"Brother Eyes-of-Iron." He extended his open hand, palm up toward Iron Eyes. "Do you bring news?"
"I bring news that should gladden your heart, Wolf-with-Spots." Iron Eyes stepped down from his sorrel and dropped the rein. "I have discovered much about the killer of your son."
"We will talk. And the man with you?"
"A friend."
Spotted Wolf gestured impatiently to Taw, indicating that he should dismount. "We will talk."
Several of the tribal elders were seated in a ring inside the large tent, their wrinkled faces dim in the shadows of the dark, smoky room.
"You are a friend to Eyes-of-Iron," Spotted Wolf said to Taw, seating himself on a rug across from the tent door. "Then you are a friend to the Sioux?"
"By both names, Dakotah or Sioux, your people are great warriors and wise thinkers." Taw had trouble putting his tongue to the words, but the language was still in his mind. "Your fathers beat the Kiowa and the Cheyenne and drove them to the south. Only one winter ago you beat the redheaded soldier and killed all his men with him where the sun rises in the land of Absoraka. And of all the Sioux, none are greater fighters nor wiser than the Ogallala Sioux. I am a friend to Chief Red Cloud. It would be good to be a friend also to his brother chieftain, Wolf-with-Spots."
"You say your thoughts well." Spotted Wolf nodded. "Though to beat the redheaded soldier is not truly worthy of a boast. General Custer was a strange man with two heads that thought in different directions." This taken care of, the chief turned to Iron Eyes. "What news of my son's slayer?"
"I have found who the man is. He tells the story with a loud voice in the white-man camp where the fire burned all the trees."
"He is in Deadwood as we talk?"
"That cannot be known. Regularly he rides with comrades between the large camps of the white men."
"I will go any place to have that man."
"It will not be necessary. He will have to pass with his comrades not half a day's ride from your present encampment. When he does I will come and tell you."
A low, intense murmur went through the room as the elders agreed to this.
"The women had not stopped their death wail before I rode to the headquarters of the horse soldiers," Spotted Wolf said. "I told them a white man had shot my son, Runs-toward-the-Enemy. They said they would look for the guilty white man, but that he must answer to the chiefs among the whites. I do not trust this talk. I think they were laughing inside themselves even as they promised to search. You were my best hope, Eyes-of-Iron. You have now proved that your blood is truly Sioux."
"If it happens soon, how many warriors can you have ready to take this man from his comrades?"
"I can snap my fingers this moment and have double ten times ten men ready to fight."
"That will be more than enough." Iron Eyes stood, ignoring the custom of the chief's standing first. "I must go now to learn more. You will see me within the suns counted on one hand."
Spotted Wolf walked outside with them, an old, tired and angry man with steady eyes that hinted at a trace of moisture as he reached up to put his hand on Iron Eyes' shoulder. "Food or drink? Anything I have is yours, my brother."
"I want nothing. To be called brother is enough."
The two men rode out of the long rows of tents. At the rise of the basin Taw turned and saw an old woman near Spotted Wolf's tent. She had cut a dog's throat and was ramming a long, sharp pole lengthwise through the body. Roast dog. They would soon be celebrating the news Iron Eyes had brought.
The breed's face creased suddenly in a broad, ugly smile. "Ogallala are fools," he said. "Believe everything I tell them."
"You are a good brother."
Iron Eyes wasn't nettled. "I am my own brother."
They rode east now to intercept the road to Sawtooth Bridge. When they at last arrived at Stony Flat, Iron Eyes settled in the shade under the high butte to chew on a string of jerky. Taw rode on across the wide, rocky flat to the bridge, a short, solid affair of stout timbers. It was as Snyder had said. The dry creek bed ranged from about twenty to forty feet deep, its perpendicular sides continuing far out of sight to the north. To the south the creek bed shallowed out until even a wagon could cross it without difficulty.
Pushing his pinto farther, Taw crossed the bridge and rode over the flatlands beyond it. At last he came to the spot where the false log would be placed. At this point the road ran through a narrow pass between fifty-foot cliffs of reddish-black clay and rock. Purposely, here, he squeezed his pinto into a gallop. For fifteen minutes the horse's rapid hoofs thudded up a straight, gradually rising grade. Here, at the summit of Rabbit Ear Pass, the road leveled off, then started down the side of the mountain to the plain ten miles away.
After about four minutes on the downgrade, Taw pulled his blowing pinto up as he saw the abutment ahead. It was sixty feet across, made of thick oak planks shored up by timbers underneath. On one side the mountain wall reared up sheer and straight. On the other there was a drop of three hundred feet to where the foot of the mountain finally curved gently away to the valley below.
Taw figured it would take men on foot at least an hour and a half to get from the place where the imitation log would be to where the coach would plunge through the abutment and down the cliff. Time to put the gold on mules and carry it miles away. He pulled his pinto around and headed back toward the Sawtooth.
On Stony Flat, after his horse had clomped across the bridge, Taw could see Iron Eyes lying down where he had left him. The breed shifted onto his elbow as Taw rode up. "You look it over?"
Taw nodded, looking down at the big man. His eyes hardened suddenly and he held his pinto very quiet. "There's a rattler coiled about a foot away from your head. Roll this way, and do it quick."
Iron Eyes was not worried. The gentle whirring of sound behind his back did not hurry him, but when he rolled, he moved with incredible speed for a big man. The rattler struck and caught the rim of the Indian's hat, pulling it at a rakish angle before the fangs loosened.
"You almost had a hell of a headache." Taw dismounted and killed the small snake with a rock. When it had stopped moving, he turned to find the breed staring down at the dead reptile with a look of utter horror, his lips blue from shock and fear.
Surprised, Taw said, "It's just a snake."
The bloodless lips moved twice before sound came from them. Then Iron Eyes spoke, automatically reverting to the Sioux tongue. "Massasauga!" he whispered. "The smallest death snake with the gray lines on its back!"
"Yeah," Taw shrugged. "It's a massasauga rattler."
Iron Eyes exhaled a long, trembling breath. "It has been told that if I die from the fangs of massasauga my spirit will sink into the river of that name, and it will roll in the mud to the bottom of the Great Water, where it will stay in the depths of black water forever." Hands shaking, he took off his wide black hat and stared at the tiny traces of venom left by the fangs.
Taw stepped back into the saddle. "With your nature, you'll die from a nice, healthy lead slug."
Iron Eyes threw the hat as far away as he could. When it landed, a gust of wind flipped it over and rolled it on a brief, wobbly course until it disappeared beyond a slight rise.
The breed hoisted himself into saddle and followed Taw's moving pinto. "We are even now."
"What do you mean?"
"You saved me from the bite of massasauga. I saved you by hitting my horse this morning instead of hitting you. We are even."
Taw smiled at the road ahead. "Said like a true gentleman, Iron Eyes."
Outside of Pawnee Fork, with no explanation, Iron Eyes pulled his horse at an angle away from the road.
"Where you going?" Taw called.
"To where I can sleep."
"Can Snyder find you if he needs you?"
"I can be found in the Fork always, except when I sleep. No one but me knows where I sleep."
"Pleasant dreams." Taw shifted his weight in the saddle and pushed his pinto forward....
The sun was hanging low in the west when he turned his pinto out with the black and the buckskin. He'd walked to Pawnee Street when Jess waved at him from the doorway of the Silver Dollar. "Over here, Taw."
They pushed through the batwing doors together and the younger brother murmured drunkenly, "Been gettin' a head start on you. How'd it go? How'd those friends of ours look to you?"
"Went fine. They're in a mood for fighting."
They crossed to the bar where Jess picked up his bottle. " 'Nother glass for my brother Taw," he told the barman.
At a table by the wall, Jess poured drinks for them both. "To the greates' brother in the land. I'd give 'im the shirt off my back."
"I've had enough brotherly talk for today."
"You mad?" Jess grinned and stood up. "You callin' my bluff? Well, by hell, I'll give you my shirt to prove it!" He brought his hands up and started to tug at the shirt he was wearing, pulling it halfway over his head.
Taw laughed and pushed him back into his chair.
Struggling back into his shirt, Jess said, "That's more like it. Laugh and get some fun in you! Drink up! I've got a lotta paper work to do tomorrow. So let's wet me up enough so's I can stand it."
"We'll get you going in great style," Taw decided abruptly. "Get set to get drank under the table."
They were deep into the third bottle when half a dozen cavalrymen, their blue uniforms gray with dust, wandered in through the swinging doors and sauntered over to the bar. After a few social drinks, four of them carried their glasses to a table near the Tawlin brothers and sat down for a game. "What'll it be, boys?" A big-voiced sergeant took a deck of cards from his pocket. "Stud, blackjack, draw?"
Another soldier came into the Silver Dollar and bought a drink, then headed for the table where the card players were. There was no chair for him, so the sergeant put a large hand on a chair at Jess and Taw's table. "Need this chair," he said gruffly, starting to pull it away. The chair, seemingly of its own will, broke free from his grasp and slid back under the table.
"That chair," Jess explained, "happens to have my foot on it."
Other chairs near the sergeant were empty, but he grabbed the one with Jess's foot on it again. "Don't crowd me, boy," he threatened.
"I won't," Jess agreed pleasantly. "I won't crowd you. Just take your God-damned hand off the chair."
Taw glanced at the door as it swung open again. Four more cavalrymen came in. Before the matching gates had swung closed, two monstrous hands caught them, and Iron Eyes, wearing a new black hat, lumbered into the saloon.
Noticing the additional soldiers, the sergeant said, "We can clean the whole place out, and break your head doin' it. That ain't a bad idea, neither."
"Let it go, Jess," Taw said. "We don't want a fight just now."
"We always want a fight!" Jess grumbled. "Let's take 'em, Taw!"
"Taw?" one of the soldiers asked. "Jack Tawlin?"
"That's the right of it," said Jess. "We just killed a man a night or so ago. And there ain't no harm in doing 'er all over again."
"Gunslinger," the sergeant muttered, his hand dropping its grip on the chair. "Worth nothin' without he's got a gun. Lucky for you we ain't got none. 'Gainst regulations in town this way."
"If that's all you're worried about, we can fix that." Taw unbuckled his gunbelt and put it on the floor near the wall. "You were saying?"
The big sergeant stood up, and the other soldiers followed him. "My fight was with your brother. I want that chair." He pushed Jess over backwards onto the floor and snatched the chair out from the table. "That's that!" His friends still backing him, he said, "With no gun, you got anythin' to say about that?"
"Might as well give you the whole works," Taw told him. He reared up, bringing the table with him and slamming it into the group of soldiers. The sergeant got a corner of it in his chest and shouted with pain as the clumsy but practical weapon knocked him down, scattering the men behind him.
The liquor in Taw slowed him down a fraction as he ducked too late and a fist aimed at his throat caught him on the shoulder. He shook his head to clear it and then he charged into the growing mass of soldiers, swinging with both fists.
Now that it had started, the complete freedom of battle was exhilarating. His right fist landed between the eyes of a soldier before him and automatically, as a corporal rushed him low, he brought his knee up to catch the man in the face.
Sheer weight of numbers carried him back toward the wall, but before he was trapped he managed to pick up a chair. Two of its heavy legs were shattered on his first wild swing at the blurred faces of the soldiers in front of him. Dimly, above the uproar, he heard someone screaming. He laughed aloud as he realized the reason. The soldiers, in their hurry to get at him, were mercilessly trampling their own sergeant.
The swinging chair cut a wide swath through the encircling men before it shattered.
A lone cavalryman rushed in ahead of the others. Taw dodged a swinging fist, grabbed him and flipped him up like a sack of spuds, heaving him at the others. Jess appeared at his side and yelled, "Need any help?"
"Where the hell have you been?"
"I wanted a drink," Jess shouted. "You need me?"
Taw side-stepped and tripped his next opponent and slugged another in the throat with a backward chop of the heel of his left hand. "You'd just be in the way."
The third soldier coming at them tackled Jess, and the two of them went down in an angry, writhing heap. Then the main body of cavalrymen thundered across the room. Taw leaped the bar, dug his heels into the wall behind him and pushed outward on the mahogany. There was a massive ripping sound as he brought all his strength to bear.
Two soldiers were coming over the bar when it went. They sprawled to one side as it turned under them, hurtling in a short, heavy arc and taking two more men down on its thundering path to the floor. Taw knelt as a soldier leaped the fallen bar toward him. Catching the man on his shoulder and back, Taw straightened swiftly, throwing him on over. There was a tremendous crash, mingled with the sharp, rending noises of glass breaking. Taw turned to see about forty bottles of whisky broken on the floor, their contents bubbling out. The mirror behind the bar was gone, too, and the man he'd thrown was lying in the middle of the wreckage.
The fearful amount of liquor being wasted had a sobering effect on the three or four soldiers still in fighting shape. They hesitated, and in that hesitation it was wordlessly agreed that they wanted no more.
Jess pulled his legs out from under the upset bar. "You pinned me," he complained. "You're getting kind of careless."
"Out of practice." Taw walked back to where their table had been and picked up his gunbelt. "Tell you what," he told the sergeant, who was starting to get up. "If you want that chair so bad, you just go right ahead and take it."
"Like old times," Jess grinned, pouring them each a drink from a broken bottle that hadn't spilled all its contents. "Let's down this."
They left the soldiers in various stages of recovery and collapse and pushed out through the swinging doors. Several soldiers were circled around the outside of the door. In the midst of them was Iron Eyes. A young soldier lay at the giant's feet, sweating with pain.
The liquor was hitting Taw hard now. Breathing deeply, he said, "What did you do to this kid?"
"He bump into me on his way into bar. I teach him not to bump into me."
The young soldier cried through gritted teeth, "I just barely brushed by him and he got mad. He twisted my arms and broke both of 'em. That son of a bitch ain't human!"
Some of the soldiers gathered silently around to help the boy as he began crying softly.
Taw was staggering slightly on his feet now. He said, "Iron Eyes, I am going to knock your head off." Then he walloped the breed square on the jaw.
Chapter Five
TAW WOKE UP and blinked his eyes painfully in the rays of sunshine that flooded along his bed from the window. Christine was beside him with a cold, wet cloth in her hand. He mumbled, "Mornin
'," as she replaced a cloth already on his forehead with the new one.
"How does your head feel?" She touched his hair gently.
"Awful."
"The swelling is going down. Nothing seems to be broken."
"I can't recall too well what happened."
"Jess and old Charley Hill brought you home. Charley said you almost wrecked the United States Cavalry."
"I was trying for fair, until someone got behind me with a four-by-four."
Christine wrung the used cloth out in a bowl of water on the table near the bed. "It was a big half-breed they call Iron Eyes. He hit you."
Taw held his fingers against the damp cloth. "They ought to call him Iron Fist."
After a minute Christine took the cloth from his head and put it back in the water. "You had a few other assorted bumps, cuts, scratches and bruises, too," she said. "But you'll be all right now." She started toward the door with the bowl.
"How long you been nursing me?"
"Since they brought you home last night, about midnight." She turned at the door. "Jess left for work an hour ago. There's some warm water on the dresser for shaving and washing. I'll put some coffee and eggs on the stove."
Taw dressed slowly, his head pounding as he leaned over to pull on his boots.
When he got to the dining room she was carrying a tray from the kitchen. She smiled and said, "You don't look much the worse for wear."
Taw sat down at the table. "I feel like a good-sized butterfly could whip me."
She laughed and put a plate of eggs and bacon before him. Then she poured coffee for them both and sat down. "Where were you yesterday? I didn't see you until they carried you home."
"I was out riding. Then Jess and me got together for a drink or two."
"How did the riot start?"
"Wasn't really a riot. Just a large misunderstanding. Fellow wanted to take a chair and there was some words over it."
The War Wagon Page 5