Stryker's Revenge Read Free Page B

much of it—were designed to keep them that way.
    “Men,” Stryker said, “we will meet up with the Apache later today. When we find them, what do we do?” He glanced down the line. “You, Trooper Muldoon, what do we do?”
    The young man’s face was flushed from being singled out for attention. He swallowed hard. “Kill them, sir.”
    “And their women?”
    “Kill them, sir.”
    “And their children?”
    “Kill them, sir.”
    “God curse the savages to hell! That’s the spirit, Trooper Muldoon,” Stryker yelled.
    Another voice, from the end of the line, said, “I wish we had our sabers, sir.”
    Stryker strode in the direction of the voice. “Damn his eyes, who said that?”
    “I did, sir. Trooper Murphy.”
    The lieutenant stopped in front of the man, a slight, stooped towhead with eyes the color of rain. “True blue, Murphy. And so do I wish I had my saber. But if we can’t give them the steel, we’ll give them good old American lead.”
    A ragged cheer went up from the soldiers, and even the normally staid Hooper joined in the clamor.
    Hogg stepped to Stryker. “You fight Apaches afore, Lieutenant?”
    “No, this will be my first action.”
    “You’re learning fast.”
    Stryker smiled his crooked smile. “Look at my face, Mr. Hogg. It’s because I’ve got hell on my side.”

Chapter 3
    Lieutenant Stryker rode beside the guidon, Hogg taking the point somewhere ahead of the patrol. The sun was now full in the sky, and the brush-covered hills around them were free of shadow. Scattered stands of mesquite and juniper grew in the valleys, and once Stryker saw an isolated cottonwood standing as a lonely sentinel near a dusty dry wash, close to the burned-out skeleton of an old freight wagon.
    Four miles due east lay Apache Pass. To the west arced the worn track of the old Butterfield Stage route. Ahead of Stryker the rocky southern peaks of the Dos Cabezas Mountains shimmered in the heat haze.
    Stryker dismounted the patrol to rest the horses, and led his men forward at a slow, shuffling walk. The only sounds were the creak of leather and the rattle of horse harnesses, the click of hooves and boots on rock.
    The lieutenant’s long johns stuck to his upper body and legs, and sweat trickled through the gray alkali dust on his cheeks. Behind him, covered in that same dust, the soldiers plodded forward like a column of ghosts. Trooper Kramer, who had a weak chest, wheezed with every step, and his mouth was wide-open, battling for each tortured breath of bone-dry hot air.
    Nothing moved in the vast land, but somewhere up ahead were the Apaches, unseen, yet a palpable presence all the same.
    Ahead of Stryker the figure of a mounted man undulated in the heat waves, his horse’s legs impossibly long as it picked its way forward like a distorted giraffe.
    Gradually the image settled and re-formed into its usual shape, the buckskin-clad figure of Joe Hogg astride his mustang.
    Stryker halted the column and waited for the scout to come.
    “Water ahead, Lieutenant,” Hogg said, drawing rein. “And dead people.”
    The lieutenant said nothing, waiting.
    “Ashes of the ranch house are still warm,” the scout continued. “I’d say it happened no more’n two hours ago.”
    “The dead?”
    “Man, woman, three children.”
    “Where are the Apaches?”
    “I don’t know. But they’re around, lay to that.” Stryker turned. “Mount up,” he yelled.
    But before he could swing into the saddle himself, Hogg stopped him. He dug into the pocket of his coat, leaned from the saddle, then dropped a handful of spent shells into the officer’s palm.
    “I found some of these at the stage and more at the ranch. Shiny brass, .44-40 caliber. This was brand-new ammunition fired from repeating rifles.”
    “What do you think, Joe?” Stryker asked, looking into Hogg’s eyes.
    “I think at least half of them bucks have repeaters, Henrys or Winchesters. Judging by the firing pin strikes, I’d say, like the