River of Blood

by William W. Johnstone

  Something else was obvious, and that had led Sykes to seriously consider pulling the trigger of the gun he held. Powell had seen that indecision in the other man’s eyes when Sykes realized that Powell’s bunch had jumped them the day before, during the ambush at the camp on the bluff several miles upstream.

  That meant Powell and his men were responsible for the deaths of Sykes’s companions. The ones who hadn’t been killed in the fighting had cut and run, leaving Sykes to go after Wallace by himself. Sykes had explained that to Powell once they’d decided it was in their best interests to call a temporary truce despite the previous bloodshed.

  Now Ducharme stared at Sykes and rasped, “Why do you want to kill Wallace? What did he ever do to you?”

  “To me?” Sykes shook his head. “Nothing. I never laid eyes on the man until a few days ago. But he took away plenty from the man who hired me. The way I heard the story, Wallace tried to shoot my employer but wound up hittin’ the fella’s wife instead. Damn near killed her, and caused her to lose the babe she was carryin’.”

  Ducharme grunted and said, “I can believe that. The man gunned down my son in cold blood.”

  Powell knew that wasn’t exactly the way things had happened, but Ducharme could tell himself whatever he wanted to. The old man could even believe it if that made him happy. It was nothing to Powell either way.

  “So you see, my loss is greater than yours,” Ducharme went on. “I have first claim on Wallace.”

  “We don’t have to argue about this,” Sykes said. “You see, I don’t care who kills Wallace, as long as he winds up dead. The gent who’s payin’ me is more than a thousand miles away. If I go back and tell him that Wallace is dead and that I done the deed, he’ll never know the difference.”

  “Why not just tell him that anyway?” Ducharme asked.

  Sykes frowned. Powell understood the reaction. A man with the sort of money that Ducharme had didn’t know anything about honor. Powell and Sykes might both be hired killers, but if they took on a job, they did their best to see it through. Sykes might shade the truth a little about who actually killed Wallace, but he wouldn’t go back to his boss and report the big man’s death unless it was true.

  Powell stepped in and said, “I suggested that Sykes throw in with us, boss. It makes more sense to work together than it does to be competin’ against each other.”

  Ducharme thought about it and nodded slowly.

  “I suppose this is true,” he said. “If you join forces with us, what value can you offer, Herr Sykes?”

  “Wallace and I are friendly. He thinks I came out here to learn how to be a fur trapper. He agreed to show me some of the tricks of the trade.”

  Powell said, “I figure we can use Harry to lure Wallace away from his friends. I would have come up with a way to do that myself, but this one’s ready-made.”

  “That could work,” Ducharme said. Then, as his frown deepened, he went on to Sykes, “I suppose you will wish to be paid.”

  “That makes it an even better deal for you,” Sykes said. “I’ll collect from the fella who hired me back in Tennessee. You won’t be out anything extra.”

  Ducharme nodded again and said, “I must confess, I am coming to like this proposal more and more.”

  “It’s workin’ out for me, too.” A savage grin spread across the Englishman’s rugged face. “I won’t have to split the rest of the payoff with anybody else. It’s startin’ to look like you boys did me a favor by killin’ or runnin’ off the rest of my bunch.”

  That was one way of looking at it, thought Powell. But he had seen what lurked in Sykes’s eyes and knew the truth. Sykes might play along with them until Wallace was dead, might even help them accomplish that goal as he’d said . . . but then he would double-cross them at the earliest opportunity.

  Powell meant to see to it that Sykes never got the chance. As soon as Breckinridge Wallace was dead, Harry Sykes would be following him straight down to hell.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Tom Mahone was waiting when Breckinridge crossed the log bridge a short time later. He leaned on his walking stick with one hand while holding out a five-dollar gold piece with the other.

  “I promised this prize to the winnin’ team,” Mahone said, “and from where I was standin’ it looked like you were pretty much the whole team by yourself, Wallace.”

  Breckinridge hesitated, then took the coin and stowed it in his poke.

  “The whole team won, not just me,” he said. “But I’ll see to it that the other fellas get their share later.”

  “Right now you want to go see Dulcy, is that right?”

  “Well, yeah,” Breckinridge admitted.

  Mahone scowled as he said, “Damn a man who’ll get a whore smitten with him. Makes her pert’ near useless for her job. I wish you and her had never laid eyes on each other.”

  “But we did,” Breckinridge said, “and there ain’t nothin’ that can change that.”

  He left Mahone there and walked along the creek until he came to Dulcy’s tent. She had disappeared after he’d seen her watching him from across the creek, so he figured she had to be here. He called her name, quietly.

  The flap was pulled back. He couldn’t see her, but she said, “Come on in, Breckinridge.”

  He stooped and did so, and was quite pleased with what he found waiting for him.

  * * *

  Breckinridge and Dulcy didn’t emerge from the tent until after nightfall, and then it was to find a huge bonfire burning across the creek on Finch’s Point. Some of the trappers had shot a couple of elk, and elk steaks were roasting on the flames. Men were passing around jugs and a couple of old-timers had gotten out their fiddles, so a general air of hilarity and celebration filled the camp.

  Breckinridge and Dulcy passed a gloomy Black Tom Mahone sitting on a keg with his chin resting in his hand. He seemed to be the only one around.

  “Where is everybody, Tom?” Dulcy asked.

  “I gave ’em all leave to go across the creek and join in on the fandango,” Mahone said as he lifted his head and draped both hands over the walking stick. “There was no reason to keep ’em here. No customers. They’re all over there at . . . Finch’s.”

  The utter disgust in his voice couldn’t have been more plain.

  “They’ll come back after a while,” Breckinridge said. He wasn’t sure why he would go to the trouble of trying to cheer up Mahone. He didn’t like the man. But he didn’t like Finch, either, and the origin of the feud between the two old-timers was too far in the past to be sure who was really in the wrong.

  “I don’t care if they come back,” Mahone said. “It was a mistake to come out here. I should’ve stayed where I was, runnin’ a tavern back in Missouri. I just heard that Finch was braggin’ about how much money he was gonna make at this rendezvous, and I couldn’t stand not tryin’ to do him one better.”

  Dulcy suggested, “Maybe it’s time to just forget about all those old grudges, Tom.”

  Mahone sighed, and without taking his eyes off the bonfire on the other side of the creek, he said, “You might be right about that. That old scalawag’s never gonna change, and neither am I. What does it really matter?” He lifted a gnarled hand from the head of his walking stick and waved it toward the creek. “You two young folks go on over there and have a good time. Dulcy, you and me are quits.”

  “What?” she exclaimed. “Tom, I never said I didn’t want to work for you—”

  “I know you didn’t,” he broke in. “But any debt between us for me helpin’ you out when you were in bad shape, that’s long since squared away. Don’t worry, I’ll take you back to Missouri with us when we go, if that’s what you want, but while we’re here . . . you don’t have to work for me no more.”

  “But you’re already shorthanded, what with Poppy being hurt . . .”

  “Doesn’t matter. You’re still done workin’ for me. You just ain’t cut out for this kind of life, Dulcy. You deserve better.”

  Dul
cy was clearly at a loss for words. She said, “Why, that’s just . . . just . . .”

  “Don’t say nice. It’s been a long time since I fit that description. No, I’m just a whoremongerin’ old scoundrel, and you know it. But I’d rather see you do somethin’ else with your life, and I reckon you’re ready to do it now.” Mahone pushed himself to his feet with the help of the walking stick. “Now, go on, I tell you! Go get you one of them elk steaks and somethin’ to drink and dance a jig with this big redheaded galoot! Go over there and enjoy yourself, damn it.”

  “Thank you, Tom,” Dulcy whispered. She started to lean toward him, but he lifted a hand to stop her.

  “Don’t waste any kisses on me. Git!”

  Breckinridge took hold of Dulcy’s hand and said, “Reckon we’d best do what he says ’fore he changes his mind.”

  “Ain’t gonna change my mind,” Mahone insisted. “I’m just too old and tired for all of it.”

  He sank back down on the keg with a sigh.

  Breckinridge led Dulcy toward the creek. She glanced back once with a sad smile on her face, visible in the light from the leaping flames.

  “What’s wrong?” Breckinridge asked her.

  “Even when you know it’s for the best,” she said, “sometimes it’s hard to put a whole part of your life behind you. Like Tom said, though . . . maybe it’s time.”

  Without looking back again, she crossed the log bridge ahead of Breckinridge, and they plunged into the celebration.

  * * *

  They found Morgan dancing with Annie, and for a moment Breckinridge worried about the earlier clash between Dulcy and the blonde.

  The spirit of truce seemed to extend to both women, though. The nods that they gave to each other were rather cool, but there were no angry words. They didn’t speak at all, in fact.

  “This is quite a shindig!” Morgan said excitedly as he and Annie paused in their dancing. “It’s finally starting to seem like a real rendezvous. Breck, did you know there are Indians here?”

  “Friendly ones?” Breckinridge asked as he glanced around.

  “Well, sure. They’re Shoshone, I heard somebody say. They brought furs to trade. Stubby Blaine brought cloth and beads and other gewgaws, and the Indians were lined up at his table making deals.”

  “That’s good, I reckon.”

  Annie said, “I’m not so sure. Those squaws may take some of our business away.”

  Morgan laughed and slapped her on the bottom.

  “There’s going to be plenty of business for you ladies,” he said. “I reckon I could keep you occupied the rest of the time all by myself.”

  Annie laughed and told him, “You just keep on dreaming, son!”

  He clasped her in his arms and twirled her away again as the fiddlers struck up another sprightly tune. Breckinridge and Dulcy watched them disappear into the crowd of dancers. Since there were only a limited number of women here at the rendezvous, some of the trappers were dancing awkwardly with each other, unwilling to let the lack of female companionship keep them from having a good time.

  Dulcy said, “I hope Morgan doesn’t get too taken with her. He’ll get hurt if he does.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Because I’ve seen too many of her kind, Breck. She doesn’t really care about him. And honestly, you can’t blame her. This sort of life hardens a woman pretty quickly. She doesn’t have to be part of it for very long before it changes her.”

  “Did it change you?” he asked.

  “My life was in tatters before I ever . . . I mean, you can’t go by what happened to me. I was a little older . . . different . . .”

  “Stronger,” Breckinridge said.

  “I don’t know about that.”

  “I do. That’s the way it seems to me, anyway, and I’m a pretty fair judge of character.”

  She laughed softly and said, “Are you really?”

  Breckinridge thought back over his life and had to say, “Well . . . if I’m bein’ honest about it . . . maybe not all the time . . .”

  Dulcy laughed again, took his hand, and said, “Come on. I’m not too old to enjoy some dancing.”

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  The party went on most of the night, so as a result there were a lot of sleepy, groggy, hungover gents in both camps the next day.

  Breckinridge wasn’t one of them. He’d had some whiskey the night before, but with his size it took a lot to get him drunk. His iron constitution meant that he threw off liquor’s effects pretty quickly, too.

  And he wasn’t sleepy because after eating, drinking, and dancing for a while, he and Dulcy had gone back to her tent, made love again, and then Breckinridge had fallen into a deep, dreamless slumber that left him rested and refreshed when he woke up early the next morning.

  Dulcy claimed she was still tired, so he promised he would see her later and then kissed her on top of the head and left her curled up in the blankets with a small, satisfied smile on her face. Breckinridge walked out into a beautiful morning and followed the smell of coffee to the cook fire.

  Fortified by some breakfast, he crossed the log bridge and went in search of Morgan. He found Akins and Fulbright sitting on a log near their canoes but didn’t see any sign of Morgan. Both men looked a little green around the gills.

  “Too much to drink last night?” Breckinridge asked them cheerfully.

  “Maybe,” Akins admitted.

  “How come you look so damn chipper?” Fulbright wanted to know.

  “Clean livin’, boys,” Breckinridge replied with a grin.

  Fulbright snorted and said, “Clean livin’, hell! I’ll bet you spent the night with that Dulcy gal.”

  “Don’t go makin’ insinuations, Amos. Matter of fact, I did spend the night with Dulcy, but she don’t work for Mahone anymore, so it wasn’t exactly like what you’re thinkin’.”

  “Maybe not, but you oughta be wore out anyway.”

  Breckinridge changed the subject by saying, “Where’s Morgan? Have you seen him this mornin’?”

  “Haven’t laid eyes on the boy since last night,” Akins said. “Reckon Finch could probably tell you. Accordin’ to Siobhan, he keeps pretty close track of what his girls are doin’. He don’t want ’em cheatin’ him out of any of the money he’s got comin’.”

  Breckinridge nodded. He said, “I’ll go hunt up Finch, then.”

  He wanted to find Morgan and give him the other gold piece, the one Mahone had given him the night before. Breckinridge didn’t figure he needed his share of the prize. Morgan could split it up with the other men who’d been on their end of the rope.

  “That crazy-talkin’ old coot’s probably in the big tent,” Fulbright said. “I think I saw him goin’ in there a while ago, but I’m so cross-eyed this mornin’ I can’t guarantee it.” He used his good hand to massage his temples. “I’ll never guzzle down that much who-hit-John again.” Then a grin spread under the bushy whiskers. “Until the next time.”

  Breckinridge left them there and headed for the big tent. When he went inside, he saw that nobody was drinking this early in the morning, and none of the soiled doves were there. The only two men Breck saw were Moffit, who was behind the crude bar, and Nicodemus Finch, who sat at one of the tables sorting through a pile of coins in front of him.

  A pistol lay on the table, as well, and Finch put his hand on it and glared as Breckinridge approached him.

  “Place is closed right now,” Finch snapped. “If you’ve come to rob me whilst I count last night’s profits, I’ll blow a hole clean through you, you gold-plated gazoon.”

  “I’m not here to rob you or anybody else,” Breckinridge told the old-timer. “I’m just lookin’ for my partner. Thought you might know whether he’s with Annie.”

  Finch appeared to relax a little. He said, “Yeah, I reckon so. He paid for the whole night. Cost him nearly ever’thing he had left after he settled up with those other fellas, but Annie Belle, she’s worth it!”

  Breckinridge ha
ted to hear that Morgan had spent most of his money, but that came as no surprise. Morgan seemed to have fallen head over heels in love with Annie.

  Which meant that Dulcy was probably right. Morgan was going to wind up getting hurt when Annie headed back East with Finch and the rest of the bunch. Breckinridge figured there was no way she would be willing to give up the life she was leading and stay out here with Morgan.

  That thought made him consider the question of what Dulcy was going to do. Mahone had told her she wasn’t working for him anymore, but he’d also said he would take her back to Missouri with them when his group left. Was that what she intended? Breckinridge wasn’t sure he could ask her to endure the hardships of life on the frontier, even if she was willing to do so.

  And it was possible that he was taking things a lot more seriously than she was, he reminded himself. He liked Dulcy enough that he’d started thinking about spending the rest of his life with her, but she might not feel the same way at all. He hadn’t asked her about it.

  A part of him was afraid to do so, he realized.

  Nicodemus Finch broke into Breckinridge’s reverie by demanding, “What the hell are you standin’ there and frownin’ about, boy? You’ll scare off my customers.”

  “I thought you said the place was closed.”

  “Well, maybe it is, but that don’t mean I’m gonna turn away customers.”

  That didn’t make any sense to Breckinridge, but not making sense was pretty common where Finch was concerned. Breck nodded and said, “All right, I’ll move on, but if you see Morgan, tell him I’m lookin’ for him.”

  “Just go on over to Annie’s tent if you want to find him that bad. She won’t mind.”

  Breckinridge shook his head, which was now full of murky thoughts about Dulcy and the possible future they might have together. Or the impossible future, depending on how she felt about the idea.

  Anyway, he wouldn’t want to interrupt Morgan and Annie. That might embarrass Morgan, whether Annie would care or not. And Breck knew that he would be embarrassed.