Black Hills (9781101559116)

by Thompson, Rod

  The way Cormac was feeling was puzzlin’, and he found himself enjoying her nearness. Why he was having the feelings he was having was a question beggin’ for an answer. Although her breathing didn’t quite sound like it, she must have been asleep ’cause her eyes were shut and she didn’t move away. He reckoned it to be all right if she was to stay there a bit.

  When they pulled into town a little after noon, the street was nearly deserted. Traffic and sunshine had worn away the snow in front of the stores. Wishful of keeping the runners in the snow, Mr. Schwartz pulled the sled around the back of the buildings to come up behind the general store.

  The thick snow muffled the horses’ hooves, and they slid quietly around the rear of the bank that was jutting out beyond the store. There, a girl about Lainey’s age was trying hard to resist being taken to the ground by a man holding one hand over her mouth to keep her from yelling while pushing her down and tearing at her clothes with the other. He outsized her considerably, and she was losing the struggle.

  Visions of his mother and Becky overcame Cormac. He was out of the wagon and nearly on the struggling duo before they realized they were no longer alone. Cormac caught the man on the turn with a fist to the middle of his face, splattering blood across the snow. The attacker fell back against the loading dock. Cormac had gained much in size and strength, and at eighteen was already larger than most men. All of the pent-up anger, hatred, and rage boiled over. Finally, here was someone he could spend it on.

  No longer aware of his surroundings and holding nothing back, Cormac waded into the man with heavy blows to his mid-section as fast and hard as he could punch, alternating with more to his face, turning it into mush. The onslaught overpowered the rapist and knocked him over backward. Cormac yanked him to his feet and continued the hammering. He felt hands trying to pull him off, but he wouldn’t be stopped. He broke free and continued the beating.

  “Hey, Billy,” came a voice from someone still in the alley beside the store but coming closer. “What’s taking you so long? How about we help you with her? She should be able to handle us all.”

  Two men in cowhand attire rounded the corner.

  “What the hell!” one exclaimed, when they saw what was happening to their cohort. They grabbed for their guns.

  Not knowing he was dead, Cormac was holding the man he had been beating upright with his left hand and Mrs. Schwartz had just taken a strong grip on his right arm in an attempt to stop the beating. The dead man’s gun had twisted to hang down across his belly. Cormac let the man go and as the body slipped to the ground, he grabbed the gun with his left hand and felt it pounding in his fist.

  He worked the hammer fast, pulling it back again and again as rapidly as it fell. Sounding like one long peal of rolling thunder, the sound of gunshots echoed off the buildings as one man went down and the other turned to run. He didn’t make it. The last two bullets opened up the back of his head. Cormac was still pulling the hammer on an empty gun when Mr. Schwartz gently took it from him.

  Cormac didn’t know what to do, so he did nothing. He simply stood there while men with excited voices came running. Mrs. Schwartz and Lainey were comforting the hysterical girl while Mr. Schwartz was explaining to a man with a badge why Cormac shouldn’t be arrested for killing three men.

  The badge belonged to Sheriff Woodrow. Sheriff Jason Woodrow was about the same age as Cormac’s pa had been, a little shorter maybe, and more plump, with a round bearded face above a belly that hung over his belt. His eyes said not to let his appearance fool you; he knew what he was about, and he took his job seriously. If you strayed outside the law, you would find yourself keeping the dust off the bed in his one jail cell.

  In this case, though, Mr. Schwartz needn’t have worried. The Sheriff didn’t make much of the incident. As it turned out, the reprobates had been swaggering around town three days, drunk much of the time, terrifying the women, and beating any men who complained. They had shot up the barbershop when the barber accidentally nicked one of them he was shaving. Since they quickly offered to pay restitution, Sheriff Woodrow hadn’t been able to do anything about it other than warn them. Cormac’s only reprimand came from the sheriff regarding the man being shot in the back of the head.

  After having one of the women bystanders, an acquaintance of the girl, see her home, the sheriff had taken Cormac and the Schwartzes to the jail for private questioning and while doing so, poured a round of coffee from a large pot sitting on a potbellied stove in the corner.

  “All I’m saying is, shooting someone in the back of the head looks cowardly and somehow wrong. Even though they were troublemakers and the townsfolk all wanted them to leave—some wanted them dead—a shot to the back of the head is never a good thing.”

  “Cowardly?” Mr. Schwartz was angry, his accent more pronounced. “Cowardly? He had pulled von of them off the girl and vas beating the stuffin’s out of him. Two men comed out of the alley drawin’ their guns and probably vould have killed us all, and yoouu call him cowardly?” He made an attempt to calm down. “Are yoouu charging him vith anything?”

  “No, of course not. If I did, the townsfolk would have my head. No. He can leave.”

  “Cowardly,” Mr. Schwartz mumbled, shaking his head as they stepped out of the jail onto the boardwalk.

  The little group went to the general store where Mr. and Mrs. Schwartz ordered the supplies they needed. While Mrs. Schwartz, Lainey, and Cormac loaded them into the sled, Mr. Schwartz went to the bank to take care of some business. The three worked in silence; the fun was gone from the trip. Lainey and Cormac even refused an offer for some store-bought candy.

  The trip home was long and silent. Mrs. Schwartz was standoffish, and Lainey only spoke to Cormac once, icily calling him by his full name, instead of Cormie, as she usually did. She huddled silently under her own blanket on the other side of the sled all the way home. When her blanket came loose and blew off her feet, he automatically reached to tuck it in. She kicked at his hand, staring at him ferociously when he looked up into her eyes. Her bitter anger and hatred was evident. She had watched him kill three more people.

  So he had beaten one to death. So what? When someone commits violence against an innocent person who has done nothing to provoke the attack, the attacker has no right to complain about the severity of the response. And what the heck difference did it make which direction the bullet came from? Would the man have been any less dead if the bullet had entered his head from the front? Cormac thought Lainey would have understood, but if she wanted nothing to do with him anymore, so be it.

  The townsfolk had patted him on the back, and the girl’s parents couldn’t thank him enough, but it was clear that the women at home thought him to be some out of control evil man, and even Mr. Schwartz, who had stood up for him in town, was somewhat reserved around him.

  Unable to again bear her stony silence and unwilling to revert to the miserable existence they had once endured, that night, he left.

  CHAPTER 5

  The note read:To Mr. & Mrs. Schwartz, thank you for caring about me when I needed somebody. You are very nice people. Good-bye. I like you very much.

  As only heir of John and Amanda Lynch, I am giving the farm and all things I can’t carry with me to Mr. and Mrs. Herman Schwartz. And to Lainey Nayle.

  Cormac Lynch, March 17, 1872.

  P. S. Happy birthday, Lainey. I am sorry I ruined it for you.

  Another note read: To Lainey, I do not understand your attitude. I don’t know what else I could have done. It was in me. I would think you would understand because of your close experience of a similar nature. But it is your right to have whatever attitude you want. When you first came to live here, I remember how hard it was for you to deal with me being here. I won’t make you go through that again. I left some books so you could keep studying. Please do. Good-bye,

  Quietly he gathered up what he considered to be his most important belongings, which included a pocket knife Becky had given him, a few of his pa’s pap
ers and his big belt-knife in its leather case, a necklace-watch his pa had given to his mother when they married, and a few of his mother’s books. The others he left for Lainey. He also took the six hundred dollars of moneys with him, which was his share of the crops that had been divided between the Schwartzes, he, and Lainey over four years. This was in addition to the money of his parents, which had been hidden in a secret place in their bedroom, enough food for a few days, his pa’s ten-gauge scattergun, and GERT, and slipped quietly out of the house.

  From the tack storage bin in the barn, he removed the gun belts, handguns, and rifles that Lainey had taken off the outlaws so long ago and which had since remained in the tack storage box . . . the guns that had killed his pa. It had been difficult, but he had cleaned and oiled them before storing them away. If somebody needed shootin’, it would be because they were some type of lowlife, and using bad men’s guns against other bad men and their like sounded like a fine idea to Cormac: a payback of sorts—poetic justice, his mother would have called it.

  Cormac chose three revolvers with good heft that felt good in his hands. One was a cap and ball long-barreled single-action .44 caliber Army Colt with smooth wooden grips known for its range, power, and accuracy which, though in surprisingly good condition, had obviously seen much use.

  A traveling gun salesman staying with them whilst waiting for the passing of a typical Dakota winter storm that had the snow piled up to the eaves, had been hoping—without success—to impress Lainey with how much he knew and had given Cormac and Mr. Schwartz a lengthy lesson on guns. Cormac had taken to it eagerly, which was no surprise to any of them. What Cormac found surprising was Lainey’s interest in the subject. She had paid close attention from beginning to end. His second choice, a rotating-cylinder revolver with similar wooden grips that appeared near-new, carried the name of Smith & Wesson imprinted on the body and used the same .44 caliber cartridge as his pa’s rifle. Although the past owners of these guns had held their other belongings in total disregard, Cormac was forced to grudgingly give them credit for taking good care of their weapons. A third gun, taken as a spare, was also a Smith & Wesson and used a like ammunition, but hadn’t been as well maintained, causing the action to be stiff and needing work.

  Putting the spare gun in his saddlebag, Cormac made sure the guns were loaded and strapped on to the two holsters. They slid nicely into place, but wearing two guns made him feel flashy, like a tinhorn gambler. He decided wearing the right-hand gun by itself would be adequate.

  Until the snake incident, he had always considered himself to be left-handed, but it didn’t seem that his hands much cared which one did the shooting. His right had blown the head off a snake, and the left had dispatched two of the three would-be rapists easily enough. Although he had begun noticing that most things could be done as easily with one hand as the other, wearing the gun on his right side felt a bit more natural. His pa’s being the only rifle of any interest, he returned the others to the storage bin.

  Securing the Army Colt and the scattergun to the gear on the packhorse in such a way that either could be gotten quickly for an easy grab in an emergency, Cormac concealed them under a loose canvas cover. Experience told him that prepared was the sensible thing to be.

  The best horse on the place, or any other place, as far as Cormac’s pa had been concerned, was his large gray gelding that he’d had since Cormac was thirteen. The horse had been given him as a yearling by a colonel in the Union army, whose life his pa had saved twice during the war. According to the colonel, the gray was special because its sire had been from some Arabian country. Cormac’s pa had affectionately named him Lop Ear. Partially for his one ear, which perpetually hung down after being bitten half off in a fight with another stallion before he had been gelded and had his manhood stripped away, thus removing his fighting tendencies. And partially so he wouldn’t be gettin’ highfalutin ideas and wantin’ to be treated like royalty just because of his proud-walkin’, high-steppin’ and long, slender legs and arched neck, and carrying his tail so high and fancy.

  Cormac led Lop Ear out of his stall and threw his pa’s saddle on his back. It was not only the saddle in the best condition, but it was the only one large enough to fit the big horses and Cormac, who was now six foot four.

  Wanting a second saddle horse that could double as a packhorse, he chose the outlaw’s grulla of which he had become quite fond. A beautiful and long-legged dark slate-gray mare with mustang lines that looked to be about the same age and size as Lop Ear, she was well mannered and friendly with a smooth gait that made her easy to sit. They had become friends and, for lack of a better name, Cormac had simply called her Horse in the beginning and had never felt the need to change it.

  A gift that Lainey had made for him came to mind, and just before leaving, he tiptoed back into the house to get it: an arrowhead she had found and made into a neck-charm with a strip of rawhide she had braided. Cormac had taken it off while getting cleaned up to go into town that morning and forgotten to put it back on. Pausing for one last look, he sighed, and silently closed the door.

  “Our guiding star,” as his pa had called it, was high in the sky when Cormac stopped on the hilltop overlooking their valley. Cormac had a moment of hesitation.

  “It’s not ours anymore,” he said aloud. It’s not mine anymore either . . . It’s theirs. Oh, the heck with it, he thought. He was eighteen years old. Maybe now was the time to go see some of the sights travelers had been telling them about.

  “Well, Lop Ear, that’s about enough dramatics,” he said. “Let’s us go say good-bye to Mother, Pa, and Becky, and point our noses west and go see what it’s all about anyway.” The grulla followed willingly to the gravesites on her hackamore.

  The crosses didn’t seem to be enough. The names he had so carefully inscribed on them now seemed so inadequate. It had seemed like enough at the time. But no longer. There should be something telling what wonderful people they were, telling how his pa had always worked so hard to love and take care of his family, and how his mother had worked in the fields by his side all day, cooked their favorite meals, made them clothes, and sewn special gifts for each of them of an evening, and how Becky had always taken the time to play with him when he was little and tell him stories. Three crosses with just their names wasn’t enough, but there was nothing he could do about it now.

  The horses stood quietly beside him somehow knowing something was wrong. Horse blew and Lop Ear shook his head. Cormac mounted, and they set out at an easy lope. Lop Ear could keep that up all day and put a lot of miles behind them, and Cormac wanted some miles behind them by morning. The events of the day had left him keyed up, and he wasn’t the least bit tired. It would catch up with him, no doubt, but for the time being he was enjoying the night ride. There was a strange mixture of sadness for the life he was leaving behind. He would miss the Schwartzes. After a bit he added silently and Lainey. But at the same time, he felt an excitement for what lay ahead. The fate and shaping of Cormac Lynch was now in his own hands. His mother and pa had laid the groundwork, teaching him to be honest and God fearin’, and they gave him a strong work ethic.

  His pa had said, “The foundation of a good life is hard work.” His mother had taught him to read and to learn. Mr. and Mrs. Schwartz had continued to teach him by example, and he had to admit that he had learned a lot from Lainey. She was a fine person, mighty notional, but a fine person. She believed the people of the world could be divided into two groups, those who were Irish, and those who wanted to be. Yes, he would most definitely miss Lainey. They had become very close, until they had begun to fight. Cormac could not understand it and regretted the fighting and arguing. The feelings he had been having while her head lay on his shoulder were something to ponder. I wish, he thought. A lot of good wishing would do. What was it that the gravelly old traveler had said a couple of years ago when Cormac had told him he wished his parents were still alive? “If wishes were horses, all beggars would ride. If cow turds were doughnuts, I
’d eat till I died.”

  The air was crisp and bitterly cold with a full moon looking down from above. His pa had made up stories for Cormac about the face on the moon, and he had never been quite sure when his pa was truth-tellin’, or when he was making things up. His pa had once told him that people sometimes acted strange when there was a full moon. Pa had also teased Cormac’s mother by tellin’ him, when she was within ear shot, that that was the reason women liked to get men out during a full moon, because the men would become crazy and propose marriage.

  That night, the big old full moon was shining brightly on the snow, reflecting from it and adding a special quality to the night, making it more like a soft day. Many a night, as a small boy, Cormac had played outside in just such light until being called in by his mother. It was soothing, something familiar to travel with. Not wanting to be sky-lighted, he skirted the hilltops, and it allowed him to see into the surrounding valleys. He doubted anyone else was out at this hour, but if he was, others also might be.

  The part of the country he was leaving behind was dotted with occasional lakes and rolling hills that one of his mother’s books had explained were the result of glaciers passing through about a zillion years ago. Cormac could never quite grasp the concept of where all that ice had come from in the first place, but the book said it had totally changed the landscape—cut the tops off hills and used them to fill in valleys, moved around giant boulders and deposited them elsewhere, and created lakes—making him wonder what the country had looked like before.

  Somewhere in front of him was the two-day-ride-wide Rocking R cattle ranch, after that, he needed to drop south to get around the badlands, and then go west through a couple of other large ranches. That would take him through a corner of Nebraska, then a turn right through Wyoming, and he would be on his way “out West.”