Desert hawks, p.1
Desert Hawks, page 1
BEFORE THE BATTLE
In the night, Mangus Coloradas peered at the flickering lights of the White Eyes encampment, and then, farther south, at the fires of the Mexicans. Never had he viewed so many enemies. He raised his fist into the air as he spoke to his men. “The People have been given this land by Yusn, and the White Eyes are not greater than He. If the White Eyes refuse to let us live here, we will make them pay for every valley with their blood and bones.”
In the American camp, Lieutenant Nathanial Barrington listened to a veteran sergeant. “Lieutenant, I been in a few scrapes afore, and the only thing to do is just go all-out and fight like a son of a bitch. Don't ask for no quarter, don't give one.”
And a thousand miles away in New Mexico, young and beautiful Maria Dolores Carbajal wondered what would happen to her family and her if the Apaches chose this time to attack, or if the Yankee invaders reached her home on the Santa Fe Trail.
The battle the next day would not end the struggle for any of them . . . but only mark the beginning of a tidal wave of conflict that would sweep up them all. . . .
Also by Len Levinson
The Rat Bastards:
Hit the Beach
Death Squad
River of Blood
Meat Grinder Hill
Down and Dirty
Green Hell
Too Mean to Die
Hot Lead and Cold Steel
Do or Die
Kill Crazy
Nightmare Alley
Go For Broke
Tough Guys Die Hard
Suicide River
Satan’s Cage
Go Down Fighting
The Pecos Kid:
Beginner’s Luck
The Reckoning
Apache Moon
Outlaw Hell
Devil’s Creek Massacre
Bad to the Bone
The Apache Wars Saga:
War Eagles
Savage Frontier
White Apache
Devil Dance
Night of the Cougar
DESERT HAWKS
* * *
Volume One of
The Apache Wars Saga
by
Len Levinson
DESERT HAWKS
Copyright © 1994 by Len Levinson
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form
without permission in writing from the publisher.
EBook © 2013 by AudioGO. All Rights Reserved.
Trade ISBN 978-1-62064-864-3
Library ISBN 978-1-62460-205-4
Cover photo © TK/iStock.com.
ONE
U.S. Army tents lined the grassy swales of South Texas, unit flags undulated in the breeze, and firepits provided light for soldiers preparing for war. It was May 7, 1846, and the Mexican Army was straight ahead on the road to Matamoros.
American President James Knox Polk had ordered General Zachary Taylor's Army of Observation to the Rio Grande, because the Mexican government refused to negotiate over Texas. Then Mexican President Mariano Paredes had dispatched General Jose Mariano Arista and his Army of the North to drive them back. Cannons, musketoons, and bayonets had become the ultimate diplomatic gestures, with mass carnage scheduled for early tomorrow morn.
The smack of a flintlock hammer could be heard in the 3rd Infantry Regiment, while somebody laughed at an off-color joke in the command post tent of the Second Dragoons. Letters were written home, Bibles consulted, and hidden quantities of food consumed, because dead men have no appetites.
On picket lines soldiers tended nervous horses dancing in the small spaces allotted them, for the smell of gunpowder was in the air. Other soldiers swabbed out the bores of cannon in Major Sam Ringgold's Flying Artillery Battalions, confident that their new quick deployment tactics would demolish the Mexicans.
Soldiers without duties tried unsuccessfully to sleep, while the Texas Rangers, a hell-raising bunch that served as the army's scouts, played seven-card stud beside a campfire. No one hated Mexicans more than the Texas Rangers, because all had lost friends and family members in the War for Texas Independence.
On the eve of bloody confrontation, one lone U.S. Army staff officer strolled along at the edge of the encampment, hands clasped behind his back, as he gazed at endless expanses of mosquito-infested gulf plains. The insects had left his exposed skin covered with welts, but his most important concern was whether he'd be alive tomorrow night.
Lieutenant Nathanial Barrington was six feet two inches tall, wide of shoulder, with a thick blond beard and mustache. Recently graduated from West Point, he'd been posted to the traveling circus known as General Taylor's staff, becoming an errand boy with gold shoulder straps.
Nathanial Barrington had read the Federalist Papers, Ben Franklin's autobiography, and the works of Thomas Paine, but he knew the Mexicans had then-own traditions, ideals, and blood sacrifices. They wouldn't surrender Texas without a fight, and tomorrow General Taylor would rip right into them.
Nathanial couldn't help reflecting that General Arista purportedly possessed the best cavalry in the world and outnumbered the Americans. He narrowed his blue eyes and peered south from whence the slaughter would come.
It troubled him to know that not all of America backed the Army of Observation on that perilous night. According to newspaper reports, many citizens considered President Polk's policy nothing more than unconstitutional land theft, while others viewed it as America's manifest destiny. Ralph Waldo Emerson, the intellectual light of New England, had denounced the war in an uncharacteristically passionate speech on Faneuil Square, while William Allen of Ohio, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, had stood on the floor of that chamber and argued that Texas was part of America and must be defended at any cost.
Some claimed Mexico City was too far away to administer Texas efficiently, and eighty percent of the population were Americans anyway. Others said the Mexican Army hadn't been able to defend Texans against Indian depredations, so they'd forfeited rights to the land. Nathanial was a native New Yorker, but whenever he consulted a map, it seemed obvious that California, Texas, and Oregon—and everything in between—should be part of one great nation, the United States of America.
If the stew had bitter flavors, it was because successful annexation of Texas would create a new slave state, upsetting the delicate balance in the Senate, and possibly leading to civil insurrection. America had been convulsed since the Missouri Compromise of 1820 over the slavery issue, and now it intruded into every cranny of national life, including Nathanial's possible funeral.
Nathanial saw his ancestors staring at him from the skies above Texas, and swore to do his duty despite doubt, fear, and the slavery issue. He visualized a lump of jagged metal slicing him in half, and wanted to run for the hills, but instead, to distract himself from the doubtless horror of tomorrow, reached into the pocket of his blue tunic and withdrew a small daguerreotype of a tall slim blond woman with a half-amused smile, gazing into the camera.
Her name was Layne Satterfield and she now wore his engagement ring. They'd had the picture taken one night during a walk down Broadway. They'd been early for the theater, so out of curiosity stopped at one of the new picture galleries near Chambers Street.
Nathanial reflected upon the threads of fate that delivered him to Texas on that night of nights. Once he'd wanted to become an Episcopalian priest, and during another period had considered working for his uncle Jasper, a stockbroker. Another uncle, Caleb, owned ships, and Nathanial could've gone to sea, but didn't appreciate small enclosed places with unwashed men for two years. Instead, he might end in a cold dank Texas grave.
Nathanial swallowed a lump in his throat, as he contemplated the termination of his existence. He wished he'd lived a more responsible life, but he'd never turned down a glass of liquor, and had visited houses of ill fame when the mood struck him.
He still believed in what the Bible said, but life had become complex as he'd grown older. He'd studied all the great philosophers, but not one had shown how to die at an early age. Judgment Day has arrived, he told himself, smiling grimly. He clasped his hands together and closed his eyes. “My God—please help me.” He felt alone, afraid, and prayed that he wouldn't show the white feather before his fellow officers.
He heard the advancing footsteps of Timothy Reardon, a Texas Ranger with a long brown beard, green canvas shirt, deerskin trousers, and a Colt Paterson pistol in his hand-tooled leather holster, slung low and tied down. “What'cha doin’, Lieutenant?”
“I was wondering what time we'd run into the Mexicans,” lied Nathanial.
The Texas Ranger scratched beneath his armpit, where a louse had taken residence. “The sooner the better, I'd say. Let's git this damned mess over with.” Reardon peered at Nathanial suspiciously. “You ain't skeered, are you?”
“You're damned right I am,” Nathanial replied honestly.
Reardon grinned, then slapped Nathanial's haunchlike shoulder. “So'm I. Be a fool not to.” He yanked his Colt, aimed it between Nathanial's eyes, and smiled cruelly. “This is the only thing a greaser understands. Give ‘em a-plenty tomorrow, and they won't stay around long.”
“Would you mind pointing that in some other direction?”
Reardon persisted in his aim, as if trying to communicate a seminar on gun and knife work. “They won't know what hit ‘em once we open fire. Lissen, Lieutenant, I been in a few scrapes afore, and the only thing to do is jest go all-out and fight like a son of a bitch. Don't ask fer no quarter, d on't give none, and if a cannonball comes with yer name on it, jest a-swaller it down and keep on a-fightin’.”
It didn't occur to Nathanial that people other than Americans and Mexicans might reside in the vicinity. But examining Nathanial and the Texas Ranger at that very moment was an Apache chief named Mangus Coloradas, lying among juniper and stunted mesquite trees on a nearby mountain, trying to understand the incredible encampment sprawled before him.
Mangus Coloradas had heard reports of the Pindah-lickoyee, the White Eyes, invading his ancestral homeland, and he'd ridden south to see with his own sharp eyes. Fifty-three years old, surrounded by subchiefs and warriors, Mangus Coloradas focused on stacked rifles and rows of bronze cannon gleaming evilly in the moonlight. He estimated that the White Eyes and Nakai-yes Mexicans had more warriors in the vicinity than the entire population of the People!
Mangus Coloradas presented a staunch facade for his warriors, but was staggered by what he saw. He knew that both sides would clash tomorrow, and the desert would be drenched with blood. Maybe they'll kill each other and leave the People alone, hoped Mangus Coloradas.
The fighting chief knew that the land was immense, and the People could always escape the Mexicans, but now the White Eyes were coming in great numbers, and he wondered how many would follow. He gazed at the White Eyes’ encampment, and its size obliterated the walls of his mind. The White Eyes are like ants covering the face of the earth, he thought. How can we avoid conflict with them?
Approximately one thousand miles to the northwest, a sweaty horse and vaquero rider galloped down the main street of Las Vegas, New Mexico. “The Americanos have invaded!” he hollered. “It's war!”
He rode past the church, where choir practice ended abruptly. A young woman in the front row, Maria Dolores Carbajal, looked up from her hymn book, her heart beating wildly. War?
Twenty years old, Maria Dolores had auburn hair, brown eyes, and a shapely body. Taller than the other women, she followed Father Juan and the rest of the choir out of church. The rider headed toward the headquarters of the military governor, General Manual Armijo, and Maria was swept along by the crowd as she experienced terrible premonitions. The Americanos possessed a powerful army that had twice defeated England, the world's greatest power. When the Americanos wanted land, they merely took it under any pretext.
The crowd coalesced as the rider climbed down from his stained saddle. The front door of the building opened, and General Armijo stepped outside, followed by his wife, family, aides, and guards. The courier bowed low. “Sir, the gringo army has crossed the Nueces River, and General Arista is organizing the defense of the nation.”
Maria Dolores became apprehensive as she fingered the rosary beads suspended from her neck. She'd seen Americanos pass through Las Vegas on their way to Santa Fe, and they'd all seemed to despise Mexicans. Sometimes the Americanos made lewd suggestions as she collected money at her father's store, but she'd learned to smile and pretend she hadn't understood their English.
Consternation verging on panic swept across the crowd as the courier completed his report. There were rumors that the Americanos intended to enslave Mexicans as they had the Negritos, and Maria Dolores contemplated picking cotton or growing rice for gringos, with a whip across her backside whenever she slowed down.
General Armijo faced the crowd, placed his fists on his hips, and declared, “Townspeople—do not be afraid. No exertion will be spared to protect you, and I will send today for reinforcements from the south. There is no need to panic—the Americano Army is not in this vicinity, but if they come, we will be ready for them.”
Maria Dolores didn't believe General Armijo, for her father had said he was a liar and conniver for whom bribery was a way of life. His method of dealing with Indians was brutal repression, which had only made matters worse. Many of Maria Dolores's relatives had been killed by Indians, and the Apaches had driven her father out of the family ranching business.
Maria Dolores turned toward the east, from whence the Americanos would come, and there was no question that General Armijo couldn't stop anybody. We must get out of here, she concluded, but where can we go? She felt trapped, doomed, and destined for an early grave, but Jesus had taught that glory awaited she who had faith to move mountains.
Las Vegas was an important stop along the Santa Fe Trail, and the American Army would come eventually. What will they do to us? wondered Maria Dolores. Will they really make me a slave?
General Zachary Taylor, known as Old Rough and Ready to the men, sat at the collapsible desk in his command post tent, studying a map. Sixty-one years old, he was short, heavyset, with caterpillar eyebrows and a large nose. He'd been a fanner's son raised on the Kentucky frontier, and his great-grandfather had served as a lieutenant colonel in the Continental Army.
General Taylor wore loose-fitting blue jeans, a long tan linen duster, and his old floppy-brimmed straw hat hung on a peg extending from a tent pole. Unlike General Winfield Scott, dubbed Old Fuss and Feathers, General Taylor preferred comfortable civilian clothes, informal manners, and the occasional chaw of tobacco. He looked up from the map and spit a long, thin stream of brown juice into a polished brass cuspidor engraved with a scene from the Black Hawk War, in which then-Colonel Zachary Taylor himself had captured the rebellious Chief Black Hawk.
General Taylor's command comprised three thousand men, more than half the Regular U.S. Army, and the fate of the nation lay in his callused hands as he perused terrain features on which the upcoming battle would be fought. He knew that large-scale military operations depended on many complex factors, and Lady Luck was always throwing her loaded dice onto the table. Old Rough and Ready was no philosopher of war like Napoleon Bonaparte, or a master technician such as Lord Wellington, yet his aggressive take-it-to-'em style had won battle after battle, usually against superior odds.
All generals travel with retinues of aides, factotums, and orderlies, and General Taylor was no exception. He turned to one of his young staff officers near the front of his tent. “Lieutenant Barrington,” Taylor said. “I'd like to have a word with you.”
The officer appeared surprised, as if someone had awakened him from a dream. He threw back his shoulders, came to attention, and replied, “Yes, sir?”
General Taylor inspected the officer carefully. Lieutenant Barrington was physically everything the general wanted to be: young and tall, instead of a rotund gentleman of a certain age. Moreover, Barrington was a West Point graduate, whereas General Taylor had risen through the ranks during the expansion of the army prior to the War of 1812.
“You should get some sleep, Lieutenant Barrington. I'll need you to be alert tomorrow.”
“I was on the way to my tent when you called, sir.”
“Tomorrow should be an interesting day. Remember your training, follow your orders, and you'll be just fine.” General Taylor leaned back in his chair and spit another stream into the cuspidor. “The worst part of war is the goddamned noise. Well, good night, Lieutenant Barrington. See you in the morning.”
Lieutenant Barrington snapped a West Point salute, performed a smart about-face, and marched out of the command post tent. Like most of the junior officers in the camp, he considered General Taylor a great combat commander, but Old Rough and Ready had many critics, some of whom considered him a crass and vulgar fool. Nathanial knew from personal observation that the general combined many qualities in varying proportions, as did everyone else, and character was no simple subtraction lesson.
He passed a campfire of Negro slaves singing softly in a strange lilting beat. They were owned by Southern officers, and he could've bought one for a thousand dollars in the New Orleans slave market, but had hired a Creole orderly instead.
Nathanial considered slavery a clear-cut evil, though he did not pretend to carry the solution in his back pocket. He approached his tent, where a candle burned inside its dirty white canvas walls. Pushing the flap aside, he saw his two tentmates sitting on the ground. One was Lieutenant Beauregard Hargreaves of Charleston, South Carolina, and the other, Comte Philippe de Marsay, an observer from the French Army. Lamplight washed their bearded faces, studded with mosquito bites, as they smoked cigars and passed a silver flask of cheap local whiskey back and forth.
