“You tell me,” Tucker said, “ ’cause I don’t remember a thing about it. What’d you hear?”
“Just what they’re saying around town,” Jack whispered. “About how you killed that feller right off the steamer. The other roustabouts are madder’n hell.” A cup dropped in the next room, and Jack ducked. After long moments, his face was once again framed in the window. “Those other roustabouts and teamsters are getting liquored-up down at the Bucket. Talking lynching they are.”
“Great.” Tucker kicked the pillow, and more lice scrambled away. “Don’t look like my chances are getting any better.”
“Got other problems around town, too.” Jack looked down the alley. “Lorna’s gone.”
“Gone where? If she went south to Yankton with that Maynard Miles . . .”
“She didn’t go with him. He’s the one who sounded the alarm.” Loud voices rose and fell in a dangerous crescendo from the Bucket of Blood a hundred yards down along the river front. “He said Lorna left the general store late last night after doing inventory. Maynard escorted her upstairs to her room and went back downstairs. While his nose was buried in bookwork, he heard some commotion about midnight but just thought it was drunks stumbling back to the steamer. Until this morning when he went to take Lorna to breakfast. She was gone, and he come running to get Aurand.”
“Maybe she just had to get away for a while. That Maynard can be an annoying SOB . . .”
“Aurand figured she was embarrassed because of your arrest and left town.”
“Me?” Tucker asked hoarsely. “And hand me your canteen.”
Jack took the cork off his canteen and passed it through the bars. “Aurand figures she might not be able to live with you murdering that roustabout and took off by her lonesome. He thinks she went back home to Sioux City.”
“That’s not smart, a woman alone in this country.”
“Especially with the Lakota close by. They’ve been known to steal white women.”
“What Lakota?” Tucker forced himself to talk in a whisper as he kept an eye on the door. “The only Indians around here are Santee Sioux down at Crow Creek, and some Dakota farming up north. How d’you know Lakota took her?”
“Aurand,” Jack explained. “When Lorna came up missing, he come and got me to work through any sign around the mercantile. Unshod ponies had been hobbled out back of the store, all right. By their droppings, they’ve just come up from the Badlands.”
“Has Aurand formed a posse?”
“Not on my information,” Jack said. “He ain’t taking it too seriously.”
The man in the outer room cursed loudly, and Jack ducked down again. When he was sure the guard wouldn’t come busting into the cell and spot him at the window, he stood and pressed his face against the bars again. “Soon’s I saw it was Lakota and that Lorna was gone, I figured they took her. But if I told Aurand what I found, his bunch would muck things up. They’d trample over any sign the Indians might have left, and we’d never get her back. Hunting down deserters and petty rustlers is one thing. But that bunch Aurand’s got with him couldn’t find buffalo tracks in the snow.”
Tucker nodded. If Jack said pony droppings indicated Lakota waited behind the mercantile last night, it was gospel. He read trail sign as well as—sometimes better than—Tucker.
He felt his headache returning in spades, and he rubbed his temples. “And she didn’t hop a steamer south?”
“None’s went out for three days.” Jack accepted the empty canteen and hung it off his pommel. “Remember those pony tracks we ran into northwest of Ft. Pierre last year, the ones we swore were made by two Dakota riding double?”
“ ’Cause they were so much deeper than the rest.” Tucker felt the blood drain from his face. “Blue Boy,” he breathed.
“That’s him,” Jack whispered. “I’d bet a month’s pay that was Blue Boy’s sign I cut in back of the store. Got him six Miniconjou riding with him now, if I read their trail right.”
Tucker slumped against the wall of his cell. Blue Boy got his blue eyes and pale skin from his white mother, and all the other looks and size from his Lakota father. After Blue Boy’s father had been killed by an English trapper in the Shining Mountains, Blue Boy’s mother took her young son to relatives in Minnesota to live. How Blue Boy came to be in the Dakota Territory, Tucker had no idea. But by the man’s reputation, Tucker didn’t care to get close enough to ask. For every enemy Blue Boy came in contact with—the rumor among Indians went—he killed. “Maybe Lorna’s just visiting a friend . . .”
Jack reached inside his shirt. He thrust a patch of cloth through the bars, and Tucker snatched it. He could almost smell Lorna on the gingham, the identical pattern as the weave of the dress she wore that night in the store. “I found this two miles south of town,” Jack said, “along the river bluffs. Looks like they stopped to water their horses sometime last night and dismounted. This was hung in sagebrush beside a woman’s tracks. A little too coincidental, Lorna gone the same day as Lakota tracks out back of her store.”
“So she’s alive?”
“At least she was when she left that,” Jack said. “Can’t guarantee her luck won’t play out.”
“How much jump they got on us?”
“Half-day by now,” Jack answered “And how you figure ‘us’?”
“Who’s standing guard outside the door?” Tucker asked.
“Philo Brown. And he looks plumb ready and willing to use that Greener lying across his fat lap.”
“Give me a gun,” Tucker said, watching the door.
Jack reached into his saddlebags and handed Tucker a well-worn .41 Remington. He passed the derringer through the bars, and Tucker stuffed it into his pants pocket.
“Not very smart, going against a shotgun with that thing,” Jack said.
“Let me worry about that. Where’s Aurand?”
“Seen him disappear into a crib above the Bucket with that new dancer.”
“Good.” Tucker felt better already. At least he was forming an escape plan, even if it was harebrained. He patted his trouser pocket. The twelve dollars he had left after buying the whisky two nights ago was still there. He handed Jack a ten-dollar gold piece. “Take this eagle and go buy the best whisky you can. Come back here, and give it to Philo.”
“Let me get this straight,” Jack said. “You want me to buy good whisky for a man that’d as soon kill you as look at you?”
“Something like that. Except tell ’ol Philo you bought it for me. Ask him to pass it into my cell.”
“He won’t. The damn fool will drink it himself.”
“Exactly.” Tucker grinned, thinking of the fat man guzzling booze until he couldn’t waddle straight. “Philo won’t risk drinking outside where Aurand might see him, no matter how hot it is in this office. No, he’ll do his drinking inside where no one can see him. And when he comes in here nine sheets to the wind, I’ll put this little gun on him.”
Jack grinned, and his off-color gold tooth gleamed in the bright afternoon light. “It just might work.”
“It better,” Tucker said, “for Lorna’s sake. Now go get that bottle, and pass it to Philo. Then saddle my mule, and bring it out back.”
Jack looked both ways along the alley before dropping into the saddle and riding off.
Tucker turned and sat on the edge of his bunk as he took the derringer from his pocket. He covered it with his hat and waited until Jack made the purchase.
CHAPTER 3
* * *
The jailhouse door opened and just as hurriedly slammed shut. “That you, Philo?” Tucker shouted.
Philo Brown threw open the door leading to the cell. He hitched his gun belt up over the double roll surrounding his hips. But it drooped back down when he raised a bottle of whisky high so Tucker could see it. “A gift to you from your friend Jack Worman.”
“Let me have it,” Tucker said, judging the distance from the cell door to Philo. If he shot the deputy now and Philo dropped where he stood,
he would be too far away for Tucker to reach the keys on his belt. He needed Philo closer. “Let me have a pull.”
Philo backed up into the office but left the door open as if to taunt Tucker. Philo grabbed the cork in his teeth and spat it on the floor while he held the bottle up, toasting Tucker. “Can’t let my prisoner be poisoned,” Philo said as he brushed dried food from his beard. “It’s happened before, I heard.” He took a long pull from the bottle and wiped his mouth with his shirtsleeve. “I’ll taste just enough to make sure it’s safe. Wouldn’t want to cheat the hangman now, would we.” He grinned. “Man’s got to make an honest living like the rest of us.” He exaggerated a bow. “Present locked-up company excepted.”
Philo dropped into Aurand’s padded captain’s chair. He propped his feet on an open drawer and grabbed a tin cup. He tossed the cold coffee onto the dirt floor and filled the cup to the rim with whisky. He gulped the liquor, and some spilled into his beard. Within moments, the cup was empty, awaiting a refill. “Ah.” He drew out a long sigh. “That’s drinkin’ whisky.”
“You always did like your hooch.” Tucker recalled the story of Philo Brown and four other buffalo hunters. Fresh from a heavy kill day, they were on the prod to celebrate. They’d got liquored-up on the whisky in their saddle bags and found a small village of Brule’ Sioux camped along the Bad River. Other Indians who knew the story claimed it took only minutes for the four hunters to kill the six warriors from long distance, leaving the women to a much more horrible fate that lasted for days until they, too, succumbed. Tucker was certain it was Philo’s natural brutality that had caught Aurand’s eye when he needed deputies. He was Aurand’s left-hand man. But just this moment, the left hand was more interested in what it held to his lips.
“Seems like I should have a sip of that.” Tucker gripped the derringer concealed in his hat. “After all, it was my friend who dropped it off.”
Philo’s words began to slur. “I’m still not sure it’s safe to drink,” he sputtered between gulps.
“Well, it won’t be safe to drink once Aurand finds out you got liquored up when you were supposed to be watching a prisoner.”
Philo’s smile faded, and he stopped with the cup midway to his lips. “How’s Aurand gonna’ find out? He’s with his woman.” He forced a laugh. “Tied up, so to speak.”
“I’ll tell him.” Tucker stood upright with his hat toward the cell door. “If you don’t give me a pull of that bottle, I’ll tell Aurand.”
Philo remained silent for a long moment as if weighing his options. Aurand hated Tucker, but he might hate drink even more. If he learned Philo had got drunk in the jailhouse, Philo might not make it out of the building alive. And he knew it as well. “And if I give you a drink, you’ll keep your mouth shut?”
“On the Good Book, I swear.” Tucker cocked the derringer under his hat.
Philo looked to the cup, then to Tucker, then back to the cup. He poured three fingers into it and set the bottle on the desk. As he walked toward the cell, Tucker shifted the gun in his hand.
Philo handed Tucker the cup through the bars. “Here’s your damned drink.”
“You keep it.” Tucker dropped his hat and jammed the derringer through the bars into Philo’s belly. “This little gun’s only got the one barrel, and it might not kill you outright. But if I gut-shot you this close, you’d eventually die. Only sawbones in these parts is the fort surgeon. And I doubt he’d help you, the way you treat soldiers.”
The older man slumped as if he’d already been shot. “What do you want?”
Tucker nodded to the keys dangling on the fat man’s suspenders. “First, skin that Colt. Careful like.”
Philo slowly plucked his gun from his holster and handed it to Tucker.
“Now open the door.”
“You’re not gonna’ get away with this. We’ll hunt you down and—”
“Lock me up on some other trumped-up charge?” Tucker opened the loading gate of the Colt so it wouldn’t fall through his pants. “You peckerwoods would never frame me, right? Now get in here.” Tucker moved aside.
Philo had to turn sideways to stagger through the narrow door, and he leaned against one wall. “You gonna’ kill me?”
“I should,” Tucker said. “For all the soldiers you killed lately.”
“They’re deserters. Snowbirds.”
Tucker had witnessed more than a few deserters returned to Ft. Sully draped over the back of an army mount led by Philo or another of Aurand’s deputies. The army offered twenty-five dollars for the return of deserters on the frontier, dead or alive. It wasn’t enough to entice bounty hunters, but it was just enough to put Aurand and his men on the trail. And Philo usually took the dead-or-alive clause to heart.
Tucker grabbed Philo’s snotty bandana from around his neck and gagged his mouth. “Lie face down there.” He motioned to the bed.
While Philo dropped onto the bunk, Tucker backed out of the cell. He grabbed shackles from a peg on the wall, probably the same shackles Philo used on unlucky deserters. Tucker clamped one on each wrist and secured Philo to the bed before shutting the cell door.
Loud footsteps sounded on the wooden walkway outside the office, and Tucker drew Philo’s gun from his waistband. He crouched to one side of the door leading to the outer office. When the footsteps clomped on by, he walked to Aurand’s desk and opened the drawers until he found his Remington .44 conversion. He snatched his belt from the coat rack and fed it through the loops on his trousers. Jack had made fun of him for wearing a belt instead of suspenders. Tonight it would prove an asset as he strapped on his belt and holstered his gun. He snatched his Bowie from Aurand’s desk drawer and kept an eye on the door while he positioned the knife sheath in front of his holster.
He turned back to the cell. Philo thrashed around like a beached catfish. “If you get thirsty,” Tucker said, nodding to the water jug out of reach of anyone in the cell, “take a cool sip. Just like I did.” He dropped Philo’s gun into the water pot. Philo’s struggle became muted as Tucker shut the door.
He cracked the door leading out of the marshal’s office and peeked out. The Belle of the Ball sat at dock, her Indian annuities off-loaded and guarded by a squad of soldiers from Ft. Sully. Their Springfield rifles hung loosely from their shoulders, freeing their hands to wipe the sweat from their faces and necks. Dirt had caked around their collars and armpits from the wind coming off the river kicking up fine Dakota dust.
On the other side of the street toward where the mercantile sat, two boys played mumblety-peg in the dirt. One threw his knife and narrowly missed the other’s bare feet. They tilted their heads back and laughed heartily while one retrieved the knife for another round.
Beyond the mercantile a dozen horses stood three-legged, tied to the hitching rail. And beyond that lay the Bucket of Blood, where a crowd spilled onto the street. Drunken, angry cries rose and fell with the mob’s undulations as they staggered toward the jail.
Tucker craned his neck to look in the direction of the dock. Along with the soldiers guarding the annuities, teamsters had backed their freight wagons to await loading by the roustabouts. Another wagon sat with buffalo hides piled high, the teamster impervious to the swarm of blowflies attacking the hides. And, next to him, a wagon sat parked loaded with bags of manganese, all waiting loading and off-loading by the growing crowd of roustabouts approaching the jail with bad intent.
Satisfied no one guarded the jail, Tucker pulled his shirt collar up and his hat low and stepped lightly onto the wooden walkway in front of the jail. He fought the urge to look over his shoulder at the approaching crowd and walked as calmly as he was able toward the alley.
“Over here,” Jack whispered.
He sat his pony, all but hidden behind a stack of empty pickle barrels. He held the reins of a sixteen-hand mule. The critter’s ears perked up when he saw Tucker running toward him.
“The roustabouts got themselves a damn fine-looking noose,” Jack said, glancing about the alley.
“You sound happy. It was my neck gonna’ be stretched by that rope.”
Jack shrugged. “I just like to see people take pride in their work.”
“If we don’t get the hell out of here”—Tucker swung into the saddle and patted the mule’s withers—“that mob’s going to need two nooses—one for each of us.”
They started out of the alley, riding slow, like they had no cares. When they ran out of alley two blocks down, the crowd had reached the jail. Two men staggered inside and ran back out. Gunfire sounded like a mini battle outside the jail when they discovered Tucker had escaped.
He and Jack rode slowly until reaching the outskirts of town, where they picked up the pace. Tucker kept an eye on their back trail, but Aurand had not mounted any posse, and Tucker imagined he was still tied up with that dancer from the Bucket.
A mile outside of town they turned west until they reached the river bluffs. They rode down the steep embankment and let their animals drink from the Missouri, safe in the secluded hills.
Tucker drank from the slow-moving river and filled his canteen, still dehydrated from his time in the jail cell. He wet his bandana and carefully washed the blood from his head. What Aurand or Philo had hit him with, he had no idea, but it had made a wicked gash.
“Think we can catch up with those Lakota?” Jack sliced off a chunk of jerky and handed Tucker the rest. “They’ve made no attempt to hide their tracks up to now. Like they don’t care if they’re followed.”
“Or they want to be followed,” Tucker said, looking about the high river bluffs. “Keep on your toes, Jackson.”
“We might have another problem.” Jack unfolded a paper and handed it to Tucker. Lorna’s image had been sketched on a paper offering a thousand dollars for her return.
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