Spreading five fingers, Mamay-day-te tapped his left forearm once with a right hand, then tapped the right with his left. Five-times-ten. Then he brushed his fingers along one forearm.
“And a few more,” Lone Wolf whispered to himself as he knelt quickly, his eyes jabbing across the nearby grass to see if he had missed any of the bones.
There were more soldiers than this small band of warriors should attempt to fight off.
“We go!” Lone Wolf shouted as he folded in the corners of the blanket and cradled it in his arm, hurrying down the slope to where Red Otter and the rest awaited him.
Handing the clumsy blanket to Long Horn, he clambered atop his pony and took up the rawhide rein before accepting the blanket bundle once more. As soon as Red Otter had mounted and again held the bones of Guitain, Mamay-day-te waved his arm.
They took off in a clatter across the sandstone and rock, down the narrow creek that would lead them south, farther still into the land of the Tehannos. Lone Wolf smiled grimly. He approved of the bold move taken by the young war chief. Heading south and east was the only course offered them at this moment, the only way they could escape the army patrol.
“They are heading for this place,” Red Otter said breathlessly as he brought his pony alongside his brother’s mount.
“They knew we would come,” Lone Wolf replied, fury rising in his voice.
So much in his life had led to tragedy. An accomplished warrior, every bit as good an orator as Satanta himself, Lone Wolf nonetheless had been forced by circumstances to play a secondary role in the life of his people. While Satanta enjoyed much greater prestige, Lone Wolf almost gave his life fighting for the honor of his people eight winters before, when Yellow Hair Custer came to drive the tribes back to their reservations. And now as the white man encircled that Kiowa reservation more tightly than ever before, with Satanta’s influence on the wane, it appeared the boot-licking peace chief, Kicking Bird, held most of the tribe in his hand.
Lone Wolf’s heart cried out as the wind whipped his short, shaggy hair from the corners of his mouth. Arrrgh! He could not even bring home the bones of his son without the yellowlegs harassing his journey.
For the next two days the Kiowas’ heels were dogged by the soldiers, having little time to rest, graze or water their ponies. It was the evening of that second day when Red Otter signaled a halt and reined up beside his brother.
“There, Lone Wolf,” he said, pointing toward the ocher bluff rising above them more than a hundred feet.
Lone Wolf glanced at their backtrail, seeing the dust of the pursuing soldiers. “You want us to take our ponies up that steep slope?”
Red Otter wagged his head sadly. “No. We must leave the bones of our sons here.”
Again he glanced at the nearness of the dust hung beyond the hills. The soldiers were driving them south. There was a fort of yellowlegs farther south. How far, he did not know. But one thing was certain: the soldiers were squeezing Mamay-day-te’s war party between them and the soldier fort. The trap might close tomorrow. Perhaps the next day. But soon …
“Leave them here?” he asked, already knowing the answer in his heart.
“I do not want to leave the bones where the soldiers will know where,” Red Otter replied.
For a moment he studied the narrow clefts in the rocks above them on the red and brown ridge. He sighed. “Yes.”
They slid from their ponies quickly and shuffled clumsily up the steep slope, dragging behind them the heavy blanket bundles lashed with rawhide strips. When he had neared the top, less than ten feet from the lip of the bluff itself, Lone Wolf halted near a narrow crack in the rock wall.
Turning the bundle on its side, he was able to shove it into the mouth of the crevice with difficulty. Then it became easier as the blanket disappeared into the shadowed darkness. Before it was totally out of sight, Lone Wolf bent his head and kissed the hem of the dirty blanket.
“Good-bye, my son. One day I will return for you,” he whispered. “Wearing the scalps of many white men on my shirt and leggings to show you. Good-bye.”
Immediately he shoved the bundle into the crevice, burying it the length of his own arm so that no man would ever be able to see a hint of the red blanket. Then he turned and slid down the steep slope in a flurry of dust and rocks tumbling into the creek bottom.
“These ponies are weary,” Mamay-day-te said as he tossed Lone Wolf the reins to the chief’s animal.
“We will find others soon.” He leaped atop the pony and reined about, hammering heels to its ribs.
“White settlers?”
Lone Wolf nodded. “If not them—we will steal soldier horses.”
It was as he had promised—two hard, trail-pounding days later, after a nonstop chase that left little bottom in their war ponies. Smoke smudging the horizon to the south gave away the position of what they thought would be the white man’s fort called Concho. But in bellying up to the crest of a brush-covered hill, the Kiowa warriors saw the smoke did not come from the soldier fort some three miles farther down the valley. Instead, the smoke came from the cookfires of a camp of buffalo soldiers. And nearby grazed their herd of cavalry mounts.
Smiling, without a word, the warriors nodded to one another and descended the hill.
“I will take the ponies toward the fort,” Mamay-day-te offered.
“You will act as a decoy?” Red Otter asked.
The young war chief nodded. “I am responsible for the lives of all of you. I will make it look as if we are all mounted and skirting around the soldier fort to avoid the yellowlegs.”
“I will count on you doubling back after you have freed all our ponies to be on their way—once you are past the fort,” Lone Wolf declared.
“I will rejoin you in a day,” Mamay-day-te said.
Lone Wolf turned to the others, waving his arms, hollering his orders. “Strip your ponies. Bring bridles and blankets with you. We will wait down by the creek until nightfall, when we will sneak in among the soldier horses. We can ride some off, driving the others before us so that the yellowlegs cannot follow.”
“To the soldiers who follow us already, you will make it look as if we are giving wide berth to the fort the soldiers call Concho?” asked Long Horn, turning to the war chief.
Mamay-day-te swept to the back of his pony. “May the Grandfather Above make you as invisible as the wind tonight when you take the soldier horses. Hep-hah!”
He brought his pony around, waving a noisy piece of rawhide that startled the other animals he began driving on down the creek bank. Two dozen riderless ponies and one young warrior bringing up the rear, galloping toward the soldier fort.
“He has the heart of a mountain lion,” Red Otter said quietly as the ponies disappeared from view.
Lone Wolf turned on him, his face grave. “If he had truly had the heart of a mountain lion, Mamay-day-te would not have left the bodies of our sons on that mountainside.”
Pushing past his brother, Lone Wolf signaled the rest to follow him on foot down into the dry creekbottom, where they would hide themselves until nightfall.
With a prayer in his heart and a curse on his lips, Lone Wolf vowed he would leave at least one soldier dead this night before the cavalry horses belonged to the Kiowa. It would be but one death against the death of his son.
But it would be the first of many deaths he hoped would drive from his bowels the aching fury he suffered.
4
Late March 1874
“It’s a sure way to make yourself some money, Seamus,” said Billy Dixon to the tall Irishman seated at his table in Hoover’s saloon. It had the roughest of reputations, perhaps because it sold the strongest of whiskey.
“Sounds to me like it’s a sure way to get myself killed, Billy. No thanks.”
Dixon sighed. “You’re a good man with a rifle, I’ve heard tell. Many a lesser man’s made himself a small fortune out on the buffalo range. That’s country so open you can see three days behind and a full week ah
ead of yourself. But if you’re of a mind not to give it a try…”
“I’ve other plans,” Donegan replied. “And they don’t include making myself a target down on the buffalo range.”
“I just come in from that country—didn’t see a feather or sign of smoke one. Shit, if those Injuns make any big stink over the hide men coming down there, why I’ll kiss your ass till it barks like a blue fox.”
Donegan eyed the young buffalo hunter. “You been down there lately, have you?”
“Circled down to Palo Duro, ‘round to Buffalo Springs and the Red River, ‘round about to Adobe Walls and back to—”
“Adobe Walls, you say?”
Dixon was suddenly taken aback by the interruption and intense interest glowing in the Irishman’s gray eyes at the mention of the place. “Yes,” he answered slowly. “You heard of them?”
“Heard they’re the ruins of an old trading post. Anything left of them?”
Dixon wagged his head, scratching the back of his neck. “Walls nearly washed away—only some four foot high now. Why?”
Donegan averted his eyes, staring into his whiskey. “Just … interested. You see anything—unusual.”
“Strange questions a man to be asking me.”
“Never you mind then, Billy,” he said before he drank from his glass.
“It damn well may be the last hurraw on this part of the plains, Seamus,” Dixon pressed on, trying to sell the Irishman on the idea of throwing in for the trip south. “Don’t you damn well feel the sap of spring running in your veins?”
“Whiskey is what I’m feeling, Billy. And I ain’t empty-headed enough to go somewhere asking for trouble. Damn, but don’t it always find me where I’m hiding anyway.”
“Seamus, I went south to smell things over, see where I’d want to camp come the time the herds wander back north.”
“You was lucky you didn’t lose your pretty hair.”
Dixon shrugged. “Perhaps luck does have something to do with it. The way that big outfit got shot up down on the Palo Duro last month. But the hide wagons of Mooars—filled to the sidewalls with prime winter hides—sure did make a lot of us sit up and take notice. Made me start thinking.”
“And made you ride down to that country on your own to take a look around.”
Dixon leaned in, slapping the table with one hand in excitement. “The best part is the traders are coming with us, Seamus!”
“Traders?”
Billy’s head bobbed. “Men like Charlie Myers.”
A. C. “Charlie” Myers had been a buffalo hunter of a time himself, then of recent began a general mercantile business. His specialty had been the sugar-curing of buffalo out at the smokehouse he had built on Pawnee Fork. He had a profitable business shipping to eastern markets. After sugar-curing each buffalo “ham,” Myers smoked it and sewed it in canvas to preserve it for its journey east. He was the sort, Dixon knew, who had not only the money, but the savvy, to make a grand scheme work. And opening up a full-scale trading post south of the dead line was a grand scheme indeed.
“None of the traders been moving a whole hell of a lot of their goods here in Dodge, so Myers made a number of us an offer. If we’d go down into buffalo country after that Texas herd, he’d set up shop for us right down there on the Canadian.”
Donegan nodded. “Myers got every reason in the world to talk you boys into going, don’t he?”
“Better having a trader down there than one way up here over a hundred miles away from the buffalo ground. Times’ve changed, Irishman. No more are the big shaggies close by Dodge the way they once was.”
“Myers only got two wagons. How’s he figure on hauling enough goods south to make it worth his while, yours too?”
“That’s the beauty in it, don’t you see? Myers will pay every hunter with an outfit—wagons and teams—to haul his goods south for him. We’ll all be going south empty anyway, and Charlie will pay us the going dollar for freight to get his truck down there for him.”
“It all makes some sense to me now,” Donegan replied, looking toward the door.
“So, you’ll throw in with us?”
He shook his head, grinning. “Not that, Billy. I was saying it made sense that this town suddenly had some life pumped back into it. I wondered why for the past few days—just what all the excitement was.”
“Folks like Myers and Emanuel Dubbs aren’t taking just anybody down.”
“I’d figure they’d want all comers—sweeten their share of the proceeds.”
Dixon shook his head. “Myers going to sell everything at Dodge City prices—he swore he won’t gouge a one of us. But in return, he wants to be sure that no one is going but those who got the sand and tallow to make a stand of it—if it comes down to it.”
Donegan smiled, licking drops of whiskey from his lips. “Oh, it’ll come to it, no doubt. But it’s a smart man will back himself up with only those who got the grit to stare trouble in the face.”
“There’s no running this time, we figure. Far enough from Dodge City where we’ll be. Too far for troops to reach us. We’re on our own down there if the Kiowa and Comanche want to stir things up south of the dead line. Yessir—it’s fight to the last ditch and victory to the strong I say.”
“It’s their buffalo ground.”
“No it ain’t, Irishman. That’s ground open to any man what’s got the balls to make his claim on it.”
“Sounds to me like you’re so all-fired set on heading to that Injin country because it’s the last place to make buffalo hunting a paying proposition, Billy. You know where you’ll be having Myers set up for business?”
Dixon wagged his head once. “Not for sure. Anyplace there’s good water and grass, enough timber too.”
“And buffalo,” Seamus said, musing on it a moment. “Your enterprise got a lot of takers?”
“Some of the best, Seamus. Just yesterday Jim Hanrahan rolled into town from the north country and signed on soon as he heard tell of our plans.”
“He a good man?”
“Hanrahan? One of the best buffalo hunters in this part of the frontier. He’s been in on the hide trade from the first day and runs a good outfit. Was a big boost when he said he was heading south with us.”
“Sounds to me like you’ll have enough grit along with you to stare down any Injin trouble … as long as you aren’t filling your ranks with the likes of that one at the bar,” Donegan replied, thumbing the greenhorn propped against the wobbly bar.
The easterner clearly stood out. “Fairchild? Just a lawyer from back east out to see the woolly west, Donegan. I don’t figure he’ll be going along.”
As much as he hoped it, Dixon could not be sure. Something about the tenderfoot’s shiny, store-bought suit and plug hat nestled squarely atop his well-groomed head, that brilliant spray of colorful vest there beneath his silk cravat, which made him stand out garish and ungainly among the rougher men of this town.
“You got a blacksmith going, haven’t you?”
Dixon leaned back, assuredly. “Damn if we don’t.”
Donegan appeared genuinely surprised. “You don’t say?”
“Fella by the name of O’Keefe. Got a wagon hired to carry his bellows and forge. There’ll be plenty of work for him down there—not only on the wagons coming to and fro, but what with setting up the shops: hinges, hardware, and all the rest.”
“Now, let me see if I get this right,” the Irishman said, grinning widely. “You’re taking enough trade goods down to supply every hunter in the surrounding country.”
“Right.”
“And with it, enough ammunition to supply a small army.”
“Which is what we’ll have to be—poking our sticks down there in that hornet’s nest.”
“And Myers is taking some whiskey along as well?”
“Knew I’d interest you, Donegan.”
“Whoa—wait just a minute. Tell me how close you’ll be getting to the South Canadian.”
Dixon waited a mom
ent, his one eyebrow lowering. “Oughtta be damn close. Why, what’s pulling you down there, Irishman?”
“You’ll be going to that country, you say?”
“Well,” he thought of it, the way the Irishman was near whispering, his eyes gone shifty too, “come to … yes. By damn, we’ll be in that country.”
He held out his hand to Dixon. “I’ll throw in with you after all, Billy.”
“Damn, if that ain’t good news, Irishman! Lemme buy you dinner on it.”
Donegan wagged his head, suddenly glancing at the falling light streaming through the western windows. “Can’t this night, Billy. Promised myself to another.”
“One of those new girls down the street, fresh in from Leavenworth I’ll bet,” Dixon said, grinning.
“Naw. Louis Abragon. I’m buying him dinner at Kelly’s place, in return for a little of his help.”
“Help? A business deal?”
Donegan rose and shoved the rest of the bottle across the table to Dixon. “Let’s just say that Abragon is going to help me with my Spanish.”
“You’re learning to speak it? What good is that palaver gonna do you, Irishman? Planning on riding on down to Mexico to visit the greasers?”
“No. Planning on visiting only one—and his name is Abragon. We got some business to talk over. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Louis Abragon? What’s he offering you in the way of a business proposition that Charlie Myers can’t?”
Donegan got that impish look on his tanned face. “Did I use that word—business? My mistake, Billy. Like I said, Abragon is helping me translate some Spanish.”
“Never figured you for a man of languages, Donegan,” he said, wagging his head in disbelief. “So be it. Just remember, we leave day after.”
“Don’t worry, me young friend. I’ll be rid of this hangover of mine by then,” he called out as he shouldered his way through the crowd and disappeared into the growing dusk.
Dixon pulled the bottle toward him and lifted it to his lips. Damn if it didn’t burn. He just might have to give himself one last good and rollicking drunk before he pulled out of Dodge. Perhaps more than that—he’d call on at least one or two of those new Missouri girls Abragon just brought down from Leavenworth.
Dying Thunder Page 5