Ambush on the Mesa Read Online Free

behind Hugh.
    “Who are you?” asked Hugh as he turned.
    “Do not blaspheme. I am Isaiah Morton.”
    Morton was the gaunt-looking civilian Hugh had seen in the background. Even in the dimness he could feel the burning eyes of the man studying him.
    Roswell spat. “Morton joined us on the trail west of Fort McLane. Said he was going to convert Mangus Colorado.”
    “They are God’s children, even as you and I, Brother Roswell.”
    Roswell snorted. “That’s open to argument.”
    “Roswell! Where the hell are you?” The harsh voice sounded like a stick being dragged along a picket fence.
    Roswell grinned. “That’s the first soldier,” he said. “I’d better get busy.”
    A thick-bodied man came up in the darkness. The stripes and diamond of a first sergeant showed on his sleeves.
    “Hello, Matt,” said Hugh easily.
    Matt Hastings thrust his head close to Hugh. “Kinzie! I thought you had taken a discharge.”
    “I did.”
    Hastings raised his head. “You’re a scout now?”
    “Yes.”
    “The army must be hard up for good scouts.”
    Hugh tilted his head to one side. “
And
first sergeants. So you finally got your diamond, Matt. You bucked hard enough for it.”
    Hastings looked back over his shoulder. “I know more about soldiering than any man jack in this J Company outfit.”
    Hugh nodded. Matt Hastings hadn’t changed. Hugh had known him at Fort Stanton and later in Arizona. He was a ring-tailed roarer, self-educated, with the biggest bump of self-esteem on any horse soldier Hugh had ever met in his years of service.
    “Well, don’t I?” snapped Hastings.
    “You sure as hell have forgotten anything you learned about Apaches. Camping in front of a fire.”
    “There aren’t any Apaches within fifty miles.”
    “Too bad you didn’t look back over your shoulder some time this afternoon. You would have seen their signal smokes.”
    “Boots and Saddles!” roared Clymer through the darkness.
    Hugh went back for his buckskin and stood there for a time listening to the night sounds. It was no use. There wasenough uproar from the darkened camp to drown out anything else he might have heard.
    There was a slender woman standing beside Maurice Nettleton when Hugh came back to the camp. She wore a scarf over her dark hair. Nettleton helped her up on a horse. Hugh looked curiously at her as he mounted. Her face was in shadow, but he could see that she was pretty. He wondered if Boss Bennett would ever see her again.
    The noisy cavalcade rode up the trail. Hugh dropped back to cover the rear. Isaiah Morton jogged along on his swaybacked nag. The jackleg preacher looked up at the dark heights looming ahead of them. “A land of darkness, as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is as darkness,” he said dolefully.
    Hugh glanced at him. “Have you got a gun?” he asked.
    “No.”
    Hugh leaned over and slashed his reins across the rump of the preacher’s nag. “Then get up there and do your prophesying!”
    A trooper was sitting his horse at the side of the trail. He grinned at Hugh. “I can’t prophesy, scout,” he said. “But I can shoot.”
    “Good!”
    “The name is Chandler Willis.”
    “Hugh Kinzie.”
    Willis swung his carbine across his thighs. He shifted his chew and spat. “Looks like a long night,” he said laconically.
    “Yes. What kind of officers do you have here?”
    “Nettleton lives by the book. Never goes far without looking for some regulation to cover what he’s doing. Ain’t never quite sure of himself for my money.”
    “And Clymer?”
    Willis grinned. “Fancies himself a real stud with the ladies. Got the morals of an alley cat. Lets Nettleton think he’s runnin’ the shebang. Darrell Phillips ain’t a bad hombre. Got breedin’, he has. Might make a good soldier if he didn’t have to serve under those other two.”
    “What kind of an officer was Lieutenant Winston?”
    “One of the best. A real man. Wasn’t with