William Johnstone - Butchery of the Mountain Man

Shaw wasn’t at all troubled by his exile. It was safer to dole out biscuit and salt beef than do battle with Sioux and Cheyenne warriors.

Of course, the Apaches were a problem, but since the Navajo attacked the fort in 1858 and 1860 and both times were badly mauled, it seemed that the wily Geronimo was giving the place a wide berth.

That last suited Captain Shaw perfectly. He had big plans and they sure as hell didn’t involve Apaches.

The wash, dry now that the spring melt was over, made a sharp cut to the north and the two officers followed it through a grove of stunted juniper and willow onto a rocky plateau bordered by thick stands of pine.

In the distance the fading day painted the Chuska peaks with wedges of deep lilac shadow and out among the foothills coyotes yipped. The jade sky was streaked with banners of scarlet and gold, the streaming colors of the advancing night.

Major Ashton walked onto the plateau, his attention directed at the pines. His rifle at the ready, he stopped and scanned the trees with his field glasses.

Without turning his head, he said, “Nothing moving yet, Captain.”

Shaw made no answer.

“You have a buck spotted?” the major whispered.

Again, he got no reply.

Ashton turned.

Shaw’s rifle was pointed right at his chest.

“What in blazes are you doing, Captain Shaw?” Ashton said, his face alarmed.

“Killing you, Major.”

Owen Shaw fired.

The soft-nosed .44-40 round tore into the major’s chest and plowed through his lungs. Even as the echoing report of the Winchester racketed around the plateau, Ashton fell to his hands and knees and coughed up a bouquet of glistening red blossoms.

Shaw smiled and shot Ashton again, this time in the head. The major fell on his side and all the life that remained in him fled.

Moving quickly, Shaw stood over Ashton and fired half a dozen shots into the air, the spent cartridge cases falling on and around the major’s body. He then pulled a Smith & Wesson .32 from the pocket of his tweed hunting jacket, placed the muzzle against his left thigh and pulled the trigger.

A red-hot poker of pain burned across Shaw’s leg, but when he looked down at the wound he was pleased. It was only a flesh wound but it was bleeding nicely, enough to make him look a hero when he rode into Fort Defiance.

Limping slightly, Shaw retraced his steps along the dry wash to the place where he and Ashton had tethered their horses. He looked behind him and to his joy saw that he’d left a blood trail. Good! There was always the possibility that a cavalry patrol had returned to the fort and their Pima scouts could be bad news. The blood would help his cover-up.

He gathered up the reins of the major’s horse and swung into the saddle. There was no real need to hurry but he forced his horse into a canter, Ashton’s mount dragging on him.

It was an officer’s duty to recover the body of a slain comrade, but Ashton had been of little account and not well liked. When Shaw told of the Apache ambush and his desperate battle to save the wounded major, that little detail would be overlooked.

And his own bloody wound spoke loud of gallantry and devotion to duty.

Lamps were already lit when Captain Owen Shaw rode into Fort Defiance, a sprawling complex of buildings, some of them ruins, grouped around a dusty parade ground.

He staged his entrance well.

Not for him to enter at a gallop and hysterically warn of Apaches, rather he slumped in the saddle and kept his horse to a walk . . . the wounded warrior’s noble return.

He was glad that just as he rode past the sutler’s store, big, laughing Sergeant Patrick Tone stepped outside, a bottle of whiskey tucked under his arm.

“Sergeant,” Shaw said, making sure he sounded exhausted and sore hurt, “sound officer’s call. Direct the gentlemen to the commandant’s office.”

“Where is Major Ashton, sir?” Tone said, his Irish brogue heavy on his tongue. Like many soldiers in the Indian-fighting army, he’d been born and bred in the Emerald Isle and was far from the rainy green hills of his native land.

“He’s dead. Apaches. Now carry out my order.”

Tone shifted the bottle from his right to his left underarm and snapped off a salute. Then he stepped quickly toward the enlisted men’s barracks, roaring for the bugler.

Shaw dismounted outside the administration building, a single-story adobe structure, its timber porch hung with several large clay ollas that held drinking water. The ollas’ constant evaporation supposedly helped keep the interior offices cool, a claim the soldiers vehemently denied.

After leaning against his horse for a few moments, the action of an exhausted man, Shaw limped up the three steps to the porch, drops of blood from his leg starring the rough pine.

He stopped, swaying slightly, when he saw a woman bustling toward him across the parade ground, her swirling skirts lifting veils of yellow dust.

Shaw smiled inwardly. This was getting better and better. Here comes the distraught widow.

Maude Ashton, the major’s wife, was a plump, motherly woman with a sweet, heart-shaped face that normally wore a smile. But now she looked concerned, as though she feared to hear news she already knew would be bad.

Maude mounted the steps and one look at the expression on Shaw’s face and the blood on his leg told her all she needed to know. She asked the question anyway. “Captain Shaw, where is my husband?”

As the stirring notes of officer’s call rang around him, Shaw made an act of battling back a sob. “Oh, Maude . . .”

He couldn’t go on.

The captain opened his arms wide, tears staining his cheeks, and Maude Ashton ran between them. Shaw clasped her tightly and whispered, “Philip is dead.”

Maude had been a soldier’s wife long enough to know that the day might come when she’d have to face those three words. Now she repeated them. “Philip is dead . . .”

“Apaches,” Shaw said. He steadied himself and managed, “They jumped us out by Rock Wash and Major Ashton fell in the first volley.”

Maude took a step back. Her pretty face, unstained by tears, was stony. “And Philip is still out there?”

Boots thudded onto the porch and Shaw decided to wait until his two officers were present before he answered Maude’s irritating question.

First Lieutenant Frank Hedley was in his early fifties, missing the left arm he’d lost at Gettysburg as a brevet brigadier general of artillery. He was a private, withdrawn man, too fond of the bottle to be deemed fit for further promotion. He’d spent the past fifteen years in the same regular army rank. This had made him bitter and his drinking and irascible manner worsened day by day.

Standing next to him was Second Lieutenant Miles Howard, an earnest nineteen-year-old fresh out of West Point. His application for a transfer to the hard-riding 5th Cavalry had recently been approved on the recommendation of the Point’s superintendent, the gallant Colonel Wesley Merritt, the regiment’s former commander.

Howard had a romantic view of the frontier war, his imagination aflame with flying banners, bugle calls and thundering charges with the saber. He’d never fought Apaches.

“Where is the major?” Hedley said.

“He’s dead,” Shaw said. “We got hit by Apaches at Rock Wash and Major Ashton fell.”

Hedley turned and saw the dead officer’s horse. “Where is he?”

Shaw shook his head and then stared directly and sincerely at Maude. “I had to leave him. The Apaches wanted his body but I stood over him and drove them away. But I was sore wounded and could not muster the strength to lift the gallant major onto his horse.”

Lieutenant Howard, more perceptive and more sympathetic than Hedley, watched blood drops from Shaw’s leg tick onto the timber.