Blood Bond

by William W. Johnstone

  “Talk is that Thomas withdrew it. The gunfighters who are still around are here out of pride or are looking to make a reputation. And there are plenty of them, Bodine.”

  “No doubt.” Bodine’s reply was dryly offered.

  * * *

  “Bodine.” The whisper brought him awake and alert. Turning his head, he looked into the eyes of Two Wolves.

  “We have company.”

  “How many?”

  “Only a few, I’m thinking. They probably came to see if they could steal some horses.”

  Bodine eased out of his blankets and pulled on moccasins, leaving his boots beside the blankets. On hands and knees, the two men crawled away from the main body of sleeping soldiers and the nearly dead fire.

  Bodine was not worried about anybody stealing Rowdy. If a stranger got too close to the big horse, Rowdy would either kick them to death or set up such a ruckus the entire camp would be awakened and the intruder would be frightened off.

  Away from the sleeping and silent camp, the men rose to stand beside a huge boulder. They talked, using sign language in the dim light.

  Guards? Bodine asked.

  Unaware, Two Wolves answered.

  Where to start?

  Two Wolves shrugged and then signed, All around us. I think one guard is already dead.

  Where?

  In the timber.

  We’ll start there.

  Two Wolves smiled his approval of that.

  Moving slowly and making no sound, they entered the small stand of timber. Bodine smelled fresh blood. Two Wolves pointed. The body of a young trooper lay sprawled in death, his throat cut. He had been scalped and a small part of his skull shone ghostly white in the very dim light of the cloud-covered moon.

  Bodine signed: Split up?

  Two Wolves nodded and the men moved away, soon vanishing from the other’s sight.

  Bodine saw the brave, standing motionless by a tree. He slipped forward quietly, putting the wind to his face so the Indian could not smell him, then angled behind the brave, the long-bladed knife in his hand, held down beside his leg so the dim light could not reflect off it.

  The Indian sensed someone or something behind him and turned. Bodine drove the blade into the brave’s throat, the heavy blade stopping any sound before it was made. He drove the blade through the man’s neck and tore it out one side. Then he drove the blade into the Indian’s chest, piercing the heart.

  Bodine lowered the body to the cold ground, wiped his blade clean on his jeans, and moved on, as silent as stalking death in the night.

  Two Wolves had waited by a tree for his prey to come to him, and he knew they would, for the spot he had chosen was near the picketed horses. Two Wolves watched the guard advance, look around him, make his turn, and head back, walking his post as he had been taught. A very stupid move in Indian country, Two Wolves thought, then smiled at the irony contained within the thought.

  He detected movement to his left and remained as still as the tree trunk he crouched beside. The brave—and Two Wolves recognized him as one called Scabby Mouth—came closer, then for some reason, turned, putting his back to Two Wolves.

  Two Wolves finished him with one heavy plunge of his knife, his hand over Scabby Mouth’s lips to prevent any scream. He lowered the body to the earth and slipped back into the dark timber.

  Two Wolves and Bodine spent two more hours in the brush and the timber, locating and killing the six Indians who had come to steal horses and instead found sudden and violent death. It was almost five o’clock in the morning when they finished and slipped back into camp. The sentries had never known they were outside the camp engaged in their deadly mission.

  Bodine knelt down and shook Lieutenant Gerry awake. “Wake up, Gerry. You lost one sentry last night. Two Wolves and I killed the war party.”

  Gerry sat up on his blankets and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “Wh . . . what?”

  “Get your boots on. Come on.”

  The entire camp was up by this time, due in no small part to Two Wolves banging on a skillet with a large metal spoon.

  “Now listen up, people!” Bodine yelled, getting everybody’s attention. “You came close to losing some horses last night. You did lose one man. I don’t know his name. He’s right over there in the timber. Dead and scalped. He got careless, probably. Lieutenant Gerry tells me that most of you are from back East. This is not back East. This is Indian country and the Indians—a lot of them—are on the warpath. Come spring, they’ll be a hell of a lot more on the warpath, I’m thinking. If you’re going to survive out here, you’re going to have to change a lot of thinking and forget a lot of the crap the Army has drilled into your heads.”

  Bodine noticed that Gerry stirred at his last comment, but kept his mouth shut. He knew that what Bodine said was true. He caught the burned down cigarette butt that Bodine tossed him.

  “The dead man was smoking that when he was killed. He gave away his position just as clearly as if he’d blown a bugle and fired a flare. You want to stay alive in this country, you pick a protected spot, you very carefully and very slowly note everything around you. Don’t just look at it—see it! You stay in that spot. You don’t move. Move your eyes, not your head. Movement draws more attention than noise. You’ll learn, or you’ll die.”

  Bodine walked to the fire and poured a cup of coffee made the night before, hot and black and strong enough to melt nails.

  Sergeant McGuire ordered a burial detail for the dead trooper. “What about the dead Indians, Lieutenant?”

  “Cut off their heads,” Bodine said. “And dump them out on the plains. That might convince Lone Dog his medicine is bad.”

  This time, Gerry did not vocalize any loud protestations over the barbarism of Bodine’s suggestion. As Bodine had noted, the young lieutenant was learning that life on the frontier was rough.

  * * *

  As the town of Cutter came into sight, Lieutenant Gerry said to Bodine, “Attempting to steal horses from the Army, Bodine. That might suggest to me that Lone Dog was getting ready for a large-scale attack.”

  “It might. It could mean a lot of things. But I think you’re right about the attack. And we’re fast approaching the target.”

  “Our scouts have repeatedly reported that Lone Dog’s followers have grown. Estimates range anywhere from three hundred to five hundred.” He looked around him. “Where is Two Wolves? I haven’t seen him for hours.”

  “Scouting. He said he had a bad feeling about this day; wanted to check something out.”

  “What?”

  “His hunch that we were being followed. I’ve been feeling eyes on me for hours.”

  “You think it’s Lone Dog?”

  “Yes, I do. It would be quite a coup for him to catch Two Wolves and me in Cutter with the Army and wipe us all out.”

  Gerry was silent for a moment. “I can’t believe that Lone Dog would be so brazenly foolhardy as to attack the town while the Army is in it.”

  Bodine smiled. “The Indians have been running circles around the Army for thirty years, Gerry. Fremont, Crook, Sheridan—a dozen more have chased the Indians over the long years. The Indian isn’t afraid of the white man. Quite the contrary. And he certainly isn’t afraid of the Army.” Bodine looked toward the east. “Two Wolves coming.”

  Gerry halted the patrol, calling for a rest.

  “Lone Dog and his warriors have circled us and are paralleling us,” Two Wolves said. “Staying miles away, in small bands, so we won’t see the dust. I’d say they’re waiting for us to enter Cutter and then they’ll attack.”

  “You saw them?” Gerry asked.

  Two Wolves fixed him with a cool gaze. “I saw enough of them to know what is going on, Lieutenant, and I’ve been reading sign since I was old enough to walk. What direction did I take when I left, Lieutenant?”

  “I . . . ah . . . did not notice you leave.”

  “Right. I rode west, Lieutenant. And when I returned, I came in from the east.”
r />   “I get the point, Sam.”

  “I hope your lack of attentiveness doesn’t get you the point of an arrow or lance or knife, Lieutenant.”

  Gerry might have had a response to that. If he did he kept it to himself. He got up from his squat and moved to confer with Sergeant McGuire.

  “How many, Brother?” Bodine asked.

  “I’d say three to four hundred. They’re painted for war, Bodine.”

  “Cutter is our only shot, isn’t it?”

  “There is nothing else within a fifty- to seventy-five-mile radius. I hate to think I’m going to be fighting to save Tom Thomas’s worthless hide.”

  Bodine couldn’t resist it. With a smile, he said, “Then just consider it a fight to save the fair, virtuous Terri Kelly.”

  Two Wolves groaned. Then he removed Bodine’s hat, filled it up with water from the creek, and placed it back on Bodine’s head—while the troopers stood around and laughed.

  Let them laugh, Bodine thought, while the water ran down his neck. Chances are, it’ll be the last laugh for many of them.

  Maybe for all of us.

  * * *

  When they rode into Cutter, Tom Thomas stepped out of his office and stared in disbelief at Bodine. The man’s eyes bugged out, his face turned red and when he finished jumping up and down, he looked like he might keel over from an attack of apoplexy.

  He pointed a finger at Bodine and began to stutter as Bodine reined up and dismounted in front of his office building. You . . . you . . . you . . .”

  “Oh, shut up, Thomas!” Bodine told him. “I don’t have time to whip you again. Where’s your private army?”

  But Thomas was too angry to even speak.

  Whacker Corrigan stepped out and said, “In the field, Bodine. What’s going on?”

  Bodine very quickly explained.

  That calmed Thomas down in a hurry. “Destroy my town!” he roared. “The hell they will!”

  Bodine lifted his eyes to the second floor of the building. Terri was standing by a curtained window, looking down at him. She wore a robe that Bodine suspected had nothing under it except Terri. He smiled at her.

  She jerked the curtains closed.

  Thomas caught the direction of Bodine’s eyes and his own gaze was filled with raw hatred as their eyes met and locked.

  “No time for that now, Thomas,” Bodine told him. “Right now you’d better concentrate on staying alive.”

  “I will be in my living quarters with my fiancée,” Thomas said, then spun around and entered his office building.

  Bodine joined Two Wolves just as Lieutenant Gerry was walking up.

  “I have absolutely no knowledge of or experience in defending a town,” the Army man admitted. “My training was solely dedicated to fighting hostiles in the field.”

  “This will be something new for the Indians, as well,” Bodine said. “I don’t recall them ever taking on an entire town.”

  “They will probably slip warriors in close,” Two Wolves advised. “They’ll shoot fire arrows into the buildings. Then once the town is burning, they’ll hit us.”

  “I’ll split my command,” Gerry said. “Then . . .”

  “No!” Bodine’s interruption was sharply given. “That would be suicide. Your command is too small for that.” He pointed toward stone buildings on a hill overlooking the town. “The old mining operation. There’s water, a place for the horses, and a good field of fire. We can hold for a long time there.” He looked at Two Wolves. “Think you can make the garrison?”

  “As soon as it’s dark.”

  “If they catch you, Brother, you’ll die hard.”

  Two Wolves smiled. “I would not give them that satisfaction.”

  Chapter 21

  The old mining operation, the first in this part of the territory, had turned out to be a total bust. But the men who financed the boondoggle had put up buildings to last. Gerry led his command to the hilltop and began assigning positions. Bodine went to the cafe where the waitress had been friendly.

  “Lucy,” he told her. “You and the cook fix as much food as you can and get up to the old mine buildings with the Army.”

  “Why are you doing this, Bodine?” she asked.

  “Because I think you and the Chinaman are about the only decent people in this town.”

  “And the rest of the people can go to the devil?”

  “That’s about the size of it.”

  She stared at him for a few seconds. “I was on my way to Oregon. On the same wagon train with Loo Boo. The wagon master deserted the train. As it turned out, me and Loo Boo run out of money at the same time. We ended up here. I hate this town and I hate Tom Thomas and so does Loo Boo. We’ve made some money here. Maybe enough to start up another cafe somewhere else.”

  Bodine smiled at her. “Get your savings and the food and head out the back door, Lucy. I know a little settlement down on the Clear that could sure use a good eatin’ place. Move, people, I just don’t know how much time we have.”

  The Chinaman bobbed his head up and down in agreement and spoke words that sounded to Bodine like loose gravel rattling around in a bucket. Bodine stepped out onto the boardwalk. Several people were hurriedly piling up possessions in wagons. He walked over to them.

  “You’ll never make it, people,” he warned them. “Your chances are much better staying here.”

  “You go to hell, mister!” a woman bluntly told him. “We’re pullin’ out.”

  “I can’t stop you.”

  “You shore can’t,” the man with her said. “So stand outta the way.”

  Bodine turned his back on them and started to walk off. Then he stopped and turned around. “Mister, when the Indians attack, kill the two women before Lone Dog takes them.”

  One of the women, an older, hard-faced veteran of the soiled dove trade, cursed him. “Mister Hot-Shot Gunfighter, there ain’t nothing them Injuns can do to me that ain’t already been done by so-called civilized white men a thousand times over down through the years, from St. Louis to Frisco.”

  Bodine looked at her, no emotion in his cool eyes. “That’s what you think.”

  He walked off, his eyes taking in the activity in the town as the citizens made ready to meet the Indian attack. They were filling water barrels to use against fires. Rolling wagons in and turning them over to make barricades. Smashing out store windows to avoid flying glass when the attack came.

  They might last a day and a night, Bodine thought. Maybe. He rode out from the town and looked around. The rolling hills could, at this moment, contain several hundred warriors, just waiting to attack. And probably did, he concluded.

  He circled the small town and rode once up the short main street, stopping at the livery and ordering the man to take a wagonload of corn up to the old mine buildings. He said he’d do it, but he didn’t like it. Just do it, Bodine told him. As he passed Thomas’s office buildings, he looked up at the second floor. Thomas and Terri were standing in a window, staring down at him. Their expressions were very hostile.

  The man who would be king is about to have his kingdom, or at least a large part of it, destroyed, Bodine thought. He put Tom Thomas and Terri Kelly out of his mind and rode up the hill to the old mining complex.

  Gerry had put his men to work and at this, at least, the lieutenant knew his business. Gerry had three lines of defense, the third being the three stone buildings where his men would, as the battle heated up, be forced to fall back to.

  “How’s the water?” Bodine asked.

  “It’s good. And it’s protected,” Gerry told him. “We’ve filled every barrel and bucket and container we could find. I had men out with the horses, letting them graze to their fill. That corn you had sent up was a godsend. I signed for it. I suppose eventually the man will get his money.”

  “He probably won’t have much use for money in the grave, Gerry. That town is going to take a lot of misery, I’m thinking.”

  “I feel like we’ve betrayed the citizens by comi
ng up here. In a way I feel that.” He sighed. “I really don’t know how I feel.”

  “Didn’t Colonel Travers declare this town off-limits to his troopers?”

  “Yes. Some months ago.”

  “Then don’t worry about it.”

  Bodine and Lieutenant Gerry watched as several wagons began pulling out from the town.

  “Fools,” Gerry muttered.

  “They’ll get three or four miles, probably. It might be a blessing for us.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Once they’re taken, the Indians will probably delay their attack on us while they’re having fun torturing the prisoners.”

  “Good God, man! That’s a blessing?”

  “That’s reality, Gerry. I warned them not to leave. They chose to ignore me.”

  “I wonder what will happen to them?”

  “Lone Dog will probably show us a couple of them . . . after they’ve finished with them.”

  Judging by the expression on Gerry’s face, the young lieutenant was not looking forward to that. “The hostiles are . . . quite inventive, so I’m told.”

  “That is one way of putting it.”

  Two Wolves joined them. “Lone Dog will not attack this night,” he said. “He and his braves will be having too much fun with those unfortunates who chose to leave the town.” He spoke with his eyes on the fading wagons. “The attack will come at dawn, and it will come hard. By that time, I should be close to the fort. I would like one of your men to ride with me, Gerry.”

  “Of course, but why?”

  Two Wolves kept his expression stoic. “Because I am a half breed, Lieutenant. Colonel Travers, or more probably, Major Dawson, might think it a ruse on my part; an effort to pull them away from the fort. Colonel Travers might refuse to leave.”

  “I suppose,” Gerry said. “Pick your man, Sam.”

  “I have. He’s the smallest and lightest man in your command. We shall be riding hard. We’ll leave at dusk, riding south for a few miles and then cutting west until we reach Dead Valley. From there we’ll cut northwest and head for the fort.”

  Two Wolves looked at the sky. “It will be dark in three hours. We shall rest until then.”