by Charles Ray
Bass always made it a practice to stop there when entering the territory, to catch up on the latest gossip, and to see if he’d received any new threats. Always written and left in the hollow of a large dead tree beside the road, some outlaws issued their threats to specific lawmen rather than lawmen in general. Since becoming a deputy marshal, Bass had received twelve, which he collected and kept in a box under the bed at his house. Of the men who’d issued threats so far, Dozier was the only one he’d failed to catch. He had a feeling, though, that that was about to change.
The weather was a bit on the warm side for mid-December, but not at all unpleasant. The air, outside the little settlement, was crisp with the woodsy smells of an Oklahoma winter, without the constant winds that swept across the western part of the territory. Within the settlement, though, it was a different matter. Regardless of the season, an undefinable scent, something between the sticky-sweet smell of sour milk and the musty odor of a wet horse, hung in the air night and day, whether the weather was biting cold or suffocatingly hot, only dissipating after a rain, but coming back even stronger within an hour of the last raindrop falling. Over the years, Bass had gotten used to it. He ignored it as he dismounted and tied his horse to the makeshift hitching rail near the outdoor saloon.
A man of nearly his height, but slender, looking like a hastily-constructed puppet with tangled strings, and dressed in white pants and a faded brown jacket, his greasy hair, hanging to his shoulders, covered on top by a derby hat with two bullet holes through the crown, approached Bass.
“Well, hi-dee, Marshal,” he said in a reedy voice. “Been a spell since you stopped here in Gethsemane.”
Bass stopped and began to breathe shallowly to minimize the stench that emanated from the Good Reverend Jonathan Criswell, self-appointed pastor of the Church of Universal Enlightenment of Gethsemane, a church without a building, whose congregation consisted of Criswell, and whatever patron of the saloon too drunk to evade his interminable sermons. Apparently, one of the tenets of the Church of Enlightenment was a ban on bathing, because Bass would swear that the man’s skin was darker with grease and dirt and his body odor was stronger each time he encountered him.
“How you been, reverend? I been kinda busy,” he said, moving to step around the man. Criswell held up an arm to block his way.
“I reckon. Well, I got a message for you, Marshal.” Criswell leaned in close, causing Bass to recoil. His breath smelled even worse than the rest of his body, like an outhouse needing lime in summer.
“What message is that?”
“It’s from Bob Dozier. He wanted to make sure you got it, so the man he sent it by didn’t leave it in the tree, but brought it here, jest in case you didn’t check the tree.”
Stink or no stink, the man had his attention.
“What’s the message say, reverend?”
“It said you a coward, and if you go further into the Injun Territory, he gonna shoot you down like a dirty dog.”
Criswell cocked his head, and smiled, showing dirty, tobacco-stained teeth.
“Well, now,” Bass said. “That’s sure enough interesting. Where ‘bouts did this Dozier fella say he is?”
“Uh, he didn’t say exactly, jest somethin’ ‘bout the Cherokee Hills, and you’d know where it is. But, the fella said, Dozier’s bettin’ you won’t be comin’.”
So, Bass thought, Dozier’s darin’ me to come after him. Or, maybe he’s hopin; I’ll back down. Well, he got himself another think comin’. “Mr. Dozier’s gon’ lose that bet,” he said. “Oh yeah, he’s gon’ lose that bet, for sure, ‘cause I will be goin’ after him.” He looked around the crowd of men, all of whom were now staring at him. “Mister, if you still here, you go tell Bob Dozier that Bass Reeves be seein’ him, and I’ll be seein’ him real soon. Oh yeah, you tell him, I’m comin’ for him.”
He turned back to Criswell. “You got a copy of that note?”
Criswell pulled the paper from his shirt pocket and handed it to Bass. “Here it is, Deputy. You can read it, and see, it say jest what I done told you.”
Bass, of course, could not read it. But, it didn’t matter. He could get Joseph to read if for him if need be, but he was pretty sure the old man had fairly accurately relayed Dozier’s message, just as he was pretty sure that Dozier’s messenger was somewhere in the crowd at the saloon. What was important was that Dozier get his message.
He slapped his hands on his thighs, whirled, and walked back to his horse.
Chapter 20.
“He said he’s comin’ after you, boss,” Garner said, rubbing his chin. “And, if you’d been there, you’d be as scairt as I was. He means it.”
Dozier smiled. “I know he means it. That black bastard’s got grit in his craw, I’ll give him that, and he’s had a burr under his saddle agin me since he pinned that damn badge on. By the way, that was pretty smart of you, stayin’ ‘round after you delivered the note to make sure he got my message.”
“What if he gets a posse? Jest the two of us can’t hold off a whole posse. Boss, we ought to hightail it. You can kill that deputy another day.”
“You listen to me, Hank Garner, and you listen good.” Dozier stabbed his finger at his hapless confederate’s face. “I’m gonna kill this son of a bitch, and I’m gonna do it when he comes up here. Don’t matter if he comes with a posse. I ain’t gonna stand ten paces from him and do a fast draw.”
“So, how you gonna do it?”
“That’s what rifles as for, my friend. You don’t have to be close to a man to kill him. Remember that Texas Ranger.”
Garner smiled. “Oh, you mean we gonna bushwhack him.”
“Now, you thinkin’. You got a future in this business, boy, you keep thinkin’ like that. Now, let’s set down and have a drink, and I’ll tell you what I got planned.”
Chapter 21.
Joseph Lone Tree was sitting in a rocking chair on his front porch, a cup of coffee in his hand, when Bass rode into the yard. The sun was just beginning to kiss the tops of the trees in the west, casting long shadows across the fields and woods.
“You have come just in time for supper,” Joseph said.
Bass looked at the sky, “I was kinda hopin’ we could get started for Cherokee Hills right away.”
“Even the two of us, the best trackers in the territory, cannot follow a trail in the dark. And, I would guess that you have not had a good meal since you ate here the last time.”
“Reckon you got the right of it there.” Bass rubbed his stomach. “Not goin’ home so Nellie don’t find out what I’m doin’ done messed up my eatin’ somethin’ fierce.”
“I hope you like pork chops and collard greens.”
“Long’s you got cornbread to go with it.”
“Cornbread or soft biscuits, your choice.”
Bass laughed. “I’ll take two of each.”
Joseph stood. “Thought you would. Let’s go eat.”
After supper, their bellies comfortably full, they filled cups with coffee and went back to the front porch. The air was a bit chilly, but that had the advantage of keeping bugs at bay.
“We goin’ into town tomorrow to organize a posse?”
Bass sipped at his coffee, avoiding eye contact. Joseph frowned.
“Come on, Bass, do not tell me we will not have a posse with us when we go after Dozier.”
“Okay, if you don’t want me to, I won’t tell you.” He took another sip.
“But, we won’t have a posse, will we?”
“Look, Joseph. We go ridin’ up in them hills with a big posse, and Dozier jest gon’ light out, and we never catch him.”
Shaking his head, Joseph said, “But, if you ‘n me ride up there, just the two of us, him and his men will gun us down. There’s three of them and only two of us, remember?”
“Shoot, I always thought you was better than any five outlaws, mebbe even six, ‘n I knows I can handle two men in a stand-up fight. Looks to me like the odds in our favor.”
�
�You don’t really expect Dozier to stand and fight, do you?”
“Naw. I reckon that snake’ll try to ambush us.”
“Just what I was thinkin’. There are many places on that trail up the hill to where I think his hideout might be, where he could hide and see us coming from a quarter mile off.”
Bass dipped a finger into his cup. “My coffee done got cold. What say we get more hot coffee, sit here and enjoy the cool evenin’ air, and not worry ‘bout it for a while.”
“You know, the white man’s always sayin’ it’s us Cherokee, and the other Indians, who are fierce in battle, unafraid of anything, and who face death without expression. But, you, my brother, make any Indian seem like a burning log. How can you treat the possibility of meeting this man and his gang without any worry?”
“It ain’t that I don’t worry, Joseph,” Bass said. “It’s just that I don’t let worry cripple me. Sure, bad things can happen, but so can good things. If you let the bad things keep you from livin’ life like you want to, ain’t much use in livin’, I think.”
The two then lapsed into companionable silence, staring up at the rapidly darkening sky, and the stars, glittering like so many bright jewels. Sitting there, side by side, each was alone in his own thoughts. There was, in their friendship, no need for words. Each would put his life on the line for the other, and both knew this. In Bass mind, though, was the additional thought, I got to think me up a plan to keep me and Joseph safe .
Chapter 22.
Dozier paced from one end of the ridge to the other, staring down the narrow trail cutting through the hills from the south. For the better part of the day, he and Garner had trekked up one hill and down another, looking for the spot, the perfect spot, from which to launch his plan.
Trailing along behind his mercurial boss, Garner kept his mouth shut, his eyes open, and one hand constantly near the butt of his revolver. Dozier, on the other hand, simply muttered incoherently to himself as he rejected one place after another.
“We need to make sure we find a place where we can get a clean shot, and have time to hightail it out of there ahead of a posse,” he said. He turned and leveled a finger at Garner. “You ain’t hardly said a word. You got to help me find a good hidey hole, Hank.”
“Uh, sure thing, boss,” the hapless Garner replied. “How far you want to be from the cabin?”
“Why you ask?” Dozier eyed him suspiciously.
“Well, you said you want to be able to get off a shot, and have time to make a clean getaway, right?”
“Yeah, fool. I just said that. I said help me, not repeat what I been sayin’.”
Garner held his hands up in a placating gesture.
“Naw, boss, it ain’t like that,” he said. “It’s just, I got me an idea that I ain’t sure you’re gonna like, but I think it’d work.”
“Well, don’t keep me waitin’ all day. What’s your idea?”
Garner took a deep breath, rubbing at the stubble on his chin.
“Well, the trail just below the cabin. You know how it gets real narrow so’s only one rider at a time can pass through? Well, even if they’s a posse, they have to line up. I’m thinkin’ this deputy fella’s gonna be in front of the posse, so when he come in sight, we plug him, and light out the back way over the other side of the hill. They’d be slow comin’ after us, on account of havin’ to ride through that cut single file.”
Dozier snorted and glared at Garner so long, the man shrank back. His hands trembled.
“I don’t like the idea of doin’ anything so close to our hideout,” he said. “The two of us can’t take out a whole posse, so they gonna know where the cabin’s at, and they’re likely to come back. Not smart, Hank, not smart at all.”
Now, Garner was trembling all over. Dozier enjoyed seeing the fear on the faces of the men he brought into his gangs. Actually, he thought, he probably shouldn’t even call them gangs, because he rarely kept a man longer than a year of two, which, along with the fact that he did everything from stage coach robberies to land fraud, made it hard for the law to get a line on him. Only Bass Reeves, who was like a tick on a hound dog, seemed to always be right behind him. Well, that was a problem he was soon going to remedy, and after that, he would reconsider his decision to keep Garner around. Maybe it was time to take on a whole new bunch of men. And, it had the advantage that he would have the whole bank haul for himself.
“L-look, boss,” Garner said. “I know you like this place. I kinda like it myself. But, we been here a while, and I w-was thinkin’ it might be time to move on. We wouldn’t have to go far. They’s valleys and tree-covered hills all over. But, we stay here too long, and they gonna get wind of it.”
Dozier rubbed the bridge of his nose. He was accustomed to being the smartest man in any group, and this was a new experience. As much as he hated to admit it, Garner was making sense. He had been in this one place too long.
“Okay, Hank. You got a point. Let’s get everything packed up and ready to move soon’s we get rid of our little problem.”
Garner visibly relaxed, but kept a wary look on his face. Hell, Dozier thought, maybe I’ll keep this one after all.
Chapter 23.
Early the next morning, Bass and Joseph saddled up and headed toward Cherokee Hills. The air was crisp, almost cold, causing their breath to form little puffs of white in front of their faces and the faces of their horses. For once, Bass rode hunched in the saddle not just to appear smaller, but to get as much warmth as possible from the wool coat he wore.
Despite the cold air, or maybe because it had replaced the stifling heat that marked the summer season, with its bugs and the sticky odor from the pine forests, he found the ride exhilarating. In fact, if not that a deadly outlaw waited at the end of the ride, he would have been enjoying himself.
Riding beside him, Joseph Lone Tree was quieter and more taciturn than usual, staring straight ahead at the trail, his face as still as a wooden carving.
“Nice day, ain’t it?” Bass finally said, glancing over at his old friend.
Joseph said nothing, but he looked at Bass as if he was seeing a stranger.
Bass was, much like Joseph, not really given to idle conversation. But, he could see the concern etched on his friend’s face, and he knew that he was troubled about something. He even thought he knew what that something was, but wouldn’t be so rude as to presume to know what Joseph was thinking. There was, then, only one way to deal with the situation.
“Something’s eatin’ at you, Joseph,” he said. “You want to tell me what it is?”
“There is nothing wrong.” Joseph patted his horse’s neck, avoiding eye contact.
“You ain’t foolin’ me, old friend. I done knowed you too long. I can tell when you got a burr under your saddle.” Bass halted his horse, forcing Joseph to stop as well. “Now, we ain’t goin’ another step until you tell me what’s wrong.”
Joseph sighed deeply, finally looking Bass in the eye. “Okay, I will tell you what’s wrong. You and I have been blood brothers since the war against the rebels, and we have faced much danger together. Never before did I question the way you do things, but now, I just do not know. When we fought the southern rebels, we never rode into an ambush on purpose as you seem determined to do now.,”
“I know what you thinkin’, but it ain’t like that.”
“But, it looks like that to me. I know what you said about a posse, and likely you are right. If Dozier spots a large group coming for him, he will run. But, surely there is a way to do it without him knowing. When he spots just the two of us, he will shoot from hiding, and we will be dead, and he will still get away.”
It was as Bass had thought, and he understood Joseph’s concern. He, too, had concerns. Not because he thought the two of them couldn’t handle Dozier and his two gunmen, but because of Nellie’s dream. He had a strong belief in dreams as harbingers of what was to come. But, Nellie’s dream didn’t give enough details. It warned of danger without specifying the nature or o
utcome of that danger. It told him nothing that he didn’t already know. Going after outlaws was always dangerous, and chasing a wily outlaw like Bob Dozier was more dangerous than most. But, was the doom hinted at by Nellie’s dream meant for him or Dozier? The not knowing was the most troubling part.
Joseph, though, was right. If the two of them rode up the trail, Dozier and his men would simply bushwhack them, and that would be the end of it. He knew that, and it had figured mightily in his plan for getting the outlaw.
“I know Dozier will bushwhack us if he sees it’s just the two of us,” he said. “That’s why he ain’t gon’ see two riders.”
Joseph’s eyebrows lifted a fraction, the closest he’d ever come to looking surprised.
“And, how do you plan to do that?”
Bass dismounted. “Let’s light a spell, and I’ll tell you my plan.”
He walked his horse off the trail and tied the reins to a small tree. Joseph dismounted and followed, a look of curiosity on his swarthy face.
“Is this gonna be another of your play-acting schemes?” he asked.
“Naw, it ain’t gon’ be that complicated.” He knelt and picked up a twig. “Squat here, and let me explain.”
Bass drew a long line in the dirt, wavy a bit like a snake, and at the right end, he drew in an ‘X.’
“This here’s the trail we on now,” he said.
Squatting next to him, Joseph picked up a twig and stabbed at the ‘X’ with it.
“And, this is Dozier’s hideout?”
“Yeah, I figure it’s prob’ly a trapper’s shack.”
Joseph nodded.
“But, we don’t know what it looks like up ahead,” Joseph said. “Probably got all kinds of places where a bushwhacker can lay up.”
“Figure it do, and prob’ly gets a mite narrow in places, too.”
Joseph rubbed his chin. His worried look deepened.
“Which means even if we had a posse, there would be places we would have to ride single file.”