Read Online They Came To Cordura by Glendon Swarthout - Free Book Online

which wilted the cavalry animals by virtue of the fact that they were native to these conditions, they would make fine remounts, especially since soldiers would give them the care Mexicans never gave. When a party got around to collecting the enemy dead they found the Apaches had preceded them, looting the bodies of all valuables, particularly silver teeth fillings and the crucifixes worn around the neck. These the Indians would soon have melted down and re-worked into concho slides and belt buckles for sale to the soldiers. Troopers had to content themselves with sporting sombreros. The dress of the dead was a fantastic assortment of uniforms stolen from Federal troops, peon garb and gringo suitings. Some wore shoes, some knee boots, some high leather leggings, some were barefoot. The looks on their faces ranged from the violent to the amused to the beatific, depending on the state of preparation in which death found the spirit of each. Even more fantastic was the conglomeration of rifles which was gathered: there were Winchester levers, Mausers, Remingtons, Krags left over from the war in Cuba, Marlins, Sharps, Ballards, Borchardts, Mannlichers, Evanses, Colts, Lebels, Springfields, and even Henrys; they ran the gamut of American and European calibers. Most of them were badly fouled from the black-powder loads. Many cartridges were simply re-sized leaden and jacketed slugs. A remarkable variety of weapons and ammunition was available to the revolutionaries in El Paso at five times the price originally paid. Villa had often been heard to state profanely that, had only one rifle and one caliber been invented, he could have taken all Mexico in ninety days. A deep, narrow grave was dug south of the ranch and in it, while the black-frocked vultures winged last rites, the forty-four enemy dead were stacked and covered.
    Troopers worked hard all the hot day, red-lidded from lack of sleep but still keyed up by the nervous excitement of the fight. By late afternoon, however, details dismissed, horses picketed to graze on the slopes and horse guard posted, nearly the entire command was bedded down under the cottonwood trees. A cleanly few washed underclothing in the pool in the terreno.
    The stocky figure of an officer walked about the ranch. It was Major Thorn. The day had worn him to the bone, first the fight, trying to see everything and watch Hetherington at the same time, then going among the men, questioning, taking notes, fearing their response to him, then as their faces proved, one after another, that they did not know, relief so complete that it left him trembling. But if they could be at ease with him, he could not with them, ever. Hat brim pushed back, he walked now without direction or purpose. He would have liked to talk with his best friend, Captain Ben Ticknor, surgeon to the squadron, who was with the wounded in the stables, but he did not dare. He had been lucky enough for one day. Being too close to it he could not write about the fight in his notebook, even think clearly about it beyond the fact that it was over and that everyone had got from it what he wanted, himself included, except the Mexicans and the dead, and maybe some of the dead as well. His walk was a delaying action by means of which he put off reporting to Colonel Rogers, who had his headquarters in the casa grande. It was like those he had fought as a small boy when ordered by his father, then a captain, to report for punishment to the first sergeant. That had been his father’s way: too tender-hearted to whip his son himself, he had turned the task over to a succession of first sergeants on a succession of posts. To them the boy had reported after loitering as long as he could. Punishment was public, usually on the parade-ground, and as the sergeant laid to, the father stood by stiff-faced, forcing himself to witness duty done, justice satisfied. Major Thorn could remember that the sergeant at Fort Riley, Kansas, was the hardest spanker, and the one