Suddenly Hog woke up when Hawk removed the .44 from his holster. “What the hell . . . ?” he demanded.
“Just hold still,” Hawk said, “and there won’t be any need to get rough.”
Completely confused, Hog’s first thought was that his wife had betrayed him. He looked at her and wailed, “Ethel!”
Equally confused, Ethel found herself thrown into a whirlwind of events and questions of loyalty. Seeing Hawk, now with Hog’s pistol in hand, she wasn’t sure of his intentions. “That’s enough! Stop right there,” she cried. Startled, both Hawk and her husband turned to see her standing there with the shotgun she had brought in from her saddle. It was leveled at Hawk. “Put the pistol on the table,” she ordered calmly. Caught flat-footed, Hawk didn’t want to do that, but it was obvious that she meant business. “On the table,” she repeated sternly.
“Ma’am, you don’t wanna do this,” Hawk pleaded, but there was no wavering in the intense look in her eye as she motioned with the shotgun toward the table. He placed the pistol on the table.
The events having just taken place were enough to sober Hog. “Hot damn! Good work, Ethel. Shoot the son of a bitch.”
“No,” she said. “He wasn’t gonna shoot you, so he’s just gonna get on his horse and ride back the way he came.”
Hog was stunned. “The hell he is!” He snatched his .44 off the table and turned in time to catch the full blast of the shotgun in the chest. His eyes wide in disbelief, he dropped the gun as he stumbled backward to land on the floor.
Not sure if he was next, Hawk stood dumbfounded, trying to read the intent in the woman’s eyes as she continued to stare down at her dying husband. He was not sure if she even remembered he was there. After a long moment, she looked at the shotgun she was holding and, seeming confused, she handed it to Hawk. He propped it against the wall beside his rifle, then turned back just as her knees gave way. He caught her by the elbow to keep her from falling and guided her to one of the two chairs at the table and she sank down onto it, drained of energy. “I should have done that a long time ago,” she said softly. Hawk understood her words were to herself and not directed at him. He could only imagine the hell it must have been for her, living with a man like Hog.
He knew he should do something for her, but he didn’t know what. Seeing the whiskey bottle on the table, he poured some of it in the glass beside it and handed it to her. She stared at it for a moment, then drank it, only to spew half of it back out of her mouth. “That ain’t gonna work,” he decided. “How ’bout some coffee?” She nodded vigorously. He went to the fireplace, hoping the pot sitting in the coals was not empty. He was in luck, but it smelled as strong as iron. She sat there for a long time, sipping the hot coffee, before turning to look at the body of her husband for a few moments. Then she turned back to stare at the cup in her hand. Hawk studied her face more closely, noticing then the many old scars, evidence of past violence at the hands of her husband. “Are you gonna be all right now?” She nodded. “I swear, I didn’t come here with the intention of killin’ your husband unless he didn’t give me no choice.”
“You didn’t kill Horace, I did,” she said. “I believed you when you said you’d take him in for trial. He was gonna shoot you and I couldn’t let him do that. He was an evil man and there have been many times when I wanted to shoot him for the way he treated me. But I didn’t have the courage, till now, when he was fixin’ to shoot you. I’m done, he’s the devil’s problem now.” She uttered a long, weary sigh. “So now I reckon you can tell the law that Hog Thacker’s dead and turn me over to the sheriff, or whoever you were gonna turn Horace over to.”
Hawk found it difficult to believe she felt deserving of punishment for ridding the world of Hog Thacker. He knew he had bungled this whole encounter with the outlaw and it was primarily because he had felt empathy for his widow. “I don’t intend to take you anywhere,” he said to her. “Does anybody know about your husband, I mean here in Coulson?”
“No. They think I’m a widow. It was one of the reasons Mr. Alderson gave me a job. Horace didn’t want anybody to know about him.”
“Good,” Hawk said. “Now you really are a widow and rightfully so. We’re gonna bury your late husband and then I’ll take you anyplace you wanna go away from here. Have you got family somewhere you can go back to?”
“No,” she said. “No family. I don’t wanna go anywhere. I wanna stay here and keep my job and my house. This is the only place I’ve found peace when Horace was gone.”
“All right, if that’s what you want,” he said. “I’ll dig his grave away from the cabin, so you don’t have to see it every day. You need to go through his pockets to see if there’s anything you wanna keep. I’m thinkin’ he might have a good bit of money on him, or in his saddlebags. His partner Red did.” He paused and waited for her to respond, but she was obviously hesitating. “You want me to search him?” he asked. She nodded at once. So he quickly unbuckled Hog’s gun belt and pulled it out from under him. He picked Hog’s .44 up, returned it to the holster, and placed it on the table. “If that shotgun is the only weapon you’ve got, you might wanna keep this handgun, too.”
When he had finished searching the body, he dragged it out of the shack, which was no small task. Hog had been a large man and the job of getting his body up on Ethel’s mule was even more difficult, but Hawk managed it and took the body down the creek to find a burying spot. Digging the grave was a considerable job with the small spade he found in the lean-to with the horses, so he went no deeper than what he figured enough to keep predators from digging it up. When he returned to the shack, he was astonished to find Ethel cooking supper. “You must be hungry, after all the work you’ve been doin’,” she said. “I’ve got some beans and ham in the pot, and the corn bread’s about ready.”
“I hadn’t even thought about eatin’,” he replied, amazed that she was so calm, after what she had just gone through. “But since you’ve already cooked it, I reckon I could eat and thank you very much.” She motioned toward the table and he sat down while she filled a plate for him. After pouring him a cup of coffee, which he noticed was from a fresh pot, she sat down with a plate for herself. They ate in silence for a while until Hawk, feeling uncomfortable with it, commented, “This is good eatin’. You’re a mighty fine cook.”
She paused and looked up at him. “You think so? Horace said I was the worst cook he’d ever seen.”
“Well, he was wrong,” Hawk said, and pointed his fork at her. “It’s a damn good thing that man is out of your life.”
“I agree,” she said with a slight smile gracing her homely face.
He was still amazed by her attitude, but he was convinced that she truly felt the freedom she had longed for, to be released from a grave mistake she had made when she was younger. He no longer worried about her—she was going to be all right. After supper, he fixed the door Hog had damaged as best he could with the few tools she had.
* * *
He spread his bedroll in the front corner of the tiny shack and stayed the night at her insistence. “There’s no sense in you sleepin’ in the woods somewhere when I’ve got a warm fire and a roof here,” she said. It seemed awkward to him, but somehow it didn’t seem wrong.
They were both up early the next morning, she to go to work, and he to head back down the Yellowstone. Even though she ate her breakfast in the hotel dining room, she offered to fix him something before she left. But he declined, saying that he would get breakfast at the hotel as well. “I’ll have me one more big meal before I start back. I’ll ride into town with you. I’ve gotta pick up my packhorse at the stable, anyway.” It occurred to him then that Ethel had now acquired two horses and a saddle that might be hard to explain. He would have suggested she tell folks that he had brought it to her, but Waylon Burns knew that he had only the one packhorse with him and no extra mounts.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “I won’t ride a horse to town for a while after you’re gone. And I’ll make
up some story to suit everybody. I ain’t worried.” He couldn’t help noticing her uplifted spirit, even cheerful. He guessed that maybe she felt finally free after so many years in her abusive marriage.
He rode with her until they reached the point where she would normally leave the path by the creek and head toward the stable. They agreed it best to arrive at the dining room separately, so he paused there for a while and let her go on alone. “Don’t you worry about me, John Hawk,” she said in parting. “I think the Lord sent you here to set me free and I’m grateful. You be careful goin’ after Zach Dubose. That man’s ten times as evil as Horace was.”
“You take care of yourself, Ethel,” he said. Then he paused there to watch her as she rode on into the stable to give her time to turn her mule over to Waylon Burns, before riding in to get his packhorse ready to travel.
* * *
“Well, look who’s here, Alice,” Janet Combs remarked when Hawk walked in the door of the dining room. “I guess our cooking hasn’t scared him off, after all. He’s back to try it again.” She made it a point to speak loud enough for him to hear it.
“Good morning, ladies,” Hawk greeted them. “I had to see if that was just a good day in the kitchen yesterday, or if the food’s that good every day.” He expected to see Ethel sitting there eating, but she was not. Then it occurred to him that maybe she ate with Janet and Alice after the dining room was closed. As happened the day before at the noon meal, Janet and Alice became too busy with the breakfast crowd to have much opportunity to make small talk with him. That was just as well, he thought, because he didn’t want to spend a lot of time jawing. He was ready to shake the dust of Coulson off his feet, now that the question of Hog Thacker was settled, and get on with the search for Zach Dubose. The problem now was where to start looking for Mr. Dubose. He hadn’t a clue. Where would he head? Where was he from?
“You look like you’re doing some really deep thinking.” The comment came from behind him, startling him for a moment, enough to make him flinch. Janet walked around to take a seat in the chair opposite him and placed her coffee cup on the table. “Your breakfast all right?”
“It was just fine,” he said. “I’m gonna rate your dinin’ room the best in the territory.”
“Thank you, sir,” she said sweetly. She took a sip of coffee while eyeing him intently over the rim of her cup. “The word should get around, if you tell everybody you meet about us, as much as I’ll bet you travel.” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “You’re getting ready to leave Coulson right now, aren’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am, I reckon so,” he said.
“Well, you be sure and stop by to see us when you’re next in Coulson.” She got up, picked up her cup, and went to the kitchen.
Alice was already starting to clean up the kitchen. She cocked an eyebrow at Janet when she walked in. “Well?” Alice asked.
“He’s just another drifter.” She paused and looked back through the door at him as he pushed his chair back and grabbed his hat. “Probably got a wife and six kids somewhere.”
CHAPTER 8
“That’s two of ’em,” he said aloud as he rocked in rhythm with the big buckskin’s stride. “One to go.” The one remaining was the problem, for he had no idea in which direction to search for him. If he had even one small clue to pursue, he would follow it no matter how long it took him. But he had none.
He had held Rascal to a steady pace for all of that day and the faithful horse deserved a rest, so when he came to a wide stream lined with trees, he followed it back away from the wagon road. He continued up the stream until he found a place that suited him, with grass for the horses and wood for a fire. Early the next morning, he was on his way again, and by five o’clock mess call, he rode into Fort Ellis. “Well, I’ll be damned,” Lieutenant Mathew Conner exclaimed when he walked out the headquarters door to see Hawk tying Rascal at the rail. “Where the hell have you been? I thought you had finally gotten shot by one of those Blackfoot bucks you call your friends.”
“Hello, Conner,” Hawk returned. “I see they ain’t court-martialed you outta the army yet. You must be behavin’ yourself for a change.”
Conner laughed. “Yeah, I figured I’d better lay low around here for a while. The major’s getting a lot of heat from regiment on rounding up all the bands of Indians still refusing to come into the reservations. So I figured it wasn’t a good time for me to cause any trouble.” He grinned mischievously. “I’m about ready to bust out, though. What about you? You’ve been gone for a helluva long time. You musta had trouble finding your friend Walking Owl.”
“I found him, but Brisbin ain’t gonna like what Walkin’ Owl thinks about comin’ in to the reservation. I’m on my way to give him my report right now.”
“He ain’t in right now,” Conner said. “You just missed him. He’s gone home to supper, so you’ll have to wait till morning. Come on, you can eat supper with me at the officers’ mess and you can tell me where you’ve really been for so long. Hell, ol’ Meade’s already saying you’ve gone Injun again. I didn’t say so, but I agreed with him for once. I figured you might have found your Blackfoot friends and decided to go back to living like an Indian for a while just to get the taste of the army outta your mouth. I told ’em you’d be back when you ran outta money to buy cartridges. Where the hell’s your lucky feather?” he blurted, just then noticing it missing.
“I gave it to a young woman, not much more’n a girl,” Hawk said. “She wanted it.” The question brought his mind back to the issue that troubled him. Mathew Conner had been a friend to him ever since he first started working as a scout, but he couldn’t explain to him the frustration he felt at the present time. The pledge he made over a dying young woman to avenge her murder was still the only path he could travel. And with no clue where to start his search, it was a path without light. Any time he closed his eyes, he could still see Joanna’s face and the pain in her eyes.
“Hawk,” Conner charged, “where are you? You looked like you drifted off somewhere in your mind. Damn, man, you’ve been spending too much time alone in the woods with the deer and the bears. What were you thinking about just then?”
“Oh, nothin’ much,” he answered, and quickly changed the subject. “Supper’s a good idea, but I’ll have to take care of my horses first.”
“All right. Why don’t you just come on over to the officers’ mess when you’re done. You won’t be long, will you?”
“Nope,” Hawk answered as he stepped up into the saddle.
* * *
“You’re one of the scouts, ain’t you?” The mess sergeant asked. “Hawk, ain’t it?”
“That’s right,” Hawk replied, and reached for a tray.
“This is the officers’ mess,” the sergeant informed him. “Scouts usually eat with the enlisted men. That mess hall is on the other side, over by the barracks.”
Hawk was about to tell him that Lieutenant Conner had invited him to eat supper with him, but Conner walked up at that point to intercede. “Mr. Hawk is my guest, Sergeant.”
“Yes, sir,” the sergeant responded at once. “I’m sorry, Mr. Hawk, I was just trying to make sure everything was proper and . . .” He trailed off, unable to think of what he should say.
Conner laughed, finding the incident humorous. “I don’t blame you, Sergeant. Ol’ Hawk looks like he might be thinking about scalping somebody.”
“Yes, sir . . . I mean, no, sir, he looks just fine.” He looked at Hawk. “No offense.”
“None taken,” Hawk replied.
“Fill your plate and come on over to the table. My food’s getting cold,” Conner said.
Hawk took advantage of the opportunity to dine with the officers, an occasion that, like the sergeant had pointed out, was not the usual routine. None of the other officers eating seemed to be bothered by his presence there, with the exception of one, Lieutenant Meade. As far as the chart of responsibility was concerned, the scouts were officially commanded by Meade. But there had
been some friction between the lieutenant and the imperturbable scout, ever since they had a disagreement during a search for three bank robbers at the Big Timber Hog Ranch. It seemed ironic to Hawk now that the three bandits were never caught, for he was totally convinced that he had recently seen the demise of two of the three. He noticed that Meade was watching him as he went to Conner’s table and sat down. Conner noticed it, too, and commented, “Looks like your old friend Meade is glad to see you back.”
“Looks that way. I expect he’ll wanna come over and say howdy.” Hawk was well aware that he would be out of a job with the army, if it were up to Meade. He also knew, however, that as long as Major Brisbin commanded the fort, he had a job.
Conner laughed at Hawk’s comment, but in short order Lieutenant Meade got up from his table and headed straight for them. “Uh-oh, looks like you were right. Here he comes.”
“Well,” Meade said upon approaching the table, “I see you finally returned from your trip to find that Blackfoot village.” He nodded toward Conner. “Mathew.”
“Harvey,” Conner returned the acknowledgement.
Returning his attention to Hawk, he said, “Since I command the complement of scouts, I would have expected you to report to me as soon as you got back.”
“That would be my fault,” Conner quickly interrupted. “You weren’t there when Hawk came to report, so I invited him to have supper while he waited for you.”
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