“Honey,” she whispered, “I would marry you if you didn’t have a penny, but I want you to be sure you want me. You know the kind of mother I’ve got. You know where you found me. If your father knew …”
“He doesn’t need to know,” Allison said. “I’ve thought about it. I still want you to marry me.”
“I’ll be a good wife, Dave. I promise …”
“Dave, get out here!” Risdon called. “They’re coming in!”
Chapter Thirteen
Hank Abel stepped in first. Clay Moore followed. He was taller than Risdon, but not as heavy. The next was a big redhead Allison had never seen before. He was about Johnny Morgan’s age, and Allison had a feeling he was much like Morgan, still holding some of his boyhood fat on his big-boned body.
The fourth was a short, blocky man Allison knew only as Stub. He had scars around his eyes and a nose bent to one side. He appeared to be about Jones’ age, too old to enjoy fighting, but still called upon because of his experience.
“Take your fight outside!” Fifi screeched. “If you bust up my place, I’ll turn you in!”
No one paid any attention to her. The four Company K men began peeling off their shirts. Out of the corner of his mouth Allison said to Johnny Morgan: “Take the redhead.”
Morgan nodded, eyeing the man. He looked scared, but so did the young redhead.
Allison peeled off both his shirt and undershirt and started toward Hank Abel. Within a matter of seconds Company A had squared off against Company K. The redhead moved toward Jones, but Morgan reached him first and drove a fist into his soft belly. The redhead wheeled on him and promptly knocked him down.
Morgan crashed into a poker table on his way to the floor and smashed it flat. Allison heard Fifi shriek an oath, and after that he was too busy to keep track of Morgan.
Abel came in fast, both fists swinging, apparently with the idea of ending it immediately. Allison swung aside, making Abel miss. Then he caught the Company K man with a flicking right on the side of the head. Abel’s charge carried him past Allison. He swung back and threw a right. Allison tipped his head just enough, then caught Abel’s nose with a sledging right that brought a burst of blood and a shout: “Stand still and fight, damn it!”
Allison had no intention of standing still. He wheeled away each time Abel rushed him, taking his opponent’s blows on elbows and shoulders, and all the time he kept ripping through Abel’s guard with a fast left that the bigger man couldn’t block. Within three minutes he had cut Abel’s face to ribbons, but Allison knew he wasn’t hurting the soldier enough to knock him out. Sooner or later he would be forced to fight Abel’s kind of fight.
It came sooner than he expected. Somehow Abel backed him up against the bar and caught him before Allison could slide clear. He got his arms around Allison and squeezed.
“I’ll make you damned sorry you ever saw Christine,” he muttered, and then slammed the top of his head against Allison’s face.
Stars exploded in front of Allison. He felt blood spurt from his nose and he knew, if he didn’t break Abel’s bear hug, he was finished. He threw himself sideways and gained just enough space to bring a heel smashing down on Abel’s instep.
The man grunted in pain, his grip relaxing. Allison broke free. Blood ran into his mouth. He tasted it, and suddenly he was angry. He had never been a man to fight well until he got mad, and Abel’s butting tactics had done the trick.
Abel came in again with one of his bullish rushes, and this time Allison stood his ground. He timed his first blow perfectly, catching Abel on the Adam’s apple. Abel toppled forward, his hands dropping to his sides, his mouth springing open. Allison nailed him on the jaw with a hard-swinging right that had all his weight behind it. Abel went down, out cold.
Allison stepped back, breathing hard. Something hit him on the side of his head and he spilled forward across Abel’s body. He rolled over on his back and saw the big redhead looming over him, pulling a foot back to kick him in the ribs.
Allison tried to put his hands out to grab the foot, but he couldn’t seem to move fast enough. He raised his hands just off the floor and that was as far as he could get them. The redhead intended to smash his ribs and he couldn’t stop it.
Johnny Morgan came out of nowhere, one eye closed and blood streaming down his face. He jumped on the redhead’s back, his arms closing around the man’s back, his legs circling and squeezing his hips. The kick that would have smashed Allison’s ribs never landed.
The redhead staggered under Morgan’s weight. He tried to reach back and pull Morgan off, but Morgan grabbed a fistful of hair in his left hand, yanked his head back, and began pounding his face with his right fist. Finally, in desperation, the redhead went over backward. Morgan hit the floor hard and lost his grip.
The redhead staggered upright. He drew back his trusty foot, ready to kick Morgan. But now Allison had managed to stand. He wobbled forward. He rammed into the redhead’s back, knocking him flat.
Morgan came to his knees. The big K Company boy shook his head of red hair and started to struggle to his feet. Morgan jumped on his back and smashed his head against the floor. A silent bugle blew taps for the redhead.
Allison helped Morgan up, then looked around. Risdon had just finished his job. Clay Moore was sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall, his mouth sagging open, his eyes glassy.
Jones was in trouble with Stub, who had backed him into a corner and was slugging him with one fist and then the other. The corporal’s head swung from side to side like a punching bag. Allison didn’t know what was holding Jones up. The corporal would be hurt badly if he didn’t get help.
Allison said: “Let’s throw the bastard out, Johnny.”
He and Morgan came up behind Stub, and caught his arms and lifted him off the floor.
“Wait till I get his feet!” Risdon yelled.
Stub cursed and tried to kick, but Risdon caught both feet. They carried him outside and threw him halfway to the adobe corral.
“You show up in here again and we’ll break your god-damn’ neck,” Risdon said.
They went back in. Jones had staggered to a poker table and sat down, holding his head in both hands. The others dragged the rest of the Company K men outside. Abel was the last. He had come to, but there was no more fight left in him.
“About Christine,” Allison said. “I’m telling you to stay away from her.”
They went back into the house and shut the door. Jones was still at the poker table holding his head. Allison told Fifi to bring him a drink of whiskey.
Christine came out of the kitchen. She caught Allison’s arms and held him.
“You aren’t hurt, are you, Dave?”
“Just a little here and there,” he said, and wondered if Abel had broken any ribs.
She kissed him and held him, her head against his shirt. She started to cry, then regained control of herself. Allison wondered what she had done to interest Hank Abel so much that he had worked up this fight. He didn’t ask. He had no need to.
“Abel wanted me, and he was jealous,” she said. “I told him I was in love with you, and he said he’d fix it so nobody could love you. I guess I’m to blame for the fight. If I hadn’t told him how I felt about you, he wouldn’t have come tonight.”
Allison didn’t know Fifi was there until she stepped in front of him. A fat hand slapped Christine’s cheek so hard that the girl staggered halfway back to the kitchen door and almost fell before she regained her balance.
“Git to your room!” Fifi screamed. “I’ve told you this two-bit private ain’t for you.”
For the second time that night anger took possession of Dave Allison. He grabbed Fifi and swung her around to face him. He gripped both shoulders and shoved her against the wall. He jammed his right forearm against her windpipe.
Her face turned red, her mouth sprung open, and her bro
wn tongue lolled between her lips so she looked like an idiot. Morgan and Risdon pulled Allison back, and Risdon shook him hard. “Sure, the bitch needs killing, but they’ll hang you if you do. She ain’t worth it.”
The red haze in front of Allison’s eyes slowly faded. He moistened his lips, and then he said: “Fifi, or whatever your god-damned name is, don’t ever lay a hand on Christine again. Next time there won’t be anybody to pull me off.”
Fifi raised a fat hand and massaged her fat throat.
“You busted up my place and you tried to kill me,” she croaked. “I’ll turn you over to the provost marshal. You’ll spend the rest of your life in the guardhouse.”
“You do that,” Risdon said, “and we’ll come back with every man in A Company. We’ll take this place down board by board and start you walking toward Cheyenne as naked as the day you was born.”
“Get out of here,” Fifi whispered hoarsely. “Don’t never come back. Any of you.”
Allison drove back to the hay camp, Risdon sitting beside him. Jones and Morgan sprawled on their backs on the wagon bed. Jones admitted he hurt everywhere that wasn’t too numb to hurt.
“This is my last brawl,” Jones said. “I’m too old for it any more.”
“After this Johnny can take your place,” Risdon said. “You done good, Johnny. How many times did you get off the floor?”
“I dunno,” Morgan said. “I lost count.”
“Takes a good man to get off the floor as often as you did,” Risdon said. “Every time I had a chance to look, you was either hitting the floor or getting up. Except once when I seen you taking a piggy-back ride.” Risdon slapped his leg and laughed. “I guess Company K won’t be looking for a fight with us again.”
They rode on in silence.
Allison thought about Christine. He wondered why he loved her, if there really was a why to a thing like that. He had told her about himself, but he still knew very little about her. Maybe it was better if he never knew much about her.
After Franny Knowles, he had told himself over and over again that he would never, could never, love another woman. But he had been wrong. Christine’s beauty had little to do with it. Maybe it was just that a man needed to feel he loved someone and was loved in return.
They would be moving against the Sioux in a few weeks, or even a few days. He might be killed. But he would not die alone and empty.
Allison glanced at Risdon. The man’s battered mouth held a smile at the corners. He was living the fight again in memory. If he died in the coming campaign, he would go out, unloving and unloved. It would indeed be a sorry end to a man’s life.
Chapter Fourteen
Patrick O’Hara considered himself the ace of the Chicago Herald staff. Humility, he was proud to say, and often did, was not one of his virtues. He stood five feet, six inches tall, he weighed one hundred and twenty pounds after a big meal, and his hair was as red as a fiery sunset. Though three generations removed from County Cork, his Irish blood was as pure as that of his great grandfather.
He knew and admired George Armstrong Custer, and had followed his trials and tribulations closely with great sympathy. He defended Custer fiercely every time he heard the general attacked, and argued that Grant and the other armchair types who held Custer down to his official rank of lieutenant colonel were jealous of a fighting general who could go out and whip the Indians.
O’Hara read everything he could get his hands on about the forthcoming campaign in which Sitting Bull and his hostiles would be crushed finally and irrevocably. It wasn’t that he lacked sympathy for the Indians. He knew as well as anyone that the Sioux had been cheated.
The point was, neither the Indians nor the United States government or the Army or any power on God’s earth could hold back the tide of settlement, particularly when gold had been discovered, and gold had certainly been discovered in the Black Hills. This was the hard, solid core of the matter, and such niceties as honor and solemn treaties didn’t really change anything.
O’Hara wanted to be out there and see Custer in action. He wanted it more than anything else in the world and had even considered resigning and going to Fort Abraham Lincoln and joining the Seventh Cavalry as a correspondent. But it might not be that easy. If he didn’t have the proper credentials, they probably wouldn’t let him go along. So he waited, hoping that tough old Samuel Simpson Cunningham, the Herald publisher, would send him. He waited, and he waited.
He had just about given up hope when Cunningham called him into his office one Friday afternoon early in May. Cunningham leaned back in his swivel chair and scowled as O’Hara banged into the room and slammed the door behind him.
“For God’s sake, O’Hara,” Cunningham said, his white mustache bristling. “Do you always have to come in here like a gale off Lake Michigan?”
“Yes, sir,” O’Hara said. “I mean, no, sir. I understand you want to see me.”
“I did, but I’m not sure now that you’re here.” Cunningham motioned to a chair and tongued his half-chewed cigar to the other side of his mouth. “You were in Colorado for a while, weren’t you?”
“Yes, sir.” O’Hara sat on the edge of his chair like a bird about to take off. “I worked for the Rocky Mountain News.”
“You were with the Sir Cedric Smith hunting party, I believe.”
“That’s correct.”
“And after that you joined the staff of the Cheyenne Leader?”
A pulse began throbbing in O’Hara’s temple. Cunningham knew all this. There wasn’t any sense in going over it again, and he needed a little time to pack before he caught the train. But you didn’t blow up in Cunningham’s face. Not the second time anyhow. So O’Hara said, “Yes, sir,” and held a tight rein on his temper.
“Well, then,” Cunningham said, “you know something about Wyoming.”
“I sure do,” O’Hara said. “I can catch a westbound train tonight and be in Bismarck sometime Sunday morning.”
“Bismarck?” Cunningham said, his mustache bristling again. “Why Bismarck?”
“Fort Abraham Lincoln is close to Bismarck,” O’Hara said. “That’s where the Seventh Cavalry is stationed. I haven’t heard whether General Custer has been returned to his command or not, but I would think they’d have reinstated him before now. They’re certainly going to need him in this campaign.”
Cunningham acted and looked as if he were about to have apoplexy. The veins stood out on his forehead like blue cords and he rose and slammed his cigar into a spittoon. He pounded the desk with his fist. “My God, O’Hara, I know you claim humility is not one of your virtues, but now you’re disowning patience, also. Do you have any virtues?”
“Yes, sir,” O’Hara said. “I’m a hell of a good reporter.”
Cunningham sat down. He held his head until his pulse slowed, and then he said: “The good Lord created you, O’Hara. I admit that. But I’m glad He didn’t create twins and give me both of you.”
“Yes, sir,” O’Hara said. “But if He had, we wouldn’t both be working on the Herald.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” O’Hara said simply, “both of us couldn’t stand taking orders from you.”
In spite of himself, Cunningham laughed. He said: “All right, but since you’re not twins, you will take orders from me. I admit you’re a good reporter. If you weren’t, I wouldn’t be sending you to cover this Indian campaign. However, you are not going to Fort Abraham Lincoln.”
Cunningham leaned back in his chair and pointed a forefinger at O’Hara. “You are going to Omaha and you will get permission from General George Crook to accompany him. He commands the Department of the Platte with headquarters in Omaha. From there you will go to Cheyenne, then to Fort Laramie. I don’t know when the expedition will leave. Perhaps General Crook doesn’t, either, but it’s my guess it will get under way sometime late in May or early in June.”
O’Hara stared at the floor, his hands fisted on his lap. He had never heard of anything as stupid as this. If Cunningham wanted him to see action, Custer was the one he should go with. But …
He looked up. “All right,” he said. “I’ll see if there’s a train out of Chicago tonight.”
Cunningham nodded. “Go to the business office and draw your expense money. I suggest that you contact General Sheridan in the morning and ask him to write you a letter of introduction to General Crook. It will not be necessary for you to leave Chicago tonight.”
O’Hara rose. He took a long breath and said: “I’ll see Sheridan in the morning.”
“In case you are underestimating General Crook,” Cunningham said, “let me remind you that he made an excellent record in his recent Arizona campaign. Furthermore, General Sherman has publicly stated that Crook is the best Indian fighter in the Army.”
Hot words rushed to O’Hara’s lips. “Yes, sir,” he said. He wheeled and walked to the door.
“Oh, one more thing, O’Hara. If I remember right, you knew that wife murderer, Rice Peters.”
“Sure, I knew him,” O’Hara said, “but it was never proved that he murdered his wife. He was a bouncer in a saloon and a tough one, all right, but …”
“Regardless of that, he’s wanted by the police. There is a rumor he joined the Army after he ducked out of Chicago. You may run into him. If you do, we want a story.”
“You’ll get one,” O’Hara said, “if he doesn’t murder me on sight.”
Chapter Fifteen
O’Hara left Chicago on the morning of May 6. The rain drummed a constant tattoo on the window of his coach. He could not help registering the fact that he would have a miserable time riding and camping and trying to write up his experiences in a storm like this. But Patrick O’Hara was never one to dwell on matters unpleasant. A moment later he told himself the sun would be shining by the time he reached Cheyenne and Fort D. A. Russell.
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