by J. A. Crook
***
Jasper and Chance waited at the gate of old Fort Bleck as Grant Vickers and Apenimon arrived, bloodied, wounded and with nothing but a dead, macerated body in tow. The two gunman looked to each other, sharing another nonverbal exchange, before looking back to the pitiful men.
“Looks like things didn’t go quite as planned, eh?” Jasper confessed the obvious.
Meanwhile, the both disheveled Floyd and Harriet emerged from their cabin, rushing to assess the scene. When all that they saw were two men on two horses, and one dead slung behind Grant, the grim reality of the situation settled in.
“Where’s Jim?” Harriet asked, almost too softly to be heard, as she felt she knew the answer before asking the question.
Grant halted on his horse, as did Apenimon, and merely shook his head. “We were attacked by a second wave of Shoshoni. We were able to make it off with these horses, Hank here, and that’s all. Jim was killed almost immediately. The other guide ran off. We’re all that’s left, Hattie. I’m sorry.” And Grant carefully pulled himself down from the horse, slouching as a sudden pain reeled within him.
Harriet rushed over to Grant, looking over the damage caused by the second attack. “You’re wounded, Mr. Vickers! We need to get you treated immediately. Mr. Jasper, where are all of your medical supplies located?” Harriet asked, never turning an eye to Jasper.
Jasper smirked, holding the banjo he was playing from earlier in front of him, its round body to the ground. “Well, about that...” Jasper admitted, with an uncertainty about his usually gruff voice.
Floyd moved beside his wife, giving an additional assessment of Grant Vickers, who appeared to be in a much worse condition than Apenimon, his Indian guide. When Jasper had alluded to some mystery in respect to medical supplies, the attention of the remaining four members of the Greyson party was captured.
“About what?” Harriet was the first to ask, quickly suspicious.
“There isn’t any medical supplies here at the Fort, I’m afraid.” Jasper said with his eyes in a deadlock on Harriet.
“No medical supplies? However do you help those that come through here?” She wondered, her voice raising a bit as a sudden anger flashed through her, bringing a warmth to her pale cheeks.
Floyd stepped to his wife to take hold of her wrist, preventing her from charging the gunman should the situation become any worse. That, it did.
“That’s not all.” Chance said near to his mentor, Jasper.
The four then turned an eye to the younger of the two gunmen.
Chance continued then. “We don’t have any food, either. We’re bone dry out here. That’s why we wanted you to come out this way, you hear? You all were stocked full of food and cattle. Well, now, I reckon, you don’t have much of anything. You have the clothes on your back, wounded folks and dead folks to boot, and some Indian fella that’s probably more likely to run off with the local savages than sit around and starve with the rest of us.” And Chance focused in on Apenimon, who was already clearly uncomfortable upon arriving at the Fort.
“You lied to us!” Harriet screamed, prepared to charge, but it was Floyd’s restriction that prevented her from lunging at the young man. “You said we would be safe! You told us to come here and leave everything!”
Jasper lifted a hand, gesturing for the woman to calm down. “Listen, it doesn’t matter. If you would have stayed, you know how things would have turned out. Look at your friend there, Missy!” Jasper pointed to the wounded Grant Vickers. “You probably would have turned out just like him, or worse, maybe like that fat butcher ya’ll brought along.”
“You monster!” Harriet screamed, falling back into her husband’s chest, where she pounded against him and whispered. “What are we to do?”
Floyd was quiet for a long time while he watched the two gunmen that invited out his party. Floyd couldn’t help but feel a certain level of responsibility for the group, one he’d been proud to have for most of the travel out West, but the recent and terrible turn of events made him feel foolish. He wasn’t sure what to do now, but to hold his wife.
Grant Vickers piped up. “What about hunting? Why can’t we hunt out here? I mean, there has to be wild life around these parts. Why haven’t you stocked anything like that?” Something wasn’t adding up to the resident cartographer.
Jasper looked down to his banjo as he replied. “You seen what’s out there. Yeah, so they ain’t attacked us here in the post, no, but we’ve had plenty of men leave this place and we’ve had plenty of men never come back. They’re out there, mister, waiting for one of us to make a bad move. When we do? Well, you’re the one gettin’ hunted, you understand?”
Grant turned his head, struggling through some of the pain that came with making such movements, to look outside of the gate. He swallowed hard. “They’re trapping us in these gates? What, are they trying to starve us out?”
Chance shrugged. “Hard to say. We ain’t ate in a while, mister. We’re awfully hungry. How about that horse there? If you’re stayin’ here, you won’t be needing that horse, will you?”
Floyd finally broke his silence, moving around his wife to leave her near Grant. “You listen here: we’re not eating the horses. That’s just not going to happen. We’re not going to stay here for long either. If there’s nothing here to eat and no way to manage food, then the only thing we can do is get out of here after tending to some of these wounds. Better we take out chances out there with the natives than staying here and dying like cowards.”
Harriet’s eyes lifted as she listened to her husband make his bold comments, to make decisions for the entire group. None of them, however, protested Floyd’s idea.
Jasper looked back at Chance, then Chance back at Jasper. Jasper nodded, spitting out into the dirt near his feet. “Well, we ain’t gonna keep you if you don’t want to stay. You can stick around for the evening and if you want to leave tomorrow, well, you can leave tomorrow. We ain’t responsible for whatever happens out there, though. And don’t expect us to come save ya’ll again. Once you’re out that gate there, you’re gone, ya hear?”
Floyd’s authoritative disposition faded a bit as the reality of the alternative really started to set in. Still, he nodded once. He understood what was at stake. They could take their chances and leave or stay and die slowly, to wither into nothingness. He believed that they’d avoided death once by the skin of their teeth, perhaps with a bit of divine intervention, and he had faith they could do it again.
Apenimon spoke up through the rising franticness of the small group, his assertive, native-touched voice piercing through the sobs and discontent. “You were there. You were at the camp when the Shoshoni came. If it is dangerous, why were you there?” And although the questions were valid ones, and were all questions that hadn’t occurred to the distraught travelers, something in Apenimon’s eyes said that he knew something, like a lawyer having caught a false witness in an incredible lie.
Jasper wasted no time responding to the native guide, cool and level-headed, unlike what almost emerged from Chance’s lips. “Obviously things are desperate here at the Fort. We were responding in a sort of desperate measure, Indian, but our trip out there’s only confirmed that we ain’t got a chance, and now we ain’t got any bullets.”
Chance’s face became red with anger after hearing what he believed was an accusatory tone from Apenimon. The response from his elder, however, kept Chance from having to speak his own mind, which was likely to involve a harsher choice of words.
Apenimon returned to being a silent accomplice, one of the few left now, and offered no response to the elder gunman, either verbal or nonverbal. Harriet remained quiet as well, especially after having called Jasper a “monster.” Grant, too, fell into the same silent void as the others, leaving the responsibility of leadership and decisions (which now were of life and death) on Floyd’s shoulders.
“We’ll stay tonight if you’d have us. Tomorrow we’ll leave early in the morning and take our chances. Grant m
ay have a map that shows any nearby post that could be of help. Otherwise, we still have some bullets in our weapons, and we’ll find something to hunt if we must. We won’t stay here and die. I don’t suggest either of you do, either.” Floyd said, looking between Jasper and Chance.
Jasper grinned slightly, almost sinisterly. “We ain’t going anywhere. At some point you just have to accept that there aren’t any more options. You can act out of desperation, or you can act out of integrity. I ain’t ever been desperate and I ain’t about to be.”
“You both act like cowards! Lying cowards!” Harriet shouted, to be quickly quieted by her husband, who was hoping for a measure of diplomacy in a dire situation.
“That’s no way to talk to men that saved your life and the lives of your friends here. Remember, we may have been a little deceptive, but if we didn’t help you out, chances are, all of you would be dead right now, being dragged off to some Shoshoni camp where you’d be used in some sort of sick ritual. We were looking out for everyone back at your camp, not just ourselves. You should keep that in mind.” Jasper said sternly, though with some restraint for the respect of the woman’s husband. “Now, the lot of you can stay in the same cabin tonight. Use whatever you need to in order to offer aid to your friend there. I wish there was more that we could do, but there isn’t. If you leave in the morning, best of luck.”
With that, Jasper turned and started heading off toward his own cabin. Chance hung around for a short while longer, keeping an eye on Apenimon, as he had been since the native’s comment. He, too, soon turned and followed Jasper back to the cabin, leaving the four remaining members of the Greyson party alone.