Outpost by Paul Lederer

Author:Paul Lederer
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781480487857
Publisher: Open Road Media

SIX

Lieutenant Young, Marshal Macafee, Lacey and Douglas stood in a loose group watching Cameron Black as he swung into leather and walked the big gray horse toward the gates.

‘What’s he doing?’ Lacey demanded. ‘Lieutenant, you can’t let him ride out! He’s a wanted man.’

‘I have no authority to stop him,’ Young said. ‘Even if I wished to.’ He himself walked to the gates to drop the bar and allow Black to pass through.

‘Marshal?’ Lacey tried frantically.

‘It’s none of my business,’ Macafee said drily.

‘Then, by God, we’re going after him.’

‘Then you’d better have fast horses saddled and ready to run,’ Macafee advised him. ‘He’ll be gone in minutes. I saw the shape your ponies were in when you rode in. Let it go, Lacey. There’s nothing you can do, and I don’t really think you want to go riding out there on this night.’

For again they heard the yipping of the renegade Comanches imitating coyotes as they passed their messages. It seemed to Macafee that there were now more of them out there prowling. To the returning officer he said, ‘Lieutenant, I think we ought to he getting up onto the ramparts.’

Whatever deal Hazzard had made, or thought he had made with the renegades, made no difference. The poorly armed, desperate Comanches had no choice but to storm the outpost and try to take its armory if they were to have a chance against Colonel Hayes and his company of men.

Young was aware of the added burden he bore. To let the armory fall would be doubly censorious. The payroll could be replaced; to let those rifles slip into the hands of the renegades enabling them to conduct efficient raids and warfare would be completely inexcusable. His career would be effectively ended even if he did not face criminal charges.

No man could have felt as low as Young did as he climbed the ladder to the parapet. Across the desert night as the signal calls of the renegades fell to silence, one voice continued. A newborn baby cried for nurture, for its mother, and Young did not even know if the struggling infant would have a living mother come sunrise.

Cameron Black hunched his shoulders against the chill of night. Many newcomers were surprised at the rapidity with which temperatures could alter in the light atmosphere of the desert. It was not uncommon for daytime temperatures of 110 degrees and plus to drop to freezing overnight. He was not unprepared. His buffalo coat was now on his shoulders, and if not warm, he was comfortable.

Even by starlight he was able to follow the deep tracks Hazzard and Jason’s horses had cut in the red sand. These, quite obviously were not tending toward the woods where the renegades hid, but veered drastically northward, in the direction of Santa Fe. Either there had been no bargain between the deserters and the Comanches, or Hazzard had chosen deliberately to break it: the latter seemed more likely.

Hazzard and Jason would be trusting to their horses to

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