Creed leaned over and shoved his face close. "That was just to remind you who the he-bull is at this little party we're havin'. I'll let you go ahead and blow some sass—every man oughta have the chance to talk big a time or two before he dies. But make no mistake that you are gonna die, law dog, and there ain't a damn thing you're gonna be able to do about it."
Cash found enough air left in his lungs to rasp out, "Why not go ahead and kill me then?"
Creed threw back his head and howled with maniacal laughter. When he shoved his face close again his eyes were still dancing wildly. "Kill you so soon? Man, the party's just gettin' started and you're on tap to be the star attraction. I already had to kill the others quicker than I wanted—all except that little blonde. Me and her are engaged to be married and gonna go away together on a long honeymoon, did you know that?"
More howling laughter. Then Creed continued. "When she saw what I did to the others, she turned into the most accommodating woman you can ever imagine. Especially for such a refined-lookin' white woman—and a true blonde to boot. When she wasn't pleasurin' me with her mouth and beggin' me to do things to her that even the cheapest crib whore would never allow, she was usin' it to moan all sorts of other interestin' things she thought I'd want to hear. Tellin' me about you. And about the bank robbers and the horses and money you'd gone after ... I swear! A woman who'll drain you dry below the waist and above it load your head with all kinds of valuable information—How you ever gonna beat that, eh?"
Cash struggled to find enough air for more words. "You and her sound like a match made in Heaven ... or maybe Hell."
Creed snorted. "You're kinda stuck on that Hell thing, ain't you? Tell you what—get on your feet and get the rest of the way down there to where I can tie you to one of those wagon wheels. Then I'll give you a taste of what Hell is really like."
Cash planted one foot and tried to push himself to a standing position. But he was still cramped from the stomach blow and the leg trembled in an effort to lift.
"Come on, dammit. You were so full of tough talk only a minute ago, what happened? Get up!"
Creed's free hand grabbed Cash roughly by the scruff of the neck and yanked upward.
Cash went with the tug, the leg that had been trembling only a second before suddenly flexing with full strength and pistoning him straight up. His whole body surged, forehead slamming to Creed's mouth and nose, pulverizing lips and cartilage into a lumpy crimson smear. A bloody mist swirled before Cash's eyes. He continued bulling Creed backward, his cuffed hands knocking the shotgun arm away with a slashing blow.
Then, as Creed's feet tangled and he started to loose his balance and topple down, Cash stayed with him, jamming himself tight against the fugitive, his locked hands clawing at the strings of ornaments around Creed's neck. His fist closed on the buffalo horn— Twisted Root's buffalo horn. As Creed hit the ground with Cash on top of him, the marshal thrust the point of the horn into the soft pad of flesh under Creed's chin and drove it as deep and hard as he could, up behind those wild black eyes and into the squirming black mass of his evil brain.
-FOURTEEN-
It took the rest of the afternoon to make ready for departure. Inasmuch as everybody was dead except for Cash and Melanie Parsons, there was no longer any sense of urgency to get the wounded somewhere for treatment.
Cash told himself that, in her own way, Melanie had also been deeply wounded and he tried to treat her as compassionately as he could. Allowances had to be made for the instinct of self-preservation and for the after effect of shock. No one could blame Melanie for doing whatever it took to survive. Yet although Cash would never repeat the claims made by Vilo Creed, not to the girl nor to anyone else, he knew there would long be a certain stigma attached to her—perhaps by none more so than Melanie herself—for being the only one of her party spared.
After managing to overpower Creed and then freeing himself from his cuffs, Cash had gone on down to the wagon. There, he found Melanie tied hand and foot and left in the slumped, half-kneeling position he had noted (without spotting the ropes that bound her) from up the slope. After he cut away her bonds, she continued to stay slumped and silent, with her face turned away from him. He didn't know what to say to ease her torment so he refrained from saying anything at all and proceeded with the other tasks that needed taken care of.
All the bodies from the rock climbing group Cash loaded into the wagon, covering them with blankets and arranging them as gently and respectfully as possibly. Melanie neither spoke nor offered to help during any of this. She simply stood apart, staring off at something only she could see.
The bodies of Creed and the Post gang—the two up on the slope and the ones back in their camp—Cash left as they lay. Others would return to take care of them.
It took Cash a good deal of time to find the body of Twisted Root. It was in a brushy, shallow ravine about a quarter mile south of the wagon camp. As far as Cash could tell—Melanie's stony silence revealing no details—the old man never made it to join the rock climbers. Why he'd skirted around their camp and ended up falling victim to Creed, Cash could only guess. He imagined the old medicine man might have had some additional vision about the "greater evil"—Creed, in other words—approaching the "innocents" and had gone to intervene inasmuch as Cash was otherwise already involved.
But it was only a guess.
"... I knew that, before my journey could end, you and I together, White Deer, had been chosen to do battle against these evils and to protect these innocents."
That's what Twisted Root had said on that first night when he showed up in Cash's camp. Their protection of the innocents had fallen regrettably short. But they'd damn sure battled the evils. And they'd done it together ... with Twisted Root's sacred buffalo horn claiming the ultimate victory.
Cash buried the old man's remains in the ravine, sinking him deep and covering the grave with rocks to keep away the scavengers. He said some words in the old tongue, as best he could remember.
Thus was Twisted Root returned to the earth of his beloved Bito' O' Wu.
Afterward, with dusk settling, Cash hitched up the makeshift team of horses, climbed up on the wagon seat next to Melanie, and gigged the team toward Cheyenne. It would be dark soon but Cash figured he'd have enough light from the moon and stars to travel by. For the first time he could ever remember, he wanted to get away from Vedauwoo as quickly as possible.
* * *
Two days later, Kicking Bear and a band of twenty Ghost Shirt followers arrived at Vedauwoo looking for Vilo Creed. Buzzards first led them to the bodies in the train robbers' camp and then to others, including Creed's, down on the southern fringe.
But there was no sign of the promised rifles and no clear indication of what had gone wrong here. When outlying scouts reported a sizable force of soldiers and men wearing badges approaching from the east, a disappointed and angry Kicking Bear had no choice but to withdraw and take a circuitous route back to the reservation.
Later in the year, with the snows and bitter winds of December blowing hard, Sitting Bull was inadvertently gunned down outside his tipi when he refused to call off the Ghost Dance movement, over which he had little or no control to begin with.
The shameful Wounded Knee massacre followed shortly thereafter, grimly disproving the myth of Indian garments being able to turn away the White Man's bullets. After the battle, such as it was, Kicking Bear turned himself in to the Army and the whole Ghost Dance movement soon faded away.
* * *
With spring in full bloom, Cash returned to Vedauwoo.
All winter long he had worked, on and off, cleaning and polishing and carefully arranging the beads and bones on the strings he had taken from the bloody throat of Vilo Creed. The buffalo horn he'd given special attention.
Now, on the highest point of the Turtle, he climbed as far as he could go up into a sturdy pine tree and hung these items from a straight, strong bough. At the base of the tree once more, he looked out across the sun-was
hed peaks and escarpments of the Vedauwoo and sang in the old tongue. "My grandfather has returned to your earth, Bito' O' Wu. Now his spirit soars over you. Welcome him and treasure him ... He is your son. Hold him in your embrace always."
* * *
No one ever recovered the rifles that Harley Boyd hid somewhere in the Vedauwoo.
†
-Author's Note-
The descriptions in this work pertaining to the Ghost Dance and Ghost Shirt movements are accurate to the best of my knowledge. Same for the historical figures Sitting Bull, Kicking Bear, and Wovoka. For reasons that suited time and distance within the frame of my story, however, I took a bit of dramatic license and referred to Nebraska's Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in certain instances where it factually played no role.
The sporting activity of rock climbing was first introduced in Europe in the late 1880s. The ascent of the Naples Needle at Great Gable by Haskett-Smith, as mentioned in this story, was a factual event. But there is no record of rock-climbing spreading to the United States until the 1930s. Since the Vedauwoo Rocks of present day, however, have come to be considered one of the world's premier climbing spots, I thought it would be fun to have some characters from my story recognize their potential about half a century sooner. —WD—
About the Author
Wayne Dundee lives in the once-notorious old cowtown of Ogallala, on the hinge of Nebraska's panhandle. He relocated there after spending the first fifty years of his life in the state line area of northern Illinois/southern Wisconsin.
A widower, retired from a managerial position in the magnetics industry, Dundee now devotes full time to his writing.
To date, Dundee has had nine novels, five novellas, and over two dozen short stories published. Much of his work has featured his PI protagonist, Joe Hannibal. He also dabbles in fantasy and straight crime, and has recently been gaining notice in the Western genre. His 2010 Western short story, "This Old Star," won a Peacemaker Award from the Western Fictioneers writers' organization; and his first novel-length Westerns, Dismal River and Hard Trail to Socorro, appeared in 2011.
Titles in the Hannibal series have been translated into several languages and nominated for an Edgar, an Anthony, and six Shamus Awards. Dundee is also the founder and original editor of Hardboiled Magazine.
ALSO AVAILABLE ON KINDLE
From the "Cash Laramie and Gideon Miles" Noir Western Series:
Adventures of Cash Laramie and Gideon Miles
Adventures of Cash Laramie and Gideon Miles Vol. II
Bullets for a Ballot
Manhunter's Mountain
Miles to Little Ridge
From the "Hawthorne" Horror Western Series:
That Damned Coyote Hill
The Long Black Train
Other titles from BEAT to a PULP:
A Rip Through Time
BEAT to a PULP: Hardboiled
BEAT to a PULP: Round Two
BEAT to a PULP: Superhero
The Education of a Pulp Writer: 10 Crime Short Stories
Pluvial Gardens and other poems
Vin of Venus
BEAT to a PULP titles available in print:
BEAT to a PULP: Round Two
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The Guns of Vedauwoo (Cash Laramie & Gideon Miles Series Book 6) Page 10