A Wounded Name. Charles KingЧитать онлайн книгу.
recruiting, mustering or disbursing. We had colonels by title whose functions were purely those of the file-closer. We had generals by brevet who had never set squadron in the field and didn't know the difference between a pole yoke and a pedometer. Every captain, except one or two who had laughingly declined, wore the straps of field officers, some few even of generals, and so when one heard a military-looking man addressed as colonel the chances were ten to one that he was drawing only the stipend of a company officer, and in matters of actual rank in the army it was money that talked.
But there could be no questioning the right of the senior of the two officers who had alighted at Sancho's to the title of colonel. Soldier stood out all over him, even though his garb was concealed by a nondescript duster. His face, lined, thin-lipped and resolute, was tanned by desert suns and winds. His hair, once brown, was almost white. His beard, once flowing and silky, was cropped to a gray stubble. His steely blue eyes snapped under their heavy thatch, his head was carried high and well back, and his soft felt hat, wide-brimmed, was pulled down over the brows. His deep chest, square shoulders, erect carriage and straight muscular legs all told of days and years in the field, and every word he uttered had about it the crisp, clear-cut ring of command. It was safe to bet that no mere company was the extent of this soldiers authority, and Sancho, keen observer, had put him down for a lieutenant-colonel at least. Full colonels were mostly older men, and Arizona had but one in "the days of the Empire."
The ranchman had eagerly whispered questions to the loungers as to the identity of the two arrivals, but without success. Both were strangers, although the junior had been seen at the ranch once before, the day Blake's troop was camped there on the way back from the Dragoons. There was the packet left by the orderly to be called for by officers arriving on the Yuma stage, addressed in clerkly hand, but Sancho, alas! could not read. Hovering as near as the gravity and dignity of his station would permit, he had heard the colonel's query about Blake. He pricked up his ears at once. Teniente Blake! Thirty miles east on the Maricopa road! Why, how was this? Some one had told him Blake had been to the Colorado and was coming back by this very stage. How did Blake get to the east of Sancho's ranch, after having once gone west, without Sancho's knowing it? Suspiciously he watched the two soldiers, the grizzled colonel, the slim lieutenant. They were talking together in low tones, at least the colonel was talking, eagerly, energetically, and with much gesticulation. The junior listened wordless to every word. What had he meant by "the bird had flown?" Why should Nevins "skip?" An unpleasant fear seized upon Sancho. He knew Nevins, at least a Nevins, a captain whom everybody knew, in fact, and few men trusted. What had Nevins been doing? or rather, what that he had been doing was he to be held to account for? Why should the colonel so eagerly ask where they could reach Blake? Time was when Sancho flattered himself that there was no deviltry going on in Arizona, except such as originated with the Indians, in which he had not at least the participation of full knowledge, yet here came two officials, hastening by stage instead of marching with military deliberation and escort, and they were in quest of the Señor Capitan Nevins of whom all men had heard and at whose hands many had suffered, for was not he a player whom the very cards seemed to obey? Was it not he who broke the bank at Bustamente's during the fiesta at Tucson but five months agone? Was it not Nevins who won all the money those two young tenientes possessed—two boys from the far East just joining their regiment and haplessly falling into the hands of this dashing, dapper, wholesouled, hospitable comrade who made his temporary quarters their home until they could find opportunity to go forward to the distant posts where their respective companies were stationed? Was it not Nevins who, right there at Sancho's ranch, finding a party of prospectors, several ex-Confederate soldiers among them, languidly staking silver at the monte table presided over by Sancho's own brother, had calmly opened a faro "layout" and enticed every man from the legitimate game and every peso from their pockets before the two-day's session was finished? Well did Sancho recall his own wrath and that of his brother at this unlicensed interference with their special business, and the surprising liberality, too, with which the Señor Capitan had silenced their remonstrance. Rascal though he was, Sancho had sense enough to know that such proceedings were not seemly in a man bearing the commission of an officer. But Sancho little knew how many a congressman along at the close of the war, finding himself compelled to provide some kind of living for political "heelers," or some impersonal reward for services rendered, had foisted his henchmen into the army, then being enlarged and reorganized, and Nevins was one of the results of the iniquitous system.
Commissioned a first lieutenant of a regiment that had had a proud record in the regular division of the Army of the Potomac, and had been hurried at the close of the war to the Pacific coast, Nevins had joined at Fort Yuma and served a few weeks' apprenticeship as a file-closer, just long enough to demonstrate that he knew nothing whatever about soldiering and too much about poker. All his seniors in grade, except the West Pointers graduated in '65, had brevets for war service, and Nevins' sponsor was appealed to to rectify the omission in the lieutenant's case. Nevins had held a commission in a volunteer regiment in the defenses of Washington the last few months of the war, and that was found amply sufficient, when a prominent member of the committee on military affairs demanded it, to warrant the bestowal of a brevet for "gallant and meritorious services." Hence came the title of captain. Then, as company duty proved irksome, and Nevins' company and post commander both began to stir him up for his manifold negligences and ignorances, the aid of his patron in congress was again invoked. A crippled veteran who could do no field service was in charge of a supply camp for scouting parties, escorts, detachments, etc., and, to the wrath of the regimental officers, this veteran was relieved and Lieutenant and Brevet-Captain Nevins by department orders was detailed in his place. This made him independent of almost everybody, beside placing in his hands large quantities of commissary and quartermaster stores which were worth far more to the miner, prospector and teamster than their invoice price. The stories that began to come into Yuma and Drum Barracks, and other old-time stations, of the "high jinks" going on day and night at Nevins' camp, the orders for liquors, cigars and supplies received at San Francisco and filled by every stage or steamer, the lavish entertainment accorded to officers of any grade and to wayfarers with any sign of money, the complaints of victims who had been fleeced, the gloomy silence of certain fledgling subalterns after brief visits at "Camp Ochre," as Blake had dubbed it, all pointed significantly to but one conclusion, that, so far from living on his pay, Nevins was gormandizing on that of everybody else, and doubtless "raising the wind" in other ways at the expense of Uncle Sam. Even in Arizona in the days of the Empire it could not last forever. Easy come, easy go. Nevins had lavishly spent what was so lightly won. Tucson and Yuma City were within easy stage ride, even San Francisco had twice been found accessible. Dashing associates of both sexes were ever at hand. The sudden turn of the tide came with the order that broke up the supply camp, required him to turn over his funds and stores to the quartermaster at Camp Cooke, and report for duty in person at that post. Then came the expected discovery of grievous shortages in both funds and property, the order for the arrest of the delinquent officer and his trial by court-martial. Colonel Turnbull, inspector-general of the department, was hurried out from the shores of the Pacific to sit as one of the senior members of the court. Lieutenant Loring, vainly striving along the Gila to find some resemblance between its tracing on a government map and its meanderings through the desert, was selected to perform the duties of judge advocate. The court was authorized to sit without regard to hours, and to sift the official career of the protégé of the house committee of military affairs without regard to consequence, when that volatile and accused person took matters into his own hands, and between the setting and rising of the sun, disappeared from the brush, canvas and adobe shelters of old Camp Cooke and left for parts unknown, taking with him the best horse in the commanding officer's stable, and, as genius has ever its followers, the admiration if not the regard of much of the garrison.
But other followers were needed at once. "That man must be caught at any cost, Loring," said the colonel. "No one begins to know the extent of his rascalities, and you and Blake must catch him."
For answer the engineer took out his watch—it was just a quarter to one—stepped out into the glare of the sunshine and gazed to the far horizon. The plain to the east was flat as a board for many a mile and well nigh as barren. Then he turned sharply on Sancho. "Dinner ready?" he asked.
"In one—two minutes, Señor Capitan," responded the ranchman gravely, conferring on the officer