Dakota Skies

by Paul Lederer

  ‘In a minute,’ she said.

  I didn’t question her, for her voice had grown cold again. I never knew what the woman was thinking and likely never would. I shrugged and followed Carlton into the soddy. Like most of these prairie affairs, slapped together from cut chunks of sod, it was muddy and dank. The packed-earth floor was pooled with water. A smoky fire built from buffalo chips sent rank-smelling smoke upward toward a crumbling smokehole. It was funny, I thought. In spring and summer a soddy could be almost magically charming with bright new grass and flowers, like black-eyed Susans and daisies sprouting across their roofs, but with the coming of the fall rain and winter snow, with mud constantly dripping through a sagging earthen roof, many a prairie woman had been driven near to madness trying to keep their little nests clean. Still, with no timber to be had on the wide plains, the soddies were ubiquitous and folks looking for land, for a simple place of their own, continued to throw them up from Kansas to Dakota.

  We sat at a puncheon table, uneven and shaky on its thick legs.

  ‘What were you figuring?’ Carlton asked me, folding his brawny forearms on the table.

  ‘Sir, I have a total of thirteen dollars in my poke. I am offering you ten dollars for the return of my horse, for your trouble in catching him up.’

  ‘Sir,’ he replied with a broad, nearly toothless grin. ‘I said I was having a bad run of luck, but I have not seen ten silver dollars for six months. I accept gratefully.’

  That settled, we talked for a few minutes. The open door showed the long dreary plains, the sunlight brilliant on the new, fast-fading snow, a clutch of crows sparring and hopping against the dark earth as if it were cold against their feet, the long wavering shadows of the oak trees as the wind nipped at them. Sharing steaming cups of chicory coffee I answered his conversation as well as I could, knowing that he probably had visitors no more than twice a year, if that frequently. The Indians were on his mind, as any reasonable man’s would be out there.

  ‘Yes, we saw a small party of Cheyenne,’ I told him. ‘But they were following the buffalo herd, wearing neither paint nor feathers.’

  ‘Hope that’s the last of them for the year,’ Carlton said over the chipped rim of his mug. ‘Not that I don’t do my best to get along with them – even have a few friends among them – if that’s the right word. But last fall I had some young bucks slip onto my property and steal off with my two hogs. Do you know what it takes to find a hog out here!’

  He had a dreamy look on his face as if imagining the smoked ham he might have had, the bacon, chops and hocks-and-beans he might have feasted on throughout the coming winter. But he was sifting the ten silver dollars I had given him through his fingers and his smile returned gradually. That was a lot of hard money to come across out on the lonesome prairie.

  So far as Carlton knew, the nearest town to the south-east was a collection of shanties called Waycross where the rougher elements held sway. There was no rule of law, but only of the gun. I rose, thanking him and started toward the door, planting my hat.

  Outside, then, I heard a small creaking sound and looked toward the door, seeing nothing. A moment later there was a series of soft clumping sounds, fading away bit by bit. Was someone approaching … or? I snatched up my rifle and we rushed to the door as one, looking across the empty yard.

  Dolefully Carlton said, ‘Mister, I think you just lost your horse again.’

  SIX

  I’ve been angrier, but I can’t remember when. The girl had climbed aboard Dodger and hied him out of the yard, leaving me afoot, hungry and tired. I did find my buffalo skin coat thrown into the mud and shouldered into it, unable to dredge up much gratitude for the small favor Regina might have thought she was doing me.

  In the doorway of the soddy, Carlton watched me for a minute, then shaking his head as if saying, ‘What else can you expect from a woman?’ he went inside, closed the door and left me to my unhappy fate.

  With the sun already tilting toward the eastern horizon it was easy enough to follow Dodger’s hoofprints, imprinted deep in the muck beneath the patchy snow. I trudged on, unsurprised when after a mile or so, my horse’s tracks merged with those of the southward-bound wagon. The wind had risen again, cold as ice on the back of my neck, and the inconstant clouds continued to gather, to break and shift across the fading colors of the sky.

  The dusk was now darkening all around me into indistinct purples. I began to slow my march, following the tracks uncertainly. I had given up any idea of reaching safe haven on that night, resigning myself to a frigid night alone on the prairie when something caused my head to lift.

  I smelled smoke.

  The land was damp, the mud doughy and deep. It was dark enough that I had no shadow. I had lost the tracks of my horse and the wagon alike, but somewhere ahead of me – not far if my senses could be trusted – a fire offering warmth and companionship was burning. I knew it could be an enemy camp, of course, but the chill in my bones prodded me at least to survey the situation.

  I don’t know if you could say it was better than I had hoped for, but certainly it was more expansive. For after another quarter of a mile I spotted the jumbled shantytown I took to be Waycross. Tiny shacks, a few tipis, two adobe brick buildings low, flat and unremarkable, and the glint of lanternlight. I didn’t care if it was an outlaw town or a collection of thieves, killers and thugs living alone on the prairie, far from any arm of the law. There would be food there – and warmth.

  I trudged on with a new sense of purpose. The poorest sanctuary was preferable to the night I had envisioned on the open range. I was a man with a good rifle and two silver dollars. I was the wealthiest I had ever been in my life.

  I walked the deep-rutted muddy streets of the dismal, scattered town, weary and chill. I knocked on the door of a tiny hut, seemingly built from the remnants of the abandoned wagons of overland pioneers, but no one would open the door to me.

  Slogging on through the ankle-deep mud I heard the tinny jangle of a banjo and someone’s shout of joy. I was near, then, to what passed for civilization out here. Meaning, I had found a saloon. For where men chose to settle on the broad plains, there was no more than an eye’s blink before the first purveyor of liquor set up shop.

  I found the source of the celebrations with little effort. Lights blazed, the ceiling was so low that a man could easily touch it, reaching up through the cloud of rank tobacco smoke. A rough crew lined itself along the bar, hats tilted back, drinking-glasses raised in salute to Bacchus. Every single man wore a belted gun, some two and even three, and there were rifles tilted against the bar and strewn across the badly planked floor.

  They looked at me, one and all, measuring me without seeming to as I entered and closed the chipped, green-painted door behind me. The warmth of the dilapidated haunt was nearly overwhelming. I peeled off my buffalo coat and tossed it into the corner, as seemed to be the custom judging by the pile of furs strewn there. I watched the local residents as carefully as they watched me. For when you enter a strange house, whether foreign or simply unfamiliar, it is valuable to a stranger to measure the local habits.

  Cautiously, I stepped to the very end of the bar, placing the Sharps rifle beside me on the floor as the others had done and ordered a whiskey I did not need or want, but which was indicated to be their customary drink. After a few minutes they ceased to take notice of me. I continued to scan the faces around me. Hooking my elbows on the bar I studied the scattered tables. There was not a face there I knew.

  Not Tom DeFord’s nor Brian Adair’s. Nor did I see Barry or Lazarus, no one familiar to me from Deadwood. Where then, had they all gotten to?

  A big-shouldered, badly scarred man, as thick through the chest as an oak tree, wedged himself in beside me. He was drunk and wanted to fight someone, anyone. I knew his type and slipped away before a challenge could be issued.

  I saw a slender youth with a broom in his hand standing at the back of the saloon and crossed the splintered floor to talk to him. For, dwell
ing on my problem, I’d come to a possible solution.

  ‘Can you tell me where the stable is?’ I asked him.

  ‘Which one?’ he seemed half bright but friendly.

  ‘Any of them,’ I said. ‘I need to put my horse up. And,’ I added, ‘I’m just about to starve to death. Where can I get a decent steak?’

  Haltingly, the man gave me inexact directions which included a lot of raving over Mother Finch’s broiled steaks served with hot buttered cornbread and beans. I exited the saloon as easily as possible, my boots as soft against the floor as moccasins. I knew that these men engaged in private conversations were up to no good and didn’t care to have a stranger among them. As Carlton had hinted, I believed I had stumbled upon an outlaw town.

  That caused me to wonder if DeFord, Brian Adair and perhaps the others had known that all along and chosen this destination as a safe haven. So far as I knew there was not an army post within a hundred miles, and certainly no lawman bold enough or foolish enough to enter this violent stronghold. What did that auger for Della and Regina? Was Brian strong enough to hold the others off? Was he even involved in this plan, or as Regina believed, simply a man viciously maligned?

  At the first stable I had no luck, but entering the hay-and-manure-scented second structure, I saw a white ear twitching above the gate of a stall and then Dodger’s head lift to eye me as if I had gone crazy, abandoning him as I had. I started that way.

  A skeleton of a man with a huge old Colt Walker revolver appeared from another stall, his hand shaking as he aimed the heavy weapon at me. His eyes, frosted over with white eyebrows, blinked rapidly. His voice, though thin, was controlled.

  ‘Just stay away from these horses. I don’t brook any thievery.’

  ‘And properly,’ I said, lifting my hands. ‘But if that black pony doesn’t have a “JJ” brand on his right front shoulder, then you can shoot me for a horse thief.’

  Uncertainly the stablehand said, ‘A little girl. …’

  ‘A little lady with big blue eyes and golden hair, no taller than my shoulder, wearing a divided buckskin riding skirt and white blouse, brought that horse in.’

  He lowered the pistol and shrugged weakly.

  ‘You know her then.’

  ‘Mister,’ I told him. ‘That was my wife. She runs off all the time. I just can’t keep her to home.’ I felt no compunctions about the lie. It was a lot easier for him to understand, told that way.

  The stableman ran a hand over his balding head and asked worriedly, ‘Well, what shall we do about this?’

  ‘I’m taking my horse,’ I answered. ‘What do I owe you?’

  The man shrugged miserably. ‘He ain’t even had time to cool down yet. Gimme a dollar and we’ll call it square.’

  I did so gladly, since that left me with a couple of silver dollars to call my own. If not enough to purchase one of Mother Finch’s steaks with buttered cornbread and beans, it was enough to allow me to tuck something into my nagging stomach.

  I saddled Dodger again and slipped his bridle on. Giving him the bit, I got another of those looks that dogs, horses, most animals give us when they are convinced that the entire human race is crazy. Leading him back out into the street I was set upon again.

  I was not going to take it this time. I’m not a huge man, but I have spent my life hiking the long hills, chopping wood and scything hay. I’m strong enough to take care of myself when the odds aren’t overwhelming, and I have some warning. The two men I encountered in the muddy street came at me recklessly with fists flying. My rifle was already sheathed under the black horse’s saddle, and I still had not come by a new handgun, but that did not matter. I was furious and tired of being attacked by every stranger on the prairie.

  The first man was bulky but clumsy. I could see him – his silhouette really – by the moonlight behind him and as he tried to club me with a meaty right fist I stepped to one side and jabbed my left into his face twice. His head was jolted back and I saw blood, showing black, stream from a broken nose.

  The second man was even wilder in his assault. He tried to hit me with overhand windmill punches as if he would drive me into the ground. There was no science involved in his fighting technique, and little in mine, I suppose. But I stepped inside his flailing arms, dug my left fist into his belly just below the liver and chopped a right hand into his jaw. He stepped back, but I would not let him escape.

  I delivered an uppercut that clacked his teeth together and then weighed in with both fists to his body, furious in my attack. I don’t know what the final result might have been if they had regrouped and come at me methodically, but it didn’t come to that.

  I heard the near roar of a .44 revolver, saw the flash of reddish-yellow fire from its muzzle and leaped back, my hand going to the twelve-inch bowie knife at the back of my belt. My two attackers scattered and ran and then there was only a lone figure there, a moon shadow of a man as I crouched, holding my knife low.

  He laughed.

  ‘Didn’t anyone ever teach you not to bring a knife to a gunfight?’

  His voice was familiar, his figure vaguely so, but I did not recognize him until he had holstered his Colt and taken a few more steps toward me. Then I could see that his left sleeve was pinned up and that the one-armed man facing me was Brian Adair.

  Uncertain about his motives I only muttered, ‘Thanks, they might have taken me.’

  ‘You gave a good account of yourself,’ Brian said, tilting his hat back. I wondered why he was there, why he had come to my aid, but did not ask. I still knew nothing about this man and his motives except what I had been told by strangers.

  ‘Who were they?’ I asked. ‘Could you make out their faces?’

  ‘Sure,’ Della’s brother said. ‘Barry Shore and Lazarus Thorne. I’ve known them for a while. Quite a while,’ he added bitterly.

  Reflecting on what I had seen of them, I realized that Brian was right. ‘That’s the second time they’ve jumped me.’ I found myself holding my broken rib. ‘What is it that they want, Brian?’

  ‘Why, Miles,’ he answered coolly, ‘I imagine that it’s the gold, wouldn’t you?’

  I led Dodger by the reins as we slipped away from that ramshackle, unfriendly town, talking to Brian Adair as we went. The moon was brighter now. Rime coated the muddy earth, shimmering in its eerie glow.

  ‘I had decided that you didn’t care for me much, Brian,’ I said as we followed our shadows up a broad, deserted alleyway.

  ‘You’ll have to forgive me,’ he said. ‘I’m as prone as anyone to let first impressions cloud my judgement. If you’ll remember how I found you with my sister. …’

  ‘There was nothing to that,’ I said hastily. Brian waved a hand in the air.

  ‘No. I realize that now. Della and I had time for a long talk on the wagon. It’s all forgotten now, and I hope forgiven.’

  I didn’t answer. I could almost feel his frown in the darkness. Well, what did I yet know of Brian Adair?

  ‘Sorry,’ Adair said unexpectedly. ‘I can’t expect you to completely trust a man you’ve only just met. Maybe this will help a little.’ Then I felt something cool and heavy thrust into my hand. It was Brian’s .45 Peacemaker. I started to object, but he told me, ‘I’ve another brace of them in my goods in the wagon.’

  I holstered the weapon with few qualms. I have to admit it did make me feel a little more comfortable.

  ‘Where is the wagon?’ I asked him as we walked on, ‘and why did you stop here at all?’

  ‘We stopped in a small oak grove up ahead. You can just make it out,’ he said, pointing. ‘The horses needed forage, of course, but I decided Waycross was too rough for Della, though she’s used to rough men.’

  ‘Why Waycross?’ I asked.

  ‘DeFord knows we’re headed to Steubenville, doesn’t he?’ Brian explained carefully as if I had taken one too many blows to the head. Perhaps I had. ‘I was trying to lose him.’

  ‘Also,’ he said, ‘we had to pull up somewhere near
enough so that you and Regina could catch up. I knew Regina was alive – about you, we were not sure.’

  ‘What happened back there?’ I asked as we neared the oak grove where Brian had left the wagon. ‘Regina said you were attacked.’

  Brian’s answer was almost indifferent. ‘A few men opened up at us with rifles, trying to take the horses down, I think. They scattered when I drew my Colt,’ he said contemptuously.

  ‘Who did you take them to be?’ I enquired.

  ‘Drifters, opportunists who had somehow heard about Della’s gold. It was no secret in Deadwood.’

  That was so, I knew.

  ‘Not Tom DeFord, though?’

  Brian’s voice was grim as we entered the deep shadows of the oak grove. ‘No, not him. Do you know DeFord, Miles?’

  ‘Yes.’ My voice became equally savage. ‘I know him too well.’

  ‘Then you know he would not have fled once he had his mind set on his objective. No, not him.’ Brian said more soberly, ‘I only regret that a stray bullet caught Henry Coughlin. Regina told me that you came upon him and he didn’t make it.’

  My heart gave a little leap. I had suppressed my urge to ask Brian about his younger sister. I needed to know that she was safe, but had been fearful to ask. She had found her family then. She was all right.

  Brian seemed to sense my joy. He said, ‘Yes, yes. She is fine. She put Dodger up in the stable, knowing you would come after him … if not after her,’ he said slyly. I did not answer.

  Brian continued, ‘She and Della are coiled up in the wagon. I felt I owed it to you to go looking for you after … after the things I accused you of. So here we are then!’ he finished triumphantly.

  Except we weren’t anywhere at all.

  The wagon we had been expecting to find there wasn’t there. The team of horses was gone. Della was absent from the ghostly, star-shadowed oak grove.

  Regina was gone into the bitter cold of the night.

  SEVEN

  ‘Where could they have taken the women?’ I asked Brian Adair as we poked around in the moon-shadowed oak grove, searching through the strewn finery and women’s things that had been ransacked from Della’s upturned trunk in a search for the missing gold.