Crossed Arrows (A Long-Knives Western Book 1)

by Patrick E. Andrews

  Hawkins stayed calm. He lit a cigar, taking his time as he enjoyed the first taste of the tobacco. “Now listen to me, Jim Tate. I got me a job to do. And you can help me out. I want to know who was the brains behind that robbery and where they headed off to. And I’m gonna want that money back along with ever’thing else.”

  “I told you that I don’t know nothing,” Pate said. “And why would I help you out even if I knew the answer to ever’ question you asked me?”

  “I figured you were the friendly type.”

  “Well, I ain’t.”

  “In other words, you’re not gonna cooperate with me,” Hawkins said.

  “In more exact words, go to hell!” Pate spat. “Now you’ll turn me loose if you know what’s good for you. If’n you don’t, when my pards catch up to you, they’ll fill your gizzard with hot lead.”

  “Are you talking about your pals back at the settlement or the ones in the gang?”

  “Don’t worry about who I’m talking about,” Pate said. “It’ll all end the same for you.”

  “If you’re talking about the train robbers, they’re gonna be dancing with joy at the thought of getting your share of the loot.”

  “I don’t know nothing about no godamned loot,” Pate insisted. “So you quit pestering me and turn me loose.”

  “Do you want these scouts to question you?”

  “Scouts?” Pete asked. He suddenly was worried. “You mean them Injuns?”

  “Yeah,” Hawkins said calmly. “And Indians know how to torture folks to make ’em do anything from just plain dying slow to singing Sunday school hymns.”

  Pate scoffed, “You know damn well you ain’t gonna let them Injuns do that to me.”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Well, ’cause it’s against the rules,” Pate said. “You’re in the Army. And the Army’s got rules.”

  “Rules? There are no rules out here, you train-robbing, lying son of a bitch. You know what those Indians will do, don’t you?”

  “I don’t give a shit,” Pate said defiantly.

  “They’ll hang you head down over a fire and roast you ‘til your skull explodes. That is, if they don’t decide to skin you some first.” He shrugged. “O’course the Comanches’ favorite manner of torment would be to stake you out and build a fire on your belly. I’d say that really hurts too.”

  Pate grew angrier and more frightened. “Godamn you! Turn me loose. You got no right to arrest me or nothing. And you know it.”

  Hawkins gestured to Sergeant Eagle Heart. “This fellow won’t talk to me. Do you think you can change his mind?”

  “We make him do anything,” the sergeant stated.

  Hawkins nodded. “Do what you want to this bastard.” He tossed the end of the rawhide lariat to the sergeant.

  Eagle Heart pulled Pate away to another area of the ravine with Running Cougar following.

  Pate yelled, “You get these damn Redskins away from me, godamn you!”

  Hawkins ignored the plea. He walked over to where Ludlow stood by his horse. He looked closely at the young lieutenant. “You’re kind of pale, Mr. Dooley.”

  “Are you going to allow those scouts to torture that man?”

  Hawkins shook his head. “No. Anyhow, they won’t have to. When he reaches the point where he’s convinced he’s going to go through a skinning and roasting, he’ll give us the information we need. Don’t worry none about that.”

  “I suppose that would work,” Ludlow said. Then he blurted out, “I killed a man back there.”

  “So you did,” Hawkins said. He paused for a moment to carefully choose his next words. “Y’know, I can remember the first man I did in. I was a young trooper in the Sixth Cavalry at the time. I don’t think I’d been in the Army even a year. We were fighting the Sioux up Dakota way. The battle was one of those whirling, confusing affairs with soldiers and Indians riding around and shooting in no particular formation. It was catch-as-catch-can in a group. The Sioux liked to count coup in a fight to prove their bravery and manhood.”

  “I don’t understand what you mean by counting coup.”

  “It’s a crazy dangerous practice they do in battle when they actually try to reach out and touch an enemy,” Hawkins explained. “A young Sioux warrior, prob’ly about my own age, headed for me. I could tell he wanted to count coup on me, ’cause he wasn’t bringing a weapon to bear. I remember looking at his face, then I pulled the trigger on my carbine, and he whipped over the back of his horse and hit the ground. Dead as dead can be. I felt real strange. Sort of sick and sad at the same time.”

  “That’s the way I feel right now.”

  “Well, Mr. Dooley, you chose to go for a soldier,” Hawkins said. “Killing is part of the profession. You’ve done it now. The next time won’t be quite so hard.”

  “The next time?” Ludlow remarked. “I hadn’t even considered that.”

  Hawkins was a perceptive man. “You’re gonna hit a fork in your life’s road out here, Mr. Dooley. One way is gonna take you straight into the Army all the way. The other will carry you back to civvie street.”

  “I thought I had made that choice when I came out here.”

  Hawkins shook his head. “Nope. You haven’t really made it yet. But you will.”

  Suddenly Jim Pate’s screams echoed through the ravine. “Help! Help! Godamn it! Get these Redskin devils away from me.”

  Hawkins turned in the direction of the sound and yelled, “Are you ready to talk to me?”

  “I’m gonna see that you go to jail,” Pate bellowed.

  “Carry on, Sergeant Eagle Heart!” Hawkins hollered.

  “Are you sure they won’t torture him?” Ludlow asked.

  “Not as much as I was before,” Hawkins admitted. “But I don’t give a damn one way other the other.”

  Ludlow started to protest. “Sir—”

  “I have a mission, Mr. Dooley. I don’t care what it takes to accomplish it. When it comes to duty, there are no limits. When I have to, I say to hell with the regulations. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Pate began to scream in a loud wailing, pitiful voice. “Don’t! Don’t! Don’t!”

  Ludlow’s face paled. “Oh, my God!”

  “I remember one night down in Arizona when the Mescalero Apaches had gotten their hands on one of our Mexican teamsters. We had to listen to that poor fellow scream from dusk to dawn.”

  “You couldn’t rescue him?” Ludlow asked.

  “They’d have shot us to pieces. They were up on a mesa with only a narrow trail leading to their camp.” He looked into Ludlow’s face. “Soldiering can be hard, Mr. Dooley. I know of times when men killed their wounded friends so they wouldn’t fall into Indian hands.”

  “You’re not making army life particularly attractive, sir,” Ludlow complained.

  “Mr. Dooley, I’m gonna teach you more on this mission about serving in the military than you learned in four years at West Point.”

  Pate’s screams become shriller, echoing through the ravine.

  “Lord have mercy!” Ludlow exclaimed.

  “By way,” Hawkins said matter-of-factly, “Sergeant Eagle Heart told me that the man you shot was getting ready to put a slug in me.”

  “He might have missed.”

  “I really wouldn’t want to give him the benefit of any doubt,” Hawkins said. “And thanks for maybe saving my life.”

  “You’re welcome, sir.”

  Now Pate’s cries had turned to begging. “Please come here! Godamn it! Please!”

  “Go see what he wants, Mr. Dooley.”

  Ludlow gulped. “Me, sir?”

  “Yes, you. I’m resting.”

  “Uh—yes, sir.”

  The young officer steeled himself and walked down the ravine toward the sound of the disturbance. He didn’t know what to expect, but his mind pictured a scene so horrible that it almost made him sick again.

  The prisoner’s pleading grew louder and more desperate as
Ludlow Dooley slowly negotiated his way through the brush. A trail of smoke could be seen raising up to drift away across the wide sky.

  “Help me! Oh God! Help me!” Pate shrieked.

  Ludlow stepped through the brush and came out into an open area. A crude tripod of saplings had been made by the Indians. The structure stood ten feet high at the center where Jim Pate, stripped naked with his hands cuffed behind his back, hung head down over a small fire. Sergeant Eagle Heart and Corporal Running Cougar sat off to one side calmly watching and saying nothing.

  Ludlow, glad to see there was no horrifying mutilated man to gaze on, walked up to him. The lieutenant couldn’t think of anything better to say than, “Do you want something?”

  “O’course I want something, godamn you!” Pate cried out. “Get me down from here and I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

  “Oh, dear,” Ludlow said, suddenly getting into the game. “If I order these scouts to release you and you don’t cooperate with Captain Hawkins, he’ll deal with me most severely.” He grinned at the macabre humor that leaped into his mind. “In fact, he might make me take your place.”

  “Get me down! I’ll talk! Don’t worry!” Pate assured him in a loud, pleading voice.

  Ludlow nodded to Sergeant Eagle Heart. “Remove the prisoner, if you please.”

  “Yes, sir,” Sergeant Eagle Heart said.

  “I go get Cap’n Hawkins,” Corporal Running Cougar said.

  Sergeant Eagle Heart was none too gentle in freeing Pate from the tripod. The man fell into the fire and quickly rolled out of it. It was a struggle for him to try to stand up with his hands cuffed. He managed to get to his knees. He glared at Ludlow Dooley.

  “You and that cap’n is two of the meanest son of a bitches I ever seen,” Pate complained. “And I seen some, believe me.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Major Thomas Johnston, the inspector general of the Military Department of the Indian Territory at Fort Sill, walked down the hall of the headquarters building to a door bearing the sign:

  Major Peter Heidelberg

  Judge Advocate

  Military Department of the Indian Territory

  Johnston knocked on the door, then stepped inside. “I got your note, Pete. What’s going on?”

  “Hello, Tom,” Heidelberg said. “Thanks for responding so quickly. Take a seat.” He waited until the visitor had settled in a chair, then shoved a packet of papers at him. “Take a look at this.”

  Johnston opened up the documents and gave them a quick scan. “Uh oh!”

  “Yeah,” Heidelberg responded. “It looks like this Captain Mack Hawkins has gotten himself into a real mess now. I believe you had cleared his name where that colonel at Fort Lone Wolf was concerned.”

  “Yes. But there’s no way I’ll be able to get him out of this.”

  “I agree,” Heidelberg said. “These are some serious charges. And there’s obviously witnesses that can testify against him.”

  Johnston read aloud from the document. “Conduct unbecoming an officer … disrespect to a superior officer … disobeying a direct order … and there are six affidavits here from civilians who state they overheard Captain Hawkins telling Major Harold Dewey to piss up a rope. All this after the robbery of the payroll the major was carrying.”

  “Right,” Heidelberg said. “According to Major Dewey’s statement, he wanted Captain Hawkins’ detachment to accompany him to Fort Richardson, Texas to arrange for a unit to be dispatched to chase down the bandits. But Hawkins insisted on going by himself, and rode off with his detachment in defiance of the major’s orders.”

  “Mmm,” mused Johnston. “Perhaps Hawkins had a better idea of how to handle the situation.”

  “It doesn’t matter, Jim,” Heidelberg said. “As a judge advocate I can tell you without reservation he had no right to do so, no matter what he thought. He was insulting and disobedient. There is no getting out of that.”

  Johnston sighed and laid the packet back on the desk. “You’re the expert in military law, Pete.”

  “I’ll send out some telegrams to all the military posts in Texas,” Heidelberg said. “Wherever Hawkins shows up next, he will be arrested and sent back here for court-martial. Even if he recovers the payroll, his army career is over.”

  Johnston shrugged. “Why aren’t I surprised? There’s always a thin line between a medal and a court-martial.”

  ~*~

  Back on the Texas prairie, the outlaw Jim Pate did not immediately give in to answering Captain Mack Hawkins’ questions. Being proud, even though thoroughly frightened, he insisted he would not talk until his trousers were returned.

  “You gimme my britches,” he insisted. “And the rest of my duds. It ain’t right to make a man stand around naked.”

  “Don’t go getting uppity with me, Pate. Do you want me to hand you back to these Indians?”

  Pate was silent, displaying a look of defiance.

  Hawkins decided to respect the man’s right to dignity. “You’ll get your trousers. Then the rest of your clothes if you keep talking fast and give enough information to make me a happy man.”

  “I’ll settle for that,” Pate promised.

  By the time the interrogation began, it was dark. Tall Bear and Swift Horse, who had returned from their stint of vigilance in the grove of trees, joined Red Moon in keeping a lookout over the desolate emptiness of the prairie country.

  Pate, with his recently freed hands holding onto a cup of coffee, sat by the campfire, subdued but glad he had been spared death by torture. He said nothing for awhile, and the captain allowed him some time to recover from the awful fright he had endured. The outlaw was allowed to sip the hot brew in peace.

  After fifteen minutes, Hawkins, smoking a fresh cigar, sat beside him. “You understand I mean business, don’t you?”

  “Yeah,” Pate said. “I know you flat got me whupped.”

  “That’s fine,” Hawkins said. “Because if you say as much as one lying word to me, I’ll let these Indians send you yelping into the hereafter without your hair, skin or eyeballs.”

  “Didn’t I say I was gonna tell you ever’thing you wanted to know? There ain’t no reason to talk about them Injuns no more.”

  Hawkins said, “Well, let’s see how cooperative you really are. Now tell me who set up the train robbery.”

  “I don’t know who planned it. I was in on it because of my pards Tim Dickson and Arlo Capman.”

  Hawkins glanced over at Ludlow who sat with a pad and pencil across the fire from them. “Mr. Dooley, are you getting these names down?”

  “Yes, sir. Tim Dickson and Arlo Capman.”

  Hawkins turned his attention back to Pate. “So Dickson and Capman are your partners. That’s fine. But who bossed the robbery?”

  “A feller by the name of Bill Stucker. I never knowed him before, but I heard he had been busy up in Kansas and Missouri before heading down to the Injun Territory and Texas.” He took a sip of coffee. “Some said he rode with Jesse James way back. But he don’t look that old to me.”

  “Bill Stucker, huh?” Hawkins remarked. “I knew a man by that name who was an Indian agent and ran a trading store a long time ago.”

  “Would it be the same man, sir?” Ludlow asked.

  “Who knows?” Hawkins said. “He could be.” He turned his gaze back to Pate. “Did Stucker plan the robbery?”

  “I don’t know who planned it, and that’s the truth,” Pate said. “My old pals Tim and Arlo came over to my sister’s place where I was staying and told me they was a job that’d pay good and would I like to get in on it. I said ‘yes’ and went along with ’em to where the gang was getting together. When I got there, Stucker was ramrodding the outfit.”

  “Did they know there was an army payroll on that train?” Hawkins asked.

  “Yep. That’s what we was after.”

  Ludlow’s eyes opened wider. “There seems to be a deep conspiracy here, sir.”

  “You bet, Mr. Dooley,”
Hawkins agreed. He gave Pate a close look. “Where was it that you met up with the gang?”

  “Over to Bitterwaters.”

  “I’ve heard of the place,” Hawkins said. “Near the New Mexico line. So was there anybody else there you knew?”

  “On a couple of more,” Pate answered. “Elmer Wright and Dick Eastman. They was maybe twelve of us, but I ain’t sure. I didn’t count. All I wanted was my share of the money.”

  “Did you get it?”

  Pate shook his head. “The split is gonna be in Bitterwaters in a coupla weeks. In the meantime, ever’body is supposed to stay away from the place.”

  Hawkins was incredulous. “Do you mean everybody had that much trust in this Bill Stucker?”

  “I’ll tell you something, Cap’n,” Pate said sincerely. “I don’t know that feller Stucker from the man in the moon. But I know Tim and Arlo. They knowed him, and told me not to worry about my money. If’n they said his word was good, that was all I needed to know.”

  “Now that’s honor among thieves,” Hawkins stated. He glanced over at Ludlow. “Isn’t it, Mr. Dooley?”

  Ludlow looked up from his notes. “It would appear so, sir. And I assume the gang was formed of men who knew each other mostly by reputation with a few solid friendships that galvanized their organization.”

  “That’s right,” Pate said, getting the drift of what Ludlow said without understanding all the words. “Arlo and Tim knowed a couple of the fellers I never seen before. But somehow it turned out we was all connected together from having ridden with one or the other in the past.”

  Hawkins was thoughtful for a moment. “Then you don’t know where everybody might be hanging out before they go over to Bitterwaters for their shares of the loot, do you?”

  “I sure don’t,” Pate said. “All them fellers took off to their own favorite hideouts. There ain’t no way I could know where they all was. You could have them Injuns cook and eat me, and I still couldn’t tell you.”

  “But you can tell me where Tim Dickson and Arlo Capman are, can’t you?”

  “You’ll find ’em at Paso Cruz,” Pate said. He reluctantly added, “That’s where I was supposed to meet up with ’em after I got my horse fixed up with a new shoe over at Edwards’ Place.”