Blood Bond

by William W. Johnstone

  “Well, he started it!” Two Wolves said.

  “Silence!” Fat Bear roared at him. “Your father’s brother took my sister for a wife, so you will obey me. Silly young men. Is there not enough blood being spilled over this land without you two adding to it?”

  Bodine pointed a finger at Two Wolves. “He is a liar!”

  “Be quiet!” Fat Bear spoke to him as he had to Two Wolves, in Sioux. “You have shared my lodge and my fire and eaten my food. My woman has fixed your shirt when it was torn. Now I ask only that you respect my right to speak without interruption.”

  Bodine and Two Wolves sat on the wet sand and glared at each other while Fat Bear, a sub-chief, gave them what for, tracing them back to when they were both children and implying that their minds had not grown with their bodies. Then he dismounted, picked up a stick, and beat both of them on the back, showing them his contempt for their childish behavior.

  The stick broke and Fat Bear tossed it to the ground. “Bah!” he said. And with that, jumped back on his horse and rode off, the others following him. As they passed, they refused to look at Bodine or Two Wolves, a sign of contempt.

  Bodine got to his boots and felt his stinging back. “That old man still swings a pretty mean stick.”

  “You deserved it,” Two Wolves told him.

  Bodine looked at him, smiled, and then flattened him with a right to the mouth.

  Chapter 18

  They had fought all over the bank, churning up the sand, fought out in the river and back, each one doing their best to try to drown the other, and were on the bank, still flailing weakly away at each other when an army patrol, led by Sergeant McGuire, rode up.

  “AIl right, men, break them up,” the sergeant ordered.

  Bodine and Two Wolves chose that time to collapse from exhaustion on the sands. Both of them were so tired, so arm-weary, they couldn’t move.

  McGuire squatted down beside them. “I don’t suppose one of you would like to tell me what this is all about?”

  “It’s personal,” Bodine groaned.

  “I thought it might be,” the sergeant said dryly. “Do you intend to lie here by the river the rest of the day?”

  “The sun does feel nice,” Two Wolves admitted.

  Sergeant McGuire looked at the welts on their backs and shook his head. “How the hell did you get those marks on your backs, boys?”

  “Fat Bear came by and was disgusted with us. He beat us for our disgraceful behavior,” Bodine said.

  “A Sioux war chief came by and he . . . beat you both?” McGuire sighed and stood up. “Are you two going to start fighting when we leave?”

  “No,” Two Wolves groaned.

  “Bodine?” McGuire asked.

  “No more fighting this morning.”

  “It’s afternoon, man!”

  “Whatever.”

  “Drag them over there by their horses, boys,” McGuire ordered. “Lone Dog’s up in Montana. So they’ll be all right. Let’s go. We’ve got to make the fork of the Clear and the Crazy Woman before dark.” He looked at the two bloody and battered and exhausted young men. “Fat Bear came by and beat you! I’d have given a bottle of whiskey to see that.” He walked away, laughing.

  The men lay in the shade in silence until the Army patrol was gone. Two Wolves was the first to speak. “Personally, I did not find the hiding from Fat Bear to be all that amusing.”

  “Nor did I. But you were certainly deserving of yours.”

  Two Wolves stirred, and then laughed. But that hurt his bruised and swollen mouth so the laughter was brief.

  Bodine chuckled, also very briefly.

  “All in all,” Two Wolves said, “it was a superb fight, was it not?”

  “Oh, yes. Even though I kept pulling my punches so I wouldn’t hurt you too bad.”

  “You kept pulling your punches? I could have knocked you out at the first, but I was feeling charitable and decided to let you save face.”

  The men lay on the sand and traded insults for a few minutes, both of them knowing the truth in the other’s initial statement.

  Finally, Bodine said, “If we lie here, we’re going to stiffen up.”

  “I’m afraid if I move I will shatter like glass.”

  “Those bare-butt jaybirds just might run into some friends and come back here, Brother.”

  That did it.

  Two Wolves stirred and sat up with a groan. “I am forced to admit that I am in no shape for another fight.”

  “Nor am I.” Bodine pulled himself up to a sitting position and reached up, grabbed hold of a tree limb, and hauled himself to his boots. He held out his hand for Two Wolves.

  On their feet, the men looked at each other and laughed. Their faces were swollen and bruised and cut; their eyes about half closed. Their hands were puffy from the blows of the long fight and both of them had difficulty straightening up.

  “I know a place about five miles from here,” Bodine said. “By a little creek that’s full of trout. Good cover all the way around.”

  “Let’s go.”

  They managed to get into the saddle, and had anybody else been watching it would have been a comedy. Bodine pointed Rowdy’s nose toward the northwest and led the way, dozing in the saddle as the afternoon warmed slightly.

  At the creek, they heated water and cleaned up, then caught some fish and fried them in a battered, old blackened frying pan. They stretched out on their bedrolls and were sound asleep before the sun went down. They didn’t wake up until full dawn the next morning.

  Two Wolves caught several more trout while Bodine boiled water for coffee. They looked worse this day than they had the day before, the bruises now a sickly yellow-green. Bodine watered the horses and then moved them to a new graze and picketed them.

  “So how have you been?” Bodine broke the silence.

  “Lousy. You?”

  “So, so. I kept busy at the ranch.”

  “I have neglected my spread. I have wasted my time courting a woman who, it appears, has been having fun with my affections.” He glanced at Bodine. “Aren’t you going to say I told you so?”

  “No.” Bodine speared a piece of fish and munched on it.

  “Thank you for that. Since you have had more experience with women than I, how do I end this charade?”

  “You just don’t go back, Sam. You know she’s been seeing Tom Thomas?”

  “So the rumors go.”

  “But do you believe it?”

  Two Wolves sighed. “Yes,” he admitted. “We had a terrible quarrel the other night, Brother. About you. That is why I was out riding alone.”

  Bodine did not look at him. “Just about me?”

  “No. Terri wanted me to meet with Tom Thomas.”

  “What about?”

  “Probably to turn against you. We never reached that point in the conversation. I was sorely tempted to find a stick and beat her.”

  Bodine laughed. “That’s all in your past, Sam. Although I doubt that you’ve ever struck a woman in your life.”

  “True. But with Terri . . . I was very nearly to that point.”

  “You have any pressing business you have to attend to?”

  “No. Nothing. Why?”

  “We’ll lie around here for a couple of days, get the stiffness out and let the bruises fade, then you can ride with me to the settlement. You probably need to stock up on supplies, too.”

  “I have no pack horse.”

  “We’ll get you a couple at the livery. Don’t argue. I don’t feel up to thrashing you again.”

  Two Wolves lay back on the ground and laughed until his sides hurt.

  * * *

  On the fourth day after the fight at the Crazy Woman, Bodine and Two Wolves broke camp at dawn. They crossed the Clear, and began angling more north than west, taking their time and keeping a wary eye out for trouble, from both white and Indian.

  The bruises had faded and more importantly, their hands had lost the stiffness, for both knew they were more than
likely riding into a hornet’s nest of trouble, and might have to grab iron.

  “Jim Potter.” Two Wolves pointed out the gunslick as they rode into the small settlement. ‘Who are those two with him?”

  Bodine cut his eyes to the saloon. “Dave Agee and Nate Johnson. Texas gunhands. They’re good.”

  “Better than you?”

  “No. But if I have to face all three of them, they’ll get lead in me.”

  “You won’t be alone. We are brothers.”

  They stabled their horses and Two Wolves arranged for pack animals. They walked to the general store and started picking out supplies: bacon and beans and sugar and flour and tobacco and the like.

  “The cook over at the cafe got any eggs?” Bodine asked the shopkeeper.

  “Shore does. He’s got him a flock of layin’ hens. Best grub to be found anywheres.”

  Both men had been living off fish and rabbits for several days. The idea of a cafe-cooked breakfast of bacon and eggs and fried potatoes and lots of hot coffee got their mouths salivating and they put their boots in the street toward the cafe.

  The man behind the counter didn’t seem all that thrilled to see the pair of them, but he let his expression mirror his displeasure and using good sense, kept his flap shut. For about thirty seconds.

  “Plenty of eggs and whatever else you’re serving with them,” Bodine told the man as he pulled out a chair. “For the both of us.”

  “I don’t want no trouble in here, fellers,” the man said. “I seen them ol’ boys come ridin’ in the other day, the ones that wasn’t dead was all shot to hell and gone, ’ceptin’ for them two with their be-hinds all rubbed raw. And I know who both of you is. Bodine and Two Wolves. Now I’m tellin’ you both, if trouble starts, take it outside. I’ll get your grub.”

  Bodine and Two Wolves grinned at each other. That must have been quite a sight,” Two Wolves whispered.

  Then both of them laughed.

  The sheriff picked that time to step into the cafe. He gave them both a look of disapproval and walked over to their table, pulled out a chair, and sat down. “Coffee, Bobby.”

  “You know where it is,” the counterman told him, in exactly the same tone he’d used with Bodine and Two Wolves.

  The sheriff grinned, got his coffee, and sat back down. “You might think Bobby didn’t like you,” he said, sugaring the black. “But he uses the same tone with everybody. He’s a good cook, but I think if he bit hisself he’d die from rabies.”

  “Very funny, Sheriff,” Bobby grumbled from the kitchen. The sheriff rolled a smoke and laid a sack and papers on the table. Help yourself, boys. You got a long ride ahead of you.”

  “Are we going somewhere soon?” Bodine asked innocently.

  “Yep. Just as soon as you boys has et and resupplied, you’re heading back to Johnson County. I don’t want no trouble here.”

  “We have no intention of starting any trouble, Sheriff,” Two Wolves assured him.

  “I know that. But they’s about ten gunslicks just hangin’ around town. Makes me nervous. Since I know what the ante is on your head, Bodine.”

  “Then why don’t you tell me and we’ll both know. Last I heard it was between five and ten thousand.”

  “That’s close enough.” The sheriff sucked at his coffee mug. “Tom Thomas has a powerful lot of hate for you, Bodine. And let me tell you something else: he hates your father just as bad. He’s got his eyes on your spreads.” He cut his eyes to Two Wolves. “And yours, too, partner. That’s why he’s been suckin’ up to you, him and that no-count woman them fool ranchers hired to teach their younguns.”

  The counterman brought their food and when he had left, Bodine asked, “You mean she isn’t a schoolteacher?”

  “She wasn’t when they ran her out of St. Louis,” he said flatly, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a dodger, laying it on the table.

  Two Wolves picked it up, looked at the likeness, and read the information. “This doesn’t say she’s wanted for anything.”

  “Oh, she isn’t. She’s served her time.”

  “Time?” Bodine looked at the man. “For what?”

  “Embezzlement, attempted murder, impersonation.

  “Damn!” Two Wolves said.

  “Impersonation of what?” Bodine asked.

  “A schoolteacher,” Two Wolves spoke before the sheriff could speak.

  “You got it,” the sheriff said.

  “I feel like a fool,” Two Wolves said.

  The sheriff sort of figured he knew what Two Wolves was talking about, but a man’s romancing was his own business—even a half-breed Injun—so the lawman didn’t pursue that comment.

  “How come you have this?” Bodine asked, holding up the dodger that Two Wolves had laid on the table.

  “Well, boys, let me put it this way: the law is changin’ as we progress. The telegraph wire and the mail is bringin’ a lot of us to workin’ closer together. But now let me warn you about this dodger here. You cain’t use it agin that woman. She’s free and clear as a bird. She’s served her time and as far as I know, she might have gone back to school and gotten her teachin’ certificate. I don’t know. Take weeks or months to find out. The lawmen over in Missouri sent this dodger, or one like it, to the lawmen in Kansas—that’s where she went after she got out of prison. Kansas sent it to Nebraska when she moved there, and so on as she pulled stakes and somebody got suspicious after she landed. She’s a schemer and a conniver and a user, boys. And she’s mighty slick. I got me a sneaky feelin’ that she and Tom Thomas knowed each other ’way back down the line. Y’all watch that woman close. She’s up to no good. But you tell anybody I showed y’all this dodger, I’m gonna say you lied. OK?”

  Bodine and Two Wolves nodded their agreement.

  “Fine. Now you boys finish up your breakfast and get your supplies and hightail it outta my territory . . .”

  The door opened and a citizen stepped in, walking swiftly to the table. “Sheriff, Deputies Carson and Hankins had to go up to the Box T—rustlers. Three more of Tom Thomas’s hardcases done rode in; made it plain they was lookin’ for these two here.” He cut his eyes to Bodine and Two Wolves.

  “Damn!” the sheriff swore.

  “I can get the boys together,” the citizen said, but without a whole lot of conviction in his voice.

  “Looks like we’re a little late in leaving, Sheriff,” Bodine said. “No point in your getting a lot of townspeople killed or hurt. Why not just pass the word to vacate the streets and let us handle it?”

  “And then what am I supposed to do?” the man questioned. “Just sit back with my thumb stuck in my ear while the town gets shot up?”

  “Beats getting killed, doesn’t it?” Two Wolves made that point.

  “There is no law against a stand-up gunfight, Sheriff,” Bodine reminded the man. “There probably should be, but there isn’t.”

  “You boys gonna be facin’ ’bout eight or ten randy ol’ boys.”

  Bodine and Two Wolves exchanged glances. “We’re tricky,” Two Wolves said with a smile.

  The sheriff nodded his head. Looked up at the citizen. “All right, Harry. Get the people off the streets.” He looked at Bodine and Two Wolves. “You boys better be more than tricky. You better have angels on your shoulders!”

  Chapter 19

  Bodine and Two Wolves finished their breakfast and enjoyed another cup of coffee before Two Wolves asked, “What’s the drill, Brother?”

  “We step out and walk right into that gun shop next door. Buy us a couple of express guns. I never have believed in a fair fight.”

  “Sure was a nice breakfast.”

  “Tasty.”

  “You ready to go to work?”

  “Might as well. Those ol’ boys sure aren’t going to go away.”

  “Brother?”

  Bodine met his eyes.

  “You were right about Terri. I was wrong. I let my heart blind my eyes.”

  “Happens to the best of us, Brot
her.”

  “Even you?”

  “I’ll never tell!” Bodine replied with a laugh.

  They paid for their breakfast and started for the door. “Good luck, boys,” the counterman called as they were leaving.

  They both paused and turned around. The counterman was smiling at them. They returned the smile and stepped out onto the boardwalk.

  Before entering the gun shop, Bodine and Two Wolves looked up and down the street. Two men, wearing their guns low and tied down, were lounging in front of the livery. Two more were at each end of the short street. They began walking toward the saloon.

  “They certainly seem anxious enough,” Two Wolves remarked.

  “Yeah. Let’s get loaded up.”

  They bought express guns: sawed-off, double-barrel, 12-gauge shotguns and a box of shells, stuffing their pockets. They checked their .44s and split a box, filling up the loops in their gunbelts. The shop owner watched them nervously. “You boys is damn fools!” he finally said. “There must be maybe ten or twelve gunslicks out there waitin’ on you.”

  “What would you have us do?” Two Wolves questioned.

  “Take the back door and work your way around to the livery,” he suggested. “And get the hell gone from here. That’s the sensible way.”

  “And the cowardly way,” Two Wolves told him. “It will come sometime. Why not now?”

  “Nuts!” the man said. “Both of you. Git on out of here. I’m lockin’ this place up!”

  Bodine and Two Wolves loaded up and once more stepped out onto the boardwalk. The street was empty. The doorlock clicked behind them and they heard the shades being pulled down. A few seconds later, they heard the back door slam.

  “Nervous man,” Two Wolves observed.

  “Maybe he’s got more sense than we have.”

  “There is that to consider.”

  “Where do we start?”

  “I guess the saloon. I guess that’s where those gunhands went. It appears to be the only place left open.”

  “Except for the undertaker’s place of business.”

  “Let’s go see if we can’t send some customers his way.”

  They stepped off the boardwalk and onto the dusty street.

  Bodine and Two Wolves carried the sawed-off shotguns in their left hands, the right hand of each close to the butt of the .44s.