Free Novel 1972 - Callaghen (v5.0) by Louis L’Amour Page B

He paused. “I’m getting out, and I’m leaving the service. My papers are overdue.”
    Sprague dusted the ash from his cigar. “Better think it over.”
    “At eighteen dollars a month? No, sir. I can do better driving stage, or mining. There’s not much chance to get ahead, and a man is getting older all the time.”
    “You’re right about that. And there isn’t any shortage of officers. The war provided plenty of them.”
    He looked out over the desert. “A weird place, Sergeant.”
    “South of here,” Callaghen said, “in the Colorado desert, there’s a story of a lost ship with a cargo of pearls. Much of that desert is below sea level, and a man can see the old shore line plainly. The story is that a Spanish ship came into the area when it was flooded, but the opening was closed by tidal bores up the Gulf of California, and the ship’s crew could not find a way out. Another story is that that same area was the original home of the Aztecs, and that they migrated to Mexico.”
    “Think there’s anything to it?”
    “It’s all guesswork, but old Spanish documents do tell strange stories. The Spaniards came first, after all, and they saw some things that time has erased, and of course the Indians had stories to tell.
    “The Relaciones, written by Father Zarate Salmeron, tells of a party of Spanish soldiers who came to a lonely place on the shores of the Gulf of California and found some Asiatics there. Awnings had been set up on the shore near their ships, and they were trading with the Indians. That was about 1538. They implied they had been trading there for years.”
    Lieutenant Sprague stood up, and Callaghen did likewise. He said, “Deserts breed mystery, and especially such a place as this, which was not always desert.”
    “You think not?”
    “Dig down, Captain, almost anywhere out there, and soon you will strike a layer of black soil—decomposed vegetation. Once this was a green and lovely land, with patches of trees, perhaps even real forest. Our knowledge is like an iceberg: we know a little, but the vast amount we have yet to learn still remains hidden from us.” He paused.
    “All right,” Sprague said. “Mount them, Sergeant.”
    They saw no Indians; there was no movement but the heat waves. They rode on, swinging farther away from the trail to Vegas Springs. Again they saw tracks…four Indians, these headed northwest.
    “What do you make of it?” Sprague asked the Delaware.
    “They know the stage comes. They will attack.”
    Lieutenant Sprague drew up sharply, lifting a hand to halt the command. “You think so?”
    “Many Indians ride west by north,” the Delaware said, “too many Indians. We see fourteen, fifteen.…Maybe twice as many ride from elsewhere. I think they do not ride for nothing.”
    “Callaghen, what’s your opinion?”
    “I’d have to agree, sir. Whatever an Indian does is apt to be for a reason. We have found the tracks of three parties going northwest. The only thing in that direction is the trail to Vegas Springs—to Las Vegas.”
    Lieutenant Sprague considered the situation with no pleasure. His orders had been clear. He was to make a sweep through the desert, acquainting himself with the country, giving the Mohaves a show of force, and scouting to see if there was any activity. At the same time their basic mission was to protect travelers on the Government Road, whether to Fort Mohave and the Colorado, or to Vegas Springs.
    They had sighted the sign of what they believed to be fourteen or fifteen Indians. Not a large number, certainly. But their number was not a consideration, for on the stage there would probably be not more than three or four men and perhaps some women. And if the Delaware and Sergeant Callaghen were correct, other Indians might also be moving to the attack.
    Sprague calculated the time the stage would take to arrive at a point where the Indians, following their present line of march, might attack.
    He was not eager for battle, but