The Stalkers

by Terry C. Johnston

  Might even have to give some thought to heading back up the Bozeman Road. Heard tell there wasn’t much left down south to go back home to now anyways. And from what he’d seen of white whores, they wasn’t nowhere near as much fun as them Arapaho sluts. Mayhaps, Bob North cogitated, he should strike his stick for the north country again. With the Irishman dead at last, it had come a time for celebrating.

  And what better way to celebrate than with a brown-skinned Arap squaw who knew how to please a hungry man?

  * * *

  Jack O’Neill had never eaten puppy before. Hell, since he had been captured by these Cheyenne late last winter, the mulatto had been doing a lot of things he had never done before.

  Like sleeping with one squaw after another. Ever since the time he had headed back home on his own for Georgia, and two mornings later awoke to find a dozen warriors circling his bedroll, Jack had discovered he had a real knack for this Indian talk. Not a day had gone by that he didn’t pick up a whole slew of words. Pointing out some object to a child, perhaps to one of the squaws who seemed to dog his every step round the nomads’ village.

  Being late summer like it was, near as he could figure from the heat and all, the village had once again swelled in numbers after the sundance to begin its annual migration following the buffalo herds along the Republican. Funny thing was, much of the time Jack was just about the only man left in camp. If a person didn’t count the boys too young for vision-quests and the men too old for war.

  At first, a lot of things had been funny. And had made Jack laugh out loud. The way a few of the warriors who had captured him not far out of Fort Lyon had licked their fingers and rubbed on his honey-colored skin. Some of their attempts to rub his color off had actually tickled O’Neill. Then the squaws started tickling more than just Jack’s flesh. Any one of these women knew more about love-making than a whole slew of whores working the cribs back there across the river from Fort Lyon.

  At times he remembered Emmy, and how that white woman was the first to love an outcast named O’Neill. He had cried often at first, much of the time when he rutted with the squaws. Each warrior who gave his wife to Jack explained that they wanted his blood in their people … wanted the wife to conceive and carry a child fathered by the honey-colored giant.

  Still he cried for Emmy much of the time while doing his business. Then laughed when he was done and catching his breath. Never before had Jack O’Neill had so much honey on his stinger.

  As each day passed, he had grown to accept the tribe as his own folk. What with his daddy dead somewhere back east. And his mammy killed when Sherman’s deadly army burned its way across Georgia. But after so many years of wandering, Jack had found Emmy. Sweet Emmy, who gave her warm body to him night after night and didn’t care if the lamp was lit. Poor, sweet Emmy—nearly cut in half by that half-Injun bastard …

  Again and again Jack had pushed the terrible image from his mind. Coming to accept that the one who had killed his Emmy was no Injun after all. Coming to accept as well that these Shahiyena were no savages over the weeks and months he had slept and ate, played and fornicated. And learned to ride and fight like Shahiyena.

  In the last few weeks, Jack had thought more and more that come next sundance time for these people, he would hang himself from the huge center pole. His feet would pound the ground in an endless dance round and round to the throbbing beat of ear-numbing drums and soul-stirring voices all a chant from the fringe of the huge arbor.

  Weeks ago when the tribe had halted for many days to celebrate the sundance, O’Neill had first believed the young warriors who pushed the sharp skewers through their chest muscles were simply working themselves up into a frenzy for war. Only of late did he come to accept that the sundance was what the squaws claimed it to be. The young men had offered themselves to the sun in thanks for the buffalo and the nomadic life of The People, thanks for another year of freedom. Despite the troubles caused by the white man.

  O’Neill brooded on that a lot lately. The white man always come in to frig things up. It wasn’t only for the black man; he was stirring shit with the red man too.

  Jack figured he just might found himself a home.

  And thought again of the sundance. All those young, glistening naked bodies sweating as they pulled on the rawhide tethers tied to the center pole. Yanking and dancing round and round staring wide-eyed at the hot sun until in a wild explosion of frantic revelation the warriors ripped their flesh and fell free and bleeding. Many laughing. Some silently crying. Tears of joy coursing down every man’s face. For they had each and every one stared into the face of their Everywhere Spirit and come away blessed.

  O’Neill wanted that. As badly as anything he had ever wanted, as much as he had wanted to have his daddy come riding back up the lane to the big-house after the war, as much as he had wanted to take Emmy back to that Georgia plantation with him. But knew neither of those dreams would never come true for him. Jack wanted to stare into the face of the god that drove these beautiful, simple people back and forth across the plains, from creek to river and beyond again, following the big, shaggy beasts, in pursuit of the old way of life before the white man came to frig it up and stir the shit with a big stick.

  Jack wanted to see the god. Like all the rest of the young warriors. Roman Nose himself. Who fell from the flesh-tearing, babbling dry-mouthed about the coming war with the white man. Told by the Everywhere Spirit that he would find his vision-place on a sandy island in the middle of a river … somewhere on the plains they roamed. His thick lips flecked with foam, The Nose had risen from the ground pounded smooth by bare feet, and swore he had seen his medicine place.

  Then turned, finding the wide, white eyes of the mulatto staring into his from the fringe of the sundance arbor. And said to the only man who stood every bit as tall as Roman Nose, “My medicine place will be for you as well, Black Jack. There, in that day yet to come—we both will find the answer to what troubles our hearts.”

  Gnawing at a strip of half-cooked meat along a rib-bone, Jack remembered the wild look in Roman Nose’s eyes as he had spoken for the first time to the mulatto prisoner adopted into the Cheyenne tribe. In those eyes were acceptance, and a recognition that the two of them would share some secret discovery come the time The Nose found his sandy island on that unnamed river.

  O’Neill had found himself a home. Food anytime he wanted to eat. Women ready for his randy dance of love every time Black Jack wanted to wet his stinger. And, come a time, there would be some white men to kill with Roman Nose.

  For the one the Cheyenne had come to call “Nibsi,” there would come something to ease the pain of Emmy’s remembrance. Some blood atonement for all the hurt caused a man raised up learning not to hurt a living thing—a man who now had learned what it meant to thirst after the blood of woman killer.

  Never before had Black Jack O’Neill felt so free. So alive. With such power pulsing through his body. For the first time he understood what the Cheyenne meant when they talked about powerful medicine.

  With his own, Black Jack knew as certain as the sun would rise, come morning in its own time, that he would one day have his hands round the throat of the woman killer.

  Come that day, the mulatto swore he would rip the white man’s throat out with his own teeth, then drink of the bastard’s blood while he slowly died.

  Chapter 9

  They moved quietly about beneath the bright summer stars flung over the dark prairie here at the end of the world.

  In and out of the mess-hall where the sweating cooks had coffee brewing and hard-tack frying in fragrant bacon grease for those who wanted to eat.

  Others made their first stop a hurried visit to the corner of the small compound, there to stand or squat over the slip-trench latrine. Finished, they leisurely strode away from that stinking hole.

  In the dark, the crowd at the hitching rails planted before Wallace’s cavalry stables swelled as one after another ventured into the lamp-lit shadows of the stalls, there
to locate his mount and saddle, blanket and bit. Outside again at the rail, most of them quietly grumbled about the goddamned hour or the lousy coffee or their bowels giving them fits with the alkali water. Some, like Seamus Donegan, silently worked over The General, petting, blanketing, patting, buckling, stroking, cinching. He stuffed his hand into a dirty coat pocket and pulled out a handful of sugar he had stolen when the mess-cooks weren’t looking.

  The big gray nuzzled the Irishman’s hand there under the starlight of the Kansas sky. Big eyes ’volving, watching shadows move across limestone buildings. Ears twitching with the snorts of animal and the mumbled curses of men. Nose swelling with the smell of familiar things, the smell of newness to what was yet to come. Seamus left the horse ground-hobbled.

  Scratching at his chin whiskers, Donegan quickly strode back toward the mess-hall. No sign of the soldiers yet. He had time for another cup of that poor excuse for coffee. Still the best he had tasted this side of a little shack outside of the stockade at Fort Phil Kearny.

  Better than a year and a half now since you … held her, Seamus.

  And in thinking of Jennie, knew how a man’s arms could ache for a woman. Not just any woman. Like most men, he had been in need of just any woman more times than he dared count. But, when he could not help himself and ended up thinking on Jennie, Seamus knew how empty a man could feel in there where few, if any, ever see.

  Steaming tin in hand, he stepped outside into the chill predawn dark, squatting against the limestone brushed egg-shell white beneath a sinking moon and starlight. Here in the darkness this west Kansas post looked a bit more military, perhaps more imposing than it did in the light of day. Two limestone buildings squatting among the rest, slab-sided cottonwood. And out there in the middle of the parade stood the flagstaff.

  Quite possibly the tallest thing between here and the high mountains separating him and Liam O’Roarke.

  Seamus nursed his coffee as he watched the others go about their business here before marching out. A few noisy, loudmouthed ones. But most of these citizen-soldiers, these paid mercenaries, kept to themselves, and kept quiet. Like him, in their own thoughts in these minutes before they would ride out onto the plains that knew no roads and few trail, to track some scalp-hungry young bucks until …

  None of them had a good idea when they would see so much as this fort again and call it civilization. Something down inside each man standing here on the edge of riding out into the prairie darkness following a blood-trail always knows there will be some who will never come riding back. And in his own way, each man prayed as he ate, pissed, saddled, or hung back in the shadows, alone with his own god.

  “Draw your seven days’ rations here, boys!”

  Donegan recognized Billy McCall’s voice as the sergeant emerged from the lamp-lit rectangle of mess-hall doorway.

  “Seven days, Sarge?”

  “That’s right,” McCall answered a faceless scout shoving into the mess-hall.

  “We’ll be back here by time we run out?”

  “Just draw your rations and dream of fragrant mule-steaks roasting over a buffalo-chip fire, mister,” McCall snorted.

  As he rose, back against the limestone wall, Donegan’s ears pricked with the sound of something new. The hair on the back of his neck stood, skin going cold. A new voice come marching across the parade moonlit and shadow-streaked. Faint at best, but a new voice nonetheless, walking between two others, all three heading for the mess-hall. Back-slapping and laughing among themselves.

  As the trio threaded their way through the tangle of horses and men at preparation for the march, reaching the greasy-yellow rectangle of door-light, Seamus inched up to get a better look. And to listen closely. A few more words, and he was sure. No mistaking the tongue of the mother-country. And his mother’s eyes.

  One step and Seamus moved into the light. “Your name O’Roarke?”

  The big man was graying at the temples, lines in his face like a war-map. He eyed Donegan down, then slowly up. “I am Liam O’Roarke. Who’d be asking?”

  “Just a nephew’s been looking for your worthless, bleeming carcass … a promise made to his mother who’s dying back in County Kilkenny.”

  The last word landed on the bystanders’ ears at the same time Donegan’s fist connected with the older man’s jaw. O’Roarke backpedaled a few steps into the moonlit darkness, men scampering backward round him, their roughened morning-voices suddenly pumped louder, prodded, more excited. Behind him Seamus heard wooden benches hurriedly scraped across the rough planks of the mess-hall floor. He knew they were all leaving their breakfast behind, bolting out the door to see this.

  And his gut warned him this would be a long morning. What, with the way his long-lost uncle had taken Seamus’s best shot and still stood. It was going to be one hell of a long morning.

  Liam strode back into the yellow doorway light, his bearded jaw cradled in one hand, working it back and forth like a slow, methodical steam-piston. When it appeared to work well enough, he dropped his hand, smiled, and asked.

  “By the saints—li’l Seamus, is it?”

  Donegan flung the right arm at that shiny casement of grinning teeth. It felt as if the solid meat of that arm he hurled had been battered aside by a hickory axe-handle. Yet he did not have much time to ponder the pain in the battered arm as O’Roarke flung it aside, for Liam’s right fist plunged into the smooth washboard of Donegan’s belly. Driving the last little ounce of morning air from the nephew’s lungs.

  He stumbled backward to the hoots of the scouts crowding in for a closer look at the scuffle. Whistles and shoving, catcalls and wagers. Something sure to awaken a sleepy predawn unit of crude frontiersmen on the verge of riding out to seek their own valley of death.

  As he slowly caught his breath, his bugging eyes rising to look his uncle over, Seamus realized just how big a mouthful he had bitten off for himself. If ever there was a man bigger than himself at lowly Fort Wallace, it was surely this Liam O’Roarke. He understood again where he came by his own size. His mother’s side of the family. The brawling O’Roarkes of Ballinrobble. And what Liam might give up to Seamus in all those years like a wide gulf yawning between them, Liam gained back everything and more in the experience only years on the prairie and among the far mountains would bestow upon a man.

  “You always was one to try a leg up where you shouldn’t, li’l Seamus!” Liam roared, laughing.

  Donegan sucked wind, readying himself. “By the love of God … I’ve been praying for this day, you bastird!”

  He came in low, finding his uncle immediately crouching. Seamus feinted with his right, saw Liam’s head moving left, then jabbed with the surprise fist. A glancing blow only, bouncing off O’Roarke’s thick shoulder before it connected with the side of the uncle’s head. The hardest head Seamus had ever made the mistake of connecting bare knuckles with, that is.

  Cradling his left fist in his right, Seamus took one step, then a second, backward as Liam advanced, grinning toothily. Shoulders hunched, his neck disappearing in the process. Head dodging behind the wheeling fists.

  “Your mother ever tell you ’bout my love of a good round-house, Seamus?”

  “No, no——”

  “Always looked forward to the day we’d have a go at it ourselves … you and me, Nephew.”

  “You weren’t there to meet me——”

  “These were the best fists in County Tyrone, Seamus. Always figured they’d get me a job one place or another.” He swung, connected on Donegan’s jaw, snapping his nephew’s head back. “Funny how things work out. Me, Liam O’Roarke … making a living with me wits and not me fists!”

  “Glory, you pack a wallop!” Donegan wagged his head clear and set his feet. He swung as Liam opened his mouth to go on.

  It was a doozy. Stunning the taller, heavier, older O’Roarke right where he stood, overconfident of his Queens-bury abilities. Gingerly, Liam touched a finger to his oozing nose, feeling his upper lip puffy already as he spat loose som
e flecks of crimson foam.

  “Sweet Mither of God!” he roared, wiping his bloody hands off on his sweat-stained calico shirt. “You’re good, Seamus. I’ve not had me this much fun … since I knuckled me way out of Deseret! C’mon, boy—let’s make a dance of it, shall we?”

  “Dance, my arse, Liam O’Roarke—you’ll eat dust before you’ll ride out of here upright with me.”

  Liam jabbed. Donegan ducked, and could not get out of the way of that ball of fire hammering his belly once, twice, and a third time before O’Roarke grabbed hold of Seamus’s hair. Yanking his nephew’s head back, he smiled, spitting his words past the swollen lip and blood streaming from the broken nose.

  “Ride where with you, Nephew?”

  “We’ve got to go east…” Seamus sputtered, the pain rising from his hammered belly like gall rising to burn the back of his throat. “A ship.”

  “Ship off to where?”

  “Town Callan, you bastard!”

  “Home to Eire? Why there?”

  “Your sister, bleeming idjit! She’s … she’s dying.”

  Liam flung Donegan backward, watching the younger man stumble over some crates of ammunition and sprawl in the dust before the mess-hall.

  “Dying?” He shook his head as if measuring it. “There’s no way she can be——”

  “Wrote me. Begging me to find you both. Bring you home.”

  O’Roarke took three long strides so that he stood over the young Irishman. And stared down at his nephew. “I’ll not go back, Seamus Donegan. There’s nothing for me there.”

  “Your sister——”

  “Another woman, like me own mother … every bit and true like our mother she became. And I’ll not let another woman control me like I did those two, Nephew.”

  Donegan scooted backward in the dust, out from under the tall man. “It was like a vow … a prayer of hers——”

  Suddenly Liam landed atop him, one knee on his chest. “Tell you what, boy. I’ll go back with you … soon as we finish this little job for the major.”