by Jake Logan
“You be careful.”
“Always.”
When the rain didn’t deluge them, everything dripped. The hardwood trees they rode underneath, which were still short of turning into their fall foliage, proved a source of more moisture. They kept to cover, and soon Carter showed them a place to leave their horses. They hitched them to some trees and followed the big man through the wet brush down the steep hillside.
Through all the foliage, Slocum caught sight of some smoke coming from a chimney. They skirted the place in the woods and finally sought cover and a dry place in a large hay shed. Grateful to be out of the wind, they stood hunched up in the sweet-smelling interior.
“You reckon he’s in the house?” Hurricane asked.
Carter shrugged. “If it was dark—someone’s coming out here.”
“We’ll grab him and make him tell us,” Hurricane said.
“Might spook them,” Slocum said. “Let’s hide.”
They stepped back in a tie stall and heard the door creak open. Through a crack, Slocum watched the man take a pitchfork and fill it with hay. He tossed it out a side window to some horse stock in the corrals outside and put the fork back before he left for the house.
“I don’t think Bowdry’s here,” Slocum said, checking the horses in the lot. “There isn’t one in that bunch that Bowdry would even ride.”
“Maybe he’ll come in during the night,” Carter said.
“Maybe. Who was the hay feeder?” Slocum asked.
“Some guy named Hembree—he ain’t a gang member. He works for Two-hearts.”
“We can check at the races; he may be there,” Hurricane said, and they agreed. Slipping out, they worked their way back up the forested hill to their animals and rode back.
“Was he there?” Wink asked later that evening when they were alone.
“We don’t think so. Wasn’t a horse there fancy enough for him to ride.”
She nodded. “I can recall that day he rode up. He did come on a sleek black Morgan horse, head high and him wearing kid gloves.”
“Nothing like that at Two-hearts’s today, so rather than spook them we left. Hurricane thinks he may be at the races tomorrow.”
She buried her face in his chest and hugged him. “Bad as I want him, I don’t want this dream to end.”
He nodded and looked off into the night as he held her. To end. He didn’t relish that either; he’d for certain miss her ripe body and unquenchable eagerness for making love.
The next morning, broken clouds drifted over, and the two women took the wagon loaded with food for the day at the races. No sign of Carter’s runaway wife—Hurricane had mentioned that she might be at the races with her new lover. Then he chuckled and shook his head. “Plenty good pretty women out there—why Carter don’t find new one is beyond me.”
The river bottom fields, wedged in by some two-hundred-foot-tall bluffs, were jammed with parked wagons, canvas shelters, tents, crude brush arbors and camp smoke that swirled around the skirts of the women busy cooking. Screaming children played chase in and out of the rest. Old family members, wrapped in blankets, sat on chairs and rockers brought from home, and stared as if looking to find something from the past they recognized.
Naked teenage boys, despite the cool morning air, rode sleek prancing ponies around the camp bareback, showing off for the teenage girls who giggled and snuck longing looks after them in passing. Then rushed over to another friend to say how he’d noticed her—she was certain too.
Slocum did see several white men there with shiny fast horses tied to their wagons. Some nodded to him, others never saw him. For certain, they were not wasting their animals’ energy in child’s play. A few white women cooked on fires as well. They camped in knots and were standoffish from the free style of their hosts. Even the children stayed close to their base like tethered dogs. As if they might be in harm’s way should they run about and have as much fun as the Indian young’uns were having at play.
“No sign of him,” Hurricane said, twisting in the saddle and looking over things as they rode on through the encampment.
“I have not seen Two-hearts here either,” Carter said.
Slocum agreed as the three of them trailed the wagon Blue drove. The colonel should stand out in this place. Maybe he wouldn’t show. No telling. Carter showed them a place to set up camp.
The men helped unhitch the team and get things unloaded, and when the canvas shade was put up, Carter went off.
Hurricane shook his head. “Gone to look for that dumb woman of his. I think she runs off to get attention.”
Blue looked up from her fire starting and made a face of disgust. “She’s too dumb to do anything makes good sense.”
“When do the races start?” Wink asked, busy making coffee grounds in a hand grinder.
“Oh, later.” Hurricane shrugged. “This is not like a white man’s deal where it all happens at such a time; this happens when it does—Indian time.”think
She smiled back at him. “I think I understand.”
“When the betting fever gets hot, then they really do lots of racing and lose lots of money.”
Blue made a scowl. “Some people go home naked. They even bet the clothes on their back.”
“That’s how they came into this world; what’s so bad about going home like that?” Hurricane asked.
“Who wants to see an old man or woman staggering around naked and drunk as a hoot?”
“I don’t look,” Hurricane said to her and gave a head toss to Slocum. “We better go look for this colonel.”
“Oh, you look—you look too much,” Blue said after him.
“Keep an eye out,” Slocum said to Wink. “I doubt he will recognize you in those clothes, but you two be on guard.”
“We will,” Wink promised, and Blue agreed with a nod, her fire at last started.
They left their horses saddled and hitched to the side of the wagon in the event they needed them, and set out on foot. Hurricane knew many and spoke to them in passing.
They reached a cluster of men squatted on the ground, and Hurricane nodded that they’d join them. Dropped down to his haunches, Slocum nodded to the few who looked his way.
“. . . Benny’s gray is fast—but Chookie has a fast sorrel.”
“Never beat the gray . . .”
He listened to the back-and-forth conversation, until a rider going by caught his eye.
“Two-hearts,” Hurricane said under his breath, never looking at him.
Well, part of Bowdry’s gang was there. All he needed was for the big man to arrive. He turned his attention back to the racing business.
“I want to bet two dollars on the gray,” Hurricane said. “What are you going to bet?” he asked Slocum.
“Oh, two.”
Hurricane held out his hand for the money. When Slocum rose and dug it out, Hurricane put it with his and gave it to an older man. “You take care of it.”
“That gray will win,” the old man said and grinned, exposing a missing tooth.
The two of them began to walk down to the river. Several horses were being watered along the clear running water. Not much of a river at this point and time of year, but it looked as pure as if from melted snow. Temperature was still too cool for the children to swim in the deep hole under the sycamore with the rope tied to a limb out over it.
“Wonder if Two-hearts is making sure it is all right for him to ride in?”
“Could be,” Hurricane agreed.
“I wonder where he went back there.”
“No telling. He will soon be full of firewater and be bragging.” >
“I’d like to hear him.”
“Sure. He don’t know you—” Hurricane pulled on his sleeve and with a head toss indicated three riders going by at a trot.
In the center of the two Indians, on a stout horse, was the man himself. Like someone had driven a ramrod up his ass, he rode square-shouldered and chest out. Several years of military school and a vain mind combin
ed to make the man’s character. Wearing a snowy new Boss of the Plains Stetson and tailored suit, with his pants tucked in high-top black riding boots, he looked very important. Slocum knew his kind. To the Colonel Bowdrys in this world, anyone else was inferior.
“Who’s with Bowdry?” Slocum asked.
“Gang members, I guess.”
“I better get back to camp. She catches sight of him, she may start shooting.” He took off running through the loose sand on the slope. He didn’t want anything to happen to her—she’d be no match for three of them. No telling what she might do—no telling.
With them in sight, he hurried off to the side so he might not be noticed, crossing wagon tongues and through camps, keeping the white hat in his vision as it bobbed above things to his right on the road. Slocum apologized to a few where he cut through their camp and hurried on.
Then he stopped beside a weather gray tailgate piled with harness. Bowdry was going to stop and talk to the camp of white men he’d observed earlier. Might be other gang members there too. No telling. This large camp was no place to have a shoot-out; stray bullets might find the innocent. But he needed to know more about Bowdry—where he was staying to start with. Damn, he’d give a lot to hear what he was saying to those men.
So close to having him in his hands and yet so far away. Still, if he could keep track of him, he might have a chance to separate him from the others. From what he could see they were putting his horse with theirs on a picket rope. Slocum rubbed his palms on the top of his legs—he needed a good plan. At the moment nothing looked too feasible.
“What’s he doing?” Hurricane asked, joining him.
“Jabbering with those white men we passed coming in here.”
“I think I saw a Light Horseman.”
“Who are they?”
“Cherokee National Police. It just may be one, but I think they are here looking for them.”
“Will they move in and arrest them?”
“Maybe, if the marshals from Fort Smith are here too.”
“I don’t know many of them.”
“I got more bad news for you.” Hurricane said. “Those two damn brothers from Fort Scott are here. I seen the big Ap horse.”
The two deputies from Fort Scott. The Abbott brothers. “I better take a hike—damn, I was so sure we could separate him from his men and take him back to Kansas to hang.”
Hurricane gave him a shove on the shoulders. “We better get you back to your horse.”
Slocum nodded in disgust, and they went wide of the camp where the colonel was at.
“What’s wrong?” Wink asked when they returned.
He shook his head. “I have to leave—”
“Leave?” She blinked at him in disbelief.
“Leave.”
She closed her eyes tight shut and shook her head. “But why?”
“I told you—” He tightened the cinch. “Don’t have time to talk about it. Promise me you won’t do anything stupid like try to shoot Bowdry. The law is here and we think they’ll take him.”
“But . . . but . . .”
His bedroll tied on behind the cantle, he turned and kissed her—not hard. He felt like he’d been kicked in the gut; leaving her wasn’t going to be easy. How did they ever track him there? He looked down in her sad eyes. “Promise me no gunplay.”
“Promise.”
He shook Hurricane’s hand and hugged Blue’s shoulder, whispering thanks in her ear.
“Take this medicine,” Hurricane said and handed him a small pouch. “Maybe it will protect you as you ride.”
Slocum nodded, put his foot in the stirrup and looked at the gap in the bluffs. “That a way to the top?” He indicated with a head toss to Hurricane.
“Tough trail, but you can get on top.”
“All I need.”
“Come again when you can stay longer.” Hurricane smiled and hugged Wink’s shoulders as she sniffed in a kerchief.
Slocum didn’t look back. He booted the bay for the gap—needed some space between him and the Abbott brothers.
A few minutes later, he was scrambling on foot over the broken rocks, leading the bay and following the narrow trail that led straight to the blue sky overhead. Out of breath at the top, he wiped his sweaty face on his sleeve. No sign of pursuit, and he could still hear the noisy shouting in the camp when he swung a leg over and set out in a long trot for the northeast.
19
Not taking the roads, he rode used game trails and moved through the sweeping tall bluestem. Coming over a high rise, he paused at a log cabin in late afternoon, and a short young Indian woman came to the doorway and hushed her barking black dog. Her dress had seen better days, and two bashful children hid in her skirts. High cheekbones, her complexion was dark; brown lips set in a line, and her black eyes questioned him.
“I need to water my horse.”
She nodded and motioned to the rock-cement tank. “Help yourself.”
“I’d also like buy some food,” he said and dismounted.
“I could make some fry bread.”
“That would be fine. I’ll water him.”
“It will be a little while.”
“I am in no hurry.” Now. He undid the girth and led the tired bay down the path to the tank. A check of the ridge and he saw nothing, but the wind shifting grass. Be great cattle country—a man could marry an Indian woman and live on this land. A man not wanted by the law, who could stay in one place.
The bay eagerly slurped up great drafts of the tank’s clear contents. Slocum drank his fill from the end of the rusty pipe bringing water out of the spring and spilling it into the trough. The cool liquid was refreshing. Then he washed his face with his kerchief and wrung it out, feeling the wind dry his wet skin. Good to just relax for a few moments.
He hunched his stiff shoulder muscles and sat on the edge of the tank to rest while he waited for her food. From there he’d planned to swing west. In a few days, he’d be at Council Oaks and could head south for San Antonio on the old Chisholm Trail.
When she called him into her small cabin to eat, she informed him her name was Bee. That her children’s names were Kind and He-too, the boy. They sat on a bench at the side and swung their legs like most children in confinement. When Slocum looked over at them, the girl giggled and then tried to hide her face in her fists. The boy, a year younger, remained stone-faced, as if nothing bothered him.
“They see few strangers,” she said, pouring him coffee. “No cream—no sugar.”
“Fine,” he said, understanding that she was apologizing for not having any. “I like it black.”
Her fry bread was filled with red beans and drew the saliva to his mouth. The flavoring was good and he nodded in approval. Seated at the wooden table opposite her, he didn’t look around, for fear he might make her feel inferior because of the room’s bareness.
“You wish more?” she asked, when he finished the first piece.
He shook his head, fearing that that was to be the children’s meal. He raised the cup up and heard the dog barking—someone was coming.
“Take the children and go hide; there may be bad ones coming here.” He set down the stained mug and drew his Colt. At the doorway, he looked back and saw her herding them out the back way. She gave him a scared look and then ran out after them. No sign of the intruders, but he could hear them coming off the ridge and he hushed the dog. No time to run. It wasn’t the Abbott brothers, more like a gang or a posse. Maybe he’d stirred up a hornet’s nest going after the colonel.
“He’s down there,” an unfamiliar voice shouted. “See his horse.”
He stepped out and could see a half dozen riders and the big black horse of Bowdry’s charging downhill. Damn, all he had was a pistol. A good rifle would have been handy.
Two shots from the bunch, and he took cover at the side of the cabin. Using a notched log for stability, he aimed and took down a horse that went end-over-end and landed on his rider, who never made a sound—that left s
ix. And they drew up in shock.
“Slocum, you sumbitch, we’ve got you cornered, better give up now!” Bowdry shouted. “Go around, boys.” He waved for his men to scatter. Two carried rifles.
“Go to hell, Charlie. What do you want me for?”
“You killed the Kid, Black Hawk and Henny they say—that leaves me, don’t it?”
“You’re doing the talking. Which one of you shot that boy?” He pressed himself to the side of the cabin to make less of a target, and wondered where the riflemen were at now. Then he saw one of them making a break across for some cover and snapped off a shot at him. The shooter went down screaming and holding his leg. That made five of them left.
“Tell your guys it won’t come easy, Bowdry—that’s two.”
“You sumbitch, I’ll get you. I knew you were at the races. Can’t figure out why you ran out on me.”
Good. Bowdry didn’t know about the Abbott brothers being at Barren Forks. All right, for the next three hours he had to hold them off and then it would be dark. He reloaded his Colt while he had the chance, punching out and replacing the two cartridges. Then a rifle slug slapped the cabin side, and bits of dry bark stung his face. Instinctively he ducked. Time to get inside. The lack of windows in the cabin wouldn’t help him, but the logs would absorb lots of lead. Two more slugs struck the wall as he dodged inside.
He crossed the room, and from the side of the back door he spotted two of them who must have thought he was still outside. One of them was waving for other to join him. Slocum took aim and dropped the waver in his tracks, then took a second shot at the other, who by then was fleeing. When the .44 slug hit him in the center of the back, the outlaw stiffened, then tripped and fell face-forward. That evened the odds a lot.
Slocum raced out the back door, covering lots of ground, and dove in the grass beside the first wounded man. He came up on his knees with the .44/40 Winchester that the outlaw had carried—jacked in a shell, took aim, and his first bullet struck the Morgan Bowdry sat on. Shot too low, damn. The hard-hit horse reared and then fell over sideways. Slocum winced over his mistake and cussed to himself.
Bowdry’s cursing grew louder. “Bring me a damn horse!’ But he never showed himself above the waist-high grass where he and his mount had gone down. There were three of them left. The other two, Slocum supposed, were on the far side of the cabin, and he wondered if they were tough enough to stand all this shooting. Not many men were ready to die, and unless they were desperate, the better part of valor for them would be getting the hell out while they were still unscathed.