Stryker's Revenge Read Free Page A

Knife an’ his Cheyenne was playing hob from one end o’ the state to t’other. Right pretty country though, Kansas, even in winter.”
    “We’ll find something to cover her, Joe,” Stryker said. “Then lay her out alongside the others.”
    Hogg looked over at the stagecoach. “The driver and guard are still up on the box—must have been killed in the first volley. The two passengers tried to protect the gal though. See that tall feller lying by the door?”
    “I see him.”
    “That there is ‘Five-Ace’ Poke Fisher, a gambler out of El Paso, Texas. Ol’ Poke was a fair gunhand, and in his day he killed more’n his share. If you look at him, he was shot maybe four, five times, an’ all his wounds are in the front.”
    Hogg shook his head admiringly. “He died hard, did Poke, while a-trying to save the little lady. Who would have figgered ol’ Five-Ace for a hero?”
    Stryker turned to Hogg. His eyes in their crushed sockets were as hard as blue steel and his voice was as level as Hogg’s Kansas plains. “Joe, when we catch up with the savages, I want them all dead. I don’t want prisoners that the Army will only slap on the ass and send to San Carlos. If there are women and children with them, I want them dead too, every damned one of them. If I should fall, will you make sure my orders are carried out?”
    Suddenly the scout’s eyes were distant, as though he’d mentally put space between himself and his young officer. “Lieutenant, the Apache is a benighted heathen who only knows one way of making war—the way he was taught. He kills his enemies any how he can, then amuses himself by using their wives and daughters. He wasn’t always like that—I mean, way back. The Spanish taught him their way of war, and then the Mexicans and now the white man. Every cruel, senseless thing he does, he’s seen done to his own people many times over, and ten times worse.”
    Hogg shook his head. “Lieutenant, hating the Apache is like hating the cougar because of the way he kills a deer.” He waited, then said, “Or you fer your face. Neither way of thinking makes much sense.”
    Stryker stood stiff and silent for what seemed an eternity, then said, “I asked you a question, Mr. Hogg. If I fall in the engagement, will you see that my orders concerning the treatment of the Apache hostiles are carried out?”
    The scout touched the brim of his hat. “I’ll see that Sergeant Hooper follows your orders, Lieutenant.”
    “And you?”
    “I hired on as a scout. Nobody said nothing about killing women and children.”
    Without another word, Hogg turned on his heel and greeted Hooper, who was leading the troop over the crest of the saddleback. “The lieutenant wants the bodies laid out and covered, Sergeant,” he said. “See what you can find in the luggage to use as shrouds.”
    The cavalrymen were all young; one of them, Trooper Muldoon, was just sixteen. They had never been this close to dead people before and it showed in their strained faces as they laid out the already-smelling dead.
    After the bodies were arranged in a row, covered by whatever items of clothing the soldiers had found in the luggage, Stryker stood in silence, looking down at the now-faceless dead. He lifted his head and yelled. “Sergeant Hooper, form the troop in line behind me.”
    Hooper did as he was ordered, and then the lieutenant said, “Now remove the coverings from the bodies.”
    When that was done, Stryker moved to the side of the line and addressed the men in a loud, harsh voice. “Look well, all of you, and know your enemy. The Apache is not a warrior, not a soldier, but a killing animal. The only way to deal with such a savage beast is to kill him before he kills you.”
    Stryker walked down the line, looking into the young faces of undersized boys recruited from city slums. To favor its horses, the United States Cavalry preferred troopers to be small and light, and their rations of hardtack and greasy salt pork—and not