cold, but the chill didn’t keep him from feeling a bone-weary drowsiness. He wondered where the reinforcements were. Those hundreds of troopers Captain Carroll had bragged on. Hadn’t they heard the fighting? Or were they lost out in the hell-and-gone, as Cal had called it? Conline should have arrived hours ago. He couldn’t be that far away.

He closed his eyes for an instant and his head dropped to his chest, startling him back to wakefulness. As morning washed over the battlefield, silence descended. No shooting, no chanting, echoed through the basin. He clutched his six-shooter and waited for the onslaught. It arrived almost immediately.

They beat back the first probe with the bark of guns ringing in their ears. They stopped the second assault ten yards from their position. From two sides, gunfire shattered the air and muzzles spat flames.

Kerney heard a gasp as Ignacio crumpled to the ground. He stooped down, picked up the boy’s pistol, and fired both six-shooters at the withdrawing Apaches until the weapons were empty. Beside him, Cal threw lead at another retreating party.

Lying on his side, Ignacio stared skyward, thinking he might be blind. A flash of light had hit him with a shock so strong, his whole body had quivered uncontrollably. He knew he was shot but felt no pain. He thought about Teresa, wondered if he was dying, wanted to see his parents again, and got suddenly angry at a God that hadn’t listened to his prayers.

He felt a hand on his cheek. “
Jefe,
am I dying?”

“You’re too tough for that, compadre,” Kerney replied.

“I can’t feel my arm.”

Ignacio struggled to sit up. Kerney held him down. A bullet had shattered the boy’s left elbow, and he could see part of the bone jutting through the blood-soaked fabric of his shirt. The wound bled, but not much. He took off his bandanna and wrapped Ignacio’s arm tight against his chest as a temporary splint.

“Don’t move,” he said. “We’ll get you out of here.”

“I need my
pistola.
”

“You just lie still, amigo.” Kerney was out of bullets and Ignacio’s pistol was empty. He picked up a shovel to use when the Apache returned and watched Cal load his last three cartridges into his six-gun.

“I’m gonna charge those damn redskins when they come at us this time,” Cal said with a tight smile.

“That’ll put a hell of a scare in them,” Kerney replied.

Cal eyed the shovel in Kerney’s hand. “Just beat to death the buck who kills me.”

“I will if I’m alive,” Kerney promised.

They waited nervously for the chorus of war cries that signaled the Apache advance and the barrage of bullets that would lay them low. Instead, a great shout rose from the troopers on the ridgetop, quickly followed by the sound of army carbines in the distance from the north and west.

A fresh burst of gunfire broke out from the troopers above. It went unanswered, and a long minute passed before the possibility of survival sank in. Up top they heard men moving about, orders being shouted, horses being saddled. Victorio’s siege had ended.

Kerney tossed the shovel aside and looked down at Ignacio, who was pale and sweating profusely. “Let’s hoist him out of here,” he said to Cal.

14

K
erney and Cal carried Ignacio out of the arroyo while the arriving reinforcements battled Victorio in a series of skirmishes, forcing the Apaches to fight a rearguard action from ridge to ridge as they pulled back. They were finally driven from their campground by a flanking attack and retreated south, leaving behind three dead warriors.

When the fighting ended, Kerney and Cal put Ignacio on a cavalry pony and led him to Victorio’s abandoned campsite, where a post surgeon had set up a hospital tent. Three Buffalo Soldiers with mortal wounds lay on stretchers outside the tent while Dr. Appel, one of the post surgeons from Fort Stanton, worked on Captain Carroll. Four soldiers with light wounds sat watching, waiting to be treated.

Nearby, exhausted, filthy, desperately thirsty soldiers were drinking from the Hembrillo spring. Horses were whinnying and mules braying in excitement as troopers led them four at a time to the water. The ground was littered with rifles, bayonets, and gear the soldiers had dropped after the fighting stopped.

They put Ignacio on a stretcher, gave him water, wiped his face, and waited for Dr. Appel to finish up with Captain Carroll and the soldiers. Last to be seen, Ignacio was unconscious when Kerney and Cal carried him into the tent. Dr. Appel removed the bandanna Kerney had used to immobilize Ignacio’s arm, cut away his shirtsleeve, took one look at the shattered elbow, and said the arm would have to come off.

“But not here,” Appel added. “An ambulance will take him with the other wounded to Fort Selden.”

“We’ll follow along,” Kerney said. In the war he’d seen piles of bloody amputated limbs outside hospital tents and watched men endure the terrible pain of the surgeon’s saw only to die afterward. He wasn’t about to let that happen to Ignacio.

“Suit yourselves.” Appel removed loose pieces of bone and tissue from the wound, painted the smashed elbow with iodine, and wrapped it in wet bandages. When Ignacio woke up, he gave him two opium pills to blunt the pain.

“Is my arm okay?” he asked Kerney groggily in Spanish.

“The doctor at Fort Selden is going to fix it,” Kerney answered. “You’ll be good as new.”

Ignacio smiled in relief. Kerney felt like a rogue for lying to him.

Outside the tent, two canvas-topped army ambulances with four-mule hitches arrived, accompanied by an escort of troopers. Kerney and Cal helped load the wounded and moved out with the escort, headed west through the Hembrillo toward the Rio Grande and Fort Selden. Two dozen or more dead army horses and mules lay strewn over the battlefield.

The caravan entered the Jornada del Muerto, turned south, and made good time on the camino to Las Peñuelas—the Big Rocks—a favorite Apache ambush site, where they encountered a company from Colonel Hatch’s command searching for Victorio, who had escaped. After a brief water and rest stop, the party veered west again and soon raised Fort Selden, an adobe fort on a small plateau about a mile from the Rio Grande, where the river curved gently through a thick cottonwood bosque.

At the fort hospital, Ignacio had to wait again until all the soldiers had been treated before the post surgeon examined him. He was a thin man, getting on some in years, who wore spectacles that sat low on his pinched nose.

After a quick look at Ignacio’s wound, he turned to Kerney and Cal. “You know this Mexican?” he asked brusquely.

“He’s a friend,” Kerney replied.

“Wounded at Hembrillo?”

“Serving as a scout,” Cal elaborated.

The surgeon nodded. “I need to take his arm off at the elbow.”

“I’d be grateful if you wouldn’t do that,” Kerney replied.

“That is not your decision to make.”

Kerney pointed at Ignacio. “No, it’s his.”

The doctor glanced at Ignacio’s elbow again. “He will not have much use of it.”

“Maybe some?” Kerney asked.

“Possibly.”

“Can you save it?” Kerney asked.

“Perhaps. Wait outside. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you,” Kerney said.

The doctor waved away the expression of gratitude and turned to a nearby table of surgical instruments. “Outside, please.”

On the porch, Cal rolled two cigarettes and passed one to Kerney. The friends sat, smoked, and watched some troopers across the parade grounds working in the corrals.

“Think he’ll save it?” Cal asked.

“It’ll be a ruination if that boy has only one arm,” Kerney replied.

“Not your fault,” Cal said.

“I should have looked after him better.”

The young second lieutenant who had commanded the ambulance escort emerged from officers quarters at the far end of the parade grounds and approached.

“Is Dr. Lyon operating on the Mexican?” he asked.

“Who?” Kerney asked.

“Our post surgeon, Dr. Lyon.”

Kerney jumped to his feet. “What’s his first name?”

“William.”

“Is his wife’s name Polly?” Kerney demanded.

“Why, yes, it is,” the lieutenant replied, eyeing Kerney cautiously. “Do you know her?”

Kerney shook his head. “She has my son, Patrick, in her care. Where can I find her?”

Startled by Kerney’s intensity, the lieutenant took a step back. “I think you should speak to my commanding officer.”

“Take me to him,” Kerney growled.

* * *

A
fter a hurried explanation of who he was and why he was there, John Kerney convinced Major Nathaniel Griffin, the commanding officer, to ask Dr. Lyon and his wife to come to his office. Griffin agreed, but only if the doctor and his wife were told the reason for the meeting. Anxious to see his son, Kerney readily agreed.

After a long delay, the couple arrived and stood hesitantly in the doorway. Dr. Lyon gave Kerney a nervous look as he adjusted his spectacles, and his wife, a much younger, slight, plain-looking woman, stared at him defiantly. Patrick, wedged between them, gazed wide-eyed at John Kerney.

He could see Mary Alice’s features in the boy’s face, especially his eyes and the shape of mouth, and he had the square shoulders and high forehead of all the Kerney men.

Kerney cleared his throat, uncertain what to say, almost disbelieving that his son stood before him.

“We were told you were dead,” Dr. Lyon said in a mumble.

Kerney kept his eyes on Patrick. “I’m not.”

“Do you have proof of who you are?” Polly Lyon demanded, her voice quivering.

Kerney looked at her. “There’s a man outside who knows me and what I’ve been through looking for my boy. And I wrote you plenty of letters in care of the War Department and never heard back. Did you get any of them?”

“We received no letters,” Polly Lyon said.

“At Fort Union,” Dr. Lyon said, clearing his throat, “the boy was in such a sorry state, we thought he would be better off with us.”

“As my husband told you,” Polly Lyon added, “Virgil Peters told us you were dead.”

Kerney didn’t believe either of them, especially the woman. He clenched his jaw to keep from exploding. “I appreciate you looking after my boy and all, but now he needs to be with me.”