by John Legg
Lame Bear had been young, and his friend Rough Wolf figured Lame Bear had come to Crowheart Butte to seek a vision.
Whatever humor Morgan had built up on the ride out here vanished as soon as he knelt beside the body and pulled off the blanket that Rough Wolf had placed over his friend. He rose and looked for Two Wounds.
The Shoshoni was moving slowly about the perimeter of the camp, searching for sign. Morgan walked up to him. “You find anything, Two Wounds?” he asked.
“Some,” Two Wounds grunted angrily. He had not really known Lame Bear, but that didn’t matter. A Shoshoni—one of the People—was dead. That mattered.
“White men again?”
Two Wounds nodded. His hatred for the whites was flaring, and at the moment he did not even want to be around Buck Morgan. He had come to like the tall, rangy lawman during their short acquaintance, but right now he just wanted to be with his own people. “Same ones?”
Two Wounds shrugged.
Morgan grabbed the Shoshoni by the shoulder and pulled him around. “I know you don’t have much likin’ for white men right now, but I don’t really give a shit. I want to catch the bastards who’ve done this as much as you. Not for the same reasons, maybe, but just as much.”
“You don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” Two Wounds hissed.
“Horseshit. But I’m not about to stand here and debate it with you. If you want me to catch these bastards, help me. If you don’t want to find them, go on back to your lodge and I’ll find someone else who’s willing to help.”
Two Wounds glared at Morgan for some moments. The hatred for Morgan—as the embodiment of all the abuses of all the white men—was as strong as anything he had ever experienced. But he had pride in his ability to control his emotions. Right now this white man could help find the men who were killing the People. That must come first. Once that was done he would address the problem of Buck Morgan.
“I’ll help,” Two Wounds said tightly. “Some of the prints I’ve seen are from the same men. Some’re new.”
“Let’s follow them.”
“Soon,” Two Wounds said. “I want to look around here some more.”
Morgan nodded. He was eager to be on the trail, though he didn’t know why. The condition of the body told him that the killers had been gone since sometime yesterday. Waiting a few more minutes, or even a few more hours, would make no difference in catching the men. Still, Morgan was impatient.
Morgan wandered off by himself, away from the body. He wasn’t bothered by it; he had seen too many other bloody, gory scenes. But that did not mean he wanted to stand there looking at a pile of entrails covered with maggots. He pulled a thin cheroot out of his shirt pocket and lit it. Then he stood there puffing quietly, eyes wandering lazily over the countryside.
His eyes spotted something, he did not know what. It had only been a glint, or maybe just the suggestion of something. Using his peripheral vision, he tried to pick it up again, but to no avail. With a general idea of where whatever had caught his eye was, he moved slowly there, eyes sweeping the ground. Suddenly he stopped and knelt.
He reached out and picked up a button. He rolled it between his fingers. It seemed ordinary—just a plain white button from a man’s shirt. It might not even be from any of the killers. But he shrugged. One never knew what might be important. He rose and stuck the button into a pants pocket.
A few minutes later Two Wounds soundlessly walked up alongside of Morgan. “Time to go,” the Shoshoni said flatly.
Morgan nodded. The two trotted out of Lame Bear’s little camp, leaving the Shoshoni’s remains in the care of his friend Rough Wolf. Two Wounds set a fairly fast pace, and Morgan wondered if Two Wounds were following sign or just guessing which way the whites might’ve gone. Morgan never did find out for sure, but the trail soon faded into the rocky soil of the twisting badlands. Finally Two Wounds stopped, anger contorting his face.
“You lost it?” Morgan asked quietly.
“What the hell do you think?” Two Wounds snapped in response.
“Don’t worry about it,” Morgan said after a while. “I’m going to head on to the towns and see what I can find out. If white men really did all this, they’ll have to show up in one of those towns sooner or later.”
“After how many more of the People are killed?”
“Hopefully none, goddammit,” Morgan snapped, his own anger beginning to flare. He pulled his horse’s head around and rode off. Soon after, Two Wounds caught up with him, and they traveled in silence.
At Washakie’s village Morgan tarried only long enough to say a few words to Cloud Woman. Then he was in the saddle and heading toward Ashby’s. It was almost dark when he got there, and he was tired, hot, sweaty, dirty, and in a foul mood.
Ashby noted it all and rather calmly directed Dusty to care for Morgan’s horse and Grace to reheat supper. “You want a bath first?”
Morgan shook his head. “Food first. Then a bath.” Ashby nodded, and a few minutes later, Morgan was doing serious damage to a plate of roasted pork and potatoes. Afterward, he took his time shaving, and then settled in for a short, lukewarm bath. When he was finished, Ashby entered the small room Morgan was calling home. He carried a bottle of whiskey. He poured each of them a drink and then sat on the only chair in the room. Morgan was sitting on the bed. “So, what’ve you learned?” Ashby asked bluntly.
“Not a hell of a lot,” Morgan admitted sourly. “I’m convinced now that white men are behind all this. Who and why, I don’t know. You know we found another one today, don’t you?”
Ashby nodded. “I heard. Lame Bear, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah. Two Wounds found some tracks he said were the same as the ones we found where Fox Head was killed. We tried following them for a while but lost them in the badlands.”
“So what do we do now?”
“I’m going to head into Flat Fork and see if I can dredge something up.”
“You don’t sound optimistic.”
“I ain’t. But I don’t know where else to look.” Ashby nodded. “Well, I hope you find something soon.”
“Oh?” Morgan asked, eyebrows raised in question. “I can feel tension building around here. Lieutenant Pomeroy is getting itchy.”
“Scared?”
“Maybe. The main thing is that he’s looking to move up in the ranks. That’s his best shot of getting out of this hellhole. And to do that he needs to make a name for himself. What better way than heading off an ‘Indian war’?”
“He’d kill a bunch of Arapaho just to make a name for himself?” Morgan asked, only a little incredulous.
Ashby shrugged. “I’m not sure, to tell you the truth. He usually seems of a normal frame of mind, but he’s ambitious as all hell. And there’s no telling what a man like that’ll do. I know he won’t wait forever if these murders continue, despite what Washakie wants.”
Morgan sighed and shook his head. “I’ll head into Flat Fork first thing in the mornin’.” He finished off his cup of whiskey. “And now I’d best get some shut-eye.”
Flat Fork was near, about the worst sinkhole of filth and degradation Morgan had ever seen, and he had been in some mighty poor places. The place was a rancid collection of shacks and shanties stuck up haphazardly along crooked, muddy streets. Nearly every other building was a saloon, and there seemed to be few if any other kind of business. There were no hotels that Morgan could see, only one mercantile store, a hardware store, and a gun shop. He did spot a doctor’s shingle on one tent structure and a rudimentary funeral home. Morgan figured those two places got plenty of use.
The air was foul with the stench of the waste and garbage that cluttered the roadways. Cooking meat from unknown animals added to the stink. The Popo Agie River was sullied with refuse.
The people that populated the festering metropolis were fitting for the place. Most looked like they would kill someone for absolutely nothing and have a chuckle while doing it. Their faces were feral, sometimes fierce, always dissi
pated and decidedly unfriendly. Morgan had the sudden thought that his badge was like the bull’s-eye of a target.
He dismounted in front of a saloon. With a look around at the hostile, drunken faces, he headed inside. The inside of the dank den made the outside of Flat Fork look quite good by comparison. The saloon was not large, and the bar was nothing more than a narrow plank sitting on a pile of boxes at one end and a tree stump on the other. Several men snored loudly at wooden tables. A few other men were drunken enough to be only dimly aware of their surroundings, but not unconscious.
Morgan stopped just inside the place to get the lay of it. He was not bothered by the stares he attracted. When he was satisfied that no one was of immediate danger to him he moved farther inside, heading for the bar. “You have any drinkable whiskey in this place?” he asked the bartender.
The man was tall and burly, but his muscle had turned to fat. He had a sweeping, wide, thick mustache and flabby, red-tinged cheeks. His clothes were filthy and the man had a disagreeable smell about him.
“I got what I got is all,” the bartender said. “You want some of it?”
Morgan shrugged. “Guess it won’t kill me.”
The bartender slapped a dirty glass on the plank and almost filled it with whiskey. “Fifty cent.”
Morgan paid him and downed the shot. When it had finally made it all the way into his stomach Morgan put the glass down. “Damn, I think I was wrong. That shit just might kill me.”
“You complainin’?” the bartender asked.
“Maybe later. A question first.”
“I don’t answer no questions.”
“I haven’t even asked it yet.”
“Don’t matter.”
“Well, let me give it a try anyway.” He eased a ten-dollar gold piece out of a pocket, set it on the plank, and pushed it a little ways across.
The bartender shrugged. But he reached for the coin. Morgan kept his finger on the money. “You know any boys keen on killin’ Indians?”
“I might. Why?”
“Might have some work for them.”
“You’re fulla shit. Lawmen don’t go lookin’ for nobody to go killin’ Injuns.”
“I don’t take kindly to bein’ called a liar, mister,” Morgan said flatly. He was aware of the two men who had moved somewhat stealthily up behind him.
“Don’t make no goddamn difference to me what you like or don’t. Now get your finger off that money.”
“Sure,” Morgan said agreeably. The finger lifted, then folded with the others until Morgan had a fist, with which he popped the bartender a good shot in the nose. Then Morgan whirled, pulling out a Smith and Wesson.
The two men froze. They were both hostile-looking men, dirty and shopworn.
“You take one more step in my direction, shit balls,” Morgan said calmly, “and it’ll be your last.”
One started backing away, and then the other did the same, hands raised.
Morgan whipped around and slapped the barrel of his pistol against the middle of the bartender’s forehead. The bartender groaned a little and dropped the shotgun.
Once more Morgan whirled, instinctively knowing that the other two men would be gunning for him again. He fired three times. One ball hit one of the men in the chest, almost dead center; another hit the second man in the right cheek and exited at the nape of his neck. The third shot hit nothing, since both men were falling when Morgan fired it.
Morgan turned slowly back to face the bartender again.
Chapter Fourteen
The bartender’s eyes crossed involuntarily when Morgan stuck the muzzle of his Smith and Wesson less than an inch from the depression between the man’s eyes. Morgan thumbed back the hammer. “Are you a little more talkative now, shit ball?” Morgan asked.
The bartender licked his lips and whispered, “Yes.” His eyes uncrossed but had trouble staying that way. “Good. Now, what’s your name, shit ball?”
“Herb. Herb Foster.”
“Well, Mr. Foster, perhaps you’d like to tell that shit tryin’ to sneak up on me that if he shoots me the hammer’s going to drop and your brains—if there are any in that great, fat skull of yours—will be splattered all over yonder wall.”
“Put your gun away, Marv,” Foster said, his voice shaking. “Dammit, Marv, do it now!” Sweat was pouring down Foster’s face now, dropping off his nose and chin to land with tiny little splats on the plank bar.
“I asked you before,” Morgan said to Foster when he was fairly certain the man named Marv had backed off, “if you knew anyone who was fond of killin’ Indians. You never did give me an answer. I’d be obliged if you was to answer it now.”
“Jesus, Marshal,” Foster blubbered, “near every man in Flat Fork’s got somethin’ against Injuns. I swear they do.”
Morgan believed him. From what he had seen of this town, the place would not attract anyone with any sense or decency. “You know any that’s been killin’ Indians lately?”
“No, I surely don’t.”
Morgan was a lot less sure this time that Foster was telling the truth, but he was no more certain that he wasn’t. “You hear anything of the sort, you get word to me through Mr. Ashby, the agent for the Shoshoni. You do that, I’ll remember you favorably. You don’t and I learn about it, I’ll come back here and drown you in your own foul whiskey. That clear?”
“Yes,” Foster croaked.
“Now, I want you to squat and pick up that scattergun you have down there. Pick it up by the barrels. If somethin’ you do makes me nervous, there’s no tellin’ but what my thumb might just slip off the hammer.”
“Yessir,” Foster said. He did as he was told, including setting the shotgun on the plank. He breathed a large sigh of relief when Morgan’s pistol left his face.
Morgan picked up the scattergun in his left hand and turned. He stood surveying the room. No one looked like he was about to make an imminent move against Morgan, but Morgan knew that most, if not all of them, would gun him down in a heartbeat, given half the chance. “Get your fat ass out here where I can see you, Foster,” he said. “And bring that old bucket of whiskey you got back there.”
The bartender did as he was told.
“You Mary?” Morgan asked a man standing about twelve feet away, hand on the butt of the pistol stuck in his belt. When the man nodded Morgan said, “Ease out that pistol with your left hand and then drop it into Mr. Foster’s bucket.”
“You’re loco, pal,” Marv snarled.
“There’s every chance I am,” Morgan said agreeably. “Which is why you ought to heed what I say and do it quickly. You never can tell what a crazy man’ll do, now can you?” Morgan shifted the shotgun in his left hand and braced the butt against his pelvic joint. Then he snapped both hammers back.
“No, no, I guess you can’t,” Marv said. He didn’t look particularly worried or scared. And that bothered Morgan. Such a man was much like himself, fearless, and that meant he was dangerous.
“Then get on with it.” He paused. “You do have another choice, shit ball. Pull the piece and try to gun me down. That’d show everyone how goddamn tough you are. Of course, you’d be deader than all get-out, but that’s your lookout, not mine.”
Marv eased his pistol out and dropped it in the bucket. “That goddamn gun cost me twenty-two dollars, and now it’s ruint,” he complained.
“How’s it ruined?” Morgan asked, almost surprised.
“Hell, you drank some of Foster’s goddamn rotgut. That shit’s enough to melt the damn pistol.”
Morgan nodded. “Then you best make sure later that he doesn’t try to sell you that whiskey. Hell, he just might think melted-down metal and gunpowder is a flavoring.”
Marv looked at Morgan in surprise. Suddenly he burst into laughter. “You got somethin’ there, pal,” he said, still laughing. “I’ll make sure he dumps that shit on the ground.” He paused. “Well, where do you want me?” he asked. He had turned pleasant, as if finally realizing that Morgan wasn’t all
that bad a man, and that no allegiance was really due Foster.
“Face up against the wall in back there’ll do.”
As Marv did as he was told, Morgan looked at another man. “The rest of you drop your pistols into the bucket—one at a time—and then go stand next to Marv back there.” He waited almost patiently as the men went through the routine. When all but Foster were facing the back wall, Morgan uncocked his Smith and Wesson and slid it away before moving the shotgun to his right hand. He held out his left hand. “The bucket, please.”
Foster shuffled over, contemplating some heroics, like throwing the bucket at Morgan and then attacking him. Then he saw the hard, deadly gray eyes and changed his mind. He simply handed Morgan the bucket.
Morgan whapped Foster on the head with the barrels of the shotgun.
Foster sank to one knee, groaning. He held a hand to his bleeding head and looked up with hurt, hateful eyes. “What’n hell’d you go and do that fer?” he asked plaintively.
Morgan shrugged. “Just for the hell of it.” Then he smiled tightly. “That, and so maybe you’ll learn that next time you’ll be a little friendlier to a law dog when he comes along.” He turned and walked outside. He uncocked the shotgun and considered tossing it away. Then he decided to keep it. A scattergun was the perfect weapon to use in a tight spot—like being hemmed in at some saloon.
With a fast-increasing sense of impending doom he towed his horse toward the next fetid saloon. Along the way he dropped the bucket of rotgut and guns, making sure it fell on its side, where the whiskey would spill out. He looked back once to see three men fighting over the pail.
Keeping the shotgun handy, he went inside the next saloon.
Morgan choked down a rotten midday meal, figuring that he had died and gone to hell, and this day would never end. That he would forever have to walk from one horrid saloon to the next, and eat every meal for all eternity in a stinking, insect-infested shack that tried to pass itself off as a restaurant.
He was standing alongside his horse, dreading the next stop he had to make, when two soldiers rode hell-bent into town. They slowed and began looking around, searching for someone. Then one pointed in Morgan’s general direction, and they both trotted over.