At first light, from his vantage point on a low hill, he watched the surviving Sioux leave. Two of them rode upright, their heads turning uneasily this way and that. The two others lay belly-down across the backs of their ponies, their long black hair trailing over the buffalo grass.
Fletcher caught them again as they crossed Rubicon Gulch in the rugged, broken hill country just to the east of Bridal Veil Falls.
He let the Sioux enter the gulch and begin to scramble up the opposite slope. Then he rode out from behind a low, tree-covered butte, drumming his heels into the little buckskin’s ribs, urging her into a fast gallop.
Fletcher drew a bead on the warrior nearest him, a tall man with a single eagle feather slanting above his head, and fired. The warrior threw up his hands and went over the back of his horse, scarlet blood blossoming on his chest like an opening flower.
The other Indian shot at the boy, but Fletcher was riding fast, and the warrior missed. The Sioux drew a revolver and fired again, but by now Fletcher was out of effective range, and the ball split the air harmlessly over his head.
Now the surviving warrior, no longer wishing to be burdened, left the dead where they lay.
That night the Sioux made camp on the open prairie under a stunted cottonwood by a swift-moving, bubbling creek. The warrior built a fire and sang his death song. Then he laid his rifle across his knees and waited without fear for what was to come.
Fletcher found him just before midnight.
The boy made no attempt at concealment. He dropped from the buckskin’s back and walked toward the fire. The Indian watched him come, black eyes steady and aware. Above them the moon played hide-and-seek behind scudding black clouds driven by a rain-laden wind, and the rippling grass sighed and whispered, never remaining still for a single moment.
As Fletcher drew closer, the Sioux rose to his feet and lifted a hand in salute. Then he brought up his Springfield, throwing it quickly to his shoulder. The warrior fired and missed. Fletcher fired at the same instant, and his aim was true.
The boy found his mother’s long scalp tied to the dead warrior’s rifle. He built up the fire, then threw the scalp into the flames where it would burn to ashes. Kneeling, he took the Indian’s steel-bladed tomahawk from his belt. Then, the firelight casting his long, flickering shadow on the ground, the boy raised the ax time and time again and cut off the warrior’s hands, first the right and then the left.
This done, Fletcher rose slowly to his feet. He felt sick and empty inside now that the hot anger in him was gone. He looked down at the Sioux’s bleeding stumps and found a little comfort in the fact that Ma and Pa were finally avenged.
When he made the long journey to the shadow world that follows death, the warrior would arrive there maimed, unable to draw the bow or hold the lance. He would never be able to make war or hunt or hold a naked woman in the trembling firelight but must wander, lamenting, among the tall, misty lodges of his people, forever an outcast.
The Sioux learned Fletcher’s name and remembered it well. In later years, when the Indians recounted his vengeance ride to white men, there were some among the whites who said the dead warrior, whose name was Tall Horse, had been doomed by the boy to endure an eternity of suffering and shame.
Gray beards clucked their tongues and shook their heads and said, “Surely that Indian paid too steep a price. That was an ill-done thing.”
But such thoughts had never entered Buck Fletcher’s head.
He had exacted the wergild.
The blood price.
He had brought about the reckoning.
Fletcher, only fourteen but already man-grown, had then left Two-Bit Creek and headed east toward where The War Between the States was raging.
He fought under the Stars and Bars in a dozen battles, was wounded three times, and when it all ended at Appomattox, he was a nineteen-year-old brevet major of horse artillery.
Now, for the first time since burying his folks, he’d come home ... and he still had no clear reason in his mind why he’d done so.
He did not intend to stay. The cabin on Two-Bit Creek was probably long gone anyway, and with it whatever lingering shadows remained of the man and woman who had been his parents.
Fletcher urged his tired horse forward. He trotted along the edge of an ancient buffalo trail, and it was an easy ride. He followed the trail all the way to where Slaughterhouse Gulch met up with Whitewood Creek, then headed south. Fletcher kept to the eastern, pine-covered foothills of Whitewood Peak, riding through a narrow, pleasant valley until he crossed Boulder Creek and rode onto flat grassland surrounded by shallower and more distant hills.
Earlier the gathering clouds had given the promise of snow, and they didn’t disappoint. Fat flakes began to fall from a sky that looked like sheets of curling lead. The wind picked up, dropping the temperature abruptly.
The pup whimpered and buried himself deeper inside Fletcher’s mackinaw for warmth, and the big man patted the squirming little bundle and whispered, “Not long now, boy, and maybe we’ll find us a place where we can build a fire and shelter for the night.”
The snow began to fall harder, and Fletcher bent his head against the driving wind, flakes frosting his sweeping dragoon mustache and eyebrows. It was cold and getting colder by the minute. Fletcher’s breath smoked in the air, and the thin cloth of his mackinaw provided little warmth.
Behind him the mustang balked, eager to get away from this open plain and find a sheltered place out of the snow.
Fletcher turned in the saddle and yanked on the lead rope, pulling the little horse closer. He kicked his stud into a weary lope, and the mustang followed, trusting that the man knew where he was going and that shelter must be close at hand.
Despite the cold, Fletcher was stunned by the savage beauty of the land around him, made even more magnificent by the falling snow.
The Black Hills rose in peaks and spires so tall they vanished into the lowering clouds, and the pine and aspen on their slopes were slowly dressing themselves in mantles of white. The canyons and gorges were deep-shadowed, full of mystery, and here and there cattle moved like gray ghosts in the distance.
Fletcher rode under a vast sky, the clouds so close to the earth he felt he could reach up and grab a handful, then watch it vanish from his fist like smoke.
As a boy he’d loved this land, thrived on its wonder, and now, gradually, that sense of awe, of belonging, was coming back to him.
A ring-necked pheasant, startled, fluttered up between the front legs of Fletcher’s stud, and the big horse reared in surprise. An instant later, a gunshot boomed across the afternoon quiet, then another, racketing echoes slamming among the surrounding hills like the fall of shattered glass.
Fletcher reined in his horse, looking around him.
The shots could have been fired by a hunter out after meat to store against the coming of winter.
Or they could mean big trouble.
Chapter 3
Trusting the mustang to stay ground-tied, or at least not to wander too far, Fletcher dropped the lead rope and kneed his stud cautiously forward.
Whatever those shots might portend, they were no business of his. The big man rode reluctantly, unwilling to get involved in another’s trouble.
As far as he could tell, the shots had come from the direction of a saddleback hill, its slopes and crest covered in pine and spruce, a thick stand of aspen, each tree identical to the other, on its lower level.
Fletcher considered that this was an out-of-the-way place for a hunter to be, though some of the hands from the surrounding ranches could well ride out this far to check for unbranded strays among the hills and deep, narrow arroyos.
The falling snow drew a white curtain against the day. Once, Fletcher’s tired horse slipped on a patch of slushy mud, and he had to fight to keep the stud’s head from pecking into the snow.
He drew closer to the saddleback, then reined up, an ingrained habit of caution dictating his every move. His eyes squinting against
the falling snow, Fletcher scanned the hill. Nothing. There was no movement but for the leaves of the aspen restlessly trembling in the keening wind.
Fletcher brushed snow off his mustache with the back of a gloved hand, nodded grimly, then kneed the stud forward at a slow walk. Only a fool or a pilgrim rides headlong into gun trouble, if that’s what the shots signified.
Above him soared the vast sweep of the cloud-ravaged sky, and around him lay lush grassland butting against the pine-covered hills and their deep, unexpected canyons.
It was country for a man to cross with care and with a wary eye to the hills and the hidden places where a rifleman could lie in wait.
The pup squirmed inside Fletcher’s mackinaw, trying in vain to find a warmer spot, and he gently patted the animal into stillness.
A young whitetail buck burst in sudden panic from the aspen, followed by a tiny doe, the animals’ hooves kicking up little spurts of snow as they ran.
Immediately a horseman followed, his face muffled by a woolen scarf against the cold. He saw Fletcher and reined up violently, startled. But only for an instant. Without warning, the man threw a rifle to his shoulder and fired.
The bullet split the air an inch above Fletcher’s head, and the big man, acting from reflex, jerked his Winchester from the boot under his leg.
He hadn’t wanted to get involved in gun trouble, but the unknown rider had dealt the cards, and now Fletcher would play his hand to the end.
The man fired again and missed, the shifting curtain of the snow, driven by the wind, making Fletcher an obscured and uncertain target.
Fletcher raised his rifle to his shoulder and took aim, laying his sights square on the rider’s chest. He squeezed the trigger just as the frightened pup jerked his head out from under the mackinaw, nudging the rifle butt.
The shot went wide but the horseman—suddenly deciding he wanted no part of a gun battle in these conditions—swung his horse around and galloped back into the aspen and was soon lost behind the trees and the white veil of the falling snow.
Fletcher swore bitterly. He looked down at the pup and said, “Dog, I’m beginning to think you’re going to be a lot more trouble than you’re worth.”
Unfazed, the pup yelped and, not liking the feel of the cold snow on his nose, burrowed deep inside Fletcher’s mackinaw again.
Fletcher shook his head, swore with great sincerity, then rode slowly toward the aspen.
He had no doubt that the mysterious gunman had made good his escape, but he was taking no chances, riding with his Winchester ready to hand across his saddle.
Nothing was stirring in the aspen, and Fletcher’s straining ears detected no sound. A sudden, stronger gust of wind spattered snow against his face, and his horse, snow getting into his eyes, jerked his head and sidestepped to his right.
Fletcher stood in the stirrups and glanced around him. Off to his left, about a hundred yards away, something large and black lay in the snow. A rock, maybe? Or something else?
Fletcher rode toward the object. As he got closer, he saw what it was. A dead horse lay on its side, the snow around it stained bright crimson with blood.
A few yards farther on, at first hidden from sight by the bulk of the horse, Fletcher spotted a sprawled body.
He dismounted, holding the pup close to his chest, and stepped beside the still figure. A young woman in a dark gray riding outfit lay on her back, her arms spread wide. The black hair on the left side of her head was thickly clotted with blood. Her face—extremely pretty, Fletcher noted—was covered in flakes of snow that frosted the long, dark eyelashes that lay like fans on her cheekbones.
Quickly Fletcher kneeled by the woman. She was still breathing. A brief examination revealed that she’d been grazed by a bullet and was unconscious. Judging by the stained snow around her head, she’d lost a lot of blood. She was very pale.
Fletcher picked up the woman easily and lifted her onto the saddle, mounting behind her. He held the woman in his arms and swung the stud around, heading back to pick up the packhorse.
The snow was falling more heavily, the gloom of the afternoon slowly shading into the darkness of a sullen evening. Around him the landscape was turning from green to white, the hills and pines casting long blue shadows on the snow.
“Now I have a homeless puppy and an unconscious woman to take care of,” Fletcher said to himself ruefully. “And neither one of my own choosing.”
The mustang hadn’t wandered far from where Fletcher had left him. He took up the lead rope again and rode on, as yet uncertain of his destination.
He could make camp among the pines and start a fire, but this woman was in shock and would need more warmth than a handful of damp twigs could provide. Fletcher thought about the cabin on Two-Bit Creek.
Pa hadn’t been much of a farmer, but he had an appreciation for good carpenter’s tools, and with these he’d built the cabin solidly of heavy, interlocking logs and a sturdy roof of seasoned timber.
Could the walls at least still be standing?
It was unlikely. The Indians would have burned the place down long ago. Or perhaps it had collapsed from time and weather and the passage of buffalo herds. A big bull was capable of tumbling any wall, no matter how well built, if he chose to match himself against it.
Yet Fletcher had no other choice. He would head for the Two-Bit and hope a couple of walls still stood. If they did, he could rig a roof of some kind, and the woman would at least be sheltered from the falling snow and the worst of the wind.
“Let’s hope Pa really did build to last,” Fletcher said to no one but himself, the habit of a man who rides much alone. “Or all three of us are in a heap of trouble.”
As he remembered it, the cabin stood on a gentle hill slope, a thick stand of aspen behind it, and higher, toward the crest, a scattering of pine and spruce. Near the cabin ran a stream, and the water was clear and cold and good to drink.
Fletcher rode south. When he met up with the Two-Bit, he headed west along its northern bank. Cottonwoods grew along the bank, and here and there a solitary willow. There were brown trout in the creek, and Fletcher had often caught a mess of them here when he was a boy.
The snow was piling up on the grassland and on the tops of the hills, drifting deep in the arroyos and ravines, and the wind was blowing colder, probing with icy fingers through each buttonhole and tear in Fletcher’s worn mackinaw.
In his arms, the woman stirred and softly muttered something he could not make out. Then she was silent as unconsciousness took her again.
They would have to reach shelter soon or find a place to hole up until the blizzard was over, a prospect he did not relish but one that was growing more and more urgent with every passing minute.
Fletcher held the woman closer, trying to share his warmth, such as it was. When he took off a glove and felt her cheek with the back of his fingers, the skin was ice cold.
There was nothing else for it. He would have to find a sheltered place and build a fire. If he didn’t, having lost so much blood, the girl could freeze to death. His eyes searching every hill and crevice of the surrounding land, Fletcher rounded the slope of a pine-covered hill—and saw the cabin just a hundred or so yards ahead.
He blinked his snow-crusted eyes in disbelief, unable to comprehend his good luck.
To his relief, the walls still stood, and even the roof, though swaybacked, seemed to be intact. But then he noted something else.
There was a light in the window.
Encumbered as he was by the unconscious woman, Fletcher could not reach his rifle, but he opened his mackinaw, pushed the pup aside, and brought the short-barreled Colt in its crossdraw holster closer to hand.
He rode into the yard in front of the cabin and reined up his horse. The mustang, head hanging low, shambled to a ragged, stumbling halt alongside him.
“Hello the house!” Fletcher yelled.
A few heartbeats of silence. Then a man’s voice answered, “What do you want?”
“
A place to bed down,” Fletcher replied, deciding to stay quiet about the wounded woman limp in the saddle in front of him.
The cabin door opened slowly, and a man—old and grizzled, with a gray beard down to his belt buckle—stood in a rectangle of yellow lamplight, a Henry rifle in his hands aimed right at Fletcher’s brisket.
“You best be ridin’ on, sonny,” the man said, his voice hard and flat. “You ain’t driving me out o’ my cabin in this blizzard. Not tonight you ain’t.”
“Old man,” Fletcher said evenly, “I have a wounded woman here. Now, lower that rifle before I forget my manners and decide to make this a shooting matter.”
“Wounded female woman!” the old man exclaimed. “Why didn’t you say so?”
“I thought I just did,” Fletcher said wearily.
He stepped out of the saddle and with considerable gentleness for such a rough-living man took the woman in his arms and carried her into the cabin. It was much smaller than he remembered. There were holes in the roof in a few places, but a fire glowed cheerfully in the cast-iron stove that Pa had freighted all the way from Cheyenne. Fletcher laid the woman on a bunk opposite the stove. A stew bubbled in a pot on top of the stove, filling the cabin with a savory beef-and-onion fragrance that made Fletcher’s stomach rumble.
As if reading the gunfighter’s thoughts, the old man said, “I got coffee a-bilin’ too, strong enough to float a Colt’s pistol an’ black as sin.” The old man stepped over to the stove and lifted the lid of the coffee pot. “Well, lookee here. I guess she’s almost ready to be saucered an’ blowed. Got some for your dog, too.”
Fletcher smiled, instantly adding a friendly warmth to the uncompromising hardness of his features. “Later, for me, old man. First I got to take care of the horses.” He nodded to the woman lying on the bunk. “You might get me some warm water. I have to bathe that wound.”
“Depend on me for that,” the old man said. “My own pony’s in the barn out back, an’ I laid in a mess o’ hay an’ a sack of oats.”
Fletcher stepped to the door. “I appreciate that.” He paused. “I won’t ask you your name unless you want to give it.”
Ralph Compton Showdown At Two-Bit Creek Page 3