Backed to the Wall

by C. M. Wendelboe

  “Bobcat,” Jack answered.

  Tucker shrugged and closed his eyes as he savored the meat. It seemed so long since he’d eaten anything that the bobcat tasted as good as any buffalo steak he’d ever had. When he finished the meat, he grabbed some wild onions popping on a stick over the fire. “How’d you come on to me?”

  “First, Cowtown.” Jack poured each a cup of chicory and sat on a rock in front of Tucker. “I got to worrying about you being there all by your lonesome. Figured you needed help. So I rode in anyways—”

  “I thought we’d agreed you were in no shape to help.”

  “That was you agreeing with yourself.” Jack nudged Tucker. “Couldn’t let my ol’ pard face those cowboys alone. Anyways, some of those cowboys didn’t run off with the others you suckered. Some held back. And when they seen me sitting there in that saloon . . . well, they placed it upon themselves that I was a little too calm. That I was, in fact, the one who killed that shopkeeper. So they held me until the rest of those rowdies came back. Had a vigilance trial they called it. The next day I was to be run up a telegraph pole when the ol’ gal who owns Sadie’s Saloon busted through the crowd. Seems like the shopkeeper’s widow told her the man who killed her husband was almost too big to fit through the door.” Jack smiled. “First time in my life I was grateful I’m a runt.”

  “But how’d you know it was my tracks you was following? Ben was arrow-shot, and I had to take Jess Hammond’s horse.” He told Jack how Jess had sent Red Sun on a wild-goose chase just so he could beat Tucker to death, and how Simon Cady had decided at that time to harvest his wanted man. “You knew Ben’s track. His gait. On Jess’s horse you wouldn’t know it was me.”

  “I didn’t right off.” Jack passed his canteen to Tucker. “I finally found where your mule had been killed, and I started working things out from there. I followed your tracks until I come onto Simon Cady. Damn fool singing like he didn’t care if he attracted every Indian in the territory. Jess’s body was tied across Cady’s donkey. We got to talking, and I got to tell you, that man made the hairs on my butt stand at attention, he was so creepy.”

  “How so?”

  “Asking who I was,” Jack answered. “Wanting to know if I’d ever had a price on my head. When I told him all I was doing is trying to find you, his hand came out of his coat with a sawed off Greener double I never spotted. He pointed with Anastasia—that’s what he called his shotgun—to the west and wished me luck. It didn’t take me long to get clear of Cady.”

  “See anything of Aurand? He’s got Philo and Red with him.” Tucker licked onion juice off his fingers, and Jack handed him more.

  “I haven’t yet, but I suspect they’re out trying to find us right now.”

  Tucker felt Jess’s empty holster.

  “I cleaned it some after I found you.” Jack reached over to his bedroll and grabbed Jess’s Remington. Just like the one Tucker carried.

  Tucker checked the cartridges before he holstered the gun. He slung the belt over his shoulder and tried standing, but he fell back onto the ground. He rubbed the fresh bandage encircling his leg.

  “That leg will take some time to mend up.” Jack propped Tucker up against the saddle once more.

  “Don’t have time to wait till it heals. I got a feeling those Indians will be coming up any time, as sloppy as I’ve been leaving sign for them to follow.”

  Jack took out a tobacco pouch and began rolling two smokes. “That’s the oddest thing.” Jack lit the cigarettes and handed Tucker one. “As obvious as you’ve been, Aurand should have caught up with you by now, too. Especially with Red with them. Nobody confuses a trail on Red.”

  “Unless he wants them to.”

  They finished their noonday meal, and Jack rubbed sand over the tin plates before stuffing them in his saddlebags. “How’s the leg feel now?”

  Tucker flexed it and found being off it for a few hours had helped the pain and the stiffness. That and Jack’s doctoring. “See any infection while you were in there?”

  “That’s another surprising thing. It looked clean.”

  “I can thank Red and his Crow concoction for that.” Tucker had been wounded at Antietam. A ball had penetrated his shoulder, passing through and through. In that Confederate prison he’d spent the rest of the war in, Tucker had seen many other Yankees come in wounded less severely, yet they soon died from infection. “I ought to be good to travel in the morning.”

  “You asking me or telling me?” Jack said.

  “Does it matter where Lorna’s concerned?”

  “I suppose not,” Jack said as he unrolled his bedroll. “If you think you can make it on your own.”

  Tucker wrapped a blanket around his shoulders. “You leaving?”

  “Got to,” Jack said. “I need to ride out. See if I can pick up any sign of Blue Boy. I don’t want to be a sitting duck when he comes onto us. Or when Aurand figures out Red’s been leading them in circles.”

  CHAPTER 34

  * * *

  Aurand climbed off his horse and held the reins while the gelding drank from the drying creek bed. The Badlands this time of year could be hell on earth. With the storm two days forgotten, the ground had once again begun to crack from the heat. He should have been grateful for what cool water the creek provided. Instead, he was just frustrated that they hadn’t come across Tucker yet.

  Philo stood back from the creek bank and let his horse drink while he resisted the urge to sip the water himself. After long moments, he dropped onto his knees and scooped mud from the trickling creek. When he came up, silt was pasted across his face and into his scraggly beard. He stood and looked about. Red stood beside his horse as it cropped at some grama grass on a hillside twenty yards away. Philo looked at Red and turned his back as he bent to Aurand. “I think we got problems,” he whispered.

  “What kind of problems?” Aurand asked.

  “Get rid of the breed. We need to talk.”

  Aurand had worked alongside Philo for years. He knew every emotion, every weakness, every strength in the man. He’d grown to trust Philo’s judgment when on the trail, even if he didn’t trust him when he was drinking. As he looked at Philo, he knew whatever he had to say was serious. And he couldn’t risk Red hearing it.

  “Red,” Aurand called out, and the scout led his mare to where Aurand and Philo stood. “Go out and see what you can wrangle up for meat.”

  Red checked the sun’s angle. “Kind of early for supper, ain’t it?”

  Aurand shrugged. “It won’t be long, and we’ll catch up with Tucker. We can afford the time to eat a good meal.”

  Red unsheathed his Spencer from the saddle scabbard. “I think I saw a small herd of mule deer a couple hills over.”

  Philo waited until the white socks of Red’s mare had disappeared over the hill before talking. “Red’s been playing us for suckers.”

  Aurand filled his pipe and patted his vest for a lucifer. “How so?”

  “He’s leading us around in circles.”

  “Oh bull—”

  “Look,” Philo said, “I’m not the tracker Red is. But I’m no slouch, either. Even Jess could have followed the tracks Tucker’s been laying down”—Philo made the sign of the cross—“as obvious as they are.”

  Aurand squatted on his heels, and motioned for Philo to do the same. “Here’s where we are.” He drew in the dirt with his finger. “Where’s the last time we cut Tucker’s sign?”

  Philo scraped an X in the dirt. “Just south of where we were camped. And where Jess lit out.”

  Aurand felt his anger rise. When he and Philo had returned with camp meat, Jess was gone. He took his bedroll and saddle, his horse, and even his saddlebags with him. He didn’t intend to return, and Tucker had escaped. When Red came back from scouting the region for Tucker, he had told them that Jess lit out to parts unknown. And somehow Tucker had got hold of a horse. His escape was speculation among all three, and they tossed it around that Tucker might have surprised Jess and taken his
horse and that Jess had gone after Tucker on foot. Or stolen another horse somewhere. Speculation. But Aurand had the feeling Jess would not be returning. He was no coward, but Aurand knew he was no trail hand either. After he found and killed Tucker, Aurand planned to stop in Cowtown. He suspected Jess just might be there whooping it up with the rest of the drunks.

  “Well, boss, do you want me to kill Red when he comes back?”

  Aurand thought that over. Red Sun had scouted for Aurand since he’d been appointed deputy marshal, but he knew the man’s loyalties lay only with himself. If Red were leading them in circles, perhaps he had designs on that reward money out for the woman. Or the reward outstanding for Jess. Hell, Aurand thought, if he and Philo found Jess in Cowtown, perhaps they’d collect the reward out for him themselves. It’d be the last time Jess Hammond deserted anyone. “When Red comes back into camp, I want you to look almighty normal. Say nothing. I want to gauge his reaction when I confront him. If he won’t come clean as to why he’s leading us around like a couple fools, then feel free to kill him.”

  Philo smiled a toothless grin and took out his knife. “I’ll talk to Red real slow like when the time comes,” he said as the bright light reflected off his blade.

  CHAPTER 35

  * * *

  Tucker fell into a deep, healing sleep where Lorna invaded his dreams. He rode toward her, the ruffles of her white wedding dress flapping against her wrists as she spurred her Arabian toward him. Tucker dismounted and ran to her with arms wide. She showed neither hunger nor that she was harmed in any way. She was hungry only for Tucker’s embrace.

  His sleep became fitful. Blue Boy and Aurand appeared on either side of Lorna. Blue Boy’s face was painted black, silver lightning bolts adorning either cheek. He dwarfed Aurand as he rode his grulla, guns in both hands, and Tucker could look down the barrels of both pistols.

  He awakened abruptly to the sharpness of a blade breaking the skin across the front of his throat. He opened his eyes, calculating if he could kill his attacker before he bled out. He eyed Jess’s holstered Remington five feet away. It might well have been fifty feet away.

  He looked into serious, dark eyes, ringed with the wrinkles of a man who has survived for longer than Tucker had been alive. Those deadly eyes met Tucker’s, eyes behind a mask that held Tucker’s life in his hands with the jerk of his blade.

  Then the knife came carefully off his skin, and Red Sun backed away. He sat on his haunches and stared at Tucker. “Couldn’t take any chances with you.” He sheathed his knife. “Even injured, I can think of no other man I would hate going agin’ than Tucker Ashley. Except maybe that Blue Boy.”

  “What’s with . . . ?” Tucker motioned to the buckskins, the Crow’s blue-beaded belt and leggings different from the trail-worn dungarees he’d worn before.

  “I figure I have been living with the white man too long,” Red said.

  “And Aurand?” Tucker said. “Is he just a hill over, ready to come busting in with guns firing on your signal?”

  “He would if he knew I was here with you.”

  “I don’t understand.” Tucker sat and eyed Jess’s gun. But he knew he wouldn’t need it this night against Red. “You scout for Aurand.”

  “Not anymore.” Red brought a tobacco pouch out of a small, beaded bag on his belt and began rolling a smoke. “I knowed Aurand was evil mean, and I guess I was lookin’ for a reason to get clear of him.” He grabbed a smoldering twig from the fire and lit his cigarette. “Who owned that donkey back at Aurand’s camp?”

  “Simon Cady.”

  Red’s hand shook. “I wondered how it came to be that an unarmed man killed Jess Hammond. No offense, but I did not figure you could get the job done being without a gun, the shape you were in. So Cady killed him for the reward, did he?”

  Tucker nodded. He sat with his back against the cottonwood root. “He saved my life, though I’m certain it wouldn’t have bothered Cady none if Jess had killed me before he got him.” He flexed his leg. “How’d you figure it out?”

  “Jess’s gelding favors his right front leg,” Red answered. “Not so a man would notice—certainly not Aurand and Philo Brown—but enough that I knowed Jess’s horse was gone because something happened to him. Only thing logical is that you got the drop on him, took his horse and gun. With no body, I figured somebody carted it away. So I led Aurand and Philo around in a wide circle to give you time to mend up.”

  Tucker laid branches and dried sage twigs on the fire. “Why would you do that?”

  “Ever been around Lakota?”

  “Some Hunkpapa took me in one winter after a buffalo gored me.”

  “Then you ought to know they treat their women fine. But it is when the menfolk go hunting or warring their captive women suffer the most.”

  “I’ve heard that. Still doesn’t explain why you helped me out.”

  “Sure it does.” Red flicked the rest of his butt into the fire. “That Blue Boy is one murderous Lakota. There in ’sixty-two in Minnesota, he got caught with the rest of the Sioux killing white settlers in town. Why he never got strung up with those Santee Sioux is beyond me. He has had a hatred for white men ever since they locked him in that prison. I think he hates whites even more than he hates us Crow.” Red shook his head. “I made a terrible decision scouting for the white man once before. Down Colorado way when I found those Arapaho at Sand Creek.”

  “So you know Simon Cady from there?”

  Red trembled. “We both scouted for Chivington. I wanted to lead the militia in circles just like I did Aurand and Philo, but Cady would have none of it.” Red’s mouth turned down with sadness. “I told myself ol’ Red is never going to do that again. Even if it is hunting Lakota. Aurand can find Blue Boy on his own. Though if he found Blue Boy, he might not live to brag about it.” He stood and nodded to the brush just outside of the camp. “Now you can tell your friend out there he can come in and warm himself.”

  “Jack?”

  Red shrugged. “I do not know his name, but I suspect he has a gun leveled at me right now.”

  Tucker called to Jack, and he emerged from the shadows.

  “You can put your gun down,” Tucker said, and Jack lowered the Henry.

  “I will be putting some miles between me and Aurand.” Red’s back popped when he arched it and stretched. “I got the feeling Philo got on to me a few miles back. He is just tracker enough that I figure he worked it out I was leading them around by the nose. Aurand told me to go kill supper. Except Red is no fool. The first time I step foot back in their camp, I would get drilled through and through. By now they know I am not coming back.”

  “What of Blue Boy?” Jack asked. “Is he over the Great Wall by now?”

  Red paused for a moment, looking up at a hawk overhead as if the answer were there. “That is another odd thing. Blue Boy has lost most of the band he took with him on this raid. He confounded me whenever he could, then all of a sudden, when he was close to reaching the Badlands and safety, they turned back.” Red hitched his belt up over his thin hips. “If I am working Blue Boy’s trail out right, he is making a run back this way. And he has got that woman with him.”

  “You sure she’s still with Blue Boy?” Tucker asked, praying for the second time in a week.

  Red dipped into his possibles bag looped around his shoulders and came out with a closed fist. He dropped a dozen tiny lead balls onto the ground. “She has left some of that nearly every time they stop. She is alive, all right, and she is a keeper if she thinks clear enough to keep leaving clues.”

  “How much time until they find us?” Jack asked.

  Red shrugged. “They will be here by morning. You two will have your hands full—I suspect both Aurand and Philo will get here the same time as Blue Boy and his band. It ought to be interesting.”

  Red walked to where his pony stood tied to a boulder. He bent and lovingly ran his hand over the mare’s white socks. Then he straightened and gathered the reins when Tucker called after him. “Tha
nks.”

  Red stopped but didn’t turn around. “I would do the same for any man who would have a chance to kill a murderer like Blue Boy.” He untied his horse.

  “Where you headed?”

  Red chin-pointed to the north. “Back to my people. I figure if I go through Canada, I will make it to the Shining Mountains without Blue Boy or Aurand finding me.”

  The moonless night quickly engulfed Red, and the only thing Tucker heard was his hoof beats riding away from camp. His leg felt stiff, but the pain had subsided, and he was able to hobble around the camp. He stopped in front of Jack, who had set a coffee pot over the coals. “This isn’t your fight,” Tucker told him. “If you took off now, you’d be able to catch the steamer north from Yankton in three days’ hard riding.”

  Jack pulled the loading tube out of his rifle’s butt stock and counted his rounds before replacing the tube. “I’ll not miss the best fight either of us will have for some time by hightailin’ out of here. We’ve been in some scrapes, you and me, and this will be another one to tell the grandkids one day.”

  “Difference with this one,” Tucker said, “is we’ve been able to re-tell the other battles. I’m not so sure we’ll be around to brag about this one.”

  “Maybe we could call on the Lakota’s Wakan Tanka.”

  “At this point,” Tucker said, tying Jess’s gun belt around his waist and securing it with a cinch rope, “I’d call on the devil himself if I thought it’d keep us alive long enough to find Lorna.”

  CHAPTER 36

  * * *

  Lorna rode the mare Blue Boy had brought for her when he returned from scouting last night. Where he found it she’d never know, but she suspected he’d stolen it like he stole everything else he had. The mare had a nice, even gait, though it wasn’t like her father’s Arabians. And it wasn’t as handsome as the Arabians, though its white socks contrasted with the pony’s tan coat. But the pony suited her fine just now. She was just glad to be off Jimmy Swallow’s horse.