Inside the tavern, White Eagle saw Cully and Gilbert disappear through the door. He was trading punches with one of the other men. He blocked a blow, then crossed a wicked left to his opponent's jaw, peppered three quick punches into the man's midsection, and then hooked a savage right that jerked his head the other way. The man's eyes rolled up in his head, and his legs buckled.
At the same time, Orion caught his opponent in a bear hug. He ignored the blows that the man rained on his back and shoulders and squeezed until his foe gasped, turned red, and went limp. Orion released him and stepped back, and the man collapsed on the floor.
Cully and Gilbert were battling outside. White Eagle and Orion turned toward the door at the same moment and hurried to make sure the deputy was all right.
In the street, Gilbert's punches had Cully staggering, and Gilbert's eyes blazed with a mixture of drunken anger and hatred. He knocked Cully backward several steps, and suddenly his hand reached toward the gun on his hip.
The deputy saw the threatening movement and reacted instinctively. His fingers darted toward his Colt, the draw so fast it was almost invisible. Gilbert wouldn’t stand a chance.
Cully's hand slapped against empty leather. His gun had fallen out sometime during the fracas. It was lying somewhere in the tavern or in the dust of the street, he knew, but the gun's whereabouts were not important now.
Gilbert pulled his pistol, jerking the gun up and lining the barrel on Cully.
A shot blasted, but it didn’t come from Gilbert's gun.
Gilbert staggered, his mouth drooping open. The gun in his hand sagged toward the ground. It exploded as his trigger finger clenched involuntarily, and a bullet rammed into the dirt. Crimson gurgled from his mouth, and a second later he pitched forward.
Stunned, Cully looked past the dead man at the troop of cavalry sitting on their horses thirty feet away. He had not heard them ride up, but their arrival had undoubtedly saved his life. Smoke curled from the pistol held by a brawny man wearing a campaign hat and sergeant's stripes. Next to the sergeant, mounted on a skittish horse he was struggling to control, a young man in the uniform of a captain snapped, "I told you to fire a warning shot, Hull, not to kill the man."
With a slow smile, the sergeant slid his gun into its holster and snapped the flap shut. "Sorry, Cap'n," he said. "My aim's not as good as it used to be."
White Eagle and Orion stood on the boardwalk staring at the dead man and the cavalry. White Eagle's face was taut as he looked at the blue uniforms and recognized some of the men wearing them.
The sound of booted feet pounding on the boardwalk made the deputy turn around. Marshal Lucas Flint, his gun in his hand, ran to Cully. "What the devil's going on here?" he demanded. His eyes darted from Cully to Butch Gilbert's dead body to the riders.
Quickly, Cully explained what had happened. As the deputy spoke, the marshal knelt beside Gilbert and shook his head when he saw the man was dead.
Drawing a deep breath, White Eagle stepped off the boardwalk and walked toward the cavalrymen. He gave a curt nod to the troop's young commanding officer and said brusquely, "Hello, Winters. Didn't expect to run into you here. I thought I was clear of the Army for a while."
"Dandaneau," the captain said.
The sergeant who had shot Gilbert grinned arrogantly at White Eagle. "Howdy, Kiowa," he said. "Taken any scalps since you've been off the reservation?"
White Eagle ignored the contemptuous sergeant. "What are you doing here, Winters? You must've come a long way."
"A long way indeed," the captain agreed. "And we're here because of you, Dandaneau."
White Eagle stared in puzzlement, but before he could ask any questions, Flint came over and said to the officer, "Hello, Captain. I'm Lucas Flint, the marshal of Abilene, and this is my deputy, Cully Markham. Looks like you and your men saved his life."
"I merely saw one man about to shoot another man who was unarmed," Captain Winters answered stiffly. "I didn’t intend for anyone to be killed."
Cully had found his pistol lying in the street and scooped it up. Quickly he examined it for dirt and fouling, then slid it into its holster. "Well, Gilbert intended to kill me," he said. "I'm much obliged for the help, mister."
"You and your men have business in Abilene, Captain?" Flint asked.
"We certainly do," Winters replied. He glanced at White Eagle. "If we could go to your office, Marshal, I'll explain the whole thing."
"Sure." Flint nodded.
"Why don't you come with us, Dandaneau?" Winters said to the scout.
"I intend to," White Eagle replied grimly. Something had to be very wrong for Winters's troop to have been dispatched all the way up here to search for him.
He began to wonder whether he had simply run into trouble since coming to Abilene—or if he had brought it with him.
On an isolated farm far to the south of Abilene, Willie Pike and his brother Claude had been scratching a living from the soil for five long years. It was a lonely existence, but at least they didn’t have to answer to anyone. They lived their lives the way they saw fit.
At the moment, Willie wouldn’t have minded working for wages for a change. He had gotten up long before dawn and had been plowing the north field behind a particularly stubborn mule all morning. Now he was on his way to the house for lunch.
Claude probably wouldn’t have anything prepared, Willie thought gloomily. His brother had been planning to spend the morning fixing the fence around the barn. It was just like Claude to latch onto an easy job and then expect Willie to fix their midday meal.
Willie, a stocky man in his thirties with a week's growth of beard, plodded along. Today was Saturday, or at least he was pretty sure it was. After they had eaten, he and Claude would scrape off their stubble and head into Caldwell for a few drinks. That would be the highlight of their week; they didn’t have enough money for a woman this time.
As he approached the ramshackle cabin, Willie saw that no smoke curled from the chimney. And there was no sign of Claude at the barn. Maybe he was inside putting away his tools, Willie thought.
South of the house was a thick stand of trees. Willie thought he saw a flicker of movement in the shadows there, like a horse tossing its head. But as he frowned and peered more closely, he decided he must have been imagining it.
His thick-soled shoes clomped as he climbed the steps to the cabin door. He wrenched it open and stepped inside. "Claude?" he called. "You in here, durn it?"
A moment later, he screamed.
His brother's body lay face down in a pool of blood on the plank floor of the kitchen. Claude Pike's skull was crushed, and someone had been working on his body with knives as well. Willie had never seen so much blood, but it was the flinty red face of the Indian who stood over Claude that made Willie shriek in fear.
More Indians grabbed Willie from behind and forced him forward. Willie tried to writhe out of their grip until he felt the sharp point of a blade dig into his back and a trickle of blood snake its wet way toward his waist. Then he stared into the fierce, dark eyes of the Indian who stood over Claude.
"We only need one," the savage abruptly said in English. "You will do, dog of a white man. We will let you live if you can do one thing."
Overcome by fear, Willie babbled incoherently.
The Indian casually stepped over Claude's bloody corpse. He raised his hand, and Willie's eyes fixed on the crimson-stained blade he held. The Indian put the point against Willie's beard-stubbled throat and said, "I am Bear Knife, white man, and you will show me the way to the place called Abilene."
6
Captain Joseph Winters was a tall young man with a lean face and crisp brown hair. He had been raised in Massachusetts, the son of a well-to-do family, and had attended West Point, graduating in the lower third of his class but still a respectable distance from the bottom. White Eagle had known him for a little over a year. During that time, the scout had come to realize that someday Winters might make a halfway decent soldier, if the frontier
didn’t kill him first. At the moment though, he was a long way from being a good officer.
As he entered Flint's office, Winters took off his gloves, folded them, and stuck them behind his belt. Then he removed his hat and tried to knock some of the trail dust from it.
Sergeant Harrison Hull, a burly man with thinning sandy hair, slouched in behind him. Hull was a veteran noncom and looked it. The Army was the only life he had known since his mid-teens.
White Eagle, Flint, and Cully followed the two cavalrymen into the office. Orion had gone to the undertaker's to arrange to have Gilbert's body removed. Once that was done, the saloonkeeper would return to the tavern to assess the damage that had been done in the brawl.
Flint flipped his hat onto one of the pegs just inside the door and went behind the desk. He motioned at the chair opposite him. "Have a seat, Captain," he said to Winters. "You look like a man who has a story to tell,"
"It's not a pretty one, I'm afraid," Winters replied grimly as he sat down. Hull stood behind him, looking bored.
Cully grabbed one of the chairs that sat against the wall and straddled it as he cuffed back his hat. "Thanks again, Sarge," he said to Hull. "That was a pretty good shot."
"Like I told the captain, sir, I guess my aim was off-," Hull said. "I was figuring to shoot over the man's head." Everyone in the room heard the mocking insincerity in his voice.
White Eagle wasn’t surprised that Hull had shot to kill. The man had learned the lessons of a soldier early and well, and White Eagle was convinced that Hull enjoyed killing.
Flint leaned back in his chair. "You were saying, Captain?" he prompted.
Winters nodded and looked closely at White Eagle. "Bear Knife has escaped," he said slowly.
White Eagle felt his heart thudding harder in his chest. "How long ago?"
"A little over a week," Winters replied. "We were out on patrol. Headquarters sent a rider with a dispatch after us. We were told to come here at once to alert you and the local authorities."
Flint straightened and laced his hands together on the desk in front of him. "Who is this Bear Knife?" he asked.
"He's a Kiowa brave. One of their war chiefs, I suppose you would call him."
White Eagle added, "I've known him for years, Marshal. We were friends once when I was still living with my mother's people." He paused, then said in a bleak voice, "That's one reason he wants to kill me now."
"He's got at least a dozen braves with him," Winters said, "plus any renegades he's managed to pick up since leaving the reservation. General Mackenzie is afraid this is going to be a major murder raid, Dandaneau. And you know that you'll be the real object of it."
White Eagle nodded. He turned to Flint and Cully, who were staring at him with a mixture of puzzlement and concern. "Bear Knife was one of Quanah's right-hand men during the Red River War," he explained. "Like most of the warriors, he was rounded up and placed on a reservation after the fight at Palo Duro Canyon. The last time I saw him, he told me that I was responsible for what had happened to his people. He blames me for their defeat, Marshal. According to him, I've got the blood of scores of brave Kiowas on my hands."
"And now this man's on the loose," Flint mused. "Sounds bad. But what makes you think he's coming to Abilene, Captain?"
Winters gestured toward White Eagle. "Like Dandaneau says, Bear Knife hates him and above all else wants to kill him. He didn't hesitate to kill several troopers during his escape. On their way out of the agency, he and his men captured one of the Crow scouts who was staying there."
"Broken Moon!" White Eagle exclaimed.
Winters nodded. "That's right. We found his body a few miles away. He had been severely tortured." The captain looked at White Eagle. "Did the Crow know where you were going, Dandaneau?"
White Eagle nodded slowly. "I told him I was coming to Abilene to try to find my father," he said, his voice harsh. "Broken Moon was a good friend, dammit!"
"But he would have told Bear Knife what he wanted to know."
"Yes. I'm afraid you're right. Not many men can stand up under torture for long." White Eagle faced Flint. "There's a good chance Bear Knife will be heading here, Marshal. But at least we've been warned."
Cully looked dubious. "You really think this Bear Knife would raid a town the size of Abilene?"
"To get at me, he probably would," White Eagle replied. "He believes he has a blood debt to settle. He'll gladly give up his own life for the chance to kill me."
"That's what General Mackenzie thinks, too," Winters agreed. He looked at Flint. "I'm to put myself and my men at your disposal, Marshal. We'll stay here in Abilene until Bear Knife arrives or is recaptured."
Flint frowned as he digested the information. Then he said, "I've always tried to cooperate with the military, Captain. If there's a chance of Indian trouble, I'm glad you're here. I have one favor to ask of you, though. If the townspeople realize there's a possibility of an Indian raid, they'll panic. I don't want that."
"Neither do I, Marshal. I assure you we'll keep the details of our mission to ourselves."
"Don't you think folks have a right to know if they're in danger, Marshal?" Cully asked.
"Yes," Flint said. "But for the time being, let's keep things quiet. If we hear that Bear Knife is getting close to town, we'll have enough time to clear folks out."
White Eagle stalked across the room and peered through a window at the street. He saw men, women, and children hurrying by, people who had no idea that soon they might be in mortal danger. To many of Abilene's citizens, Indian trouble was a thing of the past. They might learn differently now, and it would be his fault.
White Eagle swung around and faced Flint. "I think I should leave, Marshal," he said flatly. "I don't want to put your citizens in danger."
Flint pushed back his chair, but before he could say anything, Captain Winters spoke. "That wouldn't do any good. If Bear Knife knows you were heading here, the town is going to be in danger no matter where you are. Having you leave won't help Abilene now."
Flint nodded. "Besides, if he finds out you're on the run, he'll just follow you, and then any folks in his way will be in trouble," he said.
"It's better if you stay here," Winters said. "That way we can prepare for Bear Knife's arrival. With any luck, we can capture him with a minimum of risk to the civilians."
White Eagle looked at Flint and Winters for a long moment, then finally nodded. He knew they were right, and besides, he had never been a man to run from trouble.
"Who knows, Bear Knife may be caught before he gets close to Abilene," Winters said. "Then we'll have worried for nothing."
White Eagle thought the captain would be disappointed if that happened. Winters was probably looking forward to a fight, the scout mused. If the young officer could recapture Bear Knife—under dramatic circumstances—he would make a name for himself. White Eagle doubted that Winters would deliberately endanger the town, but he would seize any opportunity to further his career.
Flint shifted his attention from Winters to Sergeant Hull, who had been standing quietly during the discussion. The marshal said, "Now, Sergeant, there is the matter of that man you killed a few minutes ago."
Hull jerked his sleepy eyes up. "I was just followin' orders, Marshal," he declared. "Ain't my fault I missed."
"I won't argue that point with you," Flint said. "And since you probably saved my deputy's life, I don't think there will be any charges brought against you. However, you will have to attend the inquest and testify before the coroner's jury. You have any problem with that?"
Hull looked at his commanding officer. "What about it, Captain?"
"We always cooperate with local lawmen, Hull," Winters replied. "The sergeant will be available whenever you need him, Marshal."
Flint nodded. "That's fine."
Winters stood up, pulled his gloves from his belt, and slapped them against the palm of his other hand. "We'll make camp on the edge of town. Do you have any suggestions for a campsite, Marshal?"
"There's a pretty good field near Mud Creek, on the west side of town," Flint said. "Water's nearby, and there are some shade trees."
Cully got to his feet. "I know the place you mean, Marshal. I can show the troopers where it is."
"Thank you, Deputy," Winters said as he turned toward the door. He glanced at White Eagle. "I'll expect to see you later, Dandaneau. We need to make plans for Bear Knife."
White Eagle hesitated. Winters was too quick to issue orders. The scout wasn’t under his command at the moment. But he wouldn’t accomplish anything by getting upset about it.
"All right," he said. "I'll ride over to your camp once you're settled in."
Winters nodded and went out, followed by Hull and Cully. Flint watched them go, then said to White Eagle, "Looks like that peaceful visit of yours isn't going to turn out that way."
"It hasn't been very peaceful," White Eagle replied distractedly. There had already been the trouble with Gilbert and his friends, and now a much greater threat loomed on the horizon.
A threat that might touch people he had come to care about—like Cully and Orion, Addie Plunket, and Emily Sweeney, even his own father...and Katie and her unborn child.
The scout's face set in hard lines. He wouldn’t allow Katie to come to any harm. Not even if it cost him his life.
7
The next few days passed quietly. The Dickinson County coroner, who was also the local undertaker, held an inquest into the death of Butch Gilbert. Following testimony from White Eagle, Cully, Orion, and Sergeant Harrison Hull, the jury determined that the shooting of Gilbert was justifiable.
The result surprised no one. Gilbert was buried with only the undertaker and Lucas Flint in attendance. The man had been a drifter like his friends, and those friends had moved on after Gilbert's death. Flint had fined the two who had been part of the brawl in Orion's, but only enough to cover the damages.
The cavalry troop established their camp on the edge of town. Flint and Cully spread the story that the soldiers were awaiting the delivery of a herd of cattle from Texas. The first herds were not expected to come up the trail for several weeks, so the presence of the troop was passed off as bureaucratic inefficiency to those who bothered to ask about it.
Rattler's Law, Volume One Page 86