The Colonel's Lady Read Online Free PDF Page A

cavalry down the legs, blue shirts, blue blouse, dress helmets with faded plumes, underwear, boots, shoes, socks, carbine and saber, forty rounds of ammunition, saddlebags, sewing equipment, shoeshine equipment, campaign hat, forage cap, poncho, currycomb and brush, the regimental insignia of crossed sabers and organization number, and what seemed to be a thousand other odds and ends, all a man could carry. After we had loaded our arms, the quartermaster sergeant hung a cartridge belt around our necks, to which there was hooked a holster. In the holster was a Colt's .44-caliber revolver, the long-barreled cavalry model.
    We took all that to the A Company barracks and came back and got our straw-filled mattress ticking and blankets.
    Morgan swore quietly through it all. Steuber sat on his bunk and immediately began inspecting his Springfield carbine. A poker game went on uninterrupted at the far end of the barracks.
    I got out of my clothes and into the new uniform. As soon as Steuber was satisfied that the carbine was a serviceable weapon he did the same, but Morgan sat on the edge of his bunk, his jaws locked tightly. Until now, I guess, he had never actually believed that he would have to wear the Yankee blue that he hated.
    “What's the matter?” I asked.
    “You were with the Alabama Horse,” he said grimly. “You ought to know.”
    “That was a long time ago.”
    Retreat had gone while the quartermaster sergeant had been outfitting us. Now we heard the short up-and-down notes of mess call and the Dutchman reached for his mess kit.
    The card game broke up as the men filed out, Steuber ahead of all of them. Morgan sat there, glaring. He was still sitting there when I walked out, but before we had half finished supper he came out with his mess kit. He had the uniform on.
    That night the three of us, the new ones in the company, went to the sutler's store outside the walls. But the whisky was bad and the prices were high, and none of us had much money.
    “Another one?” Steuber asked, fingering his empty whisky glass.
    “I'm broke,” I said.
    “Maybe the sutler'll give us credit till payday.”
    “Not till we get on the books through the company.”
    “How about you, Morgan?” the Dutchman asked.
    “I'm broke too. Goddamn!” he said abruptly, bitterly, and kicked his chair back and walked out.
    “That Morgan,” Steuber said thoughtfully, “he's a strange one.” He scratched his big nose; he pushed his forage cap back and scratched his head. “I think he's in trouble,” he said directly. “Maybe more trouble than he can get out of.”
    “He'll have to work it out for himself.”
    Steuber shrugged. “Sure. There are things you notice about him, though. The clothes he had on before he changed to the uniform, for one thing. The pants worn threadbare just above the knee, about the place a leather thong would go if you wanted to tie your holster down.” The Dutchman looked sadly at his empty whisky glass. “Nobody but a gunman goes to that much trouble to see that his pistol is just right. Did you notice that?”
    I had noticed it, but I hadn't thought Steuber had. I was guessing that Morgan—if that was his name—had killed somebody, somebody pretty important, from the looks of things, and had chosen Fort Larrymoor as a good place to hide out. I could see that the Dutchman was thinking the same thing.
    Pretty soon I left Steuber sitting there staring forlornly at the empty glass and went outside and back toward the gates of the fort. It was dark now and it was a sad, lonesome place, that part of Arizona. I could see the heads and shoulders of sentries as they paced the runaround inside the adobe walls. And beyond, a thin slice of moon over the hills. It was smoky-looking and pale and worn out. I had an uneasy feeling that those high sad hills were watching me, and probably they were. I remembered the family we had buried that afternoon and the night seemed cold.
    Kohi was just a name to me, and not a