Straw Men

by J. R. Roberts

  Tolfox gnashed his teeth so hard that Clint expected to see sparks in his mouth. “That son of a bitch wanted to pay me in old blankets and boots. He wanted me to kill for blankets and boots!”

  “You did kill.”

  “I killed his men! When he tried to play me for a fool, I killed anyone wearing the uniform of his Army. And when he tried to hide from me, I killed until he had no choice but to show his cowardly face! He’s shown what kind of man he is! Everyone will see!”

  “I already see,” Clint replied. “Just like I’ve seen what kind of man you are. You’re the kind of man who kills women and children just to draw one fool from hiding. You kill soldiers who are trying to protect innocent folks just so you can get your hands on one crooked colonel. Throughout this whole thing, you’ve shown yourself to be the kind of man who doesn’t even care if you send your own people to hell while you make your deals and go on your rampages.”

  Tolfox slapped his hand around the gun that was kept in an old holster at his side. The holster hung from braided rope looping around his waist and held a Colt that looked as if it had once belonged to a soldier. That Colt made it halfway from Tolfox’s holster before Clint drew and fired a shot from his own pistol.

  The modified Colt bucked once against Clint’s palm and sent a round through Tolfox’s ribs. It wasn’t a killing shot, but it was enough to spin Tolfox around on one foot and put him into a world of pain.

  The other Crow braves took aim with their own guns as well. One of them already had a rifle in hand, so Clint targeted him first. One round through the face sent that Indian flying backward off his feet as his rifle toppled through the air.

  Two more Crow were bringing their gun hands up and were knocked down like bottles from a fence as Clint sent a round into each of their hearts. Before those two had the dirt, Clint had shifted his aim to the remaining Crow brave.

  That Indian was obviously less experienced with firearms because he pulled his knife from the scabbard at his side instead of the pistol that was tucked into his waistband.

  Clint took careful aim and gave the last Crow a warning glare before saying, “Run.”

  The Indian not only backed away, but he tossed aside every one of his weapons as he bolted away from the spot where the others had fallen.

  Watching the fleeing Crow until he knew the Indian wasn’t about to circle back and put up a fight, Clint stepped over to the man who’d caught the first bullet. Tolfox had a nasty wound in his side that looked as if a bear had swiped across his ribs with one massive claw. Seeing that Tolfox was trying to lift his gun, Clint kicked the gun away with one well-placed boot. After that, he stood just out of the Indian’s reach and watched him carefully.

  “This was…the colonel’s idea,” Tolfox said.

  “But you and your men did the killing.”

  Tolfox was too tired and in too much pain to even try to lie convincingly. Instead, he clawed at the ground and said, “It was on his orders. I didn’t have…a choice.”

  “Bullshit.” Clint spat. “You could have made your way like anyone else. You could have done your best like any other tribe. If there was no other way to make a living, how come Chief Mingan seems perfectly capable of making a home for his people.”

  “I’m chief!” Tolfox snapped.

  “Sure. You’re a fine chief. Chief Proud Fox. Or was it Tall Fox? I forgot that it was such common practice for a worthy chief to go under so many different names. There are men who do what you do, Tolfox. There are men who kill and lie and scurry from place to place under all sorts of different names so they won’t be recognized. They’re called outlaws, and white men have them just like the Indians have them. That’s all you are, Tolfox. You’re just a murdering outlaw who takes orders from another outlaw.”

  “That’s right,” Tolfox said desperately. “I took orders. Go speak to Colonel Farelli. He’s the one you should be after, not me!”

  “Your English is pretty good, Tolfox. I bet that came in real handy when you were dealing with Farelli. Here, Farelli thought he needed a translator and yet you could carry on just fine in his language. Is that how you knew he was going to cheat you?”

  Letting out a breath, Tolfox closed his eyes and relaxed his muscles.

  “I know it took the both of you to do all this,” Clint said. “You had to pull off the attacks and Farelli had to pretend to stop them. I’ve stopped you. I want to stop Farelli as well. Instead of lying there and hoping to bleed out, you could take some part in redeeming yourself.”

  “What good could I do?” Tolfox asked. “My braves are gone and your Army wouldn’t listen to a word I had to say. They would hang me or shoot me like they would hang or shoot any Crow who spilled a white man’s blood.”

  Clint hunkered down so he could talk to the fallen Indian without lording over him. “I told Farelli you had something and were taking it to the Federals. It was just a bluff to see if he’d get riled up enough to show what he was capable of, but he bit on the bait pretty damn hard. He got more than riled up. He came to that old camp you just left behind, intending to blow the place to hell no matter who was inside it. That tells me two things. First of all, it tells me that Farelli is willing to kill women and children just like you’ve already done. Second, it tells me there must be something you’ve got that can do a whole lot of damage to Farelli.”

  It took Tolfox a few seconds, but finally he began to nod. After that, it took him a few more second to pull enough air into his lungs to speak. “The colonel was careful not to leave a trail when he dealt with me. All of our agreements…were spoken. But to get Ahiga and his braves to help on some of the attacks…Farelli needed…something else.”

  “Something that could link him to this whole mess?” Clint asked.

  “Yes. But if I tell you this…I need you…to swear…you won’t leave me here to bleed to death like a wounded dog.”

  Clint wouldn’t have let any man die that slowly, but there was no need to tell Tolfox that much. Instead, Clint extended a hand and helped the wounded Crow to his feet.

  FORTY-ONE

  Mingan couldn’t hide his surprise when he saw both Clint and Tolfox ride back to the rest of the tribe. The Indians all rode with their horses clustered in a group so the braves could keep watch from the outside while protecting the children and women in the middle of the cluster. Even though Mingan rode toward the front of the group, the uneasy faces on the nearby braves made it known that they wished he would accept a bit more protection.

  “Where are the others?” Mingan asked.

  Tolfox slouched forward upon his horse with his head hung low. Now that he was closer, it was easier for the others to see that Tolfox’s hands were tied at the wrists and his wrists were tied to the saddle horn. Blood was already soaking through the shredded material wrapped around Tolfox’s ribs as a makeshift bandage.

  Riding beside Tolfox so he could keep hold of the Crow’s reins, Clint brought Eclipse and Tolfox’s horse to a stop. “The other Crow are gone,” he said. “Three were shot dead and a fourth ran away. I had to kill those three because they meant to kill me. If anyone has something to say about this, say it now.”

  There were plenty of uneasy glances tossed among the Navajo, but none of them spoke out against what they’d heard.

  “Tolfox is coming along with us as a prisoner,” Clint announced. “He’s been leading you people down a path that will only end in more blood. Farelli’s on a rampage of his own at the moment, but the rest of the Army will only pick up where he leaves off if this doesn’t stop right now. Agreed?”

  The tribe was silent.

  One by one, the Navajo all turned their eyes to one man.

  Mingan accepted their silent gazes by tightening the muscles in his jaw and bowing his head a bit as if their attention weighed on him like a load of bricks. Then the old man straightened up and sat in his saddle as if he towered above all the others. “We did not have the courage to stand up to Tolfox before. We should have been the ones to stand agai
nst him now. We will take him and see to it that no more blood is spilled because of our own mistake.”

  Just then, Clint spotted a face among the braves that he hadn’t been expecting. “Ahiga? Is that you?”

  The Navajo warrior nodded once.

  “So where’s…?” Before he could finish his question, Clint spotted the translator among the Indian women toward the center of the tribe’s protective group. The skinny fellow was covered by a blanket that made him look more like an old woman. If not for the translator’s distinctive face and pasty white skin, Clint might not have seen him there at all.

  “I led the soldiers away,” Ahiga said. “They did not follow me for long once they were done with our camp. I thought this man would be safest here with us. If you want me to take him somewhere else—”

  “Oh, no,” Clint interrupted. “This is fine. To be honest, I doubt he’d be much safer anywhere else.” As he rode closer to Ahiga, Clint needed to fight to keep from laughing at the nervous translator who had more fear in his eyes than the women surrounding him.

  Clint looked back to make certain the men who’d taken the reins to Tolfox’s horse weren’t having any trouble with their prisoner. Even though Tolfox’s wound looked a whole lot worse than it truly was, the Crow slouched in his saddle as if all the life had been drained from him. For the moment, Tolfox wasn’t going to give anyone much of a fight.

  “Tolfox has done a lot of talking,” Clint said to Ahiga. “Without his men, he doesn’t have a lot left in him.”

  “Good,” Ahiga replied.

  “I know you’re not Crow and I know most of the men in the attack I saw were painted with the same marks as Tolfox’s warriors, but you were also one of the men who attacked that wagon and those soldiers a while ago.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why fight in Tolfox’s battles?” Clint asked. “Especially when you already knew Tolfox was dealing with Farelli?”

  Ahiga sat tall as a mountain and wore an expression that was just as stony. “Because if the colonel thought I was with him, he would not slaughter this tribe the way his Army has slaughtered so many others.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “He wrote a letter to me, swearing this. He handed it to me personally and swore it was his bond.”

  “Where is that letter?” Clint asked.

  Without blinking an eye, Ahiga replied, “I burned it. His words mean nothing and a man like that cannot be trusted to uphold any bond.”

  As much as Clint would have liked something more concrete to wave in front of Farelli’s face as some sort of bargaining chip, he couldn’t deny that Ahiga had a valid point. “That letter was probably worth less than the paper it was written on, but it would have been nice to wave it under Farelli’s nose. Apparently, just thinking that a letter from him could find its way to the Federals is enough to make him nervous, and that’s just how we want him to be.”

  Clint rode through the clustered Indians until he was close enough to reach out and pull aside the blanket wrapped around the translator’s head. “I’ll take this,” Clint said as he tore the markings from the skinny man’s shoulder. “And this,” he added as he peeled the spectacles from the translator’s face.

  “But…I need those,” the translator whined as he eyed the spectacles.

  “Considering you were present to help iron out deals that involved killing innocent folks on both sides of this bloodbath, I’d keep my mouth shut. This tribe’s keeping you alive,” Clint warned. “I’d say that’s worth seeing badly for a little while.”

  The translator glanced about and nodded before wrapping the blanket back around his head.

  Clint then rode over to Tolfox and asked, “What can you donate to the cause?”

  FORTY-TWO

  When Clint returned to Fort Winstead, he found the place in a state of celebration. It was no surprise that most of the raucous sounds and loud music were coming from the saloon. What did surprise Clint was that Colonel Farelli was in the middle of the merriment and raising his cup along with all the other soldiers.

  Just as Clint was about to wade into the drunken mess, he was pulled aside by a strong grip that closed around his left wrist. After being turned around and nearly yanked from his feet, Clint felt a set of warm, eager lips press against his mouth. He recognized Abigail’s kiss immediately.

  “What was that for?” Clint asked once he was able to take a breath.

  Abigail’s face was dusty as ever and her hair was a wild tangle roughly tied behind her head. She smiled broadly and wrapped an arm around Clint’s body while sliding one leg along his hip. “That was for letting me get so deep into the colonel’s pockets that I won’t have to work for a year. Why didn’t you tell me you were gonna leave something more for them soldiers to find than just a bunch of empty old wagons?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “We all heard the shooting,” she said in a somewhat slurred whisper. “I was about to pretend to see somethin’ else when those shots came and so I went to see if you needed help. I didn’t find you, but I sure as hell found those dead Injuns you left behind.” After thinking for a moment, she asked, “That was you, wasn’t it?”

  “Right, those were some of Tolfox’s men,” Clint told her.

  “It didn’t matter whose men they were,” Abigail said. “The colonel was out to kill some Injuns, and finding those bodies made his day. The man’s a damned vulture, but he promised a bonus for scalps and he paid up. You didn’t get hurt or nothin’, did you?”

  Clint chuckled and replied, “No, but it’s good to know that concern was so far down on your list.”

  “Aw, yer standin’ here in front of me! It ain’t like I thought a dead man could do that!”

  Clint was about to ask if she was drunk, but a better question came to mind. “How drunk are you, Abigail?”

  “Pretty damn drunk, but not too drunk to give you a hell of a ride.”

  “I think Farelli is trying to catch my attention, but don’t you think for one second I’ll forget about that offer you just made.”

  Abigail made a few more offers, but most of them were lost amid a chorus of whoops and hollers as another bottle of whiskey was opened and drinks were passed around. Now that he was in the saloon and among all the men, Clint noticed that only a few of the men were in Army uniforms. The rest looked like gunmen that could be found in any rowdy drinking hole.

  Colonel Farelli had been waving to Clint on and off since Clint had walked into the place. Now the colonel was waving hard enough to throw his arm out of its socket. As much as he would have liked to see Farelli continue to flail and flap his wing like an idiot, Clint acknowledged the wave and walked over to Farelli’s table.

  “There he is!” Farelli shouted. “Just the man I wanted to see. Clint Adams! The Gunsmith himself!”

  Nodding and standing beside Farelli, Clint patted the other man’s shoulder and said, “No need to shout, Farelli. I’m right here.”

  “I owe you some money, Adams. We killed most of those murdering redskins and chased the rest of them into the hills. You did a hell of a job today!”

  More than anything, Clint wanted to ask Farelli how he came up with such a colorful way to describe blowing up an empty camp and stumbling across some dead bodies.

  “We even got us a prisoner!” Farelli continued. “He’ll be swinging from a noose in the morning.”

  “Can I have a word with you?” Clint asked. “Maybe somewhere without all this noise?”

  “If you want your money, I can pay you right here.”

  “It’s not about any money. It’s about some important business that needs to be handled.”

  “Then handle it with one of my clerks,” Farelli said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “They know about my business matters.”

  “No,” Clint told him, “this is going to be something you’ll want to handle yourself.”

  FORTY-THREE

  Clint waited outside of the saloon for a few minutes and
watched drunken gunmen stagger in and out to collect their fees and free drinks. A few soldiers came and went as well, but most of them were busy doing their jobs instead of drinking with their commanding officer. When Farelli finally did make his appearance, it was amid a booming laugh and several halfhearted salutes from the hired guns.

  “What is it, Adams?” Farelli asked as he walked over to where Clint was waiting. “I’ve got more celebrating to do.”

  Rather than say anything, Clint extended his hand to show the few items he was holding. Among them were the translator’s spectacles and the black feathers that had hung from Tolfox’s forearm. That sight seemed to cut through Farelli’s whiskey haze real quickly.

  “What are those?” Farelli demanded.

  “Proof that your translator and Tolfox are still alive,” Clint replied. “I thought you’d like to know about them so you’d know who’ll be speaking against you at your court-martial.”

  “If I’m going to be brought up before anyone, it’ll be to pin a few medals on me.”

  “Is that why you started this whole mess?” Clint asked. “To get some medals? I thought you’d just keep your head down and stay quiet since you got out of that business of stealing supplies and selling them for profit.”

  “I’m not the first one to ever be accused of that, you know.”

  “That’s true, but I think most crooked officers draw the line at stirring up a whole bunch of angry Indians just so he can ride in to make the whole mess go away. You probably only hear about these attacks from what your men tell you or what you read in the newspapers, but real folks have been dying. Most of those folks had been just going about their lives when they were pulled into this little Indian war you started.”

  Farelli grabbed hold of Clint’s arm so he could drag him away from the saloon. Although Clint went along with him for a few steps, he easily pulled out of the other man’s grasp. When Farelli spoke again, his drunken bluster was gone and his voice was reduced to a harsh whisper. “Those redskins have always been attacking wagons and settlers. And in case you haven’t noticed, most of the men getting hurt of late have been my soldiers!”