Novel 1972 - Callaghen (v5.0) Read Free Page A

dirty gray, and above them the sullen rocks. He turned squarely right. “March!” he said, and the sound was choked and hoarse from his dry throat. He tried to swallow, and found he could not. He stepped out, almost fell, but then walked on.
    Staggering, the others followed.
    Suddenly a rider appeared, then another. The Mohaves were closing in; they thought they had them now.
    “Come on,” Callaghen muttered. “Maybe not with a rifle, but with this pistol—”
    The men behind him had stopped, but he turned, got behind them and drove them on, cursing hoarsely, waving his rifle.
    Befuddled as he was, he could still see there were no tracks. Tracks meant water, they were fingers pointing the way to it; no tracks meant no water…But there had to be water.
    He peered ahead, and saw that the Indians were not much over two hundred yards off now.
    He plodded on, keeping the men together. Eagle Mountain was on his left now, and still no tracks. He fought back his dismay, and realized that his eyes were blurred.
    Heat waves shimmered between himself and the Indians; even the mountain seemed unreal, lacking substance. Walsh was down again, and Callaghen stopped while the others got him up. He waited, his rifle up and threatening. Again they started on.
    The Delaware turned toward him. “See? It is in the mesquite. Right ahead.”
    Past the point of rocks was a clump of mesquite, green and lovely. Certainly water could not be far.…The Mohaves were closer now.
    “Be ready,” Callaghen said. “After I fire, you fire, but give me a little time to reload.” He looked at the others. “Can you fire?” he asked Croker.
    “Try me,” the wounded man replied grimly. Walsh stared at him dumbly, but he unslung his rifle. Well, he might not hit anything, but the act of firing itself would help.
    They moved ahead and the Mohaves came closer. Deliberately Callaghen stopped, dropped to one knee on the blistering sand and held his rifle on the nearest Indian.
    The man reined his horse around, dropped onto the far side of it, and rode on.
    “Go ahead,” he told the others. “Head for the mesquite.”
    He did not think the Indians knew about the pistol. He was saving that, hoping to draw them in close enough to get two or three before they could get away.
    Only one of the Indians seemed to have a rifle. The others needed to get within bow shot, and he had heard somewhere that such weapons were not very effective unless within sixty yards. And at that distance, with a pistol, he knew what he could do.
    They were brave men—brave, but not foolish. They wanted him dead, but most of all they wanted to be alive. They were wary of him, for he had shot one of them and killed him. He had wounded another, at least slightly. So he did not shoot now, but waited, letting them think about what he might do.
    The soldiers ahead were beginning to hurry. He got up and walked on to join them. The water hole was supposed to be in that clump of mesquite, yet he had still seen no tracks. Nor were there bees, an almost certain indication of water if the bees were flying toward it.
    He faced the situation calmly. He had been close to death too many times not to know that he was living on borrowed time. If there was water there they would drink, and if there was no water they would die. There was no chance of going farther, at least not for Walsh, and perhaps not for Croker.
    He had been watching carefully, and he did not believe there were more than eight or ten Indians. They had water and they had horses and this was their country, over which they must have traveled before this, so the advantage was theirs. They had no need to return to a distant post; they had no need to report to a superior officer. The horses gave them mobility and they could ride far to water and ride back again, while the soldiers must move slowly, and with great care.
    Some of the Mohaves were closing in again, but the soldiers kept moving. Suddenly one Indian dashed at Callaghen, but