by Bill Brooks
Three or four Indians were sitting on horses, maybe a quarter mile distant.
Indians were never a good thing to see in lonesome country. Dave sort of remembered that most of the Indians had been rubbed out and those who weren’t, were put onto reservations in various unhappy places. But sometimes some of the Indians got off the reservations and went wild and killed and scalped folks and burned their houses, if they had any.
These looked like those kind of Indians to Dave, the kind that would scalp and murder you and burn your house.
He drew back on the reins of his cayuse and sat studying the Indians on the bluff and could see they were studying him, as well. They circled around a bit and their circling made Dave more nervous. He decided he better run for it and, as soon as he put spurs to his cayuse, the Indians came charging down the sand hill, just like he was hoping they wouldn’t.
He had a pretty good lead on them if he could maintain it.
He looked over his shoulder several times and he could see the Indians were gaining on him. Their horses were mustangs and could run faster than the one he was aboard, a big chestnut gelding he’d stolen from an army sergeant.
This is turning into a piss-poor day, he thought.
It started out well enough, but now I wish I hadn’t never come to this country, he thought. Goddamn wind, and now Indians!
Pretty soon he had to turn loose of the reins to Old Blue. Old Blue was even slower than Dave’s cayuse.
“I’m sorry,” he shouted into the wind. Old Blue just stopped running once Dave turned loose of his reins and stood waiting for the Indians to catch up.
Then the wind snatched Dave’s hat away and it tumbled along the rugged ground like a pie plate before snagging on a bush.
Dave felt the wind streaming through his hair and stinging his face. His cayuse began to labor. He looked back and saw that one of the Indians had gathered up Old Blue and another had leaned way over at a full gallop and snatched up his hat and plunked it on his own head.
They yipped like coyotes.
What little lead he had on them he was losing.
Dave couldn’t tell if the sound thumping in his ears was his cayuse’s hoofs or his own heartbeat. He whipped the flanks of the gelding hard with the ends of his reins as he remembered the stories he heard about what Indians did to white men if they caught them: how they cut their eyelids off so they were forced to stare at the sun till they went blind; how they cut their pizzels off; how they staked a man out on ant hills. None of it sounded like a pleasant way to die.
He looked back once more and the Indians were maybe a hundred, two hundred yards behind. He could see their teeth. They had good teeth.
Some buffalo hunters came into Dodge City once and said they’d found a buffalo skinner with so many arrows in him he looked like a big porcupine.
I don’t feature becoming no porcupine, Dave thought.
He was looking back over his shoulder at the Indians and figured he didn’t have a hell of a lot more time before they caught up with him. He was mostly right. He rode right off a cliff, still looking back at his pursuers.
For a few wondrous seconds Dave felt like he was flying. It was the goddamnedest feeling he ever had and there was something thrilling about it until he hit the river forty yards below.
Then it was like somebody smacked him with a bunch of frying pans.
Dora Hand was entertaining a blind man, Old Judge Harris, the day Mysterious Dave showed up in North Platte for the second time.
The judge had been a regular of Dora’s, but this particular day he’d come to visit her for the purpose of celebrating his one-hundredth birthday. He was skinny and wrinkled as an unmade bed when he took off all his clothes. His eyes were like mother-of-pearl where they had once been as green as spring grass. His mind was partially gone, but some of it was still intact. He had been a widower for nearly forty years and frequently sought the companionship of the various whores who came and went over those years. Dora was among the latest of his paramours, and one of his favorites.
“It’s time,” he said, handing Dora the money. “I figure I won’t live to see another winter. I aim to try and go out of this world by the same route I came into it.”
Judge paid Dora twenty dollars—twice her normal fee, because, as he said, “I’m old as rocks and know I’m not easy for a handsome young woman to look at, much less bed.” Soon enough he was in the bed with Dora and feeling around on her until he found what he was looking for.
“That’s it,” he said, feeling her. “The road to El Dorado, the path of my final escape.”
His fingers were as cold and hard as roof nails.
I wish it was me that was blind, Dora thought as the judge rooted against her. Fortunately the judge’s rooting did not last long. He died before he finished.
Dora wasn’t sure at first if the judge was dead or merely fainted.
She climbed out of bed and dressed in her kimono and waited to see if he would come ’round again.
It was an odd thing, but Dora hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Mysterious Dave ever since she’d met him. She wished it was Dave on the bed instead of the old judge. But if the old judge was dead, she was glad it was him instead of Dave on the bed. She could see after more careful examination that, indeed, the old judge had taken the same route out of the world as the one he’d arrived in it.
She went downstairs and had the Hunchback pour her a drink of whiskey and swallowed it before she said, “You better call the undertaker.”
It was about then that Mysterious Dave walked in. His clothes were torn and he was bleeding from several places. And he walked with a limp.
“Oh, dear,” said Dora. “What happened to you?”
“I rode off a cliff and fell into a river.”
“Oh, that’s terrible.”
“Accident?” the Hunchback said.
“No thanks, I just had one,” Dave said. “But you can pour me a double shot of that whiskey.”
“Why’d you ride off a cliff and into the river, hon?” Dora said. “Weren’t you watching where you was riding?”
“I was looking the wrong way when it happened.”
The Hunchback poured Dave his whiskey and he and Dora watched as Dave drank it down before nodding for the Hunchback to pour another.
“It sounds like you were damn unlucky,” the Hunchback said.
“No, it was a lucky thing for me I rode off that cliff and fell in that river,” Dave said, “or I might not be here now telling you about it.”
“Lucky?” the Hunchback said. “I don’t see nothing lucky about riding off a cliff.”
“You would if you was being chased by a bunch of goddamn Indians wanting to cut off your eyelids and shoot you full of arrows when they caught you.”
“Indians!”
“Don’t worry, they’re all dead now.”
“They ride off the cliff and into the river too?”
“No, they saw what happened to me and stopped short of riding off the cliff,” Dave said, drinking his second whiskey a little more slowly than his first.
“Then they was luckier than you, hon,” Dora said.
“No, they was unlucky. For I tracked them later on and found that they had foolishly ate my horse and fell asleep with full bellies. I shot ’em in their dreams.”
Dave winced when he turned wrong. “I think maybe I sprained an ankle. I also lost my wallet in that river. Dora, honey, I sure could use a free one.”
Dora was so happy to see Dave again that she quickly consented to giving him a free one.
“But first, I’d like me a stack of flapjacks with lots of molasses on ’em. I’ve had a hankering for molasses for two days running.”
Dora took Dave over to the restaurant and bought him a platter of flapjacks, which he devoured, declaring they were about the best flapjacks he could ever recall eating; allowing, of course, for his memory being sometimes faulty.
Once back at the Yellow Dog, as Dave was following Do
ra up the stairs, some fellers were carrying a corpse down the stairs.
“That’s a very old dead man,” Dave said.
“Yes,” Dora said. “It’s Judge Harris.”
“Old and dead,” Dave said. “Bad combination.”
Dora didn’t have the heart to tell Dave how the corpse came to be carried out of the Yellow Dog by some fellers.
Once in Dora’s crib, Dave took his torn shirt off and washed up under his arms and across his chest and belly with a washcloth Dora gave him and rinsed out for him repeatedly in a small basin.
“You know something,” he said in the middle of his toilet. “If it wasn’t for hitting that hard water, the fall wasn’t all that bad. It was sort of like flying, the way you’d imagine it would feel if you was a bird and had wings and could fly. It just didn’t last long, is all…”
“I don’t reckon I want to give it a try,” Dora said. “Riding no horse off a cliff into a river.”
“It was the river that saved me. Otherwise I’d been smashed on rocks and hard ground and those Indians would have desecrated me and left me for the crows to plunder.”
Dave finished his washing and said, “I was real hungry for flapjacks before I seen those Indians, and I was real hungry for you too, Dora.”
“Well, let’s do a little cooking, then,” Dora said with a warm smile. She was just pleased to have a feller in her bed that didn’t have a hunched back or one that would likely die halfway through the fornicating.
Dave limped over and fell on the bed and gave her a big kiss.
“It’s amazing to me what a difference a little time can make,” he said.
“Two days ago I had me two horses, two guns, and two pairs of socks. Then a few hours later, I didn’t have nothing and was about to be scalped and mutilated. Then today, I’ve got myself five horses, a belly full of flapjacks, and a willing woman. It’s some life, ain’t it?”
“It sure is,” Dora said, noticing how Dave had taken his boots off this time.
Dora felt very happy.
Dave was acting almost civilized.
It was that very same night he slipped off while Dora slept and went looking for Buffalo Bill, only to be shot at in the dark once he’d found the ranch and run off by someone he didn’t know and back to the safety of Dora’s bed. He told himself if he hadn’t been so bunged up he’d shot whoever it was that had been shooting at him and he’d shot old Buffalo Bill too.
Well, there was still plenty of time to shoot Buffalo Bill, he reckoned, and fell asleep dreaming about such a glorious time when he would.
Chapter 18
There was a dusting of snow fine as sugar on the ground that morning. Billy had shucked on a bear coat and raised the others from their tents. Normally he would have been on the scout for game much sooner, but he understood about rich people who enjoyed a more leisurely time of it. He figured they’d easily find some game farther up the river in one of the canyons—mule deer or maybe even a bear.
White Eye and Yankee Judd had built a fire and Jane prepared a breakfast of hoe cakes, fried bacon, red-eye gravy, biscuits, and plenty of hot coffee.
Teddy and John had taken turns standing watch throughout the night, like they used to do riding nighthawk on the cattle drives. They had watched the sky turn a soft red, saw the spitting snow, felt the cold deep in their bones, then later John had seen the moon come out and Teddy the stars.
“It’s a lot easier watching over humans than it is gnarly cattle,” John said.
“Except the cost is more dear if we lose one of them.”
“I saw White Eye going into Jane’s tent last night,” John said.
“That’s something you ought to keep to yourself.”
“I just thought you should know the lay of things. Nobody else needs to know, unless you think I should mention it to the Colonel.”
“No. I’m sure the Colonel doesn’t much care, as long as the hunt goes well.”
They had gone down to the river’s edge to water the livestock. John smelt the food and said it put a gnaw in his belly, so they went up and joined the others for breakfast.
Teddy took his plate and went off by the chuck wagon and stared out across the river toward some trees in the distance. He hoped things didn’t get like they did last time in Cheyenne. Trees made good cover for a man with a long gun if such a man wanted to shoot somebody. Still, the threat Cody had revealed to him didn’t seem like that great of a threat somehow. Cody did not have the same reputation as a mankiller that Wild Bill had.
The others finished eating and Jane and White Eye took the plates down to the river to wash them. Yankee refused to wash dishes or pluck the feathers from pheasants or most other tasks he deemed undignified. White Eye didn’t mind, as long as it was a task he and Jane could do together.
“I think I’m clear in love,” White Eye said as he scrubbed the plates with sand and Jane rinsed them.
“No feller’s ever told me that,” Jane said.
“I’m glad I’m the first, then.”
John and Teddy began saddling the horses and getting the pack mules ready.
“We’ll ride up river a ways to some canyons,” Billy told the party. “I think we’ll have some good luck today. The fresh bit of snow will make tracking easy.”
“I’d like it if we got a bear or two today, Colonel,” Rudolph Banks said. “A nice bear rug would look swell in my office.”
“I’ll do my best to get you a bear, sir,” Billy said, quite accommodating.
“I’d like one too,” Edgar said.
The women stood huddled inside their woolen overcoats. They’d tied scarves over their western hats and stood in tall riding boots. Teddy did his best not to make eye contact with Anne. But at the last moment, as everyone was saddling up, their eyes did meet and he saw a slight smile play at the edges of her mouth.
John saw it too and when he and Teddy mounted up and lagged behind the others he said, “I guess my little speech went in one ear and out the other.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Teddy said and rode on ahead a little ways.
Yankee Judd had chosen to go with the party, thus leaving Jane and White Eye behind to tend to the camp, which suited White Eye as fine as a can of peaches.
John looked back just as they rounded a bend in the river and saw the two of them entering Jane’s tent again. It caused him fleeting thoughts of his afternoon tea with Louisa.
I guess it ain’t none of it right, he thought.
The weather was proving to be more ominous than first thought. Low dark clouds were being buffeted by stiff winds out of the north and it began to snow when they were about ten miles from the camp. The river looked black and treacherous. Snowflakes fell in it and disappeared.
Billy picked up bear signs leading into one of the canyons—not the canyon he’d had in mind that morning. He dismounted and knelt to examine the tracks. It was a big bear, probably a grizzly. He waved the others up, said to Rudolph Banks, “We might have found your bear.”
The man looked eager, his young assistant less so.
John rode up and Cody repeated the situation. John got down and checked the sign too, walking up a ways farther, he turned and said, “This bear ain’t walking the way it should.”
“How so?” Cody said.
“He’s not putting half as much weight on that left front paw as he is the other three. Might be he caught it in a trap or got something stuck in it.”
Cody looked at John.
“He’s ailing, he’s probably a lot more dangerous than regular,” John said.
“We best go find him then and put him out of his misery.”
“I don’t want a cripple,” Banks said.
“They won’t anybody know his paw is bad, once you’ve turned him into a rug,” John said.
Cody could see it didn’t sit well with Banks, the way John said it.
Teddy had stayed with the women but they didn’t speak, just waited until Cody waved them all forward
.
“Yankee,” Cody said. “You want to ride out ahead or you want me to send John instead?”
“I’ll take the lead,” Yankee said. “I’ve killed lots of bears, both good ones and bad.”
“Go on, lead out, then.”
“I’d like to ride along with him,” Banks said.
“That might not be the wisest thing,” Cody said.
“I’m paying for this trip, Colonel. I am entitled to do it as I’d like.”
“Yes, sir.” Cody looked at Yankee and Yankee didn’t say anything except, “Okay, then.”
“Edgar,” Banks said to the other man. “Care to ride along? We might get first crack at this old surly bear.”
Edgar did not look as het up about it as his boss, but assented with a strained smile. The others waited for a few moments to give the lead riders time to scout the canyon ahead.
“Is it very dangerous, Colonel?” Emma Banks asked. “Bear hunting?”
“More so than mule deer, but Yankee knows how to hunt ’em.”
They moved on at Cody’s command, Teddy hanging back still to watch the rear of the party. He expected John to ride back and join him, but John rode alongside the Colonel with Emma Banks riding between.
Anne rode by herself a little behind Cody and Emma. It didn’t feel right that she should; she seemed abandoned by the others somehow. Teddy spurred on ahead until he came alongside her.
“You doing okay?” he said.
“I’m a bit cold, but yes, I’m doing fine, Mr. Blue.”
“I’d think after yesterday you could call me by my Christian name.”
“I could,” she said. “But others might see that type of familiarity as untoward.”
“You could call me Teddy when the others weren’t around to hear.”
She looked at him. Her cheeks were red with the cold and she was beautiful.
“It’s none of my business,” he said. “But when is your wedding day?”
Looking straight ahead she said, “We’re scheduled to be married upon our return from this trip, the first of November.”
“You don’t mind my saying, it doesn’t sound like it is something you’re looking greatly forward to.”