Read Online Ambush by Luke; Short - Free Book Online Page B

with Captain Harcourt at the corner of A Stable. Harcourt’s corporal driver stood boredly by the wagon.
    Linus moved up beside Ward now and said, “I haven’t seen that horse you rode in since—”
    Back in the half-light of the stable door behind the lounging troopers, Ward saw a figure he recognized, and he moved toward the door while Linus was still talking.
    â€œRiordan,” he called.
    There was an immediate, abrupt movement among the troopers and Riordan lunged through them into the stable doorway. He was, Ward saw immediately, so profoundly drunk that he could barely keep his balance. Ward was silent, knowing that to question him would be useless. Riordan stood swaying in the shadows, peering balefully around him, and Ward heard Linus come up beside him. “You wanted him?” Linus asked. “The fellow’s drunk.”
    â€œIt can wait.”
    â€œCorporal of the guard!” Linus called. “Put that man under arrest!”
    The sound of Linus’ voice roused Riordan, and he took a lunging step in his direction, almost losing his balance. He said thickly, “You damn wife-stealer. You low dog of a—”
    He was on them now, with two troopers lunging for him. Ward heard Captain Loring shouting “Corporal of the Guard!” and then Ward struck. It was a swift, hard blow aimed at the point of Riordan’s jaw, and the sound of it striking, viciously soft and muffled, overrode the sound of the commotion.
    Riordan fell forward on his face at Linus’ feet and lay utterly motionless; Ward noticed oddly that wisps of hay clung to the back of his gray shirt. There was a pounding of feet beside him and he looked up to see Loring and a trooper, with carbine unslung, come to a halt beside him.
    â€œPut him in the guardhouse, Evans,” Loring said to the Trooper. Now he looked at both Ward and Linus and asked, “What did he call you?”
    Ward had to cast back in memory, and he glanced at Linus. Linus’ face, by the dim light of the lantern, was furiously red. At the same time Ward noted it, he remembered that Riordan’s epithet had been “wife-stealer.” Without reflection or even thought, Ward turned to Loring and said mildly, “Horse-stealer, didn’t he? I rode in on a ’Pache horse I’d stolen, and he turned it out and wouldn’t feed it.”
    Loring gave both Linus and Ward a searching look, as of disbelief, and then stepped aside for Major Brierly and Captain Harcourt.
    Brierly looked down at Riordan and said, “Same old trouble, Harcourt. That’s what your pay always brings us.” He looked at Ward and asked, “What was he saying?”
    Ward told the story of his quarrel with Riordan, and Brierly only grunted.
    Trooper Ennis said from behind them, “Mr. Kinsman’s horse, sir.”
    â€œRight,” Loring said. “You ready, Harcourt?”
    Harcourt was; Sergeant Mack said, “All formed, sir.”
    While the good-byes were said, Ward glanced briefly at Linus. His face was still flushed, and his jaw was set; his glance, hot and baffled, held Ward’s for a fleeting moment of shame, and, then slid away.
    Captain Loring, at the head of the column now, stepped into the saddle. “Prepare to mount—Mount!”
    The mount was a ragged one, but every trooper kept his seat. Ward stepped into the saddle and carelessly saluted Major Brierly, and then the column, with the Daugherty wagon in the middle, moved off into the night as Loring’s still half-angry voice ordered, “Left by two’s, March!”

Chapter III
    â€œCarrick, Menzies, give Evans a hand there,” Major Brierly ordered.
    Two troopers stepped out from the stable door, and, along with Evans, attempted to hoist Riordan to his feet. Major Brierly had made a poor choice of helpers; Carrick was a raw young recruit, thin, clumsy, lethargic of wit, while Menzies, an old-timer permanently soured on his