Reckless Heart

by Madeline Baker

  Clyde glanced into a mirror hanging from a tent post and smiled at his reflection. “Handsome devil,” he purred, then hollered, “Hey, Rudy, it’s time!”

  Smothering a mammoth yawn, Rudy Swenson rose, stretching, from behind a bale of hay where he’d been napping since the last show. A giant of a man, with tiny brown eyes and a shock of unruly wheat-colored hair, he stood six-foot-six in his stocking feet. Moving like a grizzly just rousted from his winter sleep, the Swede took up his rifle and lumbered toward Two Hawks Flying.

  “Hit the dirt,” Rudy growled, and Shadow bellied out on the ground, the Swede’s cocked Winchester snug against his spine, while Stewart cuffed his hands and removed the heavy chain from his ankle.

  Stepping back, Rudy muttered, “Let’s go,” and Shadow rose obediently to his feet and walked toward the stage located in the front half of the tent, keenly aware of the Swede’s ready-cocked rifle tracking his every move.

  There was a round of applause as Barney McCall stepped on stage. Tall, thin as a porch rail, with thinning brown hair and pale green eyes, McCall was a plain, homely man, unlikely to draw attention in a crowd of two—until he opened his mouth. As if to atone for his lack of physical beauty, Nature had endowed McCall with a rich, commanding voice, one that could hold an audience spellbound or bring them to tears. In earlier days, he had preached on street corners while his accomplice, an engaging young Negro boy, nimbly lifted the wallets of unsuspecting passers-by who stopped to hear the Gospel according to McCall.

  Now, as the applause faded, Barney went into his spiel, recounting in vivid detail how Clyde Stewart, world famous buffalo hunter, trapper, Indian fighter, and Army scout, had singlehandedly and at great personal risk captured Two Hawks Flying, the last fighting chief on the Great Plains. Barney McCall was nothing if not silver-tongued, and the audience sat on the edge of their seats, totally mesmerized, as he wove his tale, relating in dramatic tones the atrocities Chief Two Hawks Flying had perpetrated against untold numbers of innocent whites, mostly women and children. His voice dropped to a reverent hush as he told of Clyde Stewart’s unmatched bravery in tracking the heathen savage over miles of barren wilderness and sun-bleached desert, how he had risked his life in deadly hand-to-hand combat and defeated the chief in a knife fight unparalleled in the annals of history for bloodletting and daring.

  Barney paused, staring into the rapt, unturned faces of the crowd. “Suckers,” he thought disdainfully, amused by their ready acceptance of what any cowhand worth his salt would recognize as nothing more than a long line of bullshit.

  “And now!” he boomed, “here’s Chief Two Hawks Flying, scourge of the West, and the heroic man that out-thought him and out-fought him, Clyde Stewart!”

  Prodded by the Swede’s rifle, Two Hawks Flying climbed the stairs and advanced toward center stage. Several elderly women gasped aloud, shocked by his appearance, for he was clad in breechclout of black wolfskin and high, Apache-style boot moccasins. An elaborate warbonnet (of Crow origin and purchased for the exorbitant price of ten silver dollars from a shrewd brave of that tribe) trailed down his back, the ends nearly brushing the floor. Two scalps, which everyone assumed were fake but were, in fact, quite authentic and had been purchased from the same enterprising Crow warrior, hung at his side. In the flickering lamplight, his skin glistened like burnished copper.

  There was a thunderous roar of applause as Clyde Stewart appeared on stage, his boyish smile as dazzlingly white as his outfit.

  Rudy remained out of sight in the wings, covering Two Hawks Flying with his rifle.

  Clyde bowed and waved, then bowed again, thoroughly enjoying the rousing cheers and unabashed admiration he saw shining in the eyes of the crowd. He made an impressive sight, and he knew it. Tall and blond, with a sweeping Cavalry-style moustache, vivid blue eyes and boyish smile, he set many a feminine heart aflutter and filled many a lesser man with envy.

  When he could be heard above the adulation of the crowd, Clyde asked the audience if they had any questions. Thirty hands shot into the air. It was going to be a good night.

  While Stewart answered their queries, Two Hawks Flying stared straight ahead, his dark eyes focused on a narrow slice of deep cobalt blue sky visible through a ragged tear in the side of the tent. His face, dark and handsome, was inscrutable, musing several of the women in the audience to wonder what thoughts lay behind his impassive facade.

  Standing there, he looked every bit as formidable as McCall had claimed, and quite capable of committing the atrocities of which he had been accused. Powerfully built, with broad shoulders and long muscular horseman’s legs, he stood a good three inches over six feet. His hair, thick and black and parted in the middle, hung to his waist. To the Easterners, he appeared to be the personification of evil and terror, just as Clyde Stewart appeared to be the personification of all that was good and wholesome.

  “What’d you say, boy?” McCall asked, waving the crowd to silence.

  “I said, where’s his war paint? How come he ain’t wearin’ any?”

  “That’s a mighty observant boy,” Barney informed the audience. “Come on up here, son,” he invited, and smiled, encouraging the youth to come forward. Someone usually noticed the Indian’s lack of paint. If they didn’t, Clyde asked for a volunteer from the audience to come up and paint the chief. It was always a show-stopper.

  The boy reached the stage in nothing flat, turning to wave at his family. He was a small kid, painfully thin, with no more substance than a shadow on the wall. Sparse blond hair and a sallow complexion added to the boy’s washed-out appearance. Even the freckles liberally sprinkled over his cheeks and across the bridge of his nose seemed pale. But there was nothing pale about the boy’s eyes. They were a bold, vibrant blue, and they sparkled with awe and excitement as he stared wide-eyed at Two Hawks Flying.

  “What’s your name, son?” Stewart asked, friendly-like.

  “Jeremy Brown, sir,” the boy answered politely, heeding his mother’s advice to “mind your manners, or else!”

  “Well, Jeremy, how’d you like to remedy the situation?”

  “Huh? I mean, I beg your pardon, sir?”

  Clyde Stewart indicated the tray Barney had produced from the wings. It contained two pots of stage makeup.

  “How’d you like to paint the chief—show us how they decorate themselves for war?”

  Jeremy’s eyes grew even wider. “Wow! Would I!”

  “Well, go to it, son,” Stewart prompted, grinning at the boy’s exuberance.

  Jeremy hesitated. “Could…could my cousin help me?”

  “Sure,” Clyde allowed. “Come on up, cousin.”

  There was a sudden flurry in the crowd as a young girl with flying pigtails ran up the steps to the stage. The two youngsters put their heads together for a moment, then picked up the brushes and began daubing paint on the Indian’s broad chest. Several people in the audience guessed their intent and began to giggle. Then, as Jeremy and his cousin stepped aside, the crowd erupted into full-fledged hilarity, for there, clearly marked on the Indian’s torso, was a red and yellow game of tic-tac-toe with X the winner.

  Clyde and Barney exchanged amused glances, then joined in the hearty laughter as the two youngsters took elaborate bows before resuming their seats.

  Through it all, Shadow’s face remained impassive, betraying none of the rage and humiliation that burned within him. How many times, he wondered bitterly, had he endured the mocking laughter of a crowd?

  On the way east, before joining up with Hansen’s Tent Show, Clyde and Barney had exhibited him in bars, in schoolhouses, on street corners. Even at a church social. Always for a price, of course.

  He had been poked, prodded, mocked, ridiculed, spat upon. And even shot at. Once by an eight-year-old brat with a toy bow and arrow, and once by an enraged father whose son and daughter had recently been killed and scalped by Apaches.

  They had been in a little Iowa town at the time. Stewart and McCall had outdone themselves that night
and sold tickets to just about every soul in the community. Barney had just started his spiel about Clyde’s unequaled bravery in capturing Two Hawks Flying, the scourge of the West, when one of the men in the front row sprang to his feet and let go a round from a fancy derringer. The bullet plowed a shallow furrow the length of Shadow’s left forearm.

  Before the grief-stricken father could adjust his aim for a second shot, Two Hawks Flying whisked McCall’s knife from its sheath and let it fly, and the would-be assassin squealed like a stuck pig as ten inches of solid steel bit deep into his right shoulder.

  There was a moment of utter silence, and then all hell broke loose. Women and children screamed. Several men pulled concealed weapons. A matronly lady fainted dead away in the aisle, while another stood up, sobbing hysterically, until her husband slapped her face.

  Unleashing a string of profanity, Stewart had hustled Two Hawks Flying out of the room, leaving Barney to handle the uproarious crowd. It had taken a lot of fast talking on McCall’s part to get the audience calmed down again. And a fat bribe to soothe the local law. But for all that, it had taught Stewart and McCall a valuable lesson. Thereafter, they left their weapons off stage, and Stewart took to loading his Peacemakers with blanks, trusting Rudy’s marksmanship to keep the chief in line.

  One other incident stood out in Shadow’s mind, and even now just thinking about it sent shivers down his spine. It, too, had taken place before they joined up with the tent show. This time they were in St. Joe, in a saloon. They were just leaving the stage when a high-pitched voice called, “You there! Hey, you in the big hat. Hold on a minute.”

  Clyde turned warily toward the bar. Rudy turned at the same time, the ready-cocked Winchester aimed in the general direction of the crowd at the rail.

  The speaker displayed upturned hands in a gesture of peace. He was a ruddy-faced individual, duded up in an expensive Eastern-style suit. He held a thick black cigar in his left hand.

  “Whoa, now,” he admonished the big Swede. “I ain’t aimin’ to start any trouble.”

  “Just what are you aimin’ to start?” Clyde posed, noting the diamond stick pin in the man’s silk cravat and the rings on his fat fingers.

  “A friendly wager is all,” the stranger assured him. “I was quite fascinated by your partner’s tale, especially the part about the Indian’s cunning and purported indifference to pain.” He nodded at the bartender as he added, “Charlie, here, says you can whip a redskin to within an inch of his life and he’ll never utter a sound. I say that’s a lot of hogwash.”

  “So?”

  “So I’ve got a thousand dollars says that there Injun will holler ‘uncle’ just like anybody else when he feels Charlie’s blacksnake dancin’ across his back.”

  A thousand dollars! Heads turned. The piano went silent. Rudy smiled greedily. Barney took a firmer hold on Shadow’s arm.

  Clyde grinned broadly. “Well, now, Mr…?”

  “Smith. Homer Kennsington Smith.”

  “Well, Mr. Smith, just how much of a lickin’ do you have in mind?”

  “Forty lashes seems fair,” Smith suggested.

  “Not to me,” Stewart replied affably. “After all, this here Injun is my livelihood. I can’t take a chance on seeing him killed, or permanently tore up. You understand?”

  “To be sure, to be sure. Shall we say thirty?”

  “Shall we say fifteen?” Clyde countered, his eyes wandering from Smith’s face to the solid gold watch fob that spanned the fat man’s belly.

  “Shall we say twenty?” Smith posed in the same agreeable tone.

  “Done!” Stewart said with a grin and held out his hand.

  Shadow’s face had remained impassive while the two men haggled over how many strokes would be a fair test of his courage under the lash. Now, as Stewart and Smith shook hands, he felt his stomach knot with dread. Damn Stewart’s greedy black soul to hell! He really meant to go ahead with it.

  A rolling gasp moved through the saloon as Charlie the bartender dropped an eight-foot rawhide whip on the bar top. It was a formidable weapon. Even coiled and at rest the thing looked deadly, and Shadow knew a moment of genuine gut-wrenching fear. A whip like that, wielded by an expert, could gently tap the ash from a cigarette, or cut a man’s back to ribbons.

  Shadow’s initial panic settled into a hard, cold lump in his belly as he glanced surreptitiously around the room, looking for a way out. Stewart and Smith were discussing the terms of their agreement, trying to decide whether a groan from the Indian would be considered a cry of pain, thereby signaling defeat for Stewart. Rudy was standing beside the swinging doors, the rifle cradled lovingly in the crook of his arm. So the door was out. The side window then, he decided, and twisting out of McCall’s grasp, he sprinted for the open window and freedom.

  “Stop him!” Barney screamed, and four men jumped up from their seats and tackled the fleeing warrior.

  Shadow struggled briefly, but to no avail. The four men obligingly held him immobile while the last bets were made and the terms of the deal agreed upon. That done, the four men holding Shadow wrestled him outside and spread his arms along the crossbar of the hitch rack in front of the saloon.

  Using rope supplied by a couple of cowhands, who had stopped to see what was going on, Barney and Stewart secured Shadow’s wrists to the rough, wooden pole.

  Under pretense of checking the ropes, Stewart bent down near Shadow’s head. “Not a sound, Injun, if you value your hide,” Clyde warned ominously. “If I lose this bet, I’ll carve you up an inch at a time.”

  Rising, Stewart joined Barney on the sidelines. “Remember, no blows to the face,” Stewart reminded Smith, and the dude nodded as he shook out the whip.

  Shadow felt the sweat bead across his brow, felt every muscle in his body grow taut as he waited for the first blow.

  The crowd counted out loud. “One…”

  It was worse than he expected, and before he recovered from the first stinging kiss of the whip, the second and third were already striking home.

  “Four…five…six…”

  The force of the last drove the breath from Shadow’s body, searing his flesh like liquid fire.

  “Eight…nine…ten…”

  His back was a solid sheet of flame. Blood and sweat coursed down his shoulders and back, dripping onto the dusty, sun-baked ground at his feet.

  “Eleven.”

  “Hold on there!”

  Lash in midair, Smith pivoted on his heel, his face an angry frown as he snapped, “Mind your own business!” then added, sheepishly, “Oh, sorry, Padre.”

  “What is going on here?” Father Senteno demanded. “Why is this man being flogged?”

  “To, uh, settle a bet.”

  “A bet!” the priest exclaimed incredulously. “I insist you cut that poor man loose at once. A bet, indeed! I have never heard of anything so barbaric!”

  “Sorry, Padre,” Smith replied. “But I’ve got a thousand bucks at stake here, and I don’t aim to quit now.”

  “A thousand dollars? Surely a man’s life is worth more than that.”

  “A man’s, maybe,” Smith allowed with a crooked grin. “But not a redskin’s.”

  “We are all the same in the eyes of God,” Father Senteno said with quiet dignity.

  “This is none of your business,” Stewart said, taking his place beside Smith. “This is between Mr. Smith and myself, and I suggest you stand aside. I ain’t never hit a preacher man yet, but if you don’t step aside, you’ll likely be the first.”

  The priest was a small man, barely tall enough to reach Stewart’s shoulders, but there was no fear in his face. He swelled up like an enraged rooster, ready to launch an attack if necessary, but before he could make a move, two burly men in bowler hats stepped out of the crowd and strong-armed the indignant priest out of the way.

  The ensuing silence warned Shadow that his would-be rescuer had failed, and he sucked in his breath as the whip whistled through the air.

  “Twelve…t
hirteen.”

  Breathing was suddenly painful, and his chest heaved with the effort required to draw air into his lungs.

  “Fourteen…fifteen…”

  Shadow’s legs refused to hold him upright any longer, and he went to his knees. The wood of the hitch rack was cool against his burning cheek as he rested his head on the crossbar and closed his eyes. His throat ached with the strain of holding back any cry of rage and pain that pleaded for release.

  It would have been a pleasure to give voice to his agony and see Stewart lose the bet. For a moment he considered it and then put the thought away. Stewart’s threat meant nothing, but the strong, stubborn, arrogant pride of the Cheyenne warrior ran hot in his veins—stronger than his hatred, stronger than his contempt for the growing circle of bystanders, stronger than his fear of Stewart’s retaliation.

  He would show them how a Cheyenne warrior withstood pain. He would show them all! And summoning every ounce of his strength, he struggled to his feet, fighting the urge to vomit as the whip seared his flesh like a relentless flame.

  “Twenty!”

  Smith put his whole arm behind the last blow, and it landed with the sharp crack of a gunshot, gouging a fair-sized hunk of meat out of Shadow’s tortured back. Blood sprayed from the cruel wound, glinting like tiny red jewels in the sun’s harsh glare.

  There was a long silence as Smith dropped his arm to his side. The men in the crowd stared at Shadow’s back. A few felt sick to their stomachs. A couple made jokes to cover their embarrassment at participating in such cruelty. Now that the fun was over, they were ashamed.

  Turning away, they quickly forgot about their revulsion as bets were paid off and they returned to the saloon.