Lindstrom favored her with a tired but benevolent smile, looking from Katie’s iron-hard face to the empty face of her young friend, still gazing at some sunset that no one else could see. He shook his head sadly, as if summing up the hardships that had befallen them. “Have you thought about what you’re gonna do?” Lindstrom asked. “You can’t stay on here by yourself.”
“Why not?” Katie replied in quiet defiance.
“Why . . . Why,” Lindstrom said, flustered, “because you just can’t. It’s too much for a woman to handle without no help.”
“I’ve got help,” Katie said, and turned to smile at the childlike girl at her side.
Showing his impatience by sadly shaking his head again, he paused for a long moment before saying, “Lettie’s mind is gone, Katie. It’s hard to accept, and it sure don’t seem fair, but the Lord does things for a reason. First your husband was taken, then your father, now Luke. It’s plain to see that you need a husband to help you farm this place.” He placed his hand on her shoulder and looked her straight in the eye. “This might be the Lord’s way of telling you to find yourself a helpmate. Whitey Branch is a bachelor.” He noticed the immediate raising of her eyebrows at the mention of the name. “I know Whitey ain’t the smartest man in the valley, but he’s a hard worker, and his heart’s in the right place, and he’s a God-fearin’ man.”
“Ha!” Katie exclaimed, unable to hold her reaction any longer. “Whitey Branch, huh? Why, Reverend, when did you get into the match maker business?” She almost laughed in his face. “You’re right about one thing: Whitey sure ain’t the brightest man in the valley. I’ve got chickens smarter than Whitey.”
Sufficiently chastised by her reaction to his suggestion, Lindstrom shifted nervously from one foot to the other. Like most of the men in Canyon Creek, he was hard-pressed to figure Katie Mashburn out. Deciding it useless to press his counsel, he offered weakly, “Well, it was just something for you to think about.”
“I appreciate your concern,” Katie said, “but don’t worry about me. I’ll manage.” She was perceptive enough to guess the reverend’s real concern. His dream of Canyon Creek growing into a sizable settlement was always at the fore front of his thoughts. She figured he was worried that he might lose another of his flock if she decided to pull out and further decrease the population. The fact that he had suggested Whitey Branch as a possible suitor was evidence of his desperation to hold the community together. Poor Whitey, she thought as she stood back to watch Lindstrom climb aboard his wagon, he hasn’t got any more sense than Lettie does right now. It would be a cold day in hell when Katie Mashburn took a husband for no other purpose than to provide a strong back.
The last of the funeral party gone, Katie walked back to the grave, took Lettie gently by the arm, and led her back to the cabin. She glanced toward the corral, where Clay’s horse was eating hay beside Jim’s buckskin pony. She almost thought she saw Luke sitting on the top rail near the corner post—her mind playing tricks on her, she guessed. He often sat there watching his horses. The thought hit her with thunderous impact and she realized how much she would miss the boy. A tear traced its way slowly down her cheek, and she quickly wiped it away, forcing herself to regain her self-control. Lettie gazed at her, the faint smile returning to her face. Katie smiled at the troubled girl. “Come on, honey; let’s go inside.”
At first she thought he was gone. Then, when she pushed the door shut, she saw Clay stretched out in a corner of the room, asleep on the floor, his bedroll between him and the dirt floor. She led Lettie to a stool by the fireplace and sat her down. Then she pulled a blanket off of her bed and gently laid it on the sleeping man. Kneeling beside him, she watched him sleep for a few moments. It pleased her to see him sleep so soundly. He was no doubt exhausted from riding day and night for a week. But she knew that if he were camped somewhere in the mountains or on the prairie, he would have been alert at the first little creak of the door opening. It told her that he felt secure in her home. It pleased her. I’ll fix something for you to eat when you wake up, she thought as she got to her feet again.
Chapter 15
Jim Culver awoke before the first light of day sought out the dark valley floor. Sore and cramped, and stiff from the early-morning chill, he tried to ease his aching arms and legs. It was to no avail, for his bonds were too tight to permit much movement. Turning his head as far as he could manage, he strained to see the stillsleeping form of his captor. Close by the remaining coals of his campfire, snug under a heavy buffalo robe, Slocum presented the image of a huge mound, not unlike a sleeping buffalo bull. Having been afforded two days’ worth of Slocum’s hospitality, Jim knew that the core of that mound was pure, ruthless evil.
Even though his rational mind told him it was useless to struggle against the rawhide rope holding him fast to the trunk of the pine, still he strained to break his bonds. Ignoring the blood that seeped around the tough rawhide that held his wrists, he pulled with all the strength he could muster. It was not enough, for Slocum knew his business well. Finally, unable to summon another ounce of effort, Jim lay back, exhausted. In spite of the frost that glazed the toes of his Crow moccasins, he could feel the sweat from his exertion trickling down his brow. Shaking his head in an attempt to keep the sweat from his eyes, he winced as the motion caused the dried blood caked on the back of his head to crack. He could tell by the stinging sensation in his scalp that there was an open wound on the back of his head. But he seemed to be thinking clearly, so maybe the big son of a bitch hadn’t cracked his skull after all. Cracked or not, however, it had taken a while for his head to stop spinning.
A grunt from the buffalo mound signaled that the brute was awake. As Jim watched, the mound began to move until, finally, the robe was thrown off and Slocum’s massive head and shoulders emerged amid a series of snorting and coughing that rivaled a rutting elk. At once he turned to make sure his prisoner was secure. Seeing Jim leaning against the tree trunk brought a smile to his face, barely discernible under the heavy brush of beard.
Taking a stick of deadwood from the little pile he had gathered the night before, he poked around in the ashes of his fire to stir up the live coals. After he had resurrected a serious flame, he added firewood and watched it until he was sure it had a hold on new life. Content that his breakfast fire was established, he walked over to stand by his prisoner and nonchalantly emptied his bladder. “Ain’t you even gonna say good mornin’?” he chided as he finished relieving himself. “What would you like for breakfast? How ’bout the same thing I fixed for you yesterday?” He chuckled at his own joke, since he had not seen fit to offer Jim any food. It was a long ride to Fort Lincoln, if in fact he decided to take his prisoner all the way back, and Slocum had no intention of keeping Jim’s strength up. He would give him what he deemed enough to keep him alive, no more. Judging from his prisoner’s size, and the width of his shoulders, he looked to be a match for most men. Slocum didn’t include himself in that group. He had never met the man who was a match for him when it came to fighting. Still, it made no sense to nourish him.
When there was no response from Jim to his cajoling, Slocum returned to his fire to prepare his breakfast. He put a small coffeepot on the fire to boil while he fried some bacon, all the while glancing in Jim’s direction to see if his prisoner was picking up the aroma of the cooking meat. “Damned if I ain’t gonna have to fix me up some of them dried beans I got in my saddle pack tonight. It’s a helluva long ride to Bismarck on an empty stomach.” There was still no response from his prisoner, but Slocum was confident that Jim’s belly had started growling a long time ago. He promised himself that Jim would be talking before it was over, begging for his own death. When the meat was done, Slocum poured himself a cup of coffee and came over to eat by Jim. Brushing a light film of snow from a rock, he sat down and made himself comfortable.
Looking Jim over while he ate, Slocum continued to taunt. “Looks like that place on the back of your head is bleedin’ again. I sure hope I didn
’t crack your skull with the barrel of my rifle. That’s a damn fine rifle, and I wouldn’t wanna bend the barrel by bouncin’ it off a hard head like yours.” He knew Jim had already recognized the Winchester .73 as the rifle Johnny Malotte had stolen from him. “I had to slit the throat of the son of a bitch that took that rifle off of you. He thought he was gonna slit mine.” He watched Jim closely, trying to determine whether he understood the message. Then he took a long gulp of his coffee. “Damn, that’s good coffee. Don’t nobody west of the Missouri make better coffee than me.” Getting back on the subject, he said, “I mighta cracked the skull of that little bitch you was about to mount back there.” He laughed when he recalled the incident. “She musta really thought you was somethin’—coming at me with that damn paddle like she did. I put my fist right through her face. I could feel the bones breakin’. You reckon you could hit somebody that hard?”
Determined to meet his captor’s taunting with silent defiance, Jim found he could not hold his tongue any longer. “Why don’t you cut me loose, and we’ll find out,” he said.
This brought a grin to Slocum’s face. “Now, that’s a damn good idea. I’ll tell you what: We’ll wait till we git past the Belle Fourche, and then I’ll cut you loose, and me and you’ll have a go at it.” He laughed when he thought of the shape Jim would be in after that many days without food. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to break camp.”
He walked back to the fire and picked up the coffeepot. Holding it up so that Jim could see, he then poured the remains of the coffee in the fire, grinning at his prisoner. Jim did not miss the smug grin of satisfaction parting the thick whiskers on Slocum’s face. Slocum decided at that point that he would take Jim all the way back to Fort Lincoln. He was enjoying Jim’s misery too much to kill him right away. He would give him enough water to make sure he was barely alive when he reached Bismarck. That, after all, was the only condition in his original agreement with Captain Boyd. He was not forgetting the fact that Boyd had told him the army was no longer interested in Culver. That didn’t matter to Slocum anymore. He just wanted the satisfaction of dragging Jim’s nearly dead body across the parade ground and dumping it on the captain’s porch. Slocum always got his man; it was important to his sense of ego that Boyd understood this. If the army still insisted they wouldn’t pay him, he’d simply slit Culver’s throat right there.
* * *
Clay Culver stepped down from the saddle and led his horse to the ashes of a campfire. Only glancing at the remains of the fire at first, he looked around him to make sure he was alone. The early-morning sky was still gray, although it was getting lighter by the minute. Thinking of his horse first, he led the paint down to the stream to drink. Then he returned to take a closer look at the ashes. This was Slocum’s first camp. The trail had been easy enough to follow. The big bounty hunter had made no efforts to hide his tracks. Probably satisfied that there was no one to follow him, Clay figured. Pulling a frost-covered stick from the ashes, he stirred them up, then felt them with his hand. Stone cold, he thought. This camp was probably two days old. Due to the frost and the light covering of snow on the ground, it was hard to tell for sure, but he was confident that he had made up some of the time between them.
The light snow that had fallen during the night had not been enough to completely cover the tracks, so Clay took a few minutes to study the campsite. Judging by the sign, he guessed that his brother had been tied to a tree. At least it was an indication that Jim was still alive. The tracks leading out of the camp were in a northeastern direction, pointing toward a gap in the mountains some twenty-five or thirty miles away. According to Katie, the first time Slocum had shown up in Canyon Creek, he claimed he had come to take Jim back to Fort Lincoln. Assuming that was still the man’s intention, Clay had to believe that Slocum intended to skirt the Wind River range and the Bighorns, and strike the Belle Fourche. It was a helluva dangerous way to go at this particular time, even if it was winter. He would be traveling in Indian country all the way.
Having ridden the paint hard during the night, Clay decided to rest there before taking up the chase again. I could use some rest myself, he thought. So he unsaddled his pony and hobbled him near the branches of a fir tree where the snow had not been thick enough to hide the grass. Then, using his saddle as a pillow, he crawled up under the lower branches and set his mind for two hours. In a few seconds he was sound asleep, knowing that if there were any danger, his pony would warn him.
In approximately two hours, Clay opened his eyes and immediately crawled out from under the branches. While watering his horse, he breakfasted on a cold biscuit that Katie had stuffed in his saddle pack. Wasting no time building a fire to cook the bacon she had provided, he saddled the paint and took to the trail again. Keeping his senses sharp, he kept his mind on the tracks he followed and avoided thinking about what might be happening to Jim. Worrying wasn’t going to help Jim any, but it could damn sure cause a man to get careless. You just stay alive, little brother. I’ll find you.
Employing common sense as much as his skills as a tracker, Clay continued to gain ground on Slocum. For much of the way there were clear choices on the best way to cross a ridge or circle a mountain. So Clay didn’t waste time doggedly following the tracks. As a precaution, however, he checked them periodically to make sure he was on the right trail. By use of this method, he was able to arrive at Slocum’s next campsite before dark. The ruthless bounty hunter didn’t appear to be in any particular hurry.
Testing the ashes, he found there was enough warmth in the ground beneath them for him to guess he was no more than possibly eight or ten hours behind. As he had done before, he scouted the campsite in order to get a clue as to Jim’s condition. The sign indicated a similar scene to the night before, with Jim tied to a tree all night. Confident that Jim was still alive, Clay was in the saddle again, wasting very little time. There was a sense of urgency now, stronger than before, with the thought of overtaking Slocum in one more day’s hard ride.
* * *
On the eastern side of the slopes that Clay was approaching, Slocum rode at a leisurely pace, his prisoner following along behind. The huge man glanced back frequently, pleased to notice that Jim, despite a defiant effort to fight it, was beginning to weaken. This would be his third day without food, and only the water he could get from eating snow. And judging by the back of his shirt, he had lost a lot of blood. Another day or so, and he would be too weak to cause any trouble, even if Slocum happened to get careless.
His arms aching from having his hands tied behind him for so long, Jim tried to keep his mind off of his discomfort. With thoughts of revenge the only nourishment available to him, he vowed to remain strong and feed off of those thoughts. Somewhere between these rocky ridges and Fort Lincoln, Slocum had to make a mistake. And when he did, Jim was determined to be ready to take advantage of it.
Trying to keep his mind occupied with thoughts other than the emptiness of his belly, Jim looked around him as they made their way along the rugged foothills of the Wind River Mountains. It was not far from here that Johnny Malotte had left him for dead, half floating in a tiny stream. If it had not been for the prompt arrival of Iron Bow, he would be dead now—and never have had the pleasure of meeting the surly beast on the horse leading his. The irony of it brought a faint smile to his face.
Just happening to glance back at his prisoner at that point, Slocum was puzzled to see what appeared to be a grin on Jim’s face. It irritated him. “Time to rest these horses,” he abruptly grunted, and stepped down from the saddle. Walking back to stand beside Jim, he demanded, “What the hell are you grinning about?” Then, grabbing him by the arm, he yanked Jim out of the saddle and sent him sprawling to the ground.
Landing on his shoulder, Jim could not help but grunt in pain when he fell to the ground. He tried to scramble to his feet, but with his arms tied behind his back he was barely able to get to his knees before Slocum knocked him to the ground again with the butt of his rifle.
>
Jim lay there a moment before struggling to gain a sitting position, a fresh trickle of blood running down his cheek. “You’re a regular grizzly bear, ain’t you?” Jim growled. “How are you against a man that ain’t got his hands tied behind him?”
Delighted by the show of defiance from a man whose strength was close to running out, Slocum grinned as he looked down at Jim. “Now, that there’s mighty brave talk from a man that shot my brother in the back. Here, let me help you up.” He grabbed Jim’s shirt and dragged him to his feet. “There, now we’re standin’ eye-to-eye.”
“I didn’t shoot that piece of shit in the back,” Jim said evenly while trying to stand squarely on wobbly legs. “He jumped me and got what he deserved.”
A spark of anger flashed in Slocum’s eyes. “You lying bastard. The only way you coulda kilt Blackie was to get him in the back. You might as well own up to it.”
Seeing how it incensed the surly giant, Jim couldn’t resist taunting him. “Right in the chest—he was looking right at me. I pumped three slugs into the son of a bitch.” The words were barely out when Slocum struck him. Jim tried to sidestep the punch, but it caught him beside his ear. Slocum grabbed his shirt to keep him from going down and then landed another punch flush in the face. Jim’s legs collapsed under him and he crumpled to the ground.
“There, you had your chance to stand toe-to-toe. Next time I might even untie your hands, you lying bastard.”
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