Whiskey Kills

by Johnny D. Boggs

  “Shut up, Dutchie!” the sergeant barked. “I’ll get my money back when we’re back at Sill. I’ll get it back through your hide.”

  “Oh, Sergeant, watch your temper. You’re worse than that drunken mick. I’ll loan you some money, Sergeant. But, first, I need to piss.”

  Footsteps sounded. Nácutsi snored. The wind blew. Daniel closed his eyes, then opened them, tossed off his blanket, and stood, moving for the privy, stopping underneath a lantern at the gate to the yard, waiting for the bluecoat named Dutchie to finish Nature’s call.

  The door to the outhouse flew open, and the soldier stumbled from too much beer, wiping his hands on his trousers and whistling as he weaved his way back toward the wagon yard. The whistling stopped, and Dutchie straightened, his face cautious, maybe frightened, at the sight of Daniel waiting for him.

  “I’d like to talk to you,” Daniel said.

  A long moment. Then: “About what?”

  “Fenn O’Malley.”

  Dutchie laughed drunkenly. “Injun, I can’t help you there. That bastard didn’t tell me where he was skedaddling to.”

  The wind blew. Dutchie shuffled his feet. “Listen, no offense, but you Injuns make me nervous. I’ve been in this man’s army too long, seen what the Sioux can do to a white man.”

  “I’m not Lakota.”

  “I’ve heard about what you Comanches used to do.”

  “I spent seven years back East.” His smile was a façade. “Learning to be a white man.”

  The wind blew.

  “Did O’Malley tell you he won a brewery in Dallas?” Daniel said. He wasn’t about to let Dutchie get away from him, not until he was finished. “In a card game.” No, Daniel thought, it had been a dice game, but he didn’t correct himself.

  “Me and Fenn wasn’t exactly on speaking terms.”

  Daniel frowned.

  “But,” Dutchie said, “that would explain it.”

  He brightened. “Explain what?”

  “Oh, that blow-hard talked all the time. Said he’d be rich soon enough, too rich to be a horse soldier, said he’d be lighting a shuck to San Francisco, that we could all kiss his arse. Won himself a brewery, eh? Hell, he wouldn’t buy me a round.”

  “He say anything else?”

  Dutchie shook his head. “Like I said, we wasn’t bunkies or friends. You know that, Sergeant . . . Killstraight, ain’t it?”

  Sergeant Killstraight. Well, that was better than Injun. Daniel was making progress.

  “He busted another sergeant’s jaw with a whiskey bottle,” Daniel said. “That’s what Major Becker told me at Fort Sill.”

  “That’s right. But it wasn’t a whiskey bottle. It was a ginger beer bottle. Hard as a rock.”

  “I know.” Daniel smiled.

  The bluecoat grinned back.

  Definite progress.

  “But it didn’t have beer in it. It was full of whiskey,” Daniel said.

  “Could be. Sergeant Andrews yonder, he’s a beer drinker, like me, but O’Malley, he was pure Irish. Pure drunkard. He’d want whiskey.”

  “They’ve been selling it on the reservation. Some of it poison.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard. We haven’t been down here long, Sergeant. Us Seventh Cavalry boys. You think O’Malley was peddling whiskey to your braves, right?”

  “That’s right.” He tested the name. “Dutchie.”

  “The name’s Brink, Sergeant. Actually, it’s Dirk Brinkerhoff, but my friends call me Brink. I just ain’t got many friends.” He smiled again. “Least, not when I’m on a winning streak playing draw poker.”

  “Call me Daniel.”

  “All right, Daniel. O’Malley sold whiskey when he could to Indians when we were at Fort Robinson and Fort Lincoln. Well, not just Indians. He’d sell to anybody. Got arrested once in Bismarck, but he beat the charges. Civilian charges. You know how them things go, I expect, and Army courts-martial ain’t never really stopped him, neither. Been busted twice, but he’s always gotten his stripes back. Expect this time’ll be no different. So this is an old story with him. Whiskey running and whiskey drinking.”

  “He ever mention a Texas Ranger named Quantrell?”

  With a shrug, the trooper replied: “I can’t say. Don’t recall. Like I said . . .” He smiled weakly.

  “Have you heard of him? Quantrell? Carl Quantrell?”

  The head shook. “Just you mentioning the name. But the latest orders we got was what Lieutenant Newly calls a joint action. Looking for whiskey runners to protect you Indians. We work the Indian Territory side with the federal marshals, while the Rangers patrol south of the Red.”

  “Cut any sign?” Daniel asked.

  “Not really. Nothing much anyway. That’s why the lieutenant signed on that Comanche. Gunpowder.”

  Gunpowder? Daniel frowned. Yet that would help explain how Nácutsi got his charges dismissed. Too valuable for the Army. The soldiers needed a scout—wolves, The People called them. Wolves for the Long Knives. Traitors. Of course, some of The People said the same about the Metal Shirts like Daniel.

  “You know him? He’s Comanche like you. Kwahadi, I think.”

  “I know him.”

  “You might ask Gunpowder, Sergeant . . . I mean, Daniel. Gunpowder was O’Malley’s pet. Before he got into that row with Sergeant Gasquet, O’Malley was always volunteering, pleading with Lieutenant Newly to let him lead a patrol to go get them whiskey runners. ’Course, any soldier at Sill could tell you Fenn O’Malley, the drunken, lying, thieving bastard, would find whiskey, but never report it. Any soldier, that is, but some damned West Pointer like that greenhorn Newly.”

  Silence. “I’d best turn in,” Dutchie said. “Before the sergeant thinks I’ve deserted like O’Malley.”

  “Thanks, Brink.”

  The bluecoat grinned. “If I was you, Daniel, I’d ask that other Comanch’, Gunpowder, what he knows. He and O’Malley was tighter than thieves. He could likely tell you more. A hell of a lot more than I could.”

  With a wry grin, Daniel let the soldier pass. “The problem there, Brink, is that me and Nácutsi . . . Gunpowder, you call him . . . aren’t exactly on speaking terms.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Whoever had named this stuff hardtack, Daniel thought, should have won a prize. He dipped the cracker in his coffee to soften it up, and wondered why the United States Army tortured its soldiers with this food. It lasts forever, he had heard a soldier say once, and Daniel had to agree. This tooth-duller likely had been baked back when George Washington commanded the U.S. Army, but that’s all these 7th Cavalry boys and the Indian delegation had for breakfast.

  Staring at his tin cup, he suddenly wished he hadn’t tried to soften the cracker, for now weevil larvae floated to the top. When he looked up, he saw Trooper Dutchie Brinkerhoff and Sergeant Andrews skimming off the insects with their fingers before eating the hardtack and drinking their coffee. Among the Indians, Teepee That Stands Alone apparently had no problems drinking the coffee or eating the tooth-breaking biscuits. Nor did Coyote Chaser. They didn’t even try to soften up the hardtack. A’do-eete, the tall Kiowa, just stared into his coffee cup, mesmerized by the magic that had produced these bugs. Daniel poured his coffee onto the ground, insects, hardtack, and all.

  Then he heard the racket. The din grew louder. Angry voices. Too angry for this early in the morning. Slowly he stood, looked at Quanah, turned as Sergeant Andrews barked an order.

  “Look sharp, men!”

  “What the hell’s going on, Sergeant?”

  “The Texans!” cried the other Kiowa, Tséeyñ, in guttural English. “Come kill us. Like kill Set-t’ainte.” He began singing the death song of the Kiowa’s Ko-eet-senko Society.

  “Killstraight!” the sergeant barked. “Shut that buck up. Look alive men. Sharp.”

  “What’s going on, Sergeant?” a young trooper cried.

  “How the hell would I know! But that buck might be right. Damned Texas sons-of-bitches.”

  “I ain’
t getting killed protecting no red nigger!”

  “You do like I say, Johnston, or I’ll shoot you myself.”

  Tséeyñ still sang his death song.

  “Killstraight. Shut him the hell up!”

  Daniel knew better. He couldn’t stop Tséeyñ’s death song. Nor could A’do-eete. Instead, he motioned Quanah to lead Teepee That Stands Alone and Coyote Chaser back into the corner, nodded at A’do-eete to follow. As Daniel walked to the line of Long Knives, he spotted about a dozen or more angry taibos heading for the wagon yard.

  “Halt!” Sergeant Andrews yelled.

  They didn’t listen. Men in muslin, and broadcloth suits. Farmers, drovers, and merchants. One or two carrying repeating rifles in their sweating hands. Another with a rope.

  “Cock arms!” Sergeant Andrews ordered.

  That stopped them. At least for a moment. The leader stepped forward, a farmer in duck trousers and a homespun shirt, a wide straw hat, and bronzed face. “You won’t shoot us, bluebelly.”

  “One more step, mister, and I give the command to fire at will.”

  “He’s bluffin’!” yelled another.

  “Try me. I’m sick of your damned town. I’m sick of eating Texas dust.”

  The farmer wet his lips. “We come for that one. That’s all we want, Sergeant. You can have the others.”

  Daniel blinked. The farmer was pointing at him.

  “What did I do?” Daniel asked.

  “You know what you done. You butchered Horace Benson.”

  “I don’t know anyone by that name.”

  “Scalped him. Left him for the buzzards and crows. Ripped him to pieces. Cut his manhood off, and stuck it in his mouth.”

  “Red bastard!” another man yelled.

  “Aim!” Sergeant Andrews ordered.

  The Kiowa sang.

  “You can’t kill us all, bluebelly.” The farmer grinned.

  “We can kill our fair share,” Sergeant Andrews said. “Killed my share at Chattanooga and Spotsylvania. Reckon I can kill a few more at Wichita Falls.”

  Daniel walked around the soldiers, stepped a little to the right. He didn’t want these bluecoats to die for him, and he certainly didn’t want Quanah and the other Indians to die because of him. Nor did he want to die.

  “Where,” he began, his voice shaking, “was this Horace Benson killed?”

  “Killstraight,” Sergeant Andrews whispered. “Just keep quiet and get back behind us.”

  Daniel ignored him.

  “You know where he was killed. Same as you know you killed him. Don’t matter how good you speak English.”

  “Where?” Daniel tried again. “And when?”

  “Three, four days back, likely,” someone in the crowd said. “Three miles above Hill’s Ferry.”

  Daniel understood. “The whiskey runner.” Regretting those words. Like he had just admitted to the crime. Quickly he added: “I got a telegram from U.S. Marshal Noble.” Adding with more urgency. “Three or four days ago, I was . . .” Where was he? “Here. Or on my way here. I couldn’t have killed this man.”

  “Don’t try that, you murdering Comanche buck. We know all about you. Damned Injun lawdog. You killed him. We know it. Everybody knows it. Because we know all about you and those damned papers you’re always jotting on.”

  “Papers?”

  “Killstraight,” Sergeant Andrews demanded.

  The Kiowa sang.

  “Fine, fancy paper, with that damned Stars and Stripes on the cover.” The farmer spit, looked away from Daniel, stared hard at Sergeant Andrews. “I hate that damned flag. And I killed me a fair amount of Yankees in that damned war. Wouldn’t bother me to kill a few more here in Wichita Falls.”

  Another Texian said: “They found one of ’em books full of white paper under Horace’s body. Just like one we hear that buck writes on.”

  The Old Glory tablet. He was sweating now, but he thought of something. “Hold on, just a minute,” he said, and he was running back, finding his grip, bringing it forward, setting it on the ground, opening it, shoving his full Old Glory deep underneath his dirty clothes, pulling out the tablets Patty Mullen had given him.

  “These are what I use,” he said. Standing, holding an Echo pencil tablet in each hand. “Not Old Glory. No flags, and this paper is gold. Not white. Not fancy.” He was gambling. “Who told you I used Old Glory?”

  Shit! he thought. He had bought an Old Glory tablet at the mercantile when he first came to town. If that merchant was in this crowd, if somebody had seen him . . .

  “That don’t mean nothing!” a man with a black hat and Spencer rifle yelled. “Nothing!”

  “Means something to me,” said a new voice, surprisingly steady, and the farmers, merchants, cowboys, soldiers, Indians, and Daniel watched two men ride easily along the road. One aimed a big Winchester at the farmer, reins draped over the withers of his horse. The other tapped the six-point badge pinned to his vest with the barrel of his revolver, which he then aimed at the cowboy with the Spencer, and slowly, ominously thumbed back the hammer.

  “Best clear out, boys,” Harvey P. Noble said. “Pronto.”

  “But . . .” The farmer swallowed, eyes fixed on Hugh Gunter’s cannon of a rifle. Suddenly he lost his voice, and his face paled.

  “He killed Horace!” the man with the Winchester shouted.

  “He did no such thing,” Noble snapped. “I found that whiskey runner’s body myself.”

  “He cut his pecker off . . .”

  “Bullshit! Now clear out, or let’s start the ball.”

  The Kiowa sang.

  The wind blew, refreshingly cool, and Daniel watched the mob stumble away, back to the saloons, swallowing their pride. Noble turned around as Hugh Gunter lowered the hammer on the big repeater. “Make sure they don’t stop, Hugh,” he whispered, and the tall Cherokee nudged his horse into a walk.

  Someone ran around the corner, slowing, sweating, pulling a suspender over his undershirt. Vaughan Coyne walked past Hugh Gunter, eyes wide, confused, worried, mouth hanging open, trying to figure out what question he should ask first.

  Harvey P. Noble swung down from his horse, shaking his head as he looked at Daniel. Smiling, he said softly: “You’re about the luckiest fellow I’ve ever knowed.”

  * * * * *

  They didn’t stop until they had crossed the Red River and deposited Coyote Chaser and camped near the Comanche village of Huupi. They didn’t talk until that night. No one had wanted to talk, not even when Vaughan Coyne had caught up with them later that day. After Sergeant Andrews hurried the Indians out of town, and out of Texas, the lawyer had dressed, and rented a horse from the livery, but he still didn’t know what to say, and the soldiers didn’t want to talk, too scared—Daniel knew that feeling—after such a close brush with death.

  Yet now, in what felt safe in Indian Territory, Harvey Noble, Hugh Gunter, Vaughan Coyne, and Daniel found a spot away from the soldiers and Indians.

  “I could use a snort,” Hugh Gunter said.

  Daniel opened his Echo tablet to a new page, started to write, but his hand kept shaking. He set the pencil aside, and let Marshal Noble examine the pencil tablet.

  “Where’d you find this?” the lawman asked.

  “Dallas. Newspaper woman gave it to me.”

  “You off Old Glory?”

  Daniel wet his lip. “There’s one . . . a full one . . . in my grip.”

  Gunter shook his head. “Now I could really use a snort. Them Texas cads found that thing, the lead would have started flying thick.”

  “So.” Daniel swallowed. “There was . . . a tablet . . . when you found that dead runner?”

  Noble nodded. “Old Glory. Me and Hugh know it pretty good.”

  “Jesus!” Coyne stared hard at Daniel.

  “But . . .” Daniel didn’t know where to begin.

  “Where were you,” Noble said, “say, eight, nine days ago?”

  “That man at Wichita Falls.” Daniel tried to swallow, but co
uldn’t. His throat was dry. “He said it was three or four days ago.”

  “When me and Hugh found the corpse . . . wired you from Henrietta . . . he’d been dead a spell.”

  “Oh, God, Daniel,” Coyne said.

  Now he felt a little angry. At his lawyer, Gunter, and Harvey P. Noble. “You think I did it?” he snapped.

  “I don’t . . . I don’t know what to think,” Coyne said.

  “You gonna answer Harv’s question?” Gunter asked.

  “I don’t know,” Daniel sang out. “Somewhere. On the reservation. But I didn’t kill that whiskey runner.”

  “Hell,” Noble said easily. “Me and Hugh know that.

  Gunter chuckled. “You’re green, Danny boy. But you’re not a fool. You wouldn’t leave one of your notebooks underneath no dead man.”

  “It was left behind on purpose.” Coyne looked up, snapping his fingers. “Someone tried to make it look like Daniel killed that man.”

  “Plain enough,” Noble said. “To me and Hugh.” He frowned. “Maybe not to that hardheaded, ill-tempered prosecutor in Fort Smith. Maybe not to Judge Parker. Certainly not to the judge’s hangman. Probably not to a jury of white gents.”

  “Glad you got to Wichita Falls when you did,” Daniel said.

  Noble grinned. “Well, I’m right sorry to have delayed our arrival. Sent you that wire, thought we’d just catch a train to Wichita Falls, but then me and Harv decided to go back to Hill’s Ferry, nose around some.”

  Daniel took his tablet, found the pencil, turned back to that new page. “You said in your telegram that this man was scalped.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Those men said he had been . . . well . . . his . . .”

  “No. That’s just a mob talking. Scalped, yes. And, like I said, his thigh was cut deep and cruel. But that’s all.”

  “God,” Coyne said. “That’s all? That’s enough.”

  Gunter laughed. “You’re greener than Daniel.”

  Noble pushed back his hat. “This Horace fellow, from what me and Hugh could tell, he was sitting alone at his camp. Gents just rode up, all friendly like, and killed him.”

  “Like he knew them,” Gunter said. “Didn’t appear to put up a fight, and he was shot at close range.”