Jim took a minute to think that over. Smiling to himself, he tried to picture his brother Clay as a huge owl, silently flying through the night. Maybe so, he allowed. At any rate, he would try to remember to call him Ghost Wind the next time he saw him.
There was such a casual air about the camp of Crow warriors that Jim at times forgot the battered prisoner bound to the cottonwood outside the fire’s glow. He might have forgotten him altogether except for a few times during the evening when Malotte tried to get Jim’s attention. Each time he did he would receive a beating, administered by one of the warriors with his quirt. Jim did his best to ignore the punishment, but he could not help but feel some compassion for Johnny’s fate.
The next morning Jim awoke with the first rays of the sun, feeling that he had not rested at all. His sleep had been a fitful one; he’d awakened often to look around him at the sleeping Indians. In spite of the warm welcome he had received from Iron Bow and his friends, there remained a wariness that told him to sleep with one eye open. It had been unnecessary caution, apparently, judging by his sleeping hosts. The only one awake other than himself was Johnny Malotte, whose sagging body was hanging to one side of the tree trunk. When Jim got up and began to stir the coals of the campfire, Johnny raised his head and whispered, “Cut me loose, Jim, before they wake up.” Jim hesitated. “Come on, Jim, give me a chance to run. They’re gonna gut me and leave me to die. You ain’t gonna side with a bunch of Injuns, are you?”
Perplexed, Jim turned to face him, but before he could reply to Johnny’s pleas, Iron Bow stirred from his blanket and sat up. Jim quickly returned his attention to the fire. To himself, he cursed Johnny Malotte for putting him in the position of making a judgment on his life. The man was a damn horse thief, caught red-handed. He had stolen Toby, for chrissakes. He deserved to be hung. But did anybody deserve to be tortured to death? Iron Bow had assured him that Malotte’s death would be slow and painful.
“You rise early,” Iron Bow said as he watched Jim place some limbs on the fire.
“Yeah, I expect I’d better get started,” Jim replied.
“Don’t you want to stay long enough to see the man who stole your horse die?”
“No, I guess not,” Jim pronounced slowly, thinking hard on what he was about to propose, and what he was going to do if Iron Bow rejected it. “This man”—he motioned toward Johnny Malotte—“has stolen Crow ponies, and he stole from me. You want him punished. I want him punished. The soldiers have been looking for him for a long time. They want to punish him, too. I think the army would be grateful to you if you turn him over to me and let me take him to Fort Laramie so they can let others like him witness his punishment.”
Iron Bow was only mildly interested in the proposition. “You can tell the soldiers that we killed him. Why should you have to bother with him? It’s four days from here to Fort Laramie.”
“That’s true,” Jim replied, trying to seem as unconcerned over Malotte’s fate as his Crow friend. “I would not trouble myself, but I think the army would like to show other white men what will happen to them if they try to steal horses from our friends the Crows.”
Iron Bow paused to consider the wisdom in this. After a few moments’ thought, he nodded his head in approval. “This might be a good thing. Maybe what you say would be the right thing to do.” The more he thought about it, the more he began to see it as an opportunity to show that the Crows were not the savages most white men thought they were. “It is a good thing,” he repeated. “You should take him back to Laramie with you.” He hesitated, thinking. “He cannot take one of our ponies, though.”
“No,” Jim quickly agreed, still surprised that Iron Bow was going to turn Malotte over to him that easily. “I wouldn’t let him ride, even if he had a horse.”
To Jim’s further surprise, the others in Iron Bow’s band voiced no opposition to their leader’s decision to turn their prisoner over. So, after a breakfast of dried meat, Iron Bow cut the bonds that held Johnny Malotte to the cottonwood. Johnny slumped to the ground, too weak to stand. With his foot, Iron Bow rolled him over onto his back and tied his wrists together. Then he stepped back to let Jim take over.
Johnny Malotte didn’t look too good. Jim wondered if he was going to have a dead man on his hands before he had ridden out of sight. He bent low over Johnny while he tied a rope to Johnny’s bound wrists. Malotte’s eyes, almost closed until that moment, suddenly flickered wide open, and he gazed into Jim’s eyes. “I’m fixing to take your sorry ass outta here,” Jim whispered. “Can you walk?”
“I’ll damn sure walk outta here,” Johnny rasped.
The rope secured, Jim pulled his prisoner to his feet. Johnny struggled for a few moments to keep from staggering and took a few shaky steps forward as the group of interested Crow warriors watched. One of them saw fit to administer a stinging swipe across Johnny’s back with his quirt. Johnny recoiled with the pain, but managed to stay on his feet. Jim figured he’d better get the beaten man out of there before the Crows changed their minds and decided to whip him to death. With a quick farewell to Iron Bow, he climbed aboard Toby and started out of camp, walking his horse slowly, one end of the lead rope looped around his saddle horn, the other tied to Johnny’s wrists.
“Go in peace, Jim Culver,” Iron Bow called after him.
* * *
Jim never looked back at his stumbling prisoner, staggering drunkenly at the end of the rope, until he had ridden beyond a line of hills that crossed his path. He felt certain that the Indians were watching him. Once he rode out of sight of the camp, he stopped to let Johnny catch up to him. As soon as Johnny was even with his stirrup, Jim handed him his canteen and watched silently as the desperate man gulped the water down. It served to revive him somewhat.
“I’ll never forget you for this,” Johnny rasped, his voice still hoarse from his long period without water. Holding up his hands, he said, “Here, cut me loose.”
Jim didn’t say anything while he untied the lead rope from Johnny’s wrists. Then he said, “I think I’ll leave your hands tied for a while yet.”
“Ah, hell,” Johnny complained. “Whaddaya want to do that for? Hell, man, you saved my life back yonder. That makes us the same as blood brothers or something. I knew I had you pegged as a fair man.”
Jim straightened up in the saddle, and gazed at him in cool appraisal. “You don’t know shit about me,” he assured him. “You’re the same blood brother that left me down in a hole while you ran off with my horse. I think I’ll keep your hands tied for a while.”
“You ain’t gonna leave me on foot with my hands tied, are you?”
Jim smirked. “Now, what kind of son of a bitch would do something like that?”
“All right, I guess I had that coming. But, dammit, Jim, I’m pretty stove up. Them Injuns beat the hell outta me. That horse of yours is strong as an ox. He could carry double all day and not even know the difference.”
“If things aren’t to your liking, I guess I could take you back to Iron Bow. His boys would probably throw a party for you.”
Johnny realized that it was useless to try to sway Jim, so he reluctantly acknowledged the futility of his position. “All right,” he said. “I reckon you’re holding all the cards.”
Jim studied the plaintive face looking hopefully up at him for a few moments more. He couldn’t leave the man on the prairie with his hands tied. Ah, shit, he thought, and drew his knife. He reached down and cut the rawhide bonds around Johnny’s wrists, then quickly backed Toby away a few yards. “I saved your worthless hide from those Crow Indians, but I damn sure didn’t take you to raise. You were on your own before I met up with you, so you’re on your own again. The fact that you’re on foot is your own doing.” He could see the seeds of understanding taking root in Johnny’s eyes. But the battered man still attempted to appeal to Jim’s conscience.
“Jim, I know I wronged you, and I’m sorry for that, I swear. But I’m stove up pretty bad, and I ain’t had food for days. I’
m too weak to get very far on foot. Without no gun, I can’t even hunt for something to eat. You might as well shoot me right here. I’m as good as dead, anyway.”
Jim silently cursed himself for having even the slightest compassion for the man who had stolen his horse. He wasn’t softheaded enough to give Johnny a gun, though. He thought it over for a few moments before deciding. “Now, I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do,” he said, turning in the saddle and pointing toward the southeast. “I’m heading that way, just about on a straight line with that tallest hill you see in the distance. I’m gonna hunt for some fresh meat when I get in those hills. If I’m lucky enough to find some game, I’ll share some of it with you. You might be as hungry as you say, but you don’t look all that feeble to me. You’ve been walking pretty good since we got out of sight of those Injuns. I think you ought to make it to those hills by nightfall. You can eat what I leave on top of that highest one.” That said, he wheeled Toby and rode off, leaving a disillusioned Johnny Malotte standing there staring after him.
“You wait for me, Jim,” Johnny called after him. “I’ll be there, all right. No hard feelings a’tall. I’m still obliged to you for gittin’ me out of that Injun camp.”
* * *
It was less than half a day’s ride to the foot of the tallest in the line of hills Jim had pointed out to Johnny Malotte. He thought about pushing on, but he had said he would leave food for him. He had given his word, and even when dealing with a thief like Johnny Malotte, his word was his bond. The poor bastard’s gonna need something to eat by the time he makes it to this hill. Jim knew the Crows had wasted no food on him.
He began a careful scout around the hills, holding to the trees near the base. While he hunted, he gave a lot of thought to the subject of Johnny Malotte. A young man, Johnny looked to be about the same age as Jim. He seemed genuinely contrite about bamboozling Jim out of his horse, but Jim was not softheaded to the point where he would trust the glib-talking young horse thief. He was convinced that, when it came down to two men and one horse, a man would be a fool to turn his back on Johnny Malotte. Still, Jim wasn’t prone to leaving a man stranded with no means of survival. After worrying his mind with it for some time, he decided to leave him food and his pistol, loaded. It was a difficult decision to leave the pistol, even though he used it only on rare occasions—to kill a snake or scare off a bear. If Johnny was as smart as Jim figured him to be, he could walk at night and rest during the day. The pistol would provide him with some defense against hostile Indians. That’s the best I can do for him, and more than he deserves.
Finding meat proved to be a little more difficult than he had anticipated. It was the middle of the afternoon before he spotted a couple of antelope out on the prairie that rolled away from the base of the hills. With Toby tied to a clump of sage, Jim worked his way around the antelope on foot, keeping downwind. When close enough to risk a shot, he didn’t waste it, bringing one of the animals down with a strike right behind the front legs.
He sat there in the cover of the shallow defile he had settled in for a long time, watching the prairie around him. When there was no sign that his shot had attracted the attention of any roaming Indian hunting parties, he left the defile and recovered his meat. Drawing the animal up on Toby’s back, he led the horse back to a tiny stream near the base of the hill.
Butchering done, he packed the meat up the hill on his horse just as the shadows began to pool in the gullies and draws. It would be dark soon, and he intended to be long gone from this hill before then. He wrapped part of the meat in the antelope hide and placed it in a prominent spot on the treeless hilltop, where Johnny would be sure to find it. Then he took out his pistol and placed it on top of the hide bundle. “I expect that’s the last I’ll see of that,” he muttered.
Satisfied that he had done as well for the man as could be expected, he led Toby back down the hill to the stream. After winding his way through the willows that framed the tiny water course, he let Toby drink while he knelt down to wash the last traces of antelope blood from his hands. In the next instant his head exploded and he was knocked senseless, floating in a sea of inky darkness, until the shock of his face in the cool water of the stream partially revived him. Completely disoriented, his ears still ringing from the impact and his brain spinning out of control, he tried to push himself up, but succeeded only in sprawling helplessly into the stream.
Johnny Malotte stood over the fallen man, holding the stump of a stout cottonwood limb that had broken in two under the force of the blow. He reached for Jim’s pistol after he struck him down, only to find an empty holster. Undeterred, he turned immediately and pulled the Winchester from the saddle sling. Turning back to Jim, he watched impassively for a few seconds while the injured man tried to regain his feet. Jim had managed to struggle to his knees when Johnny cocked the rifle and pulled the trigger. He went down immediately, the bullet slamming into his chest and knocking him down on his back.
Johnny ejected the spent shell and took a couple of steps forward, watching Jim closely as the shallow water around his body became dark with blood. When, after some long seconds, there was no sign of movement, Johnny eased the hammer down and turned back to calm the startled bay stallion. Toby pulled away at first, but Johnny kept a firm hold on the reins while he quieted the confused animal. Soon Toby calmed enough to accept Johnny in the saddle. Once mounted, Johnny took one long last look at the body lying in the tiny stream. “No hard feelings, friend,” he said with a smile. “But I’ve got to get goin’ in case some nosy Injun heard that shot.”
Chapter 4
“Evenin’, friend.”
Nate Wysong glanced up upon hearing the gruff greeting, and involuntarily sucked in a sharp breath. “Ah . . . ah, evening,” he stammered, unable to hide his shock. “Can I help you?” he managed. The man was huge, grizzled, and woolly as a bear, with a long white scar down the side of his face. Nate felt around under the counter for the shotgun usually kept there, but could not locate it.
Slocum grinned, amused by Nate’s apparent fright, knowing it was fostered by the mere sight of the giant bounty hunter. “Lookin’ for a friend of mine,” Slocum said. “Jim Culver—I was told he’s hereabouts somewheres.”
Nate exhaled, able to breathe again. “Oh, you’re a friend of Jim’s, then. Well, he was here, all right, all winter, but he’s gone now.”
Slocum’s grin froze on his face for a few seconds in his effort to hide his irritation. “Where’d he go?”
“I ain’t sure. I just know he rode out of here a few days back.” When the surly brute’s face turned into a scowl, Nate suggested that Katie Mashburn might know. “Jim stayed over there while him and his brother built Katie a new cabin.”
“How do I get to Katie Mashburn’s place?”
After giving Slocum directions to Katie’s cabin, Nate stood in the doorway of his tiny store and watched as the huge man climbed aboard an iron-gray horse and rode off toward the river. Nate expelled a long sigh of relief as soon as the stranger rode out of sight beyond the bluffs. He said he was a friend of Jim’s, he thought. I hope I ain’t sent Katie no trouble.
* * *
“Somebody coming,” Luke Kendall said.
Katie paused. Leaning on her hoe handle, she pushed her bonnet back a bit in order to see better. It didn’t look like anyone she knew, and even at that distance this one looked like trouble. She unconsciously reached down to feel the handle of the Colt she always wore.
Taking another look at the rider coming up the trail, then glancing back to notice the look on Katie’s face, Luke dropped his hoe and walked over to the corner of the garden where he had left his bow. With the weapon in hand, he went back to stand beside Katie.
“Mornin’, ma’am,” Slocum said, reining the gray up at the corner of the garden. He took a moment to look Luke up and down, a natural habit, before he turned his gaze back to the slender young woman. A damn odd pair, he thought, a woman packing a .45 and a half-breed boy carrying a bow. Doing h
is best to affect a pleasant facade on a face that had seldom experienced one, he tipped his hat and spoke. “Feller over at the store told me you might know where Jim Culver was headed when he left here.”
“Oh?” was Katie’s only reply.
Overhearing the conversation outside, Lettie Henderson appeared in the doorway of the cabin, an apron tied around her waist. Slocum nodded politely in her direction before gazing back at Katie. “Yes’m. I’m a friend of Jim’s from back in Virginia. I promised him I’d look him up if I was ever out this way.”
Katie cut her eyes at Luke in a brief warning, but the boy’s face was expressionless. According to what she had learned from his brother Clay, Jim had left Virginia rather suddenly—in the middle of the night, if she remembered correctly. It didn’t seem likely that he would have had the time to tell friends where he was going. She didn’t like the look of this dark and grizzled stranger, and she had doubts that he was any friend of Jim’s. “Well, mister, I’m afraid we can’t help you. He didn’t say where he was heading. Most likely he headed toward Oregon territory. Sorry you missed him.” That said, she immediately started weeding with her hoe again, dismissing the stranger.
Ignoring her obvious signal that the conversation was ended, Slocum sat there for a long moment, eyeballing the woman and boy in the field. Glancing at the cabin, he noticed that the young lady was no longer standing in the doorway. He considered the possibility that Culver was inside the cabin, but a look around him seemed to indicate otherwise. For one thing, there was no sign of the big Morgan stallion Jim rode.
His ruse as a friend of Culver’s obviously a failure, he decided to take a different tack. “Might be you folks could improve your memory a touch if I told you the U.S. Army sent me out here to look for Jim Culver. He murdered an army officer. If you don’t help me, I reckon it’ll just take me a little longer to find him. But I’ll find him. I always do.”
Katie looked up again. “Then you’d best get started,” she curtly advised. “Oregon’s that way.”
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