Fort Death (9781101607916)

by Sharpe, Jon

“You might have Bannocks to shoot soon,” Fargo said, hoping she would take the hint.

  “No,” Sadie said sadly, “being a woman in a man’s world is no picnic. A girl who wants to get ahead on her own has to resort to all sorts of tricks.”

  “Such as?” Fargo absently asked.

  “Oh, I won’t say. But the things I’ve had to do.” Sadie paused. “I can’t ever do enough, though. The year before last I worked five months out of the twelve. Ain’t that pitiful?”

  Fargo was growing irritated.

  “I’m tired of hardly ever having enough to buy the supplies I need or for ammunition or to have my horse shoed. I want more work, damn it, and I will by-God have it.”

  “I’ll see what I can do about sending some your way,” Fargo said, and gigged the Ovaro to pull ahead and nip further babble in the bud. He was following a game trail, the same trail the Bannocks had used.

  The trail entered a belt of firs, the trees so high and so close together that they were plunged in perpetual shadow.

  It was as good a spot for an ambush as any, and a feeling came over him, a feeling he’d had before. Some part of him, deep down, knew that as surely as the sun rose in the east and set in the west, a few of the Bannocks were in the firs, waiting.

  Twisting in the saddle, Fargo said quietly to Sagebrush Sadie, “They’re fixing to jump us. Pass it along.”

  Sadie gave a mild start, and slowed so she was next to California Jim.

  Fargo shoved the Henry into the scabbard and palmed his Colt. In the narrow ranks of firs, the short gun was better.

  A heavy silence had fallen, like a cemetery at midnight when there was no wind. The trees, and their branches, were completely still. It was as if the forest was holding its breath, waiting for something to happen.

  At times there were aisles between the ranks but then Fargo would come to a cluster so tightly spaced he had to go around. And it was as he was going around one that a sharp cry split the stillness, behind him, and a rifle boomed.

  Fargo jabbed his spurs and wheeled to join the others. They had drawn rein and were scanning the trees with their rifles and pistols trained.

  All save for the crumpled form of Tennessee. The Southerner had been last in line and had taken an arrow in the back. He was on his side, thrashing and clutching in vain at the shaft, blood gushing from his mouth.

  It was Badger who got to him and vaulted from his mare.

  Fargo started to go past Sadie and spotted a shadowed figure with a bow to his left. Swiveling, he fanned the Colt twice and saw the figure rock to the impact and go down.

  War whoops shattered the firs as more figures appeared and arrows whizzed.

  Bear River Tom fired.

  So did California Jim.

  Badger, on a knee beside Tennessee, banged off two shots as swiftly as Fargo had done.

  A painted warrior charged out of the trees with an upraised tomahawk. He came straight at the Ovaro, his features contorted in hate.

  Fargo shot him in the face. He drew rein beside Badger and Tennessee to cover them.

  A harsh whinny heralded the crash of Bear River Tom’s horse. He scrambled clear, cursing lustily.

  And then, just like that, it was over.

  The war whoops died. The shadowy figures melted away.

  Fargo stayed in the saddle. It could be a trick. It could be the Bannocks had gone to ground and were snaking closer.

  A couple of minutes went by and the firs stayed still.

  Fargo deemed it safe to climb down. To the rest he said, “Keep your eyes skinned.”

  Blood trickled from Tennessee’s nose as well as his mouth. He was breathing, if barely. His eyes, pools of shock and regret, found Fargo’s.

  “I reckon this is it,” he said.

  Badger was examining where the arrow had gone into Tennessee’s back. “I can try to dig this out.”

  “I don’t have that long,” Tennessee said.

  The others were forming a protective ring with their mounts.

  “Of all the places to die, this isn’t where I’d choose,” Tennessee said.

  “We don’t get to pick,” Badger said.

  “Try to make him comfortable,” Sadie requested.

  “How?” Badger returned.

  California Jim bent down. “Would you care for some whiskey?”

  A weak smile curled Tennessee’s thin lips. “I surely would.”

  It took only a moment for California to rummage his flask from his saddlebag. He opened it and passed it to Fargo who gave it to Badger. Badger cradled Tennessee’s head and let him take a sip.

  “You’re a right fine gentleman,” the Southerner said, and coughed.

  “I’m so sorry,” Sagebrush Sadie said. She appeared about to burst into tears.

  “You and me both,” Tennessee said.

  “I have always liked you,” Sadie said. “You’ve been a good friend.”

  “Pretty soon now I’ll be a dead one.” Tennessee coughed, and out spurted more blood.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t talk,” Sadie told him.

  “What else do I have to do?” Tennessee closed his eyes, and groaned. “Tarnation, it hurts.”

  “I could put you out of your misery,” Badger offered.

  Fargo and everyone else looked at him.

  “No, thanks,” Tennessee said. “I’ll take what I have left.”

  “What a thing to say,” Sadie said to Badger. “He’s not a horse with a broke leg.”

  “No,” Badger said, “he’s a man and he’s suffering. You’ll kill a horse that’s in a lot of pain but you won’t do the same for a man?”

  Tennessee looked up. “Tell me you got the one who got me.”

  “He might have gotten away,” Bear River Tom said.

  “Some friends you are.”

  “I’ll hunt him down,” Badger said. “I’ll hunt all of them down.”

  “You’d do that for me?”

  “Not for just you. No one tries to kill me and goes on breathing,” Badger said. To stress his point, he repeated, “No one.”

  “A man after my own heart.” Tennessee shook, and gasped. “I’m cold all of a sudden.”

  Fargo was keeping an eye on the firs, just in case. He appeared to be the only one doing so.

  “Is there anyone we can get word to?” California Jim asked. “Kin and such?”

  “I only got my ma and two sisters,” Tennessee said. “When I don’t show in a year or so, they’ll know.” He grit his teeth. “Won’t be long now,” he said, and his chest stopped rising and falling.

  “Well, hell,” California said.

  “Now there’s only five of us,” Bear River Tom said.

  10

  An argument broke out.

  Sagebrush Sadie insisted they take Tennessee to the settlement and bury him “proper.” California Jim thought that was a waste of time. Bear River Tom agreed with Sadie.

  “Listen to all of you,” Badger said. “You’re forgetting the girl the Bannocks took.” He climbed on his mare. “Take the body back if you want but I’m going to get that girl or die trying.”

  “Makes two of us,” Fargo said.

  “I make it three,” California Jim said.

  Bear River Tom looked from them to Sadie and back again. “She shouldn’t ought to do it herself.”

  “I can manage,” Sadie said.

  “What if Bannocks have circled around and jump you?” Tom said.

  Unlikely, Fargo reckoned. Yet he said to Tom, “You go with her. The rest of us will go on.”

  “I feel bad leaving you,” Bear River Tom said.

  “Time’s a-wasting,” Badger declared, and lashed his mare.

  Fargo and California
rode together. Neither spoke until they were close to the top of the ridge, and had slowed.

  “I don’t like this, pard,” California said. “First Jed, now Tennessee. It’s as if someone is out to get us.”

  “Someone is,” Fargo said. “The Bannocks.”

  “Two of the best scouts alive, done in on the same day.”

  “We go when we go.”

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear someone put a hoodoo on us.”

  “But you do know better,” Fargo said. “And since when did you become superstitious?”

  California shrugged. “Luck can turn against a person. You must know that, all the poker you play.”

  “Do you want to turn back?”

  “No,” California said, without a lot of conviction. “We have to do what we can for the little girl.”

  “Glad you agree.”

  “Don’t be spiteful. My gut is in a knot. Last time I felt this way was that time I took an Apache arrow. Just like Crow and Tennessee.”

  “You lived. They didn’t.”

  “Damn it. You could show some concern. I forget how hard you can be.”

  Badger had drawn rein and was waiting for them to catch up.

  “Something?” Fargo asked.

  “Maybe you can talk a little louder so the Bannocks will hear.”

  “That’s uncalled for,” California Jim said.

  Badger scowled. “I didn’t say anything about Sadie’s blathering. She’s female. Or about Tom’s. He’s short on common sense. You two don’t have an excuse.”

  “We’re not infants,” California Jim said.

  “Then stop acting like you are,” Badger said, and kneed his mare.

  “The gall,” California said.

  “He’s right and you know it.”

  They pushed on.

  Fargo expected the tracks to eventually bring them to the Bannock village. How they would slip in and get the girl and slip out again remained to be seen. They could wait for dark but the Bannocks had dogs and all it would take was a barking mongrel to rouse half the tribe.

  Late in the afternoon Badger caught their eye and pointed.

  Smoke rose into the sky. Not a lot, but any was a surprise. Indians rarely gave their presence away; they kindled small fires so there was little if any smoke to show where they were.

  “Careless of them,” California Jim said.

  When they could smell the smoke, they stopped and climbed down. The last fifty yards, they crawled.

  Fargo came to a log and took off his hat before poking his head up. Below, in a narrow valley, nine young warriors ringed a campfire.

  “We’re in luck,” Badger said. “They stopped early for the night.”

  “I don’t see the girl,” California said.

  Neither did Fargo.

  “You don’t reckon they—” California didn’t finish.

  A tall warrior bent toward the fire to add a piece of tree limb.

  “There she is,” Fargo said. “Behind the big one.”

  “Good eyes,” Badger said.

  “Is that rope around her ankles?” California said. “They must be afraid she’ll run off.”

  “They’re too far away for us to pick off from up here,” Badger said. “I say we wait until dark, slip on down, and send them to hell.”

  “Indians have their own hereafter,” California Jim said. “They don’t go where we do.”

  “We don’t go anywhere,” Badger said. “We die and that’s it.”

  “Good God,” California said. “You’re just like Bear River Tom.”

  “Have you ever once heard me mention tits?”

  Fargo was studying on how best to approach the Bannocks. The forest ended about sixty to seventy feet from the campfire. That was a lot of open space to cover. “Ladies,” he said, “save your squabbles for later.”

  “I don’t wear no bonnet,” California Jim said indignantly.

  They spent what was left of the afternoon watching and waiting.

  Sunset was spectacular, painting the sky in vivid hues of pink and orange and red. The shadows of the trees stretched across the valley floor and over the Bannocks.

  The warriors were eating and talking. Now and again the one near the girl glanced at her but the rest paid no attention.

  Twilight gave way to night. The Bannock fire was the only glow of light anywhere.

  “I reckon it’s time,” Badger said.

  “Why not wait until they turn in?” California Jim suggested.

  “I need to be as close as I can when they do.” Badger started to rise.

  “It should be me,” Fargo said.

  “Why you? I can be just as sneaky. I’ve lived with Apaches, the same as you.”

  “I want it to be me,” Fargo said. He couldn’t say why. He just did.

  “I told you before, I’m the official scout here.”

  “How about we flip?” California proposed, and slid a coin from his pocket. “Call it.”

  “Heads,” Fargo said.

  Heads it was.

  Badger didn’t like it. “I’ll give in this time but don’t push me.”

  Fargo slipped over the rise and down the other side until he was in thick growth. Rising, he glided lower.

  Toward the bottom he slowed.

  A cluster of boulders was ideal for spying without being seen. He rested his chin on his forearms and listened to the Bannocks banter. Not as versed in their tongue as he was in some others, he caught only a few words he knew.

  The warriors weren’t disposed to turn in early. Why should they be when they were young and on the warpath, the headiest excitement they could know.

  There hadn’t been a peep out of Sophie Johnson. But now she sat up and looked at the tall warrior. Her hair was a mess and her dress was streaked with dirt and she looked as sad as a human being could be. “I’m hungry,” she said in a small voice.

  The warrior acted as if she wasn’t there.

  “I want something to eat,” Sophie said. “Some of that rabbit you cooked.”

  The warrior still ignored her.

  “You promised, Thunder Hawk,” Sophie said. “You said I could have something to eat if I behaved.”

  The remains of the rabbit were on a spit. There wasn’t much left, a few strands of meat and bones.

  The tall warrior took hold of one end and held it out to her. “Here,” he said gruffly.

  Sophie snatched it. She was so famished that when she had stripped the meat, she gnawed at the bone. After a bit she said, “There wasn’t much of it left. I’m still hungry.”

  “Stop talk,” Thunder Hawk said.

  “This is all I get?”

  “You lucky get any.”

  “You’re mean. Do you know that?”

  “Stop talk or I hit.”

  “You killed my ma. I saw you with my own eyes. I hate you for that.”

  “Me kill many whites,” Thunder Hawk said.

  “I wish you’d killed me,” Sophie said. “I want to go home. I want my ma and pa to be alive.”

  “They dead.”

  Sophie’s eyes filled with tears. “I hate you. I hate you and your people more than anything.”

  “You Panati now. You learn not hate.”

  “I’ll never be any such thing. I’m a Johnson. I’ll always be a Johnson.”

  “You live with our people. We raise you Panati way.”

  “I don’t want to,” Sophie said.

  “You do anyway.”

  “Why didn’t you kill me like you did the rest of my family? Why did you bring me with you?”

  Thunder Hawk pointed at another warrior. “For Wolf Running. His girl, Morning Flower, di
e. His wife sad. You be their girl now.”

  “But you hate whites. I heard you say so.”

  “Not all whites,” Thunder Hawk said. “There one me like. Rest of your kind have bad hearts.”

  “We do not.”

  “Whites come to our land. Build what you call fort. Tell us we must do as whites say.”

  “It’s our land now. My pa said so. You’re just savages.”

  Thunder Hawk stared at her. By any standard, he was handsome. He wore his long hair in two braids, and his buckskins were finer than most.

  “Quit looking at me like that, consarn you,” Sophie Johnson said.

  “In ten winters you not hate so much.”

  “Winters? You mean years?” Sophie asked. “You Indians sure talk strange.”

  “You learn our tongue. Talk like us.”

  Sophie made as if to hit him with the rabbit bone. “I’d rather die.”

  “That so?” Thunder Hawk said, and placed his hand on the knife at his hip.

  11

  Sophie Johnson didn’t shrink in fear. She looked Thunder Hawk in the eyes and said, “Go ahead. I dare you. You already killed Ma and Pa and Timmy and Charlie. Kill me too.”

  They locked stares until Thunder Hawk grunted, and smiled. “You strong. I like that.”

  “I hate you.”

  “You not hate always. You grow, you stop. Take time, as your kind say.”

  “My kind,” Sophie repeated. “I’m not your kind and I don’t want to be.”

  “You be daughter to Wolf Running,” Thunder Hawk declared. “Make him wife happy again.”

  “I hate you, hate you, hate you.” Sophie sank onto her side with her back to him.

  One of the other warriors said something and Thunder Hawk went on at length, apparently translating his conversation. Several of the war party thought it was amusing.

  Fargo was more determined than ever to get the girl out of there. He had a long wait ahead.

  Starting about ten, the Bannocks began to turn in, one at a time. It was pushing midnight before the second-to-last yawned and stretched and lay down. The last was to stay on watch.

  The young warrior added wood to the fire and poked at it with a stick. He shifted. He fidgeted. He kept shaking his head to stay awake.

  Fargo stayed flat, awaiting the right moment, as a mountain lion would when stalking deer.