Well aware of Conner’s friendship with Hawk, Meade favored the indifferent scout with a smug smile. “Is that a fact?”
“Yes and no,” Hawk answered. “I was really lookin’ for Major Brisbin first, since he told me to report directly to him when I got back. Then I reckon I woulda looked for you, to let you know, too.”
“I see,” Meade said. “Well, did you find Walking Owl’s camp?”
“I did, but it wasn’t much use tryin’ to get him to come in to the reservation,” Hawk replied. “All his young warriors have gone north to Canada. There wasn’t anybody left in Walkin’ Owl’s village but old men, women, and children, and he said they’d rather die like free men in the land as they have always known it than go like white man’s cattle to the reservation.”
“It didn’t do much good to send you to find him, then, did it?” Meade smirked.
“Reckon not,” Hawk replied. “I expect the old chief knows what’s best for his people.”
“Damn Indians don’t have a clue about what’s best for them,” Meade said. “I’ll give Major Brisbin your report. There’s no need for you to bother him with it.”
“Thanks just the same, Lieutenant, but I expect I’ll report to him, since he told me to. Sort of a courtesy kinda thing, you know?”
Meade didn’t make any kind of reply. He just stood there, glaring at Hawk for a long moment before glancing at Conner. “Mathew,” he finally said, and turned to leave.
“Harvey,” Conner returned. Then he watched him until he walked out the door before turning back to Hawk. “How the hell did you and ol’ Harvey Meade get to be such big friends?”
Hawk shrugged. “I told him he was a damn fool a couple years ago.”
“That oughta do it,” Conner said. “Listen, I’m escorting the payroll for two quartz mills up in Butte day after tomorrow. I was gonna take Ben Mullins along as a scout, but why don’t you come along instead? I haven’t told Ben yet, so that won’t cause any problem. Five days, there and back, give you a chance to get back to work and I expect you could use a payday. Whaddaya say?”
“What about Meade?” Hawk replied. “He might not okay it.”
“Hell, Meade’s taking a patrol out in the morning to Three Forks. He won’t even know you went with me.”
“All right,” Hawk said. “I’ll ride scout for you—day after tomorrow, right? That’ll give me time to get my horse some new shoes and rest him up a little. I’ve been workin’ him pretty hard for the last few days and he’s showin’ signs of havin’ trouble with one of his hooves.” He thought maybe a routine patrol might be what he needed, might give him some time to decide where to start looking for Zach Dubose. As it was now, he might as well throw a stick up in the air and start searching in the direction it pointed when it landed.
“Good!” Conner said, and pushed his chair back to get up. “I guess I’ll see you in the morning when you come in to report to Major Brisbin.” He flashed a mischievous grin and confessed, “I’d invite you to meet me later on for a round of drinks, but there’s this lady friend of mine who’s expecting me to call on her tonight to give her some spiritual guidance while her husband’s away in Helena.”
* * *
As Conner had told him, Lieutenant Meade led a patrol out early the next morning, so Hawk waited until after he had gone to report to Major Brisbin. The major was disappointed to hear the results of Hawk’s journey to find Walking Owl, but was not really surprised. “I thought it was worth a try,” the major said. “If that old chief would listen to any white man, it would have been you.” He thanked Hawk for taking the assignment, leaving Hawk feeling slightly guilty for not having given the chief any argument extolling the wisdom of going to the reservation.
When he left the headquarters building, he saddled Rascal and set out for Bozeman, four miles away. He was afraid he had not been paying enough attention to Rascal during the past few days, with everything else that had been going on. But lately he noticed the horse shifting weight from one leg to another as if to relieve pain or pressure in his feet. That was unusual for Rascal, and Hawk suspected the buckskin might have a “hot nail.” If that was the case, it could be causing the horse a lot of discomfort. He had just recently had Rascal shod in Helena by Grover Bramble, and Grover had always done good work. But he remembered the circumstances on that day when Grover was in a hurry to get home early. He thought about having the farrier there at the fort take a look, but he was partial to the blacksmith in Bozeman. The army blacksmith might do an adequate job, but when it came to Rascal, Hawk preferred something above adequate. And Ernest Bloodworth had been shoeing the big buckskin for the past few years with never a complaint from Hawk. He could have gotten Rascal shod at the fort free of charge, but he felt it worth the money to take him to Bloodworth.
It was in the middle of the morning when Hawk rode into Bozeman. He received a friendly “Good morning” from Ernest Bloodworth when he pulled up at his shop. After they took a look at Rascal’s shoes together, they agreed that the buckskin’s hooves appeared to be in good shape, but Bloodworth suspected that the nails were driven too close to the center of the foot. Hawk decided to walk across the street to Grainger’s Saloon while Bloodworth examined all Rascal’s hooves.
“Well, lookee here,” Fred Grainger blurted when Hawk walked in the door. “Mr. Hawk, it’s been a while since you’ve been in. I thought maybe you weren’t working for the army anymore.” Hawk walked up to the bar. “What happened to that feather you always wore in your hat?”
“I lost it somewhere up near Helena,” Hawk replied, thinking that he was always being asked about that feather now. And every time he was asked, he recalled a vivid picture of the time he had actually lost it and the guilt he felt for not having fulfilled his promise. “I reckon I’ll have to find me another one,” he said, if only to stop the questions. “You got any coffee? I ain’t quite ready to start drinkin’ yet.”
“I sure do,” Grainger replied. While he got Hawk’s coffee he rattled on, “I don’t reckon I’ll ever forget the last time you were in here and that fellow called you out. You sure as hell gave him something he wasn’t expecting. You ever run into him again?”
“Nope, not anymore,” Hawk said, not wishing to discuss his troubles with the cold-blooded murderer Roy Nestor. Grainger was obviously eager to recall the incident in his saloon, but Hawk quickly changed the subject. “You got anything to eat with this coffee, a piece of jerky or somethin’? I didn’t eat breakfast this mornin’.”
“I got some jerky,” Grainger answered, “and some hardtack.”
“That’ll do,” Hawk said. “Just somethin’ to hold me till I get some dinner at Sadie’s Diner.” It was enough to steer Grainger away from rehashing the incident in his saloon, so he ate a couple of pieces of beef jerky and downed a couple of cups of coffee. He paid Grainger and hurried out, saying he had best check on his horse.
On his way out the door, he passed one of Grainger’s regulars coming in and he could hear Grainger greeting him. “See that fellow going out . . . ?” He had no desire to become famous, so he decided that maybe he would go down the street to the Trail’s End Saloon next time.
“It’s a good thing you brought this horse in,” Bloodworth said when he returned to his shop. “I found one nail too close to the center in his left front foot. It was startin’ to irritate him, but we got to it before it caused an infection.”
Hawk waited and watched while Ernest Bloodworth finished shoeing Rascal, then went up to Sadie’s Diner for dinner. Sadie remembered him as the customer who had said that her cooking was the best in the territory. It was good for an overly generous plate of beef stew. She even sat down to chat for a few minutes when she had the time. He paid her and told her again that it was by far the best stew in the territory.
Back at Fort Ellis, he turned Rascal out to graze while he checked over the packs he had stored in a corner of the tack room where he usually kept his saddle. He wouldn’t take his packhorse on this patrol bec
ause he could carry enough food and his small coffeepot in his war bag on his saddle. The troopers riding in the patrol would be ordered to take rations for five days, the same for Lieutenant Conner. They could do it in five days if there was no trouble along the way, even though a good portion of the trip would be through a lot of mountain country. When all was ready, he spread his bedroll on an empty cot in the enlisted men’s barracks after supper in their mess hall. The seven-man patrol pulled out the next morning right after “Stable and Watering” call at six o’clock on the way to pick up the courier with the payroll at the Bank of Bozeman.
* * *
The patrol pulled up at the bank long before it opened for business, and Lieutenant Conner dismounted to go and meet the courier. A slightly built man wearing a business suit and riding boots walked out of the bank to meet Conner. His first comments were to express surprise to see an officer, seven soldiers, and a scout when he just expected Major Brisbin to send a couple of guards. He was carrying an oversized pair of saddlebags, which he placed on a horse tied at the rail after he greeted the lieutenant. He introduced himself as John Durham, a special assistant to W. A. Clark, the owner of several quartz mills. He questioned Conner on the wisdom of an escort of this size, wondering if it might trigger suspicions from anyone with a mind to steal. Conner assured him that it would take a sizable raiding party to pull off such a raid. Durham didn’t appear to be pacified by Conner’s assurances, but he climbed on his horse and the escort was under way. After that, there was very little said between Durham and the lieutenant, since Mr. Clark’s courier seemed intent upon the trail ahead and behind, and less interested in passing idle chitchat. Hawk wondered if the fellow had been held up before, or if he was just naturally nervous and no doubt feeling the weight of his responsibility.
Following Hawk’s recommendation, Conner pushed the column a few miles farther than usual before stopping to rest the horses at the forks where three rivers met. Hawk went on ahead to scout the riverbanks to make sure no hostile Indian hunting parties were camped there. Blackfoot hunting parties had been reported in the mountains surrounding Butte, along with Kutenai and Flathead. Of these, the lieutenant was more concerned about the Blackfoot. In spite of Hawk’s close ties with them, their reputation as a warring tribe was enough to give Conner reason to be cautious.
Hawk had selected a good spot to rest the horses by the time the escort caught up with him. “I figure when we make camp for the night, we oughta be near the Jefferson River,” Hawk said to Conner when the lieutenant had dismounted. “You can give the men a good break here to fix some breakfast and rest up, then you’ll have an easy half day to the Jefferson. That’ll get us to Butte plenty early tomorrow afternoon.”
“Sounds good to me,” Conner said. He studied his friend’s face for a long moment. It seemed to him that Hawk’s mind was somewhere else ever since he came back. He was doing his job as a scout, there was no complaint there, but his mood appeared to be unusually serious. “What’s eating at you?”
“Nothin’,” Hawk replied. “What makes you think somethin’s eatin’ at me?”
“You ain’t been the same ever since you got back two nights ago, but I guess you just don’t wanna talk about it.”
“Reckon not,” Hawk said. “Right now, I expect we’d best see about the horses and get a couple of fires goin’, so we can eat breakfast.”
“All right,” Conner said, giving up for the moment. “But I’ll get it outta you by and by.” He turned and handed his reins to Corporal Johnson, who promptly handed them off to one of the other men with instructions to take care of the lieutenant’s horse. There was no opportunity to press Hawk further because of the presence of John Durham, who naturally had his coffee at the lieutenant’s fire. That suited Hawk just fine because he didn’t want to discuss his problems with Conner, or anyone else. To take his mind off Zach Dubose, he occupied it with a study of the nervous little man with the huge payroll. Maybe it was the size of that payroll that caused Durham to be so jumpy. A pale man of almost delicate features, he was clean-shaven except for a neat mustache so thin that it looked as if it had been drawn with a pencil. Hawk would have bet he had never seen the outside of a clerk’s office. He wondered how he had ever drawn an assignment like the one he was now on.
When the horses were thought to be sufficiently rested, the escort moved out again, headed for Three Forks, where they went into camp for the night. To satisfy Mr. Durham, Conner sent Hawk out to scout the area around the campsite to make sure there were no would-be bandits about. Conner was more concerned with a coincidental encounter with a Blackfoot war party. When Hawk returned with a report that there was no sign of anything within a wide circle around them, Durham was only partially placated. Hawk was reminded of his thoughts upon first meeting the little man and his obvious nervousness at the time. It was almost like he expected to be ambushed, even though he had commented that he thought his escort was composed of more soldiers than he had thought necessary. He decided to take another look around after everybody was in bed for the night, just for the hell of it, he told himself.
Shortly after dark, everyone turned in with the exception of the one soldier who drew the first two hours of guard duty. Conner had seen no reason to post more than the one sentinel, primarily to make sure a party of Sioux raiders had no opportunity to steal the horses. After the camp quieted down with the exception of a small chorus of snoring, Hawk rolled out of his blanket and walked over to the private posted near the horses. “Can’t sleep?” the sentry asked him when he approached.
“A little too much on my mind, I reckon,” Hawk replied. “So I thought I’d look around down the creek bank, see if there’s a muskrat lookin’ to find a cook pot.”
“Hell,” the private said, “you coulda took my place. I wouldn’t have any trouble sleepin’.”
“I reckon I could have at that, but Lieutenant Conner most likely trusts you not to go to sleep more’n he’d trust me. I’ll give you a little whistle when I come back so you don’t shoot me.” He walked past the guard and soon faded into the darkness under the trees.
I don’t know why he needed that rifle, the private thought. He’ll sure as shooting raise hell if he shoots at a muskrat and draws everybody outta their blankets.
Halfway of the opinion that he was wasting good sleep, Hawk circled back to scout the column’s back trail. He was curious to see if there might be a chance they were being tailed. If they were, and their followers’ intention was to steal the mine payroll, they would have to be a large party of bandits to even think about attacking a patrol of soldiers. Thinking his suspicions confirmed after scouting the path they had ridden into their camp and finding no sign of anyone, he decided to start back.
* * *
“That snivelin’ little bastard didn’t know what he was talkin’ about,” Bevo Brogan complained. “How many you make it?”
“I’m countin’ seven sleepin’ and that one standin’ guard by the horses,” Johnny Dent replied. “Is that what you make it, Slim?”
“That’s about right,” Slim answered. “What are we gonna do?”
“He said there would be a couple of guards and that’s all,” Bevo said. “And it looks like they sent half the damn soldiers from Fort Ellis. We can’t go down there and take all them on.”
“That little shit is totin’ a helluva lot of money in those saddlebags he’s usin’ for a pillow,” Johnny reminded them. “I swear, it’s hard for me to turn tail and ride away and leave all that money behind.” The three of them remained there on the opposite bank of the creek, watching the sleeping camp for a while longer, reluctant to give up on such a prize, but not eager to engage a cavalry escort. They didn’t know the exact amount of the payroll Durham carried, but they had been promised a thousand dollars each to kill the guards and steal it. “You know, they may have us outnumbered, but we oughta be able to fix that. We could shoot most of ’em before they could get outta their blankets. We could cut them odds down till we outnumbere
d them before they know what’s goin’ on.”
“Maybe,” Bevo said, giving it serious thought. “I don’t know. We’d have to be damn sure on every shot.”
“Hell, we can get close enough, so we can’t miss and they won’t know where it’s comin’ from, dark as it is,” Johnny Dent insisted. “I say we can do it.”
“And while we’re at it, we can put a bullet in Mr. John Durham and thank him for puttin’ us onto this little job,” Bevo said. “I’m thinkin’ if he’s willin’ to give us a thousand dollars apiece, there’s gotta be one helluva lot of money in those saddlebags.”
“And then it’s off to Texas,” Slim said. “Hell, I’m for it.”
“All right,” Bevo crowed. “It’ll be the three of us against the U.S. Army. That sounds like a fair matchup to me.” He got serious for a moment then and warned his partners. “We’ve got to be damn good and sure we don’t miss with our first shots. We’ve got to make sure there’s three less soldiers when they come outta them blankets. If we do that, we’re bound to get a couple more before they know what hit ’em.”
“We need to get a little bit closer, so we can’t miss,” Slim said, and pointed to a mound of grass close to the edge of the water. “Maybe behind that hump yonder. That’d give us protection from anythin’ they throw at us.” The other two agreed, so they moved cautiously down to the mound and got set to aim their rifles at the unsuspecting soldiers.
“We need to all fire at the same time, so pick your targets, so nobody’s shootin’ at the same one,” Bevo said. “I’ll take that one standin’ guard. We gotta take him first, for sure. Go ahead and pick your target.” Slim and Johnny each picked one of the sleeping targets. “All right,” Bevo went on. “Soon as you shoot, cock and shoot another’n as fast as you can and we might get the whole bunch before they can fire a shot. Remember, everybody at the same time on the first shot. I’ll count to three and we’ll cut loose.”
No Justice in Hell Page 13