Trumpets West!. Luke Short

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      TRUMPETS WEST!

      by Luke Short

      COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

      “Introduction” copyright © 2012 by Wildside Press LLC.

      Typesetting, design, and compilation copyright © 2012 by Wildside Press LLC.

      INTRODUCTION

      Luke Short (real name Frederick Dilley Glidden November 19, 1908 – August 18, 1975) was a popular Western writer.

      Born in Kewanee, Illinois Glidden attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for two and a half years and then transferred to the University of Missouri at Columbia to study journalism.

      Following graduation in 1930 he worked for a number of newspapers before becoming a trapper in Canada then later moved to New Mexico to be an archeologist’s assistant.

      After reading Western pulp magazines and trying to escape unemployment he started writing Western fiction. He sold his first short story and novel in 1935 under the pen name of Luke Short (which was also the name of a famous gunslinger in the Old West, though it’s unclear if he was aware of that when he assumed the pen name.)

      Short’s apprenticeship in the pulps was comparatively brief. In 1938 he sold a short story, “The Warning” to Collier’s and in 1941 he sold his novel Blood on the Moon aka Gunman’s Chance to The Saturday Evening Post.

      After publishing over a dozen novels in the 1930s, he started writing for films in the ’40s. In 1948 alone four Luke Short novels appeared as movies. Some of his memorable film credits includes Ramrod (1947) and Blood on the Moon (1948).

      Short’s novel The Whip aka Doom Cliff was serialized in both Collier’s and The Saturday Evening Post. The first two parts were published in Collier’s in the December 21, 1956 and the January 4, 1957 issues. Collier’s then ceased publication. The Saturday Evening Post bought the rights to the remaining unpublished installment and published it on February 9, 1957.

      He continued to write novels, despite increasing trouble with his eyes, until his death in 1975. His ashes are buried in Aspen, Colorado, his home at the time of his death.

      * * * *

      Trumpets West! (1957) was the first volume of a line of novellas Dell published as “A Dell 10 Cent Book.”

      CHAPTER ONE

      UNDER ARREST

      Fort Akin’s one-room hospital stood at a corner of the parade grounds. Out of respect for the newly sown grass, those who wanted to reach headquarters building in the center of the opposite side of the ground had been ordered to use the gravel walk.

      On this late afternoon of an Arizona July, however, Lieutenant Burke Hanna stepped out of the hospital door and cut string-straight across the parade ground. He was a tall, unshaven, and dirty man in a moderate hurry, and his field uniform was grimed a color closer to gray than blue.

      Crossing the gravel drive, he went up the short walk of headquarters building. A hulking, barrel-chested sergeant major with a black, short-clipped beard that reached almost to his eyes, was coming down the veranda steps. He saluted and said, “Glad you’re back, sir.”

      “Thanks, O’Mara,” Burke said. His foot was on the bottom step when he halted, turned, and called, “O’Mara!”

      The sergeant came back to him, and Burke said, “Did you see those ration requests I sent in by Hardy?”

      “Yes, sir,” O’Mara said in the bland voice of an old soldier who knows his rights. “Captain Ervien wouldn’t sign them, sir.”

      Burke said, “Right. Thanks,” and went up the steps. Standing in the big doorway of the adobe building was Lieutenant Abe Byas, a big man with a morose and homely face and so wide of shoulder that he nearly blocked the doorway—which seemed to his intention now.

      Burke hauled up, and Byas said with gentle mockery in his deep voice, “Counted ten, Burke?”

      “I’ve counted ten thousand,” Burke said grimly. “Let me past, Abe.”

      “Sure,” Byas said, not moving. The two men regarded each other a long moment, then Burke Hanna drew a deep breath.

      “All right,” he said patiently. He lifted off his dusty campaign hat and beat at his trousers with it. His black hair, ragged at the edges, was darker than the thick beard stubble swirled on his lean and weather-blackened face. When he looked up, his wide mouth was humorless. He said bitterly, “What’s gone on here, Abe?”

      Byas only shook his head in kindly refusal to answer. “Did Doc Ford see your cripples?”

      Burke nodded, and said in the same bitter voice, “Two men half dead with dysentery. Raines’s feet are cut to ribbons; so are Kahn’s. A half-dozen others crippled up, and another dozen starved and played out or sick from a diet of horsemeat.” He paused. “Now can I get past?”

      Byas stood aside, and as Burke passed him he laid a hand on his arm. “Look, don’t go in there that way. Get a cinch on your temper, will you?”

      “Sure, sure,” Burke said wryly and went across the bare room and said to the sergeant behind the desk, “Lieutenant Hanna to see Captain Ervien.”

      “He’s got the agent with him, Lieutenant, but he’s expecting you,” said the sergeant.

      “Yes,” Burke said dryly. He paced once across the room and caught sight of Byas, huge in the doorway, watching him gloomily. Byas said, “Calla says come over for dinner tonight.”

      Burke said, “All right, thanks,” in as polite a voice as he could muster, then turned and looked speculatively at one of the chairs as Byas went out. If he sat down he would never want to get up, he knew.

      The door in the wall ahead of him opened, and a big, soft, pale man in an oversize black suit stepped through, closing the door behind him. He and Burke saw each other at the same time. For an instant it seemed as if there would be no recognition, then Burke said idly, “Hello, Corinne.”

      The Apache agent smiled and said with a false heartiness, “How are you, Hanna?” He nodded courteously to the sergeant and went out.

      Burke crushed his dusty campaign hat under his left arm, knocked firmly on the door Corinne had just closed, opened it, and went inside.

      Captain Ervien was at his desk, which was set across the corner of the room between two windows. The American flag and the squadron standard were stacked behind him. He did not look up until Burke was almost in front of him.

      Burke came to attention, saluted, and said, “Lieutenant Hanna reporting, sir.”

      Ervien returned the salute, then leaned back in his chair, regarding Burke’s appearance with a dark and cynical amusement that Burke, from three years of service with him as a junior officer, knew was sincere. Whatever ease there had been between the two men had vanished long before Ervien, upon Major Drummond’s death, had been appointed commanding officer. Ervien, handsome, thirty-five, with his well-tailored uniforms and his thorough and calculating knowledge of Army ways, had elected the course of the garrison soldier. Burke saw his nostrils twitch faintly, and he thought, He’s smelling horse for a change.

      Ervien said, “Burke, I saw you bring in K Troop. The lot of you looked more like a bunch of Mexican army deserters than soldiers.”

      “Maybe that’s because we’ve been treated like Mexican deserters, Phil,” Burke answered.

      Ervien blandly ignored that. “You were afoot. The only officer—walking, just like a damned infantryman. Why?”

      “We lost fifteen horses. Ate some, too.”

      “But not your own. Your sergeant was riding him.”

      Burke nodded shortly. “Raines had walked half the distance from Ojo Negro. His feet are badly cut. The whole troop walked half way, turn about.” He added with an edge to his voice, “That’s the only way we could get back here.”

      “You had rations and forage