Kiowa Vengeance

by Ford Fargo

  Western Fictioneers Presents:

  WOLF CREEK: Kiowa Vengeance

  By Ford Fargo

  WOLF CREEK: Kiowa Vengeance

  Smashwords Edition

  A Western Fictioneers Book published by arrangement with the authors

  Copyright © 2012 by Western Fictioneers

  Cover design by L. J. Washburn

  Western Fictioneers logo design by

  Jennifer Smith-Mayo

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictional manner. Any resemblance to actual incidents or locales, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Printed in the United States of America

  Visit our website at www.westernfictioneers.com

  Beneath the mask, Ford Fargo is not one but a posse of America's leading western authors who have pooled their talents to create a series of rip-snortin', old fashioned sagebrush sagas. Saddle up. Read ‘em Cowboy! These are the legends of Wolf Creek.

  THE WRITERS OF WOLF CREEK, AND THEIR CHARACTERS

  Bill Crider - Cora Sloane, schoolmarm

  Phil Dunlap - Rattlesnake Jake, bounty hunter

  Wayne Dundee – Deputy Marshal Seamus O’Connor

  James J. Griffin - Bill Torrance, owner of the livery stable

  Jerry Guin - Deputy Marshal Quint Croy

  Douglas Hirt - Marcus Sublette, schoolteacher and headmaster

  L. J. Martin - Angus “Spike” Sweeney, blacksmith

  Matthew Mayo - Rupert "Rupe" Tingley, town drunk

  Kerry Newcomb - James Reginald de Courcey, artist with a secret

  Cheryl Pierson - Derrick McCain, farmer

  Robert J. Randisi - Dave Benteen, gunsmith

  James Reasoner - G.W. Satterlee, county sheriff

  Frank Roderus - John Nix, barber

  Troy D. Smith - Charley Blackfeather, scout; Sam Gardner, town marshal

  Clay More - Logan Munro, town doctor

  Chuck Tyrell - Billy Below, young cowboy; Sam Jones, gambler

  Jackson Lowry - Wilson “Wil” Marsh, photographer

  L. J. Washburn - Ira Breedlove, owner of the Wolf’s Den Saloon

  Matthew Pizzolato - Wesley Quaid, drifter

  Appearing as Ford Fargo in this episode:

  Bill Crider (Cora Sloane)- Chapter 1

  Jackson Lowry (Wilson Marsh)- Chapter 2

  Kerry Newcomb (Sampson Quick)- Chapter 3

  Troy D. Smith (Charley Blackfeather)-Chapter 4

  Frank Roderus (John Hix)- Chapter 5

  Robert J. Randisi (Dave Benteen)- Chapter 6 & 7

  INTRODUCTION

  In Wolf Creek, everyone has a secret.

  That includes our author, Ford Fargo—but we have decided to make his identity an open secret. Ford Fargo is the “house name” of Western Fictioneers—the only professional writers’ organization devoted exclusively to the traditional western, and which includes many of the top names working in the genre today.

  Wolf Creek is our playground.

  It is a fictional town in 1871 Kansas. Each WF member participating in our project has created his or her own “main character,” and each chapter in every volume of our series will be primarily written by a different writer, with their own townsperson serving as the principal point-of-view character for that chapter (or two, sometimes.) It will be sort of like a television series with a large ensemble cast; it will be like one of those Massive Multi-player Role-playing Games you can immerse yourself in online. And it is like nothing that has ever been done in the western genre before.

  You can explore our town and its citizens at our website if you wish:

  http://wolfcreekkansas.yolasite.com/

  Or you can simply turn this page, and step into the dusty streets of Wolf Creek.

  Just be careful. It’s a nice place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to die there.

  Troy D. Smith

  President, Western Fictioneers

  Wolf Creek series editor

  CHAPTER ONE

  The six-man Kiowa scouting party came down on the Manning ranch like a wolf on the fold.

  Roy Manning and his younger brother, Hal, had been about to go looking for a couple of strays. They’d just ridden out of the barn when Hal got an arrow through the throat. He made a gurgling sound and clutched his neck with both hands. Blood spurted between his fingers, and his horse broke into a run, throwing Hal’s body off about twenty yards away.

  A ball from an 1866 Henry Yellow Boy blew a hole in Roy’s heart, and he pitched from the saddle, dead before he hit the dirt.

  Two of the Kiowa warriors jumped from their horses and drew their knives. One cut away Roy’s scalp while the other was busy stripping Hal to remove his genitals.

  The other four warriors had already stormed into the house, where Sue Manning was trying to hide her son and two young daughters. A warrior knocked her to the floor with one blow, while the other three dealt with the screaming children. All the surviving Mannings were dragged outside.

  They killed the boy first, then held Sue while they raped her daughters. She’d fainted long before they got to her.

  When the warriors rode away from the ranch, no one was left alive. And in that, they were lucky. The scouting party, steeped in blood, headed northeast, toward the road where the stage from Wichita would be heading for Wolf Creek.

  ***

  The woman who called herself Cora Sloane wasn’t impressed with her fellow passengers on the Wolf Creek stage.

  Whenever the swaying coach hit a bump in the road, which was all too often, Lester Weatherby, a talkative whiskey drummer from St. Louis, would deliberately bounce against her and try to collide with her bosom. He was a small, unprepossessing man, and when he wasn’t bouncing around, he tried to ingratiate himself with Cora, which only irritated her. She found herself wishing that the stage door would flop open and Weatherby would fall out. So far it hadn’t happened.

  Cora wished she were sharing the seat with one of the other passengers—though, on second thought, not the one who sat across from her. John Hix said he was Wolf Creek’s barber. He looked as if a good puff of wind would blow him away, but something about his eyes bothered Cora. They were empty as the prairie sky, but there was a kind of feral heat in them that reminded her of a coyote she’d seen once as it tore into a couple of chickens. Hix had told Cora that he’d been out of town on business, though he hadn’t said where he’d been or why—the plain implication being that whatever business it was, it was certainly none of hers.

  Cora had never been to Wolf Creek. She’d seen an advertisement in a newspaper that said the town was looking for a school teacher, and she’d written a letter to apply for the job. To her surprise, she’d been accepted—she’d packed at once and left the hotel in Wichita where she was staying. She didn’t like to remain in one place for too long, but Wolf Creek was small and far enough away from her home to be safe. Or so she hoped.

  The most intriguing passenger was the man beside Hix. He appeared to be in his late forties, though his shaggy hair was still dark and untouched by gray. He’d introduced himself politely to Cora and the other passengers as Dave Benteen and explained that he was going to Wolf Creek to set up as the town’s gunsmith. An unnamed friend had helped him purchase a store where he’d be working. His weathered face showed the scars of past battles, and Cora wondered what they might have been. His haunted eyes gave him the look of someone with secrets.

&n
bsp; Cora had seen that look in her own eyes in the mirror, and she’d had to learn to smile with her eyes as well as her mouth in order to hide it.

  She reached into the reticule at her feet for the copy of Mister Hawthorne’s Twice-Told Tales that she’d put there before leaving, in the hope that she might read some of it along the way. The coach was rocking so much, however, that she hadn’t tried to read for fear that she might become sick. Now the road seemed a bit smoother, and she thought she might be able to pass some time by dipping into one of the tales. She wasn’t always sure that she grasped Hawthorne’s meaning, but the woman fleeing her terrible past in “The Hollow of the Three Hills” was someone Cora could sympathize with all too easily.

  “I see that you’re a reader, ma’am,” Dave Benteen said as she opened the book.

  “I am a teacher, sir, and teachers read. Do gunsmiths?”

  Benteen grinned. “I’ve been known to crack a book now and again, though my taste runs more to Mister Poe’s tales than to Hawthorne’s.”

  Cora gave him a demure look over the top of her glasses. “Mister Poe’s work is a bit too morbid and gruesome for me, and while Mister Hawthorne does indeed look on the dark side of things, he does so without excess.”

  She opened her book to end the conversation, but she found that she was still unable to read. Even on the smooth road the coach was swaying too much for that. She closed the book with a sigh and was about to replace it in the reticule when she heard a distant scream so harsh and piercing that it rivaled anything in the works of Mister Poe.

  She looked out the side window and saw six Indian warriors riding toward the coach. They seemed in no special hurry, as if they knew the stage couldn’t possibly outrun them. They rode as if they were one with their mounts. Cora had never seen anything like it.

  “Oh, Jesus Christ,” Weatherby said. He seemed to shrink within himself at the sight, and his face turned pasty white as if he might be ill.

  The coach lurched forward, and Cora heard the driver slap the reins and yell encouragement to the horses.

  “They aren’t coming to welcome us to Wolf Creek,” Benteen said, as the coach picked up speed. He spoke as calmly as if he were taking tea in the family parlor. “You have a gun, Hix?”

  Hix was as imperturbable as Benteen. He shook his head and said, “I prefer other weapons.”

  Benteen didn’t ask what those might be. He said, “But you can shoot.”

  Hix hesitated for a moment, as if considering his answer. “Of course,” Hix replied. “If my life depends on it, I reckon I can.”

  “Good.”

  Like Cora, Benteen also had a bag at his feet. He bent down to it and came up with two revolvers, both Smith & Wesson Americans. He left a third inside.

  “It’s a good thing I brought along a few pistols to sell in my new shop.” Benteen handed one of the guns to Hix. “It’s fully loaded, and I have more cartridges.”

  Hix took the pistol and looked at Weatherby, who was now hiding in the floor of the coach.

  “I don’t think the drummer will be needing one of these,” Hix said, hefting the gun.

  “What about you, ma’am?” Benteen asked Cora.

  Cora rummaged through her bag and brought out an old cap-and-ball Navy Colt. It felt heavier and more awkward than she remembered, but she could hold it steady if she used both hands. The coach was bouncing so wildly now that she wondered if it would be possible for her to hit anything

  “I can shoot,” she said, and as she spoke, she recalled the smell of burned powder, the dying lawman, her brother’s capture, her own escape. She pushed those hard memories away—that had been another life, and she was starting a new one now. But only if she lived to do so.

  “You don’t have to worry about me,” she said.

  She heard the crack of the guard’s rifle as he opened fire on the warriors. Their shouts and screams increased, but Cora doubted that any of them had been hit. She turned to the window and looked out over the muzzle of the Colt. She saw only four men, though she’d thought there were more.

  “Two on this side now,” Benteen said, as if reading her mind.

  Hix looked out his own window, saying nothing. Weatherby whimpered in the floor, out of sight of the windows.

  The driver exhorted the horses with shouts and curses. The stage guard fired again, and then the Indians fired as well. One of them had a rifle, and his first shot hit the guard. Cora saw him fall from the coach on Benteen’s side.

  An arrow thunked into the side just below Cora’s window, and she drew back. She leaned against the seat, took a deep breath, and told herself that she’d been in worse trouble when the lawmen came for her brother who’d stupidly helped to rob a bank. She’d gotten out of that; she’d get out of this. She let out her breath and turned back to the window.

  The stage lurched left and right, the horse running almost out of control. It was all Cora could do to hold herself in the seat, and she wondered how the driver could manage to stay aboard. Well, that wasn’t her worry. Those savages were. She tried to line one up with the gunsight. It was impossible. She pulled the trigger, anyway.

  The pistol kicked up and back. The noise of the explosion almost deafened her, and the black powder smoke filled her nose and eyes. She heard other dim explosions as Hix and Benteen began firing.

  Cora was never exactly sure just what happened next. She heard a crash and a terrible splintering noise. The coach seemed to leap into the air. It tilted far to the right, and Cora knew that it was going to tip over. She tried to grab hold of something, but there was nothing within reach. She, Hix, Benteen, and Weatherby were all thrown together in a heap, and the coach thudded to earth on its side.

  While Cora struggled to free herself from the tangle of bodies, the coach was dragged along the ground. Dust and dirt flew inside. The men cursed and flailed their arms.

  Finally the coach stopped moving. Cora was still intertwined with the others. She shoved arms and legs aside and rolled over. She got her feet planted and stood up. She had lost her small hat, and the bun of her hair had come loose, though it was not yet straggling. The leather seat was in front of her. The left side of the coach had now become the top.

  Benteen and Hix got unknotted and stood as well, though they had to hunch over because the side of the coach was now the roof. Weatherby lay in a sort of ball and didn’t move. Cora didn’t know if he was dead or merely unconscious, but it didn’t really matter at the moment. What mattered was that she find her pistol. Somehow, Benteen and Hix had held onto theirs.

  Cora looked down and saw the pistol on top of her bag, which lay at Benteen’s feet. The gunsmith noticed her glance and managed to pick up the Colt. Cora took it from him. Space in the coach was tight in its new position, and Cora was uncomfortably aware of the closeness of the two men.

  “Don’t step on Mister Weatherby,” she said.

  Neither Hix nor Benteen responded. Benteen cocked his head as if listening, and Cora began to pay attention to the sounds outside the coach. She heard the jingling of harness and the stomping of the stage’s team.

  “They’re taking the horses,” Hix said. “That’s probably what they were after in the first place. Doesn’t mean they won’t come for us, though.”

  “We’ll need those horses,” Benteen said.

  Hix smiled with his mouth but not his eyes. “Only if we’re alive.”

  “I don’t plan to die here,” Benteen said.

  “Nor do I,” Cora said.

  “Nobody plans to die, ma’am,” Hix said. “It just happens. You might want to save one of those bullets. The Kiowa don’t treat women kindly. They’ll keep you alive a lot longer than you want to be if they get hold of you.”

  “I won’t allow them to get hold of me.”

  “They don’t care what you’ll allow,” Hix said. “They don’t have rules.”

  He sounded to Cora as if he might know what it was like to live without rules. A strange man, for a barber.

  Benteen st
raightened and took a quick look outside, then ducked back in. “Too late. They’ve cut the horses loose and one man’s leading them off. That leaves five men for us to defend ourselves against.”

  Cora heard a ripping sound as knives sliced through leather at the back of the coach.

  “They’re getting into the boot,” Hix said. “They know we’re trapped in here, so they won’t be in a hurry. They’ll look for anything that might be useful to them in the parcels and mail before they have their fun with us.”

  “If there was a strongbox, they have that, too,” Benteen said.

  Cora could hardly believe they were talking so calmly. She was about to remark on it when Weatherby groaned and stirred.

  “What happened?” he asked, looking around at the cockeyed coach and trying to find a way to sit up.

  “Can’t say,” Benteen told him. “We’re in a fine fix, is all I know.”

  “The savages?”

  “Outside. They’ll be after us before long, just like raccoons rooting a turtle out of the shell.”

  Weatherby slumped back down with a whimper and had nothing more to say.

  “They are not going to root me out,” Cora said.

  “I hope not,” Benteen said, “but they’ll try.”

  Cora heard excited talk outside. She couldn’t understand the words, but she knew the Kiowa must have found something of great interest in the luggage. Perhaps they’d opened her trunk and found her dresses and her undergarments. Or something equally titillating.

  It was hot and close inside the coach. Cora wished she could open her bodice, but that of course could never happen, not even if she was about to be killed. She thought about her brother. She had warned him so often about his reckless nature—she had never dreamed it would result in her being on the run, and on a stagecoach during an Indian attack as a consequence. He was in prison now, as she assuredly would have been had she not fled in time. Prison was a fate she had once considered terrible beyond words. Now, it seemed almost attractive.