by John Legg
Annie smiled, relaxing. Little did she realize that in doing so, she made herself even prettier in Rhodes’s eyes. Once she lost that hard, tense cast on her face, she was more alluring.
“Whiskey?” Rhodes asked.
“Please.” Annie bit her lower lip. She was still nervous, and more than a little afraid of this man. She had seen his handiwork at Claver’s. Any man who could do what he had done was a man to be feared, and respected.
Rhodes walked to the small table, on which sat a lantern, flickering low, a bottle of whiskey, and two glasses. Rhodes pulled the cork from the bottle and filled both glasses about halfway. Picking them up, he walked to where Annie still stood. He handed her one glass.
“Here’s to an interesting night,” Rhodes said, raising his glass in a little salute.
Annie was still too frightened to really smile again, but she made a halfhearted effort at it. Then she drank a bit, grateful when the whiskey hit her insides. It seemed to strengthen her a little.
When they had emptied their whiskey glasses, Rhodes took them both and put them back on the table. He turned to face Annie, and he grinned widely. “C’mere, darlin’, and let’s start this fandango.”
Feeling as if she were heading for her own execution, Annie walked slowly toward this short, bearish man. She learned fairly quickly that Travis Rhodes could be as gentle and considerate as he could be ruthless and vicious. She allowed herself to relax completely, and then she began enjoying herself.
Annie was still sleeping when Rhodes slipped out of the bed. He looked at the time on his pocket watch after he had inserted the little key in it and wound it. He figured he had maybe an hour before daylight. He dressed quietly and then picked up his pistols. He checked over the two .36-caliber, cap-and-ball Whitney revolvers, making sure they were loaded, then he slid them into his belt, butts facing forward. He checked to make sure the four extra cylinders he carried were loaded and ready. Then he dropped them back into a hard-leather pouch hooked to his belt. Last, he checked the .31-caliber, five-shot Ells revolver. He stuck the small backup pistol into a shoulder holster under his shirt.
He picked up his sawed-off Darby 10-gauge shotgun and then his saddlebags, in which he had placed his supplies. He headed for the door. With his hand on the knob, he stopped and looked back, smiling a little. Annie had been much more warm and congenial than he had expected, especially once she lost her fear of him.
With a shrug, he walked back to the bed. Dipping into a pocket, he found a five-dollar coin. He set it on the small table next to the bed. With another smile into the darkness, he left the room.
He walked straight to the nearest restaurant—Wickham’s—and took a table. He could see Marshal Sam Crown leaning against a building across the street. Rhodes ignored him as he wolfed down some bacon, eggs, and biscuits. He took the time for a last cup of coffee, before he hefted all his worldly goods and marched out. He touched the brim of his hat in Crown’s direction. Crown returned the gesture.
Ten minutes later, as the sun crept over the horizon, Rhodes was riding out of town. He stopped at the ridge and looked back. There was nothing in Clearwater that he missed, but he didn’t know where he would go.
Such a thing had never bothered him before, but then again, he had never been a restless veteran of a war before. He hadn’t known what to expect when he was mustered out a few months ago, just before the peace was signed at Appomattox Courthouse.
He had tried going home again, but there was nothing left for him there. He had had no sweetheart, and his parents had passed on some time ago. True, his sister Edna was still living back in Vincennes, but Rhodes and Edna had never gotten along. Neither had Rhodes and his two brothers, Jason and Bert. For a long time, Rhodes thought it was his brothers who were in the wrong, but in the past year or so, he realized that he most likely was the problem. He did not fit in with his family, or just about anywhere else, for that matter.
Which led him back to his problem of the moment. He had thought that perhaps he could find a place like Clearwater and settle down, at least for a while. But now that possibility had gone by the wayside. He supposed he could head on to the next town like Clearwater and try it again, but he knew in his heart that he would not last there either.
With a sigh, he turned the horse west and rode off slowly. There was gold to be found out that way. That much he knew. Hell, even during the war he had heard the stories of the gold strikes in Colorado Territory and other places out that way. In those wild mining camps, he would find his home, he thought. He would not be out of place in such an area. He could lose himself in anonymity.
There was only one problem with that idea, though—getting there. This late in the summer, there were no wagon trains plying the Oregon Trail or the Smoky Hill Trail either. Had there been, he could’ve hooked on with one as a hunter or guide. That was out of the question now.
He figured he had no choice but to make a go of it on his own, hoping he might meet some other people along the way. There was safety in numbers, and he was smart enough—and humble enough—to know that he might be good with a gun, but he could not beat a war party of battle-hardened Lakotas.
Well, he reasoned, he would be safe enough for a while. The Indians around here were little trouble these days. Travis Rhodes was not the type to worry much about things he could not change, so he just rode on. He would deal with whatever he found when he found it. Or when it found him.
Chapter Four
After three days of leisurely riding westward, Rhodes came to a small trading post. There was nothing else around besides a cockeyed sod building and a rickety corral of poles dragged in from God knew where. A few bony nags stood in the corral alongside a rotting prairie schooner.
As desolate as the place looked, it was an oasis because of its remoteness. It was the first—and only—place people could get supplies once they had left Independence or Saint Joe. At least until they got to the next forlorn place just like it.
Rhodes sat on a grassy knoll looking down at the dismal trading post. Such places had reputations of violence, which didn’t concern Rhodes too much. Besides, he figured as he eased the horse down the little hill, he had no choice. He was low on his basic supplies, since he had no real way of carrying them. He would have to depend on isolated trading posts like this one, or on forts, for supplies every few days.
He stopped in front of the building, a few feet from the sagging door. A log had been dragged there, half hollowed out and was filled with water for the horses. Rhodes let his palomino drink. He looked around, but saw nothing untoward.
He patted the horse on the long, white mane and then headed for the door. Rhodes hooked his right thumb in his belt, near the butt of one of the Whitneys. With his left, he pushed open the door, standing a little to the side of it. Then he stepped inside.
It was about what he had expected. The place was dank, dim, and rank. The only light was provided by several foul-smelling lanterns. Goods and supplies were heaped and piled haphazardly all over. A wizened old man stood behind the counter—two planks torn from the wrecked wagon out in the corral. They rested on a small cook stove at one end and two butter churns, sans stirrers, on the other.
“Welcome, friend,” the old man said with obviously false cheer. “Name’s Claude Fenniman. What can I do for you today?”
“Some flour, a side of bacon, beans, coffee,” Rhodes said as he walked through the trading post, looking behind bales and boxes.
“Anything else?” Fenniman asked.
“I’ll think on it while you get that stuff.”
Rhodes had finished looking around—after all, the place wasn’t that big—and had found nothing disturbing. He relaxed a little as he strolled back to the counter.
Fenniman held up a can. “The best flour you can buy, mister,” he said. “Elton’s Stone Ground. Good coffee, too.” He tapped another tin. “Franklin’s.”
“Fine,” Rhodes said with a nod.
“Anything else?”
; “Buffalo jerky, sugar, salt…” He stopped when the old door, which was hung by a few pieces of old boot leather, opened, letting in a blast of unwelcome light. Rhodes melted backward against a pile of buffalo hides and waited, right hand resting on a pistol.
Two men clumped inside. One was tall and husky, the other short and scrawny. Both wore battered, holey buckskins, and Rhodes could smell them even over the foulness of this den. As they moved inside, Rhodes could see that both had not shaved in some days nor bathed in some months. Their hair was long and filthy. By the look and odor of, them, Rhodes pegged them as buffalo hunters.
“Izzat your horse outside dere, mac?” the big one said, clomping up to right in front of Rhodes.
“Might be,” Rhodes allowed. He sounded casual, unconcerned. “Why?”
“Why, hell, boy, I’ma buy’m.”
“He ain’t for sale,” Rhodes said flatly.
“I dint ask was he for sale,” the big man said. The statement was accompanied by various disgusting noises that grated on Rhodes’s ears. “I just said I was gonna buy’m.”
“Perhaps you didn’t understand,” Rhodes said calmly, though he was getting his dander up. “I said he ain’t for sale.”
“You speak mighty fancy, boy,” the man said. He stuck a sausage-sized finger into his right ear and rolled it around. When he popped it out, he wiped a large clot of wax on the front of his shirt. “Now, like I said, I ain’t ask if you was sellin’ your horse. I’ma buy it. Give you a fair price, too.”
“No.” Rhodes kept his gaze on the man’s festering countenance.
“Don’t rile me, boy, goddammit,” the man snapped. “My pal Ralphie needs himself a horse, and Claude dere ain’t got a decent horse inna whole goddamn place.”
Rhodes shrugged. Argument was useless. The man had neither the willingness nor the intelligence to hear what Rhodes was saying anyway.
“Hey, now, Ern, don’t go causin’ no trouble in my place, dammit,” Fenniman said. “You want to thump on that poor bastard, you go on and do it outside.”
“Hell, Claude, that ain’t gonna be needful. Since dis guy talks so fancy, I expect he’ll come to his senses.” He turned his rotting gaze back on Rhodes. “Ain’t dat right, pal?”
While Ernest Biggers had looked at Fenniman, Rhodes had slipped one of his Whitneys out from his belt. With the big men blabbering, Rhodes had eased back the hammer.
Rhodes said nothing, he just continued staring at Biggers. The big man got angry, and it reminded Rhodes of a storm blowing up over the mountains. Biggers took a step closer to Rhodes.
“Jesus Christ, you are a foul smellin’ bastard, ain’t you,” Rhodes said calmly. Then he brought the pistol up and fired twice.
Biggers did not fall, at least not at first. The balls punched all the way through him, surprising him with the shock. So close was Rhodes’s gun when it was fired that Biggers’s shirt almost ignited from the sparks. His eyes grew large, as he stared at Rhodes. Then he looked down at the two small, almost neat holes in his belly, and the blood draining out of each.
“Jesus,” the smaller man said as he stared at the larger holes in Biggers’s back.
Then Biggers began to topple. Rhodes saw it coming and slid easily to his right. As Biggers fell into the pile of buffalo hides, Rhodes raised the pistol and shot Ralphie Conway. It took only one ball to take care of Conway, who had pulled his own pistol even as he was marveling at the damage Rhodes had done to Biggers. He fell in a small pile.
Rhodes swung in a crouch toward Fenniman, his pistol up and ready.
“Hold there, mister,” Fenniman said nervously, half raising his hands, showing that he had no weapon.
Rhodes stood, grinding his teeth together. He almost ached to pull the trigger again, ridding the world of one more piece of vermin. He fought back the feeling, though it took some effort. After a few moments, he sighed and eased the hammer down as he straightened. “Sorry about the mess,” he said evenly as he jammed the pistol back into his belt and stepped back up to the counter.
“No problem, mister,” Fenniman said hastily. He wanted no part of this short, broad man.
“You got all my stuff set up yet?”
“No, not quite. You was about to tell me a few more things you needed when you...we were...interrupted.” He felt like he was going to wet his trousers.
Rhodes nodded. He looked at what was on the counter. “Buffalo jerky, sugar, salt, some mess beef, powder, lead, Lucifer’s, chewin’ tobacco, and a few cigars—if you got any.”
“Got the best,” Fenniman said, giving his speech by rote.
Rhodes nodded again. “Best be movin’,” he said quietly. “I ain’t aimin’ to spend the rest of my life here.”
Fenniman scurried about, getting what was needed. Finally everything Rhodes had requested was on the counter. “You got somethin’ to carry all this in?” Fenniman asked.
“Just put it in burlap sacking.” He considered taking one of the two dead men’s horses, but for some reason, the thought bothered him. Besides, any horses that those two would ride would be poor beasts at best, Rhodes was sure.
“If I might make a suggestion,” Fenniman said tentatively.
“What’s that?”
“Of Ern there rode himself a mule. A great ugly beast, but strong’s an ox. I doubt much if Ern’d mind that you took it for carryin’ supplies and such.” Rhodes might be reluctant to take a man’s—even a dead man’s—horse, but a mule was another story. “Let’s go take a look at it,” he said. He let Fenniman go out first. Next to the palomino was a dark, hulking mule. It looked strong though none too friendly. Rhodes nodded. “It’ll do.”
Back inside, Rhodes said, “Well, hell, since I got that damn mule now, I can get some more supplies. Unless, of course, your prices are usurious.” The last was a question.
“Oh, no, no, sir,” Fenniman said nervously. Usually he gouged people with all he thought he could get out of them. After all, there was no competition.
“Good,” Rhodes said in friendly tones. “Now, let’s see, I could use a bigger fry pan, more jerked buffalo, an extra pair of pants...”
Fenniman was busy for a few minutes getting everything together. “That be all now?” he asked, wiping sweat off his crinkled forehead.
Rhodes thought about it, then nodded. “Except for a pack saddle. You do have one layin’ around here, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Fenniman said sourly. He was going to barely make a profit on all this, he figured, and that did not please him at all. No, it didn’t. As he went to get a packsaddle, he soothed his greedy heart with the knowledge that Ralph Conway’s horse was now his. A couple weeks of letting the horse fatten on rich prairie grass and hay, and he could sell the horse to a traveler for a goodly sum.
With something of a renewed enthusiasm, he carried the packsaddle out and began putting it on the mule. Rhodes followed right behind, with an armful of supplies. When those were loaded on the mule, the two went back inside and got the rest of the things.
Fenniman did not like the thought that Rhodes wouldn’t leave him alone. Had Rhodes done that, for even a moment, Fenniman figured he could grab his scattergun from where it rested against the two butter churns supporting his counter. He settled for thinking that as soon as this man had ridden off, he would get a rifle instead. Then he could drop this son of a bitch. Then he would not only have Conway’s old nag, but the beautiful palomino and the big, ugly mule. Those thoughts made him happy.
Finally he had everything packed on the mule, and covered with a waterproof tarpaulin. He finished tying down the tarp. “There you go, mister,” he said, realizing that he did not even know this man’s name. Not that it mattered, though, not when the nameless man would be dead in a few minutes. Fenniman had no plans to bury him once he had killed him. Let him rot out there, or feed the scavengers, Fenniman thought. It was all he deserved.
“Obliged,” Rhodes said. “How much I owe you for all this?”
“Twenty-three dollars a
nd eighteen cents,” Fenniman said, suddenly nervous again. There was nothing to stop this man from shooting him and riding off. He was relieved when Rhodes counted out the money and handed it to him. It was in coins, too, not that worthless paper stuff everyone seemed to be carrying these days.
“You sure you got all you need now?” Fenniman asked, trying to sound friendly. He could drop this man at a fair distance with a rifle, but it would be a heap easier if he just had a few moments to get his shotgun and take care of this man here and now.
“Expect I do.” Travis had stopped to cut off some tobacco and shove it in his mouth. He chewed slowly.
With relief and expectation, Fenniman turned to head back into his sod store. Now was the time, he figured. Just a few more minutes...
“Oh,” Rhodes said, “Just one more thing.”
Fenniman turned just in time to get cracked in the forehead by the butt of one of Rhodes’s Whitneys. He went down and out without uttering a sound.
“Thought you’d back shoot me, did you, you sneaky bastard,” Rhodes growled low. He had seen it in Fenniman’s eyes, knew all along what the trading post owner was thinking. He smiled a little as he pulled himself onto the palomino.
Chapter Five
Rhodes moved on, warily. Though he had plenty of supplies, he was still alone and heading into the heart of a land where Lakota, Pawnee, Arikara, and other Indians still held sway. As such, the next several nights he made cold camps or, at most, made a small fire of buffalo dung before real darkness set in, ate hurriedly and then covered over the fire.
It annoyed him that he had to do such things, but he did not let the annoyance get to him too much. He had faced much worse things during the war. God, that had been a horrible thing, that war, he often thought. Bodies shattered by cannon fire or grapeshot; limbs hacked off in a crude hospital one after another and then tossed away; the cloying odor of gun smoke; the stench of death and decay; the screams.