The Stalkers
Page 40
Has a kiss of desire on the lips.
Too much of an unquenched burning inside him yet. Unanswered yearnings. Better for everybody now that Jennie moved on without him. Seems she needed something more than he could give, and he sure as hell needed more right now than any one woman could find herself giving him in return.
The whiskey seemed to soften the harsh edges on things, especially the noise of this dimly-lit Hays City watering hole. Soldiers and wagon-bosses, teamsters and speculators all shouldered against one another at the rough bar. A growing cloud of blue smoke rolled slowly past the smoky oil lamps that cast dancing shadows on the murky canvas walls and muddy plank floor each time the door swung open to admit some newcomer and a cold gust of October wind.
He would need something to eat eventually … hell, it could wait until morning now. Perhaps if he wasn’t careful, he’d end up spending the night right here at this table near the corner where the smell of old vomit and dried urine could make a strong man lose his appetite for anything but whiskey. Perhaps if he kept drinking until he passed out here, Seamus would not need to fill the gnawing hole inside him with one of the pudgy chippies working the half-dozen cribs in the back of this place. Lilac-watered women came to ply their trade in the flesh-pots that followed the army and the railroad west.
“I wouldn’t’ve gambled a warm piss that I’d find Liam O’Roarke’s favorite nephew hugging up to a bottle of saddle varnish here in Hays City ever again!”
Through the late afternoon light sneaking past the few smudged, smoky windowpanes, Seamus immediately recognized the face of Sharp Grover. Major Forsyth’s former chief of scouts strode across the crowded room, directly for Donegan’s table. Abner Grover—comrade in arms from the stench and hell of Beecher Island.
“If it ain’t Mother Grover’s ugliest son!” he cheered, momentarily eyeing the younger man who came up on Sharp’s heels. “Sit, gentlemen!”
“You’re in a better humor than when I found you here in the Shady Rest end of last winter,” Grover said, scraping a wobbly chair close.
“And you a goddamned scout, Abner. You’re supposed to know where to find me.” Seamus held up his cup of amber whiskey to them both, then tossed it back.
“You’re drinking alone again?”
“Till the two of you sat down.”
“You going to invite us to drink with you?”
He glanced at Grover’s young blue-eyed companion with the long, blond bantam tuft sprouting from his lower lip, then answered. “I never enjoyed drinking alone, Sharp.”
“Get us some glasses, will you, Bill?”
Grover’s companion nodded and rose from the table without a word, shoving into the milling crowd at the bar.
“He’s a big one,” Donegan whispered.
Grover agreed. “Almost tall as you, Seamus.”
“He a scout for you … riding with Pepoon now?”
“No. Bill tells me General Sheridan’s wired him orders to sit here until the Fifth Cavalry comes through.”
Seamus went back to regarding his whiskey glass as Bill came back to the table with two more glasses and another bottle of whiskey. “Didn’t figure you’d still be hanging ’round Hays, Abner.”
“We’re getting ready to hove away for Fort Dodge soon enough, Seamus,” Grover replied. “And you could go, too. It’ll be good winter’s wages—riding with Pepoon’s scouts.”
“Where you heading this time?” he asked, watching Grover’s young companion pour two glasses of the whiskey from the new bottle.
“Word has it we’re marching with Sheridan himself—down into The Territories.”
“Right into the heart of it, eh?”
“That’s right, Irishman. Them young bucks been busy since late last summer.”
“Don’t we know it, Sharp? Penned up like we was on that island far out in the middle of hell itself.”
“No,” and Grover shook his head. “This is something different. The Cheyenne been raiding up on the Solomon and Saline Rivers. Burning, raping, killing stock. Carrying off white women and children.”
“Sheridan’s going down into The Territories to get them women back, is it?”
“He’s called Custer back to do it for him.”
That struck him like a chunk of winter river-ice thrust at the middle of his chest. Seamus leaned back in his chair, fingertips playing with the chipped lip of his glass. “Custer, you say? I heard he was serving out his year away from the 7th—for having them deserters shot.”
Grover hunched over the table as he glanced about quickly. “This is Custer country, Seamus.”
“I damned well know that.”
“You’re aiming for a fight of it?” Grover asked.
“If one steps up, I won’t back away.”
“Best keep your voice down in this town when you’re speaking your mind about Custer.”
“I’m touched you care so much about me spilling me blood, Abner.”
“I do, you thick-headed Irishman,” he said, slapping Donegan on the shoulder to show all was forgiven. “Best you know—Custer’s already back with his regiment.”
His eyes narrowed and he felt his windpipe constrict. “Here?”
“The 7th’s marched on to Fort Dodge, where they’re training for the coming campaign. Custer’s already there with ’em.”
Donegan’s teeth ground with disappointment.
“You were hoping to meet up with the boy general, were you?” Bill asked, speaking for the first time.
Seamus looked at Grover’s companion. Then smiled. “We, we just go back to the war, let’s say.”
“Never fought in the war myself,” Bill admitted. “Too young. But I have heard all about Custer’s part in Hancock’s campaign last year. Sure glad I wasn’t no thirteen-dollar-a-month private … living on beans and dreams of whores—following that curly-headed bastard. I worked ’round some of his soldiers last month. Out to Fort Larned.”
“Larned is some way from here,” Seamus muttered.
“Bill here just come in from one hell of a ride, Seamus,” Grover said.
“First job I had for the army, Lieutenant Billy Cooke signed me on the ninth of September to re-sack forage for their mounts. Then on the fifteenth, Cooke finally hired me as a scout.”
Seamus regarded the young man more carefully, recalling the youth of Jack Stillwell who had handled a man’s job and more during Forsyth’s chase after the Cheyenne. Donegan looked down into the amber of his glass. “The fifteenth, eh?… Sharp and me was less than two days from that Godforsaken island.”
“Bill here is the kind what could have held the muster for them nine days on Beecher Island.”
Seamus studied the young man. “Sharp says you had quite a ride in from Larned.”
“Over sixty miles,” Bill accounted. “Bringing word that the Kiowas and Comanches finally broke out. They’re joining the Cheyennes on the warpath.”
“Bill gave Sheridan that report at Fort Hays—the sort of news that the general had to send out to the other posts as well. Seems Sheridan asked around for a horseman to ride down to Dodge.” Grover shook his head a moment. “But too many been killed on that route lately. No one wanted to carry Sheridan’s dispatches what with the Injuns rising up.”
Seamus watched the young man’s eyes hold the table. He figured Bill for being a bit self-conscious. “You told Sheridan you’d go?”
Bill looked up a moment. “I told the general I’d ride, nobody else having the balls to take the chance … what with the Kiowas and Cheyennes both jumping off their reservations.”
“At Hays Bill got himself a bunk and slept for five hours, before saddling a fresh mount.”
“Stopped at the road ranch down at Coon Creek for another hour shut-eye on the way,” Bill said, starting to warm to the story of it. “Rode off on a new mount from a troop of cavalry bivouacked there … come on into Dodge without seeing nary a feather or war-paint.”
“But it wasn’t the end of it for you,” Sharp said
, smiling as he poured some more whiskey in their glasses. “Bill grabbed himself a few more hours sleep, then carried dispatches from the commander of Fort Dodge over to General Hazen at Fort Larned.”
“How’d you end up back here at Hays?” Seamus asked before throwing his whiskey back. It had ceased to burn his tongue.
“Hazen wanted Sheridan to have the latest word in from his scouts—the Kiowa villages all running south of the Arkansas.”
Grover nodded, smiling widely. “Ain’t that just like him, now? Phil Sheridan’s a man who wants to know exactly where the Injuns are every minute.”
“Seems fitting, it does … especially after Sheridan and the rest of them didn’t have an idea where Roman Nose and his bunch was when we run into ’em last month, eh?”
Grover swallowed hard on his whiskey, sputtering slightly as he watched the sour grin fade from the Irishman’s face. “I figure the army learned a hard lesson there.”
“Army learns a lesson—it’s for sure the poor sojur be the one to pay.” Seamus poured more whiskey in his own glass, offering some to the blond-haired youth across from him. “And you, Bill—have you had enough of riding for the army for awhile?”
“No. Pay’s good. Seventy-five a month and found. Better that than scratching out hardscrabble this winter.”
“How ’bout you, Donegan?” Sharp Grover turned fully toward the Irishman. “You got shet of what’s eating you and ready to ride again?”
“With you?”
“With Pepoon and me, Seamus. We’re heading down into Indian Territory with George—by God—Custer.”
His beetled eyebrow twitched. “That would be something, wouldn’t it now? Me riding scout for the man what stole me stripes back in the Shenandoah?” He hung his head, brooding on it, staring into the dancing ripples of his whiskey. “No. I’d better not tempt the fates again with Custer.”
“Then Seamus Donegan will ride with me, by damn,” the youngster said.
He looked up at the hard, gray-blue eyes again, seeing there some strength he had not taken the time to notice before. “Ride with you? Just where in hell would we be riding?”
“With the Fifth Cavalry.”
“And what the divil would you be having to say about me riding with the Fifth?”
He gazed back at the Irishman steady and long. “I suppose I’d have everything to say about it. Sheridan’s just commissioned me chief of scouts for the Fifth.”
He nodded, approvingly, then raised his glass in toast. “To the chief of scouts.” Seamus tossed it back, then licked his lips. “So … tell me just where this Fifth Cavalry of yours is heading.”
The young man leaned close over the table, drawing the other men in as he whispered in husky tones. “We’re going south and west … then turning east toward The Territories.”
“You’re going to Injun country too?” Grover asked.
He nodded eagerly, the ready smile cutting his young face. “We’re serving as beaters to drive the villages and war-parties toward Custer.”
“Sounds like winter’s work,” Donegan said.
“You’re damned right,” Bill answered. “We’ll likely face a blizzard or two and freeze our balls before we’re done. If you’re not up to riding into the jaws of winter itself, I’ll understand.”
Seamus sat back, smiling himself as he sloshed some more amber into his glass. He held it up again in toast. “All right—you’ve got yourself a scout for the winter. Here’s to riding with you, Bill … Bill…?”
He grinned widely, thrusting his big hand across the table at the Irishman. They shook.
“Bill Cody, Seamus. My name’s Bill Cody.”
DON’T MISS BLACK SUN—BOOK 4 IN THE EXCITING PLAINSMEN SERIES!
THE PLAINSMEN SERIES BY TERRY C. JOHNSTON
Book I: Sioux Dawn
Book II: Red Cloud’s Revenge
Book III: The Stalkers
Book IV: Black Sun
Book V: Devil’s Backbone
Book VI: Shadow Riders
Book VII: Dying Thunder
Book VIII: Blood Song
Book IX: Reap the Whirlwind
Book X: Trumpet on the Land
Book XI: A Cold Day in Hell
Book XII: Wolf Mountain Moon
Book XIII: Ashes of Heaven
Book XIV: Cries from the Earth
Book XV: Lay the Mountains Low
Book XVI: Turn the Stars Upside Down
HIGH ACCLAIM FOR THE PLAINSMEN SERIES BY TERRY C. JOHNSTON
Two-time Golden Spur Award nominee and winner of the Medicine Pipe Bearer’s Award for Carry the Wind
“JOHNSTON KNOWS HIS MATERIAL!”
—Washington Post Book World
“HALLELUJAHS FOR TERRY JOHNSTON. SIOUX DAWN IS REMARKABLE. I HAVEN’T SEEN ITS EQUAL.”
—Will Henry, Golden Spur Award-winning author
“This is true masterful storytelling at its best!… Judging from the excellence of Sioux Dawn, I cannot wait for the rest of them to come out!”
—John M. Carroll, renowned historian, member of the Order of Indian Wars and the Custer Battlefield Historic and Museum Association
Praise for previous books by TERRY C. JOHNSTON
“JOHNSTON’S WAY OF TELLING HIS STORY WILL CAPTURE YOUR IMAGINATION!”
—Guns & Ammo
“Memorable characters, a great deal of history and lore … and a deep insight into human nature.”
—Booklist
“Gutsy adventure-entertainment … larded with just the right amounts of frontier sentiment.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Johnston’s books are action-packed .… lively, lusty, fascinating.”
—Colorado Springs Gazette-Telegraph
DON’T MISS BOOKS 1 & 2 OF THE PLAINSMEN:
Sioux Dawn: The Fetterman Massacre, 1866
Red Cloud’s Revenge: Showdown on the Northern Plains, 1867
TERRY C. JOHNSTON, born on the first day of 1947 on the plains of Kansas, lived his whole life in the American West. His first novel, Carry the Wind, won the Medicine Pipe Bearer’s Award from the Western Writers of America, and his subsequent books have appeared on bestseller lists throughout the country. There are more than 2.5 million copies of the Plainsmen Series in print.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE STALKERS
Copyright © 1990 by Terry C. Johnston.
Excerpt from Black Sun copyright © 1990 by Terry C. Johnston.
All rights reserved.
For information address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
ISBN: 978-0-312-92963-3
St. Martin’s Paperbacks edition / December 1990
eISBN 9781466849679
First eBook edition: July 2013
*Original poem written by Maj. George A. Forsyth—author.