No Good Like It Is

  ***

  Dobey had a terrible feeling of déjà vu as he looked down on the community of Canadian Fort. There was a large adobe building, a lean-to shed on each end, a barn, outhouse, and corrals. A small garden and cornfield, all brown and withered from the heat. No cook smoke. No dogs or chickens. No horses or milk cows. No people.

  Well, not exactly. There were five people on the ground around the adobe and the barn. Even from this distance it was apparent that they were dead. They wore little or no clothing. Several had long black hair and the bodies were sun-darkened, as though they’d lain there for some time. It wouldn’t need to be long in this heat. Not yet noon, it was already scalding hot.

  Dobey couldn’t hear the flies yet nor pick up the smell of death, but he knew it was there, waiting for him to come a little closer. He was in no hurry now.

  Dobey’s throat constricted. He hadn’t seen his family in years. Years of fighting, and years of school before that, and finally this long trip ‘home’. For most of that time, he hadn’t even known where his family was. And now this. He couldn’t breathe. They’d heard the gunfire rolling over the plains more than two hours ago. At first, they thought it to be a distant thunder, but then realized that the skies were cloudless forever. They’d come on fast, but there had been no shots for quite awhile now. As they’d crested the ridge above the outpost, Melton thought he’d seen figures pushing some livestock into the trees along the river, heading away.

  The river was half a mile further downhill to the right, beyond the barn. As he rode slowly down past the outhouse, Dobey could see the barn doors were standing open. Melton and Bear rode with him, pistols drawn, twenty yards out to either side, on full alert. The others waited atop the low ridge with the Cherokee scouts.

  Melton and Bear spread out some, walking their horses slowly to check out the bodies. Bear halted and said, “Dead goat here. Three arrows. They ain’t Cheyenne.” “Prob’ly Comanche, or Kiowa.” Melton stood in the stirrups for a better look around. “Might be better we look these folks over, Dobey. You go on to the store. You might not want to see this.”

  Now Dobey fought the rising bile. Between the privy and the main building, his horse danced a little, then jumped a deep trench. It ran from some bushes behind the store to the back of the corral, then angled toward the back of the barn.

  Dobey nudged his horse closer to the store and found that the trench began at a small door below ground level behind the bushes. Maybe it was secure. He couldn’t tell. He looked back to his right toward Bear.

  “Watch out for this ditch, Bear.” With sagebush growing along it, it wasn’t apparent until it was almost underfoot.

  “Done crossed it, Cap’n. Empty back here. Anything in it there?”

  Dobey shook his head and eased his horse past the store.

  The far side of the adobe was the front. As he rounded to that side, Dobey was surprised to find a wagon and dogcart standing in a circle of debris with empty harnesses. When no one answered his call, he started to dismount.

  The arrow came from the lean-to on his left. It went through the back muscle under his left arm and thudded into his saddle. As his horse danced sideways, dragging him, Dobey clamped his arm down on the arrow and twisted, breaking the shaft and freeing him from the spooked mount. He went down on his butt as another arrow sailed over his head.

  One huge Comanche was ten feet away now, screaming and charging with a tomahawk. A second warrior was in the shed trying to notch a third arrow. Dobey shot them both twice, but the bigger one loomed over him. The warrior started the chopping stroke when his chest exploded in a spray of blood and he fell on Dobey.

  Dobey pushed him off and struggled to his feet. Beyond the shed, Bear had dismounted and was reloading his Spencer after killing Dobey’s assailant. Dobey shot the second Indian again for good measure.

  Three mounted warriors burst from the barn and charged them, brandishing lances and clubs. Bear’s horse bolted.

  Bear deliberately shot the three Indian ponies, dropping them twenty yards away. As the first warrior jumped clear, Dobey drew a second pistol and opened up ,hitting him with a couple of shots and knocking him down.

  Hearing gunfire behind him, Dobey spun to find Melton kneeling by the right end of the store, firing his Spencer at the attackers who’d come from the barn. From the shadows of the smithy behind Melton, a skulking Comanche stood and rushed forward with an axe.

  Dobey yelled, “Jimmy!” He got off a shot and hit the Indian in the shoulder. The man dropped his axe but fell on Melton, screaming and biting. Dobey turned back toward the barn to see Bear drop the last of those fighters with a carbine shot. He then ran toward Melton and his attacker as they grunted, yelled, and twisted in the dirt. Melton had drawn a pistol but lost it, and now the big warrior had gotten behind him and locked him in a stranglehold while trying to draw his knife. Dobey pointed the pistol at the Indian’s head from two feet away and snapped on an empty cylinder. The man’s head disintegrated anyhow.

  Twenty feet away, Bear stood with a smoking Spencer. Melton pushed off the dead man and glared at Bear. “Cut that pretty close, didn’t you?” He picked up his own carbine and stood, looking around.

  Bear shrugged and said, “Them other bodies? They’re all Comanche. How ‘bout the ones on your side, Boss?”

  Melton said, “Yeah, mine too. Let’s look inside.”

  The door stood open in a shattered frame.

  “Prob’ly used that same damn axe,” said Melton.

  “Probably. But there’s a little door ‘around back too, could have been open.” Dobey was having trouble talking. They stepped in, Dobey swinging right, Bear covering left.

  The building was empty. Except for an old buffalo rug in the middle of the floor it was almost clean. No bodies. No blood. There were not even cobwebs.

  “Maybe they got out through that ditch to the barn,” said Dobey, almost choking.

  “Them three mounted Comanche was in the barn, Cap’n. I’ll go check,” Bear went out, then turned back. “But maybe they was taken, Cap’n. Ain’t no blood in here. Let’s get them Cherokees down here and go after ‘em.”

  Melton came in, his boots and spurs clattering on the wooden floor, the noise echoing on bare walls. “You find another note?”

  Dobey shook his head, not trusting his voice. His eyes fogged a little, causing him to trip on the rug as he started back out.

  Melton caught him as he stumbled, then pointed at the floor and whispered, “Dobey.”

  Dobey’s spur had jumbled the rug and exposed a rope handle on a section of the floor. Melton motioned for Bear to come in and pointed it out to him too. Bear looked at Dobey and mouthed, “Open it?”

  Bear grabbed the handle, but Melton stopped him. “Hold on—go slow, now,” he whispered, then turned to Dobey. “I don’t know what we’ll find here, Cap’n, but you may not want to look. Let us go first. You stand over there.” He nodded to Bear, who yanked the trapdoor open and peered down.

  There were screams, followed by a shotgun blast. The screams gave Bear just enough time to spin away from the gunfire. Splinters flew from the ceiling.

  Dobey found his voice and yelled, “Godalmighty, Bear, be careful. Son of a bitch! Are you hit?”

  Ears ringing from the blast, they all still heard the next voice. “Thomas McDougall Walls, is that you up there? Using that language in front of your mother?”

  ***

  “We was leaving, Thomas. This very morning, leaving this lonely place. Going to find some civilization. I done my best to make it work, ‘cause my Timothy thought this would be a good place. It just ain’t.” Annette Walls finally let go and began sobbing. “I only stayed so long ‘cause I didn’t want to leave him.”

  “Where is he, Ma?” Dobey stroked her arms.

  “Oh, Thomas, you must have ain’t got none of my letters. He’s up on the hill out there, with Tomaso. Drunk soldiers kilt ‘em, some years ago.”

  “Tomaso?” Dobey looked around. Tad and
Bear had brought some chairs in from the debris-strewn yard.

  “Nacio’s boy.” She nodded toward Ignacio and his daughters. “Their brother. Our horsebreaker.” She sniffled, wiped her nose with a rag that Manuela handed her, then heaved a deep sigh. “Oh, yes. Done left Becky back at Fort Motte, but I put a marker for her on the hill with Timothy and Tomaso. Visit ‘em every day. Ain’t much else to do.”

  “I got one letter from you after West Point, Ma. From Fort Motte. I went there looking for you before the war. Jimmy Melton here was with me. We found your note, but that’s the last I heard ‘til this April. We came straight here.”

  Annette squeezed his hand, eyes still glistening. “Oh, Thomas, I have been so scared you was dead too. Didn’t want to put up another marker for another empty grave.” She bit her fist and stared out the door at the hill. She sobbed again. “And I really, really didn’t want to leave Becky again.”

  “Then don’t, Ma. The Cherokees have gone after those Comanche raiders. I expect they’ll get back your, uh, our livestock, or some of it. War’s over, Ma. Things will start flowing again. I brought help and a lot of money and stuff, Ma. A lot. Maybe we can make a go of it now.”

  Melton had been sitting a few feet away as Doc worked on his bitten ear. He pushed Doc away and stood beside Dobey. “Make a go of it? Forget about making a go of it.” The usually taciturn Ranger had excitement in his voice. “Miz Balliett, I been riding with your boy for over seven years. He’s been dying to find you, or at least people been dying that got in his way. Now listen – it ain’t about just making a go of it. We got all we need to build a real town here.”

  Doc snorted. “For a damned Cossack, you sure run off at the mouth.” Annette Walls Balliett smiled at the Doc, and said, “Well, I hope he will.” She turned back to Melton and touched his arm. “Sergeant Major Melton, I don’t know what you went through getting my boy back to me, but I want to hear every word of it.”

  THE END