"Dawn is breaking," Ayana said, rising gracefully to her feet and checking the girth on her pony’s saddle. "Fort Grant is five miles below the eastern foothills. We must ride before their pickets begin their morning patrol."
Fort Grant was not a fortified medieval castle with stone battlements; it was a sprawling, desolate military cantonment situated on a barren mesa at the foot of Mount Graham.
It consisted of long rows of whitewashed adobe barracks, a sprawling complex of quartermaster warehouses, a timber guardhouse, and a broad, dusty parade ground dominated by a tall wooden flagpole bearing the thirty-seven-star American ensign. To the south lay the open horse corrals where two hundred cavalry remounts were kept under armed guard, and to the north ran the deep, rocky trench of the San Pedro wash.
As the sun cleared the eastern horizon, bathing the parade ground in blinding, copper-colored light, the harsh, brassy notes of the morning bugle call—Reveille—echoed across the mesa.
Ethan and Ayana sat their horses on a brush-choked knoll eight hundred yards north of the cantonment, hidden behind a dense screen of tall mesquite. Ethan had made Ayana remain back in the safety of the wash with both mounts; to bring an Apache woman in native dress onto the parade ground of an active frontier post was an invitation for a nervous sentry to open fire with a Springfield carbine before any questions could be asked.
"If I am not back by the time the shadow of that flagpole touches the quartermaster shed," Ethan told her, checking the load of his Colt one last time and slipping the leather dispatch case under his arm, "you turn both horses around and head straight for the Tortolita pass. Don't look back, and don't try to come in after me."
Ayana looked at him, her obsidian eyes dark with an emotion she did not attempt to disguise. She reached out, her fingertips lightly touching the back of his hand where his grip rested on the saddle leather.
"I will wait until the sun sets, Ethan Walker," she whispered fiercely. "And if you do not come out... the blue-coats will learn that the daughter of Whitehawk knows how to draw blood."
Ethan managed a dry, tight smile. "Let's hope it doesn't come to that. Keep your head down."
Leaving Dutch behind, Ethan walked out of the brush and onto the open wagon road leading toward the main sally port of the fort.
He was a sight that commanded instant, suspicious attention. His clothes were shredded from the rocks of the Needle’s Spine, his boots were split open at the seams, and his face was coated in a thick mask of dried red dust and dark trail grime. But he walked with an easy, measured stride, his hands held well away from the holster at his hip, the black dispatch case tucked firmly under his left arm.
"Halt! Who goes there?!"
A corporal of the guard, wearing blue wool trousers with yellow cavalry stripes down the seams and carrying a trapdoor Springfield rifle, stepped out from the shelter of the sentry box beside the gate. Two private sentries immediately stepped up behind him, their carbines at the ready.
"Mister, you take another step and you’ll get an ounce of lead in your brisket," the corporal barked, cocking his rifle with a menacing clack. "State your business on government ground!"
"I need to see Captain Marcus Baylor," Ethan said clearly, coming to an immediate stop thirty paces from the gate. "Immediately. It’s a matter of life and death, Corporal."
The corporal spat a brown stream of tobacco juice into the dust, sneering at the ragged civilian. "Captain Baylor don't see drifters and vagrants, boy. The post commander is inspecting Company C for an offensive deployment. Turn your tail around and march back toward the civilian saloons in Hookersville before I throw you in the guardhouse for vagrancy."
"Tell him I have the dispatch case from Rattlesnake Wells," Ethan shouted, holding up the black leather pouch so the brass lock and the territorial seal caught the morning sun. "Tell him it concerns the forged eviction writs for Claim Forty-Four and thirty thousand dollars in syndicate bribes. And tell him that if he mounts his troopers without reading what's inside, he'll be facing a court-martial for treason before the month is out."
The corporal’s sneer froze on his face. The two privates exchanged wide-eyed, nervous glances. No ordinary tramp knew the private operational orders of Company C, and no civilian waved a sealed territorial dispatch case unless he was either a government agent or a madman with nothing left to lose.