The Rushers Read Free Page B

that none but Hogan might hear his words. ‘The officer you expected won’t be coming. He’s back there a piece with no top to his head. Him and the scout both are dead.’
    For a moment Hogan did not reply. He looked as if he could not believe the evidence of his ears. His eyes went to the uniform, the way it fitted Dusty and the general look of the small Texan.
    ‘But you—I saw the way you came in and took over.’
    ‘Somebody had to, friend. You were down and those green recruits likely to spook on the next attack. I knew they wouldn’t take orders from a civilian, not fast enough to do any good. The Sioux had stripped your captain and we brought his clothes along with us, in case we run across soldiers, or found a fort to leave them with. Knew the army’d want to know what happened to him and figured his kin’d like to have his belongings. So when I saw how things stood I put the uniform on and got in here.’
    Hogan still stared at Dusty. In twenty-eight years of army service he’d learned to recognize the real thing when it came before him. No matter what this small Texan said nothing would convince Hogan that he did not look at a real tough, all-army, officer. The way the men shook into shape at the Texan’s command gave full proof of that.
    ‘You’ve got to carry on doing it c—mister,’ Hogan said, just biting off the formal ‘captain, sir’ as he spoke. ‘I’m not steady enough to hold them together and the Sioux’ll come back again. You’ll do it, won’t you?’
    ‘There’s no other way,’ Dusty replied. ‘What’s the strength of the command?’
    ‘Thirty recruits for Fort Tucker, sir, one medical orderly, six wagons with supplies, two men in each wagon. We’d lost two men before I fell, sir.’
    Strangely Hogan did not feel anything unusual about saying ‘sir’ to Dusty. He could not shake off the feeling that he addressed an officer, a very efficient officer of at least captain’s rank.
    ‘Rest easy,’ Dusty drawled. ‘I’ll take over.’
    He came to his feet and looked around. The horses, picketed on lines across the open, seemed safe enough. He wanted to see the men, have them before him and form an impression of their state to carry on the fight.
    ‘Fall in here!’ he barked. ‘Lon, Mark, watch the Sioux.’
    ‘Yo!’ came Mark’s cavalry reply.
    ‘They’ve pulled back to, make more medicine,’ called the Kid.
    This was always the Sioux way of fighting. Once an attack failed the braves gathered and made fresh medicine, trying to decide why the old batch failed them and whether it would be advisable to make another attack. They never realized that by so doing they gave their enemy a chance to reorganize and prepare for further defence.
    The order brought men running to form up before Dusty in double file, standing at attention and giving Dusty a chance to look them over in the manner of a new officer studying his men for the first time. With the men standing in line, backs to the wagons, the Sioux might have taken a chance at easy coups but they were at their medicine and the Kid stood with his rifle ready to prevent any easy coups being made.
    With cold eyes Dusty studied the men before him, walking along the front rank until he came to halt before the corporal.
    ‘I’ve seen worse but I’m damned if I know where,’ Dusty said coldly. ‘Account for your ammunition, corporal.’
    The corporal gulped nervously. ‘I—I don’t know for sure.’
    Out shot Dusty’s right hand, gripping the stripes and ripping them from the corporal’s sleeve. His eyes never left the startled soldier’s face, daring him to as much as breathe in protest. The corporal kept rigid at his brace, lips tight together, for one thing a man learned early in the army was to keep his mouth shut at such a moment.
    ‘Account for your ammunition,’ Dusty said to the private soldier next to the now stripeless corporal.
    ‘Ten rounds for my carbine and twelve combustible cartridges for my