They Came To Cordura by Glendon Swarthout Page B

could be alone and think about how he would tell them tonight.
    “For one thing, it would be like going to bed with a man.’’
    He heard the hiss of her breath.
    “Then I don’t know what to do. Yes, I do. I’m going to ride. You can’t catch me, you know it. I’m going to ride out of here!”
    Thorn turned in his saddle. She had the bird close to her, its beak white at her throat, her hands caressing it as though it were a child she would kill with love. The muscle in her face beat like a wing.
    “Don’t try it,” he warned.
    “You wouldn’t dare shoot a woman!”
    “I wouldn’t try. But I can bring your horse down at three hundred yards with a rifle.”
    Her face twisted.
    “You stupid military son-of-a-bitch!”
    She spurred the mare savagely away from him. He kept one hand on the Springfield in its boot behind him until she slowed and took her place between him and the main body. His palms were slippery with sweat. Somehow, he could not understand it: what she had called him was the most female utterance she had made.
    By mid-afternoon the altitude caught up with the detail. Lieutenant Fowler halted the main body and when Major Thorn rode up to inquire why, the Lieutenant and Hetherington were both dismounted and attempting to stanch nose-bleeds. He called a break and had the pair hold their heads back and press their nostrils. Telling Renziehausen to keep an eye on the prisoner, he tore a sheet of paper from his notebook, rolled it into two balls, and put them under the upper lips of those bleeding. While they waited for the flow to cease he had a look at their animals and that of Sergeant Chawk. Two, though saddled properly, had sore backs where the forward end of the blankets had rubbed the hide raw, and he did what he could to correct this, taking his own maneja from Sheep’s neck and cutting it into straps with his pocket-knife. Chawk, watching the operation, nodded towards the Geary woman. She sat her horse with a lit cigarette slanting from her mouth.
    “Major, you know how long we ain’t had smokes.”
    “I know.”
    “Well, you tell ‘er we don’t like it. She tants us much more and somebody might stick a few of them shucks up ‘er ass and set fire to ‘em.”
    The threat surprised Thorn. Glowering, the sergeant of D stood head and shoulders over him. To meet it he fixed his eyes not on Chawk’s, but, disconcertingly, on his nose, which was nearly as large and hooked as the beak of the bird. The giant’s nostrils were black with hair.
    “You carry a tune very well, Sergeant,” he said easily. “Do you know Spanish?”
    The question confused Chawk. Before he could reply the officer continued. “Incidentally, make sure the men switch their rifle boots to the opposite side when they saddle up tomorrow morning, then back again the next day. We may avoid some sore withers that way.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    Within another hour the sun sloped. At once the air chilled. Thorn decided to keep them going until dark; it would make up some of the time lost to altitude and there was a bare chance they would reach water. He might have to take the cigarettes from the Geary woman if she persisted, as Chawk put it, in ‘tanting’ the men with them, and ration them equally among those who smoked. They deserved them more than she. ‘And you have to plan tonight,’ he reminded himself. ‘For a thing like this there must be a plan. Four soldiers have so distinguished themselves in battle that they are worthy of their country’s highest award to the brave; four human beings are suddenly heroes; what must be unprecedented is that all four have been brought together in one place and do not yet know what they have done or what they are. It may be that this time is the only time anyone will ever have so perfect a chance to put his hand on the bare heart of heroism and hear answers to one of the great questions man has asked about himself. But if you tell a human being what he has done, will he then,