The Black Hills

by William W. Johnstone

  Becker, who had done his best to jerk his critical gaze from Stillwell when the sheriff had gained his feet and turned toward him, now feigned a look of surprise and indignation, jerking his head back and furling his thin, fawn brows. “Wha—huh?”

  Ignoring the handful of other men around him taking their breakfast in the saloon instead of in the formal dining room on the other side of the lobby, Stillwell strode stiffly toward the barkeep. “I asked you what you were staring at just now, Clancy.”

  “What’re you talkin’ about, Frank? What’s it matter to you what I was starin’ at? I can stare at any damn thing . . .” Becker let the sentence trail to silence, for he saw the dark cast to the sheriff’s eyes as Stillwell drew up on the other side of the bar from him.

  “You think so, do you?”

  Clancy stared back at the peeved lawman, wariness and consternation growing in his gaze. He was remembering the veritable bloodbath that had occurred not long ago, near the arched doorway to the lobby.

  “You’re talkin’ pretty sharp to me these days, Clancy. What makes you think I’ll let you get by with it? Did I let Jackson and Wise get by with it? What makes you think I won’t cut off your ugly head, dry it, and wear it on my vest as a watch fob?”

  Clancy swallowed. A single sweat bead popped out on his left temple and trickled down the side of his face. “Look, Frank, I . . .”

  “Sheriff Stillwell, Clancy.”

  “All right, all right—Sheriff Stillwell, if you must know, I was starin’ through the window beyond you. Not at you but beyond you. I was starin’ at the Purple Garter across the street, where poor Mr. Chaney expired yesterday—murdered by them Buchanon butchers. I was thinkin’ to myself about his poor boys, Billy an’ Pee-Wee and what a tragic week it’s been for them two. First they lose their brother Luke and then they lose their father, succumbing as Mr. Chaney did to his wounds.

  “I was thinkin’ what an awful tragedy it is. Then, with one thought followin’ another the way they often do, I got to wondering what’s gonna happen to this place, since Mr. Chaney was part owner. That thought led to me pontificatin’ on how maybe I should go over to the undertaker’s place, where I hear Mr. Chaney’s laid out, and pay my respects to him and Billy an’ Pee-Wee. I heard several other fellas talkin’ about how they was gonna do that before the day heated up and the poor man started attractin’ flies not to mention collecting gas and smelling bad. I got me a sensitive sniffer.”

  Clancy placed a finger beside his nose to indicate the organ of topic.

  When Stillwell only stared at him, Clancy, growing even more uncomfortable under the heated lawman’s dark scrutiny, added, “Forgive me, Sheriff Stillwell, if my eyes strayed to you. I assure you they did not do so with the intention of giving offense.”

  Stillwell kept his glaring eyes on Clancy for another several beats.

  Finally, he drew a breath, curled his upper lip with disdain, and said, “I’ll be danged, Clancy, if you ain’t the windiest son of a gun who ever blew through Tigerville. It’s a wonder you ever get anything done around here.”

  With that, Stillwell turned and strode stiffly on down the side of the bar. At the rear of the room he pushed through the curtained doorway. Once in the silence of the dark corridor that ran under the stairs slanting up on his left and the kitchen on his right, Stillwell drew another deep, calming breath and told himself quietly, “Calm, Frank. Just stay calm, for chrissakes. If you ain’t careful, the town’s gonna switch from thinkin’ you’re a coward to thinkin’ you need to be carted off to a loony bin.”

  Stillwell pushed through the hotel’s rear door and tramped across the pine planks extending from the door to the single-hole privy flanking a long, tall pile of split cordwood. The pine planks were to help keep boots clean during rainstorms, there being little grass but a lot of dirt in Tigerville.

  The sheriff followed the planks to the privy constructed of vertical whipsawed boards and with a slightly slanted, shake-shingled roof and a half-moon carved into its door, near the top.

  He grabbed the steel handle, pulled.

  Locked.

  “Occupied,” sounded a gravelly voice from inside.

  Stillwell cursed, grabbed the handle with both hands, and gave it a fierce pull. The door snapped open as the nail and steel locking ring clattered onto the privy’s wooden floor.

  “Hey!” bellowed the stout gent sitting inside. He glared out from under the narrow brim of a shabby bowler hat from the band of which a hawk feather protruded, and yelled, “I told you it was occupied!”

  “Poop or get off the pot!” Stillwell lifted one boot over the threshold, grabbed the man by his shirt collar, and jerked him up off the bench.

  “Hey, you can’t . . . !” Tripping over his canvas trousers that were bunched around his ankles, the stout gent went stumbling through the privy door like a bull through a too-narrow chute, tripping over his own boots and dropping to his knees just outside the privy.

  “Yes, I can,” Stillwell said. “I’m the sheriff in these parts. Now, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like a little privacy!” He reached for the door as the stout gent cast him a russet-faced, indignant glare over his thick right shoulder, then pulled the door closed, absently lamenting that now he couldn’t lock it.

  “Occupied!” the sheriff bellowed before adding, “Pee-YOU—it stinks in here!”

  Stillwell dropped his pants and made himself comfortable. Outside there was much growling and cursing as the stout gent got himself together and stumbled away, likely off to find another Irish shanty.

  Stillwell drew another deep breath.

  Perched there over the hole, he managed to relax.

  However, he’d no sooner gotten his mind to calm down, the demons in his brain to scurry back to their hidey-holes, when something hard smashed against the privy door with a near-deafening bang!

  A rock. Had to be . . .

  “Who the hell was that?” Stillwell yelled, sitting there over the hole with his whipcord trousers bunched around his boots.

  Outside there was only silence except for the piping of birds in the brush behind the privy, and the ratcheting of crickets. Distantly, he could hear the usual daily din of the main street, but back here there was nothing.

  Then there was something as someone threw another rock against the privy door with an even louder bang! than before.

  Stillwell’s heart thumped with rage. “Who’s out there?”

  Another rock smashed against the door, causing the door to jerk in its frame, dust sifting around it. Stillwell gnashed his teeth together, enraged.

  “It’s Stillwell in here!”

  Yet another rock barked against the door. The sound inside the privy was like a pistol shot. The concussive report was like two cupped hands slapped against the sheriff’s ears.

  “Is that you, fat man? Come back to get even?”

  Stillwell cursed again, wiped himself quickly with pages from a catalog, and pulled up his trousers. His anger made it a clumsy maneuver. His entire body trembled with exasperation. When he got his suspenders pulled up over his arms, he strapped his Colt and cartridge belt around his waist. He left his frock coat and hat hanging from a peg on the wall to his left.

  He paused. The rocks had stopped slamming against the door, but he thought he could hear muffled laughter and someone moving around out there. He peered through a gap between two vertical planks, but he couldn’t see much for the grit crusted between the boards. He looked out through the half-moon.

  Still, nothing.

  Someone was playing a joke on him. They were mocking him.

  Kids? Maybe one of the town’s whores’ wild urchins.

  Stillwell’s heart was thudding heavily. It beat so hard that he felt the painful throbs in his temples. Fury was a wild bronc inside of him.

  He unsnapped the keeper thong from over the Peacemaker holstered on his right hip. He slid the long-barreled piece from its holster, thumbed the hammer back.

  No one around here had a
ny respect for him anymore. Well, he’d see about that . . .

  Again, he heard a muffled snicker.

  Stillwell stepped back against the bench, lifted his right leg, and thrust it forward, kicking the door wide with the bottom of his boot. He took one step forward, and as the door ricocheted off the privy to slam against his left shoulder, he extended the Colt straight out in his left hand.

  A man stood before him, about ten feet away. Vaguely, Stillwell was aware of three others, but he drew a bead on the man straight ahead of him and, hearing one of the men shout, “Frank!” he squeezed the Colt’s trigger.

  It kicked like a branded calf as the bullet flew from the barrel in a burst of smoke and bright orange flames to drill a neat round hole through the forehead of the man straight out in front of him. The man screamed and flew back, hitting the ground hard in the dirt to the right of the pine planks.

  “Frank, stand down, fer chrissakes! Stand down! It’s Jack an’ the boys!”

  Squinting against his own peppery powder smoke, Stillwell looked at the man who’d spoken. Dakota Jack Patterson stood to the right of the man Stillwell had shot and who now lay flat on the ground on his back, jerking wildly, eyes rolling up in their sockets. Patterson was a tall hombre as broad as a barn door and with thick, curly yellow hair tufting out from under the brim of his broad-brimmed black Plainsman hat, his long, pitted, ugly face framed in muttonchops of the same color. He stared at Stillwell, thick-lipped mouth hanging wide in shock.

  He turned to where the down man was fast dying—a short, stocky man with Indian-dark skin and wearing a necklace of bear claws, which splayed out now on his worn calico shirt. Patterson turned back to Stillwell and said, “Stand down, Frank! Stand down! Willie’s one of us, for the love of Pete!”

  Stillwell had clicked the Colt’s hammer back for another shot, but now he depressed the hammer and slowly lowered the piece to his side. Bewildered and flustered, he scowled at big Dakota Jack, and said, “J-Jack . . . ?”

  “It’s Jack,” Patterson repeated, nodding his head. He gestured at the dying man who looked dead by now, no longer jerking. “That’s Willie Cruz. Half-breed Mex from Arizona. Willie’s one of my men, Jack. He rides with me an’ Klaus an’ Weed.”

  Patterson nodded at each of the other two men as he’d recited their names. Weed Zorn, a snaky gunman from Missouri, was crouched over the half-breed, Willie Cruz, hands on his thighs. Klaus Steinbach, a cobalt-eyed, black-bearded killer from west Texas, stood off to Zorn’s right, a faint smile on his thin-lipped mouth, as though the scene amused him. He slowly shook his head, lifted a smoldering quirley to his lips, and took a long drag.

  Weed Zorn looked at Patterson. “The bean-eater’s dead—just like that.” Zorn slid his flat, darkly accusing gaze to Stillwell.

  Anger flared once more in the sheriff, and, holstering the still-smoking Colt, he snapped, “Well, what the hell was he throwin’ rocks at the privy for?”

  “That wasn’t Willie,” Patterson said, suddenly grinning, showing an uncommon number of large, yellow teeth and one silver one, which winked in the morning sun. “I was just funnin’ with ya, was all. The barkeep told us you was out here.”

  “Well, I hope you enjoyed yourself,” Stillwell said. “Now you got a man to bury.”

  “Christ,” Zorn said, looking down at the unmoving half-breed. “Willie was a good man too. That’s too bad.” Zorn looked at Patterson. “I wonder what Lupita’s gonna say about this.”

  Patterson filled his heavy lungs with a fateful sigh.

  “Who’s Lupita?” Stillwell asked.

  “Willie’s sister. Zorn’s girl over in Laramie.” To Zorn, Patterson said, “We’ll make somethin’ up between now and when we see her again. We’ll make up a good story about how Willie died in an honorable way—maybe shootin’ it out with lawmen or some such.” He glanced snidely at Stillwell. “We’ll make somethin’ up.”

  Stillwell gave a caustic snort. “I don’t care if you do or not.”

  “What’re we gonna do with him?” asked the black-bearded Klaus Steinbach.

  “Good question,” Patterson said. He turned to Stillwell. “Any ideas, Frank?”

  “Hell, I don’t have any ideas. I was the one who had to shoot the sidewinder. That’s as far as I go. You’re the reason he’s dead.”

  Patterson studied Stillwell, wrinkling the skin above the bridge of his nose. It was almost as though he sensed the turmoil behind the sheriff’s own eyes. The scrutiny made Stillwell uncomfortable. Patterson must have realized it, because he suddenly returned his attention to the dead man.

  “Well, this is a tragedy, right here. It sure enough is. Willie was a chili-chompin’ half-breed, that’s true, but you wouldn’t know it by the way he carried himself. Honorable as any white man, and that’s a fact.”

  Patterson turned to peer around Stillwell and the privy flanking the sheriff, gazing off toward scattered houses, woodpiles, and stock pens shaded by occasional cottonwoods and sheathed in sage. “As I recollect, some old woman has a hogpen back there somewheres. I mean a real hogpen. Not a whore’s crib.”

  “Still does,” Stillwell said. “The Widow Bjornson. That’s her white house and red barn back yonder.”

  “Hell, Willie might’ve been a half-breed,” said Weed Zorn, “but that don’t make it right to feed him to hogs.”

  “You gonna bury him in this heat?” Steinbach asked Zorn. “Or pay to have the undertaker bury him?”

  “Undertaker’s done booked up for the foreseeable future,” Stillwell said. “Him and his idjit son been sawin’ wood to build wooden overcoats day an’ night.” He glanced meaningfully at Dakota Jack. “It’s that trouble I wired you about. In spite of that fool trick you pulled on me, I’m glad you made it, though I doubt your dead friend here would feel likewise.”

  Stillwell chuffed an ironic laugh, satisfied how the old, notorious trickster Dakota Jack had gotten the tables turned on him. Jack flushed. That made Stillwell feel even better, made him stand up a little straighter, grin, and tuck his thumbs behind his cartridge belt.

  Dakota Jack glanced at Steinbach and Zorn. “Hell, Willie ain’t gonna know what happens to him. I liked Willie, too, but he was still a half-breed. In fact, I heard he was three-quarters Lipan Apache.”

  Steinbach’s cobalt eyes snapped wide in shock. “That right?”

  “That’s what I heard tell.” Dakota Jack gestured with his arm. “Haul him over to the hogpen. Hell, it all amounts to the same sooner or later. If he’s buried in a hole, we’re all smorgasbords for the carrion-eaters in the end.”

  “No truer words have ever been spoken,” agreed Weed Zorn, crouching to grab the dead man’s ankles. “Help me here, Klaus.”

  Dakota Jack turned to Stillwell. “While you two are disposing of Willie, Sheriff Stillwell and I will head inside and talk business. I for one am a mite curious about your so-called venture here, Frank.” He smiled shrewdly. “And any money that might be involved. Bismarck is a literal cesspool these days. Do you know that I passed out drunk in a whore’s crib and woke up the next mornin’ stripped clean? Why, I’m poorer than Job’s cat!”

  CHAPTER 25

  Hunter crossed the slope of the ridge at a hard gallop and drew Nasty Pete up close to the wagon’s left side.

  Annabelle had heard him coming. She gazed at him now over her left shoulder as she held Titus’s reins in her gloved hands. Bobby Lee gave a couple of low yips in greeting as Hunter stepped off Pete’s back and into the wagon’s driver’s boot. He tossed his Stetson into the box, then took the reins back from Anna, who was eyeing the floppy-brimmed campaign hat on his head, the grizzly claw necklace hanging down his chest, and the handsome pearl grips of the big LeMat jutting above the soft leather holster strapped to his thigh.

  She slid her gaze back to Hunter’s eyes but did not say anything. She pulled her mouth corners down and then turned her head to stare out over Titus’s long ears. Hunter leaned toward her and gave her cheek a comforting kiss. She did no
t turn back to him but kept her eyes straight ahead, harboring her own dark thoughts about the coming storm, likely wondering about its outcome.

  Who would live and who would die?

  Hunter glanced over his shoulder at old Angus. The old man still slept in the same position as before, that troubling grimace still twisting his mouth.

  As they reached the bottom of the long slope and Hunter put Titus up the opposite incline, Nasty Pete following along to one side without needing to be tied, Annabelle said, “How much farther? All this jostling can’t be good for Angus.”

  “Top of this next ridge.” Hunter shook the reins over the mule’s back and said, “Come on, Titus—no stopping to graze, you old cribber!”

  The next rise was as long as the first but not as steep. Still, to make the ride less jarring and to go easy on Titus, Hunter steered the mule on a gradual switchbacking route, ploddingly making his way toward the crest unseen beyond a thick stand of trees that started about halfway up the slope.

  Hunter let Titus pick his own way through the trees, and when they couldn’t go any farther because of thick brush and snags, Hunter drew back on the reins and the wagon squawked to a rocking halt.

  “Looks like this is as close as we’re gonna get.” Hunter set the brake. “That’s all right. I wanted a place that’s hard to get to.”

  “How much farther?”

  Hunter nodded to indicate where the trees thinned just ahead and he could see some boulders of various sizes and a wall of crenelated limestone rock. “Up there. Fifty, sixty yards.”

  Hunter climbed out of the driver’s boot and walked around to the back of the wagon. He opened the tailgate and leaped inside, dropping to a knee beside Angus. He touched the old man’s shoulder and was relieved when Angus immediately opened his eyes and looked around.

  “Where in hell are we?”

  “Where I was headed.”

  Anger turned the old man’s cheeks dark russet. “Don’t run me around the dogwood tree, boy! Where’s where you was headed?”